Sugar Hit
Author:
ubiquirk
Title: Sugar Hit
Word Count: ~4400
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: Written for
ruuger ’s Buffy’s the Hero, Damnit! Ficathon [masterlist here]. Huge thanks to
firefly_124 , my fantabulous beta. I completely abused the meaning of the phrase ‘last minute’ on her for this one.
Recipient:
globalfruitbat [I hope you like it!]
Summary: Set during the summer between S3 and S4 before Xander has left on his road trip. The Hidgeron expect to find a typical Slayer to complete their immortality ritual, but since when has anything about Buffy been typical?
globalfruitbat ’s request:
Characters: The Scoobies! Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Tara, Dawn, Anya
What you'd like to see: I'd like to see something from the 'Slay Heavy' summer between S3 and S4, or from between S4 and S5 -- Buffy saving the day for the Scoobies. Or a 'fill in the blank' memory with Dawn from S1, S2, S3 and S4 -- Dawn needing to be rescued
What you don't like to see: I'm not really feeling any angst. I'd love a classic gen story, full of humour and action
Preferred rating: G, I guess. ;)
Comics canon, yay or nay? No, not really.
White smoke curls throughout the cavern in a thick rope, moving restlessly, alternately hiding and revealing a wide, covered shape hunched in front of a fire. Chanting rises and falls, language strange and consonant laden, as the figure begins to sway.
After long moments, the sound reaches a fevered pitch, and the covering is thrown back to reveal a squat putty-colored creature with large ice-blue eyes and no ears. It casts its head back and yells to the ceiling, arms thrown wide, three-clawed hands splayed and rigid, before swooping inward to scoop a bowl from the floor, tossing the contents into the fire.
The smoke flashes red and streaks out of a hole in the roof.
As the demon before the fire collapses sideways, breathing heavily, another emerges from the shadows behind it. “You gamble much on this spell.”
“Only because there is much to gamble. We have only a handful of years before the ritual must be done.”
“You’ve left it too late. This Slayer is not freshly called.”
“And you slept the last decade beside me. I cannot recall you stirring to action.”
The standing creature bows its head. “True. But how can you be sure she will be pure?”
Snorting, the first replies, “Through all the centuries we have performed the ritual, one thing has held true: the men who watch isolate the girl from life to better make her an instrument of death.” It pushes itself upright. “She will be pure.”
Struggling fully to its feet, the demon emits an ululating cry.
Four tall figures emerge from a tunnel to the left. Thin, they appear walking skeletons, yet the skeleton of something only loosely humanlike, as their pelvises tilt forward and knees hinge backwards. A sickly green, their faces seem to be all toothsome mouth with eyes small and solid black. Matted hair of an indeterminate grey runs the length of their spines.
After gestures and garbled vowels sounds from the first creature, they make their way across the cavern to exit.
“And now she that is marked, our Ooliolu will find her.”
~~~
“Giles, we need more cookies!” Buffy yells from his sofa.
“Yeah,” Xander mumbles from around the last one, “sugar makes the researching go.”
“Go?” Willow looks up from the vampire treatise spread across her lap and nudges Buffy with her elbow, causing both to giggle.
Xander grins. “Go … good.”
A faint drift of red eases through the crack underneath the door and climbs the wall to pool near the ceiling.
“Yes, yes.” Giles comes in from the kitchen, tea tray in hand. Setting it down, he takes the chair standing beside Xander’s. “That’s it for the chocolate chip. I’m afraid you’ll just have to make do with … with,” he pauses to take a look at the package, “something called a Snickerdoodle.”
“Yay - Snickerdoodles!” Xander makes a grab for the box. “Those are like the cookie excuse for sugar!”
“Do cookies even need an excuse for sugar?” Buffy asks.
“Nope, but these raise sugarness to a whole new level - no need for other flavors or anything.”
The final tail of smoke enters and joins the mass circling above the Scoobies’ heads.
“Well, maybe a little cinnamon on top,” Willow offers.
“As long as it’s cinnamon-sugar.” Xander opens the cookies and pours some onto the plate beside the teapot.
They all reach for a Snickerdoodle at the same time, hands jumbling together on the plate, and the spinning red smoke, which had been lowering towards Buffy, suddenly splits into four agitated sections. Just as they bite into their cookies, it strikes, bathing each in a flash of red that immediately fades.
“Wow,” Willow says, eyes wide, “that’s some sugar hit.”
Buffy shakes her head a little. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever felt it that strong before.”
“Americans, you always like things too sweet.” Giles abandons the rest of his cookie and quickly pours a cup of tea, adding only milk before raising it to his mouth.
Finishing off his first in one more bite, Xander reaches for a second Snickerdoodle. “You’re all just big sugar wimps.”
~~~
The next night, Buffy wends her way easily through headstones, twirling her stake and whistling a little. “Here, vampy, vampy. Here, boy.”
Sighing, she stops by an ivy-covered crypt and lowers her arms to rest hands on jean-covered thighs. With eyes scrunched closed, she mutters, “Giles always says to just reach out and feel them.” After a few moments, she flashes a brief red glow, but doesn’t even flinch. “Though if Xander keeps it up with the ‘feel the force’ jokes, someone’s gonna be feeling -”
A lanky green shape hurtles from the right, knocking her to the ground.
“- oomph!”
It straddles her, scrabbling for her throat, and Buffy grabs its wrists, able to stop it from strangling her yet unable to move the flexing hands more than a few inches away.
“You do know,” she pants, “that there are better ways to get a girl on her back, don’t you?”
Letting go with her right hand, she allows the Ooliolu to get a grip on her neck with one hand. As soon as its arm locks, she hits the inside of that elbow and jerks her left hand quickly to the side. When the demon collapses forward, she head butts it, smashing her forehead into its nose.
They roll, the demon huffing in pain, until Buffy comes out on top.
