Title:WAR
Author: SlayGal
Rating: PG
Description: One-shot fic. Set in the future. The battle against good and evil still exists.
A/N: Response to a Buffy fanfiction challenge at a website known as Destiny's Chosen but the site has recently closed down. What was required of the challenge was no mention of Buffy by name etc., a creaking door, a broken clock, a gold pair of earrings, and the quotes, "I want to buy a gun and start a war," "I think I can manage not to eat the soup with my fingers," and "She was packed and ready to go; her life in her bag slung roughly over her shoulder."
As soon as the clock hit the floor and broke that is when the war truly began as the earth shoke and thunder striked. It was dark outside and the clouds and the wind together created at atmosphere no one wanted to be in.
It was going to be a war you would never return from. Most wars were considered to be like that but this one meant it. If I was going to die I was going to hell because this was the battle against evil. I had been in many battles and each one we had called the them biggest or the worst then another battle would come along and we'd call it the biggest but this was truly the biggest.
My mother was sane once, I know this but at these times she was the exact opposite. She thought the spoon was a utensil created by the devil and thought eating with your fingers was the safetest way to eat food. I questioned her ideas and theories all the time, I think that added to her craziness but I never knew at the time until now but it was too late. She had other crazy ideas. The list just went on. I presumed the lead up to her insanity was from other wars she had experienced, not my kind though. Sometimes the stories she told me convinced me that she maybe would have preferred a war to exist because she felt she had a purpose and had something to do. One day she said to me, "I wish I had a gun. I want to buy a gun and start a war." I just looked at her. What do you say to that?
There was one night we were sitting around the table in our cabin in north Boston out in a place called no where and mother had served up soup for dinner. I hated having soup. Not because I hated the soup. Not because my mother couldn't cook but simply because of my mother's crazy ideas. I felt guilty to use a spoon. She would tease me and tempt me to use my spoon and then when I nearly fell for her tricks and was about to give up and use my fingers just for her sake she'd trick me again. Then this night I asked her, "Mum, why don't you just try and eat the soup with spoon? It's easier and it's not a creation of the devil. Please just once." She glared at me in her usual manner. "I think I can manage not to eat the soup with my fingers but can you?" She was silent and blinked her eyes. This went on for ten minutes, that's when I got worried. I got up out of my chair and went to help her to her room to lay down. The next morning nothing was mentioned about the previous night at dinner.
It was things like that that would make me feel guilty to leave her at a time like this but I had to go and people and things waiting for me out there.
So she made her way out of there leaving her mother behind. Now, she was packed and ready to go; her life in her bag slung roughly over her shoulder."
It was around a month later from the soup incident that Faith left her house and her mother behind. The morning she crept out, she was the quietest she had ever been but the old door on the cabin made the most noise as she opened it to leave, it creaked. Her mother sat up imeddiately in bed and called out to Faith. Her mother knew she was leaving for the war and Faith had explained the concept to her many times over and over but I guess the mother's love for a child always remains deep in the heart. Faith ran back inside and said goodbye as she hugged her mother.
Days later, Faith met up with her good friends Angel, Xander, Willow and Wesley and they were the East front of the war.
They stayed in a motel for a few days after that and planned what to do next and a number of questions were raised, some not getting answers ever. The West front had not mobalised yet.
We got to the forbidden land, as it was called and even though it seemed silent and no action was happening on it or around it, it was the exact opposite. A war of good and evil was in production but a war with good vs. evil, it wasn't as simple as that. The history of the war went years back before the majority of the Eastern front was born but it had been hidden and faught in various places unknown by other people and things.
The land was muddy and a very dark brown, nearly black colour. Evil had been winning for a while so to say and it was showing in many ways. Good was losing and the loss had been building up for some time but there was no 'winner' yet.
Their war seemed to not be moving along much and so more troops from the east had been called for. Faith was off duty for an hour or so and had wandered off and saw something ahead of her in a burnt tree. The leaves had been burnt to a crisp. She had heard of stories not only from her mum but from other people and she had read in books that in any war, troops or soldiers had been dilusional and had seen things that weren't really there or things they wanted.
She peered off into the distance where the tree was and then started to aproach it slowly and cautiously.
She saw a pair of gold earings hanging off one of the tree branches. When she finally reached the tree she put her hand out to touch the earrings to see if they were real and they were. It were if it were a gift from beyond the grave. Faith had never really owned anything made gold, never could afford it but she did have a small memory of once owning a fine, a very fine gold anklet which was worn around her ankle. She had it on her right ankle but some how over the years she lost it or something happened and she never saw it again and when she ever mentioned it to her mother, her mother had no idea what she was talking about.
She placed the earrings in her hands. Then Xander called out to her and she spun around hiding the earrings within her hands and made sure he couldn't see them. It was time to meet up with the Western front.
For earrings that had hung on a burnt tree in the conditions and weather out here, it was a miracle they were a tiny bit shiny and recognisable at all to be gold.
The mortals and the 'normal' ones didn't know of the actual happenings of the war and what went on against good and evil but they knew a war existed but that was enough.
The Western front was lead by an ex-Watcher named Rupert Giles and his followers were Daniel Ozbourne, Gunn, Winifred and Spike. Spike was a vampire, just as Angel was. One was nearly 200 hundred or on his way, while the other was a young 300 year old.
Everyone had their own strengths and weaknesses and the way to close those gaps on the weakness of each was to work together in a way the opponent couldn't defeat them all one by one by using their weakness. Everyone would take advantage of their talent and strong point to protect themselves and the others around them.
There were more fighters on both sides of the front but these were the main players.
We were meeting at a point named the 'calvary' were the skull of the human who beat the last evil player in power. That is where we were going to bring the fight and hoping the enermy would follow. We had done our research on this place, this hill. It had powers buried within it we hoped we could grasp. We all knew it wasn't the answer to winning but it was going to help us, we told ourselves that and it's what we believed.
The odds were against us, we knew that but we were not going to give up. It had been years since the war had been activated again. I heard everyone had to be re-grouped from both sides and pulled out of the mess and wreck and it was a mutal agreement to put the endless war on hold. That was probably the time when the sides were balanced nearly to perfection or were closest to being, that's what I heard and then the period of fighting didn't exist until now.