Dying hurt. Especially it hurt that she was coming to pieces. There was a foreign object embedded in her chest, radiating pain. She could see the bones of her hands and the muscles of her legs. She could feel each tiny bit breaking away from her.

So this was what it felt like to dust.

I trust you still want to abide by our agreement?

Not too eager. But I'll do it. It needs doing.

Her hands were gone entirely. Her eye sockets held nothing but pain. But she had a job now.

Slowly, the collapse of her body began to reverse. Particle by particle she reassembled out of the air.

She had a mission again. With great responsibility came great power. Darkness condensed around her reintegrating body, leaving only a single flaw-a blood-ringed hole in her forehead.

Buffy Summers is dead. I dub you Unconquerable Shadow.

Yeah, whatever. The Slayer was back in action.

"Buffy!"

The Slayer...well, the Slayer's clone...smiled grimly. "You know better than that, 'Hanged Scholar'. I never had any legit claim on that name to begin with. Call me Shadow, I guess. I'll explain in a bit."

"Shadow," Tara said, fidgeting, "I...I would've thought you knew b-better is all. She spoke to you m-mentally, I guess?"

Buffy nodded. "You two can let Meticulous Owl go. He was in on it. This is part of the deal. The Princess decided waiting to find a hero when she had me on hand was foolish. And I...she doesn't trust the other me to keep her bargains. I'm her failsafe."

"B-but Buffy can just dust you any time she wants!"

Shadow flexed her arms experimentally. "That's what she thinks too. The Princess doesn't think so, and...I feel more me, if that makes any sense."

"I wouldn't have pegged you as Moonshadow," Willow said.

"Me neither...but I've always been pretty versatile, right?" Buffy nodded to Owl. "You should get back. Miles to go and all that. And...well...I guess I've got to go get ready to kill myself."

Chapter 41-The Death of Buffy Summers

"So Oversight gives all these nonsensical crappy orders and you all just do what you're told?" They were out in the howling desert, in the middle of nowhere. It was hot, it was dry, and there was a sandstorm blowing up, but Anya had made like Koschei the Deathless and felt like she was at the beach. Iron Siaka looked a lot less comfy.

"It's not that simple," Iron Siaka explained. "To start with, everybody wants to do things the simplest way with the least trouble. Any Convention might give orders to give a baby some candy, or take it. So when Oversight sends you to do something weird, no one bats an eye. Same for if they tell you to kill the baby. It's awful, but they don't say it lightly."

"You seem awfully easy with it."

"I'm just trying to be professional, that's all. You should talk." Iron Siaka fiddled with her mace-at least it looked like fiddling.

Anya gave her a death glare, and she stopped. "I was evil! I admitted it in court!"

Siaka stuck the mace back in its belt loop. "But second, Oversight is Oversight. They run things. Someone has to."

"Not the Elders? Not the Maidens? Not the-"

"Maybe they're on Oversight. Nobody really knows. But the Maidens are busy with the Games most of the time."

Anya began waving her hands around wildly. Sometimes that made people realize how ridiculous they were being. "So for all you know,D'Hoffryn could be running Oversight. Everyone's afraid enough to obey, nobody can crack their authorization, and nobody knows where the messages come from."

Siaka leaned forward into Anya's face. "You sound like you're suggesting a mutiny! Do you have any-?"

"Two words! Bronze! Faction!"

Iron Siaka's eyes went wide. "We had a thousand-year prophecy on that. We've got nothing on Oversight!"

"So make another one! Or use your own damn judgement for once! What are you, a mouse? Or an Exalt who writes her own Destiny?"

Outrage flickered over Iron Siaka's face, followed by something surprisingly like understanding. She leaned even closer and planted a big one on Anya's lips.

Ick. No stubble. "You don't happen to have kept that hearthstone, do you?"

Siaka clapped a hand to her face. "Dzhesus."

Fred bobbed to the surface, tentacles floating loosely around her waist. "I wish I could go see Buffy. This is taking forever."

