Episode 9: From Distant Fronts

Saturday, October 25, 2003

Xander sat between Willow and Giles, staring blankly into space as the ceremony proceeded. In his head, he was fantasizing an alternate ending to his own wedding. One in which he had actually gone through with it. He and Anya were married, and had gone on their honeymoon in some beautiful, quiet place thousands of miles from demons and Hellmouths. He had fought with her in the final stand in Sunnydale. Anything that came near her met swift defeat at his hands. He and Anya were still together, and happy.

A single tear trickled out of his eye when reality came crashing back down on him. He felt Willow's warm, comforting hand over his, and gave her a watery smile. Giles, who had observed this from Xander's other side, felt another pang of sympathy for his young friend. He had in many ways returned to his usual humorous self, but occasions like this one, where his grief floated to the surface, were not few.

Willow too found it difficult to pay attention to the ceremony. After all, the only real interaction she had ever had with either Lorin or Sam, apart from occasional snatches of light conversation, had been when she lifted and re-cast Lorin's cloaking spell. She suspected that she had only been invited because Lorin, being from another dimension, didn't have many friends from this one. Consequently, even his acquaintances had been invited in an attempt to balance out the number of guests he had invited versus the ones invited by Sam.

Willow's eyes wandered to the right of the happy couple at the altar to where the best man stood. Oz, in his crisp tuxedo, reminded her of their senior prom, and before she knew what she was doing, she was fondly reliving those memories. It had been a wonderful night.

Then she thought of Kennedy, and felt a twinge of annoyance. Kennedy had refused to attend the wedding, simply because of Lorin's non-human status. Willow had thought it would be a good opportunity for them to spend time together, since that seemed to be happening less and less even though they spent most of their time in the same building. But Willow wasn't about to force it on Kennedy if it would only result in spending the entire wedding attempting to ignore Kennedy's restlessness and suspicious glares shot at Lorin, not to mention the still more unpleasant ones that would be directed at Oz. Willow wasn't sure why, but ever since the last full moon, Kennedy's dislike of Oz had been reduced to venomous glances. Which, considering that she had previously been going out of her way to not-so-inconspicuously inflict minor injuries on him every chance she got, was a definite improvement.

Next to Willow sat Buffy, who'd had even less interaction with the bride and groom, seeing as the groom was still somewhat frightened of her by virtue of her being a Slayer. She was a little more mentally present than Xander and Willow, but not by much. The wedding had her thinking back to the cookie dough speech again. "I do, sometimes, think that far ahead." She was watching the kind of happy ending she had wanted for herself for a long time. But she had a mission, and that came first. That was what it meant to be a Slayer. The only trouble was, Buffy knew all too well that putting the mission first meant there likely wouldn't be a "next" wherein that happy ending could occur. There certainly hadn't been one for any of her predecessors, anyway. Her thoughts flickered back to those Slayers, and she traveled through their lives for what was at least the thousandth time since she had first been forced to witness them.

But too soon, she had gone through all of them and arrived again at her own calling. And there sat Angel in that junky old car, watching her called. She remembered him telling her he had been there, and that he had loved her even then. A smile unconsciously stretched her lips. She had been skeptical when he told her, because it wasn't exactly as if she'd been head over heels the first time she saw him, but now that she'd seen it with her own eyes, she knew he had meant it. Up until then, she hadn't really understood how extreme a difference she had made in his existence. Less than a year after that one-sided encounter, he had gone from the grungy-to-the-point-of-looking-diseased guy in that car to the sinfully attractive, dark, mysterious guy she had knocked down in that alley.

Before Xander, Willow, or Buffy really realized it, the wedding was over. Next came the reception, which, thankfully, was entertaining for more than just Lorin, Sam, and Sam's parents. Illogical Stop Sign got a break from playing, as Lorin had paid another band to provide the background music instead. For the first hour, all of the guests took turns congratulating the newlyweds and filtering down the buffet table. Oz stood dutifully next to Lorin, while Cole was among the groomsmen and Alex with the bridesmaids.

"Sam's taste is a little better than Anya's was," Willow observed to Buffy as they moved through the line, indicating Alex and the other bridesmaids in their matching dresses. In reality, the dresses had not been Sam's first choice. However, she had known full well that if she wanted Alex to cooperate, which she did, the dresses had to involve either green or black in some way, no pink of any kind, and absolutely no lace or ruffles. The result was that they all wore fairly basic sleek, pastel green spaghetti strap dresses that fell to their ankles.

At last, stiff from standing and smiling at people for so long, Lorin, Sam, and their entourage were all released and the reception transformed into something resembling a formal ball. Cole and Alex gratefully left the greeting line for the dance floor. Willow and Buffy took turns dancing with Xander and Giles, though the latter was merely humoring them, and had quite a good time.

