Carl always seems to get the shortest end of the stick. Here he is, about to be dumped into a crappy situation again. What will he do when he wakes up dead?
When his consciousness swam up out of the darkness, Carl had no idea where he was. There was a huge blank in his mind as to how he got where-ever he was.
Searching his memories, the last thing he remembered was driving to work in the morning. He'd just gotten on the highway when he'd received a text from his girl. They'd had a fight that morning, so he was a bit distracted while looking to see what she had to say. There was the sound of screeching tires; then a loud crash. Then nothing until now.
Did he get in an accident from looking at a text? Jeez, he'd never hear the end of it from his mom over this. And his car was probably totaled. He didn't make it to work, he might even be replaced. Where was he now? In the hospital? He didn't have the cash for an extended hospital stay.
Carl opened his eyes. And immediately shut them again to minimize the pain from the light stabbing into his brain.
He cautiously squeezed open one eye. Slightly better. Carl opened his other eye, adjusting to the light.
But that is not a hospital ceiling he was looking at. What is he doing in a ratty wooden shack? And what is that delicious smell in the air?
Carl pushed himself up to a sitting position to scope out his surroundings.
"Ahh!" Carl screamed in fear, pushing himself away from the bloody corpse of a young girl he found himself next to. "What the hell?!" Carl found himself hyperventilating. This is not happening. This can't be happening.
A strange pressure built up in Carl's head. He gripped his head in pain from the pressure, collapsing against the wall he had put his back to.
Memories that weren't his own started playing in his mind, as if he was living them. He experienced being born in as a boy named Liam in 1727. As Liam grew older he made the wrong sorts of friends that he emulated. Liam became a drunk and a womanizer, living a hedonistic lifestyle due to the encouragement and egging on of his "friends".
After a particularly strong argument with his father one night, Liam left the house and became the dinner of a Vampire named Darla. Due to Darla's actions, Liam was raised as a vampire soon after. The vampire visited Liam's family home and received an invitation past the threshold that protected homes from vampires by Liam's young sister, Kathy, who thought her brother was returned to her as an angel.
The vampire demon inhabiting Liam's corpse then killed and fed on Liam's family. After that night, the vampire took on the name Angelus to mock the naivety and kindness of the family of the corpse he inhabited.
What followed was a long nightmare for Carl. Starting from that night in 1753 when Liam the man died and Angelus the vampire took over, Carl experienced the evil and devilry of the vampire's delight in destroying anything good he found. The vampire delighted in finding a young innocent and destroying her innocence, mind, and sanity. Angelus would psychologically torture the young girls, killing everyone around them, until they mentally broke. Only then would he kill them.
When his vampire lover Darla found a young psychic girl named Drusilla in 1860, Angelus took great delight in breaking her mind before turning her into a vampire. The vampire Drusilla kept the psychic abilities of the human body she inhabited. But the visions and mind of the corpse the blood demon inhabited were so broken that the vampire was not all there in the head. The visions she spoke about were so vague and difficult to interpret that they were not as much of a help to Darla and Angelus as the vampires had hoped.
Twenty years later, Drusilla found a young poet by the name of William Pratt that she grew enamored with, and turned him so he could accompany her. The four vampires soon became known as the Whirlwind. For the next 18 years they delighted in blood, murder, and torture. No one could predict where they would show up, or who they would attack. No one could stop them.
Then in 1898 Darla kidnapped the favorite daughter of the Kalderash Clan in Romania. Angelus brutalized the poor girl before draining her of blood and killing her. The Clan was furious, and in retaliation they performed a curse on Angelus. A curse that was meant to rip the human soul of Liam out of the afterlife and tie it to the vampire. The Kalderash Clan intended that the anguish and guilt of the human soul would torture the vampire and keep the vampire from running amok as it had been.
But somehow, instead of Liam's soul being ripped out of his final resting place, the Clan's spell had caught Carl's soul and stuffed him into the vampire's body. And now Carl had experienced everything Liam and Angelus had done and felt. Including killing and feeding on the young French maid whose corpse now lay near Carl.
Carl woke up from experiencing the memories of the vampire, and promptly curled over, dry heaving. There was nothing in his stomach to eject, but the sheer evil and disgust Carl felt over the memories made him continue to heave for several minutes.
Eventually Carl calmed himself and sat back up. Breathing deeply, even though he didn't need to, Carl took stock of his new situation.
