In his command centre Adam was watching the unfolding drama in grim contentment. The commanding officer had engaged their remaining reserves exactly as he had predicted it. Now it was like watching the end game of a chess match where the result was already inevitably decided, although the other side wasn't aware of it yet.

"Fun, isn't it?" a cool voice from behind made him turn around in surprise. He had been so concentrated on his game that he had failed to sense the presence earlier.

"I do appreciate violence," he responded equally coolly as he unhurriedly measured the Slayer girl with a calculating gaze.

"Good," Buffy nodded simply and attacked.

In the secret lab Forrest initiated his first attack on Riley by rushing him like a bull at his midsection. He was able to anticipate the attack and flip over Forrest in a flying somersault. His manoeuvre was only partly successful, though, as his boots became briefly tangled in a low-hanging electric cable which was partly severed. His interrupted momentum made him fall to the floor, side first, which sent an agonising jolt through his chest.

Gritting his teeth, he made it back to his feet while Forrest's back was still turned to him. He grabbed Forrest around the torso, but a powerful elbow punch to his face made him stagger back groggily. With a growl Forrest planted his boot in his stomach, making him double-over. The hybrid followed through with a throw which sent him sprawling on top of an operating table from which he slid off to the floor.

"Why are you making me do this?" he heard Forrest demand angrily as he threw the table effortlessly aside like it was a child's plaything. "Not that I'm not enjoying myself," Forrest grinned as he gave Riley another monstrous kick in the midsection that sent him flying against a cache of medical gas tanks.

"But Adam's not gonna like it if I..." the hybrid continued until Riley drove the bottom of a hydrogen tank in his face.

Riley kept on delivering savage blows with the heavy tank on Forrest, snapping the valve system in the process. Almost inaudibly, pressurised gas started leaking out of the damaged tank. With relentless intensity he was able to push Forrest back to the spot where their fight had started. Looking quickly up to the sizzling and sparking electric cable above them, he surprised Forrest by letting go of the tank as they wrestled for its control.

While Forrest was still slightly out of balance, he sprinted in the opposite direction and dove over another operating table between it and the wall, pulling the table over for protection.

Totally heedless of the danger, Forrest raised the leaking tank over his head where the frayed power line made contact with the expanding hydrogen cloud. The resulting explosion sent chunks of charred flesh and deformed metal flying all over the lab. Some of it bounced off the overturned table behind which Riley was hiding with a squelching sound.

Buffy found out quite quickly that Adam seemed to be even faster than previously. He countered her initial attack with a massive punch to the chest that sent her flying back almost to the door of his lair. Flipping herself back to her feet she launched another lightning-fast attack, but Adam was able to counter each of her kicks and punches without changing expression.

Eventually he threw her at the back wall in an almost identical way to what had happened in the cave in Miller's Woods when they first fought each other. She was briefly stunned but her ears were still able to pick up the tell-tale sound of his skewer being extracted. Feigning helplessness, she waited until Adam was almost upon her before springing back to her feet and breaking off the skewer against her knee.

"Broke your arm," she taunted, as Adam took a few steps back, briefly disoriented. She threw the bony spike into a corner contemptuously as if it was trash.

"Got another," the cyborg countered quickly. Using the hand in his Polgara arm he swiftly twisted the wrist in his other one making the whole hand come loose. Where his forearm should have ended in a bone, the familiar muzzle of a taser gun made Buffy's mouth fall open.

"I've been upgrading," Adam grinned and let loose a massive stream of almost liquid energy at Buffy.

She was able to avoid the initial blast by a hair's width and dive behind one of the operating consoles. To her absolute dismay Adam hadn't been just idly boasting about upgrading as the stream of energy followed after her as Adam moved his arm. It was almost like he had an embedded light sabre in his arm.

She made it into safety, just, but the top of the upright part of the console was cleanly cut off and fell painfully on top of her. She had no idea how long it had been since she left Room 314, but it felt like hours. She could only hope that the guys got the ritual working before it was too late.

When the room was abruptly filled with an eerie light, she briefly thought that Adam had detonated the whole place and she was surely dead. Then her breath hitched as she felt an insubstantial, feather-like touch first caress her cheek and then embrace her completely.

'Hi, B,' she felt more than heard the amused greeting somewhere inside her. 'Seems you could use some help.'

'Faith?' she asked in total shock.

