Starring:
Felicia Day as Vi
Indigo as Rona
Vibeke Stene as Katrine
Dania Ramirez as Caridad
Simone Simons as Anna
Shakira Meberak as Isabella
And Anthony Stewart Head as Giles
*
Shadows danced across the sidewalk as three men hurried up an alleyway
late at night, taking a shortcut through the dark streets of
“Let’s just stop and kill her,”
one of the men growled. “She’s no match for three of us.”
“She’s a slayer you idiot,” one
of the others snapped. “You ever fought a slayer before? Hard
as nails.”
“I heard there were a bunch of
them now,” the last commented, as they continued their flee.
“Something to do with Sunnydale. I bet she’s not even
trained. We can take her.”
Grinning, the men stopped
running and turned on the spot…only to find the girl no longer behind them. The
men’s faces changed, becoming feral and demonic. Their grins were soon replaced
with looks of worry. “Where’d she go?”
“Boo!” The vampires spun around
and found not just the slayer who had been chasing them, but two others, stood
behind them. One of them was black, about seventeen like the others, with long
black hair. The other was taller, white, with dark hair and a confident smirk
on her face.
“Its called karma boys,” the
black girl winked. “Always comes back to bite ya in the ass.”
Without so much as a warning,
the black girl struck one of the vampires in the nose with an open palm. The
vampire cried out in pain as a spray of blood invaded the air. She spun into a
kick without giving him a chance to recover, and lead him away from the others
with a volley of attacks.
“Take your pick,
“Oh no you
don’t,”
“Be my guest,” Vi nodded as
“Cocky bastards, ain’t they?”
Rona asked, as the trio headed towards the end of the alleyway.
“Give it time,” Vi shrugged. “Word will spread soon enough; do not mess with
us again.”
*
Vi
yawned loudly and obviously as she walked down the corridor of the academy
dormitories, purposely aggravating two watchers who were stood nearby,
comparing note files. The young slayer had a knack for reminding the new
council members exactly who it was who went out and patrolled the city of New
York late at night, slaying vampires, while the watchers sat at home doing the
paperwork. She smiled to herself, as the two watchers hurried away.
A lot of people treated her like
that. She was one of the only survivors of the Sunnydale incident present in
the New York Head Quarters of the Watchers Council. Rona, Shannon, Chao Ahn and
Caridad were also there with her, and they received the same treatment. It was almost
as if people were scared to talk to them. When new slayers arrived from all
over the world, to be trained and educated, they would hear stories from the
girls who had been there longer, and would pick up on their habits. There were
a few exceptions though.
Of course, there was Rupert
Giles. But being the Head Watcher, and effectively in charge of all the
Council’s affairs, people showed him nothing but respect. He was the only
member of the original “Scooby gang” who still played an active role in the
training and education of young slayers.
In that time, much had changed.
Giles,
It was a tremendous task, to
build up the resources, information, contacts, and most importantly, respect,
that the old council had commanded, but thanks to the dedication of Giles and
the new watchers and slayers, things were improving every day.
As Vi
reached the dining hall, the redhead looked around the vast room, to find the
table where her friends would be sat. Before she’d had much
of a chance to look, two figures suddenly sprung upon her - Rona and Katrine.
Rona was another survivor from the Sunnydale incident, who had remained Vi’s friend throughout the formation of the council. Katrine
was an eighteen year old Dutch slayer, who was normally dressed in black
clothes and dark make-up, to match her black hair. Katrine had been found wondering
“There you are!” Rona gasped
excitably. “You’ll never guess what’s happened.”
“What?” Vi
said, clueless as to why the dark-skinned slayer was so excited.
“That new girl, Anna, she told
Ashlee where to go,” Rona grinned. “Right in front of everyone, it was so
funny.”
“Why?” Vi
asked curiously.
“Its Ashlee, do you need a reason?”
Katrine said darkly. Ashlee was one girl that very few civil people could get
along with. She was bitchy, gossipy, and arrogant enough to make the general
population hate her passionately.
