Here it is. This, and Chapter 8 - Renascence (the one where Cordelia and Tara come back) are tied as the longest chapters I've ever done. This is a pretty good chapter, in my opinion.
Enjoy.
And can you pleeeaaaaassssseeee review this chapter. Please! I really want to know what you think .
Chapter 30
Evolution
England - Exmoor Forest - A building within the Covensetead
Skye didn't have much of an idea of how long she had been in this building for, but she was pretty sure that it was pretty close to two days. Ever since The Coven got word of the Slayer's death, they had put her into this building. It was a very large, long, rectangular building, made of logs, like all the rest. Except this building was broken up into a series of rooms, with a central dining table in the middle of the building and one bathroom coming off of it. She guessed that there were a total of six rooms, which all looked like bedrooms with two bunk beds in each. There was one thing that was odd about the building however. There were large black symbols painted on the walls and ceiling, and from Skye's brief magickal knowledge, she guessed that they were wards. All she had done for her period within the building was sit and think about the circumstances which led her here, and how something didn't fit. They had told her that she was to remain here, and that Clifford would be keeping watch outside, which to Skye, obviously meant that he would be outside, preventing her from leaving the building. So, she did all that she could do, sit and think. She had had enough time to digest what had happened to her, and she wondered why it couldn't have been passed onto something else.
She had been sitting around the Covenstead, after having a round of training with the rest of the Potentials. She had found out that The Coven had been going out and gathering up all of the Potential Slayers who were meant to be headed for Sunnydale and bringing them here. According to them, The Council had decided that The Hellmouth wasn't the best place to send the future of The Slayer Line, and that the Coven was safer. It was then, that Samantha and Montague, the leaders of The Coven, had come up to her and requested that they speak with her in private. They took her aside, and casually laid out the facts that The Slayer, Faith, had died in Sunnydale, and that they believed that she had been called as the next Slayer. Since then, she had been in this building.
There had only been once event to happen in her time while she was in the building. Skye guessed that it had been a couple of hours ago. Samantha, Montague and three other members of The Coven had come in, but the weird thing was that that was all she could remember. After that, there was nothing; she had woken up in bed. It had only occurred to her in the last few moments that there was a period of time missing from her life in the last few hours. This thought alone was enough to rouse Skye. She had always had a feeling that there was something that was slightly out of place with the people who had come to them in Brisbane, and something about The Coven, and her recent 'lost time' had tempted her into finding out about it. That, and there was also the conversation she had overheard about Samantha and Montague talking about The Slayer to the people who had 'rescued' her from Brisbane. Skye got up off the floor and moved through the building to the door leading to the outside world. She paused there for a moment, sensing a change in the air. She would never claim to be a witch, or even a magick dabbler, but her mother had been a witch and had taught her a few basic things about magick when she was young. One of those was to sense magickal fields and disruptions in natural energy flows, and that was what she was sensing now. She put her hand out in front of her, but nothing happened. She guessed that the magickal field surrounding the house was probably connected to the runes drawn on the ceiling and walls.
Skye took a step outside, for the first time in days. She looked around, and mostly everyone she could see were going about their ordinary business, but she could see a small group of people moving towards a log cabin on the other side of the clearing. She took a couple of steps forward, when a figure came around the corner. Skye recognised it as Clifford.
"I'm sorry Skye, but can you please go back inside. It's for your own protection," Clifford said to her. Skye didn't want to hear it.
"Well, if I am a Slayer now, this should be a piece of cake," Skye thought. She casually moved towards Clifford, making it look like she wanted something. When she was three steps away from him, she closed the distance, and with remarkable ease, she brought him down, knocking him unconscious as she did so. Skye looked around, making sure that no one had seen her, and when satisfied that they hadn't, she picked him up under the armpits and dragged him inside the building before setting off for the other side of the clearing.
Skye crept around to the back side of the building, after sneaking a couple of glances through the windows into the building. She had seen a body lying on the ground, one of the other Potentials she had guessed, and a small group of people standing around another person who was upright in a chair. When she got around the back, she was glad to find that a window was open slightly, and she could hear what was going on inside. She could just hear a soft chanting, and after a few minutes it died down.
"Our test just confirmed it," she heard someone on the inside say.
"So, what does that mean? That I'm it?" she heard a female voice ask, very, very uncertainly.
