(9/10/2017) A chapter that may or may not further the story along but I wanted to write it anyways. This is one of my favorite Buffy episodes ever and I've been waiting to do it for ages! Which meant that some of this was already written, thus the quickness.
Just a quick reminder: I am fitting Buffy stuff into the Supernatural universe. They do not exist in tandem.
Thank you thedarkpoemaster, Timelord2162, jkmp28, IoSolUno, Sage of Wind Dragons, demon19027, and RHatch89 for the reviews! And if you favoriters and followers leave a note you get vampire Willow's corset!
Buffy only received a text when her brothers left to check on some mysterious deaths in Idaho. Apparently some magicians (of the slight of hand sort, not the demonically powered, stinky ingredient using sort) were being killed in odd ways. Dean left some pointedly derisive comments over Sam's childhood obsession with the hobby but made no mention of either Sam and Buffy's reconciliation or his revelations regarding Hell.
"Oh good," she sighed to herself. "Dean's back to being Mr. Nothing's Wrong With Me I'm Perfectly Fine Har-Har-Har!"
The magical mystery was solved fairly quickly, but in the meantime Spike returned to Sunnydale and wreaked havoc on Buffy and her friends. Thankfully the vampire left soon afterwords, but he left a mess in his wake. Buffy texted her brothers and said that apparently Willow and Xander had been harboring a crush on each other. Upon realizing that they might die, the pair had kissed, only to be caught by their respective significant others.
After fleeing the scene, Cordelia fell through a set of rotted stairs and ended up impaled on a steel pipe. She withdrew to nurse both her internal injuries and her broken heart. When she finally returned to school she found herself subject to ridicule by her former crowd of teenaged mean girls and, unwilling to fall back into Buffy's crowd, ended up pathetically alone.
The exception was a new student, Anya Jenkins, who coaxed out the tale of misbegotten love from the forlorn girl and offered recompense. After a humiliating incident at The Bronze and traveling through some circular logic, Cordelia decided that it was Buffy's fault that her life hand gone to hell. She then uttered the phrase that changed everything.
"I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale!"
"Done."
Unknown Date
As his phone dialed, Rupert Giles, librarian and Watcher, stared at the rune he'd copied from the dead girl's arm.
According to the other White Hats, Cordelia Chase was nothing more than a flighty teenager whose fashion sense overrode her common sense. The things she knew and said, however, were impossible. How had she known about his training as a Watcher? How did she know the Slayer's name? Why did she think that the world had been better than this?
Of course at this point, especially with the Master having taken over virtually the entire west coast, anything had to be better.
Perhaps the girl had been delusional. Well, it wouldn't do any good to linger what the dead may or may have known. Something big was occurring soon, and if it was what he feared than it was important that the Slayer be at his disposal.
Unfortunately, her Watcher, a young upstart named Wesley Windham-Pryce, appeared to have lost his charge.
"She's very busy," Wesley snapped.
"Yes, I understand," Giles said urgently, "but it's imperative that I see her. Here."
"Well I don't know where she is at the moment."
"You are her Watcher! I'd expect her to at least check in to—"
"Do you think I haven't tried to reign in the girl? Her male relatives are hunters. She's been with them for a long time and thinks she knows how to take care of herself without the Council's aide."
"Hunters," Giles scoffed.
"Those men are far more capable than you would think. And I very much doubt that you would do much better when they decide to make their point at the barrel of a gun!"
"Well… Just give her the message, if you ever see her again," he added scathingly before snapping his phone closed.
Giles stared at the rune again. He'd seen it before, he was certain of it…
Daniel Osbourne (who absolutely hated his first name and insisted on being called "Oz") had been a White Hat ever since he had had his girlfriend stolen from his arm. To make matters worse, Oz had been reunited with the girl a mere few days later… and she'd been turned. Now Willow Rosenberg was one of the Master's nastiest lieutenants alongside her childhood friend, Xander Harris.