Renjin floated near her, eating fish. "I didn't think you were all that close."

"We're not. But the few times I've seen her since coming here, she was upset about her body changing." Fred lifted three rubbery tentacles from the corona that had temporarily replaced her legs. "She's afraid of not being human anymore. I could let her know that's not so bad."

"I've never met an Exalt as concerned with her humanity as Buffy," Renjin said. "In fairness, most of the ones I know are Lunars."

"On my world, most people don't know about any nonhuman sapients unless they've met a demon. I guess the elementals and gods and raksha are around somewhere, but they probably just get called demons." Fred took a bite out of a fish she'd snagged.

"Ghosts?"

"Lots of people don't believe in those either, and they're still human souls." Fred spat out some bones. "Anyway, Buffy was trained to believe the Slayer should act in secret. And anyone who looks too different would be a freak, too."

"I don't get it," Kolohi said, surfacing behind Fred. "I mean, sure, being the only one against all the demon hordes, it was different for her. But if there are any more of you going back, even just to visit...society doesn't define us. We define society."

"She's more powerful than when she left, too," Renjin added. "I don't see why she shouldn't just define her own new normal. She's doing it now, right?"

Fred frowned. "I'm honestly not sure how real this world is to Buffy. Maybe she's just...indulging herself." Fred finished off the fish.

"For what it's worth," Kolohi said, "even if she's not evil at all, you might be doing everyone a favor if you have to kill her. Even her."

Fred flicked the fish's remains into the water. There were things she wasn't ready to think about yet. "I was gonna hunt a bird of some kind while the geomancers study the problem. I want to fly."

Renjin smiled. "Get to it, then. We'll hold the fort."

"I don't understand what happened with Buffy," Anja said from where her head rested on Xander's chest. "You said she's never shown signs of these problems before."

"Anya says the Sids think it's an early case of Solar madness, maybe because she's not strictly a Solar any more. Gold Faction has to make us police our own, or the Bronzes will get a new lease on life." He didn't really believe Anya was just going to let him get away with taking other lovers, but at this point he was in for a penny already. Also...she wasn't exactly innocent herself.

"You're going to kill her yourself?" Anja seemed genuinely curious, not shocked. "Your best friend?"

"It's what she'd do for me," Xander explained. "I hope one of us can talk her down, but if it really comes to killing her, I know it's what she'd want."

"I'm glad you talked it over ahead of time," Anja said. "If you can manage, I'd ask the same."

Xander sat up a little so that he could nod. "In our line of work, any one of us could have been vamped at any time, even Buffy. And there are other ways to get turned evil, too. I staked my own best friend-before her, I mean-the first time we did anything to help Buffy. It was mostly an accident, but anyway it was the right thing to do. If I need killing, I hope you'll help, and if I can I'll do the same for you."

"Knowing that will help," Anja said reluctantly. "It won't be easy. How many years have you been helping Buffy fight demons?"

"About five now. A lot of the time I've been the guy who bought donuts to keep the others going while they did the research, but I've had my moments. There was this time when I faced down some undead guys who were going to blow up the school while Buffy was fighting demons upstairs." Xander hadn't enjoyed much of that while it was happening, but he looked back fondly on it now. "And no, it wouldn't have killed the demons. They were the kind that takes something special to kill."

"And again, no Exaltation till you arrived here." Anja smirked at him. "Again, clearly there were none free in your world, not if you spent five years facing down invulnerable demons with no powers of your own. I guess if someone had to sweep me off my feet..."

"Seems like I sweep everyone off their feet these days. You, Nelumbo, frikkin' Leviathan..."

"Speaking of 'frikkin' Leviathan'..." Anja gave him a sultry wink.

"Oh no you don't. That's between me and him." Xander pulled a pillow over his head.

"I can make you tell me, Alexander." Her hands pinned the pillow to his face.

"Mmnmmph!" Looked like bondage fun time. Well...he needed the distraction.

