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The SETI Slayers | Fanfic
| Some Assembly Required | Inca Mummy Girl |
“A lot of educators tell students: ‘think of your principal as your pal.’” says Principal Snyder. “I say: ‘think of me as your judge, jury, and executioner.’” He has his two most troublesome students in his office. Buffy, and Sheila. It is quite a match between them. On the one hand, Buffy has never stabbed a horticulture teacher with a trowel. On the other hand Sheila has never burned down a school building. “The two of you seem to be tied in the class cutting and fight starting events. You really are neck and neck here. It’s quite exciting.”
“What does the winner get?” asks Sheila.
“Expelled,” says Snyder. “Thursday is Parent-Teacher night. Your parents, assuming you have any,” he says to Buffy, “will meet your teachers, assuming you have any left,” he says to Sheila. “You have three days to prepare the refreshments, make the banners, and transform the school lounge into a habitable place for adults.” If they do a good job it may affect what he tells their parents about them. “Are we clear?”
“I’m clear,” says Buffy. “Don’t you feel clear?” she asks Sheila.
Sheila doesn’t say anything.
“We’re very clear,” says Buffy.
On the way out of school Buffy talks to Sheila about what they are going to do, and tells her they can meet at lunch tomorrow to start the banners and plan the refreshments.
Sheila isn’t really interested. She spots her boyfriend waiting for her. “Hey, Meat Pie!” she calls out, and leaves Buffy to go kiss him. “Meat Pie” looks like he left his motorcycle parked nearby.
Willow and Xander have followed Buffy and Sheila out of the school. “That’s what Mom sees when she looks at me,” says Buffy. “A Sheila.”
“Well, Sheila’s definitely intense,” says Xander. “That guy with her? That’s the guy she can bring home to mother.”
“It’s not fair,” says Buffy. “I’m the Slayer. That requires a certain amount of cutting and fighting. What’s Sheila’s excuse?”
“Homework,” says Xander. “She won’t do it. And most teachers respect that now. Oh, you might want to keep away any sharp implements when you’re working with her.”
“Do you think any of the other Slayers ever had to go to high school?” asks Buffy.
Xander isn’t worried. It’s no big deal. “As long as nothing really bad happens between now and then, you’ll be fine.”
“Are you crazy?” asks Buffy. “What did you say that for? Now something bad is going to happen!”
“What do you mean?” asks Xander. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Not until some dummy says, ‘as long as nothing bad happens.’” says Willow.
“It’s the ultimate jinx!” says Buffy.
“What were you thinking?” asks Willow. “Or were you even thinking at all?”
“Well, you guys don’t know.” Xander clutches his book bag. “Maybe this time it’ll be different.”
That evening on the outskirts of town a 1959 DeSoto runs over the Welcome to Sunnydale sign.2 A vampire with Billy Idol hair, a pale, Y-shaped scar on his left eyebrow and wearing a long leather duster steps confidently out of the car. He lights the cigarette that’s hanging from his mouth, takes a drag from it, and looks around.
“Home sweet home.”
“The Master is dead,” says one of the vampires gathered in the abandoned factory which has become their home. “Someone has to take his place.”
“As long as the Slayer’s alive,” says another, “Whoever takes his place will be sharing his grave.”
“Then let the soul who kills her wear his mantel,” says the first vampire.
“Can you do it?” asks the Anointed One.
The vampire thinks he can. The Night of Saint Vigeous is approaching, their power will be at its peak then. That is when he will kill her. “When I kill her, it’ll be the greatest event since the crucifixion. And I should know. I was there.”
“You were there?” asks the new vampire in town. “Oh, please! If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock!” He speaks with a lower class English accent. He walks up to the vampire who had been bragging, and looks up into the braggart’s eyes. The braggart is not pleased, he thinks he should rip this newcomer’s throat out.
The newcomer ignores him. He turns his back, and wanders about, giving the place a look-over while he keeps talking. “I was actually at Woodstock. That was a weird gig. I fed off a flowerperson, and I spent the next six hours watching my hand move.”
The vampire attacks him from behind. The newcomer doesn’t even bother looking as he brings his fist up in a backhand punch that hits his attacker in the face. The vamp goes down. “So who do you kill for fun around here?”
“Who are you?” asks the Anointed One.
“Spike,” says the newcomer. He knows who the Anointed One is. He has read about him. He walks up to him to take a closer look. He has also heard that they have Slayer problems. “You know what I find works real good with Slayers? Killing them.”
“Can you?” asks the Anointed One.
Spike thinks he can do it a lot better than the “Nancy boy” he just knocked out. “Yeah, I did a couple Slayers in my time. I don’t like to brag.” He can’t keep a straight face. “Who am I kidding? I love to brag! There was this one Slayer during the Boxer Rebellion2, and—”
Spike senses someone behind him. He turns, and as he does so he transforms from his vampire face to his human one. “Drusilla,” he holds out his hand to the girl who has just walked in. “You shouldn’t be walking around. You’re weak.”
Drusilla is pretty, with long dark hair, and wearing a flowing white gown. “Look at all the people. Are these nice people?” she asks Spike.
“We’re getting along,” says Spike.
Drusilla walks up to the Anointed One. “This one has power. I could feel it from the outside.”
