Author Note

I was considering getting back to Slayer Gothic since I've been doing Jump Chain for quite a while now. I have some interesting ideas, let me know what you think.

Slayer Gothic - Wishverse

Part 1

Mobile Home. Wishverse.

I woke up and for a few moments I just stared up at the ceiling because there was something off about it. I had to finish waking up before I realised that the roof wasn't actually wrong it was in fact simply a roof. My issue turned out to be that I wasn't in my bedroom and that was the real problem.

Last night I'd gone to bed with a girl, and I was now getting up in a different bed with a different girl. I knew her, it was Buffy, or at least she seemed to be, but she'd been at her mother's last night, and I hadn't gone to her place, this wasn't her room either. It was too small and it wasn't girly enough to belong to Buffy.

After slowly getting out of bed I began to look around what turned out to be a RV. I'd spent most of a summer driving around in one of these, only this RV was the trailer kind so something must be towing it around. Given the size of the RV a truck would be needed.

This was also odd to me as while I did own a RV, this was a different kind. Also my girls and I hadn't lived in the RV so much as when possible we'd rented rooms. This RV looked more lived in, and I could see some personal touches that suggested Buffy and I lived here.

Which didn't make any sense. If Buffy and I had been kidnapped (assuming that was Buffy in the bed I wasn't sure so I hadn't woken her up) why would someone go to all this trouble? None of this made any sense to me.

I wanted some answers so I started to look around some more, seeking out clues, I didn't seem to be in any danger, and if whoever was behind this wanted to harm me they could have done that while I was sleeping. Also my Slayer senses weren't alerting to me any danger right now, so I figured that I should have some time to figure things out.

Quickly I found a number of things that were hanging up. Some were easy to identify, such as the dream catchers, the other things were harder to put a name to, but I guessed that were talismans of some sort. While I was no expert in such things, I suspected that were meant to grant defences for this place. RVs such as this didn't have the protection against vampires that most types of homes did so these might help.

Of course this didn't help me understand what the heck was going on here, so I looked around some more. I found books of magic, many of which that I owned copies off. I would learn nothing new from inspecting these old tomes, even if I'd had the time to read them. Which I might not.

I found some clothing, and Buffy's stuff seemed a little off. She'd never been one for wearing practical clothing over what she considered fashionable, but now things seemed different. Her clothing was all made up of denim and leather for the most part a lot like mine was.

As for weapons. There was a lot of them stored in this trailer. The guns were loaded with real bullets as far as I could tell, and the other stuff such as the knives were very sharp. Which was odd because if someone had kidnapped me or banished me somewhere, then why give me weapons?

Within one of the chests were a number of different kinds of pistols, shotguns, knives, and other stabbing weapons, as well stakes, crosses, a crossbow, crossbow bolts, and some other weapons that looked as if they'd been taken from some enemy. I knew a trophy when I saw one.

Also I noticed that Old One symbols had been engraved onto many of the weapons. I did know that Old One symbols could be used to enchant items, but I'd never used those spells in that way. Perhaps that would change.

Then I found a diary, it was clearly the property of a girl, and when I opened it up I discovered that it belong to Buffy. She'd signed it a few times, in different ways. But there were no love hearts or anything like that, and the writing was different as well, it more seemed serious than her normal writing.

Which didn't shock me much as I'd known that she kept a journal I'd just never tried to read hers. Not until now, I needed information and this might provide it.

It didn't take me long to realise that this was not an account of the life of my Buffy Summers. The dates were right, this was 1999, but the events mentioned in this diary had never happened. I was mentioned often, but I had no memory of the stuff that was written about in the little book.

Looking some more I found Buffy's oldest diary, and I checked it to discover that apparently Buffy's parents had not divorced and they'd moved to Cleveland. Then she'd met me, and we'd joined forces to go do Slayer stuff across the country.

