:Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or anything else but the Boy/ Bryce, Kay? Joss Whedon, WB, and
Fox (I think) are the dudes who own Buffy and co.
The boy looked around, unsure of what to do of first. He wasn't exactly sure how he had
gotten here, either. Just a few moments ago he had been in the forest that lay right behind his
back yard, and now he was suddenly in a town he didn't recognize. Or at least he hadn't thought
he had recognized it at first glance. But, as he leaned on the fifteen dollars ninety cents
walking stick he had bought at an otherwise stupid festival, the realized exactly where he was.
Sunnydale, or a town that looked exactly like it. He thought this because he himself knew, or at
the "rational" part of him "knew", that he couldn't have simply walked into the town that was
the main setting for a television series. Unless he had unwittingly walked through some kind of
interdimensional rift. Oh boy, he thought to himself, did I just Slide or something?, the boy
wondered, Sliding being the name given to interdemensional traveling (going from one world to
another where it's the same day, the same time, the same planet, and you're the same you, but
everything else is different) from a weird TV show that he had watched every once in a
while, though it had been canceled a couple of months ago. As all of these thoughts
glistened into his mind, the boy couldn't help but wonder about his name. He knew what
it was alright. Bryce was his name. He had known it ever since he had been old enough to
know anything, but ever since then he had started questioning things, including his own
name, and he began to forget to call himself by his own name. He simply referred to himself
as "The Boy" sometimes. Suddenly, Bryce realized the very startling possibilities of what
might happen if he really had stumbled into Sunnydale. Deciding to act as quick as he could, he
moved over to a spot that looked safe to him. He then began emptying his pockets. Looking at
his surroundings, Bryce knew that this had to be Sunnydale. Where he had come from, if his
idea about going through a dimensionsal rift was right, Sunnydale had been the main setting
in a television show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", a show about a superhuman teenager
who fought and, of course, defeated the forces of evil. Most of the time anyway. Checking
through his pocket, Bryce wondered briefly, at least briefly for him, what it would be like to
run into the Slayer and her friends and enemies, as well as what it would be like to fight a
vampire or a demon. Bryce was in fairly good physical condition in his opinion, but, strangely
enough, it was a widely known on his world that, despite the fact that he was a weird freak of
some sort as far as the student body was concerned, he could beat up even the toughest of
jocks at school. Oh sure, they talked tough, but once you got right down to it, anyone could
beat them up. Or at least the boy himself thought so. Once his best friend, Jerry Rinds, had
gotten into a little trouble with a junior. Jerry had been, and still was, a sophomore at
the time, and the boy himself had been, and also still was, a freshman. After Jerry had
futilely thrown a few lefts and rights at the junior, the boy had stepped in and thrown a single
punch at the junior, knocking him unconscious instantly. The entire school had been in an uproar
for weeks, and Jerry had completely ignored him for at least a month because he thought that
the boy had proved him to be a wuss. Sighing miserably at his wretched life, the boy decided
to put his attention back to what was happening in the-here-and-now. The first things that
came out of his pocket were his rock and crystal collection, though he had thought that
they would come out last since they were at the bottom. The boy realized that he hadn't
found what he was looking for, which happened to be something he wasn't sure of either. What had
he been looking for? Something that he could use to turn his staff into a really big stake. And
then it came to him. Stumbling around through his rock and crystal collection, the boy managed
to find the three crystals he tried to work with the most often. Taking the three of them in
his hand, the boy looked them over to make sure they hadn't been damaged while they had been
in his pocket. The boy studied the three crystals in his hand again, more or less still trying
to figure out how exactly he could unlock the power quartz crystals were supposed
to have. Which was what these three crystals were, all three of them of the type
known as "clear quartz." Two of them were both pointed on one side, and the other one
had sort of oval-like sides and but had been really rough too, the other
side perfectly round, smooth, and cold except for a sort of chip on one side of the crystal. He
wasn't really sure if what he was planning would really work, but he knew that there was only
one way to find out. He put each of the two pointed quartz crystals in one or the other of his
two hands and laid the circular one with the chipped side facing him in front of the walking
stick, though he preferred to call it a staff, on the ground with the end he was
planning on "sharpening" facing toward himself and the circular crystal. The boy concentrated
all of his will on the idea of shaping the staff top end into a staff, and then tried to
visualize that idea, that intention, in the form of blue colored energy, flowing through his
hands, into the crystals in his hands and then from them into the circular quartz on the
ground and then finally into the staff. To the boy's incredible amazement
and surprise, it worked. Right before his eyes he saw the top of the staff
become a spike. Just right for staking any vampires he might come across if he really had
somehow stumbled into Sunnydale. He then found himself imagining what would happen if he
actually met the Scooby gang, as they had called themselves on the show. He quickly snapped
out of it, aware of the fact that if he actually had stumbled into Sunnydale he would soon get
the chance live out many of his strange, and often very odd, daydreams. Yet, he still
couldn't shake the reality of what he just done off of himself, despite how much
he was trying to delude himself. He had been collecting his rocks and crystals for
years now, and had recently heard the idea that they could be used for healings and
meditation and such things, but he could never dismiss the idea that, despite the fact he
hadn't heard about anything other than healings and developing some psychic powers, he had
still thought that if rocks and crystals could actually do such things, then their powers
probably wouldn't stop there. And here he had just proved himself right. Looking around
carefully, Bryce made sure that there weren't any vampires or demons or whatnot, and began to
pack up. About five minutes after he was done and was getting up to go down into
town, a strange-looking, but also vaguely familiar, figure stepped out in front
of him. A vampire. Though it didn't have on the vampiric face that always gave vampires that
were "out for a bite to eat," as they would probably say, away, Bryce could just tell. He wasn't
sure how exactly he could tell, though he thought it probably was of some kind
of obvious "vibe" that his crystals were somehow letting him receive. Before the vampire
could speak, Bryce made sure that his staff was hidden directly underneath his feet.
