Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Chapter 21: Apocalypse:

"What's wrong with her?" Anya asked. The Scooby Gang sat gathered around Willow's bed, on which Kennedy lie, unconscious and fitfully twitching. The Potentials were in the basement with Spike, whom Buffy had given the job of reassuring and protecting the girls while the rest of them tended to Kennedy. Willow sat by her girlfriend's side, holding her hand, stroking her hair, and not saying a word.

"Let's go over this again," Giles said seriously.

"We've been over it three times now," Buffy stated impatiently. "We need answers, not more talk."

"Tell me everything you saw one more time," Giles replied sternly.

Buffy sighed. "We heard a scream," she said. "We were talking in the dining room. When we heard Kennedy scream, we ran into the kitchen. I didn't see anything out of the window. When I opened the door, I saw Kennedy slumped over on the stairs, unconscious, her hand twitching like she is now, and the First Evil was standing over her."

Giles nodded, removed his glasses, and wiped them on his shirt. "And that's all?" He asked.

"That's all," Buffy replied.

"Will?" Xander asked, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Do you have anything to add?" She was incredibly tense, her muscles ready to burst. But she said nothing. She didn't even 

move. For a moment, Xander contemplated repeating his words, thinking that perhaps she simply hadn't heard him, but he knew that she had and that she didn't want to talk.

"Giles?" Buffy asked, focusing on her Watcher. He always had all of the answers; he needed to have the answers.

"I can't honestly say I know what's wrong," he began, much to Buffy's disappointment. "Dawn? Xander? Do either of you have any theories?" Giles had been training them in the ways of the Watchers. He had his own theories about what might have happened to Kennedy, but he wanted to see if his two pupils could piece together the evidence for themselves.

Xander shook his head. "Not at the moment," he replied, knowing that his answer wasn't what Giles had wanted to hear.

Dawn stood silent for a few moments. "I think I do," she said hesitantly. She looked over at Giles, who nodded to her encouragingly. "Well," she started slowly, "we all know that Kennedy and the First have a unique relationship. The First is incorporeal to everyone but Kennedy. I think it's safe to assume that she is the only person in this world who can touch it, at least, that we know of."

"I agree," Giles stated. He slipped on his glasses again.

"I also think it's safe to assume that if Kennedy can touch the First, the First can touch Kennedy. That it's incorporeal means that no one can touch it, but that also means that it can't touch anyone either. However, if Kennedy can break that rule with the First, the First should be able to break that rule with Kennedy," Dawn explained.

"So what conclusion can we draw?" Giles asked, proud of his student.



"The First touched Kennedy," Dawn surmised. "When Kennedy touched the First, she inadvertently saw what it was thinking, or what it had planned out in its mind. That was useful to us. But, what if when the First touched Kennedy, it planted something in her mind? What if just by touching her, it caused her to experience such a rush of images, or such terrible images, that the simple touch rendered her comatose?" Dawn asked.

Giles nodded. "I believe Dawn may have hit the nail on the head so to speak," he answered. "That would also be my best guess as to what happened."

"So how do we reverse it?" Faith asked. "I mean, we can't just leave her like this. We need her."

"I don't know if we can," Giles replied slowly. "Which is not to say," he added when Buffy opened her mouth to protest, "that we can't. I'm just saying that at this point in time, I need to do some research. I'm a bit out of my league here. We've never dealt with anything like the First before and we've never dealt with anyone like Kennedy before. Her ability and the First's abilities may never have been matched before in history. We could be witnessing a unique battle between them. I just don't know."

"Then hit the books, Giles," Buffy instructed.

Giles nodded and motioned for Xander and Dawn to accompany him. "Do you want me to do anything?" Anya offered.

"Go down with Spike and keep the girls entertained," Buffy said.



"Oh! I know," Anya said to herself as she left the room, "I can give them the third part of my lecture series on the stock market. Every one of them should be millionaires by the time I'm done."

"It's gonna be okay, B," Faith said, moving over to the blonde Slayer and throwing her arm around her shoulders. Buffy leaned into the embrace.

"I don't know," she whispered back to Faith. "Look at Willow. She hasn't said anything since this happened. She's not turning black and veiny, but how do we know she's not steps away from losing it again?"

Buffy's words were truer to the mark than she realized. As Willow sat by Kennedy's side, drawing comforting circles on her hand, she thought dark, malicious thoughts. She wanted more than anything the opportunity to find the First and make it suffer. The First was powerful, but Willow knew that if she tapped into her dark magic again, she would be more powerful. In a greedier person, that power would have been disastrous. But in Willow, it lay dormant. She knew that it was there, available for her to tap into at any time, but she tried to ignore it. She tried to push its temptations out of her mind. Now, as she stood on the threshold of potentially losing yet another lover to the fight against evil, the desire to give into temptation and access all of the power within her was great, perhaps too great for her to ignore.

Kennedy, unlike some coma victims, was completely unaware of everything happening around her. Her mind was lost in the labyrinth of horror that the First had created. The streets she walked on were gushing rivers of blood. The sky was alight with dancing flames. Screams filled the air. Smoke poured out of ruined buildings. The rubble of human civilization was all around her. She was seeing the devastating effects of the First's victory over the earth. She 

stumbled and she ran. Chunks of human flesh stopped up the sewer drains and the blood flooded every building. Acid rain poured out of the sky, burning her flesh. She ran without knowing where she was or where she was going. She couldn't find any safe harbor. The screams grew louder. She saw charred bodies littering the streets, being drowned in the perpetual flow of blood. She saw other victims of the First's power wandering mangled, confused, half-dead through the streets of the ghost town she occupied.

