The Two - Part II rev.3

TITLE:	The Two (2/24)
AUTHOR:	-Andy- (see2go4me@yahoo.com)
RATING:	R eventually
STATUS:	Rev. 3
DISCLAIMER:	All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, and others. I don't own any of this, just the words gluing my story together.
SUMMARY:	Buffy meets a different kind of Willow in an alternate universe. (It's a B/W folks. Eventually. With a very slow wind-up.)
SPOILERS:	All seasons of BtVS. None for Angel or BtVS comics (including Season 8)
DISTRIBUTION:	Ask first please.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:	Another revision now that my writing style has changed.

Projecting what some of the younger Council members had taken to calling her 'queen like' persona, Buffy stepped off of the porch. She'd thought of a dozen different ways to approach the slayer but they'd all been discarded as soon as Buffy had seen her, leaving her with the one approach that always seemed to work when all else failed. She walked towards the girl with the confident swagger that surviving almost a decade as a slayer had given her, pushing her emotional reaction to the girl's unexpected resemblance to her sister into the farthest reaches of her mind, to be examined later.

Nearing her, Buffy noticed how the girl had nervously assumed a defensive posture as she watched Buffy approach. Working with dozens of the new slayers 'activated' by Willow just before the destruction of Sunnydale had given Buffy experience in using her mere presence to gain some mental control over a new slayer fairly quickly. Although she wasn't against exerting physical control over them when necessary, the violence involved when attempting to physically restrain a slayer tended to disturb onlookers so this ability had been extremely useful.

Willow'd been fascinated by the phenomenon the first time she'd seen Buffy stop a rampaging slayer with only a look and had spent some time investigating it. According to her, it was almost a form of hypnotism, though it didn't last very long. Even though Willow had claimed it was a skill any slayer should be able to learn, Buffy was the only one so far who seemed to be able to do it with any success.

She's stopped listening to Willow's theories when she'd heard through the grapevine how relieved certain Council members were when they'd discovered that her ability didn't work on Faith, or the more experienced slayers who'd faced the First Evil and its minions. But it did seem to work on this girl to some extent, keeping her from attacking or running away, giving Buffy time to look her over, circling her slowly just out of reach of her long legs.

Although she knew she wasn't being entirely fair, judging her without having any idea about the local situation, Buffy wasn't happy with what she was seeing and sensing. While the girl's presence proclaimed her slayer status to those who knew what to look for, she was missing that psychic hardness that permeated a slayer's essence after facing death on an almost daily basis until the end of her short life. It wasn't that she appeared physically soft, quite the opposite in fact, but she wasn't intimidating and didn't have that aura of implacable command taught to slayers through hard experience.

She was clearly dressed for battle but to Buffy's experienced eyes it displayed both inexperience and incompetence on the part of whomever had trained her.

While the heavy leather jacket and pants she was wearing would be enough protection against a fledgling vampire or small demon in a quick encounter; in a long, drawn out fight the weight of the inflexible leather clothes would slow her down and quickly wear her out. While there were situations where strength mattered, survival more often depended on speed and endurance, a concept she'd tried to pound into new slayers until it was second nature.

Amazingly, she didn't appear to have any weapons other than her stake, not even something as basic as a knife. And this, Buffy noticed, was in an awkward to reach location under her jacket. Retrieving it on the run without slowing down would be difficult, which could be fatal. Her heavy boots might protect her feet but would do more damage to her ability to run than they would help in a fight. The others might make jokes about Buffy's faux shoe addiction but the older slayers understood her reasons.

Buffy was surprised that she was still alive, if she went out on patrol every night dressed and armed like that. She wasn't ready to fight more than a single, weak vampire at a time. Even a small pack of vampires, or an older, experienced one would quickly kill her, with little effort. She was either very new or this was a town with a very small vampire population. And, assuming she even had one, if her watcher wasn't dead, they just as green as she was.

Buffy shook her head in dismay. While looks could certainly be deceiving, this wasn't a good starting point. Getting home would be a lot harder if the local slayer and her support system were as inexperienced as it currently looked. She could only hope she was wrong. She wasn't sure she had the energy to fight the potentially long odds to get home if she had to first fix an untrained slayer.

