CONSEQUENCES
There's always consequences. Always! -Spike; After Life
Chapter I: Arrival
John Connor watched his mother aiming the not-really nuclear gun at the door through which Cromartie was about to emerge. Cameron had told him that she knew when and where Skynet would be created, and they were going to take the fight to the enemy. All they had to do was survive long enough to get there.
The temporal displacement equipment was powering up, and John found himself for the first time witnessing an actual journey through time. And I'm about to come out naked. In front of my mom and Cameron who will also be naked. Why the hell am I thinking about this when a Terminator is about to kill us all?
The door to the bank vault was starting to be ripped from its hinges, and the damaged face of the killing machine was visible. "Mom!"
Sarah fired a shot of energy at the thing wearing the guise of a man, and the blast took its head clean off just before a blinding flash of blue-white light.
John opened his eyes as he felt a cool breeze against his bare skin. His feet were touching dirt, and he stood up straight to find himself together with his mother and his new guardian in the middle of a cemetery. "Cameron? Where are we? Also, when are we?"
"We're in Sunnydale, California," the nude gynoid said without any hint of shame for her nakedness. "The date is July 28, 1997."
"What? Why didn't you come to us in 1997 and bring us here without time travel?" Sarah exclaimed. "And I thought that the TDE could only move through time. How'd we get someplace else?"
"You were misinformed," Cameron said. "And you were too deep in hiding in 1997 to find. It was close to when you then believed to Judgment Day to be, and law enforcement was looking for you in force."
"Let me guess," John said. "Future me told you this."
"Yes. But for now, we need to find-"
A sound cut through the night air. A band of men and women were rushing towards them in a feral way that contrasted sharply with their formal wear. They made roaring sounds and their faces looked strange.
"Stay back," Cameron warned.
"What are those?" Sarah asked.
Cameron ignored her and walked forward as one of the things tried to grab her. She simply knocked his hands away and grabbed him by the neck and twisted. Its head came off before the entire thing, clothes and all, turned to dust.
The other creatures looked at Cameron more carefully, but it was only a moment before they came again. The Terminator decapitated each of them in turn, and like the first, they all turned to dust. When only one was left standing, it fled, running amazingly quickly.
"What the hell were those things?" Sarah shouted. "And how did you-"
"They were vampires," Cameron said harshly, cutting her off. "We need to get indoors."
"Indoors, where?" John asked. "This doesn't look like a big city where we can just find an abandoned place and hide there."
"No, there are places like that, but they're likely to be taken by vampires."
"More of those things?" Sarah exclaimed. "What the hell is-"
"Beneath us," Cameron cut her off. "Hell is beneath us, and something from it, or at least close to it, is the origin of Skynet. That's why we're here."
"As for getting indoors, how are we going to do that? Just kick someone out of their home?"
"No, John. We're going to your place."
They traveled quickly and quietly, and Sarah felt incredibly idiotic running around a peaceful-looking town in the nude. Except the town wasn't peaceful at all. There were actual vampires living here, if the machine was to be believed. While Terminators weren't the things Sarah trusted most by a long shot, there was no denying what she had seen and heard in the cemetery.
"What do you mean when you said 'my place?'" John asked the machine.
"You sent back agents to set up a safe house for you here in Sunnydale. They've since established their own base of operations elsewhere."
"How do you know this?" Sarah hissed under her breath.
"John told me."
"I did?"
"Not you."
"Oh. Future me."
"Yes. We're almost there," Cameron said as she led them on a right turn onto a street called Revello Drive.
They passed a number of houses that seemed perfectly ordinary. Sarah noticed that Cameron did not look at any of them until they passed number 1630, which had three small windows on the front door. "What's in that house?"
"Nothing yet," the Terminator said cryptically.
They passed one more house until they arrived at 1634. The place looked perfectly normal, save that it didn't have any lights on at this hour. What hour is it, anyway? Sarah wondered.
"So, do we kick the front door down?" John asked.
"No. There are probably traps to stop an intruder. There will be a way." The gynoid stepped forward and found the doorbell, which was a rectangular button on a similarly-shaped protrusion. She took it in her fingers and moved the thing up, then down, and repeated the process in a pattern that Sarah assumed was a code of some kind.
The lights came on and the door clicked. "It's unlocked. We can go in," Cameron said.
Sarah stepped inside and found a modestly furnished home that felt like a place an ordinary family might live in. "I take it that there's more to this house than it looks?"
"Yes. There should be a full arsenal in the basement. Rations, clothing, and updates on regional activity should have been left here as well. There should also be computers. We'll need them to alter our records so that we can be legally recognized under an assumed name."
"Baum," John said.
"What are you talking about, John?" Sarah asked.
"Just came to my head as a cover name. You know? L. Frank Baum? Wrote-"
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," Sarah said with fond nostalgia. "We'll keep our first names. Easier to remember. What about you, Tin Man?" she mocked the machine. The nickname was appropriate. "How are you going to fit into this family?"
"She can by my sister," John said as if it was obvious.
"We look the part," Cameron chimed in.
Feeling overwhelmed. Sarah threw her hands up in the air. "Fine! Fine. Make it work. I'm going to check out the bedrooms and see if there are any clothes. John see if you can find the AC. It's… Aw, crap. How the hell are we going to pay bills to maintain this-"
"There's cash hidden throughout the house," Cameron answered simply.
"Right. Well, in that case, what's next? After clothing, that is?"
"School," Cameron said. "It all starts at Sunnydale High School."
"School? Really?" John asked. "Aren't there more important things?"
"No. It all starts there. I don't know how, but I know it starts there very soon."
Sarah was too upset to care about clothing at the moment. "What's so important at the high school? How do you know that Skynet starts there?"
"It sits on the mouth of Hell," Cameron stated simply.
A moment of silence followed her remarks. "I'm gonna put some clothes on now," Sarah decided.
Beneath the earth, next to a pool of blood, Luke sat meditating, readying himself to call forth the Master once again. It was almost time.
"Luke!" Darla cried, rushing into the room.
"Quiet," he said. "Be calm. What has you troubled?"
"We have a problem. A group of us were out on the hunt. There were three humans together, naked, and one was a girl. She killed seven of us on her own!"
Luke stood up and took notice of the fear in Darla's eyes. "The Slayer?"
"It can't be anyone else, Luke. What are we going to do?"
"We will proceed as planned, but with caution," Luke said calmly. "Knowledge is power, and you have brought that power to us. We know that the Slayer is here, but she does not know of our plans. And she will not know anything until it is too late."
I don't own anything from Terminator or Buffy. I'm just borrowing the material.
This story will probably not follow either show's chronology terribly religiously, if at all, though I will be using the entirety of both shows as inspiration and possible material. This story will be its own, however, and will not simply be "The Connors in the middle of the Buffy TV series. Also, I never saw the Angel series, so if I leave anything out form that show that wasn't in Buffy, that's why. The Season Eight comics will also not be covered.
Reviews are incredibly awesome and help me to write a better story. Please tell me what you like and don't like and how the story can be better. Also, I could use a beta-reader, if anyone is interested.
Many Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoy!