"Most Shocking Betrayal"
By James Carmody.
Disclaimer: I own neither Buffy, Angel, nor Star Wars. Buffy/Angel is the property of Joss, and I consider both series' to be in effect one and the same- due to many of the same characters in both of them. Star Wars is the invention of George Lucas; if he elected to sell it, that's his choice. I forego any financial claim to this story- and relinquish any money for this, forever! Please, therefore, don't sue, you won't get a cent. Other stories may be added into this crossover in future chapters- if so, there'll be a disclaimer to the chapter which adds in the story, mark my word, and the same statement of foregoing any financial gain applies to them too.
Summary: Faith gets a slayer-dream to remember for the rest of her life... is it some kind of divine intervention, just a wandering of her mind while sleeping, or some sort of deception? Read and find out.
Characters/Pairings: Anakin Skywalker|Darth Vader/Faith Lehane (ex-friendship) Others to be mentioned at the beginning of new chapters (if they occur).
Genre(s): Friendship, tragedy, action/adventure, drama, and some family, as well as Supernatural (true supernatural) and Spiritual, as well as fantasy. Also: Tragedy?
Setting/Timeline: Star Wars RotS (Revenge of the Sith)- to be anounced by events in the story, Buffy, Season 4, during Faith's "coma period".
Rating: I'd guess "K" or "G", it's pretty darn clean, but violence does happen- nothing sexual in the storyline, but in the background (like Anakin clearly having impregnated Padme with her consent, as well as their wedding night- hopefully then and not before) is hinted at, and is part of his motives for what he's doing. Actually, PG is a better rating, so K+ also (due to the violence in this).
Author's Story Notes: This story will have pretty much everything, as far as touches and twists, and feature some surprising lessons for a young lady who did some betrayals in her previous years- it is designed to demonstrate how a Divine Intervention makes use of surprising "inroads" and why it's a dumb idea to limit such assistance to getting yourself corrected- no matter how unpleasant it may be to be rebuked for your conduct; rest assured, the alternative is far worse!
This tale features true supernatural interventions- far more potent than any sort of "magic spells", such things are classified as "miracles", and "magic spells" are, simply put, cheep fraud-jobs- utterly worthless to ever engage in! In essence: supernatural and spiritual are one and the same category in their essence, "fantasy" is where magic fits- and is simply put a lie, and an idiotic one to put it mildly!
I do welcome any ideas, however, from fans; please don't be shy.
And now, without further ado... I present you with the story...
"Ch. 1: "Storming the Temple."
Beginning Chapter 1 Author's Notes: This is also a fantasy story- as both series universes are, so it shouldn't be surprising that things like telekinesis, telepathy, magical mind-control, and the like come up in this... don't worry, most if not all will be explained as the tale progresses... still, any inconsistencies I welcome being brought to my attention.
Faith lay on a bunk, coming to full alertness swiftly. Initially she thought she was simply dreaming, for this surely didn't look like any place in Sunnydale, California, that she recalled, nor anywhere else in the States, but rather it looked like a universe from the movies.
Glancing down, her eyes confirmed her impressions of what was going on, unless some Hospital Orderlies, or, I don't know, Buffy Summers had decided to play an odd prank on her while she slept in a coma- you never can tell with those people, and Faith had pretty massively infuriated the lot of them! They might just do something that vicious, therefore, after all; she couldn't tell.
She glanced to her right side, towards the doorway of her room "Unless I'm much mistaken, hospitals don't have doors of steel." the completely baffled brunette woman thought to herself; a doubletake at her clothes told her that her idea that she wasn't in a hospital was, in fact, entirely correct: she was dressed in what appeared to be leather robes, not unlike those a Samurai might wear, to her side, however, wasn't a katana, but rather a type of cylinder that appeared to be metal, and was fascinated to her belt at the hip by a metal ring locking system.
Her horror was then confirmed; for as she listened to the doorway out of her room she heard screams, then yelling, a commander yelling "Fire, for the sake of the Republic, Fire!" and then... more screams as weapons sounded. Almost immediately her slayer senses kicked into high gear- she'd learned this meant something horrible has just happened, or is about to happen... her old Sunday School classes came back to her now; combined with her lessons from Diana, the both of them told her that it's most likely that her Maker had given her this gift to enable her to defend her neighbors. Faith hadn't been a very loyal Christian girl, that's for sure, in fact, she was astonished that she hadn't gotten pregnant by forcing herself on Xander that time when he came to talk to her and she took his words as him blaming her instead of, like he said, being there for her... what she did there's not excuse for- ever! She knew that; she'd been a bad girl, all in all, and joining up with a sorcerer to secure domination of the town, now she suspected the nation was a more realistic goal of his but she didn't know for sure, and betraying her close friends to do so; all that had led her to this... now she wondered if she was, in fact, in Perdition.
