June 2000

Writer: Nick Bryan

Buffy	Xander	Willow	Giles
Spike	Riley	Anya	Walsh
Oz	Graham	Cordelia	Wesley
	Faith

Oz woke up slowly and looked up from where he was, curled up in the corner of his cell. He glanced around and saw that his cell was still featureless and white. Then he noticed the people watching him, and immediately slumped back down.

Professor Walsh barked the command through the microphone to Oz's cell from where she was standing outside.

"I repeat, what is your name?"

She watched him for a few seconds on the off chance that he might answer then sighed and looked around.

"Gentlemen, I think our new hostile is not going to say anything without persuasion. He has refused to say a word since we captured him a week ago."

One of her fellow scientists looked at his clipboard.

"Do we know anything about him?"

"Well, we know that his name is Daniel Osbourne, based on my teaching, but other than that, nothing. Apart, or course, from the fact that he is a werewolf."

Riley Finn stared expressionlessly at Oz as Walsh turned to him.

"How about you, Riley? Are you familiar with our new friend?"

"No Ma'am. I've never seen him before."

"Excellent," murmured Walsh, before speaking to Riley again. "Dismissed, Agent."

"Thank you ma'am." Riley snapped a salute before leaving.

As Walsh and the scientists moved along to their next cell, one of them spoke to her.

"Professor, may I just ask why it is 'Excellent' that Riley does not know anything about Mr Osbourne?"

Walsh replied, without looking at him. "Because I wiped that knowledge from his mind. Which reminds me, I must increase the dosages on those neurological blunting drugs."

She made a note of this, then addressed all the scientists regarding their next subject.

"This is a chaos demon. Code-named Mark, we captured it in the Bronze club last week, at about the same time that the previous subject was apprehended."

As the scientists moved closer to observe it, Mark woke from its slumber. In a heartbeat, it rose and began to pound against the glass.

"As you can see," Walsh continued without missing a beat, "unlike our previous subject, this one has no problem expressing itself."

And she smiled slightly at her own joke.

Cordelia drove down the highway into Sunnydale. It was dark and no-one else was around. Wesley was in the seat next to her, fast asleep. She had been silently driving for an hour now, and it was getting to her. She gently nudged Wesley to wake him up. He shifted slightly, but remained asleep.

Cordelia sighed and reached down to the car radio. She pushed the volume up to maximum then turned it on.

The Backstreet Boys blasted out of the speakers at eardrum shattering voulmes, and Wesley awoke with a start.

"WHAT THE???"

Then he saw the radio and looked questioningly at Cordelia.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You were asleep. I was bored."

Wesley sighed and leant back in his seat for the rest of the journey, being careful to remain awake. Neither of them said a single word to the other until they reached their destination.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Episode Three:

"Prisoners"

Featuring:
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Nicholas Brendon
Alyson Hannigan
James Marsters
Emma Caulfield
Marc Blucas
AND Anthony Stewart Head as Giles

GUEST STARRING:
Seth Green as Oz
Bailey Chase as Graham
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia
Alexis Denisof as Wesley
AND Eliza Dushku as Faith

Buffy walked into Giles' apartment after being let in by Xander.

"So, Xand, how're you settling in?"

"Oh, not bad, Giles has been his normal accommodating self, though my room-mate has a few annoying habits."

"Such as?"

"Drinking blood and leaving demon body parts all over the floor."

Spike came through from the bathroom.

"At least I don't snore. Morning Slayer."

Buffy acknowledged him with a nod. "You can't snore, Spike. You don't breathe. Anyway, this isn't a social call."

"Never is...." muttered Xander.

"What?"

"Nothing. Carry on."

"Okay. Right, so........." she paused momentarily and carried on, "you know I met Oz the other day at the Bronze?"

"Yeah, has he made up with Willow yet? Because I haven't seen her for ages, and I assumed she'd made up with Oz and they were off...........doing stuff."

"No, and I haven't seen him since that one time at the Bronze last week."

Xander sat down. "You think he's gone again?"

"I don't think he would. He seemed really genuine. I'm worried something's happened to him."

