The Chosen One
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis -

--

Nightmares. Somehow she'd hoped she'd never have them again. However futile the hope had been, she'd clung to it.

Now the images came, horrifying enough to a person who had no clue what she was seeing. For her, it wasn't an amorphous fear, but a reality. Monsters of unimaginable evil, blood, death, destruction...

Vampires.

The Slayer tossed restlessly. Her hands curved in her sleep, instinctively reaching for the weapons that would destroy what she dreamed of. One face burned into her memory; a vampire whose power was nearly palpable in her dream.

He opened his mouth... and beeping came out of it.

Startled, Willow Rosenberg shot up in bed. After a few moments, she silenced her alarm clock and shoved her long red hair away from her face, noticing with a distinct surprise that her hands weren't shaking. Somehow, she felt worse that they weren't. The reality of who she was and what she had become sometimes startled her.

She was the Chosen One. Shy, timid, awkward Willow. It was her duty to kill. She still didn't understand it.

She didn't have time for that now. She had to go tell Giles what she had dreamed. Sliding out of bed, she went to her closet to get dressed.

On top of everything else, she had a math test today, too.

"Buffy! It's time to get up! You don't want to be late for your first day of school!"

With a yawn and a stretch, Buffy Summers sat up slowly in bed, idly surveying her room. Cartons lay scattered around the bed her father had assembled last night. Somewhere in one of them was her clothes. Well, actually, her clothes wouldn't fit into just one. She wanted that lemon-yellow skirt with the white butterfly halter-top, but she had no idea which box it was in. Groaning, she flopped backwards into the bed and pulled the covers over her head. She was never going to find it in this room. Might as well get some more sleep.

"BUFFY!"

This time it was her father's voice. Ho-kay. Shoving the covers aside, Buffy stumbled out of bed. A mirror was propped up against a far wall, and Buffy knelt to examine herself in it. "I can't go to school today, Mom!" she called down the stairs.

"Why not, Buffy?" was the exasperated reply.

"I look like something from The Return of the Living Dead!" Buffy wailed. "I don't want anyone to see me like this! Especially if they've never seen me before!"

"You look fine," her mother assured her from the door of her room.

"No, I look awful! Look at my eyes, they're puffy!"

Joyce took her daughter's shoulders and steered her to the closet where she had hung up Buffy's clothes while her daughter had slept. "You look fine," she repeated. "Be downstairs in fifteen minutes."

Back in the kitchen, Joyce picked up her coffee cup. "First crisis of the day averted."

Hank gulped his coffee, and checked his watch. "We let her get away with too much."

Joyce sighed. "I know. But..." Her voice trailed off, and she tapped her short nails on the ceramic pig that grinned foolishly on her mug. Then she unconsciously squared her shoulders. "I'm going to go looking for some space today. For the gallery."

Hank put his coffee cup down and looked at her. "Joyce, I know this is your dream. But I've just got this transfer and we don't know how it's going to work out. We may not stay here long enough to make opening a curio shop..."

"A gallery," Joyce corrected.

"A gallery," he agreed. "Make opening a gallery feasible. Wait a while."

"'Wait a while,'" she repeated. "That's what you've been saying for years. And every time you have such clear, concise arguments about why we need to wait that I agree every time. But when do I get to follow my dreams?" Hank opened his mouth, and she cut him off. "Never mind. I'll wait."

Hank checked his watch again and gulped the last of his coffee. "I've got to go. Wouldn't look good to be late on the first day of work." He set his cup down, then paused. Crossing to his wife's side, he kissed her cheek, then turned to the door. He opened it, then his fingers tightened on the doorknob. "I was hoping this move would be a new beginning for us, Joyce," he said quietly. Then he pulled the door shut behind him.

Joyce sighed and sat down at the table again. A small sound made her look up at her daughter. Buffy was just outside of the kitchen door, but when her mother saw her, she moved forward. "Buffy, I --"

Buffy shot her a bright, brittle smile. "Can I have some juice? I need juice to face a new school. Fresh juice. And an omelet? Please, Mom? Egg whites, no cheese, lots of pepper. Please?"

Joyce nodded and let her hand rest on her daughter's head for a moment. "Anything you want, sweetie. I promise."

With dazzling speed and skill, Xander Harris negotiated the crowded throngs of students outside of Sunnydale High, weaving his powerful-yet-lithe body through breathtakingly narrow gaps in foot and vehicular traffic.

In theory, anyway.

