Disclaimer: I own none of these characters except Daniels and am not making any money off of this.

The Council Saves the Day

Everyone was still in a state of shock. Miss Calendar had been found dead, at the hands of Angelus and Buffy was still trying to excuse the actions of her soul-mate.
“You need to remember, it was the demon that killed her. Not Angel. He is still in there somewhere; I know it and we can get him back.” Buffy knew the others were upset, but this was Angel they were talking about. He would never really hurt her. They just needed to give her time to fix this.

Giles could barely restrain his anger, both at himself for not doing something about the situation earlier and at Buffy’s unwillingness to face reality. He noticed that Willow was trying to comfort Buffy but her heart didn’t seem to be in it. The two witches had become friends while learning small spells together.

Xander was sitting by himself, muttering under his breath, sounding angrier by the minute. He knew Angel was no good, but everyone kept saying it was jealousy on his part, and now this happens.


Suddenly the library doors flung open and three men walked in. Giles gaped at the older man leading the group. “Quentin Travers?” asked Giles bewildered his presence. “Sir, what are you doing here?”

Buffy, grateful for the distraction asked “Who are they Giles, are they evil?” She really wanted to hurt someone right now.

Giles quickly reassuring everyone clarified the situation “Buffy, stand down. These men are from the Council and Quentin Travers is the head of the Council that guides the Slayers.”


Quentin Travers looked out around the small group of friends and shook his head in disgust. “How did this get this bad?” “What were you doing Mr. Giles that we find ourselves in this situation, Have you truly lost all control over your Slayer?”

Buffy retorted, “No one controls me, I’m not a robot like that other Slayer you guys sent here before. I have a family and friends and can think for myself.” Buffy was quite proud she was nothing like the Jamaican Slayer Kendra.

Travers nodded his head in agreement. “Obviously, since Kendra would never have indulged in the disgraceful behavior that you have. Sex with corpses? Allowing vampires to escape and continue their murderous rampages? You are certainly not a proper Slayer!”

Buffy blanked for a moment at the charge being leveled at her. “Sex with a corpse, what are you talking about? Angel is the only person I have ever been with.”

“A vampire is a corpse controlled by a demon, a puppet on a string. It is still Necrophilia no matter how you look at it.” Travers responded in disgust. “We have come here today to take care of the situation since Mr. Giles has proven unable to do so. We have several retrieval teams right now hunting down Angelus; I’ve already heard from them that they have him on the run. He should be dust very soon.”

“You can’t do that! We want to restore his soul and make him good again. We can do this, I know we can.” Buffy franticly cried out.

“You want to grab a soul out of Heaven and bring it back to Earth? That would be like sending it to Hell in comparison. That is truly Dark and Evil Magic. This is further proof that you are unfit to be a Slayer.”

Travers continued, “We are here today to remove you from the Slayer Line permanently.”

Rupert Giles paled in response. “Surely you don’t mean to kill her; despite her actions it greatly helps the fight against Evil that there is another Slayer in the world, especially here on the Hellmouth.”

Buffy’s eyes darted around looking for escape routes as well as armed men waiting for her. “You can’t kill me, I’m the Slayer. You need me more than I need you. And the police would be all over you.”

Travers sighed, “We are not going to kill you. The vampire’s life may be more important to you than your computer teacher and all the other people Angelus has been killing, but we work at a higher standard of morality. We don’t go around killing people if we can help it.”

Travers nodded his head toward one of his two companions. “This is Daniels; he’s a mage on our payroll. The test that we normally run on a Slayers 18th birthday is called the Cruciamentum. It suppresses the Slayer abilities temporarily by use of drugs and magic. But it is a watered down method of a much more powerful spell that we have in our arsenal. We have only had to use it twice in the history of our organization. Slayers were turned by vampires, creating a type of uber-vampire. This spell cuts the ties to the Slayer Line forever.”

Willow tried to help with her remarks. “But, two slayers are still better than one, she can still help protect people after Angel is gone.”

Travers shook his head in denial, “What happens the next time she meets a charismatic evil seeking to destroy the world, will she fight him or join him?, we simply can’t take the chance. As for being an extra Slayer, we would very much like to thank Mr. Harris here for showing us the future for the Council Slayers.”

“Me? What did I do? I didn’t do anything.” Xander looked around wildly.

Travers smiled widely, “Don’t be modest my boy. Without your help we may have continued for centuries with just a single Slayer in our arsenal. By using CPR to bring Miss Summers back to life and still activating a new Slayer, you showed us that we could have multiple Slayers at the same time. Kendra is needed in Jamaica with its high vampire population. So we had her visit our local medical center where the doctor induced clinical death for a few moments and then revived her. A new Slayer was called in Boston; she is flying here with her Watcher as we speak. Before she left, she under went the same procedure, and we are in the process of tracking down yet another Slayer. We hope to continue this for hundreds of potentials. The Council will be in the position to have a major impact on the world.”

Daniels finished up his hand waving and light show. “It’s done. The Slayer Essence is gone from Miss Summers. She’s no one now.”

Buffy gasped in horror. She had always hated being the Slayer, but she also knew she never had any real future being anything else. She grabbed the back of a library chair and squeezed, but it didn’t break. She felt . . . normal. She couldn’t imagine what she would do with her life now. Low grades, no interests outside of medieval weapons, and no skills other than as an ex-cheerleader.

Travers granted her a small smile. “Be happy, you can be normal again. Go to college, get married, have a passel of kids. Your future is bright.”

“Rupert, my dear boy, we would appreciate it if you would stay in Sunnydale for a while so that you can update the new Slayer, uh...” Looking to his assistant with a raised eyebrow, silently asking a question.

“Faith, sir. Faith Lehane.” Wesley Wyndham-Price quickly supplied, still overwhelmed to be here.

“That’s right. We want you to update Miss Lehane on the various relevant conditions in this town. But then I’m afraid you will have to come back to London for retraining. We could never subject a new Slayer to your careless behavior, perhaps a move to research. Mr. Wyndham-Price here could always use a hand researching prophesies. I’m sure with his guidance you could become a proper Watcher again. After all, soon we will have many Slayers, and a man of your experience might be of use again.”

“I’m sorry to say that both you and your Slayer will be used as examples in Watcher Training as failures to future trainees. The Slayer Annuals will be modified to show Miss Summers as a Dark Slayer. A Cautionary Warning for all future Slayers who may feel swayed by the forces of Evil. I’m sure Miss Lehane will restore the proper dignity and integrity to the Slayer Line that has been lost in this town.”

“I’ll say good-bye now. Rupert, I hope to see you soon.” The three men began walking out of the library leaving a stunned room behind them.

“You see Wesley, sometimes the Council has to make the hard decisions and step in to save the day. Always remember, the Slayer is just a tool we use. We provide the intelligence and moral guidance, they provide the muscle. We will shortly have a veritable Slayer Army at our command. With our guidance and direction the future has never been brighter.”

As a confused group of war weary friends tried to grasp what was happening, the final words of Quentin Travers, soon to be the most important man in the supernatural world rang in their ears.
“I shudder to think what the future might have been like if Buffy Anne Summers had been allowed to continue as a Slayer.”