"Yes, Nicole Adams, you are the next Slayer," Skye heard the voice of Samantha say. Skye didn't believe what she was hearing. This girl couldn't be the next Slayer, she was. She had just proven her abilities before in taking Clifford down. Skye decided that it was time to find out what was happening, and what The Coven was up to. She got up and marched around to the front of the building, and with a deep breath, yanked the door open.
"You told me I was The Slayer? I demand to know what's going on," Skye exclaimed in a not so friendly voice. She looked at the people in the room, who were staring at her with shocked expressions on their faces. She looked to the person on the floor, only in her horror to see that it was her friend, Rhonda.
"I suggest you take a seat then," Montague said to her.
Sunnydale California
They had come back from Main Street, not knowing what had really happened. One minute, they saw Faith getting stabbed, then the next Buffy, Faith and Inanna had disappeared altogether, and most of the people who had attacked them were on the ground after mysteriously obtaining serious injuries. Both Willow and Giles had inferred that Inanna had had something to do with it, and that Buffy and Faith were now taking whatever road they had to in order to get whatever it was that they were going after. That's what Willow didn't like. No one knew what Buffy and Faith had set out to do, and there was a clear message that there was going to be danger involved. They had come back, exhausted, trusting that Buffy and Faith would return once they were done. Everyone else who had remained at the house had come up with some information on Illyria and Inanna anyway. Wesley had told them that Illyria was generally a warrior, although she wasn't as aggressive as some of The Old Ones had been. She was usually called upon for military aid. They had also found several references to a god of the ancient times, in human terms anyway, who could alter time and controlled the forces surrounding the night. They hadn't found anything interesting about Inanna, other than what Giles had already known; that Inanna was a nature god in ancient human times, who symbolised the destruction of the indestructible. Unfortunately, they hadn't gotten anything into how recreate Dawn from where she had left off in her lifetime.
Willow had decided to go to bed after that. She would get up later tonight and help out with the research. She knew where to go to get spells and metaphysical information better than anyone else did, or so she thought anyway. She was glad that Tara had decided to come to bed with her, although she could understand her wanting to sleep in a different bed than her. She had only found out a couple of days ago about them, and obviously hadn't been able to digest all the information, and probably wasn't comfortable with it.
Willow was standing in a forest, trees towering above her. They would have had to of been the tallest trees she had ever seen. She looked up, knowing that she was dreaming, and easily lifted herself off of the ground and up into the treetops. Once there, she saw a sight that took her breath away. There were people living in the treetops. There was a whole network of paths and bridges going from tree to tree, with obvious little huts built into them. She saw a human - looking figure come out of one of the huts which was attached to a tree, and stand on a platform outside of it. She watched as the platform floated down onto a walkway below and the human - like figure stepped off onto the walkway.
"This is my domain. This is my army," a voice said behind her. Willow turned around while floating in mid air to see the body of Michaela, occupied by Inanna floating before her. "This is where I keep my army. This is my land. Evolution occurs faster, time progresses towards it's end at a faster rate."
"This is a dream," Willow replied. "You're not really Inanna… Only my mind could come up with something like this… It's not this easy to fly in real life," Willow replied. She watched as Inanna turned her head slightly to the side and looked at her.
"Why can it not be?" she asked, obviously the question was rhetorical.
"Because there's rules. There's gravity for one. There's energy to be commanded," Willow replied.
"Excuses," was all that Inanna said. They both floated there, looking at each other, Willow's mind trying to catch up to Inanna's. After a moment, Inanna continued. "The Slayers are not the only warriors in this battle. Your person will play an important role in the up coming battles. Which side of the fight you are on depends on your strength of character and belief," Inanna said. Willow just looked at the floating form of Michaela, trying to understand the half riddles she was talking in.
"I'll be fine," Willow replied. "I'm learning control, and Tara's here now," Willow said.
"This is not about your lover. This is about you," Inanna replied.
"Why do you care what happens to us? I thought you didn't care about our race, about our people. I thought you wanted the world given back to your kind," Willow bit back harshly.
"I can rid your world of humans with ease. My army here has more inventiveness than the humans, and have superior weapons. However, your race intrigues me. They are so weak, yet so strong at the same time. You fight against overwhelming odds as a people, yet the individual still matters… This shell matters to a Lycanthrope. The Lycanthrope would die for this shell," Inanna replied. There was a long silence before she continued. "I thought that the human race would wither and die after we parted from this world, yet, I return and they are the dominant people. There is a great potential for power within them, as there is in yourself, and they are quite inventive… I wish to see the human race last for a little more time, so that I can study them and learn what drives them," Inanna replied. "For that to happen, I need some of them to survive this war."
