Disclaimer: Any character that you've seen on the show is owned by Joss, not me.
Continuity Note: This story takes place six months after the conclusion to Sunnydale: A New Beginning. You should definitely read that story before you read this one.
|
Colleen |
The new slayer |
|
Jordan |
Psychic who receives The Visions |
|
Holly |
Half Sellar Demon |
|
Dawn |
The Key |
|
Aaron |
Currently exploring magicks |
*****
"Sophomore year," Aaron said as he and Dawn walked together on their way to their first day of school. "This is going to be great."
"How so?" Dawn asked him.
"Well first of all we're not freshmen anymore," Aaron told her. "No longer do we have to fear the torment of seniors on 'Pick on Freshmen Day.'" As Aaron was talking to Dawn they were just arriving on campus. Aaron spotted two seniors and gave them a friendly nod.
"What are you looking at loser?" The seniors asked as they walked away.
"Did you see that?" Aaron asked Dawn.
"You mean your public humiliation?" Dawn asked him in return.
"No," Aaron said shaking his head. "Did you see the way that they didn't even think about knocking my books out of my hands or stealing my backpack?"
"You don't have any books," Dawn pointed out.
"That's a minor point," Aaron told her.
*****
First Period
"So how much Spanish do you know?" Colleen asked Jordan as they took their seats in their Spanish II class.
"That depends," Jordan said. "Do you mean how much Spanish do I actually know or how much Spanish can I sponge off of the teacher?"
Colleen smiled. "Do you do that?" Colleen said. "Isn't that telepathic cheating?"
"No," Jordan admitted, "I'm too much of a wuss to actually cheat." He paused for a moment. "But if the teacher is thinking about the answer just a little too hard sometimes I can't help but sponge off of her."
"Well if you ever think of it don't hesitate to pass on the spongy goodness," Colleen said.
*****
"Remind me again why we took Honors American History?" Aaron asked Dawn.
"Because it'll look good on a college application," Dawn told him.
"And?" Aaron asked.
"And because we're nerds," Dawn admitted with a smile.
"OK," Aaron said. "Just as long as we aren't trying to kid ourselves."
*****
Second Period
Holly went to the back of the room without even a second thought. She tried not to make eye contact with anyone along the way. She kept her eyes on the ground in front of her and didn't look up till she was in the back corner of the room. Once there she swung off her backpack and sat in her desk as low as she could. She unzipped her backpack and took out her copy of The Fountainhead and hoped that no one would take notice of her.
Holly hated the annoyingly intrusive school guidance counselor. She always seemed to have to talk to her at least once a month. Teachers worried that just because she wasn't exactly in any extracurricular activities that she must have been suicidal. If the guidance counselor wouldn't have paid so much attention to her she wouldn't have noticed Holly's impressive standardized test scores. Impressive in English that is. Holly wasn't very good at math or science, but she was great at English.
Holly loved to read. She had been reading from an extremely young age. Her vocabulary would impress a lot of people if she actually bothered to talk. She was resolved not to talk though. If she had to be stuck in Honors English, she wasn't going to leave herself open to further attack by causing any more attention to herself.
"This seat isn't taken," Jordan said to Holly as he sat down next to her, "is it?"
Holly didn't have time to answer him. Before she knew what was going on Dawn has taken the seat in front of her and Aaron sat down next to Dawn.
"Excellent classroom positioning Holly," Aaron said with a smile. "Back corners are good. I usually go towards the middle of the back though, but still this is an excellent position."
Over the summer Holly realized that these people were not going to give up until she was their friend. She knew that she could never let that happen. No one could ever get close to her, she wouldn't allow the risk. However, the more time she spent with them the more her barriers were starting to breakdown. What was the harm in just talking to them during school?
Holly smiled.
*****
Third Period
"She's coming around," Dawn said. Third period for her, Aaron, and Jordan was gym for the first semester. They sat on the bleachers enjoying the fact that the first week of gym always just consisted of sitting around and doing nothing.
"Slowly but surely," Aaron added. Aaron was probably the least gung-ho about trying to add Holly to the group. He wanted her to be their friend, there was no doubt about that, but the others were just more adamant about it.
"I wonder why she doesn't want to let us in," Dawn said.
"She's hiding something," Jordan said. "I don't know what it is but there is definitely something she doesn't want us to know." The others agreed with him.
"That's not too unlikely," Aaron pointed out. "You know, considering she's half demon."
"But we already know that," Jordan said. "I mean, I'm part demon too. I think that we could accept whatever it is that she doesn't want us to know."
Dawn didn't say it out loud, but she knew what it was like to have a secret about what you are that you weren't eager to let the world know.
*****
Colleen met Mike outside of the Driver's Ed room. It was the first class that they had together of the day. Mike gave her a soft kiss of the lips.
