After Fred woke Wes, Gunn and Cordy up, they helped Angel and Connor to the van and drove home, entering through the old service entrance in the sub-basement so as to avoid the hundreds of hotel guests, who might have a few questions as to why the hotel's proprietor has a sucking chest wound, or why Angel and Connor look like Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds used their faces for batting practice. Lorne meets the group and helps them into the makeshift office in the basement they used when Xander's construction crew was repairing the lobby. Connor and Angel lie on couches that meet at right angles in the back corner of the room. Wesley is on the phone near the front of the room. Cordy's bandaged Angel's wound as best she could, and Fred tries to care for Connor. Lorne and Gunn help both of them out.
"I know I've said this before, but what the hell was that?," Gunn asks "She ain't nothing like any demon I've faced."
"She's Mal's girlfriend," Angel declares, further confusing everyone else, save Connor.
"You smelled her too?," he asks.
"She mentioned him during the fight. What smell?"
"Last week. That other scent at the house Mal stayed at. That was her scent."
"That's why she's so mad at us," Angel concludes. "We killed her man. It's personal."
"Of course," Gunn remarks.
"Whadya mean of course?," Fred wonders.
"You four can go. I only want to hurt these two. She said that cause she doesn't blame us," Charles explains.
"That's a relief," Cordy comments. "In one way. In another, it's terrifying. And disgusting. But also confusing. Mal has an invincible girlfriend. Why doesn't he use her? The two of them could have ripped all of us apart in no time."
"Thanks for the reminder," Angel weakly and sarcastically jokes.
"I'm sorry, Angel. But you know it's true." Something occurs to her. "And it means his death is her own damn fault. If she really loved him so much, why wasn't she fighting by his side when he needed her?"
"Cordy's right," Connor offers before coughing up some more blood. "She was in town the night before we killed him. Wait. How does she know we killed him?"
"Maybe she saw his bones," Gunn guesses.
"We only had those out that night."
"They were out on Friday," Fred recalls.
"In the office," Cordy notes. "Unless she can see through walls."
"So she's with him right before the fight, and she comes looking for him right after," Angel concludes. "Which raises two more questions. Why did she wait to get her revenge? And how does Wolfram & Hart fit into all this?"
"The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. That's what she told me right before she left," Fred reports.
"Sounds like our girl's an equal opportunity hater," Lorne quips.
"She hates us more," Angel argues. "That monster killed the fighters at the law firm. But she let us live. She was wants to make us suffer. Connor starts hyperventilating, which quickly causes more weak coughing. Fred wipes away the blood. Cordy comes over and tries to comfort him. They put an extra pillow under his head to elevate him. He looks very worried.
"What's wrong?," Fred asks. "Ah mean, what's more wrong?"
"I killed her lover. She wants vengeance. What if she tries to kill my lover?"
"Lover? What lover?," Angel wonders. The others realize who Connor's referring to. After a few seconds, Angel gets it, and looks nauseous. "That's what you call Dawn?"
"Relax Angelpie," Lorne gently pleads. "No time to blow your top over pet names."
"If she wants to make me suffer, isn't that the easiest way?," Connor asks.
"You mean before she kills you slowly and painfully?," Cordy responds. Right now, Connor does not appreciate her sense of humor. "I'm sorry, Connor. But it seems to me she's focused first on breaking every bone in your's and Angel's body. Maybe she doesn't even know about Dawn."
"I hope. I couldn't stand her getting hurt because of something I did."
"Right now, I'd worry more about you getting hurt for something you did. You and Angel, both."
"Cordy's right, son. Whatever she is, whatever she wants, she's our problem."
"I'll get crackin' on the research," Fred promises. "Try to figure out just what exactly she is." Wesley hangs up the phone and walks over to them.
"Don't bother," he assures her. "That was Rupert. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, she's not after us. The bad news is, she's after Buffy."
Cordy breathes a big sigh of relief and looks up at the ceiling. "Thank God for small favors. You hear that, Connor? She doesn't want to kill you guys. She's Buffy's problem."
"Then why did she come after us?," Fred wonders.
Wesley explains. "Her name is Nina. She isn't a demon. Nina is a Titan who works for the First Evil. According to Rupert, she is its final and most powerful agent. Buffy and Faith have had as much difficulty injuring her as we have." Angel and Connor struggle to sit up. This latest revelation peaks both their interests.
