‘When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?’
O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host’
William Blake

Rupert Giles, Head Watcher, shuffled the papers in front of him as he sat at the far end of the long, oak table set up in the Library and Research Centre at Ashdown Estate. Laughter and the casual conversation of various arrivals drifted around him, mixing with the gentle heat of a midsummer’s morning and settling around his tense shoulders like the whisper of a tender caress. He breathed out the stress and impatience that often seemed to trail him these days, and peered around the room at the group of people that gathered before him.

A few of these he had known for years; he had watched them grow through good and bad, blossoming through the ecstasies and triumphs, and struggling through the agonies and tragedies. He had shared the most extraordinary events of his life with them. He had tried to teach them, to guide them; he had tried to impart his so-called learning and wisdom; but in the end, it was he who had learnt from them, lessons that had been hard and at times unwelcome, that often flew in the face of all the accumulated knowledge that he had based his life on. But those lessons had opened his eyes to an infinite new world of possibilities and helped create the man he was today. Undoubtedly, the learning was far from over.

This small group of astonishing people, Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Xander, and against all odds, Faith and Spike, sat either side of the table before him, talking, laughing and teasing, an ordinary looking bunch of young, carefree people. Looks could certainly be deceiving.

In particular, his eyes were drawn to Buffy. She glowed with health and happiness, more content, he thought, than he’d ever seen her. Spike’s return seemed to have ignited an inner radiance in her. Leaning against her vampire consort, his arm wrapped around her shoulder, she chatted comfortably with Xander.

Sprinkled among his ‘Scoobies’, ridiculous term that it was, were others that supported and fought alongside them. Some of these, such as his old friend Althanea and her granddaughter Rowan, or fellow Watchers like Gareth Robson and Cecil Davis, Anthony Collins and Edwards, he’d known for much of his adult life. Others, he’d only met in the last year, Robin, Andrew, several young Watchers such as Matthew Morris and Ashton Hurst, the two dozen girls who had survived the Hellmouth Battle, as well as the new lass, Francesca, who had turned up at their doors last week. An eclectic gathering to be sure.

Finally, everyone who needed to be there was. Giles cleared his throat and caught everyone’s attention. He could feel the excitement glittering in his eyes and it didn’t take long for those who knew him to pick up on it also and the air began to quietly hum with anticipation.

“Yes, well, welcome everyone. Thank you for your attendance this morning, on this, the second official meeting of our organization. It is only three weeks since our inaugural meeting and much has been unveiled since then. Today we have several important decisions to make.

But before we begin, I would like to take this opportunity both personally, and professionally on behalf of the new organization, to formally welcome Spike back to this dimension, and onto the council. He has already contributed much and, as Sagaria’s ‘Dark warrior’ and the father of Buffy’s child, he will undoubtedly continue to play a critical role in events to come.”

Spike’s head shot up and a look of shock and delight slid over his face. Buffy wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek, her eyes shimmering with pride. As cheers and murmurs of “Well done Spike” and “Welcome back Fangboy” echoed around the room, Spike caught Giles’ eye, acknowledging his words with an uncharacteristically humble nod. Gradually the room settled down and Giles took back center stage.

“Just a few minutes ago, as I sat here, I looked around the room in wonder. Before me sits an amazing group of warriors, brave, fearless, talented and tenacious – whether Slayer or vampire, witch, or Watcher, or simple heroic human, each and every one of you has contributed in one way or another, big or small, towards the ongoing task of keeping this world we live in safe and sound for those that inhabit it. For some of you, this involvement is recent, while others have been part of the cause for many years now.

I’d love to tell you that the battles are over, that the war has been won and send you all on your merry ways to your happily ever afters. But we know that our world is always in danger from some supernatural force or another and that we have many, possibly endless conflicts and evil forces to overcome.” Giles’ rhetoric had his audience spellbound, and the room was silent and still apart from the subtle nodding of heads here and there.

“But we will not be alone in that fight. Thanks to Sagaria, the Slayer Scythe that Buffy attained and the activation spell that Willow used to tap into Sagaria’s essence, for the first time in all of recorded history, we have an army of warriors available to us. Our challenge is to work out how to find these girls, how to convince them to join us, how to train them and how to manage and effectively utilize such a large and diverse group.

We will need the talents and efforts of every single person in this room, and more besides, if we are to succeed in this endeavor. Some of these tasks have already begun. Thanks to the efforts of Xander and his team, we succeeded in opened this amazing residential training and research center ahead of schedule. And two weeks ago, Althanea and Dawn took the first steps involved in finding and identifying our newly activated slayers. I’d like them to talk us through the process.”

Giles sat back as the two women made their way to the front of the room. Dawn grinned nervously and waved a little before standing aside for Althanea. The older woman smiled and faced the crowd.

