"Every single night the same arrangement/
I go out and fight the fight/
Still I always feel this strange estrangement-"

There were plenty of drawbacks to taking advantage of Illyria's time distortion. Confusion about the progress of the battle; uncertainty how the time shift was interacting with the elemental forces about to destroy Gem; the cries of dying soldiers as they froze for the butchering or aged to death in moments.

Mnemon thought the worst of them, though, was the inanity of Buffy Summers' singing.

"Nothing here is real, nothing here is right/
I've been making shows/
Of trading blows/
Just hoping no one knows/
That I've been going through the motions-"

Reluctantly, Mnemon acknowledged Buffy as a near-equal. The Anathema was a corrupted Solar, her essence not yet mature; Mnemon was one of a handful of Terrestrial paragons who might match her in raw power. Buffy was a seasoned warrior, by all accounts hardened by five years of near-constant battle; Mnemon was a general of the world's greatest army. As a general, Buffy was still raw, but she had been clever enough to make Mnemon face her in person, and Mnemon was slightly inferior in pure personal combat.

Neither of them had yet tapped into their fullest power. "You work rather well with fiends from hell," Mnemon sang in harmony with her adversary. "Yet frankly I can tell/
That you're just going through the motions/
Walking through the part/
You don't have the-"

"Bitch, don't even staaaart!" In the blink of an eye, Buffy was no longer advancing on her from the front, nor twenty feet tall, but behind her, barely over five feet, and sliding the haft of her daikalbar into place against Mnemon's throat. Her anima banner had had time to fade to a mere flicker and a brightly-shining caste mark.

Drawing more power from the earth was painful and dangerous, but from the way Buffy fought, she had no reserves at all and, worse for her, she had no clear notion of her limits. She held back because she could not be sure of lasting through the fight. Mnemon dropped, slipping from her opponent's grasp, and struck the feet from under her. She was up at once, but Mnemon was free of her.

"I was always brave and kind of righteous/
Now I'm not sure where to turn/
Bluffing demon lords night after night just/
Makes me wanna crash and burn."

"You've got lots to learn," Mnemon pointed out.

"It's not your concern," Buffy sang irritably. She burst into a mad flurry of blows, her daikalbar flickering back and forth, blade one moment and spike the next, light building back up around her. The earth shook in counterpoint, finally breaking her stride.

Unbeatable

"All you do is whine/
You haven't time/
To internalize the motions/
Make the power your own," Mnemon began. Most of what Buffy did was strange to watch, but even she seemed not to understand what was happening as her anima flared brightly again. "Within the hour, you'll be overthrown."

Buffy's expression contorted, writhed, and abruptly split into two identical faces on two identical heads. Each head turned to look at each other, as much as they were able, with expressions of horrified disbelief. The Anathema also sprouted talon-like nails, but that was plainly trivial by comparison.

"I don't really care to fight you," the left head sang. "I just wanted to go home."

"You're gonna wish I had a gun,"" sang the right head. "I'm gonna make you scream and run."

"If you want to do the right thing/
get lost, leave my city alone!"

Mnemon groaned. This Summers girl thought of the battle as some personal conflict between herself and Mnemon, when it was clearly no such thing.

"I lead a righteous cause/
And without doubt or pause/
I will do what the Dragons' will demands/
Make any sacrifice/
And pay whatever price/
To maintain and to rule my mother's lands/
So go on, do your worst/
My will can't be coerced-"

She had an ending for that. She really did. Buffy's daikalbar came shrieking toward Mnemon's head, forcing her to dive and roll, and when she came up Buffy's right head was finishing some inane blather about sand. Distantly, Mnemon felt the earth groan.

"I will grind you into the dust, Anathema. Even if you force me to retreat, I will return with a greater army than this. I will be Empress, and you cannot withstand-"

"One fifth."

Mnemon paused. "What-?"

"You heard me. I want a deal. One fifth of Gem's, um...gross national product, and I...pledge my allegiance to you as Empress." Buffy's right head stared at her left as if it were mad. "In return, you go home and don't force me to kick your armored ass from here to Gethamane."

Madness indeed. "Greater powers than either of us-"

"You mean Ketchup Carjack?" The right head sneered. "He's a dead man. I helped kill him last week."

"You...what?" Ketchup...that almost sounded like the right name. "The Sidereals won't-"

Buffy leaned on her daikalbar, pointy end embedded in the sand. "Look at your army. Illyria's eating it alive. You're not Empress yet, your support in heaven is up in smoke, and you're not exactly the only possible heir to the Empire."

"I will not offer the hand of friendship to Anathema!" What was wrong with this absolute fool?

