"You got more info than just 'watch out for the fireworks?'" Gunn didn't sound impressed with Kirstan's warning. "'Cause it's hard to choose between a classic stake through the heart or a quick beheading with that."
Drew hastily smothered a giggle when Kirsten scowled at his comment.
No one else laughed. In fact, the mood as they approached the school was grim. Making the upcoming battle even bleaker, Kirsten finally responded to Gunn. "If you want a diagram with a big red 'X' over the target, you're out of luck. Go with beheading; the odds are better." She paused for a minute as the group ducked through some bushes. "Whatever's in that basement, though… I doubt even chopping off its head will work. I've never felt anything that strong."
"Are we even sure it has a head?" Faith regretted the words the second she said them. A quick glance at Drew showed her laughter had disappeared. Her eyes were wide and dark, and the moonlight turned her skin a freakish pearly grey. Faith's first impulse was to apologize. She had meant to be funny. Obviously, her comedic timing was lacking.
The group chose that moment to emerge from the underbrush. The darkened bulk of the original Sunnydale High School loomed ahead.
All thoughts of apologizing slipped away in a flood of uncomfortable memories.
Desks hemmed her in and Faith stared at Buffy, trying to hide her fear with bravado. "So, you gonna rat me out? Is that it?"
"Faith, we have to tell." Buffy held out a hand, and her eyes seemed to suck Faith in. "I can't pretend to investigate this. I can't pretend I don't know."
That hurt. Faith jerked back from the hand she'd been on the verge of taking. Breathing in harsh pants and clenching her fists, she verbally lashed out at Buffy. "You can't pretend? Since when? Remember all that bullshit about Angel being dead? Guess what, Princess, he may not be breathing, but he sure as hell ain't in Hell. What about that big whopper?" She shoved one of the desks to the side, and it screeched across the polished tiles. "It's OK to lie about Angel. But me? Just fucking toss me to the Keystone Kops…"
The trip down memory lane came to an abrupt halt.
"It doesn't look quite as I remember it," Wesley said wryly, snapping Faith back to the here and now. "It was more…whole the last time I was here."
Shaking hands stuffed deep in her pockets, Faith looked at him. Wes' face was set in hard lines beneath his scruffy beard, and she realized she wasn't the only one fighting off images of the past. Her voice only a little tight, Faith quipped, "Don't let the missing windows and doors fool you, Wes. Inside, it's still the hellhole we knew and hated."
Wes laughed softly, and some of the grimness left his face. "Indeed. Thank you for pointing that out. It was just what I needed to hear."
Slowly throwing off the vestiges of the flashback, Faith gave her trademark smirk. "Always knew you were just a stuffed shirt, Wes. Guess my new job as General Faith means I gotta keep you up with the rest of us. We ain't got no room for a short bus right now."
Kirsten coughed, and Faith heard feet shuffle in the grass.
She couldn't stall anymore. It was time to go inside. "OK, Wes, we're here. Now what?" Faith bounced nervously. The screaming in her senses was constant, and while she wasn't afraid of a good fight, Faith wasn't sure that the small group huddled next to the school would equal a fight – good or not.
"Well," Wes moved up to a broken window and peered inside. "This is the science hallway. If we go in here…" Lifting a leg and stepping carefully over the jagged edges of glass, he dropped into a classroom. "The basement entrance is down this hallway on the other side of the main office." His voice seemed to float out of nowhere.
Gunn didn't wait for orders. He simply jumped in behind Wesley.
Hanging back, Faith watched and helped the rest of her tiny army follow suit. When she was the last person on the outside, she scanned the area one final time.
Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.
The only things Faith heard were the soft breaths of the people gathered in the classroom, waiting for her. Ignoring the uneasy goose pimpling her skin, Faith finally stepped over the glass herself and jumped the short distance into the cluttered science lab.
Willow realized immediately that flaming Bringers was a bad thing. The shrieking flame-engulfed body on the floor had started a line of slowly growing embers on the rug. Unfortunately for her parents' home, Willow didn't have the time to find a reversal for her magic. Two more Bringers slipped past Giles as he battled wildly with another.