"Let me grab those," Mike said taking Colleen's backpack, "It's the gentlemanly thing to do."
"Thanks," Colleen said, "The weight of that backpack was killing me."
Mike smiled. "I'm comfortable with you being stronger than I'll ever be in my life as long as you don't go throwing it in my face like that."
Colleen and Mike sat next to each other about three rows from the front of the room. They talked a little bit about how their first days were going. Colleen looked up and saw Holly walk into the room. She smiled and tried to get her attention to come sit next to her. Holly saw her but then quickly went to the back of the room to sit. Colleen frowned. She hoped that the others had had better luck.
*****
Fourth Period
"Am I under surveillance?" Holly asked Dawn when she made her sit next to her in French Class.
"No," Dawn said. "You're my only friend in this class."
"I was just making sure," Holly told her. It was still a little weird for her but she was starting to like this.
*****
Mike had walked Colleen to her fourth period English class like a gentleman, but now he had to run to get to his Algebra II class on time. The bell rang about thirty seconds before he got to his class. Since it was the first day back from summer break the teacher didn't say anything to him. He looked around the room and took the only seat that was open.
"Hey," Jordan said to Mike. Mike looked next to him and didn't even realize that Jordan was there.
"Oh hey," Mike said. "What's up? How's your first day going?"
"Pretty good," Jordan told him. "How's yours going?"
"Good," Mike told him and then added "It got better when I realized that the kid sitting next to me is psychic. Any chance that you might be able to pop some answers in my head?"
Jordan laughed. "Is that all anyone thinks of me?"
*****
Fifth Period
"How can you eat that stuff?" Holly asked Jordan as he sat down at her table at lunch right next to Dawn. Holly and Dawn had both packed their lunches.
"Well I'm too lazy to pack a lunch before school," Jordan told them, "And I also happen to like school lunch."
"You also happen to be taste-blind," Dawn told him.
"Taste-blind?" Jordan repeated. "Yeah I guess that might be a word somewhere."
Holly laughed.
"Can I see your schedule?" Jordan asked Holly. She nodded and handed it to him. "Hey," Jordan said, "You have the exact same classes as me for the rest of the day."
"That's good," Holly told him, "I need help with Chemistry."
"Don't worry," Jordan said, "We have Dawn to help us there. She has the same class too"
"You're not in advanced?" Holly asked her.
Dawn shook her head. "It's the same time as the only French class I could fit on my schedule."
"Besides," Jordan said. "Advanced is for suckers."
*****
Sixth Period
"So," Aaron said as he and Colleen held their trays while standing in the middle of the crowded cafeteria looking around, "Where is your boytoy? I'm hungry."
Colleen scanned the cafeteria over twice before she finally spotted Mike. He saw her and waved to her. "Over there," Colleen said as she pointed towards Mike.
"OK," Aaron said as they started walking towards him. "But I promise you that if lunchtime ever turns into 'make-out-time' I will not hesitate to throw up on your tray."
"Threat noted," Colleen told him.
"Maybe you didn't hear me," Aaron said. "That wasn't a threat. It's a promise."
*****
Ninth Period
"What are the odds?" Aaron said as he, Dawn, Jordan, Holly, Colleen, and Mike all sat at the same long table in the library for study hall.
"This could be good," Colleen said. "In case there's any evil that can't wait that extra forty minutes until school's over we are all right here. No wasting time gathering everybody up.
Holly sat furthest from Mike. He knew about her powers now. He knew that she was the "Gold Chick." Holly never talked to Mike on those rare occasions that he was with Colleen when she was doing her slayer duties. She wondered how much that Mike remembered. She worried that maybe he would tell Colleen everything. She prayed that Mike didn't know the truth.
From across the table, Jordan gave Holly a concerned look.
*****
"Hopefully we'll be able to get all of our patrolling in before 10:00 now that we have school again," Colleen told Holly while they were on patrol. "If not I guess I'll just have to sneak out of my house."
"I could cover," Holly said, "My mom works night shift."
"Oh yeah," Colleen said. "I forgot. You're mom's a police officer right?"
Holly nodded. There was a stretch of silence. Colleen and Holly had been patrolling together for a while but still there wasn't much conversation going on between them. What little talking that was talking place was being pushed by Colleen.
"So how did your first day go?" Colleen tried.
"It was good," Holly said. There was a pause. "Yours?" Holly asked.
Colleen smiled. She talked about her day for a while and every so often Holly would add a comment. Colleen couldn't believe it. It was a real conversation. The conversation was interrupted though by Colleen's cell phone ringing.
"Hello?" Colleen said as she answered her phone. Her face quickly shifted into concern. "Where? OK we're on our way." She hung up the phone. "Come on," she said to Holly.
