Chapter 1
Buffy Summers grinned at her best friends. They'd all applied, and, somehow, gotten accepted into the WWE. She still couldn't believe that the McMahons, namely Linda McMahon, had wanted to hire three new divas at once.
In the three weeks they'd been in the WWE, she'd realized several things about the three of them.
Faith had issues she wasn't discussing. All she and Willow knew about their other best friend's issues was that they revolved around her father who was a wrestler. They hadn't even gotten that bit of information until the normally gutsy Slayer had lost her lunch on the first day they'd been divas.
Of course, even though the two Slayers and the redheaded witch had been best friends since high school, they still hadn't revealed all their secrets. She knew she hadn't and she knew that Willow was apprehensive about meeting someone from her past in the WWE as well.
Why did all their issues come back to the WWE? At least she'd lay odds that they did anyways.
Oh, well. They'd conquer their issues, one by one. The fact that her first match would be a tag team match with Zach Gowan would go a long way towards settling one of her issues.
Her other issue was an issue she could hide from. Oh, she'd still see Vince McMahon when he was at the WWE but even though she'd been told she looked exactly like her mother, he wouldn't recognize her. Her blonde hair had been dyed a cranberry color, laced with black streaks. And she wore heavy makeup while Lisa had never touched the stuff.
Any other similarities could be written off as being Lisa's niece. She was a talented liar to top it all off, and she knew she could this.
She exchanged a high five with Willow who was staying behind in the locker room. Unlike the other two, Willow had already had her first match. Faith had walked her out as well to the tune Going Under by Evanescence, watching ringside as she pummeled Molly Holly.
"Kill him, girl," Willow said with a smile. "But leave some for your tag team partner. He's cute."
"Can I quote you?" she smirked. Ooo, her best had it bad for her brother! And her brother didn't know who she was and her best didn't know she had a brother… When in the hell had leaving the past behind gotten so damn complicated?
"Bite me," the witch said, sticking out her tongue.
"Bad invitation, girl," Faith groaned. "If no one ever uttered those words, the world would be a little better place."
"Only a little?" teased Buffy as they walked to where they were meeting Zach.
"Only a little," the other Slayer confirmed. "I mean, sure if people didn't actually say bite me, not so many vamps would hear it and figure that that's an invitation, but there'd still be vamps."
"True."
They steered the conversation into safer waters as they joined Zach to walk down the ramp.
"I'm Mercy," Buffy introduced.
"Zach," was the simple response.
"Hey," the brunette yelped. "Don't forget about me. I'm Faith."
Zach cracked a smile. "It's nice to meet both of you."
"Ditto," the divas chimed in unison, which caused them to all chuckle. Just after they stopped laughing, Buffy had to ask a semi-loaded question.
"So we have a match against The Show, right?" Buffy asked her tag team partner for the evening as they came out to his intro of Adrenaline by Gavin Rossdale.
Zach Gowan shook his head. "No, we have a match against The Big Show."
"Why's he called The Big anything when his dick must be so small?"
Zach choked. He couldn't help but be taken aback by this new diva. They'd all heard the redhead, Willow, pronounce that the Hurricane looked like a giant asparagus, but…"You did not just say that."
Faith, who was walking them out, snickered. "Trust me, B just said that. Nailed it, too. By the way, he walked out just a bit early. Good luck!"
Faith had mingled with the other wrestlers and divas over the three weeks they'd been a part of the company. She knew that the three of them were known as loudmouths but she knew what the company didn't.
She knew that the bluntness each of them showed to the world covered the pain that lay just below the surface. Willow used the bluntness to hide the pain she felt each time a friend died. Buffy used it for unknown reasons, although some of it was due to the fact that she always felt like it was her fault someone was killed by the things that went bump in the night. She used it to forget the pain she'd felt when work had taken priority in her father's life over family. Of course, she also used it to hide the pain of losing someone to evil.
The microphone that Buffy held loosely in her hand had caught all that was said and over by the announcer's table, the camera had caught it too.
The Big Show growled as he entered the ring. "I do not have a small…a small…" The biggest athlete in the world colored. "A small…a small…Don't talk about things you don't know about, girl."
"The name's Mercy," she said, flashing him a feral grin, "and you're going to be begging for it before the match is over." She'd chosen Mercy because it went hand in hand with Faith. Besides, Buffy or Lizzie weren't names for a diva although she'd have liked them to be.
The crowd roared as the petite diva did a back handspring onto the turnbuckle, powerbombing down to land on Show's shoulders. Below her, Zach held his breath as she dove underneath their opponent's feet. Her blue eyes flashed as she screamed curses at the giant. One of them went along the lines of, "That hurt, you mother-fucking son of a bitch!"
As Show moved to punch her in the gut, she scrambled to tag Zach in. As he hopped in and she climbed out, Show's fist connected. Unfortunately for him, he ended up connecting with Zach instead of Mercy, as he'd intended. Zach was only a hair away from the ropes as Show went to get the pin.
The ref slapped one as Mercy reached in and tagged Zach. As she vaulted into the ring, it was obvious that Show hadn't thought that she'd retaliate. She pulled him off of her tag team partner, curses ready on her lips. Her knee went directly to his groin, causing the giant to fall to his knees.
She ran to the ropes, bouncing off of them and delivering a sweeping blow with her legs. She moved in for the pin, hooking Show's leg and applying as much pressure as needed to keep him down until the ref slapped three.
As she walked over to where Zach was waiting, she turned. "Damn it, you didn't beg for mercy, and I so wanted you to. Oh, well, that'll be next time, dick-less freak."
