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New World's Guardian
Chapter 2 – Crossing Over
In a very odd room sat a very odd man indeed. The oddness of the room came from the fact that it was a rather large room, however the only thing in it was a modern computer sat on the floor in the exact centre of the room. The man himself seemed rather listless and didn't seem interested in anything going on around him, this was however only until another man, this one older with silvery hair, entered the room behind him.
"Everything is ready as you asked sir," he stated, nodding his head slightly in respect of the odd man by the computer.
"Good," replied the odd man, his voice so quiet that it was almost silent, "however I must be on site before we can begin." He stood up, stooping slightly as he walked slowly towards the older man. "We're paying a visit to the Hellmouth…" And several thousand miles away, on the opposite side of the Earth, four figures were gathered around a headstone in the cemetery, ready to perform a most unnatural ceremony.
"It's time," murmured Willow, handing a large, blackened candle to each of the group, along with a lighter in order to light the candle when the moment came, "by tomorrow, Buffy will be alive again." She reached into the bag next to her and withdrew a small pottery urn known as the urn of Osiris, along with a small bottle filled with a formless, grey sludge that seemed to be congealing even as they spoke.
"Nice," muttered Xander sarcastically, uncertainly eyeing the contents of the bottle, "I suppose if the afterlife is made of paint we can use this to strip it away." His comment was justified as Willow opened the bottle, unleashing the horrible stench that rose of its contents.
"That's disgusting," gasped Anya, clutching her nose in an attempt to block out the smell, "smells like Xander when…"
"That's enough," interrupted Xander, stopping his fiancé from finishing the sentence, however enough had been said to earn amused expressions from both Willow and Tara.
"Can we get serious please?" asked Willow angrily, the grin quickly fading, "if we mess this up then Buffy will be gone forever." She checked her watch as the seconds ticked away. Eventually the time neared midnight. "Light your candles now!" She ordered, dipping one finger into the urn and smearing three small lines of the foul substance onto her face as she lit the candle with her other hand. Around her the rest of the group also lit their candles, lighting up the grave slightly in the darkness that surrounded them.
Surprisingly, the ritual seemed to go very smoothly, or as smoothly as you could call any ritual where the spell caster was cut by some unseen force and began vomiting up snakes that crawled off into the night. At the very least, they were not interrupted throughout the process and eventually Willow collapsed forward as the ritual ended. Tara rushed forward to catch her, cradling her weakened girlfriend in her arms.
"Buffy?" asked the witch weakly before unconsciousness hit her and she passed out from sheer exhaustion.
"It didn't work," stated Anya tersely, "why didn't it work? Make it work!" Tara glared at her, however inwardly they were all thinking the same thing. Suddenly, every single zombie movie or film involving resurrection that Xander had ever seen flooded to the front of his mind.
"She's still buried!" he exclaimed, diving to the ground and beginning to claw away at the dirt of Buffy's grave, "everybody help! She must be terrified down there!" Anya and Tara both dived down to help, tossing aside huge lumps of Earth as they kept moving their way down. In the end they met Buffy, who was aided by slayer strength, about half way and managed to pull her to the surface. However Buffy, far from being happy about her rescue, took one look at her friends and fainted as well, joining Willow on the ground.
It was several hours before Buffy awoke, and several more until she was able to form coherent sentences with a body that hadn't moved in several months. Even then it took several minutes and hot drink forced into her hands by a flustered Anya to get her to start talking to them. However they were not able to converse for long, in fact the scoobies didn't really say anything except gushing how happy they were that she was alive again, before Dawn was woken by the noise and came down herself, coming face to face with the sister she thought she'd never see again. After that, the conversation was slightly more relaxed as the sisters had a tearful reunion, however the peace was soon shattered again as Spike entered the house, unaware of Buffy's return, and finally set eyes upon the object of his affections again. A quick explanation was provided for Buffy, Dawn and Spike; however he did not quite seem satisfied with this.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, glaring daggers at Willow as he rose to his feet again, "No, I know why. You knew it might not work. You knew that if something went wrong you'd have to destroy what came back but if any part of that was Buffy I wouldn't let you…" He sighed, turning away from the group and staring blankly into space. "Why now? No, I know the answer to that too. You need the slayer to fight whatever Kira actually is… the world needs Buffy.
"Kira?" asked Buffy uncertainly, eyes occasionally going out of focus from lack of use, "What's a Kira?"
"Don't worry," murmured Willow, shooting a dirty look at Spike for mentioning their current problems, "Giles will explain it all tomorrow."
Rupert Giles was alone at his shop, "the Magic Box", flipping through the pages of a book that was one of a large pile that sat on the table in front of him. It was morning; however the English man had been sat their reading all night. "Oh…" he muttered as he finished the page he was reading, "as usual… dear." However he was wrenched away from his train of thought as the shop's bell rang and he looked up to see… well at first he had to take off his glasses, clean them and return them to his head, however there was no mistake. His slayer, Buffy Summers, was once again standing before him.
He was quickly brought up to speed on the night's events by the group present, Buffy, Willow, Tara, Xander, Anya and even Dawn, however Spike was missing as he was unable to come out during the day due to his vampire side. Giles didn't seem to approve of the group's actions; however he was denied the chance to berate them by Buffy interruption.
"Okay Giles let's cut to it," she stated calmly, sighing as she gazed at the large pile of books they would almost certainly be made to look through, "who or what exactly is 'Kira'".
"Long story short," sighed Giles, annoyed that such a matter was troubling Buffy so soon after her resurrection, "Kira is a supernatural mass murderer who is using their power to kill the world's criminals. The current death toll is over 300 victims spread across the world."
"Do we have any idea how they kill?" asked Buffy, "because if we have to fight this thing knowing how to stop it from killing us from a distance would be a big help."
"Actually we do," replied Giles, surprising the whole group with this announcement, "I've been researching a type of demon known as a Shinigami and managed to find one old book that details their method of killing. Apparently they have a note book called a 'Death Note' which they use to kill humans by writing their name into it."
"But these aren't Demon deaths," retorted Anya, glancing around at the rest of the group, "all of the victims died of a heart attack."
"And that's how I know we're on the right track," announced Giles, excitedly pointing to the book he was reading from, "it ways here that in all recorded cases the victim died of a heart attack!"
"Then that's out guy," stated Xander, "so tell me British man, where can we find it and how do we kill it?"
"Well as usual it's not that simple," replied Giles, the look on his face immediately alerting everyone in the room that there was a problem, "you see Shinigami are by nature incredibly lazy creatures. They don't write any more names then are necessary to survive. However they can pass along a 'Death Note' if they have a spare… to a human." The group sat in silence for a moment before Buffy broke the quiet.
"If the notebook is passed on to a human does that mean that…" she trailed off, unwilling to speak the truth that they had all realised.
"Yes," stated Giles, answering the unasked question, "whoever is killing all of these people is human." And as he said this, the Shinigami in the room laughed as it stood behind the human he was possessing, watching the scene unfold.