A/N: Been a while since the last chapter. Hope you will all enjoy it. As always, I am indebted to Urgo the Observer, my tireless betareader. This story wouldn't be readable without him.

That was the plan

"You know, if I had a face like yours, I'd try to make up for it with some kind of a personality."
- Raphael.

Just outside New Calvary Cemetery, at night

"And here we are," Faith concluded.

"Yes, here we are." Frankie agreed. "Right in front of an eight foot high fence. Is now the time your gonna tell us how to become incorporeal or should we start hunting for the gate?"

"Ya still don't get it, Shirley. Watch," Faith replied. And with those words she leapt from a standstill right over the fence to land on the other side. Both Frankie and Alice looked wide-eyed at that, despite the training they had been getting. Faith pulled them out of it though; they didn't have the time to stand around looking stupid. "Alright, now you two."

Frankie was first, she took a deep breath first before crouching then launching herself up with all her strength. She went even higher than Faith, easily clearing the fence. Then the ground started to come towards her again and with a shriek she barely managed to land on her feet. Alice too managed the jump albeit barely, her landing on the other hand was almost a duplicate of Faith's.

"Not bad Wonderland. So now that Shirley here managed to alert everybody in the cemetery, let's go meet our vamp for tonight." Frankie quickly caught up with Faith with Alice trailing behind, but Faith turned her head to look at Alice for a moment. The girl looked better and was doing better but she and Frankie still weren't getting along.

Alice was still getting to terms with what being a slayer meant and still lacked confidence in her own ability, and Faith would be damned if she let the girl out on patrol before she got it. Frankie interrupted her thoughts. "How did you find out about this," Frankie had to look for the word," fledgling?"

"Vishe told me about a barbecue-fork accident, that's the official story anyway." And where he had found the time to do the digging was beyond Faith. Ever since the book shipment had come in, Vishe had been locked up in the library. Faith hadn't seen him in three days which also meant she had to do all the paperwork.

"Barbecue-fork?" Alice asked.

Faith nodded. "A Sunnydale classic. The other ones are gangs on PCP, wild animal attacks and exploding make-up kits."

This time it was Frankie. "Exploding make-up kits?"

Faith just shrugged, "Didn't get that one either. And we're here. Please, no photographs, the undead are camera-shy."

They gathered around the freshly dug grave and then they waited. Frankie though, didn't have much patience. "Can't we get this guy to speed it up. Like, knock on his tombstone or something?"

Faith sat on the aforementioned tombstone. "You got a weird mind Shirley."

"Will you stop calling me Shirley!" Frankie shot back.

Faith's retort was halted by Alice's hesitant voice. "Ehm, I think he is waking up."

Alice now got the attention of both women. "How can you tell?" Faith asked.

Alice shrugged, "I can just…tell. I can feel it moving, coming up." The end of that sentence was punctuated by a hand shooting out of the ground followed by the rest of the man. He wore the suit he was buried in and he was big. Build like a boxer in fact, both Alice and Frankie took a step back while the vampire blinked owlishly at his surroundings.

"He's al yours Shirley, just don't dust the sucker."

Frankie didn't waste time but attacked. A kick in the back of the newly risen vampire's knee to cut him down to size and a follow-up punch to the face to knock him to the grass. But the punch was blocked and the vamp then slipped out a sledgehammer from somewhere and planted it right in Frankie's face.

That was how it felt to Frankie anyway, as she got back up from the ground herself. "Did I forget to tell you he is an amateur boxer?" Faith said.

"Yes, you did." Frankie shot back annoyed.

Now the vampire waded into the conversation. "Who are you people? And where the fuck am I?"

"Cemetery" was Frankie's helpful reply. She punctuated it with a two-punch combo that drove him back. But his confusion was clearing up fast as the attack woke instincts both old and new. The next punch was blocked and then it was the vampire's turn. His own attack ended with Frankie literally flying backwards.

The vampire looked amazed at his own hands. "I was dead. And now, I'm not. In fact, I have never felt this alive." His eyes returned to the rising Frankie. "And for some reason, I want to celebrate it by drinking every drop in your body, little girl." He managed to put a lot of menace into those words.