'In, well, not the flesh, but you get the idea.' Buffy could swear Faith was grinning madly at her own cleverness. 'So, anyway,' Faith's voice continued more seriously. 'Got me some real mojo to share with you. Bright Eyes, Red, X- and G-man and some pretty blonde called the Slayer, and... we answered.'

'How'd you feel about some synchronised slaying?' Buffy asked teasingly now that she knew the deal. Suspended Animation or anything "soft" like that was definitely off the menu now. Adam would be facing the new and improved Chosen Two on their terms.

'Thought you'd never ask.'

Adam let loose another colossal blast of energy at the console behind which the annoying Slayer was hiding. His embedded taser blaster had an almost limitless potential being powered by his practically inexhaustible uranium core. Waiting for the smoke to clear he prepared himself for the killing blow. It had really been all too easy.

He watched with a hint of admiration as the Slayer emerged calmly out of the thick cloud of smoke with a blankly serene look on her face. Her eyes were also different, but in a way that he couldn't immediately recognise. Well, it had been relatively amusing, something to be recalled and relived later.

"It's over," he told her matter-of-factly. "You can't last much longer."

"We can," came the immediate answer. The voice that had spoken the words... his aural receptors couldn't identify it. It had a reverberating echo that seemed to consist of multiple voices – some stronger, some fainter – all saying the same words. "We are for ever."

He lowered his weapon arm slowly in indecision as his powerful mind was unable to compute the new scenario. In front of her the Slayer started intoning a flowing chant using a language that he was unable to identify. A brief heuristic analysis indicated a 98,9 % chance of it being of supernatural origin.

"Interesting," he mused to himself as he raised his right arm again.

Instead of obliterating the chanting Slayer, the blast of energy hit an invisible shield just in front of her which harmlessly absorbed it with a brief, golden glow.

"Very interesting," Adam commented when revised results now indicated a 100 % probability.

The now slightly smiling Slayer moved her hand in a lazy arc with a few powerful words. Before Adam could react, his detached hand was once again firmly attached to the wrist. He could no longer sense the mechanism to loosen it, neither could he feel any connection to the blaster inside the forearm.

Flexing his fingers and balling them into a fist he stepped determinedly forward to physically end this confusing conflict. His initial punch was almost lazily avoided, and the counterstrike sent him staggering back several steps. Before he could react, the Slayer had his arm in a vice-like grasp, forcing him irresistibly down to his knees.

"How can you...?" he gasped as several circuits in his system indicated processing errors.

"You can never hope to grasp the source of our power," came the dispassionate answer as he was thrown against a wall like a helpless child.

Adam could see the inevitability of it all like it had already happened but still he tried to protect the centre of his power. With an almost lazy flick of her hand, Buffy inserted it into Adam's chest and then pulled out a glowing, green cylinder with several cleanly cut wires hanging out of it.

"But yours is right here." These cold words were the final sounds Adam was ever able to coherently process. As the cascading power loss spread throughout his system, the last thing he saw was his own core floating briefly in the air in front of the Slayer's glowing eyes before another powerful command made it vanish in a burst of white light.

Riley made his way to Adam's command post just in time to see the massive cyborg keel over and a green cylinder vanish at an unknown word from Buffy. The word was spoken in a tone that definitely wasn't Buffy's normal voice. As she slowly turned her head in his direction, he took a shocked step back. Buffy's eyes were glowing like they were illuminated from within by some unknown radiance.

"Buffy?" she asked hesitantly as there was no hint of recognition in her gaze.

'Well, that was a kick,' Faith commented casually as the uranium core was finally annihilated.

'Oh, Faith,' Buffy half-laughed and half-sobbed as she imagined taking her counterpart into a tight embrace.

'Easy there, B,' Faith laughed and returned the hug. 'Don't have ribs but who knows what else you might squish.'

'Smartass,' Buffy grinned. 'But thank you. I couldn't have done it without you.'

'Without us,' Faith corrected her mysteriously. It was obvious she wasn't meaning just the two of them. 'What the guys were able to pull off was massive. Echoes of it were most likely felt... everywhere. But, yeah, I think that's pretty much it for now. But, shit, my jaw hurts. That Ancient Sumerian really is something else. No wonder Bright Eyes has such a nimble tongue.'

'Faith!' Buffy gasped, totally scandalised.

