Author Note.

If you have read my profile then you'll know that my computer died and I lost all my drafts and notes, so I won't be carrying on with my other stories aside from Tamer Gothic as most of that was planned with my co-author over messages exchanged on the net.

Which means there will be new stories and hopefully I will remain focused on these stories rather than keep starting new ones.

After getting some support for a Buffy SI, and some ideas from Selias I planned this story out. Originally I thought about starting in a later season, but after some more thinking I decided to start in season one because this will not only give Slayer Gothic plenty of time to prepare for the big bads, it also means the plot of the show will change early on.

Oh and I'm reusing the name Damien Mason because I suck at names.

Slayer Gothic

Part 1

Sunnydale High School. Sunnydale.

More than a few times in the past I'd wished for a more exciting life, to be someone who mattered, to have super powers, to be a hero or even a villain. Now that I'd gotten exactly what I wanted I was more freaked out and a bit down about the whole thing rather than happy.

Given that I was stuck back in High School, who could blame me for not being over joyed about the situation, and to make things more depressing I was also a teenager again. On the plus side I was a male Slayer, or at the very least I had all the powers of a Slayer, and that was way better than being some sort of horrid demon or worse a vampire with a soul.

Gaining super powers was something I was able to handle, and I could even get to grips with being in a world of monsters since I was well equipped to fight them. But being de-aged and forced to endure three years of the American eduction system, that was a nightmare and it wasn't one I could wake up from.

Currently I was waiting to met with Principal Flutie, and judging by the voices I could hear inside the office then Buffy Summers must have somehow gotten into the man's office before me. Which had given me the chance to examine the school and the weird thing was that it looked like a regular school. There were classrooms, a gym, a room just for the staff and of course a cafeteria.

If I hadn't known any better I never would have guessed that there was a gateway to what some people called Hell just under this place, or a that there was a a cavern full of stone age vampires sealed away somewhere beneath my feet. But there was and there were other nasty things around too. The building was really just a disguise, nothing more, and the students were snacks things that went bump in the night.

"Mr Flutie will see you now" the Principal's assistant told me.

I got up and headed into the Headmaster's office, within I found Buffy Summers and Mr Flutie sitting at the desk.

"You can wait here until I'm done with Mr. Mason" Flutie said to Buffy as I took a seat "Then you will take him with you to the library. You'll need to get your books".

Without delay the Principal gave me my schedule for the semester, then a few warnings and a request to stay out of trouble. Once that was done the Headmaster sent us on our way.

"Hey. You're Buffy right?" I asked once we were out of the office.

She didn't seem interested in conversation, but she answered anyway.

"Sure am" was the Slayer's reply.

I guessed that she wasn't going to open up any time soon, which was fine with me because I didn't exactly want to be friends with her, but I did want to get somewhat close as I had the power to help her protect the world. Which was important to me as I lived on this planet, and as such I had no desire to see it be turned into a Hell-dimension.

"I'm Damien Mansion" I said, introducing myself "I'm from the U.K".

While I had only seen it in my dreams I was pretty sure that a being of great power was behind me being here, and that the creature had also given me some of its power in order make me a Slayer. That last part actually made some sense as I knew that the line of Slayers had been created by magic users who had put the essence of a demon into a young woman just as the creature in my dreams had put something into me.

Also whoever was behind all these this had somehow inserted me into this world completely. It hadn't just transported me here, it had also given me an identity. I had a birth certificate, medical records, a passport, citizenship, and I'd even been enrolled at this very school. This was the full service dimensional relocation.

"Let's go to the library" I said.

She seemed to elsewhere right now.

"Sure" she replied.

We walked for a little while in silence, and that got annoying since I was sure we were lost.

"So... Buffy. You're new too then?" I asked.

Now I was sure that we were lost so I was wondering why I was still moving around and perhaps she was thinking something along those very same lines.

"I am" she said "First day here, and I didn't even get a tour".

That confirmed that neither of us knew where we were going.

"So the Principal just sent two new kids to find the library, and he didn't even bother to give us directions" I then said "That wasn't a clever thing for him to do".

The blond girl laughed, and then suggested finding someone to guide us to the library. We eventually came across another Sunnydale High student and they pointed us in the right direction.

When we finally got there we found him cleaning his glasses while looking extremely British. So British in fact that I looked around for tea and crumpets, but sadly there were none.

"Miss Summers?" he asked.

I had no idea if the Watchers knew of my existence, and there was no reason for me to know of theirs, so it was up to them to make first contact. If they didn't know of my existence, then that was fine with me because it meant I could work in secret, without any oversight.

