FIC: To Conquer Death - Prologue/Interlude/Part One

[<djgirl1978@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This section is kinda long.  
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Title: To Conquer Death
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: B/W/Dakota
Disclaimers: The usual
Spoilers: Nah.
Feedback: Yeah!
Distribution: Ask first.
Summary: Sequel to The Prophet... actual plot and stuff.  
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PROLOGUE
 
London, 1247 A.D.
 
They called it the Prophecy of Rebirth when it was first spoken.
 
"For it shall come to pass in the latter days, in the place of the sun, that the Chosen One shall initiate the destruction of the Watchers. She herself shall turn and face the sun, and shall ally with the sorceress. She shall conquer Death and live forever, even to the end of the age, and from theget of the witch shall the new order be sprung. This is the prophecy."
 
Carefully recorded by the scribes of the Council in that time, the prophecywas known to all and researched carefully in order to try and determine its meanings, and to perhaps divine when it would take place. After all, "latter days" is an awfully general term. But as the years passed, those who knew about the Prophecy of Rebirth died off. Eventually, the Prophecy was known only to the Head of the Council, who passed it on to his successor when he retired, in order that the new Head might be able to study it and make plans for its eventual fulfillment.
 
Sometime in the muddy years between then and now, it became known as the Prophecy of Destruction, and the plans made for its fulfillment became plans of watching, waiting, and attempted thwarting. For even the Watcher's Council is not infallible, and even those most accustomed to mystical powers can forget that prophecies, while often fulfilled in unexpected ways, can never be truly escaped.
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London, present day
 
When Quentin Travers became Head of the Watcher's Council and received the Prophecy, he resolved in his arrogance and ignorance that any Slayer under his Council should be strictly controlled and not permitted any possible opportunity to fulfill it. He succeeded quite well for the most part, identifying potentials and making certain that they were trained strictly by onlythe best Watchers. For two decades, his plan worked perfectly.
 
The hitch came in 1995, when the Council discovered to its collective horror that two potential Slayers had been missed - and that they were in fact the next two Slayers in line.
 
A Watcher was dispatched immediately to find young Buffy Summers, and was successful only three short days after the death of the current Slayer, which activated Buffy. He successfully began her training which, unfortunately, was abruptly halted by his death.
 
The other potential Slayer, the one who would be called upon Buffy's death,proved elusive. Her family no longer lived in the place where they had when she was identified, and tracking them down proved harder than was at first anticipated. Fortunately, however, they were finally located. Her Watcher was sent to make contact with her and had in fact located her home whenthe Council seers suddenly reported that the girl was dead. How she died was a mystery, and the seers could not find it out, but the line shifted tothe next potential, a young Jamaican girl named Kendra.
 
When Buffy died, activating Kendra, and then was revived, Quentin Travers sat up and took notice. But soon he breathed easier, having assured himselfthat she was not capable of fulfilling the prophecy. The girl wasn't immortal, just lucky. A fluke.
 
Then, one night, one of Travers' operatives came to him with a recording ofa telephone conversation that had been recorded, unknown to the two speakers: a Council employee named Jonathan Edgerton, and one Rupert Giles, ex-Watcher and current helper and confidante to semi-rogue Slayer Buffy Summers.The things that Giles asked Edgerton to research were nothing short of terrifying, and upon learning that the call had been received over three weeks before being brought to his attention, Quentin Travers immediately dived into the Council records to see if his suspicions were accurate.
 
His hand trailed down the list of names of girls identified as potential Slayers, checking the notations as to which girls had Watchers, which girls could be successfully removed from their families for more intensive training, and which girls, as occasionally happened, had died before being Called.His finger stopped at one particular name, bearing just such a mark, and trembled as he read the name over and over, whispering it out loud to himself as though by saying it, he could make it disappear. But it did not, andthe words stared up boldly at him from the page.  
 
Quentin Travers began to sweat.


INTERLUDE: DAKOTA
 
The sun was just peeking over the tops of the palm trees as three figures, arms slung across each other's shoulders, ambled out of the Restfield Cemetery and headed down the street. The wan light of the new day illuminated the trio while also seeming to drain some of their color, leaving them looking almost like a sepia-toned film of themselves as they strolled along. They looked tired and all of them bore marks of a struggle, as though they had been brawling. They all bore bruises and scrapes, were all dirty, and one had a torn shirt; but for all of that, they also appeared to be in extremely high spirits.
 
