Buffy Summers woke slowly, groggy, and most importantly: Late.
HOLY CRAP levels of late!
Even if she HAD slept through her alarm clock (Which happened often enough considering the late night patrol hours and hard core exercises every day), why hadn't mom woken her up by now!?
She frantically untangled herself from her sheets and began dashing about her room to grab what she could for a lightning fast shower. "Crap crap crap crap…"
Principal Snyder was going to rip her apart! Detention? Damned near confirmed! That jerk of an ass never missed a chance to crack down on Buffy, or any student really.
Minutes later, makeup ignored and breakfast another lost dream that wouldn't be happening today, she half stumbled downstairs while frantically combing her mess of hair into something close to order. "Bye mom, I'm SUPER late!"
Speed limits? WHAT speed limits!? Could she drive fast enough to reverse time!?
She was already halfway to the door when she heard her mother from the kitchen table. "I already called you out from school today, Buffy."
Yeah, yeah, that's nice. "Love you too, I'll see you in…" Wait. "What?"
Her mother looked shockingly tired, with weary eyes but a wry smirk none the less. "I said, you have been called out of class today, just like I called out from work. For family reasons."
Huh? "But isn't today the grand opening of your art gallery? For the whole park!?"
Her mom just sipped her coffee. "My daughter is more important."
Oh. Wow, that… That felt really warm. "Uh…"
The woman pointed toward the chair. "Sit. This is going to be a long conversation."
Buffy slowly sat in the chair like an untrusting cat even as she frantically tried to wake up her brain. "...Can I have some of that coffee?"
And her mother quickly returned with a bowl of sliced fruit and a plate piled high with cheese covered eggs, toast, bacon… Not to mention that glorious, wondrous brew. "Oh mom, you are a miracle!" Come to me coffee! Make the world make sense again!
Slightly more awake and now ravenous like a monster, she destroyed breakfast with zeal between gulps of coffee.
Watching her little girl out consume a professional athlete, her mother chuckled and now the room felt less tense and forbodeny. "So… What's going on?"
Mom sighed. "After you kids came to give me that VERY public sexual intervention…" Buffy blushed at her mom as the woman wiggled her eyebrows. "Well, I ended up talking with my friends down there."
Huh? "And something came up?"
She nodded. "What do you know about the Watcher's Council?"
Um, Giles worked for them, and they were British so uh… They probably were nerds and dorks wearing tweed and drinking tea and stuff? "Not a whole lot?"
She nodded. "I didn't know about them or… Well, honestly, MOST of the stuff you kids told me yesterday. I was overwhelmed, and I could tell that you were all trying to keep things simple and straightforward so I could deal with it all… But my friends apparently knew more about the situation than expected."
Buffy blinked at the concept. "Really?"
Her mother sighed. "The members of my knitting circle cover a wide social spectrum of people… Some practice witchcraft or have connections with various creatures and… Anyway, they know a lot of people and through them learn a lot of things… And they've heard about the Slayers, specifically."
Oh no. Don't let mom think I'm a monster. Not after all this. "What… What did they say?"
She frowned at her drink. "That the Slayer empowers young girls similar to a partial possession… That she is on a crusade against demons and vampires and all sorts of things… And most importantly, that she is being controlled."
Huh? "What do you mean?"
Reaching for one of the folders on the table, her mom pushed it into her hands. "After I found out that things were beyond my ability to deal with them, I went to Doe Park's leadership. Thankfully, Ms. Doe herself helped me a lot… This here is a record of prior Slayers that 'awakened' this ability over the years. Well, a list of them anyway, with some relevant details."
Um, alright?
Buffy began glossing over the information… And then went back over it. "...Sophie Carstensen, Danish Slayer active in the years 1939 to 1940, died during vampiric incident with William 'Spike' 'The Bloody' Pratt. See folder 12b for full list of victims due to this individual…"
She skipped around. "Eleanor Boudreau, a Spanish Slayer active in 1940, died… What?"
Page after page, list after list of girls over the years. "Died after three months, died after a year and a half, died after seven days, this can't be right…"
Sure, Giles mentioned that being the Slayer was a risky thing, but… Holy crap! "Half of these girls died in less than a month!?" Several in here only gained abilities long enough for a few days of fighting or a single battle! "What is going on here!?"
Scanning rapidly down the horror, she caught one. "Virginia 'White Doe' Dare, the Croatoan Manteo Slayer active in the late 16th to early 17th century… Oh thank goodness, she lived a long time!" So just learn what SHE did and she'd be fine, right?
Her mother winced. "Read further, I saw that one too."
