Fanfiction: A Tale Of Slayers : Part 1-5
Before…
Rupert Giles dropped the phone and slammed his hand on the cradle, disconnecting the line, as he grabbed up the receiver again. Frantically, he dialed in the number he knew better than his own home number and was whispering a single word over and over as he listened to the line ringing on the other end.
“Please, please, please, please…..”
He stopped abruptly as the line was picked up. “Hello! Joyce! It’s Giles…. Yes, I’m terribly sorry to call at such, uh, an inappropriate time, but there is some what of an emergency and I really need to speak to Buffy. What? She isn’t home? No, no! I knew she would be patrolling late tonight, I apologize. I, uh, should have remembered. Oh, no! Nothing to worry about, I’m meeting her here in the morning. What? No, no, I’m at the library. Yes, I’m afraid I had to pull an all niter but there really is no cause for alarm. No, it can wait a few hours. Sorry to wake you, goodnight.”
As soon as he replaced the receiver it was back against his ear again and he was practically pounding the numbers now. He just stood there, in his office, eyes darting around but he was seeing nothing as he was totally focused on the ringing on the other end.
“Please, be there, Faith….”
Then he froze when a recording cut in: “We’re sorry, the number you have reached is no longer in—”
He dropped the receiver but missed the cradle and it fell to the floor allowing the emotionless recording to continue, but Giles was already out of his office having grabbed his coat and was walking determinedly out of the library when the double doors opened.
He froze once more.
“Hey, Giles,” Buffy Summers said as she walked to him. “I was finishing my patrol when I saw the light in your office still on so decided to check in. I’m afraid there was no sign of Tangerine—”
“Oranstine,” Giles corrected automatically, staring at her with wide eyes.
“Listerine, whatever. Anyway he was a no show, but there was a stray vampire that I took care of. I think I may have broken my previous time on fastest vampire kill, so be sure to put that in your journal so you can shove it in the faces of all the other Watchers in the Watchers old folks home— and why are you staring? Do I still have ash on my face?”
Giles let out his breath and embraced her in a huge hug, much to Buffy’s surprise. “Oh, thank God.” But before the Slayer could overcome her confusion, Giles drew away from her, a hand covering his face. “Oh, God!”
“Giles, what is it?” Buffy demanded, unnerved at seeing the tears in his eyes he was trying to hide. He suddenly seemed very weak and Buffy actually held on to his arm and guided him to the table. Somehow she was able to get him to a chair before he collapsed.
“Giles, you just succeeded in scaring me more in ten seconds then even the Master was able to,” she commented.
He now had both hands covering his face and Buffy could tell he was trying to collect himself, not wanting to fall completely apart in front of his Slayer. His glasses were askew over his fingers and she slipped them off, folding them carefully, holding them for him. She felt like pleading, or yelling at him, to tell her what was causing him so much pain. She hadn’t seen him this way since Ms. Calendar…..
“What happened?” she whispered.
“The, uh, Council…” he began, looking up at her.
“Watcher old guys,” she nodded her understanding, urging him to go on.
“They just informed me that, uh,” he cleared his throat. “That the next….. Slayer has just been called.”
Silence settled between them as his words sank in. It was broken by a small shattering noise that sounded loud in the quiet library, but neither of them noticed the twisted wire frame and bits of glass Buffy was holding in her clenched fist.
“But, if the next Slayer has been called,” she said numbly.
“And then when I saw you….” he trailed off. He steeled himself as he said, “Faith is dead.”
With a great gasp, Faith took in a harsh lungful of air. She was unable to release it for a moment and when she finally did it came out as a ravaged cough. Her insides were burning as she labored for another breath and continued to cough. Her eyes were open but the racking heaves kept darkness dancing in front of her vision. Then she became aware of someone stroking a hand over her hair.
