Buffy couldn't be quite sure just how that creep had moved so fast. One moment she was standing boldly in front of the hideous dwarf, and the next she was flat on her back, her breath rushing out of her body. The filthy little man's staff pressed diagonally across her body, the hand clenching the top of the wooden rod just above her collar bone, pressing the wood down firmly.
"Don't interfere with us, little girl!" He snarled, breathing rancid breath into her face. The sneer on his face was far more demeaning than the words.
Buffy arched her back, and with a mighty kick, through herself backwards sending the dwarf flying. He hit ground with a satisfying 'smack'. A quick roll and spin of her body, and Buffy was in a fighter's crouch.
They faced off, both with a silent snarl on their faces. Around her, Buffy was vaguely aware of Angel moving into a position to offer backup. Giles was doing some fancy sign language, directing Xander to move. They took divergent paths along the natural stone walls of the chamber approaching the altar. Their movements remained at a steady pace, careful to ensure short and ugly never noticed their advance.
Buffy lowered her head menacingly, a small smile twirking up at the corners of her mouth. It was one of those strategic moves guaranteed to drive an opponent absolutely wild. For some reason, when Buffy exuded confidence, security and bemusement, her opponent freaked right out. Usually fatally.
Eyes narrowed, she focused on the solar plexis of the Stunted Wonder's chest. An action coming would be reflected in the movement of muscles there. Seeing a muscle jump, Buffy tensed, and found herself being bowled over.
*How the hell does he MOVE so fast?* Buffy let the roll take her, and fell out of it with intense grace. With scant seconds, she dodged the end of his staff, throwing her weight to her side, and spinning round with a kick to send him sprawling.
The staff swept across the floor kicking her feet out from under her. With a fluid smooth motion, Butt-ugly raised it up to ram the blunt end into her face. With just seconds, Buffy threw herself out of reach. "That stupid hunk of wood has gotta go!" she thought furiously. Hunching her shoulders like a quarterback, Buffy rushed Gruesome, shoving her body haphazardly at him, and grabbed for the staff.
Short and Ghoulish scampered out of her way. His speed and agility were incredible. He was moving with the grace of an acrobat, a grace Buffy found odd given his physical appearance. This time, however, he made a mistake. His back was turned to the lurking Angel, and as Buffy occupied his full attention, Angel moved in.
Feinting quickly at the dwarf's left side, Angel grabbed the stave as it reached to strike. Smoke issued forth from where the stave rested against the vampires palm, and Angel gave a startled cry of sudden pain. His face sudden shifted into the demonic visage of a vampire.
"Geezus crimp, a goddamn mothersuckin' Vampire!" Cai snarled, stunned. He flicked a scornful glare at the Slayer. "Honey, you're a freakin idiot! Slayer...say it with me ssss..lay...er...as in the chiquita who's supposed ta go off and kill this shit! If you're so useless ya can't even do that right, what t'hell are ya doin' down here?"
"Shut-up." Angel growled back, securing his grip on the staff, and ignoring the discomfort the staff brought to him. He grunted as the runt used his own end's grip to slam the rod into the side of Angel's head. The little man's strength was supernatural, a fact clear to all the witnesses there, and even as they tackled ferociously, he seemed to just get stronger.
Buffy gritted her teeth, prepared to jump in at the first opening. With in moments Angel was being propelled through the air by the dwarf like troll. Off balance, Cai slammed into the ground as Buffy took the legs out from under him with a sweep kick from behind. In seconds a stake had sprung into her hands, descending rapidly towards her winded foes heart. "Waits over ugly, you lose!" she yelled as victory appeared inevitable.
Blinding speed enabled Cai to grab the Slayer's arms, her formidable strength forced him to draw more power into himself than he liked. With effort he repelled her attack and rolled on top. "Who ya calling ugly, Blondie? At least I ain't got tall dark and gruesome's face" grunted the hideous man, accenting this comment with a gaze at the vampire he had sent flying into the far wall. *Hell, I sure hope she gets better at this. She ain't even begun to get the job done and this is hardly fun at all*
Jumping up onto a raised platform of rocks, Cai propped his staff as a seeming support. Glowering down at the Slayer, he caught his first glimpse of Carmilla's gleeful face. "This sucks," he muttered softly. "I'm spending all this energy on these twats, and the Seal is in danger of slipping outta my grasp! So, what'm I gonna do to axe the blond?"
"Quickly, child! Take it up and destroy it!" Carmilla's tearful little cry broke into his reverie. Dodging the Slayer's and her little pet vamp's feeble attempts to grab him, Cai spun to survey the scene around him. Pure horror rushed through him. While he and the bimbo had been rolling about on the floor, her two pals were getting close to the altar. And now, the young kid was less than a meter away from destroying everything Cai had worked so hard for!
Cai skipped over Buffy's head, pummeling Angel in his headlong rush to prevent the boy from touching the amulet. The older man, probably the blond's Watcher, threw himself in the way. Displaying a negligent air, Cai used his stave to pelt the roadblock out of his immediate path.
