Buffy Summers struggled through her window and tiredly climbed into bed, still fully dressed. It was past midnight and she had to go to school the next day. Being a vampire slayer was a tough job. Spending every night fighting hell's demons and putting all your friends and loved ones in danger was not something to be enjoyed. Worst of all was being the chosen one at such a young age.

Buffy was fifteen, almost sixteen, when she started her career. Vampires started showing up around her hometown of Los Angeles and terrorizing its citizens or anyone else they could find that would make a good meal. She had seen enough horror films to know what to do and one day, out of self defense, staked her first vamp using a piece of the wooden baseball bat he came after her with. That day on, she had taken it upon herself to slay these demons and save the lives of their would-be prey.

Things didn't go unnoticed by her mother, though, and Buffy's 'extracurricular activities' soon ended up getting her expelled from school. Mom wasn't at all thrilled about having to uproot herself and her daughter, and the two moved to the small town of Sunnydale, California, to try and start over as best they could. Sunnydale High was the only decent school that would take Buffy, and Joyce, her mom, opened up her own art gallery downtown. Again, things seemed to be going well.

The only problem was that Buffy wasn't able to escape the things that made her leave LA. Vampires. It turned out they weren't only in LA. They were everywhere, and Sunnydale was a vampire hot spot. Located on top of a gateway between the earth and the hell below it, strange things always seemed to be happening there. This was something Buffy found out on her first day of school when a very dead guy was found, drained of all his blood, stuffed in one of the lockers in the girls' locker room.

Buffy soon learned about all of this and was contacted by Mr. Rupert Giles, an ex-museum curator in England who came to Sunnydale as her watcher to prepare her to face these evil demons. At first, Buffy was very adamant about not going back to slaying and trying to live a normal, teenage life. However, she found that was impossible and was now officially 'Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.'

Buffy's new friends, Alexander "Xander" Harris and Willow Rosenberg, learned of her unusual job when one their friends was kidnapped by vampires and although he did not survive, became the 'Slayerettes.' Besides their help and Giles', Buffy also had Angel's. He was a vampire but with a soul and they later started dating. Things went as well as could be expected until one night, on her seventeenth birthday, they made love and Angel was turned back into a demon.

The whole explanation for this was simple. Over eighty years before, Angel had fed on a Gypsy girl in Europe. The girl wasn't that bright, but she was beautiful and sorely missed by all of her clan. The elders decided on the perfect punishment for the then Angelus and used their magic to restore his soul. Angelus, who had now changed his name to just Angel, left Europe and moved to America, shunning all other vampires and living in seclusion. Until Buffy.

He began dropping subtle hints to her about things that were destined to happen and the pair became close friends, then lovers. The latter part was what did them in. Any moment of complete happiness, when he wasn't tormented by the guilt his soul constantly reminded him of, would turn him back into a demon. The first and only time they ever made love, Angel reverted back to his former self and began to torture Buffy, her mother, and friends whatever way he could. She had made him feel like a human being and that was not something he was happy about.

He wanted revenge, but he also wanted her by his side, and he would not give up until that was accomplished. He would turn her into a vampire and together they would rule along with his 'children,' William the Bloody or "Spike" and Drusilla. That was his goal, and no one would stand in his way until it was real. Or she killed him.

But she couldn't do that, and he knew it. They were destined to fight seemingly endless battles until she was certain her Angel was gone. Only then would she be able to kill the thing that had taken the place of her first love.

Yawning, Buffy pushed those thoughts into the back of her mind and fell into a deep sleep...