The purpose of this story was originally to set up a war between two sides. The Humans and The First Evil. This story was then going to explore the ethics, morals and feelings of characters towards war and associated things with a war, but in the Buffyverse. When I started on that direction, I did not know how to accomplish those things, ie, what I should write about. After seeing a show which explores some of these aspects (Battlestar Galactica 2003 Series) and has given me ideas on how to implement some of these aspects (and others) into this story, I've got my wits about me now, and we're delving into that. This story will go on for a while, because these aspects have not been explored.
By the end of the story, I want you (the reader) to doubt whether Buffy n Co. have done the right thing, and (maybe?) if they were even fighting for the right side. This has ALWAYS been the intention of this story, just did not know how to do it.
Therefore, this story, from here on in, will be getting darker and 'grittier' (definition of gritty – see shows like 'The Shield' and "Battlestar Galactica 2003" and to an extent '24' – those shows are gritty – where hard decisions need to be made which may not benefit all etc etc, all that stuff). If the style of writing seems to change, that's only because I'm struggling to go between 1st person (BSG Story I'm writing) and third person, and because it's been a long time since writing on this story.
Chapter 42 Acting Out
Summers' Residence – Sunnydale California
She traced her finger around herself in a circle, as if cutting through the air around her. Willow was creating a sacred space around her which would help her prepare. It had been seven hours since she had awoken from being possessed by The First, and in that time, she'd decided she needed to do something about it. Willow knelt on the floor, a faint glow appearing and quickly disappearing representing the circle she had just created.
"Any gods out there which are looking down on me at this moment, I ask for your blessing," she said quietly to herself. Her mind wondered to her friends, and Tara. They didn't know what she was going to do. They still thought that she was in this room, sleeping. Willow knew that many of them wouldn't understand, that they'd call her reckless, but after seeing what she had as The First possessed her, she knew that it needed to be done.
"Snap out of it Rosenberg," she thought to herself, willing her mind back onto the task at hand.
Willow closed her eyes and she began to use her senses to feel out the room around her. Slowly, as she acquired more and more information through the use of her abilities, the power within her began to grow. Willow could feel her panic start to set in; fear that she'd lose control like she had done so many times before. Almost instantaneously, Willow could feel that fear and panic become crushed by the overwhelming motivation to accomplish her goals. She wouldn't let herself spiral out of control again, she couldn't afford to.
She reached out with her senses further, aided with her magickal abilities. She could feel the power within her growing exponentially as she became more connected to everything around her. Willow could also feel something dark within her, but with the power of her mind, she kept it locked away and hidden. She could identify everyone within the confines of the base camp that they'd created without even trying. She could see Buffy, Giles, Nicola, and even Tara.
She felt the energy of the Earth beneath the house, and she began to manipulate it around her, forming various types of invisible shields for a variety of purposes. Once she was done, Willow opened her eyes only to notice that the veins on her arms were protruding and had turned black. She grabbed her hair and it was also black. Panic started to set in again, but it was quenched as Willow realised that it would only be from the sheer amount of power passing through her body as she felt completely in control. She bowed her head and closed her eyes in supplication.
"Goddess Artemis, hear my prayer. I for your protection and blessing as I take action to prevent the destruction of your children on this day. Fight along side me today with your silver bow and I vow that in the heavens, I will take up arms as your ally… Blessed Be Artemis, Daughter of the Almighty Zeus and Leto. Goddess Kali. I ask you to make my actions swift and accurate on this day so that I may protect my colleagues and your creations. Blessed Be, Kali, Dark Mother," Willow prayed.
It had been a long while since Tara had checked on Willow, she had been busy going over strategy with Giles and Buffy as to what they could do in the long term. She liked that they looked to her for input, seeing as they thought that she often had a unique perspective on things. As Tara approached the door, she could hear Willow's voice from within the room.
"… colleagues and your creations. Blessed Be, Kali, Dark Mother," Tara heard as she opened the door. She was shell shocked to see Willow kneeling on the floor, head bowed, her hair and veins black.
"Willow," Tara said, recognising it as her own voice as she spoke. She felt a chill go through her body as Willow looked up at her with completely black eyes. Tara could feel the amount of energy flowing around the room, and it was more than she knew that anyone was capable of handling. She heard the words spoken by Willow as If she were miles away,
"I love you," Willow said to her, the words barely registering in Tara's mind. She had taken her eyes off of Willow in an effort to concentrate, but it was no use, her mind was a complete mess. She looked back up at Willow, and it felt as if she was saying goodbye as she looked into her black eyes. "I'm sorry," Willow said. Moments later, she magickally disappeared, teleporting away.
