Seeking Vengeance

 Chapter 20 - Grave

I've had some awful days in my life. There was the whole thing with the clown at my birthday party, the day Jesse got killed and then dusted, the day Buffy told me she didn't think about me 'that way'. Then there was the day Cordy found Willow and I kissing at the old factory and ended up nearly dying, and the day Buffy did die. Despite all of those, that day, was probably the worst. First, Tara was dead, and my friend Willow, the one person who'd been with me through every part of my life, suddenly turned out to be someone I didn't know. What happened after that, had, with hindsight, all the sickening appearance of a huge accident which I was powerless to prevent.

When Giles arrived, I was confused. I thought then that the worst had happened already and the saying about locking the door after the horse had bolted came to mind. How wrong could I be?

My first reaction when I saw that Willow was gone was disbelief. When we left her, my only worry about Willow was that she wouldn't be able to move in order to get help if she needed it. The idea that she could actually leave the house simply hadn't occurred to me. In fact, the first thing I did was to check all the upstairs rooms in case she'd fallen trying to get to the bathroom or something.

While I was doing that, Giles seemed to know exactly what had happened, or at least, he understood that things were very bad. We made our way downstairs, and in Buffy's living room, he told us what he'd learned from Anya, and then the coven. Buffy and I then filled him in on what had happened.

I'd been shocked that Willow could have killed three people. Even though Buffy told me, I could barely believe it. The suggestion that her need for vengeance still hadn't been fulfilled just didn't seem possible.

As if she'd been called, Anya suddenly appeared. I hadn't seen her since she left me, and it was surprising the twinge it caused seeing her again. She, however, gave no indication of twinginess, and was all business.

"What are you doing here? Going to have a nice cup of tea while Willow kills some more?"

"We haven't any idea of where she is," Giles stated. "Normally under these circumstances we'd ask Willow or Tara to do a location spell, but .."

"She's in the city centre," Anya cut across Giles. "I think she's gone to some guy that deals in dark magic. She's already tried to bring Tara back, but the Powers won't let her .."

Anya looks at Buffy as she says that, waiting for her reaction, but Buffy's as shocked as I am by all this, and she just continues to listen.

"But, the people responsible for Tara .. they're already dead," I reminded her.

"What's that got to do with it?" Anya replied bluntly. But then, blunt was always her style. "She's grieving, she doesn't know how to deal with what's happened, and I think she's also blaming herself. Her need for vengeance won't be met until something pretty big has happened, if it ever is. She's angry that she's been forbidden to bring Tara back when she did it for you, and there's this huge guilt about how she's feeling."

Buffy looked thoughtful for a second, and then she spoke. "She pushed me out of the way, that's why Tara's dead, and she brought me back, and she can't do that for Tara - she's probably wishing she hadn't .. saved me."

I could see that Buffy was hovering between hurt at this realisation, and understanding, but I couldn't do anything to make her feel better. Almost as one movement, Giles, Buffy and I shook off the thoughts that were begging to be understood, and we headed for the door.

"I'll need to come too," Anya said, as we got outside. "You won't find the place without help."

We took Giles' car, Buffy up front with him, and Anya and I in the back. I think she was actually scared, and if I'd known more about what was going to happen, I'd have been scared too. But then, I was just thinking, 'It's Willow. She'll be ok. She won't do anything she shouldn't.' In my defence, I have to remind myself that I hadn't actually seen her killing the others. Maybe if I had, I'd have had some idea of what we were facing.

We found the place, and went in to find the waiting room deserted. The door leading from there was open, and we entered cautiously, not sure what we'd find.

There was a man, dead, hanging upside-down in the centre of the room. He wasn't much to look at, and I've seen more than my share of dead bodies, but knowing that Willow was responsible, well, I was soon emptying my stomach into a corner of the room. There was no sign of Willow, and Anya was concentrating, trying to find her.

"She's moving fast," Anya decided. "Must be flying. I think we only just missed her here."

She concentrated a while longer, her face screwed up with the effort.

"The Magic Box," she managed at last.

