THE ROGUE SLAYER AND THE RIPPER GANG
By Aline
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series belong Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, WB and upn. They don't belong to me. I am not making any money with this fanfiction, I am just having fun and killing the longings. And I'm Brazilian, so please, be nice to me. I did my best to write it right.
Author's note: That fanfiction intends to count the history of what it would be a spin-off with Faith and Giles as protagonists. However, I modified some things that I consider terrible in the previous seasons. Willow had her problems with drugs, I mean, with witchcraft, but she didn't become Evil, because Tara didn't die. And Kennedy never existed (thanks God!). Xander still has his left eye and he didn't marry with Anya, but they are together, because she didn't die too. Spike died as a hero and he can appear at any moment, since his death was mystic (and he never tried to rape Buffy). Sunnydale was not destroyed, but, just the Hellmouth, in other words, the school.
At first, there will be two histories if uncoiling. Giles, Buffy, Dawn, Xander and Anya are in England, investigating what happened with the Council of Watchers and thinking about a way to rebuild it, under new direction. Close to they are half of the new slayers (former-potentials).
In Sunnydale, there are Faith, Wood, Willow, Tara, Andrew and the new slayers other half, combatting the evil that still remains and taking care so that the Hellmouth stays closed.
Feedback is welcome: aline.de.coelho@terra.com.br
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Part I - Who does need Council?
To return home is always cozy for most of the people. And when it is the birthplace, there probably is no one who doesn't feel happy in returning. But it is different if you did your true home of the new earth and found your true family there. Then, when returning home, not always you get to feel the peace that your heart longs for.
It is like this that feels Rupert Giles. His life in England was always solitary, because him, like the slayers, is a chosen one. He was also predestined. Not to hunt vampires and demons, but to train and to take care of the slayer. And he could not also escape from his destiny, although he has tried. But his years of rebelliousness were over and he ended for hugging his destiny. Until knowing Buffy Summers, Giles was faithful to the thought of the Council of Watchers and truly believed in his role as the humanity's defender. And he never noticed how the Council could be cruel to its own slayers. Did he never notice or did he never care? Here is the subject. The rite of the slayers' passage, when they have the 18 birthday and they are arrested at a house, without their powers and in the company of a crazy vampire, seemed never absurd to Giles. It was a test, in which the sharpest survived. It was necessary that the vampire slayer knew how to use her intelligence, besides strength. The one who didn't survive, was not adapted for the work.
But when it arrived the time of Buffy to pass for that test, the reaction of Giles was not of indifference. His stomach was turned when thinking that, that girl that he learned to love as daughter, could die for his cause. Because of his connivance with the Council in that homicidal ritual. Then, for the first time for a long time, Giles rebelled. He told Buffy what was being drifted and that cost him his employment. Plus than an employment, cost his destiny. But Giles no longer wanted that destiny. Then, when Quentin Travers dismissed him, Giles felt a mixture of disappointment and relief.
Two years later, when being readmitted, the situation was other. Buffy was more confident of herself and she already knew that didn't need the Council to do her work. Of course they gave important information to combat Glory and THE First, but Buffy would have gotten without them.
And now, looking at the ruins and ashes than formerly out the Council, Giles notices that doesn't lament its end and nor misses it. Then, why had he returned to that place?
- " Why are we here? It is just a collapsed building, it doesn't serve for anything else ".
- " Anya, I am sure that Giles should have good reasons to be here ". - Xander answered to his current girlfriend, former-almost-wife.
- "Spill, Giles. You didn't bring us here for an archaeology expedition". - Buffy snorted, without patience with the former-watcher's hesitation.
- " Yes, of course not. This place was not chosen by hazard. The Council chose this specific location for special reasons."
- "Do you want to say that the Council was also built on top of a Hellmouth "?
- " No, Xander, I would not say that. The watchers were stupid, but they were not dumb. Nobody would want a Hellmouth under his feet. But this place has a lot of energy. An energy that seems to be positive. And I think, if we are had intention of setting up a new general barracks, there is not better place than this ".
- "Barracks? Soldier Harris coming, sir. I know the whole routine of a barracks, from striping from the dawn to the touch of picking up."
- "Hey, Xander, I think that was not what Giles meant. I think he was speaking about a place for us to gather." -Dawn spoke for the first time.
- "More than that. We are here with 15 slayers, besides Buffy, of course. They need to be trained, guided, and they need to do that in a safe place. This place is protected. I don't just mean like the Magic Box and the house of Buffy that were protected by that spell of Willow and Tara. It is more than that. There are forces of the nature protecting this place. Primitive forces."
Buffy raised the hand.
- "Question: those men that created the Council, weren't they bad? I mean, they could not be bad "bad", but they used a power that didn't belong to them. They chose a girl to protect them, because they were weak. And they didn't give her the possibility to choose. They chose for her." - Giles noticed that there were more things in the question of Buffy than she let to reveal. There was that old sorrow for having had her destiny chosen by others. Even after so many years, he knew it was still difficult for her to accept that.
- "Buffy, the Council, like us knew it, doesn't exist more. And it will not exist again, in what to depend of us. But the power that it possessed is still here and it can be used to our favor. And the power that gave its origin is also here. It is in your hands." -Giles looked at the scythe that Buffy carried and that contained the power of the vampire-slayers.
**********
'I think it would have been better if B. had left the scythe with me. ' Faith was in the middle of a fight with two vampires that insisted on staying in Sunnydale. Actually, they were not the only ones. The Hellmouth was closed, the stamp of Dalthazar was destroyed, as well as all those ones that collaborated with THE First. However, there was no way of destroying the own evil, because it was incorporeal, and also, because it was necessary.
The evil always existed and it will always exist. It exists, a lot of times, with the good, inside of the same person. Faith knew about that. She knew that there were darkness inside of her. But now, she also knew that she was not the only one like this and that she could make things good, even having already made bad things. And now, perhaps, she could understand her friends better and to be understood by them.
And she could call them friends.
The vampires turned dust under the eyes of Faith. It is when, she noticed that she was not alone. Rona and Vi, new slayers, arrived for behind they hit the two vampires with easiness.
- "This fight is turning very unequal." - Vi smiled. "Didn't the vampires notice that they can't compete with all of us?"
