Debbie tells Angel about how she discovered her Slayer Power, and what she decided to do with it.

"I guess I first noticed it on the Friday night after the first week back at school. Aunt Sally and Uncle Walter were fighting as usual. They were getting to the really loud part. I heard the first pots and pans get thrown. That's usually my signal for climbing out the window and sneaking off until things cooled down," Debbie recounts as Angel drives south along the coast. "I walked for about three blocks, then I stopped at the playground my mom used to take me to. It was empty, being after dark and all. I sat in one of the swings. Thought about stuff. Tried to figure out if their predictability made things easier or just more pathetic. The part that always got to me was, it wasn't their house. It was my house. Mine and mom's and dad's. But she's dead. And ever since my dad went away, it's felt like I've also been sent to prison. Like the house was a prison because I had to stay there, and now that my parents were gone, it didn't feel like my house any more. I do this a lot. Part of the predictable pattern. And, predictably, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, remembered how things could be a helluva lot worse, and how in two years I'm outta there and off to college."

"But then something happened to you that didn't fit the predictable pattern," Angel surmises.

"I started swinging. The up/down back/forth helps me calm down. It also reminds me to grow up, ironically. Guess that's cause when you're doing a little kid thing you keep thinking how stupid it is cause you're not a little kid anymore. I jerk my arms back and whip my legs forward to go higher. And I go WAY higher. Like, to the level of the bar on top. So high the chains got slack at the very end. Then I go back and notice that I'm looking straight down. The chain's parallel to the ground. You know when you're nine years old you talk with your friends about if it's possible to swing all the way around? Okay, maybe you don't. But that's what popped in my head. I got scared, didn't swing higher the next time up, and then jumped off the time after that. When I jumped, I swung my legs forward like always so you fly through the air for a sec. This time, it felt like three seconds. I flew over the see-saw, fell when my feet hit the ground and rolled into the bushes at the edge of the playground. I get up and look back at the swings, and realize I flew more than forty feet through the air. I knew I had hit the ground really hard. I was like fifteen feet up in the air before I crashed. But it didn't hurt. My feet, my ankles, my legs, they were fine. Better than fine. Like this power was surging through my body. Like how people must feel when they do Angel Dust."

"Never thought of it that way," Angel comments. "PCP makes people psychotic."

"And Slayer Power doesn't?"

"Not usually. And not at first. Unless there's some pre-existing condition." The first part was reference to Faith. The second to Dana.

"Angel Dust also makes people feel invincible. That's what I felt. I had no idea why. Hadn't taken any drugs. Hadn't smoked a joint in like two months. And if it was laced I would've felt something right away. There was no reason. No explanation. Next to the playground are two tennis courts. The fence around them's about twelve feet high. Without even thinking, I just ran towards it. I kept getting faster and faster. Like I was riding a bike downhill, except there's no bike. Then I leap at the fence and grab on. My hands are at the top. My feet are just above the bar that's halfway up. That's a six foot vertical leap! My first thought is, why am I trying to climb this fence?' Second thing I think is Holy shit! I've got a six foot vertical! I can dunk!!' Third thing was I look pretty stupid hanging on this fence.' So I jump back to the ground. After that, the urge to show off to myself was gone. What was left was fear. I kept thing This was wrong. I was wrong.'"

"It must be an incredibly tough thing to go through alone."

"You make it sound like getting your period or something," she replies with a laugh. "It's not a rite of passage. It's not supposed to happen. And people who think it's happening to them are crazy."

"You thought you were losing your mind?"

"No. I knew it was really happening. So that made me think the world must be crazy. And if I knew then what I know now about vampires and demons, I would have been certain the world had gone nuts."

"So you went into denial."

"Better than the other options. I just pretended nothing had happened. The power scared me. Imagine what other people would make of it. Seemed like a lot of trouble and no upside. By the way, when I got back to house, Walter was in front of the tv and Aunt Sally was in her room. She had a shiner under her left eye. Walt's a drunk and a scumbag, but he's not an idiot. He never hit her in the face on weeknight when she'd have to go into work the next day. That stayed with me for the next week as I kept my scary newfound power under wraps."

