Tara stepped forward, trying not to stumble, and faced her double. "Are you saying you're...me?"

"That's for the metaphysicians to argue about," TARA said. "I remember your life...mostly. But I also remember countless lives between yours and mine. It takes many heroic incarnations to make an Alchemical Exalted." Her form dissolved into flying specks of light again, resolving once more into a golden-skinned, more-or-less feminine humanoid. There were echoes of Tara in her features, but only echoes. "I've been many things-male and female, gay and straight, a wealthy Estasian and a tunnel rat. I've seen Autochthonian culture fall and then rise again. I remember you clearly, Tara, and I'm you...but in many ways, we're very different people." She stepped up to Tara and kissed her, first on the lips, then the forehead. Then she turned to Willow and reversed the gesture. "I will always love you, but that love has been on the shelf for a very long time. I don't think we will have the chance to rekindle old flames, but who knows? In any case, I won't intrude if either of you doesn't want me."

"That's very sweet," Anya said flatly. "But seriously-why are you here?"

"I remember Buffy almost as fondly as Willow," TARA said, "but she's about to make a horrible mistake that will doom Creation. Your timeline isn't exactly mine, but the key events have taken place. Soon, very soon, Buffy will be in a position to bring about the Ebon Dragon's death, touch off the Yozi War, and destroy the fundamental principles that hold existence together."

"How do you know?" Willow asked. Tara could see in her eyes that Willow already knew the answer to that.

"I lived it," TARA said simply. "I watched Creation die. I saw an evacuation of hundreds of millions, and the death of billions. Nothing I do here will change my past, but if I could stand by and watch it happen again when I have the power to change it," and here she glanced at her past self, "I wouldn't be her."

"And you don't want anything in exchange?" Anya asked, pressing the issue.

"Autochthon is always sick," TARA explained. "It's part of his fundamental nature as a Primordial, but sometimes he's merely out of shape...and sometimes he comes close to death. Right now he's being healed by the efforts of Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo and others, but the cycle will continue. In our time he's deathly ill again. We need one of his creations to heal him this time, but it's been lost for millennia. Here I may be able to locate it, and I will take any help I can get."

"What happens if he dies?" Shadow wondered.

"Then," TARA said sternly, "Gaia will be left alone, the last surviving Primordial, against her undead brothers and sisters, and she will die too, and everything we know will fall into Oblivion."

"Okay then," Shadow said resignedly. "Once more into the breach."

TARA shook her head. "Wrong poem. 'Stormed at with shot and shell/Boldly they rode, and well/Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell.'"

"Is that supposed to make us feel better?" Iron Siaka asked. "That sounds like the sort of story that ends badly."

"Nah," Shadow said. "Don't worry. She's just telling me I've been there before."

Chapter 47-Gem's Exploding; Must Be Tuesday

Dawn strolled along the street, enjoying the stares. She wasn't obviously nonhuman enough to frighten people, but she cut a striking figure in shining armor. It was all illusory, of course. Her real armor was hidden. One hand stroked the older, purring, Miss Kitty Fantastico she held in her arms.

When this was done with, she'd take another round-the-Wyld shortcut and go see Xander. He couldn't think of her as a little girl anymore. She was older than that ex-demon jerkass, and now she remembered-well, in fragments anyway.

Most of the people looked okay, but she could feel the ambient shifting paranoia like a cool silk cloth being pulled along her body. It was all directed at the palace. What had Buffy done? Dawn turned a corner and nearly collided with a guard patrol.

"Scuse me, young ladies. You get them fat purses from honest trade, or from your mommies and daddies?" The leader leaned in closer, leering. "These days Gem has a tax on...nobles. Some say it costs an arm and a leg." He winked. "But actually, it's more of a poll tax. If you catch my meaning."

Glory's nose wrinkled, and she started to raise a fist. "Made it all ourselves," Dawn said hastily. "Say, are you trying to intimidate us? Because honestly, you're about as intimidating as a wet noodle."

The man's face darkened further, and he lifted a cudgel. "Get 'em, boys!"

The other "tax-collectors" glanced at Dawn, who shrugged and drew her short sword, then back at their leader, then at Dawn and Glory again. Then they collectively shook their heads and wandered off to seek softer targets. "Hey! Get back here!" The former leader chased after them, trying to enforce his authority through his usual threats and displays, only to be soundly ignored.

"Nicely done," Glory said approvingly. "But save your reserves. You've got an Exalt to confront, and it won't be this easy."

