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Note that using the forums for stories is now considered for experimental projects or for new authors who want some feedback from other authors before exposing their work to the reading community. Of course, anyone is welcome to continue to post their material here... but we hope authors will take advantage of the site features for displaying their stories to more than just the forums community.
Question Exchange Student
8 years 2 months ago - 8 years 2 months ago #1
by DonTZ125
Posts:
40
Gender:
Unknown
Birthdate:
Unknown
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
Comments on Exchange Student
- DonTZ125
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Topic Author
This is a BtVS cross-over work-in-progress, originally posted over on Twisting the Hellmouth.
1 – Arrival
She held her sister by the arms, stroking the younger girl’s face as Dawn began to cry. “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it,” she husked, trying to ignore the light of the portal behind her as it glittered off the tears streaming down her sister’s face. “Be brave. Live. For me.” With a final kiss on the cheek, she turned, ran to the end of the platform, and leapt into space. She fell.
“Wheee hee-hee-HEEEEE!!” Sheer joy and exultation caroled from Marta’s throat, as she swooped over the test range at the edge of the Bonneville flats. She had just slashed her best time around the course, and set a new personal best for top speed. Celebratory barrel rolls tightened into snap rolls, then a quick wingover turned into a dive as she streaked back to the deck.
Her earpiece crackled to life with the amused voice of the testing supervisor (and flight safety controller). “Ok, Miss Durst. That’s enough, play time’s over. Bring it in, then head off to lunch. We’ll review your progress in the lab later this afternoon.”
“Sehr gut, Herr Doktor. I will see you at two o’clock,” Marta replied, banking towards the building at the base of the control tower. She flared her wings and spread her tails, rotating herself to a more upright position and slowing as she came in to land. Concentrating, she increased the density of the fire shimmering around her wings, using the flames to physically lift herself as the airflow and angle of attack became unable to provide sufficient lift. Her wings were simply too small to support her unusually dense body at airspeeds much less than three hundred kilometers per hour, and flapping achieved absolutely nothing. It wasn’t until the powers testing staff described the technique of surrounding herself with her manifested flames and using her pyrokinesis as a lifting force that she was actually able to get off the ground. It seemed a dragon-girl last year had presented the same problems; from what Marta had heard, the girl had actually tried using a trebuchet to launch herself!
Naturally, “surrounding herself with her flames” had to be carried out carefully. The Psychokinetic field that protected her from her fire manifestation was snug against her skin. Unlike the PK ‘Superman’ types with fields that could protect their clothes as well as their bodies, wrapping herself completely in fire quickly led to what her American friends described as “a wardrobe malfunction.” She blushed as she remembered the sudden all-over breeze; once was quite enough for that particular experience!
She approached the open garage bay door at little more than a jogging pace, not wanting to risk the ire (again!) of the auto shop teacher. The last time she had entered the vehicle bay at speed, Herr Donner had her sweeping out the bays for a week! She could see various students working on their projects, even though the vehicle lab was physically at the Academy in Dunwich, New Hampshire. No-one had been able to explain to her how the door portal connecting the garage with the range worked, whether it was science, or magic, or –
As she reached the threshold, the scene before her was washed out in a blaze of blinding purple, the edges scintillating with white and blue flashes. Unlike the usual effortless and painless transitions through the doorway, she felt like she had piled into a wall; her nerves were on fire, and she screamed in agony. A human figure appeared directly before her; she slammed into it, cracking her head off the other and sending flashes through her mind. The other person draped limply against her, so she grabbed them and held on. As quickly as it began, it was over. She raised her head from the female form in her arms, then realized she was -
“Fallen! Mein Gott, ich falle!” She snapped her wings fully out and concentrated as hard as she could, frantically trying to slow her descent, but her head was ringing and she couldn’t focus, and she tried to straighten herself but the body in her arms was off balance and pulling her to one side, and she was starting to spin and she flared her tails to try and stabilize herself and the ground was getting closer and closer and Gott im Hummel those were hard-looking rocks coming up and at the last possible instant she wrapped her wings protectively around herself and her helpless passenger and rotated so she was und–
“Buffy!” “Oh, my God, Buffy!” “She fell!” “She jumped!” “That demon attacked her!”
The frantic Scoobies raced to their friend, sick with worry. She had just fallen – jumped! – from Glory’s tower of madness, hitting the portal. The portal had closed, but a winged creature had erupted from the shrinking tear in reality at the last instant, slamming into the Slayer. The pair tumbled to the ground, striking with a sickening crunch.
The demon was on its side, unmoving. Buffy was under a folded wing, so Spike and Xander grabbed and pulled it aside, allowing Willow and Tara access to their fallen friend. Giles stood ready, a crossbow aimed at the demon’s head.
Willow checked for pulse and breath, then sobbed, “She’s not breathing! I can’t feel a pulse!”
“Spike! Help me here!” Xander dragged Spike over, hauling the vampire’s hands into position. “Pick her up gently, cradling her like a child. Keep her as flat as possible! Willow - hold her head and neck steady, she might have a spinal fracture. Move her to that flat spot, right there!” Guiding his friends to a spot where he could work, for the second time in his life the man once called The Zeppo began life-saving CPR on his friend and heroine. He had used basic CPR concepts learned from books and TV to save Buffy’s life not long after they met, and Soldier Boy’s memories had conferred the basics of First Aid; given the dangers of his group’s calling, he had built on that foundation with CPR training and Advanced Life Saving. His suturing and splinting skills had been called on frequently in the past years, and the dining table at 1630 Revello had been washed clean of blood on many occasions. With practiced hands he quickly found his landmarks, and got into position. “Willow, can you make with the breathing? One every five compressions, ok?” The pale redhead simply nodded.
As Xander began his compression count, Dawn reached the bottom of the tower, stumbling slightly. “Buffy! Please, no! Oh, God, no!” Her wails grew in pitch and volume as she staggered towards her sister’s prone form.
“Spike! Grab her, keep her out of the way!”
“C’mon, Nibblet. Let Xander work on your big sis; you get in there, you’ll just make things slippery with all the tears and such.” The one-time Big Bad gently curled the sobbing child into his cold arms, holding her as they watched Willow breathing for their fallen champion.
Standing to one side, Anya noticed Giles’ tense form shift from battle-ready alertness, to a more awkward stance, the bow dipping as his arms relaxed slightly. His brow became furrowed in confusion, and indecision. “Giles? What is it? Do you recognize this type of demon?”
He stood a little straighter, the crossbow dropping to his side. “I – I’m suddenly not – not sure this is a demon. Listen – “
The voice was soft, tight, and sobbing. “Mama, es tut weh. Bitte, Mama ...”
He rubbed his forehead, confounded, muttering, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a demon crying in pain, in German, crying out for its mummy …”
“Bitte, Mama, mach es halt …”
1 – Arrival
She held her sister by the arms, stroking the younger girl’s face as Dawn began to cry. “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it,” she husked, trying to ignore the light of the portal behind her as it glittered off the tears streaming down her sister’s face. “Be brave. Live. For me.” With a final kiss on the cheek, she turned, ran to the end of the platform, and leapt into space. She fell.
“Wheee hee-hee-HEEEEE!!” Sheer joy and exultation caroled from Marta’s throat, as she swooped over the test range at the edge of the Bonneville flats. She had just slashed her best time around the course, and set a new personal best for top speed. Celebratory barrel rolls tightened into snap rolls, then a quick wingover turned into a dive as she streaked back to the deck.
Her earpiece crackled to life with the amused voice of the testing supervisor (and flight safety controller). “Ok, Miss Durst. That’s enough, play time’s over. Bring it in, then head off to lunch. We’ll review your progress in the lab later this afternoon.”
“Sehr gut, Herr Doktor. I will see you at two o’clock,” Marta replied, banking towards the building at the base of the control tower. She flared her wings and spread her tails, rotating herself to a more upright position and slowing as she came in to land. Concentrating, she increased the density of the fire shimmering around her wings, using the flames to physically lift herself as the airflow and angle of attack became unable to provide sufficient lift. Her wings were simply too small to support her unusually dense body at airspeeds much less than three hundred kilometers per hour, and flapping achieved absolutely nothing. It wasn’t until the powers testing staff described the technique of surrounding herself with her manifested flames and using her pyrokinesis as a lifting force that she was actually able to get off the ground. It seemed a dragon-girl last year had presented the same problems; from what Marta had heard, the girl had actually tried using a trebuchet to launch herself!
Naturally, “surrounding herself with her flames” had to be carried out carefully. The Psychokinetic field that protected her from her fire manifestation was snug against her skin. Unlike the PK ‘Superman’ types with fields that could protect their clothes as well as their bodies, wrapping herself completely in fire quickly led to what her American friends described as “a wardrobe malfunction.” She blushed as she remembered the sudden all-over breeze; once was quite enough for that particular experience!
She approached the open garage bay door at little more than a jogging pace, not wanting to risk the ire (again!) of the auto shop teacher. The last time she had entered the vehicle bay at speed, Herr Donner had her sweeping out the bays for a week! She could see various students working on their projects, even though the vehicle lab was physically at the Academy in Dunwich, New Hampshire. No-one had been able to explain to her how the door portal connecting the garage with the range worked, whether it was science, or magic, or –
As she reached the threshold, the scene before her was washed out in a blaze of blinding purple, the edges scintillating with white and blue flashes. Unlike the usual effortless and painless transitions through the doorway, she felt like she had piled into a wall; her nerves were on fire, and she screamed in agony. A human figure appeared directly before her; she slammed into it, cracking her head off the other and sending flashes through her mind. The other person draped limply against her, so she grabbed them and held on. As quickly as it began, it was over. She raised her head from the female form in her arms, then realized she was -
“Fallen! Mein Gott, ich falle!” She snapped her wings fully out and concentrated as hard as she could, frantically trying to slow her descent, but her head was ringing and she couldn’t focus, and she tried to straighten herself but the body in her arms was off balance and pulling her to one side, and she was starting to spin and she flared her tails to try and stabilize herself and the ground was getting closer and closer and Gott im Hummel those were hard-looking rocks coming up and at the last possible instant she wrapped her wings protectively around herself and her helpless passenger and rotated so she was und–
“Buffy!” “Oh, my God, Buffy!” “She fell!” “She jumped!” “That demon attacked her!”
The frantic Scoobies raced to their friend, sick with worry. She had just fallen – jumped! – from Glory’s tower of madness, hitting the portal. The portal had closed, but a winged creature had erupted from the shrinking tear in reality at the last instant, slamming into the Slayer. The pair tumbled to the ground, striking with a sickening crunch.
The demon was on its side, unmoving. Buffy was under a folded wing, so Spike and Xander grabbed and pulled it aside, allowing Willow and Tara access to their fallen friend. Giles stood ready, a crossbow aimed at the demon’s head.
Willow checked for pulse and breath, then sobbed, “She’s not breathing! I can’t feel a pulse!”
“Spike! Help me here!” Xander dragged Spike over, hauling the vampire’s hands into position. “Pick her up gently, cradling her like a child. Keep her as flat as possible! Willow - hold her head and neck steady, she might have a spinal fracture. Move her to that flat spot, right there!” Guiding his friends to a spot where he could work, for the second time in his life the man once called The Zeppo began life-saving CPR on his friend and heroine. He had used basic CPR concepts learned from books and TV to save Buffy’s life not long after they met, and Soldier Boy’s memories had conferred the basics of First Aid; given the dangers of his group’s calling, he had built on that foundation with CPR training and Advanced Life Saving. His suturing and splinting skills had been called on frequently in the past years, and the dining table at 1630 Revello had been washed clean of blood on many occasions. With practiced hands he quickly found his landmarks, and got into position. “Willow, can you make with the breathing? One every five compressions, ok?” The pale redhead simply nodded.
As Xander began his compression count, Dawn reached the bottom of the tower, stumbling slightly. “Buffy! Please, no! Oh, God, no!” Her wails grew in pitch and volume as she staggered towards her sister’s prone form.
“Spike! Grab her, keep her out of the way!”
“C’mon, Nibblet. Let Xander work on your big sis; you get in there, you’ll just make things slippery with all the tears and such.” The one-time Big Bad gently curled the sobbing child into his cold arms, holding her as they watched Willow breathing for their fallen champion.
Standing to one side, Anya noticed Giles’ tense form shift from battle-ready alertness, to a more awkward stance, the bow dipping as his arms relaxed slightly. His brow became furrowed in confusion, and indecision. “Giles? What is it? Do you recognize this type of demon?”
He stood a little straighter, the crossbow dropping to his side. “I – I’m suddenly not – not sure this is a demon. Listen – “
The voice was soft, tight, and sobbing. “Mama, es tut weh. Bitte, Mama ...”
He rubbed his forehead, confounded, muttering, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a demon crying in pain, in German, crying out for its mummy …”
“Bitte, Mama, mach es halt …”
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
Comments on Exchange Student
Last Edit: 8 years 2 months ago by DonTZ125.
8 years 2 months ago - 8 years 2 months ago #2
by DonTZ125
Posts:
40
Gender:
Unknown
Birthdate:
Unknown
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
Comments on Exchange Student
- DonTZ125
-
Topic Author
2 – Making Friends
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Standing to one side, Anya noticed Giles’ tense form shift from battle-ready alertness, to a more awkward stance, the bow dipping as his arms relaxed slightly. His brow became furrowed in confusion, and indecision. “Giles? What is it? Do you recognize this type of demon?”
He stood a little straighter, the crossbow dropping to his side. “I –I’m suddenly not – not sure this is a demon. Listen – “
“Mama, es tut weh. Bitte, Mama ...”
He rubbed his head in confusion, muttering, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a demon crying out for its mummy …”
“Bitte, Mama, mach es halt …”
Giles crouched down beside the crying form, setting his crossbow aside. “C-can, can you understand me? What, er, what hurts?” he murmured, gently laying his hand on the creature’s shoulder. It was laying on its left side, with the left wing trapped underneath and the right wing pulled aside where Buffy’s rescuers had moved it.
It raised its head, looking around in an uncertain manner, muttering, “Wie? Was … ?” The being winced in sudden pain, as it hissed, “Au, mein Kopf …”
Giles’ expression became even more perplexed. The face and voice, although bruised and pinched with pain, were inarguably that of a young girl, with braided blonde hair, fair skin and clear yet somewhat unfocused blue eyes. That the eyes had vertical slits like those of a cat, with tiny horns projecting from just below her hairline, just added to the oddness presented by her wings and tails. The spray of tiny grey scales across her nose and cheeks looked just like the freckles a human girl with her complexion would get after some time in the sun. He thought for a moment, reaching back many years to his German language lessons, then softly said, “Sie haben verletzt worden. Sprechen Sie Englisch?”
The unearthly eyes focused a little more, looking up at him in confusion. “They have been hurt? They who?”
Giles flushed, shooting a brief glare at a snickering Anya, then turned back to the injured girl. “Sorry – I meant YOU have been hurt. Where does it hurt? Can you move?”
She started to shift, then gasped, “Mein Flügel! My wing, it is under me, I kann es nicht move it, it hurts!” She slowly tucked her right wing close to her, then slowly flexed her arms and legs. She winced as she moved her battered body, but gave a little shriek as she tried to put her weight on her left arm. “Aua - das tut weh! That hurts!”
A sudden shout from the group huddled around the fallen Slayer drew their attention. “I’ve got a pulse! Spike, take my keys, bring the pickup over!” Xander rose up on his knees, digging into his pocket, then tossing his keyring to the bleached-blond vampire.
“Right, on it!” replied the Billy Idol-clone, snatching the keys out of the air. Hearing Dawn’s intake of breath as he loosened his arms from around the young girl, he spoke quickly to prevent any arguments, “No, you stay here, pet. Go hold your sister’s hand, let her know you love her and need her.”
“Good idea,” Xander agreed. “C’mon over here.” He had the Key kneel down beside Buffy’s battered form. He wrapped Dawn’s bloody fingers around her sister’s hand, then guided her other hand to the side of her sister’s throat, placing the fingertips against Buffy’s carotid. “Do you feel that? Can you feel her pulse?” At her nod, he continued, “I need you to keep feeling for that heartbeat, and watch her chest moving, make sure she’s still breathing.” He looked up at his CPR partner, and asked, “Wills? Can you stay with the Dawn Patrol, help her monitor Buffy? When Spike gets back with the truck, we can get some butterfly bandages on those cuts.” Acknowledging Willow’s short nod with his trademark lop-sided grin, he rose to his feet and looked around, calling out, “Is anyone else hurt?”
“Xander! Over here!” Giles beckoned the Scoobies’ medic over, standing up beside the strange girl.
As the young carpenter hurried over, he realized what Giles was crouching over. “Giles? What’s going on with the demon?”
“I – I really don’t think she’s a demon.”
Stopping short in amazement, his eyebrows crawling into his hairline, Xander looked at the bat-winged, dog-footed creature lying crumpled on the ground, and stared at the disgraced Watcher in disbelief. Tired, stressed, and in pain, his response was a little more terse than usual as he snapped, “What do you mean – not a demon? Sure looks like a demon to me!”
“I mean, she’s not a bloody demon!” The older man snapped, pointing out odd details. “Quite aside from crying out in pain for her mummy, I’ve never seen a demon wearing a radio headset and throat mike. I’ve never seen a demon wearing a fabric jumpsuit, and while I’ve never heard of this ‘Whately Academy’ noted on the patch on her shoulder, I would be quite astonished to learn that such a thing was to be found in a hell dimension!” His voice had been climbing in pitch and volume, until the last words were shouted.
Xander blinked, taking a step back in surprise, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy there, oh Master of Tweed. It’s ok. She’s not a demon. What do you need me to do?”
Giles blushed; he didn’t normally express his frustration in such a manner. He gestured shortly at the quietly whimpering winged girl lying on the ground. “Quite aside from various bruises and contusions, she may have a broken arm. Her left wing is causing her considerable pain; it was her crying out in pain due to this that made me stop before I simply shot her out of hand.”
Nodding slowly, Xander, crouched down beside the astonishing creature that had erupted from the portal. He gave an uncertain smile, saying, “Hi, there. I’m Xander. I’d like to help you if that’s ok with you. What’s your name?”
“Margritta. B-b-but ev-everyone calls me Marta,” she stammered through her tears. She took a deep breath, then said, “My arm hurts very much, and I could feel something grating inside when I tried to push up with it. My wing is badly twisted, I am lying on it, and it also hurts very much. When I came through … whatever that was, I slammed into that other lady. We hit our heads quite hard.” Her face crumpled in sudden worry, as she cried out, “My head - my bones and skin are much harder, tougher than a normal human! She could have been hurt just from us hitting! I tried to catch our fall but my head hurt, I vass dizzy und could not focus!” Her accent got stronger as she became more agitated.
“Gently, gently dear girl! Our friend is alive at all because you caught her!” Giles knelt beside Xander, taking her right hand gently. “She fell from a high tower, and was trapped in the energy flux of that portal you came through. Do not borrow trouble or guilt that is not rightfully yours.”
“Ja - ok …” She blushed and dropped her eyes under the gentle rebuke, but nodded.
“Alrighty then. Let’s see if we can roll you, and get you off your wing. Can you tuck your right wing in tighter to your body?” Under Xander’s gentle guidance, her left arm was gently brought across to be supported by the right, she pulled her right wing in, and straightened and crossed her legs. “Giles? I’ll need your help here. We’re going to pull at her shoulder and hip, and roll her towards us. I’ll guide her head once she starts to move.” He returned his attention to his patient, saying, “I want you to relax, and let us do the work, ok?”
A commotion behind him made him pause, and look back to see Spike and Tara carefully loading Buffy onto a stretcher, and wrapping her in blankets. He watched Willow’s face focus in concentration as she used her powers to help the duo lift the desperately-injured Slayer into the back of the truck. He turned to Anya; the ex-vengeance demon had started to wobble slightly as she stood and watched while he and Giles worked with Marta. “Ahn? Why don’t you go with the gang to the hospital, get checked out? You got hit pretty hard by those bricks.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, as she simply nodded, then turned and walked towards the truck. He had been worried about having to convince her, fight through one of her possessive fits. ‘She must be hurt worse than I thought,’ he worried to himself.
Spike came running up. “So wot are you lot up to? Are you coming with, or what?”
Xander shook his head, replying, “No, I still need to help Marta here. You drive to the hospital. Buffy needs urgent admission to the ER, Dawn has those great bloody cuts on her stomach, and both Anya and Tara need to be checked out.” He laughed briefly, then continued, “If you could come back for us, it would definitely be of the good. I don’t expect Willow will leave any of Tara, Buffy or the Dawnster!”
The vampire looked askance at the two men crouched over what sure looked to HIM like a bloody demon, but nodded sharply. “Right then, back when I can. You two keep safe; don’t need Glinda or the Slayer getting all pissy with me if you went and got yourself bit.” He turned without another word, and hurried back to the field-expedient ambulance, where Willow was helping the last of their wounded into the cab.
“Right then, where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted?” Giles adjusted his glasses with a slight smirk, then turned back to their patient. He knelt, then firmly grasped a fold of Marta’s jumpsuit and got set. Xander got into position at her head and shoulders, positioned himself, then nodded to Giles. They pulled, gently and smoothly, rolling the injured girl onto her back. They paused, rearranged themselves to pull her to her right side, then started pulling again.
Suddenly, her eyes bulged as her back arched, and she screamed in pain. “Au! Nein! Halte! Bitte ziehe nicht so an meinen Flügel!” The two men froze, then carefully allowed her to roll back down flat. “My wing – it is caught, I am pulling it when you try to roll me!”
Xander scrambled around to her left side, and inspected the situation. “Well, that’s not helping! Marta, you’re sitting on your wingtip. Are you able to lift your butt, while I pull your wing free? Giles will pull at your left hip and shoulder to get the weight off your left side. This will probably hurt, just because we’re moving your wing.” She bit her lip, but nodded. “Good girl. Giles? You ready?” The Watcher adjusted his position and grip, then nodded. Xander took a firm grip on the bony structure of the wing pinned to the ground, looked at Giles and Marta, then counted down, “Ok – after one; three, two, one, gently.”
Marta carefully arched her back as Giles pulled her towards him; this put her weight on her feet and right shoulder, while Giles lifted her left shoulder and hips clear of the ground. As her weight was removed from her trapped wing, Xander carefully drew it out from underneath; he winced, listening to the sharp whine that was a tightly-held scream. “Ok, Marta – let yourself settle back down. Giles – roll her the rest of the way onto her right side.” She slowly let herself down, panting and gritting her teeth, tears streaming down her cheeks, as the older man eased her into a more relaxed position.
While Xander carefully moved her wing into (what looked like and hopefully was) a more natural position, Giles removed his jacket, bundling it up and tucking it under her head. She relaxed her head onto the make-shift pillow, moving only her eyes to look up at him with thanks, murmuring a relieved, “Danke.”
He smiled, quietly replying, “Bitte.”
