"Revelations, Repercussions and Robots Oh My!" By Ryley Breen AKA Shadow Master

email: rybreen@theberries.ns.ca

Note: Just a reminder to readers that while I watch both shows with dedication I am not very skilled in their various ways of speaking. So if anyone wants to point out a way to improve upon what I have certain characters say please email me.

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"Oooooohhhhh!! I wish that hellbeast was alive so I could blast him into ash!" Buffy said in a sincerely miffed voice.

"C'mon Buffy, it's not that bad." , Willow said as she deftly cut the Slayer's hair in the right spots, "Besides at least you still have some hair left."

That did little to improve B's mood as she slumped in her chair waiting for Willow to finish cutting her hair into something resembling a decent hairstyle. It had all happened so fast and just for once she wished that she could simply walk up and blast things like Gohan could rather than having to do things up close and personal. After all would Gohan have wound up covered in icky hellbeast slime and accidently burn off half his hair when the slime turned to acid in water. No! He was a Saiya-jin and their hair was impervious to everything except mystical blades wielded by demon kings and energy blasts! She sighed and occasionally glanced at Giles and the others to gauge their reactions to her newly forming 'do since they were in a much better position to see the entire thing. However they weren't much help as they all were trying to keep their looks neutral in the hopes of avoiding another outburst like the one that had cracked the walls around the bathroom. She hadn't even consciously powered up or extended her energy field when she had reacted to her hair, she had just screamed in shock and it happened. Needless to say Giles was no doubt trying to figure out a way to explain this to his insurance company so he could get the money he needed to repair the damage. Xander , whom she had hoped would be his usual self and display everything he was thinking right on his proverbial forehead, had obviously gotten into a few scuffles with Anya because he had greatly improved his poker face. With no other choice but to wait for the results and if it turned out as bad as she thought it was going to be the first demon that laughed at her would soon be sitting at a bus stop in the next dimension.

"There! All done!" Willow chirped as she put down the scissors and walked around Buffy so she could see her work from the front.

From Willow's expression the Slayer thought that it couldn't be too bad because the wicca in training had the confidence to look her in the eye without flinching. Reaching over and picking up the mirror that had been resting on the table next to her she decided to face reality and see how long she would have to wear a paper bag over her head. Closing her eyes she intuitively brought the mirror up to a point where it would be at the same level as her head and took a deep breath in to brace herself for what was too come. Opening her eyes she could only stare at the job her red-headed best friend had done and how she was going to to repay said friend. Most of the bottom of her formerly long mane of blonde hair had been burned off by the acid slime from the T'Karon but she had gotten away from the water soon enough that the hair past her shoulders survived. However due to the liquid qualities of the acid it had unevenly burned away the hair to the point where some of it ended at her shoulders and some of it stopped at ear level. Needless to say she had been somewhat dubious when Willow had said that she could cut her hair so that the damage wouldn't stick out as much but she had gone along with it anyways. After all how much worse could it possibly get! She now realised that she had not given her witch friend her due credit as she examined the two waves of blonde hair tha flowed down either side of her head.

"Wow Willow! If business as a Wicca every dries up you could always get a job as a hairstylist!" Xander declared jokingly in approval of his life-long bud's hair job.

Ignoring the joke but accepting the praise Willow stated "Thanks! I modelled it after 18's hairstyle since it I thought it would look good on Buffy!"

"That and the fact that you couldn't do anything else with the hack job the acid did on her hair." Anya said as she joined the group in examining the Slayer's hair for imperfections.

Everybody had pretty much forgotten to be snap at Anya for her usual blunt comment and instead continued to compliment Willow on the nice job she had done. Even Buffy had to admit that once she learned who Willow had modelled her hair after she agreed that it did look pretty good on her. The waves of hair stopped roughly three quarters of an inch before they would have touched her sholders and thanks to some selective snipping there was practically no sign that anything had happened to her at all. Still it felt wierd not feeling her long locks of hair trailing down her back, she had never cut it this short before in her entire life. Long hair had been the trend since childhood and with all the things that had come up since she had been told she was a Slayer her hairstyle was not exactly at the top of her to do list. Still there was final test to pass before she would accept this as her new hairstyle and that was how much work went into fixing it after some slayage. That was another reason why she had not been in a rush to cut her hair short or try a new hairstyle, long hair looked the same no matter how many times you get knocked around. However the night was winding down and most demons were probably crawling into their little crypts for a good days rest.

