Brave New World 1
Authors: lirpa - liroa15@yahoo.ca
shana
Dedication: To all those who have inspired us.
Distribution: Our site, if you want it just ask.
Disclaimer: They belong to Joss and Marvel, not to us. If they really did this wouldn't be on the internet.
A.N: I don't know very much about the X-Men comics. I own a few, but that's it. I'm apologizing in advance if we screw up the dialects. Just for the record I'm also a grammar freak so the dialects might not be as involved as they normally are. Also, thank you to everyone who took the time to review the prologue and give us some feedback. It was most appreciated.
lirpa
Brave New World 1
by lirpa and shana
Buffy clutched the yellowed paper tightly to her chest, still shocked at its contents. It was one of more than a dozen letters written by someone named Scott Summers, to her mother, or Aunt Joyce. It was still hard to believe, she had a cousin she'd never even heard of before, who, by the dates on the letters, must be older than her. And even more amazing, it seemed that her mother had written back, told him about their lives.
Often the letters asked about Buffy, how she was doing in school. But never once did they mention Buffy's nightly extracurricular activities. Apparently, her mother had not felt comfortable telling this long lost cousin about her daughter's responsibilities. Not all that unusual, he probably would have thought her insane.
There were no recently dated letters, however. The most recent was a few years old. Buffy felt that she almost came to know her cousin through his correspondence with her mother. But in all the letters there was not one picture of her long lost cousin. He made mention of the pictures Joyce had sent him, but there were no pictures of him hidden away among the pages.
And there were pages and pages. Some of the letters short, barely a page, whole other continued on for ten pages or more. And all came from the same address in Salem, New York.
With a frown Buffy decided to write this family member she had never even known existed. She wished she could call him, but pen and paper would have to do, after she asked Willow to locate Scott Summer and see if he was still living in Salem, New York.
It was more than a week later before Buffy remembered to ask Willow to locate her cousin's present address.
"Hey, Wills," she called one morning just after breakfast.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering if you could do me a favor."
"Does it have to do with the demony?" Willow asked suspiciously.
Buffy scuffed a toe along the floor. "No."
"Then what?"
"I need you to find someone for me."
"Why? Have they committed an unspeakable evil? Like making pacts with demons? Or vampires? Are they going to try to end the world?"
"No."
"Okay, just checking. What is it then?"
"Well, you know how I was going through a box of my Mom's old papers not that long ago?"
"Yeah?"
"Well I found some letters."
"To an unnamed lover?" Will's eyes sparked with interest. Deep down, she was still a romantic at heart.
"No, to a cousin I didn't know I had. But the last letter was written a couple years ago and I thought he should be informed of Mom's death."
"So why not just write him?"
"Well, I'm not sure he still lives at the same address."
Understanding lit Willow's eyes. "And you want me to find his current address."
Buffy just nodded.
"Sure. So what's this mysterious cousin's name?"
"Scott Summers. Last time her wrote Mom he was living in a place named Salem New York. At this address," Buffy handed over a scrap of paper on which she had scrawled Scott's address.
Willow smiled. "This should be a piece of cake. Give me a couple of days and I'll have your cousin's address for you."
"Thanks, Wills."
"What are friends for?"
~Couple of days later~
"So what do you have, Willow?" Buffy asked eagerly. The night before she had spent hours sitting at her desk, writing the letter that had turned out to be surprisingly difficult to write. In the end it had come out short, and rather terse, but at least it was done.
"Not much."
Buffy frowned. "How much is not much?"
Willow sighed. "Very little, I'm afraid. Your cousin is very good at hiding."
"That's okay, Wills. Tell me what you do have?"
"Will the address he wrote from is a school. Xavier's school for the Gifted, actually. I was able to find a picture of him on the government website, but very little else."
"The government actually puts people's pictures on its website? Isn't that illegal or something?"
Willow colored, :Well, it wasn't exactly in the public files."
"Oh." Buffy nodded in understanding. "Well, can I see the picture?"
"Sure." And with that Willow punched a few buttons on her computer and a picture of a red haired man, wearing dark glasses, appeared.
"So this is him?" Buffy asked, staring at the face of her cousin.
"Also, there was an announcement in the local paper. It appears he married someone named Jean Grey."