“But then, with that kind of body odor, I imagine you’re a little socially challenged in general - let alone when it comes to wooing the fairer sex.” She punches its broken nose before cocking her head to the side while looking at it. “If you even have a fairer sex.”
Grunting, the creature reaches out to try to strangle her again, yet she sits up straight enough to keep its arms at bay by constantly batting them away. Black blood paints its face and permanently bared teeth.
It goes quiescent for a moment before suddenly lurching up to throw her off before flipping to its feet.
Rolling to take the force of the throw diagonally across her back instead of on her spine, Buffy uses the momentum to pop up in fighting stance, facing the demon.
Right foot and fist forward and ready, she waves her left arm in a gesture that encompasses the entire creature. “Unless you are the fairer sex, because if so, I really don’t wanna see the uglier and stinkier version of a … a …” Her brow wrinkles. “What are you?”
With a roar, the Ooliolu rushes her, arms raised rigidly forward.
~~~
“She is here!” The squat demon waddles into the cavern, arms circling in excitement. “The Ooliolu have brought the Slayer.”
Stirring from sitting hunched in front of the fire, the other shape rises to its feet. “Most propitious news. The Hidgeron will live for three more centuries!” It moves to the back of the cave. “Have her brought here. We must prepare the altar.”
The first Hidgeron turns to the entrance and calls out in a liquid-vowel cry.
Gait made awkward by additional weight added to backward-hinging knees, an Ooliolu enters with a slim figure thrown over one shoulder - only jean-clad legs show from the front, limp and swaying with the movements of the creature.
“Careful!” The head demon calls out, repeating it in the eerily mellifluous language. It turns to its counterpart. “Why does it carry her so? Are there not other Ooliolu to assist?”
Hands spread wide, palm up, the other says, “It said only that it had to separate from the others. It was not clear as to why.”
“No matter. We have the Slayer. The ritual can proceed.” Gesturing towards the altar of grey stone carved from the side of the cavern, the Hidgeron calls to the Ooliolu again.
The lanky creature enters the shadows of the end of the altar and unfurls the human from its shoulder, laying the person, whose torso can now be seen to be female, none too gently on the rocky surface.
“Away with you!” The head demon pushes the Ooliolu away from the girl’s head and reaches out a pudgy hand to push red hair from Willow’s face. Its movements with her are slow and gentle. “She is our savior.”
~~~
Sidestepping the rushing Ooliolu at the last second, Buffy grabs handfuls of the hair running down the back of the demon and twirls, sending it spiraling into the side of the crypt where its head impacts with a meaty crunch. When she lets go, it falls to the ground, still.
She toes it with a boot. “Ugly but easy to kill. I can live with that.” Her hands move to her hips. “Though I’d be happier if you’d melt into a puddle of goo sometime soon.”
When minutes pass and no goo appears, she lets out a snort and flings her hands wide. “Fine. Don’t cooperate.” Bending, she grabs the creature’s ankles, backing towards a copse of trees behind the crypt. “Though, this way, if Giles needs more than my description, he can come and take a look at you himself.”
She emerges from the foliage, brushing hands off on jeans before raising one to push her hair out of her face. Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh - he can also explore the fun that is smelling you.”
~~~
“Giles!” Buffy bursts through the door of his apartment to find it empty and much more disarrayed than the previous evening.
His desk chair’s tipped over, and papers and books spill across the floor, some of the latter fanned open, bent pages pressing into the rug. A tea cup lies broken in a puddle of milky brown, and his glasses rest at the edge of the liquid seep.
“Oh, this can’t be of the good.” She runs up the stairs. “Giles! Giles!” Soon, she clomps back down.
She picks up the phone and dials a number quickly, fiddling with the phone cord. “Come on, Wills!” Buffy glances at her watch. “You gotta be home by now.” Her frown deepens as no one answers.
Almost knocking the phone off the desk in her irritation, she hangs up to dial another number. “Mrs. Harris, it’s Buffy. No - Buffy, Xander’s friend. Yes, you met me last year.”
After listening for a minute, head cocked to one side and fingers drumming the desk, she cuts in, “Mrs. Harris, I’m looking for Xander. Is he there? Have you seen him?”
Another interlude passes punctuated by frowning, lip pursing, and attempts to interrupt with “ahs.”
“Well, I’m sure all of that makes it … uh … difficult to walk down the hall to his room, but if you see him, could you let him know I’m looking for him? Buffy. B-U-F-F-Y. Thank you, Mrs. Harris.”
The receiver hits the cradle with a plastic crack, and she begins to prowl the room.
“No way to ask Ang-”
Buffy stops dead, eyes narrowing, and races out the door.
~~~
The two pudgy demons skitter around the altar, arranging and rearranging the way Willow’s limbs rest before tying them down, placing piles of dried herbs and stripped bones in complex patterns around her.
They are interrupted when an Ooliolu backs into the front of the cave, dragging Xander, hands pulling at the young man’s armpits.
“You dare to interrupt the ritual?” one of the Hidgeron yells, arms above head semaphoring distress.
The Ooliolu rears up, dropping Xander to the ground with a thump, and calls out, a lowing cry that rings angrily.
“Absurd!” the other Hidgeron barks. “What could it mean by saying this … this male is the Slayer?”
Calling to it, the first squat demon enters into a conversation with its gaunt servant.
~~~
“Hey, hey, hey.” Willy raises his left hand defensively as his right goes to wipe the trickle of blood seeping from his nose. “I was just joshing with you, Slayer. Don’t know nothing ‘bout your friends or that librarian guy.”
She reaches across the bar to grab his shirtfront and lifts her fist, face pinched in a scowl. “And how come I don’t believe you, Willy? Huh? Could it be because you didn’t tell me the truth last week about where those Raquera demons were nesting?”
“Now, Slayer,” he says, voice shaking a little. “That was just a little unfortunate miscommunication. I -”
Her eyes narrow to hard slits, and a vampire sitting two stools down picks up its glass and moves to the booth furthest away.
