Rekhyt hovered directly by the room, his incorporeal form sifting around the invisible barrier, weaving between rubble and broken glass on the floor. Six people hunched up around the pattern of a hexagon, rigid like waxworks. All of them were decomposing, their faces gaunt, sinking into fading musculature. The energy in their bodies fed the barrier. Little remained to siphon of their wasted forms. It was only a matter of time until the shielding failed.

He coalesced into minotaur form, eyes leaving trails of emerald fire behind as he moved. Floating in the air, a supreme feeling of satisfaction vibrated through every molecule. Infiltrating the pathetic Watcher's Council proved far too easy. Years of careful planning and deft manipulation, it actually felt disappointing to see how simple the humans succumbed. Their minds were weak. Nothing like a demon, although most of them possessed little moral integrity.

Rekhyt, a voice whispered in his mind. Have you done it? Will we be free?

Ah, Balthus. I wondered when you were going to come out of that shell of yours. Rekhyt transmitted the thought in an urbane manner, knowing it drove the eight-thousand year old Darkwalker absolutely wild every time he did. You haven't bothered to contact me for weeks. I thought you didn't like me, anymore.

I've never liked you - although the humans in the Watchers Council annoy me far more. Some of them are starting to become a little suspicious. I recently found one attempting to seek out more documents on the Hexagons.

I trust you took care of the matter?

Naturally.

Wonderful.

How fares matters your end? Did you complete the Link-Spell?

Without any trouble. I've been playing with the humans in charge over here. Did you know they resurrected the dead Lightwalker? The yellow haired one. Quite a pleasant surprise.

Balthus hissed in dissatisfaction. Your idea and my idea of that regard appear to differ. Rekhyt, do not play games with me. We cannot afford any more "pleasant surprises," not when we're so close. Nothing must go wrong.

Relax, old boy. Everything is going as planned.

What about the Los Angeles humans? I thought they were giving you trouble because of obtaining the Prophecy.

Well, we don't need to worry too much about them. I took care of it. I do have some physical presence in this world, after all.

Oh?

The whole document is written in the old Cyrillic alphabet. It's simply amazing what one little dot in the right place can do to change the translation of a particular passage. With one splodge, I could make the number ten into a forty, or mess up the formation of phrases. Can you guess what I did?

You altered the date?

Rekhyt grinned, his amorphous form bobbing up and down. Good guess.

Balthus took a very long time to reply. This sounds far too good to be true. Someone will notice the tampering. And if they don't, there must be people in Prague with copies - they will know something is up.

Even if anyone makes it to Prague and somehow finds help, they will be far too late.

Don't be so sure, Rekhyt, Balthus remarked acidly. Your arrogance may be your downfall. When we are free, we shall exchange a few words… in person.

Who's the arrogant one now? Rekhyt retorted.

Balthus only snarled incomprehensibly in response, causing the Darkwalker minotaur to chuckle out loud. Rekhyt snapped out of his mental communication when a unit of burly minions walked through the broken door of the Sunnydale High Library; two minotaurs, three vampires. Rekhyt's own hand picked squad of non-useless killers. One vampire had cloven hooves for feet, the other two had horns curling from their heads. Rekhyt always found it interesting to see that the older a vampire became, the more they looked like minotaurs.

"Oh! You're back early." Rekhyt beamed at them.

"Yes," the cloven hoofed vampire grunted, obviously disappointed; "But we only killed one of them."

Rekhyt's enthusiasm waned. "Ah well. Which one?"

"The seer," the vampire confirmed. "The soul-vampire and the Watcher already leapt the pond." The minotaur by his left side gave a derisive snort.

"Disappointing. But not entirely a wasted mission. Thank you, Kakistos." Rekhyt's form flickered and dissolved. "No sense chasing them to Europe. My brethren are there, after all. Start focusing in Sunnydale. Create as much disruption as possible."

Kakistos nodded, showing every inch of his sharp, jagged teeth. "We can do that. Kill the Slayers?"

"Only as a happy accident. I really wouldn't want them missing the grand opening." Rekhyt's form began to break up. "There's something I need to check on. I'll see you later." He dissipated into nothing, leaving only the ghost of his words hanging.

Prague - Czech Republic - Europe.

A tiny, obscure book-store existed on one of the many winding streets of Prague. The section of city it lived in was a part that may as well have been left untouched from when the city was first built, centuries ago. The man known as Vllk scribbled furiously with a quill into a wrinkled parchment made out of thin cow-hide, which soaked up the ink like a sponge. He wore half-moon glasses with a little crack on one side and muttered in Czech, not happy with the presence of Angel in front of him.

Vllk finished with the quill and left it in the inkpot with five other battered, withering quills, and looked up at his audience, face distorted by the lanterns around the ill-ventilated room.