Xander carefully ran his fingers along the arm bones and fingers of the freed wing, feeling for bulges and irregularities. The bone structure was very bat-like, with the same bones as a human arm, but greatly distorted. “Looks like you got off lucky with the wing. There’s two ‘ring finger’ bones that have some swelling in the middle; they could be cracked. You’ve really strained and sprained the main wing joints, shoulder, elbow and wrist, but nothing’s obviously dislocated. I woulda thought for sure you’d have popped your wing shoulder; landing with my arm wrapped behind me from even a short fall would blow my shoulder right out!”
She gave a watery smile, fighting the urge to shrug. “I did say I am a little more ruggedly. I can take blows and hurts that would cripple a normal person. It would appear however that falling 20 or 30 metres to rocky ground - while carrying a passenger! - is a little past my limit,” she said with a small grin.
He nodded and chuckled, “You may be right, but I’m gonna say more testing of that theory would kinda suck!” He moved to examine her left arm, and felt along its length. Midway down the forearm was a hot, swollen area; she hissed in pain as he palpated the area. “Yeah, that’s broken.” He sighed, then continued, “When Spike gets back with the truck, I’ll use the medic kit and some wood bits to splint your arm and wing bones, make a sling for your arm, and do … something … to support your wing.”
He blushed for a moment, contemplating the next topic of discussion, then sat back and took a deep breath. “I think I should check for any other breaks, but I don’t want to seem all creepy touchy- feely. If it makes you feel any better, this English guy is both a gentleman and mean, so he’ll beat on me hard if you complain about the hands!” He shrugged, and grinned.
Giles nodded with a chuckle, and replied in a dry tone, “Oh, very much so. If this young scoundrel acts in any manner that is at all improper towards you, I can assure he will receive the thrashing of his young life!” He let out just enough of Ripper to make Xander twitch and draw back for a moment, although Marta didn’t catch the byplay. “With that settled, I would suggest the next question to be asked is, How do we arrange treatment for this young lady? That arm most definitely needs to be set and casted, and I would strongly suggest X-rays as well, but even the Sunnydale Hospital staff would be certain to notice the small, slightly unusual aspects of our young friend’s appearance!”
She waved her (right!) hand slightly, dismissively. “That is actually the least of my worries. I have healed from a *badly* set bone in two weeks; properly set and splinted … Ach, I have not tested an arm bone in real life, but I would be surprised if it was longer than five days.”
Giles cocked his head slightly at her tone, proud and sad and bitter, all at once. “Without wishing to be, um, to – to be rude, I must ask – how did you happen to find yourself in a situation where you had the, the need to heal from a bad - badly set bone?”
She seemed to sink into herself for a moment, sighing and closing her eyes. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and held Giles’ eyes in a solemn gaze. “Not everyone, Herr Giles, is as accepting of different as you are, as Xander is. Not everyone is as willing to help those who are different.” Her voice took on a tone of sadness and anger as she said, “There are those, Herr Giles, who are so unaccepting of different that they hunt down and murder those who are different. No matter that the people being hunted have never hurt anyone; that the people being hunted are very often children who want nothing more than to be left alone, who have their own problems caused by their differences.” Her voice caught as she finished her statement, and she was crying openly.
Xander stared at her silently, aghast, horrified.
Giles removed his glasses, polishing them slowly, shaking his head. “My dear girl”, he intoned, “I have no way of understanding what you have gone through, but I assure you, we will do our utmost to keep you quite safe.” He looked up to see an approaching, billowing cloud of dust washing up behind the speeding pickup truck, as Spike handled the powerful vehicle in his usual delicate, careful manner.
“On that note,” he stated in a more brisk manner, “I believe our chariot is returning. Let’s have Xander finish your examination, get you splinted and ready for transport, then we’ll take you somewhere safe, where you can rest and heal up.”
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Marta glanced at Willow, murmuring, “Are you sure there’s just one vamp due to rise tonight?”
“Well – I was …”
Xander hung his head in exasperation. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he grumbled softly.
A/N - Corrections to German translations by Kalahari - thank you!
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Standing to one side, Anya noticed Giles’ tense form shift from battle-ready alertness, to a more awkward stance, the bow dipping as his arms relaxed slightly. His brow became furrowed in confusion, and indecision. “Giles? What is it? Do you recognize this type of demon?”
He stood a little straighter, the crossbow dropping to his side. “I –I’m suddenly not – not sure this is a demon. Listen – “
“Mama, es tut weh. Bitte, Mama ...”
He rubbed his head in confusion, muttering, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a demon crying out for its mummy …”
“Bitte, Mama, mach es halt …”
Giles crouched down beside the crying form, setting his crossbow aside. “C-can, can you understand me? What, er, what hurts?” he murmured, gently laying his hand on the creature’s shoulder. It was laying on its left side, with the left wing trapped underneath and the right wing pulled aside where Buffy’s rescuers had moved it.
It raised its head, looking around in an uncertain manner, muttering, “Wie? Was … ?” The being winced in sudden pain, as it hissed, “Au, mein Kopf …”
Giles’ expression became even more perplexed. The face and voice, although bruised and pinched with pain, were inarguably that of a young girl, with braided blonde hair, fair skin and clear yet somewhat unfocused blue eyes. That the eyes had vertical slits like those of a cat, with tiny horns projecting from just below her hairline, just added to the oddness presented by her wings and tails. The spray of tiny grey scales across her nose and cheeks looked just like the freckles a human girl with her complexion would get after some time in the sun. He thought for a moment, reaching back many years to his German language lessons, then softly said, “Sie haben verletzt worden. Sprechen Sie Englisch?”
The unearthly eyes focused a little more, looking up at him in confusion. “They have been hurt? They who?”
Giles flushed, shooting a brief glare at a snickering Anya, then turned back to the injured girl. “Sorry – I meant YOU have been hurt. Where does it hurt? Can you move?”
She started to shift, then gasped, “Mein Flügel! My wing, it is under me, I kann es nicht move it, it hurts!” She slowly tucked her right wing close to her, then slowly flexed her arms and legs. She winced as she moved her battered body, but gave a little shriek as she tried to put her weight on her left arm. “Aua - das tut weh! That hurts!”
A sudden shout from the group huddled around the fallen Slayer drew their attention. “I’ve got a pulse! Spike, take my keys, bring the pickup over!” Xander rose up on his knees, digging into his pocket, then tossing his keyring to the bleached-blond vampire.
“Right, on it!” replied the Billy Idol-clone, snatching the keys out of the air. Hearing Dawn’s intake of breath as he loosened his arms from around the young girl, he spoke quickly to prevent any arguments, “No, you stay here, pet. Go hold your sister’s hand, let her know you love her and need her.”
“Good idea,” Xander agreed. “C’mon over here.” He had the Key kneel down beside Buffy’s battered form. He wrapped Dawn’s bloody fingers around her sister’s hand, then guided her other hand to the side of her sister’s throat, placing the fingertips against Buffy’s carotid. “Do you feel that? Can you feel her pulse?” At her nod, he continued, “I need you to keep feeling for that heartbeat, and watch her chest moving, make sure she’s still breathing.” He looked up at his CPR partner, and asked, “Wills? Can you stay with the Dawn Patrol, help her monitor Buffy? When Spike gets back with the truck, we can get some butterfly bandages on those cuts.” Acknowledging Willow’s short nod with his trademark lop-sided grin, he rose to his feet and looked around, calling out, “Is anyone else hurt?”
“Xander! Over here!” Giles beckoned the Scoobies’ medic over, standing up beside the strange girl.
As the young carpenter hurried over, he realized what Giles was crouching over. “Giles? What’s going on with the demon?”
“I – I really don’t think she’s a demon.”
Stopping short in amazement, his eyebrows crawling into his hairline, Xander looked at the bat-winged, dog-footed creature lying crumpled on the ground, and stared at the disgraced Watcher in disbelief. Tired, stressed, and in pain, his response was a little more terse than usual as he snapped, “What do you mean – not a demon? Sure looks like a demon to me!”
“I mean, she’s not a bloody demon!” The older man snapped, pointing out odd details. “Quite aside from crying out in pain for her mummy, I’ve never seen a demon wearing a radio headset and throat mike. I’ve never seen a demon wearing a fabric jumpsuit, and while I’ve never heard of this ‘Whately Academy’ noted on the patch on her shoulder, I would be quite astonished to learn that such a thing was to be found in a hell dimension!” His voice had been climbing in pitch and volume, until the last words were shouted.
Xander blinked, taking a step back in surprise, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy there, oh Master of Tweed. It’s ok. She’s not a demon. What do you need me to do?”
Giles blushed; he didn’t normally express his frustration in such a manner. He gestured shortly at the quietly whimpering winged girl lying on the ground. “Quite aside from various bruises and contusions, she may have a broken arm. Her left wing is causing her considerable pain; it was her crying out in pain due to this that made me stop before I simply shot her out of hand.”
Nodding slowly, Xander, crouched down beside the astonishing creature that had erupted from the portal. He gave an uncertain smile, saying, “Hi, there. I’m Xander. I’d like to help you if that’s ok with you. What’s your name?”
“Margritta. B-b-but ev-everyone calls me Marta,” she stammered through her tears. She took a deep breath, then said, “My arm hurts very much, and I could feel something grating inside when I tried to push up with it. My wing is badly twisted, I am lying on it, and it also hurts very much. When I came through … whatever that was, I slammed into that other lady. We hit our heads quite hard.” Her face crumpled in sudden worry, as she cried out, “My head - my bones and skin are much harder, tougher than a normal human! She could have been hurt just from us hitting! I tried to catch our fall but my head hurt, I vass dizzy und could not focus!” Her accent got stronger as she became more agitated.
“Gently, gently dear girl! Our friend is alive at all because you caught her!” Giles knelt beside Xander, taking her right hand gently. “She fell from a high tower, and was trapped in the energy flux of that portal you came through. Do not borrow trouble or guilt that is not rightfully yours.”
“Ja - ok …” She blushed and dropped her eyes under the gentle rebuke, but nodded.
“Alrighty then. Let’s see if we can roll you, and get you off your wing. Can you tuck your right wing in tighter to your body?” Under Xander’s gentle guidance, her left arm was gently brought across to be supported by the right, she pulled her right wing in, and straightened and crossed her legs. “Giles? I’ll need your help here. We’re going to pull at her shoulder and hip, and roll her towards us. I’ll guide her head once she starts to move.” He returned his attention to his patient, saying, “I want you to relax, and let us do the work, ok?”
A commotion behind him made him pause, and look back to see Spike and Tara carefully loading Buffy onto a stretcher, and wrapping her in blankets. He watched Willow’s face focus in concentration as she used her powers to help the duo lift the desperately-injured Slayer into the back of the truck. He turned to Anya; the ex-vengeance demon had started to wobble slightly as she stood and watched while he and Giles worked with Marta. “Ahn? Why don’t you go with the gang to the hospital, get checked out? You got hit pretty hard by those bricks.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, as she simply nodded, then turned and walked towards the truck. He had been worried about having to convince her, fight through one of her possessive fits. ‘She must be hurt worse than I thought,’ he worried to himself.
Spike came running up. “So wot are you lot up to? Are you coming with, or what?”
Xander shook his head, replying, “No, I still need to help Marta here. You drive to the hospital. Buffy needs urgent admission to the ER, Dawn has those great bloody cuts on her stomach, and both Anya and Tara need to be checked out.” He laughed briefly, then continued, “If you could come back for us, it would definitely be of the good. I don’t expect Willow will leave any of Tara, Buffy or the Dawnster!”
The vampire looked askance at the two men crouched over what sure looked to HIM like a bloody demon, but nodded sharply. “Right then, back when I can. You two keep safe; don’t need Glinda or the Slayer getting all pissy with me if you went and got yourself bit.” He turned without another word, and hurried back to the field-expedient ambulance, where Willow was helping the last of their wounded into the cab.
“Right then, where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted?” Giles adjusted his glasses with a slight smirk, then turned back to their patient. He knelt, then firmly grasped a fold of Marta’s jumpsuit and got set. Xander got into position at her head and shoulders, positioned himself, then nodded to Giles. They pulled, gently and smoothly, rolling the injured girl onto her back. They paused, rearranged themselves to pull her to her right side, then started pulling again.
Suddenly, her eyes bulged as her back arched, and she screamed in pain. “Au! Nein! Halte! Bitte ziehe nicht so an meinen Flügel!” The two men froze, then carefully allowed her to roll back down flat. “My wing – it is caught, I am pulling it when you try to roll me!”
Xander scrambled around to her left side, and inspected the situation. “Well, that’s not helping! Marta, you’re sitting on your wingtip. Are you able to lift your butt, while I pull your wing free? Giles will pull at your left hip and shoulder to get the weight off your left side. This will probably hurt, just because we’re moving your wing.” She bit her lip, but nodded. “Good girl. Giles? You ready?” The Watcher adjusted his position and grip, then nodded. Xander took a firm grip on the bony structure of the wing pinned to the ground, looked at Giles and Marta, then counted down, “Ok – after one; three, two, one, gently.”
Marta carefully arched her back as Giles pulled her towards him; this put her weight on her feet and right shoulder, while Giles lifted her left shoulder and hips clear of the ground. As her weight was removed from her trapped wing, Xander carefully drew it out from underneath; he winced, listening to the sharp whine that was a tightly-held scream. “Ok, Marta – let yourself settle back down. Giles – roll her the rest of the way onto her right side.” She slowly let herself down, panting and gritting her teeth, tears streaming down her cheeks, as the older man eased her into a more relaxed position.
While Xander carefully moved her wing into (what looked like and hopefully was) a more natural position, Giles removed his jacket, bundling it up and tucking it under her head. She relaxed her head onto the make-shift pillow, moving only her eyes to look up at him with thanks, murmuring a relieved, “Danke.”
He smiled, quietly replying, “Bitte.”
Xander carefully ran his fingers along the arm bones and fingers of the freed wing, feeling for bulges and irregularities. The bone structure was very bat-like, with the same bones as a human arm, but greatly distorted. “Looks like you got off lucky with the wing. There’s two ‘ring finger’ bones that have some swelling in the middle; they could be cracked. You’ve really strained and sprained the main wing joints, shoulder, elbow and wrist, but nothing’s obviously dislocated. I woulda thought for sure you’d have popped your wing shoulder; landing with my arm wrapped behind me from even a short fall would blow my shoulder right out!”
She gave a watery smile, fighting the urge to shrug. “I did say I am a little more ruggedly. I can take blows and hurts that would cripple a normal person. It would appear however that falling 20 or 30 metres to rocky ground - while carrying a passenger! - is a little past my limit,” she said with a small grin.
He nodded and chuckled, “You may be right, but I’m gonna say more testing of that theory would kinda suck!” He moved to examine her left arm, and felt along its length. Midway down the forearm was a hot, swollen area; she hissed in pain as he palpated the area. “Yeah, that’s broken.” He sighed, then continued, “When Spike gets back with the truck, I’ll use the medic kit and some wood bits to splint your arm and wing bones, make a sling for your arm, and do … something … to support your wing.”
He blushed for a moment, contemplating the next topic of discussion, then sat back and took a deep breath. “I think I should check for any other breaks, but I don’t want to seem all creepy touchy- feely. If it makes you feel any better, this English guy is both a gentleman and mean, so he’ll beat on me hard if you complain about the hands!” He shrugged, and grinned.
Giles nodded with a chuckle, and replied in a dry tone, “Oh, very much so. If this young scoundrel acts in any manner that is at all improper towards you, I can assure he will receive the thrashing of his young life!” He let out just enough of Ripper to make Xander twitch and draw back for a moment, although Marta didn’t catch the byplay. “With that settled, I would suggest the next question to be asked is, How do we arrange treatment for this young lady? That arm most definitely needs to be set and casted, and I would strongly suggest X-rays as well, but even the Sunnydale Hospital staff would be certain to notice the small, slightly unusual aspects of our young friend’s appearance!”
She waved her (right!) hand slightly, dismissively. “That is actually the least of my worries. I have healed from a *badly* set bone in two weeks; properly set and splinted … Ach, I have not tested an arm bone in real life, but I would be surprised if it was longer than five days.”
Giles cocked his head slightly at her tone, proud and sad and bitter, all at once. “Without wishing to be, um, to – to be rude, I must ask – how did you happen to find yourself in a situation where you had the, the need to heal from a bad - badly set bone?”
She seemed to sink into herself for a moment, sighing and closing her eyes. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and held Giles’ eyes in a solemn gaze. “Not everyone, Herr Giles, is as accepting of different as you are, as Xander is. Not everyone is as willing to help those who are different.” Her voice took on a tone of sadness and anger as she said, “There are those, Herr Giles, who are so unaccepting of different that they hunt down and murder those who are different. No matter that the people being hunted have never hurt anyone; that the people being hunted are very often children who want nothing more than to be left alone, who have their own problems caused by their differences.” Her voice caught as she finished her statement, and she was crying openly.
Xander stared at her silently, aghast, horrified.
Giles removed his glasses, polishing them slowly, shaking his head. “My dear girl”, he intoned, “I have no way of understanding what you have gone through, but I assure you, we will do our utmost to keep you quite safe.” He looked up to see an approaching, billowing cloud of dust washing up behind the speeding pickup truck, as Spike handled the powerful vehicle in his usual delicate, careful manner.
“On that note,” he stated in a more brisk manner, “I believe our chariot is returning. Let’s have Xander finish your examination, get you splinted and ready for transport, then we’ll take you somewhere safe, where you can rest and heal up.”
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Marta glanced at Willow, murmuring, “Are you sure there’s just one vamp due to rise tonight?”
“Well – I was …”
Xander hung his head in exasperation. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he grumbled softly.
A/N - Corrections to German translations by Kalahari - thank you!
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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3 – Fitting In
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Giles removed his glasses, polishing them slowly, shaking his head. “My dear girl”, he intoned, “I have no way of understanding what you have gone through, but I assure you, we will do our utmost to keep you quite safe.” He looked up to see a billowing cloud of dust washing up behind the speeding pickup truck, as Spike handled the powerful truck in his usual delicate, careful manner.
“On that note,” he stated in a more brisk manner, “I believe our chariot is returning. Let’s have Xander finish your examination, get you splinted and ready for transport, then we’ll take you somewhere safe, where you can rest and heal up.”
Bright sunlight played across a still form, buried under soft blankets. A soft breeze wafted in, lightly moving the curtains, carrying with it the faint sound of bird song, and the perfume of blooming flowers. With a heartfelt groan, the lump on the bed slowly began to stir.
“Mist, Ich bin verletzt …” A cat-slitted blue eye squinted as it peered out from its soft cave, wincing as the bright light sent a jabbing pain inwards. A sucking sound, of someone running a tongue over their teeth, was followed by a grumbled, “Und wer zum Teufel hat in mein Maul gekackt … ?!”
“Good afternoon, sleepy head. We thought you were going to sleep the whole day away!”
The single eye blinked in consternation, and was joined by its twin in searching for the monster capable of such a cheery greeting under such terrible conditions. The sheets fell back as a tousled head rose slightly, crowned with a tangled mop of pale blonde hair. The head turned, until the bleary eyes found a young woman standing near the bed, gazing down at her with a gentle smile and laughter in her eyes.
“I don’t think we were properly introduced last night, we were both pretty groggy. I’m Tara,” the young woman said. “Are you ready to get up and face the day, or at least the menace of the modern plumbing system?”
Being careful of her splinted left arm and wing, Marta slowly rolled and sat up in bed, the sheets falling to her waist. She gathered her hands in her lap, watching the sunlight glittering on the glossy black of her short, slightly-pointed nails. She stretched lightly, then made sure the makeshift ‘nightgown’ was still safely in place. Made from a simple sheet and pinned behind her neck at the middle of one edge of the sheet, it wrapped behind and under her wings, around her hips, and back in front again to another safety pin. After Xander and Herr Giles had patched her up at the tower site, they had brought her here, to what they said was “Buffy’s” house. Tara had been in the truck with Spike; she had been checked and released by the doctors, and told to go home to sleep. Xander had helped Tara get the injured girl partly undressed and out of her flight suit as far as decency and chivalry allowed, then left Tara to finish the job. She had helped Marta with a quick wash, then carefully arranged the folds of the sheet as a short dress.
She carefully swung her bare feet to the floor, taking the proffered arm from Tara to steady herself. Her legs were digitigrade – she stood and walked on her toes – but her stance was more upright, not as flexed as that of a dog or most other animals; the proportions of her feet and legs were slightly different but still similar to those of a normal human. After a moment to allow her head to catch up, she rose to her somewhat unsteady feet. Keeping a firm hand on Tara’s supporting elbow, she allowed herself to be led to the washroom down the hall. After gratefully communing with the gods of the water closet, she washed her hands and face, then appropriated a small amount of toothpaste from a tube left on the sink. A minute or three of finger-brushing gave the happy result of the taste in her mouth becoming a little less horrifying.
She dried her hands and face, then opened the door to find Tara waiting patiently for her. “Are you feeling a little better now, hon?” the older girl asked, a lightly teasing smile dancing across her lips. Those teeny little horns really were cute, she thought.
“Ja – yes, thank you. When I sat up, I thought my bladder was going burst, and I have NO idea what died in my mouth last night.” Marta gave a melodramatic shudder, then smiled at her guardian angel. “Have you heard anything more about your friends who went to the hospital?”
The blonde Wicca nodded. “Willow phoned me about an hour ago, and said she was heading home to sleep as soon as she passed on the updates. Buffy – the girl you caught – is still in critical condition, and they’re probably going to induce a coma to help her heal. Anya has been admitted for observation, but should be released tomorrow. Giles went home from the hospital, and Xander went home after he finished helping us last night. Dawn’s cuts were messy but actually pretty shallow. She was stitched up and released, and is downstairs watching TV.”
Marta nodded slowly, trying to put a remembered face to these names. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but was interrupted by a very loud growling sound from her midsection.
Tara giggled, and declared that, “I was about to ask if you were hungry, but since you’ve apparently already swallowed a werewolf, I guess we don’t need to feed you anything else!”
Marta blushed, and laughingly protested, “Oh, no – I need to eat something before my stomach goes out hunting on its own!” Giggling together, the two headed towards the stairs leading to the kitchen. Taking the handrail in her good hand, and allowing Tara to lightly grasp her left elbow, Marta delicately picked her way down the stairs.
Entering the living room, the pair found Dawn tucked into Spike’s side on the couch, watching a soccer game on the television. Marta’s eyes widened as she recognized her home team’s colours, and realized what game was playing. “Das ist super! I can’t believe you are watching the Champions League final. I was sure I was going to miss it!” Tottering off under Tara’s bemused gaze, she made her careful way to an upholstered chair that would allow her to lean away from her injured side. “I have twenty dollars riding on Munich!”
Tara chuckled and turned to the kitchen. She called back, “Fine, you stay put and I’ll bring you some breakfast.” She waved at the sound of a slightly embarrassed “Danke!” from the living room behind her.
Spike cocked an eyebrow as he looked over the disheveled not-a-demon girl, his arm carefully wrapped around a despondent younger Summers sister. “You follow FC Bayern, then?”
She nodded gently, being careful not to shrug. “They’re my home team. I’m from Gauting, a small town just outside of Munich.”
“Well, there you go, then.” He shrugged, then teased, “They’re not a bad bunch as Bundesliga goes.” He began to smirk as he continued, “Didn’t stop us, though, from beating you lot out for the championship year before last!”
