Disclaimer: See chapter one.
A/N: I'm updating more quickly now that we're nearing an end. I hope you're still enjoying Potential. I'm currently planning a possible sequel to this, so please let me know if you think I should keep going with this thread.
Chapter 9
Twenty minutes past midnight
The Oracl Ruins
Buffy caught Sophie's eye and beamed, but before she could say a word, she slumped to the ground.
Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya, Spike, Angel and Dawn followed, and then the eight of them began twitching and convulsing in unison.
'The ritual!' Sophie whispered in desperation.
'The ritual,' Warren sighed contentedly. 'Finally, something's going right.'
Sophie looked at her fellow pupils in horror.
'No!' She yelled.
The students of Potential seemed to take her cry as a command. They ran forward and swarmed around Warren and Amy, crushing them against a wall, and whether slayer, watcher, half demon or Wicca, they threw at them any weapon they could, magical or otherwise. All of Warren's guards had been slaughtered, but his enormous collection of Urala minions came rushing to his defence as the students descended upon him. Any student who could reach them was trying their hardest to cause as much pain to them as possible, while a group of Willow's most advanced pupils had all grabbed hold of each others' hands, and were blasting apart the cage with the sheer volume of spells being thrown at it. Their screams of 'Inflatus!' and 'Praemium!' were barely heard above the sounds of swords clashing and arrows magically zooming through the air to reach their target.
Eva and Elijah were standing at the edge of the room commanding a collection of axes and maces to fight the Uralas, while Ally and Jackson were fighting the demons hand to hand, using a such a variety of styles that Gunn would have been extremely proud of them.
Manny and several other werewolves were using the skills they had learned from Oz to fight. They were making themselves go halfway between their coherent human sides and their wild wolf sides, thus enabling them to fight with the skills of a wolf and the mind of a human. The other half demons were using their own God given gifts to fight in any way they could.
The staff, however, had barely noticed the war raging around them.
'Buffy? Buffy! No!' Faith was crouched next to the slayer, holding her by the shoulders, trying to wake her. Andrew knelt next to her and tried to revive Giles. Rhona and Vi scooped up Xander and began feeling for a pulse.
Harmony, seeing what everyone else was doing, ran to the nearest unconscious body – Anya - and lifted her, trying to get some reaction.
'Oh my God…' Fred whispered as she watched Spike convulse in front of her. She ran toward him and tried to stop him twitching and shaking. She was quickly joined by Raven.
Gunn was trying to shake Angel awake. 'Come on man, come on…'
Lorne was kneeling over Dawn, trying to soothe her as she writhed on the ground. 'Stop, Dawnikins, come on now, shhh…'
Wesley stared wide eyed at the scene in front of him.
'Gunn, you can't wake him – Faith, stop.'
'How can you be so calm?' Layla demanded. 'Look at what's happening! We have to stop this!'
'We can't – the prophecy said -' Wesley began, before being drowned out by a cry of deepest despair.
'No! Willow!' Oz cried. 'I just got you back! No!'
He was bent over her shaking form, trying to hold her in his arms, but unable to keep her there.
Cordelia stared open mouthed at the cage floor where they lay. Tears streamed down her face. 'No…not now, we've lasted so long… So long…' she sank to the ground next to where Xander and Willow lay and tried to help Oz, Vi and Rhona to wake them, though she could barely see them through her tears.
Amy and Warren were half buried in a sea of angry pupils, but, as they caught a glimpse of the cage and its inhabitants, Amy wondered if she'd ever seen Warren as happy as he looked right then.
Twenty minutes past midnight
The school
The coven was in the library, still in their circle, chanting softly in Latin when the prophecy began to fulfil itself at the ruins.
'Nos es sanctimonialis, succurro nos ingravesco, permissum nos servo lemma.
Permissum nos servo lemma, nos es sanctimonialis, succurro nos ingravesco.'
Suddenly Althenea's head shot up. Her eyes facing skyward, she began to chant in a different language, so fast the others couldn't translate it.
'Dénos la energía, nosotros son la energía. Dénos la energía, nosotros son la energía.'
Knowing that their timing was essential, the other women sliced a deep cut into each of their hands and let the blood fall into a circle in the middle of the room.
As suddenly as she had started, Althenea stopped, and when she stood, colour seemed to fade from her hair and clothes, leaving only a bright, emanating white light.
The women of the coven clasped hands and colour drained from all of them.
The four white haired, white clothed women exhaled sharply and all colour returned to them.
'It's time,' Althenea said, breathing heavily.
The women each closed their eyes and faded into nothing.
xxxxx
The four women materialised in the chamber where the staff were being held almost immediately.
'Videlicet Tractus!' Althenea yelled, clearing the room magically.
All the debris from the blasted cage disappeared, but instead of taking students out of the room, the spell just made the room bigger. There was a large space in the middle, where she, Paige, Helena and Cassandra all sat.
'What is this?' Warren yelled from the middle of the crowd of students.
For the first time, Warren looked threatened.
He strode forward and into the clearing. His skinless features were twisted as fear took hold of him.
'What are you doing? No living entity can defeat the brotherhood of Fusengor!'
Althenea stood, and calmly turned to face Warren.
'No living entity… Until now.'
With a flash of her eyes, she immobilised Warren and Amy where they stood.
'We are the Sisterhood of Rosufeng. The only force with the power to stop the Fusengor.'
Warren felt like he couldn't breathe.
