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Author's Chapter Notes:
many many thanks to those who reviewed Naurolim, Jenn, Debbie, Ariadne, dusty273, Nancy, cordykitten. thanks so much guys!! hope you enjoy this little taste of things to come
Xander was holding the toilet bowl losing more of his lunch. He didn’t think it was possible to throw up this much but every time he thought about the story Faith had told them about what Andrew had been through Xander started to be sick again.

He was supposed to be downstairs helping Buffy get the slayers ready, armed and dangerous for today’s mission, but he didn’t dare walk more than a pace or two from the bathroom, because every time he did he had to run back before he redecorated the floor.

Andrew had been taken directly to the infirmary: his injuries both mental and physical, were horrific. His body would never recover, he’d had to have surgery to form a colostomy because of the damage to his rectum; his lungs would be scarred forever from the broken ribs and knife wounds, and his spine was so badly damaged that by the time he was forty he wouldn’t be able to walk at all. He was covered in bruises and cuts, some shallow and some deep, but the worst was his mind. It was completely broken, he could barely function on anything other than the most basic level. Andrew was scared of every noise and every sudden movement; the lively guestage they had looked after in Sunnydale was gone. He still liked watching DVD’s and they had kept him supplied with those, but his mind was gone. He sat in his bed with a small portable DVD player, watched what ever someone else put on and ate what ever was put in front of him. The medics even had to take him to the bathroom regularly.

Before he broke down completely, before all the memories of what he’d done and what had been done to him had hit and burnt out his mind he had managed to explain to Faith that Giles had told him that Anya had become a demon again, and the demon was going to bring them all down. He’d trusted Giles, but then they all had.


Downstairs, Faith was being closely watched by at least ten of Riley’s troop. They were fascinated both as men and soldiers with the dark haired slayer in the tight clothing. Faith knew where their eyes were, they’d started on her butt but now were fixed on the collection of knives, stakes and the two guns she had on the table in front of her. She was stripping down to the bare essentials, ready for the game of chase that Buffy had organised for the education of the soldiers and a little bit of a warm up for themselves.

Riley had wisely kept out of the way. He was sitting next to Willow nursing a coffee and splitting his attention between his men, Faith and the witch. She was busy reading the scrolls that seemed to be written in about twenty different languages. The letters jumped and danced all over the page in front of his eyes, but Willow seemed to be making sense of it all. She occasionally leaned forward and took a sip of her tea, then leant back and made notes in a notebook. It looked like a shopping list but some of the ingredients seemed very strange. He took a quick look, most seemed simple enough: fresh rosemary, holy water and a baby’s caul, what on earth was caul? And did it hurt the baby to get it?

His attention was drawn to Buffy coming down the stairs. She was dressed in a skin-tight pair of leather pants and a halter neck top. It was obvious that and the knee high boots were all she’d got on. Riley looked at the girl he’d loved, lost and then won again as a friend and felt very uncomfortable, his jeans getting very tight. Buffy looked him right in the eye and grinned. It was the grin that meant someone was in trouble and about to get their asses kicked. This should be good.

Faith stood up and slipped off the sweatshirt she’d been wearing. Between the two of them they could have stopped traffic anywhere. The only difference between their costumes was the colour of their tops.

‘Right, here’s the deal.’ Faith started ‘You choose ten of your best men, volunteers only, and if you catch us and keep us we’re yours for the night.’ She took a deep breath in and filled the top even more. ‘And if you can’t catch us in say, 45 minutes, you stop arguing with Buffy and any of the other slayers and accept we are better, faster and stronger than any of you, and you are not in charge. Deal?’

The men looked at Buffy and back at Faith. Riley felt sorry for the men, they were about to get whipped, led into the trouble by their second, less sensible brains. They honestly thought that they could beat not one but two slayers. Johnson was keeping well out the way. He’d seen what Buffy could do and although Faith and Buffy made a beautiful sight but they were a world of pain to anyone stupid enough to challenge them.

But, of course, amongst the men they could easily find ten volunteers to play. The men stood at the bottom of the stairs, effectively blocking them, watching Buffy and Faith, who just waited quietly for Willow to count down from five.

Five… four of the men completely blocked the stairs.

Four… the others broke into two groups of three and aimed themselves.

Three… they took an early pace towards the two slayers.

Two… the other slayers took places in any viewing area they could find.

One… the snatch squads leapt towards their intended targets who were suddenly no longer there. They had jumped straight up in the air and were on the balcony that ran around the second floor.