I swear we made it to the store faster than I've ever done that journey. We rushed inside to see her, hands immersed in a stack of books on the research table, the writing crawling up her arms as she filled herself with their power.

She was Willow, but she was almost unrecognisable. Her hair and eyes were black, and her face, that was the most awful part of it - her expression was bereft of humanity - it looked like a mask, an evil mask that had just happened to be modelled on my best friend. There was none of the sweetness that's always been Willow.

She saw us, but she ignored us. She must have known that we were there to stop her, she should have been surprised that Giles was there at all, but she ignored us as if we were just too insignificant.

"Willow," Giles started, "you need to stop. Whatever you're planning, you need to stop and think about what you're doing."

Willow finished sucking up the power from the books before she answered.

"The way you think I should have done before I brought Buffy back? I know what you think about me, you made that perfectly clear then. What was it you said? Rank amateur, that was it. Well, do I look like an amateur now?"

"You look like you have power now, Willow, but I'm still not sure you know how to use it."

"Oh, I know," Willow taunted him. "I could show you just how much I know. You and all the others who keep telling me I 'shouldn't do this', or 'shouldn't do that'." Her voice took on a sing-song quality as she said that last bit, an echo of a child cheeking an adult.

"Willow," Giles said warningly, but all he got for his trouble was a blast of energy from her hand that sent him across the room.

"Anyone else?" she asked. "Anyone else got something to say about what I shouldn't be doing? 'Cos, I'm betting Giles would say I shouldn't have done that, but hey, it was fun, and it's nice, just for once to get the last word."

There was a blast of green from the other end of the room then, as Giles sent something towards Willow from where he lay. None of us expected it, least of all Willow, and the effect of it was to bind Willow so she could neither move nor speak.

"What was that about getting the last word?" Giles asked, pulling himself painfully to his feet.

Seeing that Willow was held, at least for the moment, Buffy and I ran to help Giles.

We headed out to the training room to talk. Giles explained about the power he'd borrowed from a coven, and we told him a bit about what had been happening. I'd been surprised when Anya didn't follow us, but had put it down to the way she seemed less comfortable among us since she'd gone back to being all demony. Unfortunately for us, the reason had more to do with Willow's telepathic command to stay.

We were just discussing how Willow would cope in future with the fact that she'd taken four lives when we heard her outside the room. We rushed back into the main shop to find Anya lying unconscious on the floor, and Willow once again free. I ran to Anya, relieved to find that she seemed to be ok. I heard Giles doing the binding spell again, but this time Willow had an answer and the spell failed.

They started to fight then, Buffy with her Slayer-strength, and Giles with magic, but Willow's magic was just too strong. You got the feeling that she was actually not trying too hard, that she was just toying with them. I tried too, but without any gift for magic, or super-strength, all I could do was talk. I don't remember what I actually said, not now, but I know I did a lot of talking until Willow told me to shut up.

After a while, it was as if she'd just got tired of Buffy attacking her, so she sent her flying against a wall, and pinned her there. She seemed to be enjoying the magic and words duel with Giles more, so she decided to stick with that. I tried to speak again, and I ended up next to Buffy similarly unable to move. That's when she really started on Giles.

I hadn't realised just how much resentment against Giles she had. It was obvious from what was said that Giles had been angry when she had brought Buffy back, and that Willow's resentment had only grown while he'd been away. Soon, he seemed to be out of power, or something, because she started hitting him off the ceiling and floor alternately, and it was obvious that he'd been pretty badly hurt.

Although there was no more magic coming from Giles, it was always going to take rather more than severe pain to stop him talking. He was still goading her, telling her she was wrong, asking her what Tara would think about what she was doing. I remember one thing he said quite clearly.

"You're expending way too much of your mystical energy to maintain your powers. At this rate you're going to burn out. And up."

Willow just replied "Blah blah."

"Willow, you need to stop."

"What I need, is a little pick-me-up."

Then she grabbed Giles' chest, and I saw this energy leaving Giles and going into Willow.

That seemed to take the last of Giles' reserves, but it was as if Willow had had a blast of something really good.

