Chapter 10: 'The 'It's gone nine o clock' Club

It was now evening. The dead Ikea table had been relegated to sub-plot B, and put in the spare bedroom. Instead, the Scooby Gang were gathered in the living room, having a big meeting, and trying to decide how to stop the world from ending before the world actually ended. Though they'd done this before (eight times, in fact) it did not get any easier. In fact, Buffy thought, it got harder because you could never learn from your previous attempts – and any mistakes that were made, well, you couldn't exactly go back and correct them when the earth resembled little more than a pile of sand. A pile of wet sand. With crabs in it.

No, she mused, apocalypses did not get better with practice.

"Buffy?" Xander's voice disturbed the slayer from her thoughts.

"What? I'm listening"

"You disappeared into the world of the buffster for a minute there" He told her.

"Your mouth was open" Dawn commented slyly.

"Oh"

"But you didn't start dribbling. We stopped you before that happened"

She looked at him. "Thanks".

Xander smiled.

"We're the dribble-protectors. Protectors against Dribble"

"There to stop your every drool" Added Dawn.

"Right".

A pointed cough from the fireplace distracted her from the intruiging conversation. Looking over, Buffy realized it wasn't the fireplace, just Giles. Looking irritable.

Oops.

"Giles?"

"I was talking" He said, sounding mildly frustrated. "And as we're facing an apocalypse I really don't think discussions of your…" He searched for an alternative word and found none "- dribble -" Buffy smiled as she saw him wince. "are particularly appropriate".

"You're right. I'm listening"

"Yeah, we're all ears Giles"

Giles sighed again, realizing that when he was in England he rarely sighed, nor felt frustrated, and never ever had to deal with trying to teach 21 year olds the importance of listening to talks about the upcoming apocalypse. The only thing he worried about whilst in England was running out of milk. And the aforementioned 21 year olds hundreds of miles away.

He sighed again.

"Well, as I already established" Giles began, looking hopefully at those sat on the sofa and chair. They blinked. Giles started to wish he worked in a bakery. "As I established, the demons"

"The Maou Demons!" Anya said helpfully.

"Yes, the MoW demons, one of which broke into Dawn's bedroom today, have now got the Orb of Apoc"

"The Orb to Rule all Orbs"

"Buffy, must we bring Lord of the Rings Literary references into this?"

"Sorry. I just thought you'd be proud to know that I've read it"

Giles stared pointedly.

"I've seen the movies"

Giles removed his glasses, and sighed.

"So, what else do we know?" Dawn asked. "Aside from the 'raising taxes, raising the dead, stopping time, and raising hell' bit?"

"Not much. We know that, that to reverse all effects, the orb must be –"

"Destroyed?" Buffy offered.

"Sang to"

Dumbfounded silence. Riveting plot twist.

"Wait a minute…You're saying that in order to prevent the end of the world we have to – sing?" Xander looked perplexed.

"Yes"

"Yippee! Another musical!"

All eyes looked at Anya. "Well, I'd rather sing again than give all my hard-earned cash to the government!"

Buffy thought of the bill-mountain that she was currently storing in the bath.

"She has a point".

Anya smiled happily. The rest of them just felt worried, anxious, and as it was now nine o clock in the evening – slightly hungry, as they mulled over this rather surreal piece of new information. Giles, who had already known this piece of information, thought of home and kicked himself as he realized he'd forgotten to feed the canary. He hoped Herbert wouldn't starve.

Not that the canary was called Herbert…

Damn Anya and her penchant for naming things.

Taking a deep breath, The Slayer stood descisivly, turning to look at Giles. He looked questioningly at her.

"All we have to do is sing to the orb, and then anything that the demons have used it for is undone? That solves all the apocalypse problems? Poof – no more orb" she asked slowly.

"Or taxes" Anya added. Giles frowned, and Buffy waited tentatively for the answer.

"Well, yes actually…" The glasses were put back on. "That's more or less…it, to be honest"

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Well that took less time than normal"

"Perhaps he's getting more concise in his old age" Anya whispered across to her.

"I heard that" Giles said. He started to approach the sofa where they were all sitting. "And I think you'll find that whilst we know, in theory, how to stop it, we've barely scratched the surface. We, we have to locate the demons, retrieve the orb, and god knows the havoc they're going to cause before we do that"

"You know, and I was hoping I was going to get an early night" Xander said dryly.

"What other kind of night do you have?" Anya replied.

Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Guys, we need to research. We need to find out all we can about these MoW demons; where they live, how they live, any sharp protruding pointy things we should know about"

"Well we know they're strong, Buff. One of them took out you"

"Exactly Xander. It knows that about me. So we need to know exactly how to kill it"

"I can do that" Dawn said eagerly. "The research, not the killing. Though killing would be cool too" She sounded hopeful.

"No" Buffy said pointedly. "You're not killing. But go wild for the research"

Dawn grinned, and got up from the sofa, going to retrieve the laptop from the other room.

"You've gotta admire her enthusiasm. She's no slacker" Xander leant back on the sofa "I remember the days when I had that thirst for knowledge…"

"Xander, you never had that thirst for knowledge" Giles explained.

"I read the books!"

"No" Buffy said. "You looked at the pictures of the naked nymphs"

"Ah, yes. And very educational that was too"

"Not when I needed them it wasn't!" Giles said. There was a silent pause. "For research" He added.

The collective imagery threatened to cause the roof to cave in. In the other room, the Ikea table couldn't take anymore, and started to cry, wishing it was still disassembled in it's pre-packed box.

Xander shuddered. "I'm think I'm going to go read something…without pictures"

The others hastily followed him, leaving Giles stood alone in the living room.

"Well if they must have such dirty minds" He muttered.