Hiero walks back to his tent and looks inside, expecting to see Penelope. She's not there. And she's not with her own unit. Hiero's a little confused. He walks for a few minutes but still can't spot her, even though the camp covers less than ten acres. Hiero stops and thinks. After a few seconds, Penelope comes out of nowhere and pounces on Hiero. He never saw her playful ambush coming. She kisses him and smiles. "Remember our first kiss?," she asks her husband, whose heart is still racing — mostly from surprise.
"It was just like this. Except the ground wasn't muddy. Maybe you shouldn't do this when I'm dressed for battle."
"Quit complaining. Your cape will cover it up." She kisses him again, and he wraps his arms around her and savors the moment. Penelope stands and helps Hiero up, since it's somewhat difficult for him on account of his heavy armor. Penelope takes his hand and they head off to get their weapons.
It is a cold January morning in Scyra, and newlyweds Penelope and Hiero are with their small expeditionary force three hundred miles from home. Frost is on the ground, and the soldiers can see their own breath. They warm their numb fingers over camp fires so they will be able to work their weapons in the upcoming battle. Penelope, Hiero and Andrea step out of their camp, which is two hundred yards from a stone tower atop a small hill. The square tower is seventy feet wide, one hundred feet hight, and has five stories, not counting the ground level. Fifty yards away from the tower, around the base of the hill, is a ditch that is twenty feet wide and ten feet deep. The walls of the tower are ten feet thick.
Penelope wears a bronze helmet and bronze scale armor over her chest. In her left hand is a round wooden shield two feet in circumference that is covered in white hide. On the center of the shield are painted two green stakes that cross diagonally, their points facing downward. A red border three inches thick is painted along the rim of the shield. In her right hand is a six foot-long spear, and a two foot-long sword hands from the right side of her belt. Protecting her shins are bronze greaves caked in mud from previous battles. The tall green horsehair plum on top of Penelope's helmet is the only visible sign of her rank. Andrea wears no armor, and doesn't even wear a helmet. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a pony tail. A round iron shield eighteen inches in diameter hangs from the left side of her belt. Jutting out from the center of the shield is a three inch-long steel spike, making it both a defensive and an offensive weapon. Hanging from the right side of her belt is an eight inch-long, two inch-wide single-bladed dagger. Unlike just about everybody else, she wears only a single short tunic, scorning the cold just as much as she's scorning the enemy's weapons by going into battle so lightly-equipped. Hiero wears a gleaming bronze helmet with a blue crest, a gleaming heavy bronze corselet on his chest, and gleaming greaves on his shins. He wears his trademark black leather cape, which — like his attention to looking spectacular in battle — was inspired by Angel. In his left hand is a heavy, three foot-wide wooden shield, its front coated in bronze. In his right hand is an eight foot-long spear, and on the right side of his belt is a two foot-long sword. Penelope reviews the situation.
"Two hundred soldiers in there, trying to hold off a thousand. We've given them the chance to leave with their weapons and their lives. But they won't."
"The tower was designed to hold off a force twice our size," Hiero points out.
"But not even close to half out quality," Andrea adds. "They know what we did to the first three forts we've faced in their kingdom. You ask me, if they're too pigheaded to give up and go home, they're too bloody stupid to live." Along with Kreon, Andrea is the most open emulator of Spike. Penelope sees the archers arming themselves and rushes over to their commander.
"No incendiary arrows." He shakes his head, but passes on the order. Penelope heads back to her husband and her sister. Andrea, who's casually sharpening her dagger with a small stone, agrees with the archers' commander.
"Everything inside those walls is made of wood. Burning it up makes our job a lot easier."
"We need the stronghold to store supplies. We'll never be able to take their capital come Spring if we don't have secure bases well inside enemy territory." Hiero places down his shield and puts his left arm around Penelope's shoulders.
"It's been twenty four days since we promised ourselves to one another."
"I know, Hiero. But I have a feeling about this place."
"What about the last three?," Andrea asks.
"We burned too much of the last one. And the first two were too crude for the occasion."
"Just like your tent wasn't quite right. Sis, I'm sorry, but we're all getting sick of the waiting. It's bad enough that your husband worships Angel. You don't have turn him into Angel by keeping him frustrated."
"It's a sacred, special moment. I'm not going to have it on the muddy ground in some camp or on a dirty floor covered in hay and blood and animal bones. You'll understand when you find someone to love."
"You seem to mind more than I do," Hiero tells Andrea. She rolls her eyes and gives him a "yeah, right" expression. "We're going to spend the rest of our lives together. What's a few more days?"
