Hello!

So here is my new big project! This will be a series of short stories (a few chapters each) based on a Buff the Vampire Slayer au. I though the whole thing like a TV show season of sort so there is a main plot but there are also side plots/monster of the week episodes. I'm sure this au had probably been explored before (though I haven't read any of them) but I want to stress this isn't a copy/paste of the Buffy TV show, I only borrowed the rules of that universe and adapted them to a Hunger Games AU.

No knowledge of Buffy is necessary – I tried to explain every concept as I went along the story and my beta isn't versed in Buffy so hopefully if anything is confusing we will catch it and explain it.

As for ships – because I know you that's what you're interested in – I would rather avoid a "Into that good night" debacle so let me say it clearly here: there will be Everlark and there will be hayffie as well as a touch of Katniss/Gale. All pretty much canon-like. Every "episode" in the series won't deal with each ship and character equally – which means there will be episodes leaning heavily toward everlark and others more hayffie oriented. You're warned ;)

For the more hayffie interested people (which is everyone who reads me usually) Effie does not appear in the first story (8 chapters) but yes there will be hayffie later and hayffie will kick so much ass. (I'm having a lot of fun writing hayffie kicking demon ass and being awesome, you have no idea)

I'm having a lot of fun writing this I will admit and I hope you will have fun too! It's a bit of crack and a bit of angst and slow burns and romance and a lot of papa!Haymitch and mama!Effie feels and vampires and demons on top. I hope you will follow me on the crazy journey ;)

I am going to publish this as a series on tumblr and AO3 (so maybe subscribe to the series not to miss an episode?) but I will publish everything in the same place on FF for convenience sake since they don't have handy series tools.

Thanks to akachankami for the beta, as usual!

I'm excited! Are you excited?

Katniss, the Vampire Slayer

1.

The irony was not lost on Katniss. Not at all.

Get home before dark, she had told Prim countless times, it's dangerous outside. There are monsters in the shadows.

Prim would always laugh and tell her she wasn't a baby anymore to believe in monsters but that she would always come back before dark anyway. And, of course, Prim being Prim, she never broke that promise.

Katniss, now…

Katniss needed to find food somewhere and since she had already been picked up one time to many by the police nicking from various shops around town, that meant roaming the woods with an archery bow that was meant for school competitions and not hunting in hopes she would eventually find a rabbit, a squirrel or something that would fill her sister's belly. And her mother's too if she could get her to care about the world outside her head for long enough to eat. And, once that was done, maybe there would be some left for her.

She should have headed back home as soon as the sky had darkened, even if it was with an empty bag. Gale had made her sworn she wouldn't stay in the woods at night without him and, while she had scoffed and told her only friend she could handle herself, she was starting to get why he didn't want her alone in there.

The woods felt weird.

She knew those woods, that was the thing. Her father used to take her there every week-end before the accident, before he died. He had shown her every path, every clearing, every nook and every stream… They used to sing together on the very same path she was walking on and the memory of those better days was so strong that, for a second, she was almost tempted to hum to dispel the weird hush around her.

But she knew humming would be a bad, bad idea.

She could feel eyes on her. There was a tickling sensation running down her neck, every hair on her body was raised and there was goosebump on her skin despite the heavy leather jacket that used to belong to her father. She forced herself to relax and shifted her handle on the bow – the only thing she owned that was a tiny bit expensive and she would have sold it ten times if it hadn't been necessary for them to get some meat now and then – peering at the trunks around her. She couldn't see anything between the trees.

But she couldn't hear anything either. No chirping of birds. No rustling of bushes. None of the usual wildlife noises.

She felt like a prey.

There were some dangerous things in those woods. Bobcats, a coyote or two… Bigger wild cats, maybe… A bear or two further up the mountain… A pack of wolves was possible… But they hardly ever attacked humans despite common misconceptions and they would have had to be as starved as she was to come after her.

She quickened her pace, kissing tonight's meal goodnight. There were still some cereals left, Prim would have to do with that for now. But her sister needed proteins…

She was pondering the wisdom of trying to snatch something from the old gas station at the edge of town while the cashier was occupied when she felt the presence just behind her.

One second it wasn't there, the next the tingles at the base of her neck were going wild and she swirled around, arrow notched and ready to fly. She was holding her breath and let it out in a long puff when she recognized the girl in the dark.

"Clove?" she frowned. "That's your name, right?"

They were in Biology together but Clove was popular and thus part of a clique whereas Katniss tended to hang at the back of the classroom waiting for time to pass.

The girl's dark hair parted a little when she tilted her head to the side, revealing an odd sort of wound on her neck. It looked like a little like a bite or a scratch or a mix of both.

