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| Into the Woods | Checkpoint |
Xander lies in bed talking with Anya. There has been something bothering him lately. A feeling that he has forgotten something that he was supposed to do, and he has just figured out what it is. Three weeks ago Riley had asked to borrow a wrench. Xander keeps feeling like he’s supposed to give it to him.
Anya doesn’t think that will happen. It isn’t likely that Riley will be back for the wrench. She has been thinking about the way Riley left too. If Xander ever decides to do something like that she wants lots of warning. “You know, big flashing red lights and one of those clocks that counts down like a bomb in a movie? And there’s a whole bunch of coloured wires and I’m not sure which is the right one to cut, but I guess the green one and then at the last second, no, the red one, and then click, it stops with 3/10 of a second left but then you don’t leave. Like that, okay?”
“Check. Big bomb clock.” Xander lifts his arm and invites her to snuggle up closer to him. She does.
Anya is wondering if Riley leaving might have been Buffy’s fault. First Angel goes, then Riley. She saw this sort of thing a lot when she was a vengeance demon. “Some guy dumps a girl, she calls me, I exact vengeance, blah, blah, blah. The next year, same girl, different guy. I mean, after you smite a few of ’em, you start going, ‘my goodness, young lady, maybe you’re doing something wrong here, too.’”
Xander doesn’t think there’s a pattern developing. Angel and Riley left for very different reasons. He is wondering how Buffy is dealing with it though.
A blonde nun, her face hidden by her wimple comes out of the chapel and informs her sisters waiting outside that the choir is ready. The waiting nuns all make their way into the chapel, but the blonde continues on her way, walking through the convent courtyard.
She hears something come running up behind her, and she’s nearly knocked off her feet by a running vampire. The vampire grabs her and spins her around, but it isn’t interested in feeding tonight. It tosses her aside, and turns to see who’s chasing it. It’s Buffy.
The nun watches from the ground as Buffy attacks the vampire, and after a brief fight stakes it. The vampire explodes into dust. Buffy notices her audience, tosses her stake away, and goes to help the nun get back to her feet.
“What-what was that?” asks the nun. “He looked like a-a demon.”
“Yeah, he did,” says Buffy. “Are you okay?”
The nun’s fine, so Buffy starts to ask her a few questions, like how well the whole abjuring of men’s working out for her, and whether you have to be super-religious to be a nun. “How’s the food?” she asks as she escorts the nun away from the site of her slaying.
Buffy works out in the back room of the Magic Box with Giles while they discuss his plans to go to England to see if he can get the Watcher’s Council working on the problem of identifying Glory. He criticizes her technique while she pounds away at the pads he’s holding on his hands. She has started dropping her shoulder before delivering a right punch, telegraphing the move.
Giles has exhausted all his local resources and learned nothing about Glory. He is hoping that the Council will have more luck with the greater resources available to them. He starts to get misty eyed when he starts talking about their central library.
“Don’t talk about the books again,” says Buffy. “You get all… and sometimes there’s drool.”
Giles calls a halt to Buffy’s workout. His arm is getting sore. Buffy wants to know if he plans to tell them anything about the Key. Giles does. The Council has to know something about what Glory’s goals are if they are to have any hope of discovering anything about her, but he promises to say nothing about Dawn.
Buffy reluctantly agrees that the Watchers need to be told about the Key, but she doesn’t like it. “It’s just I trust these Watchers about as far as…” She watches Giles rub his arm. “…you could throw them.” She doesn’t want them learning anything that could lead them to her sister.
Giles agrees. He wouldn’t be going to the Council at all if he had any other options. He would rather deal with the Initiative if they were still in business. But with Riley gone, they have lost the one link they had to the government. Buffy’s face drops at the mention of Riley’s name, and Giles instantly apologises for bringing him up.
Buffy tells him it’s okay. She’s dealing. “These things happen,” she says. “People break up and they move on. For a while it feels like the end of the world, you know, but big picture…”
“Not so huge,” says Giles.
“Not so huge?” asks Buffy. “I just said it feels like the end of the world! Don’t you listen?” She stops while Giles tries to find something to say, then she smiles at him. “I’m teasing. Sort of. I’ll be okay.”
Giles offers to put off his trip until she’s feeling better, but Buffy tells him to go. Learning all they can about Glory is more important than her feelings. “I’m thrilled to have you gone.”
Buffy isn’t the only one thrilled by the prospect of Giles being gone for a week. Anya is too. She will get to run the store on her own. Giles is a little put out by how happy everyone is to hear he’s leaving town for a while. Anya doesn’t care about that as long as she gets to run the store.
That is something else that is worrying Giles a bit. He doesn’t think she is quite up to handling it on her own. Buffy tells him not to worry. They will all help out with the shop.