Dawn leapt at the first of the attackers. Her book made an unwieldy weapon, and the Bringer easily sidestepped her slow and awkward strike.
The blade of a knife slashing at her side distracted Willow. She jerked backward just in time. There wasn't time to think. Magic disappeared as survival instincts kicked in. Swinging her own book, Willow whacked the Bringer's knife arm.
He looked shocked and lost his grip on the weapon. It clattered to the floor and Willow dove after it. She was barely fast enough. The Bringer recovered from his surprise and slashed at her semi-prone form with his other blade.
Wrenching sideways, Willow parried awkwardly. Their knives slid against each other with a hair-raising shriek of metal on metal. Her right arm rapidly numbing from the impact, Willow frantically bolstered her grip on the knife with her left hand.
It was barely enough to keep her from losing the blade. Not even with two hand on the hilt, though, was Willow strong enough to keep the Bringer from slowly shoving both blades closer and closer to Willow's throat. She bowed back, trying to create a gap between them.
Unfortunately, the knives followed her movement with increasing speed as her new position weakened her leverage against the Bringer.
As Willow watched in terror, the knives descended farther. They were less than an inch from her neck. With an internal rumble, her magic flared to life deep inside. This wasn't the powerful and controlled energy she'd hurled earlier. This was the wild and terrible power she'd wielded during her first days at the ranch.
Panicking, Willow knew she couldn't fight on two fronts. The knife was the more imminent threat. However, if she failed to hold it back, she would be the only victim. If the magic gained the upper hand, everyone in the room would be its victim.
She closed her eyes on the shining steel pressing inexorably nearer and reached into the churning blue pool of magic inside her reservoir. At first, she tried to calm the rising waves. Her efforts failed. The magic pounded against the barrier walls with deafening crashes.
It was another lost cause, Willow admitted to herself. She wasn't strong enough. Not against the Bringer and not against her own magic…
"Hey, are you praying or what?" The mocking voice snapped Willow out of her trance-like state.
The images of inevitable destruction faded.
A pair of impatient brown eyes watched her intently, and Willow blinked at Kennedy in confusion. "What?"
Kennedy waved a bloodstained hand. "You're crazy, you know that? We're in the middle of a war and you're zoning out in the middle of the room. I thought all you Original Scoobies were good under pressure."
Willow ignored the cutting comment and performed another internal wellness check. The wild magic was still pushing for release, but it wasn't close to breaking free. Not now. With the end of the threat to her life, she'd regained a modicum of control.
Pivoting on her heels, Willow began to take stock of the battle's aftermath.
The group from the Training Barn had obviously made it back to the house. They hadn't done so unscathed, though. Two of the Potentials huddled on the couches with Watchers in attendance.
That was bad. Willow felt her skin grow cold and sweat bead her hairline. Had they lost anyone in the fight? "Kennedy…" she started to ask just as her eyes fell on a group near the doorway.
Four familiar figures stood in a semi-circle and stared at the floor. Willow followed the same visual path to the pair of jeans-clad legs and tennis shoes of the body sprawled in front of the group.
Buffy tore through the wet grass and dirt. With each handful, the light grew brighter. Squinting against the painful glow, she concentrated on reaching the cause of that light. It called to her. It dragged at her senses until everything else around her faded.
Finally, arms aching and hands cut and bleeding in a dozen places, Buffy realized she could actually see the scythe. It wasn't the majestic weapon she'd seen in her dream. In fact, it looked like it might crumble if she touched it.
Dirt encrusted the leather-wrapped snaith, and even in the moonlight Buffy saw the rust caking the blade.
Dropping her hands limply to her side, Buffy stared into the hole she'd made. That was it? That was the weapon the PtB had wanted her to find? It had to be a joke. Maybe there was another weapon farther down.
Before she could dig anymore, though, Angel's voice cut through the quiet cemetery. "Buffy! Grab the scythe and let's go. We've got trouble on the way."
Buffy looked up and saw Angel peering intently into the darkness. The scythe's power had faded along with the light, and she searched in the direction of Angel's vigil. "Shit!" That wasn't trouble. That was an army. Bending quickly, she grasped the scythe with one hand and pulled it from its resting place.
