"No, don't...don't stop, Will! Don't...hold back! Give it to me!" Buffy was panting by now, drenched in sweat.

Willow twitched a finger at her. "That's 'Scholar' to you, Shadow. You don't get it until you use the right words."

Tara hung back on the sidelines, watching. Willow and Buffy had been friends long before meeting her, but seeing them like this was painful. She could only hope neither hurt the other too much.

"C'mon, then, Scholar. I need every square inch of my ass kicked and it's your turn." Willow unleashed her lightnings again, burning through Buffy's attempt at defense. Darkness gathered around Buffy like night falling as she struggled to stay on her feet. "Don't stop. Hurt me. Knock me down. We're going to have to fight me, at the strongest I've ever been, and here the two of us are starting from scratch."

"Not quite from scratch," Willow protested weakly.

"We might as well be. Especially me. I'm not even a Dusk or a Dawn anymore, let alone a Slayer. Everything I learn about combat I learn secondhand." Buffy managed to reach a low crouch, and charged at Willow, only to be knocked onto her back with smoke curling from her hair. This time she gave in and lay there.

"That's true," Tara said thoughtfully, "but I have to wonder. You weren't an ideal candidate for Slayer to begin with, right? You were a cheerleader in high school. Maybe this is actually a better fit for you. You might end up more powerful as a Moonshadow than you ever were as a Slayer."

Buffy nodded agreement, struggling to her feet. "I've had the thought. I'm not sure it's progress in the long run-you know, now that I'm expected to destroy the world instead of save it-but maybe I can do something I couldn't have before."

"You always could've destroyed the world, Shadow," Spike said calmly. "You chose not to. Same as me." He gave Angel a smirk.

"The Solars nearly destroyed the world at the end of the First Age," Angel said. "They were the good guys. They were the Sun's perfect, chosen heroes. But they still had free will. So do you."

"Do I?" Buffy wondered. "Does the other me? One moment of weakness and now she's evil forever? What about the rest of us?"

Angel shrugged. "Now you know how I feel."

"Is there any way of getting through to Buffy?" Tara wondered. "Willow moved heaven and earth to restore you, Angel."

"And the end result was that I got sent to hell," the vampire pointed out. "Maybe it's worth trying, and maybe it isn't. We have a good Buffy right here."

"Shadow," Spike said with a laugh, "why ask us? You're the negotiator now, right? Plus, you're her. How would you get through to evil you?"

Buffy lowered her fangs into view. "That's one hell of a question, Spike. I wish I knew if it were the right one."

Chapter 45: Chromatic Aberration

"I've seen worse," Siaka said testily. "I don't think I'll ever trust...Buffy the way you do, but I'm not actually sure I see much evidence of what she's doing wrong." The markets were still flowing with gems and other goods, though the people seemed strangely on edge.

Anya nodded. Her suit, though rather dusty, still should seem at its best to most anyone watching. They were a pair of businesspeople setting up shop here, arrived just a week ago. "You're not a thousand years old. Let me tell you about the French Revolution. It started like this one, with poor unhappy peasants and rich nobles who never had to work for their money. So the peasants overthrew the nobles, had them all beheaded, and lived happily ever after. Right?"

"Obviously not or you wouldn't be telling me about it," Siaka said a slight touch of irritation. "So what really happened?"

Anya pointed to a full gallows as they passed. "The people saw threats everywhere by then. A few surviving nobles...the new wealthy merchants...the priesthood...people with personal grudges against them...leaders of the Revolution who were worried about what was happening...and so on. They called that the Reign of Terror, or just the Terror. It didn't end until Napoleon took over and basically made himself the new king. It happened again in Russia, only I was the one who started that one. Revolutions have to be managed just right or they make things worse, not better."

Iron Siaka considered that and asked the obvious question. "Even in the Bureau?"

"Well...yes," Anya said a bit stiffly. "That was a weensy bit different, but you've seen my nose at the grindstone, haven't you? Gold Faction will end up as bad as Bronze Faction got, or get overthrown too, unless we're very careful."

Siaka sighed. "You really are a thousand years old." She tightened her fingers against the ring on her hand. "I may not always agree with you, but you deserve your position."

"Yes," Anya said. It didn't sound like simple, prideful agreement. Siaka peered at her. "I said yes. Work your mojo on me. You were misguided, but you learn. You're not stupid, you're not evil, and I really do like you. A lot."

