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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
"Luke fought Buffy one on one. Buffy thought she could take him - she'd killed Luke once before, and she'd learned a lot since then. But she couldn't seem to make the kill, and no matter how good her defense was, Luke seemed to keep breaking it down. I tried to help Buffy, but the Fireking backed me off, setting a wall of whirling hammers around the two of them." Willow took another deep breath. "Finally Luke tagged her with his knife - one cut across the neck - must have taken out the carotid artery. Buffy just collapsed into a heap." A quiet sob escaped Willow. "I ran. I knew I should check, to see if she was still alive even if the Fireking and Luke turned on me, but I ran away."
"Hey, Willow," Xander said, reaching out to hold Willow's hand, noticing idly how it felt the same and yet different from the hand of the Willow he knew. "You did the right thing in a bad situation. If you had died there, you wouldn't have been able to help with Resistance Humanity." A pause. "And you wouldn't have come up with the time-travel magic so you could come back here and save Buffy's life! So, come on, Will - what's the plan? How do we keep Buffy from dying again?"
* * * *
"It was chaos, right after Obayana opened the Hellmouth," Xander told them. "There wasn't even any time to grieve for you, Buffy, which is probably good. If I'd had the time to assimilate that you were gone, I'd probably just have shut down. But there was too much to do, and we kept each other going. Obayana was taking the dome down every night, sending vampire soldiers and Hell-demon monsters out into the world. A few of them started to 'take over' other towns and cities, the same way as Obayana took over Sunnydale, but mostly they were just interested in causing as much death and destruction as possible."
"We pulled together to fight," Xander continued. "The Sunnydale resistance, the scooby gang, the Watchers, the Slayers - Marea and the new one called after Buffy died for real - Catillian Jerzic. We killed the demons as we found them, slayed as many of Obayana's vampire army as we could. It looked like we were getting things under control."
"What we didn't expect," Cordelia put in, "was that all this was just one step of a larger plan. For every human life taken by a demon, the balance of energy on earth slipped just a little bit closer to Hell - and there were a lot of demons going postal on unsuspecting people. In September, nine months after the Hellmouth opened, the Earth was just Hell-ish enough. Obayana brought his demon grandpa back to Earth. Samael."
"Suddenly, the tide was going against us again," Xander said. "Samael was stronger than any demon we had ever faced, and he could turn any unsuspecting human into a vampire lord stronger than a Slayer. We knew that we couldn't hope to save the world without killing Samael, but the watchers said that he had protections against even death - he could revert to Hell, or reincarnate in another form, or save his essence in a mystic amulet to be recovered later."
"He offered to face the Slayers without any of those protections," Cordelia said. "I think he liked the idea of a final contest - a battle to the soul-death. If Marea or Catillian, seperately or together, could outfight him, he'd die. But if he killed either or both of the Slayers, no successor would be called for that Slayer - the Slayer spirit would die with the mortal girl." She shook her head sadly. "They took the challenge - it was too great an opportunity for them not to. And they lost."
"That was when Willow came up with the idea of the time travel," Xander said flatly. "She did the magical research, and we did our best to come up with the strategic information that could change history." He sighed. "We'd better get into it. There's only a few hours to get everything straight before we revert into the timestream, and I'm sure you'll have a lot of questions..."
* * * *
"I don't have too many answers for you," Willow said with a sigh. "Xander and Cordelia were the ones who boned up on the details for the main assault, and they'll be giving that information to Buffy, Angel, and my alternate right about now. For me, my main contribution was the time-travel spell, and this." She put her staff down on the table in Vanessa's study, and for the first time, Xander noticed how intricate it was, with a silver-and-crystal sphere built around its trunk two-thirds of the way up, a more irregular attachment adorning the tip, and various runes carved into the wood. "It'll take me most of my time here to explain to you how to rebuild this, Vanessa, but it should be worth the effort.
"What the heck is that, Willow?" Cordelia asked in a slightly horrified tone. Probably in her mind it qualified as the ugliest acessory ever, Xander reflected.
"My Slay-staff," Willow told them. "The ultimate weapon against the supernatural - magic and technology synthesized into one. It doesn't have enough punch to take out the demons I'm used to dealing with in the future, but it'll make a hell of a difference back here in 1999. If you can get one working, that is."
"This model, it is inoperative?" Tojo inquired calmly.
"Yeah," the future Willow said, nodding. "The guidance mechanism depends on having a spirit inhabiting the central crytal - a spirit who knows about magic and science. I had Jenny Calendar fill that role. But we couldn't get the time travel spirit to work on Jenny's spirit - she can be called into the earth by certain invocations, but Elysium is her home now, and the time travel magic works on Earth time, not Elysium time." She cocked her head, gazing pensively at Xander. "You'll have to help bring Jenny to the earth, when the time comes, Xander - you're the only one here in Sunnydale who's attuned to Elysium."
"You're not, Willow?" Xander asked, but Willow shook her head.
"Not now - it's the time-travel messing that up too. Anyways," Willow sighed and did her characteristic get-back-to-the-topic Willow head-shake, which still seemed a little weird on the older Willow, "back to the Staff. This one will disappear when I disappear, six hours from now, but it'll serve as a template for you, Vanessa. I've got sketches here, too," she drew a mass of folded paper out of a pocket in her breeches, "which you can copy out, and those copies will stay once I'm gone. Okay?"
"Yeah," Vanessa said with a nod, taking the papers from Willow and starting to unfold them.
* * * *
"First off," Xander said, producing a map from his fatigues somewhere. "The tunnel. We finally did find an underground route into town, once the heat was off of Sunnydale." He spread the map out for everyone to look at. "It begins here, at the shaft of an old mine about ten miles from Sunnydale. You go down to the first level, and follow the railway tracks northwest as far as they go. Now, it's a little tricky of a route here, but there's a mine gallery there that opens into a natural cave formation - underground river flowing through limestone rock. After two miles of that, there's a hidden entrance to a vampire tunnel - a little 'back door' out of the Master's old lair. Take the electrical tunnel from the Master's lair into the sewers, and up any manhole... there you are in downtown Sunnydale."
"But, of course, you can't just come up any old manhole," Cordelia contradicted Xander with a shake of her head. "You need to stop Obayana, as soon before he opens the Hellmouth as possible, and you need the advantage or surprise on your side." She marked a different route on the map. "The opening spell was probably done at a platform of living rock in a field past the cemetary. So..."
"I'll want to come up through the mausoleum," Buffy interpreted, recognizing the pathway she had once taken the other way, from the mausoleum towards the Mater's lair. "Cut from the graveyard over to the field, and take him out." She considered. "Any hints on the taking out part? I mean, if Luke killed me once, he might be able to do it again, even without the advantage of surprise."
"Our Willow's giving the plans for a weapon to Vanessa and Mister Tojo," Xander told her. "A vamp-duster. Vanessa can give it to your Willow on the way to the final battle. It should be able to take out any vampire. As far as Obayana, he needs to be beheaded - a good big sword or a discus ought to do it."
"Uh, right," Buffy said, feeling an odd twinge. Yeah, Obayana was a deranged lord of evil and devoted servant of a horrible master demon. But still he looked like an eleven-year old kid, and on some level at least, he was Buffy's son. How could she kill him??
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