Face to Face: Day 3 - Forging the Weapon
by MattK
The other members of the Scooby Gang and Angel Investigations had been told that it was now safe to stop resting, and they had hurried downstairs, eager for an explanation of the hotel-shaking music.

Well, most of them hurried. Xander had responded to the knock at his locked door by calling, in an out-of-breath and strained voice, that he and Anya would be down in a few minutes.

"We must not have heard them over all the bloody singing," Spike commented.

"Funny," Willow said. "I thought she squealed loud enough to be heard over *anything*."

*

Cordelia sat on one of the couches, wrapped in Angel’s bathrobe. It was black, of course, and of course she was nearly lost in it. She may not be as small as Buffy, but Angel still had her by nearly eight inches in height and his shoulders were about twice as broad as hers.

The crackly dryness of the paint was starting to irritate her skin, and she picked absently at her Seer mask and the other marks on her face. She couldn’t wait for this little interview to be over so she could get a shower.

She was already forgetting what Heaven had been like, and the Metatron’s greater form (let alone whatever awesome Trueform had been hidden behind Heaven’s night sky) was fading into a vague memory of immensity. But she doubted that she would forget a single word that it had spoken to her. Ever.

Xander and Anya finally arrived a few minutes later, hurriedly adjusting their clothes. No point in trying to deny the obvious—they just did their best to delay the proceedings as little as possible.

At Giles’ prompting, Cordelia related everything the Metatron had said, especially the prophecy.

Some of it was easy to figure out. "Well, that confirms it," Angel said when she got to the warning about the shadows dripping blood."

"Confirms what?" Wesley asked.

"Compare her warning to my vision, and it becomes pretty clear that Angelus is going to have the ‘Aspect of the Demon’ power when he reaches his true form."

"The Old Ones that vampires come from must have been creatures of disease," Giles said. "Modern vampires are only infected shadows of the real thing, many steps removed from the source. That’s why it’s so difficult for them to infect someone: they must drain a human to the point of death. Only then is the human’s body vulnerable to the demonic infection in the vampire’s blood. But now that Angelus is pure—"

"It becomes like poison ivy," Xander finished.

"Exactly," Giles agreed.

It was agreed that, if Angelus reached his true form (whatever that might be), the mortals would pull back and leave Angel, Spike, and Lorne’s demon brigade to handle him. Better that than give Angelus an elite strike force of vampires with the combined powers of the Scooby Gang and a pack of Master vampires.

The Metatron’s revelations as to why the Powers never seemed to get off their divine duffs and do anything were fascinating, but they could be discussed later. That left the central prophecy: the weapon.

"Okay," Riley said in what Buffy and Willow both recognized as his TA voice. "Let’s break it down, take it one piece at a time. Who are the lifeweavers?"

"That would be Willow and Tara," Wesley answered promptly. "Or perhaps Mrs. Summers."

"That was easy," Oz commented.

"How are you so sure?" Buffy asked suspiciously. She hadn’t been present to witness Wesley’s bloom into competence, so she still couldn’t quite trust it.

"Because—er, as politically incorrect as it might be to say—um, uh—Mr. Giles?"

"Because they’re women," Giles answered. "Specifically, Willow and Tara are witches, and they served as the priestesses in the ritual. Joyce is the only woman present who’s actually borne a child. It certainly can’t hurt for all three to take part."

"That’s how we know who the Builders are, too," Wesley continued. "According to the same magical symbolism wherein women are the sources of life, men the makers and builders of artificial things. That leaves it to Mr. Giles and myself to perform the rituals on the spear. Though…" he looked embarrassed again. "If any of you gents are a bit better at wood carving…"

"I can do that," Angel said.

"Okay, then," Riley said in his patient-but-insistent, let’s-move-this-along TA tone. "Next piece, probably another easy one: ‘Water it with Holiness’?"

*

Willow, Tara, and Joyce planted the seed in the courtyard, and watered it with Holy Water. It grew with miraculous speed, reaching the size of a sturdy young tree in minutes. As they’d expected, it didn’t look like any tree that had ever appeared on Earth. For one thing, its bark was silvery, and its leaves were shiny and golden.

Faith used the knife Mayor Wilkins had given her to cut an appropriately-sized branch off, but then it was up to the "Builders" to carve it into a spear.

Carving a spear can take time. Carving holy symbols and prayers into the spear—their best guess at the meaning of ‘engrave it with holiness’—would take longer. Time they didn’t have. They ended up using a spell to shape the branch into a spear ("Very popular among tribal shamans who wanted to be sure they never went unarmed.") and placing a craftsman’s charm for speed and accuracy on Angel’s tools. It would still take time, but with Angel’s own speed included in the equation, it became a matter of hours, not days.

That left them with the one thing they hadn’t figured out yet.

*

"A metal precious beyond all price?" Wesley repeated as he stared helplessly at the crucible they’d set up in the middle of the Holy Circle. "What could that possibly be? Gold, silver, platinum—everything has a price. Even if it’s so high that no one could possibly pay it, there’s still a price."

"There are elements that only exist in labs," Willow suggested. "Things that there are only a few grams of on Earth."

"Which means that their dollar value is in the billions," Giles said in frustration. "But if you counted the labor of the scientists, the materials and tools they used, and the rarity of the item, you could probably arrive at a price."

"Even it was something that didn’t occur in our dimension, like the sword that Buffy and Angel described," Wesley said. "How would we get it? Cash? Barter? All of that establishes a price. Even if we stole it or if it was given as a gift, that doesn’t mean that it had no price at home."

