"What makes you think they'll come here?" Riley squatted on the blue gray grassed hillside beside Xander. He had appeared at the Magic Box shortly before Xander was ready to transport Giles and Wesley and the decision had been made to include him in the scouting party.
"Sentiment Soldier boy," Xander looked out over the grassy bluff, where they hoped to trap the Valaasco Sisters. "Sentiment." He waved a hand getting the attention of Giles and Wesley so they could come over before he continued.
"Once upon a time long long ago, a very long time ago, there used to be a city here, something like 50,000 souls. All living together in peace and joy and so forth, until one day the Valaasco Sisters came calling. It took them six hours to flatten the place and murder every lock stock and barrel of them. The records show it as one of their biggest massacres. Which isn't to say that it is the biggest, there're been bigger ones, but they tend to revisit each site. Something draws them, sentiment maybe, but this is the biggest and they're sure to come calling."
"You seem to be very sure that they will. How did you know they'd come this way?"
"Thousands of years of nudges and hints and gentle pushing. Not enough to actually be accused of interfering with anyone's freedom of will but..."
"Not that wasn't what you were doing." Wesley looked grave.
"Let's just say they rearranged what was going to happen anyway to their best advantage. They knew that at this time there would be a group of warriors capable of defeating them and just arranged things so that the two would come together."
"How many people were killed getting them here? Doesn't that make you/them partially responsible for their deaths. Accessories before the fact."
"Only ONE lasts forever, nothing else does. Everything has its time, everything comes to an end. Even the Valaasco Sisters, and their time is now. They will go out in a blaze of glory taking with them a star system. We prefer they go out with this one. Its already dead."
"If we don't?"
"Then the Earth will be wiped clean and a lot of cosmic plans will be as dust."
Riley pondered the situation, and took one more look around. "Okay, I think we should try and herd hem into that little cull de sac." Riley pointed to series of hills, with a v shaped opening. "Assuming that is a dead end, we should be able to trap them there. We'll need to come up with some ideas on what to do then."
"Already done." Xander stood and shaded his eyes against the hot sun. "Its not exactly a dead end, but close enough. We position Dawn in the narrowest part, with Joyce, Buffy and Angel. We get them in there, she opens a door, that'll have the sun at the other end, and Cordy goes all demony and shoves them through."
"All that research we've been doing. It had nothing to do with this?" Giles glared at Xander. "You could have told us."
Xander grinned. "If I did, you'd spend more time fighting each other and not enough getting ready or the big push. Now you ready to head back?"
"Xander, one moment." Riley looked grave. "You say that you have access to the Akashic Records, and they have the general shape of the future?"
"Yeah so?"
"Where's Bin Laden?"
"No idea, and I won't look it up. If I did I'd feel bound to tell you and if I did that , I'd be dragging the PTB into our side. Now, the PTB is really into balance, and they could alter the thoughts of anyone, on their side, that might be deemed, by the PTB, to be a danger to the other side. To keep things in balance, they'd have to alter the thinking of anyone, on our side, who might be deemed, by the PTB, to be a danger to the other side."
"We don't think like that."
"Maybe not as a rule, but our side is made up largely of Christians, who did have crusades, Inquisitions, etc."
"That was all in the past," Riley stated flatly.
"Except the Leader of the Christian Coalition went on CNN and declared the head of their religion, their Prophet, to be a terrorist, and advocates ethnically cleansing the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza, by force if necessary."
Xander stood up and faced Riley. "We can't get involved without a massive interference into Free Will which nobody wants and is going to piss off the Big Guy no end. So even if I did know where that guy is I wouldn't tell you, assuming I lived to get within shouting distance of you."
"I should have gone with them," Buffy fumed as she paced back and forth across Willow's living room. She whirled to face Willow. "I'm the S;layer for pity's sake. I'm the one who comes up with the plans on how to fight the bad guys. How did Xander get into this?"
"Is she always like this," asked Warren.
Willow sighed and sank back deeper into the sofa. Ever since they had come back from the Magic Box, Buffy had gone on and on and on about how she should have gone with Xander on the scouting mission and Warren had been making snide remarks about the Slayer's inability to focus. A spell formed in her mind, and a large cartoon like firecracker appeared in the room and exploded. Loudly.
"Okay," Willow said. "Warren become visible so Buffy can see you, and hear you. Buffy, I'm sure Xander knows what he is doing, and we can't all go with him and these sacrifices have to be stopped and I don't think Warren's gonna be much help there, so its you and me. So focus girl."
"One visible Warren coming up," Warren grinned. "But she's not gonna get quite the visual you know and love so well."
Willow groaned as Warren popped into seeing with one arm around Buffy, just barely touching her shoulder, and positioned so that his pursed lips were only inches from Buffy's "Hello my dear."
Buffy reacted by jumping back and driving a fist into Warren's stomach. Both she and Warren was surprised when Warren dropped like a brick. A smile played across Buffy's lips. "Did I just TKO a ghost?"
