Greater Good

by Oxnate

Disclaimer: Do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

A/N: This idea came from a discussion in the forums about whether Buffy dying the second and third time could or should call additional Slayers. I took the opinion that it couldn't/shouldn't. This is my take on why.

Summary: The council discovers that every death of a Slayer results in a new Slayer line. This is the story of the consequences.

Chapter 1.

Buffy decided that mouthing off to Quentin Travers while she still didn't have her powers back hadn't been her bestest idea ever. A team of men had kidnapped her as she walked home that night. Men. Just normal humans. But she was weak from the drugs Giles had given her for that test and they had given her even more of the drugs.

She was pretty sure she was still in North America, probably Mexico judging by the guards. They hadn't knocked her unconscious for the trip even if they had put a dark bag over her head and they hadn't gotten on a plane. They could have moved her while she was recovering, but she doubted it. She didn't need to be in England for what they were doing to her. She'd begged and pleaded for them to tell her why. Finally one of them did. They were calling more Slayers. Every time they dunked her in the tank until she stopped breathing, another Slayer was called. They said it was for The Greater Good.

And since most of the Slayers called were council raised and trained, they were creating an army of council controlled Slayers. Those not under council control would be left to roam alone without the benefit of ever having a watcher to help them. They weren't expected to last long the way demons were attracted to them.

And then she was dunked again.

She didn't know which was worse, trying to struggle or trying not to struggle. Neither way did any good. She tried exhaling all the air in her lungs right away once, but that had caused her to take a greater number of painful breaths of water before she expired so she held her breath each time now. She breathed out slowly through her nose to avoid getting water up it as she was dunked upside down but it never helped. Every time the panic overtook her, she got water up there and every time it hurt.

She really thought she should be able to stop panicking already. She'd lost count of how many times they'd killed her. She didn't even know what month it was any more. But her body continued to panic every time they drowned her. Not that it did any good, they kept her dosed with that drug Giles had given her and kept her weak. At least they'd backed off on the timing. When she'd first gotten here, she was pretty sure they had killed her twice a day for a week. What they didn't realize was that dying really drains a person. One day she woke up and everyone around her looked relieved to have her back. She'd found out later that she'd been dead for hours that time and the team of doctors looking after her had performed CPR for 2 1/2 hours before she came to.

After that, she got a couple days of rest between deaths.

The weirdest thing was how she was treated between drownings. She was a prisoner, there was no doubt about that. But people treated her like she was a hero. She mostly wanted to break their necks. But she couldn't.

Not for any moral reasons. But because the drugs and the drownings kept her completely wiped. Every night she dreamed she again had the powers she once took for granted. That and the sledgehammer she'd ground the Master's bones to dust with. She'd do the same to all of them.

Buffy's spirit was crushed. She didn't bother fighting them anymore when the guards came to take her to be killed. She walked placidly between them to the execution chamber. She sat there when the guards tied her to the dipping bar.

But today, her routine was disrupted.

"No! Please! No!" a girl screeched. It was a ways down a hall Buffy had never visited.

There were more. The council was gathering up other Slayers and killing them as well. It wouldn't end when they finally killed her the final time. Every time any Slayer was killed another Slayer was called. It didn't matter if one of them died permanently, the council would just kidnap another girl. Someone else who didn't want to follow their rules, jump through their hoops. "Faith." she breathed. The first word she'd spoken out loud in... she didn't know how long. That girl hadn't been Faith, she was sure of it, but she was equally sure that it would only be a matter of time before they went after her too.

Buffy felt herself coalescing back together. It was if she had been a puddle that a child had jumped in and splashed her all over the street. But now she was coming back together and locking together. The next time that child jumped on her, he would find himself slipping and falling on the ice.

With her powers gone, Buffy had quickly given up on breaking out. She could never beat down the door without her powers. So now she turned to a different tactic.

Guile.

Two springs from her bunk turned into a set of lockpicks.

And for once being a petite woman worked in her favor. Bars on her cell that were too close together for a large, male arm to fit through were fairly easy for her to. It took two hours, but she finally got her cell open.

Instead of making a break for freedom, however, she instead make her way to the science wing. She dumped out all the jars of the drug they used to drug the Slayers and filled the jugs with water. It wasn't going to fool anyone as the drug was a greenish-yellow but she hoped to fix that. She headed for the kitchen and found what she was looking for in the 6th drawer she opened. Food coloring.

She added several squirts of yellow to each jar and then sloshed them around. Then she added a couple drops of blue. Then more yellow again until she thought it was close to what the drug looked like. She replaced the food coloring and then did the hardest thing she'd ever done.

She locked herself back in her cell.

Buffy had no idea how long it would take for the drugs to wear off. She was killed the next day and even in her panic she didn't break the ropes binding her. The next day was a day of rest and she was too tired to even move. The next morning she tested her powers. She tried bending a piece of the metal of her bed frame. And it bent! Not much, but a little. More than any normal girl could have bent it.

Tomorrow would be another day off before she was killed again the next day. One more day of gaining strength would only be good. She disguised the damage she'd done and went back to pretending that nothing had changed.

Instead sirens started blaring. Drat, she hadn't thought about the other girls, she'd probably had the most drugs running through her for the longest. One of the other girls must have figured out their powers were back and decided to make a break for it.

Buffy looked between the steel bars of her door and the cinder blocks of the wall next to her bed. It was no contest. It hurt punching the concrete blocks more than she remembered and it took a dozen more punches than it should have, but she punched through to the cell next door and crawled through the hole she made. She then walked out of the empty cell.

"B?"

"Faith?" Buffy skidded to a stop, at least as surprised as the other Slayer.

"What are you doing here?" the both said at the same time.

"Trying to bust the other Slayers out." Faith answered. "We've been trying to find you for months."

"They've been-"

"We know." Faith said so she didn't have to say it.

"Where is everyone?" Buffy asked.

"Xander's here somewhere. Just listen for the gunfire, that'll be him. Your mom and Willow stay back at the base planning the raids and finding Slayers." Faith said.

"My mom!?" Buffy couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Yeah. Joyce turned into a real generalissimo when you got took." Faith nodded. "But let's talk once we've rescued everyone else."

"Where's Giles and Angel?" Buffy asked as they ran.

"We don't know where Giles is for sure. He went back to England to try and find out where you were months ago. We never heard from him after that." Faith replied as she broke the neck of a guard.

Around the corner, a familiar face emerged. Buffy was kept from attacking only by the fact that Faith was currently just a bit faster than her. "Spike!" Buffy growled.

"Easy!" Faith said. "He's on our side!"

"Well, let's not go overboard." Spike said sarcastically.

"How-? What-?" Buffy sputtered.

Drusilla then appeared next to him. "They killed my Angel." she said by way of explaination.

Spike sniffed and ran a tongue over his fangs. "Dru wants revenge for the Nancy-boy. And this bird is a lot more fun than you ever were. Plus we don't really like the council. So, we help her and hers kill them and then we all go our separate ways."

"Angel's dead?" Buffy breathed. It felt like she had been hit harder than she ever had in her life.

"Amanda! Get over here!" Faith yelled. A girl jogged up, the way she carried herself made it clear she was a Slayer. "This is Buffy. Get her to safety and keep her safe until I get back."

"Buffy!? The Buffy?" Amanda asked wide eyed.

Apparently, someone had been telling stories.

"Yeah, now keep her safe and requisition anyone you need to do so. Her mom will skin you alive if we lose her now." Faith said before she turned to the vampires. "Come on." The three of them headed off.

Amanda waved in the other direction and the started off. Behind them the screams of the dying guards echoed in the halls.