“She was bitching to her
friends about only speaking to girls who spoke English,” Rona explained. “Obviously aiming it at Anna. No wonder the girl snapped, you don’t go around saying things like that.”
“Where is Anna from anyway?” Vi asked, watching the new girl gracefully clear her table
of the remains of her breakfast.
“
“Well at least you found
someone other than Mr. Giles and Michelle who speak Dutch,” Vi
smiled.
“Katrine!”
Came a voice.
“Speaking of the watcher,” Rona
muttered. The slayers turned and watched as a tall woman made her way through
the crowd of teenagers. She had long black hair, and wore an impeccable white
suit. She walked in a very business-like manner. This was Michelle, a watcher
who had discovered Katrine in
“I wanted to talk to you,”
Michelle said in a strong Finnish accent. “You may know that we have a shortage
of watchers at the moment, so I have also been assigned to watch over Anna, I
hope you do not mind.” Katrine shook her head slightly. “Good. Then I will meet
you after classes in the gym, I believe you get your timetables today.”
“Okay,” Katrine smiled, and
Michelle nodded slightly, and hurried off. Michelle was a busy woman, and was
actually Giles’ second in command, being an experienced watcher who had retired
before the destruction of the old council, and had returned at Giles’ request. Vi and Rona had both been assigned to be Giles’ slayers,
much to the jealously of many of the other girls.
“Hey girls, timetables,”
Caridad said, as she appeared from the crowd, holding a stack of papers. She
gave one to each of the slayers, and moved on across the room.
“Thanks Caridad,” Vi smiled, and looked down at her timetable. The variety of
subjects was astonishing. Apart from the physical expectations of the council
training program, such as hand-to-hand, gymnastics, and weapon skills, the
slayers over sixteen were also expected to learn basic subjects like Math and
English, along with complex and obscure subjects such as Demonology, Mysticism
and Philosophy. Rona groaned loudly.
“Are you guys sure this ‘new
council’ isn’t as bad as the old one?” Rona asked. “They’re making us take
Math.”
“But at least we get to play
with cool weapons and stuff,” a small voice offered. The older slayers turned
and regarded the ten year old girl stood near them. Selena was the youngest
slayer to be found to date, and had been sent to the
“Ha, think again shrimp,” Vi said affectionately. “You don’t get to play with weapons
until you’re twelve.”
“No way, that sucks,” Selena
frowned deeply. The older slayers smiled in response.
“Come on kiddo,” Rona said. “Lets get some breakfast before lessons start.”
The small group of slayers
worked their way through the crowd of council members, which included dozens of
slayers, watchers, and spell casters. They finally reached a table in the
middle of the dining hall, where Caridad was sat, now free of timetables, with
a tall blonde girl. This was Isabella, a slayer who had traveled from
“Hi guys,” Isabella smiled
brightly. The slayers all responded and sat down at the table. “What do you all
have first lesson?”
“Slayer History,” Vi replied.
“Me too,” Katrine nodded
thoughtfully. “It should be interesting, learning about slayers of the past.”
“I have hand-to-hand,” Rona
shrugged. “I guess it’s mostly for the new girls who don’t even know how to
throw a decent punch.”
“It’s not just for them,”
Caridad frowned slightly. “I mean, even more experienced slayers need to
continue their training, right?”
“I guess,” Rona replied. “I’m
just kinda anxious to get started properly, and get past all this basic crap.”
The girls nodded in
understanding, and turned their attention away as breakfast was served.
*
After breakfast, Vi and Katrine made their way to the second floor of the
main academy, where they were meant to find room 206. After a little bit of a
detour in the fact that Ashlee had cornered a fifteen year old slayer named
Laura, and yelling at her for wearing the same shoes, the girls finally found
the classroom, being followed by Laura. There were a small group of slayers
stood waiting outside the door; it seemed the teacher was running late.
