You are writing for Antennapedia
The request:
Characters: Core Four Scoobies (Buffy with Giles, Willow, and Xander), general
What you would like to see: season 1 setting, Buffy learning a new weapon, the comic downsides of Slayer strength, and an old-fashioned vamp-fight
What you do not like to see: extremes of angst or fluff
Preferred rating: PG13 to R (FRT to FRM)
Comic's canon, Yay or nay? No
At least 1000 words.
She was running through the graveyard, chasing a vamp. She felt full of energy, freer that she had felt in a long, long time. As soon as the vamp turned into his demon face to fight, she clocked him with a right hook. He stumbled back, reaching up to his nose to feel the trickle of blood streaming from it. By the look on his face, it seemed as if he had never been hit before. Suddenly snarling, he reared back and tried to punch her in the face. She managed to dodge in time to take it in the shoulder instead.
"Hey! Not in the face! That's how I make my living!" She snapped, giving him a roundhouse kick to the gut. While he was bent over, she punched upwards, straightening him back up just long enough so that she could pull the stake from her jacket and shove it through his chest.
And he just stood there, laughing, and not dusting.
"What the hell?" She staked him again. He continued to laugh. After her third attempt, she started to hear a buzzing noise….
…and sat up straight in her bed, poised to stake for the forth time. Unfortunately, it was morning and she was in her bedroom, not the graveyard, so no slaying for her.
"I hate that dream," she mumbled, turning off the alarm. It wasn't one of her prophetic slayer dreams, thankfully, but just a regular weird dream from the head of Buffy.
The dream was quickly put aside in favor of getting ready for another boring day of school at Sunnydale High. There weren't any tests in any of her classes today, so she didn't have to worry too much about any schoolwork. She even had all of her homework done for once. Today will be a good day.
However, the gods of school didn't seem to agree with her on having a good day. She arrived at school late that day, and got chewed out by Principal Snyder for her troubles. His chewing out made her late for her first class, which caused her to miss a pop quiz.
When her free period finally arrived at third hour, she felt relief. She walked outside into the sunlight, seeing Xander on his skateboard.
When he spotted her, he quickly hopped off and ran over to her. "Hey, Buffster! What's shakin'?"
"Actually, not much is shaking. At least nothing good. Principal Snyder caught me coming in late today." Buffy sighed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She started to head back inside of the school. "I'm going to get a soda. Want one?"
"Sure," Xander said, following her inside. There weren't a lot of kids around today. Most people didn't have third period free, so the halls were mostly empty. She walked up to the soda machine, put her money in, and pressed the button for a diet coke. After waiting a moment, she realized that it wasn't going to put out any drinks.
"Stupid machine," Buffy mumbled.
"You have to shake it sometimes," Xander said. He walked up to it and tried to jiggle the machine, but could barely seem to move it an inch.
"Here, let me try," Buffy said after allowing the proper amount of time for Xander to huff and puff so that he could still keep his manly pride intact.
"Sure thing," Xander huffed, out of breath. "Maybe you'll have better luck than me." He moved out of the way so that Buffy could walk back to it.
Buffy grabbed both sides of the machine and gave it a good shake. Unfortunately, slayer strength sometimes has its cons along with the pros. She managed to shake it hard enough so that she quickly lost control of it. She screamed as it toppled over, barely missing her when it landed with a loud crash.
To top it all off, a can of diet soda popped out of the machine and rolled to Buffy's feet.
She picked it up, starring at it for a moment.
"Buffy! What did that machine ever do to you?" Xander scolded playfully. "In all seriousness, we need to split fast, because I don't think that most schools like destruction of property all that much." Xander grabbed her by her free hand and they both quickly ran away to hide in the library.
As soon as they ran inside, she saw Giles turn towards her, book in hand.
"Do you just stay in that position until I return?" He always seemed to have a book in his hand.
"Actually no, I have an entire life outside of this school, even though you would never know it," Giles said, setting the book down. "It's good that you are here, anyway. I wanted to start training you on a new weapon today."
"Oooh, dinner and a show," Xander said, walking over to one of the tables and sitting down, propping his feet up on the table.
"Alright, Giles, let's see it." Buffy sat on top of the table. "What am I going to start learning today?"
"I want you to start learning how to throw axes, actually." Giles walked behind the front desk of the library, coming out with a large duffle bag. Inside of it were several small axes, none longer than her forearm.
"Those aren't even big enough to decapitate something," Buffy said, looking down into the bag. "Isn't that one of the big killing points of vampires, which is what I am the slayer of?"
"No, they don't usually decapitate, but, if you hit someone in the skull with one, they won't be getting up for a while, demon or not."
"I feel like I should be in "Braveheart" when I'm holding one of these things," Buffy said, picking up one of the axes from the bag. "So, what am I aiming at?"
