Episode 11: Stronger than You

Guest Starring (sort of): Rachel Hurd-Wood as Nyx

†

"Ha! I am the wielder of the sniper rifle! Fear my long-range powers of annihilation!" said Xander with a cackle that recalled cartoon supervillains.

"Hey, 'wielder of the sniper rifle'," said Oz. "Any last words?" He fired the rocket launcher and Xander's character went up in smoke.

"When I respawn, I will hunt you down and destroy you," Xander replied bitterly.

"Ahem," said Liz, holding out a hand expectantly. "I'm afraid that vengeance will have to be mine."

Xander resignedly passed her the controller, then stood and surveyed the room. The second they turned on Halo, Giles had wordlessly relocated down to the first floor. Sarah and Rona were also playing, their faces screwed up in concentration. Cole, Allison, and Miko were currently waiting for someone's character to get killed so they could play, and the rest of Miko's squad was downstairs, training.

Xander stretched and headed for the kitchen, thinking he'd dig around in the fridge for something to eat. He found Willow there—at least, physically. Her expression was completely blank. Xander couldn't resist; he waved a hand rapidly in her face. She jumped, then looked around and recognized him.

"Oh. Hey, Xander," she said, smiling. "How's the game?"

"Humiliating," he replied. She chuckled, but in a half-hearted sort of way. He narrowed his eye, scrutinizing her closely. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"What?" she said vaguely. "I'm fine."

"Well, yeah, but where are you fine? You're not here," he pointed out.

"I don't know," she said. She let out a long sigh.

"So what's going on?"

Willow considered him for a second, then folded her arms and looked at the floor. "Me. And how I fail at being in relationships," she said finally. "I mean, I've never even been the one to do the breaking up, but it always crumbles, even if I'm happy. Oz left, came back, and got so messed up because of me that he had to come all the way over here to get better. I drove Tara away, then she came back, and then she got shot. And now Kennedy's gone."

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to spot the pattern?" said Xander.

"Yeah," she said glumly, "the pattern of me being a black hole of destruction disguised as a girlfriend."

"Hey," said Xander indignantly, "if you're not going to stand up for yourself, allow me. You are one of the best people I've ever known." Willow turned her large hazel eyes up to his face. "You're kind, understanding, and strong, and you put everyone else first. In just the past year and a half, you've triumphed over your own darkness, and you've changed the world. And, through all of that, you never expected to get anything back. Have I ever mentioned how honored I am to know people like you and Buffy?"

He staggered at first when she threw her arms around him, but soon returned the hug with a contented smile. "Want to go back in?" he asked after a moment.

"Sure," said Willow, hastily wiping her eyes before following him back to the group in front of the TV. She glanced over at the map, but all of the spots of light were still white. She started to turn away again, but saw a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. Her head whipped back around to stare at the map so fast that she cricked her neck. Two of the lights over Kauffman Park were getting darker. Then, all at once, without so much as turning red first, one of the two still white lights simply went out. That had never happened before. Could the spell on the map be wearing out?

"Xander," she called urgently. He tossed his barely regained controller wordlessly into Liz's lap, and came over to stand by Willow. She pointed at the three lights remaining in Kauffman Park.

"Buffy's squad," he said. "Where did the fourth light go?"

"I don't know," said Willow, "Go get Giles and help him figure out if something's up with the spell. I've got to go to them immediately."

"Okay. See you soon," he said. She nodded, before vanishing in the usual blast of white light.

"What's up?" asked Oz.

"Not sure yet," said Xander, who was already running to the stairs to get Giles.

†

Buffy, Clare, and Kat stared in shock and uncomprehending horror. Noëlle's brown eyes were still wide in fear and surprise, but a light seemed to have gone out of them, leaving them empty and unseeing. Her head was held at an odd angle. Nyx released her, and she fell as if in slow motion. Her knees buckled and her body sank down. Her dark hair floated up as the ground rushed towards her, and she finally landed face-down in the red dirt.