After a ten minute wait, the
girls all looked up as a young blonde man came hurrying towards them. He wasn’t
how any of them had expected. He must have been about twenty one years old, and
he was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Vi had heard of
this man - a young watcher from
Finally finding his key, he
unlocked the door and hurried inside, motioning for the girls to follow him and
sit down. The classroom was pretty basic - chairs, teacher’s desk, and a large
white board, nothing particularly exciting. The girls quickly found their
places, and Vi, Katrine and Laura made a point of
sitting right at the back. A group of girls who were sat at the front of the
class were giggling at Scott Herring, clearly smitten with his good looks and
charm.
“Well, hi guys,” Scott finally
said, sitting down on the edge of his desk. “My name’s Scott and I’ll be
teaching you Slayer History for this year. Now, I’ll just do a register and
then we’ll move on to our first lesson.”
After the register was taken and
everyone was accounted for, Scott set up a projector, and projected the image
of a drawing onto the board. It was a woman, a primitive, fierce-looking woman,
with a spear in one hand. She had wild tattered clothing, and wild matted hair,
with face paint covering her face. This being a Slayer History lesson, it was
clear that she could only be a slayer.
“Now,” Scott said. “Does anyone
have any idea who she is?”
“The First Slayer,” Laura spoke
out suddenly, surprising everyone. Vi blinked, and
gave her a ‘how did you know that?’ look. The younger girl shrugged, and
blushed furiously as everyone in the room looked at her.
“Very good,” Scott grinned.
“Yes, absolutely right. Seneya, First of the
“What about the Shadow Men?”
Chao Ahn asked in her broken accent.
“They came to be known as the
Watchers’ Council,” Scott grinned thinly. “Or at least, others came and took
over from the Shadow Men, and laid their claim to the power of the next
generations of slayers. I’m sure some of you know about the actions and, some
would say, misjudgments of the old Council. They laid claim to a power that was
never theirs. It’s yours. And don‘t let anyone tell you different.”
Vi
smiled broadly. A lot of other slayers did too. Scott was going to be one of
the popular ones. Bethany de la Croix however, was not destined to be as popular.
On the other side of the academy
complex, inside the slayers’ gym, Rona stood in front of a group of slayers,
her arms folded defensively across her chest. Caridad stood slightly to her
left, a worried expression on her face, and
“I ain’t gonna hit you lady,”
Rona argued.
“Why ever
not?” The watcher replied in a slight French accent. “I can assure you,
you won’t harm me.”
“Have you ever even met a
slayer?” Rona countered. “Ever seen what they can do? Some of us here have
taken down Turok-Han, imagine what we can do a skinny ass brunette chick.”
“A skinny ass
brunette chick, such as Faith Lehane?”
“Fine, it’s your funeral,” Rona
shrugged and swung a punch at
“Sloppy,”
“Hey, leave Buffy out of this,”
“Yeah, I didn’t see you or no
other watcher offering us help when the world was coming to an end,” Rona
added. “Buffy did the best she could to prepare everyone.”
“This isn’t a debate about
Buffy Summers and her actions,”
“To get
kicked in the ankle?” Rona shot back.
“To learn how to survive as
long as possible,”
“I don’t intend to,” Rona
replied.
“Then let’s carry on then shall
we?”
*
An hour later, Vi and Katrine’s class had found their way down to their
second lesson of the day, which was to be held in the large hall next to the
cafeteria. The lesson was to be Weapon Skills, and some of the more naïve girls
were under the impression that they would be learning how to use fancy swords
and crossbows, but Vi knew that they would be starting
with basic stake skills and quarter staffs. The girls looked around as the
doors to the room opened, and a young woman strode towards them, wearing a
short white dress and heels. Her long brown hair was twisted into an elegant
knot on the back of her head.
“Hi guys,” she cracked a grin
at their looks. She had a slight English accent. “Sorry about the attire, I was
just in a meeting with the council heads. Now, my name is Regina Holton, but
I’d much rather you called me Reggie.
Many of the girls giggled, and
Reggie continued to smile.
“Now,” Reggie continued. “I’m
here to teach you girls how to handle weapons. For the first
semester we will be focusing on basic weapon skills; stakes, staffs, swords.
Next semester we will work on Medieval weaponry, and then
after that some more contemporary and Oriental designs.”
“Will we get to play with
missile launchers?” Laura smirked.
