Post by Nightshadow on Aug 9, 2005 13:18:16 GMT -5
Title: Renegade
Author: Nightshadow
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Abuse, language, violence
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Crossover: No
----------------------------------------
AN: This story takes place Five Years After "Chosen" in Shades of Black.
----------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: Spoke Too Soon
--
Dawn Summers, 21 years old, a bright young Watcher-In-Training. She sat on her bed, thinking about everything that had happened. Soon after the destruction of Sunnydale, Giles had somehow acquired a huge amount of land, away from noisy cities. There, he had organized the construction of a "Slayer Boarding School".
One three floored building for Slayer and Watcher classes. One six floored apartment building for Slayers and one for the Watchers. Soccer field, basketball courts, track for running, a large swimming pool. A lake on the campus. A Training gym, rather big, with everything they could possibly need. A big library, with a couple of computers.
The apartments all had suites to house up to four Slayers or Watchers each. They had four bedrooms, a den, a kitchen and two bathrooms in each. The occupants were given cardkeys, obviously, to get in. Dawn shared an apartment with Dusk, seeing as they were both Watchers-In-Training.
Dawn was jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of Dusk moving around. An amused smile played across her lips as she stood up. Savannah was coming home today, after being away for nearly seven months off looking for Slayers. Dawn and the Scoobies all knew that Savannah and Dusk had feelings for each other, yet they had never admitted it over the last few years. But Dusk, as always, was excited about Savannah coming back from her last mission for the next year or so.
-----------------------------------------------
"Savannah!" Chloe hugged her roommate cheerfully. Savannah looked and felt completely exhausted, but smiled none-the-less. "God! It's always so quiet whenever you're gone." Chloe said, releasing the older woman. Chloe was no longer the apprehensive, self-doubting young woman she was five years ago. She was confident and capable of taking care of herself, with a helluva left hook.
"Now, let me see what damage has been done this time." Chloe ordered, standing back. Savannah sighed, a wave of nausea hitting her as she took off her jacket, which wasn't needed, seeing as it was in the low eighties. Quite a few very nasty looking bruises were scattered over her arms, accompanied by viscious, deep cuts and wounds.
"What happened, get attacked by a bunch of demons?" Chloe mused, looking up at her.
"Actually, yeah, I did." Savannah nodded slightly, shouldering her jacket back on. "So, where are the others?"
"They don't know you're here, Dusk'll be waiting for you." Chloe answered, a smirk playing on her face. Savannah felt her face flush at the knowing expression her roommate wore. "Dunno what you're talking about." She muttered unconvincingly. Chloe grinned, but didn't say anything further.
The pair silently rode the elevator up to Dusk's floor. The moment they knocked on Dawn and Dusk's apartment door, the door flew open and a woman flung her arms around Savannah's neck, nearly knocking her over.
"It's so good to see you!" Dawn chirped, stepping back, beaming brightly. Dusk seemed amused by Dawn's greeting. Chloe sidled over to stand beside Dawn, glancing between Dusk and her Wiccan roommate. Dawn and Chloe traded sly looks, before looking back to the pair.
"You know, Chloe and I should go tell the others you're here. Like Buffy-" Dawn said.
"Xander-" Chloe added.
"And Willow and Kennedy-"
"And Vi and Rona-"
"Yeah, all of.....everybody. See you in a few." With that said, the two quickly disappeared into the elevator.
"Why does Buffy keep sending you on these increasingly long missions?" Dusk asked, breaking the tentative silence.
"Because, she needs Faith here in case anything happens, and Kennedy hasn't had as much training." Savannah answered, fighting back a wave of dizziness. Dusk narrowed her eyes, noting her behavior.
"What's wrong?" She asked shortly, crossing her arms over her chest. Savannah started, and leaned against the wall as another wave threatened to consume her.