"You know," said Alex dryly, "hanging around the buffet table only works as an excuse not to dance for the first hour and a half."

"It's good food," said Oz.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Of which you have had more than enough by now, I'm sure," she said impatiently, and before he could protest, she had dragged him onto the dance floor.

Oz rarely thought about his height, but he found that dancing with a girl who was about half a head taller than his humble five feet four inches (though some of that was due to her choice of footwear) was rather intimidating. "Did you and Cole have a fight or something?" he asked, wanting to know why she had removed him from the safety of the buffet table.

"No," she said, "you were just driving me nuts standing there trying not to look like you've been staring at Willow the whole time."

Oz shot her one of the closest things to a withering glare he had ever given anyone.

Alex was unimpressed. "If you don't ask her to dance at least once, I'm going to hurt you," she said.

"She's seeing someone," he said automatically.

"Who isn't here," Alex pointed out, one eyebrow raised. While she and Kennedy had, for the most part, gotten over their issues with each other, the fact remained that Alex had spent three and a half years watching Oz live a lonely, dateless existence, and she was sick of it. So, between her lonely friend and her least favorite Slayer at headquarters, she knew who she wanted to get the girl.

But Oz would not be easily swayed. "If anything happens, it'll be her choice," he said. "After the way things ended last time—both times, I've got no right to make the first move." It was what he'd been telling himself for months. It was all that was preventing him from doing anything more than stare—and, of course, use his teeth to violently behead anything posing a threat to her life...

"Whatever. Still won't stop me from hurting you," said Alex.

Oz didn't protest. It wouldn't do any good, and in any case, he probably deserved it. The song ended, and Alex released him and jerked her head significantly in Willow's direction before heading off to find Cole again.

Oz's eyes found Willow as though they were magnetically drawn to her. Her face was alight with laughter as she, Buffy, and Xander began to dance to the next song, which was much more energetic. At its opening notes, Giles had determinedly fled the scene, taking up Oz's former position at the buffet table.

Oz was sure he knew what it would be like if he did ask her to dance. Awkward. So awkward it could probably be used as the dictionary example of the word. Still... He continued to watch her. She looked absolutely beautiful in her royal blue Mandarin style dress, her long red hair pinned up artfully with a pair of chopsticks. He thought back to the first time he'd seen her, wearing that enormous Eskimo costume, and he smiled. Willow looked beautiful in anything.

His vision was obscured then by a brunette wearing a black dress. His smile melted away as he realized that the newcomer was in fact Kennedy, who went straight for the dancing trio. When Willow saw her, her expression turned to surprised delight, and she threw her arms around her. Oz promptly joined Giles at the table, not caring if Alex knocked him senseless for it later.

Lorin had never been happier in his life. In less than an hour, he and Sam would be on their way to the airport, where they would fly to Ireland for their honeymoon. Sam had told her parents they were going to visit Lorin's family while they were there, since they hadn't been able to make the transatlantic journey to the wedding. He might sound Irish, but, having grown up in Azerkeld, the accent was just an odd coincidence. He had never actually been to Ireland, and he was curious. With any luck, he'd be able to solidify his fake story of being from Dublin after actually experiencing the place.

As Sam reassured her parents that all of their trip plans were finalized and, yes, the plane tickets had been purchased, Lorin stepped out of the otherwise empty ballroom and into the chilly October air, his breath misting in front of him. He amused himself for a moment by holding his breath and then releasing it all at once so that the cloud of mist was thicker.

"Hello, big brother," came a voice from his right.

Lorin jumped so hard that he nearly toppled over, then turned to face the speaker. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw who it was. "Embry!" he said. Before him stood a nineteen-year-old girl with chin-length silver hair, eyes with completely black irises, and, most noticeably, enormous bat-like black wings, just like the ones he was currently concealing by magic. She wore sleek, fitted gray pants and a black top which fastened around the neck and left her back bare all the way to her waist in order to accommodate the wings. An energy cannon was strapped to her right hip, and the red stripe down its side indicated that she was a member of what was essentially a special ops team. She was leaning casually up against the side if the building, but her expression was stern. She was one of the very last people he would have expected to see for the rest of his life, let alone the evening after his wedding.

"D'ye 'ave any idea 'ow long we've been lookin' fer ye?" Embry demanded in an accent identical to his own.

"Four years?" Lorin guessed.

"Aye! Four years! What the 'ell are ye doin' in a completely different world?" She was certainly a lot less pleasant than when he'd last seen her. "An' without wings, too? What is this?"