She looked at him, her head cocked, as she tried to follow what he was saying … Her eyes widened, and her head came up, and she began to snicker. “Manchester United? Sie - Sie sind ein Fan von Manchester United??” Snickers became giggles, became peals of laughter.
Both Dawn and Spike stared at her, baffled, as she wrapped her good arm around her tummy. Spike began to get irate, and started to grumble, “Here now, just wot – “
He trailed off as she began to sing. The popular tune was immediately recognizable, even if the words were a little distorted by giggles.
Dawn’s eyes bugged out; a huge smile broke across her face, then she jumped up to stand in front of their unusual guest, and bellowed in a seemingly hostile manner, “So enlighten me – WHO THE FUCK ARE YA?!”
Marta glared at her right straight back in the eye and screamed, “AAAAHHHH!!!!! SIIINNNG!!”
Both girls immediately carried on with another chorus, with Dawn carefully dancing about, and Marta chair-dancing as best she was able -
The two young teens completely lost it, howling with laughter. “Oh, mein Gott – that was the funniest part of the movie! ”
Snickering, Dawn put on the most serious face she could manage at the moment, and solemnly intoned, “This is why France and Germany have always been allies!”
That got a snort and a tongue stuck-out in her direction, with a reply of, “You keep your tonk away from my tradesmen’s entrance! Snail-eating poofs!”
Completely forgotten, Spike sat quietly, watching with a small smile of disbelief the two loonies gibbering and cavorting before him. He had no idea what they were on about, and he wasn’t too keen on how or why mocking of his beloved Man U came into it, but it didn’t matter. He just leaned back, enjoying the sight of Dawn laughing openly for the first time in a very long while. He was pretty sure he owed this strange bird for the Slayer’s life; for making the Nibblet laugh, he owed her almost as much again.
The musical comedy routine eventually ground to a halt, Marta slumping back in her chair with Dawn collapsing on the floor beside her. Marta leaned forward, a sly grin on her face. “There was that other scene, where the girl tried to get a ride by …” She mimed lifting the front of her shirt.
Dawn chuckled, “Flashed her high beams? Yeah, that was funny.”
“Flashed her - ? Ah! Yes, good one! Anyway, back at school, a couple of the computer nerds found a clip that was very similar to that scene, with one major difference. In the original, the girl is wearing a bra under her shirt. In the clip they found, she is not!”
“Are you kidding?!” Dawn’s eyes were wide. “I’ve watched a lot of what she’s done, but I’ve never seen any hint that she’s done anything like that!”
Marta shook her head. “She hasn’t. It was a fake – a good fake! – but fake. You could tell by the exactly matching positions between the clips of the guys behind her.” She chuckled, “Of course, not too many people are looking at the guys behind her!” She sat back with a sigh, and said, “Too bad; she’s pretty cute …”
Marta stalked through the cemetery, alert for any danger. She enjoyed the cool breeze on her face, and her cat-like eyes allowed her to see much better in the moonlight than most. While she had been practicing vampire hunting skills under Herr Giles for two weeks now, this was her first real mission.
Almost a month had passed since Marta’s abrupt arrival in this very different world. Her powers didn’t work the same here; her flame manifestation and pyrokinesis were a little stronger, but her healing was noticeably weaker. It had taken a great deal of rest, and gently exercising her injured body, to get back to the point where she could actually start training again.
She had started teaching Dawn the basics of Aikido; the other girl had seen her practicing the katas taught by Ito-Soke, and had wanted to join in. They both enjoyed the instruction and practice, but the two were not well-suited to spar together; at least, not without instructors experienced in overseeing sparring between opponents of greatly varying physical abilities. The first time Marta had side-blocked a forearm strike, her harder skin and bones had almost resulted in a broken arm for her friend. The solution was obvious – Marta would teach Xander and Tara as well, and the three ‘normals’ would spar together. Willow had declined the offer to join in, preferring to focus on her magic. This had resulted, Marta heard later, in an argument between Tara and Willow. Marta practiced with Spike in the evenings as often as she could, but he had no particular interest in learning Aikido, so it was more of a brawl than proper sparring.
The grass and earth of the graveyard was cool beneath her toes; for this kind of hunt, she had tucked away the high-heel sandals she had started wearing to disguise her unusual stance. She paused, but heard nothing beyond her friends moving quietly behind her. While her hearing was pretty much human-normal, she had been trained to use all her senses. She waved her patrol mates up. As they joined her, she turned to Willow and quietly asked, “Are we getting close to this fellow’s grave? I’d hate to get there late, and find he’d already left!”
The red witch shook her head, and pointed to a stone structure about 50 feet away. “We’re almost there. It’s not too far from that crypt.”
Xander gave the winged teen his traditional lopsided grin. “Are you getting eager to dust your first vamp?”
Marta blushed, but just nodded. “Where is the grave from the crypt?”
“Two rows north, and about thirty feet to the east. One new grave, victim of a tragic barbecue fork accident,” Willow replied, pointing. They were currently south and east of the crypt.
With a sharp nod, and an equally sharp smile that showed more than a hint of fang, the dimensional castaway turned and started moving carefully towards her objective, senses alert for any surprises. Gunny Bardue and SSgt Wilson had drilled that much into her during her short time at the Academy. She moved north until she was in the proper row, then carefully stepped along the headstones towards the designated grave.
As she approached their objective, she slowed, looking around in hesitation and confusion. She stopped, knelt, and waved up her friends. “Are you sure about this? Look at the ground!” The others followed where she was pointing, and gulped in unison. There wasn’t just one new grave. There were five. Marta glanced at Willow, murmuring, “Are you sure there’s just one vamp due to rise tonight?”
“Well – I was …”
Xander hung his head in exasperation. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he grumbled softly. At his friend’s pained look, he hurried to add, “I’m not blaming you, Wills. It’s within the realm of possibility that you might have missed ONE new customer, but not an extra FOUR! Something definitely of the hinky is going on here.” He watched his slightly-mollified almost-sister nod slowly, then shook his head and huffed. Tonight had the possibility of great suckage, and they had no way to get backup.
The team crouched down to wait. Marta focused on the graves, while Willow and Xander watched their flanks and rear. After about half an hour, Marta began to tremble, hissing, “Guys! Look! It’s starting!” The pair behind her followed her shaking finger to where the exposed ground of one of the graves was starting to shift and hump, as the demon-possessed corpse below dug its way to the surface.
Xander pressed a stake into her hand. “Remember – don’t wait! As soon as enough of the body is above ground to nail the heart, stake it! They’re too fast and strong to play around with. Don’t worry if you miss the shot, we’re right here to back you up. Ready?”
With a nervous gulp, she nodded, grasped the stake, and eased forward, approaching the vampire from behind. She gasped as one filthy hand broke through the surface, then another. It was only a matter of seconds before the head broke through the surface, then the shoulders, in an obscene mockery of the birth process that had produced the demon’s host so many years before. As the monster began to pull itself along the ground and out of its grave, Marta stepped forward and nailed the thing right in its heart, just as hard as she could. The not-quite-risen fledge never had a chance, as it burst into dust with its legs still firmly in the ground.
Marta stood up, and stepped back. She was almost hyperventilating, trembling – and her hand was empty. She hadn’t pulled the stake back fast enough, and it had disintegrated along with the vampire. She stared down at the empty hole in the ground, and muttered, “Großer Gott - Ich hab's geschafft!“ She looked up at her smiling friends with a huge grin on her face. “I did it!“
She crouched down to look at the hole again, then stood up, taking a few steps back, shaking her head while still muttering, “I did it!” She suddenly felt a vice clamp around her ankle, and she toppled with a scream. Gaping at the ridge-browed monstrosity holding her leg, not even half out of its grave, she let out an astonished shriek of “Heilige Scheiße!” She tried crawling away, yanking and kicking her trapped leg, but the monster was too strong. She started kicking it in the face with her free leg, both straight strikes and swinging back kicks. The last back kick felt odd, like it was dragged through something. The vampire screamed and fell back clutching its face, releasing her ankle. She was astonished to see blood pouring down the monster’s face, but the one eye she could see glared back at her with pure hatred.
She frantically scrabbled backwards as the fledge gained its feet and charged her. It was on her almost immediately, diving on top and hammering her to the ground. It grabbed her by her shoulders, forcing her back as it thrust its jaws at her throat. She instinctively grabbed its wrists, and dug her nails in as hard as possible to pinch the nerves prior to twisting the wrists outwards. She was not expecting the vampire’s grasp to release completely with another shocked scream, or for wetness to splash all over her arms and chest. She thrust the creature up and off of her, and was astonished to see it go sailing into a nearby headstone, snapping the monument in half and dropping limply into the rubble. She raised her right arm, focused hard, and launched a fireball that incinerated the undead corpse. She walked up slowly, shaking, panting, and fired into the dust pile three more times with a wordless scream.
She turned towards her friends. She staggered slightly, so she spread her wings and ran a light flame around them for steadiness, using her pyrokinesis to help her wobbly knees. She saw that both Scoobies had their crossbows out and aimed, but not at her. Looking around, she saw that two of the other three graves were burst open, with a coating of dust around the disturbed earth. As she watched, the dirt of the last grave began to heave and tear. Taking a deep breath, she straightened and walked calmly to where the demon was digging itself free. As the head emerged and it looked up at her with a snarl of hatred, she pointed an arm at it, focused - “Fick dich ins Knie, du Arschloch!” – and burned the thing to ashes.
As she stood there, panting, she suddenly realized she could feel something trickling down her leg, and could smell the tang of ammonia. She snarled, even as her face crumpled in humiliation. With a growled, “Verdammt noch mal!”, she started to reach under her skirt – then stopped, and glared at Xander, staring at her. She jabbed a finger in his direction and snapped, “Du! Dreh dich um!”
He wasn’t sure what the words meant, but the two-inch long talon, shimmering with flames along its length, pointed like a dagger and with moon- and firelight glittering along razor edges, was pretty darn emphatic. The twirled “turn around” gesture was pretty clear, too. Wordlessly, he nodded, then turned his back, and began admiring the pretty cemetery in the evening moonlight.
Blushing slightly with embarrassment for her new friend, Willow watched as Marta reached under her skirt and ripped free her wet panties, then dabbed futilely at the thin stream of urine running down her leg. She had to snicker as the girl carried the ruined garment in the tips of her talons, disgust apparent in every aspect of her posture, then threw them into one of the empty graves. Pointing both arms directly down at the open hole, she screamed her outrage and launched several gouts of fire into the earth.
The racket caused Xander to spin around, his crossbow half up as he searched for any threats. He sighed with relief as he realized the festivities were over for the night. The one fledge they had come for, plus some unscheduled guests, had been dealt with. He gazed with a bit of both amusement and surprise at the mortified not-quite-a-demon girl in full threat display – legs and firey tails spread, arms akimbo with claws (?) out, flaming wings fully extended (were they wider … ?), jaw agape with inch-long fangs (?!) exposed, and … ten inch long horns, swept out, up, and in, with a fireball at the tip of each … ?
He gave his head a quick shake. No, any local vamps were running for their unlives tonight, and not too many other kinds of demons would want to try attacking her tonight either. It was beer o’clock, just as soon as they got a certain young lady calmed down enough to get her back to Buffy’s without causing a re-enactment of the Great Chicago Fire. Slinging his crossbow, he wandered over to where Willow and Marta were chatting quietly, whistling “I don’t want to set the world on fire” as he went.
After about 10 minutes of walking, it was obvious she was settling down. The horns were receding, the wings were tucking more closely in to her body, and the ‘tick-tick-tick’ of the talons on her feet against the sidewalk had slowly faded away. With a sigh, she stopped, dug her sandals out of her small pack, and slipped them on. She looked sideways at her friends, still uncomfortable at how much older they were, and shyly suggested, “Go ahead. I know you want to ask.”
Xander glanced at Willow, then back at Marta. “Actually, what I wanted to ask was – Where did a nice girl like you learn to swear like that? I have NO idea what you were screaming, but it sure wasn’t Happy Birthday!” He gave her a teasing grin, and a reassuring nod as they continued to stroll along.
She laughed in surprise, then nodded. “Ok. Fair enough. As a young man, my great-grandfather was a pilot in the Luftwaffe. He flew Messerschmidts against the Tommies and the Amis in Hitler’s war. He was wounded twice, but lived. When I was a little girl, Opa Hans would take me with him on his weekly visits to his kamaraden In the veteran’s home.” She blushed, remembering. “They absolutely adored me, and spoiled me rotten. Not many of them had any family left; not many of those wanted to come visit. I was this cute little pigtailed reminder in a dress of what life was all about, of what they had fought for. And yes, this was before my manifestation, before I changed.” She took a deep breath, taking a moment to deal with some difficult memories.
She continued, saying, “Anyway, while we were there, they would drink Schnapps and toast to old friends, and drink wine and sing old songs, and drink beer and tell old stories and play cards.” She paused, mischief in her eyes. “I once won all of Onkle Konrad’s medication. Opa Hans had to promise me ice cream on the way home to convince me to give it back!”
After Willow and Xander’s snickers had died down, she continued with her story. “As I said, there was much drinking, and singing, and stories. And some of the words they used in their stories – Ach! I’m surprised I didn’t get in more trouble at home – it was bad enough as it was!” She shook her head, laughing. “I think the worst time was when Onkle Dieter got upset about … something, and he got quite loud, and he started using very strange words, words I had never heard before. One of the orderlies came in to ask them to keep it down, that there were other families visiting and the language was making some of them upset. Onkle Dieter stopped, looked at the man, and said – I don’t know! All of Opa’s friends went silent, just staring at Onkle Dieter. The orderly stared at Onkle Dieter, and turned very red. He didn’t say anything, just walked away, and all of them just burst out laughing!
"When they started to quiet down, I walked up to Onkle Dieter and asked him, in my cute little girl’s voice, What did those words mean? This time, it was Onkle Dieter who went very red, and very quiet, while all his friends laughed at him! The other thing that confused me then was, Why was Opa Hans banging his head against the wall?”
She sighed dramatically, winking at her sputtering audience. “I was determined to find out what those words meant. That evening, after I finished my bath and Mama was brushing my hair” – ( Xander suddenly groaned, “Oh, no …”) – “ I asked her, Mama? What do these words mean?” She shook her head sadly, as her friends tried to stifle their laughter. “The next thing I knew, I was standing in the Naughty Corner with a sore bottom, and Mama was on the phone with Opa Hans, and yelling at him quite loudly.”
She smiled, remembering. “Actually, I think she wanted to put Opa Hans in the Naughty Corner … “
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
“Firefly, this is Red Tree. Yellow Crayon has some paying customers at Playground 5, over.”
“Firefly, roger. Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, moving now, 3 minutes, over.”
“Yellow Crayon, roger, approach from the North-West; concentrated area target; ready to illuminate, over.”
“Firefly, roger, stand by.”
“Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, on approach – light ‘em up!”
A/N – I moved the release date for EuroTrip up 3 years because that scene popped into my head nearly fully written, and I couldn’t get rid of it. The character trying to flag down a ride by lifting her shirt was played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Yes, there is a fake out there of that scene, and yes it’s quite well done.
A/N2 - Corrections to crappy German translations provided by Starfox and Kalahari - thank you!
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Giles removed his glasses, polishing them slowly, shaking his head. “My dear girl”, he intoned, “I have no way of understanding what you have gone through, but I assure you, we will do our utmost to keep you quite safe.” He looked up to see a billowing cloud of dust washing up behind the speeding pickup truck, as Spike handled the powerful truck in his usual delicate, careful manner.
“On that note,” he stated in a more brisk manner, “I believe our chariot is returning. Let’s have Xander finish your examination, get you splinted and ready for transport, then we’ll take you somewhere safe, where you can rest and heal up.”
Bright sunlight played across a still form, buried under soft blankets. A soft breeze wafted in, lightly moving the curtains, carrying with it the faint sound of bird song, and the perfume of blooming flowers. With a heartfelt groan, the lump on the bed slowly began to stir.
“Mist, Ich bin verletzt …” A cat-slitted blue eye squinted as it peered out from its soft cave, wincing as the bright light sent a jabbing pain inwards. A sucking sound, of someone running a tongue over their teeth, was followed by a grumbled, “Und wer zum Teufel hat in mein Maul gekackt … ?!”
“Good afternoon, sleepy head. We thought you were going to sleep the whole day away!”
The single eye blinked in consternation, and was joined by its twin in searching for the monster capable of such a cheery greeting under such terrible conditions. The sheets fell back as a tousled head rose slightly, crowned with a tangled mop of pale blonde hair. The head turned, until the bleary eyes found a young woman standing near the bed, gazing down at her with a gentle smile and laughter in her eyes.
“I don’t think we were properly introduced last night, we were both pretty groggy. I’m Tara,” the young woman said. “Are you ready to get up and face the day, or at least the menace of the modern plumbing system?”
Being careful of her splinted left arm and wing, Marta slowly rolled and sat up in bed, the sheets falling to her waist. She gathered her hands in her lap, watching the sunlight glittering on the glossy black of her short, slightly-pointed nails. She stretched lightly, then made sure the makeshift ‘nightgown’ was still safely in place. Made from a simple sheet and pinned behind her neck at the middle of one edge of the sheet, it wrapped behind and under her wings, around her hips, and back in front again to another safety pin. After Xander and Herr Giles had patched her up at the tower site, they had brought her here, to what they said was “Buffy’s” house. Tara had been in the truck with Spike; she had been checked and released by the doctors, and told to go home to sleep. Xander had helped Tara get the injured girl partly undressed and out of her flight suit as far as decency and chivalry allowed, then left Tara to finish the job. She had helped Marta with a quick wash, then carefully arranged the folds of the sheet as a short dress.
She carefully swung her bare feet to the floor, taking the proffered arm from Tara to steady herself. Her legs were digitigrade – she stood and walked on her toes – but her stance was more upright, not as flexed as that of a dog or most other animals; the proportions of her feet and legs were slightly different but still similar to those of a normal human. After a moment to allow her head to catch up, she rose to her somewhat unsteady feet. Keeping a firm hand on Tara’s supporting elbow, she allowed herself to be led to the washroom down the hall. After gratefully communing with the gods of the water closet, she washed her hands and face, then appropriated a small amount of toothpaste from a tube left on the sink. A minute or three of finger-brushing gave the happy result of the taste in her mouth becoming a little less horrifying.
She dried her hands and face, then opened the door to find Tara waiting patiently for her. “Are you feeling a little better now, hon?” the older girl asked, a lightly teasing smile dancing across her lips. Those teeny little horns really were cute, she thought.
“Ja – yes, thank you. When I sat up, I thought my bladder was going burst, and I have NO idea what died in my mouth last night.” Marta gave a melodramatic shudder, then smiled at her guardian angel. “Have you heard anything more about your friends who went to the hospital?”
The blonde Wicca nodded. “Willow phoned me about an hour ago, and said she was heading home to sleep as soon as she passed on the updates. Buffy – the girl you caught – is still in critical condition, and they’re probably going to induce a coma to help her heal. Anya has been admitted for observation, but should be released tomorrow. Giles went home from the hospital, and Xander went home after he finished helping us last night. Dawn’s cuts were messy but actually pretty shallow. She was stitched up and released, and is downstairs watching TV.”
Marta nodded slowly, trying to put a remembered face to these names. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but was interrupted by a very loud growling sound from her midsection.
Tara giggled, and declared that, “I was about to ask if you were hungry, but since you’ve apparently already swallowed a werewolf, I guess we don’t need to feed you anything else!”
Marta blushed, and laughingly protested, “Oh, no – I need to eat something before my stomach goes out hunting on its own!” Giggling together, the two headed towards the stairs leading to the kitchen. Taking the handrail in her good hand, and allowing Tara to lightly grasp her left elbow, Marta delicately picked her way down the stairs.
Entering the living room, the pair found Dawn tucked into Spike’s side on the couch, watching a soccer game on the television. Marta’s eyes widened as she recognized her home team’s colours, and realized what game was playing. “Das ist super! I can’t believe you are watching the Champions League final. I was sure I was going to miss it!” Tottering off under Tara’s bemused gaze, she made her careful way to an upholstered chair that would allow her to lean away from her injured side. “I have twenty dollars riding on Munich!”
Tara chuckled and turned to the kitchen. She called back, “Fine, you stay put and I’ll bring you some breakfast.” She waved at the sound of a slightly embarrassed “Danke!” from the living room behind her.
Spike cocked an eyebrow as he looked over the disheveled not-a-demon girl, his arm carefully wrapped around a despondent younger Summers sister. “You follow FC Bayern, then?”
She nodded gently, being careful not to shrug. “They’re my home team. I’m from Gauting, a small town just outside of Munich.”
“Well, there you go, then.” He shrugged, then teased, “They’re not a bad bunch as Bundesliga goes.” He began to smirk as he continued, “Didn’t stop us, though, from beating you lot out for the championship year before last!”
She looked at him, her head cocked, as she tried to follow what he was saying … Her eyes widened, and her head came up, and she began to snicker. “Manchester United? Sie - Sie sind ein Fan von Manchester United??” Snickers became giggles, became peals of laughter.
Both Dawn and Spike stared at her, baffled, as she wrapped her good arm around her tummy. Spike began to get irate, and started to grumble, “Here now, just wot – “
He trailed off as she began to sing. The popular tune was immediately recognizable, even if the words were a little distorted by giggles.
My baby takes the morning train
He works from nine till five and then
He works from nine till five and then
Dawn’s eyes bugged out; a huge smile broke across her face, then she jumped up to stand in front of their unusual guest, and bellowed in a seemingly hostile manner, “So enlighten me – WHO THE FUCK ARE YA?!”
Marta glared at her right straight back in the eye and screamed, “AAAAHHHH!!!!! SIIINNNG!!”
Both girls immediately carried on with another chorus, with Dawn carefully dancing about, and Marta chair-dancing as best she was able -
My baby takes the morning train
He works from nine till five and then
He takes another home again
To find me waitin' for him
He works from nine till five and then
He takes another home again
To find me waitin' for him
The two young teens completely lost it, howling with laughter. “Oh, mein Gott – that was the funniest part of the movie! ”
Snickering, Dawn put on the most serious face she could manage at the moment, and solemnly intoned, “This is why France and Germany have always been allies!”
That got a snort and a tongue stuck-out in her direction, with a reply of, “You keep your tonk away from my tradesmen’s entrance! Snail-eating poofs!”
Completely forgotten, Spike sat quietly, watching with a small smile of disbelief the two loonies gibbering and cavorting before him. He had no idea what they were on about, and he wasn’t too keen on how or why mocking of his beloved Man U came into it, but it didn’t matter. He just leaned back, enjoying the sight of Dawn laughing openly for the first time in a very long while. He was pretty sure he owed this strange bird for the Slayer’s life; for making the Nibblet laugh, he owed her almost as much again.
The musical comedy routine eventually ground to a halt, Marta slumping back in her chair with Dawn collapsing on the floor beside her. Marta leaned forward, a sly grin on her face. “There was that other scene, where the girl tried to get a ride by …” She mimed lifting the front of her shirt.