"Personally, I don't know if I'll ever really be able to trust him again."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Considering what he did is pretty similar to what you and Willow did to him once, I'd think you could afford to be more sympathetic."

Xander shot her a scowl and she dropped the line of argument. A short silence fell, then Xander asked a question. "Does Willow know he's back?"

Buffy shook her head.

"Should we tell her?"

The Slayer pondered this. "I don't think so. She's doing the brave face thing,and she is getting better, but she's still hurting. A lot."

Xander nodded. Before he could said anything, Spike looked up from his cup of blood.

"Want me to track him down? Since it's you, I'll reduce my usual fee."

Buffy looked over to the vampire. "Thanks a lot Spike, but we'll find him ourselves."

"Suit yourself dear." Spike grabbed his jacket and weapons, then left for his bounty hunt.

Xander and Buffy watched him go, then turned back to their conversation.

"So what do we do about Willow?" Xander finaly asked.

Buffy shrugged. "Just hope for the best."

Cordelia and Wesley pulled up at the USC Sunnydale campus, then wandered into reception.

"Good morning, we were wondering if we could speak to some of your students?" Wesley asked the receptionist politely.

"Certainly sir. There's some over there."

Cordelia pushed past Wesley. "Look buddy, I didn't drive all this way to revel in your sparkling wit. Just tell me where Willow Rosenberg lives and we can all resume our happy normal lives."

The receptionist leant over to his computer, muttering "Well, some of us can..." as he did so.

After a short interlude of key tapping, he turned back to the visitors.

"Okay, third block that way on the left. If you get lost, look on the nice green signs."

With that, he returned to his book.

Cordelia snatched the book from him.

"Look, we can read! My friend here nearly made a career from it. Until he was fired."

"Actually, I quit.........." Wesley faltered.

"SHUT UP!" Cordelia ordered him forcefully.

Ignoring the receptionist's triumphant smile, they left to find Willow.

As soon as Professor Walsh finished her lecture, the chairs immediately started scraping as students left the hall. Riley and another guy, about Riley's height with dark brown hair, came over to Buffy.

"Hi Buffy."

She smiled. "Hey Riley."

Riley indicated his friend. "So, Buffy, Willow, this is Graham."

Buffy smiled at him as well. "Nice to meet you Graham."

"Uh-huh." Willow acknowledged Graham with a small nod. Buffy elbowed her, and she snapped out of it.

"Sorry!" Her normal smile crossed her face. "Hi Graham."

And without anything else, she wandered off. Graham watched her go, then turned to Buffy.

"What's up with Willow?"

Riley was looking equally bemused. "Yeah. Is something wrong?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow and looked at Riley incredulously.

"Well..........could it be that her boyfriend just ran off and left her?"

"Boyfriend?" Riley still looked confused.

Buffy was now also quite confused by Riley's apparent ignorance. "Yes. Oz. The guy I was talking to in the club last week?"

Riley rubbed his forehead. "I can't remember him at all. Did I have any classes with him."

"Yes! This one! He played guitar in Dingos Ate My Baby. You knew him. Sort of."

Graham had been watching all this, and only spoke now. "I think I remember him."

Riley shook his head. "I'm getting a bit of a headache. I think I'll go lie down. See you Buffy." She waved a bit and he went off to his dorm. Buffy watched him go, a little concerned.

"I think I may go too, as it's getting painfully uncomfortable...." Graham muttered awkwardly.

Buffy smiled distractedly to him. "Yeah. Seeya."

So he went, leaving Buffy on her own.

Willow was lying on her bed. She wasn't doing very much. She'd bought a new frame and put the photo of Oz back in it, to prove she didn't need to carry it around to mope over anymore. She felt she was getting better. Maybe she could even go out dancing with Xander tonight. She brightened a bit at the thought of possibly going out with her friends for some fun. Then there was a knock at the door.

She answered it and found a couple of very unexpected visitors on her doorstep.

"Cordelia! Wesley! What are you doing here?"

"We came to see you?"

"Yeah......." Willow thought for a second. "Are you sure you don't want Buffy? Because my slaying skills really are a bit rusty."

"No, we're not here for slaying. We need your witchy help."