"A Titan? What's a Titan?," Fred wonders.
"They're what lived before demons," Angel explains. "But I thought they were all killed off."
"Devoured by hordes of ferocious demons," Wesley notes.
"Obviously not all of them," Gunn comments.
"Before they could meet the fate of the rest of their race, Nina and her brother Seth were rescued' by the First Evil, which uses them as its shock troops. Seth came first, and when they defeated him, Nina – who is by far the stronger one – took his place."
"She's in Sunnydale," Connor frets. "That means she can attack Dawn anytime she wants." Angel's getting annoyed with Connor's fixation on his girlfriend.
"She can't kill Dawn," Wesley assures Connor, who manages a smile, though not a pretty one, on account of his swollen and bloody lips. "For the same reason she can't kill either of you. Agents of the First Evil can only kill Watchers, Slayers and Potential Slayers."
"What about all those Wolfram & Hart employees who had their hearts removed?," Angel asks. "How do they fit in?"
"Nina can also kill anyone who gets in her way and tries to prevent her from killing Slayers."
"Wolfram & Hart's protecting Buffy?," Cordy wonders. "Spike's one thing, but that law firm's a whole other level of sleaze."
"Apparently, Wolfram & Hart was in possession of some object that could be used to destroy the Slayer Line. That's what Nina must have been there to retrieve. And that was why she could kill anyone who got between her and the object."
"Then we got played for suckers and tricked into an ambush," Gunn concludes.
"That pretty much sums it up," Cordy agrees.
Angel's distressed that some of his crew has second thoughts about fighting the good fight. "She's evil, and she was in our town," he argues. "We had a duty to try and stop her."
"Why can't Buffy clean up her own messes?," Cordy asks. "I don't mean to sound harsh, but it's not like we haven't had problems of our own to deal with."
"Massacring the city's demon population, organizing and resettling its vampires, taking control of its street gangs, decimating its demon fighters, eating hundreds of its people, kidnapping and torturing Angel, chasing the rest of us around town. All that in four days and five nights. Mal was one busy bee," Lorne reminds them. "Where did he find the time to romance the Madame Evisceration?"
"Sometime between Tuesday night and Thursday night," Wesley explains. "Nina was inactive during that period. And Mal was in Sunnydale on Wednesday night."
"He was?," Angel exclaims with trepidation. "How do you know that?"
"Mal had no confirmed kills in Los Angeles that night. Meanwhile, there were twenty eight killings in Sunnydale. Rupert described the wounds, and they matched Mal to a T. Apparently, he went to a strip mall and marauded from store to store, biting and draining everyone in his path."
"And Buffy didn't try to stop him?"
"She was patrolling at a cemetery. They didn't know about the massacre until the following morning. Mal never encountered Faith or Buffy. However, from what Nina said when they skirmished on Thursday night, Rupert now believes that Mal watched the two of them and Spike from a distance and gave Nina his expert opinion on their relative strengths."
"Oh my God. He was talking about them," Angel realizes.
"When?," a confused Connor asks.
"During our final fight. He mentioned two Slayers and another vampire. I thought I was hearing things, on account of my head spinning and blood pouring out of my ears." Then he looks at Wes suspiciously. "You knew this all along."
"About Nina? No. About Mal being in Sunnydale? Since the following morning. It didn't seem relevant at the time. Giles never mentioned Mal to Buffy for the same reasons."
"And maybe because he's the World Champion Slayer-Killer," Cordy adds.
"That was probably also a consideration."
"And what if he did attack them?," Angel demands to know. "They would have had no idea what they were up against."
"I told Rupert about Mal the moment I discovered his identity. For this reason, Rupert was with Buffy and Faith whenever they ventured outside. He knew what to be on the lookout for, and what to order them to run away from."
"I don't get it," Fred concedes. "She wants to kill Slayers. He's a pro when it comes to that. They have Buffy n' Faith literally in their sights. How come Mal didn't help Nina?"
"Probably the flip-side of why she couldn't help him with us," Gunn guesses.
"That would appear to be the case," Wes concurs. "Nina can't receive outside aide against her targets."
"So Mal coulda killed Dawn?," Connor asks. Angel, Cordy, Lorne and Gunn all groan at the boy's one-track mind.