"Why not bring your armies to earth and help us fight this war. I have felt it, the overwhelming numbers against us. I haven't said anything to the others, but there are very dark forces at work," Willow replied.
"This is the humans' war. I am not a part of it…" Inanna replied, but was cut of by Willow.
"What about these humans?" She said while waving her hand around "What…" Willow started.
"I did not say that these creatures were human," Inanna replied. "If the humans do not survive, then they are not worth studying. I am just giving you're a fighting chance," Inanna replied. "This is all. I have told you what I brought you here for," Inanna said.
Willow sat bolt-upright in her bed, sweating heavily. The last words Inanna had said to her were repeating themselves over and over again in her mind.
"You must go on a journey yourself. You must come past the problems that have faced you your entire existence, those which make you weak and succumb to those around you, those things which make you lie to yourself. You must face these things and win, or there is no hope for your race. You can not start out on this journey by yourself, but you must complete it by yourself. Use whoever you will to begin your journey and to help you find your way, but it must be accomplished alone… Go, while there is a great number of your people, when they can survive without your presence, for if you wait, your numbers will fall until there is only a handful left, and it will be too late."
There was nothing around her, absolutely nothing. There wasn't a sky, or a ground. Her body was non existent. Around her, there was just grey, and she wasn't even sure if she was seeing it or it was something else, the back of her eyelids for example. Buffy knew that there was something very important that had just happened, that had led her to this place, but she didn't know what; she couldn't remember. She couldn't tell how long she had been in this state, there was no concept of time. It could have been seconds, or it could have been years, she didn't know. Some kind of depth started to appear in her surroundings, as slowly, a ground seemed to appear. The world in front of her faded away and she was standing in an alley, in Sunnydale, with Spike standing before her.
" Every Slayer has a death wish," Spike said before turning away from her and walking away. She heard a noise beside her and turned, and she was now in a park at night time, a dark woman and a young boy standing in front of her.
"The Mission is what matters Robin. Go home, be safe," the woman said. Buffy could sense something behind her, and she turned. Now she was in the middle of the desert, an image of Tara standing right in front of her,
"You don't even know what you are, what's to come, it's only just begun." Behind Tara, she saw an image of The Fist Slayer, bent low to the ground, coming up to her.
"No friends. No family. Only alone. All about the kill," she heard The First Slayer say.
"Your enemy is the key. Use it to unlock the gates of evolution. Fight for it," an image of Inanna said beside Buffy before disappearing. Buffy saw movement out of the corner of her eye again, and turned only in time to see The First Slayer launch herself off of the ground at Buffy. She got hit and taken down to the ground, and automatically reached out her arm and caught the hand holding a stake aimed right at her heart. When she looked at the hand however, it wasn't that of The First Slayer's. She looked up into the face of the person on top of her, holding the stake, and saw herself staring right back. Shock went through her entire body as she looked into her own eyes, struggling to hold the stake away from her body. Buffy couldn't react as her other self rammed her head into Buffy's, smashing it down against the rock. Buffy's world became dizzy, but she pushed out with her knees and flipped her other self off of her, sending her onto her back only a metre or so away. Buffy got up and faced her other self, both of them standing in the same positions. Buffy gave it a moment, before she stepped forward with one leg, and kicked out with the other towards her other self's head, but her other self caught he foot and pushed Buffy backwards, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Buffy got up again, and just narrowly missed a fist coming towards her face. She dodged another fist, and then sent one back of her own, successfully hitting her other self in the midgut. She swung for her other self's face, and successfully connected, hearing the sound of breaking bone underneath her fist. Her other self was sent onto her back on the ground, blood pouring out of her nose. This didn't stop her however, her other self got up and faced off against Buffy again.
"You're alone, no one wants you," a voice said inside Buffy's head. It was her own voice, but she sensed that it came from her other self, although her other self's lips didn't move. "You've had two, no, make that three, people get close to you, and you've drove them away each time," the voice said.
"That's not true," Buffy replied.
"Angel, he left, because of you," the voice said. Buffy noticed that her other self had started moving sideways, and she moved in the same direction. Both Buffy's were circling each other now. "It was all your fault. He left because you weren't willing to commit to him."
