It was only proper that this could best be described as 'organised chaos', Ethan thought as he ducked a Slayer's kick to his head, which would probably have detached it from his neck had it impacted.

Their sneak attack had rapidly become decidedly unsneaky when a trip wire alarm had been triggered by one of the clumsier Watchers as they entered the main complex on the airfield. This after Ethan and some of the other mages had spent such time and care disarming the magical defences and alarms.

Ethan's loosely held plans for how this would go had evaporated in the heat of a rather terrifying war which had immediately broken out. Hordes of teenage girls had proceeded to pummel the living hell out of each other in the corridors, and never had Ethan felt more strongly that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only his pattern senses, providing as they did a brief forewarning of where the super-powered teenagers surrounding them were going to aim next, were allowing him to protect both himself and his small party of Rupert, Willow, Dawn and Kat.

Well, agreed, Willow probably didn't need protecting, and Kat was giving as good as she got, but both Dawn and Rupert were crippled by the knowledge of whom they were fighting and were holding their swords upright more, it seemed, in an attempt to keep the sharp edges away from their attackers than in a readiness to use them. At least Rupert could still use the less incendiary aspects of his magic, but still, things were looking grim.

Not the least because the vital preparatory work that Ethan had thought he'd have time for when they reached this point was now looking less and less possible.

He should have done it earlier, back at the car with the dogs before they started the approach, or even in the car on the way here. It was just that he had a feeling the Bear was watching them and wanted to give him as little forewarning as possible, but now, he wished he'd just done it anyway.

"Do you know," he said with a pleasant smile to the girl currently trying to hack at him with an axe, "that hair style really does nothing for you. Have you considered highlights?" He stepped back hurriedly, pushing against Rupert. "A smile would do wonders too."

Rupert's sword flashed forward, blocking the axe with a deafening clang of metal as it swung for Ethan's head. "I think your fashion advice is falling on deaf ears."

"We've got to do the breaking through thing and now," Dawn shouted over the clamour. "Which direction do we need?"

There was a surge of power from somewhere behind Ethan and a cut off scream from one of the enemy's mages lurking further up the corridor. "Oh neat, Willow!" Kat exclaimed.

"Considering that's where they're trying the most to keep us from going," Willow said, gesturing at the direction she'd just more or less cleared, "I'd take a chance on saying that's where we need to go."

That made perfect sense. Ethan strained his pattern senses out into four dimensions, trying to eke out any and every tiny hint of the immediate future that he could manage. "Come along, gang," he said, taking a step forward. "And as for you," he addressed the axe-wielding Slayer again, "you get time out for bad behaviour." Having finally located the tricky internal patterns that would allow him to do it, Ethan twisted, and the Slayer fell asleep where she stood.

He caught her as she fell, as an impact would only wake her up again, and laid her down carefully on the floor. "Try not to get yourself trodden on, eh?"

Their small party headed down the cleared corridor, the sounds of the main battle fading behind them. Gradually, Ethan became aware of... something; some presence that seemed to be twisting and ripping the patterns in its proximity.

Rupert frowned. "Is that–?"

"The Furious Frantain, yes." Ethan heard one of the girls giggle at that behind him. Well, sometimes things were just too serious to take seriously. "Rupert..."

Rupert gripped his arm, sending a thread of his magic through the touch, reassurance and affirmation in the mute gesture. "I believe this, as they say, is it."

No, not yet. It couldn't be. "We need... Rupert, the makeup..." Ethan clasped his borrowed waxed jacket close to his body, feeling the comforting edges of Harriet's wooden box in the capacious inner pocket. "We need to find somewhere..."

At that moment, the world seemed to explode around them in a maelstrom of black sticky tentacles.

Rupert swore as he, Ethan and Willow all instinctively threw shields around their party. "Gee, you think it knows we're here?" Willow asked, almost cheerily.

"This is the same revolting stuff that attacked us that night at Mountbatten," Ethan said. "Get into the middle, Rupert." But he knew as soon as he had said it that he was failing to learn from previous mistakes. "Bugger that. Hold my hand and do what you did back then."

