Introduction
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| Get it Done | Lies My Parents Told Me |
Classical music plays, a cheery fire burns in a fireplace in an elegant reading room. The shelves are full of classic leather bound books, a Silver Surfer comic book lies open on a table. There’s a Star Wars poster above the fire. Andrew sits in a leather arm chair, a pipe in hand, a large book in his lap. He’s wearing a smoking jacket.
Andrew looks up, as if surprised to have visitors. “Oh, hello there, gentle viewers. You caught me catching up on an old favorite.” He closes the book and pats the cover. “It’s wonderful to get lost in a story, isn’t it? The adventure and heroics and discovery, don’t they just take you away? Mmm.” He puts his pipe in his mouth, and inhales the smoke. He starts to cough.
When Andrew can speak again his voice has gone up an octave. “Come with me now, if you will, gentle viewers.” He beckons his visitors closer. “Join me on a new voyage of the mind, a little tale I like to call Buffy: A Slayer of the Vam-pires.”
“It was cold last night, and the wind was cru-el. But the Slayer had a job to do.”
Buffy walks through a cemetery, her crossbow slung over her back. She walks up to a fresh grave. There are still flowers from the funeral around it. She can see that the ground has been disturbed.
The newly risen vampire charges at Buffy from behind. Buffy doesn’t even look. She swings herself up into a handstand on top of the large headstone, kicking the vampire in the head as she does so. She flips over onto her feet, and in one fluid motion unslings her crossbow, and fires an arrow through the vampire’s heart.
“Unfortunately, vam-pires have a job to do, too.”
A second vampire climbs over another headstone. Buffy sees it, flips to the ground and kicks it away. This vamp isn’t any newbie though. It does a flip that rivals even the Slayer’s most acrobatic moves, and it comes back at her. Buffy does a flying summersault kick at the vampire, but it dodges, and hits her as she lands. Buffy’s knocked to the ground at the base of another headstone. It closes in on her.
“Ouch. My goodness!” Andrew leans toward his audience, and puts his hands around his knee. “Things look bad for the Slayer, don’t they? She didn’t see that second vam-pire, concealed by cover of darkness, ready—” He’s interrupted by someone knocking on a door. He tries to ignore them. “Ahem. Ready to attack and make her his own vampirical spawn.”
The person at the door knocks again, harder.
The Masterpiece Theatre set vanishes from around Andrew. He’s sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, talking to a video camera propped up on a stool in front of him. He’s still trying to ignore the knocking.
Andrew leans toward his camera. “Let’s rejoin them now to see—”
Anya pushes open the door. “For god’s sakes, Andrew. You’ve been in here for thirty minutes. What are you doing?”
Andrew looks up at her. “Entertaining and educating.”
“Well, why can’t you just masturbate like the rest of us?” asks Anya.
The vampire moves in on Buffy. She drives her stake through its heart. Andrew rushes toward her, with his camera in hand. “That was great! I completely got you dusting that guy on film.”
Buffy gets to her feet, and glares into the camera.
“Hey, why do vampires show up on video?” asks Andrew.
Buffy keeps glaring at him. “I told you I didn’t want you doing that. It’s distracting.”
Andrew ignores what Buffy said, and keeps his camera pointed at her as she starts to walk away. “Okay, I’ll cut the footage together and do the intro tomorrow— ‘She was a woman in danger…Or was she?’” He follows after her.
Buffy holds up her hand in front of the camera lens. “Are you still filming me? Stop!”
“But it’s—it’s a valuable record and an important document for the ages.” Andrew runs to get in front of her. “A Slayer in action.”
Buffy stops. “A nerd in pain! Would they like that? ’Cause we could do that.” She walks away from him.
“But, the story—”
“The story needs to be told!” says Andrew as Anya drags him out of the bathroom. Chao-Ahn, Amanda and Molly are all waiting in the hall for their turns. Chao-Ahn rushes in.
“And birds need to fly, and girls need to use the toilet, and why were you videotaping yourself anyway?” asks Anya. “Sounds like kinky business to me.”
“The world’s gonna want to know about Buffy,” says Andrew. “It’s a story of ultimate triumph tinged with a bitterness for what’s been lost in the struggle. It’s a legacy for future generations.”
“If there are any,” says Anya. “Buffy seems to think that this apocalypse is going to actually be, you know, apocalyptic. I think your— your story seems pretty pointless.”
“Oh… I was gonna interview you later today,” says Andrew. “’Cause, you know, your unique perspective on the whole thing. Give it editorial balance and, uh…glamour.”
Anya’s attitude does a one-eighty. “Oh. Well, balance is important. People don’t always take that into account. I could bring that to you. Absolutely.”
Andrew stands in front of a white board set up on top of the washing machine in the basement. He uses a remote control in his hand to pan and zoom his camera around as the lectures.
“Let’s explore the world of our story, shall we?” Andrew points to his white board. “This, uh, Buffy lives in Sunnydale, California. Um…” He points to a picture of the school. “This is the local high school. There’s a Hellmouth—” He realizes that his arm is blocking that part of the whiteboard, and quickly pulls it away. “Hellmouth— underneath the high school. See, weird things happen on a Hellmouth. It attracts all sorts of, uh, bad people and demons and vampires.
“And now there’s this thing in the basement of the high school called the— the Seal of Danzal— Danthalzar…” He points to the seal drawn in the middle of the Hellmouth. “…and, uh, it’s sort of a door to the Hellmouth. Uh… due to some circumstances, it got opened up a little bit…recently… Uh… And this, uh, nasty, nasty vampire thing came out.” He points to a picture of an ubervamp. “It was, uh— it was just awful. It was awful.”
“Um… Uh, this whole thing— whole thing— is being orchestrated by something called the First.” Andrew points to a drawing of a devil’s head. “It’s made up of all the evil in the whole world.
“Oh, there’s also… uh, these guys.” He points to a drawing of several Bringers. “Uh… they—they—they work for the First. We don’t know much about them except for they’re very ugly, and…they’re very mobile for blind people. Is that all clear?”
