The Slayer Scribes, as far as I know, is not a real group. Someone please let me know if it is and I'll change it.
For Alan, yet again....for the talk in the tower, if you know what I mean. For MdKnight, who a long time ago begged me to write a story where I didn't brutally kill Willow. For fanfic writers everywhere. And finally, this one's for Harry. :) Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, UPN and the WB own the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Or do they?....just kiddin', yes they do, I own nothing except Mary. And it might be said she owns herself.)
It was two years after the Ascension. Sunnydale had survived, miraculously. However, despite Buffy's valiant efforts, the demon Olvocan had killed nearly all of the senior class, parents, faculty, and nearby residents of Sunnydale High School before it finally ate its fill. And unfortunately, the consumption of so many human souls was exactly what the demon needed to make itself permanently invincible. Nothing they did would have killed it. So after fighting and getting bloody and losing, the Scoobs had finally done the only thing left to them -- they fled. They had met up blocks away, ran like hell for the only safe place they could think of -- Giles' home -- and waited for the worst. Which never came. The opening of the Hellmouth did not occur, neither did the fire from the sky or the rampage of demons or any of the other things the books had warned of. What did happen was that the demon Olvocan, instead of going on to crush the town under its scales (the human Mayor had worked long and hard to get that town built, after all; no sense making a mess) burrowed itself deep into the earth at the foot of the Hellmouth, rooting its snakelike body into the earth, taking up permanent guard at the mouth of Hell. The terrified survivors thought for sure the portal was going to spill open and loose its unholy denizens on the earth. But this didn't happen either. Instead, in exchange for keeping the Hellmouth closed, Olvocan began demanding sacrifices. The Sunnydale survivors had to pick and choose who would live and die in order to keep the creature appeased. This seemed a purely barbaric ritual, as the demon no longer really needed to eat, it just liked being sacrificed to. Like any self-respecting male demon, it was partial to virgins. The good citizens would be picked, one from every family, and those chosen would compete in various picnic games; three-legged race, ring toss, duck-duck-goose and so on. The winners of these would then have their names put in a hat, and whoever was last to be drawn out would be bound, gagged (sometimes not, the screaming was always fun) carried up the hill and abandoned beneath the weaving, towering snake demon, which would then dive down and gobble up the shrieking contestant alive. End of player, end of game. The slaughter had been continuing for the past two years. Buffy and the gang knew the demon was preparing for something -- but whether it was the opening of the Hellmouth, or something even more horrible, if there was such a thing -- none of them knew, and they had had plenty of time to figure it out. In between graduation and trying to stay alive in the hellish place Sunnydale had become, Buffy and Willow had even managed to start college, in spite of rising numbers of demons to slay and the tragic death of Buffy's mother. Joyce Summers had been brutally murdered by Angelus, after he had returned from hell, summoned by the turncoat Slayer Faith. She had slept with him during Angel and Buffy's attempt to find out whether she was a spy for the Mayor. It had backfired horribly....and Joyce had paid for the charade with her life. They hadn't seen the last of Mayor Wilkins, either. Shortly after the Ascension and the subsequent Rooting, Olvocan had split itself, projecting itself in its previous human form. So the Mayor -- the cornball politician part of him -- was presently across town in City Hall just like he'd always been, presiding over his fair, imprisoned (and completely renovated) city. Except now, where before he had been simply invulnerable... now he was transcendent. A being of thought rather than matter -- since he was a projection of the demon's mind -- he appeared solid, but could move through walls like a ghost. Bullets and swords went through him like air, and he could move with the speed of thought, across town in a second. The only reason he hadn't infiltrated Buffy's and the other's homes was because Giles had actually found a protection spell that was useful against keeping the spirit out. Plus, he was busy officiating the game-show voting used to decide who was given to his demon, and frankly, he didn't consider the Scoobies much of a threat anymore. So on things went, and on he went, his solid demon self eating and sleeping and eating, and his omnipotent human self busily preparing the town for God knew what, casting spells, hosting sacrifices, performing rituals. One of those rituals had just that morning involved the bloody sacrifice of the entire Sunnydale Ladies Zonta Club. They'd had it coming -- it turned out Zonta was an ancient African word for willing bloodletter -- but it had still been horrible. And like so much in the past two years, Buffy and the gang hadn't been able to do a thing to prevent it. However, today they had assembled for the millionth time because, unlike all the other rituals, this morning's horror had ended with the Mayor announcing to the fearful onlookers that it would be the last, ever, of such sacrifices. No more lottery, no more games, no more feeding. And then he laughed. Not a friendly, gosh-you've-all-been-good-sports laugh. More a sinister, plotting, enjoy-it-while-it-lasts-because-the- next-course-is-gonna-be-a-killer laugh. Now at the Magic Box, the occult supply store that Giles had bought when the previous owner had been sacrificed to Olvocan, the Scooby gang pored over papers, books, anything they could find to give them a clue as to what the Mayor could be planning, why he would suddenly stop the bloodshed, what in the world they were supposed to do now. "Shit," said Willow. Buffy stared. The redheaded wiccan had been acting very strangely all day -- outgoing and friendly, almost... loud, and somewhat obnoxious. For some reason, everything Wesley said made her laugh uncontrollably, and she was ignoring poor Tara no end. Now this. Willow as a rule had a strictly PG vocabulary. This sudden inflection from her was completely out of character. "Seconded, though slightly edited," spoke Giles, setting down the book he was reading with a sigh. He was unusually jittery too, unable to keep still long enough to study any of the tomes he owned. He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead, worn out even though it was ten in the morning. "Right, then....what do we know, so far?" "We know that several rituals require mass sacrifices over a period of time," Wesley jumped in. "The problem is that none of these have particularly earth-shattering results. The ritual to produce a blizzard in the middle of the desert, for example--" "--Not exactly the stuff of boot-trembling," finished Willow, smiling at the ex-Watcher. Wesley, after being almost trampled to death at Graduation, had done a stint in the hospital and been released from his duties by the Council, who had apparently decided he was too pathetic even for their employ. Since then the humbled Wes had stuck around, helping Giles and the gang when he could, seemingly having no other purpose than to assist, be underfoot, and duck Cordelia when she inexplicably stopped by. At least today he was entertaining one of them -- Willow was hanging on his every word. "Which leads us, again, to why," said Giles. "Why the Mayor, after staging these ghastly displays every week, has suddenly stopped." "Maybe he's run out of party games," muttered Xander hopelessly. "At least nobody has to die to the Hokey-Pokey anymore," offered Buffy, weakly attempting a joke. "Talk about cruel and unusual." "At least he didn't sing that one," Xander bounced back. "Me, I'd rather not have the theme from West Side Story be the last thing I hear as I'm keeping a giant snake's teeth healthy and shiny." The levity, brief as it was, lifted their spirits a little. So much bloodshed had happened over the past few years, and so many of their friends had gone to the altar of the beast that any humor, black or otherwise, was more than welcome. "It's too much to hope he's simply become bored with the process," Giles said, bringing them back. "If he's no longer sacrificing, it's likely because he no longer needs to." He shot a disgusted glare at Wesley, and then at the books. "And we are still no closer to finding out what purpose the sacrifices served in the first place." "Well," said Willow abruptly, "I might have something." Everyone looked. This was the first time any of them had come close to uttering those golden words. "Since when?" asked Cordy, making one of her impromptu appearances today. Since her father had gone bankrupt, she had ventured to L.A. to become an actress, but had returned to Sunnydale after several directors -- one of them specializing in porno -- had told her she had no talent whatever. Willow gave the ex-prom queen a very un-Willowy glare. "I, uh, just found it," she said. "A spell....it's a really old and really forgotten spell." Her head bowed in the book, eyes shifting. "What does it do?" asked Tara, leaning over to get a look in the book she was reading. Willow leaned over it, as if to block her view. "It's to...read minds. Yeah." She bit her lip, uncertainly. "If I read his mind I can find out what he's up to. But I have to get really close to do it." Tara wasn't clear. "Well, what kind of energy does it require? Is it an earth, fire, water--" Willow, usually so eager to go into the details of her magic ingredients, was strangely at a loss for words. "Crystals!" she suddenly blurted. A confused frown flickered across Tara's face. "Crystals?" Her former self-consciousness came back, momentarily. "I'm n-not familiar with--" Willow didn't seem to know what to say to her girlfriend. "Yeah... crystals," she muttered. "It's crystal magic. You know...." She nodded her head, as if expecting Tara to pick up and understand. Tara didn't. "....Uh--well, it has to be done close up, anyway. Being close is the most important thing because, uh, the crystals...they need time to....oh, hell, can't we just go to City Hall and you guys let me do it?!" Everyone stared in amazement at the suddenly potty-mouthed witch. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with Willow?" Xander blurted. The witch's head jerked up. Her mouth dropped open, and a little noise came out. "I-I'm Willow," she finally said, as if daring them to deny it. "See? I have....like, red hair? And hemp jewelry? And, um, tie-dyed skirts?" She gave them all a big, hopeful, very Willowy smile. Xander shrugged. Tara looked worried. Buffy frowned, but she knew Will was probably as stressed out as they were. And she would have let it go right there, except that the bell over the shop's door suddenly chimed and a familiar voice, plugged but still unmistakable, sounded in the room. "Hi, guys, sorry I'm lade. I think I'm cubbing down wid subthing," said a very congested Willow as she walked into the shop.
Every member of the gang stared in shocked silence at the Willow who'd walked in the door. Then they turned their heads and stared at the Willow who was sitting in their midst. "Hey!" Cold-flu Willow, catching sight of herself for the first time, stared. "Who -- huh??" She gasped. "Way to summarize, Will," murmured Xander. In her chair, the first Willow looked shocked for only a moment. Then she let out a sigh, the facade dropping off her face. "Aw, hell," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. "You 're supposed to be home in bed." At this, the gang seemed to snap out of it. Everyone backed away in a flurry of squealing chair legs and dropped books. Wesley, of all people, leaped to the fore, grabbing a Celtic cross candle off a nearby rack and holding at arm's length. He remembered the last time there had been two Willows to contend with, and since vampires couldn't get colds, that made the question of who was who quite clear. "How did she come back?!" yelped Cordy, hiding behind the hemp curtains. "Find a stake!" Xander looked around. Buffy had one handy of course. She was all set to jump across the table and use it when Willow -- the one in the chair -- shook her head. She cringed, closing her eyes -- but it wasn't like she was afraid, more as if retreating into herself, concentrating. "No," she said quietly. "Everybody freeze." And they did. Buffy was halted before she began her jump. The others were frozen where they stood. None of them could move or blink or breathe. If a pack of vampires had suddenly burst in the shop, they would have been dead, unable to defend themselves. They were totally helpless. The Willow sitting in the chair got slowly to her feet. She cast the frozen group a long, not-entirely-friendly look. "Well, I guess you'll listen now," she said ominously. No answer. "I'm sorry to do this," she went on. "I don't have a choice." And before everyone's eyes Willow suddenly melted, like dust being knocked off an antique. The girl standing where Willow had been seconds before looked at them almost nervously. She was plain -- brown haired, somewhat mousy, with pale beady eyes that shone out of her sallow face. She wore a baby tee that read Goddess on it in glittery blue paint and ill-fitting stretch jeans. She looked around and took a deliberate step behind her, where the sunlight was streaming in the window, letting the beam hit her shoulders. "Okay," she spoke, voice slightly breathless. "You can see I'm not a vampire, can't you? Buffy?" She gazed long and hard at the Slayer. "Okay." She took a deep breath, licking her lips, as if in a deep negotiation. "I promise I'm not here to hurt anybody. Can I trust you not to jump on me if I let you go?" Silence. Something apparently made the girl feel she had a favorable answer. Because all at once it was like whatever held their limbs let go and the gang was freed, allowed to walk and move again. Tara left her seat and quickly went to the real Willow's side, as far across the room as they could get. Buffy set the stake carefully down on the table, her fingers still grazing it. "Who are you?" she asked the obvious question. The strange new girl's brow furrowed. She bit her lower lip childishly. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I swear, left to my own designs, I wouldn't have come like that. I'm not sure why I arrived as Willow, except maybe it's because I relate to her the most. I wanted to be Faith--" On the name her form shivered and changed, and suddenly Faith -- the turncoat Slayer, who had been lying in a coma in the hospital across town for the past two years -- was standing where the girl had been, black eyes and leather and glistening lipstick and all. About the only thing that could startle the group more than a vampire was the appearance of the dark Slayer. Everyone jumped. Xander backed clear into the wall. Faith gazed sadly at them. Her burgundy lips lifted in a smile. "Except that," she said. "Plus she's in a coma. Couldn't really walk around unnoticed like this for long." With a little grimace, Faith blew away like a dusted vampire, leaving the mousy girl standing there once again. "At least I could write Willow home with the flu and pretend I was her. But you--" she gave Willow a smile "--you just can't stop Nancy Drewin', can ya?" She cracked a halfhearted grin at her own lame quoting. "Who are you?" Buffy repeated, deeply unnerved by the sudden glimpse of Faith. Two years had passed since she had stabbed the evil Slayer with her own knife, since Faith had thrown herself off that building into her coma, and the whole horrible mess still felt like it had happened yesterday..... The shapeshifting... person... looked at the Slayer. "I can't tell you my name," she said. "Because that would ruin the game. But you can call me..." She uttered a self-conscious laugh, "--call me Mary Sue. It sounds dumb, I know... but trust me, it's appropriate. Now, next question, what am I doing here?" She fell quiet for a while. A long time. She sat down on the chair again, frowning, trying to sort out what she wanted to say. "I'm not a demon, first of all," she said. Her whiny voice made it sound like she was trying to convince them. "I'm not a witch or a vampire or anything like that. I'm not sure what I am now, exactly. A long way from home, that's for damn sure." She giggled, briefly amused. "I know one thing....I am the cause of all the trouble you've had these past two years." Her levity faded, she gazed at all of them. "I'm from.... another dimension," she said carefully. "And I'm part of this group....you can call us the Scribes. We're on the net, we have meetings....I can't tell you what all we talk about, but it's...uh...." She looked at them guiltily. "We kind of....watch you." Silence. Mary Sue suddenly giggled, a breathless, nerdy laugh. "No --" she exclaimed, hearing Xander's thoughts "--no, not like that! We're not the Watcher's Council either. We just...watch....and we write." She stopped laughing, trying to focus. "Okay, try to think back to the old days, when the scribes used to walk the earth and tell tales about Hercules and Jason and the Argonauts...each one told a different version of the old legends. One has Hercules lifting the pantheon, one has him eating the heads off snakes...you get the idea. The point is, all these different storytellers were taking liberties on their favorite characters, changing them, making them good or evil.....that's kind of what we do. That's how we took our name -- the Slayer Scribes. Each of us tell stories about you -- all of you -- but not all of us tell the same things." She looked to Xander. "Remember last year when you broke your leg? There are timelines where that never happened. In other timelines, some of you have dated each other...different from who you usually date. Some of you have turned evil. And some of you..." she looked sheepish "...are dead." "Like my mother," spoke Buffy aloud. The silence was incredible. Mary Sue nodded sadly. "Yes," she whispered. "Like your mother." She looked at Buffy entreatingly. "I'm sorry." "Sorry doesn't cut it." Tears were forming in Buffy's eyes. "Angelus killed my mother and you let it happen." As unbelievable as the tale Mary Sue told was, Buffy could follow it perfectly. Joyce was dead, and this....girl...had had the power to make it all different. "You let my mother die!" "If she hadn't died," Mary Sue pointed out quietly, "you never would have found the Scroll of Samhain. You never would have saved Willow -- the real Willow. You never would have sent Angelus back to hell and none of you would have survived the