Spook Me story!
This is a slightly random and last-minute story for spook_me, because my initial reaction to the prompts is that unsatisfactory longish fic that might eventually make a fantasybb. But anyway, here's a different, Buffyverse story. It's set in the Rulesverse, which makes very little difference as it's mostly about fighting aliens and gross alien-body-horror not emotions, but if you have read the Rulesverse some of the minor characters and passing emotional refs will make sense.
Title A Day's Work
Rating PG13
Words 1200
Characters Faith, plus Oz, Giles, and Rulesverse regulars
Warnings Gross alien body horror, bad parenting [bad childing?]
Prompt This icky alien pic: http://s879.photobucket.com/user/spook_me/media/Spook%20Me%20Anything%20Goes/paj09_zps16fe6723.jpg.html, and the prompt Monster from Space
"So, it is not so much that space monsters are impossible, it's merely that they are uncommon. To the point of being vanishingly rare. We were extremely unlucky to encounter the Queller demon, and that was of course summoned deliberately. To face two extra-terrestrial threats in one lifetime, for even a long-lived Slayer, is positively-" Giles is pre-empted, because no one has time for this.
"Ridic?" Faith sighs. "And yet."
The creature is huge, looming high above the castle keep even at this distance. Sluggish. Blue, in the way that normal living creatures are not. Well, not animal ones, anyway. It would look good on a flower.
"I'm assuming we kill it?" she says. She can hear in her own voice the sheer tiredness that the thought brings. Find a new species, kill a new species: it's the Slayer way. The whole damn Council and its mechanisms, just one great big death mill.
The alien raises its head and stares at Faith. There seems to be a moment of connection, of common existential something or other (Faith reads, okay? Just, not always to the end of all of the books), and she hopes so hard it's about to say something. 'Take me to your leader', for example, would be all kinds of good. Especially as Kennedy isn't in the castle this month so they don’t have to face the inevitable pissing contest about who exactly is the leader of who this once.
But- "Holy fuck," is the next thing that comes out of Faith's mouth, and sure, two dollars in the swear box and hope Mike didn't overhear, but really, a giant alien spitting fire and acid at a granite wall that fizzes and partially dissolves? That is totally worth two dollars of swearing. And besides, Mikey's downstairs bobbing for apples while the babysitters pretend everything's good. She doesn't have time to think about Mike. Or anyone else.
"There a lot of these?" she shouts, over her shoulder, as she suits up in the best protective gear the Council can muster at short notice.
"Not if we destroy this one before it spawns," says Giles. He checks his watch. "Which will be in the next… four minutes, I believe. Assuming this text is correct, at least-"
"Oh…. Awesome." Way to give Faith a deadline. Another part of the castle dissolves before the alien fire-acid. Okay, it's the outer bailey, but still, four minutes will bring it uncomfortably close to people Faith has to protect. So, deadline it is. She doesn't have time to say goodbye to Giles, either.
She passes Willow on the way, still in her skeleton costume. "Working on it," is all the witch says.
Oz adds, "Protective bubble spell," explanatorily.
"For it, not you," Talia rounds off. Those three are getting way too closely connected for Faith's liking. If they merge into some kind of triple-headed witch-thing, she won't be at all surprised. Vi's already looking for options on that one. It's good to be prepared, if you're fairly sure you don't want killing to be the first option, like usual. Talia adds, "So, if it looks to be in a bubble when you get there, maybe don't pop that?"
Okay. Good to know.
Faith gets down to the gatehouse, the sprint across the inner bailey all too lively as gobs of the alien fire start to scatter the space. Two minutes and fourteen seconds, now, and she still has ground to cover. Wouldn't the Initiative be super-welcome about now? Or any army unit in the land. And some flamethrowers. And maybe some heavy artillery launching from the loch. Any of that. Anything that isn't just Faith and her space suit thing, about to fry for greater justice.
Thirty-six seconds by her internal clock as she drops the drawbridge and heads on out. Shit. That's not a lot of time. But hopefully spawning will take its mind off killing, and Faith can off the demon babies as they hatch. That'll certainly calm down Mamma Monster, won't it?
Shit. Faith really wasn't planning on dying today. And yet.
Fire acid rains down around her. A droplet hits the suit, and burns straight through. It hurts. A fuckton, and no one gets to fine her for that word. Not now.
She shoots three crossbow bolts before its face swings toward her. They bounce off. It draws breath, and Faith barely has time to think that she's going down in history as the first Slayer killed by a space-dragon, before it stops. A bubble has formed around it. That inhalation is sucking the bubble inwards.
