Who were you just now?
Who do you want to be?
I will love you til' the end of time.
Anticipation.
The big worry and slow hurt until the sediment of mental illness tightens the heart like a rubber band.
Tug it.
Tug it slowly.
Tug it more until it can only snap.
After such an introduction, Buffy heard and saw nothing of the mysterious stranger.
School came and went. She built the relationship with her friends yet again and the moment she felt like the girl she was again, that's when she'd remember that the walls began to close around her here.
No matter how much she tried, it wouldn't leave her head.
Beneath her, The Master waited. It was a strange set of coincidences that she had no need to face The Three, no assassins sent to kill her, nor drag her into hell with him. Had he known of the circumstances that surrounded her? That permeated like a dense fog around the entire city?
At some point Buffy realized she would have to face him again. The longer she waited the closer to the prophecy she'd get. She stared in the mirror in her bedroom and felt like the sixteen year old girl afraid to die.
Will it happen again?
Click!
Clack!
The sudden noise startled her and she turned toward the window as another click tapped on the glass. She looked down at the lawn to find Angel. Like some high school sweetheart, he waited for her to climb down.
"What's wrong with the front door?" He asked as she hopped down the last few feet.
This gave her pause. Scribbled lines etched across her mind and scrambled to find an answer.
"Why throw rocks at my window?"
"Didn't want to disturb your mother."
"Well, same here."
Fair point, he thought.
"Don't think I'm not glad to see you, but why are you here?" She could see it in his eyes. The words written on his forehead. The once the dark and mysterious Angel has come to be the bearer of bad news.
"It's The Master, looks like he's sent his minions up to find you sooner rather than later."
"Nothing I can't handle." She shrugged it off, but he pulled on her. He was worried, even as she refused to raise the alarm.
"Buffy–"
"I got it." She assured him. "Where are they?"
"Darla is marching with a cadre of vampires looking to crash the library, and I'm thinking they're not interested in reading."
"Who's all there?"
"Giles, Willow, Xander and Jesse."
"Let's go."
Where was Illyria?
Since Dracula had come to Sunnyvale he had done his best to make himself scarce. Frightened by the changes, the demon sought the Slayer to stop the vile transformation that would obliterate the Transylvanian, but they were no true allies.
Where is Illyria?
"Let's go." Her red flag finally waved.
Willow slept with her head on a small stack of books, her arms wrapped snug around them like a stuffed animal.
Xander smiled, she looked peaceful, sweet, and as useful as he and Jesse.
"Should we call it? Promised Buffy we'd meet her at the Bronze tonight." Xander looked over to his friend across the table, nearly asleep himself in the large tome that dwarfed his head.
Jesse rubbed his eyes, yawned and looked back over to Xander.
"Now I know why I never read a book until now." He jested, but the exhaustion was real dragged his shoulders down.
The librarian popped out from the stacks. He braced the railing and looked down at the tired students. He could sense the wear and tear of their multiple demons both in life and the undead had begun to loom over them like the sword of Damocles.
"I admit," he spoke soft so as not to awaken Willow, "we've found what we will about The Master and the Anointed one, but dealing with both that and Dracula, as well as this new mysterious guy is all a bit much."
"Saving the Unholy Prince should be our top priority." Xander said with urgency and pep.
Giles rolled his eyes. Twice the fool he was, he thought. However, he wasn't sure if he was correct. Who was more of a threat?
Of all the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness, which one would swallow them whole first?
KRSCH!
Glass shattered!
The stacks fell and the book flew as bodies dropped from the windows and broke through the back door.
"Kill them all, bring the Slayer to me!" Darla snarled and grinned as she stepped through the door that littered beneath her feet.
— —
Tucked neatly across The Solent was Southhampton. A city south west of London and just below the main vein of Hampshire was the Watcher's Academy.
Here, nestled in the confines of the city a young man in tight black tweed climbed the staircase toward his apartment in a tower building that overlooked The Solent. No long the child locked in the halls of the academy, but not quite a Watcher yet, he had yet to free himself from the sheltered life that had taken him since before his teens.