“Yeah. He’s the big noise in these parts,” says Spike. “Anointed, and all that.”
“Do you like daisies?” Drusilla asks the Anointed. “I plant them, but they always die. Everything I put in the ground withers and dies.” She turns back to Spike. “Spike? I’m cold.”
Spike puts his coat around her shoulders. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m a princess,” says Drusilla.
“That’s what you are,” says Spike. Drusilla runs one of her fingernails across his cheek, cutting into it and drawing blood. She licks the blood away.
Spike stands nuzzling Drusilla for a few seconds and then they both look back to the Anointed One. “Me and Dru, we’re moving in. Now, any of you want to test who’s got the biggest wrinklies ’round here…step on up.” He looks around at the other vampires, but no one steps forward. “I’ll do your Slayer for you. But you keep your flunkies from trying anything behind my back. Deal?”
The Anointed nods agreement.
Drusilla puts her hands to her head. “I can’t see her. The Slayer. I can’t see. It’s dark where she is. Kill her. Kill her, Spike. Kill her for me?”
Spike goes back to Drusilla and lays his hand on her chest. “It’s done, baby.”
“Kill her for Princess?”
“I’ll chop her into messes.”
“You are my sweet…my little Spike.”
Spike turns back to the Anointed One. “So, how ’bout this Slayer? Is she tough?”
“Ow!” says Buffy as her brush hits a tangle in her hair. She is getting ready to go to bed.
Joyce comes into Buffy’s room to talk with her. She has been reading her mail, and found the notice about the upcoming Parent-Teacher night. She was wondering when Buffy was planning to tell her about it. Buffy was hoping that her mother wouldn’t learn about it at all.
“So, what do you think your teachers are going to tell me about you?” asks Joyce.
Buffy goes and sits on her bed. “Well, I think they’ll all agree that I always bring a pen to class, ready to absorb the knowledge.”
“And this absorption rate?” asks Joyce. “How is it reflected in your homework and test scores?”
“What can you really tell about a person from a test score?”
“Whether or not she’s ever going out with her friends again,” says Joyce. She is looking forward to meeting Buffy’s principal. This is something Buffy really isn’t looking forward to.
Joyce sits beside Buffy. “Look, sweetheart, life is more than grades and homework and not getting kicked out of school. But we moved once because of you getting in trouble. And I had to start a new business, not to mention a new life in a whole new town.”
“And you don’t want to do it again.”
“What I don’t want is to be disappointed in you again.”
“Mom, that’s the last thing that I want, too. I’m trying, I really am. I just… I have a lot of pressure on me right now.”
“Wait till you get a job. Sleep tight.” Joyce gets up and leaves the room.
Buffy walks over to her desk. She opens the drawer in which she keeps her Slayer supplies, and looks at them. Stakes, crosses, holy water. A set of brass knuckles. “I have a job.”
Next day at lunch Willow and Xander help Buffy paint banners in the lounge. Sheila is nowhere to be seen. Willow tells Buffy that Sheila hangs out at a really rank bar, the Fish Tank. It tends to get raided a lot, and have other things happen there that can make a person tardy.
Buffy asks Willow if she can help her study French tonight. She’s hoping to score some last minute points with her French teacher so that he’ll say something nice about her to her mother.
Willow is a little surprised. She thought that Buffy was hoping to meet up with Angel at the Bronze. This instantly prompts Xander to suggest that Buffy should be studying.
“We’re going to the Bronze,” says Buffy. “I can study and party and do Parent-Teacher night and make my mother proud as long as I don’t have to—”
“Buffy!” Giles has just entered the lounge accompanied by Jenny Calendar.
“…fight vampires,” says Buffy.
Giles tells Buffy that Jenny has been doing some research of her own on the internet and discovered that this upcoming Saturday is the Night of Saint Vigeous.
“Let me guess,” says Buffy. “He didn’t make balloon animals.”
“No, he led a crusade,” says Giles. “Of vampires. They swept through Edessa, Harran, and points east.”
“And they didn’t leave much behind,” adds Jenny.
“Well, if I survive Parent-Teacher night tomorrow,” says Buffy. “I’ll see what I can do about Saturday.”
“You’re being a tad flip, don’t you think?” asks Giles. “This is serious.”
“And getting kicked out of school is laughs aplenty?” asks Buffy.
“You know what happens when you, you let your life interfere with your Slaying,” says Giles.
“Okay, well, if my slaying doesn’t get me expelled, then I promise my banner making won’t get me killed, okay?” says Buffy. “Just please let me get through this week.”
“This Saturday’s going to need a great deal of preparation,” says Giles.
Willow and Xander quickly volunteer to help. Willow can research, and Xander can whittle stakes. “And while I’m whittling, I plan to whistle a jaunty tune.”
“Yes,” says Giles, “Your help will be greatly appreciated, but when it comes to battle, Buffy must fight alone. You are, after all, the Slay—” He sees Snyder enter the lounge, and quickly changes in mid sentence. “…slave. Slaves. You’re, you’re all slaves to the, uh, television.” Jenny quickly agrees with him, and they both beat a hasty retreat from the lounge.
Snyder walks up to Buffy, Willow and Xander. He is not pleased to see that they are helping her. Willow and Xander quickly deny that they were being of any help, they were more of a hinderance. Snyder has also noticed that Sheila isn’t there. He smells an expulsion coming on.