“Maybe next year,” Reggie
replied. Some of the girls looked around excitedly at each other, clearly thinking
Reggie was serious. Katrine looked at Vi and rolled
her eyes. Vi giggled. “Now if you girls would like to
choose a partner each, we’ll get started.”
*
An hour after their hand-to-hand
lesson, Rona, Caridad and Shannon, along with the other girls in their class,
sat around desks in a room on the top floor of the academy, while Michelle
stood at the front of the room in her immaculate white suit. Along with her
high position within the council, and her other watcher duties, Michelle was an
instructor in Demonology. The slayers watched interestedly as Michelle
projected an image onto the board, an image portraying a garden variety
vampire.
“Welcome to your first
Demonology class,” Michelle said in her strong Finnish accent. “Today we will
be focusing on the creature that you are most likely to come into contact with
first, as many of you already have, the common vampire.”
“We already know about
vampires,” Ashlee said, her lip twisted in disgust. “Undead, blood suckers, who
die when you poke them with wood. We got the memo already.”
“Very well, then perhaps you
could tell me the origins of the vampire, Miss. Wedgwood?” Michelle asked, her hands on her hips. Ashlee
didn’t reply, she simply glared. “As I thought.
Is there anyone who can?” A quiet Chinese girl at the front of the class rose her hand timidly. “Yes, Shihao?”
“Millions of years ago, the
world was ruled by demons known as the Old Ones, the pure demons,” Shihao
chanted, as if she had some kind of textbook memorized. “The last one to leave
the earth bit a human being, who then became the first vampire, spreading the
demon’s essence amongst human kind.”
“That’s correct,” Michelle
nodded, clearly pleased that someone had done their homework.
“Know it all,” Ashlee muttered.
“Where did the demons go?”
Caridad asked. “And why?”
“The demons retreated into
other dimensions,” Michelle continued. “Its unknown exactly how many other
dimensions there are, and how many of them are hell dimensions, but we know
that there are many of them, and that they’re pushing in on our own reality all
the time, as the demons try to find a way back into our world, to regain what
was once theirs. Why did they go? Some left by choice, as mortal creatures
started taking over. Others were forced out, or slain, by humans who would
claim this world as their own. Then, of course, the vampire population became a
problem, which is when the slayer came to be. And from that time, there has
always been a slayer somewhere, slaying the vampires and the demons, so that other
people could live out their lives. And now…well, you all know that story.”
“Actually, we don’t,” a sixteen
year old girl, Lucia, interrupted. “Not all of us have an exact understanding
of why we were all chosen.”
“No one told us that story,”
Ashlee added, and then looked back at Rona, Shannon and Caridad. “Though,
obviously, some of us know it already.”
“Very well,” Michelle nodded,
and also looked at Rona, Shannon and Caridad. “Girls, would you mind?”
The three of them looked at each
for a long moment. Then Rona sighed, got to her feet and walked to the front of
the class.
“You guys wanna know what
happened in Sunnydale, and why we’re all sat here now?” Rona said. “It goes
like this…”
*
Sunnydale
Buffy Summers
stood against the army of Turok Han vampires that flew towards her, and the
girls she now thought of as equals. As slayers. The
power and gifts of the Chosen One flowed through each of their veins, and the
Turok Han were losing. Some had escaped, and many more were still coming for
them, but they were doing well. They had a fighting chance of surviving. More
of them were escaping though, and that was putting her non-slayer friends in
danger. Dawn.
“Keep the line together!” Buffy called to the other slayers, looking out
at the cavern underneath
Buffy looked down and saw the
sword protruding from her abdomen. The Turok Han that had stabbed her from behind
moved on to attack a Spanish girl Buffy had never even talked to, and the
blonde collapsed to the rocky ground face-first. Buffy looked around her and
watched several girls fight the ancient vampires. She saw Vi
decapitate a Turok Han with a knife, and Rona use her broken arm to knock another
into the large cavern where it had come from. So brave.
So strong.
“Buffy!”
