BtVS: Just Another Day - 6.20 Those Final Feet
FINALLY. This is like the longest plot summary ever. I feel like this ran better as a session than it reads as a summary, and I know I'm forgetting a lot, but I hope you will all forgive me for that. I hope I didn't forget anything important (at least, nothing I didn't already forget during the game session itself.)
Previous episode here.
Last night I dreamt of owls at my window
I knew that time was winding down
Turned to tell you of my premonition,
changed my mind and lay back down
You said never to grow old,
but you forgot to tell me how
You said never to grow old
and then you sank your teeth into those final feet
No sense wasting the time you got,
you got to walk down every road
No sense pretending that you're what you're not,
when you got to shoulder every load...
- Cowboy Junkies, "Those Final Feet"
Having recovered Jack's soul from Alerion's dimension with as little complication as can be expected, the Slayer fragments re-emerge in Teffelsburg with the soul in a jar and four Jacks in tow. Ally settles down to prepare the soul restoral ritual, Joey joins her to look up information on what the presence of four separate Jacks might mean for the success of the planned spell, Shinobi retreats to Yuk Fu's supply closet to meditate and activate a few techniques, and the rest of the Slayer fragments retire temporarily to lick their wounds and prepare for the final battle they know is fast approaching. But it's not just the Slayer fragments who are presently in Teffelsburg who are beginning to get involved as everything reaches a fever pitch...
Several towns away, Fritzie emerges from her final, cathartic conversation with Chris in heaven and returns to her own body.[1] She's lying on a motel bed in one of two connecting rooms; if she looks around she sees Neil sitting at a desk and writing in the room she's in, Tyler watching TV, and glimpses Mrs. Rossi and Kirsten in the other room. Her shocked mumbling alerts Neil, who tends to her kindly and makes sure that she's emotionally and physically as well as she can be. Then he fills her in on the events in Teffelsburg that Fritzie doesn't already know (as she puts it, "I know that Joey's not dead but he was, and I know that Jake's not dead but he wasn't"). As soon as she hears about Alerion's imminent return, Fritzie knows that she needs to join her friends and make a stand beside them now that she has resolved the issues that were preventing her from giving the fight her full attention before. She pauses just long enough to take a shower, change her clothes, and gather up a few necessary magical components before borrowing Mrs. Rossi's car and setting out for Teffelsburg and the friends she left behind.
At the same time, Angela, Jonah, and the rest of their small demon fighting force are arriving at the Teffelsburg airport via a small fleet of private jets. Well-funded and well-equipped, they make short work of any demons and tentacles in their way and reach Yuk Fu in style, where even Teresa has to admit she's a little bit glad to see them. Angela's sardonic-as-ever presence has clearly been missed, but it's probably Fritzie who gets the bigger reception when she calls up Teresa to ask for a teleportation pick-up from the outskirts of town. With everyone catching up on each other's lives and falling back into their easy cameraderie, it would be easy to forget this wasn't just another high school reunion were it not for the increasingly thick mass of demons gathering in the city around them. Friendship aside, the Slayer fragments have some big problems to face down before the day is through.
Ally and Joey's research has turned up a few poorly documented cases of personality splits like the one Jack seems to have experienced, but the general consensus seems to be that in cases where no soul is present, all of the split personalities are considered to be equally complete from a magical standpoint, so a soul restoral could be performed on any one of them. The only catch is that the personality that received the soul would then become a complete being unto itself and would be unable to reunite with the other personalities or reclaim their skills. Ally asks human!Jack if he would be okay with never being a vampire, Slayer fragment, or demon fragment again, and he agrees that this would be all right. That's probably for the best, as when the Slayer fragments check on the tied-up Jackelus it appears that he has somehow slipped his bonds and escaped. Still, no one has time to conduct a search for him right now, so the Slayer fragments can only hope that he's run off like a coward would normally do and won't return to cause problems for them later.
While Ally begins the extended ritual that will be required to restore Jack's soul, Teresa is facing a pretty serious problem of her own. Although she wants nothing more than to be at the Slayer fragments' sides right now, she keeps getting pulls of anger and pain from far away that would normally call upon her to use her vengeance demon nature. In an attempt to appease them, Teresa teleports to one that seems close by, only to get hung up by a distraught demon woman who insists upon telling a long and involved story about how her family has been wronged by the forces of good. Teresa tries to hurry through the necessary exaction of vengeance as much as she can, but it doesn't matter how quickly she moves; no sooner has she finished a job than three more pop up. It would seem that the apocalypse is good for business, at least where vengeance demons are concerned. All joking aside, Teresa soon realizes that she has a major choice to make: carry out her mandated vengeance demon duties and miss the final battle, or return to the Slayer fragments' side and turn her back on said duties. She can't have it both ways - but ultimately, Teresa chooses the Slayer fragments and teleports back to Teffelsburg.
Teresa returns just in time to catch the climactic moment of the soul restoral. With human!Jack sitting in the center of a magical circle and Slayer!Jack and Alerion!Jack looking on with bemusement, Ally's chanting reaches a pitch as she smashes the jar containing Jack's soul on the concrete floor of Yuk Fu. Everyone in the vicinity knows that something majorly magical has just happened as the golden-colored soul floats up from the ground and merges with Jack, who promptly falls over. Ally and the others rush to his side, but soon realize that the problem with Jack is definitely not physical in nature. For the first time in ten years, the full weight of all of Jack's past and recent sins and mistakes - vamping Marty, torturing Kirsten, killing Leonardo, plus all the things he did as a non-Slayer-fragment-having vampire - are coming back to him. And try as they might, neither Ally nor any of the other Slayer fragments is having any success getting him to just push these memories aside and get on with his life.
Tearfully, Jack looks at Ally. In an accusatory tone he says, "Why would you do this to me?"
"It's what you asked for," says Ally. "Having your soul back. Being human again."
"Well, if I'd known it would be like this I would've stayed the way I was." Jack curls up in a ball on the ground, apparently not wanting to go anywhere anytime soon. In a low voice he says, "I hate myself."
Unfortunately for the Slayer fragments, this declaration appears to have been exactly what Alerion was waiting for. There's a low rumbling sound outside Yuk Fu that quickly builds in pitch and intensity. Soon, the entire building is shaking as if in the grips of a massive earthquake, and the Slayer fragments can only hold on to the walls and each other as the entire front end of Yuk Fu falls away into a giant, gaping hole that has suddenly opened up in the earth. Tentacles burst out of the chasm without hesitation as Alerion begins to force itself into the world...and Alerion!Jack, still tied up in the back room, begins to laugh. "You played right into its hands," he gasps out between chortles. "How could you not have thought about the fact that he's so important to Alerion - so what made you think that doing something that would make him hate himself more would help you? That's rich!" Despite their best efforts to help a friend, the Slayer fragments have essentially rolled out the red carpet for Alerion's return to their dimension.
As much as the Slayer fragments might want to help Jack snap out of his self-loathing, it looks like it's too late to count on that to fend off Alerion. The Slayer fragments' makeshift army, though somewhat confused and fragmented by the true demon's sudden appearance, is beginning to rally the troops for its final stand, and the Slayer fragments themselves join in. While most of the Slayer fragments begin fighting the mass of tentacles that has just invaded their based, Shinobi devotes his attention to Alerion!Jack. However, Alerion!Jack thwarts Shinobi's plans by slipping free of the ropes binding his feet and jumping into the demon's maw himself, laughing all the way now that his work is done.
The other Jacks have agendas of their own. Slayer!Jack turns to the fragments and tells them flatly that Jack with a soul is clearly a danger to the world and must be killed. However, the Slayer fragments are having none of that, and overpower him (ignoring the tentacles in the process) when he tries to attack the catatonic human!Jack. Ally stares him down and he focuses his attention on Alerion instead, with a parting shot of, "You know I'm right, and you'll do it yourself sooner or later." No sooner has that problem been resolved than Jackelus reappears with a proposal of his own - allow him to re-vamp human!Jack so that human!Jack will lose his conscience, the demon will go away, and Ally can track the soul down again later. Ally sees this for the quick non-fix it actually is and shows Jackelus exactly what she thinks of him by attacking him with her stake, but he turns into mist and runs away again.
