Introduction
Season:
First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh
Other Bodies | Episodes | Dramatis Personae
Ramblings | Links |
The SETI Slayers | Fanfic
| The Yoko Factor | Restless |
Buffy goes to Riley’s campsite in the ruins of Sunnydale High to look for him. He isn’t there.
Riley is with Adam in his lair. He’s not happy to be there, he doesn’t understand how or why he’s there, but he can’t say or do anything until Adam tells him to speak.
“What have you done to me?” asks Riley.
“Nothing,” says Adam. “It was Mother. Your Professor Walsh. She implanted the behaviour modifier.”
“A chip in my head,” says Riley. “She really did it!”
“Actually, the chip is here.” Adam points to a spot below Riley’s left collar bone. “Tied directly into your central nervous system through the thoracic nerve. I merely activated it, Brother.”
“Stop calling me that,” says Riley. “I’m not your brother. You’re a botched science experiment. I’m a human being who’s going to do everything in his power to—”
“Sit,” says Adam. Riley sits. “You have no power. Not yet. Once you forget your old life and embrace your destiny as I have, you will know power you have never dreamed of. I think you’re going to like it.”
Riley doesn’t look like he agrees.
Adam describes Maggie Walsh’s vision to Riley. Demons have strength and power, but they cling to the old ways and are hopeless with technology. People, on the other hand are smart and adaptive, but they are also weak and emotional. Maggie wanted to create something that encompassed the best of both worlds. “She saw our future, yours and mine. She saw that you were necessary. She saw the role that you will play by my side. Stand up.” Riley stands. “You see, we are brothers, after all.”
Spike has arrived. He finds the scene between these two “brothers” heart warming, but he thinks that Riley seems a little stiffer than usual. He wonders what’s up with him while he pokes at Riley’s chest. Riley stands still, unable to respond. Adam tells Spike about Riley’s chip.
“Oh, so it’s chips all around, is it?” asks Spike. “Someone must’ve bought the party-pack.”
Spike is there to see about getting his own chip removed. He has kept his part of the deal, now it’s time for Adam to keep his. Adam doesn’t think Spike’s work is quite finished. It won’t be until he has the Slayer where he wants her: inside the Initiative, taking part in the upcoming battle, ensuring maximum carnage on both sides. Riley doesn’t like the sound of that and starts to object, until Adam orders him to shut up.
Spike thinks it’s just a matter of time. The Slayer will be in the Initiative. That’s why they gave her the disks. As soon as the little witch gives Buffy the information on them Buffy will head right down into that hole.
“The witch?” asks Adam.
“Uh, Willow,” says Spike. “About so high, perky, good with maths. Natural choice.”
“Her friend,” says Adam. “One of the friends from whom you’ve so efficiently separated her.”
“Damn right I did. You should’ve seen ’em. They won’t be talking to each other for a long, long— Hang on. I think I might’ve detected a small flaw.”
Adam is not pleased with this flaw. He orders Spike to go fix it.
Spike starts to go. “Gone. So, um, we’ll do this chip thing when I get back.”
Giles answers his door wearing his bathrobe. He winces away from the bright morning light. He is very hung over.
It’s Willow and Tara. They have come to pick up Willow’s Powerbook, and the disks Spike supplied them. She left them there when she left last night. Giles wonders if Willow’s planning on staying and working there—clearly not looking forward to that prospect, but not wanting to say so—but Willow tells him she isn’t staying. She puts her computer into her bag and she and Tara go. Giles winces from the sound of the door closing.
Buffy sits alone on the floor in her room, leaning against her bed. She hasn’t been to sleep and she’s still dressed in the clothes she was wearing the day before. She gets up and goes to Willow’s bedside table. She picks up the picture of her, Willow and Xander—taken during their junior year in high school—that’s sitting there and looks at it.
Buffy sets the picture back down and picks up the phone. She stops before she dials a number and sets it back down. She gets her weapons bag and checks out its contents. She decides she needs something bigger. She picks up a battle axe.
Anya arrives in Xander’s basement and finds him still in bed. She’s not happy. Xander was supposed to be going to unemployment office today to look for a job. She lifts the blanket covering him and looks at him. “You can’t go like that. They won’t even interview you if you’re naked.”
Xander doesn’t care. He isn’t planning on going looking for a job today. He’s beginning to think that maybe he should join the army.
