Okay, so I posted this, then the board ate it... so I'm posting it again. Strange. Maybe it was because I was celebrating making Flaming O, and the board-Gods decided to smite me...
This part is a bit long, so I'm posting it in two sections. Lots of characters, lots of plot... kinda.
Hope you like it..
*this is actually a repost, again, since I messed up my italics codes - special thanks to tommo for catching it!!!*-blameburner
Title: The Guardian – Part 5b
Author: blameburner
Feedback: Sure… Always a plus
Summary: This is just a nice little story about two witches, facing the apocalypse – again, and love.
Spoiler Warning: Up to and including "Normal Again" in Season 6 – but really nothing major.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, but oh how I wish they were! All hail Joss, all hail ME.
Rating: NC-17 (I've given up any pretense that it's anything less)
Pairings: W/T… duh. Everyone’s will be here at some point.
Notes:
This is a story I'm writing in total denial of the upcoming events spoiled for the end of Season 6. I know nothing about magic, except what I learned on BtVS, so I apologize if I offend anyone - no offense meant. Also, I'll be incorporating some religious/scientific ideas into this story pretty soon, so I wanted to warn you in advance. I'm taking some mainstream ideas and adding my own slant - but again, no offense is meant. It's just fiction.
Angst: And so it begins... on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say about 3.
Part 5b
Willow looked over at the clock. Angry red numbers flashed 1:03am. Willow didn't really care what time it was, or even that she was still awake, although she knew she should be trying to get some sleep. Morning would come soon enough, and Willow's logical mind told her that she would need to be rested, to be as strong as possible.
Tara mumbled something unintelligible and snuggled deeper into Willow's arms. She was sprawled across the red-head's chest, her arm nestled snug across Willow's stomach with her hand wedged between Willow's back and the bed. Tara's thigh shifted a little higher across Willow's hip, and Willow sighed.
Yes, Willow's mind admonished her to sleep, but every other part of Willow was perfectly content right where she was, wide awake. She ran her hand down the back of Tara's head, soothing her restless lover. Tara had been sleeping fitfully for nearly two hours, muttering and groaning, constantly shifting in her sleep. Willow didn't have to read Tara's mind to know the blond was worried about tomorrow, her fears demanding her attention in her sleep.
Which was partly why Willow was still awake. Willow was keeping watch over her lover, making sure Tara stayed asleep when on any other night, Tara's anxiety-filled dreams would have easily woken the blond. Of course, they would have woken Willow as well, and Willow smiled at the thought of many a night where fitful dreams had turned into passionate love-making.
But not this night. Every time Tara shifted or mumbled, Willow would coo and whisper in her love's ear, stroking her back or running her fingers through silky blond hair, comforting Tara and easing her back into slumber. Even in sleep, Willow continued to give Tara all the strength she had, and all the love. Willow knew that this was the only hope Tara had, the only hope any of them had, if they were going to defeat The Guardian.
Willow squeezed Tara closer still, seeking the same warmth and love she was giving. In truth, Tara's restlessness was only part of the reason why Willow was still awake. Her mind was also going non-stop, turning over every detail of the plan, and going over every moment of the last three weeks. Willow had to be sure they hadn't missed anything.
Logically, she knew that they hadn't, knew that they had picked it all apart, examined it all, over and over again. Yet she couldn't let it go, her mind would not allow her to stop. This happened every time there was some new Big Bad in town, messing with their lives, and long ago Willow had learned to just let her brain go, to not fight what her mind was trying to do. So Willow lay there, staring at the ceiling, replaying the last three weeks over in her mind. From the beginning.
**************************
"En guard!" Giles yelled, lunging at the Slayer with his sword.
"Um, Giles, you can't yell 'en guard' when I don't have a sword to 'en guard' with!" Buffy yelled back as she side-stepped her Watcher's thrust and twisted out of the way.
"Yes, well..." Giles said, circling around Buffy in the training room. He eyed the Slayer, taking note of how she sensed his movements, following him not with her eyes, but with her mind. Of course, being that he was blindfolded, she couldn't exactly follow him with her eyes at the moment.
Giles raised the sword over his head, noting how Buffy tensed at the motion, even though he had not made any noticeable noise. Giles swung the sword in an arc aimed straight at Buffy's head. She ducked, easily avoiding the sharp metal, and then ducked again as Giles swung the sword back again.
Giles smiled. Buffy had come so far since he had first met her. Not only had her speed, strength improved dramatically, which was saying a lot because she had possessed such raw talent to begin with, but her Slayer sense had improved as well. Buffy could not only sense physical danger, but it was as if she could also sense dangerous intent, without any physical action.
Giles took a few swipes at Buffy, all of which she avoided easily. "Come on, Giles! Quit toying with me. What's the matter? Getting too old for this?" Buffy taunted.