Buffy tells Snyder that Sheila has been helping, he just missed her, she’s gone to get more paint.
Snyder looks over Buffy’s shoulder. Sheila has just walked into the lounge. She is wearing dark glasses, and is kind of wobbly on her feet. She is also paintless.
Buffy turns and sees Sheila too. “Oh! Was there no more teal in the art room?” Buffy goes over to Sheila. “I know you wanted everything to be perfect, but let’s just go with what we have.”
“Just make sure everything is perfect on Thursday,” says Snyder, and he goes.
“Thanks for covering.” Sheila tells Buffy. “Guy’s a serious rodent.”
“No problem.” Buffy heads back to do more work on the banners.
“Did you really burn down a school building one time?” asks Sheila.
“Well, not actually one time,” says Buffy. 3
“Cool!” says Sheila.
Xander is dancing by himself in the Bronze while Buffy and Willow work on Buffy’s French. Her French needs a lot of work. Angel hasn’t shown up yet. Xander goes over to the girls and invites them out on the floor with him. They have been studying for a whole twelve minutes. They need to take a break. Buffy quickly agrees.
Spike is in the Bronze too. He circles around the dance floor, keeping to the shadows, watching Buffy dance with Willow and Xander. He goes over to another vampire—the one who claimed to have been at the crucifixion—and tells him to go get something to eat.
Spike walks over to a couple of people who are standing near where Buffy is dancing. “Where’s the phone?” he asks them loudly, making sure that Buffy will overhear him. “I need to call the police! There’s some big guy out there trying to bite someone!”
It has the desired effect. Buffy quickly runs out of the Bronze.
Buffy finds the vampire about to bite a girl in the alley behind the Bronze. She grabs it and pulls it away from her. The vampire looks at Buffy and recognises her. “Slayer!”
“Slayee!” Buffy gives the vamp a kick in the head. The vampire blocks her next couple of punches, and then picks her up and throws her against the wall. Buffer recovers quickly and sees that Willow and Xander have followed her out. She tells him to get the girl to safety. “And a stake…would be nice!” she adds as she pummels the vampire’s face.
Willow and Xander drag the girl away. Spike stands in the shadows, watching Buffy fight.
Xander goes to the table where Buffy and Willow had been studying, and searches through Buffy’s purse for a stake. He finds a yo-yo, a tampon applicator—which he quickly drops when he realizes what it is—and finally a stake. He runs back outside.
The vampire punches Buffy, and knocks her to the ground. Buffy lies on her back, not getting up. He stands over her. “I don’t need to wait for Saint Vigeous. You’re mine.” He starts to bend toward her. Buffy kicks him in the head and springs back to her feet.
The vampire decides it doesn’t want all the glory. “Spike, give me a hand!”
Buffy looks around to see who he’s talking to, but she quickly returns her attention to the vampire as it charges at her.
“Buffy!” Xander throws her the stake. Buffy catches it, and in one smooth move spins around and plunges it into the vampire’s chest, dusting it.
Spike steps out of the shadows, giving Buffy a hand. Buffy spins to look at him as he continues clapping. Willow and Xander are there too.
“Nice work love!” says Spike.
“Who are you?” asks Buffy.
“You’ll find out on Saturday,” says Spike.
“What happens on Saturday?”
“I kill you,” says Spike.
Sheila is leaving the Fish Tank with a couple of guys—Dell and Dewayne—flanking her. Del’s the one with the tattoos. She hopes they weren’t lying to her about having a Cadillac. “’Cause I’m crazy about a Cad. Just the feel of the leather makes me want to…” She stops talking. Dewayne has disappeared. She looks around for him, and then looks back toward Del. He’s vanished too.
“What’s going on?” Sheila looks all around. She doesn’t see any sign of Dewayne or Del. “Where are you guys? Not funny—” She turns back around, and is startled to see Spike standing right in front of her. “Who are you?”
“Who do you want me to be?” asks Spike.
“Did you see…?”
“…Those two losers who thought they were good enough for you? They got sleepy, and you got something a whole lot better.” Spike starts to walk away from Sheila.
“Hey, wait up!” Sheila follows after Spike. “What’s your name?” She doesn’t notice Del and Dewayne’s bodies lying in a nearby trash pile.
“Spike? That’s what the other vampire called him?” Giles asks Buffy. The name isn’t ringing any bells. He wonders if he might have gone by another name in times past. They are in the library, along with Willow, Xander and Miss Calendar. Whoever this guy is, Jenny thinks they are going to need all the help they can get come Saturday.
Xander has something else in mind, like maybe going away on a vacation.
“We can’t run,” says Willow. “That would be wrong. Could we hide? I mean, if that Spike guy is leading the attack, yeeee.” She shudders.
Giles doesn’t think that Spike can be worse than any of the other vampires Buffy has faced.
“He’s worse.” Angel appears at the library doors. “Once he starts something he doesn’t stop until everything in his path is dead.”
“Hm,” says Xander. “So, he’s thorough, goal oriented.”
Buffy has something else on her mind. She wonders why Angel didn’t show up at the Bronze earlier. He tells her she told him she wasn’t sure she was going.
