Last Gleaming, Part Four

" Last Gleaming, Part Four " was the thirty-ninth story from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight.

Summary
The battle rages on in the remains of Sunnydale, Faith fights on, but it is clear there are a few unnamed casualties. Willow remains with the Master who seems to be being repelled backwards for unknown reasons, his hands still bound with the same red chains, whilst Willow, continues her chanting, the room, completely engulfed by glowing red light. “It’s different than before,” Buffy begins, as she attempts to hit Angel, but is thrown backward by another punch, “Now we can hurt each other.” Throwing himself back into the fight Spike, runs forward to hit Angel, shouting that Angels finally picked a side. He is quickly interrupted as Angel grabs him and tells him that the sun is still yet to set. The pair flies upwards and Spike begins to smoke, now exposed to the light of the setting sun, Angel then mocks him by telling him his story ends here. Flying between them, Buffy pitches them both in either direction, saying how she liked it better when they were kissing, in reference to Buffy’s dream in "Always Darkest".

Still on fire, Spike falls backwards into his ships and out of the sunlight, while Buffy talks about how she’s seen Angel and his attempt to be Twilight, but this is neither, this is something different, this some cosmic vengeance, that she had coming. While she thinks, Angel grabs at a passing army aircraft and throws it at Buffy, which she just gets out of the way of in time, before it hits the ground, exploding against friend and foe alike. Back in Spike’s ship he is being tended to by his bug minions, who instruct him to lie still, but he ignores them, stating, “It’s finally happened, Angel gets the girl.”

While the fight continues with Buffy and Angel above and continues below, Xander who is still with Dawn at the medical station, begins to mutter repeatedly, “OH NO,” saying that they’re not gonna win this war. CUT TO: Giles' conversation to Buffy in Part three: “This crisis has led to many unlikely alliances Buffy, I don’t know that the Master is any different then Dracula.” As this happens Angel strikes Buffy hard over the head, sending her crashing to the ground. Giles' flashback speech to Buffy continues, “A demon already attached to this world doesn’t want this apocalypse any more then you or I.” as this is being said, Giles- seated on the back of a demon, a sword high in his hand- leads an army of earth demons forwards instructing them to leave no prisoners, cut all the new-universe demons down. And they oblige.

Back in the game, Buffy- superhero style- flies upwards and strikes at Angel. Giles, calls out desperately to the slayers, telling them to duck and only just gets Leah out of the way in time before a dragon descends and burns a portion of the fighting slayers alive. In the seed room, Willow, her arms raised, she mocks the Master telling him he’s nothing; he’s ordinary, less than ordinary. The seed is life and soul, it’s amazing and tied to everything. And so is Willow. She then vanishes into thin air, leaving the Master chained, and mystified, saying only, “So, um. The chains? Hello?”

On the ground. A massive root flies upwards, impaling the dragon circling overhead and narrowly missing Giles and Leah. Also out of the earth, rises Willow, firing magic, burning demons and taken back control, she says, “Listen up, alien creeps you didn’t just attack the little things that crawl on the outside of the earth—” A demon opens its mouth wide behind her, “—You attacked mother!”

Angel and Buffy are still fighting, Angel says Willow is missing the point, does she think she can win this? Kicking Buffy he flies at the ground at top speed and Buffy follows. Leading the slayers and still baring the scythe, Giles runs to Faith and asks her for the scythe, for Buffy. Without waiting for reply he leaves Faith and runs down underground, with the scythe in hand. A demon then proceeds to attack Faith, making the slayers behind her melt, Faith only escaping by hitting the demon and breaking the spell. The other slayers are not so lucky.

In Venice, Amy and Warren are dinning in a cafe, as Amy asks whether they should have stayed. Warren doesn’t like this idea, saying that Buffy and Willow are the enemy. Amy says it might have been better to have more wiccans sustaining Warren’s skin. But Warren argues that it was Willow who tore it off, how long would he last in her hands? Willow is blowing demons apart in an aerial battle and Kennedy and Andrew are below. Kennedy, while watching Willow, calls her a Goddess. But Andrew says that all the planes are down the demons are win— before he can finish, a demon strikes him brutally across the face.

