Chapter Twelve - Reunion
Willow walked forward towards Buffy holding her hands out. "It is me," she said, "the real me, I'm not the First. Feel! I'm corporeal."
Buffy took Willow's hands. She feels real she thought, unless this is another trick of the First so close to the Hellmouth.
"Giles!" said Tara noticing him lying on the ground with his hand over the bloody wound in his chest. She rushed to his side, fell to her knees and put her hand above the wound. A glowing light appeared on the wound and the damage repaired itself.
Giles pulled himself up to a sitting position and looked at where the wound had been and then looked at his hand, still covered in his own blood. Even the rent in his shirt was no longer there. "It's stopped hurting, how did you...Tara? Is that really you? Did Willow really find you?" he asked and started to get up.
"Stay there for a few minutes," said Tara putting her hand on his shoulder. "I've repaired the wound but you're still suffering from shock and you've lost some blood. In answer to your question, yes it really is me, Willow did find me."
Dawn rushed over to Tara and hugged her as hard as she could. Tara smiled at Willow and Buffy over Dawn's shoulder. When it seemed that Dawn would never let go Buffy stepped forward and gently pulled her back.
"This is so wonderful but we'll have to put off the explanations until we're out of here," said Buffy. "Right now I've got to find Amy." Buffy explained quickly to Willow that Amy was working with them but had disappeared with some bringers while the fighting was going on. Meanwhile Tara did a healing on Wood to deal with a shoulder that he had wrenched swinging the axe.
"I'll go with you," said Willow. "We've got to stop Amy doing any blood magic. It'll only make things worse. Blood opens, not closes. We've got to find some other way to close the seal."
Buffy turned to Dawn and the waiting potentials. "You all better go back and help Xander guard that door," she said. "Take Giles with you."
"It might be better if I stay with you," said Giles getting up. "I'm all right now and you may need my help at the seal." Buffy nodded.
"Dawn had better come too," said Willow smiling. "You never know when a key might come in handy."
"I'll see if I can do a spell to help block that door," said Tara, "at least until the cavalry gets here." She turned to Willow. "If you need me just call my name, I'll hear you and come as quickly as I can." She walked quickly away followed by the potentials.
"The cavalry?" asked Buffy as she and the others started off in the other direction.
"We've got a few friends coming to help," explained Willow thinking that the word 'friends' was stretching things a little as far as Faith was concerned.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kennedy drove through the streets of Sunnydale towards where Faith told her she would find the High School. Gwen drove behind, alone now that Tara had taken Willow away. She was followed by Fred with Cordelia and Shannon.
A young blonde haired woman ran towards them on the right hand side of the road. Behind her were a half dozen pursuers. Kennedy braked to a halt and jumped out with Faith. The woman, seeing the car stopping stopped herself and was almost immediately caught by a couple of her pursuers and knocked to the ground.
Faith and Kennedy knocked the first two pursuers aside and then faced the four others side by side. As far as they could tell they were dealing with humans, crazy deranged humans but humans. In fact the assailants looked to be High School students so the slayers pulled their punches accordingly.
The fight was very short, a few well aimed blows being sufficient to discourage the students who ran off having decided to seek easier prey elsewhere. Faith and Kennedy turned back to find that their companions were now standing over the blonde young woman who was busy straightening out her hair.
"You look vaguely familiar," said Faith to the blonde on the ground.
"She should," said Cordelia. "She was at school with me, Willow and Buffy. Her name's Harmony Kendall and she's a vampire."
"Please don't tell me we just saved a vampire from humans," said Kennedy rolling her eyes. "Well at least I can put that right," she added pulling out a wooden stake from her pocket and starting forward.
Harmony quickly scrambled to her feet and hid behind Cordelia. "Cordy, I'm your friend," she whined. We've always been friends," she pleaded, not entirely accurately. "I can help you."
"She's not a vampire with a soul like Angel is she?" asked Fred. Shannon gave her a curious look because she had never heard of vampires with souls.
"No," said Cordelia. "Harmony's your standard, soulless bloodsucking fiend. She's a little more timid than most but give her half a chance and she'll drain your blood as fast as any other vampire."
"So how can you help us?" Faith asked Harmony.
"Apart from reducing the vampire population by one," said Kennedy brandishing her stake.
"I can tell you about Drusilla and what she's up to," said Harmony. "If you don't stake me," she added.
"We don't have time to stand around here asking questions," said Gwen. "We're needed elsewhere."
Faith walked over to Harmony. "If you know something then spill it, if not," Faith looked at Kennedy who held up her stake.
"Once I tell you what I know you'll stake me," complained Harmony.
"She doesn't know anything," said Kennedy starting forward once again only to be stopped by Cordelia who held up her hand.