His hair still slicked back and posture only slightly dropped from the hard day of learning and working with the greatest minds from across the country, He wrestled with the keys until they slipped like butter from his fingers.
Even alone he felt impotent. A shriveled mess that couldn't wait to unwind, pop a cork, and sit back as he mulled the wine and thoughts in his head. He'd just have to get inside first.
Click.
Creek.
"Gyah!" He screamed and reeled.
There a woman stood in his living room. No! Not just a woman, another glance revealed a demon before him in humanoid form. Blue and black hair, icy eyes, and an attire that would make even a vampire gasp for breath.
"Wesley." Illyria spoke to him, but even as the demon stood within his flat, it was Winnifred that reached out for the tweed youth from within her voice.
Xander flew across the counter. The vampire was quick to jump up onto the surface and prepare to lunge for the kill. Giles at the cage, he tossed a stake to Willow, but there were too many.
Darla pulled Jesse up from the table and tossed him at Cordelia' feet. The once fool that she'd never look twice at became all she could think of to feed on.
Xander called out to his friend as the old rival of his sank her teeth into the boy.
She felt a hard grip on her shoulder swing her around and the force of a truck thrust her over the railing to come crash down through the table.
Jesse collapsed beneath Buffy, his hand quick to clasp the holes and stop the blood, but that wouldn't be until the dust settled.
"Looking for me?" Buffy caught Darla who had rushed down the steps with grace to meet Angel.
She swung back to the Slayer, just in time for Angel to catch her. Giles yelled to him. The cage door swung shut on her, the others fast to spread like roaches when Darla was compromised.
She was tired of always being there just in the nick of time. No matter where, no matter when. She could count the time a corner would be turned to find a rumble, or bodies laid like rubble.
It was time that changed.
"Back demon!"
A wooden cross shook at Illyria from the scrawny man's shaking hand. His eyes wide with terror and yet mustered enough courage to face her, so long as she was inside and he was outside the doorway.
"I'm not a vampire." Illyria stood in place, he'd be no match for her if he struck, but battle wasn't her intention.
"Then I think that this is your poison!" He dropped the stake and stuffed through his tweed pockets for a small pocket knife.
"If I wanted to kill you, Wesley, you would be dead." Illyria tried to assure the shaking man.
Perhaps a different look would help. From head to toe she transformed from the frightening demonoid form to a beautiful young woman that looked as though a fly on the wall couldn't inspire a single thought of violence in her head. She even smiled, which as much as he'd hate to admit had disarmed him when that smile turned into a southern snicker and invited him.
"Really, Wesley, it's all right. I didn't mean to scare you like that." Winnifred apologies.
What demon could do this? Even a vampire couldn't truly be mistaken as human if you knew what to look for.
Wesley tucked himself into his tweed, took in a deep breath and braced for the end should he close the door and be taken into the jaws of the death.
Cautiously he stepped forward. Drag step, step drag, inch by inch with knife in hand.
"What do you want with me? I work for the council, you have no idea what you're doing?"
"I needed to see you again." She reached out to him, her voice, her innocent face and eyes.
"Why me?" He trembled, swallowed his fear and entered the flat.
"Am I going to become?" Jesse wondered. He winced and his neck pulsed under the gauze Willow pressed against the bite.
"You'll be fine." She comforted him.
They rested together with Xander against the rail that overlooked the now shattered table. Across the room Angel stood by with Giles as Buffy stared the vampire in school girl's clothes, locked snug in the cage.
"I know who you are." Buffy spoke plainly with her, "you're Angel's sire, and working for The Master."
"Angelus told you?" She eyed him and widened her lips into a toothy grin, but Buffy didn't smile. She wasn't here to play games.
"No." Buffy closed the gap between them and Darla leaned into the cage to meet her. "Tell your Master that he's not going to rise this time. I'll kill every demon, vampire, or vessels he wants. I know what he needs, and this time, he's not gettin' it."
"If you want to send a message, you have to let me out sometime." She wrapped her fingers around the mesh wire the kept her from the Slayer.