"Six vamps, two Veralnis demons and a lead on a coven of apocalyptic Satan-worshippers... what night! I feel positively giddy," teased the dark-haired one. "In fact, I think I feel like dancing!" With those words she tookthe hands of the blonde, who laughed and followed her in a sort of demented two-step that turned itself into the Electric Slide on acid and ended them both on either side of their companion, a laughing redhead.  
 
"Ooh, look!" the blonde exclaimed. "A pretty girl. Just in time for smoochies!" She wrapped her arms around the redhead's waist and kissed her thoroughly, leaving them both quite breathless.
 
"Buffy!" the redhead exclaimed when she was finally released. Her face was flushed and she was obviously going to say something else, when suddenly arms were around her waist from behind her, as well, and a gentle set of teeth settled in the spot where her shoulder and neck joined. The merest touch of sharp fangs, combined with a gentle sucking sensation on her skin, caused her to gasp and fall silent.
 
Buffy stepped forward again and captured Willow's lips with her own as Dakota drew her fangs along the back of the redhead's neck, causing Willow to shiver with sensual pleasure. Finally the redhead gasped out one word. "Home." The three women immediately joined hands and moved rapidly toward their home with no further conversation or hesitation.
 
The house was empty when the three women arrived, and Buffy was silently grateful that Dawn and Mercedes had been invited to a slumber party at one oftheir friends' homes. They entered the house and went upstairs to the quiet of the master bedroom.
 
It had been four weeks since Dakota had relinquished her place as Willow's lover, and in those four weeks, the three women had come to a startling revelation. 
 
A long night of patrolling which had included several vamps and culminated in the destruction of a nest of ten who were attempting to raise a baby bezoar left both Slayer and Daywalker wired and jumpy as they turned onto Revello Drive near 2 a.m. They were working off some of their energy by slinging verbal barbs at one another, and as they climbed the steps to Dakota's empty house, planning to raid the refrigerator here where they needn't be silent before Buffy went home, the teasing took on a sudden sexual innuendo that rapidly built an almost palpable tension between the two women.
 
As they stood in the kitchen together, wolfing down submarine sandwiches and barbecue potato chips, Buffy had a sudden flash of memory - Faith in the Bronze, remarking on the "funny" way that slaying made one "hungry and horny." Before she quite realized she was speaking, she'd quoted that line to Dakota. The Daywalker turned and stared at her, eyes wide in something like shock, and Buffy felt the blood suffuse her face in a fierce blush. ThenDakota took a step toward Buffy, her mouth opening as though she were preparing to speak.
 
The next time either of them became consciously aware of what was going on,Buffy was naked on the kitchen counter with Dakota's hand between her legsand Dakota's fangs buried in her neck. The orgasm rocked the tiny blonde and she screamed Dakota's name as the surges of heat shot between the points at each end of her body. The Slayer cried out again a moment later as both fangs and fingers were slowly withdrawn, then she simply collapsed against the vampire in utter exhaustion. Dakota, coming back to herself, wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and held her tightly, staring out the kitchen window into the darkened back yard, wondering what on Earth they were going to say to Willow. Witch and Slayer had only been lovers for a little over a week - how would the sensitive redhead react?
 
Her answer came a moment later as soft lips grazed the nape of her neck anda warm, familiar set of hands slid under her shirt to caress her breasts. "My turn," Willow's sensual voice whispered from behind Dakota's ear. "I felt you two coming down the street an hour ago and you've been driving me crazy ever since. Now it's time to do something about it."
 
Dakota turned slightly to see Willow standing behind her, dressed only in ashimmery blue slip that Dakota had bought for her from Victoria's Secret on one of her walkabouts. The grin on Willow's face could not be described by any word other than erotic, and Dakota opened her embrace to pull the redhead in with herself and the Slayer. As she slid one hand under the slipto touch the secret places of Willow, places she had thought never to touch again, she dimly thought that their lives would never be the same again. And then she thought no more.
 
In the few weeks that followed, the three women found that they were easilyable to build a relationship together. It was made a bit simpler, in Dakota's opinion, by the fact that they did not all live in the same house. She had, in fact, rejected the suggestion that she and Mercedes immediately move in at 1630. The kids would need time to adjust to the concept of the three "stable" adults in heir lives having apparently gone insane, as well as even to he concept that they were in a three-way relationship. Mercedesneeded stability in her life, something that she could depend on, and her home was that major stability right now. She knew that she could walk in the door and everything would be a certain way. There was no reason to upheave her life like that.
 
There was also Dawn to think of. Dawn was notoriously picky about things, (Dakota hated to use the term spoiled brat, but it fit so aptly in Dawn's case), and she needed time to adjust to the relationship as well before a new parental figure and - in essence - a stepsister came crowding into her space.
 
