Title: Underworld Slayer Part 4 - Meeting the coworkers
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author
EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com
Spoilers: Anything goes
Summary: BTVS/Underworld crossover. Los Angeles has been a haven for those fleeing the vampire/lycan blood feud. That was until two new refugees arrived.
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.
Author's Note: Vampires in Underworld aren't souless. Buffyverse history has been altered accordingly.
DON'T MAKE THE DOCTOR ANGRY, read the sign.
Seeing it prominently displayed in Scooby Central's clinic, Michael Corvin wondered what it meant. The sign was positioned so that it was the very first thing anyone entering the clinic would notice. From the description he had been given, Michael knew that the clinic's intended patients included vampires, lycans, and demons as well as humans. Shouldn't it caution against making the PATIENTS angry?
"Hey, you're the new guy, aren't you?" a vampire said, interupting Michael's thoughts. The vampire was dressed in a style that Michael thought of as "casual business". He offered Michael his hand.
"Uh, yeah," Michael said, shaking the stranger's hand. "I'm Michael."
"Holden Webster," the vampire replied, grinning. "I'm Scooby Central's primary psychotherapist, the lone warrior chosen to battle Hellmouth Syndrome, spontaneous insanity in our ranks, and the epidemic of soap opera relationships."
"You're a shrink?" Michael asked, not quite sure if this guy was for real.
"Please, we in the mental health profession abhor that term," Holden said smoothly. "If you need a confidant to talk to, I'm your vampire. If you don't quite trust me, just look to the Slayer. She talks to me all the time, although I can't say about what. Everything my patients say to me is strictly confidential."
"You look a little young to be a doctor," Michael said carefully.
"Hey, I'm a vampire," Holden protested. "We're ageless, remember? That means we don't get old looking. I've had all the time in the world to."
"Oh please, Holden, you're young enough to be my grandson," a middle aged man said as he came out of a hallway. He was one of those "off" humans, making Michael wonder what he was exactly. The newcomer turned to Michael. "Don't let his smooth talking youngster fool you. The kid is still trying to get his psychology degree on the Internet. I'm the only one working in this clinic that has an actual medical degree of any kind. You must be my new assistant."
"I guess," Michael replied. "I'm Michael Corvin. I was a medical intern. Still am I guess."
"Wonderful to meet you," Michael's new boss replied. "I'm Doctor David Banner."
***
"Yo, have you heard?" asked the lycan. His name was Jamal. Back in his pre- lycan days, he had been just another street punk. Other than being able to wolf out at will now, he didn't look like he had left.
"Heard what my potentially furry friend?" asked the foppishly dressed vampire who called himself "Lestat". Everyone else called him something rude. In any case, "Lestat" claimed to be a centuries old aristocrat. Selene, who actually WAS a centuries old aristocrat, sensed that he was a newly made vampire.
Now that she thought about it, Selene had met precious few vampires - or lycans for that matter - that had been changed more that a decade ago. She idly wondered what happened to the older ones.
Xander had dropped Selene off with these two after her talk with Rupert Giles. She and a bunch of other "newbies" were to be taken on a routine patrol by an experienced Scooby. Selene was supposed to get a feel how the Scoobies operated. The other two were obviously raw recruits going on their first patrol.
Watching Lestat wave his epee around inexpertly, Selene privately pegged him as the one most likely to be the first casualty. Jamal at least seemed competent.
"Rumor from the wide world has it that the vampire/wolf feud's stopped," Jamal said. He suddenly had Selene's undivided attention even if she didn't outwardly show it, maintaining an air of supreme disinterest. Jamal swatted Lestat. "And don't call me furry, you pansy."
"Ah, has sense finally introduced itself to them?" Lestat asked, his fake french accent slipping a few times.
"Nah, it's fear," Jamal replied. "Apparently there's some kind of vamp/wolf hybrid monster on the rampage, taking out vampire covens right and left. The vamps are all focused on hunting this thing down. They think it's a threat to all vamp-kind. The wolves on the other hand, they think it's some kind of Messiah."
The lycan and foppish vampire stared at each other for long seconds. Then they broke out laughing together.
"I wonder... what they'd make of a Turok-Han," Lestat wheezed, accent completely gone.
"Or... or the Scourge," Jamal added.