"What's going on?" Holly asked Colleen as she ran to catch up. Holly wasn't in her demon form which meant that Colleen was faster than her. They were too close to where people might see them and Holly didn't want to risk being spotted with her gold skin.
"Trouble," was all Colleen said. She didn't give Holly a chance to ask any more questions. They ran and before Holly knew what was going on they were in the Bronze.
"What's going on?" Holly asked. "Vampires?"
"No," Colleen said with a smile. "It's that you don't come with us to the Bronze any other way other than if we trick you."
"What," Holly said. She began to say a few words but all that came out were a few syllables.
"Don't worry," Colleen said as she basically pushed Holly towards a table where Jordan, Dawn, and Aaron were waiting with smiles on their faces. "There haven't been any vampires for a week. We already swept through the cemeteries and I have an hour before I have to be home so we're going to have some 'Back-to-school' fun."
Holly reluctantly sat down at the table. When the others first tried to be her friend they had all come on really strong. Now it was more like they considered her their friend no matter what she said and they talked to her just like a friend. Again Holly couldn't help but feel happy, even though she knew in the back of her mind that she shouldn't.
"Oh great," Colleen said as her slayer sense pointed out the two vampires that were leading two girls out of the club. "I knew I shouldn't have lied and said there was trouble. See, this is what I get for lying." Colleen grabbed two stakes out her bag and threw one to Holly. "Come on," Colleen told her, "This won't take long."
"I'll come be back up," Jordan said. "I was going to go get a Pepsi anyway."
Aaron and Dawn watched as they walked out the door. Aaron looked back to Dawn and began to talk to her again. He wanted to ask her to dance. When he was faced with death earlier that year he had come to terms with how he felt about Dawn. He wrote it all down and gave it to her in a letter, but when he didn't die he took the letter back. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but he wasn't going to do it that night. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have gotten the chance, because before either one of them noticed they were knocked out by several vampires that surrounded their table and taken out the door right behind their table. In the crowded chaos of the Bronze, nobody noticed.
"That was easy enough," Colleen said as the other three got back to the table.
"Where did they go?" Holly wondered.
Jordan shrugged. "Beats me."
*****
When Aaron woke back up he wished that he could just go back to sleep. He couldn't though because the vampire that woke him up slapped him hard again when he closed his eyes.
"No you don't warlock," the vampire told him. "There will be plenty of time to sleep when you're dead. First though, you need to do us a favor."
Aaron woke up a little more. He realized that he was in the school library. "And what would that be?"
"You're going to bring back our master," the vampire told him. "Phoenix."
"And why am I going to do that?" Aaron asked trying hard to not sound terrified.
"Because if you don't we kill her," the vampire said as he pointed to where Dawn lay bound and gagged but still unconscious on the floor.
"I see," Aaron said.
*****
"I can't believe they would just ditch us like that," Colleen said as they were getting ready to leave.
"That's not like them at all," Jordan said. The three of them walked out of the Bronze and took a few steps onto the road.
Colleen stopped dead in her tracks. "That isn't like them at all. Try their cell phones again."
Jordan nodded and tried both numbers. They rang and rang but he never got an answer. He looked up and shook his head. Holly started to look a little worried. Colleen had no clue what to do. Jordan looked worried for a second but then his expression changed into something more familiar. He received a vision.
*****
In Aaron's mind he had three options. He could outright refuse to do the spell and that way both he and Dawn would be killed. He could do the spell, oh wait no he couldn't because he didn't have any idea how to do it. Aaron knew some magicks but no where near enough to just bring back a demon like Phoenix. The only way out of this was to stall for time till some other option presented itself.
"OK," Aaron said. "I'll do your spell."
The vampire who Aaron was guessing was in charged nodded to another vampire who gave Aaron a bag of supplies. Aaron dumped it out and took stock of what he had to work with. He sat cross-legged on the ground and tried to take up as much time as possible while still looking believable. At no other point in his life was Aaron that glad to have taken Latin instead of Spanish. After a while the vampires began to become restless with Aaron's chanting and random mixing of dusts and sands.
"Hurry up," the lead vampire said. There were only four vampires all together. Aaron suddenly had an idea on how to make the odds a little bit better.
"It's ready," Aaron told them. "I just need you to breathe it in," Aaron said to the leader.
"What?" the vampire questioned him.
"You know," Aaron said, "Phoenix needs a host, like Martyr."
There was a silence as the vampire thought this over that made Aaron want to piss his pants. He tried not to break eye contact. He needed the vampire to believe him. Dawn's life was on the line.
"Alright," the vampire said after what seemed like an eternity, "Cortez." The vampire who Aaron was assuming was Cortez stepped forward. Aaron swore in his mind. He thought that maybe if he took out the leader than they had a chance.