The dark-haired slayer Faith crouched at her side with a worried look on her
pretty features. Buffy winced and reached out her hand, offering Faith her
weapon. The scythe.
“Hold the line,” Buffy whispered and Faith took the
scythe. Faith shared a look of
understanding with Buffy. The fight had to go on. Faith cried out in
frustration and swung with all her might, taking down several Turok Han with the
scythe, and leaving Buffy grunting in pain on the ground.
“Rona!” Buffy looked over and saw Faith go down underneath a shower of Turok
Han. The older slayer called out to the black girl, and launched the scythe
into the air. Buffy vaguely wondered if Faith was still alive underneath the
mound of Turok Han that were clawing at her, but struggled to breath as Rona caught the ancient weapon. Rona spun round on
herself and took off a Turok Han’s
head, before cutting down two others like grass. She saw Amanda die. And a Korean
girl she didn’t know the name of.
“Oh no, ow!” Buffy looked up, and saw herself. The First,
using her form to taunt her. “Mommy, this mortal wound is all...itchy. You
pulled a nice trick. You came pretty close to smacking me down. What more do
you want?”
“I want
you…” Buffy said through gritted teeth, sitting up. “To get
out of my face!”
Buffy
rose to her feet and caught the scythe that was thrown in her direction from
where Rona stood. The blonde turned in a mighty swing that threw several Turok
Han off of the cliff they stood on. Seeing Buffy’s defiance, the other slayers
found new energy. Faith leapt up and kicked out at the same time, throwing all
the Turok Han off her, and she swung into them, going for the kill. A girl
Buffy had only spoken to once, used her sword to slash through several Turok
Han at a time. Dust. Vi spun
in wild arcs and took out ancient vampires with her weapon. Kennedy slaughtered
two others. More dust. Buffy raised the scythe above her head and swung down to
strike a Turok Han in the chest…..
*
Desert Road,
“It’s so quiet,” Vi whispered, looking out at the night from the window of
the moving school bus. Rona looked sideways at her seating companion with a
faint smile. Thanks to the miraculous healing powers of the slayer, Rona’s
wounds were considerably better than they had been when they had escaped
Sunnydale. Others weren’t so lucky. Robin Wood was still in a bad condition,
though he had been well looked after by
“About what?”
Rona asked.
“Well, an entire town just sank
into the ground, someone’s gonna notice,” Vi smirked.
Then her face fell. So many people weren’t with them anymore.
“Earthquake,” Buffy said. The
girls looked to the left, where Dawn was fast asleep on Buffy’s shoulder. The
older slayer smiled. “Last gas stop, it was on the TV in the gas station.
Reporters are going crazy, saying it’s the worst earthquake in
“No one will ever know what
happened there,” Rona said.
“We’ll know,” Buffy replied.
“And we’ll remember.”
“And we’ll fight,” Vi said. Buffy didn’t reply, she only
nodded slightly.
“What are we gonna do?” Rona
asked. “We’ve been running for days, we’re tired and hungry, and some of us
need serious medical attention.”
“We’re not running,” Buffy
pouted, as if offended. “We’re…driving. And we’ll stop soon; we just need to
get some distance between us and Sunnydale.”
“We could’ve stopped in LA…” Vi offered.
“No,” Buffy replied. They’d had
this conversation before. Silence.
“We have so much work to do,
don’t we?” Vi said quietly. “So many slayers to find…”
“And we’ll do all we can,” Buffy
smiled. Then they lurched forward as the front end of the bus gave a metallic
crunch of a noise, and suddenly found themselves being
flipped over and over. Screams filled the bus as it tumbled in the air and
crashed heavily onto the road. Through the showers of broken glass and smoke, Vi grunted in pain, and looked up.
“Is everyone okay?” The redhead
asked.
“What the hell was that?” Rona
demanded.
“Everyone off the bus, now,”
Faith’s voice ordered from somewhere near the front of
the bus.
“What’s going on?” Dawn asked,
holding a cut on her cheek.
“We’d better find out,” Buffy
replied, and started helping people to their feet.