They broke out into more laughter. Selene didn't know whether to be glad that they didn't think Michael was a threat, or annoyed that they considered her former family to be provincial and backward.
***
"You mean we're it?" Michael asked in surprise.
"Pretty much," Holden replied. "We three are the only people keeping the Scoobs all healthy and sane. I'm the guy specializing on the sane part, you're new, and the Doc turns into the angry green giant about once a week or so."
"How do three guys do that?" Michael asked. "Keep everyone healthy I mean. I heard that there's one or two hundred people working here."
"It's not quite so bad," Dr. Banner reassured him. "A lot of altered humans and demons have some kind of super healing and are resistant to disease. It seems like a popular feature that the ancient powers engineered into them. Regular humans tend to use public hospitals for routine medical work. We're mostly here for emergencies, treating battle wounds, and the occasional hell spawn malady that conventional medicine has never heard of."
"Okay, I see your point," Michael said thoughtfully.
"In the meantime, I occupy myself with research," Dr. Banner continued. "I'm doing comparative physiology, studying what makes us different and what makes us the same. My notes also have the added benefit of being useful in treating some of our more exotic patients. Er, do you mind if I run a few tests on you, Michael?"
"Why?"
"I understand you're a one of a kind?" Michael nodded. "Well, in that case, it would help if I had a record of what exactly is healthy for you. Just in case something happens to you, you understand."
"Of course." Michael sighed. "Okay, let's get this over with, Doctor."
"Call him 'Doc'," Holden suggested. "Everyone else does."
"Please, no," Dr. Banner said, exasperated. "Come this way, please." He led Michael to an examination room. Holden followed.
"So, can you give me an example of your research?" Michael asked.
"Hmm, trying to figure out what exactly gives a Slayer her powers has been interesting," Dr. Banner commented as he poked and prodded.
"How so?"
"Take the Summers sisters for example," Dr. Banner said. "The elder sister is a petite blonde Slayer. The younger sister is taller and has dark hair and most certainly isn't a Slayer. I suspect that line of research will be the key to unlocking the mechanism of Slayer powers. Whatever agent makes a girl into a Slayer seems to have altered the elder Summers' appearance."
"Why?" Michael asked, frowning. "Being sisters, I know they'd have similar DNA. But they couldn't be that similar."
"My boy, that's just it," Dr. Banner chuckled. "By some fluke, they have exactly identical DNA. If I hadn't known where they had come from, I'd swear that the DNA samples had come from identical twins!"
***
"Hi! I'm Dawn."
"Yo."
"Greetings, milady."
The dark-haired girl who next joined their little group certainly seemed human emough. Knowing what she knew now though, Selene was unwilling to make that assumption. In a group that consisted of two vampires and a lycan, it was only logical to conclude that this Dawn was a.
"Are you a Slayer?" Selene asked.
"Who me? No," Dawn replied. "I'm your team witch."
"Team witch?" Selene echoed, a question implicit in her tone.
"Yeah, witch," Dawn said. She held out her hand palm up and concentrated. Little green lights began dancing around above it. "It's a new thing we're trying. I'm sort of a combo field medic, forensic investigator, and radio operator. Oh, and I can do fire support if I have to." The lights over her hand merged and changed into a floating fireball.
"So, tell me, what exactly is magic?" Selene asked carefully. Childhood stories told to her by her mother danced in Selene's memories. Selene realized that the old tales had given her a medieval attitude toward witchcraft; the times she had grown up in were literally medieval after all. The fact that Selene's beliefs about lycans had completely changed recently helped her adjust. If lycans weren't what she had originally believed them to be, what about witches?
Dawn let the fireball dissipate and scrunched up her face. "Magic is the direct manipulation of quantum effects on a macroscopic scale by the human brain to create a desired result," she said, obviously reciting from rote memory.
"What does that mean?" Selene asked, confused.
"I haven't a clue," Dawn answered sheepishly. "But Willow made us memorize it anyway." She shrugged. "The magic lessons were focused more on application than theory anyway."
***
"Are you done, Doctor?" Michael asked.
"Maybe," Dr. Banner replied. "Do you have an alternate form?"
"A what?"
"Y'know, werewolves go furry. Vamps sprout fangs," Holden supplied helpfully. He nodded at Dr, Banner. "The Doc literally turns green and gains a few pounds."
