Late January, 1999

The vampire that was now the soulless version of Buffy Summers grinned as she left Sunnydale High's library. She walked at a human pace, not wanting to inadvertently give away the game so soon. That would just spoil the fun. And she had so many ideas swirling around in her undead brain. So many in fact that she couldn't even settle on which she wanted to enact beyond fooling Buffy's friends and letting Angelus back out to play. The anticipation of going toe-to-toe with him was thrilling. But first, she needed to get him freed from his cage inside Angel and she needed Angel to do just that. It certainly wasn't going to be easy, but it would be worth it.

Concealed by darkness Buffy took off, running through the shadows faster than she ever had. The speed, the strength, the heightened senses of vampirism was incredible! Strong wasn't an apt descriptor! She felt more than strong, more than just powerful, more than she'd ever been as a Slayer. And all of those feelings that had bogged her down before were gone. The weight of her responsibility, the longing to be a normal teenager followed by the guilt that she was letting the people she was meant to protect down. Without that pesky soul and conscience to hinder her, it was like she could finally think and act like the teenager she was. An evil, blood-drinking teenager, but a teenager all the same.

The feeling that was most prevalent now was hunger. She had not fed since she'd slaked her thirst for the first time with Buffy's mother. That had been an ironic twist of fate, she thought with a disturbing grin. Joyce had had to accept that she was a Slayer, and she'd also had no choice but to accept that she was a vampire too; Buffy hadn't given her a choice. The horror on Joyce's face and the fear in her eyes after Buffy had awoken had been oh so satisfying. Buffy would never forget it, pleased she would have that memory for eternity. Just one of the perks of her new state of being.

Buffy allowed her senses to spread out. She got a whiff of a human in the nearest cemetery, so she slowed down to approach her next meal. To her great delight the person she found just happened to be someone she knew: Scott Hope. She grinned, licking her lips before she plastered a neutral expression on her face and stepped up next to her disappointment of a boyfriend from last Fall.

"Hello Scott."

The young man in question jumped about a foot and his arms flailed in response. "Ahh!" He took a couple of deep breaths. "B-Buffy," he sputtered, holding a hand over his heart as he looked at her. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that! You could scare someone to death."

"Mmm, doubtful." She shrugged. "Not like that, anyway." Scott clearly didn't understand the double meaning behind her wordplay. Buffy both sighed and rolled her eyes internally.

"H-how are you?" Scott asked. Although his voice had become more normal Buffy could hear that his heartbeat was still thumping loudly and quickly, and she could smell the adrenaline coursing through his veins. It was delicious. No wonder vampires liked to scare their prey before they devoured their meal.

"I'm right as rain," she replied. "How are you?" It was polite to return the solicitous question, of course.

Scott looked at her a little funnily. No doubt due to her chipper, full-of-life tone that he'd said she was missing when he'd broken up with her. She smiled at him, dropping her human facade just enough to be unsettling, but not making it obvious there was something off about her. He immediately averted his gaze.

"I've been alright. Wasn't it your birthday a few days ago?" She hummed in affirmation. "Happy belated birthday, then."

"Thanks. It wasn't quite the party I was expecting, but it was still killer. It's practically tradition now," she said with a nod to no one in particular. Once again Scott didn't catch her double entendre.

Scott nodded. "Good, that's good." He then seemed to forget he was not alone as he looked back down at the gravestone in front of them.

Buffy rolled her eyes. God, how had she completely missed the fact that Scott's people-pleasing and nice guy attitude was so shallow and self-involved? Oh, well. It was water under the bridge now. She then took a look at the marker Scott kept returning his attention to.

Peter Clarner

May 14 1981 - October 20 1998

Beloved Son

A plan formed in her mind and her mouth widened into a diabolical grin, excited to try her hand at taunting her victim before going in for the kill. That was one thing she regretted about Joyce's death. It had been too quick. She'd been too hungry to 'play with her food.' (Plus, she had a sire and two vampire 'siblings' to stake.) Buffy forced herself to be patient this time. Practice makes perfect, after all!

