"Are you out of your gourd? You brought me back to have a go with some random bird? That's your big anti-apocalypse plan? We might as well put our heads between our legs and--"

"You'd have to 'have a go', as you say, with Buffy."

"--I'm in."

Trista smiles at his instant turn around and says to him, sipping her Red Bull, "Enjoying the crux, huh?"

Spike shrugs and looks at Trista, "The crux was a little overdone a couple years ago but a guy's gotta take what he can get."

Trista starts to grab her bag and head out, "Whatever, Romeo. You're a softy at heart. You know it. I know it. It's a big Know Fest. I also know that I'll get skinned if I don't get downtown in like four hours."

"You are downtown."

"Downtown New York, sweetie. You're going with me. Let's get to the getting."

"Hello? Airplane, windows. Fire-- pfft!"

Trista shrugs and starts to leave, "You'll stay in the cargo hold."

"What!"

Trista saw Spike off, making sure that he was all nice and cramped in the cargo hold before she went to check herself in. The good thing about knowing people is that they do you favors, like putting vamps in cargo, for instance.

Trista really doesn't like flying. I mean really. She sits in her seat fiddling with the safety belt that seems to dislike her to the point of utter insubordination. Why does it have to be so cramped? The seats are so small and she's choking with the smells of dampness and endless wear and tear. She looks out the window anxiously and takes big Lamaze-type breathes as she checks her watch and sees that it's only two minutes before take off. Torture much?

She breathes more before she starts rambling in her thoughts with great speed, "I'm eleven and dad and I were walking in the park in winter. It wasn't snowing because never snowed in the area and it wasn't even that cold. We only had our windbreakers on. We start racing down Monkey Hill. I trip on a rock and go flipping down the hill. I'm crying and screaming and my knee is bleeding a lot. Dad comes sliding down next to me and says that I'll be okay and that it's not as bad as it looks. Someone must've called an ambulance because I can hear the sirens."

"What'd she say again?"

"That she'd be here in like a half hour."

"This is insane."

"What's insane?"

"This. This is, in fact, insane."

"Indeed."

"Don't mock me."

Chloe smiles at Sam sweetly and apologizes. Chloe knows it seems insane, but if you think about it-- well, if you don't think about it, then a group of chosen people called Slayers and real vampires could very well exist. But then again, Chloe's always had a bit of wild streak in her. She enjoys dying her hair green and fishnet and most of all, she enjoys the idea of the point of life being to kick ass. She's probably more willing to believe because of the apparent insanity.

Chloe's known Trista for years and the idea of her being some kind of super girl is just amazing, if not a little insane. Trista was never the wild one, never the fighter, yet turns out that it's her birthright. Life's funny like that.

Sam's different. He doesn't know what the hell's going on and would like to keep it that way if he could. Other than the fact that his sister has a nut job for a friend, his life was pretty dull. Operative word being "dull". While he's quasi-popular, he can't help the fact that Chloe is still his best friend. For those of you keeping score, that's strange. It's not often that your sister is your buddy. Especially not at nineteen.

Sam turns to Chloe and sighs, "I don't even get why we have to go through with this. What proof do we have to show she's, oh I don't know, not crazy!"

"Other than the vampire that attacked you at the park last month?"

Sam becomes restless. Suddenly their spacious and well-furnished apartment seems to be too small. It's true Trista never seemed crazy until that night. She never said anything about vampires or slayers or Los Angeles or even if she wanted to be a florist. For all he knows, she's arranging a bouquet right now. He gets up and paces, "This is insane."

Chloe turns to him with a slight snap, "I heard you the first fifty times." She gets up and starts closing the window shades so that there's no natural light in the room.

"What time is it?"

"Two forty."

"She called at two. She should be here soon, right?"

"Logic would assume."

"Logic never assumes. It's too smart for that."

There's a knock at the door before it's opened revealing Trista who comes in, with a heavily smoking, blanketed Spike in tow. Trista closes the door as she greets Sam and Chloe, "Hey guys."

Spike, flings his blanket off to stomp on the flames that erupted from them before the door closed. After quelling the flame, Spike glares at Trista, "I. Hate. You. You. Bitch."

Trista smiles and says to Chloe and Sam, "Lovely ray of sunshine, isn't he?"
"Don't even mention the bleeding sun right now! I was almost charbroiled. Who in their right minds puts that many windows in an apartment building? It's the bleeding fifth floor! I need a smoke."
"Sit down and cool off! Jesus," Trista says as she turns towards Chloe and Sam. Chloe seems to be staring at Spike, and Sam, with his jaw dropped, is staring at the ashes that were embedded in the white carpet. Trista sees the mark on the carpet and says sheepishly to Sam, "It might come out if you steam clean it." Sam looks at her like she's insane and shakes his head as he walks off, "Oh sure. Yeah, yeah, steam cleaning."

