Rabidreject- Thanks for the review, so glad to hear you've been looking forward to this. Teehee- gives me a happy. And thanks re the character voice thang.
g120-thank you for the review and also thanks re the character voice comment also. ;-). And yes, Band Candy finally having purposeful benefits. Hehe.
A/N: This chapter is a little shorter than usual, but well...Afterlife looks likes it gonna be pretty wordy. Hehe.
Chaos. That's what it was. Complete and unadulterated chaos. Giles had been half way through making the patrol rounds when the biker demons pulled in and now within less than half an hour the demons had managed to practically destroy Sunnydale. They were the type of demons that only preyed on towns they believed to be vulnerable. Which could only mean one thing- the demon population had discovered the Slayer was nothing more than a robot.
Giles had immediately tried to call Joyce or at least Dawn, but found his phone was completely lacking in signal (perhaps a side effect of all the chaos being reaped around him, he didn't know. That was more Ethan's terrain). So, now he was trying to head home. The sooner he got back home, the sooner he work out a way to find the others.
He turned a corner and walked directly into a group of people.
"Argh!" They all screamed together, but one recognizable voice was heard above the rest.
"Anya?" He then saw it was the rest of them. That is Tara, Willow and Xander. Giles worried why Willow had blood stains on her cheeks- had the demons caught up with them before now?
"Giles!" Anya exclaimed, "Don't do that!"
Giles was prevented from a retort as a dark clad figure suddenly sprung down beside them. They all turned to face it, ready to attack the demon that had landed near them, but stopped when they saw the figure looked more like a wounded animal. The girl had long blond hair that hung about her face in tattered knots and her black dress was torn. Giles recognized that black dress, and on closer inspection recognized the hair. No, it couldn't be.
"Buffy?" Willow asked warily, walking forward slightly and this most minor of movements caused Buffy to bolt.
"Buffy?" Giles whispered in disbelief as the group ran after her. A moment later, he followed, not giving himself time to wonder why or how she was there...how it was even possible.
They eventually caught up with her and found her crouched against a wall in an alley,seemingly trying to hide and protect herself from them, using the trashcans and bin bags as shields.
As the four looked at Buffy, Giles took another look at the blood on Willow's face. It wasn't caused by demon attacks...it was self inflicted- aspects of a dark, dark ritual. A resurrection spell. God, how could they be so stupid?So irresponsible?Didn't they realize what could have happened?What may have happened anyway? He wanted to throttle Willow, but his shock at seeing Buffy prevented him from making any movement at all.
"Our spell," Xander stated, confirming what Giles had already guessed...already knew, "Our resurrection spell worked like a magic charm. We brought you back to life Buffy," Xander turned to Willow, his face deadly serious, "Right where we left her"
That thought alone made Giles sick to the stomach. Not only had this group of idiots risked everything by bringing Buffy back to life, but they had forced to dig her way out of her own grave. Giles looked at how Buffy was crouched like a terrified animal and saw the blood and dirt all over her hands. Reminders of how she'd been dragged so harshly into his world.
"How could be so stupid?" Giles asked them all quietly.
"S-she had to...dig out of her own grave" Tara breathed, in too much shock to hear the controlled anger in Giles' voice. But the others did, but while Xander looked disgusted and ashamed with himself and Anya just looked like a naughty child about to get in trouble, Willow looked at Giles with something of a challenge in her expression- as though daring him to say anything, as though she doubted there was any possible way she should be reprimanded for her actions. Because he had no doubt they were her actions. The others, they were helpers, even Tara would have followed her girlfriend's lead. Yes, this was evidently all Willow's doing.
"Buffy," Xander said, turning away from Giles, to look at the broken Slayer in the corner. "It's going to be alright. We brought you back. You're home now"
Giles was about to demand why the hell the did they bring her back and where exactly they thought they'd brought her from when the sound of a menacing voice behind them stopped him.
"Yeah, welcome home Slayer. Alive and kicking after all,"
Giles tore his eyes away from Buffy to see not just a singular demon, but an entire gang of them. All of them leather-clad and wielding wicked-looking weapons.
"Well, alive anyway." The demon continued, "Not looking too good is she?"
No, she really wasn't. And the rest of the gang were cornered with definitely no where else to run.
She hadn't been able to get back to her car. It had been barely halfway through the opening when the riots started in Sunnydale, reaching all the way to even just outside the gallery.
