Imogene scrunched up her nose as her foot yet again landed in another puddle. Water was fine normally, but this was dank, murky cave water, clogged with decay and muck and—gods, she didn't what to think of what else. She kept walking down the dark cavern though, like she was supposed to. If she were any less of a devout follower, Baba could bet all his lives that she wouldn't be anywhere near such a gross cave. She squinted through the dark, barely able to see two inches in front on her, not a useful distance when one was trying not to trip over the rocky floor. Baba had assured her that those who were true to the cause would be gifted and Imogene hoped to high heaven it was with advanced vision. The words "immortality" had been tossed around once or twice, but she'd be happy never having to wear reading glasses again.
Finally, the cave opened up to an antechamber, which was warmly lit with large torches lining the wall. It was all for show, she supposed, since it was the 21st century and would it kill Baba to get a generator and deck this place out with one of Thomas Edison's greatest inventions?
She took her place, on her knees, in front of an outcropping of rocks. One large stone jutted out of the ground, looking vaguely like a mini-version of Pride Rock from Lion King. Oh, how she had loved that movie!
A man of average height and receding hairline stood on the outcropping, outright ignoring Imogene's presence, much to her distaste. Had she not been fervent to all of Baba's beliefs? Had she not followed the code obsessively? She lived as instructed, and yet he still had the audacity to act like he was above her. Imogene would be rewarded just as he would, after all.
"Baba," she dared to utter, sparing a glance up at the man. The man, Baba, was busy with a large basin, a frown marring his face. Whatever was in the basin greatly disturbed him.
"Our time has come," he finally said.
She frowned in confusion. "But you told me—"
"I know what I said," he snapped, effectively cutting her off. He looked over to her, his eyes hard. "It seems the prophecy has come sooner."
"But the prophecy said—"
"I know what the prophecy said," he interrupted. Imogene huffed. She really hated being cut off. "And it is better we are prepared sooner."
"But the Son of Cain? We have followed them for centuries," she reminded him. "And none of them have produced an heir. Not even Vincenzo, with all his whores."
"It seems our ancestors were mistaken," he explained. "They followed the wrong sons."
She wanted to argue, but Baba had access to more information than her. If he knew something, it was best that she listen rather than argue. "Was it Luther then? Has he not searched fervently for a bride since the last one?"
He shook his head. "It was not from the line of Cain, but Aurelius."
She sucked in a breath. "But the line of Aurelian remains only in the females! There are no men to produce an heir!"
"Our ancestor's ways were faulty. They had not expected the gypsies to get involved."
She withheld a snarl. Dirty gypsies had messed with their prophecy? Wait.
"Do you mean that a male Aurelian lives on?" she asked.
"Two, actually."
She choked. "Two?" she squeaked. He couldn't possibly be suggesting—
"Yes, those two."
The Sons of Cain were one thing. The history of the line was dark and dangerous, but even those whom had once been the most notorious had quieted. Domesticated, one could say. After hundreds of years of murder and mayhem, it could become quite boring, it would seem. But the Whirlwind, no, they were still too young. Still too dangerous. Still prone to ripping her to shreds if she got too close.
She shuddered.
"Fear not, dear sister. The Aurelian clan is tamed, one could say. The gypsies granted Angelus a soul and William the Bloody has fallen so far from the ways of vampire it's almost as if he isn't one anymore." Baba chuckled, a disturbing notion all by itself. "In fact, if my informants are correct, he isn't. Which is exactly why the Prophecy has come to term now."
She snorted. "William the Bloody made an heir?" The idea was completely ridiculous. Who'd let that bastard raise a child? She herself was no motherly figure, but even she knew that man would make a poor caretaker. "With who?"
"It matters not." In other words, he didn't know. "But the Destructor has now matured. They are prepared for The End. Oh, how the skies will rain with lightning and fire, just as the prophecy foretold. The Gods shall war!"
"So we must release the Great Destroyer from their prison," Imogene concluded, remembering her teachings.
He nodded. "You know your task now, dear sister. We must release the Great Destroyer as prophesized and you will be rewarded handsomely. We all shall benefit from it."
