Divergence (Portal, Chapter 1)
Title: Divergence (Portal, Chapter 1)
Author: kanedax
Fandom: Buffyverse
Spoilers: Buffy: The Origin (graphic novel, 1999), The Wish (BtVS, Season 3)
Characters/Pairings: Buffy/Pike, Merrick, Lothos
Rating: R for language, sexual situations, and violence
Summary: Cordelia Chase's wish lands here
Notes: This is the first chapter of the reboot to my old Buffy series, Portal. While the previous, uncompleted series began in season 5 and jumped around, this new version will be written chronologically. It will also contain new chapters, new sections within chapters, and possibly more newness that I don't know yet.
Expect a Brand New Chapter soon, and I hope you enjoy!
I don't own these characters. They belong to Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, and Dark Horse comics.
My Fanfic Page / Chapter 2: White Hat
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost
For want of a horse, the soldier was lost
For want of a soldier, the battle was lost
For want of a battle, the war was lost
For want of a war, the kingdom was lost
The kingdom was lost
For want of a nail
May 7, 1996
Quentin Travers looked up from the report as a slight knock interrupted the quiet of his study. He removed his reading glasses and leaned back in his chair.
“Enter," he said solemnly, his fingers tented across his chest. The door opened, and a young (by Watcher’s standards, of course), bespectacled man entered the office. The large pile of paperwork he was carrying began to slip from his grasp as he released the knob, and he barely stopped it from spilling across Travers's floor.
"You wished to see me, Mr. Travers?"
"I did," Quentin said with a nod. "I see you brought all of the requested paperwork?"
"Yes, sir," the man replied, his glasses sliding down his nose. "All of these forms... Is this what I think it is, Mr. Travers?"
"Perhaps," said Quentin. "Sit down, Rupert. I’ll fill you in on the details."
Rupert Giles nodded and, with a sigh of relief, set the pile on Quentin’s large oak desk before settling in the chair across from the head of the Watcher's Council.
"I must say, I am very excited," said Rupert. "Where am I being assigned? Where is the next Potential located?"
"You’re not being assigned to a Potential," said Quentin.
Giles blinked. "Oh," he said. "I am... I am being assigned to teach, then? To... to train?"
"In a way," Quentin said, hearing how carefully Rupert was trying to mask his disappointment. He pulled open the left-hand drawer, removing a manila folder that he had received hours previously.
"Oh," Giles repeated, clearing his throat. "Sir... I..."
"Yes?" said Quentin, his eyes narrowing.
"Sir..." Giles said, his self-confidence fluttering. "I do not believe that it is in the best interest of the Council to assign me as a trainer. I… I believe that I have… that I have proven myself in my years here… That I… that I would be of more use with a Potential than I would be in a classroom, training other Watchers."
"I agree," Quentin said simply.
Giles’s mouth dropped open. "You… you do?"
"I do," Quentin said.
"Well..." said Giles, cracking a nervous, yet relieved, smile. "Yes. Excellent."
"And, you would well in the future to not speak out of place in my presence, do you understand?"
"Yes," Giles said quietly, his face paling. "I am sorry, sir."
"You are not being assigned a teaching position out of the country," said Quentin, opening the folder, "nor are you being a Potential.
"You are being assigned the Slayer herself."
Giles stared at Quentin in confusion. "Excuse me?"
"Buffy Summers," Quentin continued, rotating the folder on his desk so Giles could read it. As he spoke the name, he sounded like he were speaking a vulgarity. Americans, he thought with a shudder. They think they're so creative. "You are to be her Watcher."
"But…" Giles stammered, pulling the file to him and adjusting his glasses. "But Miss Summers has already a Watcher. Merrick, yes?"
"Merrick Jamison-Smythe, yes," said Quentin. "But not for much longer. The Oracles are predicting that he will die tonight."
"Oh," Giles said softly, leaning back in his chair. "Oh, dear."
"Indeed," Quentin said, not seeming that put off by the news of the upcoming death of one of their cohorts. "Miss Summers has barely been under his Watch for long. After his death, her training must continue. And we in the Council believe that you are qualified to take his place. Archibald has spoken most highly of you."
"Well… this is... quite a shock," Giles stammered. "I… I don’t… Thank you for the consideration, sir."
"You will be leaving for Sunnydale, California immediately," Quentin explained. "The Oracles believe that that is where you will cross paths with Miss Summers, although they haven’t given a timeframe for when she will arrive. It may be tomorrow, it may be next year."
"So I should search for her?" Giles asked.
"No," Quentin replied. "The vampires will jump at a chance to attack a Watcherless Slayer. The last thing we want to do is make our presence, and hers, known by sniffing around. The Oracles say that she will come to Sunnydale. We’ll simply be sending you there to wait."
"And in the meantime?"
"We should be able to find you suitable employment," Quentin said, flipping to another page in the folder. You can finally put your library studies to good use, Mr. Giles."
---------
"This one may surprise you," said Merrick Jamison-Smythe, doing his best to stand firm against the ancient vampire towering over him. "She’s not like the others. Doesn’t play our way. I don’t even think she knows how strong she is."
Through the steam emanating from the boy’s car, smashed against the tree after a battle with the vampire's minions, Lothos stared down at the walrus-faced Watcher. The vampire could tell that the Watcher’s considerable girth was quaking in fear beneath his billowing trench coat. "Such drooling sentiment from a Watcher?" Lothos asked. "I’m all aglow. Surely she’s not that special, particularly if she was raised here."
As Lothos spoke, he raised his hand to make an example of the neighborhood in where they stood. "Expensive houses," he continued. "Plush lawns. And tiny, yapping dogs. A soft place. Surely you can’t believe that a warrior could come from such opulence?"
"You did," Merrick growled.
"That was a different time," Lothos said with a dismissive wave. "Even the rich and powerful needed a survival instinct during the plagues. Not like today. What’s the Slayer to do when I find her? File a lawsuit? Call her psychotherapist? Perhaps we could discuss our feelings and come to a mutual understanding?"
"Merrick!"
Merrick and Lothos both turned to the see the Slayer sprinting towards them.
"Oh, my," Lothos said with a smile. "It appears someone would like to join us."
"No!" Merrick screamed. "Get away from here, girl!"
Buffy Summers stopped in her tracks, her stake poised and ready.
The arrogance of this girl, Merrick thought. Already thinks she can fight him…
"You’re not ready for this," he continued. "Go!"
"Well, well," Lothos said serenely, turning his back on Merrick to face Buffy. "All this for me?"
Merrick watched as Buffy, seeming now to realize what she was up against, backed away from the advancing vampire, her eyes wide with horror. With quick calculation, Merrick reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pistol.
"Girl," Merrick growled, only vaguely hearing the sound of squealing tires in the background as he aimed the gun at the vampire's cloaked back, "for once in your life, do…"
Blam!
"…as you…"
Blam!
"…are told!"
Blam!
They wouldn't kill him, Merrick thought as he pulled the trigger. But they would hurt him enough to count. And they did, as Lothos, thankfully, turned his attention back to Merrick as the boy pulled up behind Buffy, the rear tire of his motorcycle skidding on the pavement.
"You heard the man, Buffy!" the boy yelled. "Get on!"
Buffy’s eyes darted between Merrick and the motorcycle, torn about which way was right.
"Let’s go, now," the boy continued anxiously, "before I realize how stupid it was to come back!"
Buffy grunted in frustration, then hopped on the back of the motorcycle, which peeled rubber before speeding away, leaving Merrick and Lothos in the distance.
"You insult me with that?" Lothos growled, glaring with disdain at the firearm still clutched inside Merrick's meaty fist.
Merrick smirked. He had won the battle, even if Lothos didn't know it yet. "Just a distraction," he said. "You’ll not have this one. Not this time."
---------
There comes a time in every person’s life when a choice is made that effects the world as it will be.
While it is true that the universe is made up of an infinite number of realities, created thanks to an infinite number of choices, the fact remains that most of these parallel realities are, in fact, nearly identical. So identical, in fact, that you could hop from one to another and never know it.
For example: One universe boasts that Ronald Reagan pulled in 54,455,472 votes in the popular vote for the 1984 presidential election, while another universe had him pulling in 54,455,471 after Cassandra Purndine of Raleigh, NC decided that she’d rather watch AfterMASH than go out and vote.
Another reality was created when Anton Petrov of Sliven, Bulgaria was talked into going back for seconds at dinnertime on August 19th, 1968.
And then there’s the particularly wacky universe where Stan Lee decided to color The Incredible Hulk a darker shade of green.
These inane choices pass us by the millions each day. In the grand scheme of things, they are meaningless, and affect no one's lives in the slightest.
But then there are the important choices…
Some may live their entire lives without ever coming upon these crossroads in life. These are kinds of decisions that start a ripple effect, stretching out distantly into the future and, sometimes, into the past. Even worse, unless you’re an assassin with a world leader in your scope, or a president with their finger on The Button, you rarely have the opportunity to even recognize your importance in the fabric of reality.
You can only hope that, when the crossroad comes, you hope to whatever power is above that you made the right choice, one that will put your universe on a path to success rather than ruin.
The other problem, of course, is that sometimes you have no say in the matter. Sometimes, without you knowing it, someone else changes your destiny for you…
---------
"Damn it!"
"What?"
"Hold on to me…"
Buffy’s mind was still away, next to Pike's crashed vehicle, where Lothos and Merrick were having a war of words. She knew that that war would be done soon. And there would be blood.
Because of that, she barely registered what Oliver Pike said to her before he squeezed the brakes on the motorcycle, causing the rear tire to scream as the front pivoted around on itself, aiming the bike back to the scene of the accident. Thankfully, Buffy's Slayer instincts took over, and she she grabbed him tightly without being thrown to the pavement.
"Jump when I say," Pike muttered to her, throttling the bike's engine.
"What are you doing?" Buffy yelled. The narrow wheels squealed on the pavement, and before she knew it they were rocketing towards the Watcher and the vampire.
"Letting my conscience be my guide," Pike yelled into the slipstream. "Fucking cricket…"
"If you have a plan, say it," Buffy said. "We’re running out of street."
"The plan is you jump off and I ram him."
"Wrong plan," Buffy replied.
"What?" cried Oliver, but she was right. Why did he even leave her on the bike to begin with? He should have shoved her off before going back for fat boy and Dracula.
"It's the wrong plan," she repeated, amazed that her Slayer instincts were taking hold so quickly, not just physically but mentally. Her brain was clicking at a million miles an hour. Formulating a plan of attack. Calculating distances. Angles. Speeds. Why couldn't she have thought like this before she failed geometry?
"Aim for his left shoulder," Buffy said. "Our left. And stay low."
"You going to explain this any further?" Pike asked, his argument about getting her off the bike lost to the authority in her voice.
"No," Buffy said shortly, pushing Pike with her left hand until his chin was practically touching the handlebar while holding the stake (a long one, thankfully) behind her back in her right. "Just do it."
