Buffy

Buffy wakes up a few hours later and changes into some more appropriate clothing. She finds her closet stocked with simple jeans and t-shirts. The jeans don't quite fit her, but they'll do. Guess I'll wander around and see what I can find out. She exits her room and immediately bumps into a man dressed in army fatigue pants and a tight green t-shirt. His face is stern, and there is a large scar across his forehead. She also sees there is some sort of medallion under his shirt, but she can't quite make out what it is. How long has he been standing there, waiting for me to come out? Something is very not good here.

"You must be Buffy." The man's voice is gruff, his stiff posture doesn't lessen even a little as he waits for her to respond. His lip curls derisively as he says her name.

"Are you Riley?"

"No, I can take you to him when you are ready."

"OK, let's go."

He turns and starts walking without saying anything or seeming to care if she follows.

"What can you tell me about what's going on out there?"

"It's best if you hold your questions for Agent Finn."

Well, he's a pleasant fellow. I hope all the Army guys are just as much fun.

They arrive in a large open area with many tables set up. There are boxes of what she guesses are MREs piled up along the walls. Each box labeled with which type of meal was contained within. The soldier leading her points at a man sitting by himself and walks away without another word.

She walks over to the table and sits down across from him. He doesn't immediately acknowledge her presence. Poking at the food in front of him and frowning. She takes the time to look closely at him. Noting his broad shoulders and farm boy ruggedness. She decides that he was probably considered attractive at one time. But now he looks worn and sad. She also notes that he seems to be wearing a similar medallion under his t-shirt.

"Are you Riley?" She finally brings herself to ask.

He looks up at her words. His eyes are fierce as if he's annoyed that anyone would dare speak to him. Once he seems to realize who she is, his features soften.

"Yes, and you are Buffy."

She nods, and the man returns to his food. "Do you think you could answer some questions?"

"Questions?" Riley's confusion is doing nothing to make Buffy feel better about the situation.

"Yeah, like what the hell is going on around here?"

He sighs and pushes his food away. "Sure, come with me." He stands and starts walking towards the exit.

I thought army guys were supposed to be all polite and respectful. I am getting a very bad feeling about what is going on down here. She sits for a moment and then realizes that he's not waiting for her to follow, jumping up she chases after him just catching him before he rounds a corner.

She follows him to what seems to be a command center. Two soldiers with headsets are sitting at a console, their eyes locked on a wall of tv monitors, showing rotating locations from around Sunnydale. She watches the scenes change in horror, the Sunnydale she knew only a few days ago is completely gone. Almost every building is in ruins, and there is a thick haze covering everything.

"What is it that you'd like to know?" Riley folds his arms over his broad chest and leans against a table.

Buffy pauses, not sure what it is that she wants to know. "Is the whole world like that?" She nods to the monitors.

"It's quieter here. Demon activity is worse in major cities all over the world."

"Are there are other safe places like this? Anybody trying to fight the demons?"

He shrugs, not looking at her. Staring pointedly at the monitors to her right, the ones showing various views of Angel's mansion. She catches Angel and Faith entering the mansion. At least I know she's safe. No one else seemed to notice the pair. She decided not to comment on it. Why would they be surveilling Sunnydale? And if Angel is here, why isn't he with Willow? She said she didn't even know where he was. She can see that there seems to be a base there of some kind, it looks like there are demons and human soldiers patrolling the area. Maybe it's Angelus, and he's taken Faith back to his evil army? I can't believe she would go with him willingly. She can't still be on the side of evil, can she?

Why take me to this room? He wants me to see something, but won't answer my questions. Maybe he can't for some reason? She gets an idea, turning to move closer to the man and stand by his side. Pretending to watch the monitors, she stretches and unclips the necklaces holding the medallion, it slides off his neck but is caught inside his tucked in shirt. He looks down in shock and confusion, as the item is no longer pressed against his skin.

"You have to get out of here, now." Whispering, he pleads with her, looking around nervously. "314" He whispers as he retrieves the item from his shirt and quickly reattaches it as the sound of marching feet can be heard in the hallway.