"Only natural for you to want to stop him the next time he tried anything."

"But I wasn't sure if I could. I could run fast and jump high, but that doesn't make you a good fighter. And I wasn't going to test my powers on Walt. Because if they didn't do me any good, he'd make me pay for trying."

"Did he ever hit you?"

"No. He didn't pretend to have any power over me. That was my aunt's job, since she was my blood relative. So I needed a test. The next Friday was Freshman Friday. That's the day every year when the upperclassmen pick on the Freshman boys. Swirlies. Stripped naked and duct-taped to a bathroom stall. Shaving cream in your hair. The smaller boys getting stuffed in lockers. The hazing's not as bad as it once was. I heard that ten years ago they caught a couple kids on the roof holding freshman over the edge by their feet. Worst part was, they'd let go for a second and then grab you before you fell. But that was then. On this day, I walked past a boy's bathroom after second period. I heard some kids struggling and begging and decided to check it out. Four football players were trying to give two tiny freshmen swirlies. And one of the toilets hadn't been flushed.

"I think you're in the wrong bathroom, sweetie," one of the upperclassmen says as he glances to his right and sees Debbie approaching.

"Then why don't you do something about it?," she asks back.

"What, is the line too long in the little girls' room?," another guy asks mockingly.

"You tell me," Debbie responds. She rushes towards him, grabs a guy twice her size by his shirt and lifts his feet off the ground, then hurls him over her shoulder towards the door. He slams hard into the tile. The three guys stop what they're doing and look at Debbie. "That's the hard way," she tells them, suddenly filled with confidence. "Easy way is to walk on out. Which one will it be, boys?" They aren't sure what to do. Hitting a girl is wrong. But backing down to one is only slightly less wrong.

"This is none of your business," the largest one, a offensive tackle, tells her.

"And how is it your business to pick on a couple kids who've done nothing to you?"

"Time to go," the tackle says. He takes her right arm and a linebacker takes her left.

"Hey!," she yells, try to hold her footing and keep from being dragged away. A running back steps towards her and laughs. She kicks him in the chest with her right foot, knocking him ten feet back into the wall. This stuns everyone, including Debbie. The two other guys stop when they hear their friend crash into the wall. Deb grunts and pushes both of them back with her arms. She takes the linebacker's left arm in her left hand and pushes on his back with her right hand, sending him towards the door and into the first guy she threw. The running back, sore from the kick, hunches over and scurries past Debbie. The tackle, not wanting to get routed by anyone, grabs her shoulders. She swings her arms around, breaks free and slams his back into the wall. "I think they'd like an apology."

"You gotta be crazy." She shoves him again, this time causing his neck to whip back and the back of his skull to slam into the concrete. "Ow! Okay, you really are crazy." He shakes his head and glances to his left at the two boys. "Sorry," he casually tells them in a low, quiet, insincere voice.

"Now get the hell out," she adds before throwing him forward, causing him to roll on the ground a few times before standing up and joining his three friends in abject retreat. The two freshmen don't appear very grateful. No boy at that age likes to be saved by someone else, especially a girl. They quickly walk out without making eye contact. Deb smiles and decides to try something. She punches the outer side wall of one of the stalls with her right fist. Each of her four knuckles leaves a dent. She smiles, laughs, and runs off to her third period class, giddy.

"It's exhilarating the first time you realize you can have that kind of power over people," Angel comments.

"It was unreal. I had no idea what I was doing when I entered that bathroom. I was making it all up as I went along. And everything I wanted to happen happened. One moment I'm thinking Wouldn't it be cool to throw a two hundred pound guy across a room,' and the next thing I know, I'm doing it."

"Makes you feel like a god."

"What? No. It made me feel like a super hero. Not a really powerful one. But strong enough to get what I wanted." Part of the reason Debbie's being so open to Angel is fear of what he and his organization can do. She's still working under the assumption that he is in league with Buffy.

"What about helping people?," Angel asks.

