Chapter 2: The Scooby Gang

On a rooftop that oversees the supernatural chaos beneath her, Buffy holds the mystical slayer scythe over one shoulder in a typical hero stance. Her chestnut eyes are locked on the dragon-sized problem she's probably going to have to deal with. The cold drops of rain begin to pick up ferociously as she stands at the roof's border, anticipating an epic showdown with the creature any minute now. Willow is on the streets below with Xander, awaiting instructions; she uses her telepathy to communicate with Buffy because, in the red-headed witch's personal opinion, "cell phones are entirely overrated."

"Buff, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Will. Hey, can you do something about this rain?"

"Sure." Willow disconnects for a moment. "Quos serenitatem aeris," she mutters quietly, prompting the storm to simmer down into a light drizzle. "Where'd you go by the way?"

"I'm on the roof. You can get a pretty good angle on the demons if you do the spell from up here."

Willow quivers at the slayer's suggestion.

"Buffy, there is a dragon up there."

"Don't wig out on me, I'll take care of it. Just get up here," Buffy replies, contemplating her next move.

"What's she saying?" Xander asks impatiently.

"Buffy, what if it breathes like, actual fire?" Willow frets while her male friend decides he officially hates being left out of the loop.

"Will, add me to this magic group call thing!"

The obliging wiccan groans and, with a flick of her finger, Xander and Buffy can hear each other as well.

"What's going on, Buffy?" he questions.

"It's simple. Will is gonna do the spell on the roof while I slay a fire-breathing dragon."

"Wait, you saw it breathe fire?" Willow panics.

"No, no, no," Xander's shrill voice makes an unwelcome appearance. "I called dibs on the dragon in the car! You heard me call dibs, right?" he addresses Willow, lowering his voice in order to be taken seriously. "C'mon, let me have this," Xander pleads, bouncing up and down like a kid.

"Xander, you can't keep the dragon! In fact, I would very much like the dragon to go 'poof'," Willow responds nervously, her eyes locked on the flying reptile swirling above their heads.

"But-"

"Don't make me regret making you fourth-in-command, Xand," Buffy warns playfully.

"Yeah, yeah. Fourth-in-command, that's me. Xander Harris, reporting for duty." He ironically salutes to the sky. "We'll be up soon."

Xander slumps over into a slouch and mumbles to himself grumpily on his way over to the ladder. Willow follows behind.

"It is my dream to have a pet dragon, I've told you guys this a hundred times. Willow got to keep Oz in high school and he was basically a dog. The least you could do is throw me a bone once in a wh-"

"Xander, we can still hear you."

Back on the roof, Buffy studies the prehistoric, bat-winged lizard in the sky who has yet to establish itself in the fight that waits below. Of all the creatures she's slain, the Chosen One has never encountered a real life dragon before. Its patterns and movements are not what she expected from such a ferocious-looking demon. For now, all it does is soar with a seeming desire to fly far away. Buffy finds herself feeling remorse for the animal that was so cruelly forced into battle. She thinks about naming the creature, but decides that doing so would make it much harder to slay. Her thoughts are abruptly interrupted by Angel's unmistakable drawl.

"It is so like you to show up to an apocalypse I started and save the day."

She whips around to find one of her vampire ex-lovers towering over her. Buffy throws her arms around him in a brief hug.

"Well, you showed up to my fight with the magic fix. The least I could do is return the favor." Buffy gestures to her witchy best friend standing on the edge of the roof beside Xander. They both wave to Angel; Willow's is classic and cutesy while Xander's is a bit more disingenuous.

"What's she doing?"

"What she does best," Buffy tells him. "A coven warned us about the Senior Partners' plan to unleash an army on L.A. and offered a way to help. Willow's gonna channel the other witches using the same spell that created the … amulet thing you gave me last year." Buffy doesn't let her mind dwell on Spike; instead she covers it with humor. "Demons burn to a crisp, we head to the mall."

"Are you sure that's gonna work?" he asks in a skeptical manner.

Angel received the amulet from Wolfram & Hart with zero explanation of its true origins. He assumed it was extra-dimensional based on the company's access to all sorts of magical weaponry and artifacts. Whether it was Lindsey's or the Senior Partners' intention by giving it to him, the amulet was meant to incinerate the wearer and trap their incorporeal body at Wolfram & Hart - something they planned to do with Angel. Naturally, this information concerns him if Willow is touching that kind of magic.

"I did my research on this one."

And she did. After Spike burned up in the Hellmouth and the Scoobies left Sunnydale for good, Buffy became obsessed with learning more about the amulet. Not just for its magical significance but to see if there was even a chance that Spike was alive. Unfortunately, all they were able to find was the spell that created it, which didn't disclose anything about what comes after. But hopefully the power of thirteen witches can withstand what Spike's vampire body could not.

