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Quickened by P.H. Wise

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Quickened
by P.H. Wise
A Buffy crossover fanfic

Chapter 8: Those Who Seek Truth

Disclaimer: I don’t own Buffy. I don’t own Angel. I don’t own Highlander. Please don’t sue me. I’m only a poor starving writer. I have no money.

----------------------------------------------

She fought as she always had. Fist for fist, blood for blood.

This was her life.

This was her nature: red in tooth and claw.

They danced the dance of death together, the Immortal and the Immortal Slayer, she full of grace and rage in equal measure, he with the skill and cunning of a thousand years of constant battle. Blocking, ducking, weaving, slashing, thrusting, jumping.

Her upward slash met his downward cut, and with a tremendous metallic clang, his broadsword went flying out of his hands, clattering noisily as it hit the runway. She hamstrung and gutted him almost casually. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony.

Buffy raised her sword. The moment of truth had come. All the reasons why this man needed to die echoed endlessly in her mind, but they were all of them hollow. All but one. He had threatened to hurt Dawn.

Blood roared in her ears, and then, as if from far away, she heard Willow’s voice.

“Enemies, endings, fly and fall,”

Buffy brought the sword down.

“...Encircling arms now raise the wall!”

She hit nothing. A bubble of invisible force expanded outwards from the airport terminal even as she swung for Moore’s head. It passes through Buffy harmlessly, but when it hit James, it simply disintegrated him. A foul smell lingered in the air for a moment, and then nothing. The bubble rapidly expanded to cover the whole airport... and then it rose, expanding further, encasing the whole of Sunnydale in its shimmering glow.

Lightning flashed. The quickening rose from the spot where James had ceased to be. It surged towards Buffy... only to stop short. A barrier. It flowed up and all around the shield that had encased her, even as lightning burst out from the coiling pale white energy in tremendous blasts. Cement shattered. Holes were blasted in the nearby airplanes. Sound and fury.

In the end, it could not reach her. The quickening faded, and with it, the shield.

Buffy dropped to her knees, and Willow appeared at her side.

“Willow, what did you do?” There was no horror in her voice this time. No disbelief. Wrath, dark and primal, boiled inside her diminutive form. But this wasn’t the familiar darkness of the Slayer within; this was something else. Something alien.

Tears streamed down Willow’s face. “I knew...” the red-headed witch sobbed. “I knew if you killed him, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself... I don’t want to lose you, Buffy.”

Buffy spoke in a near whisper. “So you killed him.”

Willow nodded.

‘How dare she,’ the foreign thought rumbled through Buffy’s mind like a peal of thunder. ‘How DARE she rob me of what is rightfully MINE.’

In one smooth movement, Buffy decapitated her friend of seven years.

Willow didn’t even have time to scream. Her headless corpse tumbled silently to the pavement, and the Quickening began.

Moment by moment, from birth to death, Willow’s memories flashed through the Immortal Slayer’s mind as she fed on the soul of her friend, feeding, destroying, consuming. She gorged herself on the Wicca’s outraged individuality, and she did it with a song in her heart. Power beyond imagining coursed through Buffy’s body, and she screamed her triumph for all the world to hear.

As the quickening faded, the dark and primal something in the depths of the Slayer’s mind purred contentedly, totally and utterly sated.

Buffy looked up, and her eyes darkened to purest black.

*FLASH*

A Turok-han rises from the seal of Danzathar, and the very aether recoils in horror.

*FLASH*

An ebony goddess smiles benevolently, and Angel, Wesley, Fred, Lorne, Gunn and Conner kneel at her feet.

*FLASH*

An ancient city lies in ruins, vast tendrils of energy stretching across it and pulsing and writhing grotesquely, like bloated, corpulent veins. Hundreds of thousands of humans literally explode in showers of gore, and a small mote of white light rises from each steaming pile of blood and guts, each of them absorbed by the energy-tendrils with an agonized scream.

*FLASH*

Buffy stands before... Buffy. A copy. A double. With eyes as black as the midnight, the double grins. “From beneath you, it devours.”

She woke up with a yell, her sheets soaked with sweat.

-----------------------

Still shuddering in the wake of her nightmare, Buffy stepped out of the shower, water dripping from her body.

She still felt dirty.

She stood there for several long moments, water dripping from her curves down onto the cold tile floor of the bathroom. The distant murmur of the television came drifting up from the living room.

‘A dream,’ she thought. ‘Only a dream.’

