"Come on I'm one of the good guys." The time traveler said as she allowed herself to be pulled to a chair. Gunn secured her hands with a short rope. "Ask Kreblorneswath." There was a mutual moment of silence. "Of the death walk clan."

The said demon was sipping on his bright red drink. He noticed all attention was focused on him.

"Don't look at me sweety." He said. "You explain yourself. If you want trust you have to earn it, and you should know that."

"Savvy." She nodded. "I'm from the future, the very non-distant future. Just a couple of years. I came back to help you."

"Why you?" Connor asked. "Who are you to us?"

"I can't tell you that, what I can tell you is that I'm in a long line of warriors."

"What warriors?" Faith ask in suspicion.

"Oh let me think here." She looked at the ceiling and stuck her tongue out in thought. "I was supposed to memorize these, but I never did. I know there was Nikki Wood, Buffy Summers, Kendra something I could never pronounce her last name and Faith Lehane." She pause a moment. "That's right I'm M the vampire slayer."

"M?"

"Yeah I'm not telling you my name I you find out who I am, could change the future. My future, so no. Wanna untie me now?"

"Wait, if you're a slayer," Fred dipped her head in confusion. "shouldn't you be able to just break those ropes?"

"I was being polite." With a jerk she pulled her hands in front of her holding the pieces of rope. "Thought you might want to use them again."

"No you're lying." Wesley said. "Time travel is impossible."

"Oh you're right. No such thing, totally impossible." M picked up her black bag and started toward the door, but turned back to face the Brit. "Oh by the way, what did you get Connor for his fourteenth birthday?" She called over her shoulder. Looking over to Angel's son, He sighed sharply as if to say 'that's different'. "All it is, is proper manipulation of dimensions."

"Come, sit, explain." He said.

"Ooo Yes Sir." She grinned. "I like you all scruffy and bad."

The slayer gave a Swiss cheesed account of how she came to be in this time. That a mystical map was written and put into a wooden amulet (which M was keeping securely around her neck under her top) In each dimension, when the "hot spot", "leyline", "portal" "worm hole", whatever it was called in that particular place, was correctly aligned the amulet would glow. Then it needed to be activated to open into the next dimension.

"I hate this part." M explained. "I have to stick my finger and drip blood on the wood. I'd rather cut my hand than stick my finger."

"How was this method developed?"

"Can't tell you."

"So what other kind of planes have you been on?" Fred asked.

"Oh several." She began, but the look in Fred eyes made her hesitate. "I uh, I know that if I had been trapped in any of the worse ones I couldn't have survived." M looked around for an alternate topic. "So Gunn can I see the ax made of a hubcap."

"I kind of wanna hear about other dimensions." Gunn prompted.

"Come on you know what they say." She pulled her bag up. "You show me yours..."

"I'm more interested in your mission." Wesley said.

"HEY!" M yelled "Where are you going?"

Connor was on his way up the stairs.

"I'm going to check on Cordy." The boy huffed.

"Cordy is-" Fred began but M cut her off."

"Oh yes Cordelia Chase." She turned back to Connor. "You going to ask Mommy for permission to play?"

Connor's sneer was firmly in place. Did this girl know? The way she drew out the word Mommy and the look on her face now.

"Oh sorry." M looked to the other A.I. members. "We're not supposed to talk about Connor's Oedipus problems."

Cordy was safe up stairs he should keep an eye on this girl.

"So ever been to a hell dimension?" He came back down the stairs.

"You mean like Quortoth? You still whining about that? Jeez get the hell over it. Fred spent time in hell so did Angel, you're not special."

"You were saying were you've been." Fred tried to avoid a confrontation.

"Yes. This is actually my second journey." She continued. "I got to see my future, well a possible future. So when you go time traveling you have to spend so much time in certain dimensions, like I spent two weeks in this one realm, I stayed with this witch, Rachel, she's the one who showed me how to put the map into a wood amulet rather than having to conjure it."

M was animated in her story telling and couldn't believe her attentive audience.

"Give me a sec." She made her way to office of the Hyperion. There Lorne sat, sea breeze still in hand. She shut the door. "Lorne?"

"Eleanore?" He looked up.

"Please keep that to yourself."

"M, for Myers?"

She nodded.