"Oh, that," Michael said. "Yeah."
"Holden, are you deliberately trying to aggravate me?" Dr. Banner asked the vampire.
"Consider it part of your anger management therapy," Holden told him. "You gotta be able to withstand a little ribbing if you want to associate normally with people."
Dr. Banner shook his head and rolled his eyes before turning back to Michael. "If you can control yourself," he said to Michael, "I'd like to see your alternate form."
"So you can run more tests?" Michael asked.
"Of course."
"Well. okay," Michael agreed. He concentrated. and let himself go. His eyes went black with no hint of a difference between iris, pupil, or white. Michael's skinned paled to a dead white, the muscles underneath becoming much more visible and defined. The tips of his fingers changed into wickedly sharp claws. The bones in his legs morphed and rearranged themselves into a more wolfy arrangement.
"Huh, cool," Holden commented.
"Fascinating," Dr. Banner added.
"Glad you feel that way," Michael growled.
***
"Okay people, follow me," said a seemingly ordinary man as he barged through their little gathering without so much as looking at them. "My name is Ash and I'll be your guide tonight to L.A.'s underworld. In case you haven't heard, we're more like police officers than soldiers in an army. That means we ask questions first and shoot later unless there's a definite risk to life and limb, especially ours. Tonight, you do what I say and when I say it. If you can't, let me know now and we'll see if we can boot you off the force. Any questions?"
"Er, what are you?" Jamal asked as they followed Ash towards the armory.
"Me? I'm one hundred percent human, baby," Ash said. He held up his right hand. It was obviously plastic. "Except for the prosthetic hand, I don't have any augmentation of any kind. And before one of you kids starts a pissing contest over my credentials, I'd like to see you take out an army of animated skeletons first. Single-handedly."
There was silence for a moment.
"Whoa, you're THAT Ash?" Lestat asked, impressed enough to forget his accent again.
"Yeah," Ash grunted.
They arrived at the armory. Like the one at Selene's old coven, the Scooby armory was an open-air affair enclosed by a chain link fence though larger. Weapons of all kinds were racked neatly and sorted by type. In addition to a variety of guns, there were also numerous swords, axes, and other bladed weapons. There was a door that looked suspiciously like a vault door set against the adjoining wall. The armory's gate was wide open and no one was present. That looked like bad security to Selene.
Ash knocked on the lid of a trashcan that sat just next to the gate. "Hey, Oscar!" Ash shouted at the trashcan.
The lid lifted, revealing a furry green creature that reeked of garbage. "What d'ya want?" it asked grumpily, eyeing them suspiciously. It wore the trashcan lid like a hat.
"I'm taking a bunch of newbies out, Oscar," Ash told the demon. "I need to get them fitted out."
"Yeah, yeah, hold on a sec," Oscar grumbled. It - he? - reached down and pulled a clipboard out of the depths of his trashcan. "Yeah, here ya are. Go on in." Oscar disappeared back into his trashcan.
"Alright, kiddies, listen up," Ash said as he led them into the armory proper. "The recommended combat load for a Scooby is two guns and a melee weapon. Since the bulk of L.A.'s nightlife is of the vampire and werewolf variety, one gun is to be loaded with ammo gel rounds. The gel is a mix of silver nitrate and a UV radiant something invented by the previous tenants of Scooby Central. They're the bullets that glow in the dark."
Selene was familiar with gel rounds. Both vampires and lycans had just started using them when she had left their ranks. For obvious reasons, they hadn't combined the two substances together as the Scoobies had done. Selene wondered if she was going to have to kill a fellow vampire. The prospect didn't perturb her as much as she thought it should.
"Your second gun," Ash continued, hauling out several boxes of ammunition and putting them on a table, "will be loaded with Teflon coated armor piercers. Those are the bullets with the silvery-looking finish. Although they are popularly known as 'cop-killers', I like to call them 'demon-killers'. Some demons have some pretty good natural armor and gel rounds just suck at penetration. Not only that, most demons aren't allergic to silver or ultraviolet radiation anyway. However, an armor piercer in the brain will just about stop any demon, even if they can heal the injury. The trick sometimes is actually figuring out where they keep their brain. Don't forget to pick up extra magazines for your guns and definitely DO NOT FORGET which gun is loaded with what ammo."
