To Err is Human
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer FanFiction
by DaBear

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The characters in this story do not belong to me, they belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox. Only the story is mine, that and way too many sci-fi books.

The man who invented the eraser had the human race pretty well sized up.

9:49 p.m. Gent, Belgium 2012

"This the last time he gets to come up with the bloody plan." Complains the blond man standing on the corner, who is seemingly talking to himself, as there is no one else in view. His demeanor is one of confidence, as if he weren't standing in one of the worst parts of the city on a dark street corner at nearly 10 o'clock in the evening. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his black duster he lights the last one up and then causally tosses the empty pack over his shoulder. Taking a long drag of smoke into his lungs he waits for the inevitable reply with a smirk on his face.

{What? You don't like my plans?} Comes the sarcastic comment through the blondes' earpiece.

With a grin to himself at how predictable his partner is he replied, {No, you sod, I bloody well do not like your plans. I either end up getting shot at or being used for bait. Or both.} Says the bleached blond.

{So? Not really seeing a down side here.} Came the reply from the earpiece.

{Sod off, Chucky.) Spike says with a chuckle.

{I told you stop calling me that Spike, or I'll stake your ass out for a suntan.} Comes the aggravated tone through the vampires' earpiece.

{You and what army Chucky?}

{Shut up both of you.} Comes the soft reply in both men's earpiece's.

{He started it Wolf.}

{Did not you wanker.}

{Did too.}

{How old are you two again?} sighed the quite voice.

{Well, I bloody well didn't start it.}

{Look, Spike, the Agalivanen Demon is nearly here and if you scare it away we miss him and we're out 10 grand. So shut it.} Says the voice.

{Yeah, yeah… How much time we got?}

{About 3 minutes.}

In the alley across the street from where the blond vampire is standing two forms are hidden in the darkness. One, a heavily built black man, is almost completely obscured in the shadows wearing dark denim jacket and pants, the only telltale of his presence is the glint of light off his heavy war axe. The other is a slight man, well built, almost stocky, but not particularly tall, who is crouching in the darkness with his face raised to the sky and is taking an occasional sniff of the surrounding area. With his eyes glinting a feral yellow in the darkness and his protruding canines he is obviously not human. Reaching up to the mike on his neck he flicks it off and asks Gunn "You sure this is the last one he needs?"

"Yeah," comes Gunns' reply from out of the darkness "Researched it and came up with the number 42 from 5 different sources. 42 vampire hearts needed to open the gate and end the world. Yadda, yadda, yadda."

"Ok then," Comes the reply from the redheaded,  "Stop him tonight, get 10 grand, save the world."

"Yup, sounds like a plan."

Taking a sniff at the air, the red-haired man flips his mike back on and tells the vampire bait {T minus 1 and counting.}

{Ready here, Wolf.}

First contact with the demon comes with a near subliminal whine, a noise near the bottom of the human registry, an itching at the eardrums. Gunn absently rubs his baldhead and mutters "I hate this part."

With a grimace of pain, because the sound is much clearer and more painful to him,Wolf reaches into his black leather bomber jacket and pulls out a package of earplugs and puts them in. "Who's the one with here with preternatural hearing?" he mutters in pain to Gunn.

{Know what you mean, mate.} Says the aggrieved vampire as he puts in his ear plugs also.

The Agalivanen Demon is an uncommon demon, there are no naturally occurring ones on the planet, the only why they can be here is if they are summoned. They use sound as a weapon, using it to cause fear, paralysis and even death in its prey. The demon itself isn't that formidable of a warrior, the problem is getting past the sound to attack it.

Out of the darkness lurches the demon, standing at only 5 feet tall, with a moldy greenish exterior it is not very scary looking. Weird, yes. Scary, no. With its fish-like mouth gaping open and shut emitting a sound that has caused terror in many a man it stalks down the street on legs with one too many joints, giving it a lurching, somewhat ludicrous appearance. It lurches towards the seemingly petrified vampire with its three-digit hands grasping a small knife and a leather bag. As it gets closer it fails to get the normal reaction out of the vampire, that of the subject feinting in abject terror. As it comes to a halt in front of the vampire, Spike flashes a grin at it and says in an everyday tone. "Sorry, mate, can't hear ya. What'd ya say?"

The Agalivanen Demon just blinked at the blond vampire. "Not the smartest fella are you?" says Spike as he vamps out and jumps at the demon. Using more speed then his twisted form suggests the demon avoids Spikes claws and makes a break towards the alley across the street.

The same alley it so happens that the other two demon hunters are lying in wait in.

"He missed. You owe me 10 bucks wolf-man." Says Gunn as he hefts the large axe in his hands and settles into a stance to wait for the demon to head into the alley.