Along with fellow White Hat Larry Blaisdell, Oz was prepping the night's stakes and crossbow bolts when Giles cried, "Finally!" After a day of near constant research it appeared the man finally had an answer to Cordelia's ramblings.
"What is it?" Oz asked as the librarian rushed from his office, open book in hand.
"That symbol is an ancient word for the angel, Naamah," Giles said excitedly. "She is often associated with, um, physical love, although why she would have marked Miss Chase I have no idea."
"Bad breakup?" Larry suggested.
"I suppose. In any case, I have an angel summoning ritual in a book back at my home." Giles finally looked up from his reading and blinked at the pair of boys. "Were you thinking of patrolling tonight?"
"Nah," said Oz. "Just getting prepared for tomorrow."
"Very well. Get some rest and do be careful."
In retrospect, Giles should have heeded his own advice. On his drive home he spotted a cluster of people being forced into a van by a half dozen vampires. He immediately grabbed his cross and a stake and leaped to their rescue.
The reliquary repelled the creatures immediately. They shied away from it, snarling, as Giles turned to their captives and yelled, "Run!"
The humans sprinted away, much to his relief. However, now the librarian had a far more pressing issue. He backed up against the side of the van as the vampires recovered from their shock and began circling their newest prey.
He needn't have worried. Shotgun blasts repeatedly rang out. Normal bullets wouldn't have done much more than slowed the monsters down, but these appeared to burn horrifically. Those that could flee were doing so as those who couldn't were being methodically staked one after another.
When they were done, two men followed a slightly built, scarred young blonde and approached. "Buffy Summers?" asked Giles.
"Yeah," she replied with ill-concealed irritation. "Mind telling me what the fuck I'm doing here?"
The trio looked suspiciously at Giles but capitulated once he explained his former profession as a Watcher. They offered him a ride back to his home in their well-maintained black muscle car and, after restocking their munitions from the trunk, followed him inside.
As soon as the door closed, John Winchester, her father, slammed Giles against the wall and growled, "That little bitch posing as my girl's Watcher said she needed to be here so we're here. Mind explainin' why we drove halfway across the country to sit on the damn Hellmouth?"
"Dad," wearily said Buffy's brother, Dean.
"Vampires," Giles explained as he was let go. He straightened his clothing. "I'm assuming you know of the Master?"
"Ugly son of a bitch?" asked John. "Made himself King of California or something?"
"Or something," Giles repeated in agreement. "We have reason to believe he may be planning something horrible."
"And what do you expect me to do about it?" Buffy wondered.
"Well, I hadn't expected you to show." Giles wandered over to one of his innumerable stacks of books and slid one out. "I was working on an alternate solution."
"That being?" John demanded.
"An angel summoning."
"No such thing."
Repulsed, Giles watched Buffy hock phlegm into her hand and give her boots a literal spit shine. "W-Well," he stammered when her father cleared his throat, "all the lore points to the contrary. In any case, it is impossible to do so without an angel's sigil and it just so happens that I've come across one."
"The hell would an angel do about this shit?" asked Dean as he popped open the glass decanter containing Giles' brandy and took a swig.
"It's… It's hard to explain."
John rolled his eyes. "Well, while you do your mumbo jumbo maybe me and my kids can handle the Master like he's supposed to be handled." He turned to his daughter. "You got the rock salt rounds?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Let's load 'em up and get going." Buffy's father turned to Giles. "Where's the Master's lair?"
"Wait!" Giles cried as the family loaded shotguns and prepared to depart. "At least let me gather some more people to help."
"We don't play well with others," Buffy snapped. "Now," she said as she cocked her gun, "before I get testy, where is it?"
The Bronze was a quick jog away and with the encroaching dawn Buffy and her family felt safe enough to walk to the establishment. After ensuring his children were armed with shotguns, stakes, and crosses, John led them to the club-turned-abattoir. "Why're we wasting time on this?" Buffy grumbled.
