Kayla grabbed the keys to the office and stuck a 'back in ten minutes' sign on the office door before locking up. She then walked towards room eleven.

Faith and Ben were stepping out of the motel room when Kayla stepped up. When Faith faced Kayla, Faith asked, "Is there anything wrong?"

"I believe everything is jim-dandy," Kayla said. "Can I speak with you two and your third friend together though?"

Faith slightly hesitated before gesturing towards the door with her head. Then without saying a word, Faith faced the door, opened it and gestured for Kayla to enter first.

Angel stared curiously as Kayla, Faith and Ben stepped in. Ben was the last one in and as Ben was shutting the door, Angel asked, "Is there anything wrong?"

"I'm going to be honest here," Kayla began as she slightly fidgeted. She then took a calming breath. "From our earlier conversation I thought that you three were nut-jobs, and so I called my cousin who lives in L.A. in order for him to run background checks on you three. And to my surprise, he knew you. According to him you three are legitimate and you three are… are on the side of good."

"Who's your cousin?" Angel asked.

"Sgt. David Castle of the United States Air Force," Kayla said. Expressions of recognition came across Angel's and Faith's faces. "And according to David, Angel, you're not human."

"Did he tell you what I am?" Angel asked.

"He said that you're a vampire with a soul… but even as I say this, I think I should have my head examine for entertaining the notion," Kayla said.

"It's true," Angel said.

"It's true?" Kayla skeptically echoed. "I thought vampires were supposed to have fangs or… or at least look different somehow."

"Like this," Angel said as he changed into his demon face.

Kayla quickly took a stepped back before uttering, "What the… how… you're a vampire!"

"Uh, yeah," Faith said as if to say, 'duh.'

Angel changed back to his human face before saying, "I won't hurt you."

Kayla stared apprehensively at Angel for a moment before breaking her stare and asking Faith and Ben, "Are you two vampires too?"

"Vampire slayer," Faith said as she slightly raised her hand. "And I don't slay Angel because Angel fights on the side on good."

"I'm just a human… well, and a former homeland security agent," Ben added. "I just recently joined Angel and his fight."

"Valerie isn't a part of any support group, is she?" Kayla asked.

Faith slightly hesitated before nodding in agreement and saying, "Valerie is a charmed slayer."

"Is a charmed slayer different than a vampire slayer?" Kayla quickly asked.

"Within the small picture there's no difference," Faith said.

"But in the bigger picture?" Kayla prompted.

"There are three types of slayers actually," Faith began. "A potential slayer, which is a slayer whose ability isn't yet active, and there are thousands of potentials in the world. And then there is a chosen slayer. Into each generation a slayer is born. One girl in all the world…"

"One girl?" Kayla quickly interrupted with. "Just one?"

Faith nodded as she continued with, "A Chosen One, born with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. And on the death of the chosen slayer one potential slayer is activated by the forces that we call, the PTB AKA the 'Powers That Be', and normally the youngest of the potentials between the ages of fifteen and twenty is the one who gets activated. And then there are charmed slayers, which are potential slayers with their slayers' ability activated through witchcraft."

"Witchcraft?!" Kayla echoed in a shock tone.

Faith nodded as she continued to say, "Ten years ago, Willow Rosenberg—the most powerful witch on this continent, and possibly this world—had come up with the incantation to activate the powers of any potential at our will."

"So Val's dreams of demons were… what?" Kayla prompted.

"Memories of past slayers, and training for if she would've been chosen by the PTB," Faith said.

"So all potential slayers dream of demons?" Kayla asked.

"They do, and so do chosen slayers," Faith said.

"And you are a… a chosen slayer?" Kayla asked.

Faith grinned before saying, "Good guess, and through manipulation of the rules there are other chosen slayers."

"Since a slayer has to die for another to be activated; how?" Kayla asked.

"One has to die, true, but that one doesn't have to stay dead," Faith pointed out.

Kayla thought for a second before spouting out in an eerie tone, "Willow Rosenberg can raise the dead?!"

"Ye… well, that's not what I meant, but as long as the death is a mystical one, yeah," Faith said. "She has raised Buffy Summers from the dead after a mystical death, and before you ask, Buffy Summers is the oldest living chosen slayer. She died twice though; first by drowning at the age of sixteen by the hands of a master vampire. Angel and someone named Xander had gotten to Buffy in time to resuscitate her. That short death activated Kendra and thus having two vampire slayers. Kendra was killed a year later, at which I was activated and putting me as the slayer who had to die before another one could be activated."