Oh, that didn't sound good. "...Betrayed by a traitor, turned into a deer, cursed to live like that for years, then returned to normal just in time to be killed accidentally by her lover because the traitor was a jealous and obsessive asshole. Holy shit."
Her mom sighed. "From what I can tell, a few cases like here are the ONLY reason why the 'average lifespan of the Slayer' is up around a year or so. Those tragic stories are the only thing keeping the numbers even remotely above four months."
The shock began to soak into her heart. "This can't be right."
Another folder was pushed forward. "This splits the documented cases up. With a before/after selection, showing when the Watcher's Council became involved with this whole mess."
Buffy blankly stared at the papers as her mom continued. "From what we can tell, the Watchers are a mixed bag when it comes to all this. After they began searching out potential Slayers and training them, the vast majority of newly awakened girls began to survive beyond a couple of weeks…"
Then she tapped the second folder. "But none ever made it past their 18th birthday. Never again, after they became involved. Apparently, there is some sort of 'trial' or something, although why some random British guy is qualified to 'test' a young girl possessed by an ancient evil fighting spirit is beyond me, and most of the time the test seems like a straight up execution."
What!? "But… But Giles wouldn't…"
Her mom grimaced. "From what Ms. Doe says? He probably wouldn't. It is in fact COMMON for the 'assigned' Watcher to refuse to 'test' their Slayer charge, especially when the full extent of the scenario is explained…" She tapped another file, this one black. "But then those that said 'no' tend to 'retire' permanently after they protest. Followed shortly by the end of their Slayer."
How could this… What… "What do I do?"
Her mother came over and pulled her into a hug. "WE handle it. Not just you, not even just your friends… All of us. Like I said, I think I am a good judge of character and I do NOT think that your Librarian would do something like this willingly. Not to mention, the Doe family that owns Doe Park are working with us on this too, and they are VERY powerful."
Buffy wasn't sure when she had started crying. "I… I think the kid said he made the place or something? And… And they have those magical statues and stuff…" Maybe they COULD help?
Her mom snorted while hugging her tight. "Would it help if I gave an example?" She waved at the wall. "In less than one night they installed a magic door connecting our house to my free employee residence. Now if anything wants to attack our home, they'd have to fight through magical protection AND the iron statue army that can walk right over them."
Huh? "What!? When did they…" But no, there on the wall was a very plain door with a simplistic sign marked 'Joyce Summer's Doe Park Residence' on it. "How did they…?" Just…
It was too much.
Far too much. "I… I need more coffee."
Her mother broke into chuckles. "If you were a bit older I would have shared the stuff I'm drinking, but the amount of alcohol in it is just a wee bit too much for you youngsters. Let me go get you a cup and we can talk about all the things being done to make sure you will be safe and secure despite the dangerous stuff you have to survive all the time."
Help and all that later, coffee to make the world less crazy was a NOW need. "Thanks, mom."
Her mother kissed her forehead. "Anything for my baby girl."
~~~Pocket System~~~
John hummed as he continued working on the new project since his sister was off wrangling the mess of people in the park to prepare for today's opening ceremony.
Ensuring there was a massive and GROWING financial source web for future and current Slayer's? Check.
When a new Slayer was 'awoken', it would now automatically start a process to buy out their loans and debts, pay off their cars and houses and properties, and prevent all sorts of problems later on. A clean slate, as it were.
Confirming that the web of financing would constantly struggle against itself, so no one entity could actually take the entire mess over and begin to abuse it for unwanted purposes? Well, that part took longer and became VERY complicated, but eventually: Check.
Plus, this would be boosted by the local rules too! It only had to work long enough for people to BELIEVE everything was fine and above board, and then it WOULD be! Problem solved!
Moving on…
Establishing an accredited schooling system from preschool to college so that, if desired, Slayers could have private classes but still be qualified for future careers and more? Check!
The options for web based classes or even MAILED courses would even help out the world a little bit, by offering education in locations without enough infrastructure for a more standardized or fully funded educational system.
Funding a series of 'churches' across the globe, that ALSO acted as secured bases against the forces of evil and free places to 'crash' or hide for any Slayer within range? Double check.
Fallback positions were important, plus John could send out some customized crosses and Menorahs and all that made out of silver or gold or whatever, Crafted with Torches to reduce the chances of local corruption or whatever twisting the local congregation into an armored military foothold for evil and whatnot.
Not to mention that having a network of secured and reinforced churches would boost Faith across the board AND provide an endless supply of Holy Water and other such needed tools to future Slayers too. Always think ahead, it would avoid a lot of future headaches.
