BWAH!

Heheheh. I'm surprised at how much fun I'm having with this one.

Tomorrow: Wesley and Fred hit Luis Vuitton and Fred feeds Wesley some ring.

(jeez, whan in sweet hell am I doing? Pornoshoppery?)

Conversation With the Monster

Conclusion: Goodbyes, of sorts

“I still don’t get it,” said Rosa, as Xander wound down his story. “Why was it that the First couldn’t defeat the Slayer? What was the force more powerful than it was?”

Xander regarded the woman gently, with all the patience of someone who’s spent nearly two decades teaching super-powered teenage girls.

“The First was never about evil,” said Xander. “It was about balance.” Rosa looked at him in disbelief.

“Oh, I don’t think it saw itself that way, but there’s evidence to support the theory. Before it all went down, we learned that Buffy herself had given the First the ability to act. We figured it was because of her resurrection, and that was part of it, true.”

“Oh, boy,” thought Dawn, “Here comes the Giles moment.”

“We should have really figured it out beforehand,” continued Xander, taking a last sip of coffee and resting his elbows on the table. “We should have figured it out the moment Kendra showed. It’s not that there’s never been two Slayers before—Giles was wrong about that. There have been. Wesley and I had a go at the Wolfram &Hart database a few years back, and there’s record of one dying, say, in Iceland, and then being resuscitated, and another popping up in Africa. No one noticed because Slayers didn’t used to last long. The situation corrected itself.”

“But Buffy was brought back,” said the young woman, appearing agitated. “Didn’t that break some cosmic rule or something?” “Sure,” said Xander. “But the real kicker was that there were now two Slayers who’d be sticking around. That’s what the cosmic balance took exception to. As long as Buffy and Faith both lived, one of them would figure out that there could be even more of them. That they weren’t bound by the Shadowmen’s rules forever.

“The First was free to act. It raised an army, murdered girls and destroyed the Council. And then, on one industrious day, it tried to talk Willow into killing herself, and manipulated Spike. It pulled Adam’s shade from Hell to seek knowledge, and projected itself back in time to take Angel from the picture before he interceded. In retrospect, we should have seen the universe was giving us a chance to pull this off. Two headstrong Slayers? Two ensouled vampires? That’s not coincidence. That’s a redundancy plan. Still got nothing on the snow, though.”

“Go back to that bit about…projecting itself through time?”

“Oh.” said Xander. “Like I said, the First doesn’t perceive time the way humans do, so it was nothing for him to be holding a conversation in its present while taunting Angel years earlier. It could be anywhere, anywhen it chooses, within limits I suppose.”

Xander’s face went serious. “It could be here right now.”

An electric shock washed down Dawn’s spine, but she only hesitated a second, reaching instinctively for the knife Faith had given her, years ago. Xander calmed her immediately by placing his hand on her shoulder, never once taking his eyes off the First as it morphed into Anya’s form.” “How long you known, Harris?” it said, a perfect echo of her caustic tone.

“Since the beginning. Like I said, I’ve been doing this awhile now. I generally know when evil things are hanging out.” There was a pause, and then Xander stated, plainly, “I’ve never forgiven you for killing her, you know. Not where it counts.”

“There’s fewer Slayers born every day, you know.” said the First, examining the replica of Anya’s engagement ring on its hand. “Nice touch,” thought Dawn, as she glanced at Xander. His face said nothing.

“I know. That’s OK, though. Fewer vampires.”

“The future will belong to me. When all of you are dead and gone, the wheel will spin around again.”

“Maybe. Or maybe someone will beat you back again. Did you learn what you came here to learn?”

“Not really,” said the First. “What is this source of power I’m incapable of understanding?”

Xander softened again. Dawn realized that, on some level, he was now talking to the part of the First that really was Anya, and that was a place that she not only couldn’t touch, but that she didn’t even want to try and touch. That little bit was his.

“What made Buffy keep fighting and Spike sacrifice himself? What made Faith escape jail and Angel create a ritual death for his son? What kept us together when Hell was literally looking to devour us? What pushes all of us forward through days that feel like straight razors?” Xander let out a small laugh. "It’s the only thing in this world more powerful than you, the only part of us that you have nothing to do with.

“It’s love. It’s the one thing you’ll never understand, and it’s the reason we’ll always win.”

The First glared, and began to fade out, without even a witty rejoinder.

“And the present?” said Xander, defiantly. "That belongs to us.”

Still got nothing on the snow, though.?

BWAH!!

?What is this source of power I?m incapable of understanding.?

Question mark?

I love your future, Victor.

Victor, I love it. A few typos: t editor

What kep tus together

"kept us", and speech marks needed here

defiantly. That

and here

small laugh. It’s the only thing

And a couple of places where new paragraphs for a new speaker-- in the seventh and eighth paragraphs. t /editor

But... I like. I like a lot. It's clever, and funny, and plausible.

Typos fixed, but SA? I'm not getting those weird question marks you're showing on my screen. Weird.

Hope people enjoy!

Those are probably because you're using Smart Quotes in your word processor, and in plain text they read as weird characters.

But what I really mean was it seems like "What am I incapable of understanding" deserved a question mark, as it was a question and had a period.

“What is this source of power I’m incapable of understanding.”

Victor, looks like this needs a question mark still, on my screen anyway.

Very nice. I think I shall point amyth to this.

The First never did *get* love, did it? Even in "Touched," when it expressed a desire for physical contact, it only wanted to kill. It didn't understand that the touching going on was an expression of love in some of its many forms. Eeeeenteresting...

eta x-post w/ SA. hi, SA!

The question mark has been fixed! Thanks!

For you and that kind of fic, I would fix innumerable typos. Mwah!! Not that you have innumerable typos. You know what I mean. I hope.