"And did you ever die?" Kayla asked.

"With a doctor standing near me to resuscitate me within three minutes, I had stopped my heart, thus activating Jamie. Jamie was killed outright three years after her activation, which activated Verna. Verna was also killed outright and her death activated Tabitha. And Tabitha is currently stationed in New Sunnydale California. She's sixteen years old and as of a few hours ago, she was alive and well without any deaths."

"We know that this is a lot to take in," Angel said.

"No… it's really not," Kayla quickly corrected. "I'm mean, sure it would've been, but since Val had told us about her dreams on my sixteenth birthday, she would confide in us about them to a point of us being tired of hearing them. Oh God!! Damn it!!"

"What?" Angel, Faith and Ben questioned.

Kayla stared into Faith's eyes while saying, "When Valerie needed her friends the most, we weren't there for her. I owe her an apology… no! Actually I owe her a lot more than that."

"Potential slayers lose their friends once the nightmares begin," Faith said in a mournful tone. "Being alone and friendless seems to be the default way of life for us slayers and potential slayers. So you should forgive yourself."

"I'm more concerned about Val forgiving me," Kayla quickly said.

"I'm good at reading people… normally, and in the short time I was around Val, she seemed to be the sort of person who doesn't hold a grudge; well, not for long anyway," Faith said. "So… well, I could be wrong—it does happen on rare occasions—but I'm certain that Val will forgive you."

Kayla grinned before saying, "I hope that this isn't one of the rare times that you are wrong."

Faith nodded with a grin before saying, "Anyway, Ben. We should get out there."

"What killed Tommy?" Kayla quickly asked before Faith and Ben could move.

Faith gave Angel a look as if she was telepathically discussing if she should answer truthfully.

Angel nodded before saying, "Tommy was attacked by a swarm of spiderlac demons."

"Spider…lac? Is that a type of spider?" Kayla asked.

Angel nodded before saying, "Full-grown ones can weigh anywhere between ten and fifteen pounds. They live and hunt in swarms, and they feed on mammals. Nothing of the mammal is left once they're done feeding."

"Then a swarm of Spiderlac wasn't what had killed Tommy," Kayla quickly said. .

"It was," Angel said. "When a female is ready to lay her eggs, she will pounce on the largest mammal that she can find and inject the mammal with her venom. A partial dose of her venom will turn the mammal's blood into a salt-like substance within twelve hours, which was what had happened to Tommy."

"My god! Is that how he died!" Kayla uttered, which almost came out as a question.

Angel nodded before saying, "A swarm of spiderlac doesn't usually lose its prey, unless some animal or person had interfered during the attack. So we believe at some point during Tommy's attack someone or some animal had helped Tommy to escape."

"But he didn't really escape, did he?" Kayla pointed out. Angel just shook his head in agreement. "So what would've happened if Tommy would've received the full dose?"

"A full dose of a spiderlac's venom is no less than an ounce and it will completely and rapidly hollow out the mammal's body," Angel informed. "Once the carcass is hollowed out, the female will deposit her eggs within the carcass' stomach. Once the eggs hatch, the hatchlings will devour what's left of the carcass."

"Hey, wait!" Kayla uttered as a thought occurred to her. "Missing dogs are common among the hiking trails… Oh, no! Craig!"

"Who's Craig?" Ben asked.

"Craig is my best friend's brother," Kayla said. "He pitched a tent on one of the hiking trails and was never seen again. We thought he had pitched a tent to throw us off and then took off somewhere. He's dead, isn't he?"

"We don't know it to be a fact, Kayla, but if I would have to guess, I would say yes," Angel said.

When Kayla pondered her thoughts, Faith again suggested, "Ben, we should get out there, and see if we can found that swarm."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Kayla quickly asked.

"You can discourage your guests at going hiking," Ben suggested.

Kayla looked at her watch before saying, "Okay, well, my shift ends within the next two hours, so I doubt that I'll be any good in that department."

"You can at least discourage your friends in going hiking," Angel said.

Kayla nodded before saying, "Okay. Well, I should reopen the office."

"We all have our jobs to do," Angel said.

Kayla nodded with a slight grin before she waved and said, "See you around."

"See you," Angel said before Kayla turned and walked out followed by Faith and Ben.

In Washington, D.C. Jocelyn, Wendy and Carrie had found and picked up three of the five magical ingredients. As they were going after the fourth ingredient, they followed the map into a warehouse with painted windows that blocked out the sun.

