Speciosus Venitrixicis

by

Princess McPhee

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Author's Note: Latin is from an English to Latin dictionary, thus, probably all in the wrong order. But the translation of the words is accurate.

Summary: "Together, they feed each other, and together, they make the most powerful and famous of the vampire hunters the world has yet seen. The demons call them Speciosus Venitrixicis - the beautiful huntresses, and warn of death when they see them coming."

Rating: PG

By day, they are Buffy and Dawn. Eccentric, but generally normal humans. They eat, they go to school and work, they sleep and they do their homework. The younger complains about math, the older complains about teenagers and their problems. They brush their hair, spend hours picking out the perfect outfit for dates they wish they had, and put on makeup with the exquisite care only young women are capable of. By day, they are just another family, even if this one consists of a twenty-four year old woman watching and supporting her seventeen-year old sister. Even if they have to fit their lives into eighteen hours, instead of the usual twenty-four.

But in those six hours, they become something else entirely. They shed their trendy clothes and high heels and aim for something more sturdy. They pull off motion-restricting jeans and coats and replace them with worn leather that bends at every movement, allowing them the same freedom as if they were wearing nothing at all. They remove their two-inch heels and put on boots with thick soles and strong ankles, laced tightly enough to help them keep their balance. They stuff knives down the sides.

Stylish shirts are abandoned for plain tanktops, lacy bras for sports ones that their breasts won't pop out of if they move too fast. Bulky, warm and nice coats are hung up in the closet for wear the next day, and scarred, thick leather jackets are pulled on, tight enough so that extra material doesn't get in the way. Zippers instead of buttons so that there is nothing for an enemy to hang onto, and no collar, for the same reason.

All the clips and scrunches and hair-ties in their long straight hair are usually the last thing to go, though not always. Put back in the drawer with the makeup they will wash off their faces before they go to bed- no real reason to wear makeup now, but no good reason not to. Curling their hair into first ponytails, then tight buns on the top of their heads. Clipped in place with bobby pins- too small for anything to grab. Sometimes adorned with small hair ornaments, but always, always loose enough that they release if they are pulled on.

Then, they get the real gear for the evening together. Holy water in small perfume bottles in their pockets; they spritz tiny amounts, but it's only meant as a distraction, anyway. Even if Buffy did once kill a vampire by making him drink it. Crosses around their necks and hung from their ears and sometimes in their hair. Usually on their wrists. They make sure that the bracelets aren't too loose, but the little crosses that dangle from them are worth the tiny risk.

Stakes in their waistbands, any pockets that are left, in the sides of their bras and shoes if they're expecting a real fight. On little launchers up their sleeves, then, too. Big weaponry is just carried- swords or crossbows. They own much, much more, but usually this is what they will take. Simple fighting is best. They learn to use all the other weapons partially out of the fact that they may someday need them, but more because opportunistic weapons such as sturdy sticks can often be used more effectively if one knows how to use, say, a quarter-staff.

They own the town. The vampires are the only demons still widely distributed, and Dawn's sure this is because fledglings have got to be the stupidest demons Hell ever invented. She tells them this on a regular basis. It only seems to draw more stupid fledglings to their death, trying to prove to her, ironically enough, that they aren't stupid.

The Hellmouth is a powerful call, so there is still enough for them to fight, despite their fearsome and still-growing reputation. But now that there are two of them, they've started making trips. One always stays behind, then the other. Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San Diego, they spread out in every direction but one. They stay out of LA. For a while the demons flocked there to escape them, but they quickly learned that the vampire with a soul considers the town his and doesn't like trespassers. California in it's entirety is quickly rising on the list of the safest places in the world to live.

A few months before her seventeenth birthday, at the time of the other Slayer's death in prison, Dawn was called. At first, the demon world assumed that it would be much like the reign of Buffy and Faith- loud, brutal and deadly, but contained in a small area and ultimately short. But Buffy and Faith were the first time two Slayers had been in the world at the same time, and the demon world didn't know that it could be quite different.

Needing only training on how to use her Slayer strength and speed, Dawn quickly adapted her already-considerable knowledge of weaponry to vampire slaying. Sunnydale was nearly wiped clean of vampires the first month the elder and younger Slayer patrolled together. The bond of sisterhood, drawn tighter by their mother's death, their father's desertion of them and the danger that they constantly faced, overwhelmed incredible odds, and they fought like hellbeasts when cornered.

Their day starts when they wake to hunt. Patrolling is no more with the calling of the younger Summers'- the Slayer sisters hunt. They are vicious, effective, clean demon-killing machines. The quips are few and far between, and they rarely speak of anything besides the hunt while they work. The Slayer is a powerful, primal essence of a hunter, and they feed off each other, becoming more and more the being that the Slayer first was, and less and less the twenty-first century Slayer Buffy had been.

Their day starts either at sunset or one in the morning. They rotate randomly so that they can get enough sleep, yet never let the demon population know if they'll be out or not. If they arise at sunset, they hunt until one am, then return home to sleep until seven. An extremely hurried breakfast carries them until lunch, then at three-thirty when they are done at work and school, they come home and collapse until sunset. They need less sleep than the average human being, but still, it's trying for Dawn, who has homework to do as well as school.

When they start the hunt at one, it's easier on them, ironically enough. They arise at midnight, eat a breakfast and head out. At seven, they return, change, and go off to the high school. At three-thirty they return home and sleep until midnight.

The elder encourages Dawn to head home some nights after two or three hours and sleep, and sometimes she does. But only rarely. They both know they fight better as a team, and neither wants to take the chance that something big will happen while the other isn't there. Together, they can defeat an army, alone, they are just slightly stronger, slightly faster humans. They count on the weekends to refresh their sleep and allow them to work the next week through.

It's a desperate life. It's not happy or fun or really any kind of life at all. Sometimes they go to the Bronze as part of their hunt, and there they have the only kind of social life they are really allowed, by themselves or their duties. But they are no long as desperate as they used to be, despite this. Because Dawn isn't helpless, and she doesn't feel left out or useless or hopeless, and Buffy isn't alone, and she doesn't feel disobeyed and ignored and misunderstood. Together, they feed each other, and together, they make the most powerful and famous of the vampire hunters the world has yet seen.

The demons call them Speciosus Venitrixicis - the beautiful huntresses, and warn of death when they see them coming.

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