"Well, what have we here? A poor little boy who lost his mommy? Heheheh, hahaha!" It was
only then that Bryce noticed the other vampires. Four of them. "What do ya' say boys? What do
we do with em'? Eat em'?" the vampire got his answer from his fellow vampires in the form of
a "Eat em', eat em', eat em', eat em'" chant. Somehow or another, Bryce could tell that these
vamps had just been turned last night. They just seemed so inexperienced and stupid.
"Ah, really, I don't think you guys will want to mess with me. I've got a bit of
an advantage over you." Bryce said with great confidence and modesty in
his voice, and, amazingly, he found himself actually believing it. The other four
vampires merely laughed their heads off, but the first to have confronted him wasn't laughing
or even smiling in the tiniest bit. He had obviously been wrong when he had said that he
thought that all of the vampires standing before him were amateurs. That one vampire, the one
who wasn't laughing or grinning from ear-to-ear, was obviously far more than a day old and the
most experienced of the whole lot of them. Could be anywhere from a day to
a hundred years old, he thought. Whatever the answer, this one appeared to be
experienced enough to know a problem when he saw one, and had probably sired the other
four vamps out of boredom. And Bryce was probably the problem.
"Ah, all right, if you crazy idiots want to take me on so bad, come and get it," Bryce
said once again, still acting completely modest and confident. And then they started to
attack, one at a time. First came one that looked like he had been a pretty tough jock when
he had been alive. Acting rather lazy, and making actions so slowly that only the sire of the
other four vamps took the care to pay attention, Bryce stepped on the flat side
of the stake/staff so that when the vampire had walked close enough, he could push down and
bring the pointed end of the staff up straight into the vampire's heart. And the whole thing
went through exactly as he had hoped it would. "Oops, did I do that?" Bryce asked stupidly as
the vampire that he had just "staked", if what he had done could even be called a
staking, turned to dust. The vampires, all except the sire, looked completely stunned and
horrified. The sire merely looked curious. That and maybe a little happy. Evidently, from the
smile that came onto the sire's lips as his childe had been "dusted", he had not liked that
particular vampire very much.
"George, Harry, Fred, go find out if our little friend here can take on three of us
at a time," the sire said, a look of pompousness and nobility coming across
his face, which, for the most part, still looked human. The three vampires started
circling him, and Bryce realized that he hadn't thought of this happening. He could probably
handle one at a time right now, but not three at the same time. And then an idea
came to him. Grasping the three quartz crystals in his hand and bringing it (his hand) out of
his pocket, Bryce closed his eyes, and envisioned one of the three vampires circling him being
thrown against a nearby tree with a branch sticking out by some unseen force. When he opened
his eyes, Bryce saw that it had worked. Lying beneath the tree he had visualized throwing
the vampire against was a pile of dust. Looking back to the other three vampires, he saw that
all of three of them, even the sire, looked both worried and astounded now. They had obviously
realized by now that the kid standing before them was no ordinary mortal. At least not of the
type they'd fought before anyhow. Bryce himself could not have known it, at least
not right now anyhow, but these vampires, the ones that were left that is, had already fought
four slayers before, and the sire had killed six. In truth, the sire was about a decade away
from becoming a Master Vampire, and the vampires that were left his oldest, strongest, most
experienced, and most valuable childe. And then, suddenly, holding the crystals in his
hands, somehow, Bryce heard the sire's thoughts.
"This can't be happening! This kid is impossible. I've never seen anything like him
before and I'm this close to becoming a Master! We'd better either kill him right now or
leave. I can't risk my childe. I'll just have to post a scout and come back for the Slayer
when he leaves." Bryce blinked twice in a row before he regained his composure and realized
what he had just experienced. He had tried to learn how to do telepathy, the ability to read
thoughts and send your own thoughts to other beings, and telekinesis, the power to move
objects using the only your own will and the energy of your mind, for months, even using the
stones and crystals, and had not accomplished a single thing. And yet here he was, standing
defiantly in the face of danger with a wide grin on his face like he had always imagined it
would be, and he had somehow managed to bring out amazing mind-powers with barely so as much as
even a little bit of trouble. But perhaps that was the trick to learning how to use
such powers; perhaps in order to learn how to use them you first have to stop being so
uptight about it and trying and so hard, then relax and do the best you can. He had
long imagined facing evil and dangerous beings, face to face, but he had never thought that he
wouldn't even so much as flinch or cringe flinch when they came after him like that. When the
vampires had started to attack him, even after putting on their "game faces," he had simply
shrugged and dealt with whoever had been asking for it, whoever had been wanting to see him try
to defeat them the most. It felt to him as if he was relying on some kind of instinct. And
yet, wasn't it true that human beings were supposed to instinctually fear
vampires, not instinctually shrug off a vampire's dangerous potential and intentions and stake
them as if it was something they did every day? This was the first time he had ever even fought
anything of the supernatural, and yet he was dealing with it like it was an everyday
occurrence for him. Unless reincarnation was the answer to this puzzle... Looking up at the
stunned vampires, who were obviously getting ready to leave, Bryce suddenly remembered what he
had heard of the Nearly-a-Master's thoughts.
"Not so fast, ya' Pre-Master. If you plan on killing the slayer, you're gonna have to
go through me first. If you and your childe can't beat me, a puny little morsel with more bite
than bark, than you'll never be able to beat the Slayer of this particular Hellmouth. She's a
'hell' of alot stronger than me." Bryce finished, a grin on his face as everything he
had said, including that stupid joke near the end, had sunken in for the sire and his childe. He
had originally taken the other vampires to be as young as the other two he had
killed, but now that he took the time to look, he noticed that they seemed to radiate an
aura of age almost as large as their sire, off by maybe a couple of decades.
"But how... how... could you possibly know?!" the Pre-Master, as Bryce had so promptly
named him, asked stammering, obviously once again surprised by this youngster's apparently
limitless amount of power and skill.
