Fic: Unicorns Are Totally Real (2/?) - Buffybot & Harmony, T
Title: Unicorns Are Totally Real
Author: thenewbuzwuzz
Fandom: BtVS
Rating: T, I guess
Word count: ~2.7 K this chapter
Characters: Buffybot, Harmony
Warnings: Buffybot, Harmony; not particularly Spike-friendly
Working summary: A Spike stan and a Spike hater discuss their Spuffy-related woes while painting each other's nails or doing whatever skirt girls do together; eventually, unicorns.
UPDATE SCHEDULE: when I get around to it, possibly never! Current track record: 8 months between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
Beta credit: thanks to OffYourBird for helping plan the story overall, and thank you to the wonderful @thewiggins for beta-reading this chapter and sparing any potential readers a lot of confusion, hopefully.
Feedback: always appreciated, including about things that aren't working so well. This has been beta-read once, but I don't know how well the tweaked version works.
Notes: it's the first time I've written a Chapter 2 of anything! \o/ Also the first plot hole I've patched transparently because a previous chapter left it open, yay! All these new writing experiences to enjoy.
Chapter 1 is here.
Unicorns Are Totally Real
CHAPTER 2: A Brand New Day
Hello, world!
It's like a different way of living now.
And thank you, world!
We always knew that we'd be free somehow
in harmony
and show the world that we’ve got liberty.
-Luther Vandross, “The Wiz-The Super Soul Musical”
“Harmony Kendall, would you like to be a Scooby?” asked Buffy Summers, Harmony’s arch-nemesis, offering Harmony a place in her group of friends and allies.
This just went to show that positive energy was flowing Harmony’s way, because of all her efforts to think powerful thoughts and reach her full potential and stuff. It was like that guy had said at that lecture in LA. ...Harmony couldn’t really remember much of what he had said, but it had all been very inspiring. It must have been, because everyone applauded so much.
She would have friends again! She was turning her life around, oh yeah!
It was kind of a lame group of friends, true. Harmony had spent many hours back in high school honing her mocking skills on Buffy’s weird group of outcasts-and then on Cordelia for joining them.
But. It was a group of friends that would have her.
“Would I have to be nice to Willow and Xander?”
“Nope! It’s just me at the moment,” Buffy said.
“Why, are they travelling or something?”
“Oh, no!” Buffy said, beaming. “They don’t want to see me anymore.”
Harmony admired this kind of positive attitude in the face of heartbreak and loneliness.
“Okay. Okay, I’m in!” She gave Buffy a hug and a pair of air kisses. This was great! She had to get a pair of those best friend necklaces.
“What’s the plan, Buffy?” she said after putting her thermos away, bouncing a little on her heels. “Have we got evil to fight?”
Buffy picked up her thick plastic suitcase and started striding in a straight line, cutting the corners of lawns. Harmony followed her.
“There’s always evil,” Buffy said. “But my current objective is to become real.”
“Oh, like meeting the real you? That's, like, so wise.” Harmony couldn’t believe she’d made such a smart friend.
“No, I’ve met the real me.” Buffy made a delicate moue of disappointment. “She didn’t like me.”
What? Harmony hadn’t known that could happen. Shouldn’t someone have warned her?
“I want to become real, too!” Buffy continued. “So I’m looking for Warren, so that he can make me real.”
Oh dear. Oh, Buffy. “Oh, Buffy, a relationship won’t do that for you!”
Harmony knew. She'd been there. She had felt like she needed to be someone’s girlfriend so she could have nice things or so that she even mattered. But now she knew that she didn't need men to complete her, and neither did any friend of hers! Especially if Buffy meant Warren as in the loser who used to be in Harmony’s math class. He was mean.
“I’m looking for Warren,” Buffy repeated. “I need him to make me real.”
This conversation was going to take time, Harmony saw. She didn’t want to make things ugly with her new friend, so she let it go for now.
***
“Warren isn’t home,” his mom said.
