Chapter 1- Thunderstruck
Dean looked from the dark highway toward his brother. Sam had fallen asleep with his head pressed against the car window, his breath fogging up the glass. Sam farted, disrupting his sleep, causing him to reshuffle his oversized arms and legs in the passenger seat. Dean stifled a laugh. Sam had woken up in a dead panic dozens of times because he didn't recognize the sound startling him was coming out of his own ass.
Dean looked back at the road, the endless stream of yellow lines ahead flickering in front of their headlights. He hated traveling through rural Pennsylvania at night. The roads weren't lit so he had to keep the brights on and the pavement was always shitty-absolutely the worst in the country, and he'd ridden them all. They hit a bad rut, sending the light from the headlights bumping up across the wall of trees that framed the highway.
As soon as the impact died down, a girl stumbled out in front of them, dead center of the road. For a second Dean wasn't sure she was a girl at all and not a deer or a ghost or a trick of his tired eyes. He swerved to avoid it or her, whatever she was. Sam woke up for real, swore under his breath. If they'd been in the Impala the swerve would've flipped them over, but they were driving a little Toyota while his baby was in for a few repairs. That dumb piece of luck saved their lives.
The gravel kicked up and the car ground to a stop. Before Sam could ask him what the hell he was doing, the girl staggered into their line of sight. She slammed her hand on the hood. Sammy jumped back. In the beam of the headlight Dean could make out her dark hair, pale face. Blood streaked across her cheek. Something came at her-half insectoid-half octopus. It glowed in the dark. She caught it around the...neck...except it didn't have a neck. The head just kind of melted into the creepy bioluminescent body. She screamed and it sounded a little too sexy for the life and death of the situation. Then she ripped off its head. Glowing guts spurted everywhere-the windshield, her face, the trembling autumn leaves behind her….
The girl looked at them. She nodded and smiled broadly.
"Hey," she said, just before she fell over.
Sam gave him a panicked look before he clambered out of the car. Dean followed. By the time he got to them, his brother already had her cradled in his arms. That was Sam, to a T. Swoop in to help the person in trouble before they were even sure they were dealing with an actual person.
"She okay?"
Sam pulled each of her eyelids back. "I don't think she has a concussion. Her pulse is strong. It's hard to tell. I'm gonna call 911."
"What if she's dangerous?"
Dean glared at his brother, the argument played out wordlessly. They'd both seen her rip apart a monster that should've leveled her ninety-pound ass.
Sam relented with a sigh, and let his gaze fall to the girl's face. "She's bleeding. We'll take her back to the hotel. I can patch her up."
The girl started shivering in Sam's arms. He held her tighter and Dean could see the softness around Sam's eyes that meant he already cared too much.
A phone rang—the sound came from the girl's jacket pocket. Gently, Sam reached in and took it out. Dean grabbed the device out of Sam's hand, ignoring his brother's reaction, and put the mobile to his ear.
"Faith, where are you? Things are getting deadly here." It was a girl's voice, a girl who seemed more irritated than afraid. A chainsaw buzzed in the background and something screamed like Mothra.
"This isn't Faith. She's passed out. Something attacked her."
"Is she going to be okay?" she asked, genuine concern in her voice.
"Yeah. Where are you?"
She grunted. "Are you a paramedic? "
"Yeah. What's your location? I'll send the police."
"I don't need you to send the police. I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine."
"Look, guy I just want to know which hospital you're taking Faith to." The irritation was back in her voice, "I know you're trying to help, but you don't need to stick your straw in my milkshake."
Dean covered the phone with his hand. "Where's the nearest hospital?"
"I don't know. I can't exactly Google it right now," Sam said.
Mothra on the other end of the line screeched so loud, Dean nearly dropped the phone, juggling it from hand to hand. He brought it back to his ear. "Are you okay?"
He heard hacking sounds, then nothing.
"Hello?" He had to stop himself from hurling the damned thing into the woods. "She's gone."
Dean knelt in front of the unconscious girl. Lightly, he shook her shoulders. "Faith, Faith. Where you coming from? Where's your friend? She needs help."
Faith's head lolled over. Her eyes popped open for a second before they drifted closed. She smiled again, that weird come-hither smirk. He couldn't tell if she wanted to screw the world or...screw the world. "More of a work thing with me and B. She's at the convent in the woods."
"St. Anne's?" Sam frowned. "You're not going by yourself, Dean."
"I won't be by myself. I'll be there with somebody named B," Dean smiled, but it didn't change Sam's expression. "I know that place is a nexus for evil demonic mojo, but we don't have a choice here."