Rupert's fingers closed around his own, and Ethan could feel as well as see the magic Rupert channelled into his sword, making it glow like a star as it slashed through the black tentacles reaching for them. In the meantime, Ethan was boosting his protections, condensing them and forming them into a proper shield just as he had the last time.

"Dearheart," he said urgently, speaking loud enough to be heard above the hiss and clash of battle. "We have to find somewhere before we find them. This is important!" Vital really, although Ethan didn't want to have to find the words to explain the urgency. It wouldn't be easy.

"When we take care of this little complication," Rupert said as he continued to slash at the morass, "we'll see what we can do."

"That won't take too long," Willow said. Ethan had been feeling her magic reaching out and probing the dark Chaos tendrils all along, and now he felt a huge surge from her as, with a muttering of Latin, she directed her considerable power into a chink in the tendrils' structure... if you could call it that. The inky tentacles seemed to crystallise, crackling as they became solid. It took just a single blow from Rupert's sword to shatter the lot, covering the floor in harmless grey dust.

"Handy," Ethan remarked almost cheerfully. "Could've done with you along from the start of this little romp."

Willow grinned at him. "You've been more than handy yourself in the magic department from what I've heard, but I'm glad to be doing the helpful helping thing."

"You might want to keep doing it?" Ethan said, eyeing with disquiet the small tendrils wiggling back into the corridor through floorboards and ceiling joints. "I have to have time with Rupert undisturbed. Not long, but some..."

Dawn squeaked and jumped backwards, quickly severing a tentacle that had touched her. Ethan was pretty certain the girl was immune to the raw Chaos threat, but, as she went on to say, "These things are gross!"

"No argument from me on that," Kat agreed, severing a couple of tendrils herself.

"We can handle it," Willow told Ethan. "You two do... whatever it is you need to do."

"Probably best not to know," Ethan said. After all, he hardly knew himself. He tugged on Rupert's hand, pulling him back behind the others. "No one turn around, or you'll be turned into pillars of salt... Erm, unless I shout 'help!', anyway."

'So what is it that you want to do now that we've got some semblance of privacy?' Rupert asked, speaking mentally.

'Well, first I need you to trust me,' Ethan replied, feeling inside his coat for the wooden box.

'You know I do,' was Rupert's unhesitating answer.

Ethan drew out the box and opened it up. 'I'm not sure if we need to strip or not.'

Rupert was looking at him rather dubiously now. 'I trust you, Ethan, but don't you think this isn't an appropriate time or place for... what happens when you use that box?'

Ethan stared at Rupert a little helplessly. 'I... This is very hard to explain, although I know I really should. I just have a very powerful... instinct. I... I don't think that shagging is going to happen. We're not going to body paint each other... at least,' he trailed off uncertainly. 'I don't think so.'

Rupert looked at him searchingly. 'You're sure we need to do this.' It was more of a statement than a question. Beyond them, there was another surge of power from Willow, and all three girls laughed at something.

'Yes, we have to.' And they needed to do it quickly; the sense of urgency was becoming an intolerable pressure inside Ethan. He dipped his finger into the metallic bronze and quickly but carefully sketched the Chaos symbol from the casket and coin onto Rupert's head. Only when Rupert didn't scream in agony and clutch his head did Ethan admit to himself just how scared he'd been about doing that.

Rupert did half-raise a hand towards his forehead, but stopped before he touched the new mark. 'It feels... It's tingling,' he sent with a frown.

'Don't touch it. You remember the sign for Order, the one from Dawn's dream? Draw it on my forehead. Quickly now.' Ethan pushed the box forward, and to his relief, Rupert didn't ask any more questions or hesitate. He just dipped his finger in dark blue makeup and traced the requested symbol on Ethan's brow.

It did tingle; Rupert was right. Ethan grabbed the box and put it quickly down on the office desk so that he could take Rupert's hands. "Brace yourself," he said aloud as he began to knit their patterns more tightly than he ever had before.

He heard Rupert's sharp intake of breath, felt Rupert's fingers tighten around his own, and then felt something more as he wove them closer, something of Rupert's emotions, his soul. Oh Christ. The magic was working, running away from Ethan, powered by the symbols on their foreheads. He had to stop now, or he wouldn't be able to, and it was too soon to let that happen.