“Miscommunication?” She shakes him a bit. “Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen again, do you? Because my fist is all set for some real clear communication with your nose if you don’t tell me everything you know.”
“This time I’m coming clean. I got nothin’ - less than nothin’ actually. Ain’t heard a thing about anybody coming after you and yours and never heard of those demons you’re talking ‘bout neither.”
Shaking him a bit harder, Buffy raises her fist higher.
“Honest!” His hands spread out, palms up. “There hasn’t been anything smellier than Earl in here for months.” He points to the vampire that moved away and now glowers from the back booth.
Letting go of Willy with a little shove, she points. “I’m leaving here now because I don’t have time for this, but if you crossed me, you better leave town - for good.”
He smiles unconvincingly and gives a weak laugh. “I gotcha, Slayer. You ain’t gotta worry
‘bout old Willy no more. I’m on your side.”
“You’re not on my side,” she says as she walks towards the door of the bar. Her glare sends a female vampire skittering out of her way. “Almost no one is anymore.”
~~~
As the Ooliolu standing over Xander ends its speech on a plaintive note, another enters with Giles.
It grasps the librarian’s ankles, pulling his body behind it, taking little care that his head bounces against every irregularity of the cave’s floor.
“No, no, no!” The highly distressed Hidgeron cries, waddling forward to intercept the new addition.
The other demon holds it back and calls out to the tall servant. Upon hearing a rather long and warbling explanation, both pudgy demons sag into one another.
“How can these men also be the Slayer? Something has gone horribly wrong.”
“Hush.” It pats its companions shoulder. “We have successfully completed the ritual for centuries, and we will continue to do so. We will live for another three hundred years and for another beyond that.”
“But …”
“But we should double-check all of the arrangements.” The Hidgeron turns them both until they face the altar and Willow. “Including the purity of the Slayer.”
The other nods.
~~~
Reentering Giles’s apartment, Buffy turns her head from side to side quickly. “There’s gotta be a clue,” she mutters to herself, walking around and around. “Think, Buffy. There’s gotta be something.”
Pacing finds nothing, though her hands skitter across surfaces and set books to right, so she eventually slides down the wall by the door and sits.
Within a minute, her nose wrinkles, and she looks up and pulls a tuft of grey hair from a rather large splinter on the door frame above her head.
“Well, that confirms that it was definitely the stinky brigade who took him.” She stands. “But how to find them without Ang-” A quick head shake. “Without a vampire to go all bloodhound for me?”
~~~
“Hey, Sparky. Good boy,” Buffy whispers to Mrs. Beadleman’s terrier, who emerges from his dog house whining and wagging his tail so hard it hits both sides of the opening, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Grabbing the dog to pull him forward into her lap, she endures a lot of face licking, laughing softly and scratching behind his ears. “You big flirt! Wanna help me with a little something?”
Now Sparky’s tail hits her legs, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
~~~
The fire roars high in the middle of the cavern, and consonant-laden chanting fills the air.
Willow strains weakly against her bonds, head turned to watch the demons through bleary eyes.
One of the Hidgeron throws a fistful of herbs on the fire, making it flash a red so deep it’s almost purple. The smoke that starts to rise darkens to match.
Near the entrance, Xander begins to stir, lifting one hand to his head while rolling onto his side.
Eyes widening, Willow peers through the smoke to the other side of the cave. “Xander!”
“Wills?” His voice sounds muzzy and quiet.
“Xander!”
He moves more this time, and his foot kicks into Giles’s leg where the other man lies completely still.
“Giles.” Concern gives Xander’s voice a stronger edge as he drags himself over to look at the older man.
~~~
Running after the small dog, Buffy dodges branches and leaps small bushes seemingly effortlessly, even in the low visibility of tree-filtered moonlight.
She catches up with Sparky in the clearing before a cave mouth and scoops him up into her arms just as he’s about to run into the dark opening. “Hang on there, little fella,” she whispers. “Those stinky demons are a lot bigger than you.”
He growls softly and wiggles in her grip.
Moving back into the cover of the woods, she says, “I’m going to put you here, so you stay quiet, okay?”
Finding a small bush, she slips Sparky’s leash out of her jeans pocket before using it to tie him loosely to the plant. “If I don’t come back, you pull really hard and run home.”
Buffy drops a quick kiss on his head and walks back to the cave entrance.
~~~
The meaty smacks and grunts of fighting come from the entrance, and inside the cavern, the Hidgeron’s voice rises in volume and pitch as it begins to sway.
A large cloud of dark smoke swirls above the fire, a roiling red.
“Giles.” Xander shakes the older man, who moves his head slightly, causing the younger man to sag towards the floor, shoulders slumping in relief. Xander then turns towards Willow and flashes her a quick thumbs up.
The redhead smiles for a moment before her eyes snap back to the middle of the cavern, caught by the grandiose arm movements of the head demon.
With a final guttural cry, the Hidgeron scoops up a collection of herbs to fling into the fire, then slumps forward.
The cloud billows up to hit the ceiling of the cavern and ricochets down, splitting into four tendrils. Three shoot outwards, hitting first Giles, then Xander, and finally Willow. The fourth hovers for a few seconds, then strikes Buffy as she enters the cave, freezing her forward momentum.
The other demon emerges from the shadows beside the altar in the back of the cave, head turning rapidly to take in all four of the humans wreathed in smoke.
After churning around Giles for a few moments, the smoke grows an even deeper purple before rising into a globe above him. Scenes flash across the surface: a dark-haired teenage girl looking up at an equally young Giles, a twenty-something Ethan Rayne fisting his hand in the front of Giles’s t-shirt, a beautiful, older Chinese woman smiling coyly over her naked shoulder. Events flicker faster and faster, with only quick impressions of Joyce and Olivia’s faces showing towards the end.
A lighter cloud forms over Xander, Faith’s grinning visage rising over the ghostly image of him with eyes and mouth wide.
