A/N: Sorry! So much work this half term, and we had a family wedding to prepare...will try to keep posting now I'm on Christmas holiday (finally!). Happy holidays one and all!
Sniffing out the Slayer was not difficult for Spike, being well acquainted with her scent from all that... fight prep (not stalking) that he'd done, and he and Rupes made it to the demon bar carrying Clem.
"Alright, kiddies-who's up for a fight?" This was directed primarily at the moleworms hunched in a corner, their beady eyes staring into their bloody marys and looking rather bored. "Tunnelling into the Initiative, we are. Guess who'll get lifetime protection from the slayer if they help?" Spike wheedled slowly, dragging out the words so the denser demons got his meaning.
"That the underground place? We're in. They're in some of the most fertile bits of ground and we needed some back up so we can tunnel there safely." The moleworms, of average intelligence and of excellent technique, were among the first to declare themselves collaborators.
"Yeah, and at the end of that tunnel will be the bastards who took your families." These were the nicer demons and ones with a sense of family, and were more likely to help given that incentive.
Giles shook himself out of his amazement at these demon's priorities as they all stood up to help their community, and interjected: "Spike, I really cannot condone this killing of hum-"
"Rupes, they took your bloody daughter."
"I'd kill them," cheerfully commented the affable Clem, whose demon was evidently taking more precedence.
"Very true. Let's knock out the wankers."
00000000000000000000000000
Buffy found herself quite enjoying the fight. It was something she'd never thought she would do, yet Clem's kindness and these twats' (OK, Spike-ism cut off right here and now) sadisticness (was that a word) spurred her on.
It was such an easy fight, though, that Buffy decided to simply get in the lift and walk out of there, having noticed her tendency to talk to herself during the fight simply to keep herself interested. Her ability to do this suggested that perhaps they were no danger to anyone really, not if she warned deserving demons like Clem.
"Deserving demons? God," she muttered to herself . Well. That was something she never thought she'd say before tonight.
"I'll get out of here, and find Spike's ashes, and start a new way of living." Funny how she was so in tune with the fight, she worked out her new outlook on life simply by carefully apportioning punches and doling them out in appropriate doses...
"RILEY?"
He was coming towards her, taser raised, shouting "They took you in! I said they shouldn't but thank God they did-you demon! Why didn't they neuter you?"
"Why do you think?" Buffy said calmly yet indignantly. "I am the Slayer. And there is more to goodness than you ever thought."
She punched him, hard.
He fell to the floor as the wall collapsed and long nosed demons, bursting with courage flooded in.
"We are strength! We are family!" The demons were chanting, and Clem picked up the words and started singing the song and her face burst with joy as he and Giles rode in astride the moleworms and...
All she needed now was Spike.