But he wanted it to. Oh, how he wanted it to.

Ethan shuddered and tore himself physically away from Rupert, although the bonds he'd woven remained. "Oh, my Ripper," he murmured very softly.

Rupert was staring at him, looking a bit shell-shocked. "That's... What was that?"

"Preparation," Ethan said, returning the box to his jacket pocket with trembling fingers. "Come on, let's go."

It looked for a second as if Rupert was going to try and continue the conversation, but in the end he just nodded, and they turned back to the fight. A good thing, as Ethan doubted his ability to resist going further had Rupert pressed.

There wasn't much of a fight to return to in fact, at least not until their group got going again and trotted around a corner straight into a small horde of Slayers and Chaos acolytes who had somehow avoided Ethan's pattern sense. Then it was back to catching breaths between blocks and attacks. It was different than before. Even as he was dodging his way through the fight, he was preternaturally aware of where Rupert was and what he was doing, just a hair's breath away from feeling like he was doing it himself.

If he'd had the time, Ethan knew he'd be getting off on this. Wasn't it what part of him had always wanted? To be intrinsic to Rupert, essential, intimate in a way that normal relationships never achieved. Ethan wondered how Rupert was experiencing the closeness, knowing Rupert's fear of losing himself, but there was no time to ask, nothing to do but duck, shield, and move forward.

The others were doing the same thing, wading through the fight more than actually engaging in it. They all were keeping their objective foremost in their minds. This was just an impediment on the way. There was blood splattered across Kat's face, but pattern-sense told Ethan it was not her own.

The familiar feel of Vaurtain was growing increasingly oppressive; they were close now. "This way!" Willow said suddenly, a blast of her magic clearing a narrow channel that led to the back of a fire door, not easily opened from their side.

Ethan felt Rupert's words on his own lips as Rupert cast a quick opening spell on the door, pulling it wide.

The immediate way was clear, so they piled in, only to wish, in Ethan's case at least, that they could all pile out again. They were in a large hall, which had perhaps once been a canteen or something similar, although it seemed free of furniture now. While it was relatively normal where they were standing, a little further in, Chaos coated every surface, dripping like syrupy rain from the ceiling and growing and intertwining like tropical creepers up the walls and across the floors. The way forward seemed to grow increasingly impenetrable as Ethan stared into the Chaos jungle.

No longer a simple menacing black, now the Chaos had fractured into every colour and hue imaginable, and was continuing to fracture, to change and mutate. There could be no stability here, no symmetry or balance, no cohesive patterns or recognisable shapes. Ethan felt something approaching awe, but he also felt vertigo, a seasickness-like nausea, and if he felt that bad, Christ knows how the others felt.

Well, the others not Rupert, anyway. It was, Ethan suddenly realised, Rupert's reaction that he was feeling so vividly, not his own. Chaos made Rupert quite literally ill, like some instantaneous plague or toxin. Ethan poured strengthening magic into both of them, unable any more to treat Rupert without also treating himself.

Rupert was quick to push down his reaction. "Willow, if you could ensure our path behind remains clear and shielded," he said determinedly, conjuring their magic around his sword blade again, which this time was thicker and sharper, more machete-like. He didn't speak to Ethan, but he didn't need to; Ethan knew the plan as soon as Rupert had formed it and was reaching out his arm before Rupert held out his hand to him.

Strangely, it seemed a lot easier to keep the Chaos at bay now, protecting all of them with his shields, despite the fact that there was so much more Chaos around them than ever before. Ethan wanted all the small mercies he could lay his hands on, however, and anyway, he knew why it was so easy; it was because he was wielding Rupert's power as if he had been born to it. He laughed aloud in something approaching joy.

Rupert glanced over at him with a wolfish grin, the same joy reflected in his own eyes as he slashed his way through the tendrils and vines of Chaos, like an old time explorer chopping his way through the bush. Their progress was quick in spite of the seeming impenetrability of the Chaos manifestation.

Still, it wasn't all easy; that much Chaos was going to have effects even with the strongest of shields, and it wasn't too long before Ethan felt a phantom ache in his left leg that matched the limp with which Rupert was now moving. Instinctively, Ethan wove Order magic around their –well, Rupert's– scarred flesh, soothing the memory of the Chaos-inflicted wounds.