"It would appear so," Wesley responds, surprising his friends. "As well as Willow, and Xander, and Spike, and Anya, and anyone else in Sunnydale who wasn't a Watcher, Slayer or Potential." Connor smiles, imagining that he saved his beloved from The Wrath of Mal. Then he remembers something Mal said during their last fight.
"He was going there. After he killed us. He said he was going away with his girl." Angel's friends are dubious. But Angel remembers something similar.
"Connor's right. He told me he was heading where the Slayers were."
"It does make sense," Cordelia concedes. "The guy's done with LA. He wants to spend time with his psycho-girlfriend – God, would those two have been a frightening pair. Like Bonnie and Clyde on steroids and crystal meth. For a guy like Mal, the Hellmouth would be like Club Med."
"The yellow-hair Slayer," Connor recalls. "He said I'd be a good match for her. He thought I should hook up with Buffy!" Angel doesn't remember this, mostly because Mal only said it to Connor. He finds it alarming, as does Cordelia – each of them for very different reasons.
"He thought you belonged with Buffy?," Angel asks. "So much for age making people wiser."
"Try crazier," Cordelia adds.
"He didn't say belonged. He said Angel was too good for her, and the other vampire – I guess that's Spike – wasn't good enough." Angel and Cordy both smile, once again reacting the same way for very different reasons.
"He wasn't entirely wrong," Angel comments, referring to Mal's evaluation of Spike.
"He had a point there," Cordy adds, referring to Angel being too good for Buffy.
"You said her name was Nina," Lorne recalls, bringing the conversation away from the dead vampire and back to the live Titan. "You sure it wasn't Nanna?" Wesley pauses before responding.
"Wait. Nanna. I believe Rupert said that was one of her other names."
"Holy Krakatoa."
"What's wrong, Lorne?," Fred asks.
"This dame who tenderized you two? I've heard of her. In legends. Very scary legends."
"Girl had a rep in Pylea?," Gunn inquires.
"To put it mildly. Her name sends chills down our spines and makes even the bravest warrior wet himself with terror. As you may have noticed, we're a backward people. One of our best ways of bringing in hard currency is to have our young men serve as mercenaries in other dimensions. Three hundred of our kingdom's finest had the misfortune of entering a world just before Nanna showed up. She killed two hundred and ninety nine of them. Then she blinded the lone survivor and ripped his horns off before before sending him back home to tell the tale. I think that was three or four centuries ago. But they still tell it like it was yesterday. And I'm pretty sure they still sacrifice a newborn male child from royal clan every year at the Temple of Akthos the Protector to keep Nanna the Destroyer from setting foot in Pylea. The legend is that no demon can kill her."
"Good thing Buffy's not a demon," Angel concludes.
"I wasn't aware that your people sacrificed their own kind," Wesley comments.
"We didn't. Until we got word of Nanna. It wasn't just that one event. There were are small bands of foreign demons living here and there who came to Pylea as refugees from her wrath. But we always thought they lost because they were weaker than us. Until some of our kind got a taste of her bitter medicine. She destroys worlds. And she hates demons. I'm sure this sounds rather loopy in hindsight, but I was taught that she liked people. Word was that she exterminated demons but spared non-demons."
"So that they can live in a world run by evil," Wesley infers. "Slavery instead death. How considerate of her."
"We have to help Buffy," Angel declares.
"First, you have to be able to stand up," Cordy reminds him.
Giles puts down the phone, looking even more distressed than he usually has these past few days. "What's going on?," Buffy asks.
"What did Wes say to get you extra worried?," Faith wonders. Giles just leaves the living room and rushes into Willow's bedroom.
"Sorry to interrupt. Have you found anything?"
"Yep. I picked up your weapons. Too bad all I picked up was that they're within a three mile-radius of us. They're not cloaked. But they only give off a very fuzzy signal. I can't focus it. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about that. Can you locate Nina?"
"Piece of cake."
"Good."
"Why good? Has she found the super-tools? Cause that's not good."
"I doubt that she has. But I think she's found a way to focus the signa and locate them."
"I find her, and Buffy finds the weapons. What if it's too late?"
"Obviously time is of the essence." Giles turns around and leaves.
"Gotcha. I'll get right on that. Chief." Willow worries about how agitated and overstressed Giles has become. He returns to the living room to explain.