“Don’t they make you get up really early in the morning?” asks Anya.
“Oh, yeah. Never mind.”
Anya thinks that Xander should get over the fight he had with his friends. That was hours ago. “So they all think you’re a lost, directionless loser with no plans for his future.” She waves her hand. “Pfft.”
“Anya, you can’t pfft that stuff away.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Xander thinks about it for a second. “’Cause I think maybe they’re right.”
Anya lies down in bed beside Xander and puts her head on his shoulder. “So what if they are? You’re a good person and a good boyfriend and…and I’m in love with you. Whatever they think of you, it shouldn’t matter.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it doesn’t matter.” Xander isn’t convinced.
Buffy returns to the cave where Forrest died, with her bag of weapons and her battle axe. She enters it cautiously, watchful for any sign of Adam. She doesn’t see him. She penetrates deeper into the cave, and finds Adam’s lair. There are several computers there, all turned off. Adam has gone.
Adam and Riley enter an underground lab through a tunnel. Riley wonders where they are. Adam tells him that they’re in the Initiative. A secret section which was only known to a few people.
“Mother kept her secrets well. Didn’t you?” Adam asks the figure of Professor Walsh. She’s a walking corpse, with plastic tubing carrying blood and other fluids exiting from her chest, and wrapping around her shoulders and entering the back of her head.
She and a similar corpse are working on a body lying on a table. The corpse turns to face Riley, and he sees it was Dr. Angleman.
“This is all how she planned it,” says Adam. “Except she thought she would be alive.”
“Are you— Is that what you were going to do to me?” asks Riley.
Adam has something else in mind for Riley. The body that Walsh and Angleman have been working on sits up.
Riley recognises it. “Forrest. Oh, God.”
“God has nothing to do with it,” says the new human/demon/machine hybrid that used to be Forrest Gates.
Buffy runs into Spike on her way out of the cave. She’s surprised to see him there. Spike says that he’s looking for a new weekend getaway place. She tells him that Adam has been using these caves, but he’s cleared out. She figures that whatever Adam is planning is going to happen soon.
Spike pretends to be surprised, and not happy to learn that this was Adam’s lair. He asks if she’s learned anything yet from the disks he supplied. Buffy tells him that Willow still has them.
“Well, I’d get on that,” says Spike. “Can’t ignore valuable information just ’cause you two birds fell out now, can you?”
Buffy becomes suspicious. How did Spike know about the fight? She recovers before he notices. “Right.”
“Well, you do what you want.” Spike walks off into the cave. “No worry of mine now, is it?”
Willow is working on decrypting the disks in Tara’s room. She has been working on it non-stop since they got back from Giles’ and Tara thinks she should take a break. Willow doesn’t want to. She thinks she’s onto something. She starts to explain it to Tara.
“Hey, look!” Tara points at the screen. The scrambled text has started to sort itself out. “You did it!”
Willow is puzzled. “I didn’t. I haven’t even finished typing in the new code.”
“Something’s doing it,” says Tara.
“Must be programmed to self-decrypt at a certain point,” says Willow. “That is so annoying. It’s like somebody blurting out the answer to a riddle just when you’ve— I mean, yippee! We have the information.”
“I don’t know if ‘yippee’ is the right response, either.” Tara has been reading the information coming up on the screen. “Read that.”
Tara is interrupted by her phone ringing, and goes to answer it. “Yeah, she’s right—” She stops. “I mean, let me check.” She turns to Willow. “It’s Buffy.”
Riley sits in a chair in the secret Initiative lab, unable to move. He tries talking to Professor Walsh, but she doesn’t respond.
“She’s dead,” the Forrest demonoid tells him. “Artificially reanimated with basic to moderate brain activity. Mommy can hear you, but she’s still a walking corpse.”
“So are you,” says Riley.
Forrest doesn’t think so. He feels like he’s surging with life and power. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s almost as strong as Adam himself. Forrest is looking forward to taking on Buffy. He thinks that Riley will be feeling the same way soon. After the upcoming battle Adam will have some choice parts to fit him out with.
“I’ll never let that happen,” says Riley.
Forrest doesn’t think that Riley has any choice in the matter. Riley disagrees.
“Then why don’t you get out of that chair and walk out of here?” asks Forrest.
Riley still doesn’t think they will be able to control him.
“Riley, be a good boy,” says Professor Walsh’s corpse, and injects his arm with something.