"No, he left because he needed to. It was too dangerous for him, for us," Buffy replied back.
"Tell yourself whatever you need to. You're only lying to yourself," the voice said. Both Buffy's circled each other now, arms up, ready to attack, blood coming out of one's nose. "And then there was Riley… the little soldier boy… just a regular, ordinary, person… the type of person you wanted to be with, after Angel of course," Buffy's alter ego said. Without warning, Buffy saw her alter ego come at her and deliver a kick towards where her head had been if she hadn't dodged the blow. She saw her alter ego's fist starting to swing towards her face, and Buffy ducked and delivered her own punch to her other self's mid section, below her defences, sending her backwards. "He left because you thought he wasn't good enough for you," the voice inside Buffy's head said again. …"that he couldn't match up to your expectations. He was slower, weaker, and just worse than you."
"No, he wasn't worse than me. He wasn't any of those things. He only thought I thought those things… He was a good man," Buffy replied.
"Again, making excuses," Buffy's alter ego said inside her head. "You will always be alone, no one will ever way to be with you, ever like you as a person. And those that do, you drive them away."
"That's not true," Buffy replied.
"Oh, then what about Spike? You allowed him in, allowed him to live in his delusions by hanging around you and Dawn. And then what? You tell him he's a man, and give him hope, only to die that night and leave for eighty-five days. And then what? You come back, be with him, while telling him he's worthless and evil? I think you were talking about the wrong person then. At that point in time, he was better than you," the voice said.
"Stop," Buffy replied. There was a long silence as the pair continued circling each other, both of them staring into the others eyes with a now burning hatred. Again, Buffy's alter ego came at her, spinning around and delivering a spinning kick to Buffy's shoulder, almost lodging it out of place. Buffy stumbled to the side and regained her composure, only to see a fist coming towards her face. She didn't have enough time to dodge the blow, and she got a fist to her cheekbone. Buffy could feel a lot of blood conjugating in her mouth, and she spat it out onto the almost white sand from the bright sun overhead.
"You'll always be alone," the voice said. "There'll never be anyone who will truly be there for you over anyone else, because you drive them away… even your friends, you're lucky to have that much. How many times have you driven them away from you?" There was a long silence as Buffy stared at the version of herself. Buffy wasn't going to let this get to her. This version of herself didn't know what it was talking about. Whatever it was, it hadn't been there, it hadn't witnessed these things. Buffy wouldn't let it get under her skin. She knew that that was what it's plan was, to get under her skin and make her weak and uncertain, then it would be able to kill her easily. "Why do you think that is Buffy? Why do you drive everyone away from you?" the voice said. Before Buffy actually had time to think about it, if she were paying attention to what was in front of her, it started speaking again. "Because you believe that being the Slayer makes you superior. Your friends can sense this, not at a conscious level, but they can sense it, and they know it. That's what drives people away, from you. That's why you'll always be alone.
"I don't believe I'm superior to them. How could I? How could I be superior to Willow? It's in the nature of the Slayer to be alone. The First Slayer was alone, it was in her nature, and it's been handed down through the generations. The Slayer will always be alone," Buffy replied.
"That's bullshit" the voice replied inside her head. "That's a load of crap, and you know it. You're weak, believing the shit that the Council shoves down your neck… Yeah, The First Slayer was alone, but do you see anyone else out here?" The voice said as Buffy's alter ego raised her arm and waved it out at the desert surrounding them. "You're alone because you're, you. Because you are so fucked up you don't even know you're fucked up. How long have the feelings of being detached been there? Sine LA at least, before you were The Slayer. You're a waste of space, people would be better off without you. You're not better than those around you, hell, you're not even better than Spike. He had evil in his nature, and he still tried to do good," the voice said. It had gotten to Buffy. She didn't want to believe what her other self was saying to her, and a large part of herself fought against it and didn't believe it, however there was that one little part, deep within her that welcomed the information and accepted it, driving the rest of her emotions and mid insane as it tried to reject the information.
"No, that's not true," Buffy replied, no confidence in her voice.