Andrew videos the girls bustling around the Summers’ kitchen. “It’s morning in Sunnydale…”
Rona looks in the fridge. “Who the hell’s got the low-fat milk?”
“It’s morning in Sunnydale, and the women of Command Central take the time to fortify themselves for the day ahead.”
“Hey!” says Xander. He’s on the other side of the room, eating cereal right out of the box.
Andrew zooms in on him. “Women and Xander.”
Andrew lowers the camera. “Hey, I’m gonna do your special intro later: ‘The man who is the heart of the Slayer machine.’
“Yeah?” asks Xander. “The heart?”
Andrew moves through the kitchen, panning his camera around.
“Things are tense in Command Central this morning. Buffy is clearly concerned with some unknown danger, and the air is filled with foreboding.”
Dawn turns away from the sink, where she’s doing dishes. “Oh, um, we’re—we’re out of Raisin Bran.”
“I’ll put it on the list,” says Anya.
“That’s probably not the unknown danger,” says Andrew.
Buffy enters kitchen, with Spike behind her. He’s got his leather duster on. He looks around. “Look at this place. Damn girls’ dorm, is what it is.” He lights up a cigarette.
“That’s nice,” says Dawn. “Secondhand stinkiness.”
“It’s a full house,” says Andrew. “I think this is a good time to do some introductions, don’t you, gentle viewers?” His camera is pointed at Amanda.
Amanda waves at the camera. “I’m Amanda, and I grew up right here—”
Andrew lowers the camera. “No, not you, sweetheart.” Amanda is clearly disappointed, and Rona laughs. Andrew turns toward Buffy. “Let’s start from the top.”
Andrew starts to imagine his shot of Buffy. In it she tosses her blonde tresses in the gentle breeze that blows through the kitchen, while pouring herself a bowl of cereal.
“You’ve already met Buffy. She’s beautiful, with a lion’s heart and—and the face of an angel. She’s never afraid because she knows her side will always win.”
Buffy turns her head and winks at the camera.
Spike enters the shot. He’s shirtless. He and Buffy start to nuzzle each other.
“Buffy and Spike have some kind of history. You can feel the heat between them, although technically, as a vam-pire, he’s room temperature.”
Anya spins in front of Buffy and Spike. The breeze tosses her hair too. She has a bunch of grapes in her hand. She lifts them up, and sucks one into her mouth. She laughs and gives the camera a sultry look.
“Anya—a feisty waif with a fiery temper and a vulnerable heart that she hides even from herself.”
Andrew’s imaginary shot pans past Anya to a beautiful blonde girl, eating a bowl of cereal.
“This lovely girl, uh— I don’t remember her name.”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” says Buffy. “Is he doing that again? Can’t we make him stop?”
“I don’t know,” says Rona. “If we save the world, it will be kind of nice to have a record of it.”
“If we don’t save the world, then nothing matters,” says Amanda.
“Hmm. That’s catchy, Amanda,” says Kennedy. “Let’s make that our slogan.”
“Yeah, it is kind of strange how you keep saving the world and there’s not any proof,” says Xander.
Anya is munching on a slice of toast. “Yeah. You know, for future generations.”
Andrew is still panning his camera around the kitchen, trying to follow the conversation.
“And it does help the girls with training,” says Willow. “You know, viewing the tapes.”
“Come on, no one else thinks this is idiotic?” asks Buffy.
“Or is it important?” asks Xander. “I mean, Buff, I don’t get why this is botherin’ you so much.”
“Because it’s a waste of time,” says Buffy. “Come on, someone has to agree with me. Spike?”
“As long as he’s not pointin’ that thing at me.” Spike gives the camera a bored look. “It seems like a fine way to keep the boy busy.”
“This isn’t about keeping busy,” says Buffy. “This is about war. I’m sorry to jump all over you guys, but… I have to tell you what’s really going on. There’s something new. Amanda, Dawn, you’re gonna stay home from school today. We can survive what’s coming, but not like this.” Buffy sighs. “I had a vision of what’s to come. A horrible vision. Hundreds upon hundreds…”
Andrew retreats from the kitchen to the dining room. He swings his camera around to point it at himself.
“Honestly, gentle viewers, these motivating speeches of hers tend to get a little long. I’ll take you back in there in—in a little while, but in the in-between time, I thought you might want to know a little about me, your humble host. You see, I’m—I’m a man with a burden, a man with a dark past. You see, I was once a supervillain.”
Flashback:
Andrew moves down a lab bench full of bubbling chemicals. He’s dressed in a cool dark suit and tie. “Thus, the validity of the Bronsted-Debye-Huckel equation at low ionic strength has been amply tested, and the charges on the reactant ions are well-known if their reagents are properly characterized.”
Jonathan, in nerdy t-shirt and safety goggles leans close. “It smells funny.”
“I know,” says Andrew. “Kind of sweaty.”
“What’ll it do to Buffy?” asks Warren, also in nerd attire.
The three of them whip around, to face away from the lab bench. “Make her supermagnetic!” says Andrew.
“Wow,” says Jonathan. “She won’t be able to get out of her car!”
“And knives and other sharp things will fly at her!” says Warren.
“We could walk right by her, and she wouldn’t be able to stop us,” says Andrew.
Warren pulls off his safety goggles. “Unless we were wearing, uh, metal belt buckles. Then we’d stick to her.”
“In my plan,” says Andrew, “we are beltless!”
“Wow!” Jonathan pulls off his goggles and looks up at his hero. “You’re the best, Andrew.”
“Yep, and good-looking and smart, too,” says Warren lovingly.
“Yeah!” says Jonathan.
“Wow!” says Warren.
Andrew chuckles. “Warren was cool. And wasn’t Jonathan just the cutest thing? Well, shall we see if Buffy’s still talking?” He swings the camera around so that it’s pointing through the door into the kitchen.
“We need to be an army,” says Buffy. “More than an army. Each of you needs to be able to take out…”
Willow stands by the door, with a cup of coffee in her hand. She stifles a yawn.