Swarm." She looked a little teary too, but her voice was firm. "It was a good series. I'm sorry Joyce had to die. I really liked her character--" "Is that all we are to you?!" Buffy snapped. "Fun characters? A good story?!" "No!" Mary Sue rushed to smooth over what she'd said. "No way! Look...don't you have any idea how important you are? I know people -- some of them are my best friends -- whose lives have been saved because of you. Not because you slayed a vampire, either. They were able to act out their passion, their baser instincts, their sorrow, their rage, their confusion -- all through you. All of you." She looked around at the gang. "I mean sure, there's some Scribes who just want to see how many different erotic pairings they can make, but--" She stopped short at their looks of confusion. "....and... that's probably enough of that subject," she said abruptly. Xander raised his hand. "I move for a recount," he grinned. Buffy gave him a glare. She turned her attention back on Mary Sue. "I don't believe any of this," she said flatly. Mary shrugged, laughing briefly. "Neither do I," she assured the Slayer. "You're a god?... Dess? Whatever?" "No." The girl's smile turned off like a light, seemingly opposed to hearing herself described this way. "I'm not anything like that. I'm a Scribe. That's all." "But you created....what?" "All of this." Mary raised her arms. "Everything. This town. All the buildings, all the people. All you guys." Buffy shook her head, slowly, then more insistently. "That's impossible." "Impossible?" Mary laughed. "Hello? Sunnydale?" "Even in Sunnydale," Buffy returned. "I don't believe you. We're real -- I don't know what you are, but this is the real Sunnydale. The only Sunnydale. There aren't any others. And you did NOT make this one." Because it couldn't be real. This was the only life Buffy knew, the only one she could remember. This girl was saying there were hundreds and thousands of clones of Buffy and everyone else....and Buffy wasn't about to buy that. It had taken Buffy all this time to get past her mother's sudden, brutal death, to stop wondering what she could have done differently to have Joyce alive and sitting at home waiting for her -- and Mary's claim only opened one more meaningless avenue that Buffy wasn't about to drag herself down. Besides which, this shy, badly dressed girl didn't look like she knew how to make french toast, much less a whole universe. But Mary Sue was nodding her head, alternating between a look of nervousness and deep, deep pride. "Yes! I did! I made all this stuff. I've been working on it for months. It's really tiring. There's people demanding to see the end and I'm having a lot of trouble.....well...anyway, I guess I was concentrating too hard." She looked sheepish. "Well, at least she got that part of Willow right," observed Cordelia cuttingly. Mary Sue's eyes flicked up, casting a glare at the former cheerleader. "You know, I never liked you," she said icily. "I don't even know why you're in this story." Cordy blinked. "Well, I would have a snappy comeback, but my imported pantyhose are really riding up, so I'm going to go dig them out. Later, people." She turned around with perfect dignity and stalked out of the shop. Mary Sue was giggling. Like somebody who had just played a perfect practical joke. Buffy didn't like this, as funny as it was. "How did you do that?" she whispered. Mary smiled. "I can do it to anybody," she said. "I'm the Scribe." She looked like a first grader who was very proud of her fingerpainting. "Look-- this is what I do with my day. I was at my job -- I'm a teller at Unity Bank in....ugh, anyway, it's boring work. You get into a rhythm and your mind wanders and this is about what I do all day -- think up stories." She rubbed her nose, apparently a nervous habit. "So this morning I went on break, I went to the restroom. I was thinking really hard about this plot point I'd been having trouble with. And when I came out of the restroom... I wasn't at my job anymore. I was in a store, in a mall, that I had never seen before. "I just wandered around for like half an hour, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I walked through a clothing store, and I happened to walk in front of a mirror, and I looked --" Willow's physical form briefly shimmered over the girl's face and hair like a mirage "-- like this." "You can try to imagine how freaked out I was, seeing a reflection that wasn't mine, but that moved and walked and talked when I did. The clerk though I was nuts, raising my arms and turning my head....anyway, after some more walking around, I finally realized where I was -- Sun Mall, over on Quaker Street." Mary Sue beamed. "I made that mall. It didn't exist originally. I wrote about it in 'Cutting The Ribbons', where the Mayor--" "--let loose a bunch of killer store mannikins on the town," finished Buffy, wide eyed. She remembered fighting the plastic demons, which had ultimately been dispatched by burning them all in a huge, ozone-depleting bonfire. She had won that battle, just barely, last September..... Mary Sue was nodding and smiling. "Yes," she said, almost excitedly. "I wrote that. I made that! And to you guys, it was real! It really happened!" She laughed, that jittery giggle again. "And that's when I realized.... I was in Sunnydale. My Sunnydale!" She actually squeaked with excitement. "I was actually in the world I'd been writing! I knew it was mine, not the other Scribes' -- I could recognize things I'd created, stuff I'd written. And that wasn't all, either. I could make people do things. I made this pair of skateboard guys start an argument -- they almost started socking each other -- and then I made them stop." She was grinning proudly. "They did everything I wanted them to and they said everything I told them to say. It was so cool -- like Sim City on superengines." To Buffy, it sounded frightening. "How powerful are you?" Willow spoke from the back, intrigued. "I mean can you just do whatever you want to whoever you want?" Mary Sue shook her head. "I can control the weaker ones." She looked to the Scoobs. "No offense." None taken, except by Xander. "Why's she looking at me??" he asked no one in particular. Mary gave him a smile. "I can completely control the bit players, and the secondary ones are more or less easy. But my control over you magical ones--" she looked to Giles, Willow, and Tara "-- is scattershot." She frowned. "I think it's because magic is so unpredictable. FreakZilla -- he's this other writer in the club, he writes Faith -- he's way better at nailing down the rules of magic than me. I get hung up on the small stuff. There's so many different things that can happen. I don't know half the time how the story is going to end. You for example--" She gave Buffy a confused look. "You haven't done almost anything I've tried to make you do since I got here." She looked a little nervous. "I guess it's because you're the Slayer. I hope so, I hope it's not.... because some things...." the mirth completely left her, "....some people I can't control at all now." "Like who?" Buffy was absolutely sure she didn't want to hear this. Mary Sue looked at her, eyes shiny, like she was a mouse hiding in the grass, afraid of being caught. "So I'm in the mall," she suddenly blurted out, "and I'm walking around, and I'm Willow, and I'm still writing things, affecting reality, and I'm thinking this is pretty much the coolest thing that's ever happened to me....and then I realize. The other thing." She looked worriedly around. "What if you suddenly found yourself on the Titanic an hour before it went down? Wouldn't you be excited at first? Sure, here's this piece of history that you get to look at up close. You get to see whether Captain Smith really knew about the iceberg, whether the band really did play on until the end....but then it hits you: you're on a sinking ship. A historic ship, yeah -- but it doesn't change the fact that you're about to die." She just let that sentence go. The gang looked at each other nervously. "OK, we have our new spooky person," said Xander. "Sunnydale," said Mary Sue, "is about to be destroyed." Silence. "I know.... cause that was exactly what I was going to write happening next. Unless I get home and alter the storyline it will keep going on the way it's going now. The town will be destroyed. All of you will be destroyed. And me--" Mary swallowed hard "-- I'll be destroyed, too." She looked at Buffy. "That's why I came here, why I pretended to be Willow. I have to get home so I can fix this. I need help -- magical help, and no offense, but none of you witches are strong enough to help me, not even together. There's only one person who can do what I want, and you're right, Buffy, you're not gonna like this-- "Help with what?" asked Buffy impatiently. Mary Sue took a deep breath after her nervous ramble, gathering her courage, what there was of it. "I need you to take me to the Mayor." Silence. "The Mayor?" repeated Xander. "Current resident evil? Trying to kill us for most of three years?" "I know." Mary looked miserable. "I write him." There was more silence in the room at this last confession. Mary Sue shrugged in an I-can't-help-it way. "He's my favorite," she said, as if that explained everything. "I love the whole idea. His schemes, his power.... I've been writing it all year. I wrote the Mayor becoming a demon, I wrote him doing all the horrible things he's been doing to you all. He is what he is because... I wrote him that way." Buffy couldn't believe the girl's flippancy at their grave situation. "He's evil." "I know." "He's killed dozens of innocent people. He sacrificed the entire senior class!" Mary Sue actually rolled her eyes. Her head dropped back, a look of exasperation scrunched her face. "God, come on, will you people quit it with the Graduation thing already?! Were you awake during high school?! Tell me you never once wished Godzilla or something would come along and eat every one of the stupid jerks you had to share that classroom with! I sure did!" Buffy was stunned at this sudden viciousness. Mary's formerly soft face was now drawn in a slightly furied grimace, her eyes were shinier than before. "You're insane!" Buffy whispered. Mary rubbed her nose again, giggling nervously. "I'm warped, at the very least," she agreed. "I'm sorry, Buffy, I hated high school. And when it turned out he was gonna eat the graduates....I mean, I was sitting there just laughing...." She was laughing even now. Buffy just stood there, unbelieving. Hundreds -- literally hundreds of her friends had died that day. Close friends. Innocent kids who hadn't wanted to die. All gobbled up by a hungry monster. And this.... person.... didn't even care. Mary Sue's smile wilted, seemingly aware that she'd taken it a little too far. She shrugged, looking adequately sad, but not repentant. "Sorry," she offered again. The naive, don't-blame-me look on the girl's face made Buffy sick. "No deal," she said icily, turning away. "Buffy--" Giles started. "The girl let my mother die, Giles!" Buffy reminded him. "She let hundreds of kids be eaten! It's like Faith all over again!! For all we know the Mayor probably sent her!" "No!" Mary blurted. "I've come here to help you! Don't you get it? I can control him in my world, but here everything's different! You think I wrote the stuff that happened this morning? The sacrifices, the bloodletting? No! God, I'm sick, but I'm not that sick!" "You just admitted you don't care about hundreds of people dying!" Buffy stared the Scribe down, angrily. "Give me one good reason why we should trust you!" "I'll give you about 50,000 good reasons," said Mary. "But in case saving every man woman and child in this town doesn't rock you, here's another: I made this world. I made everything you see. I made you. And if you don't help me, and if the Mayor succeeds in what he's trying to do, and if he destroys Sunnydale, and if I die in this world.... then with me goes the state of California. The United States. Not to mention North America and pretty much this whole side of planet Earth. Everything I dreamed up in my insane little head will simply go boom." Perfect, horrified silence. Mary Sue stared directly at the Slayer. "What's it gonna be, Buffy?" she asked, somewhat ominously. "The deaths of hundreds? Or the deaths of planets?"
"Why couldn't she have written Faith?" grumbled Xander. The gang was huddled in their former positions around the table, pondering what to do about their bizarre visitor. Mary Sue had discreetly banished herself outside so they could debate, tossing off the ominous remark that she knew what they were going to say anyway -- in spite of this, the gang felt much better talking without the spooky Scribe in the same room. "Faith?" Buffy gave Xander a look. "How exactly is that better than the Mayor?" "Cause then at least we'd just have a world of biker gangs and scantily clad chainsaw babes to deal with," he answered darkly. The gang digested that assessment. "No...I think that's what we'd get if she wrote you, Xander," Willow ventured with a grin. "Well, I don't believe her," repeated Buffy flatly. "There's no proof she has all the power she claims she does. What have we actually seen her do?" "Freeze everybody," Willow raised her hand. "You can do that," Xander reminded her. "Not like that," Willow shook her head, only with her stuffed nose it sounded like, "Nod like thad. I've been frozed before -- Tara and I have tried id od each other, and we can only do id for a few minutes. Nod on and off, like a lighd switch. And we cad UNfreeze each other... bud only if we're nod frozen." She sniffled, looking worried. While Xander racked his brains trying to come up with an innuendo related to freezing and light switches, Wesley, who had been at a loss up til now, spoke. "I agree there's no real way to test what Mary says is the truth. On the other hand, she does appear to possess... some... sort of ability, one none of us have. And she has offered her services to us against the Mayor. This may be our last chance to stop him." "Why would she do that when-- if she created him?" Buffy pointed out. "Well...." Wesley withered, thinking. "Perhaps there is a clue, if we could ascertain how she came to this world. Assuming, of course, she is indeed from another....ahem...." "Universe?" Buffy supplied bluntly. "Someplace where wizards watch us on crystal balls or whatever, 24-7? Maybe you guys don't have any trouble with people imagining you in bed with half the cast of Baywatch, but I do." Xander looked about to go into subtext brain-freeze. Tara said, "W-well, I think I know what happened. Willow and I... we were kind of meditating last night, calling on the spirits to help us... kind of asking for someone with knowledge to visit us." She looked to Willow, who nodded. "Maybe....she's it." Everyone looked at the two witches. "You mean you and Tara may have summoned her here?" asked Wesley. "Not on purpose," Willow rushed to assure them. "But Tara's right. Everyone has natural ability, and maybe....ah..." She paused, ducked her head to cover a sneeze. "...sorry!... maybe without realizing it, Mary does too. Maybe she sort of channels it into this Scribing...stuff, and she was willing herself here... and when we started willing her here too--" "Do none of you guys feel creepy about this girl basically saying she's a god?" asked Buffy irritatedly. "If we accept her, we have to accept everything she says about us. Do you really want to believe she... made all of us?" "I don't believe she's quite a god," spoke up Giles. "She may, however, be a very confused magic user, one that has found her way here by accident. She may even be a local." He looked confounded at his own backwards thinking. "I suppose the first thing we should do is find out if she is a resident of Sunnydale." "And that wouldn't be tricky, if we could get her to give us her name," said Willow meekly. Good point. The gang fell silent, resigning. "I suppose the spell she mentioned when she was masquerading as Willow turned up false?" Wesley broke the silence. "I knew it didn't sound familiar," said Tara, modestly proud. Willow smiled at her. "So I guess the million dollar question is, how does she plan to fight the Mayor," said Buffy. "And I'm not totally convinced she wants to fight him at all. It's like talking to one of Hell's cheerleaders." "Or Faith," said Xander. He couldn't seem to stay away from the subject. A look of gloom overtook Buffy's face. "Well, a two year coma isn't going to solve this one," she sighed. "I guess we just set the fire and see if the bridge burns. She's definitely missing a few jigsaw pieces.... but as much as I hate to admit it, Wes is right. She's all we've got." "So who's going to go?" "I will," said Tara, raising her hand. "Y-you guys might need backup." "You can't!" Willow blurted out. Tara looked questioningly at her girlfriend. Usually Willow was complete support girl. "I know," said Willow, only with her stuffed nose it sounded like "I doe. Bud I mean... I've fought de Mayor before. Nod that I don'd thing you could handle id... bud...." Willow looked protectively at her fellow witch/girlfriend. Tara understood, smiling. "But you should stay," she insisted. "You could look up the Slayer Scribes on the net. M-maybe if Mary's world has bled over into this one, there's some clues online. And you've got a cold....." Willow knew this made sense. She thought of Mary, who had described herself as "relating" to Willow the most. "You could look up that stuff," she said. "Ooh, hey! We can keep in touch through walkie talkie. Or maybe... maybe we should both go...." They looked at Xander. "Uh-uh, no way!" Xander held up his hands defensively. "I don't want net detail. Unless it involves looking up certain, uh, electronic eye candy...." A sheepish half-grin worked over his face. The two witches looked at each other. "I'll stay," resolved Tara. They both knew if Xander got to surfing Babeorama.com he'd never get out. "So we're keeping the kitty, then?" spoke a voice from the door. They turned to see Mary Sue grinning at them. "Hey you guys, look at this! Watch!" She stepped aside as three guys -- college interns, looked like -- appeared in the doorway to the magic shop. The Scoobies looked, not understanding. As they watched, the kid on the end turned to the one in the middle and smacked him over the head. The victim retaliated by poking his assailant in the eyes, while the third shot the back of his fist into his companion's stomach. As the boy doubled over, both his pals pounded him on the back of the head, causing him to rear up and punch both of them in the face. Mary Sue was in stitches. The Scoobies looked at each other in horror. "Oh dear God," moaned Buffy, "the fate of the world depends on a Stooge fan." Xander grinned at this common ground he shared with the Scribe. "Hey, uh, Mary, are you seeing anybody right now??"