"Noëlle!" said Kat desperately, her mind utterly failing to compute what she was seeing. "What the hell are you doing? You have to get up! You have to keep fighting!" Clare understood a little better, but her head was starting to feel light and fuzzy due to her still profusely bleeding neck wound. Kat started to move towards Noëlle, but Clare put a hand on her shoulder and held her back. Kat turned to glare at her, shaking her head desperately.

"You killed her," said Buffy blankly.

"And you killed Livius," replied Nyx, though it was clear that she didn't care. She held up her left hand and idly examined the fingernails. "What, you want revenge? I'd reconsider. It's just a suggestion. Feel free to disregard it, but know this: no matter how strong you think you are, Slayer, I can end your life as easily as I just ended hers. Though I'd rather end theirs," she said, nodding at Clare and Kat. "You kill the general, she dies nobly in battle, story's over. You kill her subordinates, she lives on in shame and failure." Her eyes returned to Buffy's, and her tone became matter-of-fact. "You can't beat me."

For once, Buffy had no witty comeback. Her mind was filled entirely with the image of Noëlle lying motionless on the ground.

"Can we kill the other three too?" asked Erebus hopefully. He had circled around so that now he was a few feet behind Nyx, and he looked almost deranged with bloodlust.

Nyx looked a little impatient. "One dead Slayer, and you're not satisfied with our night's work?" she asked. "Surely even you, Erebus, won't still be hungry after draining that one."

"Don't you touch her," Kat snarled, trying to shake Clare off, but Buffy put her hand on her other shoulder and helped hold her back.

"Oh, and what have we here?" asked Nyx in a bored voice, as a burst of light brighter than a camera flash momentarily illuminated the baseball field, then faded to reveal Willow.

"One of the lights on the map went out, I came to see what...was...wrong." Willow's voice trailed away when she reached Buffy, Kat, and Clare, where she saw the body lying on the ground and Nyx and Erebus watching the four of them. "Oh God," she whispered, putting a hand over her mouth.

"Come now, Nyx, it'll be a feast," said Erebus. "Four Slayers plus a witch like that one...how can you resist?"

"Get us out of here, Wil," said Buffy quietly.

"But," said Willow, her gaze still frozen on Noëlle, "we can't just leave her."

"We don't have a choice," said Buffy, her eyes darting from Erebus to Nyx, who now seemed to be considering the merits of the former's plan for a feast. Willow nodded, and the four of them mutely clasped hands before vanishing in another blaze of light.

"Don't worry, dear," said Nyx, gazing thoughtfully at the place where they had been. "They aren't going to let this go. You'll have your feast yet. Until then, you'll have to be content with that one." She nudged Noëlle's lifeless form with her toe. "The blonde one, the leader, she'll have the big self-pity moment, and then she'll get her Watcher to dig through his books." Her expression grew prideful. "And then they'll find me, and we'll get a little visit." Erebus grinned in anticipation before bending down and pulling the limp but still warm body up from the ground, and this time met no resistance as he buried his fangs in her neck and drank deeply.

†

On re-entry in headquarters, Willow toppled over as the three passengers she'd brought along pulled her with them when they collapsed. They had been completely unprepared for what felt like being unraveled and then put haphazardly back together in different surroundings, all within the space of an instant. It left them physically weak and discombobulated, but considering what they had just witnessed and, as far as they were concerned, failed to prevent, they couldn't have cared less about the unpleasant side-effects of teleporting. Clare and Kat, still on the floor where they fell, were now sobbing unrestrainedly into each other's shoulders. Buffy and Willow silently helped each other back up, their faces dry but grave.

Oz stood and turned off the TV. He noticed that all three of the rather battered Slayers reeked of vampires.

"What happened?" asked Giles, placing a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Where's Noëlle?"

"She killed her," said Buffy in a hollow, cracked voice.

"Who?" Giles pressed gently.