Teresa is just about to lend her own vengeance demon skills to the battle when, in mid-attack, she finds herself teleported to somewhere else - which, unfortunately, turns out to be Arashmaharr. D'Hoffryn appears before her and asks her, quite pointedly, why she is disobeying the call of the vengeance seekers she has sworn to serve. Teresa tries to explain her devotion to the Slayer fragments, but D'Hoffryn is having none of it; between this and the wish she granted earlier that day that directly harmed Alerion in violation of all of the VDU's codes, Teresa is not looking like the impartial executor of vengeance that she swore to be. Because of Teresa's father's position, D'Hoffryn says that he can't subject her to the torment that he would really like to cause right now, but he can offer her a choice. Either step away from the fight against Alerion and continue carrying out her vengeance demon duties, or relinquish her vengeance demon powers forever. Given what Teresa said to human!Jack earlier, it comes as no surprise to anyone when she chooses the second option. D'Hoffryn sneers, reaches out to crush Teresa's necklace, and says, "I'll be sure to tell your father what you decided," before unceremoniously sending her back into the fight, depowered and reeling.
Back on Earth, the battle against the tentacles is not going too well. The Slayer fragments are overwhelmed already, Jack is still catatonic, and without her powers there's very little that Teresa can do to help any of them. The lowest point is perhaps when a number of new tentacles pop out and Fritzie, unable to evade them quickly enough, gets pulled down into the pit. But the Slayer fragments realize that they might have misjudged the situation when abruptly, Sabrina's head pokes out of the center of the squirming mass. She's glowing blue but seems relatively lucid, and she looks directly at the Slayer fragments and says, "What are you doing? Bring him to me!" with a gesture at Jack before being pulled back under.
Remembering Teresa's earlier theory about Sabrina trying to help the Slayer fragments from inside Alerion, Ally wastes no time in jumping into the demon's maw after Fritzie. The rest of the Slayer fragments are somewhat more hesitant, if only because they can see that Slayer!Jack is in the process of making a doomed final stand. His in-your-face style of fighting has grabbed the attention of Alerion more so than what any of the Slayer fragments have done, and he's surrounded by half a dozen tentacles which are slowly getting past his defenses. At long last, they find a gap big enough to get through, and tear him apart despite the Slayer fragments' attempt to come to his rescue. Teresa is looking on in horror when she hears a voice in her head - "As one Slayer falls, another is chosen..." - and the strength she lost suddenly returns to her. With Slayer!Jack dead, the Slayer's powers have passed to her! However, she doesn't wait around to test her powers out; Slayer!Jack's defeat has proven to her that this battle won't be won from the outside. Teresa jumps into the pit and the rest of the Slayer fragments eventually follow.
Ally and Fritzie are the first to arrive inside the demon, inside what seems to be some kind of large tube or blood vessel. Judging by the echo of Sabrina's voice which tells them "very good..." when they land, they're on the right track. They start to talk about what to do next but are interrupted by the arrival of Teresa. When she shows up, something else happens: a scrying window opens up in front of the three Slayer fragments and they catch a glimpse of the outside, where a battle is raging on and Louie, standing on top of a burnt-out car, is rallying the troops with an inspiring speech:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was REVOLUTION! For as the Ten Plagues beset us and the Seventh Seal cracks open, as we stand ready to battle the forces of the Evil One, remember that Marx loved you! Remember that Lenin loved each of you! Remember that Stalin loved *clickwhirrbeep errorerror redofromstart*
"Tonight, today, we cast down the false idol! You are the People, you are the Workers, and you are invincible! And I can tell you why.
"The Infernal Machine of Bloodsucking Capitalist Oppression is mighty and powerful with its seven heads and its ten horns and its reactionary unregulated monetarist financial apparatus! Its levers and gears twist and click and spin as it seeks to spread its anti-socialist influence over the earth. And you, my comrades, my brothers and sisters and fellow Liberation Units, you are the iron from which it seeks to forge its tyrannical dominion. But in doing so it sows the seeds of its own downfall. For COMMUNISM can save you, COMMUNISM can save your soul! REVOLUTION! The uprising of the oppressed, the hidden masses, the bent, the bowed, the tortured, on whose pain the great edifice of evil is built! The sinews of Evil are built of those who do not know, who cannot see, who are lost in darkness.
"But it does not have to be this way. We know the Way, the Truth and the Light, and we can illuminate the path. As Marx and Lenin and St Jesus Christ of the Blessed Kalashnikov have said: you are my people. All people are my people. Under His protective Red Flag of Mercy and Collective Farming all shall gather and find a glorious future. The blind and the lame, the lion and the lamb, the lost and the damned and the sinner and the damned and the damned and the lost. All Glory is the People's. All strength is the People's. Awaken that strength - the fire of REVOLUTION can burn in the darkest places, in the very HEART of Darkness! AND WE SHALL USE IT TO BURN THE WORLD CLEAN ONCE MORE!"
Ally, Fritzie, and Teresa have a brief discussion about this and agree that although they don't know exactly where Sabrina is right now, their best bet would be to look in the place where Alerion's corruption is strongest - the heart of the beast. Teresa also thinks that the vision is further confirmation of her idea that Sabrina hates being a part of Alerion as much as the Slayer fragments hate the demon, and that maybe by exploiting that self-loathing, they can turn the demon's power against itself. Ally comes up with a variation on the old Alerion-detecting ritual that will summon a ball of light to guide them to the true demon's heart. But before they follow the ball of light very far, they hear what sounds like a fairly large group of Alerion's footsoldiers approaching. Rather than get into a fight in which they would almost certainly be outnumbered, Ally cuts a hole in the wall and the two of them hide inside as the soldiers pass by. However, the remaining Slayer fragments who have just jumped and/or been dragged into the demon (that is, Angela, Jack, Joey, Shinobi, Simon, and Teresa) are either unable or unwilling to hide from the incoming soldiers, and start a fight anyway.
Right away it's clear that this fight is not going to go as well as the Slayer fragments might have hoped that it would. Although they're not outnumbered anymore, the armored, axe-wielding, crossbow-shooting demons are definitely their equals as fighters, and none of the Slayer fragments want to go into the larger battle they know is awaiting them already injured. There's also the problem of Jack, who the demons are clearly interested in but who can't even move let alone defend himself; Fritzie finally resolves the issue by pulling him into the wall along with her to defend him. As the fight wears on, Ally and Fritzie (who are still hiding inside the wall) are having problems of their own. It seems that if they stay in one place for too long, they start sinking into the flesh of the demon itself while their own thoughts are overwhelmed by those of the demon. Ally wants nothing to do with this and tears herself free of the wall to charge into battle, but Fritzie doesn't get free so quickly and soon realizes that her state has some advantages. For one, being joined with the demon in this way is giving her a sense of the layout of the place - which will be very useful in finding the center of it all. Fritzie stays connected to the demon for as long as she dares, then begins furiously sketching the pathways she sees while trying to pull herself free.
While Fritzie draws inside the wall, the rest of the Slayer fragments have tired of the increasingly drawn-out battle with the footsoldiers and decide to bring it to a close. Screaming taunts and obscenities, Joey and Shinobi draw the demons away from the rest of the Slayer fragments and lose them in a nearby maze of vessels.[2] The others extricate Fritzie from the wall and listen to her explain what she saw. Unfortunately, Fritzie wasn't able to complete the map before she got pulled out of the wall, so the Slayer fragments decide to risk joining with the demon a little bit more to get the needed information. While Fritzie is looking for the last few bits of information she needs, she feels herself being pulled in a certain direction and allows it to happen. Soon a massive, beating black heart appears in front of her eyes. Her perspective shifts and she is moving through a large blood vessel and into the heart, where she sees a number of demon soldiers patrolling the inside of the chamber and Sabrina hanging down from the center of it, attached to Alerion by six thin threads of blue energy that connect into all of the demon's vital systems and jerk her around like a puppet's strings. Wearily, she raises her head and says in a soft voice, "I need to be forgiven."