"I might be catching a cold or something. Been without sleep for the last ten days. Attacked by demons a day before I arrived." Savannah didn't have the will to argue, nor the strength. Dusk lightly took her arm and, after a silent exchange, she led her best friend to the elevator. A few minutes later, as they walked into the lounge of the Slayers apartment, a blast of chatter reached her ears. Vi, Rona, Chao-Ahn, Colleen, Caridad, Shannon, Destiny, Buffy, Faith, Kennedy, Robin, Xander, Willow, Dawn and Chloe stood in a group.
"Hey, nice to have ya back, squirt." Faith punched her in the shoulder lightly, smiling. Savannah pretended to be offended at being called "squirt".
"I'm not sixteen anymore Faith." She grumbled good-naturedly. Faith just winked roguishly. All of the Original "Potentials-turned-Slayers" hugged her tightly.
"You did good finding Potentials in Europe, I mean, finding those six individual girls had to have been diffucult." Buffy smiled welcomingly.
"How are they doing?" Savannah asked, despite her overwheming urge to simply faint right there and then.
"You'll see how they're doing, because you are going to be teaching them. Two classes. Battle Simulations with Faith, and teaching the ones with unusual abilities to control their powers." Buffy told her, smiling at the excited expression on the younger Slayer's face.
"Thank you so much, Buffy!" She hugged her tightly before releasing her. After a couple more minutes catching up with the other girls, she felt too tired to keep talking and went up to her room with Chloe.
-----------------------------------------
Willow watched all of the future Watchers take their seats, talking amongst themselves. Her eyes focused on a couple of the "preppy" looking girls. Their names were...well, okay, so she didn't know their names yet.
"Hello class," The students fell silent immediately. "My name is Professor Willow Rosenberg, and I'll be teaching you about Demonic History. We're going to start off with the Queller demon." There was a brief shuffle of notebooks being pulled out and flipped open to a clean page. "The Queller demon first appeared-"
----
Seven.
A total of seven girls had extra, rather unusual powers. Four of them were girls she had gone out and found herself, the other three were not. The quartet she had "recruited" were sitting together on the floor. The room she was in there were no tables, one desk, and no chairs. Savannah, in the form of a black cat sitting on her desk that the girls simply thought was a pet. They were talking quietly, waiting for Savannah to arrive. She jumped down from the desk and morphed back to human. The girls jumped back in stunned silence.
"Hey, I'm going to be your teacher. My name is Professor Savannah Boone, but just call me Savannah. I am going to teach you how to control your powers. But first, learning your names might help." Savannah pointed to the quartet. "I know you four since I went and got you. Lily," The girl she pointed to had red hair, brown eyes, seventeen years old, ability to conjure water.
"Sophia," Brown hair, brown eyes, fifteen years old, ability to conjure fire.
"Sarah," Dark brown hair, clear blue eyes, eighteen years old, telekinesis.
"And Ebony." Dirty blonde hair, hazel eyes, sixteen years old, telepathy.
"So, if you three could introduce yourselves, show us your power." Savannah said, turning to the others. The first girl looked to be about seventeen, had black hair and green eyes.
"I'm Vanessa, and I can float....kinda." She closed her eyes and, after a few moments of concentrating, her feet left the floor and she hovered about two feet off of the floor, leaving about a foot and a half between her head and the ceiling.
"Okay, now you." Next girl had blonde hair, brown eyes and was sixteen. "My name is Natalie and, uhm, I can...just watch, too hard to explain." She cupped her hands in front of her and a few seconds later a small tornado formed in her hands. She clenched her fist, destroying the mini-tornado. "Yeah, I can do that, just I can shoot them at people too, like, make them into balls...."
Natalie sat and the last girl rose. Auburn hair, hazel-green eyes, around eighteen.
"I'm Melissa and I can create clouds, like a smokescreen and then make them disappear when I want them to." Melissa demonstrated and the room filled with dark, thick clouds, then they vanished.