"Everything ok in here, sir?" The same soldier that met her outside her room is there, with four other large men behind him.

Riley nods, returning his attention to the monitors. The soldier shoots her a dirty look, but seems satisfied with Riley's non-response and turns to leave.

She considers trying to talk to Riley again, but only sighs. Something is controlling them, but not me. So I guess I'm free to wander around? She turns and exits the command center. She passes by the mess hall and turns away from where her quarters were. Now she's walking down a brightly lit hallway with a series of glass chambers on either side. All of which are vacant until she neared the end of the hallway.

"Spike?"

At the sound of her voice, the creature inside snarled and leaped at the glass. Hitting it flashed a current through him and he was thrown across the room. As soon as he was back to standing, he threw himself at the electrified wall again. Buffy quickly backed away and moved out of his line of sight, hoping he would calm back down. She could hear him continuing to throw himself against the glass two more times before he stopped, or was maybe knocked unconscious. She couldn't bring herself to go back and check.

"Buffy?"

"Oh hey, Tara. Is Willow feeling better?" Buffy is relieved to have someone who doesn't seem like an automaton to talk to.

"She's still resting."

She doesn't seem to be wearing that medallion that the soldiers are wearing. Should I try asking her questions? She didn't appear to know too much earlier.

"Oh, ok. I hope she feels better soon." Buffy knew she should be trying to spend more time with Willow, but she was also very uneasy about talking to the witch without having more information first.

"I'm sure she will." Tara smiles, and Buffy feels more relaxed. "Did you get to meet Riley?"

"I did. He doesn't talk much, does he?"

Tara smiled and shook her head, "No, I guess he doesn't. Where are you headed?"

"Just wandering around, trying to get a feel for the place."

"There's not too much to look at down here is there? Most of the old research bays are locked up tight. We haven't bothered trying to get into any of them since most of what they were doing down here was dangerous anyway. Seemed safer to keep it closed up."

"What were they doing down here?"

"Experimenting on demons. Trying to create super soldiers."

"That does not seem of the good." Buffy shuddered at the thought. She might kill demon's, but the idea of experimenting on them is still repulsive to her.

"No, it sure wasn't. One of their creations got out and was trying to take over the town. We were able to help them take it down, after that we sorta ended up taking over."

"What is Spike doing down here? I saw him in one of those glass rooms."

"They did something to him. We're not sure what, but he's completely feral now. Willow has been trying to find a way to help him, but so far nothing has worked."

"Why not just dust him?"

"After you left, he came back to town and helped us for a while. I think she feels bad for him."

"He helped? On purpose?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but he really did help."

Buffy and Tara continue walking down a long cement hallway with doors on either side. Buffy notes that each of the doors has a number on them. They just passed room 214, "How many levels are there in this place?"

"Two, this one and the one above."

Is she lying, or does she not know? I'm going to have to find some way to break off on my own.

"How do you spend your time? Seems kinda boring down here."

"It can get very boring. I spend most of my time in the library." She frowns and looks down at the floor. "We had all of Giles' council materials brought down here, so there's a lot to go through. We still haven't found a way to put an end to all this though."

Buffy looks at Tara thoughtfully, "Can you explain what you meant about how you can see certain things about people?"

Tara blushed and looked away shyly. "I can see people's auras. I can usually tell what their strongest emotion is and maybe a few other things depending on how magical they are."

"Can you see anything in these soldiers auras? They seem kinda stiff."

"Yeah, I'm not sure what their issue is. I just assumed because they are army-types that they don't really let their emotions out much."

"What do you see when you look at my aura?" Buffy was nervous to find out. It didn't seem like Tara saw anything bad, it just scared her to have a stranger see things that she might not have even understood herself. She also wondered what Tara might have said to Willow about what she had seen.

"I can see that you have very powerful magic inside of you. You radiate magic." Tara grinned as said this, relaxing Buffy slightly about the situation.

