Warning: I do not own the rights to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off series Angel, its dark horse comics continuation series, or any of the characters created by Joss Whedon and others in the Buffyverse.
15 years +, Mild to Strong Violence, Sexual References.
F/F, F/M, M/M, Other +
Buffy found herself waking up with her head in a book sitting on a chair at a table and as she soon discovered after pulling her head up out of the book and sitting up straight she quickly realized she was back at the magic box in Sunnydale, a place long destroy during the big battle against the first, leaving the slayer well and truly confused as to how she had got to a place that no longer existed.
"Buffy this is a whole other level of jeepers!" Willow stated as she walked over from the magic box's shop counter, as Buffy stood up to face her bewitching friend.
"You can say that again," Buffy replied as she looked around the magic box, a play which to use to be head of operations for her and her friends, in a town she had once called home. "Am I dead again?"
"Not unless I am dead too which I really hope is not the case." Willow answered her friend, only for them both to be shocked by Giles walking into the shop via the front door.
"What the bloody hell is going on? The whole of Sunnydale is back in fact it is as if nothing ever happened to it barring the complete and utter emptiness of humans." Giles stated as he walked over to the slayer and the witch. "I woke up on the couch in my old apartment which is by far the most peculiar thing that has happened to me in recent years and I am including my brief spell as a child after being resurrected by Angel."
"Clearly some kind of spell has been cast," Willow told them both, only for both Giles and Buffy to look at her with suspicion and blame in their eyes. "Not me, I think I would remember casting a spell to bring the whole of Sunnydale back into existence."
"Well I certainly have not been casting spells, I leave that stuff to you!" Buffy replied to the redheaded witch.
"I guess we hit the books," Giles suggested as he took in the scenery of the shop he had once owned. "Which from a second's observation seem to be all there."
"We cannot be the only ones here, can we?" Buffy wondered, just before two male vampires walked in the front door in full vampire face mode. "I meant non vampire companions."
"It really is like being home!" Willow declared as Buffy charged towards the two vampires in front of them.
Elsewhere in the Magic Box, Xander found himself sitting on a swivel chair within the training room dazed and confused to how he got there as he slowly stood up from his chair and took in the room once more, startled for it to look exactly like it once did and even more confused that he was back in a place long destroyed.
"Crikey! As flashbacks go this is something else!" Xander stated, as Dawn walked in from the back door which lead to alleyway behind the Magic Box, looking equally as confused as her partner.
"I was just putting Joyce to bed and then suddenly I was in the alleyway." Dawn told Xander. "This is the Magic Box…Xander how is this the Magic Box?"
"Your guess is as good as mine Dawnie, but I'd take a bet on something magical gone awry." Xander replied as he walked over to the woman he loved, kissed her on the cheek and hugged her. "Let us just hope wherever we are Buffy is here too!"
"I cannot believe we are back here after all these years." Dawn admitted as she broke off her hug with Xander. "I never thought we would ever be in Sunnydale again…"
Spike, who was just as confused as the others, found himself walking downstairs to the basement of The Magic Box stunned to be back there once again before reaching the bottom of the stairs to be greeted by a male and female vampire duo in full vamp face eagerly awaiting him.
"Got to admit taking out the big bad Spike is going to score us some major points with the boss!" The female vampire stated, creating curiosity from Spike who wondered who their boss could be and what kind of power this boss could have to be able to recreate Sunnydale on a whim.
"Yeah well hate to break it to you both but neither of you are going back in one piece." Spike promised before charging at them both, ready to dust them both and get to the bottom of what was behind all this madness masked as a memory.
Spike quickly overpowered the male vampire, pulling out a wooden stake from his inner jacket pocket and launched it into the vampire's chest, causing him to turn to dust, much to the horror of the female vampire who punched Spike across the face with force and fury, ready to kill or be killed.
The female vampire managed to get in several punches to Spike's face before Spike managed to catch her latest punch when it was in mid-air before launching the same wooden stake he had used on her partner, into her chest, causing her to turn to dust before him just like the vampire before her.
Spike didn't waste time celebrating his victory instead he found himself walking further through the basement where he quickly opened another door, one that led him into another room, a room which was half room and half cage and who else was locked up in the cage but Buffy's son Tristan.
"You lot sure do love locking me up!" Tristan complained, as he walked to his cage door. "Should have known one of you would be behind this."