She nodded, getting up from her kneeling position on the cave floor. Her knees protested from the movement. Gods, she was getting too old for this.
"And do not fail me," he warned, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
She nodded once. "I would not dream of it. It is not only you who will suffer if I fail."
He looked upon her strangely, as if he finally saw her in a new light. She suppressed a snort. Maybe he finally saw her as a person. That would be a first for him.
Without a second glance back, she scurried out of the cave, only tripping over a handful of rocks. She stepped back out into the dim light of twilight, pulling her shawl around her as the wind picked up. She had a lot of work to do before she could report back to Baba and not face one of his temper-tantrums he was always so quick to make.
-.-
"And ever since, he's only let me take on wimpy newly risen vampire," Beth huffed, finishing off her rant to Nadja over the phone. "Not even a couple days old, but straight from the grave. That's the equivalent of fighting a baby!"
"Except a baby can't punch you across a yard," Nadja reminded her. "At least you're fighting vampires, right? Isn't that a good thing?"
"I'd hardly call it fighting. Imagine a bear taking on a bunny," she began.
"I'm glad to see all this power hasn't gone straight to your head."
"Quiet you. Anyway, that's what it's like. Sure, they're strong, but completely uncoordinated and just kind of go at you with teeth."
"But think of all the lives you're saving," Nadja argued. "Now those vampires aren't killing people and isn't that what this is all about?"
She pouted. "But I wanna hit something that can hit me back."
"Then get a bobo doll if that's all you really care about," Nadja snorted.
Before she could deliver her own nasty retort, she heard the front door open and shut, followed by her mom shouting, "I'm back!" Beth couldn't miss the slight irritation in her voice.
"I have to go," she said quickly. "My new Watcher is here!"
Nadja bid her goodbye before she flung her phone down on her bed and quickly rolled off to race to her door to see who was going to spend the next several years actually teaching her to kill actual vampires. She hadn't a clue who her Watcher was supposed to be, as neither Giles nor Buffy had clued her in. So, the suspense had been properly built.
"Oh, bloody hell, not you," Spike grumbled from somewhere downstairs.
Beth turned quickly onto the stairs, stopping short when she saw who waited down beside her mother.
"Hello Beth," he greeted.
And there he stood, in all his 5'7" glory: Andrew Wells.
"Mr. Wells?" she squeaked. This had easily been the furthest possible guess she could have made. Judging from her parents' expressions, it was also the least preferred one.
He grinned at her. "I'm going to be your personal Watcher!" he stated giddily, as if it was not already obvious. He even came in standard uniform: tweed.
"They sent you?" Spike finally asked.
The biting comment didn't even phase Andrew. "Rupert thought Beth would do best with a well-familiarized face. And, I am trained as a Watcher. I even had my own Slayer team once upon a time."
Beth slowly made her way down the rest of the stairs, stopping one step short of the ground floor. She had never once been taught by Andrew, but her interactions with him never made her think of him as anything close to a Watcher. He talked about Star Wars too much.
"Giles sent you?" she internally winced after the words tumbled out of her mouth. She hadn't meant for it to sound so disbelieving, but was there really any other way for her to ask the question?
He cleared his throat, straightening up as to try and look more authoritative. "Yes, well, I am the most prepared at teaching you the necessary skills to be a slayer. I am well-versed in numerous texts an—"
She sighed. "So, what box set did you buy?"
He had enough decency to look a tad bit embarrassed. "Game of Thrones."
"An' so they send you," Spike said, looking up and down at Andrew. "Bloody perfect."
"Giles assures me he can do the job," Buffy told him. "And he did have his own slayer team years back. He is in fact qualified as one of the Council's longest running Watchers."
Spike snorted. "Longevity does not equate to skill," he countered.
"No, but it's going to equate to something good for now," she sighed.
"Where's he staying?" he asked, talking right over Andrew's head. "Not here."
"He is right here and is staying in a motel until I can lease out an apartment for my term here," Andrew replied. He turned to Buffy. "You said I would have a space here?"
Buffy gestured up the stairs. "The library. Beth'll show you."