"Thanks, Wills," Buffy said, moving to the door of the room.
"What are you going to do, Buffy?" Willow called after her.
"Go to Salem and see if the people at this school know where he is. What else can I do?"
"But you can't go alone, you never know what kind of demon might try and kill you."
Buffy thought on that for a moment. "I'll take Xander and Faith with me. With all the new Slayers that your spell activated you probably won't need us anyway."
"All right. But Buffy?"
"Yes, Willow?"
"Be careful."
Buffy smiled sadly. "I always am."
~
"So tell me why we're going to Salem, New York again?" Xander complained, leaning back on his plane seat and adjusting his eye patch.
"Because we're looking for B's cousin," faith replied, irritated. By all rights Buffy should be answering all these questions, but she had fallen asleep almost as soon as the plan had taken off.
"But why us?"
"Who knows? At least it gets us out of Cleveland for a while, so stop complaining." Faith settled back, wishing she could follow Buffy into sleep.
"But why couldn't Buffy just write the guy?" Xander whined a moment later.
"Because he hasn't written her Mom in a while and the address on the letters was for a school. He's married now Xander, I doubt he still goes to school.
Xander settled further back into his chair. "This sucks," he declared.
"Well at least we don't have to deal with some of the more annoying new Slayers," Faith pointed out practically.
Xander frowned. "True."
"So just shut up and let me get some sleep. This is going to be a long trip."
"Fine, fine. Your wish is my command," Xander replied sarcastically.
"Then shut the hell up."
The rest of the plane ride was silent.
~Salem, New York~
Buffy sighed and dug the money she needed to pay the cab driver out of her jeans pocket.
The man accepted the money eagerly, passed Buffy her change through the open window and tore off.
"Well, he obviously doesn't like the place much," Xander observed dryly.
"Can you blame him? This place is something out of a bad horror flick," Faith observed.
Indeed, heavy wrought iron gates rose in front of them, protecting a long drive. At the end of that drive they could barely make out the imposing shadow of what must be the school.
"Looks like a mansion to me," Faith commented idly. "Now are we going to wait for them to notice us standing here or are we going to go introduce ourselves?"
Just then a voice crackled over the speaker built into the gate. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Well, what's it going to be, B?" Faith asked, muscles tensing in preparation.
Buffy just reached over and squeezed Faith's shoulder in warning, as the vice asked again, impatient now, "Who are you and what do you want?"
With a deep breath Buffy replied. "My name is Buffy Summers. This is Xander Harris and that's Faith. We came looking for my cousin. He wrote my mother, you see, and this is the only address we had."
No one replied but the gate swung slowly open.
"Well?" Xander asked, "are we going to stand her all day or are we going to spend all day trying to get to the school?"
"Mansion," Faith interrupted sharply. "It's most definitely a mansion."
"Willow said it was a school," Xander argued.
"Believe me, I may have never lived in one, but I saw plenty in Boston and that place isn't a school, it's a mansion."
"Maybe it's an old mansion that's been converted into a school," Buffy interjected quietly. "But, regardless, this is the address the letters came from so this is where we start the search."
"Fine," both Faith and Xander grumbled, picking up their bags.
"It's not like they can hurt us either," Faith added on more cheerfully. "I mean, B and I can kick their asses/"
"Well let's go before they change their minds and close the gate," Xander suggested dryly, "and we have to explain why we're here all over again."
With a sigh Buffy picked up her bags and they started their way up the long and winding drive, idly commenting on the perfectly landscaped lawns.
"The guy who owns this place must be loaded," Faith added smugly.
"It's a school," Xander replied with a glare.
"But it could be a private school," Buffy added dryly. "In fact, it most probably is. It sure doesn't looks like Sunnydale High, even before we got done with it."
Xander laughed.
Just then the house came into full view.
"I told you it was a mansion," Faith crowed triumphantly.
"Well then it's definitely a private school," Buffy agreed, staring in wonder at the huge, old
house. "I wonder what Scott did to get here?"
"He's probably a genius like Willow," Xander replied easily.
"Probably," Buffy agreed, still a little dazed.
"Well let's get to that house as quickly as we can, before whoever's watching us starts to get annoyed."
"Watching us?"
"Sure, Buff," Xander agreed. "They'd probably have security cameras all over the place. That's probably how they knew we were at the gate in the first place."