“See?” Harmony said. “Let’s just go, Buffy.”
“Could you please tell me where Warren is?” said Buffy. “I need to talk to him. It’s very important.”
The phone rang.
“Hi, sweetie. Yes, actually. Just now,” Warren’s mom said. “That Buffy from your high school and a friend of hers. Blonde, yeah.” She listened for a moment. “Oh! I thought that was next month. Did you pack your clean laundry?”
Soon after, she hung up and turned to look at Harmony and Buffy. “Warren asked me not to tell anyone, but I think he’s being too modest. He's gone to an international robotics contest in France! He’s so smart.”
Good riddance, Harmony thought.
Buffy beamed at the woman. “Where is this contest? I want to go there and meet him.”
“Oh, you want to support him? That's so sweet of you. I would go too if I could get away from work. It’s in this small town. Bernard something?”
Buffy’s eyes went blank for a moment. “La Ferté-Bernard?” she said.
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Warren’s mom.
“Great!” Buffy said. “The fastest route to La Ferté-Bernard is through Los Angeles and Paris. Taking into account flight and transit schedules, I can be there in 29 hours and 45 minutes.” She turned on her heel and strode towards the door.
“Have a nice trip!” Warren's mom called after her. “Tell Warren his mother is proud of him.”
“Okay!” Buffy chirped from the doorstep.
Maybe the positive vibes weren’t rolling into Harmony’s life quite as smoothly as she'd thought. She had only just made a friend, and now her new friend was leaving the country.
France was cool, though. France was where Paris was, and Paris was where really great shopping was. None of Harmony’s boyfriends had ever taken her there, no matter how many hints she dropped, so you know what? Time had come to take the power back and take herself on a trip to France! And her friend too.
Harmony caught up with Buffy at the end of the block. Buffy was power walking towards the highway. From a distance, her small suitcase looked kind of like a big toolbox. Like some of the junk that Spike had kept lying around their lair when he was digging for that stupid gem.
“Wait, Buffy!”
Buffy looked over her shoulder without breaking stride and smiled warmly. “Harmony Kendall! You're my friend.”
“Let’s go to Paris together!” Harmony said.
“Did you mean: La Ferté-Bernard?” Buffy was still walking fast.
“That too. We can take my car to the LA airport.”
Buffy turned around and strode back equally fast. “Okay, Harmony! You were the Big Bad for a week! You're decent with a crossbow.”
“Aww, thanks!”
***
“So, you already have all your luggage, right?” Harmony said, gesturing at the squat, heavy-looking box that Buffy had put on the front seat of Harmony's car.
“Luggage? Oh, this! It's for when I get tired. I will need it soon.”
Sleepwear? Like, whatever. The main thing was, they were ready to go.
“Hey, how do you like my car?” Harmony said, turning on the engine and the radio. “I got it for free.”
“It’s a DeSoto Fireflite 4-Door Sportsman TorqueFlite, model year 1959,” Buffy said pleasantly. “It’s the best car. It has 3-Speed TorqueFlite Push-Button Automatic transmission, and it can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 7.6 seconds.”
“Right. I’m sure it’s all that. It’s also pink!”
“I like pink! It’s girly and sweet, belying my apex predator strength. I look good in pink.”
“You do! I do, too! Pink is one of the best things about life… er, unlife. It’s like you said, we can look cute and also be powerful. It was terrible when my friends said pink was not cool and I believed them. Nobody is ever going to tell me how to dress again.”
“My algorithms tell me how to dress.”
“Good for you!” Must be a spiritual thing, like biorhythms. “What’s that like?”
“Peaceful. I know what to do, and I know I’ll look good. Harmony, I feel tired. Can you get tired from sitting?”
Buffy went perfectly still, sitting ramrod straight, but her eyes were still open. Weird way to sleep, but Harmony wasn't gonna judge.
She drove towards Los Angeles, listening to some cheerful music that she secretly hoped would wake Buffy up so they could talk about their trip.