'Love you, B,' Faith winked as her presence was starting to fade. 'I'll see you, soon. I promise.'

Feeling all the borrowed power leave her, Buffy collapsed... straight into Riley's arms.

In room 314 the power surge as the ritual ended and their borrowed power came back to them made all five participants collapse in exhausted heaps on the floor. None of them was able to immediately process the insistent banging and rattling that started shaking their makeshift barricade.

Acting basically on instinct in the almost pitch-black room Tara gathered her final energy reserves and crawled over to where Willow was lying a few short feet away that felt like miles.

"Willow?" she asked urgently as she gathered her girlfriend into her arms.

"Tara?" Willow answered in a distant and faraway voice. "Did you feel...? That was... We were all..."

"Shhh," Tara gently interrupted the impeding babble-fest. "The ritual's over but we're not clear yet."

"Xander? Rowan? Giles?" Willow queried as the door to the corridor was pushed slightly ajar.

"Through fire," they heard Rowan's determined voice speak through clenched teeth as he was apparently forcing himself to stand up on pure willpower only.

A massive blast sent the metal beds in front of the door flying against the wall and the door itself almost off its hinges. Backlighted by the flashing red alarm lights a 6'5" tall, hairy demon holding a decapitated human head in its grasp stepped over the debris into the room flashing his long, pointed teeth.

With legs feeling like lead Rowan positioned himself between the door and his all but helpless friends. He had no idea if he would be able to withstand even one attack, but just giving up without a fight was not an option. But just as the creature was about to bounce into an attack, a figure wearing a long, flowing coat appeared behind it from the corridor and promptly snapped its neck.

"Nasty sort of fellow," Spike commented idly as he threw the limp body aside and Rowan's legs gave out under him, and he fell to his knees with a groan. "Lucky for you blighters I was here, eh?"

"Yes, thank you," Giles deadpanned, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Although your heroism is slightly muted by your helping Adam start a war that would kill us all."

"Right," Xander muttered. "You probably just saved us so we wouldn't stake you right here."

"Well, yeah," Spike shrugged. "Did it work?" he prompted carefully.

He took an involuntary step back as Rowan got back to his feet and gave him an unreadable look. For a brief, awful moment he thought that the infuriating demon was going to kiss him again, but in the end he just nodded briefly. "For now, William. For now."

"Well, then everything is alright," Spike grinned in relief and clapped his hands together. "We all get to be not staked through the heart. Good work!"

To his chagrin all interest in him ceased immediately as a door opened in the far corner of the room and the Slayer stepped in followed by her beef-stick boyfriend. He let out a somewhat wistful sigh as the petite blonde squealed in delight and rushed in to take all her friends into a group hug amidst carefree laughter. Without even realising it he and Finn had exchanged a look from which both quickly averted their eyes. It was a brief shared moment nevertheless – a look between those who knew themselves to be the outsiders.

Somewhat jealous but still loath to break the moment between Buffy and her friends, Riley raised his voice over the overall cacophony as the tightly knit group shared comments from their recent experience amidst grins and brief laughs.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you all but, Buffy, there are still men out there fighting for their lives."

He was briefly shocked as instead of Buffy it was Hostile 17 that responded brightly.

"Well, let's go save 'em by gum!" the vampire announced, thrusting his fist in the air.

Watching closely, Spike had to admit it was quite impressive how Summers was able to take control of the situation and issue instructions to her posse.

"Xander, Giles," Buffy addressed the team. "Take Willow and Tara back to the colonel's office and keep them safe. Willow, try to get the exits open again. Riley, you organise the soldiers, pull 'em back. Rowan, Spike, with me. I'll take point."

An unexpected piece of nostalgia hit Spike as he followed the Slayer and Pretty Boy into the heat of the battle. They had fought his former minions side-by-side in the earlier incarnation of Rupert's magic shop over a year ago, also then putting their mutual animosity briefly to the background when facing a common foe.

Never since the heydays of the Whirlwind had he fought with such fierce and fearsome fighters as he was now doing with the Slayer and her pet demon. Summers was absolutely unstoppable as she unleashed a wild force amongst the escaped creatures. Vampires, demons and other dark creatures fell before her as she rushed from one tight spot into another, constantly ushering the rescued soldiers and scientists towards the exit.