“There, there, now,” she heard a voice say. “You’re okay. Everything is fine. Shhhhhh……”
For a while Faith just didn’t move. She blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to clear them, but the darkness would not go away. This frightened her. She did not understand why but she suddenly needed to be in the light, the sun, some place where she could feel warmth on her skin. She realized she was shivering and curled up on whatever surface she was laying on. It was smooth and hard and cold beneath her. So very cold.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything to confirm to herself that she was alive. Why was that suddenly so important to her? She heard a low guttural moan and a second later realized it was coming from her.
Squeezing her eyes shut, releasing tears, she whimpered; something she had swore to herself long ago she would never do, and could not stop. But she managed to but anger into her sobs, the rage she always kept simmering under the surface, where it shielded and protected her. It was gone when she had awakened.
Awaken? Somehow she didn’t think she had just been pulled from a deep sleep. No. Something had happened to her. Something bad, she just knew. But now that she had found her fire again she held onto it, tightly, desperately, as if her life depended on it. Which, for some reason, she knew it did.
She felt the hand still stroking her hair gently. She flinched, but there was no strength in her movements. She felt completely drained, she felt— she felt dead.
“Shhhhh,” the soft voice was saying. “You are safe, little one. There is nothing to fear now.”
The voice, that of a stranger, calmed her. Faith stopped moving and just laid there, curled tight, but could not stop shivering.
“….cold….” she said, weakly in a voice she hardly recognized as her own.
The hand stopped stoking her hair, which she instantly missed, and a moment later something thick and warm was spread over her body. The hand returned to stroking her hair and she was glad.
Faith struggled to compose herself; Giles would laugh if he knew that, she thought. She needed to take in her surroundings, find out where she was, what had happened to her, and what to do once she accomplished the first three.
Her Slayer senses were slowly coming back to her, if not her strength; nor the warmth to her body, but she sensed something very close. Something very dark. Was in fact Darkness, not the absence of light, the Darkness the Slayer Handbook spoke so often about. And it frightened her, frightened her in a way she had not felt since Kakistos had been after her. A darkness she had just been pulled from. Thankfully, she had no recollection of being in the Darkness but that did little to comfort her.
Faith opened her eyes again and found she could see. Her vision was blurry but quickly began to clear and her keen sight kicked in. She was in some sort of chamber. It had no real walls, its sides were made out of rock, like inside a cave. There were even torches ablazed on each side, but the chamber remained in a deathly gloom with deep shadows.
She turned her gaze up at the person who continued to stroke her hair. The person was wearing a dark robe with a wide hood, which, thanks to the shadows, hid the face completely from Faith.
“Where…..” she began, her voice still very weak.
The person’s other hand came to Faith’s mouth and pressed a delicate finger to her lips. “Shhhh. Child. No questions. All will be as it was when you wake up.”
“I…” the young Slayer struggled. “…don’t want….sleep…”
“Yes, you must, child. You need your rest.”
“No….” Faith desperately needed to get up. She knew that she must not remain here. But her strength was gone. She could hardly raise her head and the robed figure easily, but gently, kept her from moving.
She stopped her struggles when a piercing scream shattered through the chamber. The robed figure quickly moved away from Faith, turning its back to her and the Slayer saw it approach another table several feet away from the one she was on. There was someone lying on it. She tried to raise herself again, but only managed to lift her head a few inches from the hard surface.
Faith saw it was a young girl, her age, probably a year younger. She watched as the robed figure did the same hair stroking comforting to the girl, whispering softly to her. Faith wondered what had happened to her? Why were they both in this dingy place? They must be underground or in one of the many networks of caves surrounding the outskirts of Sunnydale. The girl looked to be in pain and she continued to scream. Fortunately, for the girl, it seemed that the pain lessened, for her screams began to fade. She settled back flat on the table but kept making a hissing sound through her teeth, as if fighting against something, something only she could see under her closed eyes.
Faith’s heart caught in her throat as the girl suddenly growled, a nocturnal sound she was all too familiar with, that she heard quite often during her patrols and in her dreams at night. And her Slayer sense confirmed it as well.