Pike opened his mouth to ask more questions, but there was no time. In the end he just did as he was told. Lay low. Go faster. Aim for his left side…
Jump, you bastard, Buffy thought as Lothos grew in her sight. We're coming left, Jump to your right, jump to your right…
Fifty feet…
Forty…
Thirty…
Lothos looked up.
---------
"I have her face," Lothos said with a sinister grin as he stared down Merrick. "And after I make you mine - a vampire - you will give me her name, even kill her for me if I command it."
Merrick closed his eyes. Accepted the inevitable. "Not in this lifetime."
Merrick Jamison-Smythe lifted the pistol. Opened his mouth. Felt the cold steel press against his jaw.
"No!"
Merrick heard the roar of the gunpowder. Heard the thud of the bullet as it connected with the bridge of his mouth.
Only the roar wasn’t the gun. And the thud wasn’t the bullet.
In fact, he hadn’t even pulled the trigger yet…
Merrick opened his eyes to see Lothos sprawled on the ground. There was a screech of metal, and saw Oliver Pike’s motorcycle skidding along the pavement, Buffy and Pike sliding along with it. The shattered remnants of her stake still clutched in her hand.
She used it as a club, Merrick thought absently, his hand shaking as he lowered the gun. Hit Lothos with it...
Thank goodness they’re both wearing leather jackets, or they’d be stripped raw.
"Merrick!" Buffy yelled, pushing herself to her feet and running/limping towards her Watcher.
"Buffy!" Merrick yelled, his relief giving way to fury. "I ordered you…!"
"Screw orders," said Buffy, grabbing him. "We gotta get out of here."
Merrick and Buffy both looked down onto the grass, where Lothos was already up onto his hands and knees. A shot to the head at high speed could dizzy a vampire. But not for long…
"Merrick," Buffy panted, tugging on his thick arm. "Merrick, we have to run."
"Leave me," said Merrick. "You can’t…"
"Why the fuck do you think we came back?" Buffy cried. "You’re coming with us."
"On foot?" Merrick huffed. "I doubt I could keep up. And with the motorcycle dead..."
As if in answer, the engine of the crashed automobile, practically wrapped around the tree, roared miraculously to life.
"Woo hoo!" Pike howled from inside the car’s cab. "That’s my baby!"
"Not on foot," Buffy said quickly. "Now let’s move."
Merrick, finding no more strength to argue with his young charge, jumped into the back seat of the car while Buffy dove through the shattered passenger window like a scene out of Dukes of Hazzard.
Oliver punched the car into reverse, and flinched as the bumper, firmly embedded in the trunk, pulled from the car's frame with a screech of torn metal. "She's not going to give us triple digits anymore," he said, staring at the crumpled front hood like it was a battered lover, "but she’ll get us away."
Lothos had now regained his footing. He was still wobbling slightly. Another few seconds and…
"Less talk, more drive," said Buffy.
"You're the boss," said Oliver, punching it into third gear.
And as the car drove away into the night, followed by the vampire Lothos’s howl of rage, the world as they knew it changed.
---------
Merrick Jamison-Smythe was to have died on the evening of May 7, 1996; a self-inflicted gunshot wound should have removed the top of his skull, along with most of his brain, as Buffy Summers and Oliver Pike escaped to fight another day. To fight their own way, the first of many times Buffy could make that claim.
Buffy should have defeated Lothos at her school’s prom, with very little Slayer training, and accidentally burned down the gym in the process.
After hearing their daughter's delusional rantings about vampires, Joyce and Hank Summers should have placed Buffy Summers in a mental institution, and should have divorced soon after.
Buffy and Joyce Summers should have moved to 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California. Buffy should have met Rupert Giles, her new Watcher, along with her two greatest friends: Willow Rosenberg and Alexander Harris.
Buffy Summers was destined to save the save the world.
A lot.
Because Cordelia Chase made a wish three years later, Oliver Pike chose to save Merrick Jamison-Smythe that May night, and nothing went according to destiny.
Fucking cricket…
---------
"Are you sure this place is safe?" Oliver Pike asked, leaning over the steering wheel to get a good look at the roof of the massive warehouse.
"It’ll work as well as anything," said Buffy from the passenger seat as the shadows drifted over them and Oliver rolled the car to a clinking, clattering halt just inside the warehouse doors. "This is where we’ve been training. Just so long as they can’t, like, smell us or anything.... They can’t, can they?" she amended, turning in her seat to face the back.
"They could," said Merrick, his calm tenseness unnerving Pike to no end. "But not at this distance, and not through all of the exhaust this piece of junk was coughing up."
"Hey!" Oliver yelled defensively.
"They’d need a Hellhound to do it," Merrick continued, "and I have yet to hear of Lothos employing them."
"Oh, okay," Buffy said. "I… Wait, were you serious about the Hellhound part?"
Merrick pulled himself from the back of the car without a response. Buffy and Pike exchanged a nervous glance before exiting themselves.
"So what do we do now?" Pike asked, walking around to examine the front of the car. "I mean, how are we supposed to fight--?"
His words were cut short as Merrick’s ham-sized fist smashed into his stomach. Pike crumpled to his knees as Buffy sprinted up behind her Watcher.
"Merrick, what--!"
Merrick spun around and backhanded Buffy sharply across the face. Not expecting the attack in the least, Buffy reeled, staggering away from him. Her hand went to her face, and she wheeled around, staring at him in shock.
"What the fuck?"
"You disobeyed a direct order!" Merrick bellowed. "A direct order from your Watcher!"
"Wait…" Pike gasped, pushing himself to his hands and knees. "Wait... just..."
"Both of you!" Merrick howled in rage, sending his foot squarely into Pike's solar plexus. "You should have left with her!"
"We were trying to save you!" Buffy gasped, her still reeling from the shock of the attack.
"And it’s by a miracle that you survived!" Merrick yelled, advancing on her. "Never, ever are you to question my orders, Miss Summers! The world is in too much danger to even consider it!"
"If we had followed your orders we wouldn’t have heard any more from you!" Buffy screamed as Pike staggered to his feet, clutching his ribs. "You were going to kill yourself, Merrick! You had the gun in your mouth!"
"Rather me than you!" Merrick yelled. "Miss Summers, you have yet to realize your importance in this world. There are many Watchers, but there is only one Slayer! My life is unimportant. I would be replaced, you would not!"
"Sure I would," Buffy hissed, her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed. "When a Slayer dies, another rises to take her place, right?"
"You were willing to die for me," Merrick growled. "That makes you a fool, Miss Summers."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Buffy asked.
Merrick swore under his breath. "Good is powerful," he said, "but so is evil. Evil must be destroyed. And sometimes sacrifices must be made for that to happen. If I had died, your identity would remain safe. You would have been given a new Watcher to continue your training. If you had died, the new Slayer would have to start from scratch."
"Yeah, well, I didn’t die," Buffy said angrily. "And neither did you. So we’re still here, and the Watchers don’t have to start over like I was a bad soufflé. Not yet."
"You’re not a mistake," said Merrick. "But you have a lot to learn."
"Then fucking train me already…"
"I will," Merrick said, cooling slightly. "But in the morning. Tonight we rest."
"What about school?" asked Buffy as Merrick walked to the warehouse's small office. "What about my classes?"
"Miss Summers," Merrick replied, not turning back, "your days of high school are over. Tomorrow we continue your true lessons."
And without another word, Merrick walked through the office door, slamming it behind him.
A liquid-filled cough erupted from beside the car. "That... That is... cough cough."
"Pike!" Buffy cried out, remembering again that she and her Watcher weren’t alone in the warehouse. She walked over to him and helped him to his feet.
"That is … one intense dude," Pike gasped, leaning against the hood of the car with the hand not currently clenching his stomach.
"He gets that way," said Buffy, putting her hand on his back. "Are you alright?"
"Not bad," Pike said, turning away from his car to spit a was of blood-colored saliva onto the cement floor. "Feels like I’ve just had my ass kicked by a fat guy with a huge mustache, but otherwise I’m just dandy."
"Come on, sit down."
Pike nodded and threw his arm over Buffy’s shoulder as she navigated him across the floor. He let out a short hiss of pain as he lowered himself onto a pile of wooden pallets, still clutching his ribs.
"Better?" Buffy said uncertainly.
"Better enough," Pike groaned. "Okay… I’m still about three innings behind. Vampires, right?"
Buffy nodded. "Vampires."
"And the big guy," Pike said, pointing to the office door. "He’s your... Watcher?"
"He’s my Watcher."
"What’s a Watcher?"
"I’m still piecing that together myself," Buffy said with a shake of her head. "He’s, like, my trainer, I guess. My coach. Whatever."
"Because you’re the Slaver?"
"Slayer…"
"Which is a what?"
"No clue," said Buffy. "Merrick tried to explain it to me, but I'm still a little vague on the deets."
"Cliff Notes?"
Buffy sighed and took a deep breath. "In every generation a Slayer is born," she recited. "She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness."
Pike gaped at her. "Wow," he said. "Sounds... wow. So you’re, what, a superhero? Like Wonder Woman or something?"
"I don’t know," Buffy said slowly. "I guess. I mean, I’m wicked strong. Really fast. And my reflexes pretty much guarantee that I’ll beat out Stacy Felser as captain of the cheerleading squad next fall."
"Well, she deserves to get knocked down a few pegs…"
"If they'll take us back..." said Buffy, looking towards the office door.
"Well," said Pike with a smirk, "if we have a note from our parents...."
"Damn it," Buffy gasped, looking around the warehouse. "We need to find a phone, you should call home...."
"Whatever," Pike said with a shrug. "They probably don’t care either way."
"They won’t be worried?"
"I was going to run away before the vampires attacked me," Pike replied, flinching as he leaned back gingerly. "I doubt they would miss me then, and I doubt they'd miss me now."
"Are you sure?"
"They’re usually too busy for me, anyway," Pike said with a shrug.
"Me, too," Buffy said quietly, closing her eyes. "I see Consuela more than I see them."
"Consuela?"
"Our maid."
"Wait…" Pike said, sitting up again. "You have people?"
"Person," she said, irritated as she crossed her arms. "Is that a problem?"
"No," Pike said. "Actually, it’s not even a surprise, I guess. You are from that end of town…"
"Excuse me?" said Buffy, arching her eyebrow.
"But that doesn't mean anything," Pike said quickly. "You’re not like the other girls."
Buffy softened, leaning against the stack of boxes beside Pike with a sigh. "Yes, I am. I am a normal girl. I want to be a normal girl. This whole Slayer thing, it’s… it’s too much. I just want to go back to where things were."
"Why?" Pike asked. "Because you’re a superhero?"
"Absolutely," Buffy said, hugging her knees to her chin. "I want to be like I was before. And this is coming from a girl who was flunking Remedial Dodgeball."
"You'd still be different," said Pike. "Even if you weren’t a damn Supergirl you’d still be different. Different from Stacy and the others. You were better than them before, and you still are."
Buffy raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Pike?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you hitting on me?"
"Maybe," he said with a shrug.
"Well," Buffy said, pushing herself closer, "You’re doing a better job than when you were kicking me in the back of the head at the movie theatre."
"Got your attention, though, didn’t it?" Pike teased. He leaned in.
