Introduction
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| The Harvest | Teacher’s Pet |
“This is madness!” says Giles. “What can you have been thinking? You are the Slayer! Lives depend upon you! I make allowances for your youth, but I expect a certain amount of responsibility, and instead of which you enslave yourself to this, this…cult?”
Buffy holds up a couple of pompoms. “You don’t like the colour?” She is standing in the library in her cheerleader outfit. She tells Giles she’s trying out for the cheerleading squad.
“You have a sacred birthright, Buffy. You were chosen to destroy vampires, not to…wave pompoms at people. And as the Watcher I forbid it.”
“And you’ll be stopping me how?” asks Buffy.
Giles fumbles for an answer. “By appealing to your common sense. If such a creature exists.”
Buffy tells Giles that she’ll still have time fight the forces of darkness. She just wants to do something normal. Something safe.
A viscous green liquid bubbles in a cauldron. Someone waves a pendant over it, and then goes to a rack and pulls down a barbie doll dressed in a cheerleader outfit.
Willow and Xander accompany Buffy to the cheerleader tryouts in the gym that afternoon to lend their support.
Xander is also there to check out the girls. “People scoff at things like school spirit, but look at these girls giving their all like this!” He sees Amber Grove doing the spits between a couple of chairs. “Ooo, stretchy! Where was I?”
“You were pretending that seeing scantily clad girls in revealing postures was a spiritual experience,” says Willow.
“Who said I was pretending?” Xander pulls a bracelet out of his pocket and presents it to Buffy. “Oh, hey! Here’s a good luck thing for tryouts.”
“Oh, how sweet!” Buffy takes the bracelet and reads the inscription. “‘Yours Always.’”
“It came that way, really,” says Xander. “They all said that!”
Some of the girls trying out include Cordelia, Amber Grove, and Amy Madison. Amy is an old friend of Willow’s. Willow is surprised to see her there. She hadn’t been aware that Amy was interested in cheerleading.
The head cheerleader, Joy, calls on Amber to begin the auditions. She starts into her routine. She’s very good. Buffy realizes that the competition is going to be stiff.
“She trained with Bunson.” Amy tells Buffy. “He’s one of the best coaches money can buy.”
“They have cheerleading coaches?” asks Buffy.
“Oh, yeah!” says Amy, “Don’t you have? I train with my mom, three hours in the morning, three at night.”
“Hm, that much quality time with my mom would probably lead to some quality matricide,” says Buffy.
“Oh, I know, it’s hokey,” says Amy, “But she’s really great.”
Cordelia has seen enough of Amber. She turns her back on her.
Amber continues with her routine. Buffy notices something isn’t right. Amber’s pompoms are smoking.
“That girl’s on fire!” yells Willow.
Cordelia still doesn’t look. “Enough of the hyperbole!”
Amber screams and drops her pompoms. Her hands are on fire! Buffy turns and runs up the bleachers. She grabs one of the Sunnydale High Razorback banners. She runs back out onto the gym floor and tackles Amber, who is standing waving her arms about. Buffy uses the banner to smother the flames.
Buffy lies on the floor with Amber, trying to comfort her. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Buffy meets with Giles, Willow and Xander in the library. She’s been slaying for over a year now, and she has seen a lot of weird stuff, but this is the first time she has ever seen anyone burst into flames. This isn’t a vampire problem, but it is definitely not of the norm. She thinks she should be looking into it.
Giles agrees. While spontaneous human combustion is rare, and scientifically unexplained, there have been cases reported for centuries. Buffy wants to get some more information on Amber. Find out if there have been any other colourful episodes in her past.
“That means hacking illegally into the school’s computer system,” says Willow. “At last, something I can do!”
“I’ll ask around about her,” says Xander.
“You guys don’t have to get involved,” says Buffy.
“What do you mean?” asks Xander. “We’re a team! Aren’t we a team?”
“Yeah!” says Willow, “You’re the Slayer, and we’re, like, the Slayerettes!”
“I just don’t like putting you guys in danger,” says Buffy.
“Oh, I laugh in the face of danger,” says Xander, “Then I hide until it goes away.”