"You're hurt." Katniss frowned, finally lowering her bow with some irritation. This was why she had been forced to interrupt her hunt? This was why she had been scared senseless for the past ten minutes, berating herself for telling her sister scary stories that made her jumpy? " How did you end up here? Did you get lost?"

"Bonny and Twill brought me here." Clove finally answered with one of those blinding smiles that kind of girls flashed all the time. Katniss often wondered how much they spent on whitening their teeth and how long she could have made that money last to keep her sister clothed and fed.

"I don't know them." Katniss shrugged, already bored with the conversation. "Do you need me to show you out?"

"I'm waiting for my friends." The girl smiled again, the moon briefly reflecting on her white teeth.

Katniss told herself they did not look like fangs.

"Okay." She shrugged. "Well, I'm going, then."

"I don't think so. They said it's my turn to bring a snack." Clove replied, her tone turning a little sadistic.

Katniss sighed and lifted her hands, bow and all, too used to the big bullies to even be surprised. Not that she ever let herself be bullied. High school had its rules. Prey or predator, there was no in between, and she had long decided she couldn't afford to be a prey. As far as social hierarchy went, she was a nobody. She was on the archery team which meant no one cared at all about her and that suited her just fine. If she played her cards well, archery might get her to college and hopefully then she could take better care of Prim. That didn't mean she let herself be bullied by pretty girls she could have knocked flat out on their ass in about five seconds. The jocks were harder to fend off but Gale's near constant shadow was enough to keep them off her back.

"Sorry, I don't have anything on me."

It wasn't even a lie. She had caved and eaten the cereal bar Mellark had 'forgotten' next to her books earlier in the library. Mellark was always forgetting food around her since she had flat out refused to take it from him and since it had become common knowledge she had been arrested by the police for shoplifting food. Sometimes entire loaves of bread were left unattended where she was certain to find them.

She hated it, resented it.

Yet she was also grateful because as much as she hated the feeling of being a charity case, that was the only way Prim got to eat bread once in a while.

She turned around to put an end to that weird conversation and badly startled when she found herself faced with two girls she had never seen before in her life. The Seam wasn't that big. There was only one high school. But perhaps they weren't from around there…

The one on the left was younger than her, closer to Prim's age, and she had a birthmark that vaguely looked like a strawberry on her left eye. She was very pale, almost sickly so, and her clothes were… Katniss wasn't a fashion expert by any means. She liked sturdy pants, sturdy boots and shirts. The cheaper, the better. But what that kid was wearing looked very much like it had been in fashion fifty years earlier.

The other one, on the other hand, looked older than her. Old enough to already be in college maybe. Her clothes too looked old.

"Good job, Clove." the oldest grinned. "She looks tasty."

They were closing in on her and not in a friendly way. Katniss abruptly walked back so she could have the three of them in sight and her back hit a tree.

"What do you want?" she snapped, not quite afraid yet because… What could a teen, a young woman and a kid do to her? "I don't have any money and I don't have any food."

"Oh, but you do have food…" the kid sing-sang in a creepy tone. "You are food."

And then her face rippled.

It must have been a trick of the light. It must have been. One second her face was normal if you excepted the birthmark and the next her face was all… Frowny and bumpy. Her eyes were glowing yellow and her teeth…

Get home before dark, little duck. It's dangerous outside. There are monsters in the shadows.

Clove's face was wrong too now.

And the woman's…

Katniss didn't stop to check if it was a prank, if one of their friends was hiding in the woods recording everything on their phone or if she would go to school tomorrow to find everyone laughing at the video of the weirdo archer girl running scared in the woods…

She ran.

As fast and as far as she could. She jumped over roots, cut through the trees rather than stay on the path… She knew where she was going even in her panic.

In the end, it was the bow that made her trip. She was still holding it and the tip of it got caught in some bushes. She could have left it behind and kept on running but…

The bow was all she owned.

It was her ticket out of there and her only way to find food that wasn't stealing.

She stopped to untangle it, willing her racing heart to stop. There were no signs that the three whatever were after her, the woods were calm and she had probably overreacted anyway. Now that she was calm enough to think, a prank seemed like the most likely explanation.

At least until she heard the groan.

It was the only warning she got and she spun around, bow in position.

"I will shoot you." she warned the kid with the bumpy face. The kid grinned and… Were those fangs?

"Careful, Bonnie…" the woman cackled behind her. "She will shoot you."

"I wish she'd hurry and do it. There's a bottle with my name on it at home." a different unfamiliar voice answered. That one was male and bored and Katniss almost jumped out of her skin, wondering just how many people were in those woods tonight.

Of course, then, the woman looked down in surprise at her chest where a pointy piece of wood was suddenly protuberating and then she exploded – exploded – into a cloud of dust.