Apparently, ingesting an impenetrable bubble doesn't do space-dragon lungs any good. Faith watches the thing turn shades of purple, clutch and claw at its mouth, watches it flail and gasp and die. At the point of death, its belly pops open, and tiny lizard beasts swarm into the bubble, sliming and sprawling. The mother's probably supposed to clean and suckle them, or whatever lizards do for their young, but she's too busy dying. Probably not what she had planned for today either, but apparently that's what fate had in store. Fate, and the Slayer Council.
Faith watches some more, while the young start to feed off their mother. Like, chunks of flesh ripped by tiny claws. It's the opposite of heartwarming.
A voice behind her says, "Huh. Well, that was unpleasantly metaphorical. Kids, huh?"
Thank all the gods it's Oz. Faith couldn't take someone emoting at her right now. "I'm assuming you guys have a plan for when they all break out of the bubble? Because I do not want them all growing up strong and fighty like Momma. More than one, and we would all be dead already, yanno?"
He nods. "It's shrinking." So it is. Already, the protective filmy surface is smaller. The children are getting crushed into their mother's side, scrambling among the newly-exposed bones, gnawing her away to make space for themselves.
The bubble's protective, but not soundproof. Shrill cries of pain start to mingle with the popping of small bones, then the scrunch of the ribcage falling in. Eventually, the bubble is barely three inches across, and silent, and Oz wanders across to fetch it.
He holds in his hand the death of a dozen alien creatures. Contemplates. "A good day's work, I guess?"
She shrugs back at him. "It's what we do. Save the world from- Well, that." A chunk of battlement falls behind them at that exact moment. "Castle's gonna need some repairs."
He nods. "Next Estates meeting is a week Thursday. I'm thinking we move it up a little."
"Good plan."
"Whatcha gonna do with that?" she asks, nodding at the small, evil bubble in his hands.
He meets her eyes, with pain. "Oh, Willow's gonna burn it. Indestructible flame. The usual."
"Sure." She says it calmly, because honestly, what else do you do with the bones of your enemies? But there's a moment where they hold that gaze, and the words what the hell are we, now hang in the air.
"It is what it is," she says, finally, to end it.
He shrugs. If she wanted words of comfort, she came to the wrong guy, of course. "Happy Halloween," is all he says, as he walks off. Like it's any ordinary night's work.
Ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggetty beasties, and things that go bump in the night. Things that go bump in the night, on Halloween, right outside your window, and threaten your world and your friends and your family. This night, like any other night, you end them.
What else is a Slayer?
Faith doesn't head back to the party.
Title A Day's Work
Rating PG13
Words 1200
Characters Faith, plus Oz, Giles, and Rulesverse regulars
Warnings Gross alien body horror, bad parenting [bad childing?]
Prompt This icky alien pic: http://s879.photobucket.com/user/spook_me/media/Spook%20Me%20Anything%20Goes/paj09_zps16fe6723.jpg.html, and the prompt Monster from Space
"So, it is not so much that space monsters are impossible, it's merely that they are uncommon. To the point of being vanishingly rare. We were extremely unlucky to encounter the Queller demon, and that was of course summoned deliberately. To face two extra-terrestrial threats in one lifetime, for even a long-lived Slayer, is positively-" Giles is pre-empted, because no one has time for this.
"Ridic?" Faith sighs. "And yet."
The creature is huge, looming high above the castle keep even at this distance. Sluggish. Blue, in the way that normal living creatures are not. Well, not animal ones, anyway. It would look good on a flower.
"I'm assuming we kill it?" she says. She can hear in her own voice the sheer tiredness that the thought brings. Find a new species, kill a new species: it's the Slayer way. The whole damn Council and its mechanisms, just one great big death mill.
The alien raises its head and stares at Faith. There seems to be a moment of connection, of common existential something or other (Faith reads, okay? Just, not always to the end of all of the books), and she hopes so hard it's about to say something. 'Take me to your leader', for example, would be all kinds of good. Especially as Kennedy isn't in the castle this month so they don’t have to face the inevitable pissing contest about who exactly is the leader of who this once.
But- "Holy fuck," is the next thing that comes out of Faith's mouth, and sure, two dollars in the swear box and hope Mike didn't overhear, but really, a giant alien spitting fire and acid at a granite wall that fizzes and partially dissolves? That is totally worth two dollars of swearing. And besides, Mikey's downstairs bobbing for apples while the babysitters pretend everything's good. She doesn't have time to think about Mike. Or anyone else.
"There a lot of these?" she shouts, over her shoulder, as she suits up in the best protective gear the Council can muster at short notice.