“Eh. She’s not done. Even Willow looks bored, and she usually can take a lot of that stuff. Look at her.”
Kennedy moves over beside Willow and starts to caress Willow’s arm.
“Oh, oh. Do you see that? That—that’s important. Willow and Kennedy have been in kind of a bad place lately, but things are looking up.”
Andrew swings the camera back to point at himself. “You see, Kennedy pursued the reluctant Willow and won her heart, only to find herself frightened when she glimpsed the darkness that still lies within the witch’s mind.
“Side note: I once had my own personal encounter with Dark Willow.”
Flashback: The Magic Box
Willow—her eyes and hair black from the magic she has absorbed, and her face lined with veins—turns. “Jonathan… Andrew… You boys like magick, don’t you?” She holds out her hands. “Abracadabra.” A shaft of black lightning flashes toward them.
“Yee!” cries Jonathan, and he ducks behind Andrew.
Andrew holds up his hand. “Haltem!” Willow’s power is absorbed into it.
“Okay,” says Willow. “Didn’t see that coming.”
“That’s because we have power you can’t imagine,” says Andrew.
Jonathan peeks out from behind him. “We do?”
“You, Dark Willow, wield a force of mighty evil, it is true,” says Andrew. “But you are new to the game, little one.”
“And you know what they say,” says Willow. “If at first you don’t succeed…” She sends another blast of power at them.
“Holy cats, here it comes again!” Jonathan ducks back behind Andrew.
Andrew waves his hand. “I deflect thy power.” Willow’s blast is shunted harmlessly aside.
“Damn!” says Willow. “That is one effective counterspell.”
“Thank you, little one,” says Andrew. “Thank you.”
“She was something. Indeed she was,” says Andrew. “Hey, I think Buffy stopped talking.” He turns the camera back toward the kitchen. “That usually means she had to go to work. Let’s see what the little locusts left for breakfast, shall we?”
Andrew gets up, and goes to see what he can find to eat.
Buffy rushes into the school. “Not late,” she tells herself. “Not late till the bell rings.” She hears shouting up ahead, and sees a circle of students cheering on a couple of guys who are fighting.
“Hey!” shouts Buffy. She runs into the group and pushes the two guys apart. “Hey! Break it up!” She holds them apart, looking back and forth and giving both of them a glare. One of the guys tries to push her aside to get at his opponent, but he can’t. Buffy gives him another glare as the bell rings. “Get to class!” She gives them a final shove, and watches as they both depart in opposite directions.
Buffy sees a girl standing by herself beside the washroom door. The girl starts to fade, becoming transparent. “Ohh. Uh-oh.” Buffy runs over to the girl. “Hey, shy girl. Don’t do this.” The girl vanishes in front of her. “Oh…” Buffy slaps at the air in front of her.
The girl reappears, holding her cheek, and smiling. “You knew I was there!”
“Yeah,” says Buffy.
“You—you noticed me.”
“It’s okay, I promise,” says Buffy. “It may seem bad—”
Buffy is distracted by a pretty blonde girl who comes out of the washroom, crying. “What’s wrong?”
“The mirror said I was fat!” says the girl (who in no way could be considered ‘fat.’) “It said it!” She runs away sobbing. The girl who had been turning invisible wanders off the other way.
Buffy sees another student across the hall, talking to his friends. His arms are loaded down with books. “I-I’m so—I can’t take this semester anymore. It’s just so much for me to handle. So not only does Mr. Hildebrand move up the trig exam to today, but he also makes it cover three more chapters, and I’ve got an English paper due tomorrow. I feel like I’m gonna explode!”
Buffy runs across to him. “Oh! Hey, uh, I can help. You just need to relax. You know?” She looks around at his friends. “Um, maybe one of you guys could give him a foot rub?”
“What?” asks the student.
Buffy pushes open the doors into the administration offices. She sees Principal Wood by the receptionist’s counter. “Something bad is going on.”
Principal Wood looks up from the first aid kit he has open on the counter. “Oh, is that right?” He’s holding a handkerchief to his head.
“Oh, you’re hurt,” says Buffy. “What happened?” She sits on a stool by the counter in front of him and pulls the handkerchief away from his forehead to see the wound.
“Someone threw a rock at me as I got out of my car,” says Wood. “I didn’t really get a good chance to see who.”
Buffy gets a band-aid out of the kit. “Yeah, well, it could’ve been any of them. Students, teachers. Something is going on today.” She opens the packet.
“Yes, well, um, that occurred to me as I ducked the other two rocks,” says Wood. “Buffy, what the hell is this?”
“Everything.” Buffy starts to apply the bandage.
“Slowly,” says Wood. “I may be concussed here.”
Buffy finishes putting on the band-aid. “There’s this thing that happens here—in this school…over the Hellmouth—where…the way a thing feels, it—it kind of starts being that way. For real. I’ve seen all these things before, just not all at once.”
“So, what?” asks Wood. “It’s like… Hell’s a-bustin’ out all over?”
“Exactly,” says Buffy.
Andrew taps the picture of the Hellmouth under the school on his whiteboard.
“So what’s the worst that can happen?” asks Wood.
“War, pretty much,” says Buffy.
“Oh, I see you’re being amusing now with comical exaggeration,” says Wood.
“Being in high school can feel like being at war,” says Buffy. “Now it’s true. The students feel like the teachers are out to get them, the chess club resents the French club for taking the activities room, and, well, everybody hates the cheerleaders. If we don’t do something about this, we’re gonna have a riot on our hands. And a lot of other nasty stuff, too.”
“Like what?” asks Principal Wood.
They hear a guy screaming in agony, followed by an explosion. Guts are splattered over the office windows.
“He really should’ve had that foot rub,” says Buffy.
Dawn sits at the far end of the dining room table. It is strewn with pizza boxes.
“Dawn is a typical American teenager, bubbly and sweet with a hunger for fun and a smile that lights up the room.”
Dawn giggles and waves at the camera. “Hello.”