Now it was Buffy in the panic room. Rankar hadn't managed long in here against one Exalt, but he hadn't been one himself. She just needed a little while to recover. Anya had shaken her up, and badly, with a single gesture, but everything had its cost. She couldn't keep doing that over and over.

If she forced the issue, Buffy would kill her. She didn't like Anya that much.

At least she had her kingdom. There was a growing tinge of fear mixed into the devotion, but hadn't someone said it was better to be feared than loved? Machiavelli, she thought. Soon enough she'd have her composure back.

How had she reached this point? She remembered caring about things like courage and self-control, but really, they'd held her back from her potential. She ought to be more powerful without those things...not cowering in a bunker. Anya of all people ought to understand. Why attack her?

She'd made Gem a better place to live, hadn't she? She wasn't obligated to do that. All she was really obligated to do was stand against-

Hmm. No. Coordinate the Southern theater of the Reclamation. It wasn't what past Slayers had done, but really, all that had been a mistake. A long, long waste of time on something that was completely hypocritical and couldn't be accomplished anyway.

And seriously, bunkers aside...this was a lot more fun.

"Let's take stock," Anya said. TARA remembered not liking her very much, but perhaps that had been a mistake. Certainly she seemed competent. "Buffy is inside Fate, and psychologically we have her on the ropes. She still has most of her raw power, and the palace is crawling with bodyguards, some of them Terrestrial Exalts she's recruited. What have we got?"

"Tara is an accomplished Terrestrial sorceress," TARA said. Had she really been such a fragile, timid thing? "That's far from negligible, but she has to be conserved. Willow is a Celestial sorceress, but her charm magics are still a bit limited...correct?"

"I can throw lightning," Willow said. "And I can take a fair amount of punishment, but...not on Buffy's level of damage, right?"

"Definitely not," Shadow agreed. "And I've barely started learning."

"Some of that will come with experience," Iron Siaka said. "We always made sure to take out Anathema early, before they got too strong. Sometimes the first battle was one too many."

"You haven't even been initiated into necromancy, have you, Willow?" Willow shook her head, to TARA's relief. "Iron Siaka is a powerful warrior, and Anya seems to be shaping up nicely as an elder, though I'd guess she still has a way to go to catch up." Anya nodded. "Finally there's me. You've seen very little of what I can do, and nothing at all of protocol weaving." Tara gave her a curious look but said nothing, so TARA didn't explain. "Do we have any other assets?"

"Angel and Spike are here in the palace, if we can free them." Shadow rubbed her hands together thinking of them, as if trying to clean herself.

"Xander, some more Sidereal assassins, and a Luthan army can show up at a moment's notice," Anya said. "Fred's still working on the portal home the last I heard. Weylan and Yudani are accomplished members of the Wyld Hunt. I had them try and find a hotel because I meant to reason with Buffy first."

"You need to be prepared to kill Buffy," TARA warned them. "Help her if you can, but you must not let her release the Yozis."

"If she's still against the Yozis," Iron Siaka asked, "why would she release them?"

TARA hadn't wanted to explain this part just yet. At least she hadn't been maneuvered into telling them about Abaddon. "Buffy doesn't have the power to destroy the Yozis by herself. She needs help, and lots of it. I don't know if your Buffy has formulated a plan yet, but in my timeline she realized that the Ebon Dragon would betray the others. So she undid some of his modifications to the geomancy of the plan, freeing the other Yozis a short time after him."

"They turned on him," Shadow realized. "They beat him within an inch of his life, and then she took the last inch."

TARA nodded. "That left the other Yozis free, but wounded in the fight. By that time, though, the rest of the Exalted host had arrived. The escapees reswore their surrender oaths, with the intent of surviving to try again. But they no longer trusted each other, and soon they were at each other's throats."

"You stayed in Creation?" Tara wondered.

"Buffy's plan, and then the death of even one more Primordial, caused a wave of disasters, and we all chose to stay and help." TARA closed her eyes. "I don't remember how you all died, except that Willow was killed by a Scourge named Captain Gyrfalcon in revenge for something or other. And I'm glad I don't."

"Surely Buffy couldn't have slain the Ebon Dragon, not really," Iron Siaka scoffed. "I've fought her myself."

"You lost, badly, three on one," Anya reminded her. "Buffy's always been exactly as resourceful as she needed to be. If killing the Ebon Dragon required taking over the Imperial Manse and the Last Supplicant at the same time, she'd find a way. It's what she does."