"Nina was just in Los Angeles." Buffy, Faith and Dawn gasp. "She fought Angel and his friends. Thoroughly thrashed them, as a matter of fact."
"How's Connor," Dawn asks. "Is he okay?"
"They're all fine, Dawn. Just badly bruised."
"With Nina, I would bloody well expect as much," Spike adds. He would have found it humiliating for Angel's gang to hold up better against her than they have.
"As much as we care for Angel and his friends – and family," Giles adds, in a nod to Dawn, "they are not what concerns us right now. As best as I can determine – and Wesley is in complete agreement with me on this – Nina went there to retrieve some small, mystical object that can help her find the charmed weapons. Attacking Angel was extra-curricular." Giles gulps. "Apparently, and I'm still having trouble believing it myself, Nina was quite fond of a certain vampire who Angel and Connor slayed last Thursday evening." This produces a few seconds of silence.
"Psycho girl had a honey?," Buffy asks. "A vampire honey?"
"Guess they're not just for Slayers anymore," Anya quips, drawing Buffy's glower and Rupert's glare of annoyance. Then she remembers something useful. "When Nina held me hostage, she talked about her boyfriend. I thought it was her kinky way of referring to the First."
"Me too," Buffy recalls.
"Let me make sure I have this right," a shaken Dawn begins. "In addition to wanting Buffy, and Faith, and the Potentials dead, now our just-about-unkillable enemy has a personal vendetta against Connor and Angel?"
"She can't kill them," Giles assures Dawn.
"Otherwise she bloody well would have," Spike adds, not helping, but raising an important and – if Dawn looked at it the right way – comforting point.
"As if she wasn't already filled with enough homicidal rage," Xander remarks. "Leave it to Angel to give our arch-nemesis a little extra motivation." The Potentials try as best they can to make sense of the situation.
"Since when did agents of the First get to date?," Kennedy asks.
"I think Nina gets to write her own rules," Anya theorizes.
"She is the First's last and only hope," Xander points out. The holographic nature of the First Evil makes Andrew think of the hologram of Princess Leah saying "Help me Obi Won. You're my only hope," which even he recognizes as a grossly inappropriate reference at this moment. Then something more relevant occurs to him. "In her zeal for vengeance, Nina may have sowed the seeds of her destruction by drawing a new group of heroes into the fight."
"No she didn't," Buffy replies dismissively. She dislikes the idea of needing Angel's help in Sunnydale as much as he dislikes the idea of needing Buffy's help in LA.
"Two Slayers, two ensouled vampires, two Watchers, a boy Slayer - "
"Hey!," Dawn interrupts. "Don't call him that." She finds it demeaning.
"And don't call Wesley a Watcher," Xander adds, beating Giles to the punch. "He's a defrocked ex-Watcher."
"We don't need Angel getting in the way," Spike argues.
"He can't help us," Giles maintains. "That was apparent enough when she manhandled him today. What can help us are those weapons. They can hurt Nina."
"Clearly Angel can't," Spike adds. Andrew senses how protective they are of their territory, but before he can say anything impolitic that might imply that they are petty, Willow enters.
"Found her." Buffy leaps to her feet. "She's on a hill in Denonville Woods." Willow marks it on a map. "Right there." Buffy puts on her coat and heads to the door.
"Right behind ya, B," Faith says as she puts on her coat. Giles grabs Spike's arm to keep him from following.
"Piss off, Rupert. You suddenly got a problem with me fighting the bad guys?"
"It might be a diversion. I need you to check the Hellmouth. I'll drive. Buffy, take your phone."
"Good thinking," she concedes. "Nina could lead us on a wild goose chase and teleport away at a moment's notice." Xander also gets his coat on, puzzling both Giles and Spike.
"Where do you think you're going?," Spike asks.
"Thought you might need some extra wheels. Especially one with off-road capability. Since that's most of what we have around town these days."
"Knock yourself out," Spike responds, not being entirely metaphorical.
