Buffy and Giles exchanged a look of pure alarm as Willow stepped over Anya's unconscious form.
"Don't worry," she told them with a sigh. "She's not dead." She looked down at the girl with a shrug. "It's a shame I had to knock her out. She was really coming around to my way of thinking. Just, you know, not quickly enough, and I really don't have time to hang around."
As Buffy looked to him, Giles stepped forward, already on the offensive, but before he could do anything a bolt of magic shot from her and hit Buffy, sending the Slayer flying back to crash into the wall, falling to the ground painfully.
Giles watched, sadly surprised, starting toward Willow. "Vincire!" he called, holding out his hand and gesturing to her, sending another dose of the binding spell he'd used earlier at her, but this time was ready and waved her hand at it, blocking it.
"Solutum," she said calmly, the binding field disappearing as she walked into the training room proper. She allowed a small smile to creep onto her face. "Fool me once..." she said creepily.
Giles' eyes widened in terror as behind her, on the wall with the knives and other weapons used to assist Buffy in her training, the objects moved from their case, hovering in the air. "Willow..." he began.
She shook her finger at him patronisingly. "Shame on you," she said as the knives began to fly towards Giles at speed.
Giles looked to the left, yelled something, and the practice dummy sat at one side of the room flew in front of him, taking the force of the knives slamming into it at full speed. Now, he was ready when Willow made an angry face and waved her hand, the dummy falling to the side, and a ball of energy appeared in his palm which he quickly threw at the girl. "Excudo!"
She flew backward through the brick wall, falling through the debris to land in the Magic Box proper, slamming into one of the pillars supporting the upper loft on the way amidst the raining bricks, books and plaster demolition caused.
"Neat trick," she said as she got to her feet with no trouble at all, the Magicks suffusing her with strength she'd never known before. "But can you do this?" she asked, letting loose with a vortex of black and purple energy that transfixed him to the spot. "Didn't think so," she told him, watching his eyes dart over to Buffy, still on floor. "Oh, I get it," she said. "You think little Watcher's Pet will come and save you?" she asked, scoffing. She turned to Buffy and unleashed another round of energy on her.
She looked around the partially demolished shop, her eyes falling on the practice dummy and the sharp things still buried in it. She made another gesture with her hand, the items responding in kind by flying free from the dummy and floating in the air. At Giles wide, horror-filled eyes, she shook her head. "Don't worry, these aren't for you," she said, picking one of the knives out of the air and fingering the point until blood was drawn from her tip. "These are for me. I told you before, I don't have time for this. But, hey, once I've finished with the geeks, I'll come back for you, okay?"
With one long look at them, she turned and started toward the exit, the knives obediently following their master. When she was close enough, a bolt of Magick flew from her outstretched fingertips that blew the door clean from its hinges, causing the object to land loudly on the ground a few feet away. She grinned to herself, turning back to the magically paralysed Giles. "I'll just leave this open," she told him.
It was funny how cemeteries in Sunnydale were never locked, Tara thought to herself as she pushed open the heavy iron gates to the graveyard, ushering in Dawn and the boys. She supposed there wasn't much point, really. They probably just got fed up with repairing the broken locks on a daily basis.
"A graveyard?" Andrew spat out. "You're bringing us to a graveyard? What a great idea!" he said dryly. "Like we want to be reminded where we could end up if the psycho witch catches up with us."
"Hate to agree with the Super Geek," Dawn said quietly, falling into step with the older girl as they walked quickly through the grounds. "But are we sure we wanna be here?" she asked. "I mean, don't we spend enough time hanging out in cemeteries?"
"Well, where do you suggest we go, Dawn?" Tara snapped. "I mean, it may have escaped your notice, but we're kind of lacking hiding places. At least here we have open mausoleums, a lot of space...I wasn't exactly prepared to flee from my girlfriend. We need some time to think about what we're going to do next."
"Sorry," Dawn told her. "I didn't mean...you know."
