Author’s Note: Thank you to my wonderful beta Kar and my readers and reviewers for suggesting a sequel and sticking with me through it. I’ve enjoyed writing this, but I’m also looking forward to a little break from the big WIPs. Something smaller for my next foray, I think.

In our final installment there is a big damn fight.

Chapter 17: The Chosen


Faith signaled to Octavia, Deirdre, Solana, Connie, Amanda, and the twins and gestured them away from the rest of the slayers. She could hear Travers and his people shouting orders at the other girls, who huddled together with palpable fear in the orange sunrise. Buffy stood at the back of the crowd, frowning, but Faith ignored him and opened the bundle in her arms.

Faith drew out the short swords and passed them out. Yeah, maybe they should have taken it up with the Council, but these were her girls. They were getting the special weapons.

"You listen to me. B over there once told me the first rule of slaying is don't die." She smiled at Buffy, who was probably too far away to hear her. "Can't follow her own advice worth a damn, but that doesn't make it any less true. Don't die."

Amanda gave a nervous laugh. "We'll try."

Faith couldn't feel an individual signature in the wash of cold, but Buffy went running before Faith even saw Spike stick his head carefully out of a well-shaded window. Minutes later she came rushing back.

"The scouts are back," Buffy reported. "The seal is open. Big staircase down into hell."

"So we wait for them to come up?" Connie asked.

Buffy frowned. "Travers wants to go down the stairs."

"And get picked off one by one?" Octavia protested. "Aren't Watchers supposed to be smart?"

Faith exchanged a look with her sister slayer. "No," Buffy explained. "The scouts say there's a ledge and the vamps are in a pit below it."

"So we line up on the ledge? At least we'd have the high ground, I guess," Amanda muttered.

The larger group was beginning to move, and they reluctantly followed. Faith felt Buffy's hand on her arm. "Faith, keep in mind, it's not a great day to be a rule-breaker."

Faith grinned at Buffy and slung an arm over her shoulder. Together they strolled down the stairs to hell.


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It was vast. Vast and more frightening than anything she'd ever seen before. Willow took a deep breath and chanted a stream of Latin. A dozen ubervamps burst into flames and charred to ash before she could blink.

There were thousands more surging up the side of the pit.

Willow lost track of how long they had been at it. The mages were tiring and the girls were fading too. She felt tears spring to her eyes as a young Asian girl was grabbed. Willow shouted a spell and the monsters dropped the girl, shrieking and writhing before they dusted. But she was too late, as the girl's open throat made clear.

Turning to the right, she saw Buffy and the Sunnydale girls plowing their way through another wave, but most of the slayers weren't doing as well. Faith swung the scythe and yelled, "Why isn't this stupid necklace doing anything?"

"A sky god trapped underground," Tara muttered, leaning against the wall and gasping.

"Get out of here!" Willow shouted at her. "There's plenty of us," she lied. "No point in getting yourself killed."

Another exhausted mage nearby nodded, and Tara leaned against his shoulder as they struggled out. Willow braced herself and took another shot. She'd keep chanting and blasting, but the ending to the story was obvious. They were losing. She had to fix it.

Something slashed against her back before she could finish the thought.

-------


Spike growled and sliced his sword through another beastie before it could take a bite out of a terrified chit hardly big enough to hold her own weapon. Another monster swooped in behind her and Spike lunged again. The girl sucked in a breath and did the same.

He was aware of blood seeping slowly down his chest from all the little nicks and cuts he'd taken. Individually they weren't much, but enough of them and he'd soon bleed out.

"All this sweet girl blood, must be making you hungry."

"Bugger off," he grunted, ignoring the shifting shade that had been popping up all morning.

"My dear boy, I'm only suggesting you enjoy a last meal. This will all be over soon."

"Willow!"

He whipped his head around, almost grateful for the distraction, to find Buffy brutally swinging her way through a swarm of his nasty cousins hovering over a splash of vibrant red on the ground. Spike lunged forward and twisted the head off one before it could sink its fangs into the powerful witch.

Her pulse was weak and her eyes fluttered. Little sparks popped off the ends of her fingers. Buffy ran her eyes over him, taking in the gashes and gore. "Get her out of here," she hissed.

"Not leaving you," he insisted with a firm shake of his head.

"I do not have time to argue with you!" Buffy hissed. "I love you and I need you to do this for me."

She turned to meet the next wave of attackers before he could protest. "The sky," Willow panted below him. With no small amount of anger at himself for being the good little soldier, he scooped the little witch up over one shoulder and started fighting his way to the steps.

In the dank of the school basement, he carefully set her down. Giles nodded at him, barely looking up from the girl he was bandaging. The girl nodded grimly, flexed her hand once, and headed back down the stairs.

"It's not going well down there," Spike said quietly.

"No," Giles agreed succinctly. Together they leaned over Willow.

"The sky," she slurred again.

Her hands shot up to grab both their shoulders and Spike thrashed against a wave of dizziness. There was a load crack and then he was scrambling weakly for a dim corner as Willow threw her head back and ragged holes forms in the floors and ceilings separating the basement from the sky. Giles seemed stunned as well, and then there was a roar from beneath them.

Pure light poured out of the Hellmouth.

"Did it work?" Willow panted. She sat up, eyes clouded white. "Did it work?"

Giles managed to speak before he could. "Don't you see?"

"Blind now. Did it work?"

"It did something," Spike informed her, still feeling wobbly.

Giles gave him a concerned look and tossed him a blanket from the stack of medical supplies. "Go."

Spike gathered Willow up in his arms and threw the blanket over them. Stumbling and still dizzy, he struggled with each step. "Red, what the bleeding hell did you do?"

Willow laughed drunkenly. "She's a sky god."