“I was being cool,” says Buffy. “C’mon, you’ve been dating for, what, like, two hundred years? You don’t know what a girl means when she says maybe she’ll show?”
Giles tries to bring the subject back to more important issues.
“Yeah, like keeping my mom away from Principal Snyder tomorrow night,” says Buffy.
“And not dying Saturday,” says Jenny.
Giles starts to ask Angel if he can tell them any more about Spike, but Angel has vanished as quietly as he appeared.
“Okay, that’s it,” says Xander. “I’m putting a collar with a little bell on that guy.”
Spike and Drusilla have moved themselves into a room in the factory. The Anointed One’s vampires can be heard, making their prayers to Saint Vigeous. Dru has her doll collection out. All of her dolls have gags over their mouths.
Dru picks up one of the dolls and turns it around so that its back faces the room. “Miss Edith speaks out of turn. She’s a bad example, and will have no cakes today.” She puts a finger to her lips and looks around at the other dolls. “Shhh.”
Spike comes up behind her and asks her if she’s going to eat anything today. Dru tells him she isn’t hungry. She misses Prague.
“You nearly died in Prague. Idiot mob. This is the place for us.” Spike leads Drusilla past where Sheila is gagged and dangling from a hook on the wall by the ropes tying her wrists together, and lies Dru down on the bed. “The Hellmouth will restore you, put colour in your cheeks—metaphorically speaking—and in a few week’s time…”
“The stars will align, and smile down on us,” says Drusilla.
“And then, God, this town will burn!” says Spike.
Dru giggles, looking forward to the fire. Spike lies in the bed beside her.
Drusilla listens to the sound of the other vampires chanting. She thinks that Spike should go join them. The boy doesn’t trust him, and the other vampires follow him. She sits up in the bed. “I think sometimes that all my hair will fall out and I’ll be bald.”
“Never happen.” Spike gets off the bed and tells Dru he’ll go on one condition. “Eat something.” He lifts Sheila from the hook and hands her to Dru.
“You see, Miss Edith?” says Drusilla to her misbehaved doll. “If you’d been good you could watch with the rest.” She transforms into her vampire face, and bites into Sheila’s neck.
Cordelia has joined Buffy’s friends in the library, helping to prepare weapons on Thursday afternoon. While the others carve stakes and sharpen weapons Buffy uses a machete to slice up a cucumber for a veggie platter. Giles has been researching the rituals of Saint Vigeous.
Buffy notices the time. She only has an hour left before the parents are due to start arriving, so she does a quick rundown of the things she had to do. She thinks she’s got everything, until Willow reminds her about the punch.
Cordelia wants to go. She has been carving stakes for three minutes now, and her fingers are cramping. “She doesn’t need that many stakes, I mean if this Spike guy’s as mean as you all said, it should be over pretty fast.” She sees the look Buffy is giving her. “We’re still rooting for you on Saturday. I’d be there myself if I didn’t have a leg wax.”
Buffy doesn’t appreciate this vote of non-confidence, but she has to go take care of the punch. She goes out the library door. As soon as she’s gone, Xander and Cordy reach for the veggie platter, and grab a couple of pepper rings. Buffy sticks her head back in the door as they are raising them to their mouths. “No!”
Willow finds Buffy at the punch bowl, filling glasses as parents start to arrive. She asks what sort of punch it is.
“Lemonade.” Buffy hands her a cup. “I made it fresh and everything.”
“How much sugar did you use?” Willow takes a sip.
“Sugar?” asks Buffy, as Willow’s face puckers up from the sour taste. Buffy is filling more glasses and doesn’t notice.
“It’s very good,” gasps Willow.
The only thing Buffy has left to do is keep her mother away from Principal Snyder. Willow spots Joyce coming into the lounge and her greeting warns Buffy that she’s there.
Joyce looks around the lounge. She’s impressed by the job Buffy has done preparing.
Buffy starts to hand Joyce a glass of lemonade, but Willow shakes her head in warning at Joyce before she can accept it. Buffy spots Snyder entering the lounge, and quickly suggests that Willow show her mother the library. Buffy has to stay in the lounge and hostess. Willow doesn’t think that’s a good idea, what with Giles and the others being in the library “studying.”
“Right!” says Buffy. “French class it is!” Willow drags Joyce away, as Snyder starts toward them.
“Was that your mother?” asks Snyder
Buffy quickly turns toward him while filling another glass of lemonade. She nearly dumps it in his lap. “Oh, sorry! Oh, yeah! Yeah, I was going to introduce you, but, um, she wouldn’t have said much. Y’know, she doesn’t speak a word of English.”
Snyder doesn’t believe a word Buffy has just said, and stalks off in the direction Willow and Joyce left in.
Buffy looks up at the clock. It is a quarter after six.
Two and a half hours later, at a quarter to nine, Buffy is still hostessing. Cordelia has just escaped from Giles in the library. She stares at Buffy’s face. “You’re starting to look a little slagged. What, are you just skipping foundation entirely now?”
“Cordelia, I have at least three lives to contend with,” says Buffy. “None of which really mesh. It’s kind of like oil and water and a…third unmeshable thing.”
“Yeah, and I can see the oil,” says Cordy. She spots Willow and Joyce coming back into the lounge. “Is that your mom? Now that is a woman that knows how to moisturize. Did it, like, skip a generation?”