"You're just saying that because my sister would kick your ass if you didn't. And I respect that about you. But what I don't get is why you don't go up to one of the big fancy palaces we pass by and tell the owner to get lost for a week."
"Because that would be wrong," Hiero tells her. Andrea groans mightily.
"We're invading their country! That's okay, but borrowing some guy's place is somehow wrong?"
"There are rules to war."
"I'm not saying we kill the bloke. Or even destroy his property."
"It serves no tactical purpose, and only makes them more eager to resist." Hiero looks at Penelope. "But darling, I do feel guilty taking a stronghold for personal reasons."
"We're taking it because it serves a tactical purpose," Andrea fires back. "And the troops could use a week to rest up and dry off."
"She's right," Penelope adds. "We have to take all these places anyway."
"Making yourself feel guilty even when you've done nothing to feel guilty about," Andrea says to Hiero. "You really do wanna be like Angel. Except you ain't done the crimes. Let's hope my sister finally makes an actual man outta you."
"Good luck today," Hiero tells Andrea, trying to respond to her digs with magnanimity. Matching insult for insult only makes his wife unhappy. The charm offensive works. She laughs and hits his left shoulder with her right fist.
"You too. Cause we're fighting on the same side. Not cause I care about you or nothin'." Hiero kisses Penelope, picks up his shield and joins his men on the other side of the fort. The three hundred archers (including one hundred of Penelope's women) and one hundred slingers spread out and approach the tower from all four sides. They move across the trench at points where the ditch has been filled in with earth and open fire from just inside fifty yards from the enemy. They are protected from the enemy's arrows by two hundred infantry and their large shields, including one hundred of Hiero's men. On one side, a hundred mercenaries attack one gate, while on the other side one hundred more mercenaries attack the second gate. Protected from arrows by an overhead shed, fifty men push the battering ram, while fifty others hurl spears at the men in the tower who try to pour boiling tar and drop heavy rocks onto the ram. Behind the archers on one side, Hiero waits with a hundred men for the doors to be breached. Penelope waits on the other side with a hundred women. The superior fire power coming at them from all sides overwhelms the enemy's one hundred archers.
Soon, the ram on Hiero's side breaks through the door. He storms in with his heavy infantry in close order. They push the one hundred heavily-armed ground-level defenders back, but the defenders quickly regroup and manage to hold their ground. Archers rush down the staircase and shoot arrows down onto Hiero's men. Those who aren't in the front rank put their shields over their heads. For the time being, Those in the front are well-protected by their armor from mortal wounds. But Hiero knows they can't hold out against the two-pronged attack for long. Ten seconds after the archers began to fire, and a minute after the front door was broken down, the back door is breached. Andrea and Penelope rush in, and the rest of the women follow close behind their leaders, all of them carrying the same round shields with the stake motif that Penelope carries. The women in back hurl spears and axes at the archers, killing several, injuring about a dozen and forcing the rest to retreat. The rear ranks of the enemy heavy infantry — those not engaged with Hiero's men — turn to face the much lighter-armed women. They see Andrea rushing towards them with her tiny shield, puny dagger and not so much as a helmet. She looks like an easy kill to men with long spears, large shields and chain mail. Andrea sees their confident smiles, and she smiles back. These men have no idea what they're in for.
The first man thrusts his spear for her heart. She deflects it with her shield, lunges at him and puts her knife through his carotid artery before he can raise his shield to defend himself. A second man stabs his spear for her face. Andrea ducks and pushes her shield into his, binding the two shields together with her spike. Having fixed his shield in place, she moves her right arm around it and stabs up for his groin, finding a gap in his armor and piercing the inside of his upper right thigh, severing a major artery. He cries out in pain and falls to his knees. Andrea rips her shield free and rams the spike right between his eyes, killing him. She knocks a third attacker on his back with a right kick to his shield. Andrea dodges a fourth attacker and pushes him in the back back, knocking him into the stairs. Then she quickly and forcefully reaches around his neck and slits his throat. The mail hood protected the back of his neck and the top of his head, but left his throat exposed. A fifth attacker comes at her from behind. Penelope spins and kicks him in the chest with a left roundhouse kick, knocking him backwards. Penelope, who's just offed another enemy, steps up and drives a spear through this guy's left eye. It's no wonder that they've started comparing fifteen year-old Andrea to another blonde female warrior. Exhilarated by Andrea's heroic example, the girls — who at first were afraid to attack the heavily-armed men — scream out their battle cry, which echoes against the stone walls, further terrifying the enemy. Led by Penelope, they charge en masse. The defenders are caught between two fires.
