"Anger's Coup!"
By James Carmody.
Disclaimer: BtVS is the property of Joss, and his alone till he decides otherwise. I forego any financial remuneration for this storyline, only accepting the praise of other fans for this- or the authors of the stories of this tale group known as BtVS/AtS, should they ever elect to read it.
Summary: The tension rose steadily, as Oz and Tara gazed at oneanother, neither willing to move or back down; off to the sidelines, Buffy, Faith, Willow, Xander, and Giles watched this disagreement with intense anxiety- till an explosion would shatter their group's unity!
Characters: Faith Lehane, Tara Maclay, Willow Danielle Rosenberg, First Evil, Buffy Anne Summers, Xander Harris, Rupert Giles, Oz, Kennedy, Kendra Young, and others shall be added per chapter as the story progresses.
Story Notes/Author's Notes: First in the "Platonic Adventures" Series.
Pairings: Oz/Willow Danielle Rosenberg/Tara Maclay, Buffy Summers/Willow Rosenberg/Tara Maclay (and any combination thereof, including Buffy/Willow, Buffy/Tara, Tara/Oz, and a whole lot of others too!).
Warnings: Fighting- especially by means of magic. Abuse, (again, magical).
Genre(s): Supernatural, Friendship.
Chapter 1.): "Aaaannnndddd... Fight!"
Beginning Chapter 1 Author's Notes: Tara's behavior will be odd here, should be a fun story though. Please don't be shy as to what you think of the storyline.
Elements of psychology are also involved in this, as well as most other preternatural stuff that's real, not into the pseudo-science of things like the occult- that topic is simply garbage!
Self-control is the emphasis here.
Tara had been having oodles of fun hanging out with her girlfriend, Willow; they'd talked, played various games like jacks, dice, and many other games of modest amounts of chance just for the fun of it. Truth be told, she loved her deeply; which now only served to add fuel to her fire: Oz, a guy that Tara really had nothing against was, it appeared to Tara, moving in on her girlfriend and therefore her territory- and that couldn't be allowed to stand!
The witch had to move quickly to protect her relationship., so she did the only thing she could: she stood up to Oz about him moving in on her relationship with her girlfriend!
Things only got worse from there on in, however, as Oz didn't back down but rather stood up to her "What was he thinking?!" Tara thought, enraged... these matters only served to infuriate her all the more, however, as time went on, and swiftly at that, so that pretty soon they were staring oneanother down in the middle of the hallway at UC. Sunnydale!
The tension was clearly rising steadily, and you could see the sweat dripping off the two young adults going by the names of Oz and Tara as they stared at oneanother, neither willing to back down and yield to the other! Their friends watched the disagreement with increasing anxiety, knowing that, one way or the other, their group's friendships would never be the same again.
Meanwhile, Buffy and Willow had been trying to repair their relationship with Faith; it had been a rocky start to say the least: first with the fight in the school grounds; in fact, it had been Rupert Giles and Joyce Summers getting together that had compelled them to give Faith another chance in the first place. Once they got the debris of their mutual past out of the way, however, they'd been surprised to find out that Faith was really an incredibly loving young woman- it was just that she'd never been given a chance to be forgiving in the first place!
They were alarmed however, to see Tara and Oz engaged in a fight- even more horrified that is, to find out who those two were fighting over: Willow herself!
The friends of these two only caught the end of the disagreement, however, for just about at that moment, Tara replied to Oz, "So, you want to be with Willow, eh?"
"Yes. You stole her from me, and I want her back." Oz replied, frankly, in his usual stoic manner, but he was as angry as she was over this blindness on the mutual other's part.
"Well then" the witch replied, frustrated "I'll see what I can do about that." she continued. Tara got an idea then, if she did use magic, then they both could have a relationship with Willow; it'd be tricky, but if it worked out then they both could get what they wanted- so really, she reasoned, she'd be making peace between the two of them., and just like that, she made her decision and, she raised her right hand, whipped it around so that the back thereof was facing Oz, fingers open and splayed out a comfortable bit, at the same time snapping some of her fingers. When her right hand came to rest, it was at her shoulder's height, which was slightly above his own, as she was the taller of the two.
Almost immediately, he was seized by some powerful magics that she hadn't counted on the strength of, he was lifted up, and they began to twist him. Tara shouted in anger "NO! I didn't want THIS!" but it was far too late, for he twisted, distorted, and bent over in all sorts of ways till he found himself folded over into another form altogether.
When Tara realized what she'd done, her training for dealing with animals came into play, and she spoke up clearly "Down Boy! Heel!", just after muttering to herself, for she'd recovered quickly, due to always being a pragmatist, and said "Now you can be with us, as our pet- mine and Willow's.", she was surprised to find that he complied with her designs for his behavior!
Tara's friends were horrified, and off to her side there were cries of "What have you done?"
She then realized what'd happened as her rage cooled itself off, not into blue flame, or concrete, but rather into a much calmer and not enraged mindset. Oz, meanwhile barked and proceeded to whine as a canine would.
Faith muttered "Wow, T, did NOT know you had it in you..." and Buffy and Willow's simultaneous response was to elbow Faith in the ribs and glare at the brunette woman for her callous remark.
Willow was horrified, as was Buffy, and they both blurted out "Turn him back... NOW!"
Tara, upset about what she'd done, immediately reverted Oz to his normal self, and headed off to the water fountain, to wash her face and cool down, as well as try to think things through, all the while she wondered "What got into me? I was simply so mad at him; and then POW! He's a dog... this makes no sense... unless." she wandered off, mentally, considering what she'd learned about- then she realized something about her motives.
Willow reversed Oz along with Tara... Oz, however, was pretty upset "That." Oz ground out bitterly "Was utterly. And completely. As well as. Immensely. And Incredibly. Infuriating." he bit out, totally humiliated, a bit at a time after being reverted to a young man from a wolf form werewolf.
Buffy herself, meanwhile, was beyond livid with those friends of hers for fighting like that; and resolved to get to the bottom of this- no matter how far this goes to get there.
End Chapter 1 Author's Notes: More will be clarified as to Tara's personality as time goes on in this story- and she'll be pretty darn complex, as will some of her other friends too.
As for the fight: you'll see in future chapters why exactly Tara and Oz were fighting, and it's a pretty normal element to human personalities that motivated that fight- it's hinted at here, but more will be rendered as time goes on in this story.
There are also other beings not clearly mentioned in this that fueled this fight and abuse of neighbor that occurred- and trust me, push anybody (or almost anybody) enough and you better believe you'll get them to cross their own moral lines, so something was clearly involved in moving Tara to do this to her neighbor like that.
This may be pretty rushed, and I may work it through as time goes on in this story, so rest assured, but a major source is psychology, and the good type, not the nonsense types that pass for a lot of psychology.
To Be Continued (as clearly implied)...