Chapter 3
Two weeks later Willow had pretty good grasp of the contents of the cavern computers. Unfortunately the chamber was only designed as a defense control station and didn't promise to offer up much detailed information about the race some referred to as the Ancients. Giles had spent a couple of days investigating the chamber and teaching Willow what little existed of a proto-demon language that matched the symbols found on the chair interface. Once Willow began visualizing that language while she was in the chair, the interface started teaching her a related language. It was slow at first, but picked up speed as she learned more and by the end of the first week she had enough to master it.
During that time, she also grew accustomed to the feel of the machinery's power source. It was mechanical in construction, but resonated with mystical energy. She searched for other sources of the same energy and sensed periodic surges from a military installation in Colorado. She sent spy probes in and learned that the underground base held a device that opened wormholes and allowed people to travel to other planets that also had a device. They called it the Stargate.
She also sensed a stealthy but powerful power source deep within the Cleveland Hellmouth. It was protected by formidable spells and she would need some prep time and the assistance of the Coven to penetrate them. And it was likely that the source was protected by some kind of demon army the Slayers would need to defeat. She decided to leave that be until after she dealt with the frozen man in the Antarctica chamber.
Kennedy was the first one to discover the man. She bumped against a machine and wiped the frost off it and saw a man in some kind of state of suspended animation. He was in what the Stargate people called a "regeneration chamber." She learned that his name was Jack O'Neill and less than two months ago he had volunteered to have knowledge from a library constructed by the Ancients downloaded into his brain. This had ultimately left him incapable of speaking anything except the Ancient language (which the Stargate people only knew a small bit of at that time), but still he managed to locate a power source constructed by the Ancients (called a "ZPM" by the military) and used it to power the defense center within the cavern to defeat an alien space armada.
But his brain couldn't handle the knowledge of the Ancients for long. So he had placed himself in the regeneration chamber until a method to safely remove the knowledge could be found. Kennedy listened to conversations from the Stargate base and discovered that O'Neill had had an Ancient library downloaded into his brain once before. That time he had contacted an alien race called the Asgard and they had been able to remove the knowledge. But the humans hadn't heard from the Asgard in quite some time. They feared that the alien's war against something called the replicators was going badly.
The more Willow learned about O'Neill, the more she admired him. From the information she could gather, he had saved the world at least as many times as Buffy had. His colleagues, his friends were very frustrated that they could not investigate the chamber yet. They hoped they would find some way to restore O'Neill to his old self.
But Willow knew they wouldn't find a solution that would help them in the chamber. Short of contacting the Asgard, there was nothing they could do to help their friend. But there was something she could do. The cavern computers gave her enough background on the Ancient libraries to feel she might be able to remove the knowledge using magic. After re-awakening O'Neill, she should be able to use one spell to make him forget anything that happened up to a point just before he used the Ancient library and another spell to permanently extract the recently forgotten knowledge from his brain. There would be no danger of a relapse caused by a broken crystal or anything else.
After explaining the problem to Giles and suggesting that they try using some variation of the forgetting spell, the Watcher had done some research and found a spell to extract forgotten knowledge from a human's brain. That had been an awkward conversation for both of them because of the memory spells Willow had used on Tara and everyone else. Because of the nature and sheer amount of Ancient memory O'Neill had, Willow would not have been able to perform the extraction spell before she became Darth Willow and then the White godess. It would still be difficult now, but she felt it was doable. However she would need to establish a rapid telepathic communication with O'Neill after he was re-awoken in order to explain her purpose and perform the spell before his brain was permanently damaged by the Ancient knowledge.
Giles, Xander and the rest agreed that she should help O'Neill if she could, but they were uneasy with the rest of her ideas. The more Willow learned about the Ancients and their history and technology, the more she was certain that demons had used some of that technology in the past. She examined the mystical power that flowed through her own being and found traces of the Ancient power sources. Since her energy had been contaminated by the energy from the Sunnydale Hellmouth, it stood to reason that an ancient power source had been located somewhere within the Hellmouth. It was her theory that both the Sunnydale and Cleveland Hellmouths had been opened using ZPMs. And Spike's amulet must have done something to the Sunnydale Hellmouth power source in order to make it close. Giles was forced to admit that her theory sounded more plausible than any other theories on the subject.
But he didn't like the conclusions Willow drew from her theories. She now knew in her bones that the best way to fight demons would be to understand the power of the Ancients. She remotely scanned the alien in the Stargate complex called Teal'C and found a residue from a demon infestation in his body. She teleported into the morgue of a navy ship off the coast of Antarctica and examined the remains of some of the air crew of the alien craft shot down in the dogfight. They were humanoid, but infected by infant demonic parasites. What the military called "Gou'ald," she called demons. Ultimately they were fighting the same thing.
So it made sense to Willow that they join forces with the military in order to share knowledge and construct new weapons. She knew that military assistance would greatly reduce the number of casualties the Slayers would suffer in the effort to retrieve the Cleveland ZPM and hopefully close the Hellmouth. And her magic and the strength of the Slayers would be an asset against the scary new alien warriors the Stargate people faced. The knowledge that Willow herself held a very high concentration of the Ancient's gene in her cells would certainly be enough to get them interested. But everyone else was concerned that they would end up locked away in Area 51 or where ever Ethan Rayne was being held. Because of their experiences with The Initiative, they didn't trust the government.
But Willow saw the auras and Kennedy listened to the conversations of the people in the Stargate complex and those working in Antarctica. The two women were convinced these were good people with good leadership and good intentions. They had the direct support of the President and most of the other leaders of the industrialized countries of the world. On the other hand, she wasn't even sure the President had known about the Initiative.
Willow and Kennedy were going to teleport to a Scooby leadership meeting in a few hours where the group would decide which course to follow. The options they had were to cover their tracks and leave O'Neill as he was, rescue him and hope they didn't get found out, or rescue him and negotiate some kind of partnership with the SGC. She knew that the military had formed alliances with the Asgard and other offworld communities. She felt they would do the same with the Slayers if they could demonstrate that they had something substantial to offer towards the defense of Earth. She felt that teleporting into the SGC with a healed and cooperative Jack O'Neill and then demonstrating her knowledge of the Ancient command center would be a big step in the right direction. One of the things she would show them was the existence of Atlantis-the lost city they had been searching for. Demons and other mystics had probably already exploited most of the Ancient artifacts left on Earth, but she suspected that the knowledge and power she needed to rid the world of demons was in the Pegasus Galaxy. And joining forces with the military was the best way to be able to go through the Stargate and get there.
She suspected that everyone else at the meeting would see the logic of her arguments. But if that didn't work, she was prepared to use guilt. Angel and the rest had ultimately died because they were alone and abandoned by the Scoobies. If the two groups had joined forces that wouldn't have had to happen. In the end they might still all be killed fighting evil, but they had a greater chance of succeeding and surviving if they got assistance from others fighting the same fight.
Willow did a mental relaxation exercise and then got up from the chair in the middle of the cavern. Many thoughts weighed heavy on her mind. She still felt much guilt and sadness for things she had done or not been able to prevent, but also felt hope for a brighter future. Things would work out with O'Neill and the military. She would reconcile with Buffy. And she would always have Kennedy and the memory of Oz and Tara. Willow had time to give her girlfriend a small demonstration of her love before they left for the meeting. It was still chilly in the chamber, but she knew they could heat it up a little. Things were definitely going to be even more interesting for the Scoobies from now on.
The End (for now?)