Episode 84: Conversations with Dead People

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by 3D Master (3dmaster@telfort.nl)

Disclaimer see Episode 79.

“You what!?”

The Summers’ household, which included a whole lot more than the Scooby Gang these days, looked at Faith.  The living room was filled with potentials, the Scooby Gang, Robin Wood, and watchers.  The Slayer had given no indication she was pissed, until she gave her sudden outburst, right after Buffy mentioned the First Slayer and what she found out in the past, or rather what she didn’t find out.

“Say that again!” Faith demanded of her blonde counterpart.

“Uh, we used this Slayer-history thingy, which was a fake Slayer-history thingy.  I went back to the past, and uh . . .” Buffy looked at the glowering brunette, “I met the First Slayer, the /real/ First Slayer.”

“I thought I heard correctly,” Faith said, and then suddenly surged forward and grabbed the blonde by her collar.  “And you couldn’t have called me!?  /I’m/ /The/ Slayer, remember!?   Don’t you think I wanted to meet the First damn Slayer!?”

“I didn’t know I was going to meet the First Slayer,” Buffy whined.  “We didn’t want to waste time.  It wasn’t just my decision.”

“It really wasn’t, Faith,” Xander said with a placating tone, “and we did want to get it over with as soon as possible.”

Faith looked to her left where Xander was sitting in a chair, and she sighed.  She let go of Buffy, and said, “AARGH!  The First Slayer, Xand.  She started this whole shit, you know.   She decided, she’s like . . . Superman, a friggin’ hero amongst heroes.”  She sighed in disappointment again, and looked around a bit.  There were potentials on the couches, a few sitting on the floor and even the table.  Some of the potentials from the other places were present as well, meaning the Summers’ living room was totally over stuffed.  “And I missed it!” Faith lamented again.

“If we knew the First Slayer would be there, we’d have called you and sent you both through, promise,” Tara said from her position behind Faith on one of the chairs around the high table.  Willow was sitting in her lap, nodding vigorously in agreement.

Faith didn’t listen as Buffy finished the last little bit of what had gone on to the ones who hadn’t been present the day before.  She deflated as she thought over the rest of it.  Molly voiced Faith’s thoughts a moment later, “Demons as Slayers, do any of you find that as bloody nightmarish as I do?”  Most nodded, especially those who had been thinking about it since yesterday.  “Think about it for a minute; you have a demon inside of you,” Molly continued, pointing at a random potential, “some inky, black, creature of pure evil, that’s enhancing your body . . . how long until it starts to influence your mind?  Our minds?”  She shivered.

“Yeah, damn good thing that’s not the case,” Buffy agreed, happy for small favors.

“How long till you start thinking of your best friends as snacks?” Kennedy said, deadly serious about the matter at hand for a change, not once thinking about the body’s of sexy girls. And for once it had been better if she had.  The youngest potentials started to look in horror at each other, and then started crying, complaining that they didn’t want to eat their newfound friends, or be eaten by them.  Which resulted in Watchers, older Slayers and the Scooby Gang grab the littlest potentials, and hug then, soothing them that it wasn’t going to happen since they didn’t have demons in them.  That it was just make-believe.

*****

A few days later

Under cover of darkness, the car drove up toward Sunnydale.  A sign welcoming everyone. Inside were two young men . . . geeks really.  “So . . . how are we going to do this, without being detected?” Andrew, in the passenger seat, asked of Jonathan.

Jonathan turned his head toward Andrew in disbelief, and said, “They are not all-seeing, dork.  We’re simply not going to make any ruckus.  We’ll drive to a nice catacomb entrance, and quietly slip inside, got it?”

“Yeah, okay,” Andrew answered, and looked over to Jonathan.  “Are you sure?  Cause . . .”

“I’m sure,” Jonathan said, exasperated, wondering how in blazes he managed to get caught up with him and Warren anyway.  What had he been thinking!?

“Why are we doing this again?” Andrew whined, obviously afraid, “I don’t fancy getting my head torn off my body, because they are that strong you know.”

“We’re on the path of redemption.  You do the right thing, even if it’s difficult or dangerous,” Jonathan said with conviction, turning left.  “Plus, if we help solve all of their problems they might put in a good word for us at the court, and we might get off easy, or even completely, then we can get a job, a girlfriend, kids, the whole nine yards, die a happy old man in a good bed nice and warm, and not starve to death in the pile of shit . . . literally.”

“Right, of course,” Andrew said then looked down, muttering, “it’s just that Superman ever needed to do this.”

Jonathan looked in disbelief at Andrew, and said, “Superman has never helped kill someone.”

“Yes, he did!  He’s even murdered outright.  Lois Lane even!  Haven’t you ever checked out superdickery.com!?” Andrew told Jonathan with large eyes.  “He makes us look like saints.”

“That’s old Superman, from Earth-2, real superman post-crisis was never an evil bastard,” Jonathan answered Andrew with conviction.

“Well pre-crisis Superman would kick post-crisis Superman’s ass, the evil one is stronger,” Andrew told Jonathan as a whiny protest.

“The hell he would,” Jonathan answered Andrew with a grumble.  “Post-crisis is good, that means it doesn’t matter how much more powerful Lois-Lane-killing Superman is, the good one will triumph in the end.  Which is exactly why we’re doing this!  We’re atoning for our sins, because good must triumph over evil.”

“Yeah, okay,” Andrew said, then looked out the side window sadly.

*****

Night in Sunnydale: deadly.  Both for Sunnydale’s human population, as Sunnydale’s inhuman population.  Buffy slowly walked through one of the town’s many cemeteries.  She sighed.  It had been quite a while since they had time left for patrols: between circling the globe with Xander for potentials to be saved, researching and homework from university, there wasn’t much time left.  Even with recent addition of rest nights.  Today though: no prophetic dreams from Faith.  Buffy was almost certain that that meant there were no more Potentials, or hardly any Potentials left.  She was also certain everyone else thought the same. The damn thing was, that even with the nearly 300 or so Potentials here, it still meant the First and his followers - armies of them it seemed - had killed thousands of them.  Buffy sighed, it was staggering to think how many had died, despite the amount of their power.  Of course, many more would have been dead if they hadn’t had their power.

Buffy stopped at a grave and waited.  Her sixth sense could easily sense the demon in the ground digging itself out.  After about a minute a hand came free and Buffy grabbed it, smoothly pulling the vampire in a black burial suit free.  “Hi, bye,” Buffy said, preparing to ram her stake in his chest.

The vampire growled, and then said, “Buffy?”  Buffy froze, the stack mere millimeters in front of the vampire’s chest.  “Buffy Summers?”  Buffy looked up at his face, blinked, then set him down and took a step back to take him in.  “It’s Holden,” the vampire said with a smile.  Buffy looked confused at him.  “Holden Webster?  We took history together, remember?  I lent you copy off of my Stalin essay?”

“Holden!  Right,” Buffy answered, obviously not recognizing him.

“Oh, come on,” Holden exclaimed in annoyance, “I was in the homecoming dance committee?”

“I wasn’t,” Buffy said still confused.

Holden smiled, and said, “No, but I asked you to hold up a sign for me, I dropped it on your foot.”

Buffy’s eyes widened, she remembered hopping on her foot for bit cradling the hurt one, before chewing out a skinny guy, and then help grumbling all the way with his sign.  Suddenly she recognized him, “Hey!  Wow, you filled out.”

“Tae Kwan Do,” Holden said proudly, puffing out his chest, “found it in freshman year in college.  You on the other hand; not make enough money for food?”

“WHAT!?” Buffy shrieked as if hurt.  Then he attacked viciously.

*****

Tara and Willow walked out of the movie theater, smiling, still enjoying the comedy.  “I feel kinda guilty,” Willow said as they walked along the pavement back toward home.

“Willow, we’ve got only so many books to read, and so much more people to read them.   We deserve a night off, or we go insane,” Tara said somewhat exasperated, the good mood from the movie quickly exasperated.

“I know,” Willow quickly answered and then added, “but I still feel like I should be doing something other than enjoying a movie with my lover while we’re facing possibly Armageddon.”

“Armageddon?  Aren’t we usually going with Apocalypse?” Tara asked with a frown.

Willow nodded at Tara, and said, “That’s what I mean.  This thing won’t be satisfied with simply putting demons back on the planet, it wants to destroy it, the universe even.  And it’s had eons to plan this, subtlely changing it’s plans to fit new developments and it decided to strike /now/.  Doesn’t that frighten you?”

“A little,” Tara admitted, but continued, “but as long as you, me, and the others are working together I know we’ll win.  We’re not going to lose now, after all the things we’ve been through.”

Willow looked with admiration at Tara’s conviction, her rock steady belief.  “I love you,” Willow just said finally.  Tara smiled and they kissed gently but deeply for a few minutes. They broke the kiss and started walking forward.

They felt the power before they saw it.  Right in front of them, in the pavement, a hole opened up.  The tiles just warbled and then sank down, making a almost ninety degree angle at the edge of the hole, which colored fiery orange.  Flames seemed to burn in the hole, and then a figure, like spirit, an angry fiery vengeful spirit erupted from the hole . . . or perhaps just a woman.  Her clothes were tattered, short raven hair reaching to just below the ears.  Her eyes though, her eyes were different; they seemed to be two balls of fire, as if the woman was always burning on the inside in an eternal, damning fire.  The expression on her face was attested to that as well: twisted in hate, anger, yet somehow eternally in pain that would never be quenched.

Willow and Tara had raised their magics, but Tara’s then just deflated.  “Mom?” Tara asked with defeat and shock.  Willow froze, looking from her beloved to her ‘mother’.  The First Evil, Willow thought instantly.  They had mentally readied themselves for days in case the First Evil would show up in whatever form it might choose; not showing up at all instead, had been a brilliant move, making them always wondering.  But all Tara’s preparations, even suspecting her mother to make an appearance had not prepared her for this; not her mother, but some twisted, evil, and most of all /demonic/ version of her mother.

“TARA!” her demonic mother screeched, “my sweet daughter!”  The spirit shot forward, without touching the floor, seeming hanging in the air just higher than Tara was tall by unseen strings, her hair, and the tatters of her clothes fluttering about in an seemingly present, yet not present, unearthly fiery light.  Both hands - more like talons - grabbed Tara’s collar and lifted her off the floor.  “Oh, my sweet Tara, what I have done to you!  Your father was right!” her mother called with an eery, screeching, yet not screeching voice that somehow echoed around the Sunnydale buildings, without echoing at all.  Tara’s eyes were wide with terror as she was lifted off the floor, but what terrified her more were the words.  Those words!  Coming from her mother, along with the hot wind as if standing right next to a huge fire!  “We’re not demons upon this Earth, Tara, but we will be when we *BURN IN HELL!*”

“No!” Tara whimpered, staring in her mother’s fiery orbs, somehow reflecting the mother she once knew, yet twisted and evil.  The sensation wasn’t just her fears, it was the very essence of her mother’s spiritual energy, fiery, twisted, crushing her own at an impossible depth.

“YES!” her mother screeched, seemingly quite happy about it.  “Pain, suffering, such delicious torment, Tara!  It’s our magic!  The bible warned us, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’  We turned from god, it is our punishment, an eternal fire, like melting alive in lava, eternally, but without reprieve of death!  You’ll understand!”  Her mother pulled her right claw back, seemingly loving the look of pure terror on her daughter and readying to kill her so she could come with.  “We’ll suffer for our sins together!”

The claws ready to tear into her girlfriend’s body, finally jolted Willow out of her surprise, shock and some fear.  With a whispered word of power, she sent her own spiritual energy clashing against the demonic one.  It seemed to help a bit, Tara’s mother jolted, frowning for a moment at Willow, but then refocused on Tara.  Suddenly her eyes widened.   “No!” she exclaimed, and the fires in the dimensional tear audibly flared up for a moment.   Tara then fell through her mother’s fingers, as if they dissolved there.  “No, please!” she wailed in pain, “Please, so close, no!”  She was yanked back suddenly, to above the hole, then irrevocably was being pulled down.  “Let me kill her!  Let me share the torture with her at least!  I’ll do it in your glory!”  Tara’s mother wailed with unearthly torment in her voice, her arms clawing around as if trying to grab a hold of nothing, struggling against the hole’s pull.   To no avail, as she was pulled in, one final time grabbing ahold of the fiery edge, wailing, “Please!  Let me kill her!  I’ll torture her even!”  Then her claws disappeared as well.  The hole disappeared; it was as if the tiles were lifted back up, folding back in place, and then it was gone.  A final small warble rippling along the ground, rapidly growing less, fading away by before two meters were past.

Then all was quiet, as if nothing happened . . . except for the sobbing and crying of a blonde witch, and joined quickly by the soothing sounds of a redhead witch, as she hugged her girlfriend close.

*****

Faith walked through her second cemetery, having opted to leave her stakes at home.  It wasn’t like she needed any.  She could splatter vampires and demons with a single punch all over the graveyard, a stake was quite useless.  The same went for Buffy, but for some reason Faith observed the blonde like to have them with her anyway.  Perhaps it was because Buffy had fought with them quite a bit longer than Faith.  Faith stopped her musing in that direction, and wished more vamps came out.  She had dusted two earlier and was eager for more.  Her tight pants and top she usually wore when patrolling felt good on her skin, of course it was at that good observation that all had to go to hell.

