CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: ANGEL
(Based on the S1 AtS episode 'The Ring'. If you haven't seen this ep, prepare to be confused. It's the episode about the demon fighting arena in case you don't know your AtS eps by name)
Sunday: 6am
23rd August 1998
California: Los Angeles
She woke up to a noisy din of voices, footsteps and growling. She put a hand to her head, wincing as she felt a particularly tender spot. She opened her eyes and nearly panicked as she saw a set of metal bars surrounding her. She swallowed hard and got to her feet, walking to the edge of the cage. She heard a buzzer go off and the cage doors slammed open. Hesitantly, she stepped out.
Looking around her, she almost expected there to be other girls her age. Instead, she found the room filled with demons. She'd never seen so many demons in the one place in her life.
She absently scratched at her right wrist only to feel metal wrapped around it. There was a cuff on her wrist with no discernible line as to where it opened or how. On it were the Roman numerals 'XX'. She pulled at it but it wouldn't budge.
"Breakfast time slaves," a voice announced.
She looked to where someone had spoken. A human. She vaguely recognised him as the man she had seen just before she had blacked out the night before. Looking around, she saw a thick red line separating where the man stood from where the demons were kept.
She watched as the demons accepted a bowl of something that she didn't even want to put a name to. She had thought that the Council food was bad. This was a hundred times worse. Her stomach protested loudly, but she refused to eat.
"Slayer!" a voice yelled.
A burst of noise came from the demons. She swallowed nervously. She was in a foreign place with no weapons, and there was no way she could fight with every one of the demons here and walk away.
"Come here girl."
Buffy almost hesitated, but years of Travers' training kicked in. She walked up to the red line, about to cross over.
"Uh, uh, uh Slayer. Stay inside the red. Unless of course you wanna dust just like all the vamps you kill," the man taunted.
He was tall with a long ponytail running down his back. He was smirking at her while she just stared back at him, refusing to let anything show on her face.
"Bet you're wondering what this place is," he commented.
"I'm guessing it's not the Ritz," she quipped.
Some of the demons snickered behind her.
"You'd be guessing right little girl. You're a slave here. Our property until we let you go. As a professional demon killer, you'll fetch good money," he said.
"Let me guess, you make us fight while rich people cheer us on," Buffy said.
"Why not? I figure we're doing the world a favour. We're thinning out the demon population. We're the good guys," he said.
"In what world could you ever be good?"
The man just smirked and raised an eyebrow.
"I guess it doesn't matter whether we have a difference of opinions on that particular topic. Point is, you'll fight. Starting tonight, you'll be one of our top competitors."
"And then what?" she asked. "Where's the incentive?"
"Well, you get to live," he explained. "After twenty-one kills, we'll take of that there wrist cuff, and you get to walk outta here."
"I won't kill for sport," she said angrily.
He just shrugged and gave her a wink.
"We'll see."
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Wednesday: 10pm
26th August 1998
California: Los Angeles
Buffy walked out of the arena, blood on her hands. She hated every second of what she was doing. She'd never had a problem with killing demons before. Doing it in front of a crowd of about a hundred people though just seemed sick.
She was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. She hadn't slept in days, hadn't eaten anything either. She saw the looks that the demons had been giving her, and she refused to close her eyes even for a minute lest her guard be down.
Her jeans and shirt were ripped, and she had a multitude of new cuts and bruises that weren't healing as fast as they would have been had she been at full strength. She desperately needed sleep in order to heal, but she couldn't risk it. She knew that if she closed her eyes even for a minute she wouldn't ever wake up again.
She sat herself against a wall, not bothering to try and fight for a seat at the table. She had tried that once and had quickly learnt that it wasn't worth the hassle.
She heard a commotion coming from the other demons and looked up curiously. She rolled her eyes as she realised that it was only a new contender. She got a better look. Vampire. Brown hair, brown eyes, a white singlet shirt and black jeans. He looked like a fighter.
She could only hope that he stayed away from her. At least the other demons didn't crave human blood. She knew that a vampire kept down here would go insane with only the slop they called food to live on.