Buffy grumbled rebelliously but said nothing.
"It's makes sense, Buff," Xander added a moment later.
"Now let's get up there before they wonder where the hell we are and what we're doing."
"You afraid of them, Faith?" Xander teased.
"No, but I don't want to meet their idea of a welcoming committee just yet."
Xander frowned. "Good point. Do you think these grounds ever end?"
"They must …. eventually."
"That's not very comforting," Xander growled.
"Poor baby."
A few minutes later they arrived at the front door.
"Now how do we get in?" Buffy asked the air.
"Do you think the door's unlocked?"
"No. You wouldn't want burglars or something walking in."
"True."
"Do you think there's a doorbell or a knocker hanging around somewhere?"
"I don't see one."
"You don't suppose someone is going to let us in?"
Just then the door opened to reveal a short, hairy man. He sniffed the air a few timed like a dog or
wolf would, as if trying to obtain their scents.
"This way, bub," he growled. With a shrug the three Scoobies followed him to an office, where
they were warned not to touch anything, before he departed.
"See?" Faith interjected into the silence. "I told you we didn't want to meet the welcoming committee."
Xander shivered and agreed. "Still, we could have taken him."
"We?" Faith raised a brow. "More like B and I."
Xander grumbled for a moment but couldn't think of a properly biting comeback.
All three sat down without further comment, choosing the seats in the most defensible positions unconsciously.
Scott, however, noticed when he entered the room moments later. He had been on security detail when they showed up at the mansion. He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Buffy standing at the gate. Joyce had said she hadn't even known he existed.
A slight widening of the eyes was the only sign that Buffy recognized Scott at all.
"Buffy."
"Scott," she replied, surprised at how calm her voice came out.
"And who are your friends?"
"Xander and Faith."
"So why, exactly, are you here?" Scott plowed on, heedless of the consequences.
"I found some of your old letters to Mom while I was going through the last of her papers."
"Why?" Scott asked suspiciously.
"Well, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. Mom died a couple of years ago."
"Joyce is dead?" Scott asked, feeling completely numb.
Fin Part 1.
Authors: lirpa - liroa15@yahoo.ca
shana
Dedication: To all those who have inspired us.
Distribution: Our site, if you want it just ask.
Disclaimer: They belong to Joss and Marvel, not to us. If they really did this wouldn't be on the internet.
A.N: I don't know very much about the X-Men comics. I own a few, but that's it. I'm apologizing in advance if we screw up the dialects. Just for the record I'm also a grammar freak so the dialects might not be as involved as they normally are. Also, thank you to everyone who took the time to review the prologue and give us some feedback. It was most appreciated.
lirpa
Brave New World 1
by lirpa and shana
Buffy clutched the yellowed paper tightly to her chest, still shocked at its contents. It was one of more than a dozen letters written by someone named Scott Summers, to her mother, or Aunt Joyce. It was still hard to believe, she had a cousin she'd never even heard of before, who, by the dates on the letters, must be older than her. And even more amazing, it seemed that her mother had written back, told him about their lives.
Often the letters asked about Buffy, how she was doing in school. But never once did they mention Buffy's nightly extracurricular activities. Apparently, her mother had not felt comfortable telling this long lost cousin about her daughter's responsibilities. Not all that unusual, he probably would have thought her insane.
There were no recently dated letters, however. The most recent was a few years old. Buffy felt that she almost came to know her cousin through his correspondence with her mother. But in all the letters there was not one picture of her long lost cousin. He made mention of the pictures Joyce had sent him, but there were no pictures of him hidden away among the pages.
And there were pages and pages. Some of the letters short, barely a page, whole other continued on for ten pages or more. And all came from the same address in Salem, New York.
With a frown Buffy decided to write this family member she had never even known existed. She wished she could call him, but pen and paper would have to do, after she asked Willow to locate Scott Summer and see if he was still living in Salem, New York.
It was more than a week later before Buffy remembered to ask Willow to locate her cousin's present address.
"Hey, Wills," she called one morning just after breakfast.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering if you could do me a favor."
"Does it have to do with the demony?" Willow asked suspiciously.
Buffy scuffed a toe along the floor. "No."
"Then what?"