Item 1: Carl died in the car accident. His old life is over.
Item 2: Carl now inhabits the vampire body of Angelus. His new life is that of a bloodsucker. Carl can't hear the blood demon in the back of his mind, so that's a bonus. He'll have to figure out if it's still there later.
Item 3: Angelus is a vampire from a fictional movie/t.v. show/comic. So he is probably not in the universe/dimension he came from.
Item 4: Everything from old fairy tales and stories are real in this universe, except Leprechauns. Supposedly. Maybe they are just really good at hiding. Anyway, magic is also real here.
Item 5: Carl is now a vampire, with-
Carl reaches over to the bed and with his two hands tears off one of the solid wood legs. Using his fingernails, Carl crudely shapes the piece of wood into a stake.
Item 5: Carl is definitely a vampire now, with a vampire's strengths. And most likely their weaknesses.
Item 6: Fucking Angelus had been running all over Europe for the past 145 years killing as he pleased. In other words, since Carl now occupied Angelus' body, Carl now inherited all the enemies of Angelus. Wanker.
Carl stood up, and tucked the crude stake he'd made into the small of his back, covered by his shirt. He moved over to where a pitcher of water and a basin was sitting on a nearby table. Carl looked at the crude mirror hanging on the wall. There was no reflection.
Deciding not to brood on it, Carl used the water in the basin to clean his face and hands from when Angelus had fed on the poor girl lying dead behind him.
After drying off, Carl started exploring his senses. Everything was turned up to 11. The light that hurt his unprepared eyes earlier came from a couple lamps in the shabby wooden room. Carl could clearly hear conversations in the other rooms of the cheap inn he was currently in.
The blood he'd smelled earlier from the girl still smelled so good. When Carl was able to focus on smells other than the blood, he could almost taste the different smells. He could tell how many men had been in her room in the past few days. What soap she used to bath with. He could tell what she'd had for dinner before running into Angelus.
Sighing at the situation he found himself in, Carl finished getting dressed in the good looking clothes that tagged him to anyone of the late 1800s as one of the rich. Despite being a murderous creature of the blackest pits, Angelus had quite the pride in his appearance. He used it quite well as bait to lure victims in. Where women used their beauty as a honey trap, Angelus used his rich and handsome appearance as the same thing.
One of the new vampire senses that he just gained was telling him that he had about an hour before the sun rose and that it was time to find shelter. It made Carl wonder about the various fanfictions he'd read where the newborn leaches were too stupid to even find shelter during the day. The blood demons would have to be incredibly retarded or too distracted by their newly inhabited corpse if they didn't feel the incredibly loud warning Carl was feeling about the danger of getting a tan.
Before leaving the room, Carl stood a moment over the corpse of the young girl that Angelus had killed before Carl took over. Sighing again, Carl closed her eyes and arranged her a bit more modestly. "Sorry this happened to you darling. You didn't deserve this. But I hope you're circumstances are better now, wherever you are."
Carl gently closed the door on his way out. After leaving the small, run down inn, Carl followed the memories he'd gotten from Angelus to the house where Angelus and Darla were staying. Before he'd even opened the door, he could sense Darla inside.
As Carl slipped inside, he heard Darla call out to him. "Angelus, darling. Where have you been." She paused to sniff the air. "Ah, a midnight snack. Shame on you, lover. Not bringing your paramour any is selfish of you!"
"How unthoughtful of me!" Carl exclaimed, leaning on the memories of Angelus. "And how should I make it up to you." He continued as he stalked towards Darla, eyeing up her sexy curves. He reached out, grabbing her hair in a fist, and pulled her into an almost savage kiss.
Pausing and pulling back for a moment, Darla smiled excitedly. "Mommy, likes!" When she paused. A look of horror came over her face as she felt the stake that Carl had made pierce her back and into her heart.
Carl kept eye contact with Darla for the long moment as she stared at Carl with a sense of betrayal, before she turned to dust.
After having experienced the blood demon Angelus' memories and feelings, Carl would be lying if he said he wasn't affected. Carl had basically experienced 145 years of living with Darla, 48 years of living with Drusilla, and 18 years of living with Spike.
Thinking on his memories of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer show, Carl could somewhat understand how muddled Liam would have been after being ripped out of his eternal rest and being thrust into sharing headspace with the blood leech. Being forced to experience 145 years of life as a vampire, versus only 26 years of life as a human.
