Title: Chosen and damned: Prologue

Author: Selena

Fandom: The Buffyverse

pairing: None as yet

Rating: R

Warning: Some (maybe a lot) of gore. It's gen so far too.

Summery: It's post chosen, and all is not well with the slayers that Buffy created. Some are doing very badly and doing bad things with their powers. This is just an intro to a series, Buffy and co will appear later on.

Archive: If you want

Disclaimer: Most of the characters I own, the one I don't (and you will know which one that is when he gets there) belongs to Joss and co.

Chosen And Damned
By Selena

Prologue

At first glance the girls seemed to be harmless enough. Nothing about them screamed that they would soon be trouble. But still I could feel the electricity in the air, I could smell the tension. I was ready. Drennan, for all his faults as a teacher, did instill in me he need to trust my instincts. And I always did. I knew what they were; I was just like them, only not as well dressed. The girls stood in line, waiting casually to be served by the bank teller, they were up next. I wondered if all three of them would go up and do the business of if they had a leader among them that would do it. I knew what they were going to do. It was obvious by the bags that they were carrying. Big bulky ones, not exactly what a fashionably dressed Californian teen would have. But I doubt anyone else would have noticed, they all seemed too preoccupied. The tallest one, a rather striking brunette looked up, as if she could feel me watching her. Her eyes found mine and she graced me with a sweet smile and then turned back to her friends, she whispered something to them. The other two turned around to look at me, let out a burst of laughter and moved back into a conspiratorial huddle. To my extreme embarrassment I could feel myself start to blush. I could tell what they were thinking. I looked at the floor and picked at a hole in my worn jeans. I reached over to the table beside me; to my fast growing cold coffee I had gotten from the next-door star bucks. Bringing it up for a drink, I caught sight of my bruised and bloody knuckles; quickly I put down the cup and pulled the long sleeves of my hoodie over my hands.

"Excuse me, miss?" A semi polite voice said I looked up into the crinkled face of the old security guard.

"Yes?" I said evenly, I could tell that he was trying not to let the disdain that he had for me show. Did I really look that bad? The last few months on the road had been hard I know, then I looked back at my hands. I knew I must have looked like a thug.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"Yeah," I say, pointing towards the manager's office. Through the cheep Plexiglas you could see the manager, Mr. Baker and another man. "My father"

"Oh" he sniffed and moved off, he didn't believe me. I could tell that by the way he continued to watch me. He had could reason to distrust me, I had lied to him. I was waiting for the man in that room, but Drennan wasn't my father. If he were I probably would have killed myself before it got this far. The guard never took his eyes of me. I wanted to scream at him `No you idiot, watch them, they are going to rob your bank!'

The girls stepped up to the plate; the brunette walked over to the clerk and put her bag on the counter. I raised my eyes up to the ceiling. Praying to whom ever was listening that this would not be too bad. I knew the strength those girls possessed. I lived with it everyday. I knew without a doubt what they were, their power emanated from their every pour.

"Fill this with money, now" The girl stated calmly.

The woman behind the counter just stared at her. The girl turned to her friends and nodded her head just once. The shortest one, a red head, took one step to the side so that she was now standing in the other queue. She grabbed hold of the person nearest to her, a cute guy somewhere in his twenties. With a sickening crack she snapped his neck, the crowd looked on soundlessly as his lifeless body sank to the floor.

"Well damn it to hell" I whispered. Instantly I thought of the security guard, what the hell would he do now? But even an instant was too late, the moment the boy died, the old man reached for his little used gun. The last girl, the blonde, saw this movement. She was there before I could stand up. With a smile to her captive audience she curled her small hand into a fist and punched the man square in the chest. There was a horrible squelch as flesh and bone penetrated flesh and bone, she twisted her arm slightly and extracted it. The crowd screamed, some people ran for the door, others chose to hide behind anything they could find. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Bank manager and Drennan run from the office. Baker stopped dead as he watched the commotion from over the counter, where I vaguely surmised the other two girls were collecting the money. Drennan was by my side I could feel him shaking me, I wasn't aware that I had stood up. I could hear him telling me to get out of here. But my attention was focused on the girl, and the blood slicked object she held in her hand.

