Dr. Stephan Strange stared at Dr. Rupert Giles and tried to make sense of what he'd just told him.
"I've heard the story of the Slayer, you're correct about that. But I always dismissed it as simply a story and never bothered to research it. I see now that I should have. It makes no logical sense whatsoever. Why conscript a child to fight monsters? Before the establishment of this Watchers Council of yours, this single child would activate without prior knowledge of why and than feel compelled to fight creatures that prey on humans, while simultaneously acting as a beacon to attract their attention. I doubt most of them lived long. Do many live long even with the support of this Council of yours?"
"An average of a year from time of activation. Buffy survived a year and a half before dying and being revived via CPR by Xander. But Buffy has also never fought alone, despite the Council's decree that she do so. A Slayer support team is suppose to be made up of members of the Council and mainly be for purposes of training and research. While they object to Buffy having companions that fight beside her in her battles, they understand that Sunnydale is a unique situation that calls for more than traditional methods."
"And those traditional methods are archaic, to say the least. You don't even train them in combat Magics, let alone modern weaponry, which by the way, are extremely effective."
"Yes, Xander's naturally occurring personal energy, which manifests very easily as Fire Magic, proves that, not to mention, his interest in modern weapons."
"And there's the fact that neither you nor your charges would have been affected by that spell over Sunnydale if you'd had Protective Magics on you in the first place. Just exactly how does the Watchers Council support the Slayer?"
"I don't believe they actually do." Giles confessed. "They find and support Potentials by training them in case they are Called, but once Called their Watchers simply send them out to fight, alone. We are taught that it's a Sacred Calling and the Potentials are taught that as well."
"Deeming it a Sacred Calling makes it a sacrifice. An offering of their lives. But to what end? Here in Sunnydale the Mayor offered the lives of the humans here in a means to Ascending into an Elder Being. A dinosaur sized demon. Possibly thousands died to make it happen. Possibly thousands of young girls Called as Slayers have died as well. A much longer drawn out process, but still the same thing. The question on my mind is, is the Watchers Council aware of what that end might be? And are they willingly complicit in achieving that goal? Given how they seem to treat Slayers I would imagine that they are."
"The Council maintains that they are fighting evil and that the Slayer is a tool by which they fight."
"Then perhaps they have or whoever began the Slayer line, has the same goal as the Mayor, to Ascend but in the opposite direction. Perhaps they believed or believe, that they will become a Higher Being themselves by sacrificing little girls to that endeavor. It's not out of the realm of possibility. In antiquity, sacrificing to both celestial and evil gods was quite common. And it was often children that were sacrificed, mostly because it was believed that at least the celestial gods would take care of the children and spare them the suffering of the world."
"There is another possibility. Our group has been hypothesizing on why the Council limits the world to one Slayer at a time, given that we know from Xander's reviving of Buffy that more than one can exist at a time. One theory we have is that the power that makes a Slayer is finite and that it will eventually run out. Activating multiple Slayers at one time would increase the likelihood of that happening. Perhaps limiting the Slayers' to one was meant to extend the power and the protection the Slayers provide the world as long as possible, at least in the beginning. It's the Watchers Council that deemed it a Sacred Calling, after all."
"Hmm, if that's true then there may be two separate agendas, the original one in creating the Slayer and the one the Watchers Council has. And I definitely need to evaluate your Slayer and the other one. If the power is finite, then Buffy will have a reduced amount of the power compared to the other girl. Each Slayer Called may actually be weaker then the one before, even if it's only by an infinitesimal amount, over thousands of years, it would still have an affect."
"Another possibility is that if they are being sacrificed, it's to eventually allow something access to our world. Then are any number of possibilities on what that could be."
"Far too many, I'm afraid. From the return of the original Elder Beings to allowing something like the First to manifest without being summoned into our plane of reality." Dr. Strange said grimly.