“Hello, my spitfire,” a voice said, and Faith froze, looking to her right.  Mayor Richard Wilkins the third, and second and first came in sight, “you haven’t changed a bit, well . . .” The Mayor frowned somewhere between disapproval and a smile, “. . . apart from switching teams of course.  Naughty.”

Faith let her surprise and tension drain from her before answering, almost spitting it out with hatred, “You’re the First Evil.  Finally decided to give the rest of us a visit too, I see.”   She simply walked onward.

FirstMayor walked with her, and said, “I always loved your attitude, Faith, even when it was directed at me.  You should really try to wear a dress more often though, perhaps it’s the time I was born in, but a woman in a dress, heavenly.”

“Stop!  I already know you’re the First, so why continue with this stupid charade?” Faith asked vehemently, hating the vision in front of her, hating the pang of pleasant familiarity that coursed through her being.  Even if this actually was her Mayor, and not the First Evil in disguise, he’d still be evil.

“Ah, my dear Faith, you don’t understand,” FirstMayor said, shaking his head, then morphed.

Faith’s breath caught in her throat: there before her, stood her first Watcher, Eliza Douglas, the one she had watched being tortured to death.  Worse, FirstEliza had her skull bashed in, and was covered in burn marks and other signs of torture - the condition she had been in, hanging from the ceiling bound in ropes, when she had last seen her; already dead as Faith fled.  She felt tears burst upward, and she attempted to fight them back with all she head. “You fucking bastard!” Faith hissed angrily, and burst forward throwing a punch at her fake Watcher.  It passed through, harmlessly, behind the First she choked, a sob half-erupting from the back of her throat.  She turned partially around, tears threatening in her eyes as she looked at it, her, him . . .

“I am sorry, Faith,” FirstEliza spoke, with the same concern and British voice, her shape shifting to become that of an unhurt FirstEliza.  “Sadly it’s also rather the point.  You see, Faith, I’m your Watcher, for real.  When people die, all those with some darkness in their hearts, they become part of me.  Not fake, not an image, their souls, their very essence, /them/. You understand?  When I take their image, I don’t just take their image, I become them in the whole.  I /am/ Eliza Douglas, your first Watcher.”  Faith looked at the First Evil version of her first Watcher, and felt another sob wrack her body.

*****

Angel sat on the couch in the living room of the refurbished Crawford Mansion.  A few sweaty Potentials entered from the back, towels around their necks, having had a serious training session in the small gym there.  They went straight to the stairs and moved up. Around Angel were a whole group of really young Potentials.  It had taken some doing, especially on his and Cordelia’s part - the Watcher generally didn’t seem to care what happened to the him: the vampire - but most the especially younger potentials finally stopped treating him like a nifty toy to tease.

“So, there it suddenly was, a bug three times the size of a grown man,” Angel spoke, telling his tail; and embellishing it shamelessly.  “Slime dripped from all it’s body, splotch splotch on the ground.”

“Eeeew!” some the potentials exclaimed with a disgusted face, the rest of them had equally disgusted faces.

“That was nothing yet,” Angel said sagely, smiling, “it had sawtoothed talons the size of men, dripping with its slime.  Giant fangs that could no doubt deliver poison, or even some kind of acid to dissolve a man from the inside out . . .”  The girls looked disgusted and some afraid.  “. . . big insect eyes, hundreds of little patches, and hissed and screeched!  Almost took your breath away.  Long, hard, legs, also covered in slime, a bug, a thousand times stronger than even the strongest men, just there, suddenly . . .”  He looked around and looked all the suitably grossed out Potentials in the eyes.  “Then it shot some kind of webbing from its mouth, but not like Spider-man, oh no, slimy, disgusting, sticky stuff, more brown than white.”   The Potentials looked even more disgusted.  “I dove out of the way, but the others didn’t, you see.  They were all just human, so they were at first frozen with fear, surprise, shock and disgust, but me . . . my inner demon only saw something to kill, even if it was four times as big and 600 times as strong.  A moment later all my friends, Wesley, Cordelia, Fred and her parents, and even Faith were cocooned in the disgusting stuff up to their noses, probably all sticking in their mouths . . .”  The potentials shivered at the disgusting notion, spellbound by Angel’s tale.  “That left only me, one lone vampire, against a really nasty, huge, sticky, disgusting bug.  I wasted no time and attacked it right away.  Jumping to ram my fist in its head, which only made my fist sticky, and the bug mad - /really/ mad.”

Angel paused, as if remembering the dirty deed.  “Then what?!  Then what!?” a Potential exclaimed and the other girls nodded.

“Well, I realized that fists weren’t going to do it, I needed something sharp, something that could cut - I needed weapons, so, with the big, slimy bug running right after me, screeching madly, I ran out of the station.  I was heading to the car, to get my trusty battle axe, and it also meant the bug was no longer with our friends and couldn’t /eat them/,” Angel said with a little smirk.  “I ran out the doors, knowing the bug couldn’t pass under it, and was hoping to slow it down, it just smashed its way straight through the wall.  I would have been done for, if the falling debris didn’t trip it and slowed it down.  I reached the car soon after, and quickly got out the weapons, and turned to the onrushing demon.  I ran at it too, and then suddenly rolled, going underneath it, and sticking out my axe.  The bug screeched horribly as the axe cut into its hard skin.  I had wounded it; which only made it madder and more determined to have me for breakfast . . .”

“Ooh, daddy always could speak such wonderful tales, it makes the stars sing, it does!”   The potentials were surprised, and looked beyond Angel.  Angel’s eyes widened too and twisted around, seeing Drusilla stand there.  For a moment he thought it really was her, but then Drusilla walked forward, passing through the couch, through Angel and stood in between him and his audience.

“The First Evil,” Angel whispered, almost hissing.

“Ooh, daddy says such wonderful things,” FirstDrusilla mewled, swaying back and forth, “what next Angel?  Did daddy get angry and turn into a giant, hulking, green monster vampire that squashed the itty bitty bug with a single punch?”  The first raised Drusilla’s hands to the stars, or rather to the ceiling as the case may be, and singsonged, “Oh, you sweet stars, whisper to me, what fantasy my sire has.  How can one not love such untrue words?”

One of the Potentials got the guts to speak up, “Mr. Angel, the Slayers and Mr. Xander will destroy you!  You don’t scare me.”

The First Evil twisted around to face the standing Potential, Drusilla’s eyes started to glow like fire, and she turn into a man.  “Is that so,” the First Evil spoke with a rumbling voice.

“Daddy,” the girl whispered plaintively.

“Were hoping he was still alive, little girl?” the First Evil growled, and Angel lunged, shouting in anger.  Of course, he just passed through the apparition, and landed on his knees next to it.  It laughed, pointed at the now thoroughly terrified girl, and said, “Soon, you will burn in hell along with your mommy and daddy, for only the short time while it takes me to destroy it too.”  Several older Potentials came storming down the stairs and coming from the back area at the commotion, several Watchers along with them.  The First Evil gave them a quick once over, and said with an evil grin, “And what do you think you’re going to do to me? Look me to death?”

“You sick, twisted son of a bitch,” Angel growled, vamping out, making some of the Potentials gasp.  “At least leave the young ones alone!”

“Oh, no daddy,” Drusilla was back, but seemingly rather sane, “they are the whole key, leaving them alone would be insane.  You on the other hand, a vampire, killing his own, protecting his food, what do you call that?”

“The right thing,” Angel told it, looking with guilt at the sane Drusilla.

The First Evil laughed.  “You like the way I was before you destroyed my mind, Angelus?” it said in the guise of Drusilla.  “Sane, I was: stable.  You destroyed that, before you ended my life, and recreated me in your image.  In that, I am very much the same.  I’ll destroy this universe, and then I’ll create a new one, as I helped do so many eons ago, but this time, it’ll be in /my/ image.”

“You /are/ insane,” Angel countered, grimacing, hurting to see the woman he destroyed, and yet it wasn’t that woman, because he could see the malevolence in her eyes, an evil she never possessed, one even worse than the demon he created.  “You will die along with this universe.”

“Wrong, Angelus, that’s what you never understood.  I’m not of this universe, I’m outside it.  Whatever happens to this place, won’t happen to me,” the First Evil finished, and then looked around the room, at the gathered Potentials, and the gathered Watchers; all impotent.  “And you can’t stop me, nobody can.”  Then FirstDrusilla grew and morphed into another guise: that of a sickeningly twisted and disgusting horned demon; fire burning around and in him.  A final growling laugh, and the First Evil disappeared.

Leaving in its wake, a lot of terrified young Potentials, fearful older ones, fearful Watchers, a fearful Angel, and a fearful Fred.

*****

Xander looked around the industrial warehouse that he transformed into a hangar.  Long ago it was often used, but it had fallen in disuse and Xander had eventually been able to purchase it for a small price.  His inter-dimensional ship stood proudly in the middle; all kinds of trinkets were around.  Some on tables, some in sterile enclosures.  The different technological marvels were around the ship in a quare, following the buildings’ walls.  The far corner to the left and the far corner to the right were two of said sterile enclosures, all covered up in see-through plastic.  To Xander’s left, in the near corner was Xander’s regeneration chamber: of all the things that had survived the Xander’s and Anya’s house’s destruction, it had to be that stupid chamber; the one all but symbolizing Xander’s long painstaking managing of his secret - a constant reminder of his failures, especially now that Anya was dead.  He had come here, because the mystical, magical and brute force of his chi didn’t seem to be able to solve this problem, so he had turned to the technological.

He sat down at one of the tables in this makeshift hangar that doubled as a makeshift laboratory, tinkering around with some technology based upon the dimensional drive from the ship.  Something that would have to do with phasing this just in and out of sync with the universe, something he suspected might help bring the First Evil fully here, and thus vulnerable to their abilities; of course it would probably also mean it could unleash whatever powers it had here, upon them.  He worked around at silently, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time.

Next to him something started to shimmer.  It slowly shimmered a bit brighter and more and more of it became visible.  Xander noticed it with multiple senses and turned gently toward it, waiting patiently.  A moment later the shimmering coalesced into a form of a teen male wearing backward baseball cap and baggy clothes.  “Hey, bro,” Jesse greeted enthusiastically.

“Oh, please, Anya didn’t work so you bring up my childhood friend?” Xander said dryly and turned back to his work without a second notice.

“I’m not the First Evil, Xan,” Jesse said with a grin.

“Yeah, right,” Xander muttered without looking up.

“Watch this,” Jesse said, and turned to the table, concentrating.  Xander continued what he was doing for a bit longer, before curiosity got the better of him.  He turned to his left and watch Jesse have his hands in front of him, and seemingly concentrating hard.

Xander blinked once, then raised his eyebrows, but remained patient.  Not for long though, and asked, “What are you doing?”

“We’ve seen ‘Ghost’,” Jesse said, obviously putting in some effort.  Then he reached forward and picked up a wrench.  “See!?  First Evil can’t do this!” Jesse said triumphantly, waving the wrench around in front of an astonished Xander.  Then the wrench went flying off to Jesse’s right, clanging loudly onto the floor.  “Ah, man, I’m still new at this, gotta put more effort into it,” Jesse said forlorn, looking at the wrench that had flown out of his grasp straight through his hands.

Xander blinked a few times, looking at the downed wrench, and then turned to look at Jesse.  There was a wondering and suspicion in his eyes.  “Come on, bro,” Jesse told him, “we’re wasting precious time here, you know how much effort it is to be visible?  I’m a ghost. You should be able to sense it too; I’m not the First.”

Xander extended his senses, feeling Jesse, but the tell-tale subtle coiling of something hidden away somewhere else he had felt with Anya was not present.  “You could have faked that.  And perhaps you can hide what you are, or with Anya you made me feel something just so you could be here now,” Xander reasoned.

“Probably, but it’s me, for real, Xan.  This is your childhood friend here, not some inter-dimensional super spiritual evil,” Jesse complained, almost whined at Xander, much like Xander remembered Jesse doing.

“Hmm,” Xander said, nodding, looking Jesse’s spirit over with suspicion.  “Let’s say for a moment you are actually the spirit of Jesse, his soul, I would have to say it’d be a mighty big coincidence for you, what . . . an angel or something, to come to me, just as there’s a being around that can impersonate the date.”

“It isn’t a coincidence, and I’m not an Angel,” Jesse said desperately, looking deeply into Xander’s eyes.  “I managed to break out, more like all the good people helped me out to do so . . . I know a lot of things about the First.”

“Break out?” Xander asked.

“Yeah, out of it, the First Evil,” Jesse explained, and as Xander’s look only grew more dubious he quickly added, “Every single soul, spirit, being, that dies upon the Hellmouth, or close enough to it, get’s a nice one way ticket into it.  No hell, no heaven, just entrapment inside pure evil; which is about as bad as hell, let me tell you.  And once you’re part of fit, it can use all your power and knowledge.  Anyway, we’re all in there, from the good to the bad, vampires, millennia worth of humans, a giant snake mayor, Glory, Xantia, Ram, a giant bunny-demon, a vampire-version of me . . . Anya.  From her I got the biggest lowdown of what’s been happening since my untimely death.  And that’s all on top of his own humongous power,” Jesse finished, looking into a misty-eyed Xander.