"Telepathy, asswhole. What, ya' think that I'm gonna be able to throw stuff around with
my brain and not be able to read your mind? With these little babies here," Bryce said, opening
up his hand, revealing the quartz crystals to the once high-and-mighty vampires
before him. "I can do the whole enchilada, and a whole lot more. And that's not even half
of what the Slayer and her friends can do. I've heard she's got two witches, a werewolf, an
ex-Watcher, a small section of the U. S. army, and even William The Bloody, or Spike as I
think he's calling himself now, on her side right now," Bryce finished, feeling satisfied in
having scared the hell out of even some of the most experienced of vampires. In truth, the
werewolf, named Oz, had left a couple of weeks ago, or at least that's what the show had
said, and Spike basically hated the whole group, though he hadn't yet let on that he was
falling in love with Buffy, and wouldn't admit it even to himself. That small section of the
army he had mentioned, better known to Buffy and to themselves as the Initiative, or at least
what was left of it, only helped the Slayer behind the scenes, and only when what she was
facing was a disaster to the country itself, stray demons being one of them. He doubted that
they would count this posse of vamps as a dangerous threat, at least until they saw what they
could do, considering the fact that Buffy was the current Vampire Slayer, though he
immediately realized that, given the chance, these vampires could easily have killed Buffy and
her friends. They were incredibly strong, and considering the fact that the
Slayer and her "Slayerettes", as they sometimes called themselves, were busy juggling around
the troubles of dealing with Mrs. Summer, Buffy's mom, 's brain tumor as well as
Glory, some kind of supermonster in the form of a somewhat pretty woman and an unknown
second force, who Bryce had only recently realized was playing the little "game, if it could
be called that, disguised as a fairly young doctor, the Pre-Master and his childe could easily
have killed Sunnydale's main defense against all things dangerous, at least of supernatural
nature without too much trouble at all. "Leave now while you still have the chance, or die at
my hands or those of the Slayer and her friends if you so choose? So, which will
it be? The chance to continue your unlife, or basically walk straight into
permanent death. I'm waiting," Bryce finished, tapping his shoes on the floor
in an impatient manner.
"You've been real showy right now, kid, so why don't we just kill you right now? If what
you say is true, then the Slayer should be a snap, because I've got a few tricks
as well," the Pre-Master finished obviously trying to hide all doubt and fear from
his face. Scanning his mind, Bryce realized that the soon-to-beMaster Vampire did indeed have
a plan in mind in case anything went wrong, but it was a desperate one and not a chance that
this supposedly great and powerful vampire was willing to bet the rest of his unlife on. Even if
he only managed to kill the two younger vamps, the Pre-Master would still be
scared away. The two vamps began to circle Bryce, intent on killing this strangely powerful and
talented young mortal boy. And then yet another idea came to Bryce. Placing one one-pointed
quartz crystal in each hand and the circular one on the ground at his
feet, Bryce concentrated, visualizing the vampire to his left bursting into flames
and his stake-staff flying off the ground jamming itself right through the heart of the
vampire on his right. Opening his eyes, Bryce saw that the vampire on the left had indeed
bursted into flames and was already a smoking pile of dust. The second one, however, had caught
his stake-staff, and with Bryce watching sort of helplessly, proceeded to try to snap it in two.
"You broke my staff!" Bryce yelled at the oncoming vampire. "You're gonna pay for that!" Pretty
pissed off at the last of the Pre-Master's childe for breaking his only staff, Bryce grabbed
the top half of his broken staff and, before the vampire could even begin to protest or fight
back, jammed it through his dead heart and spat on the dust remains of what had only a second
ago broken his beloved staff. Then yet another idea came to Bryce. "Where the hell do all of
these ideas keep coming from?" Bryce muttered to himself as he stuck the top and bottom halves
of his staff together and visualized the two of them becoming one whole staff
once again. This, like the last few experiments with his newfound powers, worked
fairly well. Bryce then lifted his head staring into the soulless eyes of the Pre-Master, into
the eyes of a very old and incredibly frightened vampire, of a demon whose centuries of deeds
and feats had been truly malicious and vile and yet was scared of him, of a fragile, at least
when compared to the average vampire, young boy. And yet Bryce had sort of always suspected
that he had never exactly been a normal boy, though he had always thought of that as the
effect of reading too many stories and watching too many television shows about people who
started out just as ordinary as he himself was and grew into extraordinarily strong young
men and women who had went through hell, sometimes quite literally, and survived to come out of
it all as completely changed beings, or at least somewhat different from what they had been at
the beginning of their journeys. And yet here he was, a fourteen year old boy who had
instantaneously mastered incredible powers and had somehow used them to strike fear into the
soulless heart of a fairly old being who had caused a large amount of fear himself over the
centuries, which was, quite obviously, a tremendous feat for anyone, even someone such as
himself. Still looking the Pre-Master straight in the eyes, Bryce spoke up with even more
confidence in his voice than before the battle, if what had happened could even have been
called a battle.
"So, Pre-Master," Bryce said, putting a special twist of highly noticeable sarcasm into
his voice as he said the name he had given this old and powerful vampire. "What do ya' think of
me now?" Just as he finished talking, Bryce made sure to put an incredibly wide grin on his face
to show the Pre-Master that he considered this as nothing more than a game and that it was
obvious who the winner of this round was.
"You... You cannot be human!" The vampire exclaimed, obviously still stunned and amazed
at this child, at least when compared to himself, had done in the calmest of emotions to all of
the childe that he had brought with him on the way to kill the Slayer.
"Ah, but Pre-Master, I am, I am. I'm just not from this Earth." Bryce grinned as he let
that statement sink into the Pre-Master's frightened and barely working mind.
"Do you mean to say that you are a... a... a traveler from another Plane?" (Planes are
basically dimensions on a smaller scale; Heaven and Hell are essentially other Planes and are
also somewhat good examples for this; several less significant Planes exist; these less
significant Planes are the home Planes of several different types of demons as well as other
creatures; for more info, catch a rerun, or watch a video, of the episode of the Angel series
that comes on right after Buffy where Angel ran into the she-demon that possessed a pyrotechnic
ability of sorts and required ice to cool down to a colder temperature went up against the
males from her own Plane in order to bring freedom to other females of her own race) the vampire
asked, still obviously trying to get a grasp on his wits. It was fairly evident that he was
willing to believe this explanation, which, as far as Bryce knew, was the truth.