“I'm going to France!” she sang to herself. “Me and my new best friend.”
Around Oxnard, talking to herself got old. She parked and tried to shake Buffy awake.
There was no reaction. Buffy's eyes were wide open and glassy. What a time to be dead to the world. Buffy must have really needed the sleep.
Now that the radio was off, Harmony noticed something was beeping in a vaguely familiar way. She hadn't thought this grungy old car had things that went beep. The sound came from Buffy's direction, though. Maybe Buffy had a mobile phone. Or-wait!-the series of high-pitched beeps sounded exactly like a Tamagotchi that needed feeding.
Well, at least Harmony knew what to do about that.
She couldn’t see the Tamagotchi, but the beeping was definitely coming from nearby. Harmony lifted Buffy's baggy blue shirt to find the source of the sound (maybe there was an inside pocket?).
She found an odd, rectangular scar on the left side of Buffy's stomach. It didn’t look bloody at all, which was good, because people tended to get grumpy when Harmony wanted to taste their blood, and she didn’t need bad vibes with her new friend. It was just a groove that ran along her skin and turned in straight angles. And the beeping was coming from inside.
Well, if there was something stuck in there, it should come out, Harmony supposed. She wrinkled her nose and felt along the strange scar.
Buffy’s stomach opened smoothly, and inside was a bunch of wires and stuff and a red light.
Harmony had a lot of experience with not understanding things. She found it was often best to just roll with it, pretend she got it, and hope someone would explain later.
She closed the weird opening. Buffy could sort out her Tamagotchi herself when she woke up.
Harmony drove for five more minutes. But she was bored, and Buffy still didn’t talk to her, so she stopped to check again if Buffy was really sure about being asleep.
She was reaching to wave a hand in front of Buffy's eyes when she bumped her knee on Buffy's “luggage” box. She hadn't noticed there were knobs and stuff on it. What was that thing, anyway? Buffy had said it was for when she got tired.
There was a cable in the box, among other boring junk. How was that meant for sleeping?
The box was weird, and Buffy's Tamagotchi hatch was weird, so maybe they went together?
They did. There was a home for the end of the cable in Buffy's stomach.
Harmony plugged the thing in and kept driving, thinking about airplanes and sunlight and that Buffy must surely have a plan, since Buffy thought it was okay for them both to take a plane over the ocean. In the worst case, maybe Harmony could just be in the plane bathroom for the entire time. If someone wanted in, she’d eat them; easy. She wasn’t going to miss out on France over details like this.
In a bit, Buffy was awake.
“So, you run on electricity, huh?” Harmony couldn't resist asking. “Is that why you’re super strong?”
“I guess so.” Buffy didn't seem mad about the questions.
“I never noticed you charging at the school.”
“Me neither. I wasn’t there when I went to school.”
Harmony smiled noncommittally.
“So, what did you mean earlier, you met the real you?”
“Well, the other Buffy thinks I’m not real, and she’s the one Spike really wants.”
“Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. There’s two of you?” That explained how Buffy had been able to find time for Slayer things and also go to school, like, ever.
“Yep.” Buffy smiled. “We're both very pretty.”
None of the dust jackets of the Slayer books had mentioned this. Harmony thought it wasn't fair to leave important facts out of the part of the books that she read, or how could people expect her to succeed? But she supposed it was good that she hadn't defeated the Slayer earlier, or she couldn't be friends with her now.
The sides of the road were lush and green as they passed Lake Balboa Park. Harmony knew they’d soon be at the intersection before Los Angeles where they had to turn right to the airport, and then her fabulous best friend vacation awaited.
