It's All About Power (Unfinished)

[JamesMFan]

I'd just write anything, witness my past attempts at writing dreams.

I always try some of the old "Restless" foreshadowing, but find I lack in that department.

[Spuffy]

That's what I'm worried about. The foreshadowing thing. I'd want to do that but wouldn't have a clue in hell how to do it!

[JamesMFan]

Well, in that case...

*runs*

[Spuffy]

What, did you think I was gonna ask you for tips? Naaaaaah.

[JamesMFan]

No, I just went for a jog. It's good for you, you know.

[Spuffy]

I guess it is. Good update to LLL by the way!

[JamesMFan]

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Yes, Spike's gone AWOL. We love it. Perhaps he will never reappear.

Is Giles going to get his bum kicked by Spike?

[Spuffy]

One can only hope Giles will either A) get his bum kicked B) get a stern talking to C) be kicked out of town or D) reform and be all helpful and nice

[JamesMFan]

A really intriguing plot twist would be if Spike swaggered in, all "I'll have you, you big girl's blouse!" and Giles will just be like "Whatever, bi-atch" and punch him, knocking him out then slap his hands together and say "Now, who's for Cluedo?"

[Spuffy]

*gasp* You just ruined my story for everyone! Shame on you!

[JamesMFan]

I've discovered the Something Unexpected.

I rule.

[Spuffy]

Ah, ah, ah. Don't get ahead of yourself. The Something Unexpected isn't until the last chapter

[Spuffy]

One Buffy dream coooooooming up!
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Chapter 12


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Buffy opened her eyes and found herself lying on a bed in some room she’d never seen before. “Where am I?” She asked but there was no one around to give an answer. She looked around a little bit before finally sitting up and getting off of the bed.

She looked back at the bed and just stared a moment at what she saw. She was still lying there. But how could that be possible? She was standing there. “Huh?”

She reached out her hand to nudge the Buffy she saw on the bed but there was no reaction from her. “Hello?” When there was still no response from the sleeping version of herself she turned around and walked towards the door.

Buffy entered the hallway and looked around. She still didn’t recognize anything about the house she was in. This definitely wasn’t where she was living the last time she checked. “Is anyone here?” She asked while making her way down the hallway.

One of the doors opened on the side of the hall and Dawn stepped out. “Nope. No one’s home. The light’s are on, but no one’s here.” With that she walked off towards the stairs.

“Dawn, wait!” Buffy called after her but by the time she got to the stairs Dawn had apparently vanished or somehow superspeeded down the stairs. “Dawn?” She said again then began her descent to the first floor of the house..

She got to the bottom floor and once again recognized nothing. She was really starting to get worried about this. First she woke up in some room and then saw herself still lying on the bed. And now she was wandering around a house she didn’t recognize and her sister disappeared. It was too weird.

“Ah, Buffy, you’re awake.” She heard the voice of Giles behind her. He grabbed her hand and began to pull her outside. “You’ve missed a lot.”

“I missed what?” She asked as he dragged her outside. She scanned the area around her and when he finally let go of her hand she saw seats set up on each side of a long black carpet that ran down the middle as a path. At the end was a gazebo with a few wreaths hung about saying “Our Sympathies,” “She Will Be Missed,” “Our Deepest Condolences,” and “Rest In Peace.” Then inside the gazebo sat a coffin. She eyed the whole scene curiously, then heard Giles speak.

“You missed the funeral, of course.” Was his response. She began to ask him who’s funeral she missed but by the time she had turned to look at him, he was gone.

She turned back to the scene and walked forwards, down the path between the seats and up to the gazebo. She walked up the couple stairs that were there and stopped once she got to the coffin. “Who has a funeral service like this outside?” She asked, but didn’t know why that was what she first thought of.

The coffin lid was shut but she was curious as to who it was. She slowly reached out and lifted the top of the coffin. As she looked inside to see who it was she raised a hand up to cover her mouth.

“No...” It was Dawn. How could this have happened? What did this to her sister?

“We couldn’t save her...” The familiar voice behind her this time belonged to Spike. She turned around to face him, tears in her eyes.

“What happened? Dawn... she’s... Oh God...” She couldn’t even seem to say the word. “Is this my fault?” She asked Spike, searching his face for an answer. Some how she had the overwhelming feeling that this was her fault.

“You weren’t there to save her. They got her, took what they wanted, and now she’s gone.”

“What do you mean? Who are “they” and what did they do?” Buffy asked. She wasn’t getting the answer they wanted.

