A
Altoz
Guest
SUNNYDALE: JULY 2002:
It was two months after the defeat of the 'supervillain' duo Warren Meers and Andrew Wells and the deaths of Xander Harris, Spike and Rupert Giles. For that time, Buffy Summers and her associates had to deal with the consequences of that dark evening, when she had lost control under the influence of the dao shengbang curse, made susceptible to it through a year of turmoil beginning with her resurrection, an inappropriate relationship and then the murder of three men close to her. Although he also mourned the loss of Rupert Giles, his mentor and friend for the last seven years, Douglas Mercer had decided to stay in Sunnydale. For one thing, the slayer needed a new Watcher and offsider, and he had been trained for the role and had extensive fieldwork practice. With the assistance of strings pulled in his workplace, he was assigned to a forensic accountancy and commercial crimes detection unit in Sunnydale and moved his effects over from Westbury in June. Although it had left them short-handed, it was agreed that after the last arduous year within their personal relationship, Willow and Tara were entitled to some time of their own away from Sunnydale, although Doug and Buffy had to push them onto the plane to prevent any last-moment prevarication.
Sunnydale PD's paranomal events division accepted the evidence before them- that Warren Meers and Andrew Wells were threats to public safety and that the slayer had needed to use lethal force to restrain them- and that Warren Meers was responsible for the murder of Rupert Giles., and that Wells was about to murder Douglas Mercer as a consquence of a psychotic break. However, as Buffy herself realised, that did not mean that she was going to escape from the consequences of that May evening without any repercussions.
Over in Westbury, there was considerable animosity at the Watchers Council table. Short-sighted as ever, the inept and incompetent Council President Quentin Travers demanded that initially that the slayer be turned over to civil authorities. While that was reasonable under the circumstances, he then expressed outrage when the same civil authorities found that she had acted with the public good in mind and had used reasonable if lethal force. He would have sent over the Watchers Council Special Operations Group to take Buffy Summers into custody, but his chief Council adversary, Watchers Institute head Dr. Alessandra Norton, refused to sanction it. Predictably, some old metaphorical water flowed under an equally metaphorical bridge and sage if acid observations were made about the bungled Cruciamentum in 1999 and the sacking of Rupert Giles, the misassignment of undertrained Wes;ley Wyndham-Price, his scapegoat sacking, overestimation of the skills and competence of the Knights of Byzantium during the Glorificus Incident and finally, the circumstances behind the slayer's fall from grace. Alessandra Norton pointed out that due to Travers technophobia and despite her report on the matter, Travers had refused funding for a second WatcherSat to monitor astronomical and astrological developments; if that authorisation had been given, the dao shengbang situation would not have arisen because it would have been detected well beforehand. Instead of which, she concluded, the slayer was deliberately imperiled by hostile darkmages, who had killed two slayer allies and a strategic asset before Buffy had been able to hunt them down and stop them. Travers retorted with an unwise comment about Alessandra Norton and Rupert Giles' past romantic involvement, which eanred him a stinging slap from an already furious Alessandra. She pointed out that Buffy Summers had survived for seven years as the Chosen One and suggested that the Council might have something to learn about practical support for the slayer instead of ridiculous schemes to arrest her for acting in self-defence against known darkmages, whose activities had been inadequately monitored by the Council in any case. Such foolhardy action would remove the slayer from the vicinity of Sunnydale's Hellmouth, with destructive consequences for the area's civilian and non-combatant human population. Ultimately, after several hours argument, Alessandra finally won Council support and Travers was prevented from authorising a counter-productive intervention.
Alone in her office, Alessandra broke down, given that Travers was right- she had loved Rupert once and had been iunable to save him from what happened in Sunnydale. She had also been successful in finally getting Doug Mercer assigned to Sunnydale, something that all but Travers had agreed was long overdue, as Buffy Summers interim watcher. After she had had time to deal with her grief, she went to see her old colleague Father Chris Lonnergan, the taciturn but deadly efficient senior Watchers Field Agent in charge of the reformed Watchers Council Special Operations Team. Once again, after the Wetherby, Collins and Smith fiasco in Los Angeles, Alessandra and her Council allies had made sure that any new Special Operations Team was firmly under collective Council control. Given his experience and track record, Chris Lonnergan was a logical choice to lead it; and at least he was trustworthy. No unilateral orders would be accepted from Travers, she was assured.
