"Buffy and the Beast" Chapter 2 - A BtVS Fanfic
(Warning: Incomplete Indefinitely)
Title: Buffy and the Beast'
Chapter: 2 - The Plot Thickens
Author: illyriaz_shell
Original Publish Date: Sometime in 2005
Rating: PG (so far)
Takes Place: Sort of AU Universe
Pairing: Spuffy
Summary: In an isolated English mountainside town, which also happens to be a hellmouth, American Teenage Slayer Buffy Summers and her Watcher Giles fight off vampires, demons and the forces of darkness. However, ignorant locals, Initiative presence in the form of Agent Riley Finn, and a curse on an even more isolated castle run by a vampire prince, lead to somewhat traditional fairytale antics. And untraditional romance.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, not mine, so don't sue.
A/N: I wrote this so so so very long ago, so it is a bit immature in it's writing. My writing of this fic has also been indefinitely suspended. Its not that I didn't know where I was taking this story. It's just when I was writing it, I got busy with other things, and by the time I had the time to write it, the flow was gone. However, positive comments may put me back in that flow. ;)
Chapter Summary: Buffy gets an offer she has no problem refusing, and Giles goes on a slight detour on his way to the council.
( Chapter 1) | ( Chapter 3)
----------
When Buffy arose the next morning, Giles was gone.
The sun shone on her eyes, and it was too bright for…what did her watch say? 11:00 am?
Much too early to be awake, she confirmed, and hid her face under her covers.
At 11:17 am, when she realized her diabolical plan to fall back asleep had failed, her eyes peaked out from under the covers and she took in the sight of the almost empty cabin.
It wasn’t so bad, she considered, now that she was temporarily the only occupant. Not that she’d admit that it was worth what the landlords had overcharged on this two-room hut. At least there are a few alchemists on the Council, because this is one expense I don’t think I could really justify to mom.
She looked around. The cabin wasn’t much. The hatched roof had given her and Giles some funtastic stormy nights, but the bricking seemed to be solid enough for something that could very well be a thousand years old. The wooden floors were cold at night, but the fireplace in the corner opposite to her cot was sufficient enough heat when the chill became unbearable. And, let’s face it. Teenage girl from California who likes to sunbathe daily. Anything below 85 degrees is unbearable.
The couch on the other side of the two-seater kitchen table was clearly Giles’ bed. If it wasn’t obvious because of the mountain of books you had to climb over to reach the thing, than the empty tea cups splayed along the back headrest surely gave it away. Her bed was up against the wall in a little alcove that was home to the only window in the entire shack. She had thought at first sleeping in the alcove would give her a much needed sense of privacy, but the cool wind at night and the bright sun she awoke to each morning more than paid her in kind for her greed.
But at this moment, the thing that annoyed her most about her current home was the knocking on the ornately carved wooden door that was barely out of her view. She hoped the tactic of ignore-it-and-maybe-it-will-go-away would slay the evil percussion, but Buffy at last gave into the pounding and shuffled over to the front to open the door.
Not really giving a damn, she answered “Who the hell is it?” When Buffy’s eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw that it was her favouritest person in the whole wide world.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Look, Buffy. Forget about last night. I’ve been issued an order from my superior to give you this.” Riley handed her a crisp piece of paper that she begrudgingly took from his hands.
“What is…”
”Read it.” The soldier nodded towards the paper.
Upon inspection, Buffy realized it was an email and her heart silently leapt at the concept of an internet connection.
To: Miss Buffy Summers
From:Professor Walsh
“You’re superior is a professor? Is he like a government Giles or something?” Buffy stuck out her tongue at the concept.
Riley was getting uncharacteristically impatient. “No she is not. Just read it already.”
“Fine.”
RE:Classified
We at the Initiative have been informed of your combat skills and dedication to the common mission we share in eliminating the HST pestilence. We wish to offer you an official position in the Initiative, which would include an agent number and rank that would allot you equal benefits to that of Agent Finn.
Should you choose to accept, your first mission will begin within the next month. You and Agent Finn will be relocated to an undisclosed location where the HSTs are compromising the Initiative’s control. Report your decision by 18:00 and new data will transferred to you via Agent Finn at that time.