And as a human Liam hadn't been known for his great willpower. So Carl could appreciate how difficult it would have been for Liam. But Carl refused to play the part of poor confused Liam in this BtVS universe. He wasn't going to be moping and brooding for the next 100 years. He wasn't going to confuse the leech's memories and relationships for his own.
No, he certainly wasn't Angelus. He wasn't going to play the part of poor broody Liam. And if those retards that called themselves the Powers-That-Be thought he was going to dance to their finely scripted plan that called for him to mope around for one hundred years, then fall in love with a young Buffy Summers, lose his soul by having sex with her, get sent to hell, come back from hell only to end up in L.A. where he will run a detective agency until he has a little half vampire baby with Cordelia Chase, and then take over the demonic Lawfirm of Wolfram & Hart so he'll somehow be forced to keep the balance and allow one of those Powers That Be to gain a human body, then they could go screw themselves. He's not going to dance that jig.
The next night Carl packed up everything Angelus and Darla had and moved out of the house. Angelus and Darla had killed the owners and planned to move on after a few days of playing in the town. Spike and Drusilla had gone off on their own a few days earlier, and Carl had no idea where they were. Drusilla would be hard to track down, due to her seer abilities. So Carl would work on other important things first.
After several nights of travel, Carl arrived at a remote hunting lodge in the forests of Germany that Angelus had been to. Carl quickly surveyed the old abandoned lodge. No one had been there for years, it looked like.
Carl quickly worked to make the lodge sunlight proof so he could rest there during the day. During his travel there, Carl had often hid in farmer's barns, burrowing into the straw mounds that looked least likely to be disturbed, or digging a shallow grave for his daylight rest. Since he didn't need to breathe, Carl found he could relax all day under a few feet of sod. And Vampire strength seemed uniquely suited to digging graves as shelter.
Now that Carl was away from human settlements, he began to test his new vampire abilities and limitations. Angelus never went more than a few days without feeding, so Carl had no idea how often he'd have to "eat" before the thirst made him feral. Thinking about Angelus' feeding habits made him realize just how many people Angelus had killed.
Angelus killed every couple of days, with special murder-orgy-parties thrown in, so Carl roughly figured there were about 300 victims of Angelus each year, for 145 years. That was about 43,500 murders. That was a lot of memories of murder. Carl was definitely not right in the head anymore with all those memories bouncing around, but he wasn't going to mope about it. No, for making him experience that darkness, Carl was going to take his anger (probably a remnant of Angelus) out on the leech population.
Carl was going to stay away from the Kalderash Clan for now. As angry as he was at those assholes for putting him in this situation, he knew not all of them were guilty. And he didn't know if he would be able to hold his anger in and just punish them and not go on a murder spree. And Angelus already royally screwed the both of them over once by messing with them. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.
So for the next year and a half Carl stress tested his new vampire body. He found he could refrain from drinking blood for three days before he started to really feel the need to feed. He could go a week just fine, but if he went more than nine days, he would suddenly lose control and go eat the next thing he could find. Which was a deer that Carl had tied up in the yard for just such an occasion.
Carl found that he could eat like a human just fine, and food tasted just like it did when he was a human. But just eating human food did nothing for the deep gnawing hunger/thirst for blood that vampires crave. Animal blood worked just fine for Carl as a substitute for human blood. He could eat bloody raw meat to stretch out the time he would need to drink blood. But once the meat was cooked it lost that needed ingredient that vampires needed from blood.
And Carl found that he didn't need to drain the blood donor dry to keep his thirst in check, he could take a liter here or there every night from the animals in the forest and be fine.
After a couple of months in the forest, Carl developed a theory on the effect different blood had on a vampire. From Angelus' memories, Carl knew just how dumb he'd been as a newly made leech. Over time of drinking human blood the lights slowly came up and began to brighten, so to speak. Carl concluded that newborn leeches really were that stupid and the more human blood they drank, the smarter they got.
Carl noticed that ever since he started drinking mostly deer blood the past several months, he'd been getting quicker and more alert. He then switched to bear blood, which was interesting to get without killing the bears. A couple months later he noticed how much stronger his body was and how much more weight in trees he was able to lift. Several months later and he discovered that wolves blood gave him agility.
Different types of blood gave a vampire different strengths, depending on the attribute of the blood donor. And as far as Carl could tell, it was a permanent increase. He didn't lose the extra speed or senses he'd gotten from deer after switching to a different animal.
