To Conquer Death
by Rainne
To Conquer Death
[reviews]
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 the get 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 prophecy was 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 only the 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 when the 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 to the 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 himself that 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 of a 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 dove 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, and the words stared up boldly at him from the page.
Quentin Travers began to sweat.