Disclaimer: BtVS belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy. That includes all the characters and places. SlayerNet belongs to me. I think it's quite clever personally.
Author's note: Like so many of today's stories this one takes place after the end of season seven. That means that it could contain spoilers from anywhere in season seven. If you haven't seen everything up through Chosen by now I don't even want to know what cave you've been living in. Just be warned of the spoilers. Also I made up SlayerNet and it doesn't really exist. Please don't try to go there or send things to the addresses I provide because they don't exist! If someone out there desires to make an actual SlayerNet please contact me at beenieweenie@hotmail.com, put SlayerNet in the subject heading. Thank you, please read and review.
SlayerNet
By beenieweenie
September was fast approaching and the Scooby Gang was ready to settle down again. The summer had been spent in Los Angeles at Angel's hotel where the Scoobies and the Fang Gang had been hard at work training the new slayers that had collected as potentials in Sunnydale over the past year. Then, towards August came the task of setting all the new slayers up, in pairs, in cities around the world. Somehow the Watcher's council had regrouped over the summer as well, and became an integral part in this last task. Although barely enough watcher's remained to staff the new Watcher's HQ, they sent a large delegation to Los Angeles, where an agreement was drawn between the slayers and the watchers. The watcher's were allowed to remain as advisors to the slayers, once there numbers were up again, but all their antiquated methods, like the Cruciamentum, were to be ceased immediately. All in all, things went smoothly and by the last week of August the new Slayers were settled in their new homes around the world. Then Buffy and Angel managed to come to the mutual agreement that it would be better if Buffy were located elsewhere so as not to crowd Los Angeles. So, Dawn found herself moving again, along with Willow, Kennedy, Xander, Giles and of course Buffy. Now they were going to Cleveland to watch over the Hellmouth there.
It was on this nearly-transcontinental journey that the idea first blossomed in Dawn's mind. Out of sheer boredom Dawn was alphabetizing the e-mail address list they had of all the slayers when it occurred to her that it would be much easier if all the addresses were from the same provider because then you'd only need all the user names. After thinking about this for a while Dawn turned to Willow, who was sitting behind her in the van they were driving, and asked if she knew how to set up an e-mail service from scratch. After Dawn described her idea in full Willow knew that the younger Summers had the start of a great idea. Together they hashed out the rest of the details over the rest of the trip and the e-mail service expanded into a member's only site with an e-mail service and information archives and message boards.
Once everyone was settling down in the house that had been bought in Cleveland Willow and Dawn held a house meeting to discuss the idea with the Scooby core. It took a little persuasion to convince Giles that the idea would work but when they did Willow and Dawn got to work building the site, as they had been deemed the Web-Mistresses of the site. Of course, school started for both of them, high school for Dawn and college courses through the mail for Willow, and their progress slowed a bit. All in all it took close to three months for the site to be constructed, a server set up, and to come up with usernames for all the current slayers along with temporary passwords. So it was on November 17th that SlayerNet went up. Dawn had worked long and hard to write a suitable announcement to explain the idea of SlayerNet to all the slayers, watchers, and other miscellaneous people who had access to the site. As she hit the post button and saw the announcement pop up on the main page she smiled and then quickly read once more, scanning it for errors.
November 17th, 2003—SlayerNet is now up and running. As a general warning we would like to say that over these next few weeks we expect to run across various unexpected bugs and ask for your patience. We will work as quickly as we can to correct these problems, but as this is a new and complicated site it may take some time. If you see any bugs please report them to bugs@SlayerNet.net.
SlayerNet has been provided for you all as a source of information and a way to contact others quickly. The point is for it to make your lives easier when it comes to researching prophesies, demons, spells or fighting techniques. An e-mail service has been provided so that you can keep in contact with your friends and acquaintances and there are also message boards set up for discussions of everything from different demons to your social life. An archive has been set up with information on many different subjects, although it is still being filled, so please wait patiently if we don't have the information you need up yet. Watchers also have the special privilege of adding information directly into the archives, although once again we ask that you wait until we are done filling it with what we already have so as to avoid having multiple entries. In addition to these archives we are providing several columns that will be updated on a bi-monthly schedule, these include: "It's Not Just Watching" by Rupert Giles where he discusses the deeper calling of being a watcher; "Ask Buffy" by Buffy Summers, who answers the questions you have about slaying, you can send your questions to askbuffy@SlayerNet.net; and "On the Outside" by Willow Rosenburg, Xander Harris, and Dawn Summers, where all you non-slayers can figure out where you fit into things and occasionally ask questions too, send questions to outsiders@SlayerNet.net.
Something that you should all take note of is that SlayerNet has only been set up for those who have need of it, i.e. slayers, watchers, and those privileged few who fall into neither of these categories but have been vouched for by the Web-Mistresses of the site. Please don't share your username and password with others. If you forget your password please send an e-mail to webmistressD@SlayerNet.net and if you run into someone you think might benefit from having access to this site please send their name, basic profile, e-mail address and a reason why to webmistressW@SlayerNet.net. And please don't tell them about this, we'll contact them and we don't want them to get their hopes up in case we don't think they're suitable candidates.
I've asked for your patience several times by this point and I have to stress that we really do need it at this point. This entire endeavor is new to everyone and there are going to be problems and it's going to take time to fix them, but hopefully once all that has past this site will be able to provide information necessary to aid you in your time of need. Thank you for your patience and for your support,
Web-Mistress Dawn
Satisfied, Dawn nodded once and then logged off SlayerNet to check her e-mail and work on some other things. SlayerNet was up and things were looking good.
Author's Note: There's the first part. I can't tell you how giddy this makes me. I'd also like to inform you as my readers that this endeavor will not read like a typical story and will be more of a thing of each chapter someone using SlayerNet or just a column I wrote. There is no real plot planned at this point and there will be no 'ships, or anything of that nature at all. This is going to be a singular experience for both you and me. Thanks!