Warning: I do not own the rights to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off series Angel, its dark horse comics continuation series, or any of the characters created by Joss Whedon and others in the Buffyverse.
15 years +, Mild to Strong Violence, Sexual References.
F/F, F/M, M/M, Other +
Dawn Summers had come a long way from her days of just being Buffy's little sister, from briefly becoming a giant then a centaur to unlocking her hidden power as the key as she travelled through multiple dimensions with Xander Harris leading to a surprise romance for the two resulting in the two of them having a child together, a child they called Joyce in honor of her mother.
Yes, Dawn had gone through a lot of changes since her Sunnydale days and was now mostly enjoying life as a loving mother to Joyce and a loving partner to Xander, mostly being the correct choice of word. Deep down she missed the excitement that came from being a part of the scooby gang and often envied her spouse Xander especially when he went on missions so when she heard of her nephew Tristan's current dilemma she was first to offer up her services, any excuse to escape from adulthood
Dawn had never actually met her nephew who was now somehow around about the same age as her and she was not particularly interested in meeting him in the past with the whole killing spree he was on putting her off but she had heard he had come along with since then and she knew her sister would need as much support as possible if things did not go to plan with saving Tristan from the shadow demon.
"I do not get it your performing an exorcism on a demon possessed by a demon, that is complicated even for us." Dawn stated as she stood in the Livingroom of Willow and Buffy's apartment, standing next to Willow. "I get this is Buffy's boy and trust me I'm the last to complain about Buffy going to extremes for people but even she has to know when to quite some time right?"
"Wrong!" Willow replied to the slayer's sister, "Tristan's complicated especially where Buffy is concerned and yeah he's technically a vampire which is a demon but I am going to be aiming for the shadow demon the entire exorcism, I think."
"You think?" Dawn asked, noticing Willow's uncertainty.
"It has not been done before but hey when has that ever stopped me." Willow admitted before going on to say. "And if I mess this up Tristan could wind up permanently dead and I've just let loose one hell of a demon."
"I hate to say it but at this point would it not just be safer for everyone involved to just kill him and get it over with." Dawn reluctantly suggested. "I want to be a great aunt and everything but I am a mum first and I'd hate to think how worse of the world I am raising my daughter in will be if the thing strong enough to harness slayer strength returns."
"I am down for redeeming folk as much as the other girl I mean I do not even want to think where I'd be without people helping me at my worst but I got to say I am kind of on your side here Dawnie." Willow revealed, making it clear she was more for Dawn's suggestion than Buffy's. "However, this is Buffy's child and I already made her lose him once…if she loses him again then I got to know I've done everything within my power to stop it."
"Please remind me why on earth we had to come all the way to San Francisco with a hostile Tristan instead of just getting Willow to come to us?" Fred asked Buffy as the two stood on a hill looking over to give a view of the iconic Golden Gate bridge. "It just seems to me like things would have been easier in New York."
"I do not think anything about this is going to be easy!" Buffy replied to her with a sense of dread in her voice. "I remember coming here when I first learned I was pregnant and all these thoughts about how I could never keep my child safe flooded my head…I guess I should've taken note then."
"The shadow demon was trapped by the shadow men and no offense to them, but they have nothing on all of us." Fred boasted to reassure the slayer that things would work out perfectly, despite not entire believing it for herself. "All we have to do is get Willow to perform the right exorcism on the right demon and we can take it from there."
"And then we have a soulless Tristan which I guess is the best result we are looking at here. I mean the soul is the shadow demon's not his so if everything goes to plan my son will be evil and trying to kill me again which is supposed to be better than expelling both demons and we kill Tristan in the process." Buffy said, admitting her fears before Fred began transforming back into her goddess Illyria form.
"I must admit an exorcism is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard off and by far the dumbest thing I've ever heard my somewhat intelligent vessel say before." Illyria revealed to the slayer. "Take comfort in knowing that if it comes to the point of putting your child vampire down, I will oblige without hesitation."
"Weirdly enough not having to kill my own son is the only thing comforting I've heard in a long time." Buffy honestly admitted to the goddess, weirdly comforted knowing if it came to it, she would not have to be the one to kill Tristan.
"Well if it is not mini B long time no see!" Faith greeted Dawn after Dawn walked into an abandoned warehouse within San Francisco. "Wish it were on better circumstances but then again these seem to be the only circumstances we all meet under."
"Must we live up every single horror trope I mean an exorcism and now we're meeting in an abandoned warehouse the only thing more ironic would be if we had a priest coming to join the party too." Dawn replied to the brown-haired slayer.
"Here at least priests have more knowledge on exorcisms than Willow but saying that she had more knowledge on demons than any witch I have ever know." Faith responded, making it clear she was far from confident about the upcoming exorcism.
"Whose idea was this again?" Dawn wondered. "I feel like we do not even consider just killing the evil anymore."
"Tristan is not evil; he's well he's complicated like you and me." Faith snapped back at Buffy's mystical sister.
"How the hell is he like me? Last time I checked my kill count was zero." Dawn answered back, confused by Faith's comparison.
"Well I was the slayer who did not feel like she belonged and it led me down a murderous path and you're the key who felt she did not wrong and sure you've never actually down anything wrong except for the whole being a key to a hell dimension which led to B having to sacrifice herself to save you." Faith replied frankly and honestly. "I am not saying any of that was on you or that Tristan is innocent of all his crimes but he is sure trying to make up for his past and if your sister can sacrifice herself for you surely you can resist killing her nephew for a little while until there is no other option."
"You know you make a lot more sense when you're not psychotically murdering a bunch of folks." Dawn admitted, realizing that maybe just maybe she had been judging her nephew a little too harshly.