Thinking fast it struck me that this could be the wish verse, or some version of it. It would explain a few things. Someone could have altered the past. But that didn't make much sense because I remembered the proper timeline. The timeline that involved me having a harem, much in the way of cash, a big house, lots of fancy weapons, and great amounts of power.

Given that I knew about this universe I figured that in this new reality, that Angel and Rupert Giles did move to Sunnydale, however Buffy Summers did not move there, and I must have been sent to her in Cleveland rather than Sunnydale.

With no one capable of preventing the Harvest, the Master succeeded in escaping from his mystical prison. The Order of Aurelius overran and took over Sunnydale. Oddly he didn't open the Hellmouth, maybe he'd needed to feed from Slayer to get the power to that?

Angel, who by the other vampires was considered a traitor, was captured and imprisoned, while other people known in the show were either killed or turned into vampires. Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris were both sired, and they acted as the Master's leading acolytes. Darla must have died or displeased her creator so much that she'd been forced to leave Sunnydale.

In a town ruled by vampires, Sunnydale High School was lightly populated and held monthly memorials. Due to people favouring the daytime, the school held a Winter Brunch (presumably in lieu of a dance which could take place at night), and students weren't allowed to drive cars. What that had to staying alive in vampire town I didn't know, nor did I care to.

The remaining human inhabitants of Sunnydale wore dimly coloured clothing, as it was believed vampires were attracted to the bright and revealing clothing, which could be true as far as I knew. A curfew for all townsfolk was set for soon after school hours, not that it seemed to help.

In order to try to keep the vampires in check, Giles formed a team of vampire hunters one of which was Oz. However, they had few resources and were unable to actually defeat the vampires, who dubbed them the White Hats, the Master considered them to be a minor nuisance and intended to deal with Giles at some point.

Meanwhile, Buffy and her mother had moved to Cleveland, where she met her new Watcher. However, this Watcher had no control over the actions of the Slayer, who, through the years, developed a tough, grim personality similar to Faith Lehane, shunning friends or family, living only to slay, like Kendra Young.

That must be the Buffy Summers who was lying next to me. Only in this version of Wishverse we'd still gotten together.

At this point I found myself wishing that I'd kept a few journals of my adventures. No one would ever believed what was written in them, but I could have done with the information. There were so many unanswered questions running around inside my head.

I needed to understand what the me of this reality had been doing for years. Also I needed to figure out why I remembered the proper timeline, but knew nothing about this one despite clearly having lived in it. And what did that all mean?

Was the me of this timeline now living my life? Or maybe he'd never existed up until this point? If so then was any of this really real?

Altering the past like this would require a heck of a lot of power, more than I'd ever had. The PTBs or the Senior Partners might be able to do something like this, they had a lot of power, but it would easier to drive me into a totally different part of the multiverse than to alter a timeline in such a way. Some higher powers had done that before.

A Vengeance Demon utilising the power of a wish could also alter reality in such a way, but Anya couldn't have done this as Xander had died a while back and so had never broken the heart of Cordellia. Without that Anya had no reason to go to Sunnydale.

Vengeance Demons were drawn to pain, but if anyone had been so badly hurt in a romantic sense I was sure that one of my girls would have mentioned it to me. There were other Vengeance Demons out there. Perhaps one of them had been drawn to Sunnydale due to another kind of pain and with the Hellmouth there a wish could alter reality on a massive scale.

Hopefully I could get to Sunnydale quickly, find the demon, or better yet its source of power, which should be something like a pendant, and destroy it. Which should set things to right. If it didn't then I might be stuck in this reality, and I didn't like that idea one bit.

"You're up early" a voice said.

I didn't jump in surprise as I'd sensed Buffy stirring. I turned to see her, and she was sitting on the small bed. She was wearing a top that had to be mine as the sleeves were too long, yet when she stretched I could tell that she'd gone to bed with no underwear on.

However I knew that it would be wrong to get distracted. This wasn't my Buffy. I had to focus on getting back to Sunnydale so that I could set things right. If I couldn't I'd have to stay in this bad reality, while trying to make things better for myself.

