Disclaimer: The characters of the Stephanie Plum series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. The "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" universe and characters belong to Mutant Enemy, etc. No copyright infringement is intended.
Notes:1) This is just an odd little notion that buzzed by. 2) This is an open AU, so feel free to use it as the basis for a story…
Chambersburg Slayer
By TT
The calling that activated her slayer powers went out two days before her wedding to Dickie Orr.
Perhaps it had been the few glasses of alcohol she'd consumed shortly before – enough to make her mellow without making her drunk – or perhaps it was her innate desire to fly that overrode the shackles of the Burg life that stretched out before her, but when she heard the call, she couldn't help but respond.
Unfortunately, a trip to California at that time proved to be impossible, but even amidst the insanity of her wedding, she managed to make enough notes to figure out who to call.
On her honeymoon, she didn't protest when Dickie changed into his jogging clothes and left her alone on the beach, it gave her a chance to use his laptop and wireless connection to get in touch with the people she needed – the ones that would tell her what she was, what she needed to do and how to go about it.
Only, what they had to say would never pass Burg standards and with her marriage, she was now trapped in the Burg.
They managed to recommend people to begin her hand-to hand training and she managed to download a number of exercises that would help her with her hunts. For the first time, she felt a certain amount of relief at being merely a 'housewife' as it gave her the opportunity to begin her training and continue her research.
Then, it happened. Two months into her marriage, she caught Joyce and Dickie in a more than compromising position.
After losing her temper over the betrayal and going through the humiliation of a very public divorce, she received an interesting message.
Due to a lack of space in England, they were opening a temporary Slayer training facility in Newark near the airport. It would make for easy travel between the two locations as well as providing an easier access point for Slayers in the US.
Since the building they were using happened to be in a relatively public area of the city, they would be using a cover company called E. E. Martin.
During her training, Stephanie would be living at the facility. Given her age, however, her training would only be lasting five years. That meant, by the time she was 29, she would need to find a job.
It sounded ideal to Stephanie and she quickly agreed.
As time passed and her skills grew, Stephanie began to worry about finding a job that would allow her to carry out her destiny of protecting Trenton from Vampires, demons and things that go *bump* in the night.
She also felt quite nervous about interacting with non-targets. The one time she and Faith had gone on a girl's night out, she'd gotten a little tipsy and, when a man in the bar groped her, she instinctively grabbed him and flipped him over her shoulder. Unfortunately, with her Slayer strength, her grip broke his wrist in three places and her flip sent him across the bar and crashing into a table.
Faith had gotten her out of there quickly, but the incident had shaken Stephanie to her core.
The need to be careful and hide what they were had been drilled into all of the activated potential Slayers, but one moment's lapse of concentration had shown her exactly how dangerous she could be.
By the time she left the training facility, it had changed its company name and she went home with the story she'd been laid off as a lingerie buyer.
That job would be just scandalous enough by Burg standards to add a little disreputability to her reputation. That would help if she found herself in an 'unusual' circumstance.
The first month after arriving in Trenton, she had taken the time to reestablish old connections and form a few new ones. She spent a large portion of each night out on patrol and slept late into the morning.
One night, three months after her arrival, after searching for a job and failing, she'd gone out on patrol. Rumor had reached her of 'special' services being offered by at the Blue Note, a bar on the other side of town.
Dressing in appropriate clothes and making sure she had her stakes, holy water and knives on her as well as her silver cross, Stephanie headed off into the night.
Stepping into the smoky blue light of the bar, Stephanie felt the pain that signaled the presence of vampires.
As she moved to the bar, she slowly scanned the room. Her eyes, and breath, caught on a man sitting in a corner booth, his back to the wall. He certainly possessed a beauty not common in this world, but, as their eyes met, she knew he wasn't her prey for the evening.
Stephanie ordered a rum and coke and waited for the Vampire to give himself or herself away.
Her continued perusal of the crowd allowed her to narrow down her suspects. It probably would have gone faster, but she found herself constantly drawn to the man in the corner. Stephanie's mind lingered over his image, the strength of his muscles, the power he projected.
Before she got too carried away with fantasies about the man, she spotted the vamp and his next victim.
That night as so many others had been a successful hunt. The only down side seemed to be that the more vampires and demons and what-not she took out, the more she seemed to find.
She reached a point where she desperately needed a job. Her dad mentioned her cousin Vinnie needed a file clerk.
Though she knew Vinnie to be human and not a creature of darkness, Stephanie knew she would much rather face a nest of Vampires than one moment with Vinnie.
Still, working at a Bail Bonds office would continue to raise doubt and speculation in the Burg which would allow her to keep her nightly activities without having to worry about gossip and rumors being accurate.
When the only position open at Vinnie's turned out to be Bounty Hunter, Stephanie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Many of her slayer skills would greatly aid her in the job, however, ever since the incident in the bar in Newark, she'd been acutely aware of her strength and reluctant to have contact with normal humans for fear of hurting them.
Connie mistook her unease over her superhuman strength as being nervousness over the job and immediately set up a meeting with a more experienced Bounty Hunter to get her set up for the job.
As she drove to the diner, Stephanie felt a little nervous about the meet. The job itself couldn't be a more perfect cover for her, but it fell well outside her comfort zone. Worse than that, Connie hinted she might need a gun.
Stephanie hated guns. She'd gotten comfortable with her stakes and even her silver dagger. A crossbow now and then came in handy as did several other weapons. Guns, however, scared her. She didn't need them for her real work and had no intention of carrying one.
Seeing she'd arrived at the diner, Stephanie parked her hunk of rust at the curb, took a deep breath and headed inside.
As she scanned the crowd looking for her tutor, Stephanie's breath caught. The beautiful man from the Blue Note all those months ago sat in the back booth. She knew that this was Connie's contact.
All thoughts of her destiny, her calling and her weapons of choice immediately left her mind as he smiled at her.
Without conscious thought, she moved forward toward the man and her destiny.