Buffy agrees to let them help, but she warns them to be careful. They have no idea who, or what might be responsible for what happened.
Buffy arrives home to find the kitchen full of packing crates. Her mother is struggling to open one of them with a crowbar. They contain a shipment of sculptures.
Buffy starts to look over some of the pieces that her mother has already unpacked. “We had tryouts today.”
“Oh, great!” says Joyce. “How’d it go?”
Buffy tells her mother that she didn’t actually get the chance to try out, because of an accident, but the competition looks pretty fierce.
“Oh, I know you’ll do fine,” says Joyce. “Keep on plugging, just have to get back on the horse.”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“What was I trying out for?”
“Oh, uh…” Joyce stops struggling with the crate, and looks at Buffy. “Some activity? I have no idea, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” says Buffy. “Your platitudes are good for all occasions.”
Joyce apologises for her distraction, and goes back to trying to open the crate. “This is my Gallery’s first major show.” She gives up on the crate, and turns away to consult her inventory list on a clipboard. “You know, it might not physically kill you to give me a hand here.”
Buffy rips the lid off the crate with one hand. “It was cheerleading.”
“Oh good!” says Joyce. “I’m glad you’re taking that up again. It’ll keep you out of trouble.”
“I’m not in trouble,” says Buffy.
“No, not yet,” says Joyce. Then she realizes how that sounds. “I mean, you stopped cheerleading just before the trouble, so it’s good you’re going back.” She goes over and takes a look inside the crate Buffy opened for her. “Oh dear.”
“What?” asks Buffy.
“A fertility statue,” says Joyce. “You don’t need to see it.” She replaces the lid.
Buffy tells her mother about Amy, and how much time she is spending with her mother practicing. “Sounds like her mom’s really into it.”
“Sounds like her mom doesn’t have a lot to do.” Joyce leaves the kitchen carrying a small statue.
After her mother is out of sight Buffy lifts the lid off the crate and peeks inside. “Jeepers!”
Tryouts resume next day and things go well for Buffy, but Amy messes up in the group performance, cart wheeling into Cordelia, and causing them both to fall.
“You saw that right?” Cordy asks Joy. “That wasn’t me! You saw that?”
Buffy finds Amy looking at the school trophy case after tryouts are finished. Amy points out the picture of her mother prominently featured in it. Catherine Madison led the Sunnydale High cheerleading squad to the State Championship. Her nickname at the time was Catherine the Great. She and Amy’s dad were the Homecoming King and Queen. They got married right after graduation.
“That’s kind of romantic,” says Buffy.
“Well, he was a big loser,” says Amy. “Never made any money. Ran off with Miss Trailer Trash when I was twelve.”
“Okay, that part’s less romantic,” says Buffy, she understands how Amy must feel. “My folks split up, too.”
Amy tells Buffy more about how great her mother is, and how she can never measure up to that. She choked so badly at the tryouts today.
Buffy tries to tell Amy that she doesn’t have to lockstep herself to her mother’s life. Amy isn’t interested in hearing that. She heads off to change out of her cheerleading outfit, passing Willow. Willow says “Hi” but Amy ignores her and keeps going.
“Is she okay?” asks Willow.
“No,” says Buffy, “She’s wigging about her mom, big Cheer Queen back when.”
“Yeah, her mom’s kinda…” Willow searches for the right word.
“Nazi like?” suggests Buffy.
“Heil,” says Willow. “If she gains an ounce she padlocks the fridge and won’t eat anything but broth.”
“So, Mommy Dearest is really…Mommy Dearest?” says Buffy.
Willow agrees, but Amy’s nice. They used to hang together in junior high. Amy would come over to Willow’s for brownies whenever her mother went onto a broth kick.
Willow is there to report the results of her research into Amber’s past. There is nothing out of the ordinary. The only time she ever got a detention it was for smoking. The regular kind, with a cigarette.1
“So we just have to wait and we’ll see what happens,” says Buffy. “Maybe nothing will.”
Amy is confronted by Cordelia in the locker room. “I have a dream,” says Cordy. “It’s me on the cheerleading squad, adored by every varsity male as far as the eye can see! We have to achieve our dreams, Amy. Otherwise we whither and die!”