She droned out the sounds and concentrated on anything rather than the pain and hunger that she was feeling. She was miserable and home-sick. She could only pray that Giles had worked out what had happened to her. Although, how he could get her out was completely beyond her.
So caught up in her internal musings, she completely missed that the vampire had taken a seat beside her, leaning against the wall. She felt the familiar prickles on the back of her neck, but somehow, there was something different about the vampire sitting next to her.
She turned to look at him and her breath caught involuntarily in her throat. In a different life where she wasn't the Slayer and he wasn't a vampire, she would have been incredibly attracted to him. She studied him for a moment, the two of them staring at each other. Buffy finally worked out why he felt so different from all the other vampires. Her eyes narrowed in confusion.
"You've got a soul," she whispered.
He looked at her surprised.
"How did you know that?" he asked.
She shrugged and looked away, embarrassed by how intently she had been staring.
"I can just tell. You feel…different from the others," she explained.
"You're good," he complimented. "Most Slayers can't feel the difference at all."
She sighed, wondering how many Slayers this vampire had faced.
"How'd it happen?" she asked, genuinely curious. The Council had never said that vampires could have souls. She wondered whether she had inadvertently killed any soulful vampires in her early slaying days.
"Killed the wrong girl and ended up with a soul," he explained.
"Harsh," she said, feeling sympathetic towards him. She knew more than enough about vampires to understand how they worked. The souls left the body and the demon took over. To suddenly have a soul and feel guilt for something that you had no control over would have been excruciating.
There was silence for a moment before he spoke again.
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
"I dunno," she replied honestly. "It's all kinda blending in together at the moment. I'm on my fourth kill."
"You don't like killing these demons do you?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"It's funny really. Out in the real world, I'd kill these guys without a seconds hesitation, but…in that arena…it feels wrong. Slaughtering demons so people can be entertained. It's sick," she said.
He nodded and finally got a better look at her.
"You're a lot older than most of the Slayers I've met," he commented.
"And?"
"Nothing. I'm just saying. How old are you anyway?" he asked.
"Seventeen," she replied.
He was over two hundred and forty and he couldn't stand the thought of being in this prison. To be seventeen and trying to deal with it would be horrible.
Buffy put a hand to her mouth to cover a yawn and leant her head against the wall tiredly. She closed her eyes for as long as she dared and then forced herself to open them.
"You're tired," he commented softly.
She shrugged. "No way in hell I'm sleeping. If these demons don't wanna kill me, I'm sure they can think of other ways to torture me."
"The only girl in a roomful of guys, regardless of the species," he commented.
"Yes, thank you so much for voicing that paranoid thought. So very comforting," she snapped.
He flinched at the harshness in her tone and Buffy felt a little guilty about it.
"I'm sorry. I'm just…I'm tired and I'm hungry and…I just really wanna go home," she said.
"I know the feeling," Angel said.
She looked at him curiously. "You've got people waiting for you?" she asked.
"A couple of 'em, yeah," he said. "Doyle and Gunn."
"Humans?"
"Well, Doyle's half demon half human. He's a good guy. Irish. Drinks like a fish," he explained. "Gunn's all human and he really can't explain why he hangs out with the likes of us."
"And you? What do you do?" she asked.
"I help those who need helping."
"Why?"
He chuckled. "To earn my redemption. Like that's possible. I can't ever make up for what I did."
She looked away when she heard the sadness in his tone.
"You got a name?" she asked suddenly.
"Angel."
"Pretty name," she commented. "You go by that when you were evil?"
"I was pretty into irony," he said.
She grinned. "I'll bet. Demon with the face of an angel."
She yawned again, not even trying to hold it back.
"If I swear on my soul that you'll live through the night, will you at least consider sleeping for a while?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"You don't trust me?" he asked.
"There are two types of people that I don't trust. Vampires and men. Male vampires are really at the bottom of the barrel," she said.
"I could knock you out and make you sleep," he said. "Look, you're gonna need your strength come tomorrow night. If you don't sleep, you won't make it through the first minute."
