2015.08.19 - Dislocation: "Not Again!" -- Or, The Bad Guys Tip Their Hand

**Emitter:** *Staff*

*The San Francisco chapter of the mysterious cult behind the Dislocation Plot attempts to add to the power being amassed. A number of our heroes aren't gonna take it anymore.*

August 18, 2015

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

*San Francisco*<br*>*
*Golden Gate Park*<br*>*
*11:02 PM*

It's been coming. Small things, little hints, have been going around. It started as odd coincidences--a few too many ghosts around town, a bit of a rise in demonic activity--but nothing too outlandish. Then it got a little weirder: people experienced strange psychic visitations and premonitions, animals began to behave strangely, and the weather turned eerily still and unseasonably warm, even for late summer. Then, today, every bird in the city... was just gone. No crows, no pigeons, no seagulls. Not even a sparrow was in sight.

And there were the dreams. Abstract dreams, childhood metaphor dreams, I forgot my homework and pants plus there's a pop quiz in math today school dreams--but all ending with absolute catastrophe, portents that anyone with any skill could read as pure, undiluted anxiety. All day, despite the bright weather, a pall has hung over the city, as though brooding stormclouds threatened. But it's clear. And now, the stars shine as cheerfully and normally as any other night.

But it isn't any other night. Tonight, a cabal of hooded figures gathers in a secluded grove of Golden Gate Park, where they have constructed an altar bearing an effigy--which is actually a highly detailed, architectural and city planning grade scale model of San Francisco proper--in the center of an intricate circle of power. The sigils on the circle are ancient, more than half forgotten. It's frankly the kind of thing a witch or magical historian might geek out about.

At least, until they realized that nearly every single one of them stands for "destruction."

Enough weird stuff has been happening that even Wyatt, not exactly skilled in dealing with portents, can figure out something is going on. But where, exactly? Thankfully, tonight, Halliwell manor is empty, as the Charmed Ones are likely off investigating the weirdness themselves. (Or, perhaps there's just a big event at P3.) In any case, this lets Wyatt sneak in and use their supplies to start scrying for powerful mystical energies. It doesn't take long. Moments later, Among the trees outside the grove, there's a flash of light as Wyatt orbs in. Stepping as quietly as he can, he makes his way to the edge of the grove, peeking in at the altar.

"You know, just once, I wish the Powers That Be would, you know, do something obvious. Do I *have* to have dreams of the world ending, you know, complete with all those images of people dying? What's wrong with drawing a sign in the sky that says something like 'Hey, Buffy - World's Gonna End If You Don't Stop These Dudes - See You Next Tuesday'?!"

These words were said in a hurried whisper by the Slayer in the skirt and leather jacket, the woman kinda peering out from around a tree at the fringes of this glade in the park. Narrowing her eyes, she hefts a stake, kinda flipping it in her hands.

"They don't look like the vampire cultist variety..." she murmurs to herself. Flat-heeled boots pressing the earth beneath them, she starts sneaking out from the safety of her hiding spot in the groves, keeping her arms and torso lowish as she starts trying to get nearer to the... well. Circle.

"Yeah but think how disappointed all the nice little omen-interpreters would be. We can't have that, Buffy." Willow travels along, speaking quietly as she peeers around, having opted for boots tonight! Practical footwear, it's a thing she can do! ...Though... she maybe didn't *have* to try and borrow a crossbow while she was at it.

"Ooh, that one's the third sign of the--" Willow starts to talk and then stops as Buffy's sneaking. "Right... Stealth." She takes a breath, and closes her eyes, focusing to try to get a feel for this *circle*...

It's been a big bust, and not the kind Dean Winchester likes. No great leads during his investigations with Castiel. And since the angel can hop around the map like something out of Star Trek (but without the cool sound effect or sparkly stuff, or Scotty for that matter), he figures he'll catch up sooner or later. The Impala roared back into San Francisco some time earlier, though the most time was spent finding a suitably safe place to park it. Nobody puts Baby in a ratty parking space!

Dean had originally thought he'd find his way back to the Hyperion and check in with Fred, but somehow, in a roundabout way, he ended up wandering into the park and something straight out of...he doesn't know. But it's something that's definitely not out of anything he's ever experienced, surprisingly. More like a Lovecraft story. Which admittedly he started reading because from the name, he thought it was some kind of erotica.

