Disclaimer: Don't own a thing.
Author's note: So here is part two of introducing one of the major players for the future. I've gone over a number of times what the First Evil was supposed to be and many seem to speculate that the First Evil is the concept of evil with a conscience and mind. Here's the problem: in order for evil to be known, SOMEONE had to become evil to introduce the concept. In a fictional universe where the supernatural seems crazy, even those universes have laws and logic to make sense. If there is a lot of speculation it is because the writers didn't really answer anything. Like the fact that Jasmine in Angel alluded to the possibly of a Creator hence the "I was forged in the inferno of creation" line. Now then, on with the story.
Christmas Tree Lot
Sunnydale, California
Late December, 1998
Buffy and Joyce walked through the lot as they searched for a Christmas tree. The rest of the gang had hit a dead end as they had nothing on a demon doing what it was doing to Xander. The thought of her (at the moment) tentative friendship with the young man in question brought about sadness again. She couldn't speak to Willow due to her own conflict over the matter, Oz wouldn't talk much, Faith was supporting Xander, and Angel liked Xander as much as the young man liked him (which was not at all given his jealousy over Buffy's dance their junior year). Giles and Diana wouldn't be much help either given the former's hatred over Ms. Calendar's murder and Diana not approving of her.
"Buffy?" Joyce said, which brought Buffy out of her thoughts. The blonde slayer looked to the older woman with a caught expression before she replied, "Yeah mom?"
"Are you alright dear?" Buffy looked away from her mother's concerned expression. That same look had been the one Buffy saw that made her want to spill her guts but held back. However, she knew that keeping everything in is what would lead to everything spilling over and going wrong.
"I don't know. Ever since the gang found out about Angel being back, things haven't been the same."
"Would this have anything to do with Xander?" Joyce threw out. Buffy stopped walking for a second before looked down at the ground.
"Buffy, I never said anything about this before, but the way things have been going, you might lose a good friend soon," the Summers matriarch said.
"Are you saying you agree with him?!" Buffy asked with fear in her voice.
"No. Not entirely at least. Maybe Xander didn't have to lie about Willow doing the soul curse. But then what could anyone else have done?" Joyce said.
Buffy's face scrunched from confusion before she asked, "What do you mean?"
"Buffy, I was told about the events that led up to that moment. I know about you asking Willow to try the soul spell and how it failed because she never had any experience in magic. Xander had no idea about whether or not the curse would even work. And in truth, I can understand why he would do that considering what he knew."
"Mom how can you say that?! Xander's the reason that Angel went to Hell in the first place! I can't get over that or forgive him just like that, or ever!"
"I know you'd put Angel over Xander. But what about Willow? Giles? What about me? Or Dawn?"
Buffy looked sad as the question was one that she had been asked before. She hated that she had to face the prospect of really answering it. She was hoping not to choose between her friends and Angel but it seems, according to Ambriel, that she had already done so when Angelus became an issue.
Joyce looked to her daughter with worry as her silence seemed to be more of an answer than anything she could say. She could understand where Buffy being a teenager and her boyfriend being very important. However, Joyce had thought that her daughter had her priorities in order.
Buffy continued looking away from her mother and looked at the Christmas trees until she spotted a group of trees that were dead. She examined them closely when the man managing the yard came up, "Yeah. They died out about a week ago. Can't really figure it out."
Dormer Residence
Faith and Xander laid in her bed together, just enjoying the silence. They had talked for hours and found that they had a lot in common. While Faith had dealt with worse, Xander wasn't foolish enough to believe he would've have ended up worse. His friendship with Willow and Jesse is what kept him afloat.
"Do you think it's kinda soon for us to be doing this?" Faith asked. Xander looked at her and saw a little bit worry.
Learning of Faith's past, he figured that she wouldn't be one to open up to dating anyone. However, he remembered that she had a caring surrogate mother who helped keep her heart from hardening and helped her see good in between the bad. At the same time, he also knew what half the girls of the group thought of her (Willow especially thinking of her as a slut and Cordelia not being far from a similar conclusion). Normally, he would care and would be cautious about how to proceed. But in the end, he realized that simply bowing tot he girls' wishes, much like Giles had done more recently, wouldn't help him.