A sixth attacker comes at Andrea swinging a three foot-long two-handed sword. She backs up against the side wall. To her left are her girls. To her right are Hiero's men. And in front of her is the enemy, desperately trying to fight both of them off. The man swings for her neck, but Andrea puts up her shield and blocks it. He stabs for her stomach, but she dodges to the right and slashes his left forearm with her dagger. The man tries to back up, but with so many warriors in such a tiny space, he doesn't have the room to properly wield his weapon. He swings his sword for her legs. She sweeps her shield in her left hand down to block this attack, and stabs the dagger in her right hand up towards his unprotected neck. The fighter arches his back, moves his neck out of the way and swings for her neck. Andrea doesn't have time to raise her shield, but she ducks in the nick of time. The sword did shear off a couple of her hairs. Andrea can tell this guy's good. She stabs up for his neck yet again. With his right hand, he swings his sword for her outstretched right arm. She puts up her shield and blocks it. But he quickly pulls out a dagger in his left hand and uses it blocks her dagger. Strong, smart, and quick. Much quicker than just about any man she's ever fought. "You were worthy," Andrea says before sweeping his legs out with her right foot. He falls on his back. Nearby fighters trample on his outstretched sword. Andrea gets on top of him and shoves her dagger up through his chin, through his mouth and into his brain. She stays on the ground for a few seconds to recover for this exhausting flurry of fights. Kneeling over her fourth kill, she pulls back his hood in order to get a better look at his face and hair. He's not a bad-looking chap: six feet tall, muscular, a strong, handsome face and wavy brown hair. She kisses his forehead, which is something Andrea likes to do to especially brave opponents as a sign of respect.
The enemy is too busy getting surrounded and cut to pieces to bother with Andrea. Those who can escape up the stairs. A few of the more gallant warriors stop and try to cut the staircase with their swords to prevent a pursuit. Hiero leads about twenty men to the stairs. They stab at the enemy with their spears. Penelope leads a similar-sized party of women forward and they hurl their javelins and axes. The defenders flee to the second floor. Hiero and Penelope lead their forces up to the first floor, receiving swift surrenders from those who remain there. On the ground level, the fifty remaining defenders throw down their arms. Andrea calls off the attack and walks towards the prisoners, stepping over the bodies of the dead to get them. About thirty defenders lie dead on the ground, covering most of the floor. The rest is drenched in their blood. Andrea's dagger is red, and her tunic and shield are splattered in blood. The enemy is immediately terrified of this vicious young warrior. "You coulda done this before the battle," she tells them. "Doesn't resisting us feel like such a waste now?" Andrea picks out nine women and ten men to accompany her upstairs to back up the vanguard. She orders the rest of the men and women to take the prisoners outside. In accordance with their normal procedure, the enemy is stripped of his weapons and armor and allowed to go home. When they have a surplus of supplies, they even give the defeated men some provisions for the journey.
On the second floor, the twenty remaining men are caught before they can sever the stairs. They put up a brave last stand, but are gradually overwhelmed and cut down. When only ten of them remain, they surrender. Having disarmed the men on the first floor, Andrea arrives with her squad to take care of these men. The sixty remaining archers have massed on the third floor. Twenty of them desperately fire out at the enemy's archers and slingers, who vastly outnumber them. Most of these defenders are already wounded from the missiles that fly in through the loopholes with depressing frequency. Twenty more wait to fire at the enemy coming up from below. The other twenty came down from the top two floors in order to surrender. Hiero's men lead the way, their large shields held above their heads to block the arrows. When they arrive on the third floor, those archers who still have some fight left try to surround the outnumbered enemy and attack with their swords and axes. Hiero's men are exhausted, and their bloodlust was more than sated by the fierce fight downstairs. They don't want to kill poorly-armed men in a fight that's already been decided. So they easily block the attacks with their shields and half-heartedly stab their spears to force the enemy back. When Penelope's girls arrive, they take advantage of their smaller size and lighter armor to burst into the enemy's lines, disordering and demoralizing them. The archers quickly surrender before any more of them get killed. Penelope and Hiero send their forces down with the prisoners, though it takes a few minutes to get everyone to travel down the narrow staircase. They meet up on the ground level with Andrea, and follow her outside. The archers and slingers who helped pummel the defenders into submission cheer the victory. The girls are also delighted with the success they achieved with no fatalities and only a few injuries. Hiero's men suffered a larger number of injuries, but no deaths. The two hundred mercenary soldiers who pushed and defended suffered twelve fatalities.