Fritzie pulls herself away from the demon and tells the others what she saw. It would certainly seem to confirm the theory that Sabrina is, at least in part, the person who is allowing Alerion to manifest in the world, and that she's trying to tell the Slayer fragments what to do to stop Alerion. Specifically, it would seem that if Jack and Sabrina can be made to really, honestly forgive each other, the demon's power will no longer have a foothold in the world and the Slayer fragments will be able to destroy it for good. But how can the Slayer fragments do that when the line between Alerion and Sabrina is nearly imperceptible, and Jack is still catatonic under the weight of his own self-loathing and guilt? As useful as the vision is, it also freaks the others out enough that they want to keep moving. Fritzie finishes up her map and talks Jack into at least walk along with the group (even though she can't get him to talk to them no matter what she does) and Angela tries to convince the others to mark their territory by taking a "group shit" (in her words) inside Alerion. Then, focusing on the map and her own memories from the vision, Fritzie begins to guide the others toward the site of their final battle.
Meanwhile, Joey and Shinobi are running around somewhat aimlessly when they hear more footsteps approaching them. They duck around a corner and are shocked to see duplicates of all the Slayer fragments approaching! Facing down people with the same skills and abilities as themselves is pretty much the last thing the Slayer fragments want to do, so the two of them decide to run away from this battle as well and try to find the others. Not too long thereafter, the rest of the Slayer fragments also run into the duplicates and also choose not to fight; some run, while others hide inside the walls again, but all of them successfully avoid the fight and press on toward the heart of Alerion.[3] This means the group is split up again, but luckily Ally's group eventually runs into Shinobi and Joey and is able to use the ball of light to guide them nearly as well as Fritzie's directions could.
By this time, it's clear that Alerion knows about the Slayer fragments' presence and is doing everything in its power to demoralize and confuse them as they draw close to its center. Angela sees images of Jonah dead, telling her he ended up that way because she insisted on fighting something that couldn't be killed. Ally sees visions of Simon being ripped about by tentacles no matter what she tries to do. Fritzie sees Chris telling her to stop fighting so that the two of them can be together sooner rather than later. Shinobi sees his mother looking at him with tears in her eyes, but when he tries to talk to her she just says "You're not (incomprehensible sounds)" and runs away only to be ripped apart. And Teresa sees the rest of the Slayer fragments being killed one by one, until only she remains to do what must be done. The visions are as disturbing as ever, but the Slayer fragments know they've come too far to allow such tricks to get to them and try to press on regardless.
Finally, the two groups of Slayer fragments reach the beating, black heart of Alerion together. This is it - their last chance to save their world and themselves. Shinobi draws the Edge of Twilight and cuts a small hole in the bottom of the heart, just large enough to peek inside. A large fighting force is awaiting them there - a six soldiers, four tentacles, and all of the duplicates from earlier, in addition to Sabrina herself - and immediately notices the intrusion. Fortunately, Joey is ready with the bombs he prepared prior to the encounter, and tosses a couple of them inside to take out a few of the tentacles right away. In the ensuing carnage, the Slayer fragments rush into the heart. The final battle begins.
At first, the Slayer fragments are mainly focusing their attention on the soldiers and the duplicates. The soldiers are just as tough as before, and the duplicates not only mimic the Slayer fragments' own capabilities but also their strategies (two duplicate Joeys using Whirling Sword and standing back with a crossbow, two duplicate Fritzies lobbing destructive spells with abandon, the duplicate Ally summoning a demon which normal Ally is forced to hastily unsummon), all of which stretches the Slayer fragments to their limits. But these groups may soon be the least of the Slayer fragments' worries. Beyond the seemingly random spells that the Alerion-controlled Sabrina occasionally lobs at the Slayer fragments, the movement of the heart itself also poses a danger to them. Not only does its beating motion make it difficult for the Slayer fragments to keep their feet, it also occasionally sends out waves of dark energy that, if the Slayer fragments are caught in their wake, control their minds and make them act against their allies.
Seeing everybody injured and barely fending off the hordes of enemies, Shinobi realizes that somebody needs to get to the crux of the problem. He activates his flying technique and levitates himself all the way to the ceiling of the heart, where he draws the Edge and begins to slice through the blue threads of energy that bind Sabrina to Alerion, cutting her away from her magical abilities as well as from Alerion. Right away, Shinobi runs into a few problems with that plan. His skill with the Edge is not yet sufficient enough to cut through the threads quickly, and the longer he takes, the more opportunity it gives Sabrina (who, under Alerion's control, is fighting him tooth and nail) to kill him. Help from Fritzie and Teresa in the form of anti-magic shields and teleportation is keeping him safe for the time being, but Shinobi knows that he's going to need to pump up his own ability to use the Edge, and quickly.
With reckless abandon, Shinobi does what he's been avoiding for days now and begins to use the Edge to cut away parts of his personality - memories he doesn't think he'll need, his ability to play guitar and appreciate music. But the trouble is that in his eagerness to improve his ability with the Edge, he's left himself open to attack from Sabrina. Shinobi has no hope of responding to the ball of lightning that arcs across the top wall of the heart and hits him square in the chest, quite literally reducing him to a fine red mist. The Slayer fragments are gaping in horror and astonishment when, quite suddenly, Teresa's cell phone rings. "Teresa, it's me! Teleport me to where you are NOW!" Seconds later, a second Shinobi appears in the middle of the heart; apparently he used all his meditation earlier on to set himself up with a "save point" meant for just this eventuality. His strength renewed, Shinobi returns to his work.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Slayer fragments are cleaning up down below. Joey finishes off the duplicates with his final bomb, while the others overwhelm the remaining soldiers and tentacles and obliterate them. The more Shinobi cuts, the less control Sabrina seems to have over her magic, so the last few strands are much easier to sever than the first ones were. Her magic cut away from her forever, Sabrina abruptly falls to the ground (though Shinobi catches her on the way down). But the heart is still beating, and a new wave of soldiers is not far away. If Alerion is going to be destroyed, Jack and Sabrina need to forgive each other, now.
It takes all of Fritzie's will to convince Jack that, for the sake of the world, he needs to set aside his own grief and speak to Sabrina. Dodging waves of corruption as they move, the Slayer fragments carry him to the place where Sabrina lies. The two ex-lovers face each other for the first time in who knows how long. There's an awkward, silent pause until Jack says quietly, "Sabrina, I'm sorry for everything I did. I didn't want our lives to end up this way. And I'm tired of letting the past be all that we're about. I don't know if it matters for anything anymore, but I just wanted to let you know that I understand why you did what you did with the Sisterhood and I forgive you for it."
A tiny smile plays across Sabrina's face. "I forgive you, too."
There's a brief moment of quiet and stillness before a nearly deafening howl rises up from the bowels of Alerion and the walls of the heart begin to shake and spasm around the Slayer fragments. With the damage that's been done to it by the Slayer fragments and their army already, and with the source of its power, its Vessels, finally released from the self-loathing that crippled them, Alerion can no longer exist in any realm. The Slayer fragments need to get out of the demon before it collapses in on them.[4] Helping along the exhausted Jack and Sabrina and the injured among them, our heroes make a run for it as the very flesh of the demon begins to collapse and liquefy around them. They know that if they allow themselves to get trapped, they'll get dragged down to wherever the demon is going now.
But just when the Slayer fragments think they're about to see the light of day, they hear an anguished scream from behind them and a wild-eyed Jackelus (who apparently has, once again, been following them all along) appears and tackles the one remaining Jack. "No way!" he screams, barely coherent. "You do NOT get to win this! You do NOT get to keep her!" The Slayer fragments wrestle Jack away from Jackelus, and try to outrun him, but he's still got vampire strength and speed and they know that if they don't find some way to stop him from slowing everyone down, everyone is going to go down with the demon. After a few desperate yet failed attempts to gain ground with teleportation, Teresa summons up the last of her strength to teleport in a junked car from Teffelsburg and throw it in Jackelus's path, which is just the obstacle they need to put him behind them. Jackelus is trapped in the collapsing demon, while the Slayer fragments just barely leap to safety out of the demon's maw as the last of Alerion's body liquefies behind them.