Buffy shrugged. "Don't, then. I offered you a win. You go home with Gem as part of the Realm, under me as governor. Salvage what's left of your army. Hell, I'll support your claim to the throne. Or you can make Gem the biggest Shadowland in the South, just waiting for a new Deathlord to, y'know, waltz in and take over. Your choice. Make it fast, cause I haven't got the foggiest how long it's been anymore." Buffy's right head rolled her eyes and spoke up. "Go ahead, make my day. I'm waiting to squish you into the sand headfirst. Say no. I dare you."

The ground rumbled and began to fracture. Mnemon made her decision.

Willow's hand felt dry, brittle, and cold, but Tara clung to it anyway. "Everyone into the circle!" She had the entire population of the palace and as many civilians as they'd been able to gather here in this one room. Compared to Gem as a whole, they were a pitiful few. Darkness flickered around Willow as she finished the chant-flickered, rippled, surged, and swallowed them whole.

The tangle of words released them on the other side of the mountain walls, leaving Willow on her knees, gasping. "I have to-"

"Willow, you can't. You'll kill yourself trying."

"It'll just be me."

"No. Willow, there's no point in going back unless you're bringing more people, and you can't-" The ground shuddered and cracked, sending boulders tumbling down the outside of the walls. "You'll die."

"I'll get more energy from Raiton. She didn't come with us."

"Raiton performed some sort of sacrifice and left on her own," Tara explained. "Darker magics than I'd ever think of using just to teleport, but that's what she did."

Willow frowned and scanned the horizon. "Illyria."

"Yeah," Tara agreed. "It's still here. If Gem doesn't go kablooey from the elemental magic, that...thing will get it."

"Then we..." Something disturbing passed through Willow's eyes. "We have to kill it."

"Can we even do that?" Tara glanced at Shaia, who she was increasingly certain was not what she seemed to be.

"Destroy the Immaculate Embodiment
of Rule?" Shaia rubbed her hands together as if washing them vigorously. "Well...it's been done before."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Willow cracked her knuckles, which sparked with black static.

"Illyria is no mere nightmare of the Neverborn, no behemoth's ghost. When it truly lived, it was the fetich soul of Malfeas himself." Shaia glanced up at the tentacled thing as it loomed closer. "That thing was Ruvelia."

"You unleashed that creature," Mnemon said, her voice cold and hard as steel. "This is not about blame. I would have done likewise if you were attacking me. Now it is out of control. If your goal is a Gem at peace with my Realm, then fight it with me. Destroy it, if we can. Drive it away if not."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Buffy's right head said. Was she really that bloodthirsty? She sounded as if she wanted to rip the creature apart. Buffy reached up to stroke her hair briefly and acknowledged, "Raiton claimed she wouldn't let it attack Gem. At least, she implied it. Guess I should've known better."

"Than to trust a Deathknight?" Mnemon laughed bitterly.

"Hey, I resemble that remark." Her other head didn't contest the claim.

"And yet you object to me taking Gem from you." Mnemon's tone was so dry that Buffy needed a glass of water. No, that was just the heat.

"How about I go ahead and break you in two, then beat Illyria to death with your body parts?" Buffy's left head stared, wide-eyed. Wait. Wasn't she the left head? God this was confusing.

"If you think that plan will work," Mnemon said, "I'll try it out with yours. Otherwise, I suggest we limit ourselves to the constructive."

"Let me take five," Buffy suggested. "I promise you won't even notice I'm gone." For a moment it looked as if Mnemon would object; then the significance hit her and she waved Buffy on.

Buffy dove into the time field again. Two heads were almost as bad as telepathy.

"Are we even able to hurt this thing?" Tara muttered. Willow had taken a couple of lightning bolt shots at Illyria that hadn't even struck home; already she seemed exhausted. Whatever new powers Exaltation had brought her, it'd screwed her over on the recharge front

"Quite possibly not," Shaia said. "We might not have any choice but to abandon the city."

"That's not what heroes do," Angel grumbled. Tara offered him a feeble grin. He wasn't wrong, but...

"And that," Spike pointed out, "is why there aren't very many of them."

"At least the ground's stopped trying to swallow it," Tara said, producing momentary puzzled stares from Willow and Shaia before they realized what she was sensing. Or rather, no longer sensing.

"We need a plan," Willow panted. "Can we run out the clock on the summoning?"

Shaia shook her head firmly. "Standard length on such bindings is a year and a day. It'd take maybe a quarter of the Exalted host to delay Illyria that long, and then there'd be no need to."

"Can you spare Red some energy?" Spike asked. "Maybe enough lightning would-"

"Not worth even trying," Willow said. "I mean, my magicks aren't even reaching her before they flicker out. And if we were closer, she could take our heads off before we could react."

Sulumor gave Willow a sidewise glance. She could no doubt empower Willow as well, but she'd been closed-mouthed so far even to the vampires, whom the rest of the Dune People had gradually taken to.

"What can you do?" Angel asked Shaia.

