Categories: Episode Rewrite, Pre-Series, Post-Series, Crossover (Books or TV shows outside Buffyverse), Alternate Reality
Characters: None
Summary:
Been watching a lot of Teen Wolf youtbe videos lately, would recommend if you can find it. And it got me thinking about Oz, and Xander now that I'm writing this out. Alright I'm gonna ramble here so skip down to "the challenge" section if you want. Alright. In the show there is this concept of Alphas of a pack. those wolves that can make the others submit due to their power of presence and strength of will. It's kind of a core concept of Teen Wolf, but the point is who would Oz see as his alpha, if he isn't one? And once I started thinking about that I got to wondering about how most fanfiction writers write vampires in Buffy. Its mostly a Master, Minion, fledge childer situation going on. But what if it was more Alphas and Beta? And The slayer is like from a line of Alpha vampires. So I tried to think of what her Pack would be like with this in mind. And taking inspiration from Teen Wolf it would be diverse, obviously.
The Challenge: Buffy is the Alpha of the Scoobies.
>The Pack: The Slayer, who has a sort of control over the other more animalistic members, and leader of the humans. Werewolf Oz who with the presence of his alpha can control his wolf nature to shift outside of the moon phases but still wolfs out hardcore with the moon. Hyena Spirit Xander, Okay this is a big departure but here me out. Xander was the alpha of the pack but was taken down in a fight by Buffy. What if that fight and win cowed the spirit inside him enough for Xander's personality to reassert itself? Willow feeling left out will lean in hard to the magics with a focus on animal possession and shifting instead of the sporadic growth shown in the show. Think more shaman then witch.
Buffy's Alpha status could be the reason that Angel is all avoidy in the first season so much, he doesn't want to submit to the Slayer, or challenge her for Alpha status because that would mean if he won, he would have a Pack again and he is too deep into depression to want that, and if he lost then he would be under someone else control. Which he doesn't want because it would make him feel like Angelus pushing down on him again. Angel needs his self control. This could be the reason he leaves as well.
Spike having killed to Slayers in open combat has actually earned Alpha status as well And since he never lost to Buffy and submitted to her then he retains that Alpha status even while being chipped because she refuses to beat on someone who can't fight back. So Spike doesn't join her pack but he does hunt in her territory and abides by her rules. You could use this to have Spike's Alpha nature pull at Buffy's people drawing them away from her into the darker aspects of what their natures could do. This could be mostly done though Xander since his hyena spirit is so old and strong and had him in its grip in the beginning. Xander could seek out Spike to indulge in a hunt and make things simple like it had been in the beginning before he had to constantly think about his actions and how the Spirit might be affecting them or his thoughts. You could actually get Spike his own Pack of beasties to lead. Amy would be a good choice because with Willow focusing on Animal possession and Shifting then turning a rat back into a person should be cake. Maybe even Jonathan and his magic bone that lets him turn into various demons and other people. Naturally such a development would necessitate Spike never leaving the Hellmouth after season two. And taking over the Slayer's Pack while she was off mending her broken heart could be a turning point situation. And when Faith blows into town you could have her building her own pack after seeing two models on how to do so she might choose demons instead which would lead her to working with the mayor. You could really go deep on that story line.
Sadly Giles would take a less fatherly role and more advisory guild. The group would still be dealing with Hellmouth situations but you would also be developing how the different Packs function and interact. And you could have new characters being courted by each pack to see who would join who. It would really make a season 6 story arch very interesting, the two packs could merge after Buffy and Spike get together and then you could have the whole Now Buffy has to lead the packs when Spike takes off for his soul. It would turn season seven into a hell of a pissing contest as each SIT would be considered a Beta with Alpha potential.
Okay, nearly a thousand words. That should be enough information to get a story out of. And really I'm just posting it so I don't lose the thought.
GOOD LUCK AUTHORS!