The Slayer fragments breathe a sigh of relief at their long-awaited victory - but it's not all over yet. When those who still have a piece of the Slayer in them - that is, Ally, Angela, Fritzie, Joey, Shinobi, and Teresa - look up, they find themselves lying on the ground around the First Slayer's campfire. The First Slayer telepathically speaks to all of them, and says that the prediction of the Corvharis has now been fulfilled - Alerion was destroyed within two months, just as the Corvharis said it would be.[5] By defeating Alerion they have succeeded at more than most Slayers do in their lifetime and thus deserve a reward. Because none of the Slayer fragments were ever truly meant to receive the Slayer's power, now that their fight is over the First Slayer is offering them a choice. They may either choose to receive the full measure of the Slayer's power with Alerion gone and continue the fight they began a year ago, or step away from the power and go back to a normal life knowing that they will also agree not to fight demons again except in self-defense.
For some of the Slayer fragments, the choice is an easy one. Fritzie, who has been fantasizing about leaving the Slayer lifestyle behind for a long time now, is the first to lay down her power and leave. Joey is soon to follow, stating that because he's going to die anyway he might as well pass it on to someone who will get better use out of it. Angela chooses to keep the Slayer's power, while Shinobi gives it up after the First Slayer reassures him that he can keep his kung fu techniques and she'll also give him back his real name and the skills he lost to the Edge.
That leaves Ally and Teresa, both of whom take a long time deciding. Ultimately, Ally agrees to keep her power after the First Slayer allows her to consult with Simon and Simon tells her that he'll gladly go on fighting by her side if that is what she really wants out of life. Teresa deliberates for even longer, since she doesn't feel she truly belongs in either world; she's not as gung-ho about fighting demons as either Ally or Angela is and doesn't really get along with them personally, but she also knows she can't go back to her previous half-demon lifestyle after walking away from D'Hoffryn in such a public fashion. But in the end, she decides to keep the Slayer's power in the hopes that it will enable her to at least do some good in the world, even if she's afraid she won't ever be truly happy wielding it.
With that, the Slayer fragments are returned to Earth, which is now safe forever from the depradations of Alerion. The Slayer fragments' army has taken heavy casualties, but all of the Slayer fragments' closest friends have made it out relatively unscathed and join our heroes in celebrating and deciding what's next. Owen and the werewolves return to the family in Ohio. The P'Flug took the heaviest casualties of all, but even while they bury their dead they are proud to have fought in support of the Saltbringer. The battle seems to have done something to heal over the remaining wounds between Simon, Anthony, and Nat, and Anthony takes Nat back to New Hampshire with him with the promise that the three of them will work together again someday. The faeries have fared the best of anyone, and are delighted to have finally become participants in their favorite show. And Louie, never one to lay down his burden so easily, has caught the ear of many of the surviving Initiative members with his Christianity-meets-communism rhetoric and leads them off into the sunset to fight another demon menace somewhere else.
There are also a number of loose ends in the Slayer fragments' own personal lives to be tied up. Angela and the very-much-alive Jonah say their goodbyes to the rest of the Slayer fragments and board their fleet of private jets to return to their demon hunting activities elsewhere in the world. Fritzie and Jake leave town together to meet up with Mrs. Rossi; the three of them make plans to relocate to New York City where they can support each other while seeking fame, fortune, and the good life in their various pursuits.[6] Ally and Simon know that they'll continue to fight demons, but aren't entirely sure of where to do it yet; for the time being, they decide to stay with Simon's family in New York while they recover from the fight with Alerion and plan their next move. Teresa's ending is somewhat less cheerful; she's saddened by what she's lost and by the fact that she has to leave some of her friends behind, but decides that she will try to make the most of it by using her powers to make sure that innocents don't get hurt or wronged in the battle between good and evil (just without her vengeance demon powers this time).
That leaves Joey, who has the hardest goodbye of all to say knowing that his servitude to Felipe (and thus his life) will soon run out. After distributing his belongings and saying his farewells, he finds Felipe and gets Teresa to teleport the both of them to Felipe's hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. Although this isn't the kind of success that Felipe wanted, he agrees with Joey that if he's with his family, he'll at least be safe and cared for there until he figures out a new way to provide for them. Joey also magnanimously signs over the substantial contents of his bank account to Felipe, so that he can use the money to meet his family's immediate needs and also get the surgery and rehabilitiation that he'll need to be able to play baseball again. In the end, as Felipe returns to the loving arms of his family, it's fair to say that the two men have reached some sort of understanding, and Felipe is almost sad to see Joey go.
As he watches Felipe's family warmly greet him, Joey becomes very tired and feels his life slipping away. He stumbles into a nearby alley and settles down in a place where he won't create a public nuisance by dying, and leans back against the wall to wait for death. He feels his consciousness leaving his body, speeding across the continent to come to rest in Kirsten's hotel room. In ghostly form, Joey is able to tell Kirsten what is happening and, at the very least, say goodbye to her as well. They exchange "I love you"s, and Joey's last words to Kirsten before going to his own eternal reward are that she should go on living as the good person she has always been, so that the two of them can be reunited again one day.[7]
Back in Teffelsburg, the remaining Slayer fragments are preparing to go their separate ways. Ally sees Jack and Sabrina gathering up some supplies together and takes Jack aside to ask him what he plans to do now. Jack says that now that he's human with a soul, and Sabrina has lost her magic, they both have a lot of issues to work through. Sabrina's memories of her recent misdeeds are spotty right now, but Jack knows that they will return in time just as his own did, and when they do she'll need to have someone close by who understands her and can care for her. Jack doesn't know exactly what his future or Sabrina's will hold, or what their relationship will become now that they're trying to wipe the slate clean, but he knows he's better equipped than anyone to help her work through the difficult times ahead - and that she can do the same for him. "What it really comes down to," Jack says, "is that I've spent long enough hating myself for things I can't change and living in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do now that we're really in the present."
"Me too," says Ally.
They smile at each other one last time, then go their separate ways - at least, for now.
THE END
1 - This conversation, and the events that led up to it, are documented in the dontfollow_me community, if you want to know what Fritzie's got up to after she temporarily left the land of the living.
2 - Now's the part where I'm having a hard time remembering what really happened here. I remember that the battle ended prematurely but not *how* it ended, and that the party got split but not *how* it got split, and quotes are no use. A little help, please?
3 - A.k.a. "ahh holy shit it's 9:30 p.m. and they haven't fought the boss yet."
4 - That was a load-bearing boss!
5 - Uhh, yeah, so in my enthusiasm to be HOLY CRAP DONE this was the biggest sense-making thing I totally forgot to mention during the session itself, so I stuck it in here to make it seem like I'm more perceptive than I actually am. But my players got it anyway. I think. Maybe. I hope?
6 - I happen to think this would make the greatest spin-off sitcom in the history of ever.
7 - I'm so glad I didn't think of this during the session itself, but Joey and Kirsten's goodbye is totally like the end of E.T. "Be good."
And that's a wrap for Just Another Day. Thanks to my players (Eric O, Eric Z, Iain, Nikki, Rachel, and Sarah) for their unforgettable characters, hilarious dialogue, terrific ideas, impeccable sense of comic timing and melodrama, and of course for showing up every week for more than two years to put up with my drunken flailings around the gaming table. Thanks also to everyone who has read and enjoyed these summaries and given me a reason to keep pouring 5+ hours of my limited time into them every week. But most of all, my exuberantly spiralling yet thoroughly inadequate thanks to Greg, who was probably responsible for (at a conservative estimate) 90% of everything you ever thought was cool about the game I had the audacity to call "mine", and without whose help the tale of the Slayer fragments would probably have died a quiet and unlamented death in its infancy.
Shedding tears about the end of Buffy? Join us in January 2007 for a new Firefly/Serenity game, Black Cat Blues, which will be summarized in this journal and debated endlessly at blackcat_crew.