Willow tells Giles she can drop by during the time between classes when she normally copies out her notes using a system of different coloured pens. “But it’s been pointed out to me that that’s, you know, insane.”
“I said ‘quirky.’” Tara tells her quietly.
Anya doesn’t think she needs any help with the store, and Xander supports her, but Giles doesn’t agree. He has no worries about her taking care of the money and inventory side of the business, but her people skills lack finesse.
“I have finesse!” says Anya. “I have finesse coming out of my bottom! I can completely lie to the health inspector. I can, you know, distract him with coy smiles and bribe him with money and goods.”
“See there?” says Xander. “She’ll be great.”
Willow tells Giles not to worry about it. She’ll help Anya take care of everything.
Anya tells Xander to tell Willow to stop talking like she wasn’t there. Willow wants Xander to tell Anya that she’s just trying to help out.
Giles leaves to phone the airline to see if he can book an earlier flight back.
Xander doesn’t want to play intermediary between Willow and Anya, so he asks Buffy how the slaying is going.
“I killed something in a convent last night.”
“In any other room, a frightening declaration,” says Xander. “Here, a welcome distraction. Tell us all about the killing, Buff.”
“Pretty standard vampire staking,” says Buffy. “Oh! But I met a nun and she let me try on her wimple.”
“Okay, now we’re back to frightening,” says Xander.
Buffy walks by her mother’s room and sees Joyce’s blue bathrobe lying on the bed. She steps into the room as Joyce is coming out of the bathroom, dressed in street clothes. “You! You with the actual clothing. Who are you?” She calls for Dawn to come into Joyce’s room to see this too.
“It’s hard to recognise me, huh?” asks Joyce as Dawn arrives, and is suitably impressed by the change in wardrobe. “I looked at it today and there it was, all fuzzy and blue, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“I don’t think the rest of us will miss it much, either,” says Buffy. Dawn thinks that it was getting a little ripe. Buffy suggests that they burn it.
“It would keep the bugs away,” says Dawn.
“It doesn’t smell!” says Joyce. “Fine, fine, make your funny jokes at the expense of the woman with a hole in her skull.” She is still clearly tired though, and goes to sit on her bed. Buffy tells Dawn that they should leave their mother alone for now, they have tired her out enough.
Buffy goes into her room, and sits on her bed reading a magazine. Dawn asks from the doorway if she can hang out in there for a while. Buffy tells her not to touch anything, and Dawn enters and looks around.
Dawn notices that Buffy has taken down the pictures of Riley from her mirror. She’s a little surprised that they lasted as long as they did. “Like, boom, don’t want to see that face again.”
Buffy tells her it wasn’t like that. She was never angry with him. “Okay, that’s a lie. But it’s not like I didn’t want to see his face.”
Dawn is still surprised by how quickly Riley left, just when she was starting to like him a little.
“It wasn’t really so fast, him leaving,” says Buffy. “According to everyone who isn’t me, it was kind of gradual.”
“Oh. Does that make it any better?” Dawn sits on the end of Buffy’s bed.
“No.”
“Because you should have noticed earlier?”
“Stop being insightful. It’s creepy.” Buffy puts down her magazine. “It hurts. In all kinds of horrible ways. In the way where I’m furious at him. In the way where I blame myself. And all the little ways I imagine how I could have fixed things.”
Dawn asks if it’ll get better, and Buffy says it will, a little at a time. Dawn lies down, putting her head on Buffy’s lap. Buffy starts to stroke her hair. “Really?” asks Dawn. “Every day?”
“Not really. But it’ll be better soon.”
“It still feels all sudden to me,” says Dawn. “With him gone where no one can talk to him.”
“But you never know. Maybe he’ll come back,” says Buffy. “Maybe he’ll hate the jungle or maybe he’ll want to give it another try. I could say all the things I didn’t get to say.”
Spike stands in his crypt holding a box of chocolates in front of him. “Um, there’s something I got to tell you, about showing you Riley in that place. I didn’t mean to… Anyway, I know you’re feeling all betrayed— By him, not me.” Spike is talking to his Buffy mannequin. “I was trying to help, you know. Not like I made him be there, after all. Actually trying to help you. Best intentions.” Spike starts to pace around his crypt, getting more worked up. “You know, pretty state you’d be in, thinking things are all right while he’s toddling halfway around the bend.”
Spike starts to lose control, imagining Buffy’s reaction to what he’s saying. “Oh, I’ll insult him if I want to! I’m the one who’s on your side. Me, doing you a favour! And you being dead petty about it! Me getting nothing but your hatred and your venom and you— Ungrateful bitch! Bitch!” Spike hits the mannequin on the head with the box of chocolates, knocking the mannequin and the box flying.