A low growl from the girl interrupted Buffy's thoughts as she continued her examination. Surprised that it had taken that long to get a reaction, Buffy lifted an eyebrow and stopped her circling before letting loose with what Willow had come to call her 'inner Cordelia' with little hesitation. It was something she'd found herself doing a lot more in the last few years since Sunnydale.

"Rude much? And who dressed you like that? Your mother?" Buffy said disdainfully. "Even your watcher should know better than to let you wear such clothes for patrolling."

She knew it wasn't the friendliest thing she could have said, but any response she got would hopefully quickly answer some of the many questions she had. And with the girl looking so much like her sister, Buffy was having a hard time keeping her emotions bottled up so quick was better, and made it easier to not let her concern at her obvious unpreparedness show.

"What's wrong with my clothes," the girl asked, glowering in obvious annoyance at the examination. "And what's a watcher?" she asked in an offended voice.

Well, that was an unexpected twist, Buffy thought. Dawn's double was clearly a slayer and she could have sworn she detected something like a hellmouth nearby and this universe was close enough to her own. Was it possible the Council of Watchers didn't exist here? Or did she just not know about them?

"The tweed brigade? Boring old men who watch you kill vampires while giving semi-useful advice? Sometimes calling themselves the Council of Watchers?" Buffy asked, dialing down her Cordelianess. "Someone must keep an eye on you," she added at her blank look.

"I'm not sure what a watcher is or does," the girl told her dismissively, "but I haven't needed a babysitter for years and..."

Before she could finish, Buffy, her senses still working overtime, felt the presence of a number of vampires. Imperiously holding up a hand, she stopped the girl mid-sentence with a hissed "Shhh...!"

Dawn braced herself as the woman walked toward her with a regal grace that belied her short stature. She didn't think the woman was evil, but on top of her automatic subservient reaction to her sister's look-alike, Dawn suppressed the unexpected urge to fall at her feet in worship. It was a disturbing feeling.

The woman circled her like she was some ratty old exhibit in an abandoned museum. She wasn't used to being treated like an object. Even the oldest members of the coven, who'd worked with other slayers in the past, treated her better than this.

Dawn continued to stand there, semi-frozen in a defensive stance. There was something about the woman, something that mesmerized her and held her there. She couldn't seem to move, her muscles refusing to obey. She wondered if she were imagining the waves of some kind of energy that seemed to radiate from this woman.

She growled under her breath in frustration at her immobility, diverting the woman from her examination. Her ensuing verbal attack left Dawn angry and confused. What was wrong with her clothes? She'd always dressed like this for her nightly patrols. Besides which, she was just doing wearing what the other slayers wore. And the comment about having a watcher made no sense. What was a watcher and what did they watch, she thought. And why did this woman think she should have one?

The woman's explanation only confused her further. It was so not helping. Why would she need a babysitter? She was quite capable of taking care of herself. Before she could do more than express her disdain at the idea she was stopped by the woman's quick signal to be quiet.

And then she felt it. The vampire she had thought might be following her earlier was now a lot closer, just out of sight on the other side of the fence, and she was stuck. There wasn't enough time to get herself and the woman to safety if she had to protect her. The only other option was to risk bringing a potential enemy into the house, which didn't seem like a smart idea. She would have to fight the vampire and hope the woman stayed out of it.

While Dawn was going over her options, the woman became unnaturally still. Dawn could almost feel it as her attention shifted towards the fence. She seemed to be searching for something in the air as she did so. Dawn gulped as a pack of five vampires came into view at the end of the yard, her senses going wild, the urge to fight, to defend her territory, warring with the urge to run away.

"Are these friends of yours?" the woman asked quietly in a flat voice.

"Friends? Vampires? Are you crazy?" Dawn blurted out.

"Just checking," the woman told her with a shrug. "So, you won't mind if I deal with them before we continue our discussion?" she calmly asked.

Before Dawn could formulate a coherent reply, the woman strode forward, standing between her and the oncoming vampires. She mentally amended her previous thought. This woman wasn't just crazy, she was foolish and suicidal. And it looked like she was being dragged along for the ride. Reaching into her jacket, she tugged out her stake.

