The idea about 'only children' being only *surviving* children is brilliant. As far as I know, no one else has ever used it. And it's definitely a concept whose time is come. More authors should adopt it, until it's Official Fanon. (Fanon is a non-canon concept so pervasive in the fandom that it's accepted as real anyway, but you probably knew that already.)

I thought it was odd that all these kids seem to be the only children of their parents. That they are the only surviving children would explain why a town of Sunnydale's size would only need one (public) high school.

Yes, I do know what Fanon is. Though, rather than create it, I usually try to destroy it. I've got a short story called Death and Taxes that tries to just that with Highlander Fanon.

Great update; figure there's still some fall out from both Oz and Cordelia coming in the near future as canon never really made all that much sense - either both were too stupid not to realize that Xander and Willow were both convinces they were going to die so were 'Carpe diem' as fast as they could carpe that diem, or something was well messing their minds up - like Jasmine and the Powers That Are Ineffectual...

Thought Xander took the big reveal fairly well, even if he is still in shock at the dumping by Cordie and the marathon sex by Faith, so there may be some weirdness from his corner in a while... DD is a delight, even though we hardly get to see her in action (peers nearsightedly at Ye olde Author). And how will the rest of the gang take the recent events?!?!?

I don't know about more fallout. Oz and Cordy's response to catching them kissing while in mortal peril always seemed a bit disproportional to me. Mortal peril brought Xander and Cordy together in the first place.

You never saw Giles in action much either. Her job is to train Faith, who is mostly trained already.

Good story. Hope you continue it. Been several rewind type fanfics, but think that this is the first one that I've seen from Faith's perspective. Specially like it as am a big Faith and Xander fan.

More of this is coming. Hopefully soon. But work has been crazy.

Faith no more by Oxnate: A very interesting story with Faith returned to the Past via a wish but thinking about the future with Xander as her husband / Faith may have forgotten or never knew the Back to The Future rule aka Change the past you change the Future .
I so hope you & your Muses reread & then Update this story .

Oh, I very much haven't forgotten. In fact, I was writing more just today. But I've just been too tired and too busy to update these past few weeks. More is coming though.

And I don't subscribe to the theory of there being actual time travel. Just like Cordelia's wish, this wish created an alternate universe.

Not that it really matters, but I wonder if a good weaponsmith could have fixed that sword.

EDIT: Answered my own question

http://www.boswellfarms.com/bent.html

I think the article reached the same conclusion I did: yeah, but.

Yes, technically it could be straightened, but it would always be weak there. Prone to bending again or possibly breaking. Not something you should trust your life to.

I really like this one. Kinda sux Spike died. He was always a fun bad guy, and a hilarious almost good guy. But hey you have to go where the story takes ya. Looking forward to more. Keep up the excellent work.

Glad you like it so much. Spike is fun, but people forget he's the bad guy and the good guys are supposed to try to kill him. And when your good guys are newly trained, bad guys tend to bite the dust... so to speak.

New chapter will be up just as soon as I get the time. Crazy at work right now.

More! Write more! Always a pleasure to read your works. I haven't seen this done before, and I like everything about it.

Always nice to hear from a fan. I'm working on more.

Spike! :(

Yeah, if you're a fan of bad guys, you might not like my writing. They tend to die quickly. Except for Drusilla. But she seems to know what I'm going to write and then counters it.

Faith studying? I'm not sure if I can actually imagine that? I can see her wanted to get her schooling over with though :) And now Spike is dead? That shouldn't affect anything too much for the next few years, unless Drusilla does something crazy. And if Faith manages to get back home via Anyanka she won't have to worry about it at all.

If B can do it, then goddamnit, so can she.

Drusilla? Something crazy??? Nooooo. (/end sarcasm)

Big changes - but I like how you don't make it clear if Faith will get what she wants or not. I'm guessing not - but it isn't clear. Good storytelling.

Thank you. Since you like being surprised, I won't reveal anything more here.

Interesting twist with Spike dieing. And now Faith has a clear road to Xander - but not the Xander she might remember. Looking forward to the next update.