Finally, she found a building elevated above the flow of blood and forced her way into it. The door broke into pieces when she applied pressure to it. Entering the darkened building, she gagged and covered her nose. The sour smell of rotting human flesh invaded her senses. Grabbing her stomach, she vomited in a corner. But she couldn't leave. It was the only place of relative safety she had seen. Corpses littered the floor and she had to worm her way around them. Flies buzzed incessantly above the rotting flesh, eating the remains of men, women, and children alike. She saw a mangy dog wander in from a back room, chomping on the blackened body of an infant. Shuddering, she turned away and mounted the stairs. More bodies littered the staircase and she had to step on them to ascend. Blood and black ooze squirted out of the bodies as her boots lighted on them. She paused, feeling sick again, but the waves of nauseousness passed and she kept moving.

The second floor was no better than the first, but the third floor contained fewer bodies than the other two. She inspected all of the rooms until she found a closet empty of death. Settling into the back corner, she closed the door and wrapped her arms around her knees. She was alone, terrified, and confused. She didn't know how she had come to this place. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know what had happened to the world. "Eli?" She called 

hopefully, but she heard nothing in response. "Eli? Are you out there? Please be out there," she begged. Still, only silence greeted her voice. In the darkened closet, she wept.

The sounds of her sobbing drew another. Gently sliding back the closet door, a woman with long blonde hair knelt down in front of her. "Kennedy," Tara whispered quietly.

Kennedy heard her voice and looked up. "I remember you," she said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. "I saw you in the Tower. You're Tara," she said, searching her memory. The names of people and places she had known seemed far away from her, just distant memories barely glimmering on the horizon of time. "Willow's old girlfriend."

"That's right," Tara said, sitting down next to Kennedy and drawing the door closed again to ward off the sight of the decaying flesh in the room beyond.

"What are you doing here?" Kennedy asked, gazing over at her.

"I'm here because you're here," Tara replied. "I was your guide in the Tower; I'll be your guide here too."

"Where is here?" Kennedy asked. Tara shifted closer to the trembling girl and pulled her into a warm embrace. Kennedy buried her face in Tara's shirt and relished the moment of comfort she received.

"You're in Sunnydale," Tara answered.

"It doesn't look like Sunnydale," Kennedy replied, though she couldn't entirely remember what Sunnydale looked like in the first place. She couldn't remember much really.

"No, it doesn't," Tara agreed. "This Sunnydale has been ravaged by the First Evil."



Those words sparked something deep in Kennedy's consciousness. "The First Evil," she repeated thoughtfully.

"Yes," Tara said. "The First Evil is the reason why you're here," she stated. "It sent you here."

"How?" Kennedy asked.

"Just by touching you," Tara replied. "It planted these images, of the destruction of Sunnydale and mankind, into your mind to keep you paralyzed, unconscious, and out of its way. You see, Kennedy," she said, "it fears you."

"Why?" Kennedy asked.

"You're the only person who can touch it," Tara answered lowly. "You're the only person who can kill it."

Kennedy allowed those words to wash over her. "How?"

"Just like killing anything else," Tara replied. "You pierce its heart."

"Okay," Kennedy nodded. Her tears started to dry. "I can kill it," she repeated. "But I can't kill it here."

"No, you can't," Tara confirmed.

"So how do we get out of here?" Kennedy asked.

Tara smiled. "We can't get out of here. I'm dead, remember?" She asked, laughing softly. "I can't go where you can go. But you have to get out of here."



"But how?" Kennedy asked.

Tara's smiled faded. "I don't know," she replied.

"But you're my guide," Kennedy protested. "Aren't you supposed to know?"
"There isn't a handbook for this," Tara answered.

"Okay," Kennedy said. "So what do we do?"

"Sleep for now," Tara said. "Gather your strength. When the feeble dawn of this world breaks, we'll try to find a way to get you home." Kennedy nodded and closed her eyes. Despite the screaming and the foul stench of the building, she quickly fell asleep, wrapped in Tara's protective arms, under Tara's watchful gaze.

……………………………

After a long night, Buffy lay down to sleep on her bed with the first of the sun's rays just peeking over the horizon. They were no closer to finding a way of bringing Kennedy out of her coma. They were no closer to prompting Willow to talk. That night was supposed to be their night of victory – though a small one – over the First. Instead, it had become yet another night of fear and uncertainty. The Potentials had lost whatever hope Buffy's defeat of the uber-vampire had given them. They had seen firsthand how easily the First could affect their lives. Just by reaching out and touching Kennedy, it had rendered her useless. Buffy sighed and closed her eyes. She hoped by the time she woke up, Giles, Dawn, and Xander would have found something.

She fell asleep, into a dreamless world. While she slept, the First Evil watched over her, wearing her face. "Sleep, little Slayer," it murmured. "Sleep." Moving closer to her, its face 

hovered just inches above hers, its mouth just by her ear. "I've given Kennedy terrible visions of the future. Now let me give you something too," it said. "When you wake up, you're going to be energized. You're going to see this in a brand new light. Now is the time for action. Now is the time to strike back against the First," it whispered into her ear. "I want you to start spying on me. See things you hadn't noticed before. See how my Bringers are setting up an arsenal at the school. Go after it. Don't think of the consequences. Walk right into my trap," it said. "Walk right in and don't even think."

Buffy awoke several hours later, feeling more refreshed and energized than she had in months. Stretching her arms, she felt a renewed sense of purpose flow through her veins. They would have to be more proactive against the First. No more sitting around and waiting for it to strike. They were going to go on the offensive and they would start by sending out teams to spy on the First. Buffy wanted to know what it was doing. She wanted to know where she could strike, where the First was the weakest. She had no idea that the things she wanted she only wanted because the First had told her to want them.