We had to write an epic for English… Our teacher said we could rewrite a piece of fiction if we wanted to. So I couldn't not do this. :D BEST. ASSIGNMENT. EVER. B) I had a 100 line limit, so I had to skip a few details, lol. Thus I didn't really go into Ben at all. But I think the general idea came across. Plus you all are whedonists, so you know this. Heehee. But my teacher isn't. Thus the lengthy setup and shtuffumz.

The Gift

Glorificus once was a goddess of old
Who reigned in a world run by demons and death.
Beside her were others who shared in her power,
But they could not contain all her bloodlust and wrath.
A war was declared over who took the throne
In the deities' fear of forsaking their crowns,
And Glorificus fell, for all three of them knew
It was one against two, and as strong as she was,
From the beginning it seemed she had lost.
The goddess was sent to a pitiful place,
Though you and I think it an adequate home,
She was cut down to a powerless creature,
Unable to rule, or to ravage or kill.
Known only as That Which Cannot Be Named,
Her spirit lay silent for years to come.

Her world and ours were just two among millions,
And the Void was a barrier that bound them apart.
Some spells here and there were dimensional doors,
But the Void was ceaselessly sealed by the Key.
As Glorificus conquered her humanly form
(Though still she would falter from human to god),
She sought out the Key, in her sickness of Earth
And her hunger for chaos consuming each world.
But the Order of Dagon, aware she'd awakened,
Concealed the Key using ancient spells
To give it the form of a frail human child,
Woven into history as family to the Slayer,
Who thought that her sister had always been there.

Now the Slayer was given a gift long before.
It was she who was destined to face the unknown,
The demons, the vampires, the monsters of myth.
To each generation a Slayer is born.
Young Buffy Summers was our Chosen One,
With a mentor and friends who would help her to fight,
But the weight of the world was still hers alone.

When given the news that her dear sister Dawn
Was borne from her blood by the Dagon monks,
Buffy swore to protect her, now more than ever,
For the fate of the world lay with her and the Key,
And the hell-goddess knew not what form it had taken,
So the vampire slayer kept this secret from all.
Dawn always did feel like she didn't belong.
But her life was a lie – what a shock it would be
When the little lost girl found that she was the Key.

The goddess did have a single advantage:
The Key could be sensed by those outside the world,
In other words, people whose minds were destroyed.
And Glorificus fed off of this very thing,
So consuming their sanity not only sustained her,
But gave her an army to find her the Key.
And since Buffy was safeguarding Dawn with her life,
They were never so near her to see her true form
Until the Slayer's friend Tara was driven to madness.
At just the wrong place at just the wrong time,
Glorificus saw Tara, Tara saw Dawn
And all was revealed, and all too soon
Dawn was taken away, Buffy left all alone
With the Void to be opened in a matter of hours.
There awaited a ritual for the pending apocalypse,
In which Dawn would stand over the mouth of the Void,
As her blood would flow into it, all worlds would end,
Unless somehow the blood could stop flowing forever.
The Slayer knew only one way this could be.
Buffy couldn't kill Dawn, and was lost in the thought
That there was no other way to rescue us all.

But the ritual had a limited time,
And once its hour had come and gone,
The Key would revert to simply Dawn,
On the condition that the ritual never commenced.
So the Slayer and all needed only to stall,
Until the Key's power had perished at last.
Tara, still missing the mind she once had,
Could lead them straight to the location of Dawn,
On a tower hovered over the heart of the Void.
The goddess was waiting for Buffy below it,
In need of another mind to devour.
Buffy struck at the weakened Glorificus
While the others held back the army from Dawn.

With one blow, Glorificus was knocked to the ground,
And the Slayer immediately ran for the tower.
But in seconds the goddess was back on her feet,
And she chased after Buffy to the top of the tower.
In the midst of their struggle, they both fell together,
And as the battle went on to get back up again,
One who worshipped the hell-god was already with Dawn,
Preparing his knife to cut through her flesh.

As Glorificus reverted to humanly form,
Buffy spared her from death and ran back to save Dawn.
But her Watcher refused to see the goddess return,
And with one hand he held back the human from breathing.
So ended the human, so ended the god.

Buffy ran to Dawn's side, but the blood had poured down
To the mouth of the Void, and the end had begun.
As the Key was bleeding into the Void,
The dimensions were bleeding into each other.
Dawn was willing to give up her life for the world,
But the Slayer could never allow her to die.

Dawn was her sister, made from her blood.
They were one and the same. There was one other choice.
Buffy's blood was the same as the Key's,
She could die in her place.

"Listen to me," said the Slayer to Dawn,
"I love you now and I always will.
But this is my destiny – death is my gift.
Take care of my friends. Let them take care of you.
You have to be strong, for me and for them.
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it, Dawn…
Be brave and live… For me."

With those words, Buffy kissed her sister goodbye.
She leapt off of the tower and stopped the blood flowing.
The Void was closed, the Key was no more,
And with the death of the Slayer came the life of us all.