Several minutes later, dressed and ready to face the world (or at least Dawn and Willow), Buffy made her way down the stairs.

“In the wake of the series of earthquakes and what authorities are now calling ‘meteor showers,’ the Southland has been brought to its knees,” said the anchorman, his voice filled with barely controlled fear. “As fire and rescue teams continue their struggle to contain the many fires caused by the event, Government officials are asking that residents remain in their homes and off the street. Emergency shelters have been set up all across the Southland, which we will continue to show at the bottom of the screen throughout the day...”

Buffy tuned out the rest of the broadcast. Willow sat on the couch in front of the television, and if the half melted tub of ice cream that graced the coffee table was any indication, she had been there for some time.

“’Morning, Buffy,” Willow called.

Buffy didn’t answer.

The scent of slightly burned pancakes led the Slayer to the kitchen, where Dawn was busy making breakfast. Butter. Maple syrup. Orange juice. Looked good.

Buffy wasn’t hungry.

It wasn’t until the end of their silent, uncomfortable breakfast that Willow finally summoned up the courage to speak. “So what’s got you extra-wiggy this morning?” she asked.

Buffy simply looked at her, saying nothing.

“Oh,” said Willow, downcast.

Another long silence fell. After some time, Dawn opened her mouth to speak. Buffy beat her to it.

“Dawn,” she said, “Call Xander. We’re going to need his help.”

“Research?”

“Research.”

Dawn paused. “Duncan?”

Buffy went very still. “No,” she said, repressing a shudder by sheer force of will, “We don’t need help from an Immortal.”

“What about training?”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”

Dawn frowned.

As Dawn left the room to call Xander, Willow glanced at Buffy. “... So.”

“So.”

They sat in silence for several long seconds, neither one wanting to be the one to start this conversation. In the end, it was Willow who spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Buffy nodded. “Me too.”

“Buffy... I couldn’t let you take a human li...”

Buffy cut her off. “Can we not have this conversation now?” she asked, her eyes like flecks of green ice.

Willow went downcast. “I...”

The Wicca’s words faded into silence.

-----------------------

When Xander arrived, the Scoobies flung themselves into the books with a vengeance. Between what they had recovered from the Magic Box and what Willow had brought with her from England, they had a serviceable library of occult texts. It didn’t match what they’d had in the Magic Box before Willow had gone all black-eyed and vengeancy, nor did it compare to the wealth of lore that had once graced the Sunnydale High School library, but it was enough for their purposes. An uncomfortable silence hung over the gathering as they searched through the books. Xander made several attempts to break the ice to no avail, the silences only growing more intense in the wake of his attempts at humor. Eventually, he gave it up.

When Duncan arrived at noon for the daily training session with Buffy and Dawn, it came as a great relief to the Scooby gang, even if the Slayer didn’t appreciate the presence of the Immortal. Buffy sent Dawn out to train first, while she, Xander and Willow continued researching. Even so, with her mind taken off what had happened at the airport (in favor of being creeped out by the presence of another Immortal), the tension was lessened, and conversation rose up amongst the researchers.

“Ooh! Found it!” Willow squealed excitedly.

The sound of sword ringing on sword floated in from the back yard. Dawn’s training was going well.

“What’ve you got, Will?” Xander asked, moving over to look at the book Willow was holding up triumphantly.

“Oh, just the lowdown on the big bad vamp,” said Willow, the ghost of an innocently sunny smile gracing her face.

“Alisoun?” Buffy asked.

“That’s the one.”

“What are we waiting for?” asked Xander. “Give it a huff and a puff, and blow that info on down.”

Willow and Buffy gave Xander ‘the look.’

“... It sounded much more witty in my head.”

The girls smiled, and some of the tension in the room faded.
Willow placed her hand on the page. “Aperio verum absconditus,” she whispered. The arcane symbols on the page shimmered for a moment, and then shifted. Willow watched with a smile as the ink rearranged itself into words and images. But as she read the text, her smile faded.

“...Oh boy.”

The sounds of swordplay faded from the yard, and Dawn and Duncan came in a few moments later.

“You’re up!” Dawn chirped cheerfully, sweat glistening on her face.

Buffy glanced at Duncan, who wasn’t even breathing hard yet. “Hang on. Willow’s found something.”

All eyes turned to the redheaded Witch.

Willow looked up from the text.

“So, how is ‘Lady Alisoun’ going to destroy the world?” Buffy asked.