Willow had felt her heart break when she teleported out of the Summers' Residence, leaving Tara behind. In her mind, Willow was fairly sure that she was not going to come back from this encounter. She knew what she was going to put Tara through, because she had been through it herself when Tara had died, but at least this way if she succeeded, Tara would probably live. Otherwise, they would both die. At least Tara would have a choice in the matter this way, and could live out the rest of her life.
Willow stopped and made her mind forget about the subject. The best thing she could do now was to focus and get a bit of her energy back. It had taken a fair amount of effort to teleport out of the Summers' Base Camp, through the barrier she had constructed which was meant to block that sort of thing. She didn't want to change the barrier so that she could get through, that would weaken it. It was safer for everyone at the Summers' Base Camp if she expended a bit of her energy to get through it.
Willow was on the rooftop of a building next to the Magic Box. She took a moment to feel the breeze upon her skin, savouring it. She looked around at what was left of the town. A number of buildings had structural damage from various fights which had occurred, the rest of them looked derelict due to a lack of maintenance. She looked out to the town, taking one last look at it before she set out to accomplish her goal.
Taking in a deep breath, Willow closed her eyes and reached out with her mind. It didn't take much effort for her to find what she was looking for. The First in the body of Caelecae was like a beacon to her, to everything magickal all over the world. Luckily enough, it was right out the front of the former Sunnydale Highschool. Willow knew that she'd be close enough to close the Hellmouth once and for all out the front of the school. She was just about to teleport to The First's location when she had an idea which might save herself from death today, maybe, hopefully. She reached out with her mind's eye to the area just outside the barrier of the Summers' Residence. Then, she travelled down, twenty metres to be precise and she set up a barrier about 2 metres long, one metre wide and half a metre high. She poured as much energy as she was willing to expend into creating the barrier, and even put in a feedback loop of energy with the earth, making sure that it would be sturdy. She then began pulverising the rock within the barrier into dirt, creating a cavity within the earth.
"Hope that'll work," she said to herself before teleporting away.
Summers' Base Camp – Summers' Residence.
Both Nicola and Tara had been scrying for Willow for about half an hour. The rest of the gang waited until the two witches came up with an answer as to the location of Willow. They had all been shocked when Tara had told them her version of what had transpired within the bedroom.
"It's not working," Tara said to Nicola. "I think she may have changed the barrier, so that we couldn't find her," she explained.
"I know. I gave up ages ago," Nicola replied.
"Then what have you been doing?" Tara asked.
"Trying to work out what that feeling in the air is," Nicola replied. Tara just glanced back at her blankly. "You can't feel it? The air is charged with a lot of energy, all over town. I don't know exactly what it is, but I have a feeling that if we find where it's strongest, we'll find your girl," Nicola replied. Tara nodded her head and closed her eyes, attempting to concentrate. After a few moments, when she had made herself calm down, she realised that what Nicola was saying might be right. The air was charged with energy.
Half an hour later, and they knew that they had found something. The entire group had left Base Camp, and as they neared the old Sunnydale Highschool, they began to find carcasses of demons. Some were sliced in various ways, limbs missing or just sliced in half, others were scorched, and yet others were mutilated. Something had been through this way, and whatever it was wanted to cause some serious damage. They could hear a lot of noise coming
They rounded the corner so they could see the park across the road from Sunnydale Highschool. Within it, everything was levelled. Trees which had existed there the previous day were no longer there, no traces of them remaining at all. What boggled everyone's minds was the sight before them. Demons lay strewn across the ground and two upright figures stood inside the park, one in the middle, and one on the edge closest to Sunnydale Highschool. Bricks were being torn from the buildings surrounding the park and were being flung towards the figure nearest Sunnydale Highschool at incredible speeds. Most of the bricks could barely be seen as they flew through the air, the only things visible were their impact upon the figure. Tara looked closely and could see that the person in the middle of the park was in fact Willow, and she guessed that the figure out the front of Sunnydale Highschool was The First.
No one had moved yet, too shell shocked from the incredible sight before them and too afraid of moving any closer in case Willow mistook them for a demon and sent a brick their way. The flying projectiles seemed to be having no affect on The First at all, which was just standing still and withstanding the onslaught. It was then that Tara noticed a reaction from Giles. She looked to him to see his eyes move to the side of the battle. She looked to where his attention was focused.