This was information he wasn't going to share with anyone. This would give him an edge over all the other blood suckers. While all the other blood suckers stuck to human blood that mostly only increased their intelligence to a certain degree, Carl was going to be drinking to improve his base stats. He would make himself faster and stronger than any other vampire.
If he could get a modest speed boost off of deer blood, what would he get off of cheetahs? If he gained strength from bear blood, what would he get off of Elephants? If he got a bit of body sturdiness off of milk cows, what would he get off of rhinos? If he got agility from wolves, what about panthers, leopards, jaguars, and tigers, oh my?
After a year and a half, Carl felt his testing and training had gotten him as far as he could for now. He had determined the bare minimum he needed to feed to survive, as well as a path to getting stronger. He'd gained some measure of control over the 170 years of memories so he didn't react based off of what Angelus would do. He'd learned how to move and fight with his vampiric speed and strength to keep himself alive despite having many enemies in this world.
Packing up his meager belongings, Carl moved on. There were things he needed to do before a World War broke out in this continent.
As Carl stared at the locked bank vault in front of him at 2 in the morning, he couldn't help but curse Angelus yet again. He knew that vampires were impulse creatures, caring nothing for anything beyond the now, but would it have been too hard for the murderous demon to steal some money from his victims and stockpile it up for Carl to benefit from so he didn't have to turn to bank robbery?
Vampires didn't care about money except as a temporary means of gaining camouflage to hunt better, but he's a human soul dammit. And there was no way he was going to live the rest of his undeath in graveyards and squatting houses where he killed the owner. And to start gathering safe houses, day guards, a constant safe blood supply, and other things, he needed to gather the starting capital.
Which is exactly why he's robbing a bank. Good thing vampiric hearing makes listening to tumblers easy. After filling his bags up with German Goldmarks, Carl got out of there with no one the wiser.
Several days, and several meetings with certain sketchy individuals, and a deposit in good faith with a promise of larger payment later, and Carl's plan was set in motion in Germany.
Before the advent of the World War, Carl planned to scour Europe for any old tomes about the occult. Who knows how many of those books were lost in the destruction, or torn up to start fires, or simply lost. If he could get a hold of those books now, then he could build a library a Watcher would be envious of.
His business finished at the moment in Germany, Carl moved on to Belgium and established the same deal with the local entrepreneurs. It was a win-win situation for everyone. Carl didn't have to waste his time in fruitless searches and questioning people who would only talk to locals, and his new business associates make bank from finding him some reading materials.
While Carl was in Belgium, he picked up a nice pair of Browning Model 1900s that just went on sale that year. If he was able to handle a situation with humans by using the guns instead of his vampiric speed or strength, it would only help him keep a low profile.
After finishing up business in Belgium, Carl made his way through France, Spain, and Portugal, making the same deals for books, before he set sail for America. Time to return to his homeland, and set up shop. By the time the events of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer roll around, Carl planned to have a sturdy foundation in America and around the world. With a bit of judicious timing, he could make himself rich and build a network of people to accomplish whatever he needed.
While in America, Carl set up a banking account with JP Morgan & Co to handle his money and investments, and purchased a plot of land outside Cleveland, where the secondary Hellmouth he knew about is located. He set them to start building a home/mansion that would be one of his primary residences, and a location that he could ship all of his books to, once he returned to Europe.
Over the next several years, Carl was constantly on the move around Europe and the Mediterranean and bringing his gains back to America. His hired people in America did a fine job of building his mansion and guarding his property while he was away.
In June of 1908 Carl made his way to the Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia to see if he could watch one of the mysteries. The Tunguska Event was the largest impact event in recorded history (not including the dinosaurs, we didn't record that, apparently). It was a large explosion that occurred 3 to 6 miles above the Earth's surface, and it flattened 770 square miles of forest. The wiki page of Carl's time attributes the explosion to the air burst of a meteoroid. There was, however, no impact crater. As a result, lots of fiction writers have used the mysteriousness of it to have a spooky occult cause, instead of a mundane meteoroid.
Carl parked himself outside where the area is supposed to be flattened, and waited for something to happen. At about three in the morning, Carl saw something he didn't think he'd ever see. A UFO was rising up out of the forest, running lights lit. Suddenly out of the sky five more UFOs came down and surrounded the one taking off.
Carl decided at this point in time it was better to make a getaway. If they scanned around and found him nearby, who knows what they would do? Carl started running away, looking over his shoulder occasionally.
