The Chosen One
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis -

--

If there was anything more comforting than books, Giles had not met it yet. The smell of old glue and paper, the solid feel in his hands, the rustling of history and pages... all of it soothed his soul.

Which was something he desperately needed, given the hideousness of the situation. As much as the books themselves soothed him, nothing he found in the books was very much comfort.

When the door to the library opened, he raised his head. Willow came in, hair flame-bright in the rays of late-afternoon sunlight, gleaming dark as she passed into shadow. On her heels was the boy, Xander. The first rush of relief which flooded Giles' body faded at the look on the children's faces. Xander was suffering. And Willow looked furious, and determined.

She looked, Giles realized, like a Slayer.

Questions were irrelevant. Whether their friend was dead or turned, it hardly mattered. They were alive, and Jesse wasn't. "I'm sorry," Giles said, knowing how useless it was. Willow nodded in automatic acknowledgement of his words, but it was obvious she didn't really hear them. "I'm glad you're all right."

The sound of a crash made both Giles and Willow flinch and turn. Xander had kicked a trash barrel. When he turned to them, most of the expression had been wiped clear from his face, but his eyes still burned with pain. "I don't like vampires," he said in a voice that was almost casual. "I'm going to take a stand and say they're not good."

Willow looked back at Giles. Deep in her eyes, he saw that she grieved, would grieve. But not yet. "What do I do to stop this?"

"I don't know much," Giles began.

"What do you know?" Xander asked.

Giles gave him a brief, harried look, and turned back to Willow. "The Spanish who first settled here called this place 'Boca del Infierno'. Roughly translated, 'Hellmouth'. It's a sort of a portal between this reality and the next." He paused, not sure of how to proceed.

"That's what Angel meant. He said that the mouth of Hell was about to open. Open... and bring the demons back," Willow said in dawning horror.

"End of the world," Xander said quietly.

Willow started pacing around the library table, thinking. "He said something about the Master walking... Master who? What?"

"A Master?" Giles made a humming noise under his breath, and flipped through a couple of pages of his book. "I don't know exactly what that could mean." Sighing, he closed the book. "Or perhaps I do. It's all coming together. I rather wish it weren't."

"Someone's trapped," Willow began.

Xander finished the sentence for her. "And this Harvest thing is to get him out." The two of them shared a look and nodded, in the perfect accordance born of their friendship from nearly the cradle.

Giles stared at them for a moment. Slayers were not supposed to depend on anyone but their Watcher, and, indeed, it was highly desirable for a Slayer come to depend on no one but herself. But he couldn't blind himself to the fact that Xander's very presence supported Willow. The timid child of just the day before had matured into a determined Slayer. In the defense of her home and her friends, the ties that he had always believed would distract her instead seemed to breathe strength into her.

Giles was sufficiently stunned that it took Willow calling his name twice to bring him back to the room they shared. Oh, yes. The Harvest. "It comes once in a century, on this night." He recited the research from memory, one part of his brain still spinning with the realization he had just made -- that a secret shared could be stronger than a secret kept. "A vampire can draw power from another while it feeds. Enough power to break free and open the portal to Hell." He crossed to the white board he'd covered with scribbled notes that would get him fired in a heartbeat if Principal Flutie ever entered the library. "The one who feeds is called the Vessel, and he bears this symbol." He quickly sketched out the three-pointed star he'd found in his research.

Willow examined it for a few moments. "So I kill anything with that symbol, and the Master can't rise, right?"

Giles put down the pen and nodded. "Simply put, yes."

Willow nodded, analyzing. "Any idea where the Vessel is going to go to do this?"

Therein lay the rub. Giles had no idea. "There are a number of possibilities--"

"They're going to the Bronze," Xander said flatly.

"Are you sure?" Willow asked.

"Come on. All those tasty young morsels all over the place? Anyway, that's where Jesse's going to be, trust me."

So their friend had been turned, not killed. Giles shook his head. That was an irrelevant detail. Stopping the Harvest was what they had to think of. He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. "Then we should get there. The sun will be down before long."

"I have to make a stop. It won't take long." Willow was following him, Xander right on her heels.

"What for?" Giles asked.

Willow looked at him, level and calm. "Supplies," she said simply.

