CHAPTER 5
Andrew took a seat on the couch.
"The first order of business..." Giles started, then saw the still-weary but withering glares from Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander. He cleared his throat and smiled defensively, "... is to ensure that everyone recovers from the ordeal that we've all just been through. We do nothing strenuous for the next week or so. We concentrate on rest and relaxation, enjoy the accommodations, and on getting our friends out of the hospital."
The others relaxed.
"However, I do wish to start thinking ahead and would like all of your thoughts on a few issues. If not right now, at least for you to ponder for later discussion." He paused again, then said, "The next order of business is the fact that there are now brand new Slayers across the world, most of whom have no idea what hit them yesterday. I've just been on the phone with Miss Harkness from the coven in Westbury, and her seers tell her that they sense these new Slayers. Just as you mentioned that you have, Willow."
"And as I said," Willow replied, "we have to find them."
"Nearly all these new Slayers have never been on the coven's radar before," Giles continued. "Most of those who had been identified when they were Potentials were killed off by the Bringers over the past several months, with nearly all the survivors making their way to Sunnydale and joining our merry band. The vast majority of this batch are completely unknown to us."
"Just as I was unknown to the Council when I was first called," Buffy said.
"Yes, exactly," Giles nodded. "Which brings forth the big problem. Think of the trouble the Council and Merrick Jamison-Smythe had finding you, and multiply that by about thirty."
"So we'll probably have to rely almost totally on raw psychic energy and locator spells to find them all," Willow nodded. "Between myself and the Coven."
Carl and Joan shot a glance at each other, and then Joan waved her hand. "Well, we know where to find one, anyway!"
Colette wasn't quite sure what was up. Her mother mentioned that Grandma had called and that she, Grandpa and both of her cousins were on their way over from the hotel and wanted her to be around when they got there. She knew that Mom was almost as upset as Grandpa about the death of this Spike person in Sunnydale. The fact that the news reports were still insisting that there had been no fatalities in the collapse of the city indicated that there was a lot going on that the public didn't know about, but Spike's death didn't appear to be the cause of Mom's new apprehensions.
"You don't suppose this weird stuff that happened in Sunnydale has anything to do with all those goofy monster stories Grandpa used to write, do you?" Colette whispered to her sister as they sat watching MTV, one of the few channels not providing "All Sunnydale Crater, All the Time" coverage.
"No idea," Cyndi shook her head, "but don't knock 'Grandpa's goofy monster stories'... unless you want to have to work your way through college. And don't think that one flukey bottom-of-the-ninth home run is gonna win you a baseball scholarship to the school of your choice!"
Their mother Pauline saw the now-familiar silver Mercedes SL pull into the driveway and opened the front door. She gave each of her parents a quick peck on the cheek as they entered, and then threw her arms around both Buffy and Dawn, the latter of whom was holding an approximately three foot length of steel pipe to their cousins' bafflement.
"Buffy, Dawnie, I'm so sorry about Spike!" Pauline said, sniffling.
"Thanks, Aunt Polly," Dawn whispered back. She became misty-eyed, Buffy even more so.
"I never really got to know him," Pauline continued, "but he was a charming gentleman, and I'll never forget that he saved my life."
Saved my life? Cyndi and Colette mouthed to each other with mutual amazement.
"And Anya and the other girls, too..." Pauline continued, "I know it sounds trite and cliche, but the dead are never really gone as long as you remember them. Like your mom. I feel like she's never left us."
"Thanks, Aunt Polly," Buffy said softly. They separated, and then the change in the expressions on Buffy's and Dawn's faces indicated that it was now down to business... whatever that business was. They turned toward their cousins sitting on the living room couch.
"Hey, guys!" Dawn grinned.
"Hi," Cyndi and Colette smiled back noncommittally. What do you say to someone whose entire hometown has just been swallowed up in a giant crater? Along with, apparently, some friends of theirs.
"So, Colette," Buffy smiled, "Grandma and Grandpa told us about the home run you hit yesterday." She paused before adding, "At around eleven yesterday morning. You literally hit it out of the park?"
"Not just out of the park," Colette gloated, "but clear across the parking lot outside left field."
"And you'd never hit a homer before in your entire time in Girls Little League?"
"Never in my life," Colette replied, a little defensively.
"And your batting average before that was, what?" Dawn asked. "One-oh-seven for the season?"
"Yeah," Colette became more defensive.
"And how did you do for the rest of the game after the homer?" Dawn continued.
"There was no 'rest of the game,'" Colette smirked. "It was the bottom of the ninth and I scored the winning run."
"So what's this about?" Cyndi asked. "You two become baseball scouts all of a sudden?"
"No," Buffy shook her head.
"Not baseball scouts, anyway," Dawn said, then held out the steel pipe toward Colette. "See if you can bend this."
"Huh?" Colette looked at Dawn as if she were nuts.
"Just try to bend it!"
Colette shrugged and took the pipe. It looked and felt solid enough, ordinary household plumbing pipe. She grabbed the ends, gave a little half-hearted exertion... and felt and saw some give in the pipe. She raised her eyebrows, gave a little more pressure, and soon had it in a U-shape. She grinned. By this time, her father and brother had heard the talking and come in from the kitchen to see it.
"This is a gag, right?" Eric said incredulously. "That's not a real steel pipe, right? It's a movie prop!"
"Yeah, Eric!" Dawn glared at him. "We just lost our house, our car, everything else we owned, the school where I went and where Buffy worked, and the whole rest of the town along with it. And we have nothing better to do than to come over here and pull a practical joke on Colette!"
"Buffy, what does this mean?" Pauline asked nervously. "Did the other Slayer who took over the line of succession get killed?"
