Taken from The Tiberius Manifesto, hidden in the vaults of the Council of Watchers:
Before man, demons roamed the face of the earth. However, within time the demons lost their purchase on this reality, and left through the mouth of hell. Before the last demon left he fed off a human, mixing their blood and tainting the human soul. The vampire.
The humans and the vampires grew in their ranks, however as the vampires fed, man's numbers and his hope dwindled. It was at that time a powerful shaman used his magic to harness the power of darkness and channel it into a girl, his daughter, to create a being of light, to help fight the evil that faced them. But nothing comes without a price, the world needed to redress the balance. For this purpose the power was also granted to another girl, a girl fuelled by hate and pain, to make sure no side, good nor evil, would ever truly die. Both slayers work in secret, hidden from the world around them, but early in the twenty first century, a day will come when the two must face each other in the final battle. The outcome forever changing the face of the earth.
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Willow had a headache. She was tired and she missed her friends. But she was determined to finish the exercise before she slept, if all her power couldn't be taken away she had to be able to control it. She lay on her bed and tried to float the pencil again. She managed to get it a couple of inches in the air when she saw Warren again, tied to a tree, flesh torn from his body, screaming in pain.
Suddenly there was a crash in her room, losing her concentration had caused the pencil to fly across the room, shattering a small purple lamp on the dresser in the far corner. "I CAN'T DO THIS!" she screamed, and tears began to roll down her face. Giles got up off the floor in front of the lamp and dusted himself off. "Yes you can." He smiled. "You just need some rest, it's late, you need sleep"
"Giles, I can't sleep, I can't... If I sleep I dream, and my dreams…" Giles took off his glasses, placing them in his pocket.
"They scare you, I understand. You've taken a life. No matter how hard you try you can't forgive, and you'll never forget." He paused, a memory pulled from the surface of his mind. The life-less body of a young doctor flashed before his eyes. Willow noticed the pause and looked up at him. Pulled back to the present he continued, "But you will make peace with yourself. The first step is trying to control your emotions."
"I'm not scared of my dreams Giles, I'm scared of waking up, not remembering and reaching over and she's not there… and that's when I remember and all I feel is rage, and pain, and I know all the hurt I've caused everyone… I've caused you. Every time I wake up I lose a little more of my heart and I just don't know how much of it I have left." She began to cry again, Giles knelt down at the bed and handed her a tissue. She took it and wiped her eyes.
"Every time you wake up and you have those feelings, you're choosing not to give in to them. You're trying to live with them. You're not losing your heart. Every time you wake up, you're getting a little bit of it back."
Willow looked up at Giles and wiped her eyes. "Thank you, I don't know how I would have got through the last few months without you. I know I'll never be able to make it up to you…." She trailed off. "I think I will get some sleep."
"Ok," said Giles, smiling slightly "if you need me I'm just down the hall. Goodnight." Giles turned, looked at the remains of the lamp and left the room, closing the door behind him. "I never liked that lamp anyway," he thought to himself as he went down the short corridor and turned into his room.
Willow got up, closed the curtains and wiped her eyes again. She looked at the broken lamp and picked it up, dropping the remains in the bin. She picked up the pencil and placed it next to the piece of paper on her desk, lay down on her bed and tried to focus her mind. When her mind was cleared she focused on the pencil and floated it up in the air. It angled down and the tip touched the paper, almost unconsciously writing on it. When she finished the pencil dropped and she got up, reached for the paper and looked at what she had written. There was one, very shaky word written over the piece of paper: 'TARA'. She looked down at her feet and then placed the paper in the drawer by her bed. Unsure how to feel she got undressed and got into bed. Her dreams were blurred, images of her friends, of Tara, of Warren in the woods. Feelings of pain, hurt, interjected with brief moments of happiness followed almost instantly by guilt and anguish. As light slowly began to filter through the curtains, she curled herself up into a ball and continued to dream.