The constraints of reality forced him to shout, "'Scuse me, comin' through, pardon me, 'scuse me, whoa! 'Scuse me, that's your next stop! Please move, whoa, 'scuse me" as he balanced precariously on the skateboard. He looked up to check the path for a showy stop at the bottom of the steps.

Then the sight of her hit him like a thousand thunderbolts.

Okay, so that was the railing on the steps, actually. Xander didn't care. Small, blond, with a bright smile and great... teeth, she was wearing less than some Sports Illustrated swimsuit models he'd seen. But best of all, he'd never seen her before. Which meant that she'd never seen him before. Which meant that she didn't know that he was doofus of the month for the next three thousand years, which meant he actually had a shot at her.

Life was good.

She passed out of his range of vision from where he was lying flat on his back, and the ability to speak English returned to him. Hauling himself up, he tucked his skateboard under his arm and the brain cells kicked in. Willow. He'd been looking for Willow. His math grade had been sliding steadily all semester. It had finally stopped sliding, which was good. Except for the fact that it had stopped sliding because it had hit rock bottom, nowhere-to-go-but-up-and-up-is-too-damn-far-away. That was bad.

But Willow wasn't in sight. Which was weird; it was kind of rare that Willow wasn't in his sight. At least, it had been up until last year. Then for summer vacation Willow had gone to L.A. to study at some study exchange thingie that a college there had put together, a chance for really bright students to get a jump on their studies and experience college life. When Willow had come back, she'd been... different. Xander couldn't quite define the difference, but he didn't like it.

He spotted Jesse, however, and Willow got shuffled to the back of his mind. "Hey, Jesse, what's what?"

Jesse greeted him. "New girl!"

"That's right, I saw her," Xander said, not admitting that seeing her had knocked him on his... pride. Besides, who worried about such minor details? "Pretty much a hottie. So... tell!" They passed through the doors into the school, joining the traffic pattern of students making their way to lockers and classes.

"Tell what?"

Xander made an exasperated sound. Jesse usually was good at ferreting out information. He wrote the sports stuff for the Sunnydale High Times, and usually was the source for the best gossip that didn't make it into the paper. "What's the sitch, what do you know about her? " Jesse shrugged and kept grinning. Apparently lust had short-circuited his reporter's instincts. "New girl!" he repeated. He was first runner up for doofus of the month, and as happy as Xander to see someone in the school who didn't know his loser status.

Xander hoisted the skateboard higher and gave Jesse a look of disgust. "You're certainly a fount of nothing."

"Hey, what else do we need to know?"

"Name, age, measurements..." Jesse gave him a look. "Okay, okay, so we pretty much could guess those. But details, man, I want details!" Xander stopped for a second in the door to homeroom, puzzled. Willow, of all people, late for class? What, was the world coming to an end? Then he shook his head and ducked into class.

"...and then he opened his mouth to say something to me and that's when I woke up." Willow uneasily folded a sheet of notebook paper along its ruled lines into an accordion and didn't raise her eyes above the level of the table.

"This is very bad," Rupert Giles said quietly. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. For a moment, his gaze lingered on Willow's bent head, red hair gleaming in the light that seeped in through the high windows of the library. He had known her for two months now, and still had a hard time reconciling his intellectual understanding that she was the Slayer with his visceral urge to protect such a small, slight, innocent-looking girl. The fact that in those two months there had been no indication of any vampire activity necessitating the Slayer's skills didn't help. Indeed, for much of that time Giles had been wrestling with the idea of whether or not he should somehow encourage Willow to leave small, idyllic Sunnydale and go somewhere where her destiny could more properly be fulfilled.

But her dreams changed everything. As did the newspaper article with the headline reading, "Local Boys Still Missing." "And you are certain you were here? In this town?"

Willow nodded. "I didn't see anything familiar or anything, I just knew. It was here. It was my home. And that vampire... he's here too. He's already here." She raised her eyes to meet those of her Watcher. "I don't know how to find him, though."

Giles sighed and turned to his books. "Then we must find him. Before he finds you."

"Buffy Summers!" Principal Flutie enthused, sounding like he was calling her to come on down to be the next contestant in The Grade is Right. "Sophomore, late of Hemary High in Los Angeles, welcome to our little town!"

"Charmed, I'm sure," Buffy replied, sighing inwardly. God, could this be any more boring? Did they do this in L.A. schools, or was this a small-town thing? She stifled a yawn by pressing her back teeth together and blinked with wide-eyed innocence at the principal.