“Good morning everyone. Yes, Dawn and I have been quite busy. Our job is not a difficult one, although it can be somewhat draining. The old Watcher’s Council always utilized seers to help identify both potentials, and where they slipped through the net, unknown Slayers who had already been activated. I myself have performed this task for them in the past.”

“But how can you tell who is a slayer or a potential and who isn’t?” Kennedy asked.

“Ah, a good question Kennedy. All living, and undead creatures give off a trace signature, a sort of vibration or energy frequency if you will. With Slayers and even potentials, this signal is particularly strong and of a certain calibration that is not hard to isolate if you know what you are looking for. Experienced seers are able to seek out these signals by sending out vibrations of their own that will interact with the Slayer signal. It’s a bit like a mystical radar system in a way.”

There was a buzz around the room as everyone considered the implications of this information.

“But its not foolproof right? I mean some of us didn’t get picked up as potentials.” Rona queried as Buffy, Faith and Colleen nodded.

“Well it’s by no means a perfect art. The greatest challenges are often distance and accuracy, particularly if two or more potential signals originate from the same area. Usually seers will scan a general area to locate any interesting signatures and then localized covens might use a spell to refine that search down to the potential candidate. I believe that Willow carried out that task for you at one stage in Sunnydale.”

Those survivors of the Hellmouth Battle nodded quietly as they remembered Willow’s discovery of sweet, brave Amanda.

“Considering the numbers we are dealing with, we needed to modify the process a little. Given that our job has been to seek out those vibrations by projecting our energy over increasing distances to isolate a signal and determine the range and direction of the slayer, both distance and accuracy became vital. Using Dawn’s unique power source, I have been able to strengthen and amplify my base signal, somewhat like a satellite dish, in order to cover much greater distances than are usually possible. Initially Dawn’s role was simply that, of an amplifier. But this young lady is naturally talented and a quick study, and in the last week she has begun to locate slayers on her own, leaving me to use Sagaria, an effective means in its own right, to achieve my own targets.”

Dawn blushed as she received a round of applause, proud of the increasingly important role she had finally found for herself within the group.

“In the last two weeks Dawn and I have traced the signatures of over a hundred new Slayers in just the U.K., Ireland and Western Europe.”

“Wow,” Buffy uttered as Spike added “Bloody Hell” to the chorus of exclamations coming from the other young Slayers in particular.

“I’ll get Dawn to take over and explain the next stage,” Althanea said as she sat down next to Giles and gratefully accepted the glass of water he poured for her.

Dawn had sobered up from the heady first days of her initial power tapping. She took her responsibilities and talents seriously, and had worked hard to master the array of skills she had so far uncovered. The young woman who stood at the head of the room was quiet and composed, but clearly nervous. However, her enthusiasm for her role, the successes they had achieved and Buffy’s encouraging nod soon bolstered her confidence.

“Hi guys. So Althanea and I were doing real well. We’d found heaps of Slayer signals. But the problem was that they were often clumped together and it was real hard to tell if each signal was another slayer or one we’d already found. The other problem was that we needed to do the locations quickly ‘cos there could be all sorts of other evil creeps out there, just like the Bringers, who could start doing the same thing and killing or stealing our Slayers.”

“And we don’t wanna share,” Xander called out.

“So we needed some way to actually identify the name and address of each Slayer and if possible, the estimated number of Slayers in each country, just to give us a guideline as to whether or not to keep searching. But to do that we needed someone a little geekier than Alth or me; we needed someone who could solve big mathematical problems and access computer tracking systems; we needed…. Andrew.”

Dawn turned and flourished her hand in Andrew’s direction. There were cheers and catcalls as the ex super villain jogged to the front of the room and took a bow.

“Thank you, thank you all. I’d just like to say that it’s a privilege to be here and to be part of this noble cause, sharing my skills and talents for the greater good. I really feel that I am well on the way to redeeming myself for all my past sins. I feel like Wolverine when…”

“Oh Good Lord. Will you just get on with it,” Giles’ admonishment was echoed by the rest of the group.

“Of course Professor Xavier. So we needed a simple method of identifying these girls precisely without like flying all over each time we located one. Dawn and Althanea’s methods are quite accurate, they can generally situate a signal within a ten-yard radius. Using Keyhole Inc.’s satellite application called Earth Viewer, I can quickly narrow a slayer signal down to a single residence, and by accessing local Government databases and Google, I can generally come up with the names, ages, genders and often photos of the current occupants. If our new slayer lives at home, in a unattached residence, I can use a process of elimination to come up with a name, age and address of our probable suspect.”

“Sounds great, but what if the chick has a big family, or lives in a block of flats or is at boarding school or … in prison?” Faith drawled.