Their lips met.
What are you doing? the slowly shriveling remnant of her former life cried out. This isn't Tyler! This isn't football team! This is Oliver Pike! OLIVER PIKE! He's, like, a boozer! A greasemonkey! A... a...
A...
A really good kisser.
Yow.
---------
"The dance," said Buffy. "The dance tonight."
"It's still the most likely target, yes," said Merrick, standing over the card table. He looked like he wanted to lean, but his considerable girth would be more than a match for the flimsy aluminum legs.
Scrawny Pike, however, had little problem leaning over the map, . "If Lothos wants to draw us out," he said, "wants to draw Buffy out, it’s the best place to do it."
"Agreed," said Merrick. "He doesn't know your name, Miss Summers, but he knows your face and has a good idea about your age. He'll go for the school. Lots of warm bodies."
Buffy nodded. The past three days had been spent within the walls of the warehouse, her life nothing more than training, sleeping, and eating the carry-out that Pike would scrounge up during the day.
Well, maybe a little more than those three things, she thought, sneaking a quick glance at Pike. The two didn’t get into much. Tough to do a lot with a boy when you know your Watcher’s sleeping in the next room, and the fact that she thought of Merrick as her Watcher as opposed to some skeezy old guy showed just how much she had serioused up about this whole Slayer business. Nothing like a direct threat on your life, I suppose...
However, when Merrick’s elephant-like snores echoed through the large warehouse, the two teenagers knew they could get a little bolder. They didn’t do everything, of course. Buffy’s cherry remained unpopped. But there was that one night where Buffy had to use her quickly-developing acrobatic skills to snag a bra which had flown its way up to the warehouse flourescents.
It’s just nice having a boyfriend who doesn’t treat me completely like shit.
Wait, boyfriend? Don't you already have a....
Buffy broke into a small smile before returning to the map.
"Could be a trap," said Pike.
"If it is, it will be a simplistic one," said Merrick. "Lothos doesn’t think very highly of our Slayer. He thinks that she’s soft and weak and will be there as a partier instead of as a warrior. I doubt he’s amassed much of an army in his time here in Los Angeles. If he brings anyone at all, it will most likely be a small contingent. He’ll rely on the panic of your classmates to disorient you."
"His mistake," said Buffy. "Besides, it’s not a trap if we know about it, right?"
"Indeed," Merrick nodded. "So, we have many options in how to approach the target. However, the best plan of attack would be for the three of us to enter the gymnasium as guests. That way we can get a better understanding of the layout, as well as how many civilians we'll need to move."
"I won’t be dressed to fight," said Buffy, "just dressed to kill. I'll dress like I was going to be at the party. It won't be much, but it might force him to lower his guard for a few moments. He’ll think I wasn’t expecting him."
"For once, you're thinking like a Slayer," said Merrick, the small smile mostly hidden beneath his bushy mustache the first that Buffy had seen on her Watcher's face since he met her. It was good to see. "Once Lothos arrives, Oliver and I will be in charge of crowd control while Buffy contends with the vampire."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Pike interjected, standing up straight and raising his hands. "Crowd control? No. I’m helping Buffy."
"Lothos is no match for you," said Merrick. "No match for either of us. Buffy is a Slayer. She’s the only one capable of fighting him."
"But…"
"But no," Merrick repeated more firmly. "We'll help her by getting the students out of her way. Lothos may not be alone, however, and we may have to deal with his followers ourselves. They'll be a threat to the students, but not to Buffy. Lothos will want her for himself; the others will only be there to feed and to cause a riot."
"But…" Pike repeated, turning helplessly to Buffy, who shook her head.
"He’s right," said Buffy. "I can handle Lothos. You can’t."
Besides, she added internally, I don’t want to see you get hurt.
Pike’s mouth dropped open, preparing to continue his protest, before slamming it shut again. "Fine," he grumbled. "I’ll play crossing guard."
"Good to hear you’re in agreement," said Merrick flatly. "We only have a few hours before the dance starts. Buffy and I will spend that time in final preparations, final training. Possibly some warm-up exercises. Oliver, in the meantime, will be going shopping."
"What for?" asked Pike.
"We’re attending a high school dance," Merrick explained. "We need to look the part. Since we’ve been wearing the same clothing for three days we’ll stick out like a sore thumb."
"Oh, yeah," said Pike, sniffing his armpits quickly. Yeah, a little ripe.
"Drug store for toiletries," said Merrick. "Then the thrift store. Goodwill. Something as close to a tuxedo that you can find for yourself. A white dress shirt and suit for me."
"Yeah, no problem," said Pike. "I’ll stop by REI. I’m sure they have a tent big enough for you."
Merrick’s eyes narrowed, but Pike only responded with a teasing wink as Buffy shook her head. The three of them had been living together these past few days, seeing no one but each other. Pike still gave Merrick the needle whenever he could, and it was wearing on the man. Pike didn't care; he still hadn’t completely gotten over the pummeling he had received when they first arrived.
"A white dress shirt," Merrick repeated shortly. "And a suit. A dress for Buffy. In each case, I want you to find something loose fitting, something that we can move and fight in without being restricted."
"Should be easy enough to find," said Pike. "For me, at least. You might have to lose the sleeves eventually, though."
"Do what you can…"
"I already have a dress," said Buffy. "The one I bought before I was the Slayer. It fits like we need it to."
"And where is it?" Merrick asked.
"At home."
"Out of the question," Merrick replied. "I want you out of the public eye until tonight."
"It’s daylight!" Buffy argued.
"Lothos has his minions," said Merrick calmly. "Not all of them vampire. You know this, Miss Summers, we’ve been through it all a thousand times already."
"Yeah, so what?" Buffy replied. "If they tell Lothos that we’re here, then he’ll show up here tonight instead of at the dance. Better for us!"
"If she’s going to be fighting tonight one way or another, might as well have him follow us here than to the school," Pike shrugged. "Fewer people hurt."
"The answer is no," said Merrick firmly.
"Try to stop me," Buffy said savagely before spinning towards the door.
"Get back here!" Merrick yelled as she walked away. "This is a direct order from your Watcher!"
"Hey," Pike said quietly, grabbing Merrick’s arm as the door slammed shut. "Let her go. She knows what she’s doing."
"No," said Merrick quietly. "No, she really doesn’t."
"It’s more than the dress," said Pike. "She wants to see her parents."
"As I said," Merrick said, returning to the map. "She doesn't know what she's doing. There’s a reason the Slayer is separated from the parents at a young age, before the bond can be formed. Attachments create weakness."
"I don’t see the harm in it," said Pike. "Might remind her that there’s someone she’s fighting for."
Merrick sighed, rubbing his hand wearily across his bristly cheeks. "Or it might give her a reason to stop fighting. And then we’re all doomed."
---------
"Where have you been?"
"Your mother and I were worried sick…"
Buffy sighed, leaning against the front door as her parents swooped down on her from the staircase. It was what she was expecting. Three days without any contact with them would send most parents into hysterics.
Unfortunately, Joyce and Hank Summers weren’t most parents.
"I’ve been out," Buffy said carefully.
"Out?" said Hank, his arms crossed as they reached the front hall. "Out where?"
"Look, it’s a really long story," Buffy said, calculating the space between her mother and father that she could slip through to get to the stairs.
"Well, then, it’s a good thing we have plenty of time," said Joyce, grabbing for Buffy's arm. "Because we’re going to sit down and you’re going to tell us-"
"Well, I don’t have time right now," said Buffy, pulling herself away and wedging her way past. "I’m not here for long."
"Oh, you’re not?" Joyce said as they followed Buffy up the stairs. "And where exactly do you think you’re going?"
"Tonight’s the dance, Mom," said Buffy, entering her room. "I’m going to the dance."
Joyce and Hank both laughed in disbelief. "You’re serious," said Hank. "You actually think that we’re going to allow you to leave this house after everything you’ve put us through?"
Buffy spun on them both, and her eyes wide. "Everything I’ve put you through?"
"Consuela called us two days ago," said Joyce. "She said the school had called, that you hadn’t been showing up to classes. We’ve been so worried about you ever since."
Buffy snorted . This wasn’t going the way she had expected. At all. She had wanted to comfort them, to tell them everything that was happening to her, to ease their minds, but…
"I’m sure you’ve been so worried," Buffy snapped. "But then there’s the bags that are downstairs, still by the front door. The ones you brought with you to Tahoe?"
"We weren’t in Tahoe," said Hank. "We were in Vegas."
"Consuela called you two days ago," said Buffy. "You’re a four hour drive from home, and you got back so soon that you haven’t even unpacked? Sounds like you were in deathly fear of my well-being. What, is the BMW's motor still warm?"
"Buffy, it’s not like that," Joyce said, recoiling. "And don’t you lay any of this on us."
"Oh, I’m sure it was nothing like that," Buffy snapped. This definitely wasn’t the way she wanted this to go, but now that she was in it… "If you were so concerned about me, did you call the police?"
"No, we didn’t," said Joyce. "But if you were still gone by tonight--"
"Oh, thank God," Buffy cried out, pulling her dress from the closet. "Because Lord knows you couldn’t dial 911 while you were sitting at the craps table!"
"Buffy…"
"’Buffy might be lying naked in a ditch somewhere, but, honey, we can’t miss Siegfried and Roy!’"
"Don’t talk back to your mother like that!" Hank yelled.
"Why not?" Buffy screamed. "You do all the time!"
"Buffy?" came a heavily-accented voice from downstairs. "Is that you? You are home?"
"It’s me, Consuela!" Buffy called back, her eyes never leaving her parents. "I’m home!"
"Gracia Dios!" Consuela cried. "It is good to know you are safe."
Thank God someone in this house cares about me, Buffy thought, but bit it back before it hit her tongue. Her parents were both speechless enough as is, and might even see the words floating in her eyes. But Buffy that would be the absolute worst thing to say to them. Even if they deserved it.
"Look," said Buffy, counting to ten really fast, "a lot has happened in the last few days. And I promise, I swear that I will tell you about it. About all of it. Even the stuff I know you’re not going to believe."
"Oh, you'll tell us alright-" said Hank.
"But not tonight," Buffy continued. "Because tonight I have to go. There’s something happening there that is really important. Something that I can’t miss."
"Of course not," said Hank with a roll of his eyes. "Your mother and I are nothing when your social life is at stake."
"You’re not going anywhere," said Joyce. "You're going to tell us everything. Everything."
"If I tell you about it now, then you definitely won’t let me go," said Buffy. "I can’t have that happen. I’m sorry."
"Not as sorry as we are," said Hank, and he and Joyce adjusted themselves so they could block the doorway to Buffy’s room. "You're grounded."
"Mom, Dad, please," said Buffy quietly. "Don’t make me force my way past you."
"If you try," said Hank, his eyes narrowing, "then we’re really going to have a talk."
Buffy stood stock still, staring down the two of them. Calculating her options. With her new Slayer strength she could push past them both like they were cardboard. But she knew how easily she had taken down Merrick with just that tiny punch. And that was a long time ago, with no training. She didn’t want to take the chance of hurting one of them, not when she still didn’t know how strong she really was.