A half hour earlier, Nina stood on top a cliff nearly three miles north of the bunker and five miles from where Buffy and Faith are headed. She takes out the two orbs, holding one in each outstretched hand. "Emico, Talico, Mekono, Salinco," she chants before squeezing each orb with all her might. They shatter, releasing red and blue streaks of mist that immediately descend into the cliff. In front of Nina are twelve Joiners, her industrious little faceless companions. "What are you so happy?," she asks them ten seconds later. "You like the idea of tunneling through seventy feet of rock?" She doesn't like the idea of waiting. The Joiners drive steel spikes into the soil, tie ropes around them, and slide down the sheer west face of the cliff. Six of them stop thirty feet down, and the other six stop forty feet down. They immediately begin using their picks to hack away at the side of the cliff. Nina slaps the side of her head. "Stupid me. Who says they have to go straight down?" She looks over the edge of the cliff and watches them work with quiet, calm ferocity. She'd have her toys in no time. And now, to lead Buffy astray, Nina teleports to where Willow would fine her. At this site are twelve more Joiners, digging two holes in the ground.
"Got a plan?," Faith asks Buffy as they climb the heavily-forested hillside in the southeastern corner of town.
"She finds us. We duck, don't let her hit us, find the weapons, take them and run away."
"And when she catches up with us?"
"Whichever one of us gets the weapons runs. The other one holds Nina off."
"Ya mean whichever one of us doesn't have the only things that can hurt her takes her on? Isn't that a little backwards?"
"We can't risk her taking them back. We get them to the bunker, and for the first time, she's on the defensive." Faith looks around the dark forest.
"How much ya wanna bet she ambushes us before we ever get a look at what we're after?," Faith whispers.
"She can't take us both at once," Buffy whispers back. As it is, Nina allows them to make it to the top of the hill. The Slayers each hide behind a large tree trunk and observe what's happening. The summit has been stripped bare, the trees chopped down and the stumps uprooted. All this lumber has been used to erect a four foot-high barricade around the area where the Joiners are working. In the center of the clearing are two fluted stone columns with a papyrus design on top, each column four feet high and two feet in diameter. They use metal circular saws to slice into and peel away the stone. Nina circles round them, anxiously watching their work. Buffy takes out her phone and sends a text message to Xander, who is with Spike and Giles at the Hellmouth.
"Buffy says Willow marked the spot," he reports.
"She found the weapons already?," Giles asks, rather surprised.
"Then she'd probably be fighting instead of text messaging. I think Buffy meant she found Nina looking for the weapons."
"Guess it's safe to say we've found the diversion," Spike concludes. "And what a diversion." Two hundred Bringers with shovels surround the skeletal dome and dig a trench around the circumference of the structure.
"If that's where they want to fight, why are they trying to keep us out?," Xander wonders.
"Perhaps they want to protect something until the time is right," Giles guesses.
"Better go join Buffy," Spike suggests.
"Please try to remain inconspicuous," Giles pleads. "The last thing we want is to tip Nina off to our presence."
"I'm a bloody vampire, you nit. I know a thing our two about sneaking around."
"Guess I'll head home then," Xander concludes. But Giles and Xander are already walking towards Rupert's car and don't bother hearing him. They head east. Xander drives north over the broken ground with his high beams on. He notices lots and lots of footprints. Xander gets out of his truck. They're very tiny footprints. And whoever made them came from the Hellmouth. Xander follows. Soon the footprints disappear into the grass. Assuming that whatever made the tracks couldn't vanish quite so easily, Xander continues north, looking for them.
Clayton's in his office, talking on a headset phone. He paces back and forth in front of his desk as he talks. "That's because flaying dehydrates the body. You can't remove more than ten percent of the skin without killing the person. And the first rule of torture is you have to keep the victim alive. Good thing you got another one left. Take your time with this one. Electrodes to the – come on! A little originality, please? I'm sick and tired of people resorting to technology because they lack technique. Don't just phone it in. Try to impress me. Then maybe I'll put in a good word with your boss." He takes off the headset and shakes his head. David enters. "You're still here."
"Our bosses don't look too kindly on jumping ship during a major crisis."
"What crisis? A visitor took out fifty expendable tough guys and disemboweled thirty expendable paper pushers. One on each floor. Gotta respect the thoroughness of it all. Then she stole something designed to hurt someone we don't care about but our enemies do. I think the upside outweighs the down."
"She destroyed our link to the Senior Partners."
"Guess they'll have to stay off our backs for a while. Sounds good to me."
"You are such a goddam hypocrite," David tells Clay. "Always prancing around like you don't have a care in the world."
"I don't prance."
