Prelude to a Wish

Warnings: violence, minor character death

Categories: Ship, Femslash, Angst, Action, Episode Tag, Wishverse

Pairings: Buffy/Faith

Characters: Buffy Summers, Faith Lehane, Gwendolyn Post, Anyanka, minor OCs

Spoilers: Welcome to the Hellmouth; Faith, Hope & Trick; Revelations; The Wish. (No spoilers for any novels or the S8 comics.)

Summary: One version of how the Buffy Summers who in another timeline moved to Sunnydale in Welcome to the Hellmouth might have evolved instead into the hard-edged Buffy Summers of the Wishverse. Set in the summer before the events of The Wish.

 

Disclaimer: Since Mutant Enemy respects its own property, I will do the same. This universe belongs to the great and powerful Joss.

Credits: When my first draft went sideways, I reached for my trusty copy of 20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias to figure out where I'd gone wrong, so this fic owes much to him, as well as to my handy dandy Watcher's Guide, The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus: Volume 1 edited by Scott Allie, a Rand McNally Ohio State Road Map circa 1991, and Body Trauma: A Writer's Guide to Wounds and Injuries by David W. Page, M.D. Graphics work my own. Translation services courtesy of tgfkaa. Special thanks to settiai, for valuable research assistance. Credit is due for assorted beta efforts at various stages by snogged, campylobacter, ivanolix, annerose and qtheallpowerful. An accompanying soundtrack, arranged by the talented dance_the_dance may be found at spiletta dot com.

Prologue

Sunnydale. December 8, 1998.

Anyanka had toppled a few dynasties in her day, but even the fall of the Romanovs paled in comparison to freeing the Hellmouth from the tyranny of the Vampire Slayer.

Thanks to her tireless extraction of one simple wish, she could now singlehandedly transform the Hellmouth, turning the sad little tourist trap the Slayer's reign had produced into the five star vacation destination of every demon with so much as a passing interest in the mortal coil.

The singlehandedly part made it twice as sweet. This time, she could avoid that dreadful Rasputin and lay claim to all of the credit. Manipulating a timeline was a bit more hands-on than afflicting some philanderer with your standard plague of boils or tampering with the genetic structure of shrimp, but the payoff was worth it. Temporal physics held power beyond the wish, and if these dominoes fell right, Anyanka could gift demonkind with freedom from the Slayer.

Cordelia Chase's wish for a brave new world definitely spelled promotion. Anyanka just needed to tug at the right threads -- tweed ones. Destiny ruled a slayer's life, but destiny had the Watcher's Council do the heavy lifting.

London. December 8, 1996.

"I can tell you where to find the Glove of Myhnegon. With that kind of power literally at your fingertips, the sky's the limit. Also literally."

"Why would you think I have use for such an object, Miss . . . "

"Jenkins. And no, I'm not some spy for the Council, sent to bust you for your interest in dark magicks. Quite the opposite. I like dark magicks, and I'm no friend of the Watcher's Council."

"Then what exactly are you -- "

"They're sending Rupert Giles to the States to train the new Slayer, you know. Unless you stop him. And that rumored Potential in Boston? Yeah, they plan to let Diana Dormer, of all people, train her. Since when do either of those blundering snobs rate over you?"