When it became difficult to see, Carrie said, "We need to either open some windows or bust them out so we can see what we're doing."

"We can see well enough," a faceless male voice said within the dark.

Jocelyn quickly rattled off an incantation that blew out all of the windows, and as the sun soaked the room, nine out of the twenty-some-odd vampires were caught within the sun and had erupted into flames. Five of the nine were able to get into the shade and put themselves out before bursting into dust.

As Jocelyn, Wendy and Carrie were slowly scanning the male and female faces before them, a voice said, "Jocelyn, dear child." Jocelyn, Wendy and Carrie turned towards the voice and saw the Master. "It's been a long time."

"Not long enough," Jocelyn quickly retorted.

While being slightly baffled at Jocelyn's comment the Master said, "I thought we had parted as friends."

"I'm not the same person you knew in Ireland," Jocelyn assured him.

"Yes, I was actually waiting for this day to come when I gave you Merlin's spell," the Master said.

"You didn't give me the spell," Jocelyn insisted. "I found it among my grandmother's spells."

"I was the one to put it there, dear child," the Master said. "And I put it there after hearing a possible prophecy of my final death by one of my minions' descendents."

"Which was why you had me to mystically mark your minions' living relatives," Jocelyn accused.

"It was," the Master said. "Now I know it's time to locate them and kill them before they can kill me."

"Who is this… vampire?" Carrie asked in a tone as if she wasn't sure what the Master was.

"He's the Master," Jocelyn informed.

"The Master?! The vampire that Buffy had killed?!" Wendy asked.

"Ah, Buffy," the Master delightfully uttered. "I have a score to settle with her."

"Wait! I thought Buffy had destroyed your bones," Carrie said.

"My bones were stolen and replaced with others before she could," the Master said. "I was then raised from the dead by a wizard and now I will get my revenge… while starting with you three."

"You may be a master vamp, but I'm certain that you or your minions can't attack us as long as we stand in the sunlight," Wendy shot at him.

"Ah, but I can," the Master told her. "Spencer!"

Suddenly, Wendy, Carrie and Jocelyn heard the cocking of several guns, but before any of the gunmen could fire, Jocelyn rattled of the quickest defensive spell she could think of, which caused the air between her group and the Master's group to greatly increase in viscosity to where the three could see the bullets coming along with having the time to react to them.

"Run!" Jocelyn quickly ordered as the first round of bullets was heading towards them. "This wall won't last long."

Wendy, Carrie and Jocelyn ran as fast as they could towards the exit; however, as they were reaching the doorway, a bullet hit Wendy in her left shoulder. Carrie was hit in her left thigh. Jocelyn was trailing them both, and was shot twice in the back of the head and three more times in the back.

Wendy and Carrie got around the corner away from the shooting and when they looked back they saw Jocelyn lying face down on the ground at the doorway while blood-soaked from her head to her buttocks.

Before the two could react to the sight, they heard the Master ordering, "Everyone! Into the tunnels! Now!"

"Oh god, Wendy! They killed Jocelyn!" Carrie uttered.

"But she said that she couldn't die," Wendy insisted.

"She looks dead to me," Carrie said.

"Jocelyn!" Wendy uttered. "Jocelyn!"

"She's dead!" Carrie uttered. "And you've been shot."

Wendy flexed her left arm and fist before saying, "I'll be okay. What about you? You've been shot too?"

"I can walk," Carrie said as Wendy curiously scanned the area in all directions. "What is it?"

"The trees," Wendy said as she continued to look around her.

"What about them?" Carrie asked as she turned to look.

"The leaves are going from flourishing green to… to being dead," Wendy said. "All of them."

"Even the bushes around the trees are turning brown," Carrie added. "What the hell's going on?"

"Don't know," Wendy said just as the tree trunk to the oldest tree in the area had snapped in half from the strain of its own weight.

"Whoa!" Wendy and Carrie uttered from the sight and the sound that it made. Seconds later other trees followed.

"What's causing the trees to snap like they are?!" Carrie uttered.

"I'm to blame," Jocelyn said.

Wendy and Carrie turned and saw that Jocelyn was picking up her map. Her shirt was severely blood soaked.

"You were killed!" Carrie uttered.

"Yes, I was," Jocelyn agreed as she walked towards them with her map in her left hand. "But… as you can see I'm again alive and this area will be completely barren within a few minutes."