Buffy walks up to the place on campus she has asked Giles, Xander and Willow to meet with her. None of them are looking happy to be there, they all keep their distance from each other. Anya and Tara haven’t come, they didn’t feel they would be welcome.
“Why?” asks Buffy. “Because of the things that we said?” She turns to Willow. “Will, who told you that we were talking behind your back, specifically?”
“Well, I— Spike, specifically, but—”
“And who told you that we thought you’d be better off joining the army?” Buffy asks Xander.
“That’s not…exactly what he said.”
Buffy looks at Giles.
“Well, uh, Spike can be very convincing when—when—when, uh…I’m very stupid.”
Buffy tells them Spike has been playing them. Getting them to fight to split them up. That was the source of all the things that they said and did last night.
“Of course,” says Giles. “Well, piffle. Let’s move on.”
The others quickly agree, but they still seem to be uncomfortable. No one moves any closer. They all stand in silence for a few seconds waiting for someone to say something. It’s Willow who speaks first. She wonders why Spike did it. Xander suggests that he just did it for yucks.
“I think it was more than that,” says Buffy. “I think it was Adam.”
“Spike’s working for Adam? After all we’ve done—” Xander stops. “Nyah, I can’t even act surprised.”
Buffy tells them about her encounter with Spike at the cave, and his concern over the disks, which prompts Willow to tell them about the disks decrypting themselves. The disks mostly contained stuff they already knew, but there’s a section on what the final phase of 314 is supposed to be. Adam has a lab set up in which he’s planning to manufacture an army of demonoids like himself.
Buffy knows that Adam deliberately leaked this information to them. This is something that he wants her to know. She asks if Adam’s lab is in the Initiative somewhere. Willow says it is, but she doesn’t know where.
Buffy has things pretty well worked out. Adam has been stuffing the Initiative’s cells with demons for the past few weeks. Those demons have been much too easy to catch. They’re a Trojan Horse. Adam is going to release them, and have a nice little massacre inside the Initiative.
“And Adam has a neat pile of body parts to start assembling his army,” says Willow. “Diabolical yet…gross.”
“Does anybody else miss the Mayor: ‘I just want to be a big snake?’” asks Xander.
They need to shut this down. Warn the Initiative. But no one there is going to pay any attention to them. Willow suggests that maybe they would listen to Riley. Buffy doesn’t think so. Riley’s a deserter, and besides, she hasn’t seen him since he got the news of Forrest’s death.
Xander is still puzzled by why Adam wants Buffy to know all this stuff. Buffy figures that Adam wants her down there to help even up the kill ratio. “He’s not worried you might kill, oh, say, him?” asks Xander.
“No,” says Buffy, “He’s really not.”
Adam senses that Buffy is coming. Spike thinks that’s good news. Now Adam can remove the chip from his head. “And mind the hairline. I don’t fancy fussing with a comb-over once I resume my killing ways.”
Adam isn’t ready to fulfill his side of the bargain. Buffy isn’t inside the Initiative yet.
Buffy and her friends have moved to Giles’ apartment. They have an assortment of weapons spread out on his coffee table in front of them, and Buffy is sitting on the floor, sharpening a stake. Unfortunately none of the weapons they have look like they will be much use against Adam.
Buffy tells them what Riley has told her about Adam’s power source. A uranium core embedded inside his chest, near his spine. Xander thinks this is great. All they have to do is ask Adam to lie down quietly while they do some surgery on him.
Willow suggests maybe they can use magic. “Some kind of, I don’t know, uranium-extracting spell?” No one seems to think much of that idea. “I know. I’m reaching.”
It gives Giles an idea though. He does have a paralyzing spell. The only problem is the caster has to be an experienced witch, who speaks Sumerian. He can handle the Sumerian side, but he doesn’t have the talent. Willow has the talent, but doesn’t speak Sumerian. The caster also has to be close to the target.
“So no problem,” says Xander. “All we need is Combo Buffy: her with Slayer strength, Giles’ multilingual know-how, and Willow’s witchy power.” Giles looks at Xander, a light bulb going off in his head. “Yeah, don’t tell me,” says Xander. “I’m just full of helpful suggestions.”
“As a matter of fact, you are,” says Giles.
Buffy and her friends enter Lowell House. “Nervous?” Willow asks Xander.
“No way,” says Xander. “I’m full of that good old kamikaze spirit.”
