Chapter Two

THEY MOVED AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE through the tattered streets of Sunnydale. It appeared as if the biker gang was leaving the Hellmouth, but the Scoobies all knew that the bikers had discovered the Buffybot. And there was a good chance that they wouldn't keep quiet about it and would likely return, with company. But they would deal with that problem when it came around.

The real Buffy was their problem now.

Willow quickly opened the door into the Summers' residence, with Tara at her side, and Xander and Anya holding on to the still unconscious Slayer. Willow burst through the door and helped Tara up the stairs into their room, while Xander and Anya sprawled Buffy out on the couch.

"I can't believe what's happening," murmured Xander, staring at the sleeping girl. He bent down and lightly touched Buffy's bleeding face. "I can't believe that…it was our fault."

"Or Willow's," interrupted Anya, as she watched Xander. "We may have helped with the spell, but who was the one with the snakes, the black eyes, channeling all the dark energy into her acting like it was nothing and not at all a big deal, and probably aware that this might happen to Buffy? Willow. What were we doing? Holding some stupid candles probably wasn't even vital to the spell and regretting what we were doing from the second things started to get a little too unnaturally unnatural."

Xander remained silent, not answering Anya, because this was what he did. Whenever something wrong would happen, Xander would step up unless it was Willow or Buffy. He always held exceptions for the two of them, because they had known it each for so long. Xander knew what Willow had done was wrong, and he knew what Anya was saying was true, but he just wouldn't admit it.

"Just because it's Willow doesn't change anything," said Anya sternly. "We brought Buffy back and now she's wrong, and the blame may fall onto us, but Willow must have known this was a possibility, meaning she lied to us about this. So, what else could she be lying about?"

Even through Xander's silent, Anya knew that she had hit something and that she had Xander's attention. But that gripe was quickly lost as a weakened Willow stepped down the stairs.

"Hey, how's she doing?" asked Willow.

"How do you think?" growled Anya.

Xander bent down and examined Buffy's hands. They were still bleeding from when she had clawed out of her grave, and they had probably reopened when she had begun to viciously attack Dawn.

Dawn.

"Do what know what's happened with Dawn?" Xander finally spoke. "S-she's dead, but do we know where her body is?"

There was a moment of silence before Willow explained that the teleportation spell wasn't too accurate, but Dawn's body was somewhere within Sunnydale General Hospital. But if they checked in within the next several days, they would probably be able to find Dawn—once things had begun to simmer down.

"How's Tara?" asked Xander.

"She's had her better days—we all have." Willow sighed. "She just has a few scrapes and bruises, but she's banged up just enough to be…well, exhausted. She should be fine in a day or two."

"Well, what should we do with Buffy?" asked Anya slowly. "I mean, we all saw what happened at the construction site, right? How do we know she won't flip out and go all feral and wonky again?"

"In a couple of days, maybe…" But all Willow did was trail off, as her sad gaze fell upon Buffy.

"Yeah, I'm sure that's all she'll need in order to get over an eternal hell experience and then killing her sister," snapped Anya.

"Well what else can we do, Anya?" shouted Willow. "Put her back? Should we put her back in the hell that did this to her in the first place? Or, try to use the power that we have now and try to help?"

Anya stared at Willow, who merely kept her eyes locked on Buffy, thinking of some sort of answer. And she should. She was the one who had done this to them all. "Well?"

"We could restrain her again if she gets wild," suggested Xander. "I mean, we've dealt with it before—with me as hyena-boy, then with your skanky vampire double, and Oz with his werewolf-self—we could cage her somewhere and make sure someone's watching her."

Willow quickly pulled her gaze from Buffy and locked her eyes with Xander. A beat passed before either could respond, and Anya quickly interrupted their train of thought.

"Again, I say—" but Willow cut Anya off before she could finish her rash and impatient thought.

"Oz's cage," answered Willow. Her eyes looked back to at Buffy, but then shook her head. "Dunno if it'll hold a Slayer for a long duration, but at least it will hold her for the rest of the night." Willow crossed her arms sternly pondering which cemetery Oz had always gone to on the nights of the full moons. But even as she started to focus her thoughts on her memories of Oz, she could sense a presence settling in the Summers' household. It was something different…

…Something new…

"The underground crypt with Oz's cage was at the far end of town," remembered Willow. "It was just north nearby the college—"

"You!" shouted a dreadfully familiar voice.

Xander, Willow, and Anya all pulled their attention away from each Buffy and each other, turning around, to see the beaten, charred, bleeding, dead body of Dawn Summers standing on the other side of the room.

"Dawn," whispered Xander softly.

"All of you, this was your doing," snarled Dawn, beginning to walk closer towards the three Scoobies. When she made her way across the living room, the new and dark presence that Willow felt seem to send a tremor all throughout the room, causing mirrors and class to shatter and break all around the Summers' living room. "The ripping and bleeding! Hell was raised by your magicks! String-by-string."