“Good question young Rogue.” Andrew replied, ignoring Faith’s folded arms, pissed off expression and pointed glare at Spike. “This scenario is most common so we needed to utilize more accurate systems than we had used so far. We hacked into as many Government and commercial CCTV systems as we could. Over the last week we’ve refined our system a little and can now track and label a Slayer in just over 30 minutes. But I believe, with a little help from Goddess Willow, we may be able to tie the magic and the technology together to create a fully integrated Slayer identification package.”

“Oh, oh,” Willow called out, enthusiasm lighting up her eyes. “I was just thinking that if we did an enjoining spell, we could tie Althanea’s scrying skills, a touch of Dawn’s battery power and a dash of Sagaria’s Slayer essence to the tracking software, then all we’d need to do would be to programme the computer to remotely connect to the relevant database and we’d have a completely portable Slayer track and trace.”

Willow was fired up, but in her eagerness, she failed to notice the look of disappointment on Dawn’s face. Both Buffy and Spike spotted it though and decided to talk to the witch later to make sure Dawn wasn’t pushed out of her new role. Giles had also observed the young girl’s reaction and quickly sought to intervene.

“That is a possibility you could work on Willow. Nevertheless, these three have done an amazing job so far. Where are we looking at first Andrew?”

“The process isn’t perfect, but so far we’ve managed to come up with the names and addresses of these girls.”

At this point Andrew indicated the portable screen and clicked on the laptop in front of him to display a map of Western Europe surrounded by arrows and colorful charts detailing a long list of names, addresses and ages.

“As you will notice, I have sorted the names into geographical groupings. This allows for the implementation of economical collection procedures.”

The room’s occupants studied the chart intently. Each group of girls was listed under the name of a country. The U.K., France and Italy were all listed with 17 or 18 names in each, while Germany had 25 and Spain 14. Even smaller countries like Portugal, Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands had 3 or 4 names written under each of them, while Denmark and Ireland had a single name each.

“There are 106 names listed on this chart,” Giles said. “That seems a considerable number based on a relatively small geographical area. What are your predictions for worldwide numbers of new Slayers?”

“Well,” Althanea stood in order to address Giles’ question. “We feel pretty certain that we’ve picked up every single activated Slayer in these eleven countries. Andrew calculated the per head of population percentages and ratios and has put together another useful chart for us.”

Giles sighed as Andrew leapt up again. The boy was undeniably useful, but he wished he didn’t have to be so irritating.

“We began with the 106 slayers located around the eleven EEC countries. We allowed another ten percent, so 10, for the girls that we know were taken out by the bringers before the battle began, plus 3 for the local girls that died in Sunnydale. That gave us 119. Then we added the populations of these eleven countries and divided that by 119. That gave us a figure of just over 3 million. So we estimate that about 1 in every 3 million people will be a newly activated Slayer.”

While Willow and the Watchers were listening with interest, the remaining Scoobies and the Sunnydale Slayers were getting glazed looks in their eyes. Andrew sat back down and fiddled around with the computer, bringing a new document up on the screen. Giles cleared his throat and explained the figures before them.

“This chart shows us a list of all the major countries in the world with populations over 3 million – 136 in total. Using a ratio of one Slayer for every three million head of population, we’ve been able to do a rough prediction of the distribution and density of Slayers we could expect to find in each country. The Slayer predictions are in the far right column. As you can see we anticipate significant Slayer populations in China and India – over 430 and 330 respectively and other large groups in Asian countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Accessing, alerting and recruiting the girls in these countries, especially in more remote areas, may prove quite challenging given the cultural, economic, religious and language differences we will face. People like Chao-Ahn,” Giles nodded his head in her direction, “will become crucial in the months ahead as we attempt to locate and gather up these girls.”

“So cut to the chase Rupes,” Spike said, “just how many new Slayers do you think we might find? Or is it a case of ‘As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured’ ?”

“Well Spike, as to how many we find, that rather depends on the speed and accuracy of our tracking and recruitment programmes. But in terms of how many girls have been activated and now find themselves with sudden, unexplained strengths and abilities, we believe we may be looking at as many as 2000 worldwide.”

“Bloody hell,” said Spike, “a heavenly host indeed.”

The audience sat in thoughtful silence, stunned by the sheer numbers and by the enormity of the retrieval task ahead of them.

Giles nodded at Andrew who once again changed the page up on the screen. Up popped the prophecy they were now becoming familiar with, the Amroz prophecy from the Pergamum Codex.

The Days of the Chosen Ones

‘And a time shall come to pass, when Slayers walk the earth, using their powers to beat back the Scourge of Amroz. The battle will be long and hard. Victory shall only be theirs if the Legion of Chosen Ones stands strong, lest the fading of their new powers signal sure defeat and the beginning of the End Days.


“I think we must seriously consider,” Giles said, “that in order to build our necessary Legion, we must find and gather up every single Slayer that we possibly can, that we train and support them so they can ‘stand strong’ and that we prepare them for the battle ahead. To fall short in any of these duties could mean the end of it all.”