"It's incredible. (panting) I mean, I am so juiced .. Giles, it's like  no mortal person has ever had this much power. Ever. It's like I, I'm connected to everything. I can feel, it feels like, I .. I can feel.. "

She seemed, well, high on the power. But just like after a drug high, you can get the opposite, she was suddenly right down, and I mean almost immediately.

"...everyone. Oh. Oh my God. All the emotion. All the pain. No, it, it's too much. It's just too much."

Giles had obviously heard what she'd said, because he managed to lift his head just enough to look at her as he spoke.

"Willow ... It doesn't have to be like that. You .. you can stop it."

"Yeah. I, I can. I have to stop this. I'll make it go away."

She mumbled something then, words I couldn't quite catch. Then I heard the next bit clearly.

"Your suffering has to end. "

Then she was surrounded in a tornado of magic and she disappeared.

The silence that followed was brittle. Once Willow was out of the room, Buffy and I were able to move again. Anya broke the silence when she moaned a little as she came round, and I ran to her, helping her to her feet. She looked confused for a moment, and I explained as well as I could what had happened. She seemed to concentrate a little, then she said, "I've found her," before disappearing.

Buffy and I turned to Giles, but he was in a lot of pain, and struggling to maintain consciousness. Just a few seconds later, Anya came back, looking even more worried than she had seemed before.

"It's Proserpexa" she announced.

Who?" Buffy and I asked, as one voice.

"Uh, way up there in the hierarchy of she-demons. Her followers intended to use her effigy to destroy the world. They all died when the temple got swallowed up in the big earthquake of '32."

"So now seventy years later, Willow's going to make their dreams come true," Buffy replied.

"She's going to drain the planet's life force, and funnel its energy through Proserpexa's effigy and, and burn the Earth to a cinder."

"Not if I can help it." Buffy sounded determined, but she quite obviously didn't have any idea how to stop her.

We hadn't realised that Giles had even heard what was said until he managed to rasp out one thing. "No magic or supernatural force can stop her."

He pulled himself up to lean against the wall, wincing as he did so. He called me over then, and I approached not sure what he was going to do. What happened then surprised me. There must have been some of the coven's power left after Willow drained him, because I felt something warm engulf me. The next thing I knew, I wasn't in the Magic Box any more. I was standing in an open place, with Willow standing in front of a huge statue thing.

She was throwing energy at it, and the next thing I'm between her and it, and believe me, that's a scary place to be.

"Hey, black-eyed girl. Whatcha doin'?"

"Get out of here."

"Ah, no. You're not the only one with powers, you know. You may be a hopped-up uber-witch, but ... this carpenter can dry-wall you into the next century."

"I'm not joking, Xander. Get out of my way. Now. "

Then she started throwing this magic at me, but I tried to keep standing. It wasn't easy, but I tried. She knocked me down a time or two, but I just got up and stood in front of her again.

"You can't stop this," she warned me.

"Yeah, I get that. It's just, where else am I gonna go? You've been my best friend my whole life. World gonna end ... where else would I want to be?"

"Is this the master plan? You're going to stop me by telling me you love me?"

"Well, I was going to walk you off a cliff and hand you an anvil, but ... it seemed kinda cartoony."

"Still making jokes."

"I'm not joking. I know you're in pain. I can't imagine the pain you're in. And I know you're about to do something apocalyptically evil and stupid, and hey. I still want to hang. You're Willow."

"Don't call me that."

"First day of kindergarten. You cried because you broke the yellow crayon, and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion. But the thing is? Yeah. I love you. I loved crayon-breaky Willow and I love ... scary veiny Willow. So if I'm going out, it's here. If you wanna kill the world? Well, then start with me. I've earned that."

That was when I saw the first faltering in her determination to end the world.

"You think I won't?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll still love you."

"Shut up."

The next thing I knew, she made a gesture, and I had some cuts on my face. I didn't know what else to do, so I just said it again. "I love you."

She threw some more magic at me, but this time I didn't even wobble. It was like she was running out of juice. I said it again. "I love you."

She waved her hands again, but this time there was nothing. Taking that as a good sign, I started to walk towards her, eventually getting to her, and pulling her into my arms.