"I go first, then Robin then Red,' Faith eyed the door of the apartment they had traced the girls to. It looked easily breakable and as far as she was concerned, there was no time like the present. Without waiting for an answer, she lifted a foot and kicked it in, and was into the room, twirling even as the door slammed against the inner wall. "Yo Robin right, she hollered. As she had expected, one of the neo-Slayers was right beside it, her eyes wide with surprise.

Which was echoed by the surprise of the other two as Faith continued to spin around and took out their feet with a sweep kick. Not waiting for the element of surprise to die, or for them to get up, Faith popped them one, putting them down for the count, not out cold, but stunned. She turned to see that Robin had stunned his, and soon the trio were seated on the couch, glaring at Faith and the Scoobies.

"Ain't no prison gonna hold us," said one. "You don't look like cops no how."

"That's cause we're not cops," Faith grinned. "I'm betting we could find a prison to hold you." Robin started to say something but Faith held up a hand." "See what my friend was going to say was that no ordinary prison would hold you, which is true enough. So you won't be going to an ordinary prison."

Faith looked around at the apartment until she spotted a news paper. She pulled out a page and made a great show of shredding it. She pulled out another page, and tossed it to the three girls. "Bet you could shred that just as easy. Go on. Give it a try."

The girls glared at her, ignoring the paper until Faith's eyes narrowed. "I said shred the paper."

The paper was shredded.

"Wasn't so hard now was it." Faith made a show of separating a another page from the newspaper, and instead of tossing it towards the couch, she held it up. "Red, you wanna do the honours?"

Willow spoke a word, completing the spell.

Faith tossed the paper at the couch. "You wanna try shredding that."

The middle girl picked it up and with a defiant glint to her eyes began to shred it. Or at least she tried. Her eyes grew wide as she realized she couldn't. One of the others sighed and grabbed it and tried. Soon all three had tried shredding the paper and none had succeeded. Not even a group effort was enough to put a tiny rip into it. They just couldn't do it, until Faith made a signal and Willow canceled the spell.

"Magic," grinned Faith. "All that's needed is Magick and we can put you away for a long time, and maybe we should, or just kill you now."

"You wouldn't dare." That was said with more bravado than was evident.

"That would be murder."

"And what you did wasn't?"

"They deserved it, moving in on our territory."

"Hell with this," Faith looked at Robin. "Time to load them up and haul em out."

""What makes you think we're going with you."

"This." Faith nodded at Willow, who looked distinctly uncomfortable.

But she complied with a contingency, and soon an image of Warren just before he lost his skin appeared in the middle of the room. When the panorama was finished, all three stared horrified.

"Still wanna stay behind," Faith asked sweetly. "Cause we can arrange to leave you behind. With her."

The three hopped to their feet. Faith nodded at Robin and he led the way to the car. Faith and Willow brought up the rear.

"Sorry," Faith said to the Witch. "Couldn't think of any other way to do this without one of them winding up dead."

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Nathaniel Rosenberg grunted as he glanced out the window at the approaching dusk. Ashton Vermont was a small college town, where he took classes in economics and religious philosophy. Not that that was uppermost on his mind. Carol, Belinda, and Susan were in their bedroom, where they would stay until he got back. Not that that was a rule, but it was where they felt safe. He tested the blade, making sure the sword would come free of it's sheath when he needed it, then he revved the cycle, sending it into motion for the night's patrol."

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Buffy stormed down to the basement. This morning she had asked Giles to look into this Temple Knight thing, she was fairly sure that Dawn was the Girl of Power, and when she'd returned a few hours later, he was not in his office. This wasn't of the good.

"Buffy?"

Buffy was headed for Xander's office when she saw Dawn's head poking out, looking at her.

"In here."

In here was where Giles was. Which was also where Caridad, Andrew, and Rona were sitting around, with their noses poked into books.

"What's going on?"