"I need you to find someone for me."
"Why? Have they committed an unspeakable evil? Like making pacts with demons? Or vampires? Are they going to try to end the world?"
"No."
"Okay, just checking. What is it then?"
"Well, you know how I was going through a box of my Mom's old papers not that long ago?"
"Yeah?"
"Well I found some letters."
"To an unnamed lover?" Will's eyes sparked with interest. Deep down, she was still a romantic at heart.
"No, to a cousin I didn't know I had. But the last letter was written a couple years ago and I thought he should be informed of Mom's death."
"So why not just write him?"
"Well, I'm not sure he still lives at the same address."
Understanding lit Willow's eyes. "And you want me to find his current address."
Buffy just nodded.
"Sure. So what's this mysterious cousin's name?"
"Scott Summers. Last time her wrote Mom he was living in a place named Salem New York. At this address," Buffy handed over a scrap of paper on which she had scrawled Scott's address.
Willow smiled. "This should be a piece of cake. Give me a couple of days and I'll have your cousin's address for you."
"Thanks, Wills."
"What are friends for?"
~Couple of days later~
"So what do you have, Willow?" Buffy asked eagerly. The night before she had spent hours sitting at her desk, writing the letter that had turned out to be surprisingly difficult to write. In the end it had come out short, and rather terse, but at least it was done.
"Not much."
Buffy frowned. "How much is not much?"
Willow sighed. "Very little, I'm afraid. Your cousin is very good at hiding."
"That's okay, Wills. Tell me what you do have?"
"Will the address he wrote from is a school. Xavier's school for the Gifted, actually. I was able to find a picture of him on the government website, but very little else."
"The government actually puts people's pictures on its website? Isn't that illegal or something?"
Willow colored, :Well, it wasn't exactly in the public files."
"Oh." Buffy nodded in understanding. "Well, can I see the picture?"
"Sure." And with that Willow punched a few buttons on her computer and a picture of a red haired man, wearing dark glasses, appeared.
"So this is him?" Buffy asked, staring at the face of her cousin.
"Also, there was an announcement in the local paper. It appears he married someone named Jean Grey."
"Thanks, Wills," Buffy said, moving to the door of the room.
"What are you going to do, Buffy?" Willow called after her.
"Go to Salem and see if the people at this school know where he is. What else can I do?"
"But you can't go alone, you never know what kind of demon might try and kill you."
Buffy thought on that for a moment. "I'll take Xander and Faith with me. With all the new Slayers that your spell activated you probably won't need us anyway."
"All right. But Buffy?"
"Yes, Willow?"
"Be careful."
Buffy smiled sadly. "I always am."
~
"So tell me why we're going to Salem, New York again?" Xander complained, leaning back on his plane seat and adjusting his eye patch.
"Because we're looking for B's cousin," faith replied, irritated. By all rights Buffy should be answering all these questions, but she had fallen asleep almost as soon as the plan had taken off.
"But why us?"
"Who knows? At least it gets us out of Cleveland for a while, so stop complaining." Faith settled back, wishing she could follow Buffy into sleep.
"But why couldn't Buffy just write the guy?" Xander whined a moment later.
"Because he hasn't written her Mom in a while and the address on the letters was for a school. He's married now Xander, I doubt he still goes to school.
Xander settled further back into his chair. "This sucks," he declared.
"Well at least we don't have to deal with some of the more annoying new Slayers," Faith pointed out practically.
Xander frowned. "True."
"So just shut up and let me get some sleep. This is going to be a long trip."
"Fine, fine. Your wish is my command," Xander replied sarcastically.
"Then shut the hell up."
The rest of the plane ride was silent.
~Salem, New York~
Buffy sighed and dug the money she needed to pay the cab driver out of her jeans pocket.
The man accepted the money eagerly, passed Buffy her change through the open window and tore off.
"Well, he obviously doesn't like the place much," Xander observed dryly.
"Can you blame him? This place is something out of a bad horror flick," Faith observed.
Indeed, heavy wrought iron gates rose in front of them, protecting a long drive. At the end of that drive they could barely make out the imposing shadow of what must be the school.
"Looks like a mansion to me," Faith commented idly. "Now are we going to wait for them to notice us standing here or are we going to go introduce ourselves?"
