Disclaimer – I own neither the rights to the Star Wars Universe nor the Buffy Universe, because if I did I'd be really rich and buy a tropical island and never leave the beach.

Inevitable

Sometimes bad things happen no matter how hard you try to stop them.

Chapter 1

Buffy sat huddled in her makeshift shelter as yet another sandstorm raged outside. It was times like this that she couldn't deny the loneliness that she felt. Normally she was able to stay busy enough to subdue the pain in her heart, but when she was stuck in these storms with nothing to do, that pain had the power to cripple her. She guessed that it was about 3 years ago that she had come to this dimension, and had lost everyone dear to her. Then she corrected herself, she hadn't lost everyone right away, no, that happened a few months later. Time was hard to tell here, on some planets the sun, or suns in some cases, never set, and on some they rarely came up, plus in the beginning she was often indoors for long periods of time so she had to admit to herself that she had no idea how she had been there. Sometimes when she was alone like this she would wonder how old she was, or if time was passing differently back in her own dimension, how old would she be there, would she be older or younger than she was here? It could be that not even a week had passed in her home world. Home… did she even consider it home anymore with no family left there? Buffy lay back down on the floor of her shelter and let her mind drift back….

Glory had been defeated, finally, but not before Dawn's blood had been spilt and the portal opened. The gang had rushed up the tower to where Dawn was shackled. The platform didn't look very sturdy so Buffy had everyone stay back as she went to free Dawn. Just as she released Dawn from her last binding a series of lighting bolts shot out of the portal and hit the tower causing everyone on it to fall to their knees writhing in pain. Then when the lighting stopped and they had started to get back to their feet the tower began to collapse and one by one they began to fall from the tower and through the portal. As Buffy fell backwards through the portal behind Dawn she could see it closing above her, she saw the fear in Anya, Willow and Tara's eyes, she could only guess that the fall had killed them.

It felt like she was falling for hours, somehow she had flipped over onto her stomach, the darkness was absolute, then she felt extreme heat, and then she saw what she could only describe as hell. There were rivers of lava all around her, and she could see metal catwalks of some sort crisscrossing the rivers. It was one of these catwalks that she landed on, hard. No sooner had she landed than she saw Spike burst into flames and turn to ash, apparently vampires couldn't survive wherever they were. She could hear Dawn's screams but couldn't see her. She pulled herself over to the side of the catwalk and saw that Giles was hanging off the side of the platform with Dawn hanging onto his feet. About 10 feet away Xander was also hanging on to the edge of the platform. Before Buffy could even move to help any of them, Dawn started to scream and writhe in pain, Giles tried to yell at her to hold still that she would cause them both to fall, but there was no overcoming her screams, then there was silence, as a bright light swallowed Dawn up and she disappeared.

She worked quickly and got Giles up on the catwalk and then they both pulled up Xander, it was only then that she realized that he had been burned badly from the waist down.

She couldn't stop herself from saying "Oh Xander" in sympathy.

"As soon as he went over the side I saw lava shoot up from below and engulf him." Giles explained.

Buffy cradled Xander in her arms and tried to soothe him while Giles tried to see how bad his burns were.

She took the opportunity to question Giles. "Where are we?"

"I don't know, I guess a different dimension."

"What happened to Dawn?"

"I can only surmise that since she had fulfilled her duty as Key and opened and closed the portal there wasn't any mystical energy left to keep her human form."

"So she's gone? Really gone?"

Giles looked at her sadly. "Yes I'm afraid so."

He looked down at Xander's burns and then looked at Buffy and shook his head. Buffy felt a tear escape down her check, but it didn't make it far in the extreme heat of this place, it evaporated before it got past her nose.

She continued to hold Xander in her arms and stroke his hair. They sat on the catwalks trying to figure out what to do next. Finally they decided that Buffy should go look for help and Giles would stay with Xander. Buffy picked a direction and started walking, but the only thing close to humans she found were robots doing some sort of work, and they wouldn't respond to her. After an hour or so of searching in that direction she returned to the catwalk to check in on Giles and Xander, and to then search in another direction. However when she got back, Giles and Xander weren't alone, they were surrounded by people, or on closer inspection, some of them were people and some looked to be demons.

Giles saw her approaching and yelled, "RUN BUFFY!"

Buffy didn't want to leave Giles and Xander, but wasn't sure what she could do without any weapons. So she ran. Unfortunately her strength was waning, between the fall from her dimension, and the heat in this world she was exhausted. She was soon overtaken, though she was able to fight off a few of the guys who caught up to her, but soon there were just too many, and she was just too tired. She continued to try and wrestle herself from their grasps, as they dragged her back over by Giles and Xander.

One of the men who had captured her spoke to a man who seemed to be the leader. "She's strong; she'll fetch a good price."

The man walked forward and regarded her closely, he reached out to touch her hair and Buffy recoiled from his touch, he grabbed her chin hard and forced her to look at him. "Yes she would, but I may have another use for her."

Giles started to protest them man-handling Buffy, so one of the men holding him hit him over the head and knocked him out. Two men gathered him up between them and started dragging him off in the direction Buffy hadn't explored.