"This vampire chick. She had two others with her. They were strong. Giles, it was like facing the übervamps again, but these guys were cunning. And they knew how to fight. I barely managed to take one of them out, but the other one nearly killed Clare before I could get him off her, and when I looked up, there was the third one. She looked straight at me and grinned, and then she just snapped Noëlle's neck." She saw it all replayed in her head as she said it, and her voice rose in volume and grew steadily more hysterical until she had finished.

Xander, Oz, Cole, and the five off-duty Slayers in the room all looked on in horror. Giles wrapped his arms around Buffy, and she clung to him, the tears finally streaking down her face. She let him lead her downstairs to where he had the Watcher Diaries neatly lined up on a coffee table.

"Can you tell me anything else about these vampires?" he asked.

"Um, yeah," said Buffy. She shook herself mentally, trying to get back some measure of the confidence she usually had. "They had weird names. The one I dusted; I think he was Liv-something. Livius. And the one who bit Clare was Erebus, and they called the girl Nyx."

"That sounds familiar," said Giles, frowning. He withdrew a handkerchief from his vest pocket and began to clean his glasses.

"And they said—well, Noëlle wasn't the first Slayer they've killed. Nyx said it had been twenty years since the last one. That's probably why I thought she looked familiar. I saw her kill that Slayer, Giles, in the dream I had in September. I must have. Maybe that's what it was for. The big kitty guide told me I had to learn."

"You believe it knew that you would encounter Nyx?" asked Giles as he put his glasses back on.

"Well, it did seem kinda all-knowing in an annoyingly unforthcoming sort of way," said Buffy. "But all of the Slayers I saw are starting to bleed together in my head. I don't think I'll be able to remember it well enough to help us," she went on fretfully.

"Don't worry," said Giles. "If these vampires are as notorious as they proclaim themselves to be, there's bound to be at least a passing reference to them in the Watcher Diaries. I'll start looking immediately."

"Thank you," said Buffy.

†

Willow gingerly approached Kat and Clare, who had retreated to a corner where they sat beside each other, hugging their knees, silent tears still pouring down their faces as they stared into space.

"Clare," said Willow, "you're still bleeding, sweetie."

"I don't care," said the sixteen-year-old numbly.

"You're losing way too much blood," Willow persisted. "Let me heal you."

"Whatever," said Clare. She shrugged off her jacket. A frighteningly large area of the right side of the white sweater she wore was soaked in blood. She pulled the neck to the side so that the wound at the place where her neck sloped out to meet her shoulder was exposed.

Willow flinched at the sight of it, for it almost looked more like a bear had taken a chunk out of her than that a vampire had bitten her. The only reason she was still alive was that he'd missed her carotid artery. A fraction of an inch higher on her neck, and she would have hemorrhaged to death back in Kauffman Park. Willow crouched down to heal her. When she pulled back a minute later, the skin had mended, leaving no visible explanation for the blood still covering her.

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"What about you?" Willow asked, turning to Kat. The other Slayer had one or two broken ribs and a sprained left wrist as souvenirs of the fight against Erebus. She shook her head. Willow's brow furrowed and she pursed her lips and gave her a stern but pitying look. She knelt so that her eyes were on a level with Kat's. "It won't help to keep yourself in pain."

"Okay," Kat agreed finally.

†

"How many times do I have to tell you?" said Nyx irritably as she and Erebus walked though the sewer tunnels, "Don't wear that face unless you're hunting or eating."

"Very well," he said. "Better?"

"Much." She cast an appreciative glance at his now rather handsome features, but that was the extent of the attention she gave him, and he scowled. Nyx rarely got off on anything that didn't in some way involve herself inspiring fear, so it hadn't been wholly unexpected, but he was still annoyed by her present indifference. She walked slightly ahead of him. Even here, where there were no victims, her gait was predatorial.