"Bye, Mom!" Buffy shouted on her way out the door. She slammed the door behind her and clattered down the stairs, carelessly risking her extremely high heels and her neck.

"Buffy!" Joyce's voice cut through the twilight air and stopped her daughter in her tracks. "Where are you going?"

"Out," Buffy said shortly. A desert wind kicked up and blew her loose hair around her face, tugged on the sheer shirt she'd pulled over a spaghetti-strap top.

"Two nights in a row? It's a school night, and you were out late last night, too."

"I won't stay late, Mom, I promise."

"Buffy..." Joyce's voice trailed away.

Her daughter turned back to look at her. "What, Mom?"

Buffy looked like she was spoiling for a fight, hand on hip, chin jutted out. Joyce sighed. "Don't stay out too late, all right?"

"I said that already, Mom. Bye."

Buffy tugged her loose shirt around her and doggedly headed for the Bronze. She was going to have fun, she promised herself. She was going to dance and gossip and flirt and not think about vampires and demons and that kid who had been dragged away screaming and --

Buffy walked faster, ignoring the sounds that couldn't be footsteps following her. One part of her mind was warning her about muggers, stalkers, the scary things she'd learned to be careful of in L.A. The rest of her was trying very, very hard to not think about what she'd learned that morning; not think about what had happened the night before; not think about the moment when little, nerdy, wimpy Willow had all of a sudden gotten frighteningly calm and spooky and the vampire had turned into dust.

She wasn't going to believe it, that's all. It couldn't be real. The people in this weird little town thought they were going to make fun of the new girl, but she wasn't going to listen, no, she wasn't --

"You shouldn't be out alone. Not at night."

Buffy whipped around. It was the tall cute guy who'd given Willow the cross. The one who'd said something about a Harvest. Buffy didn't want to see him, see anyone who would ruin her desperate attempt to pretend that the last two days hadn't happened. "Leave me alone!"

"Alone is the last thing you should be. You don't know what's out here." He stood ten feet away, hands fisted at his sides, power leashed as though he was afraid of let it loose.

"I know what's out there. I know how to take care of myself. Murderers and kidnappers and bad guys. You scream, you run, you call the cops. That's all."

Sheer frustration made him halve the distance between them. He jerked to a stop as though pulled by a choke chain, and Buffy could hear him gritting his teeth. "You have no clue what's going on here. You have no idea. Think of your worst nightmare, and triple it. That's the kindest thing you're going to find."

"Yeah," Buffy said flippantly, "well, my worst nightmare is a blind date with a loser. How much worse can that get?"

"This isn't a joke," he said, voice beaten nearly flat by frustration and fury. "You can't poke fun at it to make it go away. It's here. Deal with it."

"Stop it!" Buffy clamped her hands over her ears. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know, don't you understand!" She looked at him, and the agony in her eyes made him step back. "This shouldn't be happening! This shouldn't be real! Vampires don't exist, okay? It's a joke, it's a fake, it's wrong!" Crossing her arms under her breasts, Buffy turned away slightly, her breath catching as she fought sobs.

"You're right." The voice was low, and right behind her, softer, although the words were no comfort. "They're wrong. Completely. They are also very real, and here. You can't ignore them."

"Watch me," Buffy said bitterly, and began to walk away.

"Don't go --" His voice choked briefly. "Don't go to the Bronze. Not tonight. You go, you die. Everyone there is going to die."

Buffy turned, and shot him a look of pure venom. Raising her chin, she turned and walked away.

Towards the Bronze.

In her admittedly short career as the vampire Slayer, Willow had faced down some horrifying monsters -- and won.

This was worse.

"No one's listening," Willow said desperately. She, Xander and Giles had been trying to convince the kids in the Bronze that they had to leave. They'd been ignored, laughed at, and mocked.

It shouldn't matter, Willow told herself sternly. All that mattered was stopping the Vessel, stopping the Harvest, stopping the Master. Humiliation didn't matter.

Sticks and stones could break her bones, but words could cause permanent damage.

She, Xander and Giles huddled on the top level of the Bronze, avoided by the few groups that were up there. "They're all just... dancing," Giles said in disgust. "Blithely dancing on the edge of disaster."