"Ethan," she heard Giles say. She knew that the figure was that of Ethan Rayne, who had become one of the lead minions for The First. She was shocked to see that he was moving towards Willow with a sword in his hand. Suddenly, she saw something move from the side of her eye within the park and was horrified to see that a large axe had unlodged itself from the hands of one of the demons and was flying towards Ethan guided by an unseen force. She watched as Ethan prepared a shield which would have saved him in the nick of time from the axe, had Willow not used her sheer power to destroy it a millisecond after it had been put up. She watched in horror as the axe flew into Ethan's body and out the other side and ploughing into the remnants of a brick wall, effectively cutting Ethan in half.
Willow knew that her friends had arrived, but she had placed a barrier around the area making anyone who came in, not want to get any further. She had felt Ethan's approach and had stopped him immediately, all the while her attention had never wavered from the body of The First standing in front of her. She knew that she had killed Ethan, and she knew that it was necessary. This was a war for survival, and nasty things needed to be done to win. She understood that now, after The First had possessed her body. She had seen some of the things which would probably happen in the future. She had seen parts of The First's plans, and it needed to be stopped as soon as possible. She knew that if she had only immobilized Ethan, that he'd come back to hurt them again at a much later stage.
The bricks weren't having any effect on The First, that much was clear, but they were distracting it long enough for Willow to begin to close the Hellmouth. As soon as she had begun, she knew that she wouldn't be able to close it completely because The Key had been used to open it, a power much, much, much above her. She could however, partially close it so it was like it was before; a weak point between dimensions instead of an open orifice.
She sensed a change in the figure before her. It was now approaching her, bricks still impacting on it like water upon rock: doing almost nothing. She stopped using the bricks and started to focus half of her mind to create a series of barriers between herself and The First, while the other part of her mind remained focused on repairing the Hellmouth.
Almost as if it were in slow motion, Willow saw The First just simply walk right through the barriers she had constructed as if they were paper sheets. She now focused all of her mind in creating the final barrier, and poured almost all of her energy into it. Willow was glad to see that it had halted The First's approach, but as The First's fist impacted upon the barrier for the first time, Willow felt it fail and crumple. She received one punch from The First, and her body was sent flying across the park and impacted upon the wall of the building across the road. With the last of her effort, she reached out with her mind to the cavity below the Summers' Residence which she had created and teleported into it.
They had been drawn to the battle from its onset. The amount of power being exhibited was more than any of them had experienced another being, apart from themselves, on this mortal plane of existence. Illyria and Inanna watched the battle of the human against what appeared to be Caelecae with interest. Once the barrage of compacted rock in the form of rectangular prisms had stopped, Inanna and Illyria started to become concerned. Caelecae had too much power, far too much power. Once the witch had fallen, they reached out with their senses available to them, therefore announcing their presence to Caelecae, realising what was in front of them. Just as they had hollowed out the bodies which they currently resided in, The First had hollowed out the body of Caelecae and was now controlling it.
"This is concerning," Illyria said to Inanna from their rooftop vantage point.
"Come. We must work together to extinguish this threat to us from this plane of existence and send The First back to it's non-corporeal form," Inanna said. Together they jumped down onto the street to confront the body of their former colleague.
Twenty Minutes Later
A bloodied Inanna and Illyria lay on the ground in the middle of the park, both very week. They had been defeated by The First.
"Come, we must leave this place," Inanna said, reaching out and grabbing Illyria by the arm.
"I have a plan. We must travel to the deeper well," Illyria replied before Inanna magickally transported them both to a location in the desert surrounding Sunnydale.
Authors Notes: Well, the Willow killing Ethan thing Is just the beginning of something I'm going to start exploring with the whole making this story 'grittier' (see AN at top) and exploring the ethics n morals etc of war.
Some questions to keep in your mind from this chapter…
What do Illyria and Inanna want with the Deeper Well? What will they do once they get there?
What made Willow have a sudden change of heart and go 'hardcore' (so to say)? What exactly did she see?
Will Willow Live? If so, how long will she be out of it in that little hole of hers? If not, what will they do without her?
The next few chapters will be dealing with Sunnydale, then we're making a jump to LA to see what's been going on there with the whole Wolfram and Hart, Angelus, O Ops, and Amy Madison. Reviews always welcome, and remember, they help me write faster.
Please forgive any continuity errors which arise within the next couple of chapters – haven't done this story in a while and have forgotten some of the details of what's happened (not any of the major stuff tho, save 1)
I've tried to look, but I can't find it. If anyone who's reading this and gets this far finds mention of Connor or Darla (and druscilla?) can u please let me know which chapter it's in. I remember I had an awesome arc set up for them (and angel and spike?), but I can't remember it and I'm fairly sure it'll come back to me once I read where the characters were story wise.
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