"I'm livin' my life!" he said, "The way I'd ne'er 'ave been able to back 'ome!" It was the same sibling rivalry they'd always had, with the exception that this argument was actually about something that mattered.

"You deserted," she accused, arms folded across her chest.

"Aye, I deserted," he said indifferently, causing Embry to look as if she were about to burst with indignation. She, of course, was the perfect little patriotic zealot. "I've no interest in fightin' that war. I didn't start it, so I'm not gonna die to 'elp end it. It's all right fer the ones who want to fight, but that's not me and it ne'er will be."

"Fine. Well, ye've got a couple of options, 'ere. See, if ye come back and fight in the war like a good boy, there's every chance ye'll survive, and ye can come back to this," she waved her arm around at the surroundings in a contemptuous sort of way, "place."

"Right, that's one option, what's the other?" asked Lorin, raising his eyebrows.

"Either way, ye're comin' back. So, ye can stop this foolishness an' come back with me now, or I'll report back and they'll send the Sentinels instead."

At this, Lorin paled.

"And then ye won't even get a court martial," she went on coldly. "They'll skip straight to the part where ye get executed fer desertin'." From a pouch on her belt, Embry withdrew a glowing purple orb that appeared to be entirely devoid of solid components. "What'll it be, then?"

Sam, her parents having at last departed, looked around to see where Lorin had gone. She headed for the door to the balcony a little slower than she usually would have; her ankles were rather sore from the heels she'd been in all day. Before she had quite reached it, the clouded glass glowed with an odd purple light. Forgetting the discomfort in her feet, she held up her skirt and sprinted the rest of the way to the door, even as the light grew stronger. "Lorin!" she cried as she wrenched the door open. But the only thing on the balcony was a ring of the same purple light, on the other side of which there seemed to be a corridor. She hesitantly approached the ring of light, but it didn't wait for her to get past her wariness. Within seconds, it had contracted until it vanished entirely.

Two hours after the reception ended, everyone had returned to headquarters, changed out of their formal attire, and all of the squads except Buffy's and Kennedy's had left to patrol. Their heads angled sideways in puzzlement, Buffy and Xander stood a safe distance away from Willow, who was attempting to rig her recently acquired laptop to the enormous TV. She was so absorbed in her task that she didn't notice them until she had finished hooking up the various wires.

"We got a video message from Andrew while we were gone," she explained. "So, I thought, big screen, and that way everyone can see it without having to mob my laptop."

"Efficient," said Cole, who had just come up from watching Alex and Kennedy sparring with each other and the rest of the off-duty Slayers. "Should I go back down and get them for the premier showing?"

"That'd be great, thanks," said Willow distractedly. She turned the TV on, and frowned when the screen lit up completely blue. She fiddled with the remote for a minute. The screen remained resolutely blue, and she glared at it in frustration.

"Blue screen of doom, huh?" asked Oz as he emerged from the kitchen bearing a slice of reheated pizza on a plate. Willow nodded, still glaring at the obstinate TV. Oz left the pizza on the table and walked over to the enormous thing. "May I?" he asked, pointing at it. The two of them had been rather formal with each other since he had saved her life. In Oz's opinion, it was at least a step up from the nearly debilitating awkwardness they had been laboring under up until then.

"Go ahead," said Willow, before going back to her post watching the tiny white lights move around the map of the city.

"There we go," said Oz about a minute later, and an enlarged image of Willow's laptop screen replaced the glaring blue on the TV. Willow smiled gratefully at him. Apart from computer hacking, her most recent experience with electronic hardware had involved reprogramming the Buffybot. While she had performed admirably there, intricate reengineering robotics had left her with a tendency to overthink technical difficulties, with the result that she had failed to spot the source of the problem: a simple misplaced wire, which redirected the video feed to the sound input instead.

"Nice going," said Xander, before a mildly alarmed silence fell as they all looked at the screen. Displayed there, slightly pixelated, was a six-foot headshot of an incredibly tan Andrew in a sombrero, who seemed to be staring back at them with eyes wide and an overly enthusiastic dorky smile plastered across his face.

"And I thought he was overbearing when he was regular sized," said Buffy faintly.

"Maybe big screen was a bad plan," said Willow, who was not alone in being severely creeped out by the image.

"Okay, what'd we mi—gyah!" said Cole, who had just returned from downstairs with seven Slayers in tow, and, upon catching sight of the enormous face on the screen, recoiled so violently that he knocked into Laurel. This at least broke the tension, and everyone else burst out laughing.

"Graceful," said Laurel, before shoving Cole impatiently back out of her personal space. Soon, they had all situated themselves in front of the TV, and Willow hit play.

