Over the next few months, the Gang watched as Giles grew more desperate as one by one Watchers, friends of his, went silent as whoever was hunting them and the Potentials they were safeguarding died. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.

"We need to find a way to protect them! Maybe, if I have the Watchers bring them here, to Sunnydale, we can protect them."

"Giles, I've been thinking about this. We may be able to, at least for a while." Xander said. "We're gonna need space. So I propose we take over Crawford Mansion, that place Angelus was holed up at. It's huge, made of stone and defensible, like a castle. Amy and Tara can Ward it magically. Every Warding spell you can find, as long as they don't interfere with each other. This should buy us time, while we figure out who's after them."

"I know several Warding spells." Amy said.

"So do I." Tara added.

"I can help with supplies." Cordelia said. "Since I turned twenty one, I've had access to my trust fund. I haven't touched it, because Xander and I are doing fine financially, I've invested some of the money from the Air Force and it's doing well. But I can use the trust fund money to buy cots, blankets, etc."

"I can help with cooking." Joyce said. "But they need to clean up after themselves."

"I can hack the utility companies and get everything turned on." Willow offered.

"And once they're here, we can train them so they can protect themselves." Faith said. Buffy nodded in agreement.

Giles looked around, after all this time, you would think he would have stopped being amazed at these people's willingness to help or how quickly they could come up with a plan, but it seemed he still could be. Maybe he was still too firmly mired in the Council's insular ways.

"I'll start getting ahold of the ones I can immediately and tracing the rest using the Potential detector spell."

"Giles, make sure Willow has made sure you're using a secure phone line and use one of Tara's Warding crystals. Take every precaution." Xander warned.

"Good idea."

Later, when Xander and Cordelia were back in their apartment.

"I'm going to go out to the repository tomorrow. I have a few more ideas on how I can protect them, but I need information from the repository to do it. Are your parents still planning on going on their trip?"

"Yes, they don't know anything's wrong. Kari will be staying with us."

"Then I'll up the protections on our place, too. On everyone's actually."

A few weeks ago, Xander had accessed the repository and gained the knowledge of force fields and then had built several miniature devices and cloaks to hide them and then had hidden them. Willow and Tara, as well as Faith and Amy, all had apartments in the same building Xander and Cordelia did, which made hiding one in the basement easy. There was also one at the Summers' and another at Giles condo. Xander just wished he'd thought of it before Warren shot Cordelia and Joyce, and he'd been kicking himself because he should have. It hadn't been the first time they'd dealt with a human using guns after all. The assassin's from the Slayerfest and the Terrakan assassin had all used guns. Xander visited each site and upped the output of the shield generators. Aside from Cordelia, none of them knew that he'd place a tiny modulator on each of them that was no larger then a mole, but allowed them to pass thru the shield, without having to lower it. Now he added one to the Crawford Mansion.

He also revamped his uv laser. He narrowed the focus, which had the effect of concentrating it and extending it. It wasn't solid, not like a lightsaber, but it was still cool. Now it could hit a target at fifteen feet, instead of five, but it needed more then his little battery could give it, so he headed out to the repository to get an idea on a power source and got one. By the time the Potentials arrived in Sunnydale, Xander had twelve uv guns ready for use against vampires.

Unfortunately, before they could arrive, they ran into Warren again.

"You shouldn't have come back to Sunnydale, Warren." Xander said. "I should just do the world a favor and kill you."

"Oh but then, I'd miss the look of surprise on your faces when you see my present. I guarentee, it's a scream." He gestured off to the side and a very strange vampire appeared. The way it walked, kinda of reminded them of a gorilla or orangutan, it walked with bent legs.

"It's called a Turikhan. Oh by the way, Willow, I have a message from my Master for you. He said to say, thank you."

"Thank me? For what?"

"For opening the door and for showing him how to find the Potentials. If you hadn't magiced the Slayer back from the dead, it would never have been possible. He did send an announcement, scary little ghosty thing. You did get his announcement, didn't you?"

The Gang remembered the 'hitchhiker'.

The weird new vampire charged them and believing Buffy and Faith were the big threats backhanded them both back several feet. Like most vampires, it didn't consider humans a threat. Both it and Warren were very surprised when Xander pulled out his uv gun and for the first time ever, fired it at an actual vampire, instead of a practice target. It cut a hole straight thru the vampire's chest cavity and its withered heart. It was dust within seconds.

"No fair! I'm the inventor!" Warren yelled and being the coward he was, ran away.

"Well, looks like my latest invention works just fine." Xander was almost giddy. Buffy and Faith picked themselves up.

"What was that?!" Buffy exclaimed.

"My latest invention, a uv gun. Tonight was a test run."

"Vamp hunting has gone Hi-Tech." Was Faith's take on it.