Just then a voice crackled over the speaker built into the gate. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Well, what's it going to be, B?" Faith asked, muscles tensing in preparation.
Buffy just reached over and squeezed Faith's shoulder in warning, as the vice asked again, impatient now, "Who are you and what do you want?"
With a deep breath Buffy replied. "My name is Buffy Summers. This is Xander Harris and that's Faith. We came looking for my cousin. He wrote my mother, you see, and this is the only address we had."
No one replied but the gate swung slowly open.
"Well?" Xander asked, "are we going to stand her all day or are we going to spend all day trying to get to the school?"
"Mansion," Faith interrupted sharply. "It's most definitely a mansion."
"Willow said it was a school," Xander argued.
"Believe me, I may have never lived in one, but I saw plenty in Boston and that place isn't a school, it's a mansion."
"Maybe it's an old mansion that's been converted into a school," Buffy interjected quietly. "But, regardless, this is the address the letters came from so this is where we start the search."
"Fine," both Faith and Xander grumbled, picking up their bags.
"It's not like they can hurt us either," Faith added on more cheerfully. "I mean, B and I can kick their asses/"
"Well let's go before they change their minds and close the gate," Xander suggested dryly, "and we have to explain why we're here all over again."
With a sigh Buffy picked up her bags and they started their way up the long and winding drive, idly commenting on the perfectly landscaped lawns.
"The guy who owns this place must be loaded," Faith added smugly.
"It's a school," Xander replied with a glare.
"But it could be a private school," Buffy added dryly. "In fact, it most probably is. It sure doesn't looks like Sunnydale High, even before we got done with it."
Xander laughed.
Just then the house came into full view.
"I told you it was a mansion," Faith crowed triumphantly.
"Well then it's definitely a private school," Buffy agreed, staring in wonder at the huge, old
house. "I wonder what Scott did to get here?"
"He's probably a genius like Willow," Xander replied easily.
"Probably," Buffy agreed, still a little dazed.
"Well let's get to that house as quickly as we can, before whoever's watching us starts to get annoyed."
"Watching us?"
"Sure, Buff," Xander agreed. "They'd probably have security cameras all over the place. That's probably how they knew we were at the gate in the first place."
Buffy grumbled rebelliously but said nothing.
"It's makes sense, Buff," Xander added a moment later.
"Now let's get up there before they wonder where the hell we are and what we're doing."
"You afraid of them, Faith?" Xander teased.
"No, but I don't want to meet their idea of a welcoming committee just yet."
Xander frowned. "Good point. Do you think these grounds ever end?"
"They must …. eventually."
"That's not very comforting," Xander growled.
"Poor baby."
A few minutes later they arrived at the front door.
"Now how do we get in?" Buffy asked the air.
"Do you think the door's unlocked?"
"No. You wouldn't want burglars or something walking in."
"True."
"Do you think there's a doorbell or a knocker hanging around somewhere?"
"I don't see one."
"You don't suppose someone is going to let us in?"
Just then the door opened to reveal a short, hairy man. He sniffed the air a few timed like a dog or
wolf would, as if trying to obtain their scents.
"This way, bub," he growled. With a shrug the three Scoobies followed him to an office, where
they were warned not to touch anything, before he departed.
"See?" Faith interjected into the silence. "I told you we didn't want to meet the welcoming committee."
Xander shivered and agreed. "Still, we could have taken him."
"We?" Faith raised a brow. "More like B and I."
Xander grumbled for a moment but couldn't think of a properly biting comeback.
All three sat down without further comment, choosing the seats in the most defensible positions unconsciously.
Scott, however, noticed when he entered the room moments later. He had been on security detail when they showed up at the mansion. He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Buffy standing at the gate. Joyce had said she hadn't even known he existed.
A slight widening of the eyes was the only sign that Buffy recognized Scott at all.
"Buffy."
"Scott," she replied, surprised at how calm her voice came out.
"And who are your friends?"
"Xander and Faith."
"So why, exactly, are you here?" Scott plowed on, heedless of the consequences.
"I found some of your old letters to Mom while I was going through the last of her papers."
"Why?" Scott asked suspiciously.
"Well, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. Mom died a couple of years ago."
"Joyce is dead?" Scott asked, feeling completely numb.
Fin Part 1.