"No, she knows about Drusilla," said Cordelia. "Drusilla's very dangerous, she killed Kendra. Kendra was the slayer before Faith. I think I can..."
Cordelia grabbed Harmony's arm tightly causing Harmony to cry out, "Ow, you're hurting me." Cordelia however kept hold and now her arm was glowing. The glow spread from Cordelia's arm to Harmony's arm and soon both women were glowing. Faith, Kennedy, Fred, Gwen and Shannon stood back in wonder and tried to understand what was going on.
The glow slowly dimmed and then went out altogether. Harmony slumped to the ground with her hands over her face crying. "What have you done," she cried, "what have you done?"
"What have you done Cordy," asked Fred. Suddenly Cordelia slumped and would have fallen to the ground had Faith not moved quickly and caught her. Faith picked up Cordelia in her arms and took her over to Fred's car and lay her down in the back.
Meanwhile Kennedy circled Harmony with a puzzled expression on her face. She felt in her pocket and then suddenly put her hand to Harmony's forehead. Harmony made to brush away Kennedy's hand but Kennedy withdrew it and looked at the cross that she had held against Harmony. "You're not a vampire any more," she said.
"What?" said Faith coming back from the car.
"She's not a vampire anymore, she's human," said Kennedy.
"Perhaps Cordelia really is some sort of 'Higher Being'" said Gwen.
Faith pulled Harmony to her feet and took her over to Fred's car. They found that Harmony did now have a heartbeat and seemed to be entirely human. After a short discussion it was agreed that as Harmony no longer seemed to be dangerous they would leave her in Fred's charge and Fred would take her and Cordelia to Buffy's house. Faith, Kennedy, Gwen and Shannon would continue on to see how they could help at the High School.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The rhythmic beating on the door was having some effect. The door was now visibly rattling on its hinges and would not last for much longer. The sound of fighting below had stopped a few minutes ago. Hope that's good news thought Xander.
Xander had decided to yell out a warning when the door started falling in. He had placed himself so that he would be clear of the falling door and in a good position to use his axe on the first one or two to come through. After that there'll be bodies in their way so I might be able to keep them back for a while he thought. I hope it's Bringers and not students that come through first.
Xander heard people approaching from below. Soon he saw Vi and Rona and the other potentials coming up the stairs. Looks like good news he thought. They don't seem to be running away from anything. Wait a minute, that's not a potential, that's...Tara!
Xander was so happy to see Tara that he had given her a quick hug before he gave a thought to whether it might be the First Evil. As he let Tara go he realised he already had the answer to that question.
"Is Willow with you?" he asked. "Is she all right?"
"Willow's fine. She's downstairs helping Buffy," Tara explained. "And before you ask, everybody else down there's OK. Everybody apart from Amy that is, they seem to have lost her."
Another blow on the door rattled it severely. It now seemed to be on its last legs. Tara broke off speaking to Xander and put her hand on the door. She began to chant. The blows to the door continued but the noise they made gradually reduced in volume as Tara finished her chant. Tara stood back. The door itself no longer rattled but seemed to be as firm as it had been originally. The banging on the door stopped. The effect of Tara's spell seemed to have disconcerted whoever was on the other side. After a short delay however the banging resumed again.
"That won't stop them forever but it might give us another half hour or so," said Tara.
The potentials were now clustered around the door. "I can keep..." began Tara but she was interrupted by Buffy who was now coming up the stairs.
"We couldn't shut it," said Buffy. "Willow can't hold them back for long. We need to get that door open now and take our chances out there before all those Uber-vamps get here." The reference to Uber-vamps caused a worried muttering amongst the potentials.
Xander started to pull away the axe that was baring the door but Tara put her hand on his arm. "Wait a minute," she said. "I've got an idea." Tara went down the steps towards Buffy.
"Buffy, do you think you could..." began Tara who then broke off what she was saying to toss a small jar at Buffy that she had taken out of her pocket. The jar passed right through 'Buffy' and broke against the wall behind her.
"It's the First," cried Molly backing up the stairs away from Buffy/the First.
"OK," said Buffy/The First. "Stay here and die." With that she vanished.
"I need to fetch help," said Tara and abruptly disappeared in a shower of light.
"Doesn't anybody walk anymore? asked Xander of nobody in particular.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"It all a question of power," Phoebe said. "Which is stronger, our power or the power of whoever set this up."
"Well if that's the case we already know it's stronger than the Power of Three," said Paige.
"I think Phoebe's thinking more on the lines of the Power of Four," said Prue.
Phoebe smiled at her eldest sister. I'd better get used to Prue knowing what I'm up to all over again she thought. She always could read me.
"I'm also thinking about the way this place is set up," said Phoebe. "I can't believe we're in another world, or another dimension. This eternal daylight isn't right. Besides, all these plants, the insects, everything, I think we're still on Earth. I think another world would be more alien somehow."