- "You know how vampires are"-Rona replied, "they think with the teeth. The brain should leave with the soul."
The two moved away laughing and Faith followed them closely. She also smiled, but with less intensity. Faith knew evil for longer; She knew this battle better than the other ones. And she was sure of one thing: the evil always comes back.
**********
- "I think Giles is wanting to fool us. If this place is so well protected, it would not have exploded." Anya grinned at Giles, happy for having found an argument of unquestionable logic to use against the former-watcher.
- "No matter how much I dislike to admit, I think Anya is right. That place doesn't look that safe, all burned and in ruins." -Buffy agreed.
- "Well, the place was protected there are many years. I don't believe that the old watchers have included protection against explosives. But I am sure that the place is perfectly invulnerable, in what refers to vampires, demons and mystic forces." -Giles answered, removing the glasses and cleaning them with a handkerchief. Giles seemed to have abandoned the old visual for good, when he used suit with vest. He used a jeans pants, wool black shirt and coat of brown leather. Of the glasses, however, he didn't give up. Contact lenses caused him allergy. But his visual, now, was headier, more ripper, and he liked that.
The five continued to examine the place. The weather was cold and cloudy, but it didn't rain. And that place passed a certain peace, in spite of the melancholic climate, very typical of England. Even being close of the center of London, there were not a lot of people in the street that hour of the afternoon and the silence was peaceful.
Giles knew what to do. He would begin to work immediately in the reconstruction of the building. It was a right and a duty that fit him. He was still the only representative of the Council alive and this reconstruction work should be made by him. Of course, there was still Wesley, but he had never shown interested in returning to the Council. Then, the mission was really in the hands of Giles.
But not only him.
Giles looked affectionately at his gangue. ' The ripper gang', he thought, with a quick smile. Buffy, Anya, Xander, Dawn and more 15 new slayers, that stayed in his house, in the surroundings of the city. In Sunnydale, they set up one second front, with Faith, Willow, Tara, Wood and Andrew, besides the remaining of the slayers. Would they be enough? When the moment of the battle arrives, will they be prepared?
**********
Ruins. The people of Sunnydale no longer considers strange to see their high school in ruins. It is the second time that the building collapses, but Faith has absolute certainty that somebody will suggest soon, the construction of a new school, exactly in the same place.
Faith sighed. ' The evil always comes back. ' in spite of the gang never have had so many allied before, so much people working together, she continued apprehensive. For some reason, perhaps because of everything that she already passed in the life, Faith always distrusts when it is all well and everybody is happy. ' It is always on that hour that the bad things happen... '
- "What are you doing here?"?
- "Willow, Tara, God! You gave me the largest fright".
- "Are you admiring the landscape"? Tara asked, lifting the right brow.
- " No, I am only thinking. What, obviously, it is not my strenght. Then, it is better we to go soon away of here, before I catch the way and become Buffy. Or worse, Giles.
The three smiled and they left there.
- " And you, what are doing? If I can ask..."
- We are taking advantage of the new effective order in Sunnydale: monsters and vampires banished forever ".
- " Willow!!"
The warning of Tara arrived a late second. The demon had already arrived for behind and caught Willow. And it began to drag her, leaving no doubt that its intention was not to kill her, but to take her out of there.
It was a particularly disgusting, white and viscous demon, with a great tail. Tara observed, with panic and terror crescents, that Willow had the immobilized hands and the covered mouth, what disabled her the use of the magic.
Tara tried to focus to utter an enchantment, but she was all of a sudden thrown about 3 meters ahead, when the demon's tail reached her. Still getting up stunned, she saw Faith jump on the demon and to get to free Willow. The demon also threw forward Faith and it ran very fast out of there.
The three looked at one another, stunned and confused. ' What is happening? '
**********
- "White and disgusting demon, with an enormous tail? Willow, there is at least a half dozen of types that are framed in that description. Anyway, I will research, but I think Magic Box books can also be of great help. I will call if I discover something." -Giles turned off the telephone, a little stunned, after hearing Willow speak without stopping for fifteen minutes. But she was right to be so desperate. And disappointed. For the first time in a long while, the people of Sunnydale were feeling in safety. And now a demon with gecko appearance shows up to destroy the party.
- "It is not fair."
- "What the one is not fair, ripper?" -Xander entered in the room and he listened the murmur of Giles.
- "What? No, anything, I was thinking aloud. Willow was attacked by a demon, what means that Sunnydale is not as safe as we thought.
- "A demon? In Sunnydale? That is strange!"
- "It is not time of being sarcastic, Xander. The Hellmouth was closed definitively. The demons should have retreated. But, for the that Willow said, that demon was, well... unfriendly."
- "Is she fine?" -Xander abandoned the sarcasm entirely, just remaining in his voice concern for his friend.
- "Yes. A little disappointed, I would say. She didn't expect to be attacked so soon." -Giles rose of the chair. "We have to research." -he said and left. Xander followed him to the library, where they would begin the research.
Giles had built a beautiful house in the surroundings of London. A quite big house, that accommodated its guests comfortably, including the new slayers. Outside, there was a very treated lawn, with flower-beds around the imposing house of two floors, whose architecture raised to the beginning of the century XX. The house was closed during the years that Giles passed in California and it seemed to be waking up now, happy for having so many people under its roof.
In the interior, the walls were covered of wood, what gave them a solid and imposing aspect.
Giles entered in his favorite room, the library. Nor all the people have the luxury of setting up a library in their own house, but Giles is not an ordinary man. Reading was always his passion and it was there, in that library, sat down comfortably close to the fireplace, that he surrendered to his favorite hobby: to compare references and citations in his books. But now it was not the moment of the amusement. They had a work to do.
- "Willow could have been more specific. There are several demons with this appearance. It can be a Glodah, or a Groderokah. Ah, and we cannot forget about Kernesh."
- "Anya, why don't you explain to us who those demons are?" - Giles wanted to discover soon what was happening and he was not interested in the demonstration of demoniac erudition of the former-avenging.
- "Hey, former-watcher! I help you the way I can and you not even pays me for that! And even left our store in those insane witches' hands, who must already have made the cash register disappear that hour..." -Anya felt a pang in the chest, when she thought that her money could be in danger.
- "I apologize. Now, please, explain better what you want to say." -Giles resisted to the temptation of entering in a verbal collision with Anya. At least for this time.
