FIC: To Cross the River Styx (5c/?)

[PChazzman@xxxxxxx]

Ok I know it has been a little while since I posted the first two parts of
this chapter, but I'm just not completely happy with part of this section.  
Tell me what you think.

TITLE:  To Cross the River Styx (5c/?)
AUTHOR: Chazzman
E-MAIL: PChazzman@xxxxxxx  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They all belong
to Joss and the WB network. Please don't sue.
SPOILERS: Open season on Season 4.
SUMMERY: I'm re-inventing season 4. This chapter centers on events from
'Doomed'.
RATED: PG
DISTRIBUTION: Just ask me, please...
FEEDBACK: Is very welcome.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you again to all the wonderful people who have sent me
feedback saying they are interested in seeing more.


To Cross the River Styx

Chap 5c


"Hey, Buffy, uhm-"

"Not now, Riley.  I'm in a hurry," Buffy said brusquely while passing him as
she strode rapidly down Main Street.

It was the day after the murder at Porter Hall.  Graham had brought back the
news of the death to the Initiative HQ.  Everyone was hoping that this would
finally give them the opportunity to get back on to active duty and be able
to continue with their mission.  Hunting demons.  For now however they were
still waiting for the word from their leaders.

Riley however did not have to wait.  This new assignment from Jude Law
already gave him authorization to return to duty.  However, he was finding it
difficult to proceed simply because Buffy was continually brushing him off
when he tried to open a conversation with her.  

He had seen her fighting a demon in the cemetery last night and had debated
about coming to her aid during the fight, when the demon managed to knock her
down and run away.  She had looked quite angry about it getting away, so
Riley had decided to stay hidden. Besides which, he didn't know what he could
have told her if she had asked him why he had just happened to be in the
cemetery.

Now it was the next day and this was the third time she had brushed him aside
as she had rushed about the town looking for something.  

"Some people just don't know when to stop obsessing," murmured Forrest as he
stepped up behind Riley.

"I'm not obsessing.  I'm following orders," said Riley quietly as he kept his
eyes on departing blonde Slayer.

********

"Oh I fully agree," snarled Eve as she snatched the stake out of Xander's
hand and then slapped it against Spike's chest.  "But we aren't going to
facilitate an incompetent coward such as you, Spike."

"Incompetent coward!  Sod you!  If I didn't have this bloody chip in my
brain-"

"You still wouldn't be able to do a thing," Eve sneered at the outraged
vampire.  "You would fail like you always have.  How many times have you
tried to kill us?  It's a wonder they found anything in there to attach that
chip to considering how few brain cells you appear to have.  Go ahead!  Kill
yourself.  It will mean nothing to anyone.  Nobody will remember you.  The
world will be a much, much better place when you're gone.  You're nothing but
a great, big parasite.  So go on.  Do it."  Her voice had dropped to barely a
whisper.  But in the silence of the basement, Spike and Xander heard every
single word as if she had been shouting.  

"Willow?" Xander hesitantly asked.  He had been so stunned by her outburst
that he had even take a step back from her.

Eve glanced at Xander then back at Spike who was shaking with barely
contained rage.  Then she snorted in contempt and turned her back on the
vampire.

"Come on Xander," she said as she picked up her bag.  "We got an Apocalypse
to stop."  She glanced back at Spike, "You know.  Important stuff."  

A shocked Xander looked at Spike for a second before following Willow out of
the basement.  Spike stared at the stake in his hand.  His depression warring
with his outrage over what had just happened.  He clutched his fingers around
the stake, gripping it firmly and pointing it towards his chest.  For several
long seconds he stayed there before suddenly spinning around and flinging the
stake into the wall with a yell and began to pace back and forth.

How dare she.  Telling him he was nothing.  He'd show them.  Alright.  Fine.  
So he couldn't hurt people anymore.  What could he do?  

Suddenly, he stopped and snapped his fingers.  So.  The little ex-witch
thought she did 'important' stuff.  OK.  Well, he'd show them.

Yeah that's right.  He'd show her. She wasn't so special.

*****

Eve smiled briefly to herself as she sensed Spike walking up beside her.  So
predictable.

"Uhm OK, Spike. What do you think you are doing?" asked Xander when he
finally noticed the vampire walking beside Willow.  He was completely baffled
about what to say or do.  Willow was acting very un-Willowly in his opinion.

"You Scoobies think you're so damn special.  Well I can do anything you can
do far better than you can."

Xander was about to argue with him when he caught the slight smirk on
Willow's face.  

She'd played him.  Reverse psychosis or something like that.

"Ooookay," Xander said slowly.  "So... then... gee Mr. Peabody, what's a
'Word of Valios'?"

******

They were back at Sunnydale High.  Or rather what was left of it.

