AUTHOR'S NOTE Sorry about the delay! I should just admit it, I'm a horrible poster! Thanks for putting up with me.

DISCLAIMER I don't own any of these characters…I'm just borrowing them.

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Chapter Twenty: In Which Buffy Tells her Story

"Home sweet home!" Max announced when they led Lorne over the threshold of Terminal City.

Lorne looked around him in distaste. "Home sweet home?"

Max shrugged. "It's not much, but it's better than nothing."

Lorne thought of Pylea. "Well, I've seen worse."

Several transgenics soon met them, along with Spike and Illyria, who had been finally untied. "Krevlorneswath," she muttered disdainfully.

"Nice to see you too, sweetheart," Lorne said. "How's human life treating you?"

"I loathe the day I chose this body."

"Well, nice to hear that's working out for you." Lorne grinned at her, then took to examining Terminal City. He stopped at a window that faced the rest of Seattle and whistled. "And I thought LA was bad."

"Oh, I don't know," Buffy commented. "It's no different than if a barrage of demons came storming through. You've seen Sunnydale, right? I'd think you'd be used to destruction."

"You know, I don't get it!" Max said angrily. "Why do you hate demons so much?" She gestured to all the transgenics around her. "We're apparently all part demon!" She looked over to where Lorne was silently looking out over Seattle. "He's a demon!"

"You don't understand," Buffy replied shortly.

"Then make me understand," Max bit back.

Buffy's eyes flashed. "Fine." She turned her attention to all the hovering transgenics. "Gather 'round, kids!"

Alec snorted. "Kids? You're what, 21?"

"23. But seeing as how I was born in 1981, then here I'm technically…" Buffy's face scrunched in disgust. "Wow, I'm old."

Angel laughed behind her. "Let's not talk about old," he said dryly.

"Why, how old are you?" Jondy asked curiously.

Angel just shook his head. "You don't want to know."

"Anyway," Buffy said forcefully, "I'm going to tell you all a bedtime story." Angel coughed suddenly. Buffy turned to him. "What?"

"It's nothing." Angel looked sad. "Doyle used that same phrase when I first met him."

Buffy glanced sympathetically at him before beginning her tale. "It all starts with a fifteen-year old girl. She lives in Los Angeles. She's a cheerleader, she's popular, she's got the whole, pre-Pulse world going for her. Then, one day, this guy shows up, spouting some nonsense about her being the Chosen One."

"Chosen One for what?" asked Zane.

"For slaying vampires. This guy was her Watcher. He showed her how to hunt vampires and monsters that were out in the night. She ended up burning down her high school gym to do it. But see, people around her didn't understand. They all thought she was crazy. They expelled her from school. Her parents put her in a mental institution. Then she moved with her mom to a town called Sunnydale.

"She thought she could start over in Sunnydale, get away from her calling and all that, but no. First day at her new high school and she meets her new Watcher, Giles, and he makes her go right back to work.

"But Sunnydale wasn't so bad. She met friends instead of losing them. She met Willow and Xander. She fell in love with Angel. But our Slayer can't be happy, so of course Angel turns out to be a vampire."

As Buffy continued her story, Angel began to look distinctly uncomfortable. "And not only was he a vampire," Buffy went on. "He was once one of the worst vampires ever to walk to earth: Angelus. But gypsies had given back Angelus his soul a hundred years ago. He was a tame vampire now."

"Hey!" Angel piped up. "I was not tame!"

Buffy laughed. "Okay, fine. He was a reformed vampire. So this reformed vampire and the Slayer, Giles, Willow, and Xander fought the Master Vampire, who was trapped beneath the town."

"Wait. The Master Vampire, who would be the King or something, just happened to be trapped under the town you moved to?" Alec asked sarcastically.

"Sunnydale was over something called the Hellmouth. The Hellmouth was like a magnet for mystical and evil creatures. If it were opened, Hell would bleed into reality. The Master decided he'd free himself and do that. He killed me," Buffy finished, dropping the pretense of the third person Slayer.

"Funny, you look pretty alive to me," Alec muttered.

Buffy glared at him. "Are you going to let me tell my story or are you going to keep interrupting? Xander gave me CPR. I killed the Master, but the next year two new vampires, Spike and Drusilla, moved in."

"That'd be me," Spike piped up. The transgenics looked at him for a minute before inching away slowly. "I'm not evil anymore!" Spike protested. "I have a soul now!"

"Back then, Spike was vicious and Drusilla was insane. She killed the Slayer who was called to replace me when I was killed. They teamed up with Angel when he lost his soul."

"How did he lose his soul?" Max asked.

"I slept with him," Buffy answered, fixing her with a look.

"Oh."

"Angelus awoke the demon Acathla, who would suck the world into Hell. I had to kill him to stop it."