"Close, but not broad enough. I'm from another dimension." Bryce replied, with that
same incredibly wide grin suddenly appearing on his face. "And it's time that I finished
you off, once and for all." The grin disappearing from his face, only to be replaced by a look of
absolute concentration, Bryce brought the three quartz crystals back out of his pocket where he
had idly placed them while he had been scaring the hell out of the Pre-Master with all that
stupid talk and concentrated on visualizing the attack he had planned for this particularly
strong vampire. In his mind's eye, Bryce visualized eight roots of a nearby trove of trees
coming up out of the ground and twisting themselves around the Pre-Master's hands, arms, legs,
and feet. Bringing himself out of the semi-trance state that he went into whenever he used his
newfound-powers, Bryce saw to his satisfaction that the Pre-Master was bound exactly as he had
visualized it. Picking up his stake-staff and preparing to launch it like a javelin, Bryce
positioned himself so that the staff would pierce the vampire's chest and go straight through
its heart. And then, just as he prepared to throw he stake-staff at the vampire before
him, Bryce heard a voice. A fairly familiar voice.
"Hey what are you doing down there?!" As he thought about it, thereby losing his
concentration on the Pre-Master and giving him the chance to get away, Bryce realized that the
voice belonged to Willow, one of the witches/Wiccans he had mentioned earlier, as well as one of
Buffy's best friends, who was probably being followed by the rest of the Slayerettes, as well
as Buffy's boyfriend, Riley. After all of that had passed through his mind, Bryce realized that
he had unwittingly allowed the Pre-Master to escape.
"Oh, nothin' much, just letting a really old and really strong vampire that is only a
couple of decades away from becoming a Master slip through my fingers all because I lost my
concentration when a bunch of somewhat experienced vampire hunters accompanied by an ex-army nut
who chased down demons ruined my concentration." The unnaturally large grin that he had been
using during what had strangely been for Bryce a skirmish but for the vampires a desperate battle
for their survival appeared on his face once again, though this time it appeared of its own
accord instead of his forcing it to come into being as it had been the case the last few times
he had brought it about. All of the Slayer's friends who had were apparently on patrol in this
area, which apparently included Willow and Xander as well as Riley were now close enough so that
he could see them fairly well and they could see him fairly well. In actuality, the only two
things separating Bryce and the trio before him were a somewhat large hill and about a
King-sized waterbed amount of space (OFS/Out-Of-Story: Actual good sense of
measurement, i.e.: a foot, a yard, and a meter and whatnot, and good sense of direction
were never really my strongpoints; in fact, they're my worst ones, so don't expect me to
illustrate anything suggesting otherwise in this work anything else that I will write in the
future). Because of this, Bryce could see the looks on their faces just as well as they could
see the one on his. And from what he could see from where he was standing, these three people
were both shocked and amazed at this strange young boy.
One Hour Later
The Magic Shop
"So, you mean to tell me that you slayed four vampires, two of them a few days old, two
of them a few decades away from becoming Masters, and scared the hell out of the one who sired
them, a vampire a single decade away from becoming a Master, nearly staking him?" Buffy asked
Bryce, showing a look of disbelief on her face that he was sure could not be beaten as far as
not being able to believe something went.
"Yeah, and I would have staked him too, if it hadn't a been for Willow, Xander and your
boyfriend, Riley, over there."
"You never did explain how you knew who any of us were. Or that I was the Slayer," Buffy
said with such a look on her face that Bryce was surprised that he didn't burst laughing just
looking at it.
"Yes, I did. You just didn't believe me's all," Bryce replied, with a look of such calm
on his face that he was actually surprised that he felt even calmer than he looked, though he
wasn't sure how exactly he knew that, either.
"Yeah well, I suppose I can buy you coming from another world, what with all that me
and the rest of the gang have seen and dealt with before..."
"Like the Wishverse?" Bryce interrupted, with that same incredulously broad grin that
had sent the Pre-Master quivering where he stood.
"Yeah, but... I still can't believe that on your world I'm the star of a TV
show!" Buffy replied, still obviously stunned at the info that this strange outsider possessed
about her and her family and friends.
"Hah. Yeah, well I'm willing to bet that this isn't the only world that had a TV show or
a book or something based on it. I can think of maybe a dozen worlds I'd like visit, 'sides this
one that is."
"Well, what I don't get is how exactly someone from a world where vampires apparently
don't exist can come to one where they do exist, in plenty of numbers too, and beat the hell out
of three of the strongest of them without so much as a sweat."
"Like I said before, it felt like some sort of instinct or something." Grinning again,
though not with one quite so wide as before, Bryce continued. "Though I'm willing to bet that
you know a good bit about that yourself, eh Buffy?"
"Hah, you bet I do. But how could you possibly be a Slayer? I mean, you come from a
world where they don't even exist, and well..." Buffy stopped abruptly, trying to choose the
right word apparently.
"Let me guess, I'm a boy, and Slayers are supposed to a sort of girls' only gig, right?"
"Yeah, I guess that's one way of putting it."
"To tell you the truth, I think there's an easy explanation to all of this."
"Really. What is it?" she asked, obviously intrigued at the solution to this problem
that this odd newcomer to her world was thinking of .
"I'm not a Slayer. Of vampires anyhow."
"Really? All right then smartass, if that's it, what were you born to fight?" Buffy
asked with a look on her face that seemed to represent a challenge of some sort.
"I don't know, don't ask me, Slayer," Bryce replied, though this time he did it with a
look of deep thought instead of a grin as he usually did. "There is another problem of
course: how in the name of hell itself am I supposed to get back to my world?"
"I don't know kid, I don't know."
:Author's Notes:
That's it then. The first part of the story. I'm an amateur at this, so expect more later, and,
please, post some reviews!
