"Alright." Xander ordered. "You two, work on depossessing her." He pointed at Giles and Wesley. "While the rest of us have a discussion with the Deputy Mayor."

"Very well, we should be able to do so." Wesley said. "The being possessing her is still small and fairly powerless. But I do believe Mr. Giles lacks the necessary ingredients for such a ritual, so it will be necessary to go to the local Magic shop and purchase them."

"Still using more then double the words necessary." Xander said dryly. "Go." The whip of command had Wesley out the door before he even realized it.

"I'm feeling even angrier at you, Giles." Xander said tonelessly. "The Willow we encountered that manifested a second personality, one that separated from her and began killing Potentials and the Watchers Council in an effort to trick Buffy into getting Willow to activate all the Potentials worldwide. An act that would have led to thousands, Slayers and those around them dying and ultimately Buffy deciding to destroy Magic in an effort to fix the problems that resulted from it, which would have led to the Earth and humans dying as well, since Magic is apart of all of us. I just realized, it wasn't a separate personality. It looked like and talked like Willow and Willow herself called her Dark Willow, but it wasn't something from within Willow's own broken mind. It was something formless and nameless that possessed her. It molded itself into a dark version of her, while simultaneously feeding her obsessions with those around her. She wanted me to conform to her idea of what I should be, regardless of the fact that her ideas have no basis in reality and she wanted Buffy to never stop being her best friend, to always need her. All of that could have been avoided if you'd simply done your job. You know about Magic from personal experience and training. And yet you never verified the vampire with a soul's claims in any reality. You allowed Buffy to live out her sick, perverted fantasy with a walking corpse. And people suffered and died because of your inaction. Are you a recovering Magic addict in this reality, like you are in ours?"

"No, I wouldn't consider myself an addict, recovering or otherwise. The incident with Eyghon made me return to the Watchers and accept my destiny, though."

"Destiny is an excuse, Giles. You can say no to destiny. That was made very clear to Cordelia and I by the gods themselves. We could have said no to the destiny we were chosen for. We didn't because we couldn't have lived with ourselves if we did nothing and people kept dying. You and Buffy rail against the destinies imposed on you and never stop to understand, you have a choice. You just use the supposed lack of choice as an excuse for your behavior. Just once I'd like to find myself in a reality where Giles is competent and Buffy doesn't have the lusties for various walking corpses."

"They can examine themselves and figure out why they're so messed up after we leave this reality, Xander." Cordelia said. "By joining that fight earlier we stopped Buffy from throwing Finch at Faith and Faith thinking he was a vampire and staking him. Which in other realities led to Willow convincing Faith she was evil, Giles thinking she was unstable, Faith joining the Mayor because of Willow convincing her she was evil and Buffy trying to feed Faith to her pet vampire and Faith barely escaping and ending up in a coma for months. Given Willow hates Faith."

"And let's not forget what she did to you and your family too." Xander added. "See, I don't think Willow would have done any of that herself. Wanted to, yes, because she's hated you since we were five and she felt she had reason to hate Faith too. But she would have just kept stewing about it without that thing whispering in her own ear and the Magic she kept pulling to feed it rotting her brain."

"You're probably right." Cordelia agreed. "Before the Magic, Willow just did passive aggressive things like trick me into deleting my homework assignment. The Magic let her do mind raping and other stuff."

"But like you said, they can deal with their own problems and getting Willow help with hers after we deal with the current crisis. Stopping the Mayor. So Deputy Mayor Finch, tell us all about Mayor Richard Wilkins the First, Second and Third." Xander ordered. Deputy Mayor Finch proceeded to do so. Telling them about Mayor Wilkins selling his soul, sacrificing hundreds of humans, including babies, to various demons over the last century and all so he could Ascend into an Old One, an ancient and powerful dinosaur sized snake demon on their graduation day. Shock was perhaps too mild a word to describe the local Scooby gangs reaction to the news.

"Lurconis?" Giles asked, referring to a demon that required babies sacrificed to it once every fifty years that Buffy had killed.

"Just one of the demons he sacrificed to in his efforts." Xander agreed. "You can get confirmation of Richard Wilkins longevity in the Sunnydale archives. As for stopping him. Exactly one hundred days before graduation, he's going to do a ritual that makes him invulnerable to harm."

"Yes, the Ritual of Gaverox." Deputy Mayor Finch agreed.

"So, stopping him before then is the best bet." Xander pointed out.

"I agree." Giles said. "Once Wesley and I have completed the depossession ritual on Willow, I will send him to the archives to search for information on Mayor Wilkins. Then we will come up with a plan to stop him."

"I'd offer to help in that, but when we were sent out, it was made clear to us, we don't do the world saving thing. We're supposed to do small things. Mostly help people understand a problem or give them encouragement. It's to help us understand what our role will be once we reach the next stage of our lives. We don't do it for you, we help you figure out how to do it for yourself."

"You seem to have done a bit more." Giles pointed out.

"Yeah well, I may be on the path to being a god, but I'm still human. And even gods make mistakes. I have a temper, I admit that. I worry about what my temper can lead me to do. Helping me to understand and control my temper is just one of the goals of our journey. Why are you all staring at me?"

"You're on the path to being a god?!" Giles exclaimed.

"Did we forget to mention that?"