"We could scream fire... or something," Willow suggested. They were running out of options even faster than they were running out of time. "Any ideas, Xander? Xander?"

Xander looked back to Willow and Giles, "Yeah, good idea." He immediately turned to look out over the crowd again.

Willow put her hand on his shoulder. "Xander, he's not out there."

"Yes, he is. I've got to find him before Jesse does something stupider than usual."

This time, it was Giles who turned Xander away from his frantic scanning of the teens in the Bronze. But the sympathy evident in Willow's eyes was not in Giles'. Later, when they had the time and luxury for mourning. But now, he said fiercely, "You listen to me -- Jesse is dead! You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him."

Xander shook his head once in rejection, and turned to look out over the crowd again.

On the other side of the upper level, Cordelia was holding court. "Senior boys are the only way to go," she said in the tones of a prophet delivering an undeniable truth to the people.. "Guys from our grade, forget about it, they're children, you know? Like Jesse."

Silent at one corner of the table, Buffy flinched. No one noticed.

"Did you see him last night, following me around like a little puppy dog?" Cordelia lifted her hands like she was about to dogpaddle, and they all laughed. "You just want to put him to sleep. But senior boys," Cordelia hummed with appreciation. "They have depth, they have mystery, they have... what's the word I'm searching for?" She searched for a moment before saying brightly, "Cars! I'm --"

"Come on, guys, this place is boring." With an elaborate show of unconcern, Buffy abandoned her drink on the table and rose. "There has got to be somewhere better to hang out in this town than here."

Cordelia gave her a look. "No, this is the best place."

Rolling her eyes with contempt, Buffy laughed. "You're kidding me, right? Please. Everybody hangs here. That by definition makes it uncool. Now, if we found a place no one was at and started hanging there, we'd make it cool."

Cordelia shrugged. "I don't want to go. I like it here." The sound speakers started to throb, and she jumped up. "Oh, I love this song! Come on!" Obediently, the rest of her crew followed her down the steps, leaving Buffy behind.

"They're not listening," Buffy said, too quiet for them to hear. "Why aren't they listening?"

"They don't want to believe what they're hearing," Willow said behind her. Buffy turned. Willow, Xander and Giles were waiting there. Buffy cast one look over her shoulder down at Cordelia and her friends dancing below, then joined Willow. "So, what's the plan?"

"Scream 'fire' and make everyone run?" Willow suggested.

"That's not a plan. That's a --"

Before she could finish, the lights cut out and one spot came up on the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen! There is no cause for alarm. Actually, there is cause for alarm. It just won't do any good."

The light strengthened enough that they could see his face. Buffy stepped back, bumping into Giles. "Who's that?"

Willow shoved the bag she was carrying at Buffy, and pulled a stake from her sleeve. "That's the guy who almost killed me in the mausoleum."

"And, one presumes, from the mark on his forehead, he is also the Vessel," Giles said.

"This is a glorious night!" the vampire on the stage bellowed. "It is also the last one any of you shall ever see."

"Not if I can help it," Willow said grimly. She closed her mind to the fact that someone was being drained on the stage. She couldn't save all of them, but she could stop this, save as many as possible, and make sure the Master didn't rise. "Okay. Guys, get the exit cleared and the people out. That's all. Got it?"

"Got it," Xander said. "What are you going to do?

Willow pointed with her stake to Luke on the stage. "I was planning on killing him."

"That plan, I like," Buffy said.

Willow made her way over to a part of the upper level that looked over the stage. Below her, Luke was continuing to call for more victims. "I feel the Master's strength growing! I feel him rising. Every soul brings him closer! I need another!"

Willow turned her head just in time to duck a blow from a vampire who had been running the spot on the Vessel. "Ooops," Willow said breathlessly.

"Tonight is his ascension. Tonight will be history at its end! Yours is a glorious sacrifice! Degradation most holy. What? No volunteers?"

The blonde vamp girl who had originally grabbed Jesse now had Cordelia, who was shaking and crying. "Here's a pretty one," she said gleefully. Cordy took one look at the Vessel up close and screamed hysterically. A dull thud interrupted her cry, as the vampire Willow was fighting took a nosedive from the upper level.

Willow looked down. "Mind if I drop in?"

The Vessel glared at her. "You!"