Five minutes later, they arrived at their destination, a ladder leading up to the basement of an old mansion. Nyx jumped up and caught hold of the top rung of the ladder with one hand, then pushed the trapdoor open with the other and swung herself up. Erebus followed, but used the ladder. They walked through a dusty, unused basement, then up a set of rickety stairs to the first floor of the mansion. It was elegant, though in a very old-fashioned sort of way. It clearly hadn't been redecorated in several decades.

A tall, thin, black-haired woman approached them lazily. "How was your hunt?" she asked.

"Got a Slayer," said Erebus, grinning.

"Congratulations," said the woman.

"I got a Slayer, Alecto. Erebus just ate her," Nyx corrected.

"Naturally," said Alecto. "You're always the one who gets to kill the Slayer." It was not said in resentment; she was merely stating fact.

"Where are the others?" asked Erebus.

"Still out. Ambrose was going to bring me someone to eat."

"You know, it's really so much more fun to actually do the hunting yourself," Nyx pointed out.

"Perhaps. But I do love sending him out to get food for me. It's such a bother to leave the manor, especially with so many Slayers in this city now."

"Alecto, your laziness never ceases to amaze me," said Erebus contemptuously.

"And your appetite never ceases to disgust me, brother," she shot back. "Even Ambrose, with his love of destruction, doesn't risk drawing attention to us nearly as much as you do on a nightly basis."

"It's true. You could stand to cut back, you know," Nyx agreed.

Erebus's lip curled, but he held back his retort. Verbally challenging Nyx would result in far more pain than it was worth.

"But where is Livius?" asked Alecto. "He left with you two."

"One of the other Slayers killed him," said Nyx. "Pathetic. I was growing rather sick of him, though."

"And I," said Alecto, frowning vaguely. "He was always jealous of Ambrose, trying to get his way with me, but he never did. It drove him mad, which was always a good laugh." They heard the front door open, then shut again, followed by the sounds of three pairs of shoes, someone being dragged along while struggling desperately, and laughter and muffled whimpering. Nyx, Erebus, and Alecto walked to the hall to greet the newcomers.

Two men and two women came into view. The first man was taller than either Erebus or the man who entered with him, with dark wavy hair and black eyes, making the paleness of his skin stand out even more by contrast. The woman beside him was taller than Nyx but shorter than Alecto, her hair was silky and white-blond, and her eyes a clear, crystal blue. The first man's arm was placed possessively around her, and he might have been her accessory by the way she seemed to wear him. The second man had shaggy, dirty-blond hair and brown eyes. His face was heavily scarred, and he was leering at the second woman, who was cowering in terror and trying to free herself from his grip on her.

"Brought you dinner," he said, throwing this woman at Alecto.

"How thoughtful of you," she said in delight, before leaving the room to enjoy her meal. None of them so much as batted an eye when a scream came from the direction in which she'd gone.

"How'd you do?" asked Nyx.

"Ambrose ran off on his own, as usual," said the blond woman, rolling her eyes.

"If I stick with you, I never get to have any fun," he replied. "I went to a bar. Picked a fight. It went out into the alley, and then I killed the lot of them."

"And you, Arawn?"

"Standard plan. Persephone could give the Greek Sirens a run for their money. Played the role of helpless, lost, lonely young woman."

"Tonight was much more entertaining than usual," said Persephone with a laugh, running a hand across Arawn's chest. "The man I got seemed to have left his girlfriend behind to come after me. She followed a few minutes later, about ready to kill him for it, but she was a little late. Arawn drained her, and then we tracked Ambrose down just as he'd finished his little brawl."

"What about you?" asked Arawn curiously.

"We were all set to make dinner out of a pack of little brats, but four Slayers turned up," said Nyx.

"Excellent!" said Ambrose eagerly, throwing himself down onto a large, high-backed armchair. "Are we finally going to go fight them?"

"No, idiot," said Nyx. "I killed one of them. They'll be coming to us."

"Even better," said Alecto, who had just returned, still licking blood off her fingers. She glided over to Ambrose's chair and settled herself luxuriously into his possessive embrace.