"That was one of the things I wanted. To pick on the strong. To bully the bullies."

"But then you become just like them."

"No I don't. They pick on the weak and the defenseless. That's completely different."

"You do it for the same reason they do: because you get a kick out of it."

"So I'm not a saint. I help way more people than I hurt. And the people I hurt, I don't hurt them that bad."

Deb's walking down a crowded hallway, heading to lunch. She hears someone banging on the inside of a locker. Deb walks over and tries to force it opens. She only succeeds in ripping off the handle. So she hits the area around the lock twice with her right fist. The loud impact catches the attention of passers-by, who stop to see what's making the noise. The door's dented, but she still can't open it. A third punch dislodges the lock and the door opens. The kid inside had been frightened by the loud banging. He thought his tormentors had returned. But it's just a girl. Confusion is soon surpassed by embarrassment, and he quickly steps out of the locker, grabs his books, puts his head down and walks away, trying to pretend nothing happened. Debbie turns around and sees Cynthia.

"What's got you so spazzed, Deb?," Cynthia asks. Debbie has some explaining to do.

"How did your friends take it?," Angel asks.

"They thought I was nuts. Then word started spreading about my little demo in the boys' bathroom. After school, I told them people were saying was true. They asked how I could manhandle four guys twice my size. So I decided to give them a little demonstration." Debbie and her five friends walk in front of a mansion with a eight foot-high wrought iron stockade surrounding the property. Deb jumps over the fence, then jumps back. Theo laughs to conceal his shock, then looks up at the trees lining the boulevard.

"Okay Deb. Where are the wires?"

"Wasn't no magic trick, T," she says as she swaggers up to him.

"Then what was it?," Danielle asks.

"It was what you saw. Pure and simple."

"Anything but simple," Cynthia comments.

"Cause what I saw was impossible," Melanie points out.

"How can it be impossible if it happened?," Debbie asks. This was how she had rationalized it to herself.

"Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is usually the correct one," Diego offers. "What exactly would that be in this case?" Everyone's stumped. "Has the government been experimenting on you? Received any shots lately?," he asks half-jokingly.

"You mean like the one you got after hooking up with Tracey last month?," Debbie crudely jokes, getting a few laughs for this stock gibe.

"If we had gone all the way, you know I would have bragged about it," Diego jokes back.

"No injections. No lab testing. And while you're asking, I wasn't exposed to radiation or bitten by something either," Debbie adds. "Let's go hang out at Mel's. Race you guys there." Deb speeds off. Everyone looks at Cynthia.

"Hey, I didn't know anything until lunch. And if something had been done to her, Deb woulda told me." They hurry off to join Debbie at Melanie's house, which is two blocks away. In the driveway, Deb lifts the back end of an Audi three feet off the ground.

"It's front-wheel drive," Melanie points out, trying to detract from and explain the feat. Deb lifts the front end two feet up with considerably more effort before letting go.

"So you're not Superman," Cynthia comments as she puts her right arm around her best friend's shoulders in mock consolement.

"Good," Debbie replies with a smile. "He never got to have any fun." Cynthia steps away from Deb, worried like the others about the where Debbie is going with this. "Chill. I'm not gonna break into houses or nothing. People always say it's a sin not to use your God-given gifts."

"Who says this is from God?," Theo asks.

"Who else could have given me them?," Deb responds. Angel looks especially nervous when he hears this part of the story. But he doesn't quite feel like saying anything about Willow at this moment. "I just wanna have some fun without hurting anyone who doesn't deserve it. Who's with me?" There's a fire in her eyes. For the first time in Debbie's life, she is a leader. And one her friends know they would be fools not to follow.