"I know," Tara said, stopping and smiling at Dawn. "It's just that this is...well, it's hard."
Dawn nodded. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Tara shrugged. "I just keep thinking about how much I know she's hurting right now," she said sadly. "I just want to help her."
"You can," a voice said.
Tara and Dawn turned around quickly, their eyes wide in surprise at the sight of dissipating magical energy, leaving Willow standing in its wake, a trail of weapons behind her in the pitch-black cemetery.
"Uh-oh..." Andrew said quietly, turning to Jonathon in terror.
"Willow..." Tara began.
"Not now, sweetie," Willow drawled, not even looking at her lover as she pointed at them, the magical energy spilling from fingertips and sending Dawn and Tara flying across the graveyard and into a tomb with two loud thuds, both them falling to the ground unconscious.
Jonathon and Andrew looked between each other, both terrified in the knowledge there was no one else to protect them.
"Boys," Willow said brightly, walking towards them, making them back away from her uneasily with small steps, stumbling over the rocks and dirt over the uneven ground. "Alone at last," she told them. "You know, everyone keeps stopping us from catching up, don't they?" she asked, shaking her head.
Andrew held up his sword defiantly, the weapon shaking in his trembling grasp so much that he brought his free hand to hold it more firmly. "You won't hurt us," he told her, his voice shaking. "I have a sword and I'm not afraid to use it!"
Willow waved her hand and the sword fell from his grasp, landing on the floor next to her, Jonathon's with it. "Pathetic much?"
"It wasn't us!" Andrew yelled bluntly. "It was Warren."
"Shut up!" she told him. "Before you find out what it's like to have your mouth sewn shut, just like your little friend who ended up in a million pieces in the forest. You wanna join him?"
"No," Andrew told her emotionally, shaking his head violently. "No, please..." he begged. "We're—"
"Shut up!" she yelled at him again, a gesture of her hands that threw them both back, the knives she had conjured flying at them, pinning each of them to the side of a mausoleum by their clothes, the blades outlining each of the figures.
She slowly walked over to where they splayed against the wall. "These knives aren't as good as what I used on that creep Warren," she told them. "I had him strung up with vines, you know." She shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, well. I suppose this will just have to do. So, boys," she said. "Who wants to be first?"
"Willow, please," Jonathon said quietly. "Don't do this..."
"Why not?" she asked. "Why shouldn't I do this? You think you deserve to be let off the hook for what you've done?"
"I know that we were involved in this, one way or the other," Jonathon told her. "But we never wanted to hurt anyone."
"Tell that to Katrina," Willow said viciously. "You hurt her. You killed her. All of you."
"That was an accident," he said.
"And what about everything you've done to try and get to the Slayer?" she asked. "You're telling me that was an accident too?"
Jonathon took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears. "We just..." he started. "We just got carried away," he told her. "I mean, things just seemed to happen so quickly, you know? One minute I don't have any friends, the next I'm in a basement planning to take over Sunnydale with two other guys. If I'd known it was going to get this far..."
"You'd have what?" she snapped coldly. "Seen the error of your ways? I don't think so. It's about the power, Jonathon. You had it, and you wanted more. Side effect: people got hurt. But you don't care about that."
"That's not true!" Jonathon objected. "I liked Xander. He was a good—"
"Stop!" she yelled at him. "You don't get to say his name!" she said viciously. "Don't even talk about him!"
"We've known each other since kindergarten, Willow," Jonathon implored. "I know we were never friends—"
"That's true," she told him. "No one ever wanted to be friends with you, if I recall. Grade school, high school, college...you had to turn evil to get anyone to spend any time with you." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm thinking the words 'high powered rifle' and 'clock tower' are flashing through your brain right about now. That option's looking pretty attractive now, huh, Jonathon? I know it is to me. Buffy should have left you up there. She would have done us all a favour. Hey, maybe I can get hold of another one for you."