With great ceremony, Mr. Flutie opened her records. After a moment or two of perusal, he looked up and clucked his tongue at Buffy. "Buffy. These say that your test scores are in the upper percentile for your class and age group."

"Oh, really? Um, okay, I'll work on getting them lower."

He gave her a look to make sure that she wasn't joking. "No. That's good. Except for the fact that your grades don't equal your test scores. Think of it like a math equation."

"Ew. I hate math."

Flutie barreled on, undeterred. "You have your test scores... here." He set his pencil cup on the desk to Buffy's left. "And then your have your grades... here." The coffee cup went to Buffy's right. "And the two of them should match." He watched Buffy blink at him, and sighed. "Your first class is down the hall to the right."

"Thanks." Buffy beamed a huge smile at him. "'Bye!"

"Ugh." Buffy paused outside of Principal Flutie's office and examined her hair. "Okay, I'm not making first period here until this frizz is tamed. Bad, bad, bad hair. No creme rinse for you." She snapped her compact shut and turned to put it in her bag, and collided with a girl walking by.

"Hey! Watch it!" Buffy grumbled and gathered up her stuff. "Oh, wonderful. My new eyeshadow's broken. The youth of today..."

In mourning for her Clinique Passionate Plum Quartet, Buffy didn't notice the boy that squatted down to help her. At first. Then she noticed, and immediately cataloged. Cute in a goofy sort of way, no fashion sense, nice bod but obviously not working out too much. Still... he was a boy. When he glanced up, she offered him a smile. He blinked, dropping half of what he had picked up.

"Can I have you?" he asked, completely earnest. Buffy blinked. Ho-kay, direct and to the point. Before she could cut him off at the knees he flushed and stuttered, "Duh, huh, huh... Can I help you?"

Aw, wasn't he cute? "Thanks," she said, perfecting her sweet innocence eyelash flutter on him.

"I don't know you, do I?" Major puppy dog eyes there.

"Nope, first day at your wonderful school. I'm Buffy."

"Xander... is, is me. Hi."

Okay, cute and drooling was getting old and tiresome really fast. "Thanks."

Drool Boy didn't give up easy, she had to give him points for that. "Well, uh, maybe I'll see you around... maybe at school... since we...," he began gasping like a beached fish, "...both... go there."

Buffy nodded absently, already worrying how fast she could find the nearest bathroom to fix her hair. "It was, uh, nice to meet you." She barely noticed that he hadn't said anything in response as she headed away.

Xander spent a few seconds trying to kick his own butt. His best chance in his lifetime, and he blew it. "We both go to school," he mimicked himself. "Very suave. Very not pathetic." Groaning, he dropped his head and scuffed the floor with his sneaker.

And kicked something Buffy had left behind.

She was still in sight, hurrying down the hall. "Oh, hey! Hey, you forgot your..."

Xander picked up the object and studied it curiously for a second. "Scrunchie!"

But she was out of sight.

"It's estimated that about twenty-five million people died in that one four-year span. But the fun part of the Black Plague is that it originated in Europe... how?"

Buffy blinked and concentrated on keeping her eyes open in history class. Black Death, Boob Plague, yadda yadda yadda... she'd had the same lecture in seventh grade social studies and remembered most of it, even if the details on this one were a little grodier, given that they were older and less likely to have nightmares. Big whoop what happened a million years ago. She needed time to find out what was happening now, here. Sunnydale was a little hick town. It should take her until about the end of the day to be firmly entrenched in the In Crowd. Within a month, she'd be ruling the school.

"...look at the map on page 63 you can trace the spread of the disease into Rome, and then north..."

Oh, great. She had to pay attention now. She glanced around but there weren't any cute guys in the vicinity to lean over. A dark-haired girl across the row hissed to get her attention and slid her desk over. Buffy grinned her thanks and dutifully looked at the map.

Luckily for her boredom tolerance levels, the bell rang in the middle of the teacher's lecture. Buffy smiled in relief and picked up her bag. "Thanks," she said to the other girl.

"Hi," she said, offering her hand. "I'm Cordelia."

Buffy glanced at her. Good outfit, boring hair but great makeup. "I'm Buffy."

Cordelia rose and collected her own stuff. "If you're looking for a textbook of your very own there's probably a few in the library."

"If I have to," Buffy sighed dramatically. "Where's the library?"

"I'll show you, come on." They made their way out into the crowd of students streaming through the hallways. "So you're from Hemery, right? In L.A.?"