"Your English friend informed me about the… prophecy you have," Vllk said, accent thick yet fluent. Wesley stood by the door, entranced with the twisted, cobbled streets of old Prague. Dirt piled up on the sides next to the rickety, ancient architecture. Rooftops merged together in a chaotic blend of uneven structures - making it simple for people to navigate the entire area without ever touching ground. Flickers of modernisation could be seen here and there with the odd building or two - with fragments of technology on display in shop windows. More were seen in the distance. Although the overall city itself was in fact advanced and up to date with any other great urban habitat, this part of Prague seemed perfectly preserved in a bubble of untouched history.

Vllk himself looked like he belonged in the fading pages of a book; a small, possibly not all there elderly man who muttered into thin air at random intervals, as though he didn't have three other people standing in front of him feeling increasingly more uncomfortable and disturbed with every passing moment.

"I have it here," Wesley informed the man, handing both the translated and original Slavic copies over. Faith sat in the corner of the room, idly observing a humungous spider as it spun a web on one of the higher, book-laden shelves.

Angel lurked nearby the Czech, relaxed in the absence of sunlight. With the relocation of Faith, Wesley and himself to Europe, Angel Investigations hung on temporary hiatus, with Cordelia remaining on contact overseas. She'd told them all in no uncertain terms to come back alive, preferably as soon as possible.

"Voirrey mentioned about that one, too." Vllk jerked an arthritic finger to Faith, who narrowed her eyes at the flippant reference. "Tricky business. Dimensional spells are not to be trifled with - but there are some… hotspots where it is much easier to trespass between realms. We can return her by tomorrow, if that is what she wishes."

"It's that simple?" Wesley asked, startled.

"With the right book, anything is possible," Vllk confirmed. He smiled, the expression utterly unnatural on his aged, deep-lined face.

"Yay, me," Faith muttered, tapping her leg impatiently. The bookshop lacked warmth - growing colder as the night advanced. Faith pulled her hoody up and wrapped her arms into its pouch. The Batman symbol on the front creased up.

"You don't sound too happy about it," Angel walked until he was next to the grouchy brunette.

"Would you be?" Faith smiled cynically. "Maybe I was expecting a holiday." She waved some dust away from her face. "See the sights, enjoy Europe; go to strip or burlesque clubs…"

Vllk peered at her through his half-moon glasses. "A bitter one, I see. Are you interested in remaining in this reality, then?"

Faith took out a cigarette. "What do you think, old man?"

He squinted disapproval at the cigarette. "No, I think. A pity. You look like a very promising Slayer. It is a waste to leave a warrior of light in jail, especially since there can only be one at a time. But ah…" Vllk lowered his head, using a magnifying glass to crane at the Prophecies.

Faith snorted. "Promising, huh…"

"Is that a reason why you're not too fond of Buffy, then?" Angel said gently - believing he'd gotten to the heart of the matter. "She took away the things you could have been?"

Faith didn't answer. Then, quietly, Angel heard the reply: "I just wanted to be noticed. Accepted. To be loved."

Angel heaved a sigh. He understood the feeling only too well. Faith made her way out of the store, fishing a lighter out of her jacket. Angel held high hopes for her. If he could crawl his way out of a century of suffering and a lifetime of destruction, so could she, who went down that path for a far shorter span of time. She had to. In fact, she already did. The Faith of this world stood as living proof.

Angel watched the Czech, remaining absolutely bland whenever the European slurred words together, or muttered incomprehensible statements. Vllk paused in his examining with the manner of a car screeching to a sudden stop. "This…!" Vllk blurted out, muttering and running a hand through his wispy hair. He held up the Slavic copy with a tremulous hand. "Where did you get this? Where?"

"Hey, hey, calm down." Wesley held his hands up in a placating gesture. "Where does Voirrey find these people…" he added in an undertone to Angel.

"We got it from Wolfram and Hart," Angel replied.

"Ptch! Did it come translated?"

"No. Wesley translated it - using a book from a creepy dwarf from Budapest."

Vllk pointed at the English copy. "You are very lucky to find a dictionary at all. This language has been dead for nearly five thousand years. Only a handful of people alive today can read it, myself included. Most impressive job with the translation, by the way."

"Thanks." Wesley puffed up with pride.

"But this," Vllk hissed, stabbing a finger at an obscure part in the Slavic version, "Look at this."

Wesley craned over, running his eyes over the Cyrillic patterns. "Yes?"

"Pure garbage. Some of the phrasing make no sense. Mangled sentences. You see? Look at the amount of blotting and formation of the characters here, in comparison to the rest. Is this the original transcript?"

"Uh, no?" Wesley frowned, perplexed. "It's photographed."

Vllk shook his head, exclaimed something unrecognisable but obviously scathing and got up, tipping to pick along his shelves. He reached down the bottom of one shelf - pulled out a hidden compartment - and took out a wrapped scroll. He headed back to his desk and placed it by the side.

