EXT.: OUTSIDE THE BRONZE, LATE NIGHT

(Music: "Shake Me", Mint Royale. Imagine a cross between Fatboy Slim and the Care Bears. Only even more mindlessly, sickeningly cheerful.)

(Buffy, Riley, Xander, Anya, Tara and Willow (relax, Daria fans, all will be explained) are leaving the Bronze... a rather dodgy converted-warehouse nightclub, but the only one in town. They are accompanied rather a lot of other people -- in fact, the entire clubful is leaving at the same time. Obviously, someone's decided to close the joint early. A sufficiently bored viewer might take a peek through the door of the converted warehouse and realize that someone's been taking the whole "steamy nightclub" thing way too seriously.)

XANDER: I think we can safely say this sucks.

(A brief description of Xander, for the uninitiated: Tall, black hair, optimistic, self-deprecating sense of humour and general personality to befit your standard zit-faced beanpole, but since ugly, thin-looking males don't generally get on TV, he has a kind of boyish, reasonably good-looking face and a relatively muscular body. Is standing next to his girlfriend in Anya. I should point out that everyone here is neatly paired off.)

BUFFY: The last day before we all have to go away for summer and the air conditioning at the one good club in town goes boom.

(Buffy: cheerleader-beautiful, bottled blonde, athletic, short, dressed reasonably fashionably, standing next to Riley (the tall, strong, soldier-next-door type)... but she has a really nasty job nights. She's the Vampire Slayer, the one girl in all the world with the superhuman strength, reflexes, skill and aim required to take it to the assorted creatures of the night one-on-one, or, as the case may be, one-on-a-dozen-or-so. Despite the considerable B.S. she's gone through as a result, her personality and general perkiness is so close to that of Quinn or even a more intelligent Brittany it's unsettling, though not so unsettling as the fact she can and does get reasonably good grades and has a wonderfully sarcastic wit that she doesn't use nearly as often as she could. No need to worry about the waste, though -- she'll be dead by the end of the chapter.)

TARA: Well, it could be worse... There must be somewhere else we can go...

(Tara: Blonde hair, average height, has what a TV exec would consider "nice-girl charm". In other words, any more shy and she'd be some inoffensive species of rodent. Practising Wiccan in the Hollywood-movie good-witch sense. Set up fairly tastefully by commercial TV standards with Willow. General purpose in the scheme of things unclear as of the end of the fourth season.)

WILLOW: Nuh-uh. Not at this time of night.

(Willow: Red hair, also short, clothing bears a slight New Age influence. Jewish by birth, now a witch (see above). Originally she embodied the phrase "shrinking violet", now fairly self-confident, due in no small part to the help she gives Buffy in researching and defeating the neverending diabolical menaces that hit Sunnydale every Tuesday night at prime time. Had the intellect to go to "any college in the country, four or five in Europe if I want", but instead opted for her local so she could keep fighting the baddies that tend to congregate around the town, what with the Mouth of Hell and everything.)

ANYA: Well, Xander, we can always...

(Anya: Brown-red hair, standard TV-teenage-female looks and dress. Unlike most TV teens, however, her character is actually older than the actress. By about eleven hundred years. She's a former vengeance demon, who whiled away the millennia playing genie to pissed-off women looking for revenge on their former (or soon-to-be-former) significant male others. As you can imagine, some of the wishes she granted were... graphic. Someone Ms Barch would wish she'd known. Lost her powers when she came to Sunnydale (surprised?), as seen in "The Wish". Now stuck as a mortal teenager, albeit an eccentric one. This being the WB, "eccentric" can more or less be covered by the phrase "sex-obsessed", with the occasional conversational faux pas on that topic thrown in. Normally with Xander, with whom she shares a certain "townies-in-arms" camaraderie, as well as a pretty-damn-serious-thanks boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. In small doses, however, one of the single funniest characters on TV today.)

RILEY: Anya?

(Riley: Male character who in the fourth season is introduced as a potential love interest for the female lead(s). In short, the Buffy equivalent of Tom, with similar levels of love, hatred and indifference found among factions of the fans. I wasn't kidding when I said soldier-next-door earlier. Tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired, midwestern upbringing, with training and experience in a cheap X-Files rip-off government/military conspiracy called the Initiative, the chief villains in Buffy S4. Also has experience in helping bring it down, following some really pathetic "I've always followed orders" angst. Still, like his Daria equivalent, I find him annoyingly hard to dislike.)