Dawn chuckled, “Flashed her high beams? Yeah, that was funny.”
“Flashed her - ? Ah! Yes, good one! Anyway, back at school, a couple of the computer nerds found a clip that was very similar to that scene, with one major difference. In the original, the girl is wearing a bra under her shirt. In the clip they found, she is not!”
“Are you kidding?!” Dawn’s eyes were wide. “I’ve watched a lot of what she’s done, but I’ve never seen any hint that she’s done anything like that!”
Marta shook her head. “She hasn’t. It was a fake – a good fake! – but fake. You could tell by the exactly matching positions between the clips of the guys behind her.” She chuckled, “Of course, not too many people are looking at the guys behind her!” She sat back with a sigh, and said, “Too bad; she’s pretty cute …”
Marta stalked through the cemetery, alert for any danger. She enjoyed the cool breeze on her face, and her cat-like eyes allowed her to see much better in the moonlight than most. While she had been practicing vampire hunting skills under Herr Giles for two weeks now, this was her first real mission.
Almost a month had passed since Marta’s abrupt arrival in this very different world. Her powers didn’t work the same here; her flame manifestation and pyrokinesis were a little stronger, but her healing was noticeably weaker. It had taken a great deal of rest, and gently exercising her injured body, to get back to the point where she could actually start training again.
She had started teaching Dawn the basics of Aikido; the other girl had seen her practicing the katas taught by Ito-Soke, and had wanted to join in. They both enjoyed the instruction and practice, but the two were not well-suited to spar together; at least, not without instructors experienced in overseeing sparring between opponents of greatly varying physical abilities. The first time Marta had side-blocked a forearm strike, her harder skin and bones had almost resulted in a broken arm for her friend. The solution was obvious – Marta would teach Xander and Tara as well, and the three ‘normals’ would spar together. Willow had declined the offer to join in, preferring to focus on her magic. This had resulted, Marta heard later, in an argument between Tara and Willow. Marta practiced with Spike in the evenings as often as she could, but he had no particular interest in learning Aikido, so it was more of a brawl than proper sparring.
The grass and earth of the graveyard was cool beneath her toes; for this kind of hunt, she had tucked away the high-heel sandals she had started wearing to disguise her unusual stance. She paused, but heard nothing beyond her friends moving quietly behind her. While her hearing was pretty much human-normal, she had been trained to use all her senses. She waved her patrol mates up. As they joined her, she turned to Willow and quietly asked, “Are we getting close to this fellow’s grave? I’d hate to get there late, and find he’d already left!”
The red witch shook her head, and pointed to a stone structure about 50 feet away. “We’re almost there. It’s not too far from that crypt.”
Xander gave the winged teen his traditional lopsided grin. “Are you getting eager to dust your first vamp?”
Marta blushed, but just nodded. “Where is the grave from the crypt?”
“Two rows north, and about thirty feet to the east. One new grave, victim of a tragic barbecue fork accident,” Willow replied, pointing. They were currently south and east of the crypt.
With a sharp nod, and an equally sharp smile that showed more than a hint of fang, the dimensional castaway turned and started moving carefully towards her objective, senses alert for any surprises. Gunny Bardue and SSgt Wilson had drilled that much into her during her short time at the Academy. She moved north until she was in the proper row, then carefully stepped along the headstones towards the designated grave.
As she approached their objective, she slowed, looking around in hesitation and confusion. She stopped, knelt, and waved up her friends. “Are you sure about this? Look at the ground!” The others followed where she was pointing, and gulped in unison. There wasn’t just one new grave. There were five. Marta glanced at Willow, murmuring, “Are you sure there’s just one vamp due to rise tonight?”
“Well – I was …”
Xander hung his head in exasperation. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he grumbled softly. At his friend’s pained look, he hurried to add, “I’m not blaming you, Wills. It’s within the realm of possibility that you might have missed ONE new customer, but not an extra FOUR! Something definitely of the hinky is going on here.” He watched his slightly-mollified almost-sister nod slowly, then shook his head and huffed. Tonight had the possibility of great suckage, and they had no way to get backup.
The team crouched down to wait. Marta focused on the graves, while Willow and Xander watched their flanks and rear. After about half an hour, Marta began to tremble, hissing, “Guys! Look! It’s starting!” The pair behind her followed her shaking finger to where the exposed ground of one of the graves was starting to shift and hump, as the demon-possessed corpse below dug its way to the surface.
Xander pressed a stake into her hand. “Remember – don’t wait! As soon as enough of the body is above ground to nail the heart, stake it! They’re too fast and strong to play around with. Don’t worry if you miss the shot, we’re right here to back you up. Ready?”
With a nervous gulp, she nodded, grasped the stake, and eased forward, approaching the vampire from behind. She gasped as one filthy hand broke through the surface, then another. It was only a matter of seconds before the head broke through the surface, then the shoulders, in an obscene mockery of the birth process that had produced the demon’s host so many years before. As the monster began to pull itself along the ground and out of its grave, Marta stepped forward and nailed the thing right in its heart, just as hard as she could. The not-quite-risen fledge never had a chance, as it burst into dust with its legs still firmly in the ground.
Marta stood up, and stepped back. She was almost hyperventilating, trembling – and her hand was empty. She hadn’t pulled the stake back fast enough, and it had disintegrated along with the vampire. She stared down at the empty hole in the ground, and muttered, “Großer Gott - Ich hab's geschafft!“ She looked up at her smiling friends with a huge grin on her face. “I did it!“
She crouched down to look at the hole again, then stood up, taking a few steps back, shaking her head while still muttering, “I did it!” She suddenly felt a vice clamp around her ankle, and she toppled with a scream. Gaping at the ridge-browed monstrosity holding her leg, not even half out of its grave, she let out an astonished shriek of “Heilige Scheiße!” She tried crawling away, yanking and kicking her trapped leg, but the monster was too strong. She started kicking it in the face with her free leg, both straight strikes and swinging back kicks. The last back kick felt odd, like it was dragged through something. The vampire screamed and fell back clutching its face, releasing her ankle. She was astonished to see blood pouring down the monster’s face, but the one eye she could see glared back at her with pure hatred.
She frantically scrabbled backwards as the fledge gained its feet and charged her. It was on her almost immediately, diving on top and hammering her to the ground. It grabbed her by her shoulders, forcing her back as it thrust its jaws at her throat. She instinctively grabbed its wrists, and dug her nails in as hard as possible to pinch the nerves prior to twisting the wrists outwards. She was not expecting the vampire’s grasp to release completely with another shocked scream, or for wetness to splash all over her arms and chest. She thrust the creature up and off of her, and was astonished to see it go sailing into a nearby headstone, snapping the monument in half and dropping limply into the rubble. She raised her right arm, focused hard, and launched a fireball that incinerated the undead corpse. She walked up slowly, shaking, panting, and fired into the dust pile three more times with a wordless scream.
She turned towards her friends. She staggered slightly, so she spread her wings and ran a light flame around them for steadiness, using her pyrokinesis to help her wobbly knees. She saw that both Scoobies had their crossbows out and aimed, but not at her. Looking around, she saw that two of the other three graves were burst open, with a coating of dust around the disturbed earth. As she watched, the dirt of the last grave began to heave and tear. Taking a deep breath, she straightened and walked calmly to where the demon was digging itself free. As the head emerged and it looked up at her with a snarl of hatred, she pointed an arm at it, focused - “Fick dich ins Knie, du Arschloch!” – and burned the thing to ashes.
As she stood there, panting, she suddenly realized she could feel something trickling down her leg, and could smell the tang of ammonia. She snarled, even as her face crumpled in humiliation. With a growled, “Verdammt noch mal!”, she started to reach under her skirt – then stopped, and glared at Xander, staring at her. She jabbed a finger in his direction and snapped, “Du! Dreh dich um!”
He wasn’t sure what the words meant, but the two-inch long talon, shimmering with flames along its length, pointed like a dagger and with moon- and firelight glittering along razor edges, was pretty darn emphatic. The twirled “turn around” gesture was pretty clear, too. Wordlessly, he nodded, then turned his back, and began admiring the pretty cemetery in the evening moonlight.
Blushing slightly with embarrassment for her new friend, Willow watched as Marta reached under her skirt and ripped free her wet panties, then dabbed futilely at the thin stream of urine running down her leg. She had to snicker as the girl carried the ruined garment in the tips of her talons, disgust apparent in every aspect of her posture, then threw them into one of the empty graves. Pointing both arms directly down at the open hole, she screamed her outrage and launched several gouts of fire into the earth.
The racket caused Xander to spin around, his crossbow half up as he searched for any threats. He sighed with relief as he realized the festivities were over for the night. The one fledge they had come for, plus some unscheduled guests, had been dealt with. He gazed with a bit of both amusement and surprise at the mortified not-quite-a-demon girl in full threat display – legs and firey tails spread, arms akimbo with claws (?) out, flaming wings fully extended (were they wider … ?), jaw agape with inch-long fangs (?!) exposed, and … ten inch long horns, swept out, up, and in, with a fireball at the tip of each … ?
He gave his head a quick shake. No, any local vamps were running for their unlives tonight, and not too many other kinds of demons would want to try attacking her tonight either. It was beer o’clock, just as soon as they got a certain young lady calmed down enough to get her back to Buffy’s without causing a re-enactment of the Great Chicago Fire. Slinging his crossbow, he wandered over to where Willow and Marta were chatting quietly, whistling “I don’t want to set the world on fire” as he went.
After about 10 minutes of walking, it was obvious she was settling down. The horns were receding, the wings were tucking more closely in to her body, and the ‘tick-tick-tick’ of the talons on her feet against the sidewalk had slowly faded away. With a sigh, she stopped, dug her sandals out of her small pack, and slipped them on. She looked sideways at her friends, still uncomfortable at how much older they were, and shyly suggested, “Go ahead. I know you want to ask.”
Xander glanced at Willow, then back at Marta. “Actually, what I wanted to ask was – Where did a nice girl like you learn to swear like that? I have NO idea what you were screaming, but it sure wasn’t Happy Birthday!” He gave her a teasing grin, and a reassuring nod as they continued to stroll along.
She laughed in surprise, then nodded. “Ok. Fair enough. As a young man, my great-grandfather was a pilot in the Luftwaffe. He flew Messerschmidts against the Tommies and the Amis in Hitler’s war. He was wounded twice, but lived. When I was a little girl, Opa Hans would take me with him on his weekly visits to his kamaraden In the veteran’s home.” She blushed, remembering. “They absolutely adored me, and spoiled me rotten. Not many of them had any family left; not many of those wanted to come visit. I was this cute little pigtailed reminder in a dress of what life was all about, of what they had fought for. And yes, this was before my manifestation, before I changed.” She took a deep breath, taking a moment to deal with some difficult memories.
She continued, saying, “Anyway, while we were there, they would drink Schnapps and toast to old friends, and drink wine and sing old songs, and drink beer and tell old stories and play cards.” She paused, mischief in her eyes. “I once won all of Onkle Konrad’s medication. Opa Hans had to promise me ice cream on the way home to convince me to give it back!”
After Willow and Xander’s snickers had died down, she continued with her story. “As I said, there was much drinking, and singing, and stories. And some of the words they used in their stories – Ach! I’m surprised I didn’t get in more trouble at home – it was bad enough as it was!” She shook her head, laughing. “I think the worst time was when Onkle Dieter got upset about … something, and he got quite loud, and he started using very strange words, words I had never heard before. One of the orderlies came in to ask them to keep it down, that there were other families visiting and the language was making some of them upset. Onkle Dieter stopped, looked at the man, and said – I don’t know! All of Opa’s friends went silent, just staring at Onkle Dieter. The orderly stared at Onkle Dieter, and turned very red. He didn’t say anything, just walked away, and all of them just burst out laughing!
"When they started to quiet down, I walked up to Onkle Dieter and asked him, in my cute little girl’s voice, What did those words mean? This time, it was Onkle Dieter who went very red, and very quiet, while all his friends laughed at him! The other thing that confused me then was, Why was Opa Hans banging his head against the wall?”
She sighed dramatically, winking at her sputtering audience. “I was determined to find out what those words meant. That evening, after I finished my bath and Mama was brushing my hair” – ( Xander suddenly groaned, “Oh, no …”) – “ I asked her, Mama? What do these words mean?” She shook her head sadly, as her friends tried to stifle their laughter. “The next thing I knew, I was standing in the Naughty Corner with a sore bottom, and Mama was on the phone with Opa Hans, and yelling at him quite loudly.”
She smiled, remembering. “Actually, I think she wanted to put Opa Hans in the Naughty Corner … “
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
“Firefly, this is Red Tree. Yellow Crayon has some paying customers at Playground 5, over.”
“Firefly, roger. Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, moving now, 3 minutes, over.”
“Yellow Crayon, roger, approach from the North-West; concentrated area target; ready to illuminate, over.”
“Firefly, roger, stand by.”
“Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, on approach – light ‘em up!”
A/N – I moved the release date for EuroTrip up 3 years because that scene popped into my head nearly fully written, and I couldn’t get rid of it. The character trying to flag down a ride by lifting her shirt was played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Yes, there is a fake out there of that scene, and yes it’s quite well done.
A/N2 - Corrections to crappy German translations provided by Starfox and Kalahari - thank you!
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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4 – The Best Laid Plans
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Marta moved north until she was in the proper row, then carefully stepped along the headstones towards the designated grave. As she approached their objective, she slowed, looking around in hesitation and confusion. She stopped, knelt, and waved up her friends. “Are you sure about this? Look at the ground!” The others followed where she was pointing, and gulped in unison. There wasn’t just one new grave. There were five. Marta glanced at Willow, murmuring, “Are you sure there’s just one vamp due to rise tonight?”
“Well – I was …”
Xander hung his head in exasperation. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he grumbled softly. At his friend’s pained look, he hurried to add, “I’m not blaming you, Wills. It’s within the realm of possibility that you might have missed ONE new customer, but not an extra FOUR! Something definitely of the hinky is going on here.” He watched his slightly-mollified almost-sister nod slowly, then shook his head and huffed. Tonight had the possibility of great suckage, and they had no way to get backup.
Rupert Giles sat back in his wingback chair, chewing on the arm of his glasses as he pondered the report just presented by the three youngsters in his sitting room. Xander and Willow were seated on the sofa, but their new young friend preferred to perch on the arm of the settee; she said it allowed her to relax her wings and tails, and not keep them so tightly against her body. He forced away a brief smirk as he noted the ill-fitting “The Clash” gym shorts, borrowed from his wardrobe in great haste and embarrassment, peeking out from under her skirt. Willow and Xander had teased Marta about the tragic loss of her panties for rather some time, ceasing abruptly when she had started tossing a small fireball from hand to hand and asking rather tartly if anyone else felt like experiencing a wardrobe malfunction tonight?
“I find myself quite - quite in agreement with Xander,” he stated, returning to the business at hand and gesturing with his glasses. “One fresh grave not listed in the records could simply be bureaucratic sloppiness. FOUR additional graves, all of them with fledglings, is simply beyond the realm of coincidence.” Replacing his glasses, he focused on his late-night guests. “Did any of you happen to notice the condition of the headstones of these unexpected graves?”
The two Scoobies looked at each other, then shook their heads, but Marta slowly nodded. “The vampire that grabbed me – the one I put into the headstone – that marker was covered in moss!” She looked at Giles with a puzzled expression. “I am sure of it – the grave was fresh, but the headstone was old. What does that mean?”
Willow’s face lit up, and she started waving her hands about. ”Ooh! Ooh! It’s a gang of vamps, and they’re hiding their kills – I mean the people they killed to turn into vamps by siring them, which is a really gross process that I never want to experience for myself, everyone please promise me you’ll stake me before letting me get turned – “ A nudge from Xander derailed the babble, allowing her to finish her original thought, “Oh – hiding them by burying them in the graveyard!”
Xander cocked his head to his oldest friend. “With ya so far, Wills,” he began, “but we’re kinda missing something in the logistics department here. How are these vamps getting their kills to the graveyard, and then getting the graves dug AND then filled back in, without either anyone noticing OR catching a bad case of sunburn?”
Willow gave him a grin and a smack on the shoulder, teasing, “Well listen to you, going on about logistics and everything. Apparently junior apprentice contractors learn big words, as well as how to cut wood and hammer nails!”
Xander returned her grin with a blush, then stuck his tongue out at the giggling dimensional cast-away hiding her own smirk in her hands. “Yeah, well, like the boss says, ‘It does no good to get the shingles on-site before the concrete for the foundation!’ “ He made a wry face and commented with a snort, “Although, some of the basements we’ve gone in to repair could probably use shingles in the FLOOR, there’s so much water coming up!”
Giles cleared his throat to bring them back on track, although with a twinkle in his eye. “Yes, well, the Zen of drywall is all fine and good, but we need to determine how these fledglings arrived and who put them there. I daresay Spike would be best-suited to nose about, see what leads and oddities he can determine. Willow and Marta, I assume one of you is likely to see him next?”
Marta nodded. “Yes, he is still staying in Dawn’s basement until Buffy comes home.” She looked uncertain as she continued, “I hope she will not be too mad that I have been staying in her house – in her mother’s room!”
Willow shook her head, and reached over to pat the winged girl on the knee, saying, “Don’t worry too much. Once she gets over your appearance – and with ALL of us chiming in how nice you are, that should be pretty quick! – she’ll be grateful to you for saving her life and for keeping Dawn company while she’s in the hospital. Ok? I mean, it’s not like you’re sleeping in her Yummy Sushi PJs, and snuggling with Mr. Gordo, right?” After a moment to silently realize that Marta was ducking her head and blushing, the redhead blurted, “You’re wearing her favourite Yummy Sushi PJs?!”
Marta’s head snapped up, outraged. “I do NOT wear her favourite pajamas! That would be RUDE!” Her face fell, as the skin under her spray of scales reddened. “Ummm … I did kind of pick up her stuffed piggy, and have not yet put him back.” She scowled at Xander’s mock-horrified gasp (and snicker), grumbling, “He vas cute, und I vas scared, und lonely, und it helped to cuddle mit ihm …”
Willow laughed kindly, then offered, “Tell you what, sweety. After breakfast tomorrow, Tara and I will take you shopping again, and we’ll find you your own fuzzy friend – ok?” She reached out a finger to raise the younger girl’s chin, as the slitted cat’s eyes slowly lifted to meet her smile.
The wreckage of Glory’s tower was still being cleared away. It had collapsed under its own weight, three days after the Hell-God’s demise. Before any given section could be carted away, it had to be cut free not only from its anchor points, but also from the wreckage entangled with it.
A brief crack of sound like thunder woke a few residents; they grumbled at being awakened in the middle of the night, then rolled over and went back to sleep. Those already awake to hear the noise and see the sudden flash of light assumed it was simply heat lightning, or an approaching storm, and went about their business. No-one looked up to see a small black and purple annulus form 80-odd feet in the air, and somewhat over the pile of wreckage and rubble. After a few seconds, the center of that ring opened to a diameter of not-quite 2 feet; a pale white light shined out through the hole in the sky.
A head suddenly popped through the portal, long straight black hair falling around a young set of feminine and slightly Oriental features. The girl looked around, then dropped her gaze to the ground. “Holy crap on a popsicle stick!” she cried, a wide grin creasing her pale skin. “Get a load of how high we are!”
A voice from behind her called out, “Get back from there, you twit! We have no idea how stable this thing is!”
Another voice cried out from behind the portal, “Yes we do – it’s collapsing! Pull me back! Pull me –“
The voice was cut off as the aperture snapped shut, barely missing the girl who had been yanked back with a strangled “Yeek!” A few strands of long black hair wafted away on the breeze, mirror-smooth ends where they had been cut by the closing portal winking in the moonlight.
It was almost a week before Spike’s investigation – which mostly involved beating the moonlights out of every demonic lowlife he came across until they told him whatever they did or didn’t know – hit paydirt. Willow had been correct; a group of vampires was in fact using existing graves at that graveyard as safe ‘incubators’ for their fledges.
***
Three weeks prior:
“So, Patty. They tell me you have a thought you wish to share?” Samuel wasn’t particularly old or impressive as Masters went. He had been an accountant for an investment firm when he had been turned in the summer of 1955. He still wore his hair short, and maintained the suit, tie, and business-man’s hat that went with it. What had worked for him was the suppressed rage at being a nameless, faceless cog in a machine. That had translated quite well to the willpower and vicious determination needed to survive as a fledge, to become a minion, and to succeed and kill his own Master at less than 50 years after being turned.
“Yes, sir,” she murmured, her eyes downcast, her hands folded demurely before her. Women’s lib had most definitely never come to Samuel’s pack. “I understand – I had heard – that many of those selected to be turned rarely have the chance to achieve their potential, and join your pack. I heard that the Slayer, and the Hunters, destroy them as they emerge from their graves, or flesh-eating demons feast on them while they rest.”
Samuel’s lips twitched into a cruel smile. “The Slayer has become much less of a problem, and without her assistance her Hunter friends will not remain a problem much longer. But tell me, for the sake of my amusement, what was your idea?”
“My husband-who-was is the lead groundskeeper at St. Louise’s Rest Acres. He is responsible for the digging and maintaining of the various graves. He has full access to the grounds at any time, as well as to the powered digging equipment. Instead of digging one grave for one fledge – “
He interrupted with a laugh, “He can dig four or five, and safely bury those I deem suitable to turn! Excellent idea, my dear, excellent!” He leaned forward suddenly, vamping out with a scream, “AND HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO MAKE HIM DO THIS, YOU IDIOT?!”
She flinched back, expecting to be struck. When no blow landed, she hastily mumbled, “My son! My husband loves him dearly! Take my son, keep him alive and show him to my husband, and he will do anything!” She cowered, waiting for the punch or kick. After a moment, she dared to raise her eyes slightly – and saw Samuel sitting back, watching her.
“I am impressed,” he said, stroking his chin. ”You did give this some thought. Tell me - how will you take your son?”
A little emboldened, she raised both her chin and her voice slightly. “Someone will have to make a call to the house at night, reporting a fire in the equipment garage. He will need to go there quickly, and will leave our son with the old biddy next door. Once he leaves, and once she settles back down in front of the television, I can lure him out. He’s too young to understand why he should not invite his mommy in to visit Mrs. Kowalski. He should be very happy to meet me, actually, and I will be delighted to explain to him why those people that told him Mommy had gone to Heaven were so silly!”
Samuel threw his head back, and laughed.
***
“So there you go, then – a bunch of nasty boys grabbed this poor sod’s young lad, and have him diggin’ up the landscape for their childer.” Spike shrugged, shifted himself on the lawn chair behind the Summers’ house, then lit up a fag. “Not much he can do about it. Not sure how long this crazy bint will keep the boy breathin’, and for sure as soon’s the boy get’s et, they’ll chop the Da – he’ll tell ‘em ta sod off, and they’ll have no more use for ‘im. ‘Cept as snacks, o’ course.” He took a deep drag. “Killin’ off the fam’s a big part of getting’ sired.”
Willow sat bolt upright from her lounging position on her blanket; she looked like she was about to burst into tears. “No! Nononono! We have to do something! We have to stopthis wecan’t let that littleboyand hisdaddygetkilled it’sbadenoughhe’slosthismommywe can’t … !”
