A Beautiful Sunset

Plot

“Once upon a time… I did something good.”

Buffy remembers how she passed her powers on to all the Potentials and fought Caleb. Well, she was not alone. Saving the world means preserving the status quo – because an apocalypse threatens when the world tries to change, and it has to. That means chaos. You can surrender to it or carry on. She carried on. She trained the Slayers. Hooray for her, she thinks sarcastically as she watches the images of a recording: the Slayer with a weakness for weapons and a few others have got hold of guns and killed, or at least injured, people with them.

Xander brings Buffy a cup. He tells her the girl’s name is Simone Doffler and that she came with the Chicago group. Rona then sent her to Andrew in Italy because they thought the rural surroundings might calm Simone down a bit. Somehow that sounds as if they passed the responsibility on to someone else, Buffy thinks. The others with her – are they Andrew’s girls too? One of them. The other three have not been identified yet – none of the Slayer squads is missing anyone. They are Slayers, but not theirs.

They watch the recording. Buffy cannot believe they are using guns. That is bad for her, Xander knows. Andrew’s witches have wiped the guards’ memories, but if anyone finds out that Slayers are arming themselves, the whole Twilight thing will be the least of their problems. Buffy thinks of all those who consider them not human – and if they then see Slayers doing exactly what they are accused of… So they have to find them and do whatever it takes. Xander should not pay her so much attention. Besides, she started it, Buffy makes clear. Willow said it: her little Thomas Crown number is what turned people against them in the first place. Is that why Willow disappeared so suddenly? Because Buffy is an international jewel thief – which, by the way, Xander finds totally sexy. No, the thing with Willow is… complicated, Buffy explains. Oh, with girls it is always complicated, which is why Xander wants a man. That would be nice, says Buffy. A guy, Xander corrects himself quickly. Well, Andrew…, Buffy begins. He hopes she is not going to finish that sentence. No, actually the sentence is exactly the right length as it is, says Buffy. Then she asks whether there is anything urgent. Actually he wanted to save it for her birthday, but… they have found a vampire nest. Thank God, it has been ages. Is it just for her, or does she need backup? Xander recommends she take a date. So Buffy picks Satsu – she did good work last time, and Buffy has to talk to her anyway. Xander asks whether everything is all right. Sure, just more complicated girl stuff. She should set out in the morning, Xander thinks, just not too early…

Buffy opens the door, and she and Xander stumble right into a party with Dawn and the Slayers – or rather a party of the Slayers on Dawn. She is lying happily in the hall drinking from barrels, and the Slayers are sitting and dancing around and on her. Buffy and Xander look down. She wonders whether her little sister is getting drunk down there. Well, first, in Scotland she is old enough; second, they could never bring in enough beer to get Dawn drunk; and third, “little???”, Xander lists. She looks happier, Buffy thinks, as if a weight has been lifted from her. Could be, he did not notice, Xander says evasively. It was a good thing – the party, they needed that, says Buffy. Xander asks whether she does not want to go down and join in. She is not sure. Oh, they should show them how they partied in the good old days, says Xander. When was that, Buffy asks. A Thursday, Xander seems to remember, and she was wearing blue – but seriously… she spends far too much time alone.

The next morning: Buffy vaults elegantly over a wall into the cemetery, while Satsu lands rather roughly in the mud. What do they learn from this, Buffy asks. Scotland is slippery? Does she look like she is joking, Buffy asks. Satsu really cannot tell (she still has mud on her face). She gets up. She is not as fast as Buffy, Satsu notes. She will get there, says Buffy, more or less wiping Satsu clean with her sleeve. She is their best fighter and could lead the squad one day. Does she want to leave, then, Satsu asks. She should keep still, Buffy snaps at Satsu. She can either lead the squad or end up a corpse if she does not follow a few rules – number two: do not land on your face. Did they skip number one? Number one is that she is always in danger, and right now Satsu is in terrible danger. Why, she asks, confused. Buffy kicks Satsu so that she flies right into a group of bloodsuckers. Because Satsu is in love with her, Buffy calls after her. Satsu fights off the vampires. Stupid lip gloss, she notes. It was not just the lip gloss; Buffy would have figured it out anyway, and she is sure others have noticed too. Is she going to throw her out now? She has so misunderstood what this is about, Buffy says as she throws herself at a vampire. It is really the sweetest thing ever. That will be her blood, the vampire chimes in. Buffy hates being interrupted. The bloodsucker throws her onto a sarcophagus. Buffy should not make fun of her; this is not a crush. Then Satsu’s kiss could not have woken her, the two keep talking during the fight. The vampire comes closer, but Buffy really is not interested in what he has to say. She kicks him so that he is hurled away in a high arc. Buffy tells Satsu that she still knows very well what it is like to be in love. She knows how much it can hurt. And honestly, it is kind of great, because Satsu is hot, she has good taste, she is a fantastic Slayer and she smells good too. But Buffy is not gay, Satsu notes. At least not like that. It is just that knowing someone really cool she knows feels that way about her makes her less… a tiny bit less lonely. So what is wrong with it, Satsu wants to know. It is good for Buffy but bad for Satsu – people who love Buffy tend to… die, end up in a hell dimension, burn up, or start letting vampires suck on them and then leave. Even her friends – sooner or later they realise that something is wrong with her, or around her, or… Buffy bursts into tears, which she did not want at all.

Buffy is hit by something and hurled into the sarcophagus, which shatters on impact. “Ah, God,” she says as she struggles up. The Chosen One – always full of pain and whining, the Twilight being notes. Satsu swings a sword at the being. It merely raises its hand, and the sword shatters against it. “Like a little girl,” it goes on. The being hits Satsu in the face and then casually kicks her, so that Satsu crashes into a grave and lies there bleeding. Buffy wants to attack the being. It knows all of Buffy’s moves – time she got to know a few of its own. The Twilight being simply grabs her and takes off with her. She has to understand one thing: she cannot fight it. Buffy tries anyway. She breaks free, grabs her weapon and swings herself onto the being’s back. She presses the blade against its neck. It has to understand something too: she is going to do it anyway. The being did not expect anything else. It has watched Buffy and the witch, and somehow it got the impression that Buffy does not like flying. Oh, she gets used to it fast, she replies. All right then, let’s go. The being flies higher, dragging Buffy, who still clings to it, along. The Twilight being flies straight through a water tower on a roof. Did she know, by the way, that it came here to talk, the being asks as it flies towards a church roof. Buffy manages to jump off. The being crashes into the roof and damages it. Buffy lands on a rooftop. Then she notices a shadow. The being has seized the church spire and is aiming its tip at Buffy. She was there whining about how hard everything is for her, and it simply cannot bear to see her cry, the being says sarcastically. Buffy looks at the being – let it destroy her; where she comes from, there are many more.