ANYA: (sharp) Yes?

XANDER: Anya, we discussed this. The... whole thing's not something we talk about, except with each other.

ANYA: Actually, Xander, I was going to suggest we... oh, screw it.

(turns around, trudges off in another direction)

XANDER: Anya, wait! (starts to run after her, out of shot) (O/S) We can talk about sex if you want... [1]

(A nervous pause. They've walked a fair way, and the crowd has more or less dispersed.)

RILEY: So, Willow, you didn't say what you were doing over summer break...

WILLOW: (resigned, with that wonderful good-girl pseudo-sarcasm of hers) Going home for the first six weeks. My parents weren't around much when I was in high school, and suddenly decided we should all get to know each other over summer. Then we're going, as a family, to nowhere, New England. (Riley looks confused) My mother's a great-great-something-or-other of some Satzman guy who took a boat over here earlier last century, and they've organized some big week-long family reunion in a tiny little town called Lawndale because some distant cousin's opening a new hotel there and wanted some big... convention there to drum up business. [2]

RILEY: Oh. You already know I'm going back to Idaho wi-- agh!

(Cut in music: "Rip It Up", 28 Days. Riley grabs his arm in pain, lifts his elbow and sees... a bullet wound. [3])

RILEY: GET DOWN!

(Buffy doesn't need to be told twice, and spins around to face the threat while throwing herself to the ground with all the speed her Slayer abilities afford. Unfortunately, she stays there. Turns out all dropping down achieved was to have the second bullet hit her in the forehead, killing her instantly, rather than the spine, where it merely would have caused paralysis. I'll leave the image to your imaginations, so if you get nightmares it's not my fault.)

(Yes, folks. She's dead. And she's not coming back. So nyer. Change scenes on "... and that's you!")

(A tweed-suited man is sitting behind a mahogany desk -- long time "Buffy" fans recognise him as Quentin Travers, the uber-Watcher from "Helpless" (Watcher, noun: personal coach and researcher for the Slayer in theory, normally a cluelessly stodgy bureaucrat in practice. British almost without exception owing to Joss Whedon's public-school education -- but if he had been there, you'd think he could write them a little less two-dimensionally). Just think stereotypical-old-English-guy. A knock on the door is heard.)

TRAVERS: Come in.

(A similarly suited man enters. His subservience to Travers is obvious immediately from his stance, apparent age and behaviour.)

MAN: Terribly sorry for interrupting you, Mr Travers, but I thought you'd--

TRAVERS: (tired, curt) What is it, Anderson?

ANDERSON: Buffy Summers... the mutinous Slayer... she's dead.

TRAVERS: (slight shock) Dead?

ANDERSON: Yes.

TRAVERS: You're quite sure?

ANDERSON: Yes. Less than twenty-four hours ago. She was shot in the--

TRAVERS: (composing himself) No need to go into detail. A pity. Her wilfulness was easily outweighed by her talents -- I don't think we'll have one as good as her for some time. (pause) Her replacement's abilities should manifest within the day. I take it all of the potential candidates are available and under our education? We don't need another debacle such as Faith's...

ANDERSON: No, sir. But after Faith's calling, and the tracking down of that unfortunate Tibetan girl, there is only one candidate with even a remote possibility of being chosen that we have been unable to maintain contact with.

TRAVERS: (amused) Where is she? Kazakhstan? The Sahara? Australia?

ANDERSON: The United States.

TRAVERS: I'm sorry?

ANDERSON: (nervous) We've been tracking her since her childhood, but her parents, especially her mother, have been extremely hostile to our overtures, as has the child. Legal action has been threatened on more than one occasion. In the end we had no choice but to tactically withdraw, if we wanted to protect our organization's good name in the area. Thankfully, the odds of her being the one are reasonably remote, especially considering her ineptitude in the athletic and strength-related areas Slayers normally... (trails off)

(a pause)

TRAVERS: How long have you been a Watcher, Anderson?

ANDERSON: Thirteen years, sir. Entered the Academy immediately upon leaving secondary school.