She led Andrew up the stairs, trucking along some of his numerous suitcases which housed multiple tombs and artefacts. He apparently had more coming in the mail. How much reading was required to be a slayer exactly?
"So, we already have a lot of books here," she told him, motioning towards the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. "Mainly encyclopedias though."
"I won't be keeping most of my books here," he told her. "But I think a few especially useful ones will remain here, since this is where most of your training will occur. Your mother mentioned something about a training room?"
"The basement," she answered. "We renovated it to be a training room. That's where we keep all the weapons too." She sat down on the desk, watching as Andrew pulled out books upon books, shoving them onto the shelves in no order whatsoever. Spike wasn't going to like that. Beth herself even narrowed her eyes a bit.
"So, you're going to make me a slayer?" she asked.
He smiled at her. "You're already a slayer. I'm just going to help your hone in your skills, young Padawan."
She allowed herself a slight smile. "At least tell me someone else wanted the job."
His smile faltered.
She forced out a chuckle. "Well, I guess I saw that coming. No one wants to teach the monster to be dangerous, right? I mean, how stupid an idea is that?"
"I really wanted the job, though," he informed her. "So, even if someone else did want it, I would have fought for it and won too, I think. I, after all, have the most experience with you."
She looked at Andrew, her friend turned Watcher. Sure, he was as old as her parents (well, at least one of them), but he had been one of the few people at the Academy that wasn't immediately turned off by the sight of the vampire kid. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to shake Andrew Wells off their tails.
"Well, I hope you know that I'm not like any other slayer you've trained over the years," she informed him. "I've got a lot of extra skill in me." As he kept shelving his supplies, she continued, "I'm not a possible loose cannon, you know. Not anymore, I think. I know they worried about me, because I was half the creature they had been trained to kill, but it's gone, you know, that part of me?"
He turned to look at her. "You'll have to explain a bit more than that."
"There was this part of me, like in the back of my head. Kind of like a razor, maybe? Or like a sort of incessant buzzing? Not annoying, exactly, but something that made me uncomfortable; I didn't feel right," she did her best to explain, but since her condition had never occurred before, there weren't really any words best used to explain it.
"Like anxiety?" Andrew asked. "I have a lot of experience with that."
"I guess," she conceded. "It was never quiet in my head. There was some sort of chaos in the back of my mind. But then that day when I woke up and I was a slayer, the first thing I noticed was the calm. It was peaceful. The grating, buzzing, whatever feeling was gone. And then I was breaking curtain rods and putting holes in walls."
He came over and sat down beside her on the desk. For once in his life, he actually looked serious.
"Despite the fact that Slayer teachings require extreme prejudice of vampires and demons alike, regardless of actually feeding habits, Slayers are not all that different from demons," he began. "Slayer power has demon origins. Humans are not naturally strong; females themselves are not recorded for their immense strength. This demon essence is what gives Slayers their unnatural strength. Vampires are humans possessed by demon essence as well, more specifically a demon soul. While an essence is not as complete as a soul, the two are similar for obvious reasons.
"Humans and demons are not compatible in most cases. Since essence lacks the basis of a soul—a conscious—it can be compatible with humans. But a demon soul is not, which is why Angel is and Spike was so conflicted. The two existed in the same body, but struggled to do so. Peace did not elude them only because of the blood on their hands but they very polarity of their existence. Two souls battling for dominance in one form.
"You are most likely the same. Since Spike was still a vampire when you were, ahem, conceived, it is likely you have a dual soul as well. Normally a demon soul cannot exist in a human body without killing it, but you also have a demon visage, which is most likely enough for the demon soul to keep from killing you—it is also best to mention that all observation suggests human souls are also stronger than demon souls, making it the dominant soul.
"The demon soul in you rebels against its fragile, human cage. It feels trapped. That would be the uncomfortable feeling you talked about. It was something on the edge of your conscious, barely prodding you. But then along comes a familiar, demon essence in the form of Slayer power. The demon soul in you found a mate of sorts."
Now Beth had to interrupt. Everything he had said so far had made sense to her; it had been like the clichéd light cast on the dark road. But mate? "My demon soul found its honey?" she asked with a snort. "Good god I hope they don't shack up."