Selene obediently loaded her guns with the recommended ammunition. Luckily, her own personal weapons used a common caliber, so she didn't have to resort to borrowing guns from the armory.
"Finally, there's your melee weapon. This one is mine," Ash said, picking up a chainsaw. "Whether you use a sword, axe, or baseball bat, sometimes bullets just don't cut it and you gotta resort to old fashioned WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"
Everyone jumped. Ash was glaring at the other human member of their party. Dawn had been examining a fire ax she had picked up. Someone had carved the end of ax's wooden handle carved into a sharp point.
"I'm your team witch," Dawn said defensively. She unconsciously held the fire ax in front of her in a ready position.
"You're the Slayer's sister!" Ash shouted at her. Selene suddenly realized that Dawn hadn't given her last name. No one else had. "I am not going to be responsible for you getting hurt!"
"Hey, I've been on patrol with Buffy," Dawn retorted, bristling. "And I didn't even know much magic back then. I can hold my own in a fight."
"No, absolutely not," Ash said resolutely. "I want another witch."
"Fine, I'll get the alternate for tonight," Dawn told him. There was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. "I hope you like Andrew better."
Ash hesitated. "Andrew. As in Andrew Wells?"
Dawn nodded.
"Don't go anywhere, kid," Ash told her. "Load up. You're with us tonight."
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author
EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com
Spoilers: Anything goes
Summary: BTVS/Underworld crossover. Los Angeles has been a haven for those fleeing the vampire/lycan blood feud. That was until two new refugees arrived.
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their owners who I'm too lazy to list.
Author's Note: Vampires in Underworld aren't souless. Buffyverse history has been altered accordingly.
DON'T MAKE THE DOCTOR ANGRY, read the sign.
Seeing it prominently displayed in Scooby Central's clinic, Michael Corvin wondered what it meant. The sign was positioned so that it was the very first thing anyone entering the clinic would notice. From the description he had been given, Michael knew that the clinic's intended patients included vampires, lycans, and demons as well as humans. Shouldn't it caution against making the PATIENTS angry?
"Hey, you're the new guy, aren't you?" a vampire said, interupting Michael's thoughts. The vampire was dressed in a style that Michael thought of as "casual business". He offered Michael his hand.
"Uh, yeah," Michael said, shaking the stranger's hand. "I'm Michael."
"Holden Webster," the vampire replied, grinning. "I'm Scooby Central's primary psychotherapist, the lone warrior chosen to battle Hellmouth Syndrome, spontaneous insanity in our ranks, and the epidemic of soap opera relationships."
"You're a shrink?" Michael asked, not quite sure if this guy was for real.
"Please, we in the mental health profession abhor that term," Holden said smoothly. "If you need a confidant to talk to, I'm your vampire. If you don't quite trust me, just look to the Slayer. She talks to me all the time, although I can't say about what. Everything my patients say to me is strictly confidential."
"You look a little young to be a doctor," Michael said carefully.
"Hey, I'm a vampire," Holden protested. "We're ageless, remember? That means we don't get old looking. I've had all the time in the world to."
"Oh please, Holden, you're young enough to be my grandson," a middle aged man said as he came out of a hallway. He was one of those "off" humans, making Michael wonder what he was exactly. The newcomer turned to Michael. "Don't let his smooth talking youngster fool you. The kid is still trying to get his psychology degree on the Internet. I'm the only one working in this clinic that has an actual medical degree of any kind. You must be my new assistant."
"I guess," Michael replied. "I'm Michael Corvin. I was a medical intern. Still am I guess."
"Wonderful to meet you," Michael's new boss replied. "I'm Doctor David Banner."
***
"Yo, have you heard?" asked the lycan. His name was Jamal. Back in his pre- lycan days, he had been just another street punk. Other than being able to wolf out at will now, he didn't look like he had left.
"Heard what my potentially furry friend?" asked the foppishly dressed vampire who called himself "Lestat". Everyone else called him something rude. In any case, "Lestat" claimed to be a centuries old aristocrat. Selene, who actually WAS a centuries old aristocrat, sensed that he was a newly made vampire.
Now that she thought about it, Selene had met precious few vampires - or lycans for that matter - that had been changed more that a decade ago. She idly wondered what happened to the older ones.