Giles flashed a grin. He had deliberately been going easy on the blond, setting her up for a quick and punishing attack. He was grinning because he liked that Buffy wanted him to attack her. He was grinning because as powerful as she was, she wanted to train, to improve. She now took her destiny seriously, but didn't let it control her, either.
Buffy spent much of her free time training these days. At first Giles had been concerned at the reports he was hearing from England. Leaving Buffy had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do, especially since he could see how much she was hurting after being brought back from the dead for the second time. Yet he knew she had to become independent, to trust in herself and in her own instincts, to figure out just who she was and what she wanted, and to accept it.
So Giles had left, even though it broke his heart. He had stayed away, even through Willow's magic addiction, because he knew Buffy could handle it, that she needed to handle it. And she had... eventually. After Giles left, Buffy had started training with renewed vigor, pushing herself to her physical limits. Giles had been worried, because he knew Buffy was using her duties as Slayer to avoid dealing emotionally with what she had been through.
But in time, something had changed. Buffy was still training hard, but it slowly shifted from pushing herself to the point of exhaustion to pushing herself until she felt she was done. Buffy started to trust her own instincts, in everything. She had begun to truly accept, once and for all, that she was the Slayer. And more than accepting it, she embraced it. She discovered that in every way, being the Slayer was as much a part of who she was as her blond hair or her fashion sense.
And she had realized that no matter what she did or what she went through, there were people who loved her and needed her. They needed
her. She had once thought that people only needed the Slayer, not Buffy Summers. But since her death and return, she had discovered that people needed both. Specifically, her family needed both. If anything, Willow's addiction had proven that. Willow didn't need the Slayer to fix her problem - she needed Buffy, her best friend, to talk to, to listen, and to help heal.
Buffy realized that being Buffy and being the Slayer were not mutually exclusive. She was both, always both, at the same time. They were not opposite sides of the same coin, but instead were like a cloth woven out of two colors of thread, woven to make an intricate pattern, and woven to make a stronger cloth. She could exist as either one color or the other, but she was better with both.
Finally, Giles had felt he could come back. Buffy had finally decided that she wanted to be who she was, Slayer and all, and had embraced it. So Giles had come back. It had been rough at first, re-opening old wounds or hurt and abandonment. But he and Buffy had worked through it, and their bond was stronger than ever.
Giles shook the thoughts of the past out of his head, and concentrated on the Slayer before him. He decided it was time to let her have it, and he charged at her, thrusting and swinging his sword. Buffy dodged blow after blow, the sword coming close, but never making contact.
Buffy kept moving back, but she knew she was quickly being worked into a corner. She knew the layout of the room by heart, and her Slayer mind quickly formed a plan. Giles thrust his sword at Buffy's head, which she avoided, then he thrust again, a little lower this time. Buffy side-stepped again, forcing Giles to turn so that he was directly in front of her and a large crate was directly behind her.
Giles had Buffy right where he wanted her. He swung the sword at Buffy's mid-section, expecting her to drop to the floor to avoid it. Instead, she executed a perfect back-flip, landing on top of the crate. Before Giles even had time to react, Buffy catapulted over the Watcher's head, doing a forward somersault and twisting in mid-air so she landed facing Giles' back.
Giles spun around, duly impressed at Buffy's acrobatics. He was especially impressed with the fact that Buffy had managed to accomplish all this with her hands firmly tied behind her back.
At least that's one advantage I still ha-. Giles' thoughts were interrupted by Buffy jumping into a tuck position, while simultaneously bringing her hands underneath her bent knees, so that they were now tied in front of her.
Strike that, Giles amended in his head.
Buffy flashed a wicked grin that told Giles that this training session was about to come to an end. Buffy flew into a cartwheel, coming to her feet just in front of Giles. As she landed, she knocked Giles' hands with her own, forcing his sword up into the air. She quickly swept her leg underneath Giles' feet, sending him the ground. In practically the same breath, gravity caught up with the flying sword, and Buffy grabbed it, swinging it with lightning speed at Giles. She stopped it just a hair away from the skin of her Watcher's neck.
"Had enough?" Buffy asked.
"Oh, quite right," Giles answered, his mouth still agape as he lay sprawled out on the floor of the training room.
Buffy smiled, moving the sword away from Giles' neck, and lifting the blindfold up over her head. As Giles' got up, Buffy traded in the sword for a knife, and cut herself free. She rubbed her wrists, grimacing at the angry red marks where the ropes had dug into her flesh.
"Hey, next time don't tie those ropes so tight!" Buffy whined. "I might end up with carpy tunnel or something."
Giles rolled his eyes. "It's carpal tunnel, Buffy. And you get it through repetitive motion, not from having a rope tied too tightly around your wrists. And furthermore, I had to tie them tight so you couldn't escape and defeat me."