The girl was a vampire.
But she didn’t feel like any vampire Faith had ever sensed before. Maybe it was because she was so weak, but there was something about this vampire that was extremely…..not right.
But whatever she was, she was a vampire and Faith needed to get out of there now!
Adrenaline moving like molasses through her veins, it still gave her the strength to push herself up from the table — and fall to a heap on the ground. The robed figure whirled around as Faith untangled herself from the thick blanket, but she was not moving fast enough! The robed figure called out across the chamber and two more figures hurried into the room from an entrance Faith could not see. They were tall and built, like any good goon squad, but she could sense they were not vampire. She wasn’t about to call them human, but she was sure they were not vampires.
Kicking the blanket away, just as the first one reached her, she used the same kick to connect with his kneecap. But, despite her Slayer strength, the kick was too weak to elicit more than a grunt from him and they reached down and effortlessly pulled her up.
“Lemme go….” she tried to shout, but her voice was still weak as well. “Bastards! What did you do to me?”
Securely restrained, the guards were just as much keeping her on her feet since they felt like jelly and could hardly hold her weight. The robed figure turned to face the Slayer pulling the hood back to reveal itself. Faith tried to contain the gasp that sprang from her lungs.
“Why,” the figure began, “we just completed an experiment, my young Slayer.”
Struggling, more for show than anything else, Faith seethed, “Why do all you evil types gotta talk like the Emperor from Star Wars?”
The figure laughed. “All you Slayers. You are so much alike. So young, so head-strong, so fragile.” The last it said with a sneer. “But now things will be different.” It stepped aside, waving an open hand toward the young vampire on the table. “The experiment was a success.”
Faith looked at the young vampire. She knew the vamp was newly raised but she was still receiving funky vibes from it. She just didn’t know what to make of it all. The vampire sat up and its eyes focused on Faith and there was a — power; Faith could call it nothing else, behind those eyes. Vampires all had the same animal tinted gleam that glistened from their hunger, even the soul-ridden Angel had that gleam. But there was something added to that gaze in this vampire’s eyes, something that made Faith even more afraid. Somehow she knew she had the answer, but she refused to let herself see it. Instead she turned to the robed figure.
“What have you done?” she demanded.
It smiled at her and said, “My dear Vampire Slayer, meet our Vampire Slayer.”
CHAPTER ONE
Next……………..
“Faith!” Buffy called, as she rushed into Faith’s motel room. The door was unlocked, as it usually was, considering Faith thought of herself as her own security system. Or maybe she just lost the key, Buffy thought.
Giles was right behind her and they made a quick sweep of the small room, Buffy the obvious choice to check the bathroom. She joined Giles once more to see him standing by the bed holding up the ripped cord of the phone line. Their eyes met for a contemplating moment before he let the cord drop and they surveyed the room again, more thoroughly.
The bed was a shambles, but Buffy did not know if that was normal of Faith, and the rest of the room did not say much as if a struggle took place here recently. But the dead phone spoke volumes.
“Some one was in here.” Giles finally said.
“But who?” Buffy asked. She knew they were both thinking the same things, after two years they had developed a certain level of understanding; at least in situations like this, anyway. But voicing those thoughts often let them see things from different angles.
“Vampires?” Giles offered.
“No ashes,” she answered, even though that was obvious to Giles as well. “Even if they surprised her, Faith would have managed to take out of few of them before they could overpower her. Slayers die hard, Giles. Kendra took a few with her when—” she stopped herself.
“And I doubt she would have invited them in, in the first place,” Giles said quickly.
“That didn’t stop Kakistos from smashing his way into her room when he found her.”
“But, remember, Faith was on her way out, planning to leave town at the time. In a sense, I doubt she really thought of her room as her home. She’s been in ‘this’ room for months now and it has become her home.”
