Birth RightBy Alecca
Prologue - The Spark
New York City
2083
The Museum of Unnatural HistoryHer name was Mina, she was 16 and she ruled her highschool like a queen among peasants, a god among mortals. She had the guts, the courage, the smarts, the beauty to dominate and be worshipped by those inferior to her. And what exactly made her so special? She was a slayer, duh! Anyone could give you that answer, but Mina didn't think it was such a big deal, considering every fifth girl you met on the street was a slayer. She thought it was ridiculous for all those other girls to have slayer powers! They didn't even know how to use them right for god's sake!
Walking through the halls of the Museum of Unnatural History she pondered the status of the old slayers, when only one was born in every generation and had to fight vampires and demons and the forces of evil all by her self! She thought that must have been the greatest thing one could imagine... To be the only one aware of that secret world, to be a hero, a superhuman standing between right and wrong, the real and the surreal...It all made her blood run faster, an adrenaline rush like nothing she had ever experienced.
But breaking out of the past's hold over her and her imagination that was getting the best of her, she slowly woke up to the horror of the present's reality. Everybody knew now...About slayers, about vampires, about...well, everything. How come? That damn Watcher's Council of course! After it was blown to smithereens - she wished it would have stayed that way! - they regrouped and seeing as the world was suddenly full of slayers, they thought it would be too hard for them to control them all, so they did the only thing they thought they could do: let others control them. And how could they do that? Tell the whole world about them and vampires and every little thing. They considered the advantages were bigger than the damage. And yeah, sure, they had been right. The demon society had a lot to suffer from it and many relocated to other dimensions, were the pastures were greener and the people more oblivious about their existence. Certain demon species on the other hand - the more peaceful kind - profited more from it. Why, there was even a demon governor somewhere in the US. And vampires didn't have it so bad either. People being as crazy as they were, they actually organized a Vampires' Rights society that protected the so called pacifist vampires and took up donations in blood and money for them. The old ones though had either went into hiding or were very discreet about their existence because this new world inhibited them greatly and historians were constantly chasing them for information on certain events.
Racism had reached whole new levels...But the Watcher's Council was the one that really profited from this global outing. They created a slayer syndicate - you could sign up when you were 15 -, had opened several firms that specialized in the extermination of trouble- making demons and had opened the museum - one of many - that she was now standing in.
To Mina, it all just sounded wrong. There should have been only one slayer, one watcher, one destiny that could change humanity...but no, there were thousands...and that was only in New York, she figured the whole world had a couple of millions. When one slayer died 10 more sprouted wings and it seemed unfair to her. And who had decided this overpopulation of slayers? One person. One little insignificant person who she hated and admired at the same time. One slayer. She stopped in front of a statue that represented that certain slayer. Buffy Summers, a head smaller than her, wielding the now legendary scythe in one hand, in a fighting stance among Turok-Hans. A scene from the last battle of Sunnydale. The battle that had changed everything for slayerkind. It was the end of the solitude and the burdens, the end of singularity and uniqueness, an end slayerkind should have never known - or at least that was what Mina thought. Buffy Summers had done her predecessors a great dishonor and with it took away the rightful place of her future heirs. There was no more throne to give, no knowledge that would be passed on from one slayer to the next. No, now there was multitude and the Slayer's Manual Volumes 1,2,3 for every slayer in need, that could be bought at any library for just 12.99/Volume.
It was abnormal, especially since Mina thought that if the slayer tradition had continued she would have been the heir, the one born into her generation, destined to be the slayer. THE slayer, not A slayer. And it made her furious, but she was powerless...She had thought of a solution to her problem, many times, but nothing doable came to her. She considered killing all the slayers, but that would only bring more slayers and more and more and she knew who was the last one to try to kill the slayer line and she thought it horrible to even think about something it had. But a few days ago, it had suddenly occurred to her, a solution that wouldn't imply killing anyone!
She knew time travel was possible - she wasn't so sure about travel in the future, but she knew it was definitely possible in the past, if one had the right relic and the right information of course... And she technically had both. The book that would offer the information was in the museum and the relic was kept somewhere safe deep within the archives of a certain evil demon law firm turned demon hunting business in Los Angeles. And if she was right, it was still run by a vampire that had once known the most famous of slayers. She looked at a picture mounted on a wall in the gallery room. It looked like something people used to call a Kodak moment: a picture of a blonde teenager, a shy looking redhead, a goofy boy, a stuffy librarian, a fiery brunette and a tall mysterious and handsome man.
Mina sighed as she looked at the picture for a long moment before moving on towards the book display. It wasn't her fault Buffy had been so careless and hadn't thought about those who would come after her. She had only thought of herself, but now Mina was ready to go back and set things right and stop her from making that foolish mistake. It was her time, her destiny to reclaim her birth right.