Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series and all the characters that appear on the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt, The WB, UPN, Mutant Enemy, Inc. and any one else with a legal binding claim to the shows and/or characters. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Part Eleven: I've Got The Power

The five people from Sunnydale were stunned by Queen Unxada's non-negotiable order that they be killed. The gnome generals turned and signaled to five gnomes bearing axes. Four of the gnomes approached the imprisoned knights, as the fifth waited impatiently for one of the other gnomes to unlock the cage holding Dawn. Dawn crouched in the corner. Her horrified gaze was fixed on her friends as she stayed as far away from the cage door as possible.

"Wait!" Giles called out as the executioner gnomes approached. They were carrying axes that appeared more than sharp enough to dispatch the prisoners quickly. "Why kill us?"

"I always kill those who lie to me, wizard," the queen responded. "Did you think me fool enough to believe your story? Knights on a quest, indeed! No knights dare proceed against my armies. No, only four wizards and a witch would dare think they could fool us with these disguises and finally destroy my people. You want to perform more foul magicks against us, force us to move further underground so that you can take over our lands and rights. You are fools! Your kind cannot defeat us. We will only come back stronger!"

"No! We told you the truth. We...some of us do use magick, yes, but we are not wizards!" Angel said.

"You persist in your lies? Even in the face of your own deaths? We know your kind; we have fought you for centuries. This mountain is all we have left, but we will keep it from harm."

"We don't want your bleedin mountain, you stupid bitch. We want the girl, and I'll kill anyone of you that touches her!" Spike howled in frustration.

"Listen to me, please," Giles interjected quickly. "You say you've encountered wizards and witches before? Have any of them ever allowed themselves to be captured as we have?"

"None have had your cunning and guile, no. Mostly they vanish once we are able to fight them back," Queen Unxada conceded.

"Then why are we still here? Why haven't we vanished?" Giles asked as the gnome brought the sharp hatchet to his throat, then drew back. Dawn screamed as the gnome finally entered her cage and raised his axe.

"Halt!" the queen said, and the gnomes stopped just short of performing the beheading.

"Your Highness, the girl appeared out of thin air. And they made us leave the ground. They are magick users and must be destroyed," one of the generals protested.

"You don't want to kill us!" Xander said to the queen, still eyeing the axe at his neck uncertainly. "You really, really don't."

"You see? He threatens us!" the general cried out triumphantly.

"That wasn't a threat, it was...umm...uh...an observation," Xander replied hastily. "You don't strike me as the type of...people who just kill out of the blue." Queen Unxada regarded him for a long moment, and he was surprised at the sadness in her eyes.

"We are not," the queen sighed. "But I must protect my people. Before your magick causes more damage."

"I don't understand. The spell I performed earlier caused no lingering harm ...but perhaps those evil wizards did something that has..." Giles said, working it out for himself aloud. The reaction to this statement amongst the gnomes was explosive and immediate.

"He knows, Your Highness!" the general shrieked. "Surely that is proof of their evil intent! We must destroy them now or all is lost!" A near hysterical rumble went through the vast number of gnomes in the chamber, and the queen nodded, her eyes wide with terror.

"No! Wait! We can help you!" Giles yelled, but he could no longer be heard over the din. Dawn screamed again as the gnome assassin raised his axe to kill her. Desperately she threw her hands up to ward off the attack. There was a bright flash that nearly blinded everyone in the chamber, and the gnome with the axe went flying. Dawn sat staring at her hands, stunned, as pandemonium erupted amongst the gnomes. Gnomes scattered, evacuating the chamber in haste as servants and guards swarmed to protect their queen. The other executioner gnomes hesitated, their expressions fearful. The gnome that had flown across the room sat up, rubbing his head and wincing but not badly injured.

"The witch is going to destroy us all!" someone screamed.

"Dawnie, are you alright?" Xander yelled. The girl nodded, crawling towards them but still in the cage.

"I don't know what happened," she sobbed as the paralysis that had overtaken the axe-bearing gnomes was wearing off. They still had wild looks in their eyes as they had clearly decided that killing the 'wizards' as rapidly as possible was their best defense against these alarming developments.

"Give these guys a toss, too, Dawn!" Spike yelled. Giles grimaced.

"No, someone's bound to get hurt...Dawn, listen to me. You need to concentrate on our bonds, on freeing us. Just try to visualize us free." Dawn took a deep breath and held out her hands. The bonds tying their hands together shimmered and dissolved, just in time for each of them to dodge the axe aimed at his neck. As one the four men grabbed hold of the axes, grappling with the gnomes that continued to try to fulfill their mission. Dawn looked at her hands again, but this time in wonder.

