Somewhere in a suburb in San Francisco, a man, pinned to the ground, shouts for help. He’s surrounded by three zompires, one of which bares it’s teeth and bites it’s own wrist. It then pushes it’s wound into the man’s mouth, attempting to force him to drink. Just as his muffled cries try to speak over the flesh crushing his mouth, the zompire goes flying backward, kicked in the jaw by a slim, size-seven shoe.

Buffy Summers pulls her punch back as the zompire hits the ground. “I’m getting really tired of cleaning up after your siring spree.” There’s no obvious response to her quipping – the mindless creature just starts to get back up again. Buffy turns to the other two, still hovering over their victim, who’s raising his arms to defend himself. Buffy turns round. “Hey, dumb and dumber. He doesn’t want to join the club. And neither do I.” She suddenly has a stake in each hand, pulled from the strap on her thigh.

She races across the cobbled ground, moving to the man’s aid, but the first zompire has recovered quicker than the Slayer anticipated and it grabs Buffy by the ankle, causing her to fall flat on her face with a thud. As the two vampires converge on her, Buffy doesn’t have time to move.

Then, they both explode into dust.

Billy Lane and Detective Robert Dowling appear through the clearing dust. “Sorry we’re late,” Billy tells her. Buffy looks up at him, clawing her way off the ground. “Help the victim. I’ll stake her,” she orders, anger on her face, her expression telling her new ally that she really wants to punch something.

Dowling checks the man on the ground. He’ll be okay, he thinks, and he didn’t ingest any blood. Billy has already made a call – an ambulance is on its way.

Buffy turns herself over, flipping herself so she’s facing the zompire on the ground. The creature is slowly clawing it’s way up her leg. “Don’t you know it’s sometimes best to just let go?” she mouths, moving her stake into position, but the zompire dislodges it from her grip and she drops the weapon in surprise.

“What the Hell?” she gasps in pain, as the demon grabs her arm. Without much effort, it twists Buffy around, and slams her face back down into the floor. The zompire, satisfied it can run, races off to escape.

Billy watches on, racing to Buffy’s side. “We’ve got to go after her. What if she sires someone else?” Buffy shakes her head. “The sun’s rising. She’s crawling back to whatever hole she calls a nest. Just like we should be doing.” She feels like yawning, but she holds it in.

Billy is confused as Buffy checks and rubs her injured arm. “But we can slay her.”

Buffy, her nose slightly bloody, tells him that while she appreciates his youthful enthusiasm, his grandmother only lets him crash with her on the proviso that he skypes her after every single patrol – and they’re already behind. “We’ll dust the zompire tomorrow night.” She looks over to Dowling, who’s waving the ambulance off as it takes the survivor away. “Did we get to him in time?”

Dowling nods. “He’s definitely not a vampire. Paramedics managed to stabilise, but he lost a lot of blood. The Task Force is on it’s way to clean up this mess.” As he approaches, he catches Buffy rubbing her arm where she was grabbed. He asks if she needs the paramedic to check her over. She shrugs off his concerns – she knows what having an arm torn off feels like, and jokes that hers doesn’t look torn off. She rubs her arm again though, checking her wrist. “But that zompire was all kinds of strong. Even for the post-Seed variety.”

Billy ponders. “They’re siring by instincts. Maybe they’re evolving?” He suggests they do more research, with the detective suggesting looking over the Task Force’s notes for any kind of pattern. Buffy can’t help but smile at them both. “Deja Buffy. Post-fight mortem, next day plan-making, all-a-bit yawny… I think we’re officially a team.”

Elsewhere, in the apartment shared by Xander Harris and Dawn Summers. Xander is urgently knocking on the bathroom door, concerned at the sounds of Dawn being sick, coming from within.

“You okay? You’re not that thing we definitely haven’t been planning for?”

“No,” she answers in return, sitting in a heap against the bathroom wall.

“And you’re not a robot?”

Dawn sighs. “Even Andrew couldn’t programme me to feel this crappy or Ralph this much. I feel like my insides are melting.”

“What do you think it is?” Xander asks, finally peering through the door and willing to trust his girlfriend’s intuition. However, he does have some suggestions: “Bubonic plague? A government-engineered virus? An alien parasite? Probably an alien parasite.”

Dawn looks up at him. She has big grey bags under her eyes, her nose red as a blister. “Really?”

“Or we’ve just spent so much of our lives slaying that we forgot how normal things feel. Like the flu.” Dawn admits the flu would be better. “I kinda like it.”. She gets up as Xander complains about the mess. “Really?”. She hugs him tight. “I like this. You taking care of me.” She doesn’t let go for a while.

Across down, in Buffy’s room at her place, Anaheed, her roommate, is going through Buffy’s belongings, seemingly box by box. “It’s gotta be somewhere,” she whispers to herself, hurrying. Suddenly she’s interrupted and a feeling develops in the bit of her stomach.