-----------------------
"God, it's tiring being a teacher." Savannah muttered, falling onto the couch next to Chloe. Her roommate laughed, watching her lightly.
"Vi taught Chao-Ahn a couple of new words. Buffy wasn't too thrilled about it either." Chloe informed her, an amused expression flitting across her features.
"I bet."
----------------------
Nine days later
11:54 pm
Cleveland, 10 miles from the school
July 25, 2005
Savannah dusted her fifth vampire of the night, brushing the vamp-dust off of her jean jacket. She continued walking through one of the many Cleveland cemeteries. Vi, Shannon, Colleen, and Chloe were, in pairs, patrolling two of the other cemeteries. Chloe, Shannon and Colleen had all caught a little sleep on the car ride into Cleveland. Vi and Savannah had actually had a very interesting conversation.
Out of the blue, razor sharp claws raked across her back, gouging four deep, long gashes and knocking her into a tombstone. For a split-second, she felt odd, but quickly regained her senses and leapt to her feet despite the terrible, overwhelming pain, and the fact that she couldn't see straight for the moment. She drew her dagger out of the sheath on the side of her boot, a tip she had picked up from Faith, and immediately struck upwards. There was a loud shriek and the thud as the demon fell to the ground.
She had stabbed the creature in the throat, killing it almost instantly. The Wiccan-Slayer fell backwards, eliciting a stifled cry of pain as she landed on her back. Savannah kept her eyes closed, trying to orient herself. There were footsteps and then Vi's voice.
"What happened?" She opened her green-hazel eyes, looking up at her fellow Slayers. Chloe was clearly concerned from the look in her dark brown eyes. Savannah forcefully pushed herself up into a sitting position.
"Demon caught me off guard, that's all." She painfully got to her feet, moving gingerly. "Let's just get back to the school, get some sleep. Vi, could you-?" Vi nodded before she finished the question, taking the car keys out of her jacket pocket.
"I drive. You try to take it easy. Super-healing comes with the package, but it still takes time and you still have to rest." Vi told her as they all got in the car. Savannah smiled at her gratefully, buckling her seatbelt. The next half-hour passed relatively slow, with Vi and Savannah being, again, the only ones who stayed awake.
By the time they got back to the school, it was 1:30 in the morning.
-----------------------------
Faith laid back on the roof, staring up at the stars high above her. She picked out specific constellations, naming them outloud to herself.
"Canis minor. Sirius. Orion's belt." She sighed, stretching her arms before laying them behind her head. She closed her eyes, relishing the cool, gentle night breeze. Her mind changed trains of thought, switching from constellations to Savannah's return. She sorted through past memories, particulary ones of the last days of Sunnydale.
The days after they rescued her from that poacher guy and the wacked demon, Dusk had been unbelievably protective of her. Dusk knew exactly how to calm her down, to comfort her, knew almost exactly how she worked. The first week or so, she was delusional and hallucinating.
The only people she would trust were Dawn, Tara and Dusk. Everytime Faith would try to gain her trust, she would shy away and curl into a tight ball, muttering something about Faith being evil, murderer, traitor and other things like that.
The Slayer's hand shot out, and was instantly blocked by another. Faith opened her eyes, meeting Buffy's eyes. The other Slayer released her wrist, sitting down beside her.
"Any particular reason you're still up, B?" She asked with her usual air of relaxation and laid-back confidence. Buffy shook her head, gazing thoughtfully up at the never-ending heavens. Then she sighed, looking back to Faith.
"It's just been too quiet for my liking." Buffy admitted. "I mean, since Sunnydale became a giant crator, we've dealt with other major demons and big bad-baddy-badness. So, why the long absence?"
"I had the same thought, Buff. But, for the moment, everything's five-by-five. Try to enjoy it, girl. We'll face whatever bad rears its ugly head and beat it to a pulp, like we always do." Faith assured her, unworried.
"I guess you're right, Faith." Buffy nodded slightly.