“Anya?” he asked gently.

Jesse nodded, “Yeah, it’s a good thing it can’t actually utilize all that power here, it being ‘incorporeal’ and all, otherwise this planet would be scorched by now.”

“Jesse, I love you,” Xander said with an angry frown, “but you’re not my wife, so how come she wasn’t helped to break out.”

“I asked her to same thing when she said she wouldn’t go, she answered with the same answer.  She said with me outside you could live, with her ghost around you wouldn’t go out, live, and find yourself a good wife who could give you children,” Jesse answered him, nodding.

Xander’s lips opened up a bit, looking half-surprised, half-confused at Jesse.

*****

Fred had walked away from the living room, through the kitchen and out the back, into the garden of the Crawford Mansion.  No longer a half-dead enclosure, it was now very much alive, all the dead roots and plants removed, filled with bushes and flowers.  She found a place to lean, and thought, wondered.  How to defeat something with such evil and so indestructible?

“So . . .”

Fred whirled around, and there on the small stone edge that separated ground and plant from the pavement, sat Gunn.  He smiled casually, “What are you doing, Fred?  Doing nothing, waiting around for the next loved one to die?”

Fred shrank back at the attack of her own doubts.  Had she done enough?  Could she have saved Gunn?  Was she doing enough now?  She forced herself, to stand back straight, and told it, “You’re not him.”

“Does it matter?” FirstGunn smirked.  “Truth is the truth, isn’t it?”

Fred’s breath caught in her throat, and took a step back.  FirstGunn stood up, and walked over to her casually, smiling.  He brought his hand up, and just before he’d touch her he stopped his head, slowly moving it admiringly around the contours of Fred’s face.  Fred was breathing shallowly, afraid, but unable to tear her eyes away from Gunn’s.  “So beautiful.  But alas, life eh, one fights and gets eaten, the other sits on her ass and does nothing, too bad,” Gunn said friendly.  Tears sprang in Fred’s eyes, and Gunn smiled at the girl at the breaking point.  “I wonder who gets eaten this time while you sit on your ass.  You didn’t think your ridiculous training made any difference, did you?”  And then he was gone, just like that, and Fred collapsed to the ground, crying, where she was found a little later by Angel.

*****

Dawn was surrounded by a bunch of potentials inside her house.  With the rest out - Giles and some Watchers were off on some lead there might be more information somewhere - she was the designated protector of the place and the people in it.  It felt rather good that the others trusted her enough to be able to keep people safe.  The black arm twisted and twisted around, but finally slowed down and stopped.  “Left hand, yellow!” Dawn announced with a grin, looking down.  While she was sitting comfortably on a chair, a whole pile of Potentials were on the square plastic sheet.  One Potential started, grunting with effort, to move her hand toward a yellow circle, reaching underneath several other girls, all huffing with effort.  Dawn had realized, best way to keep the Potentials quiet and not pawing her, was to have them paw each other while the mere concept of yellow reduced their chances of winning a game: Twister it was, and it was working marvelously.  She was comfortable, they were uncomfortable, and they were too busy, and having too much fun to notice she had outsmarted them all.

“Alright, Selma, I’m twisting for you now,” Dawn said with a comfortable smile, giving the arm another swing and watching it twist around.  In the kitchen a few Potentials were busy playing some other board games, including Monopoly - Dawn had decided to go easy on them, and resisted the urge to utterly brutalize them in it.  “Right foot, red,” Dawn said once the arm had stopped twisting.  The girl, with her tongue out her mouth with effort, tried to reach a red circle with her right foot.  Dawn smiled, as she watched the pile, and a whole group of Potentials watching the proceedings; waiting their turn in the tournament that would drop a group of potentials, some winners would face each other, and onward till there’d be a clear victor.  Places one, two, and three would be getting a price: a tasty piece of candy.  Yep, Dawn had done it: victory over little kids, some peace and quiet, while the bigger Potentials were off doing whatever.  A few were watching a DVD close by, others were training, again a few others might be up to some naughty things, and depending on exactly what kind of naughty she’d punish them later.  It was good to be queen of one’s domain.

Of course, that meant that right now things could only go to hell in a handbasket - or the closet thing to it at least.  The green ankh started glowing, throwing the room in an eery green glow, and then magical alarm lights started flashing and a magical alarm started blaring through the house.  Everyone was alert instantly - which meant the pile playing twister instantly reduced to a pile of wiggling entangled limbs, struggling to move and breathe. “What the hell!?” Dawn said, getting up and looking around, seeing and hearing barely more than the alarm.  “AARGH, THIS IS DRIVING ME INSANE!  QUIT IT!!”

The sounds instantly died and the lights became much more subdued.  Dawn sighed in relief that Tara had thought of that feature.  Several Potentials came from the kitchen and bounding down the stairs.  “What’s going on!?” a few called, while the little Potentials slowly started to disentangle themselves.

Dawn shrugged, looking around, not really seeing the First Evil; or for that matter any other intruder.  She peered through the ranks to see if there was a girl she didn’t know, but that wasn’t really it.  Then there was a loud subdued bash, as if someone slammed a sledgehammer against the wall . . . from within the wall.  Then there was another, and another one.  “Okay, who came up with the tacky poltergeist motif?  Yo, First!?  Can’t do any better!?” Dawn brazenly called out.

“Was that really wise?” one of the Potentials, the redhead Vi, wined.  “Do we really want to mock the Evil that existed before the universe?”

Dawn looked at her a little annoyed, and said, “I know what I’m doing.”  She really didn’t, but she was as much not admitting it for herself, as she was doing it to give confidence to the little ones that all would be alright.   A few more thuds, and then it went away.  The alarm still gently flickered though, and the ankh glowed subdued.  Everyone stayed silent, looking around, up and down too, to see if anything else would be coming from any direction.

There was a shimmering light then, it was in front of them, at the couch standing under the front window.  But it disappeared again.  “What the?” Dawn muttered, and a moment later there was another shimmer.  Dawn had the distinct impression that it was somehow struggling, struggling to get in.  There was another shimmer, and then a figure materialized on the couch: a blond figure, a female figure.  “MOM!?” Dawn asked in surprise and shocked. Dawn took a few steps forward, but Vi grabbed her by the shoulder.

“The First,” Vi warned, obviously afraid.

“If it is, it can’t hurt me,” Dawn said, and shook loose, walking closer to her mother. “You the First?” Dawn asked, still walking forward, circling the first couch.  Joyce shook her head ‘no’, and Dawn stopped.  Her sixth sense told her there was an energy barrier between her and Joyce.  Dawn stretched her hand forward and touched it with her finger.  “Ouch,” she said, pulling her finger back as the shield shimmered, and singed it.

Dawn blinked as she recognized her mother’s look of concern, and she seemed to attempt to point to Dawn’s left, toward the front door.  Dawn turned to it, and saw nothing.  Her eyes widened when her sixth sense was assaulted, and with an explosion of sound some kind of small greyish/brown indistinct balled demon plopped out of nowhere.  It growled and jumped forward with a vicious punch, that Dawn blocked just barely, taking a staggering step back.   Joyce shimmered, gasping, as if trying to hold on to her tenuous hold on reality.  “Mom!” Dawn noticed, but was forced to block the demon’s next attack.  This time there was another explosive sound as the demon’s fist her block, but it was more than first.  It seemed the house shook, lights flashed, the walls groaned as it tried to become alive.  Several tears ripped across the inner wall separating the living room from the hall at the front door.  The Potentials shrieked and screamed with surprise, shock and fright.  Dawn groaned as she kept up her block, even as the demon kept its punching hand in place, grimacing at her with several rows of razor-sharp teeth.  Odd, the thing seemed rather insubstantial, as if it was only partly here; it was obviously here enough though.  Especially when wind blew from the demon at her, and then a lightning bold came out of nowhere, as if it had started somewhere else and halfway down just materialized in this.  It smashed into Dawn, sizzling her, making her scream in pain before being launched back and slammed painfully into the wall, then dropped to the floor.

Dawn was painfully aware that normally she would have gone through the wall with such force; something had reinforced it, being made painfully clear to her back.  Groaning she forced herself to her hands and knees, and saw house lock down.  Windows and doors slammed closed, blinders rammed loudly shut, and the Potentials really started screaming now, even the older ones.  Some of them were, “We’re trapped!”

The only half-present demon’s energy pressed down on everything, Dawn felt like the house was on her shoulders as she forced herself up to her legs.  “Get into the Gym, and don’t come out until I get you, or that thing comes in after you!” Dawn called out loud.  The demon looked over at the Potentials who stopped screaming for a moment, but quickly focused back on Dawn.  “NOW!” Dawn screamed, and powered up, her chi flame bursting around her powerfully, quickly adding its own power to the already explosive mix of flashing lights, wind and storms inside as if it was outside, making the atmosphere even thicker with energy.  This very much caught the attention of the Potentials, realizing they didn’t want to be anywhere near when those two titanic forces would truly collide.  They quickly turned, and started running toward the kitchen, and onward to the gym.

“D-D- . . .” a difficult voice choked out from Joyce.  Dawn let one eye look at her mother who obviously had it difficult.  “Be . . . ca-”

Dawn focused back on the half-present demon, and hissed, “Nobody messes with my mother.”  She then burst forward, and the demon did the same.

*****

The two nerds entered the school, and looked around for a bit.  “Okay, this is it,” Andrew said, still looking around. Jonathan nodded. “We split up, and find the entrance to the basement.”

“Okay, let’s go,” Andrew answered, and started walking.

“Hold on, let’s check communications first,” Andrew said quickly, fumbling with his equipment.

“You’re right,” Jonathan said, and started doing the same. A little later both pulled out walkie talkies.  “Check.”

“Check,” Andrew said into his own.

“Check.”

“Check.”

“Check.”

After a few more checks they were satisfied it worked, and gave each other nod.  Then they split up.  Andrew went right, and then turned a corner.  A little later, “Psst.”

“Yah!” Andrew exclaimed softly, body jerking with the sudden shock, his heart beaten a thousand times faster in a moment.  He turned around and from a dark place in a side opening Warren arrived.  “Sjeez, don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” Warren said with a big smile.  “You’re doing great, Andrew.”

“Yeah, well, it’s tough keeping up pretenses you know, especially being all nice and cool and stuff,” Andrew whined somewhat, looking about his being, tapping his chest to see if he wasn’t having a heart attack.

“Don’t worry, just a little bit more,” Warren soothed the nerd.  “Remember, dying was all part of my plan.  All so I can be resurrected more powerful than ever.  And you will help me with that, as a result, you too will ascend with me.”

“Yeah, yeah, but is this really the only way?” Andrew whimpered.

Warren took a step forward, and looked into Andrew’s eyes with strength, confidence, faith and just a hint of smoldering passion.  “Don’t worry, you can do it, I know you can,” Warren said with a slight smirk.  Andrew nodded.  “Go then, and hurry,” Warren said, then vanished.

*****

Buffy smoothly blocked Holden’s admittedly good punches, then smoothly ducked beneath a kick and slammed both her hands into his stomach.  He was launched back a few meters and landed on his ass.  “Whoa,” he said, sitting up, looking at the advancing Buffy with surprise. “You’re good, and strong too.”

“Of course,” Buffy all but growled, and watched as Holden de-vamped.

“Hey, did my face just change?” he asked.

Buffy stopped in her tracks, looking oddly at him.  Finally she decided to answer, “Well, yeah, you can do that.  You look human now, you were just ‘vamped out’ as we call it.”

“Cool,” Holden said, feeling his face, and then got up, feeling his face.  “So, how have you been, apart from learning how to fight like me?”

“I could fight even back in high school,” Buffy said indignant, lowering her arms, “I’m the Slayer after all, and I was it before I came to Sunnydale.”

“Really?  Sounds like you’re the only one, or something.  And what is a Slayer anyway?” Holden asked her thoughtfully.

Buffy rolled her eyes and recited, “Every generation there is a chosen one.  One girl in all world given the power to fight the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness . . . basically, though through a weird quirk there are now two.  And what’s wrong with you anyway?  Where did overbite go?  You’re supposed to be all ‘let’s kill and be merry’.”

“Oh, yeah, I definitely feel the bloodlust, the urge to kill, tear you to pieces, and perhaps put a good raping in there, but that doesn’t mean I have to be impolite.  Besides, cats play with their food too,” Holden said with a smile.

Buffy stared at him for a moment, and relaxed more.  She took a step back and leaned against a tombstone, taking in Holden.  “You’re crazy, you wanna talk me into being terrified of you?” Buffy asked him with an odd look.

“I can categorically say that I am not crazy.  Evil, diabolical, yes - crazy, no,” Holden said, nodding, and sat himself down on high grave slab.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Buffy asked him annoyed.

Holden smiled, and said, “Psych major, interning at the local psych ward. Speaking of which remember ‘I am crazy, I am crazy’ Wheeler?”

Buffy rolled her eyes again, and answered, “Yes, how’s he?”

