A/N: sorry it took so long. This week has been literally hell for me and to top it off, I'm going out of town again coming this weekend.  In this chapter, I've dropped a few hints as to what this entire story will be about.  As for those who noticed the lack of a B/S chem. – well, they will be addressed in the coming chapters.  I just wanna get most of the groundwork in this story under way before all hell breaks loose in my little fic.

The disclaimers are done in the first chapter….. but I'll say it in here again anyhow: I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE BTVS CHARACTERS!  THEY ALL BELONG TO JOSS WHEDON, MUTANT ENEMY, UPN AND GOD!  But as for Chad and the rest of the freakiness, they belong to me!

The shadows present in the room exchanged glances as the man they termed their boss gave a hysterical laugh and started rolling down on the floor.  The lightest of them shot the darkest one a disgusted grimace and said, "There, now you did it! He's completely cracked! Whatever the fuck happened to easing him into it?"

Sufficiently chastised, the darkest shadow shrugged out a sheepish "Oops?" as it tried to placate their now somewhat deranged master.  "Uh, boss?" it said, patting the young man on the back despite the giggling Chad had going on. "Think you can sober it up a little?  Yer beginning to scare even mooks like us. Plus you might wake them Scoobies up."

"How?" Chad snorted, tears running down his face from laughing it up so hard. "Now I realized that I'm even more of a freak than I thought I was before! And get this, I don't frigging care anymore! Say, how about I give you four delusions some names?"

"Whatever tickles yer fancy boss." The lighter shadow spoke, unsure as to the sanity of their master. "Go give it a shot. Besides, our real names don't have any human translation anyways."

Sitting up, Chad only had to think for a moment and pointed from darkest, to dark, to light, and to the lightest. "Moe, Larry, Curly, And Shemp!" Then fell back into giggles.

"Ah, HELL NO!" Shemp groaned, "Ay de mi! Not this! After the Stooges?! Get outta here!"

"He's the boss." Larry was morosely contemplating shadowcide. They're never gonna live it down once they get back in the dark realm.

"I wonder who's gonna be crazier," Curly said aloud, "Him for being shacked up with us or us for being shacked up with him?" Then they looked back at their finally sobering up master and then they saw his Cheshire-like grin. They all shuddered as they mouthed: "Us."

They heard the sound of rippling muscle over to where the vampire lay and saw that he had come to.  Spike had heard the entire exchange and felt that it was time for some answers.

Shemp goggled at the vampire and swore.  There goes our being incognito for a while longer, it thought.  Why don't we just wake them all up and advertise ourselves to the entire neighborhood!

"So if you wankers are working for Chad here," The vampire ventured. "Then who the hell are those other shadows working for?"

"As far as we know," Moe began, "Shadows are generally just that – shadows.  We're simply supposed to be on neutral ground.  We don't choose sides in being good or evil.  Unless of course commanded by the Shadow King – and even the king is a neutral creature serving his only whims, meaning he can go from good to evil in an eye blink just to keep the balance of light and dark fairly equal; unfortunately, the last sire we had expired eons ago. That's one of the reasons why we haven't been sentient in a very long while.  Only a few truly exceptional beings have been able to awaken and control us.  Which brings me to the point that the boss over here had better take a crash course in shadow taming so y'all be able to beat them amateurs."

"Huh?" Chad asked, still a little dazed by the news.  There seemed to be no end to this weirdness. What in heaven's name was he becoming anyway?  "Let's back that up for a second while we try to find a way to rescue Buffy's sister. I wonder what the blazes they want with her anyhow?"

"Could be that she's the Slayer's sis obviously." Supplied the vampire, "Unless she still is what she was before when that hellbitch was after her."

"Again I say HUH?" the young man wasn't getting it, his shadows observed.

"The Slayer's sister was once actually a very ancient sentient power source." Moe explained. "A very OLD energy, which has been around long before the universe was fully formed.  It had an evolved sentience unlike any other and had taken many forms in the past on its own free will – until a few smart-ass mystics grew out of the primordial soup and mucked up its purpose – which took away its evolved sentience. Combine that with the power-hungry hell-goddess named Glorificus, and you've got one Molotov Cocktail waiting to blow.  Frankly, I'm surprised Dawn lasted this long as a human without much of her powers, which were inherent with her primal state.  Or if she doesn't have any idea she still might have them."

Both men stared at the shadow, "And how the bleedin' hell do you know all that?!" the blond vampire asked. For all their research, they weren't able to find out exactly what the key was and to have it revealed by a shadow was cruel irony.

"It's easy," Moe replied with a shrug. "Racial memory.  Shadows are part of natural darkness - so we've existed far longer, so we've seen more shit than most beings did.  Explains why we know so many secrets.  But it doesn't really help us with the current problem at hand; namely rescuing the key-turned-human and beating those who took over the dark realm."

"He's right." Spike swore with disgust.  "Too bad Red over there went cold turkey about the witchcraft.  Glinda over there just isn't in the same power class as Red is.  Looks like we've got to use the old noggin to hash this mess out.  There's still enough of the night left to head back out and backtrack to wherever that demon was taking Dawn."

"No can do," Larry broke in. "You guys need to practice with the boss and us more before you all can go down to where we think its going.  So far, they drew first blood since none of you were prepared to deal with things like us.  If it weren't for us, you'd be dead or worse.  You can't fight what you can't touch, but we can. And we're here to help you do that."

"Do what?" came a muffled feminine voice that made them all jump.

The Slayer was now coming to.

TBC