----------------------------------------

“It’s called the Eater of Souls.”

Dawn blinked. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Xander gave Willow a sidelong glance. “Tell ‘em about the twinkie.”

The corners of Willow’s lips twitched at that as she tried not to smile. “This is serious. Eater of Souls was an ancient Immortal who had allied himself with a demon group called the order of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. He was pretty high up, apparently. He had his hands in all sorts of evil from 900 BC to about 1300 AD. That was when another Immortal – a Champion – defeated him and took his head.”

“If he’s dead, then what’s the problem?” Duncan asked.

Willow glanced at the Highlander. “Um... it says something about a really dark Quickening. When the Champion took his head, the Eater of Souls went into the Champion... and totally consumed him. It took over his body and went on a bloody rampage across Europe.”

Buffy frowned. “Is that possible?”

All eyes went to Duncan, who flinched.

“It’s possible,” he said.

“Um, apparently, Eater of Souls learned how to draw power from mortals as well as Immortals. It’s how he got his name. He had powers beyond anything anyone had ever seen in an Immortal before... and he was working with a group of demons and humans to bring about the Apocalypse.”

“Again, REALLY missing the Mayor,” said Xander.

The other Scoobies rolled their eyes.

“It doesn’t say who the group is, though. It just calls them ‘the Circle.’ But anyways, the Watchers intervened. They ambushed him and cut off his head.”

Duncan frowned at that, but said nothing.

“Even decapitated, the Eater of Souls wouldn’t die. Its disembodied essence lingered on. The Slayer eventually corned it in Rome, with the help of an order of Jesuit monks. It cost the Slayer her life, but they defeated it and its demonic minions, and bound the big bad on the holiest of ground – beneath the Vatican City. Then they took the body and buried it on the Hellmouth.” Willow frowned. “I don’t see why the Vatican City gets to be the holiest of ground.”

Buffy shrugged. “Probably for the same reason crosses and holy water work against vamps.”

“So the good Lady is planning to resurrect this thing?” Xander asked.

Willow nodded. “But she can’t do it until sometime next year. Something about the stars needing to be right. And she has to do it in Rome.” Willow frowned. “But that doesn’t really help us much on the rain of fire we had. Rain of fire isn’t supposed to be one of the signs of Eater of Soul’s rebirth... There must be something else going on...”

Buffy shrugged. “You guys keep looking, then. It’s my turn to train.”

She glanced at Duncan and nodded, and then followed the Highlander into the back yard.

“Have fun!” Dawn called.

Back to the books they went.

It was nearly two hours later that Willow threw her book down onto the coffee table in frustration. “This is getting us nowhere!” she groused.

Buffy was still outside with Duncan, although they had come in for water twice since they had begun their training session. Xander had gone on a Pizza retrieval mission, leaving Willow and Dawn to continue the research in his absence.

Dawn shrugged helplessly. “Did you check online? You’ve got all those techno-pagan bookmarks, right?”

Willow blinked, and glanced at Xander. Or rather, she glanced at the empty spot on the sofa where Xander HAD been sitting. She could almost hear him now: “We’re dumb.”

A few minutes later, Willow had booted up her laptop, and was web surfing away.

---------------------------

“Something on your mind?” Duncan asked as they began sparring. Their blades flickered back and forth almost too quickly to be seen, and the clang of metal on metal filled the air.

“No.”

“Your ‘no’ sounds suspiciously like ‘yes.’”

The ghost of a wry smile graced Buffy’s lips as she parried the sudden lunge of her opponent’s katana and retaliating with a quick riposte. “How long have you been taking heads?”

Duncan barely restrained himself from shrugging – such an error in combat with the Slayer was a sure recipe for disaster. “Four hundred years, maybe.”

“Why do you do it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why fight? Why not just live out eternity on Holy Ground?”

Duncan delivered a quick three-slash combo, which the Slayer parried, dodged, and ducked underneath, respectively. He tried to use her crouch to his advantage, delivering a quick sweeping cut at knee level, but Buffy sprang up into the air some twenty feet from her crouch, doing a complete flip in mid-air, and coming down with her sword pointed for Duncan’s heart. He parried, albeit partially, and the blade went through his shoulder instead of his head. And then her full weight landed on him, and he was knocked to the ground.

Buffy waited for her sparring partner to recover.

As he climbed back to his feet, Duncan considered his answer (and waited for his body to heal). “... Someone has to. In the end, there can be only one. If the wrong person wins the prize, then the world is doomed.”