“Crazy,” Holden answered smirking widely, “spent his time in the psych ward ever since graduation.”  Holden chuckled.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” Buffy asked him.

“No, ironic,” Holden returned, smiling broadly.  “Life, eh?  We barely know each other in high school, I drop something on your foot, and here we are, mortal enemies.”  Buffy narrowed her eyes at him.  “Well, come on, I told you about my life since high school.  Your turn, I did ask you about it, and you didn’t me.”

Buffy regarded him for a moment, and wondered.  Then smirked as she figured ‘why not?’   The vamp wasn’t going to survive anyway, and perhaps she could play a little with him.   “Well, apart from the nightly dusting and torturing to death of your kind and a few other demons, I went to Sunnydale College, had no idea what to study at first though.  Brought down a demon-cyborg with my friends, built by the US military, dated one of them; US military I mean.  He loved me, I didn’t really love him, was in love with the idea of him, you know, blonde, blue eyes, fighting demons as a soldier, your veritable white knight in shiny armor - so he went to vampire whores.”

“Wow, that sucks, no pun intended,” Holden answered her.

“Dusted them all, the whores, the pimps, killed them all in one go, loved it,” Buffy said with a bright smirk, that indeed made Holden swallow.  “Anyway, I kicked him out the curb, mom died of an aneurysm after surgery, all alone to raise my little sister . . . which means I have a lower load now, and can spend an extra year in college.  I finally found out what I wanted to study last year: languages - Germanic language more precisely, although I learned the occasional Latin ones.  Great friends too, how about you?”

“A few.  Lovely girlfriend, very biteable,” Holden said with a grin.  “Not gonna vampify her though, so very tacky, way too Anne Rice for me, been done too often.  Might just eat her though.”

Buffy sighed audibly, then told him exasperated, “Vampires and sex, all with the pain and death.  And it’s ‘sire’ when you turn someone into a vampire.  It’s a noun too.”

“It’s a guy thing,” Holden defended himself, “we ‘nail’ girls . . .”

“Oh, no, trust me, with vampires it’s different, it’s actually death, blood, pain, suffering,” Buffy corrected him, standing straight from her tombstone, and turned away from Holden.

“Personal experience?” Holden smirked evilly, standing up as well.

“Sadly yes,” Buffy said, shivering again at her choices, “and trust me, for living breathing . . .”  Holden vamped out and jumped forward, intent on biting Buffy in the neck.  Buffy smoothly turned around and smashed an uppercut against his chin.  With a groan Holden was sent flying through the air, having a bloody lip.  He landed and tumbled.  He stopped himself, and looked at her from the ground.  “What the hell happened to being polite?  Or do you think jumping someone from the back while she’s opening up is polite?” Buffy demanded angrily.

Holden chuckled, and as he got up he said, “Well, too much of a good thing isn’t good either.”

“Well . . .” Buffy started, then paused frowning.  She shrugged and said, “I suppose being a good battler of evil, this is where I tell you, you won’t get to kill your girlfriend, because I’m going to kill you first.”

“Little overconfident we?  I’m not just a vampire, Buffy, I know Tae Kwan Do, you know, I’m better than you,” Holden told her, still vamped out, licking his left fang.

“No, you’re not.  You’re so far out of your league, it isn’t even funny,” Buffy said with a wide smile, then frowned.  “Actually, it is funny, very funny.”

“Ever heard of a superiority complex, Buffy?” Holden asked her, taking a step forward.

“You think /I/ have a superiority complex?” Buffy asked him with wide disbelieving eyes.   “Now /that’s/ funny.  I’ve got a friend, I can kick him with every last bit of my supernaturally endowed power, and all I’d end up doing is hurt myself.  I did once too, yep, something stronger than a Slayer is upon this little ball of dirt.”

“Really?” Holden asked her.

“Oh, yeah, I’m as far removed from a superiority complex as you can get,” Buffy told him with a grin.  “Got no thought about being superior; if you knew the things I’d done last year with one of you . . . and he wasn’t even cursed with a soul.  Superiority complex you came one year too late, this is all about knowing what I can do and knowing what you can do.   Trust me, the only way you’re going to leave this cemetery, is if someone brings a vacuum cleaner.”

“Let’s test that theory,” Holden snarled and charged forward, kicking and punching, which Buffy smoothly started blocking and avoiding.  Finally, suddenly speeding up, Holden managed to get a punch into Buffy’s stomach.  She took a step back, as Holden grinning jumped up and down as if he had already won.

“Nice, still not going to win though, I haven’t begun to fight.  You have no idea what you’re up against,” Buffy told him with a smile.

“Someone with a very big inferiority complex,” Holden answered her with a grin, and went back to his human guise, stopping his victorious jumps.

“Huh!?” Buffy asked him, completely not following.

“Well, let’s see,” Holden said with a grin, starting to count of on his fingers, “You obviously dated a vampire cursed with a soul, and from your description you acknowledged it was a big mistake.  Indeed, a Slayer dating her mortal enemies, yikes.  Then you went with the idealized nice guy, but didn’t love him, drove him to vampire whores - notice a pattern there?   Anyway, then last year you had something with one of us, evil, and did bad things to him.   Even after knowing a souled version isn’t for you, you still went to fuck a vamp.  You obviously have commitment problems.  You think you’re not good enough for any guy, so you deliberately choose relationships that are doomed to failure . . . I’m guessing your parents got divorced . . .”  Holden saw Buffy’s disbelieving look turn to one of surprise and knew he had guessed right, “. . . and you still blame yourself, right?  I didn’t hear your dad, he left, broke off contact, and you think it’s because he didn’t love you because you weren’t worthy of it. So you’ve shut yourself off, so no one you’re truly interested in will ever be brought down by you.”

Buffy then laughed out loud, which had Holden stumped.  Buffy took a step back, laughing so hard she could barely keep balance.  Then she slowed down, and said, “That’s sooo wrong.  Psych major?  Professor Walsh’s replacement must not have been that good, if that’s your diagnosis.  I’ve got my father back, he lives here in Sunnydale, and some evil monks magically screwed with his mind to forget me, he loved me so much, that despite the spell, and despite the physical pain it caused him just thinking of me, let alone look me up, he did look me up, he loved me so much, he broke through a spell.”  Holden looked a little defeated.  “What the hell is wrong with you?  Even as friggin’ evil vampire you should be able to diagnose something as not big ass psychological problems.”

“Oh, that’s not evil demon stuff, we learn that in college,” Holden answered Buffy, immediately removing her amusement for confused.

“Huh?”

“Come on, if we don’t diagnose psychological problems, how are we ever going to pay the bills?” Holden answered with a grin.  “‘Hey, you’re fine, not a problem.  Spend some time with friends, family, take a vacation, do some happy things, and you’ll be fine in no time.’   We’d be out of a /job/ in no time.  We need to prescribe pills, and do a busload of followup sessions.  Not that aren’t people with psychological problems, but there just aren’t enough of them to keep /all/ us shrinks in luxury.”

Buffy took a deep breath to say something, then gave up, let her breath out and muttered, “Well there goes that illusion.”  Buffy shook her head, and then looked up, “And in case you think your commitment-problems-theory has any merit.  I’ve got a boyfriend, several months now.  Love him very much.  He makes me laugh, and I him.  We support each other, and my /god/ is he good in bed.  He’s made me happy for the first time since my mother died.  And I’ve got the wedding all planned out in my fantasies too.  White dress, long but not billowing, white stockings and garter belt underneath - for after you know, easy access - yellow orchids around the church, I’m envisioning these lovely pink frills, and-”

“ALL RIGHT!” Holden bellowed vamping out once more, interrupting Buffy’s breezy description, “For my, his and everyone else who might be listening in sanity’s sake I’m going to kill you right now!”

“How rude,” Buffy pouted, and met Holden’s attacks smoothly.

*****

Willow cradled Tara tightly to her, rocking her as they stood on the street.  Tara sobbed gently, crying as she tried to deny what she had seen.  “Oh, my god.  I . . . we’re . . .” she whimpered.

“Shh, Tara, it wasn’t real, it was the First Evil, it wasn’t your mother,” Willow said, cradling her girlfriend.

Tara looked up, still held closely, and she said, “Willow, she picked me up, the First Evil can’t do that.”

Willow’s eyes widened a little, realizing Tara was right.  She thought, and then said, “It must have faked it . . . magic isn’t exactly of this dimension is it?  Perhaps we have enough it can grab ahold of that.”  Tara looked dubiously at her, and Willow then shook her head.  “I’m a poopy head, thinking way too complicated,” she said with a smile.  “Tara, he has followers, like armies of them.  His Bringers have been killing the Potentials, they also perform the rituals that allowed him to manifest here before we destroyed Wolfram & Hart.  What’s to stop any of them from doing a remote telekinesis or floating spell?  It was just trying to get to you, that was /not/ your mother, honey, trust me.  She’s not burning in hell, and neither will we.”

Tara blinked, and thought it over.  Slowly she nodded, “You think so?  Of course you do, and you’re probably right.  You /are/ right.  Even if mom was in hell, she’d never try to get me to join her there, no matter how horrible it was, and how much she’d like some relief.”

“Exactly, that was the First,” Willow said, and Tara slowly, steadily stopped crying, started straightening up.

“Of course it was me.”  Willow and Tara turned their heads forward to the sound of the voice, and there she stood, with an evil grin on her face: Joyce Summers.  Buffy’s mother when she was still alive, was loving and nice enough for Willow to slowly start seeing her as a surrogate mother.  Xander’s parents being worse, and his real parents long dead, he had latched onto that role of the woman much quicker and easier, but Willow wasn’t immune to the love.  Tara, although not knowing the woman as well as Willow or Xander, still remembered holding a crying Willow after her death, and for the short bit she knew her, hadn’t been unmoved by the woman’s caring either.  “I’m the one who set her free, that is,” the First Evil said, then chuckling nicely, stepping closer.

“You bastard!  Bitch!  Whatever the fuck you are!” Willow growled angrily.  Tara turned her head to look at Willow, surprised and a little shock at the uncharacteristic use of language. She quickly returned to the First though, figuring Willow was allowed after all the exhaustion and suffering caused by the thing standing in front of them, as well as the image it had chosen, she was allowed.

“I am the alpha and the omega, I think that about sums up what I am,” FirstJoyce said, and walked closer.  “And you will be going to hell.  Why do you think you’re precious peoples’ books warns you about magic.  I am the First, I am the Evil, I am the Darkness.  It is ultimately me who gives you the power.”

“That’s just lies!  We know what magic is,” Willow said angrily.  “And you don’t have that kind of power.”

“Oh, no, but I /do/, have that kind of power, sweet Willow,” FirstJoyce stated with some force.  “It’s just that I can’t use it in this realm, after all, if I could, we wouldn’t be talking here, there’d only be scorched Earth.

“As for magic, you /think/ you know what it is,” FirstJoyce said with a smile and then morphed into an older gypsy woman with piercing dark, if not fully black eyes.  “What’s your first spell, Willow?  Never wondered why you could suddenly speak gypsy?  Didn’t it feel like something took over?” the FirstGypsy asked with a smirk.

“Why would you possibly want Angel ensouled?” Willow asked it with disdain.

“Think about it, /really/ think about it, Willow,” the First said with a mocking look. “What were you back then?  Oh, yeah, scared, insecure, little Willow.  Power hungry Willow.”   Willow was about to protest, but the First made a gesture and said, “Oh, yes, you’ve beaten it now, but too late.  That power that I gave you, that I unlocked, made you confident, strong.   Enough confidence to face your lesbianism, to start something with Tara here.”  Willow and Tara looked at each other, while the FirstGypsy just smiled knowingly. “And without her, and the power you built up with her, you would never have found Wolf, Ram, and Hart.  If you couldn’t find them, Xander couldn’t have destroyed them . . . and I couldn’t be here.”  The gypsy First turned into a male younger version of herself, and gave a soft, victorious laugh, without even opening his mouth.  Willow and Tara looked at each other, shocked.  “And without a living souled Angel, there would be no contact with Wolfram & Hart, and without that early contact, their destruction wouldn’t have come now, when the forces on either side are weak, indecisive, and you’re not yet ready to wipe those forces out. Again, I wouldn’t be here.”

“But Buffy said you tried to make Angel kill her,” Tara said weakly.

“That’s what it appeared to be, I just wanted him to realize there was a chance he’d kill her, or at least hurt her, it would be one of the pushes he needed to leave Sunnydale, go to LA, and establish early contact with the trinity,” the First Evil smirked with utter superiority.  It gently lifted the male gypsy’s right hand upward, pointing, and finished, “Again, no here.”

Willow just stared ahead, pained.  “You were the easiest to make fall, Willow.  So convinced a little smarts meant you could do anything.  Years and years of insisting that you can handle the dark stuff that Giles hid away, without a drop of training.  Not even once did you consider that an older, more experienced man like Giles might know what he’s doing.   Even after you knew of Eyghon, and what he was into.  Just one little success was all you needed to go down that path, the one that ended with you almost killing her, and the rest of your friends,” the First finished, loving the sight of a steady formation of tears on Willow’s cheeks.  It laughed then, hard, and a little long, then disappeared.