Which still left other issues. Given that Buffy had refused to acknowledge Dawn's humanity during the dao shengbang incident, and had tried to weaponise her as the Key, there were moments of tension and frostiness between the two sisters as a result. Doug stepped in, offering to give Dawn a lift to Sunnydale Highschool as its reconstruction neared its end. Gradually, Doug talked Dawn around to accepting that Buffy's remarks were the product of paranormal interference with her sister's life, and not really indicative of her true feelings toward her younger sister. As for Buffy herself, she was fragile for the first few months after losing Xander, Giles and Spike. Doug volunteered to clean out Spikes crypt and do an audit of any potential adverse dark paranormal presences or artifacts lurking there. Any salvageable items were identified, catalogued and carefully stored away for potential future use. Much the same happened to the supervillains headquarters, only Jonathan Levinson was invaluable there. Due to his unexpected intervention during the dao shengbang incident and his final break with his former allies, Jonathan was accepted for Watchers Institute training and left for England, but not before he and Dawn started seeing each other. At the airport, they kissed goodbye, surprising almost everyone except Tara, whom she had confided in.
As for Doug's integration into the Scoobies, the three witches formed a triad coven of their own and his combat skills became a marked asset out in the field. But Buffy, Willow and Tara could never forget Xander and what he had meant to them, and Doug had enough humility not to ever assume that he was somehow Xander's "replafcement." Once day, after a paritcularly hectic patrol, he observed to Buffy that he wished he had the confidence and inner strength of Xander Harris and carried a deep and abiding respect for the years that he had fought alongside the slayer without any paranormal abilities. That took real guts, courage and determination, he concluded. Doug and Buffy shared a few post-patrol beers and got drunk one night reminiscing about Giles and the times they'd had under his protective wing on both sides of the Atlantic. A month before they left for Europe, Doug drove Willow to Xander's grave and she collapsed in front of it, weeping. She expressed regret that despite what he meant to her as a friend, she couldn't save him. Kitty Fantastico became Willow and Tara's familiar and began to exhibit the usual enhanced intelligence that paranormal companion animals did as magic began to suffuse within her.
Although Giles and Xander were mourned for what they had meant to Buffy, Willow, Tara, Doug and Dawn, Spike was a trickier proposition. However, Willow later relayed the observation that Doug was a "Big Balled Bloody Scary Axe-Wielding Psycho Poof" according to one conversation Spike had had with Xander and her before Spike's staking- and Doug couldn't stop laughing about that for almost ten minutes. Although Doug didn't share Buffy's feelings about Spike given that his own wiccan abilities had only emerged after almost being beaten to death by the aforementioned vampire, he was diplomatic about it, respecting her feelings of regret and loss when they came up. With Willow and Tara's holiday, Buffy and Doug held their own on patrol, and commiserated ovet the state of their respective love lifes. Buffy said that it was hard to find a good man who wasn't threatened by her paranormal strength and prowess and Doug agreed, remarking that things weren't necessarily any better if you were gay and wanted intimacy and a relationship with a non-paranormal gay 'civilian', and that opportunities otherwise were rare.
Doug also expressed disgust one evening when they encountered a vampire who responded with fear and aversion to his neckchain pentacle. He observed that wicca was abput life, vampires spread death and the two were antithetical, except in rare cases. At times, Willow, Tara and Doug expressed unease that there was a third member of the dao shengbang trio that had beset Buffy two months past but as time wore on and there was no further attadk from that quarter, they assumed that the third member of the new trio had left town for darker pastures.
For once, they were wrong. Amy Madison was still in Sunnydale, watching and biding her time. After Willow had undergone the Diana Tiphateth whitewicca conversion spell, Madison had now become the most powerful darkmage in the town. Heeding the recklessness and incompetence of her deceased colleagues, she shed a few tears for Warren but concentrated on marshalling her enhanced energies and carefully concealed practice at the dark arts. She vowed vengeance against Summers, Rosenberg and Mercer for what they had done to Meers. The next year would bring brutal consequences and painful truths to all of them, she vowed.