Come Monday, the six of them stride side-by-side through the hallways. Front and center is Debbie, a normally shy, easily-overlooked girl now beaming with self-confidence. To her left and just behind her is Cynthia Morgan, who is an inch taller than Deb. She has short black hair and brown eyes. To Cynthia's left, and with his right arm around her shoulders, is her boyfriend Theodore Isaacson. He's a light-skinned young black man (his mom's black, his father's white), three inches taller than Cynthia, and has short, close-cropped hair. To Debbie's right and slightly behind her is Diego Campos, who's two inches shorter than Theo and of slightly darker complexion (he sometimes jokes with Theo about being "blacker" than him). To his right is Melanie Tarkington, who's three inches shorter than Debbie and very petite, with long, straight almond-colored hair and hazel eyes. To her right is Danielle Park, a Korean who's an inch taller than Melanie and more powerfully built, with black hair that goes down to slightly below her shoulders. The six of them are like a moving wedge, cutting through the crowds of students who step out of their way. A tall, strapping future Homecoming King in a varsity jacket walks straight towards Debbie, expecting her and her friends to move out of his way. Deb grabs him and tosses him into a locker eight feet to her right. The young man's friends are horrified. A few other onlookers snicker. Debbie and her friends move on as if nothing happened.

"So you became just like the people you hate," Angel concludes.

"First, I don't hate them. I never did. Second, if you're saying I'm a bully, you're wrong. Bullies pick on the weak. I pick on the strong."

"You pick on people who are weaker than you."

"Pick on's too strong a word. I intimidate. But I don't beat them up. I don't take their lunch money. I don't give anyone wedgies. I haven't done anything that would cause anyone to bring a gun to school to get revenge."

"That's a pretty low standard."

"I also help people."

"To build a reputation. Real heroes don't need adulation."

"It's called advertising. That way, if people have a problem, they know they can come to me for help. Nerds, geeks, goths, freaks – they've never been safer."

"A dictatorship of the Slayer," Angel quips. "It's appealing in theory. In practice, there's just too much temptation to abuse your power."

"Maybe there was. Maybe it almost got me killed."

"I thought you said no one tried to take revenge?"

"Not at school. I'll get to that later. First, I want to answer your question about how I got to live alone."

"That's obvious. First time your Uncle tried to hit your Aunt after you got your power, you stopped him. Then you threw him out."

"It seems more dramatic the way I remember it."

"Go ahead," Angel concedes. He might as well hear the details.

"It was that same Friday, around eleven at night. It was payday, so Uncle Walter had gone out with his buddies from work. He came home a little buzzed, but still mostly sober. Asked me why I was in front of the tv instead of doing my homework. This was usually when I fled to my room and turned up my stereo. Most of the time, there wasn't hitting, but there almost always was yelling. That night, I turned off the set, but I didn't leave. Instead, I cracked open my chemistry textbook and stayed on the couch to read. Aunt Sally was surprised. Uncle Floyd didn't really notice. She tells him it was payday for her as well, and she went to the bank after work to deposit the check. He knew what she was getting at. She asked how much he spent. He said it was his money. Things got more heated. He wants to know why it matters what he does with his money. That's when I jumped in."

Debbie stands up. "Because of me." Walt turns around, shocked that Debbie was butting in. She'd never done that before. "Not that I need your money. God knows you'd never give it to me. But if you had a bad Sunday and blew all your money on a few football games, someone at Child Services might decide you're an unfit parent. Then Aunt Sally would have to make a choice: leave you, or stay with you and let me get sent off to a foster home. And let's face it – you're her husband, but I ain't her kid. You got a right to throw away your money. You got no right to mess with my life." Walt smiles, chuckles and slowly shakes his head. Sally fears for her sister's daughter.

"You think she loves me more than she loves you?," he asks.

"Sure do. But you have a real funny way of reciprocating," she replies, clearly baiting him. Walt turns around and points at Sally.

"What the hell have you been telling this girl? What crap have you been filling her head with?" This isn't what Deb wants. She's trying to incite Walt to attack her, not Sally.

"In case you haven't noticed, we don't talk much," Deb assures him. But he ignores her and keeps after Sally, who retreats into the kitchen and tries to reason with her husband. "Hey!," Deb yells out. She runs into the kitchen, grabs Walt from behind, spins him around and slams his back into the wall with great force, stunning him and shocking his wife. "I'm talking to you! You got a problem with what I say, come after ME." She steps back and stares him down.