He happened to glance back, as the UFO from the forest was fired upon, and exploded, causing widespread devastation in the forest. So that was the cause of the Tunguska event. Aliens. Carl saw the other ships start to do a cleanup on the debris from the destroyed ship. Carl made a tactical decision, and buried himself in the ground, hoping that they would mistake him for a buried corpse, instead of a supernatural abnormality. Or just as bad, a witness.
The morning passed slowly as Carl occasionally heard the ships pass overhead. Thankfully, nothing happened, and by noon the ships had stopped flying overhead. When the sun went down, Carl quickly vacated the area, not wanting to chance any remnant observation posts from the E.T.s.
When the First World War started, Carl finally got a break from his constant travels and hunting for more books. He had been especially careful in his actions in Britain, because he knew the Watchers Council was based there. Or at least, it had been in 1998 in the show. He was pretty sure the Watchers wouldn't give up their precious books to a vampire, so he would plan to wait until the confusion of the London Blitz to chance getting in and looking at their books. Until then, he had plenty to do.
Now that he wasn't traveling, he started to catalogue his new library. Over the previous 14 years of travel, he had had lots of time to learn many of the languages he hadn't already known.
However, just because he was a supernatural creature, didn't mean he automatically knew which books were full of it, and which were genuine. Thankfully he'd found a witch, Joanna Crestly, with an open mind who was willing to teach him all she knew, for the chance to expand her own library.
Their first few meetings had naturally been tense. She kept expecting him to tear her throat out, and he kept worrying that she'd try to burn him to ashes. Eventually it stopped being tense between the two of them, and they soon grew to enjoy each other's banter.
After a dozen meetings, they came to terms and started working together. One of her unbreakable conditions was that at no point would he ever have "relations" with her or any of her descendants. Seems the human-vampire ickyness was a big no no for Joanna. Which was perfectly fine and reasonable to Carl.
He too thought doing the nasty with a corpse was disgusting. And even if the girl was willing to do things for him, he felt he would lose all respect for said girl for being willing to fuck a corpse. So any relationships while Carl was still a corpse was doomed to failure; as a result he never bothered to try. Plus he didn't know if when he did the happy with a girl, would the Gypsy curse decide it was over and release his soul? He didn't care to find out for a few minutes of sex. The risk-reward just didn't make it worthwhile.
Halfway through cataloguing Carl's library, Joanna and Carl found a treasure. The book recorded a set of Enochian Runes that it claimed would protect whoever was tattooed with them from seers, scrying, and being watched by the powers above and below. *cough* Powers That Be *cough*.
Perfect. This would let Carl get off the PTBs radar, as well as sneak up on Drusilla to put her and Spike down. If Spike and Drusilla were allowed to go their merry way, killing and feasting, that's another 50,000 or so people murdered in the next 90 years before Spike supposedly has a chance to redeem himself. And that's not even counting that Carl had royally boned the timeline. So while Carl himself didn't create Drusilla and Spike, and the guilt really wasn't on his head, Carl felt that those two are a murderous headache that is better ended sooner rather than later.
Carl got word from his network of informants that Spike and Drusilla were spotted in New York in 1920. Luckily, he was close by and made it to the city in time to catch them. Drusilla, the broken vampire, came right up to him when he showed his face. It was easy to lay her to rest with a stake to the heart. Hopefully the broken spirit of the girl would rest easier now that her body wasn't being used to murder the innocent.
Spike made to run, but a few shots from his Colt M1911 in the knees stopped him right quick. A quick beheading later, and Carl was happy that Angelus' additions to the Aurelius line was ended.
Now that his library was sorted, his information network was growing, and his fortune growing, Carl turned to the next project. His next mansion outside of Sunnydale was to be built, and having his library copied to prevent a total destruction in the case of disaster.
While he was having his people take care of those projects, he was working with Joanna to find out if he could learn to use magic. His demonic nature as a vampire ensured that certain aspects of magic would always be barred from his use. However the fact that he had a supernatural battery from the blood he drank gave him some power to use.
He would never be able to channel the power of Gaia, or call on the gods in rituals, but he could do many of the simple spells. Cast fireballs, lightning, conjure water, telekinesis, cloak of shadows, etc…
Time continued to pass. Carl made a huge profit investing in the stock market until 1929. He made sure to gradually ease his money out of it from July of that year, until by September he was out, and his money was in a secure place where a failing bank wouldn't hurt him.