Xander looked Faith in her eyes with a firm expression. "Maybe. But so what."
The dark brunette smiled before she captured his lips with her own.
Giles Residence
Diana and the Englishman were researching as much as they could about the entity that posed as their dead friends/acquaintances. It was rather disconcerting for Giles as he had to accept the fact that maybe things would've been different if he had made different choices himself. However, he resigned himself to knowing that he could change things this time.
"I think I've found something. But it sounds rather...odd," Diana said.
"Odd? In what way?"
Diana showed him the page with the entry. "According to someone in the council, which he may not be entirely correct, the thing that's been haunting Alexander isn't multiple ghosts. It's known as the First Evil. Whoever wrote this said that the First Evil has been around since the beginning of the universe. But if Ambriel's presence is anything to go by, I'd say he was way off. They further go on to say that the First Evil was trapped between dimensions when the slayer was created."
"Then that means that the angel's words about the demon were true. And this demon is trying to destroy Xander when it wanted to originally destroy Angel. And what Ambriel said about the slayer power still worries me.," Giles finished as he recalled the angel's words.
"I know. She said it was a horrid power. But those of us out in the field have never actually known how these girls were given their power."
"What do you think would the answer to that question?" Giles asked as he looked to his compatriot.
"I imagine it's one we won't like," Diana said as she headed over to the phone.
Two hours later...
Xander and Faith sat in Giles apartment after hearing about the truth of the current crisis they were currently in. The young brunette man had his fists clenched with a white/silver aura surrounding them with sparks of lightning crackling around them. Faith reached over to his hand and gently held it, which caused Xander to calm down enough that the power faded. Willow looked noticeably envious of the circumstances, even if she had resolved things with Oz.
"So this damn thing has been screwing with me the whole time?" Xander asked. Giles sputtered as he didn't know what to make of Xander's reaction and Faith's response. "Yes, Xander it would seem so."
"But did it mean about Angel?" Xander said.
"From what we understand, Angel had a destiny that he was meant to fulfill. But he lost and soul. Even though eh regained it, it seems that the Powers That be didn't come to him. So we can only guess that maybe they went to you and the First Evil was getting to you to split the group apart," Diana said.
"So what do we do?" Faith asked.
Giles looked at the dark brunette and flipped through the pages when he found the passage he was looking for. "Well, it seems that the First is trapped between dimensions. But it will act through it's servants. Harbingers that are called the bringers of death."
"So where would this thing be?" Buffy spoke up. Diana looked at the blonde slayer before she replied, "There is text here that says 'the First resides in a place where nothing can grow above nor below."
Buffy heard the passage and remembered the trees that she and her mother saw. "The Christmas tree lot. The owner said that his trees just suddenly died out. It must be somewhere beneath the lot."
"That's as good a place to start as any," Giles said.
Christmas Tree Lot
Jonathan, Xander, Faith and Buffy walked around the lot searching for an entrance to wherever the First should be. They would've given up until Jonathan stepped on a wooden board. "Guys! Over here!"
The other three joined him as he punched through the boards and pulled the remnants away. They could see a faint light beneath the surface. The four super powered teens leapt down and landed in what appeared to be a system of caves. The four followed where the trace of light until they came into a section of the caves they were lit with torches. They finally came to a wider section of the caves that appeared to intersect.
"How the hell did we not know about this place?" Buffy asked.
"Maybe the old settlers never explored down here. The town is actually pretty old," Xander replied.
"It looks like we've got some squatters in town," Jonathan said as he pointed to what appeared to be eight men in hooded robes. What was odd about them were their eyes, or the fact that they weren't there. There eyes were replaced by runes branded onto their eyelids. The two slayers got into fighting stances while Jonathan took his blade and change it into the staff. Xander held out a hand and summoned a sword. The weapon in question appeared like a Norman battle sword with the rain guard colored chrome and the grip colored black.