On the third floor, Hiero and Penelope catch their breath and wait for the arrival of two unarmed thirteen year-old girls and two young men armed with swords and shields to protect them. The girls carry urns in their hands, as well as bundles slung over their backs. One of them also holds a small torch. The newlyweds head up to the fourth floor, with the shield-bearers and the girls in tow. It's deserted. Then they arrive on the fifth floor. The hallway's empty, but their are three rooms, all of them with their doors closed. Suddenly, two warriors jump down through a trap door in the roof, knocking Hiero and Penelope to the ground. The shield-bearers step up and fight these men, who are also armed with sword and shield. The two girls fearfully cower near the stairs. Hiero gets up and tries to attack the men from behind. Penelope pulls him around and points her spear up at the trap door. She can see a shadow up there, meaning there are more enemies lying in wait. The enemy leaps down a few seconds later, brandishing a two-handed broad sword. He uses the sword to slice Penelope's spear in half. She pulls out her own sword. Hiero turns to help his beloved. But a fourth fighter leaps down. He's not armored, but wields a two-handed battle ax that has a five foot-long shaft and a one foot-wide blade. Hiero hurriedly ditches his spear and leaps back to avoid the swinging blade. He bursts through an unlocked door and into a small room that thankfully contains no more enemies. The attacker bashes away at Hiero's shield with his ax, denting it and hurting Hiero's left arm, which has to absorb the force of each mighty blow. Hiero takes out his sword, crouches down so his shield protects his whole body, and waits for his opening against this very large and (in Hiero's eyes) extremely barbaric man. He assumes this eccentric oddity is a mercenary in the commander's personal guard. The barbarian continues to wail away at the large shield that the cowardly man is using to protect himself. After a few more swings, he breaks through the bronze and gets the edge of his blade caught in the wood. Hiero leaps to his feet, raises his shield (and thus also the enemy's ax) above his head, forcing the barbarian to raise his arms, lest he lose his weapon. Hiero then quickly stabs the man through the heart with his sword.
He comes back into the hallway. The shield-bearers have dispatched the first two attackers. Penelope had swung her sword down into the broad swordsman's face. Hiero kicks open another door. The room's empty. Then two men emerge from the third room. One of them stabs his spear for the back of Hiero's neck. Penelope rushes to his aide, blocking the spear with her shield and cutting halfway through the enemy's neck with her small one-handed ax. The second man swings his sword down for her head. She blocks it with her shield, but he kicks her to the ground. The man's in his early forties, with a well-trimmed beard, a spotless white and red uniform over his armor and a purple cape down his back. Clearly he's the fort's commander, and he's not going down without a fight. The commander quickly moves towards Penelope and stands over her before she can get up. Hiero lunges at him from the left and pushes him into the wall with his battered shield. A sword duel develops, and after about thirty seconds Hiero wins by forcing the point of his sword through the commander's mail and into his heart. Penelope and Hiero embrace after this stressful last series of fights. It's finally over. The shield-bearers get to the roof through the trap door, take down the enemy's flag from the pole, and put up their own. The soldiers cheer yet again. The girls are busy taking their victory laps. They carry Andrea and the other girls who stood out for their bravery around the tower. The prisoners look especially dejected when they realize they lost to girls. They simply don't know how to explain the existence of these fierce female warriors. The brighter prisoners realize that something or someone must be inspiring them to behave so unnaturally. And a few of them are eager to find out what that something or someone is.
Paying no attention to the five gruesome corpses in the hallway, Hiero picks Penelope up and kicks open the commander's door. As they hoped, his room is spacious and well furnished. Before carrying her across the threshold, Hiero lets the girls inside. One of them puts a red silk sheet over the bed and covers it with rose petals. The other one puts down an expensive-looking rug on the floor in front of the fireplace. She uses the torch to light the fire. Once it gets going, she sprinkles incense onto the flames. Once the ritual has been completed, they leave the room and run downstairs with the shield bearers. Hiero carries Penelope into the room, then closes and locks the door. For the next fifteen seconds, someone standing outside would hear the clanging of their weapons and armor falling the the floor. Finally, they rip each other's clothes off, leap into bed and begin their hard-earned honeymoon.
Giles continues with his reading. "That's interesting."
"What's interesting?," Buffy asks him.
"The Judge was German."
"What do you mean?," Buffy wonders. "I don't remember him having an accent."