As if in answer to that last statement the front window of 'The Magic Shop" shattered as a mass of leather and bleach crashed through it and landed on the floor. Right behind the mass though was what could loosley be termed as a trio of cobra-people who looked distinctly hungry and intent on tearing their prey limb from limb. That prey unfortunately was one Billy Idol vampire named Spike who despite the fact that he was bloody pain in the ass occasionally proved useful in a fight. If this had been a year or so ago she would have gladly let the snake things turn the British vampire into a pile of dust sweepings but the oppourtunity to test out her new 'do in battle was too good to pass up. Besides, for some unexplainable reason Dawn had taken a liking to Spike and would undoubtably defend him regardless of the fact that he used to be determined to kill her. Not even bothering to clue the others in she immediately charged towards the demons using only a fraction of her full power. After all there was no sense in overdoing it when all that was necessary was probably the level of strength and speed she had possessed before Piccolo's training. Besides if there was one thing that the green Namek had pounded into her again and again was efficiency, both in technique and the use of her energy.

She got to the one farthest to the right first and immediately threw a punch that was intended to knock the cobra-person outside onto the street. After all Giles would have trouble enough explaining the cracks in the back room, no need to give him more structual damage to invent fat excuses for. However it was right then that something unusual happened as just as her fist was about to make contact the cobra-person seemed to slide out of the way. It wasn't a slide in the sense that it move but rather like she had been charging at a projection and someone had move the projecter slightly more to the right. Not letting that get her down she used the momentum of her punch to add speed to a kick as she swung her left leg out hoping to catch the demon and knock him outside. She must have telegraphed her move though since the snake thing actually managed to catch her leg and toss *her* outside onto the street. She hit the concrete with a bounce and was on her feet so fast most folks would have thought that she had never been knocked down to begin with. Slightly impressed with the speed that these opponents were apparently capable of she decided it was time to take things up a notch she planted her feet on the ground and began to power up. It wouldn't be a lot, just enough to give these things an idea of what they were facing and what would be coming their way in a few moments. Unfortunately it looked like at the moment she was being ignored by the snake-things because they were still looking into the 'Magic Shop' rather than turning around to face her. This made her slightly angry, the thought that after all the training that she had done and how much stronger she had become some minions of evil were still treating her like she was nothing.

Well I think its about time for them to get a serious reality check! Buffy thought to herself as she flew foreward towards her targets with some serious pain giving in mind.

Not even slowing down for the grab she wrapped her arms around one of the snake things before it even realised what was going on and then pulled it outside where she could deal with it in a more permanent fashion. Once she was certain that she was clear of the magic shop she immediately began to gain some altitude at an impressive rate. It was about ten seconds into the flight before her passenger began to make efforts to free itself but fortunately she was just about through flying anyways. It was easier now to keep up with it speedwise now that she had powered up a little so it's attempts to whack her on the side of the head with it's tail didn't work at all. Once she had reached her desired height she decided to let the monster in on a little fact that had apparently not sunken into it's reptillian brain.

"Hey, Cobra-guy! Look down." she said and waited for it to do so with a grin.

Just as she had predicted a few moments later the snake was no longer struggling and was actually quite still, a non-verbal way of saying that he forfeited this round. Unfortunately for him she wasn't willing to go so easy on him and immediately began to descend towards the street in front of the 'Magic Shop' at a speed faster than most sports cars. Just as one might think that she would be plowing into the ground with the snake-thing she let go of her opponant and pulled up. The result was a spectacular explosion of dirt and cement as the creature impacted with the ground at a relatively high velocity with no means of stopping it. Smiling with satisfaction Buffy landed on the side of the small crater and waited for the dust to clear so she could inspect her opponent's condition. Normally she would just reach out and sense his power level and use that to tell whether or not he/she had more fight left in him but she had discovered early on that some demons didn't give off a power signature. That made them a pain to fight since she couldn't keep track of them with anything other than her normal five senses but usually when she actually started to exchange blows with her goodness-challenged enemies it was a brief fight.