"Er uh," Giles looked up. "There appears to be some sort of demonic attack on Ashlan Vermont."

"Attack?" Buffy looked puzzled. "Why would they attack there?"

"Cause a lot of potentials came from families there." Xander brushed his way past Buffy. "I got Faith," he told Giles. "They got the girls from New York, and will heading there now. Probably won't arrive until tomorrow."

Xander turned to Buffy. "Look, you probably don't know it, but your mother was a potential only she never got called. Potentials gave birth to other potentials, who sometime became Slayers. Except they're all Slayers now, and the baddies are on a push to get rid of as many of them as possible. We think Ashton's the first push."

"So, what can we do about it?"

"Buffy, can you and Giles take the Slayers to Ashton. If we can nip this in the bud, then maybe they won't be so enthusiastic the next time."

"Buffy nodded. "Okay, but what about?"

"The prophecy," Dawn chirped. "Andrew and I have that covered."

"Okay," Buffy nodded, not quite happy. Just make sure Giles checks it." She turned to Xander. "So, what do we do about Ashton?"

Xander ran a hand through his hair. "I'd kind of like to put the smackdown on what's happening there. If the baddies are out to exterminate as many lines as possible, we got to react fast and hard, so maybe they'll think twice the next time, and we'll be ready the next time."

"Okay, I'll take some of the Slayers and pay Ashton a little visit. But we got to cross Pennsylvania to get there. Any local help?"

Xander looked at a map of the eastern states, dotted with coloured pins, a good number of them red for demonic activity."

"Not much. Sure there's Slayers in the area, but if they're not running, or dead, they're busy. Kind of looks like someone on the other side is keeping them busy while they go after the families."

"So, we can't expect much help. Okay, is there any one close to there that would have a better idea of what's going on?"

"David Marsters." Xander pawed through some papers. "He's been keeping tabs, in a non-involvement sort of way, and been feeding me reports."

"Non involvement as in standing by and watching these people die."

"More like sitting in a van and watching them die." Xander handed Buffy a slip of paper with a telephone number and address on it. "Guy's in a wheel chair. Not much else he can do, so he does what he can."

Buffy pursed her lips. "Okay, anything else."

"Nothing, David's my only pipeline into what's going on there."

"Kay, I'm taking Rona. Shannon, Violet, and Giles, maybe a couple more. Sounds like they're organized which means they gotta have a headquarters somewhere. Faith's group can meet us there." Buffy paused thinking. "How do we get there."

"Andrew'll drive you to a small airstrip south of here. The Council'll have a plane waiting."

"Good, half hour then we'll be ready to go."

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Ashton Vermont was a picturesque little town nestled in the Vermont Mountains. Buffy led the group through the airport, which was hardlly;y more than a tin shack beside a dirt strip, and looked around.

"I don't suppose there's a taxi around here."

"Not much call for one." Buffy whirled to see a ancient wrinkled man coming towards them, wheezing a little as he wheeled his chair. "You Buffy Summers? David Youngston, Xander told me you'd be coming."

"I'm Buffy Summers," Buffy began.

"Ah-huh." David took her in and then glanced over at the others. "Kids," he snorted. "They send kids to do a man's job. Not that the man's doing it is doing much. Not for the sake o not trying, but there's only so much one man can do." He glanced up at Buffy. "Well don't just stand there. My van's just outside."

"How do you know Xander," Buffy asked, after making sure the others had found a place to settle into in the specially fitted van.

"Oh I been poking around on the net," said David. "Came across this number for something called the 'Watcher's Web' so I dialed in. He cackled. "At first I didn't believe that anybody could believe such swill, let alone post it where others could read it. But after a while, it started me thinking. Kind of explained some of what's been happening here at night, and other places, and why all these girls seemed to gain super strength. Not that it did them much good. Wasn't long before their families started being targeted."

"Targeted by what," asked Rona. "You get a good look at them?"