Definitely not erotica.

Good thing Dean keeps some weapons on him. So, much like the others, he takes what cover he can, but he works his way steadily towards the circle. He doesn't really care what they're doing. He's decided they're definitely evil, and he's definitely gonna take 'em down as soon as he gets close enough. Maybe.

Much as he tends to charge on in regardless, Harry Dresden knows little enough about what's going on out here that he's keen on sending in an advance scout. When the dewdrop fairy returns to his circle and he manages to get the information out of it -- including the destruction sigils -- he curses under his breath.

"Stars and stones," he hisses. "Some men really *do* want to watch the world burn. What is the matter with people these days?" The looming wizard starts stalking toward the circle, scoping out the circle. Somehow he's not actually running into everyone else gathering around the ritual. That's how serendipity works. He clutches his staff in one hand, his rod in the other. A small pouch dangles from one wrist, and a bracelet of interlocked shields from the other. Wizard's going loaded for bear.

There's a clear head to this shindig. He's the guy in the purple robes with the horned skull hat, right out of *Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom* but without the nifty beating heart special effects and the fiery pit of death! The others are wearing more basic robes--nicely made from a burgundy velvet, probably quite pricey, really, for basic cultist robes--as a final member, a woman wearing flowing white silk, walks in a slow circle around the altar with the model city of San Francisco, chanting in a tongue that rivals ancient Enochian for ancientness and cryiticality.

Also, those hulking shapes between the trees turn out to be *not* shadows: They're a flesh golems of a demonic nature, apparently made out just *whatever* was lying around: Seaweed and Something Fishy Golem, High School Lunchroom Dumpster Golem, An Unsettlingly Large Supply of Spoiled Tofu Golem, and a disturbingly liquidy What Can Only Be The Remnants of a McDonald's Grease Trap Golem. They stand there, reeking and generally putting out an aura of grossness, apparently working security for this gig.

This part is new to Wyatt. Always, before, he's been told to stay home and protect his brother and sister while his mom and her sisters went vanquishing evil. So, now that he's finally here, in the action... he hesitates. What does he do? He finally picks up a nearby rock, a heavy one, and then it vanishes from his hand in a swirl of light. It reappears, flying towards the chanting woman. "Hope this works," he says softly t himself.

Okay, spooky chanting, check. Guy with horned skull hat - on it. Leather-coated grizzled man also sneaking up on the circle, ch... ...Buffy's eyes widen, and she hunkers down a second more, hissing to Willow. "Will! Will! It's him! Taco guy! He's like... some kinda warrior. Maybe he's a slayer too, and..."

A pause.

"Do you *smell* that? It sounds like the girl's locker room after soccer day, and..." A beat. That was about when the rock started winging out from the woods. Buffy flips her stake in her hand briefly, and whips her hand out, the stake tumbling end over end and...

Buffy was choosing a random cultist, not skull guy. And she was trying to throw the *blunt* end of the stake at his head. She doesn't kill human sorts. Even the ones that wigged her out.

"Taco guy?" Oh, right. "Taco guy!" Willow hisses back, her concentration briefly interrupted, before--

"...Oh, ew! *Ew*! Why does evil magic always *smell* so awful--" Willow, gagging, almost forgets about her crossbow as she sees all the violence start--but she's brought back right quick upon seeing the orbing *rock* of all things.

"Aah--" She lifts her hand to summon up her power--

But she hesitates at the last second, and instead *hurls* her crossbow straight at one of the cultists.

Dean is a master of sneaking, even while wearing pretty heavy-duty footwear. But as he gets closer, even in such an open space, he can...smell that. It takes all the intestinal fortitude he can manage to suppress the gag reflex. Oh, he's definitely not going to be putting anything in his mouth for a few hours except maybe a bicarbonate. He's pretty sure the horrible odor is coming from those cultists, or more specifically the hulking masses they seem to have gathered around themselves. But that's only four, as big as they are: there are sizable enough gaps that he could fit through. Though how to make sure he doesn't get...even touched by those disgusting things, that's what's foremost on his mind.

