At 1:28, Faith sat up straight and whipped her head around the room. Something dark had just disturbed a perfectly good moment of afterglow. Her body was slick with sweat. Her hair was a tangled mess upon her head. She felt something break loose, but she didn't know if the floodgates were opening inside of her or if she was just feeling the effects of something else breaking through a weak and cracked dam.

Dave didn't sit up, but he reached over to touch her. She didn't jump as his warm, heavy hand landed on her arm. She turned her head slowly to him. From the look of confusion on his face, it was obvious that whatever had just happened, he didn't feel it. Moments like these were what made her think she was crazy, the times when she felt a physical presence that no one else seemed to feel. The times when she just knew she was losing her mind because there was no reason for her to swear she had heard something break. She hated feeling things alone, and looking at Dave, she knew this was going to be one of those moments where, should she ask him, he would say he didn't feel anything.

Stupid as the question may have been, considering the fact that she already knew the answer, Faith said, "Did you feel that?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what that is, but I'm guessing it's not what I'm feeling." He looked down the length of his body to the tent starting to rise already beneath the sheet. "Because I'm feeling something..."

Faith rolled her eyes, then snorted a slightly amused and somewhat sarcastic laugh. "I'm not talking about that. You always feel that." She rolled her eyes again. "I'm talking about..."

At 1:33 in the morning, the entire building shook.

"Um, maybe this is a Slayer thing, but uh... I don't really feel anything." Willow walked around rather bored. She thought that if they had found something, she would at least have something to take her mind off of the fact that she was completely in lust with a perfectly straight person. "I mean, I am this uber powerful witch, and I've been on the dark side before. I should be able to feel it right?"

Giles and Angel kept moving forward in front of her. There had to be something out there. It couldn't just be a coincidence that the sky was pitch black with thick, heavy clouds. Something was going on, and it was somewhere in Detroit.

"Maybe we're in the wrong part of the city." Angel looked around. "We expect things to happen in the busiest places, which usually means downtown, but I'm not getting anything."

"We need Faith here." Giles was still wary of leaving her behind with those wrestlers. What happened if she got in a rage? Who would be able to control her hair trigger temper? Yes, that one, Batista, seemed to calm her but that couldn't last forever. But, William Regal was a trusted friend, and if he said that they could handle her, he should have believed him.

And yet, there was still more. Leaving a Slayer behind, even if she wanted to be left alone... He had done enough of that with Faith already. They would have a fight on their hands if they tried to take her back, but maybe if she were with them, if she saw the carnage that she could prevent by going back to her Slayer training, she would see that she needed to return with them. Or maybe it would just drive her farther away.

Suddenly, Willow screamed and dropped to her knees. Giles and Angel rushed to her side. Angel fell down beside her and lightly touched her back. "Willow," he whispered. Her back was bowed at a painful angle, her body nearly bent in two. "Willow, what is it?"

She bent backwards and faced the sky. "Evil... dark, evil from the darkest place. Fire and ash..." Her hair was completely black. Her eyes were slowly bleeding into dark pools to match. Her skin was pale. "Someone has opened a portal and I can feel it..."

"Willow!" Giles dropped down in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. Willow started to chant in Latin and he shook her briskly. Her neck snapped back and forth. He slapped her hard across the face. "Fight it, Willow!" He looked up at Angel's confused face. "We shouldn't have brought her. There must be dark magicks around. They tempt her, call to the darkness within." He turned back to Willow and slapped her again. "Willow, fight! You've buried this! Do not let it come back!"

She stared at Giles, and slowly her hair seeped back to red. Her eyes swam in a sea of color before the whites around her pupils returned. "It... it was so thick... so rich... so... purely dark." Her voice was husky and breathless. She took in deep breaths and let them out slowly. Willow rose to her feet wobbly, then said, "It's in the city, but not here. Not where we are and yet... it's close." She turned her head to the side and stared blankly into the night. "Someone called something, and they can't control it."

A ringing broke the silence that followed her words and it took a moment for Angel to realize he was the one ringing. He dug in his pockets until he came out with a small phone. He flipped it open. "Yeah."