"I had Slayer dream" I lied "We need to go to Sunnydale".

Outright lies weren't really my thing, but I needed to act quickly. I didn't know who had made the wish, and while I felt certain that the wish granting would have taken place on the Hellmouth that didn't mean the demon had hung around afterwards.

I would need Giles's help to identify, summon and then kill the demon, with me doing the work on the last one more than likely. I didn't intend to just to destroy the demon's power centre and leave them human. I was going to kill them and then smash the power centre.

"Sunnydale?" asked Buffy "Never heard of it, and why didn't have a Slayer dream?".

Well it was a small town in California so it made sense that this version of her would know nothing about it.

"I have" I told her ""We don't have much time. You'll just have to trust that I know what I'm doing".

Wishverse Buffy came over and put her arms around me, and I didn't tense up despite feeling somewhat freaked out by all this. Thankfully I was good at hiding my feelings.

"I always trust you, Damien" she said "I go where you go".

Now I felt bad. I was going to end this Buffy's existence so that I could get mine back. Although my Buffy had family, friend, a large allowance, and got to girl stuff so she'd be happier.

(Line Break)

Oxnard. Wishverse.

My intention was to drive straight to Sunnydale while subtly probing this world's Buffy for all the information that I could get while driving. I needed to understand more about what I'd been doing in this dimension just in case I couldn't get back and had to end up living here full time.

While I had every intention of getting back the proper universe, and my awesome life there, I knew that things didn't always go to plan. Plus I was rather curious about the life I'd had in this time line.

If I'd been the me of this reality, and in a sense I had been, then I'd have assumed that this time line would come to and end during season 3, and that I just had to wait for that moment. Which would explain why I'd avoided Sunnydale in this time line. I couldn't have afforded to mess up events there.

However I could not have predicted that another me would make up in this world after the wish was granted with no memory of this life. Which didn't make much sense really. Why was I aware the time line changed while Buffy wasn't unless I wasn't from this time line?

Alas no one had any answers for me. So all I could do was head to Sunnydale, hook up with Giles and let me him defeat demon Anya while I made sure that Buffy, and this world's version of Angel, didn't die at the factory while facing the Master.

Assuming that I went back home there was still a chance that this time line would carry on, the multiverse was a large and strange place, and who knew how new realities came into existence. If this time line did carry on it would benefit from having Buffy and Angel both alive and at least aware of each other.

Of course it was also possible that undoing the wish would restore the me of this time line. If so then he would be grateful towards me for not letting Buffy die. Other than that I couldn't help him. I no resources here, and no way of getting back to my own reality without destroying Anya's power centre.

"We'll stop here to eat and stretch our legs" I decided.

Currently we were at a diner at the edge of Oxnard, which was somewhat near Sunnydale, and there was something familiar about this place. I must have been here before.

"I need to pee" Buffy told me.

While I'd been emotional distant from her finding myself in this universe she didn't seem to mind. This version of Buffy must not be much for the touchy feely stuff.

She gave me that impression from just how she dressed. Like this version of me she'd gone biker this day, she wore tight leather trousers, or pants as they were called here, a lose top that made it clear she was sans bra, and a jacket that was sized for a man, and perhaps once it had been mine, and by that I meant the me of this reality.

What was really telling, aside from the fact she was carrying a very deadly looking knife that looked it had seen a lot of use, was her shoes. She was wearing practical boots. Buffy Summers did not do practical footwear. It was so strange.

"Find us a table" I instructed my fellow Slayer "I'll met you inside".

I wanted a quick look around so that I could jog my memory about this place. I didn't get far before something caught my attention.

"Please, Daddy. I won't do it again" a female person was saying.

I knew that voice. I'd heard it often, and a few times with that level of fear in it.

"Tara, I wish I could believe you, but you ran away" said some man who also sounded familiar "You're just like your mother with your unnaturalness, I've got to beat it out of you, like I did with her".

