Several weeks later a group of demons called the Sisterhood of Jhe were about to attack the school, trying to open the Hellmouth. Carl and Cordelia's dad's luck finally ran out around the same time. The government arrested their dad and confiscated anything that had his name on it.
Carl and Cordelia's mother ran off with her boyfriend, abandoning the two of them. The two were pretty annoyed. They were prepared to help their mother in this difficult time when she went and betrayed them. And that was in the midst of a major apocalypse threat, adding to the stress of the whole incident.
"Good thing we didn't include her in our financial planning, then." Carl commented to Cordelia about their mother when they found out she had skipped town with her boyfriend and any remaining assets the government hadn't taken.
"The no good bitch probably had something to do with bringing dad to the IRS's attention in the first place."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Shrugged Carl.
Later that night, right before the Sisterhood attacked, Xander finally made it to the library, to much ribbing at his lateness.
"Yeah, well, if it wasn't for the zombies setting a bomb in the basement, I would have been here a while go." Xander stated matter of factly.
"Zombies?"
"Bomb?"
"Yeah, it's a thing. I'll tell you later, when these blue bitches aren't around!" Xander yelled as the library was flooded with demons.
What followed was a mad melee of hack and slash, with many a fireball and energy bolt thrown in for good measure. Giles defenses were very nice and helped keep them from being overrun.
There were a few cuts and bruises among the people on their side, but surprisingly they got off with few injuries. Their group tactics and better fighters easily held the day against the unorganized frenzy of the demons fighting.
"Well, get cleaned up and a pizza party?" Carl asked with a smirk to resounding nos.
"I don't even want to think about eating after this gory mess." Was the general consensus.
"Fine, fine. Ruin my fun." Carl muttered.
The rest of the year nothing much happened. Thanks to one sniper round to the mayor's head, all the drama and danger from the show just never manifested. It was all just routine patrols, and occasionally putting down a demon trying to fill the void the mayor left.
Graduation still happened during an eclipse, but despite looking around nervously, no demons or vampires came out of the woodwork. Without the mayor organizing the shindig, they had no reason to come out during the day. Most vampires had better things to do than pay attention to when an eclipse would happen.
The gang almost couldn't wrap their heads around it. Nothing happened. What should they do with themselves now?
As the summer started, Angel finally left for L.A. so he and Buffy could move on with their lives (or unlives) instead of being in some weird holding pattern.
Aside from everyone hanging out, the usual training, and patrols, nothing much happened during the summer.
The rest of the gang joined Carl at UC Sunnydale at the end of summer. Even Xander and Harmony joined them in college. Ever since the Halloween spell, everyone had been more confident, intelligent, and hopeful for the future.
Harmony would never be a rocket scientist, and she would always be obsessed with fashion, but now she was determined to make something of herself. She was going through the School of Business so when she got into the fashion industry she could run her own business and not get ripped off.
Cordelia was joining Harmony in a degree in Business. Amy was getting a degree in Criminal Justice, and Marcie was going for Mechanical Engineering. Carl was studying history and languages.
In the original story, Faith had no authority figures she trusted, and just dropped out of school. In this world, Diana had saved her at the cost of her arm. So when Diana asked her to give school a try, Faith sucked it up and went to school. She was a year behind the rest of the group, the same year as Dawn. Dawn and Faith got along surprisingly well, since Dawn wasn't like her sister Buffy.
Faith and Buffy just didn't ever quite see eye to eye. And unlike in a different world, this difference didn't end up causing irreconcilable differences. In this world, they just weren't great friends.
But Dawn and Diana especially, and the rest of the gang as well, had been working over the past year with Faith to get her acclimated to school. In such a strongly supportive environment, that Faith was still unused to after a whole year, she had actually been blooming and pulling good grades.
If she kept it up, she could actually, possibly, join them the next year at UC Sunnydale if she was so inclined.
The start of Carl's second year was entertaining for Carl on many levels. Seeing how Buffy didn't get along with her roommate entertained him immensely. Having his girls close by during the day was enjoyable too. They didn't share classes, but just knowing that they were nearby and he could enjoy time with them during lunch and breaks made his day.
Carl also saw what he knew to be the soldiers of the Initiative. Carl was really debating with himself about what to do with them. On the one hand, the soldiers were just doing their job and trying to protect their country. On the other hand, Dr. Walsh was a mad scientist that was creating an abomination.
After thinking about it for a while, Carl eventually decided to do nothing, for now. He setup some spells to monitor the Initiative's activity. He wanted to monitor who or what they kidnap, what they did with the people or demons they kidnap, etc.