As the Slayer, the Witch, and the self-described Scribe set off down the sunny streets toward City Hall, Buffy contemplated the girl they were walking next to, the most powerful person in the entire world right now, if her story was to be believed. She certainly didn't look like a goddess, creator, Scribe or whatever name she lent herself. She looked like any of a hundred dozen other kids on the street, no prettier or plainer, no more remarkable or ordinary than anyone else. Almost eerie in her thorough mundanity. Buffy guessed that being a Scribe was the way she felt powerful, the way Willow's witchcraft and computer hacking gave her power. Still, she couldn't quite get it. What kind of person sat there, night after night, illuminated by a computer screen, crafting worlds and people that were at her whim, to build up or destroy? What kind of sicko got off on something like that? She didn't look like a sicko. In fact, right this minute she looked a lot like a kid at Disneyland. She was gasping and pointing and gawking at everything they passed, squealing things like, "Oh, it's the bench!! The bench where Spike told the story about killing the homeless guy! Oh, it's Sun Theater! That's where Faith shot Angel from!!" Buffy cringed, to no one's acknowledgement. "Hey -- that's the street from the zombie attack! Look, there's that one possessed tree, and OH MY GOD THE BRONZE!!" Willow couldn't help smiling at this wacked-out behavior. "I never realized my hometown could be that shriek-inducing," she commented. "Well.... not in the touristy sense, anyway." "We need to keep her on a leash," muttered Buffy, watching as the girl nearly ran out into traffic, gushing over similarly un-spectacular points of interest. "How's the online angle going?" Willow pulled out Giles' cell phone, a loaner in lieu of walkie talkies. She waited, listening for the pick-up. "Hi! Find anything?" "Nothing yet," Xander reported from Giles' back room at the Magic Shop. Nearby, Giles sipped tea while Tara less-than-skillfully surfed the internet. "No, nothing for Buffy.... nothing Slayerly, anyway. We did, however, find some interesting pictures of one Miss Lisa Kudrow." He grinned at the screen. Willow blinked at Buffy. "I don't get it. Never mind.... did Tara find anything under Slayer Scribes?" Xander shook his head, paging through some sheets they'd printed out. "Bunches of D&D sites, several very scary metal shrines, and about a zillion different Doomsday prophecies of every religious denomination. Hey, did you know one of the signs of the Apocalypse is fermenting cheese?" Willow sighed. "Okay, just keep trying, all right?" She beeped off the phone, looking to Buffy. "There's nothing," she reported. Her face froze in a bizarre expression as she attempted to hold back yet another sneeze. "Ah....ah....." Buffy cringed as Will effectively germinated Giles' cellular. "I think you've got yourself a new phone, Will," she noted. During their trek across town Mary Sue's appearance had changed. The mousy girl was gone, although some of her real features had been retained. But Buffy noticed she was taller, shapelier -- and she seemed to have raided Faith's wardrobe. She was now clad in a low cut top with a print of black dahlias all over it, a long black flowing trenchcoat, her hair had darkened and lengthened and was pulled subtly back from her face. Her cheekbones had become sharper and her eyes -- no longer beady, now a color of jade -- were made up vampishly. She looked like Elvira and Martha Stewart had gotten in some kind of nuclear car wreck together. It worked, in a weird way -- Buffy had to admit she looked good. "Nothing like flirting with hundred year old politicians to get what you want," she commented cattily. "Nothing like taking crap from someone who's bonked a two hundred year old corpse," Mary answered, in a rather Faithish voice. Buffy cringed, yet again. "You know, for a god, you're not too sympathetic toward your creations, are you?" she served back. The girl stopped in the middle of the walk, staring Buffy down. "OK, get this right now. Number one, I'm a Scribe -- NOT a god of any kind. Number two, I've got a bone to pick with you. I haven't really been thrilled with you in particular since you stabbed Faith." Buffy couldn't believe the utter hypocrisy of this statement. "Seems to me you should pick a bone with yourself! You're the one who wrote it!" "I didn't write that," said Mary indignantly. "Then who did?" Buffy was confused. "You just got through saying you wrote all of this--" "This is my version," explained Mary. "The real sho--hmm." Her forehead crinkled as she edited herself. "The... original version.... was written by someone else." She was speaking very slowly now, very carefully choosing what she should say. "That's the matrix we wrap our stories around. We follow his lead." "Who's lead?" asked Buffy. Mary Sue shook her head, smiling. "I can't say his name here. I really can't. If I try....it'll be bad. It's really against the rules even to acknowledge the world I come from in here. I can't talk about you out there, and I can't talk about it in here." Buffy was uncomfortable as she followed the girl down the street. "My life, the Fight Club." They turned a corner. "So what exactly is the master death plan you have, Mary?" asked Willow. Mild-mannered though she was, the details of a super-battle never failed to interest her. "Assuming you weren't totally lying to us when you came," Buffy added curtly. "I wasn't." Mary smiled, almost skipping along. She seemed brimming with confidence. "Don't worry, I can handle him fine. You just get me there." Buffy cast a glance back at Willow. Maybe she didn't consider herself to be, but Mary was dangerous. She could make Xander make a fool out of himself, could make all of them do almost anything she wanted. She could even make Buffy do things she wouldn't otherwise do. Buffy had zero confidence in Mary Sue's promise not to pull any tricks, but she also knew there was no other-- Buffy stopped short, startled. Was there no other way? What if even her train of thought, even the thoughts she was thinking this very second, were being controlled by the Scribe? What if she thought there was no other way because Mary Sue was writing it so that there was no other way? "Good question," said Mary. Buffy looked over at the girl, who was peeking back at her out of the side of her eyes. Dangerous. And scary, no doubt about it. Mary Sue giggled. "God, I wish FreakZilla was here. I've been trying to get him to say I'm scary for months." "Are you making me think this?" Buffy ventured, knowing the girl could say anything. Mary sighed. "No. Look, I know this seems scary, but I swear, you're safe with me. In fact, if you listen to the list I'm the most predictable Scribe there is, so you probably won't have much out of the ordinary to even worry about." She offered a self-deprecating smile. Buffy sighed. "Somehow I'm just not flowing over with that warm secure feeling," she said. Mary shrugged. "Hey, you think this is weird? Where I come from, the girl who plays Faith is a Mormon. And the girl who plays you is dating the guy who plays Wesley." She cast a glance over at Willow. Buffy couldn't help smiling at the look of shock on Will's face. "What about me?...the girl who-- plays me?" she asked. "It...is a girl...isn't it?" Well, you never knew, what with all the other strangeness in Mary's world.... But Mary nodded. "Oh, she's dating Freddie Prinze." Buffy's smile faded. Now she was the one with the shocked look. "From... those cheap horror movies?? Oh....ew." Mary seemed about to laugh, but she couldn't. She had stopped in the sidewalk, pinching the bridge of her nose as though suffering from a sudden ice-cream headache. Willow stepped up her pace, looking to Mary with concern. "What is it?" But the Scribe held up a hand. "It's okay--" And indeed, the pain, or whatever it was, seemed to be subsiding. "Ow....forget I said anything. If I talk about the real world too much...." She rubbed her darkly made-up eyes, and the resulting smeared mascara immediately erased itself from her nose and bled up to her eyelid where it belonged. "Let's just say I'm not as powerful there," she said, with a nervous smile. Buffy cast a side glance at Willow. The pain hadn't just been in Mary's head. The minor tremor that had rippled the earth would have been a speed bump to any seasoned California resident, but Buffy had noticed that it occured exactly at the same time as Mary's "headache". Great, Buffy thought -- something else to worry about. They were crossing Daffodil Street, a block down from City Hall. All the streets in Sunnydale were named perky, flowery, birdy names that didn't acknowledge the ugly nightmares that played on them every night. The street that had been full of people moments before were now empty -- strangely deserted for this time of day. School was out, kids should have been walking around, cars should have been going home. Buffy slowed her step and cast precautionary looks around as she realized just how quiet the block suddenly was. Willow noticed too. "Where did everyone go?" she asked. Buffy didn't know. "Keep a look out," she said. In Sunnydale, even a bright sunny day was far from safe. She had met a gang of sun-loving stego-demons at a Founder's Day picnic once.... They turned the corner -- and found themselves boxed in. The street that should have been there was now an alley, and stone walls rose on either side of the street they had to pass through. The top floor of City Hall could be seen over the trees on the street beyond the other end of the alley. The very dark alley. "Good," muttered Buffy. "Way to build tension, Mary." "I didn't do this." Buffy and Willow turned to look at the girl, staring at the alley with a confused look. "This -- this isn't supposed to be here," Mary Sue elaborated. Her brow furrowed, she appeared to be concentrating. Buffy felt her stomach turn slightly, suddenly. "It won't -- oh my God, that's so weird. It won't go away when I tell it to." Mary did not look pleased at all. Buffy reflected that if Mary really was the creator of Sunnydale, and she couldn't keep a handle on her own illusions, they were in sorry shape. "No problem," Buffy sighed. "A dark alley. I've been here before. Just... stay close." With a glance back at them, she led the way into the cool, shaded alleyway. "And don't do that anymore. My breakfast's lurching as it--" The all-too-familiar snarl of vampires cut Buffy off in mid-sentence. The Slayer whirled around to find seven uglies coming out of the shadows toward them. Buffy tensed, almost smiling. "Only seven? Is the city payroll down, or you guys just bored?" "Buffy!" shouted Willow. There were ten more bringing up the rear behind them. The three girls were surrounded. Buffy sized up the situation, forming a battle plan -- she had to somehow clear the path to City Hall, all the while defending her companions. Willow could defend herself...well, sort of, but the rookie Mary was sure to be helpless against several very real-life monsters. Buffy would have to keep the girl alive -- have to, if Mary's claim that her death would result in the world's end was legit. Buffy didn't believe it for a second...but she also didn't feel like testing it out. "Mary, stay in the middle!!" she shouted. The vamp welcoming committee closed in around them, clenching like a fist. "It's okay!" Mary Sue called. "Buffy, he's trying to slow us down, but he won't kill us! Trust me!" "I really don't!" Buffy called back as the first of the vamp attacked. She swung into him with an uppercut and connected with hard bone, feeling it splinter. Her attacker dropped off with a growl of pain and was quickly substituted by another. Willow fended off the vamps with the sharpened baseball bat she'd brought, but was barely keeping herself clear. Mary Sue was immediately backed into a wall by one of the attackers. "Oh... kay.... oh, jeez," she muttered as the soulless monster came at her, his face disfigured by his hunger, his fangs bared, hissing and snarling. "Hey...I bet you're really hungry, huh? You know what? It probably won't be a good idea to bite me, because.... I've got... hepatitus B! Yeah! And... man, you won't be too popular with the ladies when they find that out-- oh, God!!" The vamp had slammed her up against the wall, her sneakers dangling. The Scribe may have been all-powerful, but she was still flesh and blood, a weak human pinned by a predator. She squealed, panicked. "Buffy, help!!" she cried. Buffy was busy. Three vamps were trying to get handholds on her in order to tear her limb from limb. These guys were strong -- unusually strong, even for vamps. She jerked her head in the direction of the pathetic noise. "Mary, do something!!" she shouted. "You're the omniscient one, remember?! Can't you even this up a little?"' Mary Sue didn't look like she could even move. The vampire neared her face toward her neck, drool dripping off its fangs. She froze, terror-stricken. Then... You're the omniscient one. Even it up. Mary's eyes glowed. They turned from green to yellow, glittering goldly. Her brow clenched and furrowed, and fangs sprouted from her mouth. She bared her teeth at the vampire in a vengeful roar.
The vamp was only momentarily startled by this sudden shift in roles. Good enough: his lapse allowed Mary to grab his shoulders and bring her knee up into his crotch. Dead or undead, it still worked: the vamp cringed in pain, and Mary, in a shocking display of strength, planted her hands on either side of his head and snapped his neck. He dropped to the pavement, dead momentarily. Mary Sue, still vamped out, stared at her hands as though she'd never seen them before. "Oh...holy...." she gasped, yellow eyes wide. "Mary!!" Willow yelped. "Little help over here, please?!" Mary looked up at Willow, just barely fending off six uglies. Hopping over the vamp she'd just disabled, she ran toward the melee, grabbing the collar of the first vamp she came to. With vampire strength she punched him, sending him reeling into the wall. Pausing only a second to gawp at what she'd just done, she did it again, hurling the remainders away like dirty laundry. She extracted Willow from the mob and pulled her toward Buffy, who had managed to dispatch the last of her attackers. Together, united, the three girls looked at each other. "Okay?" asked Mary, referring not only to the fight but her status as Trust Girl. Buffy nodded, for the moment. "Okay," she grumbled, and they sprang into action again. They tore a swath through the remaining vampires, Buffy staking, Willow stunning, and Mary tearing away with her vamp strength. The last vamp standing was the one who'd attacked Mary, recovered from his broken neck, he held up a hand in defense as the Slayer neared him. "Wait!" he yelled. Buffy hesistated, stake in the air. "Wait for what, reinforcements?" "No! Just...." The vamp, minus his buddies, was singularly less snarly now. "I'll...the Mayor said if you made it through this, to bring you to him. I-I can take you to him." Buffy shrugged. "Thanks, but we already have a resident helpful vampire." And she staked him, the vamp disintegrating with a roar. She threw her blonde hair back, heaving. "Okay...fine." She looked to the vampiric Mary. "New trick? Or another thing you 'forgot' to mention?" Mary Sue, her face animalistic, let her features melt back into her human face. "It's not what you think," she protested, hands held up. "I'm not a vampire! I just... you said to do something, so I did." "You couldn't have become a Slayer?" Mary shrugged. "Well... you're the Slayer," she said, like that explained everything. "I just kind of automatically.... well, you know I identify with the bad guys," she finished with a sheepish grin. Her eyes, jade-colored once again, darted around. "So...hey, come on, I bet we won't have any trouble getting in now. Let's go!" She bounced on her feet expectantly. Buffy sighed resignedly, turning. "Let's go," she grumbled in agreement. Mary's constant gravitation toward the dark side of the spectrum wasn't making her feel much better about all this. "Those vampires were stronger than your average bear." "Yeah, I know." Mary's unsettled expression deepened. "The Mayor sent them, I'm sure...he's trying to stop us." "You think?" They had arrived on the front lawn of City Hall. They opened the double glass doors and walked right in, no signs of vamps anywhere. "Maybe we got 'em all?" Willow hoped. The secretary in the lobby looked up as the three young women walked in. She glared at them. "You," she snapped at Mary like she knew her. "Go on in, he's waiting. Oh, thanks a lot for the date." The glare on the secretary's pale face was much more severe than it should have been. Only when they were entering the office did Buffy notice the holes on her neck. "What happened there?" Mary Sue looked sheepish. "I killed her." "You killed her?" "In a fiction." The door was pushed open. "She went on a date with him, and he had her killed. I thought it was funny at the... time...." They had entered the office. Mary Sue was struck silent, momentarily sidetracked gaping at the dimly lit, spotless room. Her mouth dropped open in a pink O, staring at the liquor cabinet, the desk, the awards. "Ohhh, God..." she breathed, her eyes tripping over the various spectacles. She looked like a Trekkie who had just walked onto the set of the U.S.S. Enterprise. "There's... oh, and there's--" Her fingers pointed at various things, recognizing everything as if she'd been there a thousand times. She let out a giggle. "This kicks so much ass!!" she gushed, awestruck. Buffy rolled her eyes, about worn thin on the geeky-fan bit. "Yeah, we'll be sure to snag an Olvo-Con 2000 t-shirt later." She cast a tense look around. "So here's the cave, where's the troll?" "There you are." All three girls jumped at the voice.
In a darkened corner of the office, Mayor Wilkins didn't even look up, just kept on with what he was doing. It wasn't a sacrifice, or a ritual, or anything even remotely demonic. He was, somewhat predictably, playing a one-man round of golf. "I knew you were here," he spoke, though it might have been to the ball, "the moment you arrived. Kinda wondered how long it would take you to fight your way over here, Mary Sue." A sinister, amused chuckle rippled through the dim office. "Brilliant alias, by the way. Jill of many names, aren't you? Pandora, CatoNine... someone even called you the First Priestess of Olvocan once, didn't they?" Buffy started to say something. She couldn't. A chill ran through her veins as she realized she and Willow were frozen stiff. Again. Just the way they'd been at the Magic Box. Even if the Mayor hadn't been superhuman, Buffy couldn't reach her stake, couldn't defend herself at all. "I see you've brought me a present," said the Mayor. In front of her, Mary Sue cast a look back, and the smile on her lips wasn't quite friendly. For a panicked moment, Buffy thought for sure they'd been sold out. Mary had brought her here in exchange for going home. It was so obvious. Her mind raced: Willow could unfreeze them, if she hadn't been frozen herself.... "She's my bodyguard." Mary Sue finally said. She turned back to the Mayor. "I figured I'd better bring insurance. I know you won't kill her... not this early in the story." "No, of course not." The Mayor's smile could be heard in his voice. "That wouldn't be in the script, would it?" He groaned as his golf ball rolled contrarily under the desk. "I thought it was too much to hope you'd come for a truce. But as it happens, killing you -- at least you, Mary -- isn't on my agenda today." He straightened with a sigh of disgust. "Do you really have to keep doing that?" "I don't guess so." As if by some unseen under-the-desk alien, the ball came rolling back out. They watched as it rolled happily across the carpet, breaking every law of physics there was, making a wide curve before landing neatly in the cup. "You can't go through with it," said Mary Sue. "Oh, really?" Mayor Wilkins finally turned and looked at them. He all but ignored Buffy and Willow and focused his evil smile on Mary Sue. "You certainly seem afraid that I can. Afraid I'll kill you, even, now why would that be? Don't I have you to thank for all this?" He stepped forward, out of the shadows, toward the Scribe who even in her high heels was head and shoulders shorter than him. She barely looked like a creator, or even a match for him as he drew near, looming over her. "You know I take care of the people who work for me, Mary. What makes you think I wouldn't do the same for you? Unless you went and did something foolish, like.... I don't know.... grew a conscience?" The creases at the corners of his eyes showed as he bared a grin full of teeth at her. Mary Sue didn't answer, somewhat startled at having the heretofore fictional demon lord so close, as real and seemingly solid as she was. He was practically stepping on her toes, but to her credit, she didn't back away. "All that power you gave me suddenly doesn't seem like such a smart idea, does it?" the Mayor teased her. His voice was kindly, but his eyes were glinting with evil, predatory glee. "But you just had to do it. It was just a story, just part of the script. Do you know why you're afraid of me, Mary? And you are afraid -- look at you. You're shaking like Jello." He reached out suddenly and touched her trembling arm. He pulled her forward and leaned in at the same time, almost whispering into her ear, as if sharing a secret. "You do know why, don't you?" he said in a soft, menacing growl. "You're afraid because....I'm not reading from the script anymore." Mary Sue stood stone still as he let her go, backing off. Her eyes were wide as pizzas, her mouth had dropped open. Then she laughed. Actually, she snickered; a loud jittery noise that her hand quickly flew to her mouth to cover. Her giggles rifled through the office like gunshot. The Mayor raised an eyebrow at this unexpected behavior. "Damn....sorry," Mary giggled uncontrollably. "You freak me out when you do that!!" Buffy would have rolled her eyes, had she been able. Mary gulped down her laughter self-consciously. "And when I get scared I get the giggles. No," she finally answered, "no, you're not." She was serious now, her mouth dry. "I'm not making you do any of this. I'm not controlling you.... I can't anymore. And I don't know why." She did indeed sound unnerved about that fact. "Oh, I'll tell you why," Mayor Wilkins offered generously. "Number one, you're on my turf now, young lady. Number two, I'm evil, of course, and number three, you--" he leaned forward again, to make his point "--invited me." He paused, letting that register. "You let me right in. And you know, when you invite evil, it just makes it stronger. I should know." His gaze became hard. "You drove that point home more times than one." "Your wife." Mary nodded, remembering miserably what she'd written. "It was good drama. I'm sorry--" "Don't be sorry!" The Mayor waved his hand, dispelling it all. "Never, never be sorry for inflicting pain, Mary. We're forged by our battles, you know. What doesn't kill you makes you tougher, right? And nothing can kill me. So I must be the toughest old knot on the tree by this time." He uttered an unsettling giggle that was quite loud at this close range. "Why, I'm so tough...I don't even need you anymore." Buffy, in her frozen stance, noted the look of growing horror on Mary's face. The girl was no longer confident and starstruck; she looked like someone who realized things were rapidly falling out of her control. "I'm getting stronger," said the Mayor. "Soon I'll have more power than you can even think, Mary. A little Baptist girl like you." He tilted his head, studying her. "Did you really think you could control me? Having granted me all this? And now you walk in here thinking you can tell me what to do." He shook his head in amusement. "I'll tell you a secret, my dear girl. Your arrival today, at this exact moment, was no accident. You didn't bring yourself here. I brought you." Mary shook her head, trying to kick-start her shocked vocal chords. "N-no... we figured that out already, it was Willow--" "You thought it was Willow." The Mayor's voice suddenly grew sharp. Had she been able to, Buffy would have frowned. She had dealt with the evil politician enough to know that he was not acting the way he usually did. Normally he was all jokes and charm, but today he was darker... angrier. "And now you know what thought did," the Mayor added. With a final smirk he finally stepped away, giving Mary some breathe space. He walked across the room, casting them all a glare. "You see, I do remember dying in that explosion -- yes, the one Buffy and her little friends staged. That's what you call 'canon' universe, isn't it? I was dead, kids. Kaput. Gone." He snapped his fingers. "And then... along comes Mary." An unhealthy grin tore across his face. "You... beautiful, brilliant, fabulous girl, you brought me back!" He laughed, tickled pink at the look on her face. "You created a world where my Ascension would succeed. But what you didn't know -- now don't feel bad, you couldn't have known -- was that one of the reasons I chose Olvocan as my incarnation was for the knowledge. When I changed, I gained absolute consciousness. Of everything." His eyes narrowed on her. "Everything, Mary. All universes. The 'canon' one... this one... the ones your friends create. The other ones that you created." His last sentence was heavy with underlying meaning. Mary Sue was already looking quite scared, but after a few moments of confusion, her eyes went even wider and her hands flew to her mouth in a gasp. "Oh God--!" Buffy didn't like the way this sounded. Mary was standing there frozen, like she'd run over a puppy. The Mayor's eyes were icy on her. "Yes sir," he said softly, making sure she had it. "Including THAT one." "Which one?" Willow asked. Buffy looked at her, realizing they were unfrozen, allowed to move by the Scribe's break in concentration. No one bothered to answer. The Mayor just stood there, not taking his glare off the cringing girl. "That really wasn't a very nice thing to do to me, Mary. Or to Faith, for that matter." His mouth was set in a stern frown, but his glittering eyes belied how very much he was enjoying the girl's horror. "I'll never be able to use the word kitten again. By the way, I've been curious....just why IS it called a Scarlet Butterfly, anyway?" Buffy's creme tan was rapidly becoming a shade of pale. The term was familiar...she and Riley had tried it twice. "Oh.... I... really don't want the mental image I have right now," she moaned, her stomach turning. Mary was shaking her head now, hands still covering her mouth. One foot stepped back, she wanted to back away, to run. The worst part of writing the Mayor was that she knew in detail what he could do when his wrath was stirred -- and if what she'd made him and Faith do to each other wasn't a wrath-stirrer, nothing was. "It was a mistake," she finally got out, her voice trembling. "It was a lark -- a-a stupid prank, these friends in the group dared me, I didn't-- I swear--" The Mayor was nodding exaggeratedly. "Oh, I know," he agreed, dripping sarcasm. "I understand completely, Mary. I know why kids do these things. You want to fit in, do what everyone else is doing. If that means putting people in compromising positions -- people you don't even know, no less -- if that helps you keep your little computer friends, heck--" "Oh, God." Mary looked like she would have cringed into her knees if it were possible. Her clutching hands covered her eyes in anxiety. "Oh God, God...." The Mayor clucked his tongue. "There, there," he soothed her, seemingly all charm again. "It's not as bad as all that! I'm a forgiving guy. I'll tell you what, it just means you owe me one." His eyes sparkled. "I don't think I need to tell you what it is I want, do I?" Mary shook her head. "No," she pleaded. He went on anyway. "I want it all," he told her. Like he was giving measurements for a new tailored suit. "I'm going to be, for lack of a better word, God. And you're going to help." "I won't," she insisted. He grinned at that. "Why do you think I wanted the Ascension, Mary? To be a big snake? My God, what's the point?" He made a face. "Do you think I was looking forward to being changed into something that....ugh, slimy? No sir! The crackerjack prize was the power. Getting my fingers in all those pies, so to speak. I used to be an explorer, don't you know! All those uncharted planes out there just waiting for me to come along -- and take them. Take yours, for example." The ominous double meaning wasn't lost on her. "The 'real' world, as you think of it. How did you put it?" The Mayor held out his hand and a leather bound volume appeared in a wash of magic, opened to the middle of the book. "Let's see," he murmured, paging through it, searching. "Ah, here we are. 'He became omnipotent, as perfect in a way as the angels. Becoming a demigod, he was privy to the infinite secrets of the universe, and thereby much more dangerous and terrifying than he had been as a mere human spellcaster. He began making gruesome tributes in hopes they would summon the Gate, which would--" "--help him navigate the barbed path between the varied and far-flung worlds," Mary Sue whispered the words along with him, recognizing her own writing. "Yes." Mayor Wilkins tilted his head at the book. "That's lovely prose, by the way. If a bit flowery. You really oughta watch your adjectives." She was staring wide eyed at the book. "That's the story I've been writing." "Sure is." He closed the book with a snap. "History of the world, part one. You like Mel Brooks?" Mary looked up at him, sick. "You mean -- that's how you did it?? God, I didn't have a plan for that whole summon-a-deity thing, I just wrote it because it sounded good. Like something you'd do." She couldn't believe it. "That's how you...just because I wrote that loophole? That was the gate?!" He nodded solemnly. "You're the last piece of the puzzle, Mary. These past two years, all I've been able to do is what you've let me do. Sacrifice, eat.... perform rituals. I've been trying to bring you over this whole time. And now that you're finally here....." his grin widened "....you have no power over me." "That's not true," she croaked. "You think? Let's see. Buffy?" As if running on batteries, Buffy's legs moved against her will, one in front of the other, toward the pair. "You say I can't kill her, not this early in the story?" the Mayor asked, watching Mary's face. His hand shot out suddenly. Buffy uttered a gasp as something hit her in the chest like a gunshot. Hot liquid fire flooded into her breast, it felt like all her innards pressed together. She looked down to see the Mayor's hand, thrust into her chest up to his wristwatch. He was a being of thought, and not solid. "But I can make parts of myself solid," he affirmed. "Right now she's feeling fingers clutching her beating heart like a baby bird, bands of steel tightening around the chambers, squeezing out the blood." Every vein in Buffy's body bulged as the Mayor tightened his grip on her vital organ, toying with her, controlling her heartbeat. The Slayer couldn't do a thing to help herself. Her hands clutched at his wrist and went through empty air. If she moved an inch in any direction it would pull her heart out of place and she'd die....not that she wasn't about to anyway. "You really ought to stop me, Mary," the Mayor looked to her with a nasty leer. "I don't think even a Slayer can take this for long. Where's that all-powerful will you were talking about?" Mary Sue had gone dead pale, looking from his hand to Buffy's anguished face. "Stop it," she commanded. The Mayor laughed, that annoying hyena giggle. And then he squeezed. Buffy sealed her lips shut, determined not to give him the satisfaction of her screaming. It hurt, though --worse than she thought anything could hurt, as she felt gallons of hot blood burst through her chest cavity and flood her lungs. She could feel his fingers wiggling through the torn pieces of her heart, and all she could see through her red-hazed vision was the ceiling tile as she fell to the floor, dead.