Buffy's capturers soon followed. They brought her by Xander who she could see was barely conscious. She stopped moving and twisted herself in the men's grasps to address the leader.

"Please help my friend."

The leader looked down at Xander. Put his foot on his side and pushed him over the edge and into the river of lava below. After that Buffy just went numb, she didn't know how long she was out of it, all she knew was that when she snapped out of it she and Giles were in a cell of some sort shackled to opposite walls. They were kept mainly like that for what seemed like weeks with little to eat or drink. Sometimes they would come and take Giles away for a while, and sometimes they took her, but Giles and Buffy never talked about what happened to them while they were apart.

They knew they were in a vehicle of some sort, and she could only guess what the world outside would look like when they were let outside again. She wondered if anything could be worse than the hell that they had landed in.

Then one day the movement of the vehicle stopped and four men walked into their cell two walked toward Giles, and two to her, they attached a collar of some sort around each of their necks.

Then the leader, whose name was Warric they had found out, strolled in.

"Just so we're clear, you are mine, I own you both, and you will do whatever I or my men tell you to do. If you don't there will be consequences."

Then took what looked like a remote control out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons, simultaneously Buffy and Giles fell to the floor as electricity flowed from the collar into their bodies.

When the electricity stopped flowing he continued. "If either of you disobeys me or causes trouble you both will be punished."

Buffy had never felt more defeated than at that moment, because she knew she could take whatever they dished out, but by them threatening Giles too, they had found the perfect way to control her.

Buffy and Giles were unshackled and led out of their cell, and then out of the vehicle that had been transporting them. Upon seeing it Buffy could only describe it as a space ship, like one she had seen in sci-fi movies back home. The place they had been brought to was desolate, but not like the land of lava they had landed in. There were steam vents everywhere and from what she could see many of the inhabitants looked like bugs.

At that point she and Giles were separated, they would see each other occasionally in passing, but they were never able to speak to each other, but that had been enough for Buffy to just see him, and see that he was doing okay. Buffy didn't know what Warric was using Giles for, but he used her as a gladiator. Warric would put his slave fighter's against some other guys slave fighter's. In her first fight Buffy tried not to fight back, she had only ever fought demons before, and didn't want to hurt a human being, but once Warric had activated her collar for almost 5 minutes straight she realized she didn't have much of a choice. She saw two of Warric's men holding up Giles next to him, it looked like Giles had passed out from the prolonged exposure to the voltage. Buffy won that fight, and every fight since that she fought for Warric. They had found the perfect way to control her, and Warric knew it and exploited it.

Then one night probably around 6 months into their time in this dimension, she heard Giles' voice outside her cell.

"Buffy? Buffy, are you there?"

"Giles?" She went over to the window.

"Come on we're getting out of here." He told her.

"Giles, I can't get out I've tried a hundred times, Warric put me in a special cell that he knew I wouldn't be able to get out of."

Giles surveyed the bars of the window and the think walls and saw that it was no good; he wouldn't be able to get her out.

Buffy saw the defeated look on Giles' face. "Please go without me."

"No! Not a chance." He hissed at her.

"Please Giles. It will be easier for me knowing you're safe, knowing that I don't have to worry about you getting hurt if I try to escape later."

Reluctantly Giles conceded. "I won't go far; I'm going to find a way to get you out."

With that he ran off. Not long after Giles left her window, alarms starting wailing throughout the compound. There was a lot of commotion, and Buffy watched from her cell window as the guards ran around trying to bring those that had escaped back in. She saw slaves being dragged back into the courtyard and beaten. Then her heart broke as she saw two men drag Giles into her line of sight. They threw him to the ground and she saw blood coming out of his mouth, Giles' head rolled to the side so she was looking right into his eyes, she could see that he was trying to speak, but no sound was coming out of his lips, and then he stopped moving all together, he was gone. Buffy turned around and sank to the floor, and didn't move for days.

Warric tried to get her to fight, but no matter how much he shocked her she wouldn't budge. After a few days he left her alone, until he found a new way to control her, he knew she'd be no good to him in a fight.

A few weeks later, Buffy felt a change in the air, it wasn't just that the guards started acting more on edge, but there was something more, something she could feel. There was power nearby; actually when she focused on it she could feel two sources of power, one she could only describe as dark, and the other seemed light. The possessor of the power that felt dark was soon made evident to her when Warric walked in with a tall man dressed all in black.

"This is Count Dooku." He told her. "He has heard of your fighting abilities and would like to see them in action. There will be an important fight in a few days that will allow you to show them off for him."

"I'm not a trained seal; I don't do tricks on command." She spouted back.

The Count took a step towards her; she could feel the evil wafting off of him. She tried to take a step back, but her legs didn't seem to understand the command.

"You will fight." The Count told her.

Buffy's insides were screaming at her to agree, but she fought them off. "I don't think you heard me maybe you need to turn up your hearing aid old man, I'm done fighting."

The Count took another step closer and looked deep into her eyes and waved his hand slightly as he told her again. "You will fight."