"That is so cool," she gushed. Seeing that Spike was losing his battle due to his chip, she flicked her wrist again and the gnome went sprawling. Then she made the cage bars vanish in the same way she had her bonds, and jumped up onto the platform where the queen and her servants were cowering.

"Please, I beg of you, don't harm my people. Take what you want and leave us be." She moved back towards her throne, pushing a hidden lever in one of the armrests. A trap door opened in the platform. Dawn was shocked to see piles of gold hidden beneath the dais.

"Call them off. Now!" Dawn commanded, pointing at the gnomes still trying to comply with their orders to kill the prisoners. The queen clapped her hands several times and the chamber quieted fairly quickly. Angel released the gnome he had in a headlock, and the gnomes that had been fighting with Xander and Giles stopped. Everyone turned towards the throne.

"We have lost, my people. Their magicks are too strong," Queen Unxada said with great regret. Dawn snorted in annoyance.

"Look, we don't want your treasure, lady. Giles was telling you the truth before...well, mostly. I'm no witch. I have friends who are witches, but they're good witches, not the kind that cast spells on gnomes or try to conquer kingdoms and get rich and stuff. I don't know how I got here. There was some kind of magick involved, but it was an accident, a mistake. A really big mistake. And I don't really know why I can do these things. I don't want anyone to be hurt; none of us do." Dawn almost giggled at the protesting expression on Spike's face. Fortunately he knew it was best to keep quiet at this moment.

"Oh, yeah, we're heroic knights all right," Xander said softly. "We're being rescued by the damsel in distress."

"Whatever works," Angel shrugged fatalistically. The queen slumped onto her throne, looking utterly defeated. It was clear that she still expected something bad to happen to her people at the hands of these strangers.

"What are you going to do to us?" she asked finally.

"Leave you in peace. We should continue on our way," Giles said, but the thought of leaving the gnomes in this state didn't quite sit right. From their expressions, he knew that three of his companions shared that same feeling.

"Giles, isn't there some way we can help them protect themselves?" Xander asked. Spike glared at him in disbelief.

"Excuse me? These blokes tried to kill us! And I believe we're supposed to defeat them. Which we have...sort of...can't we just go?" Spike growled, then continued more softly to his companions, "I don't like them, and I can't kill them. If we're not going to steal their treasure, I want to go now."

"You can't kill them...of course! That's the curse. They're not gnomes at all, they're human!" Giles cried out.

"It is true," the queen nodded. "It has been hundreds of years since our enchantment, yet I still remember what it was like to be as you are now. If you mean to use your magick to destroy us, I only ask that you do it quickly. But if you are good as you claim and yet wield such strong magick, perhaps there is a chance we might be freed from this wretched spell. We would be eternally grateful if the spell were broken. With your help I'm certain we could gain victory over the evil wizards that have plagued us for so long."

"Okay, well, this is good. Giles, you and Dawn make with the bibbity-bobbity and make these people people!" Xander said, smiling encouragingly at the queen. "Cause you're just people who need people. And that means you're the luckiest people in the world, cause here we are, riding in with the good magick spells to override the evil."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid it's not quite that simple," Giles dissembled. Angel and Xander both groaned, while Spike threw up his hands and stomped a few feet away for effect. Dawn exhaled harshly, letting out a breath none of them had realized she was holding. Seeing she had their attention she blushed.

"I've been trying to free the gnomes by picturing the spell being gone, like I did with the bonds and the bars, but it won't work," Dawn admitted sadly. "I'm sorry," she told the queen sincerely. "I'm new at this."

"It was a good idea, Dawn, but I'm afraid that isn't possible. I must ask that you please not try to do anymore magick without consulting me first. We can't be certain where this new ability is coming from. You might be doing untold harm to yourself."

"Okay," Dawn swallowed meekly. Giles was mildly surprised that she gave in without a fight; he realized having these unexpected powers must have frightened her more than she would admit.

"There are a number of ways to remove spells," Giles said, addressing the queen. An excited murmur went through the gnomes still gathered in the chamber. Giles looked apologetic as he continued, "but most of them are rather unpleasant, and sometimes fatal. Normally the person who created the original spell is the only one who can effectively remove it. I do know a spell that should work without any consequences, but it requires the use of an object..."

"An Orb of Resharah," Angel said quietly. Giles turned to him in surprise.

"Yes, exactly. How did you...know...?" Too late Giles realized the probable reason that Angel knew about the Orb. At some point, he or someone close to him must have been looking for ways to remove his own curse. The thought made Giles shiver, long ago memories of his torture at Angelus' hands surfacing as they occasionally did. He looked at the vampire questioningly; Angel responded only with a black, haunted look. Shaken, Giles continued speaking to the crestfallen queen, his voice faltering only slightly. "In any c-case, without the Orb the spell is quite impossible. And I'm afraid I have no idea where we might get one."