Doing a handstand on the railing, Willow flipped down to the lower level, landing in a controlled crouch on the floor in front of the Vessel. Before she rose to her feet, she dispatched an attacking vampire by kicking his feet out from under him and staking him. Rising, she looked the Vessel in the eye. "I'm going to kill you," she promised.

"Funny, I thought that was my line." Luke pushed a whimpering Cordelia away, and faced Willow.

Xander's jaw dropped at the acrobatic jump Willow had made. It took both Giles and Buffy tugging on his hands to get him to move. "Come on," Giles said. "We have to get everyone out while Willow is... distracting the vampires."

"Distracting," Xander repeated. "Oh, yeah."

They managed to make it to an unguarded back entrance, herding people in front of them. Buffy and Giles had armed themselves with stakes and jars of holy water from Willow's bag, and stood on either side of the door. Xander started prowling the Bronze, pushing people in the direction of escape. Terrified, they no longer resisted.

He kept part of his attention on the stage at all times. Willow was fighting like a Power Ranger, but the vamp was a good match for her. At one point, she looked up, met his eyes, and shouted, "Xander, look out!"

A vampire was charging him. Xander ducked out of the way, then looked up at the sound of a crash. Willow had picked up a cymbal and flung it like a Frisbee, decapitating the vamp attacking him. Brushing the dust of his clothes, Xander shuddered slightly. "Head's up."

He turned at the sound of a scream, and found Jesse pinning Cordelia to the floor. Frantically, Cordy was twisting, trying to get away. Xander swallowed, then came up behind his best friend, stake in hand. "Jesse, man! Don't make me do it."

Jesse turned around. He looked like hell. Literally. A parody of a grin lit his face. "Buddy!"

Cordelia wriggled away from Jesse and ran. Xander barely noticed her. "Jesse, I know there's still a part of you in there."

With a lithe energy that Jesse had never possessed before, the boy jumped to his feet and faced Xander. "Okay, let's deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn't get a date with anyone in the sighted community! Look at me. I'm a new man!"

"No, you're not," Xander said grimly. "You're a monster. And you're not Jesse."

The vampire grinned and grabbed Xander's jacket, pushing him against the wall. Xander brought the stake up to point at the heart. Jesse shuddered in mock-fear. "Ooo. All right. Put me out of my misery. You don't have the guts."

Before Xander could find out if he did or not, a fleeing girl bumped Jesse's shoulder. Not hard. Just enough that the stake sank through flesh to heart, and before Xander's eyes, Jesse disappeared in a cloud of ash.

"Come on, come on," Giles muttered under his breath, pushing people through the door. Some were frozen in place in the Bronze, staring at what was transpiring on the stage. Some were weeping and wailing and generally making it impossible for them to escape. "One at a time! Quickly! Quickly!"

Buffy stood white-faced on the other side of the doorway, stake in one hand and jar of holy water in the other. Giles spared a moment to bless the fact that she seemed to be holding up under the strain before turning to go deeper into the hovel the children patronized. "We're going to have to open the front as well," he said, before a blow knocked him to the floor. Frantically struggling against the blonde vampire who was holding him down, Giles reached for the stake that had been knocked out of his hand when he fell.

"Get off of him!" Buffy shouted, and the vampire moved to the side enough that Giles could see Buffy's face, lined with fear and determination. She uncorked the jar of holy water she held and threw it in the vampire's face.

Half of it landed on Giles, but enough hit the vampire to be effective. Hands to her face, she ran off, screaming, her voice a high, breathy wail. Giles slowly got to his feet and faced the young girl who had rescued him. She was, in her own way, as alarming a creature as what had just attacked him. "I... I... thank you."

Buffy nodded briskly and pulled another jar out of the bag. "Any time."

Willow was losing. No, she told herself, she wasn't losing. She just wasn't winning. Her strength wouldn't hold out forever, she'd have to do something to end this fight. But what could she do? The Vessel was as good as she was, and didn't make mistakes. He'd caught her once by coming up behind her, blindsiding her.

The next time the Vessel's fist connected with her head, Willow dropped like a rock. His laughter was triumphant as he knelt beside her. Her long hair covered her face and neck, and he brushed it out of his way. "I always wanted to kill a Slayer," he said with vicious humor.