Once outside, people gathered to
check injuries. Buffy, Dawn, Faith, Robin, Willow, Xander, Giles, Kennedy,
Andrew, Vi, Rona, Shannon, Caridad, Chao Ahn and twelve other slayers. Apart
from minor injuries, everyone was okay. Well, nearly everyone.
“Where’s Kate?” Faith asked.
“We lost her,” Caridad said
sadly. “She got crushed between the seats, and her wounds split open again.”
“Why did we crash?”
“Something flew in front of the
bus, I crashed into it and lost control,” Giles explained.
“I saw it too,” Faith added.
“And it weren’t human.”
“Great,” Dawn said
sarcastically. “Something followed us, right? From the
hellmouth?”
“I thought we were safe now,”
Andrew whined.
“We’ll never be safe, never
again,”
“Hold on, we don’t know
anything yet,” Giles argued. “Lets just calm down.”
“Uh, Buffy…” Xander said.
“What?”
“Behind you!”
Buffy spun to find a large
creature stood behind her. Barely having time to react to its green scaled skin
and Medieval-looking armour, the slayer was battered in the face with a strong
fist and thrown into the rear end of the overturned bus. Rushing forward to
take her place, Vi, Caridad, Shannon and three other
girls attacked the creature together, throwing its large weight onto the sand,
and keeping it there. Only Buffy herself realized the symbolic trait of the
event - these girls would now take her place.
*
“I can’t do it anymore
“But you’re the slayer,”
Kennedy argued. “The original damn slayer, you can’t leave us now, there are
too many people who need you.”
“We won’t survive without you,”
another girl, Cara, added. Buffy sighed and looked around the lobby of the
motel they were staying in. Dawn was sat on a chair near the counter, being
oddly quiet.
“I think Buffy has the right to
do what she wants,” Faith spoke up, from behind Buffy. “If it weren’t for her,
we’d all be dead now. You can’t have everything your way Kennedy.”
“I don’t want everything my
way!” Kennedy protested.
“Well it sure sounds like it,”
Andrew piped up.
“Shut up Andrew!” Kennedy
yelled.
“Don’t talk to him like that,”
Xander said.
“I can’t believe this,” Kennedy
rolled her eyes. “Seriously. So while we’re out there
looking for slayers, rebuilding the council, Buffy is going to be living it up
in
“We can’t ask any more of her,”
“Its not like I’m dying…again,”
Buffy added. “I’ll be in
“So…what are our plans?”
“I managed to track down the
numbers of a few retired watchers and watchers in training in
“So, you technically being the
highest ranking member left…”
“Yes, well, technically that
makes me the council head,” Giles smiled sheepishly. “Which
means we should be able to get things done effectively. I already have
the coven in
“And what are we gonna do with
all these slayers?” Faith asked.
“I’d like to set up academies
within the new council, where these girls will be trained to the best of our
ability,” Giles replied. “And then, when we have enough watchers to…well,
watch, we’ll have girls assigned in every major city of the world.”
“What about the hellmouth?”
Rona asked. “You mentioned
“That’s mine,” Faith said. “Me and Robin will be going to
“Yes, and eventually, we will
send trained slayers to assist Faith and Robin,” Giles added. “The hellmouth at
the moment is our second priority, our first being to find the slayers
“How many do we think there
are?” Robin asked.
“It’s hard to say,”
“It’s a big job, finding and
training that many young girls,” Robin said.
“But not impossible,”
“Can someone please tell me
what’s going on?” Chao Ahn asked desperately in Cantonese.
Guest Starring:
Mary Wilcher as
Tarja Turunen as Michelle
Dakota Fanning as Selena
Emma Watson as Laura
Randy Harrison as Scott
Rose McGowan as Bethany
Angelina Jolie as Reggie
Ziyi Zhang as Shihao
Kaley Cuoco as Ashlee
Astrid van der Veen as Lucia
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy
Eliza Dushku as Faith
Iyari Limon as Kennedy
Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn
Alyson Hannigan as
DB Woodside as Robin
Nicholas Brendon as Xander
Tom Lenk as Andrew
Kristy Wu as Chao Ahn