The Cinder Cone
Buffy and Willow ran as fast as they could across the corpse-strewn plateau. Somehow, neither of them thought of Spike whom they had seen enter the final chamber but not exit. There was little time to contemplate this as the violent shaking of the ground beneath their feet intensified. The air smelled of sulphur and burnt flesh.
They reached the rope bridge just as the ceiling began to collapse. Huge chunks of the solidified lava dome fell down into the gorge below. As Buffy looked down into this gorge for the first time, she saw the boiling lake at the bottom slowly consumed by the field of lava which spread across it from the left side. The lava emerged from a great fissure in the canyon’s rear wall, just beneath where the rope bridge was secured. Buffy ran faster.
The Hart now stood as something feared by gods themselves. The ceiling of the goblin chamber had now fallen in completely, the bright place above now darkened by the cloud surrounding the form of evil. The Hart would now have dwarfed the fat monster who lay still behind the four tiny creatures as his feet.
Giles calmly removed his glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his bloodied shirt. One of the lenses had been shattered by a bullet, but he did not mind. They were not for seeing.
Andrew slowly raised one hand, his finger pointing firmly to the Hart before them. A flash of blinding light emerged from its tip, throwing all the crumbling chamber into harsh contrast.
Giles replaced his glasses and glared sternly past the point of light to the cloud of swirling darkness which was crackling with red light.
Without warning a red bolt of energy raced down from the Hart’s hand and struck the four of them. None blinked. The first bolt was followed by a sequence of bolts, each diminishing sooner on their path towards the four silent figures.
Xander slowly crouched to the angled floor and placed his hands flat on the stone. The cracking sound shook all mortals to the bone. The new fissure opened between his left and his right hand, racing away from him, past the other figures towards the vile incarnation. It widened and fell in at its edges.
The Hart growled, a deep throated sound like glaciers scraping across mountains. He stood with a thick, powerful foot on either side of the fissure, the heat rising from it causing him little concern. He was more powerful than any who had walked this plane. More than any who had walked any plane. His agreement with those who took the forms he saw below him had been broken with his triumvirate. He limited himself no longer. Not for the cause of balance, not for justice, not for order-
As Xander stood, his work completed, Giles narrowed his eyes at the great thing. A blast of scintillating pain washed over the four of them, enough to fell and army of slayers. The four merely closed their eyes and waited for it to pass. Once it had, Giles refocused his vision and a beam of white light shot out from his glasses, catching the glowing point from Andrew’s finger and carrying it to the Hart’s head.
The Hart shrieked, the sound bringing down pieces of the mountain around them. His face was illuminated by this horrible white glare. For a moment, just a moment, he closed his enormous eyes and the erratic cloud around him slowed.
Dawn raised two fingers towards the great door and with a beckoning gesture called forth the mountain’s power. Behind the door, the great fissure exploded with unparalleled force, filling the chamber instantly with magma, spewing the white hot rock out through the tunnel and the great door and up the tilted floor.
The Hart’s eyes opened into the white glare. When the wall of lava struck his left leg, the blinding light left him no time to react. Under the weight of one hundred thousand tons of liquid rock, he was forced down into the chasm between his legs, the cloud of black filth around him crackling and hissing as it was boiled away. He landed in a river of magma, the torrent falling on top of him forcing him under.
Standing unharmed atop the rising river of lava, Xander knelt to its surface and closed the fissure, sealing the Hart below the stone for as long their powers would last.
Giles looked to Andrew and Dawn, as Xander stood all four exchanged satisfied nods. They blew away in four trails of intangible smoke.
Angel stood atop a large boulder near the vent as it spewed its red contents. He was looking anxiously from crack to crack, trying to catch sight of the two girls. He laughed, despite his worry. Whatever Spike had done to get himself up here, though dying to do it, was brilliant. Now that he thought about it, the prophecy made a certain amount of sense. Not the kind of sense he would have preferred; making Spike and him into one indestructible champion, but the kind of sense that flew in the face of everything he would have expected, considering their previous experience with the Cup. Wolfram & Hart had tried to manipulate his and Spike’s destiny in order to bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy in their own time and in their own way. But, being a prophecy, it had already taken this into account. It had maneuvered Spike and him into the right relationship, forcing them from the beginning to compete over everything there was; Buffy, the Cup, the title of Champion. All of it get himself into the position of drinking when he did, where he did, and Spike... Angel thought about what Willow had said. Spike had drunken his ashes. Out of spite, most likely, out of a last homage to his apparently fallen nemesis. Whatever it was, it was unique in every way; a result of careful manipulation of both of them; of the entire universe, allowing the Champion to be more than just a simple Challenger. He was indestructible, un-killable, even for a demon this was quite a trick. It served its purpose exactly as needed, to finish off the Wolf, who would have easily slain any other combattant.
Angel's eyes played over the rubble. The field of lava was expanding at an ever increasing rate. It was bubbling up amid hissing jets of gas and exploding boulders.
A fist punched up through the flat stone plate that was the wall of incantations. Angel bounded over to it, clamoring across its relatively level surface to grasp Buffy’s hand as she punched an ever bigger hole in its surface. Finally, she lifted Willow out of the hole, allowing Angel to help herself out of it after the redhead was safely over the edge.
Buffy clasped Angel’s hand as she hauled herself free from the wall and looked him straight in the eyes. Her hair was flying in thin, sweaty strands in the hot wind, her face was a mix of grime and sweat. Her eyes were red from the caustic fumes of the inside of a volcano. She opened her cracked lips to say something.
The volcano exploded.
The three of them were thrown clear as the wall lifted from the cinder cone like a flying saucer. A pillar of black smoke tore through the mountain’s now collapsed caldera, sending house-sized pyroclastic debris flying in all directions. The sound deadened everyone’s eardrums, bringing the world to a breathtaking quiet.
Only Angel, who was expecting it, noticed the helicopter set down under the rapidly spreading umbrella of black ash. The vampire grabbed the other two and pulled them towards it as the sky darkened inside this bubble of another world, nestled in a valley in the volcanically inactive Pyrenees mountains.
The pilot of the chopper, who had brought the four Wolfram & Hart agents didn’t even glance at them as they piled in. The chopper lifted off and sped away from the erupting hell vent, keeping low below the cloud deck, easily avoiding the falling debris.
Buffy and Willow were panting from exhaustion as they lay across the seats of the helicopter, Buffy’s head in Angel’s lap. Only Angel was in a relatively good mood. He was none the worse for wear, reappearing in perfect physical condition each time Spike got himself killed. And he had a secret.
Buffy’s eyes opened as they crossed the threshold into the normal world. She noticed the pilot turn back to them, irresponsibly leaving the controls unattended. Buffy frowned as the pilot lifted her flight helmet’s visior.
Buffy’s eyes widened. Angel grinned all the wider. “How the hell-?” Buffy began, her throat sore.
Faith grinned and turned back to the controls. “Don’t worry, boss, we’ll have you back in Rome before suppertime.”
Buffy collapsed back into the lap of the beaming vampire, a small smile on her lips.
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