“It matters little if men are impure,” the squat demon says, turning towards Willow.
Multiple views of Oz’s face, wearing varying expressions from serious to slightly smiling, form along with a series of smoky Willows in the reddish-purple mass over the redhead.
“No!” The Hidgeron falls to the ground beside its companion. “The Slayer, she is not pure!”
Moving again, Buffy throws down the head of an Ooliolu, saying, “And she’s not the Slayer.”
The pudgy demon raises its head to stare at her. “So there is hope?”
“Hope that I’m going to kick your ass?” Buffy spreads her hands wide. “Yeah, I’d say there’s hope.”
Yet before she can move more than two steps, the smoke surrounding her flows into formation above her head, a light purple. Angel’s face takes shape, his eyes gentle as he leans forward to lightly touch his lips to an ethereal Buffy, her temple, her cheekbone, her mouth.
A muffled sob comes from Buffy as she covers her mouth, eyes wide and glistening.
The demon moans and falls forward to hit at its insensate companion. “All ruined. All impure. We will die. We will die.”
The spell now complete, all four of the clouds dissipate, and the other Hidgeron begins to stir.
As Buffy’s eyes drop from overhead, she looks around the cave, pausing as first Giles and Xander come into view, and then again when she swivels to look at Willow across the way. Her face hardens, and she quickly brushes away the slight wetness on her cheeks.
“You’re not wrong about that.” She launches forward just as the demon lurches to its feet.
Although slightly shorter, it has a reach that matches hers, and the creature’s first hit sends her flying backward to smack into the cave wall before falling to the floor.
Climbing back to her feet, she approaches more carefully, landing a snap kick to the Hidgeron’s meaty left side just before punching its right cheek.
Yet it absorbs both strikes without moving and hits her again, sending her sliding across the floor on her butt until she rests against the altar.
“Buffy?” Willow’s voice carries concern.
“Yeah, Wills?”
“I’m glad you’re here. You okay?”
She stands, reaching over to rip apart the bonds tying the redhead down. “Peachy.”
Both demons are now standing and moving towards her.
Buffy gestures for Willow to go left to join Giles and Xander while edging right.
“Ruined,” one wails.
“All ruined - our lovely immortality,” the other agrees. “And all because this one is impure.”
“You know what? I’m getting kind of tired of all this double-standardy stuff.” Her right hand gropes across the back wall. “Yeah, I had sex. So what? I mean, Angel was there too, and no one runs around going all ‘impure’ and stuff about him.” She shuffles to the right to reach farther while her left hand comes up to pat the air in front of her placatingly. “Okay, okay. So he’s a vampire, and the impure thing is a bit of a given, but that’s usually because of the murdering and the torture. No one talks about his sex life like that.”
Her right arm comes forward, twirling a four-foot wooden staff. “I think it’s about time I go all equal rights on your ass.”
As the first demon rushes towards her, Buffy spins, arching the staff diagonally down towards its head so quickly the wood whirs at it slices the air.
The demon staggers a foot to the side, and the other rushes in to fill the gap.
Continuing the initial movement, she flips the staff end over end to bring it up to skewer the next Hidgeron in the chest. The wood sinks a foot into the demon, and the creature pauses before pushing toward her again.
Buffy pulls the weapon free with a slurping sound and leaps upon the altar to somersault over the first demon’s head. Running to the other side of the cavern, where Willow and Xander are trying to lift a wobbly Giles to his feet, she yells, “Get him up and get out of here!”
Turning, she brings the whirling length of wood down on the outside of the back of the lead demon’s knee, causing it to buckle. The second Hidgeron collides with the stopped first, and they both go down.
“Buffy.” Giles’s voice sounds weak.
She glances back over her shoulder. “Get out now.”
“Buffy,” he calls again, resisting the tugs of Xander and Willow to leave, “strike below the belt.”
“Huh? They’re not wearing belts.”
“The … the groin. I believe they are Hidgeron. You strike them in the groin.”
“Oh!” She looks back to the squirming mess of demon and lifts the staff higher, nose wrinkling. “And eww.”
The two teens finally coax Giles from the cave, one under each shoulder.
As the Hidgeron separate, they truly separate, choosing to circle her from opposite directions.
Buffy holds the staff parallel with the ground and turns so as to always keep one of the demons in front of her.
When the one behind rushes her, she drops and spins, plunging one end of the weapon into the apex of its thighs and quickly jerking the staff straight back to strike the other approaching demon in the same area.
High pitched screams emerge from both, fading off into liquid gurgles that sound not unlike the Ooliolu language as the demons slowly dissolve into puddles of goo, arms waving till the very end.
“Now that I’m no where near where other people could see a body, of course I get goo.” Buffy drops the gory weapon into the puddle and follows her friends from the cave
~~~
“Yes, Mrs. Beadleman. No, Mrs. Beadleman. Of course, Mrs. Beadleman.”
Hanging up Giles’s phone with a sigh, Buffy turns to the rest of the Scoobies. “Well, Sparky’s got fleas, so I’m not allowed to ‘walk’ him ever again.” Her hands rise to make air quotes around walk.
“Aww, that’s too bad.” Willow pouts. “He was really cute.”
“And less with the danger than Ang-” Xander stops abruptly when Willow shoves a cookie in his mouth while giving him a death glare.
“He’s right.” Buffy joins Willow on the couch, staring at her hands in her lap. “And besides, Angel’s gone. I … I’m getting used to it.”
Giles enters from his kitchen. “Well, I for one think you did very well without him or anyone for that matter.” He sets the teapot down and takes a chair.
Willow and Xander nod.
“You’re right.” Buffy looks up and smiles. “I did.”
Giles pours tea, and everyone watches, lapsing into silence.
After a few minutes, Buffy says, “And we’re never ever going to talk about seeing each other’s sex lives ever.”