Pretty Boy, on the other hand, didn't seem too concerned about rescuing the Initiative people. His first priority had initially seemed to be the safe transit of the rest of the Scooby gang through the battleground into some location from which Red was apparently able to control all the doors and exits. After he had seen them safely to the other side, he just calmly walked to the edge of the pit and jumped over the guardrail. It hadn't taken long until the growls from below had gradually turned into screams of pain.

Riley was overseeing the rescue from the grilled platform overlooking the main area. He was slightly lightheaded from the loss of blood but had shrugged off all suggestions about medical aid until everyone was out. To his great relief, he had happened upon Graham outside the restricted area. He immediately stationed the lieutenant at the bottom of the staircase to cover the retreating troops' progress up the stairs to the platform. There had been no sight of Colonel McNamara, and until proven otherwise, he was presumed to be KIA.

From his elevated position he was able to see the three main centres of fighting below him. Buffy was absolutely unrestrained in the way she dealt damage to the HSTs who were still attacking pockets of human resistance on the other side of the pit.

Her HST friend... no, he would have to discard that designation... the one called Rowan had performed one of the craziest stunts he had ever seen by jumping calmly over the guardrail into the pit where some of the HSTs were feasting on several dead scientists. The stuff he had inflicted upon them down there before coolly proceeding to the containment areas, presumably to check for any survivors, was very much material for nightmares.

And then there was the vampire, Hostile 17. Riley had no idea what his end game was but for the present he appeared to be truly fighting on Buffy's side, inflicting his own horrifying damage upon any HST he came across. It was clear he was keeping well away from any human targets – and it took a while for Riley to recall the chip in his head – but from what he could see, he did his part in keeping the humans in his sector relatively safe until they could be evacuated.

Riley had called a general retreat after receiving confirmation that every surviving soldier and scientist was accounted for – including Buffy's friends who had made the evacuation possible. Not every HST had been killed down there, but each exit was now heavily guarded – no one would be able to escape the complex until the military was able to launch a final search & destroy mission to wipe the place clean.

It was close to midnight when Buffy, the last one to climb up the elevator shaft, stepped into the corridor in Lowell House. The first thing she saw was Xander, Giles and Rowan sitting on the corridor floor just outside the elevator shaft. Rowan was hugging his shins with his head leaning against his knees with Giles and Xander both having a companionable arm thrown over the Lehaïr's shoulders.

Feeling her own bone-deep exhaustion, she was perfectly aware how tired Rowan must be. Lending her part of his self and then immediately participating in a brutal battle were no walks in the park. As she crouched down in front of the trio, she could see out of the corner of her eye Willow and Tara sitting on nearby stairs also holding each other close. Spike had apparently slipped away in the chaos of the aftermath as there was no sight of him. He could also hear Riley's voice issuing commands somewhere near the front doors. Colonel McNamara was evidently still missing, presumed dead, so Riley as the next senior officer had taken the overall command of the scene.

There were lots of armed soldiers about, but none of them were paying any attention to the civilians among them. Their priority seemed to be the wounded and injured who would have to be transported off-site as the Initiative's own medical ward was currently very much off-limits.

"You were great," Buffy complimented her fighting friend quietly and leaned in to touch his head with hers.

"Thanks, you weren't too bad yourself," Rowan answered equally quietly and raised his head to meet Buffy's gaze.

"Look, we should probably all just leave," Buffy addressed the whole trio. "I'll have a few words with Riley first and then head back to Stevenson Hall. I'm gonna call Mom tomorrow morning about the possibility of having a victory party in the evening at Revello Drive."

"If the place had all the amenities available, I'd have suggested the mansion, but it'll be good to see Joyce," Rowan nodded in agreement and followed Giles and Xander back to his feet.

"See you all tomorrow," Buffy gave each of them a wide smile before leaving to find Riley.

"I'd better head home too," Xander told no one in particular. "Anya must be sick with worry." With a brief nod he just wandered off past Willow and Tara who also rose to their feet and quietly left after him.

"I really don't feel like going back to the mansion tonight, Rupert," Rowan told the Watcher as they watched the two Witches and Xander leave the building. "Do you mind if I...?"

"Of course not, dear boy," Giles answered immediately. "To tell the truth, I'd love the company."

"A shower and a nightcap sound just like the perfect way to end today," Rowan grinned as they stepped past the guards at the Lowell House door. "Then I'm going to sleep until it's time to head for Joyce's tomorrow."

"I'd say we've both earned it."