To Watch and To Slay, �Till Death Do Us Part
The first Watchers' Council meeting convened on June 11, 2003 in a small Des Moines, Iowa hotel room. Two-thirds of the attendants of the meeting had no idea it was a meeting, even, until Giles told them. Their reactions were decidedly different.
"I'm flattered," Robin Wood said.
"Are you insane?" Xander Harris said. "You want me to be a Watcher?"
The meeting degenerated into an inventive, x-rated cursing session for the next fifteen minutes, the proceedings lead by the Council's youngest member. Finally, after he covered various points including but not limited to: Giles's lack of sanity, Giles's lack of intelligence, Xander's lack of intelligence, and the anatomically incorrect positioning of various parts of Giles's body, Xander calmed down.
"What about Willow?" Xander asked. "Why me, and not Wills?"
"Well, for the most obvious point, you have never tried to destroy the world," Giles said. "However, primarily it is because I feel you are fully qualified, while Willow's role in the spell which awakened the Slayer line could cause conflicts between Watcher and Slayer beyond that which is normally there."
"Whatever it's worth, Xander, I think you have what it takes," Robin said.
Xander stared at Robin for a moment, then sighed and accepted the post.
The next order of business was to organize the Slayers, Slayers-in-Training, and eventual discoveries into some sort of system. They decided to designate Buffy, Faith, and Kennedy as Senior Slayers -- Slayers who have trained for at least two years, faced a variety of monsters, and needed little in the way of Watcherly guidance -- and assign one to each Watcher.
Obviously, Buffy remained Giles's charge. Both Xander and Giles assumed Robin would take Faith, as their relationship was going well. Robin balked, however; he felt an intimate relationship with a Slayer under his care would be inappropriate, so Kennedy was assigned to Robin and Faith was assigned to Xander.
The other six girls were broken up by their personalities. Giles, Robin, and Xander observed them and got to know them some, and then made a decision as to which girl worked under which Watcher.
Kim Cho-Ahn, the Chinese Slayer, went with Giles out of necessity -- no one else spoke even the slightest bit of Chinese. Helen St. Claire, a quiet and shy girl who was clearly uncomfortable with her newfound powers, also went with Giles. They believed the steady, soothing figure of the oldest, most experienced Watcher would help her to grow to know her powers better.
Janet Unger and Sharona "Rona" Davies, two outgoing and extremely friendly Slayers, were assigned to Xander. Physically, the two Slayers were nothing alike. Janet was almost six feet tall, had pale skin and pale blond hair, and a love of politics and debate. Rona was short, shorter even than Buffy, with thick curly hair and dark skin. She hated confrontation (although that trait didn't carry over into her Slaying duties) and often played the diplomat when Janet's debating turned into arguments with other Slayers.
Kimberly Mullin and Violet Brodengard, Robin's two Slayers-in-Training, were both fiercely independent women. The two often clashed ideals with Xander's Slayers -- just as Robin's ideals often clashed with Xander's. Vi and Kim stuck together but kept everyone else at a distance. Both were certain of the rightness of their calling, didn't worry about how the violence might affect them internally, and pushed themselves hard.
They moved to Cleveland. They bought houses, enrolled in schools, got jobs. They trained, and patrolled (each Watcher and his Slayers got two nights on the job, then one night off; the night off rotated so there were always six Slayers patrolling). They invented systems for the Slayers and Watchers, and protocols for new recruits to the fold -- both new Slayers and new Watchers.
For nine months, though, no one new came -- until Faith took her newly-named Holograms to the club.
Five months after he became her Watcher, Faith learned exactly what that relationship meant to Xander.
They patrolled the meat-packing district that night. The smell there, down by the docks, was terrible -- the ideal place for a demon who, in another location, would attract too much attention with its smell. Jacked-up by her Slayer-heightened smell of the place, Faith was in a very foul mood that night. As were Rona and Janet.
They came upon something outside of a warehouse -- Faith couldn't remember what, anymore; Janet found it, and all Faith cared about was that it meant she could take out her frustrations on a demon. Rona, as the smallest, drew reconnaissance duty. She climbed up to the vents in the roof and checked out the inside while the other three waited in shadows.
"Two of them that I saw," Rona said when she got back down. "Ugly nasties, but I don't recognize them."
"Hey, they're demons," Faith said. "Sounds to me like it's time we worked the mojo."
"What did they look like?" Xander asked.
"Not very big -- about my height," Rona said. She looked up as she thought about the demons. "Kinda flappy-looking, like their skin was melting off."
Xander swore. "Shuru Kosh demons," he said. "They're not overly strong or fast, but their skin is really thick and they have six-inch claws. They're hard to kill without weapons."
"We got our knives," Faith said.
"I meant more along the lines of swords," Xander replied.
Faith pulled her knife -- a ten-inch blade completely different from the one Sunnydale's Mayor Wilkins gave her years ago -- from the folds of her jacket. "I'm much more comfortable with Mr. Jeremy than I am with some sword. I say we bust in."
Rona and Janet drew their knives and echoed Faith. "Man, three-on-two, we got this," Rona said.
Xander closed his eyes and sighed. "Fine. Plan?"
Faith nodded and headed to the entrance. "Yeah. Watch hot chicks kick ass." Rona and Janet followed her, and Xander got an eyeful of arrogant Slayer strut before he followed after.
Faith kicked open a side door to the warehouse and the Slayers rushed in behind her. The two Shuru Kosh stood in the middle of the warehouse and stared at the three Slayers.
"Hey, yo, you guys speak English?" Faith said. The demons stared, and said nothing. "Well, that's cool. Getting killed's a pretty universal language."