If they end up kidnapping someone like Tara, he was going to have to do something about them. But until then, he would let it play out. Nothing like getting burned on a top secret black books project to keep the Government from repeating the failure, Carl hoped.
Speaking of Tara, Carl joined Willow and Amy in checking out the Wicca club, to see if there were any actual magic users around, when they saw her.
Amy and Willow had advanced greatly in the arts, while still remaining firmly in control. Carl was quite proud of both of them. Marcie still couldn't seem to develop any skills other than her invisibility and force fields, but she was gradually increasing the size of her shields as she got stronger.
Because the three of them had developed their skills greatly, all three could tell that the only magic user in the group was Tara. After sharing some telepathic thoughts with eachother, they shared that they all had a good vibe about Tara. She just felt so kind and down to earth to Carl.
Carl suggested that Amy and Willow should approach Tara and get her to agree to join them in the afternoon at their study house. Due to his knowledge of her abusive past, he wanted to let the two girls do the initial meet and invite.
The patents the group had based off of what they learned from the Ted Bot, and their memories from Halloween, had given the group a very large and growing budget. So they purchased a large property midway between Sunnydale High and UC Sunnydale to be their base of operations. It was a much more secure place to hold the majority of their weapons and books than in the high school library, while also giving the group a place to meet regularly for training and socializing.
Giles agreed that he would stay at the library for one more year until Dawn and Faith graduated, then he would tender his resignation and join Diana at the base they set up.
So in the afternoon when the group congregated at their base for training and study, Tara joined them. At first Tara seemed overwhelmed by the hectic and chaotic nature of the whole group together. But she soon acclimated and started relaxing when she felt the good vibes in the air.
When Carl saw his opportunity, he slipped into the seat next to Tara, startling her when she noticed him there.
"You're not a demon, you know." Carl quietly stated.
"What?" Tara whispered.
"Whoever told you that you were a demon lied to you. You're just a human girl with a magic talent. Not a demon." Carl reaffirmed.
"H-how did you know?" Tara seemed afraid of the answer.
"How did I know you were told you were a demon? Or how did I know you weren't one?"
"Both." Tara whispered back. "You could be a demon lying to me right now."
"But I'm not." Carl just whispered kindly. "I too have a magic talent. Everyone here has some kind of mystical talent, but we're all human here."
"Even…?" Tara asked, pointing over at where the two slayers were sparring with blistering speed and strength.
"Yup. Before they were called as Vampire slayers, they were even more normal than you or me. They didn't have our magic talent. But when the previous slayer died, and they got called, they gained large boosts to their physical abilities." Carl paused to let her think about that for a moment.
"I'm not expecting anything from you Tara, except maybe hoping for some friendship. With my talent I heard your mind practically shout out that you don't deserve anything good because you thought you were a demon. I just wanted you to know that you are not some kind of fallen, dirty thing. You're a beautiful person, inside and out. And even if you were a demon, if I compare you to those who lied to you, well…who were the ones actually acting like demons? Who were the ones who were being inhuman? I can tell it wasn't you. And you didn't deserve to be treated like that."
Carl paused for a bit to let what he said sink into her head and heart.
"You can be yourself here, among us. You can explore your magical talents or not as you please. You don't have to worry about us being afraid of you. You don't have to be afraid of us. I just wanted to let you know that, Tara."
Then Carl shut up. He'd said what he wanted to. What he felt he needed to. Now it was up to Tara as to when she would take the next step, if she did.
He could tell she was having a hard time accepting everything he'd said. It might take her a while to really truly believe it.
But they had time.
Carl laughed and laughed when it turned out that Buffy's roommate was a demon who had snuck out of her dad's house (dimension) to come slum it up with the humans. But her dad came and got her and took her home with no casualties or injuries, so Carl didn't feel bad about laughing at her.
It was good to be reminded that not all supernatural creatures were inherently evil. A powerful demon dad that just came to earth to drag his rebellious daughter home, but didn't hurt anyone in the process, was just too funny.
Several weeks later Carl heard some news that the people who went to a particular bar ended up being transformed into cavemen. The transformation lasted for 24 hours, then went away. By the time he investigated, the demon in charge of the bar was long gone. Carl shrugged, and put him on a list to be watchful for if they ever came back. That kind of incident might be nothing more than an accident, or it might be a test for future mischief.
A few weeks later, there was evidence of a werewolf attacking and killing people on campus. They knew it wasn't Oz, he was too careful and they'd long since given him a more secure cage than the one in the library at Sunnydale High.