Almost instantly, chaos had broke out inside the gallery also as almost everyone fell into complete and utter panic. When the first rioter had crashed through the window, staff and visitors alike scattered everywhere panicking and wondering what the hell was going on.
Joyce, Carole and the other members of staff who hadn't completely lost their head, directed everyone to the exits, presuming correctly that it would be safer if they left the public place and hurried home as quickly as possible.
But as they reached the exit, or one of them anyway, the door was kicked open from the other side and there stood three of the grizzly, dangerous rioters. And that's when Joyce had seen they weren't human- they were demons.
Not waiting a second to see how the demons were going to react to them (by ripping their throats out most probably) the group en masse ran to the nearest other exit and pushed through the doors desperately, their feet pounding loudly on the concrete ground as they rushed towards their cars.
When they reached the car park though, they saw the demon rioters had already set up shop there, running around their cars- smashing the windows, sometimes setting them on fire.
Sensing the humans were there, the demons abruptly stopped what they were doing and looked over. Eying them like vicious dogs, where you're afraid the slightest of movements would alert them to your presence and if you stayed perfectly still they would move on.
A woman gasped at the sight and took one step back in shock. That was all the signal they needed and the demons charged.
Within minutes four people were already dead, necks broken, limbs torn apart. As Joyce tried to avoid the mace one of the demons was swinging at her, she could do nothing else but watch as a particularly beefy demon with rows of razor sharp teeth took a bite out of the chest of her colleague, Jem. He spat the meat he had pulled off aside, but continued to rip him apart seemingly for the sheer heel of it, throwing his limbs to feed the steadily building bonfire.
It was enough to make Joyce want to fall where she stood. She just wanted to throw up, but survival instincts kicked in and she forced herself to focus on saving her own life and escaping the demons so she could get home to Dawn.
As the demon backed her up against the wall, she waited for him to swing the mace and once he did, she ducked just in time and the weapon got trapped in the wall behind her. As he struggled to tug it free, she ran.
She was still running through central Sunnydale when she realized she hadn't escaped the demons at all. They were all throughout the town- Sunnydale was in flames. Even more desperate to get to Dawn now, she sped up, rushing through the streets, thanking the gods that she hadn't ran into any biker demons.
That is, she thank the gods until she did.
The demon stepped out of an alley, although it seemed out of nowhere, as Joyce was running along and he blocked her path, instantly bringing her to a standstill. He grinned at her evilly and she instantly spun around to run the other way to find two more of his kind behind her. She turned again, and again before returning back to where she'd started. She was surrounded.
Only one thought came to mind when she realized this- oh crap.
"I don't see you winning any beauty contests," Xander told the demon as he held his axe over his shoulder, aiming for a casual look, "Unless the Miss My-Face-Fell-Off Pageant gets going"
"Big axe you got there," The demon commented menacingly.
"The better to cut you down to size Grandma"
This just seemed to anger the demon more and he went toward Xander but was brought to a halt by a quick, yet effective fire spell form Tara.
"So you got a witch in the mix," The demon said, slightly more cautious, but still clearly feeling very superior to the group.
"More than one," Tara informed him, not letting her fear come through in her voice.
"Yes," Xander nodded, "I happen to be a very powerful man-witch myself," He turned back to Tara and Willow, "Or...male...is it Warlock?"
"Plus," Anya added, as she looked at Buffy still crouched in the corner, "We have a Slayer here who might be looking to eat some brains so I think a quiet moseying, no hard feelings and I'm sure your demon horde won't think any less of you"
This banter exchange seemed to carry for a few more minutes as had become the custom in Sunnydale before the small alley became what could only be described as a battleground (another Sunnydale custom).
The 'battle' failed to be particularly eventful or evenly matched as within moments Willow had been thrown into the trash, soon followed by Anya and eventually Giles. Tara was thrown into a wall and Xander, on his way over to his girlfriend/fiancée, was tossed aside into a garbage can of his own.
"Let me tell you something children," The leader of the demon gang said walking towards them all menacingly, "We're not gonna fight you," He looked at Giles and Xander, "Well, we're just going to kill you two, but the girls...well, me and boys are just gonna enjoy ourselves for a few hours. You might even live through it, 'cept that certain of my boys got some anatomical incompatibilities that tend to rip up little girls...so who wants to go first?"