Cautiously, they entered into the burnt out remains of the High School.  
Buffy could feel herself starting to charge up, just like she had in the
clock tower.  Like a slowly building pressure inside her body mixed with the
feeling of an unreachable itch, deep beneath her skin.  

"Buff? You OK, there?" Xander asked with concern.

"Yea, I'm fine," she shook her head as if to clear it. "Come on, let's do
this."

The slowly advanced towards where the library used to be.

Willow had already moved into the library.  Passing through the still
standing walls, she stared in amazement at the sight before her.  

She had been prepared for the destruction. Blackened charred timbers
everywhere.  A huge crater at ground zero of where the bomb had been.  
Standard post-bombing decoration really.

But it was what her 'fairy' sight showed her that really took her breath
away.  If she had been impressed with her close contact to the two lines in
the clock tower, she was overwhelmed by the hundreds of lines that flowed
through here and down into the crater.  Ignoring the three demons chanting
their ritual, she moved forward toward where the lines seemed to dive down
into the ground until she stood upon the edge of the abyss.  In amazement,
she stared down into the inky darkness of the Hellmouth.  The lines of power
arched down into its depths.  However, deep down there she could see
something that blocked the portal.  A silvery, glowing sphere with a radiated
net of lines holding it into place and locking the dark portal shut.

This was her spell.  Well, hers and Giles'.  The one that they had performed
last spring when the Sisters had tried to open the Hellmouth.

She could feel the dark evil that lay on the other side of that portal and it
scared her to be even this close.  All the same, she proceeded to kneel down
on the edge and lean further over to try and get a better look at the depths
of the maelstrom when Buffy attacked the three Vahrall demons.

*****

Buffy dove for the last demon as it jumped into the pit.  She clenched her
fingers around the wispy tendrils of the creature's hair, or whatever it was
sprouting from its head.  Vaguely she felt Xander grab hold of her ankles as
the weight of the demon dragged her into the pit as well.

For a second the world seemed to pause as she held her breath and tightened
her tenuous grip.  Then the demon jerked its head away from her, its hair
pulled free and all she could do was watch it plummet away from her into the
seemingly bottomless pit.

"NO!"

Without a thought Willow dove into the vortex to the Hellmouth after it.

Buffy let out a gasp of dismay as she watched the demon fall away from her
hands, the palms of which were itching like mad... and then her whole
perspective changed.

No longer was she hanging over a bottomless pit.  Instead she saw the
multicolored lines of power twisting together like the funnel of a tornado
and flowing down into the maw of the Hellmouth.  A glowing sphere upon which
the bodies of the two other demons lay was blocking the Hellmouth.  She
somehow knew that the first two demons had weakened the sphere.  When the
third demon hit the sphere, it would shatter, and the Hellmouth would be
open.  But the demon was no longer falling as fast as it had been.

She watched as strands of white energy burst forth and encased the falling
demon before it could impact upon the sphere.  With an abrupt lurch, the
demon's fall was brought to a full halt.  As it struggled to break free of
its invisible bonds, it slowly began to rise up.  Back towards Buffy's
outstretched hands.

Buffy was sweating profusely as the demon rose towards her.  Desperately
trying to blot from her mind the idea that because she did not know what she
was doing, she might loose the demon at any minute.  Instead she concentrated
on binding him tighter as he rose closer and closer.

With a gasp of relief, she grabbed his arm in a grip of steel as he finally
came close enough to her.

Then she looked up and almost lost him again.

Her concentration on the demon had focused her on it alone as she had drawn
the creature out of the depths.  Now, however, as she relaxed, she saw behind
it a vision of heart stopping beauty and her mind could only think of one
thing.

An angel.

An angel was helping her to hold onto the demon.  Keeping it from falling
back to the Hellmouth.  

The light shining around it was so bright that its features were blurred,
however...

Buffy blinked and suddenly her vision cleared, and all she saw was the rocky
pit and the demon in her grasp.

"Buffy?" a voice called out to her.  Willow's voice.  Buffy shook her head to
clear it. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah! I'm fine.  Can you guys pull us back?"

"Please," came a grunt from Xander whom Buffy only now realized was hanging
three-quarters of the way into the pit. Who was holding Xander?

"Just a minute," Buffy heard Willow call down.  Some muffled conversation
passed and a minute went by before she felt herself being lifted back to the
top of pit where she turned around, dropped the demon and found Willow, Spike
and -

"Riley?  What are you doing here?"

"I followed you guys.  Saw you come into this place and wondered what was
up," he told her as he looked down at the demon that was beginning to
struggle to get up.

Buffy bent down on the demon's back.  "Didn't anyone ever tell you," she took
hold of the demon's head, "that stalking is so not attractive," she finished
with a grunt as she snapped the demon's neck.

"Sorry," Riley said looking as her with wide eyes.  "I was just following
orders."