Anya gave a superiority smile and continued:
- "Willow said that the demon didn't hurt her, but it began to take her, it makes me think that it was not a case of murder, but of kidnapping."
- "And the poor population of Sunnydale never has money to pay the ransom..."
- "Don't be fool, Xander. Demons don't need money. Besides, I don't believe that the intention was to return Willow."
- "Explain already, Anya. Who is this demon and what it wants?"
- "That is the question, my dear Buffy. If I was crazy and bet money, which I don't do, I would bet that it is a Groderokah demon. They don't work for themselves. They are mercenary, paid to do dirty services. I believe that it wanted to kidnap Willow because its contracting party would use her in some kind of ritual. And I don't think they wanted only her."
- "This means that..."
- "The evil returned to Sunnydale. And it is already very organized."
**********
- "Look at this! It is a mess! Everything very disorganized." -Willow took the day off to arrange the magic store of Giles and Anya, Magic Box, but she was only worsening the things. Now she was seated in the ground of the store, surrounded by glasses containing rat eyes, rabbit feet, several crystals, globes of Thessulah, petrified hamsters, besides incense boxes. On that moment, she has just lost the hand of the mummy, that should be walking thereabout.
- "Sweetie, I think you should not be touching that. They just ask us to take care of the sales, do you remmember?" -Tara, as always, tried to be reasonable.
- "Oh, yes. But we are doing a favor, don't we? It's no biggie to place the merchandise in alphabetical order and to divide the shelves in different subcategories, each corresponding to a specific type of sorcery that the person wants. Besides, we can also rewrite the books of the movement of the sales. That system of annotation of Anya is totally incomprehensible. It is necessary to use pens of different colors to write down different things. Blue for sales, red for purchases. The brain works better like this, because the perception is instan..."
- " Help!! Heeeelp!!! Take this off me "! - Andrew entered screaming in the room of sales, with the hand of the mummy firmly caught to his neck.
- " Remove your hands then "! Faith ordered and Andrew obeyed. One second then, a dagger reached the hand of the mummy, " killing it " and with that it released Andrew's neck and it fell to the ground.
' I am still good in that. ' - Faith thought.
- "Are you crazy? One more millimeter and this dagger got right my neck! "
Faith shrugged.
- "It is necessary to risk sometimes ".
Actually, she didn't care a lot. Andrew was not somebody that she would call friend ". And for the other ones, it would be fairer to call him enemy. Or former-enemy, at least. Faith smiled when thinking of that. ' I am not also exactly a friend and former-enemy would also be applied to me. '
Andrew was part of the Evil Trio, with Warren and Jonathan and it caused a lot of headache to Buffy and her friends, two years ago. Jonathan soon was sorry for being conspiring against people that helped him so many times and he ended for leaving of the Trio, leaving for Los Angeles. Warren was turning more and more crazy and violent, getting to enter in the Summers residence, shooting Buffy. A stray bullet also reached Tara and things became really complicated. Luckily, Buffy was shot in the arm, and with her capacity of curing quickly, she hardly needed to be at the hospital.
Tara, however, needed to stay in observation for a while, but as the bullet hardly touched the shoulder, she didn't have major complications and, of the incident, only the scar remained. Willow thought about taking revenge with her own hands, but she noticed that Buffy and Tara needed her. Besides, it was not worthwhile to destroy her own life because of Warren. This time, they left the police to solve the case and Warren was arrested, having been, soon then, transferred to the prison of Los Angeles, where he will stay for many years.
Andrew hid in Mexico for some times, waiting for things to calm down. Finally, he decided to seek his former-archi-nemesis and to offer help to battle THE First. Andrew was accepted with distrust and he knows that he is not still considered a friend. But to be there is already a beginning. And in most of the time, it seems that everybody already forgot his illicit associations of the past.
- "Faith, you killed the hand of the mummy."
- "Didn't it use to be dead?"
Willow was confused of that time. Usually, the hand of the mummy doesn't have own life. Buffy told her that, during the short time that she worked in the Magic Box, that hand had created life and it also tried to strangle her. But that had happened because of a spell of...
- "Andrew! What did you do? Did you do a spell for the hand to create life?"
- "Well, that would be a literal example of 'the sorcery turns against the sorcerer '." -Faith spoke for herself, but Andrew heard it.
- "Hey, do you think that I am fool? I would never do that! I was there seated down, calmly reading the manual of instructions of RPG Dungeons and Dragons, when I was attacked by that creature. Or creature's piece." -Andrew was in defensive mood, but Willow saw that he was being sincere. That left her even more worried.
- "So, it is the second of us that is attacked. What is happenning? -Tara began to be nervous.
- "Willow, did Giles get to discover why that demon attacked you?"
- "Well, you know Giles. He was very gentle and he said for us not to worry; yet. It seems that the demon works for somebody and it intention was to kidnap me, to do some kind of ritual. Giles doesn't know larger details yet, but he believes that the demon is not seeking just me, but all of us.
- "And do you think that attack to Andrew is connected to the attack against you?"
- "Faith, there's a thing that I learned last year: everything is connected." -The four looked at one another, apprehensive.
- "Oh, no. You are playing "I play the serious" and didn't wait for me! Or will it be "murder and detective?" See: Faith blinked, she is the murderess!" -Robin Wood arrived in a good mood and he didn't notice that there was tension in the air.
In the end of the battle against THE First and its disciples, Wood thought about staying in Sunnydale, in spite of having been all of a sudden unemployed, since the school collapsed. His old ideal of avenging his mother's death, the vampire slayer Nikki, had already fallen to the ground a long time ago. And now, after Spike died, saving all of them, Wood already didn't get to feel that old rage.
On other hand, he had a new interest. To him, Faith was a special woman, dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. He wanted to be close to her. If she left him.
- "What you mean: I am the murderess?"
Wood was sorry immediately for the joke.
- "Oh, excuse me. I didn't mean... I thought about that game, murderer and detective, in that everybody are looking at each other and the murderer is the one that blinks..." -Everybody continued to look at him, without understanding.
- "Never mind." -Wood sighed.
- "I already played that. When I was a child." Andrew tried to be nice.
- "Ok, we will return to the subject. Where were we? Oh, yes. New threats, imminent death, probable apocalypse. Boy, I would not get to live without that."
