I apologize – I reuse a gambit, to some extent, in this story that I have used elsewhere. But it made sense, in context, to have something similar, though not nearly identical, happen. You'll see why shortly.
And hi! I said I would finish this story. Only a couple of parts to go.
Spiral, The Weight of the World, The Gift:
Do not happen in any form.
["Shouldn't Angel and his friends be in Pylea right about now?"
"You asked not to be told about events that would have taken place on Angel."
After a moment of silence, I said, "And you're not going to tell me what happened to Fred Burkle, are you?"
"Not unless you wish her fate to be used when it comes to making the final judgment as to who wins the bet, Miss Mars."
That would be a no, then.]
Of course, the episode not happening does not mean that other things do not happen, to replace it.
In response to Angel's "Sunset," Mr. Harris says, "Really? You think you're enough to keep thirty or so Knights off your back all by yourself?"
"Fang ain't alone," Mr. Gunn says.
"No offense," Mr. Harris says, "But you're a badass, Angel's a badass, Mr. Mars is a badass, Tara can do a few things, Logan can hold his own, and I'm not completely incompetent -"
"Not completely -" Miss Chase says.
"Ha ha," Mr. Harris says. "But Cordy's not capable of fighting off a Knight, Dawn's not getting within five hundred feet of the battle, I don't think Lily over there is going -"
"You'd be surprised," Lily Steele mutters.
"Veronica's badassery is unquestionable but she's not a fighter."
"Let me introduce you," you say, "To Mr. Taser."
"Okay," Mr. Harris says. "Now you're not a fighter, but you're armed. As for Doyle over there -"
"I'm a gambler. But in a siege I'll give it all I've got."
"Okay. So not completely hopeless. But still -" Mr. Harris says, only to have Angel laugh. "And what's so funny, deadboy?"
"One, stop calling me deadboy. Two, you assumed I was waiting for sunset so I could go out there and kick their asses. That's not why I was waiting."
"Oh, really?"
"Watch and learn. Keith, Gunn, you're with me. Everyone else able to fight: Grab a weapon just in case this goes wrong. And keep an eye out."
Then the three go into the front courtyard of the Hyperion, where the two dozen Knights of Byzantium waiting there tense up. One of them steps forward and says, "One side, demonspawn. While our battle is not with you we will not hesitate to kill you should you interfere with our holy mission."
Angel grins. "I don't plan on raising a hand to you," he says. "Neither do my two friends here."
"Then you are wise. Brothers! Take the Key and kill her!"
"I didn't say you could go in," Angel said.
"Ignore him! He will do nothing to stop us."
"So, you're just going to ignore me when I tell you not to go into this building I own?" Angel asks.
The Knight, confused, says "Yes."
"That enough for you, Kate?"
"That's plenty," a voice comes from the darkness. "Stay where you are. Drop your weapons. You're all under arrest."
And, from behind the Knights come two dozen members of the LAPD, led by Captain Kate Lockley.
The Knights bluster and rattle their weapons but their field leader orders them to stand down. "We are, after all, entitled to one phone call," he said.
Captain Lockley takes this for the threat it is; Angel thanks her and heads back inside, where Mr. Harris says, "That's why you were waiting for sunset? So you could call the cops?"
"Don't knock law enforcement, Xander," your father says. "It's a lot easier to sneak up on someone in the dark."
Angel makes preparations to get everyone out of there to a safe location.
In the meantime, in Sunnydale, Miss Summers and her friends have long since cleared out the handful of demons still remaining in the Initiative's former headquarters. Mr. Finn and his friends – he brought a half dozen former Initiative members, all willing to do him or Miss Summers a favor – have, after being properly appalled that their former headquarters was not in fact filled in, settled in to plan an assault on Glorificus. The Initiative members have brought light weaponry but no rocket launchers.
They make the case that they know, through experience, which demons can be taken down with bullets, and which will simply be annoyed. And minions appear not to have any special protection anyway.
Mr. Osbourne and Mr. Miller, Glorificus and her followers being unfamiliar with them, are conducting scouting operations. On one of these operations they notice someone besides one of the minions going in to see Glorificus.
["Doc," I said.
"You can stop trying to impress me with your predictive skills, Miss Mars," The Adversary said.
"You think any of this has been about trying to impress you?"
"I think every single moment has been about trying to impress me."
"Then you and me have wildly different meanings for the word 'impress.''
"Entirely possible. May I continue?"]
Indeed, it is the demonic sorcerer himself. They watch him enter, and then leave, and they kidnap one of the minions and bring him back to their own headquarters to find out who he is. Having learned their lesson from you, though, the torture they put the minion through is far more psychological than physical, and ultimately they learn who he is – and that he is the only such follower of Glorificus in town.
