Chapter Two The Phoenix
Sunnydale - The Present day
~The Urn Of Osiris~
At the grave of Buffy Summers, a ritual was in progress.
"Osiris, Keeper of the Gate, Master of All Fate, hear us," Willow called, as she knelt at the graveside, her face anointed with blood. "Accept our offering. Know our prayers."
The air hummed with powerful magic as Willow stretched out her arms. "Osiris," she entreated, "here lies the warrior of the people! LET HER CROSS OVER!"
Beneath the skin on Willow's arms, something began to bubble. It slithered along, making its way across her chest and then slowly creeping up to her throat. Willow choked and heaved. She opened her mouth, retched once more, and from her mouth the head of a snake appeared. The snake hissed, its black eyes glinting in the candlelight as it looked over at Buffy's friends and then at the grave below it. Willow heaved again and it slithered from her mouth, dropping to the ground.
The snake now gone, Willow sat back up to continue the ceremony, orange magic swirling around her like flames as she called on the god Osiris to allow Buffy to cross.
No one had noticed the snake as it weaved its own magic across the grave. Buffy's friends were far too focussed on the ceremony and then the demons who later turned up to disrupt it.
And the snake? It had waited until the witch declared the ritual to be a failure before slithering off into the night. The snake knew the Slayer's resurrection hadn't failed. Buffy's soul had indeed crossed over. Crossed over to another dimension.
…...
Muggle London. July, 1942 ~
Magic swirled around and through Buffy's body. Her heart started to beat, and she sucked in a huge lungful of air as her body began to function once more.
Buffy pressed a hand to her head and groaned. As if waking from a deep sleep, she rolled over onto her side, a move she instantly regretted as her head began to pound. There was also something hard digging into her cheek. It felt suspiciously like a rock. Unwilling to face reality just yet, Buffy kept her eyes tightly closed and patted the object next to her face. 'Hmm,' she thought sleepily, that confirmed it - there was a rock in her bed.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes, to see nothing but darkness and with it the sure knowledge she isn't in her bedroom. It feels more confined; it feels like she's in a small narrow space underground– almost as if she's in a coffin. There's an ominous creaking of wood from above her and a trickle of dust drops down onto her face. Buffy quickly shuts her eyes to stop grit going into them.
At least she knows she isn't dead. The dead don't blink.
A voice inside her snaps, 'Oh, come on! The undead do more than blink. Wake up and smell the coffee!'
She starts coughing. Hard, racking coughs, each one jolting her still tender body. A spasm of pain makes her whimper. Once the coughing fit is over, she lies very still and finds that it helps. Inside her body, the Slayer's enhanced healing ability is sending endorphins to her cells to numb the pain. Willow's magic removes the last traces of spells from her body and like a caterpillar, she changes into something new.
As she waits for her body to regain strength, she wonders how she came to be underground. Was she in an accident? Will someone be out looking for her?
Images flash through her mind. There's an older man with glasses, the pout of a teenage girl with dark hair, a slightly older red-haired girl, and a dark-haired boy with a goofy smile. Their faces are so familiar, but their names... she can't remember their names.
"Think, Buffy. Think!" Her mouth and throat are dry and her voice sounds croaky. Why can't she remember? If she runs out of oxygen, she'll suffocate. Panic starts to spiral out of control. Knowing it won't help her, she takes deep breaths until her heart rate settle down.
Her name's Buffy.
She knows her name, the rest will come back to her.
'You need out of here,' instructs the inner voice. 'Once you're out, find some place you recognise and take it from there.'
Rolling onto her back, Buffy tests the space around her. To the sides her fingers trail over brickwork; above her, maybe a foot to eighteen inches is a smooth plank of wood. There is a strong smell of concrete and she can taste sand and dust. Is she under the floor?
"I think a building has fell on me." Her heart begins to race again.