"Not if we destroy this one before it spawns," says Giles. He checks his watch. "Which will be in the next… four minutes, I believe. Assuming this text is correct, at least-"
"Oh…. Awesome." Way to give Faith a deadline. Another part of the castle dissolves before the alien fire-acid. Okay, it's the outer bailey, but still, four minutes will bring it uncomfortably close to people Faith has to protect. So, deadline it is. She doesn't have time to say goodbye to Giles, either.
She passes Willow on the way, still in her skeleton costume. "Working on it," is all the witch says.
Oz adds, "Protective bubble spell," explanatorily.
"For it, not you," Talia rounds off. Those three are getting way too closely connected for Faith's liking. If they merge into some kind of triple-headed witch-thing, she won't be at all surprised. Vi's already looking for options on that one. It's good to be prepared, if you're fairly sure you don't want killing to be the first option, like usual. Talia adds, "So, if it looks to be in a bubble when you get there, maybe don't pop that?"
Okay. Good to know.
Faith gets down to the gatehouse, the sprint across the inner bailey all too lively as gobs of the alien fire start to scatter the space. Two minutes and fourteen seconds, now, and she still has ground to cover. Wouldn't the Initiative be super-welcome about now? Or any army unit in the land. And some flamethrowers. And maybe some heavy artillery launching from the loch. Any of that. Anything that isn't just Faith and her space suit thing, about to fry for greater justice.
Thirty-six seconds by her internal clock as she drops the drawbridge and heads on out. Shit. That's not a lot of time. But hopefully spawning will take its mind off killing, and Faith can off the demon babies as they hatch. That'll certainly calm down Mamma Monster, won't it?
Shit. Faith really wasn't planning on dying today. And yet.
Fire acid rains down around her. A droplet hits the suit, and burns straight through. It hurts. A fuckton, and no one gets to fine her for that word. Not now.
She shoots three crossbow bolts before its face swings toward her. They bounce off. It draws breath, and Faith barely has time to think that she's going down in history as the first Slayer killed by a space-dragon, before it stops. A bubble has formed around it. That inhalation is sucking the bubble inwards.
Apparently, ingesting an impenetrable bubble doesn't do space-dragon lungs any good. Faith watches the thing turn shades of purple, clutch and claw at its mouth, watches it flail and gasp and die. At the point of death, its belly pops open, and tiny lizard beasts swarm into the bubble, sliming and sprawling. The mother's probably supposed to clean and suckle them, or whatever lizards do for their young, but she's too busy dying. Probably not what she had planned for today either, but apparently that's what fate had in store. Fate, and the Slayer Council.
Faith watches some more, while the young start to feed off their mother. Like, chunks of flesh ripped by tiny claws. It's the opposite of heartwarming.
A voice behind her says, "Huh. Well, that was unpleasantly metaphorical. Kids, huh?"
Thank all the gods it's Oz. Faith couldn't take someone emoting at her right now. "I'm assuming you guys have a plan for when they all break out of the bubble? Because I do not want them all growing up strong and fighty like Momma. More than one, and we would all be dead already, yanno?"
He nods. "It's shrinking." So it is. Already, the protective filmy surface is smaller. The children are getting crushed into their mother's side, scrambling among the newly-exposed bones, gnawing her away to make space for themselves.
The bubble's protective, but not soundproof. Shrill cries of pain start to mingle with the popping of small bones, then the scrunch of the ribcage falling in. Eventually, the bubble is barely three inches across, and silent, and Oz wanders across to fetch it.
He holds in his hand the death of a dozen alien creatures. Contemplates. "A good day's work, I guess?"
She shrugs back at him. "It's what we do. Save the world from- Well, that." A chunk of battlement falls behind them at that exact moment. "Castle's gonna need some repairs."
He nods. "Next Estates meeting is a week Thursday. I'm thinking we move it up a little."
"Good plan."
"Whatcha gonna do with that?" she asks, nodding at the small, evil bubble in his hands.
He meets her eyes, with pain. "Oh, Willow's gonna burn it. Indestructible flame. The usual."
"Sure." She says it calmly, because honestly, what else do you do with the bones of your enemies? But there's a moment where they hold that gaze, and the words what the hell are we, now hang in the air.
"It is what it is," she says, finally, to end it.
He shrugs. If she wanted words of comfort, she came to the wrong guy, of course. "Happy Halloween," is all he says, as he walks off. Like it's any ordinary night's work.
Ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggetty beasties, and things that go bump in the night. Things that go bump in the night, on Halloween, right outside your window, and threaten your world and your friends and your family. This night, like any other night, you end them.
What else is a Slayer?
Faith doesn't head back to the party.