She sighed and nodded, knowing that he was right and hating every second of it.
"If you so much as lay a hand, fist or fang on any part of my body, so help me, I will rip off your head and stick it up your ass before you have a chance to turn into dust," she warned.
"I'll take that into consideration," he said solemnly.
She couldn't help but laugh and, for the first time in days, she let herself close her eyes.
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Saturday: 10pm
29th August 1998
California: Los Angeles
She'd been in hell for nearly seven days now and fighting in front of a cheering crowd wasn't getting any easier. She'd killed eleven demons now, and each of them disgusted her to the core. She was, however, fighting considerably better now that she was sleeping again. She and Angel had struck up a sort of friendship where he would protect her while she slept and she would do the same for him. When they weren't sleeping, they were talking. She dreaded the day that they would be matched against each other.
"You're quick," Angel commented as she sat down upon re-entering the caged area. She had just won another fight, her body aching terribly. She had been lucky to only have to fight once after having done several double matches on the previous four evenings. She was, as Mr McNamarra had told her she would be, a crowd pleaser.
"Well, I work out," she quipped.
He grinned, something that he wasn't known for doing. He couldn't believe that he was even capable of smiling in this place. He knew it was because of her.
A demon approached them and Buffy tensed, wondering what it wanted. To her surprise, it sat down with them.
"You're a good fighter, Slayer," it said.
"Thanks," she said, a little wary of what it wanted.
"I'm not looking forward to going against you. Either one of you," he said.
"I've seen you fight," Angel said. "You're pretty decent."
"All the demons here are pretty decent. Well, at least when it comes to fighting," he said. "Any other time, I'd be telling you I'm pretty indecent, y'know."
Buffy and Angel shared a look, wondering why the demon was talking and joking with them.
"You got a name?" Angel asked.
"Melish," it replied. "I'm a gracknal demon."
"Gracknal?" Buffy repeated. "They're peaceful demons. Not fighters."
"You've done you're homework," Melish said. "And yeah I'm peaceful. I don't want to kill nobody, least of all people. I've got friends who are human. I may be a demon, but…I'm not a bad guy."
Angel could remember Whistler telling him exactly the same thing. Not all demons were bent on the destruction of all life.
"How much longer are you in here for?" Angel asked.
"Another twelve," Melish replied. "I have a feeling I'm up against Trepkos next. Not a fight I wanna be part of."
"Trepkos," Buffy mused. "He's strong. He's weak on his left side though. He favours his right too much, so you can keep to his left and make him strike at you from his weak spot. He's determined though. He's only got three fights left."
"I'm planning on walking out of that arena after my twenty-one. You can be assured of that," Melish said. "I wanna get back to my wife and kids."
Buffy looked at him strangely. To hear that a demon wanted to be set free so he could go back to his family seemed to strange, so…human. She wanted the exact same thing, to walk out and be back with Giles, Joyce, Faith, Ethan and Dawn.
"You guys got family waiting for you?" he asked.
"Yeah," they both replied, a little wistfully.
Melish looked towards Buffy. "You're Watcher must be goin' nuts."
She nodded sadly. "At least he knows that I'm not dead though. You're family's probably wigging big time."
She picked up some strange slang from Willow and Xander and it had stuck with her, much to Giles' dismay. The word 'wigging' was her current favourite.
"Well, if that means what I think it means, then, yeah. Major wigging," he replied.
Buffy stretched out her sore muscles and purposely cracked her back, sighing happily when it fell back into place. She closed her eyes tiredly and leant against Angel's shoulder. She couldn't believe that she trusted him, but true to his word, he hadn't touched her at all.
"I never thought I'd see the day when a vamp and a Slayer shacked up together," Melish commented.
"We're hardly 'shacked up' as you so vulgarly put it," Buffy said, using her best Gilesean reprimand voice. "And we wouldn't even be this close if it weren't for all the others looking at me like I'm the answer to all their problems."
Melish looked completely chastised and hurried to apologise to her. Angel just silently chuckled and let the Slayer fall asleep on his shoulder, watching over her as she slept. He and Melish continued talking well into the night.