After the crash, Carl was able to pick up properties and stock that he knew would recover and last for cheap. Once again setting him up to be one of the richest men (vampires) ever.
Carl used a large chunk of land he got for cheap in California to build a massive Zoo/Safari Park. He'd hired people to bring in many animals from around the world to populate his park. All the animals around the world that he wanted to drink their blood to get stronger, all together in one place.
He brought enough animals in to sustain a breeding population. Carl came from a time in the future when there were issues with certain animals no longer having a large enough population to sustain itself. In the future some of the animals in his park or in the wild would be switched out to provide new blood to keep the population growing. This was his philanthropic gesture to the future. And if he kept the animals strong, they would keep him strong.
Shortly before World War 2 began, Carl finally found the Gem of Amara in a tomb in Sunnydale that would let him walk in the daylight and protect him from damage. All the treasure that was in the tomb was a nice bonus. Carl did the smart thing and wore it on one of his toes so that no one would notice a new ring gracing his fingers when he could mysteriously suddenly walk in the sunlight.
When the London Blitz began, Carl was situated with a group of his well trained spies to infiltrate the Watchers Council. In all the confusion, they were able to get in, and make copies of all the books over the course of the months. A nerve wracking job to do under the radar, but worth it to add the treasure trove of knowledge to his library.
Carl, Joanna, and Joanna's daughter Melly, spent the next several years copying out the books and learning from them. The bald truth that was spelled out in those journals disgusted even Carl, and he had years of vampire memories in his head.
The Watchers Council had started out with the right idea, to support the Slayer in her calling to protect humanity from inimical demons. But over time, certain leaders got it into their heads that they should guide, control, or command the slayer for their benefits.
They would occasionally have a Slayer assassinate someone who wasn't toeing the company line, or in order to make a profit. Then, when the Slayer learned they had killed a human and were devastated and looking for help and guidance, the council would use the killing of a human as an excuse to have the Slayer put down, and another called in their place.
They would use the cruciamentum as a means to get rid of Slayers that were getting too independent. Some of the council leadership would even use the Slayer as a whore, getting off on the feeling of power to be able to command such a powerful woman to service them.
After reading the journals and seeing the corruption of an organization that should protect the Slayer and humanity, Carl decided that he wasn't going to wait 60 years until the show had the council die.
Carl gave the order and his spies began to infiltrate the organization. The spy's moved their families next door to the watcher's families, and became friends. After befriending them, a bit at a time they staged the opportunities for the watcher's friends and neighbors to "become aware" of the supernatural.
They began to worm their way into key positions of the organization, gathering information about financials, personnel, etc.
And finally, in 1956, they had enough players in key positions to effect a take over. It was swift and bloody, but the corrupt, arrogant leaders who desired power and control, were eliminated.
Hemery High School gym, after school hours. 16 year old Buffy Anne Summers was the last girl to leave school that day. She had been trying to get her head screwed on right again, after the nightmares she'd had a couple nights ago. Ever since that night, she'd noticed that her workouts with the cheerleading squad had become so much easier. She also felt hungry, all the time. And she'd accidently broken the lock on her locker by pulling it too hard. She had no idea why these things were happening to her, and it was freaking her out.
So to keep from thinking about it, Buffy was spending more time at the school gym, working herself to exhaustion. She paused for a drink, when she heard footsteps behind her. Feeling a little scared, she whirled around. Ten feet away stood a tall man in a brown trench coat and a wide brimmed hat.
"Catch!" He said before throwing a knife at Buffy's head.
Which Buffy caught.
"Well done!" The man exclaimed.
"You threw a knife at my head." She said in a hallow voice.
"Yes, and you caught it. It means you are the one." He said in a joyful tone of voice.
"You threw a knife at my head." Buffy repeated.
"Wait, Merrick, did you do the knife throw introduction?" A voice called out from the doorway, causing the man to spin around and Buffy to look over while holding said knife. "Boss isn't going to like that!" The voice laughed.
"I made sure it was the rubber one!" Merrick complained in a plaintive tone of voice.
"Did you even introduce yourself or explain anything before chucking a knife at her head?" The voice asked as three people entered the gym.
"That lessens the drama of it." Merrick said.
"Oooh, boss is gonna get you!" The man laughed in a sing song voice.
