Chapter Forty-Nine

Dear gentle readers

A/N Start of S7E16, as anyone may have noticed everything is all packaged up nicely into a series story for you, I've been meaning to do it for ages now, so it feels better. This was originally going to be 2 chapters but I was planning it and now it stretches to 4. Kind of changed it so Andrew's writing this instead of recording it for obvious reasons.

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2003

Dear gentle readers, hello, your humble narrator here. I've decided to introduce each of the characters in this tale in their own turn, but first I shall introduce myself. I am Andrew, man of many talents but also caller of the demons. In the past I have been a master criminal, I was in charge of some pretty evil stuff, and I used to call demons to mess with Buffy. But I don't do that anymore, see I'm a reformed criminal. I mean I only got that way by being tied up by the people who hated my guts - but I did apologise, I said sorry for all that stuff I did. And truly, I feel super bad about it.

Anyway, I should get on and introduce everyone else so you can get acquainted and my story will make sense. First off there is Buffy, the slayer of the vampyrs, and protagonist of the story. She is petite, and very blonde, with a big heart and very sharp reflexes. You don't want to cross her when she's angry, she'll tie you to a chair. (Trust me, I know.) And she is the slayer, I would say the one and only but there seems to be another one somewhere. She's supposed to be the only one, and now of course we have the potential slayers, so the slayer action has seen an increase as of late.

Then there is Xander, Buffy's best friend who is a master carpenter and handsome and strong and he has brown hair. Him and Buffy went to school with my brother Tucker. But Xander, he's the guy who fixes all the furniture and the windows when they break, he's kind of a hero really. Makes everything good again.

And we also have Willow, the most powerful she-witch like ever. She's Buffy and Xander's other best friend, she's also feisty so don't cross her or she'll grab your t-shirt by the collar. She was evil once too, last summer, she was the Dark Willow. She tried to kill me, and destroy the whole town. But that's a story for later. So be afraid, but not always because she's nice when Tara's around.

Tara is Willow's girlfriend, another she-witch. But she's a bit kinder, personally she's one of my favourites because she's really the only one apart from Spike who is nice to me. I don't think Tara could hurt a fly, but she does have quite a lot of power. But the sort of person who could never be evil.

Spike is (Buffy's lover) or ex-lover 'officially' most of us in the house think she still holds a candle for a him because he's so hunky and has that real bad boy thing going for him. Not that I go for that sort of thing. He hurt Buffy a lot last year and so now he has a soul. Oh, yeah forgot to kinda mention that he's a vampire, he's a vampire. But now he has a soul just like Angel (Buffy's other ex-lover) but he's not around much these days. I think Spike's still trying to win Buffy back in his own way, but he is helpful with the training and stuff. Oh and he used to have this chip which meant he couldn't hurt people, but Buffy had these government guys remove it. So maybe she is still in love with him?

Then there is the beautiful, the celebrated, ex-demon Anya. Who is human again, now, so ex-ex-ex-demon really, because after her and Xander broke up last year (he left her at the alter but I think he still loves her) she got her demon powers back from her old boss D'Hoffryn. A big demony guy. But then her powers got taken away again, it's a long story but anyway. I can see the way her and Xander look at each other and it feels like there's love there.

Oh and there's Giles, Rupert Giles actually. He used to be a watcher or something and he's the one with all the wisdom and old books and things. He's been there for Buffy since she was in high school. He used to be a librarian at what was Sunnydale High, it's since been blown up and rebuilt.

There's also Dawn, Buffy's younger sister she's apparently sixteen but actually she's only two and a half because she was created by these monks, I'm a bit hazy on the story but she used to be quite dangerous apparently. But now she's just an ordinary girl. She's beaten me up a few times for my being annoying, and can seriously handle it when she needs to.

Some other background people include the potential slayers currently taking over the bathroom. That'd be Kennedy - the oldest potential, slightly bratty, but confident and leader of potential training. There's Rona, and Molly - from England, and Vi and Amanda. And Chao-Ahn, but she doesn't speak any English so we don't really know anything about her. There's a load more around the place but I can't really remember their names. Oh and then there's Principal Wood. He's quite interesting, his mother was Nikki Wood, a slayer in the '70s, killed by a mystery vampire. And he's the principal of the school, I thought him and Buffy might become a bit of thing, you know an item, but it's uncertain.