Buffy looked up at the giddy commando. “What’s an HST?”
”Hostile Sub Terrestrial. I understand if you need a few hours to make your decision.”
“Wow, that’s great.” She crumpled up the note and threw it over her shoulder. “I really don’t need that much time. I need to be here, in Sunnyhill, to prevent an apocalypse. That thing? The end of the world, hell unleashed on earth, demons have free reign thing? You can tell Professor Cold-Bitch that I’m really not interested in taking orders from the United States, okay?”
Riley sighed, but remained in standard army stance. “Buffy, it’s not like you don’t take orders from Giles. From that weird council. It’s not the first time Walsh has requested me to ask you to join the Initiative.” He began to walk in the door. “She‘s really interested in your skills. You’d make a great soldier.”
Buffy raised her hand to stop him from entering, and raised the other with her index finger pointing. “Okay, first of all, I do not take orders from Giles. I ask him how to kill the evil demon, he looks it up in one of his musty old books, tells me, and I go kill the evil demon.” She shot at him, then added, “If I feel like it,” for good measure.
“Secondly,” she raised the middle finger, “You’re right, I do already have a bunch of crusty old watchers breathing down my neck; their careers dependent on how well I do out here in Medieval Times: Dinner and Theater. And as much as they all deserve a good drop-kick, I’m not quite ready to trade them, or worse, keep them, in addition to an army of soldiers and generals with your ego and even larger grenades up their asses.”
Riley tried to step forward, giving his most intimidating glower. “Off the record, you’re really being a bitch about this. I offer you the protection of the United States Government, and you think you have the right to turn us down. To spit in our face? You’re way out of your league, little girl.”
“Thirdly,” an unfazed Buffy continued as raised her ring finger, “I am a great soldier, something your sexist and domineering male mind just can’t seem to grasp. But as a rule, Slayers tend to work alone, a guideline which I’m grateful for, ‘cause it means I don’t have to worry about saving your ass when it gets severely kicked during first round with a newbie vamp.”
“Buffy,” Riley groaned, and stepped towards her to grab her. Buffy leapt back, and her counting hand quickly formed a fist, ready to strike at the first motion.
“Touch me, and I’m gonna give you reasons Four and Five.” She glared at him, and he eyed her fist. Riley was confident, even after last-night’s face-bash, that he could take Buffy in a sparring match. But he had seen that fist punch through solid rock a few weeks earlier and he didn’t want his first serious battle wound to be credited to a 110-pound teenage girl. He raised his hands in defense. Silence followed until his demeanor shifted to anger.
“You’ll regret this.” Riley about-faced and stormed off down the dirt road.
Thank. God. Almighty. Buffy was suddenly wide awake and still had the urge to hit something. She slammed the door, and went around the back of her cabin to the field she deemed as her backyard. The view of the valley in the distance was enough to justify the price of the small cottage. Mountains covered in exotic-looking trees, waterfalls and large patches of nature untouched by man sparkled in the sunlight that was almost at it’s most intense peak.
She took it in, and then began beating the crap out of the punching dummy her watcher had set up for her when they first arrived. Giles, you better come back soon, or I’m gonna be forced to break that no killing human rule. Hard.
Giles held the map in front of his face, and then looked around at the dead and decaying foliage that was gradually getting tangled in his luggage every time he instructed Faith to turn.
“This can’t be right.” He mumbled as he held the flashlight up to the map to see just exactly where he had made the wrong turn. Giles had noticed that it was roughly around mid-day when had checked his watch fifteen minutes earlier, but the trees here were so thick, even in their rotting state, that it might as well have been midnight. A forest of eternal darkness was not something he fancied himself in at the moment; without his Slayer to protect him, he was nothing but fodder for the creatures that flourished at night. And thanks to his knowledge as a watcher, he had every grotesque idea of what some of those creatures may be.