“You already know the answer to that.” He replied. He lifted a hand to touch her face gently before backing away.

“Spike, where are you going? What happened?” She began to step towards him but every time she did he seemed to be farther away.

“You were gone Buffy. Missed it all. You’re still gone. And you’ll miss it.”

“Wait!” She called out, but he was gone. She turned back around to look at the coffin but found that it wasn’t there before. She wasn’t even outside anymore.

She was back in the upstairs of the house, walking down the hallway. She looked over at one of the doors and opened it slowly, looking inside. There she saw Andrew and some girls playing Monopoly.

“Can I play?” She asked them and began to walk further into the room.

“You can’t play anything.” One of the girls told her and everyone else looked from their game up to Buffy. “You’re not the slayer anymore. Just some useless girl.”

Buffy took a step back, a hurt look on her face. “I am not...”

“Whine a little, would ya? I’m trying to win a game here.” One of the other girls said. Buffy could sense somehow that the three girls there with Andrew were slayers.

Andrew showed a weak smile to Buffy and looked down at the game. “Oh! I got the Sunnydale Property on Revello Drive!”

Buffy raised an eyebrow and walked forward and looked down at the game board. Sure enough her house was the one Andrew was talking about.

“Yeah, but I got the Roman Apartment, booyah!” One of the girls said and Andrew looked down at the floor sadly.

“I wanted that but you cheated! You used your special slayer powers to take it!”

“Yeah, slayer powers help us cheat at Monopoly.” The one slayer who hadn’t spoken yet commented. “That’s real special there.” She looked over at Buffy. “But I guess slayers aren’t so special anymore.”

Buffy just pouted and turned around, heading back out the door. As she was leaving the room everyone inside spoke at the same time.

“You can’t win them all.”

She raised an eyebrow at that but just shrugged it off and went to the room across the hall. The door was open slightly and she peeked inside. There was a TV turned on in there and an X-Box all set up, but no one playing it. She walked in and sat on the floor in front of the TV and grabbed one of the controllers.

She began to play the game and soon saw that the character she was playing was herself. It was some weird Buffy video game.

“That’s... odd.” She stated but continued to play the game. Soon on the game there was screaming and she recognized it as her sister. A little window popped up on the screen that said “Objective: Save Dawn from the Triatekah before time runs out.”

“Triatekah?” Buffy questioned. That was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place where she’d heard it before. Once again she shrugged it off and continued to play the game.

She was getting closer to where to save her sister but suddenly the game froze. She had gotten to some old building and was inside of it, and she could actually see Dawn, but now she couldn’t do anything.

There were demons there and pentagrams painted on the floor and the feeling of familiarity once again passed through her. She watched as the demons strapped Dawn down to the floor while she was screaming for her sister to help her.

“Buffy, help me! Do something!”

Buffy frantically pressed the buttons on the controller but no matter what she did, it had no effect. She just kept trying and trying until she heard more screams from Dawn.

“I can’t do anything!” She cried out, frustrated. “Dawn, I can’t help you!” She pressed harder at the buttons but then suddenly Dawn’s screams for help turned into screams of pain and she watched as there was some spell performed on Dawn. She was glowing and it seemed the very life of her was being burnt out from the inside.

“Dawn!” She screamed and threw the controller to the side. She jumped forward towards the TV, actually hoping to get inside it somehow to save her sister, but as soon as she got close enough the TV went black. “NO!”

She was beginning to cry, feeling she had just lost her sister, when she heard voices.

“I’m just glad you’re here, Spike. Maybe you can help her.”

It was Dawn’s voice.

“Dawn?” Buffy questioned weakly and stood up. She walked out of the room and towards where the voice came from. It was that room she had left when she first found herself here.

She walked inside and saw Dawn and Spike both sitting on the bed with that other version of her she had seen earlier.

“I’ll try. I’ll bloody well do anything and everything there is to do in this world until she is up and running around as normal. I’ll even go into a coma myself if that’s what I have to do. Nothing’s gonna stop me.” She heard Spike say and raised an eyebrow. Coma? Was she in a coma?

“Thank you.”

“No problem, little bit. I lover her.” She heard them both say and walked closer. She sat down on the end of the bed, looking up at all three of them. Dawn, Spike, and a sleeping Buffy. As she looked at the two sitting there she noticed a sadness about them. She stood from her place on the end of the bed and walked over to where Spike was sitting, and sat next to him. She reached out to touch him but her hand went right through.