She stepped forward, knife raised, and the demons advanced. Three six-inch claws shot out of each demon's hand.
"Whoa," Janet said.
"Shouldn't Stan Lee be suing these punks for copyright infringement?" Faith said.
"Wolverine was Len Wein and John Romita Sr.'s character, Faith," Xander said. "Not Stan Lee's."
"Whatever."
"I'm impressed you know who Stan Lee is, though."
Faith, Rona, and Janet met the demons in the middle of the warehouse and the dialogue stopped. For Faith, time always sped up in a fight. Everything was a rush. The rush of her blood, the rush of air past her face as she twisted and parried and dodged and struck, the rush of time as everything in her world faded away except the enemy in front of her.
Until her Watcher screamed her name from behind her.
"Faith!" Xander yelled. She jumped out of the fight and saw him running to her left with a four-foot piece of steel rebar in his hands. "More of them!"
She turned to the side and saw four more Shuru Kosh at a full sprint, claws extended. She turned and threw her knife into the neck of the demon closest to her; the demon staggered a step and its defenses fell before it did. Rona's knife plunged into its chest, and she grabbed Faith's knife from its neck before she pushed it away.
"Man, I had--" Rona said. She cut off and her eyes widened as she saw the four demons. She ran forward and gave Faith's knife back to her, and the two Slayers attacked.
Again, time sped up for Faith. Xander swung the rebar with little skill, but his complete lack of defense kept the Shuru Kosh on the defensive. Faith kicked in a kneecap and her knife found its mark for a second time.
"Rona, look out!" Xander yelled. He rushed forward and thrust the rebar into the face of a demon with his left hand as he used his right to shove Rona out of the way of the Shuru Kosh's claws. The steel knocked the demon back, but the claws still raked across Xander's middle.
Janet grabbed the off-balance demon from behind and viciously cut its throat. Another demon attacked Rona; she caught the downward thrust of its claws between the bones of her forearm and slammed her knife home in the demon's throat. Janet and Faith made short work of the last demon.
They wrapped Rona's arm with a strip of Janet's undershirt, and Xander held the rest of it to his bleeding stomach. The wound was fairly deep, but not all the way through the muscle.
Back at the house, Xander spoke up before any of his Slayers could. "Shuru Kosh demons, Giles," he said. "Thought there were only two, I said we could take them with knives."
"There were more?" Giles said.
"Yeah, four others in hiding," Xander said. "We got them, but it was close." He gasped as Willow cleaned his wound. "It was stupid of me. I almost got everyone killed."
"It was stupid of you, Xander," Giles said. He pulled off his glasses and cleaned the lenses. He turned and looked at Xander's Slayers, who either looked at Xander, eyes wide, or stared at the ground. "I trust you've learned from this." Giles left.
Faith, Rona, and Janet went to see Xander in his bedroom, where he recovered, the next day. Willow allowed them five minutes to check on their Watcher.
"Rona!" Xander said right as they entered. "How's the arm?"
Faith closed the door behind her and joined Janet and Rona at Xander's bedside. He lied flat on his back, and while his face was pale his eyes looked alert. He wore a white undershirt, and Faith could see the bandages around his middle beneath it.
Rona held up her arm, similarly bandaged, and shook her head. "It's a'ight -- Slayer healing and all that. You know the game." She dropped her arm to the side and looked down. "I'm so sorry I missed those other four!" she whispered. "I'm so sorry--"
"Hey, none of that!" Xander said. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Rona looked up at Xander. "You coulda been killed!"
Xander looked away. "That's always true." He looked back at Rona and grinned. "But I'm your Watcher -- it's my job to Watch your back."
"Yeah, does that include lying to protect us?" Janet said.
"You're my Slayers," Xander said. "Nobody gets to yell at you but me." He grinned for a second, then looked down. "Besides, I didn't lie. I'm the Watcher, I'm supposed to be the guy in charge. In the end, it's all my responsibility."
"Ain't your responsibility to jump in front of claws for us," Rona muttered.
"Hey, a Watcher's gotta Watch his Slayers' backs," Xander joked. "Anyway, you guys are Slayers -- if someone's gonna die, better some newbie Watcher whose biggest contribution to the fight is the names of the guys who created Wolverine, right?"
Rona and Janet gaped at Xander. Before they could say anything, though, Willow stuck her head in. "Times up, you three," she said. "Get out. Let him rest."
"Will, you're gonna kill me through boredom if you keep this up," Xander joked.
"Nice try, mister, but you're still there for the next week," Willow said. She looked at Faith and raised an eyebrow. "Out. Don't make me get all resolve-y."
Faith nodded her head to Rona and Janet. Outside in the hallway, she said, "I don't know about you two, but I'm heading to the training room. I need something to hit."
Rona and Janet agreed, and followed her to the basement. "I can't believe he said all that," Janet said on the stairs.
"Man's crazy," Rona said. "I can't believe he stuck up for us--like, I mean--"
Faith stopped on the stairs and turned around to face the younger Slayers. "That's just how X-man is," she said. "He jumps in without thinking, been that way since he was a kid."
"Well, he ain't a kid no more," Rona said. "He's our Watcher."
Faith looked at Rona and Janet. She almost felt everything click into place there, on the steps; her sister Slayers, their concern for their Watcher who had no idea of his worth or how much they needed him. "He ain't gonna keep himself safe," Faith said. "He doesn't think he's worth much. Never has." A thought hit her: some of the blame for that could fall to her and a night five years ago.
"He is worth much!" Janet said.
Faith nodded. "Guess that means we gotta keep him safe."
Rona and Janet looked at each other and nodded. "Five-by-five," they said together.
Faith grinned as she lead the way down to the basement training area. It felt good to belong.