".....because I said so, that's why," was the next thing she heard. Buffy opened her eyes. She sucked in her breath, fingers clutching her pounding chest. She coughed, temples pulsing with the blood rushing through them. Everything was tinged red. Her skull pounded; she felt like she'd run a triathlon after a straight month of training. Her heart was slamming in her chest, and she could hear its beat in her ears over the rush of blood, but it was indeed, thankfully, once again beating. A red Mary Sue and Willow stood over her. Mary's face was damp and pale, breathless herself. "As of right now," she answered a question that Buffy hadn't been able to hear through her rushing ears. "She's my champion and as the creator of this whole entire universe I say she doesn't die yet! That's my rule! The end!" The Mayor was boredly wiping his hand, the one that had squashed Buffy's heart like a rotten apple. There was no blood, since it had stayed in Buffy's chest when he'd pulled his existless hand free, but there was dampness nonetheless. He rolled his eyes. "You know, I'll just kill her again," he offered playfully. It was like a game to him, a life size chess game. Mary emitted a sigh, waving her hand in the air. "You keep killing her, and I'll keep bringing her back, and we'll have fun for a while, but it won't get us anywhere." She looked down, and a brief flicker of concern crossed her face. "You okay, Buffy?" Buffy got to her feet, still breathless, but angry nonetheless. "Yeah, I'm good," she snapped. "I love being squeezed to death." Ordinarily she would have waited to regroup, but all the blood wasn't getting to her brain at the moment. Going with her gut instinct for once, Buffy launched herself at Mayor Wilkins, ready to plant her stake right through his forehead if she had to. But she never made it. "Ah-ah-ah," the Mayor spoke. And Buffy found herself frozen again, in mid-air. Her sneakers weren't touching the floor. Willow had escaped notice, possibly by keeping quiet for so long. The young Wiccan had only moved across the room when Buffy had fallen. Now she stood a little behind the Mayor, who seemed not to see as she edged toward him. Her slim hand was half raised, and her nose was wrinkled oddly. Mary watched as Willow leaned very close to Mayor Wilkins at the last second and let one go. "Ah-CHOOOO!!!" Silence. The Mayor looked over his shoulder, which the young witch had just sprayed with millions of cold germs. He looked vaguely irritated, but not freaked out the way they'd hoped. "Oh, honestly...." He waved his hand, and Willow was frozen as well, her hands covering her face. He didn't even offer her a hanky, though he did reuse the one in his hand to clean the schmutz off his suit. "Well, I give you points for ingenuity, Willow, but really....what kind of demigod would I be if I hadn't erased all phobias from my psyche?" He uttered a light giggle, taking a moment to look the redhead over. "Willow, Willow.... you know, in some of those worlds out there, it's you that joins me, not Faith. Very charming, the way I step in for your neglectful parents, teach you all the ropes of 'down n' dirty black magic'." He turned to face her, looking into her large green eyes. "You'd have liked that, wouldn't you? Learning things Mr. Giles never would have taught? It's not too late, you know. You ever want to go beyond moving coke machines from point A to point B, you just give me a call." The idea gave Buffy the chills. Willow and the Mayor.... she was so in love with her magic, so excited when she got a spell right, and she always did get mad at Giles for not teaching her more. At the same time, Buffy thought of how much Willow had grown in her magic, even this past year. With Tara at her side, they had progressed past wannabe Wicca and into the darker, more dangerous spells. They could actually be a match for anything the Scoobies had, and if Willow ever did switch sides.... Buffy felt bad, even questioning for a minute whether or not Willow could be tempted to the black hats. Willow wasn't Faith. Still....... The Mayor had turned his sneering gaze from the witch, refocusing on the Scribe. He didn't even really seem to consider the others that interesting. "Now tell me, Mary, what happened there?" He folded his arms, waiting for her explanation. Mary Sue had watched the girls' attacks with huge eyes, not knowing what she could do to help. Her glance flicked back and forth between the two. "I--" she started timidly. "Louder," the Mayor barked. "I don't know," she repeated, louder. She looked to Buffy. "I couldn't stop him," she said helplessly. "I tried... I really did. I couldn't make him stop killing you. I can undo what he does, but that's all." But she didn't even look sure of this statement. She was the one who'd frozen Buffy and Willow before, and her concentration was scattery. But now the spell was being cast by the Mayor. He was much more experienced with magic. There would be no chance for Buffy to break free due to any slip in his concentration. "That's right." He nodded, all business now. "I'm a sporting man, Mary Sue, so I'll give you a choice. You join my team and help me out with my little project here. Or, you tell me what you think would be the most painless way to die." His voice hadn't changed. His face hadn't either, but his eyes settled chillingly on her as the silence fell. "Of course, whether or not I'll actually do it painlessly...." The grin that broke over his face was awful in its cheeriness. Mary couldn't believe this. "What are you, nuts?!" she blurted out. "I gave you an empire, for God's sake! Why do you wanna kill me?!" The Mayor shook his head. "Mary, Mary.... quite contrary, heh.... I know you're a Pisces, dear, but try to be practical for just a sec, will you? You and I are the most powerful people in this world right now. The Slayer doesn't worry me half as much as you do. If you don't join me, that makes you a threat, and I have to eliminate you." He shook his head, and he almost looked convincingly sorry. "Now, I don't want to do that. You know I don't like doing things the messy way. But if you don't want to be friends....." Mary Sue looked thunderstruck. She clearly had never counted on her pet creation suddenly turning against her. Her dropped jaw closed, she swallowed, almost audibly. "You can't kill me," she said in a dry voice. "Really. Tell me why." Well, she certainly wasn't going to tell him why. He didn't know -- or for that matter, maybe he did -- that killing her would mean destroying the universe that Sunnydale rested in. He was invincible -- such destruction would leave him unscathed. Or maybe it wouldn't, but that wasn't the point. He thought he couldn't be destroyed. And knowing him, he might just think the annihilation of the universe would be pretty darn neato. Mary licked her lips, finding her weapon. "Because I know you," she answered finally. "It wouldn't be any fun." "Not for you, anyway!" he grinned. "Not for you, either." She shook her head, actually smiling. "You've never just killed anybody. You always play with them first. You win their trust, their hope. You mess with their heads as much as you can, you mess up their soul if possible. And then, just when you've won them, just when they've put all their trust in you.... then you kill them." Buffy couldn't believe it but Mary looked almost excited describing the Mayor's psycho personality traits. Her eyes were actually sparkling. "That scares me," she went on. "I'm always getting the wrong end of that, and I thought if I could understand how you do it, maybe I'd be able to....or at least I'd be able to protect myself the next time someone tries it on me...." She paced before him, like she was the one doing the stalking. "Plus, I'm too valuable," she added. "Sure, I'm your number one threat now. But I could be your best ally. Look, you've already got me on your side. I didn't start writing you for no reason. I l-like you." She stopped pacing as her eyes gazed up at him. Buffy watched as her verneer shimmered, her clothes became a little more attractive, trying to win him over. She was pulling out all the stops, bargaining for her life. "So, look....let me go home, and I'll....I can write you becoming even more powerful than you are now. No, you can't have all the universes, but....you'll own this one. You'll be king of the world." Buffy's whole body burned in violent opposition. She couldn't believe this -- actually, she could; it was crazy Mary talking after all -- but still, some part of her had held out hope that the Scribe wasn't as unhinged as she seemed. Now there was no doubt: Mary was ready to sacrifice the world as they knew it, just to save her own ass. Buffy was really, really beginning to wish she'd staked first and asked questions later. "But Mary," the Mayor pointed out in a mocking whine, smiling sweetly at her, "I already AM king of the world." Mary blinked, realizing he was right. She was down to her trump card. "I can wake Faith." That did get him. The Mayor stopped smiling. "That's one thing you haven't been able to do," Mary went on. "Not with magic, not with doctors. She's been in that coma for two whole years, ever since graduation. I've been keeping her that way." She leaned forward. "You kill me, she'll never wake up." The Mayor contemplated this, the tip of his tongue darting thoughtfully over his lips. Buffy watched his expression closely -- she couldn't really help it, hanging in the air with nothing to do. For some reason, where nothing else had worked, Mary's threat about Faith had hit a nerve. Somehow the tables had turned, and he found himself on the wrong side of the bargain. He didn't like that. "I see," he said, seeming to come to a conclusion. "Tricky little so-and-so, aren't you?" Buffy watched Mary's shoulders slump, relaxing somewhat. "All right then," the Mayor summarized, folding his arms again. "You want to go home, but I won't let you. I want my universal monopoly -- sounds like a board game, doesn't it? -- but you won't give it to me. I want Faith back, but you won't wake her until I give you.... what?" He gazed at her, waiting. Mary's glossed lips pursed. "You know what I want," she whispered softly. Buffy watched the two of them, standing toe to toe, inches apart, gazing into each other's eyes. Oh God -- her stomach lurched, as she prayed for the first time since Sunday school that Mary didn't mean what Buffy thought she meant. The Scribe was one sick puppy, but even she couldn't be sick enough to-- "Let me go," Mary whispered. The Mayor smiled. "We've been here, Mary. You're not going home. Not until you--" "I don't mean send me back." Now Buffy understood. Mary didn't just want to be released from this universe -- but from him. He must have had some kind of mental hold on her that compelled her write in the first place. She was asking him to break that hold. The Mayor stared at the girl, the tiny human he ordinarily could have reduced to flames with a flick of his hand. Now he had only one power over her, and he used it. "No," he said cruelly. "Please." Mary looked desperate as he got up and walked past her, to the famous voodoo liquor cabinet. "I can't do this anymore. It's too much." He opened the cabinet, tossing her a look. "Well, you should have thought about that when you started. You can't stop now." "I can't keep going!" She followed him doggedly across the floor. "You don't know what it's like! You write one good story, a-and it's a fluke. Then people think you can do that all the time and they want more. But you can't write anymore, because you tripped that one out in the first place. Now I've got all these stories I can't do justice to and all these people waiting for endings that I can't write...because... I'm not that good." She looked miserable. "They all think I'm good. I don't know why....but I can't keep it up. They'll find me out in the end." She looked scared. "I don't want to be around for that." The Mayor had taken out one of his lucky shrunken heads. He was doing that nodding listening thing he did when he was leading someone on. "You're telling me all this like I'm not the bad guy," he pointed out. Mary's eyes rolled up wearily. "Look.... why did you even pick me?" she asked. "I'm not even the best Scribe. You should have picked someone like FreakZilla, he's way better--" "Hey, hey now!" Now the Mayor was almost sympathetic. "Don't sell yourself short like that! Bad self esteem won't get you anywhere, young lady. Besides, I don't need Ernest Hemingway... just someone sympathetic to my cause. I considered your Mr. FreakZilla. He's too blinded with love for my Faith." He shrugged concedingly. "Can't say I blame him.... but he wouldn't have been much use to me, would he? You, on the other hand...." He grinned at her. "No, you won't be going anywhere, little miss kitty. You're the only one out there rooting for me!" "I know!" Her eyes were wet. "I'm the only one, you know? It's really hard channeling all this evil and revenge and anger.... it's taking over my life." She ran her fingers absently over the dusted shelf, tracing the notches where he'd marked off days til the Hundred Days. "It's scaring me. Sometimes I think I'm turning into something evil just by writing about it." "Sounds like fun." "You have no idea." She shook her head, fiddling with a glass/crystal/staff/thing. "Please... I know you have some niceness left in you.... I put it there. Please just let me go." She gazed pleadingly up at him through mascaraed eyes. The Mayor pulled the crystal staff out of her fingers, shaking his head paternally. "Boy, you just can't take no for an answer, can you? Why do you want to leave so badly? You just got here!" "I can't live here!" "Why not?" He offered the question thoughtfully. "You said it yourself, Mary. You're calling the shots now. You could be my best ally. I'll tell you what..." He left the cabinet, walked back to his desk where Willow stood holding her nose and Buffy hung in the air like an angel. He sat down on the edge of the desk, as if in thought. "Tell you what I envision here. First, you wake up Faith. Then you write off the Slayer and her little friends for me." "Write...them off--" "Kill them." He watched her face as he said this. "However you like, quickly, slowly....painfully. I know you want to, Mary. And then--" he added, as she was about to protest, "then....you get to stay." He paused, letting his words sink in. "Stay here, in your Sunnydale, in your story. Forever." Mary considered. "You'll destroy it. You'll destroy me." "I won't." He shook his head. "I'll spare you. Think about it, Mary. You're a very smart, bright girl, but you suddenly find you've become a god overnight and you haven't got the faintest idea what to do with all that power, do you? I'll tell you what to do....give it to me." His luminous eyes started glinting. "You relinquish that power to me, and I'll treat you like my daughter. Like Faith. You'll be sisters. Now come on, tell me you've got a better story than that, huh?" The conversation sounded uncomfortably like what Buffy imagined the Mayor's first conversation to Faith must have been like. The thought turned her stomach. Mary actually looked like she was considering it. "Then what?" she asked. The Mayor blinked. "Excuse me?" Mary shrugged. "Then what?" she repeated. "You'd have all the power, you'd have no adversaries, no real challenges...the world would be yours and everything would be perfect. That's just... dull." "Dull," repeated the Mayor. "Yeah!" Mary shrugged. "I mean, what would you do every day? Who would you fight? What, would you just fly around eating vamps for kicks?" She came back to the desk, approaching him. "You need an enemy, you need a Buffy or a....somebody, something to challenge you. Otherwise you'd be boring." She looked almost sad for him. "I don't ever want to see you get boring." The Mayor just stared at her. Like he couldn't figure her out. He sat back on the desk, uttering a slight laugh. "Boy.... you are a puzzle, you know? You don't want money, you don't want power... what is it you do want? Really? Name it, I'll give you anything. The wildest thing you can dream up." Mary looked exasperated. "I told you before! I want you to let me go!" The Mayor looked like he might consider it. Then... a slow, knowing smile spread over his lips. "No you don't," he said. "Not really. You say that because you lack imagination, but I.... can fix that. How would you like to be...a better writer?" His face lit up expectantly like he'd suggested going to the circus to a small child. Mary's brow furrowed, once again thrown. "I mean it," the politician went on. "How would you like to be doing what your friend FreakZilla does? Writing the kind of things he writes? How would you like to have everybody thrilling to your skill as a dramatist, or comedian, or satirist....I can give you all that, Mary. You'll be the greatest writer ever to come out of the barn. It won't be a trick, no cheats--" he gently tapped her forehead "--it'll all come out of here. All your own ideas. You'll get to write exactly what you've always wanted, and you'll do it so brilliantly that all those wannabe hacks will be taking razors to their wrists at the mere mention of your name. How's that sound?" Buffy didn't like this. Because Mary Sue was looking as though she thought it sounded pretty damn good. It was a terrible feeling, knowing no matter how hard you worked, you would never get much better than you were now, for the simple fact that your brain didn't work the same way as other people's. Yes, being unique was good. Yes, her viewpoint was special. She didn't give a crap about special. Everyone else seemed so much more capable and smarter, and she often thought if she just had a few more points of IQ, or just a little bit more guts..... "You'll have all that," he promised. "There's only one problem, Mary. I can't do it outside this world. You'd have to stay here. Forever." Mary Sue glanced at Buffy, and then at Willow, both of whom would die depending on what she chose right now. It didn't seem like much of a price, at the same time, it was a terrible bargain. Two lives in exchange for unlimited power. "You can't do that," she scoffed weakly. "I certainly can!" The Mayor sneered at Mary's disbelief. "I've eradicated all the weaknesses you gave me, even the ones that Mr. Almighty Upstart stuck me with. Come on, Mary, what have you got waiting for you back home? Huh? A job you hate? Pushing pencils at that bank of yours? Waiting for your next paycheck, knowing you've spent it already, and knowing no matter how hard you try to get ahead or what fantastic things you dream up it's all for naught, my dear." He reached out and touched her arm kindly. Mary Sue looked startled, as he went on. "You can go back. I could send you home right now. You could also get in a car wreck tomorrow and die. Now--" he held up a hand "--don't get nervous, that's not a threat." The mere fact that he said so instantly made it one. "I'm just saying, for the sake of argument.... you died. Your family would miss you, of course. Maybe a couple of your internet friends would be sorry they lost a pen pal." Suddenly he snickered, violently. "Oh, let's face it, none of them would even know you're gone. How could they? Who'd get online and tell them? I mean even if something so horrible happened to you that it made national headlines, how would any of your little computer friends even know it was you? Pandora?" The earth beneath the building they stood in trembled, ever so slightly. Mary was frozen, eyes shining. "Just one more pseudonym. One more false name that drops off the virtual stage -- maybe for a week, maybe forever. Happens every day. And nobody gives it much thought, do they? Do you?" He waited, gazing at her. "Why, you'd be lucky if anyone even noticed. And the real you -- the one that wrote, the one that made all this -- would be dead and gone and you'd be hard pressed to find anybody who would even care." Mary shook her head, swallowing. "That's