That man, if he could be called that, had to be Tara's father, we'd met once before, briefly and I'd not liked him then either. It seemed as if he'd tracked Tara down like he did in my time line and in the show. I'd arrived just in time to see it happen. Which could not be a coincidence, the PTBs had to be involved in all of this.

"You're an abusive asshole in every reality" I said to Tara's father.

The man turned around to look at me.

"This ain't your business, kid" he replied "Stay out of it"

I shook my head.

"Sorry" I said, despite not being at apologetic "I can't do that".

He threw a punch, which I caught, and then I broke the hand. In this body, only my mind had made the trip to this reality, I lacked the mystical marks that enhanced my slayer power, but I was still more than a match for an abusive git like this fellow.

"Oh gawd my hand!" he called out.

He cradled the damaged body part.

"You freak!" he yelled "You want to protect her so bad? You can have her!".

With that, he turned, and ran off, or to be more precise he tried to run away. I knocked him down.

"You're not getting away that easy" I told the git "You've been beating his girl for a while by the sounds of things. I plan to repay the favour".

I had some issues about getting taken away from my life, and this bastard was going to help me work through some of my problems.

"Don't" a soft voice requested.

This plea came from an unexpected source. Tara had spoken, and I was very surprised to hear her speak.

"D-don't h-hurt him" she pleaded "J-just let h-him g-go".

She looked as though she would break down in tears if didn't do what she wanted. She must really love her father despite all the things he'd done. I didn't know if that made her more worthy of my pity, or she was just a better person that anyone else in this back alley.

"Fine go" I told the man whose hand I'd broken "Be grateful that she's a better human being than either of us".

I turned to Tara, her expression managed to be thankful, shy, and fearful all at once. I was actually rather impressed by the sight. I couldn't imagine feeling so many feelings at once. It must be tiring.

Since I knew that Tara and I meeting here was no coincidence, because they didn't exist, I figured that the PTBs of this reality were involved, and had made sure our paths would cross at this place.

The fact that the Tara of this reality was working in the same diner I'd found her in during the original timeline, only years later, just had to be work of someone playing a game with people's lives.

"Hi" I said to the witch "I'm Damien. Who are you?".

She looked at the ground.

"T-T-Tara. Tara M-McLay" she told me.

I stepped closer to her, then stopped when she flinched. I wasn't close enough to touch her, and yet she was already anticipating getting hit.

"Jeez" I muttered

Her father must have really done a number on her. Well, I'd have to fix that as best I could while I was here, and if the me of this time line did return he could carry on from me.

"He'll be back" I said the young witch "You should leave town".

Tara's father was a monster, and they didn't let go of their prey easily.

"W-what am I g-going t-to do n-now?" she asked.

Thinking on it I realised that the Hellmouth was basically unprotected, and Tara was a witch, maybe she could help whomever ended up looking after that town.

"I'm travelling at the moment" I told the girl "You're welcome to tag along until you find somewhere new to go".

She looked at me disbelievingly.

"W-why w-would you d-do that? I'm n-not g-going to 'th-thank' y-you, i-if that's w-what you think…" she said.

I had to wonder how someone could be so scared and yet be willing to be brave in other ways. Then again my Tara had always been a mystery to me.

"You can stay here or come with me and my girlfriend" I told Tara "The choice is yours".

I headed out of the alley.

"Come on its dinner time. I'll buy you something to eat" I said to her.

Tara followed, I imagined that she was feeling confused and hopeful at the same time. That at least I could understand.

(Line Break)

Sunnydale. Wishverse.

Rupert Giles was certainly having an interesting day. While trying to save some people from being grabbed by vampires, he'd encountered not one, but two Slayers, who'd saved this life, and that if was impossible enough, one of the Slayers was a boy. Clearly his fellow Watchers had been keeping things from him.

Once the people who'd been grabbed by the vampires were set free and the vampires trying to grab people had been reduced to dust, they all went to his home where he researched wish granting demons as the male Slayer had requested.

