To my readers: Sorry about the lack of posting . I have been extremely busy as of late. But I am still planning on continuing my stories. Also, the question was raised of why I chose to advance the second story a year. The reason is I wanted to do a sort of 'Star Wars' type of format, laying down the primary stories and filling some parts in-between with brief one-chapter interludes. To me, this makes for a more interesting (and easier-telling) story, since I don't have to fill my primary stories with development that would better work in a separate related tale. And with all of that rigmarole, on to the story.

2:44 am, Friday - NYU Downtown Hospital

"Any luck yet?"

"No, she still isn't answering her phone. And I've dialed twenty times already," Willow replied.

"So what do we do now?" Kennedy asked.

"I'm going to try and reach her telepathically again."

"Are you sure you can?"

"Yeah, it just caught me by surprise last time, like a rubber band snapping. I wasn't expecting the Witchblade to do anything. This time I'm ready."

Willow gathered her strength and stretched out, her mind like tendrils reaching out for its prey. She knew what she was searching for; it was just a matter of whether or not the target was willing to listen to reason. She had a feeling deep down inside that the answer was 'no'.

She kept reaching out, further and further away. The Witchblade and its wearer gave off a unique mystical signature. It was only detected by those skillful and powerful enough to do so. Luckily, Willow was both.

She finally stumbled on to something. She followed it. At first the feeling was faint, like something that was left behind. But as she followed it, it became stronger and stronger, to the point that where there was no doubt in her mind that she had found her target. She was going to try and reach their wayward comrade. She was going to stop her newfound ally from making a potentially fatal mistake.

Sara brushed her teeth. She had a big day planned ahead. She would find out where the real drop-off of Amy's merchandise was and kill her. That was all there was to it… in her mind. Somewhere, in the deep dark recesses of her thoughts, the reasonable side of her knew that her plans were a possible futile venture. But reason had been forsaken for the night and emotion won out. She would find Amy and destroy her. And if that meant dying in the process, then she had no problem with that.

She swished water around in her mouth and then expelled the spoiled liquid. Wiping her lips, she looked at the motel mirror, her face hardened, but worried at the same time. Just as she was about to leave the bathroom for bed, she grabbed her head and yelled out in pain. Someone was trying to enter her mind, someone powerful. And she knew only one person who would care to do it.

"Willow…"

"Sara!"

"Get out, Willow!"

"No. You have to stop this. This is stupid and you know it."

"Maybe, maybe not. Either way I'm cleaning up this mess. Ahh!" Sara grabbed her head again in pain. Willow was trying to reestablish the mental link between them and the Witchblade was resisting. But it was Sara's body taking the toll of the battle. Her blood pressure was pushing higher and higher, her head throbbing and pounding. A few seconds later, the pain stopped.

Willow had ceased her attempt to reestablish a mental connection with Sara and looked worried. She knew the Witchblade would resist, but she didn't know to what lengths it would go to fight her attempts.

"What happened?" Kennedy asked.

"I found her. I couldn't tell where she was, but it felt like a motel," she replied.

"Do you know how many of those are in New York?" Kennedy asked rhetorically. "It'd be almost impossible to find her in time. Could you connect with her?"

"Yes… and no."

"Huh?"

"The Witchblade was resisting… and Sara's body was taking the toll. If I tried any longer, she might have had an aneurysm or something."

"Great, just great! This just keeps getting better and better. What else can we do?"

"Wait," Willow replied. "Buffy's plane arrives in a couple of hours. Hopefully, we can figure out a plan before Sara sees hers through."

"And if we don't?" Kennedy asked.

Willow just looked at her, uncertainty in her eyes.

Sara's head throbbed with pain. She was breathing heavily and starting to sweat. The Witchblade had put up a fight that Willow didn't want to be in. And it only did that because Sara desired to keep her mind from the mental link; she just didn't know it would take so much pain to do so. It was still both slave and master and Sara understood that. She knew that Willow's attempt was only to be the first of many to stop her from carrying out her plan; she could put an end to her and the Slayers' efforts if she just gave up and went home. She also knew that she could put an end to Amy and her cohorts if she succeeded. I could stop all of this and we could just get back to our lives again, she thought to herself. It was a pretty decent reason; it just wasn't hers. It wasn't the real reason. She was lying to herself. Her plan wasn't a matter of expediency; it was a matter of emotion. Amy had dared to attack and injure someone she cared very much about. This wasn't business; this was personal.

She got up from the floor and fished out some aspirin from her bag. Taking some, she slipped into bed. She looked at the bracelet, the thing that had been more of a curse than a blessing in her life. Please, she thought, of all the nights I don't want you to wake me up in the middle of, let this be one of them. Closing her eyes, she drifted off to sleep.


8:50 am CET (2:50 am EST), Friday – Rome, Italy

The plane had just taken off a few minutes earlier and Buffy was nervous. She was hoping she'd be in New York City a week later and in a better mind when she delved back into work. Sadly, she not only found out that was not going to be the case, but that things had just gone from manageable to bad in the span of a day. She had been reluctant to leave them all, but after she heard of their successes she realized Kennedy and the others were fully capable of running the day-to-day operations. But no one had seen what was coming, not even Buffy herself. Now Giles was fighting for his life in a hospital.

And then there was Sara. While Giles would require their care, she would require their attention. Sara was the one planning payback for the trap. Of all the people she was most reluctant to see was the Witchblade's current bearer. It wasn't the fact that she didn't respect her; quite the contrary, she had seen how much of an asset she was to the group. It was just that they always felt slightly agitated around each other. Giles, researcher that he was, had gotten around to calling it the 'GSP Effect', using their last names to formalize what they felt. It was a custom within the scientific community to name a new disease, disorder, or discovery after its primary participants (and researchers) and this was no exception, since there was never any documented case of an encounter between a Bladewielder and a Slayer.

Buffy squirmed in her seat and let out a loud sigh. Though she had the plane cabin all to herself, she still felt closed in, constricted. She had the feeling that darker times were ahead, truly darker times. And knew that those times would either strengthen their resolve… or crush them all.