"Home sweet home. It wasn't too bad."

"Oh, I would kill to live in L.A.," Cordelia sighed, completely heartfelt. "That close to that many shoes?"

Buffy laughed. She had found her people. Maybe this hick town wouldn't be too bad after all.

They wandered down the hall; it wouldn't do to look too anxious to get anywhere that had to do with school. "You'll be okay here. If you hang with me and mine, you'll be accepted in no time." Buffy nodded earnestly. As if she needed any help. "Of course, we do have to test your coolness factor. You're from L.A., so you can skip the written, but let's see." Cordelia looked her over carefully. "Vamp nail polish."

"Oh, please. Over."

"So over," Cordelia agreed. "James Spader."

Ooo, the girl had taste. "He needs to call me!"

"Frappaccinos."

Buffy grinned, remembering defending them against Jennifer. "Trendy, but tasty."

"John Tesh."

"Ew. The Devil."

"That was pretty much a gimme, but... you passed!"

"Oh, wow, I was so scared." Buffy rolled her eyes, then made a beeline for a drinking fountain, and waited while the girl in front of her finished.

"Willow! Nice dress! Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears."

Buffy wrinkled her nose. Not that she didn't agree with the assessment, but...

The redheaded girl that looked back at them blinked solemnly. "Uh, oh, well, my mom picked it out."

Which, Buffy thought with an inward wince, was sadly, screamingly obvious. Still, she had gorgeous hair and great skin. There wasn't any reason for her to look so bad.

Cordelia's face was set in a sneer that would give her lines in about twenty years. " No wonder you're such a guy magnet. Are you done?"

Oh, joy. Her new best friend was the sort that got off on picking on the less fortunate. Buffy didn't exactly make friends with nerds and losers, but she outgrew pushing them off the jungle gym about preschool. Buffy's estimation of how long it would take her to take over the cool clique as Sunnydale High revised itself downward by about a week. Since it had already shrunk from month to two weeks...

Without another word, Willow turned and left. Cordelia gestured to the fountain and smiled smugly. "You want to fit in here, the first rule is: know your losers. Once you can identify them all by sight, they're a lot easier to avoid."

Buffy rolled her eyes, then smiled brightly. Definitely a week. Maybe less.

They were ignoring the fact that another bell had rung when Cordelia finally brought up the topic of hanging out. "If you're not too swamped with catching up, you should come by the Bronze tonight."

"The what?"

"The Bronze. It's the only club worth going to around here. They let anybody in, but it's still the scene. It's in the bad part of town."

"Where's that?"

Cordelia grinned ruefully, actually looking human for the first time. "About a half a block from the good part of town." She shrugged, laughing. "We don't have a whole lot of town here. But, um, you should show!" For the first time she sounded a little uncertain. Maybe she needed the status as mentor to cool new girl to cement her position in her group.

Buffy nodded. "Well, I'll try." She paused outside the library doors, and heaved a tragic sigh. "I suppose I have to go in. Thanks."

"Sure. So, I'll see you in gym, and you can tell me absolutely everything there is to know about you."

"Yeah. Later, bye!"

The library doors banged shut behind Buffy, and she peered into the gloom. "Hello? Hello? Wow, is this a set from 'The Last Crusade' or something?" She walked forward toward the check-out desk. "Hello, anyone here?"

Turning on her heel, she peered up at the upper stacks -- and at the librarian who had just appeared behind her. "Ah!" She jumped back. "Anyone's here. Wow. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

The librarian didn't look impressed. With a faint air of hostility, he asked, "Can I help you?"

Buffy grinned at him, certain of her charm. "I was looking for some, well, books. I'm new."

He still didn't look impressed. "Miss Summers?" he questioned with raised eyebrows.

"Good call! Guess I'm the only new kid, huh?"

"I'm Mr. Giles. The librarian. I was told you were coming." He disappeared behind the checkout desk and pulled out a thick, heavy book. "I know what you need."

Buffy stared incredulously at the tome he had pulled out. "What?"

"You do need Perspectives on the 20th Century, correct?"

"Yeah, but that's not it." Buffy pulled back as though the book was a snake, or a day-glow artifact from the 80s.

Puzzled, Giles examined the cover of the book. Perspectives on the 20th Century. "But... your teacher contacted me... Are you sure?"

"I'm way sure. They can't ask me to read something that big. I'll die before I finish it." Backing away at something resembling a dead run, Buffy fled the library.

Giles stared after her, startled. "My mistake," he murmured to the empty room.