She crept through the dank, dark basement, avoiding the stares and leers from her audience as she moved on. It seemed like hours until she reached the cage where she'd been heading, facing the dark-eyed vampire who'd been waiting there.
"I knew you'd come," he murmured, his voice washing over her with silken sensuality. "Take the barrier down."
She fumbled with the charm in her pocket, finally pulling it out and murmuring the activation spell that would make the magical barrier fizzle in that particular segment of the basement. The blond vampires in the next cage, both small and compact and supremely disdainful, rolled their eyes and settled near the front bars of their cage to watch, murmuring biting words that almost shattered her, right then and there.
"Did you bring the key?" the dark-eyed vampire demanded in his soft purr.
She shook her head. "I couldn't…I can't…"
"You can't have it both ways," the blond woman drawled to the vampire, making him look to the vampiress suddenly. "You want a witch and a pickpocket. And the damned slayers are far too honorable to do the second."
He turned his attention back on her, and she shook. "Tell me, Haru," he ordered. "Who do you think will help our purposes when you're gone? One of the experienced potentials? The one I fought first last week?"
Haru tried to look down, but was unable to, his dark eyes forcing her to be still and obedient, enthralled by his gaze. "There…there is one. A new slayer. I saw…she was…she was taken in by you."
His hand snaked out through the bars to stroke the underside of her wrist hypnotically. "Like you were."
"Yes." A part of her rebelled against giving him the information, but she was too far gone to do anything but obey. "Faith. I think that's her name."
A slow smile spread across his face. "Of course it was." He waved at her dismissively, the dreamlike quality of her visit gone. "You're of no use to me anymore. Go back to your watchers."
"And the nasty little girl shall tell them nothing, isn't that so?" added a quiet, lilting voice from the back of the cage, where a flimsy wall gave the vampires some tiny semblance of privacy. A dark-haired, wild-eyed vampiress emerged to stand behind the vampire. "She shall forget this ever happened." Her eyes were as hypnotic as his, and Haru obeyed, sneaking back into the dormitories next door and into her bed, her roommate unaware.
When she awakened, she didn't remember a thing.
After that terrible first day, things had gone much more smoothly. For one thing, Xander hadn't messed up again. Granted, Faith hadn't really given him many opportunities to do much, but he was silent about that, in the name of peace. In exchange, she kept quiet about his inadequacies, but she could feel the tension between them growing, the pent-up anger they were still internalizing simmering just beneath the surface.
More tremors had erupted nearby, but thankfully, never directly below them like they had the first day, and they'd opted to flee from them every time, rather than to be forced to use their water on the sand demons that followed the quakes. They'd rationed what little food and water they'd brought, but by the time the fourth day came, they were completely out of supplies. "I don't understand," Xander said, frowning. "Gunn specifically said that we'd have edible food in this dimension. And I think I remember…no, that was the next world on the list," he amended.
"What was it?" Faith squinted out into the distance. There had been no tremors for at least a half hour. Had they reached a quiet spot?
"Cave world," Xander said, bending to close their tent. "There were streams and berries and this weird paste that supposedly tastes like gum…"
Faith sighed, irritated. "Why is it so easy for you to remember some random world we don't care about, but impossible for you to even figure out where the food is on this one?"
That defensive look that Xander got whenever Faith mentioned his great failure popped up again, and Faith suppressed the urge to stop talking to spare his feelings. Please. Like Xander couldn't dish it just as much as he took it, regardless of his hurt puppy-dog eyes. She stared at him stubbornly, waiting for the retort that was sure to come.
Instead, the ground split below them, and the two of them fell forward into the gap, grasping at each other for support. "I'm stuck," Faith said frantically, trying to use Xander's shoulders to pull herself up.
Instead, he was pushed downwards, further into the hole. He grabbed her hands, giving her a dirty look. "Cut it out, we're both stuck!"
Faith angled her body, trying to reach anything solid nearby, but she came up empty. The ground was shaking, they were sinking, there was nowhere to go…
With a sickening squelch, she was pulled deeper, caught somewhere around the waist and crushed against Xander, her head pressed to his, her hands tightly wrapped in his big ones, her breasts smashed against his chest, her lower stomach against his hard…
"Really, Xander? Really?" she said incredulously.
His cheeks were hot against her face. "I can't help it," he protested, trying to shift his hips away from her, but instead, he stimulated his arousal even more. And twisted as it was, it was kind of getting her hot, to the point that she started squirming for friction as they fell together, her own nether regions sticky and warm.
They stared at each other for a moment, considering what was happening. Faith felt a shiver run down her spine. Oh, she'd thought about sex with Xander before. She'd thought about it with any of the hot guys in the grade. But this…this was closer than she'd ever gotten, and if they were going to be taken by the sand demon anyway…
The ground picked that moment to widen, and they fell together, landing with a soft thump on soft, mossy ground.
