Act IV
"Giles, can you set up shop here?" Buffy said loudly as they entered the remains of the school near the cafeteria. "Or do you need to be closer?"
Giles had to strain to hear over the unearthly shrieks and moans that permeated the place. "This should be fine. Just keep her attention for a few minutes."
"Got it," she answered. "Xander, you and Spike come with me. Dawn, stay with Giles."
Dawn nodded.
"Giles, don't take too long."
He was already setting the ingredients on the ground. "Go on. Be careful."
She started to walk carefully through the tangled debris, Xander and Spike just behind her.
"Slayer!"
Rack stepped out of the shadows menacingly. "No further, Slayer. The red head's got some big plans for the world, and I'll be damned if you're gonna stick your big -"
She kept on walking toward him. He backed up uncertainly, started to mumble an incantation, but before he could finish, she stepped into a right hook. The blow lifted him off of his feet and sent him crashing through the plaster wall. He crumpled to the floor, moaning.
"Sorry, friend," Buffy said, hardly pausing. "I've seen better."
She found the stairs and looked up.
"Willow's up there," she shouted. Around them the cacophony of tormented souls was getting louder. "This school's liable to completely collapse any minute now. Just be as careful as you can where you're walking."
They started up.
"Nom casa se tano," Giles said in monotone, waving a bone over the small fire he had set on the tile floor. "Re tano con."
Dawn looked around, shivering. The air was starting to move around them, blowing the plaster dust up and around in dusty clouds. The meager flames that Giles had managed to produce for the spell wavered, threatening to go out completely. She stood up, tried to huddle around the fire to shelter it from the growing wind.
"Willow!"
The red head was mouthing
something, hands outstretched, eyes closed, face upturned to the sky. Light, red light, cascaded up from below
them towards the sky. The sounds of
anguish whirled around them, making Buffy want to scream herself.
"Spike, you go around that way!" Buffy shouted, pointing left. "Xander, go right!"
They both nodded, spreading out. They had discussed this in the car - Willow might be able to keep them away with her magic if they were bunched together, but if they spread out in different directions, she might be only able to force one of them away at a time.
Willow turned on her heel to look at them.
"You're right on time, Buffy," Willow shouted, smiling pleasantly, though the expression didn't make it to her coal-black eyes. "Thought it was about time we really celebrated the Mayor's demise. We didn't do it right three years ago. Just that quiet little party, friends and family only."
She motioned around at the din of moaning voices. "I invited a few more guests this time!"
"Willow, stop this!" Buffy shouted passionately. "It's not too late to change your mind! You're going to destroy us all if you open the Hellmouth. Is that the vengeance you wanted?"
"I can handle it, Buffy," Willow answered. "Lay down your arms, leave while you still can, and I'll take care of everything!"
"Will, this thing you're bringing up," Xander shouted from the side, "it's going to wreak havoc!"
"I can control it!" Willow answered. "When I tap into the Hellmouth, there'll be nothing I won't be able to do."
"You won't be able to bring Tara back!" Spike said then, and she whirled on him furiously. "That's what all this noise is really about, isn't it, Red? All this pomp and circumstance? You're gonna be the next thing from God if you do this, and you're still not gonna be able to do the one thing you really wanna do. Bring back your girl!"
"She was everything!" Willow seethed. "Everything! Taken away from me because three little boys wanted to play grown-up! They deserved all the agony I gave them and more!"
"And it's over now, Will!" Buffy shouted. "You've got no other reason to fight!"
Willow smiled benevolently, the expression of one who is well beyond reason.
"Wrong, Buffy. I've got a whole new set of them."
The ground shook again, and this time the sound of something moving through the dirt beneath them was all too real.
"Witness my Ascension!" Willow said, turning back to the red light.
Buffy motioned, and the three of them charged forward. Quicker than the eye could follow, Willow turned to meet them. A flick of the wrist, and Xander was doing a somersault backward through the air. The floor gave way beneath him as he hit, and he tumbled down on to the lower level.
Spike caught her across the face with a hard left cut, but she managed to duck under his right, and kick him in the stomach. Before he could recover, she sent him flying through the wall, to land dazed on the other side.
Buffy torpedoed into the fight, catching Willow in the stomach and landing a hard right to the face. She pressed the advantage mercilessly, thoughtlessly, aware that the moment she let up she would be at the mercy of the invisible forces at Willow's command.
A punishing series of blows sent the witch reeling back. Willow blocked a hard right but couldn't duck under another left, and Buffy's punch fell hard across the other girl's jaw. The red head fell back, wiping blood from her mouth.
"I don't have time for this," Willow said darkly, and waved her hand. Buffy braced, felt nothing, then realized too late that Willow hadn't been trying to move her away. Instead the beam over Buffy's head shifted and started to fall. Buffy scrambled to get out of the way, but caught a glancing blow on the shoulder that slammed her forward into the floor, dust billowing.
Willow motioned again, and now Buffy felt herself lifted up off the ground. She flew towards the wall, managed to turn her body facing back first, but collided. She went through the wall, and finally slid to a stop in another room, her back a knot of agony.
"Hey -"
Willow whirled just in time to see Spike swinging a broken board towards her before she caught it right in the pit of her stomach. She doubled over, breath gone, and Spike kicked upward, kneeing her in the face. She tumbled backward, managed to roll to her feet, though she was more noticeably more unsteady.
