Restless - 4.22
After Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Xander invoke the spirits of all previous Slayers in order to defeat Adam, the First Slayer visits them in their dreams. Offended by their invocation, she decides to strip Buffy of her friends, adamant that the Slayer is meant to be alone, focused on nothing but the kill. In these dreams, she attacks Giles, Willow and Xander through the parts each played in the Enjoining Spell.
As we see their dreams unfold, each is being stalked by something primal and dangerous, yet oddly familiar. With Willow and Xander already fighting for their lives, Giles realizes who the hunter is, stating, "Of course, you underestimate me. You wouldn't know. You never had a Watcher..." But his understanding may have come too late. Her blade slices into his scalp, and it's Buffy's turn to dream.
In a lonely expanse of desert, the two Slayers confront each other. The First Slayer wishes to use Tara as a conduit to communicate, but Buffy insists that she speak for herself. She tells Buffy firmly, "No friends. Just the kill. We are alone." Never one to do as she's told, though, Buffy rejects her demands and dismisses her outright.
Suddenly they all wake from their dreams, and shaken by the experience, they sit in the kitchen and ponder what just happened...
Giles: Somehow our joining with Buffy and invoking the essence of the Slayers' power was an affront to the source of that power.
Buffy: You know, you could have brought that up *before* we did it.
Giles: I did. I said there could be dire consequences...
Buffy: Yes, but you say that about chewing too fast.
Intervention - 5.18
After Joyce's death, Buffy tells Giles that she's afraid of how emotionally distant she has become. He takes her to an eerily familiar desert where he performs a sacred hokey pokey, turning Buffy over to the temporary care of her spirit guide, who appears in the guise of the First Slayer. Buffy tells her that she's lost her ability to love, but the First Slayer insists that she is full of love. The less reassuring part of the message, however, is that "Death is your gift."
Buffy is discouraged and angry that her gift is supposedly to bring death. She's tired of killing. But the First Slayer insists that despite Buffy's protestations, the younger Slayer is full of love, that death is and will be her gift. It isn't until the season finale that the message becomes clear. Buffy's gift isn't the death she brings to others; it's her own death, given so that the sister and friends she loves can continue to live.
Get It Done - 7.15
While wandering through her house in a dream, Buffy gets another abrupt, violent visit from the First Slayer. They grapple, tumbling down the stairs, and the First Slayer yells at Buffy, "It's not enough!"
Much as Buffy might want to disagree, events of the episode convince her that the First Slayer was right. She's not doing enough to prepare for the coming fight. So she opens a gift that once belonged to a previous Slayer, Nikki Wood, hoping it will help her tap into the power that so far hasn't been enough. What she sees inside is a shadow puppet play, designed to illustrate the Slayers' origins, and the story that was outlined in Joss Whedon's Fray (see comics) becomes clearer.
Pulled through a portal, Buffy experiences what the First Slayer went through. Three shamans offer to give Buffy the strength of the First Slayer, and they aren't very interested in whether Buffy wishes to accept. As they did so many years before, they chain the young woman to a rock, ignoring her screams. Then they open a box containing a shadowy form that wafts towards Buffy, attempting to merge with her. She breaks free, violently rejecting the shamans and their so-called gift, understanding now what was done to the First Slayer. She was violated, forcibly merged with this demon spirit to shape her into the instrument of what would one day become The Watchers' Council.
Abhorrent as their methods may have been, however, when one of the shamans gives Buffy a glimpse of what's to come, she begins to wonder if she made the right choice.
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