Hi everyone! This one didn't take so long, and I know a lot of you are going to hate me, but here it is!

bwburke94: You know how much I love cliffhangers.

Guest: So glad to be back! I missed you guys!

Demona Evernight: Here! It only took me a couple days, no need to lock me up with those creepy things!

HarriettWithTea: Your impersonation of Houdini is amazing, but stop it already! I need to know more, please! But seriously, you are so sweet and thanks for appreciating my Captain joke.

RHatch89: Thanks! Hope you like this one too!

Enjoy!

Lee out.


"Buffy!" Xander barged into Dawn's room just as Buffy finished killing the two robed fighters. He was panting, having just knocked out the last of the minions downstairs.

"Dawn." The Slayer turned around, her mind already focused on the well-being of her baby sister.

"She's OK." He looked at the bodies on the floor, frowning. "Is this it? I thought there was more of them."

Buffy's eyes widened, fearful, as she realized who she hadn't seen in a while. "Ally and Spike."

When they reached the basement, it was only to see the broken chains and the hole on the wall the attackers had come through.

Anya moved behind them, standing on top of the stairs. "But Ally wasn't down here. She went running upstairs before the attack, remember?"

"Then where is she?" The blonde Slayer inquired, jumping the steps two at a time to search the house. "If they took her again… if she's…"

Xander followed after his friend, watching as she got more and more frantic. After the last time they'd taken Ally, he understood Buffy's concern. Who knew what they could do to her.

They thought processes were brought to a halt as they opened the door to the bathroom and found the body of the youngest Slayer sprawled on the tiled floor, unmoving. Buffy dropped to her knees beside her sister, turning her around as she called for her, but Xander knew Ally wouldn't reply. He watched as the blonde checked for a pulse, and released a breath he didn't know he was holding when she announced Ally was still alive. However, he took a step forward and made to grab Buffy when he noticed the dark patch on the youngest Slayer's temple, where she'd probably hit the floor. It was not a natural colour.

"Buff, look at her head."

"I know." The eldest girl nodded gravely.

"She didn't fight the robed men. She was here all along, unconscious." He stated, quite unnecessarily. They both knew it well.

"I know." She repeated.

"Buffy, what if… what if what's inside her is taking control?"

"Then we take care of her and make sure she doesn't hurt anyone." She said confidently, as if it was an easy thing to do.

"What if she attacks you…?"

The senior Slayer looked up, her gaze fierce, decided. "I promised her I'd find another way. Help me get her to my room."


A short while later, when Ally had been lain on the bed and her arms and legs tied to it, they both headed to the living room, where the rest of the Gang had gathered around one of the bodies.

It didn't take Buffy long to recognize it. It'd been years, but she'd always remember those marks on their faces.

It all made sense then. She knew what they were fighting. What had been messing with Spike. What had taken her sister. What had been talking to them to confuse them. She knew.

The First.


With Giles' arrival to the Summers household, alongside three Potentials seeking safety, came the news of the First's plans. The Gang never would have thought it possible for it to be, after spending so many years fighting beside Buffy.

"We always feared that this day would come, when there'd be an attack against not just an individual slayer, but against the whole line." Giles announced, even though he was very sore about the fact that no one had bothered to call him and inform him about what had happened to Ally. Knowing she was upstairs, still unconscious after a full day, filled his chest with despair. He'd hoped to have her battle-ready. Prepared in case the First attacked the Potentials gathering in Sunnydale.

"The First. That's what it wants." Buffy realized, sitting on the armchair, slightly shocked.

Her Watcher nodded, pacing before the fireplace. "Yes, to erase all the slayers in training and their watchers along with their methods."

"Not all of them." Dawn intervened from her place on the couch beside Anya and Willow.

"What?" Giles turned toward her, frowning in confusion.

"Ally." Buffy spoke up, pushing her bangs aside before tucking her hands between her knees. "It doesn't want her dead, but under control. It wants her to follow the mission. Kill me, and Faith. And more Potentials, probably. And with all the potentials gone and no way of making another, it's the end. No more slayer but the Dark Slayer. Ever."