TRAVERS: In time, you will come to realize that should you make assumptions such as that one, the opposite invariably occurs. Be sure to keep an eye on her.

(Music: "Love Torn Us Under", Manic Street Preachers)

(Daria is sitting on a bench, fiddling absently with a twig, looking so depressed even the untrained eye can spot it. For the Buffy fans, this is saying a lot -- normally, if hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, [4] she's a scarecrow. Her facial expressions are generally restricted to either a rigid deadpan frown or a rigid deadpan smirk (aka the Mona Lisa smile). Brown, shoulder-length hair. Green zip-up jacket covers a burnt-orange shirt -- think of the worst possible clash of colours. Knee-length pleated black skirt, and shit-kicker [5] boots generally agreed to be steel-capped Docs among fans, although there's no evidence to support it. Oh, and big, thick, black-rim glasses. Set the scene a night or two after her... discussion with best friend Jane in "Dye! Dye! My Darling". To summarise, she's gotten into a fight with her over a mutual boyfriend in that most tired of soap-opera clichés. Anyone else remember when Daria didn't need that to be a good show? End rant. In her usual form, the best deadpan sarcasm on TV today, no contest. Right now, well... normally it takes a bulldozer to get her out of bed before the alarm (and after it, for that matter). Out of bed, bedroom and window at night... you get the idea. She isn't sleeping, and is generally feeling like emotional landfill. Which is a problem, because a year ago she didn't have any emotions she'd outwardly acknowledge.)

DARIA: (sighs, to herself) I don't believe this is happening. This isn't happening. (lets her head settle into her hands, and briefly looks like she's about to sob. She doesn't, but looks up suddenly, and over her right shoulder. A tall, dark figure with overstyled hair comes out of the shadows in that general direction.) Go ahead, kill me. I don't really care right now. [6]

(The tall, dark figure steps forward, into the limited light. His face looks like something out of some trashy vampire TV show. Three guesses which.)

VAMPIRE: (suitably inhuman growl) My pleasure.

(He leaps. All sound fades out. Daria rolls out of the way, base fear and instinct saving her life. He crashes, sprawling over the bench, and she starts to back away, slowly, terrified. Any concept of rational thought on her part right now has gone out the window, replaced with sheer primal terror and that instinct thing. Not completely beneficial instinct as it turns out, since she's backing towards a tree and the vampire, now on his feet, has every other means of escape covered. She turns to the tree and starts scrabbling for a grip, her hand grabbing a long, narrow, low, stripped-bare branch and ripping off a good length without apparent effort. The vampire stomps in closer, taking a sizable chunk out of the distance between them in one step. Daria takes a flimsy, desperate, telegraphed swing at him with the branch, which he effortlessly sidesteps, still going towards her, but opening up an escape route around from the bench. She steps back towards it, not thinking to run. The vampire comes forward, moves onto one foot for another leap, and she brings in the branch again, at the same angle with a bit more velocity. It slams into the vampire's ear, and carries along with him for about half a metre, and he slams into the tree -- with his heart conveniently where the broken-off stump of the branch is. Said vampire quickly goes grey (literally) and dissolves into a cloud of dust. Daria just looks at the branch, not fully comprehending, and hears a faint rustle in the bushes, an owl hooting, sees a suspicious black van parked across the road, two more dark figures approaching in the distance, and now she breaks into a run...)

(A young man of British appearance is furiously pulling out a mobile phone and dialling.)

MAN: Yes, hello. Travers, please. Mr Quentin Travers...

CUT TO:
INT.: JANE'S ROOM.

(Music: "Slowdance", Something for Kate)

(We're in the room of Daria's aforementioned best friend Jane Lane, an overhead shot of her giving a good look at her in bed in the half-light, asleep. An aspiring artist with that wonderful bed hair any Daria fan who's seen it knows and loves. She's still in a state of warm war with the title character after her boyfriend Tom first kissed Daria, who quickly told her, leading to a breakup with the guy and a crying-out-loud argument with Daria for the big pre-movie cliffhanger. A loud thump-and-rattle comes from off screen, and Jane stirs, getting up reluctantly and staggering out of the room. Cut to the house's front door from her POV. She opens it, and there's Daria, looking pathetic and terrified -- but not exhausted -- worlds away from her usual stoic stiff upper lip. Cut to and fade on Jane's face.)