Disclaimer: Any character that you've seen on the show is owned by Joss, not me.
Continuity Note: This story takes place about 3 months after the end of Sunnydale: Secrets Better Left Untold. Since this is part three of my series you should probably read parts one and two first but if you just want to skip ahead I always include brief character biographies. This chapter is the first to include extended biographies.
Colleen: Colleen Danvers is Buffy's successor both as the Slayer and as the guardian of the Hellmouth. Beyond being strong, fast, and able to access the collective pool of subconscious knowledge of all the previous Slayers, she also uses her competitive nature to good use as the Slayer.
Jordan: Because of demonic ancestry that was previously dormant in the rest of his family, Jordan Clarke possesses impressive psychic abilities such as Extra Sensory Perception and Telekinesis. He was also chosen by The Powers That Be to guide the Slayer with The Visions.
Holly: The daughter of a human and a Sellar Demon, Holly Nils possesses the abilities of a demon while still maintaining her human soul. She is able to shift into a demon form where her skin becomes gold and she gains incredible strength. Her low level psychic abilities allow her to read a person's weaknesses when she touches them, which has previously caused Holly to isolate herself in life.
Mike: On the night that Mike Dalton should have died from a vampire attack he was actually reborn into an incredible new life. Because of a spell cast on him when he was younger the siring process transformed him into something previously unseen on this Earth: A Living Vampire. The once carefree basketball player now has a lot more to worry about.
Dawn: Dawn Summers is actually the ancient energy known only as The Key given a human form. At one time she was unable to access the powers that lay dormant within her, but now after a spell performed by her boyfriend she has gained the ability to teleport. The eternally curious girl is now also learning how to fight to go along with her other new talents.
Aaron: Learning is something that always came easy to Aaron O'Malley. It's no wonder that when he began working at The Magic Box that he would quickly pick up the art of magick. Although not the most powerful warlock in the world, the always joking teenager has developed an impressive amount of power.
*****
Kyle walked out of his crypt into the night. He was a native of Sunnydale both as a human and as a vampire. Being a native was never as big of a deal as it had been lately. He wasn't sure why, but for some reason Sunnydale's vampire population had been exponentially increasing over the last few months. It was starting to make his life, or what he passed off as a life, a lot more difficult. With all the increased vampire activity it had become common knowledge that the Slayer had been working over time.
It was only seconds after Kyle had even thought the word Slayer that he found his feet were suddenly no longer beneath him. He quickly got up and turned around expecting to be face to face with the girl of legend but he was confused when there was no one in front of him. That's when he felt a hard kick to his back that sent him stumbling forward. He spun around in time to see what he thought was a flash of green light. He looked around and again he saw nothing. Curiously, he scratched his forehead trying to figure out what was going on. It was only seconds later, with his fingers still scratching his head, that Kyle turned into dust. As the dust settled the form of a girl could be seen standing over the pile of dust that had only moments before been a vampire.
"No vampires escape from Dawn, the Vampire Slayer," Dawn said as she put her stake back into her pants. She took a step and the fatigue of using her powers to teleport was evident on her face.
"Vampire Slayer?" Colleen asked her friend with a smile on her face. "Aren't you being a little presumptuous?"
"I'm a pro," Dawn said as she leaned on Colleen's shoulder a little bit for support. Her powers were still a little new to her, and using them a lot in a short amount of time tended to cause her to become tired easily.
"You're a top seeded amateur," Colleen corrected Dawn. "But I do have to admit that your technique is getting better. I mean I think you're relying on your teleportation a little too much, but your fighting skills are definitely there."
"Some of us need to rely on things like teleporting because we don't have preternatural strength," Dawn pointed out as she started to walk on her own.
"Preternatural strength isn't everything," Colleen said. "Holly is probably stronger than I am and I could still take her."
"I'll be sure to tell her you said that," Dawn teased Colleen.
"And I'll be sure to tell Aaron what you told me happened last Saturday night," Colleen said with a devilish smile on her face.
"You wouldn't," Dawn said, shocked that Colleen would even hint at something like that.
"Oh wouldn't I?" Colleen asked Dawn. When she looked over at Dawn she spotted another vampire on the other side of the cemetery they were in. She grabbed the stake out of Dawn's waistband and ran in the direction of the vampire.
"Oh no," Dawn said as she chased after the Slayer, "you're not getting out of this that easily."
*****
Holly, in her demon form, was taking on two vampires at the same time. It wasn't that hard for her. She was stronger than the average vampire and could easily knock one hard enough to give her time to make an attempt to stake the other one. The problem with these two vampires was that they weren't fledglings. These vampires had some experience under their belts.