"Don't..." Jonathon begged, feeling the tears well up in his eyes.
"Yeah, you're right," she told him. "I mean, that would just seem so quick. To me, anyway. To you it'd probably seem like an eternity. No, I think we need to do this nice and slow..."
"I've never done anything to anyone before all of this." Jonathon said hurriedly.
"You haven't?" she asked, stepping towards him with intent. "Peeing in the pool?" she said. "Making yourself Superstar for a day? Ringing any bells for you?"
"You must know that I wouldn't have purposely hurt him," Jonathon begged.
"I don't know anything anymore," she said quietly, looking away from them for a split-second. "Everything I thought I knew has changed."
"It's not gonna bring him back, you know!" Andrew yelled at her bluntly. "Whatever you do to us...he's still gonna be dead!"
Suddenly, with one sweep of her arm, the twin swords flew up from the ground and hovered in the air menacingly, before shooting forward with Willow's fury towards the boys.
She took pleasure in watching them squirm in abject terror as the swords pressed against their abdomens threateningly, the points piercing clothing and nipping the skin there.
"Please..." Andrew begged.
"What, make it quicker?" she asked, almost innocently. "Okay."
And suddenly, a sword was embedded in each of their torso's, the pair of them letting out screams and gasps as the weapons penetrated their bodies violently.
She liked that they were still conscious. She liked that the pain they were feeling was evident in their eyes. She liked the trickle of blood that was dripping from each of their wounds. Their faces were masks of emotions, sweat was beading upon their skin from what felt like ripping in their stomachs. Paleness was beginning to overtake their complexions as they struggled to stay awake, not that she'd have let them pass out. There would have been no fun in them not being able to feel what she was putting them through. Every single motion they attempted to make made more pain course through their bodies.
This was only the beginning of what she had planned.
"See?" she said brightly. "You're not dead. I paid a lot of attention in biology. The swords haven't punctured any organs. They're just kinda holding you in place, like a pig roasting on a spit, only vertically. But, hey, what do I know about pigs? I'm Jewish. It's probably done a fair bit of damage, though, I would imagine. How does it feel to be impaled?" she asked thoughtfully. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes..." Jonathon breathed. "Yes...it hurts... Is that what you want to hear?"
"Have you just tuned in?" she said dryly. "Of course that's what I want to hear. I want to hear you both screaming in agony. Begging for me to stop. Begging for me to end it, the pain and the suffering."
Andrew struggled to free an arm from the knives that held his sweater in place firmly against the concrete, whispering in shallow breaths, trying to remember an incantation, anything to get him away from her.
"Nuh-uh..." she told them in a sing-song voice. "There will be no escaping, thank you very much. We're just going to have ourselves a nice little party, just the three of us. Won't that be fun?"
"You don't wanna do this..." Andrew mumbled out, the pain quickly working its way through his body.
"Funny," she scoffed. "That's exactly what your dead little buddy said when the bullet was tearing through his skin."
"You're...you're not this person..." Jonathon said slowly. "You do this...you kill us...there's no going back..."
"Shush!" she told them, twisting her hand at the swords, making them turn in the boys bodies, making them scream out in pain as more blood dripped from the wounds. She watched the swords, fascinated by them as they twirled around, the sound of the points grinding into the granite of the mausoleum.
She reached out to touch one of them, her finger lightly grazing the polished finish of the weapon. "Xander bought these from a thrift store when he went to L.A. one time to see his aunt and uncle," she said slowly, smiling to herself at the memory. "He called me from his hotel room, so excited, like he was the day he got a G.I. Joe action figure from his parents when he was seven. When he brought them back they looked pretty crappy. I mean, they were blunt and were tarnished and didn't look like anything, but he worked on them, you know. He wouldn't give up until he could see himself in them, and the blades could cut into tin. He gave them to Giles on the day he opened the Magic Box, like a proud son trying to please his father. Giles was all British and stuttery and cleaned his glasses ten times over, which I suppose means he was proud, and asked Xander to put them up on the wall." She looked back up at them with coldness in her eyes. "Shame he's not here to see how good a job he did on them, huh?"