"It says here that he was built in 1241 by wizards working for the Teutonic Knights in order to defeat the invading Mongols."
"Isn't that a little like saving your country by nuking it?," Xander asks.
"The Judge could only kill people who were in front of it. The wizards controlled the Judge so that it was always facing towards the enemy and away from the Knights. This source claims that it was deployed at the beginning of the Battle of Legnica, but only caused a handful of deaths before the Mongols destroyed the demon."
"It took an army," Xander recalls. "It took the Mongol army?"
"How did they kill it?," Buffy asks out of professional curiosity.
"The Mongols deployed one hundred horsemen. While fifty of them distracted the Judge by showering him with arrows, the other fifty attacked with lassoes. Ten each were wrapped around the demon's arms, legs and neck. The horsemen rode off in five directions, tearing the Judge apart."
"Drawn and quartered," Xander comments. "Not as devastating as a rocket launcher, but does have a certain charm."
"Drawn and sixthed," Giles corrects him.
"Is sixthed a word?," Buffy asks.
"It would be if people did it more often," Xander jokes.
"After the destruction of the Judge, the Mongols proceeded to annihilate the Knights and their German allies. When the battle ended, they captured the wizards and tortured them into revealing everything they knew about the monster. The wizards were then flayed alive. The Mongols buried the six pieces of the Judge in the far corners of their empire."
"Why was that part of the prophecy?," Dawn wonders.
"It wasn't. The prophecy mentions that the Judge would be reassembled, redeployed, but, and here I'm quoting the prophecy, ripped apart like the skin of a grenade tossed over a rampart.'"
"Does it say who did the ripping apart?," Buffy asks.
"No. It describes the creatures who would try to destroy the town or open the Hellmouth, how those creatures were destroyed, but not who did the destroying."
"What a jip," Buffy complains. "It's not the big evils died on their own. Wait. This guy was a priest. Does he just say God did it?"
"In some cases, yes. For instance, he claims that God caused the earthquakes that trapped the Master in his underworld portal and sunk that Satanic temple into the earth."
"Does it mention Willow?," Xander asks regarding the temple and last year's events.
"No. Only that the temple was raised and the effigy neutralized."
"That's me! I'm the neutralizer. I made it into the history books."
"What about Angel?," Buffy inquires.
"The text only refers to the entity that threatened to cause the destruction. Not to those who brought it forth. Hence, the Judge is mentioned, while Spike and Drusilla are not. So it would mention Acathla but not Angel."
"So where did that stuff about the Teutonic Knights come from?," Dawn asks.
"Chinese records that were translated into Latin by Matteo Ricci. The Spanish commentaries comprise the research material Emiliano uncovered to explain the prophecies and put them in the proper context."
"So what's the point of writing about something he knew would be defeated before anyone got a chance to read this?," Xander asks Giles.
"I don't think I'll know until I've finished reading it all the way through at least once. But I have faith that these fragments will coalesce into a cogent, coherent whole at the end."
"That's exactly how Tara said to me when she was reading Ulysses," Dawn notes.
Xander glances across the room at the television. "Looks like they're talking about us again."
"What are they saying?," Buffy asks.
"Probably the same thing they were last time I checked," Xander responds. "Deny, deny, deny."
The Potentials (sans Kennedy, who's with Willow), Andrew, Faith and Spike watch a Pentagon spokesman emphatically deny reports that soldiers are forcing Americans out of their homes at gunpoint. The poor guy can't understand where these crazy questions are coming from. He's getting frazzled and not holding up very well.
"Of course he's not saying a bloody thing," Spike declares. "That's his bleeding job."
"He doesn't look like he's lying," Faith disagrees.
"It's bloody obvious he's not telling the truth," Spike responds. "The soldiers are here."
"How do you know?," Andrew asks. "We haven't seen any."
"If you want, you can poke your head out and see for yourself. Not being too fond of sunlight myself, I'll take the word of Rupert's bird."
"I don't think you two heard Faith correctly," Rona comments. "She didn't say there weren't any soldiers. She said that the guy on tv doesn't know about it. Am I right?," she asks, looking at Faith.
"Yeah. Thanks for sparing me the trouble of explaining."
"All he says is I am not aware of troop movements,' to the best of my knowledge that hasn't happened'," Amanda notes. "I think the Mayor pulled a fast one."
"The Mayor can't do a bloody thing with the army," Spike points out.
"She told Mister Giles that she had contacts on the inside. Whoever's in charge at the base could send the soldiers out without go up the chain-of-command."