The camera pans down across the dining room table to a set of keys lying between the pizza boxes.
“Dawn used to be a key. I don’t really know what that means.”
The camera moves into the living room. Willow and Kennedy are making out on the sofa.
“Oh, hey… Here’s something I think you’re going to be interested in, gentle viewers.”
The camera pans past the two girls on the sofa, and up to the windows. It zooms in on the sash.
“Look at the fine work Xander did on replacing that window sash. You can’t even tell it’s new, it blends in so well. He’s extraordinary.”
Principal Wood looks at the school plans he has spread out on his desk. “And you’ve dealt with this before? I mean, you’ve seen stuff like this in the high school?”
“Sure,” says Buffy. “You know, swim-team monsters or killer prom-dogs. Again, not all at once.”
“So what makes now so special?” asks Wood.
“My guess? It’s that seal thing in the basement,” says Buffy. “It’s like all the Hellmouth’s energy is trying to escape from that one little spot, and it’s getting all…”
“Focusy,” says Wood.
Buffy looks up at him and smiles. “Careful. You’re starting to speak like me now.”
Andrew looks into the camera lens. “This is Xander and Anya interview number one for Buffy: A Slayer of the Vam-pires.” He sets the camera down on a table, pointed toward the sofa.
“That’s what you’re calling it?” asks Anya.
Andrew sits in the chair beside his camera, and makes a few adjustments to it. “Either that or… Buffy, the Slayer Who Knew no Fear.”
“I like that one,” says Xander.
“Thank you, Xander.” Andrew smiles. “That’s sweet of you.” He sits back in the chair with a note pad and pen.
“I understand that exactly one year ago today you left Anya at the altar. Any comment on that?”
Xander looks like a deer caught in headlights. “Whoa. What the hell—”
“I just think people will be interested.”
“I know I am.” Anya looks at Xander. “What do you have to say for yourself one year later?”
“I’ve apologized enough, that’s what I have to say,” says Xander.
“But you think it was something that called for an apology.”
“Well, yes,” says Xander.
“So you don’t think it was the right thing to do.”
“Of course he doesn’t think it was the right thing to do,” says Anya.
“It was the right thing to do,” says Xander.
“What?” asks Anya.
“Interesting. I feel like we’re getting to something here.”
“Look, Anya, if I had married you, it would’ve been against everything I thought was best,” says Xander. “It wouldn’t have worked.”
“But we— we still spark,” says Anya. “I mean, I get jealous of you, you get jealous of me. You still love me.”
“Is that true, Xander? Do you still love her?”
Xander is lost for an answer.
Buffy and Wood stand looking at the Seal of Danthalzar in the school basement. “I swear we just covered this thing up,” says Buffy.
Wood slowly circles around the seal. “It doesn’t want to stay hidden anymore. It wants to turn these kids into monsters and victims and who knows what.”
“It wants more than that,” says Buffy. “Look, Robin, I, um…I…had a vision the other day.”
“You have visions?” asks Wood.
“Sometimes.”
“Oh. Well…how do you know that they’re not just…dreams?”
“If you’re running to catch the bus naked, that’s a dream,” says Buffy. “Army of vicious vampire creatures, that’s a vision. Also, I was awake.”
“A bus to where?” asks Wood. Buffy gives him a look. “I mean an army of how many?”
“Hundreds. Maybe hundreds of hundreds.” Buffy nervously rubs her hands. “All I know is the last uber-vamp I faced crawled out of that very hole. Makes me awfully nervous.” She sees Wood step down into the hole, and stand on the seal. “What are you doing?”
Wood kneels down to have a closer look at it. “Have you ever really studied it? You know, gotten close?”
“Well, I know it’s a goat with its tongue out,” says Buffy. “Uh, Willow did a search on the symbolic database, but, uh, it turns out everybody likes a good…goat’s tongue. Rock groups, covens, and Greek cookbooks. She said she couldn’t narrow it down.”
Wood looks up at Buffy. “And you trust her?”
Buffy is surprised by the question. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I trust her?”
Wood goes back to examining the seal. “I don’t know why any of you should trust each other. You’ve all been evil at some point, right?”
“No.” Buffy shakes her head. “That— that’s not true. I mean…yeah, I mean, Willow had a bad patch, but I—I’ve never been.”
“Evil is what evil does,” says Wood. His voice has gotten deeper. “And I know what you’re doing.” He stands and turns to Buffy. His eyes have turned white. “You’re with that vampire. Screwing that vampire! You filthy whore!”
Wood charges at Buffy. She deflects him, spins him around, and slams his back against the wall. His eyes return to normal.
“Robin. Are you okay?” asks Buffy.
“Whoa.” Wood shakes his head and sits on a pipe running along the wall. “What happened?”
“Well, I… I—I think it was controlling you,” says Buffy.
“Buffy, we gotta get rid of this seal,” says Wood. “We gotta shut it down before it starts affecting everyone.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea who we should talk to,” says Buffy.
“Yeah?” asks Wood. “Who’s that?”
“The guy that fed it its first drop of blood.”
They hear a grunting sound, and look around. A pig runs past their feet, and out the door.
“God, I hope that’s not a student,” says Wood.
Spike turns toward the camera, and takes the cigarette out of his mouth. “I thought I told you to piss off with this bloody camera! Yet here you are again with that thing in my face.” He flicks his cigarette at Andrew. “Just sod off before I rip your throat out and eat it!”
“Um, Spike,” says Andrew, “the light was kind of behind you.”
“Oh, right.” Spike backs up a few steps, until he’s in better light. “Uh… What, is this better then?” He takes a deep breath to compose himself, and then turns toward the camera. “I thought I told you to piss off with that bloody camera. Yet here you are again with that thing in my face. Sod off—”
“You keep dodging the question,” says Anya.
“I don’t mean to,” says Xander. “It’s just…you know how I feel, right? And you were the one who— who didn’t wanna keep seeing each other.”
“And here’s where we hop on the merry-go-round of rotating knives,” says Anya. “I blame you, and you blame me, and we both end up all cut to shreds. Please just tell— Do you still love me?”