- "Apocalypse? Did a new apocalypse appear while I was at the supermarket?"
- "No, there is no apocalypse yet. Willow was just trying to be sarcastic. But there are new threats appearing. The hand of the mummy attacked Andrew and we believed that that has to do with that demon that wanted to kidnap Willow." - Tara to decide to give some explanation to the poor Wood.
- "And now, Faith killed the hand. We cannot interrogate it."
- "I think it would not speak a lot." -Faith gave a quick smile. "Robin, the sun is setting down, we will patrol. And you three, return direct to home."
- "Yes, ma'am."
Willow, Tara and Andrew went back to the Summers Summers, current QG of new Scooby Gang, full of new slayers, former-potentials. Willow wanted Giles to reconstruct the Council soon to take them out of there. A thing that Willow never had, certainly, is patience. She was being already desperate for having to share the only bathroom of the house with more nineteen people. 'But it was worse '-she thought. 'We had more than thirty people in here. At least, now I got the main bedroom for Tara and me. How the others are taking it there in England? '
**********
- "Mr. Giles, turn off the light, I want to sleep." - Chris implored, one of the new slayerss. Giles had to accommodate some of them in the library, the largest room of the house, but he already regretted it. Now, every time that he enters to catch some book, they began to complain. But there was a thought that consoled him. 'Tomorrow I will begin the reconstruction of the Council. Soon, I will be able to be free from them. I mean, my house will be free from them. '
The Council had a good amount of money. A fortune, to be more exact. And that money, for right, belonged to Giles. Any other person, certainly would take the money for personal purposes, but this is not his case. The money was destined to the Council and it is for that that it would be used. It doesn't mean that Giles would set up the Council in the same way that the old watchers set it up.
- "Don't you get to sleep?"
- "Buffy, hello. Well, actually, I am making plans. We have to think about the construction of the new Council, which will be its format, its architecture..."
- "Xander!" -Buffy cried out suddenly.
- "What?"
- "Xander is a builder, Giles. Tell him what you want to do, and he will do. It is enough to hire some employees. Everything will be perfect, I guarantee."
Giles smiled at her.
- "Don't you worry?"
- "With Xander?" -Buffy was confused.
- "With the Council. With what we are doing. Your relationship with it was never of the happiest kind, Buffy. Don't you fear for the what can happen?"
Buffy thought a little.
- "No, I don't. I trust you. With you ahead of that, nothing will be as it used to be, I am sure." -Buffy spoke with conviction and Giles hugged her affectionately.
- "I don't have intention of reviving the injustices and absurd of the Council, Buffy. Like you said once, the watchers need the vampire slayers, and not the opposite. You are who have the power." -Giles stopped for one second. "But, please, don't let those new slayers know of that."
Buffy smiled.
- "Your secret is safe with me."
- "Right. Then, come to help me to set up the plant of the new Council. I thought about building two buildings: one to train slayers and another to train walchers. Therefore, each building will have different characteristics. Each building will have three floors, and the last will work as bedroom. The watchers' building will have a wide library." -Giles stopped speaking and he smiled in a dreamy way. "Oh yes, and it will also have classrooms. The new watchers need to study Latin, Greek, aramaic, sanscrit and other dead languages. They also need to learn demonology, their several clans, races, species, besides the history of the vampires. And would some fencing be useful, what do you think?"
- "I think it's great. I agree with everything you say."
- "The slayers' need space for physical trainings. Training of art-martial, release of darts, arch and arrow. Ah yes, they also need theoretical classes on war techniques and military strategies. A good slayer is a good strategist. I will draw the plants right now."
- "It is cool, Giles. Tomorrow, Xander will begin the work."
- "You know that I count on you. I need you to help me to administer the slayer' building. You will be my right arm."
- "And that's why I'm here."
The two exchanged a smile.
- "Good night, Giles. I will rest a little."
- "Sleep well, see you tomorrow."
Giles watched while Buffy left and returned to the work. In little time, he had already created the plants for the construction of the two buildings.
'That's it! Tomorrow we can begin. Everything is going to be really perfect. ' He removed his glasses, scrubbed his eyes and left to his room.
**********
- "See what we found" -Faith and Wood entered home, practically dragging that white and disgusting demon by the ears.
- "It is it! It is that Groderokah demon that attacked me! What will we do? Interrogate it, kill it or just torture it?" - Willow asked, with a hopeful smile.
- "I think we will do the three things, but not in that order. First we interrogate, later we torture and, finally, we kille." -Wood answered.
- "Cool. So, first step: to tie it up."
Faith and Wood tied it and they began the interrogation.
- "Why did you attack Willow. Whom do you work for?"
- "I am a demon. I attack people."
- "That's not hat I meant. You work for somebody. Who is this? Is it THE First?"
- "The First Evil can be the oldest, but it is not the only one. I work for the Evil, the strongest and most powerful. You can kill me, but it will come back. The evil always comes back. It will come back in a way that you don't even imagine, and when you less wait. It's not worth to prepare yourselves, you all are going to... aaaaargh!!!" -Faith quickly twisted and broke the demon's neck.
- "Why did you do that? Now, we cannot torture it."
- "Sorry, red. It is just that I am tired of that speech of Big Bad. You are going all to die, bla bla bla, I am powerful, bla bla bla." - Faith answered. "That guy wouldn't speak more than that."
- "But he said something. He works for somebody more powerful than THE First."
- "Who could be more powerful than THE First?"
- "Anyone." -Tara answered.
Everyone looked at her.
- "Explain better, T."
- "The First didn't have any power. Only the power of word and persuasion. But it, alone, could not hurt anybody."
- "It means that... "
- "That new evil will be able to hurt us."
**********
At first, Giles thought that he was dreaming. He had already dreamed before about this face, in some of his worst nightmares. Not that the face was horrible. But it was horrible the way it made Giles feel. Giles didn't use to share his fears, guilty and remorse, but they existed. And when they appeared, Giles always said for himself the same thing: 'I did what needed to be done. '
It was what he said that time. He closed his eyes and he hoped to the face disappear, but it continued there. It was a young and handsome face, with regular features, blue eyes and chestnut hair. The face had a body now, that used doctor's scrubs.
Ben smiled at Giles.
- "Hello, Mr. Giles."