Frankie wasn't impressed though. "Little!" She hollered indignantly. "I'll give you little, you overgrown fangface." She launched herself at him, ducking below his punch and belting him in the stomach. But she only got that one punch in and the vampire blocked the following punches. But the vampire wasn't the only one neglecting his defenses.

A quick punch to the side took her by complete surprise and halted her assault; the punch to the chest rocked her back, as did the punches that came after that. One uppercut later Frankie was once again airborne and the vampire was gloating, also once again. "Shirley," Faith cut in, "stop playing his game and start fighting your way."

Frankie shot an angry look at Faith for the interruption, then the words registered and comprehension followed a second later. "Right, boss lady." Frankie sprung up and charged as Faith shouted an indignant "Hey". Again the vampire tried to use his superior reach and attacked before Frankie could. But this time Frankie caught the arm and used it to throw him through a headstone. That took Frankie by surprise, she had figured he would be stopped by the stone slab.

"Alright, Shirley. Nicely done, but I think we should give Wonderland her shot before you wreck the cemetery too much." Frankie shrugged and sauntered back to Faith as Alice took a deep breath and started stalking uncertainly towards the still groggy bloodsucker. "Come on Wonderland, shoulders straight! You're a Slayer, keep that in mind."

Alice nodded and actually straightened up. Her breath was still a bit shallow and doubt was gnawing at her shaky resolve. Faith watched it with concern, she had to face the demons she was going to fight but a defeat could ruin her chances of ever getting on top of her self-doubt. Faith had several reasons why she wanted Frankie to face the vamp first, some even had to do with Frankie. She for example had way too much confidence, which was something that could undo a Slayer even more than lacking it.

Meanwhile, round 2 was about to get underway. The vampire had gotten up and Alice was slipping into a fighting stance. "Who the hell are you people?" The vampire asked.

"Vampire Slayers," Faith responded.

That drew a wide-eyed stare from the vampire. "I'm a vampire?" He said incredulously.

Faith just rolled her eyes, while Frankie started laughing intermitted with a series of soft auws as her ribs still smarted. When Frankie had her laughter under control she got her own dig in, "You'd think the whole "I want to drink you dry' would be huge clue already. Guess they suck the brains out with the blood."

Alice was ignoring the banter, instead she was mentally reviewing everything Faith had thought her these past few weeks. She had studied the way this vampire had fought and had paid close attention to Faith's advice to Frankie. She knew how she was going to open this fight, but she was uncertain if she could follow through.

But the vampire offered her a golden opportunity. With a "Screw this!" he turned and started to run away. Before Faith could say a word, Alice was hot on his heels. The chase was short and ended with Alice adapting a little skill she had picked up just that night, how to jump a fence. She landed on his back and drove a fist into his half-turned face as they went down.

She managed to get two more shots in before she was swatted away with a roar. The angry vampire didn't have fleeing on the mind anymore and rushed to finish of the girl. She wasn't ready and caught a cross punch to the face, half turning her body. Her own swing was wild, powerless and easily blocked. The answering backhand from the vampire was not.

The undead boxer chuckled. "Should've stayed home." But Alice wasn't defeated yet. Once again she launched herself at him. This time she was greeted with a sloppy kick but she was already sidestepping it when the vampire was still preparing it. Instead she jumped on top of a gravestone and used it to counter the vamp's height advantage.

A sweeping kick to the head did nothing good to a face that was already marred by several bruises. She jumped over his counter-attack and landed behind him. She kicked him in the back of his right knee as she got up to drive him to his knees. She swiftly snaked her arms around his head before giving a sharp twist and a jerk accompanied by the sound of breaking bones.

She immediately let go of the vampire that sagged to the ground like a sack of potatoes and stared at her own hands with fear and a little bit of awe. "Not bad," Faith interrupted. "But you better finish it off," and she tossed Alice a stake. Alice had to scramble to catch the piece of wood and almost dropped it. She swallowed and once again approached the silently screaming vampire. She had to remind herself that he wasn't human since his demonic visage had slipped after the fight.