“Yes. I still love you,” says Xander. “I always will. I just don’t know if that means anything for us anymore.”
“Well, I love you, too,” says Anya. “A-and I don’t know if that means anything either.”
Xander smiles at her. “Well, it’s nice to hear.”
Andrew left the video camera running on the living room desk, pointed toward the couch.
“I’m not gonna find anyone out there like you, am I?” asks Xander.
“It doesn’t seem likely.”
“I guess I’m more replaceable, obviously.”
Andrew is sitting on the sofa, watching the replay on his camera’s LCD display, mouthing Anya’s lines along with her.
“No. There’s no one like you, Xander,” says Anya. “Y-you were willing to stand up to danger even when your hands had no weapons. Y-you were—were ready to protect me with your life.”
“Yeah, I guess we fit together pretty good,” says Xander.
“We fit together great.”
“You know that sometimes I want to be back in your life.”
“I hope you know you never left my heart,” says Anya.
Andrew rewinds the tape, and starts to watch it over, still mouthing Anya’s lines to Xander.
“I’m not gonna find anyone out there like you, am I?” asks Xander.
“It doesn’t seem likely,” says Anya/Andrew.
Buffy comes in the front door, and into the living room. “Heads up, Andrew. We gotta talk.”
Principal Wood is right behind her. “We just spent the day keeping the lid on a war.”
Andrew turns off his replay, and gets to his feet. “Ooh, that would be very exciting on tape.”
“The school is out of control with energy from the Hellmouth,” says Buffy. “It’s time for you to help, Andrew.”
“Well, right now, I’m really more about the recording of—”
“No! No more watching,” says Buffy. “The seal thing is your baby, and you gotta get in there before it tears everything apart.”
Five students enter the room with the Seal of Danthalzar. They move as if they are possessed. They stand in a circle around it, and then lower themselves onto their knees. They stretch their hands out over the seal, and begin to chant.
The seal starts to glow.
Somewhere in Mexico, 2002:
Jonathan and Andrew lie asleep in a double bed in a run-down adobe building. Their sleep is haunted. Images of the Turok-Han, the Seal of Danthalzar, the deaths of potential Slayers and the Cheese Man flash through their dreams. A voice echoes in their minds. “Desde abajo te devora! Desde abajo te devora!”
Jonathan and Andrew bolt awake. “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” says Jonathan.
“Hey-zeus!” says Andrew.
“Did you have it again?” asks Jonathan. “I had it again.”
“And that voice,” says Andrew. “‘Desme abdo tay Deborah.’ What does it mean? What does it mean?”
“Let’s try looking it up again in the morning in the diccionario,” says Jonathan. “Holy cats, that was terrifying.”
“We’re fugitives,” says Andrew. “Haunted by our past. Tormented…by a message we don’t understand.”
“We’re hunted men,” says Jonathan. “Driven mad by forces beyond our understanding.”
“We’re men of faded power, tortured from within by— by a voice out of nowhere.”
“I don’t deserve this,” says Jonathan. “I wasn’t even that evil.”
“I thought you were evil,” says Andrew.
“Yeah?”
“Sure,” says Andrew. They both move back and lean against the headboard of the bed. “I respected your ideas for—for evil projects, and I thought you had good follow-through.”
“Oh, well, thanks,” says Jonathan. “It’s nice that you noticed.”
“Okay, I think we’re getting a little off-track here,” says Willow.
Andrew is sitting in the chair in the living room with Willow standing in front of him holding a large glowing crystal in her hands. He looks up at the semi-circle of people standing around them: Buffy, Wood, Spike, and Kennedy. “I don’t want to do this anymore. Everyone’s staring at me.”
“Just focus on the charm,” says Willow. “You have to focus on the charm to pull the memories out.”
“Tell us about the seal,” says Wood.
“But it tickles, and I’m all tense,” says Andrew. “Can’t I have a cool, refreshing Zima?”
“No Zima,” says Buffy. “You were the first one to uncover the seal and feed it blood. How did you know it was there? How did you know what to do?”
“I—I don’t know,” says Andrew. “Stuff happened. I—I forget.”
“So remember,” says Kennedy. “Look at the charm.”
“But I’m—I’m not a part of this,” says Andrew. “I document. I don’t participate. I’m the detached journalist recording with a neutral eye.”
“Andrew!” Buffy picks up his camera, and holds it in front of him. “Stop it, or I’m going to smash this camera over your head. Well, actually, I’m gonna do that anyway, so you might as well talk.”
“And stop going off-topic,” says Willow.
“I wasn’t off-topic,” says Andrew. “It’s gonna get relevant in a second, because Jonathan’s gonna go to the bathroom.”
Mexico:
Jonathan gets out of the bed. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” He shuffles off into the other room.
Andrew lies back down in the bed, and quietly starts singing to himself. “La cucaracha, la cucaracha, la la la-la-la.” He rolls over, and gasps.
Warren is leaning over the bed. “Did you get the knife?”
“Oh, gosh.” Andrew quickly gets out of the bed. “Gosh, I’m…glad to see you.”
“Me, too,” says Warren. “You’re looking good.”
Andrew clutches at his shirt. “Am I?” He rubs his face. “I…probably have pillow creases.”
“No, no. It’s good,” says Warren. “You’re a man on the run. You’ve got kind of a wild and desperate thing going.” He comes around the bed. “Did you, uh… did you get the knife?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t easy,” says Andrew. “I had to meet this demon guy who sells all kinds of weird weapons and stuff.”
“Show me.”
“Well, I didn’t buy them,” says Andrew, “but there were poison arrows and this sort of collapsible sword.”
“Show me the knife!”
“Oh, right.” Andrew bends down to pull a box out from under the bed.
“Quick, before the short kid comes back,” says Warren.
“Oh, it’ll be a while. He’s got a shy bladder.” He turns toward the bathroom. “Jonathan, you okay in there?”
“Don’t talk to me!” yells Jonathan. “I’m fine!”