She sat back down and began chanting again.
Unbeknownst to anyone but the coven; several chambers away, deep inside the ruins, the Brotherhood of Fusengor were being periodically stripped of all power and authority. The coven were taking their strength and their jurisdiction over the magical world, and turning it against them. They were going to use that power to restore souls and skills to whomever they rightfully belonged.
The coven stopped chanting and began to channel their energy into restoring their colleagues to their former selves.
Without warning, the eight convulsing bodies that lay on the floor of the cage rose into the air, dragged out of the arms holding them still.
'What? What's going on?' yelled Raven, tear stained and stricken.
'Is that the coven doing that?' Lorne cried.
'I don't believe it is,' Wesley replied quietly, looking up at the bodies of his friends.
Something pale and shimmering was drifting out of Buffy, Giles, Xander and Willow, and into Dawn, Spike, Anya and Angel.
The coven looked up, panicked.
'Althenea!' Helena yelped. 'It's started!'
Suddenly, something much darker and more solid came up from inside Willow, Xander and Giles, taking residence inside Buffy's almost emptied body.
Meanwhile Anya, Angel, Spike and Dawn were juddering and shaking again. All of a sudden, Dawn began screaming, and it was the most excruciatingly painful sound any of them had ever heard. Her soul was being pushed out of her body.
Then, from Angel's body, the sound of Xander screaming sounded like a siren.
'Xander's in Angel?' Faith whispered her voice sounding hoarse.
'Angel's winning…' Gunn choked, holding Faith in his arms as she shook with fear.
The sound of Spike screaming as his soul began to slip reached their ears almost as soon as Willows did, coming from Anya's body.
Dawn's screaming stopped, followed by Xander's, Spike's and Willow's.
The bodies fell to the ground, and the silvery misted orbs of the expelled souls hung above them, fading slowly into transparency. Soon they'd fade entirely.
The expelled souls belonged to Willow, Spike, Xander and Dawn.
The people left were Angel, in his own body, Giles, in Spike's body, Buffy, in Dawn's, and Anya, in her own.
Buffy looked up at the misty orbs that were still steadily fading away.
'No! Dawn!'
'Buffy,' Angel pointed at something much lower than the souls, but Buffy couldn't tear her eyes away from her sister's slowly fading soul. 'Buffy!'
She forced herself to look down, and immediately wished she hadn't.
She could see her body, her face, filled to the brim with power. Her eyes were black and she was so strong that waves seemed to be coming off her, but worst of all, Buffy could see clearly that this being had absolutely no humanity.
No fear, no guilt, no conscience.
And suddenly she became aware that she was in her sister's body. Buffy felt a wave of guilt. She'd forced her own sister's soul out of its body…
Her sister's body was much weaker than Buffy's own, and it felt different.
'Oh my God. Oh my God…'
The coven was emanating waves of their own power as they generated more force than they had ever before.
'Althenea...' Paige whispered.
'We don't…have enough…strength…' panted Cassandra.
Althenea stood, never breaking concentration, and walked toward Sophie. When Althenea grabbed her hand, she knew what to do.
Sophie yelled as loud and clear as she could. 'Everyone hold hands! Work together, share your power!'
As the hundreds of students all did as they were told, the waves of power rolling off them were so strong that the floor and ceiling cracked with the heat, and the magic immobilising Warren and Amy tightened so much that they began to blister. The magic binding them cracked, and they were released, only to be caught in the most powerful flow of good magic since Willow made all potentials slayers. They didn't last long in that kind of heat. As they ran for the exit, all their hopes of world domination dashed, they ran into a furious Locar, the miniature Urala that Warren had mistreated so badly.
As the battle raged on, the Urala took his revenge with hitherto unseen powers.
Sophie looked around the room and saw her classmates; the most powerful collection of teenagers in the world, working together, sharing their primal powers to save those that taught and nurtured them, and even amidst all the pain and fear in the room, Sophie felt a huge surge of pride. Pride for her fellow students, and pride for herself, for being a part of this huge, powerful family.
Althenea broke her hold with Sophie and raised both arms to the ceiling, before bringing them sharply down.
The misted silvery clouds surrounding the souls became clearer, then were being summoned back to this plane, with another surge of power, Althenea directed all the switched powers and souls back to their original sources. The whole room became misted for a moment, before all became clear again, and Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Angel, Spike, Anya and Dawn all stood, trembling, shaking and slightly queasy, but themselves.
The students let go of each other and stumbled as they felt the waves of power they'd generated from deep inside themselves fill them up again.
Althenea stood, trembling. 'We did it,' she whispered.
Suddenly, the room was filled with whooping and cheers from the hundreds of pupils there. The sounds reached the ceiling and everyone was filled with the kind of euphoria you only got after saving the world.
Buffy walked out of the cage first, followed by the others whom the school had help save.
The cheering faded as Buffy prepared to speak.
'Althenea…how?' Buffy asked, astounded.
Althenea smiled, as did Cassandra, Paige and Helena.
'It's a long story…why don't we go back to the school. We'll explain there, after everyone's rested and re-energised.'
Buffy smiled at Althenea, before turning to the exit.
The crowd parted for her, as, with Angel by her side, and her friends behind her, she began to walk back to her school, where she would find all the answers she desperately craved.
A/N: I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, because it's the penultimate one.
The next chapter I post will be the last, and hopefully it'll give you all the answers you need. If you have any right now, though, please let me know and I'll include an explanation.