Is there someone else around to use as a decoy? Preferably someone with no sense of smell? Before Dean can find any such person or animal, though, a rock flies through the air and a...a stake? Who's using a stake? Are these vampires? Shit! He only has one stake in his jacket! But he has a flask of holy water. But are these the kind of vampires that hate holy water? He doesn't wanna waste it! Goddammit, Sam needs to be here, if only to be a mule for more weaponry.

Well hell, if we're all just throwing in, Dean'll do it! He pulls out his sawed-off, loaded handily with rock salt, and charges, hoping -- desperately hoping, and even saying a little silent prayer to Castiel, which is significant -- that he's not going to be in actual physical contact with the golems. Yeah, he can take out a cultist or two! "Time to put your toys away, you Party City rejects!" That sounded a lot cooler in his head.

One barrel explodes at the group in general, which should sting like a mother and additionally may do some damage to actual evil things. And ghosts. Which Dean is almost sure these aren't. Buffy may notice the stake inside his jacket, since it flares out with his movement. Maybe he does know a thing or two about a thing or two.

One, and then another, and then another person is coming out of the woodwork. Or at least the woods. Harry stares in disbelief when a shiny rock comes shooting out of the dark, when a couple of twenty-something girls come... well, slightly violently out of the shadows, and when Dean.

Well. Dean is being pretty sensible, actually. A to the Winchester.

Step one is going to be stopping that ritual. It might have to be mitigated by one-prime: preventing these nutbars from getting killed. As much as he doesn't like it, he's going to have to work on getting that woman to stop chanting, so:

"*Forzare*!" He aims at the silk-clad woman, though it's possible he's pulling his metaphorical punch a bit.

You try to throw a nice little apocalyptic death ritual, and some people just can't leave well enough alone. Honestly.

The rock, propelled by orb, smacks into the woman in white silk, knocking her off her feet and sending her pitching forward with arms pinwheeling--only for a spike of invisible force to catch her in a sharp uppercut, sending her sailing through the air to land sprawled over the model of the City, definitely down for the count.

Another cultist goes down in a neat little pile when one of Mr. Pointy's friends gives him the blunt end of the stake, while a third goes down with a decently loud Wilhelm scream as the crossbow impacts, goes off, and shoots him right in the foot. *That's* gonna leave a mark, but our circle of twelve is now down two, plus number thirteen in white in the middle.

Dean's cover fire of salty goodness sends the remaining ten cultists scattering for cover, and for a moment it's a scene of almost Benny Hill level comical panic.

This is why we can't have nice things.

But that's when the horny g--uh, the guy in the horned skull helmet, that is--steps forward, brandishing a staff that glows with flaming runes.

"*Wizard*," he hisses, staring down Harry Dresden. (Typical. The wizard takes top billing. *Thanks*, Gandalf.) By rights, now he should say something about *How dare you profane this sacred rite* or *You will suffer for your insolence*. Alas, he skipped that day in Bad Guy School. Instead, he points his staff at Harry and declares, "*Agni!*" Immediately, a lance of white-hot flame fires itself at Harry.

Of course, that's also when the golems rumble into motion. Spoiled Tofu raises its disgusting head and lumbers towards Buffy, moving like a train gathering speed.

Seaweed Stank whips across the ground, snakelike and fast, toward Wyatt's position.

Lunchroom Yuck skitters like a horde of angry, splotchy spiders toward Willow, emitting a collective hiss.

Finally, Ol' McGreasy sloshes forward, flowing at Dean like the world's worst wave at a surfing contest.

He's not alone! Wyatt almost cheers as he sees others entering the fight. He starts to step out from behind the tree now, but then gags as the stench of the golem hits him. He turns towards it, hand raised as he unleashes a wave of telekinetic force at Seaweed Stank.

Buffy had keen Slayer senses. Or at least, stake-senses. So when Dean's jacket flourishes open like that, her eyebrows quirk. So she mighta been right on that one - a hunter... slayer of some kind? Welp, shotguns tended to make her lean huntering, but... "Hey hey hey hey!" she calls towards Dean.

"They're still people! No shotguns on people!"

