Twilight, Part One

"Twilight, Part One" was the thirty-second story from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight.

Summary
In a dense forest in Tibet, Xander is putting Buffy through a battery of tests to determine what array of powers she now possesses. They discover that she is indeed faster than a speeding bullet, can leap tall buildings in a single bound (which she does while holding Xander in her arms) and can even hold a train over her head with one hand. Xander and Buffy are both in amazement over her powers, while Dawn appears worried.

Inside a hut, Willow is magically levitating books and candles while absent mindedly listening to Dawn rant about Buffy’s new powers. Dawn goes on to talk about how nobody seems worried about Buffy’s new abilities, where they came from or what the consequences are for having them. She uses her recent stint under a thricewise curse as an example to show that one does not get something without something having to be given in return, (i.e. Dawn’s transformations being the result of a curse laid on her by a demon) and says that even Andrew would be more wary about Buffy’s abilities then everyone else has been, which leads Willow to ponder his whereabouts, as she had always been under the impression he was with Buffy and Xander. Aside, Dawn wonders with all of these newfound powers, what they have unleashed in return.

Back in the jungle, Buffy and Xander are testing to see if Buffy has acquired any mental powers such as heat vision or x-ray vision, and after attempting to trigger both, she has learned these are not among her newfound powers.

Back in the hut, Willow talks to Satsu via a satellite phone and asks if she has had any luck finding Andrew, Faith or Giles. She notes that she has not and gives a bizarre story about what she had assumed Andrew had been doing but will keep looking for the three missing Scoobies. Dawn mentions that there is a real problem with Buffy’s powers, which Willow chalks up to Dawn missing her own abilities. This statement angers Dawn and she reminds Willow that she herself had just told her that her transformations were not really abilities and that Xander doesn’t have abilities either. Willow responds that while Xander doesn’t have powers, he still has Buffy, which Willow hints could be Dawn’s real reason for reacting the way she is about Buffy’s powers, since Xander is spending more time with Buffy.

Meanwhile, in the jungle, Xander continues to use his superhero knowledge to quiz Buffy on various superpowers including telepathy, Buffy jokingly reads Xander’s mind and is in shock of how much masturbation vibes she is reading, which Xander quickly realizes is Buffy not being serious. Cut back to Willow and Dawn, while Dawn tries to reassure Willow (and herself) that Xander and Buffy are just friends and have made peace with that fact, referring back to their conversation in the last issue. Willow is pleased to hear this, and tries to drill it into Dawn that even though they fought goddesses for 48 hours straight, not everything that happens to them is bad or is going to lead to the apocalypse. Dawn refers to the idea taken from “The Monkey’s Paw” that you cannot get the good without the bad.

In the jungle, Xander continues his quizzing of Buffy’s abilities, to which Buffy shows little interest in trying out any longer, until he asks “Can you phase?” Back at Willow’s hut, now surrounded by lit candles, Willow is again talking to Satsu, who has seen no signs of Giles or Faith, and off to the side, continues her debate with Dawn over Buffy, claiming that Buffy has always had powers, and Dawn stands her ground and after repeating “faster than a speeding-“ she realizes that Xander is living his superhero fantasies out through Buffy. Willow tells Dawn that these powers may be the universes way of thanking Buffy for defeating the Goddesses. Back in the jungle, Xander excitedly lectures Buffy on the fundamentals of phasing, but Buffy seems to show no interest, seeing no point in this particular power.

Back at Willow's hut, now levitating above a pentagram encircled by candles, Willow tries to cast a caller spell to locate Faith, Giles, and Andrew all while Dawn continues to try and convince her that Buffy’s power, the stronger it gets, the worse the evil will become and the bigger the monsters will be to fight. 7.2 miles away, at the Northern Cliffside, a pair of binoculars spies on Buffy and Xander. We soon see that the binoculars are being held by a general from Twilight’s army, along with Amy and Warren, who have been observing Buffy’s new powers and are wary that she will find them. Warren exhibits the same geeky nature that Xander does, while the general and Amy keep an eye out on Buffy. The general asks if Willow will find them, which Amy responds that she wouldn’t because Willow doesn’t know “it” happened yet. Back in the hut, Willow is still concentrating and casting her spell, and while Dawn continues to try and get her attention, Willow suddenly comes out of her spellcasting and warns Dawn that they need to leave.

As Xander and Buffy continue their training, Willow and Dawn come running up to them, citing that they have bad news, she has suddenly realized that Giles, Faith and Andrew are missing. Dawn interjects and says this is the consequences coming into play, Willow and Buffy loudly dismiss her theories, and she sadly walks over to Xander, claiming that nobody ever pays attention to her or listens to anything she says, while Xander himself is absent mindedly trying to figure out how to turn a wrist watch into a signal watch. Buffy and Willow discuss that the three were possibly teleported out of their perimeter which is why nobody sensed the magic that took them or noticed they were missing. Buffy orders Willow to cast an unhiding spell before she runs off in a blur. Back in the trees, Amy, Warren and the General are watching the Scoobies, and Amy realizes that Willow has figured out what has happened and how they got in. Back in Willow’s hut, she is casting a locator-type spell, which, despite being in another language, Buffy can understand that the spell is going to take her to the Slayer who needs her most, which means she is looking for Faith. Back in the jungle, Amy can sense that Willow has teleported away and the general orders them to be ready, because with Willow gone, their plan might work.