not....I'm a writer, I've got--" "Fans, I know." He nodded. "How'd you get them, Mary? Borrowed someone else's toy? Put on a few extra parts? In the end, what did you do that was so special? Who's going to remember a year, five years, ten years from now? Do you think anything you've done will last that long?" He shook his head in sympathy, his voice low and soft. "My God, you must get depressed. I certainly would. You work so hard, it feels so real, but at the end of the day... all your dreaming doesn't count for anything out there in the real world. Not a darn thing." Mary Sue was crying. Quiet, ashamed tears spilled down her cheeks as she heard the words she had repeated to herself many times, albeit in secret, in near-subconscious voices she dared not pay much attention to for fear they were true. Her vampish, sultry facade frayed and crumpled away, leaving rabbity hair and plain, pathetic features. The Mayor produced a clean handkerchief from his coat pocket and offered it to her, a comforting tsk-tsk expression on his face. Buffy wanted to throw up. "Mary, don't listen to him!" she burst out. The Mayor and Mary Sue both turned. Buffy blinked, realizing not only was she able to move and speak, but that her ankle hurt a lot from suddenly landing on the floor out of her frozen stance. The Mayor must have forgotten all about her and Willow, they were allowed to move again. Buffy looked to the witch. "The freeze spell! Do it, Will!" Willow looked briefly panicked, but she blurted out something in Latin anyway. Her hand went to her serape, but whatever she wanted wasn't in there. Seeing the Mayor's hand go up, the redheaded witch changed gears and belted out another foreign phrase, seconds before whatever whammy the Mayor had left his hands. Nothing happened. Buffy and Willow looked at each other. "Oh, fudge," grumbled the Mayor. It was a nullifying spell. The freeze ray was void, for the moment anyway. It was good enough. Buffy looked to Mary, the only real shot they had at busting out of here. "Mary, don't listen to him, he's a power freak! He'll say anything to get what he wants!" "You think I don't know that?!" Mary turned on Buffy angrily. Her eyes were watery, her cheeks red with shame. "I've been writing him for the past year, I can tell when he's bullshitting someone!" She turned back to the Mayor. Her expression was utterly hopeless. "The thing is.... I can't argue with him. He's right. I mean, none of it really matters--" "It does matter." Buffy knew she would have to talk fast. "It matters... it matters to us," she admitted. If accepting that they were products of Mary's imagination would save their lives, Buffy was all for it. Sign her up for the church of Mary Sue consciousness. "Remember, you said if you die, this whole world dies. If you give up your power to the Mayor, we're all dead meat!" "I don't know what's worse," Mary Sue muttered, wiping her nose on the hanky. "Being a dead somebody or being a live loser." "You're not a loser!" Buffy tried to put all her conviction into that. "You're a great powerful Scribe, remember? You have to go back, you have to finish the story!" "You don't have to go back, Mary," The Mayor's hand had gone to her dull hair, brushing her damp bangs out of her eyes soothingly. "You don't owe these kids anything. You didn't choose them. You chose me." He beamed at her. "Just everybody's bad luck that it's you calling the shots, huh?" Yeah, where's FreakZilla when we need him, thought Buffy darkly. She squashed that thought out of her consciousness; if Mary Sue heard her wishing for another Scribe, she'd throw in with the Mayor all the way. Buffy wasn't about to lose another friend to the dark side. Losing Faith was bad enough. "No one out there needs you, Mary." The Mayor was gazing intently into the girl's face. "I, on the other hand, desperately need you. I need your talents. I'm offering you everything your precious real world can't afford and wouldn't give you anyway." "Mary, listen to me," insisted Buffy. But the Mayor's voice, silky as it was, was so much louder. "You throw in with me and we'll make that world of yours worth living in," he tempted her quietly. Suddenly there came a beeping noise. Willow, for a panicked moment, thought Tara and Xander had picked the worst time to call -- but then she realized it was her wristwatch, which she'd gone straight out and bought after the lack of one had resulted in that scary incident with Faith and her knife. The Mayor looked down at his own watch, face lighting up. "Aha. Well." He looked up at them with a beam. "I guess I've detained you girls long enough." Buffy didn't understand. "Detained? We--" She stopped, glancing down at her own watch. It was quarter to noon. What went on at noon? She cast Mary a look, and what was becoming a familiar feeling -- a sinking pit of dread -- settled in her stomach. The Mayor was nodding. "Yes, I really didn't expect you so soon this morning. You took a lot less time to get through my boys than I thought you would. Had to stall for time." His beam settled on Mary. "The conditions for the Portal to open will occur at exactly noon today. And, my dear Scribe, I'm afraid you're going to help me, one way or the other. I don't need you willing....I just need you there." He smiled sweetly at her. "So I guess I'll just have to pen you in for lunch." His fist slammed against his desk. The floor beneath Mary and Willow and Buffy's feet dropped away. And darkness followed.
The young man stood alone in the white, antiseptic room. Less substantial than a ghost, the cool air drifting through his invisible form, he watched the girl in the bed. It was different here. The first noticeable difference was the flowers. They were everywhere, baskets and vases full; piled on tables, sitting in the window, even lined neatly on the floor around her bed, and some of the blooms looked more than a little unearthly. A few had begun to wilt, but their tenders were watchful, and most were neat and fresh, with mini foil balloons and teddy bears tucked in. All had the same sender's name on the tags. It was kind of ironic, thought the boy: he himself had no flowers for the sleeper, and he worshipped her. But his world, the way he ran it, dictated that no admirers bring her flowers during her sleep, the better to illustrate her isolation. She had no admirers in his world. He felt bad. This strange universe was distinctly less centralized around the sleeper -- in fact, the girl before him would be a completely different person from the one he was familiar with. His world, the one he had crafted and carefully cultivated, revolved around her. This world didn't. But this girl was at least allowed to have flowers. He stood, gazing at her, analyzing every line of her face, her feral beauty obvious even in deep sleep. Another change: this girl was washed, well cared for. Her long brown hair had been trimmed recently, her eyebrows were neatly plucked. Someone had even thought to pay for a manicurist to come in and do her nails. A hideous Pepto-Bismol pink color ended every one of them. This was a strange situation, no doubt about it. As many times as he had fantasized about meeting her.... somehow, he'd never pictured it quite like this. Of course, the chances of his actually ever meeting her were slim to nil to begin with, it was only the bizarre flukes happening lately which allowed him to be here now. And he knew it could have just as easily been one of the others. The Circle he was part of had several powerful Scribes, all of whom had their own finely tuned worlds... all of which were in danger now, because of what the Novice was attempting. The boy rolled his eyes. What could she have been thinking? To choose a villain like Mayor Wilkins III as her charge was peculiar... but then all the Scribes were peculiar that way. Eccentricity ran rampant among creative folk. But to leave the Circle... that was wedged right next to leaving the mafia. Worse, because what they did was so deeply threaded in theirs and each others minds. The Scribes and their followers might be separate, but they were sewn together by what they crafted, it formed their very lives. For her to break that -- for her to be crazy enough to want to break it -- it was almost suicide. Then again, she was the Novice for a reason. Maybe that's what she had in mind. The boy sighed, resolving to stop her. He didn't, truly, have much choice in the matter -- his arrival here had been sudden and completely unwilled. He had gotten his bearings fairly quickly though, realized where he was, what was happening, and most importantly...whose help he would need. He cast a wistful look around at the sleeper's lonely room, funereal with all its floral arrangements. She was much too good for this -- but in a sick way he was awed, even thankful at being allowed inside "the" room... this sacred private place of sleep. Well, part of him was awed....part of him was scared crapless at being face to face with this girl -- this goddess -- who, if she were in anything resembling her former glory might not even be pleased to see him....who might, were she awake and aware, even kill him..... The young man swallowed hard. He stepped forward. She liked confidence. "Well....hi, I guess," he ventured. "I know I don't know you...." He wavered, starting over. "Actually, that's not true," he recanted. "I know you pretty well....better than I know me, sometimes. I don't know how much you understand in there, how much she's letting you.... but I think you know I'm here. I think you know everything." He shifted position, coughed once. "I think you know who I am, why I've come... and that if I wanted to, I could just take what I'm going to ask you for." He paused. "You should know that if I don't take this, I won't be able to help her. And I think you know.... if I fail trying to help her, it's....it'll be bad. Wicked bad." He grinned self-consciously. "I don't know if you even care, at this point. I think you ought to, for what it's worth. I want to see you go on." In the bed, the girl slumbered on, unresponsive. The young man bowed his head. He was not in his own element, his rules wouldn't work here. This was not his world. He wished with all his heart it was. This girl wouldn't be laying here brain-dead to the world, that was for damn sure. If it was his world.... ....But of course, if it was his world none of this would be happening in the first place. He had to respect that. If he ever wanted to see his own world again -- if he wanted to live to create any more worlds -- he had to deal with her place. Her rules. Nutty as they were. He thought hard, trying to think of a real convincer. "If I don't help her, your....boss...is going to hurt for it. Probably die." If he knew anything about this world, the way its creator's mind worked, that should be certain to stir the sleeping girl. "He's taken care of you the past two years. He's never stopped. Look--" The boy closed his eyes and tried to project a vision; an image of all the baskets surrounding her, the bright colors of the flowers. He hated this. He didn't have much respect for her "employer"; as far as he was concerned it was just as much Wilkins' fault she was lying here as anyone's. But the sleeping dark Slayer would like this, would want to see the offerings, would be more likely to help, having seen them. The boy felt disgusted with himself. He was manipulating her, showing her only what he needed her to see. Just like everyone else did. He pulled out of the vision, resuming his respectful stance. "All of these are reasons I'm asking for your help," he said. "And I am asking. I won't just take it out of you, like she does....even if you refuse." Silence. The girl in bed was not the powerful, deadly, screw-all Slayer he knew so well. But he stood, head bowed, and he made the only offering he knew how to make. He shut his eyes, whispering the words like a prayer. "You're the only one left who can help me, Faith. You are my faith. Please help me." The room was stark, clean, and silent. Neither bed nor boy moved. Then a soft glow began to radiate from the girl's sleeping form. A half-halo of light formed over her grey face, hovering there, gathering strength, floating teasingly. The young man cracked his eyes open, watching the light play off the walls in awe. And then it exploded without a warning, shooting straight toward him.
"It's all my fault," whispered Mary Sue. Buffy half-listened to the girl's self-pity as she waded the perimeter of the dungeon, looking for some way out. The trapdoor had dropped them into a bizarre dark cellar-chamber, the floor of which was completely covered in nearly two feet of squeaking, multicolored plastic animals. Ducks, doggies, kitties, and other chew-toys had broken their fall, and after gawking in stupefied awe at what the evil Mayor had in his basement, the girls had started looking for a way out, their every move setting off a flood of squeaks. At least, Buffy had started looking. Mary Sue seemed to have had the legs kicked out from under her by the Mayor's brutal verbal attack. She was hunched silent on top of a small mountain of squeakies, hands knotted on top of her knees, looking as though the world was about to end. Which of course, it was, but still, there was no excuse... Willow had taken it upon herself to make the young Scribe feel better. "Y-you know, when I was a kid, I used to write too. Well -- not anything show-offable, but I had this one? It was about these ants that were living in this flowerbox outside our house. I had a whole story where I shrunk down to their size and they'd take me for rides on their backs and they'd talk and sing and dance." She smiled at the simple childhood memory. Mary looked wearily at the young witch, tried to smile too. "How did it end?" she asked. Willow's smile faded. "Oh, my mother...well, actually, she called in an exterminator and kind of put the kibosh on the visual aids," she fumbled. "And... gee, you know, maybe that wasn't the best story for me to tell...." Mary suffered a grim smile. "Ants in a flowerbox." She nodded slowly, and then she seemed to forget to stop. "No... that's appropriate, Willow. Very appropriate." She sighed miserably. "You have no idea how much I enjoy being compared to a mindless worker bug," Buffy couldn't help interjecting. "The difference between them and us is I'm not waiting to be exterminated. Will, call Giles and tell him to come down here. Tell him maximum armor, maximum stealth mode." "Um...." Willow fingered the cell phone. "...no offense, but... what good is it gonna do to get them here? The Mayor will see them coming a mile away and--" "--And at least they'll know what to expect," Buffy pointed out. "Call and brief. Mary--" She sighed at the girl, huddled in the corner. To the accompaniment of a thousand squeaks, she waded over. "Mary.... I know you can get us out of here. You wanted to be the goddess, it's time to start acting like one." She waved deprecatingly at the girl's stained tee shirt. Mary Sue looked up at the blonde girl with hollow eyes. "Well, gee, Buffy, you're the undefeatable Slayer." Her voice was low and dripped weary sarcasm. "Why don't you get us out?" Well... fair question. And Buffy was embarrassed to say that for once, she didn't have clue one as to how to rescue themselves. The dungeon was solid stone all the way around, and the trapdoor was so high into the ceiling that nothing, not slingshots nor a human totem pole would be able to reach it. Willow was right, Giles and the others were safer where they were....but if the Mayor had his way, in about fifteen minutes no place on earth would be safe. Their only hope was the Scribe. "You wrote us into this!" Buffy argued. "You're making all this happen! This is like Six Flags to you!" "Yeah, cause you know, I've always dreamed of being imprisoned pending death!" Mary jumped to her feet angrily, spilling squeakies everywhere. "Don't you get it? I couldn't even keep him from killing you! I can't fight him anymore, he's gotten too powerful!" "And whose fault is that?" Buffy challenged. "He's your favorite, remember? You're the one who gave him all this! And may I add, offered to give him my entire world in exchange for going home, not to mention followers and superpowers -- and Faith??" Her voice squeaked incredulously on the name. "I can't.... even come up with a word to emphazise the bleagh I feel just saying that!!" Mary's finger shot out in self-defense. "Hey, y-you just consider yourself lucky you got me, okay, and not someone like WiccaChick69! If she was here you two'd be shagging like bunnies now!" Her finger wagged between Buffy and Willow. Buffy opened her mouth, but couldn't quite come up with a retort to that. Willow's eyebrows were up somewhere near her widow's peak. Mary sighed, oblivious to the horror she'd instilled. "Besides, I didn't make him....like that," her waved her arm off in some indeterminate direction. "I never.... he's so much more... nasty than I made him." She looked utterly lost. "I just... never thought he'd do this. Not to me." "Hence the term 'evil'," Buffy pointed out curtly. Mary shrugged miserably. "Hence the term 'screwed'," her busy finger pointed between the two of them, flopping back down on the squeak toys. "Look -- there are hundreds of Scribes out there creating alternate versions of Sunnydale. When you think about the fact that some even do two or three versions at once, that means literally thousands of alternate universes out there... maybe a million. The Mayor has counterparts in about half of those." She paused, letting that sink in. "Somehow, when he ascended, he reached into those other dimensions and drew power from his doubles. He is all of them now." She drew a shaky breath. "He has their memories, their powers.... and I'm telling you, any way you come up with to destroy him he's been there, done that and eaten the T-shirt vendor." Silence. "Well.... that sounds like he's a god already," said Willow uncertainly. Mary shook her head. "That's step one. That's how he's become so strong here, why you can't kill him. The next step is why he brought me." She looked to Willow. "Remember I said I used you as the door? How I was able to enter this world through you? That's what he wants. He's going to use me to enter all those other worlds and take them over. And he's going to start.... with mine." She looked fearfully at them. Silence again. Poor Willow shrugged, trying hard to find a silver lining. "Well... he's still not worse than Spike and Drusilla were, o-or the Master," she reasoned, hesitantly. "He's pretty tough, but as bad guys go, he's still just a warlock--" "No!" Mary shook her head insistently. "You're still not getting it! This is the real world I'm talking about! In my world there is no such thing as magic, not like there is here! My world's never seen the Master, or vampires, or demons or Hellmouths or Slayers or anything! It's the most mundane place you can imagine, nothing ever happens there! What chance do you think it'll stand against a very real thousand year old warlock packing honest-to-God real magic?!" Her eyes were wet again, she looked almost panicked. "It'll be like Hitler, all over again, it'll be like World War Five, he'll annihilate everything! Nobody'll be able to stop him!! And it's all my...fault...." Her eyes widened as her sentence trailed off, like she'd just realized something important. "What about us?" Buffy couldn't help snapping. "Didn't seem to bother you when he was wreaking havoc on OUR world." "Buffy...." Willow looked up at her best friend pleadingly. Buffy sighed, understanding that Willow was sympathetic to the girl. "Well, it doesn't matter, because he's not going to make it into your world," she said firmly. "He'll have to get through me first." "No." Mary shook her head in defeat. "We're doomed. I wrote this already. We're all going to die." "I don't believe that," insisted Buffy. "I make my own script, and I say we're not dying this way." Mary gave her a narrow, knowing glare. "You