"Thank you for coming. Really."

"Thank me after we win." She cracks a thin smile and returns her attention to the dragon circling around the area like a buzzard.

"Buffy, there's something you should know."

Spike's name is on the tip of Angel's tongue when he decides telling her about his resurrection might not be worth it; he might be dead already. Again.

"Yeah? Whatsup?" Buffy sees the scaley monster's barbed tail as something she can grab onto and her body starts to behave like a cougar closing in on its prey.

"... I called that dragon already," he says.

"Yeah, join the clu-"

In one fell swoop, Illyria leaps onto the mythical beast from the roof parallel to them while Buffy and Angel watch in disbelief.

"Hey! I was gonna do that!" The slayer pouts.

The blue-haired she-demon clutches onto the large beast and positions herself on its back in a forward lean. The dragon lets out an ear-shattering screech in response. At first, the creature's movements are manic and uncontrolled as a result of Illyria's presence. In time, however, it seems to find an understanding with its passenger. That's when Angel realizes that Illyria isn't trying to slay the dragon; she's trying to save it. She caresses its scaley side and they disappear into the clouds in the most mystical way possible, leaving Angel and Buffy feeling a bit useless.

"Well, since she's clearly got that handled … we better head down. Willow's spell will take a second to set in," Buffy explains.

"Let's go to war."

The two nod to one another and exit off the side of the building while Xander helps Willow prepare for one of the most complicated spells she's ever done.

"Thank you for being here with me. To keep me from going all evil and stuff." She grins at her life-long friend.

"Where else would I be? I wasn't much of a fighter before I got this fun little eye-injury. Now I'm … banished to Willow duty indefinitely." Xander nudges her rascally.

Willow tucks a red curl behind her ear and inhales the earthy post-rain aroma. Her eyes flutter shut as she reaches her hands over the demon army below, half-expecting this entire plan to fail horribly. Xander catches the doubt painted across her face.

"You can do this," he insists.

"I sum ad eos. Detrahet me in lucem." Willow keeps her eyes closed and swallows hard as a golden radiance ignites in her hands; its angelic glow slowly travels throughout her body, transforming her hair from burnt orange to intensely white.

"I can do this," Willow whispers to herself. Xander places a hand on her back for support but her skin is hot to the touch.

"Ow! Yeah, that was dumb," he scolds himself while she gets lost in the spell. "Go on, do your thing."

The scorching light extends from her hands to their enemies, setting them ablaze. Supernatural lifeforms of all kinds - vampires, devils, demons, hellbeasts - every soldier the Senior Partners sent to defeat Angel and his crew is suddenly engulfed in flames.

The slayers down below halt their movements and withdraw from battle.

"Fall back! Get back!" Faith yells through the crowd, signalling the girls to get out of the way. It's no longer their fight. It's up to Willow now.

Xander fiddles with his eyepatch anxiously, a nervous habit he hasn't been able to break for months. Needless to say, the Scoobies' lives have been chaotic and unpredictable since their departure from Sunnydale. In Xander's words, "Cleveland's Hellmouth is nice and all but … Sunnydale's Hellmouth was home." He watches Willow's incredible power in action and remembers the days when all she could do was float pencils - and badly. He reminisces about the three of them - Buffy, Willow and himself - living it up in the high school library before any of this happened. Back then, their biggest worry was vampires and midterms. Today, it's obliterating an entire demon army in a timely fashion so they can get back to recruiting slayers around the world.

"It's … it's done," Willow breathes, releasing herself from the magic's thrall. She is filled with an overwhelming euphoria as she collapses into Xanders arms, the white gradually fading from her hair. "Let's go find our friends."

Buffy runs through the mob rallying the troops, searching for wounded, for anyone left behind. Her eyes lock on a strangely familiar silhouette in the smog, prompting the slayer to stop dead in her tracks. The sound of demons choking on fire - a sound that Buffy has long been desensitized to - is drowned out by the roar of her own heavy heartbeat. She stumbles forward, mesmerized and utterly confused by the nostalgic way the figure moves and dances behind the flames.

"Who are you?" Buffy calls out.

The shadow appears to go still in response to her voice, causing any ounce of patience Buffy has to leave her body in an instant. Flames flickering all around her, the Chosen One is suddenly moving with urgency across the alley into an answer she didn't prepare for. Buffy finds herself at the edge of the thick smoke before the figure emerges from its depths and makes himself known.

"... Spike?"

"Buffy," he says in a deathly quiet voice.