"Because we're saving people," Dean replied. "Not just looking for a fight like some people."
His sister swiveled on her heel and jabbed Dean in the chest. "Don't you ever question why I do what I do!"
"All right! All right! Chill!" Dean smacked the offending finger away. They continued to walk. "So you really think yellow-eyes is here?" Dean asked his father.
"Makes sense," John replied. "Signs enough point to a demon, not just some vampire with an ego."
"And we ain't tellin' the Watcher wannabe because…?"
"He don't need to know." John stopped walking. "We're here."
"Only one vamp inside," Buffy announced. She tromped ahead of her father and up to the door. Soon as she arrived she used the flat of her boot to slam it open.
Her brother and father followed her inside, guns prepped. Buffy's Slayer senses may have indicated a dearth of monsters but that didn't preclude the absence of human lackeys. The scar on the girl's upper lip attested to the consequences of making that assumption.
As expected, the club was empty. A few corpses lay stiffening inside suspended cages and the aftermath of blood infused hedonism lay strewn all about: empty bottles of alcohol, spatters of dried, brown fluids, various articles of clothing left behind by vampiric partygoers.
Buffy swept her eyes around the room before heading unerringly towards a downward set of stairs. She descended carelessly, a stake twirling in her fingers, then stopped in front of the bars of a cell. When her family joined her, she pointed. "Vamp."
At Buffy's voice, the half naked creature jerked out of his fetal position and scrambled as far from the door as possible. Chains leading from his neck, wrists, and ankles clanked against one another as he moved. Once he got to the corner, he drew in his limbs tightly and remained shivering there, his head and body turned away.
"Holy shit," Dean whispered. The skin on the vampire's back bore a litany of abuse. Newer lash marks were layered over old, partially healed ones. Under the cuffs blood seeped; his vampiric physiology would have healed the chafed wounds as soon as they were inflicted. Therefore he was endlessly closing and reopening those sores every time he moved.
When he finally turned to peer at his guests they saw fear etched into his expression. Relief, then confusion, then took its place. "You're her," he croaked. "Buffy Summers. The Slayer."
John pointed the barrel of his shotgun at the creature. "How do you know my girl's name?"
"I waited," the vampire whispered deliriously. "I waited here for you. But you never… I was supposed to help you."
Buffy huffed out a derisive noise. "You. Help me."
"The Master rose." The creature struggled to his feet. "He let me live to punish me. I kept hoping maybe you'd come. I thought… I was told I had a destiny."
When he turned around the family received another shock. Someone had taken care to dig holes into the thing's chest, ones that were deep enough to show muscle and bone. They'd been scorched at the edges; meaning that whatever it was that fed a vampire's resilience had been slowed. Blood seeped from each opening and pattered on the cement floor.
It was enough to stir the Slayer's pity. She yanked on the cell door off of its hinges then moved in to rip the creature's bonds away. As she worked, Dean asked, "So do you got a name? Or do we get to call you Random Vamp Guy Number One?"
"Angel."
"Shitty name. Parents hated you, huh?"
"No, it's… never mind."
"You got an idea where the Master's at?" wondered John.
"Factory. Easy access through the sewers."
"Good. Lead the way."
Giles cleared his desk. He scribed a circle and, within it, the proper symbols in chalk. At four points at the end of two, intersecting perpendicular lines were further symbols. Candles flickered over the lettering.
With trepidation, the Watcher flung the final ingredient into his copper bowl. A moment later, a young woman with pretty, angular features was standing before him.
"Why do you summon me?" asked the angel.
The quartet had watched from a shadowy alcove, revolted, as the Master's plan was unveiled; assembly line methodology put to horrific use. A victim was strapped into a conveyor belt. It shoved her between a set of needles. Mechanical arms shoved them into her jugular, her heart, her femoral arteries. Blood was drained into insulated tubs, to "keep it tasting fresh." Once finished, the corpse continued its way down the belt straight into an incinerator.