"No silly, just a compatible piece. Another man in arms. Many vampires seek kindred spirit, another with whom they may share their abnormally long lifespans with. It's likely that your soul was the same. It found peace with another."
"So my vampire soul found happiness with slayer essence?" she reiterated, trying to wrap her mind around this new information.
"To put it simply, yes," he responded with a quick nod.
She sighed. "Well, I guess I am my father's daughter then, huh?"
"Of course, this is all hypotheses mainly," he went on to add. "You're the only half-vampire-half-human in existence, Angel's son excluded because he was born all human with some extra abilities. You are a rarity and while that may come with pride, it also comes with uncertainty."
"And one hell of a case of The Tigger Loneliness," she joked. He blinked at her. "You know, 'and the most wonderful thing about Tigger is I'm the only one?'"
"I did not watch that show as a child."
"So does this mean, hypothetically of course, that the vampire in me will go quiet?" she asked, switching back.
"If you're asking if your vampire traits with retreat and become invisible, that is unlikely. The slayer essence doesn't reject the demon soul, so it most likely won't eject it from you or even bury it."
She pouted. "Well, there that goes out the window."
He patted her knee. "Don't worry Beth; you've lived this far without much incident. How much can the rest of your life be?"
She sighed inwardly, thinking of how ostracized she had been at the Academy and Zack, who still had no idea she was half the thing he was taught to hate. "Yeah, can't be too hard, I guess. I'm only going to live for what, another 80 years? Maybe longer with my vampire soul?" She responded bitterly.
"Just remember you're not alone, Beth. You never were, no matter how much others made you think you were."
-.-
The incessant tapping of the pen against wood was the only sound in the library.
Taptaptaptaptaptaptapt—
Nadja's hand shot out, grabbing the pen and stilling its movements. "Please," she ground out, glaring at Zack. "Don't."
He sighed, slumping over in his chair. "Why are we here again?"
"Why, you have better things to do?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Hot date?" Beth quipped, flipping through the pages of one of the library's tombs without actually reading the page.
"No," he grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. He tilted his chair back so it balanced on its back legs, barely maintaining its equilibrium with his foot hooked under the desk. He was lucky the oak desk was so heavy, weighed down by all the ancient tombs. "I wouldn't have a—I don't—I'm not dating anyone."
He finished his stilted sentence with such conviction, she raised an eyebrow at him. "You're here," she began, "because you're like my, uh…"
"Posse?" Nadja offered.
"Yeah," she agreed. "Like my gang."
"Ooh, can't wait to tell my mom I'm in a gang," Nadja joked.
"Anyway, since you're with me, my Watcher thinks it'll be best if you guys are trained along with me. Not like the kicky-kicky part, but the self-defense and monster knowledge," Beth explained. "My Aunt Willow and Uncle Xander helped my mom all the time and they sat through Slayer lessons as well."
"Great, so who's the comic relief?" he asked.
"You, obviously," Nadja responded. "You are the goofy-looking male sidekick to the kick-butt female protagonist. It would be a more accurate portrayal if you were a bit heftier around the middle."
"Well I'm sorry for being so lanky," he grumbled sarcastically.
"You're ruining our aesthetic," Beth joked.
"And it won't be so bad," Nadja assured. "We'll get to learn all about vampires and stuff."
"Yes, because that's what I've always wanted to do on a Thursday afternoon: learn about vampires that like to eat people," he muttered. Beth and Nadja exchanged looks and Nadja shrugged.
"Well, there's also Karathmamanyuthg demon," Beth told him. "You can also take on those."
He blinked slowly at her, leaning forward again so all four legs of his chair were touching the floor. "Do you think you could say that again, but slower, maybe with some phonetic flashcards?"
She opened her mouth to respond that she didn't appreciate his lack of enthusiasm when Andrew came into the library, looking rather eager in his tweed. She smirked as her eyes perused his attire.
"Well, if it isn't the Littlest Giles," she greeted with a smile.
"Hey, I'm your Watcher now. Your Jedi Teacher—"
"Oh god," she heard Zack cry softly.