Joyce comes over to talk with Buffy. She thinks she has now seen every class in the school, just after the teacher has stepped out. Willow smiles proudly from behind her. Buffy’s luck has just run out though. Snyder has come back into the lounge, and he has spotted Joyce. Buffy tries to rush her mother out again before he gets there, but Joyce isn’t being rushed this time. Snyder walks up to them, and Joyce introduces herself to him.
“Principal Snyder,” he says. “I’m afraid we need to talk. My office is down here.” He leads Joyce away.
The girls watch them go. Buffy doesn’t think he looks very happy.
“When they’re done talking…” says Cordelia.
“What?” asks Buffy.
“My guess?” says Cordy. “Tenth high school reunion, you’ll still be grounded.”
“Cordelia,” says Willow, “have some lemonade.”
Giles, Xander and Jenny are still in the library. Giles has finally found Spike in his books. He used to be known as William the Bloody.4 He picked up his current nickname from his habit of torturing people with railroad spikes. The good news is that he’s barely two hundred years old.5 He’s not even as old as Angel.
The next thing Giles reads doesn’t sound nearly as good: Spike has fought two Slayers in the last century, and he killed them both. Xander’s “run away” plan is starting to sound much better.
Joyce and Snyder return to the lounge. There are only a few parents left. Joyce does not look happy. She tells Buffy they are going. Now. Snyder looks pleased with himself behind Buffy’s back. He moves around the lounge turning out the lights. The remaining people start to get up to go.
A group of vampires smashes through the lounge windows. People scatter away from them. The vampires throw over one of the refreshment tables. Buffy turns back from the lounge entrance, and looks at them.
“What can I say?” asks Spike. “I couldn’t wait.”
Spike charges toward Buffy. She grabs a chair and throws it at him, knocking him to the floor. Buffy turns, grabs her mother, and pulls her toward the exit. She stops when she sees more vampires blocking that escape. Buffy turns back and heads the other direction, still dragging her mother.
Spike gets back to his feet, and grabs a man who didn’t clear the lounge fast enough. “Nobody gets out!” he orders the vampires with him. “Especially the girls!”
Buffy finds another exit blocked by a vampire. She turns down another corridor, and urges everyone to follow her. Most of the people still present do. Buffy grabs a janitor’s cart and shoves it at the vampire who’s chasing them.
Willow and Cordelia run the opposite direction, toward the doors out into the courtyard.
A vampire grabs Cordelia and swings her around.
Willow picks up the bust of Principle Flutie off its stand near the trophy case. “Hey!” she shouts at the vampire, and when it looks around Willow hits it with the bust. The vampire goes down, and Willow and Cordy duck into the janitor’s closet.
Giles, Jenny and Xander come out of the library to see what the hell’s going on. They see Buffy come through the doors at the other end of the hall, running toward them.
“Spike and his army!” shouts Buffy. She sees another vampire appear in the corridor behind Giles. “Look out!”
Giles looks back and sees the vampire. He, Xander and Jenny retreat back into the library, and close the doors just before it gets to them. Buffy directs the group of people with her—which includes her mother and Principal Snyder—into the science classroom beside them. She closes and locks the door just before the vampires who were chasing them get to it.
Snyder and another man push a filing cabinet in front of the door, barricading it. This classroom is at a corner in the corridor, and it has doors on two walls. Buffy runs and closes the other door before any vampires notice it. The lights go out.
Giles, Jenny and Xander barricade themselves inside the library.
Spike is still holding onto the man he grabbed when a vampire runs into the lounge and reports that they have all the exits covered, and the power has been cut. Nobody got out.
“And the Slayer?” asks Spike.
The vampire doesn’t know. Girls were seen running in both directions.
Spike is not pleased with that news. He lets go of the man he was holding and looks at him. “I’m a veal kind of guy.” He gives him a pat on the chest. “You’re too old to eat.”
Spike reaches up, grabs the man’s head, and gives it a sharp twist, breaking his neck. “But not to kill.” He looks at the vampire. “I feel better.”
Giles tries the phone in the library. It doesn’t work, the vampires have cut the phone lines too. He tells Xander to go out the library’s back door, and find Angel. He knows about Spike, they need him.
Xander doesn’t want to go anywhere until he knows that Buffy and the others are all right.
“No one will be all right unless we get some help!” says Giles. Xander gives in and goes.
“Who are those people, what do they want?” asks a man in the classroom with Buffy and the others.
“I didn’t get much of a look, but is there something wrong with their faces?” asks Joyce.
“Yes!” says Snyder, a little too quickly. “PCP! It’s a gang on PCP! We’ve got to get out of here!” He grabs a stool and moves it over in front of the windows high on the outer wall, and climbs up on it.
Buffy grabs Snyder. “You can’t go outside! They’ll kill you!”
“You don’t tell me!” says Snyder. “I tell you!”
Buffy pulls Snyder away from the window. “They will kill everybody in this room. Nobody goes out, nobody comes in, until I say so. Do you hear me?”
“Who do you think you are?” asks Snyder.
“I’m the one that knows how to stop them.” Buffy starts to walk across the room, looking up at the ceiling.