More important than the mechanical innovation, however, was that a man with yellow eyes stood on the raised dais right alongside the Master. The demon surveyed the gathering with a smug expression.
The girl's death was unfortunate, but the successful display distracted the watching crowd of vampires and demons enough that Buffy, Angel, and the two Winchesters slipped easily into attack positions.
"Welcome to the future," proclaimed the Master. He took a long sip from his goblet as his cronies cheered.
Being closest, John cocked his gun and fired. The glass shattered and the ancient vampire staggered.
Chaos erupted.
"The girl, Cordelia Chase," Giles said quietly. "What did she do?"
Naamah smiled darkly. "I had no idea her wish would be so exciting! Brave New World. I hope she likes it."
"Is-Is that what you are meant to do? Grant wishes?"
"No. Once, I was told to observe, to protect." She looked off in the distance, reminiscing. "I saw beauty. I saw love. I had never seen love before." Her face twisted in grief and fury. "And then I saw love become horror. It became beatings, murders, rapes. And I knew, then, why I had been abandoned."
A stray crack of lightning touched down in Giles' courtyard just as his electrical wiring went haywire. On the wall behind Naamah the shadow of great wings unfolded from her back.
"I was here," she declared, "to right these wrongs."
The demons were few enough that they were only slight threats, particularly after Dean had smashed open the lock on the cage that held a few dozen potential blood sources. Several fled, but the remainder picked up whatever was handy and entered the fray.
Angel blocked an attack on Buffy from Xander only to have a demon rip his heart out from behind. He gave one anguished look to the Slayer before disintegrating. Buffy stepped through the ashes as she engaged the boy.
The Master's second best lieutenant was no match for the Slayer and her brother. Dean fired rock salt into the creature's back and Buffy immediately plunged her stake into Xander's chest.
Willow, the Master's best lieutenant, saw her lover die and was distracted. Oz and Larry each took an arm, carried her, screaming, backwards towards their former cage, and impaled her on a jutting piece of wood.
John headed straight for the yellow-eyed demon, shoving vampires out of the way and blasting demons with his shotgun. It watched his progress with unconcealed amusement. When the man finally reached the podium, he pulled from his jacket an ancient six-shooter with a long barrel.
Yellow-eyes stared contemptuously at the Colt, the only weapon known to man that could put an end to his machinations. Before John could pull the trigger, the demon flicked a hand. The hunter flew into a cement pillar and hung there, immobilized.
"Johnny!" yellow-eyes said, delighted, as he appeared in front of Buffy's father. It patted the man's face affectionately. "It's been a while. Did you miss me?"
"Fuck you."
"You speak like that in front of that little girl of yours?" The demon grabbed John's right arm and squeezed. Bones snapped under his grip and the Colt fell to the floor. "Hey," yellow-eyes said casually, "remember how Sammy died in your other boy's arms? How you got a good front seat to that whole scene?" It leaned forward and smiled horribly. "Guess what? I gotcha another great seat for your other two kids!"
"Please," Giles said quietly as the angel folded her wings. "I'm begging you. Whatever the girl wished for, please take it back!"
"This is the world now," Naamah replied forcefully as she advanced upon the former Watcher. "Nothing you can do will change this."
Buffy was fighting the Master. She was good; John had seen to that. But she wasn't good enough.
The old vampire backhanded John's daughter, leaving her dazed. It put two hands on the side of her head and snapped her neck.
Dean was out of bullets. One demon appeared behind him and stabbed him in the back. Two vampires then rushed in and buried their fangs into his jugular and wrist.
And John could do nothing but scream.
"Enough."
Time stopped.
Naamah swiveled around to face the newcomer, a dark haired, blue eyed man wearing a suit and trench coat.
"You cannot stop me, Castiel!" Naamah cried defiantly. "I have been doing this for a millennia. The humans expect me, no, need me to answer their prayers for vengeance!"