Okay, but they were rolling around and moaning still, when. Willow. "...you shoot it at things, Will - that's more throwy. It's okay, we can work on it later, and..." A lot was happening at once. Harry seemed to be taking care of himself, and there was the source of the rock. "Looks like a party, Will," she says, as chaos ensues.

Slayer Senses (morelike smell) tingle (morelike almost make her puke), as Tofu heads her way. Eyes widen, and Buffy does a quick jump upwards, kinda whirling her foot around to give a mighty mighty kick to Tofu's, well... headlike area.

Willow immediately realizes what she's done as soon as she sees the weapon sailing through the air. She winces, immediately stepping slightly back, and then of course sees the cultist hit and... bolted. Definitely... bolted.

Well, it could be worse?

Like with Buffy offering her the correction. "I--I panicked! I haven't used one of those in a while!" But now she's weaponless, to all accounts just a totally ordinary girl now being faced down by the nightmares of the high school lunchroom. ...And to be sure, this is like the one she's used to: she grew up on a Hellmouth.

"Y-yeah, a real party..." She takes one more step back as the golemn continues to seem like its component parts are skittering towards her, still hesitating. But it comes closer--

Suddenly, theirs isn't the only collective noise; it's as if Willow speaks with two voices in the next moment, intoning, "*Separate*." Where a moment before she was retreating, now one hand is out, channeling a burst of raw magical energy aimed to literally rip the golem's body limb from limb.

Dean takes the time to chuckle at the misfortune of his enemies. He wouldn't be Dean Winchester if he didn't. But he's at least prepared enough not to leave himself wide open. Most of the time. When the golem-horror-things start moving, he starts moving too...to close the space between him and some of the others. The guy in the skull helmet, that looks good!

He just tossed fire at...hey, isn't that the guy that was at Fred's hotel that one time? And then there are the taco girls! Hey taco girls! Dean smiles and waves at Buffy and Willow. Just in time to square off against Skully McMoldy. He's got another barrel left, so screw it! But then Taco Girl #1 tells him not to fire at the guy. Well it didn't stop him up to now! "It's okay!" He calls back to her. "I know!" He lets it fly at the dude, maybe that'll help the giant he kinda half-met a couple of weeks before.

Buffy can yell at him later, or something. At least rock salt won't seriously injure them. Probably. Might leave a scar or two if they're particularly unlucky. And they are evil, after all. Pshaw! Dean Winchester doesn't care that much about evil cultists!

Yeah, Sam would definitely fuss at him later. He's finding more surrogate Sammys in San Fran...

Well, murdering people with magic is bad, so at least Willow's not doing that. And Dean's clearly shooting rock salt, which is even better. But when the flame comes shooting out, Harry has to hurl his lanky self away, crashing to the ground and rolling to the side before sliding up to his feet. He's focused on Crazy Skull Cultist, leaving the others to handle the golems. Thank goodness.

"Crazy cultist asshole," he counters. "Somehow I get the feeling you don't want to talk things out. Your ritual's over. Run while you can still save your skin. This is the best chance you're going to get."

Seaweed Stank is sent flying backward by the wave of telekinesis, flattened against the ground--but then it stabs its tendrils into the earth, slithering out of sight, and begins to chew up terrain while *tunneling* toward Wyatt.

Maybe the cultists liked *Tremors*?

Buffy's kick splats into Spoiled Tofu's head, causing it to explode in a shower of true befouledly badness, causing it to stumble, but a moment later its chest splits open with a new set of eyes and a mouth, and it resumes its lumbering toward the Slayer! Also, it's making a really upsetting squishy noise with each step.

Lunchroom Yuck seems to be making good progress in its plan to swarm Willow and... probably do unseemly things with her... but she suddenly mixes things up by busting out the witch-fu! The little garbage-skitters all begin to pop, ending up in much, much smaller component parts all over the ground. They're still twitching with magic, but for the moment they lack enough cohesion to do anything about it.

As for Dean, the good news is that he sends Skully McMoldy flying to land on his mystical ass, and the staff goes spinning from his grasp. The bad news is, Ol' McGreasy hits Dean like a wrecking ball. Y'know, if a wrecking ball were made of rancid, concealed deep fryer fat.

Sam always said that fast food would was bad for him.

Harry's threatening banter is on point, but alas Dean's decided to shoot first and... well, no one's really sure if he'll actually get around to the asking questions part.