"Stop..." Andrew cried, not caring now. "Just let us go..."
"Can't do that," she told them. "See, these swords here? They're impaling you. They're holding you against the wall. They're also holding your guts in place, too. These swords are removed? The blood loss will be so bad you'll go into shock in seconds, then you'll probably have a heart attack. So, really, I'm doing you a favour here."
"It's not...too late..." Jonathon told her, rapidly losing the feeling in his limbs where the knives were still holding him in place, losing consciousness from the terrible pain. "You don't...have to do...this..."
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong," she warned him. "Cause I kinda think I do." She put her hands out in front of her, and gestured with her forefingers, pulling one of the knives away from each of the figures with an unseen force. She grinned at them both, continuing to pull away the things that were holding them in place on the wall, randomly plucking the knives to let them hover around in the air.
"Stop!" Andrew yelled. "Please!"
Willow paid no attention to him, just made a flicking gesture with one of her hands that caused one of the knives to swipe at his cheek, making a long, deep gash there. "Now," she said calmly. "These knives were pinning you in place. When I remove them, these swords, if there's enough weight on them, they'll start to split you both right open. Slowly, though, at first. Then, as the pressure builds on them, they'll just start to glide through your insides like butter." She widened her eyes in delight. "Exciting, huh?"
She continued to randomly pull the knives free from their encasing slowly, taking her time, no hint of remorse or sympathy for her victims. She plucked one of the knives out of the air and studied it carefully. Then, as if an idea came into her head, she held it in front of her. She took the blade between her fingers, drew her arm back and threw. The point of the blade hit the stone wall and bounced off, eliciting a sigh of disappointment from the witch.
"When we were in second grade, I wanted to be a magicians assistant," she informed them. "There was a field trip to the zoo," she looked at Jonathon. "Do you remember that?" she asked. At his weary nod, she continued. "Of course you do, you threw up so much on the bus back home that Miss Evans had to take you to the emergency room," she grinned to herself. "But that day...everything was just so...amazing. It was exciting and new...we didn't know anything like that could ever exist in real life. When we got home, Xander and I talked for hours about the magician there. Xander said that was what he was gonna be when he grew up, and that I was gonna be his assistant, and I believed him, because he told me that whatever we were gonna be, we'd do it together. We'd always be at each others side.
"He said that we needed to practice so we could be the best the world had ever seen. Xander borrowed his grandfathers clothes, and I'd pretend to be the beautiful, glamorous girl by his side in my mom's high heels and red lipstick, and we'd play knife-throwing." She laughed in spite of herself. "It's lucky I still have an eye, you know. Good thing he was such a terrible shot back then, and my mom certainly didn't seem to think it was funny to find her best carving knife stuck an inch into the garage wall. I suppose, looking back...it's kind of ironic that I ended up being the one working the mojo." She looked at peace for a brief, fleeting moment, as she watched another knife float in the air in front of her.
"So, fellas," she said cheerfully, snapping back from whatever world she had been inhibiting. "How am I doing at the whole torture thing? I'm kinda new to the area, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I know there are the basic methods, Faith mentioned it once, but I think as long as it hurts and you're still conscious enough to feel everything, it's a plus, what do you think?"
"Don't..." Jonathon pleaded, his eyes rolling in their sockets, coughing as something filled his mouth. "...Stop, please..."
"What was that?" she asked. "I didn't quite catch it with the blood that's starting to trickle out of your mouth. Did you say 'don't stop'? Cause, I gotta tell you, I'm really not planning to."
"Willow..."
"No!" she told them, mouthing a short incantation in Latin.
