deercountry | July Catch-All

[She takes Tara gently into her arms and brings her into the very building she's going to kill her lover on top of. She takes off her coat and rests it over her in an expression of mercy that she will not be able to share with Willow.

At least someone was saved today. It wasn't Johnny. It wasn't herself. It wasn't Willow. And it wasn't Maul or Savage or Sayo.

She lets out a small sigh, closes her eyes and readies herself for what she's about to do. It's outside, in the corrupting light of the moon, that she takes a step back, readies herself, and leaps until she can grab hold of a windowsill. Until she can climb the rest of the way.

It's important Willow doesn't see her.]

[ Ozpin, for his part, takes a long moment to come unfrozen. The look of her hits him like a blow, and it shows in his face: open horror at what she's become.

She looks so much like— but that's suitable, isn't it? So did Chara, in their way. This is the look of a person corrupted.

When he finds his voice, it is with his knuckles white over the grip of his cane. The blade in it is sheathed for now, but he fears that will not hold for long. ]

I want them stopped as much as you do, Willow.

[ He means it. Ozpin steels himself into a step forward, his free hand spread in entreaty. ]

But not if this is the cost.

[Black eyes flit from his face down to the hand wrapped far too tightly around the cane. It's not a surprise, of course. She knows what she looks like - who she looks like. Where once she may have been stung by the reaction, or felt inclined to try to shield him from seeing her like this in the first place, now it's a weakness for her to take advantage of.

She lifts a hand, palm facing him as he steps forward.]

That's close enough, I think. Thicken.

[The air around Ozpin solidifies to stop him from moving. She's well aware magic is her advantage over him here, and that in a purely physical fight, he would no doubt overpower her easily. She doesn't intend to give him the opportunity.]

You know, I'm getting really tired of all you people thinking you know what's best for me. Luz, Luna, Faith, Tara... Ford.

[She pauses and gives him a malicious grin. She hadn't actually attacked Ford, just teleported him back home where he belonged, but she doesn't mind needling Ozpin into thinking otherwise.]

I wouldn't have hurt any of them if they had just stayed out of my way. I can stop Chara. And I will.

[Faith climbs her way to the top, hearing the end of the words exchanged. She resists the urge to snarl at the mention of hurting Tara. She cares a great deal about Willow. About Tara too. And so she swallows down the urge to add revenge to the list.

She looks Ozpin in the eye from her position, but doesn't give herself away to Willow yet.

The knife is tight in her hand. The same knife that Buffy buried inside of her.

Faith isn't the monster tonight. She's the Slayer. And no matter how blurred the lines between the two become, a truth remains absolute. There's only one gift she can give Willow right now.

She watches the fight between Ozpin and Willow - not that it's much of a fight - ready for her cue.]

[ Her ploy works: he strains against her hold for a moment, testing the bounds of her power, but goes still the moment she mentions Ford's name. He still remembers the chaos he'd left behind in the wake of his first death, back in the dream. He still remembers her confession of what she'd nearly done.

It shows in his eyes: he believes that she would do it again now. If Ford came after her, stood up to her when she was in this state...

Stanford would hate that Ozpin thinks him so incapable, and yet he finds it so terribly unlikely that he could stand against this. Willow even speaks like her, with the same inhuman sense of cold distance.

He has very little up his sleeve except to keep her talking. ]

You won't stop at Chara. The Willow I know wouldn't want this— she wouldn't want a single person she cared for in harm's way. Certainly not for something so hollow as revenge.

[Willow watches him for a moment as he stills, satisfied that, at least for the moment, he's not going anywhere. She's aware he could probably break free if he tried, but she doesn't think he will. Not while he's too busy talking.]

The Willow you knew was a coward; too afraid to use her own power, even if it meant dying instead. She knew something like this might happen some day. It was about time she stopped hiding from it and just embraced it.

[Her focus is on Ozpin, and if she is aware of Faith's presence, it doesn't show at all.]

And now... Well, with the body count I've left behind - the dead, the injured, the corrupted. There's no going back from that.

[She listens to Willow talk, rant on in her own self hatred. It's a power fantasy to her. It's not the first time she realized this, but at the same time... It's all about control. The little moments of resentment or frustration when they were kids, directed at her but directed at Buffy too, they take on a new light.

She sees what she wants to be. And now, here she is, dressed up in big sister's clothes. As ever, she's breath-taking in them, pulling at chains to convince herself that she's still in control. She remembers a time when the roles were reversed.

You have a lot more than most people. You have friends. People who loved you.

People like me.

She leaps like the predator she is, silent right up until she isn't, and crashes into Willow.]

And yet, she was a hell of a lot stronger than you. [She growls out in a snarl. She grips the knife that she didn't point toward Willow's back, that she didn't use the opportunity to go for the kill with, and she raises it, angry tears trailing down her cheeks.

Heartbreak. It's been a while since it was this fresh.]

[Faith comes seemingly out of absolutely nowhere, and the shock of it is enough to break Willow's concentration, and the spell rooting Ozpin in place as she goes crashing to the ground.]

You again! I already kicked your ass once, you don't think I'll do it again?

[She raises her arms and perhaps for a moment, it looks like she just intends to shield herself from a potential blow from the knife until she releases a torrent of dark energy and lightning from her palms to try to strike at Faith.]

[ It is now properly two against one. Willow has them outmatched in power, a fact he accepts as a law like gravity: with black veins and lightning from her palms, she feels to him in this moment like a natural disaster. An inevitability.

They cannot let her continue.

Her hold on him has dropped. The two girls go down in a tangle, and Ozpin moves forward. He unsheathes the dream-antler blade of the Long Memory with a flick of his fingers. And then he does what he must.

Distracted as she is, perhaps Willow won't expect the sudden stab of pain through her arm, to pin it to the ground and snuff out her lightning. He had promised an opening. ]

[Ozpin delivers on his promise, and Faith nods at him in thanks. It's more than she could have hoped for. She doesn't attack with her dagger yet, even as part of her mind begs her to, to finish it, deliver her vengeance.

But this is Willow. This isn't someone that can be snuffed out with a stab or a stake. This is someone she loves too. Someone who also needs to be avenged. And so Faith's fist strikes Willow below the ribs, in the solar plexus, to force the air out of her lungs.]

People loved her. I loved her. Tara loved her. That's the part of you that's worth saving. You know it. We know it. So just stop.

[And her hand wraps around Willow's neck, and she knows what she has to do, she knows and she knows and she knows

And she still hesitates and gives Willow the opening she needs.]

[The pain in her arm comes out of nowhere, and the roar of pain and surprise tears through the air. She hadn't expected Ozpin to interfere in her fight with Faith quite so quickly, but in retrospect, she probably should have.

The lightning fizzles out immediately.

It's fine. It's fine. The wound is nothing that can't be healed in an instant as soon as the sharp blade of the cane is removed, and for a moment, that's where Willow places her focus - into grasping the Long Memory with magic to force it back.

She barely has the chance to make the attempt when Faith's second attack distracts her, and she loses her focus to trying to draw breath back into her lungs, as Faith's hands find her neck. Willow's free hand lands on Faith's face and she tries to heave her away. She needs seconds, just seconds, to free herself and turn the battle back in her favour.

Something animalistic rises from deep within, begging to be set free, and the only thing that keeps it from surfacing is the knowledge that it means giving up on magic. Still, the snarl that rises from Willow's throat as she tries to dislodge Faith is inhuman.]

July Catch-All

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cw: negative self-talk

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