Chapter 18

Slayers' Guide

((This chapter will not come with breaks, because I want everything to weave together. If it gets confusing, slow down, it does make sense and it is all one back story.))

The leader took point as the four hunters entered the warehouse. Before them was a group of about 12 figures forming a circle around a girl and a small table. The table held burning incense, a dagger, a lit candle and several bottles of odd powders and liquids. The girl was held up by chains attached to her wrists secured to the ceiling and ankles secured to the floor. She didn't seem afraid, instead she looked pissed. She was biting the gag in her mouth hard and drool and blood dripped from the corners of her mouth. Her outfit of a tee shirt and jeans was ripped and dirty. The figures were chanting in some unknown language. The girl's eyes rounded and she began to struggle. The chains banged the floor loudly as the hunters silently spread out around the circled group. On cue one of the four hunters shot his gun at a figure. The figure turned and growled, he sure as hell wasn't human, most likely demon.

"Keep chanting," the injured demon yelled to his brethren.

"Kill them all!" The hunter yelled back.

The four hunters rushed forward and began dispatching demons right and left.

One hunter paused, watched as one of the demons cut the girl's stomach and let the blood stream into a bowl. The hunter began pushing past the chaos, "Cut her down," he yelled to a fellow hunter. Just as he reached the demon and girl he was knocked to the floor. He was pulled back up by two demons and held tightly.

"Hannibal King!" The demon before him turned identifying him mockingly.

Around them only about five demons remained alive including the two holding King.

"You fight well," the demon before him remarked, " but you know nothing of what goes on here." He held out the bowl, "would you like a taste?"

A hunter had moved behind the demon and now held the girl in his arms.

"Don't let the demons drink." She spoke as she gasped the dagger and threw in at Hannibal.

Hannibal struggled, but the dagger wasn't meant for him, it hit the demon holding him square in the jugular. Hannibal broke free and ripped the bowl from the demon.

"Hannibal, NO!" He heard Abby yell.

"I'll dump it." He threatened.

"Please do," a demon beside him spoke and Hannibal saw a tentacle slide out from under his robe. "Either way we'll get the sacrifice."

"You have to," the girl spoke.

Hannibal moved the bowl to his lips.

"Hannibal, no!" Abby repeated.

"Please, my lineage is in that bowl, they'll know everything, they'll kill my sisters."

"Hannibal, don't," another hunter spoke.

He ignored them all and drank the mixture down. The demons roared in anger, but the hunters soon silenced them. As the last drop hit Hannibal's stomach he dropped to his knees in pain. He screamed as images tore into his brain. Faces, so many faces, all female, young women, teenagers, all were…are warriors.

"Slayers" A voice in his head spoke. "You accepted us, changed your destiny, become the guide."

"In every generation…"

"I'm…" hundreds of girls' voices blended together all voicing names, "the vampire slayer."

Suddenly the faces slowed to show one in particular. He watched her get chosen, fighting, no slaying, he felt her pain, hate, fear, everything.

"You killed a man."

"I don't care."

The stake went in, but instead of dust blood came out. He felt and saw her life flying by, murder, confrontation, escape, jail, and freedom. He saw her escape jail to help a vampire in a darkened LA. She helped lighten LA and returned to another town and helped save those in it.

"She is your path, you shall guide her."

((Gasp))

"He's awake."

Abby was standing glaring at him. Zoë was sitting on his bed. Sommerfield checked his stats.

"We weren't sure you were going to wake up." She told him.

"That was stupid, King." Abby told him.

"Is she here?"

"No, her sister took her from the hospital, before we could question her."

"Her sister?"

"Yeah, tall brunette, huge attitude," Abby replied.

"How long have I been out?"

"A month, I just pulled you out of Danica's hands and you do this?" Sommerfield asked. "Were you craving?"

"No, the girl told me I would be saving her lineage."

"Did you?" Zoë asked.

"I think so."

"I did you know, the demons they were trying to gain access to the slayer line. They wanted to destroy it from the inside out. I stopped them, but at the same time I dammed myself. Instead of finishing my life in the matrix with Abby I had to come out here and guide you. I was out one night with the Nightstalkers, when I saw her, B. She was with a group of girls training them. Even though I tried to stop Abby she insisted on helping."

"Abby, wait!"

Whistler ran ahead she shot her arrow at the vamp about to attack the blonde. The woman turned and glared at her. King pulled Abby away before she could stake another.

"What the hell are you doing?" The blonde yelled. "Now well have to go out and capture ourselves another vamp. Do you know how hard that is?"

"Capture?"

"I'm sorry, Buffy, I really have to learn to keep a leash on her."

"Wait, how do you know my name?"

Hannibal hadn't even realized he had done that. As he thought about it, images of her flashed through his mind.

"Well, you're famous, Buffy the vampire slayer, the oldest slayer."

The woman's eyes narrowed.

"You faced Dracula, well, Vlad the Impaler."

It was Abby's turn to glare at him.

He ignored her, "Buffy, I need to find Faith."

"Why?"

"I was sent to talk to her."