For a second, they all stood there frozen, she and Bonnie included. Eventually, the dust settled and she spotted the shape of the man in the darkness. He was wearing pants that were frayed and dirty at the knees, a shirt and one of those weird waistcoats men always wore in old British TV shows. His jacket presumably had been tossed aside on top of what looked like a messenger bag at the base of a tree. He had dirty blond hair that looked too long and unwashed, his mouth was pursed in a displeased line and his jaw was eaten by out of control stubble. His grey eyes though, almost the same shade of grey as hers, were sharp.

"Aim for the heart, sweetheart." he advised.

And before she could ask what he meant by that or even who he was and what the hell was going on, Bonnie was lunging at her with an enraged growl that sounded like an animal's.

Fear made her react before she could think twice and she let the arrow fly.

There wasn't much range and Bonnie had leaped though so even if she had aimed for the heart, the arrow embedded itself in the kid's shoulder instead.

Was it a kid?, Katniss had time to wonder before the… thing – she was going with thing, it had a weird face and fangs – was on her. She fell hard on the ground, the weight of the monster pinning her down, and she couldn't help a small yelp when the fangs came dangerously close to her throat. She grabbed Bonnie's hair by reflex and pulled her head back, struggling to keep her away from her neck.

"You missed." the man commented conversationally.

She glanced in his direction to find he was leaning against a tree, toying with a wooden… Was that a stake?

"I never miss." she snarled right back. "She moved."

The stranger snorted. "Rude of her. Ask them to stand still next time."

Bonnie was trying to claw her face off and Katniss was having troubles keeping her hold on her. "A little help?"

"Nah. You've got it." The man shrugged. "Remember. The heart. Or I guess you can rip her head off. That would work too."

The man was just as crazy and potentially as dangerous as the monsters, she decided. Assuming he wasn't one of them. They had looked perfectly normal before they went all… fangy.

She wasn't sure how she managed it, she went with her instincts, but she managed to roll them over so she was on top of Bonnie. Which wasn't really any help because she had let go of her bow and she didn't have any…

"Catch."

That was her only warning before something was hurled at her. She grabbed it and slammed it down into the monster's chest before she could even process. It was all instinct. Then, she fell in a pile of dead leaves when Bonnie burst into dust, filling her mouth and nose with stuff.

She coughed and coughed until her eyes were full of tears.

"So… Congratulations, you're the Chosen One." the man declared once she had stopped trying to spit out a lung. "Embrace the probability of your imminent death."

She looked at him with a glare, ready to rip him a new one – first for not helping and then because he might just be one of them – when, as karma would have it, something jumped on him from behind.

Clove.

He crashed hard on the ground on his front and the girl went directly for his neck but he was faster than he looked. His elbow flew back, right into the girl's head, and he managed to shove her off him. He was almost on his feet when she attacked again and made him trip. In a second, she was on top of him and her fangs were deep in his throat. He struggled but was clearly overpowered.

She had thought Clove would rip his throat out like a predator would but instead she was… She was sucking his blood.

Vampires, a voice whispered in her head. Just like in the nightmares that had been plaguing her for weeks.

She ignored it for now.

The stake in her hand was broken. She wasn't sure how it had happened. Maybe two monsters was its limits or maybe she had slammed it too hard into Bonnie's chest. Aware that the man's resistance was growing faint – blood loss, the sane part of her mind supplied – she grabbed her bow and rushed to the bag he had tossed earlier and emptied it on the ground in hope of finding another stake.

There was a flask, a matchbox, an old heavy book, a cross like the one you found in churches complete with a tiny Christ on it but no more stakes. Her only weapon was her bow but the angle wasn't right…

Vampires…

Instinct took over, guided her hands, and before she knew what she was doing she had ripped a good piece of the abandoned jacket off and wrapped around the pointy hand of an arrow before lighting it on fire. Clove looked up then, a startle look in her yellow monsterish eyes. The man looked at her too and it was probably a good thing he could still look at all given the blood trickling down his neck.

"Wait up now, Karen…" Clove said, lifting both hands in front of her defensively. "It is Karen, right?"

She hated Bee queens.

She released the arrow, automatically compensating for the heavier weight of the fabric and the flames, and while Clove tried to crawl back, it was too late, she caught fire. Katniss shot another one in her heart for good measure.

Dust rained down on the man who remained lying there, panting a little.

She was half-tempted to leave him there, run home and pretend the whole evening had never happened.

She remained where she was, a third arrow notched and ready.