--
On the fourth floor below the pair of Slayers, a painstricken scream tore through the usually silent night air.
Author: Nightshadow
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Abuse, language, violence
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Crossover: No
----------------------------------------
AN: This story takes place Five Years After "Chosen" in Shades of Black.
----------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: Spoke Too Soon
--
Dawn Summers, 21 years old, a bright young Watcher-In-Training. She sat on her bed, thinking about everything that had happened. Soon after the destruction of Sunnydale, Giles had somehow acquired a huge amount of land, away from noisy cities. There, he had organized the construction of a "Slayer Boarding School".
One three floored building for Slayer and Watcher classes. One six floored apartment building for Slayers and one for the Watchers. Soccer field, basketball courts, track for running, a large swimming pool. A lake on the campus. A Training gym, rather big, with everything they could possibly need. A big library, with a couple of computers.
The apartments all had suites to house up to four Slayers or Watchers each. They had four bedrooms, a den, a kitchen and two bathrooms in each. The occupants were given cardkeys, obviously, to get in. Dawn shared an apartment with Dusk, seeing as they were both Watchers-In-Training.
Dawn was jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of Dusk moving around. An amused smile played across her lips as she stood up. Savannah was coming home today, after being away for nearly seven months off looking for Slayers. Dawn and the Scoobies all knew that Savannah and Dusk had feelings for each other, yet they had never admitted it over the last few years. But Dusk, as always, was excited about Savannah coming back from her last mission for the next year or so.
-----------------------------------------------
"Savannah!" Chloe hugged her roommate cheerfully. Savannah looked and felt completely exhausted, but smiled none-the-less. "God! It's always so quiet whenever you're gone." Chloe said, releasing the older woman. Chloe was no longer the apprehensive, self-doubting young woman she was five years ago. She was confident and capable of taking care of herself, with a helluva left hook.
"Now, let me see what damage has been done this time." Chloe ordered, standing back. Savannah sighed, a wave of nausea hitting her as she took off her jacket, which wasn't needed, seeing as it was in the low eighties. Quite a few very nasty looking bruises were scattered over her arms, accompanied by viscious, deep cuts and wounds.
"What happened, get attacked by a bunch of demons?" Chloe mused, looking up at her.
"Actually, yeah, I did." Savannah nodded slightly, shouldering her jacket back on. "So, where are the others?"
"They don't know you're here, Dusk'll be waiting for you." Chloe answered, a smirk playing on her face. Savannah felt her face flush at the knowing expression her roommate wore. "Dunno what you're talking about." She muttered unconvincingly. Chloe grinned, but didn't say anything further.
The pair silently rode the elevator up to Dusk's floor. The moment they knocked on Dawn and Dusk's apartment door, the door flew open and a woman flung her arms around Savannah's neck, nearly knocking her over.
"It's so good to see you!" Dawn chirped, stepping back, beaming brightly. Dusk seemed amused by Dawn's greeting. Chloe sidled over to stand beside Dawn, glancing between Dusk and her Wiccan roommate. Dawn and Chloe traded sly looks, before looking back to the pair.
"You know, Chloe and I should go tell the others you're here. Like Buffy-" Dawn said.
"Xander-" Chloe added.
"And Willow and Kennedy-"
"And Vi and Rona-"
"Yeah, all of.....everybody. See you in a few." With that said, the two quickly disappeared into the elevator.
"Why does Buffy keep sending you on these increasingly long missions?" Dusk asked, breaking the tentative silence.
"Because, she needs Faith here in case anything happens, and Kennedy hasn't had as much training." Savannah answered, fighting back a wave of dizziness. Dusk narrowed her eyes, noting her behavior.
"What's wrong?" She asked shortly, crossing her arms over her chest. Savannah started, and leaned against the wall as another wave threatened to consume her.