think you can change all this?" she whispered. "You really think you're going to live forever? That one day your number won't be up?" "If it is, they're going to have to hunt me down, tear off my cold dead hand and tattoo it into my palm," snapped Buffy. "There's such a thing as free will, you know." "Free will?" Mary's wet eyes glowed as she giggled humorlessly. She must have been truly scared, she seemed to be losing her grip on sanity. "You think you've got free will, Buffy? As much as you hate Slaying? You haven't found the will to stop doing that." "That's different," muttered Buffy. "That's a calling. It's something I have to--" "What about Angel?" Mary questioned. "You don't have to care about him anymore. How come you're not over him yet? You want to, right? That was the whole point with Riley, was that you wanted to move on? You haven't." Her eyes gazed hollowly at the Slayer. "Why don't you just stop caring about Angel, Buffy?" "That's not--" Buffy tried to argue. "-exactly the same thing," Mary drowned her out, stealing her dialogue. "How come you can't stop loving things that kill you? Isn't your will strong enough?" Her voice was bitter, mocking. "I've got news for you Buff, you're someone else's property. You were put in this town and these situations to act out somebody's sick idea of life." She threw her arms around. "You wonder why your mother's dead? You wonder why everything's happened the way it has? Because it's in the script. You were given all these stupid emotions and quirks and faults that you can't do a damn thing about. You can shove them down and lacquer over them, and pretend to be something you're not, but in the end, all the crap that makes you will bubble right to the top again, because it's all part of the story. Don't ever think it isn't." She wiped her face, resigned. "We are made, Buffy. You can't avoid your last scene. And I--" Her voice was bitter with disgust, and a sudden, stark realization. "...can't avoid mine...either." Buffy couldn't think that way. Her very being as a Slayer rebelled against this attitude. "How do you live like that?" she breathed. "How do you not?" Mary Sue returned bitterly. Willow stood between the two girls, depressed at all the negative energy flooding the room. "Well.... I still think that.... if I try empowering an object to act as Mary's familiar, if she can control it--" "This is all the empowerment we need now," Buffy insisted, lifting her stake. She firmly shook away Mary's insane ramblings -- she had her own agenda, she was superhumanly strong, she wasn't under the control of anyone or anything. "The only thing stopping us is this dungeon. And if she can give you a cold, she can walk us out of here." She glared Mary down. "Now, Mary. Help us." The smile that pulled Mary's pale lips was unpleasant, to say the least. "Thought you didn't believe in me." "I believe the more you keep talking about how big and scary the Mayor is, the bigger and scarier he'll be!" Buffy retorted. "I believe we're losing because you're convinced we're going to lose! In fact, I haven't seen much to show me you want to destroy the Mayor at all!" "God, you killed him once!" Mary burst out, dismayed. "Wasn't that enough?!" She seemed to realize almost the instant she said it that she'd blown something. Buffy stared very hard at her. "That's right," she spoke slowly. "The Mayor said something about an explosion. Do you mean... he's dead in your world?" But Mary had learned her lesson. "I'm not telling you anything," she grumbled. Buffy was near the end of her patience. "Mary-- whoever you are, there are way worse things than being a bad Scribe, or dying anonymously, or whatever it is you're afraid of. Dying, period, for one. Letting millions of people die to serve your own mega-ego would be two. We are people, you know." Silence. "You do know that, don't you?" Mary looked at her steadily. "Are the people you watch on TV people?" she posited quietly. Buffy didn't have an answer. And Mary wasn't done. "Are you sad when one of them dies? Do you wish you'd been there to save them?" She smiled sadly, with a small nod. "We do....we Scribes. I just happen to like saving the bad guys." She uttered a weak laugh. "Then you're evil." Buffy spoke it without hesitation, without a doubt. "And that means when I get through kicking the Mayor's ass -- again -- I'm coming after yours." Mary looked deeply, deeply stung -- and not by Buffy's threat. "I'm not evil," she protested. "Then help us." Buffy waited. Mary's eyes were glaring, accusatory under her bangs. But with a sigh of defeat, she looked down at her linked hands atop her knees. "When he changed into Olvocan," she said reluctantly, "you lured him into the library and....you blew it up. It killed him." She sniffed, darkly. "He's extra crispy Mayor meat now," she grumbled. Willow looked relieved. "Well -- there!" She exclaimed. "That's what we do, we just....kaboom!" She looked very hopeful. Buffy didn't. "My guess? That's why he rooted himself right above the Hellmouth when he transformed," she pointed out. "He keeps the hole closed, but if we try to blow him away--" "It'll open." Willow's shoulders drooped. Back to the drawing board. Buffy looked to the girl. "Okay. Plan B. What else?" Mary shrugged. "I don't know what to do, Buffy," she insisted softly. She was telling the truth this time. "You don't have to know!" Buffy pressed. "But if you let me have an idea, I'll have one!" Mary shook her head, not believing it could work. But she turned her guilty eyes on the Slayer anyway. Suddenly Buffy looked all around. She looked at the walls, at the squeaky toys...."The floor," she whispered. She gouged her hands into the sea of toys. "Start digging!" she ordered them. "Look for the floor!" Willow did so, both of them burrowing deeper into the pile of plastic animals until they hit bottom, smoothing their hands around. The alleged floor did indeed exist, unfortunately it too seemed to be solid cement. "Keep looking!" said Buffy. "There's no door on the walls, but there might be one hidden under the toys!" At that moment, Willow found it. "Here! Over here!" she called, as they waded over. Mary Sue watched in wonder as the two girls scooped away handful after handful of toys, clearing a pit in the mass, at the bottom of which was a wooden trapdoor, with a metal handle. Mary Sue was wide-eyed. "Holy...it worked!" She looked up at them in amazement. Buffy pulled the door up, holding it open as Mary and Willow disappeared down into the dark. The crawlspace was narrow and shallow, like climbing into a long, dark coffin. The girls shimmied one by one into the dark shaft, on hands and knees, scraping their backs on the top of the passage. "I'm getting a serious Nancy Drew vibe here," whispered Buffy. "Where does this lead?" wondered Willow. "It'll be the conference room," Buffy answered. They were all speaking in whispers, as though fearful they would be heard. "This is the same passage we came in through when those vampire cats were overrunning Sunnydale, I remember now." "'Killer Kitties from Van Nuys'," Mary said with a grin. "That was such a cool story." Buffy rolled her eyes. She had a hard time understanding the appeal of fanfiction at all, with a title like "Killer Kitties from Van Nuys". Wherever Mary's world was, if there were any more like her, Buffy hoped with every hope chromosome in her body that they stayed there. Suddenly the popped open a door, and tumbled out into the light. "Great," heaved Buffy, popping to her feet, hair flying. "Now we--" She stopped dead, looking around. The trapdoor had opened out of a rock, a fake plastic rock, positioned at the bottom of a large hill of candy colored rocks, outdoors. Willow recognized it right away, having come here on countless grade school field trips. Various memories of spring sunshine and sticky caddyshack ice cream sandwiches and a scary incident involving a giant squirrel statue and golf clubs assailed her. It was the Randolph Street Happy-Tyme Golf Course. Willow heaved a weary sigh. "Well, this is the most casual-Friday conference room I've ever seen." Mary was dumbfounded. "It's -- how --" She turned a full circle, looking around. "What the hell??--" "Hey, now." The Mayor was sitting on top of a chipped mushroom, grinning like some bastardized conglomeration of the Cheshire Cat and the Hookah Caterpillar. "Watch your language. Nothing like omnipotent redecorating, huh?" In the not too distant distance, the wavering form of Olvocan could be seen, tall and black like a factory smokestack, eyes glowing dully. Against the gathering dark clouds, it made quite a forboding sight. Nearby stood an altar, and something like a gate. Mary Sue shook her head insistently. "No," she muttered. "No, it's supposed to be the conference room!!" Flash. The atmosphere shimmered, and something like pixie dust fell in curtains around them. When it was gone, they were suddenly standing in the conference room of City Hall, which Buffy was familiar with, having had to bungee into it years ago to steal the box of Gavrock. At least Mary seemed to be trying to take some control of the situation back. Unfortunately, the Mayor still held a good deal of the cards. "And I say it's wabbit season!" he answered with a grin. Willow and Buffy held their breath as the walls blew away as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving them standing...in the Mayor's office... AGAIN. Willow however, wasn't frozen anymore and saw an advantage. She tried to attack, but the Mayor saw it coming. "Oh, go away kid, you bother me," he sighed, waving his hand. And Buffy and Willow were gone, in a flash of light. They found themselves... in a cornfield. Buffy looked around at the tall stalks, waving peacefully in the breeze, back and forth. She and Willow backed against her and they stood back to back, waiting. "There has to be something... something weird about this cornfield," muttered Buffy. Willow shrugged shakily. "The fact that it's in California isn't weird enough?" she put forth. Between the stalks she could see the land stretched free and flat, for miles and miles until it met the sky. It looked for all the world like the middle of Kansas. Buffy looked with suspicion upon the flapping leaves of each cornstalk, every Children of the Corn movie she'd ever seen running on unwelcome rewind through her head. "They look like tongues, don't they?" she whispered, as if even the corn was listening. Who knew, in Sunnydale it just might be. Miles away in the middle of town, at the City Hall building, in the top floor office, Mayor Wilkins and Mary Sue stood feet apart, both with arms folded, though in Mary's case the pose was a lot less self-assured. The Mayor considered his creator, gazed her up and down. He shook his head as if in disappointment. "I don't understand you, Mary," he sighed. Mary shrugged, listlessly. "Take a number," she joked. "Is it what I said before?" All of a sudden, where before the Mayor's voice had been cruel and sniping, now it almost seemed soft, kindly. "You do understand, don't you? I don't mean to be harsh. I'm under a bit of a crunch here, after all." His eyes were pale, and a tinge of ernesty gleamed in them. "I mean, first I find out Monkey Boy had my days numbered. I tell you, the scrambling I had to do to make a connection with one of you Scribes, to make sure I'd have a path back...it was a pinch, but I made it. And tell me, was it really so bad? I could have sworn you were having fun this whole time. I certainly was! Darn near anything's better than oblivion, don't you think?" He waited, and then went on when she remained silent. "So I made it. Had a harbor. You. And now..." His hand motioned toward her. "--you come here and tell me you want to end it all!" He shook his head in gentle disgust. "Mary-- what did you expect me to do? Quitters never win and winners never quit, you know!" Unbelievable as it might seem, he looked as though it truly mattered to him that she understood. "You can't really blame me for covering my assets... can you?" Mary smiled faintly. "No, I can't," she spoke softly. She did understand, all too well. It couldn't be a pleasant feeling, to know that your creator, the one who held your life in the palm of their hand, could dispose of it so easily -- in fact planned to. That you could one day...any day, be annihilated on a whim by the powers that be. Of course she couldn't blame him for fighting back. The sympathizing, almost-human look on the Mayor's face melted away, to be replaced with a huge, triumphed grin. "Swell!!" he applauded. "All righty then, let's go kill the Slayer!" He turned his evil glance to the window, out which could be seen city blocks, the edge of town, and beyond that..... "Look out!!" Buffy and Willow immediately parted ways, scattering for the safety of the corn as the creature came bounding out of the opposite rows, tearing leaves from stalks in floating shreds. The thing had no face, or at least no discernable eyes; its head seemed entirely taken up by a set of huge, yellowed, gnashing blunt teeth. Rows of spikes rippled on its back like organ pipes, they even seemed to make noise as the thing charged them. With a piercing roar, the thing's head split in an opening of its rancid mouth, and a pulpy warted tongue struck outward at them like an arrow. Willow screamed as the acidy tongue snagged her, wrapping around her leg, dragging her along the dirt. "Willow!" Buffy immediately dropped back from her run, running in preparation to jump on the thing's face and break a few teeth, possibly tear the tongue in half. She didn't get that far, however; as soon as the creature saw her coming, it apparently decided she looked tastier, and uncurled its tongue from Willow's burning leg. Like a bullwhip the long narrow muscle cracked the air, snapping around Buffy's outstretched arm and drawing blood. Acidic saliva drizzled down Buffy's arm, opening burning paths of pain. Doggedly, Buffy got as good a grip as she could with her free hand, wincing at the boiling pain in the palm of her hand as she tried to tear the tongue on its teeth. Miles away, in the office, Mary Sue's wide eyes darted, frantically trying to decide what to do. "That's the worst thing it could have done," she spoke up loudly, suddenly. "Slayer's blood kills those things! It should have stuck with Willow!" In the cornfield, the monster was writhing, its roars now turning to a higher pitch, an almost pained scream. Buffy's grunts of pain were drowned, but she took courage in the fact that the thing was sinking to what constituted its knees, ever more acid drool pouring from its mouth. With a growl of pain, Buffy was finally able to wrench her arm from the squeeze of the thing's tongue, and dropped back to Willow's side, as they watched the thing's tongue, ersatz face, head, and shoulders burn away like fat on a griddle. In the distant office, the Mayor clucked his tongue, like a mentor whose charge has just screwed up, and not that badly to boot. "Well, that's just very unfortunate for our heroines," he remarked sardonically. "What they don't know is that the blood of Fewnawn demons is better than Miracle-Gro! Heh! Just too darn bad for them they're in the middle of a clone corn patch!" As Buffy tried to get up from where she'd hit the dirt, comparing her still-seeping wound with Willow's leg, which happily looked less damaged-- her head jerked up, and she raised her fist, gritting her teeth in a fury. Willow frowned-- and then screamed, as the corn leaves Buffy had noticed wrapped themselves around her eyes and mouth. It was a duel. The rules of the battle were cemented as fast as Mary or the Mayor could speak them. "Yeah, it's just too bad the corn crop's so bad this year!" stuttered Mary quickly. "Yeah, that lack of rain in the spring? Bad news for clones. No headway made there." She shook her head psuedo-mournfully. In the field, Buffy was tearing violently through the massive leaves that were threatening to suffocate Willow. However, the leaves didn't seem to be growing as fast as they'd been. Nearby stalks reached out withering leaves in an attempt to help their brother, but Buffy shredded through them easily. Hurling loose ears to the ground, she finally extracted Willow, pulling her down the row away from the grasping leaves. "Uh-oh." The Mayor was the one shaking his head in fake sympathy now. "That wasn't very smart. I've said it before, I'll say it again: demonic Miracle-Gro! It seems little miss Buffy has just seeded herself some mighty powerful adversaries!" He giggled, unable to resist. Willow gasped, pointing at the hulking beasts that tore themselves out of the ground where the ears had fallen, like those zombies in that old Michael Jackson video. Buffy straightened, realizing right away that this was probably the end game. The creatures were jerking out of the ground, spilling dirt as far down as a half-mile away from where they were standing. Black and lumpy, eyes glowing like stoplights, the mass of newly-grown soldiers growled as one, and Willow and Buffy tensed, wondering how the hell they could survive an attack from all these. Mary cringed, panicked, and used the only path open to her. It was trite, it was far-fetched, but.... "Oh... yeah, well.... they would've worked too, if.... Godzilla hadn't come along and ate 'em all!!" The last was spoken in a yelp. Buffy and Willow looked up, and their mouths dropped open. There wasn't a whole lot that could be said, and to all appearances their problem was solved. They watched in disbelief and wonder, as the King of the Monsters himself rose over the towering stalks, as black and rubbery-looking as he was on TV. With his trademark squealing roar he scooped toward his feet, a few stalks of corn being ripped up as he grabbed a clawful of demons and gulped them down. Below, the remaining demons reacted exactly as Japanese citizens would; they took off running, leaving Buffy and Willow behind and unharmed. In the office, the Mayor tilted his head, looking incredulously out the window. "Ohh... now that's just silly!" he exclaimed, not appreciating this turn of events. Mary Sue giggled, she couldn't help it. "This whole thing's silly," she chuckled. They could go on like this forever, and she wanted to end it now. "I win, Buffy and Willow are back." She snapped her fingers, and with a flash of light and dust, Buffy and Willow were huddled on the floor of the office. Buffy clutched her arm, and Willow's leg was still bleeding. Both girls were dirty and disheveled. The Mayor sighed, dejected by the futility of the last few minutes. "So that's how you're going to play, missy?" he sneered. "I guess you think you're the only one who can pull a monster out of a hat? May I just remind you--" A thundering noise rocked the floor they were standing on, echoed throughout City Hall building. In the office, everybody except the Mayor ducked, startled, as the ceiling itself banged loudly, and tons of dust came raining down. The sunlight poured in, illuminating the office, and teeth -- the fanged, bared teeth of the demon Olvocan came roaring through the shattered roof. Buffy's head snapped upward, staring once again up at the giant snake -- again? Yes -- she had fought this thing before, she had stood here before, only then she had been armed, had had a plan.... y'wanna get it back from me, Dick.... The snake's head darted downward, then forward, the huge jaws opening. It hooked the Slayer's abdomen with one of its jagged lower teeth. Buffy's sneakers were swept off the floor, and she fell face first into the slimy cushion of the creature's tongue. Her arms flailed, sliding on the saliva as she fought against her mind's screaming at the terrible pain ripping through her belly. Sharp teeth like rocks grated over her legs, slashing her jeans and flesh to shreds. The darkness tilted sharply and she felt herself slipping, headfirst, downward. Wet, acrid, suffocating walls crushed around her face and arms, as she was swallowed down the snake's tremendous esophagus.