***
Andrew sat in Warren’s mom’s van, parked on the side of Highway 101 near the intersection where Warren had said he should be. This wasn’t how Andrew had planned to spend this night (he yawned), but Warren had promised to run a solo Dungeons and Dragons session just for him. Andrew so rarely got to play, ‘cause he was usually the dungeon master. Ruling over the game world like a god was nice and all, but he really wanted to play his awesome new drow warlock character. So here he was, running an errand for his DND buddy Warren. At least it had involved summoning a demon, so it was some fun. Not like that time last week when Warren had wanted Andrew to digitize the entire Bristow's Demon Index.
Warren phoned again. “Did you release it?”
“Oh, hi Warren, this is Falcon One reporting, yes, I released the demon just like you asked. It’s in position.”
“And did you…”
Honestly, it was like Warren thought he was dumb. “Yes, yes, I put your gizmo on it. So it will also influence GPS or whatever. It’s fine, it’s working. Looks cool.”
Andrew gave an evil little giggle as he surveyed the intersection in front of him. Cars were crossing back and forth between both roads, sometimes repeatedly. Quite a few were parked in the middle, on the traffic island. One pickup van was facing backwards and starting to move down the lane it had come from.
“Good,” Warren said imperiously. “I want you to watch until Buffy arrives and then tell me what happens to her and anyone who arrives with her.”
Boring. But he had the feeling that Warren would make a cool dungeon master. He really wanted to hear Warren weave reality into an adventure with his words. “So about our game,” Andrew said. “When will you be back to run it?”
Blah blah contest blah blah France. Turned out Warren had planned to stay away for at least a month. That sucked. Andrew got that Warren had to hide from an angry Slayer and maybe a master vampire because of building a robot girlfriend that neither of them had apparently liked (which was way cool, by the way, and maybe he should ask Warren to build him Christina Ricci), but waiting still sucked. At least he got Warren to promise the game would be nice and long. He needed plenty of hours to explore the character’s tragic backstory and world domination plans.
***
The kitten was white and very fluffy. It was on the safety island thingy where the lines in the middle of the road started to turn into a barrier between the highway and the… other highway. A lot of cars were behaving strangely around it, but that was really not Harmony’s problem, was it? The kitten sat on this crossroads, washing itself, and there was a pink ribbon around its neck.
Harmony marched over to the kitten and scooped it up before someone could step on it.
Buffy stared at it with some alarm, seemingly.
“Is something wrong? You kind of look like you’ve never seen a kitten before.”
“I didn’t know kittens could look like this,” Buffy said.
Fair point, it was the most adorbs ever.
“I always wanted a cat like you,” Harmony said to its little face, holding it up by the armpits. “Well, not always, but ever since I became evil. It would have been so much easier to be the Big Bad if I’d had a white fluffy cat. It would have helped with the scheming. All masterminds have one.”
The kitten purred and blinked. “We’ve got to take her with us,” Harmony said. “Can we name her Coco? Like Coco Chanel, you know?”
“That’s an acceptable name. I’m creating a directory for Coco: kitten.” Buffy petted it gingerly.
Coco snuggled deeper into Harmony's arms, purring.
“Wait, which way were we going?” Harmony said.
“You said to Paris?” Buffy offered.
Sounded right. Harmony’s head felt fuzzy.
“Paris is… that way, I think.” Buffy pointed. Harmony drove over the traffic island to the other side of the highway.
Coco sat on Buffy's lap as Harmony drove out of the traffic jam, taking care to use her turn signals and not bump into any cars even though this big old car would probably be fine as it flattened them. Harmony may be a monster, but she wasn’t rude. Unless it was an emergency. Or she was talking to losers. Or, of course, if people were mean to her first.
Ten empty paint cans tinkling in the trunk, the hot pink DeSoto Fireflite moved smoothly along Highway 101 past Los Angeles, leaving the sunset-tinged western sky behind.
End notes: there's an illustration over here (that I posted in March, but here I finally have the text that goes with it).
Also, Wiggins pointed out that Coco looks like @restfield's vision of cat!Harmony. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but it can't hurt to link the excellent Buffy Cats.
ETA September 2021: I've made a slight retcon in the description of Buffybot's outfit.