Andrew takes the knife out of the box, and shows it to Warren. “Pretty knife, except the stabbing— I don’t—I don’t think I can do it. Jonathan has been a good friend to me here in Mexico. He said he’ll buy me a burro.”
“No, you can stab him,” says Warren. “Now, it’s all part of the plan. That boy’s blood is a powerful tribute. It’s a—it’s a gift to something very big, very important. Ultimately, it won’t even hurt him. We get a reward— You and me and him, too.”
“We live as gods,” says Andrew.
“That’s right, man,” says Warren. “The Trio: livin’ as gods.”
Andrew imagines himself in a meadow full of flowers, with Warren and Jonathan. They are wearing togas, and have golden wreathes of flowers in their hair. A unicorn prances past behind them. They are surrounded by piles of gold. Andrew has pan-pipes, Warren a lyre, and Jonathan a jug of wine. Andrew sings as they dance among the flowers.
“We are as gods!
Oh, we are gods!
We’re gods,
We are as gods!”
“There’s power in that knife,” says Warren. “Drive the words deep into him. It’s the only way for us to get our reward.”
“Got it,” says Andrew. “If I kill him with this knife, we live as gods.”
“Wait a second,” says Willow. “Go back. What was that part again?”
“You mean this part?” asks Andrew.
Andrew, Jonathan and Warren prance in the meadow.
“We are as gods!”
“Not that part!” says Willow. “We need to see that knife. There’s something there.”
“Kennedy, search his stuff,” says Buffy. “Find the knife.”
Kennedy starts to go, but Andrew stops her. “It’s not in my stuff. It’s in the kitchen in the cutlery drawer.” He sees the looks everyone is giving him. “You didn’t have any steak knives.”
“You put your old murder weapon in with our utensils?” asks Willow.
“I washed it,” says Andrew.
“What are you looking for?” Spike asks Willow.
“He said the First said something about words,” says Willow. “Like, ‘Drive the words deep into him.’”
“There was some carving on the blade,” says Andrew. “I just thought it was a pattern.”
Kennedy comes back with the knife. “Found it.” She hands it to Willow.
Willow looks at the blade for a moment before she hands it to Andrew. “Okay, you’re Mr. Demon-summoner. How are you with demon languages?”
Andrew looks at the carving on the blade. “Whoa, you were right. It’s in Tawarick. It’s, uh, like proto-Tawarick. It’s really, really old.”
“But what’s the big?” asks Kennedy.
“We’ve never known anything about this seal,” says Wood. “Now we know that this knife and this language are connected to it somehow.”
“Andrew, do you speak Tawarick?” asks Willow.
“Yeah, I’m okay with it.” Andrew takes another look at the knife. “It says… ‘The blood which I spill I consecrate to the oldest evil.’”
“Creepy,” says Kennedy.
“Will, what are you thinking?” asks Buffy. “You think you can do something with that?”
Willow takes the knife back from Andrew and looks at the blade. “I— Let me work on it.”
Buffy looks at Willow’s iBook screen over her shoulder in the dining room.
“I think it’s got a shot,” says Willow. She gets up from the table, and she and Buffy return to the living room where everyone else is waiting for them.
“Guess what, Andy?” asks Buffy. “You just won yourself a free vacation to the beautiful downtown Hellmouth.”
“So he can do what?” asks Spike. “Yell at it in its own language?”
“Maybe,” says Willow.
“What?” asks Wood. “I-I’m not following.”
“Look, we have to deal with the seal right away,” says Buffy. “We already might have to just shut the school down, and I am not losing any more territory to the First. Besides, it’s the only thing we’ve got.”
“The seal responds to this language somehow, or the First wouldn’t have needed the knife,” says Willow. “Andrew knows the language, can really talk to it, maybe give it commands.”
“Come on,” says Buffy. “Robin, Spike, let’s go.”
Buffy, Wood, Spike and Andrew enter the school. Andrew has brought his camera, and he’s filming everything. The place has been trashed. The walls are covered in spray painted graffiti. “Die Cheerleaders!” is painted across one wall. “Marching Band Rules” is painted on another. There are fires burning in trash barrels in the hallway.
“The riot that almost happened,” says Buffy.
Wood looks around at the wreckage of his school. “Looks to me like it happened after all.”
A glass bottle, thrown by someone unseen in the darkness, smashes against the wall near them. “Looks to me like it’s still happening,” says Spike.
They move farther into the school, making their way toward the door down to the basement. “Nice way to run a school,” says Spike. “There’s gotta be kids injured in here.”
Wood looks around at him. “Yeah, easy pickings for the likes of you, huh?”
“Hey, here to help, you know,” says Spike.
“Riiight,” says Wood.
Andrew turns his camera toward himself. “Check out Spike and the Principal. There’s something going on there. Sexual tension you could cut with a knife!”
A kid runs past with a hockey stick in his hand. A group of students can be seen running around at the far end of the corridor. They’re shouting and screaming. “These kids went nuts, didn’t they?” says Spike.
“No kidding,” says Wood.
“Shh!” says Buffy. “They’ll hear you.”
“Buffy, they’re all the way down—” A kid steps out of a classroom door and bashes Wood on the head with a skateboard.
Buffy throws the boy who hit Wood aside, but another kid comes up behind her, and grabs her. She sees a kid coming up behind Spike with a locker door in his hands, and calls out a warning. The kid knocks Spike off his feet. More kids appear, from all around them, and attack the group.
“These kids are getting stronger!” says Spike.
Andrew scampers for cover, video taping his feet while he does it. “Oh, god. Struck down before I achieve redemption.”
Andrew turns his camera back toward the fight. Wood grabs a kid, and pushes him up against the wall. A second kid jumps onto his back. Wook kicks the kid in front of him, and smashes the kid on his back against the wall behind him.
Buffy gets thrown across the floor. She gets to her feet quickly and pushes one kid away from her. The boy with the hockey stick swings it at her head. She barely manages to dodge it, but she loses her footing and falls to the floor. She kicks the guy with the hockey stick away, but she’s attacked by two more boys. One grabs her arm, while the other punches her.
