The Battle of Sunnydale

A new slayer

Author: Norgco (aka. Shawn Dorca) <norgco[at]yahoo.com>

Rating: PG?

Summary: Buffy died, The Slayer is Dead, long live the Slayer. But who and where?

Feedback: Please, it is always appreciated, do you want more?


From the notes of Captain Xander Harris, USMC

Since Buffy died I have been wondering who and where the next slayer is. Well it turns out she is in Turkey, which is also where the next hellmouth formed, and was promptly opened. Faith and I were in the Appalachians when this happened, and the really major killing was over by the time we could be spared to help. Like most people I had thought the capital was Istanbul, but actually it is, or was, Ankara. The capital actually is in Istanbul now, since NATO honoured the Turkish governments request for Nuclear fire support. Tough guys, since the request came from the, I think he was the President, and he was trapped in the city when he ordered the nukes dropped.

Clearing out the rubble was strictly leg infantry work, armoured vehicles couldn't move in the ruins, with the Slayer being used as a demon detector. Nowadays we have all the killing power anyone could want, and the slayers traditional role is less important than her slayer senses. Still, there was fair amount of hand-to-hand in the ruins, which couldn't be done properly encumbered by a radiation suit. Exactly what that has done to the Slayer's life expectancy is unknown, nothing good though. She is showing no signs of radiation sickness so far, and no one knows how the Slayer metabolism will handle it. Time will tell.

It's funny that I don't know the name of either slayer. Faith Wilkins is not her real name, she abandoned her birth name as soon as she could, having your mother act as your pimp when you are 10 years old WILL tend to cause bitterness and lack of family feeling. Mayor Wilkins formally adopted her, and she keeps the name since it is on the official records, and to remind her of where she has been in life. Only the Watchers council knows what her original name was, and Giles has obeyed her request to never refer to her by it.

The Turkish slayer is never referred to by full name. Faith calls her O, the military formally use Captain Ozel, people with any religious belief at all tend to use Chosen One, or Chosen One Ozel if both of them are present. Faith is not who she was before prison, and I have no idea what Captain Ozel was like before she was called and then became the youngest officer in the Turkish army. It is hard to believe I was ever that young, at times, and at others I look at this 15 year old and think she would have fitted right in with the scoobies.

The casualties are a little lower than for our version, but hitting Ankara with what my favourite author once called "...the one second slum clearance plan..." was easier on manpower than our beachhead invasion of Sunnydale. Still she lost people who had stood by her through the Slayer in Training phase, when she had to keep doing things that got her into trouble she could never explain without being carried away to a padded cell. Friends like that are hard to find.

The help we are providing is mainly in the nature of training and support, and works both ways. Faith has had no one to spar with since before Graduation, plenty of killing demons recently but training is different, and has not been happening. O has never had anyone to train with that she could go full force with without killing, again, plenty of demon killing but until called her practice was with her Watcher. Melissa Jenkins is nice enough, for a tweed wearing type, but O's family were always suspicious of this unmarried middle aged Englishwoman who spent so much time with 'such a nice girl.' Looking back on it, the fact that Giles was able to surround himself with teenagers and not be accused of something perverse is a tribute to the apathy of Sunnydale people generally.

Since the hammer went down there have been apologies from both sides, for the suspicion on one side and for keeping secrets on the other. The fact that the Chosen One is a teenage girl, and has always been for thousands of years, is causing all kinds of religious and social turbulence. That applies to the whole world, of course, since it is heavily publicized and the first telemovie is already out. I have never seen it, but apparently it covers the high school years without mentioning the embarrassing Mayor stuff. We are all portrayed as young, handsome, intelligent, and indescribably brave. All of which is perfectly accurate in my case, of course.