"You're literally sucking the life out of the trees," Wendy guessed.

"The life I'm stealing is from the Earth itself," Jocelyn corrected. "Nothing will be able to grow in the earth for years."

"Within the entire Earth?!" Carrie quickly demanded to know in a worried tone.

"Not the entire Earth," Jocelyn corrected. "But believe me, there will be enough of this region affected to alert Scully and Mulder to this area."

"You're talking X-Files and that show's not real; however, I do get your point," Wendy said.

Jocelyn nodded before saying, "I can heal your arm… with magic." She then faced Carrie. "And your leg."

"Will it affect the Earth any more for healing us?" Carrie asked.

"The thought of affecting this region any further is pretty much moot at this point," Jocelyn assured them.

Carrie slightly sighed before saying, "Fine. Heal us."

Jocelyn nodded with a grin before she went to heal them. As Jocelyn was magically drawing out the bullet from Carrie's thigh, she said, "My map is now useless for finding the last two ingredients that I need. We'll have to return home and redo the locator spells for those two."

"I think we should inform Buffy of the Master and what happened here anyway," Wendy said.

"Ooh, Buffy isn't going to be happy to hear that the Master is still alive… or alive again," Carrie added just as the bullet was slowing being purged from her skin and dropped to the ground. "Now that looked weird."

Jocelyn grinned before she began to heal Carrie. Once Carrie was healed—with a minute scar—Jocelyn focused on healing Wendy.

While using Dean's Impala, Willow, Dean and Sam were out investigating the three hot spots around the city that Willow had come up with when she searched for people with the symbols to the Amalgamation spell tattooed on their body. However, when Willow had completed the follow up spell to narrow one of the searches down among a group of seven houses, five of the seven houses indicated as being hot spots.

"Great," Dean sarcastically uttered after seeing the results. "The last time that neighbors were part of some secret order Sam and I were dealing with witch-wannabes who were being led down their destructive path by a possessor demon."

"Let's go find out what we're dealing with," Sam said as he was opening the door.

Willow, Dean and Sam went to the closest house to them and knocked on the door.

Dean and Sam had their fake FBI ID's out and when a twenty-something-year-old woman answered the door, Dean and Sam flashed them quickly as Dean rattled off, "FBI, ma'am. I'm Special Agent Jones. He's Special Agent Smith and she's Special Agent Johnson."

"I only saw… for only a split second, your two badges," the woman said while indicating Dean and Sam.

"Please, lady, I'm begging you not to remind them," Willow said in a pleading and beaten tone.

The woman, Dean and Sam gave Willow a confused look just before the woman had to ask, "Excuse me?"

"The rookie agent—which is me—had misplaced her badge after only one day," Willow rattled off in a beaten tone. "And these two… hard-noses have been riding me about it non-stop, except for the last ten minutes, and… and… I just want it to end."

"I think we gave you enough… tongue-lashing for today," Dean said to play along. "I had better see your badge with you tomorrow though."

"Yes, sir," Willow countered in a happier tone.

"Anyway," Dean uttered before facing the woman again and asked, "What is your name?"

"It's Sandy Willis," she said.

"Can we come in, Mrs. Willis?" Dean asked.

"It's Miss," she began. "In fact, as far as I care you can call me Sandy, and yes, come on in." Sandy backed away from the door and then turned towards the living room. Dean, Sam and Willow followed. Just before reaching the living room, Sandy asked, "So what can I do for you agents?"

Once everyone stepped into the living room, Dean, Sam and Willow had noticed a good size TV that was set on a local TV channel.

Dean quickly glanced around the room before he pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He then held out the paper for Sandy to see while asking, "Miss Willis… Sandy, are you familiar with these symbols?"

Sandy looked at the page before saying, "I am, Agent Jones. I recently had each one of those symbols tattooed on my back, just below my waistline… and in the exact same order as you have it here. So had several of my women-neighbors. This arrangement of symbols is to represent sisterhood and we did to symbolize our forever-friendship."

"The arrangement isn't important as long as the… as the ritual words are spoken correctly," Willow said.

"Ritual words?" Sandy uttered while confused "What ritual words?"

"You don't know the words?" Willow asked.

"What words?" Sandy quickly asked again.

"We're sorry to have bothered you… Sandy, but you are… 'innocent' to what we are investigating," Dean told her.

"And what are you investigating?" Sandy demanded to know as an important news bulletin of the barren region that Jocelyn had created caught Willow's attention.

