Faith had never seen this vamp before, but she knew who he was. 

 

The Reveal Spell connected her and Buffy in more than one way.  Buffy’s terror was becoming her own.  Faith couldn’t actually read Buffy’s mind, but Faith knew who they were dealing with.

 

The Master.

 

Faith swore silently to herself.  This was so not going to end well. 

 

“So you two are old friends?” Faith asked, moving closer to where Buffy stood and taking on an almost protective stance.

 

“You could say that,” Buffy said, her eyes never wavering from the vamp.

 

“The slayer and I go way back.  I tasted her once.”  He closed his eyes, savoring the memory.  ”It was quite a rush then and it will be quite a rush now when I taste you both.”

 

“Won’t happen," Buffy said.

 

“I’m kind of with, B.  Been part of that whole bloodsucker-taking-a-little-nip-thing.  Not one of my faves,” Faith retorted.  She was trying to stall and buy them both some time so she could come up with something, anything.  She hoped she sounded calm, because on the inside she was terrified.  “What I don’t get,” Faith continued, “is why all you old guys keep coming back.  Why can’t you just stay dead?  Doesn’t seem very fair that we kill you and you come back.  Doesn’t that sound, well, just wrong to you?”

 

Buffy looked at her questioningly.

 

Damn!  B didn’t know about Cooper and The Old One.  Faith had never told her what happened.  Faith wondered if Buffy knew now.  She herself had sensed The Master.  Did Buffy sense The Old One?

 

The Master laughed.  “You have a sharp wit.  Too bad it won’t save either of you.”  He walked towards her.  “You are the other slayer.” 

 

“The Other slayer?” 

 

Faith and Buffy involuntarily tried to take a step back, running instead into a wall of vamps.

 

“I should be thanking you.  If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here today,” he said, stroking Faith’s cheek with a long, talon-like fingernail.

 

Faith touched her check and felt blood on her fingers. “Thank me?  Thinking you’re a little off on that one old man.  I’ve never even met you.”  She held up her fingers.   “And thanks for the souvenir.”

 

“That’s the pure wonder and greatness of this all.  You see,” he began, sitting on the edge of the library table, “prophecies are wonderful things.”  The Master motioned to his fledglings.  Before either slayer could protest, they were slammed into chairs and were now were even more his captive audience.  The Master turned to Buffy.  “Slayer, did you know there was more to the one that made us so close?”

 

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

 

“This is where it gets to be so much fun,” he said, rubbing his hands together.  “But you will need to keep up… I won’t be repeating myself.”

 

He glanced at Faith.  “Reyal’s Rellik.”

 

Faith’s heart stopped in her chest.  What did that have to do with any of this?  Cooper?  The Old One?  They were tied to this?  How could that be possible?  Shit!  If she had learned anything, she had learned that it was not only possible - it was probable.

 

“I can see you’re as excited as I am,” he said, getting up and pacing around the table.  “I can hear your blood pumping through your veins.”

 

Faith was getting even more nervous and it didn’t help when she took a quick glance at Buffy.  She sat there, watching his every move, but not saying anything.  She felt Buffy’s terror and not much else.  B needed to get a grip.

 

“Everything worked out perfectly.  The First.  The hellmouth.  The Old One.  Both slayers here.  It’s more than a master vampire could ask for,” he said, settling himself back down on the table.

 

“Are you going to keep babbling or are you going to tell us what in the hell you’re talking about?”  Faith’s patience was growing thin.

 

“Silence!”  His smiled faded.  “You keep interrupting me… I might do something you’d regret… even sooner.”

 

Faith believed him.

 

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I should probably thank both my slayers.”  He turned to Buffy.  “But don’t worry, you will always be my favorite.”

 

Next to her, Buffy tried to get up.  She didn’t make it even an inch off her chair before the two vamps standing behind her slammed her back down.

 

The Master stood again.  “'The Master will rise!’ And I did… if only briefly.  I killed a certain slayer and she had the nerve to come back and kill me.  And there you have slayer number one.”  The Master paused, his hand moving as if savoring the bouquet of a fine wine.  “Slayer number one and slayer number two, they took out the entire hellmouth with a little help from their friends.” He looked around.  “Where are they all now?  Scattered like dust to the wind I suppose.”

 

If looks could stake, he would’ve been dust.

 

“Slayer number two was having her own problems.  There was another part of the prophecy.  The ‘marked slayer’s’ blood could raise an Old One, the one who made me so many, many years ago. But slayer number two killed him.  And this is where it gets fun.” 