"So you're saying there's some sort of barrier separating this place from the rest of the world," asked Piper, "something that prevents us doing magic."
"I think so, I mean why take more risks than you have to?" explained Phoebe. "If Prue was on some other world who knows what she might have met there? She might even have been killed and then we would have been able to contact her."
"But if this barrier is blocking us off from using magic it doesn't matter how strong it is we don't have our magic to get rid of it," said Paige.
"I don't think it quite works that way," said Phoebe, "or at least I hope it doesn't. One sort of magic involves casting spells and calling on outside powers. We do that but we also have power of our own. That should still be with us and with the four of us working together I'm hoping it'll be strong enough to break through."
"But we lost our powers when we went back in time," said Prue. "We might simply be somewhere like that where we don't have our powers."
"Yeah, remember, I couldn't freeze things, Prue couldn't move things," said Piper, "just like now."
"I think that's different," said Phoebe. "When we go back in time we go back to before our powers were triggered. We still have the power inside but we can't use it. I think if we'd stayed in the past for long enough we'd have been able to trigger our powers."
"Well let's find out," said Paige. "We'll soon know if you're right."
"Maybe not," said Prue. "We should be prepared to keep pushing for as long as we can. This barrier might hold up for a while but only give way if we keep the pressure up for a long time."
"On the good side it was only made to keep in one of the charmed ones, not all four of us," said Phoebe.
"Hey, we need a new chant," said Piper. " 'The Power of Three will set us free' doesn't do it now there are four of us."
"How about "'The Power of Four is so much more,'" suggested Paige. The others were unimpressed. "Well it rhymes." she added. "Anyway as long as we all chant the same thing to focus it doesn't really matter does it? But what'll we do if it doesn't work?"
"Anybody know how to build a raft?" asked Piper.
The sisters made themselves comfortable sitting in a circle holding hands. They then began to chant, "The Power of Four...
Ten minutes later the sisters were still chanting. They were still on the island, the sun was still shining...Yes, thought Phoebe, the sun was still shining but the shadows were lengthening, it wasn't midday anymore. Prue had noticed as well and she smiled at Phoebe.
Very soon all of the sisters knew that they were having some affect as the sun went down and it became dark, the wind began to blow and it began raining. The rain stopped as quickly as it had begun and then it was daylight again. Now the sun simply raced across the sky and day and night followed one another in quick succession.
From where she was sitting Piper could see the tides race up and down the beach. Crabs shot past like grand prix cars, in and out of the water.
To Paige, looking at the trees it was as if the whole forest was been shaken by a non-stop earthquake. It was even possible to see small plants shoot up, flower and then die away, all in the space of a few minutes.
Suddenly it all stopped. They were still on the beach but it was early morning, birds were singing and the air smelled as if it had just stopped raining.
"Well we did something," said Piper. "Did we do enough?"
The unmistakable sight of an orb in progress appeared in front of the sisters as they got to their feet. Leo stood in front of them. Piper went straight over and embraced him and then stood back.
"Hi Prue," said Leo. "Good to see you again."
Prue gave Leo a quick hug and then turned to her sisters. "I think this means the door's open," she said. "Let's go home."
Paige took Phoebe's hand, Leo held onto Piper and Prue and they orbed away.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Amy stood looking at the seal in front of her. It was still closed but it wasn't dormant, oh no. Amy could feel the evil coming up from it in waves. At any moment she expected something really awful to open the seal from below and come up.
Amy looked at the Bringers gathered around the seal. There were five of them on their knees, one at each point of the pentagram. There must be a couple of dozen others stood behind them she thought, including the two who held her arms.
The five who were kneeling down were carrying out some sort of dark ritual. Amy expected to play a part in the ritual before it finished. She knew all about the type of ritual they were doing. It was usually finished off with a sacrifice and Amy knew very well who they had in mind.
Amy had approached the Bringers with a barrier spell, intending to push them back, or at least keep them at bay for a while. As she walked forward the Bringers had gathered around her and she had lost sight of her companions. She still continued to walk forward, intending to keep as many of them away from Buffy and the others as possible but the strength of her barrier steadily diminished and the Bringers got closer to her.
Amy had realised she could not keep the barrier up for much longer so she had dropped it, intending to save her strength because she knew she'd need it. The surprising thing was that the Bringers around her had shown no sign of hurting her. They hadn't even pulled out those knives of theirs. Two of them took hold of her arms and had kept her moving forward towards the seal where she now stood.
Amy had her exit ready but didn't want to use it unless she really had to. Teleportation spells were unreliable at best, and very painful even if they worked. Doing one right at the Hellmouth might be the last thing she ever did. Where's Buffy she thought. She didn't believe Buffy was dead. Buffy always turns up, even when you don't want her to.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"This basement seems to get bigger every time I come down here," said Wood. "I'm sure we should have found the seal before now."