They spent the last day of the lunar cycle out tracking the wolf, and finally caught it. When it transformed back to a human the next day, it was some girl named Veruca. She had the hots for Oz, and they had been dating, but she was of the opinion that they should let their wolves run free. She didn't care what her wolf did during the transformation.
That kind of irresponsible attitude could not be allowed. People would be killed. Werewolf hunters would come into their territory, looking to hunt all werewolves, even the innocent ones that kept themselves locked up.
So they gave Veruca and Oz a few options to choose from. She could go to a group of Tibetan monks that could help her learn to retain control of her wolf while she changed. Oz could go with her. The gang would fund their travel.
She could agree to being locked up during the full moon so she wasn't a danger to others and she would be safe from being hunted by werewolf hunters.
Or she could agree to be magically bonded to Oz. It would be a mix between a marriage bond and pack. She would be subservient to Oz and have to obey him.
If she refused one of those three options, then more drastic measures would be taken. Magical lobotomy or death may or may not have been mentioned.
When she saw the seriousness of the group, and that she really didn't have a choice, she started to take them seriously. Especially when she was easily toyed around with by Buffy and Faith, who were faster and stronger than she would ever be. And then Carl showed her just how easily they could take her head off with a wind blade.
She wasn't laughing and enjoying being such a wild animal anymore after that demonstration and the realization that werewolves weren't the highest animal on the food chain.
In the end, Oz and Veruca decided to go to Tibet to learn how to be in control. Even more than letting her wolf run free, Veruca liked the idea of being the wolf. And it would get her far, far away from the scary group.
So they sent them off with well wishes.
Several weeks later silence descended on Sunnydale. Everyone lost their voices. There were news reports saying it was a widespread case of laryngitis. Riiiiight.
The floating fatman, the Baron- er.. the Gentlemen had arrived in Sunnydale to harvest seven human hearts. Their only weakness was apparently the human voice, so they cast a spell to keep everyone from being able to speak.
The Gentlemen also had a group of straight jacket wearing zombie-like footmen to do their bidding. When the gang realized something supernatural was going down in town, they rendezvoused at the house. Giles gave a quick presentation on what they were facing.
Originally, they would have all split up and searched around town to look for the Gentlemen's base. But thanks to some technology aid and super sleuthing from Amy, they narrowed down the Gentlemen's headquarters. Carl didn't pay as much attention to the specifics as he should, but it had something to do with a program that collated social media and blog posts and distilled the reported sightings down to a location.
They soon arrived at the likely base, and found the Gentlemen getting ready to kill another girl the footmen kidnapped. Without wasting time, Carl and the rest of the magic users sent a wave of fireballs and wind cutters, slicing and burning up three footmen. Buffy, Faith, and a totem wielding Xander then rushed the rest of the footmen, tearing through them with swords.
The footmen were easy to take out, but the Gentlemen were immune to weaponry. It was an exercise in frustration. They were able to keep the Gentlemen from killing the girl whose heart they wanted, but they couldn't kill them. And it was getting tough to keep them from just floating away.
Finally, in the middle of the fight, Buffy saw a box that she had a dream about, so she smashed it. They soon realized their voices were restored. The whole group vindictively yelled and screamed, which caused all the Gentlemen to pop like green colored custard filled balloons.
The Gentlemen's ending was funny.
The cleanup was annoying.
But after the fight where Tara saw what a real demon looked like and what kind of things they do, it made her realize that she really wasn't a demon, like Carl had tried to tell her.
So many years of indoctrination and negative feedback was a bit difficult to overcome from just a few words from a virtual stranger. But actions, especially Tara's own actions, made a huge difference in her personal paradigm, in how she saw herself and her place in the world.
She firmed her resolve to join them, and to live her life. She decided she wouldn't be held back anymore by her past. That she would live as she wanted to.
Toward the end of the academic year, Carl discovered that Professor Walsh had somehow discovered that Tara was a magic user, and had plans to kidnap Tara to experiment on her.
As Tara was part of the gang and a friend, this information and plan of Dr. Walsh's was unacceptable to Carl. It was finally time to do something about the Initiative.
But just how to go about dealing with the situation? If he just takes them out, the military will never stop looking for the responsible party. They wouldn't be able to let such a challenge to their authority stand.
But if the project was destroyed from within? By their own experiment? And records of an illegal military lab on a college campus was leaked to the media? And records of the inhumane torture and illegal drug testing on the troops was included in that leak?
Well, the Government would cover that up faster than greased lightning and deny, deny, deny. They would be too busy denying their own mistakes to realize a third party had been responsible. Probably.
