Synopsis of Choices
Written by Bone
The story starts out with Faith receiving a present from the Mayor. He then asks her to run an errand for him to get a box from the airport. She is a little put off at being a gopher for the Mayor. He threatens to take back the present and she relents. He offers her a chocolate chip and explains that the package is crucial to his ascension. He it would be as disappointing as tollhouse cookies without the chocolate chips if he didn' get the box. He then asks her to open the present and it is a beautifully crafted knife with a very large cutting edge. He asks her to be careful with it and not put out someone's eye with the knife, unless he tells her to as he wraps the cookies plastic.
Buffy and Angel are in one of the many cemeteries fighting two vamps. She tosses one into him and yells, "Sorry honey". After they dispatch of the vamps they have a talk about being in a rut. Buffy tells him he never takes her anywhere new. He mentions a pit of fire demons he took her earlier. She doesn't appreciate it. She asks if this is how they will spend their time when she is 50 and he is the same age. They hear another vamp and go after it as Angel says "Let's get you to 50".
At her home the next morning Joyce is all atwitter as she finds out that Buffy has been accepted at Northwestern. She wants to tell all of their relatives. At school, Snyder is on the warpath. He is even inspecting students lunches looking for drugs. Buffy, Willow, Oz and Xander are discussing going to college. Buffy is lamenting that she can't leave while all this evil is still present. She says she will go to UC-Sunnydale. Willow has been accepted by every school that she applied to, including Oxford in England. Xander is reading On The Road by Jack Keroac[sp] and is talking about going on the road to find himself. Cordy walks by and the insults start as she says, "So the rest of us can lose you". Xander quickly brags about Willow getting into Oxnard as Willow corrects him. Cordy retorts that Oxford is boring, MIT is and ad for Clearasil and Yale is for those who couldn't get into Harvard. Willow was accepted at Harvard also. Xander wants to know which college she is going to so he can find a safe distance. She tells him it is none of his business. Buffy asks that they take breaths between insults. Cordy tells her that the conversation was for those who have a future and walks off.
Buffy is a bit hurt by this retort but Willow comforts her. She is next seen talking to Wesley and telling him she wants to leave to go to college. Wesley sees no sense in this as she tells Giles she was accepted at Northwestern and he gives a proud fatherly smile. Wesley makes a cross like symbol with his hands and fingers and says, "By the power invested in me by the Council, I forbid it." Buffy and Giles ignore him. Buffy suggests that they take the fight to the Mayor. This could accelerate her leaving Sunnydale. Wesley disagrees but Giles is on her side. Giles asks Buffy what her plan is. She doesn't have one. She and Giles must now formulate one.
A small plane lands at the Sunnydale airport. A tattooed man with a box chained to his arm walks off towards the Mayors waiting limo. The man is greeted by a vamp and asks for the Mayor. The vamp says he will take him to the mayor. He is about to leave when an arrow pierces his body. Faith just killed another man. There is no key on the body, so she finds the first use for new knife from the mayor and goes down to sever the wrist.
Faith brings the box back to city hall while Buffy is watching the place from the bushes. The Mayor is happy to get the box but he was expecting to meet the man who brought it. Faith says that she made him an offer he couldn't survive and takes the money. He starts complementing her and she tells him to continue as she puts her feet on his desk. He makes her put her feet down. He says to her if Buffy Summers turned and came to their side, he would tell her he doesn't need anyone but his Faith. Faith is a bit bummed at the mention of Buffy's name. He asks if she is still upset about the Angel/Buffy thing. Faith says she is over it. The Mayor says she can do better than Angel. Faith is looking at the box and is about to open it when the Mayor lunges to close it and tells her not to open the box.
The limo driver vamp stops the car probably near he is staying . He hears a noise. The driver side window is shattered as our slayer drags him from the car and asks what was in the box. At the library, we learn that the vamp told Buffy he had the Box of Gavroc[sp.]. Buffy later had to dust him with Mr. Pointy after he said the box was in a conference room on the top floor. Giles and Willow come in with plans to City Hall. They plan a night raid to steal the box and destroy it so the Mayor can't use it in his ascension plans. Wesley is trying to add to things as they are planning but everyone keeps cutting him off. He puts his foot down and says that the Mayor most likely has super natural forces guarding the box. They say Willow will handle this. They ask if he is in or out. He goes with them.
Xander goes to get the stuff needed for the spell to destroy the box. He sees Cordy in a clothing store admiring at a dress. He starts to walk on by but decides to go in and needle her. He says he believes she didn't get into any college because after an interview no college wanted her. She shows him a list of good schools that accepted her. He believes the schools just wanted her dad's money. She asks him to leave. He says he will go and try to save some lives while she accessorizes.
Angel, Buffy and Willow climb to the roof of City Hall and go to a skylight above the room where the box is. Giles and Wesley say they will create a diversion if anything goes wrong. Oz and Xander are back at the library putting together the Wicca stuff that will destroy the box using directions Willow left them.