Things didn't add up for that conclusion: first of all, she wasn't in agony- oh, sorry for her "bad girl ways"? Sure! But she wasn't being tortured, not mutilated like teachings told her would happen in Hell; so that conclusion didn't add up one bit.
This left that someone was playing an elaborate joke on the bewildered brunette teen woman, either that or she was dreaming; she favored the second conclusion for two reasons: #1: while she didn't put it past her ex-friends to get their revenge on her by playing an elaborate practical joke on her like this, or paying the hospital staff- perhaps with exchanging favors or calling in debts- she really didn't think they'd go through all the trouble, and besides, what if some orderly came by in a time that they didn't expect... this left that they may have slipped her drugs, but her brain seemed to function as it should; and that led also to the second conclusion- that she was dreaming: like in many of the more vivid dreams people have sometimes, she knew exactly where she was, in the Jedi Temple, and that in and of itself told her that she was dreaming, but couldn't wake up.
Now another old lesson that Diana had taught her came rushing back: Sometimes she, as a drafted soldier for a Fellow who's avatar is also known as "Aslan", has to undergo a weird kind of "training", a sort of training while asleep- "You'll know the situation completely" her watcher had told her, only later did she learn that the Watchers Council had a kind of "arrangement" with the Vatican as "co-workers", some concluded that this might be a mistake, but the roles of clerics to the council- a council that trains young ladies to be both "girl knights" and a kind of "ninja nun" is most vital.
Sometimes she'd had these dreams where she wakes up in a strange place, she's not someone else, but the situation is most peculiar to say the least- 'it's like being airdropped into a place and you have to survive and make it from one place to another' is how she'd describe it., when she told Diana about them, her Watcher had told her that that's exactly what the kind of dreams she was talking about "Training Dreams" her teacher had told her... these dreams featured odd occurrences, and were a sort of "preternatural training", to train her soul to function in different situations to enable her to survive and do her job as a "monster hunter".
Faith hid in the shadows of the hallway, barely daring to breathe, while hiding behind her doorway; whoever these troops are, they were on a "mission to massacre", so she was in terrible danger- her fighting skills might be sufficient, but if injured, she'd be helpless while recovering and these guys didn't seem to be taking survivors. Just then the sound of one of the assault-pistols of the troops reports confirmed her fears as it silenced someone's screams on the other side of the doorway, and from the sounds of the person, the scream indicated that this person who'd just passed away was injured! She took a deep breath to steady her nerves as she thought in terror "They're murdering them!", once the footfalls of the troops had passed by, Faith pressed a button on the wall of her quarters and the doors opened to a frightful sight of sheer carnage and slaughter- the aftermath to be exact! Bodies almost everywhere, some few were wearing battlearmor, the others were dressed in cloth not unlike herself. Faith touched the neck of one of them- no pulse- dead! She then felt sick, this was a child, couldn't be more than twelve years old, just a kid, but she didn't have time to grieve so she took to bolting on to get to safety!
Jumping over bodies she ran at full-bore to get to where her Slayer senses were telling her there were people to aid in mutual protection. Some shooting from behind began to singe her jacket and she folded up as she ran away, running evasively towards another person, only to realize this was a huge mistake! He looked like he was one of her comrades, and she felt like he'd help her to stay safe, when he started to make hostile movements in her direction; something was also off about his "sense", it was as if he "smelled wrong", there was a twisting to his person that didn't compute... seconds later her worst fears were confirmed as he launched a laser-sword whirling at her head! She did a quick duck and roll to escape, while practically flying through the air at the time, then, at full-slayer-speed bolted down another corridor to the side and took another route to escape his attack. She couldn't make out his face, but he seemed vaguely familiar to her in this scenario.
Taking a breather to both clear her head and to keep her senses as she did so, she barrelled down the hallways as fast as she possibly could, before running pell-mell straight into a metal-armored soldier, whom she landed on the chest of with both feet as he shot at her. This move knocked him flat on his back, and she bolted down the hallway, trying to get to some sanctuary. "Not exactly a good showing for a preternaturally strong young woman..." she berated herself silently, as she went by. She considered dispatching him, but elected against it due to his likelihood of now facing her and shooting her- she couldn't afford to risk this in a firefight with lesser-ranged weapons, it'd be a death-sentence, and her death wouldn't amount to squat thanks to these fellows numbers and murderous intent.