"Hola, Cleveland!" Andrew began, and already his attempt at a Spanish accent was horribly mauled. Kennedy groaned and prepared herself as well as she could for more butchering of the language she spoke fluently. "Now, it's time for the six month update—one month early!" This earned general eye rolling from the audience. "We set off with just these two lovely señoritas," The image of Andrew changed briefly to show Julie and Laura, the two Slayers who had originally accompanied him in May. Their stony expressions and thoroughly half-hearted waves told everyone watching the video that Andrew had forced them into it.

"But," the picture switched back to the unsettling closeup of Andrew (everyone flinched slightly), "after questing diligently across the amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty, and even as far south as the lovely Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, our numbers have swelled—uh, swollen, accordingly." With that, the camera zoomed out (in true Andrew form, the full effect was achieved via the use of a track from the Two Towers score for background music). The jaws of all twelve people watching dropped as they processed what they were seeing. At least eighty Slayers were crammed into that shot, and all evidence hinted at there being even more beyond the limits of Andrew's zoom feature. Over two thirds of the ones they could see had the varied hair and skin colors of Americans, and the rest were clearly Mexican.

One of the Mexican girls nearest to Andrew caught Buffy's attention. It was a moment before she realized why this particular Slayer looked so familiar: she was none other than that little kid Buffy had seen her immediate predecessor give her life to save.

The image cut to one of just Andrew again, though he had pulled back to a less imposing distance, and his expression was now anxious. "But seriously, guys," he said, "being all super traveling Watcher hombre is getting kinda hard now, since my Spanish is, well, spotty at best. And keeping track of this many Slayer apprentices is an endeavor built entirely of insanity. I'm not sure what you've got going on back in Cleveland, but if there's any way you could spare someone—or even a few people to come give me some backup, I would love you forever." The remainder of the video was comprised of clips of the Slayers sparring (this time to Star Wars background music), and even a couple shots of actual slaying that Andrew had somehow managed to capture on film.

"Andrew?" said Dawn. "Seriously?"

"I know," said Buffy, "and did I sound impressed enough? Because, honestly, wow."

"How did he find that many so fast?"

"He didn't say on the video. I guess he's just got a knack for it. I mean, he is, like, way obsessed with all things supernatural," said Buffy.

"Very true," Dawn agreed.

"So, what's new with you?"

"Just got my grades for the first quarter," she said, and Buffy heard some ominous undertones in the way it came out.

"And...how did you do?" she asked.

"All A's," said Dawn smugly.

"You loser! Why did you have to go making me think you'd done horribly?" Buffy demanded indignantly.

"It's funnier that way," said Dawn.

"So I guess that place is the school for you, huh?"

"Yeah, well, turns out it's a lot easier to make straight A's when I'm not in constant mortal peril."

"See, my master plan totally worked," said Buffy triumphantly.

At that point, Willow came in, shooting Buffy an urgent look.

Buffy frowned, completely missing Dawn's annoyed comeback. "Hey, I've gotta go, okay, something's up."

"Oh. Okay. Bye?" said Dawn, a little put-off.

"Bye. Love you, Dawn," said Buffy.

"Love you too." They hung up, and Buffy turned back to Willow.

"Sam's here, and she's so freaked out we can't understand what she's saying," she said.

"Sam?" asked Buffy as they left the room and headed for the stairs. "But I thought she left with Lorin for Ireland already."

"Apparently not," said Willow. The two of them hurried down to the second floor, where they found a completely hysterical Sam. Alex and Cole were attempting fruitlessly to comfort her.

"What happened?" Buffy asked. Sam turned a tear-streaked face towards her.

"L-l-lorin," she managed between involuntary heaving gasps, "He v-vanished."

"What do you mean, he vanished?" asked Willow. Xander was staring at Sam in utter horror. Except instead, he was seeing Anya in the moments after he had left her at the altar. Was this how badly he had hurt her? How was it even karmically possible that she had been the one to die in that battle instead of him? How?

"I was at the reception," said Sam, wiping her eyes and forcing herself to get enough of a grip to speak properly. "Lorin and I were the only ones left. He'd gone out to the balcony while I talked to my parents, and after they left, I went to get him, and," she drew a deep, steadying breath, "the balcony was empty. There was just this weird ring of purple light, and what almost looked like a window to another place. It disappeared before I could get a better look, but I think it was a portal, like in sci-fi shows."

"A portal?" said Buffy. "To where?"

"His home dimension, probably," Sam guessed. "After I went home and got out of my dress, I went to his place and looked for anything that might help, and I found," she reached into the bag she had brought and pulled out what looked like a ball of purple light, "this."