Leaving Option Two…
"I’m sorry," she said, turning to her bedroom window. "But I can’t stay."
"Buffy!" Hank and Joyce yelled as one, running towards her as she opened the window and looked down from the second story to the grass below. She propped her foot up on the windowsill, preparing to climb over--
Then didn't.
When Hank and Joyce were inches away from grabbing her, Buffy pistoned her leg down, and backflipped over the Summerses. She tucked tight, barely clearing both them below and the ceiling above landing on her feet behind them.
Hank and Joyce spun around, both too in shock from their daughter’s sudden display to stop her as she ran out of her bedroom and down the hall. She reached the carpeted staircase and, just like when she was a small child, slid down the steps on her bottom before reaching the ground floor and, flying past a flabberghasted Consuela, sprinted outside, white dress still flapping in her hand.
She would never see Hank and Joyce Summers again.
---------
"The mission was a failure."
"Smythe?" came the gravelly voice of Quentin Travers from the other end of the payphone. "Is that you?"
"Of course it is," Merrick said, pushing one finger into his other ear to block out the noise of the freeway traffic on Interstate 40 outside of Kingman, Arizona. "I already gave my passcode to the screener, but it’s William Oboe Item Six Abel Three-"
"No, no," said Travers. "No need to… No need to repeat yourself. The screeners recognized your passcode, and also registered your pulse through the phone line, so we know you haven’t been turned."
Merrick’s brow furrowed. Quentin sounded unsure of himself, unsure of the situation. These qualities were rare in the head of the Watcher's Council. "Sir, I'm alive, but I have to report--"
"Merrick," Travers said with a sigh. "The Seers said you were to have died three nights ago."
Merrick blinked. "Well," he said gruffly, recovering quickly, "the Seers need their eyes checked."
"Quite," Travers said with a sigh. "And we already assigned Rupert Giles to replace you as Miss Summers’s new Watcher. He's in California awaiting the Slayer's arrival."
"Giles?" said Merrick. "Great. Fantastic. Gave him a library position, I assume? Ripper loves his books."
"Indeed," Travers said. "Well, I must say this is unexpected. The Council will have to sit down and discuss our further course of action regarding Mr. Giles."
"I'm not giving Buffy up, that's for damn sure. I've apparently performed my duties above and beyond what you expected of me."
"You have," said Travers. "Mr. Giles will remain in California until we can find him a new charge."
"Poor bastard," said Merrick dryly. "Stuck in the suburbs with his books instead of getting himself killed. He must be all torn up."
"And of your charge?" asked Quentin. "What of Miss Summers?"
"You should know that answer already," said Merrick. "Your Seers would have flipped a lid if the Slayer went and got herself replaced."
"This is true," said Travers. "But no debilitating injuries? No cause for euthanasia? She can still perform her duties?"
"Physically, we're right as rain. But Lothos escaped."
"That is disappointing news," said Travers. "But not unexpected. She was only recently called, after all. To face an opponent of his caliber and walk away speaks well for her and for you."
"I suppose so," said Merrick, leaning against the payphone. "But we didn’t get out clean. Steps have to be taken. And quickly."
"The fire?" Travers asked. "The London media is just getting wind of it."
"That’s the one," Merrick said with a sigh. "I’m sure your sources will be giving you the info soon enough, but I’ll beat you to the punch. Vampires were involved. Lothos was involved. The Slayer was involved. And now she’s public knowledge, at least within LA vampire circuits."
"Quite unfortunate," said Travers. "We will make the necessary arrangements, and will expect a full report in the coming days. However, as long as you two both survived, things do not look quite so bleak for our cause."
Merrick sighed, glancing back at the solitary figure in the rental car, purchased with an untraceable credit card assigned to each Watcher as a part of their arsenal. "Yeah," he said. "At least we both survived."
---------
Buffy Summers didn’t look up when Merrick opened the driver’s side door. Didn't even registered when he climbed in, didn’t even flinch when he slammed the door, jingled the keys into the ignition, and paused before starting the engine.
Buffy was past hysterics. That was before, as Merrick dragged her screaming from the burning gymnasium. When the terror was still fully bloomed in her mind. The blood. The gore. The fresh stench of death and smoke and fire as she faced more vampires than she had even imagined existed. Dozens that felt like millions. The bodies of her classmates falling lifeless, their throats stained red.
And… And…
Hysterics eventually bowed to deep shock. For the last two hours, just outside of Needles, Buffy had fallen into a deep malaise. Never looking to Merrick or to the road ahead. Simply staring down at her lap, picking at her charred, shredded skirt. Behind her wide, unblinking eyes the terror had given way to something much worse.
Oliver Pike’s death.
Over and over again in crystal-clear DVD quality picture. He and Merrick ushering the students out of the gymnasium as Buffy came face to face with Lothos, she saw him turn. Heard him yell her name. He ran to her, knowing that he couldn’t bear to leave her alone with Lothos another minute. Had to fight by her side.
Watching him put up a valiant effort. Three days watching the Slayer and the Watcher train, combined with years of street smarts, had helped his edge for a while. He and Merrick fought back a good number of the henchmen while Buffy did her best against their master.
But, in the end, there were too much. They swarmed down on Pike as the first flames began to lick the banners that Buffy and her friends had painted way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
She watched him fall, screaming her name. And she was lost. Lothos became distant. All she cared about was Pike. She faintly heard Merrick yelling for her to stop as she tore away the vampires from the pile. Out of the corner of her eye she heard her Watcher chanting something in some other language, saw the cross in his hand, standing between her and the reason for the madness. Heard, saw, felt, smelled the large chunk of flaming scaffolding crash down between the man and the vampire.
Felt his huge arm wrap around her waist. Felt him clutch her to his massive bulk as he dragged her away from the diminishing pile, the vampires doing their best to scatter, to survive the heat that would kill them so much faster than the humans. In the distance, across a wall of flame, Lothos stared after the two with maniacal hatred before retreating in the opposite direction.
As the door slammed behind them both, Buffy lost Pike’s body through the smoke.
"He’s gone," Merrick had breathed in her ear as the cool night air hit them both. "He’s gone."
Buffy kept screaming as he roughly tossed her into the car and drove away, the first fire trucks arriving as they departed. Screaming Pike’s name, screaming incoherent babble. Just screaming.
And now, silence.
"You’re dead."
Buffy blinked once as Merrick’s words brought her back to the present.
"You’re dead," he repeated, the car still sitting idle in the gas station parking lot. "And it’s a damn stroke of luck that you didn’t get yourself killed."
Buffy didn’t react. Merrick’s words were so faint compared to the tatters of her once-the-most-important-thing dress streaming through her fingers.
"The Watchers Council will do their work," Merrick continued. "Alter dental records, police reports, whatever it takes. Buffy Summers did not survive the fire. You’re dead to your friends, dead to your family, dead to Los Angeles, dead to the United States of America. Dead to everyone but me, you, and the Council. And, if the higher power is on our side, dead to Lothos, as well."
Buffy barely nodded. Some rational part of her mind stung at the thought of her parents, how they would react to the news. But that was for later.
Merrick sat in silence, both hands rested on the wheel. Presently he continued, "That was very foolish of you, Miss Summers. How you reacted in there. You let your emotions get the better of you. Put yourself and everyone else in danger, let one of the greatest vampires of his generation escape, simply to rescue someone who was beyond rescuing."
"They were killing him," she whispered, the first words out of her mouth in hours. She felt her throat crack as she spoke, feeling the damage done by her earlier screams.
"They killed him," Merrick corrected. "Past tense. One lesson you must learn as you continue your training is when to fight, when to protect, and when to give something up as a lost cause. Oliver disobeyed his orders and died because if it. More importantly, he was dead before you got to him. There was nothing you could have done to stop it from happening. In the meantime, Lothos was your target; Lothos should have remained your target. We don’t know how many more will suffer because of your actions tonight."
Buffy closed her eyes, feeling the lump in her throat and the tears forming behind her eyes at Merrick’s words. To her dismay, she didn’t even know which part of that speech hit her worse: Pike’s death or the fact that more would die by Lothos’s hands…
Merrick seemed to sense her anguish. She heard him exhale through his nose, and felt his hand on her shoulder, the first contact she ever remembered having from him that didn’t involve a punch to the face or a kick to the ribs. She lifted her eyes from her dress slightly, finding sudden interest in the keys hanging from the ignition. The plastic tog with the rental company's information hung from them, dirty and beaten from countless pockets.
"This isn’t the end," said Merrick carefully. "This is only the beginning, Miss Summers. The archives are filled with tales of the Slayer’s first battle. Many of them didn’t even survive their first vampire. But you did. You did, and you fought valiantly up until the end. You have much potential. I saw it. Lothos saw it. And, more importantly, his minions know it. I doubt he will find his base of power as strong tomorrow as he did tonight. The vampires that didn’t die tonight will scatter for the four hills. They know who they’re up against, and they know that Lothos is no match for you. They’ll try to find a new power base somewhere else."
"There are others?" Buffy croaked. "Other… Others like Lothos?"
"Possibly," said Merrick with a shrug. "There’s a mystical center in a town called Sunnydale, about two hours northwest of LA. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them head that way. But they're not our concern right now. Our concern now is your training. Somewhere as far away as possible, where the vampires still don’t know you exist. Somewhere where you’re less of a target while still in your infancy."
"Where?" she asked. "Where are we going?"
"Cleveland," said Merrick, finally turning the key, the engine roaring to life. "Don’t you fret, Miss Summers. Next time, we’ll be ready for him."
---------
Epic battles are so often anti-climactic.
Lothos did one day learn of Buffy and Merrick’s new location in Cleveland, Ohio. By the time he found them six months later he was weak, hungry, and utterly demoralized. Still licking his wounds from the Hemery fire and without a core of followers, his battle with an even stronger Buffy Summers lasted mere minutes.
Merrick Jamison-Smythe and Buffy Summers (now known in official paperwork as Anne Smythe, Merrick's adopted daughter) found a home on Cleveland’s Hellmouth, Merrick’s hometown, and stayed for the next three years. Ohio was never the same.
In Los Angeles, the final police report on the Hemery High School fire read thirty deaths. The fire was blamed on a roving gang of drug addicts, but the coroner never released the information about the small piercings on the necks of many of the victims. Three British roughnecks came to him one night and, well, convinced him that it would be for the best...
Joyce and Hank Summers came together briefly in their mourning following the "death" of their only child. Their separation was delayed, but inevitable. The divorce came two years later. Hank Summers moved to Austin, Texas, while Joyce opened an art gallery in San Francisco, where she would eventually die
After that night, Buffy Summers swore to herself that she would never allow anyone to get close again. To put someone's life in your hands, and to let someone think that they could stand by your side, would only mean death.
Never again was a motto she would hold close to her heart for years to come. Without school, family, or friends holding her back, her training intensified, Slaying becoming her sole purpose in life. Wipe them off the face of the planet, and maybe someday she could let someone in again.
Oliver Pike’s body was never found.
Cordelia Chase’s wish picked up steam....