Fox (I think) are the dudes who own Buffy and co.
The boy looked around, unsure of what to do of first. He wasn't exactly sure how he had
gotten here, either. Just a few moments ago he had been in the forest that lay right behind his
back yard, and now he was suddenly in a town he didn't recognize. Or at least he hadn't thought
he had recognized it at first glance. But, as he leaned on the fifteen dollars ninety cents
walking stick he had bought at an otherwise stupid festival, the realized exactly where he was.
Sunnydale, or a town that looked exactly like it. He thought this because he himself knew, or at
the "rational" part of him "knew", that he couldn't have simply walked into the town that was
the main setting for a television series. Unless he had unwittingly walked through some kind of
interdimensional rift. Oh boy, he thought to himself, did I just Slide or something?, the boy
wondered, Sliding being the name given to interdemensional traveling (going from one world to
another where it's the same day, the same time, the same planet, and you're the same you, but
everything else is different) from a weird TV show that he had watched every once in a
while, though it had been canceled a couple of months ago. As all of these thoughts
glistened into his mind, the boy couldn't help but wonder about his name. He knew what
it was alright. Bryce was his name. He had known it ever since he had been old enough to
know anything, but ever since then he had started questioning things, including his own
name, and he began to forget to call himself by his own name. He simply referred to himself
as "The Boy" sometimes. Suddenly, Bryce realized the very startling possibilities of what
might happen if he really had stumbled into Sunnydale. Deciding to act as quick as he could, he
moved over to a spot that looked safe to him. He then began emptying his pockets. Looking at
his surroundings, Bryce knew that this had to be Sunnydale. Where he had come from, if his
idea about going through a dimensionsal rift was right, Sunnydale had been the main setting
in a television show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", a show about a superhuman teenager
who fought and, of course, defeated the forces of evil. Most of the time anyway. Checking
through his pocket, Bryce wondered briefly, at least briefly for him, what it would be like to
run into the Slayer and her friends and enemies, as well as what it would be like to fight a
vampire or a demon. Bryce was in fairly good physical condition in his opinion, but, strangely
enough, it was a widely known on his world that, despite the fact that he was a weird freak of
some sort as far as the student body was concerned, he could beat up even the toughest of
jocks at school. Oh sure, they talked tough, but once you got right down to it, anyone could
beat them up. Or at least the boy himself thought so. Once his best friend, Jerry Rinds, had
gotten into a little trouble with a junior. Jerry had been, and still was, a sophomore at
the time, and the boy himself had been, and also still was, a freshman. After Jerry had
futilely thrown a few lefts and rights at the junior, the boy had stepped in and thrown a single
punch at the junior, knocking him unconscious instantly. The entire school had been in an uproar
for weeks, and Jerry had completely ignored him for at least a month because he thought that
the boy had proved him to be a wuss. Sighing miserably at his wretched life, the boy decided
to put his attention back to what was happening in the-here-and-now. The first things that
came out of his pocket were his rock and crystal collection, though he had thought that
they would come out last since they were at the bottom. The boy realized that he hadn't
found what he was looking for, which happened to be something he wasn't sure of either. What had
he been looking for? Something that he could use to turn his staff into a really big stake. And
then it came to him. Stumbling around through his rock and crystal collection, the boy managed
to find the three crystals he tried to work with the most often. Taking the three of them in
his hand, the boy looked them over to make sure they hadn't been damaged while they had been
in his pocket. The boy studied the three crystals in his hand again, more or less still trying
to figure out how exactly he could unlock the power quartz crystals were supposed
to have. Which was what these three crystals were, all three of them of the type
known as "clear quartz." Two of them were both pointed on one side, and the other one
had sort of oval-like sides and but had been really rough too, the other
side perfectly round, smooth, and cold except for a sort of chip on one side of the crystal. He
wasn't really sure if what he was planning would really work, but he knew that there was only
one way to find out. He put each of the two pointed quartz crystals in one or the other of his
two hands and laid the circular one with the chipped side facing him in front of the walking
stick, though he preferred to call it a staff, on the ground with the end he was
planning on "sharpening" facing toward himself and the circular crystal. The boy concentrated
all of his will on the idea of shaping the staff top end into a staff, and then tried to
visualize that idea, that intention, in the form of blue colored energy, flowing through his
hands, into the crystals in his hands and then from them into the circular quartz on the
ground and then finally into the staff. To the boy's incredible amazement
and surprise, it worked. Right before his eyes he saw the top of the staff
become a spike. Just right for staking any vampires he might come across if he really had
somehow stumbled into Sunnydale. He then found himself imagining what would happen if he
actually met the Scooby gang, as they had called themselves on the show. He quickly snapped
out of it, aware of the fact that if he actually had stumbled into Sunnydale he would soon get
the chance live out many of his strange, and often very odd, daydreams. Yet, he still
couldn't shake the reality of what he just done off of himself, despite how much
he was trying to delude himself. He had been collecting his rocks and crystals for
years now, and had recently heard the idea that they could be used for healings and
meditation and such things, but he could never dismiss the idea that, despite the fact he
hadn't heard about anything other than healings and developing some psychic powers, he had
still thought that if rocks and crystals could actually do such things, then their powers
probably wouldn't stop there. And here he had just proved himself right. Looking around
carefully, Bryce made sure that there weren't any vampires or demons or whatnot, and began to
pack up. About five minutes after he was done and was getting up to go down into
town, a strange-looking, but also vaguely familiar, figure stepped out in front
of him. A vampire. Though it didn't have on the vampiric face that always gave vampires that
were "out for a bite to eat," as they would probably say, away, Bryce could just tell. He wasn't
sure how exactly he could tell, though he thought it probably was of some kind
of obvious "vibe" that his crystals were somehow letting him receive. Before the vampire
could speak, Bryce made sure that his staff was hidden directly underneath his feet.