On the floor Willow was frozen, gazing upward in horror at the most terrible sight she'd ever had the misfortune to see, the sight she had witnessed in awful nightmares that she had hoped and prayed weren't prophetic... she wasn't a Slayer, after all. But it seemed the goddess had decided not to spare her this time. Willow was watching her worst nightmare come to life -- Buffy being swallowed alive by a demon. The young witch was trapped, unable even to move, and unable to think of even one spell that would do any good at this point. "Buffy!!" she finally screamed. It was all she could do. Nearby, Mary Sue's mouth dropped open.... and what came out of it... was a laugh. "Ohh.....ho-ho-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa.... oh my God....." She doubled over, actually cracking up at the awful sight. The laughs belted out of her as she gripped Willow's arm for support. "That kicked ass!! Did you see....heeheehee...." She didn't seem able to control her laughter. Willow looked at the girl in sickened incredulity. "It's not funny!!" she shouted. As a Wiccan she was usually opposed to violence, but she couldn't refrain from shooting her arms into Mary's chest, in a startlingly sharp blow. "You said you wouldn't let Buffy get hurt! You said you could bring her back if she was killed, bring her back!!" Mary Sue recoiled, the laughter adequately pushed out of her by Willow's rage. "Well... I will, Willow, just..." Rubbing her arm, which had taken a blow, Mary looked around... seemingly not sure how to start. "Uh...." She glanced up at the smashed ceiling, which a few stray beams were swinging from. Sunbeams filtered in through the clouds of dust. It was all Willow could do to keep herself from casting the quickest, deadliest spell she could think of. She'd been practicing turning things to Cream of Wheat from the inside out... and the brief image of Mary Sue gasping as her bones liquefied flashed, brutal but horribly satisfying, through Willow's mind. "You said you weren't evil," she finally choked out, only refraining from punching the girl again because the last one had kind of hurt her arms. "You're as bad as he is!! You're a perfect match! How can you... Buffy was a hero! How could you do that?!" Tears were welling in her furious green eyes. "I hate to say it," piped up a voice Willow had all but forgotten was there, "but Miss Rosenberg has an awfully good point." Mary's and Willow's heads jerked toward the Mayor, whom neither of them seemed to stand a chance against. He seemed almost oblivious to the dust filthying his jacket, he was leaning against his desk, regarding both of them with a smile. "Well, she's right, Mary. I think you've made it pretty clear where you stand. In all those other universes out there, I know for a fact I've never had the pleasure..." He looked on the verge of laughter, high off the buzz of eating Buffy. "...this has really been an awfully good day, I've gotta say!" Mary Sue was no longer laughing. Stripped of her defenses, friendless and alone in a world thousands of miles from home, seemed capable of doing nothing but trembling at the fact. "You... you hock her up. Now." Even her voice was shaking. The Mayor made a face. "That's disgusting!" "Do it!" Mary pointed at him. "You... were right, okay? I'm first to admit... the cute blonde winning everything before she skips off to the prom doesn't equal a happy ending for me, but--" "But you let it happen." The Mayor shrugged as he turned to get something out of his desk. "Mary, when are you going to understand? Evil isn't something to be ashamed of, and it certainly isn't something you can just ignore, not when it's part of you. You have a legacy to uphold... an empire to help build. Why on earth do you want to waste time dickering around with kids who haven't even lived long enough to learn the difference? You know, that's why the human race is on the decline. Because every fifty, hundred years...it has to start over. That's millions of children you have to re-teach the basics, while those of us who have actually learned something, might make some headway... we're stuffed in nursing homes, expected to die out. Heaven forbid you try beating the system, you can expect to meet a little girl carrying a flamethrower!" He sneered bitterly. "Every generation is a clean slate. And the Slayer is there to make sure it stays that way." He shook his head. "When's the world going to realize? The Slayer is one of the things holding evolution back!" Mary Sue shook her head, trying to shake all the Mayor's ranting off. "This from a guy who thinks a snake is a step up," she muttered, barely audible. "How's that?" The Mayor had been so busy rubbing a cloth over his sword that he hadn't heard. "Did I ever thank you for this, by the way? It slices, it dices....it raises legions of demon minions...." He twirled the blade once, lazily, a brief laugh escaping him. "Demon minions. Or should that be minion demons? I can't say it either way without getting the giggles." Mary raised her head only minutely as he approached her. This was the end, no reprieves this time. The sword acted as his "magic wand", and with it, and her, he would raise the Portal to her world. And without Buffy to stop him.... "You lied to me," she rasped. "Uh-uh." He shook his head, admiring his sword with one final twirl. "I'd never do that, Mary. You know I believe in keeping my word." "You did," Mary insisted. "You said you were so strong you didn't need me." "Of course I need you." He was speaking in a reasonable tone, both of them were as calm as anything. "Yeah, but at first you said you didn't. When I first came here. That--" She wagged her finger at him, almost smiling. Almost. "--that's new. You've never lied before. You've fudged the truth and left things out, but... Come on, you must have been lying! First you said you didn't, then you said you did. Which is it?" "Fine." He threw up his arms gustily. "Will it make you feel better? All right. I need you, Mary." "That's right." She nodded. "You do. You need me to get through the gate, you need me to get into all those other worlds. Excuse me for saying so, but that sounds really dangerous, you know? Lots of alien monsters and enemies to fight. And I'm not Buffy. I'm no fighter." She had been moving closer as she spoke, and now, as she stared up at him, she was nearly stepping on his toes. "What are you going to do if something happens to me, Mr. Mayor?" She was looking plaintively up into his eyes. "Hm?" And then in one startlingly quick motion, she grabbed the Mayor's hand which was hanging by his side, jerked it upward -- and thrust his ornamental magic blade right through her own belly. Mary's mouth opened, her eyes went wide as pain for real shot through her body like a jolt. Her forehead crinkled up, her eyes squeezed shut in anguish. "Oh....God that hurts!!" she couldn't help gasping. She clearly hadn't expected the pain. The shock of real metal slicing through her stomach, of real pain bleeding through her like acid, was a nasty wake up call. She slumped down with a whimper, her knees weakening, but she didn't fall. Not yet. The Mayor's smile was completely gone as he stared at the girl who'd just done an awfully crazy thing. She was still pulling on his arm, too, pushing the sword further through her, as if to speed her death. She knew what she was doing was the right thing... the look on his face proved it. If she died, this world and everything in it went with her. None of them were gods. They couldn't bring her back. He wouldn't get to spill over into her world, his evil would be stopped, here. She looked up through pained eyes at the character she'd spent the better part of the past year creating inside and out, whom she'd devoted a year of her life to. The irony wasn't lost on her. Now she was going to die in his arms. Willow had reached her only in time to see the sword point exit though her back. The Mayor, to his credit, didn't just let Mary fall, rather he held her arms, watching as she sank to her knees, as Willow caught her, leaning her back. The witch laid Mary out on the floor, staring at her hands coated in flowing blackish red, grasping at the hole in her belly. Mary Sue couldn't take her eyes away from her creation. She tried to focus on the fact that she was saving her world from him, but all she could think about was how writing about being stabbed didn't even come close to preparing one for getting stabbed in real life. "Duck season," she said with a sick smile. The Mayor was nodding, as if conceding a chess game. "All right." He looked half sorry. "Okay." Mary's damp eyelids blinked weakly in silent response. Her smiling lips formed the words, "This kicks so much ass...." And then she died.
From one end of Sunnydale to the other, a tremor shook the earth unlike any southern California quake. Outside City Hall, over the blackened, hardened remains of what used to be the high school, the towering form of the demon Olvocan turned its snake head. It regarded with glowing red eyes the destruction as a few buildings shuddered, rippled, then lowered to the ground amid rising clouds of black dust. Way out of town, near the train tracks, in the field where the circus used to set up, the rain-starved grass caught fire under the shuddering sun. The flames were so hot they ate into the earth, burning the dirt. The horizon lit up, shimmering like a mirage in the desert. What looked like storm clouds billowed up from the place where the earth met the sky, but these clouds were blacker than any man-known shade of black, blacker than oblivion. They crawled toward the sky and the fire crawled the grassy earth field, both eating, eating, eating everything. The universe was burning up. In the Mayor's office in Sunnydale, Willow and Mayor Wilkins looked at each other. "Boy, that doesn't sound good," the Mayor commented. The dusty rays of light pouring in through the smashed ceiling dimmed, like a thunderhead was moving over the sun... or an eclipse. A quake shook the building so hard that more plaster rained down on their heads. Willow was thrown off her feet and sat down hard on the carpet, and this time the Mayor furiously wiped the dust out of his hair. The dead girl on the floor stared up at the ceiling, even as plaster dust fell in her open, dead eyes. Willow looked to the Mayor. "I don't guess you've got some counterspell doohickey for this??" The Mayor gave the young glaring witch a dark look. "No," he snapped. "Silly me, I forgot to plan for the unraveling of time itself." Willow turned away, her hope for even a long shot overriden by her fury at the evil mayor. She wouldn't have been that upset about Mary's demise, either... a fact that made her stomach feel sour. But she knew all too well what Mary had been thinking, and why she had done what she'd done: if Mary was dead, the world she had created would die with her. It was a last ditch effort by the Scribe to save her own world, and the scary thing was... Willow wasn't entirely sure Buffy wouldn't have done the same thing. Willow herself might even have done it. That didn't change the fact that Sunnydale and everything in it was about to be annihilated in ways the Mayor, the Master, even Angelus could only have dreamed of. "Hey." They turned and looked at a figure standing in the doorway to the office. Just standing there, arms folded, just as if the roof wasn't raining down and there wasn't a quake going on. The tall, pale, darkly beautiful girl stepped into the room, gave them a glossy smile. "Mind if I take a crack at it?" The figure before them looked every inch like Faith, the rogue Slayer. Except Faith was near brain dead in a two-year-old coma, in a hospital blocks away. This person, as much like Faith as it looked, was not Faith, that much was obvious to Willow. The witch could see through the shell, but amazingly, Willow realized abruptly who it was. "How did you get here?" she blurted out. The dark Slayer walked her combat boots into the room and knelt down next to the two, over Mary's body. Her arms rested on her leather-clad thighs. "Did she say anything like she wished I was here, or even say my name?" she asked, a half smile on her plum-colored lips. "That's probably it. Wishing be a dangerous business in this town." "Mr. FreakZilla." The Mayor had looked briefly startled at the appearance of his adopted daughter, but being a sorceror, saw through the disguise as well. "I presume." The Scribe from another world shook Faith's head. "Just FreakZilla," he spoke in Faith's voice. Dark chocolate eyes gave the Mayor the once over, unkindly. "And if you don't mind me saying so, you could have been a little less hard on her." S/he looked down at the body. "She really loves you. I personally don't get why, but..." "Hey!" The Mayor wagged a finger at the kid who had the cajones to insult him in his own office. "I'll thank you to mind your own business, son. She knew what she was getting into. She chose me. The same way you chose her." He waved at the Scribe's dark verneer. "Don't tell me you haven't suffered more than a little pain at my Faith's hands! Or that you haven't enjoyed it!" The disguised Scribe shrugged Faith's leather-clad shoulders in concession. "At least Faith uses spurs," s/he muttered, looking down at the prone body. Casting a nervous glance up at the still-leaking ceiling, the Scribe reached out Faith's black-currant nails and wiped some of the dust off Mary Sue's face. "Alison babe," s/he spoke softly to the body. "Come on kid. Time to get up." Silence. "Come on, Ali," FreakZilla insisted. "You asked me to be your beta, remember? Well, here's my feedback. This is a crap ending, Alison." The earth rumbled, and they looked out the cracked window momentarily. "You can do better. You've done better. Get up, Ali, you can't stop now. The story was going great, but I'm telling you... this ending really sucks." The earth trembled, shuddered. The corpse on the floor lay, unresponding. Then the dusty eyes blinked, once, twice. The girl's chest rose and fell with a long, depressed sigh. "You got a better one?" her weak voice came. Faith/FreakZilla smiled, relieved. "Not really," s/he said in her quiet rasp. "But you said you wanted to scare me? Guess what. I'm scared." "Me too." The dying girl on the floor allowed a brief ghost of a smile to flutter over her lips. "You're wearing lipstick and girl's clothes. Either I'm seriously low on blood or you're trying to tell me something about yourself." She sighed wearily. "Go home, Luke." "Nope." Luke/Faith shook his/her head with a grin. "C'mon, Alison, you and me have been friends since the third grade. You think I'd let you have all the fun on this? Besides, I can't go anywhere, it's your story. You brought me here, you gotta get us out." "I can't." The girl's eyes were dim. Her voice was soft and weak from loss of blood. "I can't even get myself out. I don't even want to... don't even know how. I'm sure if I thought about it for any amount of time I could probably figure it out." She looked disgusted. "But that's the problem with all my stories. I sit there and think and think and by the time I finally do figure out how the hell to get them from point A to point B it's way past the point of anybody caring. I'm just so damn slow--" "Yeah, we're slowpokes." FaithZilla smiled. "You're so slow you make me look like a speed demon. It shows, too, at least people take more than five minutes to read yours. Ali, you can do this, and you can do it a lot better." Mary Sue did not look like she shared that conviction. "No, Luke, I really can't," she whispered. And on that, her feet burst into glorious flame. The orange fire shot up toward the ceiling and illuminated the room as it enveloped Mary's sneakers, the leather starting to melt. Her socks frayed and floated in the air as burning fuzz, and the inch or so of bare skin visible between her socks and jeans blistered and blackened and began to burn. FaithZilla leaped to his/her feet and grabbed the American flag out of the corner. "Hey!" the Mayor protested the vandalism of his office. The disguised Scribe didn't care. Willow helped him/her wrap the flag around Mary's burning feet, making sure the fire was completely smothered. When a few seconds of silence had passed, FaithZilla, heaving a sigh, pulled the cloth away to inspect the damage -- and the flames immediately jumped to life again. Mary Sue just lay there, watching her feet burn with an eerily serene expression, blue eyes half open, a sad smile on her lips. No one else was half as calm, except maybe the Mayor, who looked more impressed than anything. "Ali, don't do this," pleaded FreakZilla. The girl's legs were burning and curling up like paper. The fire was licking toward the ceiling, and it had reached her knees. Alison, or Mary Sue, or whoever she was, shook her head. "The world doesn't need any more crappy writers, Luke," she said resolutely. "Yeah, you know what? It does." The Scribe wearing Faith's body shook her head angrily. "Actually that's exactly what it needs; what it doesn't need is more goddamn bank tellers! Now cut it out!!" Mary watched the fire enveloping her white legs almost transfixedly. If the fire hurt her, she wasn't showing it at all. "I'm not even a crappy writer," she insisted. "I suck, Luke." "I think you're great." Faith's voice was strong and itself insisting, not taking no for an answer. "Oh yeah?" Mary did register an emotion now, and it was anger, her reviere broken as she stared angrily at the dark-haired Slayer. "What if you're an idiot? What if I'm crap and you've just got really bad taste, you ever thought of that?!" The question had apparently been a long time in coming. The girl on the floor seemed to recoil the instant she spoke it, at once wanting and fearing the answer. The ground trembled even more precariously, as the person inside Faith's body looked like he/she/it had been punched in the face. The facade fell briefly, Willow caught a glimpse of scruffy black hair and a goatee. "Well," FaithZilla finally spoke, and it was angrily, though still in an even tone, "then there's ten other idiots besides me in the group who you've tricked into thinking you're pretty damn good. And if you tricked us, then you can definitely trick a publisher." He sounded very angry, and rightfully so. If not for the fact that this world and his life depended on his convincing the girl, he might have walked out of the office right then and there. Mary was in pain now. She covered her eyes tiredly with one hand, shaking her head, her stringy hair pooling on the floor as it moved from side to side. "It shouldn't be like that," she moaned, her pained face lit horribly by the dancing flames. "Writing should be good. It shouldn't be about tricks." "Probably not." FaithZilla conceded. "But lucky for us tricksters, that's how the world works. Our world." The fire had reached her waist. Her legs were barely more than small piles of glowing ashes. Mary Sue stared miserably at the ceiling, tears pooling in her eyes, seemingly hellbent on dying like a dog a million light years from her world..... FaithZilla looked to the Mayor, the only person in the room who had any kind of power. "Stop her," s/he pleaded. The Mayor considered the person who was wearing Faith's face like a mask. "I don't see why not," he admitted. "I also don't really see why." "If she dies, there ain't gonna be anything left for you to lord over, that's why." FaithZilla was considerably less respectful of the Mayor than Mary was, no matter what the warlock could do to them. "If she dies, Faith dies. The real Faith. Your Faith." The Mayor blinked. In all probability, it was one and the same to him whether or not the Faith in this universe died. There were other Faiths out there. Being invincible, he could probably bring himself back from annihilation and continue his search, find some other way into one of those other worlds. He didn't go for it, though. Whatever connection Mary had made between him and this world's version of the Dark Slayer, it was enough to make him look down at the Scribe's burning body and, in the end, utter a sigh. "Exidae," he softly spoke the Latin word for cease. Instantly the fire went out like it had been doused. Left behind was Mary's blackened, charred legs and half-burned jeans. It was horrible to look at, and Mary was crying. "Why are you doing this?!" she pleaded. "God, I'm so useless!! Why can't you just let me go?" FaithZilla looked like s/he wanted to shake her. "Why are you freaking out over this?!" s/he demanded. "It's just stories! It's not even ours in the first place! When the show gets cancelled it's gonna be junking up the net for a few years and then get wiped out by the first big virus that comes along! And by that time none of us will even care! It's a game, Ali, it's not worth all this misery!" Mary Sue's forehead was furrowed hard, trying to absorb this. Willow was having trouble too. The idea that her whole universe, everything that was real and true to her, was as insubstantial and trivial to these otherworldly people as a television show, was mind-numbing. And very, very scary. What if it were true, and their lives were just episodes that only unfolded day after day because someone was watching? What happened if that someone left? Would they all keep going, keep living, or...... Willow shook her head hard. When did I become Existential Girl, she wondered. FaithZilla had pulled Mary Sue into a sitting position. "So c'mon, Al," s/he murmured in the girl's ear. His/her dark eyes flickered up to the Mayor, and the look in them was calculating, more than a little preturbed. The Muse certainly didn't seem as eager to put out as much as the Scribe had. "Fix this up. Don't let this be your swan song, 'cause I gotta tell you, even SlingShotZX4 doesn't end his fics this badly. You've done it before, do it again. You're tougher than he is." The dark eyes didn't deter from the Mayor's. But the Mayor was still not giving up without a fight. "That's true, you know." He nodded, as if in complete agreement with the clone of his Slayer. "Have I ever said anything else? I wouldn't have picked you if you hadn't had that extra oomph, Mary." He watched as the young girl was helped to her black, charred feet, as several distasteful clods of soot came flaking off and collected on his floor. "No second-rate hacks are gonna chronicle my story. You're the most powerful Scribe in that inner circle of yours, and I'll be the first to say it. But you see the