However if they did discover me at some point then they might send a Watcher or just have Giles boss me around. I wanted to avoid that for as long as possible, but I didn't know if it was even possible to stay under the radar. Buffy might even be able to sense that I wasn't a normal human and then tell her Watcher, but I wasn't too worried about that as she hadn't been able to tell that Angel was a vampire.

"That would be me yes, and you are?" Buffy asked the Watcher.

He quickly supplied her with an answer.

"I'm Rupert Giles, the librarian" the man explained.

He wasn't lying, it was just that being the librarian was really nothing more than a cover for his true job.

"What can I do for you?" he then inquired of the both of us.

The blonde girl spoke before I could.

"We need books" Buffy answered.

Which was kind of a given as this was a place to get books from. We'd hardly have come here to order coffee and a bagel.

"Well. Yes, which kind of books might you require?" Giles then inquired.

I then spoke and I read off the list of the books we both needed that I had gotten from a letter from the school. Giles had the text books prepared, which meant he'd known that two new students were starting today. Either the school had informed him of this or he knew that both Buffy and I were Slayers. I was eager to find out which was the case, but I couldn't exactly just come out and ask,

"Here are your books, Mr Mason" said the Watcher as he passed me a small pile of reading material.

The fact that he knew my fake name, the one on all my fake ID, didn't mean he knew that I had super powers, but on the other hand it didn't rule the possibility out either.

"Thank you, sir" I replied.

I didn't leave at once because Buffy had the same class as me according to our time tables, and since we were both new it made sense to arrive at the class together so as to minimise the disruption.

"You're quite welcome" said Giles as he stayed firmly rooted to the spot "Shouldn't you be off to class now?"

I looked around and saw that Buffy was waiting for me near the exit. Which made me smile as it meant she wouldn't have to endure the speech her Watcher had prepared for their first meeting and since he clearly didn't want me to hear it that meant he didn't know I was also a Slayer.

"You have some interesting books here" I said to the librarian "I'll have to swing by later and check some out".

Slayer's had keener eyesight than humans so I could just about make out some of the titles on the books around us. Needless to say they weren't the kind of subjects High-school students should be reading about.

Before the Watcher could make some excuse about not lending the books out, Miss Summers and I left. We were already late for class and were going to be even later as we didn't even know where we were going.

When we got to class I opened the door and held it open for the girl at my side like a proper gentlemen should. Then we introduced ourselves the staff member who taught this class.

The teacher, Mr. Gregory, was a middle aged man who I knew was going to be killed by Miss French, who in fact a human sized virgin eating bug. I didn't know if that meant the science teacher was a virgin or not as the Preying Mantis may have simply killed him in order to replace him as a teacher so she could get to some virgins. However that wasn't really what matter I was far more interested in preventing his death than it the status of his sex life.

As I took a seat I wondered if Miss French would come after me as while I'd had sex plenty of times I'd had my age reversed and I had been a virgin at the age of sixteen. If I'd been a girl this would have been easy to confirm, but I was a man. As such there was no biological difference between myself as a virgin or not. Unless there something it my scent that would give it away that a big bug could detect.

The best way to make sure I wasn't targeted by Miss French was to have sex again, but it wasn't as simple as it sounded. I was a sixteen year old boy, at least in body and in the eyes of others, so getting a girl to go to bed with me wouldn't be as easy as it would have been if I was an adult. Plus the girls here were a little too young for causal sex.

If I was like twenty years old I'd just go to a club and pick a woman up for a one night stand, which wouldn't be hard as I had a sexy accent and being a Slayer I was very confident. Sadly I wouldn't be able to pass for twenty-one so going to LA to check out the dating scene wasn't an option.

Since Buffy had gone to sit with Willow the only seat available was next to Cordelia's group of Harpies ,and when I sat down Harmony, an attractive blonde with an annoying personality smiled at me.

"Hi! I'm Harmony" greeted the possible future vampire "You're like new here or something".

Since that hadn't been a question or even a proper statement I didn't answer. Instead I started to think about getting Harmony into bed with me as I didn't want to be virgin when Miss French got here as she might have some magical power over virgins, or some sort of pheromones that would screw with me head.

The rest of the class passed by rather quickly, we all got our homework assignments. I wasn't worried about that sort of thing as I'd done High School already and I'd even gone to college so I was use to writing essays. It would be hard to research without the internet, as they didn't have Wifi in 1997, but there were libraries around here.

As I exited the classroom I tapped Harmony on the shoulder and asked her where my next lesson was.

"Oh so now you want to talk to me" she said.

I'd ignored her earlier so she had a right to be offended. Thankfully for me Americans tend to find Brits more than a little charming so it was easy to get on her good side.