Joyce grabs Buffy by the shoulders. She knows Buffy has been accused of a fighting and a lot of other things, but going out there is crazy.
“I know,” says Buffy. “That’s why I’m going up there.” She looks back up at the ceiling.
Buffy grabs a stool and sets it on top of one of the lab benches. She climbs up and shoves aside one of the ceiling tiles. She looks down. “Don’t worry Mom.” She climbs up into the ceiling.
Spike roams the halls looking for Buffy, or anyone else. “Slaaayer!” he calls out. “Here, kitty, kitty. I find one of your friends first, I’m going top suck ’em dry! And use their bones to bash your head in.” He kicks in the door across the hall from the janitor’s closet Willow and Cordelia are hiding in.
”Oh god! Oh god!” whispers Cordelia as she hears Spike moving closer to their closet. She’s holding a broom in front of herself as a weapon. Willow puts her hand over Cordy’s mouth to keep her quiet.
Spike raises his foot to kick in the door to Willow and Cordy’s closet. One of the other vampires calls him. He tells Spike to listen, and looks up at the ceiling.
Spike looks up and hears what the other vampire heard. ”Someone’s in the ceiling.” he quietly sings to himself.
Buffy is moving through the crawl space above his head.
Giles stuffs his pockets with stakes, and grabs a battle axe. He starts to shove aside the stuff that they’ve piled in front of the library doors. Jenny doesn’t like this idea. They know that there are at least three vampires in the hallway outside the door.
Giles doesn’t care. “Listen! I am the Watcher! I am responsible for her, and I have to go!” He keeps pushing things aside.
“Rupert!” says Jenny, and he turns to look at her. “Be careful.”
Something drops down out of the ceiling between them. Jenny jumps back in surprise, and Giles raises his axe to strike at it, but then he sees it’s Buffy.
Buffy gives him a status report. Principal Snyder, her mother and four others are trapped in the science lab across the hall. She doesn’t know what happened to Willow and Cordelia. She looks around, and asks where Xander is. Giles tells her that he sent him out the back way to get Angel.
Buffy has been packing her bag with stakes and other weapons as they talk. She tells Giles that she’s going to clear the vamps out of the hallway, and then he can get the others out the same way. Giles wants to come with her.
“Giles, my mother’s in that room,” says Buffy. “I don’t make it out of here, I know you’ll make sure she does.”
“Bloody right, I will,” says Giles. “Fair enough.” He still wants to know what her plan is.
Buffy tells Giles that the vampires have split up to hold the various groups hiding in different rooms. She plans to take them on one by one. “Set ’em up, and knock ’em down.” Giles approves.
Buffy uses a library stool to climb back up into the ceiling.
Snyder paces back and forth in the science lab. It is starting to annoy Joyce, and she tells him to sit down.
“This is my school!” says Snyder. “What I say goes, and I say this is not happening.”
“Well, then I guess the danger’s over!” says Joyce sarcastically.
Snyder isn’t the only one getting impatient. One of the other men there decides to try and climb out the window. He climbs up to it, opens the window, and then starts to work on loosening the metal louvers covering the outside.
“Don’t be an idiot!” says Joyce.
“I’m beginning to see a certain mother-daughter resemblance.” Snyder goes to help the man pry aside the louvers covering the window.
“No!” says Joyce. “Look, you heard what Buffy said!”
“She’s a student,” says Snyder. “What does she know?”
One of the vampires batters himself against the door to the science lab. It isn’t budging. He notices Spike looking at him. “The uh, door is solid.”
“Use your head!” Spike grabs the vampire by the collar, drags him a few feet down the hall, and smashes his head into the glass door of a cabinet containing a fire axe. He pulls the axe out of the cabinet and hands it to the vampire.
Spike walks around the corner to where two more vampires are kicking at the other door to the room. He tells one of them to come with him, and heads back into the lounge.
Snyder and the other man get the window louvers open and the man starts to climb out as the vampire in the hallway goes to work on the door with his axe. A vampire outside the school grabs the man going through the window and pulls him out, kicking and screaming. Joyce pulls Snyder away from the window, quickly bends the louvers back into place, and closes the window again.
Spike and the vampire with him can hear Buffy moving through the ceiling again.
Xander arrives back at the school with Angel. They find the body of the guy who got dragged out the window. Since Angel knows a lot about this Spike guy Xander asks him if he’s got a plan. Angel grabs Xander by the throat.
“Good plan!” says Xander.
Willow and Cordy sit in the closet. They haven’t heard anything outside for a while. Cordy is starting to think that maybe they should take a look. Willow doesn’t think that’s a good idea.
”What’re we going to do?” whispers Cordelia.
”Pray?”” asks Willow.
Spike picks up a couple of the metal bars that had been protecting the window that he and the other vampires smashed through off the student lounge floor. He tosses one to the vampire with him. He takes his and pokes it through a ceiling tile, probing for Buffy.
The other vampire quickly catches on, and starts probing at more tiles. Her first shot barely misses Buffy.
The vampire with the axe looks around the corner and tells the vamp at the other door that he’s almost through. He goes back and takes another swing at the door as Buffy drops through the ceiling on top of him. She quickly stakes him.