TO BE CONTINUED
By Aline
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series belong Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, WB and upn. They don't belong to me. I am not making any money with this fanfiction, I am just having fun and killing the longings. And I'm Brazilian, so please, be nice to me. I did my best to write it right.
Author's note: That fanfiction intends to count the history of what it would be a spin-off with Faith and Giles as protagonists. However, I modified some things that I consider terrible in the previous seasons. Willow had her problems with drugs, I mean, with witchcraft, but she didn't become Evil, because Tara didn't die. And Kennedy never existed (thanks God!). Xander still has his left eye and he didn't marry with Anya, but they are together, because she didn't die too. Spike died as a hero and he can appear at any moment, since his death was mystic (and he never tried to rape Buffy). Sunnydale was not destroyed, but, just the Hellmouth, in other words, the school.
At first, there will be two histories if uncoiling. Giles, Buffy, Dawn, Xander and Anya are in England, investigating what happened with the Council of Watchers and thinking about a way to rebuild it, under new direction. Close to they are half of the new slayers (former-potentials).
In Sunnydale, there are Faith, Wood, Willow, Tara, Andrew and the new slayers other half, combatting the evil that still remains and taking care so that the Hellmouth stays closed.
Feedback is welcome: aline.de.coelho@terra.com.br
**********
Part I - Who does need Council?
To return home is always cozy for most of the people. And when it is the birthplace, there probably is no one who doesn't feel happy in returning. But it is different if you did your true home of the new earth and found your true family there. Then, when returning home, not always you get to feel the peace that your heart longs for.
It is like this that feels Rupert Giles. His life in England was always solitary, because him, like the slayers, is a chosen one. He was also predestined. Not to hunt vampires and demons, but to train and to take care of the slayer. And he could not also escape from his destiny, although he has tried. But his years of rebelliousness were over and he ended for hugging his destiny. Until knowing Buffy Summers, Giles was faithful to the thought of the Council of Watchers and truly believed in his role as the humanity's defender. And he never noticed how the Council could be cruel to its own slayers. Did he never notice or did he never care? Here is the subject. The rite of the slayers' passage, when they have the 18 birthday and they are arrested at a house, without their powers and in the company of a crazy vampire, seemed never absurd to Giles. It was a test, in which the sharpest survived. It was necessary that the vampire slayer knew how to use her intelligence, besides strength. The one who didn't survive, was not adapted for the work.
But when it arrived the time of Buffy to pass for that test, the reaction of Giles was not of indifference. His stomach was turned when thinking that, that girl that he learned to love as daughter, could die for his cause. Because of his connivance with the Council in that homicidal ritual. Then, for the first time for a long time, Giles rebelled. He told Buffy what was being drifted and that cost him his employment. Plus than an employment, cost his destiny. But Giles no longer wanted that destiny. Then, when Quentin Travers dismissed him, Giles felt a mixture of disappointment and relief.
Two years later, when being readmitted, the situation was other. Buffy was more confident of herself and she already knew that didn't need the Council to do her work. Of course they gave important information to combat Glory and THE First, but Buffy would have gotten without them.
And now, looking at the ruins and ashes than formerly out the Council, Giles notices that doesn't lament its end and nor misses it. Then, why had he returned to that place?
- " Why are we here? It is just a collapsed building, it doesn't serve for anything else ".
- " Anya, I am sure that Giles should have good reasons to be here ". - Xander answered to his current girlfriend, former-almost-wife.
- "Spill, Giles. You didn't bring us here for an archaeology expedition". - Buffy snorted, without patience with the former-watcher's hesitation.
- " Yes, of course not. This place was not chosen by hazard. The Council chose this specific location for special reasons."
- "Do you want to say that the Council was also built on top of a Hellmouth "?
- " No, Xander, I would not say that. The watchers were stupid, but they were not dumb. Nobody would want a Hellmouth under his feet. But this place has a lot of energy. An energy that seems to be positive. And I think, if we are had intention of setting up a new general barracks, there is not better place than this ".
- "Barracks? Soldier Harris coming, sir. I know the whole routine of a barracks, from striping from the dawn to the touch of picking up."
- "Hey, Xander, I think that was not what Giles meant. I think he was speaking about a place for us to gather." -Dawn spoke for the first time.
- "More than that. We are here with 15 slayers, besides Buffy, of course. They need to be trained, guided, and they need to do that in a safe place. This place is protected. I don't just mean like the Magic Box and the house of Buffy that were protected by that spell of Willow and Tara. It is more than that. There are forces of the nature protecting this place. Primitive forces."
Buffy raised the hand.
- "Question: those men that created the Council, weren't they bad? I mean, they could not be bad "bad", but they used a power that didn't belong to them. They chose a girl to protect them, because they were weak. And they didn't give her the possibility to choose. They chose for her." - Giles noticed that there were more things in the question of Buffy than she let to reveal. There was that old sorrow for having had her destiny chosen by others. Even after so many years, he knew it was still difficult for her to accept that.
- "Buffy, the Council, like us knew it, doesn't exist more. And it will not exist again, in what to depend of us. But the power that it possessed is still here and it can be used to our favor. And the power that gave its origin is also here. It is in your hands." -Giles looked at the scythe that Buffy carried and that contained the power of the vampire-slayers.
**********
'I think it would have been better if B. had left the scythe with me. ' Faith was in the middle of a fight with two vampires that insisted on staying in Sunnydale. Actually, they were not the only ones. The Hellmouth was closed, the stamp of Dalthazar was destroyed, as well as all those ones that collaborated with THE First. However, there was no way of destroying the own evil, because it was incorporeal, and also, because it was necessary.
The evil always existed and it will always exist. It exists, a lot of times, with the good, inside of the same person. Faith knew about that. She knew that there were darkness inside of her. But now, she also knew that she was not the only one like this and that she could make things good, even having already made bad things. And now, perhaps, she could understand her friends better and to be understood by them.
And she could call them friends.
The vampires turned dust under the eyes of Faith. It is when, she noticed that she was not alone. Rona and Vi, new slayers, arrived for behind they hit the two vampires with easiness.
- "This fight is turning very unequal." - Vi smiled. "Didn't the vampires notice that they can't compete with all of us?"
- "You know how vampires are"-Rona replied, "they think with the teeth. The brain should leave with the soul."