"The last time we fought something there, Cas almost died."
"I'm not Cas."
"Yeah, you're mortal."
"Kind of. Now get in the car before Supergirl bleeds out."
Faith grabbed a hold of Sam's shirt. "I'm not Supergirl, I'm fuckin' Wonder Woman."
Sam smiled down at her.
"Point taken," Dean said. "Let's go."
Sam got into the back seat of the car, holding Faith. Dean drove them to the convent, ignoring the silent seething coming from his brother. They pulled up to the stone structure nearly hidden in the woods. There were no lights on outside, so the building looked like a hulking shadow. The headlights glittered on the slim, leaded windows that flanked the doors like eye slits. A purple light flashed inside the attached chapel on the right of the main building. A scream echoed out.
"At least I know where she is." Dean opened the door. Sam reached over the seat and grabbed his shoulder.
"Wait."
"I'll be fine. Come back for me after you get her some help." Dean pushed his way out before Sam could finish his argument. He jogged across the lawn toward the chapel. The flashes of light were coming more regular, almost like a strobe light. He stalked through the damp grass. As he got closer, the smell of decaying leaves gave way to acrid brimstone. He opened the side door, crept down the steps. In the basement, the brimstone smell got worse. He tripped through the dark toward the wooden steps that led upstairs, lit only by the ambient light from the first floor. The bright flashes from the chapel left spots in front of his eyes. He waited a second to let his eyes adjust before carefully walking up step by creaky step. When he got to the top, he saw it.
The only way he could describe the creature was to call it a land Kraken. The monster had eight thick, muscular moon-white arms writhing around a bulb of a head. In the center of that head was a spiral of pointy teeth. Purple luminescence pulsed through the whole thing. A blonde slip of a girl stood in the middle of those fearsome appendages, stabbing at the thing's head with a glowing axe. It was like a cover of Heavy Metal-the only thing missing was the fur bikini. He moved closer, knees bent and gun drawn, though he doubted a gun would have any effect on that monster. Blondie shouted some Latin as she brought down her axe. With that strike she sliced off the top of Kraken's head like it was a boiled egg. The monster's legs flailed, crushing pews with their weight. The dying monster slammed its tentacles against the wall behind the girl, taking out a swath of stone. With a deafening creak, a crack spread up from the broken, dusty wall and up to the ceiling. Dust rained down on him and everything else.
Dean thought that must have been what it felt like to regular people watching him, the feeling that he'd stumbled into a horror movie and nothing was quite real. She stood there gasping, plaster falling around her like snowflakes. Her pale hair trembled around her face. The color from the dying creature turned her skin pink and blue.
He couldn't stop a wave of awe and arousal from washing over him. She was beautiful, but more than that, the girl was epic. "Thunderstruck" started playing in his head like he was in a freaking movie.
Three things happened at that moment. He made eye contact with the blonde, he got incredibly hard, and a searing hot pain burned through his shoulder. He clamped his hand over the pain out of reflex and glanced down to see blood spurting between his fingers. She ran to him and caught him just as his knees gave out.
"Are you okay?"
"Um?" He managed to say before he blacked out.
Dean woke up to the sound of tearing cloth. He opened his eyes to see the woman crouched above him, ripping off the sleeve of his shirt. She looked so calm. Either she had the best poker face of anyone he'd ever met or this was just another day at the office for her.
"If you wanted to get my clothes off, all you had to was ask," he said.
"You're going with that?" She gave the fabric a hard yank and his vision blurred.
"Sorry," he shouted, then added quietly, "Kind of a habit."
She rummaged through a satchel that lay beside his head until she found a plastic bag that had something moving in it. The moving something looked like a black eel. She opened the bag and lifted it out.
"What is that?" He did an awkward, painful shimmy trying to inch away.
Poker face didn't care. She laid the wiggly eel thing on his wound. The object melted into his skin. He screamed, prepared for agony, but it didn't hurt. Whatever she'd given him actually soothed the pain.
"What did you do to me?"
"Stopped the bleeding, disinfected all the evil supernatural goop that got in you."
"How?"
"Magic." She waved her hands with flourish.
"That's not like any magic I've seen."
"My friend invented them. She's pretty amazing. They're medicinal spell pods."
"She a hunter?"
"Witch."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"So did you just pimp out my soul to her demon, or is it something even worse?"
"Huh?"
He tried to sit up, but the pain came back. She caught him before he could crack his skull on the tiled floor. "Witches, they whore themselves out to demons."