"Helen!" the brunette cried out "What the hell did you do that for?"

I snapped my eyes away from the gore and looked at the girl who would be the leader. She looked disgusted by her colleague's actions. The blonde just shrugged.

"You said we could be violent," she said

"Violent, yes. Messy, no." The brunette shook her head. "Tell me, Helen. Just how are we going to get out of here with out attracting attention, when you are covered with blood?" The blonde just shrugged again, dropping the guards heart next to where his body had fallen. I shook off Drennan's hold on my arm and took a step toward the counter and the brunette.

"Are you fucking stupid" Drennan hissed from behind me, "let's get out of here while they are distracted." I just looked at him. Really looked at him. I had known that this man was worthless, yet I stayed with him, knowing that he would do something profoundly stupid if left to his own devices. I had a debt to pay to someone and part of that included not letting this man get himself killed. But right now I was tempted to kill him myself. How could he ask me to leave, knowing that a good few more people could die here? He knew that I stood a little chance of making sure that didn't happen, or did that protection of innocents only happen when HIS life wasn't in jeopardy.

"Ok, People" the leader shouted. "Listen good. We are slayers, we are strong and we can kill you all with little effort. As my friends here have rather crudely demonstrated."

"Hey!" Helen sounded almost indignant.

"It's true, Helen. You have no class. Now" The brunette turned to face the remaining few. "We are going to take all this money and we are going to leave. OK?"

The crowd around her murmured and nodded their heads. She took this as a yes, grabbed her bag and leaped over the counter. Only to come face to face with me. "Did you not hear what I said, Trampie?" She said. "I want to leave now, and oh look, you're in my way. Move!"

"No"

She looked a little taken aback by this; it took her a few seconds to come back at me. But instead of attacking me she called to her friends.

"Tess, Helen. This `person' doesn't want to do what she is told. Which of you wants to dispose of her?"

"Oh oh, me. I do, I do!" Tess piped up; raising hand in the air and jumping up and down like a child. "C'mon, Stella. Let me do it."

"All right, Tess" Stella laughed. "Knock yourself out. I mean her out."

The little one flexed her muscles and limbered herself up before walking over to me. She pulled back an arm, readying to land hard punch to my chest. She released, but the fist never landed. I caught it easily with one hand, squeezing hard I crushed bones and ripped through flesh. Tess screamed and tried to pull away from me.

"Oh no you don't," I said. "You wanted a fight, now you want out." I pushed away and she fell down, landing with a soft thunk. "You call yourselves slayers. You are nothing, you can't even tell when there is another among you. I'm surprised that another one hasn't put you all down before now. Oh well, I guess it is up to me then. I needed a work out."

Stella looked at her fallen comrade, her broken held against her chest, she was crying. Without warning Stella jumped at me, catching me by surprise she had the upper hand, we fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs. I was unable to get in a proper punch or kick from my position beneath her, and I could feel her hands curl around my neck. So I resorted to the age-old tradition of hair pulling. A clump of silk hair came away with my hand. Stella cried out in pain and hauled herself of me, clutching the back of her head, blood seeping through her fingers. I aimed a roundhouse kick at her midsection, followed by another kick to her head as she made her way back to the floor. I'm pretty sure that she was unconscious before she hit the ground. And then there was one. I turned to face down the last one, and the one I believed to be the most vicious. I had just witnessed her rip out the heart of an old man. Helen reached out her bloody hand to grab the person close to hand, and shit, if it wasn't Drennan. Now how did he get over there? She smiled at me as she slowly wrapped her arms round him and began to squeeze. Drennan was taller than her so he should have made and effective shield, but she obviously wanted me to see the look on her face as she killed what she thought was a innocent man. He may not have been innocent, but he was my watcher. And I would be the one to kill him, should he ever really need to be. Slowly I bent down so that I could reach the bottom of my jeans, I gently pulled out my most favorite thing in the world. Helen really was stupid, she never said a word to stop me, and she just stood there slowly killing a man, watching me intently. My knife flew threw the air and with the shriek of metal clashing with bone, my knife was firmly embedded in Helen's forehead. But in the instant before she died, Helen pulled her arms tight round Drennan's waist and broke his back. He was dead by the time I got to him. It was at this time that the police decided to show. I heard the sirens before I saw the lights; they were still a few seconds away. I grabbed the knife from Helen's head, whispered a quick prayer for my watcher and I ran.