Link to Chapter 3
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/156019.html.
Author: thenewbuzwuzz
Fandom: BtVS
Rating: T, I guess
Word count: ~2.7 K this chapter
Characters: Buffybot, Harmony
Warnings: Buffybot, Harmony; not particularly Spike-friendly
Working summary: A Spike stan and a Spike hater discuss their Spuffy-related woes while painting each other's nails or doing whatever skirt girls do together; eventually, unicorns.
UPDATE SCHEDULE: when I get around to it, possibly never! Current track record: 8 months between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
Beta credit: thanks to OffYourBird for helping plan the story overall, and thank you to the wonderful @thewiggins for beta-reading this chapter and sparing any potential readers a lot of confusion, hopefully.
Feedback: always appreciated, including about things that aren't working so well. This has been beta-read once, but I don't know how well the tweaked version works.
Notes: it's the first time I've written a Chapter 2 of anything! \o/ Also the first plot hole I've patched transparently because a previous chapter left it open, yay! All these new writing experiences to enjoy.
Chapter 1 is here.
Unicorns Are Totally Real
CHAPTER 2: A Brand New Day
Hello, world!
It's like a different way of living now.
And thank you, world!
We always knew that we'd be free somehow
in harmony
and show the world that we’ve got liberty.
-Luther Vandross, “The Wiz-The Super Soul Musical”
“Harmony Kendall, would you like to be a Scooby?” asked Buffy Summers, Harmony’s arch-nemesis, offering Harmony a place in her group of friends and allies.
This just went to show that positive energy was flowing Harmony’s way, because of all her efforts to think powerful thoughts and reach her full potential and stuff. It was like that guy had said at that lecture in LA. ...Harmony couldn’t really remember much of what he had said, but it had all been very inspiring. It must have been, because everyone applauded so much.
She would have friends again! She was turning her life around, oh yeah!
It was kind of a lame group of friends, true. Harmony had spent many hours back in high school honing her mocking skills on Buffy’s weird group of outcasts-and then on Cordelia for joining them.
But. It was a group of friends that would have her.
“Would I have to be nice to Willow and Xander?”
“Nope! It’s just me at the moment,” Buffy said.
“Why, are they travelling or something?”
“Oh, no!” Buffy said, beaming. “They don’t want to see me anymore.”
Harmony admired this kind of positive attitude in the face of heartbreak and loneliness.
“Okay. Okay, I’m in!” She gave Buffy a hug and a pair of air kisses. This was great! She had to get a pair of those best friend necklaces.
“What’s the plan, Buffy?” she said after putting her thermos away, bouncing a little on her heels. “Have we got evil to fight?”
Buffy picked up her thick plastic suitcase and started striding in a straight line, cutting the corners of lawns. Harmony followed her.
“There’s always evil,” Buffy said. “But my current objective is to become real.”
“Oh, like meeting the real you? That's, like, so wise.” Harmony couldn’t believe she’d made such a smart friend.
“No, I’ve met the real me.” Buffy made a delicate moue of disappointment. “She didn’t like me.”
What? Harmony hadn’t known that could happen. Shouldn’t someone have warned her?
“I want to become real, too!” Buffy continued. “So I’m looking for Warren, so that he can make me real.”
Oh dear. Oh, Buffy. “Oh, Buffy, a relationship won’t do that for you!”
Harmony knew. She'd been there. She had felt like she needed to be someone’s girlfriend so she could have nice things or so that she even mattered. But now she knew that she didn't need men to complete her, and neither did any friend of hers! Especially if Buffy meant Warren as in the loser who used to be in Harmony’s math class. He was mean.
“I’m looking for Warren,” Buffy repeated. “I need him to make me real.”
This conversation was going to take time, Harmony saw. She didn’t want to make things ugly with her new friend, so she let it go for now.
***
“Warren isn’t home,” his mom said.
“See?” Harmony said. “Let’s just go, Buffy.”