Spike calms down, picks up the mannequin top, places it back on its pedestal, and straightens out its wig. He picks up the crushed box and shoves some of the spilled chocolates back into it. He starts to rehearse his speech again. “Buffy, there’s something I wanted to tell you…”
Willow and Tara collect the ingredients they need for a spell off the shelves in the Magic Box. They are interrupted by Anya, who wants to know what they think they are doing. Tara explains that they want to try to enhance their light spell to see if they can create simulated sunlight. Willow thinks that would be something really useful to Buffy. She could take out whole nests of vampires with one “presto!”
Anya thinks that’s just swell, but she doesn’t think Willow should just be taking the ingredients she needs, especially without first consulting Giles, and she shouldn’t be doing spells in the shop while Giles is away.
“You’re the fish!” says Willow, confusing the heck out of Anya. “The fish in the bowl in The Cat in the Hat. He was always saying that the cat shouldn’t be there while the mother was out.”
“What are you talking about?” asks Anya.
“It’s a book,” says Tara. “This cat does all this mischief…”
“It’s so cute,” says Willow. “He balances a bunch of stuff, including that fish in the bowl. And— but don’t try it for real when you’re six because then you’re not allowed to have fish for five years.”
Anya doesn’t think that it’s fair that Willow is making allusions to books she hasn’t read. She thinks Willow is doing it to make her feel left out. “And you’re stealing!”
“I’m not stealing,” says Willow. “I’m just taking things without paying for them. In what twisted dictionary is that stealing?”
Tara suggests that maybe they should just pay for their ingredients, but Willow doesn’t think they should have to. She thinks Giles would approve of what she’s doing. She tells Anya that it will be fun, and offers to teach her some stuff. “You could be floating pencils by the end of the day.”
“Sometimes I miss having powers,” says Anya wistfully, but then she realizes what Willow is trying to do. “Oh. Oh! I know what this is! This is peer pressure! Any second now you’re going to make me smoke tobacco and have drugs.”
“Look how easy,” says Willow. She levitates a bundle of incense off the table, and a couple of her other ingredients.
“Hey! Don’t float the merchandise!” Anya grabs the items out of the air and pushes them back down onto the table.
Willow doesn’t stop. She turns and looks at the cash register counter and starts to levitate some of the items there.
“Stop that!” says Anya.
Xander comes into the shop and walks right past the levitating objects without taking a second look at them. “Hey, look at this,” he says to Willow and Anya. “My two favourite girls.” He notices Tara. “Three favourite girls.”
Anya starts complaining to Xander about Willow stealing stuff, while Willow tells him she’s just making a spell to help Buffy. Xander does not want to be drawn into the middle of this. Tara doesn’t think that they should be pulling him into it either. Xander tries to hide behind her for protection.
Willow doesn’t pay any attention. She keeps telling Xander that she’s doing a good thing. She picks up a pinch of the dust she has mixed to demonstrate. “And if it doesn’t work, Giles never even needs to know about it.” She flicks the dust into the air over the cash register. The cash register vanishes in a puff of smoke. “Oops.”
“The cash register!” shouts Anya. “What did you do with the cash register? Dear god!”
“I’ll fix it! I’ll fix it!” Willow flicks more dust over the counter. “Recursat!” The cash register reappears. “There. All back. Good as new.” Well, not quite. The cash register is smoking, and the register rolls are spilled out of it.
Anya opens the drawer to check on the money. It’s smoking too, but seems to have survived mostly intact.
“Of course, that’s what she cares about,” says Willow. “‘I like money better than people. People can so rarely be exchanged for goods and/or services.’”
“Xander, she’s pretending to be me!” says Anya.
“Well, can you even believe how she’s acting?” asks Willow.
Xander is just tired of being caught in the middle between them. He wants them to work this out between themselves. He turns around and walks out of the shop.
“You made him mad.” Willow accuses Anya.
“Me?” asks Anya.
“Tara, who do you think he was more mad at?” asks Willow.
Tara thinks that Xander had a really good idea. She tells Willow and Anya to just figure it out between themselves and she follows him out.
Willow and Anya haven’t settled things, but they have declared a truce. Willow places the ingredients for her spell into a mortar, while Anya sits watching her, recording what she’s using and how much it costs, out loud. Willow asks her to be quiet. She is ready to begin the spell, and once started any non-ritual words spoken can ruin it.
“Fine.” Anya sits quietly watching her.
Willow dumps her prepared ingredients from the mortar into a large brass bowl, takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.
“Did you start yet?” asks Anya.
“Shh! No! This is it,” says Willow.
“Spirits of light, I invoke thee.
Let the gloom of darkness part before you.
Let the moonlight be made pale by your presence.”
A small ring of light starts to form over the bowl.
“Spirits—”
“Is it done?” asks Anya.
“Shh!” Willow tells her again.