My Fanfic Page / Chapter 2: White Hat
Author: kanedax
Fandom: Buffyverse
Spoilers: Buffy: The Origin (graphic novel, 1999), The Wish (BtVS, Season 3)
Characters/Pairings: Buffy/Pike, Merrick, Lothos
Rating: R for language, sexual situations, and violence
Summary: Cordelia Chase's wish lands here
Notes: This is the first chapter of the reboot to my old Buffy series, Portal. While the previous, uncompleted series began in season 5 and jumped around, this new version will be written chronologically. It will also contain new chapters, new sections within chapters, and possibly more newness that I don't know yet.
Expect a Brand New Chapter soon, and I hope you enjoy!
I don't own these characters. They belong to Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, and Dark Horse comics.
My Fanfic Page / Chapter 2: White Hat
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost
For want of a horse, the soldier was lost
For want of a soldier, the battle was lost
For want of a battle, the war was lost
For want of a war, the kingdom was lost
The kingdom was lost
For want of a nail
May 7, 1996
Quentin Travers looked up from the report as a slight knock interrupted the quiet of his study. He removed his reading glasses and leaned back in his chair.
“Enter," he said solemnly, his fingers tented across his chest. The door opened, and a young (by Watcher’s standards, of course), bespectacled man entered the office. The large pile of paperwork he was carrying began to slip from his grasp as he released the knob, and he barely stopped it from spilling across Travers's floor.
"You wished to see me, Mr. Travers?"
"I did," Quentin said with a nod. "I see you brought all of the requested paperwork?"
"Yes, sir," the man replied, his glasses sliding down his nose. "All of these forms... Is this what I think it is, Mr. Travers?"
"Perhaps," said Quentin. "Sit down, Rupert. I’ll fill you in on the details."
Rupert Giles nodded and, with a sigh of relief, set the pile on Quentin’s large oak desk before settling in the chair across from the head of the Watcher's Council.
"I must say, I am very excited," said Rupert. "Where am I being assigned? Where is the next Potential located?"
"You’re not being assigned to a Potential," said Quentin.
Giles blinked. "Oh," he said. "I am... I am being assigned to teach, then? To... to train?"
"In a way," Quentin said, hearing how carefully Rupert was trying to mask his disappointment. He pulled open the left-hand drawer, removing a manila folder that he had received hours previously.
"Oh," Giles repeated, clearing his throat. "Sir... I..."
"Yes?" said Quentin, his eyes narrowing.
"Sir..." Giles said, his self-confidence fluttering. "I do not believe that it is in the best interest of the Council to assign me as a trainer. I… I believe that I have… that I have proven myself in my years here… That I… that I would be of more use with a Potential than I would be in a classroom, training other Watchers."
"I agree," Quentin said simply.
Giles’s mouth dropped open. "You… you do?"
"I do," Quentin said.
"Well..." said Giles, cracking a nervous, yet relieved, smile. "Yes. Excellent."
"And, you would well in the future to not speak out of place in my presence, do you understand?"
"Yes," Giles said quietly, his face paling. "I am sorry, sir."
"You are not being assigned a teaching position out of the country," said Quentin, opening the folder, "nor are you being a Potential.
"You are being assigned the Slayer herself."
Giles stared at Quentin in confusion. "Excuse me?"
"Buffy Summers," Quentin continued, rotating the folder on his desk so Giles could read it. As he spoke the name, he sounded like he were speaking a vulgarity. Americans, he thought with a shudder. They think they're so creative. "You are to be her Watcher."
"But…" Giles stammered, pulling the file to him and adjusting his glasses. "But Miss Summers has already a Watcher. Merrick, yes?"
"Merrick Jamison-Smythe, yes," said Quentin. "But not for much longer. The Oracles are predicting that he will die tonight."
"Oh," Giles said softly, leaning back in his chair. "Oh, dear."
"Indeed," Quentin said, not seeming that put off by the news of the upcoming death of one of their cohorts. "Miss Summers has barely been under his Watch for long. After his death, her training must continue. And we in the Council believe that you are qualified to take his place. Archibald has spoken most highly of you."
"Well… this is... quite a shock," Giles stammered. "I… I don’t… Thank you for the consideration, sir."
"You will be leaving for Sunnydale, California immediately," Quentin explained. "The Oracles believe that that is where you will cross paths with Miss Summers, although they haven’t given a timeframe for when she will arrive. It may be tomorrow, it may be next year."
"So I should search for her?" Giles asked.
"No," Quentin replied. "The vampires will jump at a chance to attack a Watcherless Slayer. The last thing we want to do is make our presence, and hers, known by sniffing around. The Oracles say that she will come to Sunnydale. We’ll simply be sending you there to wait."
"And in the meantime?"
"We should be able to find you suitable employment," Quentin said, flipping to another page in the folder. You can finally put your library studies to good use, Mr. Giles."
---------
"This one may surprise you," said Merrick Jamison-Smythe, doing his best to stand firm against the ancient vampire towering over him. "She’s not like the others. Doesn’t play our way. I don’t even think she knows how strong she is."
Through the steam emanating from the boy’s car, smashed against the tree after a battle with the vampire's minions, Lothos stared down at the walrus-faced Watcher. The vampire could tell that the Watcher’s considerable girth was quaking in fear beneath his billowing trench coat. "Such drooling sentiment from a Watcher?" Lothos asked. "I’m all aglow. Surely she’s not that special, particularly if she was raised here."
As Lothos spoke, he raised his hand to make an example of the neighborhood in where they stood. "Expensive houses," he continued. "Plush lawns. And tiny, yapping dogs. A soft place. Surely you can’t believe that a warrior could come from such opulence?"
"You did," Merrick growled.
"That was a different time," Lothos said with a dismissive wave. "Even the rich and powerful needed a survival instinct during the plagues. Not like today. What’s the Slayer to do when I find her? File a lawsuit? Call her psychotherapist? Perhaps we could discuss our feelings and come to a mutual understanding?"
"Merrick!"
Merrick and Lothos both turned to the see the Slayer sprinting towards them.
"Oh, my," Lothos said with a smile. "It appears someone would like to join us."
"No!" Merrick screamed. "Get away from here, girl!"
Buffy Summers stopped in her tracks, her stake poised and ready.
The arrogance of this girl, Merrick thought. Already thinks she can fight him…
"You’re not ready for this," he continued. "Go!"
"Well, well," Lothos said serenely, turning his back on Merrick to face Buffy. "All this for me?"
Merrick watched as Buffy, seeming now to realize what she was up against, backed away from the advancing vampire, her eyes wide with horror. With quick calculation, Merrick reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pistol.
"Girl," Merrick growled, only vaguely hearing the sound of squealing tires in the background as he aimed the gun at the vampire's cloaked back, "for once in your life, do…"
Blam!
"…as you…"
Blam!
"…are told!"
Blam!
They wouldn't kill him, Merrick thought as he pulled the trigger. But they would hurt him enough to count. And they did, as Lothos, thankfully, turned his attention back to Merrick as the boy pulled up behind Buffy, the rear tire of his motorcycle skidding on the pavement.
"You heard the man, Buffy!" the boy yelled. "Get on!"
Buffy’s eyes darted between Merrick and the motorcycle, torn about which way was right.
"Let’s go, now," the boy continued anxiously, "before I realize how stupid it was to come back!"
Buffy grunted in frustration, then hopped on the back of the motorcycle, which peeled rubber before speeding away, leaving Merrick and Lothos in the distance.
"You insult me with that?" Lothos growled, glaring with disdain at the firearm still clutched inside Merrick's meaty fist.
Merrick smirked. He had won the battle, even if Lothos didn't know it yet. "Just a distraction," he said. "You’ll not have this one. Not this time."
---------
There comes a time in every person’s life when a choice is made that effects the world as it will be.
While it is true that the universe is made up of an infinite number of realities, created thanks to an infinite number of choices, the fact remains that most of these parallel realities are, in fact, nearly identical. So identical, in fact, that you could hop from one to another and never know it.
For example: One universe boasts that Ronald Reagan pulled in 54,455,472 votes in the popular vote for the 1984 presidential election, while another universe had him pulling in 54,455,471 after Cassandra Purndine of Raleigh, NC decided that she’d rather watch AfterMASH than go out and vote.
Another reality was created when Anton Petrov of Sliven, Bulgaria was talked into going back for seconds at dinnertime on August 19th, 1968.
And then there’s the particularly wacky universe where Stan Lee decided to color The Incredible Hulk a darker shade of green.
These inane choices pass us by the millions each day. In the grand scheme of things, they are meaningless, and affect no one's lives in the slightest.
But then there are the important choices…
Some may live their entire lives without ever coming upon these crossroads in life. These are kinds of decisions that start a ripple effect, stretching out distantly into the future and, sometimes, into the past. Even worse, unless you’re an assassin with a world leader in your scope, or a president with their finger on The Button, you rarely have the opportunity to even recognize your importance in the fabric of reality.
You can only hope that, when the crossroad comes, you hope to whatever power is above that you made the right choice, one that will put your universe on a path to success rather than ruin.
The other problem, of course, is that sometimes you have no say in the matter. Sometimes, without you knowing it, someone else changes your destiny for you…
---------
"Damn it!"
"What?"
"Hold on to me…"
Buffy’s mind was still away, next to Pike's crashed vehicle, where Lothos and Merrick were having a war of words. She knew that that war would be done soon. And there would be blood.
Because of that, she barely registered what Oliver Pike said to her before he squeezed the brakes on the motorcycle, causing the rear tire to scream as the front pivoted around on itself, aiming the bike back to the scene of the accident. Thankfully, Buffy's Slayer instincts took over, and she she grabbed him tightly without being thrown to the pavement.
"Jump when I say," Pike muttered to her, throttling the bike's engine.
"What are you doing?" Buffy yelled. The narrow wheels squealed on the pavement, and before she knew it they were rocketing towards the Watcher and the vampire.
"Letting my conscience be my guide," Pike yelled into the slipstream. "Fucking cricket…"
"If you have a plan, say it," Buffy said. "We’re running out of street."
"The plan is you jump off and I ram him."
"Wrong plan," Buffy replied.
"What?" cried Oliver, but she was right. Why did he even leave her on the bike to begin with? He should have shoved her off before going back for fat boy and Dracula.
"It's the wrong plan," she repeated, amazed that her Slayer instincts were taking hold so quickly, not just physically but mentally. Her brain was clicking at a million miles an hour. Formulating a plan of attack. Calculating distances. Angles. Speeds. Why couldn't she have thought like this before she failed geometry?
"Aim for his left shoulder," Buffy said. "Our left. And stay low."
"You going to explain this any further?" Pike asked, his argument about getting her off the bike lost to the authority in her voice.
"No," Buffy said shortly, pushing Pike with her left hand until his chin was practically touching the handlebar while holding the stake (a long one, thankfully) behind her back in her right. "Just do it."
Pike opened his mouth to ask more questions, but there was no time. In the end he just did as he was told. Lay low. Go faster. Aim for his left side…
Jump, you bastard, Buffy thought as Lothos grew in her sight. We're coming left, Jump to your right, jump to your right…
Fifty feet…
Forty…
Thirty…
Lothos looked up.