Faith looked around, noting the dark underground of the dimension, the long stream that reached ahead of them, the strange bushes packed with little blue berries, the white paste that covered the cave walls…
Xander gave her a sheepish grin. "Whoops?"
"Willow?"
But again, Willow was mouthing words at her, completely incomprehensible and unable to help. She bit her lip and focused out, into the water.
"Regus…" the sea murmured at her, and she flinched, unsure of where she was. "Regus…" it whispered again, the waves lurching upward, closer still.
A hand on her shoulder startled her in a foggy kind of way, and she slowly turned her body to face the vision behind her.
It was the girl from before, in the place she couldn't recall, the girl she didn't know. The long, dark hair was shorter now, and wildly crimped to her dark, bare shoulders. And it almost, but not quite, concealed the two tiny red circles on her neck. There was a secretive smile on her face. "You're just like me," she murmured, reaching out to touch Buffy's cheek softly. "Just like…"
"Me," he murmured, and he was very close, blue eyes fixed on hers, drawing closer and closer… He was glowing with an unnatural light, and she reached for him when he couldn't move anymore, touching the bars that kept him from her and sighing a little at the electricity that jolted her when he did the same.
Their fingers entwined and she longed to be closer to him, to be with him, and he was laying her tenderly down on the hard, cold bed that wasn't a bed at all, but an examining table. And then, as his lips touched her own, he stood abruptly and was a woman, cold and hard and wearing a white lab coat.
"The specimen is of Regus," she announced in a detached, clinical voice.
Buffy turned away, catching sight of a redheaded girl's back as she fled the lab. "Who are you?" she whispered.
She blinked and she was seated at the beach, rubbing lotion down Anya's back as Anya chattered on. "It's Regus, you know. It's all Regus, right, Willow?"
Buffy started guiltily, remembering her mute friend, who looked to her with helpless eyes. "And the one you're looking for, well, she's gone, isn't she?"
"I don't know," Buffy admitted, watching as Anya changed before her eyes, blond hair reddening, pale skin darkening, curvy figure becoming slim and sleek and exquisitely toned. She lay down beside her, waiting until the other girl propped herself up to look at Buffy.
"I am Regus," the girl informed her.
"Were you always?"
The girl considered. "Perhaps. I don't know. Once, I was something. For three days." She watched Buffy, considering. "Are you anything?"
Buffy shook her head. "Not yet. Maybe not ever." She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, everything around her was blurry and flickering with an orange heat that enveloped her completely. "Regus?" she called out, coughing a little. "Regus?"
He stepped out, and this time, the man was someone very different than the one she'd seen before. This man towered over her, his eyes shining with calculated glee, his hands reaching for her…
And this time, Willow was there, moving through the fire, pulling her away and keeping her safe. "What do you think is going to happen to us next?" she asked worriedly, when there was nothing but darkness.
And they were both gone again.
All things considered, Tara reflected, this wasn't going so badly. True, Cordy was ordering her around when it came to some basic activities, but Tara held the true power in what she knew about this world. Granted, it wasn't keeping them safe from the plants that sprang to life as they passed them. But Tara's magic was doing a pretty good job of that, and for once, she was grateful to Ethan for helping them develop the barrier spell that was proving to be surprisingly useful.
"Take that, vine-boy!" Cordy said gleefully, watching as the plant-demon's vine's slapped harmlessly against the barrier that Tara had erected. "No one messes with me!"
"And me," Tara murmured absent-mindedly, focusing all her energies on that side of the barrier.
Cordy gave her a dirty look. "Hey. I'm taunting here, watcher." She made the word sound like a curse, and Tara was silent again. The less she provoked Cordelia, the better.
They stared at the vine creature silently for a while, waiting for it to tire of its attack so that they could move on. Instead, it continued its stubborn assault on the barrier, either unaware or uncaring of the fact that it couldn't penetrate their shield. Tara took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, letting the magic come naturally. It never worked very well if she focused too hard.
The image of Willow biting her lip with concentration as she tried to release the vast pockets of magic she held within nearly shattered her concentration right then and there. Stop, she reminded herself. Don't do this to yourself.
She was almost relieved when Cordelia finally spoke, even if her words made Tara flinch. "You're gay, right?"
Tara gaped at her. "Wh-who told you that?"
Cordy shrugged. "Kennedy says you're gay. And she has that gay sensor thing. Gayradar or whatever. Do you think Colleen's hot?"
Tara flushed. This was not what she had meant when she'd tried to tell Cordy that they needed to share to work together. "Why?" she asked finally. "I'm not really-"
"I mean," Cordy continued, ignoring her stutters. "Jesse's not into that whole pasty-pale sort of thing, right? Even if they're spending a week together. And besides, it is so unprofessional for a watcher to sleep with his slayer. That whore." She frowned at Tara. "You're gay, you can tell me. I'm hotter than Colleen, right?"