The woman in the lead marched up to Merrick and kicked him in the shin, hard. "We don't chuck knives at girls before introductions are made." She growled while Merrick clutched his shin from where he'd fallen. "You better hope she" the woman said, pointing at Buffy "is feeling generous and doesn't mention this incident to the Boss, because I am not covering your ass for a botched introduction."
"Would someone tell me what is going on, and why are you throwing knives at my head!" Buffy burst out angrily.
"Sorry about that dear. My name is Anna Crestly. I'm team lead and magic support. This is Ron Jones." Anna pointed at the man that had been making fun of Merrick earlier. "He's support and medical. This is Rupert Giles, team researcher and magic support as well. And finally, on the ground, who should know better than to chuck knives at people, is Merrick, trainer and security."
"And that explains what now?" Buffy asked, still confused about just who these people are.
"Sorry, this whole thing is a bit of a difficult intro to those who haven't been raised in the life. So, first things first, verify identity of chosen one with a short questionnaire, then we'll answer all your questions. Did you have nightmares of vampires two nights ago?"
"What? How could you possibly know that?"
"I'll take that as a yes." Anna stated briskly. "Have you noticed increased physical strength, beyond what was normal?"
"I broke my school lock on accident." Buffy answered in a small voice, afraid of where this was going, but sensing they had the answers she needed, so she'd humor them for now.
"Right then. I think that will do it for the questions." Anna finished, guessing that Buffy's patience was wearing thin. "Well, the nightmares you had, about vampires? I'm afraid to tell you that they are real. Pretty much all of that supernatural stuff is real. And you kinda won the cosmic lottery, so to speak. There's a special calling that goes out to one girl in every generation…"
Anna went on to explain about the Slayer, and the watchers council, the supernatural, and all that goes bump in the night.
After thinking about the new information for a while, Buffy asks in a timid voice. "So, what? I'm stuck in this war for the rest of my life? If I don't get killed by vampires first?"
"What?" Anna exclaims. "Oh, no no no, honey. Not at all. I'm sorry I gave you that impression. No, you see the Slayer spirit stays with you about 20 years. During that time, you do act as a kind of magnet to the supernatural. So yes, you're in more danger right now. But that's why we're here, to help you train and survive the whole thing. And we're just the meet n' greet team. The rest of the team is setting up in the safe house. After 20 years, basically "one generation" it moves on to the next girl. Then you're no longer a supernatural magnet. You can live a normal life. You get to keep the perks of the Slayer package though. You'll look like you're in your 20s when you're in your 40s."
"So, I'll survive this?" Buffy asked, starting to feel better about this whole deal.
"Oh, yes, you will honey. Back in the 40s, the Boss found out about how bad things had gotten for the Slayers, and he didn't like that one bit. So he cleaned house and reorganized everything to make sure the support needed goes to the Slayers. We haven't lost one Slayer since! You'll get everything you need to survive and thrive. You'll even get a salary, so you don't have to worry about missing out on a job or education if things get to stressful for you."
Carl was sitting at his home, enjoying a nice glass of Jaguar blood when his phone range. 'Soon, smart phones will be a thing again! Can't wait!' Carl thought before answering the phone.
"Speak." Carl answered.
"Boss, the intro went good. Buffy Summers is acclimating to the team well, and she's hopeful for prospects." Anna reported to Carl.
"That's good to hear. I'm glad things are going well. How is your gran doing by the way? It's been a while since I've seen her."
"Oh, Gramma Melly is having her on and off days. But she's comfortable. Sometimes she rambles about you and what you and Great Gramma used to get up to back in the day…" Anna rambled on.
Carl was satisfied with how things were turning out. With his enormous wealth continuing to grow, he was able to fund his organization. They still weren't global, but they were making inroads into more and more countries each year. With an immortal vampire at the helm, he would be able to make sure power hungry and corrupt leaders didn't pervert the purpose of the organization, or embezzle operating funds.
Maybe in another 50 years they would finally be able to make progress against those dark parts of the world that acted as breeding grounds that the stupid leeches kept spreading out from. That's the kind of "Balance" that he can get behind, where justice is served, and humans and peaceful races finally having their chance to lives in peace and exercise free will. Not the kind of status quo the Powers That Be call "Balance" where they help evil continue to prey on the innocent.
Once he finally gets the world cleaned up of evil demonic filth, he would think about doing something about automating his organization and turning himself human again. But that is still far in the future, Carl mused.