“Willow! Breathe, child, for God’s sake!” snapped Giles, showing an unusual flash of temper. “We can and will most certainly stop this, and we can and will most certainly put paid to this Samuel fellow!”
Xander nodded slowly, holding one of Willow’s hands while Tara pulled her trembling girlfriend into a hug. “I’m all for it, Tweedmaster-G,” he declared. “Just tell me when and where, and – if it’s not too much trouble – HOW?”
“How, indeed,” the Watcher murmured, slowly cleaning his glasses. He stopped, paused, then quickly replaced them on his face, turning to face the bleached undead. “Spike – how, how often do they show this poor fellow his - his child? Was it just the once, or is it a regular occurrence?”
“Every time, Watcher. Every time they’ve got a batch for ‘im to plant, he gets a phone call that morning, then a knock at the door from his Missus and the lad once it’s a little less sunny.” Spike cocked an eyebrow with a smirk; he could see where this was leading. “Not just them, natch. Got a whole mess of ugly-wuglies along to make sure nobody does any foolishness. The digger and most of the mob head off to conduct business, while the boy and his mum head back to the hideout along with a few friends.”
Giles leaned forward from his folding camp chair. “Do we know where they are keeping the boy?”
Spike shook his head, and shrugged. “Nah, couldn’t get anyone to talk long enough to get to that bit.” He smiled, thinking how things were going to get surprising, as he looked at Marta sprawled on the grass in that boneless heap that only teenagers can manage, her wings splayed out on either side. “But I figure we might have a little bird, just might be able to follow them, wee wee wee! All the way home!”
Marta just nodded, and flashed her fangs in a predator’s grin, which Spike returned.
Willow monitored the mortician’s intranet records carefully, using a search and filter program she had set up on her home computer. They had established that the gang was using the burial of one of their victims as cover for the digging activity for their fledges; it would ruin the game if someone was to notice a great deal of grave digging when there were no dearly-departed supposedly being interred.
It was another three days before she saw what she had been watching for. The search program had coughed up a coroner’s report on one Lawrence (Larry) O’Connell, a travelling salesman just passing through town. Middle-aged, slightly obese, of no particular importance to anyone - except that he had died from “Exsanguination due to paired puncture wounds to the carotid artery. Likely caused by careless mishandling of a cooking implement; specifically, a barbeque fork. Death ruled as due to misadventure.” No next of kin were listed, and no-one had claimed the body. He was scheduled to be buried in a pauper’s grave that afternoon, in St. Louise’s Rest Acres. She hit the PRINT button, and while the information was being spat out as a few sheets of paper, she grabbed her phone and called the Summers’ house. “Hi, Dawnie! Can you do the big phone call thing, gather everybody up? I think we have our chance!”
Once she was sure the troops were being rallied, she grabbed her purse and ran out to her car. At a sudden flicker of paranoia, she checked the special equipment in the trunk, ensuring the bulbs were securely in their cushioned travel boxes, and the plastic filter sheets weren’t crumpled or torn. Satisfied, she closed the trunk, hopped behind the wheel , and took off to Casa Summers.
The plan wasn’t hard, just involved. There were multiple stages, and multiple tasks, and really not enough warm bodies (or room temperature, in Spike’s case) to carry them out simultaneously. There would have to be some carefully-coordinated movement of personnel – not quite as complicated as “The farmer, the goose, the fox and the grain,” but there wasn’t a lot of room for error. They did have a fair bit of time to set up. The vampires couldn’t move until full dark, sunset that night wasn’t until 8pm, and Bill Mitchell had finished burying Larry O’Connell by 3pm.
5 o’clock that evening found Xander and Willow setting up the special equipment in the graveyard, near the fresh grave of Larry O’Connell. Once the items were arranged and carefully camouflaged with light grey sheets, they moved to a crypt about one hundred yards away to set up their own hide. Once everything was ready, they joined Tara where she sat fretting in Willow’s car; she was the driver for the get-away / medical evac vehicle for their group. After a quick round of hugs, the team headed back to the house on Revello Drive to relax until it was time to move out.
Dawn and Anya had a much simpler job of setting up their observation point; the back window on the second floor of a local Schnitzel Haus (“Sie nennen DAS Schnitzel??“ had been Marta’s horrified reaction, along with a shudder) had a fairly good sightline through various yards to the Mitchell house, two streets over. They had reservations for that particular table at 8 o’clock; the two women would come in, take a seat at the table and order. They would sit there, snacking and drinking sodas, until the anticipated house call was witnessed and called in.
Spike and Giles would be the primary attackers on the location where young Ian Mitchell was being held. With Buffy in the hospital and the Buffybot working a shift at the Doublemeat Palace that evening, they were the two best in the group when it came to “maximum speed and violence.” They would be driving Xander’s truck, as it was not only the fastest and most rugged vehicle they had, but it also had the most seating capacity.
Marta was the linchpin. Her speed and firepower were essential to the plan, and she would be a very busy young lady. She would remain in the backyard of the Summers’ residence until the kidnap party arrived at the Mitchell home, at which point things would get hectic.
Willow, Tara, and Xander headed out first; they had to be in position well before the vampire gang headed to the grave site with what would be their new fledglings. Driving quickly through the lightly trafficked streets, they arrived at the main gates at 7:45pm. Willow and Xander hopped out with their supplies; the two girlfriends exchanged a tight, worried hug and kiss, with whispered demands and assurances about being careful, then the red-headed witch and her childhood friend hustled into the graveyard to take up their position. Climbing onto the roof of the crypt that would be their observation post, they checked that everything was still in place. A thick layer of blankets made laying on the hard stone a little more comfortable, while two mottled green blankets draped over folding camp stools masked them from view, both in visible light and by heat signature. It wasn’t that stealthy in the light of day, but it would be very effective in the dark. Small holes cut in the blankets would allow them to see their target area. Each had a small satchel with drinks, snacks, stakes, and spare batteries for their radios. A quiver on each of their belts held bolts for the crossbows they carried.
Tara drove the car to the relative safety of an abandoned repair garage one block over; vetted and cleared out by Spike the night before, the garage door was jammed open just enough for Willow’s car to slip underneath. Parking as close to the back wall as she could, she draped several of the thickest blankets they could find at the local thrift shop over the hood and grill, to mask – or at least muddy – the heat signature from detection by any passing vampires. Adding a light layer of posters, calendars, and empty oil filter boxes just to make spotting the car from the sidewalk a little harder amid all the other clutter, Tara settled in to wait.
At 7:55pm, Xander’s truck pulled up to the Schnitzel Haus. Dawn and Anya hopped out, waved to Giles as he pulled away, then headed inside to take up their position (and order snacks that tasted quite yummy, even if it wasn’t “Schnitzel” by Marta’s standards). The Watcher in the meantime headed back to Buffy’s house, where he and Spike would remain until Marta had followed the kidnappers back to their lair.
Precisely at 8 o’clock, the radio earpiece that each member of the Scooby group wore that night crackled to life, as an educated British accent was heard to break the radio silence. “All Scoobies, Rule Brittania, radio check, over.”
“Spicy Wings, gotcha, over.”
“Blonde Ambition, ok, over.”
“Cash Only, nice and clear, over.”
“Bigger Soon, I hear you, over.”
“Firefly, loud and clear, over.”
“Red Tree, that’s me, over!”
“Yellow Crayon, who picked these names, over?”
“Rule Brittania, not sure but I rather like mine, out.”
The wait wasn’t as bad as they had feared; even Willow managed to keep her fidgeting to a minimum. It was however long enough for Anya to drink enough sodas that she needed to visit the little Vengeance Demon’s room, so Dawn was by herself when she saw the porch light at the Mitchell house come on. She choked back the mouthful of cheesy garlic bread with sauerkraut and horseradish she was chewing, wiped her hands on the napkin, and brought her compact binoculars up. She gulped, gulped again, took a quick drink, then brought her walkie-talkie up and keyed the mike. “All Scoobies, Bigger Soon, they’re here! I mean, they’re there! I mean, they’re at the house! I – over!”
“Bigger Soon, Yellow Crayon; calm down, take a deep breath, take sip of that big glass of soda I know you have in front of you” … “Ok – better now? How many baddies do you see, over?”
“Bigger Soon, a lot of them! They’re moving about, it’s hard to tell. Way more than ten vamps, I think that’s a Polgara, and there’s three or four others I have no idea what they are.” After a moment’s pause, she rekeyed the mike. “Oh, uh – over!”
“Yellow Crayon, good job. Sit tight, keep an eye on them, let us know when they start to leave, over.”
“Bigger Soon, ok. I mean, roger. Out, I think.”
As expected, it wasn’t long before the radios came to life again. “All Scoobies, Cash Only, they’re heading out. The boy and three or four others are in a small reddish van, the father and two others in a big white van, with the rest on foot. I can’t tell the license of the boy’s van at this distance in the dark through these obviously defective binoculars. I hope you kept the receipts so we can get our money – what? Oh, fine, fine – over!”
“Firefly, roger, on the way. Could you tell which direction they were headed? Over.”
“Cash Only, they headed east, over.”
“Firefly, roger, out.”
“Yellow Crayon, acknowledge baddies headed our way, out.”
With a boisterous hug for Spike, and a rather shyer hug for Herr Giles, Marta stepped back, spread her wings, and concentrated on the techniques taught to her by the Powers Testing staff and practiced in the ‘Introduction to Superpowers’ labs. Focusing on her power, she generated and wrapped the thin layer of flames around her wings and tails that allowed her to effectively grab and move herself with her pyrokinesis. Lifting smoothly and almost silently into the night sky, she glowed like a comet, but quickly shrank as she flew up to an altitude of around 2000 feet. Reducing the intensity of the flames to a minimum, she glided back down towards the house where this tragedy was centered. Searching the streets below for any sign of movement, she quickly spotted a vehicle with no lights, her attention drawn as much to the flashes of light and shadow it created as it passed under and out of the street lamps as by the actual shape. “All Scoobies, Firefly, I have them. Heading east on Montgomery, passing Rutherford; more to follow, out.”
It was a mere five minutes before the van slowed, and pulled into a parking strip behind a plaza. Marta risked using a little more power, a little brighter flame, and came to a soft and gentle landing on the roof of a church less than 500 feet from the vampire gang’s vehicle. Quickly dispersing her manifested flame, she ducked down behind a gargoyle – the irony did not escape her – and watched as the gang bundled the little boy into the back door of one of the shops. “Rule Brittania, Firefly, targets have unloaded and entered the “Zoom-quik Dry Cleaners” through the back door, over.”
Giles quirked an eyebrow at Spike, muttering, “Apparently they like being able to remove blood stains from their delicates.” While the former Big-Bad snickered, Giles keyed the mike while reaching for the map. “Rule Brittania, roger, confirm that’s the Wilkins Heights Strip Plaza, over?”
Marta craned her neck, then spotted the main sign for the complex. “Firefly, roger that, over.”
“Rule Brittania, acknowledged, prepare for phase three. Spicy Wings and I are moving now, out.”
After a brief wait, Marta saw Xander’s pickup moving up the road - at the speed limit, to avoid attracting the attention of the cops - then turning into the parking lot. She leapt to her feet, then ran off the edge of the church roof, flaring her wings and powers as she dove into freefall. She swooped down past Giles and Spike as they piled out of the truck, each well-armed with crossbow, sword and stakes. She landed 20 feet from the door and brought up her power to form two small but powerful fireballs, launching them into the exposed hinges of the closed rear entrance. With the joints shattering under the explosive force, the door sagged, supported by the dead bolt in the other jamb.
The wrecked door was promptly kicked aside by the blond vampire. “Hello, kiddies!” he announced with his traditional sneer. “Who wants to dance?” Without waiting for any sort of response, he whipped up his crossbow for a snapshot at one of the snarling vampires turning to glare at him. Struck directly in the heart, the remains of the possessed corpse exploded into dust, and took longer to fall to the floor than the empty crossbow dropped from its killer’s hands. Ignoring the sword strapped across his back, Spike pulled out two stakes and charged for one of the remaining demons. He lunged past the collapsing dust pile that marked Giles’ first target; he heard the scrape of metal on leather behind him as the Watcher drew his sword.
Spike dodged the clumsy blow from his opponent, then lunged in, plunging both stakes into the creature’s armpits. As it jerked bolt upright in reaction, a vicious kick shattered its left knee and dropped it to the ground. Whipping a heavy fighting knife from behind his back, the former Big-Bad slammed the blade through the wreckage of the knee, pinning the bloodsucker to the ground and preventing the injury from healing. He bounded back to his feet, quickly looking around to assess what needed killing next.
Giles recovered back into a ready stance as the monster before him was reduced to dust; one powerful stroke had decapitated the undead leech. He searched the area for other threats and foes, but saw nothing but Spike and his prisoner. “Did you see the boy?” he demanded of his partner.
Spike shook his head and answered, “Nah, but I bet this bloke here has a WONderful story to tell us.” He grinned like a shark as he gave the groaning prisoner a solid kick to the ribs, then drew out his spiked brass knuckles. “I bet ‘e’s just DYIN’ to tell us where the lad got to!”
“My son is quite safe with his mother, and will remain that way.” The voice was cold and sultry at the same time, like a crocodile that wanted to make nice. The short brunette came out of a store room, the 6-year-old boy held in front of her, his head tipped firmly back against her chest with the talons of her left hand pressed against his throat. Tears streamed down his face, but he made no noise. He seemed to be trying to scowl up at his captor.
“Well, wot have we here? The hand that rocks the cradle, innit? Not gonna win any motherly awards like that, lovey!” The undead Cockney had turned towards her at the first hint of sound, and was stalking across her path. “Not sure wot you think you’re plannin’, but I can tell ya wot you ain’t getting’, and that’s out that door.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” she sneered. “I know all about you, and your slobbering after the Slayer. Disgusting, and you’ve picked up some other disgusting habits from her, too! For instance, “ – she gently stroked the boy’s neck with her razor-edged nails, a smirk across her face – “You actually care about these blood bags. You actually care if I open this boy’s throat up like a bag of popcorn – and not just because it would be such a waste of such warm, tasty, innocent blood … “
The break in the standoff came from the most unexpected direction. Little Ian Mitchell, all of 6 years old, suddenly screamed, “You’re mean and you’re not my mommy!” He swung his little fists up as hard as he could, bashing her in the nose while at the same time he stamped on her foot. The actual impact was trivial to something as strong as a vampire, but the thing that had been Patty Mitchell snapped her head back and relaxed her grip in sheer astonishment. The brave little boy, suddenly released, dropped to the floor.
“No!” the vampire with his mother’s face screamed, vamping out and reaching down for the boy. “You get ba -!” A tiny fireball streaked across the orderly chaos of the dry cleaning store, straight into the fiend’s open mouth. She had time for one brief shocked realization of horror, then burst into dust and ash.
Giles and Spike looked back to where Marta stood, her trembling hand still outstretched. “She … had him too close,” she gulped. “I could not be sure if I fired on her that he would not die – that he would not BURN.” She let her hand drop, swallowed again as tears started to fall. She swayed slightly, but Spike caught her, held her steady. “She was going to kill him,” the girl continued, “She was going to cut him open, and I was going to have to take the chance of setting him on fire.”
Spike gathered her into a tight hug, then pointed over to where the Watcher was gathering up the little tyke in a hug of his own. “Don’t you be worryin’ about wot mighta bin, or wot coulda bin. You look there, and that’s wot you DID.” He wiped a tear away with a cold finger, and gave her a firm nod. “Saved that lad’s life you did, right proper, too! You’ve nothin’ ta regret or beat up about.”
She looked over at the crouched little boy, sobbing his grief and terror into Herr Giles’ jacket, and nodded slowly. Wiping her eyes and nose, she allowed the vampire to lead her over to the child. She knelt down beside him, and stroked his tangled hair. “Hello, there. My name’s Marta. What’s yours?”
The sobs slowed, as he looked up at her. She had her form as human as possible, but the differences were still obvious. After what he’d been through, though, it seemed minor oddities didn’t matter much. “I’m Ian. Ian Mitchell.” He stared at the tiny black horns at her hairline, and at the tiny grey scales across her nose and cheekbones. “You’re pretty,” he said, then turned his face back into Giles’ shoulder.
Giles stood with a small smile, the softly crying child tucked into his shoulder. “Let’s get this lad out of here. Marta, are you ready for phase four?”
She took a deep breath and nodded, then turned and hustled out the door. Jogging out into the cool air, she spread her wings and soared up into the night sky. “Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, over.”
“Yellow Crayon, good to hear from you, over.”
“Firefly, phase three complete, precious cargo safe. Go with phase four at your signal, over.”
“Yellow Crayon, understood; the party wagon is onsite and games are being set up but most of the guests haven’t arrived yet, over.”
“Firefly roger, let me know when it’s time for the party favours, over.”
“Y-C, roger out!” He released the mike button just in time to yelp in shock as the red-head lying beside him swatted him on the arm. In a much quieter voice, he grumbled, “What was that for? We’re supposed to be all stealth-ilicious, not making our partners jump and yeep!”
“Y-C?” she hissed in mild outrage. “I picked ‘Yellow Crayon’ for you because it’s special to me, you doofus!” Her eyes suddenly went wide. “I – I mean – I just – I’m glad whoever picked the names selected such – such fine, and – and meaningful that – “ A finger on her lips brought the babble to a quick and merciful stop; while the finger’s owner wore only a teasing smile on his face, she KNEW the big doofus was laughing at her inside!
It took about twenty minutes before the various demons and vampires were gathered into the area. Two of four graves were dug down far enough to offer the needed protection and security. The body-bagged corpses that would rise in the next 24-48 hours were dumped rather carelessly into the waiting holes.
Willow watched through her binoculars; between the moon and the sparse lighting in the area, she was able to make out what was happening. Something that had been tickling at the back of her head suddenly clicked. “Ummm … Xander?”
He didn’t lower his own binos, but kept a constant watch. “Yeah, Wills?”
“If that’s Mr. Mitchell, isn’t he … kinda close?”
That DID cause him to drop his binos down, and spin his head to face his friend with the patented Scooby Look of “Oh, Crap!” He snapped his binos back up, hoping he could see something he hadn’t before, hoping in vain. “Oh, crap,” he muttered. He suddenly looked back at Willow. “Do we have his cell phone number?!”
Willow’s eyes widened in realization. She grabbed her satchel, and wiggled backwards off the edge of the crypt. On the ground below their duck hide, she pulled out a red-filtered flashlight and started rummaging through her notes.
Xander was keeping an eye on the going’s on – they were starting the third grave – when he heard a hissed, “Yes!” of victory. A few moments of scrabbling, and his red-faced (matching her red hair) partner in crime Ermph‘d down beside him, a big grin on her face. “So how do we do this?” she asked. “ I doubt the vamps will let him have a conversation on the phone!”
He nodded. “Send him a text. Something like, Your son is safe, think of an excuse to go to the maintenance shed, wait for our signal.”
Willow’s fingers flew across the keys, entering the message and muttering to herself as she typed. “ … for … our … signal. Got it! Ready to send.” She watched her near-brother focus his binos on a particular form, then nod. She pushed the SEND button, then waited an anxious few seconds. “Ok – it’s gone!”
Xander carefully watched the man at the controls of the digging equipment. The guy was so despondent, Xander wasn’t sure he’d even check – no, there it was. He twitched, and reached for his hip pocket. The man carefully looked around, to make sure none of his captors were watching him at that instant, then dropped his eyes to the letters on the screen. Xander couldn’t help but admire the mental discipline it took for that poor man to not jump up and look wildly in all directions. He watched as the man carefully tucked his phone away, then did something to the controls that made the machine sputter for a moment. He moved to the side of the engine, then back to the controls. The founding Scooby watched breathlessly as the Master of this little clot of bloodsuckers came swarming over, obviously demanding what was going on. Mitchell made a little shrug, pointed briefly towards the maintenance shed, and made a “no big deal” hand wave. The vampire stared at him for a few seconds … more … longer … then shrugged, nodded, and grabbed one of his minions. The pointing and hand waving was obvious – “When the machine stalls out, take him to the shed to get what he needs to fix it!”
Xander grinned. This was gonna be sweeeet …
Marta was getting tired of waiting. The adrenaline rush from the fight at the dry cleaners had long worn off, she was getting a headache, and – natürlich! – she had to pee. She was simply flying wide circuits around the town, high and slow with her fire field damped down to prevent her from being spotted. Finally (Gott sie danke) her radio came to life.
“Firefly, this is Red Tree. Yellow Crayon has some paying customers at Playground 5, over.”
“Firefly, roger, 3 minutes lead time, over.”
“Red Tree, roger, approach from the North-West; civilian in target area; will advise when clear, over."
“Firefly, roger; zu befhl!”
“Red Tree, stand by, out.”
Marta grinned. She had heard the laughter in Willow’s voice; she got the reference.
Xander looked curiously at his teammate. “Zoo Beffel? Why is that funny?”
She snickered, “It basically translates as, At your command. Of course, those with an appreciation of science fiction often translate it as BY your command!”
Xander snorted, then looked back through his binos. “So she’s a Cylon, that’s why she looks different? I don’t remember the Centurions flying too much – not without their Raiders, any way!”
Willow chuckled, then turned her attention back to the graveyard. “They’re really starting to gather in. I think this is as good as we’re gonna get, or else that little boy’s daddy won’t make it out, and that would totally be of the bad, and – “
“Wills!” He had turned back, so he was almost nose-to-nose, the firm hiss that broke this latest babble delivered with a look of consummate affection and exasperation. “Send the text to the dad. Tell him it’s time to go.” At her nod, he returned to his observation of the horror show before him. ‘Easily twenty vamps, not the ten Dawnie estimated,’ he thought. ‘Need to work with that girl on her spotting skills!’
He watched the Master, and Mitchell, and the two Polgara demons. If any sort of close-range fight broke out, those two would be hard to deal – He brought his attention back to the human hostage; the guy had twitched, and was clearly checking his phone. Tucking it surreptitiously away, the man turned back to his controls; the machine sputtered, coughed twice, then grumbled into silence. Going through the motions, Mitchell came around to the side of the engine again, and stood up shaking his head.
With the engine switched off, Xander could hear the shouting as the Master came over. A quick mime show, a disgusted wave of dismissal, and Bill Mitchell started walking away from the monsters that had controlled his life for weeks. He had one escort – very easily dealt with.
“Firefly, this is Yellow Crayon; ready to illuminate, over.”
“Firefly, roger, en route, stand by, over.” She banked sharply back towards the cemetery, bringing her fire field up to half power as she climbed and poured on the speed. She levelled off at 4000ft, and made sure the altimeter alarm from her flight suit was set to 500ft. “Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, on approach – light ‘em up!”
Doing tests with Spike, they had discovered that while vampires could pick up heat sources – handy for hunting warm living beings in the dark – they actually had slightly less UV perception than the average human. On the other hand, her unusual eyes could easily see by the light from the powerful UV lamps that Xander and Willow had set up around the grave site, leaving that area effectively lit up like a night baseball game for her, but still pitch black for everyone else. She adjusted her direction, made sure she was directly over the target zone, half-rolled over and down, tucked her wings in good and tight, and stooped for her prey.