Even through the curtains Willow could feel the sun on her face as she woke. She smiled, and rolled over expecting to see the face of her lover, but all she saw was the ugly green wallpaper and in that second she remembered everything. The gunshot, her actions afterward, the trip to England and her powers being stripped from her all flashed in front of her eyes before she had time to blink. She closed her eyes hard trying to get rid of the images. Like every day before it just intensified them. She focused her thoughts and brushing back her hair she got out of bed and opened her clothes drawer. At the top of the drawer was the piece of paper she had written on last night. She placed it on top of the chest of drawers and got dressed, folded the piece of paper and placed it in her pocket. She checked herself in the mirror, pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and headed out of the room and down the stairs to meet Giles for breakfast.
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Buffy had a headache. She'd been patrolling for over an hour, and for just under an hour she'd had the doublemeat jingle stuck in her head. Dawn trailed behind her, cross and stake at hand. "You know, I always pictured this as being more exciting. I mean, shouldn't you have killed something by now?" She made a jabbing motion with her stake to emphasize her point. Buffy looked back at her sister, "Dawn, patrolling comes as part of the slayer's job description, usually it's long, boring and tiring"
"Yeah, like last month when you killed Toknar, with that magic bong thingy, that was real boring."
"That wasn't a bong it was a… how do you know what a bong is?"
"Wow, full moon." Said Dawn, changing the subject. Buffy rolled her eyes at her younger sister.
"Not quite full, not for another couple of days, it's…
"Um, Buffy…" Dawn trailed off as Buffy noticed the pack of vampires heading towards them. They were all in game face, looking for a fight. "Dawn, stake?" Dawn passed Buffy her stake and got another from her backpack but to Buffy's surprise the vampires stopped, came out of game face and started to talk to each other. Buffy was so surprised she stopped in her tracks to watch.
"I thought you said the other slayer was in prison?" Said the first vampire turning to the others.
"I was told she was, maybe it's not her?" Said the second.
"Come on, tall, dark hair, wandering round a graveyard with a stake in her hand, who else is it going to be. Slayer taking her sister out for a walk?" He smiled at the others.
"Um…" said the third, jumping into the conversation "She's headed this way, I think maybe we should…." His words were cut off when a crossbow bolt ripped into his heart and he exploded in a cloud of dust. Looking up they saw Buffy, crossbow at hand. "You guys never learn do ya?" Buffy dropped the crossbow, "don't you ever get tired of hanging out in graveyards?" She said, hitting the first and simultaneously kicking the second into a gravestone, breaking it in half. She turned to kick the third, only to see him running into the night. Buffy shrugged it off. "I mean you couldn't find yourselves a nice little place somewhere, a sofa, couple of throw rugs…" The first vampire hit her in the stomach, following up with a kick to her head. Buffy blocked it, knocking him to the ground. "You could really do the place up, have other vamps over for dinner," The vampire jumped to his feet
"I'm not really a throw rug kind of guy," He said, catching her off guard and kicking her over to his friend who threw her to the floor. The second looked down at her, "and we're not big on dinner parties."
"Well with that smell," she said getting to her feet "you really couldn't could you?" and rammed her stake into his heart. He clutched it before falling to his feet and exploding into dust. Buffy turned to look for Dawn but was knocked to the ground from behind, the first vampire jumping on top of her "I've finished playing"
He leaned into her neck. "Me too" said Buffy, almost in a whisper and pushed him up into the waiting stake of her sister. As he passed her face his eyes widened and he exploded into dust, a small gold ring where his hand had been. "And you said patrolling was boring" smiled Buffy. Dawn smiled back. "Too bad you're back at school next week." Dawn went to speak but Buffy cut her off, "Before you say it, you're not coming patrolling on a school night".
"Buffy, I really don't need reminding about going back to school, one more week left of holidays, let me enjoy it." She offered her hand to her sister, who took it and pulled herself up to her feet. "What's that?" Dawn asked, indicating the ring to Buffy.
Buffy looked puzzled, and bent down to pick up the ring. "I don't know, but there's a pretty design on the inside. See? Maybe he belonged to a bowling league?" She joked. Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'll call Giles when we get back, they should be getting up over there about now. He's bound to know. That, and we still haven't been able to replace any of the books from the magic box yet." She slipped the ring into her pocket. "Let's head home, I don't think there'll be any more action tonight." Dawn finished putting the equipment back in her backpack and smiled at Buffy. "Good, I need sleep." They headed for home.
"So," said Buffy "you were telling me about how you know what a bong looks like?"