"Can I see that?" asked Willow. Sam handed it over, then wrapped her arms tightly around herself in an effort not to go to pieces again.

"Getting any magical vibes off it?" Buffy asked.

"No," said Willow, looking perplexed. "It seems like it's just...energy. Not normal energy, but still..." She looked back at Sam. "Is this the same color as the portal?"

"Yeah," said Sam, taking it back. "I think it's how Lorin got here in the first place. It's just, he's told me stuff about Azerkeld, stuff that doesn't exactly bode well for someone like him, but I don't think I can just go charging over there by myself to get him back."

"What, you think someone came out of there and got him?" asked Xander.

"Of course!" said Sam, as if Xander had asked the most ridiculous question possible. "He wouldn't just leave! Not today. Besides, why would that thing still have been at his place if he had just up and hopped worlds on purpose?"

"Never mind," Xander mumbled.

"Didn't he say xenophobia was kind of a big theme on his world?" asked Oz. "Because I think we'd be a little conspicuous."

"You mean you'll help?" asked Sam, brightening.

"Of course we'll help," said Buffy reassuringly. "Lorin's a good guy."

Cole and Alex nodded in agreement.

"And I think I can do something about the conspicuous thing," said Willow.

"What do you mean?" asked Cole.

"Well, I'd just do the opposite of Lorin's cloaking spell on everyone who's going," she said, shrugging. "It was pretty basic. Shouldn't be hard. Just, I hope you're all not overly fond of the shirts you're wearing, because this'll kinda destroy them."

"Wait," said Xander, "are you talking about making us into winged demons? As in," here he added a great deal of emphasis, "having wings? I'm coming!"

Sam made a disgruntled noise at this cheerful reaction, but Xander didn't seem to notice.

Willow felt a tug on her arm, and she turned to find Kennedy standing there. "What?" she asked.

"Come here," said Kennedy. Everyone else looked at them.

"This is kind of urgent," Willow pointed out, trying not to sound annoyed. Ignoring this, Kennedy tugged her out of hearing range of the rest of the group.

"What?" asked Willow again, considerably less politely.

Kennedy leveled her a very stern look. "Are you seriously just going to pop over to some dimension you know almost nothing about just to rescue a demon?" she asked.

"Yes," said Willow, folding her arms. "Now, explain, please, exactly what you've got against rescuing Lorin."

"You mean aside from the 'he's a demon' part? Because I thought that pretty much covered it," said Kennedy.

"You've been to The Sound as many times as I have, and not one time has he done anything even remotely suspicious. We've been over this before. He's not evil. Or even dangerous," said Willow wearily.

"Whatever," said Kennedy. "But aren't you forgetting that there are still eight squads out there who could need your help at any moment?"

Willow hesitated. That was true. "Demon activity has been light for the past few nights, and I haven't needed to heal anyone since last Monday anyway. I'm the only one who can do this spell." She returned to the group before Kennedy could come up with another inconveniently solid reason why she shouldn't go, leaving Kennedy by herself and considerably ticked off.

"What was that about?" asked Buffy.

"Nothing," said Willow stiffly before looking at Sam again. "Do you know how this thing works?"

"No, not really," she admitted. "I was hoping you guys could find out."

"We could ask Giles to check that reference book," Xander suggested.

"And tell him to fill it up with what? The Index of Glowy Orb Things?" asked Buffy. "We don't even know what it's called."

"I have to get him back," said Sam in a small voice. She appeared to have already exhausted her ability to remain calm.

"Hey, it's doing something!" said Willow suddenly, pointing at the energy ball.

"If, by 'something', you mean 'glowing', it was already doing that," said Alex, nonplussed.

"No, something else. It got brighter. You must have tapped it somehow, Sam."

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno," said Willow. "What were you thinking about then?"

"Well, Lorin, obviously, and him being stuck in that world he hates so much."

"Maybe that's it," said Buffy. "Do it again, and see if you can make a portal."

Sam looked alarmed at the suggestion that she should be the one to open a portal of any kind. Apart from having just married a demon, her life was typically devoid of the supernatural. "I'll try," she said uncertainly.

"Just think about Lorin," said Alex, "how he's an awesome singer, funny, quirky, kinda insane." Everyone glared at her. "I'll stop helping now."

"I-I think it's working!" said Sam. The ball of light was definitely growing brighter now, and they all shielded their eyes as it became painful to look at. Then it became a ring, which widened steadily until it was about the size of a door.

"Whoa," said Cole.

"We're really going through that, aren't we?" asked Xander.

"Only if you're in this all the way," said Buffy.

Xander nodded.