Everyone nervously shoves a chocolate chip cookie into their mouths, mumbling something that sounds like consent.
ubiquirk
Title: Sugar Hit
Word Count: ~4400
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: Written for
ruuger ’s Buffy’s the Hero, Damnit! Ficathon [masterlist here]. Huge thanks to
firefly_124 , my fantabulous beta. I completely abused the meaning of the phrase ‘last minute’ on her for this one.
Recipient:
globalfruitbat [I hope you like it!]
Summary: Set during the summer between S3 and S4 before Xander has left on his road trip. The Hidgeron expect to find a typical Slayer to complete their immortality ritual, but since when has anything about Buffy been typical?
globalfruitbat ’s request:
Characters: The Scoobies! Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Tara, Dawn, Anya
What you'd like to see: I'd like to see something from the 'Slay Heavy' summer between S3 and S4, or from between S4 and S5 -- Buffy saving the day for the Scoobies. Or a 'fill in the blank' memory with Dawn from S1, S2, S3 and S4 -- Dawn needing to be rescued
What you don't like to see: I'm not really feeling any angst. I'd love a classic gen story, full of humour and action
Preferred rating: G, I guess. ;)
Comics canon, yay or nay? No, not really.
White smoke curls throughout the cavern in a thick rope, moving restlessly, alternately hiding and revealing a wide, covered shape hunched in front of a fire. Chanting rises and falls, language strange and consonant laden, as the figure begins to sway.
After long moments, the sound reaches a fevered pitch, and the covering is thrown back to reveal a squat putty-colored creature with large ice-blue eyes and no ears. It casts its head back and yells to the ceiling, arms thrown wide, three-clawed hands splayed and rigid, before swooping inward to scoop a bowl from the floor, tossing the contents into the fire.
The smoke flashes red and streaks out of a hole in the roof.
As the demon before the fire collapses sideways, breathing heavily, another emerges from the shadows behind it. “You gamble much on this spell.”
“Only because there is much to gamble. We have only a handful of years before the ritual must be done.”
“You’ve left it too late. This Slayer is not freshly called.”
“And you slept the last decade beside me. I cannot recall you stirring to action.”
The standing creature bows its head. “True. But how can you be sure she will be pure?”
Snorting, the first replies, “Through all the centuries we have performed the ritual, one thing has held true: the men who watch isolate the girl from life to better make her an instrument of death.” It pushes itself upright. “She will be pure.”
Struggling fully to its feet, the demon emits an ululating cry.
Four tall figures emerge from a tunnel to the left. Thin, they appear walking skeletons, yet the skeleton of something only loosely humanlike, as their pelvises tilt forward and knees hinge backwards. A sickly green, their faces seem to be all toothsome mouth with eyes small and solid black. Matted hair of an indeterminate grey runs the length of their spines.
After gestures and garbled vowels sounds from the first creature, they make their way across the cavern to exit.
“And now she that is marked, our Ooliolu will find her.”
~~~
“Giles, we need more cookies!” Buffy yells from his sofa.
“Yeah,” Xander mumbles from around the last one, “sugar makes the researching go.”
“Go?” Willow looks up from the vampire treatise spread across her lap and nudges Buffy with her elbow, causing both to giggle.
Xander grins. “Go … good.”
A faint drift of red eases through the crack underneath the door and climbs the wall to pool near the ceiling.
“Yes, yes.” Giles comes in from the kitchen, tea tray in hand. Setting it down, he takes the chair standing beside Xander’s. “That’s it for the chocolate chip. I’m afraid you’ll just have to make do with … with,” he pauses to take a look at the package, “something called a Snickerdoodle.”
“Yay - Snickerdoodles!” Xander makes a grab for the box. “Those are like the cookie excuse for sugar!”
“Do cookies even need an excuse for sugar?” Buffy asks.
“Nope, but these raise sugarness to a whole new level - no need for other flavors or anything.”
The final tail of smoke enters and joins the mass circling above the Scoobies’ heads.
“Well, maybe a little cinnamon on top,” Willow offers.
“As long as it’s cinnamon-sugar.” Xander opens the cookies and pours some onto the plate beside the teapot.
They all reach for a Snickerdoodle at the same time, hands jumbling together on the plate, and the spinning red smoke, which had been lowering towards Buffy, suddenly splits into four agitated sections. Just as they bite into their cookies, it strikes, bathing each in a flash of red that immediately fades.
“Wow,” Willow says, eyes wide, “that’s some sugar hit.”
Buffy shakes her head a little. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever felt it that strong before.”
“Americans, you always like things too sweet.” Giles abandons the rest of his cookie and quickly pours a cup of tea, adding only milk before raising it to his mouth.
Finishing off his first in one more bite, Xander reaches for a second Snickerdoodle. “You’re all just big sugar wimps.”
~~~
The next night, Buffy wends her way easily through headstones, twirling her stake and whistling a little. “Here, vampy, vampy. Here, boy.”
Sighing, she stops by an ivy-covered crypt and lowers her arms to rest hands on jean-covered thighs. With eyes scrunched closed, she mutters, “Giles always says to just reach out and feel them.” After a few moments, she flashes a brief red glow, but doesn’t even flinch. “Though if Xander keeps it up with the ‘feel the force’ jokes, someone’s gonna be feeling -”
A lanky green shape hurtles from the right, knocking her to the ground.
“- oomph!”
It straddles her, scrabbling for her throat, and Buffy grabs its wrists, able to stop it from strangling her yet unable to move the flexing hands more than a few inches away.
“You do know,” she pants, “that there are better ways to get a girl on her back, don’t you?”
Letting go with her right hand, she allows the Ooliolu to get a grip on her neck with one hand. As soon as its arm locks, she hits the inside of that elbow and jerks her left hand quickly to the side. When the demon collapses forward, she head butts it, smashing her forehead into its nose.
They roll, the demon huffing in pain, until Buffy comes out on top.
