Summary: Phoenix, rising ...

“Who are you?”

Willow looked around her, and saw only light. No shape, no form, only light.

“Who are you?” the voice appeared again, and it was a voice she recognised.

“M-Marcus?” Willow stammered hesitantly.

“You bet your ass it is,” came the laconic reply. “Now, who are you?”

“It’s me, Willow.”

“Yes.” In an instant, he was beside her. “You are Willow Rosenberg. You’re not a god, an almighty deity, you’re Willow Rosenberg. You’re a fifteen-year-old girl with a helluva lot of potential.”

“To be wasted,” came the bitter reply. “They don’t care Marcus, nobody cares.”

“That’s BS,” he stated firmly. It may have sounded like an adolescent’s angst, but the fate of all things depended upon the course of this exchange. “Those assholes at your school might not give a damn, but others sure as hell do. I care, God knows I do. And I don’t honestly know if you’re parents do or not, but others do. Others will.”

“I’ll make them pay Marcus,” she said bitterly, the tears glistening in the unyielding light. “I’ll make them all pay.”

“Don’t you dare,” the warrior snapped. “Kid, if you open Pandora’s box, you’ve got no chance of closing it.”

Willow gave a brief smile at the Grecian allegory. “I’m not going to go too far,” she offered her explanation. “I’ll just teach them a lesson, nothing more.”

“Goddammit!” Marcus cursed in desperation. “Don’t you get it Wil? You can’t control this thing. That’s what it’s counting on. You try to change anything, utilise any of the power at your disposal, and it ends. Once its unleashed, you cease to exist. Your mother ceases to exist, and that supercilious son-of-a-bitch Azrael ceases to exist. You become the aberration, the monster. You’ll help destroy your entire race.”

“Marcus, I can’t carry on –”

“Jesus Christ!” Marcus screamed at Willow brutally, shocking her into silence. “Who the hell are you do decide to end humanity? Who the goddamn fucking hell are you to decide who lives and who dies? Men, women, children, families. Decimated at your whim. Who are you to decide? WHO ARE YOU?”

“Willow Rosenberg,” she whispered, and she understood.

She was Willow Rosenberg – not evil, not an aberration, but Willow Rosenberg. Humanity, everything it was, darkness and light, evil and good, and a myriad array of greys, all this currently existed at her convenience.

“Whatever your problems,” Marcus spoke softly, “they are not worth this. It hurts, and I’m not pretending it doesn’t, but how many others have gone through it, will go through it? I know damn well I have.”

“And you didn’t have to destroy humanity to get through it.” Willow allowed a gradual, flickering smile to cross her lips. “I’ve been a dummy, ain’t I?”

“No more than the rest of us,” Marcus grinned warmly. “Now Willow, please, end the madness.”

“I … you, you’ll be there?”

“No,” Marcus’s voice was laced with a resigned sadness. “That crazy va … woman sent her hired goons after me. The sons-of-bitches put a bullet through me.”

“Marcus!” Willow began sobbing uncontrollably. “Wait, I could save you! It’s all so easy. I can save you, then –”

“No,” Marcus stated emphatically. “No Wil. I’m gone – accept that. All you have to do is accept that, and stop it. Stop it now kid, while you can.”

Willow knew she could save him, wanted to save him, but also saw the wisdom of his words. Anyway, she thought wryly, if he were right, she’d end up killing him again regardless.

“Marcus, I’ll … never forget you.” She hugged him tight against her.

“Okay kid, this is making Casablanca look passable,” Marcus smiled. “I don’t want no cheesy Hollywood ending.”

“You’re irascible,” Willow giggled, and stepped back. “But I’ll still remember you.

“Your loss kid,” Marcus reciprocated, not bothering to fight his own tears. “Hey, if you have to remember me, try and pretend I wasn’t a champion pain in the ass.”

“Well, some things are beyond my power,” she quipped warmly. “Goodbye Marcus.”

“Bye Willow,” he smiled. “Just remember, you’re Willow Rosenberg. It’s all you’ll ever need to know.”