"Dawn," Willow said sternly, slowly talking a step closer towards Dawn, "I'm sorry what happened to you, and to Buffy—"

"STOP!" shrieked Dawn. "Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! But you can't because you are the cause of this all. Your magicks couldn't stop her death and your magicks couldn't bring her back. All you can do know is drag her defiled body back to our house and hope it will all work out?" She then shook her head, and all of the tremors she had initiated came to and instant halt. "Get out."

The three Scoobies watched as the ravaged body of Dawn Summers began to start smoking and a horrid flame erupted all across her body, and whatever was left of the Slayer's younger sister began to incinerate. Just as the body had done when Willow had left her.

"Get out, get out, GET OUT!" Those were the final words before Dawn dissipated into a hell of fiery rage.

Xander, Anya, and Willow all fell silent as they looked upon the chaos and disarray that Dawn—or whatever had just appeared before them—and it was quickly sinking into all their minds that the consequences of their actions would be very great. And the first consequences would be the price of Dawn's life, which Willow was forced into taking.

Willow knew that Dawn would be a price they would all have to pay in order to restore Buffy. Buffy had beaten her sister to death, and if Buffy had to come out of this Willow knew that Buffy would never be the same knowing that she killed her own sister. Taking her out of the picture permanently wasn't something Willow could yet master, but destroying the body would be the easiest thing on all of them.

The three Scoobies then heard the roar of the biker demon's motorcycle rolling up to the Summers' home. They all turn towards the huge window looming behind the couch, but before Willow could even completely turn she could feel the Slayer's cold, trembling, pale, bloody hands wrapping around Willow's neck, lifting the witch off of the ground.

"Willow!" shouted Xander, rushing towards Buffy. But the Slayer swiftly batted Xander to the ground and tightened her grip on Willow.

"B-Buffy, you d-don't want to do this," said Anya shakily, slowly trying to get near Buffy. "I mean sure you've been brought back to this hellish world, with Sunnydale near to be demolishing, and of course there's the beating your sister to death and harming of all your friends you have left, except for, well me, but well, at least your not in h—"

Buffy shot a cold, lifeless glare at Anya, cutting off the ex-vengeance demon in the midst of her tactless rambles and she stopped edging the enraged Vampire Slayer.

"Or fine. I'll just silently let you go back to murdering your own best friend," muttered Anya, taking a little step back.

The Slayer just seemed to be blocking out Anya and Xander and pulled all of her focus and concentration on Willow. She was really the only one of the four Scoobies that had brought Buffy back, and Willow knew she could be the only one to bring Buffy back to who she once was.

"…Buffy," she managed to gasp. Willow tried to look into Buffy's fiery eyes, attempting to use her magick to help Buffy realize that. But as her grip continued to tighten, Willow became more and more light-headed and knew she wouldn't have enough strength to reach her fallen friend.

"Buffy, no!"

It almost seemed as if his words struck a buried part of Buffy that Willow had been trying to reach all night, and it stung that all it had taken were those two words from him to reach Buffy and nothing Willow could sad could even slightly affect her. Willow expected to see a stunned, slightly pleased, vibrant look across his face, but the dead, stern, and angry look Spike had across his face chilled Willow on a level that had never been reached with Spike before.

"Spike?" whispered Buffy softly, her eyes locked upon Spike. Her hand that was holding Willow in the air began to tremble even more.

"Buffy, put her down," instructed Spike slowly.

The Slayer slowly began to comply, lowering Willow to the ground in then finally letting go of her best friend. Willow dropped to her knees, gasping for life as he flowed back into her, and slowly began to crawl away from Buffy. Xander and Anya both instantly complied as well, getting a safe enough distance from Buffy not to get harmed.

Spike stared down what he had not been able to bring back. But the shaking in Buffy's hand seemed to intensify and Buffy started to break down. A tear began to stream down Buffy's soiled face, and her eyes pulled away from Spike and looked down at her swollen bleeding hands. The same hands that had brought her from her grave, which had struck Xander and Tara, which strangled Willow, and had killed…

"Buffy," said Spike, his voice beginning to sound slightly calmer. He was bringing down whatever barriers Buffy had shielding around her. Spike only took a single step towards Buffy and it was that single step and snapped Buffy's red eyes back to Spike. But this time, they were wide and angry as Spike began to near her.

"NO!" With a single shout Buffy turned from the spot where she once stood, leaping up onto the couch and then projecting herself through the window and into the hellish Sunnydale night.

As one collective force, Spike, Willow, Xander, and Anya all gathered around the remaining shards of the Summers' window, every single eyes scanning abandoned streets of Sunnydale, with Buffy nowhere in sight. The Slayer that they had brought back, damaged somehow, was out in the hellish world they were engulfed in everyday, alone and confused.

Because they had allowed it to happen, and now all they could do is look out into the darkness, paralyzed about what was to come.

"Well it might have been worse," suggested Anya attempting to ensue her uninfectious comfort, only to hesitate for a moment and added, "perhaps."