"Most of my offensive capability is martial-arts related," the Sidereal explained. "I've mastered Crane Style and Arms of the Unconquered Sun, but I'd need to get in awfully close to use them. I know Quicksilver Hand of Dreams, aside from its capstone, but it might be a little abstract for our purposes. It manipulates the energies of dreams and the Wyld."

"The Wyld," Willow mused. "Everything's...more fluid in the Wyld, right?"

"Yes. It's very dangerous to-"

"Even time, I bet." Willow barely waited for Shaia's confirming nod. "I have a plan."

"I don't understand this whole wild card thing!" Buffy sprinted back towards Mnemon, larger than normal but not the towering monster she'd been earlier-just a bit below seven feet, perhaps. "I change when my aura flares, but I can't get a bead on how!"

Mnemon shrugged her shoulders. "I thought the Yozis did a better job of informing their puppets."

"Sometimes," Buffy said irritably, looking up. "Pretty lights. Oh! Tara's signaling us!" Firefly beads of light circled overhead, then arced back around Illyria. "Someone's come up with a plan." Some of the flecks darted at the hekatonchiere and were extinguished, only to be replaced, forming an intermittent stream of light. "Attack."

"That's hardly a plan," Mnemon scoffed, but she knew there must be more that was going unspoken. She raised a hand, and white bolts of energy shot from it, transforming into gouts of stone as they flew toward the monster. "Your turn, Anathema."

"Too bad I couldn't do this when I was called." Buffy pursed her lips and blew a spout of green-tinged flame at Illyria. "Vampire slayage would've been about a million times easier."

What was left of Mnemon's legion-still a formidable force, a dragon or more-began to converge on them. Most of the survivors appeared to be Dragonblooded, which would be fortunate if chance had been involved. Mnemon gestured fiercely, and more elemental energies surged in Illyria's direction. Most of them seemed to peter out before reaching the monstrosity, and the rest were dodged easily, as if Illyria's massive bulk were naught but illusion.

The floating sparks began to spread out. Mnemon thought about that for a moment and began to shout orders. Attacks from all directions would no doubt be harder to dodge...a little. If Illyria didn't have all the time in the world in its own little pocket.

Buffy finally recharged and unleashed another gout of flame, which vanished without touching Illyria. Were they doing any damage at all?

Sulumor grumped as she began to gesture at the creature, but her mood didn't prevent great bursts of sand from detonating beneath it.

"Work together," Willow sang softly. "Fight as one."

"Work together," Angel agreed. "Get it done."

"We're all here for different causes," Shaia murmured, performing a strange kata that left the world rippling around her.

"And tomorrow we'll be on our own," Spike sang with a chorus of Dune People before leading them off to try and get behind Illyria.

"But if we work together," Tara sang, her voice blending with Sulumor's, "we'll do things we can't do alone." The song wasn't as smoothly put-together as the spontaneous ones, but Tara had quickly discovered that trying to sing in a tense moment would bring the magicks to the fore. That was key. Music had its own timing...just like dreams.

"Work together," Shaia sang, echoed by Angel. "Close the ranks." The Sidereal strode forward into Illyria's time distortion as if it weren't even there. As if it were nothing but an illusion.

"Work together," Tara sang, closing her fingers on Willow's hand. "Forge new links."

Illyria was being bombarded from every direction now. The undead hellbeast roared and swung its tentacles, but most of its attackers were out of reach, widely separated, and covering each other. Illyria was having to bend time into a pretzel just to make one attack without taking fire from all over. Tara flung up a shield as a tentacle lashed her way. At least they were drawing it away from Gem.

"We've nothing much in common," Sulumor chanted, focusing methodically on her explosions. "And the great outpower the least."

"But if we work together," Willow began as Shaia wound up for a haymaker, "then we'll get to slay the beast!"

The world already felt stretched to the breaking point. Shaia struck only air...and everything shattered. Glassy fragments of reality flew outward, carried on a tide of chaotic energies that put even the hekatonchiere's power to shame. Tara clutched at her stomach, struggling to hold herself together as the magicks washed over her. Angel was down. Sulumor fell to her knees. Willow...where was she?

Spike struggled toward her, his forehead contorting with half a dozen little horns at his brow. "What's happening? You...what'd we do?" Rainbow scales rippled over her arms, gleaming in the overwhelming anima light.

"Willow!" Sulumor shrieked. "You fool! What have you done?" Energies burst all around Illyria; arrows and thrown daggers and great hunks of stone flew in every direction. Nothing touched the monster; every single attack went wide or decayed into oblivion before it could reach its target. "You've made it even more powerful!"

"Yup," Willow nodded, grinning. "Now we just have to keep her busy!" She dug deep, letters and numbers and black sigils of every sort flurrying around her, and flung another bolt of lightning.

