Willow took a deep, centering breath, right before the first few
of the hech-vamps charged her. 'No time to be neat,' she thought,
grabbing one and then chanting a certain word.
The vampire clutched at his chest, looking at her in shock.
Willow held his heart in her hand, having teleported it right out of his
body with that word. She crushed it, and ash spiraled to the ground from
where he had stood.
She pulled her ceremonial knife from a inner pocket of her
jacket even as the other vamps hesitated, realizing that they were
facing something more than what they had expected. A few softly spoken
words transformed the knife into a sword of light, that she used to
sever three of the vampire's heads in one stroke.
Vampire Willow was still smiling slightly, watching her with a
almost cat-like amusement. The leather clad figure paced forward, the
room almost silent as the other vampires watched in fear and just a bit
of awe. Willow shivered as that cool, pale hand stroked her cheek.
"The wizard said that your magics can't hurt me," her vampire
twin said with a impish smile, "I guess he was right."
'She's right,' Willow thought grimly, 'she is still my blood,
bone and flesh, even if the soul is gone. My combat spells won't touch
her.' Her eyes widened as something occurred to her, then she actually
laughed aloud. To the vampire's startled face she said with a devilish
grin, "I think your wizard friend exaggerated a little."
In the rear of the Bronze, Kennedy helped escort the people
outside, occasionally using her Slayer abilities to deal with a stray
vamp. A little deeper in the building Faith and Tara were working as a
team to decimate the rest of the hech vamps. Faith simply used a stake
and years of experience, while Tara drew on her mystic abilities. A
burst of intense flame turned the vamps to ash, and cooling water kept
the flames under firm control.
Faith gracefully dusted another vampire, then turned to look at
Tara. Flames swirled and danced around the elemental sorceress hands as
she destroyed a straggler vampire. "That all of them?" Faith asked her
coolly.
Tara scanned the room, noting a few surviving humans fleeing
back to where Kennedy waited. None of the survivors seemed to carry the
taint of vampirism. She closed her eyes, reaching out with all her
senses, and only detected the other Willow ad her few allies up front.
"That's all the rear guard," Tara nodded her agreement.
"Then lets go get the vamps up front," Faith said eagerly. They
began to move forward when she quietly asked, "Should we rush in, help
Willow?"
"Let's see what the situation is, first," Tara answered. She
looked at Faith with a smile, "I'm pretty confident that she can handle
this, even with the limitation."
"Limitation?" Faith echoed softly.
"Because the vampire is basically the same flesh and blood as
Willow herself, her combat spells probably won't effect her," Tara
explained.
Faith swore softly, "Then we better get in there!"
Tara shook her head, "I think Willow knows what she's doing."
They got near enough the front to see the two Willows having a
bit of a staring contest. The other vamps hung back, unsure of what,
exactly, they should do.
"You're bluffing," the vampire Willow finally said softly.
Willow smiled back, her expression absolutely serene. "Do you
really want to bet on that?" she asked her gently.
The vampire hesitated, then she turned back to her hench vamps
and yelled, "Get her!"
"Shall we?" Faith asked.
"Let's," Tara smiled, stepping out to be fully visible. She
cupped her hands, scarlet energy flaring around her fingers even as she
cried, "Fireball... Charge!"
WHOOSH!
More then half the remaining vampires were consumed in a burst
of flame. The vampire Willow had a odd look on her face as she murmured,
"Slayers."
Willow blinked, 'She was into anime, too?'
Faith shook her head, muttering, "They're both nuts." Rather
casually she staked the last two vamps, just leaving Willow and her
vampire twin.
The vampiress looked around her wildly, trying to see some route
of escape. With Willow standing on one side, Faith and Tara on the
other, she was pinned down. With a soft snarl she decided to go for
Willow.
Willow spoke the invocation, gesturing downward, and the floor
seemingly exploded around her vampire incarnation. In seconds the undead
blinked in astonishment, staring out of a cage formed from wiring and
pipes pulled up out from under the floor.
"I may not be able to use magic on you directly," Willow smiled
slightly, "but I can certainly use anything else in the room to defeat
you."
Tara came up from behind her, hugging her closely, "I knew you
could handle it."
"Thanks for the backup," Willow answered her softly.
Faith looked at the caged vampire thoughtfully, "So what do we
do now?"
Kennedy came up from the back, joining Faith looking at the
leather clad version of Willow. "I guess we go get Giles now?" she asked
with a smile.
"Sounds like a plan," Faith agreed.
