Chapter One: Introduction/Since We Last Met

Some of you dark "underground" creatures may know me as The Slayer. Legally, I'm Buffy Anne Summers. My small circle of friends and family know me as just Buffy. Hi. It's nice to meet you.

I've officially been slaying since I was fifteen years old and living in Los Angeles, CA with my mother, Joyce, and my father, Hank. Thanks to some handy monks, I also got a sister, Dawn, but we didn't realize that until much, much later.

After we shut down the Hellmouth two years ago, my friends and I had nowhere to go.

Since the "potentials", as we called them, now had all the power and training that we really could give them, they were all free to go back to whatever lives they had, if they still had them.

Faith,Robin and Andrew had started a journey around the world to seek out the rest of the slayers that we had created and train them in the necessary ways. Giles was making another attempt at going back to England and Willow wanted to return with him to speak to the Coven about her new-fangled role as a partial Goddess. I should also mention that wherever Willow goes, Kennedy, her new girlfriend and a new slayer, is sure to follow. Much to Giles' dismay, Xander also tagged along as well.

Dawn and I spent some time with our father in Los Angeles, but after two weeks of living with our new step-"mom", I decided it wasn't a place we wanted or needed to be. However, "Barbi" [our new step-"mom" also my father's former secretary] was just all too eager for us to come and stay and at the time, I thought it was better than staying with Angel at his newly acquired law firm/home with his lackeys.

Angel and I had gone through some major things together and at the end we, well, actually just he, decided that it would be better if we weren't anywhere near each other, much less "together". For the last three years, it worked out okay, only seeing each other when either of us deemed it absolutely necessary.

The last time I saw Angel was right before the battle with the First's army. Our time together then mostly consisted of a big hello kiss and him lying unconscious on the floor while I annihilated Caleb. After the annihilation, our time together consisted of Angel trying to determine what the status of mine and Spike's relations were and a whole speech about cookie-dough Buffy.

Considering that Spike had voluntarily traded his undead life to save humanity, he was still in a good light in my book and I had planned on him remaining that way. I didn't need Angel recalling the past when Spike was evil and dredging up the bad memories for me.

Another reason I decided for the stay with our father was Dawn. Lately, she had been talking more and more about going to England with Giles and Willow to study the accounts of past Watchers further. Dawn already had an active part in my slaying career as being my sister. She already got into enough trouble because of my chosen destiny; I didn't really feel comfortable adding "Watcher in training" to the vamps and demons of the world's list of reasons to kill her.

Though, after a rough two weeks of living with Hank and Barbi, I was very seriously considering letting her go.

She would be very well protected. Willow had the huge Goddess magic's working for her. Kennedy was a Slayer now. Giles had extraordinary a power in the magic's himself, not to mention the combat training of being a former Watcher.

Hahaha! Who am I kidding?

Giles usually got knocked out.

However, in my opinion, if Dawn wanted to be a Watcher, there was no one I'd rather have taught her the ways than Giles.

I fabricated a story for my father about Dawn being accepted to study overseas for the remainder of her school years and before I knew it, everybody was on a plane to London and I was alone.

Again.

How Typical.