“Xander,” says Giles. “Just because this is never going to work is no need to be negative.” That worries Willow a bit, she asks Giles if the enjoining spell isn’t powerful enough to defeat Adam.
“It’s very powerful,” says Giles. “It’s also extraordinarily dangerous.”
They reach the mirror concealing the entrance to the elevator. Buffy kicks it in. The elevator isn’t there, it’s at the bottom of the shaft.
Buffy and Willow rappel down the elevator shaft side by side. Buffy is going slow, letting Willow set the pace. She asks Willow how she’s doing.
“Super,” says Willow. “What was I thinking using stairs all this time?”
Buffy takes the opportunity for a little heart to heart. She tells Willow how sorry she is about the way things got so strained between them. Willow tries to tell her that it was all Spike’s fault, but Buffy doesn’t think so. They had been drifting apart all year. She doesn’t like that.
Willow thinks it’s understandable. It’s hard to keep the old high school gang together during the first year of college. Buffy doesn’t care about that. She wants to keep the gang together, but she has been so wrapped up in her own stuff that she let them drift apart. She hasn’t been a good friend to any of them.
“You’re the Slayer, Buffy,” says Willow. “Your stuff is pretty crucial.”
It isn’t the Slayer stuff that Buffy means. “I mean Riley and— Riley, mostly.”
Willow admits that she hasn’t been blame free either. She had been hiding her relationship with Tara for a long time. Buffy understands why Willow did that. It was a huge change in her life.
“I wanted to tell you, but I was so scared,” says Willow.
“You can tell me anything,” says Buffy. “I love you. You’re my best friend.”
“Me, too. I love you, too.” Willow swings across, and gives Buffy a hug. This wasn’t really a good idea. She starts to slip down her rope. “Falling now!”
Fortunately they were nearly at the bottom. Buffy and Willow land on top of the elevator and continue to hug. They break apart to make a space for Xander to land between him, and they both start hugging him too.
“You know we love you, right?” asks Buffy.
“We totally do,” says Willow.
“Oh, God, we’re going to die, aren’t we?” asks Xander.
“No,” says Willow. “We just missed you.”
Xander looks up the elevator shaft with the two girls still hugging him. “Giles, hurry up! You definitely want to get down here for this!”
Giles and Xander use a pry bar on the elevator doors. “Okay, we stick together,” Buffy tells them, “and everything should be fine. Everybody ready? Let’s…” Giles and Xander get the doors open. “…do this.” There are half a dozen Initiative soldiers waiting for them armed with taser blasters.
Spike and Adam are watching Adam’s tap into the Initiative’s surveillance system when Buffy walks into view, escorted by several Initiative soldiers. Spike takes a drag from his cigarette and tells Adam that he thinks that now is the time for his chipectomy. The Slayer is in the Initiative.
Adam doesn’t do anything. He keeps watching the monitor. “Hello!” says Spike. “Paging Dr. Owe-Me-One!”
“She’s not alone,” says Adam. More soldiers have followed the group with Buffy, escorting Xander, Willow, and Giles. “You failed me again.”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” says Spike.
“What’s the other way?” asks Adam.
Spike makes a break for it, but he runs into Forrest. He grabs Spike by the throat. Spike isn’t happy. He tells Adam he tried, and that’s the important thing isn’t it?
“I suppose,” says Adam. “Yes, I will honour our agreement and remove your chip.” Spike begins to look hopeful. “Take his head off.”
Forrest slams Spike down onto a console, puts both his hands around Spike’s throat, and begins to squeeze. Spike brings up his hand, still holding his lit cigarette, and jams it into Forrest’s eye. Forrest cries in pain and lets go of him. Spike makes a break for it. Forrest starts to chase him, but Adam calls him back. Spike has nowhere to run.
Buffy and her friends are taken to Colonel McNamara in the Initiative’s control center.
The colonel is not happy to see them. “You’ve got some nerve lady!” He looks through the bags of supplies they have brought with them. “You think you and your friends can just keep waltzing into a government installation brandishing weapons like— like…” He holds up a large object he has found in the bag and turns it over in his hands.
“It’s a gourd,” says Willow.
“Magic gourd,” says Giles.
“What kind of freaks are you people?” asks the colonel.
Buffy tries to tell McNamara that Adam is already in the Initiative, and that he’s been deliberately packing the containment cells, but the colonel doesn’t believe her. Every inch of the installation is under constant 24 hour surveillance.