“What IS the prize?”

Duncan shrugged. “Power.”

-------------------------------------

She fought as she always had. Fist for fist, blood for blood.

This was her life.

This was her nature: red in tooth and claw.

They danced the dance of death together, the Immortal and the Immortal Slayer, she full of grace and rage in equal measure, he with the skill and cunning of nearly four hundred years of constant battle. Blocking, ducking, weaving, slashing, thrusting, jumping. A parry, a savage blow to the knee, a thrust, and a flash of red.

Blood.

When Buffy came back to herself, she was staring down at Duncan’s motionless body, noting the blood seeping from where she had stabbed him – right through the heart. “...Oops,” she said. She shuddered before heading back inside to check on the progress of the research.

Xander had returned with Pepperoni goodness, and he and Dawn were munching away while Willow surfed through web page after web page with no luck.

“Hey Buffster, you done already?”

A guilty look flashed across Buffy’s face. “Training’s been cancelled on account of Duncan having a slight case of death.”

Xander gave her an incredulous look. “Slight case of death?”

Buffy nodded. “He told me to stop holding back, and reminded me that we’re both Immortal... He’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“If you say so. I brought crunchy Pizza-ie goodness. Dig in!”

--------------------------

Willow rubbed her eyes. No luck yet on the techno-pagan sites, and she had exhausted nearly all of them. The only thing left was the mailing list/message board hybrid that Jenny Calendar had been a member of. She’d tried for months to figure out how to access the site, but it had nigh Godlike encryption, and she’d eventually given up. But that had been back in her junior year of high school. One minor divination spell later, she punched in Miss Calendar’s login and password to hunter-net.org.

Login: yana01
Password: Rupert

Text scrolled by - an introduction to the site, a message of the day, and then, finally, Miss Calendar’s account.

You have 724 unread messages.

Willow blinked. This could take a while. Rolling up her sleeves, the young Witch went to work. Most of the messages were clearly nonsense. Wild conspiracy theory mixed with all manner of conjecture and blatant stupidity. Some of the messages, however, seemed to be on the level. The earliest of them were dated from the spring of ’98. That would put it right about the time that Miss Calendar had died... she shook her head and began scanning across the titles.

‘ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH A WEREWOLF?’
‘THE WALKING DEAD’
‘CIA IMPLANTS AND YOU’
‘SERIOUSLY BAD MOJO IN SUNNYDALE...’

Willow raised an eyebrow. This could be interesting. She selected the message and began to read.

From: wanderer12
To: hunter.list@hunter-net.org
Subject: SERIOUSLY BAD MOJO IN SUNNYDALE...

A word of warning – I passed through this nothing little mall town called Sunnydale the other day, and found some seriously bad mojo going down with the local bloodsuckers. I’ve heard things. There’s a big bad named Acathla about to wake up. Anyone in the area had better steer clear. This could be VERY bad.

Curious. She read on. There was another section of messages in the spring of ’99, about the time of graduation. Yet another warning that anyone in Sunnydale should get out of town immediately. The Mayor is in with THEM – in with the walking dead. And he’s finally getting paid for his cooperation... In ’00, there were a few scattered messages that mentioned heavy covert ops activity in Sunnydale, and there were a few messages that wonder why one town gets such attention. And why does it have its own UC? AND an airport? AND a dock? And what’s up with all of those graveyards? It’s vampires! The town is infested with vampires! And now the military is experimenting on them! Trying to twist them towards their own ends. No, the vampires ARE military creations in the first place! They’re genetically engineered bio-weapons!

... And then in 2001, there are quite a few messages that deal with Sunnydale in reference to the end of the world. One says, “Hmm. Looks like it’s time for the annual Sunnydale almost-Apocalypse.” Another one actually made mention of Buffy. One of the members who had visited Sunnydale to look into the strange ongoing activity here apparently saw a “tiny little blond chick” beating the crap out of a pair of vampires. She wondered if the girl was “one of us.” Their first thought was that she was a vampire who had a disagreement with the others, but then he saw her the next day on the campus of the local UC. She asks if anyone else had been given super-strength by “the angels.”

There are again messages that deal with Sunnydale in the spring of ’02. Everyone knows the drill at this point. Willow cringed as she realized that these messages are talking about her.

She read on. Another message: something about a vampire who runs a detective agency in Los Angeles. Something about the rising of the Beast.

Willow frowned. After a few moments thought, she decided to post a message of her own.

