Xander

Angel and I rush down the pipes, after figuring out the Master's left to try and find Buffy. Beautiful, lovable, Buffy. Buffy, who means the world to me.

Yeah, we're looking for her.

Angel seems pretty uptight about the whole thing, but I can understand that. He's nervous about her, and I am too. There are so many things that could go wrong down here, but we'll probably stop the Master.

No, we will

Angel stops at the intersection of the pipes, and looks around.

"Hurry up! I can feel something's about to happen…"

"No," Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome says to me. "No, it already happened. She's dead, and we're too late.

"No! No, I refuse to believe that!" I can't take it anymore, and I slap Angel across the face with my cross. The combined pain from the force of my slap and the cross knock him down to the ground, and followed the source of power on my own. I could tell, like Angel, that something had happened, but I refused to believe it. She can't be dead. She slays demons for a living, a vampire should pose no threat.

I could feel the power right in front of me, and I whipped out my cross to defend myself from the Master. He stood there, in front of me, and looked hatingly at the cross. Then he pushed it from my grip and shoved me aside. I hit the wall hard, and I see consciousness slipping away from my grip.

"Xander!"

I can feel her voice, from far away, but it was enough to bring me back into the physical world.

"Xander! Thank god you're ok!"

"Buffy," I manage to spit out in a daze… "Why is your neck all red? And where's your cross."

"Never mind that. Come here."

She pulled me up from my position, and hugged me in a tight embrace.

"Xander, we're too late. We can't find the Master in time."

I could see things more clearly now, but other than the fact that there was a face in my direct line of vision, nothing was for certain.

"No, don't give up hope, Buffy. Never give up hope." My words of encouragement stem from nowhere, seen as I am probably the least hopeful of our entire little gang.

"You're right. No matter how hard things seem, nothing is impossible. Not anymore."

"What do you mean?" By now, my vision is almost perfectly aligned, and I can see the thousands of candles on the walls, dimly illuminating the gigantic, sunken church.

"Look around, Xander. Things are different now. I'm more than just a slayer now." She stands up, and breathes in the air around her.

"I'm more than just a slayer." She says again. "I'm the slain."

"What? What's the supposed to mean?"

She turned around, and I got a glimpse at the most horrific thing in my life. In the last half a year, I've seen a huge praying mantis, invisible girls, a demon in the Internet, and lots of Vampires. But to see Buffy like she is now… her forehead is wrinkled, so that her eyebrows sink down. Her blonde hair is now streaked with black, which is somehow the most attractive thing I've ever seen. While most of the vampires I've seen have green tints about their skin, her skin donned a reddish glow. And her fangs, well, the tips of them, just came down past her lip.

I was frightened, but being petrified has never been such a turn-on.

"Come on, Xander. Just a little bite!" She lunged across the church in one motion, using the combined powers of her new vampirism and her inherited slayer strength. When she landed, the room shook, and I began to scramble towards the exit.

"You know, I think I could go for a little game of cat and mouse."

I did my best to scramble up the stairs, but just like some cheesy horror movie, I tripped on the third step, and fell back towards her.

In a flash, she had pinned down my wrists, and her face was up against mine.

"C'mon, Xander. Didn't you always want it like this?"

Oh yeah, I do want it like that…

"No! You might find Vampires attractive, but that's not me. I like human beings… and demonic praying mantises…"

"Great. Shut up."

And in one swoop, her mouth was on my neck, and I lost my life, bit by bit.