"Chloe, this is Spike. Spike, Chloe and Sam."

Chloe slightly smiles at him, "Good to me--"

"Lovely," cuts Spike. He turns to Trista in what seems to be a perpetual annoyance, "We gonna do this anytime soon or are you just gonna take me around as a conversational piece?"

"Well you are fun to look at what with the bone structure and all," Trista says before calling to Sam, "We're gonna get started. You coming?"

Sam does come and he and Chloe sit on the sofa by Spike and Trista sits in the chair that faces the sofa, "Okay. So, I guess we're gonna start… okay…. Herm."

"'Herm'? Who the hell put you in charge?"

"Shut up, Spike," sighs Trista before she starts again, "Well, see, after a lot of researching, we figured out how to make it so there'll be a certain amount of champions in the world and in every generation to come. Just like it used to be. The way it works is we'll have seven teenage slayers, one of which being myself, stand in a circle in a specific temple--"

"Temple?" asks Sam.

"Yeah, it's been around for like thousands of years or something."

"Where is it?"

"Underground. In Queens."

"Oh because Queens is a prime location for a temple."

"Shut up, Sit-and-Snark." Trista snaps, "Yes, Queens. Anyway, the slayers stand in the circle and then we have The Conjoining. It's a ritual that includes the intercourse of the Impossible and the Pure," she turns to Spike and addresses him, "That's where you come in."

"If I'm supposed to be the 'pure' you got the wrong guy."

"No. You're the Impossible. If you're supposed to be The Pure we might as well roll over and die now," she says as she takes out a notebook and quotes a passage from, without a doubt, one of Giles' old books, "You fit the description that Giles found. 'He met death yet still he walks. He houses a demon yet humanity screams in his heart. He fights though he has none to fight for. Man, Death, Demon, Hero. Impossible.' That's you, babe."

Chloe turns to Spike, slightly amazed, "Wow."

Spike looks at her and scoffs slightly, "Thanks ever so," and turns to Trista, "What about the Pure? Buffy may look the part but hate to break it to you, she's not all that pure. Some might consider her slightly dirty if you catch her in the right mood."

"Okay, ew. I didn't mean virginal pure. She's-- she's Pure Humanity. She was born. She lived. Died a human death, fought endlessly, fell from grace, and climbed clawing and screaming back into it. She's not just a hero, she's human. Completely, utterly human. She symbolizes us all," she pauses to let that sink in before continuing, "What'll happen is you and she will be on the altar, the girls circled around you--"

"Not that I don't love public indecency, but a bunch of teenagers?"

"They'll be in a trance. They won't even see you. When the conjoining has reached its height, the power source will appear and re-channel all of it's energy to you two and then you will act as a conduit that cycles the energy to the seven chosen. They'll be the main and only true Slayers left. They'll have enough strength and power that it will cycle through their family lines, ensuring a certain amount of heroes in this world until the end. Kind of like the ravens at Tower of London that keep it from falling down. We still have some kinks to work out in the ritual itself but it's all pretty solid."

"This is insane."

Trista looks at Sam and then shrugs, "Well, yeah. But it's also important. Like world ending type of important. Sam-- guys, I need your help for sure but I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to. This is gonna be bad. Dangerously bad because there's going to be a lot of forces at work trying to stop us. I need to know that you're all-out-one-hundred-and-ten-percent-completely-positively in."

After a pause, Chloe shrugs and leans back, "What the hell. I'm in."

"Sam?"

Sam looks at Trista then at Chloe. This is crazy. No way this is happening. I'll get myself killed. I can't do this. Pull yourself together, you wuss. It might be possible that the world really does need you. I can't. Nuh uh. Nope. I won't. I--

"I'm in."

God help me.

It's night now, and Charms N Things has been long closed. The cozy little magic shop, while perfect for run of the mill love spells and protection satchels, has the potent stuff under lock and key and is not about to let just anyone buy them. Spike and Trista come up to the back door and glance at each other. The door flies in with a SNAP as Spike kicks it in. Trista, stepping over and eyes the broken door pieces, says to Spike, "Nice work."

"I do what I can, pet. What're we looking for?"

"A Mesopotamian Blood Stone. It needs to be ground up and boiled in the blood of a virginal sheep and then ingested by the Impossible."

"You're out of your bleeding mind if you think I'm going to drink that."

"Well, it's a good thing that I only know you're going to. Besides, I thought blood was like, your thing."