“But then, with that kind of body odor, I imagine you’re a little socially challenged in general - let alone when it comes to wooing the fairer sex.” She punches its broken nose before cocking her head to the side while looking at it. “If you even have a fairer sex.”
Grunting, the creature reaches out to try to strangle her again, yet she sits up straight enough to keep its arms at bay by constantly batting them away. Black blood paints its face and permanently bared teeth.
It goes quiescent for a moment before suddenly lurching up to throw her off before flipping to its feet.
Rolling to take the force of the throw diagonally across her back instead of on her spine, Buffy uses the momentum to pop up in fighting stance, facing the demon.
Right foot and fist forward and ready, she waves her left arm in a gesture that encompasses the entire creature. “Unless you are the fairer sex, because if so, I really don’t wanna see the uglier and stinkier version of a … a …” Her brow wrinkles. “What are you?”
With a roar, the Ooliolu rushes her, arms raised rigidly forward.
~~~
“She is here!” The squat demon waddles into the cavern, arms circling in excitement. “The Ooliolu have brought the Slayer.”
Stirring from sitting hunched in front of the fire, the other shape rises to its feet. “Most propitious news. The Hidgeron will live for three more centuries!” It moves to the back of the cave. “Have her brought here. We must prepare the altar.”
The first Hidgeron turns to the entrance and calls out in a liquid-vowel cry.
Gait made awkward by additional weight added to backward-hinging knees, an Ooliolu enters with a slim figure thrown over one shoulder - only jean-clad legs show from the front, limp and swaying with the movements of the creature.
“Careful!” The head demon calls out, repeating it in the eerily mellifluous language. It turns to its counterpart. “Why does it carry her so? Are there not other Ooliolu to assist?”
Hands spread wide, palm up, the other says, “It said only that it had to separate from the others. It was not clear as to why.”
“No matter. We have the Slayer. The ritual can proceed.” Gesturing towards the altar of grey stone carved from the side of the cavern, the Hidgeron calls to the Ooliolu again.
The lanky creature enters the shadows of the end of the altar and unfurls the human from its shoulder, laying the person, whose torso can now be seen to be female, none too gently on the rocky surface.
“Away with you!” The head demon pushes the Ooliolu away from the girl’s head and reaches out a pudgy hand to push red hair from Willow’s face. Its movements with her are slow and gentle. “She is our savior.”
~~~
Sidestepping the rushing Ooliolu at the last second, Buffy grabs handfuls of the hair running down the back of the demon and twirls, sending it spiraling into the side of the crypt where its head impacts with a meaty crunch. When she lets go, it falls to the ground, still.
She toes it with a boot. “Ugly but easy to kill. I can live with that.” Her hands move to her hips. “Though I’d be happier if you’d melt into a puddle of goo sometime soon.”
When minutes pass and no goo appears, she lets out a snort and flings her hands wide. “Fine. Don’t cooperate.” Bending, she grabs the creature’s ankles, backing towards a copse of trees behind the crypt. “Though, this way, if Giles needs more than my description, he can come and take a look at you himself.”
She emerges from the foliage, brushing hands off on jeans before raising one to push her hair out of her face. Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh - he can also explore the fun that is smelling you.”
~~~
“Giles!” Buffy bursts through the door of his apartment to find it empty and much more disarrayed than the previous evening.
His desk chair’s tipped over, and papers and books spill across the floor, some of the latter fanned open, bent pages pressing into the rug. A tea cup lies broken in a puddle of milky brown, and his glasses rest at the edge of the liquid seep.
“Oh, this can’t be of the good.” She runs up the stairs. “Giles! Giles!” Soon, she clomps back down.
She picks up the phone and dials a number quickly, fiddling with the phone cord. “Come on, Wills!” Buffy glances at her watch. “You gotta be home by now.” Her frown deepens as no one answers.
Almost knocking the phone off the desk in her irritation, she hangs up to dial another number. “Mrs. Harris, it’s Buffy. No - Buffy, Xander’s friend. Yes, you met me last year.”
After listening for a minute, head cocked to one side and fingers drumming the desk, she cuts in, “Mrs. Harris, I’m looking for Xander. Is he there? Have you seen him?”
Another interlude passes punctuated by frowning, lip pursing, and attempts to interrupt with “ahs.”
“Well, I’m sure all of that makes it … uh … difficult to walk down the hall to his room, but if you see him, could you let him know I’m looking for him? Buffy. B-U-F-F-Y. Thank you, Mrs. Harris.”
The receiver hits the cradle with a plastic crack, and she begins to prowl the room.
“No way to ask Ang-”
Buffy stops dead, eyes narrowing, and races out the door.
~~~
The two pudgy demons skitter around the altar, arranging and rearranging the way Willow’s limbs rest before tying them down, placing piles of dried herbs and stripped bones in complex patterns around her.
They are interrupted when an Ooliolu backs into the front of the cave, dragging Xander, hands pulling at the young man’s armpits.
“You dare to interrupt the ritual?” one of the Hidgeron yells, arms above head semaphoring distress.
The Ooliolu rears up, dropping Xander to the ground with a thump, and calls out, a lowing cry that rings angrily.
“Absurd!” the other Hidgeron barks. “What could it mean by saying this … this male is the Slayer?”
Calling to it, the first squat demon enters into a conversation with its gaunt servant.
~~~
“Hey, hey, hey.” Willy raises his left hand defensively as his right goes to wipe the trickle of blood seeping from his nose. “I was just joshing with you, Slayer. Don’t know nothing ‘bout your friends or that librarian guy.”
She reaches across the bar to grab his shirtfront and lifts her fist, face pinched in a scowl. “And how come I don’t believe you, Willy? Huh? Could it be because you didn’t tell me the truth last week about where those Raquera demons were nesting?”
“Now, Slayer,” he says, voice shaking a little. “That was just a little unfortunate miscommunication. I -”
Her eyes narrow to hard slits, and a vampire sitting two stools down picks up its glass and moves to the booth furthest away.