“Look, I’m sorry about—”
“Shhh!” Cordelia cuts her off. “If your supreme klutziness out there today takes me out of the running, you’re going to be so very beyond sorry!” Cordelia tosses her headband into her locker and slams the door shut so hard that it bounces open again. “Have a nice day.”
Willow tells Xander about telling Buffy about Amber as they walk through the school courtyard. He wants to know if Buffy was wearing the bracelet he gave her. “She was wearing it, right? Pretty much like we’re going out.”
“Except without the hugging or kissing or her knowing about it,” says Willow.
“So I’m just a figure of fun,” says Xander. “I should ask her out, right?”
“You won’t know till you ask.”
“That’s why you’re so cool!” says Xander. “You’re like a guy! You’re my guy friend that knows about girl stuff!”
“Oh, great,” says Willow. “I’m a guy.”
Xander sees that they are posting the list for cheerleader squad. He rushes into the mob of girls surrounding it to learn the results.
Cordelia comes out of the mob. “You’re lucky!” she tells Amy.
“I made it?” asks Amy.
“I made it!” says Cordy.
Xander manages to fight his way back out to Buffy and Amy. “One of those girls hit me really hard! You should test for steroids!” he tells them. “Okay, not only did you make the team, but you, Miss Summers, are the first alternate, and Amy’s number three.”
Amy is badly disappointed and leaves.
“And what a better way to celebrate than with a romantic drive through—”
“Xander!” says Willow, “Alternates are the ones who didn’t make the team, they only fill in if something happens to the ones who did.”
Buffy excuses herself and follows Amy.
“For I am Xander, King of Cretins,” says Xander. “May all lesser cretins bow before me.”
Buffy catches up with Amy. “At least it’s over. And you know what I think we should do about it? Brownie pigout, my house, after school.”
Amy isn’t interested. “It’s just how many more hours a day can I practice?” she asks. “Y’know, how much more can I do? This would never happen to my mother. Never.”
That evening in a darkened room a spell is performed. The caster takes a Barbie doll wearing a Sunnydale cheerleading costume, and wraps Cordelia’s headband around its head.
“Give me the power. Give me the dark.
I call on you, the laughing gods.
Let your blackness crawl beneath my skin.
Accept this sacrifice…of Cordelia.
Feed on her.”
She drops the doll into her cauldron of bubbling green goo.
Joyce arrives at breakfast next morning with her highschool yearbook. She shows her picture in it to Buffy.
Buffy looks at the photo. “Mom, I’ve accepted that you’ve had sex. I am not ready to know that you had Farrah hair.”
“This is Gidgit hair,” says Joyce. “Don’t they teach you anything in history?” She knows that the cheerleading thing didn’t really work out for Buffy, and suggests that she join the yearbook staff. “I did, it was a lot of fun. I was photo editor. I got to be on every page, made me look much more popular than I was.”
“And have you seen the kids that do yearbook?” asks Buffy. “Nerds pick on them.” She goes to pick up her school bag.
“Some of the best times I had in school were working on the yearbook!”
Buffy turns back to her mother. “Oh, this just in: I’m not you! I’m into my own thing.”
“Your own thing, whatever it is, got you kicked out of school, and we had to move here to find a decent school that would take you!” says Joyce.
Buffy doesn’t say anything. She just leaves.
“Oh, great parenting form!” Joyce tells herself. “A little shaky on the dismount.”
Xander stands talking with Willow at her locker. A dazed looking Cordelia passes by.
“Cordelia, you haven’t been mean to me all day,” says Xander. “Is it something I’ve done?” Cordy ignores him, and continues on her way. “Okay, see how she has no clue that I’m even a mammal, much less a human being?”
Willow takes the pen she’s been chewing on out of her mouth. “I see that.”
“This is the invisible man syndrome. A blessing in Cordelia’s case. A curse in Buffy’s.”
“You’re not invisible to Buffy.” Willow closes her locker and resumes chewing on her pen as they follow Cordelia down the hallway.