Buffy and Dawn stood under the doorframe to the former's room, where their sister 'slept'. They knew she wasn't sleeping. The closest thing to her state they could think of was a coma, but none of them would say it out loud.

"She's a threat to you, and the Potentials, Buffy." Giles reminded his protégée as he approached the sisters.

"She's still my sister. I promised her I would take care of her if the thing took control."

"Some promises shouldn't be kept."

"She's my sister." Buffy hissed, turning to face her Watcher. "She will stay here and we'll deal with whatever happens when she wakes up."

"If she wakes up." Dawn added, watching the junior Slayer with blurry eyes.


As more girls arrived at the house, gossip spread, fear intensified.

"There's a girl on Buffy's room, tied to the bed."

"I hear she's in a coma."

"I hear she's Buffy sister."

"I think she's a Slayer."

"But there's only one."

"Nah, I think there's even one more. Don't know where, though."

"Why is she tied if she's in a coma?"

"I have no idea."

"Maybe she's dangerous."

"I hear she's with a vampire."

"The one Buffy is trying to find?"

"That's crazy. She can't be a Slayer and in a relationship with a vampire. It's… against the rules, or something."

"Maybe that's why she's tied."


Xander stepped into the quite room, where Buffy watched over her comatose sister once more. "They're afraid, Buffy." She only nodded, glancing at him for a second before focusing on Ally again. "They've started talking about her. Should we tell them?"

"No."

"I don't think the rope is going to restrain her if she goes dark again, Buff."

"That's why we need to find Spike. He can stop her."

"I hope you're right, because if she goes dark, you, and those girls downstairs die. And probably me, too."


"This… creature, this Turu… Tru… the uber-vamp, the stake did nothing to it. How am I supposed to kill it?" Buffy asked her Watcher after they got a new Potential, Rona, home. Rona had had a welcoming committee at the bus station, and Buffy had barely gotten there on time.

"Turok'Han." He corrected, looking around the room, where the other Potentials, Scoobies and Andrew, still tied to a chair, had gathered. "I… I don't know, Buffy. I've exhausted all the sources I have left with little result. The Watcher's records are still really all we have to go on." Giles sat down, taking his glasses off, a faraway look in his eyes.

"We know stakes don't kill it, but anything in those ancient books about what does? Sunlight, fire, germs?" The Slayer suggested, quite desperate already. She'd been beaten quite thoroughly by the uber-vamp, she didn't fancy it getting its hands on any of the other Potentials, or her comatose sister.

"So, Giles, with that thing guarding the entrance to The First's crib, how will Buffy get to Spike?" Andrew asked, trying to twist his neck as much as possible to compensate for having his back to them. They'd hoped that would keep him from talking, but only gagging him had worked so far.

Buffy and Giles exchanged uncomfortable looks, Buffy kneeling down to prepare Rona's makeshift bed. "I really hate to admit this, but he's not wrong. There's no way we'll be able to help Spike until that thing is out of the way."

"Spike? Sorry, I'm confused. He's that vampire who's been killing people, right? He's the one you're worried about helping?" A blonde Potential called Eve intervened, frowning at the Scoobies.

"Well, we need him to… he's the one that can… it's complicated, Chloe."

"And Ally?" Dawn wondered, hugging her stomach. "If Spike's not here… and the… Tru… whatever comes for us… she's defenceless."

"Who's that?" Rona asked as she returned to the living room with some food, Molly, one of the first Potentials to arrive, following after her.

"My sister." Dawn answered in a quite voice, her eyes moving toward the stairs.

"Comatose girl." Kennedy added from the couch.

The blonde Slayer nodded, raising from her kneeling position. "She's upstairs, in my room."

Rona looked to the veterans, wondering if they were all being serious. "Oh, okay. Guy tied to a chair, comatose girl, you sure this is a safe place?"

"Safest there is right now." Xander replied, lacking his usual humour.

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better."

"Comatose girl is also tied, just so you know." Andrew added from his place at the other end of the room.

"Great. Why is she tied if she's in a coma?"

"It's nothing we can't handle." Buffy avoided her question, glancing at her best friends. "If anything happens, we follow the 'Oz protocol'."