Xander had dropped Selene off with these two after her talk with Rupert Giles. She and a bunch of other "newbies" were to be taken on a routine patrol by an experienced Scooby. Selene was supposed to get a feel how the Scoobies operated. The other two were obviously raw recruits going on their first patrol.
Watching Lestat wave his epee around inexpertly, Selene privately pegged him as the one most likely to be the first casualty. Jamal at least seemed competent.
"Rumor from the wide world has it that the vampire/wolf feud's stopped," Jamal said. He suddenly had Selene's undivided attention even if she didn't outwardly show it, maintaining an air of supreme disinterest. Jamal swatted Lestat. "And don't call me furry, you pansy."
"Ah, has sense finally introduced itself to them?" Lestat asked, his fake french accent slipping a few times.
"Nah, it's fear," Jamal replied. "Apparently there's some kind of vamp/wolf hybrid monster on the rampage, taking out vampire covens right and left. The vamps are all focused on hunting this thing down. They think it's a threat to all vamp-kind. The wolves on the other hand, they think it's some kind of Messiah."
The lycan and foppish vampire stared at each other for long seconds. Then they broke out laughing together.
"I wonder... what they'd make of a Turok-Han," Lestat wheezed, accent completely gone.
"Or... or the Scourge," Jamal added.
They broke out into more laughter. Selene didn't know whether to be glad that they didn't think Michael was a threat, or annoyed that they considered her former family to be provincial and backward.
***
"You mean we're it?" Michael asked in surprise.
"Pretty much," Holden replied. "We three are the only people keeping the Scoobs all healthy and sane. I'm the guy specializing on the sane part, you're new, and the Doc turns into the angry green giant about once a week or so."
"How do three guys do that?" Michael asked. "Keep everyone healthy I mean. I heard that there's one or two hundred people working here."
"It's not quite so bad," Dr. Banner reassured him. "A lot of altered humans and demons have some kind of super healing and are resistant to disease. It seems like a popular feature that the ancient powers engineered into them. Regular humans tend to use public hospitals for routine medical work. We're mostly here for emergencies, treating battle wounds, and the occasional hell spawn malady that conventional medicine has never heard of."
"Okay, I see your point," Michael said thoughtfully.
"In the meantime, I occupy myself with research," Dr. Banner continued. "I'm doing comparative physiology, studying what makes us different and what makes us the same. My notes also have the added benefit of being useful in treating some of our more exotic patients. Er, do you mind if I run a few tests on you, Michael?"
"Why?"
"I understand you're a one of a kind?" Michael nodded. "Well, in that case, it would help if I had a record of what exactly is healthy for you. Just in case something happens to you, you understand."
"Of course." Michael sighed. "Okay, let's get this over with, Doctor."
"Call him 'Doc'," Holden suggested. "Everyone else does."
"Please, no," Dr. Banner said, exasperated. "Come this way, please." He led Michael to an examination room. Holden followed.
"So, can you give me an example of your research?" Michael asked.
"Hmm, trying to figure out what exactly gives a Slayer her powers has been interesting," Dr. Banner commented as he poked and prodded.
"How so?"
"Take the Summers sisters for example," Dr. Banner said. "The elder sister is a petite blonde Slayer. The younger sister is taller and has dark hair and most certainly isn't a Slayer. I suspect that line of research will be the key to unlocking the mechanism of Slayer powers. Whatever agent makes a girl into a Slayer seems to have altered the elder Summers' appearance."
"Why?" Michael asked, frowning. "Being sisters, I know they'd have similar DNA. But they couldn't be that similar."
"My boy, that's just it," Dr. Banner chuckled. "By some fluke, they have exactly identical DNA. If I hadn't known where they had come from, I'd swear that the DNA samples had come from identical twins!"
***
"Hi! I'm Dawn."
"Yo."
"Greetings, milady."
The dark-haired girl who next joined their little group certainly seemed human emough. Knowing what she knew now though, Selene was unwilling to make that assumption. In a group that consisted of two vampires and a lycan, it was only logical to conclude that this Dawn was a.
"Are you a Slayer?" Selene asked.
"Who me? No," Dawn replied. "I'm your team witch."
"Team witch?" Selene echoed, a question implicit in her tone.
"Yeah, witch," Dawn said. She held out her hand palm up and concentrated. Little green lights began dancing around above it. "It's a new thing we're trying. I'm sort of a combo field medic, forensic investigator, and radio operator. Oh, and I can do fire support if I have to." The lights over her hand merged and changed into a floating fireball.