"Escape and defeat you. You mean like when I jumped up over my hands so they were in front of me, knocked you down, grabbed you sword and held it to your throat?" Buffy said as she smiled sweetly.
Giles ignored her. "Oh, do shut up, Buffy."
Buffy just glared at him. Then she pouted.
Giles walked over to put the sword back into the weapons cabinet, grinning when he knew the Slayer couldn't see his face.
"... and they were just boiling, right there on the street!" Buffy and Giles heard as they walked into the main part of the Magic Box.
"Ooo! Did their little eyes explode?" Anya asked excitedly.
"Um, I didn't really get close enough to see, um, that," Dawn said, looking up at Anya from the table.
"And can I just say, ew?" Xander added.
"What?" Anya asked defensively. "It's what happens to the eyes when frogs boil. they explode. It's really quite interesting. First their little black eyes turn sort of gray and swirly, then they start to pulse and bulge out of their little heads. Then, boom!" Anya shouted the "boom," making everyone jump.
"And you know this, how?" Xander asked.
Anya started to open her mouth to say something, a wicked gleam of delight crossing her face, but Xander stopped her.
"No, no, don't tell me. Some things are better left to the imagination," Xander said. Then his face twisted in disgust, as he apparently imagined just what the exploding frog eyes looked like. "No, strike that, not better left to the imagination at all."
Buffy decided now was as good a time as any to find out what in the world they were all talking about.
"Um, excuse me," Buffy raised her hand.
"Yes, the nubile blond Slayer in the back," Xander said, pointing to Buffy.
Both Buffy and Anya shot Xander a look.
Xander looked at Anya and stammered, "No, not nubile. Nope, there is no nubile anywhere in the vacinity of the blond in the back. I see only one nubile body in this room, who I love very deeply," Xander said quickly.
Anya smiled broadly, and Xander breathed a sigh of relief - until he saw Buffy had narrowed her eyes at him.
"Oh, but not that you're not nubile, Buffy! Of course you are!" Xander started in again, only to see his fiancé glare at him again.
"But... uh... the... uh..." Xander stumbled over words as he looked back and forth between the two rather annoyed women. Then Xander gulped audibly. "Please don't kill me," he said, cringing.
Dawn snickered. She couldn't help it. Xander always seemed to step right from the frying pan and into the big, flaming pit of Hell. He was trying so hard with Anya. Ever since the aborted wedding, Anya briefly going vengeance demon, and their eventual reunion, Xander had been walking on egg-shells. He knew he had hurt Anya deeply, and he didn't want her to feel insecure in any way about his feelings for her.
Anya continued to glare at him for a moment. Then she turned on her heel and walked over to the cash register to count the money. In truth, Anya wasn't mad at Xander at all. She knew he loved her, and she knew he hadn't meant to hurt her. He had just been afraid that in the end, he would turn into his father, and would end up bringing Anya down with him. She had forgiven him months ago, and she knew that he would never hurt her like that again.
But it's so fun watching him squirm, she thought as she flipped through a stack of twenties.
I guess there's still a bit of vengeance demon in me yet, she added happily. But Anya didn't feel too guilty about making Xander feel bad - she knew she'd be making Xander feel much, much better later that night.
Buffy had also relented her stare at Xander, not wanting to make him suffer too much. "Yeah, so, what's with the boiling frogs? Did they change the curriculum at school and replace dissection with home economics?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "No, silly. When I was walking here from school I saw a crowd gathered on the sidewalk. I went up to check it out, and there were these frogs lying there, and they were all twitchy and stuff."
"Oh," Buffy said, as if Dawn's explanation cleared up everything. Then Buffy realized she was still confused. "So, you decided they were boiling, why?"
"Well, like I said, they were twitching and stuff. And they had steam rising from them, and their skin was bubbling."
"Oh," Buffy said again, now even more confused.
"And you say their skin was bubbling?" Giles asked as he walked over to the table.
"Well, yeah," Dawn said, looking curiously at the Watcher.
"And you didn't think that was a bit, odd?" Giles said.
"Um, no?" Dawn said somewhat sheepishly. "I mean, hello, living on a Hellmouth here! Stranger things have happened. Pretty much on a daily basis. I guess I've just gotten used to, well, the weird."
"I see..." Giles trailed off, taking his glasses off to clean them.
"What?" Buffy said somewhat alarmed, as she moved to stand over her Watcher.
"What, 'what'?" Giles questioned.
"You're all with the big interest in boiling frogs and the glass-cleaning, and the glass cleaning never means anything good, especially when you're talking about boiling frogs!" Buffy shouted.
"When have I ever talked about boiling frogs? Before now, of course."
Buffy pointed a finger at him. "See? Now you're all avoidy about the frog fricassee. What's going on, Giles?"
Dawn looked anxiously back and forth between Giles and her sister.