The trip to Istanbul was a major event, and one neither Faith nor myself were ready for. We knew we were known to the world, since news crews visited occasionally and Giles has a gig with the people in the big white building at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue now, as well as the Council thing. Still, when he said George, Colin and Tony wanted to have lunch with us before we left it sounded like they were members of a band he had played in during his Ripper years. Faith wound up arm wrestling the commandant of the Marine Corps, and I got a formal apology, from the Prime Minister of Great Britain, for the Watchers Council's behaviour. The Secret Service were nervous about our weapons, but Faith simply WILL NOT be separated from that Katana, and my axe didn't scratch up the furniture that much..

Air Force transportation was provided, and I learned it's only called Air Force One if the President is actually on board at the time. Since I had never been on a plane before I had nothing to compare it with, but apparently it beats the hell out of Tourist Class. Then there is how they kept referring to Faith as Chosen One. As a Marine only the Chaplain had done that, the rest well, you do know the Marine Corps Hymn has a verse about heaven, it says "... the streets are guarded by United States Marines." But people kept calling her that once we left base camp, and I was getting treated and spoken to differently to the usual one armed man with a battle axe and anti- tank rocket slung over his shoulder.

Or is it unusual for people to do that elsewhere, both of us had become so used to everyone around us being habitually armed that all the UNARMED people made us nervous, and in Sunnydale no-one ever noticed us walking to battle with axes, crossbows and swords? Sometimes I think maybe I think I am excessively strange, a product of an unusual upbringing. Then I realize that I am normal guy, its everyone else that 's strange. Anyway we got to an area called Central Anatolia fairly quickly from Istanbul, the base camp looked like any other I have seen. We were introduced to Captain Ozel, and allowed a few days to catch up with jet lag. Then the sparing started.

Faith and O had a clear area in the middle of camp to use. Past experience had shown that O's sparing partners tended to hit any walls or trees in the neighbourhood. She had been told to go full force and not worry about "training injuries". There was an ambulance waiting, and quite a crowd of onlookers. Faith walked up to the other slayer, said, "lets go" and they were at it.

At first they were moving at almost normal speeds, but as they warmed up the speed increased, to a rate that was hard to follow. Buffy and Faith had never moved at this kind of pace in their sparing, other differences were also noticeable. O moved entirely in straight lines, with no turning or spinning moves. Buffy used to use a lot of spin kicks, and kicks to the head. O only seems to kick up to the waist, and uses only punching above that. Really, it was fascinating to watch and a lot of people were, they had been sparing with her and wanted to see the two Chosen Ones in action.

And it was amazing action. It was a blur of speed and movement with two very different styles from the two women. Faith has a very aggressive, close up and destroy style, O is more of a counter puncher, responding to her opponents attacks, deflecting Faiths spin kicks, and kicks to the head. Faith was giving as good as she got, of course, but it was very different from anything she had faced previously. Eventually they stopped, smiled and walked over to the showers together, as a permanent base it had these sorts of things set up and even privacy screens, which are not necessarily provided in all male units.

Now there are two slayers here, and they seem to have different but complementary styles. Tonight we go out on a vampire search and destroy mission. O speaks fluent English, with a London accent courtesy of her watcher. We can all communicate, and the killing teams understand enough English to get by, which is really all that is needed. It will be a company scale operation, eighty-four men plus the three of us to provide intelligence about possible ambushes and so on.

I found the nest a few days ago, and thought it would be a good warm up mission for her and Faith. It isn't a major mission against the sort of big demons that are trying to retake our world for the old ones, but it is an absolutely vital mission to prevent vampire destruction of our capability to fight their bigger kin. When vampires infiltrate our camps and kill or turn soldiers it hurts morale and creates enemies for us. When they attack our s&d teams they try to create fear and caution. That is not working very well, since the all or nothing nature of the fight was clear from the first, but it is the slayers sacred duty to stop them. And so we will go. Weapons checked and loaded by two hours before sundown, grenade launchers and LAW's mainly, everyone prepared and on the choppers by one hour before, on the ground at the objective with twenty minutes to spare.

The fight continues, the demons continue to die, and the whole world is fighting them. We will continue to fight, and we will win.