"Looks like it to me," came a satisfied voice from the sofa. "I can't. Believe me, I tried." Willow stood up and looked down at Warren. She grimaced. "C'mon, help me get him on the sofa, and we can go to his room and see if he has anything." Willow grabbed his feet while averting her eyes. Maybe Buffy could see normal Warren, but she was still graced with the skinless version.
"His room," Buffy asked after they had deposited Warren.
"Yeah, his room," said Willow going down the hall. "The spare bedroom actually." She opened the door and ushered Buffy inside. "He's been staying here since your Mom started getting more involved.
Buffy felt like she had gone into another world. Mahogany walls, lined with bookshelves. A red carpet on the floor, brass chandelier over a mahogany desk, lined with pipes, tobacco humidifiers, all polished to perfection. A huge globe sat in one corner, across from a desk, much smaller, more of a secretarial desk, which Willow was moving towards. Buffy picked up a small mahogany box and looked at the contents.
"Willow and Warren Investigations?"
Willow sat behind her desk and sighed. "Warren has some idea of our opening a detective agency..."
"With him as the detective, I suppose."
"Yeah. He has some idea of him being a cross between Sherlock Holmes, which is bad enough, but he watched an ep of Nero Wolfe on A&E and wants to be more like him."
"He gave you first billing? Wouldn't he want that for himself?"
"He would except that normally people can't see him and if he let them he might forget and give them the skinless version of him and then where would we be. So if we ever get a client I'm the one they get to see,"
"Do you have any?"
"Not yet, fortunately, except for this sacrifice thing which we should really get to." Willow opened a notebook that was on top of her desk. "When he has instructions for me he usually writes them down in this book. Except when I'm here to take dictation."
So, what did he write down."
"He wants me to check into bus schedules to Sunnydale. It says here that there was an international soccer tournament in LA around the time of the killings, and he wants to know if any of them were here."
Joyce stood in the living room of the Summers residence and watched as a light flashed in the corner, steadied and grew, until it was big enough for Dawn to step through.
"That's good Dawn. Just like I said upstairs. You just have to imagine the place where you are going. See it in your mind, and then imagine a door between you and where you want to go, and open that door and go through."
"And then I'm there?" Dawn looked around the room as if to make sure she really was in the living room of her house. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," Joyce assured her. "Now you must remember not to use it unless you know where you are going to end up, and not unless Buffy, Giles, Xander, or myself tells you. Understand."
Dawn nodded.
"Sentiment Soldier boy," Xander looked out over the grassy bluff, where they hoped to trap the Valaasco Sisters. "Sentiment." He waved a hand getting the attention of Giles and Wesley so they could come over before he continued.
"Once upon a time long long ago, a very long time ago, there used to be a city here, something like 50,000 souls. All living together in peace and joy and so forth, until one day the Valaasco Sisters came calling. It took them six hours to flatten the place and murder every lock stock and barrel of them. The records show it as one of their biggest massacres. Which isn't to say that it is the biggest, there're been bigger ones, but they tend to revisit each site. Something draws them, sentiment maybe, but this is the biggest and they're sure to come calling."
"You seem to be very sure that they will. How did you know they'd come this way?"
"Thousands of years of nudges and hints and gentle pushing. Not enough to actually be accused of interfering with anyone's freedom of will but..."
"Not that wasn't what you were doing." Wesley looked grave.
"Let's just say they rearranged what was going to happen anyway to their best advantage. They knew that at this time there would be a group of warriors capable of defeating them and just arranged things so that the two would come together."
"How many people were killed getting them here? Doesn't that make you/them partially responsible for their deaths. Accessories before the fact."
"Only ONE lasts forever, nothing else does. Everything has its time, everything comes to an end. Even the Valaasco Sisters, and their time is now. They will go out in a blaze of glory taking with them a star system. We prefer they go out with this one. Its already dead."
"If we don't?"
"Then the Earth will be wiped clean and a lot of cosmic plans will be as dust."
Riley pondered the situation, and took one more look around. "Okay, I think we should try and herd hem into that little cull de sac." Riley pointed to series of hills, with a v shaped opening. "Assuming that is a dead end, we should be able to trap them there. We'll need to come up with some ideas on what to do then."
"Already done." Xander stood and shaded his eyes against the hot sun. "Its not exactly a dead end, but close enough. We position Dawn in the narrowest part, with Joyce, Buffy and Angel. We get them in there, she opens a door, that'll have the sun at the other end, and Cordy goes all demony and shoves them through."
"All that research we've been doing. It had nothing to do with this?" Giles glared at Xander. "You could have told us."
Xander grinned. "If I did, you'd spend more time fighting each other and not enough getting ready or the big push. Now you ready to head back?"
"Xander, one moment." Riley looked grave. "You say that you have access to the Akashic Records, and they have the general shape of the future?"