"Nobody ever defeats Buffy except herself," TARA reminisced. "The girl has issues."

Hollow booms echoed suddenly through the palace, and everyone except TARA jumped. "What the hell?" Iron Siaka asked.

TARA sighed. "Buffy's Lunar mate," she said. "I've been expecting him."

"Who's her mate?" Willow asked.

TARA shook her head. "Ma-Ha-Suchi."

Dawn slid past Buffy's guards as essily as if the palace had been empty. "I told you there was no need for violence just yet."

"Of course there's no need," Glory scoffed. "I'm just in the mood."

But frustratingly, Buffy's throne room was blockaded because it actually was empty. Apparently Anya had been by to visit already and caused some sort of trouble. "Ugh. Probably waltzed in and started offering her services in exchange for money."

"So Gem is in disarray, with its ruler missing?" Glory smiled. "Hey guys," she shouted over her shoulder. "Dinner's on!"

Raksha began to accrete out of the shadows. Dawn jumped. How had she missed them all?

"Dawn, kiddo, c'mon," Glory urged. "It's an all-you-can-eat buffet!"

Outside, Dawn heard the whump of catapults being fired and the separate boom of hellfire cannons. Glory must have led in Fair Folk by the score! And whatever she was saying now, she must have thought Dawn might object, or she wouldn't have hidden them.

Maybe she should object?

Stephen led the vampires out of the dungeon. His teeth itched to close around their throats, but it wasn't time for that yet. If what the Architect said was true, Ma-Ha-Suchi was coming, a near-mindless force of destruction who would feed on Buffy and grow more powerful yet. That was the one scenario, she'd told him, in which Buffy's death might be worse than her survival.

His goal was to lure the beast away with the taste of another sort of beast. Ma-Ha-Suchi had glutted himself on the heart's blood of almost every creature in this Creation, but there was a creature it did not yet know.

"Thing is, Angel...you're my dad. And Darla is my mom."

Angel stared at him. "That's impossible!"

"Look around, you bloody git!" Spike snickered. "What about all this isn't impossible?"

"He's got a point, Dad." His father was a man of God, Daniel Holtz...but his body came from this monster. "There was a special prophecy about me. Yes, I'm impossible...but I'm here."

Stephen came to a high-arched exit from the palace, which for some reason stood unguarded. "I need to scout ahead, Dad." He dropped to all fours, taking spirit form, and loped away as a coyote, sniffing. There-the wolf-goat-men were coming over the crater wall to the northeast. The other Lunar couldn't be far away. There was some disturbance to the south as well. It must be the beastmen; they were cannier than he'd figured. He spun and returned to Angel. "City's under attack. I don't know what you think about Buffy at this point, but I'm gonna need some help out here."

"Dunno what you've got in mind, boy," Spike grumbled, "but Big Hair an' me are pretty tapped out. Neither've us can just go feed, an' that business sounds ugly."

Damn it! Everything Father and the Architect had said implied that Angel, at least, would leap into battle no matter how exhausted. But the tall vampire was nodding at Spike's words.

"Those things out there smell at least half animal, if you ask me. Sure you can't feed on them?" It was worth a shot.

"I'll make the attempt," Angel wheezed. "No promises."

There.

"Ma-Ha-Suchi is dangerously insane," TARA said, "in a way that can't be cured in this life. At least, we still haven't found a way after thousands of years. His powers grow from devouring his mate, but so do his mental problems. Fortunately, he's weak and should go down like a chump."

"One of these things is not like the other," Shadow observed.

"You've seen through my clever deception," TARA deadpanned. It was good, really really good, seeing these people again. "Fortunately, we know how to deal with apocalypses?"

"Better," the Hanged Scholar said, smiling. She was coping fairly well with TARA's arrival.

"Ma-Ha-Suchi is a shapeshifting monster who even retains some of his social-fu," TARA said. "If he consumes Buffy's heart's blood, he'll have raw power on the level of some of the most powerful beings in existence. He's already nigh-unbeatable. Unfortunately, letting him defeat Buffy is one of the few outcomes on the same scale of badness as letting Buffy slay the Ebon Dragon. The Yozis and their minions are still hard at work trying to make hell in Creation. Nobody needs the distraction."

"So how do we show him his insect reflection?" her younger self asked.