"God, do any of you people stay dead?" Alec asked, looking now at Angel.

"Hey!" Spike broke in. "I helped you there! Remember, I helped you against Angel!"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Your intentions were hardly noble, Spike. Now, NO more interruptions! Just before I killed Angel, Willow managed to restore his soul. But it didn't matter, because only Angel's blood would kill Acathla whether he had a soul or not. I drove my sword through his heart.

"Turned out that the next new Slayer, Faith, had an evil and homicidal streak. She betrayed us to the Mayor of Sunnydale, who became a pure demon on my Graduation Day. We had to blow up the high school with him inside.

"When I went to college, I found out about a government operation called the Initiative trying to harness demonic power." Buffy paused. "Not too unlike Manticore actually. Except their prized Frankenstein demonoid Adam turned out to be evil and homicidal also and the Initiative was destroyed.

"The next year, a Hell God came stomping into town and tried to kidnap my newly-created 14-year-old sister, Dawn. Dawn was mystical energy called the Key in human form, which Glory needed to open up Hell and get back to her own dimension."

Logan whistled. "So that's what you meant by complicated."

"Glory managed to start her ritual, but the portal to Hell could only be closed if my sister died." Buffy sighed. "There was nothing I could do except take her place. The portal was closed when I died."

"Again?" Max asked.

Buffy nodded. Her eyes grew distant. "And I was happy. At peace. I was in Heaven. Then, I felt something pull me. It wrenched me from that peace and suddenly I was in my grave. I had to dig my way out from my coffin." She suddenly glanced around. "Where's Willow?" she asked.

Alec smirked. "I think she and Original Cindy disappeared a while ago."

Max laughed. "I was wondering if those two would hook up."

"I'm glad she's gone," Buffy said. "See, it was her who brought me back to life. After that, Willow became completely addicted to magic. When her girlfriend Tara was killed, Will lost her mind. She absorbed herself in black magic. After she hunted down Tara's killer, she skinned him alive. The pain in the world was too much for her and she tried to end it, but Xander found her before she lost it completely."

"Wow," Jondy whispered.

"And then the First Evil." Buffy's voice dropped. "The last battle. Max, I told you about that."

"Yeah," Max said quietly. "The Sunnydale Crater."

"Wait," Jace spoke up for the first time. "You mean the Sunnydale you used to live in is the same place as the Sunnydale Crater?"

Buffy nodded. "So there you go. That's why I hate demons. I've been fighting them since I was fifteen. I've lost almost everyone I've ever known to demons or vampires. Kendra, Anya, Jenny," she listed for effect.

"Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley, the Oracles, and Fred," Angel added, although he knew the names meant little to the transgenics. "And Buffy."

Everyone was silent. The transgenics were trying to comprehend everything they'd just heard and trying to believe it. Buffy and Angel were lost in their memories.

"Drusilla too," Spike suddenly said. Buffy and Angel turned to glare at him. "What?" he asked defensively. "I lost her to a fungus demon!"

Buffy rolled her eyes and ignored him. "The only two people I've ever lost in my life who weren't killed by something demonic were Tara and my mother." She was quiet for a moment. "In a way, that makes their deaths even more sad. Do you understand now?"

One by one, the transgenics nodded.

Buffy got up and headed for the door. She stopped and, without turning around, said, "I don't hate you. You can't help what you are. But you have to understand that demons are the reason that I was happiest when I was dead. That's hard to get over." She left the Manticore children watching after her.

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The Answer to the Last Trivia Questions

1. Buffy describes herself as "she who hangs out a lot in cemeteries" when she's explaining what a Slayer is to Riley in "Doomed" in season four.

2. Buffy met Doyle in "I Will Remember You" in season one of Angel, but she was too upset about Angel sneaking into Sunnydale over Thanksgiving and not telling her.

3. "Mandy" is the first song that Angel sings for Lorne at Caritas.

Today's Trivia Question Is:

Spike's intentions were definitely not noble when he offered the help Buffy against Angelus. Why did he offer to help?

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Review Responses

Gylzgurl Yes, Lorne is one of my favorite characters too. One other character from Angel will be coming in later in the story, so keep your eyes peeled! Good job on the trivia, you were 3 for 3!

Anna Of course Lorne had to be alive! I like him too much to kill him. All right on the trivia too.

LittleDrusilla I figured that Max's fear of the Nomalies would make her afraid of Lorne. After all, he doesn't look like any kind of animal like Mole or Joshua or any of the others do and Ben did a pretty good job of getting everyone terrified of the Nomalies. And OC and Willow are just too cute to not have together! All correct on the trivia, as usual!

General Mac Thanks for the review!

Big mak You got two of the three right…good job!