"And the Metatron said ‘beyond *all* price’," Cordelia said glumly.

"Damn," Faith said. "They don’t leave any loopholes, do they?"

Wesley shook his head.

"I have it." Joyce said. But rather than a triumphant shout, it was just a sad sigh. She took off a necklace she was wearing and held it up: a plain gold ring hung from the chain. "This is my wedding band," she said. "I don’t wear it on my hand anymore, because, well, I’m not married anymore. But I just can’t get rid of it. It reminds me of the good times that I had with Hank. Buffy’s birth." A sudden, fiendish grin bloomed on her face, though it was still sad around the edges. "Buffy’s conception."

"Mom!" Buffy protested, her face flaming as most of the rest of the people in the room snickered.

Suddenly, Joyce stepped up to the crucible and released one of the ends of the chain, letting the ring slide off and into the crucible. "There," she said as she watched the gold start to soften and puddle. Her voice stayed steady, but tears welled up in her eyes and silently overflowed. "Now it’s gone. Nothing can ever bring it back or replace it. I can buy another plain gold ring, of course. Easily. But it’ll never be the ring that Hank Summers put on my finger twenty-five years ago."

They all looked at each other. She was right—she had to be. It was the only answer. None of them looked happy at the heart-rending sacrifice they would have to make.

Riley was the next to step up, pulling a set of dog tags out of the breast pocket of this shirt and a pocket knife out of his jeans. "Will that crucible melt something a little harder than gold?" He asked.

"Both the crucible and the flame are enchanted," Giles answered. "They’ll melt anything you care to put into them."

Riley nodded and began to cut the hard, black rubber off the edges of the dog tags. "Forrest was my best friend," he said without preamble. "Not just in the Initiative, or in the army, or in college. We went to high school together—junior high—elementary school. We’ve been buddies as long as I can remember. Longer, really. His parents and mine were friends before we were born. No matter what happened, he was always there for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we followed each other around. We were across the country from each other for the first two years of college, before we joined the Initiative and were sent to Sunnydale. But even when we were that far apart, he was always there for me." He dropped the dog tags into the crucible. "Now he’s gone."

There were other things he could have said: that Forrest had died because he, himself, had failed to be there for him. That he’d been too busy fighting Adam’s control to even grieve at the time. That he’d been the one forced to burn Forrest’s body—or rather, the cyber-demonoid that it had become.

But he said none of those things as he turned away from the last sliver of his best friend’s life as it melted away.

One person in the group, however, already knew those things. He’d shared them with her during the long, dark nights. As he turned away from the crucible, Buffy caught him in a fierce hug. Riley returned the hug, and he sighed deeply, but his eyes stayed dry. He had no tears left for Forrest, or himself.

While they were doing that, Faith stepped up to the crucible and, without a word, snapped the blade off Mayor Wilkins’ knife, and fed it to the flames. That done, she disappeared upstairs into the hotel, still silent.

They all followed in quick succession. Everyone had something to sacrifice to the flames. From the pewter angel pin that had belonged to Gunn’s sister , to Tara’s locket ("J-j-just l-let me g-g-g-get th-the pic-pic-picture of m-my m-m-mother ou-out."). Some said a few words about their sacrifice, others were silent. They would never know, for example, that Gunn had promised Alonna that as long as she was wearing the pin, he was watching over her—and that she hadn’t been wearing it when she’d died. They would never know the significance of the novelty flattened penny that Oz flipped into the crucible, but considering the fact that he made an actual sad expression as he did so, it was just as precious to him as anyone else’s was.

Buffy and Angel went last. There was no question what their sacrifice would be.

They came one after the other, not together. Angel went first, Buffy second. Each claddagh ring made a small, unimportant *plunk* as it dropped into the silvery pool in the crucible, which was actually rather sizable by now.

Angel dropped his in quickly, before he could talk himself out of it. The words *Surely there’s already enough in there* were just starting to cross his mind as the ring dropped into the molten metal. Without a sound, he turned, stalked across the room, dropped down on a couch that was turned toward the wall as if all the strength had gone out of his legs, and buried his face in his hands.

Buffy paused for a moment, studying her ring before she threw it in. Hands for friendship. Crown for loyalty. Heart for love.

Cutting a chip out of his chest with a piece of broken glass to save her. That was love.

Giving up his chance at humanity to save her. That was love.

When did it all get so complicated?

"Forever, that’s the whole point," she murmured, too softly for even Oz to hear as she dropped her ring in.

*

The impromptu ceremony over, the last remnants of the group scattered back to their rooms.

Giles and Wesley poured the metal into the symbols and prayers that Angel had carved. Then they quenched the spear in holy water, and it was done.

As they worked, Giles found himself pondering. He was half again as old as Wesley, the next-oldest magician among them, and he thought himself safe in believing he had seen and experienced far more than any of them.

But he had never witnessed any magic as deep or as true as what he had witnessed here today. He could feel the power humming in the spear every time he touched it. The power of fourteen people—two sevens—willing to give up everything precious to them to keep the rest of the world safe.

Magic as deep and true as the roots of the World Tree. Magic forged in blood and pain and love. The kind of magic that you use when making your stand against a reborn Old One on the ultimate, shining edge of the West.

*Yes. Here’s where we make our stand, you murderous bastard.*

*And you’re going to go down.*


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