Jonathon opened his mouth, ready to beg and plead and do whatever he had could to get himself out of this situation, but when he spoke, nothing came out. He swore he was speaking, he could almost hear the words he was saying in his head, but there was no sound. He shot a panicked look at Andrew, who was fading by the minute, not that the other guy had ever had ever had a high threshold for pain, before his eyes flickered to Willow.
"See?" she told him. "I can do cute tricks, too." She frowned. "I thought it'd be fun to hear you screaming and begging...turns out it's just annoying."
She didn't see the energy that began to form behind her. A shimmering white, translucent glowing ball of magic that grew without a sound. Now, she was busy waving her arms around in the air in front of her, the motions causing the flying knife act she was working on to zigzag through the air, some of them hitting the boys, cutting them in different places, causing more blood to fall from their forms onto the supposed holy ground of the cemetery.
The first she knew of it was when they boys eyes widened, and not just from fear and pain and pleading. She almost thought it was a trick, something to distract her attention while they tried to escape, but then she figured that they couldn't get out of this if they tried. They were rapidly losing strength, she could feel it falling away from them and filling the air, so she knew she could risk a look at what they were finding so interesting.
There, behind her, growing in size, was a swirling white vortex in the middle of the pitch-black cemetery, almost like something heavenly. She moved her focus from the guys and turned fully to the portal, holding out her palms and blasting it with a burst of her Magick.
Instead of disappearing, the thing seemed to grow and become fierce, like a wild animal waiting to devour her. "Oh, crap..." she said to herself as she suddenly felt the full force of the thing pulling her towards it, more annoyed than worried at the interruption. She looked back at Jonathon and Andrew one last time, grinned at the state she had left them in, bleeding and defeated and humiliated. "See you guys in Hell..." she said as the vortex pulled her into its centre.
As she fell out of the other side of the portal a few seconds later, Willow found herself where she expected to be. The Magic Box again. She was kind of surprised when she saw the state of the place. Yeah, she'd done the damage, but she didn't remember it being like this. Not that she cared, she was just interested.
The pillar that he'd thrown her into earlier lay on the floor with various items of furniture and stock, sparks of electricity flying from exposed wiring, a small fire from a pile of books billowing black smoke and concentrating the air with its stench.
Giles stood before her, looking less than healthy having spent a lot of his magical energy to bring her back, slumping in the doorway to the training room, his face pale and tired.
"You again..." she muttered to herself. "I was just about to go for the big finish."
Giles' eyes widened at the statement, something like relief there as he realised she hadn't killed anyone else.
"It's okay, though," she told him with a small smile. "I did enough damage to last for a little while longer. Then they'll probably just bleed to death or have a heart attack from the shock. Not quite how I'd envisioned it, but, hey, it'll do. They won't even last till morning." She walked forward, stepping around the debris carefully. "That all you got, Jeeves?" she asked, mocking him. "'Cause, I could stand to go another ten rounds. Whereas...you can barely stand."
"Your powers...may be undeniably greater," he told her wearily. "But I can still hurt you if I have to."
"Boy, you just don't get it, do you?" she asked. "Nothing can hurt me now," she told him. For the first time, she realised that sometime during all the fighting she had been injured. Not seriously, just a cut on her face that stung a little with the dust and smoke floating around the room. She lifted her hand to it, "This?" she told him, waving a hand in front of it, the cut healing as if it were never there. "...Is nothing. It's all...nothing." She said, almost sadly.
"I see," he told her. "If you lose someone you love...the other people in your life who care about you...become meaningless. I wonder what Xander would say about that."
Willow's eyes flickered to Buffy, who had moved from wherever she had been to stand at Giles' side. "You can ask him yourself," she said grimly.
Willow lifted her hand and sent a bolt of magic toward Giles, but Buffy rushed forward, pushing Giles forward and out from under the loft. Just in time, it seemed, as the latest magical blast destroyed what was left of the loft's structure, and the whole thing came tumbling down.