“Including the secret lab?” asks Willow.
“Including everything!” yells McNamara. He pauses for a bit. “What secret lab?”
Buffy tells McNamara that it’s the secret lab for the final phase of the 314 project. The one he has no idea even exists. Colonel McNamara doesn’t believe her. He thinks he knows every inch of the installation, and there is no way that Adam could sneak in there. If he tries, they’re ready for him. Giles asks just what they plan to do.
“Hit him simultaneously with multiple taser blasters,” says Colonel McNamara. “Incapacitate him with as much voltage as we can muster.”
Xander likes that plan. He thinks it’s right up there with “duck and cover.” Buffy tells the colonel that she has seen Adam hit by taser blasters. He feeds off them. “And now you’re going to provide him with an all-you-can-eat buffet?” The colonel doesn’t think Buffy should be telling him his business.
“This is not your business,” says Buffy. “It’s mine. You, the Initiative, the boys at the Pentagon, you’re all in way over your heads, messing with primeval forces you have absolutely no comprehension of.”
“And you do?” asks Colonel McNamara.
“I’m the Slayer,” says Buffy. “You’re playing on my turf.”
“Up there, maybe,” says the colonel. “But down here, I’m the one who’s in control.” The lights go out.1
The emergency lights come on quickly but the soldier manning the control console reports that the backup power hasn’t cut in. All the exits have locked shut.
Adam finishes cutting power to the rest of the Initiative. He switches his monitors to show the containment area. He sees a scientist accompanied by a soldier entering one of the cell blocks. He waits a couple of seconds, until they are well inside before flipping the switches that open all the cell doors. “This will be interesting.”
In the cell block the soldier and scientist are quickly surrounded by demons, who rip them to shreds.
The controller tells Colonel McNamara that the containment areas have been breached. Hostiles are loose.
“How many?” asks the colonel.
“All of them, sir.”
Buffy tells McNamara to get his people out, and leave her to handle Adam, but he doesn’t listen. He orders the troops with him to follow him to the armoury. He orders one of them to stay and guard Buffy and her friends.
McNamara and the rest of the soldiers go, leaving Buffy with one guard and the controller. Buffy takes out the controller and guard about two seconds after the colonel is gone. Willow takes over one of the control room consoles, and starts searching for where Adam could be hiding.
They also need a place to do the spell. It’s very volatile. They will need a place which is near Adam, and quiet.
Xander has been looking at the security monitors. “Uh, quiet?” All hell is breaking loose in the Initiative’s central area, surrounding the Pit.
Demons are fighting with the Initiative’s soldiers and scientists in the central area. Demon claws, teeth and strength verses soldiers with automatic weapons and grenades. The soldiers aren’t winning.
Spike arrives on the scene and looks around. Things do not look good to him. He wades into the battle attacking demons and vampires while attempting to make his way to an exit. A pair of Initiative soldiers rush toward him, but they see him take out another vampire, and change their minds. He seems to be on their side.
A scientist tries to climb out of the Pit, but he’s grabbed by a demon’s tentacles and dragged back down.
Willow’s search has turned up something. She’s found some power and ventilation systems leading off into an area where the Initiative’s plans say that nothing exists. The area is directly behind lab 314. Buffy asks Willow if she can unlock it.
“I don’t have to,” says Willow. “All the locks in the Initiative have been disengaged. Except for the exits.”
“Demon open house,” says Xander. He has armed himself with their guard’s taser.
The problem they face now is getting to 314. The only route takes them right through the middle of the battle.
Graham has armed himself with an M-16. He’s making effective use of it, picking his targets, unlike many of the other soldiers who are panicking and shooting at anything that moves.
Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles dash across the central core. Buffy leads the way, clearing a path through the demons. Xander follows behind her, aiding her with an occasional blast from his taser. Giles brings up the rear carrying their bag of magical supplies.
They’ve almost made it to the entrance into the section containing 314 when Buffy spots one of the Initiative soldiers taking aim with his M-16. Willow is in his line of fire. Buffy knocks her off her feet as he begins to fire. A demon attacks him from behind. Giles pulls Willow back to her feet and they dash the final few yards to the door. Giles clocks a vampire with his bag of supplies as it tries to jump him before he can get inside.