"Well, what have we here? A poor little boy who lost his mommy? Heheheh, hahaha!" It was
only then that Bryce noticed the other vampires. Four of them. "What do ya' say boys? What do
we do with em'? Eat em'?" the vampire got his answer from his fellow vampires in the form of
a "Eat em', eat em', eat em', eat em'" chant. Somehow or another, Bryce could tell that these
vamps had just been turned last night. They just seemed so inexperienced and stupid.
"Ah, really, I don't think you guys will want to mess with me. I've got a bit of
an advantage over you." Bryce said with great confidence and modesty in
his voice, and, amazingly, he found himself actually believing it. The other four
vampires merely laughed their heads off, but the first to have confronted him wasn't laughing
or even smiling in the tiniest bit. He had obviously been wrong when he had said that he
thought that all of the vampires standing before him were amateurs. That one vampire, the one
who wasn't laughing or grinning from ear-to-ear, was obviously far more than a day old and the
most experienced of the whole lot of them. Could be anywhere from a day to
a hundred years old, he thought. Whatever the answer, this one appeared to be
experienced enough to know a problem when he saw one, and had probably sired the other
four vamps out of boredom. And Bryce was probably the problem.
"Ah, all right, if you crazy idiots want to take me on so bad, come and get it," Bryce
said once again, still acting completely modest and confident. And then they started to
attack, one at a time. First came one that looked like he had been a pretty tough jock when
he had been alive. Acting rather lazy, and making actions so slowly that only the sire of the
other four vamps took the care to pay attention, Bryce stepped on the flat side
of the stake/staff so that when the vampire had walked close enough, he could push down and
bring the pointed end of the staff up straight into the vampire's heart. And the whole thing
went through exactly as he had hoped it would. "Oops, did I do that?" Bryce asked stupidly as
the vampire that he had just "staked", if what he had done could even be called a
staking, turned to dust. The vampires, all except the sire, looked completely stunned and
horrified. The sire merely looked curious. That and maybe a little happy. Evidently, from the
smile that came onto the sire's lips as his childe had been "dusted", he had not liked that
particular vampire very much.
"George, Harry, Fred, go find out if our little friend here can take on three of us
at a time," the sire said, a look of pompousness and nobility coming across
his face, which, for the most part, still looked human. The three vampires started
circling him, and Bryce realized that he hadn't thought of this happening. He could probably
handle one at a time right now, but not three at the same time. And then an idea
came to him. Grasping the three quartz crystals in his hand and bringing it (his hand) out of
his pocket, Bryce closed his eyes, and envisioned one of the three vampires circling him being
thrown against a nearby tree with a branch sticking out by some unseen force. When he opened
his eyes, Bryce saw that it had worked. Lying beneath the tree he had visualized throwing
the vampire against was a pile of dust. Looking back to the other three vampires, he saw that
all of three of them, even the sire, looked both worried and astounded now. They had obviously
realized by now that the kid standing before them was no ordinary mortal. At least not of the
type they'd fought before anyhow. Bryce himself could not have known it, at least
not right now anyhow, but these vampires, the ones that were left that is, had already fought
four slayers before, and the sire had killed six. In truth, the sire was about a decade away
from becoming a Master Vampire, and the vampires that were left his oldest, strongest, most
experienced, and most valuable childe. And then, suddenly, holding the crystals in his
hands, somehow, Bryce heard the sire's thoughts.
"This can't be happening! This kid is impossible. I've never seen anything like him
before and I'm this close to becoming a Master! We'd better either kill him right now or
leave. I can't risk my childe. I'll just have to post a scout and come back for the Slayer
when he leaves." Bryce blinked twice in a row before he regained his composure and realized
what he had just experienced. He had tried to learn how to do telepathy, the ability to read
thoughts and send your own thoughts to other beings, and telekinesis, the power to move
objects using the only your own will and the energy of your mind, for months, even using the
stones and crystals, and had not accomplished a single thing. And yet here he was, standing
defiantly in the face of danger with a wide grin on his face like he had always imagined it
would be, and he had somehow managed to bring out amazing mind-powers with barely so as much as
even a little bit of trouble. But perhaps that was the trick to learning how to use
such powers; perhaps in order to learn how to use them you first have to stop being so
uptight about it and trying and so hard, then relax and do the best you can. He had
long imagined facing evil and dangerous beings, face to face, but he had never thought that he
wouldn't even so much as flinch or cringe flinch when they came after him like that. When the
vampires had started to attack him, even after putting on their "game faces," he had simply
shrugged and dealt with whoever had been asking for it, whoever had been wanting to see him try
to defeat them the most. It felt to him as if he was relying on some kind of instinct. And
yet, wasn't it true that human beings were supposed to instinctually fear
vampires, not instinctually shrug off a vampire's dangerous potential and intentions and stake
them as if it was something they did every day? This was the first time he had ever even fought
anything of the supernatural, and yet he was dealing with it like it was an everyday
occurrence for him. Unless reincarnation was the answer to this puzzle... Looking up at the
stunned vampires, who were obviously getting ready to leave, Bryce suddenly remembered what he
had heard of the Nearly-a-Master's thoughts.
"Not so fast, ya' Pre-Master. If you plan on killing the slayer, you're gonna have to
go through me first. If you and your childe can't beat me, a puny little morsel with more bite
than bark, than you'll never be able to beat the Slayer of this particular Hellmouth. She's a
'hell' of alot stronger than me." Bryce finished, a grin on his face as everything he
had said, including that stupid joke near the end, had sunken in for the sire and his childe. He
had originally taken the other vampires to be as young as the other two he had
killed, but now that he took the time to look, he noticed that they seemed to radiate an
aura of age almost as large as their sire, off by maybe a couple of decades.
"But how... how... could you possibly know?!" the Pre-Master, as Bryce had so promptly
named him, asked stammering, obviously once again surprised by this youngster's apparently
limitless amount of power and skill.