“It’s worse!” says Xander. “I’m just like a part of the scenery, like an old shoe. Or a rug that you walk on every day but don’t even really see it.”
Willow looks at her pen. “Like a pen that’s all chewed up, and you know you should throw it away, but you don’t, not ’cause you like it so much, more ’cause you’re just used to…”
“Will, yeah, that is the point, you don’t have to drive it through my head like a railroad spike,” says Xander. “I’m going to take your advice and not beat around the bush. I got to be a man and ask her out. Y’know, I got to stop giving her ID bracelets, subtle innuendoes, taking Polaroid’s outside of her bedroom window late at night— That last part is a joke to relieve the tension because here she comes.” Xander has spotted Buffy coming out of a classroom, and coming toward them. “Okay, into battle I go.” He turns back to Willow. “Would you ask her out for me?”
Buffy walks toward Willow and Xander, but her attention is on Cordelia, who is unsuccessfully trying to open a locker.
Xander pulls himself back together as Buffy reaches them. “Buffy! Would you like to, uh—”
“Is that even Cordelia’s locker?” asks Buffy. She keeps watching as Cordelia gives up trying to open the locker and wanders off.
“Huh?” asks Xander. “Oh, I don’t know. What I’m saying is accompany me Friday night—”
“Xander, I have to, um…We can make this up later. You don’t mind do you?” Buffy hands Xander the book she’s carrying and follows Cordelia.
Xander makes the whistling sound of a plane going down in flames, followed by the explosion. Willow watches him, while chewing on her pen.
Cordelia heads out to the parking lot. It is time for her Driver’s Ed class, and it’s her turn to drive. She tells the instructor, Mr. Pole, that she isn’t feeling well, but he insists. “You’ve flunked Driver’s Ed twice. Show me some moves or you’ll be taking the bus to college.”
Cordy starts the car, and puts it in gear. She can’t see clearly.
Mr. Pole starts to tell Cordelia what to do. “Let’s move forward through the cones with a gentle even turn to the—”
Cordelia steps on the gas, and the car takes off in reverse, running over several cones, and a couple of signs. She slams on the brakes, puts the car into drive, and takes off again, totally out of control. She drives over a few signs, through some bushes and a fence out onto the street, where she comes to a stop.
Mr. Pole orders everyone out of the car. A dazed Cordy gets out and wanders into the street. She doesn’t see the UPS truck coming down the street toward her.
Buffy jumps over a parked car and tackles Cordelia, knocking her out of the way of the truck.
“What’s happening?” asks Cordelia. “I can’t see anything!” Her eyes have gone completely white. “What’s happening to me?”
Giles recognises what happened to Cordelia as a classic style of attack by a witch. “But why should someone want to harm Cordelia?”
“Maybe because they met her?” asks Willow. She realizes that she actually spoke out loud. “Did I say that?”
“And setting Amber ablaze?” asks Giles.
“Yeah, those guys don’t hang,” says Xander.
“They are both cheerleaders,” says Buffy.
“Someone doesn’t like cheerleading?” asks Giles.
“Or likes it too much,” says Buffy. She and Willow are both thinking about Amy. She’s desperate to get onto the cheerleading squad. Maybe desperate enough to try and eliminate some of the competition.
“Let me make sure I have this right,” says Giles. “This witch is casting horrible and disfiguring spells so that she can become a cheerleader?”
“I think you’re underestimating the amount of pressure a parent can lay on you,” says Buffy. “If you’re not a picture perfect carbon copy they tend to wig.” Cheerleading was Amy’s mother’s last hurrah.
Buffy wonders just what a kid in the school who turned to witchcraft might do.
“Check out the books on witchcraft!” says Willow, and heads for the library computer to see just who has been doing that.
Xander thinks this is a terrible idea. They don’t have time for such things. “Cheerleaders are in danger. Buffy’s in danger.” He turns to Buffy. “You were the first alternate, you are on the team now that Cordelia’s out. You could be next. We got to get you to a safe house.”
Willow gets her listing, Buffy reads it over her shoulder. Several books on witchcraft have been checked out by one Alexander Harris.