“Oh, my god, oh, my god,” Willow whispered, feeling her legs buckle underneath her.   This time it was Tara that supported Willow.

“Willow, listen to me,” Tara said desperately, needing Willow’s support now almost as much as Willow needed hers, and Willow wasn’t in the right state to give any.  “It’s not true, it can’t be true.  Magic does not come from him, that defies all we know about magic, how it works and how it’s part of the universe.”

“But, what he said . . .” Willow sobbed.

“You already knew, and like it said, you beaten that part of you, sweety, you’re going to a therapist for it.  So what if it helped you the first time for its goals, you couldn’t know, we have to fight it here, not secondguess our past,” Tara tried desperately.  She realized they couldn’t afford to lose the two magic users in the gang, and that was probably why it went about and make them secondguess their magic.

Willow pulled herself a little together, steadying the legs under her with all the effort, and looked up in Tara’s pained eyes.  She knew Tara needed her more than she did, her mother had tried to kill her and take her into hell; whether it was real or not, Tara was devastated. “And I need you,” Tara whispered.

Willow enveloped the blonde in a tight hug, soothing her as best as she could.  “I love you,” Willow said, and repeated it several more times.

*****

“We finally found it,” Jonathan said, looking around the room deep under ground with determination.  It had stone walls and was otherwise just covered in sand

“All right,” Andrew nodded, starting to take off his backpack.  “Let’s get to work.” Jonathan nodded as he took out a shovel.  Andrew got out his, and then they started to dig.

*****

“You’re lying,” Faith said carefully as she felt dread and guilt rise up in her, and fired a ball of energy at the entity wearing her First Watcher’s image.  As Xander said, it simply flew through the thing, and impacted on the ground a little further.

“Now I’m not, and you know it,” FirstEliza said, and stepped some closer.  “I’m not exactly ‘evil’, Faith.  Xander taught you there’s no such thing as good and evil, right?  A better name for me, would probably be ‘The First Darkness’.”  Eliza turned back into the Mayor, took a step toward the confused Faith, and said, “Faith, my spitfire, you /know/ how much power there lies in Darkness.  You know how vast a reservoir of power I have at my disposal.  You can’t beat me, none of you can.  I’m invulnerable, invincible, untouchable.   What hope can you possibly have against me?”

Faith looked up and at him.  How could it possibly have known her very fears and doubts, when she hadn’t even voice them to anyone?  The Mayor continued, “You are darkness, sweetheart, like me.  You belong with me, don’t you understand?  You always have. You and I are alike.  You and me against the world.”

“No,” Faith said slowly, then looked closer at him, “I’m nothing like you.”

“Oh, no, my dear, sweet Faith?  You’ve murdered, you’ve killed, you’ve destroyed, all for little old me,” FirstMayor chuckled at her.  “Do you really think you don’t belong on my side of the fence?”

“Xander taught me good and evil is a judgement call.  And here’s my judgement, /you/ are /evil/, /I/ am /good/,” Faith told it with as much conviction as she could muster.

The FirstMayor gave a chuckle, and then it transformed into a giant demonic snake that thundered, “*Then you shall die with everyone else!*”  Then the First disappeared, leaving a shaken Faith.

*****

Cordelia and Wesley sat on the Summers’ couch in the Summers’ living room.  Mr. Summers’ couch and living room to be exact.  They were talking a bit, waiting for Faith to return.  Most Potentials they had already done to bed, and quite a few were sleeping around them on mattresses in sleeping bags.  Hank Summers too, needing an early start in the morning to get to his job on time, was already to bed.

“Well, well, well, how pathetic,” a voice spoke behind them.  They jerked around and looked at the male figure standing there, looking around in disdain.  “Haven’t amounted to much as I expected, right Wesley?” the male asked coolly.

“You know him?” Cordelia asked her companion.

“Yes, Roger Wyndam-Price, my father, or rather the First masquerading as him,” Wesley answered with a grumble, looking the men in tweed up and down.

The First Evil grinned, and walked through the couch, saying, “You sound surprised.   Your little friend killed me, was at Headquarters when he blew it up.”

“I always thought you had too much of a cockroach in you to do such an unseemly thing as dying, sir,” Wesley said, adding the last with mocking tone.

“I always thought the same of you; or what part of you likes that leather-loving, psychopathic, murdering slut,” FirstRoger said with a cold tone.

“Better a slut than a frigid bitch,” Wesley returned with cold eyes, spreading his arms out over the couch with cool confidence.

“She tortured you once, /son/,” FirstRoger said, bending forward to let his eyes do most of the talking.  The word ‘son’ sounded like dripping venom, instead of an term of endearment.

“Forgiving is divine,” Wesley returned coolly.

“No!  Forgiving, mercy, is a weakness, you /still/ haven’t learned that, I see,” FirstRoger spat out, almost literally, a look of disgust on his face as he looked at his ‘son’.

“If you’ve chosen to appear as /him/ in order to belittle me like /he/ and my mother did, you’re far too late,” Wesley said with cool confidence, which had Cordelia rather surprised, “the so-called slut saw to that, changed my whole outlook on life.”

“You’re . . .” the First began.

“Quiet!  I’m done with you, you hear?  I don’t care one bit-”

“Wesley!” Cordelia interrupted forcefully, “It’s just an illusion remember, that’s not actually your father.

The First Evil laughed out loud, and took a step to its right to stand in front of Cordelia.   “And how is the bitch of Sunnydale High these days?” The First Evil asked.

“The bitch of LA,” she returned, folding her arms across her chest, showing it how little she cared for its banter.

“Tell me, Cordelia,” the First Evil said, transforming into Jesse, and making her eyes widen.  “Have you ever wondered what it would have been like, if for once you had decided to open up your eyes to the fantastic boy that was so hard trying to get your attention, and gain your affection?  Have you wondered, how it would be if for once you hadn’t checked out someone’s clothes, if you had looked deeper.”  The First Evil as Jesse bent forward, gaining closer to Cordelia, only just away from her, he continued, “Have you wondered, how different things would be, if the white knight you fell for, didn’t have a secret to hide you couldn’t keep?  Have you wondered if perhaps you’d be married?  In college because you put you through it?  Have you wondered if for once you weren’t a stuck up, shallow bitch. . .” the First Evil morphed into Darla, vamped out, and snarled, suddenly even closer to her, “*. . . the other bitch wouldn’t have gotten him and he’d still be alive!?*”  There was shock, some guilt, and a little fear in her eyes.  “No?  Still too stuck up I see,” FirstDarla finished, and vanished.

Cordelia jerked her head around, trying to process, get rid of its words.  She settled finally on Wesley, who said, “It’s not your fault, you were a teenager.  Not wallowing in guilt, doesn’t mean you haven’t changed.”  Cordelia nodded, but was still shaken to the core, hugging herself.

*****

“It’s spread itself thin; it’s talking to its commanders, processing information from its Bringers, appearing in front of just about everyone of you in order to keep them busy, and keep them away while it does its Armageddon thing,” Jesse explained with a sad smile, “That’s why I could get out now, and no time else; no coincidence see?”

“So why isn’t it here?” Xander asked Jesse suspiciously, “Keeping me busy?”

“I’m guessing it can’t . . . because I’m here or something, which doesn’t matter,” Jesse said, dismissing Xander’s concern.  “Xander, I know what it’s up to, where it is, but I have to explain to you what he /really/ is first, and hope with that you can figure out how to destroy him . . . if you can, he is powerful.”

“Really is?” Xander asked, both skeptical and intrigued.

Jesse nodded, “He’s Prometheus.”  Xander raised his eyebrows.  “You know, the god that gave humanity fire and was banished for it?”

“I know who Prometheus is, but the guy is good and nice right, the FE is pretty much the damn opposite,” Xander pointed out.

Jesse nodded, and said, “This is going to take some time to explain, I’ll start at the beginning.”  The ghost paced back and forth twice formulating the story in his mind, then stopped, and turned to Xander.  “Okay, bro’, listen up.  You know the whole ‘demons were here first’ spiel?”  Xander nodded.  “It’s bull,” Jesse said casually, “contrary to even unpopular mythology, the Earth is much older.  Like several billion years.  And animals and plants and the rest, were here long before the demons.”

“Yeah, yeah, evolution, next,” Xander said, shaking his hand for Jesse to get on with it.

Jesse smiled, and continued, “Well, then, a few hundred thousand years ago, perhaps even a million or two, they arrived.  Why, how, what for, banished or just a resettlement plan we don’t know, but the demons came.  They started out rather mundane, but a few very rapidly grew very powerful, and very big.  These are the Old Ones.  Mostly they ate humans and each other, in lovely battles for supremacy.  Evolution didn’t sit still though, and not caring about a few primates, they didn’t realize we evolved into something more, and we kicked their butts out of this place.  Exactly how I don’t know, but we did.  But on the way out, one of the Old Ones did the whole mixing of blood thing, and there were the vampires. Back then, nothing to really get upset about.  Then, some twelve thousand years ago, the New Ones came along.”

“The gods,” Xander supplied, interested, and intrigued.

“Exactly, again like with the Old Ones, we don’t know why or how, but they came, some of us - inside the nutter - even think they may have been Old Ones returning for revenge,” Jesse said with a nod, “Doesn’t seem to fit though.”

“Nutter?” Xander asked.

“We’ll get to that,” Jesse said, pacing again, setting the remaining things in order.  “Now, somehow, they managed to subdue humanity, possibly because they weren’t divided, possibly because they were just more powerful than the Old Ones, either way, they did.  More so, they then managed to make humanity accept them as their gods.  Prometheus was different though, he thought that we had potential, that we could be more, and set about guarding us and helping us, and this is where things get interesting.”

“Interesting, how?” Xander asked.

“Not /all/ the Old Ones were gone,” Jesse said, nodding, “a few vestiges, some magics, the occasional dimensional gateways, remained and a very few actual Old Ones.  Not all of them, were pure evil either, over the time a very few had evolved as well, gained something, become more than just killing machines.  A few very powerful ones managed to worm themselves in the new pantheons.”

“Wolf, Ram & Hart for example,” Xander said, starting to get the picture.

“Exactly,” Jesse said with a smile.  “I get some of this after some of us interrogated Ram, you know.  Anyway, those were all just little bits, small numbers.  Have you ever wondered were all the present day demons come from?  The hybrids, with some Human DNA spliced in?    Not enough to be half-demons with souls, but not enough to be true Old Ones, true demons?”   Xander brought his arms from his chest, and landed them on his knees, showing he was getting convinced and less distrustful.  “Prometheus,” Jesse said, and Xander’s eyebrows rose.   Jesse nodded, “He didn’t actually want these pure evil killing machines of course, he wanted to create servants, being willingly so, out of their free will, in their very nature to serve, as protectors, as simple cleaners, to do heavy and dangerous work.  At first he used animals, but they were too instinctual, so he turned to demons, them having a rudimentary intelligence.  In order to curtail their evilness, he put in human DNA.”

“I can’t imagine the remaining Old Ones liking that,” Xander said, looking at the ghost of his friend.

Jessed nodded, and explained onward with a smile, “Not just the Old Ones, some, at least one, of the New Ones either.  Humanity would come to worship Prometheus with all that help he was giving them, which would make him stronger, and having an army of worshipful humans on top of the army of demonic genetic creations he had been creating, was not something they liked.  So they managed to mess with his work.”

Xander looked at Jesse, who waited, and then he said, “They removed what made the things docile and sweet.”

“And so we have a new breed of pure evil demons, and they went on a rampage,” Jesse said shaking his head to emphasize the point.  “And they didn’t stop there.  They were intelligent after all, they even opened up gateways to other dimensions let a good chuck Old Ones back in, and they were powerful enough to take on the gods.  Probably not something the one doing the messing expected.  Humans dying, gods dying, the Old Ones Prometheus experimented on, those who had already gained more, ones he put together, grew to become even more vicious and more powerful than anything that came before.  Prometheus was brought for a court, and was found guilty, tossed him out.  But they didn’t simply chain him to a mountain.”

“Let me guess, they tossed him out of this universe altogether,” Xander said darkly.

“And more,” Jesse said with an ironic smirk, “in an unprecedented working together of the gods, they shifted him out of the universe, than opened up a cave, and tossed him and an army of his creations, based on vampires, a recreation of an older much more powerful and already extinct race of vampires in, then put a seal of power on top of it, to keep him locked in.   Trapped inside an utterly dark place, but still phased out of existence there was nothing he could feel, or see, or touch, or smell, nothing.  And he went insane and completely evil.  He hated the place, hated that his fellow gods put him there, hated that he was placed there for trying to help the humans, hated that the gods didn’t want to believe him, hated the ones that screwed with his experiments.  There being nothing else to feel, see, touch, smell, or otherwise detect but his own thoughts, the hatred steadily consumed him, and he figured, if everyone thinks I’m an evil monster, I’ll be an evil monster, and since he was the one who created the new wave of demons, he might as well take credit.”

“And so he became the First Evil.  Let me guess, the cave is in Sunnydale, because the gods used the Hellmouth to power this thing,” Xander speculated.