"We'll finally get our city back," said Arawn, a greedy expression in his eyes.

"Of course," said Nyx.

"You should have let me come hunting with you this time," said Ambrose aggressively. "I'd love a throw-down with a Slayer. What happened?"

"The leader dusted Livius."

"Good riddance," muttered Ambrose. He had been about ready to kill Livius himself for daring to make advances on Alecto. He glowered at the thought.

"He wanted the axe she wielded. I must say, it was one of the most beautiful weapons I've come across over the centuries. But she was the leader. The general. The one from Sunnydale we've been hearing so much about for the past few years. Livius was a fool to face her by himself, though Erebus held his own magnificently against two of them. He even got a mouthful of one."

"And the one you killed?" asked Persephone.

"I let her think she had me until all of the other fights were over. It's so funny how they always fall for that. I made sure the other three were done before I snapped her neck, because it's no fun if her friends don't get to watch, right? You should have seen their faces. She must have been the first one they lost in this city, the way they were looking. I taunted them for a bit. Then their witch appeared and made off with them before we could attack again."

"So, about when do you think we should be expecting company?" asked Arawn.

"Not tonight, but in the very near future."

"I'm not sure I like our odds against forty Slayers," said Persephone.

"Oh, they won't all come," said Nyx dismissively. "She'll only bring a squad of her best fighters. She'll be afraid that the less experienced ones might get killed."

"It's been nice, though," said Arawn, "the Slayers have taken out a lot of our competition. More for us. After we've defeated them, this place'll probably be swarming with filth again before long."

†

Buffy walked slowly back up the stairs, arms wrapped around herself. She found Kat and Clare in the exact same place Willow had left them. "How're you two holding up?" she asked quietly.

"We're going to kill those vamps, right?" asked Kat.

"Yes," said Buffy.

"Then we'll be fine," said Clare.

Buffy stood there, looking at both of them. With perhaps the exception of Willow, Xander, and Giles, they were the ones she had spent the most time with over the past few months. She had fought side-by-side with her squad members on an almost nightly basis. In all that time of relying on each other, sharing their calling, and fighting together as a single unit, a unique and powerful bond had been forged between the four of them. And now one of them was dead. "Follow me," she said. They looked up at her, then at each other, and stood. Buffy led them up the stairs to the top floor, then to the third room on the left. Noëlle's room. Her roommate, Elena, was still on patrol. Buffy opened the door, and she and the other two entered. Clare closed it behind them.

"Those guys were stronger than us," said Clare quietly.

"I know," said Buffy. She looked slowly around the room. One side was decorated with a large Spanish flag, which belonged to Elena. The opposite wall bore the tricolor of France. On top of Noëlle's lamp table was a precarious stack of Astérix de Gaulois comic books. They all seemed to involve the adventures of a tiny man with a blond mustache and a large red-mustached man with the proportions of a beach ball. Buffy thought she remembered having to read one or two for homework back during her French classes in high school. Many were old and worn, while some were fairly new. Noëlle had clearly loved those books.

Beside them, perched dangerously in the remaining space on the lamp table, was a framed photograph of Noëlle's family. As Buffy picked it up, her throat tightened and she felt new tears threatening to spill. There were Noëlle's parents, both with a hand on a younger Noëlle's shoulder, and two younger brothers next to her, all of them beaming permanently out of the picture.

Buffy remembered the conversation she'd had with Noëlle the first day she arrived at headquarters, right before Faith, Wood, and Andrew set off. Nöelle had been trying to keep a brave face as she told Buffy in stilted English about the car accident that took all four of them away from her. It had happened right after Willow's spell, and Noëlle's sudden enhanced strength had been what saved her. It took the whole summer before she would smile easily or talk more about what had happened, and Buffy, Kat, and Clare became her new family. Buffy traced her fingers over the faces in the photograph. At least Nöelle was with them now, right? She set the picture back down gently. She knew then what she had to do.