Then there's the great evil we'll have to face, it's called the First, the first evil ever. And it's coming after Buffy, after the whole world. It's a non-corporeal being with a giant load of evil and it can only take on the forms of dead people. It went after me last week as my friend Jonathan, who's dead now, it was my other friend Warren once too, and he told me to kill Jonathan so I did. And that's why everyone hates me, because I killed my best friend, but I was talked into it with promises of being a God. But more on that later.

I think that's everything you need to know, we're all piled into Buffy's house at the moment and it's some serious overcrowding, but I've started baking recently and my Genoese sponge is coming on nicely.

*Flashback* Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2002

We were standing on the battlefield, well, the road outside Buffy's house, the house I'm in now. But back then it was like a battlefield, road cracking as energy pushed through it. We were in a planned formation, Warren at the front, Jonathan and me slightly behind with the army of Warrenbots behind us, each one identical. Each one Warren, perfect. It was his idea of course, he always was the brainy robot king, such a gorgeous brain. But anyway, we were standing there and suddenly the battle started raging, Buffy was attacking Warren, battling him, and the others came at us too.

The battle was over so shortly, Warren lay dead in his broken army and we, Jonathan and me we ran towards the van but she caught us. Willow, she was dark then of course, and I felt this energy like a rope pulling me into the air, off my feet and so I was floating. I saw Jonathan beside me struggling too, our arms and legs flailing in the anti-gravity. A red energy bubble - cage, surrounded us, trapping us in the air whilst she talked to her friends. It was odd, for a moment there was a tiny shot of peace that went through me, that if I was going to die it wouldn't matter if it was this weightless. But it didn't last.

Soon enough the pain set in, the torture burnt through my body like electricity, pulsing through every ounce like hell itself. All the torture and emotional strain - everything that comes along with being trapped in a hell dimension, that's what I was feeling at that moment, Jonathan too, he was there in the air floating with me too. Wasn't he just the cutest thing? All little and brainy too, kinda cute. Maybe.

But it was hell. And then in a split second she dropped us onto the ground and Jonathan ran to the van but I stayed - I turned to face dark Willow and gave her a hard stare. My aunt taught me to do those if ever someone was mean to me without reason. And this certainly was the time. I stared at her hard and all her friends looked skeptical but I could feel all her power coming undone in those few seconds. Then when I felt like she was out-powered enough I ran back to the van and let Jonathan drive us to safety, he was a good driver too. Sometimes I really miss that little dude. Huh?

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2003

As Buffy walked through the school there were so many things happening. Things that looked so familiar but strange that her head was about to explode, not literally, thought if it'd continued there was every chance her head would explode. There was a 'Marcie Ross' disappearing girl by the lockers, a guy talking a million miles an hour. And she heard a rumour that there were some fish people in the pool. It didn't bode well.

She saw Robin was in his office and walked up to him to try and explain about the irritation of the Hellmouth being directly underneath Sunnydale High. "Buffy what's going on?" Robin asked as he explained about getting hit by a rock that morning and Buffy in turn explained about the Hellmouth's evily energy as she peeled the back of a band-aid.

"Oh, I've seen all this stuff before, it wouldn't be too much to worry about but it's all happening at once." Robin just gave her a perplexed look back. "The school being over the Hellmouth and all that - sometimes weird demony stuff just happens here, can't really explain it other than that. When I went to school here it was like this most days." A raise of the eyebrows made her elaborate. "I mean something happened most days, this is like everything happened at once, there must be something leaking energy making this place like a conduit of evil. Come on." Buffy was impressed with herself that she'd managed to produce the phrase 'conduit of evil' but needed to focus on the task at hand and gestured for Robin to follow her into the basement of the school - where Spike had been living but also was the closest they could get to the Hellmouth with exposing themselves to pure evil.

Robin couldn't quite process all that information in one go so took a couple of seconds to stare after Buffy before realising she meant for him to follow her. And suddenly it all beamed into his head what had just happened and he registered something was happening and they were in trouble. Weren't they always in trouble? Robin Wood longed for one day, nay one week where nothing was evil, everything went smoothly and the world didn't end. But it was too much to ask wasn't it? That at least one graduating year of Sunnydale High wouldn't end in the school being destroyed or the students eaten.