"You know it is. No one will ever get close to you again. You'll die, old, alone, and bitter and angry at the world because it was always 'their' fault, when deep down, you know that it was a problem with you," the voice said. "You'll never be truly loved, because you're a killer by your nature, not The Slayer's, not anything else. You drove Angel away. You drove Riley away. You even drove Spike away, and why do you think Dawn was always yelling at you? Because that's what teenage girls do? Yeah, sure, that's what teenage girls do with an older sister that treats them like they're nothing, like they're worthless." Buffy sunk to her knees. These were her deepest fears, and she couldn't handle it. In a moment of clarity, it dawned on her that whatever was in front of her was speaking the truth. She was all these things, and she had been lying to herself for all this time; for most of her life. She only began to think what else she had been doing without her knowledge, and it became too much. Her insides had turned to jelly long ago from fear. Buffy sunk down and sat on her feet, her insides engaged in the war of her lifetime. She sat, staring at the sand at the point where her alter ego used to be.
There was nothing around her, absolutely nothing. There wasn't a sky, or a ground. Her body was non existent. Around her, there was just grey, and she wasn't even sure if she was seeing it or it was something else, the back of her eyelids for example. Faith knew that there was something very important that had just happened, that had led her to this place, but she didn't know what; she couldn't remember. She couldn't tell how long she had been in this state, there was no concept of time. It could have been seconds, or it could have been years, she didn't know. Some kind of depth started to appear in her surroundings, as slowly, a ground seemed to appear. The world in front of her faded away and she was standing in an alley, in Sunnydale, with Spike standing before her.
" Every Slayer has a death wish," Spike said before turning away from her and walking away. She heard a noise beside her and turned, and she was now in a park at night time, a dark woman and a young boy standing in front of her.
"The Mission is what matters Robin. Go home, be safe," the woman said. Faith could sense something behind her, and she turned. Now she was in the middle of the desert, an image of Tara standing right in front of her,
"You don't even know what you are, what's to come, it's only just begun." Behind Tara, she saw an image of The Fist Slayer, bent low to the ground, coming up to her.
"No friends. No family. Only alone. All about the kill," she heard The First Slayer say.
"Your enemy is the key. Use it to unlock the gates of evolution. Fight for it," an image of Inanna said beside Faith before disappearing. Faith saw movement out of the corner of her eye again, and turned only in time to see The First Slayer launch herself off of the ground at Faith. She got hit and taken down to the ground, and automatically reached out her arm and caught the hand holding a stake aimed right at her heart. When she looked at the hand however, it wasn't that of The First Slayer's. She looked up into the face of the person on top of her, holding the stake, and saw herself staring right back.
"Like what you see?" Faith's other self said to her while pushing the stake towards her heart. Faith put both hands around the stake and forced it to the side. She still held onto it, and pulled it downwards so that it went into the sand beside her body, bringing her other self down towards her while Faith sent her head up towards her other self. There was a loud crack as their skulls collided, Faith's forehead hitting her other self in the cheek. Faith saw her other self reel back, and Faith used this opportunity to use her legs to push her alter ego off of her. Faith flipped herself up and quickly kicked the stake away before turning to look at her alter ego, who was getting up off of the ground blood coming out of her nose and cheek. Her other self straightened herself up and then stood in a defensive stance facing Faith. "Or would you prefer it if you were fighting this," her other self said to her, with her normal voice while morphing into an image of Buffy. Buffy came towards her at full force, jumping and delivering a flying spinning kick in Faith's direction, but Faith ducked it, only in time to see Buffy's foot coming towards her again. She jumped over it this time, narrowly missing it. Buffy then kept using her momentum, and extended her fist. This time, Faith wasn't fast enough to dodge it, and she got a powerful blow to her right mid section, sending her stumbling backwards a bit. Faith regained her composure and stood in a defensive stance, ready for Buffy to come towards her. When Buffy started moving towards her, Faith spun around, and delivered a spinning kick to where Buffy's head used to be, but she had ducked it. Faith decided to take a page out of her book and kept using her spinning momentum and spun around and delivered a low spinning kick, but Buffy had jumped over that. She kept using her momentum, and struck Buffy across the face with her fist after another spin, sending her backwards, but with a smile on her face. "Always living in her shadow are you Faith… Trying to be like her, to take her life, to match up to her standards, to be accepted," the voice said inside her head. "You're pathetic, just copying her, just copying everyone around you."
"Shut up," Faith replied before she moved to attack the image of Buffy. She took three quick steps towards her, and kicked at her shins, making Buffy jump. This was exactly what she wanted her to do as Faith drove her fist into Buffy's body suspended in mid air, sending her sprawling backwards onto the ground. She approached her, but got her legs taken out from underneath her by Buffy. They were both on the ground, looking at each other, and at once, they both scrambled to get up, but Buffy won and kicked Faith in the side, sending her back to the ground.