†

"Willow?"

"Hey, Buffy," she replied. They exchanged rather weak smiles. "Did you need something?"

"Actually, yeah," said Buffy. "Remember that time you got me out of the catatonia by magic after Glory took Dawn?"

"Yeah," said Willow, not sure where she was going with this. "Only you're kind of very much not catatonic now, if you wanted me to do that again."

"I know. Remember back when I had all of those dreams or visions or whatever of the Slayers before me?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, Nyx mentioned that she killed a Slayer twenty years ago. That means I must have seen it happen. I just can't remember any of it as clearly anymore. There could be something important buried in there, but I can't get to it. I need your help."

"Oh," said Willow. "Let's do it, then."

"Anything to set up first?"

"Just a candle. And not being interrupted," said Willow.

"Our room, then," Buffy proposed. She looked over at the somber group still by the TV, thinking they could probably pull it off right in front of them without an interruption anyway.

Less than three minutes later, they were sitting cross-legged on the floor in their room, Willow's hands under Buffy's, which were palm-up, and a single candle was burning between them.

"Ready?" asked Willow. Buffy nodded, and they both closed their eyes.

†

When Buffy opened them again, she found herself, once more, in the desert, where the clouds rushed overhead at impossible speeds, before freezing in place. Exactly like before. "It worked," she observed, noticing that, also like last time, she spoke the words without moving her lips.

"What, you thought it wouldn't?" asked Willow from beside her in a falsely offended voice. Her lips weren't moving either.

"I dunno. I wasn't sure a non-Slayer could come here in the first place," said Buffy, shrugging. She looked around expectantly. "Now, there should be a—"

"Tiger!" cried Willow in alarm. The enormous feline had materialized less than a foot from her face while Buffy had her back turned looking for it. Willow took several hasty steps backward.

"You have returned," said the tiger, in its deep, bone-vibrating voice. "And with the one whose magic called the others."

"She brought us here," said Buffy.

"The big kitty knows about me?" asked Willow. For a second, she looked flattered, but then her brow creased with worry and she leaned towards Buffy. "Is that a good thing?"

"Possibly?" said Buffy.

"You seek access once more to your predecessors," the tiger stated.

"Yes. The one Nyx killed in the eighties," said Buffy. She hesitated. "We won't have to go through all of the other ones to get to her this time, will we?"

"No. That journey was necessary only to return you to your body. You are always free to walk the paths of your predecessors. In addition, this woman is as connected now to those Chosen as the Scythe. Though she still cannot enter this place without a Slayer, she too has access to the previous Slayers now."

"Wow, Wil," said Buffy, "I guess big kitty does like you."

"Yeah," said Willow faintly.

"Okay, so, let's do this."

The tiger lowered its great head, and the desert dissolved around them. When their surroundings reformed, Buffy and Willow found themselves standing at an intersection in a fairly normal looking city at dusk. Lots of people bustled on around them—one or two even going right through them, which was a rather disconcerting experience.

"Oh, hey. South Africa," said Willow. Buffy stared at her.

"How do you know that after just two seconds of being here?" she demanded incredulously.

"Well," she said, a little embarrassed, before pointing at the side of a building, where a flag was draped, "that was the flag of South Africa until nineteen ninety-four, and this is a big, modern city with lots of Africans. Plus, those people who just walked through us were speaking Afrikaans. So, we're probably either in Johannesburg or Cape Town, but judging from how the air is kinda salty, I'm gonna go with Cape Town."

"You spent your entire childhood watching the Discovery Channel, didn't you?" said Buffy in a kind of horrified amazement.

"Mom and Dad thought cartoons were counterproductive to mental development. They used Xander as evidence to support the theory. Anyway, let's focus more on finding the current Slayer and less on how my parents controlled my television-watching when I was little."

"There," said Buffy at once, pointing to a black girl in her late teens heading down the street not twenty feet away from them.