“The other way around,” Jesse said smiling as he saw Xander’s surprise.  “You see, the demons he created, the Old Ones and powerful ones, the lesser ones, they still liked him, worshiped him.  Some humans did too, they remembered what Prometheus did for them, and weren’t so easy to abandon him.  When he disappeared, they went to look for him with spells, worshiping him even more, giving him power, and finding him.  They linked themselves to him, knew what was done to him, and to show their empathy, put themselves into sensory deprivation as well.”

“The Bringers, removing their eyes, mouth and ears,” Xander said with revelation.

“Exactly, and they went to help the FE, determined to bring him back, and now corrupted through the First Evil’s own burning rage and hatred, and more then willing to give those ones who messed with his goodness a good killing, they congregated all his followers at the seal, including all the demons, even the super powered ones, the ones who would have eaten them if they weren’t helping the FE,” Jesse explained, taking a step closer, to really bring the final point home.  “Xander, they succeeded.  They freed him from the cave, but he was still anchored to the seal, stuck phased into a slightly parallel dimension.  They would have succeeded in removing him from that too, but the First Slayer arrived.”

“The First Slayer?” Xander asked surprised.

“Yeah,” Jesse said, taking a deep unneeded breath, him being a spirit and all, and said, “there was no way she could have destroyed them all.  There were just too many, too powerful ones.  Yet somehow she did it, not even the nutter knows how, but somehow she brought forth the Hellmouth, created it, banished all the demons inside, where they’ve been trapped ever since.  Except the ones who weren’t there at the time of course.”

“So he wants to set his army free, and possibly through it himself, huh?” Xander asked Jesse, and he nodded.

“I know where the seal is, I can lead you to it,” Jesse said, urgently now.  “Just, you need to know how to destroy him first.”

Xander frowned, remembering how FirstAnya felt, the little rings of pure evil coiling around her essence, her actual essence, in essence.  “You said anchored, huh?” Xander said, then giving a small smile, which steadily grew into a smirk.  “I will set Anya free, that bastard is going down.”

“YES!” Jesse hissed, and turned around to do just that.

“Oh, Jesse,” Xander said with cold smile, “if you are Jesse, if you managed to fool me, your destruction, will be very painful.”

“I’m Jesse, and I’m not fooling you.  Trust me, bro, I’m the real deal,” Jesse said half turned around.

“Lead on,” Xander said with a smiling nod, his tail uncurling, and starting to gently wag about in anticipation of a battle.

*****

With a crash Dawn flew through the kitchen window, and tumbled outside onto the lawn.  She was hurt: bruises covering her face, torn shirt and pants.  She even had several long gashes on her stomach and legs that freely bled.  Dawn payed them no heed.  “That’s it,” Dawn hissed, flying back through the hole she made, and passed the half-trashed door to the living room.   The living room was a mess, half destroyed furniture, a table crashed in two.  The only thing still intact was the couch on which her mother occasionally shimmered into existence, kept that way by the force field that kept her mother trapped.  That, and the magical, green ankh alarm which still glowed warningly.  The room was awash with energy from the demon and Dawn, both pulsing along.

The demon was even more indistinct now than it was before, the brown plain thing, now messed up with green bruises and wound wear green blood oozed down.  With a roar Dawn fired an energy ball, which the demon blocked.  The resulting explosion sent some more books flying which had been strewed about earlier when Dawn had smashed the demon through it.  The demon itself obviously felt the explosion, it being dazed, but it felt Dawn’s following up fists even more.  With powerful bashes, impacted upon the demon which felt like a solid slab of meat, as if it was frozen instead of alive, Dawn pummeled the monster left and right, punctuating every bash with a roared out word, “You!  Will!  Not!  Hurt!  My! Mother!  Bitch!”  She grabbed the thing by its head then, and yanked it up and over and slammed it into the already destroyed table, leaving a dent in the ground.

It growled again in pain, and then in anger.  It brought its feet up despite its obvious hurt, and slammed them in Dawn’s stomach.  The flame enshrouded girl groaned and staggered back.  With an angry screech the demon jumped up and around, and hit Dawn in the head.  It grabbed her head, and started to squeeze hard, and slammed its knees in Dawn’s chest.  Dawn groaned in pain, even as the demon wrapped its strong muscled legs around her and squeezed, then slammed its hands against the sides of Dawn’s head.  “Argh!” Dawn exclaimed in pain, then again.  Then she roared out her anger, pulling up her energy, the floor shook with it, the broken pieces vibrated, books were lifted in the air, a gently swinging painting started swinging wildly till it fell of its hook, and the glass to protect the painting burst when it felt. The demon screeched, attempting to hold on.  “RAAAH!” Dawn screamed out, bursting her chi flame higher and wider, as well as her forcing out her chest.  It got the desired result, with a grunt the demon was dislodged and smashed backward.  Dawn slammed a double-handed blow into its stomach before it landed, sending it flying further backward, stopping at the kitchen entrance.

Dawn’s chi flame still burned bright, small pieces of debris floating in the energy, a few books gently tumbling around.  Dawn brought her hand to her sides, and gently powered a pulsing energy ball between them.  “TA - NE - KA - KO,” Dawn slowly said, the energy ball between her hands steadily building, growing bigger.  She watched the demon as it dazedly got back to his feet.  “SA!” Dawn finished, and sent the uber powerful beam hurtling forward. The demon had just enough time to widen its eyes and screech, before the Tanekakosa wave crashed into it, and pulled it along.  It crashed passed the door, through the already quite destroyed kitchen, and smashed straight through the outer wall, groaning with the pain of the impact.  It then slammed into the ground, where the wave exploded in a powerful explosion.   The shockwave burst outward, and shattered whatever glass and window that was still intact in the house.

The wave of wind blast past Dawn, whipping her hair up, before getting to the window behind Joyce and shattering it.  Dawn winced as her hair moved about; the demon having torn a few strands out earlier with enough force to make her bleed, and so her wounds there flared up as the hair moved.  Dawn took several steps forward.  The glare dissipated, and the demon was remarkably somewhat intact.  It was also lying on the floor, groaning, with many more cuts, bruises, and rivers of blood on it then before, and its demonic chi was very low.  Dawn waited for a bit, then determinedly started walking forward.  She lowered her energy a bit, believing it no longer necessary to finish the thing off once and for all.

It was exactly what the demon had been waiting for.  Its energy spiked, and sat up.  It opened its mouth, and a ball of purple energy was hurled from it at Dawn.  Crackling with energy the ball closed the distance quickly, to a Dawn with wide eyes.  She brought her hands forward, attempting to raise her energy.  She gritted her teeth as the ball of energy slammed against her energized hands, and she was steadily shoved backward.  Grunting she felt herself slide backward, her hands hurting.  Finally her right heel, that she had up to push back, touched the shimmering force field that both kept Joyce trapped as well as somewhat safe. Dawn groaned, still being pushed back, feeling the strain in her arms as they were steadily bent backward by the ball of energy which was pushed forward by the demon.

“Dawn,” she heard her mother whisper concerned.

“*You . . .*” Dawn hissed with gritted teeth at the demon, mustering all her strength, upon hearing her mother’s voice,  “*. . . will . . . not . . .*”  Dawn managed to get a foothold and hold the ball in place, then very steadily, her arms hurting she managed to push the ball back a bit, “*. . . hurt . . . my . . . MOTHER!*”  With a final roar of effort, Dawn flung the ball back to where it came from.  The demon’s eyes widened, brought up all his energy and his arms protectively in front of itself, and its own ball of energy slammed into him.  It exploded with a slightly less powerful explosion as Dawn’s Tanekakosa.  The demon screamed audibly with pain.

It was back on the ground, breathing hard with a whole set of new wounds, even though a few others had healed up.  Dawn walked forward determinedly again, but this time did not lower her chi.  This thing was going down, and it was going down hard.  She reached the thing, and looked down at its plain brown shape, as if blurred out of existence.  It opened its eyes, then widened as it saw its enemy.  With a scream it launched upward, but Dawn grabbed it by its wrists, and stepped her foot down hard on its throat.  “Die, you thing,” Dawn told it angrily, putting more force on its neck.  The demon raged, and with a final explosion of its strength managed to send both it and Dawn flying back into the house.  It was attempting to scratch and bite its way to freedom, while Dawn screamed with rage at.  Finally they tumbled back to the ground, and powered by rage Dawn managed to get on top.  “This is it!  You die, you die!” Dawn growled out in anger, smashing her palms down into its eyes, then charged her energy.  The demon screamed one final time before two blasts of energy slammed through its eyes and into its brain.  With a small explosion its upper head popped and its greenish brains slobbered out.  Then the demon just disappeared, drained away to someplace else almost as if it were a liquid draining in a sink.

Dawn, on her knees, leaned her hands on them, and sank forward a bit, breathing hard as she let her energy drain away.  “Finally,” she muttered.

“Dawn,” Joyce spoke, her voice now much stronger and steadier.

Dawn looked up, and blinked at a seemingly solid Joyce Summers now.  “Mom!” she called out a little softly, and quickly crawled over.  “Mom, this is really you, isn’t it?” Dawn asked, sensing her mother’s energy.

“Dawn, my beautiful Dawn,” Joyce said with a smile.  “Dawn, I don’t have much time, I came to warn you.”

“Not much time?  Warn me?” Dawn asked desperately.

“She won’t choose you, Dawn,” Joyce said sadly, making Dawn frown in confusion. “Buffy, soon there will come a time, when she has to choose, and she won’t choose you.”

“I-I don’t understand, that’s bad isn’t it?” Dawn said, feeling herself empty.  Buffy seemed to be getting there; getting better, being right for a change.  She was still an overprotective cunt, but better overprotective than screwing demons and being suicidal.

“Things are coming, Dawn, you have to be ready,” Joyce added, and then just faded away with a sad smile on her face, as a result the ankh stopped its alarm signals.  Dawn felt any remaining energy drain out of her, and she sank further down, looking dazedly around the destroyed room.  For a moment she thought about getting the hiding Potentials out of the gravity gym, but instead she let herself fall forward - let her face fall on the couch her mother was just on, and she sobbed, jerked, and then started crying.

*****

Xander and Jesse were standing in front of the school.  “What are you waiting for?” Jesse asked.  “We’re on the clock here, bro.  Do you know how much energy it takes to be visible?”

Xander smirked, and asked, “So where is it?”

“Down in the basement, the only place that has living beings in it, with your sixth sense it should be easy to find,” Jesse said impatiently, “So let’s go.”

“No,” Xander said, making Jesse look surprised.  “You stay.”

“Oh, come on, it isn’t like I can get hurt, I’m already dead,” Jesse said with a pout.

Xander smiled at him, and said, “If it could suck you in the first time, it can suck you in again; and then you’re going to go with it once I destroy it.”

Jesse seemed to want to protest, but then accepted it.  “All right, fine, I’ll stay, good luck,” he said, and then faded from visibility.

“Thanks,” Xander said, and walked into Sunnydale High.

*****

The digging was complete now.  A golden seal with intricate patterns was uncovered in the middle.  It had candles around it, and several patterns were drawn in the sand.  Jonathan looked around, checked with the book in his hand, and nodded.  “All right, everything is set, time to destroy this thing,” Jonathan said, and walked around to stand at the point.

“Yeah,” Andrew said, and walked to behind Jonathan as he readied to start chanting. Andrew reached inside his jacket and held a ceremonial knife by its handle, hesitating.

“Go on, this what we’ve been working toward,” a very soft whispering voice spoke.   Andrew looked up, to his left, and looked a little dubious at Warren.  “Go on, this is it, spill his blood over the seal.”

“I . . .” Andrew said softly, then nodded.  He started toward Jonathan, bringing the knife to his side, ready to stab it forward.  Suddenly a hand grabbed his knife-arm by the wrist and he screamed in terror.  It made Jonathan jump and scream in terror as well.  Andrew was yanked around easily.

“Xander!” two voices exclaimed at the same time, as they looked at the smirking face.

Then, “Andrew?”  Jonathan looked with a confused frown at the knife in Andrew’s hand, which was now held up above his head.

“Well, well,” Xander said with a grin, walking forward, dragging Andrew along toward the edge of the seal, “so you were going to stab your friend in the back to bleed him out over that, huh?”  It makes Jonathan turn around and back away toward the right edge, looking shocked at his ‘friend’.  He thus noticed an evilly smiling Warren stand there, and he frowned in confusion again.  Xander continued, “Well, then, let’s see what blood does to the little seal, hmm?  It’s only fair.”

“What?” Andrew exclaimed as he watched and felt Xander easily take the knife from his hand.  “No!”  Then the knife penetrated his stomach, and he gasped out, looking up at Xander in fear and disbelief.  With an unfeeling look Xander pulled the knife out and stabbed Andrew a few more times, before turning him around.  He almost casually pushed the dying and heavily bleeding Andrew forward for him to land on the seal.  Xander tossed the knife forward, and it embedded in the cave wall.  The seal started to glow as Andrew’s blood poured into the grooves of the patterns on it.  The three still living beings present looked on silently.