"That's really sexist...I think. I can't really tell what's wrong with you." She looped her arm under his legs and before he could stop her, she lifted him up.
"What the hell?" He squirmed in her arms.
"Hey, simmer down, buddy, this building is going to collapse. We need to get out."
"How are you doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"Carrying me like a freaking toddler."
She shrugged. "I'm a slayer. We're pretty tough."
"You don't look like Tom Araya."
"I don't know who that is-" She shook her head.
"Lead singer of Slayer."
She rolled her eyes so hard he could see it in the dark.
"Right, I should know that one by now. I'm a slayer, lowercase s. I was born to fight monsters. We've got super strength and healing." She began picking her way through the rubble and the monster gunk toward the only exit. The room shone with neon guts that made it look like a post-apocalyptic roller rink.
"Is that what Faith is?"
"Yupper pupper."
"I thought there was only one slayer."
"So you're just playing dumb. That's refreshing. There used to be one, now there are kind of a lot because of white magic and sisterhood."
"You're not evil?"
"Nope." She ducked under a fallen ceiling beam. "I mean once I stole some Nazi gold, but I returned it. Now I don't even borrow my friend's Netflix password."
"The Nazi gold thing is pretty cool."
"I thought so, but the German government not so much." She stopped walking and grinned at him. As he returned the smile, he felt like a princess who'd just been rescued from a dragon by her beloved prince. He found it really disturbing.
"Put me down, slayer." Dean said as kindly as he could, reminding himself that this girl was only helping him, not intentionally collecting his balls to turn into a cute necklace. "I'm either limping out of here or I'm not leaving at all."
"Okay. I'll set you down, but if you can't walk, don't be a big manly baby about it."
She set him down gingerly. It hurt, but it wasn't the worst pain he'd ever worked through. He took a step with his arm around her shoulders for support and didn't collapse.
"I'm good. Let's go," he said.
They went through an archway in the back of the chapel that led into a long corridor. Behind them, he heard a loud crack. Wood grinding and splintering. They didn't turn around. He leaned on her heavily as they moved through the dark. She felt her way along the wall. Dean could hardly see in the black, just vague shapes.
"Our camper is parked down the road so you can rest there." She stopped.
He heard her scrabbling for something. She opened a door, letting in the wan light from the full moon. Together, they went outside. They hobbled to a white camper parked down the hill. Dean nearly slipped on the grassy slope, but she caught him. He held onto her so tightly he was afraid she might snap, but she didn't. Not at all. She didn't even falter. They got to the camper mostly under her power. She unlocked the door for him. He tumbled inside, pulling her with him. They landed on the floor in a tangle.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"It's okay."
He'd never been more embarrassed in his life. Being a burden wasn't really his thing. He was the person who carried everyone else. Not this time, though. Without a word, she lifted him to his feet again. She led him to a bunk bed, where he collapsed. Dean hadn't realized how exhausted he was. The injury must have been worse than he thought. He felt her hands on the wounded shoulder, pressing gently. It hurt vaguely, but he didn't have the energy to react. She covered him with a blanket, all the way up to his chin before she knelt beside him.
After a moment of her staring, the suspense got to be too much.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing. You've got freckles. Vampires don't have freckles."
"Does that mean you don't need to cut me with a silver knife or douse me in holy water?"
"You're so weird." She laughed under her breath. "With all the derring do, I never got your name."
"It's Dean."
"Winchester?" she asked, excited.
"How did you know that?" He opened one eye.
"You're kind of famous with people who know about the supernatural. My sister's doing her thesis on you and my friend Xander is convinced that you're not real."
"I'm real. Freckles and all." His brain caught up. "Hold on. Thesis?"
"Yeah, you're one of a kind. My watcher would have said you're singular."
"Singular. I like that." He grinned. "I didn't catch your name, either."
"It's Buffy Summers."
He tried to give her his warmest smile, but wasn't quite sure how much of that made it up to his face. "I'm sorry, but I've never heard of you."
"No big. I mean, I only died twice trying to save the world. What are you up to, six?"
"Lost count. You must be better at this whole hero thing."
She grinned, all twinkly-eyed, and Dean thought about a bunch of wholesome things he wanted to do with her, mixed in with the typical unwholesome things he tended to think about. For instance, he wanted to introduce her to Sam, which reminded him—
"I need to call my brother."
"You need to sleep." She rose and walked away from him. He was going to argue, but he remembered that he didn't need her permission. Dean tried to ease his phone out of his pocket, but the effort proved too much. He passed out.