Dakota also thought, very quietly in the back of her mind, that with the two girls living in separate houses, she could limit the amount of influence Dawn's attitudes and behavior had on Mercedes. In fact, all of the adults in close contact with Dawn - even Anya, who was disgracefully insensitive to subtleties in human behavior - had noticed that Mercedes had actually been somewhat of a grounding influence on Dawn. As Buffy's sister watched therelaxed way Mercedes interacted with the world around her, she realized that the little Southern girl had a lot less stress in her life than Dawn did, and tried to emulate her manner with some small success.
 
The other major reason that Dakota didn't want to move in with her lovers was that she had a craving for personal space that she didn't really feel would be available in a house with three adult women and two young teenage girls. Not that she didn't love Buffy and Willow both dearly, but Dakota washer own woman and she needed that alone time to keep her sanity. Since she'd become a vampire, she hadn't shared living quarters with anyone, and she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to start. Time enough for all of thatlater, when they could be sure that this was really a love thing rather than a lust thing.
 
But there was little time to think about that now, because the trio had made it to the master bedroom and Willow was naked under her hands and teeth, and there was no more time for abstract thought.


PART ONE
 
The loss of the potential Slayer who was to have been Buffy Summers's successor had been devastating to the Council under Quentin Travers's leadership, most especially due to the nature of her death. The journals of her Watcher, who had sought her for several months only to lose her when he was within half a mile of her, reflected first excitement at the prospect of finding her, and then despair upon the discovery of her death - for it had been he who found her corpse, battered from her first and final battle and emptyof blood. She had been drained by more than one, he noted, as there were several sets of fang-marks on her body. He noted also that there was quitea bit of dust on the ground which appeared to be vampire dust, and he noted that she had put up a valiant struggle before losing. He had then hurried away from her body, not wanting to be associated with it when she was found dead.
 
In retrospect, it was that escape that both saved his life and set events predicted hundreds of years before into motion. For, with the sound of her Watcher's footsteps still echoing on the still street, the corpse's eyes opened and she sat up, looking around to see what was going on around her. The first thing she saw was her sire stepping out of the shadows. "It's about time you woke up," her sire spoke. "Come on. We don't have much time."
 
The failed Watcher returned to the Council with the terrible news of his Slayer's loss. He was consoled by several former Watchers who had lost Slayers, letting him know that he had done his best - which he had - and that these terrible things could happen to anyone. Only three months later, another potential, this one only eight years old, was discovered in western Kentucky at a boarding school and he was dispatched once again to remove the child from the school and bring her to London to train. He was more fortunate this time. The school that Janna Markham attended was not very high on security, being composed of extremely gifted children who actually wanted tobe there, and it was a simple thing to slip onto the grounds in the dead of night, chloroform the girl and spirit her out of her dormitory. Once he had her in the car, he immediately took off for the airport and they were on a flight to London before she woke up and long before her absence from school was discovered.  
 
On the transcontinental flight, the Watcher explained to his new charge what her sacred destiny was, and tried very, very hard to suppress the memory of that corpse, the brown-haired girl whom he should have been training.
 
Council business returned to normal, and over the next few years, while training and honing Janna into the Council's vision of the ultimate Slayer, the Watcher kept his eye on the progress of young Buffy Summers, whose Watcher, Rupert Giles, was actually a mate of his from preparatory school. He heard with anguish the news that Buffy had died, and spent a drunken night imagining the young brunette, his original Slayer, rising to take the mantle of her destiny. Instead, though, the Jamaican Slayer, Kendra, stepped in.  
 
The Council was rocked by the news that Buffy Summers was still alive. TwoSlayers? How could there be two Slayers? And yet there was. This extraordinary young girl, who had not even had a Watcher before being Called, continued to carry on the work of the Slayer, even as her Jamaican successor fought by her side. And then Kendra was dead, killed at the hands of the psychotic vampire Drusilla. Janna Markham's Watcher spent another drunken night at this news, seeing again that small body, ravaged and bitten, lying onthe concrete sidewalk behind a stand of azaleas.
 
No one had quite known what to expect when Kendra was killed. Would the Slayer line fall back on the living Slayer, or would Kendra's successor be called? Neither happened, and the Council was rocked again by the discoverythat the young woman they had thought to be Kendra's successor was, in fact, not. A third girl had been missed in the search for potentials. Another Watcher was dispatched to Boston to find Faith and begin her training. Then that Watcher was killed and Faith traveled to California, placing herself under the tutelage of Rupert Giles.
 