Now John was debating establishing a smithy guild. Someone to make weapons and armor and stuff for a tiny little girl that could easily punch a tank off the road. He could make some Crafting Chests to just generate stuff, and he probably would at the end of all this, but it wouldn't be customized for the individuals.
It was an issue John had stumbled upon earlier: He could Craft stuff with Essence, but the new item wouldn't have that odd quality like the Cookies did, of becoming the most perfect variant desired or altering themselves to be just for the customer.
It was mostly due to lack of experience, mostly.
The materials from Steve's Realm, the basic non-modded stuff at least, had been discovered after countless years of it interacting with WORLD'S worth of Essence materials. Had been Crafted and Popped trillions of times, had integrated themselves with the very foundation of the Realm itself.
But if you wanted to have chocolate milk? Or chocolate milk slime monsters? You needed to use a Mod or (If it was very CLOSE to being stable) a Command Block to get it working first.
In other words… If you Crafted something new, it would be a tier 0 Essence material. Craft something from a mod, and it would be tier 1. Craft something only possible due to Command Blocks, and you'd get tier 2… But only materials that naturally occurred or could naturally be Constructed without outside World interference were stable enough to be considered tier 3 quality.
John's Crafting Chests would be considered tier 0 normally, but using tier 3 Essence materials like Water Source Blocks and Eggs and stuff? That bumped it up to something like… Tier 0.83 or something?
Of course, all that went out the window when his Crafting Chests were producing Tier 3 Essence products like Cookies or Pumpkin Pies… But in exchange for his subpar hardware, the raw ingredients required to produce this crap was MASSIVE in quantity.
This was giving him a headache, John HATED trying to create rating scales for stuff like this!
For example: What should he do if something was fundamentally CRAPPIER than Tier 0 junk, like materials made out of imaginary matter or objects that fundamentally didn't exist?
What would they be, Tier -1? Or if the stuff is beyond Tier 3, far above Essence Blocks, or merged from many different energy sources and empowerment forces? Would he end up with making up labels like Tier 8 or something equally as silly?
He could see it now, him standing on a mountain forge some day screaming to the heavens: 'These socks are now at a Tier OVER 9000! AHHH!', and then there would be lightning and an awesome theme song and…
Well, whatever. Probably wouldn't come up any time soon considering the drastic increase in material costs for even a minor increase in Tier quality.
In fact, if it wasn't for the supplied Water Source Block inputs and all that? It might take a dozen bags of flour and other stuff to Craft a single Cookie! The theoretical costs for anything of higher quality than THAT just got silly.
John continued to fiddle with stuff as he thought about the issues, and about how one could theoretically Craft a Source Block of Water to then fuel other Command Blocks to rewrite enough reality to make OTHER tools and maybe have the Crafting Chest Craft itself as it Crafts and…
Oops. "Crap, where was I? Girls?"
His now fully dressed (But no less attractive) security team quickly pushed the shyest silver angel forward as their representative, and she began making hand gestures. "Ah… Thank you Grace, I was really close to going way off topic."
Somehow the metallic woman blushed, which was… Honestly, just adorable.
Still, working with them was far easier now that his sister had talked with them to tone down the relentless teasing and other stuff.
Right. Focus!
A crafting organization for future Slayers… And since John and Jessica wouldn't be around forever? Instead of just handing them a box that would swallow coal and ore and spit out random equipment, he'd give them boxes that could produce high quality raw materials to work with!
Plus a Recycling Hopper/Chest combo to take junk and failed products and convert them into something easily accepted by the various Crafting Chests as input. That way they could throw ALL materials they get from wherever and always have something good to work with at the end of it all.
Not only would the provided iron and leather and all that be of high standards without needing to be concerned about supply chains or some specific material coming in with substandard quality, but it would also get rid of any waste or trash or messed up smithing attempts and stuff.
Still, with THAT much equipment involved he best make sure the future equipment company is based here in Doe Park. Letting the forces of evil gain magical chests that could recycle dead bodies and then use them to Craft high quality Tree Blocks or Iron Blocks or whatever would be a bad idea.
Much safer to have all future equipment made here, in the underground base swarmed with Iron Defenders, then ship it out to the fighters in the field.
Plus, it would bring more customers! Double Plus, they could make armor and weapons for the other Security Staff too since the Iron golems could wield weaponry weighing massive amounts and carry huge shields and even when it WASN'T required the local Crafting company could make metal doodads and leather widgets and small toys and…
John felt an angel gently poking his shoulder. "Ah, right. Sorry Grace, thanks again."
Focus! Let's get 'Crafting Creations' up and on its feet, shall we?