Buffy looks in through the hole that has been chopped in the door and sees her mother looking out at her. Joyce asks if Buffy’s okay. Buffy tells her mother she’s fine. Joyce wants Buffy to go. She tells her she’ll be all right, but Buffy has no intention of doing what her mother wants now. She tells Joyce to hang on for one more minute, and be ready to move when she tells her.
Buffy quietly looks around the corner to where the vampire is guarding the other door to the classroom. To get to the library the people trapped inside will have to cross that corridor.
Buffy hears a sound behind her, and spins around. It’s Sheila. Buffy is surprised to see her, and asks her where she’s been.
“Sorry I’m late,” says Sheila. “There’s some really weird guys outside.”
”Shhh!” whispers Buffy. ”Yeah, I know. They’re trying to kill us.”
Sheila picks up the axe off the floor, and smiles. “This should be fun.” Buffy turns her back to her and starts toward the corner again.
Spike is still probing the ceiling when he notices that someone else has entered the lounge. He turns to see who it is. It’s Angel, and he is holding Xander in a head lock.
“Angelus!” says Spike. He’s very glad to see him.
“Spike!” says Angel, all vamped out.
Spike tosses aside his pole and he and Angel advance toward each other and embrace like long lost brothers.
Angel pushes Spike away. He’s a little disappointed in his old friend. He thought he had taught Spike to always guard his perimeter.
“I did,” says Spike. “I’m surrounded by idiots. What’s new with you?”
“Everything,” says Angel.
“Yeah?” asks Spike. “Come up against this Slayer yet?”
“She’s cute,” says Angel. “Not too bright, though. Gave the puppy dog ‘I’m all tortured’ act. Keeps her off my back when I feed!” He laughs.
Spike laughs too. “People still fall for that Anne Rice routine. What a world!”
“I knew you were lying,” says Xander. Angel gives his head a squeeze to shut him up. “Undead liar guy.”
Angel grabs Xander by the hair and collar and offers his neck to Spike. “Want a bite before we kill her?”
“Stay behind me.” Buffy whispers to Sheila, and rounds the corner to sneak up on the vampire guarding the other door. Behind her Sheila—wearing her vampire face—raises the axe to strike at Buffy.
Giles spots Sheila through the window in the library door and calls out a warning to Buffy.
Buffy turns in time to block Sheila’s blow, and takes the axe away from her. She knocks Sheila down with the axe handle and swings the blade around at the other vampire’s neck. He ducks under it and comes up smiling until he notices that he has somehow picked up a stake in his chest. He explodes into dust.
Buffy turns and looks at Sheila. Sheila runs.
Buffy runs back to the other door and tells her mother to get moving. Joyce opens the door, and they all move quickly to where Giles is beckoning them to come into the library. Joyce wants Buffy to come with them, but Buffy isn’t done yet.
Spike wonders why he hasn’t seen Angel for so long. He also wonders why Angel hasn’t killed this Slayer yet. “Time was you would’ve taken her out in a heartbeat. Now look at you. I mean this tortured thing is an act, right? You’re not…housebroken.”
“I saw her kill the Master,” says Angel. “Hey, you think you can take her alone? Be my guest. I’ll just feed and run.” He starts to move his teeth toward Xander’s neck.
“Don’t be silly!” says Spike. “We’re old friends. We’ll do it together. Let’s drink to it.” He and Angel both bend toward Xander. Spike suddenly punches Angel. Xander gets dropped on the floor.
“You think you can fool me?” asks Spike. “You were my sire, man! You were my…Yoda!”
“Things change,” says Angel. Xander scrambles back to his feet behind him.
“Not us!” says Spike. “Not demons! Man, I can’t believe this. You Uncle Tom!” He picks up the pole he’d discarded earlier. “Come on, people!” he tells the three vampires who have assembled behind him. “This isn’t a spectator sport!”
Xander makes a break for the door. Angel follows him, with the three vampires chasing them.
Spike starts to follow, but he stops. “Fee, fie, foe, fum. I smell the blood of a nice, ripe, girl.” He turns and sees Buffy standing with the axe.
“Do we really need weapons for this?” asks Buffy.
“I just like them.” Spike rubs his hand across his chest. “They make me feel all manly.” He tosses aside his pole. Buffy drops the axe.
Spike starts to circle around Buffy. “The last Slayer I killed, she begged for her life. You don’t strike me as the begging kind.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” says Buffy.
“No,” says Spike. “I messed up your doilies and stuff. But I just got so bored. I’ll tell you what. As a personal favour, from me to you, I’ll make it quick. It won’t hurt a bit.”
“No, Spike. It’s going to hurt a lot.”
Spike swings a punch at Buffy, which she ducks. She comes back with her own punch. Spike blocks it, and then jumps over her foot as she drops and tries to sweep his legs out from underneath him.
Angel and Xander fight with the three vampires that chased them outside the school.
Spike and Buffy continue to exchange punches in the lounge.
Giles directs people to the exit at the back of the library. Joyce hangs behind. She stops and looks back toward the library doors.
While Angel handles two of the vampires, Xander tries to fight with the third. He isn’t fairing too well. It gets him in a choke hold. Angel comes to his rescue, giving the vampire a punch in the head. It runs off. Angel looks back toward the other two vampires he had been fighting and they decide it’s time to leave too.