Wood flips the guy on his back to the floor, and grabs the locker door that had been used earlier against Spike. He bashes the kid with it.
Buffy throws off the two guys attacking her. The kid with the hockey stick grabs Buffy from behind, and holds her while the other students closes in on her. Buffy kicks the guys in front of her away, and then shrugs the kid with the hockey stick into the nearby trophy case.
Buffy looks toward where Spike is fighting with another pair of students. He pounds one to the floor “Spike! Don’t kill them. They’re just students.”
Spike punches the student still on his feet. The kid collapses to the floor. “He’ll live.”
Wood uses the locker door to bash his opponent into submission. The kids still on their feet run away.
With their attackers all down, they move quickly to the door down to the basement. Buffy looks around. “Okay, Spike, Wood, I need you guys to stay here. Hold our line of retreat.”
“So I’ll be staying here with these men helping out that holding the line thing.” Andrew sees the look Buffy is giving him. “I’ll be with Buffy.” She grabs his arm, and pulls him through the door.
Buffy and Andrew move down the stairs into the basement. He pans his camera around. “We make our way down the stairs carefully, alert for any danger.”
“Oh, stop it!” says Buffy.
“But I was just—”
Buffy takes the camera away from him, and gives him her flashlight. “No more.”
“But I just— I just want the world to see what you do,” says Andrew.
“What I do is too important to show the world,” says Buffy.
“Ooh, I like that,” says Andrew.
They reach the bottom of the stairs, and Buffy stops. “Be quiet! I don’t want a biographer, especially a murderer.”
“Yeah, well, see, about that,” says Andrew. “We just keep tossing that word around, but that’s not really what happened.”
“What?” asks Buffy. “You stabbed Jonathan to death. What were you trying to do? Scratch his back from the front?” she starts to move through the basement.
Andrew follows her. “Well, it was confusing. Jonathan and I were digging, but Warren was there, and only I could see him.”
Flashback:
“Not one of them cares about you,” says Andrew.
Jonathan keeps digging. “But I care about them. That’s why I’m here.”
Warren is standing behind Jonathan. “Do it. Stab him.”
“No, I can’t do it,” says Andrew.
Jonathan looks up. “What?”
“Do it now,” says Warren.
“This isn’t right!” says Andrew.
“Stab him,” says Warren. “Spill the blood.”
|
“Who are you talking to?” asks Jonathan. “What isn’t right?” |
“What’s wrong with you?” asks Warren. “Are you a little coward?” |
“No,” says Andrew, “but did you actually think I could use this?” He pulls out the knife.
“That’s good,” says Warren.
Jonathan looks at the blade in Andrew’s hand. “A knife?”
“Just do it,” says Warren. “It’ll feel good.”
“What’s going on?” asks Jonathan.
“He’s making me do it!” says Andrew.
“You tricked me. Damn you!” Jonathan grabs for the knife. “I’ll kill you first!”
“Stab him!” says Warren. “You have to!”
Jonathan tries to pull the knife out of Andrew’s hands. “I’ll kill you!”
“If you fail, you’ll die a lost soul,” says Warren, “and I’ll hate you forever!”
Jonathan suddenly gasps as the knife sinks into his belly. He drops down onto the seal, dead.
Andrew looks at the bloody knife in his hands. “Noooooo!” He raises his clenched fists to the heavens, and then brings them back down and presses them to his forehead.
Andrew follows Buffy through the basement. “You see? I’m a man trapped by circumstances into paying for a crime I didn’t even—”
Buffy mumbles something under her breath.
“What?” asks Andrew.
“No, I just— I thought you would say that,” says Buffy. “I saw the seal possess Wood like that earlier today.”
“Yes,” says Andrew. “Yes, see…”
Flashback:
“That’s why I’m here,” says Jonathan.
Andrew turns toward him. His eyes have turned white. “Die!” He stabs the knife into Jonathan. “Die! Die!”
Jonathan falls down onto the Seal of Danthalzar, and Andrew keeps stabbing him.
Andrew’s eyes return to normal. He sees his friend lying dead at his feet, and the bloody knife in his hand. He drops it beside the body. “What…have I done?” He collapses onto his knees beside his friend, and raises his hands to the heavens. “Get out of my brain! Aaaaah!” He clutches his fists against his forehead.
“You just completely changed your entire story,” says Buffy.
“Did not,” says Andrew.
“Uh, you did too,” says Buffy.
“Did—” Andrew stops, and points to a door. “Hey, here we are.”
Buffy can hear chanting coming faintly through the door. “Wait. There’s someone in there.”
Andrew turns around. “We should go.”
Buffy grabs him. “Whoa. No. We are going in. Just be prepared, okay? The seal could have done anything to them.” She shoves Andrew toward the door. “Go.”
Buffy and Andrew enter the room with the seal. The five kids there turn their faces toward them. They no longer have eyes. Their eyes are sealed shut, and fresh characters are branded on their eyelids. They have become Harbingers of the First.
“Nope,” says Buffy. “They’re okay.”
Xander and Anya lie naked together, side by side in Spike’s bed in the basement. There are candles burning beside the bed.
“Well,” says Xander.
“Well well,” says Anya.
Xander pats Anya’s thigh “That was nice.”
“It certainly was, you carpenter, you,” says Anya.
Xander looks up at the bracket on the wall. “It’s too bad Buffy took Spike’s chains down.”
Anya smiles. “Ah, you said it.”
“Mmm. I feel good.”
“Well, yeah,” says Anya. “I’m a spitfire in the bedroom.”
“Yeah, I knew we’d always do that again.”
“Yeah,” says Anya. “One more time, anyway.”
Xander looks at her. “Is that what that was? A one more time?”
“Do you think there should be…more?” asks Anya.
“I don’t know. It was nice,” says Xander. “It felt, um… It felt like a one more time.”
“I think maybe we’re really over,” says Anya. “Which is—it’s good, right? I mean, we— Now we can move on.”