There were flowers now around them, strange ever-changing blooms of fractal iridescence hanging from writhing creepers. 'In another time and place, another world, this jungle would be beautiful,' Ethan sent to Rupert as they hacked through a thick trunk, the sword burning as it sliced. Ethan wondered how much of his own awe Rupert was experiencing through their strengthened link. 'Looking at this, can't you see how Chaos is life? How, without it, all would be sterile?'

'Chaos on its own is as destructive to life as is Order on its own,' Rupert sent back. 'One will run rampant, nothing taking hold because it is only the change that is important. The other will freeze everything in place and let nothing change at all. It's only in the balance between the two that life can exist.' Another wolfish smile was thrown over Rupert's shoulder at him. 'Couldn't help but give the matter some thought these last few months.'

'Yes, I know. You know I know that, but still... there is beauty here that you'll never find in the rigidity of perfected structure.' Ethan sighed as he prevented a particularly heavenly blossom from brushing his cheek. There was temptation here in the wild beauty, a siren call to surrender form and propriety and just give in to essential freedom...

"Ethan?" Dawn's voice asked sharply from behind him, her voice concerned. "Are you... what are you feeling?"

"It's all right," he reassured her, feeling strangely calm. "It wouldn't be were Rupert not with me." And with him in such a real way. "I'd be lost and happy to be so. But Rupert's keeping me safe, sweetheart. Don't worry. How are you? This can't hurt you, can it?"

He risked a glance back over his shoulder at her; the jungle seemed to be shrinking away from her just the tiniest bit, the same way it seemed to be reaching out to Ethan. "I'm fine," she said. "I think it's more worried that I can hurt it."

Kat seemed less at ease, her face grim, and Ethan found himself suddenly thinking of the girl's dead brother. This garden, this Chaos Eden that was so very attractive to Ethan, did it seem like the unrestrained growth of cancer to the healer? Now that he'd thought of that, the limitless fecundity suddenly ceased to feel so attractive to Ethan. "Let's hurry," he said, his voice as grim as Kat's expression.

Rupert's hand, still clasped around Ethan's fingers, gave a reassuring squeeze as Rupert continued to slash them a path through the Chaos. There had been no visible sign for quite a while of the hall that they were presumably still in. Reality, it appeared, had little hold on a place so oozing with Chaos. The five of them were silent now, and that somehow seemed the most sinister thing of all to Ethan. Scoobies were never silent, not even when staring certain death in the face.

"Whatever happened to 'whistle a happy tune'?" he muttered under his breath.

No one answered and then, almost suddenly, the living Chaos was giving way in front of them, clearing, falling back like curtains from a stage. And before them, bright and incongruous, was the nerve centre of the beast. There were tables covered in documents and maps, high tech computers and screens displaying strange kaleidoscoping patterns and textures. A Slayer stood to either side, armed with jagged blades that stank of magic...

But most importantly, Francesca Travers stood in front of it all, as if ready to greet them.

She was smart and efficient in khaki and cream, a handheld gadget of some kind in her right hand. She looked every inch the professional Watcher in the field... that is, until Ethan let his vision slide back into pattern sight.

Vaurtain was wrapped around and through her, in some areas like a cloak, in others very obviously sinking into her, flesh and bone. The Bear loomed larger than Francesca's physical form, a presence behind and above her, perpetually looking as if he were about to cascade down and bury her, wash her and anyone close to her away. But the worst was Francesca's face. She barely looked human anymore. Her eyes shone with a burning, gleeful madness. Whatever sanity she had once possessed was gone, crushed under the overwhelming presence of Chaos. There was knowledge of what was happening to her reflected in her gaze, and horribly, an acceptance of it.

Ethan's grandmother had fought against Vaurtain, giving him no more than she'd had to, and so had survived for decades under the possession. Francesca had so obviously given in to the power offered that she was all but destroyed in less than a month. Ethan almost felt sorry for her.

But not quite.