"You have irrevocably changed the paths of the Slayer and the Winchesters," the other angel growled. "Our superiors have decided that this needs to be fixed. I require something of yours."
Castiel moved fast, a nearly imperceptible move save for what was wrought. A thin, bloody line had been scored along Naamah's neck. From it flowed a bright, gleaming substance. The glowing form swept itself into a small vial in Castiel's hand. He capped it immediately, ignoring the choked, indignant sounds coming from the other angel.
Unseen wings fluttered in the air, sweeping Giles' papers off of his desk. Time began again…
"I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale!"
"Done," Naamah uttered.
Nothing happened. Her hand flew to her mouth. "No."
"That would be cool!" Cordelia exclaimed as she walked to her car. "No, wait. I wish Buffy Summers had never been born." She continued rattling off a list of wants as Naamah stood still and stared at her hands.
A mosquito landed on her arm and she slapped it away. "Ow! Oh. Oh no." The blood welled and dropped. "Oh no. I'm—"
"Human," said Castiel from behind the former angel. "You are now human."
"I'll kill you!" she screamed and launched herself at him. Her fists pounded against his chest, but where before he may have been thrown off of his feet he now firmly stood his ground.
"The Winchesters and the Slayer are now on the proper path," he proclaimed. "And you, Naamah, are now banned from Heaven."
Castiel flew away, and despite the stares of her classmates Naamah kept screaming imprecations at the sky until her newly mortal throat could bear it no longer.
Buffy put the last of her laundry away. "There!" she declared to no one as she gazed happily at her nicely folded clothing.
As she reached over to grab the ones to be hung in the closet, the sound of enormous wings filled the room. "Are you all right?"
Buffy yelped in surprise and flung her dresses and blouses in the air. Several landed on her intruder. "Stop doing that!" she hissed at Castiel.
"Are you all right?" he repeated from beneath her rose patterned button up.
Buffy swiped her blouse off of the angel's head. "Other than having to deal with the Edward Cullen of Heaven, I'm peachy!"
"I don't understand that reference."
As she bent over to pick up her discarded clothing, Buffy wondered, "Why wouldn't I be okay? Something happen that I should know about?"
After a moment that was just this side of suspicious, Castiel said, "No."
"Uh-huh. Right." Buffy turned to grab a hanger. "So then why would you—oh." By the time she had twisted back to face the angel he was gone. A few pages of math homework fluttered off her desk in his wake.
"Well," she muttered to herself. "That was weird."
Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episode, "The Wish" (BtVS 3.09).
Author's Note : Anael is supposedly the angel of love, however in this universe she's a grigori (SPN 10.20). Figured after centuries of being on Earth she'd have gone a little nuts. Her representing "love" is a myth that's gotten twisted with the years. Plus her name worked out, so yay for me!
Just a few points on the alternate reality:
Buffy had been with her brothers since Joyce married Hank. She asked to be trained as a hunter and John had been her caretaker ever since.
When she was Called, Wesley was her assigned Watcher. And, you know, he sucked at it.
Buffy's presence saved Dean from Azazel's torture and so no deal to save him was ever made by John.
Buffy and Sam were very close. Sam had his issues with being forced on his father and brother's past and Buffy resented the overprotectiveness shown by her eldest male relatives. They bonded together over this.
Sam died after being stabbed by Jake… who was then shot by John. Buffy and John being there meant that Dean wasn't allowed to make his deal. The Apocalypse is on indefinite hold.
lWith Sam dead, John and Buffy have focused purely on vengeance; both are blinded to everything other than Azazel's destruction. In order to keep his remaining family alive, Dean has been forced to mature and be the voice of reason.
Hey, it's just a hint of the possibilities and it's not the full story. Maybe I'll flesh it out one day to be a tale all on its own? Feel free to steal the idea in the meantime.