"Ooo! I know, I know!" Anya yelled jubilantly as she jumped up and down behind the cash register.
"Okay, An, why don't you tell us, since Giles just turned into Mr. Closed-Mouthed-English-Guy. Oh wait, he already was Mr. Closed-Mouthed-English-Guy," Xander deadpanned.
Giles shot him a look and was about to say something when Anya yelled, "Apocalypse!"
Xander shouted, "Where!" and then ducked under the table.
"Not right this second, silly, "Anya said as she walked over to the table and sat down.
Xander climbed back into his seat. "An, honey, you can't just yell 'apocalypse' like that. It's like yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater. Or 'free donuts' in a police station."
"Sorry, Xander. I just get so excited thinking about apocalypses!" Anya apologized.
"Ahem," Buffy cleared her throat. "You were saying?"
"Oh right, the" Anya lowered her voice like she was whispering a secret, "apocalypse." Anya returned her voice to normal. "Frogs boiling in their own skin, on the street? Definite sign of the apocalypse."
"Again?" Xander whined. "Didn't we just have one of those? Why does it always have to be an apocalypse? Why can't it just be a nice clam-bake? Or a parade? Or even, God forbid, the Ice Capades coming to town?"
"No! Don't say that!" Anya cried. "The Ice Capades have big, bad mojo behind them!"
Everyone turned to stare at Anya.
"How do you think they do all those triple-axles? And don't even get me started on the costumes! You know, I know the art director. He used to work for D'Hoffryn, before he decided designing the sets for 'Hell Side Story' and 'Annie Get Your Warlock' was too tame," Anya said.
Everyone was still staring at Anya.
"The Ice Capades are evil?" Buffy asked.
Giles cleared his throat.
"Okay, way off topic. Back to the apocalypse. What kind of apocalypse are we talking? Master vampire escaping and wreaking havoc? Hell God trying to open a portal into a demon dimension? What?" Buffy asked Anya.
"Don't look at me. How should I know?" Anya said defensively.
Giles shook his head. "Well, it could really be anything. We don't have enough information just yet. And I suppose, this being the Hellmouth, it could just be a supernatural aberration."
Dawn beamed proudly at Giles, since that had been her suggestion in the first place.
"So, I guess we should just keep our eyes open? See if anything else more-out-of-the-ordinary-than-usual happens?" Buffy suggested.
Everyone mumbled their agreement, and Giles got up to do some preliminary research. He didn't know what, exactly, he would be looking for, but he always felt better when he researched.
The bell over the front door to the shop jingled as Willow and Tara walked in.
"Hey, gu-" Willow started to say as she was pushed forcefully into the open door.
A smoking blanket whizzed through the open doorway and into the shop, and was then thrown to the ground.
"Bloody hell!" Spike yelled as he turned to glare at Willow. "You can't just block the door like that! A bloke could get a serious case of sun-burn like that!"
Willow rubbed her forehead, which had slammed into the door when Spike had run through.
"Gee, Spike, I'm sorry. How rude of me to walk through the door and be all in your way and everything," Willow apologized sarcastically.
"Damn straight!" Spike said grumpily, ignoring Willow's tone.
"You okay, baby?" Tara asked Willow, rubbing the red mark that had appeared on Willow's forehead.
"Ouch-y," Willow said, pouting as she looked at Tara.
Tara grinned. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"
"Yes please," Willow answered, grinning back.
Tara moved in to place a tender kiss on Willow's forehead, but the red-head was fast, raising her lips at the last second to meet Tara's. Tara giggled while their lips met, brushing over each others.
"Oh, go get a room," Spike complained, while secretly enjoying the view of the two women kissing.
Willow broke the kiss to glare at the vampire, who just glared back. Tara, however, knew that a glaring contest was not the way to get Spike's proverbial goat. So Tara reached up and grabbed Willow's face, and pulled Willow into a deep, probing kiss, right there in the doorway.
Willow was surprised, as Tara usually wasn't one to rub their relationship in anyone's face. It wasn't that Tara was ashamed in anyway about her sexuality - the exact opposite, in fact - but Tara wasn't a big fan of public displays of deep, hot, get-a-room kind of affection. The blond was much more in favor of keeping private time, well, private. but at that moment, Take-Charge-Tara was on the scene, and Willow was certainly not about to complain.
As the two witches continued their oral investigation of each other, Spike turned his back and groaned. "Whatever," Spike said in an annoyed tone, though inside he was smiling.
Good for them, he thought to himself, because he would never admit it out loud.
Tara pulled back from the kiss and looked at Willow, who just stood there, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, in a total daze. Tara smiled at the effect she had on her lover. After a moment Willow opened her eyes, a lazy grin spreading across her face.
"All better?" Tara asked, her eyebrow quirking upward.
"Huh?" Willow asked, still a little dazed.
