It was about a week before Halloween that fall when Mason, Faith and Jesse were patrolling after Gabrielle's nightly chat with Xander and Cordelia that they stumbled over something different, very different.
"Is it my imagination or something glowing over there?" Faith pointed down an alleyway between two warehouses. The other two looked and then Mason shrugged.
"Could be a flashlight, some kids playing around, maybe dropped it. But we should check it out in case someone's hurt." He decided and led them down the alleyway to find the source of the light, which turned out to be a glowing ball, the glow was coming from inside it.
"Huh." He picked it up. "At first glance it looks like glass but it's so light, it's probably more like plastic. But what's making it glow? It's completely seamless, it looks like, so not battery powered."
"Some kind of toy?" Jesse suggested. "Gabrielle would probably get a kick out of it."
"Not until we're sure it's a toy." Faith protested. "For all we know that thing might be Magic. And it doesn't explain what it's doing in an alleyway in the warehouse district." The three of them headed out of the alleyway as Mason tucked the glowing ball in his pocket.
"I'll give it to Diana and let her do her thing, check it out. For all we know, it could be a toy, but Faith's right, we should check it to be sure."
The rest of that night's patrol proved quiet, like most of them had been in the last couple years, given vampires weren't given a chance to establish nests anymore and were destroyed on sight. Only a few other types of demons came to Sunnydale at all these days and only vampires were drawn to the Hellmouth anyway. Mason left the glowing ball with Diana, who promised to check it out and Faith and Jesse took the rest of the night off for a date after checking on a sleeping Gabrielle.
In one of those warehouses two men in robes studied a map of Sunnydale. "This is ridiculous." One of the men muttered. "We have no idea where she lives, all we know is she lives in Sunnydale and guards the Hellmouth. A map is not going to help us find her."
"No, but it will help us avoid demons. Especially that One's demons." The other man answered. "And they go everywhere with her." He held spell ingredients over the map as his companion did likewise, they dropped them together as the first man recited a spell and various areas of the map lit up.
"There's a good number of demons in this part of town." The first man pointed. "In fact, they seem to all be in the same building, that may be that One and her demon servants. There appears to be only be a few others, which is odd as I expected the town to have more vampires, with the Hellmouth here."
"It doesn't matter." The second man argued. "The important part is finding the Slayer and ensuring the Key is guarded. Where is she?"
"None of these numbers are fluctuating so she's not currently attacking any of these demons, it's possible some of them don't prey on humans and she's leaving them alone. If that's so, then it follows that they know where she could be found. But asking them is risky, they may simply be hiding from her. I think our best option is try these two here." He pointed at two different spots on the map. "Individuals, one of them may be the Slayer."
"I still can't believe what the Abbot told us about her." The second man muttered. "That those that created her used something striped from a demon. A force for good with something from a demon in her."
"It doesn't make her a demon." The first man reminded him. "She's human and destroys vampires and other demons to protect people. Whatever it was that was taken from a demon and used to create the Slayer in the first place, doesn't make her evil. And we need to find her and make sure the Key is safe."
A banging noise had them both looking up, alarmed, at the solid steel door at the other end of the room. "Its found us!" The first man whispered, terrified. "Here!" He shoved the map into the other man's hands. "Find the Slayer! Keep the Key safe! Go, brother! I have the Dagan's Sphere, I will follow when I can." The steel groaned as it warped from the force of the blows striking it, denting it. "Run!" He ordered and the second man scrambled for the stairs nearby and raced down them.
"It wasn't with it's demon servants." The second man muttered as he ran. "My brother -." He glanced back and shuddered, praying his brother escaped the creature. He held tight to the map and ran, determined to find the Slayer.
The first man dug into his pocket searching for the Dagan's Sphere and to his horror, realized it wasn't there as the door crashed in and a voice cheerfully said. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you. Now, where is my Key?"
"I will never tell."
"Oh, goodie, that means I get to torture you." The creature smiled happily and clapped its hands. Amazingly, it acted like a child at Christmas anticipating tearing into a mountain of presents. "I had to kill the rest of you so quickly because you were being so sneaky and you still managed to hide my Key. Naughty, naughty." The creature scolded the man. "And now here you are, being so accommodating. Don't worry about my Key. Sooner or later, I'll find it. Now it's playtime!"