With a quick move she stabbed the thing, getting the heart in the first try. She watched as the thing turned to dust. "Just a demon," she consoled herself softly.

"Just a vampire," Faith corrected her. "Not all demons are actually bad, which is something else you'll learn all about before I let you two loose on the streets."

"Aw, come on." Frankie said. "Even Alice here can kick ass now, so why the hell can't we go out and stake some undead bloodsuckers already?"

"You want to know why? Cause I ain't gonna let you loose on this city with the lousy quips you got going right now." Alice had to laugh hysterically at that. She didn't know why, it wasn't that good a joke.

Abandoned Subway Station, that same night

With a grunt Raphael turned the TV off. Once again, April hadn't mentioned the Foot at all on her show. It had been the agreed upon signal if she had found anything. But neither she, Keno or Casey had heard anything about the Foot in weeks. No rise in crime and no professors being kidnapped, just nothing.

Raphael had enough of waiting around, time to do something. He threw on his raincoat along with a beat-up backpack and was reaching for his hat when he heard the inquisitive noise Splinter made when he wanted to know what you were going to do and he hadn't made up his mind yet if it was a good thing. Splinter could condense it to 'hmmm'.

"I'm going to find the Foot myself," he said defensively.

Of course Leo had to have heard that. "You're going to do what?"

"I am going to do something, Leo. You might be okay with hanging around and letting our friends do our job for us, but I'm not."

"Hey, I am not 'hanging around'. But if we go out there, they might just follow us back here. We were lucky to find this place, where the hell would we go if the Foot found out about it? Well, genius, got an answer for that one?"

Yeah, I do." Raphael shot back. "I ain't coming back. I'll crash with Casey or Keno, kid can use the training."

"And lead them straight to our friends instead, brilliant Raph. Or maybe your plan is to get captured, again." Leo inched closer at 'again'. "One of these days we won't be fast enough to safe you."

"Hey, they only caught me once. And they already know about our friends, Leo. Or did you forget how Shredder got his little threat to us? It was only a few weeks ago!" He emphasized the word weeks.

Leo sucked his breath in, but was prevented from venting by Splinter. "Enough!"

Splinter sighed and approached his two surrogate-sons. "You are right to be patient, Leonardo." This produced a grumble from Raphael and a smile from Leonardo.

"However, it does sound like you have thought your actions through, my son." He was addressing Raphael now who was looking back with uncertainty. "You may go, but call us once you have a place to stay and call us every night."

"But Master Splinter…" Leo's objection was cut off by a gentle gesture from Splinter.

"No, my son. You are right that we cannot all go, for our chances of being discovered would multiply exponentially. And with the Foot remaining so quiet, April has little chance of finding them. But a ninja might be able to find them." He turned a strict eye on Raphael, "If he is very careful."

"I will, Master Splinter. Thanks." And he was off, not wanting to wait around for Splinter to change his mind.

Leo watched him go with an undeterminable look. "You are worried," Splinter surmised. "As am I, but risk is a part of life. Do not shun it, simply for its danger my son. Or you may never truly live." He shot a look at the ladder leading to the sewers. "Of course, you should look before you leap too. Something that your brother has finally learned."

"I…will think about that, Master." Splinter nodded and retreated back into his metro car supported by a cane. Leo watched him go with some worry. Then he made his way to Donatello's corner of their lair. Hopefully Donny had found something useful on his computer. But he was disabused of that hope when he got there. Donatello was pleading to the monitor that wasn't showing much at the moment while the computer itself was making some odd noises.

"What's up, Donny?"

"Hmm? Oh, hard drive gave out on me again." He began fiddling with it and apparently managed to get it going again after only a short time. Only then did he turn to address Leonardo. "Before you ask, I wasn't looking for the Foot when it happened. I already exhausted every possibility there."

Not what Leo wanted to hear. "Damn, now we can't call Raph back." Seeing Donatello's puzzlement, Leo sat down and explained what happened. After giving that brief explanation, he continued with, "What were you looking for anyway?"

Donny sighed. Leo suddenly noticed a lot of people seemed to be doing that today. "I was brushing up on my genetics."