"My turn. How did you know that?" asked Willow.

"I've done this before, remember?" Buffy replied. "I just needed my memory jogged. Come on." They followed the girl. She seemed to have a set destination, for her stride was purposeful and slightly rushed as she went up streets, through a couple of markets, around corners, and down back alleys. Finally, she arrived at a house that looked like it would very soon become a safety hazard. Buffy and Willow entered behind her.

What they saw made them and the Slayer they had followed there freeze in their tracks.

"How...did you get in?" said the Slayer through gritted teeth. Nyx was perched casually on the banister of a set of rotten stairs, looking exactly the same as her present day self, except that her red hair fell in curls halfway down her back. Five bodies were strewn across the ground.

"That one," she said, pointing at the smallest body, which had belonged to a boy of no more than eight, "He let me in. Oh, were you protecting them?" Her tone had become falsely apologetic.

"I suppose now I'll have to settle for avenging them," said the Slayer, pulling a stake from the bag she carried and dropping the bag to the floor.

Nyx hopped down with a sigh. "If you insist," she said.

"Getting more déjà vu yet?" asked Willow.

"Little bit," said Buffy as they watched the fight begin. "Mostly the kind where I hate not getting to help. It's like I'm watching a movie with a sad ending. I've seen it before and I know what happens, but I still think deep inside that it has to work out right in the end."

"Makes sense."

The South African Slayer fought with perfect technique. A backhand straight to Nyx's face, parrying blow after blow from the vampire, a spinning kick to her ribs. Neither Nyx nor the Slayer showed signs of tiring, and the fight went on far longer than Noëlle's had. Nyx actually appeared to be getting angry, as if she hadn't expected this much of a challenge.

After the Slayer cut a long gash in Nyx's arm with the point of her stake, she let out a venomous growl. She then feinted to the side to draw the next plunge of the stake. When it came a split-second later, she caught the Slayer's arm and twisted sharply. Buffy and Willow flinched as they heard the bones snap, and the Slayer screamed in pain. Nyx caught the stake as it fell from a now useless hand, and put it through the Slayer's ribs. Her scream faded away and blood began to drip from her mouth. Seconds later, she collapsed on the ground beside the body of the little boy. Nyx's lips twitched up briefly into a smug smile.

"You fought better than the others. None of them managed something like this." She fingered the cut on her arm in mild annoyance before her face smoothed back to its default expression of total arrogance as she stepped over the body and left the house.

"I don't get it," said Willow once she had recovered from the horror at what she'd just witnessed.

"Don't get what?" asked Buffy, still staring at the Slayer's body. For a second, she saw Noëlle instead. She blinked and quickly looked up at Willow.

"She didn't drink. Not from any of them," said Willow, looking around at all of the other bodies in the room. "She just killed them. Why?"

"This was never about the blood for her," said Buffy slowly. "It was about showing that she was the strongest. Proving that not even a Slayer could stop her." She let out a noise of disgust. "Talk about being full of yourself."

"But how is she that strong?" asked Willow, "I mean, she fought at that Slayer's same level until right there at the end, and then it was like the kiddie games were over, and next thing we know the Slayer gets killed with her own stake."

"I don't know," said Buffy in frustration. None of it made sense. The only other vampires she knew of that had intentionally gone up against Slayers and won were Spike and Drusilla. Spike had done it for the rush, the thrill of a battle he had every chance of losing, and had been fortunate enough to come out victorious. Drusilla was pretty much just insane, so there really was no point trying to compare her situation with this one without making it a whole lot more confusing than it already was. As far as Buffy knew, though, at least in the case of Nikki Wood, the vampire's victory had occurred due to a moment of error on the Slayer's part. This African Slayer Nyx had just killed had not made any such error. Had Nyx been like Spike or Drusilla, she would have been dusted.

Buffy and Willow were so deeply in thought as they tried fruitlessly to figure it out that they didn't notice their surroundings change back into the desert.