Twelve years at Watchers Academy, Giles sighed. A great deal of that learning how to interpret ancient demon texts, archaic languages and rituals from other dimensions, and I can’t piece together the simple ramblings of an English cartographer! He removed his glasses and wiped them with a hanky, then repositioned them on his nose. The watcher noticed, as he moved his hand back to the horse’s reigns, that he could see a small beacon of light in the distance.
He decided any place that light could touch was better than perpetual midnight, so he motioned Faith towards the opening. Giles instructed her to move slowly, since disturbing the area would more than likely give away his position to any deviants hiding in the bushes. When a twig snapped, Giles kicked Faith lightly for making sound, but it was only after this he realized the noise had come from off in the distance.
“Oh dear” was all he could muster as the wind was knocked out of him as he was thrown off the horse. He looked up, and three vampires carrying long branches hovered over him. There were two males, one with dark hair, and one with blazing red, and one female with dark brown hair. The female vampire looked, surprisingly, to be the strongest of the three.
“I haven’t had a human in ages,” said the red haired vamp.
“I’m tired of feeding off of vermin,” commented the female, “I bet your blood’s thicker than a rabbits.” She winked at Giles.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” said the dark haired vampire. The three of them raised the sticks above their head, getting ready to strike. Suddenly, the red head was booted fifteen feet away, taking the female with him.
Dark hair turned around to see that the horse was lowering its hind leg and preparing to charge at him. He stared down the horse, challenging it to take him down, and saw the fire in the animal’s eyes only the second before its head collided with the vampire’s solar plexus.
Faith nudged Giles to move, and he quickly hopped up. He jolted the reigns, and horse and watcher were headed straight for that light in the distance.
Please be somewhere safe, he begged as he could hear the three vampires gaining on them. A claw scratched Faith’s hip, and she turned around, ready to stomp whatever vampire had dared touch the wild stallion. She bucked up; intimidating the demons, but Giles, as well as all of the luggage, was flung off her.
Giles hit the ground hard, and the angle at which his left side hit the rocks sent an aching jolt of pain rippling through his entire body. He was sure his leg was broken, but from what he could see, the vampires were already losing interest in the horse. He was feet away from sunlight, so despite the sharp pain that now dominated his conscious mind, he scrambled towards the opening in the woods.
Giles hand reached the light when he felt a tug on his shoulder.
The female whispered very huskily in his ear, “Not going to leave now, are you? When we were having so much fun!”
The old watcher swirled around, uppercut the demon right in the chin, and crawled into the light.
The three vampires hissed when their skin began to sizzle, and they crept back into the darkness. Giles could only see their yellow eyes glowing with rage in the darkness.
“No fair,” the female growled. “He didn’t play by the rules.”
“The horse!” one of the males said. “It’s gone! Look!”
The three eyes disappeared for a minute. “No, our dinner! We’ll starve!”
The one reappeared for a minute and said “Be thankful you’re in the sunlight, old man, or your death would be anything but quick.”
Giles inched back even further, just to be safe, and collapsed when the pair of eyes disappeared.
Several minutes later, when the throbbing pain in his leg made its unwelcome reappearance and new sharpness in his side emerged, Giles decided he needed to find somewhere for help. But what kind of hospital did he expect to find in the middle of nowh…
As he turned around, he found himself on the outskirts of what looked like, and there was no better way to describe it, a kingdom.
The town was quaint, overlooked by a castle, and surrounded by a gate that only went up to his waist. The buildings were made of stone and wood, but significantly more advanced looking than those of Sunnyhill. They had been perhaps built within the last few centuries, and judging by the relatively absent signs of decay and destruction, they were fairly well constructed and maintained. He took in the sight of beautifully built churches and each store adorning its own label, like the baker’s shop he could see mere footsteps away. He was clearly standing in the marketplace of the town. It was a perfect picture, one any artist would feel privileged enough to set their eyes on and dream of capturing on canvas.
In fact, the only thing missing from this picture perfect town were the inhabitants.
As the watcher shuffled through the village, he inspected almost every window he could come upon, but to no avail. All he found was empty rooms, broken furniture, and massive dust clouds. And a terrible stench. He searched high and low, but the only other moving object he could find was the stereotypical tumbleweed rolling in the wind.