"You can't really mean to kill your sister," Glory said, narrowing her eyes at Dawn. She needed a new name, really. Of course, Glory was a fountain of them, but that didn't make them any good.

"Maybe not," Dawn said. "But I need to close out that chapter of my life. Buffy's not really my sister, but we felt like she was. I mostly just want to see if she'll apologize and..." Dawn hesitated. "...maybe we can just be friends. Does that sound weird?"

"Cause it's usually a romantic thing? Nope. You gotta spend some time deeper in the court politics, Summer's Day. Cause Buffy's Exalted? You betcha. Since when have Exalted ever been friends with raksha?"

"I never thought I'd be friends with you," Dawn said, "but here we are laying out in the sun in our bikinis sipping-this isn't alcohol, is it?"

"Candied night terrors mixed with essence of first love. Extremely exotic blend." Glory held up her margarita glass. "No wonder if it makes you drunk. Well, kiddo, if you're gonna confront an Exalt, I'd plan ahead and bring backup. Want me along?"

"I, ah, I dunno..." Dawn trailed off. There was no way Buffy and Glory would make up. But maybe that was better. She wasn't Buffy's sister, after all. "Can you stay out of sight till I know if I need you? You don't seem big on stealth."

"A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."

"Well, at least we cleared the air," Anya said happily. Iron Siaka glared at her. It was one thing to admit that maybe Oversight was worth questioning; very much another that Anya only liked her body when there was a dick waggling around in front of it. Which was to say, not now and not at times when Siaka felt comfortable.

At least Venus hadn't said they were obligated to screw. But the fact remained that everything about Anya was a major turn-on except that she didn't feel the same way. There were ways around even that, of course, but she wasn't sure Anya would permit her to use them.

"Hey, is that-?" Anya began to point, but Siaka was already pulling to the side.

"Wyld Hunt," Siaka said. "Be cooperative unless things go south. You can actually tell them you're an Immaculate Master."

Anya nodded at once. "Because technically I am." She pulled a bow out of her travel pack.

As the hunters drew closer, Anya offered them the slightest inclination of her head. "I am Master V'Neef Anaya. Is there any way I can be of assistance?"

There were only two of them, and they seemed worn from travel. The taller of them, a willowy woman with a pale blue cast to her skin. "I am Peleps Weylan. This is Mnemon Yudani." She indicated the compact black man beside her. "We are in disgrace, and would not disturb you, but we are in pursuit of a powerful and dangerous Anathema."

Anya made a face. "Is her name by any chance Buffy Summers?"

"The Despot of Gem has already slipped through our fingers once," Weylan said disconsolately. "If this frenzied creature has a name we do not know it. It rides outlier on an even more powerful Anathema who brings an army of beastmen with him."

"Lunars," Siaka said as softly as she could manage. Anya nodded.

"We travel toward Gem," Anya said, "but if we can assist you quickly I don't see why we shouldn't."

"You had better," said Yudani abruptly.

Anya and Iron Siaka turned. The thing behind them resembled an insect at first glance, but it was well above human size. Its smooth head bore a mouth but no visible eyes.

"Damn it," Anya said. "Get behind me." She began striking her chakras, assuming Wood Dragon form.

The creature's mouth opened, revealing a row of jagged teeth, followed by a secondary mouth, just as nasty. "You know this thing?" Siaka queried.

"Only from the movies," Anya muttered, and the fight was on.

Weylan and Yudani opened up respective cans of whoopass on the creature, bodies crackling with energy. Weylan's water-charged blow didn't seem to impair it much, but Yudani filled the ground around the monster with churning stone that made it stumble. It was a start. As they did so, Iron Siaka let out a discordant shriek that sent the thing reeling, though the Dragon-Blooded also stumbled back covering their ears.

The creature sent a spiked tail curling around to lash out at its attackers. Siaka brought up the Dulcet Consolator, but the tail curled around at the last moment and pierced her arm. The wound sprayed blood and shot pain up to her shoulder, but immediately began to heal.