"You must miss him. Debbie too," she said, tone full of false sympathy.

"So much." He sighed. "There are still days I can't believe they're just gone. Life just hasn't been the same since Pete and Debbie died."

"Mmm," she hummed in agreement. "It gets easier. You just need to give it time. Eventually it'll become bearable." Buffy remembered what it was like when her living self had gone through Angel losing his soul, and then after she'd killed him. It was a surprise that even though she was now evil and lacked a soul that Buffy still felt the deeply painful heartache; it didn't seem to affect her like she thought it would (she wasn't repulsed by the notion of feelings as Angelus had been). Angel had told her just after Christmas that the reason Angelus had been so fixated on her was because the demon in him remembered how she made him feel human-an unforgivable offense (eye roll). And yet at the same time he still loved her, which one would not think possible for a creature without a soul. Vampires may not possess a soul but they can still love in their own twisted way. Spike and Drusilla had been proof enough of that.

Buffy broke the silence that had descended upon them. "You know, Scott, I never did thank you."

"Oh? What for?" he asked, startled at the interruption, eyes full of confusion when he made eye contact with her again.

"For being friends with this guy." She pointed at the headstone.

Scott furrowed his brows. "Why would you thank me for that?"

Buffy shrugged again. "Because if Pete hadn't experimented with chemicals and altered his physiological makeup to become some kind of half demon or whatever monster thingy he was, and then tried to hurt me, my boyfriend probably would've remained a feral creature, killing things indiscriminately, just trying to survive after he miraculously came back from a hell dimension."

Scott's eyes widened to a comical degree, confusion mixing with questioning her sanity followed by a touch of fear. "Right," he said, totally wigging and taking a couple steps backwards. "Uh, I-I'll, uh, see you at school," he said, slowly edging away from her, tone uneasy. "Good night, Buffy."

"But the game isn't over yet," she said, pouting.

"What game?" he nervously asked.

He again smelled absolutely delicious as his adrenaline kicked up several notches. Buffy took a deep breath, savoring the aroma his body emitted. She transformed into her demonic visage, but didn't look at him directly just yet. "The game isn't over until you're dead," she said with a slight lisp, her tone neutral - like she was simply stating they would need umbrellas if it started to rain, not as if she had not just announced his imminent death.

"That's not funny, Buffy! What the hell is wrong with you?!" he shouted at her, voice quivering with trepidation, his heart rate spiking.

"Oh, Scott," she said, sighing over-exaggeratedly, shaking her head back and forth in mock disappointment. "I'm not trying to be funny, I'm deadly serious. And as for what's wrong with me is that I'm free; free to finally be who I am without the yoke of responsibilities that never should have been thrust upon a teenage girl strangling me. The instinct to protect you vanished the moment my soul left my body. The voice inside my head telling me that I shouldn't hurt you because you're a human has been forever silenced. The urge to feed from you, to drink until every last drop of blood has been drained from your rapidly dehydrating body to nourish my own is simply overwhelming."

Buffy took a step in his direction, and finally faced him directly, allowing him to see her demonic form. Scott yelped at the sight but seemed too petrified by terror to make a run for it. (Not that he would've gotten very far if he did try to.)

An eerie quiet settled around them. Neither Buffy nor Scott said a word. She grinned at him, making sure to show every bit of fang she could. His face twisted into abject fear, and his fight-or-flight response finally kicked in as he prepared to flee.

Buffy pounced.

The last sound heard upon this Earth by Scott Hope was a blood-curdling scream before it was abruptly cut off into a gurgle. She drank deeply, slowly, moaning as she satiated her hunger, taking the time to savor the experience. The blood was hot as it flowed over her tongue, filling her mouth with its sweet taste, having lost most of the metallic tang usually associated with blood. Spike was right when he'd said humans were walking around like Happy Meals with legs.