“Miscommunication?” She shakes him a bit. “Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen again, do you? Because my fist is all set for some real clear communication with your nose if you don’t tell me everything you know.”
“This time I’m coming clean. I got nothin’ - less than nothin’ actually. Ain’t heard a thing about anybody coming after you and yours and never heard of those demons you’re talking ‘bout neither.”
Shaking him a bit harder, Buffy raises her fist higher.
“Honest!” His hands spread out, palms up. “There hasn’t been anything smellier than Earl in here for months.” He points to the vampire that moved away and now glowers from the back booth.
Letting go of Willy with a little shove, she points. “I’m leaving here now because I don’t have time for this, but if you crossed me, you better leave town - for good.”
He smiles unconvincingly and gives a weak laugh. “I gotcha, Slayer. You ain’t gotta worry
‘bout old Willy no more. I’m on your side.”
“You’re not on my side,” she says as she walks towards the door of the bar. Her glare sends a female vampire skittering out of her way. “Almost no one is anymore.”
~~~
As the Ooliolu standing over Xander ends its speech on a plaintive note, another enters with Giles.
It grasps the librarian’s ankles, pulling his body behind it, taking little care that his head bounces against every irregularity of the cave’s floor.
“No, no, no!” The highly distressed Hidgeron cries, waddling forward to intercept the new addition.
The other demon holds it back and calls out to the tall servant. Upon hearing a rather long and warbling explanation, both pudgy demons sag into one another.
“How can these men also be the Slayer? Something has gone horribly wrong.”
“Hush.” It pats its companions shoulder. “We have successfully completed the ritual for centuries, and we will continue to do so. We will live for another three hundred years and for another beyond that.”
“But …”
“But we should double-check all of the arrangements.” The Hidgeron turns them both until they face the altar and Willow. “Including the purity of the Slayer.”
The other nods.
~~~
Reentering Giles’s apartment, Buffy turns her head from side to side quickly. “There’s gotta be a clue,” she mutters to herself, walking around and around. “Think, Buffy. There’s gotta be something.”
Pacing finds nothing, though her hands skitter across surfaces and set books to right, so she eventually slides down the wall by the door and sits.
Within a minute, her nose wrinkles, and she looks up and pulls a tuft of grey hair from a rather large splinter on the door frame above her head.
“Well, that confirms that it was definitely the stinky brigade who took him.” She stands. “But how to find them without Ang-” A quick head shake. “Without a vampire to go all bloodhound for me?”
~~~
“Hey, Sparky. Good boy,” Buffy whispers to Mrs. Beadleman’s terrier, who emerges from his dog house whining and wagging his tail so hard it hits both sides of the opening, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Grabbing the dog to pull him forward into her lap, she endures a lot of face licking, laughing softly and scratching behind his ears. “You big flirt! Wanna help me with a little something?”
Now Sparky’s tail hits her legs, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
~~~
The fire roars high in the middle of the cavern, and consonant-laden chanting fills the air.
Willow strains weakly against her bonds, head turned to watch the demons through bleary eyes.
One of the Hidgeron throws a fistful of herbs on the fire, making it flash a red so deep it’s almost purple. The smoke that starts to rise darkens to match.
Near the entrance, Xander begins to stir, lifting one hand to his head while rolling onto his side.
Eyes widening, Willow peers through the smoke to the other side of the cave. “Xander!”
“Wills?” His voice sounds muzzy and quiet.
“Xander!”
He moves more this time, and his foot kicks into Giles’s leg where the other man lies completely still.
“Giles.” Concern gives Xander’s voice a stronger edge as he drags himself over to look at the older man.
~~~
Running after the small dog, Buffy dodges branches and leaps small bushes seemingly effortlessly, even in the low visibility of tree-filtered moonlight.
She catches up with Sparky in the clearing before a cave mouth and scoops him up into her arms just as he’s about to run into the dark opening. “Hang on there, little fella,” she whispers. “Those stinky demons are a lot bigger than you.”
He growls softly and wiggles in her grip.
Moving back into the cover of the woods, she says, “I’m going to put you here, so you stay quiet, okay?”
Finding a small bush, she slips Sparky’s leash out of her jeans pocket before using it to tie him loosely to the plant. “If I don’t come back, you pull really hard and run home.”
Buffy drops a quick kiss on his head and walks back to the cave entrance.
~~~
The meaty smacks and grunts of fighting come from the entrance, and inside the cavern, the Hidgeron’s voice rises in volume and pitch as it begins to sway.
A large cloud of dark smoke swirls above the fire, a roiling red.
“Giles.” Xander shakes the older man, who moves his head slightly, causing the younger man to sag towards the floor, shoulders slumping in relief. Xander then turns towards Willow and flashes her a quick thumbs up.
The redhead smiles for a moment before her eyes snap back to the middle of the cavern, caught by the grandiose arm movements of the head demon.
With a final guttural cry, the Hidgeron scoops up a collection of herbs to fling into the fire, then slumps forward.
The cloud billows up to hit the ceiling of the cavern and ricochets down, splitting into four tendrils. Three shoot outwards, hitting first Giles, then Xander, and finally Willow. The fourth hovers for a few seconds, then strikes Buffy as she enters the cave, freezing her forward momentum.
The other demon emerges from the shadows beside the altar in the back of the cave, head turning rapidly to take in all four of the humans wreathed in smoke.
After churning around Giles for a few moments, the smoke grows an even deeper purple before rising into a globe above him. Scenes flash across the surface: a dark-haired teenage girl looking up at an equally young Giles, a twenty-something Ethan Rayne fisting his hand in the front of Giles’s t-shirt, a beautiful, older Chinese woman smiling coyly over her naked shoulder. Events flicker faster and faster, with only quick impressions of Joyce and Olivia’s faces showing towards the end.
A lighter cloud forms over Xander, Faith’s grinning visage rising over the ghostly image of him with eyes and mouth wide.
