Hey there guys! Here's the first chapter from season 6! Our Ally is back and there's more to her than the Gang knows yet. Is she an improved version of S5 Ally or is she broken? What will happen to her now?
I haven't been able to wait more before getting back into writing, Word was literally calling me. I managed to get Chem and Physics lessons done before getting the DVD's out and starting season 6 again, so I'll call it a productive day. If you have any suggestions, any questions about the end of the previous season or anything else, review or PM me. Reviews, follows and favs are much appreciated and help me get motivated to continue writing, so please, it's just a click!
Special thanks to bwburke94 and HarriettWithTea again for your messages, I always love to read them!
Just to clear up things: I've actually changed a bit what happened in the show. I know that in the show when Buffy died for the first time the second slayer, Kendra, was called. When Kendra died, Faith was called. So, in the show, only the second slayer's death can activate another slayer, right? Well, I've kinda added Buffy to that. Like, any of both slayers death's can activate another slayer, meaning there will be four slayers from then here on. Faith is still in prison, and I guess I have to clear up the Angel timeline, since I've noticed it doesn't exactly fit what I want. I'll probably take some time to adjust it before posting it, but just know that the Buffy timeline from season 6 and 7 will stay the same, meaning Faith won't get out until the end of season 7, when they gather the Potentials.
And that was a long A/N. Enough.
Lee out.
It was suffocating. There was no air, no nothing, just that tiny dark space, a bit cushiony but so small she could barely move her arms to her sides. She had to get out, she had to do something.
Because she could. Finally, the pain, the agony, was gone. The screams, the terror, they were gone. She could move her body, if barely, her arms and legs, her fingers, her lips. She was afraid, afraid of running out of oxygen, but she could do something about it. At last.
Fingers and fists clawed and scraped at the surface above her. There was some kind of soft fabric she easily tore and then a harder material, like wood. Her mind was reeling, fighting for a way out, for freedom. She would die if she stayed there. If there was something her jumbled brain could process was that she would die without air. It was basic sense of survival.
She finally felt her hand break through the wood, coming into contact with a crumbly and slightly wet mush, which she soon identified as soil. She punched through it, making way for her body with her hands, stinging and bruised. Yet it was nothing compared to before. She even welcomed this light teasing kind of pain.
Just when she felt like she would choke, her head broke through the last layer of soil, fresh air hitting her nose and mouth like ambrosia. Air. Fresh air. It felt like she hadn't tasted it, smelled it, in forever.
She hadn't.
Crawling out of her prison, her knees and hands felt the blades of grass against her skin, cool, a bit wet, and so fresh tears soon fell from her cheeks. She slumped on her side, grasping the grass with one of her hands, her ragged breathing mixing with sobs, crying with joy. She could feel it all, the breeze, the ground beneath her, the material with which she was clad. It was not only misery and torment, endless, torture after torture. She could feel it all again. Like before.
Before what?
Her sobs slowly stopped, her head lifting from the ground and blurry eyes looking around. She was in some kind of clearing, in a forest, with two slightly squared stones sticking out of the floor. The spot of ground which she had gotten out from was in front of one of the stones, a similar scene repeated itself in front of the other.
Sight foggy, she got closer to one of the stones, making out some carvings in it.
Ally Finn Summers - Beloved sister - Devoted friend - Kicked ass repeatedly
Her. She remembered. That was her name. Ally. Finn? That was not...
Her thoughts were a mess, everything coming back at once, like a headache from eating ice cream too fast, brain freezing. Her past. Her childhood. Her teenage years. Her time in L.A. Her life in Sunnydale. Her sisters.
Summers.
Her head whipped to her right, knowing whose the other headstone was. Buffy. Her sister. She died right before her. They were buried together.
And she wasn't there anymore, either.
What had happened?
She stood up, looking down at herself to find an unknown black dress on herself, paired with a pair of black flats. Those were not right. She didn't wear ballerina flats. She... she wore... boots. She remembered them. Her military boots. They were a gift. She almost always had them on.
Her hands flew up to rub her eyes, trying to clear up her sight. She didn't even know where she was, but she had to move. She had to find her family. Buffy was alive, too. She had to find her sisters. Her friends. Her vampire.
Spike.
Their last kiss assaulted her mind. Outside the Magic Box, when she thought it would be their last day together. She was ready to die. She knew she would rather die than let Dawn do it. She would do it all over again, even when she knew what awaited her after that.
Screams and agony. Non-stop.
She had to move, get her mind out of it. Find her family.
Slowly but surely, she made her way out of the forest, the smell of something burning guiding her. Soon, she was on the somewhat familiar streets of Sunnydale, only they were destroyed, fire consuming trashcans, shops and even homes. What had happened there?
Then a black clad figure was coming at her, the picture a bit hazy at first. Two others were following the first, baseball bats and crowbars on their hands.
Crowbars. The memory of one of those burying itself on her shoulder snapped her out of her confused state, trying to focus on the silhouettes approaching, making out their totally not human faces.
Trouble.
"We have a nice little girl to play with, boys." The first one growled, voice raspy and threatening, his mouth stretching into something akin a smile, a grotesque and unpleasant one at that.
They surrounded her, her feet moving to a fighting stance on their own, her muscles flexing with a new found strength. She could put to test what she had felt while she fell to the portal, before she died. She could find out if she really was a Slayer.
One of the demons went to grab her from behind, trying to get his arms around her to have her controlled, probably thinking she was just a normal defenceless young girl. Oh, he was going to find out how wrong he was.