"Good to know. Graham? You and Oz mind tracking down his home base? No point in attacking him when he's with Glory. We're going to pick off as many of her supporters as possible before we make our final assault. A minion's a minion, but he sounds big-time by comparison. Willow? You, Ms. Calendar and Giles stick here to research spells. The rest of us are going hunting."
Back in Los Angeles, Angel has taken everyone to a backup hideout.
[The Adversary stopped and looked at me for a second. I gave a "who, me?" gesture and he went back to his recitation.
Of course, if he wasn't about to say "Caritas," I'd eat the hat I wasn't wearing.]
Caritas. Of course, the spell of protection is in place, but that only affects Angel, and possibly Miss MacLay – and the Knights of Byzantium won't know any of this. It is also safer because the Hyperion Hotel is in an area where the Knights could sneak their horses, after dark. Caritas is entered via a back alley. A back alley frequented by quite a number of demons and other supernatural creatures, not all of whom share Angel's distaste for killing.
If you are interested in where Wolfram and Hart is in all of this, incidentally, they saw that the Knights of Byzantium were in town, figured out that Glorificus was involved somewhere, and have for the moment backed away from causing trouble for Angel and his friends. They have no particular desire to see the consequences of the hellgoddess' return to her home dimension any more than either Miss Summers does, and are not interested in seeing how Miss Summers reacts if they should be the ones to kill her sister. Or, for that matter, how Glorificus would react.
The Knights, as anticipated, used their one phone call to contact the remainder of their order, who are currently breaking landspeed records to get to Los Angeles; they are, rather intelligently, leaving their horses behind.
The younger Miss Summers has an epiphany the first night everyone hides out at Caritas. She runs to tell Angel to tell her sister, now what is it, it is right on the tip of her tongue . . .
"Oh! Ben is Glory! You have to tell Buffy!"
The spell keeping them separate, of course, is beginning to fall apart. Puzzled, Angel nonetheless agrees to place the phone call to placate the younger woman.
The phone call comes in to Miss Rosenberg's cell phone; Angel is frustrated when it takes five minutes to get Miss Rosenberg to understand the message, but comes to realize that there is some kind of magic at work.
Having written down the message, Miss Rosenberg passes it on to Ms. Calendar and Mr. Giles, who write it down to remind themselves. Miss Rosenberg writes it on her arm. They have come up with a way, working together, of restoring structure to Glorificus' victims. In terms of weaponry, they have the Dagon Sphere, but no Buffybot and no troll hammer. The research suggests that the bullet weapons will not kill the hellgoddess, but should prove to at least do some damage.
While Ms. Calendar contacts Ms. Mistwood to see if she has any access to powerful magical weaponry. Miss Rosenberg and Mr. Giles, with some difficulty, have a discussion about whether to kill Ben the next time they get the chance.
"Would killing Ben kill, um, Glory?" Miss Rosenberg asks.
"Quite probably," Mr. Giles says. "There is a small possibility that it could simply – release her, as it were."
"I'm guessing, not a chance we want to be taking."
"No."
"Why are you bringing this up with me?"
"Because neither Buffy nor Violet would be capable of killing – Ben – who from all we know is an innocent in all of this."
"And you think I could just casually kill someone?"
Mr. Giles shakes his head. "Not in the least. But I do think you would, to protect those you love from having to do it. As would I."
Miss Rosenberg reluctantly acknowledges the point.
In the meantime, Miss Summers, Vi, Mr. Osbourne and the various Initiative members have tracked down and killed several minions and are currently staking out Doc's home in rotation. Having watched him for a day, they are now aware of his powers and demonic nature and have decided not to bother with trying to interrogate him. The next available opportunity to kill him occurs when Vi and Mr. Gates are watching him. Using a crossbow, Vi tries first and hits him in the chest – where the heart would be, were he human.
He is not killed, though he is injured and knocked back, and Vi ducks from sight as Doc stares in her direction. More rapidly than either of them would have believed possible, he sprints towards her position. While darting away, Vi has reloaded her crossbow, and fires again, aiming at his head this time, as he gets closer. He manages to partially dodge the bolt; it grazes his shoulder. He lashes out his tongue and knocks the crossbow from her hands.
This startles them both; their surveillance had not revealed the tongue. But Doc, angry and concentrating on Vi, has not noticed Mr. Gates, who is armed with weaponry considerably more advanced than a crossbow. Vi dives to the ground as Mr. Gates fires his rifle three times, hitting Doc twice in the head and once in the neck.
These injuries do prove fatal. Vi takes hold of the demon's corpse and she and Mr. Gates beat a hasty retreat, as while violence is a fact of life in Sunnydale, gunfire typically is not.
In her sanctuary, Glorificus is starting to get annoyed. Not only are the barriers between her and Ben beginning to break down, but her followers are being killed. Not that she cares about them, directly, but they do do things for her she would otherwise have to do herself.
It will be twelve hours – the middle of the day tomorrow – before she discovers his death.