“Sure,” says Xander.
They continue to lie side by side together in the bed.
“Wonder what’s keeping them?” asks Spike. “I thought they’d be up here by now.” He picks up a piece of two by four off the floor that has a bunch of long nails sticking out of the end of it. “How’d they make this in here, you suppose?” He tosses it to Wood.
Wood looks at the nails. “Wood shop, I guess. Nice to know they’re paying attention in class.”
He gets jumped by a student. More attack Spike. They fight them off, Wood uses the two-by-four, careful not to hit anyone with the nail end of it.
The wood breaks when Wood hits one of the students with it. A stake sized piece falls to the floor. Wood picks it up, and looks at Spike. They have driven off their attackers again. Spike is leaning over, breathing heavily, his back to Wood. Wood sees his chance to kill his mother’s murderer, and moves in. He raises the stake.
A kid jumps Wood. More swarm over Spike.
The five Bringers attack Buffy. Andrew goes for the video camera she put down. He points it toward the fight.
Buffy throws one of the Bringers at the others, and dodges a flying kick from another. She elbows it away into the wall.
“She’s like a woman fighting for more than life. She fights like fighting is her life. It is the air she breathes, and she knows she will win, because there is no alternative.”
One of the Bringers kicks Buffy back into the arms of another. It holds her as the others close in on her. Her feet are still free, and she uses them to kick the Bringers away before she smashes the one holding her against the wall, and flips it to the ground. Another Bringer sweeps Buffy’s legs out from underneath her, and pounces on top of her. Buffy kicks it away, into the only other Bringer still standing, and flips back to her feet.
Only one of the Bringers keeps moving. Andrew follows it with his camera as it scampers out the door. He turns the camera back toward Buffy.
Buffy looks at him. “It’s your turn, Andrew.” She pulls the Tawarick knife out of her belt.
Andrew sets the camera down. “So you figure what? I, uh… I stand on the seal and hold the knife and, like, command it to stop glowing in Tawarick?” He slowly starts to move around the seal, keeping it between him, and Buffy and the knife.
Buffy shrugs. “Or we could do this.” She slowly circles around the seal.
“What?” asks Andrew.
“Doesn’t really make sense, does it?” asks Buffy. “Bringing you here to talk to it. This thing doesn’t understand words. It understands blood.”
“Blood opens it!” says Andrew. “You don’t want to open it! Opening it would be bad.”
“Yeah, Willow did a little research.” Buffy keeps moving slowly toward Andrew. “Turns out the blood of the person that awoke it—you—different kind of deal. It reverses the whole thing.”
“So how— how much blood?” asks Andrew nervously. “Are you gonna—”
“I don’t know,” says Buffy. “Maybe not enough to kill you.”
Andrew slows down, but still backs away from Buffy as she closes in on him. “So this is my redemption at last. I buy back my bruised soul…with the blood of my heart. But—but not enough to— to kill—”
“Stop!” shouts Buffy. “Stop telling stories! Life isn’t a story!”
Andrew stops. “Sorry. Sorry!
Buffy steps up to him, holding the knife in front of her. “Shut up. You always do this. You make everything into a story so no one’s responsible for anything because…they’re just following a script.”
“Please don’t kill me,” pleads Andrew. “Warren said Jonathan would be okay. I trusted him, and I lost my friend.”
“You didn’t lose him!” says Buffy. You murdered him!”
“I know.” whispers Andrew. “But you don’t need to kill me. You said we could all get through this.”
“I made it up,” says Buffy. “I’m making it all up. So what kind of hero does that make me?”
“No, you’re— you’re doing great,” says Andrew. “Really. Kudos.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t like having to give a bunch of speeches about how we’re all gonna live, because we won’t!” says Buffy. “This isn’t some story where good triumphs because good triumphs. Good people are going to die! Girls…maybe me. Probably you… Probably right now.”
“Don’t,” pleads Andrew. “Please.” Buffy grabs him by the collar and pushes him forward, so he’s hanging over the seal. “Don’t! Please!”
Buffy raises the knife. “When your blood pours out, it might save the world. What do you think about that? Does it buy it all back? Are you redeemed?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I killed him.” Tears start to run down Andrew’s cheeks. “Because I—I— I listened to Warren and—and I pretended I thought it was him, but… I knew. I knew it wasn’t. And I killed Jonathan. And now you’re gonna kill me. And I’m—I’m scared, and I’m going…to die. And this… This is— this is what Jonathan felt.”
The tears from Andrew’s eyes run down his cheeks, to his chin. They start to drip onto the seal. It suddenly stops glowing.
Buffy lets go of Andrew and he drops to his knees on top of the inactive seal. “It stopped,” he says.
“Didn’t want blood,” says Buffy. “It wanted tears.”
Andrew scrambles back off the seal. He looks at Buffy. “Thanks.”
“Sorry I had to—”
“So you weren’t really gonna stab me, were you?”
“I wasn’t going to stab you,” says Buffy.
“What if the— the tears didn’t work?”
Buffy looks at Andrew for a couple of seconds. She doesn’t say anything. She turns and walks away from the seal. Andrew hesitates for a moment, picks up his camera, and follows her.
The students attacking Wood and Spike suddenly stop. They look around, confused, and they slowly start to walk away.
“She got it done!” says Wood.
“Always has,” says Spike.
“So far,” says Wood.
Andrew is in the bathroom again, looking into his camera. “Here’s the thing: I killed my best friend. There’s a big fight coming, and… I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t even think I’m gonna live through it. That’s, uh, probably the way it should be. I guess I…”
Andrew drops his head, and sits silently for a moment. He picks up the remote control, aims it at the camera, and turns it off.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire 1 | Cemetery | Staked by Buffy |
| Vampire 2 | Cemetery | Staked by Buffy |
| Stressed out kid | School hallway | His head exploded |
| Five students | Seal of Danthalzar | Transformed into Bringers1 |
| Four Bringers | Seal of Danthalzar | Killed by Buffy |