She turned next to Alex and Cole. "What about you? You guys sure about this?"

"Definitely," said Alex, punching a fist into her other palm. "Besides, if we end up having to bust him out of somewhere, I'm thinking strength in numbers can't hurt."

And so, one by one, all seven of them stepped through the portal. They emerged on the other side in a smooth, spacious tunnel which had been hewn smoothly out of polished black rock and was lit by a strip of neon blue bulbs running precisely down the middle of the ceiling.

"Okay," said Xander slowly once they'd all looked around for a minute, "for a demon dimension, does this place strike anyone else as being—"

"Sterile and high-tech?" suggested Oz.

"Yeah."

"I don't think we should leave that there," said Willow, pointing at the portal. Sam hesitantly stretched out her hands and gripped the shining purple edges, then pushed inward. To her and the others' astonishment, this actually worked. Soon, the portal had closed, and was once again a mere ball of light. Sam stowed it carefully back in her bag.

"Okay," said Willow, "time to put on our disguises. Who wants to go first?"

"I'll do it," said Buffy when nobody else volunteered. Willow approached her and recalled as well as she could Lorin's cloaking spell, then mentally reverse-engineered it. A moment later, she had cast the reconstructed spell on Buffy.

"Whoa. Good one, Wil," said Xander, impressed.

"Why?" asked Buffy nervously, "What happened?"

"You mean you don't notice these?" asked Alex, as she tugged on one of the leathery wings Buffy had just sprouted.

"Hey!" said Buffy, jerking the wing sharply out of Alex's grip. Then her eyes widened, and she turned her head slowly to look over her shoulder at the foreign appendage. She gave both wings an experimental stretch. The tips easily reached the opposite walls of the tunnel, giving her an impressive wingspan of over four yards. As Willow proceeded to cast the spell on herself and everyone else, Buffy felt the place where the wings extended seamlessly out from the bottoms of her shoulder blades.

They all took a few minutes getting used to having wings, before their reason for being there came back to them. "So, how do we find Lorin now?" asked Sam.

"I think not staying in this one spot would be a good place to start," said Cole.

"Okay, then, let's go this way," said Buffy, choosing one half of the tunnel at random and walking down it. They had to walk in two rows, because the wings took up a lot of space.

"Did Lorin tell you anything else that might be helpful?" Willow asked Sam.

"Well," she said, "he didn't usually want to talk about it, but one thing I remember him saying is that the capital city of Kheldor is in a volcano."

"That's intense," said Oz.

"How long have you known that Lorin's a demon?" asked Alex.

"Since a couple of months after we started dating. His cloaking spell kinda wore off just when he came to pick me up to go out."

"And that didn't freak you out?" asked Buffy, remembering her own less-than-calm reaction when she found out Angel wasn't quite human.

"I'll admit, I wasn't expecting that," said Sam. "But, I dunno, he was still the same big, adorable dork, so I dealt with it."

"Oh, so you have always known that he's a dork," said Alex. At last, the relationship made sense to her.

"Guys," said Xander, "I think we're in the capital."

"What makes you say—," Buffy began, but then she saw what Xander had, "—oh."

"Seconded," Oz agreed. The tunnel had rather abruptly given way to a terraced landing halfway up a cone-shaped cavern so large that they couldn't make out the other side. In the center, rising all the way from the floor up to the ceiling a few thousand feet above them, encased in spiraling beams of the same black rock from which the tunnel was made, as well as some kind of clear solid, was a pillar of magma. It filled the cavern with a dull orange light. Buildings of an architectural style they had never seen, but also made of black stone—which they now realized was nothing more than the rock which made up the volcano itself—rose high all over the base of the cavern.

For such a large city, it was strangely quiet, but that was only due to the absence of the roar of vehicles which hammered out the pulse of Earth cities. The empty space above these buildings was dotted here and there with winged demons flying in every direction; in groups, by themselves, young, old, male, female—simply put, it was city life. There were even advertisement screens flashing with bright colors on some of the buildings. The only real difference was that cross-town travel was three-dimensional. Thousands upon thousands of tunnels like the one from which they had just emerged ringed the cavern in tiers, and were lit by the same blue bulbs.

At that point, Xander voiced what they were all thinking. "How the hell are we supposed to find one guy in this place?"

Buffy elbowed him in the ribs, jerking her head in Sam's direction and giving him a sharp look. At Xander's words, Sam's expression had become rather helpless and lost. Willow, on the other hand, was suddenly beaming.

"I take it you've got an idea?" said Oz. She nodded, her smile growing still wider.