Holly took a punch right to her face and fell back. One of the vampires ran towards her but Holly shoved her feet right into his gut and flipped him backwards. She got back to her feet just to be kicked in the face by the other vampire. He tried to kick her again but Holly ducked under his attack and grabbed his leg while it was still in the air. She then used the vampire's momentum to swing him around into the other vampire who had just gotten back up to his feet.
Holly threw the vampire down and pulled out her stake. She moved towards the vampire who looked to be too hurt to put up a fight. Unfortunately, the vampire was faking being hurt and pulled the stake out of Holly's hand and jumped at her, punching her in the face and causing her to lose her balance slightly. The vampire came at Holly with the stake raised above his head when suddenly the stake propelled itself from the vampire's hand right into Holly's grasp. Holly didn't waste any more time and staked the vampire while he was still shocked. Without even turning around she pulled the stake back and stuck it in the chest of the second vampire who thought he was about to surprise the half-Sellar demon.
"Thanks for the assist," Holly said as she shifted back into her human form.
"Any time," Jordan said as he hopped off of the gravestone he was sitting on and walked over towards Holly.
"That makes four tonight," Holly said with a slightly concerned look on her face. "I wonder how many the others have run into?"
Jordan shrugged. "I guess we'll find out tomorrow. You know, when the world ends."
Holly rolled her eyes. "Don't be so overly dramatic. It's not that big of a deal. Besides, weren't you the one who was complaining last week that summer was starting to get a little boring?"
"Aren't I allowed to be capricious?" Jordan asked Holly with a laugh. "I don't think anyone is ever really ready to go back to school."
"It will be a pain," Holly admitted. "This summer has been really cool. Well, aside from the sudden influx of vampires. I think are little group has gotten a lot closer."
"Yeah definitely," Jordan said. "It's like we're one big family. A really weird family." Jordan pondered that for a moment. "I bet we would make for a really interesting Springer episode."
Holly laughed. "I just hope that we can all stay this close even after school starts back up."
"I think you mean that you hope that you and Mike will stay close even when school starts back up," Jordan corrected her with a grin.
Holly blushed bright red. Jordan knew that he had hit the nail on the head. "Why don't you just say something to him?" Jordan asked his friend.
"Because it's too complicated," Holly said. "I mean we have gotten really close over this summer but I've also gotten a lot closer with everyone, especially Colleen. Her and Mike have history and I couldn't come in between that."
"I think that if Colleen and Mike were going to patch things up they would have done so by now," Jordan pointed out.
"Well there's also the major problem with the whole situation," Holly said.
"What's that?" Jordan asked her.
"The fact that Mike would never notice me," Holly told Jordan. "Not like that I mean."
"Why do you think like that all the time?" Jordan asked Holly. "You always think that you're worse than everyone else. When are you going to realize that it's not true?"
"Mike doesn't date girls like me," Holly pointed out to Jordan. "I'm not an attractive, popular girl."
"How could someone who is half lust demon not consider herself to be attractive?" Jordan asked Holly. "And I think that Mike isn't really one to go after the popular girl. I've seen you two together. I definitely think that something could come out of it."
Holly thought about what Jordan said for a little bit. "It's just too weird," she said after a while.
"Colleen's your friend right?" Jordan asked Holly. Holly nodded. "Then talk to her about it."
"You say that like it would be an easy thing," Holly said to Jordan.
*****
"All I'm saying is that I provide the most unique dynamic to the group," Aaron said to Mike while they patrolled in a different cemetery.
"I don't really think that annoying is a dynamic," Mike told Aaron.
"No see that very clearly illustrates my point," Aaron said back. "Because that wasn't funny, and it shouldn't be, because I'm the funny one."
"Just keep telling yourself that," Mike said as he continued to scan for vampires. So far they had only run into one which was below average for these last few months.
"And then I have the whole warlock thing going on," Aaron said. Since this night hadn't been full of vampires like most nights had been Aaron needed to keep talking to keep from getting bored.
"I'll give you that," Mike said. Everyone had noticed how adept Aaron had become with magick lately.
"And then I have the whole car thing going on too," Aaron said. "I mean I know it's not as cool as magick but it's still something." They walked in silence for a while. Aaron sighed. Silence was not Aaron's friend. "I mean seriously, the whole strength thing is kind of redundant."