"And you want to...like me better." Siaka whistled softly.

"And differently. Yeah." Anya grinned. "Don't look so surprised. You're Exalted. The difficult you do at once, and the impossible takes a day or two. Just look at Xander-whom I'm not leaving for you, let's be clear on that."

"You're welcome to him," Siaka said, making a face. Maybe this should be done in private...nah. Anya didn't seem remotely concerned with propriety. Siaka focused on the threads of fate that already tangled her with Anya and gave them another half-twist.

The elder's eyes popped. "Woof," Anya said. Had she screwed something up? "Damn. Buffy can wait another hour or so."

"Nope," Iron Siaka said. "Business before pleasure." And she turned and strolled toward the Despot's palace. Let Anya have to stare at her ass a while.

"Hey," Nelumbo called out. "Who adjusted these controls?"

"Jade Caste," Gathered Might responded through her avatar. "Came through the gate. I didn't recognize her, but she showed her authorization. Transcendent Architect, she called herself. Funny accent."

Nelumbo examined the records. The gate had been activated remotely. Then some of the safeties had been disabled! "She had authorization for this!?"

"Yes ma'am. She claimed maintenance was required. Showed papers with your say-so and Ot's." How could Nelumbo not be aware of this? "Forgery and treason!?"

"It would certainly look that way," Nelumbo said. "But unless she's another Adamant in disguise, how'd she even know I existed...or that Ot does? She was alone?"

"There was a mortal with her," Might suddenly recalled. "He came through the gate with her. I'd forgotten him."

"As she no doubt intended. Damn her eyes! What did she do? This shouldn't be possible! She relocated the exit aperture in less than an hour!"

That should have ruined the gate entirely! "Diagnostics still read as functional," Might said, studying her readings. "Where did they go?"

Nelumbo frowned. "A city in the South...Gem! If this is Xander's doing somehow I'll have his hide, Solar or not!"

"Buffy," Anya said.

"S'posed to kneel," Buffy said with a flick of her fingers. She lounged in the Despot's throne, robed in green silks, wearing brass slippers and an incongruous pair of golden sunglasses, her dress sunk down to show her thighs. Thank fate Siaka hadn't done any more to her...she gave Siaka a poke and a small shove backward.

"I don't kneel to you," Anya said. "I work for Heaven these days. You know. Powers That Be, yadda yadda, Bureau of Destiny and all that."

Buffy sat up and leaned forward, leaving her legs-yipes, more than her legs!-exposed in the process. She noticed Anya's glance and grinned wickedly. "Let me rephrase that. Kneel." Green smoke curled up around the Despot's diadem as the crossed swords flared.

Anya's knees tried to buckle, but with an effort she remained standing. There was a flicker of motion to her left, but when she glanced that way Siaka was on her feet as well.

Buffy pouted. "I thought you were my friend, Anya. I'd hate to have to execute you."

"Then don't," Anya said. Fair was fair, and Buffy definitely knew how to phrase her words to not give a direct order. Using her mental shears, she cut free the web of destiny she had woven and flung it over Buffy, who leapt up.

"What the hell?" Buffy grabbed up her jade daikalbar and made as if to come hurtling down from her dais.

"Now!" Anya shouted, and Iron Siaka grabbed the Dulcet Consolator from its belt loop. As Siaka blocked Buffy's first blow, Anya raised one hand in the Superior Sign of the Corpse.

Buffy turned so suddenly she nearly tripped over her own feet and began to dart for the door behind her throne. Siaka shouted something at Buffy-Anya couldn't make out just what-and the Slayer stiffened for a moment, then broke for the door again.

"Buffy," Anya shouted, "wait!" Buffy kept running. Anya sighed and leapt to the dais, making a snatching motion. Buffy slowed, almost stumbling again, and Anya caught her by the arms. "Listen to me, damn it! We're your friends and we're here to help you! We can take you home!"

Buffy stopped so suddenly that Anya tumbled to the floor. "Home? Now?" And she began to laugh as if she would never stop.

But she didn't run away.

There wasn't anything that the Transcendent Architect liked about this job. She was operating on an alien world. She was working essentially alone. And she was on an assassination mission, something she had done many times before but only ever at great need. Life was precious. But that was why this had to be done.