What he did notice, however, is the more he approached the castle on the hill, the more frequent the destruction of property. Windows were shattered, boxes and crates lay half broken in the streets, and the heaps of dirt were beginning to look more like decaying corpses. The smell was becoming unbearable, and he needed to escape this place.
As Giles looked up and around for an exit that wouldn’t lead to his death, he realized something he hadn’t before. The sky directly above him was dark, covered in tumultuous clouds that gave off silent lightning. The colours of red and grey swirled above him, but stopped directly over the gates of the palace walls. It seemed that the only clear blue sky for miles around hovered directly over the castle, and the sun, at that particular moment, was angled to shine over the town like a tilted spotlight.
Strange for the middle of day… Giles wondered, but was thankful nonetheless that the sun had been positioned to protect him from the demons of the forest.
Giles had a bad feeling and two options. One; he may try and find an alternate route out of the forest and into some nearby town. Two; ask the residents of the palace, which seemed to be in commission due to all the candles in the windows, for help and maybe even refuge. Giles was standing in the sunlight now, but an hour or so later, the angle of the sun would be over the forest, and Giles didn’t want to find himself in an abandoned town sheathed in midnight. He couldn’t take the chance that his three friends had so easily forgotten about him.
Giles opened the palace gate, stumbled across the bridge which overlooked a valley below from a nauseating height, and made his way up the path. The garden was very beautiful, but too natural looking to have been maintained recently, and he really wondered what he was getting himself into. He just prayed to the Powers that the residents could help him, or at least let him borrow a telephone.
To:Professor Walsh
From:Agent Finn
RE:Summers Situation
Miss Summers has rejected the offer to join Initiative. All efforts to convince her failed. She shows no interest. Please advise.
To: Agent Finn
From:Professor Walsh
RE:Re: Summers Situation
Do not give up on target. Slayer is crucial to several upcoming Initiative operations. It is essential that Summers join the operation. I repeat, do not give up. Failure to recruit Summers with a respectable time frame, yet to be determined, shall result in your discharge. Do not disappoint me, at any cost.
----------
( Chapter 1) | ( Chapter 3)
Title: Buffy and the Beast'
Chapter: 2 - The Plot Thickens
Author: illyriaz_shell
Original Publish Date: Sometime in 2005
Rating: PG (so far)
Takes Place: Sort of AU Universe
Pairing: Spuffy
Summary: In an isolated English mountainside town, which also happens to be a hellmouth, American Teenage Slayer Buffy Summers and her Watcher Giles fight off vampires, demons and the forces of darkness. However, ignorant locals, Initiative presence in the form of Agent Riley Finn, and a curse on an even more isolated castle run by a vampire prince, lead to somewhat traditional fairytale antics. And untraditional romance.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, not mine, so don't sue.
A/N: I wrote this so so so very long ago, so it is a bit immature in it's writing. My writing of this fic has also been indefinitely suspended. Its not that I didn't know where I was taking this story. It's just when I was writing it, I got busy with other things, and by the time I had the time to write it, the flow was gone. However, positive comments may put me back in that flow. ;)
Chapter Summary: Buffy gets an offer she has no problem refusing, and Giles goes on a slight detour on his way to the council.
( Chapter 1) | ( Chapter 3)
----------
When Buffy arose the next morning, Giles was gone.
The sun shone on her eyes, and it was too bright for…what did her watch say? 11:00 am?
Much too early to be awake, she confirmed, and hid her face under her covers.
At 11:17 am, when she realized her diabolical plan to fall back asleep had failed, her eyes peaked out from under the covers and she took in the sight of the almost empty cabin.
It wasn’t so bad, she considered, now that she was temporarily the only occupant. Not that she’d admit that it was worth what the landlords had overcharged on this two-room hut. At least there are a few alchemists on the Council, because this is one expense I don’t think I could really justify to mom.
She looked around. The cabin wasn’t much. The hatched roof had given her and Giles some funtastic stormy nights, but the bricking seemed to be solid enough for something that could very well be a thousand years old. The wooden floors were cold at night, but the fireplace in the corner opposite to her cot was sufficient enough heat when the chill became unbearable. And, let’s face it. Teenage girl from California who likes to sunbathe daily. Anything below 85 degrees is unbearable.