In the 25 seconds it took her to free-fall from 4000 feet to 500 feet, she shifted every scrap of power into the fireball she was building. In addition to manifesting more and more *fire*, she was manipulating it with her pyrokinesis, compressing it, HEATING it. She was rated as a bit of a lightweight when it came to firepower throughput compared to some of her classmates, but very few of them could PUMP UP the way Marta was at that very moment. Unfortunately, she was quickly beginning to realise that SHE couldn’t pump up the way she was at that moment, either; the heat was getting through her protective skin field, slowly burning her hands, and arms, and face. The sheer psychic effort required to control the massive bundle of energy dancing across her finger tips was giving her a headache. The sudden taste and feel of blood trickling from her nose and eyes gave brutal notice that it wasn’t simply a headache, either.
Xander continued his surveillance, watching for any sudden changes. He jumped when the Master shouted to Mitchell and his escort. The escort stopped; Mitchell kept walking. A second shout from the vampire leader had his childe leaping at Mitchell, yanking him back and turning him about to walk back to the grave site. Xander suddenly realized he wasn’t imagining things – it really was getting brighter! He looked up in horror to see a brilliant ball of fire dropping like a rock, dropping like the Wrath of God on the monsters below. “Shit!” he screamed – the time for stealth and subtlety were over. “Willow! Text him right now – Get down! Get down right now!” He turned back to watch, his heart in his throat – and saw Bill Mitchell trip as his escort shoved him, leaving him sprawled out behind a row of headstones.
“Perfect! Now it’s our turn – jump!” he yelled, half-shoving his friend off the roof of the crypt. He jumped down beside her, grabbing her and forcing her tightly against the base of the crypt, tucking up tightly behind her. He ignored her outraged squawk of protest, simply shouting over her, “Close your eyes, put your hands over your ears, and open your mouth!” The pair had no sooner done that, then the nighttime darkness surrounding them became as day.
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Nope! It’s a cliff-hanger!
A/N - the notion of the Buffybot working at the Doublemeat Palace was borrowed shamelessly from Something Grave by MegK
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Marta moved north until she was in the proper row, then carefully stepped along the headstones towards the designated grave. As she approached their objective, she slowed, looking around in hesitation and confusion. She stopped, knelt, and waved up her friends. “Are you sure about this? Look at the ground!” The others followed where she was pointing, and gulped in unison. There wasn’t just one new grave. There were five. Marta glanced at Willow, murmuring, “Are you sure there’s just one vamp due to rise tonight?”
“Well – I was …”
Xander hung his head in exasperation. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he grumbled softly. At his friend’s pained look, he hurried to add, “I’m not blaming you, Wills. It’s within the realm of possibility that you might have missed ONE new customer, but not an extra FOUR! Something definitely of the hinky is going on here.” He watched his slightly-mollified almost-sister nod slowly, then shook his head and huffed. Tonight had the possibility of great suckage, and they had no way to get backup.
Rupert Giles sat back in his wingback chair, chewing on the arm of his glasses as he pondered the report just presented by the three youngsters in his sitting room. Xander and Willow were seated on the sofa, but their new young friend preferred to perch on the arm of the settee; she said it allowed her to relax her wings and tails, and not keep them so tightly against her body. He forced away a brief smirk as he noted the ill-fitting “The Clash” gym shorts, borrowed from his wardrobe in great haste and embarrassment, peeking out from under her skirt. Willow and Xander had teased Marta about the tragic loss of her panties for rather some time, ceasing abruptly when she had started tossing a small fireball from hand to hand and asking rather tartly if anyone else felt like experiencing a wardrobe malfunction tonight?
“I find myself quite - quite in agreement with Xander,” he stated, returning to the business at hand and gesturing with his glasses. “One fresh grave not listed in the records could simply be bureaucratic sloppiness. FOUR additional graves, all of them with fledglings, is simply beyond the realm of coincidence.” Replacing his glasses, he focused on his late-night guests. “Did any of you happen to notice the condition of the headstones of these unexpected graves?”
The two Scoobies looked at each other, then shook their heads, but Marta slowly nodded. “The vampire that grabbed me – the one I put into the headstone – that marker was covered in moss!” She looked at Giles with a puzzled expression. “I am sure of it – the grave was fresh, but the headstone was old. What does that mean?”
Willow’s face lit up, and she started waving her hands about. ”Ooh! Ooh! It’s a gang of vamps, and they’re hiding their kills – I mean the people they killed to turn into vamps by siring them, which is a really gross process that I never want to experience for myself, everyone please promise me you’ll stake me before letting me get turned – “ A nudge from Xander derailed the babble, allowing her to finish her original thought, “Oh – hiding them by burying them in the graveyard!”
Xander cocked his head to his oldest friend. “With ya so far, Wills,” he began, “but we’re kinda missing something in the logistics department here. How are these vamps getting their kills to the graveyard, and then getting the graves dug AND then filled back in, without either anyone noticing OR catching a bad case of sunburn?”
Willow gave him a grin and a smack on the shoulder, teasing, “Well listen to you, going on about logistics and everything. Apparently junior apprentice contractors learn big words, as well as how to cut wood and hammer nails!”
Xander returned her grin with a blush, then stuck his tongue out at the giggling dimensional cast-away hiding her own smirk in her hands. “Yeah, well, like the boss says, ‘It does no good to get the shingles on-site before the concrete for the foundation!’ “ He made a wry face and commented with a snort, “Although, some of the basements we’ve gone in to repair could probably use shingles in the FLOOR, there’s so much water coming up!”
Giles cleared his throat to bring them back on track, although with a twinkle in his eye. “Yes, well, the Zen of drywall is all fine and good, but we need to determine how these fledglings arrived and who put them there. I daresay Spike would be best-suited to nose about, see what leads and oddities he can determine. Willow and Marta, I assume one of you is likely to see him next?”
Marta nodded. “Yes, he is still staying in Dawn’s basement until Buffy comes home.” She looked uncertain as she continued, “I hope she will not be too mad that I have been staying in her house – in her mother’s room!”
Willow shook her head, and reached over to pat the winged girl on the knee, saying, “Don’t worry too much. Once she gets over your appearance – and with ALL of us chiming in how nice you are, that should be pretty quick! – she’ll be grateful to you for saving her life and for keeping Dawn company while she’s in the hospital. Ok? I mean, it’s not like you’re sleeping in her Yummy Sushi PJs, and snuggling with Mr. Gordo, right?” After a moment to silently realize that Marta was ducking her head and blushing, the redhead blurted, “You’re wearing her favourite Yummy Sushi PJs?!”
Marta’s head snapped up, outraged. “I do NOT wear her favourite pajamas! That would be RUDE!” Her face fell, as the skin under her spray of scales reddened. “Ummm … I did kind of pick up her stuffed piggy, and have not yet put him back.” She scowled at Xander’s mock-horrified gasp (and snicker), grumbling, “He vas cute, und I vas scared, und lonely, und it helped to cuddle mit ihm …”
Willow laughed kindly, then offered, “Tell you what, sweety. After breakfast tomorrow, Tara and I will take you shopping again, and we’ll find you your own fuzzy friend – ok?” She reached out a finger to raise the younger girl’s chin, as the slitted cat’s eyes slowly lifted to meet her smile.
The wreckage of Glory’s tower was still being cleared away. It had collapsed under its own weight, three days after the Hell-God’s demise. Before any given section could be carted away, it had to be cut free not only from its anchor points, but also from the wreckage entangled with it.
A brief crack of sound like thunder woke a few residents; they grumbled at being awakened in the middle of the night, then rolled over and went back to sleep. Those already awake to hear the noise and see the sudden flash of light assumed it was simply heat lightning, or an approaching storm, and went about their business. No-one looked up to see a small black and purple annulus form 80-odd feet in the air, and somewhat over the pile of wreckage and rubble. After a few seconds, the center of that ring opened to a diameter of not-quite 2 feet; a pale white light shined out through the hole in the sky.
A head suddenly popped through the portal, long straight black hair falling around a young set of feminine and slightly Oriental features. The girl looked around, then dropped her gaze to the ground. “Holy crap on a popsicle stick!” she cried, a wide grin creasing her pale skin. “Get a load of how high we are!”
A voice from behind her called out, “Get back from there, you twit! We have no idea how stable this thing is!”
Another voice cried out from behind the portal, “Yes we do – it’s collapsing! Pull me back! Pull me –“
The voice was cut off as the aperture snapped shut, barely missing the girl who had been yanked back with a strangled “Yeek!” A few strands of long black hair wafted away on the breeze, mirror-smooth ends where they had been cut by the closing portal winking in the moonlight.
It was almost a week before Spike’s investigation – which mostly involved beating the moonlights out of every demonic lowlife he came across until they told him whatever they did or didn’t know – hit paydirt. Willow had been correct; a group of vampires was in fact using existing graves at that graveyard as safe ‘incubators’ for their fledges.
***
Three weeks prior:
“So, Patty. They tell me you have a thought you wish to share?” Samuel wasn’t particularly old or impressive as Masters went. He had been an accountant for an investment firm when he had been turned in the summer of 1955. He still wore his hair short, and maintained the suit, tie, and business-man’s hat that went with it. What had worked for him was the suppressed rage at being a nameless, faceless cog in a machine. That had translated quite well to the willpower and vicious determination needed to survive as a fledge, to become a minion, and to succeed and kill his own Master at less than 50 years after being turned.
“Yes, sir,” she murmured, her eyes downcast, her hands folded demurely before her. Women’s lib had most definitely never come to Samuel’s pack. “I understand – I had heard – that many of those selected to be turned rarely have the chance to achieve their potential, and join your pack. I heard that the Slayer, and the Hunters, destroy them as they emerge from their graves, or flesh-eating demons feast on them while they rest.”
Samuel’s lips twitched into a cruel smile. “The Slayer has become much less of a problem, and without her assistance her Hunter friends will not remain a problem much longer. But tell me, for the sake of my amusement, what was your idea?”
“My husband-who-was is the lead groundskeeper at St. Louise’s Rest Acres. He is responsible for the digging and maintaining of the various graves. He has full access to the grounds at any time, as well as to the powered digging equipment. Instead of digging one grave for one fledge – “
He interrupted with a laugh, “He can dig four or five, and safely bury those I deem suitable to turn! Excellent idea, my dear, excellent!” He leaned forward suddenly, vamping out with a scream, “AND HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO MAKE HIM DO THIS, YOU IDIOT?!”
She flinched back, expecting to be struck. When no blow landed, she hastily mumbled, “My son! My husband loves him dearly! Take my son, keep him alive and show him to my husband, and he will do anything!” She cowered, waiting for the punch or kick. After a moment, she dared to raise her eyes slightly – and saw Samuel sitting back, watching her.
“I am impressed,” he said, stroking his chin. ”You did give this some thought. Tell me - how will you take your son?”
A little emboldened, she raised both her chin and her voice slightly. “Someone will have to make a call to the house at night, reporting a fire in the equipment garage. He will need to go there quickly, and will leave our son with the old biddy next door. Once he leaves, and once she settles back down in front of the television, I can lure him out. He’s too young to understand why he should not invite his mommy in to visit Mrs. Kowalski. He should be very happy to meet me, actually, and I will be delighted to explain to him why those people that told him Mommy had gone to Heaven were so silly!”
Samuel threw his head back, and laughed.
***
“So there you go, then – a bunch of nasty boys grabbed this poor sod’s young lad, and have him diggin’ up the landscape for their childer.” Spike shrugged, shifted himself on the lawn chair behind the Summers’ house, then lit up a fag. “Not much he can do about it. Not sure how long this crazy bint will keep the boy breathin’, and for sure as soon’s the boy get’s et, they’ll chop the Da – he’ll tell ‘em ta sod off, and they’ll have no more use for ‘im. ‘Cept as snacks, o’ course.” He took a deep drag. “Killin’ off the fam’s a big part of getting’ sired.”
Willow sat bolt upright from her lounging position on her blanket; she looked like she was about to burst into tears. “No! Nononono! We have to do something! We have to stopthis wecan’t let that littleboyand hisdaddygetkilled it’sbadenoughhe’slosthismommywe can’t … !”
“Willow! Breathe, child, for God’s sake!” snapped Giles, showing an unusual flash of temper. “We can and will most certainly stop this, and we can and will most certainly put paid to this Samuel fellow!”
Xander nodded slowly, holding one of Willow’s hands while Tara pulled her trembling girlfriend into a hug. “I’m all for it, Tweedmaster-G,” he declared. “Just tell me when and where, and – if it’s not too much trouble – HOW?”
“How, indeed,” the Watcher murmured, slowly cleaning his glasses. He stopped, paused, then quickly replaced them on his face, turning to face the bleached undead. “Spike – how, how often do they show this poor fellow his - his child? Was it just the once, or is it a regular occurrence?”
“Every time, Watcher. Every time they’ve got a batch for ‘im to plant, he gets a phone call that morning, then a knock at the door from his Missus and the lad once it’s a little less sunny.” Spike cocked an eyebrow with a smirk; he could see where this was leading. “Not just them, natch. Got a whole mess of ugly-wuglies along to make sure nobody does any foolishness. The digger and most of the mob head off to conduct business, while the boy and his mum head back to the hideout along with a few friends.”
Giles leaned forward from his folding camp chair. “Do we know where they are keeping the boy?”
Spike shook his head, and shrugged. “Nah, couldn’t get anyone to talk long enough to get to that bit.” He smiled, thinking how things were going to get surprising, as he looked at Marta sprawled on the grass in that boneless heap that only teenagers can manage, her wings splayed out on either side. “But I figure we might have a little bird, just might be able to follow them, wee wee wee! All the way home!”
Marta just nodded, and flashed her fangs in a predator’s grin, which Spike returned.
Willow monitored the mortician’s intranet records carefully, using a search and filter program she had set up on her home computer. They had established that the gang was using the burial of one of their victims as cover for the digging activity for their fledges; it would ruin the game if someone was to notice a great deal of grave digging when there were no dearly-departed supposedly being interred.
It was another three days before she saw what she had been watching for. The search program had coughed up a coroner’s report on one Lawrence (Larry) O’Connell, a travelling salesman just passing through town. Middle-aged, slightly obese, of no particular importance to anyone - except that he had died from “Exsanguination due to paired puncture wounds to the carotid artery. Likely caused by careless mishandling of a cooking implement; specifically, a barbeque fork. Death ruled as due to misadventure.” No next of kin were listed, and no-one had claimed the body. He was scheduled to be buried in a pauper’s grave that afternoon, in St. Louise’s Rest Acres. She hit the PRINT button, and while the information was being spat out as a few sheets of paper, she grabbed her phone and called the Summers’ house. “Hi, Dawnie! Can you do the big phone call thing, gather everybody up? I think we have our chance!”
Once she was sure the troops were being rallied, she grabbed her purse and ran out to her car. At a sudden flicker of paranoia, she checked the special equipment in the trunk, ensuring the bulbs were securely in their cushioned travel boxes, and the plastic filter sheets weren’t crumpled or torn. Satisfied, she closed the trunk, hopped behind the wheel , and took off to Casa Summers.
The plan wasn’t hard, just involved. There were multiple stages, and multiple tasks, and really not enough warm bodies (or room temperature, in Spike’s case) to carry them out simultaneously. There would have to be some carefully-coordinated movement of personnel – not quite as complicated as “The farmer, the goose, the fox and the grain,” but there wasn’t a lot of room for error. They did have a fair bit of time to set up. The vampires couldn’t move until full dark, sunset that night wasn’t until 8pm, and Bill Mitchell had finished burying Larry O’Connell by 3pm.
5 o’clock that evening found Xander and Willow setting up the special equipment in the graveyard, near the fresh grave of Larry O’Connell. Once the items were arranged and carefully camouflaged with light grey sheets, they moved to a crypt about one hundred yards away to set up their own hide. Once everything was ready, they joined Tara where she sat fretting in Willow’s car; she was the driver for the get-away / medical evac vehicle for their group. After a quick round of hugs, the team headed back to the house on Revello Drive to relax until it was time to move out.
Dawn and Anya had a much simpler job of setting up their observation point; the back window on the second floor of a local Schnitzel Haus (“Sie nennen DAS Schnitzel??“ had been Marta’s horrified reaction, along with a shudder) had a fairly good sightline through various yards to the Mitchell house, two streets over. They had reservations for that particular table at 8 o’clock; the two women would come in, take a seat at the table and order. They would sit there, snacking and drinking sodas, until the anticipated house call was witnessed and called in.
Spike and Giles would be the primary attackers on the location where young Ian Mitchell was being held. With Buffy in the hospital and the Buffybot working a shift at the Doublemeat Palace that evening, they were the two best in the group when it came to “maximum speed and violence.” They would be driving Xander’s truck, as it was not only the fastest and most rugged vehicle they had, but it also had the most seating capacity.
Marta was the linchpin. Her speed and firepower were essential to the plan, and she would be a very busy young lady. She would remain in the backyard of the Summers’ residence until the kidnap party arrived at the Mitchell home, at which point things would get hectic.
Willow, Tara, and Xander headed out first; they had to be in position well before the vampire gang headed to the grave site with what would be their new fledglings. Driving quickly through the lightly trafficked streets, they arrived at the main gates at 7:45pm. Willow and Xander hopped out with their supplies; the two girlfriends exchanged a tight, worried hug and kiss, with whispered demands and assurances about being careful, then the red-headed witch and her childhood friend hustled into the graveyard to take up their position. Climbing onto the roof of the crypt that would be their observation post, they checked that everything was still in place. A thick layer of blankets made laying on the hard stone a little more comfortable, while two mottled green blankets draped over folding camp stools masked them from view, both in visible light and by heat signature. It wasn’t that stealthy in the light of day, but it would be very effective in the dark. Small holes cut in the blankets would allow them to see their target area. Each had a small satchel with drinks, snacks, stakes, and spare batteries for their radios. A quiver on each of their belts held bolts for the crossbows they carried.
Tara drove the car to the relative safety of an abandoned repair garage one block over; vetted and cleared out by Spike the night before, the garage door was jammed open just enough for Willow’s car to slip underneath. Parking as close to the back wall as she could, she draped several of the thickest blankets they could find at the local thrift shop over the hood and grill, to mask – or at least muddy – the heat signature from detection by any passing vampires. Adding a light layer of posters, calendars, and empty oil filter boxes just to make spotting the car from the sidewalk a little harder amid all the other clutter, Tara settled in to wait.
At 7:55pm, Xander’s truck pulled up to the Schnitzel Haus. Dawn and Anya hopped out, waved to Giles as he pulled away, then headed inside to take up their position (and order snacks that tasted quite yummy, even if it wasn’t “Schnitzel” by Marta’s standards). The Watcher in the meantime headed back to Buffy’s house, where he and Spike would remain until Marta had followed the kidnappers back to their lair.
Precisely at 8 o’clock, the radio earpiece that each member of the Scooby group wore that night crackled to life, as an educated British accent was heard to break the radio silence. “All Scoobies, Rule Brittania, radio check, over.”
“Spicy Wings, gotcha, over.”
“Blonde Ambition, ok, over.”
“Cash Only, nice and clear, over.”
“Bigger Soon, I hear you, over.”
“Firefly, loud and clear, over.”
“Red Tree, that’s me, over!”
“Yellow Crayon, who picked these names, over?”
“Rule Brittania, not sure but I rather like mine, out.”
The wait wasn’t as bad as they had feared; even Willow managed to keep her fidgeting to a minimum. It was however long enough for Anya to drink enough sodas that she needed to visit the little Vengeance Demon’s room, so Dawn was by herself when she saw the porch light at the Mitchell house come on. She choked back the mouthful of cheesy garlic bread with sauerkraut and horseradish she was chewing, wiped her hands on the napkin, and brought her compact binoculars up. She gulped, gulped again, took a quick drink, then brought her walkie-talkie up and keyed the mike. “All Scoobies, Bigger Soon, they’re here! I mean, they’re there! I mean, they’re at the house! I – over!”
“Bigger Soon, Yellow Crayon; calm down, take a deep breath, take sip of that big glass of soda I know you have in front of you” … “Ok – better now? How many baddies do you see, over?”
“Bigger Soon, a lot of them! They’re moving about, it’s hard to tell. Way more than ten vamps, I think that’s a Polgara, and there’s three or four others I have no idea what they are.” After a moment’s pause, she rekeyed the mike. “Oh, uh – over!”
“Yellow Crayon, good job. Sit tight, keep an eye on them, let us know when they start to leave, over.”
“Bigger Soon, ok. I mean, roger. Out, I think.”
As expected, it wasn’t long before the radios came to life again. “All Scoobies, Cash Only, they’re heading out. The boy and three or four others are in a small reddish van, the father and two others in a big white van, with the rest on foot. I can’t tell the license of the boy’s van at this distance in the dark through these obviously defective binoculars. I hope you kept the receipts so we can get our money – what? Oh, fine, fine – over!”
“Firefly, roger, on the way. Could you tell which direction they were headed? Over.”
“Cash Only, they headed east, over.”
“Firefly, roger, out.”
“Yellow Crayon, acknowledge baddies headed our way, out.”
With a boisterous hug for Spike, and a rather shyer hug for Herr Giles, Marta stepped back, spread her wings, and concentrated on the techniques taught to her by the Powers Testing staff and practiced in the ‘Introduction to Superpowers’ labs. Focusing on her power, she generated and wrapped the thin layer of flames around her wings and tails that allowed her to effectively grab and move herself with her pyrokinesis. Lifting smoothly and almost silently into the night sky, she glowed like a comet, but quickly shrank as she flew up to an altitude of around 2000 feet. Reducing the intensity of the flames to a minimum, she glided back down towards the house where this tragedy was centered. Searching the streets below for any sign of movement, she quickly spotted a vehicle with no lights, her attention drawn as much to the flashes of light and shadow it created as it passed under and out of the street lamps as by the actual shape. “All Scoobies, Firefly, I have them. Heading east on Montgomery, passing Rutherford; more to follow, out.”
It was a mere five minutes before the van slowed, and pulled into a parking strip behind a plaza. Marta risked using a little more power, a little brighter flame, and came to a soft and gentle landing on the roof of a church less than 500 feet from the vampire gang’s vehicle. Quickly dispersing her manifested flame, she ducked down behind a gargoyle – the irony did not escape her – and watched as the gang bundled the little boy into the back door of one of the shops. “Rule Brittania, Firefly, targets have unloaded and entered the “Zoom-quik Dry Cleaners” through the back door, over.”
Giles quirked an eyebrow at Spike, muttering, “Apparently they like being able to remove blood stains from their delicates.” While the former Big-Bad snickered, Giles keyed the mike while reaching for the map. “Rule Brittania, roger, confirm that’s the Wilkins Heights Strip Plaza, over?”
Marta craned her neck, then spotted the main sign for the complex. “Firefly, roger that, over.”
“Rule Brittania, acknowledged, prepare for phase three. Spicy Wings and I are moving now, out.”