["And then wackiness ensues?"
"In a matter of speaking."]
Back in Los Angeles, the remainder of the Knights of Byzantium have hit town; one of Glorificus' minions noticed them leaving, but has not so far been able to inform Glorificus herself. Angel and your father, with some discreet assistance from Captain Lockley and her squad, have kept an eye on them; just because they are not riding their horses, for the most part, does not mean that they are difficult to spot. Subtlety is not their strong point.
Still, once they dispatch a street gang unwise enough to attempt to mug them, they are given a wide berth.
Mr. Wyndham-Price is making attempts to leave and return to Sunnydale; he is quite easily subdued. He does notice the "green energy" coming out of Dawn, but as everyone but Lorne has been informed of the basics of the situation, and Glorificus is nowhere in the vicinity, this does not have the ramifications it did in the original timeline.
At this point, Angel has a plan and, after calling Miss Summers, returns to Caritas to ask if Miss MacLay knows a spell that will change her hair color. She tells him she does, at which point Angel gathers everyone together and tells them he has a plan: They're going to lure the Knights of Byzantium away from Caritas.
"Fine by me, Angel-cakes," Lorne tells him. "No problem having you take refuge here but the spell of protection would put you at a serious disadvantage if the Knights came in. It doesn't do anything to stop humans from being violent."
"You might want to look into fixing that loophole," Angel says. "In the meantime, Keith, I need you to make a couple of disguises for us."
"I do not 'make disguises,' Angel. I set up personas."
"Okay. This time, I need you to make disguises and not set up personas. We want to look like we're trying to hide -"
"Like we're trying to be inconspicuous. If we just walk out of here, they'll get suspicious and hold back. We want them not to hold back. On it." You move to help your father.
In Sunnydale, having driven most of the minions to ground – any who poke their heads out do so at peril to their lives, not that they hesitate to do so for the sake of the Divine Glorificus – Miss Summers and her allies are making their final preparations to assault Glorificus. Mr. Giles has informed Mr. Finn, Mr. Miller and Mr. Gates that "Glory is Ben" as well. They are prepared to kill Ben, if necessary.
They would rather not, as well. But killing one person to save a world is well within their capabilities. And they all know that when Glorificus dies, Ben will die anyway.
Shortly before noon the next day, everyone makes their way to Glorificus' residence. Ms. Mistwood has procured for Ms. Summers a mace that, while she does not guarantee its efficacy against a God, is the item she has most likely to cause such a being pain. Ms. Rosenberg has a spell or two in reserve. Mr. Finn and his friends have their weapons.
Mr. Giles has a chainsaw, and another item, he is prepared to use if he must.
Mr. Osbourne has no weapons. Mr. Osbourne needs no weapons.
They have already been to the tower, attracted by the large number of her victims who were there. While there, they have disposed of more of her minions.
The hellgoddess still has more, but the number is not unlimited and Miss Summers' willingness to summarily kill them has some of them a bit hesitant. Upon hearing of the problems, she gathers all the followers she has and makes her way to the tower as swiftly as possible. The two groups miss each other, Glorificus leaving in one direction shortly before "the good guys" arrive from another.
In Los Angeles, Angel, your father, and Miss MacLay, with hair the color of the younger Miss Summers, have made their way out of a Caritas back entrance, making just enough noise to assure they have been seen and heard. As expected, the Knights follow them.
Most of the Knights, anyway.
Angel and company sneak through the darkened Los Angeles streets for as long as they can before the pursuit becomes too obvious to ignore. Then they break into a dead run, the Knights charging after them at full speed . . .
until they run through a darkened alley, with the Knights following. When they run out the other end, the Los Angeles Police Department is waiting for them.
This time, some of them refuse to go down without a fight, but armor and swords are not a match for bullets.
Angel and your father have assisted in the capture of some of the Knights; Angel says, "I can't believe they were dumb enough to fall for this twice."
"Angel, they're full-blown armored knights about six centuries too late," your father says. "That doesn't speak highly of their ability to deal with change."
And with that, they head back to Caritas.
Meanwhile, back at the bar, the handful of Knights who abstained from following the trail laid down by Angel, your father and Miss MacLay wait a couple of minutes and then come into the bar. Lorne calls out a warning and then ducks behind the bar.
You, Mr. Harris, Mr. Gunn and Mr. Doyle come out. Miss Steele stays behind with the younger Miss Summers.
"That spell?" Mr. Harris calls out.
"Only works against non-humans," Lorne says. "But -"
"Well, shit," Mr. Gunn says.
"Give us the girl," one of the knights says.
"What girl?" Mr. Doyle asks. "Lorne, lad: you seen a girl around anywhere?"
Before the expatriate Pylean can answer, a knight says, "Do not bluff us."
You say, "Oh. That girl. Nope. Not here. I'm the only girl here."