“Alright, alright, it’s not what you think,” says Xander.
“You like to look at the semi-nude engravings?” asks Willow.
“Oh, well, I guess it is what you think.”
Giles has been ignoring them. He has gotten out one of his reference volumes. He finds the recipe for a potion which can be used to determine if a witch has been casting spells. Spill it on her skin, and if it turns blue she has cast a spell in the last 48 hours. Pretty much all the ingredients they need can be found in the school science lab. They will also need some of her hair and some eye of newt.
Buffy partners up with Amy in science class.
It’s a double class, some of the students are doing biology, while others are doing chemistry. At the front of the class Dr. Gregory demonstrates a procedure for the chemistry students. There is a large mirror, suspended at a 45 degree angle over his workbench so they can all have a good view of what he is doing.
Xander and Willow are doing potions in the back of the class. Eye of frog is apparently a suitable alternate for eye of newt.
Buffy ‘accidentally’ drops her pencil and while picking it up, she reaches into Amy’s purse and pulls some hair out of her brush. Amy pretends not to notice.
Buffy delivers the hair to Willow and Xander. Willow adds the hair to the concoction she has been brewing, and stirs it with a glass rod. She pours some of her potion into a test tube and hands it to Buffy. “Do you have a plan?”
“Spill it on her,” says Buffy. “Try ’n’ make it look natural.”
“We’re right behind you,” says Xander. “Only… further back.”
Buffy spills the potion on Amy’s arm, and it turns blue: a positive result. As she is doing it Dr. Gregory calls on Lishanne, another member of the cheerleading squad. Lishanne can’t answer. Her mouth has been sealed shut. Everyone in class freaks, including Amy.
The group reconvenes back in the hallway. “Did you see?” asks Xander. “Amy was as freaked out as the rest of us.”
“So it’s not her!” says Willow.
“The test was positive!” says Buffy. “She’s our Sabrina. I just don’t think she realizes what she’s doing.”
“Well, should we talk to her?” asks Willow.
“Maybe we should talk to her mother,” says Buffy. “I wonder if she knows what she’s created.
Amy arrives home. Her mother is in front of the TV, eating brownies. Amy orders her mother to write the history report that she has due tomorrow. “I should be on that team by now. Instead Miss Buffy and friends are sneaking around stealing bits of my hair.”
Amy has the bracelet that Xander gave to Buffy. “I’ll be upstairs,” she tells her mother.
Buffy’s alarm goes off next morning and she accidentally smashes it when she tries to turn it off. “Oops!”
Buffy goes downstairs in her cheerleader outfit for breakfast. She is way too happy, dancing and singing Macho Man.
Joyce is in the kitchen, making orange juice.
“Oh, hey, juice!” Buffy pulls the glass out of the juicer, and drinks it. “Mm… Quality juice. Not from concentrate!”
Joyce puts another glass into the juicer. “You’re in a good mood.”
“I am!” says Buffy. “I’m on the squad, which is great, ’cause I feel like cheering and leading others to cheer.” She notices the partially filled glass in the juicer. “Oh, hey, juice!” She takes it, and drinks it.
“Listen, honey, about yesterday,” says Joyce, “I really…”
“That is totally yester,” says Buffy. “Besides, it’s not like you were wrong, y’know. I did get kicked out of school. I’m just wacky that way!”
“Still,” says Joyce “I just want you to know that, despite the problems you’ve had, I really—”
“Mom, you just don’t get it. And, believe me, you don’t want it. You know, there are just some things about being a Vampire Slayer that the older generation—”
“A what?” asks Joyce.
“It’s a long story,” says Buffy.
“Buffy, are you feeling well?”
“What?” asks Buffy. “Oh, I’m, I’m fine, y’know? What, like, I can’t be in a good mood? Is it, like, a new house rule? Fine, y’know? It’s just fine, fine, fine.” Buffy leaves for school, dancing and singing Macho Man again.
Buffy is getting even loopier at cheerleader practice. Willow and Xander show up and see the way she is acting and decide that they should get her out of there before someone gets hurt. They’re too late. In a move in which Buffy is supposed to propel Joy into a cartwheel she tosses her across the gym, and into the wall.