"Fire." the man mumbled, pressing a hand against the wound on his neck. "Old school. Not bad. We might make something out of you yet. If you don't immolate yourself first…"

She frowned and was about to ask what he meant when she smelt it. And then she felt it. Somehow, at some point, a spark must have fell down on her because her sturdy brown pants were catching fire. She dropped her bow with a frightened yelp and patted herself until it had died down and she was certain she wasn't going to end up like Clove.

Her leg and her palms hurt but at least she was alive.

Meanwhile, the stranger had somehow pulled himself up in a sitting position. He was swaying a little but his eyes were riveted on her, studying her in a way that made her scowl.

"What?" she spat.

"I don't like you, girl on fire." he retorted and it sounded like a warning.

"Right now, I don't like you much either." she snapped. "Are you even human or are you… What were those things?"

"Oh, come on… Are we really doing this?" he sighed. "The whole denial thing?" He dragged himself to the closest tree and leaned against the trunk, still pressing his hand against his wound. "Toss me the flask, yeah? That's a good girl…"

"Don't talk to me like that." she ordered, not moving one inch to get him his flask.

Now that neither of them was in any danger of getting eaten, she glanced at his upturned bag and inspected it a little more closely. She snatched the heavy book. It was old but she had been wrong, it wasn't black at all. The cover was made of leather, it was kept closed by weird looking gold locks, and on it, in peeling golden letters, was branded the word… vampyr.

The book belonged to her.

The feeling was so strong and so sudden that it scared her and she tossed it away, watching it as if it was going to attack her. But it didn't do anything weird. It remained where she had tossed it, on top of the empty bag. It was just a book.

"Into every generation a slayer is born." the man droned out slowly, quietly, in a way that made her think he was quoting something. "One girl in all the world. A chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer."

She stared at him for a whole minute before scoffing. "You're insane."

"You just killed two vampires." he snorted, using the trunk to haul himself up. "I'd love to hear you rationalize that for me."

He didn't look so good. His skin was clammy and he was swaying a little on his feet.

"You need to go to the hospital." she pointed out. "You need a blood transfusion."

"Not the first time, not the last time." he dismissed. "I need to eat something and you look like you could use a meal too so let's get out of these fucking woods and go somewhere we can eat and talk."

"I am not going anywhere with you." she denied.

That was rule number two. Never follow a stranger anywhere, Prim, it's dangerous.

She had broken rule number one already that night and look how it had turned out for her…

"Look…" he sighed. "You can run but I'm gonna find you again anyway, Katniss. The nightmares won't stop until you accept who you are and monsters won't stop existing just 'cause you wish it really hard."

She startled at hearing her name on his lips but she had the feeling it had been deliberate. To let her know he knew who she was.

As for the nightmares… How could he know about that? She hadn't told anyone.

She had never told anyone about the weird dreams, only her parents had known and her mother had long stopped caring. They had always been there, somehow, for as long as she could remember but never with that intensity. And it was normal for a little girl to dream of monsters, wasn't it? They came and went. She was stressed and so she had nightmares – night terrors – but it had never reached a peak like recently. She had barely slept in the last week.

Every night for about a week she had died in her sleep. Every time she was a different girl. Every time she ended up dead. She hadn't told anyone about it.

"How do you know my name?" she glared, picking up her bow in a way she hoped to be threatening. "How do you know about the nightmares?"

"You're the Slayer." he repeated impatiently. "Here's how it works: a Slayer dies, another one wakes up, she dies, the next is called, that one dies and that brings us to you. I've been sent to help you until you kick the bucket and someone other than me draws the lucky ticket to coach the next dead girl to be."

Her heart was racing in her chest but being afraid wasn't a possibility right now. So she got mad instead.

"You're a lunatic." she accused.

He rolled his eyes, stumbled to his belongings and snatched the flask from the ground before taking a long gulp. "I'm a drunk. Doesn't make me crazy."

She shook her head and turned around, marching away at a determined pace.

"So we're doing this the hard way, then?" he shouted after her.

She didn't stop, she didn't look back, she didn't cave to the temptation of snatching the book on her way. She kept on marching until she was home and then she ignored Prim's worried questions or their mother's empty looks. She went straight to the shower stall and told herself that when she would come out, she would have accepted some of the jerks at school had pulled an elaborate prank on her and a crazy old drunk who might just also be a serial killer had stumbled upon it.

When she slipped into bed, she had almost convinced herself she was shaking because the crappy two bedrooms trailer which rent she wasn't sure how she would pay next month didn't have any heating.

"Katniss, are you alright?" her baby sister whispered, lying down behind her.

She turned around, spooned Prim and held her tight.

It had to have been a weird prank. It had to.

Because if it wasn't and there really were vampires out there… That meant her sister was in danger.

So what did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? Let me know your thoughts, I'm nervous!