The bringers charged the four with daggers drawn. The first bringer swung at Xander and was matched with a fist to its face. The former human stood its ground before he charged again and only to be stabbed in his abdomen by Xander. The second caught the young man with a left hook to his jaw. Faith and Buffy took a little longer to deal with their attackers as they took their time instead of getting straight to taking them down. Jonathan deflected every knife swing with his bladed staff but knew that they had to finish this quickly with the First Evil not far away. He looked and saw that Xander had killed the second bringer and moved to help the girls. Jonathan slammed the staff into the ground with the blade pointed towards the sky.
"Insigne ex magus!" the young magician called out for silver light began to shine out from the bladed cylinder of the staff, with the same light surrounding Xander, Faith, and Buffy. The other three immediately felt stronger and immediately overpowered the bringers before they killed them.
As the fight was over, they each heard someone clapping which made them turn around. Xander and Buffy froze as they saw that it was what appeared to be Jesse. The phantom image looked to them with a smug expression as it spoke, "So you actually managed to come together and put your bullshit aside. How noble of you. But will it last?"
"Yes it will," Buffy declared as she stepped forward.
The disguised phantasm howled in laughter is it took in Buffy's words. "And you actually believe that?"
"Between the real slayer, the white knight, the holy man and his girlfriend, with the super-slut's so-called mother, there is more unity among them than there is with you and your band of sheep!"
Buffy stepped forward before she hit an invisible barrier that crackled with energy upon contact. "My friends aren't sheep."
"Oh really? So Willow doesn't constantly take your side whenever it comes to what you want? Such as not encouraging to take action against Angel?"
"I couldn't kill the man I love!" Buffy tried her best not to let he emotions get the better of her.
"Hmph! He hasn't been a man since he died. And when Angelus came back, the thing that made him a man, his soul, was gone. The walking corpse you've been fawning over is was animated by a demon, he really returned to life. It amazes me how hard a human will cling to delusions," the apparition explained.
"He still has his soul," Buffy tried to throw back. She noticed that none of the others were backing her up which worried her.
"Yes, he has his soul, but it was forcefully anchored to his corpse by some of the darkest magics known to man and even demons. I imagine Calendar's ancestors would be in Hell because of that spell. And that you were willing to risk your best friend's life and even tear away the soul of someone who was supposed to be in the afterlife speaks volumes about you," The First Evil said to rub salt in the wound.
"But I still had friends who were willing to help me if things didn't go well."
The First smirked as it continued to add insult to injury. "Yes, the friends you abandoned at the first sign that Angelus was waiting for you, which is why Kendra died and Willow ended up in a coma. And let's not forget that it was left to the young man who's had your back from the very beginning to either let the world die, or betray your trust to make sure everyone could live. The young man who no matter how much you dismissed, humiliated, and even considered to be lower than you, loved you and stood by you even when he didn't agree with all your decisions."
Faith turned to Xander and noticed the anger flaring up on his face. The two had discussed those details with each other and found that Xander held a lot of resentment towards the other members of the scooby gang. With Giles, he found that the one man he could count on and look up to had very little respect for him, which didn't help the fact that he had consistently coddled Buffy and Willow. As much as he didn't think it could happen, he resented Willow for becoming to Buffy what Harmony and the Cordettes were to Cordelia.
As for Buffy, he had come to resent that as much as Buffy says that they are friends, it's more so that he's more like a security blanket for her when things are bad. Then there was her treatment of him and everyone when they learned of the curse, where he was the only one to disagree, which he felt was why she began treating him differently. And as much as he understood when she was hurting after the Angelus incident, it could never excuse the fact that her actions had put everyone at risk, and abandoning them wasn't truly settled.
"Face it little girl, what you want is the thing you left behind in Los Angeles. You want people to look to you as the princess you were back at Hemery. You want them to stand by you and support you with unquestioning loyalty. Kendra and Faith threatened that which is why you were so hostile. You try to play the role of the strong woman, but you don't want to be the slayer because it means giving up those very things. You love the power and prestige you feel comes with it but not the responsibility."