“Could you please tell me where Warren is?” said Buffy. “I need to talk to him. It’s very important.”
The phone rang.
“Hi, sweetie. Yes, actually. Just now,” Warren’s mom said. “That Buffy from your high school and a friend of hers. Blonde, yeah.” She listened for a moment. “Oh! I thought that was next month. Did you pack your clean laundry?”
Soon after, she hung up and turned to look at Harmony and Buffy. “Warren asked me not to tell anyone, but I think he’s being too modest. He's gone to an international robotics contest in France! He’s so smart.”
Good riddance, Harmony thought.
Buffy beamed at the woman. “Where is this contest? I want to go there and meet him.”
“Oh, you want to support him? That's so sweet of you. I would go too if I could get away from work. It’s in this small town. Bernard something?”
Buffy’s eyes went blank for a moment. “La Ferté-Bernard?” she said.
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Warren’s mom.
“Great!” Buffy said. “The fastest route to La Ferté-Bernard is through Los Angeles and Paris. Taking into account flight and transit schedules, I can be there in 29 hours and 45 minutes.” She turned on her heel and strode towards the door.
“Have a nice trip!” Warren's mom called after her. “Tell Warren his mother is proud of him.”
“Okay!” Buffy chirped from the doorstep.
Maybe the positive vibes weren’t rolling into Harmony’s life quite as smoothly as she'd thought. She had only just made a friend, and now her new friend was leaving the country.
France was cool, though. France was where Paris was, and Paris was where really great shopping was. None of Harmony’s boyfriends had ever taken her there, no matter how many hints she dropped, so you know what? Time had come to take the power back and take herself on a trip to France! And her friend too.
Harmony caught up with Buffy at the end of the block. Buffy was power walking towards the highway. From a distance, her small suitcase looked kind of like a big toolbox. Like some of the junk that Spike had kept lying around their lair when he was digging for that stupid gem.
“Wait, Buffy!”
Buffy looked over her shoulder without breaking stride and smiled warmly. “Harmony Kendall! You're my friend.”
“Let’s go to Paris together!” Harmony said.
“Did you mean: La Ferté-Bernard?” Buffy was still walking fast.
“That too. We can take my car to the LA airport.”
Buffy turned around and strode back equally fast. “Okay, Harmony! You were the Big Bad for a week! You're decent with a crossbow.”
“Aww, thanks!”
***
“So, you already have all your luggage, right?” Harmony said, gesturing at the squat, heavy-looking box that Buffy had put on the front seat of Harmony's car.
“Luggage? Oh, this! It's for when I get tired. I will need it soon.”
Sleepwear? Like, whatever. The main thing was, they were ready to go.
“Hey, how do you like my car?” Harmony said, turning on the engine and the radio. “I got it for free.”
“It’s a DeSoto Fireflite 4-Door Sportsman TorqueFlite, model year 1959,” Buffy said pleasantly. “It’s the best car. It has 3-Speed TorqueFlite Push-Button Automatic transmission, and it can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 7.6 seconds.”
“Right. I’m sure it’s all that. It’s also pink!”
“I like pink! It’s girly and sweet, belying my apex predator strength. I look good in pink.”
“You do! I do, too! Pink is one of the best things about life… er, unlife. It’s like you said, we can look cute and also be powerful. It was terrible when my friends said pink was not cool and I believed them. Nobody is ever going to tell me how to dress again.”
“My algorithms tell me how to dress.”
“Good for you!” Must be a spiritual thing, like biorhythms. “What’s that like?”
“Peaceful. I know what to do, and I know I’ll look good. Harmony, I feel tired. Can you get tired from sitting?”
Buffy went perfectly still, sitting ramrod straight, but her eyes were still open. Weird way to sleep, but Harmony wasn't gonna judge.
She drove towards Los Angeles, listening to some cheerful music that she secretly hoped would wake Buffy up so they could talk about their trip.