“Hey, snoops-a-lot. Find anything good?”

Buffy and Billy are at the doorway. Buffy has a smirk on her face. Anaheed, busted, turns sheepishly to look at her roommate, desperately trying to form some sort of excuse.

“I was lookin for your strappy silver top! Cos I’m going out later, as in tonight, when it would be appropriate to wear a strappy or, indeed, a silver top.”

Buffy looks at one of the already open boxes and picks up a strappy, silver top that’s in plain view on the bed. She holds it up at Anaheed. “Both strappy and silver. Oh, and I have something else for you,” she says, Billy looking annoyed at Anaheed behind her.

Buffy suddenly produces a small scrap of paper and thrusts it in Anaheed’s face, inches from her nose! “Rent,” Buffy squeals, revealing it’s a cheque. Anaheed is genuinely taken by surprise!

“Whoa, this is enough for six months?”

“Thought I’d pay ahead.”

“I don’t get it. If you have this much money, you can afford a much nicer place. With much cooler roommates.” She looks down at the ground. Billy, busy flicking through Buffy’s Vampyr book, asks if he would have a his own room in this quieter, nicer place.

“You haven’t seen the interest on my student loans,” Buffy quips with a smile. “And I like living with you and Tumble.”

Anaheed smiles. “In that case, how does a cup of post-patrol Earl Grey and last night’s Batchelor sound?” Buffy grins. “I’m already on my way to the couch.”

Anaheed invites Billy to join them, but he gestures at the book in his hands. “I’ve got to hit the book.” But he eyes Anaheed with suspicion as they walk away to the living area.

Later that evening, Buffy has called on Dawn. Her sister is surprised to see her as she’s been busy lately, but Buffy replies that Xander called and told her that she was under the weather. Dawn sniffles. “And so over it. I don’t think I can face the toilet one more time.”

Buffy shrugs, ignoring the image. “Nothing a steady diet of ginger ale, saltines and peanut butter won’t cure.” Dawn looks at her. “Thanks, but I’m allergic to peanut butter. You know that. Even the thought of it makes me want to….” And Dawn is gone, racing to the bathroom with almost superhuman speed.

Buffy watches as she races across the room and slams the bathroom door. “Really?” she says, looking at the peanut butter. “Since when?”

As Dawn starts making unnatural sounds of sickness from the bathroom, Xander tells Buffy that she really brings the best out of her sister. Another wave of sickness from the bathroom. “And you’re still bringing it out,” he jokes.

“Is she okay?” Buffy asks him, concern on her face. “The doctor says there’s a particularly nasty strain of the flu going around.” He then notices the cuts on Buffy’s forehead. “And speaking of nasty, what happened to you?”

Buffy says she got nicked by an ancient blade and it’s giving her Slayer healing some trouble. She wishes she knew what Koh’s light weapons were made of.

Xander smiles. “So you’re back for good? No trips into space? No robot, no more working for Kennedy?”

Buffy smiles at his joy. “Yeah, I’m back. My little adventure with Kennedy left me independently… well, not-needing-a-job-right-now, so I’m back to full-time Slaying. Me, a sharp-pointy object and no end of vampires to dust with it.” Her phone beeps: it’s Dowling. She has to run.

Xander teases her about Dowling, but Buffy insists that there is nothing brewing between her and the detective.

A weak voice from Dawn comes from the bathroom door. “Give her a break Xander. Buffy’s not interested in Dowling.”

“Thanks,” Buffy says, nodding at her sister. Then she pauses. “Wait? Why wouldn’t I be interested in a guy like Dowling?”

Dawn rubs her nose with a tissue. “He’s not your type. Alive. Under a century. Gainfully employed. And you’re actually returning his texts.” Buffy ignores her. Dowling is a Scooby now, practically. They work together.

Dawn says work place romances and Buffy have always been a thing. Xander thinks she should be reported to human resources. He looks at Buffy, despite the joke. “We like him, Buffy.”

“Why?” she asks, as Dawn helps her with her jacket. “Because you’re happy,” she tells her sister. Buffy looks back at her.

“You really think so?”

As dusk turns into night, Buffy runs alongside a street, hurrying. Dowling waits outside a warehouse, checking his watch as he spots her. “You’re late. We have to strike before it gets dark enough for them to leave.”

Buffy apologises. “Sorry, I was quashing rumours.”

“Not vampires? Were the rumours at least evil?”

“Depends on how you feel about Xander and Dawn thinking we’re dating.”

Dowling looks at her, smiling. “Terrible. Horrible. That rumour deserved to die a long and painful death.” Buffy grins broadly at his response.

Then she looks away slightly. “We do spend every night together.” Dowling starts to move towards the warehouse, sensing her thoughts. “But the girls, I date… I usually end up having breakfast with them in the morning.”

Buffy looks embarrassed. “Oh. Good. So we’re clear. We’re not dating.”