"Well, yeah but boiled stony sheep blood? I don't think--"

CRASH! The windows in the front are suddenly shattered as a big, burly blood red demon with gigantic silver horns comes crashing through. Before there's even time to speak, Spike's on him. Right hook, backhand, knock to the chest. The demon grabs him by the neck and flings him across the room. Spike lifts his head up, pissed and in vamp(!)face. The demon goes after Trista. She's purely on the defensive. Block, block, duck. Spike comes up and he and Trista fall into perfect synch. Spin kick, drop kick, left hook, back hand. They're on the demon so fast he doesn't know what hit him. Well, he knows what's hitting him: fists. Spike's on the demon's back and in a swift movement snaps his neck. The demon falls to the floor and Spike morphs back to human(!)face. He looks up at Trista who's breathing hard. She grins at him and he grins at her. They both really enjoyed that. After it all, Spike only has one thing to say, "Think they keep the blood stones in the back?"

Chloe and Sam have been online posting messages on Wiccan boards trying to get a hold of the names of the six girls that are destined to be picked from coven's seers. Trista and Spike are in Trista's bedroom, where Trista's cleaning a wound on her elbow and reading a book (multi-tasker!) with the Mesopotamian Bloodstone sitting on one of the pages while Spike looks around the room, "This is a nice set up. Down right posh. How do you guys afford this?"

"Chloe and Sam are trust fund babies. And I'm on the Council's payroll."

"The Council really did get back together?"

"Yeah, they did. It's a lot cooler now and essentially is more of a bring-the-slayers-to-us thing as opposed to a send-one-to-the-slayers-and-hear-about-the-stuffy-Englishness thing."

"So I've heard," he says as he stops looking and sits at the desk chair. He becomes more tentative and carefully worded as he speaks, "So, uh, do the guys… the Scoobies. Do they, you know, know about what happened to me?"

"Just Andrew and Giles. The rest of them just figured that we brought you back from when you died the second time."

He looks at her, really wanting to ask about her but the words are hard to come out.

"How'd Buffy take it?" Trista asks, helping him along, "She was surprised. Really surprised. But she was also dealing with Angel's recent demise at the time."

That's not exactly what Spike wanted to hear. Would it kill the girl to shed a tear once in a while? He becomes a bit withdrawn, and Trista realizes what she did, "Spike, I'm sorry--"

"No, just leave it."

"You sure?"

Without a word, he goes to leave the room but Chloe pops her head in and looks to Trista excitedly, "We got the names. And that Giles guy is on the phone."

Everyone moves to the living room. Trista says to Chloe, "Did they give you anything besides names?"

"Nope. Also, did I tell you how much I emphatically hate computers?"

"Many times. You and Sam start Googling the names. They may come up in, I don't know, student directories, personal websites, Star Trek fan sites. Just try to find whatever you can. And don't go crazy buying Sex Pistols crap again, okay?"

Chloe sighs and mumbles as she walks away, "A girl buys a few tshirts and an out of print copy of Sid and Nancy and all of a sudden she can't be trusted…"

"When were you planning on feeding me?"

"There's pig's blood in the fridge and we have peanut butter and some Wheatabix. I also heard that you like Burba Weed and, after cringing, purposely didn't get any," she says as he moves off towards the kitchen. She happily picks up the phone, "Hey Giles. Yeah, we got the names," she pauses, "Cool, Cool."

"What?" Chloe asks looking up from the computer.

"He found another book dealing with the ritual we're looking for-- Yeah, Giles, I'm still here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we knew all that didn't we?" she pauses and then her face drops slightly, "What?"

"What'd he say?"

"He said 'Oh, dear Lord.'"

Spike comes in, plopping down on the sofa with a cup o' blood and a handful of Wheatabix, "That's original."

"Shut up, Spike."

"If he got knocked out right now, it'd be bloody classic."

Trista scoffs at him and turns her attention back to Giles, "Okay, so what?" She pauses and hears what must be a big ol' bomb of badness, "Oh. Wow. Are you sure? Okay. I'll call you back. Bye," she says before she hangs up, her face slack and somber. She turns and addresses the group, "We've hit a snag."

Chloe and Sam sit on the sofa, and Spike sits on the chair, Trista sits on the arm of Spike's chair. Everyone is silent and showing Snag-face. Chloe looks up at Trista and says, "Wha-- wait, huh?" Trista shrugs and stands, "Giles said that when we do the channeling, that all the new slayers in the world who are feeding off the power source-- it's like going from really hot to really cold really fast. When this power, this energy is ripped from them, they'll become very sick and… die within twenty-four hours."

Sam looks to Trista and swallows hard, "And how many… slayers are there?"

Trista looks at the ground and shakes her head, "At least four million."

Chloe stares in utter disbelief, "Oh my god."

Spike looks to Trista, "What're we gonna do?"

Before she can answer, a high pitched, perky voice comes from behind them, "I have an idea." They all turn and see the figure of powerful!strong!witch. They turn to see the figure of:

Willow.