"OK then," Aaron said nervously. He took a handful of his powder and blew it out of his shaking hand into the vampires face. Luckily, it provided the light effect that Aaron was hoping it would. Unfortunately, that's about all the magic that the powder could do.
"Now what," the leader asked.
"Well now you have to stake him," Aaron said. There was another eternal pause. Aaron prayed that he wasn't about to get both of them killed.
"You better hope that you did this right," the leader told him. He walked over to a chair and broke the leg off. He walked over to the vampire who Aaron had blown the dust on. It looked slightly nervous. After a pause the leader shoved the stake into the vampire's heart. At first the vampire burst into flames, but then the only thing that was left was dust.
The leader was outraged. He ran to Aaron and hit him with the stake so hard that he was knocked across the room. The leaders picked him up and punched him in the face several times until he finally threw him on the ground. He began to walk towards Dawn.
"Wait!" Aaron said as he spit the blood out of his mouth. "Wait. I think I know what I did wrong."
"Lies!" The leader said as he picked the now awake Dawn up. She looked terrified.
"Didn't you see the flames?" Aaron said extremely thankful that he had managed to put the right ingredients into the powder for that result. The leader hesitated. "I might know what I did wrong. Let me try again."
The leader seemed to think it over. "It's too late." He brought his mouth to Dawn's throat.
"Kill her and you'll never get him back!" Aaron screamed. He was panicked now. No matter what happened he didn't want Dawn to get hurt.
The leader paused again. This time he let Dawn fall to the ground. "You have one last chance," the leader told him. "But this time you are performing the spell on her."
Aaron was terrified but he knew that he couldn't let them know it. He walked back over to his supplies. He worked with the powder adding bits and pieces of things into it. He was in over his head. The only things Aaron could really do well were things like charms, jinxes, glamours…
Aaron paused. He never thought that this plan would work but right now it was the only option that he had. He added a few more ingredients into the concoction that neutralized it into nothing more than foul smelling powder.
"Untie her," Aaron said as he approached Dawn with a handful of the dust. The vampires untied her and she stood in front of him. She still looked terrified and Aaron mouthed "trust me" silently to her. Dawn nodded slightly. Aaron wished that he trusted himself.
"I call upon the spirit of Puck. Let that is unreal become seen," Aaron chanted quietly and then blew the dust onto Dawn. Dawn coughed a little as she began to morph into the shape of Phoenix.
"Master!" the lead vampire said. Phoenix looked at him with a confused stare and when he walked towards her he backed up slightly. "Master! You're disoriented."
Dawn took a while to catch on to what was happening. Even though she looked like herself through her own eyes she realized that Aaron had cast a glamour on her.
"Yea," Dawn said slowly, trying to make her voice sound deep. "I see now. I understand." Phoenix never really talked that much. Dawn hoped that that was close enough to how he sounded.
"Master we have been loyal to you," the leader said to Dawn. "Would you like us to kill the boy who killed you?"
"NO!" Dawn said a little too quickly. The vampire gave her a strange look. "I could make use of his magicks."
"But master," the leader said again. "He has killed you once. It is too much of a risk to keep him around."
"Are you questioning my word?" Dawn said to him.
"As a matter of fact I am," the vampire said. Aaron flinched. He hoped that maybe the vampire was stupid enough to fall for his trick. This vampire could definitely tell that something was up. "Maybe you should kill him yourself Phoenix. To prove that you have regained your strength."
Dawn paused for a moment. "Very well," she said as she walked slowly closer to Aaron and pushed him back a little, slightly nodding to the door. "On three. One. Two. Three!"
Aaron and a now very Dawn looking Dawn ran towards the door. They had just gotten through the doors when the three vampires were less than three feet behind them. When they tried to open the doors to follow them though they found that the doors couldn't be open. They stepped back and looked at the doors questioningly when suddenly the doors swung open and hit them in the face. Colleen and Holly, in her demon form, came into the room and made short work of the three vampires.
"What the Hell took you so long!" Aaron shouted as he walked back into the library.
*****
Author's Note: Like I said, this takes place six months after the last chapter of Sunnydale: A New Beginning. I'm sorry it took so long for me to post this. I know I said that I would have the sequel posted by the end of the week but that really didn't work out. Anyway, think of this as the second season of Sunnydale. And like any good second season we have a new character added to the opening credits. That's what that little chart is by the way, the opening credits. I hope you like my latest installment of my Sunnydale series. Please leave feedback, whether it's positive or negative. Tell me what you think of characters and relationships. One last thing, this season is definitely going to be great. I think it's going to be better than the last one. It's not called "Secrets Better Left Untold" for nothing. Thanks for reading and check back for updates.