The Despot-or more likely, one of her clones-moved out onto the balcony, flanked by sycophantic advisors. That was nothing to worry about. Even from her perch on the roof she should have no difficulties.

Transcendent Architect lifted her left hand and steadied it with her right. The thousands of motes that made up her hand shattered, drifting apart into a cloud of light, then reassembled themselves into a weapon unknown here.

The Architect took careful aim and fired.

Something punched through Shadow's left shoulder and slammed her into the wall. For a moment she was incapable of drawing breath. Willow caught her and hauled her around the corner, and Tara scrambled after them.

"Hold still," the Scholar whispered, as if Buffy were capable of doing otherwise. She could breathe again, if shallowly. Willow dug a telekinetic hand deep into her shoulder and extracted a tiny yellow pellet. "Jade," Willow said quizzically. "Yellow jade. Who'd make a bullet out of that? You might as well make it out of diamonds."

"Worry about that later," Shadow wheezed. "Someone's trying to kill me and I don't even know if that makes 'em an enemy or a friend."

Tara sighed. Of course she didn't want to kill anyone. She never did. "I saw them for a second. They were clinging to a tower rooftop. But then they just dissolved into sparklies. And then I thought I'd b-better get under cover."

"We're good," Shadow said. "No point in you getting shot too." She flexed the afflicted limb. "And I'm learning the ropes already." She heaved herself to her feet.

"Well, you need some offense, B-Shadow," the Scholar said. "Want me to teach you how to throw lightning?"

"Doesn't seem like my style," Shadow mumbled.

"It's up to you," Willow said with a shrug. "Just...keep in mind it's okay to have a different style. Especially now. You're starting all over!"

"You could learn witchcraft," Tara said lightly. "Can't hurt, can it?"

Buffy began making her way painfully out of the area. She waved her hand in the general direction of the throne room. "That's what we decided about her powers too." The pain kept lessening as her nerves went dead.

"It's what we decided," Tara said, "but it's not what she did." She didn't try to stop them from moving, so Buffy let her talk. "She let her powers freak her out, and then she tried to just stop."

"Tara," Willow said, "I don't know if this is the time."

"If this person d-doesn't kill one or both Buffies," Tara said heatedly, "we were p-planning to try. But if she just repeats the same mistakes, what's the use? I can't think of a better t-time!"

"Tara, what-?" Buffy peered around a corner before hurrying on.

"Stop. Listen. You worry about turning evil but you d-don't seem to have any concept of what that is besides 'not human'. So you copied yourself. Nobody was there to talk you through it and you freaked out." Tara followed, seeming to be relying on Buffy and Willow to do her looking out for her. "I understand. It'd give me the wiggins too. But what's evil about it?"

Buffy hurried down a long stone corridor. "It made me more like the Yozis."

"And just as much like Gaia. Or Autochthon, who made the Exaltations in the first place." Tara sounded very, very frustrated. Even desperate. But she had to be wrong. "Who does it hurt or kill? D-does it violate some principle? Tell me what, if you've thought of something. I kn-now the Exalted can be smarter than me, but you can still be wrong!"

"Tara," Willow said placatingly, "surely it can wait?"

"It doesn't matter to me anyway," Buffy said, despairing a little. "I get my powers from the Neverborn now. Are those okay as long as I use them right?"

"I don't know," Tara said as they entered a kitchen. "I would have died first, but you both thought you had something more important to do. Maybe it's worth it."

The Transcendent Architect flattenned her swarm against the wall. Something was wrong here. She remembered that Buffy had been able to duplicate herself, but none of her had been Abyssals. This timeline was already different from the one she had expected to find. She needed more information.

Anya was here somewhere, separate from the others. The Architect examined Tara. No one would suspect Tara of being dangerous.

She rearranged the microspheres that composed her form into Tara's shape and went to seek Anya.

Angel was once again chained up in the darkness. The last part didn't bother him much. Darkness was where he belonged. He wasn't sure anymore what Buffy cared about regarding him these days, not even if it mattered to her whether he lived or died.

The door opened and a small figure entered. One of the neomah...Marzi? They were hard to tell apart, but they wore different ornaments, and he remembered those fairly well. She didn't look healthy; he wished his sense of smell would return. But her skin was dry and cracked, and she was gasping for breath.