TO BE CONTINUED: BUFFY SEASON SEVEN AU
It was two months after the defeat of the 'supervillain' duo Warren Meers and Andrew Wells and the deaths of Xander Harris, Spike and Rupert Giles. For that time, Buffy Summers and her associates had to deal with the consequences of that dark evening, when she had lost control under the influence of the dao shengbang curse, made susceptible to it through a year of turmoil beginning with her resurrection, an inappropriate relationship and then the murder of three men close to her. Although he also mourned the loss of Rupert Giles, his mentor and friend for the last seven years, Douglas Mercer had decided to stay in Sunnydale. For one thing, the slayer needed a new Watcher and offsider, and he had been trained for the role and had extensive fieldwork practice. With the assistance of strings pulled in his workplace, he was assigned to a forensic accountancy and commercial crimes detection unit in Sunnydale and moved his effects over from Westbury in June. Although it had left them short-handed, it was agreed that after the last arduous year within their personal relationship, Willow and Tara were entitled to some time of their own away from Sunnydale, although Doug and Buffy had to push them onto the plane to prevent any last-moment prevarication.
Sunnydale PD's paranomal events division accepted the evidence before them- that Warren Meers and Andrew Wells were threats to public safety and that the slayer had needed to use lethal force to restrain them- and that Warren Meers was responsible for the murder of Rupert Giles., and that Wells was about to murder Douglas Mercer as a consquence of a psychotic break. However, as Buffy herself realised, that did not mean that she was going to escape from the consequences of that May evening without any repercussions.
Over in Westbury, there was considerable animosity at the Watchers Council table. Short-sighted as ever, the inept and incompetent Council President Quentin Travers demanded that initially that the slayer be turned over to civil authorities. While that was reasonable under the circumstances, he then expressed outrage when the same civil authorities found that she had acted with the public good in mind and had used reasonable if lethal force. He would have sent over the Watchers Council Special Operations Group to take Buffy Summers into custody, but his chief Council adversary, Watchers Institute head Dr. Alessandra Norton, refused to sanction it. Predictably, some old metaphorical water flowed under an equally metaphorical bridge and sage if acid observations were made about the bungled Cruciamentum in 1999 and the sacking of Rupert Giles, the misassignment of undertrained Wes;ley Wyndham-Price, his scapegoat sacking, overestimation of the skills and competence of the Knights of Byzantium during the Glorificus Incident and finally, the circumstances behind the slayer's fall from grace. Alessandra Norton pointed out that due to Travers technophobia and despite her report on the matter, Travers had refused funding for a second WatcherSat to monitor astronomical and astrological developments; if that authorisation had been given, the dao shengbang situation would not have arisen because it would have been detected well beforehand. Instead of which, she concluded, the slayer was deliberately imperiled by hostile darkmages, who had killed two slayer allies and a strategic asset before Buffy had been able to hunt them down and stop them. Travers retorted with an unwise comment about Alessandra Norton and Rupert Giles' past romantic involvement, which eanred him a stinging slap from an already furious Alessandra. She pointed out that Buffy Summers had survived for seven years as the Chosen One and suggested that the Council might have something to learn about practical support for the slayer instead of ridiculous schemes to arrest her for acting in self-defence against known darkmages, whose activities had been inadequately monitored by the Council in any case. Such foolhardy action would remove the slayer from the vicinity of Sunnydale's Hellmouth, with destructive consequences for the area's civilian and non-combatant human population. Ultimately, after several hours argument, Alessandra finally won Council support and Travers was prevented from authorising a counter-productive intervention.
Alone in her office, Alessandra broke down, given that Travers was right- she had loved Rupert once and had been iunable to save him from what happened in Sunnydale. She had also been successful in finally getting Doug Mercer assigned to Sunnydale, something that all but Travers had agreed was long overdue, as Buffy Summers interim watcher. After she had had time to deal with her grief, she went to see her old colleague Father Chris Lonnergan, the taciturn but deadly efficient senior Watchers Field Agent in charge of the reformed Watchers Council Special Operations Team. Once again, after the Wetherby, Collins and Smith fiasco in Los Angeles, Alessandra and her Council allies had made sure that any new Special Operations Team was firmly under collective Council control. Given his experience and track record, Chris Lonnergan was a logical choice to lead it; and at least he was trustworthy. No unilateral orders would be accepted from Travers, she was assured.