"I may regret this," TARA said, "but right now Anya, Iron Siaka, and I are our heaviest hitters. Shadow and Scholar, you two run interference and try not to engage him directly. Tara...you need to fetch Weylan and Yudani, then Xander and his army. The swift rider will help. I'm sorry to send you away from Willow."

"What about his armies?" Iron Siaka asked.

"We'll have to hope Gem's military can hold them for now," TARA said reluctantly. "Unless you know some army-scale magicks I don't."

Everyone stared at each other. "Maybe I can help a little," Willow said. "What about Buffy?"

"We need her lured out to fight the invasion," TARA said, "but not Ma-Ha-Suchi, not if we can help it. Too risky."

"I'm on it," Shadow said.

"If you're sure," TARA said uneasily. She couldn't be absolutely certain it wasn't this Buffy who'd strike the death blow, depite her current weakness. The Exalted were like that...and Buffy in particular.

Dawn spun laughing through the streets of Gem, glutted on the cherished beliefs and convictions of others. "Most delicious thing ever, right this way!" she shouted, driving her blade into a fleeing foe's back. Delighted Fair Folk twirled in her wake.

She sank her hands knuckle-deep into the head of yet another of the howling beast-men and drank deep, leaving him stumbling, confused, through the city. She couldn't make the other raksha follow her, but the animal-people's deranged dreams of conquest were much tastier, for most, than mundane domestic life.

Glory raced after her, a little puzzled but definitely seeing the point...well, the point most raksha would see. Pockets of guards appeared, and Dawn did her best to take out the wild people they were fighting. So far Glory was helping, but there was the danger that she'd grow bored and turn on the guards.

She couldn't let that happen.

It felt like running away.

Surely taking off away from Gem on a hovercraft was enough to end her chances of being an Exalt in this life. Tara was okay with that. It was too much power for any one person to have. She didn't judge her future self for it-weird thought-but who knew what she'd been through?

Anyway, she was doing her job. Tara was willing to fight, when she had to, to help others, but glory didn't come into it. Getting Xander and his army would help more than any mediocre fighting skills she had. Sure, they might be too late, but if she stayed they'd never arrive.

She wasn't a hero. She helped. She stayed in the background, and if she had to fight people forgot about it. She was a little like Xander that-

No. That wasn't the same thing at all. She wasn't the cavalry, just going to get it so the real heroes could save the day. She wasn't running; she wasn't fighting, either. Just doing her part.

Tara laid her left hand on the engine and fed it power. One way or another, she'd make it in time.

"Your ladyship!" Faint thumps on the rock wall. She didn't want to hear it. "The city is under attack!" Of course it was. Her entire reign so far had been a series of attacks, and she was tired of it. She just wanted to lie back and enjoy life's little luxuries. Not that there were that many in here. "Raksha and Wyld beastmen have penetrated our outer defenses! Please, my lady!"

The whole offensive could stall right here. There was that nagging voice in her head again, reminding her that she couldn't do much for the Reclamation if Gem fell. Well, what did she care?All our diversions...gone. Well, if that's how you like it... No fair. The thing was an animal. It wasn't smart enough to learn her weaknesses.

Buffy rose from her couch. She hadn't had a good adrenaline rush in weeks. She left the panic room at a run and shot out the window and up a wall. Where was the leader? She'd have him for breakfast. There. A low spot in the walls, and wolfmen climbing over. Must have been made during Mnemon's attack.

Let them come. Buffy felt energized, though not in the out-of-control way she had before her last visit to Malfeas. She had maybe one or two new tricks to pull out of her hat, no more, but her powers burned stronger and under better control. Brass sheathed her skin, and she blazed with light. She used the less-controlled energies deliberately, letting it spill over into an aura of fear, and burst upward, growing to her full twenty-foot height. Her eyes flared green as she dropped to her knuckles and loped forward at full speed, leaping rooftops as she charged. The radeken's image flared over her as she ran.

"Hey, dog-breath!" Assume the leader could hear her; if he couldn't at least she felt better. "Does one half of you try to eat the other?" Goat-wolf-men? What were these things?

In response she heard a distant howl.

The hunger heard her taunt and pricked his ears up. Hunt her/fuck her/eat her/be her She was coming. She was his. She was weak.

He would eat her alive and screaming.

"Goddess damn it!"

Buffy was headed straight for Ma-Ha-Suchi.

TARA deployed her rocket boosters and launched herself into the air, toward battle.