And you don't think you could really do that, if you started by - turning half of Sunnydale's elementary schoolers into weird things we can't fix yet?

I think that that act itself is the sort of thing that often makes you a bad guy, in the stories that this power comes from! I am aware that this is a stupid argument, okay, I am aware that this is - reasoning from narrative stuff that doesn't make any actual sense - but you are asking me to keep powers that are obviously based on those narratives, powers that only exist in their current form because of what someone believed about them, and - 

I think Ethan Rayne is a pretty bad guy, even if he intended this outcome. I'm - also a pretty bad guy, I guess. I think - to me, it wouldn't make someone a pretty bad guy, to ask Ethan Rayne how to selectively reverse it instead of asking him to -

- but I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm not going to ask you to do anything. I will tell you, once we're close enough I can hear him, how he thinks you'd undo it.

Okay.

Thank you.

- let me know if you get either thing, okay? How to do it selectively or - not.

I will let you know if I get either thing.

Okay. 

She flies them over to the shop where Giles and Ethan still are. There's barely enough time left to execute any kind of plan at all. She's scared. Should have given herself more time to think about this. Or maybe she shouldn't have, maybe the spider thing was really important. Maybe the mummies weren't. - there's no point in thinking about this.

She points her sword at him.

"I've been thinking it over. And my best guess is still that you end a spell by cutting off the caster's head. So you might want to clarify, if you think something different."

Ethan grimaces. He does not, in fact, want to die here, and he doesn't know whether the girl is stupid enough to kill him. She certainly doesn't seem to have discovered that the way to break the spell is to break the statue. It has to be very close to midnight, now, so if she means to make him talk, it should be perfectly possible to avoid saying anything until after - which might still leave him in quite an awkward position - 

Breaking the statue ends the spell, he tells Karen.

Thank you.

"What I wanna know is, is there some way to make the spell end for some people, and not for others? Because I'd buy that I might need you alive for something like that."

He laughs at her before he can think of anything to say. The level of arrogance it must take, to think that anyone can control the forces of magic so precisely - the forces of chaos, of all things. The mere idea is ludicrous.

Nope.

Midnight. He was thinking about how he could stall that long.

I see. 

I guess we're done here, then.

She ignores Ethan and heads into the next room, where the statue is. She picks it up and dashes it against the floor.

The ring turns to plastic on her finger. Her outfit turns back into the twenty-dollar Halloween costume version.

Well. I guess that's that, then.

I guess so. 

Any idea what people need as far as cleanup goes?

Gotta - take all the kids home, I guess. Doesn't need to be you doing that.

Okay.

Need to do something with Ethan. I would say the feds could pick him up, but I assume they're kind of busy right now. 

I think so. I guess we could...arrest him. Guess we should.

Yeah.

Giles has him tied up right now. He can probably sit for - I dunno. A bit. I guess he's all powerful and magic, maybe we ought to move him somewhere now, but - I'm not thinking where, given how swamped the base has to be.

I'm - trying not to say I'm sorry because I feel like it'd be lying, but - 

- you're - going to make lots of calls. All you can do is make the best calls you can. I'm not upset.

I'm - kind of relieved. But. That's not relevant either.

Okay.

I wasn't, like - the stuff about bad guys wasn't about, like, actual moral judgements, just - the thing where if you're in a comic book and you start talking about making sacrifices for the greater good then three years later you're inevitably a genocidal maniac who wants to destroy all of the planets that get in the way of your glorious vision, you know - I don't even know if that was relevant to this situation, just -