With a mental sigh at the girl's inaction, Buffy strode up to the oncoming vampires, putting herself between them and the girl. She stopped in front of the obvious leader, halting them in their tracks before they'd made it more than halfway into the yard. They weren't a very frightening looking bunch of blood suckers, she thought. Harmony, poster child for inept wanna-be master vamps everywhere, had been scarier than some of them.

Chances were they were newbies, fresh out of the grave, and it wouldn't take much effort to get rid of them. The only question being - could she do it without a fight? And did she even want to? A good fight might actually set her senses back to normal.

"Get out of our way, little girl," snarled the assumed leader. "We have business with the slayer!"

Although she'd carved herself several stakes with her boot knife during her earlier wait, this wasn't her world. So while she was far from defenseless, and her first instinct was to kill them, Buffy wasn't sure fighting random vampires, unless it was in self defense, was a good idea before she'd had a chance to learn more about the local power structure. Especially if she were stuck in some nightmarish universe like that fictional Anita Blake one where vampires had rights.

She had no desire to start her stay in this universe with a visit to jail if the local authorities objected to her killing vampires. Assuming any of them escaped. It wasn't her usual approach but what if she could get rid of them without resorting to violence? She'd had a fifty percent success rate with talking other demons out of violent rampages at home. Sure, a large part of that had been because of her reputation, but maybe it would work here?

She was used to being the focus of any vampires in her vicinity but these weren't in any apparent hurry to attack, staring at her in confusion. She didn't seem to be on the menu, a very odd experience for her. For some reason they didn't seem to realize she was a slayer, their only natural enemy. They seemed a little single minded about their stated task, even for vampires, waiting for her to get out of the way.

The only thing she could think of that some master vampire had sent them on an errand which apparently involved the slayer. Which, in this universe, wasn't her. But they should have recognized her as a slayer or some other dangerous creature. She'd sensed the other slayer herself, so it wasn't that she was that different.

And then a possible explanation occurred to her as all of these thoughts were running through her mind. Out of sheer boredom, while she sat on the porch, carved stakes and waited for the slayer to appear, she'd been practicing Willow's new aura hiding trick. Was it possible they couldn't actually sense she was a slayer? She hadn't realized it would work so well on vampires. And how long would it last? Unfortunately, facing vampires was not the best time to figure that out. Experimenting would have to wait.

But surely they would have also attacked a normal person, she thought. Not that it mattered. Right now she had to get rid of them. How didn't matter. First the talking, and if that didn't work, the violence she was so adept at after so long. Sure, vampires usually responded better to physical persuasion than to verbal methods, but it was worth a shot. Maybe she could talk her way out of this?

"She's mine!" Buffy declared to the speaker, putting as much conviction as she could into her voice. "This is as close as you're getting. If you can't talk to her from there you can leave. Or die. Your choice." She shrugged as if it didn't matter to her.

They were arguing over her, Dawn thought in surprise, feeling faint. The crazy woman was facing five vampires who wanted her, the slayer, and she was threatening them. And she didn't seem to be the least bit afraid of them.

She'd never fought more than one vampire at a time in the months since she'd become a slayer. And it had very rarely taken her longer than a minute or two when they fought. With the help of the coven, she'd managed to catch most of them when they'd just risen and were still groggy and easy to destroy.

All of her training up to this point had ultimately stressed survival. 'Don't get caught in a fight unless you can't avoid it', 'Get to some place safe when outnumbered', she'd been told. This advice had served the slayers in her line well for many centuries. Most of them had lived a long time, keeping vampire numbers low enough that most ordinary people believed they were just a myth.

But this was different. Did she help out a potential enemy? Or did she run away from both her and the vampires? When it came down to it, Dawn didn't think she could abandon someone to certain death, or worse.

Listening to them, she could tell the discussion between the vampires and the woman wasn't going well. The vampires not actively trading insults with her were starting to growl. She could feel the hair at the back of her neck rising with the tension she felt as the sound increased. Watching closely, Dawn noticed a subtle shift in the woman's stance, and wondered what it meant.