Lorin sat glumly, his wings drooping, letting the voices of the Magistrate and her two advisors wash over him. How had Embry found him? Why hadn't the search been given up? He'd eluded them for four years. Talk about persistence. And why did she have to find him today? And what was Sam going through? This was so backwards! They were supposed to be on a plane to Ireland now, in each other's arms. Maybe she would have been falling asleep on his shoulder. Instead, he had been kidnapped by his own sister and thrown back into his home dimension, where he had been greeted, not by a tearful welcome home party, but by a court martial, Embry standing silently by as the witness.

"Don't ye understand the gravity of the situation?" the Magistrate was demanding. "We're at war with Fyorn and Draazin! The alliance with Teladris is crumblin', an' we need every soldier we can get."

"Already the forces of Draazin are attemptin' to breach the Blackridge Mountains! They'll reach Starpoint within days," said the first advisor.

"'Ow long'd I 'ave to be in the field?" asked Lorin dejectedly. He knew objection would be utterly futile, but there was at least a chance that it would be a short war. A small chance.

"'Owever long ye're needed," said the other advisor. "At this point, we've no way of knowin' 'ow long this war's going to last."

"Ye should be grateful. Ye're still young, an' we're sendin' ye straight into the field, instead o' punishin' ye for desertin' in the first place. That should tell ye just 'ow grave the situation is," said the Magistrate. It did. Generally, deserters were either executed or put directly on the front lines, which was as good as being executed, though arguably more dignified.

Before any of them could patronize Lorin further, there was a loud disturbance at the door in the form of it being violently kicked down. There on the threshold stood Buffy and Alex, whose combined Slayer strength had been too much for even a door made of solid lava rock to withstand. They entered the room and parted to allow Willow, Xander, Oz, Cole, and finally, Sam, to file in after them. Sam knocked a bewildered advisor aside as she ran straight to Lorin and threw herself into his arms.

"We found you," she said, before kissing him passionately in relief. Meanwhile, the four other demons present in the room were not pleased.

"Guards!" shouted the Magistrate.

"Oh, would you be referring to those four nice demons we just incapacitated and stowed down an abandoned tunnel?" asked Buffy cheerfully, pointing a thumb over her shoulder, "because I don't think they can hear you right now."

"Who are ye?" demanded Embry, glaring at Sam in particular. Who was this person and what right did she have to be kissing her brother? And why would she want to?

"Lorin's wife," said Sam in a challenging tone.

"And his friends," added Cole.

"Deserters don't 'ave friends," said one of the advisors vehemently, "and we show no records of him ever having married."

"Well, you wouldn't," said Xander. "It wasn't exactly a local ceremony."

"Civilians are not allowed in the judicial chambers! I shall 'ave ye all arrested!" said the now outraged Magistrate.

"Not civilians," said Oz.

"Well, not of here, anyway," Buffy clarified, before shooting a significant glance at Willow, who nodded.

"Dispel!" said the witch loudly. All at once, their magically added wings vanished, leaving seven pointedly non-demonic beings in the room, one of whom had already resumed making out with Lorin.

"What is this abomination?" cried the Magistrate.

"Lorin, what's wrong with ye?" asked a horror-struck Embry. But Lorin wasn't putting up with this anymore, and he had just realized that he was holding the perfect loophole in his arms. At a meaningful look from him, Sam let him go and stood next to him.

"Honorable Magistrate," said Lorin, standing up himself. The irate Magistrate turned to glare at him, as if she thought he was using her title disrespectfully. "I'm afraid I am no longer yours to command. I legally belong to Mrs. Samantha Anderson, the woman standing beside me."

Embry's jaw dropped.

"Is this true?" the Magistrate demanded of Sam. In response, Sam nodded and held up her left hand, from which they could see a thin silver band glinting on her ring finger.

"The laws are very rigid about tamperin' with what belongs to another, are they not?" Lorin continued. "An' she is not required to serve the military in any way, as she's not a native of Azerkeld, let alone our great nation of Kheldor." It was all he could do to maintain a false expression of concern for upholding law, rather than let his face crack into an enormous grin for having backed them into a legal corner.

"If ye think it's that simple, boy, ye're an even bigger fool than ye were when ye deserted!" spat one of the advisors.

"Deserted?" Cole muttered, "I thought he said he'd come to Earth to avoid getting drafted..." Everyone ignored him, the demons not acknowledging his presence in the first place, and the humans too fascinated by the proceedings to pay him much attention at this point.

"Fer the abominable act of binding yerself to a being whose veins do not run with the noble blood of Kheldor, ye are hereby banished!" said the Magistrate. It was clear to everyone present that she considered this to be the worst punishment she could possibly administer under the circumstances Lorin had just forced her into.

