Once more, I have been shot in the arse.
The culprit behind the shooting was none other than my own Slayer. Cruel, cruel betrayal! I suppose it wasn't entirely her fault. Her aim had been knocked to the side, shooting me instead of Oz the Werewolf. Still. She couldn't have aimed for something a little higher? I find myself, once more, unable to sit for the next few days. Though it was with a tranquilizer dart this time, instead of a crossbow bolt, the tip is quite sharp, and my tweed did little to soften the puncture this time.
Not that I have much to sit on, anyway. A great deal of the library has been destroyed. We had a bit of a domestic scare when a student was found mauled to death during the full moon. The fear was further increased when Xander, the moron, admitted that he had fallen asleep during his shift of watching over Oz. The window had been open, and it seemed extremely plausible that Oz had committed the murder. It is this sort of ordeal that truly complicates matters of lycanthropy. How are we to provide justice to the victims when their murderers are, arguably enough, innocent of the crime? Oz expressed a great deal of guilt and terror at the thought of possibly having killed someone. How could we persecute him?
He is not, by choice, a monster. This reminds me of the conversation I had with Buffy after finding her in the library the next morning. Faith was supposed to have been the one watching Oz, but she must have switched shifts. It is not often that I find Buffy asleep in the library, and so I wondered as to why she was truly there. Around her were scattered a few curious selections of reading materials. Exploring Demon Dimensions and The Mystery of Acathla to name a few. She explained that she had received a vivid dream about Angel returning from whatever hell dimension he had been taken to. This doesn't seem entirely out of place to me. Her conscience is clearly still wrestling with having taken Angel's life. I tried to soothe her by telling her of my own dreams of Jenny, in which she was alive, because I had saved her. Such dreams are common.
Her inquiry was puzzling though. She seemed adamant about knowing if someone could escape a hell dimension. As I said to her, there isn't any record of anyone ever escaping a hell dimension, especially Acathla's domain, where I believe Angel was likely sent. Even still, a being who managed to escape would be but a shadow of him or herself after centuries of torture. Some part of us, even as humans, reverts to a primal state of thinking when we've been put under too much stress or pain. To survive, our mind reverts back to the beast. It's the only way it can handle such agony.
All of this led, of course, to my categorization of monsters. There are two types. There is the first who can and wants to be redeemed. Oz falls into category, as I'm sure, most werewolves do. I fall into this category as well. The second are those who are entirely void of humanity. They cannot respond to reason or love or empathy. For the most part, vampires and the demons we have faced fall into this category. As would the individual who was responsible for the death of the student, the school counselor Platt, and Debbie. His name was Pete.
It was because of Pete's savage murder of Platt during the day, that we knew Oz was innocent of the murders. The hunt then began for the true creature behind the carnage. There was only one thing that linked the two murders, and that was Debbie, a student here at Sunnydale. Buffy had the foresight to suggest that it was likely Debbie's boyfriend, Pete, who was acting out punishment. She was proven to be correct. We found Pete, quite transformed into some claw-bearing creature, attacking Oz in werewolf form.
At this point, Buffy shot me in the arse, so I'm not privy to exactly what occurred. I remember stumbling to the ground and passing out as soon as I hit the floor. I do recall being quite cross as well. My mood did not improve when I woke to find myself in the same position, which caused quite an ache in the neck. No one had thought to move me into a more comfortable position. Rather rude. When I stirred, they finally remembered me, and Willow came to my aid, helping me up. Oz was back in his cage, the door fixed by Xander.
My poor library has been more-or-less destroyed though. Shelves, tables, chairs. All of it lay in pieces everywhere. And the books! I suppose if I'm grateful for anything, it's that the books were unharmed, despite having been wrenched from their proper places. So, since waking, I've put a bandage on my wound along with a warm pack, and I've been cleaning the library. I'll need to order three new shelves, a table and five chairs. Which means I need to speak to Snyder. Ugh, disgusting. He'll probably enjoy dangling the school budget over my head to repay me for my rough persuasion.
I really need to look into some sort of armor for my posterior end.
-Rupert Giles
1998