---------
"I have her face," Lothos said with a sinister grin as he stared down Merrick. "And after I make you mine - a vampire - you will give me her name, even kill her for me if I command it."
Merrick closed his eyes. Accepted the inevitable. "Not in this lifetime."
Merrick Jamison-Smythe lifted the pistol. Opened his mouth. Felt the cold steel press against his jaw.
"No!"
Merrick heard the roar of the gunpowder. Heard the thud of the bullet as it connected with the bridge of his mouth.
Only the roar wasn’t the gun. And the thud wasn’t the bullet.
In fact, he hadn’t even pulled the trigger yet…
Merrick opened his eyes to see Lothos sprawled on the ground. There was a screech of metal, and saw Oliver Pike’s motorcycle skidding along the pavement, Buffy and Pike sliding along with it. The shattered remnants of her stake still clutched in her hand.
She used it as a club, Merrick thought absently, his hand shaking as he lowered the gun. Hit Lothos with it...
Thank goodness they’re both wearing leather jackets, or they’d be stripped raw.
"Merrick!" Buffy yelled, pushing herself to her feet and running/limping towards her Watcher.
"Buffy!" Merrick yelled, his relief giving way to fury. "I ordered you…!"
"Screw orders," said Buffy, grabbing him. "We gotta get out of here."
Merrick and Buffy both looked down onto the grass, where Lothos was already up onto his hands and knees. A shot to the head at high speed could dizzy a vampire. But not for long…
"Merrick," Buffy panted, tugging on his thick arm. "Merrick, we have to run."
"Leave me," said Merrick. "You can’t…"
"Why the fuck do you think we came back?" Buffy cried. "You’re coming with us."
"On foot?" Merrick huffed. "I doubt I could keep up. And with the motorcycle dead..."
As if in answer, the engine of the crashed automobile, practically wrapped around the tree, roared miraculously to life.
"Woo hoo!" Pike howled from inside the car’s cab. "That’s my baby!"
"Not on foot," Buffy said quickly. "Now let’s move."
Merrick, finding no more strength to argue with his young charge, jumped into the back seat of the car while Buffy dove through the shattered passenger window like a scene out of Dukes of Hazzard.
Oliver punched the car into reverse, and flinched as the bumper, firmly embedded in the trunk, pulled from the car's frame with a screech of torn metal. "She's not going to give us triple digits anymore," he said, staring at the crumpled front hood like it was a battered lover, "but she’ll get us away."
Lothos had now regained his footing. He was still wobbling slightly. Another few seconds and…
"Less talk, more drive," said Buffy.
"You're the boss," said Oliver, punching it into third gear.
And as the car drove away into the night, followed by the vampire Lothos’s howl of rage, the world as they knew it changed.
---------
Merrick Jamison-Smythe was to have died on the evening of May 7, 1996; a self-inflicted gunshot wound should have removed the top of his skull, along with most of his brain, as Buffy Summers and Oliver Pike escaped to fight another day. To fight their own way, the first of many times Buffy could make that claim.
Buffy should have defeated Lothos at her school’s prom, with very little Slayer training, and accidentally burned down the gym in the process.
After hearing their daughter's delusional rantings about vampires, Joyce and Hank Summers should have placed Buffy Summers in a mental institution, and should have divorced soon after.
Buffy and Joyce Summers should have moved to 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California. Buffy should have met Rupert Giles, her new Watcher, along with her two greatest friends: Willow Rosenberg and Alexander Harris.
Buffy Summers was destined to save the save the world.
A lot.
Because Cordelia Chase made a wish three years later, Oliver Pike chose to save Merrick Jamison-Smythe that May night, and nothing went according to destiny.
Fucking cricket…
---------
"Are you sure this place is safe?" Oliver Pike asked, leaning over the steering wheel to get a good look at the roof of the massive warehouse.
"It’ll work as well as anything," said Buffy from the passenger seat as the shadows drifted over them and Oliver rolled the car to a clinking, clattering halt just inside the warehouse doors. "This is where we’ve been training. Just so long as they can’t, like, smell us or anything.... They can’t, can they?" she amended, turning in her seat to face the back.
"They could," said Merrick, his calm tenseness unnerving Pike to no end. "But not at this distance, and not through all of the exhaust this piece of junk was coughing up."
"Hey!" Oliver yelled defensively.
"They’d need a Hellhound to do it," Merrick continued, "and I have yet to hear of Lothos employing them."
"Oh, okay," Buffy said. "I… Wait, were you serious about the Hellhound part?"
Merrick pulled himself from the back of the car without a response. Buffy and Pike exchanged a nervous glance before exiting themselves.
"So what do we do now?" Pike asked, walking around to examine the front of the car. "I mean, how are we supposed to fight--?"
His words were cut short as Merrick’s ham-sized fist smashed into his stomach. Pike crumpled to his knees as Buffy sprinted up behind her Watcher.
"Merrick, what--!"
Merrick spun around and backhanded Buffy sharply across the face. Not expecting the attack in the least, Buffy reeled, staggering away from him. Her hand went to her face, and she wheeled around, staring at him in shock.
"What the fuck?"
"You disobeyed a direct order!" Merrick bellowed. "A direct order from your Watcher!"
"Wait…" Pike gasped, pushing himself to his hands and knees. "Wait... just..."
"Both of you!" Merrick howled in rage, sending his foot squarely into Pike's solar plexus. "You should have left with her!"
"We were trying to save you!" Buffy gasped, her still reeling from the shock of the attack.
"And it’s by a miracle that you survived!" Merrick yelled, advancing on her. "Never, ever are you to question my orders, Miss Summers! The world is in too much danger to even consider it!"
"If we had followed your orders we wouldn’t have heard any more from you!" Buffy screamed as Pike staggered to his feet, clutching his ribs. "You were going to kill yourself, Merrick! You had the gun in your mouth!"
"Rather me than you!" Merrick yelled. "Miss Summers, you have yet to realize your importance in this world. There are many Watchers, but there is only one Slayer! My life is unimportant. I would be replaced, you would not!"
"Sure I would," Buffy hissed, her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed. "When a Slayer dies, another rises to take her place, right?"
"You were willing to die for me," Merrick growled. "That makes you a fool, Miss Summers."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Buffy asked.
Merrick swore under his breath. "Good is powerful," he said, "but so is evil. Evil must be destroyed. And sometimes sacrifices must be made for that to happen. If I had died, your identity would remain safe. You would have been given a new Watcher to continue your training. If you had died, the new Slayer would have to start from scratch."
"Yeah, well, I didn’t die," Buffy said angrily. "And neither did you. So we’re still here, and the Watchers don’t have to start over like I was a bad soufflé. Not yet."
"You’re not a mistake," said Merrick. "But you have a lot to learn."
"Then fucking train me already…"
"I will," Merrick said, cooling slightly. "But in the morning. Tonight we rest."
"What about school?" asked Buffy as Merrick walked to the warehouse's small office. "What about my classes?"
"Miss Summers," Merrick replied, not turning back, "your days of high school are over. Tomorrow we continue your true lessons."
And without another word, Merrick walked through the office door, slamming it behind him.
A liquid-filled cough erupted from beside the car. "That... That is... cough cough."
"Pike!" Buffy cried out, remembering again that she and her Watcher weren’t alone in the warehouse. She walked over to him and helped him to his feet.
"That is … one intense dude," Pike gasped, leaning against the hood of the car with the hand not currently clenching his stomach.
"He gets that way," said Buffy, putting her hand on his back. "Are you alright?"
"Not bad," Pike said, turning away from his car to spit a was of blood-colored saliva onto the cement floor. "Feels like I’ve just had my ass kicked by a fat guy with a huge mustache, but otherwise I’m just dandy."
"Come on, sit down."
Pike nodded and threw his arm over Buffy’s shoulder as she navigated him across the floor. He let out a short hiss of pain as he lowered himself onto a pile of wooden pallets, still clutching his ribs.
"Better?" Buffy said uncertainly.
"Better enough," Pike groaned. "Okay… I’m still about three innings behind. Vampires, right?"
Buffy nodded. "Vampires."
"And the big guy," Pike said, pointing to the office door. "He’s your... Watcher?"
"He’s my Watcher."
"What’s a Watcher?"
"I’m still piecing that together myself," Buffy said with a shake of her head. "He’s, like, my trainer, I guess. My coach. Whatever."
"Because you’re the Slaver?"
"Slayer…"
"Which is a what?"
"No clue," said Buffy. "Merrick tried to explain it to me, but I'm still a little vague on the deets."
"Cliff Notes?"
Buffy sighed and took a deep breath. "In every generation a Slayer is born," she recited. "She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness."
Pike gaped at her. "Wow," he said. "Sounds... wow. So you’re, what, a superhero? Like Wonder Woman or something?"
"I don’t know," Buffy said slowly. "I guess. I mean, I’m wicked strong. Really fast. And my reflexes pretty much guarantee that I’ll beat out Stacy Felser as captain of the cheerleading squad next fall."
"Well, she deserves to get knocked down a few pegs…"
"If they'll take us back..." said Buffy, looking towards the office door.
"Well," said Pike with a smirk, "if we have a note from our parents...."
"Damn it," Buffy gasped, looking around the warehouse. "We need to find a phone, you should call home...."
"Whatever," Pike said with a shrug. "They probably don’t care either way."
"They won’t be worried?"
"I was going to run away before the vampires attacked me," Pike replied, flinching as he leaned back gingerly. "I doubt they would miss me then, and I doubt they'd miss me now."
"Are you sure?"
"They’re usually too busy for me, anyway," Pike said with a shrug.
"Me, too," Buffy said quietly, closing her eyes. "I see Consuela more than I see them."
"Consuela?"
"Our maid."
"Wait…" Pike said, sitting up again. "You have people?"
"Person," she said, irritated as she crossed her arms. "Is that a problem?"
"No," Pike said. "Actually, it’s not even a surprise, I guess. You are from that end of town…"
"Excuse me?" said Buffy, arching her eyebrow.
"But that doesn't mean anything," Pike said quickly. "You’re not like the other girls."
Buffy softened, leaning against the stack of boxes beside Pike with a sigh. "Yes, I am. I am a normal girl. I want to be a normal girl. This whole Slayer thing, it’s… it’s too much. I just want to go back to where things were."
"Why?" Pike asked. "Because you’re a superhero?"
"Absolutely," Buffy said, hugging her knees to her chin. "I want to be like I was before. And this is coming from a girl who was flunking Remedial Dodgeball."
"You'd still be different," said Pike. "Even if you weren’t a damn Supergirl you’d still be different. Different from Stacy and the others. You were better than them before, and you still are."
Buffy raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Pike?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you hitting on me?"
"Maybe," he said with a shrug.
"Well," Buffy said, pushing herself closer, "You’re doing a better job than when you were kicking me in the back of the head at the movie theatre."
"Got your attention, though, didn’t it?" Pike teased. He leaned in.
Their lips met.