"Hey, this is Giles' creepy dungeon room, well the shop attached to it is…well was…" Spike mumbled as he looked around the room for a key to the cage door.
"Really? All Giles had to do was ask." Tristan joked as Spike found the key on the floor and picked it up before walking over to the cage door. "Hold up what do you mean this was his shop?"
"Oh, nothing really but somehow you and I have wound up in Sunnydale." Spike answered him as he began unlocking the cage door.
"I thought Sunnydale was destroyed in Buffy's big battle against the first?" Tristan asked, genuinely confused by their circumstances.
"It was and it probably still is but some nutjob clearly has a case of nostalgia." Spike guessed, uncertain to how they were in Sunnydale or how Sunnydale once again existed.
"Are we the only ones here?" Tristan wondered, as Spike opened his cage door. "I mean it cannot just be us! At least I hope that because that would be hell."
"Nice to see you too kid," Spike snapped back at him. "Something tells me we are not the only ones here, so you are in luck."
Buffy, Giles and Willow were sat round the table within the shop floor of the Magic Box, each with a book in hand, desperately searching for some kind of answer to how they had wound back here or what could possibly have took them back.
"I doubt it is a vengeance demon unless somebody has been making wishes again!" Giles stated before Dawn walked in with Xander from the training room door.
"Well do not blame me I learned my lesson when Halfrek left us all homeward bound back in the day." Dawn told the watcher, as she and Xander walked over to the table and sat down with the rest of the gang. "I just hope somewhere back in reality Andrew is still at mine looking after Joyce or else social workers are going to hate me!"
"Welcome to my world Dawnie," Buffy joked. "Although admittedly baby Joyce is nowhere near as hard work as you were."
"Hey, it is not my fault the monks made a key out of me or that some crazy hell god wanted to bleed me to get home." Dawn replied to her older sister.
"No but it was your fault for becoming a big kleptomaniac!" Xander joked with his girlfriend.
"Says the guy who literally got the whole of Sunnydale singing because he was bored." Willow chimed in, eager to tease her best-friend Xander.
"Well I for one am glad that if we have to go through this nostalgic nightmare then at least we are all together." Buffy told the group, attempting to reassure them in a time of uncertainty.
"Well that's rather uplifting love but we cannot pep talk our way out of this mess!" Spike said interrupting the group bonding time as he appeared from further back in the shop and began walking over to the scooby gang. "Clearly something has brought us here for a reason and it is going to take a lot of blood and sweat before we get out!"
"Stating the obvious as ever Spike," Buffy snapped at the peroxide blonde haired vampire as she stood up to face him. "Any helpful ideas on who or what is doing this?"
"I would place all my money on the shadow demon." Tristan stated as he appeared from further back in the shop and began walking over to them both, surprising his mother Buffy by his presence, who had believed her son was dead and gone.
"Tristan," She said with tears in her eyes, as her voice began to break. "How are you…"
"Not too sure," Tristan answered his mother before giving her a hug. "I was supposed to wind up back in the land of the living not in the past of Sunnydale."
"So, you said something about the shadow demon?" Giles asked Tristan, "Not that you no longer being dead is not remarkable it is just…"
"I am the only one who does not belong in this memory world and you think I'm to blame for it somehow." Tristan replied to the former watcher, as he broke off his hug with the mother. "Fair enough, I would probably make that assumption too."
"Nobody is blaming you," Buffy said before looking around the room to notice everyone acting shifty, making it clear they all did blame him. "Well I for one am not blaming you!"
"If you are not behind this and it is this shadow demon, where the hell are, we?" Dawn questioned her nephew, making her suspicions of him truly clear.
"Other than the fact I can assure you it is definitely not the astral plane I have no bloody clue!" Tristan admitted to her, knowing nobody in the magic shop completely believed his words, nor should they, judging by his past.
"I believe you!" Buffy told her son honestly, before addressing the group. "So, here's the plan we are going to take this trip down memory lane all the way home, search the entirety of Sunnydale if it all exists again and then hunt down this shadow demon, kill it and go back to what we consider normality."
The gang were back to basics in a town they once called home before it was destroyed, with the exception of Buffy and Angel's son Tristan Summers along for this chaotic ride it was time for them all to get to the bottom of how they wound up home and whether or not Tristan was as innocent as he proclaimed.
Level One = Completed