"And that would be…?" Rona insisted, not liking being left in the dark.

"Nothing for you to worry about."


"That's not Eve."

"Eve's dead."

In the basement, where all the Potentials had been training, 'Eve' stood up and turned to face Buffy, mockingly. "Oops! One more down. Oh, well, can't save 'em all, can ya, Buffy?" She turned toward the other Potentials. "Thanks for the slumber party, girls. It's been real fun the last couple of nights. I learned a whole lot…"

"Shut up, and get out!" Buffy snapped.

"Or you'll do what? I'll be sending a guest over to visit y'all later on tonight, after the sun goes down of course. Try and make him feel welcome before he rips y'all to pieces. Bye."


A light breeze blew across the cemetery. It was a silent night. No demons lurking around. No vampires trying to catch some idiot who had decided to take a shortcut through the graveyard. Not even crickets chirping in the darkness. She was alone. Or so she thought at first.

Ally strode between the tombstones, wondering how she'd gotten there. She couldn't remember walking to the graveyard. She didn't even have her magic wand with her. What was she doing there? It was obvious that there were no vampires to slay there. So why had she come?

She stopped when the graveyard shifted, the scenery changing into the forest clearing where Buffy's and her gravestones lay abandoned. Despite what she'd expect, they were in perfect state, just like the day she'd climbed out of her coffin.

And like a movie, that same moment repeated itself. This time, she was a bystander, watching the soil in front of her stone stir and shake. She didn't move, simply watched, her feet attached to the ground.

A hand broke through the soil, grasping the blades of grass on the surface and pushing through the weight of the dirt. Another hand soon followed, and it wasn't long before a head appeared after them. Her head. Dirty, yet still her.

Unlike when she herself had escaped from the coffin, this version of her was wearing her usual everyday clothes. Her military boots. It was just like her, right then, except for one detail.

Her black eyes.

This wasn't her. It was the Dark Slayer. The one in which the essence of evil ruled. The killer. The monster.

Ally noticed that the black eyed girl wasn't breathing. She remembered panting when she escaped. Crying of joy. Trembling and gasping.

Dark Ally did none of that. She just stood there, tall, impassive, staring back at her, waiting for something.

Waiting for the Big Bad to come and claim her.

"Are you…?" Ally started, creeped out by the sinister version of herself she was looking at. She gulped and tried to add some strength to her voice. "Can you understand me?"

A beat. Dark Ally nodded.

"Alright. Hear me out. You don't have to give up. This… big evil. I… we can't let it control us. We have to fight it. If you give up… If we give up, it will all be for nothing. Hell? The pain, and the torture? In vain. If we give up, Buffy and Dawn die. And who knows how many more people."

At hearing her sister's names, Dark Ally tensed up, her hands turning into fists. She recognized her mission.

"I won't let you kill them. We have to work together. We have to fight it. We can't let it all go to waste. All these years!" Her feet, having recovered the ability to move, stepped forward, closer to the other her. "Listen to me. We are one, want it or not. You are inside me. You are part of me now. We are stronger together. We have to work together to beat this big evil."

Dark Ally stared back at her, face immutable, yet her body relaxed. Maybe there was some hope.

"That's right, love." A voice broke through the silence, a rustling sound approaching them from among the trees. Footsteps preceded the dark shape of two bleached blond figures nearing them. One of them had his vampire face on, the other's visage was smooth and loving.

Vampire Spike got closer to Dark Ally, swagger in his movements, just as human Spike reached Ally, lightly smiling down at her.

"'s not that thing that you need, pet." Vampire Spike purred at his black eyed companion, brushing her dirty hair out of her face.

"You both want the same thing." Human Spike added, nodding along to his doppelganger's words.

"You." Both Ally's replied at once.

And just as they did, the Spikes fused together. Both Allys exchanged a look, and in perfect synchrony, raised one of their hands. The moment they touched, darkness fell upon the forest, yet it wasn't a cold darkness. It was powerful.

It was her.


Consciousness returned to the body on the bed with a sharp intake of breath. The ropes snapped effortlessly and she sat upright, catching the voices coming from the dining room. A lot of voices.