Buffy gives Willow a book while they are on the roof and a jar of some sort of magic powder. Willow reads a spell in what sounds like Latin (I hope the folks who know Latin can translate this) and sprinkles the powder onto the box. A mystical aura around the box dissolves when Willow finishes the spell. She comments, "I'm bad". Angel and Buffy tell her to go back to the van for safety and proceed down the skylight on a rope and pulley system similar to Mission Impossible to get the box. As Buffy grabs the box an alarm goes off. Angel tries to pull her up but the rope gets jammed. Our slayer is hanging in mid air as two vamps respond to the alarm. She asks for their help in getting her down. They are about to attack her when Angel drops down from the skylight and fights them off. Buffy frees herself from the harness and joins the fight. She and Angel whup up on the two vamps, grab the box and head for the front door. They run to the van. The van pulls off with the two vamps running after it. Angel, Buffy and the box are in the bushes around City Hall. They walk off with the box.
The Mayor is very upset. He just had the conference room redecorated with taxpayer's money. Also he's upset that his precious box is gone. At that moment Faith walks in holding the knife at Willow's throat. They may have the box but the bad guys have Willow.
At the library, the gang realizes the baddies have Willow and are trying to find a way to get her back safely. Xander proposes a frontal assault and Giles says they will kill her. Wesley says she might already be dead. Buffy says they know how much she means to the gang and won't kill her as long as they have the box. At that moment she realizes a trade would get Willow back. Wesley wants to destroy the box. He says it will save the town and thousands of lives. It would be Buffy's chance to leave. Buffy asks if he is made of human parts. She doesn't care about anything except getting Willow back. All this talk is going on about what to do and Oz gets up and goes over to the pot with the spell stuff in it and smashes it into a wall. Without saying a word he lets everyone know how he feels. They call the Mayor and arrange a meeting for the exchange.
Willow is locked in a room at City Hall. She is trying to find some way to get out. She opens a storage box and some pencils fall out. A vamp guarding her asks what the noise was. She says she was looking for a sucking candy [naughty smile from Bone] and realizes sucking is not a good word to use around a vampire. He approaches her and she says that he was not told he could eat the hostage. He says he was only going to get a taste. As he leans over to bite her one of the pencils is floating behind him. The pencil dusts him before he can bite her. {I'm so glad they used this}. She gets out of the room she was in but all doors leading out are locked. She hears the Mayor and Faith and hides until they pass. She goes into the Mayors office and opens his cabinet. She sees all the stuff he has in there and starts looking about in the cabinet. A secret latch opens an area where she finds the Books of Ascension. Being the bookworm that she is she starts to read the books. Faith finds her there. Faith thinks that Willow is going to try to talk her out of helping the Mayor. Willow says no. She tells faith she had it better than most people and thew it all away. Faith slugs her. Willow gets up and says she isn't afraid of her. Faith pulls her knife. At the moment, the Mayor walks in and stops her and says he got a curious phone call asking for a trade.
The gang is in the cafeteria and they have all doors locked so that there is only one way in and one way out. The lights go dark. The mayor and some vamps along with Faith and Willow come in. The Mayor thinks its exciting. This is the first time he has met Buffy face to face. He says he thinks she's pretty but a little skinny. He asks Angel why things couldn't work out between him and faith. Angel says he likes women who are sane. Faith pulls the knife closer to Willow's throat. Oz cautions Angel to be cool. The Mayor offers his fatherly advice to Angel and Buffy. He says they have no future together because she will grow old and die like his wife did. A moment of happiness will turn him evil. She blossoms in the sun while he must hid from it. He calls Angel selfish for wanting to take Buffy's life away. Is this why he came back from hell? Is this his greater purpose? He then asks that they make the trade. Willow is freed and the box is given to Faith.
At that moment Snyder bursts in with two cops. They lock the door behind them so no one can leave. He thinks a drug deal is going down. The Mayor backs into the shadows. The cops take the box away from faith. Buffy tries to talk some sense into Snyder but he is busy being the little prick that he is. The Mayor shows himself and Snyder is apologetic as one of the cops opens the box. A spider-like creature jumps out on his face, kills him and scurries off. Another creature emerges from the box. One jumps on the Mayors face but after scurrying off the Mayor regenerates. Buffy runs to close the box. A creature jumps on her back and she quickly falls on her back squashing the bug. The other creature is behind Wesley. Faith sees it and pulls her knife. Wesley thinks she is about to kill him. He ducks as Faith skewers the bug.
The Mayor grabs the box. Oz asks if that was all of them. The Mayor says there are 50 billion of them in the box and if they would like to see. "Raise your hand if your invulnerable" he says. He walks out and asks Faith to follow. Faith hesitates for a second. He calls to her again and she leaves. (Please come through for me and be good by the end of this season Faith)
Snyder is clutching a chair. Buffy asks if he is alive in there. He says why couldn't they be dealing drugs like normal people. Buffy pulls Faith's knife from the wall (Will this knife be used later to kill the Mayor?) as Wesley remarks "That went swimmingly". Back at the library, Willow is telling Buffy how she stood up to Faith. Giles is more concerned about what she can remember about the Books of Ascension. She playfully says she couldn't remember much but gives Giles some pages she ripped from the books. Giles goes off happy. Wesley is upset in that they are in the same situation they were in when this all started.
The next day at school, Buffy is lamenting that she will never leave Sunnydale. Willow surprises her by saying that she will go to UC-Sunnydale and stay to help her fight evil. Cordy is admiring the same dress at the shop. We find out she is working there after school. Later that night, Buffy and Angel are in a graveyard and she is thinking about what the Mayor said. She says he doesn't know anything about her and Angel's relationship. The only long-term relationship he ever had was with evil. Angel agrees. She snuggles into his chest.
THE END
Three more weeks 'til the end. I can hardly wait.
-Bone
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