From: yana01
To: hunter.list@hunter-net.org
Subject: Rain of Fire

Does anyone know what’s going on with the rain of fire in Southern California?

It was about half an hour before messages began to return to her.

From: seer9
To: hunter.list@hunter-net.org
Subject: re: Rain of Fire

The end is nigh. Are you ready to be judged?

Other messages came in soon afterwards. “It’s the government,” one message insisted, “They’ve been experimenting with a new weapon in recent years that turns the pollution cloud over large cities into fireballs.”

More messages along these lines came in, until finally...


From: Witness1
To: yana01@hunter-net.org

Hey yana01. It’s been a while. We were worried that something might have happened to you. Check the Book of Thoth, volume one and volume three of Des Vermis Mysteries.

Willow hit ‘print,’ and didn’t bother to type a reply.

--------------------------------

After handing off the printed message to Xander and Dawn, Willow made her way into the kitchen to take a much-needed break. Cups. Cupboard next to the microwave. Juice in the fridge. She rubbed her eyes before pouring herself a glass and sitting down on one of the stools surrounding the central counter.

Buffy walked in a minute later. “Find something?”

Willow nodded. “Gave it to Dawn and Xander.”

Silence descended once more, and Buffy’s casual bearing vanished as tension built between the two young women once more. Without meeting Willow’s eyes, the Slayer stood and headed for the door.

“Buffy, wait.”

Buffy stopped.

“We need to talk.”

Buffy turned to look at her, and Willow inwardly cringed. Those eyes: hard and cold as ice. If ice were green, that is.

“If we don’t talk about this, things are going to fester, and I don’t like it. I want to be fester free.”

Buffy smiled weakly. “Yeah, me too.” She paused for a long moment. “But it’s not something you can just get over, Will.” Her smile faded, and an accusatory look replaced it. “You killed a man. Again.”

Willow went very still. Two emotions rose up within her, each asking for the attention of her conscious mind: guilt at what she had done, and anger at Buffy’s hypocrisy. Anger won out.

“So I should have let you kill him?”

Buffy’s accusatory look vanished, and her eyes widened slightly.

Emboldened by her friend’s reaction, Willow pressed on. “You remember what Anya said happens when one Immortal takes the head of another, right? That wasn’t just a free power up you missed out on, Buffy. You would have taken that guy’s soul and ... and eaten it up like a slice of pizza!”

Buffy glanced down at the empty pizza box on the countertop and turned a peculiar shade of green. She took a long moment to ensure that her food would stay down before replying. “There had to have been another way.”

Willow shook her head sadly. “Maybe. But the only other way I could see from where I was standing involved you and a soul soufflé.”

Buffy looked at Willow. “... You can’t fight my battles for me, Will.”

The redhead nodded. “I know.” She met Buffy’s gaze, and smiled her disarmingly innocent smile. “How about a deal? You help me learn how to not kill people, and I help you learn how to not eat souls. You know, because eating souls, not so good.”

The corners of Buffy’s lips twitched as she struggled to suppress the grin that was threatening to form there. And yet...

*FLASH*

Willow’s headless corpse tumbled noiselessly to the pavement.

*FLASH*

Buffy paled. She looked at the redheaded Witch for a long moment, silently assuring herself that she was not missing any heads.

“Sounds good, Will,” she managed.

----------------------------

Dawn, Xander, and a newly resurrected Duncan MacLeod came walking into the kitchen in a grand train.

Buffy turned towards the newcomers. “What have we got?”

Duncan leaned against the kitchen counter as Dawn and Xander sat down next to Willow at the central island.

“We’ve got problems,” said Xander. “And I REALLY miss the Mayor. And Angelus. And the Master. And Glory.” The others looked at him. “Very neat and tidy. One major Apocalypse per year. None of this, ‘hey, I bet my Apocalypse can destroy the world before yours does!’”

“Did we ever decide on the plural form of Apocalypse?”

“I bet it’s Apocali,” said Dawn. “Latin words usually go ‘I’ when you plural them.”

“I’m kinda partial to Apocalypses,” said Willow.

Duncan shook his head incredulously.

“Guys,” said Buffy, redirecting the attention of the group to the topic at hand, “So you’re telling me there’s more than one Apocalypse going down?”

Dawn and Xander nodded simultaneously.

“There’s one here in Sunnydale,” Xander began, “one in Los Angeles, and then there’s the third that our Lady of the Bloodsuckers is cooking up in Rome, but needs to bake for another three hundred and sixty five days, or until golden brown.”

