Chapter One:
Slayer:
Three weeks later, and Buffy had been having the same dream every time that she closed her eyes. It certainly hadn't helped that something had happened that she could kill herself, again, for. She had slept with Spike. Spike! Of all people! Then there was the realization that he had provided for her. Something that she couldn't tell anyone.
She wasn't human anymore.
Spike hitting her with no semblance of pain whatsoever was just enough evidence of that. Buffy felt that the whole situation was starting to make perfect sense. Ever since she had been "chosen" her life had taken it's long chute down the crapper, and now that she had died and been brought back to life, by her "friends", stolen from what she still believed was heaven, her death was following the same path. She felt like crap, all of the time. She slept with Spike, she wasn't even human, and Willow had endangered Dawn's life by following the very coarse that Tara had warned her against, and Dawn was doing her best to win the teen delinquent of the year award. Ever since Giles had left, she was the only one left to deal with Dawn and she had definitely noticed her behavior.
'God, if I was like that with you Mom, I suddenly have a whole new respect for you,' Buffy thought to herself as she walked.
She was on patrol, as she almost always was at night, walking through one of Sunnydale's several cemeteries, hoping against everything that Spike would not be on his own patrol. While she was looking for demons and any other vampires other than him, he was always looking, or at the least always running into her.
So when she actually found some she was more surprised than anything to feel a brief flash of disappointment that they weren't Spike. She really needed to talk to somebody about this, but Willow was spending almost all of her time in her room, Amy was off getting high on the magic buzz that Willow had been on that had almost gotten Dawn killed, and Dawn was staying as much out of the house and away from Willow as possible. Xander was working, Anya was working, and Tara was nowhere that she knew how to get in contact with.
Turning her attention to the vamps before her, Buffy slipped once more into the role of the Vampire Slayer, the Chosen One.
Princess:
Serena, Darien, Rini, and Marise were climbing out of the taxi they had just taken from LAX. Right in front of the Holiday Inn that they would apparently be staying in for their vacation break. "I can't believe that this is the only hotel in the area that has any room for us!" Darien was saying.
"Don't worry about it Brother," Marise consoled. "We will make due. At least we don't have to make our home in the streets. I'd hate to have to learn a whole new territory and watch out for all of you at the same time."
Serena and Darien smiled. It had taken a lot for Marise to be able to joke about her past on the streets. A lot of letting go, a lot of acceptance, and a whole lot more emotion to deal with. Serena was glad that her friend was able to truly put her past behind her. It had taken a lot, and it helped that Marise was also a Sailor Soldier, it helped her to feel like a member of a group. To be accepted, loved. Serena had always striven to make all of those around her feel like that. Especially her closest friends.
"Yeah, don't worry about it Darien," Serena supported Marise's sentiment. "I don't care where we stay so much as we spend our time together. This is the first time in a long time that we've spent together as a family. So let's get checked in and get some sleep."
"Actually, I'm not that tired." Marise commented.
"Me either," chirped Rini.
"It's part of changing time lines. To us, it's still five o'clock in the afternoon. Here it's almost if not already past midnight." Darien answered them.
"OK, so after we check in, how are we going to spend time?" Serena put forth as they all entered the Lobby with all of their suitcases. Three cases apiece per girl, while Darien only had a duffle bag and a camera case he had as his carry-on. So ofcourse the only man of the group got stuck with carrying them all, though Marise had insisted that she would carry her own.
"I'm hungry!" Rini chirped after a second.
"Right, first stop, restaurant," Darien listed.
"It would be a good idea to procure some kind of transportation other than our current bipedal state would provide," Marise said, apparently invoking a Vulcan at the moment. Everybody in the group just stared at her for several moments before she finally tried it again. "We need a car."
"Oh!" they all chorused together. Then Darien frowned as he realized how difficult that actually would be.
"We'll just use the Taxi cabs. I only have so much cash with me, and none of us are rich," Darien excused. Turning to his girlfriend, Darien then asked, "What about you Serena? What do you want to do for the rest of the night?"
As they stopped in the line in front of the registration desk, Serena's eyes glazed over as she thought of her answer. The answer she finally gave surprised herself as much as it did her companions.
"The Bronze…"
Slayer:
Buffy was actually surprised by the shear stupidity of the four vampires. First, they didn't even know who she was, let alone her identity as the Slayer. And when she pulled out her stake, they had the unfacited gall to laugh at her. But she really didn't care.
Instead, she just distracted them with one of her well thought of puns and immediately launched into a brawl with them. She started at a run, jumped and kicked two of them with a well-timed split kick. Once they were on the ground, she turned to the other two, who were just staring at her in what had to be the absolutely stupidest look on their distorted faces.
"Wow," one muttered in awed non-breath, "How'd you do that?"
"Yeah babe, how?" his crony chirped beside him.
Buffy felt a brief flash of anger. She kicked the crony in the chest and he fell back against the wall. Then she stabbed forward with her stake hand, saying, "Practice. Something which you'll never get to do I'm afraid." She watched him fall and then turn to ash before her eyes, and by the time he hit the ground he was reenacting the Beetle's hit single.
She turned around from her first vamp of the night just in time to see the other three running off into the night, screaming about a monster, which she found kind of ironic. While at the same time majorly insulting. Seeing as there was little other game going on tonight, Buffy decided to chase after them.
Maybe Spike would… She stopped that line of thought before it could even get started and focused on the vamps she was chasing.