 

The Master motioned once again.  Buffy and Faith were both ripped from their chairs and forced to their feet.  The Master snapped his fingers and the entire library disappeared. 

 

The glamour was no more.  Sunnydale was gone.

 

They were standing in total darkness; in the middle of nowhere; surrounded by vampires and they both were being pushed back into the hellmouth.

 

XXXXX

 

Buffy hadn’t believed it was The Master.  She thought it might actually be The First somehow coming back for them.  But that idea was quickly banished with when it scratched Faith. 

 

The Master was corporeal.  The First wasn’t.

 

The Master was back and it had something to do with her and Faith.  She looked at Faith.  Buffy wondered what she hadn’t told her.  Bloodletting ritual? The Old One?  Did Spike know about it?  Spike.  That’s why she hadn’t told her.  Spike must’ve had something to do with it too.  And probably Angel.  She was missing out on a lot of what happened the past few months.  She suspected that she didn’t want to confirm most of it.

 

Faith, on the other hand, seemed to be holding up pretty well.  Buffy couldn’t feel her anymore.  Their connection had stopped as soon as The Master snapped his fingers.  No glamour, no need for a reveal spell, now was there?

 

Stupid spell.

 

Buffy just wished she knew what he was up to.  She shuddered at the thought; whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.  She needed to come up with something fast.  Too bad the terror she was feeling blocked out any good ideas.

 

She couldn’t see very well either.  Buffy knew they were being led down a tunnel or a cave by the incline.  Even if they could see something, there wouldn’t be much to look at.  Occasionally she or Faith would stumble over a rock or a loose pile of dirt.  Faith’s favorite word flew out of her mouth whenever she tripped, but that was okay because if Buffy could hear Faith, then she was close by.

 

The further down they went, the better she could see.  That was odd.  She would think it would be getting darker.  When The Master had first snapped his fingers, there had been nothing but blackness.  A blackness that seeped into her bones, a blackness that left her terrified on the inside. 

 

The terror she now recalled from her dreams.

 

But what was with the light?  Where was he taking them?  Around the next turn, they were out in the open, well if you called a big cavern in the middle of the hellmouth out in the open.  Candles were providing the light. 

 

Why did it always have to be candles?

 

“We’re in the hellmouth.” Faith said.

 

“Yep.”

 

“Figures.”

 

They were pushed into the center of the room, which wasn’t as large as Buffy first thought.  There were caves and pathways branching out in all different directions.  This place could go on forever for all she knew – just like the sewers of Sunnydale used to.

 

“There,” The Master commanded. 

 

A small group of his underlings dragged Faith and Buffy to a cage that was set up in the middle of the cavern.

 

“I am so not going in there,” Faith said.

 

“You have a choice?” The Master asked.

 

Faith had stopped and dug her heels into the soft dirt, doing her best to try and stall their imprisonment.  She actually got a few good licks in before they contained her.  A group of five demons hoisted her over their head and threw her into the cage.

 

She landed head first with a hard thud and she didn’t move.

 

“Faith!” Buffy cried, breaking free from the demons and rushing in to check on her.  Buffy couldn’t chance both of them getting hurt. They were outnumbered and Buffy knew she had no choice; she was going to end up in the cage one way or another.  Might as well make it of her own free will and in one piece.

 

Buffy cradled Faith’s head in her lap.  “Faith?” she said, patting her cheek lightly.  Faith’s head stirred under her hand.  Her eyes fluttered open.

 

“Fuck!” she said sitting up slowly, her hand going to the back of her head and noticing the blood on her fingers.  “I really hate you guys.  I mean I really hate you guys,” she screamed.

 

“You okay?” Buffy asked, noticing the blood Faith had left on her clothes.

 

“I’m fine,” she said.  Then she turned and looked at the vamps that had gathered around the cage.  “A little pissed off, but I’m fine.”  She turned to Buffy and said quietly, “I am sooo getting sick of this shit.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“Ladies.”

 

Both slayers turned their heads.  The Master had taken up residence in a chair.  Dressed in black, a wineglass in his hand - Buffy didn’t need to ask what he was drinking - he definitely had the role of master vampire well rehearsed. 

 

“Nice throne you got there,” she said without really thinking.  Her fear was subsiding; now she was just getting pissed off.