"You act like the world's biggest cynic. Until the going really gets tough. Then you're no different than Angel."
"I like to think I'm very different. And my girlfriend would agree."
David snaps his fingers and points. "That's what I'm talking about. When there's a tiny chance she's in danger, you risk your life, you risk your career, to make sure she's okay. Laid back and care-free my ass. You're the biggest fraud around."
"Ever consider that it's because I care about Mona that I don't have to care about anything else?"
"So the office gossip is true. You really are just riding her coat tails."
"You're one to talk, mama's boy."
"She's not a lawyer. She has no control over this department. And she's not even around ninety five percent of the time. Mona lives here. She's your eyes and ears. You knew what you were doing when you chose her." Clayton slams David into the wall. He laughs at the furious Clay. "You love her! You really love her. Whatever happened to the man with ice water in his veins? Is he just some character you pretend to be from nine-to-five?" Clayton lets go. David smooths out his suit.
"Some of us need more than whores."
David sighs. "As I've told you before, I only go for them because they're emotionally-scarred. Not because I can't get it for free."
"My apologies. I forgot about the coked-up models."
"Heroin-addicted models. They have more depth" Clay shakes his head at David's depravity. "You think I'm sick."
"No. I think you need them to be sick. You're more attracted to their baggage than their bodies. Take your yin for Vengeance Demons."
"I'm also attracted to their bodies. Their human bodies, in case you weren't sure."
"Knowing you, I wasn't."
"These are women who gave up on their old lives. Committed a form a suicide. That's how miserable they were. Sure, they're immortal. They can zip all over the world any time they want. They're incredibly strong, physically and magically. But deep down, they'll always be failures. Every single one of them."
"And that's what gets you going."
"It's the contrasts. The fusion of power and powerlessness. It doesn't get more poetic than that."
"You really think of yourself as an artist?," Clay asks David with a chuckle.
"Do you really think of yourself as a tender lover? If only your clients knew. They'd drop you in a second."
"Because they would realize I'm human?"
"Or maybe they'd wonder if your girlfriend isn't." David jumps back and puts out his hands, anticipating another violent outburst. "I'm just saying, she's the kind of girl who turns heads for the wrong reason. And the hairless thing is just the beginning. Is that how the firm spots them?"
"That, and the fact that they're mute."
"At least you two can't fight."
"Of course we can. I can hear her thoughts loud and clear."
"Only the ones she wants you to hear, I bet."
"Like all forms of communication."
"I still don't get how you managed to meet her. To say those girls are cloistered would be putting it mildly. Then again, they are lonely. You don't have any competition. The only tough part is that first step."
"I was working in Chicago. Two years out of law school. Botched some motion to dismiss, so I was demoted across the street to the back-office building."
"You were on the chopping block."
"Lowest of the low. But if I hadn't screwed up, I never would have known she existed. I'm pouring through case law one night because I'm terrified of getting fired. it's about two in the morning. I look out the window, and see only one floor with its lights on. And I start wondering who it is. It's not the right floor for the partners. I finish my memo, and decide that instead of faxing it to the main office, I'll walk it over."
"But you were exiled."
"It's the middle of the night. I flash the guard my badge, he's not going to bother inspecting it. I drop off my work and try taking the elevator to the mystery floor."
"Let me guess: you didn't have authorization?"
"Nope. But that didn't stop me. Or, to be more precise, it didn't stop her."
"She sensed the curious loser, and used her mojo to rig the elevator? Poor girl was lonelier than I thought."
"She could see me from across the street. Guess she liked what she saw."
"I'm sticking with my She Was Lonely thesis."
"She definitely was. It explains why we met. But it doesn't explain why she fell in love with me."
"Forgive me for trying to burst your bubble, Romeo. I'm sorry. I meant Angel. Lonely girl. Special powers. Doomed to an early death. The parallels are scary."
"First, she wasn't a girl. Mona was twenty two when we met. I'm only five years older than her."
"That would make her twenty eight. Doesn't her kind die at thirty?"
"Not die. Get killed off."
"Wolfram & Hart murdering its own employees. I'm shocked," David jokes. "When do they put them to work? Fifteen?"
"Twenty."
"Ten years? They spend two decades raising these girls for only one decade of labor? That's just plain inefficient."
"Age twenty is when their powers begin to peak."
"And they fall off after thirty?"