"Enough," one of the knights says, drawing his sword.
Before the fight can begin, Lorne sings a high-pitched note, and everyone in the room except for him collapses to the barroom floor, unconscious.
He looks down, shakes his head, and begins to disarm the felled knights.
Back in Sunnydale, matters are coming to a head. Glorificus, in her departure from her abode, was not precisely subtle.
["When is she ever?" I asked.
The Adversary said, "Indeed. Glorificus makes Faith, in either universe, appear positively Machiavellian."]
So, as you may imagine, it does not precisely require a Sherlock Holmes to follow the trail she left. They arrive at the tower and are greeted by an unhappy hellgoddess and a number of minions.
And, to make a long story short –
[We passed too late for that a couple of states back.]
– The "good guys" win. Vi cuts a swath of destruction through the minions, dealing with them practically single-handedly. The Initiative soldiers cut down any who manage to make it past her. Glorificus, though, is weakened, angry, and has almost no idea what has been going on around her, but even in this state she is capable of dealing tremendous damage. Mr. Gates is killed, Miss Summers knocked unconscious (after doing significant damage with the mace Ms. Mistwood procured for her), and one of the other Initiative soldiers fed upon by the hellgoddess mid-battle, so Mr. Giles is forced to bring out his emergency weapon:
The Wand of Toth.
Glorificus is caught by surprise and the wand does its work, splitting her into Ben and Glorificus. Mr. Osbourne attacks, serving as a distraction, while Mr. Giles says, "I'm sorry."
Ben appears to understand, and before Glorificus can react, Mr. Miller shoots him.
Glorificus suddenly stops, throws Mr. Osbourne off, screams "No!" and steps forward.
She is stopped by Miss Summers' hand around her ankle. The hellgoddess says, "Let go!" and begins to stomp on Miss Summers' wrist.
Then Mr. Finn delivers the coup de grace to Ben, shooting him in the head. Glorificus dies before she can complete the step.
This season's apocalypse is over.
The Summer Between Seasons 5 and 6:
After everyone -
X X X X X
"Hold it," I said.
"Yes, Miss Mars?" the Adversary said.
"I've been thinking."
"Commendable. So few of your kind bother to do that very much."
I said, ignoring his gibe, "And I'd like you to hear me out."
"Of course," he said.
"Now, season 5 ended without either Buffy or Dawn having to die to close a portal – because things never got so far that the portal was ever in danger of being open. Right?"
"Correct."
"Which meant that Willow was never tempted to use the dangerous resurrection spell that she used in the original timeline in Bargaining. Right?"
"Correct."
"Of course, it's possible that even if Buffy had died, that she might have decided not to use it anyway, because Ms. Calendar's still alive, and Rae Mistwood helped her out at the beginning, and so her forays into the dark side of magic have been fewer and farther between. At least I'm assuming, because if they hadn't been I'd think that would be a plot point you would gleefully throw in my face."
"I would not 'gleefully throw it in your face,' Miss Mars," the Adversary said. "But your main point is accurate: I would have told you had things gotten worse, or even remained the same. The condition was improvement. And Miss Rosenberg's attitude towards magic was definitely improved. While she would have been tempted, I believe, to bring Miss Summers back to life, she would have refrained from doing it. She has gazed into the darkness; she has not leapt forward into it." Good to know.
"Anyway," I said. "My point holds. No one would have been tempted to resurrect Buffy because there was no call to do so."
"Correct."
"And no resurrection means no glitch in the Slayer line, no throwing off the balance between good and evil – in short, no window for the First, right?"
"Again, correct."
I smiled. "Well, then. I think I've made my point."
Almost impatiently, the Adversary said, "And, Miss Mars, that point is . . . what?"
"It should be obvious by now, but I'll spell it out if it isn't. Yes, bad things have happened. Anyanka's still on the loose. Amy Madison is dead. Snyder is still alive. Joyce still died; Cordelia's parents still went to prison; the Initiative was decimated, worse than before. Wesley was mentally drained. Kendra is still dead. Faith is dead. Now let's balance that out, okay? Ms. Calendar is alive and married to Giles. Xander and Cordelia are engaged, even though Cordelia is a paraplegic. Willow's better with magic. Sheila's still alive. Vi is now a Slayer; Wesley is less of a useless fop.Larry and Harmony are still alive. Angelus has never come out to play, and probably never will. Spike and Drusilla are dead. Riley and Oz, while still having left, are not alienated the way they were in the original timeline. Rae Mistwood is still alive. Buffy didn't die a second time. So, think about that. This is what puts this over the top:" I began to tick off on my fingers. "No death; no resurrection; no First Evil showing up in season seven; no army of Turok-Han waiting to boil into the streets; no destruction of Sunnydale. All of which, it would seem to me, would indicate one thing."
"And that would be?"
"I win."