"And yet even though it's redundant I still feel the need to hit you over the head with something rather blunt," Mike said. Mike suddenly heard the sounds of footsteps behind him. He turned around in time to see a vampire that was about to spring itself on him and Aaron. Mike pushed Aaron away in order to protect him but he ended up pushing him right into a tree. When Aaron feel down unconscious Mike found it a little hard to really feel sorry for doing it to him.
Mike began to fight with the vampire who obviously didn't think that Mike was going to be able to put up much of a fight. When the vampire did realize that Mike wasn't an ordinary human it quickly tried to run away. Mike checked on Aaron fast to make sure that he would be okay and then ran after the vampire. He caught up to the vampire just in time to watch it burst into flames. In front of where the vampire once stood was a guy that Mike figured was about his age. The teenager looked at Mike and suddenly came at him swinging. Although Mike had never met the person he was fighting he suddenly had a strange feeling that he knew who it was. I mean, how many super strong teenage boys could shoot fire from their hands?
"You wouldn't happen to be Eben would you?" Mike asked right after he had punched Eben hard enough in the mouth to make him back up a few steps. The surprised look that Eben gave him was enough to confirm the truth for him. Mike knew that this fight was all a misunderstanding but something was stopping him from trying to clear that up. That something might have been the fact that Eben had slept with his girlfriend. Mike capitalized on Eben's surprise by kicking him in the face. "Just wanted to make sure."
*****
"So is this the last cemetery on our list?" Holly asked Jordan. With all the new vampire activity the Scooby Gang had been splitting up in order to cover all of Sunnydale's many cemeteries.
Jordan pulled a list out of his pocket and looked it over. "Yeah this is it."
"Good," Holly said as she picked up her pace a little to get the cemetery covered. "The sooner we sweep through here the sooner we're going to be able to get home."
"You shouldn't have said that," Jordan said to Holly. "Now we're not going to get home for at least an hour. You jinxed us."
"Oh come on," Holly said, "It's not like our night is just going to get suddenly worse just because I want to get home."
Jordan and Holly stopped in their tracks. In front of them were eight vampires. Holly was strong in her demon form but she wasn't strong enough to take on eight vampires. Nonetheless she quickly pulled her stake out of her bag.
"Whoa not so fast," a tall vampire with a dark complexion said to Holly. "You Slayers are always thinking with your stakes. I am right with my assumption aren't I? I mean, what other girl on the Hellmouth would walk into a graveyard with a stake?"
Holly wasn't going to break the news that she wasn't the Slayer. The vampire seemed to want to talk to the Slayer and if it bought her and Jordan enough time to figure out how to get out of there alive then there was no need to confess anything yet.
"What do you want?" Holly asked him.
The vampire smiled a wry smile. "I'm not one to skip formalities. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Cassio. And you are?"
"Impatient," Holly said.
The vampire's expression changed slightly but the smile still remained on his face. "Okay then I'll make this easy. I want to know where The Living Vampire is and I want to know now."
*****
Mike had quickly realized that Eben was stronger than him and that he was also a better fighter. That wasn't going to stop Mike from trying to get a few good hits in. When Mike had found out that Colleen had cheated on him it had felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest. He had loved Colleen and deep down he realized that he still did, although he knew that he wasn't going to try to peruse a relationship with her. However his feelings did help him to try to cause Eben as much pain as possible.
"Okay that's enough of that," Aaron said as he walked towards Eben and Mike. He held his hands out and said a few words in Latin and suddenly Eben and Mike were standing very still.
"Hello Eben," Aaron said to the fighter that he had only met once before. "I'm Aaron. We met once when he levitated me to the ceiling of the store I work in.
Eben nodded as he remembered. "Yeah I remember. How have you been?"
"Good," Aaron said. "This is my friend Mike and another warrior for the forces of good and all that. This must have just been one big misunderstanding." Aaron flashed Mike a look when he said misunderstanding. Aaron had a feeling that Mike knew exactly what he was doing. Mike gave Aaron an innocent look.
"Oh," Mike said, "So you're Eben. Colleen told me about you."
Eben's lips curled into a slight smile when Mike mentioned Colleen's name but almost as quickly as it happened Eben's lips went back to the way they were.
"I'm hoping that if I let you guys go that you won't start fighting again," Aaron said. He looked at Mike and Eben and they looked like they had calmed down. Aaron waved his hand and suddenly Mike and Eben were once again free to move.
"Sorry about that," Eben said as he attempted to apologize to Mike.
"Yeah," Mike said. "I'm sure you are."
Before Eben had a chance to question what Mike meant Aaron interjected. "So what are you doing back in Sunnydale?" Aaron asked.