Buffy looks at Joy as she picks herself up from the floor. “Did I do that?”
“You are so out of here!” says Joy.
Xander and Willow start to drag Buffy off. “It’s not her fault!” says Willow.
“She’s on medication!” says Xander.
“Obviously not enough!” says Joy. “Who’s our next alternate? Oh.” She sees Amy standing nearby, already in her uniform. “Amy you just made cheerleader.”
“No, no, no,” says Buffy. “You don’t want her, she’s a wi—”
Xander clamps his hand over Buffy’s mouth. “A wise choice indeed!” He and Willow drag Buffy away.
Xander and Willow drag Buffy out into the hall.
“I just got kicked off the team, didn’t I?” ask Buffy.
“I don’t think it was your fault,” says Xander.
“I know you don’t.” Buffy pats Xander on the arm. “That’s ’cause you’re my friend. You’re my Xander shaped friend! Do you have any idea why I love you so, Xander?”
Willow thinks that they should get Buffy moved someplace else quickly, but Xander wants her to go on talking.
“You are totally, and completely one of the girls!” says Buffy. “I’m that comfy with him,” she adds to Willow, who is pleased to have Xander’s “one of the guys” comment to her come back at him.
Buffy’s mood takes an abrupt swing. She comes down hard, and collapses.
Buffy sits in a chair in the library with a damp cloth on her forehead. She isn’t looking very good. Willow thinks they should get her to the hospital.
Giles doesn’t think a hospital will be able to help. He recognises Buffy’s symptoms as a bloodstone vengeance spell. “Hits the body hard like a quart of alcohol, and then it eradicates the immune system.”
“A vengeance spell, like she’s trying to get even with Buffy?” asks Xander.
“’Cause she knows I know she’s a witch,” says Buffy.
“The others she just wanted out of the running,” says Giles. “You she intends to, um…”
“Kill?” asks Buffy.
Willow wants to know how much time they have. Giles tries to temporise, but Buffy wants the truth.
“Couple of hours. Three at the most.”
Giles has been researching how to reverse the spells. He believes that he can undo them all if he can get his hands on Amy’s spell books. The other way is to cut Amy’s head off.
Buffy figures that Amy has most likely been doing her spells at home, and asks Willow and Xander to help her to her feet. “We’ll just go to her house and we’ll get her book.”
Willow and Xander want to come too, but Buffy wants them to keep an eye on Amy.
Giles helps Buffy toward the library doors. “And keep her away from the science lab,” he tells Willow and Xander. “We’ll need it to cast our counter-spells.”
Giles and Buffy arrive at Amy’s house. When she hears Giles knocking on the door, Catherine shoves the plate of brownies she has been eating under the coffee table and goes to answer it. She doesn’t want to talk with them though. She tells them they will have to come back later.
Giles forces his way in, supporting Buffy. “Your daughter is meddling with something very dangerous, are you aware of that?” He sets Buffy down on the couch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Catherine.
“Oh, I think you know only too well,” says Giles.
“You’ve got to go,” says Catherine. “She’s going to be home soon, and you—”
“This girl is very sick,” says Giles. “Now you will shut up and you will listen to me! Your daughter has access to some very powerful magics, and somehow your obsession with cheerleading has made—”
“I don’t care about cheerleading!” says Catherine. “It’s not my fault she’s doing stuff.”
Buffy notices the brownies under the table. She begins to suspect what is really going on.
“As her mother you should assume some responsibility for her actions,” says Giles.
Catherine laughs. “Well, you know, these kids today! I…she’s out of her mind. Ever since dad—her dad—left I can’t control her.”
“You’re afraid of her?” asks Giles.
Buffy has figured it out. “Amy? Are you Amy?”
“I don’t understand,” says Giles.
“She switched! She switched your bodies, didn’t she?” Buffy asks Amy. “She wanted to relive her glory days!”
“She said I was wasting my youth,” says Amy. “So she took it!”