"Your head. Ouch-y, remember?"
"Oh, that. Yeah, all better," Willow said, her grin taking on a bit of a wicked tint. "Although, it might start hurting again later, and I might need you to kiss it and make it all better again," she finished, waggling her eyebrows.
Tara blushed, but the assertive side of her was still firmly in place. Tara leaned in and whispered in Willow's ear, "And you might have other injuries we don't know about. I'll have to do a thorough exam, and make every injury all better."
Now it was Willow's turn to blush, as she thought of Tara kissing away all the injuries Willow was going to invent when they got home.
"Spike, what are you doing here?" Buffy asked the vampire.
"Huh? Oh, right. Have any of you been outside today?" Spike asked.
"No, Spike. We were magically transported here this morning form our homes," Xander said sarcastically. He really did not like Spike, although the blond vampire did have his uses. At the moment, Xander decided Spike's use was to be the butt of Xander's jokes.
"Oh, I see. Red's been dabbling in magic again, has she? Shifting people into different dimensions, and all that?" Spike asked, knowing it would get a rise of pretty much everyone in the room.
"Hey!" Willow complained as she walked up to the table, her hand linked with Tara's. "There has been no magical dimension shifting. Nuh-uh, no way. Nope, living magic free, nowadays," Willow said somewhat defensively. Willow knew that Tara knew she'd been clean for months now. Still, Willow was always a little afraid Tara would get the wrong idea about something and would stop trusting her.
"Wil, we all know you haven't touched magic for a long time," Tara said comfortingly. "And Spike knows it, too," Tara said, turning her eyes to Spike.
Spike cringed inwardly. He liked the blond, always had. Of all the Scoobies, Tara had always been straight with him, and had most treated him like a man. He didn't mind annoying Tara, but he never wanted to upset her, and Spike knew that bringing up the magic bit could upset her. Spike decided there and then he would never tease about Willow's magic use again - at least not in front of Tara.
Besides, Spike thought,
she may be all sweetness and light, but she's got a lot of power, and I really don't want to be pissing her off.Still, Spike had to maintain his bad-ass attitude. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said.
Tara smiled inwardly. Spike was all tooth, and no bite. At least not when it came to her. Tara had always liked Spike, at least when he wasn't being a royal pain in the ass. Yet Tara tended to like him even then, knowing that it was mostly bravado. Sure, Spike was evil. Tara did not kid herself about that. But Spike had proven himself loyal to their side time and time again, at least when it counted. Tara had also seen a side of Spike most of the others had not, and she knew that underneath all the snarling there was still a quiet, shy poet trapped inside. Just as much as the chip that prevented Spike from biting anyone, Tara believed that it was the thoughtful poet who was keeping the evil inside of him partly at bay.
"Okay, as enjoyable as it is having you around Spike, what do you want?" Xander asked.
"Like I was saying, have you been outside today?" Spike repeated himself. Before anyone could answer, he said, "Let me rephrase the question. Have any of you seen what's going on out there?"
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.
"Okay, guess that answers my question," Spike mumbled.
Spike yelped when Buffy grabbed him by the lapels of his leather coat and lifted him two feet into the air. "Spill," Buffy said simply.
"You know, for a bunch of Big-Bad-Evil fighters, you people sure are clueless about noticing the actual Big-Bad-Evil when it comes to town," Spike mocked.
Buffy threw Spike a few feet across the room, annoyed with the blond vampire. Spike got up off the floor and brushed himself off, then grinned wickedly.
"You know I like it when you get rough, pet. If you want to be alone with me, why didn't you just say so," Spike asked.
Buffy threw her hands up in the air and screamed in frustration. Spike laughed. They might not be having sex anymore, but he could still have a little fun with the Slayer.
"Okay, okay. Well there's the frogs boiling on the street, for one-"
"Frogs?" Willow croaked, grasping Tara's hand tightly in her own. "What do you mean frogs? Why are they on the street? Who let frogs just run around on the street, all hopping and sliming everything?" Willow cringed. She really, really hated those suckers.
"Xander said, "We already know about the boiling frogs, Spike. So, thanks for stopping by, don't let the door hit you-"
"Boiling? Frogs are boiling? Why are the frogs boiling? And why are they boiling on the street? Frogs are supposed to boil in pots... big pots full of water... hey, did you know if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it'll jump out, but if you put it into a pot of cold water and heat it up slowly, it'll stay in there and let itself be boiled to death? But why are there frogs? Are they nearby? Could they get in here?" Willow rambled worriedly.
"It's okay, Willow. Frog-free zone here," Buffy said. They really needed to deal with Willow's frog-fear one of these days.
"Are you sure?" Willow asked Tara, even though Buffy was the one who had told her it was safe.
Tara smirked, "Yes, darling. No frogs in here. I won't let them come in, okay?"
Willow sighed with relief.