Her smile widened as she saw that at the bottom of the crater was her snake thing and it look thoroughly dead since she could see various bodily fluids seeping from it onto the ground. Turning towards the busted front window of the 'Magic Shop' she decided to see how the others were managing with the other two snake-things. Not surprisingly Faith and Dawn had the other two cobra-people on the ropes and were on the verge of finishing them off for good. Giles and the rest of the Scooby gang however were off to the side and the former librarian looked like he was in permanent stress mode as he winced with every item in the store that was destroyed. Anya didn't seem to be much better off as she had a calculator in her hands as was madly tapping away as if she were trying to tally everything together to see how much it was going to cost in the end. Xander, Willow and Tara on the other hand were just hanging back watching the fight as if it were some wierd cartoon show, all that they were missing was some snacks. It would have been a short show then as with one final bone-crunching blow both Faith and Dawn vanquished their repsective opponants and dropped their corpses to the ground. Surprisingly the moment they did the snake-things disintegrated into dust and were carried off into the night sky by some unnatural wind. She didn't need to look behind her to know that her sparring partner had done the same thing but she wasn't all that angry since it meant that she wouldn't have to clean them all up. However just when she thought that she had gotten rid of one problem she remembered what had brought about this little confrontation and had a feeling that another obstacle was about to get dropped into their collective laps. Walking over to the hair bleached 'Big Bad' vampire she grabbed him by the right arm and yanked him up to his feet.

"'Ey! Watch it Slayer!" Spike exclaimed as he barely managed to wrench his arm from her and began to rub it slightly with a grimace appearing on his face every now and then.

"What's going on Spike and what were those snake-things that just made Giles' insurance rates quadruple?!" Buffy asked with the tone of her voice indicating that some violence might be forthcoming if answers from him were not.

"Sodding attack dogs! I was looking around town, trying to get a line on Glory but when I finally managed to find her place these three things jumped me!" , Spike replied as he stopped rubbing his right arm and put on a 'tough-guy-big-bad' look, "Would've killed them myself but figured you'd want to know where the hell-bitch was hiding out."

Naturally nobody was paying attention to the latter part of his statement as they were all frozen in place by first part.

Spike knew where Glory's HQ was located.

For the past month straight they had not heard word one about the hellgod that had filled the 'Villain of the Year' slot vacated by Adam the previous year. It had been halfway into the second week before they started to actually get worried, after all a day without having to worry about Glorificus was like school being cancelled because of snow or something. However as the days passed they began to worry that the hell god was up to something big and that if they didn't do something quick to find out what they wouldn't live long enough to regret it. So for the past two and a half weeks they had been doing all they could to track their nemisis down but nothing came of it at all. There had not been any new cases of insane people being checked into the hospitol and most of Willow's location spells wound up just leading them to lesser demons. That was in fact what Faith and her had been up to tonight, Willow's latest location spell had picked something up around the Sunnydale U's football field so they had gone to check it out. Unfortunately T'Karon was all they found and the rest as they say was history which made the fact that Spike had done what they couldn't all the more surprising.

"Well don't everybody thank me at once now!" Spike said sarcastically implying that he had expected to recieve something in the way of a reward for all of his hard work.

"Spike where is Glory's place?" Buffy asked in her 'all-business' tone of voice.

"An apartment building on the edge of the park." , Spike replied as he decided to put off asking for his reward until later, "Upscale flat too. Not the usual cavern of doom you'd expect from bitch-queen."

Not even bothering to thank the vampire the gang immediately began to grab a few party favors that might come in handy. For Giles, Anya and Xander it was a number of swords and axes with a crossbow or two thrown in for good measure. For Willow and Tara it was the ingredients they would need for some of their more powerful spells plus the mandatory number of crosses and bottles of holy water. After all while they were fairly sure that Glory would have some pretty powerful help guarding her place there was always the chance that her minions would recruit a few of the local undead. Given that the non-human population of the Hellmouth was made up mostly of vampires it was a virtual given that there would be a few hanging around. For Buffy, Dawn and Faith however they were ready to go right then and there but were forced to wait around for the others to gather what they needed. This was a definite con to being the three most powerful beings of the group, they had to wait for all the less powerful people to get ready. Of the three of them Dawn was probably being the most impatient as she was already tapping her foot on the floor while giving annoyed looks at the lesser mortals. Tapping her foot on the floor though had the secondary effect of causing mild tremors in the ground which provided the rest of the Scooby gang with more incentive to hurry. Eventually the preparations were complete and with Buffy, Faith and Dawn carrying a portyion of those who could not fly they were off.

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North end of the Sunnydale Park, Eden Apartments, 5:45 a.m.

Well isn't this an oxymoron. , Giles thought to himself as he looked at the sign hanging above the main entrance to the apartment building, A Hell god living in a place named after the Almighty's personal garden.