Apparently the Slayer of the male type, a matter worthy of study in of itself, had been granted a Slayer dream, which led him to believe that a wish granting demon called Anyanka had altered the past somehow, making the world a much darker place than it should be.

"Yes I believe I might have found something on your demon this Anyanka" he said to the boy called Damien "She was hard to track down, but she's mentioned in...

The male Slayer interrupted him.

"What did you find?" he greatly desired to know.

Giles read from the book.

"In order to defeat Anyanka, one must destroy her power center. This should reverse all the wishes she's granted, rendering her mortal and powerless again" he said before closing the book "You see? Without her power centre, she'd just be ordinary woman again, and all this would be, um well..."

The girl called Tara, who was a witch, looked over the passage, and then passed it to Damien after muttering a few words.

"Smashing the power centre won't reverse all her wishes just the last one she granted which means if she granted another wish recently it won't undo what she did to the world" he said "Someone's researching skills aren't up to snuff".

Well maybe his Latin was a tad rusty.

"I've been busy" he said defensively.

"What's her power centre?" Buffy Summer asked.

It was Damien who answered.

"In my dream she wore a locket" he said "It seemed important".

Slayer dreams were often lacking in helpful details, Buffy had noticed this, yet they weren't exactly useless either, sometimes they did drop helpful hints.

"Mr Giles if you can summon this demon and smash her locket that should change things" Damien was now saying "But in case it doesn't Buffy and I can do some good while in town".

Giles nodded and started gathering ingredients.

"Tara, please stay here and help with the magic" Damien instructed the witch "And Mr Giles the demon will be strong even without a wish to twist so do be careful".

The male Slayer picked up his leather jacket.

"We'll be back soon" he promised.

"Where are you going?" Giles asked.

Buffy smirked. They were Slayers, they were going to find trouble.

(Line Break)

The Bronze. Wishverse.

I remembered this place from the show, it was a major vampire nest, yet right now it looked like a closed club. There weren't even any chained up humans to save. Which I figured meant that they'd been taken to the factory.

While I'd considered going right to the factory, we'd come here first in order to save Angel, not that Buffy knew this she just thought that we'd been drawn to this place due to my Slayer dream. Those sort of dreams did sometimes have little hints, images of things that were important.

"It's you, Buffy" Angel said, when we found him "I mean… you don't remember how could you?".

Well he sounded nice and crazy.

"How did you know my name?" Buffy asked

The stake in hand looked ready to strike. She wasn't lowering her guard, not while in this place, which was very wise of her.

"I waited for you but you never…I was supposed to help you" he said.

Buffy just huffed, clearly not believing him.

"You were gonna help me" she said "How?".

Angel managed to sit up.

"The Master rose, he let me live to punish me" the vampire with a soul explained "I kept waiting for you, my destiny".

Buffy just rolls her eyes, she was unimpressed.

"You try talking to him" she said.

Might as well.

"Where's the Master?" I questioned.

He seemed to be more focused now.

"At the factory. I can take you there" Angel said.

Good, everything was proceed as I wished it to. Soon we'd deal with the Master as Giles dealt with Anya.

"Take us to the factory" I ordered.

I kicked the cell door of its hinges, and then tore the chain that was keeping Angel in place, right out of the wall.

"You're going to need some blood" I said to the vamp "They should have some blood packs stored away somewhere around here".

Some larger vamp nests did, and if I recalled correctly the Master had drunk from a sort of cappuccino machine that served blood. When we found that Angel attacked it like a starving man at a feast. He even vamped out, showing his demonic face.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" Buffy called out "He's a fucking vampire".

She must not have heard me mention the blood before.

"I won't hurt you." Angel insisted.

"No you'll just leave that for your boss" Buffy quipped.

Angel glared at her.

"You don't believe I want to help you" Angel said as he opened his shirt revealing all the wounds and burns that had been given to him during a recent torture sessions. "Believe I want him dead".

Well we all had that much in common at least.

(Line Break)

Factory. Sunnydale.