“Spirits of light, grant my wishes.”
The ring starts to grow.
“Sorry,” says Anya. “I thought you were done.”
Willow turns to face Anya. “Do you want to screw this up?” The ring of light keeps growing unnoticed behind her.
“No, no. I’m sure you can do that all on your own,” says Anya. The ring of light starts to wobble, becoming unstable.
“Hey, Anya, whatever really has you mad, why don’t you just say it like you do every other thought that stomps through your brain?”
“I believe I have said it.”
“No, you haven’t,” says Willow. “Come on. Let it out!”
The ring of light intersects a crystal lying on the counter and there’s a brilliant flash of light. A great big troll appears in the shop. He is about seven feet tall, with long red hair, and beard. He has a pair of horns, and is carrying an enormous hammer. He kinda looks like a big green Klingon—with horns. He looks around the shop and roars. Both Willow and Anya scream, and clutch at one another for protection.
The troll roars again, and smashes a set of shelves with his hammer. He stalks out of the shop smashing a couple of more tables and other items as he goes.
“He’s not a ball of sunshine,” says Willow.
Buffy and Tara leave the first lecture of the semester for the Greek Art class they are going to be taking together. In the future they will sit further back. The professor tends to spit as he talks.
Buffy needs to keep this class. The only other course she can fit into this slot in her schedule is Central American Geopolitics, and that one reminds her too much of Riley. “I even hear the word ‘jungle’ and all I can think of is him. You know, is that the one Riley’s in? I really don’t need a daily two o’clock knife in the heart.”
Tara asks if things are really that bad.
Buffy tells Tara it’s getting better, and she thinks that this is probably better for Riley. “Maybe he needed to be where he was needed.”
“Willow says that things always happen for a reason,” says Tara.
“You ever notice people only say that about bad things?” asks Buffy. She is determined not to be upset by it. She suggests that they go collect Willow and go get themselves some hamburgers.
Tara thinks that Willow’s probably still at the magic shop. “I was there earlier and she and Anya kind of got in this little squabble. Xander and I sort of cleared out. He was pretty upset.”
Buffy instantly over reacts, thinking that Tara means that Xander and Anya are having a fight. Tara tries to reassure her, telling her that Xander just left, but that just makes things worse. Buffy thinks that Xander has left Anya.
“No, not ‘left her,’ left her,” says Tara. “He just left. It was only a little thing. Really.”
Buffy is really beginning to lose it. “Little thing? See, the thing is, little things get bigger. You know? And-and-and if you don’t catch the little thing and then, boom! You have this—this whole huge thing!”
“Oh, dear,” says Tara as Buffy falls apart in front of her.
“Not them, with the little things. They can’t break up!” says Buffy. “They have a beautiful love!” She starts to cry.
“I think they’ll be fine.”
Buffy grabs Tara in a hug. “They have a miraculous love.” Her voice is muffled by Tara’s shoulder.
Tara gives Buffy a reassuring pat on the back. “What?”
Buffy pulls away a little. “A miraculous love!” She keeps crying.
Anya drives Giles’ car through the streets of Sunnydale, following the trail of destruction left by the troll. Smashed cars, and knocked over lamp posts. Willow has a bunch of spell books in her lap in the passenger seat that she’s looking through. She doesn’t understand how they could have created such a thing. It’s way too advanced for them.
“No one made him,” says Anya. “He must have been trapped in that crystal and you released him.”
“I released him?” asks Willow. “No, this was definitely a ‘we’ thing. Or a ‘you’ thing. It definitely feels like a ‘you’ thing.”
Anya thinks that she should just concentrate on finding the reversal spell. Willow tells her that would be easier if Anya would put the top up so the pages would stop blowing around.
“Well, I don’t know how to put the top up,” says Anya. “I only just figured out what the left pedal does. It makes us stop!” She demonstrates by stomping on the brake.
“You don’t know how to drive? Why didn’t you say you don’t know how to drive?”
“Well, I couldn’t know if I could until I tried, could I?”
“This is very, very bad,” says Willow. “There’s a troll on the loose, and you’re going to crash Giles’ car!”
“It’s likely,” says Anya. “We’re going very fast. You should have listened to me and not done a spell. Giles put me in charge.”
“Giles can be an idiot,” says Willow. “The smart kind, but still.”
“Xander agreed.”
“Oh, right. Xander doesn’t step out of line.”
“Well, what do you mean by that?” Anya looks at Willow, and not the road.
“Nothing,” says Willow. She notices that Anya is watching her, instead of where she is going, and points to a rapidly approaching curve in the road. Anya sees it just in time, but Willow loses some loose pages out of the book she was looking through as they speed around the bend.
Xander picks up a bowl of peanuts at the bar in the Bronze and heads toward a table. He bumps into Spike on the way, nearly spilling Spike’s beer.