"I'm not the Slayer. I mean," Willow babbled, "I'm know that I'm supposed to be or something, but how do they know? Maybe I have an identical twin somewhere and she's supposed to be the Slayer? I kind of have always thought I was adopted. Or maybe it was --"

"Shut up," the Vessel snapped. "Master, taste of this --"

Willow's head came up, and her eyes fixed on the Vessel's. He'd been so distracted by her rambling that he hadn't noticed the stake in her hand until it was in his heart. "No. You shut up."

The force of his implosion flung Willow back. She looked up, to find three pairs of eyes on her, Xander's and two vampires' holding him. Her weapon lost to the Vessel's death, she rose to her feet and lifted her chin.

The two vampires holding Xander cut and ran. Within seconds, the Bronze was empty of everyone except Willow, Xander, Giles and Buffy. Willow jumped off the stage and they met on the dance floor.

"I take it it's over," Giles said, looking a little stunned at the suddenness.

"Did we win?" Buffy asked anxiously.

Willow shared a look with Xander. He looked tired, sad -- but alive. "Well, we averted the Apocalypse. I give us points for that."

Xander turned to look around him at the club, at the various piles of dust. One of them was Jesse. "One thing's for sure: nothing's ever gonna be the same."

"Vampires shouldn't be in Sunnydale," Buffy muttered to herself, walking to class the following Monday. "Sun. Vampires hate sun. Sunnydale. Way too perky a name for vampires. Why are they here?"

Her mutters were superceeded by Cordelia's voice. "Well, I heard it was rival gangs. You know, fighting for turf? But all I can tell you is they were an ugly way of looking. And Willow, like, kicked their ugly asses. Which is just too weird. I mean, I don't even remember that much, but I'm telling you, it was a freak show."

Both Cordelia and her friend stopped when they saw Buffy. "Hi, guys," Buffy tried, smiling brightly, with little hope of it working.

"Yeah, right." Cordelia sneered.

As they walked off, Cordy's friend said, "I can't believe we were almost nice to her!"

Buffy made a face at their backs. "I can't believe we saved your lives," she mimicked nastily.

Before she could pout over being shut out of the in crowd, Willow and Xander joined her, mid-argument. "What exactly were you expecting?" Willow asked. Her eyes were dancing and the smile on her face made her look worlds away from the Slayer who had saved the world Friday night.

"I don't know," Xander said, "something. I mean, the dead rose. We should at least have an assembly."

They spotted Giles on the walkway and joined him. In the tones of a lecturing professor, he said, "People have a tendency to rationalize what they can and forget what they can't."

"Well, I'll never forget it, none of it." Buffy shuddered at the thought.

"Good!" Giles said briskly. "Next time you'll be prepared."

"Next time?" Xander repeated with a weak grin.

"Next time is why?" Buffy demanded.

Giles sighed and shook his head. "We've prevented the Master from freeing himself and opening the Mouth of Hell. That's not to say he's going to stop trying. I'd say the fun is just beginning."

"More vampires?" Buffy asked.

Stopping abruptly, Giles turned to face the three teens. "Not just vampires. The next threat we face may be something quite different."

"I can hardly wait!" Willow said cheerfully.

"We're at the center of a mystical convergence here." Giles paused, thunderstruck by his thought. "We may, in fact, stand between the Earth and its total destruction."

"Well, I gotta look on the bright side," Buffy said after a moment. "Maybe I can still get kicked out of school!"

She, Xander, and Willow continued on to class.

"Oh, yeah, that's a plan," Xander scoffed. "'Cause lots of schools aren't on Hellmouths."

"Maybe you could set fire to the school. Or blow it up. Not that I want you to," Willow added hastily. "I mean, I know I'm weird for reasons that have nothing to do with Slaying. But lack of school means lack of having to go to school."

"I was thinking of a more subtle approach, you know, like excessive not studying," Buffy said. "Still, blowing up the school, not a bad idea."

"Buffy go boom," Xander said in a low, rumbly voice. "Big boom Buffy, Buffy big boom."

"Watch who you're calling big," Buffy warned. Willow laughed.

Shaking his head, Giles turned to go back to the only safe place he could find, his library. "The Earth is doomed," he sighed.

THE END