"Was that all you wished to see?" asked the tiger guide. They jumped and looked around at it.

"I guess," said Buffy.

"Wait," said Willow, frowning. "Nyx said something important. After she killed her."

"That she'd fought better than the others," said Buffy, her eyes widening. She turned back to the tiger urgently. "That wasn't the first Slayer Nyx had killed, was it?" she asked.

"No."

"The second?"

"No."

"Why didn't you mention that before?" asked Willow, who, as she was talking to a gigantic tiger, tried to make it sound as non-accusatory as possible.

"You said only that you wished to observe the demise of the Slayer who was killed by the one called Nyx in the nineteen eighties."

"Well, we're expanding our horizons now," said Buffy. "Show us the others."

"Very well."

†

Xander, Oz, Cole, Clare, and Kat, sick of moping idly, had all come down to help speed up Giles' search of the Watcher Diaries for anything about Nyx and her companions.

"Whoa, hey," said Xander, looking up from the volume he was working on, which contained the writings of Watchers from seventeen sixty to seventeen ninety. "Found something."

"What?" asked Giles.

"Something about this Erebus guy." Clare sat up a little straighter in her chair. "In Wales. A vampire called Erebus went through and drained every member of a family of nine. The Slayer of the time couldn't find him afterwards, and he doesn't get mentioned again, except to say that he had, or maybe still has, a sister named Alecto."

"So there's another one?" asked Kat, unable to keep fear out of her voice. Since watching Noëlle die right in front of her, she'd been alternating between feeling like a helpless, cornered little girl and having a very intense desire for revenge. She wondered if the former was the regular girl she had been six months ago coming back to the surface, while the latter was the Slayer she was now.

"I've got something," said Cole. "Mention of another Slayer this chick killed. Back in 1803."

"So, how many does that make so far?" asked Clare.

"Eleven, and counting," said Xander grimly. "It looks like we've got a serial Slayer-killer on our hands."

Cole got up and added this Slayer to the list they'd been keeping. "Noëlle Chevalier—2003" was at the top, with "Samora Rossouw—1983" just beneath. Cole wrote "Branwen Llew—1803" at the bottom of the growing list. He frowned at the years by all of the other names.

"Hey, I think there's a pattern here," he said.

Giles came and stood next to him, also frowning. "Every twenty years," he said. "Nineteen twenty-three, eighteen sixty-three, and eighteen eighty-three are missing. Check to see if there are any accounts of those years. And go back farther as well."

"Um, guys?" said Oz, who had thus far left conversation entirely to the others, immersed as he was in the volume detailing the events from the late seventeenth century through the early eighteenth century. Everyone turned to look at him. "I think I figured out how she managed to kill that many Slayers."

"How?" asked Giles, removing his glasses and leaning against the table intently.

"She was one."

So, pretty much, dramatic chord moment. And now, writer's commentary. Xander's pep-talk to Willow. She couldn't get it all from Buffy. The Xan-man needs to do his part to help Willow recover from the Kennedy Blazes Out in Anger situation. Noëlle's collection of Astérix comics. Very popular piece of French culture there. Buffy not remembering the dreams very well. It's been two months. They were dreams. Do you remember dreams you had that long ago? Even the really awesome ones blur after that much time. Willow's random knowledge of South Africa. The episode needed more comic relief than Oz vs. Xander in Halo. Willow's parents are very odd creatures. More Giles involvement than we have seen in a few episodes. Yessss. Back to zero Dawn involvement. Oh well. It will come in time. This is a rather focused arc I've got going, and has no room for the currently mundane existence of Dawn (though Connor is not included among the mundaneness). Nyx having been a Slayer. Here, I shall merely cackle my evil cackle (for which I, unlike Dr. Horrible, did not require a vocal coach) of evilness. About Nyx and co.: I developed each character specifically so there would be one to represent each of the seven deadly sins, which made writing them both disturbing and straight-forward. See if you can match them all up to the correct sins.