If one looked at the place from the outside and did not know what they were supposed to be looking for they might just dismiss the place out of hand and go about their business. For those engaged in their particular profession the Scooby gang knew from the moment they laid eyes on the place that Spike had been right on the money about it being Glory's HQ. The place seemed to exude the chaotic atmosphere that was the essence of the blonde demon, even for those that were not attuned to the mystical forces of the world the sensation was still recognisable. Then there was of course the odd vampire that would look out the window to see if there were any potential threats in the area. However there would be no chance of them being spotted seeing as how they were floating several feet in the air above the apartment. While not terribly averse to this method of travel he was hoping that he and the rest of the flying impaired individuals would be allowed to set foot on the ground before the seige began. Willow and Tara were alright in the arms of Buffy but that was more than likely because they had practiced levitation spells and the extra elevation was not a problem for them. Xander and Anya on the other hand were a bit more eager to get down on the ground judging by the death grips they had on Faith's arms and the fact he could swear he heard them mutter a few chose prayers a few moments ago. Spike of course was just itching to get down so he could 'get a spot of violence' even if it meant hanging with them in order to get it. Fortunately his only concern at the moment was whether or not Dawn was going to drop him on his arse in her impatience to get inside the building and kick some demon butt. Fortunately a few moments after concluding such thoughts the three flyers descended towards the group at a fast but controlled speed eventually touching down behind some bushes. While he was mildly thankful to feel the ol' terra fima there were others who were currently expressing their relief in more bizarre ways.

"Okay here's the plan." , Buffy said as the group knelt down into a huddle, "If Glory is in there Faith and I will deal with her head on and try and stop whatever it is that's kept her from filling her quota of crazy people. Willow and Tara, your job will be to undo any magic stuff that has already been done and make sure that Glory won't be able to do it again. Dawn, Giles, Xander, Spike and Anya are in charge of keeping her grunts occupied long enough for the rest of us to do our jobs."

"Hey! How come I get saddled with them?" , Dawn asked with offense clearly in her voice, "I've got issues to settle with Glory too you know!"

"Yeah Slayer! This is the 'Big Bad' you're talking to ya know!" Spike said as he seconded the dislike of being left with the grunt work.

"I know Dawn but you're also the Key and we need to make sure that Glory doesn't somehow figure that out in the middle of the fight." , Buffy replied as she tried to reason with her psuedo-sister, "Besides Giles and the others are going to need a powerhouse on their team if they're going to get through this fight in one piece and I can think of no one else who could do the job better than my little sister. As for you Spike in case you forgot Glory kicked your butt when you saw her last so unless your eager for another session of whup ass you fight with Giles."

Spike went noticeably silent at the mention of his recent beating at the hands of hell-bitch and seemed to aquiese to her placement of him in this battle plan.

"Fine but next time some hell god comes to town he/she's all mine!" Dawn said in a voice that made it clear this was an issue she had already settled in her mind.

Smiling in agreement Buffy then looked towards the others who gave nods indicating that they were good to go and ready for some action. With that settled there was only one thing that was needed to get this party started and she was all too willing to do the honors. Gathering up a ball of golden energy in her hands she waited until it was the size of a grapefruit and then threw it in the direction of the entrance to the apartment complex. An explosion of flame and debris erupted into the air that could be comparable to several fusion grenades tore an impressive hole where the entrance used to be as well as the corpses of two demons. Not waiting for some cliched call to arms battle cry the two slayers charged the front entrance so as to take the brunt of whatever booby-traps and safeguards the demented demon goddess had in store for them. The others made up the seond wave with Dawn taking point followed by Tara and Willow with Giles and the others taking up the rear. It was a flurry of confusion inside the place when they actually entered the building as it was clear from the sounds coming above them that Buffy and Faith had already searched the ground floor and had moved their efforts up one floor. In their haste however it seemed as though they had neglect to do the courtesy of dealing with the demon population on this floor to any significant degree. Fortunately that suited Dawn just fine as she dove into the swarm of demons with an almost playful zeal as if she had just been invited to take part in a game of pick-up basketball with the top nine players of the WNBA. Spike though was right behind her taking almost as much pleasure in the confrontation as "little bit" was but with a bit more respect for his opponant's chances of killing him. This worked to the benefit of Giles and the others in that within a few moments of the Dawn's entering into battle she had managed to stake herself out as the prime threat by sending several demons through a brick wall. This left the rest of the Scooby gang to deal with the lesser threats such as the vampires and the demons that were too cowardly to take on Dawn themselves. Rupert wasn't worried that something might happen to Dawn, even with the problem of enemies piling on her she could handle herself and if things got any worse she had Spike to back her up.

"Willow! You and Tara get upstairs and put an end to whatever Glory is concocting!" , Giles yelled as he dodged a punch from a biker vampire and retaliated with on of his own, "The rest of us will deal with these hellspawn down here!"

