Angelus had departed with a grin and the cryptic pronouncement “Places, everyone, places. We’re on in five.” Xander had then resumed his attempts to awaken Angel.
“Enough. Let him be.” Giles commanded Xander. “Let him rest. He needs it.”
“N-no, it...it’s all right,” Angel’s raw voice rasped.
“Angel!” Willow squealed.
“You’re okay!” Cordelia crowed. Then she frowned. “Well, not okay, but you’re alive. As alive as you ever are, at any rate.”
Faith turned her head toward Angel. “You okay, big guy?” She asked softly.
Angel did his best to nod. “I think so.”
“Well, *this* is a bloody disappointment.” Spike remarked. “Here I was actually startin’ to have hope you’d kicked off.”
To everyone’s shock, Angel actually chuckled, albeit weakly and immediately falling into coughing. “Your concern is touching.” He said when it had passed.
Spike did his best to look actively unconcerned. “Yeah, well, it’s never good to start a fight with one of your big guns out cold.”
“What, no Childely concern that your Sire might be dead?”
“You’re not me Sire anymore, mate,” Spike corrected sharply. “He’s no part of you anymore. That silver-haired tosser pulled him out of you about an hour ago.”
“And can I just interrupt to mention how much that terrifies me?” Xander added, raising his hand.
“Indeed,” Wesley agreed. “All the more reason for everyone to *listen to me* before one of them returns.” Everyone turned to look to him. “Just before Belial raided our offices, I found something that might be of use to us: A True Devil is bound in the Outer Dark, and can never fully enter the physical world.”
“Seems pretty real to me,” Cordelia protested.
“He *is* real, but he is only the tiniest fragment of the True Devil’s totality.”
“Huh?”
“The Belial that we see is only a tiny piece of the real Belial.” Giles explained to Xander. “The part of him that has come through the Hellmouth is the equivalent of a finger poked through a hole.”
“And this is good news how?”
“To maintain a presence in the physical world, a True Devil needs a...relay station of sorts,” Wesley explained. “An object at the devil’s point of entry must be saturated with his energy—“
“A bridgestone,” Anya said. “It’s called a bridgestone. It has to be a natural crystal of...fairly large size.”
Everyone had turned to look at her, and was now staring dumbfoundedly.
Giles and Wesley both got identical thoughtful expressions on their faces. “Yes,” Giles mused aloud. “That would explain why a manifestation is so rare. Even if there was a dimensional portal available—“
“—There would still have to be one of these rock formations present as well.” Wesley completed the thought.
Meanwhile, Xander had an expression of despair and exasperation on his face. “Anya? Honey? Don’t you think this information might have been a tad bit more useful if you’d volunteered it before we were all chained up?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. Listen to me: you can’t defeat a True Devil. We should just accept our fate, and it might hurt a little less. Besides,” she added, “I was a demon for over a thousand years. Is it my fault that none of you ever think to ask me?”
Xander’s mouth hung open for a dumbstruck moment, then he shook his head. “If we get through this alive, we’re going to have to have a talk about volunteering—“
“We won’t, Xander.” Anya snapped. “So don’t make any plans.” She turned away from him.
“No,” Riley said, raising his head. “I don’t accept that. Belial’s a devil. He’s a liar. He wants us to believe that he can’t be beaten, and some of us have bought it.” He glanced sternly at Anya. “But I don’t. Joseph and Erin Finn didn’t raise a quitter. I didn’t give up when I had that chip in my chest and Adam telling me where to jump, and I’m not giving up now.” He looked at all of them. “I don’t think that any of the rest of you are quitters, either, not according to the stories that Buffy’s been telling me. Xander—“ The dark-haired young man’s head turned away from Anya, toward him. “You marched right into the Master’s lair to help her, and you didn’t even give up when she was dead. Willow, you restored Angel’s soul from your hospital bed. Giles, you’re like me—you gave up everything you’d worked a lifetime to build for her. Mrs. Summers, you hit a master vampire with an axe to protect her.” He paused as his eyes fell on Angel. Any kind word to the vampire went against his grain. But the truth was the truth. “Angel, you survived how long in *Hell*?” He looked around at all of them, and all eyes were fixed on him. “Now this thing wants her *soul*. If you love her as much as I do, then it’s worth your life to prevent that.”
A long moment of silence followed. Then Angel suddenly grinned.
“Your name’s Irish, Riley. Are you?”
Riley nodded.
“Then you’ll know what I mean when I say you’ve got the Gift of the Gab, and that your name should have been Michael.” His face turned grim. “I’m with you.”
Riley nodded back. Rivalry was for safe moments. Right now, someone was trying to hurt the woman they both loved. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“I’m there, too, Beefstick.” Faith agreed, drawing looks of shock. “What? Even if you guys don’t believe that I care, the world isn’t gonna be worth livin’ in if a devil wins. Might as well make the stand here.”
Xander shook his head in admiration. “Should’ve been a general, man.” Then he spoke up. “I’m in.”
“And I,” Giles added.
“Michael?” Cordelia whispered to Wesley.
“The leader of Heaven’s army, Cordelia. An Archangel. Angel just paid Riley an incredible compliment.” Then he raised his voice. “Me, too.”
Everyone else voiced their agreement, except Spike, who merely rolled his eyes.
“So we’ve got us a potential weakness,” Xander said after everyone had spoken, speaking in what Willow had come to think of as his “soldier voice.” “What’s the plan of attack?”
Wesley looked nonplussed as the attention turned back to him. “Well, we must smash it, of course. But that may be difficult, seeing as how the bridgestone is saturated with Belial’s energies. But if some specific method is required to break a True Devil’s anchor, we were captured before I was able to discover it.”
That brought a general round of drooping shoulders.
“In any event,” Giles said after a moment, “We must wait for the precise moment to attack. Invincible he may not be, but Belial is powerful enough to kill us all easily. So when he summons us, watch, wait, and try to figure out any weaknesses. We shan’t get a second chance.”
Spike heaved a great sigh and looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. “Cor, why didn’t the ponce offer *me* a deal? All he would’ve had to do is take out me chip, and I would’ve been *glad* to work for him.”
“Because you’re too much of a loose cannon, Spikey boy,” a familiar cruel voice answered as the door opened. Angelus, dressed in his familiar black leather pants, black trenchcoat, and wine-colored shirt, strode into the middle of the room. “You like the world too much, and you betrayed your own sire to help the Slayer save it.” He smirked at his Childe. “More importantly, you are an unbelievable loser. I mean, you had the Gem of Amara, and Buff still beat you. Pathetic.” Then he looked around the room. “Alright, kids,” he clapped his hands. “Showtime. Everybody onstage.”
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