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Author's Chapter Notes:
Just a quick one to say that the character of Luke is not the same one as the "vessel" of the Master in the pilot and subsequent episodes.
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Darla carried the Chalice to where the Master's bones lay. A dagger, elaborately jeweled, was on her Sire's right side by his head. On the left side was a book of spells.

Drusilla took the book in her hands, even as Darla lifted the knife. Both vampiresses pointed each instrument downward toward Hell. After repeating this action two more times, the pair knew that all was ready.

Angelus covered his mouth, stifling a yawn. He had never loved rituals, even when he'd been alive. He knew, however, that if he had actually yawned, Darla or Dru or both would have ended his life (not that he wouldn't go without a fight.)

Angel wished that he could be back fighting Spike. That was what really got his undead heart going. He wouldn't admit, even to himself, that William the Bloody was the most worthy opponent he'd fought in over a century.

His lips turned upward as he considered Dru's blond childe, his…cousin? Brother? Grand nephew? He knew not which. All that mattered was that soon, with William's, Barbie doll Buffy, and the other human sacrifices, the Master would be free, and then things would truly rock!

Drusilla turned the page to the devil's number as she prepared to read. Darla was about to slit her wrist when one of the younger vampires spoke.

"So we're gonna, like, see this Master dude rise?" a Caucasian vampire asked.

Darla turned angry golden eyes on him. "What's your name?" she inquired.

"Luke," he responded. "Why?"

"You, I want to remember," she responded flatly, turning back to the dagger and the chalice. When Luke smiled a superior grin that his Vampire Mother would remember him, Darla seized him by the throat, tearing it apart and causing some of his blood to drip into the chalice.

As Luke turned to dust, she said, "you should be proud, being the first to go."

She looked at all of the other males and asked, "any more questions? Comments?"

Xander and the other boys were silent, trying to keep their inner fear under wraps and failing miserably.

Angelus thought, **young ones, always the same: stupid!**

Drusilla's eyes clouded for a moment as the Master's voice impatiently barked from inside of her, "Well? Get on with it! I MUST rise! I WILL have my world to rule!"

Dru laughed wildly, then held up the book. All eyes turned on her. She looked at the clock, waiting for the hour of twelve.

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In the car, when a silent, terse moment passed where everyone thought about what Giles had said, Joyce asked him fearfully, "What do you mean, 'this does not bode well'?"

Removing his glasses, the medical man explained, "Something I read. Apparently, the-the head vampire, the true master of many of the smaller ones, will be taken from the ground in some sort of ritual."

"'Taken from the ground?'" Cordelia echoed. "As in, his bones will be taken from the ground?" When Giles nodded, Cordy commented, "may I say 'ewww' now?"

"But what would whomever did this want with the bones of the master vampire?" Joyce wondered aloud, knowing that she wouldn't welcome her doctor's reply.

Putting his spectacles back on, Giles answered, "It says in the spirit book that the master vampire is due to rise during the Age of Demons, in the Era of the Chosen Few."

"And I'm guessing that that's not when Mom turns sixty five," Cordelia said. Joyce shot her a look.

"No, it's tonight," Giles replied to no one's surprise. "The book goes on to say that they need human sacrifices by midnight, along with the Chosen One and her Hunter. It is what brings the Master back from the lower realm to assume control of the world."

"Oh, my!" Joyce exclaimed. "Buffy! Doctor Giles, we have to do something!"

"I second that," Cordelia put in. "She may be a pain in the neck, but she is my younger sister, and family is family!"

Giles flung off his glasses again, his frustration showing. "That's just it!" he countered. "There's nothing that we can do! The vampires will feed to increase the energies flowing in and around the Master. When they have enough blood, his body will reassemble and he will be the most powerful demon. He and his forces will vanquish all of mankind's attempts to stop him, resulting in the dark forces ruling the world."

His eyes fell on the Army base in front of them. "If the Slayer and Hunter are trapped inside that building and if the Master finds them at the precise time and drains them of their blood, he will be unstoppable!" Giles predicted.

Joyce got out of her car, shouting, "Not if I can help it!"

"Mom, what can we do against those things?" Cordy wailed.