Amy tells Buffy and Giles how she’d wanted to go with her father when he left, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. She wouldn’t even let her phone him. “She went crazy, I mean, she’d lock herself upstairs for days, and she was always coming down on me, telling me I didn’t deserve to have it so easy, and that I didn’t know, how hard it was to be her, and… I guess she showed me, huh?” One morning Amy woke up in her mother’s bed, and looked in the mirror to see that she was in her mother’s body.
Giles asks Amy to show him the upstairs.
Amy takes Giles to the attic where Catherine has been casting her spells. She really doesn’t like doing this. “If she finds out I’ve been here, she’ll kill me!”
Giles doesn’t pay any attention to her protests. He circles around the attic, examining the cauldron, and the various dolls hanging from hooks. “My god!” Giles takes hold of one pair of dolls that are bound together. He looks back at Amy. “I believe we can reverse your mother’s spell. Well, all of them, in fact. We need to find her books. There’s a specific volume she’d need for this kind of casting.”
Giles tells Amy to gather up the dolls, and the personal items of the cursed girls and clears some stuff off the lid of a trunk. He’s startled by a black cat that jumps out, and snarls at him. “Ah! Nice kitty, let’s see what you’ve been guarding.” He opens the trunk. “Ah, yes!” He pulls out a book. “This is it.”
Giles and Amy return to the living room.
“We find?” asks Buffy.
“We found,” says Giles. He hands the book he’s carrying to Amy, and picks up Buffy. She’s become too weak to walk at all. He tells Amy that they are all going back to the school.
The Sunnydale High Razorbacks basketball team run into the gym, greeted by the cheers of the students in the bleachers, led by the Sunnydale High Cheerleaders. Catherine is in her element.
Nearly all the students in the stands are cheering for their team, and their cheerleaders. The only silent students are Willow and Xander.
Giles, Amy and Buffy arrive at the school chemistry lab. Giles sweeps a bunch of stuff off one of the lab benches and lays Buffy down on it. He folds his jacket to make a pillow for her. Buffy is fading fast. He doesn’t think he has much time. He starts to prepare the spell with Amy’s help.
The Sunnydale High cheerleaders whip their fans into a frenzy of cheering.
Giles begins his spell:
“The center is dark.
Centrum est obscures.
The darkness breathes.
Inabrea respiratus.
The listener hears.
Hear me!”
Catherine feels a moment of disorientation in the middle of a cheer. She sees Giles and Buffy in the lab.
Amy staggers. “Oh! It’s working!”
Giles picks up the spell book and starts to read:
“Unlock the gate.
Let the darkness shine.
Cover us with holy fear.
Show me…”
The lights go out.
Catherine has been lifted to the apex of the cheerleader pyramid when she has another flash of disorientation. She becomes dizzy and falls to the floor. She knows what Giles is doing. She gets to her feet and looks around.
“Amy, what’s your problem?” asks Joy.
Catherine ignores her. She turns and runs from the gym. Willow and Xander run after her.
Amy tells Giles that her mother is coming.
Willow and Xander catch up with Catherine in the hall. Willow tries to distract Catherine while Xander sneaks up behind her. Catherine spins around and does a Darth Vader on Xander, and he drops to the floor, choking. She punches Willow and heads for the science lab.
Giles is nearing the end of his counter spell. He holds his hands over his head.
“Corsheth and Galeo!
The gate is closed!
Receive the dark!
Release the unworthy!
Take of mine energy and be sated!”
Giles plunges his hands into the bubbling pot of liquid before him.
Catherine reaches the door to the science lab. It’s locked. She can’t open it.
Giles plunges his hands into the boiling liquid again.
“Be sated!
Release the unworthy!”
Catherine breaks open the case containing a fire axe. She takes it and starts to chop at the door.
Giles plunges his hands into the liquid again.
Catherine breaks open the door. She advances towards Buffy and raises the axe.
“Release!” shouts Giles.
Amy is suddenly back in her own body. She staggers back away from Buffy, and looks around, a little dazed.
Buffy sits up. “Amy?”
Catherine Madison—now back in her own body—tackles Buffy, taking them both to the floor. Giles advances toward them, but Catherine looks at him. A table slides across the floor into him, and Giles is knocked to the floor, unconscious. 2
Catherine gets to her feet, and turns to face her daughter. Amy, holds the axe out to protect herself. “Mom! Please!”