Willow stopped. "Wait," she said and briefly closed her eyes. "This way," she said leading the group off to the left. The group now seemed to be in an underground cave system rather than a school basement. They turned a corner and heard voices ahead.
"We need more light," said Giles. The group had four torches between them but they did not seem to penetrate very far into the surrounding darkness.
"Illuminate!" called Willow and the whole cave lit up around them. Now they could see a large number of people at the other end of what was a fairly large cavern. Buffy started forward with Willow at her side. The cavern was large enough for Buffy, Willow, Dawn and Giles to walk side by side. Wood kept to the rear keeping a watch behind and to each side.
Buffy stopped. The Bringers in front were getting organised but they made no move to go forward to attack the group. They're defending she thought, they're just trying to stop us getting to the seal while they...While they do whatever it is they're doing. "They're trying to keep us back while they open the Hellmouth, "she said.
A light display appeared a little in front of them and Tara joined them once again. How does she do that thought Buffy. I bet she and Willow have an interesting tale to tell.
"I was too late," said Tara. "They broke through, Xander's dead." Willow gasped and put her hand to her mouth but surprisingly Tara didn't go to her.
"Oh no I'm not," said Xander coming up from behind with the potentials. "I'm still alive and kicking."
"Watch out, it's the First," said Tara. "It's taken over the potentials, stop them!"
"I'm not the First," said Xander, "She's the First. That's not Tara."
"No it's not," said the real Tara walking forward from behind the potentials.
"This is soon settled," said Dawn and tossed her torch through the insubstantial form of the first Tara to appear.
Buffy now realised that not all of the women with Xander and Tara were potentials. "Faith?" she said.
"She's on our side," said Willow speaking quickly to avoid any misunderstanding. "I'll explain later."
"Watch out," called Giles who had not stopped watching the Bringers up ahead. "Here they come."
The whole group turned towards the advancing Bringers. "Blow," shouted Willow and a sudden rush of wind blasted towards the Bringers knocking them all to the ground. Buffy led the charge forward to take advantage of the situation.
Willow, holding Tara, the real Tara, by one hand and holding Dawn with her other went straight past the fallen Bringers before they could recover and approached the seal. Giles kept close behind. They could see two Bringers holding Amy and another group kneeling around the seal.
Behind Willow, the Slayers and the potentials gave the fallen Bringers no chance to recover. Buffy was determined not to lose anybody. She went from Bringer to Bringer, kicking. punching and stabbing. She could see Faith and another girl in amongst the Bringers in a similar fury nearby. Xander, Wood and the potentials kept to the outside, picking off Bringers as they tried to escape. Gwen stood aside and periodically sent a bolt of electricity into a Bringer that looked like getting the upper hand with a potential.
Up in front Amy saw the fight develop and then she recognised Willow. She was in two minds. On the one hand she was very pleased to see Willow, she now had real hope that she would survive. On the other hand Willow's return meant Amy was no longer chief witch. She had enjoyed being at the centre of things, being needed. Everything would get back to normal now.
As Willow arrived Amy made her move. She surprised the Bringers holding her by using physical force, not magic. She punched one of the Bringers and kicked the other and darted forward to join Willow, Dawn, Giles and...Tara?
Amy's former captors stood on guard with their knives. Behind them the other five Bringers stood up, their ritual complete. They had not used Amy as a sacrifice but even so it seemed they had done what was necessary to open the Hellmouth. Parts of the seal started to move.
Willow held up her hand, the hand holding Tara's hand and delivered yet another spell. The Bringers fell to the ground stunned. Willow staggered but Tara held her, feeding strength into her.
"Quickly," said Giles. "Everybody take a point of the pentagram," he ordered.
As he spoke Giles went to the other side of the pentagram and stood by a point. Willow, Tara, Amy and Dawn took a point themselves. "What do we..." began Dawn only to stop as she suddenly knew what to do.
Buffy stopped. No more enemies. She looked around and saw Faith looking at her. Faith grinned, the old Faith grin. "Hi B, you're looking good."
"Willow!" called Xander leading a rush towards the seal. "Dawn!" called Buffy following him.
The group approached the seal where they saw Willow, Tara, Dawn, Giles and Amy. All five were stood with their arms outstretched. Lines of force ran from arm to arm, from body to body. The seal was moving, spinning faster and faster until it became a blur. It became hard to see, was it there any longer? No! All five staggered back from where the seal had been. Now there was nothing there but the dirt floor of the basement.
The basement! They were in the basement. No Bringers anymore, not even bodies, no endless caverns. Even the steps, up to the door out of the basement, were clearly visible not very far away.