The one-time mousey redhead and her girlfriend didn't need to be told twice as they headed upstairs and towards the sounds of battle since they were sure that was where Buffy and Faith were no doubt fighting Glory. There were numerous demon bodies on the floor and it was clear that some of them had ticked off the Slayers in some way because their legs were on one end of the hallway whereas their upper bodies were somewhere else. This mildly grossed out the two witches but they coped with this by trying to deduce what dark magic they would have to undo once they arrived at the site of the main event. Unfortunately it could be any one of a number of thngs which didn't do a whole lot to help them so eventually they both decided to do a potent dispersal spell to fragment whatever ritual was taking place. In most cases, according to what they had read, that was the safest way to 'disarm' ritual centered magicks when the details were not forthcoming beforehand. Oh there had been a few cases where dispersing the magicks in a ritual resulted in a bad ass explosion that levelled an entire city but both wicca were fairly certain that Glory couldn't have had enough time to put together a spell that would do that if dispersed. Still the thought added one more thing that they tried not to focus on as they made their way to the room where all the noise was coming from.

When they arrived they were surprised to see that Buffy and Faith were not facing Glory but rather som sort of demon that looked like a cross between an alligator and and a spider. It was around ten feet tall and had a reach of about the same from one arm to the other which made it exceedingly difficult for the Slayers to dodge completely in these cramped quarters. Not that they really had to but if they powered up any more than they apparently were they might bring the entire building down on top of everyone. Trying to find a safe corner to do their magic in they eventually spotted a place that seemed to be devoid of debris so they chose that place and hoped that they wouldn't attract much attention to themselves. Once settled in they began to set up the various tools and they would need to do their spell, a crucible here and the ingrediants arranged properly there in alphabetical order. It wasn't easy to do their work with all the noise and the constant fear of either Buffy or Faith being thrown in their direction but they perservered and continued on with their work until it was done.

"Ready?" Willow asked as she looked at her girlfriend for a response.

"Ready." Tara answered as she lit the crucible and placed the first necessary ingrediant into it.

"Arcane forces in this place do dwell." Willow chanted as she added the next ingrediant.

"Corrupting the currents, they ebb and swell." Tara said in a monotone voice as she focused her magic on the spell.

"Yet now we strive, the battle is won!" Willow chanted in a way that was almost a yell.

"Disperse foul magic, begone and be undone!" Tara said as they finished chanting the spell with Willow and burned the final ingredient.

Almost at once the magic of the spell went into effect as the white colored flames coming from the crucible and began to streak around the room like many angry fireflys. Actually in Willow's opinion they looked more like angry Tinkerbell's like in that move 'Hook' with the way that a trail of dust trailed behind them and eventually fell to the floor. In any case the spell's circle around the room seemed to be retracting more and more, the circle becoming smaller with each revolution, leading to some sort of climx. However it also seemed to be zeroing in on the demon that Faith and Buffy were fighting which was strange since both wicca had thought that it would just come to the center of the room and then go poof signalling that it's job was done. As time went on the spell did not change its course and unfortunately all they could do was watch since they had no control over the spell once it was completed. Closer and closer, faster and faster, the comet like spell streaked around the room until it was only a few feet from the demon's scaley body. By this time both Slayers had noticed the spell and were hovering well out of it's range, giving brief glances bad to the two of them as if looking for confirmation that this was what was supposed to happen. All the wicca could do was watch and hope that when the spell had done it's work and disappeared they were a little better off than they were before.

One way or another they would get their answer as it seemed that in only a few moments the spell would make contact with the demon's torso. The demon seemed to realise this and was trying to swat the spell away like it had been trying to do with the flying amazons earlier bit the magick was just too fast for him. Then after missing one last swipe the spell hit the demon right in the chest and the room exploded in a flare of light that one normally would only get from the world's largest lightbulb. It caused all who had previously been looking at the demon to look away or block their eyes so as to prevent themselves from becoming blinded. About a minute later the light began to fade but it took a few more minutes for everyone's eyes to readjust themselves after such a spectacular light show. Right about then the rest of the Scooby gang showed up to at the door to the room and got first crack at seeing the results of Willow and Tara's spell.

What stood in the alligator-spider demon's place now was something different than what everyone had been expecting. Instead of vacant space there were now two demons to contend with instead of one, a reptillian demon that looked like giant sewer-gator and a demon that looked like a scorpian person with half his body arachnid like and the other half human looking.

Everyone then turned to Willow and Tara for an explanation and the two wicca had only one thing to say.

"Ooops!" they said in unison.

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