Taking the Initiative
by Rainne
Chapter Seven
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The moon was high in the midday sky as the Scooby gang piled into Giles and Xander's cars for the trip up to the site of the burned-out ruin of Sunnydale High School. The trunks of both cars were full to bursting with various types of weaponry for the fighters to wield against the demon's minions. Buffy sat in the front seat of Giles's car, playing idly with a silver-bladed dagger. He looked over at her when they paused at a traffic light. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly.
She looked up at him. "Huh?" He repeated the question and she shrugged. "I'm all right. Just thinking. Kinda nervous."
"It's understandable," he assured her. "What you're about to do... it's bigger than your ordinary vampire staking."
She laughed. "I guess so. You'd think it wouldn't be anything compared to the Mayor, though."
He shook his head. "You didn't have to get quite so... up close and personal with the Mayor."
She blinked, then laughed again. "No, I didn't." She returned then to her morose contemplation of the dagger.
Giles moved his gaze to the reflection in his rear view mirror. "Willow? How are you holding up?"
"Oh, peachy," she responded in a voice several octaves higher than her normal voice. "Nothing wrong here. Nope. Not with me."
"You'll do fine, Willow," he assured her quietly. "You'll have both Tara and myself backing you up."
She sighed, deflating slightly. "I'm just scared."
Buffy put one arm over the back of the seat, reaching for Willow's hand. Willow took Buffy's hand in her own and they smiled at one another softly. "It's gonna be okay, Will," Buffy said softly. "I promise."
Willow smiled weakly. Silence then reigned supreme in the car for a long moment. When they turned up the street toward the now-visible remains of the school, Buffy began to sing softly under her breath, and her song was somehow both amusing and comforting to Willow. "I'm an axe grinder, pile driver, mother says that I never never mind her; got no brains, I'm insane, teacher says that I'm one big pain."
Willow laughed and joined Buffy's song. "I'm like a laser, six-string razor, I got a mouth like an alligator; I want it louder, more power; I'm gonna rock you till it strikes the hour."
And then, to both of their surprise, Giles joined them on the chorus as they pulled into the old teacher parking lot. "Bang your head! Metal health'll drive you mad! Bang your head! Metal health'll drive you mad!"
They spilled out of the little red tramp, laughing at one another, their earlier nerves nearly forgotten. Xander pulled up behind them a moment later, Anya and Tara in the car along with him, and they smiled to see that their erstwhile heroes seemed to be in such a good mood about the coming apocalypse. As they all climbed out of his car, Xander glanced up at the sky. "We'd better hurry," he commented, pointing upward.
All eyes in the group followed his gaze, and the laughter stopped. The right side of the sun was beginning to disappear behind the moon's implacable forward movement. "It's time," Buffy snapped. "Let's move, people."
The Scoobies all armed themselves from the trunks of the cars, all but Buffy, who simply strapped her dagger into a sheath which was bound around her right calf. They moved quickly into the ruins of the school, heading with unerring accuracy of memory toward the place where the library had been. They were nearly there when Willow kicked something. "Oh."
The small group drew to a halt when the redhead stopped to pick up the item she'd found. It was a trophy. Buffy drew closer to look, and then suddenly began to laugh. "Well, if that's not a good sign, I don't know what is." She took the trophy from her lover and turned it so that Giles and Xander could see it. It bore the tiny gilded image of a cheerleader, and the still-legible name on the tiny plaque read "Catherine Madison."
Giles and Buffy looked at one another and smiled. "That was the first time you ever saved my life," she said to him softly. He nodded, not trusting his voice. After a moment, Buffy turned and placed the trophy on the floor against the wall. She made a mental note to retrieve the thing when they were done. They all moved then as a group once more toward the library.
They were about ten feet from the place where the doors had been when they heard the chanting. The demon had begun his ritual. A careful peek around some standing debris showed Buffy that he was standing near where the research table had once been. His three remaining minions were ranged behind him where the checkout counter had been with their backs toward the Scoobies. She ducked back behind the debris again and reported this to Xander, Anya and Giles, who would be directed to engage and - hopefully without getting killed - distract the minions long enough for Buffy to get into position. Only after Buffy was where she needed to be would Willow, with Tara's backup, begin the spell to close the Hellmouth.
"Are we all ready?" she asked, looking around at her friends. Xander and Anya simply nodded. Willow clutched her spellbook, gulped, and smiled weakly at her. Tara patted Willow's shoulder and nodded. Giles looked at all of them. "I may never have said this before," he said suddenly, "but you are all a very remarkable and brave group of individuals and it has been my pleasure to know you all."
All of them reacted with a certain amount of surprise at Giles's unexpected outpouring of emotion, then suddenly Buffy reached out and whacked him gently on the shoulder. "We love you, too, Giles, but less with the 'we who are about to die salute you,' okay?"
He smiled slightly at her. "Well, shall we?"
She nodded. "Let's shall."
Xander, Anya and Giles gripped their weapons and came around the debris with loud yells, immediately garnering the attention of the minions nearby. Buffy waited until she thought they seemed thoroughly engaged, then suddenly grabbed Willow and kissed her hard. "I love you," she whispered, and then she was gone, sprinting across the library and leaping onto the demon.
Willow and Tara leaned around the fallen debris and got their first look at the demon in the flesh. "Oh, ew," Tara breathed.
The demon Nho was huge, possibly seven feet long, and looked, as Xander would later describe him, "like a big green and blue slimy Jabba the Hutt." It had tentacles rather than arms, and there were eight of these. Its three eyes protruded from the front of its head area on long stalks. All in all, Willow decided, it looked like something really scary from outer space. And Buffy was clinging to its head.