"Kid's got real spunk," Walter jokes, trying to lighten the mood. "Just like her mother."

"That's right," Deb replies with a smile. "And she never would've let you do to her what you've done to her sister. She wouldn't have stood for it." Now Sally's getting upset. "Let me ask you something," Debbie says to Walt with a look of menace on her face that he's never seem before. "Don't you get tired beating up on the same person year after year? The same face. Same eyes. Same nose. Same mouth." she continues, parodying the usual speeches about what a drag monogamy can be. "I thought men liked variety. What's the problem? You afraid your wife will get jealous if you hit another women? Especially one as young as myself."

"Debbie, please, please go to your room," Sally pleads, trying to protect her niece. "She's a teenager. You know how rebellious they are at her age," she explains to Walter.

"Relax, Aunt Sally. I think it's time I took one for the family." Walt's outraged, but also deeply confused. "What's wrong? Is it only fun when woman's not asking for it? When she wants you to stop? Quit looking at her. She's got nothing to do with this. You know that. This is between you and me, Uncle Walt." Debbie grabs him and throws him through the door and onto the living room rug. She follows after him. "Here's how it works, Walt. You hit her, I hit you. But why don't we just skip the first part and get this over with quickly."

"I wasn't talking to you. Stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

"Fine. I won't. If you get the Hell out."

His jaw drops. "What the hell has gotten into you?"

"Don't know. Don't care. Doesn't matter. Now hurry up and take a swing at me before I punch your lights out."

"Very funny." He tries to move Debbie out of the way, but she pushes him back to the ground.

"Nothing funny about any of this." Walt stands back up. "I wonder what would happen if Aunt Sally could hit like this." Debbie decks Walter with a right hook. Sally gasps and moans. A woozy Walter grabs his jaw and slowly rises to his feet. He's six feet tall, about two hundred and twenty pounds, with bulky arms and a pot belly. "Maybe then you'd learn your lesson."

"You little brat," he responds before striking her face with the back of his right hand. She shrugs it off.

"Is that the best you can do?," Deb asks back. She pounds his chin with a right uppercut. He sails through the air and hits the floor a few feet in front of the front door. This time, he appears to be down for the count. Sally runs over. She doesn't know what to make of any of this. She grabs Debbie by her shoulders and stares into her eyes.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"You can leave with him if you want." She knocks away her Aunt's arms and steps back. "I know what you're thinking. And you're wrong. He takes this out on you, he'll be hearing from me." Debbie leans down, grabs Walter's hair and lifts his head up. "Did you hear that, Walter!?," she yells into his right ear before letting go. The back of his head falls to the floor again. She stands up and looks at Sally. "He puts you in the hospital, I put him in the hospital. You press charges, he might go to jail. He presses charges, well," Debbie laughs, "look at me. Who's gonna believe him? Besides, what would all his buddies say if word got out he was beaten up by a girl? To be honest, I think this is one of those moments he'll wanna forget about. Just like you will." Debbie opens the door and tosses Walter onto the grass.

"We barely said a word to each other that weekend," Deb tells Angel. "Aunt Sally left the next Tuesday and followed Uncle Walter back to Fountain Valley. They're still together."

"And who pays the mortgage on your parents' house?"

"You know that my dad's in prison, and why he went there, right? Well, he could've gotten three years if he flipped on the distributor he worked for. But he didn't, and got ten years instead. But in exchange, that guy agreed to cover the mortgage why my dad was away. It was the least he could do. Literally. Small price to pay for your freedom, right? My Aunt and Uncle thought it came from my mother's life insurance policy."

"You think your father made the right decision?"

"To get involved with criminals? No. The deal itself, I dunno. I guess his thinking was in three years I'd already be gone and in college. And this way, at least he'd be providing me with something. That's why he dabbled in that stupid business in the first place. I don't wanna talk about him. Me and my parents, that's private."

"And your boyfriend?"

NEXT: Devlin tells Fred about meeting Spike and getting sired.