Disclaimer: As much as I wish I could claim otherwise, I do not own Buffy or the Buffyverse. I don't own any of the characters associated with it, and I don't own any of the places Mr. Whedon invented to place therein. Nope. I'm just a guy who saw something in the series and was inspired by it (The offer to wash Mr. Whedon's car is still open, though).
Dee, however, is still mine, at least the character I've made her into. Mr. Whedon was nice enough to give her ten seconds of screen time in "Chosen."
Chapter 5
Dee was pretty sure she could hear her body screaming for air. Either that or her oxygen-starved brain was reinterpreting the animalistic growls of the beast that held her powerless as screams.
The grip on her throat, pressing hard against her windpipe was unbelievably strong. Her lungs felt like deflated balloons, and no matter what effort she put into it, she couldn't force them to expand.
Through the dark spots floating in front of her eyes, clouding her mind and whiting out every one of her five senses, she felt herself pulled free of the wall, and slammed back and forth between the walls of the narrow hallway. If she'd had any wind, she was certain it would have been knocked out of her. This thing, whatever it was, wanted her dead, but it apparently wanted her hurt first.
She felt herself slammed into another wall, although this one felt different. A little more horizontal than the last one. The floor, maybe; or the ceiling. It was getting hard to tell which.
I need air.
She felt herself slammed again into the wall, or some other unyielding surface.
In a smooth motion that seemed impossibly slow, she brought her left hand, knife-like into her assailant's elbow, forcing the arm to bend. Her right hand she brought up on the inside of his wrist, slapping it aside.
She felt his grip loosen, then release her. She fell to (she assumed) the floor, although it was still difficult to tell up from down. Her vision was clearing as fresh oxygen flooded her lungs. If she could just have a couple of seconds to get her bearings again…
She wasn't going to get those couple of seconds.
The creature pulled back and backhanded her under her right eye. It was a leisurely, almost relaxed motion. The kind you would reserve for swatting a fly. But the force behind it was phenomenal. Dee felt herself propelled upwards and down the hall. She hit the ground and skidded to a stop beneath the kitchen table.
Ouch.
What the hell was this thing?
No, scratch that. She knew what it was, even though her mind refused to believe it. The far more pertinent question was how the hell she got rid of this thing.
Okay, what did vam— these things have issues with? Wooden stakes, crosses, holy water, garlic, sunlight…
Where had she put the wooden stake that Oz had given her?
It was still in her inside jacket pocket.
And the jacket was in the closet in the hallway.
Behind the vam— the thing.
She needed a way out, and she doubted that just rushing him would work.
But it was worth a try.
She sprang to her feet and rushed at him, fists balled.
As expected, he responded with a hard punch in the center of her chest. This time, she landed atop the kitchen table, which collapsed under the strain.
"You're the slayer?" His voice was hard and soft. As though his vocal chords were unaccustomed to having air pushed through them.
"I'm not. I'm just trying to live my life. Why can't you just leave me the hell alone!?" Her ribs didn't quite feel right, and the flesh around her right eye was already beginning to swell. She could see bruises forming on her arms. Her right shoulder felt like it was dislocated.
"You're the chosen one. We can't have a slayer screwing up Osiris' plans."
"Hey, I've got nothing against this Osiris guy. I don't even know him."
"Well, he has something against you. So now," He leapt forward, straddling her, and opened his mouth, revealing his somewhat intimidating incisors, "You have to die."
Dee had never been able to hide her emotions. Anything she was feeling generally appeared unmistakably on her face. She'd never been able to control them either.
Now, she was feeling something dangerous. Something that burned through her veins like an uncontrolled wildfire. It tore through every muscle, every nerve, every tendon. It burned behind her eyes, overwhelmed every sense.
It was rage.
Pure, uncontrolled, unharnessed rage.
Her right hand came up, catching him open-palmed in the center of his mouth, followed immediately by her left hand coming up, open palmed under his chin.
She heard a very satisfying crunch as she felt his jaw shatter under her hand.
As she pulled her right hand away, a thin silver chain hung from his lips, and already steam was beginning to curl out of his mouth.
A look of panic spread across his face as he tried to open his mouth, but the muscles in his jaw no longer had anything to pull against to open. No bone. No structure. In one single blow, she'd effectively fused his jaw shut.
Almost casually, she reached down and picked up one of the table's broken legs. She hefted it, feeling its weight in her hands.
"Y'know, in the last two days, I've had people react to me in exactly two ways." She swung the table leg like a club, catching him on the side of the head. He stumbled backwards, steam still pouring out of his mouth.
"Either they want to kill me," She swung upwards, catching him under his already broken jaw.
"Or they treat me like I'm the second coming." She swung again.
"I didn't ask for this," Finally, the vampire fell under the impact of a fourth blow.
"I'm pretty sure I didn't want it." Dee didn't allow the fact that he was on the ground to stop her. She pummeled him mercilessly.
"But some bimbo decided thirteen years ago that my life was too boring, and dumped this on me." This blow caught him on the bridge of his nose.
"It's like my whole life has been charted out without my having the least say in the matter," the table leg came down atop his head. She felt something give, and she was fairly certain she heard a loud crack.
"And, frankly," She swung it, backhand, catching him under his right eye. His head rolled around on his shoulders, he was barely, well, whatever passed for conscious in a vampire.
She reversed her grip on the table leg, and plunged it into the center of his chest "I'm sick of it."
From the point of impact, she watched as a wave spread over his body, as though every bit of moisture had been sucked from him all at once, his skin dried and peeled away, his skeletal structure, complete with shattered jaw, crumbled. And from the space his mouth had once occupied, a stylish silver cross fell to the tile floor with the faintest ping.
Oz was roused from a deep slumber by a loud crash.
Almost instantly, he was awake and on his feet. It wasn't a vampire. He hadn't invited any that he knew of. He darted to the entryway of his house. The door had been booted inwards. Quite literally knocked off of its hinges. The person who had knocked it in still stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the moonlight.
In a motion that seemed impossibly fast, they rushed him, landing a single punch on the right side of his face.
He was thrown back and fell somewhat ungracefully on the carpeted floor.
"Hi, Dee." He picked himself up off of the floor and got a good look at her.
Her right eye was swollen almost to the point of being closed, her right arm hung at an odd angle from her shoulder, and she was walking with a severe limp. Bruises covered just about every inch of exposed skin and blood still flowed from a very nasty-looking gash above her left eyebrow. Her nose was bleeding uncontrollably.
"Rough night?"