"She'll attack you the moment she's free." Angel added, "don't trust her Buffy."
"Angelus is right." Darla confirmed.
"That's why I've got this." Without warning she reached for Giles to her right and with a hard splash spit from a small glass vial a wash of holy water directly into Darla's face.
The vampire hissed and cried. She screamed and fell back into the cabinets, hands on her face, mist risen from her flesh.
The door opened and Darla sizzled as a stake pressed against her heart and a cross at her neck.
"Tell your Master I'm done. Without me he's just watching Masterpiece theatre." She pressed the stake, burned the cross upon the reddened flesh of Darla's throat. "Come after my friends again and you and your Master are dust!"
"It won't stop him!" Darla cried out. She begged for the torture to stop, and the smoke that filled her nostrils with the scent of her burning flesh to cease.
"Guess I'll just turn you to dust now then." The stake poked through fabric and threatened to pierce flesh.
Darla, frightened, buckled beneath the Slayer and cowered before her.
"Buffy!" Angel called to her, but she wouldn't listen.
"Buffy, that's enough." Giles chimed in.
The sight of those eyes. Those cold dead eyes still alive with fear and loathing. The pride and prejudice that once filled Darla's dark pupils now quivered beneath the Slayer's wrath. Had she known how easy it would have been to pull this wretch from her soap box, she'd have done it then.
Buffy pulled away and Darla fled.
All eyes fell upon the Slayer.
In that moment as she saw the shock settle in their eyes, Buffy felt herself finally shrug the prophecy girl from her shoulders. The burden of the Slayer's destiny would not be hers to carry. Not this time. The Master would not rise.
Count on it.
Buzz!
Strange. He didn't expect any calls so late from his deputy.
Buzz!
With a quick tuck inside his long coat to keep warm in the barely cold winter of California, the man furrowed his brow and pressed the comm button on his desk.
"What is it Allan?"
"You have a guest, Mr. Mayor."
This was definitely strange.
He mulled it quickly in his mind and laughed it off.
"Tell them they can make an appointment with me tomorrow."
No response.
"Allan?"
The door bust wide. Richard Wilkins III, barely disturbed by the crash of his door turned to meet the eyes of a young, short blonde girl.
"We don't knock?" He laughed off the damage, truly impressed with the strength of this young woman."That's going to cost a pretty penny to fix, you know, and where do you think that money comes from little lady?"
That smiled wipe off quick when the young girl, whom he knew as the Slayer dropped all pretense with a hard kick to the gut.
"This is my town now." Buffy retorted.
"She laughs when I should be drinking her heart's blood?" The Master growled, his fists clenched and the blood from his whitened flesh ran cold down his wrist.
"I swear, if it wasn't for her and her loser friends, she would be as dead as–" Cordelia was caught by The Master's grip wrapped snug around her throat.
"You failed me, and worse, Darla is gone! She was my favorite. My right hand!"
"Forget her." The Anointed boiled his blood if it could even.
He snapped back at the child and bared his fangs beneath blood toned lips.
"How dare you?"
"I wouldn't worry about her." A voice caught them all by surprise. A shadow in the void of the sunken church.
"I sense power." The Master released Cordelia and sought the voice out with fluid steps down from the red pool until a shadowy figure emerged before him. "Come to serenade me with your platitudes, or do you have a plan to deal with this Slayer?"
"It's not my place to change the fate, not unless, well," the entity constructed itself into human form and reached for Cordelia. As the vampire's flesh was gently squeezed within its embrace, the holes that marred her sealed and the warmth rushed like a river through her once cold corpse. "Someone comes along and messes it all up."
The young girl, frightened, instantly brought to tears and buckled beneath the grasp of the entity that appeared to her like the most handsome man she had ever seen stood around the most gruesome sight of horror to have ever scarred her eyes. He let her go and she ran crying through the sewer exit.
Speechless, The Master looked on. His folded into one another, and he looked upon the pale form that drifted in with mutual horror and amusement.
"Who are you?" The Anointed One, sat far behind them pondered with the most puzzled face plastered upon his childlike appearance.
Who do you want me to be?