"Why so glum?" Indali asked as she slid into a desk.

"Did you actually use the word 'glum'?" Willow asked.

"Why not? It's a perfectly cromulent word." Indali raised her chin as her eyebrows arched.

Willow snorted and smiled. "Are you trying to embiggen your word having?" They laughed.

"Seriously, you seem like something's ruffled your fur," Indali said after the giggles died away.

Willow shook her head and shuffled some papers. "I'm vaguely annoyed and I'm not sure why."

"What happened?"

Willow dropped the papers. "Principal Snyder assigned me to tutor a student. He didn't try at all, it was frustrating and a waste of time, but now he's been taken away, and it… it bugs me."

Indali nodded, her eyes narrowed. "He didn't try at all. Are we talking about your tutee, or Principal Snyder?"

Willow snickered again. "Okay, I bow before the Queen of Vocabulary."

"I accept your submission." Indali winked as the tardy bell sounded. The room hushed as students began working on their projects. Willow loved Advanced Computer Science; the class was mostly hands-on and self-directed. The teacher spent most of the hour moving around the room assisting students who had run into difficulty.

Willow was deep into an HTML execution situation when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She shivered and blinked.

"You okay?" Indali asked.

"Yeah." Willow rubbed her eyes. "Just got a little lost."

"It's almost time for the bell," Indali said. "Plus, do you know who that is?" Her head jerked ever-so-slightly toward the door. Willow looked over the other girl's head.

"Crap," she said as she spied Tyler's freckled countenance through the door's narrow window. Indali followed Willow's gaze.

"Is that your erstwhile student?" she asked, a bland expression on her face.

"'Erstwhile'?" Willow said. The bell rang.

"Hey," Indali said as she scooped up her books, "Vocabulary Queen's gotta strut that power."

"Show-off," Willow muttered as she gathered her stuff.

Tyler pounced as she hit the hallway. "Hey, what is this? Somebody else shows up and says they're my tutor now? What's with that?"

Willow turned and faced him. "You know, this isn't my fault. You didn't do any work, your grades didn't improve, and now, I'm not your tutor any more. What's with that? Look in a mirror and say that." She stalked away.

He caught up with her. "Okay, I'll try harder, I'll do some work, I–"

"No." Willow kept walking, jaw set. "This is Principal Snyder's work, and if you think I'm going into his office and ask for a favor, well… you just keep thinking thoughts, buddy."

Tyler hurried to keep the pace. "Well, when are we gonna talk about, you know."

Willow stopped and executed a jerky turn toward him. "Right now, I don't want to talk to you about anything." She took a deep breath and looked around. "But I do have some notes, so give me a couple of days to think about it, and then, if I decide to, well, we'll go from there. Understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, I do. I–"

"Scram," Willow said. "Before I change my mind."

He scrammed, and it brought a slight smile to her face.

"We engaged at the zoo, but pulled back pretty quickly. We lost one, think we took two of theirs." Coyne clasped his hands behind his back.

"How was the retreat handled?"

"As you said, we broke and ran. No pursuit"

The Reverend nodded. "Good. He must believe that his strategy is working. Brief combat and then retreat is our best response. He will think that we are following him mindlessly. I know that it galls you to pull back, especially when it appears cowardly to do so, but we want him to believe that we are cowards. The surer he grows that we lack courage, the more his forces will grow complacent." He looked down at Coyne. "This is a tactic. We must be stalwart. I trust you as my good right hand."

"Yes, sir." Coyne nodded.

"Anybody have an extra pencil?" Xander asked. Without looking up, Willow pulled a pen from her backpack and handed it to him. He grabbed it and began scratching inside his cast.

"Eww." Buffy's lip curled. She slid her book away from him.

"Your disapproval matters not," Xander said, digging in with the pen. "I need relief." He scratched vigorously for a couple more minutes, then extended the pen toward Willow.

"No," she said, raising a hand, "you keep it."

"Sweet," Xander said, shoving it into the cargo pocket of his pants. "Free pen."

"How's therapy going?" Buffy asked.

Xander shrugged. "It's there. I go and sweat, they tell me I'm not sweating enough, rinse, repeat." He snapped his fingers. "There is one cool thing. There's this machine called an e-stim. They put these electrodes on my leg and fire up the dynamo. It's awesome. I'm actually considering finding a real career so I can buy one. Keep it home and set it as high as I want."

"Up the voltage," Willow muttered.

"From God to Jerry to Mitch to you," Buffy offered.

"Ha, ha." Xander made a sour face. "You guys are as funny as… as…"

"A crutch?" Oz said.

Xander assumed an air of wounded dignity. "I would storm off, but that seems immature."

"You could flounce," Buffy said. "I'd pay a dollar to see you flounce on a crutch."

"You are cruel," Xander said. "All of you, petty, cruel people."

"And just think," Willow said, looking up at him and smiling, "a couple of weeks ago you were afraid we didn't love you any more."

"I got a call from our favorite heavy hitter." The lieutenant sounded both bored and dead-serious.

"Christ, what's up his keister?"