Leo blinked. "Why?"

"Because Professor Perry's explanation just didn't sit right with me. And before you say anything, I got some logical reasons for it too. Think about it, the ooze is supposed to be a waste product, an unstable one at that. But when you look at the results, that's not the case."

"How do you mean."

"Leo, the ooze transforms every animal it comes into contact with into a bipedal, sentient person. Even Tokka and Razar were pretty smart compared to what they were before the ooze. Even if the ooze did the same kind of mutation on every animal, it should have a different effect depending on the species. Instead, it produces the same result no matter what species."

Leo pondered that for a moment. "That does sound a little odd…"

"A little odd," Donatello broke in. "Try a lot! Leo, it's impossible for some kind of chemical to have such a similar result in such different circumstances. There's more to it, but I have no idea what." He spared a look for his computer, which had finished booting. "And I am not going to find out what with this. To get the answers I need a real lab, but I can't even go into a store and just buy a PC. I had to assemble mine from junk."

Donatello continued in a much quieter voice, "ever wonder what we'll do with our lives?"

Leo was taken aback by that, he hadn't in fact. "Not really actually. I figured on training more, maybe see something of the world."

"I got the brains to go to college, but what college would accept me? I love science Leo, but looking like this I will never be able to contribute anything to it. To be honest, I can't imagine living in the shadows for however long we are going to live. Which brings me to another worry."

This had been a disconcerting conversation already, but Leo didn't let that discourage him. "What's that."

"Splinter," Donatello summarized in one word. "I don't think he's ever recovered from Shredder's torture and he's getting old. I have no idea how the ooze affected our lifespan, but even if we have a human-sized one Splinter is nearing the age where he is going to need some medical attention. And where would we take him, a doctor or a vet? Let's face it, nobody knows that much about our physiology, not even us. We're lucky that we haven't gotten sick, I mean really sick yet."

"You talked about this with anybody else?" Leo asked.

"No, I think Splinter is already worrying about some of it and I didn't want to weigh Mickey down with this."

Leo nodded. "And Raph?"

"Haven't talked to him either, didn't think he would know what to say to this."

Leonardo thought that over. "You'd be surprised."

New York, a run-down factory somewhere

It was a diverse group of people that were gathered in the barely lit hall. Some were standing alone, keeping an eye on everybody and everything. Others were talking in small groups with hushed voices, also keeping an eye on their surroundings. That is how they noticed that they were surrounded, with masked figures silently stalking out of the shadows.

They recognized the figures from the video each one of them had gotten. They had all been masters of their own little domain, until that video had arrived. Some had caved in immediately, others had to be convinced by seeing their fellows massacred. But all present had given in and were now waiting for the new master of the city.

And arrive he did, in a rather dramatic fashion. He plummeted from the sealing, his legs bowing slightly to absorb the impact. He silently observed them for a moment, the metal of his armor shining in what little light there was.

None spoke, the gathered leaders because they were too scared and ninja's because they knew this was their master's show. "You are here tonight, so that you will know me." Shredder began, then he quirked his mouth although that was invisible under his helmet. "And so that I might know you."

"For centuries you pitiful creatures have been living in the shadows and waste of your own food. You are supposed to have their knowledge and none of their weaknesses. And yet here we are, gathered not in some luxuriant conference room but in an abandoned building of the humans."

Some of the vampires shuffled their feet at that. "I am here to tell you that will now change. Under my leadership this city will belong to us, as is our right. I am your future."

"What about the Slayers?" Someone in the back said.

He replied scornfully, "Ah, yes. Four girls with barely any training against hundreds of demons, I can see our certain doom."

An Asian woman, barely coming to Shredder's chest was the one with enough courage to ask the question the others had at hearing that statement. "Four of them? I thought there only three."

"They have found another. Just because you overestimate their threat does not mean I underestimate them," He replied. "I am keeping an eye on them and I have a plan to deal with them as well." That brought the concern back, which turned into puzzlement after Shredder's next statement. "They are Slayers, I shall give them something to slay." And an unholy gleam of mirth now shone in his eyes.

TBC