problem here? You--" he motioned to her "--aren't in your world anymore." He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, sighing. "Boy, I'm getting tired of repeating myself, but--" "You're stronger than I am." Mary Sue seemed tired of letting other people speak for her. She dared look in the Mayor's eyes, her own expression still unsure, but at least not quite suicidal anymore. She still sounded defeated, though.... and then suddenly, Mary's worried eyes suddenly sharpened, ever so slightly. "No, you're not," she spoke. The Mayor nodded exaggeratedly. "Yes--" "No!" The girl looked up, light dawning as though she'd realized something very important. "You're not!" "Mary, I can do whatever I want." Mary Sue nodded. She was smiling, at last. "Okayyy..." She pulled away from her Scribe friend's hold, walking stiffly on burnt legs up to her Muse. She stared him straight in the eye. "Kill Faith." "Okey-doke." Without hesitation, the Mayor turned on FaithZilla. The Scribe looked briefly panicked. "NOT THAT ONE," sighed Mary, rolling her eyes. The Mayor returned to his leaning stance with a snide smile. Mary shook her head. "The real Faith," she said, turning serious. "The girl who's in the coma in the hospital across town. Go over there and kill her." The Mayor studied the girl with a confused scowl. Mary shrugged. "I mean, you really ought to anyway, she's done nothing but wreck stuff ever since you hooked up with her. She screwed up your Ascension, she killed a lot of guys that you didn't tell her to. She totally sold you out to Buffy! I don't even know why you keep her around, she'll probably just kill you again! She's your weak link! But..." She focused her gaze on him. "If you're really stronger than me, and you can really delete all the flaws from yourself, then you could kill her.... without any remorse." "Ali?" That was FaithZilla. Not only was the Scribe horrified by Mary's blasphemous remarks toward his Muse, but the nature of his linking with Faith's coma body was deep. His self was so rooted in this world, that if Faith died, he would die, too. Mary didn't even seem to care. Her eyes were glinting. "Do it," she whispered to the Mayor, almost invitingly. "And then we'll know, see, that you're in charge. Because even in my worst story? I would never let you kill Faith. Ever." Endless silence, as the two faced off. Mary spread her arms, snapped her fingers. The office walls burned away in a wash of magic as they were transported across the city, and the hospital room exploded around them. The room was silent in the wake of their sudden arrival, only the beeps of the heart machine greeted them, and the cool sharp air and smell of antiseptic. There Faith lay, grey and pale, hair spread out on the pillow. Mary stared the Mayor down. "So go for it," she ultimatimed quietly. The Mayor stared right back. "All right, I will," he agreed. He turned away from the girl, walked toward the bed where the dark Slayer lay sleeping. The Mayor loomed over Faith's prone form, gazing down at her pale face. "Smother her," Mary suggested from the spectators. "Like you did with Buffy. That'll be symbolic. Or hey-- poison! Shoot her IV full of something!" FaithZilla was staring at his/her friend with huge, betrayed eyes. The Mayor was nodding. "That'd do the trick, all right," he murmured. He reached out a hand to the sleeping Faith's closed face. "Alison...." FaithZilla warned quietly. His/Her eyes were dangerous and dark. "If you let him do it, I swear--" Mary had been grinning excitedly. Now she touched the other Scribe's hand, secretively, hushing him/her. Her face had changed, she was watching intently as the Mayor's hand traveled over Faith's nose and mouth. The silence in the room was thick. The conflict was not one of physical or material means; it raged between the minds of the evil sorceror and the young Scribe who gave him life, who influenced his movements, who was fighting him tooth and nail now as he attempted to murder his adopted daughter. Mayor Wilkins stood over the bed, hand frozen inches above Faith's ashen skin, recalling how easily he had killed other girls just like this. How easy it should be now, to sever this last tie to his humanity. At the same time, unbidden, the memories flooded his senses: Faith's smile, her marvelous bloodlust, her admirable talents. Her heartbreaking uncertainty, her eerie resemblance to his own departed wife, her utterly cute skepticism.... Her trust, even as she'd battled Buffy and lost; her belief that he would win one for her, that Daddy would come through.... The Mayor sighed wearily. There were other Faiths. The girl laying in this bed simply mirrored thousands -- perhaps a million -- others in counterpart worlds out there. He need only kill this one to prove his superiority, and he could go find another. Easy enough. Only trouble was, he couldn't bring himself to do it. That girl barred him. Had to be. Her will slithered through the soul he wasn't supposed to have, tiny restraining threads that should be simple to break, but were not. A weak, silly girl who may as well have been a baby compared to his many years, and yet she had fingers in him, bleeding him full of her empathy, her conscience.... the very idea of harming Faith, even one Faith, sickened him to his stomach. Even if he had been able, somehow found enough strength to go ahead with it, it was for darned certain that the resultant sorrow that the Scribe would exact on him would make his immortal life about as worth living as.... The Mayor closed his eyes, wincing. He couldn't do it. It wasn't for his lack of trying that he still had a conscience. It wasn't his conscience that dictated him now, either. No sir. He'd be darned if he let little Mary have that particular victory over him. In the end, he would not kill Faith... because he simply didn't have the heart for it. His hand moved over the side of her pale face. He tucked back a strand of brown hair, forever somehow getting loose, even though its owner hadn't moved in years. The Mayor smiled sadly. "Tricky little so-and-so, aren't you?" he finally spoke softly. It was over, almost anti-climactically. Willow could feel in the air the change as the ripple of power was negated, like a barrier suddenly falling, like water rushing through a channel. Mary Sue's whole body shuddered with the strain, but she was smiling, a huge relieved smile. FaithZilla allowed him/herself to relax, fairly certain now that his friend wasn't about to let Faith die. The thunderclouds gathering outside fell away, the hospital room was bathed in yellow sunlight, dust particles floating in the beams. Outdoors, on the ritual ground, the towering form of Olvocan threw back its head to the sky. It growled, made a noise like a diving submarine. The massive lumped head bobbed, back and forth, jerking as though it were in pain. The long black form suddenly bowed, shooting toward the closest building: a condemned clothing outlet from the fifties. The head vanished in the brick wall with a ear-shattering smash, demolishing the building like a wrecking ball. Tons of brick and dust cascaded down, pooling on the barren ground as Olvocan tore its head out of the wreckage. Its jaws opened, and with a screeching, unnatural roar, it toppled. The impact tremor as the hundred foot body hit the ground was felt as far away as the neighboring town. The beast's final act in death was to vomit up several weeks of gruesome lunch. As the flood poured over the dirt, Buffy Summers slid on her bare belly over half-digested flesh, stomach acid and several disgusting things she didn't care to identify. The Slayer picked herself out of the gloopy muck she'd landed face first in. Regugitated slime dripped down her shoulders and between her cleavage, soaking her clothes though. Her blonde hair hung in dripping strands, and she looked at the huge body of the dead demon that she had pretty much suffocated to death.
As days went in Sunnydale, this day was definitely one of the odder ones. The cops and the fire department had to be on hand to watch the masses of crowds that were pouring over the suburban streets, all to get a look at the impossible: the dead demon that had terrorized the city for the past two years. Being the well-trained citizens they were, they knew better than to go crazy, expect a terror-free lifestyle from now on. But the general mood that enveloped the small city now was one of cheer, hope, definite uplifted spirits. The police department, also well-trained, made sure to keep the crowds under control, but several of the officers seemed to smile more too. The demon was dead. Surely now things would be better. "I'm only hoping this means you might actually be letting the good guys win for once?" Buffy ventured sarcastically. She had pushed her way into the hospital, up the elevator into Faith's room, much to the Mayor's chagrin-- slimy snake innards everywhere-- and was now standing next to Mary, whose charred feet were in the process of growing new skin. Mary absently scratched her leg, and a snow of black flakes fluttered to the floor. "Yeah, well," Mary muttered genially. She didn't seem in the mood to look up at Buffy's face. "Define good guys." Buffy sighed. Looked like they still weren't out from under the iron fist of Evil Sympathetic. "You don't actually expect me to just cross the street when the Mayor comes down the walk, do you?" She cast a side glance at the mousy girl. "He's the enemy, Mary. And I'm sort of bound by ancient law to take him down. Unless, of course, you can see your way clear to make him a nice, non-evil used car salesman, or--" Mary put up her hands, rolling her eyes. "Okay, okay." She uttered a sigh too. "Look, you're here, aren't you? Still standing? Ready to fight another day?" Her voice dropped. "Don't tell anybody, but I'm not letting you die. At least, not until a more interesting heroine comes along." She jerked her thumb toward the Mayor, who still sat upon Faith's bed. "He needs drama relief. Consider yourself an important ingredient... like... salt." Buffy's forehead crinkled at this bizarre description. "That's me... Salt Girl," she muttered. So her work wasn't done. Vamps, demons... and still the Mayor. And if Mary had her say, Buffy would never be allowed to defeat him. It deeply sucked having the deck stacked against you like that. "Hey." Mary's voice was back to that pleading, slightly-whiny tone it had held this morning. "I'm not ungrateful, understand? Much as I hate to admit it... I'm another life you've saved." She surrendered a half-smile. "I owe you, Buffy. I'll give you something, and remember this: you earned it." She did look Buffy in the eyes now, and her gaze was something approaching stable. Resolved. Willow beeped cheerily; the cell phone going off. With a confused frown, the witch pulled the phone out and hit talk. "Hello? Yes?....who is this?" The look of shock that widened her face gave Buffy pause. With a few startled blinks, Willow's eyes rose to Buffy's, and she handed the phone out at arm's length. "B-buffy..." Giles must be calling. Buffy walked over and took the phone. "Tell him it's okay... I assume. Armageddon avoided, punch the clock, let's hit the mall." Willow shook her head so that her red strands waved. "Buffy... it sounds like your mother." Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Hello?" she spoke into the phone. "Buffy!" The Slayer's stomach, already roiling at the pungent stench of the bile she was coated in, did another turn. "Honey, I'm watching the news, I'm so proud of you! Now don't get worried, they haven't mentioned your name, I'm sure they think it's just another...fluke, but Buffy, I knew right away. Do you know what you've done? This whole town ought to be crowning you queen!... well, if being crowned Queen of Slayers is possible, I'm not sure that it is, but--" "Mom?!" Buffy's eyes blinked, the flowered room was growing blurry due to the tears in her eyes. "Mom... is that you??" The all-too-familiar voice on the other end gave a confused laugh. "Well of course it's me, honey. Ohh, I guess you're still on hospital time, aren't you?" The voice took on its old sympthetic note, and it broke Buffy's heart. "Honey, I've been out of the hospital for over a year, now." "Hos...hospital..." Buffy turned to where Mary Sue stood smiling at the telephone reunion. As if in answer to an unspoken plea, Buffy suddenly was aware of a whole flood of memories exploding in her head: Joyce being attacked by Angelus on that horrible night so long ago. Angelus, going to rip her mother's throat out... and Buffy, throwing herself into the fray just in time. The battle had been long and bloody, but in the end Angelus had hightailed it to... Los Angeles... and Joyce had been badly injured, but Buffy had gotten her to the hospital in time. After a long period of critical care, she'd come out of it, had been recovering the past year... she hadn't died.... Mary Sue only shrugged, as if she'd just lent somebody five dollars. Near her, the Scribe named Luke who was wearing Faith's form like a Halloween costume, approached his friend, smiling as well at the happy ending that had been afforded to Buffy. "See? Much better ending." S/he grinned at the girl. "I've got only one suggestion. Pleeeeze wake Faith up?!" Mary Sue smiled at him/her. "She won't like being one of two," she pointed out. At that, the visage of Faith melted off the other Scribe, like a newly graffitied wall hit by heavy rain. As the disguise vanished a teenaged Asian boy stood in her place, dark haired, goateed, wearing a Magic the Gathering tee and scruffy hole-kneed jeans. In the hospital bed that the Mayor sat on, there was movement. The girl who had lain there for two years without a sound moved her head, her hair crackling dryly on the pillow, as her brow furrowed. Her lips moved, her thick tongue working inside her mouth for the first time in months. She coughed slightly, muttered. Thick lashes fluttered, and for the first time since Graduation Eve, Faith blinked. She looked up at the ceiling, then to the side, at the blankets, the apparatus. "What the hell--" Mayor Wilkins leaned attentively over her, a huge grin breaking over his face. He didn't even think to correct her bad language. "Hey," he whispered. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" Faith's dark almond eyes focused blearily on her employer, blinking off years of sleep crust. They widened for a moment... and a faint smile flickered over her pale lips. "You're here," she rasped. "You bet I am." The Mayor nodded, trying to forget that only moments ago he had come within a hair's breadth of taking her life. Two years of waiting, of nearly giving up hope that she would ever wake....and he had almost ended it all seconds shy of the end. He pushed this ugly thought away, squeezed her small skinny hand. "Wouldn't miss this for a million bucks," he assured her with a grin. "Like the Wizard of Oz, you know.... afraid for a while there you were going to leave me." His eyes almost looked moist. Faith nodded, confused. Her other hand raised to her head, rubbing her temples hard, her brow crinkling as she tried to think. "Man....I had the weirdest-ass dream," she croaked. "You were dead....I was dead." Darkness haunted her already dark eyes. "I was in the woods somewhere, up north.... there was this huge cross and--" Her wandering gaze suddenly sharpened on the group congregated around the foot of her bed -- in particular, on the two Scribes. Faith frowned. There was something important about those two..... "Who the hell are you?" she said. Luke backed off, a faint nervousness showing in his dark eyes. "Hey, y'know, I think it's about time to leave," he said abruptly.
"So, you're the famous FreakZilla," said Buffy. The dark haired boy shrugged, looked down at his sneaks. "Nah, not famous," he shrugged it off shyly. He hazarded a glance up at her, still wet and sticky from the slime. It would take more than a few rinse and repeats to get that stuff off. "You, though... you're Buffy. Wow." Buffy raised an eyebrow. "What, you don't have fifty robot Buffys in your world?" she half-teased, not knowing what to expect from this new Scribe. It was weird enough meeting one, but to meet somebody who had a whole other view of her universe someplace..... The boy Luke shook his head. He gazed solemnly into her eyes. "There's just one Buffy in my world," he said. "And one Faith." He bit his lip, wondering how far to go. "And that's really all they need there." Oh....kay. Buffy nodded, taking note of the slightly fanatical gleam coming into the boy's eyes...the same kind of gleam Mary had in hers... and decided to drop the subject. She glanced over at the dark Slayer lying in her bed. Faith was staring at Luke like she couldn't figure out which side of him was up. It did not go unnoticed; the boy couldn't stop staring at her, even when he spoke to Buffy. He looked like he very much wanted to go over there, to speak to Faith, to probably do a lot more than that with her....and yet, he kept his distance. He wasn't scared so much as...reverent. Restrained. Screw restrained. "Hey, you." Faith pushed herself up in the bed, wincing at her creaking limbs. A good workout would clear that right up. "You, mister....Freakshow, whatever your name is. C'mere." FreakZilla cast a glance over at Mary Sue. His glance fell to Buffy, who could see the uncertainty and...near-fear...in his eyes. But when Faith told you to come... He cautiously approached the bed where the dark Slayer had lain for two years. Faith's face was stone as he came toward her. To see those death-black eyes close up was a wonderous, terrifying thing. The Scribe Luke tried to keep from gulping as he stopped at her bedside, willingly summoned by the Slayer Faith. She looked him up and down. "So....you're like, some kind of god or something?" she spoke. He shook his head. "Not around these parts," he mumbled. Faith nodded, trying to sort out the images she could remember from her sleep. "But.... you tried to get me awake. You spoke up for me." "Yeah. I had to." She lay back on the pillow, glancing from him, to Mary Sue, across the way. "So what you want now, a medal?" "No--" Luke shook his head, abruptly. Then, taking his life in his hands, he leaned closer. "Just -- promise me you'll fight. Just keep fighting her. She kicks your ass too much. Give her hell for me, will you?" He cast a covert glance at Mary. And now it was time for the two main combatants of the day to meet. Mayor Wilkins watched as the small girl he had verbally abused to the point of death approached him. He nodded at her, expectantly. "So." Huge grin. "No hard feelings?" Mary Sue knew she should have been upset. Instead, she smiled, shaking her head. "Nah," she sighed. "Are you crazy?" That was Luke. "The guy tried to kill you, Ali! Jeez--" Mary nodded at him, smiling. "Yeah, I know!" She turned her smile back to the Mayor. "He did what he does. It was very in character of him." He nodded, accepting that. "So what's the verdict? Here?" She shrugged, becoming solemn. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I'll keep going. I'll finish what I've started. But I don't know how long it'll last." She looked nervously at the evil wizard. "I can't promise you anything." "Neither can I," he answered ominously, smiling. Mary seemed to suppress a shiver. "Glad we understand each other," she giggled. She gazed at him for a while. "You showed me some dark parts of myself," she told him. "Used to be I was scared of them. But after I got a good look at them, they didn't scare me quite as much. Go figure." Abruptly she threw her arms around the evil politician's shoulders and gave him a huge hug. "Thank you," she whispered. She couldn't see the utterly diabolical smile on his face, though Buffy figured she probably knew about it. "Corrupting young girls is what I do best," he answered cheerily. Mary gave him an uneasy smile before turning away, shivering. Catching FreakZilla's incredulous eye, she grinned. "He freaks me out!" she mouthed, stage whispering.
The spell was administered by Willow and the Mayor, oddly enough, working together for one time only. Buffy kept a close watch over the proceedings, but everyone seemed to behave as Willow handed out stones of power to everybody. They stood in the middle of a hastily-scribbled symbol on the floor (the interns were going to have a fit over the Magic Marker mess on the linoleum). The symbol consisted of two circles touching at their rims, and a third, smaller circle joining them. Where the large circles touched in the center of the small one, a word in Sanskrit had been scrawled. Willow took FreakZilla's hand, smiling nervously at him, and stepped with him into the design. He stood in one circle and she in the other, making sure the touching rims were between them, and making sure not to let go of each other's hands. Mary Sue linked her hand in the Mayor's and he led her into the design the same way, he standing next to Willow, she standing next to her fellow Scribe. Willow held out her hand and sprinkled some weird herb on the floor, onto the Sanskrit word for contact. "The veil between worlds is parted," she chanted in Latin. "God, that's your Latin?" the Mayor chided with a sigh. Mary Sue giggled. He held out his hand, and sprinkled another handful of something, chanting in a much clearer voice: "The link between worlds has been made. That which has crossed over must be cast back whence it came." He held out his hand to Willow, and she took it, cautiously. Mary Sue and FreakZilla joined hands. The four stood facing each other, hands linked, as the design surrounding them began to glow. The herbs and crystals on the floor shimmered and began to sizzle, bleeding the Sanskrit word into the tile. The atmosphere snapped loudly, like a mini-sonic boom, and light shot up from the designs, making a neat pattern on the ceiling. Mary and FreakZilla smiled at each other. The boy Scribe cast his gaze out of the circle, toward Buffy, standing next to Faith's bed. He caught Faith's eyes, and mouthed the words "thank you". Mary Sue, for her part, didn't take her eyes off the Mayor as the veil between worlds lifted for the last time. She just squeezed her friend's hand tight, and smiled, watching his face as he and Willow spoke the last words: "The veils be dropped, the links be broken. Let gods be gods and man be man." The magicians dropped the Scribes' hands. And in a flash of ultrablue light, the Scribes vanished.
The End.