In the Seed room, Xander has arrived waiting hidden at an archway as Angel and Buffy come crashing through the ceiling. They fight, Angel begins with, “You created a world. you can’t turn form it.” kicking Buffy aside, Angel approaches the Seed, saying, “You were chosen Buffy.” The Master, coming out of hiding and attempts to attack Angel, joking that Buffy being chosen is original. Annoyed at the interruption Angel thrusts his fist through the Master’s head, essentially decapitating him as he dusts immediately. Buffy praises Angel for this and then come to her senses and kicks him in the head.

Giles arrives, meeting Xander at his hiding spot and asking why Xander is there. Before he can properly answer Giles tells him there is nothing he can do. He tells him their power- Buffy and Angel’s- fades in proximity to the Seed. BUT the seed fuels the scythe. Xander tells Giles to just throw it too Buffy, but Giles says that Buffy won’t want to kill him, at the very least she’ll hesitate. She wants to stop him- not kill him. Xander tells him there is no way Giles can go in there, saying he is all for rash acts of nobility but you can’t get between them. “Xander,” Giles begins as Buffy suffers a painful blow. “That’s exactly where she needs me.” Running forwards into the room, Angel runs around behind him yelling to Buffy, “Buffy- you abandoned me— for this.” And without pause or mercy, he breaks Giles' neck. Surveying his body, Angel says, “When they’re all gone, you’ll understand.”

Xander is horrified, Buffy is devastated, but she doesn’t stop, she continues to whack Angel out of the way. We pan over Giles': lifeless and sprawled on the floor, Angel: slowly getting up again out of the body shape crater he left in the wall, and finally two hands picking up the scythe.

Tears, blood and dirt covering every inch of her, her jacket torn off completely, Buffy swings the scythe back thinking, simply, “NO MORE.” But she isn’t aiming at Angel and her true target it hit dead on. The scythe breaks through the Seed, releasing energy everywhere, where hits Buffy and Angel, causing their superpowers to be taken away, and Twilight to relinquish its hold on Angel. Reeling from the loss of magic, Willow falls from the sky, and the many faces of disempowered wiccans are seen.

In Venice, Amy and Warren collapse, both due to the loss of magic, but Warren without Amy’s power as his skin, collapses into bones, blood and guts. Finally killed. Willow has hit the ground injured and bloody, calling out desperately. In the sky, demons are being sucked forcibly from this dimension. In New York, Vi’s Wicca squad says they lost connections with Sunnydale, but that’s not all…

While Willow calls out to Aluwyn, Kennedy runs up to comfort her, but all Willow does is scream, “Where did you go?” at the same time, Twilight(Lion) walks through Twilight(Dimension).

In Sunnydale on Spike’s ship, Bug one announces that the demons are being sucked back to hell. Spike yells to reverse thrusters, if the demons are going to hell, he’ll be damned if they go with them. Still burnt and injured he happily says that, Buffy did it, she won, he then instructs bug one that the slayer is gonna need to time to lick their wounds but, look at that… (A massive monster with tentacles has remained behind and is now fleeing across the sky) Spike says somebody’s has to stop that. And he flies off in pursuit. “We Lost,” Willow calls, as Kennedy fails to console her. “Kennedy-- We LOST--! This is the end!”

Down in the seed room. Buffy vision has come to pass, she lies broken and bleeding on the ground, the broken seed in the background. Xander approaches her cautiously. We pan over Giles again, as Xander approaches Buffy, Angel tries to speak to Xander, obviously upset over his actions. But Xander shrugs him off in either fear or disgust. He kneels over Buffy calling to her softly, Giles dead behind them both. Angel is almost in tears in the background and the blade of the scythe sticks out of the ground broken in half by the power of the seed.

Individuals

 * Faith Lehane
 * The Master
 * Willow Rosenberg
 * Buffy Summers
 * Angel
 * Spike
 * Xander Harris
 * Dawn Summers
 * Rupert Giles
 * Leah
 * Andrew Wells
 * Amy Madison
 * Warren Mears
 * Violet
 * Spike's Crew

Species

 * Unspecified Demons
 * Vampire
 * Witch
 * Bug Demons

Weapons and Objects

 * The Seed of Wonder
 * Scythe
 * Sword

Deaths

 * Several Unspecified Demons
 * Several Slayers
 * The Master
 * Warren Mears
 * Rupert Giles

Collections

 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 8: Last Gleaming

Quotes
"Finally chosen a side, have you, scared-hair? Thank bloody Christ!"

- Spike

"When they’re all gone, you’ll understand."

- Angel

"Kennedy—we lost. This is the end!"

- Willow Rosenberg