 

“It would appear nice, wouldn’t it,” he said, caressing the arm of the chair.  “There’s so much more, and thanks to the two of you, I’ll be able to enjoy most of it.”  The Master paused to take a sip.  “It was all destined.  My rise, my fall, the slayer’s death, the hellmouth and two true slayers.  Not those children running around calling themselves slayers.” 

 

"It was having two slayers that created an imbalance.  Just what I needed.  Just what I was waiting for.  I felt it, you know?  When the hellmouth fell.  There was just one piece left to play.  So I sent Cooper to look for our lovely slayer number two.  Of course he didn’t know the plan was supposed to fail.  It had to fail, so I could come back.”

 

"If this is supposed to help us understand why we’re all handy, not helping.  Kind of making my head achy though,” Buffy said.

 

“If you sent Cooper, then you were already back,” Faith pointed out.  “Need some time to polish up that story a little there pal?”

 

The Master only laughed.  “I am enjoying this more than I thought I would.”

 

“Whatever we can do to help,” Buffy said.  “Cliff note version.  Now there’s an idea,” she said glancing at Faith.

 

“If slayer number two wouldn’t have killed The Old One, my maker, then I wouldn’t be here,” The Master said matter-of-factly.

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Faith asked.

 

“My dear, the prophecy.  I already said it was destined.  Try to keep up, will you?”

 

“You are so lucky I’m in a cage right now,” Faith shot back.

 

“The existence of two true slayers would create an imbalance.  The last called slayer would wreak havoc on an Old One, thus allowing ‘The Master of All Vampires’ to rise again.  The destruction of the hellmouth brought my physical form back.  The slaying of The Old One brought my strength back.  Killing the two slayers responsible for all of this wonderful bliss will once and for all release me from this prison.”  The last part he shouted almost gleefully.

 

“God, enough of the gloating already,” Faith said, pushing herself up off the bottom of the cage.  “Is that part of the plan?  Boring us to death?”

 

“Faith…” Buffy warned.  She could hear that the mocking tone had left Faith’s voice and pure anger had replaced it.

 

“I don’t care, B.  He’s been sitting up there yakking,” Faith said, her hands snapping open and shut like angry puppets.  “He doesn’t shut up, I might just off myself to get some peace.”  Faith glared at her and then laughed humorlessly.  “Oh please, Buffy.  Don’t look so surprised.  Not bad enough I’ve had to live in your shadow for years, slayer number two my ass.  I’ve always been better than you.  Not my fault no one ever noticed.  Now I’m the unwilling lackey, a pawn to bring ugly back.  Not the way this slayer wants to live anymore.  I’m my own master, not him.  I’m the one that gets to say when I’m done, no one else.  Get it?  Shit happens B.  You of all people should know that.”

 

Buffy was shocked.  She knew Faith had issues.  Who didn’t?  But killing herself?  Was she serious?  “And give up just like that?”  Buffy demanded, standing up and facing her.  “I thought you were stronger than that.  You’re done already?  A little trouble and Faith is ready to take off again, this time for good.  I was stupid to think you had changed.”

 

“You’re just figuring out now how stupid you are, B?  I could’ve told you that a long time ago,” Faith spat.

 

Buffy didn’t think, she reacted, and once again punched Faith in the face.

 

Faith only smiled.  This time she punched her back… twice.

 

Before Buffy knew what was happening, she and Faith were having an all out brawl in the small cage. 

 

“Enough!” The Master yelled.

 

Buffy stopped.  Faith didn’t.  She was coming at her yet again.  “What is your problem?” she shouted, as Faith rammed her hard into the side of the cage.  She tried to get the other slayer to stop.  If they were going to die, it sure in hell shouldn’t be by each other’s hand. 

 

“Stop her,” The Master yelled again.

 

The cage door was yanked open and with some difficulty two underlings dragged Faith out.  They stopped once they got her out of the cage, looking expectantly at The Master.

 

“This will not work if they kill each other.  I need them both alive.  Take her.  Take her somewhere and contain her.  I will not have this.  I will not have this at all.”

 

One of the fledglings holding Faith spoke, asking, “Where should we take her?  We only have one cage.”

 

“Idiot!”  The Master yelled.  “Chains.  We have chains.  Take her somewhere and chain her up.”

 

They began dragging Faith away.  Buffy stared at her, trying to figure out what had just happened.  Faith’s hair covered her face, making her expression impossible to read. 

 

Just as they started down one of the paths, Faith shook her head, clearing some of the hair out of her face.  She glanced around, her gaze settling on Buffy… and winked at her. 

 

Faith winked at her.

 

XXXXX