Her elbow shot backwards, striking him in the face, a cracking sound letting her know she had broken something. The other two soon lunged at her when they saw she could hold her ground, her fists and legs moving almost to their own accord, reflexes sharper that ever, her hits more effective than she could have ever dreamed of.
The three demons were left in a heap on the pavement, holding their broken members and whining, the new Slayer walking away, feeling whole for the first time in her life.
After a few more minutes of wandering, she arrived at the creepiest scene one could ever see. She saw her face, her torso, lying on the ground, arms and legs torn, letting her see the entrails and wires of the AllyBot. Not twenty feet from her broken copy, was her eldest sister's one, in a similar fashion, abandoned, forgotten by whoever had done that. Ally bet on the demons she had faced not long before.
She looked away from her own face, unable to stare at the images of Buffy and herself any longer. She had to find the real ones, her real family. They had to be somewhere.
Home. The Summers' home. They had to be there.
She didn't recognize most streets anymore, the fire and wreckage not matching her memories, making her ramble in search of the place where she had spent her last days alive. Where her family should be.
It took her longer than she had thought to get to the front of the familiar house, mostly untouched, unlike other houses in the same neighbourhood that had been ransacked and torched. The lights on the lower floor were on, feeling her with a nervous energy that had her standing frozen on the pathway to the porch for a good couple of minutes. What did a couple minutes matter? She had been wandering for what felt, and probably were, hours.
She was finally back, after an eternity in that dark place. Back home.
She reached the door, hearing voices inside, matching each one with a face from her memories. It seemed like they were all there, except... She couldn't hear Spike. Maybe...
Right then, the door opened, a fuming vampire almost crashing with her, then looking up and any kind of semblance of life leaving him. He turned into a statue, the sharp contours of his bones and pale skin making him look like he was made out of marble. His hair was curlier than she remembered, but the rest was all the same. Same black clothes, same hair colour, same expressive blue eyes.
Her vampire.
She felt like the air was knocked out of her at seeing him, her arms stilling around her middle, eyes wide and lips parted, no sounds leaving her mouth. What could she say? How long had she been dead?
"Spike." His name left her lips in a whisper, longing and joyful at the same time. She had spent so much time being tormented, no place for complicated thoughts in her mind. Still, there were three things that had kept her somewhat connected to her life, to what she had been before her death: Dawn, Buffy and Spike.
She didn't even notice the people appearing behind him until a brunette head caught her attention, the watering blue eyes of her baby sister calling her. Her hands had flown up to her mouth, her shoulders trembling, yet Ally couldn't manage her emotions. She couldn't decide what to feel. She was happy she was free and alive, she was nostalgic, she was sad they had suffered, she was confused and, more importantly, she was relieved. Her family was...
Buffy's gaze found hers, yet it felt like something was missing. It was Buffy, but something was wrong. She knew it. Maybe Hell had taken a bigger toll on her. Maybe...
Her thoughts were interrupted by her little sister tightly hugging her, her tears falling down Ally's shoulder as the eldest brunette wrapped her arms around the youngest, closing her eyes. She was really there, with them, back. She could finally touch them, see them, be with them. "Dawnie..." She breathed, voice weak but loud enough for the teen to heard, her shoulders shaking even more.
"You're back..." Dawn sobbed stepping back to look at her and take her appearance in.
That was when Spike approached her, taking one of her hands in his and looking at the wounds and blood in them. "You had to claw your way out, too."
She nodded, forgetting everything the moment they locked gazes. His eyes had never been so soft, his expression never so warm as it was then.
Her vampire.
Then one of the fires down the street caught the tank of a grass mower, making the gadget blow up, the noise startling them all.
Ally's reaction was way worse than anyone else's, though. She jumped back, sending whoever was on her way stumbling, holding herself against the wall, crouched down, trying to find the source of the explosion. Someone shrieked at her sudden movement, the sound drilling into her skull, her mind recalling the screams, the cries. And it all came back at once, images flashing before her eyes, the feeling of her skin being carved, burnt and peeled like a ghost over her body. For a moment, she was back there. Then she was home.
And everybody was staring at her, terrified. Tara and Dawn where on the floor, sprawled, looking at her in shock. She knew, she knew she had knocked them down. She hadn't even thought about it. It was all reflex. She had hurt them.
"I... I... I'm sorry." She mumbled, eyes flashing from one face to the other while trying to stand up again. "I... didn't... I didn't mean to."
She helped Dawn and the witch get back up, when suddenly Spike took hold of her wrist and pulled, making her release her baby sister.
"That looked effortless. Pull." He ordered, tightening his hold on her arm. He had noticed right away.
"Not necessary." She replied quietly, once again staring right back at him. "I know what I am."
"What... you... are?" Willow spoke up for the first time since she arrived, getting the brunette's attention away from the bleach blond. "You mean... you're not like before. What happened while you were gone?"
"Willow, maybe she... it's too soon." Tara stopped her girlfriend, glancing at the blonde Slayer as if to make the other witch understand. "They've gone through a lot. We can talk tomorrow. Buffy said she was tired, and I'm sure Ally is too." She smiled lightly at the latter, whose hand fell when the vampire released her and stalked away. "Come on, we'll take care of your hands and get the extra mattress out in Dawn's room."
When Tara mentioned it, she realized just how tired she really was. Exhausted. She could feel her eyelids closing by themselves, and struggled to keep them open while the Gang let her into the house, hugging her on the way.
Buffy was last, but she didn't make any movements to try to near her. She just stared, like she was trying to read her.
"Buffy." And for the first time since she was brought to life, a little smile stretched her lips. Her sister was alive, they were both alive, the three were together again.
Yet Buffy couldn't look more miserable at seeing her smile.