Willow felt happier. "Really? What does Angel want? Is he here?"

"No, Angel couldn't make it. He wasn't around" Wesley explained

"He's your boss. Aren't you worried?"

"Oh, he's probably just found a really good brooding spot." Cordelia leapt in to inform them. "Anyway, we need your help solving a mystery."

"It wouldn't in some way involve you would it?" Willow inquired.

"Yeah. It's about these weird visions of people in danger that I sometimes have."

"You have weird visions?"

"Oh, it's a new thing. I wouldn't expect you to know."

Willow sat back down on her bed. "Right. And you need me why?"

"Well, we think Faith is invading my visions. So we need you to come with us to the hospital bed and use your magic to see if she is messing around in my mind."

Willow nodded. "Okay." Then she was struck by a thought. "Hey! Do you want to go and see the others? They'll be really happen to see you. Well, mostly. Except maybe Giles. And Anya. And possibly Xander if he's in a bad mood. And.........."

"Willow, STOP!" Cordelia finaly shouted. "Okay. We'll go and meet Buffy's little gang after we've solved my problem, okay?"

Willow smiled and nodded a bit meekly. "Right."

Xander lay on the sofa in the apartment not really watching TV when there was yet another knock at the door. This time it was Anya. After a lingering kiss, they lay down together on the sofa. Nothing happened. Xander was deep in thought. After about five seconds of silent reflection, Anya was bored.

"Are we going to do stuff now? Because this silent mediatation thing isn't pushing my buttons."

Xander snapped out of it again. "Oh, sorry. Just thinking about the whole Willow and Oz thing. My personal double standards and what Buffy said earlier."

Anya was confused. "What does your double standards have to do with Willow?"

"Well, y'know, Willow kinda cheated on Oz with me, and now I'm really pissed at him for doing more-or-less the same. Should I be?"

Anya, however, stopped listening at "and now". "Yes. You did. So what?"

"Well, it makes me a bad person doesn't it? That I have it in me to do stuff like that."

"Well, it makes you the same as the rest of the men on this.........." she paused, "Did you say 'have it in me'?"

Xander realised. "No! No! I HAD it! Not any more!"

Anya had already sprung up and was now half way across the room. "No! I didn't learn nothing from centuries of watching men straying!" She was starting to get red-faced. "It's going to happen isn't it?" She couldn't go much longer without crying, so she half-ran to the door.

As Xander reached the door, it slammed in his face. He accepted defeat and slumped into the sofa again, more depressed than ever.

As he tried to work out exactly what he'd done, Spike came over and sat down next to him. Xander cut in before he even spoke. "If you offer to make it alright again for a small fee, you're dead."

Spike pondered this. "Oh. Okay then."

Then he got up again and left.

There was a knock on another door. Riley rolled out of bed and opened the door.

"Hi Buffy."

"Hey."

As Riley staggered back to the bed, Buffy came in and shut the door.

"So, are you feeling better?"

Riley nodded slowly. "A bit. This Oz guy....I can't remember him at all though. Can't even picture him."

This still worried Buffy. "But you met him. I told you about him the other day. He used to play guitar for Dingos Ate My Baby."

This Riley knew. "Oh, I like them. They're good. But the guitarist is hazy."

Buffy was getting pretty worried at this. "Riley, maybe you should get more sleep, okay? I'll see you tomorrow."

Riley silently agreed, and Buffy left, getting more and more worried.

Cordelia, Wesley and Willow stood over Faith's hospital bed. All her equipment had regular readings.

"It's odd." Wesley observed, "In LA, Cordelia was having these visions so often it was disrupting her life. It was quite frightening. But it seems the closer we get to Faith the less frequent they are."

"But doesn't that change indicate you're getting closer to the source, if it's changing?" Willow pointed out.

"Maybe," Wesley acknowledged, "or maybe we're getting further away from it."

"Oh shut up." Cordelia protested. "I didn't come all this way to have my hopes crushed."

And as she spoke, she fell into another vision. She collapsed on the floor. A nurse who was outside saw this and called doctors over. Wesley stopped them as they started to put Cordelia on a cart.