"Holy crap!" Willow blurted out.

"… as of yet, the officials will not make a statement as to if this was caused by a chemical spill, a military testing or a terrorist attack…" the news reporter announced.

"We need to get back," Willow told Dean and Sam.

"Wait!" Sandy uttered. "What's going on?!"

"To what the news reporter is announcing, we don't know," Willow began. "But as far as what had brought us here, we were looking for a witch's coven, and since you don't know the words to the incantation, it's obvious that you and your friends just found these symbols in some book and thought that they looked neat; so we're just wasting our time here. Dean. Sam, we need to go."

"You're three aren't FBI's, are you?" Sandy quickly questioned.

"Of course we are," Dean insisted.

"Let me see your badges again," Sandy quickly countered. "And really show them to me this time."

"We don't have time for this," Willow uttered before rattling off a spell.

When Sandy fell unconscious to the floor Sam demanded, "What did you do?!"

"She's fine," Willow assured him. "She's just sleeping and by the time she awakes, we'll be long gone."

"Let's go," Dean prompted.

At the Summers' home, in the living room, Buffy, the adults, Toni and Aubrey were watching the news bulletin about the barren region that Jocelyn had created. Hunter was kneeling beside the coffee table while coloring in a coloring book.

Danni was still running a temperature and was upstairs, but instead of sleeping as she had planned, she was drawing comic book panels of Melaka Fray.

The remaining potentials were in the basement with Christopher as Christopher was monitoring them as they do their lessons.

After listening to a brief moment of news bulletin, Xander asked, "What do you think that caused that?"

Before anyone could speculate, the doorbell rang.

Toni was standing while watching TV and was the closest one to the anteroom. As she quickly moved in the direction of the front door, she said, "I'll get it."

As Toni was walking into the anteroom, Buffy said, "We'll let the National Guard inspect the region during the daylight, and once it turns dark, it will our turn to investigate."

"What happened might not be mystical," Amy suggested.

"This has mystical written all over it," Buffy said as she heard Toni calling for her.

Buffy, Xander, Giles, Amy and a few others stepped into the anteroom. When Toni saw her, she said, "There's a Lucy Stevens at the door and she wants to talk to you."

Buffy nodded and as she stepped up to where Lucy could see her she said, "I'm Buffy."

Lucy was slightly younger than Buffy and was wearing a maid's uniform. Once Buffy had identified herself, Lucy rattled off, "Is it true that you have the cure to Sorceress Cosgrove's poison?"

"Excused me?" Buffy questioned.

"I was there—at the top of the steps—listening," Lucy said. "I overheard you telling Sorcerer Cosgrove that you had a cure to his… 'loyalty drug' you called it. Please! I need the cure!"

"Okay," Buffy said while nodding. She then turned to see if DG was in the anteroom, which she was. "DG. Please take…"

"Lucy," she quickly said when Buffy hesitated to continued.

Buffy nodded as she continued with, "Lucy to the kitchen and give her the cure."

"Of course," DG said. "This way, Lucy."

As Lucy was walking away, Buffy told Aubrey in a reprimanding voice, "While there's a guest in this house, I expect you and the other young ladies of this house to act properly, and behave like Southern Belles. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Aubrey said. "Message heard and understood."

"Good; go in the basement and let the others know what I expect of them as well," Buffy told her.

"Yes, Ma'am," Aubrey said before walking away.

Cain stepped up to Buffy and whispered, "Okay, I've been the Master of Security to the OZ long enough to know that you just passed on a coded message to Aubrey."

Buffy grinned before whispering back, "I told Aubrey that Lucy could be a possible infiltrator."

"I can cast a truth spell and find out," Amy said.

"In case she's legit we will take a more subtle approach first by asking Lucy a few questions in front of a human-lie-detector," Buffy told Amy. Amy slightly hesitated before nodding in agreement. "I'll go call Valerie. Hopefully she could get here quickly."

Upstairs, Danni was working on her sixth page of comic book panels when Aubrey entered the room. When Danni looked over at her, Aubrey said, "We have a guest that Buffy wants us to be on our best behavior around."

"I doubt that Buffy will want me around her anytime soon, but I got the message," Danni said in her flu-sick voice.

"Can I see?" Aubrey asked as she gestured towards the papers.

Danni looked up to see what Aubrey was talking about before saying, "Okay, sure." As Aubrey moved towards the drawings, Danni continued to say, "I don't know if Buffy will let me put this in the time-capsule, but I'm creating a slayer's manual in a comic book form with Melaka as the cartoon character."