A short time later, over at the Magic Box they were all having a
fast conference. "You went after a highly dangerous vampire without any
backup?" Giles said slowly, as if he were having a hard time believing
what he had heard.
"Tara and I were there to back her up," Faith defended them.
"Besides, it was her vampire evil twin. Can't blame her for wanting to
handle that herself," she shrugged.
"So what do we do with her now?" Tara asked softly, looking over
at the securely caged vampire sitting nearby. Vamp Willow was sitting
cross- legged on the floor, pouting cutely.
"I suppose we just repeat the spell we used to send her back
home in the first place," Giles said with a little shrug.
"But that just means we send the bad vampire off to be someone
else's problem," Kennedy pointed out, still a bit cross over being left
out of the vampire slaying.
Faith had an odd look on her face as she considered the problem.
"Willow," she said softly, "you were the one who first re-souled Angel,
right?"
"Right," Willow nodded.
With a little nod towards the vampire Willow, Faith asked the
human one, "So could you do the same thing to her?"
A short beat of complete silence.
"Is that even possible?" Tara asked, looking at both Willow and
Giles.
Willow looked at her twin, considering. "Maybe," she murmured
softly. She looked over at Giles, "I think I'm going to need to borrow
some of your books."
"Just like old times," Tara murmured as they poured over the
various tomes. A few hours of research and preparation later, and they
were finally ready.
Giles smiled at Willow, "We are doing this together, you
realize."
Before Willow could try to form a protest Tara added, "You know
that magic works better in threes. Let us help you."
Willow smiled slightly, "I guess so." Ignoring the loud protests
of the vampiress, the three settled down to their work.
The first part was possibly the most difficult, establishing the
connection with the temporal pocket that the vampire came from. Using
Giles and especially Tara as her anchor, she sent her spirit out,
searching across space-time for the world that she was looking for. Once
she found that dark place, she used her spirit to channel the essence of
that world's Willow through her and back into her transformed vampire
body.
Vamp Willow jerked backward, her eyes growing wide. With a soft
groan she fell down to her knees, her entire body shaking. "What have I
done," she gasped, in that moment showing more real emotion than they
had heard from her since their first meeting.
"Are you all right?" Tara asked Willow softly.
Willow smiled back wanly, "I'll manage."
"Now you just have to send her back home," Faith said, keeping a
cautious eye on the vampiress just in case.
Softly, so that they could barely hear her voice, the other
Willow said, "When you do, send me back a few minutes before I was
taken." At their surprised, questioning glances she explained, "There's
someone that I have to save."
Giles nodded thoughtfully, "We can do that."
The final spell casting was almost anti-climatic, it was that
simple. The three of them pooled their power together, Willow spoke a
few soft words, and her twin, her brown eyes dark with pain and grief,
was returned to her home.
"I wonder who she wanted to save?" Tara asked softly.
Willow sighed softly, "We may ever know."
Elsewhere, elsewhen...
Willow looked down at the battle raging on in the factory,
waiting for just the right moment. Giles and his vampire slayers
launched a desperate fight against the Master's forces, even as the
Slayer herself forced her way through the mob.
Her past self, her soulless incarnation disappeared, and she
knew it was time.
Willow vaulted over the railing, coming down behind where the
Master stood. She grasped him from behind, holding him fast, even as she
cried out to the Slayer, "Do it!"
Buffy didn't hesitate, driving the stake right into the Master's
chest. Willow released him, and the Master gazed at her in shock, "You
were one of my favorites..."
The Master fell to the floor, his body converting to a cloud of
dust and ash. Strangely his skeleton remained intact, but Willow raised
up a block of metal and dropped it on top of them, shattering it to
fragments.
Buffy looked at the pile of ash, the looked up thoughtfully at
Willow. The warrior raised the stake, "You're a vampire, too."
Willow spread her arms wide and said to her softly, "Do what you
must."
Their eyes met, vampire and human, a deeply searching glance.
Buffy lowered the stake, "You're not like other vampires, are you?"
"I guess not," Willow looked around her thoughtfully. The
vampires had fled, shocked at the Master's death, and the human vampire
slayers were all dead.
"I'll probably have to stick around for awhile," Buffy said
quietly, her expression grave.
Willow picked up the long leather coat from the ground, shaking
out the vampire dust that still clung to it. She slid it on over her own
leather dress easily, and as she walked towards the Slayer it felt...
right, somehow.
"I'd like to help, too," Willow's voice was soft, looking at
Buffy's face.
The scarred, battered woman met her eyes, and Buffy's own gaze
showed no fear at all. She nodded slightly, admitting, "I could use the
help."
The end, and a beginning.
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