When there was no more blood to be had Buffy relaxed her hold and Scott's limp body fell at her feet with a muffled thud. She licked at her lips, smacking them in satisfaction. "Mmmm." She looked down, studying the prone body of her classmate and ex-boyfriend, his dead eyes staring, unseeing into the distance. It was beautiful. Buffy wondered who would find him. If she had the time she might've taken him back to the school, or maybe the Bronze for an elaborately staged reveal, but she had more important matters to see to. He would just have to be discovered at the grave of his deceased friend, so unoriginal. Hopefully she could add a little flair to her next meal.

Buffy nudged the body with her foot. "Farewell, Scott Hope," she said, rather cheerfully, then disappeared into the night.


Angel yelled out his frustration as he frantically tugged to and fro at the ropes restraining him. He'd quickly shaken off the grogginess from the drug when he awoke again, but he was still too weak to break free. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since she (his brain would not allow himself to refer to the vampire by the name of his girlfriend) had drugged him and left. The demon wanted to let Angelus loose, and he feared what would happen if she succeeded. However, it was not for the reasons one might assume in their particular circumstances.

The thought of roaming the world with Buffy, albeit an evil vampire Buffy, unburdened by the remorse brought about by his soul, feeding and killing for sustenance and pleasure was tempting, so very tempting; more tempting than he'd like to admit. And Angel knew how wrong it was to feel that way, which is why he'd decided earlier that if he couldn't defeat vampire Buffy, then he would commit suicide, and he would succeed this time. He didn't want to be around to watch as she became the anathema of who she'd been while human. He had a feeling that the chaos and destruction they could wreak would be so much worse than his century with Darla (then Dru and eventually Spike); he didn't want to unleash something worse than the "Whirlwind" on the world.

Determined, Angel pulled at the ropes, still to no avail. Next, he began to struggle to where it was like he was hopping in the chair. The legs hit the ground with screeching clacks, until finally he built up enough momentum that he could propel himself backward, crashing into the wall behind him, smashing the chair to pieces. Angel only took a moment or two to realize that he was finally able to tug himself free. Standing, he crossed the room in three long strides and jerked the door open, nearly wrenching it off its hinges. Before he could even take one step over the threshold, he was hit square in the chest and went flying through the air, back inside the room. The crack to the head against the wall was enough to leave him dazed. The blow was hard enough that it took time for his vision to clear once again, finally recognizing that it was her crouching down before him, expression amused.

"I should've realized you wouldn't give up trying to escape, huh?" She grinned at him.

"You should definitely know better than to think I'll be down for long. If I've been taken down in the first place," he retorted, letting his head rest against the wall, concentrating on ignoring the pain and focusing on the vampire before him.

Vampire Buffy laughed and leaned forward. "You are one hundred percent correct about that, lover," she purred in his ear.

This was his chance! Angel grabbed at her forearms, preparing to shove her away from him when her palm pressed flatly against his already sore chest, pushing him into the wall so hard he could feel the pressure on his rib cage. Some would break if she exerted just a little more pressure. Broken ribs to a vampire hurt nearly as much as it did when that happened as a human. He was not looking forward to having to nurse cracked ribs if he managed to extricate himself from this current predicament, so he let go of her arms and relaxed, letting the tension leach from his body.

Feeling his surrender, she smiled, thankfully, not pushing harder against his chest. "Good vampire boyfriend!" she said mockingly as if she were praising a dog having just learned a new trick.

Angel couldn't help the growl that escaped him. This only seemed to add to vampire Buffy's entertainment. With a wicked gleam in her eyes, she straddled his lap, settling herself comfortably.

"Now that we've established that you're not free to leave, let's have a little chat before we move on to the…main event."

"Oh, yes, let's, please do," Angel said sarcastically, rolling his eyes, absolutely done with being polite.

"I've been thinking, and I know, that seems like a dangerous concept, but I'm much smarter than I've led everyone to believe these last three years. It was just easier if the teachers and my parents didn't expect great grades on my assignments anymore after I became the Slayer. And the dynamics with Giles and the Scooby Gang were quite specifically nuanced. Giles is the knowledgeable adult about all things supernatural and well, adult stuff. Willow, the brilliant student whom we can also turn to for exceptional answers and maybe cleverly figure out what a missing piece might be in our plans and so on, using her computer hacking skills to help, yada, yada, yada." Her tone was one of exasperation. "And of course Xander has to be the smart-mouthed half clown, half brave fighter." She rolled her eyes. "Cordy is the snarky queen bitch, half-friend, half-enemy, so that left me to fulfill the role of the mostly literate teenage girl stronger than the average human, who's nearly always nice and needs lots and lots of help to survive the big bad world full of monsters and algebra homework."