Faith ran across some children trying to sneak off to safety along with two young adults of approximately her age, one a young female with her long brunette hair in a bun, the other she thought was a guy, she couldn't tell thanks to him wearing his hair long, but he was somewhat more robust in build than she was, so she guessed "male". Faith linked up with them, then, seeing that there wasn't going to be any kind of escape, as the interceptors were blown from the sky as she watched with some binoculars by someone she thought she recognized. "They're going to murder us!" Faith thought in terror, then a singular opportunity came to the fore in her head: what if they could rescue these children? Faith, while not exactly the heroine kind who'll throw herself on the sword for anyone, didn't like the idea of people killing kids to begin with "These children deserve to live." the feminine psychopath thought firmly to herself. "Take them, I'll handle the leader of this operation and as many of the troops as I can- I'll mask your presence and escape route, take the kiddies and run!" Faith said, firmly holding Bene's upper arms "Take them and run- I think I can stop the killing; Don't find me, I'll find you, Bene, RUN!" Faith told her... immediately after she let go of the female's upper arms the group split up; Faith took off one way, the rest of them did so the other direction.
"Now to find a place to begin the fight... didn't Dad say "Everything in life is one term: Location" in a nutshell?" she calculated as she headed off, meditating as she did so to allow the escape of the young children from these killers rampaging through their home and school combined and murdering them on sight- it then hit her: she needed a place where she could escape if need be, but couldn't be approached without knowing of it, and was protected from enemy fire if that came up. "Yep" The Bostonian thought grimly "Dad's Vietnam War Stories come in handy- he may have been a scumbag to get mixed up with the mob after the war, but his stories do come in handy any day for me!" she thought as she found the place she needed "Ah! Here it is... now just where's the needed button?" she thought with a grimace/smirk to herself as the teenaged woman tried to set up the barriers that'd allow her to stand off to the leader of these killers-of-kids! "Yes! Got it!" she thought as the barriers activated at both her front and backsides- protecting her from projectile fire and laser-swords- now she had the edge in this fight, or more accurately the odds were more equal, so she'd have better odds of fighting off these murders. The brunette then sat down on her heels, and began to meditate to try to mask the detection of those running kids.
Inward, while terrified that she'd die in this building, she also felt an amazing contentment that the brunette Slayer couldn't understand, it was a certainty in her heart that she was doing what was right, she placed her hands in her lap, licked her lips, and began to pray impulsively, upon realizing that there was really very little she or they could do now; but she'd done a good job, she'd made a bunker for herself.
Outside the room, a man in dark colored Jedi robes was barking orders to the white-armored soldiers "Remember: By order of President Palpatine, if you, if any of you show mercy to any of the people in this building who're not loyal to us- ie: in uniforms of our side or don't give the proper code-words, I'll cut you down myself!"
Faith was surprised for many reasons: one of them how close he was to her whereabouts, she could actually see him facing away from her through the energy shields- he was roughly some fifty feet away right now, maybe sixty, but she was concealed, the only way to get to her and kill her was to get through the energy shields, unless they pumped in some toxic gas or drained all the air out of the area she was in.
She recognized the man and his voice now: Anakin Skywalker- a legendary officer in the Grand Army of the Republic which Palpatine had raised, and her mouth suddenly dried up like the deserts of the American South-West in the dry season; she swallowed, realizing that he'd betrayed them, but still didn't know why he'd done this thing.
About then, he turned around and, seeing her, frowned, began to crouch in anger and strode toward her with deadly intent- as if he meant to kill her. She waited, considering her options: there was no escape unless she killed them all, all the soldiers who had entered, then what? The planet was overrun by these fellows; so there'd be no sanctuary for her if she did so, so; in the end, this was to be her final stand.
She got a good look at her nemesis now, as he raised his left hand to the energy shield and it flickered, then turned off; there was a terrifying click of weapons readying to fire, then he turned around and told the troops to "Link up with the Noghri, find the rest of the Jedi, and kill the remaining Jedi- every single one of them... I'll handle her."
She was on him in that instant, and what a fight it was between them! Their lightsabers were clanging, sparks flying, for he'd turned around to deal with her in the mere second she jumped up and charged him, lightsaber active... Anakin grinned a satisfied grin, and Faith let out an enraged roar as she tried to fight him off from murdering any more of these kiddies!
Anakin laughed in her face, and from the light of their lightsabers, she could see the scar on his face's side- she knew she was completely outmatched just from the first few seconds of their duel, he took a few backsteps to get out of the "hallway" she'd prepared for their battle, then he switched into attack mode.