Wolf just raises his eyebrow in reply even though Gunn can't see him and morph's further into his half wolf form. Hunching over in the alley he gains bulk and his face shifts forward as a muzzle filled with very sharp teeth appears. His fingers curl, thicken and grow 2 inch long blackened claws and his eyes… his eyes blaze in the darkness.

As the demon turns the corner into the alley and Gunn raises his axe to strike, Wolf bounds forward past his teammate and with a quick double swipe of his claws the Agalivanen Demon falls to the ground in two pieces, it's spine severed, leaking brownish-green goo onto the concrete.

"Well, damn wolf-man. That was anticlimactic." Sighs Gunn as he lowers his axe.

Just then Spike comes hurtling around the corner to see the dead demon laying in two pieces on the ground and his teammate wolfed out and comes lurching to a sudden stop. "Well, right then" he mutters with a cough, a strained smile coming to his face as he scratches the back of his head. "Let's go get the money."

Chuckling to himself Gunn reaches into his pocket and pulls out an industrial sized plastic bag and says to Spike "You missed Willy, and fearless leader here had to take down the bad guy. Pay up."

"Don't call me that wanker." Mutters the vampire as he tries to lift the demons corpse into the air without getting any goo on himself, and dumps the body into the bag.

In the mouth of the alley Wolf pulls out a cellular phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and hits a speed dial button as his wolfen features revert back to his human mask of normalcy. On his heavily furred face the hair recedes back to a standard goatee and mustache with small sideburns. His mane of hair shrinks till it's only a light auburn shoulder length. And his muzzle just melds back into his face leaving only a slight lengthening of the canines to show that it was ever there. The only things to not revert back are his eyes, ever since the werewolf had fully mastered his change, his eyes have been a luminescent yellow. Glowing slightly in the dark, Wolf reaches up and pulls the sunglasses that were sitting on top of his head down over his eyes to cover the slight glow.

"Target acquired and dealt with. Where's the drop off?"

As the vampire and the human are arguing back and forth over 10 dollars and the redheaded werewolf is talking on the phone to their contact at the Council none of the three notice the lean man in BDU's walking calmly down the alleyway towards them. None of them see as the man pulls out a large machine pistol, a H&K SP89. None of them notice's till the man grins maniacally and pulls back the slide. Then all three sets of eyes look up in the darkness. All three sets widen in surprise as the man takes aim and begins to pull the trigger.

With a speed unimaginable to anyone who hasn't seen a Slayer in action Wolf bounds down the alley. Blurring in the eyes of everyone there he leaps his startled teammates with ease and is hurtling down the alley towards the man with the gun. All he can think is that the demon had backup and he missed it, his mind absently notes the fact that the man was downwind of him. Cursing himself for a fool, Wolf resolves in the future to more careful about that. His image blurs as fangs emerge from his mouth, claws grow out from his fingers and a blood-curdling howl erupts from his throat.

All of this occurred in a blink of an eye, a twitch of a finger.

As the first of the 9mm rounds leave the barrel of the H&K SP89, Wolf is already past his startled teammates. As the third round is fired the werewolf's transformation is complete. As the fifth round emerges the howl is already rebounding off of the surrounding alley walls.

Then the first 9mm round impacts.

It impacts and rips through the werewolf. Wolf is expecting some pain. After all he had been shot before. But he is also expecting his preternatural healing to take effect. He expects the bullet wounds to heal up almost as soon as they are made. After all this is what has happened every other time he had been shot.

As the pain in his chest doesn't fade, he realizes that there was one time when being shot didn't work that way. The one time in Egypt…

The time he was being hunted, the time where he had been lucky to escape with his life.

Hunted by a man who knew what Wolf was. Knew how to hunt werewolves. Had been hunting them in fact longer then Wolf had been one.

So when the pain didn't stop, but in fact got worse, as if someone had poured molten lead into his wounds, Wolf knew he was in trouble. He recognized the sensation of The Burn. The Burn as the silver enters his body. The Burn as it disturbs the balance of his energy. Throws all his healing and shifting abilities out of order. The silver absorbs and redirects his essence, and in doing so it forces the change back into human.

As the second and third bullets tore into Wolf's chest, he tries desperately to twist his body away from the hail of bullets. Tries to change his direction, tries desperately to escape the pain. All to no avail. His slower human form is unable to get out of the way. His weaker human form is unable to stop the deluge of bullets tearing into his body.

The man with the gun calmly keeps the gun in line with his target and in the space of 5 seconds had pumped all 30 rounds of silver into the werewolf.

As Wolf lays on the ground coughing up blood the man steps out from the shadows. Wolf had only meet the man twice in his life up until tonight. Both times the man had tried his damnedest to end Wolf's existence.

Cain.

As Wolf's sight dims and his gasping breath gurgles in his chest the last thing he hears is "Got ya."