The Master was standing before his minions, taking in this moment of glory. His plans were progressing well, and a new age was now dawning for vampires, not they normally cared for any dawning what with their fatal reaction to sunlight.

He watched as a couple of vampires dragged a human woman out of the pen, which was where livestock belonged, and strap her down on the machine that would soon activate. It would drain every human put on it of all their blood, ensuring a plentiful supply for this growing army of minions.

Sure the town wouldn't last long with the factory going at full speed, but there were whole cities full of humans for them to drain. They'd start with taking the homeless, and the people who spent time on the street, turning the strongest they could find and draining the rest.

By the time the humans realised what was going on it would be too late for them. There would be more factories elsewhere and more vampires than the humans could ever deal with. The world would belong to them, and they would serve the Master.

"Behold the technical wonder, which is about to alter the very fabric of our society" the Master said as he began his speech "Some have argued that such advancement goes against our nature. They claim that death is our art. I say to them... Well, I don't say anything to them because I kill them".

He paused a moment for a few chuckles.

"Undeniably we are the world's superior race. Yet we have always been too parochial, too bound by the mindless routine of the predator. Hunt and kill, hunt and kill. Titillating? Yes. Practical? Hardly" he said to the growing crowd of undead "Meanwhile, the humans, with their plebeian minds, have brought us a truly demonic concept".

The Master paused for just a second

"Mass production!" he yelled.

A vampire took a cup of blood and gave it to the ruler of the undead, just as three people entered the room who were very much not like the others even though one of them was a vampire.

The Master barely lived long enough to enjoy the taste of the blood as blast of very unnatural fire rapidly consumed his flesh. Had he known the attack was coming he might have been able to counter it with a spell of his own, alas he'd been distracted and for all his power he burned like any other vampire.

As he died the other vampires, who'd just seen the death of one they saw as almost god-like, begin to panic, and then they began to die.

(Line Break)

Giles's Apartment. Sunnydale.

After killing the Master, dusting many vampires, and smashing the Master's bones, we returned to the apartment. Once there I found that Giles and Tara had performed the ritual, and they'd smashed Anya's locket, but the world was still the Wishverse, nothing had changed at all as far as I could tell.

Okay so Buffy hadn't died, but we'd still lost Angel, all the damage done to him had ensured that he died in that battle. Not that this was a big loss as I didn't think the Angel of this reality had achieved much.

"She must have granted a wish since the one that changed the world" the Watcher "That or destroying the locket didn't reverse anything, she might have even been the right demon".

There were many explanations for this going through my mind. Perhaps Anya had granted more wishes since changing the timeline, or maybe this timeline was simply going to keep on existing while some other version of me lived my life back home.

I didn't know. I didn't understand how alternate universe and timelines worked, what I did know was that I had no intention of living in a RV with no harem. I'd have to rebuild, start over, maybe here, maybe somewhere else.

While it was tempting to try to recreate my own life here in Sunnydale, that would be a mistake. For starters Willow was dead. I saw Buffy stake her. Amy had lost her body to her mother a while back and was mostly likely long gone. Marcie would have gone totally nuts by now, and could be working for the government as an assassin for all I knew. Faith would on her way to becoming a career criminal by now since she couldn't be slayer. As for Kendra, she should be alive and well. I should look her up. What about Fred, was still in the Host's dimension. I needed to find out.

"At least we got the Master" Buffy said "And we burned down his factory, so that's something".

She then turned to me.

"So back on the road" she asked.

From what I'd learned so far Buffy and I had spent our careers as Slayers driving around in our RV, basically living our own version of Supernatural, only with less homoerotic subtext, and more fun.

"We'll stay in town for a few weeks at least" I told her "There are a lot of vampires here, we need to make sure that don't reorganise".

Plus I wanted some time to think and plan. If I was going to rebuild my life that would require resources that I didn't have. I did have some ideas of how to start doing that, which involved going to to see a certain green skinned demon in LA.