(Phew, that's finally done. Now I may sleep the sleep of the just.)
Previous episode here.
Last night I dreamt of owls at my window
I knew that time was winding down
Turned to tell you of my premonition,
changed my mind and lay back down
You said never to grow old,
but you forgot to tell me how
You said never to grow old
and then you sank your teeth into those final feet
No sense wasting the time you got,
you got to walk down every road
No sense pretending that you're what you're not,
when you got to shoulder every load...
- Cowboy Junkies, "Those Final Feet"
Having recovered Jack's soul from Alerion's dimension with as little complication as can be expected, the Slayer fragments re-emerge in Teffelsburg with the soul in a jar and four Jacks in tow. Ally settles down to prepare the soul restoral ritual, Joey joins her to look up information on what the presence of four separate Jacks might mean for the success of the planned spell, Shinobi retreats to Yuk Fu's supply closet to meditate and activate a few techniques, and the rest of the Slayer fragments retire temporarily to lick their wounds and prepare for the final battle they know is fast approaching. But it's not just the Slayer fragments who are presently in Teffelsburg who are beginning to get involved as everything reaches a fever pitch...
Several towns away, Fritzie emerges from her final, cathartic conversation with Chris in heaven and returns to her own body.[1] She's lying on a motel bed in one of two connecting rooms; if she looks around she sees Neil sitting at a desk and writing in the room she's in, Tyler watching TV, and glimpses Mrs. Rossi and Kirsten in the other room. Her shocked mumbling alerts Neil, who tends to her kindly and makes sure that she's emotionally and physically as well as she can be. Then he fills her in on the events in Teffelsburg that Fritzie doesn't already know (as she puts it, "I know that Joey's not dead but he was, and I know that Jake's not dead but he wasn't"). As soon as she hears about Alerion's imminent return, Fritzie knows that she needs to join her friends and make a stand beside them now that she has resolved the issues that were preventing her from giving the fight her full attention before. She pauses just long enough to take a shower, change her clothes, and gather up a few necessary magical components before borrowing Mrs. Rossi's car and setting out for Teffelsburg and the friends she left behind.
At the same time, Angela, Jonah, and the rest of their small demon fighting force are arriving at the Teffelsburg airport via a small fleet of private jets. Well-funded and well-equipped, they make short work of any demons and tentacles in their way and reach Yuk Fu in style, where even Teresa has to admit she's a little bit glad to see them. Angela's sardonic-as-ever presence has clearly been missed, but it's probably Fritzie who gets the bigger reception when she calls up Teresa to ask for a teleportation pick-up from the outskirts of town. With everyone catching up on each other's lives and falling back into their easy cameraderie, it would be easy to forget this wasn't just another high school reunion were it not for the increasingly thick mass of demons gathering in the city around them. Friendship aside, the Slayer fragments have some big problems to face down before the day is through.
Ally and Joey's research has turned up a few poorly documented cases of personality splits like the one Jack seems to have experienced, but the general consensus seems to be that in cases where no soul is present, all of the split personalities are considered to be equally complete from a magical standpoint, so a soul restoral could be performed on any one of them. The only catch is that the personality that received the soul would then become a complete being unto itself and would be unable to reunite with the other personalities or reclaim their skills. Ally asks human!Jack if he would be okay with never being a vampire, Slayer fragment, or demon fragment again, and he agrees that this would be all right. That's probably for the best, as when the Slayer fragments check on the tied-up Jackelus it appears that he has somehow slipped his bonds and escaped. Still, no one has time to conduct a search for him right now, so the Slayer fragments can only hope that he's run off like a coward would normally do and won't return to cause problems for them later.
While Ally begins the extended ritual that will be required to restore Jack's soul, Teresa is facing a pretty serious problem of her own. Although she wants nothing more than to be at the Slayer fragments' sides right now, she keeps getting pulls of anger and pain from far away that would normally call upon her to use her vengeance demon nature. In an attempt to appease them, Teresa teleports to one that seems close by, only to get hung up by a distraught demon woman who insists upon telling a long and involved story about how her family has been wronged by the forces of good. Teresa tries to hurry through the necessary exaction of vengeance as much as she can, but it doesn't matter how quickly she moves; no sooner has she finished a job than three more pop up. It would seem that the apocalypse is good for business, at least where vengeance demons are concerned. All joking aside, Teresa soon realizes that she has a major choice to make: carry out her mandated vengeance demon duties and miss the final battle, or return to the Slayer fragments' side and turn her back on said duties. She can't have it both ways - but ultimately, Teresa chooses the Slayer fragments and teleports back to Teffelsburg.
Teresa returns just in time to catch the climactic moment of the soul restoral. With human!Jack sitting in the center of a magical circle and Slayer!Jack and Alerion!Jack looking on with bemusement, Ally's chanting reaches a pitch as she smashes the jar containing Jack's soul on the concrete floor of Yuk Fu. Everyone in the vicinity knows that something majorly magical has just happened as the golden-colored soul floats up from the ground and merges with Jack, who promptly falls over. Ally and the others rush to his side, but soon realize that the problem with Jack is definitely not physical in nature. For the first time in ten years, the full weight of all of Jack's past and recent sins and mistakes - vamping Marty, torturing Kirsten, killing Leonardo, plus all the things he did as a non-Slayer-fragment-having vampire - are coming back to him. And try as they might, neither Ally nor any of the other Slayer fragments is having any success getting him to just push these memories aside and get on with his life.
Tearfully, Jack looks at Ally. In an accusatory tone he says, "Why would you do this to me?"
"It's what you asked for," says Ally. "Having your soul back. Being human again."
"Well, if I'd known it would be like this I would've stayed the way I was." Jack curls up in a ball on the ground, apparently not wanting to go anywhere anytime soon. In a low voice he says, "I hate myself."
Unfortunately for the Slayer fragments, this declaration appears to have been exactly what Alerion was waiting for. There's a low rumbling sound outside Yuk Fu that quickly builds in pitch and intensity. Soon, the entire building is shaking as if in the grips of a massive earthquake, and the Slayer fragments can only hold on to the walls and each other as the entire front end of Yuk Fu falls away into a giant, gaping hole that has suddenly opened up in the earth. Tentacles burst out of the chasm without hesitation as Alerion begins to force itself into the world...and Alerion!Jack, still tied up in the back room, begins to laugh. "You played right into its hands," he gasps out between chortles. "How could you not have thought about the fact that he's so important to Alerion - so what made you think that doing something that would make him hate himself more would help you? That's rich!" Despite their best efforts to help a friend, the Slayer fragments have essentially rolled out the red carpet for Alerion's return to their dimension.
As much as the Slayer fragments might want to help Jack snap out of his self-loathing, it looks like it's too late to count on that to fend off Alerion. The Slayer fragments' makeshift army, though somewhat confused and fragmented by the true demon's sudden appearance, is beginning to rally the troops for its final stand, and the Slayer fragments themselves join in. While most of the Slayer fragments begin fighting the mass of tentacles that has just invaded their based, Shinobi devotes his attention to Alerion!Jack. However, Alerion!Jack thwarts Shinobi's plans by slipping free of the ropes binding his feet and jumping into the demon's maw himself, laughing all the way now that his work is done.
The other Jacks have agendas of their own. Slayer!Jack turns to the fragments and tells them flatly that Jack with a soul is clearly a danger to the world and must be killed. However, the Slayer fragments are having none of that, and overpower him (ignoring the tentacles in the process) when he tries to attack the catatonic human!Jack. Ally stares him down and he focuses his attention on Alerion instead, with a parting shot of, "You know I'm right, and you'll do it yourself sooner or later." No sooner has that problem been resolved than Jackelus reappears with a proposal of his own - allow him to re-vamp human!Jack so that human!Jack will lose his conscience, the demon will go away, and Ally can track the soul down again later. Ally sees this for the quick non-fix it actually is and shows Jackelus exactly what she thinks of him by attacking him with her stake, but he turns into mist and runs away again.