"Don't! Look, she does this. It'll be fine in a minute."

As if on cue, Cordelia springs back up.

"Wh..........why are there people crowding? Does my hair look alright?"

"Um..........fine." Willow reassured her.

Cordelia sighed with relief then yanked the nurse's hand off her.

"Ew! Get off! I don't do that!"

That caused the nurses to leave. A doctor came up to Cordelia.

"Look, madam, this fit you had, is it a common occurrence?"

"Yes. But I'm taking something for it."

"Really? What?"

"No idea. Now go away." She proceeded to ignore the doctor completely. After five minutes he took the hint and left.

"Right. Okay Will, do your magic and find out what's happening. And quickly, that was bad one."

"Why, what happened?" Wesley asked as he pulled out his notebook.

"The knife again. Stabbing me a lot in the chest."

"Ah."

Willow was confused now. "What knife?"

"Faith's fancy knife keeps appearing in the visions."

"Oh."

She dropped it and sat down in the corner of the room, trying to concentrate, to see if there was any magical presence at work here.

Oz was still sitting his cell in the Initiative. He had barely moved. At that point, a piece of meat dropped into the cell from the roof. He grabbed it and pulled it over to the corner where he slouched. He sniffed it. It didn't smell drugged, so he stated to eat it.

Professor Walsh was at the control panel.

"Right. The wolf is distracted. Mark, the chaos demon, is asleep. Start the process."

There was a tapping of keys around the Initiative control room. The security fields started to crumble away. In a matter of seconds, they would be re-established. Unfortunately, Mark sensed it. Walsh saw him waking up on the monitor, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. He lunged at his cell wall and smashed it away with three blows. Walsh ordered security down there. The fight that resulted was short and bloody. One of them tried to tag him with electricity. The demon had used his power to surround his body in insulation, to avoid being defeated the same way as last time. He pounded over to the man with the electrical blaster and swung a massive round punch at him. The solider was smashed to the other end of the corridor, his neck snapping as he hit the wall. The punch continued on, thudding into the Oz's cell door. Walsh tried to re-establish control, but Oz, moving faster than she expected after his almost total lack of mobility since he was taken prisoner, raced through the hole and followed Mark out through the devastated security.

Walsh only had one measure in place she might be able to use to stop him. A special light shone through the corridor. It was in theory a duplication of the light that emanates from a full moon. It should trigger Oz's transformation. And it almost did. Oz collapsed, convulsing. As security closed in on him, the moonlight was still shining from the lamp. When the men got too close, Oz slashed at them with his hand, making a growling sound. Walsh hadn't expected this. She hit a few buttons to make the light more intense, but still the bodily transformation didn't occur. He was currently a wolf in mind only. Clearly her lamp wasn't as pure moonlight as she had thought.

Instinctively he raced out of the complex, still following the trail of destruction left behind by the chaos demon.

Buffy entered Giles' apartment, still deep in thought about Riley. Giles sensed she didn't seem to be all there.

"Is there something on your mind?"

Buffy replied in a somewhat confused fashion. "Not really sure. It's Riley, he seems to be having problems with stuff."

Giles was now confused as well. "What stuff?"

"Well, like he didn't know who Oz was. At all."

"That is strange. Speking of Oz, have you seen him again since........"

"No. And that's worrying me too." She noted the emptiness of the apartment. "Where are your tenants?"

Giles shrugged. "Xander is picking up more of his stuff from his old basement and Spike's probably off killing demons for money."

No sooner had he said this, when Spike dashed back in, looking like he had been running all the way.

"What's up Spike?" Buffy asked, with no sign of actual concern.

"It's that chaos demon. The one we captured and those commandos took. He's bloody loose again."

"What?" Buffy sprang to her feet. "Okay, this time I kill it."

As Buffy prepared to head out on a hunt, the Initiative were also readying themselves. Riley, Forrest and the other commandos had been called in.

Walsh was delivering an inspirational lecture.

"Okay, the chaos demon is free in Sunnydale. I want it tracked down and recaptured, understood."

A chorus of "Yes Ma'am".

"Excellent. Arm up and move out."

In Faith's hospital room, Willow had been in a trance for a good ten minutes.