"—so you need to respect me. In this room, I am not your friend. I am your teacher."
"You're gonna teach me how to fight, master?" she playfully mocked, dropping the cover of the tomb shut.
"By waxing cars, right?" Zack piped up. Nadja reached over and smacked him none-too-gently.
"Stop it," she hissed. "You're just as bad as him."
"I will be teaching all of you how to fight the Vampyres," Andrew announced dramatically, emphasizing with hand gestures.
"So, you know all about them then?" Nadja asked, "As a Watcher?"
"I have been rigorously trained in the ways of demons, most especially Vampyres," he responded quite proudly. "Now, there are very important skills one must know to fight the notorious Vampyres an—yes, you have a question?"
Beth looked away from her Oscar-worthy Watcher to see Nadja's hand raised expectantly.
"Yeah. Why is it when you kill a vampire, its clothes go all dusty too? I mean, would it still happen if it wasn't on their body? Clothes are not a part of the vampire. In fact, they can change cloths just like everyone else, so why do their clothes become dust as well?" Nadja asked.
Before Andrew could even begin to respond, Zack cut it with his own question.
"Hey, that makes me wonder," he began, "why do you 'dust' a vampire? Wouldn't it be ashes they turn into, especially if you burn one to death? Is it because the word ashes has no verb form? You can't 'ash' someone."
"Since Dracula is real," Nadja went on, forgoing her earlier inquiry and picking a new one, "does that mean Noseferatu is real too? Because that would be really cool."
"What about Edward Cullen?" Zack asked with a snort.
Beth glanced back over to see her new Watcher standing there with a lost look in his eyes.
"So," she said casually, "this is going well, yeah?"
"Does anyone have any questions on the actually slaying of demons?" Andrew asked hesitantly.
"Can you stake a vampire with a chopstick?"
"Alright," Beth interrupted, glaring at Zack who merely shrugged innocently at his question. "Mr. Wells, how about you just start with Vampires 101 and we can go from there? And if you can, crash course it. I don't like my education being held back by couple of slow pokes."
"Sorry we don't have years of experience from a slayer academy," Zack huffed. "Little Miss Know-it-all."
"You're just upset because Beth's going to be the teacher's favorite and not you," Nadja taunted.
"Shut up. That's not even remotely true."
"Don't make me regret making you a part of my slayer gang," Beth threatened.
"I thought you needed a comic relief," he protested.
"Mr. Wells is enough comic relief on his own!"
"Thank y—wait. Hey!" Andrew protested. "I'm the elderly Mentor Figure. Like Gandalf!"
"I thought you were Obi Wan Kenobi," Zack remarked.
"Could you all be any more off topic?" Nadja shouted in exasperation. "I am here to learn."
"No you're not," Zack argued. "You told me you just wanted to look cool carrying a sword."
"Properly!" she added. "I want to know how to carry it properly!"
"Wait, you think you're getting a sword?" Beth asked. "You're totally starting on a stake and cross."
"Hey, Giles wanted me to check in on your first slayer training lesson," Buffy began as she walked into the library. She stopped short when she realized no one heard her entrance and were instead shouting things to one another. She might have heard the word "sword" and "Padawans" thrown around, but she couldn't be sure.
Instead of intervening, she sighed and slowly backed out of the room, closing the door with her. She walked back down the stairs, dropping onto the couch with a sigh.
"How's it going?" Spike asked from his position in the armchair, eyes barely glancing at his wife before they locked back on the TV.
"Oh, like any normal Slayer lesson, I guess," she responded with a shrug.
She looked up at the ceiling when she heard a muffled shout of, "I don't care if it involves mind, it's nothing like the Force!"
"It's been steadily getting louder," he informed her as he turned up the volume on the TV. Buffy only nodded, trying to focus her mind on one of her husband's mind-numbingly dumb soaps.
A/N: Haha the beginnings for an over-arching plot. Only took —*check notes*— six chapters, but I got there, didn't I? Anyway, hopefully y'all like the reemergence of Andrew! Won't lie, he's gonna be around more often now.