"Why, Mr Giles, how very expected to see you," she said, stalking forward a couple of steps and exuding both confidence and amusement. "Do you know, I would swear your actions are easier to manipulate than one of those remote-controlled cars that seemed all the rage a few Christmases ago. And of course, the loathsome Mr Rayne – how are you? I'd like to say that you're both looking well, but I do abhor dishonesty, don't you?"

Her voice, to Ethan's ears, existed on multiple registers simultaneously. It gave him shivers.

If it did the same to Rupert, and Ethan was reasonably sure it did, he didn't show it. He simply stood there, calm and confident and every inch the Head Watcher. He looked Francesca up and down with contempt and disdain. "It didn't take much intelligence to foresee that we would come here to take care of this... inconvenient problem, which it's nigh past time we got to. Willow?"

"Got it," Willow replied instantly, and Ethan felt the powerful wave of magic as she cast out around them, effectively sealing all of them within near unbreakable shields. That was her out of the fight then. The shields would take all her power and concentration to maintain.

The two enemy Slayers rushed forward as Vaurtain thrashed around Francesca's body, clearly infuriated by Willow's spell. "What good do you think that will do you?" he asked with Francesca's mouth. "It changes nothing!"

"Oh, that's just first base," Dawn proclaimed, making Ethan send a questioning glance her way as he ducked a Slayer's kick. "Just wait until third, when the clothes start coming off."

"Get back, sweetheart," Ethan muttered, not wanting her to draw any more attention to herself than necessary. He could feel her vulnerability like a break in his own armour. Vaurtain probably couldn't hurt her, but the Slayers now tag-teaming on poor Kat most certainly could.

Rupert moved smoothly, stepping forward and putting himself between Dawn and their enemy. "That's merely setting the stage," he said. "We wouldn't want anybody to wander in once the show had started now, would we?"

"If you believe we need more than just ourselves to defeat you, little brock, you have severely miscalculated." Francesca took a step back, pressing a button on her handheld device. There was an immediate rumble, the ground shaking beneath them. Ethan wasn't sure what he was expecting, some high tech weaponry of some sort maybe, but what hit him was a sweet-smelling wave.

A wave or perhaps a blanket of untamed, quintessential freedom. Colours shimmered, ever-changing; beauty rose and fell only to rise again in a new shape. It fell over him, restricting not at all, yet covering him, filling him with the tang of yearning. He fell to his knees, laughing with delight.

Somewhere far distance he heard a woman's voice. "We have everything we need to defeat you right here."

From an even further distance he heard other voices calling his name, like the annoying buzz of mosquitoes in his ears, but it was easy to ignore them in favour of the wonder that was surrounding him. What he couldn't ignore however was his husband. Rupert appeared out of the captivating colours and shapes, kneeling in front of Ethan and reaching out to take his hands.

And the wild, scintillating spectrum of colours that so caressed and stimulated Ethan, through Rupert's senses were thick and sticky as tar, and they were breaking the bonds of Rupert's flesh apart like children's bricks. A wail of pain sounded from both their throats.

Ethan felt Rupert's agony as his own, and he plunged forward, rejecting the Chaos, the siren beauty, rejecting everything but Rupert, claiming nothing for himself but his lover, his husband, his shared soul... He fell into Rupert's smouldering arms, knocking him backwards, out of the blanket of Chaos, and he kept falling.

The process Ethan had begun in the corridors took up where he had stalled it. They'd had a brief taste of this the first time they had used the makeup, the breathtakingly powerful solitary figure they'd glimpsed in the mirror at their climax. There was no mirror now, but instinctively he, they, knew it was happening again.

Cell bonded to cell, neuron to neuron, their two patterns overlaying each other perfectly and becoming one...

***

There was a crack of something thunder-like. It seemed to originate from them, the Guardian, and it compelled them to their knees. When the dust cleared, a girl screamed behind them. They stood, towering over the other entities in this small space. Vaurtain surged backwards from the Travers female, fleeing away from them, becoming stretched and thin. But then he sprang back like a taut rubber band and swelled above his host.

"What is this?" he crackled through the female's mouth.

Things that had been murky or not seen at all were now thrown into sharp relief, such as the tendrils Vaurtain had sunk into the female's body and soul, parasitic vines feeding off her strength. The wrongness of it called to them, and instinctively, they reached out with their power to pull the tendrils away.