The couch on the other side of the two-seater kitchen table was clearly Giles’ bed. If it wasn’t obvious because of the mountain of books you had to climb over to reach the thing, than the empty tea cups splayed along the back headrest surely gave it away. Her bed was up against the wall in a little alcove that was home to the only window in the entire shack. She had thought at first sleeping in the alcove would give her a much needed sense of privacy, but the cool wind at night and the bright sun she awoke to each morning more than paid her in kind for her greed.
But at this moment, the thing that annoyed her most about her current home was the knocking on the ornately carved wooden door that was barely out of her view. She hoped the tactic of ignore-it-and-maybe-it-will-go-away would slay the evil percussion, but Buffy at last gave into the pounding and shuffled over to the front to open the door.
Not really giving a damn, she answered “Who the hell is it?” When Buffy’s eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw that it was her favouritest person in the whole wide world.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Look, Buffy. Forget about last night. I’ve been issued an order from my superior to give you this.” Riley handed her a crisp piece of paper that she begrudgingly took from his hands.
“What is…”
”Read it.” The soldier nodded towards the paper.
Upon inspection, Buffy realized it was an email and her heart silently leapt at the concept of an internet connection.
To: Miss Buffy Summers
From:Professor Walsh
“You’re superior is a professor? Is he like a government Giles or something?” Buffy stuck out her tongue at the concept.
Riley was getting uncharacteristically impatient. “No she is not. Just read it already.”
“Fine.”
RE:Classified
We at the Initiative have been informed of your combat skills and dedication to the common mission we share in eliminating the HST pestilence. We wish to offer you an official position in the Initiative, which would include an agent number and rank that would allot you equal benefits to that of Agent Finn.
Should you choose to accept, your first mission will begin within the next month. You and Agent Finn will be relocated to an undisclosed location where the HSTs are compromising the Initiative’s control. Report your decision by 18:00 and new data will transferred to you via Agent Finn at that time.
Buffy looked up at the giddy commando. “What’s an HST?”
”Hostile Sub Terrestrial. I understand if you need a few hours to make your decision.”
“Wow, that’s great.” She crumpled up the note and threw it over her shoulder. “I really don’t need that much time. I need to be here, in Sunnyhill, to prevent an apocalypse. That thing? The end of the world, hell unleashed on earth, demons have free reign thing? You can tell Professor Cold-Bitch that I’m really not interested in taking orders from the United States, okay?”
Riley sighed, but remained in standard army stance. “Buffy, it’s not like you don’t take orders from Giles. From that weird council. It’s not the first time Walsh has requested me to ask you to join the Initiative.” He began to walk in the door. “She‘s really interested in your skills. You’d make a great soldier.”
Buffy raised her hand to stop him from entering, and raised the other with her index finger pointing. “Okay, first of all, I do not take orders from Giles. I ask him how to kill the evil demon, he looks it up in one of his musty old books, tells me, and I go kill the evil demon.” She shot at him, then added, “If I feel like it,” for good measure.
“Secondly,” she raised the middle finger, “You’re right, I do already have a bunch of crusty old watchers breathing down my neck; their careers dependent on how well I do out here in Medieval Times: Dinner and Theater. And as much as they all deserve a good drop-kick, I’m not quite ready to trade them, or worse, keep them, in addition to an army of soldiers and generals with your ego and even larger grenades up their asses.”
Riley tried to step forward, giving his most intimidating glower. “Off the record, you’re really being a bitch about this. I offer you the protection of the United States Government, and you think you have the right to turn us down. To spit in our face? You’re way out of your league, little girl.”
“Thirdly,” an unfazed Buffy continued as raised her ring finger, “I am a great soldier, something your sexist and domineering male mind just can’t seem to grasp. But as a rule, Slayers tend to work alone, a guideline which I’m grateful for, ‘cause it means I don’t have to worry about saving your ass when it gets severely kicked during first round with a newbie vamp.”