Faith, almost completely unprepared for the brutality of his attack, was thrown backwards, barely escaping landing on her behind- she was now aware that her pride remained her number one flaw, but she hoped she could take advantage of this flaw in him too- a flaw so often found in the extremely skilled in whatever activity they happen to be engaged in; if she could get him to make a mistake, maybe she just might survive this battle after all, and still rescue these children him and his unit were out to murder, but she also knew she was fighting for her very life: one mistake, that's all it'd take and she'd fall victim to this murderer's blade... so she'd have to be very careful to say the least!
As the battle raged between them, she became aware of a new ability: she could detect her nemesis' energy sources in this fight, and she realized that he was drawing on very dark emotions; practically operating on sheer feeling, little intellect... she knew well these sources of power, and how deceptive they can become, how seductive due to her own history with such things; the rage she had felt at the death of her watcher Diana for instance: that was similar to what she now felt coursing through him... but she also knew other things about this as well- the only explanation for the brutality of this attack and the deliberate targeting of children was a sort of "human blood sacrifice", something found pretty much only in the parts of those who worship the First Evil; and innocent blood being the most potent, one reason why he was trying to kill kiddies, she figured to herself!
Using her full-on Slayer strength, she fixed her lightsaber to hold his at an angle where he couldn't harm her and she couldn't harm him, gazed into his eyes and saw the deepest blue eyes she'd ever seen- she had to try hard to remember that she was gazing into the eyes of a child-murderer- and she took her left hand, set it into a gesture aimed at invoking the aid of a Deity for a miracle, as her right hand and arm was her stronger side, she had to use that one to restrain him from killing her, her gesture was to take her left index and middle fingers, hold them together with her left thumb slightly sticking out, but the mid-finger knuckle was bent at about a five-degree angle from straight, and her pinky and ring fingers were bent almost to a rolled-up posture, and she placed her hand near her lower belly.
Thinking it'd taken effect, due to the change to a more peaceful look on his face, she asked him "Why, Anakin? What'll you gain by a blood-sacrifice of these reasoned, self-aware beings- little children?" she tried to reach him, but he didn't seem to respond, at least initially.
"Anakin, you were a hero- don't do this!" Faith begged again, trying to get him to recall their former friendship in the Temple, how they'd been buddies- was he really going to kill her now? It could barely be!
Still no response, but she detected something really really darn dark coming up within him, up his spinal cord towards his brain; it was then that she realized that he was making no effort whatsoever to resist this dark entity commanding him to do these horrible deeds- and she was scared, but her terror increased when he replied to her ideas.
As he shoved her to the ground with a sudden push of his sword-arm, he said "The name's Vader... Darth Vader. Anakin is dead!"
Faith hadn't faced the truth about betrayal till then, but she wouldn't fight much longer, for as she moved to stand up to fight back in order to protect the innocent victims of this traitorous ex-friend, he stabbed her right through the middle with his blue lightsaber; as she fell, she saw a number of creatures with steel-grey skin running behind her, hunting human children and other force-sensitive children... on the hands of these beings were long claws, and inside their mouths she saw razor-sharp needle-like teeth, their heads were hairless for the most part, and they were shorter than humans were, about child-sized. She realized she'd fallen because he pushed her off the sword he held in his hand.
As her life ebbed out of her, she knew in this case that the wound was mortal; she'd die here in this little hallway, to the world; it's a wasted sacrifice, but that's where they couldn't be more wrong, she knew, there are viewpoints more vital than the world's to consider, and beings who's views are more vital- and it's to those we owe ourselves in our final analysis of our lives. Her last thought as she laid there, dying, was "Perhaps his children or his wife will straighten him out., and as for me- I know I've made enough of a difference to die happy... didn't know I'd die in this universe, but I hope that my sacrifice won't be in vain... No, I know it won't!".
Then her eyes opened, and she woke up in the hospital in Sunnydale...
End Chapter 1 Author's Notes: First of all, Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader), is the perhaps strongest Jedi in the history of their order, but also his strength fed into him, creating a horrible mix of arrogance and ambition, literally he was swimming in a highly corrosive sea of extreme pride... as for the inhabitants of Sunnydale, Ca, they live in a town built in a very corrosive spot in terms of their souls- anyone smart would move out ASAP, if they want to preserve their soul... both these characters, who, as this story depicts as having a history as "buddies" in this "dream-world", live in deadly situations, and are so much easy meat for yet a true monster: the First Evil, aka "the Devil", basically... something if they're smart they won't want to be around- at all!
If I continue this, how Faith wound up in this universe will be explained as the story progresses.