"You know I have been hearing that a lot lately." Faith responded with a soft laugh.
"Things sure would be a lot easier if you guys just faced the facts and dusted my sorry ass!" Tristan stated as he, Spike and Angel walked through the underground sewer tunnels underneath San Francisco City.
"I do not think I have ever met a vampire with more of a death wish." Spike claimed, before realizing. "Well except for me when I first got my chip."
"We are not killing you Tristan not when we can get this demon out of you." Angel promised his son as the three vampires continued their walk through the tunnels.
"Which demon?" Tristan asked sarcastically. "The slayer demon or the vampire demon because one is keeping me with a soul but wants to kill all slayers and the other has no soul and wants to kill everyone."
"Hey, I am just as confused as you kid, I for one think killing you would be a lot easier than getting Willow to play exorcist." Spike answered the demonic slayer.
"I have an idea Spike, why don't we dump the demon in you and then we kill you and the shadow demon in one go." Angel snapped at the peroxide blonde haired vampire.
"If that is what is going to happen then I am totally down with killing captain peroxide." Tristan chimed in, not sure if he was joking or not.
"I think I liked you better when you were mini Dru because this mini Angel thing you got going is truly terrifying!" Spike told Tristan, clearly not amused with Tristan or Angel.
Willow Rosenberg knew the exorcism she was about to perform was one hell of a long shot, the likelihood of being able to get one demon out while keeping another was beyond ludicrous to her, an idea she was not surprised to having never heard of being done before because you tend to only get possessed once at a time or so that is what she thought until now.
The red headed witch had done the impossible before, in fact many times before and if anyone was going to be successful at this particular exorcism it would be Willow, however, even if all things did go to plan she would then have to try and magically restore a soul for Tristan Summers which would require even more of her power.
She knew the chances of Tristan surviving the exorcism were very slim but she also knew his mother Buffy, her best friend, would never forgive herself if everything within the realm of possibility was not done to save her son even if in truth nobody truly believed this exorcism would work out for the best but then again nothing ever did.
"I am just saying if we leave him like this for the rest of eternity then that would be just fine." Spike claimed as he tightened the cuffs that were tying Tristan down to a table placed within the middle of the abandoned warehouse, while Buffy, Angel, Faith, Dawn, Fred and Willow stood around the table all looking equally terrified.
"Spike if you could stay shut up until this was all over, I think we would all highly appreciate it!" Buffy snapped at her former lover, as she looked down at her vampire son strapped to a table, a sight she had wished she would never have to witness.
"I am trying really hard to say something soothing or even remotely confident, but I am not going to lie I am as freaked out as everybody else here!" Willow admitted to them all. "Well, here goes nothing I guess."
Buffy nodded to her redheaded best friend and with just one look Willow knew the blonde haired slayer had put all her trust into her, no pressure on the witch at all of course as she stepped forward getting closer towards a tied down Tristan and began chanting in an unknown language forcing herself to chant louder and louder as she heard Tristan's muffled groans of pain caused by the exorcism she was now performing.
"Be brave buddy!" Faith mumbled to herself, aiming her words towards Tristan as he began shaking viciously due to the exorcism spell Willow was still chanting in an unrecognizable language. "Be brave!"
The exorcism of Tristan Summers lasted a long time, nobody really knows how long exactly except for them all feeling like it lasted forever as Tristan's body convulsed in shapes unknown to man as his face kept changing from it's human form to it's vampire form repeatedly, the mask of tape around his mouth having worn off early on leaving them all forced to endure Tristan's screams of pain as Faith and Spike held him down while Willow continued to chant in a long forgotten language.
Buffy and Angel held each other's hand as they look on in terror, partly to support the other but mostly to restrain each other from stopping the exorcism as they were forced to watch their son being magically tortured by Willow, knowing what she was doing was Tristan's only chance of survival.
Suddenly a clearly drained Willow stopped chanting after noticing Tristan's human face had changed once again but this time only his eyes, having changed from their normal color to pure jet black.
"You cannot stop me witch," A sinister voice coming from Tristan's body announced. "If anything, you're just torturing the vessel and I'm getting bored."
Faith and Spike's hold on Tristan was compromised when they found themselves being thrown across the room by some invisible force crashing harshly onto the ground before Buffy, Angel, Fred, Dawn and Willow found themselves being thrown back to the ground too as the possessed Tristan began cackling manically.
As the gang began slowly rising back onto their feet, they noticed the straps restraining Tristan to the table began undoing themselves and before any of them could get back on their feet a dark eyed Tristan was now fully on his.
"I am going to enjoy killing you all!" The clearly possessed Tristan claimed as Fred quickly began turning into Illyria.
"I am sorry slayer, I really am." Illyria told Buffy before snatching a stake out of Faith's jacket with force.
Illyria wasted no time in charging towards the possessed vampire and plunging the stolen wooden stake into his chest ignoring Buffy and Angel's screams of protest in the progress only to be met by a sinister smirk from Tristan before he exploded into dust. However, unlike most vampires turning to dust there was a whole lot more to Tristan's death as a black smoke like fog escaped from the ashes before quickly levitating itself further and further into the sky and disappearing out of sight.
Buffy, Angel, Faith, Dawn and Willow just stood there in silence, completely defeated by what they had just witnessed despite all of them believing it would end exactly like this or for some of them, believing it was going to end worse than this and then the goddess turned around to tell them something that made all of this seem like for nothing.
"I fear that the shadow demon is now loose in this world," Illyria admitted, looking far from pleased with herself. "I think I was fooled by it…that we were all fooled into releasing it."