Riley leant over to Willow. ‘She really held back when we sparred, didn’t she?’

Willow stuttered and tried not to answer. She didn’t want to hurt Riley, he’d been sweet to her and to Kennedy and it was obvious that he respected and admired Buffy.

‘It’s OK: I understand why she did it, and I don’t think I could have taken the bruise to my ego then. But I need to know now: how much did she hold back?’

‘When she worked out with you, it was at about half power.’

‘Ooch.’

Willow smiled gently and went back to her reading. Riley was getting to be quite sweet.

Riley watched with amusement for the next forty-five minutes as his men were run ragged. They slayers were obviously playing with his troops, they would let one of them get within touching distance and then just as the men thought they were going to win, they would put on a spurt of speed and be out of reach again. When a ‘time’ was heard throughout the building, the slayers looked as though they’d had a slight warm up but his men were exhausted.

Buffy and Faith looked at the exhausted men.

‘Now keep the bargain or we might just forget that we’re all supposed to play nice. Point made?’

‘Point made,’ an exhausted man managed to stammer out.

The other girls came down and joined Buffy and Faith. One handed a copy of the scythe to Faith; all the others had their own copies of the great Slayer weapon already in their hands. Dawn and Willow started to create the portal.

‘Ready?’ Dawn asked.

‘Ready!’ came the replies. They knew this next battle would not be the big one that was coming but this was important: they had a mission.

Buffy looked around. ‘What’s happening?’ She was confused.

‘Nothing to concern you B, this is my bit,’ replied Faith, strapping on a gun to her hip and loading her stakes back into their various sheaths.

Willow handed over a small bag to Faith. ‘You are designated squad one.’

‘I know, and Rona is squad two.’ Faith took the bag and stuck it safely into her cleavage. ‘Believe me it’s safe there,’ she joked.

‘Mary, throw this on Anya the minute you see her.’ Willow handed another bag to the young slayer.

‘Martin will be ready as you come through,’ Dawn added. ‘Johnson is on stretcher duty: his team weren’t stupid enough to play tag with a couple of slayers, and the others will be rested up.’

Johnson handed over two walkie-talkies to Rona and Faith. ‘These work through the portal,’ he said, ‘and we’ll be waiting for your call.’

‘What’s happening?’ Demanded Buffy again.

‘The second you call I’ll open portals centred on you personally and bring you back. Then Dawnie will close all three at the same time, it’s quicker than individually.’ Willow instructed.

‘Gate’s opening!’ Dawn called out as the two slayer teams took their places ready to leap through.

Willow chanted some other spell. ‘Just protecting the portal: don’t want any Toruk Han getting through.’

‘Toruk Han? What’s happening?’ Buffy didn’t like the fact that no-one was answering her and she was getting really frustrated.

‘We’re going off to get your honey!’ Faith shouted as she jumped, whooping through the portal, followed by the slayers.


Sunnydale high was, unfortunately, just how Faith remembered it. She and her team ran towards the Hell mouth; they had to wait about three seconds as they watched from their hiding place as past Buffy raced out to catch the bus. ‘Perfect timing, good on Willow.’ Faith muttered as she and her team headed down the stairs to see Spike on fire. Faith used every ounce of power she had to reach the vampire and pulled the package from its hiding place, throwing the chain of the necklace over his head. The internal fire stopped immediately as the Gem of Amara did its work. Spike collapsed into Faith’s arms, she lowered him gently to the floor and called through on the radio to open up the retrieval portal.

At exactly the same time Rona was heading down the hallway to where Anya was being stabbed by Andrew. Andrew looked as though he were stoned: Giles’ influence was widespread. As Andrew ran away Rona threw the powder at Anya; the floor was already beginning to heave as Sunnydale High along with Sunnydale itself started its death throes.

Anya collapsed from the wound, her blood spilling out all over the floor. It had been hard enough to deal with the first time, just hearing about it, but actually seeing what happened made it doubly difficult.

As Anya collapsed Viv swept her up into her arms, cradling the ex-demon like a child.

‘Team two, we have the package!’ Rona shouted into the radio, the slayers holding off any Uber Vamps that came their way. They were grateful to see the swirling lights appear in front of them.

The slayers with their precious burdens clutched safely to them appeared back at The Hyperion. Johnson and his men relieved them of their charges and put them straight onto the waiting gurneys. They then literally ran through to the infirmary where Martin was waiting. All Buffy could see was the shock of bleach-blond hair that said Spike was alive. Everything else could be fixed: he wasn’t dust.





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