"Telepathy, asswhole. What, ya' think that I'm gonna be able to throw stuff around with
my brain and not be able to read your mind? With these little babies here," Bryce said, opening
up his hand, revealing the quartz crystals to the once high-and-mighty vampires
before him. "I can do the whole enchilada, and a whole lot more. And that's not even half
of what the Slayer and her friends can do. I've heard she's got two witches, a werewolf, an
ex-Watcher, a small section of the U. S. army, and even William The Bloody, or Spike as I
think he's calling himself now, on her side right now," Bryce finished, feeling satisfied in
having scared the hell out of even some of the most experienced of vampires. In truth, the
werewolf, named Oz, had left a couple of weeks ago, or at least that's what the show had
said, and Spike basically hated the whole group, though he hadn't yet let on that he was
falling in love with Buffy, and wouldn't admit it even to himself. That small section of the
army he had mentioned, better known to Buffy and to themselves as the Initiative, or at least
what was left of it, only helped the Slayer behind the scenes, and only when what she was
facing was a disaster to the country itself, stray demons being one of them. He doubted that
they would count this posse of vamps as a dangerous threat, at least until they saw what they
could do, considering the fact that Buffy was the current Vampire Slayer, though he
immediately realized that, given the chance, these vampires could easily have killed Buffy and
her friends. They were incredibly strong, and considering the fact that the
Slayer and her "Slayerettes", as they sometimes called themselves, were busy juggling around
the troubles of dealing with Mrs. Summer, Buffy's mom, 's brain tumor as well as
Glory, some kind of supermonster in the form of a somewhat pretty woman and an unknown
second force, who Bryce had only recently realized was playing the little "game, if it could
be called that, disguised as a fairly young doctor, the Pre-Master and his childe could easily
have killed Sunnydale's main defense against all things dangerous, at least of supernatural
nature without too much trouble at all. "Leave now while you still have the chance, or die at
my hands or those of the Slayer and her friends if you so choose? So, which will
it be? The chance to continue your unlife, or basically walk straight into
permanent death. I'm waiting," Bryce finished, tapping his shoes on the floor
in an impatient manner.
"You've been real showy right now, kid, so why don't we just kill you right now? If what
you say is true, then the Slayer should be a snap, because I've got a few tricks
as well," the Pre-Master finished obviously trying to hide all doubt and fear from
his face. Scanning his mind, Bryce realized that the soon-to-beMaster Vampire did indeed have
a plan in mind in case anything went wrong, but it was a desperate one and not a chance that
this supposedly great and powerful vampire was willing to bet the rest of his unlife on. Even if
he only managed to kill the two younger vamps, the Pre-Master would still be
scared away. The two vamps began to circle Bryce, intent on killing this strangely powerful and
talented young mortal boy. And then yet another idea came to Bryce. Placing one one-pointed
quartz crystal in each hand and the circular one on the ground at his
feet, Bryce concentrated, visualizing the vampire to his left bursting into flames
and his stake-staff flying off the ground jamming itself right through the heart of the
vampire on his right. Opening his eyes, Bryce saw that the vampire on the left had indeed
bursted into flames and was already a smoking pile of dust. The second one, however, had caught
his stake-staff, and with Bryce watching sort of helplessly, proceeded to try to snap it in two.
"You broke my staff!" Bryce yelled at the oncoming vampire. "You're gonna pay for that!" Pretty
pissed off at the last of the Pre-Master's childe for breaking his only staff, Bryce grabbed
the top half of his broken staff and, before the vampire could even begin to protest or fight
back, jammed it through his dead heart and spat on the dust remains of what had only a second
ago broken his beloved staff. Then yet another idea came to Bryce. "Where the hell do all of
these ideas keep coming from?" Bryce muttered to himself as he stuck the top and bottom halves
of his staff together and visualized the two of them becoming one whole staff
once again. This, like the last few experiments with his newfound powers, worked
fairly well. Bryce then lifted his head staring into the soulless eyes of the Pre-Master, into
the eyes of a very old and incredibly frightened vampire, of a demon whose centuries of deeds
and feats had been truly malicious and vile and yet was scared of him, of a fragile, at least
when compared to the average vampire, young boy. And yet Bryce had sort of always suspected
that he had never exactly been a normal boy, though he had always thought of that as the
effect of reading too many stories and watching too many television shows about people who
started out just as ordinary as he himself was and grew into extraordinarily strong young
men and women who had went through hell, sometimes quite literally, and survived to come out of
it all as completely changed beings, or at least somewhat different from what they had been at
the beginning of their journeys. And yet here he was, a fourteen year old boy who had
instantaneously mastered incredible powers and had somehow used them to strike fear into the
soulless heart of a fairly old being who had caused a large amount of fear himself over the
centuries, which was, quite obviously, a tremendous feat for anyone, even someone such as
himself. Still looking the Pre-Master straight in the eyes, Bryce spoke up with even more
confidence in his voice than before the battle, if what had happened could even have been
called a battle.
"So, Pre-Master," Bryce said, putting a special twist of highly noticeable sarcasm into
his voice as he said the name he had given this old and powerful vampire. "What do ya' think of
me now?" Just as he finished talking, Bryce made sure to put an incredibly wide grin on his face
to show the Pre-Master that he considered this as nothing more than a game and that it was
obvious who the winner of this round was.
"You... You cannot be human!" The vampire exclaimed, obviously still stunned and amazed
at this child, at least when compared to himself, had done in the calmest of emotions to all of
the childe that he had brought with him on the way to kill the Slayer.
"Ah, but Pre-Master, I am, I am. I'm just not from this Earth." Bryce grinned as he let
that statement sink into the Pre-Master's frightened and barely working mind.
"Do you mean to say that you are a... a... a traveler from another Plane?" (Planes are
basically dimensions on a smaller scale; Heaven and Hell are essentially other Planes and are
also somewhat good examples for this; several less significant Planes exist; these less
significant Planes are the home Planes of several different types of demons as well as other
creatures; for more info, catch a rerun, or watch a video, of the episode of the Angel series
that comes on right after Buffy where Angel ran into the she-demon that possessed a pyrotechnic
ability of sorts and required ice to cool down to a colder temperature went up against the
males from her own Plane in order to bring freedom to other females of her own race) the vampire
asked, still obviously trying to get a grasp on his wits. It was fairly evident that he was
willing to believe this explanation, which, as far as Bryce knew, was the truth.