Tara was dividing her attention between the demon and its minions, which was a good thing, because she saw when Xander went down under one of them. "Repulse!" she shouted, throwing out one hand, and the minion went flying back, giving the young man time to recover his footing before it came back at him. He was holding his own, as were Anya and Giles, and she nodded, turning back to Buffy just in time to watch the demon get a tentacle securely wrapped around the Slayer's waist and snatch her off its head, holding her upside down in front of its three eyes, which waved at her in a nauseating manner as it pulled her closer and closer to its face.
Willow had gone completely pale and forgotten to breathe until Tara reminded her. And then the ground began to shake as the demon finished its incantation. The Hellmouth was open for business. The red-haired witch pulled open her spellbook and began to recite the words in front of her, but she didn't get past the first line before the demon's huge mouth opened wide and it shoved Buffy inside.
"Willow! The spell! The spell!" Tara exclaimed.
"Buffy! It ate her! It ate Buffy!" Willow was nearly hysterical.
Tara turned the younger witch by the shoulders and smacked her hard across the face. "Calm down! You knew this was going to happen! She's fine! Do the spell! NOW!"
Willow stared at Tara for a second longer, then suddenly dropped her eyes to her book and began to chant. "Ich ersuche um die Elemente des Universums, um zu meinem Willen zu verbiegen. Das Portal zur Hölle ist gegen alle Gesetze des Dämons und des Mannes geöffnet. Ich ersuche die Masse, die Luft, das Feuer und um das Wasser, um zusammen zu kommen und diesen Platz zu reinigen. Ich ersuche um die Wächter des Nordens, des Ostens, des Südens und des Westens, um in diesen Platz zusammen zu kommen. Lassen Sie das Portal an meinem Befehl geschlossen sein. JETZT!"
It was as though the entire world went silent. There was no sound of fighting from the minions and the Scoobies, there was no sound from the demons inside the Hellmouth struggling to come out, or from the demon Nho. There was dead silence for a long moment, perhaps four seconds, and then suddenly a rush of wind swept through the room, bringing with it a fierce rain shower. Lightning struck somewhere back in the stacks, and then again in the spot that had once been Giles's office. The earth itself began to shudder.
And then the demon Nho began to scream in pain.
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When the demon's tentacle wrapped around her, pulling her off its head, Buffy had to fight down panic and revulsion at what she was about to do. It pulled her close to her face and she thought to herself that if one of those wriggling eyeballs touched her, she was going to lose her mind. But they didn't. She simply hung there, listening to the demon finish its incantation, before it brought its attention back to her. As its mouth began to gape open, she had time to think gratefully, Well, at least it doesn't have teeth, before she was thrown into its mouth and swallowed whole.
The sensation of being swallowed was one that Buffy prayed she would never have to experience again. It was indescribably disgusting, sliding down the tube of the demon's gullet and into its stomach. She was pleasantly surprised - if anything about the experience could have been pleasant - that the demon's stomach wasn't full of gastric juices. In fact, it seemed strangely dry. She paused, crouching, to unsheathe the dagger at her shin, and then listened for any sounds from outside. It seemed forever that she stood there, breathing the stale air inside the demon's body, but suddenly she recognized Willow's voice, muffled, screaming out her spell in German. She had heard Willow practice this spell enough times that when she heard the final, shouted word, she was ready. As soon as that word was spoken, she began to slice her way out of the demon's stomach.
She heard the demon's screams of pain all around her. It was eerily like being inside a stereo speaker. She couldn't see anything, but she knew she had to cut out the demon's heart in order to kill it, so she simply set about cutting up everything she could get her hands on until its screams finally ended. She was thrown down as the demon collapsed, dead, and she heard the screams of its minions as, with their master's death, the magicks that sustained them were cut off and they collapsed and died as well. Catching her breath, Buffy turned the knife to the nearest inner wall of demon that she could find and began to slice her way out of the carcass.
The sight that greeted the Slayer upon her egress from the demon was beautiful. Battered but unbowed, her Scoobies were ranged in front of her, some battered and some pale and shaking, but all alive and well and grinning at her as she fought her way out of the disgusting shell. Once out, she looked down at herself. She was covered in Nho-goo. "Oh, man," she said shakily. "I need a shower in the worst way."
She did remember to grab the trophy on her way out, and when they arrived at the parking lot, Giles pulled a dark blue bedsheet out of his trunk. "I... rather thought this might be needed," he sugested gently, eyeballing her demon-covered clothing.
She blinked at him and then sighed. "Thank you."
Xander, Anya and Tara piled back into Xander's car. "Casa de Summers?" Xander asked, and Buffy nodded. They pulled away and Giles moved to sit in the car while Willow held up the sheet to protect Buffy's modesty while the blonde stripped out of her goo-covered clothing. The sheet was then wrapped carefully around the Slayer, leaving her looking rather like an Indian woman in her sari. Willow gathered the icky clothing up and stuffed them into a trash bag which Giles had also brought, and then the two girls climbed into the car for the short trip back to the home Buffy and Willow shared.
Once there, Buffy made a beeline up the stairs and into the shower, while Willow moved into the kitchen to make tea and sandwiches. Tara came to help her and they worked in companionable silence for a few minutes before Willow stopped and turned to her friend. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For waking me up back there. I lost it. I knew it was coming, but knowing something's gonna happen in your mind and seeing it happen in front of your eyes are two different things."
Tara nodded. "It's okay. It happens. But, hey! You didn't go all scary."
Willow grinned. "I didn't, did I?"
"Nope. Not even so much as a tiny little 'eep'."
"Well, that's a plus."
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