Stone in Love
by Oxnate
Disclaimer: Do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Gargoyles. My title this time comes from the song Stone In Love by Journey.
Summary – Buffy and the Slayerettes failed – they all died. But they get a second chance.
Challenge response: Challenge-4544- (on Twisting the Hellmouth) So the challenge should be obvious, but I'm gonna state it. I'm looking for a "Gargoyles"/BTVS cross. While there are some really good stories with this cross out there, I'm looking for one that doesn't involve the now ubiquitous YAHF label...
Chapter 1.
Gentle reader, there are many dimensions in which Buffy Anne Summers truly existed and was a Vampire Slayer. The timeline you are aware of, however, is one of only a handful in which Buffy and most of her friends survived the Hellmouth. The trouble is that, all too often, Buffy and her friends survived only by luck and the skin of their teeth. But the odds never lie, and in most dimensions, the Slayer and most of her friends eventually died.
We join such a dimension shortly before such an event.
Catherine Madison was busy cheering for her team just like she had 20 years ago. "Go, Sunnydale, go!" wasn't much of cheer, but she had several years to improve the cheers and the gymnastics of the team and take them all the way to State (again). But she was interrupted in her multitasking – planning while cheering – when a flash took her away for a moment. She did her best to continue to cheer as if nothing had happened. She didn't realize what was happening until the third and longest such flash. They were trying to pull her out of this body. The body that she'd liberated from her good-for-nothing daughter, Amy. She could tell that they were in one of the science labs, performing a spell. She took off through the doors immediately, ignoring the sounds of anger and confusion from her teammates. The pyramid would have to wait; this was more important. She could make up some excuse later, once that Buffy bitch and her friends were dead.
Xander and Willow followed Amy out of the gymnasium. Maybe Buffy and Giles had been successful at Amy's house and had found Amy's spell book and were already undoing the spell that was killing Buffy. It was all they could think of since no one had bothered to tell them that they'd actually found Amy trapped in her mother's body there, along with Catherine's spell book.
They found the science lab Buffy and the others were in just in time. It looked like Amy's mom was about to cast a spell of some kind – hopefully a protection spell – but Amy was about to interrupt with an ax. Xander charged forward.
Giles finished the spell with only seconds to spare before Catherine-in-Amy nearly chopped Buffy in two. He decided he was horribly out of practice when it came to magic. Then again, there was a good reason he'd sworn off the Dark Arts. The girl with the ax staggered as she found herself back in her body and Giles sighed in relief. But he forgot that putting Catherine back in her own body placed her right next to him, as well as next to a goodly number of sharp implements. He was unable to defend himself from her surprise attack and received a scalpel to his shoulder for his oversight. He cried out in pain and slumped against the wall, grabbing the injured appendage. Pulling the blade from his arm, he tried to staunch the bleeding with a handkerchief tied one-handed with his other arm.
As soon as Giles hit the wall, Catherine turned her sights on Buffy, who was getting up from the table and looking mighty pissed. Buffy might be a super-powered demon fighter, however she had no natural defense against magic. With a wave of her arm, Catherine sent Buffy flying into a wall, where she slumped to the floor.
She turned her sights on Amy, who was still holding the ax Catherine had been holding when she had been in that body. She didn't look like she could use it to chop a piece of wood in half, much less a human being. "Foolish girl!" Mrs. Madison hissed. "You dare to stand against me? I am a mountain, and I will bury you in an avalanche!"
Just then, Xander ran in and tackled Amy (who was now back in her own body) to the ground.
"Xander! What are you doing?" Buffy asked as she struggled to her feet.
"Saving you?" At least he thought he was. He looked up from a very scared and sore Amy to Buffy, who just shook her head.
"More fools." Catherine cast her dread gaze to Willow, who was standing just inside the doorway. "From rock, to sand, to dust, and back again. Corsheth! As hard as their hearts are against me, make them so from head to toe!"
The spell was nearly instantaneous. One second, there were six bodies in the science room, then next, one living body and five granite statues. Catherine took a moment to admire her handiwork. But only a moment. She had to get back to the—no. She couldn't get back to the game: she had lost Amy's body. It was now and forevermore a statue. Kneeling, she traced the outline of her daughter's granite jaw where the statue lay on the ground and sighed, turning to leave the school.
A few hours later:
Puck came out of the mirror above the teacher's desk. It was almost certainly the only magic mirror in the world that was mounted in a high school science classroom, but he liked it there. He was learning all sorts of interesting things through it. None of the other gods and demigods knew anything about covalent and ionic bonds. None of Oberon's other children understood that this knowledge was part of what had made him more powerful. His actual power hadn't increased, but knowing HOW stuff was done allowed him to use less power for the same effect. Other demigods just threw magic at their problems until the magic solved the problem for them. Easy, but wasteful of energy. And energy was energy, no matter where it came from.
Just now, though, he wasn't pleased at all by the things he had learned through the mirror. He looked around and frowned at the five statues now decorating the room. "No, no, no, no. That's not the way it was supposed to go at all. Perhaps a witch of Catherine's caliber was too much of a challenge for you so soon. But what's done is done." He sighed and looked out the window at the setting sun. Setting sun, stone statues: his mind intermingled these thoughts. The grin that cracked his face could not be called friendly. "However… Perhaps there is a way to give you all a second chance. Now don't mess this up, because you're not going to get another shot like this, I promise you," he told the unhearing granite.
Then he began to chant. "Stone you currently are and stone you again will be. But the night is yours for now to do with as you please." He smirked as the sun set and the stone skin of the newly made gargoyles started to crack. Then he jumped back into his mirror to watch the fun.
A/N: Catherine Madison was a super strong bad guy and way too tough for the third (or second, since the first was a 2-parter) episode of the series. By all rights, Buffy and the Slayerettes (as they were then known) should have been wiped from the face of the earth by such a powerful witch. And now they are. Sort of.
Also, an ordinary mirror should have had zero chance of reflecting a spell like that. Only a magic mirror should be capable of that sort of thing. Which is how I thought of Puck and a way to change our heroes into monsters.
And finally, my muse dines on your reviews! Keep her fat and happy.