The gang was hurriedly gathering supplies together in their backpacks. Angel was off to the side with Cordelia and Doyle.
Xander: "How many stakes?"
Willow: "At least a dozen. Buffy, you gonna need more than that?"
Buffy: "You decide. The stakes are for you. I'm covered."
Oz: "Fighting big evil without weapons is always safe."
Buffy: "Guys, don't worry about me. You just get in there, & worry about the excess vamps. Stay as far away as you can from where me & Angel are. Watch out for each other. Not me."
Willow: "But, Buffy, you're in more danger than any of us."
Buffy stopped & turned toward her friends.
Buffy (softly): "Willow, my Willow. There are things that come with being chosen, certain responsibilities. I understand now that what was important was that I was chosen. I have a job to do. But, you don't. You do this because you want to help, you want to make a difference. I do this, because I have a legacy to fulfill, I have a duty to uphold. I could have been a faceless fighter, but you, all of you, you gave me a face, you gave me a life... God, what am I trying to say here. I must sound like a lunatic. Guys, I love you. For everything, for being who you are, for all you've been to me & for me. I want you to know that."
Willow: "We get that, Buffy. But it doesn't mean that we can't fight along side of you."
Buffy: "It does in this case. You are by no means helpless. But, there are evils too strong for a regular person to fight. That's why I was chosen to be what I am. I am, so that a hundred of you don't die fighting. Take care of the vamps, I'll take care of the big fish."
Xander: "You got it, Buffy."
Buffy smiled up at them as the last hint of sunlight faded. Then, she looked up at the colorful sky: "It's time. Let's go."
By the time the group has reached 'the first place', the sunset had turned to darkness.
Buffy: "Hang back." Buffy handed stakes to Cordelia, Doyle, Xander, Willow, & Oz. "When the fight starts, get in there & take out as many vamps as you can. The more you get, the less distracted I'll be when I'm fighting Anderson."
Buffy & Angel approached 'the first place'. Chillingly, Anderson silently stood in the center looking straight at them.
Anderson: "Lovely of you to come. You're Buffy, right? I don't believe we've met. I'm, well, it's not important who I am. The important thing is that I'm going to be killing you."
Buffy: "I know who you are. You're here to carry on the legacy of your ancestors. Their mission was to rid the world of the protector race. & for thousands & thousands of years, you have been trying to cultivate their power. Their power that you were too young at the time to know how to use."
Angel: "To young? He's a vampire, Buffy."
Buffy: "True, but before he was a vampire he was the son of a sorcerer. A sorcerer who died at the last, or, shall I say, first slayer's hands. She saw you there, a scared child, hiding. She sensed the evil within you. But you were five years old, so she let you live. Little did she know that some of the vampires who followed your father & his sorcerer friends came back for you, raised you & killed you when you reached adulthood."
Anderson: "How do you know so much about me?"
Buffy: "Because I am the embodiment of all you hate. I'm not a slayer as they have come to be today. I, too, reclaimed my ancestor's powers. & I'm ready to fight you. Because I'm stronger than you, I'm faster than you, I know what move your going to make before you do. & let's face it: I'm better looking."
With that Buffy ran & dashed at Anderson. Angel was taken aback by the quickness of her movement & rushed to help her. He was stopped by over a dozen vampires. Xander, Cordelia, Doyle, Willow, & Oz took it as their que to go in & help Angel with the vamps.
Buffy was more than handling her own with Anderson.
Anderson: "Funny thing about fighting. It's usually pointless. I don't know why you people bother. So, you kill a vampire. There's still thousands- millions of more creatures lurking, stalking the things of the daylight. What do you matter?"
Buffy: "Obliviously I do matter considering you've spent your terribly long, & I imagine boring, life trying to figure out how to kill me."
Anderson: "Wrong. Killing you is easy."
With that Anderson took hold of Buffy using magic. She was still.
Anderson: "Killing your inheritance is impossible without this little trick of the trade."
Anderson cut his arm & smeared a symbol with his blood on Buffy's forehead. He began chanting.
The gang could see this from only feet away. Angel managed to break free from the 6 vampires the group was still struggling with, but an invisible barrier, like with Faith, prevented him from getting to Buffy. He stood 3 feet away as Anderson completed his ritual.
As the rest of the group's attention was focused toward Buffy, a vampire sinked into Oz's neck. When the group tried to pry it off of Oz, Cordelia was attacked from behind. Doyle struggled with that vampire, as Willow & Xander pried the vamp off Oz & tried to stake the 4 others surrounding them.
A black light came out of the ground & engulfed Buffy. Buffy was now robbed of her slayerhood- just a human girl- as she fell to the ground, no longer held by Anderson's magic.
Anderson (giddily): "I finally did it. I'm a hero to all demon-kind. My father's mission is completed."
"Not quite yet," said Buffy, "I'm still alive."
Anderson: "You are irrelevant. You're not a slayer. You are of no concern of mine."
Buffy: "Not quite so. I know something you don't know."
Anderson (intrigued because of what she knew before, leaning in): "What?"
Buffy: "Rubare Lotta has a counter-ritual. & I know it."
Anderson: "Irrelevant again. You won't be around later to do it. So here comes the killing part."
Anderson leaned in for a vamp-attack. Buffy blocked it.
Buffy: "I was wrong. Just a human person can fight the biggest of evils."