Willow turned away from her lost friend, and ended it.

* * *

Azrael’s screams echoed throughout eternity, and then continued unabated.

* * *

In a Tibetan monetary, a thousand slivers of eternity began to slide across the floor, gradually coalescing into a perfect sphere. A small, hesitant flame flickered, and then burst into a beautiful, resplendent glare.

* * *

It had been the end of times. The apocalypse. Now, it was merely a cold Tuesday morning on a deserted Island off England’s West coast.

Willow’s eyes flickered hesitantly, and then opened on the world she had just spared.

It was raining.

She pulled herself gradually to her feet, the water pouring down upon her. Her tennis shoes slid in the mud, and her hair was draped haphazardly around her face. She pulled it back over her shoulders, and stopped.

There were hundreds of them. Demons – humans twisted into a vampiric nightmare, their distorted faces staring down upon her. She shivered, suddenly cold, and knew she was in trouble.

* * *

“Who are you?”

It had been such a simple question, and had thwarted everything Azrael had hoped to achieve. And yet, it had been decided. Humanity had chosen its course. Azrael may not have expected, or agreed with, its decision, but it had been made. So Azrael was willing to stand by it.

It had been ended, by humanity’s own hand.

* * *

They were not running, just walking at a lackadaisical pace towards her. Willow sensed danger from every direction, and accepted she could do nothing to counter it. She did not know what to hope for, other than the fact it would be quick.

Azrael rose.

The circle of stones was bathed in light as it tore through the fabric of space. Except this time, the thing that appeared was not an aberration, a nightmare. It was hope, beauty, and exuded the most wonderful of dreams. It was humaniy’s guardian once again.

They died.

A thousand vampires burst into a wailing, cacophonous cloud of dust, the howl threatening to burst Willow’s eardrums. The creatures’ remains were wrenched up in the screeching wind, whipped briefly around the stone circle, and were gone.

Spike rose groggily to his feet, just in time to witness the end of the devastation. “Bugger this for a lark,” he snapped curtly, and ran. He decided to catch the first plane out of the country, and find Drusilla in Prague. He was tired, frozen, and he stank. Nothing a good shag won’t cure, he reasoned, and left the madness well behind him.

Azrael let him go – it had other matters to attend to. For Azrael knew what it must do. The girl had given her race another chance, and it felt she deserved to be rewarded for that action. Azrael had never broken the rules before, but on this occasion, it made an exception.

There was no thunderclap, no burst of energy. There was simply Marcus, lying naked across the grass, breathing gently.

“Bastard!” Larcinda staggered groggily to her feet. “You traitorous, whore-mongering bastard!”

Azrael did not feel emotions, not as mortals would have comprehended them. But the fission that surged through it equated very closely to pleasure.

“You lied to me, you bastard,” Larcinda screamed upwards, apparently regardless of the fact an “Angel” was currently manifested above her. “You said I would be a goddess, but you screwed me. You fed me crap!”

“Go to Hell,” Azrael said. It was not an insult, not imbued with any emotion at all. It was merely a statement of fact.

“You’re gonna be sorry, you motherfu –” the imprecation was curtailed, for Larcinda was momentarily suffused in a cloud of light, before her soft tissues erupted into dust. The wind took the still vaporising remnants, leaving her disintegrating skeleton to fall clattering to the ground.

Marcus opened his eyes, and gasped. He knew if he were to be killed the very next day, he would have no regrets, for he had been allowed to see the being that hung in ethereal omnipotence before him.

Azrael was then gone, the rain continued to beat steadily down upon the island, and a passing flock of seagulls elicited their distinctive call.

Marcus staggered to his feet, and decided he urgently needed both clothes, and a damned good meal.

While Willow helped Shelia into a sitting position, and shook away the last remnants of the dream from her mind.

* * *

“We survived.”

Giles struggled down the mountain, ignoring the ignominious complaints of Ethan Rayne.