"Marzi?" he rasped. He was pretty parched himself.

The neomah seemed to nod, but as she did so there was a faint whispering crack like crumbling mud, and her face began to fall off in chunks that shattered into dust when they hit the ground. Her arms followed, and Angel could only watch in horror as one of the few demons he'd seen try for goodness crumbled to pieces in front of him.

He frowned. A tiny, transparent thing like a jellyfish still squirmed in the wreckage of her body. As he watched, it grew larger, took on color, sprouted arms, legs, a head. Rather quickly, its form became that of a dusty-haired boy in his late teens, dressed in a well-cured leather outfit that resembled chamois.

The boy studied him quizzically. "My name's Steven," he said at last. "Come with me if you want to live."

"I want you to understand," Anya said, "I don't mind if you talk about torturing and killing people. I understand the attraction. You just can't actually do it."

Buffy shrugged. "I don't really care about that," she said. "As long as I'm having fun, I don't care about anything much."

"Well then," Anya said, feeling satisfied. "What do you do for fun?"

"Fucking," Buffy began. "Eating. Having people do exactly what I tell them and hurting them when they don't. Making fools out of anyone who tries to tell me what to-"

"Um," Anya said. "We may have a problem."

As she spoke, suddenly Tara came around the corner in the hall outside. "Anya," she said. "Hey! I got separated from Willow and-"

"Hey," Anya began, and as she did so Tara brought her right hand up, which suddenly wasn't a hand any more, but a distorted gun muzzle, and she began to fire at Buffy.

"Who in the-" Iron Siaka started, and as she did so Buffy leapt from the chair, cartwheeling over her. Buffy's foot came down on a bullet, the stream of which she darted across to kick Tara in the face!

Tara's head jerked back hard enough to break her neck, but all that happened was that her head and neck glowed yellow, sending little yellow spsrks flying. Her fists came up, suddenly bearing yellow knuckle guards, and slammed into Buffy's ankles, but Buffy barely reacted, only leapt on up and over and kept running on the ceiling until she was out of the hall.

Tara spun and dissolved into a cloud of yellow motes. "Damn it!" was all Anya could think to say.

"The Yozis are evil," Buffy insisted.

"But they're not evil just because they're not human," Tara insisted back. "They don't embody it."

"The Ebon Dragon does."

"No," Tara said. She had to get tgis through Buffy's thick skull while she had time. "The one who wants freedom is more evil than the ones who hate it? The one who thinks through what he wants is more evil than the one who just snashes things? The one who just doesn't love is worse than the ones who kill specifically what they do love? The Ebon Dragon is a dick. And trust me," she said, desperately trying for some humor, "I don't care much for those. But he's more complicated than just embodying evil. Until you-especially the other you-understands that she's never going to be all right."

"Why is now the time for this, Tara?" Buffy turned to peer around the corner into the hallway.

"B-because I don't expect to live through this!" Tara finally exploded. "You two probably will, b-but I'm not Exalted, and I'm p-pretty sure I'll die before I get the chance to be! I'm just not enough hero for it. So I'm telling you while I-"

A man in a black suit came running in behind them-no, wait, it was Anya and one of her friends. "Look out!" she yelled. "There's a murderous copy of Tara roaming the palace and she just tried-" Anya halted in mid-sentence. "Oh, good, you're not her."

"Of Tara?" Willow began. "That's-"

Willow slammed into the wall like a ragdoll, and a yellow metal spike pierced Buffy's wounded shoulder. "Not you," the Tara...bot said coolly. "I'm sorry. I can't let you interfere. I've got billions of lives to save."

"How dare you use my face like that?" Tara said without thinking. Wow, she was on a roll today. "Who are you?"

The...Tara-minator considered her for a moment, then seemed to make a decision. "I could use some help," she said. "I'm not used to working alone."

"Then put Buffy down and tell us what's going on!" Willow said angrily.

"You don't know me," the robot said. "But I remember you. I chose my name to help me remember this era. Partly because I knew this mission waa coming, but partly to remember the people who first taught me to be a hero."

"Spit it out already," Anya blurted.

"I'm from your timeline," the creature explained, "but I've lived thousands of lives inside a dying world. My name is Transcendent Architect in Radiant Array."

There was a long quiet moment before Willow gasped.