"Angel!" Cordelia spoke quickly. "It's a hotel!" There was a grunt on her end of the line, then a scream. "Hold on a sec." She shouted, "Don't mess up my hair! Do you know how long it takes to fix this after a magical coma!" There were more grunts and a scream, then Cordelia came back to the line. "A hotel!"

"What? Cordy, what's going on?"

"All hell broke loose, that's what's going on!" He heard running, then there were more muffled sounds. She had obviously moved away from the major battle scene, though in the background he could still hear Fred, Gunn and Spike shouting. He wondered how Spike managed to fight in his noncorporeal state. Was he trying to spook the enemy to death?

Cordelia broke his thoughts with, "I got another vision right before every Mini Bad in this city went completely crazy. There are vamps and everything out here, and Gunn had to call in the Evil Law Firm Army to pick up the slack. Let me tell you, there's nothing funnier than seeing lawyers scared of another lawyer when he threatens to–"

"Cordy!"

"Huh?"

"The hotel?"

"Oh, yeah, right. That." She paused, then shouted, "I'm talking to Angel! You got it covered!" She grunted, then came back to the line. "I got another vision, like I said, and it was clearer. A hotel. I mean, it was the same vision, I think, just clearer or... Hell, I don't know. All I know is that people were still dead and Faith still let her head get taken. But now I can see the place, and that is definitely the lobby of a decent hotel."

Angel went quiet. Hotel. Faith. "Shit!" He whirled around, then spun back towards Willow and Giles. "We left Faith at the hotel. Thought it was safe..."

"Well, it's not! Go save her so my headache will go away!"

The line went dead and Angel clicked the phone together. "Dammit!" He shoved the phone in his pocket and started running off. He yelled over his shoulder, "It's the hotel! Get to the car! We've gotta get back to Faith's hotel! Whatever this thing is... we left her right in its path!"

Faith gulped. "I was talking about that." She jumped up from the bed, her eyes searching the darkness. There was still a low shake of the foundation, but these were like aftershocks. The biggest blast was past them. Though, that still left one question. "What the hell was that?"

Dave was up and at her side within seconds. He bent and picked his boxers up from the floor and tossed a shirt at Faith. "What did you feel? Before the shake... what did you feel?"

"I don't..." She shook her head as she thrust her arms in the sleeves of the shirt, then started to button it. "It wasn't like that but... like something bustin' free. Like when you're under water and you shoot out, ya know?" She searched a few seconds, then found her panties and put them on. "I've gotta go see what that was."

Already people were screaming outside of their door. Faith imagined that everyone in the hotel was up in arms, wondering what the hell was going on. At first, the screams were more angry shouts, and even on the other side of the door, she could clearly distinguish Hunter's voice as he demanded to know what kind of shitberg they were staying in that overcharged them for shitty foundation. If she didn't know that there were things out there worse than bad construction work, she would have agreed with him. However, she had a feeling that this was definitely not the hotel's fault... and it was the reason she hadn't wanted to come to Detroit in the first place.

"Stay here." By the time the words left her mouth, she was already to the door, hand on the knob. Of course, Dave was already half a step in front of her, pushing her out the way. She shoved him hard with her shoulder, making him stumble to the side. "I said stay here!"

"You're out of your goddamned mind if you think I'm letting you go out there..."

He stopped as the angry shouts turned to terrified screams. There was banging at the door, and it sounded like Stephanie and Trish. Others didn't know where to go, but they would know. Find the Slayer, find safety. Faith jerked the door open and the women fell inside. Trish looked up and pointed to the hallway. "Randy... Hunter..."

She was cut off as Ric came stumbling into the room in his underwear, two leggy brunettes right behind him. "The dumbasses! Hunter and Randy are still out there!"

Faith shoved her way past and burst into the hallway. "Son of a..." She stared at this... thing was the only way to describe it. The horny head raked the ceiling, and as it moved, plaster fell down around its head. It was a mixture of black and red, and it smelled like sulfur. The entire body looked to be made out of lava rock. The body was humanoid in terms of heads, limbs and eyes, but the rest of it was just a mass of stone.