“You hear me,” Ethan repeated. “All that build up, all the tension, and bugger all actually happened. I took myself half way around the bloody world, climbed up this bastard of a mountain, and all for nothing.”

“No,” Giles said between short breaths, “not nothing. I got to have the immense satisfaction of seeing you make a complete and utter arse of yourself. For that,” he continued acerbically, “I’d say all this has almost been worth it.

“You’re a wanker Rupert,” Ethan cursed dourly.

“And you’d better shut your trap before we reach the bottom,” Giles stated acidly, “because otherwise, I’ll be leaving you to the tender mercies of the representative of the People’s Republic of China I managed to, a’hem, antagonise earlier.”

“Tosser,” Ethan breathed, and then curtailed any further castigation of the Watcher.

The air was fresh, the breeze gentle, and life, Giles decided, was good.

* * *

The airport was as busy as ever, and Shelia just as obstinate.

“Look here,” she demanded of the baggage handler. “You are not performing your allotted task nearly as adroitly as has been required by me. I’ve survived a most terrible ordeal at the hands of an international drug cartel, and do not require your less the eclectic array of talents to impede me a moment further.”

“You don’t want your bags carried,” the handler curtly replied, “you can bloody well carry them yourself.”

He dropped Shelia’s luggage at her feet, and walked away. The only response to her frantic yells were two fingers waved casually in her direction.

Willow laughed at the spectacle, and turned to face Marcus.

“Have you heard,” she smiled radiantly, “they found my father. He’s alive.” Azrael and ensured the falsified records were conveniently lost. “They said all that identification stuff was just a boob-up – he never even realised anything had happened!”

“That’s great Wil,” Marcus reiterated her smile. “I sure hope your school’s better than you remember it.”

Willow suddenly looked sullen. “Well, Xander did ring when he heard my name on the news. He and Jessie were off at a camp, but they’ve both returned early to be with me.” A smile, more hesitant this time, returned. “I guess I’ll be okay.”

The news crews had long since departed, and the novelty of being at the centre of a “drug smugglers’ international cartel” had dissipated. Willow now just wanted to return to normalcy, however depressing it might have been.

Shelia had milked the situation for all it was worth, and already had several lecture appointments arranged around the United States. The psychology of kidnapping seemed certain to prove to be an extremely advantageous avenue for her to explore.

The threat of Western Samoa was gone; Shelia had been somewhat riled by the vehemence with which Charles Augustus Harrington had declared her daughter to be quite unsuitable for his, or indeed any other, “teenage correction” programme.

But then, Shelia had not been privy to the phone call Marcus had made as soon as the hospital had given him a clean bill of health.

“Hey, you’re damn right you will be,” Marcus stated firmly. “There’ll be loads of new kids coming to the school after the summer. I’m sure you’ll end up buds with one of them.”

Willow doubted it, but nodded. “Yeah, I’ll just be good old Willowey me.”

“You make goddamn sure you always are,” Marcus said. He remembered a dream along those lines. He surmised it must have been when the vampires had kidnapped him. He remembered little about it, but it was not exactly an experience he was keen to recall.

Which more than suited Azrael’s purposes.

“Well, I guess I’d better be off,” he said, indicating that Willow’s flight had just appeared on the departures screen.

“Thanks … for everything,” she offered. “Sorry, know you hate clichés.” She let out a brief giggle.

“Hey, kid, from you, I’d tolerate just about anything. But not that.” He knelt down beside Willow, and embraced her. “You look after yourself,” he said. “Just make damn sure you don’t get into any more adventures.”

“Somehow I doubt I will,” Willow laughed, and was then gone, vanishing lithely into the maelstrom of activity around her.

Marcus sighed, and walked away. He sincerely hoped Willow did realise her potential, but he doubted it.

“Never say never,” he consoled himself, and went to look for Giles’s incoming flight.

* * *

Several thousand miles away, the girl reclined on the bench, the cool evening breeze wafting her long blonde hair gently about her face.

Tara McKay had just seen an Angel.

~ Fin ~

© Byron, 2000