Summers Residence, Sunnydale, California, Mid-January 2003 (A Few Days Later/Tuesday Fandom Time)

[brat_inslayage]

Where there had only been one or two girls showing up every other week or so, word was getting around and more were trickling into Sunnydale, or getting ferried in by Giles, at a faster rate. Where it had been a little bit of a joke at first, shower time had to be strictly monitored for real now, and Kennedy was thinking about using the promise of hot water as a training incentive. In fact, things had gotten to the point that all the "original" Potentials, namely Kennedy, Molly, Chloe, Rona, and Vi, were rotating shifts when it came to getting all the newbies acclimated to life at Slayer Central.

It wasn't always easy. There were language barriers to deal with, and the stacks of books lying around the house comprised as many phrasebooks and dictionaries as they did dusty old tomes on demons. There were cultural issues to work out, like making sure some of the girls had time and space for their prayers. There were dietary concerns to incorporate, which resulted in no few incidents of flared tempers and compromises.

Basically, even with things being pretty quiet on the First-y front life at Buffy's house wasn't dull; today it was Kennedy's turn to get the latest arrival, Caridad, up to speed. She didn't mind much; she'd said she'd ease up on the flirting, after all.

...god, behaving was such an effort.

"So," she began, once they'd scrounged up some bedding and a sleeping space for Caridad and found a corner for her to stash her things, "what's your story?"