Willow looked annoyed as Buffy and Giles fell to the floor. "You're always saving everyone," she told Buffy. "It's kinda pesky." She looked down at the fire that had been made beside her, an idea forming in her twisted mind. She bent down, a ball of flames in her palm that didn't even touch her. She grinned when she saw Buffy's worried face watching her every move. "You probably even think you're buying escape time for Jonathan and the other one. Well, I got a little secret for ya. They're as good as dead already after what I did to them. But if I want to finish the job, I can kill them from anywhere I want. With this." She waved her hand over the ball, the flames growing. "It'll find them. It'll bury them. Along with anyone helping those Dead Men Walking."
Buffy got to her feet, obviously in pain, staring at the fireball. "Don't..." she said.
"Unless..." Willow said mockingly, "Somebody, somehow...can get there in time to save them." She paused, shrugging. "Huh. Oh, well." With one gesture, she threw the fireball into the air, watching proudly as it burst through the ceiling, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. "Fly, my pretty, fly," she said as the flames disappeared from sight. She grinned at Buffy. "See what I did there? "she asked.
Giles looked up at Buffy, seeing she was obviously torn. "Go," he told her without hesitation.
"Good luck!" Willow called as Buffy ran past her and after the fireball, before she turned her attention back to Giles. "I thought she'd never leave," she told him, stepping towards him. "Now I finally have you all to myself."
"Ow..." Tara said as she opened her eyes, finally stirring from Willow's magical hit. She felt around on the ground where she had landed with her hands, finding the side of a crypt next to her. She ran one hand up the surface slowly, finally using it to press against as she sat up, closing her eyes again against the pain that was shooting through her head. She put her free hand to the back of her head, feeling the lump that was forming there from where she had connected with the concrete wall.
There was a sound that caught her off guard. The sound of someone moving on the ground, not too far away from her, and she quickly tried to shake off the remnants of the concussion she was almost sure she had. It all came back to her in a rush as she opened her eyes. "Dawn..." she said quietly, opening her eyes, despite the pain that action brought, and quickly looked around.
Sure enough, the younger Summers girl was lying on the floor a few yards away from her, having suffered the same fate as Tara, and she shuffled across the ground to get to her. "Dawn?" Tara asked, sitting beside the girl and touching her cheek softly. "Dawnie?"
She let out a breath of relief when Dawn responded, groaning as she moved her arms and legs in short, twitching movements. "Don't try and open your eyes yet," Tara told her. "Just relax. Are you okay?"
"I think so," Dawn mumbled. "Apart from the searing pain all through my body. Tara?" Dawn asked, still sounding drowsy. "What happened?"
"Willow..." Tara said quietly, half hoping the other girl wouldn't hear.
"So that was real?" Dawn asked, lifting her hands to her face to brush away the hair that had fallen across her face. "I thought that had been a dream," she said as she opened her eyes a little, struggling to focus on the figure sat beside her and blinking when the silver light of the stars above hit her eyes.
"I wish..." Tara muttered.
"Are you okay?" Dawn asked as she fumbled around on the ground with her hands, using her palms as leverage to sit up, Tara grabbing her arms to help.
"Yeah," Tara answered, trying not to sound as terrified as she felt, trying to keep it together for Dawn's sake. "We should probably find Jonathon and Andrew, though..."
"Tara..."
"...I think they must have ran when Willow appeared. So, if we can just look around..."
"Tara..."
"...We can get a better idea of where we'll be safer. I think—"
"Tara!" Dawn yelled.
"What?" the witch asked, looking at her wide, frightened eyes. "What's wrong?" When Dawn didn't respond, just kept her eyes fixed on something behind Tara, she eventually followed her gaze. "Oh, no..." she said quietly, her voice breaking with tears as she saw the two silent figures held up on the mausoleum. "Oh, Goddess..."