Willow has teleported to an unnumbered apartment building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The apartment building hallway is disheveled and there is blood splattered everywhere, and she feels nauseous from the teleporting. She opens the door she was teleported in front of and hopes to find Faith, but is shocked to instead find a dead girl inside chained to a wall.

Back in Tibet, Xander and Dawn search for Buffy, who, in a speeding blur, rushes up next to them and tells them she checked all of Giles’ safe houses, including the ones in Budapest, England and Brussels. Dawn muses how she got there so fast, Xander guesses that she ran, but Buffy instead states that she flew. Buffy tries again to trigger a vision power, and hopes that she can rely on Willow bringing them news very soon.

Port of Miami, Florida. Willow is transported to a metal container on the docks. She notices the same disheveled look in the container that she noticed in the apartment building. She casts a light spell and reveals anti-Slayer graffiti on the walls and comes upon a wooden crate with something inside, hoping that it is Andrew playing a joke on her for youtube. She gets closer only to see yet another dead girl inside the crate.

Back at Twilight’s HQ, Andrew, Faith and Giles come out of their confusion and Andrew lays eyes upon something large in front of him-something he recognizes. Faith becomes irritated with Andrew speaking nerd that she warns him to stop or she will hit him hard. He doesn’t and she does. Andrew continues to babble out an explanation while recovering from the punch that Faith landed on his nose. He goes on to explain how the mechanism in front of him is a death trap for heroes straight out of the comic books, and explains further that he and Warren had talked about building one to kill Buffy and her friends (which he apologizes for). Faith questions their whereabouts and Andrew deducts they are in Twilight’s headquarters and not some prison, which Andrew realizes when he sees the death trap control room that Warren built for Twilight’s use, sending Andrew into a geeky jealousy fit. While Andrew drools over Twilight’s control room, Giles questions that if the three of them are in Twilight HQ, then where is everyone else.

Willow is now teleported to an unnamed marsh in the Atchafalaya Basin of Morgan City, Louisiana. As she makes her way through, she notes that like before she is in a strange place and smells a strange deathly odor lingering in the air. She realizes that there is a living person nearby, and soon a weak voice begs for help from the ground below. Willow runs to the aid of a seriously injured girl lying by the swamp. Willow senses that this girl is a Slayer, and quickly offers a healing spell. The girl, named Cori, tells her it would not be any use to waste her magic and begins to explain how “they” were training in Atlanta when a mob found them and attacked “them”. Willow questions exactly who the “they” are, and to her horror, she looks out into the swamp to see dozens of dead Slayers floating in the water. As she continues to weaken, Cori begs Willow not to tell Buffy they failed in their mission.

Back in Tibet, Buffy realizes she has telescopic vision and catches an eyeful of an elderly couple from Mykonos being intimate. Dawn redirects Buffy’s vision towards the cliff sides, and Buffy manages to spy something, Xander questions if it is the missing girls or Giles, Faith and Andrew, but Buffy says that they are not there, but somebody definitely is. The general is still on lookout for Buffy in the trees, Warren feels that Buffy has found them and they talk about how they are going to get away quick enough. Suddenly, the trio of villains looks in the sky and sees Buffy hovering over them. Buffy and the trio of villains are joined by Xander and Dawn, who are shocked to see that they surrendered so easily. The trio then go on to explain how Twilight used them to further his own agenda and then discarded them, which has made them angry enough to approach Buffy with an offer: if she helps them, they will help her destroy Twilight. Suddenly, Willow teleports nearby and Buffy uses her super-speed to join her. Willow tries to explain to Buffy that Dawn was right, that her powers are not all good and that she can feel that something bad is about to happen, and also goes on to explain that in her attempts to search for Giles, Faith and Andrew, she was led on another path instead. Willow breaks the news to Buffy that her powers are not gifts for defeating the goddesses, leaving Buffy confused. To further explain her point, Willow conjures magical holograms of the dead Slayers she encountered and shows them to Buffy, and continues to explain that while they were fighting the goddesses in Tibet for 48 hours straight, so many Slayers were killed, but what Willow discovered is that there were multiple and simultaneous attacks on the Slayers all over the world. Buffy becomes scared by what Willow is telling her, and Willow agrees that Buffy should be scared, and reveals that she is getting her powers from the girls-their girls—she has been sucking power from every Slayer who dies. Buffy looks horrified.

Back at Twilight HQ, Andrew and Giles discover the reason why they are the only three at the compound; because they were teleported in through Amy’s magic, which allowed Amy, Warren and the general to be teleported in and take the place of the three that were teleported out of Willows magical safety boundaries. As Andrew hacks the security codes to the control room, Faith and Giles recall that Riley told them there were four bad guys—Amy, Warren, the General and—before the thought can be finished Twilight comes out of the control room and faces Faith, Giles, and Andrew, and asks them if they would like to hear a really cool master plan.

Individuals

 * Buffy Summers
 * Xander Harris
 * Dawn Summers
 * Willow Rosenberg
 * The General
 * Amy Madison
 * Warren Mears
 * Rupert Giles
 * Faith Lehane
 * Andrew Wells
 * Cori
 * Twilight

Species

 * Witch

Deaths

 * Several Slayers - Cori

Collections

 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight

Quotes
"That'll learn ya. You can't unsee what you see."

- Xander Harris