“It matters little if men are impure,” the squat demon says, turning towards Willow.
Multiple views of Oz’s face, wearing varying expressions from serious to slightly smiling, form along with a series of smoky Willows in the reddish-purple mass over the redhead.
“No!” The Hidgeron falls to the ground beside its companion. “The Slayer, she is not pure!”
Moving again, Buffy throws down the head of an Ooliolu, saying, “And she’s not the Slayer.”
The pudgy demon raises its head to stare at her. “So there is hope?”
“Hope that I’m going to kick your ass?” Buffy spreads her hands wide. “Yeah, I’d say there’s hope.”
Yet before she can move more than two steps, the smoke surrounding her flows into formation above her head, a light purple. Angel’s face takes shape, his eyes gentle as he leans forward to lightly touch his lips to an ethereal Buffy, her temple, her cheekbone, her mouth.
A muffled sob comes from Buffy as she covers her mouth, eyes wide and glistening.
The demon moans and falls forward to hit at its insensate companion. “All ruined. All impure. We will die. We will die.”
The spell now complete, all four of the clouds dissipate, and the other Hidgeron begins to stir.
As Buffy’s eyes drop from overhead, she looks around the cave, pausing as first Giles and Xander come into view, and then again when she swivels to look at Willow across the way. Her face hardens, and she quickly brushes away the slight wetness on her cheeks.
“You’re not wrong about that.” She launches forward just as the demon lurches to its feet.
Although slightly shorter, it has a reach that matches hers, and the creature’s first hit sends her flying backward to smack into the cave wall before falling to the floor.
Climbing back to her feet, she approaches more carefully, landing a snap kick to the Hidgeron’s meaty left side just before punching its right cheek.
Yet it absorbs both strikes without moving and hits her again, sending her sliding across the floor on her butt until she rests against the altar.
“Buffy?” Willow’s voice carries concern.
“Yeah, Wills?”
“I’m glad you’re here. You okay?”
She stands, reaching over to rip apart the bonds tying the redhead down. “Peachy.”
Both demons are now standing and moving towards her.
Buffy gestures for Willow to go left to join Giles and Xander while edging right.
“Ruined,” one wails.
“All ruined - our lovely immortality,” the other agrees. “And all because this one is impure.”
“You know what? I’m getting kind of tired of all this double-standardy stuff.” Her right hand gropes across the back wall. “Yeah, I had sex. So what? I mean, Angel was there too, and no one runs around going all ‘impure’ and stuff about him.” She shuffles to the right to reach farther while her left hand comes up to pat the air in front of her placatingly. “Okay, okay. So he’s a vampire, and the impure thing is a bit of a given, but that’s usually because of the murdering and the torture. No one talks about his sex life like that.”
Her right arm comes forward, twirling a four-foot wooden staff. “I think it’s about time I go all equal rights on your ass.”
As the first demon rushes towards her, Buffy spins, arching the staff diagonally down towards its head so quickly the wood whirs at it slices the air.
The demon staggers a foot to the side, and the other rushes in to fill the gap.
Continuing the initial movement, she flips the staff end over end to bring it up to skewer the next Hidgeron in the chest. The wood sinks a foot into the demon, and the creature pauses before pushing toward her again.
Buffy pulls the weapon free with a slurping sound and leaps upon the altar to somersault over the first demon’s head. Running to the other side of the cavern, where Willow and Xander are trying to lift a wobbly Giles to his feet, she yells, “Get him up and get out of here!”
Turning, she brings the whirling length of wood down on the outside of the back of the lead demon’s knee, causing it to buckle. The second Hidgeron collides with the stopped first, and they both go down.
“Buffy.” Giles’s voice sounds weak.
She glances back over her shoulder. “Get out now.”
“Buffy,” he calls again, resisting the tugs of Xander and Willow to leave, “strike below the belt.”
“Huh? They’re not wearing belts.”
“The … the groin. I believe they are Hidgeron. You strike them in the groin.”
“Oh!” She looks back to the squirming mess of demon and lifts the staff higher, nose wrinkling. “And eww.”
The two teens finally coax Giles from the cave, one under each shoulder.
As the Hidgeron separate, they truly separate, choosing to circle her from opposite directions.
Buffy holds the staff parallel with the ground and turns so as to always keep one of the demons in front of her.
When the one behind rushes her, she drops and spins, plunging one end of the weapon into the apex of its thighs and quickly jerking the staff straight back to strike the other approaching demon in the same area.
High pitched screams emerge from both, fading off into liquid gurgles that sound not unlike the Ooliolu language as the demons slowly dissolve into puddles of goo, arms waving till the very end.
“Now that I’m no where near where other people could see a body, of course I get goo.” Buffy drops the gory weapon into the puddle and follows her friends from the cave
~~~
“Yes, Mrs. Beadleman. No, Mrs. Beadleman. Of course, Mrs. Beadleman.”
Hanging up Giles’s phone with a sigh, Buffy turns to the rest of the Scoobies. “Well, Sparky’s got fleas, so I’m not allowed to ‘walk’ him ever again.” Her hands rise to make air quotes around walk.
“Aww, that’s too bad.” Willow pouts. “He was really cute.”
“And less with the danger than Ang-” Xander stops abruptly when Willow shoves a cookie in his mouth while giving him a death glare.
“He’s right.” Buffy joins Willow on the couch, staring at her hands in her lap. “And besides, Angel’s gone. I … I’m getting used to it.”
Giles enters from his kitchen. “Well, I for one think you did very well without him or anyone for that matter.” He sets the teapot down and takes a chair.
Willow and Xander nod.
“You’re right.” Buffy looks up and smiles. “I did.”
Giles pours tea, and everyone watches, lapsing into silence.
After a few minutes, Buffy says, “And we’re never ever going to talk about seeing each other’s sex lives ever.”
Everyone nervously shoves a chocolate chip cookie into their mouths, mumbling something that sounds like consent.