Caridad	Caridad shrugged, still a little dazed by how her life had been uprooted and changed in the past few days. "My family was saving up for that trip to Disney for a year," she said, slinging her bag to the ground. "I thought the guys in robes were just part of the show until one of them tried to stab me in the heart with his knife."
Kennedy	"Irony," Kennedy snorted, "going after you in the Magic Kingdom. Didn't think the Bringers had a sense of humor. Learn something new every day, I guess." God, that wasn't good, if they were starting to get that brazen about attacking the Potentials. She paused with one hand on the stair railing, tilting her head curiously. "Did you know what you were? Before the Bringers found you, I mean."
Caridad	"Mi abuela, she always said I was special," Caridad said, shaking her head. "But I don't think she had this in mind. I had no idea." She dropped down heavily to sit on her bag. "She must be worried sick about me right now."
Kennedy	Kennedy bit her lip, giving Caridad a sympathetic frown. "If you wanna call her, you can use my phone," she offered, dropping the hardass drill-sergeant act she'd been cultivating. "Hell of a shitty way to break that kinda news, though."
Caridad	"How am I suppose to tell her I had to go away and fight vampires and demons?" Caridad said. "She'd think I was talking about one of those games I play with my friends in the woods, eh?" That's right, Kennedy. Caridad larped. Don't you dare judge.
Kennedy	You know, Kennedy really shouldn't judge, considering she had a thing for geeky girls. Okay, so she did judge, just a little; one eyebrow arched faintly. "And there's the suck part of what we do, huh?" Kennedy asked once the Brief Moment of Judgey had passed. "Which... I guess you're getting the crash course in it now. Or will be."
Caridad	"I know my way around a padded sword," Caridad admitted. "Not so much the real thing." Of course she'd been a fighter. Even if she hadn't known she was a potential, she liked beating up "evil." "It's not going to be the same, is it? A real sword? Fighting real monsters?"
Kennedy	It made sense, really; seemed like the... Potential-ness manifested in some way for all of them, somehow. "Not the same, nope." Kennedy had to be honest about that. "There's a whole balance and weight thing, and..." Yeah, see, the weapons geek really had no room to judge. "We'll get you up to speed. Spike'll help-- um, he's our resident vampire." A slightly embarrassed beat. "He has a soul, he's on our side, it's a thing."
Caridad	"...please tell me he doesn't sparkle." If those stupid books were real, Caridad was going straight back home now.
Kennedy	Oh, the look Kennedy was giving her. "Yeah, that's a level of in-the-shit we really don't need." She shook her head ruefully. "Vamps in the real world aren't like that."
Caridad	"Then what are they like?" Caridad asked. She started ticking things off on her fingers of what she knew about how movies and books portrayed them. "Drink blood? Burn in sunlight? Stake through the heart kills them? Garlic? Running water? Holy water? Semillas de amapola...¿cómo se dice que? -- poppy seeds?"
Kennedy	"...huh." Kennedy's eyebrows shot up in surprise; she'd never thought to ask before, but that explained why her favorite housekeeper growing up had taken to including poppyseed bagels on her breakfast tray after she'd been in earshot for one of Kennedy's lessons with Constance. If she ever made it back home, she'd have to say thanks for that, even if it wouldn't have worked. "Holy water, sunlight, stake, check. Also beheading." Giles was out retrieving more Potentials, and Kennedy wished for a second that Constance or Wesley could be here to do a better job of this, then shook it off. Zero point in wallowing in if-onlys. "Garlic just annoys 'em, crosses burn on contact-- and trust me, the girls have had like four arguments already about why it's just crosses, which is dumb, but let's not open that can of worms again." She grinned wryly. "Yeah, they drink blood. And they go all bumpy-face when the fangs come out; we'll ask Spike, get him to show you.
Caridad	"What about turning into a bat or rats or mist?" Caridad wondered. Yes, she'd seen Dracula a few times. "Can they control your mind if they look you in the eyes?" She wasn't too sure about this vampire-with-a-soul thing. Sure, plenty of books and movies had tortured vampires who didn't want to hurt anyone, but she'd already gotten the "You're a Potential Slayer, vampires exist and you're supposed to kill them all" speech, and that just made things more complicated.
Kennedy	"Whoa, okay, ease off the movie info," Kennedy put in, laughing. "I've met one vampire who actually materialized in a swarm of bats, but she's from a different world." Spike had been weirded out enough, so she'd spare Caridad the brainbreaky of vampire differences across dimensions. Also Kennedy didn't know about Dracula because really wtf. If Andrew had told any of them about that, she'd tuned it out at the time. Tuning Andrew out was sort of reflexive by now. "Let's stick to worrying about our world's vamps for now, yeah? No funky teleporting skills. They're just super strong, super fast, soulless killers." Yes. That was reassuring. "...and we can totally take 'em down."
Caridad	"Then how does this Spike have a soul if they are all soulless killers, eh?" Caridad said dubiously. Look, she liked rules. She hated random unexplained exceptions to them because that made things more confusing.
Kennedy	She picked a really bad time to get into the Slayage game, then; they were all about the random and unexplained these days. "He said he got it 'jammed in him,'" Kennedy remembered, using airquotes and everything. "A spell, or something, I guess. There's another vampire with a soul, too, in L.A., but don't bring that up to Spike. He's sorta touchy about it."
Caridad	"So all vampires are evil soulless killers -- except two," Caridad said. She gave Kennedy an appraising look. "You really seem to know what's going on around here. You trust them? They're not faking it just to wait until we lower our guard?"
Kennedy	"I've been here for weeks." Kennedy sighed. "Believe me, if they wanted to get rid of me they had plenty of chances before now." Also ample provocation, but shh. "Besides, if they were the bad guys they wouldn't be risking their asses by letting all of us stay here," she added. As arguments went, she could have stood to back that up a bit more.
Caridad	"If you say so," Caridad said, but she wasn't entirely convinced. "So what's your story?" she asked. "What were you doing before someone told you you were supposed to kill vampires?"
Kennedy	"...learning to read?" Kennedy shrugged sheepishly. She was trying to downplay her extended tenure as a Potential these days; it had gone over badly a couple of times. "I was six when I got hauled aside and given the 'demons are real, and you might get to fight them' speech. Um. After I got in trouble for fighting, a bad habit I never really broke after that." She gestured to the girls' possessions scattered all over the house. "Some of us got that speech earlier than others."
Caridad	"Six?" Caridad repeated. "How did they find you so young? Why didn't they come for me then? Does that mean you have training already?" Yeah, that would be a big surge of jealousy she was having right now. Not that she would have wanted to trade her childhood for training in fighting demons, but on the other hand, it would be nice to have more experience under her belt before being thrown at the Hellmouth.
Kennedy	Good one, Kennedy. Open your mouth and make people feel bad. Again. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah." At least she realized it, and looked apologetic? "You're not the only one; Rona didn't know until the Bringers came for her, either, and Amanda's been living right here on the Hellmouth all this time and we only found her weeks ago." Probably not her most reassuring speech. Look, she wasn't the appointed speech-maker in this house. "But it's cool," she went on in a rush. "I mean, that's what I'm here for. Help with the training thing... you know. With Buffy and Spike." She folded her arms over her chest and leaned forward slightly. "Listen, you can do this. I swear."
Caridad	"It's not exactly the same as playing at battles but I think I'm ready for action," Caridad said. She'd had a couple days to let things settle in as she'd traveled from Florida to California. It was terrifying, but also exciting in a way to suddenly have such an important purpose that meant she wouldn't be spending a couple years working for the flower vendors in Miami to save up enough to put herself through college. Still, she had a lot of questions. "How do they know who and where we are? Why didn't they find me or Rona or Amanda sooner like you? And...why? Why are we so special?"
Kennedy	"I never figured that out," Kennedy admitted because apparently canon completely forgot about that whole birthmark thing from the movie. "How they know, that is. Magic sometimes, I guess? Giles has a coven of witches in England working to locate more Potentials, and we've got one pretty badass witch in house who pulled it off too." Big grin as she mentioned that. God, she was hopeless. "As for why..." Kennedy shook her head. That was a tough one; she'd be pretty hard pressed to figure out what she had in common with Vi, or Molly, or Amanda, or Chao-Ahn, that put them all in the same boat. (She was starting to realize, though, that she kind of envied those of them who hadn't had it dangled over their heads their entire lives.) "Don't know that either, but hell, you got attacked by freaky eyeless monks and you're not here asking us to tell you you were just going crazy. There's a lot of people who wouldn't handle that too great." She nodded firmly. "So I don't know who decides these things, but we've got what it takes. And we gotta step up. You in?"
Caridad	Dios, Kennedy! Caridad really hoped she looked more confident than she felt. "I'm in," she said, nodding. "I'm in."
Kennedy	Kennedy said nothing for a moment, just looking at her with an inscrutable expression until a slow twitch started at the corners of her mouth and spread into an unmistakable grin. "Kick ass," she said, as much a directive as a way to declare her satisfaction. "You're gonna fit in here just fine."

[[2 of 2 this week, nfi/nfb/ooc-okay as usual. again, set between "potential" and "the killer in me." preplayed with the lovely trigons_child as ready_foraction, showing up earlier than in canon because i wanted to make someone make up even more backstory than i had to i am not constrained by budgeting for guest stars and fifty million extras and so i can, nyeah.]]