Dowling now knows how uncomfortable she is, so turns to her with a smile. “Hey Buffy…?”

She looks up at him.

“You want to share some breakfast? In the morning?”

“I won’t tell Xander and Dawn if you don’t.”

A grin. And then Dowling continues with the task at hand. “A complaint got called into the Task Force about zompires setting up at the depot. Giving the proximities to last night’s attacks, that zompire we’re after has got to be holed up here.”

The building is quiet in the setting sun, it’s red brick walls shining in the dim light. Out of an alley way behind them comes Billy, carrying a bag and out of breath. “You Slayers must have super-strength just so you can haul all your gear around,” he pants, catching up with Buffy. She looks over her shoulder at him and asks him what’s in the bag.

Billy explains that he has rope, soaked in holy water, which he read about in Giles’s book. “If we can catch one, maybe we can figure out what’s giving her that extra pep in her step.”

Dowling disagrees. She’s too dangerous, he explains. They have to stake her. Billy is unconcerned. “I went into a church to get Holy Water. I can handle an UberZomp.”

Buffy stops them and interrupts before they can disagree further. “The kid is right. If there’s a new kind of zompire, we need to know everything we can about it.” She turns to Billy, taking the rope from him. “But the detective is right as well, Billy. It’s too dangerous. You clear the deck. I will wrangle Little Miss Stays-Out-of-the-Sunshine.”

As the trio enter the darkened depot, it appears to be empty. A ladder stands in the middle of the room, over a gap in the floor. As they walk in, Buffy yells into the darkness. “Who’s hungry?”

For a moment there is nothing, no movement, not even a sound. Then Dowling points into the darkness, as sets of eyes start to move in the shadows. Then there’s more sets of eyes. And more. And suddenly a horde of zompires, twenty, maybe thirty, rage towards them.

Buffy doesn’t speak or think. She just moves. She flies through the air gracefully, never once doubting with conviction that she’ll land right. She jumps above the crowd, lands on one zompire’s head with her hand and bounces herself up again, propelling herself over the horde like a stage jumper at a rock concert, propelled by the thrashing masses along.

She finally leaps out the fray, as Dowling and Billy begin to stake the horde. She lands behind the zompire’s charge and comes face to vampy-face with the zompire who hurt her the night before. “You’re with me,” she states.

She punches the zompire back as it charges her mindlessly. She ties the rope around the female zompire’s wrists, asking it if she can handle a little rope burn. The creatures wrists begin to sizzle at the rope’s touch and Buffy pulls the zompire closer, letting it snarl inches from her face.

Buffy pauses, a faint air of… recognition? Then the zompire kicks her away and sends her reeling, before the Slayer can question the feeling more.

When Dowling gets to Buffy, the zompire has once again escaped. Dowling asks her why she let it go, but Buffy rubs the back of her head and looks worried. “I think I know her.”

As Dowling stakes another zompire, he asks her from where, but Buffy doesn’t know – she just knows that it was from before she was a zomp…

Her words are cut off mid-syllable. She vanishes in a pool of light and finishes her words somewhere else.

“…Pire.” Buffy looks around. She’s not in the depot anymore. She doesn’t know where she is.

In the depot, Dowling stares in horror and rushes to where Buffy was standing. A warning from Billy comes too late, and a zompire knocks back Dowling. As he falls to the ground, the zompire chomps deeply into his neck and he screams.

As Buffy exits the room she’s found herself in, she finds she’s on a rooftop, overlooking a brightly-lit city at night. It’s shining. Buffy recognises it straight away. “I’m in Los Angeles.”

A voice from behind her, straight to the point and completely emotionless, addresses the view. “In my time we called it V’ahla Ha’Nesh.”

Buffy turns at the voice, weapon still in hand. “You teleported me here? I was in the middle of making a pretty big-slaying break through.”

“Your matters are trivial compared to what the Council wants.”

Buffy looks confused at the newcomer. “Council? The Watchers’ Council is defunct.”

The figure, still keeping to the shadows, identity concealed, tells Buffy that “This is more important than your pathetic Watchers’ Council and that is why you are going to join us.” The tone doesn’t change. It’s not threatening or ordering. It simply speaks.

“I don’t join anything without reading the small print. And didn’t anyone tell you you’re cheating? Teleporting requires magic, which you’re not supposed to have.”

The voice reaches from the shadows, a gloved hand pointing over the city of LA. “We know. You’ve irrevocably changed the world. And because of you, things are far worse than we ever thought possible.”

The figure comes forth and stands before Buffy in the light. She can now see who’s been talking. It’s Illyria.

“But like you,” the Old One states, “I still have power in me.” Her hands start to glow and Buffy is frozen in mid air. She can’t move.

“So you can either join us,” Illyria tells her. “Or perish.”

Buffy looks at her for a moment and then takes another.

“Is there a third option?”