The seal split open in four parts, which tuned up to form a pyramid, Andrew rolling down to the right.  With a final light, Andrew’s entire body was consumed, and the pyramid sank into the ground.  A pale, clawed hand grabbed the edge of the seal from below, and pulled himself up.  A bald head came up, hissing and growling.  The vampire-like being stood up, wearing some time of leather outfit, and hissed.  In doing so it opened its mouth and revealed four fangs instead of two, two sets of two narrow ones very close together.  Jonathan looked frightened at the monster.

Xander brought up his right hand, casually fired a small energy ball that entered the monster’s chest area, and exploded, leaving a nice hole from one end to the other in the torso.   The being dusted a moment later.  Xander jumped and floated down into the seal, finding an edge.  Over the edge, some fifty meters lower, there were easily ten thousand, and possibly more of the monsters that Xander just had dispatched.  Xander smiled, and brought his hands up, crackling a quickly growing larger ball of energy between his hands.  The monsters looked up, hissed and started to move.  “ANNIHILATION ATTACK!” Xander thundered, and sent the ball down.  The ancient vampires looked up, and that was all before the ball of energy impacted with the ground, and all went white.  Xander didn’t even bother watching the complete annihilation of every single last one of the things; he just turned around and flew back out the seal.

He landed on the ground and walked closer to the First Evil, still in his Warren guise.   “So, that was your army, got any more bright ideas about becoming corporeal?” Xander asked it coolly.

FirstWarren looked up, smiled and said, “No.”  Xander’s eyebrows quirked.  The First added, “But then, I never had.  Why would I possibly want to become corporeal?  It only makes me vulnerable.”  Xander slowly frowned, and then the FE pointed with his left finger to the seal, and moved it back and forth twice.

Xander turned around, and looked over the edge.  The walls of the cage were glowing, and energy pulled up along them into the seal, which once more closed, but crackled with energy.  “My followers don’t have the power, I do, but I can’t use it here, I needed one of you to do it for me,” the First said with a smile, as the seal glowed more powerfully, and small tendrils shot upward, and through the cave ceiling.  Jonathan looked at everything with growing fear, terror already etched on his face.  “It’ll open the Hellmouth, pull it down here. It’ll be different than before, bigger, and more importantly, different place; demons will be waiting a 1,000 times more powerful than even you.  Once they’ve destroyed this world, the universe is next.”

Xander turned back to the First Evil, as a glowing ring started coming down the ceiling.   “Jesse,” Xander said with a dark growl.

“Oh, don’t worry,” FirstWarren said with a superior grin, “he didn’t turn, nor was it me.   If that were the case, you would have seen through it easily.  He thinks he escaped, when really I let him go.  After all, the best way to lie, is to tell the truth.  I win.”

Xander looked coldly down at the First, and said, “Perhaps, but you won’t get to enjoy your victory.”  Xander shot forward, and turned around standing directly into the First Evil, his chi-flame erupting around him.

With Jonathan watching in fear, Xander roared, manipulating his chi.  “What, can you possibly think you are doing?” the First Evil asked, amused.  Xander coiled his own chi around the energy of the image, and through it into the coils of darkness; the anchors.  Thus anchoring the First to himself, he pulled him toward him, toward this dimension. FirstWarren’s eyes widened at the tugging sensation he felt.

“Making you vulnerable,” Xander said, and with another yell, the First’s energy was fully pulled back into phase.  Xander kept his energy coiled around the First’s, so that it wouldn’t coalesce into matter, nor could it escape.

“You fucking bastard,” FirstWarren snarled.  Behind him, the vortex of red energy that was the Hellmouth finished its downward movement, and settled on the seal, then slowly started expanding.  “This just means I’m going to crush you!”  The First whirled around Xander, it’s energy surrounding him, and started to squeeze.

“Aargh!” Xander exclaimed at the pain, as he felt his own chi steadily being crushed, gashed opening upon his arms.  He roared and brought forth his energy as much as he could, but the First’s energy was keeping it down, pushing back against it.

“I have Ram inside, I have millions of souls, and my own, and you haven’t gained /that/ much more power since you destroyed him!” the First snarled, his energy whirling audibly around Xander, whose own energy was doing the same.  Cracks formed into the stone, pebbles lifted up, wind started circling the cave, pulling the pebbles along.

As the cave gently started to rumble from the growing powers in it, Jonathan looked around with mounting dread, the dreadful sounds of the two titanic beings’ energy fighting each other, the winding blowing around him, and the steadily expanding Hellmouth, made him quickly more and more terrified.  “Oh, shit,” he muttered and scrambled up, running out the cave, the way he came.  A few small heads of demons emerged out of the Hellmouth and looked around.  As they noticed the tug of war going on, they quickly jumped out, and ran off.

“We . . . shall . . . see!” Xander grunted, as his power continued to rise against the First’s, forcing himself slowly back to his feet.  “AAAH!” he yelled, and golden energy started to fling about, his hair turning golden then falling back to black.  He didn’t give up, and the First screamed with his own pain, as steadily, bit by bit, the transformation took place.  Finally, with a wash of energy, Xander’s eyes turned pale green, his hair stood up golden, and his chi-flame had turned golden.  The cave shook, the cracks elongated, and the First screamed with pain and effort, being forced back, but immediately it redoubled its efforts on Super Saiyan Xander, who groaned.  Xander felt the devastating force of the First gripping him, crush him further, feeling more scratches and gashes opening, his clothes tearing away.  Almost he went back to his knee, but he forced himself upward, gathering his energy, keeping it coiled into the First’s and forced his energy upward against the strain of the First.

*****

Buffy blocked Holden’s punch, with seeming difficulty.  Holden grinned evilly and made a followup punch that should have hit, except that Buffy’s hand had moved impossibly fast and blocked it.  She took a step back, and moved one hand to her back.  With a smirk, she beckoned the vampire with her remaining one.  Holden roared his bloodlust and attacked even faster.  Keeping the smirk casually on her face, Buffy blocked and parried his hits with simple ease.  Left, right, down, up, her right hand easily moved fast enough to stop any of Holden’s hits to come anywhere close to her.  He roared again, and surged forward; only to find an empty space.  Buffy had jumped up, and flipping through the air, landed smoothly behind Holden.

Holden understood and rapidly twisted around, looking at the still smiling Buffy.  Then she spoke, “Understand yet who is the one playing with her prey?”

Holden growled, and suddenly Buffy jerked.  She straightened and looked to her right.   She had kept her senses on her sister earlier, but she never seemed to be in any real danger despite getting banged up.  She knew what her sister was capable of of course.  This though . . . “Xander,” she said surprised - if he needed to go Super.  Casually she pointed her left hand, and blew away Holden with an energy ball.  Then she burst into the air.

*****

Faith looked to her left, and forcing the First’s words away, burst into the air.  Around Sunnydale, the others noticed too.

*****

Spike sat in his crypt, watching tv and looked up.  “Ah, bloody hell,” Spike said, getting up, “just when Manchester United was on . . .”  He thought about it for a moment, and then he sat back down, shrugging.  He told himself, “Ah, who cares?  It isn’t like the bloody bastard is going to lose; I’m not that lucky.”

*****

The cave rumbled, as the massive levels of energy collided.  Xander groaned as he tried to keep standing, the First’s energy crushing, putting strains everywhere.  Pebbles came falling from the shaking ceiling.  “You will die,” the First hissed, as the Hellmouth grew behind him, smaller demons jumping out and running away.

“/I/ /won’t/,” Xander growled, eyes squinted shut in pain, balling his fists and finding his concentration and power.  He screamed out, forcing his power up, despite the crushing force of the First.  Electricity started flickering in his chi-flame, his hair slowly bit by bit trying to stand further up, the flame itself steadily intensifying.  The cracks in the ground grew a little longer, and then with an eruption Xander reached the second level, momentarily getting some reprieve; most of the energy wash dampened by the First’s attempts.

“Give it up, Saiyan, you can’t win,” the First hissed, refinding its purchase and crushing its energy down on Xander.

“Urgh,” Xander groaned, feeling his legs gave away, having difficulty breathing as the First’s energy crushed his chest closed.  It was good, he had to go down anyway.  Using the moment, he bent down, compacter, knees bent, more difficult to bring down.  “HAAAA!!” Xander roared, reaching deep inside of him, finding the third level.  Last time he had this amount of difficulty reaching it, was when he succeeded the first time.  The cracks in ground not only lengthened now, but grew deeper and wider.

“You’re going to stop it, I will kill you,” the First Evil snarled at Xander, as his golden-furred tail was rigid with the effort.  The First latched onto it, and squeezed hard, its energy penetrating inside the tail.

“Ah!” Xander hissed.  The tail could be a weakness as well as an asset to Saiyan.  Born, it was part of the balance system, and extremely sensitive.  With all of Xander’s training and understanding, even not having a tail throughout it, the outer sensitivity was beaten.  The inner sensitivity he found was not.  Xander wavered in his balance, feeling sharp stabbing pains going through his body.

“*You die,*” the First Evil growled with a heavy voice, his eyes starting to glow and losing Warren’s guise.

Xander fell to his knees on the ground as more demons jumped from the Hellmouth and ran, the cave shaking harder.  “No!” Xander hissed, refusing to give up.  Ignoring the stabbing pain he forced himself to one leg, then both, while the First Evil roared in fury.  Xander closed his eyes, squinting, focusing his energy, finding his tail.  His chi counteracting the First Evil’s, removing most of the problem, and then Xander roared, his power going up and up.  His eyebrows started to retract, while the brows themselves grew thicker, and his hair grew longer, bit by little bit in jerks.

“*No!*” the First growled in frustration, as it redoubled its efforts, slowing Xander down.   Xander’s pupils returned, emerald green, a little darker than his irises, and his air reached further down.  Then he stood straight, back arched hollow, and screamed as he finished the transformation to the third level with extreme difficulty.  Cracks shot forward upward from his legs, up the cave walls, cracking the walls of the school, several of them running all the way up along the outer walls.  The school’s windows burst outward into little pieces and rained down on the ground.

Super Saiyan 3 Xander was here, and with the new energy put the First back into an even bigger strangle hold.  But still the First was squeezing the life steadily out of Xander.  “/You/ /will/ /die/,” it hissed angrily, groaning with its own pain now as Xander had enough to finally start squeezing back, and forcing the entity outward, stretching it.  Almost Xander went back to his knees, but caught himself, and looked directly into the stretched out demonic face of the First.  Their energies coiling together, rapidly whirling around Xander.

*****

Faith and Buffy had joined together, and looked down at Sunnydale with wide eyes as they flew.  The whole place, from trees to streets to houses, was trembling.  “If Xander is trying to destroy Sunnydale, he’s doing a damn good job of it,” Faith said, as she saw the windows of several houses shatter, an occasional wall or street crack.  Buffy nodded, and they sped up.

*****

The Potentials, like everywhere else they stayed, especially those not used to Earthquakes, screamed in fear.  The only exceptions were the Potentials still inside the Gravity Gym at the Summers’ residence who were noticing nothing.   Cordelia and Wesley were trying to calm them and themselves down.   “Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright!” Cordelia exclaimed, hugging a few Potentials to her as the house around them shook and trembled.

“It’s just Xander, but get underneath tables and door arches,” Wesley said, directing a few to do just that.  A moment later a newly awakened Hank Summers came from above, carrying a few Potentials, and helping out.

“Don’t worry, girls!  It’ll be fine,” he said with authority, getting them in an as safe a place as possible.

*****

Dawn looked up with alarm as the house shook, and the ground beneath her feet trembled.  It was a good thing she had told the Potentials to go hide inside the Gravity Gym.  “Please, little housy, don’t collapse,” Dawn muttered as the tremors raced from the ground up into her legs.   Luckily, Dawn thought, short of the house itself, there was nothing the Xander-induced earthquake could destroy anymore.  She and the demon had managed that just fine.

*****

“What now?” Spike muttered as his crypt started trembling more an more.  He looked around suspiciously and saw one of his book cases snap in two, the books tumbling over the ground. “Oh, no!”  Then the glass tube of his tv shattered, electricity crackling and short-circuiting his electricity, plunging him into darkness.  “AAAARGH!!  THAT WAS BLOODY MANCHESTER UNITED!!!” Spike screamed in frustration.  “FUCK!  BLOODY!  THAT TOSSER!”

*****

“*You can’t!*” the First, as he really started feeling the strain of keeping his form together. “Argh, how?  Not even you should have this kind of power,” the First hissed, forcing his form down.  “Die.”

“Ah!” Xander groaned with pain, and felt himself go down.  “Urgh!  Damn you!” Xander grunted, going to his knees, hands on the floor.

“Now you die, this is it, you bastard,” the First spoke triumphantly, as Xander’s clothes tore all but away, and many gashes crisscrossed across his torso, immediately bleeding.  With some cracks Xander’s ribs cracked, making his breathing even more difficult.

Xander closed his eyes as his and the First’s energy whirled around the small cave and crashed together.  As more smaller demons burst from the Hellmouth and ran.  He reached inside, this was his last shot.  Forcing one foot on the ground, and his torso up, he focused on the First’s who’s grin had only grown.  “ARGH!” Xander exclaimed as he felt more bones crack.

“*This, is where you die!*” the First snarled, tasting victory.