Teresa is just about to lend her own vengeance demon skills to the battle when, in mid-attack, she finds herself teleported to somewhere else - which, unfortunately, turns out to be Arashmaharr. D'Hoffryn appears before her and asks her, quite pointedly, why she is disobeying the call of the vengeance seekers she has sworn to serve. Teresa tries to explain her devotion to the Slayer fragments, but D'Hoffryn is having none of it; between this and the wish she granted earlier that day that directly harmed Alerion in violation of all of the VDU's codes, Teresa is not looking like the impartial executor of vengeance that she swore to be. Because of Teresa's father's position, D'Hoffryn says that he can't subject her to the torment that he would really like to cause right now, but he can offer her a choice. Either step away from the fight against Alerion and continue carrying out her vengeance demon duties, or relinquish her vengeance demon powers forever. Given what Teresa said to human!Jack earlier, it comes as no surprise to anyone when she chooses the second option. D'Hoffryn sneers, reaches out to crush Teresa's necklace, and says, "I'll be sure to tell your father what you decided," before unceremoniously sending her back into the fight, depowered and reeling.
Back on Earth, the battle against the tentacles is not going too well. The Slayer fragments are overwhelmed already, Jack is still catatonic, and without her powers there's very little that Teresa can do to help any of them. The lowest point is perhaps when a number of new tentacles pop out and Fritzie, unable to evade them quickly enough, gets pulled down into the pit. But the Slayer fragments realize that they might have misjudged the situation when abruptly, Sabrina's head pokes out of the center of the squirming mass. She's glowing blue but seems relatively lucid, and she looks directly at the Slayer fragments and says, "What are you doing? Bring him to me!" with a gesture at Jack before being pulled back under.
Remembering Teresa's earlier theory about Sabrina trying to help the Slayer fragments from inside Alerion, Ally wastes no time in jumping into the demon's maw after Fritzie. The rest of the Slayer fragments are somewhat more hesitant, if only because they can see that Slayer!Jack is in the process of making a doomed final stand. His in-your-face style of fighting has grabbed the attention of Alerion more so than what any of the Slayer fragments have done, and he's surrounded by half a dozen tentacles which are slowly getting past his defenses. At long last, they find a gap big enough to get through, and tear him apart despite the Slayer fragments' attempt to come to his rescue. Teresa is looking on in horror when she hears a voice in her head - "As one Slayer falls, another is chosen..." - and the strength she lost suddenly returns to her. With Slayer!Jack dead, the Slayer's powers have passed to her! However, she doesn't wait around to test her powers out; Slayer!Jack's defeat has proven to her that this battle won't be won from the outside. Teresa jumps into the pit and the rest of the Slayer fragments eventually follow.
Ally and Fritzie are the first to arrive inside the demon, inside what seems to be some kind of large tube or blood vessel. Judging by the echo of Sabrina's voice which tells them "very good..." when they land, they're on the right track. They start to talk about what to do next but are interrupted by the arrival of Teresa. When she shows up, something else happens: a scrying window opens up in front of the three Slayer fragments and they catch a glimpse of the outside, where a battle is raging on and Louie, standing on top of a burnt-out car, is rallying the troops with an inspiring speech:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was REVOLUTION! For as the Ten Plagues beset us and the Seventh Seal cracks open, as we stand ready to battle the forces of the Evil One, remember that Marx loved you! Remember that Lenin loved each of you! Remember that Stalin loved *clickwhirrbeep errorerror redofromstart*
"Tonight, today, we cast down the false idol! You are the People, you are the Workers, and you are invincible! And I can tell you why.
"The Infernal Machine of Bloodsucking Capitalist Oppression is mighty and powerful with its seven heads and its ten horns and its reactionary unregulated monetarist financial apparatus! Its levers and gears twist and click and spin as it seeks to spread its anti-socialist influence over the earth. And you, my comrades, my brothers and sisters and fellow Liberation Units, you are the iron from which it seeks to forge its tyrannical dominion. But in doing so it sows the seeds of its own downfall. For COMMUNISM can save you, COMMUNISM can save your soul! REVOLUTION! The uprising of the oppressed, the hidden masses, the bent, the bowed, the tortured, on whose pain the great edifice of evil is built! The sinews of Evil are built of those who do not know, who cannot see, who are lost in darkness.
"But it does not have to be this way. We know the Way, the Truth and the Light, and we can illuminate the path. As Marx and Lenin and St Jesus Christ of the Blessed Kalashnikov have said: you are my people. All people are my people. Under His protective Red Flag of Mercy and Collective Farming all shall gather and find a glorious future. The blind and the lame, the lion and the lamb, the lost and the damned and the sinner and the damned and the damned and the lost. All Glory is the People's. All strength is the People's. Awaken that strength - the fire of REVOLUTION can burn in the darkest places, in the very HEART of Darkness! AND WE SHALL USE IT TO BURN THE WORLD CLEAN ONCE MORE!"
Ally, Fritzie, and Teresa have a brief discussion about this and agree that although they don't know exactly where Sabrina is right now, their best bet would be to look in the place where Alerion's corruption is strongest - the heart of the beast. Teresa also thinks that the vision is further confirmation of her idea that Sabrina hates being a part of Alerion as much as the Slayer fragments hate the demon, and that maybe by exploiting that self-loathing, they can turn the demon's power against itself. Ally comes up with a variation on the old Alerion-detecting ritual that will summon a ball of light to guide them to the true demon's heart. But before they follow the ball of light very far, they hear what sounds like a fairly large group of Alerion's footsoldiers approaching. Rather than get into a fight in which they would almost certainly be outnumbered, Ally cuts a hole in the wall and the two of them hide inside as the soldiers pass by. However, the remaining Slayer fragments who have just jumped and/or been dragged into the demon (that is, Angela, Jack, Joey, Shinobi, Simon, and Teresa) are either unable or unwilling to hide from the incoming soldiers, and start a fight anyway.
Right away it's clear that this fight is not going to go as well as the Slayer fragments might have hoped that it would. Although they're not outnumbered anymore, the armored, axe-wielding, crossbow-shooting demons are definitely their equals as fighters, and none of the Slayer fragments want to go into the larger battle they know is awaiting them already injured. There's also the problem of Jack, who the demons are clearly interested in but who can't even move let alone defend himself; Fritzie finally resolves the issue by pulling him into the wall along with her to defend him. As the fight wears on, Ally and Fritzie (who are still hiding inside the wall) are having problems of their own. It seems that if they stay in one place for too long, they start sinking into the flesh of the demon itself while their own thoughts are overwhelmed by those of the demon. Ally wants nothing to do with this and tears herself free of the wall to charge into battle, but Fritzie doesn't get free so quickly and soon realizes that her state has some advantages. For one, being joined with the demon in this way is giving her a sense of the layout of the place - which will be very useful in finding the center of it all. Fritzie stays connected to the demon for as long as she dares, then begins furiously sketching the pathways she sees while trying to pull herself free.
While Fritzie draws inside the wall, the rest of the Slayer fragments have tired of the increasingly drawn-out battle with the footsoldiers and decide to bring it to a close. Screaming taunts and obscenities, Joey and Shinobi draw the demons away from the rest of the Slayer fragments and lose them in a nearby maze of vessels.[2] The others extricate Fritzie from the wall and listen to her explain what she saw. Unfortunately, Fritzie wasn't able to complete the map before she got pulled out of the wall, so the Slayer fragments decide to risk joining with the demon a little bit more to get the needed information. While Fritzie is looking for the last few bits of information she needs, she feels herself being pulled in a certain direction and allows it to happen. Soon a massive, beating black heart appears in front of her eyes. Her perspective shifts and she is moving through a large blood vessel and into the heart, where she sees a number of demon soldiers patrolling the inside of the chamber and Sabrina hanging down from the center of it, attached to Alerion by six thin threads of blue energy that connect into all of the demon's vital systems and jerk her around like a puppet's strings. Wearily, she raises her head and says in a soft voice, "I need to be forgiven."