"I don't understand. You're all choppy. I can see slaying, pain, happiness, but only in your past and I keep seeing a blurred face, it's the same person always but I can't tell who it is." He set his drink down. "And I can't see a future, nothing not even the next ten minutes."

"I think it's cause here I have no future cause it's my past."

"Nice theory." He said. "Could be over taken by an ugly fact."

"You know you can trust me. I'm here for a good reason I just need you to promise me-"

"I won't tell them anything."

"Thank you."

"The witch who made the amulet?" Gunn asked when she came out of the office..

"Oh yea well in this world witches and warlocks, that learning levels, pixies leprechauns-"

"Leprechauns aren't real." Came a chorus of voices.

"They were in this place. Oh and get this there were living AND dead vampires, the witch I stayed with lived with one. And there was this really hot living vamp I swear he could have been Spike's twin." Stopping her rambling M continued. "I haven't been to the one with only shrimp but I did run into another time traveler. We bumped in an in-between and got flung some place weird but his aunts got us out. He went to his past to save his brother."

"Wish we could go to the past and not remove Angel's soul." Fred said.

"Let's get to it then." M insisted.

"We can't." Wes said. "His soul is missing."

"Wasn't this much trouble when Willow restored his soul." M said.

"Hmm Willow." Fred mumbles to herself. And went to the office.

"So let's go get some slaying in before bed?" She turned to Faith who had been resting and remained quiet for some time now.

"So you're what happens when I die?" Faith quipped.

"OH NO!" M popped out of her seat in indignation. "Listen up all of you. I may be from the future, but I am not a fortune cookie to be cracked. I need to change a mishap-major but I can not risk messing with destiny, or paradoxes or other time trivally stuff. So Faith don't assume something cause anything could have happened. You could have drowned then been brought back. You could have spent too much time in the astral plane and Willow had to go out and drag you back into your body. The rules could be totally different by then. Buffy could have died AGAIN!"

There was an awkward moment between laughter and sadness.

"Look," M said. "You want to know your future? You eventually die feel better?"

"Well I'm up for some dusting." Gunn said and went to the weapons cabinet.

"How but you Irish?" M said to Connor. "Go say Mummy dear can I go out with the big kids?"

Connor held in the rage wanting to bubble over the surface. He went and pulled out Angel's broad sword.

"I'm kinda torn to pieces." Faith said. "Give me a few hours."

M shed her jacket. There, was a holster hold a pistol at her left ribs and one at her back. She removed the one that held the tranquilizer and replace it with a... Paint ball pistol?

"What's with that thing?" Gunn asked.

"Another thing I picked up from the dimension where humans hate tomatoes, but that's another story." She pulled out one of the round paint beads. "Take an injection needle; fill the ball with holy water."

"Good thinking." Gunn said.

"I don't suppose you learned some kind of location spell to help us find a lost soul?" Wes called from behind his book.

"Yea but you won't need it." She took the pistol from her back. "And this, my family works at a prison, is a wood block gun. Won't pierce human skin but soak the block in holy water, tssss." She made the sound of a dusted vampire. "I had to figure something out my breasts are too big to properly use a crossbow."

Gunn and Connor flanked the slayer down the darkened street. Connor still felt threatened by her; he didn't want her out of his sight. Whatever purpose she came back in time for he was positive could not be good for his child.

"Can't wait to see you in action." Gunn said.

"Yea I'm good at what I do." M said.

There was movement behind them. A large group of seven or eight vampires, all in game face, stood.

"Here's your chance to-" Connor turned to find M gone. "What Kind of a slayer runs off?"

The two men jump into the fight killing three of the gang. The rest of the vampires had stayed back but now began toward them.

"Ah ah ah." M called from the opposite end of the alley. "Ladies first."

The demons now, all headed in her direction. M smirked and kicked her heal. The concrete sparked and a line of flame shot from her to the vampires.

"I'm good at what I do." She said.

When the flames and smoke died down Gunn and Connor could find no sign of M.

Cordelia paced around the room trying to calm her stomach. Where was Connor he hadn't been there for hours? She heard the door. She turned expecting Connor. Instead it was an unfamiliar girl dressed in back.

"The Mother." M said. She kneeled and kissed Cordelia's hand.