Sitting around the table, Buffy began to explain the history of her and Joyce and the whole Slayer thing. Willow, Giles and Wesley sat close to her, adding things here and there.

:Flashback:

A four year old girl with long blonde hair sat on her front porch, reading a book with a redhead. The book was a children's chapter book, advanced for her age.

Three black SUV's pulled up in front of the house, and soldiers got out, carrying heavy weaponry.

"Joyce, get in the house." The redhead ordered, and the little girl stood up.

"But Aunty Willow, what's going on?" Joyce asked, her sundress blowing around her knees.

"Get inside." Willow ordered, and the girl complied, hurrying inside with her book.

"Mommy! Mommy! There's these guys outside, and Aunt Willow looked worried, and I'm scared, Mommy." The little girl ran up to her mother, Buffy Summers, who crossed to the window.

"Will, get in here!" Buffy hissed, and Willow complied, and threw a magical barrier around the house.

"We have to get out of here. The both of us can't defend her for long." Buffy told Willow, who was cradling the girl.

"Buffy, let us in. Your daughter is a very important subject. We need to do studies on her." Someone called from the outside. It was muffled slightly by the barrier, but audible nonetheless.

"Studies on her? No way." Buffy herded Willow and Joyce towards their basement garage. Soldiers were there too, and Buffy fought them off while Willow and Joyce scrambled into the nearest car, a Dodge Charger. Willow found the keys and started the car, but stopped and got out when someone slammed the butt of their rifle into Buffy's face, breaking her nose and knocking her out. One Sergeant Mahonin. Or Sarge, as he's better known.

Joyce screamed as the glass for the back seat windows shattered, showering her with glass. The little girl was pulled carefully out of the window, and Willow cried out.

Sergeant Mahonin knocked Willow out with a quick rabbit punch to the head, and team moved away, carrying the screaming girl with them.

Spike and Kennedy came home later that evening, and found no one in the house. Kennedy wasn't worried, perhaps Buffy and Willow had taken Joyce to see a movie. But Spike smelled blood. Buffy's blood. He hurried downstairs and found the girls unconscious on the floor. Spike cursed and ran to Buffy, Kennedy to Willow.

"Call the police. Tell them that someone broke in and kidnapped the little girl that lives here. I'll try to wake Buffy and Willow up." Kennedy dashed upstairs, and grabbed the wall phone.

Spike tried lightly slapping the girls on the face, then he got some cold water and splashed Willow. She woke up, spluttering and cursing.

"Mornin' sunshine." Spike said, and Willow looked around. Saw Buffy. Saw the broken glass. Then she remembered what had happened.

"Help me wake up Buffy. Kennedy is calling the police."

"They're not going to be able to do anything. It was the Initiative that took Joyce. Unless we get more help, we're going to have to find her on our own." Willow cradled her head in her hands and sighed.

"I'll try to do a locator spell to see where they're holding her. Why they want a four year old is beyond me." Willow tried to get up as Spike crossed over to Buffy.

"Buffy? Love, get up." Spike said to her, and Buffy shuddered and opened her eyes.

"She's being held in an Initiative building not far from here, in Angel's territory. But we can't get her out. She's a four year old. She can't protect herself, she can't run nowhere near as fast as we can, and their security is tighter at night, so Spike, you're out." Willow explained the gang a day later.

Buffy sighed. "What options do we have?" She asked, knowing there were few that would work. Getting several Slayers and allies, or magic.

Willow said exactly that. "With our friends, we risk lives. The magic, and the friends, well there is this one spell….."Willow trailed off, and Buffy knew she wasn't going to like this.

"Anything to get my daughter back" Spike said, and Buffy shared his opinion. Right now, she really didn't care what it was, as long as Joyce was back.

"Well, it's an age advancing spell. We can make her as old as you, or Dawn, or whoever. It's really complicated, and sometimes doesn't work. But if you really need it to, it does. Its Italian, and I knew witches who've done it successfully." Willow explained, not liking the horrified faces of Spike and Buffy.

After a moment, Willow added "You said anything."

After an even longer moment, Spike agreed. "Alright. I don't like it, though. Is there anyway to reverse it afterwards?" Spike asked, and Willow shook her head.

"No spell is known to reverse it. And this spell…it gives the person extraordinary powers. She'd be as strong as Buffy, she'd heal rapidly, and she'd be super smart, really fast. Common traits of vampires and slayers. She's a dhampir already, because her father's vampire, her mother's human."

"When can you do it?" Buffy asked, and Willow smiled a bit at that.

"Whenever you're ready to get in there and get her back."

Slayers surrounded the building, armed with knives, tasers and the like. They were all connected by military issue communication headsets, and were ready to go.

"Alright, Will, start the spell." Buffy told Willow through the headset, and changed channels.

"Girls, move out. Take out anything in your way, first squad to get to Joyce makes sure she'll stay safe until the spell's finished, if it isn't already. Maintain radio silence."

Willow began intoning the words for the spell. "Da giovane a vecchio, cambi questo bambino ad una donna giovane, vecchia come donna recentemente sposata. Alcoolici dell'età, vi chiedo questo."

Riley Finn was watching Joyce Summers. She was a beautiful child, no doubt about it, but she wasn't normal. He didn't like doing tests on her, but it had to be done.