Spike shook his head, and started in again. "Yeah, well, do you know about the Vulture Demons?"
"Vulture demons?" Giles asked sharply, his attention firmly rooted on Spike now.
"Thought that would get your attention," Spike said to the Watcher.
"What's a Vulture Demon?" Buffy asked.
"Oh, dear," Giles said, staring at Spike. The two men shared a look that said it all. But for everyone else's benefit, Anya filled in the gaps.
"Oh boy, that's not good. Vulture Demons are not good. Yep, we're definitely having an apocalypse," Anya quipped.
"Okay, will you people stop being all with the cryptic, and start doing some big-time explaining? Now?" Buffy asked impatiently.
"Vulture Demons! You mean to tell me that all these years of living on the Hellmouth, and you've never seen a Vulture Demon?" Anya asked incredulously.
"Um, no?" Buffy said uncertainly.
"Oh. Well, you'd know if you had. And since you don't know, then you haven't," Anya said matter-of-factly. Then she turned to Giles. "Okay, the fact that you've never had Vulture demons before on the Hellmouth? That scares me. And I was a demon for a thousand years! I wonder if we're having two apocalypses, at the same time?" Anya questioned, her eyes wide as saucers.
The room erupted in a thousand questions, all asked at once.
"Two apocalypses? How can we be having two apocalypses?"
"Why haven't we seen these Vulture Demons before?"
"Why haven't you had Vulture Demons before? What's wrong with you people?"
"I still don't know what a Vulture Demon is! Will someone
please tell me what a Vulture Demon is?"
"What, one apocalypse wasn't enough? Is this somebody's idea of a joke? Will there be singing soon? And dancing? I don't want to dance again."
Giles just looked back and forth, not knowing where to start. He looked at Tara, who was the only one in the room not speaking, besides him. She shrugged her shoulders and gave him a "what are ya gonna do?" look. He just shook his head and tried to gather his thoughts.
"Wait, wait, wait..." Xander said, trying to break through the clutter of questions. Everyone ignored him. Then he put two fingers between his lips and whistled, getting everyone's attention. "All right, everybody hold it! I've just got one question..." Xander trailed off.
"Just one?" Buffy asked, slumping back into her chair. She had way too much information, and way too little, all at the same time.
"Yeah, just one. You mean to tell me, there are these demons running around, that we've never seen before, who apparently are real baddies, and... their initials are 'V' 'D'?" Xander grinned, looking around expectantly at everyone, waiting for them to get the joke. They all just looked at him blankly.
"You know, VD? V - D? Venereal Disease. Their initials mean Venereal Disease!" Xander tried to explain, but to no avail. He shook his head. It had sounded so god in his head.
Dawn snickered from across the table, and all eyes turned to her. "What? I get it. You know... big bad demons, the VD's... It's funny!" Dawn explained. "Or not. Tough room," she amended when everyone just stared at her. Xander, though, looked at Dawn gratefully.
"Xander," Giles started answering everyone's questions directly, "I'm not even going to dignify the VD comment with a response. However, in answer to your earlier question, we are not having two apocalypses." Xander started to protest, but Giles shushed him. "Do shut up, Xander. Dawn, Vulture Demons are scavengers, much like vultures, hence their name. Their real name is 8,437 letters long, and completely unpronounceable, so ancient peoples developed a nickname based on their characteristics. Buffy, I suspect that we haven't seen Vulture Demons before because the carnage hasn't been bad enough. Vulture Demons are very mean, and very nasty, but they have stayed alive this long by remaining hidden. They can sense impending death, and only arrive in an area when they are sensing a lot of impending death. Anya, there is nothing wrong with 'we people.' The fact that we haven't seen Vulture Demons before actually speaks quite well of us, that we have avoided the kind of carnage that would attract them. And Willow, there will be no singing, and certainly no dancing. Not again!" Giles finally finished.
Buffy was the first to speak. "But you said impending death. With all the apocalypses we've faced, you'd think they'd have sensed the possibility of a lot of death here before?"
"Yes, well, it's not about possibility, it's about certainty." Giles took off his glasses and pinched his nose. "How can I explain this? Vulture Demons sense death by slipping through time. They are able to send the essence of themselves forward through time, while their bodies stay in the present."
"Sort of l-like astral p-projection?" Tara asked, her stutter appearing partly out of nervousness at having everyone pay attention to her, and partly out of fear at what she believed Giles was getting at.
"Yes, very much like astral projection," Giles said, smiling at Tara's contribution. Tara had proven herself essential to the group many times over, in Giles' opinion. Her comforting nature, her knowledge of magic, and her ability to make everyone see the same side of a situation had made her indispensable.
And she makes those delicious pancakes, Giles thought.