The two moved away laughing and Faith followed them closely. She also smiled, but with less intensity. Faith knew evil for longer; She knew this battle better than the other ones. And she was sure of one thing: the evil always comes back.
**********
- "I think Giles is wanting to fool us. If this place is so well protected, it would not have exploded." Anya grinned at Giles, happy for having found an argument of unquestionable logic to use against the former-watcher.
- "No matter how much I dislike to admit, I think Anya is right. That place doesn't look that safe, all burned and in ruins." -Buffy agreed.
- "Well, the place was protected there are many years. I don't believe that the old watchers have included protection against explosives. But I am sure that the place is perfectly invulnerable, in what refers to vampires, demons and mystic forces." -Giles answered, removing the glasses and cleaning them with a handkerchief. Giles seemed to have abandoned the old visual for good, when he used suit with vest. He used a jeans pants, wool black shirt and coat of brown leather. Of the glasses, however, he didn't give up. Contact lenses caused him allergy. But his visual, now, was headier, more ripper, and he liked that.
The five continued to examine the place. The weather was cold and cloudy, but it didn't rain. And that place passed a certain peace, in spite of the melancholic climate, very typical of England. Even being close of the center of London, there were not a lot of people in the street that hour of the afternoon and the silence was peaceful.
Giles knew what to do. He would begin to work immediately in the reconstruction of the building. It was a right and a duty that fit him. He was still the only representative of the Council alive and this reconstruction work should be made by him. Of course, there was still Wesley, but he had never shown interested in returning to the Council. Then, the mission was really in the hands of Giles.
But not only him.
Giles looked affectionately at his gangue. ' The ripper gang', he thought, with a quick smile. Buffy, Anya, Xander, Dawn and more 15 new slayers, that stayed in his house, in the surroundings of the city. In Sunnydale, they set up one second front, with Faith, Willow, Tara, Wood and Andrew, besides the remaining of the slayers. Would they be enough? When the moment of the battle arrives, will they be prepared?
**********
Ruins. The people of Sunnydale no longer considers strange to see their high school in ruins. It is the second time that the building collapses, but Faith has absolute certainty that somebody will suggest soon, the construction of a new school, exactly in the same place.
Faith sighed. ' The evil always comes back. ' in spite of the gang never have had so many allied before, so much people working together, she continued apprehensive. For some reason, perhaps because of everything that she already passed in the life, Faith always distrusts when it is all well and everybody is happy. ' It is always on that hour that the bad things happen... '
- "What are you doing here?"?
- "Willow, Tara, God! You gave me the largest fright".
- "Are you admiring the landscape"? Tara asked, lifting the right brow.
- " No, I am only thinking. What, obviously, it is not my strenght. Then, it is better we to go soon away of here, before I catch the way and become Buffy. Or worse, Giles.
The three smiled and they left there.
- " And you, what are doing? If I can ask..."
- We are taking advantage of the new effective order in Sunnydale: monsters and vampires banished forever ".
- " Willow!!"
The warning of Tara arrived a late second. The demon had already arrived for behind and caught Willow. And it began to drag her, leaving no doubt that its intention was not to kill her, but to take her out of there.
It was a particularly disgusting, white and viscous demon, with a great tail. Tara observed, with panic and terror crescents, that Willow had the immobilized hands and the covered mouth, what disabled her the use of the magic.
Tara tried to focus to utter an enchantment, but she was all of a sudden thrown about 3 meters ahead, when the demon's tail reached her. Still getting up stunned, she saw Faith jump on the demon and to get to free Willow. The demon also threw forward Faith and it ran very fast out of there.
The three looked at one another, stunned and confused. ' What is happening? '
**********
- "White and disgusting demon, with an enormous tail? Willow, there is at least a half dozen of types that are framed in that description. Anyway, I will research, but I think Magic Box books can also be of great help. I will call if I discover something." -Giles turned off the telephone, a little stunned, after hearing Willow speak without stopping for fifteen minutes. But she was right to be so desperate. And disappointed. For the first time in a long while, the people of Sunnydale were feeling in safety. And now a demon with gecko appearance shows up to destroy the party.
- "It is not fair."
- "What the one is not fair, ripper?" -Xander entered in the room and he listened the murmur of Giles.
- "What? No, anything, I was thinking aloud. Willow was attacked by a demon, what means that Sunnydale is not as safe as we thought.
- "A demon? In Sunnydale? That is strange!"
- "It is not time of being sarcastic, Xander. The Hellmouth was closed definitively. The demons should have retreated. But, for the that Willow said, that demon was, well... unfriendly."
- "Is she fine?" -Xander abandoned the sarcasm entirely, just remaining in his voice concern for his friend.
- "Yes. A little disappointed, I would say. She didn't expect to be attacked so soon." -Giles rose of the chair. "We have to research." -he said and left. Xander followed him to the library, where they would begin the research.
Giles had built a beautiful house in the surroundings of London. A quite big house, that accommodated its guests comfortably, including the new slayers. Outside, there was a very treated lawn, with flower-beds around the imposing house of two floors, whose architecture raised to the beginning of the century XX. The house was closed during the years that Giles passed in California and it seemed to be waking up now, happy for having so many people under its roof.
In the interior, the walls were covered of wood, what gave them a solid and imposing aspect.
Giles entered in his favorite room, the library. Nor all the people have the luxury of setting up a library in their own house, but Giles is not an ordinary man. Reading was always his passion and it was there, in that library, sat down comfortably close to the fireplace, that he surrendered to his favorite hobby: to compare references and citations in his books. But now it was not the moment of the amusement. They had a work to do.
- "Willow could have been more specific. There are several demons with this appearance. It can be a Glodah, or a Groderokah. Ah, and we cannot forget about Kernesh."
- "Anya, why don't you explain to us who those demons are?" - Giles wanted to discover soon what was happening and he was not interested in the demonstration of demoniac erudition of the former-avenging.
- "Hey, former-watcher! I help you the way I can and you not even pays me for that! And even left our store in those insane witches' hands, who must already have made the cash register disappear that hour..." -Anya felt a pang in the chest, when she thought that her money could be in danger.
- "I apologize. Now, please, explain better what you want to say." -Giles resisted to the temptation of entering in a verbal collision with Anya. At least for this time.