"I might be catching a cold or something. Been without sleep for the last ten days. Attacked by demons a day before I arrived." Savannah didn't have the will to argue, nor the strength. Dusk lightly took her arm and, after a silent exchange, she led her best friend to the elevator. A few minutes later, as they walked into the lounge of the Slayers apartment, a blast of chatter reached her ears. Vi, Rona, Chao-Ahn, Colleen, Caridad, Shannon, Destiny, Buffy, Faith, Kennedy, Robin, Xander, Willow, Dawn and Chloe stood in a group.
"Hey, nice to have ya back, squirt." Faith punched her in the shoulder lightly, smiling. Savannah pretended to be offended at being called "squirt".
"I'm not sixteen anymore Faith." She grumbled good-naturedly. Faith just winked roguishly. All of the Original "Potentials-turned-Slayers" hugged her tightly.
"You did good finding Potentials in Europe, I mean, finding those six individual girls had to have been diffucult." Buffy smiled welcomingly.
"How are they doing?" Savannah asked, despite her overwheming urge to simply faint right there and then.
"You'll see how they're doing, because you are going to be teaching them. Two classes. Battle Simulations with Faith, and teaching the ones with unusual abilities to control their powers." Buffy told her, smiling at the excited expression on the younger Slayer's face.
"Thank you so much, Buffy!" She hugged her tightly before releasing her. After a couple more minutes catching up with the other girls, she felt too tired to keep talking and went up to her room with Chloe.
-----------------------------------------
Willow watched all of the future Watchers take their seats, talking amongst themselves. Her eyes focused on a couple of the "preppy" looking girls. Their names were...well, okay, so she didn't know their names yet.
"Hello class," The students fell silent immediately. "My name is Professor Willow Rosenberg, and I'll be teaching you about Demonic History. We're going to start off with the Queller demon." There was a brief shuffle of notebooks being pulled out and flipped open to a clean page. "The Queller demon first appeared-"
----
Seven.
A total of seven girls had extra, rather unusual powers. Four of them were girls she had gone out and found herself, the other three were not. The quartet she had "recruited" were sitting together on the floor. The room she was in there were no tables, one desk, and no chairs. Savannah, in the form of a black cat sitting on her desk that the girls simply thought was a pet. They were talking quietly, waiting for Savannah to arrive. She jumped down from the desk and morphed back to human. The girls jumped back in stunned silence.
"Hey, I'm going to be your teacher. My name is Professor Savannah Boone, but just call me Savannah. I am going to teach you how to control your powers. But first, learning your names might help." Savannah pointed to the quartet. "I know you four since I went and got you. Lily," The girl she pointed to had red hair, brown eyes, seventeen years old, ability to conjure water.
"Sophia," Brown hair, brown eyes, fifteen years old, ability to conjure fire.
"Sarah," Dark brown hair, clear blue eyes, eighteen years old, telekinesis.
"And Ebony." Dirty blonde hair, hazel eyes, sixteen years old, telepathy.
"So, if you three could introduce yourselves, show us your power." Savannah said, turning to the others. The first girl looked to be about seventeen, had black hair and green eyes.
"I'm Vanessa, and I can float....kinda." She closed her eyes and, after a few moments of concentrating, her feet left the floor and she hovered about two feet off of the floor, leaving about a foot and a half between her head and the ceiling.
"Okay, now you." Next girl had blonde hair, brown eyes and was sixteen. "My name is Natalie and, uhm, I can...just watch, too hard to explain." She cupped her hands in front of her and a few seconds later a small tornado formed in her hands. She clenched her fist, destroying the mini-tornado. "Yeah, I can do that, just I can shoot them at people too, like, make them into balls...."
Natalie sat and the last girl rose. Auburn hair, hazel-green eyes, around eighteen.
"I'm Melissa and I can create clouds, like a smokescreen and then make them disappear when I want them to." Melissa demonstrated and the room filled with dark, thick clouds, then they vanished.
-----------------------
"God, it's tiring being a teacher." Savannah muttered, falling onto the couch next to Chloe. Her roommate laughed, watching her lightly.