Carl decided it was worth the risk to end the threat to his people. Tara was such a sweet girl, and getting kidnapped by military types and experimented on might ruin any progress she had made.
Carl started enacting his plan. First he snuck into the base under an invisibility spell, following the soldiers as they entered. He worked his way down to Walsh's office and made copies of the more sensitive papers. Plugging in a flash drive to her computer, the hacking software that his group made had soon broken in, and made a copy of everything logged.
Carl then went to inspect the cells. He found several types of demons that looked inhuman but were just trying to live peacefully. And there were even more that should just be killed immediately. Carl sighed at the arrogance and ignorance of Walsh.
He made plans to free the peaceful demons, then set up a remote activated spell that would activate Adam, the human/demon/cyborg, and cause him to rampage around the base. Carl then spirited away the peaceful demons, and saw that they got home. Illusions were so helpful.
He monitored the base, and when Walsh was next inside, talking to her abomination, he activated his spells remotely. Adam first killed Walsh, then went on a rampage, killing everything in his sight. He broke into the cells and destroyed the demons that are just parasites.
Carl nodded in approval. One less thing for him to take care of.
At the same time, he released a carefully edited version of the bases records to the media. One that didn't include any records of the supernatural. The illegal nature of the Initiative, the black books funding, and the medical torture and experimentation caused a giant fuss that the government worked hard to simultaneously crack down on, and scapegoat certain individuals.
Meanwhile, when Adam the abomination made its way to the entrance, Carl unplugged it from its power source, and killed the spells that were temporarily animating it, causing it to fall apart and "die".
Carl levitated the heavy creature to a wagon, covered it up, and carted it off for the rest of the gang to see what the military was working on under their campus.
Later on, Giles got the Watcher Council to work through the chain of politics to provide pressure from Britain to the U.S. to make sure such an abomination never happens again. Hopefully the Watchers Council might actually prove useful.
Faith and Dawn graduated high school that year, and everyone was ready for summer break. With the funds the patents hold, the group was very rich. As a group they headed out on a two week cruise in the Bahamas for vacation that was entirely enjoyable. It was good to get out and relax for a time.
Somehow during the cruise Tara and Faith joined Willow and Dawn in their relationship with Xander. Well, it was more like Tara dated Faith and Willow while enjoying the company of Dawn and Xander. Xander dated Willow and Dawn, while also having sex with Faith and enjoyed watching Tara, who wasn't ready to have sex with a male yet, have sex with the others. Willow dated Xander, Tara, and Dawn, while having sex with Faith. Dawn dated Xander and Willow and egged on Faith and encouraged Tara to let Xander have sex with her. While Faith just had fun fucking them all. She wasn't one for the mushy scene, but she put up with it for the sex.
They were complicated. And amusing as hell for Carl to watch.
Buffy just hung around the edges watching everyone but her have lots of sex. She still was unwilling to commit to either Carl or Xander's group of sex friends, though she admitted she was tempted to join Carl, if only to scratch that itch.
Cordelia readily admitted she was too selfish to want to share her man with anyone else, which is why she never tried to join the Xander harem. Besides, he was too much of a dork. She would find someone in the future. She had plenty of time.
After an enjoyable summer, the gang started up college again. Faith decided she would rather gain some mechanic skills and work on hot rods and motorcycles, so she joined a trade school instead of college. But she still joined everyone in the afternoon for training and socializing.
A strangely powerful vampire breezed into town, hypnotized Buffy, drank some of her blood, and just as smoothly waltzed out of town before they could get a lock on him. They found out later that it was Dracula, who had a plethora of unusual powers. Powers that made it so Buff couldn't even force herself to resist him.
Buffy had been so close to joining Carl in bed, and now she was freaked out and wasn't ready to join him until she regained her equilibrium. Carl vowed at that point that he would end that bloodsucker someday, the cockblocker.
A few months into the semester and Carl noticed that there were reports of people losing their minds. There was no attributable cause to why they became unhinged.
Glory had arrived in town looking for the key.
Carl had been preparing for this since the day he arrived in this world. Due to the method of his entry as a Spare Key, he knew Glory would do anything to get her hands on him or Dawn. And that if she was allowed to use the key, it would rip apart their world and reality.
And he wasn't about to let that happen.
Carl had done his research, and he knew where Ben Wilkinson worked and lived. Previously he'd known Glory's host had been named Ben, but until Glory's minions showed up and kept track of him when Glory wasn't making use of her meat puppet, he wasn't sure just which Ben it was. But now, with Glory's minions having provided the target, Carl was informed and prepared.