"No, Aunt Polly. Faith's fine, she's back in Ventura looking after the girls who went in the hospital, and her new boyfriend, who used to be my boss." She added, "In fact, she's in better shape than I am right now."
"But Colette's the new Slayer now," Paulette said grimly.
"A new Slayer. It's not just me and Dawn and Faith anymore. We... actually, Willow... did some mojo and every girl who was a Potential is now a Slayer." Buffy could sense her aunt's heart sinking as she watched Pauline collapse into the nearest armchair.
"What's a Slayer?" Colette asked.
Buffy took a deep breath. "You'd better sit down too, Colette."
Colette did so, and then Buffy continued, "The first thing you need to know." She gestured toward Carl. "Grandpa: Not a fiction writer!"
"You didn't really write all those stories?" Colette asked him.
"Of course I did, Honey," he replied, "but they're not fiction. They really happened to me. That's why Grandma took your mom and your Aunt Joyce away from me for all those years. And I never blamed her for it."
"Vampires, demons, real!" Buffy continued. "Been around long before man first showed up. Thousands of years ago, some African witch doctors... they were called Shadow Men... decided to pick some innocent, unsuspecting teenage girl and empower her with demon-like magic to give her super strength, fighting instincts and quick-healing powers to fight and slay the vampires and demons for them. She was the first Slayer. When the she was killed, the power was passed on to another unsuspecting teenage girl, then she got killed and so on. Only a certain small number of girls at a time had the potential to become Slayers. It's been that way until about seven years ago, when I became the Slayer. First thing that changed, this vampire drowned me. Xander gave me CPR, but I was dead long enough for the line of succession to pass to another girl, so then there were two of us. Then a group of monks out in Europe had custody of this mystical ball of energy that had to be protected, and this Hell goddess came after the ball of energy and started killing off the monks. So they did some magic on a poor unsuspecting teenage girl and made her a human vessel for the ball of energy."
"That would be me," Dawn interjected.
"Before he died, the last surviving monk told me that as the Slayer, they knew I'd protect the energy by protecting my little sister. Then we found out recently... actually, Grandpa was the one who knew and told us... that Dawn was developing slayer-like powers so she could eventually protect herself. So now there were three of us. But even we and a bunch of about thirty potential slayers that had come to our house in Sunnydale weren't enough to stop this whole army of super-vampires. They were about to come out of the Hellmouth and take over the world."
"The Hellmouth?" Cyndi asked.
"A portal into Hell that was under Sunnydale High. That's why vampires and demons gathered there. And Giles can't confirm it, but we kinda figure the Council of Watchers manipulated things so Sunnydale was the only place Mom could open her art gallery, so I'd end up at Sunnydale High."
"Council of Watchers?" Colette asked.
"The guys that took over for the Shadow Men and oversaw the training and guidance of Slayers and Potentials. They're all dead now except for Giles and one of his friends back in England, who barely survived a bad knife wound. The First Evil killed them off along with most of the Potentials."
"The First Evil?" Cyndi asked, a mixture of anxiety and curiosity.
"More about him, or it, later," Buffy said. "Let me get..."
"And Giles is the old British guy with the glasses that was at your mom's funeral?" Colette asked.
"Colette, honey, he's your dad's and my age!" her mother said indignantly.
"We thought he was your mom's boyfriend or something," Cyndi added.
"Let me get to the point here," Buffy sighed. "We knew we didn't have a chance against thousands of these uber-vampires. Until we figured out a way to activate all the Potentials and make them all Slayers." She drew a breath. "So, Colette, that's how you're a Slayer now!"
Colette's eyes lit up. Almost unnoticed at first, Pauline sank further back in her seat with her eyes watering.
"Buffy," she finally said at barely above a whisper, "I thought all the Potentials were either dead or with you."
"Not every Slayer is identifiable as a Potential before she gets called, Aunt Polly," Buffy replied. "I wasn't, and obviously neither was Colette."
"We don't think it's a coincidence," Dawn said. "Buffy, me, now Colette. And since Grandpa's one of the most legendary vampire hunters in history... even though everyone thinks he's a fictional TV character... and three of his four granddaughters have these Slayer powers, it's probably something genetic."
"Including the part about not being identifiable as a Potential," Buffy added.
Cyndi took that as her cue. She snatched the U-shaped steel pipe out of her younger sister's hands and unbended it, then bent it in the other direction, then flexed it back and forth with increasing ease until it snapped in two.
"Let's make that four out of four!" she smirked.
FEEDBACK/REVIEWS ARE INVITED. PLEASE KEEP 'EM COMING!
Replies to Feedback/Reviews:
Allen: The whole Giles-Wesley-Angel-Wolfram & Hart issue will play out in later books of this storyline, so I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.
Screaminheathen69: Looks like there are going to be a few parallels in this storyline to your own post-Chosen stories. (But no plans on my part for any further crossovers beyond the current Kolchak crossover.) I have to watch yours closely to ensure no plagiarism on my part, intentional or subconscious. In case there is, I assure you it will not be intentional, and apologize in advance, and let's just write it off to great minds thinking alike! ;-)
General Mac (and to all readers in general, no pun intended!): I have to let you all know that I have not been writing this storyline in linear, chronological order and have been writing scenes and chapters in whichever way my muses happen to kiss me. Since I do want to post at least Book 1 in chronological sequence, there are certain sequential gaps that I have to fill, so I can't promise new postings at a regular pace.
While you're waiting for the next installment, I again strongly urge all of you, if you haven't already done so, to R&R the first part of this storyline, Blood of the Night Stalker, to get more details on the backstory!