Fritzie pulls herself away from the demon and tells the others what she saw. It would certainly seem to confirm the theory that Sabrina is, at least in part, the person who is allowing Alerion to manifest in the world, and that she's trying to tell the Slayer fragments what to do to stop Alerion. Specifically, it would seem that if Jack and Sabrina can be made to really, honestly forgive each other, the demon's power will no longer have a foothold in the world and the Slayer fragments will be able to destroy it for good. But how can the Slayer fragments do that when the line between Alerion and Sabrina is nearly imperceptible, and Jack is still catatonic under the weight of his own self-loathing and guilt? As useful as the vision is, it also freaks the others out enough that they want to keep moving. Fritzie finishes up her map and talks Jack into at least walk along with the group (even though she can't get him to talk to them no matter what she does) and Angela tries to convince the others to mark their territory by taking a "group shit" (in her words) inside Alerion. Then, focusing on the map and her own memories from the vision, Fritzie begins to guide the others toward the site of their final battle.
Meanwhile, Joey and Shinobi are running around somewhat aimlessly when they hear more footsteps approaching them. They duck around a corner and are shocked to see duplicates of all the Slayer fragments approaching! Facing down people with the same skills and abilities as themselves is pretty much the last thing the Slayer fragments want to do, so the two of them decide to run away from this battle as well and try to find the others. Not too long thereafter, the rest of the Slayer fragments also run into the duplicates and also choose not to fight; some run, while others hide inside the walls again, but all of them successfully avoid the fight and press on toward the heart of Alerion.[3] This means the group is split up again, but luckily Ally's group eventually runs into Shinobi and Joey and is able to use the ball of light to guide them nearly as well as Fritzie's directions could.
By this time, it's clear that Alerion knows about the Slayer fragments' presence and is doing everything in its power to demoralize and confuse them as they draw close to its center. Angela sees images of Jonah dead, telling her he ended up that way because she insisted on fighting something that couldn't be killed. Ally sees visions of Simon being ripped about by tentacles no matter what she tries to do. Fritzie sees Chris telling her to stop fighting so that the two of them can be together sooner rather than later. Shinobi sees his mother looking at him with tears in her eyes, but when he tries to talk to her she just says "You're not (incomprehensible sounds)" and runs away only to be ripped apart. And Teresa sees the rest of the Slayer fragments being killed one by one, until only she remains to do what must be done. The visions are as disturbing as ever, but the Slayer fragments know they've come too far to allow such tricks to get to them and try to press on regardless.
Finally, the two groups of Slayer fragments reach the beating, black heart of Alerion together. This is it - their last chance to save their world and themselves. Shinobi draws the Edge of Twilight and cuts a small hole in the bottom of the heart, just large enough to peek inside. A large fighting force is awaiting them there - a six soldiers, four tentacles, and all of the duplicates from earlier, in addition to Sabrina herself - and immediately notices the intrusion. Fortunately, Joey is ready with the bombs he prepared prior to the encounter, and tosses a couple of them inside to take out a few of the tentacles right away. In the ensuing carnage, the Slayer fragments rush into the heart. The final battle begins.
At first, the Slayer fragments are mainly focusing their attention on the soldiers and the duplicates. The soldiers are just as tough as before, and the duplicates not only mimic the Slayer fragments' own capabilities but also their strategies (two duplicate Joeys using Whirling Sword and standing back with a crossbow, two duplicate Fritzies lobbing destructive spells with abandon, the duplicate Ally summoning a demon which normal Ally is forced to hastily unsummon), all of which stretches the Slayer fragments to their limits. But these groups may soon be the least of the Slayer fragments' worries. Beyond the seemingly random spells that the Alerion-controlled Sabrina occasionally lobs at the Slayer fragments, the movement of the heart itself also poses a danger to them. Not only does its beating motion make it difficult for the Slayer fragments to keep their feet, it also occasionally sends out waves of dark energy that, if the Slayer fragments are caught in their wake, control their minds and make them act against their allies.
Seeing everybody injured and barely fending off the hordes of enemies, Shinobi realizes that somebody needs to get to the crux of the problem. He activates his flying technique and levitates himself all the way to the ceiling of the heart, where he draws the Edge and begins to slice through the blue threads of energy that bind Sabrina to Alerion, cutting her away from her magical abilities as well as from Alerion. Right away, Shinobi runs into a few problems with that plan. His skill with the Edge is not yet sufficient enough to cut through the threads quickly, and the longer he takes, the more opportunity it gives Sabrina (who, under Alerion's control, is fighting him tooth and nail) to kill him. Help from Fritzie and Teresa in the form of anti-magic shields and teleportation is keeping him safe for the time being, but Shinobi knows that he's going to need to pump up his own ability to use the Edge, and quickly.
With reckless abandon, Shinobi does what he's been avoiding for days now and begins to use the Edge to cut away parts of his personality - memories he doesn't think he'll need, his ability to play guitar and appreciate music. But the trouble is that in his eagerness to improve his ability with the Edge, he's left himself open to attack from Sabrina. Shinobi has no hope of responding to the ball of lightning that arcs across the top wall of the heart and hits him square in the chest, quite literally reducing him to a fine red mist. The Slayer fragments are gaping in horror and astonishment when, quite suddenly, Teresa's cell phone rings. "Teresa, it's me! Teleport me to where you are NOW!" Seconds later, a second Shinobi appears in the middle of the heart; apparently he used all his meditation earlier on to set himself up with a "save point" meant for just this eventuality. His strength renewed, Shinobi returns to his work.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Slayer fragments are cleaning up down below. Joey finishes off the duplicates with his final bomb, while the others overwhelm the remaining soldiers and tentacles and obliterate them. The more Shinobi cuts, the less control Sabrina seems to have over her magic, so the last few strands are much easier to sever than the first ones were. Her magic cut away from her forever, Sabrina abruptly falls to the ground (though Shinobi catches her on the way down). But the heart is still beating, and a new wave of soldiers is not far away. If Alerion is going to be destroyed, Jack and Sabrina need to forgive each other, now.
It takes all of Fritzie's will to convince Jack that, for the sake of the world, he needs to set aside his own grief and speak to Sabrina. Dodging waves of corruption as they move, the Slayer fragments carry him to the place where Sabrina lies. The two ex-lovers face each other for the first time in who knows how long. There's an awkward, silent pause until Jack says quietly, "Sabrina, I'm sorry for everything I did. I didn't want our lives to end up this way. And I'm tired of letting the past be all that we're about. I don't know if it matters for anything anymore, but I just wanted to let you know that I understand why you did what you did with the Sisterhood and I forgive you for it."
A tiny smile plays across Sabrina's face. "I forgive you, too."
There's a brief moment of quiet and stillness before a nearly deafening howl rises up from the bowels of Alerion and the walls of the heart begin to shake and spasm around the Slayer fragments. With the damage that's been done to it by the Slayer fragments and their army already, and with the source of its power, its Vessels, finally released from the self-loathing that crippled them, Alerion can no longer exist in any realm. The Slayer fragments need to get out of the demon before it collapses in on them.[4] Helping along the exhausted Jack and Sabrina and the injured among them, our heroes make a run for it as the very flesh of the demon begins to collapse and liquefy around them. They know that if they allow themselves to get trapped, they'll get dragged down to wherever the demon is going now.
But just when the Slayer fragments think they're about to see the light of day, they hear an anguished scream from behind them and a wild-eyed Jackelus (who apparently has, once again, been following them all along) appears and tackles the one remaining Jack. "No way!" he screams, barely coherent. "You do NOT get to win this! You do NOT get to keep her!" The Slayer fragments wrestle Jack away from Jackelus, and try to outrun him, but he's still got vampire strength and speed and they know that if they don't find some way to stop him from slowing everyone down, everyone is going to go down with the demon. After a few desperate yet failed attempts to gain ground with teleportation, Teresa summons up the last of her strength to teleport in a junked car from Teffelsburg and throw it in Jackelus's path, which is just the obstacle they need to put him behind them. Jackelus is trapped in the collapsing demon, while the Slayer fragments just barely leap to safety out of the demon's maw as the last of Alerion's body liquefies behind them.