6 Months later

I walked into the dump that passed itself of for a motel room, throwing my keys on the table and headed for the bathroom. Groping through the medicine cabinet I found the antiseptic cream and started to apply it to my hands. I had not let them heal from my last fight, so now they were really fucked. Even slayers didn't heal that fast. But as I looked at my fresh wounds I found it hard to care, after the debacle at the bank I was finding it hard to care about anything. I was numb as I beat the hapless guy in the ring senseless; I collected my money and was out of there, just like always. Finishing my business in the bathroom, I headed back to the living area/bedroom, and stopped dead. "My dear ms. L'stev" Said the fat man sitting on the uncomfortable chair by my bed. "I do believe you have a bit of explaining to do"

"Travers" I said, "I had hoped you were dead"

Chosen and damned: Playground

"Now, now. Ms L'stev, that's not a nice thing to say." He seemed almost hurt by my words. I studied the older man; he really didn't look all that different from the last time that I saw him. That had been a few years ago when Wendell was still alive, and Travers had a legitimate reason to visit us. I hadn't seen him since the funeral, but I had followed his movements, I knew that he had all but fallen off the face of the earth when the First hit. It was believed that he and a few of his faithful had gone to ground to wait out the apocalypse. I found this fairly typical of him. Of course I made myself scarce at that time too.

"I'm really not in the mood for being nice, Travers. So why don't you and the goons I'm sure you have stationed outside, fuck off." I tried to make the dismissal sound final, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't shake of my potential training. And underneath the disdain I had for this man and for myself, I still had a respect for the watchers council. I was born and raised in those walls, and long ago it did stand for something good. I wondered how long it would be before Travers decided to use my training against me. As expected, he made no move to leave.

"I don't think so. Ms L'stev, Jessie. It's been four years, can't we put the past behind us and move on?"

"Move on to what? Deeper love and understanding? I don't think so. Go away, we have nothing to say to each other."

"Oh but we do, Jessie. There is a lot to talk about. There is a world that needs rebuilding. Lost friends that need to be found." He stared at the wall behind me as he talked, his voice faltering and cracking alternately. He played with his hands and let his eyes drift over to me as he paused to take a breath. In short he did all the things to make me think that he was sincere in what he was saying. But he was selling an act, and I wasn't buying.

"Travers, are you on drugs? Or did you fall down and hit your head. Can you hear what you are saying?" I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor, I didn't think it would be a good idea for me to look directly at him. I think I would just laugh in his face. He started to whisper something, I couldn't quite hear him. It sounded like he was rambling, something about slayers and loss. I let my upper body fall so that my head was resting between my knees. I was so tired; I really wasn't in the mood for this shit. I just wanted to be left alone.

"Where were you, Jessie?" Travers voice suddenly got louder, he wasn't quite shouting, but he may as well have. I didn't move, I just let him talk. "Where were you? When it happened where were you?" I could hear the tears in his voice, they didn't sound forced this time. Still I didn't move. "Why didn't you save me?"

My head snapped up, followed by the rest of me. The force of my sudden movement sent me flying over the side of the bed, I banged my head off the bed leg as I hit the floor. When I looked up, Travers was gone. His image replaced by a beautiful blonde girl, a face I had only ever seen in pictures and whose adventures I had read about in the watchers chronicles. But this was not Buffy, this was something else.

"OH SHIT" I shouted, scrambling to get off the floor. Franticly I looked around for something to use as a weapon. The Buffy thing laughed.