"By who?" Both Abby and Buffy asked, and then both girls turned to look at each other.

"The powers, please I just need to talk to her."

"I haven't heard from her in over a month." She spoke, but Hannibal knew she was lying.

"When was this?" Faith interrupted.

"Apparently you were laying low from the police at the time."

"Oh, go on."

Two nights later Hannibal and Abby are chasing after a pack of vampires at the docks. Ahead of him Hannibal sees a woman leap across rooftops with a man in a suit chasing her. Thinking its Faith he leaves Abby and follows after the pair. As he rounds a corner Hannibal watches the woman run clear off the end of the roof and land on her feet a few yards from him. He runs to her, but she doesn't see him and turns and shoots at the man chasing her. Hannibal watches as sparks rips through the body and the man's form changes to a young girl. Suddenly Hannibal feels something trying to enter him, he then hears an odd voice.

"What, your form is alien, what are you…you are a defect, must fix."

Hannibal screamed, he saw the woman watching him with wide eyes. "Get out of my head."

The woman raised her gun at Hannibal.

Hannibal fought with everything he had and expelled the being. He fell to his knees gasping. The woman watched him warily.

"Who are you?" She asked.

He gasped, "Hannibal King."

"Why are you following me?"

"Thought you were someone else, you know what that thing was?"

She nodded her head.

"What?"

"The truth."

Hannibal saw images from the being rush through his head. Then the voice of the first slayer spoke.

"This truth, use her, free yourself, find faith, guide, destiny."

He looked up at her, "I want to be free, that thing showed me the truth can you help me?"

The woman was stunned, "I…how?"

"Please, you can free me, I know about the machines."

"King!" They heard Abby yell.

"Please, now, before I get dragged farther away. I seek the truth."

She nodded her head. "Come with me."

"She brought me out, I couldn't say goodbye to Abby, she…"

"She would never be able to understand."

"No, she wouldn't. I spent a month on a ship, before we docked in Zion. I met Ra and the first slayer told me to wait here. Ra knew I could see the truth in people, because of her. So he avoided me, one night I bumped into him, directly."

Hannibal turned the corner on the way to bed he was exhausted from a hard day of repairing ships and matrix training. His head was down as he rubbed the back of his neck. He felt himself hit something soft, but before he could look up images began to flash through his mind.

Ancient Sumeria, a young man being sired; the man then rises to a godly stasis by mortals who fear him. He rules Egypt until the Romans come and topples his temple. The man wanders through history; he remains passive watching history unfold. He travels and while in the new world with the Vikings he comes across a mortal girl with power. She fights him and when he tastes her blood he learns about her, Slayer. Time passes, worlds change, leaders rise and fall. Then the machines are created, the man dislikes technology so he helps the slayer fight. She falls and he misses his chance to leave this dimension. The machines capture him in battle and begin to run tests on him. They extract his DNA before he finally escapes and hides. When men fall he remains, when men rebels he joins and waits. For only he knows where the tool is hidden and only he can know who she is when she returns. For the powers have cursed him and he will remain in their power until they find a new prophet; they tell him the prophecy and he tells the humans. They begin to hope and he falls into despair.

Hannibal was shoved away, but even as he hits the ground he doesn't feel. His body is humming with the possibilities that this man this creature shows him. Hours later, he opens his eyes he is still in the same cavern alone. Days pass before Hannibal sees the creature again, but now he realizes that the vampire is openly avoiding him. Finally after a month when rumors of the slayer and the One being found Hannibal confronts the vampire. Hannibal was getting on an elevator just as the vampire was getting off. Since no one else was around Hannibal grabbed him and threw him back in.

"Hi," Hannibal spoke as the doors closed; he pressed the stop button just as the elevator had started to move.

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Really, cause I know a young Viking girl who would love to come out and play."

The vampire's eyes widened for a second before returning to their cold stare, "so the guide has arrived, then she really is the slayer."

"Name's Hannibal," he held out his hand to shake.

The vampire glared at it, "Ra."

"Like the god?"

"I was once, no longer, they all think it's just a name."

"So why are you avoiding me?"

"I was told that you were a seer and I know you saw me."

"No one here does?"

"No, I keep my past private so the humans don't have to know that there are worse things out there."

"But you are a true vampire, not just an alteration like the changelings?"

"You saw, what they did to me."

"Just making sure, you didn't put it there."

"Didn't the Oracle show your path?"

"No, she said she couldn't help me that the slayer wouldn't allow it. She only told me about the slayer, stuff I already knew."

"Well, from what the powers told me, you are the guide, the rational mind for the slayer. You're her connection to both the powers and her past. Have you wandered the matrix?"

"Yeah, it doesn't agree with me anymore."

"Then it has begun, the slayer, the primal is changing you to be a vessel, a seer."

Faith watched as Hannibal finished. "I don't know what to say." She whispered.

"You don't have to, I already know."

"But you never went to the Oracle?"

"I did, she watched me enter, but she had no words for me. I already knew what I was and why I was there. So I left."

"And Ra, he's a god?"

Hannibal smiled. "Explains a lot doesn't it?"

"Not really."