“AAAH!” Xander screamed, making his energy touch the right place, activating among other things his tail.  His chi-flame started whirling faster, the sound of its pulsing growing more intense, and then it grew thicker and thicker until it obscured him.

“NO!  NO!” the First Evil roared in anger, rage and fear.

From the Hellmouth a huge head emerged, a growl dying on its lips.  It looked around astonished, and focused on where the sound coming from.  The cave he saw was trembling, shaking, a big rock fell from the ceiling.  From in front of him the pulsing and screaming and roaring sounds came.  A mass of golden energy, in which was a demonic shape with orange and red energy whirled about.  The demonic energy was pulled along the golden energy, a demonic face stretched out, the mouth so far apart it started to warble.  A stretched desperate hand trying to reach outside, while the rest seemed to be trying to squeeze something.  The first of the demon-gods barely recognized ‘no’ in the sound, because he was focused on something far more pressing.  Cracks were coming from the mass of energy, and they had reached toward the Hellmouth.  He felt the seal through the energy vortex beneath; but what really worried him, was that the cracks were widening, rapidly, and toward him.

“Oh, no!” he realized, feeling the power level from the energy, as from beneath other demon gods were trying to push him onward. “Oh, no!”  He kicked down, making the one below him growl, pushing him harder up, urging him on.  “Down!  Back down!  It’s going to blow!  Get back!  It’ll blow!” he screamed down.

Then the energy mass exploded outward, tearing apart the demonic one.  Instantly the cracks burst open in small canyons, tearing the seal that kept the Hellmouth open and positioned utterly to pieces.  The mass of energy blasted past the demon’s head, ripping some off its flesh off.  Below, the cracks had destabilized the cave enough it started to collapse in on itself.  The rock walls burst, and crushed inward, bringing the ceiling, which was the ground of the catacombs above it down.  The seal tore apart, pulled downward in the collapse, and shearing it to pieces.  The Hellmouth snapped shut, severing the demon’s head in one smooth motion, reducing all mass including living beneath it within the vortex to sub-atomic particles instantly.   Then it shot back up to its proper position, while the demon’s head bounced twice before crushed by falling rock.

With the collapse of the deep cave, the room that held the seal tore apart and collapsed completely.  The catacombs around it collapsed partly as well.   Rock tore, and pieces fell down.  A terrified Jonathan was running, hands covering his head, to get out of the place.  It was ending, all of it was coming down, and he was trapped underneath.  “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit.  NO!!”  He looked up and saw the ceiling crack open, the crack quickly overtaking him.   The sides too cracked.  “AAAH!!!” he screamed, and jumped.  A moment later the catacomb crumbled around him, but he didn’t see: he had his eyes squinted shut.

Above him, everything sank a good chunk: ground and school.  With heavy sounds, cracks shot upward along a section of the school, which then crashed downward, while the rest remained at the same level; albeit no more intact with cracks everywhere.  The wave of energy smashed outward, shattering all the windows in Sunnydale - again: insurance companies were really going to hate Sunnydale.

*****

Buffy and Faith arrived at the school just as the energy wave burst out from it.  It blasted past them, and they were sent flying backward, tumbling about.  With some effort they righted themselves and looked at each other.  “Damn,” Faith muttered.

“Super Saiyan 4 is so not anything I ever want to tangle with,” Buffy muttered, shaking her head to clear it.

*****

The potentials screamed, and shrieked in fear.  Even older tougher Potentials, especially those who had manage to learn to sense energy, were terrified.  Fred, Angel, and the Watchers were covering the Potentials with their bodies where there were no more tables and arches to hide under.  The Crawford mansion ground floor was filled with people.  With a blast of energy and an accompanying shockwave that penetrated even those who couldn’t sense energies, the windows shattered and pieces of glass were sprayed everywhere.  The Potentials screamed even more, terror gripping them . . .

. . . and then everything quieted down almost instantly.  The ground stopped rumbling, and the mansion stopped shaking.  Slowly the grownups stood, looking around suspiciously, as if only half believing it could be over.  They jerked as one last piece of glass that had managed to stick fell down loudly in the sudden quiet.  Then they dared straighten again, as Potentials whimpered and looked up hopefully.  Angel slowly nodded, having vampiric senses he was the first to trust the quiet, and said, “Alright, go get some candles.  It’s over.”

*****

Willow and Tara held each other close, as the pavement trembled, and the buildings around them shook.  “What is he doing?” Willow asked.  They had gone toward Xander when he first transformed, but were holding each other close with some trepidation now.

“I don’t . . .” Tara started, then things went quiet.  “. . . know,” she finished softer.  Then they resumed their course.

*****

“AAAAAAH!!!!!” Jonathan roared, and then things quieted down.  He peeked past his arms as he saw the catacomb in front of him finish collapsing and settling down.  A few more rumblings, some smaller rocks and pebbles that hadn’t settled yet tumbled a few last distances, and then things were quiet.  It was a miracle he figured he could even see the final parts of collapse.  Everything was dark, and a thick covering of sand dust, and destroyed debris smoke hung everywhere, making it even more difficult to see.  He lifted his flashlight, shook it, and then tossed the thing away as he noticed the glass of the little lamp and the covering above had completely blasted apart.

Then he sighed in relief: dark he could deal with, demons he couldn’t.  He looked back up, and then murmured, “Xander.”  A moment later, “Poor Xander, you were in there.”  He took stock of his situation and found himself sitting against a wall of a t-split, and he realized he was almost to the exit into the school.

With a sudden sound the caved-in rock in front of him splintered apart.  Jonathan’s eyes widened as he vaguely recognized a fist.  Terror gripped his heart as he managed to make out the silhouette of a powerful figure.  It stepped out through the new opening it had simply punched through; behind it the new corridor it made for itself.  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was dimly aware of fur on the beast, and air and smoke moving as if being pulled along by a moving appendage.  From the silhouette two piercing yellow eyes became visible, for a few moments reflecting sunlight as if from a cat, as if from a predator.  He swallowed, as the being stepped forward.  Next Jonathan became aware of more fur, and bloodshot veins around the seemingly glowing eyes.  It was going to eat him, Jonathan realized, otherwise frozen in terror.

“Jonathan,” the being growled with clear rage, as it stalked forward, wobbling a bit.

A moment later Jonathan felled an impossibly strong hand wrap around his neck, a hand he had noticed ghostly speeding toward it him.  As he felt his crotch warp up and terror grip his heart so bad it was about to beat out through his chest, he was lifted off of the ground without a flick of effort.

“Jonathan,” the being growled again.  Jonathan got a better look; it had fur along its arms, across its chest and lower torso, a v-like shape remaining uncovered, long black hair.  And how did it now his name?  A closer look to the almost inhuman eyes, and more human face.

“Xander?” he squeaked, in only just recognition, and a little relief.  Then he remembered his actions toward Xander and his friends, as well as what Xander had done to Andrew with casual ruthless coldness, and realized this might not be something to feel relieved about - in fact, this might be much worse than some demon.

“You’ve got a choice, you little bastard,” Xander growled angrily, “prison, or grave.”

“Prison!” Jonathan squeaked out past the tight hand around his throat, almost choking him.  “Definitely prison!” he added quickly, hoping Xander cared about his choice.

Xander became aware of a smell.  He looked down slowly, following Jonathan’s body and finally the ground.  Xander grimaced as he noticed Jonathan had peed himself, and looked back up.  “You /really/ disgust me,” he told Jonathan, who swallowed heavily.

*****

“Xander!” Buffy exclaimed with concern.  Faith, who was nearby flying over the school, looked to where Buffy was looking, and smiled.  Xander, carrying some guy by the back of his collar, obviously keeping him away from his body, came walking out.  Then she went to concern as well.  They landed close to him, amazed once more at the sheer amount of power this form was given off, remembering how easily they were tossed about by nearly an energy wave not even a weapon.  Even now when he wasn’t even trying, his energy overwhelmed and blanketed out just about anything else.  More pressing though, were the bleeding gashes on his form, and from the way he carried himself, his obviously broken ribs.

“Are you okay!?” Faith asked concern, looking him up and down.

“Yeah, I’ll live, just need some time in my regeneration chamber and I’ll be fine by morning,” Xander said, with just a little difficulty in his voice.  He was breathing hard.

“What happened?” Buffy asked, looking Xander up and down as well.

Xander sighed, and casually tossed Jonathan a meter away, making him groan.  “This pipsqueak here, was helping the First with his big plans, opening some seal beneath the Hellmouth that contained an army of super vampires, who weren’t so super.  Watch out, he peed his pants.”

Buffy and Faith turned to Jonathan with angry looks.  “I wasn’t!  Andrew was!  I was trying to destroy the thing!  Andrew tricked me, /he/ was helping the First.  You saw him try to turn me into a sacrifice, didn’t you?” Jonathan protested from the ground.

Xander reluctantly nodded.  “Andrew?” Buffy asked.

“Dead,” Xander answered coolly.  “Damn, First tricked me good too, I know I wouldn’t have fallen for it if I’d been fully awake.  All that time no sleep and now only once every two days took its toll.”  Buffy and Faith looked at him expectantly.  “I destroyed him, he was a little too confident about being stuck phased out of existence.  Pulled him here, and finished him off, but not before he managed to do all this to me.”  Xander indicated his state.

“Shit,” Faith muttered, again taking in Xander’s state, his somewhat heavy breathing, and realized the First had come damn close to taking the victory home.

“It’s over then?  Really over?  We can go back to standard Apocalypses, and blessed sleep?” Buffy asked hopefully.

“Yeah, it’s over, Buff, we can get nightly sleep again,” Xander said, smiling just lightly.

“Oh, thank god,” both Slayers said in unison, and then looked wryly at each other.   Xander laughed, and then exclaimed pain, grabbing his bruised, cracked and broken ribs.

Xander then turned to Jonathan, and said, “/He/ is going to jail.  Would you like to do the honors, Buffy?”

“With pleasure,” Buffy said with a dangerous grin, making Jonathan swallow.

As Buffy picked up Jonathan, careful to keep the soiled guy away from her, Xander turned to his right and back.  Unseen by either Slayer, he winked.  Then he contacted Willow and Tara telepathically, sending, *Will, home.*

*****

Willow and Tara had gotten home earlier than Xander, Faith not letting him fly much with her concern over his condition.  Buffy was still delivering Jonathan, and so the two raven-haired persons entered the Summers home, Xander still in his fourth Super Saiyan form.  The place was trashed, and a busload of potentials were around, along with Watchers from different places.  Dawn was clearly in charge of the place, exuding confidence.

When they entered the crowded and trashed living room, everyone looked concerned.   “I’m fine,” Xander said to stave off the questions, right hand in the air in a stop sign.

Dawn stepped forward and said, “Kicked some demon ass in case you were wondering.”

“No, I felt it,” Faith answered before Xander, who was struggling with his breathing and thus his speech.

“No help?” Dawn asked with a mix of emotions.

“Did you need any?” Faith asked her with a slightly grin.  Dawn smiled, blossoming back up.

Willow jumped up from her seat which she had repaired using magic.  “So what happened!?” Willow practically shrieked impatiently, obviously looking concerned.  She quickly came over.

“The First Evil is gone, I destroyed it,” Xander mustered.

“Are you certain?” a cultured British voice asked, everyone still silent.

“No, I might have gotten the crap out of by a mere ghost.  Of /course/ I’m certain,” Xander said, and winced at his outburst.  Then the room burst in jubilant pandemonium, some outright dancing, others just smiling, others yelling.

After a little while, things quieted down.  Tara, sitting in a repaired chair of her own, said, “I think I’ll go call Giles.”  Everyone looked at her.  “H-he would want to know,” she said as clarification.

“And Willow, I brought a surprise,” Xander grunted out, bringing the redheads and a few others’ attention back to him.  He gestured next to him, and Jesse shimmered into existence.   Faith jumped in shock, wondering how she would have missed some sort of ghost or spirit, Xander’s power must have blanketed him out.   The others’ eyes widened, Willow’s in surprise.  “He’s /not/ the FE, relax.  Will, it’s really Jesse.”

“Jesse!” Willow exclaimed and charged forward at her smiling, dead friend.

His smile vanished and he tried to wave her off.  “No, no,” he managed.

“Willow, no!” Xander managed to say, but too late.

Willow went straight through the ghost, and slammed headfirst against the doorpost, making a dull sound, and everyone cringing.  “OW!” the witch screamed as she sank to the ground, dizzy.  

“Willow, he’s still dead, he’s a ghost, a disembodied spirit,” Xander said with a frown at his downed friend, and then chuckled.

Jesse reached down, extending his hand to Willow and asked, “Are you alright, Will?   I’m really sorry, but I can’t make my entire body solid.”

Willow looked with wide eyes at him, and gently took his hand.  Rubbing her painful head with the other, she groaningly let herself be pulled to her feet.  “That’s a big bump.  That really you?” Willow asked.

Jesse nodded, and he turned around.  “Miss Summers, I hope you don’t mind a freeloading ghost in your house,” he said with a big grin.

To Be Continued . . .

Next time on Buffy Z Angel and his gang return to LA, where they find . . . a doppelganger.   Who?  Why?  What for?  Find out in Buffy Z - Episode 85: Double Your Fun!  Double Your Danger!