“So, no vampires,” Buffy affirmed. “Who does that leave?”
“Demons?”
“Poor devils, they’re always blamed for everything. Intolerance is worst than ever.
“They didn’t bleed her,” she said. “There’s not a drop of blood anywhere, so she didn’t bleed them either.”
“She may not have had the chance.” Giles allowed himself to sit on his younger Slayer’s bed, where she must have been sleeping hours earlier before—
Buffy was still worried about him. Back at the library, he had managed to pull himself together quickly, so they could rush over here in his hunk of metal on tires he tried to convince everyone was a car. But she could see him wearing around the edges. She realized she was playing his role, right now. The one who held everything and everyone together. She was the center where you could turn to for strength. Giles was here, with her, functioning, at the moment, but he was wounded. Hurting.
Nearly two years ago, when everyone in close proximity of the Hellmouth had been living out their nightmares; the high school and the surrounding neighborhood, Xander and Willow had later revealed to her what had been Giles’ worst nightmare. And that was to lose his Slayer. Shame filled her as she realized she had not been there for him after Kendra had died. Even though they only had the chance to know the stoic young Slayer for a few months she and Giles seemed to click right from the beginning. He had not been her Watcher, but Buffy knew he felt responsible for Kendra, since she had been in his territory, probably blamed himself more than Buffy did herself for her death. When it came to responsibility Giles was fearless.
“But who would’ve known she was here?” Buffy said, trying to keep Giles with her.
Her Watcher did not disappoint. “I could not imagine. That new chap, Mr. Trick, certainly knows who you both are and, I’m afraid, your address is not exactly top secret, Buffy. But Faith is a little harder to find. Slayers usually can sense whenever any paranormal presence is close by, so following you would be a chore for—”
He raised his head, meeting her gaze, and a second later understanding swept through her.
“Demons and monsters did not do this,” she said with soft rage. “Whether they were behind this are not, humans stormed in here and grabbed her.”
“Humans are not as difficult to handle as monsters and demons,” Giles said, “even many of them. Not for a Slayer.”
They both knew the truth, but they still needed to reason it all together, to make it real.
Buffy said, “But humans are more cunning; lacking the strength of vampires and monsters, they have to be. They would have come in with weapons.”
“And with no blood,” Giles said.
“Tranquilizers, or stun guns,” Buffy finished.
“So they knew what Faith was.”
Buffy felt her rage building inside and her fist was trembling, hidden under the long sleeve of her oversize leather jacket. She really needed to hit something hard.
She jumped, startled, when Giles suddenly slammed his closed fist down on the night stand knocking the lamp off. It was so loud that Buffy knew he just injured it, even though the fury in his expression gave no hint of the pain.
“Giles!” She rushed over to him and reached for his hand. He pulled away but she caught his wrist. “Let me see!” She looked at his hand. “My God, what did you do!” At least her Watcher had the courtesy to look embarrassed.
“Well, now you did it, young man,” Buffy even wagged a finger at him for good measure. “Now we need to get some ice on this fast.” Giles was about to say something, but she quickly said, “And not another word from you. Do you hear?”
Despite everything, Giles almost smiled, and he was suddenly feeling the pain now.
“You’re not going to be any good if you hurt yourself.” Buffy was searching the room again. “How do you expect to help Faith! We don’t know for sure that she is dead.”
“The Council—”
Buffy cut him off. “No! The Council can say whatever they want. Until I see Faith’s body I’m not about to take their word for it. I have never even met the Council, and we Slayers are supposed to be their whole reason for existing! I’ve only trusted two people I called ‘my Watcher’ and Merrick is dead! And I’m not about to trade you in just yet, Giles!”
She finally found what she was searching for; the ice bucket, half sticking out from under the bed. She headed for the door. “So I need you to hold together.” She chuckled. “Do you really want me to be the rational one during this crisis?”
She closed the door as she went off to find the ice machine, leaving Giles behind speechless.