"Really? I had no idea. But… you said…"

"Since your magic is so strong, I can read a bit more of about you than I can of non-magical people. I got the sense that you care very deeply for someone."

Buffy smiled, knowing that it was true, wishing that she had realized it sooner. "I hope you get to meet Faith." She whispers, wondering if Tara would be willing to tell her if Faith felt the same. Then feeling guilty for even thinking about taking advantage of magic to help her figure out how to get Faith to believe that her feelings were real.

"It's kind of crazy, and maybe I shouldn't tell you this… I can see tendrils of energy leading from you, like their reaching out for something. I see wisps of her energy mingling with yours, trying to bring you together."

Buffy's eyes widen. "What do you think that means? How do you know it's Faith's energy that mine is reaching out to?"

"I'm not sure what it means, I've never seen anything quite like it before. I was planning on researching it today. I guess I don't know for sure that it's hers, but it's so similar to yours I have to think that it is some kind of slayer energy."

"Whenever I'm near her I get these tingly sensations, they don't always tell me exactly where she is, but I know she's around. Maybe it's this energy you see?"

"It could be. If she does come back, I'd really like to talk to you both more about it. There might be ways you can tap into it." Buffy frowns, she said if, not when. She has to come back, doesn't she?

They walk in silence for a few minutes. Buffy is concentrating on her slayer sense, wondering if she can find a way to sense Faith. She frowns when it doesn't seem to work.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll come back, and you two can practice together." Tara smiles, Buffy is in awe of how sweet and caring Tara seems to be and also wonders if she can read her mind. It makes her question her suspicion of Willow. If Tara supports her, how can Willow be up to something bad?

They seem to have completed a circuit of the level they were on, returning to the corridor that holds their rooms. "I'm going to check on Willow. There is a gym on the level above if you want to burn off some energy. The stairs are just past your room on the right. I'll be in the library later if you need anything."

"Great, thanks. I'll check that out." Buffy smiles and heads off, back towards her room.

Entering her room, she sighs and sits down on the bed. She doesn't feel like she's really learned anything new and has no idea how to go about fixing that. Without anything to punch or stab, she feels very useless.

More than anything - she wishes Faith hadn't left. Even though Faith wouldn't have any more idea of what was going on, somehow it would be comforting to have her close.

Faith

"You can't be serious. I can't kill Red."

"You have to." Giles look is stern and serious. Faith didn't know him all that well, but she had never seen him look quite like this. Whatever had happened in the past few years, it seems to have a taken a very hard toll on him.

"There's no way, B would never let me." Faith shakes her head and backs away from them.

"Since when do you care what Buffy wants?" Angelus leers at Faith.

"Things are… Better between us now. I'm not sure I want to mess that up."

"Didn't she just try to kill you?"

"Well.. yeah. But that was before. And really it was three years ago," Faith's reply is unconvincing. "Maybe you should tell me more about what's going on."

"Yes, boys. Please do enlighten our dear Faith on what sweet innocent Willow has been up to." Buffy appears next to Faith, grinning at the trio.

"Ugh." Faith groans. "Why do you always have to show up looking like her? Aren't there billions of other dead people you could be?"

"But Faith, I thought you liked this body. You seemed to be having a good time with it last night." The first grins and runs her hands seductively across her midsection.

Giles chokes a little, and Angelus chuckles.

Faith is not phased by the comment, "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

"It's no fun if you don't get upset." The First pouts but doesn't leave.

"Can you stop being an ass for one minute while we get her on board!" Angelus yells at the First.

"Wait, you're in league with this thing? What the hell is going on? I know I helped out the evil guy before, but I'm not into that now. You've got the wrong girl for this mission."

"You don't understand. Willow is the evil one. She's the reason the world is what it is." Giles says, his patience appears to be running thin.

"How am I supposed to believe that?"

"I know I was never really your watcher, and we were never close. But you have to believe that I would never do anything to hurt Buffy."

"I don't know, things change. You're working with Angelus and the first evil. How can I believe anything you say?"

Giles frowns, "You saw what it was like out there. Don't you want to try to fix it?"