Spike shook his head and gave up trying to understand her. He hustled her into one of the covered army trucks on the school lawn. He lost all feeling in his legs as he heaved her into the back. Arms reached down and pulled his scorching body into the truck. Two dozen bleeding girls huddled inside, making his stomach growl.

The ground began to shake and he looked around at the terrified teens. The truck's motor was running, and he could smell the fear sweat of the driver. His woman was still in there, and their fair girls. And him completely useless.

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Buffy stabbed another vamp and leaned on the sheath for a second to catch her breath. About half the girls were left fighting. The others had fled or been carried up to medical treatment. Or worse.

Somewhere under the pile of demons she'd just felled was Deirdre's butchered corpse. Shaking off the urge to cry, she rounded to take on the next group and instead saw her own face.

"Bravo. I mean, really. You pulled a nice trick. You came pretty close to smacking me down. What more do you want?"

Buffy squared her shoulders. "This isn't over." She knew she wasn't convincing anyone, especially not herself. "This isn't over," she repeated and spun around to take on the pair sneaking up behind her. Suddenly she was blinding by a burst of bright light.

"Holy shit!"

Buffy blinked as brilliant sunlight seemed to flood her field of view. She could make out the forms of Turok Han running before they exploded into dust. Girls were running too, back toward the stairs.

“I think this calls for an ‘I told you so’!” she shouted, but of course her phantom doppelganger was gone.

Faith glowed like a sun. The amulet on her chest glittered blood red in the white light. Her face blistered and the skin peeled.

"You have to go!" Faith shouted above the roar of the fleeing demons. The ground beneath her feet shifted and the ledge began to buckle and crack. Blood began to soak Faiths' clothes. "Get these girls out of here."

"Faith, what are you doing?" Buffy stumbled across the moving ground to grasp one burning hand.

"Cleaning this place up, looks like. Guess that's what this bad boy does. Pretty cool," she croaked.

Buffy shook her head. "I can't leave you here alone."

"Yes you can." Faith's blazing hand briefly grabbed her shoulder. "It was meant for me, and this is my job now. I was chosen for this."

"Buffy?" Yvette and Yvonne hugged each other and started up at her. "What do we do now?"

Faith shuddered and opened her arms, pushing Buffy away. "Go, Buffy. Now!"

"Get to the trucks!" Buffy screamed, trying to find all the girls through the glare. "Get the wounded and get above ground!"

Girls raced past her for the stairs, singly and in huddles with the wounded slung over their shoulders. She watched as another wave of vamps flashed to ashes against Faith's widening glow. With one last backward glance, she followed the last girl up the stairs.

The ground shook and shattered beneath her feet. Trucks were pulling away while girls poured into the backs of others. She boosted the twins into the back of the last one and reluctantly boarded it herself as fissures shot through the parking lot.

As they drove away, there was an intense burst of light, and then the school sank into the ground. The earth stopped shaking as the light slowly faded.

Buffy jumped out of the truck and ran back toward the school. There was nothing but a pile of rubble and no way in.

"Buffy? What happened?" She felt Giles's warm hand on her shoulder.

"Is it over?"

"Did we win?"

"What did this?"

She stood and let the tears come. "Yes," she answered them. "Yes." Buffy wiped at her face. "Faith did it, she saved us all."

"Looks like the Hellmouth is officially closed for business," Octavia proposed reverently.

"There is another one in Cleveland," Giles pointed out quietly.

Buffy felt a smile coming on as the truck full of girls moaned. "Giles is right," she told them. "We celebrate, we mourn. Then we go back to work."

As she made her way to the truck where she felt Spike's presence calling her, she silently added to herself, "no matter how much it hurts." She huddled in the truck between her battered lover and her unconscious friend and cried for her lost sister. It was so strange; it seemed like she should feel it in her soul, like when Kendra died. The tires rattled something on the ground, and she sat up straight.

Manhole.

“Stop the truck!” she shouted. She leapt out while it was still moving.

“Buffy?” Octavia tried to climb out after her.

“No, you stay here. I have an idea.”

She pushed the manhole cover aside and dropped down.

First flaw in the plan? It was dark. A few bulbs lit the way, but the new mayor was apparently not as conscientious of keeping the sewers in spiffy condition. Second and stickier was that she didn’t know which way to go. She closed her eyes and tried to do something Giles-y to focus and pick a direction.

As she walked it became obvious she was going the right way. Chunks of concrete and broken metal littered the path as she closed in on the school. She saw a shadow move in the dark, and then in the sulfuric light there was the First Slayer. Matted hair, brown and red, caked in mud.

Except that it was Faith.

“Hey, B.”

“Faith!” She threw her arms around the other slayer, despite the eight layers of filth. The gashes on her face were already healing up. Slayer healing, and then some. It made sense to Buffy.

“Whoa. Little sore here.” But Faith was hugging her back. “Come on. I want to get above ground.”

They made their way back toward the surface together.

“How did you know, anyway?” Faith asked. “With the school falling in and everything…”

Buffy shrugged. “I just knew.”

Faith licked her charred lips. “Yeah. You know, when you jumped off that tower, I felt it.” She sighed. “Lost a lot of girls today, didn’t we?”

Buffy nodded, not able to process that quite yet. “Will there be others, you know, that get called?”

Faith scratched at her scalp. “Man, I need a fire hose over here. Who knows? But yeah, I hope there’s a bunch of new girls getting all chosen as we speak.”

She could hear girls cheering as they climbed out into the sunshine. The world was safe again, at least for a day or two. “Hope is good,” Buffy agreed.

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I would love feedback on this chapter, this story, and this series as a whole. Also, any requests for fill-ins or follow-ups would be fantastic too. Thank you all, again!