"You'll never be her. You'll never match up to her standards. You'll never have her life. You'll never have friends like she does. You're a loner Faith, no matter how much you try to deny it," the voice said inside her head. "Everyone knows that you're not worth it, that you're a fake. Thy all know Faith, that behind that 'tough as ass' attitude, you're just a scared little girl who wants someone to even pay her the slightest attention…" the voice started.
"Hey, didn't I tell you to shut up," Faith said back to the image of Buffy, which she noticed had slowly morphed back into an image of herself. Faith could feel butterflies inside her stomach, but she wasn't going to let, whatever was standing in front of her, know that. She approached it and viciously hit out towards her alter ego's head. Her alter ego dodged the blow, but Faith had already lined up her other fist and brought it into her other self's mid section. Before her other self could act, Faith's knee was coming up towards it's face, breaking bone as it connected with her other self's nose. Blood poured out onto Faith's knee, and as her alter ego fell back with the force of the blow, Faith advanced, but unexpectedly got her knee kicked out from under her by her alter ego. She was on her knees by the time her alter ego was on her feet, and she didn't have time to block the kick coming towards her gut. The kick was so hard, it sent Faith back about a metre, lying on the ground. She slowly got to her feet, and looked at her alter ego, feeling something coming up her throat, which was revealed to be blood.
"You can't win, Faith. You're always going to be alone, no one's ever going to love you," the voice said. "You'll never be able to be happy… You've never had a lover…" the voice started.
"I've had plenty," Faith replied as she looked at her alter ego, waiting for her to make her next move.
"They weren't lovers Faith. They were just, a bit of fun, every single last one of them," the voice said. "You'll never have someone touch you the same way Riley did, when he thought you were Buffy. You'll never know that ever again," her alter ego said.
"Shut up," Faith replied. She remembered that. That had set off a chain reaction that had caused Faith to doubt her views that love was only found in fairy tales and TV shows. She had felt the way he had touched, seen the look in his eyes and the look on his face, like meeting Buffy had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. That had caused her to doubt what she was doing, and to think about trying to get that for herself, which would mean settling down a little. It was what caused her self destruction in Los Angeles, in front of Angel.
"You'll never have that, never. You're worthless, pathetic. No one will ever believe in you. You'll always be viewed as the crazy, self destructive, murdering one, no matter what you do," her alter ego's voice said.
"So what if I am? I don't care," Faith replied.
"I don't believe that. You do care, and everyone around you can tell," her alter ego said. "You've been on the verge of insanity your whole life Faith. Because of that, you'll only know rejection and nothing else. You're like the scared abused little puppy, curled up in the corner, too afraid to even face the world." Faith approached her other self and punched at her, but her other self side stepped her and kicked her in the back, using Faith's momentum to send her sprawling face first into the ground. "You're more messed up than you even know, and no one is going to help you with it, because no one will ever trust you enough, no one will ever even look at you like you're even worth helping. They'll never even give you a chance." Faith was getting up off of the ground after vomiting more blood from the kick she received to her mid section, but she got shoved back into the ground by a foot on her back. "You're going to have a wasted life. Not even to life's full potential. Everyone else will live fulfilled lives, however, you won't, because no one will ever give you a chance Faith, and as long as that matters to you, which it always will, you'll always be detached, you'll always be the odd one out. You'll always be the one everyone is nice to their faces, but then cuts into you with their words behind your back," the voice said to her. "You'll just be a waste of resources, and just a waste of space. No better than the vampires you claim to fight… You've claimed to try and change, but that's impossible. In the end, we all are who we really are, and you're a murdering, insecure, psychopathic, waste of space." With that, Faith used all her strength and lifted herself out from underneath her other self's foot and with one swift motion, kicked her alter ego's feet out from under her. She got up and straddled her other self and started delivering punches to the face.
"You're wrong. I have changed, I have. It is possible to change you bitch, it is, it is. I have changed, and I'm not a waste of space. I'm trying to be good, I'm trying," Faith screamed as tears ran down her face and as she punched the sand in the space that her alter ego's face used to be.