Tara smiled shyly, delighting that she had made a contribution, but also slightly embarrassed by it. She knew she had no reason to be embarrassed, had learned over the years that all the Scoobies valued her and her opinions. Still, old habits were hard to break. Willow squeezed her hand reassuringly, sensing Tara's unease. Tara looked up at Willow, and the shyness fled from her body. All it took was looking into Willow's loving eyes, and Tara felt like she could take on the world.
"So, these Vulture Demons go all floaty through time with their asteroid projector, and what, look for bodies?" Buffy asked.
"Not asteroid projector, Buffy, astral projection," Giles corrected.
"Whatever. The point is, they go looking for death before making their family vacation plans?" Buffy tried again.
"Something like that," Giles said. "But they can only go so far into the future. Usually no more than a few weeks, though it has been said that the oldest and strongest Vulture Demons can project up to a month in time."
"So, whatever's gonna happen that's got these guys choosing Sunnydale as their next getaway destination, is going to happen in the next three to four weeks?" Buffy asked with a slight squeak.
"Yes, I would say so," Giles answered.
"So, um, question?" Xander said, hesitantly raising his hand, as he didn't want Giles to yell at him. He didn't like angry Watcher. "Yeah, so, I still don't get why they haven't come here before. I mean, I think we can all agree we've had our fair share of death here."
"Yes, well, we certainly have had a lot of death," Giles agreed. "Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, we haven't had enough death to attract their attention. Until now, apparently." Giles started cleaning his glasses, a worried look on his face.
"Oh, no, not with the glass cleaning! You know how I hate the glass cleaning!" Buffy whined.
"So we know they're here. Why don't we just go kill them. Then, voila! No more death and dismemberment!" Willow said excitedly. Buffy nodded enthusiastically in agreement.
"It doesn't work that way," Anya said somewhat annoyed, and rolled her eyes. "Haven't you been listening?" She started ticking off points on her fingers. "One, they see into the future. They travel
into the future. No prophecies, no destiny. Whatever they've seen has already happened. We can't change it."
Buffy interrupted, "But we've changed the future before!"
"No, not really. You can shift the future, but you can't really change it. See, you people think to linearly to really understand this. Think of it like a map of the Earth. You want to travel around the world, eventually ending up in Belgium, but you don't really care how you get there. You can head in any direction from your starting point, which in my brilliant example, would be Sunnydale. So you pick a direction, and you head to New York. Then from New York, you have a whole new set of options. You can't really go back the way you came, because that would just be dumb. You were just there. And you've already seen the sights, eaten the food, had se-"
"Anya!" Giles interrupted. "As much as I
do so enjoy your little tales of a personal nature," Giles rolled his eyes to indicate he most certainly did not enjoy said tales, "do you have a point?"
Anya glared at the stuffy Englishman. And they said
she was rude. "Fine. The point is, that at any point you're at, you have a certain set of options. Once you pick one of the options to follow, you end up someplace new, with a whole new set of options. But the options you had before are gone, and you have to choose out of the new options. But two things are certain. One, you're still going to end up where you are going. Two, there are consequences from your previous choices of options, which can't be undone."
No one was quite sure what to think, so everyone just sat there, dumbfounded.
Anya took note of the vacant looks staring back at her, and sighed, "This really would have been easier to explain with my world-traveler example. And a big map."
"Wait... I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think I understand Anya," Willow said.
"Really?" Xander asked. "Um, then, could you explain it to me? Cuz, no offense An, honey, but I'm on the train that just passed 'huh?' and is quickly heading toward 'totally and completely lost,'" Xander said apologetically.
Willow moved to the table, grabbed a notepad and pen, and began drawing. On one side of the paper, she drew a small dot, which she labeled "two months ago." She drew three lines radiating out from that point, so it looked kind of like a triangle, without connecting the bottom. She placed points on the other end of each line, and labeled each of them "one month ago." Then she drew the same kind of lines out from each of the three new points, creating nine lines with nine points, all of which she labeled "present."
"Okay, let's say that this point" she pointed at the first point she had drawn "was two months ago..."
"Why two months ago?" Buffy asked.
Willow waved her hands in the air as she said, "No reason, really. It's just a point of linear reference." Buffy seemed satisfied with that, so Willow continued. "Okay, so two months ago, we had choices, represented by these three lines." Before Buffy could ask, Willow said, "There are actually thousands of choices we could have made, but that's just too many lines to draw. Anyway, so we had three choices. We made a choice, and therefore set ourselves down one path, which eliminated the other possible paths from our futures. But no matter which path we choose, we're still heading in the same direction."
"See? Belgium!" Anya said, her head bobbing up and down excitedly.
Buffy shook her head. "Okay, but what do our choices have to do with the Vulture Demons?"