"That scroll will gain us entrance to the Lyceum."

"Lice-what?" Faith exhaled her last circle of smoke as she stepped back inside.

"It has a record of every prophecy and prediction in the world. It is a rival source to the Vatican itself. I will take you all there, and I will examine their copy of the Prague Ascension."

"They have a copy?" Angel asked, followed by Wesley's: "But why?"

"You fool. Look." Vllk stabbed once at the pages. "Who knows how long this copy has been in your Wolfram and Hart for. I will need to check whether it is authentic or not."

"What do you mean?" Angel demanded.

Vllk regarded them as though they were ignorant children. "This is ancient Cyrillic, and the ink toning makes it difficult to ascertain whether the Prophecy has been tampered with or not. Given some of the peculiar phrasings in the un-translated one, I am thinking yes; so this must be checked. Do you understand?"

Wesley bristled, but didn't bother countering. The old man was already folding up the Prophecy.

"Time to motor, then?" Faith tucked one arm under her chest, reaching to her neckline with the other. "Leave," Faith clarified, when Vllk gave her a puzzled look.

"Of course. We must be certain. The Prague Ascension Prophecy is one that we cannot afford mistakes on." Vllk reached for his green trench coat. "There are things under the earth that you cannot dream of. Bad things."

"Believe me when I say I've seen way, way worse," Angel said, following behind the Czech with the others.

Sunnydale - Faith and Voirrey's Basement.

It didn't take long for Buffy to regain consciousness; probably around ten minutes. The blonde groaned and touched the back of her head. Faith crouched nearby, retracting a hand when Buffy opened her eyes. She was about to shake up Buffy quite violently, but luckily, the blonde decided to wake out of her own accord. She also delivered what was quite possibility the most baleful glare anyone could emanate.

"Did you knock me out?" Buffy got up slowly, wincing from the effort.

"Yup." Faith reached and tossed Buffy's canteen over; causing her to catch it with startled reflexes. "Conked ya good."

"It hurts," Buffy said, before adding, "Bitch." She threw the canteen back; Faith ducked.

"Sorry, princess. But I ain't letting you wail on me just because you can't keep a leash on your instincts."

"That never even would have happened if you didn't assault me." Buffy reached down for her shoes.

"I had to." Faith felt the words stick in her throat. How could she explain this in a way the blonde understood? "Buffy," she tried again. "This needed to happen, in a safe environment. Doing something like this puts it at bay for a little while. Like it needs recovery time, I guess."

Buffy digested the information, incredulous. "You kinda failed to mention anything like that."

"I know. My bad."

"What even happened, anyway? I don't really remember much, other than getting pissed off. Like, Majorly."

"Well. You were strong. Growling an awful lot, throwing me about a bit. Think you were looking for something sharp and pointy to do some serious damage. Managed to distract and cold clock you, so happy ending." Faith decided her summary was pretty succinct. Buffy, however, looked puzzled.

"So I didn't hurt you?" Buffy said. She examined Faith over as she said so, obviously checking for any visible injuries.

"Might have some wicked bruises, but no. How you feeling, now?" The lump in Faith's throat returned. A strange assortment of emotions and thoughts tumbled around, as though blasted by an invisible wind in her head. Although she genuinely intended to help out the blonde Slayer, she also wanted to be mad at her, and righteously so. The part of her that viewed the world with a bitter eye always liked to stir up doubts. Everything about this whole situation felt messed up. Truth be told, distracting and knocking the blonde out was difficult. Several times, Faith seriously thought Buffy would get the upper hand and kick her unconscious, or worse. Her strength was frightening. Only the martial arts training over the months saved Faith - in a direct fight of power and speed, the blonde would smash her up and down the room like a beach ball.

The sooner Buffy returned to her own dimension, the better. Life would once again become uncomplicated. Faith could do with some un-complications right now.

Another part of her indulged in the thrill of being in the blonde Slayer's presence. The vibrant energy shared between them rattled like superheated atoms. Strange and alien as it seemed, it didn't matter. Feeling another Slayer nearby felt comforting.

Buffy eventually responded to Faith's query with: "Depleted. Could do with some of that cake Voirrey mentioned."

A half smile tugged at Faith's lips. "Yeah. Bet they're wondering what the hell we're doing down here."

"Did we make much noise?" Buffy continued, slightly worried.

"Doubt it, or that door would be bashed down by now."

As if on cue, Voirrey's voice faintly reached their ears. "What the devil is taking you two so long? I'm not baking any more of this, so come up already."

Both Slayers chuckled, starting to exit the basement. "Sorry for… you know," Buffy said.

"No prob. Least you didn't kill me."

"Yeah. Always a good thing. Did you really have to lick me earlier?"