Catherine holds out her hand and the axe flies from Amy’s hands to her own. “How dare you raise your hand to your mother! I gave you birth. I gave up my life so you could drag that worthless carcass around and call it living?” She embeds the axe into a lab bench. “You’ve never been anything but trouble. I’m going to put you where you can’t make trouble again!”
Buffy stands up. “Guess what? I feel better.” She punches Catherine and knocks her across the lab.
Catherine gets back to her feet, and faces Buffy. “That body was mine. Mine!”
“Oh grow up!” says Buffy.
Catherine gestures, and sends Buffy flying to the front of the lab. She bounces off the periodic table on the front wall and lands beside Dr. Gregory’s desk. She slowly gets back to her feet.
Catherine begins a spell. She looks down at the floor. “I shall look upon my enemy.” The magical power begins to swirl around her. “I shall look upon her and the dark place will have her soul!” Catherine looks up toward Buffy. Her eyes have gone completely black.
Buffy looks around. She sees the pole holding up the mirror over Dr. Gregory’s workbench.
“Corsheth, take her!” Catherine flings the power out toward Buffy.
Buffy kicks the mirror support pole away, and the mirror swings down, so that Catherine is looking at her own reflection. The blast of magical energy is reflected back, and envelops her. Catherine screams as she vanishes.
Giles wakes up, and struggles back to his feet. “That was, um, interesting. I assume the, uh, all the spells are reversed. It was my first casting, so… I may have got it wrong.” 3
Buffy for one is certainly pleased with the way Giles’ spell worked out. “You saved my life! You are a god!”
Xander comes rushing into the lab, and grabs Amy. “I got her! I got her! Cut her head off!” Buffy tells him to let her go. “But she’s evil!”
“It wasn’t exactly her,” says Giles.
“I was my mom,” says Amy.
“Oh!” Xander lets go of her.
Willow comes running in with a baseball bat. “Where is she?”
“Oh, hey Willow! It’s cool!” says Xander. “I took care of it.” Amy, Buffy and Giles give him a look.
Buffy is cleaning up the pieces of her alarm clock when her mother comes into her room.
“I don’t get it,” says Joyce. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where you’re coming from, how to relate to you and I’ve come to a very simple conclusion: I don’t get it.”
“I’m inscrutable, huh?” asks Buffy.
“You’re sixteen,” says Joyce. “I think there’s a biological imperative whereby I can’t understand you because I’m not sixteen.”
“Do you ever wish you could be sixteen again?” asks Buffy.
Joyce considers that for a bit. “Oh, that’s a frightful notion. Go through all that again? Not even if it helped me understand you.”
“I love you, Mom.” Buffy gets up, gives her mother a kiss on the cheek, and goes.
“I don’t get it!” says Joyce.
Buffy meets with Amy in the school corridor. She tells Buffy that she is now back with her dad and loving it. They’re going to be staying in together on Saturday night and baking brownies.
Part of the cheerleader squad passes them in the hallway, including Cordelia. She pauses to taunt Buffy and Amy. “Hey, I’m really sorry you guys got bumped back to alternate. Hold it, wait… No I’m not!”
“Well, I know that I’ll miss the intellectual thrill of spelling out words with my arms,” says Amy.
“Ooo, these grapes are sour!” says Cordy, and leaves to catch up with the rest of the squad.
Amy apologises to Buffy. She’d forgotten that Buffy really had tried out for the team.
Buffy tells her not to worry about it. “Cheerleading’s just a little too hairy for me these days.”
Buffy and Amy stop in front of the trophy case, and look at Catherine’s picture. There has been no sign of her since she did that spell.
“Wherever she is I don’t think we’ll have to worry,” says Amy. They turn walk away down the hall. “I’m just happy to have my body back. I’m thinking of getting fat.”
“Y’know, I hear that look’s in for spring,” says Buffy.
The eyes of the cheerleading trophy move to follow them down the hall. The faint sound of muffled screams can be heard coming from it.