They enter Lab 314. Buffy and Willow go to the back corner of the lab, where the entrance into the secret lab should be. They move aside some equipment shelves, and Buffy finds the door hidden in the wall. She orders them to barricade it behind her once she’s inside, and asks if the lab is a good enough place for them to do the spell. Giles looks around and tells her it should do.
“As long as we don’t get blowed up or nothing,” says Willow.
Giles tells Buffy that she will have about five minutes before the ritual kicks in.
“I’ll move fast, then.” Buffy starts down the corridor.
“Buffy, I still don’t like you going in alone,” says Xander.
Buffy turns back and gives him a smile. “I won’t be.” She goes.
Willow closes the door behind Buffy and shoves the equipment shelves back into place while Giles and Xander barricade the front entrance to the lab.
Buffy reaches Adam’s secret lab, and finds Riley still sitting in the chair, unable to move or speak. She rushes to him. She asks him if he’s hurt, but he can’t say anything. He can only look at her. His eyes leave her and he stares at something behind her. Buffy spins around and sees Walsh and Angleman coming toward her.
“What is this?” asks Buffy. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
“He can’t,” says Adam. “He’s not programmed to. He’s part of the final phase now, as you were supposed to be.”
“Sorry,” says Buffy. “I don’t jump through hoops on command. I’ve never really been one to toe the line.”
“Oh.” Adam considers what to do for a few seconds and then makes up his mind. “Kill her.”
Forrest grabs Buffy from behind. “Thought you’d never ask.” He holds Buffy as Walsh picks up a bone saw and advances toward her.
Buffy struggles against Forrest’s grip on her as Walsh moves in closer. She kicks out at Walsh, and hits her in the chest. Walsh falls back against the lab tables, and doesn’t get up. Buffy breaks away from Forrest, and pushes him against the table beside Riley. He knocks over a flask, which breaks.
Willow, Xander and Giles begin the enjoining spell. They sit on the floor of lab 314 around a cluster of four candles. Giles lights the candles, and Willow begins the invocation.
By the power of the Slayer and all who wield it.
Last to ancient first we invoke thee.
Grant us thy domain and primal strength.
Accept us and the powers we possess.
Make us mind and heart and spirit joined.
Let the hand encompass us.
Do thy will.2
Buffy fights with Forrest while Riley sits, unable to move to come to her aid. Angleman goes to where Walsh is lying on the floor, and works to reattach the tubes that Buffy’s kick knocked loose.
Riley isn’t completely paralyzed though. He can still move his right hand. He reaches out and grabs the broken neck of the flask on the table beside him while Buffy fights with Forrest. He plunges the broken edge the flask neck into his shoulder where Adam indicated his chip was located.
Willow continues the spell. She pulls a card off a Tarot deck. “Spirutus, spirit” She lays the card in front of the candle in front of her.
Willow pulls the next card off the deck and hands it to Xander. “Animus, heart” he says, and lays it in front of his candle.
Willow pulls a third card and hands it to Giles. “Sophus, mind,” he says, and lays the card down in front of a third candle.
Willow pulls one more card from the deck. “And Manus, the hand.” She lays it down in front of the last candle.
Buffy fights with Forrest while Riley reaches his fingers into the cut he has made in his shoulder, probing or the chip.
Forrest picks Buffy up, preparing to smash her down on the floor. Buffy grabs some exposed overhead wires. When Forrest drops her, the wires break, showering sparks over the entire area.
Willow continues the spell:
We enjoin that we may inhabit the vessel,
The hand, daughter of Sineya, first of the ones.3
Forrest throws Buffy down onto one of the lab tables, and holds her down with his forearm across her neck. Angleman has finished repairing Walsh’s tubing, and they each grab at Buffy’s arms and legs.
Riley finds the chip, and pulls it out of his shoulder.
“Is that it?” asks Forrest. “That all you’ve got?” Buffy struggles to break free from him, Walsh and Angleman.
“No,” says Riley. “She’s got me.” Walsh and Angleman turn toward him, and Riley grabs the tubes coming out of each of their chests and pulls them loose.
Forrest lets go of Buffy, and starts to move toward Riley. He gets kicked in the head by Buffy. Buffy jumps off the table and asks Riley if he’s good to handle things here. She has to get to Adam. Riley tells her to go.
Colonel McNamara has organized a small group of soldiers in the Initiative’s central area who are fighting against the demons, but they are being overwhelmed.
