Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Some text taken from 'Prophecy girl'
Time frame: During 'Prophecy girl'. (end of S1)
Note: This is a bit of an experiment, so please review, and tell me what you think, so that I can decide whether or not to continue it.
"She's gone." Xander exclaimed, as if the meaning should be perfectly clear.
"Whadaya mean?" Angel frowned.
"Buffy, she's gone to fight the master."
"He'll kill her." Angel gasped.
"Rumour has it." Xander nodded, "Only we're not gonna let that happen."
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Angel rushed to the fallen slayer's side, and flipped her over, desperately feeling for a pulse, checking for breath.
"She's dead!" he breathed.
"No!" Xander yelled, joining him at her side, "She drowned, so there's a shot, CPR." Angel looked down at his love, then nodded,
"You have to do it. I have no breath." He passed the girls limp form to her friend. He laid her on the rocky ground and began the procedure. In any other situation, his heart would be leaping at the chance to lock lips with Buffy.
"Come on, Buffy!" he said between breaths. He tried desperately to breath life into the small girl's body, but to no avail. Minutes later, she was still utterly still, deathly silent. "No!" Xander wailed, trying again and again, until Angel pulled him away, his eyes wide,
"She's gone. Xander, she's gone." Xander struggled against him,
"No! There's still time!" But in truth he knew the vampire to be right. He sobbed, "Oh god, she's gone!" Angel released his hold on the boy, his mind finally clearing.
"Get her out of here. Take her home."
"What are you gonna do?" Xander asked.
"I'm gonna make that son-of-a-bitch wish he was never sired." He snarled, before running faster than anyone Xander had ever seen towards the tunnel exit.
Atop the library, the Master surveyed the scene below, where a group of mere humans battled fruitlessly against the guardians of the hell mouth. He ranted loudly about 'his world' claiming everything in sight as his kingdom. He turned to a savage growl behind him,
"It's not yours quite yet!"
The Master laughed,
"Angel! Come to join me on my night of triumph?" He called, motioning to everything around him.
"Guess again, bone head." Angel smiled, and launched himself at his former mentor. Unaffected by the Master's mind control, Angel fought savagely, no thought on his mind other than hurting this age-old vampire. He pummelled the master, screaming, "You killed her, you piece of shit!" unaware of the chosen words until he spoke them. The master laughed,
"Angelus- the scourge of Europe! Tamed by a petite, blonde, slayer!" He spat the last like it was poison. Angel glanced down through the skylight, then rolled to come up directly in front of the master.
"The name is Angel!" He hissed, before snap-kicking the master in the chest, sending him flying through the glass roof to be impaled upon a broken shard of wood. Angel dropped down after him as the flesh melted from his bones and the hell mouth closed once more. "Destroy the body." He said to Giles, as he, Jenny, Willow and Cordy brushed themselves off.
"Ah, yes, we can bury it in consecrated ground…" Giles began.
"Destroy it!" Angel bellowed before striding out, throwing their barricades aside as he went. The telephone rang, seeming ridiculously loud in the post non-apocalyptic silence. Willow answered it automatically, and listened to who ever was on the other end, but she could not speak. She replaced the receiver, her eyes wide and vacant.
"Willow?" Giles asked. She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes,
"It's Buffy…" she gasped, "She's daed."
At the Summers home, the small group gathered around the still form of the slayer, whose body seemed somehow smaller than it had in life. Joyce was sobbing hystericall, and it took quite a while for Jenny to convince her to go to bed. She led her away, and Giles collapsed at the side of his breathless charge.
"I failed you." He gasped. "How…?" he turned to Xander. Now even Cordelia shed a tear as Xander explained how Buffy had died. After that there was just silence. They could do no more than look on in sorrow.
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Ignoring council orders, Giles stayed in Sunnydale, knowing that slayer or no, that was where he needed to be. The Scooby gang stuck together, accepting Cordy into the group, as well as Jenny Calendar. Angel disappaeared for a while, but he eventually returned to Sunnydale, to take up the mantle he had been unable to help Buffy bear.
The Slayer was gone. But that only made it more clear to the small group that Sunnydale needed fighters, someone to hold off the darkness most people didn't even know was there. So in the wake of Buffy's death, they resolved to fight in her name.