"Yeah so?"
"Where's Bin Laden?"
"No idea, and I won't look it up. If I did I'd feel bound to tell you and if I did that , I'd be dragging the PTB into our side. Now, the PTB is really into balance, and they could alter the thoughts of anyone, on their side, that might be deemed, by the PTB, to be a danger to the other side. To keep things in balance, they'd have to alter the thinking of anyone, on our side, who might be deemed, by the PTB, to be a danger to the other side."
"We don't think like that."
"Maybe not as a rule, but our side is made up largely of Christians, who did have crusades, Inquisitions, etc."
"That was all in the past," Riley stated flatly.
"Except the Leader of the Christian Coalition went on CNN and declared the head of their religion, their Prophet, to be a terrorist, and advocates ethnically cleansing the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza, by force if necessary."
Xander stood up and faced Riley. "We can't get involved without a massive interference into Free Will which nobody wants and is going to piss off the Big Guy no end. So even if I did know where that guy is I wouldn't tell you, assuming I lived to get within shouting distance of you."
"I should have gone with them," Buffy fumed as she paced back and forth across Willow's living room. She whirled to face Willow. "I'm the S;layer for pity's sake. I'm the one who comes up with the plans on how to fight the bad guys. How did Xander get into this?"
"Is she always like this," asked Warren.
Willow sighed and sank back deeper into the sofa. Ever since they had come back from the Magic Box, Buffy had gone on and on and on about how she should have gone with Xander on the scouting mission and Warren had been making snide remarks about the Slayer's inability to focus. A spell formed in her mind, and a large cartoon like firecracker appeared in the room and exploded. Loudly.
"Okay," Willow said. "Warren become visible so Buffy can see you, and hear you. Buffy, I'm sure Xander knows what he is doing, and we can't all go with him and these sacrifices have to be stopped and I don't think Warren's gonna be much help there, so its you and me. So focus girl."
"One visible Warren coming up," Warren grinned. "But she's not gonna get quite the visual you know and love so well."
Willow groaned as Warren popped into seeing with one arm around Buffy, just barely touching her shoulder, and positioned so that his pursed lips were only inches from Buffy's "Hello my dear."
Buffy reacted by jumping back and driving a fist into Warren's stomach. Both she and Warren was surprised when Warren dropped like a brick. A smile played across Buffy's lips. "Did I just TKO a ghost?"
"Looks like it to me," came a satisfied voice from the sofa. "I can't. Believe me, I tried." Willow stood up and looked down at Warren. She grimaced. "C'mon, help me get him on the sofa, and we can go to his room and see if he has anything." Willow grabbed his feet while averting her eyes. Maybe Buffy could see normal Warren, but she was still graced with the skinless version.
"His room," Buffy asked after they had deposited Warren.
"Yeah, his room," said Willow going down the hall. "The spare bedroom actually." She opened the door and ushered Buffy inside. "He's been staying here since your Mom started getting more involved.
Buffy felt like she had gone into another world. Mahogany walls, lined with bookshelves. A red carpet on the floor, brass chandelier over a mahogany desk, lined with pipes, tobacco humidifiers, all polished to perfection. A huge globe sat in one corner, across from a desk, much smaller, more of a secretarial desk, which Willow was moving towards. Buffy picked up a small mahogany box and looked at the contents.
"Willow and Warren Investigations?"
Willow sat behind her desk and sighed. "Warren has some idea of our opening a detective agency..."
"With him as the detective, I suppose."
"Yeah. He has some idea of him being a cross between Sherlock Holmes, which is bad enough, but he watched an ep of Nero Wolfe on A&E and wants to be more like him."
"He gave you first billing? Wouldn't he want that for himself?"
"He would except that normally people can't see him and if he let them he might forget and give them the skinless version of him and then where would we be. So if we ever get a client I'm the one they get to see,"
"Do you have any?"
"Not yet, fortunately, except for this sacrifice thing which we should really get to." Willow opened a notebook that was on top of her desk. "When he has instructions for me he usually writes them down in this book. Except when I'm here to take dictation."
So, what did he write down."
"He wants me to check into bus schedules to Sunnydale. It says here that there was an international soccer tournament in LA around the time of the killings, and he wants to know if any of them were here."
Joyce stood in the living room of the Summers residence and watched as a light flashed in the corner, steadied and grew, until it was big enough for Dawn to step through.
"That's good Dawn. Just like I said upstairs. You just have to imagine the place where you are going. See it in your mind, and then imagine a door between you and where you want to go, and open that door and go through."
"And then I'm there?" Dawn looked around the room as if to make sure she really was in the living room of her house. "Just like that?"
"Just like that," Joyce assured her. "Now you must remember not to use it unless you know where you are going to end up, and not unless Buffy, Giles, Xander, or myself tells you. Understand."
Dawn nodded.