"Worked, didn't it?"

"Don't do it again. It's icky."

Faith grinned impishly, pushing open the door. "Can't make any promises on that, B."

Buffy groaned but reciprocated the grin. "Seriously. You're gross. Gross and icky."

"You seemed to like it."

"That wasn't really me!"

"Sure. You keep telling yourself that."

"Oh I will. And you. Shut up."

Faith laughed at Buffy's attempts then to interrupt anything she said, which drew the interest of the others all spread around the kitchen table as they entered. Giles sat on an armchair in the lounge, book open on his lap. "What on earth are you two arguing about?" He asked.

"Faith's mean," Buffy pouted.

"Truth." Faith nodded agreement.

"Oh, we all knew that already," Willow said dismissively, folding her arms. "What took you guys so long?"

"Um…" Buffy said.

"Just practising some techniques," Faith interceded.

"Right…" Tara responded, doubtful. "Your top is kind of torn, Faith."

Faith looked down, suddenly remembering. Willow started to giggle. Voirrey raised an eyebrow. Giles rubbed his forehead as if trying to rid himself of whatever thought coursing through. Xander and Anya just gawked. "Oh, yeah, about that…"

Prague - Czech republic - Europe.

Wesley flinched when a drop of water splashed onto his jacket. "Cripes!" He glowered towards the offending drain, which looked half-detached from the spidery wall. "I hate little alleyways like this. I always feel as though I'm about to be mugged."

"We are entering a secret component of the National Lyceum. It doesn't exactly have a front door you can see." Vllk sniffed, taking obvious satisfaction in Wesley's discomfort. The sky of Prague had retreated into a veil of dark grey and storm blue - the sunlight all but gone.

"You'd think there'd be less slime. It's everywhere - even in that four star hotel you hooked us up in." Faith growled from the back as she furiously scrubbed at her denim jacket. "It's alright with Angel. He lives in sewers."

The vampire chuckled as they paced down the shadowy, thin network of alleys. "You did have a choice to stay back in LA. Soak up some of that Hollywood sunshine as a free woman. Cordelia certainly would have enjoyed the female company. She doesn't get out much."

"No thanks. I prefer there to be a continent between me and Buffy, and the other Faith. Who knows what kind of shit'll happen if we meet up in the same place. Maybe I'd just vanish from existence," Faith mused.

"That's not necessarily true," Wesley commented, letting out an exclamation of disgust when he trod on a dead rat. "Despite - God, I knew I should had worn the boots - whatever movies you've been watching, dimensional stuff isn't quite that absolute. You won't disappear or cause a huge ripple effect, if you were to meet up with yourself. You already created the ripple just by entering this dimension."

"You keep on saying that to yourself." Faith stumbled over something, cursing. "I'm a bigger fan of the whole 'safe than sorry' shmuck nowadays."

"Sensible child." Vllk nodded approval.

"See? Even old man agrees."

"Sixty-eight years. I'm no… what do you call it, spring chicken. But I'm not old." Vllk sounded offended.

"Anyone over forty is old." Faith grinned when Angel frowned.

"Ptch." Vllk disappeared out of sight. "Americans."

They swooped down after Vllk, only to see he had more or less vanished into thin air.

"Guys, Cordelia won't answer the phone, you know," Angel said. "I've tried ringing her a few times."

"Ah, she's probably enjoying not having us breathe down her necks all the time," Wesley shrugged, peering around the compact alleyway.

"To your left," Vllk's voice came back, muffled. In a short amount of time, Faith, Angel and Wesley discovered the entrance by walking through one section of what should have been solid brick wall, but was in fact happened to be a disguised portal/entrance/magical enchantment/thing.

"Okay, this is pretty neat." Faith trawled behind the others, admiring pristine marble walls, black with green streaks interweaved in them like tiny blades of grass, or veins. A sculpture of a minotaur preceded a sloping descent, which could probably be used to sleigh down. Although no obvious origin for the light source illuminating the corridor could be seen, it was incandescently lit, and warm, like a hearth.

"This is like a mansion or castle." Angel poked the minotaur sculpture. He felt a strange sense of unease, seeing it. Almost as if it were somehow watching them. "I didn't even know Prague had those kind of things. I would have visited more." His voice echoed.

Vllk hushed them and waved them on. They followed, not knowing what to expect. The place had a serene sense of loneliness about it; the kind where you felt silence pressing down on your vocal cords, persuading you to walk its expanse in relative quiet. Conversation happened anyway, but acted as an intrusion, which Vllk punctuated often with scowls; as if these halls were somehow sacred. Consecrated.

Angel tried once more to phone Cordelia. Her number flashed up on the screen. He pressed the phone to his ear.

When it went to the automated answer machine, he ended the call, placing the phone back in his pocket.