"Most of the time."
David raises his eyebrows. "Is someone planning to buck the system?"
"Mona's always told me the other women lose their power because they're depressed. All that loneliness leaves them with nothing to live for."
"Gosh, you're pathetic. Anyone else said these things to you, you'd laugh them out of the room."
"You still don't get it, do you David? We make each other better."
"Her power gives you inside information. And you think your love makes her a more powerful witch."
"So does Mona. But you missed the most important part. Our love gives me insights into our enemies you can't even dream of. Why do they fight us? Well, a lot of them don't know any better. But those are the easy ones to defeat. The tough ones, now they fight out of love. I know what it is to love someone so much you're willing to die for her. Which reminds me. I'm late for my seven o'clock. Got a date with an Angel. And then, a real date with a real angel. Ciao, babe."
As Xander drove north, he couldn't find anyone. Then he thought about where these weapons would have been hidden. If they was buried in the town, chances were they would have been discovered by someone digging sewers or building foundations. So they were somewhere remote and undeveloped. Soon, he came to a cliff that fit both these descriptions. There were piles of dirt on the ground. He sees another pail of dirt fall from the heights, and looks up into the darkness. A clod of dirt nails him in the face. He wipes it away and takes out his phone.
Buffy has the ringer off, but she can see Xander's number flashing on her screen. She retreats down the hill and answers it with a whisper. "Xander, do you know the meaning of the word stakeout? You want to blow my cover?"
"Buffy, it's a diversion."
"Looks pretty real to me. Right down to the scary-looking guys cutting up the Egyptian pillars that look really real to Giles."
"Then why are they tunnelling into the hill just above me? Seems like a waste of effort if they've already got the goods."
"Call Giles. Talk to him. I'm too close to Nina to have a nice, long chat." She hangs up. Xander calls Giles, who is with his car at the bottom of the hill. A few minutes later, Buffy receives a call from him. Greatly annoyed, she takes it, trying to be as quiet as possible. Fortunately, the Joiners' saws make it difficult for the enemy to hear much. "You want him to what? You're sure about this. You better be sure." Buffy walks over to Spike and whispers in his ear.
"No bloody way."
"And what if Giles is right? It's the only way to know for sure. Sneak around to the other side. That way you won't give us away."
"And what if he's wrong? Then Nina knocks me down, and her faceless minions cut me to pieces with their power tools."
"We've got your back."
"Fine. I'll take one for the bloody team," Spike grouses. He sneaks around, climbs over the barricade, charges Nina and sends a right hook for her face. It goes through her face. She's a hologram. "Oh, balls," Spike says before running away from the Joiners and their sharp, fast-spinning tools. He leaps back over the barricade and ends up tumbling down the hill. Buffy and Faith, furious at realizing they've been had, run down the other side towards Giles.
"How could this happen?," Buffy demands to know. "Willow found her here. Are you saying she was fooled by a mirage?"
"That's not possible," Giles argues. "She had to be here when Willow performed the spell. Which was fifteen minutes before you arrived."
"The old switcheroo," Faith comments. "Hold on. Nina's not dead. How could the First ghost her up?"
"Technically, she dies at the end of every mission, and is resurrected at the start of her next assignment," Giles explains. Spike joins up with them.
"I hate getting snookered. Where's our real enemy?"
The Joiners carved out two niches in the side of the cliff, then dug two narrow shafts into the dirt and rocks. This was the sort of task where their diminutive size came in handy. They were already hard at work by the time Buffy set out for the wrong location, and the decoy bought them plenty of time. The first team found their prize ten feet in. The second one twenty feet in. As Xander anxiously waited, he could see something getting attached to a rope and pulled up to the summit. Nina is lying on the ground, passing the time by staring at the stars when her workers return. She stands up, and is disappointed by what she sees. Before her are a three foot-high, eighteen inch-wide wooden log and a similar-sized cylinder of bronze. "Well isn't this a horrible joke. Like finding a needle inside of a bigger needle. Oh well. Look on the bright side. They must be pretty powerful for someone to go to this much trouble to keep them hidden. What was that? You can sense exactly where they are in there? Those orbs really were worth it." Nina teleports to the other site to check on Buffy and returns a few seconds later. "Better hurry it up, boys. We don't have all night."
NEXT: Buffy loses by getting what she wants.