The Bear howled "Mine!" and sunk his claws in deeper. The female shuddered and stumbled back, making choking noises.

Behind them, one of the younger females, one of their allies, said, "Um, hello?"

"Stay back," they said, not taking their eyes off their enemy, stepping forward as he retreated. Calling their power, they reached out with a white hot hand to once again prune away the dark tendrils from the Bear's chosen victim.

Their heat touched the substance of Vaurtain, but the Chaos did not hurt them. Vaurtain could no longer harm them at all, not directly. He could harm their allies though, and he was harming the female, Francesca Travers. Should they let her die so that the Bear would be driven out? No, surely enough blood had been shed. Either way, they continued burning away the tendrils, watching impassively as the Chaos sizzled and withered under their power.

The Travers female screamed.

Suddenly, the Key stepped forward, glowing with a light that filled them with protective courage and pride. "Here, you bully," she said, waving something, the Chaos pouch, in her hand. "Doesn't this smell nicer than stinky old Watcher woman?"

They could feel Vaurtain's attention become fixed on the Key and the pouch she held. The distraction lessened his hold on the Travers female, and they took immediate advantage of that, striking with all their might at the remaining claws Vaurtain had within her.

It worked. With a screech that caused ears and eyes to bleed, that caused spontaneous bruising in every human present, Vaurtain relinquished Francesca Travers, who collapsed to the floor in an ungainly heap, unmoving. The Bear surged forward.

Outrage filled them as they moved to intercept, but the Chaos beast was too fast, too desperate, and eluded their grasp. He fell upon, not the Key, but the struggling Slayers like a spiked net from above, piercing their spirit-bodies with his claws as if trying out all three, looking for the perfect bear-bed.

The girls grabbed each other in their pain and fear, their enmity forgotten. The one called Kat struck out with her sword, but could not hurt the enemy that in all likelihood she couldn't even see.

Fuelled by rage and determination, the Guardian dived forward, simultaneously throwing a shield around the Slayers and pummelling at Vaurtain with their unified power, beating him back and placing their body between the Bear and his prey.

"The children are not for you, beast," they yelled, twisting their power to create a net of their own, forcing Vaurtain backwards towards the Key. "Destiny brought us here to meet you, and destiny dictates that this is your last battle."

The Bear roared his defiance at them and threw himself at their net of power, but he couldn't break through. Step by agonising step, they forced Vaurtain back, towards the Key and the Chaos pouch she held.

Behind them, the Slayers stood together, stunned or confused by the transformation of the Watchers and Vaurtain's attack. In front, however, the Key stood firm, the hand holding the pouch raised in invitation. "Mmm, honey," she said. "Lovely Chaos honey just for you."

The Guardian laughed, part of them, at least, finding the girl's words amusing. Vaurtain howled, his form wavering and compacting between the two forces. He couldn't speak now; even his ability to think must have been fading fast without a host. His inevitable decision was the only one left to him, the only one they would allow him.

With a wail like a jet engine speeding down, the Bear hurtled into the Chaos pouch like so much black smoke.

The Key immediately pulled the pouch tightly shut, and the Guardian added their own power to the seal as well. Reaching into her pocket with her free hand, Dawn pulled out a key-shaped crystal, the Bachian Matrix. Then she looked at them expectantly.

One step brought them to her, and they enclosed both her hands in their giant ones as they smiled down. "Well done," they said benevolently. "Now to finish this."

It took little more than a polite knock on the door in magical terms to persuade the matrix to open to them. They pushed the pouch within and locked the crystal tight again. No longer key-shaped, it now formed the perfect cube. Unbreakable, impregnable except by them, Vaurtain was vanquished from this world and all others.

It was over.

The Key grinned up at them as they released her hands. "Not too often the bad guys are so easy to store," she said, tossing the matrix in the air and catching it.

The Slayer, Kat, walked over, looking both wary and puzzled. "That's it?"

"Destiny is complete, the ends of the circle joined," they told her. "The Bear cannot be killed, but he is now banished from this plane forever."

The Key looked up at them and raised her eyebrows. "What's with the Gandalf speak?"