"I'm still here."
"But will you be? If you have the chance to escape it, you will. And that you believe that the Highest Power chose you is beyond laughable, especially when your actions have shown that you didn't earn the power, it just came to you."
"Alright, I've heard enough," Jonathan as he stepped forward.
"And what are you going to do about it, little man? Are you really going to defend her? Have I not told the truth to you?" the First asked.
"You may be right. Buffy is very much human. But so am I. We've all made choices that aren't proud of. But as humans, God's offer of salvation is always there for us to take. The real question is whether or not we can accept it ourselves."
Jonathan jammed his bladed staff into the ground and began saying something in Latin. A moment later he began glowing with a bluish/white light that soon began to engulf the interior of the cave. The First immediately knew what was happening as it was banished before by magics that humans barely understood. However, the power it sensed behind the teenager's words was something it hadn't experienced for a very long time. It disappeared in a flash of light before it returned and revealed its true form. The entity looked to be a giant demon with black leathery skin, horn and red eyes. The others stepped back but noticed that the light around Jonathan glowed brighter as he kept chanting. The age old demon howled out as it felt itself pushed away before it was gone.
"Is that it?" Faith said.
"It's gone. For the moment anyway. It can come back one day. But it won't be for a while," Jonathan said as he turned to leave the cave. The others followed him out.
Back on the surface, Xander and Faith walked ahead of Jonathan and Buffy and held hands. Buffy looked on not sure how to feel about seeing this, especially after mulling over what the First Evil said to her.
"What was that chant that you were using back there? It didn't sound like any spell I've heard," Buffy spoke up.
"It wasn't a spell. I was praying to God to ask that he banish away the demon," Jonathan replied.
"God huh. I never really gave much thought to Him. Sure my mom went to church for a while. But things changed after everything went bad in LA," Buffy said as she was torn between feeling sad and feeling weird that He existed.
Jonathan continued walking as he thought back and replied to her. "I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my parents. For us, it was believing that Jesus was the Messiah and God the Son. So the faith of Christianity combined with Jewish traditions was a big deal. By high school, I didn't think too much on the tradition but I worried about what it meant for me since my parents always wound up working and having to leave for business. Then came the bullies. Stuff like that makes it hard to truly believe, but living here, I always hoped that there was something to outweigh the bad that lives in this town."
Buffy looked to the short teenager before she said, "So when you got your power, it confirmed for you that there was something greater that was interested in your well being. That you did matter."
"Exactly."
"Which actually worries me about what the First said. That me thinking a higher power chose me si laughable it's like it was saying..."
"That it wasn't God that chose you to be the slayer. Which may mean that it wasn't God that chose anyone to be the slayer since the first one was made," Jonathan finished.
"Which means that there's someone else responsible. But why?"
"Who knows. But we'll figure it out one day. For now, we should get some rest," he replied.
One month later...
Jonathan ran as fast as he could towards the boiler room of the high school. The last month had actually seen things getting progressively better for the scoobies. Xander and Buffy had started being civil and gradually moved towards being amicable with each other. Meanwhile, Xander and Faith had gotten together and Faith had been able to keep his spirits up as he was having a bad day at school. However, Willow was noticeably put off even though she was with Oz.
For Jonathan, things with Amy were progressing to a point where they were becoming drawn closer to each other. However, the timing of it happened to be horrendous for the two as everyone learned from the two watchers that a group of blue-skinned female demons, the Sisterhood of Jhe, recently came to town were planning on opening the Hellmouth. Most of the gang remembered the demon that came out from beneath the library when the Master was set free. When they learned that the Hellmouth was not a gateway to the actual Hell, but a lock on the Deeper Well (one of three prisons), they figure it was better that it stayed locked.
Unfortunately, the night had gotten to be a bit more difficult as Jonathan ran afoul of Jack O'Toole. The resident thug of Sunnydale High bumped into Jonathan earlier and had tried to intimidate the shorter teen, only to fail. It was alter that night when Jonathan was heading inside the school to meet the others that he ran into O'Toole and his zombie friends. He had managed to beat Parker, Dickie, and Bob and has chased down O'Toole and found out that the zombies planned to bomb the high school.