"Close, but not broad enough. I'm from another dimension." Bryce replied, with that
same incredibly wide grin suddenly appearing on his face. "And it's time that I finished
you off, once and for all." The grin disappearing from his face, only to be replaced by a look of
absolute concentration, Bryce brought the three quartz crystals back out of his pocket where he
had idly placed them while he had been scaring the hell out of the Pre-Master with all that
stupid talk and concentrated on visualizing the attack he had planned for this particularly
strong vampire. In his mind's eye, Bryce visualized eight roots of a nearby trove of trees
coming up out of the ground and twisting themselves around the Pre-Master's hands, arms, legs,
and feet. Bringing himself out of the semi-trance state that he went into whenever he used his
newfound-powers, Bryce saw to his satisfaction that the Pre-Master was bound exactly as he had
visualized it. Picking up his stake-staff and preparing to launch it like a javelin, Bryce
positioned himself so that the staff would pierce the vampire's chest and go straight through
its heart. And then, just as he prepared to throw he stake-staff at the vampire before
him, Bryce heard a voice. A fairly familiar voice.
"Hey what are you doing down there?!" As he thought about it, thereby losing his
concentration on the Pre-Master and giving him the chance to get away, Bryce realized that the
voice belonged to Willow, one of the witches/Wiccans he had mentioned earlier, as well as one of
Buffy's best friends, who was probably being followed by the rest of the Slayerettes, as well
as Buffy's boyfriend, Riley. After all of that had passed through his mind, Bryce realized that
he had unwittingly allowed the Pre-Master to escape.
"Oh, nothin' much, just letting a really old and really strong vampire that is only a
couple of decades away from becoming a Master slip through my fingers all because I lost my
concentration when a bunch of somewhat experienced vampire hunters accompanied by an ex-army nut
who chased down demons ruined my concentration." The unnaturally large grin that he had been
using during what had strangely been for Bryce a skirmish but for the vampires a desperate battle
for their survival appeared on his face once again, though this time it appeared of its own
accord instead of his forcing it to come into being as it had been the case the last few times
he had brought it about. All of the Slayer's friends who had were apparently on patrol in this
area, which apparently included Willow and Xander as well as Riley were now close enough so that
he could see them fairly well and they could see him fairly well. In actuality, the only two
things separating Bryce and the trio before him were a somewhat large hill and about a
King-sized waterbed amount of space (OFS/Out-Of-Story: Actual good sense of
measurement, i.e.: a foot, a yard, and a meter and whatnot, and good sense of direction
were never really my strongpoints; in fact, they're my worst ones, so don't expect me to
illustrate anything suggesting otherwise in this work anything else that I will write in the
future). Because of this, Bryce could see the looks on their faces just as well as they could
see the one on his. And from what he could see from where he was standing, these three people
were both shocked and amazed at this strange young boy.
One Hour Later
The Magic Shop
"So, you mean to tell me that you slayed four vampires, two of them a few days old, two
of them a few decades away from becoming Masters, and scared the hell out of the one who sired
them, a vampire a single decade away from becoming a Master, nearly staking him?" Buffy asked
Bryce, showing a look of disbelief on her face that he was sure could not be beaten as far as
not being able to believe something went.
"Yeah, and I would have staked him too, if it hadn't a been for Willow, Xander and your
boyfriend, Riley, over there."
"You never did explain how you knew who any of us were. Or that I was the Slayer," Buffy
said with such a look on her face that Bryce was surprised that he didn't burst laughing just
looking at it.
"Yes, I did. You just didn't believe me's all," Bryce replied, with a look of such calm
on his face that he was actually surprised that he felt even calmer than he looked, though he
wasn't sure how exactly he knew that, either.
"Yeah well, I suppose I can buy you coming from another world, what with all that me
and the rest of the gang have seen and dealt with before..."
"Like the Wishverse?" Bryce interrupted, with that same incredulously broad grin that
had sent the Pre-Master quivering where he stood.
"Yeah, but... I still can't believe that on your world I'm the star of a TV
show!" Buffy replied, still obviously stunned at the info that this strange outsider possessed
about her and her family and friends.
"Hah. Yeah, well I'm willing to bet that this isn't the only world that had a TV show or
a book or something based on it. I can think of maybe a dozen worlds I'd like visit, 'sides this
one that is."
"Well, what I don't get is how exactly someone from a world where vampires apparently
don't exist can come to one where they do exist, in plenty of numbers too, and beat the hell out
of three of the strongest of them without so much as a sweat."
"Like I said before, it felt like some sort of instinct or something." Grinning again,
though not with one quite so wide as before, Bryce continued. "Though I'm willing to bet that
you know a good bit about that yourself, eh Buffy?"
"Hah, you bet I do. But how could you possibly be a Slayer? I mean, you come from a
world where they don't even exist, and well..." Buffy stopped abruptly, trying to choose the
right word apparently.
"Let me guess, I'm a boy, and Slayers are supposed to a sort of girls' only gig, right?"
"Yeah, I guess that's one way of putting it."
"To tell you the truth, I think there's an easy explanation to all of this."
"Really. What is it?" she asked, obviously intrigued at the solution to this problem
that this odd newcomer to her world was thinking of .
"I'm not a Slayer. Of vampires anyhow."
"Really? All right then smartass, if that's it, what were you born to fight?" Buffy
asked with a look on her face that seemed to represent a challenge of some sort.
"I don't know, don't ask me, Slayer," Bryce replied, though this time he did it with a
look of deep thought instead of a grin as he usually did. "There is another problem of
course: how in the name of hell itself am I supposed to get back to my world?"
"I don't know kid, I don't know."
:Author's Notes:
That's it then. The first part of the story. I'm an amateur at this, so expect more later, and,
please, post some reviews!