What are you doing? the slowly shriveling remnant of her former life cried out. This isn't Tyler! This isn't football team! This is Oliver Pike! OLIVER PIKE! He's, like, a boozer! A greasemonkey! A... a...
A...
A really good kisser.
Yow.
---------
"The dance," said Buffy. "The dance tonight."
"It's still the most likely target, yes," said Merrick, standing over the card table. He looked like he wanted to lean, but his considerable girth would be more than a match for the flimsy aluminum legs.
Scrawny Pike, however, had little problem leaning over the map, . "If Lothos wants to draw us out," he said, "wants to draw Buffy out, it’s the best place to do it."
"Agreed," said Merrick. "He doesn't know your name, Miss Summers, but he knows your face and has a good idea about your age. He'll go for the school. Lots of warm bodies."
Buffy nodded. The past three days had been spent within the walls of the warehouse, her life nothing more than training, sleeping, and eating the carry-out that Pike would scrounge up during the day.
Well, maybe a little more than those three things, she thought, sneaking a quick glance at Pike. The two didn’t get into much. Tough to do a lot with a boy when you know your Watcher’s sleeping in the next room, and the fact that she thought of Merrick as her Watcher as opposed to some skeezy old guy showed just how much she had serioused up about this whole Slayer business. Nothing like a direct threat on your life, I suppose...
However, when Merrick’s elephant-like snores echoed through the large warehouse, the two teenagers knew they could get a little bolder. They didn’t do everything, of course. Buffy’s cherry remained unpopped. But there was that one night where Buffy had to use her quickly-developing acrobatic skills to snag a bra which had flown its way up to the warehouse flourescents.
It’s just nice having a boyfriend who doesn’t treat me completely like shit.
Wait, boyfriend? Don't you already have a....
Buffy broke into a small smile before returning to the map.
"Could be a trap," said Pike.
"If it is, it will be a simplistic one," said Merrick. "Lothos doesn’t think very highly of our Slayer. He thinks that she’s soft and weak and will be there as a partier instead of as a warrior. I doubt he’s amassed much of an army in his time here in Los Angeles. If he brings anyone at all, it will most likely be a small contingent. He’ll rely on the panic of your classmates to disorient you."
"His mistake," said Buffy. "Besides, it’s not a trap if we know about it, right?"
"Indeed," Merrick nodded. "So, we have many options in how to approach the target. However, the best plan of attack would be for the three of us to enter the gymnasium as guests. That way we can get a better understanding of the layout, as well as how many civilians we'll need to move."
"I won’t be dressed to fight," said Buffy, "just dressed to kill. I'll dress like I was going to be at the party. It won't be much, but it might force him to lower his guard for a few moments. He’ll think I wasn’t expecting him."
"For once, you're thinking like a Slayer," said Merrick, the small smile mostly hidden beneath his bushy mustache the first that Buffy had seen on her Watcher's face since he met her. It was good to see. "Once Lothos arrives, Oliver and I will be in charge of crowd control while Buffy contends with the vampire."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Pike interjected, standing up straight and raising his hands. "Crowd control? No. I’m helping Buffy."
"Lothos is no match for you," said Merrick. "No match for either of us. Buffy is a Slayer. She’s the only one capable of fighting him."
"But…"
"But no," Merrick repeated more firmly. "We'll help her by getting the students out of her way. Lothos may not be alone, however, and we may have to deal with his followers ourselves. They'll be a threat to the students, but not to Buffy. Lothos will want her for himself; the others will only be there to feed and to cause a riot."
"But…" Pike repeated, turning helplessly to Buffy, who shook her head.
"He’s right," said Buffy. "I can handle Lothos. You can’t."
Besides, she added internally, I don’t want to see you get hurt.
Pike’s mouth dropped open, preparing to continue his protest, before slamming it shut again. "Fine," he grumbled. "I’ll play crossing guard."
"Good to hear you’re in agreement," said Merrick flatly. "We only have a few hours before the dance starts. Buffy and I will spend that time in final preparations, final training. Possibly some warm-up exercises. Oliver, in the meantime, will be going shopping."
"What for?" asked Pike.
"We’re attending a high school dance," Merrick explained. "We need to look the part. Since we’ve been wearing the same clothing for three days we’ll stick out like a sore thumb."
"Oh, yeah," said Pike, sniffing his armpits quickly. Yeah, a little ripe.
"Drug store for toiletries," said Merrick. "Then the thrift store. Goodwill. Something as close to a tuxedo that you can find for yourself. A white dress shirt and suit for me."
"Yeah, no problem," said Pike. "I’ll stop by REI. I’m sure they have a tent big enough for you."
Merrick’s eyes narrowed, but Pike only responded with a teasing wink as Buffy shook her head. The three of them had been living together these past few days, seeing no one but each other. Pike still gave Merrick the needle whenever he could, and it was wearing on the man. Pike didn't care; he still hadn’t completely gotten over the pummeling he had received when they first arrived.
"A white dress shirt," Merrick repeated shortly. "And a suit. A dress for Buffy. In each case, I want you to find something loose fitting, something that we can move and fight in without being restricted."
"Should be easy enough to find," said Pike. "For me, at least. You might have to lose the sleeves eventually, though."
"Do what you can…"
"I already have a dress," said Buffy. "The one I bought before I was the Slayer. It fits like we need it to."
"And where is it?" Merrick asked.
"At home."
"Out of the question," Merrick replied. "I want you out of the public eye until tonight."
"It’s daylight!" Buffy argued.
"Lothos has his minions," said Merrick calmly. "Not all of them vampire. You know this, Miss Summers, we’ve been through it all a thousand times already."
"Yeah, so what?" Buffy replied. "If they tell Lothos that we’re here, then he’ll show up here tonight instead of at the dance. Better for us!"
"If she’s going to be fighting tonight one way or another, might as well have him follow us here than to the school," Pike shrugged. "Fewer people hurt."
"The answer is no," said Merrick firmly.
"Try to stop me," Buffy said savagely before spinning towards the door.
"Get back here!" Merrick yelled as she walked away. "This is a direct order from your Watcher!"
"Hey," Pike said quietly, grabbing Merrick’s arm as the door slammed shut. "Let her go. She knows what she’s doing."
"No," said Merrick quietly. "No, she really doesn’t."
"It’s more than the dress," said Pike. "She wants to see her parents."
"As I said," Merrick said, returning to the map. "She doesn't know what she's doing. There’s a reason the Slayer is separated from the parents at a young age, before the bond can be formed. Attachments create weakness."
"I don’t see the harm in it," said Pike. "Might remind her that there’s someone she’s fighting for."
Merrick sighed, rubbing his hand wearily across his bristly cheeks. "Or it might give her a reason to stop fighting. And then we’re all doomed."
---------
"Where have you been?"
"Your mother and I were worried sick…"
Buffy sighed, leaning against the front door as her parents swooped down on her from the staircase. It was what she was expecting. Three days without any contact with them would send most parents into hysterics.
Unfortunately, Joyce and Hank Summers weren’t most parents.
"I’ve been out," Buffy said carefully.
"Out?" said Hank, his arms crossed as they reached the front hall. "Out where?"
"Look, it’s a really long story," Buffy said, calculating the space between her mother and father that she could slip through to get to the stairs.
"Well, then, it’s a good thing we have plenty of time," said Joyce, grabbing for Buffy's arm. "Because we’re going to sit down and you’re going to tell us-"
"Well, I don’t have time right now," said Buffy, pulling herself away and wedging her way past. "I’m not here for long."
"Oh, you’re not?" Joyce said as they followed Buffy up the stairs. "And where exactly do you think you’re going?"
"Tonight’s the dance, Mom," said Buffy, entering her room. "I’m going to the dance."
Joyce and Hank both laughed in disbelief. "You’re serious," said Hank. "You actually think that we’re going to allow you to leave this house after everything you’ve put us through?"
Buffy spun on them both, and her eyes wide. "Everything I’ve put you through?"
"Consuela called us two days ago," said Joyce. "She said the school had called, that you hadn’t been showing up to classes. We’ve been so worried about you ever since."
Buffy snorted . This wasn’t going the way she had expected. At all. She had wanted to comfort them, to tell them everything that was happening to her, to ease their minds, but…
"I’m sure you’ve been so worried," Buffy snapped. "But then there’s the bags that are downstairs, still by the front door. The ones you brought with you to Tahoe?"
"We weren’t in Tahoe," said Hank. "We were in Vegas."
"Consuela called you two days ago," said Buffy. "You’re a four hour drive from home, and you got back so soon that you haven’t even unpacked? Sounds like you were in deathly fear of my well-being. What, is the BMW's motor still warm?"
"Buffy, it’s not like that," Joyce said, recoiling. "And don’t you lay any of this on us."
"Oh, I’m sure it was nothing like that," Buffy snapped. This definitely wasn’t the way she wanted this to go, but now that she was in it… "If you were so concerned about me, did you call the police?"
"No, we didn’t," said Joyce. "But if you were still gone by tonight--"
"Oh, thank God," Buffy cried out, pulling her dress from the closet. "Because Lord knows you couldn’t dial 911 while you were sitting at the craps table!"
"Buffy…"
"’Buffy might be lying naked in a ditch somewhere, but, honey, we can’t miss Siegfried and Roy!’"
"Don’t talk back to your mother like that!" Hank yelled.
"Why not?" Buffy screamed. "You do all the time!"
"Buffy?" came a heavily-accented voice from downstairs. "Is that you? You are home?"
"It’s me, Consuela!" Buffy called back, her eyes never leaving her parents. "I’m home!"
"Gracia Dios!" Consuela cried. "It is good to know you are safe."
Thank God someone in this house cares about me, Buffy thought, but bit it back before it hit her tongue. Her parents were both speechless enough as is, and might even see the words floating in her eyes. But Buffy that would be the absolute worst thing to say to them. Even if they deserved it.
"Look," said Buffy, counting to ten really fast, "a lot has happened in the last few days. And I promise, I swear that I will tell you about it. About all of it. Even the stuff I know you’re not going to believe."
"Oh, you'll tell us alright-" said Hank.
"But not tonight," Buffy continued. "Because tonight I have to go. There’s something happening there that is really important. Something that I can’t miss."
"Of course not," said Hank with a roll of his eyes. "Your mother and I are nothing when your social life is at stake."
"You’re not going anywhere," said Joyce. "You're going to tell us everything. Everything."
"If I tell you about it now, then you definitely won’t let me go," said Buffy. "I can’t have that happen. I’m sorry."
"Not as sorry as we are," said Hank, and he and Joyce adjusted themselves so they could block the doorway to Buffy’s room. "You're grounded."
"Mom, Dad, please," said Buffy quietly. "Don’t make me force my way past you."
"If you try," said Hank, his eyes narrowing, "then we’re really going to have a talk."
Buffy stood stock still, staring down the two of them. Calculating her options. With her new Slayer strength she could push past them both like they were cardboard. But she knew how easily she had taken down Merrick with just that tiny punch. And that was a long time ago, with no training. She didn’t want to take the chance of hurting one of them, not when she still didn’t know how strong she really was.