At this perverse suggestion, both Giles and Xander scrambled up to go and head over to try and protect Tara, Willow and Anya, but as they got up they saw Buffy had gotten out of her crouch position and was now stood directly in front of the offending demon.
"I was really hoping it'd be you," The demon grinned, backhanding Buffy so hard it caused her head to turn and in that moment Giles saw her glazed and confused look fade away as it was replaced by that Slayer gleam he had seen so many times over the years. The look that clearly said the demon was soon going to lose all it's limbs.
The demon, unaware of this, went to punch her again but she grabbed his fist easily, stopping him mid-swing, before immediately countering with a double-punch of her own. She delivered a roundhouse kick to the chest and he went flying into the garbage can he 'd moments ago thrown Giles into and the demon lay there unconscious.
"Does that mean we win?" Anya asked hopefully.
Nobody moved for a moment as the demons silently looked at the crumpled form of their leader. Their stunned expressions were replaced by ones of anger as they attacked Buffy. She ducked, dodged and decked following with kicks, hits and flips. Although clearly out numbered she fought back the demons with ease using skills and reflexes as excellent as they had been the day she had died.
Before long every demon lay unconscious or dead around her.
"Well, they wanted a massacre..." Tara said looking around at all the dead demons.
"Well, I should say they got one," Giles agreed.
"She's Buffy, she's herself again," Xander said with relief but as Giles looked at Buffy, he wasn't so easily convinced, "You're back Buff, you really are" Xander smiled, going to hug his friend, but she stepped away, the frightened-animal look returning, "Whoa, easy, whoa..."
She looked at them all, seemingly frightened by merely seeing the faces. She paused as she looked at Giles, some form of recognition flickering in her eyes and she took a step toward him. Then, suddenly, she seemed to change her mind as she ran past him, down the alley.
"Where's she going?" Anya asked with a frown.
"Should we follow her?" Tara suggested.
"No," Giles said firmly, still watching Buffy's retreating form.
"But, shouldn't we just-" Willow began to protest but Giles cut her off.
"No. We shouldn't. Besides," He gave Willow a look that bordered on disgust and loathing, "I think you've done more than enough"
He once again looked off in the direction Buffy had ran off, but fought against all his instincts to follow her. She wasn't ready to face them yet, who knew when she would be?
He walked off on the group,leaving them behind silently contemplating what they had done.
As he walked out of the alley a thought occurred to him. Joyce. He had to get to her, before anyone else- dear god, before she found Buffy herself at least. He needed to- was the word really warn? No, he needed to prepare her. Prepare her for the shock that was that Buffy was alive again. Lord, how was he going to tell her that?
"Looky, looky what we found," The largest of the demons who had surrounded Joyce commented with an evil grin on his face.
"Th-that's great," Joyce said, attempting for levity as she looked around at the group of demons and tried to figure out how to get away. She couldn't, "And this was fun, now I'll just be off"
She attempted to casually, yet rapidly walk through the gap left between the leader and the tall demon next to him. She nearly made it as well when the leader put a gnarled demonic had on her shoulder, leaving scratches there as he pulled her back.
"Now why would you be running off like that?" The demon asked, "Me and the fellers wanna have some fun"
She sincerely doubted it was going to be fun for her, and their perverted grins confirmed that fear. She gave up on subtle and just tried to push past them all, figuring if she could just get out of the circle, she'd have a fighting chance at...running away. She barely got a step away when they dragged her back, causing her to fall down on her face. She knocked one away barely with her arm as she stumbled forward to try and get back up and start running, but the demon at the front of the gang grabbed her foot to pull her back towards him. She kicked out and while it didn't hurt him in the slightest, it did cause her shoe to come off and so he lost his grip on her, over-balancing him slightly.
She scrabbled up and began running again, but found the leader had already beaten her to it once more.
"We don't count the chase part of the fun," He told her, looking deadly serious.
Giles was five minutes away from home when he heard the scream. He turned around and saw a gang of the demons similar to the ones that had attacked him and the others before surrounding a woman in a red and white dress. He recognized the dress first.
"Joyce!" He exclaimed, running over to help her and at the sound of his voice she looked around, before relief crossed her features as she spotted him. She automatically tugged to try and head towards him but the demons held her back with minimal effort as Giles knew from experience how strong they were.