Buffy fought with Anderson shortly. Anderson was much stronger than Angel, & with Buffy human... she stood no chance. But she fought.
Angel still could not get to Buffy. He stood with tears in his eyes, watching, attacking the invisible barrier.
Buffy (weakly): "Angel, help who you can."
Angel's eyes met hers as he nodded & helped the others with the last 3 vampires. He came in & quickly staked one. Then two. Willow got the last. The group was left silent & alone, watching the fight between Buffy & Anderson.
Buffy was bloody, weak, & on the ground.
Buffy: "I was wrong about another thing. I need a weapon. Guys, (addressing the Scooby Gang) guys, I need a weapon!"
Xander fumbled for a stake: "Here."
Buffy: "Bottled water?!"
Anderson: "Pathetic. Pathetic & sad."
Buffy: "Again, not quite."
Buffy rose & crashed into Anderson. She smashed the bottle of holy water.
The bottle broke & allowed the holy water to sear in deep parts of his body.
Buffy: "You're dying, Anderson."
Anderson: "But I beat you. You'll die, too. Ha! It's too late! & with you, the legacy of the slayer will forever be nullified."
Buffy: "Wrong. Remember my friend, Faith? She's alive."
Anderson: "She's not a slayer."
Buffy: "Maybe not now, but tomorrow at sunrise, she will be. All she needs is you dead. You failed."
Anderson was surprised & angry as he quickly digested this.
Anderson: "But I killed you."
Buffy: "Irrelevant."
Willow was crying off to the side. So was Oz, Xander, & even Cordelia. Angel stood, tears rolling down his face. Doyle, who knew Buffy the least, fumbled in his backpack for a stake.
Anderson's power was fading & so was his barrier, Doyle reached in the weak barrier & handed Buffy the stake.
Doyle: "Finish him off."
Then, Buffy stood. She hovered over the dying vampire, looked in it's eyes & said soberly: "& with this I carry on the legacy. Of what I am, of what I stand for. Good against evil, fighting against destruction. What I have been chosen to do, I do now. I rid you of this world & I end your legacy for good & continue mine forever."
Buffy drove the wooden stake into Anderson's chest.
Anderson turned to dust & the wind blew him away.
The moon had just risen. It was a half-silt, but seemed to light the dark sky.
Angel rushed to Buffy's side just as she began to fall.
The rest of the group hovered around Buffy who now lay on the ground resting against Angel.
She smiled. "Hi guys."
Cordelia: "Don't try & talk, Buffy. You're gonna be alright. We just need to get her back to the camp, right? Right?"
Xander put a hand on Cordelia's back.
Angel: "Hang on a little longer."
Buffy: "It's what I'm good at. Angel, I love you."
Angel: "I love you. I'll never stop. Never."
Buffy: "I know."
Willow: "Buffy, you can't leave me. It's not fair. You did your duty & you lose your life? How fair is that? It can't happen this way. It's not fair."
Buffy: "Living isn't what fighting is about. It isn't even about winning, which I must say I did pretty well. I don't regret this. I mean, it sucks, I'll give you that. But, I don't regret what I did today or ever. & I want you all to know that I love you & that you have made all the difference to me, & then to the world. & I want to tell you to never stop fighting because that's what life is about. You see something that you don't like & you change it. Don't give in to it. Never stop fighting."
Buffy stopped for a second & made eye contact with Angel.
Buffy: "Angel? Do you understand?"
Angel: "I understand."
Buffy: "I see a light."
Willow covered her mouth to stop her crying noises.
Buffy: "It's so beautiful... Yes, I know, Giles. Do you think I'd let you down?"
Angel: "Buffy?"
Buffy: "Angel? Where were you? You weren't with me. Is this good-bye?"
Angel: "I hope not." (his voice cracks)
Buffy: "Me, too."
After a few moments Buffy said: "Time to stop fighting."
& then she was gone.
-----------------------------
Later, back at the camp in the tent with Faith.
Willow: "The world is slayerless. We don't know how to make Faith a slayer again. Buffy died for nothing."
Xander: "What's this here, by Faith?"
Angel: "A notepad. 'What I am, I reclaim?' Buffy wrote this for Faith... She knew she was gonna die."
Cordelia: "She went & fought anyway!? Why? If she knew she was gonna die because of her new psychic abilities why did she go & fight?"
Oz: "Because that's who Buffy was. Stripped of her slayerhood, Buffy was a fighter."
Xander: "She saved the world by saving slayers."
Willow: "She saved millions of lives that would be lost without a slayer there to save them."
Doyle: "Come on, it's sunrise, us five gotta go out there with Faith & give her back her birthright."
Angel: "Do you want me to help move her?"
Doyle: "No, we're OK."
Angel was left in the dark tent. He sat, slowly, down. And cried.
Outdoors.
Willow: "What I am, what I have been chosen to be- I reclaim. What I have had, what is entitled to me- I reclaim. I reclaim, continuing the legacy. Everyone say it! Focus your energy on Faith."
Xander, Willow, Cordelia, Oz, Doyle: "What I am, what I have been chosen to be- I reclaim. What I have had, what is entitled to me- I reclaim. I reclaim, continuing the legacy."
As the group chanted, a blue light shot out from the sky & hit Faith's forehead. When it left, the group stopped chanting & looked at the still unmoving Faith.
Disappointed, everyone let go of their hands & stared at the girl in the center of them.
Then, Faith's eyes opened. & she sat up.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