“Buffy,” Riley groaned, and stepped towards her to grab her. Buffy leapt back, and her counting hand quickly formed a fist, ready to strike at the first motion.
“Touch me, and I’m gonna give you reasons Four and Five.” She glared at him, and he eyed her fist. Riley was confident, even after last-night’s face-bash, that he could take Buffy in a sparring match. But he had seen that fist punch through solid rock a few weeks earlier and he didn’t want his first serious battle wound to be credited to a 110-pound teenage girl. He raised his hands in defense. Silence followed until his demeanor shifted to anger.
“You’ll regret this.” Riley about-faced and stormed off down the dirt road.
Thank. God. Almighty. Buffy was suddenly wide awake and still had the urge to hit something. She slammed the door, and went around the back of her cabin to the field she deemed as her backyard. The view of the valley in the distance was enough to justify the price of the small cottage. Mountains covered in exotic-looking trees, waterfalls and large patches of nature untouched by man sparkled in the sunlight that was almost at it’s most intense peak.
She took it in, and then began beating the crap out of the punching dummy her watcher had set up for her when they first arrived. Giles, you better come back soon, or I’m gonna be forced to break that no killing human rule. Hard.
Giles held the map in front of his face, and then looked around at the dead and decaying foliage that was gradually getting tangled in his luggage every time he instructed Faith to turn.
“This can’t be right.” He mumbled as he held the flashlight up to the map to see just exactly where he had made the wrong turn. Giles had noticed that it was roughly around mid-day when had checked his watch fifteen minutes earlier, but the trees here were so thick, even in their rotting state, that it might as well have been midnight. A forest of eternal darkness was not something he fancied himself in at the moment; without his Slayer to protect him, he was nothing but fodder for the creatures that flourished at night. And thanks to his knowledge as a watcher, he had every grotesque idea of what some of those creatures may be.
Twelve years at Watchers Academy, Giles sighed. A great deal of that learning how to interpret ancient demon texts, archaic languages and rituals from other dimensions, and I can’t piece together the simple ramblings of an English cartographer! He removed his glasses and wiped them with a hanky, then repositioned them on his nose. The watcher noticed, as he moved his hand back to the horse’s reigns, that he could see a small beacon of light in the distance.
He decided any place that light could touch was better than perpetual midnight, so he motioned Faith towards the opening. Giles instructed her to move slowly, since disturbing the area would more than likely give away his position to any deviants hiding in the bushes. When a twig snapped, Giles kicked Faith lightly for making sound, but it was only after this he realized the noise had come from off in the distance.
“Oh dear” was all he could muster as the wind was knocked out of him as he was thrown off the horse. He looked up, and three vampires carrying long branches hovered over him. There were two males, one with dark hair, and one with blazing red, and one female with dark brown hair. The female vampire looked, surprisingly, to be the strongest of the three.
“I haven’t had a human in ages,” said the red haired vamp.
“I’m tired of feeding off of vermin,” commented the female, “I bet your blood’s thicker than a rabbits.” She winked at Giles.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” said the dark haired vampire. The three of them raised the sticks above their head, getting ready to strike. Suddenly, the red head was booted fifteen feet away, taking the female with him.
Dark hair turned around to see that the horse was lowering its hind leg and preparing to charge at him. He stared down the horse, challenging it to take him down, and saw the fire in the animal’s eyes only the second before its head collided with the vampire’s solar plexus.
Faith nudged Giles to move, and he quickly hopped up. He jolted the reigns, and horse and watcher were headed straight for that light in the distance.
Please be somewhere safe, he begged as he could hear the three vampires gaining on them. A claw scratched Faith’s hip, and she turned around, ready to stomp whatever vampire had dared touch the wild stallion. She bucked up; intimidating the demons, but Giles, as well as all of the luggage, was flung off her.
Giles hit the ground hard, and the angle at which his left side hit the rocks sent an aching jolt of pain rippling through his entire body. He was sure his leg was broken, but from what he could see, the vampires were already losing interest in the horse. He was feet away from sunlight, so despite the sharp pain that now dominated his conscious mind, he scrambled towards the opening in the woods.