“Hey, watch it.” Spike turns around to see who bumped into him. He’s not thrilled when he sees it’s Xander. Xander is equally not-thrilled to see Spike and suggests that he should go elsewhere. Spike doesn’t have any plans to go anywhere. He got there first. He follows Xander to his table. Xander tells him to go away.
“Now, why would I do that when it’s bugging you so much having me here?” asks Spike. “They have chicken wings, too. Also a sort of a flower-shaped thing they make from an onion. Brilliant.”
“Are you talking to me hoping that I’ll get so depressed that I’ll impale myself on a fork right in front of you?” asks Xander.
Spike thinks that would be a great thing. He wouldn’t get zapped by his chip, and he would still get to eat Xander. He reaches across the table for some peanuts for himself. Xander slaps his hand away from the bowl.
“My, my. Someone’s in a temper,” says Spike. “This all sympathetic misery borrowed from the Slayer?”
Xander tells him that it has nothing to do with Buffy, which cheers Spike a little. He’s happy to hear that she doesn’t seem to be holding any grudges.
Xander has no idea what Spike’s talking about. “What grudges?”
“Oh, yeah, okay,” says Spike. “No need to talk about her, then. I’m sure she’s merrily slaying some pals of mine, having a grand old time.”
Buffy is surveying the damage done to the Magic Box, and looking for Willow and Anya. Tara comes out of the back room and reports that they aren’t back there. She’s afraid something terrible has happened to Willow.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get her back. I promise,” says Buffy. “Come on. This thing’s probably leaving a huge trail.” She grabs Tara’s hand and pulls her out of the shop.
The troll hits a garbage dumpster with his hammer, knocking it across the street. He follows that up with a mail box. People scream, and run away in terror. “You do well to flee, townspeople!” he bellows after them. “I will pillage your lands and dwellings. I will burn your crops and make merry sport with your more attractive daughters. Ha ha ha! Mark my words.” He takes a breath, and smells something he likes. “Ooh! Ale! I smell delicious ale!”
Xander and Spike have moved over to one of the pool tables. Xander is complaining to Spike about the way Willow and Anya behave with one another, and how they expect him to act as the referee. “Also, sometimes I’ll say something about Anya, Willow’ll get this look, this ‘what the hell do you see in her?’ look.”
“I know that look,” says Spike. “A lot of people never really got Dru, you know?”
“Well, she was insane,” says Xander. Spike shoots him a look, but Xander ignores it. He goes back to complaining about the way his best friend and his girlfriend want him to choose sides. Spike wonders what Buffy thinks of all this friction in the ranks, but Xander doesn’t know.
“She’s a little preoccupied, maybe,” says Spike. “It’s understandable, what with all the upset, all the blaming of innocent bystanders that got caught up in the mess.”
Once again Xander has no idea what Spike’s talking about.
“I mean, did she want to be made a fool of?” asks Spike. “And what does a person have to do to make it right?”
Someone bumps into Spike. “Hey, watch it, mate,” says Spike. He turns around to see who it was. It was the troll. “On second thought, do what you like.” This guy’s a little big even for Spike to want to take on.
The troll just ignores Spike, and strides across the bar to where a man is bringing in a couple of metal beer barrels on a dolly. He picks up one of the barrels, bites a hole in its side, and chugs down the whole thing, without spilling a drop.
“So, uh…think I should run and get Buffy?” asks Xander. Spike doesn’t say anything.
The troll finishes his barrel of beer, and asks one of the waitresses to bring him more, something stronger. He would also like some nice plump succulent babies to eat.
“I’m going to run and get Buffy,” says Xander, then he looks at Spike. “Or maybe you could fight him.”
“Yeah, I could do that,” says Spike, “but I’m paralyzed with not caring very much.”
The troll notices Spike and Xander and asks them where he can find some babies.
Spike turns and looks at Xander. “What do you think, the hospital?”
“What?” asks Xander. “Shut up.” He looks back at the troll. “Um, listen—”
“I find myself very hungry,” says the troll, “And when I am hungry, I grow short of patience.”
Xander suggests that the troll find himself a nice sturdy chair to sit in, and they can calmly talk about finding him something to eat.
“Can it be babies?” asks the troll.
“Well, not so much,” says Xander. “But maybe some roast pigs and stags…and much hearty grog.”
“They’ve got this onion thing,” says Spike.
“You cannot appease me!” bellows the troll. “Do not try!, More ale!” He picks up the second barrel, and starts to drain it like he did the first.
Anya and Willow come running in. “Xander, you shouldn’t be here,” says Anya. “There’s a troll.”
“Uh, a big guy, hammer?” Xander points across the bar at the troll as he finishes off his second barrel of beer. “I think I noticed him.”