"What if she's dead?" Cordelia suggested to Wesley.

"No, she has a pulse." Welsy muttered.

"Oh. But how do you........"

Before she could nit-pick Wesley's no-hands pulse checking technique, Willow suddenly took a few quick breathes and woke straight up.

"Willow! What did you see?"

Wesley gave Cordelia a 'calm-down' look, before going over to Willow. "Are you okay?"

Willow nodded. "Fine. Saw something weird though."

"What? What?" Cordelia had yet to calm down.

"Well........something was projecting Faith's thoughts, but not to Cordelia's head. It was taking them away. As far as I could tell, away from Sunnydale all together."

Wesley was writing down almost every word.

"And something was going into Cordelia's head, but I couldn't tell whether that was Faith's thoughts or something else entirely. Anyway, I cut the line from Faith. That might restore your link to the Powers That Be or whatever."

"Thanks a lot Willow." Wesley shook her hand.

"No problem. Now shall we go and meet the others?"

"No! We need to return to LA and have a party! Don't we Wesley? We have to find Angel!"

"We'd love to Willow." Wesley assured her.

"Traitor." Cordelia grumbled.

Buffy stalked through the campus, on guard for any monsters. Then she muttered to someone behind her.

"Hurry up! This is your fault, so you'd better help me."

Spike ran slightly faster. "Fine, fine. Make me do something this suicidal if it makes you happy dear."

"Thanks, I will." Buffy muttered to him, before returning to her silent hunting and gesturing Spike to shut up.

Meanwhile, Xander and Giles were doing non-fighting recon. They were checking to see if the demon was anywhere in sight.

"I can't see the demon anywhere." Xander concluded.

"Keep looking then."

"Fine."

They turned a corner and were confronted with something different.

Oz had been moving through the campus for about an hour before the effect of the light wore off. He fell down, stayed there, and tried to work out what to do next. Something that sprang into his mind was that there was a full moon approaching, He couldn't remember what night it was, or what night it was now. He had lost track of time a but during his time with the Initiative. He decided that maybe it was time to tell Willow he was back. He tried to get up but had difficulty. Clearly the lack of movement and food over the last week had caused some problems for his non-wolfy side. He should he brought that meat with him. He lay down and wondered if he could eat the grass to provide the necessary nutrients.

The Initiative commandos pointed all their guns at Xander and Giles. The victims immediately put their hands up.

"We surrender!"

Riley recognised them. He decided not to speak in case they recognised him. He simply gestured that the commandos move on. Walsh advised him to simply ignore the civilians.

Xander turned to Giles and announced "I think they're on the case. Let's go."

Giles decided not to disagree.

Buffy's hunt was going better. They prowled the outskirts and were confronted with a rather annoyed looking demon. Now they just had to decide how to beat it. The fight lasted quite a while.

Buffy waved Spike away and attacked the demon herself. The armour on its skin was thick enough to render her blows impotent. The sounds brought the team of commandos running. When she realised the commandos were coming towards the battle, Buffy pulled the hood of her sweater over her face to stop them seeing who she was.

Spike hung back and waited for a good moment. Then he decided that he probably wouldn't get a good moment unless he brought it about. He started kicking at a nearby tree.

At this point, the demon was under heavy attack by the guns of the commandos and the blows of the slayer, who was also throwing any weapons she could find. However, the demon was developing a resistance to all the attacks thrown at it.

The tree was being uprooted by the impact of Spike's punches. Finally it started to tilt after a good minute of constant attack. The vampire grabbed the slayer by the back of her sweater and yanked her away as he kicked the tree onto the demon's head. He passed Buffy a small knife from his pocket, and she started the difficult and rather lengthy process of removing its head. It took a while, as despite being immobilised, it kept developing thicker neck armour. Eventually the knife broke and she started using tree branches. It did eventually die. When she looked up, Spike had run away, and there were about twelve commandos pointing tranquilliser guns at her.

Xander and Giles arrived home to find there was someone already there.

"Anya. Hi."

"Xander." She gave Giles a piercing stare, which he eventually realised was his cue to leave.