After a brief wait, Marta saw Xander’s pickup moving up the road - at the speed limit, to avoid attracting the attention of the cops - then turning into the parking lot. She leapt to her feet, then ran off the edge of the church roof, flaring her wings and powers as she dove into freefall. She swooped down past Giles and Spike as they piled out of the truck, each well-armed with crossbow, sword and stakes. She landed 20 feet from the door and brought up her power to form two small but powerful fireballs, launching them into the exposed hinges of the closed rear entrance. With the joints shattering under the explosive force, the door sagged, supported by the dead bolt in the other jamb.
The wrecked door was promptly kicked aside by the blond vampire. “Hello, kiddies!” he announced with his traditional sneer. “Who wants to dance?” Without waiting for any sort of response, he whipped up his crossbow for a snapshot at one of the snarling vampires turning to glare at him. Struck directly in the heart, the remains of the possessed corpse exploded into dust, and took longer to fall to the floor than the empty crossbow dropped from its killer’s hands. Ignoring the sword strapped across his back, Spike pulled out two stakes and charged for one of the remaining demons. He lunged past the collapsing dust pile that marked Giles’ first target; he heard the scrape of metal on leather behind him as the Watcher drew his sword.
Spike dodged the clumsy blow from his opponent, then lunged in, plunging both stakes into the creature’s armpits. As it jerked bolt upright in reaction, a vicious kick shattered its left knee and dropped it to the ground. Whipping a heavy fighting knife from behind his back, the former Big-Bad slammed the blade through the wreckage of the knee, pinning the bloodsucker to the ground and preventing the injury from healing. He bounded back to his feet, quickly looking around to assess what needed killing next.
Giles recovered back into a ready stance as the monster before him was reduced to dust; one powerful stroke had decapitated the undead leech. He searched the area for other threats and foes, but saw nothing but Spike and his prisoner. “Did you see the boy?” he demanded of his partner.
Spike shook his head and answered, “Nah, but I bet this bloke here has a WONderful story to tell us.” He grinned like a shark as he gave the groaning prisoner a solid kick to the ribs, then drew out his spiked brass knuckles. “I bet ‘e’s just DYIN’ to tell us where the lad got to!”
“My son is quite safe with his mother, and will remain that way.” The voice was cold and sultry at the same time, like a crocodile that wanted to make nice. The short brunette came out of a store room, the 6-year-old boy held in front of her, his head tipped firmly back against her chest with the talons of her left hand pressed against his throat. Tears streamed down his face, but he made no noise. He seemed to be trying to scowl up at his captor.
“Well, wot have we here? The hand that rocks the cradle, innit? Not gonna win any motherly awards like that, lovey!” The undead Cockney had turned towards her at the first hint of sound, and was stalking across her path. “Not sure wot you think you’re plannin’, but I can tell ya wot you ain’t getting’, and that’s out that door.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” she sneered. “I know all about you, and your slobbering after the Slayer. Disgusting, and you’ve picked up some other disgusting habits from her, too! For instance, “ – she gently stroked the boy’s neck with her razor-edged nails, a smirk across her face – “You actually care about these blood bags. You actually care if I open this boy’s throat up like a bag of popcorn – and not just because it would be such a waste of such warm, tasty, innocent blood … “
The break in the standoff came from the most unexpected direction. Little Ian Mitchell, all of 6 years old, suddenly screamed, “You’re mean and you’re not my mommy!” He swung his little fists up as hard as he could, bashing her in the nose while at the same time he stamped on her foot. The actual impact was trivial to something as strong as a vampire, but the thing that had been Patty Mitchell snapped her head back and relaxed her grip in sheer astonishment. The brave little boy, suddenly released, dropped to the floor.
“No!” the vampire with his mother’s face screamed, vamping out and reaching down for the boy. “You get ba -!” A tiny fireball streaked across the orderly chaos of the dry cleaning store, straight into the fiend’s open mouth. She had time for one brief shocked realization of horror, then burst into dust and ash.
Giles and Spike looked back to where Marta stood, her trembling hand still outstretched. “She … had him too close,” she gulped. “I could not be sure if I fired on her that he would not die – that he would not BURN.” She let her hand drop, swallowed again as tears started to fall. She swayed slightly, but Spike caught her, held her steady. “She was going to kill him,” the girl continued, “She was going to cut him open, and I was going to have to take the chance of setting him on fire.”
Spike gathered her into a tight hug, then pointed over to where the Watcher was gathering up the little tyke in a hug of his own. “Don’t you be worryin’ about wot mighta bin, or wot coulda bin. You look there, and that’s wot you DID.” He wiped a tear away with a cold finger, and gave her a firm nod. “Saved that lad’s life you did, right proper, too! You’ve nothin’ ta regret or beat up about.”
She looked over at the crouched little boy, sobbing his grief and terror into Herr Giles’ jacket, and nodded slowly. Wiping her eyes and nose, she allowed the vampire to lead her over to the child. She knelt down beside him, and stroked his tangled hair. “Hello, there. My name’s Marta. What’s yours?”
The sobs slowed, as he looked up at her. She had her form as human as possible, but the differences were still obvious. After what he’d been through, though, it seemed minor oddities didn’t matter much. “I’m Ian. Ian Mitchell.” He stared at the tiny black horns at her hairline, and at the tiny grey scales across her nose and cheekbones. “You’re pretty,” he said, then turned his face back into Giles’ shoulder.
Giles stood with a small smile, the softly crying child tucked into his shoulder. “Let’s get this lad out of here. Marta, are you ready for phase four?”
She took a deep breath and nodded, then turned and hustled out the door. Jogging out into the cool air, she spread her wings and soared up into the night sky. “Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, over.”
“Yellow Crayon, good to hear from you, over.”
“Firefly, phase three complete, precious cargo safe. Go with phase four at your signal, over.”
“Yellow Crayon, understood; the party wagon is onsite and games are being set up but most of the guests haven’t arrived yet, over.”
“Firefly roger, let me know when it’s time for the party favours, over.”
“Y-C, roger out!” He released the mike button just in time to yelp in shock as the red-head lying beside him swatted him on the arm. In a much quieter voice, he grumbled, “What was that for? We’re supposed to be all stealth-ilicious, not making our partners jump and yeep!”
“Y-C?” she hissed in mild outrage. “I picked ‘Yellow Crayon’ for you because it’s special to me, you doofus!” Her eyes suddenly went wide. “I – I mean – I just – I’m glad whoever picked the names selected such – such fine, and – and meaningful that – “ A finger on her lips brought the babble to a quick and merciful stop; while the finger’s owner wore only a teasing smile on his face, she KNEW the big doofus was laughing at her inside!
It took about twenty minutes before the various demons and vampires were gathered into the area. Two of four graves were dug down far enough to offer the needed protection and security. The body-bagged corpses that would rise in the next 24-48 hours were dumped rather carelessly into the waiting holes.
Willow watched through her binoculars; between the moon and the sparse lighting in the area, she was able to make out what was happening. Something that had been tickling at the back of her head suddenly clicked. “Ummm … Xander?”
He didn’t lower his own binos, but kept a constant watch. “Yeah, Wills?”
“If that’s Mr. Mitchell, isn’t he … kinda close?”
That DID cause him to drop his binos down, and spin his head to face his friend with the patented Scooby Look of “Oh, Crap!” He snapped his binos back up, hoping he could see something he hadn’t before, hoping in vain. “Oh, crap,” he muttered. He suddenly looked back at Willow. “Do we have his cell phone number?!”
Willow’s eyes widened in realization. She grabbed her satchel, and wiggled backwards off the edge of the crypt. On the ground below their duck hide, she pulled out a red-filtered flashlight and started rummaging through her notes.
Xander was keeping an eye on the going’s on – they were starting the third grave – when he heard a hissed, “Yes!” of victory. A few moments of scrabbling, and his red-faced (matching her red hair) partner in crime Ermph‘d down beside him, a big grin on her face. “So how do we do this?” she asked. “ I doubt the vamps will let him have a conversation on the phone!”
He nodded. “Send him a text. Something like, Your son is safe, think of an excuse to go to the maintenance shed, wait for our signal.”
Willow’s fingers flew across the keys, entering the message and muttering to herself as she typed. “ … for … our … signal. Got it! Ready to send.” She watched her near-brother focus his binos on a particular form, then nod. She pushed the SEND button, then waited an anxious few seconds. “Ok – it’s gone!”
Xander carefully watched the man at the controls of the digging equipment. The guy was so despondent, Xander wasn’t sure he’d even check – no, there it was. He twitched, and reached for his hip pocket. The man carefully looked around, to make sure none of his captors were watching him at that instant, then dropped his eyes to the letters on the screen. Xander couldn’t help but admire the mental discipline it took for that poor man to not jump up and look wildly in all directions. He watched as the man carefully tucked his phone away, then did something to the controls that made the machine sputter for a moment. He moved to the side of the engine, then back to the controls. The founding Scooby watched breathlessly as the Master of this little clot of bloodsuckers came swarming over, obviously demanding what was going on. Mitchell made a little shrug, pointed briefly towards the maintenance shed, and made a “no big deal” hand wave. The vampire stared at him for a few seconds … more … longer … then shrugged, nodded, and grabbed one of his minions. The pointing and hand waving was obvious – “When the machine stalls out, take him to the shed to get what he needs to fix it!”
Xander grinned. This was gonna be sweeeet …
Marta was getting tired of waiting. The adrenaline rush from the fight at the dry cleaners had long worn off, she was getting a headache, and – natürlich! – she had to pee. She was simply flying wide circuits around the town, high and slow with her fire field damped down to prevent her from being spotted. Finally (Gott sie danke) her radio came to life.
“Firefly, this is Red Tree. Yellow Crayon has some paying customers at Playground 5, over.”
“Firefly, roger, 3 minutes lead time, over.”
“Red Tree, roger, approach from the North-West; civilian in target area; will advise when clear, over."
“Firefly, roger; zu befhl!”
“Red Tree, stand by, out.”
Marta grinned. She had heard the laughter in Willow’s voice; she got the reference.
Xander looked curiously at his teammate. “Zoo Beffel? Why is that funny?”
She snickered, “It basically translates as, At your command. Of course, those with an appreciation of science fiction often translate it as BY your command!”
Xander snorted, then looked back through his binos. “So she’s a Cylon, that’s why she looks different? I don’t remember the Centurions flying too much – not without their Raiders, any way!”
Willow chuckled, then turned her attention back to the graveyard. “They’re really starting to gather in. I think this is as good as we’re gonna get, or else that little boy’s daddy won’t make it out, and that would totally be of the bad, and – “
“Wills!” He had turned back, so he was almost nose-to-nose, the firm hiss that broke this latest babble delivered with a look of consummate affection and exasperation. “Send the text to the dad. Tell him it’s time to go.” At her nod, he returned to his observation of the horror show before him. ‘Easily twenty vamps, not the ten Dawnie estimated,’ he thought. ‘Need to work with that girl on her spotting skills!’
He watched the Master, and Mitchell, and the two Polgara demons. If any sort of close-range fight broke out, those two would be hard to deal – He brought his attention back to the human hostage; the guy had twitched, and was clearly checking his phone. Tucking it surreptitiously away, the man turned back to his controls; the machine sputtered, coughed twice, then grumbled into silence. Going through the motions, Mitchell came around to the side of the engine again, and stood up shaking his head.
With the engine switched off, Xander could hear the shouting as the Master came over. A quick mime show, a disgusted wave of dismissal, and Bill Mitchell started walking away from the monsters that had controlled his life for weeks. He had one escort – very easily dealt with.
“Firefly, this is Yellow Crayon; ready to illuminate, over.”
“Firefly, roger, en route, stand by, over.” She banked sharply back towards the cemetery, bringing her fire field up to half power as she climbed and poured on the speed. She levelled off at 4000ft, and made sure the altimeter alarm from her flight suit was set to 500ft. “Yellow Crayon, this is Firefly, on approach – light ‘em up!”
Doing tests with Spike, they had discovered that while vampires could pick up heat sources – handy for hunting warm living beings in the dark – they actually had slightly less UV perception than the average human. On the other hand, her unusual eyes could easily see by the light from the powerful UV lamps that Xander and Willow had set up around the grave site, leaving that area effectively lit up like a night baseball game for her, but still pitch black for everyone else. She adjusted her direction, made sure she was directly over the target zone, half-rolled over and down, tucked her wings in good and tight, and stooped for her prey.
In the 25 seconds it took her to free-fall from 4000 feet to 500 feet, she shifted every scrap of power into the fireball she was building. In addition to manifesting more and more *fire*, she was manipulating it with her pyrokinesis, compressing it, HEATING it. She was rated as a bit of a lightweight when it came to firepower throughput compared to some of her classmates, but very few of them could PUMP UP the way Marta was at that very moment. Unfortunately, she was quickly beginning to realise that SHE couldn’t pump up the way she was at that moment, either; the heat was getting through her protective skin field, slowly burning her hands, and arms, and face. The sheer psychic effort required to control the massive bundle of energy dancing across her finger tips was giving her a headache. The sudden taste and feel of blood trickling from her nose and eyes gave brutal notice that it wasn’t simply a headache, either.
Xander continued his surveillance, watching for any sudden changes. He jumped when the Master shouted to Mitchell and his escort. The escort stopped; Mitchell kept walking. A second shout from the vampire leader had his childe leaping at Mitchell, yanking him back and turning him about to walk back to the grave site. Xander suddenly realized he wasn’t imagining things – it really was getting brighter! He looked up in horror to see a brilliant ball of fire dropping like a rock, dropping like the Wrath of God on the monsters below. “Shit!” he screamed – the time for stealth and subtlety were over. “Willow! Text him right now – Get down! Get down right now!” He turned back to watch, his heart in his throat – and saw Bill Mitchell trip as his escort shoved him, leaving him sprawled out behind a row of headstones.
“Perfect! Now it’s our turn – jump!” he yelled, half-shoving his friend off the roof of the crypt. He jumped down beside her, grabbing her and forcing her tightly against the base of the crypt, tucking up tightly behind her. He ignored her outraged squawk of protest, simply shouting over her, “Close your eyes, put your hands over your ears, and open your mouth!” The pair had no sooner done that, then the nighttime darkness surrounding them became as day.
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Nope! It’s a cliff-hanger!
A/N - the notion of the Buffybot working at the Doublemeat Palace was borrowed shamelessly from Something Grave by MegK
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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Last Edit: 8 years 2 months ago by DonTZ125.
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Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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- DonTZ125
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5 – Scorching Tiger, Sodden Dragon
Joss owns BtVS; the Whateley Academy universe is owned by the Canon Cabal (There Is No Canon Cabal). I’m just borrowing them.
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
In the 25 seconds it took her to free-fall from 4000 feet to 500 feet, she shifted every scrap of power into the fireball she was building. In addition to manifesting more and more *fire*, she was manipulating it with her pyrokinesis, compressing it, HEATING it. She was rated as a bit of a lightweight when it came to firepower throughput compared to some of her classmates, but very few of them could PUMP UP the way Marta was at that very moment. Unfortunately, she was quickly beginning to realise that SHE couldn’t pump up the way she was at that moment, either; the heat was getting through her protective skin field, slowly burning her hands, and arms, and face. The sheer psychic pressure required to control the massive bundle of energy dancing across her finger tips was giving her a headache. The sudden taste and feel of blood trickling from her nose and eyes gave brutal notice that it wasn’t simply a headache, either.
Marta forced the crackling sphere of what was by now compressed and superheated plasma away from her as hard as she could, while at the same time regenerating the manifested flame around her wings. Snapping them fully out, she banked HARD away from her previous flight path, then swept them back into a more aerodynamic configuration while accelerating as hard as she could, putting as much distance between herself and the plunging fireball as possible. It was hard to concentrate on her powers; her head felt like it was splitting open, and the nerves in her hands and arms were shrieking at her. The pain was such that it was hard to see – no, part of that was the film of blood across her left eye. She had leveled off, and was pointed away from the impact point. She put her head down, and pushed.
She didn’t notice when the PK field around the plasma sphere lost coherence some 60 feet above the ground, releasing the energies contained within. The front expanded at several times the speed of sound; the temperature and pressure of the ionized gasses dropped geometrically as the sphere’s radius increased, but was still sufficient to incinerate every vampire present, and shred and char every non-inflammable demon in the graveyard. Headstones close to the epicenter were thrown flying, smashing each other to rubble. Further out, gravestones were knocked flat and sent skidding along, tearing up the burning grass.
Lying face down in the grass with his arms wrapped around his head and tucked into the shadow of a headstone, Bill Mitchell felt the wash of heat pass over him, but was basically unscathed. He looked around at the sound of a bubbling scream, a wordless cry of agony. He flinched at the sight of his vampire escort, standing helpless, its face burned away. The blast wave had not quite been sufficient to incinerate the demonically-animated corpse, but it was enough to leave a charred, flayed skull with only shreds of flesh and muscle around the grinning jaw and empty eye sockets. Forcing himself up on unsteady legs, the gravedigger shifted behind the wailing vampire as it fell to its knees. Drawing a wooden stake from a thigh cargo pocket – you don’t work in a Sunnydale graveyard without learning a few of life’s realities – he struck through the monster’s ribcage and into the heart. The whistling scream was lost in a whoosh of dust and ash.
The facing wall of the crypt Willow and Xander sheltered behind was shattered and driven into the structure; the admitted overpressure was sufficient to lift the roof and push the walls slightly outward. With the roof landing offset on damaged walls, the crypt began to twist and shift. Xander grabbed the collar of Willow’s jacket and *heaved*, lifting her bodily as he pushed himself and his friend up and forward, scrambling to get away from the swaying stone structure. Burned grass crunched under their feet as they left the blast shadow and hurried away from the crumbling monument. Turning in place, they both murmured their shock at the devastation. In addition to the collapsed crypt and marker stones, the trees that had shaded their position earlier that afternoon were now denuded skeletons, the tips of bare branches burning like candles while the ash of shattered leaves fell like black snow.
Willow looked up, and around, and around, and in a small voice asked, “Do you see Marta anywhere?”
Xander cursed, spun once in place to double-check, then lifted his radio and keyed the mike. “Firefly, this is Yellow Crayon, over.”
“Firefly, this is Yellow Crayon, talk to me, over.”
“Dammit, Marta! Talk to me! Are you ok? Where are you? Over!” His voice cracked on the last words, as his head bowed.
Moments earlier:
She couldn’t see where she was going; the pain in her head and the blood in her eyes took care of that. The only thought was a constant mantra, “Must go faster, must go faster, must – “
A giant hand slapped at her, sending her spinning and tumbling towards the ground. Her concentration shattered, the flames around her wings providing lift and thrust winked out. She spread her wings as far as she could, trying for control. She felt the wings bite into the air, slowing her fall, reducing her speed. She belly-flopped onto soft grass – a field, a lawn – with a Woulph! of air forced from her lungs. Skidding across the ground, she screamed as she smashed through something – wood? A fence? - that left her shoulder shrieking in sudden pain. As she slid to a stop, she was overwhelmed by the smell of burning things – grass, cloth, hair. Pork, roasting on a grill. Forcing herself to her knees, she wiped her right eye on her sleeve. The in-ground pool not eight feet away was quite possibly the most beautiful thing she had seen in a very long time. Staggering forward, she slipped on the deck and fell face-first into the water, sending up a gout of steam.
Snapping out of a doze, Tara heard Xander’s anxious calls over the radio. Quickly centering herself with a few cleansing breaths, she closed her eyes, and reached for the aura signature of the unique young woman she had come to know over the past few weeks. She felt for the courage, the determination, the sense of silliness and willing friendship, as well as the lonely sadness and pain that all formed the girl’s character. Reducing the strength of her shields carefully – not something to be done lightly in close proximity to a Hellmouth – she cast her consciousness out looking for the distinct pattern that was Marta Durst.
Opening her eyes with a gasp, she fumbled with her radio before she could find the mike button. “Yellow Crayon, this is Blonde Ambition, I’ve got her location. Meet me at the front gates in three minutes!” Dropping the radio on the seat beside her, she hopped out of the car and began clearing away the items on the hood.
Xander was opening his door even before Tara had the car fully stopped. Grabbing his medic bag, he piled out of the car and dashed past the darkened house; fortunately, there was no other car parked in the driveway. Ignoring the scream of police and fire sirens in the distance, he darted through the open gate into the yard. He quickly spotted a battered and somewhat waterlogged young teen sitting slumped on the stairs into the swimming pool. His heart settled a bit, slowing to a merely frantic pulse rate, as she raised her head and gave him a weak smile and a clumsy wave. “Hiiii, Xander. Kommst du ins schwimmen?” she asked, slurring her words and gesturing to the pool with a slightly unfocused smile.
He smiled and shook his head, breathing a sigh of relief. “Not right now, kiddo. I think I need to take a look at you first.” Glancing over at the smashed hole in the back fence and the torn up lawn, he teased, “You seem to have made an impression when you landed!” Kneeling beside her, he noted the two-foot-long recurved horns sprouting from her hairline, as well as the glittering talons at her fingertips. Looking around her, he noticed that her wings seemed to be much broader than usual. Holding up a flashlight, he saw that the shape of her face was far more angular – more inhuman – than it had been previously. The scales were coarser, more ridged, and covered more of her face. He shook his head – they’d worry about that later.
The light revealed a broad splash of red on her left shoulder, somewhat faded by soaking in the water. Looking closely, he could see an inch of painted wood sticking out; he glanced over at the shattered boards at the back of the yard, and winced. “Ok, I see your shoulder. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She nodded loosely, like a bobble-head doll. “Ja, my head does really sore. I think, my hands and my face are burned.” She stuck out her tongue, going cross-eyed trying to look at it. “Whed I fedd, I bid od by togg!”
Xander swallowed a snort of laughter. “Well it looks like your tongue is better; I can see where your fangs poked holes in it, but they’re closed up and healing.” He moved the flashlight beam around the girl’s face. “I see a few reddish spots, but certainly nothing serious.” He flicked the light into, and then beside her eyes, gauging their response. Wincing, he dropped the beam lower. “Show me your hands?” he asked.
His gorge rose, as she lifted her hands out of the water and turned them palms up. There were red streaks and patches all up and down the sides of her arms, with large blisters between her fingers. The inner surface of both forearms had black charred areas, cracking and peeling away to expose bright red skin underneath. A three-inch patch of that exposed skin in the middle of her left forearm was split and blistered; it was impossible to tell with the water everywhere, but Xander was willing to bet that area was weeping. Her palms and fingers were severely burned, with white bone flashing in the light in several places as charred flesh sloughed away. He choked back a horrified sob, trying to maintain a ‘bedside manner’, but could only gulp out, “Oh, Marta – your hands …”
Marta looked owlishly at her savagely injured hands, but only shook her head and declared, “Yep! Sie sind gefickt!”
Hearing feminine voices approaching behind him, he waved his friends up, calling, “Come on, help me get her out of the pool!” They carefully lifted the dazed girl up and out of the pool, lying her on her back on the cool grass beside the deck. “Willow – can you dry her arms and hands? I don’t want to risk damaging the burn areas with towels, but they need to be a lot dryer before I can bandage them!” He turned to the blonde Wiccan and asked, “Can you get see what supplies are in the trunk? Blankets, towels, spare clothes?”