It was while they were walking back to the locker rooms that Zach finally gave into his urge to snicker. It was just too much, this slip of a woman defeating a giant and then calling him a dick-less freak.
"What's so funny?" Faith asked. He still wasn't sure why she'd walked out with them but she was nice at least.
"It's just that not only was the largest athlete in the world just defeated by one of the tiniest divas in the company, he was called a dick-less freak to top it off." Stating what was making him laugh sent Zach into gales of laughter again.
"You've got the same strange sense of humor," she whispered as Faith walked several feet in front of them. She knew that Buffy wanted to tell Zach something without it being overheard. "In 15 years that hasn't changed."
Zach paled. He heard what Mercy didn't say, what she didn't even touch on. "Lizzie."
"Who else would I be, Z.J.?"
"Don't call me that."
"Why not?" Buffy countered. "I'm not Lizzie anymore but you call me by that old nickname. Why shouldn't I use your old one?" With that said, she started to walk faster, knowing he'd never be able to keep up.
"Please hold up."
"No," was the simple reply. "We have to work together but I'm not Lizzie Anne McKenzia anymore. I'm willing to be your friend and ally, but I'm not the girl who was your twin. I can't be her."
"That's fine if you're not Lizzie anymore," Zach stated. "I'm not Z.J. anymore either. The years have changed both of us, Liz. But will you give being siblings a chance?"
"No." This time it was said more forcefully, but with a bit of compassion. "Buffy Summers isn't Lizzie McKenzia, Zach. And I'm so different from her that if I hadn't given you that clue, you'd never have suspected that I was once a girl named Lizzie."
Zach stopped trying to keep up with the petite woman. "You're deluding yourself if you think that there isn't a bit of the past inside of you, Elizabeth." He called her by her full name to remind her that she was still called by a nickname of the name their parents had named her.
"Perhaps," she conceded. "Perhaps there is but if so, it's buried so damn far that it ain't even funny."
"Why would it be buried?"
"Because life hasn't been kind in the blows it's dealt me. I mean, I've already gone through a marriage and a divorce. My ex went on a rampage and killed one of my best friends and one of my mentors. To top it all off, I keep dying. It's not my favorite experience in the world but it keeps happening! Now, I need to grab caffeine. Otherwise, I may seriously hurt something. If you want to, go talk to Faith and Willow. Don't tell her I said it, but Willow's single."
The last part was accompanied by the same mischievous smile that Zach could remember from childhood. Back then, she had used it to get him to do what he hadn't wanted to. Nine times out of ten, he'd gotten in trouble and she'd gotten off scot-free. But every time she'd given him that grin, he'd been helpless against the desire to do what she wanted him to.
Fifteen years later, he was still helpless. "All right. After all, your friend is pretty darn hot."
She smiled again, and he was surprised to realize that it brushed away the shadows in her eyes and the sorrow that had made her appear around twenty-eight or nine instead of barely 22. "You should smile more often. Makes you look younger."
"I don't smile a lot," she shrugged. "But Aunt Joyce always wanted me to, so maybe I will. As a tribute to her."
"A tribute?"
"She died from a brain tumor when we were 19. I found out she was dead because I was visiting Kendra's grave."
"Wouldn't you have known yourself?"
Buffy shook her head. "When I got married, she kicked me out. Said that there was only one reason why I would be getting married and she wouldn't have a slut under her roof."
"Why were you getting married?" Zach asked. It was clear that he was missing a piece of the puzzle; he just wasn't sure which piece it was.
"I loved him," she said simply. "I loved him but I wasn't even in my senior year of high school yet. We got married anyway, in an ancient ceremony. It was my seventeenth birthday present. I didn't realize how dangerous he really was until it was too late."
"You were so young," he breathed. "So young."
"I'd been through a lot by then," she shrugged. "I wish she'd have listened when I asked to come back home. Instead Faith and I lived at Willow's house. Her parents were never home anyways. When we graduated from college, each of us made of a choice about what we wanted. The fact that our hometown no longer exists worked in our favor."
"How does it…you grew up in that California town that was destroyed by the earthquake."
"Yeah." Inside she was thinking of the fight in which they'd lost Xander and Giles. They'd closed the Hellmouth but at what cost? She no longer had the graves of Kendra and Jenny to visit and Xander and Giles's bodies had been lost.
To the world, it was simply an unexpected earthquake. To the Scoobies, it had been what they'd worked for from the time they were fifteen. It had been the End of Days and they'd won.
"Look, I'm headed for my locker room since I know I brought Cherry Coca-Cola. You'll be able to find the others in the cafeteria."
"Thanks," he said quietly. "Who knows, maybe we'll be able to mend some of those bridges that fell into disrepair."
"Maybe," she acquiesced. With that said, she walked towards the locker room, not even caring that she'd nearly came to blows with Zach in the middle of the hallway.
Kevin Nash who had wandered down the hall about halfway through the conversation lifted his eyebrows at Zach.
Zach just shrugged, as if to say, "Women, who can understand them?"
Kevin shook his head, still wondering about what had happened as Zach took off for the cafeteria.
A/N: Well, what do you think? This is going to be a write as it flows story, which means that it may not be posted regularly. Who am I kidding? I almost never post regularly. Anyways, anyone who's read some of my other stories knows that my muse is a hyperactive dachshund but on this story it's a friend of mine. She's been listening to me for close to three days now ever since she thought up the idea. She wants to know if she gets to have a dachshund costume. Anyways, I'm posting this one today.