"Banished?" cried Lorin, the anguish in his voice so convincing that the Magistrate smirked in triumph, and Xander and Cole looked momentarily confused, until Buffy and Alex jabbed them in their respective ribs to ensure they didn't ruin the act.

"Aye, banished," said an advisor, "and may ye be trampled underhoof by the barbaric legions of Fyorn fer yer treachery!"

"I don't believe it," said Embry, whose expression was hurt and betrayed. "Ye've made yerself lower now even than a Chimera." At this, Lorin's show of despair became slightly less forced. His little sister really hated him.

"Embry," said the Magistrate commandingly. Embry went board-straight and gave the Magistrate her full attention. "Ye are to escort this," she pointed harshly at Lorin, "an' 'is 'friends' back to wherever they came from, an' be sure to relieve 'im of 'is key. Immediately." Embry nodded jerkily.

"Whichever of ye 'as the key, hand it over now," she said, holding a hand out expectantly. Sam produced the glowing purple orb and passed it to Embry. Within seconds, Embry had activated it, and they could soon see the second floor of headquarters through the portal she created with it. "In. Now," she ordered them. Lorin went through at once, not wanting to give the Magistrate any time to think of a way around his loophole. Buffy and the others followed quickly behind him.

As the purple-rimmed portal closed, Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. They had managed to break dimensional barriers, find Lorin, and get back, and it wasn't even two in the morning yet. The lights across the patrol map were all still white (something that Willow had been even quicker to take note of), and the few off-duty Slayers who hadn't taken the opportunity to get a rare full night's sleep sat watching The Mummy. Alex and Cole promptly joined them.

"Dude," said Xander. "Flying and cool architecture aside, your world is insane."

"Why d'ye think I wanted out?" asked Lorin.

"That city was pretty awesome, though," said Oz.

"Yeah," Willow agreed, "I mean, inside a volcano? How did they do that? And I'll bet they use the magma as the power source."

"As far as I know, they do," said Lorin, "an' I think the city took a couple o' centuries to build." He turned to Sam and smiled. "Now, Mrs. Anderson, I believe we were about to head overseas?"

She beamed at him. "Just one thing first," she said, then went around to each of the others and hugged them tightly. "Thank you."

"Anytime," said Buffy, "Just, try not to lose him again."

"I won't," said Sam, grinning back at Lorin.

"Oh, an' I've got one question before we go," said the demon. "'Ow did ye find me so quickly?"

"Sam's wedding ring," said Willow, "that, and having the four people closest to you made the best combination for magically tracking you down that I could have asked for. Also, having wings helped us get there faster."

"And have I mentioned how awesome that was?" asked Xander.

"Speakin' of wings," said Lorin, unfolding and refolding his own as he looked at Willow.

"Oh, of course," she said, and quickly cast the cloaking spell over him. His wings disappeared again, and his eyes went back from red to dark brown.

"Send us postcards from Ireland," said Oz.

"We will," said Sam. With a final wave, they left, arm in arm.

"Okay, I'm telling Dawn about this now," said Buffy, then disappeared up the stairs.

"I think I'll join the movie watching crew," said Xander. Willow turned and saw that the movie watching crew did not include Kennedy. She let out a small sigh and half-heartedly sat between Xander and Erin. Oz, in turn, sat beside Alex and Cole.


This isn't my favorite of all the episodes I've written, but I am reasonably pleased with it. This being said, there are things I absolutely adored. Andrew, for one. And I thought I hated writing him. How mistaken I was. He is amazing, easy to write, predictable, and hilarious. Willow and Oz moving from awkward to formal. There is progress. Slow, but it's there. Willow having quite the roller-coaster of emotions related to Kennedy. Irritation, then delight, then more irritation, then guilty disappointment. That was fun. Maybe both of them are PMSing. Xander having parallelism with the Lorin/Sam situation. What, after all, is the point of a plot line not directly linked to main characters if it doesn't at least inspire introspection of some kind? The demon capital city. I LOVE that city and would totally live there. The description of it makes me insanely happy. The whole thing is lifted from the same independent project I pulled Lorin, Sam, Alex, and Cole from. I hope I wrote it well enough so that you guys can all picture it as clearly as I can. Skipping from Willow's epiphany grin to the Scoobies plus Alex, Cole, and Sam busting in on the court martial. Well, there is an unwritten law of plot wherein if the brilliant plan is actually spoken onscreen, it will fail. If you skip to the action, however, the plan will succeed (an excellent example of this can be found in "Innocence", with Xander's plan to destroy the Judge). And, behold, Scooby success, because we didn't hear Willow explaining what they were up to until the end.