Willow knew that there was truth to the words that Inanna, or whatever it was in her dream had spoken. She had problems, this much she could figure out by logic, but what her problems were, she didn't have a clue. Immediately, she had gone downstairs and explained to Giles, Xander and Tara that she needed to go for a while, to leave and get her head in check. She told them that it was to try to overcome her tendency to become evil every second time she used magick. She had walked out the door, and immediately teleported herself into woods in the middle of no where, where she was sure she would not be disturbed. It was risky, but she decided that it was worth it. There, she found a spot that suited her. It was near a river, with high trees which gave shade to most of the underlying groundcover. There, she sat and crossed her legs and began to connect herself with nature, centering and grounding herself. It took about an hour, but Willow didn't notice that. When she was done, she felt as if she belonged here, in the middle of the forest. She could feel the essences of every living thing around her. The words of Inanna came back to her, that she couldn't do this on her own. At hearing that, her first thought was to bring Tara along, but then decided against it as she had her own issues going on at the moment, and didn't need to have Willow's problems dumped on her. Her next thought was to bring Xander, but she decided that she didn't want anyone from the Scooby Gang to be here, to know this. She then thought of the other people in the house, Oz, Wesley, Fred and the rest, but she dismissed them. After that, it had taken some brain storming as to exactly who to ask to help her, but she had come up with the answer.
"Cordelia," Willow said, sending her thought and word out with her mind and her power out over the whole world and across dimensions. Almost immediately, a blue humanoid figure materialised in front of Willow, and then turned into Cordelia. Willow had thought about this over and over again, and Cordelia was the best person to ask. She needed someone who would be straight with her, who wouldn't hold back on expense of her feelings. Although Willow didn't know what was wrong with her, she did know that it was one of those things that when done, would change her outlook on life, and that would be very emotional. She didn't need someone holding back, on account of those things, and Cordelia was just that person. It was also an added plus that she seemed to become a lot wiser since her ascension to a higher plane.
"Well, its about damn time this happened," Cordelia said as soon as she had materialised.
Three Days Later
Abandoned Warehouse - Los Angeles -California
Amy was standing up the front of the small room she had managed to hire for the week, before she was certain that she would have to find a larger place for their meetings. The room was absolutely full now of magick users. They had all come here, to help her bring down Willow. She could sense a couple in the room who had a rather large amount of power, a few had barely anything, but most in the room were moderate with their magickal ability. This is what she needed. There, was however, one thing she needed them all to do. The First had instructed her that she needed these people, plus her, to perform a certain spell. The First had even told her the cover story that she needed to use. She had just finished explaining to everyone in the room the same thing she had explained at the first meeting; that Willow was a threat, unstable and needed to be taken down. She let them talk amongst themselves for a while, before she called out to them again.
"Okay, first of all, there's something we all need to do," Amy said. "Everyone who is in this, stay here. Anyone who doesn't want any part in this, leave." Amy waited a bit, and let two or three people leave, one of them was one of the powerful ones. Amy didn't know wether they could see through her glamour she had cast on herself to hide her black eyes and hair, but she expected that they didn't buy her story. That was fine, as long as they kept their mouths shut about it. "Willow is a very paranoid person, and she likes to protect herself," Amy started. "She will probably most likely know sooner or later that we are going to go after her, and she will strike out. We need to make sure that that doesn't happen by protecting ourselves from her senses, so we need to perform a spell together, now," Amy said. She watched, as everyone in front of her listened and accepted her story.
An hour later, everyone was leaving, believing that they were protected from Willow. They weren't protected from Anything. Amy Madison looked out the window at the setting sun, and she knew that the sun would rise again, but not for Los Angeles. The city would be plunged into a never ending night, allowing The First to take over the city.
Summers Residence - Sunnydale - California.