Buffy fell silent.

“Buffy?” Willow asked.

“... three. Can’t be a coincidence, then.”

They waited for her to elaborate.

She didn’t.

Xander frowned. “So Buffster, you gonna fill us in, or are you just going to leave us to David Lynch out the rest?”

“Dazzle her with our surrealistic imagery and make her think we’re headed for a massive payoff when really we’re as bankrupt of genuine thought as a copy of Dianetics?” asked Dawn.

Xander shook his head solemnly. “Now Dawn, The Log does not judge. It only records. The owls won’t see us in here.”

Willow pouted. “Come on, guys. You know I get extra-cranky when I don’t get my garmonbozia.”

“Very funny,” said Buffy. She waited to make sure that the others were paying attention before continuing.

“I had a dream last night.”

Xander brightened. “Are we talking Slayer-dream?”

Buffy nodded. “The first part of the dream... probably isn’t important. But I saw three visions. First, I saw Angel and the rest of his crew kneeling at the feet of a goddess.”

“What, like Glory?” Dawn asked.

“Sort of,” Buffy replied, “Except she didn’t feel evil. I also saw what looked like the Master rising from a metal seal at the Hellmouth.” She paused. “That is, if the Master had been abandoned in the forest as a child and raised by wolves.”

“Was there a bear?” Dawn asked. “I bet there was a bear.”

Duncan’s jaw dropped open. He’s seen some very strange things in his long life, but nothing quite like THIS.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “No, no bear. No panther, either.”

Xander grew thoughtful. “Remember when you found Angel after he was spit out of hell? He was wild – totally feral – right?”

Buffy nodded.

“Do you think that maybe someone is trying to resurrect the Master?” Xander waited a beat. “You know what I said a moment ago about missing The Master? ... Yeah. Forget I said that.”

“Hey, maybe it’s only that someone’s going to release a vampire just as old.” Buffy frowned. “The last thing I saw was this funky old city being destroyed by a REALLY big quickening that killed everything it touched and absorbed their souls.”

“Right,” said Willow, “I think it’s safe to assume that that’s the Roman Apocalypse.”

Xander blinked. “I thought the Roman Apocalypse was the one that involved the seals, trumpets, and four guys on really nasty horses?”

“No,” said Willow, “That would be the Roman Catholic Apocalypse.”

Buffy grew thoughtful. “... We don’t have the resources to cover both Los Angeles and Sunnydale at the same time. I think we should focus on our problem, and hope that Angel can deal with the one in L.A.” She waited a beat. “It shouldn’t be too hard for him if he has a goddess on his side.”

“That still leaves Rome,” said Willow. “I don’t like the thought of Alisoun doing whatever she wants over there for however long it takes for us to deal with what’s going on here and go stop her.”

“Neither do I,” said Buffy.

All eyes went to Duncan.
...
...
...
“What?”

The group was silent, each of them simply looking at Duncan expectantly.

Duncan frowned. “What about training?”

“Saving the world is more important than training,” said Buffy.

Duncan’s frown deepened. “I came here as a personal favor to an old friend of mine,” he said, looking Buffy directly in the eye. “Training you is as far as it goes.”

Buffy folded her arms. “Fine. If you don’t want to help save the world, I’m not going to make you. Thanks for the training. Now go back to wherever it was you came from.”

Duncan’s eyes narrowed, and he matched the Slayer’s gaze glare for glare... for about a minute. With a defeated look, he sighed. “Right. Rome it is, then.”

Buffy smiled. “Thanks.”

Dawn spoke up then. “You might run into another Immortal there, by the way. We don’t know his name, but he’s very well known in the demon communities. He calls himself ‘The Immortal.’

Duncan looked nonplused. “... I like it. Short, to the point.”

Xander smiled faintly, a flippant remark forming on his lips. He abandoned it when Buffy cut him off.

“All right, gang. You all know the drill.”

The Slayer smiled.

“Let’s get to work.”

END EPISODE 08

-------------------------------------------

Like it? Love it? Hate it? Let me know. But most importantly, let me know specifically what it is you like/love or hate and why. :)

Author’s notes:
This concludes the first story arc of Quickened. While I could deal with the fight with the First and the whole Jasmine story arc, those tales have already been told, and they both possess sufficient momentum that creating sufficient change to justify their retelling in fanfic form would be no easy feat.

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