"You won't need a weapon, honey" She stood up and went to walk towards me. I backed up until I hit the wall. She reached out a small hand to touch my cheek, only for that hand to pass right through me. "I'm still non corporeal. And it's still a bitch"

"But your dead!" I say pathetically "Buffy was supposed to have killed you."

The First laughed cheerily. "Oh yeah. The rumors of my demise are really exaggerated. Buffy did indeed kick my arse. But I can't really be destroyed. It was a really neat trick, what she did. Really unexpected. But in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened, to me, to you to all the little potentials that escaped the cull."

"Really? How do you figure?"

"Do you know that he called your name when he died?" Her voice took on a wistful tone as she neatly changed the subject.

"Who?"

"Travers. I didn't understand it myself. I watched my bringers cut out his insides. And all he did was yell out `Jessie, Jessie' like he was holding onto some dumb thought or memory. He was very brave in the end. I didn't expect him to be, after I found him cowering. The others met their ends fighting, and he hid under a table. But when the life and blood drained from him, he was brave. Then he was a dead, and all his hopes and fears, dreams and memories came flooding to me. And I knew who you were." She turned to face me. I hadn't moved from my position, backed up against the wall like a frightened animal. "Why don't you sit down Jessie? I think we need to talk about stuff." She glided to the seating area that she had occupied as Travers. I was unsure as to how she had managed to sit down since she wasn't really here. She motioned for me to sit as well. Shakily I moved over to her, never taking my eyes of her as I sat down.

"Why are you here?" I said, trying hard not to let my voice crack with fear. "What do you want with me?"

The First/Buffy looked me full in the eye and smiled almost kindly. "I wanted to be the one to offer you a chance. I am going to get stronger. I will succeed in my mission to rule the world once more. And you, Jessie. Are going to be right by my side when I do it."

Slowly I shook my head. This was getting too surreal. "Why, me? What did I do that was worthy of your attention?"

"Nothing, Jessie. That's what you did. I killed your friends, your fellow potentials. And you did nothing."

"We were scared, I didn't know what was going on, I was running for my life," I said through clenched teeth.

"No, you chose to run. My bringers made no move to stop you. You faced them down and they made no move to kill you. I know I was there I watched. I wanted you to join me then. I knew what was in your heart; I knew what evil you could be capable of. It would have warmed me to my core if I were able to feel anything."

I leaped up, my head was spinning I was confused. "You don't know anything about me!"

"Oh but I do child." The First's image wavered, its voice took on a gravelly tone, Buffy was replaced with a tired old man with sad eyes. I one hand he carried a bible in the other a silver cross. I backed away again, I didn't want to see this, didn't want to look him in the eye. "I know more about you than you can imagine."

"No, you're not him. Wendell is dead, leave him alone!"

"I know you, child. You are your father's daughter. You will joined me, I know you, you will."

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" I shouted. I picked up the lamp on the nearby nightstand and threw it at the thing in front of me. Blindly I threw the nightstand after it, and then my backpack. Anything I could lay my hands on, I threw. All the while I could hear myself screaming. Finding myself out of ammo, I stopped. I cracked open my eyes to find myself alone. "Shit" I breathed. I raced to find my backpack; grabbing it I ran to the bathroom and gathered my stuff. I didn't bother to check out, it would be just one more motel bill that I had skipped out on. I was lost and alone, and more than a little shaken from my meeting with the First. I didn't understand what it would want with me. I was nobody. I had no idea about what was going on, but I had a feeling it was time that I found out. I wasn't going to run away this time. There was a new fight coming and I didn't know if anyone else but me knew about it. I would have to tell someone, I had to find Buffy. If the First had plans for the slayers maybe she would know what to do. I hoped.

I picked my way along the long dusty road, the motel was a few miles behind me now and I hadn't seen a single car going to of from where I was headed. That wasn't really much of a surprise, although it would have been nice to hitch a ride. But not many people wanted to visit a ghost town, well more of a ghost hole really. I decided that the best place for me to start would be where it all started. And ended. The Devil's playground itself. I was going to Sunnydale.

END PART 1