"You're such a hypocrite," Willow said, pacing the floor of the ruined Magic Box. "Waltzing in here with your borrowed Magicks. So you can tell me what? Magic's bad? Behave? Be a good girl?" she chuckled to herself. "Well, I don't think you're in any position to be telling me what to do," she let her eyes flick to the part of ceiling that was still in tact, but only just, smirking at Giles, who was pinned against it, groaning in obvious pain from the cuts and bruises and probable internal bleeding. "Do you?"
Willow gestured with one figure without so much as a thought, the motion sending Giles falling to the floor. He landed hard, on his stomach, his face pained but holding it together, if only for now. "I used to think you had all the answers," she told him scornfully. "That I had so much to learn from you..."
"Willow..." Giles began.
Willow gestured again, Giles flying back up to his position on the ceiling, groaning in pain as he hit the surface. "You were jealous," she told him, looking up to make sure he was feeling everything. "Still are. Just couldn't bear that I was the one with power. That's why you ran away."
She shook her head to herself. "You didn't care about him at all, did you?" she asked.
"Willow, that's...that's not true..." he told her. "You know...it's not..."
"You didn't," she told him. "You didn't care about either of us..."
"Willow..."
"We thought you were everything," she said. "Those first few years, I had such a crush on you, you know. You were the first person in my life who encouraged me to gain more knowledge, to never give up learning, and I used to envy Buffy so much for that connection she had with you. And Xander... He'd never have admitted it to you, but he loved you like a father. When he needed advice, he'd come to you, and he'd know you'd always be honest with him. We thought you'd do anything to protect us, because we felt that way about you.
"I used to look up to you so much," she told him, a surreal smile spreading across her face. "I guess I still do – only, literally now."
"Incurso!" Giles said, a bolt of green magic flying from his mouth to hit Willow.
"That's why you—" she tried to continue, but only stumbled back from the blow as Giles fell back to the floor. She felt the air rush out of her lungs as she tried to keep her balance. "That...was rude!" she panted. "Now I forgot what I was saying."
"Perhaps you're not as strong...as you think you are," Giles said painfully, Willow watching as he struggled to get up. "You're expending way too much of your mystical energy to maintain your powers. At this rate you're going to...burn out. And up."
"Blah, blah, blah," Willow said, rolling her eyes in boredom, obviously annoyed.
"Willow," he said emotionally, only managing to make it to his knees in his efforts to stand. "You...you need to stop..."
"What I need..." she said intently, moving forward with an impossible speed, standing next to Giles in an instant, "...is a little pick-me-up." She grabbed his frail body violently, placing her hands on his chest, where it began to glow with an orange-red energy. She ignored his gasps of pain as she drained him of his power, her eyes set in determination.
Suddenly, she freed him, staggering back as he fell backwards onto the floor. "Whoa," she said, a laugh in her voice. "Head rush." She stumbled back against the counter, sliding down the surface to rest on the floor there, her images blurring confusingly. "Wow," she said, gasping in pleasure. "Whoa. Who's your supplier? This is...wow..."
She looked over at the barely-conscious Giles. "It's incredible," she panted. "I mean, I am so juiced... Giles, it's like...no...mortal person has...ever had...this much power. Ever. It's like I, I'm connected to everything... I can feel it... It feels like...I...I can feel..." The smile she had been wearing from the rush slowly faded as she paused. "...Everyone." Her face fell in sadness and pain. "Oh. Oh, my God. All the emotion. All the pain. No," she said emotionally. "It, it's too much. It's just too much."
"Willow..." Giles said weakly, struggling to reach her. "It doesn't have to be...like that. You...you can stop it."
She was bent over now, her hands splayed on the floor as if in physical pain with everything she was experiencing. "Yeah," she said, panting. "I, I can. I have to stop this," she told him as she got to her feet. "I'll make it go away."
"Willow..." Giles tried, but it was no use.
"Oh, you poor bastards!" Willow said, her face contorting in pain as magic began to swirl around her, lifting her into the air, lightening flashing around her body. "Your suffering has to end."
"No..." Giles said as a cloud of magic surrounded her like a tornado and she disappeared.