Giles hand reached the light when he felt a tug on his shoulder.
The female whispered very huskily in his ear, “Not going to leave now, are you? When we were having so much fun!”
The old watcher swirled around, uppercut the demon right in the chin, and crawled into the light.
The three vampires hissed when their skin began to sizzle, and they crept back into the darkness. Giles could only see their yellow eyes glowing with rage in the darkness.
“No fair,” the female growled. “He didn’t play by the rules.”
“The horse!” one of the males said. “It’s gone! Look!”
The three eyes disappeared for a minute. “No, our dinner! We’ll starve!”
The one reappeared for a minute and said “Be thankful you’re in the sunlight, old man, or your death would be anything but quick.”
Giles inched back even further, just to be safe, and collapsed when the pair of eyes disappeared.
Several minutes later, when the throbbing pain in his leg made its unwelcome reappearance and new sharpness in his side emerged, Giles decided he needed to find somewhere for help. But what kind of hospital did he expect to find in the middle of nowh…
As he turned around, he found himself on the outskirts of what looked like, and there was no better way to describe it, a kingdom.
The town was quaint, overlooked by a castle, and surrounded by a gate that only went up to his waist. The buildings were made of stone and wood, but significantly more advanced looking than those of Sunnyhill. They had been perhaps built within the last few centuries, and judging by the relatively absent signs of decay and destruction, they were fairly well constructed and maintained. He took in the sight of beautifully built churches and each store adorning its own label, like the baker’s shop he could see mere footsteps away. He was clearly standing in the marketplace of the town. It was a perfect picture, one any artist would feel privileged enough to set their eyes on and dream of capturing on canvas.
In fact, the only thing missing from this picture perfect town were the inhabitants.
As the watcher shuffled through the village, he inspected almost every window he could come upon, but to no avail. All he found was empty rooms, broken furniture, and massive dust clouds. And a terrible stench. He searched high and low, but the only other moving object he could find was the stereotypical tumbleweed rolling in the wind.
What he did notice, however, is the more he approached the castle on the hill, the more frequent the destruction of property. Windows were shattered, boxes and crates lay half broken in the streets, and the heaps of dirt were beginning to look more like decaying corpses. The smell was becoming unbearable, and he needed to escape this place.
As Giles looked up and around for an exit that wouldn’t lead to his death, he realized something he hadn’t before. The sky directly above him was dark, covered in tumultuous clouds that gave off silent lightning. The colours of red and grey swirled above him, but stopped directly over the gates of the palace walls. It seemed that the only clear blue sky for miles around hovered directly over the castle, and the sun, at that particular moment, was angled to shine over the town like a tilted spotlight.
Strange for the middle of day… Giles wondered, but was thankful nonetheless that the sun had been positioned to protect him from the demons of the forest.
Giles had a bad feeling and two options. One; he may try and find an alternate route out of the forest and into some nearby town. Two; ask the residents of the palace, which seemed to be in commission due to all the candles in the windows, for help and maybe even refuge. Giles was standing in the sunlight now, but an hour or so later, the angle of the sun would be over the forest, and Giles didn’t want to find himself in an abandoned town sheathed in midnight. He couldn’t take the chance that his three friends had so easily forgotten about him.
Giles opened the palace gate, stumbled across the bridge which overlooked a valley below from a nauseating height, and made his way up the path. The garden was very beautiful, but too natural looking to have been maintained recently, and he really wondered what he was getting himself into. He just prayed to the Powers that the residents could help him, or at least let him borrow a telephone.
To:Professor Walsh
From:Agent Finn
RE:Summers Situation
Miss Summers has rejected the offer to join Initiative. All efforts to convince her failed. She shows no interest. Please advise.
To: Agent Finn
From:Professor Walsh
RE:Re: Summers Situation
Do not give up on target. Slayer is crucial to several upcoming Initiative operations. It is essential that Summers join the operation. I repeat, do not give up. Failure to recruit Summers with a respectable time frame, yet to be determined, shall result in your discharge. Do not disappoint me, at any cost.
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