Which still left other issues. Given that Buffy had refused to acknowledge Dawn's humanity during the dao shengbang incident, and had tried to weaponise her as the Key, there were moments of tension and frostiness between the two sisters as a result. Doug stepped in, offering to give Dawn a lift to Sunnydale Highschool as its reconstruction neared its end. Gradually, Doug talked Dawn around to accepting that Buffy's remarks were the product of paranormal interference with her sister's life, and not really indicative of her true feelings toward her younger sister. As for Buffy herself, she was fragile for the first few months after losing Xander, Giles and Spike. Doug volunteered to clean out Spikes crypt and do an audit of any potential adverse dark paranormal presences or artifacts lurking there. Any salvageable items were identified, catalogued and carefully stored away for potential future use. Much the same happened to the supervillains headquarters, only Jonathan Levinson was invaluable there. Due to his unexpected intervention during the dao shengbang incident and his final break with his former allies, Jonathan was accepted for Watchers Institute training and left for England, but not before he and Dawn started seeing each other. At the airport, they kissed goodbye, surprising almost everyone except Tara, whom she had confided in.
As for Doug's integration into the Scoobies, the three witches formed a triad coven of their own and his combat skills became a marked asset out in the field. But Buffy, Willow and Tara could never forget Xander and what he had meant to them, and Doug had enough humility not to ever assume that he was somehow Xander's "replafcement." Once day, after a paritcularly hectic patrol, he observed to Buffy that he wished he had the confidence and inner strength of Xander Harris and carried a deep and abiding respect for the years that he had fought alongside the slayer without any paranormal abilities. That took real guts, courage and determination, he concluded. Doug and Buffy shared a few post-patrol beers and got drunk one night reminiscing about Giles and the times they'd had under his protective wing on both sides of the Atlantic. A month before they left for Europe, Doug drove Willow to Xander's grave and she collapsed in front of it, weeping. She expressed regret that despite what he meant to her as a friend, she couldn't save him. Kitty Fantastico became Willow and Tara's familiar and began to exhibit the usual enhanced intelligence that paranormal companion animals did as magic began to suffuse within her.
Although Giles and Xander were mourned for what they had meant to Buffy, Willow, Tara, Doug and Dawn, Spike was a trickier proposition. However, Willow later relayed the observation that Doug was a "Big Balled Bloody Scary Axe-Wielding Psycho Poof" according to one conversation Spike had had with Xander and her before Spike's staking- and Doug couldn't stop laughing about that for almost ten minutes. Although Doug didn't share Buffy's feelings about Spike given that his own wiccan abilities had only emerged after almost being beaten to death by the aforementioned vampire, he was diplomatic about it, respecting her feelings of regret and loss when they came up. With Willow and Tara's holiday, Buffy and Doug held their own on patrol, and commiserated ovet the state of their respective love lifes. Buffy said that it was hard to find a good man who wasn't threatened by her paranormal strength and prowess and Doug agreed, remarking that things weren't necessarily any better if you were gay and wanted intimacy and a relationship with a non-paranormal gay 'civilian', and that opportunities otherwise were rare.
Doug also expressed disgust one evening when they encountered a vampire who responded with fear and aversion to his neckchain pentacle. He observed that wicca was abput life, vampires spread death and the two were antithetical, except in rare cases. At times, Willow, Tara and Doug expressed unease that there was a third member of the dao shengbang trio that had beset Buffy two months past but as time wore on and there was no further attadk from that quarter, they assumed that the third member of the new trio had left town for darker pastures.
For once, they were wrong. Amy Madison was still in Sunnydale, watching and biding her time. After Willow had undergone the Diana Tiphateth whitewicca conversion spell, Madison had now become the most powerful darkmage in the town. Heeding the recklessness and incompetence of her deceased colleagues, she shed a few tears for Warren but concentrated on marshalling her enhanced energies and carefully concealed practice at the dark arts. She vowed vengeance against Summers, Rosenberg and Mercer for what they had done to Meers. The next year would bring brutal consequences and painful truths to all of them, she vowed.
TO BE CONTINUED: BUFFY SEASON SEVEN AU