"Vi taught Chao-Ahn a couple of new words. Buffy wasn't too thrilled about it either." Chloe informed her, an amused expression flitting across her features.
"I bet."
----------------------
Nine days later
11:54 pm
Cleveland, 10 miles from the school
July 25, 2005
Savannah dusted her fifth vampire of the night, brushing the vamp-dust off of her jean jacket. She continued walking through one of the many Cleveland cemeteries. Vi, Shannon, Colleen, and Chloe were, in pairs, patrolling two of the other cemeteries. Chloe, Shannon and Colleen had all caught a little sleep on the car ride into Cleveland. Vi and Savannah had actually had a very interesting conversation.
Out of the blue, razor sharp claws raked across her back, gouging four deep, long gashes and knocking her into a tombstone. For a split-second, she felt odd, but quickly regained her senses and leapt to her feet despite the terrible, overwhelming pain, and the fact that she couldn't see straight for the moment. She drew her dagger out of the sheath on the side of her boot, a tip she had picked up from Faith, and immediately struck upwards. There was a loud shriek and the thud as the demon fell to the ground.
She had stabbed the creature in the throat, killing it almost instantly. The Wiccan-Slayer fell backwards, eliciting a stifled cry of pain as she landed on her back. Savannah kept her eyes closed, trying to orient herself. There were footsteps and then Vi's voice.
"What happened?" She opened her green-hazel eyes, looking up at her fellow Slayers. Chloe was clearly concerned from the look in her dark brown eyes. Savannah forcefully pushed herself up into a sitting position.
"Demon caught me off guard, that's all." She painfully got to her feet, moving gingerly. "Let's just get back to the school, get some sleep. Vi, could you-?" Vi nodded before she finished the question, taking the car keys out of her jacket pocket.
"I drive. You try to take it easy. Super-healing comes with the package, but it still takes time and you still have to rest." Vi told her as they all got in the car. Savannah smiled at her gratefully, buckling her seatbelt. The next half-hour passed relatively slow, with Vi and Savannah being, again, the only ones who stayed awake.
By the time they got back to the school, it was 1:30 in the morning.
-----------------------------
Faith laid back on the roof, staring up at the stars high above her. She picked out specific constellations, naming them outloud to herself.
"Canis minor. Sirius. Orion's belt." She sighed, stretching her arms before laying them behind her head. She closed her eyes, relishing the cool, gentle night breeze. Her mind changed trains of thought, switching from constellations to Savannah's return. She sorted through past memories, particulary ones of the last days of Sunnydale.
The days after they rescued her from that poacher guy and the wacked demon, Dusk had been unbelievably protective of her. Dusk knew exactly how to calm her down, to comfort her, knew almost exactly how she worked. The first week or so, she was delusional and hallucinating.
The only people she would trust were Dawn, Tara and Dusk. Everytime Faith would try to gain her trust, she would shy away and curl into a tight ball, muttering something about Faith being evil, murderer, traitor and other things like that.
The Slayer's hand shot out, and was instantly blocked by another. Faith opened her eyes, meeting Buffy's eyes. The other Slayer released her wrist, sitting down beside her.
"Any particular reason you're still up, B?" She asked with her usual air of relaxation and laid-back confidence. Buffy shook her head, gazing thoughtfully up at the never-ending heavens. Then she sighed, looking back to Faith.
"It's just been too quiet for my liking." Buffy admitted. "I mean, since Sunnydale became a giant crator, we've dealt with other major demons and big bad-baddy-badness. So, why the long absence?"
"I had the same thought, Buff. But, for the moment, everything's five-by-five. Try to enjoy it, girl. We'll face whatever bad rears its ugly head and beat it to a pulp, like we always do." Faith assured her, unworried.
"I guess you're right, Faith." Buffy nodded slightly.
--
On the fourth floor below the pair of Slayers, a painstricken scream tore through the usually silent night air.