Suddenly, one of the smaller vampires lunged forward, and almost faster than even she could see, Dawn watched the woman stake that one and another with quick, short jabs of the wooden stake that had suddenly appeared in her hand. From the stunned looks on the faces of the remaining vampires, she could tell they were as surprised by this as she was. They apparently weren't expecting any real resistance. Before they could react she'd thrown another stake at a third, dusting it where it stood.

Backing away from the two remaining vampires, the woman quietly called to Dawn, "I've saved one for you," before she abruptly charged back towards them. The woman grabbed the smaller one and shoved it in her direction.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the other vampire was putting up a real fight. Hers, on the other hand, blindly attacked her and all she had to do was step out of the way at the last minute and trip it as it went by. Staking it took less than 5 seconds while it lay on the ground, and before it could get back up.

Coughing on the cloud of vampire dust she'd been unable to avoid, Dawn stayed where she was, watching in awe as the small woman fought the remaining vampire with an energy and skill she knew she wasn't close to possessing. This was a tough vampire and she knew that she wouldn't have lasted a minute against it. Even less if she'd had to deal with the other vampires at the same time.

Take a deep breath, Dawn tried to use the aura sensing technique she'd recently learned, hoping to get some sense of who the woman was. The vampire she was fighting was a black pit of evil nothingness, like she expected. But it was almost as if the woman wasn't there. There was a big spot of empty nothingness where she should have been. Dawn couldn't sense anything evil but she shivered at the sensation. Maybe someone in the coven would know what that meant.

Watching the punches back and forth and the kicks and other moves she wasn't familiar with, she hoped she wouldn't have to fight the winner. Her training over the years had stressed defense and speed while this woman's style was a combination of aggression and brute strength, mixed with a number of half familiar moves she almost recognized.

This vampire was obviously a formidable opponent but he was clearly outmatched. Wherever vampires learned to fight, it wasn't good enough, Dawn thought. On top of that, the woman seemed to be playing with it. That she was able to do so with a fierce grin on her face was even more frightening to the young slayer.

The girl had quickly taken care of her opponent but Buffy had been too busy to catch much of their fight. From what she'd seen out of the corner of her eye, it had been more luck than skill. A closer examination of her abilities would have to wait. Right now she had a stubborn vampire to eliminate.

A few punches in the right place. A powerful kick in another. A few bones broken in strategic places to slow him down and she was able to stake him. A relatively weak vampire. Not much of a challenge compared to the ones she usually fought. Pausing to shake the vampire dust out of her hair, Buffy turned back around to face the girl.

She really needed to burn off her excess energy, that hadn't been enough of a workout. An inexplicable anger had been steadily growing as she thought about the situation she found herself in. The short semi-meditation session while carving the stakes hadn't done much to slow it down. She needed to deal with it before she exploded. But the slayer in front of her didn't deserve to be included in the explosion so it would have to wait.

Raising an eyebrow, she looked at the pale girl. She could almost see the fear radiating from her. She was looking at Buffy like she was from another planet. Buffy nodded at her and waited for the expected questions.

"How...? Who are you? Why...?" the girl stammered out.

Ignoring most of her questions, Buffy answered the easiest "It's what I do. And thanks to our dusty friends we both know what you are supposed to be... but, your name is?"

"Dawn, Dawn Summers," she answered, a little color returning to her face.

"Ah, I thought that might be it. You look like a Dawn," Buffy said, knowing that she would need to avoid using this girl's name as much as possible. Given the things that had happened to her own sister, Buffy didn't want to become too fond of one that looked so much like her, especially with the short life expectancy of most slayers.

"Well, I'm sure you need to get some sleep. I'll see you some time tomorrow. We can continue our interrupted discussion then," she said, looking her up and down again. "I think we should also discuss your training regimen at some point, while I'm in town. Looks like you could use a little help."

The girl gaped at her in shock. Turning towards the street, Buffy walked away, headed towards the center of town. Hopefully the little money she had with her was close enough to what they used here that she could at least get a cup of coffee somewhere. She didn't think anyone, even in Sunnydale, would take anything else she would willingly offer them at this hour. Sleep would have to wait until daylight or when she found a safe place to crash for a couple hours.

Notes:

• And the revisions continue...

© Copyright 2009 Andy Stoffel. Last update: 7/19/09; 10:57:23 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.