"Okay. Look, I'm sorry for saying 'have' instead of 'had'."

"I'm sorry for getting angry for no reason."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

They kissed, and even Giles, who did not regard their relationship as one of the all-time great ones, couldn't help but smile.

Buffy leapt. The darts missed. The commandos scattered, and after a short pause to pull her hood on especially tight, she swung down and took wild kicks at the group of soldiers. She hit one, who was pushed back hard into a tree, which in turn knocked him out. She disarmed another, and the commandos decided that maybe enough was enough. This was helped by Walsh screaming, "Fall back!" into their ear-pieces.

So they did retreat, and Buffy went over to the still body of the unconscious commando. She yanked his mask off and was shocked by what she saw underneath.

Spike, Xander, Anya and Giles were watching TV, in a vague picture of house harmony. There was a knock at the door, which Giles went to get, allowing Spike to lie down and take up the whole sofa.

At the door were Willow, Cordelia and Wesley.

"Hi! These guys came to visit."

"Oh." Giles was lost for words. "Well, lovely to see you. Please come in. Nice to see you again Wesley........I thought you left the council."

"I did. I'm a rogue demon hunter now."

Giles just stopped himself from smirking. Xander did not refrain from laughing out loud.

Wesley chose to ignore them. Then Cordelia decided enough was enough. "Well, lovely to see you all again, bye now."

She was blocked by Willow's arm. She sighed and went to be sociable.

"Xander. Great to see you..........yeah. And this is Anya?"

"Yeah. Hello."

Anya extended a hand to Cordelia who shook it with some uncertainty. Then Spike got up from the sofa. This got a stronger reaction.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

"What's wrong?"

"That's Spike! He's evil! I know you needed a vampire on the team after Angel left, but I think you made a little mistake there....."

"No, he's been sterilised. He can't hurt anyone." Willow informed her.

"He's been...........ha!" Cordelia laughed.

"Hey! Enough from you!" Spike protested.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So where's the mighty slayer?"

Giles shrugged. "Not sure."

"Alright then. Good to see the Watcher still in control."

Wesley nearly laughed himself at this.

At this point conversation paused. Finally, Cordelia decided it actually was time to leave now.

"Okay then. Lovely seeing you all. Bye."

This time, Willow didn't protest. Xander did. He got up from the sofa.

"Actually, Cordelia, could I talk to you for a minute?"

She looked annoyed. "What?"

"Just in here. Won't take long." He indicated his room.

She sighed. "Fine, fine. But don't expect much."

They went into Xander's room, leaving Anya wondering just what was going on.

Oz was lying in the same place. The sun went down long ago, and he was hungry. But he wasn't sure what exactly he could do.

Buffy dragged Graham down to Oz's old cage. She took all the weapons out of his Initiative uniform and threw him behind bars, locking to door. He remained unconscious. She took one look back at him, then went back up to her dorm.

Cordelia and Xander were sitting on the bed in his room in complete silence.

Cordelia broke it.

"So did you drag me in here for a reason?"

"Yeah, I...........well, I thought things ended kinda badly before you went off to LA. So I wanted to talk."

"I know. But if it's any consolation, I'm nearly ready to forgive you for the Willow thing."

Xander smiled. "Good. I'm glad about that anyway. Look, I'll see you, okay?"

Cordelia smiled also. "Probably. Later."

She kissed him on the cheek, and there was a pause. Then they snapped out of it.

"Okay, later."

"Yeah, bye." Xander waved with little actual movement, and then Cordelia left, leaving just Xander sitting on his bed in silence.

The window of Xander's bedroom was too thick to hear anything through. Anya could just about see through it. But she saw enough to make her angry.

NEXT, IN AN ALL-NEW "ANGEL": In Angel, the crossover concludes. Has the Faith problem been solved? And can Angel escape from Kyhan? All in "The Lockdown", coming pretty soonish.

NEXT MONTH, IN AN ALL-NEW "BUFFY": Now that they've got their very own captured Initiative commando, what can the gang extract from him? And recent events involving Oz come to a head as the full moon arrives. "Bad Moon Rising", next month.

Did you like this episode? E-Mail Nick and let him know!

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