Xander saw the flurry of motion representing the hit upside the head that he just KNEW was coming his way. The confined women encouraging him, he lunged for the amulet, catching it into his hand even as the stubby ad for what radioactivity can do to a human being tackled him. "Oh God, Willow never mentioned anything about dying like this!" Xander thought, compulsively spitting out the mouthful of dirt he had swallowed from landing on his face.
Cai grabbed the kid's wrist, applying pressure enough to make the brat cry out from pain. Reaching for the amulet, he was suddenly flung backwards with a howl as Buffy grabbed his matted hair and jerked him off the boy. The amulet also went flying, landing with a loud ring on the stone floor behind the altar.
Buffy stared at the ugly neanderthal before turning to see the imprisoned woman. She was pressed as close to the wall of her jail as she could be, a look of hopeful expectation filling her face with radiance.
"Please, young Slayer, destroy the amulet. Once freed, the Seal will no longer be in any danger of HIS control!" The ethereal being called out.
Buffy nodded curtly, before mounting the dais to fetch the amulet from where it had fallen.
* * *
*Oh God this feels good* the thought idly drifted through Willow Rosenberg's head. Her body felt light as a feather, warm as if curled under a duck-down duvet, and her soul felt as cherished as with the tenderest kiss by a loving mother. *Mmmm..maybe I'm dead?* Strangely, she didn't care if she was dead. This bliss was absolutely wonderful.
Forcing herself to let go of this isolated sensation of pleasure, Willow became aware of the world around her. From the instant the Seal overtook her senses, Willow had been in a hyper state of awareness. She could feel the Seal's power and life drifting around her. It was intoxicating, but frightening.
Frightening in that there was an awareness of the Seal, one that trusted her. Frightening in that Willow knew that Power was hers to manipulate, it gave itself over to her completely and trustingly. The flows of energy could be seen, and with the slightest twitch of a finger could be redirected.
Looking around herself, she realized that her world had shifted. She was no longer standing in a stone chamber, with her friends clustered around her. No, now she was standing in a beautiful glowing hall. Huge walls of living trees arched upwards to form a wooden frame to a sky full of the bluest velvet studded with the clearest diamonds. *Outside? Above ground? How?* Willow spun around in a small circle, startled to feel the silky flow of a skirt against bare skin.
Running her hands down her body, her eyes widened enormously catching her own reflection in the blue fires that formed a circle around her. A simple white shift covered her, leaving shoulders and arms bare. A loose silver belt clasped around her waist, holding the two slit panels of the shifts skirt in place, and her feet were shoeless. *Where are my clothes!* The thought was instinctive, but it was the reply she got that was a greater shock than her new wardrobe.
**You are clothed with what your soul deems necessary. Others have come clad only in their own skins.** To say it was a voice was wrong. It was a more of a feeling of awareness than a physical entity. And it was definitely masculine. **A perception only of your own mind. We are a reflection of what you expect, neither masculine nor feminine. We are.**
"I'm not in Kansas anymore," Willow muttered, wishing with all her heart that a simple klick of her heels would bring her back to reality. The fire seemed to darken in response, as if unhappy to feel her discomfort.
**Why? Do we displease? We are the creation of GOD, we exist to protect this plane from the Old Ones. We do not wish to upset or cause harm to you, but wish for you to join us in our struggles.**
"You're the Seal?" Willow asked with a mental leap. *This is incredible! The Seal has a conscious awareness!*
**We are.**
With great effort, Willow refrained from lapsing into incredulous profanity. She wasn't normally inclined to swear, but for some bizarre reason, the words "Holy shit" just wanted to pop into her mind. And yet, it was with that thought that she realized the most important thing of all about the Seal.
**Why is the biological refuse of living matter a divine substance?**
The Seal, while it had an intelligence, was simple in it's complexity. The thoughts of an advanced nature that Willow had thought coming from the Seal were in fact, reflections of her own psyche. It was talking to her through her.
"Oh, Wow!" She whispered, letting the awareness fill her with a conscious volition. Suddenly, she understood the markings around the Seal, and could feel the Power flowing out, draining out, and knew it was being pulled by another force.
Staring at the exotic glyphs she had warned Xander off of, she watched the marks on them flare redly, fading slowly, and then light again. Instinctively taking the Power, she followed the flows into those glyphs with her mind's eye...letting it lead her to wherever that Power was draining to.
* * *
The Seal pulsed, flared, and then fell back. Within those flames Willow's body hung, and with each pulse, the girl's body convulsed horribly.
"What the hell are you doing, Rupert!" Samantha Calendar was not happy. On her knees in front of the Seal, she desperately tried to touch it, only to be gently repelled each time.
The Seal was being viciously battered at, and Ms. Calendar could feel the Hellmouth beneath straining to break out of the Seal's control.
The Seal pulsated again, this time, Willow physically cried out. Ms. Calendar raised her hands to the flames, her eyes fixed with growing horror on the girl, watching a small trickle of blood creep down from the corner of her mouth. "What is it doing to her!"
Tendering prayers to whatever God would listen, Ms. Calendar begged for a miracle.
**********End Part 8***********
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