"Well, let's say that there's another piece of paper just like this one, but that instead of showing our choices, it shows someone else's. Let's say there's something out there, something evil, that wants to do something really, really bad. There are an infinite number of choices he could make in order to reach his goal. Let's say the first choice is that he's going to come to Sunnydale, instead of going to, say, Bermuda." Willow traced over one of the lines that emanated from the first point on the paper, following it to the end point, one of the three labeled "one month ago." "So now he's in Sunnydale, and he has three new choices. All these other choices don't exist anymore," she said, drawing big "X"'s over the other lines that radiated out from the first point.
"So," Willow continued, "then he makes another choice, which leads him away from all the other choices he could have made. In the end, he's going to end up in the same place, and there's not much we can do about that, because he's already too far along the path to be able to stop him. Plus, there's all these consequences from his previous choices, and we can't really change any of those, either. All we can really do is damage control."
"How'd we get involved?" Xander asked. "Why do we always have to be involved?"
"Well, at some point, one of our lines started running parallel to this other evil-something's lines. If we make the wrong choice, we will diverge from the other guy's path in such a way that we won't be able to stop him. But if we make the right choices, we'll stay on a parallel path, and we'll eventually end up in the right place at the right time, where we can stop him." Then Willow added honestly, "Maybe."
"Okay, I'm all down with the stoppage of the Big Bad. But why can't I just go out and bust down on some of these Vulture Demon-thingees?" Buffy asked.
Willow started to answer, but Anya interrupted. "Oh they're not your problem. They're just a by-product, like the bloody entrails after an evisceration."
"I think what Anya's trying to say," Willow explained, looking curiously at the ex-demon, "in her all-too unique way, is that the Vulture Demons are actually a by-product of someone else's decision. They aren't the evil something making the choices - they're simply a consequence of those choices. And besides," Willow turned to Giles, "they're scavengers, right? Come to feast on the death they sensed?"
"Quite, right," Giles encouraged, enjoying how the red-head's mind was putting all the pieces into place.
"So, obviously, there's something else that caused the death in the first place. So killing them, while it may be satisfying in a 'getting out your aggression' kind of way, really wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't solve the much larger problem," Willow finished. Reality was sinking in, and Willow's eyes widened at the ramifications of what she'd just said.
Willow looked to Giles, who just stared back, not wanting to scare the girl further. Giles knew Willow was figuring it all out on her own, anyway.
"What? Why are you two looking at each other that way? Will somebody please tell me what's going on?" Buffy pleaded.
Willow sunk down into the nearest chair, her eyes still wide with shock and understanding.
"Willow, darling, what is it?" Tara asked, concerned that her love wasn't saying anything. All Tara wanted was to hear Willow babbling again. Willow-babble meant nervousness, concern, and even fear. But Willow-silence... Willow-silence meant disbelief, confusion, and terror.
Willow blinked and turned her eyes to Tara, who was kneeling down next to the chair. Willow just shook her head, unable to put her thoughts into words.
Giles sighed and looked around the room at all his children, finally turning his attention to Buffy. "What's going on is that Willow has just figured out how bad this all really is."
"But we've faced apocalypses before. Multiple apocali, all ending with the good. So we can beat this, whatever it is, right?" Buffy squeaked at the end.
"You don't have a lot of time," Spike seriously told the Watcher. Spike was evil, but Vulture Demons were not a good sign - for humans or other demons. And Spike wasn't too thrilled with the idea of becoming a Vulture Demon Happy Meal.
"I know," Giles said quietly.
"How much time?" Willow asked, finally finding her voice.
"Spike, how long have the Vulture Demons been here?" Giles asked.
"A few days... maybe a week. I didn't really catch on to them until last night," Spike answered, almost apologetically.
"And that means what exactly?" Buffy asked.
"Well, it means that sometime in the next two or three weeks, something very powerful and very evil is going to be in the final phase of whatever he has planned. And right now, we have absolutely no idea what the evil is, what it wants, or how to stop it. And even if we do stop it, there is going to be a lot of death," Giles told them.
"Well, there's going to be an awfully big, bloody mess on the streets of Sunnydale pretty soon. I certainly wouldn't want that clean-up job!" Anya laughed, but her attempt at humor sounded hollow, even to her.
Xander rose to stand next to Anya, sliding a reassuring arm around her shoulders. Willow pulled Tara up off the floor and settled the blond on her lap, her head resting against Tara's upper arm. Spike walked over to sit on the steps next to Dawn, who just stared blankly off into space. Buffy watched her Watcher, and knew he was holding something back.
"What?" she asked him. The look on her face told him that she was in no mood to be lied to, even if it was for her won good.
Giles finally said, "We must prepare ourselves for the strong possibility that some of us may not survive."
"You are safe, she says. Inherent in you is a truth no artificial world can fade." - The Journey
Edited by: blameburner at: 4/19/02 4:38:26 pm
by 4WiccanLuv » Fri Apr 12, 2002 9:42 pm 