Xander, Giles and Tara were the only two left of the Scooby Gang. Buffy had disappeared with Faith, and Willow had told them that she had to learn to control her magickal abilities. Dawn had turned into a mystical ball of green energy, and no one knew where Anya was. Cordelia had come by two days ago and told them what was really going on with Willow, that she was going through life - altering changes, and that they should all be there for her and give her space when she got back. Cordelia told them that she was facing her problems; the problems that she had had her entire life, and she urged everyone to consider the scale of this, as everyone had a set of problems, buried deep within themselves which most were too scared to overcome, and probably never would in their entire lives. Cordelia told them that Willow had gone to face those problems, and that she knew that she had to overcome them before the final battles began, as she dangled dangerously on the edge of which side she would be on. She had also told Tara that with this, her importance in the final battles would diminish somewhat, but that she would still play an important part (Reference - Chapter 8 - Renascene). Xander was just thinking about all this, as everyone else researched the box or ways to get Dawn back. They had actually made a little bit of progress on that front. The others, who weren't researching, had decided that it would be best to start training and coming up with ways to defend the house, as they had come to the conclusion that there was going to be an attack on the house sooner or later, and that it would be best to be prepared. Xander on the other hand, was sitting on the couch, having a break from helping to come up with ways to defend the house, when he heard the front door open. He looked up to see Willow come in, her head bowed and her hair covering most of her face. He had never seen her in that state before. It actually reminded him a bit of Tara, trying to hide behind her hair. He caught her eyes, just for a second and could see that they were bloodshot. He got up and slowly moved towards her, and wasn't surprised when she grabbed onto him and buried her head into him.
Unknown Location - Time not to the same scale as Earth.
Energy sizzled through the ground, moving sediment and forming a shape. There was a large mound of sand that had formed on the ground, and it split in two down the middle. Soon, the lumps of sediment had formed the shape of two people. The sediment compacted and hardened, it's chemical make up changing as it did so, creating two skeletons. Energy travelled over the skeletons, creating the nerves within them and adding marrow. It also added some amoeboid cells (living, single, blob-like cells, capable of moving), capable of dividing and differentiating into any type of cell needed, giving the skeletons added healing ability, and the ability to regenerate bone and even whole limbs. Next, muscles, ligament and cartilage began to form, the muscles given extra layers, the ligament being reinforced and the cartilage being extraordinarily thickened. The Circulatory, Respiratory and Reproductive systems were created next, indicating that the bodies both belonged to a female. The digestive system and an advanced lymphatic system (ability to fight off disease) were generated next, then the dermal system (skin, hair etc). The remaining organs were created, along with a modified brain, allowing for a greater capability to be used by the owners of the bodies. Yellow energy swirled and entered the bodies through the noses, each containing memories and thoughts. Next, two yellow-white masses descended over both bodies and entered them.
Faith awoke with a start and opened her eyes. She was looking up into dark brown clouds and could feel wind rushing past her. She looked to the side to see that Buffy was laying beside her, looking up at the sky, and then that she turned her head and looked at her. Faith got up, along with Buffy, and she could see a wall of shimmering air. On the other side, she could barely make out what appeared to be Main Street of Sunnydale. She took in a deep breath, and noticed that she felt a lot different, lighter and more care free. She looked over to Buffy, and the look that Buffy was giving her told her enough; that Buffy had been through pretty-much the same thing as her. She understood what Inanna was going on about now, when she said that 'your enemy is the key, use it to unlock the gates of evolution, fight for it.' Both she and Buffy had set out, believing that they would have to be involved in a physical fight with some kind of demonic foe. Instead, they had to fight themselves. They were fighting their enemy when they were fighting against themselves; and that by over coming this, they had managed to evolve. Faith was filled with a new depth, one which she had only experienced a for a few fleeting moments in her life. She never would have understood what they had just gone through before, but now she does. She started to walk forwards, towards the shimmering wall and stepped through it.
They were back in Sunnydale, in Main Street. It looked a lot different than it had when they had been here last. Everything was as it should normally be. Faith turned to look back into the shimmering wall of energy, but it had disappeared without warning. She looked around at the world around her, and it dawned on her that she was looking at as it really was for the first time in her life. Everything was different. For the first time in her life, there wasn't an underlying fear of the world and herself within her. For the first time in her life, she had felt like she was truly alive.
"Come on, let's go kick some ass," Buffy said to her, and at once, they both headed off towards the Summers' Residence.
Okay, there we go. I bet that's what you didn't think when you thought "Evolution" eh? Well, things will be heating up from here.
Umm, i wanted to do the bits with Buffy and Faith fighting themselves and their deepest, darkest fears better, but for some reason, i can't do that tonight. I believe Faith's is better, because i am waaaaayyyy better at understanding Faith and getting inside her head. I was thinking of putting up what Willow goes through, but it's prerttymuch the same as faith - inferiority issues. Anyway, some of Willow will come as she has't fully gotten through it yet.
Reviews are much appreciated and make me write faster, even if they're bad reviews
Next Chapter - Chapter 31 - Moving On (Will have a lot of focus on the characters not in this chapter, and will keep the story rolling on the characters in this chapter as well)