Battle of the Tower

Template:Battle The Battle of the Tower was a battle between the Scooby Gang and Glory to prevent her from using the Key.

Prelude

For several months, the Hellgod Glorificus, better known as Glory, searched for a mystical energy known as the Key in order to return to the home she had been banished from to retake it. Doing so would destroy the universe as all the barriers between dimensions would break down, but Glory didn't care. Unknown to her, the Order of Dagon had transformed the Key into a human girl named Dawn Summers and sent her to the current Slayer Buffy Summers for protection. After months of searching, Glory learned the identity of the Key from an insane Tara Maclay and captured her while Buffy and her friends were on the run and inadvertently brought to them Glory's mortal half, Ben Wilkinson.

Knowing that the "Big Day" when Glory would use the Key was approaching, Spike and Xander Harris got from Doc, a demon that worshipped Glory documents telling them that the time was that night and that it was a bloodletting ritual where Dawn's blood would be spilled at a certain point at a certain time and collapse the walls between all dimensions. The walls would only return when the blood stopped flowing, meaning when Dawn died. Buffy refused to accept this and she and her friends decided to make Glory miss her window and came up with a plan involving using Willow's magic, the Dagon Sphere, the Buffybot, a wrecking ball and Olaf the Troll God's enchanted hammer against Glory. After preparing and at the appointed time, they let Tara go to where the other Groupies were gathering at the Tower they'd built for the ritual, leading them to Glory.

The Battle

As Tara arrives and goes to work, Glory notices and confronts her. Before Glory can do anything, Willow uses magic to reverse Glory's draining of Tara's sanity by removing the energy from Glory and transferring it back to Tara. This results in a blast that throws all three back. This weakens Glory and makes her confused so she decides to drain the brain of what she believes to be Buffy when she appears but is actually the Buffybot. Realizing that this is likely a distraction, Glory sends her minions and the crazies to keep Buffy's friends from reaching Dawn while she stays to confront the Buffybot. The Buffybot reveals the Dagon Sphere which is causing a lot of Glory's confusion and weakness and tosses it to her. Glory destroys the Sphere, but it weakens her strength and she and the Buffybot engage each other in battle. While the Buffybot manages to land some good hits, Glory eventually recovers enough to counterattack and knocks off the robot's head to her surprise as she thinks it was the real Buffy all along. As Glory is recovering from the surprise of the Buffybot, the real Buffy attacks her with the troll god hammer. After knocking Glory down, Buffy races up the tower, battling Glory all the way to reach her sister. Buffy and Glory exchange blows, with Buffy losing the hammer for awhile. Eventually Buffy gets the hammer back, but Glory knocks her off the tower. Buffy manages to take Glory to the ground with her and shoves her a ways back where Xander Harris hits her with a wrecking ball, knocking her through a wall. All the blows Glory received weaken her severely and she loses her ability to fight back. Buffy then pounds on Glory with the hammer until she weakens to the point that she turns back into her mortal form of Ben. Buffy orders Ben to keep Glory bottled up inside and leave Sunnydale and never return or she'll kill them both. Buffy then runs off to rescue Dawn. After Buffy leaves, Rupert Giles approaches Ben and knowing that Glory will one day return and make the world pay for Buffy's mercy, suffocates Ben with his bare hands, killing him and Glory.

At the same time that Buffy battles Glory, Giles, Anya and Spike battle Glory's minions and the Groupies. Spike kills a minion with a crossbow and Giles one with a sword, but even armed with those weapons and in Anya's case a baseball bat, they are unable to get past to the tower and are forced to retreat, believing that they are at a tie as they can't get to Dawn but neither can anyone else. However, as the time approaches and Glory is still delayed, the demon Doc approaches Dawn to do the ritual himself. Realizing that someone is on the tower with Dawn, Willow telepathically communicates with Spike and tells him to rush the tower. Following Willow's instructions, Spike does and Willow and a recovered Tara telekinetically push back the Groupies and minions so Spike can climb the tower. On top, Spike confronts Doc and attempts to save Dawn, but proves no match for the demon and is beaten and thrown from the tower, seriously injuring him. Doc starts the bloodletting but before he can finish, Buffy reaches the top of the tower. Doc charges Buffy, planning to fight her, but Buffy simply pushes him from the tower, presumably killing him in the fall. However, she's too late and Dawn's blood opens the portal. As the portal causes chaos, releasing demons and a dragon, Dawn tries to throw herself into the portal to sacrifice herself to close it and save the world. Buffy stops her and realizes that as the monks made Dawn out of her, they share the same blood and Buffy's death would close the portal as well. Buffy says a final goodbye to Dawn then jumps into the portal. The mystical energy kills Buffy after a few seconds and the portal closes, ruining Glory's plan.

Aftermath

Buffy's sacrifice saves the world and her friends use the Buffybot to keep up the illusion that she is still alive to protect Sunnydale before resurrecting her months later. However, Buffy's second death and resurrection cause a glitch in the Slayer line that allows the First Evil to return and attempt to destroy the Slayers forever.

Key Participants

The Scooby Gang

Survivors

Willow Rosenberg
Xander Harris
Rupert Giles
Anya Jenkins
Spike
Dawn Summers

Battle of the Tower

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