That's when two enterprising cultists leap from the bushes, trying to wrestle Harry to the ground! And, predictably, they're not the nicely pasty, frail cultists you read about. These guys are built like linebackers.

Typical Dresden luck.

There were two casualities of Buffy's kick. Tofu's head number one. And number two, the back of Buffy's boot.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," says Buffy, her features twisting into something very much resembling disgust. "You know Willow - if you need someone to go with you to the health food store, I'm gonna pass next time," she says, ducking left - hoping the golem was in the big and slow school of fighting. Because she was going to somersault away, her mind whirling. A beat.

"Wait magic?! Was that magic?"

Wyatt Halliwell's eyes widen, and he stumbles back a couple steps. He waits until it almost gets to him, then orbs away, reappearing behind the creature's tunnel, ready to ihit it with more telekinesis when it reappears.

Willow stands where the lunchroom golem was *going* to be charging, glaring down at its little pieces for a moment that's almost threatening--before she blinks up again in remembrance. "Huh?" She missed Buffy's latest bit of banter this time, but now she's looking around at the others to see...

Erk.

"It was only a little magic!" Willow protests. "And they started it! What, you think these things are *natural*?" A pause, as she looks to see Dean being attacked by the creature here, and then whirls in that direction, throwing out her hand, "Leave him alone!"

A shimmering wall of energy suddenly bursts into being, about as tall as the golem itself, between Grease Golem and Dean who's just been on the receiving end. "Pick on someone your own size!"

Dean's about to say something smart-assed, but then he gets Miley Cyrused, and not in the good way. Not in the way he'd think. Not in the way he'd hope. And he probably would be puking like Regan in The Exorcist if he really had all his faculties, but since the swat sends him flying, he lands hard...and his jacket's full of crazy crap that he's lucky doesn't end up ending him.

The elder Winchester brother pushes up. Can't let himself black out, not from one hit. He hops to his feet, shaky though they are, and pushes through. Walk it off, boy. Walk it off. Wait, where's his gun? Dammit! "Okay, you know what? Bring it, ugly." Goddammit, he's gonna die in an ironic way. To grease. Sam would...well, probably not laugh, but he'd have to admit it's ironically amusing!

Then there's...a barrier? He's going to have to remember this: prayers to Castiel may work. Taking a mental note. If somehow it had something to do with that, Taco Girl #2 is really coming through for him and possibly Cas. He turns to give her a thumbs up and a grin. That winning Dean Winchester thousand-watt smile! And there's his gun...he can do this.

Dean scrambles for the shotgun and quickly reloads it. Let's see if rock salt can disrupt the evil magic holding the golem together, once he's in a spot where he can shoot without potentially messing up his only protection against something way outside of the human experience.

Meanwhile, here is Harry Dresden rolling around in the dirt with a couple of cultists. Don't anyone help him at all. Freaking linebacker cultists. Harry's trying to hold his own, but two linebackers plus him when he wasn't expecting them? Yeah, he's down on his back, doing his best to whack the crap out of them with his staff. It's not going excellently well, but he does give one a good ringing blow across the temple and the other a rough jab to the ankle. If it helps.

Buffy's nimbleness keeps her one jump ahead of Spoiled Tofu. The bad news is, it's very fast and powerful--the good news is, while its strikes come fast, it's slow to correct and re-target. All striking power, no finesse. It also seems to be having some trouble seeing with its improvised torso-for-a-head, so it's doing a bit more random flailing than might be ideal.

Also, it keeps splattering everything around it with spoiled tofu juice. This lawn has been pooped and peed on by thousands of dogs, but it's never before been this offended.

Wyatt's telekinesis knocks the burrowing Seaweed Stank right back underground, which leads to the grass beneath his feet suddenly getting all mushy and uneven. He's beaten it back with righteous fury, but something isn't quite right down there...

Poor Dean is left to pick himself up with a layer of once potentially delicious fryer fat all over one side of him, and he's about to get a lot more--when Willow's spell rebuffs the creature, allowing Dean to pump it full of salt!

There's a French fry joke, here, or maybe some salty pun on "assault," but the narrators are going to take the high road.