Janna was growing into a strong young woman. Now eleven years old, she wasmuscled and lean, and well-trained enough to begin facing captive vampiresunder controlled circumstances. She was brought into training groups withother young potentials in the United Kingdom and was undefeatable in her age range. She was touted as the next Buffy Summers. Until Buffy Summers survived her Cruciamentum only to refuse to work with the Council any longer. It seemed that this would be the Council's decade for paralyzing shocks.No Slayer had ever refused to work with the Council, in its millennial history. But Buffy did, and stuck with it, even to the point that the Watcher sent to relieve Rupert Giles sent weekly screams for help back to the Council. Janna's Watcher wasn't surprised. Wesley Wyndam-Price was a poncy little knob-polisher and not worthy of being sent to oversee either Slayer, and this was proved by the debacle that occurred when the second Slayer, Faith, went rogue. Shortly thereafter, he left the Council. Many felt that it was the smartest thing he could have done.
 
Janna was thirteen when Slayer and Council began working together again, though it was for only a short time and only due to the threat of the hellgodwho called itself Glory. She had begun watching Buffy Summers as closely as her Watcher did, intrigued by the unorthodox methods which had kept thisSlayer alive for so long. It was without a doubt that Buffy was the most effective Slayer the Council had ever seen, and Janna wanted to learn why, so that she could take what worked of the California Slayer's methods and incorporate them into her own personal style. She was incredibly mature fora thirteen-year-old, and an intellectual match for her Watcher. If it waspossible, she knew more about demon lore than he did. He began that year slowly indoctrinating her to the machinations of the Council, thinking thatperhaps, if she became to old for the Calling, she might become a Watcher.
 
She became intensely familiar with the inner workings of the Council and, under his tutelage, learned her way around its intrigues. It was she who put the first doubts in his mind about the fitness of Quentin Travers to maintain order in the Council. It was she who pointed out to her Watcher the senselessness of many of Travers's actions, and it was she who encouraged him to go secretly into the archives of the Council and find the truth when Rupert Giles called him late one night with his desperate question. She wasnow fourteen years old and looked twenty-three, and her Watcher had run out of new things to teach her. She was the best Slayer that she could possibly be, and now well on her way to learning the job of Watcher as well, andshe was the one he brought his concerns to when he found out the awful truth about what Giles was harboring.
 
"You have to tell him," she told him that night. "You have to tell him what she is. He has to know."
 
But Janna didn't know what her Watcher knew. Janna didn't know that there was no need for her Watcher to go and research the name that Giles had called him with. She didn't know that the moment he heard the name, a cold sweat had broken out all over his body, though he had managed to keep his voice even while he promised to make enquiries as secretly as possible.
 
But there was no one else he could trust, so he sat her down on the night of her fifteenth birthday, nearly three months after Giles had called, and told her exactly why he was having such trouble explaining the situation to Rupert. He began with the Council discovering that two potentials had beenmissed in the search, and explained about the long search he had made for the girl he had been assigned to. He told her how he had tracked the girl and her family to southern California, and had been within ten minutes of finding her when she was attacked and killed by vampires.  
 
He explained to Janna the crushing heartbreak he had undergone, and how hard it had been for him to take her on, although, he assured her, he was intensely glad that he had done so, for she was enough to make any Watcher proud enough to burst. And he explained how hard he had tried to suppress the memory of his failure with his first Slayer, and how he might have been able to save her life if he had been but one day sooner in finding her.
 
She listened to his story carefully, analyzing it and understanding the things he said to her, but coming up empty on one front. And so she asked him: "What has that to do with this vampire that Mr. Giles has called you about?"
 
He had looked up at her, bleakly, and his voice was hollow when he spoke. "Janna, the girl I was sent to retrieve... her name was Dakota Walsh."
 
Janna started, ugly shock crossing her pretty face when she recognized thatname as being the name of the daywalking vampire that Giles had asked themto research. "No wonder you don't have to research it."
 
"No Slayer has ever been turned into a vampire before," he whispered quietly. "Never. And now I know why."
 
"Of course," she replied quietly. "Any Slayer who was turned, retaining her soul and being immune to daylight and your typical vampire banes would bean amazing and nearly unstoppable enemy of demonkind. They must have known this. But whoever sired this girl had no idea that she was a potential Slayer. What a colossal blunder!"
 
"The Council will try to capture her, if they find out about her," her Watcher told her. "They will want to study her and then kill her. They cannotallow her to live."
 
"Oh, yes, and of course the Council is infallible in all things," she responded sarcastically.
 