Anya gave a superiority smile and continued:
- "Willow said that the demon didn't hurt her, but it began to take her, it makes me think that it was not a case of murder, but of kidnapping."
- "And the poor population of Sunnydale never has money to pay the ransom..."
- "Don't be fool, Xander. Demons don't need money. Besides, I don't believe that the intention was to return Willow."
- "Explain already, Anya. Who is this demon and what it wants?"
- "That is the question, my dear Buffy. If I was crazy and bet money, which I don't do, I would bet that it is a Groderokah demon. They don't work for themselves. They are mercenary, paid to do dirty services. I believe that it wanted to kidnap Willow because its contracting party would use her in some kind of ritual. And I don't think they wanted only her."
- "This means that..."
- "The evil returned to Sunnydale. And it is already very organized."
**********
- "Look at this! It is a mess! Everything very disorganized." -Willow took the day off to arrange the magic store of Giles and Anya, Magic Box, but she was only worsening the things. Now she was seated in the ground of the store, surrounded by glasses containing rat eyes, rabbit feet, several crystals, globes of Thessulah, petrified hamsters, besides incense boxes. On that moment, she has just lost the hand of the mummy, that should be walking thereabout.
- "Sweetie, I think you should not be touching that. They just ask us to take care of the sales, do you remmember?" -Tara, as always, tried to be reasonable.
- "Oh, yes. But we are doing a favor, don't we? It's no biggie to place the merchandise in alphabetical order and to divide the shelves in different subcategories, each corresponding to a specific type of sorcery that the person wants. Besides, we can also rewrite the books of the movement of the sales. That system of annotation of Anya is totally incomprehensible. It is necessary to use pens of different colors to write down different things. Blue for sales, red for purchases. The brain works better like this, because the perception is instan..."
- " Help!! Heeeelp!!! Take this off me "! - Andrew entered screaming in the room of sales, with the hand of the mummy firmly caught to his neck.
- " Remove your hands then "! Faith ordered and Andrew obeyed. One second then, a dagger reached the hand of the mummy, " killing it " and with that it released Andrew's neck and it fell to the ground.
' I am still good in that. ' - Faith thought.
- "Are you crazy? One more millimeter and this dagger got right my neck! "
Faith shrugged.
- "It is necessary to risk sometimes ".
Actually, she didn't care a lot. Andrew was not somebody that she would call friend ". And for the other ones, it would be fairer to call him enemy. Or former-enemy, at least. Faith smiled when thinking of that. ' I am not also exactly a friend and former-enemy would also be applied to me. '
Andrew was part of the Evil Trio, with Warren and Jonathan and it caused a lot of headache to Buffy and her friends, two years ago. Jonathan soon was sorry for being conspiring against people that helped him so many times and he ended for leaving of the Trio, leaving for Los Angeles. Warren was turning more and more crazy and violent, getting to enter in the Summers residence, shooting Buffy. A stray bullet also reached Tara and things became really complicated. Luckily, Buffy was shot in the arm, and with her capacity of curing quickly, she hardly needed to be at the hospital.
Tara, however, needed to stay in observation for a while, but as the bullet hardly touched the shoulder, she didn't have major complications and, of the incident, only the scar remained. Willow thought about taking revenge with her own hands, but she noticed that Buffy and Tara needed her. Besides, it was not worthwhile to destroy her own life because of Warren. This time, they left the police to solve the case and Warren was arrested, having been, soon then, transferred to the prison of Los Angeles, where he will stay for many years.
Andrew hid in Mexico for some times, waiting for things to calm down. Finally, he decided to seek his former-archi-nemesis and to offer help to battle THE First. Andrew was accepted with distrust and he knows that he is not still considered a friend. But to be there is already a beginning. And in most of the time, it seems that everybody already forgot his illicit associations of the past.
- "Faith, you killed the hand of the mummy."
- "Didn't it use to be dead?"
Willow was confused of that time. Usually, the hand of the mummy doesn't have own life. Buffy told her that, during the short time that she worked in the Magic Box, that hand had created life and it also tried to strangle her. But that had happened because of a spell of...
- "Andrew! What did you do? Did you do a spell for the hand to create life?"
- "Well, that would be a literal example of 'the sorcery turns against the sorcerer '." -Faith spoke for herself, but Andrew heard it.
- "Hey, do you think that I am fool? I would never do that! I was there seated down, calmly reading the manual of instructions of RPG Dungeons and Dragons, when I was attacked by that creature. Or creature's piece." -Andrew was in defensive mood, but Willow saw that he was being sincere. That left her even more worried.
- "So, it is the second of us that is attacked. What is happenning? -Tara began to be nervous.
- "Willow, did Giles get to discover why that demon attacked you?"
- "Well, you know Giles. He was very gentle and he said for us not to worry; yet. It seems that the demon works for somebody and it intention was to kidnap me, to do some kind of ritual. Giles doesn't know larger details yet, but he believes that the demon is not seeking just me, but all of us.
- "And do you think that attack to Andrew is connected to the attack against you?"
- "Faith, there's a thing that I learned last year: everything is connected." -The four looked at one another, apprehensive.
- "Oh, no. You are playing "I play the serious" and didn't wait for me! Or will it be "murder and detective?" See: Faith blinked, she is the murderess!" -Robin Wood arrived in a good mood and he didn't notice that there was tension in the air.
In the end of the battle against THE First and its disciples, Wood thought about staying in Sunnydale, in spite of having been all of a sudden unemployed, since the school collapsed. His old ideal of avenging his mother's death, the vampire slayer Nikki, had already fallen to the ground a long time ago. And now, after Spike died, saving all of them, Wood already didn't get to feel that old rage.
On other hand, he had a new interest. To him, Faith was a special woman, dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. He wanted to be close to her. If she left him.
- "What you mean: I am the murderess?"
Wood was sorry immediately for the joke.
- "Oh, excuse me. I didn't mean... I thought about that game, murderer and detective, in that everybody are looking at each other and the murderer is the one that blinks..." -Everybody continued to look at him, without understanding.
- "Never mind." -Wood sighed.
- "I already played that. When I was a child." Andrew tried to be nice.
- "Ok, we will return to the subject. Where were we? Oh, yes. New threats, imminent death, probable apocalypse. Boy, I would not get to live without that."