Anyway, Ol' McGreasy goes down like the ton of spoiled fat that it is, adding most grievously to the complaints of the lawn. It too twitches, but it doesn't seem able to re-corporate right away, either.

The cultist who takes a staff to the head rolls to one side, howling in pain. Tough or not, they're normal humans--and solid wood to the head *hurts*. The guy who took the shot to the ankle hesitates, apparently less cocky now he's not got the full advantage, which gives Harry an opening.

But that's when Antiquarius the Keeper of Unknowable Truths (alias Skully McMoldy, alias Lawrence MacGillicuddy) recovers his staff and gets to his feet, his skull helmet gone and his robes in tatters. He snarls, whirling his staff around his head, and bellows "*Kshayati!*" A ring of sickly yellow energy flashes around him, and the ground begins to transform beneath our heroes' feet, as though melting from solid grass and sod into some kind of a rotting plant slushy.

It's as gross as it sounds.

Ok, this was swiftly going from bad to worse. "Okay," Buffy says to herself. "Maybe a little magic wouldn't be a bad thing at all." A quick glance towards Willow - she was preoccupied. A long flip sideways, and Buffy hits the ground, breaking into a run...

Only to bring up one of her stylish heels, to give one of the linebackers a big kick in the ribs. At least she hopes that would be enough to cause him to sail off of Harry. If she even hits.

"Trade you one barely used goop monster for two linebackers?" she asks Harry, voice perky.

Wyatt Halliwell wrinkles his nose again at the uneven ground... and almost gags, again as it all suddenly changes. "Gross!" Well, he's 12, not exactly a great age for cool banter. He looks around quickly then. He starts towards Harry, but then Buffy is there to help. So, he turns towards the leader, reaching a hand up and trying to orb the staff away. It's a long shot, probably protected against such things, but worth a try.

Willow actually smiles back at Dean, throwing a little thumbs-up herself. ...The overall effect is a little goofy, and more than a little surreal on the heels of her brief scary witch moment. But...

Buffy's suddenly moving, and everything smells *worse* than anything. "Ugh--"

She takes a breath, briefly regrets it, but gathers up her energy after all; his magic words tell her what to do.

"Praecido!" she intones, and throws her will into attempting to outright block the coming spell.

Also the barrier drops unceremoniously, like hell willow's going to keep *that* up.

"What the hell are you, man?! Some kinda gross-out wizard or somethin'?" It's like this guy's spellbook came from 90s Nickelodeon! Dean reloads, scrambling through...the grease, though trying to make his way around it as best he can. He's intent on making a beeline to Skully and if he has to, he'll get himself dirty. These clothes are getting burned later. Except the jacket. Maybe.

But Dean is running out of rock salt shells. Only so many he can carry in the jacket before it gets bulky and people start asking weird questions. He's lucky this time that he stumbled onto something serious. Okay. Two barrels loaded, three left -- one extra just in case, so they don't have to be extra-dramatic if he misses.

Except this time he aims more towards that staff and the hand holding it, angling the shotgun down so it'll probably smack the dude in the face a little too. Maybe he's being spiteful, he doesn't care. That asshole interfered with his meal plan for the next year or so, and it's not like he has any...magic, or being huge, or -- freakin' telekinesis?! It's becoming clear to Dean that he seems to be the only person here without some sort of special gift or superhuman power. But then it makes him kinda feel cool because that means...he's Batman. Yeah!

So maybe Dean can help Wyatt coincidentally and, if the dude is disarmed...oh yeah, it's on. Skull's goin' down. Dean is ready to just throw himself at this douchebag and beat the bejeezus outta him.

He's struggling to keep upright and on the right side of getting punched again, but as the cute little blonde with her cute little heels comes charging up... well. Harry wouldn't have even thought about letting her cut in if he hadn't seen her *launch* one of those linebacker cultists with one foot.

"Well, if you insist..." Harry's going to let her go to it. Stepping back to back with her, he aims his blasting rod at the still-standing golem... thing. "*FUEGO*!" Cooked tofu now.