“I'm going to France!” she sang to herself. “Me and my new best friend.”
Around Oxnard, talking to herself got old. She parked and tried to shake Buffy awake.
There was no reaction. Buffy's eyes were wide open and glassy. What a time to be dead to the world. Buffy must have really needed the sleep.
Now that the radio was off, Harmony noticed something was beeping in a vaguely familiar way. She hadn't thought this grungy old car had things that went beep. The sound came from Buffy's direction, though. Maybe Buffy had a mobile phone. Or-wait!-the series of high-pitched beeps sounded exactly like a Tamagotchi that needed feeding.
Well, at least Harmony knew what to do about that.
She couldn’t see the Tamagotchi, but the beeping was definitely coming from nearby. Harmony lifted Buffy's baggy blue shirt to find the source of the sound (maybe there was an inside pocket?).
She found an odd, rectangular scar on the left side of Buffy's stomach. It didn’t look bloody at all, which was good, because people tended to get grumpy when Harmony wanted to taste their blood, and she didn’t need bad vibes with her new friend. It was just a groove that ran along her skin and turned in straight angles. And the beeping was coming from inside.
Well, if there was something stuck in there, it should come out, Harmony supposed. She wrinkled her nose and felt along the strange scar.
Buffy’s stomach opened smoothly, and inside was a bunch of wires and stuff and a red light.
Harmony had a lot of experience with not understanding things. She found it was often best to just roll with it, pretend she got it, and hope someone would explain later.
She closed the weird opening. Buffy could sort out her Tamagotchi herself when she woke up.
Harmony drove for five more minutes. But she was bored, and Buffy still didn’t talk to her, so she stopped to check again if Buffy was really sure about being asleep.
She was reaching to wave a hand in front of Buffy's eyes when she bumped her knee on Buffy's “luggage” box. She hadn't noticed there were knobs and stuff on it. What was that thing, anyway? Buffy had said it was for when she got tired.
There was a cable in the box, among other boring junk. How was that meant for sleeping?
The box was weird, and Buffy's Tamagotchi hatch was weird, so maybe they went together?
They did. There was a home for the end of the cable in Buffy's stomach.
Harmony plugged the thing in and kept driving, thinking about airplanes and sunlight and that Buffy must surely have a plan, since Buffy thought it was okay for them both to take a plane over the ocean. In the worst case, maybe Harmony could just be in the plane bathroom for the entire time. If someone wanted in, she’d eat them; easy. She wasn’t going to miss out on France over details like this.
In a bit, Buffy was awake.
“So, you run on electricity, huh?” Harmony couldn't resist asking. “Is that why you’re super strong?”
“I guess so.” Buffy didn't seem mad about the questions.
“I never noticed you charging at the school.”
“Me neither. I wasn’t there when I went to school.”
Harmony smiled noncommittally.
“So, what did you mean earlier, you met the real you?”
“Well, the other Buffy thinks I’m not real, and she’s the one Spike really wants.”
“Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait. There’s two of you?” That explained how Buffy had been able to find time for Slayer things and also go to school, like, ever.
“Yep.” Buffy smiled. “We're both very pretty.”
None of the dust jackets of the Slayer books had mentioned this. Harmony thought it wasn't fair to leave important facts out of the part of the books that she read, or how could people expect her to succeed? But she supposed it was good that she hadn't defeated the Slayer earlier, or she couldn't be friends with her now.
The sides of the road were lush and green as they passed Lake Balboa Park. Harmony knew they’d soon be at the intersection before Los Angeles where they had to turn right to the airport, and then her fabulous best friend vacation awaited.
***
Andrew sat in Warren’s mom’s van, parked on the side of Highway 101 near the intersection where Warren had said he should be. This wasn’t how Andrew had planned to spend this night (he yawned), but Warren had promised to run a solo Dungeons and Dragons session just for him. Andrew so rarely got to play, ‘cause he was usually the dungeon master. Ruling over the game world like a god was nice and all, but he really wanted to play his awesome new drow warlock character. So here he was, running an errand for his DND buddy Warren. At least it had involved summoning a demon, so it was some fun. Not like that time last week when Warren had wanted Andrew to digitize the entire Bristow's Demon Index.