Tara stayed silent, hoping against hope that Cordy would finish the conversation without Tara having to speak.
"Of course I am!" Cordy decided. "Jesse always checks out my ass when I walk past him. And I've never seen him give Colleen a second glance."
Tara sneezed involuntarily, and Cordy started, as though she'd just realized that Tara was there. "Not that I care," she said hastily.
She was tall, taller than she'd ever been, and the world was sharp and clear, even though she stared at it through darkened eyes. She was different, she knew, but she couldn't bear to look at herself and see the changes.
"Is this Regus?" she wondered. Her voice was cold and unyielding, and she nearly wept with loss at what had become of her.
Oz smiled with his eyes, reaching out to take her hand, and she threw him aside. "Willow!" he called out, and then he was devoured.
Buffy turned to stare at her, her eyes frightened. "It's all right," she said, but Buffy couldn't hear.
She walked aimlessly through the streets, Buffy at her heels, unsure of where she was supposed to be, where she was supposed to go. Finally, there was Jesse at a side road, watching her with sorrowful eyes. "What have you done?" he murmured, and she struck him down, right then and there.
She was a goddess, a fearsome creature before whom all would bow, all except Buffy, who clung to her hand and sobbed because she couldn't hear. "It's Regus," she tried to explain to Buffy, but it was no use.
Ethan smiled down at her from a nearby building, and then he was in front of her, a finger idly stroking her cheek with affection. She tilted in toward him, knowing that he was power, and it was power…
…And then he was Tara, her paragon of light, and Tara leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, until Willow was nothing but a scared little girl once more.
"Regus," she breathed against Willow's mouth, and Willow fell to the ground with her, and they were one, the light of the magic embracing them both. And Willow was safe again.
"Can't you do anything right?" Faith exploded, and Xander sighed long-sufferingly.
"Are we really going to have this discussion again?" he wondered, sliding to the floor of the cage next to the stream. He tossed Faith his extra canteen and got to work on refilling his. "So I messed up a little. I forgot something. But we've managed until now, and it'll probably be smooth sailing from here on out. I'm pretty sure that the only demons down here are those Narapsets, and we've got plenty of water to take care of them now."
"You're unbelievable, you know that?" Faith dipped her canteen into the water, scooped out a portion of it, and gulped it all down. "How do you ever think that you can make watcher like this?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Xander demanded, remembering Giles's ultimatum with a pang. "I'm doing fine."
"Really?" Faith raised her eyebrows. "You honestly think that?" She stretched out in front of the river, her too-small (and most likely, intentionally so) slayer uniform riding up so high that Xander could see the black lace of her bra peeking out from underneath. He turned away from her, felling her smirk on his back. "Because all you need to do is forget one thing and your slayer's dead. Gone."
"Well, that's the point, isn't it?" Xander said nastily. "You slayers are so focused on becoming the big one, the important one, that you forget about the consequences. If you're fifth on the list, maybe you'll have to lose four friends to get there."
"I don't care about them," Faith shrugged. "Only Buffy."
"Oh, that's right!" Xander sat up. "You're Faith, the untouchable one," he said sarcastically. "You build a wall around yourself so no one can get in. Except Buffy." He leaned forward, supporting his face in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. "Tell me, how much longer do you think you'll have until Buffy breaks free? Until she finally gets sick of your clinginess and jealousy?"
Faith looked away, and Xander almost stopped, but the words kept pouring out. "Everyone knows that you use Buffy as your shield to the outside world. As long as you have Buffy, you have a friend, someone out there who can tolerate you. But she's not going to take that forever. She's going to get sick of the way you try to keep her all for yourself, chasing everyone else away from her. And then you'll lose her too, and you'll just be lonely and bitter and ready for your death so the next slayer can take over as soon as you're called."
He'd wanted to ask Buffy out once, had waited for her after class to invite her to the movie playing in town the next day. And Faith had come out first, backed him against the wall, and warned him to stay far, far away from Buffy Summers.
"Like you're any better?" Faith spat out, pulling herself up and standing. "You're only in the school because of Willow, and you're not good enough to be a watcher. You're just wasting away the years here, waiting for some miracle to happen and make you someone useful. But you don't have any of the strengths that you need. What's going to happen if you graduate? You're not getting a slayer, we both know that. You'll just be sent on some suicide mission and you'll die a gruesome death!" she finished, glaring at him.
"At least someone'll care when I die," Xander muttered.
Faith heard him, and her face, flushed with anger, darkened further. "I don't have to take this," she growled, and took off deep into the labyrinth of caves to their left.
She was out of sight before Xander could rise to his feet.