"Orders?"

"Yeah," he said with an easy smile. "Pick up Dr. Walsh's dry cleaning, work
on next week's assignments, and follow Buffy Summers."

It was a lame joke to relive the tension, Buffy realized.  Probably the best
he could do under the shock of seeing his first demon.

"Fine.  Whatever," Buffy sighed.

"Not that I'm not grateful and all, but what just happened?" interrupted
Xander.

"Did you see it?" Buffy turned to him.  "The angel?"

"Angel?  No," Xander said in confusion.  "What I saw was Mr. Apocalypse Now
here take a dive and come back like a big ol' demon superball.  Not that I'm
not grateful, stopping the end of the world and all but-"

"She was behind him.  She helped me lift him back.  Stopped him from opening
the Hellmouth," Buffy said with a far away tone to her voice as she thought
back to the image she had seen.

"Woah, woah, woah woah!" Riley interrupted. "An angel?"

"Well that's what it looked like," Buffy shook her head.  "I don't know.  
Maybe that was the wrong word.  But it was beautiful, and it looked-," she
broke off as she glanced briefly at Willow.

Eve moved forward to give Buffy a hug. "I believe you," she told her.

"An angel?" Riley said in a stunned voice.  "Helped stop this...this..."

"Demon," said Eve with a grin.

"Demon," continued Riley, "from doing what?"

"Sacrificing its life in an effort to open up the Hellmouth and end the
world," summarized Buffy.

"Well I say its about time," Xander said with a grin.  "Nice to know that
with all the evidence of demons around, we finally get to see some of their
opposite numbers on our side.  Hey, maybe it's your personal Guardian Angel,
Buff,"

"Bloody Hell!" Spike grumbled.  "No wonder I was never able to kill you lot.
All this time and you've got a soddin' Guardi-"

Spike was cut out by Buffy's fist impacting on his nose.

"Ow!"

"Don't you dare say one word against her, Spike," Buffy growled.

"'Kill you lot'?" Riley said in a puzzled tone of voice.

Buffy looked at her the TA and sighed.  "Riley, meet Spike, the vampire who
can't bite."

"Hey!" protested Spike.

"He's a vampire," said Riley slowly while looking Spike as recognition set
in.  Hostile 17.

"Yes and while normally it would be my duty to slay him, he's been recently
de-fanged by the same bastards who kidnapped Willow, and that puts him in a
sort of grey area with a limited amnesty."

She held up her hand to forestall any further questions.

"Look, I'm tired and I don't feel up to explaining everything right now.  
Thank you for your help but I've still got things to do tonight-"

"I'll do it," Eve piped up.

"Will?"

"You go tell Giles that everything is OK, and Riley can walk me back to the
dorm while I explain, OK?" she told Buffy.

Buffy looked at Riley, then back at Willow. "You sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure," Eve gave her a calming smile.

******

Buffy was deep in thought as she slowly walked back to her dorm.  She had
told Giles about the battle, about the power she had used and about the
vision she had seen while hanging over the Hellmouth.

Still she hadn't told Giles everything.

She had said the image was too bright for her too see clearly, but at the
same time she had felt as if she had sensed a wave of love for her from the
'angel'.  And then...

It was probably just her imagination anyway.

But for an instant.

For a very brief split-second in time.

While hanging upside down over the Hellmouth.

Desperately holding onto that demon with every ounce of strength she could
muster.

Before it had disappeared.

She could have sworn that the angel had looked like Willow.

If Willow had been missing Buffy would have said it was her ghost helping her.

But that was silly.

Willow was alive.

******

The following morning, Buffy was watching Eve as she read the newspaper and
noticed as a sudden smile spread across her face.

"What?" asked Buffy.

"Huh?" said Eve.

"What is it?  You just suddenly started smiling while reading the paper.  I
want to know about anything that can bring that sort of glow to my Willow's
face."

"Oh! Uhm, it's nothing. I was just reading what everyone thinks is the news,
and like here we are with the real news, and the only paper's we could ever
tell these stories in are the tabloids like in 'Men in Black' so since you're
no longer with the Watcher's Council... maybe we should look into getting a
government grant and forming out own organization."

Buffy arched an eyebrow.  "Hum so we could be 'Women in'," she looked down at
her outfit, "Yummy Sushi pajamas?"

Eve laughed.  "How about 'Scoobies, Inc.'?"

They chatted on tossing ridiculous ideas back and forth - such as getting
Giles situated someplace where he could devise elaborate medieval weaponry
disguised as accessories for Buffy to wear.

Soon Buffy was dressing to head out to class.  Willow's first class wasn't
until 11 AM so it was that Buffy never saw the article that had brought such
a smile to Eve's face.

The obituary notice for Percy West.

*****

End Chap 5