- "Apocalypse? Did a new apocalypse appear while I was at the supermarket?"
- "No, there is no apocalypse yet. Willow was just trying to be sarcastic. But there are new threats appearing. The hand of the mummy attacked Andrew and we believed that that has to do with that demon that wanted to kidnap Willow." - Tara to decide to give some explanation to the poor Wood.
- "And now, Faith killed the hand. We cannot interrogate it."
- "I think it would not speak a lot." -Faith gave a quick smile. "Robin, the sun is setting down, we will patrol. And you three, return direct to home."
- "Yes, ma'am."
Willow, Tara and Andrew went back to the Summers Summers, current QG of new Scooby Gang, full of new slayers, former-potentials. Willow wanted Giles to reconstruct the Council soon to take them out of there. A thing that Willow never had, certainly, is patience. She was being already desperate for having to share the only bathroom of the house with more nineteen people. 'But it was worse '-she thought. 'We had more than thirty people in here. At least, now I got the main bedroom for Tara and me. How the others are taking it there in England? '
**********
- "Mr. Giles, turn off the light, I want to sleep." - Chris implored, one of the new slayerss. Giles had to accommodate some of them in the library, the largest room of the house, but he already regretted it. Now, every time that he enters to catch some book, they began to complain. But there was a thought that consoled him. 'Tomorrow I will begin the reconstruction of the Council. Soon, I will be able to be free from them. I mean, my house will be free from them. '
The Council had a good amount of money. A fortune, to be more exact. And that money, for right, belonged to Giles. Any other person, certainly would take the money for personal purposes, but this is not his case. The money was destined to the Council and it is for that that it would be used. It doesn't mean that Giles would set up the Council in the same way that the old watchers set it up.
- "Don't you get to sleep?"
- "Buffy, hello. Well, actually, I am making plans. We have to think about the construction of the new Council, which will be its format, its architecture..."
- "Xander!" -Buffy cried out suddenly.
- "What?"
- "Xander is a builder, Giles. Tell him what you want to do, and he will do. It is enough to hire some employees. Everything will be perfect, I guarantee."
Giles smiled at her.
- "Don't you worry?"
- "With Xander?" -Buffy was confused.
- "With the Council. With what we are doing. Your relationship with it was never of the happiest kind, Buffy. Don't you fear for the what can happen?"
Buffy thought a little.
- "No, I don't. I trust you. With you ahead of that, nothing will be as it used to be, I am sure." -Buffy spoke with conviction and Giles hugged her affectionately.
- "I don't have intention of reviving the injustices and absurd of the Council, Buffy. Like you said once, the watchers need the vampire slayers, and not the opposite. You are who have the power." -Giles stopped for one second. "But, please, don't let those new slayers know of that."
Buffy smiled.
- "Your secret is safe with me."
- "Right. Then, come to help me to set up the plant of the new Council. I thought about building two buildings: one to train slayers and another to train walchers. Therefore, each building will have different characteristics. Each building will have three floors, and the last will work as bedroom. The watchers' building will have a wide library." -Giles stopped speaking and he smiled in a dreamy way. "Oh yes, and it will also have classrooms. The new watchers need to study Latin, Greek, aramaic, sanscrit and other dead languages. They also need to learn demonology, their several clans, races, species, besides the history of the vampires. And would some fencing be useful, what do you think?"
- "I think it's great. I agree with everything you say."
- "The slayers' need space for physical trainings. Training of art-martial, release of darts, arch and arrow. Ah yes, they also need theoretical classes on war techniques and military strategies. A good slayer is a good strategist. I will draw the plants right now."
- "It is cool, Giles. Tomorrow, Xander will begin the work."
- "You know that I count on you. I need you to help me to administer the slayer' building. You will be my right arm."
- "And that's why I'm here."
The two exchanged a smile.
- "Good night, Giles. I will rest a little."
- "Sleep well, see you tomorrow."
Giles watched while Buffy left and returned to the work. In little time, he had already created the plants for the construction of the two buildings.
'That's it! Tomorrow we can begin. Everything is going to be really perfect. ' He removed his glasses, scrubbed his eyes and left to his room.
**********
- "See what we found" -Faith and Wood entered home, practically dragging that white and disgusting demon by the ears.
- "It is it! It is that Groderokah demon that attacked me! What will we do? Interrogate it, kill it or just torture it?" - Willow asked, with a hopeful smile.
- "I think we will do the three things, but not in that order. First we interrogate, later we torture and, finally, we kille." -Wood answered.
- "Cool. So, first step: to tie it up."
Faith and Wood tied it and they began the interrogation.
- "Why did you attack Willow. Whom do you work for?"
- "I am a demon. I attack people."
- "That's not hat I meant. You work for somebody. Who is this? Is it THE First?"
- "The First Evil can be the oldest, but it is not the only one. I work for the Evil, the strongest and most powerful. You can kill me, but it will come back. The evil always comes back. It will come back in a way that you don't even imagine, and when you less wait. It's not worth to prepare yourselves, you all are going to... aaaaargh!!!" -Faith quickly twisted and broke the demon's neck.
- "Why did you do that? Now, we cannot torture it."
- "Sorry, red. It is just that I am tired of that speech of Big Bad. You are going all to die, bla bla bla, I am powerful, bla bla bla." - Faith answered. "That guy wouldn't speak more than that."
- "But he said something. He works for somebody more powerful than THE First."
- "Who could be more powerful than THE First?"
- "Anyone." -Tara answered.
Everyone looked at her.
- "Explain better, T."
- "The First didn't have any power. Only the power of word and persuasion. But it, alone, could not hurt anybody."
- "It means that... "
- "That new evil will be able to hurt us."
**********
At first, Giles thought that he was dreaming. He had already dreamed before about this face, in some of his worst nightmares. Not that the face was horrible. But it was horrible the way it made Giles feel. Giles didn't use to share his fears, guilty and remorse, but they existed. And when they appeared, Giles always said for himself the same thing: 'I did what needed to be done. '
It was what he said that time. He closed his eyes and he hoped to the face disappear, but it continued there. It was a young and handsome face, with regular features, blue eyes and chestnut hair. The face had a body now, that used doctor's scrubs.
Ben smiled at Giles.
- "Hello, Mr. Giles."
TO BE CONTINUED