They're "either a liar or a moron," Right? (obligatory Many-Splendored thing quotage.) "If you're a liar, than fine. But if you're a moron, you're just a bore. I may have to shoot you and put you out of your misery." Funny thing, watching something that often...it just bounces out.

This week's open on Sunday drabble challenge is "slayers who aren't Buffy".

Amanda Lisle #1

I move through the garden like a ghost, empty-handed, unsupported.

In the shadows is my Watcher. He's supposed to train me, but I need little from him. He's supposed to cover me, but my power comes from a place he hates. He's supposed to protect me, but his son Rupert loves me, and the Watcher's resentment is bottomless.

The vampire leaps from the darkness. I call out a single command in French, a branch breaks free of the maple tree and flies. It takes the vampire in the heart.

The Watcher speaks through thin lips. "Stop using witchcraft," he snaps.

Slayers that aren't Buffy, huh? This is not a drabble, and old, but I never finished the story, and I think I'm going to this week, so...

”In the city there’s a thousand things I want to say to you…” -The Jam

Part One: Afterward

This was not her city.

Up and down the alleyway, small bonfires burned. She’d run for miles, it seemed, block after block engulfed in flame. She ventured from the shadows to the street, where men wept openly, with their heads in their hands.

They had lost something. She had lost something.

She was surrounded by small sobs. The sound of shrieking echoed from all directions. She pushed forward. Cars were overturned. Someone had tossed a lit trashcan into an electronics store. Forward. The windows of a Mexican restaurant exploded into a million shards. Forward. Someone was firing bullets into the air. Forward.

Stop. She was suddenly still. Beyond her, beyond the mass of humanity filling the street, beyond the flame and shattering glass, she heard a scream, saw a woman dragged into the alley’s shadow.

Without another thought, she was running toward the alleyway, pushing past the parade of misery, leaping over the bonfires.

Vampire, she thought, and the word seared into her brain. She scarcely recalled the previous days, now, where she’d not thought the word at all. She’d been at peace for a moment, but that was then. Now, there was the hunt.

She hit the shadows and followed the sound of screams. The girl was kicking and flailing her arms. There were three of them, struggling to hold her down. Why were they having such trouble?

She didn’t stop to think, her fist instead plowing into one of their faces. She heard bone being crushed, she thought, and blood was leaking from its head. Forward, she thought, and swung her leg into another one’s midsection. She heard ribs crumple, she thought. She heard it gasp for breath. Why is it gasping…

“You’re. Human,” she said, and realized it was the first words she’d said out loud in days. The third man leaped at her, smashing a beer bottle down on her head. She fell to the ground. Her head felt wet. She heard the girl scream again, saw the other two stagger to their feet.

“Human,” she said again, as their blows began to pound on her, as the light began to twinkle out. “Human.”

And then it was black. And then she saw something, an army of monsters beneath the earth, an army of women standing fast against them. She saw an axe being passed from hand to hand. She looked into the axe’s glimmering surface, and saw herself reflected in the blade.

Her eyes snapped open then, and with new energy, she flipped upward to her feet, her fists connecting again with her assailants. She heard one fall, then spun and swung. She heard his skull fracture. As her vision returned, she saw him fall.

Her eyes were clear now. She saw the third attacker stumble back against the wall. He was blubbering. She sneered at him.

“Don’t… don’t hurt me,” he said, and she could see him clearly now, see how small he was. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl huddled against the wall, frightened out of her mind.

She looked at the man again, and without a word, she kicked him hard in the head. She didn’t bother to check if he was still breathing.

She stooped down to look at the girl, her face stained with tears, her whole body quivering with fright.

“Are you all right,” she asked, feeling her mind clear for the first time in what seemed like weeks.

“You… You were incredible,” said the girl, and she realized the girl was a bit older than she thought. Maybe fourteen. “Who… who are you?”

She hesitated, like she wasn’t sure. So much had happened.

“My name’s Justine,” she said. “I’m here to help.”

Victor, I remember that piece!

A second drabble:

Amanda Lisle #2 (age 17, Oxford, late 1960s)

On a long June evening, Rupert takes me on an illicit pub crawl.

They must know I'm underage; everyone knows Rupert's father. Yet no one runs us off, or tells a proctor.

Rupert's drinking half-pints. The stuff smells wretched to me. But he's talking about his father, my Watcher, saying things he wouldn't normally say, horrible things, about his father's distaste for me, his desire for a Slayer who isn't a witch, isn't beyond his control.

"Hullo, Ripper. Is this Amanda?"

I look up at a sorcerer. Everything in me stiffens as he holds out a hand.

"I'm Ethan Rayne."

Victor, I remember that piece!

Yeah, when I started it before, it wasn't working, but now I think I have a place to go with it.

Which is good, as I always liked this bit..

And I can totally see Giles' dad being like that.

I had fun writing Giles Sr as a raging evil control-freak stick up the arse prat.

And making him an evil watcher.

Well, the new thing doesn't have a name, but here's part two:

Part Two: Don’t Let’s Start

Giles pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He could feel the soldier’s stare boring into him, although the man’s face betrayed nothing. Giles put his glasses back on and focused on the map adorning his wall, which had become increasingly covered with colored stickpins.

“What you’re proposing is out of the question, Agent Miller,” said Giles, not meeting the young man’s gaze. We have a heavy responsibility. To the world, not just to the United States. Our resources are … stretched thin.”

Giles sighed and finally turned to look at the soldier standing rigidly in front of his desk.

“And of course, you understand, we don’t have an easy relationship with the organization you represent.

“Used to represent,” said Agent Miller, matter of factly. The Initiative’s been closed for years.”

“As you say,” said Giles.

“And you didn’t have a good relationship with the Watchers Council, either. Sir.”

Giles flinched at that, and looked to Buffy and Xander, sitting off to the side, for support.

“He has a point,” said Xander, shrugging. Buffy, however, was less blasé about the whole affair.

“She tried to kill him,” she said, her voice subdued, but Giles could tell she was getting upset.

“Well, yeah,” said Xander, but who hasn’t?”

Buffy shot him a look that could shatter steel, but Xander just smiled. She turned her attention back to the soldier.

“Graham, you know if I could help you, I would, but this…”

“We’re not asking you for much,” said Graham, his voice softening. “Tactical advice. Sharing information.”

“And in return...” said Giles, coolly.

“We, likewise, share information.”

Graham removed a small stack of files from his briefcase, and set them on the desk. The names on the files sang like headstones:

“Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” deceased;
“Charles Gunn,” missing in action;
“Winifred Burkle/Illyria,” deceased/missing in action;
“William the Bloody, aka Spike, Real Name Unknown,” missing in action;
“Angel/Angelus, Real Name Unknown,” missing in action.

“Everything we know about the Wolfram & Hart affair,” said Graham.

Giles, Buffy and Xander exchanged looks. The disappearance of Angel and his team had weighed heavily on them. And here was someone—someone more or less trusted, if not a friend—offering them information.

“But this … plan,” said Giles, spitting out the last word as though he hesitated to call it that, “this woman…”

“She’s resisted your efforts to bring her into the council,” said Graham.

“Yes,” said Giles. “She wants nothing to do with us. And what do you propose to offer her?”

“Closure.”

Victor, check your bold tags, please.

And damn, this sounds like fun. Lilah?

And damn, this sounds like fun. Lilah?

All will be revealed. heh, heh, heh...

...or Harmony? Or possibly Eve?

Yes, I'm thinking Eve.....