Adam watches the carnage in the central area on the monitors in his control room. “Fun, isn’t it?” asks Buffy.
Adam turns and looks at Buffy. “I do appreciate violence.” Buffy thinks this is good. He’s about to get some violence to appreciate up close and personal. She attacks him. Adam hits her once, and knocks her away across the floor. Buffy springs back to her feet and comes at him again, with a quick series of kicks and punches.
Adam grabs Buffy, smashes her against a console, and tosses her away across the floor. He extends the Polgara demon skewer from his arm and advances toward her.
Adam stabs at Buffy, but she dodges it, breaks the skewer off over her knee, and hits him in the head with it. “Broke your arm.”
“Got another,” says Adam. A gatling gun extends from his left arm. “I’ve been upgrading.”
Adam opens fire. Buffy dives for cover behind a control room console.
Willow completes the spell:
We implore thee, admit us.
Bring us to the vessel.
Take us now.
The power of the spell floods into Buffy as Adam fires a grenade from his grenade launcher—also included in his left arm—into the console she’s hiding behind. Buffy stands up as the debris from the explosion settles around her. Her eyes flash yellow, and then fade to an orangy-red.
Adam doesn’t seem to notice that. “You can’t last much longer.”
“We can,” says Buffy. Her voice has changed. She sounds like Willow, Giles and Xander are all speaking along with her. “We are forever.”
Adam lowers his gun, surprised by the change, as Buffy begins an incantation in Sumerian:
Sha me-en-den. Gesh-toog
me-en-den. Zee me-en-den.
Oo-khush-ta me-ool-lee-a
ba-ab-tum-mu-de-en.4
“Interesting.” Adam raises his gun and begins to fire.
“Im-a-sheng-ab”5 says Buffy.
The bullets don’t hit Buffy. They vanish as they hit an invisible shield about two feet in front of her.
“Very interesting.” Adam is starting to sound a little worried now.
Willow, Xander and Giles sit transfixed on the floor of lab 314, unable to move. A demon starts to batter at the door, trying to break through the barricade that Giles and Xander have built in front of it.
Riley fights with Forrest. The wires Buffy broke earlier are still arcing, showering them with sparks from time to time. Riley isn’t doing very well. The Forrest demonoid is much stronger than he is. Fortunately for Riley, Forrest knows that Adam wants him intact, without too much damage done to him.
Forrest kicks Riley, and knocks him across the floor into a stack of gas cylinders. Riley picks up one of the cylinders to use as a weapon, and attacks Forrest with it. He hits him with it several times. In the process he opens the valve on the top of the cylinder.
Forrest grabs the cylinder, pulls it away from Riley, and knocks him to the floor. Riley scrambles away. Forrest raises the cylinder over his head, and Riley dives for cover. He knocks over one of the lab tables, and hides behind it.
Forrest notices the hissing sound coming from the cylinder he’s holding over his head. He looks up and sees the Flammable label on the cylinder just as another spark from the broken wires ignites the gas. The force of the explosion blows Forrest to bits, and knocks the table Riley is hiding behind—and Riley—away across the floor.
Adam empties his gatling gun into Buffy’s shield, and then fires another grenade at her. Buffy waves her hand and the grenade transforms into a flock of doves. Adam watches in amazement as they fly away.
Adam raises the gun again, but Buffy waves her hand, and it withdraws back into his arm. Adam starts to advance toward her, and Buffy calmly walks out from behind the ruins of the console.
Adam swings a punch at Buffy, and she dodges it easily. He swings several more times and each time she evades him. Then she attacks. She hits him with a quick series of punches and kicks, and knocks him back against one of the consoles. He tries to hit her again, but she grabs his arm with one hand and grabs him by the throat with the other.
“How can you…?” asks Adam.
“You could never hope to grasp the source of our power.” Buffy picks Adam up and smashes him down on the console. He staggers back to his feet, and Buffy kicks him away. She jumps into the air and kicks him repeatedly before she lands again, knocking him back into the wall.
Buffy plunges her fist into Adam’s chest. It comes out holding his power core. “But yours is right here.” He collapses dead.
Riley comes into the lab and sees Adam lying dead on the floor, with Buffy still holding his power supply. He notices the way her eyes are still reddish. “Buffy!” She doesn’t seem to notice him.
Buffy starts to chant in Sumerian again, and Adam’s core levitates up out of her hand, and then, with a brilliant flash of light, vanishes.