"Dead thing," she breathed huskily, her voice not much like Willow's at all. Blood was streaming from a cut on her cheek, and she paused only a moment to wipe it away, leaving a bloody smear like a perverse badge of honor. "Dance, corpse."
Spike's head snapped back, and he screamed, grabbing blindly at his temples. Blood dripped from his ears as he staggered back, convulsing helplessly. Willow motioned, and, limp as a rag doll, he was catapulted backward, down, and through a hole in the floor.
Buffy had managed to climb painfully back to her feet, but she could only tense as Willow turned back around to face her, hands ready.
"Now, Buffy, I'm gonna make this quick."
She motioned...and nothing happened. Dumbfounded, she tried it again, with the same result.
Buffy took advantage of the momentary confusion, and ran forward. She jumped, leading with her foot, catching Willow prone. She punched down with the right, again, then followed with a left undercut. Willow fell backward, but rolled to her feet before Buffy could do any more damage. She blocked another right, and slammed her fist into the pit of Buffy's stomach. She stepped into a sweeping right hook, and Buffy fell back, bleeding from the lip.
"So Giles is around, too," Willow said, nodding. "That'd explain the no-mojo mojo that just spared you for a few seconds. Well, I guess it's only fair he receive his helping of the stuff I'm dealing to you."
"No se rano togam," Giles whispered. "Rahn togam mo -"
Suddenly the breeze stiffened, and the flames in front of him died. His eyes widened for an instant, and then he flew backward, landing against the wall with a dull thud. He slumped forward, limp, eyes closed.
"Giles!" Dawn screamed, running to his side.
Willow opened her eyes, smiling with satisfaction, and walked back toward the red light.
"This has been diverting, Buffy," she said conversationally. "I'll try to forget what you've done after it happens. But please don't try to stop me after I open this gate. I'll crush you like a can."
Buffy staggered to her feet. "I can't let you do this, Will. It's my life, my duty."
"I'm not your enemy, Buffy."
"You're not?" Buffy replied incredulously. "You're not my enemy, but you're doing exactly the things my enemies have tried to do in the past. Opening the Hellmouth, just like the Master. Attacking the people I love, just like Angelus. Bringing some horrible demon into the world, just like the Mayor. Don't you see it, Will?!"
For a hopeful moment, Buffy thought the witch was hesitating. But then Willow smiled, shook her head, almost sadly.
"It's too late for that kind of drama, Buffy," Willow said, and waved her hands over and through the light shaft.
The ground shook again, the strongest quake yet, and they were both thrown off of their feet.
The jostling woke Spike up. He groaned, tried to sit up. He felt like his skull had been shattered. Blood dripped out of his ears and nose.
"Bet you're glad you don't have a heartbeat, huh?"
Xander was limping towards him a few paces away, looking similarly beat-up.
"Wish these bloody nerve-endings would go ahead and stop working," Spike grimaced, climbing slowly to his feet. "Hundred and fifty years and they're still hummin'."
Something groaned not far away, and a rain of dust and plaster cascaded down around them. The building was beginning to come down once and for all.
"What's happening?" Giles said, coming around the corner, followed by Dawn.
Something inhuman shrieked from upstairs.
"My guess is...that," Spike said. They moved towards the crumbling stairs.
With an eerie, inhuman whine, the red light became black, swirling, cold.
Buffy and Willow recovered at the same moment, and both scrambled towards the light. They reached out simultaneously, hands outstretched on each side of the beam.
At first Buffy felt nothing, nothing except an icy wind. She thought it was strange that something shooting up from Hell should be cold, but there it was. The beam became broader, encompassing them both. Buffy felt it come around her, then through her, and she shuddered. It was like a thousand cold fingers running up and across her skin, playing her like a piano. She looked over and saw that Willow was experiencing the same sensation.
Then the beam broke, coalesced between them, and started to writhe like a solid, living thing trying to escape their grasp. Buffy held on for dear life, though it was beginning to slip. Willow did the same.
They ran in to find Buffy and Willow standing face to face, both staring at something between them that none of the rest could see. Buffy's eyes were closed, her mouth pursed in concentration.
"No!" Giles shouted desperately. He surged forward, Xander just behind him. Dawn was at the door with Spike standing at her back.
The librarian was halfway across the room when there was a flash between the two girls, of light that was not light, of darkness. Willow was gone in the blink of an eye; Buffy followed suit an instant later. The flash grew, expanded outward like a shockwave across the room. Giles skidded to a halt before he was pulled away into the blackness. Xander had enough time to turn and give out a warning shout before he was gone.
Dawn closed her eyes, braced for the dark wave. Before it could reach her, however, she felt a cold hand on hers, and then she was flying through the air over Spike's head. She landed with a thud some distance away, the wind knocked out of her lungs. Still she was able to open her eyes and look towards the center of the room.
Spike was giving her a strange look, a look of grim concern, almost parental. Before she could say anything, he was swallowed by the wave. It continued across the room. She felt it as it touched her, cold and silent. It tugged at her, wanted to pull her away from this place to somewhere that was not. For an instant she was in limbo between two worlds, one the school...and another that seemed to be a vast, empty plain.
But the wave had lost its power to transport. It dissipated around her.
She was left alone in the hallway, alone except for Spike's last words echoing in her head.
Sorry, pet, it said solemnly, this one's for the grownups.
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