“I wish Buffy was here,” says Willow.
Buffy runs in through the door, followed by Tara. “I’m here.”
“I wish I had a million dollars!” says Willow. Everyone looks at her. “Just checking.”
“What’s going on?” asks Buffy. “Where did he come from?” she asks about the troll.
Spike steps toward her. “Hello, Buffy,” he says sheepishly. Buffy just gives him a “what’s with you?” look, and turns her attention back to Willow and Anya. Anya tells her that Willow released the troll from the crystal. Spike lowers his head and steps back.
“You did this?” Buffy asks Willow.
“Me? No, we,” says Willow. “I mean, us. Her. It’s very complex.”
Anya thinks that they can stop him though. She tells Willow to read the spell.
Willow flips open the book she’s carrying and starts to read.
“Let the conjuring be—”
”Stop!” bellows the troll.
“Nobody lets me finish,” complains Willow.
“You told the witch to do that, Anyanka,” says the troll. “You seem determined to put an end to all my fun, just like you always did when we were dating!”
Everyone turns to look at Anya. “You dated him?” asks Xander.
“You dated a troll?” asks Buffy.
“And we’re, what, surprised by this?” asks Willow.
“He wasn’t a troll then,” says Anya. “You know, he was just a big, dumb guy, and, you know, he cheated on me, and I made him into a troll. Which, by the way, is how I got the job as a vengeance demon.”
The troll roars and smashes the bar with his hammer. “I did not cheat! Not in my heart. It was only one wench. I had had a great deal of mead. Next thing I know, I’m a troll. Oh, oh, you did this, Anyanka. You will die for this.”
“But you seem to enjoy the—the being a troll,” says Xander.
“I adjusted. And then what happened? Witches! Filthy, dirty, disgusting witches. They trapped me. I was imprisoned in that crystal for centuries. Oh! A curse on all witches! All must die!”
“Willow, again,” says Buffy, and Willow begins to read her counter spell again.
“Let the conjuring be undone,
Return the beast to native form.”
The troll strides toward Willow, and orders her to stop.
Willow reads faster.
“Keep him far from us and ours as long as my voice shall sound.”
Willow looks up to see the results of her spell. Nothing happens.
The troll starts to laugh. “It did not work!”
Willow quickly looks back in her book, checking to make sure she said it right. The troll starts toward her again.
Buffy kicks the troll away from Willow, and Spike comes in to support her. The troll knocks Spike across the bar with one blow.
Buffy grabs the troll and throws him onto a pool table. She grabs his hammer and tries to wrest it away from him. The troll pushes her away, and sends her flying.
Buffy lands on top of Spike. Spike cops a feel of Buffy’s breast as they are disentangling themselves from each other on the floor. She’s too distracted by the troll to notice, but Spike has a big smirk on his face when he gets to his feet.
The troll has started moving around the Bronze, knocking out the supporting columns for the balcony section with his hammer. Buffy moves toward him—trying to get to him in time—but she’s too late. The balcony collapses on top of her, and several of the Bronze’s patrons. People who had been on the balcony slide and fall to the floor, while others are left dangling overhead.
Buffy lifts a piece of broken balcony off her herself—with a little unnoticed help from Spike—and asks the others what happened to the troll. He’s gone. She tells Xander to follow him, and Willow and Anya to go back to the magic shop to see if they can come up with some other spell to stop him. She goes and helps Tara lift some rubble off a trapped girl.
Spike places a folded up jacket under the head of an injured girl, and looks over at Buffy to see if she’s noticed what he’s doing. She has.
“What are you doing?” asks Buffy.
“Making this woman more comfortable,” says Spike. “I’m not sampling, I’ll have you know,” he tells her quickly. “Look at all these lovely blood-covered people. I could, but not a taste for Spike, not a lick. I know you wouldn’t like it.”
“You want credit for not feeding off bleeding disaster victims?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You’re disgusting.” Buffy goes back to helping other victims.
Spike finishes adjusting the makeshift pillow. “What’s it take?”
Willow gathers up every spell book she thinks might be useful, while Anya gets more of the ingredients Willow had been stealing earlier.
“I didn’t— Why do you do that?” Willow doesn’t understand why Anya is always so rude. At first she cut her some slack because she had been a demon, and didn’t know any better, but Anya has had a couple of years now to learn the rules of how to be human.
“Rules are stupid,” says Anya.
“Great. Whatever,” says Willow. “I just thought you might be interested in learning to act more human. Some of us enjoy it.”
Willow and Anya sit at the table with the books and ingredients, and Willow tells her to look for spells for opening dimensional portals.
“I am a human,” says Anya. “And there are many humans who are stranger than me.”
“Uh-huh, but unless I’m really wrong about Crazy Larry down at the bus stop, he’s probably not going to turn Xander into a troll.”