"Well, that's really too bad," Spike said cheerfully. "Guess there's nothing we can do, we should just grab our little Sabrina here and go. No hard feelings, mates," he said, frowning as he turned around to retrace their steps. There were a number of tunnels in the vicinity of where they had been brought into the chamber, and he was uncertain which one they had used.

"Those tunnels branch out throughout the mountain. Choose the wrong one and you'd be lost for years," Queen Unxada advised. "Only the gnomes know which one will take you to the surface."

"So let's get on with it then," Spike said. "Get some of the munchkins to show us the bloody road out of here before the soddin Scarecrow shows up."

"No," the queen said sadly. The others had been about to berate Spike for his rudeness, but now turned to Queen Unxada in astonishment.

"I thought we worked through this. You good, we good. Friends. We don't zap you or steal your stuff, you give us a hand...it's how these things work." Xander said, confused and frustrated.

"I believe that you are good wizards, and that you intend no harm to my people," Queen Unxada said. "That is why I cannot let you leave here. We need your magicks to protect us, to enable us to fight the dark wizards that have plagued us. We cannot stop you from attempting it, but we will not help you leave this mountain."

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"This will never work," Anya whispered to Tara for the fifth time, earning a rare glare of annoyance from the even-tempered witch that made her step back huffily. "I'm just saying," she said, returning to the worried attempts at cleaning that she had been using to keep herself busy.

Tara couldn't help but share her friend's doubts. Willow's plan was risky at best, extremely dangerous at worst. Without the spellbook that Dawn had been holding, she had been forced to work from her own studies, none of which included a interdimensional retrieval spell like she needed. So Willow had cobbled together a few other spells with which she had been 'tinkering'. She had allowed Tara to assist her in setting up the scrying bowl again. This time they were using the house keys from Dawn's purse. But after that Willow had refused Tara's assistance, leaving the blonde witch slightly wounded. Willow had been chanting the spell intently for nearly half an hour. Using a dagger to make small cuts in her finger, she squeezed drops of her own blood into the bowl at regular intervals. So far the only things the spell had caused was the pained expression on the redheaded witch's face and the small trickle of blood coming out of her nose. Tara was about to ask her girlfriend to stop when she felt something change. Willow's chanting grew louder, and Anya hurried back to Tara.

"What's happening?" the former demon asked excitedly. Tara shook her head.

"I'm not sure," she said, seeing the water in the bowl start to swirl in dark colors, gray and black and blood red. "But something definitely is."

"Is it a good something or a bad something?" Anya asked. The air around them began to crackle with static electricity and they could hear a faint sound like thunder. It felt as if a bad storm was about to hit inside the Magic Box. "Bad. It's a bad something!" Anya concluded, trying to get to Willow. Some kind of energy barrier repelled her, invisible but solid as a wall; it didn't hurt her, but it kept her at bay. Tara tried to reach her girlfriend and was also deflected. She pounded against the barrier in desperation.

"Willow!" Tara screamed as the crashing thunder sound reached a deafening volume. Willow had thrown her head back and was shouting the chant at the top of her lungs, but they could no longer hear her at all.

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"You mean we'll have to stay here? F-forever?" Dawn said brokenly. "B-but I don't want to stay here..." Dawn said, tears beginning to flow. Spike started for her angrily.

"See what you've gone and done? You've made the little bit cry. That's it, chip or no chip, no one makes the girl cry but me..." Spike growled, picking up one of the gnomes' axes and brandishing it threateningly.

"Spike," Angel said in warning. The younger vampire met his gaze defiantly for a moment, then dropped the axe with a muttered curse. Spike was surprised to see Angel turn and give the same angry glare to the queen and her servants. "You know, normally I'm all about helping people who can't help themselves. You might say it's my personal mission statement. But you can't hold us prisoner here. We've started something here that we have to finish; so much depends on our success, more than you could possibly understand. So, we're really sorry you're having all these problems with bad magick, but I'm asking you, politely this time, to take us the hell out of here. The next time I ask, I won't be so polite." While his tone was fairly mild, the glare that accompanied it was enough to make all the gnomes shiver.

"You really don't want to make him unhappy," Xander advised the queen. "Of course, you don't want to make him happy, either..."

"Really, I don't think that threats are necessary," Giles said hastily. "I'm certain we can come to some accord..." Giles trailed off seeing the set expressions on all the faces looking back at him. All except Dawn's, which was almost purple with rage.

"I WANT TO GO HOME!" Dawn screamed, effectively stopping all conversation momentarily. For a split second the only sound in the cavern was the echo of her cry; then everyone screamed as one, but none could be heard over the explosion unexpectedly rumbling through the chamber.

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