The Slayer fragments breathe a sigh of relief at their long-awaited victory - but it's not all over yet. When those who still have a piece of the Slayer in them - that is, Ally, Angela, Fritzie, Joey, Shinobi, and Teresa - look up, they find themselves lying on the ground around the First Slayer's campfire. The First Slayer telepathically speaks to all of them, and says that the prediction of the Corvharis has now been fulfilled - Alerion was destroyed within two months, just as the Corvharis said it would be.[5] By defeating Alerion they have succeeded at more than most Slayers do in their lifetime and thus deserve a reward. Because none of the Slayer fragments were ever truly meant to receive the Slayer's power, now that their fight is over the First Slayer is offering them a choice. They may either choose to receive the full measure of the Slayer's power with Alerion gone and continue the fight they began a year ago, or step away from the power and go back to a normal life knowing that they will also agree not to fight demons again except in self-defense.
For some of the Slayer fragments, the choice is an easy one. Fritzie, who has been fantasizing about leaving the Slayer lifestyle behind for a long time now, is the first to lay down her power and leave. Joey is soon to follow, stating that because he's going to die anyway he might as well pass it on to someone who will get better use out of it. Angela chooses to keep the Slayer's power, while Shinobi gives it up after the First Slayer reassures him that he can keep his kung fu techniques and she'll also give him back his real name and the skills he lost to the Edge.
That leaves Ally and Teresa, both of whom take a long time deciding. Ultimately, Ally agrees to keep her power after the First Slayer allows her to consult with Simon and Simon tells her that he'll gladly go on fighting by her side if that is what she really wants out of life. Teresa deliberates for even longer, since she doesn't feel she truly belongs in either world; she's not as gung-ho about fighting demons as either Ally or Angela is and doesn't really get along with them personally, but she also knows she can't go back to her previous half-demon lifestyle after walking away from D'Hoffryn in such a public fashion. But in the end, she decides to keep the Slayer's power in the hopes that it will enable her to at least do some good in the world, even if she's afraid she won't ever be truly happy wielding it.
With that, the Slayer fragments are returned to Earth, which is now safe forever from the depradations of Alerion. The Slayer fragments' army has taken heavy casualties, but all of the Slayer fragments' closest friends have made it out relatively unscathed and join our heroes in celebrating and deciding what's next. Owen and the werewolves return to the family in Ohio. The P'Flug took the heaviest casualties of all, but even while they bury their dead they are proud to have fought in support of the Saltbringer. The battle seems to have done something to heal over the remaining wounds between Simon, Anthony, and Nat, and Anthony takes Nat back to New Hampshire with him with the promise that the three of them will work together again someday. The faeries have fared the best of anyone, and are delighted to have finally become participants in their favorite show. And Louie, never one to lay down his burden so easily, has caught the ear of many of the surviving Initiative members with his Christianity-meets-communism rhetoric and leads them off into the sunset to fight another demon menace somewhere else.
There are also a number of loose ends in the Slayer fragments' own personal lives to be tied up. Angela and the very-much-alive Jonah say their goodbyes to the rest of the Slayer fragments and board their fleet of private jets to return to their demon hunting activities elsewhere in the world. Fritzie and Jake leave town together to meet up with Mrs. Rossi; the three of them make plans to relocate to New York City where they can support each other while seeking fame, fortune, and the good life in their various pursuits.[6] Ally and Simon know that they'll continue to fight demons, but aren't entirely sure of where to do it yet; for the time being, they decide to stay with Simon's family in New York while they recover from the fight with Alerion and plan their next move. Teresa's ending is somewhat less cheerful; she's saddened by what she's lost and by the fact that she has to leave some of her friends behind, but decides that she will try to make the most of it by using her powers to make sure that innocents don't get hurt or wronged in the battle between good and evil (just without her vengeance demon powers this time).
That leaves Joey, who has the hardest goodbye of all to say knowing that his servitude to Felipe (and thus his life) will soon run out. After distributing his belongings and saying his farewells, he finds Felipe and gets Teresa to teleport the both of them to Felipe's hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. Although this isn't the kind of success that Felipe wanted, he agrees with Joey that if he's with his family, he'll at least be safe and cared for there until he figures out a new way to provide for them. Joey also magnanimously signs over the substantial contents of his bank account to Felipe, so that he can use the money to meet his family's immediate needs and also get the surgery and rehabilitiation that he'll need to be able to play baseball again. In the end, as Felipe returns to the loving arms of his family, it's fair to say that the two men have reached some sort of understanding, and Felipe is almost sad to see Joey go.
As he watches Felipe's family warmly greet him, Joey becomes very tired and feels his life slipping away. He stumbles into a nearby alley and settles down in a place where he won't create a public nuisance by dying, and leans back against the wall to wait for death. He feels his consciousness leaving his body, speeding across the continent to come to rest in Kirsten's hotel room. In ghostly form, Joey is able to tell Kirsten what is happening and, at the very least, say goodbye to her as well. They exchange "I love you"s, and Joey's last words to Kirsten before going to his own eternal reward are that she should go on living as the good person she has always been, so that the two of them can be reunited again one day.[7]
Back in Teffelsburg, the remaining Slayer fragments are preparing to go their separate ways. Ally sees Jack and Sabrina gathering up some supplies together and takes Jack aside to ask him what he plans to do now. Jack says that now that he's human with a soul, and Sabrina has lost her magic, they both have a lot of issues to work through. Sabrina's memories of her recent misdeeds are spotty right now, but Jack knows that they will return in time just as his own did, and when they do she'll need to have someone close by who understands her and can care for her. Jack doesn't know exactly what his future or Sabrina's will hold, or what their relationship will become now that they're trying to wipe the slate clean, but he knows he's better equipped than anyone to help her work through the difficult times ahead - and that she can do the same for him. "What it really comes down to," Jack says, "is that I've spent long enough hating myself for things I can't change and living in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do now that we're really in the present."
"Me too," says Ally.
They smile at each other one last time, then go their separate ways - at least, for now.
THE END
1 - This conversation, and the events that led up to it, are documented in the dontfollow_me community, if you want to know what Fritzie's got up to after she temporarily left the land of the living.
2 - Now's the part where I'm having a hard time remembering what really happened here. I remember that the battle ended prematurely but not *how* it ended, and that the party got split but not *how* it got split, and quotes are no use. A little help, please?
3 - A.k.a. "ahh holy shit it's 9:30 p.m. and they haven't fought the boss yet."
4 - That was a load-bearing boss!
5 - Uhh, yeah, so in my enthusiasm to be HOLY CRAP DONE this was the biggest sense-making thing I totally forgot to mention during the session itself, so I stuck it in here to make it seem like I'm more perceptive than I actually am. But my players got it anyway. I think. Maybe. I hope?
6 - I happen to think this would make the greatest spin-off sitcom in the history of ever.
7 - I'm so glad I didn't think of this during the session itself, but Joey and Kirsten's goodbye is totally like the end of E.T. "Be good."
And that's a wrap for Just Another Day. Thanks to my players (Eric O, Eric Z, Iain, Nikki, Rachel, and Sarah) for their unforgettable characters, hilarious dialogue, terrific ideas, impeccable sense of comic timing and melodrama, and of course for showing up every week for more than two years to put up with my drunken flailings around the gaming table. Thanks also to everyone who has read and enjoyed these summaries and given me a reason to keep pouring 5+ hours of my limited time into them every week. But most of all, my exuberantly spiralling yet thoroughly inadequate thanks to Greg, who was probably responsible for (at a conservative estimate) 90% of everything you ever thought was cool about the game I had the audacity to call "mine", and without whose help the tale of the Slayer fragments would probably have died a quiet and unlamented death in its infancy.
Shedding tears about the end of Buffy? Join us in January 2007 for a new Firefly/Serenity game, Black Cat Blues, which will be summarized in this journal and debated endlessly at blackcat_crew.
(Phew, that's finally done. Now I may sleep the sleep of the just.)