Jonathan had little time to interrogate further and quickly destroyed O''Toole's corpse before he headed into the school. He immediately headed for the boiler room as he figured out that the best place to set the bomb was below the exact center of the library, which ironically enough is where the portal was going to open.
He arrived at the location of the bomb and eyed it with a bit of worry. "Hello nasty."
He looked at the ticking clock as he only had thirty seconds left. He looked at the wiring of the bomb and knew that most of what was seen in movies was untrue, except for the fact that the wire that helped provide power had to be disconnected. He looked over the bomb and noticed one wire that connected to what appeared to be the core of the device and disconnected it. He was rewarded with the device instantly shutting down.
He quickly made his way into the library where the group was preparing for the incursion that was sure to come. Xander, Faith, and Buffy stood with weapons ready while Amy, Willow, and the watchers prepared a spell for the coming fight. Angel simply stood by and watched, which the teen didn't find surprising. Jonathan immediately cast the Insigne ex Magus and empowered everyone so that they could fight whoever was coming. They were fortunate that he did it in time as the portal opened and the three-headed pure demon appeared. It's appearance was followed by the appearance of the Jhe demons.
Angel charged them with the others following suit. Buffy and Faith attacked with their bodies glowing with a silver aura and helped make short work of them as their increased strength, combined with the slayer strength, gave them a significant boost. Xander on the other hand had attacked the pure demon with his sword and used his power to surround his body and sword with the white fire and lightning.
He immediately began hacking away at the demon's skin, which roared out in pain as if it was surprised that it was hurt. One of the heads knocked him away but he managed to retain his balance. He watched as Buffy and Faith jumped into action with Jonathan summoning his own sword and changing his staff back to it's long dagger form. The four teens hacked away at the beast. It was doing substantial damage but only Xander and Jonathan's swords did the most as their weapons were of divine origin. However, Buffy and Faith's added strength helped to deal the needed damage. Eventually, Xander managed to sever one of the heads. Eventually Buffy had suggested they try and go for the heart.
The teens finally found the equivalent of the demon's heart and pierced it, which brought it down for good. The four teens backed away as the watchers and witches finished casting the spell which sealed the portal. The watchers plopped down in the nearest chairs feeling exhausted. The teenagers of the group looked around and felt immensely glad that their plight was over. As most of the others joined the watchers, no one noticed that Xander and Faith had snuck out the back door.
Minutes later, after Diana noticed but told the others to leave them be, everyone was busy picking up, the female watcher looked at the Jonathan and asked what took him so long. He looked to her before he replied, "I was dealing with some zombies, courtesy of Sunnyhell High's own Jack O'Toole."
"Mr. O'Toole? He raised Zombies?" Giles asked as he had recently seen and heard about the lawbreaker.
"And he he was one himself. I took care of them but found out that they planted a bomb in the basement. I managed to turn it off but we have to get it out of here," Jonathan said as his remained scrunched.
"Something bothering you Johnny?" Amy asked as she stepped closer to him.
He looked into her eyes, which were filled with concern before he answered, "I'm worried about the timing of it all. It seems strange that they decided to try and bomb the school the same night that those demons tried to open the hellmouth. Whoever wanted O'Toole brought back must've been someone who knew about Sunnydale and what the school was sitting on."
Giles looked at everyone in the library and could only say, "Then our troubles are not over."
Author's note: so this doesn't quite feel like my best chapter but here it is. For anyone who keeps wondering why the slayer power is bad, watch season 7 of the show which reveals how the slayer line got started and then watch what happens at the very last episode of the whole show. All I can say is 'pot calling the kettle black'. Also, this story is once again not bashing Buffy, but questioning the decisions she made. Because in a show where everyone has to rely on the de-facto but anyone questioning her has to be humiliated to show she's right (this is from a writing perspective and an in-universe perspective), you have to call redflag. Anyway, stick around for the next chapter if you can't wait for more.