"Help!" No one is going to hear such a weak and pitiful shout. Buffy bashes the wood above her head with her hands. When it doesn't budge she kicks it and slams her hands into it. The next time she hits the plank, the wood jolted upwards as if something had moved. Encouraged, sends a sharp kick at it and pounds on the wood once again. This time something above her doesn't just move, she hears a voice.
She stills, listening. Are they friend or foe? Above her, she can hear the noise of something heavy being dragged to one side, followed by the sound of rocks rolling. Buffy slams her fist into the wood above her and the plank lifts slightly. Whatever they're done is helping.
The voice calls again. It's too muffled to make sense of, and Buffy has no idea if he's shouting to her or someone else.
"I'm here!" She yells. "Help! I'm under here!"
Her fist slams into the wood again. This time the plank cracks. Her hands are bruised and bleeding, but she keeps punching at the wood and tearing at the gap with her fingers. The voice sounds louder, and there's definitely rubble being moved from over her. They are trying to work their way down to her.
"Here!" she shouts again. "I'm down here!"
Buffy pulls back a fist, punching the wood with everything she's got. Her knuckles break through wood and hit the rocks above it, sending splatters of blood, splinters of wood, and grit down into her face. She doesn't care about her damaged hands. There's a chink of daylight on her face and that light represents freedom. Gripping the side of the plank with both her hands she shoved it hard, sending rubble and bricks rolling away. The rescuer is working hard on his side too, dragging off timber and pulling away sections of brickwork.
When Buffy squeezes her head and shoulders from the hollow where she's been trapped, a man's face appears above the rubble.
"There's a girl!" he shouts to someone out of sight. Then he kneels on the rubble and reaches down to her. "Can you grab hold of my hand? Or do want me to come down and get you?"
" I'm not a damsel," Buffy replied. "There's no need to come down to me." She takes his hand, feeling the callouses on his palm as he helps her to scramble up through the rubble.
Once she reaches the top, her legs start trembling so much that she needs to lean against her rescuer. She clings to him, taking in the scene of chaos around her. She'd been right in assuming a building or part of one, had collapsed. They were stood inside the ruins of a store, the front wall had been destroyed and part of it had fallen over the street. Above her head, a section of the floor above and part of the roof was missing. Several different species of owls sat in the rafters, their round eyes watching her.
Buffy turned her focus onto the man next to her. His lined face was heavily streaked with dirt and she could smell sweat and freshly sawn lumber on him. He wore an old-fashioned, woven flat cap that had holes in it and its brim was covered in dust and shavings. "You saved my life," she said. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for getting me out of there."
"I'm glad to 'ave 'elped." He pushed the brim of his cap up and gave her a cheeky grin that revealed a lot of missing teeth. Buffy thought he had one of the nicest, kindest smiles she'd ever seen. "Are you alright, Miss?"
She shook her head. No, she wasn't and she had no idea how to explain the way she was feeling. Deep down, she knew something very wrong had happened to her, and yet the way her blood tingled in her veins made her feel more alive, more right than she'd ever done before.
'The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live,' a memory of a voice, inside her head. Was it her own voice or someone else's?
Either way, it makes her draw in a deep breath of fresh air. Energy and sparks tingle inside her, and she has an insane urge to dance across the rubble to celebrate being alive. What would her rescuer think if she did? She stifled a giggle. He would think she was crazy, and part of her feels like she might be, but right now, she's too happy at being alive to care.
"...it's Jerry's fault again," the man is saying. "Me and 'Arry were boarding up another shop and 'eard this place go. We think a stray bomb went off. Of course, the ARP's should 'ave found it. If someone's been slackin' there'll be 'ell to pay." A gentle expression appears in his eyes and he asks, "Was any one 'ere with you, Miss?"
"I don't know," Buffy says, her giddiness sobering. She doesn't even know where 'here' is. "I can't remember." She pushed her hair back from her face and her scalp feels tight. When she rubs her finger over the crown of her head, her fingers come away stained with dried blood.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"Just off Euston road," he replied. When he saw her confusion, he added. "It's near St Pancras in Camden." At her blank expression, he added, " It's in London."