She closed her eyes a moment and when she opened them they were gone. Even the Buffy lying down was gone.

“What are you waiting for? Get over here.” She heard behind her. As she turned around she saw... herself sitting at a small table with a checkers board sat out.

“I don’t know...” She replied and walked over to the table. She sat down and watched as the other Buffy made a move with her checker.

“Well, it’s your turn. Make a move.”

“Okay...” She looked down at the game board and saw that each checker had a face on it. Each was a person who was either her friend for family. All of the people she loved. She also noticed that the checker pieces her opponent was using had the faces of all of her enemies. All of the big bads she’d faced.

“Come on slow poke, we’ve don’t have forever.”

“Yeah... okay...” She slowly moved one of her checkers to a new spot and looked at the other Buffy who was shaking her head and making “tsk tsk” sounds.

“Shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why? What did I do?” She asked, confused to what she’d done wrong.

There was no answer from her opponent yet but she watched as she moved one of her pieces and jumped every single one of Buffy’s checkers.

“You lost.”

“But I can’t lose.” Buffy shook her head. “Good always beats evil.”

“Not this time. You’re not there to stop them.”

“But I’m right here.” She pointed at herself as she sat in the chair.

“No. You’re over there.” The other Buffy pointed towards the bed, and as Buffy turned her head to look she saw herself lying there once again.

“But I don’t understand... How am I here if I’m over there?”

“You’re not here. This is a dream.”

“A dream?” She questioned.

“Yes. A dream. Just like the others you’ve had for the past three months.”

Suddenly things flashed through her mind of other situations like this. She also began to remember what caused this in the first place. The same thing that was happening to Dawn in that video game before.

“This is going to happen to her too, isn’t it?”

“Not if you can stop it. But you’re about to give up. Fighting takes too much effort now. Effort you don’t have. You’re drained and tired Buffy. You don’t want to fight anymore. You just want to go back to heaven.”

“No. I have to fight. I have to save Dawn...”

“Spike can try to do that. But they need you. But you’re going to give up.”

“Why do you keep saying that? How would you even know that?”

“I’m you, Buffy. I know what you’re feeling. The coffin’s for you Buffy.”

“No...” Buffy shook her head. “I saw the coffin. Dawn was in it. She needs me. I have to fight for her.”

“I mean that coffin.” She pointed towards the bed once again and Buffy looked over to see a coffin. She stood from the table, looking back once at the other Buffy then started towards it. As she got to it she felt she didn’t want to look inside, but she also felt she had to. So she leaned over and looked in. What she saw this time, was herself.

“No! I’m not going to die!”

“You don’t have a choice, Buffy.” Came the voice of Giles as he walked up next to her.

“What? Giles... No... I’m not going to.”

“It’s for your own good, Buffy. Trust me. I only want the best for you.”

“The best for me? Dying is not the best for me!”

Giles just looked down at the floor. “Believe me, I don’t want to do this... but it has to be done...”

“Do what?” Fear crossed Buffy’s face. “What are you going to do Giles?”

“Shh... Buffy... It’ll all be over soon...”

And then everything went black.


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“Yes, yes. Thank you very much. I’m glad you still have some. I’ll contact you afterwards to tell how everything worked out.” Giles said into the phone. He was locked up in his bedroom, as far from the door as he could get. He didn’t want anyone to hear this call.

“Well, Mr. Giles, it’s an extreme measure, and I’m still not completely certain it will work on the young woman but, chances are it might.” The man on the other end of the line said. “Are you completely positive this is something you want to do, though? You already have the drug, so there’s nothing I could do to stop you... but are you sure?”

“I’m completely certain. This is for her own good. I just pray it works correctly and this will all be over soon for her.” He answered then looked at the time. “Well, it’s late, I must get some rest. Thank you again for the drug. I’ll send payment soon. Good night.”

“Good night Mr. Giles.” Was heard over the phone before both men hung up. Giles headed over to his bed and sat down on the side of it. He opened the door on his nightstand and pulled out a small black box.

He sat there a moment, just looking at it before opening it. Inside was a syringe and a small vial of the drug. He ran his finger over it before shutting the box and returning it back to the drawer. He shut the drawer then laid back on is bed.

“I’ll all be over soon Buffy... I promise...”

[JamesMFan]

Giles will inject himself with it and magically enter Buffy's comatose mind! That's my prediction.

That's some goooood dreaming.

[Spuffy]

You really think it's a good dream? Well, I'll be damned. Thank you!