Leaving Option Two…
"I’m sorry," she said, turning to her bedroom window. "But I can’t stay."
"Buffy!" Hank and Joyce yelled as one, running towards her as she opened the window and looked down from the second story to the grass below. She propped her foot up on the windowsill, preparing to climb over--
Then didn't.
When Hank and Joyce were inches away from grabbing her, Buffy pistoned her leg down, and backflipped over the Summerses. She tucked tight, barely clearing both them below and the ceiling above landing on her feet behind them.
Hank and Joyce spun around, both too in shock from their daughter’s sudden display to stop her as she ran out of her bedroom and down the hall. She reached the carpeted staircase and, just like when she was a small child, slid down the steps on her bottom before reaching the ground floor and, flying past a flabberghasted Consuela, sprinted outside, white dress still flapping in her hand.
She would never see Hank and Joyce Summers again.
---------
"The mission was a failure."
"Smythe?" came the gravelly voice of Quentin Travers from the other end of the payphone. "Is that you?"
"Of course it is," Merrick said, pushing one finger into his other ear to block out the noise of the freeway traffic on Interstate 40 outside of Kingman, Arizona. "I already gave my passcode to the screener, but it’s William Oboe Item Six Abel Three-"
"No, no," said Travers. "No need to… No need to repeat yourself. The screeners recognized your passcode, and also registered your pulse through the phone line, so we know you haven’t been turned."
Merrick’s brow furrowed. Quentin sounded unsure of himself, unsure of the situation. These qualities were rare in the head of the Watcher's Council. "Sir, I'm alive, but I have to report--"
"Merrick," Travers said with a sigh. "The Seers said you were to have died three nights ago."
Merrick blinked. "Well," he said gruffly, recovering quickly, "the Seers need their eyes checked."
"Quite," Travers said with a sigh. "And we already assigned Rupert Giles to replace you as Miss Summers’s new Watcher. He's in California awaiting the Slayer's arrival."
"Giles?" said Merrick. "Great. Fantastic. Gave him a library position, I assume? Ripper loves his books."
"Indeed," Travers said. "Well, I must say this is unexpected. The Council will have to sit down and discuss our further course of action regarding Mr. Giles."
"I'm not giving Buffy up, that's for damn sure. I've apparently performed my duties above and beyond what you expected of me."
"You have," said Travers. "Mr. Giles will remain in California until we can find him a new charge."
"Poor bastard," said Merrick dryly. "Stuck in the suburbs with his books instead of getting himself killed. He must be all torn up."
"And of your charge?" asked Quentin. "What of Miss Summers?"
"You should know that answer already," said Merrick. "Your Seers would have flipped a lid if the Slayer went and got herself replaced."
"This is true," said Travers. "But no debilitating injuries? No cause for euthanasia? She can still perform her duties?"
"Physically, we're right as rain. But Lothos escaped."
"That is disappointing news," said Travers. "But not unexpected. She was only recently called, after all. To face an opponent of his caliber and walk away speaks well for her and for you."
"I suppose so," said Merrick, leaning against the payphone. "But we didn’t get out clean. Steps have to be taken. And quickly."
"The fire?" Travers asked. "The London media is just getting wind of it."
"That’s the one," Merrick said with a sigh. "I’m sure your sources will be giving you the info soon enough, but I’ll beat you to the punch. Vampires were involved. Lothos was involved. The Slayer was involved. And now she’s public knowledge, at least within LA vampire circuits."
"Quite unfortunate," said Travers. "We will make the necessary arrangements, and will expect a full report in the coming days. However, as long as you two both survived, things do not look quite so bleak for our cause."
Merrick sighed, glancing back at the solitary figure in the rental car, purchased with an untraceable credit card assigned to each Watcher as a part of their arsenal. "Yeah," he said. "At least we both survived."
---------
Buffy Summers didn’t look up when Merrick opened the driver’s side door. Didn't even registered when he climbed in, didn’t even flinch when he slammed the door, jingled the keys into the ignition, and paused before starting the engine.
Buffy was past hysterics. That was before, as Merrick dragged her screaming from the burning gymnasium. When the terror was still fully bloomed in her mind. The blood. The gore. The fresh stench of death and smoke and fire as she faced more vampires than she had even imagined existed. Dozens that felt like millions. The bodies of her classmates falling lifeless, their throats stained red.
And… And…
Hysterics eventually bowed to deep shock. For the last two hours, just outside of Needles, Buffy had fallen into a deep malaise. Never looking to Merrick or to the road ahead. Simply staring down at her lap, picking at her charred, shredded skirt. Behind her wide, unblinking eyes the terror had given way to something much worse.
Oliver Pike’s death.
Over and over again in crystal-clear DVD quality picture. He and Merrick ushering the students out of the gymnasium as Buffy came face to face with Lothos, she saw him turn. Heard him yell her name. He ran to her, knowing that he couldn’t bear to leave her alone with Lothos another minute. Had to fight by her side.
Watching him put up a valiant effort. Three days watching the Slayer and the Watcher train, combined with years of street smarts, had helped his edge for a while. He and Merrick fought back a good number of the henchmen while Buffy did her best against their master.
But, in the end, there were too much. They swarmed down on Pike as the first flames began to lick the banners that Buffy and her friends had painted way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
She watched him fall, screaming her name. And she was lost. Lothos became distant. All she cared about was Pike. She faintly heard Merrick yelling for her to stop as she tore away the vampires from the pile. Out of the corner of her eye she heard her Watcher chanting something in some other language, saw the cross in his hand, standing between her and the reason for the madness. Heard, saw, felt, smelled the large chunk of flaming scaffolding crash down between the man and the vampire.
Felt his huge arm wrap around her waist. Felt him clutch her to his massive bulk as he dragged her away from the diminishing pile, the vampires doing their best to scatter, to survive the heat that would kill them so much faster than the humans. In the distance, across a wall of flame, Lothos stared after the two with maniacal hatred before retreating in the opposite direction.
As the door slammed behind them both, Buffy lost Pike’s body through the smoke.
"He’s gone," Merrick had breathed in her ear as the cool night air hit them both. "He’s gone."
Buffy kept screaming as he roughly tossed her into the car and drove away, the first fire trucks arriving as they departed. Screaming Pike’s name, screaming incoherent babble. Just screaming.
And now, silence.
"You’re dead."
Buffy blinked once as Merrick’s words brought her back to the present.
"You’re dead," he repeated, the car still sitting idle in the gas station parking lot. "And it’s a damn stroke of luck that you didn’t get yourself killed."
Buffy didn’t react. Merrick’s words were so faint compared to the tatters of her once-the-most-important-thing dress streaming through her fingers.
"The Watchers Council will do their work," Merrick continued. "Alter dental records, police reports, whatever it takes. Buffy Summers did not survive the fire. You’re dead to your friends, dead to your family, dead to Los Angeles, dead to the United States of America. Dead to everyone but me, you, and the Council. And, if the higher power is on our side, dead to Lothos, as well."
Buffy barely nodded. Some rational part of her mind stung at the thought of her parents, how they would react to the news. But that was for later.
Merrick sat in silence, both hands rested on the wheel. Presently he continued, "That was very foolish of you, Miss Summers. How you reacted in there. You let your emotions get the better of you. Put yourself and everyone else in danger, let one of the greatest vampires of his generation escape, simply to rescue someone who was beyond rescuing."
"They were killing him," she whispered, the first words out of her mouth in hours. She felt her throat crack as she spoke, feeling the damage done by her earlier screams.
"They killed him," Merrick corrected. "Past tense. One lesson you must learn as you continue your training is when to fight, when to protect, and when to give something up as a lost cause. Oliver disobeyed his orders and died because if it. More importantly, he was dead before you got to him. There was nothing you could have done to stop it from happening. In the meantime, Lothos was your target; Lothos should have remained your target. We don’t know how many more will suffer because of your actions tonight."
Buffy closed her eyes, feeling the lump in her throat and the tears forming behind her eyes at Merrick’s words. To her dismay, she didn’t even know which part of that speech hit her worse: Pike’s death or the fact that more would die by Lothos’s hands…
Merrick seemed to sense her anguish. She heard him exhale through his nose, and felt his hand on her shoulder, the first contact she ever remembered having from him that didn’t involve a punch to the face or a kick to the ribs. She lifted her eyes from her dress slightly, finding sudden interest in the keys hanging from the ignition. The plastic tog with the rental company's information hung from them, dirty and beaten from countless pockets.
"This isn’t the end," said Merrick carefully. "This is only the beginning, Miss Summers. The archives are filled with tales of the Slayer’s first battle. Many of them didn’t even survive their first vampire. But you did. You did, and you fought valiantly up until the end. You have much potential. I saw it. Lothos saw it. And, more importantly, his minions know it. I doubt he will find his base of power as strong tomorrow as he did tonight. The vampires that didn’t die tonight will scatter for the four hills. They know who they’re up against, and they know that Lothos is no match for you. They’ll try to find a new power base somewhere else."
"There are others?" Buffy croaked. "Other… Others like Lothos?"
"Possibly," said Merrick with a shrug. "There’s a mystical center in a town called Sunnydale, about two hours northwest of LA. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them head that way. But they're not our concern right now. Our concern now is your training. Somewhere as far away as possible, where the vampires still don’t know you exist. Somewhere where you’re less of a target while still in your infancy."
"Where?" she asked. "Where are we going?"
"Cleveland," said Merrick, finally turning the key, the engine roaring to life. "Don’t you fret, Miss Summers. Next time, we’ll be ready for him."
---------
Epic battles are so often anti-climactic.
Lothos did one day learn of Buffy and Merrick’s new location in Cleveland, Ohio. By the time he found them six months later he was weak, hungry, and utterly demoralized. Still licking his wounds from the Hemery fire and without a core of followers, his battle with an even stronger Buffy Summers lasted mere minutes.
Merrick Jamison-Smythe and Buffy Summers (now known in official paperwork as Anne Smythe, Merrick's adopted daughter) found a home on Cleveland’s Hellmouth, Merrick’s hometown, and stayed for the next three years. Ohio was never the same.
In Los Angeles, the final police report on the Hemery High School fire read thirty deaths. The fire was blamed on a roving gang of drug addicts, but the coroner never released the information about the small piercings on the necks of many of the victims. Three British roughnecks came to him one night and, well, convinced him that it would be for the best...
Joyce and Hank Summers came together briefly in their mourning following the "death" of their only child. Their separation was delayed, but inevitable. The divorce came two years later. Hank Summers moved to Austin, Texas, while Joyce opened an art gallery in San Francisco, where she would eventually die
After that night, Buffy Summers swore to herself that she would never allow anyone to get close again. To put someone's life in your hands, and to let someone think that they could stand by your side, would only mean death.
Never again was a motto she would hold close to her heart for years to come. Without school, family, or friends holding her back, her training intensified, Slaying becoming her sole purpose in life. Wipe them off the face of the planet, and maybe someday she could let someone in again.
Oliver Pike’s body was never found.
Cordelia Chase’s wish picked up steam....
My Fanfic Page / Chapter 2: White Hat