Anya starts telling Willow that the procedure is a little too complicated for Crazy Larry, but she stops in sudden understanding. “Oh, you think I’m going to hurt Xander? I would never hurt Xander! You really think I would do that.”
“Anya, it’s what you do. You spent, what, a thousand years hurting men? You got your ‘thousand years of hurting men’ gold watch?”
“I was a demon then, and I don’t even have any powers now.”
“You weren’t a demon when you turned Olaf into Lord of the Hammers,” says Willow, “And you managed that. Also, there’s other ways to hurt Xander.”
“I don’t do magic now. You’re the one with that kind of power,” says Anya. “In fact, D’Hoffryn offered you my old job. You’re closer to being a vengeance demon than I am. Maybe Xander should be afraid of you.”
“Xander’s my best friend!”
“Oh, and you don’t want anyone else to have him. I know what broke up him and Cordelia, you know. It was you and your lips.”
“No, it was not!” says Willow, “Well, yes, it was so, but that was a long time ago. Do you think I’d do that again?”
“Why not?” asks Anya.
“Hello, gay now.”
“But you’re always doing everything you can to point out how much I’m an outsider,” says Anya. “You’ve known him since you were squalling infants together. You’ll always know him better than I do. You could sweep in and poison his mind against me.”
“You’re insane,” says Willow. “I am not going to take him away, and I am not going to hurt him.”
“Well, I’m not either!” says Anya.
Olaf smashes the front door off its hinges. “Aha! I knew it!” he bellows. “You two performing more spells! I could be out pillaging, devouring babies, making merry with the local virgins! But instead, I had to come all the way back here to kill you!”
“Anya, run!” yells Willow, but they aren’t fast enough. Olaf grabs one of them under each arm, and throws them across the cash counter. He hefts his hammer and starts toward them.
“No! Get away from them!” yells Xander from the door.
“I will get away from them after I kill them,” laughs Olaf.
“You are not touching these women.” Xander charges toward the troll. Olaf lifts his hammer and Xander runs right into it, and gets knocked to the floor. Olaf grabs him by the shirt an picks him up. Xander punches him in the head and Olaf knocks him across the shop. Xander slowly gets back to his feet.
“Ah, you wish for more?” asks Olaf. “Admirable!”
Xander charges at Olaf again. Olaf lets him get in one punch before he hits Xander with his hammer, and then throws him across the shop. Xander staggers back to his feet. He climbs part way up the ladder to the shop’s loft and uses it as a launching platform to jump at Olaf again.
Olaf grabs Xander and slams him to the floor. “You fight well, although you are a tiny man.” He picks Xander up, and puts an arm around his shoulder. “I shall reward you! Only one of your women shall die, and you shall be the one to choose!”
“Choose! Anyanka or the witch,” says Olaf. “One of your women must die.”
“No! You are one crazy troll,” says Xander. “I’m not choosing between my girlfriend and my best friend! That’s insane troll logic!”
“Go, Xander!” says Anya. “I love you.”
Olaf laughs. “Good for you! You are a loyal man.” He takes Xander’s right arm in his hands, and snaps his wrist. “Now, choose!”
Xander cries out in pain. “I’m not choosing!”
“Then you shall be the one who dies.” Olaf lifts his hammer to smash it down on Xander’s head.
“No!” Anya runs out from behind the counter. “Choose me! Just don’t take him. Don’t take Xander.” Olaf hesitates, surprised by this behaviour from her.
Willow grabs a vial of powder and tosses it toward Olaf.
“E conspectu abeat…monstrum.”1
The powder only gets as far as the cash register, and it vanishes again. “Damn!” says Willow.
Buffy runs into the shop, with Tara following her, and sees Olaf holding Xander. Willow yells for Tara to stay back.
Buffy charges toward Olaf. He drops Xander to turn and face her.
As Buffy attacks Olaf Anya warns her to be careful of his hammer. “His strength’s in the hammer!”
This gives Willow an idea. She tells Anya to help Buffy by distracting Olaf, while she starts gathering rune stones, and flipping through the pages of another spell book. Anya doesn’t think she can do it.
“Anya, I have faith in you,” says Willow. “There is no one you cannot piss off.”
Anya thanks Willow, and steps out from behind the counter. “Hey, Olaf! You’re as inadequate a troll as you were a boyfriend!”
Olaf growls at her, and Anya looks back toward Willow who gives her a thumbs up.
“You’re hairy and unattractive, and even women trolls are put off by your various odors!”
Willow starts to read a spell from her book.
“Instrumentum ultionis, telum fabulosum, surge, surge, terram provoca.”2
Olaf grabs Buffy by the throat and lifts her off the ground. He doesn’t notice that his hammer has started to glow.