He smiled wanly at her. "You are correct. And of course I must inform Rupert. The girl needs to know to protect herself."
 
"I should say she hasn't much to worry about, really," the girl drawled, a hint of Kentucky still in her voice even after seven years in London. "Notwith Buffy Summers on her side."
 
"If Buffy Summers gets in their way, they'll try to kill her, too." He sighed, then tilted his head. "Not that I think they'd have very much luck atit," he added contemplatively.
 
"You still need to tell Mr. Giles."
 
He nodded. "And I shall." He glanced at the clock. "It can, however, waituntil a decent hour their time. I shouldn't like to wake him so early with news like this."
 
She left him then, going off to train, and he sat by his fire, sipping tea and thinking about the young girl who should have been his Slayer. He visualized her as she had been, lying dead on the sidewalk, and then he visualized her as an ensouled vampire. The mind boggled. Lost in his thoughts ashe was, he did not hear the almost-silent footsteps behind him, and he only realized he wasn't alone when he felt the sting of a hypodermic needle enter the back of his neck.  
 
There was a brief burning sensation as something was injected into him, andthen his assailant stepped around in front of him. It was Quentin Travers. He sighed down at the Watcher, whose sight was already beginning to dim under the onslaught of the fast-acting poison he had been injected with. "I'm sorry, old friend," Travers said quietly. "But I can't let the information you have become public to the rest of the Council. It's too dangerous. Don't worry about Janna... I'll assign her a new Watcher who doesn't know quite so many dangerous people as you. Goodbye."
 
Janna kept her silence about what she knew when she discovered that her Watcher was dead. The official story was that he had a heart attack, but sheknew better, and she waited for her opportunity. It came some two weeks after being assigned to her new Watcher, a woman who was relatively thick-headed and so easily manipulated by her intelligent young charge. Janna gaveher a story about wishing to attend a play in northern London and receivedpermission to go. A Council worker went with her as a chaperone, and she waited until Intermission, when he went into the restroom, to make her break. And break she did.
 
The instant the bathroom door closed behind him, Janna sauntered out the door as though merely taking a quick breather. Then she slipped into an alley, shed her fancy theater shoes, pulled her sneakers and her wallet out ofher handbag, and discarded the bag as well. A quick tug on the neck of her blouse and it was off, revealing a tee-shirt, and then a shimmy out of her ankle-length skirt left her in blue jogging pants with snaps up the sides. Leaving the alley at the other end, Janna blended into the crowd outsidea pub, looking like any other teenager in the world.
 
She knew that her first job was going to be tough just getting out of England, but she wasn't too worried. Under the guidance of her late Watcher, she had formed a number of alliances in London's more benign demon underworldand she was able to trade on some of those alliances to smuggle her out ofEngland and into France, and from there into the cargo hold of a plane bound for Raleigh, North Carolina. From slipping her watchdog at the play to settling into the plane took her seven hours, and she was absolutely terrified that she'd be caught, but then the airplane took off and she breathed asigh of relief.
 
She settled back into the blankets provided to her by Linda, the shapeshifting demon who worked for the airline and had smuggled her onto the airplane, and closed her eyes, knowing that she was going to need all the sleep shecould get.
 
Back at the Council house, her guard dog was being screamed at by a large man with a purple face. "What do you mean she left the play? Why weren't you with her?" 
 
"Mr. Travers, I was only in the loo for a few minutes, and when I came out,she was gone. I didn't think she could have gone far, but I found her clothes and shoes in the alley. She must have planned it."


"Of course she planned it, you imbecile! Obviously she knows about this situation we have. You get out there and you find her! She can't possibly get out of England - she hasn't got any kind of papers. You find her! I don't care what has to be done. Do you hear me? Find her! And bring her back here alive!"
 
And so it was Janna's pure luck that, as she crossed the Atlantic heading for North Carolina, the Council's search for her was spreading outside of London and into the countryside. They would not give up seeking her for overa week, during which time Travers would be terrified to make any kind of move without knowing what the loose cannon he considered Janna to be was capped. She had more of a head start than she knew, but it would turn out to be just what she needed. She had only one thought in her mind. Beyond that, who knew? But she dedicated herself to one task and one task only: get to California, find the Slayer, and warn her.
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~~Rainne
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Buffy: I guess everyone's alone. But being a Slayer? There's a burden we can't share.
Faith: And no one else can feel it. Thank God we're hot chicks with superpowers.
Buffy: Takes the edge off.
Faith: Comforting.
--End of Days -- Buffy 7.21 --
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