Buffy hits Spike with a quick combination of punches. He grabs her, slams her against a wall, and punches at her head. Buffy ducks and his fist buries itself in the wall. Buffy kicks him in the head.
“Now that hurt!” says Spike. His hand comes out of the wall holding a broken off piece of 2 x 4. He hits Buffy with it and she goes down. “But not as much as this will.”
Spike raises the 2 x 4 to finish her off. He gets hit in the back of the head with the flat of the axe. Spike goes down and looks up to see Joyce standing over him.
“You get the hell away from my daughter!”
Buffy jumps to her feet and stands beside her mother.
Spike looks back and forth between Buffy and her mother. “Women!” He scrambles to his feet, and runs out through the broken window.
Joyce lowers the axe. “Nobody lays a hand on my little girl.” She grabs Buffy in a hug.
The police cars have gathered outside the school. Snyder walks up to the detective in charge of the scene. “Hello Bob.”
“It’s over,” says Bob. “They all got away. I got a body inside, and I got another one on the south lawn. And it looks like he was pulled right through the window.”
“I told him not to go through that window!” says Snyder.
Giles and Jenny come out the front doors of the school, after another fun filled evening on the Hellmouth. Giles tells Jenny that he would understand if she decides she doesn’t want to see him any more. Jenny latches firmly onto his arm.
Angel and Xander walk around the corner of the school. Xander wants to know why Angel didn’t hit Spike before Spike hit him.
“I told you,” says Angel. “I couldn’t make the first move. I had to see if he was buying it or not.”
“And if he bit me, what then?” asks Xander.
“We would’ve known he bought it.”
Xander stops walking, and Angel continues on his way. “What’s the deal with you being Spike’s sire?” he calls after Angel. “What’s a sire?” 6
Bob and Snyder are still talking. Bob wants to know what to tell the media. “Do you want the usual story: gang related. PCP?”
“What did you have in mind?” asks Snyder. “The truth?”7
“Gang related. PCP,” says Bob firmly, and leaves.
Buffy and her mother walk toward Joyce’s car. Buffy wants to know what Snyder and her mother had to talk about.
“Principal Snyder said you were a trouble maker,” says Joyce. “And I could care less. I have a daughter who can take care of herself. Who’s brave and resourceful and thinks of others in a crisis. No matter who you hang out with or what dumb teenage stuff you think you need to do, I’m going to sleep better knowing all that.”
“But how long till this wears off and you start ragging on me again?” asks Buffy.
“Oh, at least a week and a half,” says Joyce.
“Very cool!” says Buffy.
The last of the police cars pull away from the school. Willow and Cordelia are still shut up inside the janitor’s closet, unaware that the crisis is over. Cordelia is praying, while a very annoyed Willow stares at her.
“And if you get me out of this, I swear I’ll never be mean to anyone ever again,” prays Cordy. “Unless they really deserve it. Or if it’s that time of the month, in which case I don’t think you or anyone else can hold me responsible—”
“Ask for some aspirin,” says Willow.
“And can you please send some asp— Hey!”
The rays of the rising sun shine through windows high on the factory walls. Drusilla comforts a disappointed Spike. “It was close baby,” says Spike, “but…” Dru pulls his head down to rest on her shoulder. “A Slayer with family and friends. That sure as hell wasn’t in the brochure.”
“You’ll kill her,” says Dru, “and then we’ll have a nice celebration.”
“Yeah, a party.”
“With streamers, and songs.”
Spike wants to know how the Annoying One is taking the news. Dru tells him that he doesn’t want to play.
Spike decides that it is time to go make nice. He goes and kneels at the Anointed One’s feet and offers penance.
“Penance?” asks one of the vampires. “You should lay down your life! Our numbers are depleted. The feast of St. Vigeous has been ruined by your impatience!”
“I was rash,” says Spike, “And if I had to do it all over again…” He starts to laugh, and gets to his feet. “Who am I kidding? I would do it exactly the same, only I’d do this…” He grabs the Anointed One and picks him up. “…first!”
Spike carries the Anointed One toward a cage which is dangling by a chain from a pulley. One of the other vampires tries to stop him, but Spike kicks him away. He tosses the Anointed One into the cage and locks the door. He starts pulling on the chain, lifting the cage toward a beam of sunlight coming into the factory through a window high on the wall.
“From now on, we’re going to have a little less ritual, and a little more fun around here!” Spike gives one last pull on the chain, raising the cage into the sunlight. The Anointed One screams as the sunlight sets him on fire.
Spike and Drusilla exchange smiles. He goes to her and takes her hand. “Lets see what’s on TV.” They step around the body of the vampire lying on the floor and walk off to their room together. A few last wisps of smoke waft away from the cage.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire 1 | Outside the Bronze | Staked by Buffy |
| Dell | Outside the Fish Tank | Killed by Spike |
| Dewayne | Outside the Fish Tank | Killed by Spike |
| Sheila | The factory | Killed and vamped by Drusilla |
| A man | The school lounge | Neck broken by Spike |
| A man | The school lawn | Dragged through a window and killed by vampires |
| Vampire 2 | School hallway | Staked by Buffy |
| Vampire 3 | School hallway | Staked by Buffy |
| The Anointed One | The factory | Given a suntan by Spike |