"Not for very long."
"But maybe for a day. And that's all the Mayor needs."
"If you're right, then whoever sent them better bloody hope that this town gets sacked pretty soon. If the town's still around on Monday, he might not be."
After Kit's and Elijah's families were upstairs, Angel and Connor were quickly taken into the lobby and up the elevator to their rooms. Lorne also went into hiding. But soon after Cordy, Wes, Gunn and Fred returned downstairs, Carlos came. Then Denise. Then Clarence. Then Preston. All with their families, of course. When Cordy brings him this news, Angel is alarmed, to put it mildly. Connor swears that none of this is his doing. And he gets mad when Angel implies this is Dawn's fault. Still, Connor is happy that his friends are there. He just wishes he was able to hang out with them.
"Angel, I think we should discuss rates," Cordy tells him.
"We're not charging these people."
"They want to pay. Actually, they insist on paying."
"They don't have homes to go to. I won't take advantage of that."
"Angel, remember a really long time ago when we had this exact same discussion about charging people for saving their lives? It's the same principle: paying provides closure for the people we help. Otherwise, they feel like they owe us something."
"This is different. I'm a professional hero. I'm not a professional hotel manager. This is not a working hotel."
"Fine. We just tell them there's no maid service. It's a building with rooms that people want to pay to stay in. Call that whatever you want."
"There are permits required. Permits we haven't paid for. Just because Gavin is dead doesn't mean there's not another anal retentive lawyer at Wolfram & Hart waiting to nail us on something stupid like this."
"I'm thinking a hundred a night? That's a real bargain in this city. Especially since we wouldn't be charging extra for double and triple occupancy."
"We're not charging anything. Cordy, you're not taking money from these desperate people."
"Desperate? You're making it sound like they're refugees."
"Cordy, they are refugees."
"I meant real refugees. Starving people from countries with war and oppression and no mini-malls."
"How many are here now?"
"Six families. I think." Fred comes running in.
"There's more. They just keep coming. What do we do?"
Angel groans. "Get them to rooms. Away from ours, of course." He looks at Cordy. "No charging. Not yet. After all, the bill usually comes when you leave the hotel."
"Good. You're finally starting to get out of denial. But we don't want to surprise them. On the other hand, we don't want to announce one hundred if they'd be willing to pay 150. So we'll leave it up in the air for now."
"One more thing. Find out how these people knew about us." The three of them look at Connor.
"I only told Eli. And Dawn."
"I don't think it's her," Fred says to Connor's approval. "A couple kids asked if she was here, or if we'd heard from her. I'm guessin' they had as much luck contacting her as Connor has." This worries Connor. Angel, on the other hand, is certain that Buffy and friends are fine.
"And can someone get me some more blood? Without attracting too much attention?" Angel shakes his head. "This is really gonna cramp my style. Hopefully they'll only be here for a night or two."
"By the way, I already asked around about whose idea this was," Cordy reports. "Eli told his girlfriend, who told her friend, who told his girlfriend, who told her friends, and so on until, well, if news travels as fast now as it did when I went to high school — "
"How bad?," Angel asks.
"A hundred kids, if we're lucky."
Angel does not look happy. "And if we're not?," he wonders.
"The whole school. But really doubt that will happen. It doesn't appear as if Connor's friends were the most popular kids in school. No offense, Connor."
"One teensy-tiny little snag," Fred announces. "A couple of the guys appear to have been dating some girls who knew how to fight and spent all their time with Buffy. I'm thinkin' they're Potential Slayer boyfriends."
"You mean Preston and Clarence?," Connor asks.
"You knew them? Did they have any idea what their girlfriends are?"
"Maybe a little," Connor responds. "The girls saved them from vampires. That's how they met."
"Awww. That's so cute," Fred comments. Then she thinks about how her idea of "cute" involves extreme violence and life-threatening danger. "I really need to spend some time away from demon fighters."
"But they don't know that there are all these bad guys trying to hunt and kill the girls," Connor adds. "Dawn says they don't even know why the girls are in town. And that they really didn't seem to care."
"Perfect. So we pretend we don't know anything," Cordy concludes.
"Girls falling for the guys they save," Angel says with a chuckle. "Things really have changed since I left Sunnydale."
Cordy smirks for a few seconds before she bursts out laughing. "I'm sorry. I just realized you weren't being sarcastic."
NEXT: Anya comes back and reports on the wacky and disturbing developments in Scyra. Sunnydale goes kablooey. And Riley pays Buffy (and Spike) a visit.