Tara felt the balance shift again, very suddenly, just as she had felt it shift when Illyria first was drawn into the living world. A sharp shriek rose up, metal grating on bone, and shredded the veil between life and death, leaving a great grey hole behind Illyria. The beast clutched at the borders with its tentacles and caught only empty air. Glowing hateful eyes fixed on Tara, if only for an instant, and she knew that it had seen her to her deepest soul.

But the gap closed over it before any vengeance could be taken. Illyria was gone, swallowed once more by death.

Tara sank gasping to the sand under the memory of its gaze.

Buffy inhaled, but there was no more need to breathe fire. Illyria sank into the grey hole, which healed behind her and was gone.

Mnemon lowered her arms weakly to her sides. "Of course," she muttered. "Of course. It defended itself by speeding up time. And both the Wyld and the song demon rendered time more fluid. The year and a day passed in minutes, and it cast itself out."

"Wish I'd thought of it," Buffy said. Not that she'd had any way of taking advantage, but this had the sound of a Willow idea. Being smarter than Willow had been fun. "Planning to keep your deal, or do I have to kick your ass?"

Mnemon scowled around at her decimated army. "No," she said at last. "I will accept. Even victory now would risk the appearance of weakness. I would destroy Gem in war if I needed to; I will not destroy it as the petulant act of a thwarted tyrant. Kneel, then."

"I'm not much for-"

"You offered to be my vassal. Accept my terms, or fight on as Anathema. Whatever may have happened in Yu-Shan, to the rabble you are still an affront to the Immaculate way." Mnemon's fingers tightened on her sword. "Either you must visibly submit, or I will have to kill you and deal with the consequences."

Buffy took a long, deep breath. Defend Gem at any cost, they told her. Well, there it was. She sank to her knees.

"Swear to follow the law of the Realm and to obey its rightful Empress," Mnemon intoned. She could snark with the best, but right now she was all formality.

Buffy crossed her fingers where they rested in the sand. "I swear."

"God, Tara. What happened?" Willow ran her fingers up Tara's arms. The other witch's flesh was as dry as her own, now, hairless and covered in iridescent scales.

"The Wyld," Tara said softly. Even her scalp was bare. "It's okay, Willow. It's a small price to pay. I could've become a puppet, or stone, or a walking story."

Spike nodded in agreement. His brow ridges had given way to green, nobbly...spikes. "Could've gone a helluva lot worse." He drew back his hood, and Willow gasped, but the sunlight didn't so much as make him squint. "Can't complain."

Had Angel changed as well? He was swathed in robes again, and even her eyes couldn't see through them. "Gem's still standing."

"Yes," an unfamiliar woman's voice answered. "This day Gem acknowledges its place as a vassal of the Realm." Strangely, she sounded annoyed. Buffy walked beside her, one step behind...and several inches taller.

"This is a weird world," Willow grumped. "Buffy! You're okay?"

"For now," the Slayer said, laughing softly. "I've got a wedding real soon, and I don't know what the bosses are gonna say about what I just did, but I've been hurt worse fighting vampires."

Willow clutched Tara's hand as the marble-skinned Dragonblood walked off with some of her advisors. "You're okay with this? I thought you said Mnemon was a-"

"Don't," Buffy warned. "It's all true, but don't. Remember your world history classes? Uncle Joe?"

Willow nodded, wincing. Sometimes you worked with Stalin to beat Hitler, and paid for it later. As tyrants went, Mnemon wasn't even Stalin. King George III, maybe.

"I'm feeling okay," Buffy said. "I've got some of that strain off me, and now I just need to make a little room to maneuver. I'm nobody's idea of a good ruler, Will. I care too much. It hurts people when I screw up, and I can't just shake that off."

"But it's good that you care," Tara said encouragingly. "You'll do okay. You're not a bad ruler."

Buffy nodded, but threw out her hands. "I know that. Just...the weight on me...sometimes I wish I could just not care. You know?"

Tara started to incline her head, slowly nodding her understanding, but a voice behind Willow suddenly rang out, imperious yet gleeful. "Done."

She really should've made more effort to learn those symbols. Buffy had picked up this and that, here and there, but the demons of this world almost all spoke the language called Old Realm fluently. Now words were swirling around her in glowing green sand and she had no idea what they said. Almost certainly nothing good; she'd made a wish.

She ought to be furious. Somehow, though, she couldn't summon the energy. She'd agreed, and Sulumor didn't seem to have done her any harm. If anything, she felt peaceful. So she'd had a moment of weakness; help had been offered and she'd accepted. Buffy glanced back at the city of Gem. She'd gone to so much effort to protect them. Why hadn't she let Mnemon destroy the city? It was kinda dead weight, and she could go where she wanted and take what she needed. She wouldn't have left Willow or Tara, of course. They were friends, and she didn't have any good reason to hurt them. They weren't demons, after all. Yeah. Sulumor had done her a favor.

Life was about to get a lot simpler.