"The Watcher has found a new prophecy to deal with." Xander announced to the group. "And I will not be getting a date with Buffy, I've been very firmly friend zoned."

"Yeah, that's cause you're no more her type then she is yours." Cordelia told him. "I overheard her and Willow talking. She's interested in Owen Thurman, apparently the fact that he could brood for forty minutes straight impresses her."

"Well, you've been doing a good job of keeping us up to date on what's going on in her group. Be supportive friend guy instead." Jessica said. "And what's this prophecy the Watcher found?"

"The Master may be trying a new tactic to escape. Apparently five people are going to die and one of them will return as a warrior vampire." Xander said. "The Watcher thinks he's figured out who it is and he and Buffy are going to stake out his grave, while the Watcher lectures her on the downside of dating as a Slayer."

"We could lecture you guys on the downside of dating while fighting a secret war and sneaking around behind your parents backs to make out in the pool house." Charles said. "I think that just makes it more exciting for you. It did for your mother and me when we were the teenagers fighting the secret war."

"Ew." Said all four of the teenagers present.

"He's not wrong." Tony added and got a glare from Xander.

"Cordelia, do you think you could try to distract Owen?" Madelyn asked. "He's an unknown and could cause problems."

"Yeah, I'll do what I can."

"Good. The Master is not a problem we need being active. And if the Slayer is distracted from her job she could screw things up badly for us. That may sound selfish, but both she and we have a bigger picture here that we have to consider." Jessica said. "And if the Slayer is distracted, I would prefer it be because we arranged for a distraction. There's so many balls in the air right now, one wrong move and our whole operation will come crashing down."

Unfortunately, Cordelia's first attempt to distract Owen at lunch the next day failed, but she had better success at the Bronze that evening getting him to dance with her. But that was probably because Buffy was in a graveyard with Giles watching over a grave that never produced a vampire, especially since Owen asked Buffy out again the next day.

"So the Watcher was wrong about who the warrior vampire would be. No one crawled out of the grave that they were watching last night." Xander reported. "But he did have a report of a bus crash outside of town where five passengers died. Including a violent religious nutjob, who was sprouting prophecies just before the crash."

"I heard about that." Charles said. "Someone at work was talking about it. There's a rumor, one that isn't being included in the news reports, that someone stepped in front of the bus, possibly deliberately."

"Which means one of those five could be this warrior vampire." Madelyn said. "What are the Watcher and Slayer doing about it?"

"Since there's five potential victims that could be this special vampire, Willow and I are going with Giles and Buffy to help out." Xander said. "So is Owen apparently, which is upsetting Giles."

"Well, my attempt to distract him didn't work so well. The best I got was a dance. I'm loosing my touch fooling around with Xander."

"Funny."

"I thought so."

Ignoring them, Charles said. "Let us know what happens and help if you can." Xander nodded.

The next night, immediately after Buffy's group visited the morgue.

"Well, the prophecy may have been about the religious nutjob after all." Xander told the group. "He rose while we were there. Owen got knocked out right at the beginning and Buffy got pissed and dumped the vamp in the furnace. When Owen came to, he thought it was really exciting that 'the weird guy' had attacked us. Today at school, he told Buffy that he loved the adrenaline rush. She broke up with him, she's afraid he's going to get himself killed dating her."

"Unfortunately, she's probably right." Jessica said. "And hopefully the nutjob was this vampire and the Master's latest attempt has been squashed. In the meantime, Johnathan has identified some vulnerabilities of the Mayor's and we're going to begin examining them and figuring out how to exploit or defeat them. Once we have plans we'll begin hitting those targets. If only we didn't have to keep dealing with all these other things."

"We knew having a Slayer here was going to be a mixed bag. They're a magnet for vampires and demons because it helps them do their job, but that also means more humans around them are vulnerable." Charles said. "All we can do is try to put out the fires as they happen. The Mayor is the big threat. He has been for over a century. The Watchers have ignored Sunnydale and the problems here from the beginning. Preempting them and getting the Summers' to move here was difficult enough. The Slayer may bring more problems, but she can also solve more problems. The Mayor's benefactors included a number of demons that are just too big for us to handle. But not too big for the Slayer. We stay on point, we adjust as needed. We still have time."

"Agreed." Said Tony. The others did as well.

"Well, we should call it a night. Tomorrow might be a light day, because we're taking a field trip to the zoo, but that doesn't mean something won't go wrong." Xander said.

After agreeing, everyone headed to their homes for the night. Xander should have remembered that taunting Murphy, just makes Murphy want to have a giggle.