“Your menacing stance is merely mildly alarming!” says Anya. “And your roar is less than full-throated!”
Olaf knocks Buffy against the wall with his hammer, and turns to his other tormentor. “Desist!” he yells at Anya. “My god, woman, it’s been a thousand years, and yet you are as aggravating and emasculating as ever you were.” He swings at Anya, who ducks under his hammer.
Willow completes her spell:
“Vola cum viribus, dominum tuum nega. Vola!”3
Olaf’s hammer glows even brighter, and flies from his hand and across the shop.
“Hey, good job,” says Anya.
“You, too. Very irritating,” says Willow.
“So, your power’s in your hammer,” says Buffy. She charges at Olaf. He hits her with a backhanded punch and knocks her across the shop. Buffy shoots an irritated look at Anya as she picks herself up off the floor.
“Oh, yeah! I forgot he still has all that troll strength,” says Anya. She goes to help Xander get back to his feet.
“You shall all die.” says Olaf. “I will dispense no mercy now!”
Buffy attacks Olaf again, and this time it’s a more balanced fight. She gets in several good punches before he grabs her and throws her across the shop.
“What are you fighting for, minuscule blonde one? Your friends, these two?” Olaf points at Xander and Anya. “They will never last. Anyanka is very difficult to live with, and he—pffft, he’s ludicrous and far too breakable. Their love will never last.”
Buffy whimpers and gets to her feet. She charges at Olaf again. She leaps over his head, and kicks him in the back of the knee before he can get turned around. He collapses to his knees and she rolls over him again, and kicks him in the head.
Willow and Anya support Xander from opposite sides as they watch Buffy kick Olaf back and forth across the shop. “She’s got him now,” says Willow.
“You really dated him?” asks Xander.
“Yes,” says Anya.
“But you like me better, right?”
“Yes,” says Anya. “Oh, and Willow likes you, too, but not in a sexy way, you know, ’cause she’s gay.” Willow smiles at Xander and shrugs. “And she’s not going to try to break us up, so, you know, it’s all okay.”
“Their love will last forever!” Buffy tells Olaf, as she delivers her final blows. Olaf collapses to the floor, unconscious.
Olaf doesn’t wake up again before Willow completes her transposition spell, and he vanishes. Buffy asks where she sent him.
“The Land of the Trolls,” says Anya. “He’ll like it there: full of trolls.”
Willow isn’t 100% sure about that. Precision in sending things to alternate universes is difficult. They tend to be moving targets.
“It’s possible that he’s in the Land of Perpetual Wednesday or the Crazy Melty Land or, you know, the World Without Shrimp,” says Anya.
Willow thinks that Olaf’s probably in Troll Land.
The only thing that matters to Buffy is that he isn’t there. “And I got this nifty souvenir.” She puts Olaf’s hammer down on top of the single surviving glass counter top in the shop. It shatters. “Oops.”
Xander looks around the shop. “Well, the place is trashed in a funny way.”
“But see how well things worked out?” says Buffy. “And look at you guys: so good and alive and together.” She starts to lose it again. “So together and good and…alive.” She grabs for some tissues as she starts to cry. “Oh, god. I’m…I’m just so happy for you.”
“I cringe to think what the place would look like if I’d been away for longer than three days,” says Giles. He’s sitting at the dining room table in Buffy’s house.
“Well, maybe we would’ve had time to clean it up,” says Buffy. “You know, if Willow used some magic to help.”
“Yes,” says Giles, dripping with sarcasm, “’cause nothing could possibly go wrong with that.”
Joyce comes out of the kitchen carrying a tray with a teapot and cups on it. Giles quickly gets up to help her with it. She still doesn’t understand why he had to go all the way to England just to have the Watchers there tell him they know nothing.
“Well, they don’t know it yet,” says Giles. “I mean, they have no record of Glory or anyone like her, but, uh, based on the information that I’ve given them they’re going to look into it. They might have something soon.”
“What about the Key?” asks Buffy. “Were they all over it?”
“Yes.” Giles looks nervously toward Joyce. “You—you know all of this?”
“I got some of it myself,” says Joyce. “Buffy told me the rest.”
Giles tells them that the Watchers are very interested in learning what is happening, and they have lots of theories, but most of them are nonsense. None of them notice that Dawn has quietly come down the stairs.
“But they don’t know that it’s Dawn?” asks Buffy.
“No,” says Giles.
“I still can’t even begin to grasp this,” says Joyce. “She’s my little girl.”
“Giles, what happens if they figure it out?” asks Buffy. “What would they do?”
Giles doesn’t know. Joyce doesn’t even want to think about it. She goes back to the kitchen to get them milk for their tea.
Dawn stands at the bottom of the stairs trying to understand what she has overheard. She doesn’t know what it means, but it frightens her.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | A convent | Staked by Buffy |