With that, Buffy felt her free will leave her body and she agreed. "I will fight." It was similar to when she was under the thrall of Dracula, but 1000 times stronger.

Buffy spent the next few days training, she could feel the evil cloud of Count Dooku hanging over her, and he seemed to be around a lot watching her. The day of the fight arrived; Buffy looked out into the stadium and saw three people chained to tall stone pillars, they were unarmed.

Buffy looked over to Warric. "They're unarmed. I'm not fighting unarmed people."

Warric didn't even respond he just looked over at Count Dooku who immediately walked toward Buffy, this time he didn't use his power of persuasion, instead he put his hand out in front of him, and all of a sudden Buffy was lifted off her feet by an invisible hand that was squeezing her throat. Just as she started to black out, he released her and she fell to the ground. He looked down at her. "You will fight." And then he and Warric walked out.

Buffy stared back at him, and then when she was sure he was gone she brought her hand to her throat, and the collar that was on it. It felt looser; when Dooku had grabbed her with his invisible hand she had heard a small crack. She pulled on it, and it had some give but it still wouldn't come off, but they had made her mad, and that was never a good idea.

Then she heard the crowd cheer and the doors opened in front of her. She looked at the weapons they had given her to choose from and grabbed a few. She then went running out into the arena. She saw that she was the only human fighter; the other doorways were filled with beasts of some sort. Buffy broke out in a full run toward the pillars; she could now see that it was a girl who might be her age, a boy who looked a few years younger, and a guy whose age was hard to tell due to a full beard on his chin. She was impressed as she saw the girl undo her shackles and climb the chain to the top of her pillar. As she approached the two men she dropped all but one of her weapons, a large battle axe, she continued to run at full force toward them, she saw them take a defensive stance, but she kept running, she swung the axe high and brought it down on the chain of the older man breaking it. Her momentum continued her forward past them, but she caught the look of surprise that the men shot her. Before Buffy could swing around to break the other chain her collar was activated and she fell to the ground in convulsions. The man with the beard ran over to her and knelt beside her

"No don't touch me." She gasped. She shoved the axe at him. "Look out behind you!"

One of the beasts reared up behind him, he took the axe and turned to fight.

As she lay on the ground all she could do was watch the fight that was unfolding. The younger man had freed himself from the pillar although the shackles and chains were still attached to his wrists. Buffy wasn't sure why, but at some point her collar stopped shocking her. She saw a tall bald black man standing on the platform where Warric normally stood. Then she looked to the ground in front of the platform and saw Warric sprawled on the ground. She gingerly got up, letting her legs get there bearings again, and then ran over to him, he was dead, and he still held the remote to her collar in his hand. It looked like it had been damaged in his fall, but she grabbed it and hooked it to her belt anyway not wanting anyone else to get a hold of it, she also grabbed his blaster and started shooting at the droids that had started to fill the arena. She had never thought much about guns, because they weren't much good against the demons she was used to fighting, but with the number of droids coming in with guns, she didn't see any other choice. She saw the bearded man fighting off the droids with some kind of sword that glowed, but every once in a while he would wave his hand and send a group of droids flying through the air. The tall black man was also fighting with a glowing sword, along with him, more and more strange people were jumping into the arena with glowing swords. Buffy fought her way through to the middle of the fray. She was now near the bearded man. She found her axe at his feet and picked it up and started swinging. As the fight went on, more and more droids entered the arena, and Buffy and the people with the glowing swords were being drawn into a tighter circle in the middle of it. As a fighter Buffy appreciated the skill that the sword wielders displayed, but they were way out numbered and she saw that they had little chance of succeeding. Buffy watched as the bearded man took on wave after wave of droid attack, without skipping a beat. Her eye was drawn to something in the stands; a man was aiming a blaster at the bearded man.

"Hey look out." She yelled at him, but he didn't realize she was talking to him. So she dove and pushed him out of the way.

She hadn't really meant to take the blast for him, ideally she thought it would miss them both, but she wasn't that lucky and the blast caught her square in the right shoulder blade. The man in the stands took aim again, but Buffy took aim with Warric's blaster and took him down before he got another shot off. The man with the beard looked over at her in surprise. Then everything grew quiet around them, no sound of blasters, or swishing of glowing swords. There weren't many of them left, but Buffy took pride in noticing that the three who started out chained to the pillars were all still there. The pain in her shoulder was intense and Buffy could feel the pain try and take over her body, but she fought it off trying to see what was happening. Just when she thought it was all over a ship of some sort, it reminded her of a big military helicopter, dropped out of the sky and men in what looked to be armor made of PVC pipe jumped out and started attacking the droids. Then another ship joined that one, and then yet another. Soon the people with the glowing swords were running toward the ships. She saw the bearded man and the bald man talking, she couldn't make out everything they were saying, but the bald man said something about leaving someone, but the bearded man said something about saving lives and hurt. The next thing she knew the bearded man was by her side helping her up.

"Be still, we'll get you help." He then picked her up and carried her to one of the ships. Then she blacked out.