Warren phoned again. “Did you release it?”
“Oh, hi Warren, this is Falcon One reporting, yes, I released the demon just like you asked. It’s in position.”
“And did you…”
Honestly, it was like Warren thought he was dumb. “Yes, yes, I put your gizmo on it. So it will also influence GPS or whatever. It’s fine, it’s working. Looks cool.”
Andrew gave an evil little giggle as he surveyed the intersection in front of him. Cars were crossing back and forth between both roads, sometimes repeatedly. Quite a few were parked in the middle, on the traffic island. One pickup van was facing backwards and starting to move down the lane it had come from.
“Good,” Warren said imperiously. “I want you to watch until Buffy arrives and then tell me what happens to her and anyone who arrives with her.”
Boring. But he had the feeling that Warren would make a cool dungeon master. He really wanted to hear Warren weave reality into an adventure with his words. “So about our game,” Andrew said. “When will you be back to run it?”
Blah blah contest blah blah France. Turned out Warren had planned to stay away for at least a month. That sucked. Andrew got that Warren had to hide from an angry Slayer and maybe a master vampire because of building a robot girlfriend that neither of them had apparently liked (which was way cool, by the way, and maybe he should ask Warren to build him Christina Ricci), but waiting still sucked. At least he got Warren to promise the game would be nice and long. He needed plenty of hours to explore the character’s tragic backstory and world domination plans.
***
The kitten was white and very fluffy. It was on the safety island thingy where the lines in the middle of the road started to turn into a barrier between the highway and the… other highway. A lot of cars were behaving strangely around it, but that was really not Harmony’s problem, was it? The kitten sat on this crossroads, washing itself, and there was a pink ribbon around its neck.
Harmony marched over to the kitten and scooped it up before someone could step on it.
Buffy stared at it with some alarm, seemingly.
“Is something wrong? You kind of look like you’ve never seen a kitten before.”
“I didn’t know kittens could look like this,” Buffy said.
Fair point, it was the most adorbs ever.
“I always wanted a cat like you,” Harmony said to its little face, holding it up by the armpits. “Well, not always, but ever since I became evil. It would have been so much easier to be the Big Bad if I’d had a white fluffy cat. It would have helped with the scheming. All masterminds have one.”
The kitten purred and blinked. “We’ve got to take her with us,” Harmony said. “Can we name her Coco? Like Coco Chanel, you know?”
“That’s an acceptable name. I’m creating a directory for Coco: kitten.” Buffy petted it gingerly.
Coco snuggled deeper into Harmony's arms, purring.
“Wait, which way were we going?” Harmony said.
“You said to Paris?” Buffy offered.
Sounded right. Harmony’s head felt fuzzy.
“Paris is… that way, I think.” Buffy pointed. Harmony drove over the traffic island to the other side of the highway.
Coco sat on Buffy's lap as Harmony drove out of the traffic jam, taking care to use her turn signals and not bump into any cars even though this big old car would probably be fine as it flattened them. Harmony may be a monster, but she wasn’t rude. Unless it was an emergency. Or she was talking to losers. Or, of course, if people were mean to her first.
Ten empty paint cans tinkling in the trunk, the hot pink DeSoto Fireflite moved smoothly along Highway 101 past Los Angeles, leaving the sunset-tinged western sky behind.
End notes: there's an illustration over here (that I posted in March, but here I finally have the text that goes with it).
Also, Wiggins pointed out that Coco looks like @restfield's vision of cat!Harmony. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but it can't hurt to link the excellent Buffy Cats.
ETA September 2021: I've made a slight retcon in the description of Buffybot's outfit.
Link to Chapter 3
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/156019.html.