"I know you've been hiding your intelligence from your friends just so you could feel like you have a certain role within the group." He raised his head so he could look at her. "But it sounds like you've got some resentment issues going on there. Maybe you should see a shrink. Freud would've just loved you," Angel said flippantly, hoping to throw her off her game.

She laughed. "Ugh, I wasn't too fond of my last experience with mental health professionals." She cocked her head to the left, a look of deep contemplation on her face. She suddenly perked up, grinned and said, "At least this time I could eat the therapist or doctor if they annoyed me too much." She made a hmm noise. "Although, now that you mention it, I think the demons out there with all these grand plans on how to end or dominate the world would definitely benefit from therapy; teach them to adjust their expectations to something a little more reasonable."

Vampire Buffy made eye contact with him. "Take the Master for example. He wanted to open the Hellmouth to bring about Hell on Earth. One little earthquake and he was stuck in a mystical prison for 60 years, having to rely on his faithful followers for food. And then Drusilla restoring the Judge was just ridiculous. If all the people with humanity were burned away, what would you all have left to eat afterwards? I don't think there'd be too many humans left after that. I mean, I'm sure people like Hitler, John Wayne Gacy, or H.H. Holmes would've survived the giant Smurf's lightning touch, but they're all dead." She threw her free hand up in the air, as if saying 'what do you do now'?

"And let's not forget Angelus' positively brilliant plan to suck the world into a hell dimension. Wouldn't the humans have been too busy with the whole 'perpetual torment' thing to get down and reproduce? Again, you're destroying your own food source. What gives?" Her eyebrows nearly disappeared in her hairline at her question.

Angel would concede that she actually made a good point. "Well, being evil and not having a conscience, can, you know, make you a little impulsive." It was Angel's turn to shrug.

"Hmm, well, we're going to have to change that mentality, then," vampire Buffy said, her tone decisive, accompanied by a stern nod.

"Again, there's no 'we.'" Buffy was as stubborn in death as she'd been in life.

She leaned down so that their noses were almost touching, her beautiful sage eyes still as expressive as when she'd been alive. "Beg to differ," she said, then pressed her lips against his.


Joyce refused to accept the fact that Buffy was a Vampire Slayer when she was forced to reveal it in 2x22 "Becoming: Part 2"

All that stuff about Buffy and Scott's relationship and his two friends and Angel is from 3x4 "Beauty and the Beasts." Pete's birthdate is of my own creation and the date of death is when the episode aired. Scott broke up with Buffy in 3x5 "Homecoming" because she wasn't the "larger than life, so full of energy" girl anymore, a.k.a. the girl she'd been before Angel lost his soul and was depressed after she was allowed to attend Sunnydale High again after coming back from LA

Willow tells Buffy that like Angel, she's all Angelus thinks about 2x17 "Passion"

Angelus tells Spike that Buffy made him "feel like a human being and that's not the kinda thing you just forgive" 2x14 "Innocence"

Drusilla states that vampires can love even though they don't souls 5x14 "Crush"

Spike's comment about humans being like Happy Meals is from 2x22 "Becoming: Part 2"

"The Whirlwind" is what Darla called the group consisting of herself, Angelus, Drusilla and Spike during their reign of terror in the 19th century

6x17 "Normal Again" reveals Buffy's parents had her committed to a psychiatric facility when she first told them she was a Slayer when she was 15. She recanted her story and was released after a few weeks. She and her parents never spoke of it again, not until Joyce found out in the season 2 finale

"Beg to differ" is what Ted, the really, really sophisticated and advanced robot dating Joyce, said a lot in 2x11 "Ted"