Trailing a queasy-making mixture of green and violet light, Anya nocked and fired off an arrow in one swift motion, a green-black aura leaping to it from her hands. The creature let out a horrible hissing scream as its exoskeleton cracked and sprayed fluid in every direction. A gout of the stuff caught Yudani full in the face, and he went down with his hands clutching at his features, bellowing in pain.

"Damn it," Anya muttered. "That was supposed to be an insta-kill." Now a swarm of little scuttling things like seven-fingered hands surged forward. One of them leapt for Siaka's face, and she batted it down with the Consolator, but more were coming. Lightning surged in her eyes, and she raised both hands and sent it crackling at the beast. She thought the little ones were probably still tied to it...hopefully anyway.

Yudani was struggling back to his feet, his face sizzling and acid-seared. Weylan was battling the scuttlers trying to reach his own face.

Anya drew another arrow, wavering. The Soul Mastery technique might indeed drop the beast in one shot, with a bit of luck-probably more than she was likely to get against a rampaging Lunar chimera-but it took a lot out of you. Her arrow struck true, spraying more acid around the battlefield, and the beast turned and fled.

"We're going after that thing," Anya said. "Get Yudani and get on your speeder!"

"They're not made for combat!"

"Nope," Anya agreed. "But don't tell me you can't make it work!"

She had a point. Siaka hefted Yudani over her shoulder, Anya grabbed Weylan by the arm, and they ran for the riders. The chase was on.

"This can't be right!" Kolohi shouted,slamming into the attacking pirates with all her armored bulk. "The Lintha don't cooperate with Skullstone!"

Fred swooped down over the zombies and picked her moment to drop out of her newly-acquired gull form. Landing amidst the crowd, she bowled them over. They were armored, so it bought her only moments. Moments were all she needed. She brought up a moonsilver dagger and drove it into the nearest zombie's eye socket.

She'd wondered for a while why Renjin didn't have a war form. The tiny, brightly-colored frog that was his spirit form leapt from Lintha to Lintha, demonstrating why as his contact poison dropped them one by one.

"They must have signed a treaty of some kind," Fred concluded, shifting into her own war form and seizing zombies in her tentacles. "The Lintha are pretty mercenary, right?"

"Yes," Kolohi acknowledged, "but they serve the Yozi Kimbery. Demons don't usually get along with undead."

"So I've heard," Fred muttered. They needed a spy. The tip of one of her tentacles sprouted a stinger and pierced one of the zombie's chests. "There." Tiny larvae flooded into the creature and seized control of it for her. "We'll send this one back."

"How's it going to report to us?" Kolohi said skeptically.

Fred just pointed to her eyes.

"If I'm not going to be spending time in Thorns for a while," Anja explained, "it's worth the effort to develop my...how did you put it? My superpowers a little."

"Well, sure," Xander said, "but this isn't what I was expecting."

"You're sleeping with Leviathan but...what? One of you is always a girl?" Anja looked a little put out. "Well, there go the stories I wrote in my diary."

"It's not exactly...this is just kind of what I'm familiar with," Xander fumbled. "I've been meaning to try it out, but-"

"What about when you're the girl? You're familiar with that?" Anja folded her arms over her slightly-hairy chest.

Xander threw up his hands. "I don't know if it's Amyana's memories or what. It just feels unexpectedly comfortable being her."

Anja pursed her lips. "Well," she said after a moment, "I guess if I could take Ingosh's form that would probably be comfortable too. Except everyone would start going on about my legacy,anyway. But if you were planning on trying it out, it's a good time, because I'm in the mood to try out some of his memories myself."

Xander thought that through. "Oh. Okay, what the hell. Anya'll get a good laugh out of it, at least."

So naturally that was when the alarms started going off.

Dawn swung up onto the camel. "Let's come riding in from the west," she said after a few moments. Glory snickered. "We'll surprise the hell out of Buffy."

Glory glanced backwards over her shoulder. So far her followers had managed to evade Dawn's attention. She really had forgotten everything.

Gem was going to be delicious.