"Same reason I am always here," Eben said. "Trouble."
"Trouble?" A large male vampire said as he approached, flanked by about six or seven other vampires. "It's funny that you mention that."
*****
"Three vampires," Colleen said as her and Dawn walked towards Colleen's car that was parked at the cemetery they were leaving. "That would normally be an average number except for the fact that it is probably just a third of the vampires that were slain tonight." Colleen let out a sigh. "I just wish we knew what was going on with this sudden vampire migration."
"I'm sure we'll figure it out," Dawn started to talk to Colleen but stopped as her head suddenly began to swim. She grabbed onto Colleen as she tried to balance herself.
"Dawn are you okay?" Colleen asked, worried that it might be some kind of side effect from the spell that brought out her Key energies.
"It's Jordan," Dawn said, her head still spinning, "He needs our help. I think. We have to go."
"Where are they?" Colleen asked, but while she asked she noticed the swirl of green energy that appeared around herself and Dawn and suddenly they were standing at Holly and Jordan's side. Colleen staggered for a little bit. Teleportation isn't the easiest way to travel.
"Well that was impressive," Cassio commented on Dawn and Colleen's arrival. "Kill them." The vampire's that were at his side advanced on the four teenagers. Holly shifted into demon form and Colleen started fighting too but with this many vampires it was overwhelming.
"We have to run," Colleen said as her and Holly ran back towards Dawn and Jordan who also began to run. Dawn was being supported by Jordan and realized that they weren't going to be able to get away. With the last bit of her strength she teleported the four of them back to Colleen's car where she quickly collapsed into Jordan's arms. Jordan carried her over to Colleen's car and sat her in the back seat.
"What was that about?" Colleen asked Holly.
"Big trouble," Holly said. "For Mike."
*****
Mike and Eben worked together to fight off the cadre of vampires that attacked them. Aaron tried to help by attempting a spell to set the vampires on fire but he wasn't able to connect with any of them. Eben was too drained to use his fire abilities either. The vampire who had spoken earlier made his way over to Mike. He violently picked Mike up and held him so their faces were almost touching.
"You two seem to fight well," the vampire almost complimented Mike and Eben. "Would either of you happen to be The Living Vampire?"
Mike worked very hard not to let his surprise dictate his expression. After a few moments of silence the vampire got tired of Mike and threw him hard into a tree. The vampire looked towards Eben who was fighting off two vampires and started to make his way towards him when suddenly all the vampires were frozen in their tracks.
Eben looked around in confusion and spotted Aaron concentrating very hard.
"We have to get out of here," Aaron said. "I can't keep this up for very long."
Eben nodded his head and helped Mike to his feet. All three of them ran for the entrance to the cemetery. When they had reached the exit Aaron and Mike noticed that Eben was no where to be seen.
"Well that's not very polite," Aaron said.
"Make joke later," Mike said as he ran to the passenger door of Aaron's Jeep. "Drive now."
Aaron's spell had ended and the vampires were now moving quickly towards the exit as well. Aaron got into the jeep and started the engine quicker than the time he thought Xander saw him and Dawn in his car in the parking lot of their building.
*****
"Well this is a great way to start off the school year," Mike said the next morning while the Scoobies were trying to get the books they needed for their class. "Every vampire in town is apparently looking for me."
"Not every vampire," Jordan pointed out, "Just Cassio and that other guy."
"Cortez," Aaron said. "I researched him last night. He's about three hundred years old. He's not a very nice guy."
"Oh really?" Dawn joked with her boyfriend, "See that surprises me." She gave Aaron a playful smile and a kiss on his cheek.
"We should probably hit the books tonight," Holly suggested. "Maybe we can find some link between Cassio and Cortez. Or maybe we can figure out why they would be after Mike."
"That's probably a good idea," Colleen said. "I have a feeling that it's going to be an interesting year."
As the Scooby Gang rounded the corner they spotted a face they never expected to see in Sunnydale High School. There, holding what appeared to be his new books for the upcoming school year and wearing a backpack just like any other student at Sunnydale High was the boy they only knew as Eben. Eben saw them and gave them a smile but turned and walked the other way.
"Oh yeah," Aaron said. "This is going to be a very interesting year."
*****
Author's Note: Wow, this took a long time to get out. I hope this first chapter will leave everybody curious as to what is going to happen this year. And as any first episode should have we once again have another new character showing up in the opening credits. As always, feedback is very much so appreciated. I promise this should be a very interesting season. Also, thank you to everyone who reviewed and also to everyone who emailed me encouraging me to do another season.