"Hey, I know he's a pain in the ass, but we gotta listen. Anyway, his dumbass brother went out looking for tail last week."

"What's new? This one rob him?"

"Yeah." The lieutenant rubbed a hand along his jaw. "But, uh, he got himself beaten up, too."

"Baby Huey tangled with a pimp? Did the idiot leave Brutus in the car?"

"Seems Brutus took a KO too."

"Whoa, they both tangled with a pimp?"

The lieutenant tapped his upper lip with his fist. "No. It appears that the girl did it." There was a pause, then laughter erupted from the other side of the desk. The lieutenant rode it out, then said, "Perp is a white female, eighteen to twenty-five, medium height, dark hair and eyes, tattoo on the upper right arm, and, I shit you not, 'a mouth to die for'."

"Well, that's the clue that's gonna break the case. Are we really busting shoe leather on this?"

"We are. He wants it, he gets it. If he loses interest, it goes away. If not, we keep after it. One thing in our favor, she appears, based on Baby Huey's statement, to be independent, so, 'partners with the community'."

"Blow it out your ass, loot."

"I have always wondered what you eat for lunch." Stefan Warner slid into a chair opposite Giles. "Would it be a Vegemite sandwich?"

"I'm not Australian," the librarian replied as he took his lunch from its brown paper bag. "It's… Marmite." He stared at Warner for a moment, then both men chuckled.

"That's a bad sign." Matti dropped into the chair next to Warner. "What are you two laughing about?"

Warner turned his head toward her. "Guy stuff."

"Yeah, right." Matti laid out her lunch. Whatcha got?"

Warner cocked a finger at his Tupperware. "Quinoa chili with roasted chickpeas and yerba mate."

Matti frowned. "That is disgusting."

Warner jerked a thumb at Giles. "He's eating Vegemite."

"Marmite," Giles mumbled around a bite.

"Good lord," Matti said. "You eat like a child and he eats like Euell Gibbons." She tapped her own lunch. "Jambalaya using grandma's recipe and my own protein bar."

"I, um, I don't usually eat in the cafeteria," Giles said. "I don't see Buffy."

"That's because they're in second lunch," Warner said.

"Are you sure this is where we should be holding this discussion?"

Matti looked around. "Let's see… does anybody else seem to care that we're here? No." She twitched her head ever so slightly toward the other end of the teachers' tables. "That bunch down there is gonna spend the entire time discussing Outlander. We're invisible to the students, and no one can hear a thing we say over the dull roar. Perfect cover, hide in plain sight."

Giles nodded. "I see. Very well. Mr. Trick has begun some sort of campaign. It seems to involve action against the Reverend and multiple attacks around the city. I mentioned to Ms. Hollis that I am concerned that Buffy, while she is the Slayer,–" he dropped his voice on 'the Slayer', even though no one paid them any attention–"can only be in one place at a time. I was wondering if you might assist with a nightly patrol."

Warner took a drink from his stainless-steel bottle and looked at Matti. "Since you've had a minute to think about this, what's your input?"

Matti shrugged. "It won't detract from our assignment, in fact, it might help a little. I don't see how keeping the lid on the place hurts anyone." She looked past Warner at Giles. "We're talking, what, a turn around town after sunset?"

"Basically."

"How do we determine our grid?" Warner asked.

"Well, since you are assisting Buffy of your own accord, I thought you could simply pick a sector of town that was convenient."

"Convenient. Nice word choice. We certainly wouldn't want to feel stressed while trying to blow the heads off vampires."

Giles blanched at Stefan's statement. Matti noticed. "Don't worry," she said. "If anybody overhears, they'll assume we're LARPing or talking about the John Carpenter movie."

Buffy sprinted along the hiking trail that wound east of the zoo. She had gambled that there might be a repeat appearance and she had been right. She had spotted a small group of fangsters just after sundown and dispatched most of them, but one had taken to the hiking trail. If she could catch it before it reached the woods, she would have a clean sweep for the night.

The vamp reached the woods; good sense told the Slayer to stop, but she was angry at herself for not catching it, so she pursued. She raced into the dappled darkness; as the trees closed around her, she felt or heard or sensed movement to her right. She spun on the asphalt trail, a quick one-eighty on the ball of her left foot as the vampire passed behind her. She ended up facing the way she had come, the demon between her and the zoo. It snarled and bared its fangs. Buffy reached for her stake; it was gone, slipped away in her turn. She glanced from side to side. The vampire tensed, then leaped forward. The Slayer lunged to her right and grabbed a sapling growing beside the path. She yanked down as hard as she could and released. The springy young tree snapped back to its upright position, but first it caught the lunging vampire directly under its jaw. The force of the blow stunned the creature. The Slayer popped up, a baseball-sized rock in her hand. A good swing and solid contact turned the vampire halfway around; Buffy grabbed the creature from behind and pushed. Too late, the vampire saw the broken branch of the oak tree; a moment later, it was dust. The Slayer spat and waved a hand in front of her face. She looked around and saw her stake lying beside the path.

"Maybe Velcro," she said as she stooped to retrieve it.