"Cool," Aubrey said as she picked up one of the pages. After a moment of staring at the page, she continued to say, "I think we should decorate the time-capsule with Melaka decals too."

"Good idea," Danni praised. "So when Melaka finds it, she will know without a doubt that it's hers."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Aubrey asked.

Danni thought for a second before turning to a blank page of her pad while saying, "I'll draw up images of Melaka and you can scan it into the computer and then print those images out on clear labels for our decals."

"Alright," Aubrey said while nodding.

In the kitchen, Lucy had made a bitter reaction over drinking the antidote before uttering, "Oh God! Now that was gross."

"Tell me about it," Amy said as Xander held out a bottle of mouthwash for Lucy to take. "That's why I suggested that you rinse with mouthwash afterwards."

Lucy took the mouthwash while saying, "Good thinking."

Lucy took a cup of mouthwash, rinse and spit it out into the kitchen sink. As Lucy was putting the top back onto the bottle, Buffy asked, "So, Lucy? What all do you know about us?"

"Just what I overheard Sorcerer Cosgrove saying about you," Lucy said as she was giving the mouthwash back to Xander.

"And that was?" Buffy prompted.

"You're a slayer, and you care for a group of potential slayers," Lucy answered. "And some within your group are witches and demons hunters… and you want to kill Sorcerer Cosgrove."

"Stop him," Buffy corrected. Lucy shot Buffy a confused look. "He's a power wizard, dealing in demonic activity and I want to stop that, and if it comes down to killing him then so be it, but I'll be just as happy for Cain to arrest him or Cosgrove gets stripped of his magical powers."

"I would like to join you Buffy… in stopping Sorcerer Cosgrove," Lucy said as Alexis was walking into the kitchen.

"Hold that thought," Buffy told Lucy before focusing on Alexis. "Alexis, I want you downstairs with the others."

"I came up for some water," Alexis said as she gestured towards the sink.

"Go back downstairs and a pitcher of water and glasses will be brought down to you," Buffy told her.

"Since I'm up here, I can…" Alexis was only able to get out.

"Alexis!" Buffy uttered in a warning tone. "Go down stairs! Someone will bring you a pitcher of water."

"Okay-okay," Alexis huffed. "I don't see what the big deal is."

"I'll get the water for you guys," Xander volunteered as he moved towards the cabinet with an empty pitcher. "Wait downstairs."

"Fine," Alexis grumbled before she turned and walked away.

As Alexis was leaving, Buffy turned towards Lucy and said, "We are a group of slayers, potential slayer and demon hunters, Lucy; I'm not going to try to convince you that you were misinformed. However, I think that you misunderstood to what we are about."

"I'm not following," Lucy said.

"Every person in this house has devoted his or her life at stopping evil in its tracks," Buffy explained as Xander was filling a pitcher with tap water. "We fight the forces of darkness because we strongly believe in the fight. We strongly believe that we can at least keep the forces of darkness from spreading further and if we can take down a few big-bads along the way then 'yea for us'."

"O… kay?" Lucy puzzling uttered. "I understand your mission statement, but not your point."

"You want to join us… join us in the fight against Cosgrove," Buffy pointed out.

"Yes; I do," Lucy quickly agreed.

"And I can't help to think that you are choosing this campaign to join our cause because you have a vendetta to settle with him and that's far from what we are about," Buffy quickly told her. "The people who join us, join us to make our way of life their way of life. We don't… nor can we have tolerance for people who would like to join us in a single campaign and then go on their merry way once the campaign is over."

"So if I join you, I must join you for life?" Lucy questioned as Xander left the kitchen with the pitcher of water along with a few cups.

"Not life," Buffy corrected. "You can quit at anytime you choose, but the people who are serious about fighting the forces of darkness see it as a calling… a duty that a person just can't walk away from without a long and inner turmoil deliberation. So only the people who see the fight as a calling are the ones who we will allow to join our ranks. I'm sorry, Lucy, but as I look into your eyes, I can see that you do not have the calling."

"Fine," Lucy unhappily said. "I guess I must accept that, but regardless if you allow me to join your fight against Sorcerer Cosgrove or not, I need your protection. He will kill me if you refuse me."

"We don't have room for you here, but we won't leave you unprotected either," Buffy said before gesturing towards a kitchen chair. "So just have a seat until we can figure something out."

Lucy nodded before taking a seat.

TBC