"We merely speak the words that convey our meaning," they replied.

The witch, who had been silent all this time, suddenly moaned and sank to her knees. "I had to drop it. The, um, warding circle," she said. "We don't need it anymore.... um, do we?"

They shook their head. "The danger is past. The Bear is confined in a self-sustaining prison."

"And more with the Gandalf-speak," the Key muttered under her breath.

The jungle of Chaos was gone from the hall now, unable to maintain itself in this world without the Bear to support it. The Slayers of the enemy were clutching at each other, looking confused and frightened. Kat approached them again now. "It's all right. You're safe. We're the good guys."

The Key looked up at the Guardian. "You two intending to stay that way? 'Cause if so, we need to find some X-to-the-power-of-many size clothes for you, and fast. The view down here is way more education than I need."

"Too right," was muttered from within the huddle of Slayers.

They looked down at themselves, but saw nothing that should not be there. They were just about to point that out when a good portion of the rest of their force came pouring into the room. "Slayer patrol is cleaning up the corridors," Xander said, "but it looks like as far as defences go, it's all over but the fat lady sing– and whoa, when did we acquire a large naked glowing guy?"

"Meet Giles and Ethan, the, um, collected edition," Kat said dryly.

"Oh my God!" The exclamation came from the Senior Slayer, Buffy Summers, who was standing in the doorway. "Dawn, cover your eyes immediately!"

The Key made an expression that indicated wry disbelief. "Bit late for that, sis."

"Can I cover my eye?" Xander asked plaintively, all the while staring.

They felt confusion. "We are relatively certain that you will not come to any harm by viewing our person," they said. "Magnificent although it is." They moved a hand down their golden belly in admiration, but then suddenly jerked it back to their side as they became strongly aware that that would not be suitable behaviour.

There was silence for a moment then Buffy stepped forward, arms crossed. "Right. Time to split."

No, that was not right. The Slayer was incorrect. "There is still a lot to do. Now is not the time to consider diminishing."

"Nuh-uh," the Key said slowly, staring at them with a frown. "It's all done. There's just cleaning up left now."

More and more people were entering the hall, only to stop still and stare at the Guardian. They saw their Slayer, Megan, come in. She put her hand to her mouth. "Oh God."

They frowned. "There is no need to be upset, child. This is our true form."

"Huh. Maybe it's your secret superhero form, but it's time to go back to your mortal every day and preferably clothed identities now," Xander told them.

Megan walked hesitantly forward. "Ethan? Are you..?" Her voice cracked.

Buffy stood beside her, looking far more forthright with her hands on her hips. "Giles, it's time to stop this. Enough with the dressing up games."

Dressing up games? Why were all the children acting so... upset? "It was necessary to become. The Bear had to be defeated. We... rather like it actually."

Willow stepped up to join the two Slayers facing them. "It was necessary, but the need's over now. Vaurtain has been taken care of. You have to let go of this shape."

They found themselves taking a step backward. The children were so intent. It was as if this form hurt them somehow, and they didn't want to hurt the children. Not at all. On the other hand, never had they felt more right, more perfectly aligned, than in this form...

A hand touched one of theirs, the Key's. "Don't make me have to separate you." She said it with a smile, like a joke, but they could tell she meant it. Could she do it? Well, if any could, she would be the one.

"A little longer?" That sounded worryingly like begging.

Willow shook her head, looking sympathetic but resolute. "The longer you stay together, the more difficult it will be to separate. It has to be now. Before you forget what it's like to be Giles and Ethan."

That gave them pause. Forget...?

They felt uncertainty now. The rightness that had felt so comforting was becoming murky and conflicted. The witch was right; they could see that clearly, but separating was going to tear their soul. "We... I... We have..." They fell to their knees and clutched their head in their hands.

"Do it now, Giles, Ethan," the Key said firmly.

Part of them was used to self-sacrifice, to enduring pain in order to do the right thing and protect those they loved. That part took the lead in doing what needed to done now. They turned their attention to their pattern, finding where two had become one, and slowly, grimly, they started teasing themself apart.

They wept as they did it, as the pain grew, and when finally they fell apart, naked, shivering and bereft, at least one of them howled.