Hunter was on the floor, pulling Randy along behind him as he crawled towards Faith. She dashed forward. She picked up Randy, throwing him over her shoulder. She tried to grab Hunter, but with Randy's weight, he was just too heavy. She started to call out, but Dave was already there, helping Hunter to his feet and pulling him towards the room. The thing roared and Faith only had a second to scream, "DOWN!" Everyone in the area dropped to the floor and fire flew over their heads. Someone was at the end of the hallway. Whoever it was didn't have time to get down and went down in a screaming ball of flames. Faith didn't recognize the person, but even as a stranger, she thought that she could mourn the loss later. Now, it was time to fight.

She scurried into the room and threw everyone inside. The door slammed behind her and she took inventory. Hunter had a large gash across his stomach and the skin around the wound was dark, as though he had brushed against something hot. His eyes were barely open as Stephanie lifted his head and put it in her lap. Her tears fell onto his cheeks. He was hurt, but he was still alive enough to tell her to stop crying like a little girl. How long he would be alive without medical attention was another question, though.

Randy was completely unconscious. Trish knelt down beside him, screaming at him to wake up. She slapped him and, though he groaned when his head fell to the other side, his eyes didn't open. Trish laid down on the floor beside him, her head next to his, and whispered in his ear. Faith couldn't hear what she was saying, but she could see the tears glistening on his cheeks. The side of his body was red, again looking as though he'd run against something hot just like Hunter, but there were no other marks on him. She assumed that he'd been slammed into the wall.

Faith ran towards the bathroom and ran into a solid wall of flesh as Dave came out. She hadn't even seen him leave the room. He held a handful of towels and put them down on Hunter. The leader of Evolution roared as pressure was put against his wound. Faith grabbed Ric and dropped him, and his dates, down beside Hunter.

"This thing is gonna tear the fuckin' place up if I don't do something." She looked at Ric and the girls. "Hold this down on him." She focused on Ric. "Be ready to run when I tell you to." Her head turned towards Dave. "I don't want you to go in the hallway, got me? Stay in the doorway. When I say run, you get everybody outta here."

"Hunter can't walk, and Randy's not even awake."

"Well, you've got the time it takes me to distract that thing to wake him the fuck up."

"And just how the hell am I supposed to do that?"

"Fuck if I know, and fuck if I care. Get him up and all of you run. Grab anybody you can along the way and just get the hell out of here. Go down the back stairs. I'm gonna try and turn that ugly son of a bitch the other..." Her words were cut off by another thunderous shake. Her head whipped to the side and half of the wall to her room was gone. The burning creature roared into the room, sending an arc of fire into the air as its head turned in a semi-circle.

Faith jumped to her feet. Dave was up beside her in a second. "Faith!"

"No!" She shook her head and pulled away from him as he grabbed her arm. "I've got to do this! It's what I do!"

"You're a diva! Wrestling is what you do!"

"I'm also a Slayer!" She shook her head again. "Please, just go, alright? I don't know what things were before, but... I know I didn't save anybody. I can save all of you. Or at least I can try." Without warning, she reached up and grabbed his face. She jerked him down to her and kissed him hard enough to bruise. Faith shoved him back, then said, "On my line, go!"

Faith dashed out into the hallway and started waving her arms. There was no point in going through the door. That entire side of the room was gone in a pile of debris. She looked to the side and saw Randy finally getting up to his feet. At least that was one less person to figure out how to carry. She looked back at the creature and shouted, "Hey! You big son of a bitch! Right over here, cinder boy!"

It bent down towards her, and she jumped over its back, somersaulting to the other side. The rest of the walls were torn apart as it whirled around. Faith screamed, "NOW!" The creature turned its head as the others went shooting out of the room, Dave and Ric doing their best to carry Hunter while Stephanie helped Trish get Randy out of the room. The creature started to go after them and Faith ran forward.

She jumped up and slugged it hard in the neck. She hit the floor and her hand burned. That motherfucker was made out of molten fucking lava! It worked though, and the creature turned back towards her. Faith stayed on the floor as it roared fire over her head, then jumped up to her feet. She looked down at herself and sighed. She was only in a shirt way too many sizes too big and panties. Her feet were scratched and bleeding from standing on rocks and broken plaster.

Faith shook her head and took a fighting stance. It could have been worse, she figured. She could have been completely naked, and that would definitely be her last choice of attire to fight in. She charged the thing, and before she burnt her hands up some more, she muttered, "Where the fuck is my vampire back-up and his buddies when I fuckin' need 'em?"