He had ramped up the ritual he'd used to kill and drain the power from the mayor. With the mayor, he'd only used 7 stones as the base of the ritual to enable the ritual to fight the mayor's magic and to store the power.
For this ritual, he was using the 7 stones that stored the Mayors power, after they had been cleansed and purified, as the catalyst to power the spell. Then he would use 7 times the amount of stones, and the stones would be twice as large as the ones used to store the mayor's power. Glorificus was after all a demon Goddess, while the mayor had only been a powerful 100 something year old magic user.
Carl carefully set up the ritual. This would be the shot that would determine how easy or painfully difficult the next five years in this world would be.
After everything was perfect, Carl set up the shot for when Ben would leave his apartment in the morning. He knew Ben was only an unwilling host, but that didn't stop Glory from using him. And if she was allowed to keep coming after him or Dawn, no other weapon they had could really do any damage to her.
They had never run into Anya the vengeance demon, so they couldn't get the troll hammer from her ex. And the scythe was...somewhere. Carl had no idea where at the moment. So this ritual was the only thing that would stop Glory.
And even if it didn't permanently kill her, it will kill her host and prevent her from coming back for who knows how long. So either way, he wins today.
Ben stepped out of his apartment.
Carl squeezed the trigger.
Ben died.
The ritual created a link to the Hellgoddess Glorificus, and began draining her power into the stones. Her power like a tidal wave smashed towards him, trying to destroy whatever insect dared to suck her power.
Carl nervously watched the attack get closer, then envelop him. A moment later, he sighed in relief. He was still alive. The jump didn't end abruptly with his death.
Carl sat there and waited for the ritual to end. And waited.
"Damn, how much power does this bitch have? In the show they could barely hold their own in a fight against her when she was severely weakened by working through a host body. If she was there in her full power, there'd be no way to stop her." Carl realized.
Finally, after what seems like hours, the power drain was complete. The 49 football sized stones were glowing with a malevolent power. Carl carefully packed them away in mystically reinforced boxes, so they wouldn't leak power and attract the wrong kind of attention. He then stored them in a heavily secured facility with as powerful protections on it as he can make it. He would cleanse the stones at a later time.
Carl finally allowed himself to relax and enjoy the success. But only for a morning.
Now that Carl didn't have to worry about Glory coming after him or Dawn, he had some time to work on some other messes that need cleaning up.
Carl searched for and found Rack, who was a warlock that would hook people on dark magic and addictive magical highs. It would get them more and more addicted to his brand of magic, which would lead them to do whatever he wanted them to, in order to get their junkie magic fix. Basically he was a mystical drug dealer.
It took a few days to map out Racks defensive spells and create some magical lockpicks to overcome them. Early morning, when business was over for the night for Rack, Carl slipped in through the defenses with his crafted magical lockpicks.
Since Carl had nothing to say to such a scum man who in another world had hooked both Amy and Willow on his brand of dark magics, Carl simply slit his throat. Carl watched carefully, poised to act.
When Rack's throat was slit, he woke up, and tried to talk or scream, but couldn't due to the damage to his throat. He flailed around on the bed, his blood fountaining out. Carl briefly thought he looked a little pathetic, but squashed any hint of pity he felt for such scum that destroyed so many lives. Rack would have been happy to get Amy and Willow addicted and ruin their lives too. He deserved no pity.
The moment Rack began gathering magic, Carl acted, slapping Racks magic down with his own, then keeping him suppressed. There was no way he would let Rack escape. All the way until Rack died, Carl made sure the man couldn't gather any magic. He then burnt the body to ashes.
Before leaving, Carl looting any money in the place, as well as magic books. Carl would go through the books and determine what to do with them. He wasn't a fan of destroying books to prevent knowledge of dark magics from getting out. Because one never knew if there wasn't a second book like it out there. And if you couldn't do research to learn what spell one was up against, there would be no way to defeat whoever would use such foul magic.
Now that the dangerous and distasteful jobs were done for the moment, Carl enjoyed the rest of the year in peace. Or as much peace as living on the Hellmouth can give you. With four girls gracing him with their attention, how could he not enjoy life?
That's right, Buffy finally couldn't resist scratching that itch, and joined Carl in bed. He had long since done a medical scan on her, and determined that her time with the undead Angel hadn't infected her with anything. So Carl was happy to share time with the beautiful and athletic woman. She was very…enthusiastic.
They definitely weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, like he was with Amy, Marcie, and Harmony. They were simply friends with benefits for now. Very nice benefits.
Everyone in the relationship was aware of the circumstances and consented. So no one was being taken advantage of. Unless they wanted to be. Giggity.