It all happens so fast! Buffy displays the grace and speed of any Slayer who's had to survive a Black Friday at the Sunnydale Mall--just think, limited time holiday savings Hellmouth... not pretty--to kick a linebacker cultist in what would have been a perfect field goal. Except he's a cultist and not a football. But there are similar levels of spiraling through the air and landing with a *whump* on the grass. There are a couple of other cultists huddling nearby, but apparently the sight of a girl who can kick field goals with linebackers...

You get the idea. They run like scared, scared children.

No offense to Wyatt.

Speaking of whom, Wyatt's orbing trick turns out to be more clever than Antiquarimoldy was prepared for. The staff is orbed away! The spell spins wildly out of control! This could mean certain doom for all life in a mile radius!

Just kidding. Willow's got this. Her own spell hits with more than enough power to stop the cultist's interrupted effect. The ground ends up a bit lumpy and uneven, but otherwise, it's fine.

There's one small little problem. Whatever dark power this guy was channeling is clearly way, way bigger than he was. And Willow will suddenly feel it's eye(s?) on her... and quite abruptly, a new tactic: The powers of Outer Darkness that fueled whatever this death cult ritual was supposed to be would *really* like Willow to start channeling them. She's *clearly* much better at it. *Yes, this is your Galadriel-and-the-Ring moment for the evening. You have been warned!*

Poor Skully McMoldy is just not having a good night. Disarmed, dispelled, and then abandoned by the powers he was serving... he catches a face full of pissed off Dean Winchester. It's an old school beatdown, he's all out of bubble gum, and to be honest, we probably don't want to see it. Ass, kicked. Check!

It turns out that burnt Spoiled Tofu is actually way less gross than raw Spoiled Tofu. Especially when it's burnt to cinders. Harry Dresden is very good at playing with fire, and the resulting conflagration where once a gross, gross golem stood is a testament to why one ought not meddle in the affairs of wizards... at least not without, like, asbestos underpants or something.

And just like that, it's all over! The night is quiet, save for the distant, fleeing footsteps of the cultists.

Oh, and that small matter of dark powers trying to tempt Willow to become beautiful and terrible as the dawn and such. That could be bad.

Wyatt Halliwell concentrates a moment more, and sends the staff to the Marianas Trench. Once that's done, he runs up to the others, looking around, "Is anybody hurt? I can heal." Despite his own powerful magical senses, he can't sense mental communications so he's clueless about the tempting of Willow.

Willow grits her teeth as she focuses in an effort to handle this *quickly* from a power she hasn't actually encountered before, so for the moment, she isn't doing a lot of talking. And then...

Well, then there's a *different* reason she's not doing a lot of talking.

She seizes up, suddenly woozy on her feet, blinking once as she starts to stumble backward before she catches herself. The blink would be fine...

Except for the fact that her eyes turn black when she opens them again.

"N-no, I... I don't..."

Willow's clearly not talking to anybody she can *see*. And she doesn't exactly look well.

Buffy brings her hands up after the kick to linebacker guy sends most of them packing, the young woman pulling her leather jacket higher up on her shoulders, kinda adjusting the collar a bit. (One of the lapels flipped up, and that just looks ridiculous, and looks are an important part of cultist stopping).

"Well!" she says perkily. "There we go, another apocalypse averted, another death cult stopped - time to go out for smoothies or..." a beat. Flicking her eyes from the wizard, to the witch, to Dean, Buffy's eyes finally settle on Willow.

"Willow?" she says, her voice at once losing all trace of snark. "...is it the magic you did? Willow? Are you okay?"

Yes, she was starting to hurry to her friend's side - and... well, try to fight the wiggy feeling at the back of her heart.

"And you're payin' my jacket cleaning bill!" Dean continues, pounding fists into face. The guy pretty much gave up and just passed out at least half a dozen punches ago, but Dean has a lot of frustration to get out, and he's also trying not to think about the disgusting grease pretty much all over his back. He really doesn't want to think about that.

Dean thinks about it. To add insult to injury, he ends up puking. Fortunately he's at least together enough (or maybe he's just going with knee-jerk instincts) to not puke all over the dude's face. Halfway, but not like...full on. This is probably going to go down as the worst night in the guy's life.

So make that three people not having a really great night and being on the ground because of it being a really bad time.

