Note and disclaimers as in Prologue.

~*~*~

Epilogue

Willow was smiling, though no happiness showed in her dead black eyes. "Buffy ... I gotta tell ya ... I get it now. The Slayer thing really isn't about the violence. It's about the power."

The true Slayer was silent as she continued circling the witch. Despite her vigilance, Buffy wasn't swift enough to duck a bolt of magic when Willow finally made her move. The bolt threw the petite blonde over a desk and onto the floor, where she lay groaning and hanging onto consciousness with every bit of her willpower. Truth be told, Willow was happier that Buffy was still able to listen to her gloat. "And there's no one in the world with the power to stop me now." That thought finally gave Buffy the strength to stand, but Willow quickly knocked her down, thus proving her theory correct. There was no one to challenge her, and Willow liked that feeling very much.

As soon as Buffy was unconscious, Willow soaked up all the dark magicks in the Shop. After a moment's hesitation, Willow shrugged and drained the Slayer of her life force as well. Willow was surprised at how little guilt she felt about this. Once she was filled with as much power as her mortal frame could carry, Willow resolutely strode out of the shop.

Willow had intended to use her power to flay Jonathan and Andrew, but once she was loaded up, they just didn't seem worth the effort. Nothing seemed worth the effort. Nothing in life seemed to be worth living. Life was nothing but pain and agony; it was just too much. Aloud, Willow whispered, "Oh, you poor bastards! Your suffering has to end." With that, she teleported herself to the temple of Proserpexa, on Kingman's Bluff. Once there, Willow began chanting over and over again, "Proserpexa ... let the cleansing fires from the depths burn away the suffering souls and bring sweet death."

Willow's ritual was nearly complete when Xander suddenly appeared. He gave her a nonchalant smile and quipped, "Hey, black-eyed girl. Whatcha doin'?"

Willow was not in the mood to deal with her oldest friend. "Get out of here," she growled at him.

"Ah, no," Xander stubbornly disagreed. "You're not the only one with powers, you know. You may be a hopped-up uber-witch, but ... this carpenter can dry-wall you into the next century."

Willow considered telling Xander that she wasn't joking and that he had better get out of her way, but decided that she just didn't care enough to do so. She was too cut off from the world and human emotions to remember the love and friendship she had once felt for Xander. Casually, she threw lightning bolts at him until he stopped staggering to his feet. Willow idly wondered whether she had killed him, but she couldn't be bothered to bend down and find out.

Once she had dealt with the distraction that was Xander, Willow was free to concentrate upon ending her pain. On ending everyone's pain. She began draining the planet's life force, so she could funnel its energy through Proserpexa's effigy and burn the Earth to a cinder. It took about ten minutes, and she spent that time sending early deaths to Dawn and Anya. She was still considering the best method of getting to Giles, who was several thousand miles away, when Proserpexa's statue began to glow with a blinding ferocity.

At that moment, the world fell down and went boom.

The End