What I've Become
Prologue

"And that has what to do with me bailing on dinner to hold a couple of smelly sticks?"

The Englishman pinched the bridge of his nose, brow furrowing in the familiar expression of exasperation. "They're not smelly sticks, Buffy. It's incense."

A few feet away, the blond girl looked at the lighting smoking sticks held idly her hand, an eyebrow raised. "It smells like dead people," she remarked, twirling one of the incense sticks experimentally, before adding thoughtfully. "And pine." Buffy glanced down at the tweed-clad man, asking, "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Well, for now, just hold onto it. We'll need it in the center of the circle for the ritual." The man was crouched against the grass and leaf-ridden floor of the Sunnydale Cemetery. He had cleared a space between the gravestones, clearing it free of clutter, and was now using what appeared to be bark dipped in some sort of ink or paint to draw a large circle. "Everything has to be right for the ritual."

"Yeah, remind me about what this whole ritual thing is again?"

The man glanced at her briefly, saying, "I thought we already discussed this."

Buffy leaned back against a nearby gravestone, tipping her head as she recalled, "No, you discussed, I listened, and all I heard was 'blah blah, something ancient, blah blah, something ritual, blah, stuffy English Giles-ness, no you can't go to dinner, very important Slayer things.'" At his glare, she modified it to, "Well, you were kind of rushing me out of the door, I didn't catch everything."

Giles cast the Slayer a wry glance before turning back to his circle. He began tracing a large triangle to fit perfectly within the circle as he explained, "Almost twelve thousand years ago, a very powerful, very old demon named Alkazear was slain by an uprising of smaller demons who wanted his power and influence. He had his spine ripped out, all his internal organs removed and burned, and his tongue sliced in half – and that was before they killed him."

"Bad day for Alkazear?" Buffy guessed, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Erm, quite," Giles agreed, looking nauseated himself. "Either way, the ritual these demons used to kill Alkazear destroyed him as utterly as the demons could manage, but some of Alkazear's spiritual essence remained. Every thousand years, on the anniversary of Alkazear's death, that essence rises and becomes more powerful, creating almost a black hole of energy."

The Slayer guessed, "And that hole does something sucky and dark magic-y the world goes poof?"

Giles gave a grim nod of confirmation. The triangle completed, he had moved on to drawing strange symbols within the circle, leaving the inside of the triangle empty. "Fortunately, there's a ritual to contain the essence, and send the demon's spirit away for another thousand years."

Buffy sighed, leaning back against the gravestone as she added, "And I get to miss Mom's meatloaf. Fun."

Her Watcher finally looked up from his painted circle, giving Buffy a concerned glance. "Why the sudden concern over missing dinner?" he asked. "You're not usually so insistent upon being on time to the table."

Buffy shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest. "I dunno. I've only been back a few days, and Mom's still kind of hovering, so I just want to assure her that everything's still totally normal, you know?"

"Buffy, things will never be 'totally normal,'" Giles reminded her gently. "You're the Slayer. And now that Joyce knows this, she's going to have to get used to the demands this job puts upon your life."

She sighed. "I guess. I just want to be nice to her for now, you know, after everything I put her through." She glanced back down, twirling the incense absent-mindedly in one hand.

The last few days had taken a toll on her mother. After returning from LA, and the resulting fight at the party, her mother was starting to come around to the whole Slayer thing, but she was still very uncertain about the whole thing. She was concerned for Buffy's well-being because of her job as the Slayer, she was still reeling from the revelation of it, and from Buffy's return. All in all, she'd really been put through the wringer recently, and she very much wanted to make her mother feel reassured about the whole thing.

Her friends were still recovering as well. Her relationship with Willow was slowly mending, and Xander seemed to have finally forgiven her for leaving. It was hard, mending all the bridges she'd burned when she'd left. But from the very start, Giles had shown nothing but absolute relief and joy at her return. Buffy was more glad than she could say that her Watcher was there to support her. He had always been there for her, more than her own father even had. And after everything she'd been through, she was going to need that support.

Giles stood, dusting himself off. "There, I think that should do it. All we need now is… this." He pulled a dish of some kind from the bag he'd brought with him. Giles set the dish in the center of the triangle, then turned to Buffy, holding his hand out. The Slayer wordlessly handed him the incense.

He laid the incense aside, then returned to rummaging in his bag, pulling out an assortment of items that drew a raised eyebrow from Buffy. "Is that a tongue?" she asked, hoping to God that the weird pinkish-brown lump that Giles had drawn from his rucksack wasn't what she thought it was.

Her Watcher looked rather disgusted himself. "Tongue of a Kungai, antler cutting of a Chaos demon, tooth of a Lei-Ach… a piece of every kind of demon that slew Alkazear."

Finally, the dish was filled, and the ritual was ready to begin. Giles laid the incense sticks one by one into the dish, speaking in an ancient language that Buffy didn't recognize. Finally, he stepped back, staring expectantly at the circle.

Buffy tipped her head, glancing back at Giles. "That was anti-climatic."

Giles was still staring at the circle, brow crinkled in confusion. "I-I don't understand, it should have done something."

The girl rose from the gravestone, slowly uncrossing her arms. "You think something's up?" she asked warily. The Slayer in her was rising, her senses on high alert.

"Could be." Giles was wary now as well, slowly crouching to inspect the circle. "I brought everything the spell specified. I don't know what I could have missed-"

He was cut off by a sudden rumbling. Buffy tensed, immediately on alert. The air itself seemed to crackle with energy, sparks zapping through the air. As the Watcher and Slayer watched, the very air seemed to tear open in front of them, revealing a portal spilling out light and energy. There seemed to be some kind of pull from the portal, tugging on Buffy and Giles. Wind began to rush past them, leaves being thrown up all around them.

Buffy's eyes flew open wide. "Run!" She lunged for Giles, trying to push him from harm's way, but it was too late. The pull from the portal grew and grew, until Buffy and Giles were pulled off their feet, sucked within the portal. It continued pulling and pulling, leaves spiraling all around, until the portal snapped shut, everything falling into a sudden hush. The graveyard was just as it had been left, only the Slayer and Watcher were nowhere to be seen.

*Sigh* When will I learn to stop starting new fanfics when I should be focusing on my main ones?

Anyway, this is gonna hopefully be a quick one, I only have nine chapters planned out in total (not counting the prologue), we'll see if I can keep it contained to that.

So, my cousin showed me "Repo! The Genetic Opera" for the first time the other day, and I totally fell in love with this movie, I'm completely obsessed with the music. But since Anthony Stewart Head plays the lead in Repo, I got to thinking about crossovers with Buffy, and this idea just wouldn't leave me alone, so now I'm writing it. Also, I was appalled by the utter shortage of Repo! crossovers, especially with Buffy, so I felt obligated to write this.

I'll try to post more soon.

Rating may change in later chapters due to violence. It is Repo, after all.