Right. Everything's good. Everything's fine! Everything's --

Except that the sweet little redhaired girl is clearly having some problems. Harry turns around on her, pressing his lips together and stepping forward. There's no one really good answer to this one. Whatever's whirling around Willow definitely doesn't have her best interests at heart. Jumping into the NeverNever -- into its realm -- when what it wanted was to destroy the Veil around San Francisco, also a bad plan. He can't command it without its name. And drawing it to or into himself... highly dangerous. But there's an option. A small possibility. It *might* work.

With his long staff, Harry draws a quick circle around himself. "Winchester," he barks. "If you have any more of that salt, I could use a circle outside've this one. You," he adds, nodding to Buffy. "Hold your friend. Please." He points his staff Willow's way then, pulling out a sports bottle and squirting its contents into his mouth, swallows roughly before he begins to chant.

Wyatt might be useful to have for that healing before this is over, because ish just got real.

Willow is being buffeted by the temptations of darkest power, with all the promises of the Dark Side right at her fingertips. She could do *anything* with this kind of powers. Restore the humanity of every vampire! Eradicate the curse of lycanthropy! Make the world forget the concept of boy bands! ...Anyway, it's a lot of power, and it's very tempting. Of course, Willow probably *knows* the way these things go--but she could have *all of that power* if she'd just reach out and--

Then there's a sound like thunder as reality is literally rent open before them, a tear in space that first bleeds a flash of light and then begins to absorb all light around it. Whatever part of the Nevernever is on the other side of that opening, the odds are nobody wants to see it.

But the bolt of power that arcs from that tear doesn't strike Willow. It strikes the end of Harry's staff, and the Wizard becomes a conduit for power that is the complete antithesis of all the magic he knows. This isn't life, nor death--this is an essence of pure *unmaking*. This is a power that could dissolve the boundaries of all known dimensions--this could remake reality as they know it. Truth be told, it's hard to calculate *what* it could do. There's more magic in there than any one mortal should be able to contain.

Which, if one considers it, maybe something of a clue.

There's a sudden pulse, and Willow feels the gravity of that pull suddenly reduced by several orders of magnitude. The stream that had reached out to her is still there, but the source has been cut off--the intervening flow blasting right through Harry Dresden and into his grounding circle. The result is a blast of raw force, sending everything nearby into upheaval. The ground is blasted out into a small crater. People are flung. Clothes are ruined.

It's bad. But everyone finds themselves alive and unbroken afterward... though Harry lies unconscious and smoldering a little about the duster, and where did Wyatt go?

Flash back ten seconds.

Wyatt's standing there, eager to help, with a hand touches his shoulder. An average-looking man stands there, dressed in a trench coat. No obvious words pass between them, but there's a sense of *something* communicated, something in a language that humans can't understand. And, just as the blast goes off, the two of them vanish, orbing away to parts unknown.

Back in the present, car alarms sound. Dogs bark. Every window in a ten block radius has shattered.

But it seems the worst has passed.

Willow doesn't answer; the lights are on, but there's a little bit of a busy signal in her eyes as Buffy comes up to talk to her. She's occupied, and in the next few moments things get really tense. The wizard is coming up close to her, pointing that staff--

But with the thunder, the *explosion* happens, and nothing at all is visible in just a moment, everything in far too much chaos for anything. The explosions happen, and--

And when it's done, and that pulse is finished, Willow is floating a foot above where she was, eyes still draining light from the world all around her. ...For about a second.

She closes her eyes, and when they open, they're normal willow eyes again, the young witch suddenly crumpling to the ground as she *stops* floating abrubtly.

Alarms are going off. ...She's conscious, though. ...Conscious, and...

And something around her *definitely* feels kinda wiggy.

"...I don't... feel so good," she murmurs in a daze.

As the heroes pull themselves together, the sirens begin approaching. There will be ambulances. There will be police. There will be *so much* yellow tape.

And, undoubtedly, within a short time there will be one seriously annoyed Karrin Murphy.

But what was this for? Clearly, another city was nearly just drained, but this time The Powers That Be did nothing--they let the heroes stand and face it rather than relocating or protecting them. That may be troubling.

Buffy will have to help Willow away to recover. Dean will have to help himself to a six-pack to recover. Harry... will wake up in a hospital, probably having to deal with the aforementioned Murphy.

But whatever this was, can it really be over?