"Sorry, I was just a little nervous" I told the blonde "I didn't want to make a bad impression on the teacher by talking in his class".

My apology was accepted and Harmony guided me to the maths class, which she shared with me. I found it rather insulting to put in with the students who weren't that good at this subject, but to be fair I'd never had much skill at maths. Besides getting good grades hardly mattered as I had no intention of going to college again.

There were far more important things that I could do with my life. People out there needed saving and there were monsters to slay. In comparison being put in a room with some of the dumber kids really didn't matter. Plus it just meant that the work was easier,

Once the end of class bell rang I simply followed everyone else to the cafeteria. Since I'd not needed to come in until ten I'd had a late breakfast and therefore I wasn't hungry. But I was thirsty so I went over to one of the vending machines and got myself a coke.

Which wasn't as easy as it looked as I didn't know American money. They had Dimes and Nickels and the dollars weren't in coin form so I had to feed the paper to the machine in order to get a drink. It didn't seem to like my money so I had to get change before I got my liquid refreshment.

When I finally got my drink I noticed Harmony waving me over to her table and I figured that sitting with the popular kids might make a nice change of pace. I'd never been well liked in high school and in college I'd hung with the emo kids which had been like being popular as I'd made lots of friends, it was just that we'd all be social outcasts together.

Wanting to experience the novelty I sat down next to the blond girl. Over the course of lunch I found out what her favourite food was, who her favourite bands were, what famous people she liked, and the names of everyone in school who was worth knowing, and who to avoid.

Had I been a spy I would have considered Harmony a gold mine of information, as it was now at least I knew how to be considered cool as the blonde girl had just told me who liked what music, and I now knew all the best places to shop.

"Hey Cordy. Did you check out that Buffy girl?" Harmony then asked the leader of her group.

This was an opinion I actually cared to hear.

"I thought she was cool, because she's from LA you know" the head cheerleader explained "but then she ditches me to go hang with Willow!"

Apparently this was a rather bad thing for the Slayer to do as future which was about as uncool as it was possible to be. Which made sense as she was a teacher's pet, good with computers and she hung out with other losers. I didn't care much for her either as she wasn't going to anyone interesting until she became a witch, and since she was a lesbian there was no point trying to romance her. At least not in the long term.

"So are you on any sports teams?" Harmony then asked me.

I could sense that she was sizing me up as a candidate for becoming one of the popular kids, or possibly even a boyfriend, and I decided to at least try for those things as high school was a not a fun place if you weren't in the right social circle. Also I didn't think it would be too hard to get into this elite group as they were kinda dumb.

"Harm" said Cordila "It's first day, so how cab he be on any team. He just got here, like today".

The ditzy blonde at least understood her mistake, and I suspected that she'd actually just hadn't known what to say. Making small talk is never easy and being one of the in crowd she had be careful when making conversation. Talking about things that weren't cool would turn her friends against her.

"Oh right" she said while smiling at her own silliness "We have to get you on a team. What sports do you like?"

Truthfully I found any competitive sport that required muscle or the ability to jump high to be a waste of time. Any idiot could kick a ball or throw a ball into a hoop, the true challenges were ones of the mind as it was our intelligence that separated us humans from the lower life forms. We'd become the dominant species on the planet by outsmarting everything else and using tools, not by hitting it hard.

Sure a part of mankind's success was team work, which was important but I didn't want to support any activity that led to their being jocks because in my view it wasn't right that some people were treated better because they could win shiny lumps of metal and got to wear special jackets. Plus there was the fact that within years computers would be everywhere, the nerds would soon be running things.

However I wanted to blend in and taking up a sport would help with that, and it was true that the jocks got all the girls. I so wanted to have sex sometime in the next three years and since I was sixteen again it was going to be with a student or with a prostitute as no one older was going to want to jump into bed with me. Also I'd never pay for it so that limited my options when it came to adult recreation.

"He's not big enough for the football team" the head cheerleader remarked "and he's not tall enough for basketball".

Normally she'd be right as I was a little skinny, I had been the first time I was this age, and also I hadn't made it to six feet tall just yet. But being a Slayer meant none of that really mattered. In any case I was pretty sure that I bulk up soon as I was exercising a lot and I had teenage boys' appetites for food as well.

Not that it really mattered as my super strength, speed and agility were mystical. Which meant that I could not only play those sports I could do them better than any six foot tall Neanderthal ever could. Also I suspected that being a Slayer didn't just enhance those things as having met Buffy I couldn't imagine her being able to punch someone even if her body was enhanced, it had to be some of internalised magic that didn't depend on the person having a tough body in order to use it. That had to be the case as Summers was so skinny that she looked like a stiff breeze would knock her over or even break her in half.