Buffy stands still, not moving, not looking around. Riley slowly walks up to her and puts his hand under her chin. As soon as he touches her she collapses, and he catches her.
If they weren’t already sitting on the floor, Giles, Willow and Xander would have collapsed too. They look around at each other, feeling dazed and confused.
The demon which had been battering at the door breaks through, and rushes toward them. Spike follows right on its heels, catches it before it can get to them, and breaks its neck. “Nasty sort of fellow. Lucky for you blighters I was here, eh?”
“Yes,” says Giles. “Thank you. Although your heroism is slightly muted by the fact that you were helping Adam to start a war that would kill us all.” Spike is not pleased to learn that they know of his duplicity.
“You probably just saved us so we wouldn’t stake you right here,” says Xander.
“Well, yeah,” says Spike. “Did it work?”
Giles, Willow and Xander look at each other, without saying anything. Each waiting for one of the others to decide Spike’s fate.
Spike takes their continuing silence as assent. “Well, then everything’s all right, and we all get to be not staked through the heart. Good work, team!”
Buffy and Riley push aside the shelving Willow had pushed in front of the back entrance to the lab. Giles and the others are glad to see them. “Wasn’t it amazing!” says Willow.
“You were great!” says Xander.
“We.” says Buffy. “We were great.”
Riley points out that it isn’t over yet. The Initiative is still being overrun by demons.
“Well let’s go save ’em, by gum!” says Spike. Buffy and Riley are both a little surprised to see him there, but they don’t say anything about it.
Buffy starts handing out assignments. Giles, Willow and Xander are to see if they can get the exits opened. Riley is to find and organize the surviving soldiers, She’ll take point. She leads them out of Lab 314.
“Are you up to this?” Willow asks Buffy.
“I am!” Buffy hits a demon which has just started to come in the door.
Mr. Ward goes over the final report on the Initiative in a Washington conference room, while he and the others present review the tapes of the final battle.
The tapes show Buffy fighting the demons, and Riley organizing the surviving soldiers, including Graham, into a coherent unit, able to put up an effective defense. Colonel McNamara had died earlier in the fighting, killed by a demon in the control room. The survivors escaped through the elevator shaft that Buffy and her friends had come down earlier.
Ward’s conclusion is that the experiment was a failure. Maggie Walsh’s vision was brilliant, but it seems that the demons can not be controlled or harnessed for military purposes.
In the final battle, the Initiative suffered 40% casualties. The only thing that kept their casualties from being total was the intervention of a deserter, and a group of civilians. Mr. Ward finds that ironic.
The Initiative project is to be terminated. All records concerning it are to be expunged. After debriefing, the surviving soldiers will be sworn to secrecy and re-assigned. They will continue to monitor the civilians, and the usual steps will be taken if they attempt to go public, but Mr. Ward doesn’t expect that to happen. The Initiative complex itself is to be filled with concrete. “Burn it down, gentlemen. Burn it down and salt the earth.”
The actual death toll in this episode is rather high. It is difficult to get a good count. From Mr. Ward’s comments at the end we know that the Initiative lost 40% of its personnel. I’m only going to list some of the more prominent ones.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Initiative Soldier | The Initiative cell blocks | Killed by demons |
| Initiative Scientist | The Initiative cell blocks | Killed by demons |
| Initiative Scientist | The Pit | Killed by tentacled demon |
| Several Soldiers | The Initiative’s central core | Killed by demons and vampires |
| Initiative Scientist | Stairway | Killed by vampires |
| A couple more Soldiers | Stairway | Killed by vampires |
| Colonel McNamara | Initiative control room | Killed by a demon |
| Several vampires | The Initiative | Killed by Initiative soldiers, Buffy and friends, or Spike |
| Professor Walsh zombie | Adam’s secret lab | Killed by Riley |
| Dr. Angleman zombie | Adam’s secret lab | Killed by Riley |
| Forrest demonoid | Adam’s secret lab | Blown up by Riley |
| Adam | His control room | Power core ripped out by Buffy |
| Hairy demon | Lab 314 | Killed by Spike |
By the generous will of the ancients.
The almighty power of the divine spirits.
Your supplicants humbly beseech thee
To behold us and that which we possess.
The moieties of the one,
The Avatar.
We are heart. We are mind.
We are spirit. From the
raging storm, we bring the
power of the Primeval One