Suddenly, the monitors on the girl started to go on the fritz. He turned to look through the window, and found six Slayers standing around the door. One kicked him and he slumped to the floor.

One tall brunette slayer wrenched open the door and found a eighteen year old blonde girl with sharp green eyes sitting on the silver slab of metal. She was wearing a simple garment of a white fabric, and almost looked too surreal. Her skin was paler than that of a vampire, her bluish veins clearly visible. Her hair fell halfway down her back, and was halfway between that of Spike's and Buffy's hair color. Her nails were longer than normal, shone unnaturally.

"Hi, guys. About friggin' time you showed up." Joyce muttered, standing up. She wasn't wearing any shoes, and almost seemed a little shaky.

"Let's get you out of here. Buffy, we've got her, we're on our way out." One slayer said, and Joyce followed the Slayers out of the room.

Spike waited anxiously for Buffy to emerge from the building, and he expected her to be carrying the four year old that he remembered. What he didn't expect was the amazingly fast, and brutally strong tall beauty that followed Buffy out. As soldiers followed the Slayers out, he watched Joyce pound them, sometimes moving so fast she was a blur.

They reached the mass teleportation spell Willow had prepared, and all were suddenly transported back to the Summers house.

Willow looked up from her concentration, and found three dozen Slayers, a confused vampire, and someone she didn't recognize but assumed to be Joyce sitting in a heap in front of her.

"Hi. Did it work out okay?" She had to ask. Buffy nodded and disentangled herself from another Slayer.

"Your teleportation spell didn't work out that well" A Slayer with dyed blue hair said, pulling herself from the group.

:End Flashback:

"That was almost a year ago. Her birthday is coming up, December seventeenth. She'll be five, or nineteen, depending on how you want to look at it. She prefers nineteen, so do I." Buffy sighed, and leaned back in her chair.

"So that's where Joyce got all her powers? I figured it was from having you as a parent." John said, and Buffy shrugged.

"Could you explain how I'm a Slayer?" Sam asked, and Giles perked up a bit. Buffy sighed inwardly. Here we go again, she thought

" You were born as a Slayer in waiting, a girl with the potential for power but you were never really called. Not until recently, I'm guessing. I'm not that good at science, but I'm guessing you were born with the twenty-fourth chromosome, it just laid dormant and hidden until you were called." Giles explained, taking off his glasses. He was getting too old for this.

"But wouldn't medical scans of my blood pick up on it?" Sam wondered, and Wesley answered this one.

"Not necessarily. Being the Chosen one has a lot of magic behind it. The magic could have shielded it and of course, only ninety percent of the human genome has been mapped. There's room for-"

"Stealth DNA. Right. I see where this is going, except for this whole magic part." Sam finished. She smiled and Wesley smiled back.

"Don't worry. I don't understand the whole magic thing either. But hey, I'm a Slayer. Show me something to kill." Kennedy grinned, and Willow shook her head.

"You've been hanging around Faith too much." Willow said, just as Faith walked in the room.

"Yeah. Hey, I'm the best around, what can I say?" Faith grinned, and for some reason John was reminded of Portman.

"Excuse me? Who's the original Chosen One?" Buffy asked, standing up, her hands resting flat on the table.

"Um…..neither of you. Actually it's the First Slayer." Willow said, and both girls ignored her.

A thud could be heard from above their heads. Joyce's room. Sounded like a book hitting the wall. Everyone bolted from the room, and Buffy in the lead, ran upstairs.

"Joyce? Are you okay?" Buffy asked, opening the door. The girl was laying on her bed, books all over the place.

"Fine. Just doing some research. Geez. I drop a book and everyone in the house wants to know if I dropped it on my foot." Joyce pointed to the book she let drop. A book of resurrection spells. It caught Willow's eye, and she rushed forward to take the book.

"You shouldn't be looking at these. They're very dangerous." Willow opened the old book. Found it full of ancient spells, but none remotely dangerous to the caster. Willow's mouth was formed in a small o.

"Who were you going to cast one on?" Willow asked, sinking down to the floor. She wanted to read this book. There were the Slayers that were killed during the raid on the Hellmouth, Anya….Tara……..

She couldn't resurrect Tara. As much as she wanted to, no. She couldn't. She wouldn't. Joyce could cast spells, without all the rules Willow was restricted by. If they were killed by natural causes, she could resurrect them. But she wouldn't, unless absolutely necessary.

"You can take the book. I'm gonna try and get some sleep. Um, John, could you stay a minute? I wanna talk to you." John stepped into the room, and Willow still with the book, stood and left, nearly running into the door, so absorbed in that book.

"I was wondering, could you teach me, y'know, some of the training you got? Like hand to hand combat an' all? Because I'm still not all that good." Joyce gathered all her books using telekinesis, and put them on her bookshelf.

"You're pretty good in combat. I don't see what I need to teach you." John looked at the various weapons hung on the walls in her room. Scythes, swords, axes, crossbows, longbows….instead of posters like a normal teenager, there were deadly weapons.

"Come on. There's got to be some combat you know that isn't common. Meet me in the training rooms in the basement tomorrow after lunch. I'll show you what I know." She told him, and he nodded and turned to leave.

"Oh, and John? Welcome back" She grinned as he left, puzzled.

Okay all. That spell? I made it up, and just translated it into italian. Probably makes no sense whatsoever, but hey, if it works...Anyways...I've been waiting to update this for awhile.