Giles walked into his office and pulled out the wooden dummy that she usually practiced her kicks and punches on. It had padding on the chest for her to punch at. "I want to you try aiming for the head first."
After Giles got far out of the way of the dummy, Buffy tried to take careful aim, and threw the axe, hoping that it would hit in the head. Instead, it hit the wall behind it. "Try again," Giles said to her.
Buffy grabbed another axe from the bag, tried aiming again, and threw, this time hitting the poor dummy in the crotch.
"Ohmigod! That hurt me over here!" Xander screamed, cringing.
"Well, I'm trying to hit it in the head. How would that make you feel?" Buffy snapped. Buffy practiced for the rest of the period, but she never could seem to get her aim quite right. Giles kept complaining that she wasn't flicking her wrist quite right, and that strength was only part of what it took properly to throw an axe.
Buffy spent the rest of the school day counting down the hours until she could leave. She just wasn't very interested in school. However, it wasn't as if she had the night off or anything. She had to train with Giles more after classes were done, and then she had to go out and patrol the graveyards again. She could be going out to the Bronze, but no, she had to go sit in a graveyard and wait in hope of new vampires rising up from the grave so that the night wouldn't be a complete waste of her time.
Even those plans can't ever go according to plan. While she was training with Giles, Xander came running in with a cut on his head a little while after the sun had set.
"Oh my god, what happened?" Buffy asked, running over to Xander to examine the cut on his head. She was vaguely aware that Giles had run off to get a first aid kit. She was sure that they kept the first aid kit business in oodles of money from how quickly they went through them.
"Willow and I were walking to the Bronze, and we were attacked by three vampires." Buffy lead Xander to one of the chairs at the table, where he slumped down, looking defeated. "I managed to stake one of them, but another one hit me over the head. When I woke up, they were gone and so was Willow. I know that she wouldn't have left me, so they had to have taken her."
Buffy backed away as Giles walked over to bandage Xander's head. "So, I guess we'll find out if those little axes work as well as you claim they will, Giles."
"Where do you think they'll be?" Giles asked. "They could be anywhere."
"Well, there are twelve cemeteries in Sunnydale. We need to start looking, fast." Buffy grabbed the duffle bag that all of the mini axes were in. "I think you and I should split them between us."
"I can help, too!" Xander said, standing up quickly. He wobbled for a second then fell back down. "Okay, a little dizzy here. I stood up too fast."
"Xander, I know you can help, but right now you're hurt. I don't want you to get hurt any worse." Xander looked as if he would protest, but one of her patented 'don't argue with the Buffster' looks told him to zip it. "Just stay here. Maybe we'll luck up and she'll get away."
Buffy wasn't quite that lucky, but her luck finally pulled through for that night. She and Giles split the cemeteries, six and six. The first one that she hit up, she could almost feel Willow's presence in it, along with the two remaining vampires.
Buffy traced them to one of the mausoleums in the middle of the cemetery. It had the name "VanVlymen" written on the outside of it. Inside, two vampires dressed in black robes had Willow and two others tied up in the middle of an inverted pentagram drawn in what smelled like blood. They were chanting in a different language, maybe Latin from the sound of it (she had heard Giles read in it a lot).
"Hey boys, can I join the party?" Ugh, what a terrible line that was. It did the trick, though. One charged at her while the other vampire kept reading. She stopped him cold with a roundhouse kick to the face, sending him flying across the room.
"Buffy, hurry!" Willow shouted. "They're trying to summon something!" She started to struggle against her own bonds. "We're supposed to be the sacrifices!"
"Not on my watch!" Buffy punched the vampire she had just kicked when he tried to stand back up. She quickly shoved a stake through his heart, walking through his dust and on her way to the next one.
Then the earth started to quake.
"You're too late, Slayer!" The remaining vampire shouted. "Our new master arises!"
"I thought the Master was underground!" Obviously, this guy had a different master.
"He will take my body and make the world over in his image! Hell will reign on earth!" The vampire became enveloped in a red light.
He then fell to the ground when Buffy threw a mini axe into his head. The earth stopped shaking, and all went back to normal. Buffy walked over to his body. It hadn't dusted because the axe seemed only to paralyze him. She made quick work of him, though, staking him through the chest.
Buffy turned and untied Willow and the other two, who took off before Buffy got the chance even to try to explain what had just happened. Apparently, they did not need explanations. "We should get out of here and find Giles. He's looking through some of the other cemeteries, looking for you."
"Thanks for saving me, Buffy." Willow looked dirty and a little grimy, but otherwise unharmed.
"It's no big, Willow. You're my best friend, and you know I'd always come out here after you. I wonder what that guy was trying to summon."
"I don't know. I didn't catch all the Latin." Willow leaned down and picked up the necklace that one of the vampires was wearing. "Maybe this has a clue."
"We'd better get that to Giles. Maybe he can figure it out." Buffy stretched. "All I want to do it go out to the Bronze. Think a hero can get a night off?"