"London, England?"
"Is there another?"
Buffy looked out at the scene on the street. A red double-decker bus had crashed into the side of a truck and a lot of people, wearing old-fashioned clothing, were sat around the sidewalk nursing injuries. Further off, a policeman was talking to a group of official-looking men in dark overcoats. It struck her as strange that officials were there before the emergency services, but then there were so many odd things happening around her it didn't hold her attention for long. Instead, she looked at the bus again. It carried advertisements for 'Bisto Gravy' and the 'Picture Post'.
"What's today's date?"
"July 15thth. It's my wedding anniversary tomorrow. Can't forget, the wife will kill me."
"And the year?"
He cocked an eyebrow. "My, you 'ave 'ad a bad knock on the 'ead. It's 1942."
Nineteen forty-two? Buffy rubbed a hand across her face, feeling the dirt underneath her fingers and vaguely wondering how much of a mess she looked. She's yo-yoing between thinking 1942 isn't right and thinking it is. A shout from one of the other rescuers pulls her from her conflicting thoughts.
"Arthur! There's another under 'ere! Come and give us an 'and and stop gassin'." He'd knelt by a broken shop counter, half-buried underneath fallen ceiling struts and joists.
Arthur gently prised her fingers from his arm. "You sit down 'ere, Miss er... What's yer name?"
She looked at him blankly, before remembering. "It's Buffy."
He gave her hand a pat. "I can 'ear the ambulance coming, Miss Bunty. The 'ospital will 'ave you feelin' right and dandy in two shakes of a lamb's tail."
Buffy isn't listening, her eyes are on the other rescuer. Something about the bright blue fabric protruding from under the shop counter is familiar to her. Ignoring Arthur's pleas for her to sit down, she starts picking her way past torn clothing, broken shop fittings, tiles, and mounds of masonry. Once closer, she realised that the fabric is part of a woman's sleeve. Buffy's eyes went to the woman's hand and then the rings she's wearing. Her stomach drops.
"Mom!"
Falling to her knees, she takes the limp hand in hers and feels the wrist for a pulse.
"She's alive!" Elation wars with disbelief. There was a horrible image inside her head of her Mom lying dead on the couch. That must be a lie. She can't trust the memories her brain is throwing at her. Keeping hold of her mother's hand, Buffy prays likes she's never done before, "Please God, don't take her away from me. Please God, let her live."
The rescuers mutter an 'amen' and then move in to clear the area of debris. Seeing them struggling to move a heavy joist, Buffy is on her feet and grabbing it to take the weight. With strength belying her diminutive size, she helps them carry it away. Once that was done, she began lifting away sections of plaster, chunks of rubble and wood, throwing them more and more haphazardly as her clearing became frenzied.
"Easy now." Arthur puts his hands on her shoulders to stop her. " You need to take care when uncovering people. It's got to be done carefully, see? Else the whole lot could topple on her or someone else." Only half listening, Buffy nodded, trying to shrug him off. The man hadn't finished; he took the brick from her and tossed it to one side. "Leave it to us, Miss. Sit back 'ere until the ambulance comes. We'll soon 'ave her out."
Buffy shook her head, "No, I... I need to help. She's my Mom. She needs me." The memory of a dead Joyce Summers looms in her mind, and she's determined to do everything she can to help her.
By the time the ambulances arrive, Joyce Summers and three more survivors have been pulled from the rubble.
…...
A/N;
Yep, death is the next big adventure. I hope you enjoyed the different way I used to place Buffy in a new dimension. I won't be going with the melancholy 'I was ripped with heaven' vibe the original series had going on.
This Buffy is grateful to be alive and more settled as Joyce is still with her. Every girl needs her Mom!
Thank you to all who have given this story a chance and read so far. Thanks to those who left reviews and the nice recommendation. I hope you are all enjoying this story. I will try to update as quickly as possible.
I do want to finish my other story and I am reading the Harry Potter series and the Fabulous beasts as research. (Only ever seen the films).