"I saw them." David pulled into a wooded driveway. "Whatever they were they weren't exactly human"

"Who's this man you said was fighting them," asked Violet.

David snorted. "Dunno. Some wacko running around dressed up like some medieval knight. Whacking at them with a sword, great big sucker of a sword." The driveway opened into a small street, and as they turned into it,, a cyclist sped past them, going the other way. "That was him," stated David. "Looks like he's got number four, or maybe five. Only saw him get three others."

"Three other what?"

"Girls," answered David. "Y'see. They may not know they are Slayers, and they may not know how to fight, not properly, but they do put up a struggle. Sometimes they even manage to kill one of the devilspawn, not usually but sometimes. Upshot is when he gets there it's the girls who're left to be saving and by that time, they got no families. So he takes them home with him, wherever that may be."

David stopped the van in front of a log cabin. "Well this is it folks Home sweet home."

The girls piled out of the van, and waited for David to get his wheel chair out, and lock up, before heading for the house. The door opened and a dark haired child ran out.

"Grandfather. Did you see? The Knight was here somewhere tonight. I heard his bike."

"We saw Alice, we saw," David took the child onto his lap, and started wheeling up the ramp. "He saved another one tonight."

"I wonder who it was," Alice said. "And who died." Her eyes traveled to take in Buffy and the rest. "Who're they," she asked.

"This is Buffy Summers," David said smiling. "You remember i was talking to a man named Xander Harris. He sent them out to help. Put things right."

Alice nodded, then looked back at Buffy. "You gonna help the Knight?"

Buffy smiled and nodded, as she and the others, followed them into the cabin.

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"Okay," Buffy called a mini-scooby meeting the next morning. David was in the living room, while Alice was in the kitchen having breakfast. "Today, we spread out, become familiar with the place. Top priority, find the Knight." Buffy was tempted to say that she had an ulterior motive for finding him, but went with a more practical reason. "He's probably in a better position to know what's going on."

Before she could say more, there was a loud crash in the kitchen, followed by the sound of David's wheel chair.

"Alice," cried an annoyed voice.

"I'm sorry Grandpa. I didn't mean to."

When Buffy reached the kitchen, she saw Aliice standing beside the refrigerator. The door hung at an odd angle, and the handle was in Alice's hand.

"I was just going to put the milk away and...and..." Alice's face crumbled.

"There, there, aye you're not at fault." We can get Mr. Thompson in to fix it. It's okay. I shouldn't have yelled."

"She's a Slayer," asked Rona, astonished. "But she's so young."

"Ah-huh," David looked back at them. "Whoever, whatever, it was that did this to her was no respecter of age. Bad enough she lost all her friends at school, she lost her parents." David set the girl down on her feet. "Why don't you go play out side, it's a beautiful day. But mind, you stay in the yard hear?"

"I hear you Grandpa." Alice turned and left the room. David waited until he heard the door close before turning to the girls.

"I'm not really her grandpa, though she calls me that. She lived with her parents and older brother two houses down, and I knew her parents. No relations, just good friends.: His eyes grew haunted. "I heard the ruckus when they came for her family. I went outside to see what was going on, though there was precious little I could do about it. I saw the fight, and heard the screaming cries for help. Many's the time I cursed myself for being a cripple but that was the first time I really meant it. See, there was nothing I could do, except hide Alice when she came running in. They was coming for her when the Knight showed up. I was inside, wondering how I was going to protect Alice should they come through my doors, when there was the sound of this cycle skidding to a stop. When I looked out the window, there was this knight just a swinging a sword, taking off heads, left and right. I'm ashamed to say I stayed inside all the rest of that night and most of the nest day. I never lifted a finger to help. Not the Knight. Not Alice's folks."

"You saved Alice," said one of the Slayers quietly. "You keep an eye on things and let us know about it. That's something."

"Yeah," smiled David. "It is." But to himself, he wondered if it was enough.