Disclaimer: I do not own any characters in this story except for James Morningstar. Unfortunately, otherwise I would be a creative genius and a very rich man and my name would be Joss.



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She staggered through the cemetery, her blond hair streaked with brown, her plain white dress she wore was cover in dirt. She fell, her hands landing in the cool damp grass. The urge to just lay there, listening to the crickets and soak up the coolness, to lay here and try to grasp what was going on.

Fear welled up in her. This close to the ground, made her think of the coffin.

She yelped, a dry croak that barely escaped her throat. Slowly she got up, a look of udder terror spread across her beautiful, dirt smeared face.

She stood there for a moment, the light breeze blowing her dress and hair behind her, making her appear to be some fallen angel, here watching over the dead.

'In some ways I am," she thought absently.

It was all a blur now. The last thing she remembered clearly was leaping from the top of the tower, hurdling towards the portal of energy that threatened to destroy the world. As she fell toward what she had assumed would be her end, she was for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, at peace with herself. She would die saving the world, what better way to go out than on top?

She remembered the pain, the tearing sensation that ran through her whole body, tearing at her brain, wracking her body in an intense pain unlike that she had ever felt before.

Then the coming of the cool calm darkness, the one that promised no more pain, no more heartbreak, no more loss. She embraced it, completely with her all.

Then, a light, cutting through the darkness like a blade, blinding her. There was something behind that light, something she could not understand or recapture in her minds eye, but she remembers vaguely her thinking how she had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

The figure behind the light had spoke to her, but the words were all lost to her. She had a strange feeling she had cried while it spoke, whether it have been tears of joy or misery, she could not recall. Only two words of the whole conversation stuck out in her mind.

Warrior reborn.

Then a feeling of being thrown at a tremendous speed backwards, away from the light and the dark.

Buffy Summers had awoken with a start, her eyes had flown open and she had begun to take big gulps of air. A think layer of sweat covered her body and her head felt fuzzy, as if she had just slept for a long time.

She attempted to sit up, but her head hit something soft and plush in the dark. Confusion set in, as she tried to figure out where she was. She ran her hands to her sides, which were covered with the same material. She was trapped.

The frighting truth hit her like a hard slap to the face.

She was buried alive.

The confusion and fear had mixed into one and Buffy lost control. She punched and kicked and screamed at the top half of the coffin, and it eventual collapsed under the assault. The dirt fell, like a waiting predator, piling on top of her and filling the coffin. Blindly she dug, as if possessed, using everything she had. She dug and dug, attempted what seemed like in vain to get out of the ground, to get to some air.

Finally, after what seemed like a life time of being surrounded by dirt, her right hand broke ground. Pushing and pulling she finally managed to bet her head above ground, where she gasped like a swimmer coming up for water. Pulling herself completely from the dirt, she lay panting on the grass, spitting dirt out of her mouth. After a few moments of her laying there, the only sounds in the graveyard being her heavy panting and the crickets, she lifted her head to examine her surroundings.

Staring her right in the face was a tombstone. She read the name and her jaw dropped.



Buffy Anne Summers

1981-2001

Beloved Friend

Devoted Sister

She Saved The World

A Lot



She moaned and leaned to her left, gagging. If there had been any food in her stomach, she would have gotten sick. She dry heaved there for a few minutes, crying silently, her tears cutting tracks down her dirty face.

'What's happening to me,' she thought.

  • * * * * * * * * * * * *

Buffy had only taken a few more uneasy steps, her balance was shot, her legs felt like rubber. All her strength was gone, she was just trying to get to a phone, or to the Magic Shop.

'Anything but this damn graveyard,' she thought.

She felt her legs let go again, and she was back on the ground. This was frustrating to her. The last things she remembered, she had beaten Glory, a god, with her own two hands and a huge hammer. Now, she couldn't even walk 10 paces without collapsing in exhaustion.

'Just lie here' a part of her begged, 'get your strength back.'

Her mouth still had that awful taste of dirt in it. Every time she closed her mouth, she could feel the grit grinding between her teeth. The urge to start heaving again rose, but she suppressed it. Buffy lay there for what seemed like a lifetime, attempting to get enough strength to continue on.

A sicken thought hit her, it spread across her weary mind like a fire through dry forest.

'What if I'm not in Sunnydale at all' her head screamed 'What if they took your body away to some sort of Slayer graveyard in England, or how about this, how long have you been dead. A week, a month, a year, ten years. What if all your friends are gone, left Sunnydale in their dust or Sunnydale had finally caught up to then like it did to you. What then.'