As he reached the group he picked up a piece of metal piping that had been severed from the rest of the system and swung it at one of the demon's head, hard. He wasn't unconscious but he went down with a wet slap on the floor revealing that Giles had caused him at least some injury. The rest of the demon gang looked him with expressions that said 'that is the last thing you will ever do'. Giles tried not to show his fear.
"I strongly suggest you let her go," He told them, but the demons only laughed- Joyce tugging against their grip making them laugh harder.
"I don't think you're getting this," The one Giles determined to be the leader of this particular group, told him, "See, me and the boys wanna have some fun here. And," the demon sniggered, "ain't you or no pipe gonna make much of a change on our minds ya see"
Giles remembered what 'fun' the demons in the alley had referred to and that made him all the more determined to not back down. The demon seemed to find this fact even more amusing and he walked away from Joyce to take a menacing step towards Giles.
This one less demon holding onto Joyce was enough and she tugged away from the second, running over to Giles before the advancing demon could reach either of them.
They stood there for a moment, all of them, when the demon Giles had knocked down grunted as he got up. While the rest of the group were distracted by this Giles and Joyce ran off. Normally this would feel like the coward's way out, but right now it was just damn common sense.
The two of them worried that the demons would give chase, but when they spared a glance backwards they saw the gang had lost interest. After all, they had said the chase wasn't part of the fun.
"Ow, ow, ow," Joyce complained stumbling for a moment.
"What?" Giles asked, stopping in concern.
"Glass, she explained," brushing the sharp pieces off her bare foot, "I lost one of my shoes back there," She explained further when he frowned in confusion. She looked down at her dress that was definitely falling into the category 'can never be worn again', "I've gotta stop wearing anything nice," She said in exasperation, giving him a half-smile. He gave her a similar half-smile back, just relieved they were out of danger, as he used his to wipe the little bit of dirt that had smudged on her cheek. When she saw what he was doing she groaned in further exasperation, "Great, I must look a complete wreck"
"As escaping demon hordes go, you look rather-" Giles began to compliment her but she cut him off with a panicked look.
"We've gotta get back to the house. Dawn- what if they've.." She set off at another run in the direction of her house, Giles following close behind wondering how the hell he was supposed to tell her about Buffy now.
"Dawn? Spike? Dawn? Dawn?" Joyce started calling as soon as she entered the darkened house. Luckily it didn't seem to have been raided, but worryingly there was still no sign of Dawn or Spike. "Dawn! Dawn!" Joyce called more urgently rushing through the rooms on the ground floor of the house. "They're not here," She announced walking back over to Giles, "They're not here. Where could they be? Why aren't they here?"
"It's okay," Giles assured her, putting his hands on her shoulders to calm her down, "It doesn't look like anything happened here. There's no sign of a struggle is there?" Joyce silently shook her head, "So...more than likely Spike took Dawn somewhere safe"
Joyce knew there was truth to what he said and she nodded, trying to convince herself to believe him. To focus on something else besides worry she put her full attention into taking off her remaining shoe and tossing it aside in the corner. When she was no longer stood on heels, she lost four inches of height and she was back to looking up at Giles to talk to him rather than eye to eye. Slightly annoying.
"Now, Joyce- there's something I have to tell you."
"What if Spike got caught by those demons and now Dawn's all alone? We should go look for her" Joyce suggested, her worry returning.
"No," Giles insisted, "We should stay here so when she returns home there's someone here for her. Now-"
"Right," Joyce nodded, "Right, sorry- what were you saying?"
"I need to tell you something...about Buffy"
"What about the Buffybot?" She asked with a frown, wondering why he was being so serious about a robot.
"No, not Buffybot...Buffy"
Now she was very attentive, her brown eyes wide with worry.
"What is it? Her grave? Did the demons-"
"No, no, nothing like that," Giles told her, before taking a deep breath as he prepared himself for what he had to say.
"What is it?" Joyce asked, looking at him searchingly, "Rupert, you're scaring me..."
"It's Buffy. She's-"
Giles was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and Joyce headed past him in relief as she saw Dawn walk in. She was followed by someone with long dirty blond hair. The woman was wearing a black dress that Joyce recognized all too well.
"She's alive," Giles finished and all Joyce could do was stare at her only natural-born daughter in disbelief. Buffy glanced over at Giles and Joyce and when her eyes fell on her Mom the two of them shared a look of recognition as Buffy recognized her Mother and Joyce truly saw that it was Buffy, the same daughter she had buried over four months ago, stood in front of her. Alive. And all she could do was stare.