Joyce said determinedly, "I don't know, but we'll think of something to rescue them!"

Getting out of her car, Giles said, "Yes, yes. We shall do whatever it takes to either help them or save them!" He grabbed a sack out of the trunk of the car.

Cordelia said, "And, uh, I'll stay here and…guard Mom's car."

"Use that machine of yours to look up the schematics of the base so that we know where we are headed," Giles said. Cordelia fished out her cell phone from her purse.

"Okay," she said. "I'll call you guys as soon as I know anything." She punched up the code she had cracked at home for the base.

"Shit!" she cursed a moment later. Joyce didn't bother to correct her as she told them, "they must have changed the code since we broke in earlier! I can't access the information!"

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Pinning Riley with a baleful stare, Spike snarled, "'d rather dust than perform for you, you worthless piece o' shit! I'm a demon, no' a trained seal!"

Riley smiled, responding, "I kinda knew you'd say that." He removed his remote control device and switched on the power.

"So," he told both vampire and Slayer, "I took out a little insurance. The gas that's been pumping into your cell, odorless to you, has a…shall we say…substance in it that will make you more feral. You'll attack the first thing you see."

Using his control to paralyze Spike, Riley signaled to two guards, who threw a slowly reviving Buffy into Spike's cell. "And, when she wakes up, so will she," he said softly.

While an immobile Spike watched, Riley kissed Buffy mockingly on her soft lips. The vampire tried in vain to break the invisible restrainer.

"Save your strength for her," Riley told him. When he left to join his superiors in the viewing booth, Spike saw movement out of the corner of his orange eye: Buffy.

Turning to face her, the vampire saw her expression. He looked at her animalistic face, her lips turned downward as she growled.

"Buffy, luv," he cajoled, "gotta fight it, lion cub." But the Slayer didn't hear him. Buffy kicked Spike with all her might.

The fight had begun.

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"Where should we go?" Anya asked as she stopped at a red light. Wesley studied the mountains in the distance and pulled out a map.

"We should go to the…" he stopped as he felt a strange sensation. In the back seat, Willow felt it as well.

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Drusilla continued to read from the book while Darla let her blood flow into the Chalice.

**Number three**…she thought.

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Anya's eyes turned red as she felt something overtake her. It was a male presence. Her last conscious thought as she drove toward where the evil vampires were was, **never can trust a man unless you copulate with him!**

Wesley and Willow mentally tried to resist the unholy voice, but all three were powerless as Anya drove them closer to their doom.

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C. G. walked further along a corridor at the base, confident that he'd figure out how the girl he'd rescued had intruded into his mind suddenly. The policeman had to admit, Lia was a beauty, from those eyes, which he regarded as chocolate flecked with gold, to her shapely butt as she'd exited his car. He forced himself to think about his mission.

He had to stop Riley, to arrest him and somehow get a Federal judge to try him for crimes against…what? Innocents? The vampires and demons certainly weren't that. But, he knew that not all of them were evil.

He knew from experience of a personal kind that, like men and women, they were simply trying to find their place in the world. C. G. owed it to some of them, especially the one Riley now held prisoner, to at least listen to their side of the story.

Securing his specially designed Bluetooth device, C. G. pressed the tiny button to activate it and whispered, "Tater? Are you there? You copy?"

A moment's pause, then: "C. G.? Yeah, I copy."

The cop looked around him and saw some doors marked, "hostiles" on them.

"Looks like this is it," he said. Whipping out a cell phone with a camera, C. G. instructed, "trace this signal, the faster the better, before they tap into it."

Tater's voice assured him that he was starting to trace the signal; then, there was silence.

"Tater?" C. G. asked. Then, slightly louder, C. G. asked again, "Tater? Reggie, you there?"

He didn't see the shadow behind him. By the time he saw movement, it was too late.

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The air around the Master's remains swirled, a blood red vision to anyone near his bones. Angelus, Xander, and the other vampires had to admit, this was impressive!

"And now…" they heard the Master's voice boom from all around them.

The world gasped, and it waited for its moment of evil to begin. For now, it looked as though there was no one to save it.





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