"What about baseball?" one of Harmony's friends suggested

That wasn't my thing either, but it would be better than wrestling or American Football. There was something very homoerotic about a bunch of sweaty guys tackling each other. Plus in a contact sport it would tricky to hide my powers and more importantly I might injure someone.

"Or the swim team?" another suggested.

I was more streamlined now and that whole thing with the steroids making people into fish monsters wasn't going to happen for a while, so the swim team was an option. Assuming I was given a choice.

"What about Soccer" said Harmony "I heard that's its really big in Europe, or was that South America?".

Having lived in England and watched the World Cup I knew that Soccer was indeed well loved in many parts of the world.

"Both" I told her "and we just call it Football back home".

The blonde now looked confused.

"Doesn't that get a little confusing?" she asked me as she nibbled at her salad like a rabbit "Having two kinds of football".

I decided not to get into a rant about how a game called Football shouldn't involve people carrying the ball, or even throwing it that much.

"We call your kind of football Rugby back home" I explained.

And we played it with far less body armour and gay touching.

"Why?" was the blonde girls follow up question.

I actually knew the answer to this.

"Because it was invented in a place called Rugby and it was called Rugby Football" I told her "I guess someone in this country dropped the Rugby part when they brought it over here".

The truth was most likely more complex than that, but it wasn't really important as Sunnydale High didn't have a Soccer team.

"Maybe you could start a Soccer team" Harmony then suggested "That would make you the captain".

I guessed that being the captain of any team that wasn't the chess team made a person automatically cool so I decided to ask the gym teacher about it. Getting eleven people to play might be tricky, but a five aside team would be easy to form. It would just be a matter of finding out if there were other teams to play against, if there weren't then it would be the baseball for me.

Before I could comment on any of that the bell went again and we all headed off to afternoon classes.

(Line Break)

Sunnydale High School. Sunnydale.

Once the classes were over and done with most of the students poured out of the school like a tide of humanity. I had nothing to do until it got dark, as that was when the vampires made their presence known, and I had agreed to check out the Bronze later as I been invited by Cordelia. Which meant that refusing wasn't really an option. Until then I was going to occupy myself with some reading.

Being a Slayer made it easy to sneak around the stacks without being heard. Given that my other powers were all about fighting it might not seem that I would have a gift for stealth, but as it turned out I did. That sort of made sense as I was suppose to hunt monsters I wouldn't be very good at that if they could always hear me coming.

I started with vampires as I was a Vampire Slayer, and they were the most common bad guys around. Also they were very different than other kinds of demons as they weren't living things and as such couldn't be killed in strictest sense.

A lot of it I had known already, but it was still worth reviewing. Crosses repelled them, holy water burned them like acid, sunlight set them on fire and staking a vampire with wood was rather easy. The author of the book I was reading had deduced that vampires were harmed by human faith more than anything else, and it was in fact the belief that was the true weapon.

Which made sense to me. Humans have worshipped the sun since forever, and fire as well given how important it was to mankind's development. Nature had been revered a lot so the whole wood in the heart fitted in with the theory. Christian symbols were less lethal, but that religion was less then two thousand years old and that faith was more about protection from evil rather than destroying it.

The only thing that sort of disproved the idea was decapitation, but that seemed to kill a lot of things so perhaps it didn't need to fit in with the general theory. Also there was mention of a poison that could kill vampires slowly and could be only be cured by the blood of a Slayer. But using that didn't appeal to me as it would be rather foolish of me to poison a vampire if the antidote was my own blood. Besides using it would make Buffy more of a target than she actually was, and putting her in more danger wasn't part of my plans.

Thanks to further reading I found that silver did nothing to the undead and stabbing them in the heart with a sword also didn't snuff them out, so the methods of Blade the Daywalker wouldn't be much use to me here. Also it made wonder why the being that had sent me here had given me a sword if metal weapons weren't a big help when dealing with bloodsuckers.

If the weapon was holy in some way it might at least burn the vampires should it come into contact with their flesh, but that didn't seem like a big advantage if I could just stake them with the same amount of effort it took to stab one.

It might be a weapon meant to kill demons rather than vampires as I did get a vibe from the sword that suggested it was magical in some way. Demons were living creatures and had working internal organs so stabbing them in the chest made sense. An enchanted weapon might make doing that a lot easier.

That was when I noticed that it was starting to get dark so I decided to head home and get myself ready for a night of vampire slaying. I had some cool stuff at home, and I badly wanted to try out my sword. I had a feeling that would making destroying vampires easier even if the books said that swords weren't much help.

Tonight I would find out for sure.