"Shut up," she croaked to no one.

She was breathing in quick, sharp breaths. Her body shook. Fear was threating to run rampant all over her. She tried to calm her self down, using some meditation tricks that Giles had taught her. Finally she could feel the fear subsiding, and she was in control again. She took a deep breath and forced herself to her hands and knees. She looked up strait ahead of her to see a man, five feet in front of her. He was dressed in a black suit, his long shock white hair pulled back in a pony tail, a ferocious scar ran down his right cheek.

Buffy's internal vamp alarm that she had come to depend on her whole slaying career was screaming. She groaned loudly and stood shakily.

"What do we have here?" the vamp growled.

The vamp looked behind Buffy to the hole in the ground in front of the tombstone. He looked back at Buffy and smiled. Under other circumstances, it probably would have been considered charming, but right now it was all menace.

"This is an unexpected treat," he said, " I come to visit the grave of a fallen Slayer to find her risen."

He walked over to Buffy. He moved with the grace of a dancer, his strides powerful and confident. Buffy stood her ground staring down the vamp.

"Let me introduce myself," the vamp said. "My name is Morningstar, James Morningstar."

He extended his hand to her and looked her right in the eye. She glanced down at the hand and glared back up at him in contempt.

"Yes, well the," Morningstar said, smiling. "Suppose you have been through a lot my dear, being reborn and all."

He looked at he with an amused puzzlement.

"That is what puzzles me. You are alive, not undead. I can hear you heart beating from here, I can smell your blood. You have been brought back to this miserable world by some higher power for what reason, a job unfinished?" Morningstar asked.

"Go away," Buffy whispered, "before you end up another dust bunny in this cemetery."

Morningstar started to laugh, a dark chuckle that echoed through the cemetery.

"Child, you can hardly stand strait," he laughed. "Yet your still full of confidence. You Slayers are all the same."

His right hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat. She gasped for air as he lifted her off of the ground.

"You could not hurt a thing in the state your in," he stated, looking her over.

Buffy struggled meekly in his powerful grasp. She threw a punch that had no power behind it. It connected with Morningstar's right eye. He smiled again and threw he off to his right, where she bounced off of a tombstone and hit the ground with a thud.

"Now I have reached a crossroads," Morningstar said, walking over to where she landed. " I could tear your guts out and leave your body strung up to the gates by your own intestines , or I could snap you spine and but you back in the ground."

He pulled her up by the back of her dress to meet him eye to eye.

"I could add you to the list of Slayer's I've slain in my time, with little to no effort at all."

His face morphed into the demon side. Buffy tried to punch him again, but he grabbed her fist in his hand.

"Or I could make you my childe. Give you immortal life. Put the power of a Slayer with the power of the undead. Make you an unstoppable force of evil."

He licked his lips hungrily and leaned over to her left ear.

"What fun we could have," he whispered into her ear. "We could cut a bloody path across t globe, we could reform the army of darkness, do what not even the Master himself could do."

He pulled back from her ear and they locked gazes. Morningstar looked at her with smug satisfaction. Buffy's lip curled into a sneer and she spat what little saliva that was in her mouth into his face.

His smile faltered slightly and anger filled his green piercing eyes.

"You will be mine." he whispered.

His left hand grabbed her hair roughly and turned it to the side, exposing the scar on her neck from the previous bites received by Angel and Dracula. His head shot forward and he bit her. She gasped in pain, but the pain was only momentary, she knew this, following it was pure ecstasy. She could feel the life being drained from her, that cool familiar darkness setting in. She struggled weakly in his grasp, but to no avail. She could hear Morningstar sucking on her neck, but it seemed so distant, it felt as if it weren't happening to her, that she was watching a movie with Willow, safely at her house, eating popcorn.

Morningstar pulled back and lowered her limp body to the ground. Her eyes fluttered open and close as she rested between life and death. He removed a small knife from his suit jacket and cut the palm of his right hand, drawing blood. He placed it down by her mouth.

"Now drink my childe," he whispered softly.

His hand hovered by her mouth, waiting spilling a thin stream for blood. He watched her bottom lip quiver and her mouth open slightly. She put her mouth over his cut and began to drink, smearing blood on her lips, her teeth her tongue.

Morningstar tossed his head back as if in orgasm. He began to laugh softly.

This was the beginning of something phenomenal, he knew, nothing like this had ever happened.

He had plans now, big plans.