Tara looked at the nearly-nude form of the young woman on the ground, blushed, then stood up with a nod and jogged back to the car.
Xander turned back to his patient, watching in awe as Willow waved a gentle glow over the brutally injured girl, drying her from head to toe. “You know, watching that never gets old,” he murmured with a smile.
Willow gave a cheerful smile. “Dried and warmed, from the hilts of her horns to the tips of her talons!” she declared, nodding her head in satisfaction.
Xander dropped his gaze to Marta, meeting her eyes and raising an eyebrow in mock confusion. “Hilts?” he whispered plaintively.
Her eyes crossed slightly as she shook her head. “Blame me not, she’s your Kindheit Freundin!”
He paused for a second, contemplating her speech pattern and the problems it could mean, then shrugged and reached into his pack for sterile bandages. There wasn’t anything he could do about that in the back yard of someone’s house. Once he finished his examination and she was bandaged and bundled up for the trip back to Buffy’s, he could worry about other things.
“I’m worried about her, Giles.” The founding Scooby took a mouthful of his cooling coffee, watching the bizarre scene in the living room. A still slightly-dazed teen sat sprawled on the couch. The burned and tattered remains of her flight suit had been stripped of its various gadgets and consigned to the trash; she was currently wearing pajama pants and a tie-on top. Her new friend Herr Dickerchen was tucked under her right elbow; Mister Gordo had been relieved of comforting duty for Marta and returned to Buffy’s room the previous week.
A bandage was wrapped around her left shoulder; Xander had carefully pulled out a chunk of fence board embedded six inches into the girl’s body. The burns on her face and arms were almost healed, but Marta’s hands were each bandaged up like a catcher’s mitt. The length and sharpness of her claws meant they had to be allowed to poke through, or they would simply shred the wrappings. Anya was beside her on the couch, in the process of taping small folded pieces of card over her claws to prevent accidental injury or property damage; Dawn sat cross-legged on the floor doing the same with Marta’s talons. Tara and Willow had left on an errand to collect some wine corks from Willow’s house; these would be fitted as safety-caps to the needle-tips of Marta’s horns.
The Watcher nodded, removing his glasses to give them a quick polish. “I quite agree. Her disorientation and difficulty with language is a strong indication of a – a rather severe concussion, at the very least. This is of course completely aside from her rather startling change in appearance. We’ve seen her appearance shift to a more demonic state when she becomes extremely agitated, but she certainly appears rather calm at the moment. From everything we’ve seen, she should have returned to her ummm … Well, I suppose ‘normal’ is the most suitable word. She should have returned to her normal form by now.”
“I had a burnout.”
The soft comment carried through the room, bringing all activity to a standstill. Giles stepped closer, replacing his glasses. “I beg your pardon? You had a what, my dear?”
She lifted her chin and turned to face him; the additional weight of the horns was quite apparent. “I had a burnout. It can happen when a mutant overuses their power. It can cause changes to the mutant’s power. It can cause changes to the mutant’s appearance. Under certain circumstances, and especially without medical assistance, it can lead to death.” Hearing Dawn’s horrified gasp, she gave her friend a reassuring smile. “The danger is past. If the burnout was going to kill me, I probably would have been dead before I hit the ground.”
She turned back to Giles, blushing as she considered her next words. “I really screwed up my attack. I put way too much power into the fireball, and held it way too long.” She held up her cotton-wrapped hands, and sighed. “I did this to myself. Even with the PK field to protect me, the heat radiating from the ball … Well. You saw what it did.” She shook her head. “The mental effort of containing that much fire, under that temperature and pressure, almost did the same thing to my brain. What you’ve been seeing from me the past few hours wasn’t entirely concussion!” She giggled, then continued, “Of course, getting blown out of the sky, then ramming my head through a wooden fence are both pretty good ways to get a concussion!”
Dawn snorted, “Just A concussion? You’ve got a long way to go, before you start catching up to Giles there in the concussion department!” She laughed at Giles’ indignant expression, then sobered. “Are you gonna be ok? Can you heal from this burnout thingy?”
Marta gave a wry smile. “Wellll … Yes, and no. Yes, I can heal from the physical damage – my hands are starting to ITCH! – but the burnout changes are … what they are. Once I feel better, and my brain doesn’t feel like a mess of spaghetti sauce sloshing around inside my head (“Eewww …” whined Dawn) I can hopefully figure out what my shifter power can let me do about these” – she rolled her eyes up at her horns – “and the other physical changes.” She sighed, “I will have to be VERY careful experimenting with my manifesting ability. It could be much weaker, it could be enormously more powerful. It could knock me flat on my butt to even attempt to use it!”
Xander nodded slowly, then commented, “Sounds like a day trip into the desert would be the best bet – but not for some time!” He held up an admonishing finger.
She nodded sheepishly, conceding, “Ja, I would be surprised if I’m up to flying by this time next week. Fire testing a day or two before that, but definitely something to work up to.”
The worksite where Glory’s tower had stood was fairly empty; miscellaneous bits of shrapnel here and there; a neat cluster of concrete barricades used for retaining piles of scrap metal off to one side by the office building.
A brief crack of sound like thunder woke a few residents; most grumbled at being awakened in the middle of the night, then rolled over and went back to sleep. Those already awake to hear the noise and see the sudden flash of light assumed it was simply heat lightning, or an approaching storm, and went about their business. No-one looked up to see a small black and purple annulus form 80-odd feet in the air, and somewhat over the pile of wreckage and rubble. After a few seconds, the center of that ring opened to a diameter of not-quite 2 feet; a pale white light shined out through the hole in the sky.
With a whine of electric motors, a small object darted through the portal, then came to a halt, hovering perhaps ten feet past the threshold. If anyone had been there to hear it, a voice carried from the other side – “Ok, telemetry is good, scanners are working, fuel cells at full charge. Set it for autonomous operation, and we’ll re-open the portal in 24 hours for retrieval.” Hearing anything further abruptly became impossible, as the portal quickly shrank and vanished.
The little probe zipped off, flying orbits around the worksite in larger and larger circles. After several hours, and reaching a radius of approximately 3 miles, it returned to the worksite to wait for retrieval. The basic AI operating the drone examined the area, and decided that a good hiding spot would be tucked into the stack of barricades. After parking in its hiding spot, it powered down until it received a control signal.
A few minutes after the little machine switched itself off, a very large 7-fingered hand reached into the hiding spot, dragged the device out, and slammed it repeatedly against the concrete forms until there was nothing left but scraps and shards. Turning away with a disgusted snarl, the 700lb Ch!ee’ demon stomped back to its lair. It really didn’t appreciate being awakened by noisy, whining flying things, not when it had to be up in the morning to go to work. It had a mate and spawn to provide for!
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
The thrown stake ricocheted off the table, then the stereo stand, finally knocking the stereo power switch to the OFF position. Jolted out of her focus by the clatter of the stake hitting the floor, loud in the sudden silence, Marta dropped the broom and spun around with a squeak; seeing a complete stranger standing there watching her, she clapped her hands to her face and whipped her wings around herself in embarrassment, her face turning brick red. The newcomer stalked forward, her stride the controlled arrogance of a predator. Stopping a few feet from the mortified teen, the stranger looked her up and down then asked, “Alright, I’ll play. Who are you, and why are you in my house?”
Joss owns BtVS; the Whateley Academy universe is owned by the Canon Cabal (There Is No Canon Cabal). I’m just borrowing them.
Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
In the 25 seconds it took her to free-fall from 4000 feet to 500 feet, she shifted every scrap of power into the fireball she was building. In addition to manifesting more and more *fire*, she was manipulating it with her pyrokinesis, compressing it, HEATING it. She was rated as a bit of a lightweight when it came to firepower throughput compared to some of her classmates, but very few of them could PUMP UP the way Marta was at that very moment. Unfortunately, she was quickly beginning to realise that SHE couldn’t pump up the way she was at that moment, either; the heat was getting through her protective skin field, slowly burning her hands, and arms, and face. The sheer psychic pressure required to control the massive bundle of energy dancing across her finger tips was giving her a headache. The sudden taste and feel of blood trickling from her nose and eyes gave brutal notice that it wasn’t simply a headache, either.
Marta forced the crackling sphere of what was by now compressed and superheated plasma away from her as hard as she could, while at the same time regenerating the manifested flame around her wings. Snapping them fully out, she banked HARD away from her previous flight path, then swept them back into a more aerodynamic configuration while accelerating as hard as she could, putting as much distance between herself and the plunging fireball as possible. It was hard to concentrate on her powers; her head felt like it was splitting open, and the nerves in her hands and arms were shrieking at her. The pain was such that it was hard to see – no, part of that was the film of blood across her left eye. She had leveled off, and was pointed away from the impact point. She put her head down, and pushed.
She didn’t notice when the PK field around the plasma sphere lost coherence some 60 feet above the ground, releasing the energies contained within. The front expanded at several times the speed of sound; the temperature and pressure of the ionized gasses dropped geometrically as the sphere’s radius increased, but was still sufficient to incinerate every vampire present, and shred and char every non-inflammable demon in the graveyard. Headstones close to the epicenter were thrown flying, smashing each other to rubble. Further out, gravestones were knocked flat and sent skidding along, tearing up the burning grass.
Lying face down in the grass with his arms wrapped around his head and tucked into the shadow of a headstone, Bill Mitchell felt the wash of heat pass over him, but was basically unscathed. He looked around at the sound of a bubbling scream, a wordless cry of agony. He flinched at the sight of his vampire escort, standing helpless, its face burned away. The blast wave had not quite been sufficient to incinerate the demonically-animated corpse, but it was enough to leave a charred, flayed skull with only shreds of flesh and muscle around the grinning jaw and empty eye sockets. Forcing himself up on unsteady legs, the gravedigger shifted behind the wailing vampire as it fell to its knees. Drawing a wooden stake from a thigh cargo pocket – you don’t work in a Sunnydale graveyard without learning a few of life’s realities – he struck through the monster’s ribcage and into the heart. The whistling scream was lost in a whoosh of dust and ash.
The facing wall of the crypt Willow and Xander sheltered behind was shattered and driven into the structure; the admitted overpressure was sufficient to lift the roof and push the walls slightly outward. With the roof landing offset on damaged walls, the crypt began to twist and shift. Xander grabbed the collar of Willow’s jacket and *heaved*, lifting her bodily as he pushed himself and his friend up and forward, scrambling to get away from the swaying stone structure. Burned grass crunched under their feet as they left the blast shadow and hurried away from the crumbling monument. Turning in place, they both murmured their shock at the devastation. In addition to the collapsed crypt and marker stones, the trees that had shaded their position earlier that afternoon were now denuded skeletons, the tips of bare branches burning like candles while the ash of shattered leaves fell like black snow.
Willow looked up, and around, and around, and in a small voice asked, “Do you see Marta anywhere?”
Xander cursed, spun once in place to double-check, then lifted his radio and keyed the mike. “Firefly, this is Yellow Crayon, over.”
“Firefly, this is Yellow Crayon, talk to me, over.”
“Dammit, Marta! Talk to me! Are you ok? Where are you? Over!” His voice cracked on the last words, as his head bowed.
Moments earlier:
She couldn’t see where she was going; the pain in her head and the blood in her eyes took care of that. The only thought was a constant mantra, “Must go faster, must go faster, must – “
A giant hand slapped at her, sending her spinning and tumbling towards the ground. Her concentration shattered, the flames around her wings providing lift and thrust winked out. She spread her wings as far as she could, trying for control. She felt the wings bite into the air, slowing her fall, reducing her speed. She belly-flopped onto soft grass – a field, a lawn – with a Woulph! of air forced from her lungs. Skidding across the ground, she screamed as she smashed through something – wood? A fence? - that left her shoulder shrieking in sudden pain. As she slid to a stop, she was overwhelmed by the smell of burning things – grass, cloth, hair. Pork, roasting on a grill. Forcing herself to her knees, she wiped her right eye on her sleeve. The in-ground pool not eight feet away was quite possibly the most beautiful thing she had seen in a very long time. Staggering forward, she slipped on the deck and fell face-first into the water, sending up a gout of steam.
Snapping out of a doze, Tara heard Xander’s anxious calls over the radio. Quickly centering herself with a few cleansing breaths, she closed her eyes, and reached for the aura signature of the unique young woman she had come to know over the past few weeks. She felt for the courage, the determination, the sense of silliness and willing friendship, as well as the lonely sadness and pain that all formed the girl’s character. Reducing the strength of her shields carefully – not something to be done lightly in close proximity to a Hellmouth – she cast her consciousness out looking for the distinct pattern that was Marta Durst.
Opening her eyes with a gasp, she fumbled with her radio before she could find the mike button. “Yellow Crayon, this is Blonde Ambition, I’ve got her location. Meet me at the front gates in three minutes!” Dropping the radio on the seat beside her, she hopped out of the car and began clearing away the items on the hood.
Xander was opening his door even before Tara had the car fully stopped. Grabbing his medic bag, he piled out of the car and dashed past the darkened house; fortunately, there was no other car parked in the driveway. Ignoring the scream of police and fire sirens in the distance, he darted through the open gate into the yard. He quickly spotted a battered and somewhat waterlogged young teen sitting slumped on the stairs into the swimming pool. His heart settled a bit, slowing to a merely frantic pulse rate, as she raised her head and gave him a weak smile and a clumsy wave. “Hiiii, Xander. Kommst du ins schwimmen?” she asked, slurring her words and gesturing to the pool with a slightly unfocused smile.
He smiled and shook his head, breathing a sigh of relief. “Not right now, kiddo. I think I need to take a look at you first.” Glancing over at the smashed hole in the back fence and the torn up lawn, he teased, “You seem to have made an impression when you landed!” Kneeling beside her, he noted the two-foot-long recurved horns sprouting from her hairline, as well as the glittering talons at her fingertips. Looking around her, he noticed that her wings seemed to be much broader than usual. Holding up a flashlight, he saw that the shape of her face was far more angular – more inhuman – than it had been previously. The scales were coarser, more ridged, and covered more of her face. He shook his head – they’d worry about that later.
The light revealed a broad splash of red on her left shoulder, somewhat faded by soaking in the water. Looking closely, he could see an inch of painted wood sticking out; he glanced over at the shattered boards at the back of the yard, and winced. “Ok, I see your shoulder. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She nodded loosely, like a bobble-head doll. “Ja, my head does really sore. I think, my hands and my face are burned.” She stuck out her tongue, going cross-eyed trying to look at it. “Whed I fedd, I bid od by togg!”
Xander swallowed a snort of laughter. “Well it looks like your tongue is better; I can see where your fangs poked holes in it, but they’re closed up and healing.” He moved the flashlight beam around the girl’s face. “I see a few reddish spots, but certainly nothing serious.” He flicked the light into, and then beside her eyes, gauging their response. Wincing, he dropped the beam lower. “Show me your hands?” he asked.
His gorge rose, as she lifted her hands out of the water and turned them palms up. There were red streaks and patches all up and down the sides of her arms, with large blisters between her fingers. The inner surface of both forearms had black charred areas, cracking and peeling away to expose bright red skin underneath. A three-inch patch of that exposed skin in the middle of her left forearm was split and blistered; it was impossible to tell with the water everywhere, but Xander was willing to bet that area was weeping. Her palms and fingers were severely burned, with white bone flashing in the light in several places as charred flesh sloughed away. He choked back a horrified sob, trying to maintain a ‘bedside manner’, but could only gulp out, “Oh, Marta – your hands …”
Marta looked owlishly at her savagely injured hands, but only shook her head and declared, “Yep! Sie sind gefickt!”
Hearing feminine voices approaching behind him, he waved his friends up, calling, “Come on, help me get her out of the pool!” They carefully lifted the dazed girl up and out of the pool, lying her on her back on the cool grass beside the deck. “Willow – can you dry her arms and hands? I don’t want to risk damaging the burn areas with towels, but they need to be a lot dryer before I can bandage them!” He turned to the blonde Wiccan and asked, “Can you get see what supplies are in the trunk? Blankets, towels, spare clothes?”
Tara looked at the nearly-nude form of the young woman on the ground, blushed, then stood up with a nod and jogged back to the car.
Xander turned back to his patient, watching in awe as Willow waved a gentle glow over the brutally injured girl, drying her from head to toe. “You know, watching that never gets old,” he murmured with a smile.
Willow gave a cheerful smile. “Dried and warmed, from the hilts of her horns to the tips of her talons!” she declared, nodding her head in satisfaction.
Xander dropped his gaze to Marta, meeting her eyes and raising an eyebrow in mock confusion. “Hilts?” he whispered plaintively.
Her eyes crossed slightly as she shook her head. “Blame me not, she’s your Kindheit Freundin!”
He paused for a second, contemplating her speech pattern and the problems it could mean, then shrugged and reached into his pack for sterile bandages. There wasn’t anything he could do about that in the back yard of someone’s house. Once he finished his examination and she was bandaged and bundled up for the trip back to Buffy’s, he could worry about other things.
“I’m worried about her, Giles.” The founding Scooby took a mouthful of his cooling coffee, watching the bizarre scene in the living room. A still slightly-dazed teen sat sprawled on the couch. The burned and tattered remains of her flight suit had been stripped of its various gadgets and consigned to the trash; she was currently wearing pajama pants and a tie-on top. Her new friend Herr Dickerchen was tucked under her right elbow; Mister Gordo had been relieved of comforting duty for Marta and returned to Buffy’s room the previous week.
A bandage was wrapped around her left shoulder; Xander had carefully pulled out a chunk of fence board embedded six inches into the girl’s body. The burns on her face and arms were almost healed, but Marta’s hands were each bandaged up like a catcher’s mitt. The length and sharpness of her claws meant they had to be allowed to poke through, or they would simply shred the wrappings. Anya was beside her on the couch, in the process of taping small folded pieces of card over her claws to prevent accidental injury or property damage; Dawn sat cross-legged on the floor doing the same with Marta’s talons. Tara and Willow had left on an errand to collect some wine corks from Willow’s house; these would be fitted as safety-caps to the needle-tips of Marta’s horns.
The Watcher nodded, removing his glasses to give them a quick polish. “I quite agree. Her disorientation and difficulty with language is a strong indication of a – a rather severe concussion, at the very least. This is of course completely aside from her rather startling change in appearance. We’ve seen her appearance shift to a more demonic state when she becomes extremely agitated, but she certainly appears rather calm at the moment. From everything we’ve seen, she should have returned to her ummm … Well, I suppose ‘normal’ is the most suitable word. She should have returned to her normal form by now.”
“I had a burnout.”
The soft comment carried through the room, bringing all activity to a standstill. Giles stepped closer, replacing his glasses. “I beg your pardon? You had a what, my dear?”
She lifted her chin and turned to face him; the additional weight of the horns was quite apparent. “I had a burnout. It can happen when a mutant overuses their power. It can cause changes to the mutant’s power. It can cause changes to the mutant’s appearance. Under certain circumstances, and especially without medical assistance, it can lead to death.” Hearing Dawn’s horrified gasp, she gave her friend a reassuring smile. “The danger is past. If the burnout was going to kill me, I probably would have been dead before I hit the ground.”
She turned back to Giles, blushing as she considered her next words. “I really screwed up my attack. I put way too much power into the fireball, and held it way too long.” She held up her cotton-wrapped hands, and sighed. “I did this to myself. Even with the PK field to protect me, the heat radiating from the ball … Well. You saw what it did.” She shook her head. “The mental effort of containing that much fire, under that temperature and pressure, almost did the same thing to my brain. What you’ve been seeing from me the past few hours wasn’t entirely concussion!” She giggled, then continued, “Of course, getting blown out of the sky, then ramming my head through a wooden fence are both pretty good ways to get a concussion!”
Dawn snorted, “Just A concussion? You’ve got a long way to go, before you start catching up to Giles there in the concussion department!” She laughed at Giles’ indignant expression, then sobered. “Are you gonna be ok? Can you heal from this burnout thingy?”
Marta gave a wry smile. “Wellll … Yes, and no. Yes, I can heal from the physical damage – my hands are starting to ITCH! – but the burnout changes are … what they are. Once I feel better, and my brain doesn’t feel like a mess of spaghetti sauce sloshing around inside my head (“Eewww …” whined Dawn) I can hopefully figure out what my shifter power can let me do about these” – she rolled her eyes up at her horns – “and the other physical changes.” She sighed, “I will have to be VERY careful experimenting with my manifesting ability. It could be much weaker, it could be enormously more powerful. It could knock me flat on my butt to even attempt to use it!”
Xander nodded slowly, then commented, “Sounds like a day trip into the desert would be the best bet – but not for some time!” He held up an admonishing finger.
She nodded sheepishly, conceding, “Ja, I would be surprised if I’m up to flying by this time next week. Fire testing a day or two before that, but definitely something to work up to.”
The worksite where Glory’s tower had stood was fairly empty; miscellaneous bits of shrapnel here and there; a neat cluster of concrete barricades used for retaining piles of scrap metal off to one side by the office building.
A brief crack of sound like thunder woke a few residents; most grumbled at being awakened in the middle of the night, then rolled over and went back to sleep. Those already awake to hear the noise and see the sudden flash of light assumed it was simply heat lightning, or an approaching storm, and went about their business. No-one looked up to see a small black and purple annulus form 80-odd feet in the air, and somewhat over the pile of wreckage and rubble. After a few seconds, the center of that ring opened to a diameter of not-quite 2 feet; a pale white light shined out through the hole in the sky.
With a whine of electric motors, a small object darted through the portal, then came to a halt, hovering perhaps ten feet past the threshold. If anyone had been there to hear it, a voice carried from the other side – “Ok, telemetry is good, scanners are working, fuel cells at full charge. Set it for autonomous operation, and we’ll re-open the portal in 24 hours for retrieval.” Hearing anything further abruptly became impossible, as the portal quickly shrank and vanished.
The little probe zipped off, flying orbits around the worksite in larger and larger circles. After several hours, and reaching a radius of approximately 3 miles, it returned to the worksite to wait for retrieval. The basic AI operating the drone examined the area, and decided that a good hiding spot would be tucked into the stack of barricades. After parking in its hiding spot, it powered down until it received a control signal.
A few minutes after the little machine switched itself off, a very large 7-fingered hand reached into the hiding spot, dragged the device out, and slammed it repeatedly against the concrete forms until there was nothing left but scraps and shards. Turning away with a disgusted snarl, the 700lb Ch!ee’ demon stomped back to its lair. It really didn’t appreciate being awakened by noisy, whining flying things, not when it had to be up in the morning to go to work. It had a mate and spawn to provide for!
Next time, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
The thrown stake ricocheted off the table, then the stereo stand, finally knocking the stereo power switch to the OFF position. Jolted out of her focus by the clatter of the stake hitting the floor, loud in the sudden silence, Marta dropped the broom and spun around with a squeak; seeing a complete stranger standing there watching her, she clapped her hands to her face and whipped her wings around herself in embarrassment, her face turning brick red. The newcomer stalked forward, her stride the controlled arrogance of a predator. Stopping a few feet from the mortified teen, the stranger looked her up and down then asked, “Alright, I’ll play. Who are you, and why are you in my house?”
Exchange Student - A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cross-over
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