Well, sort of. She still remembers that goofy kid she deflowered. And hanging around with him for the last couple months, she is away of the differences.

Good update. Wish that we'd seen more repercussions to Post than just a broken jaw, but it was certainly a good moment. I also liked the "Faith is smart" parts. I never took the college-entrance SAT, so I don't really know what the scoring is like on it (I did the ACT myself), so I will totally take your word for it that her 1200-something score was good.

I'm wondering, about Buffy dating Scott Hope, do you remember that in the season 7 ep "Conversations with Dead People" it was reveled that Scott eventually "came out of the closet" and that was one of the real reasons he broke up with Buffy? Will that remain true here? Anyway, looking forward to more of this fun story.

At the time, the SATs had 2 parts, each with a maximum score of 800. Willow complained that she got only 740 on her verbal portion. Xander countered that his total score closely resembled that. The average total score was around 1000-1050 every year. So, anything over that is above average and anything below that is below average. Faith's score would put her in the top 80%. Smart, but not a genius like Willow. Cordelia got a similar score. Buffy's score puts her in the 97th percentile. And that's probably far more explanation than you needed/wanted.

No, I didn't know that. I'll have to re-watch that ep and decide whether that's still true or not.

And so the serious butterfly effects are starting. This story has been kinda rushed, but is making up for it now.

You're probably right. But I have no desire to write what happened in canon. If it happened in the show, I'll likely gloss over it. I only want to tell you what's new.

Indeed I was reading chapter 7 and reviewing it while you were busy posting chapter 8.

Well Gwen is gone, good riddance to her.

Faith discovers that she isn't so dumb as she (and others) may have thought. An interesting development.

And Spike....hmmm this one has me stumped. While yes he is a major ally in the end, he goes fin an arc of evilness that goes major villain/villainous douchebag/oddly helpful pain in the ass/lovesick bloodbag/helpful bloodbag/sexed up bloodbag/ensoulled ally. It's a long run, but he does get there. With him gone, things are going to be seriously different. I see the reasoning for his death, but the butterfly effect that will result? That's going to be one heck of a ride.

Yep. You should probably buckle up.

I'm wondering how this will affect the timeline with Angel leaving much earlier. Sure the things that went down because of his return, not so good, but when he rediscovers that he still has a purpose after the bringers try to make him kill himself, that was a turning point for him. If that doesn't happen, things will be far different, he has to learn that self-sacrifice while noble, must have direction.

The line about Faith suggesting a threesome to Cordelia, nearly had me peeing my pants laughing. Xander is a guy, it's like the ultimate male fantasy, but Cordy? She's far to jealous at this point. Though, she never did back down from a challenge did she?

The Slayer dream gimmick will work for a while yes, but sooner or later two things I see happening: The Scoobs wondering how she keeps getting such detailed dreams, as Buffy's were usually vague and WR&H making a visit to find out who's spoiling their big plans.

I too liked Jonathan; the way they killed him off, while I understood it, I didn't not like it. I agree that Andrew needed something to fight against to come to terms with his past, and to make the choice to leave it behind him and help the Scoobs. I wish that the two of them could have made it, cause lets face it, Andrew needed someone to wake his ass up. Jonathan seems to be a god choice for the job.
I also like how you had Faith dance with him; maybe it will give him some confidence.

I am fine with Lagos being dead. The fact that he was working for WR&H does not make him evil, that is true, though it doesn't make him good either. Even demons can be motivated by greed, or other concerns.

As for Post, she really stirs up a lot of crap, hopefully the group can avoid much of the problems she creates.

You must have been reading just as I posted Chapter 8. Don't forget to come back and read that too.

The major things have been in the works for a while. So most of those are unchanged. Angel's own timeline will speed up a bit as he's already met Lorne and Doyle. Though I'm not going to cover that.

Cordy/Xander will be a mute point soon enough.

Probably both.

Jono was a cool guy.

Technically, she asked why he was looking and he said WR&H. He didn't say whether he was working for or against them.

You'll see in Chapter 8.