"So, tell me, what exactly is magic?" Selene asked carefully. Childhood stories told to her by her mother danced in Selene's memories. Selene realized that the old tales had given her a medieval attitude toward witchcraft; the times she had grown up in were literally medieval after all. The fact that Selene's beliefs about lycans had completely changed recently helped her adjust. If lycans weren't what she had originally believed them to be, what about witches?
Dawn let the fireball dissipate and scrunched up her face. "Magic is the direct manipulation of quantum effects on a macroscopic scale by the human brain to create a desired result," she said, obviously reciting from rote memory.
"What does that mean?" Selene asked, confused.
"I haven't a clue," Dawn answered sheepishly. "But Willow made us memorize it anyway." She shrugged. "The magic lessons were focused more on application than theory anyway."
***
"Are you done, Doctor?" Michael asked.
"Maybe," Dr. Banner replied. "Do you have an alternate form?"
"A what?"
"Y'know, werewolves go furry. Vamps sprout fangs," Holden supplied helpfully. He nodded at Dr, Banner. "The Doc literally turns green and gains a few pounds."
"Oh, that," Michael said. "Yeah."
"Holden, are you deliberately trying to aggravate me?" Dr. Banner asked the vampire.
"Consider it part of your anger management therapy," Holden told him. "You gotta be able to withstand a little ribbing if you want to associate normally with people."
Dr. Banner shook his head and rolled his eyes before turning back to Michael. "If you can control yourself," he said to Michael, "I'd like to see your alternate form."
"So you can run more tests?" Michael asked.
"Of course."
"Well. okay," Michael agreed. He concentrated. and let himself go. His eyes went black with no hint of a difference between iris, pupil, or white. Michael's skinned paled to a dead white, the muscles underneath becoming much more visible and defined. The tips of his fingers changed into wickedly sharp claws. The bones in his legs morphed and rearranged themselves into a more wolfy arrangement.
"Huh, cool," Holden commented.
"Fascinating," Dr. Banner added.
"Glad you feel that way," Michael growled.
***
"Okay people, follow me," said a seemingly ordinary man as he barged through their little gathering without so much as looking at them. "My name is Ash and I'll be your guide tonight to L.A.'s underworld. In case you haven't heard, we're more like police officers than soldiers in an army. That means we ask questions first and shoot later unless there's a definite risk to life and limb, especially ours. Tonight, you do what I say and when I say it. If you can't, let me know now and we'll see if we can boot you off the force. Any questions?"
"Er, what are you?" Jamal asked as they followed Ash towards the armory.
"Me? I'm one hundred percent human, baby," Ash said. He held up his right hand. It was obviously plastic. "Except for the prosthetic hand, I don't have any augmentation of any kind. And before one of you kids starts a pissing contest over my credentials, I'd like to see you take out an army of animated skeletons first. Single-handedly."
There was silence for a moment.
"Whoa, you're THAT Ash?" Lestat asked, impressed enough to forget his accent again.
"Yeah," Ash grunted.
They arrived at the armory. Like the one at Selene's old coven, the Scooby armory was an open-air affair enclosed by a chain link fence though larger. Weapons of all kinds were racked neatly and sorted by type. In addition to a variety of guns, there were also numerous swords, axes, and other bladed weapons. There was a door that looked suspiciously like a vault door set against the adjoining wall. The armory's gate was wide open and no one was present. That looked like bad security to Selene.
Ash knocked on the lid of a trashcan that sat just next to the gate. "Hey, Oscar!" Ash shouted at the trashcan.
The lid lifted, revealing a furry green creature that reeked of garbage. "What d'ya want?" it asked grumpily, eyeing them suspiciously. It wore the trashcan lid like a hat.
"I'm taking a bunch of newbies out, Oscar," Ash told the demon. "I need to get them fitted out."
"Yeah, yeah, hold on a sec," Oscar grumbled. It - he? - reached down and pulled a clipboard out of the depths of his trashcan. "Yeah, here ya are. Go on in." Oscar disappeared back into his trashcan.
"Alright, kiddies, listen up," Ash said as he led them into the armory proper. "The recommended combat load for a Scooby is two guns and a melee weapon. Since the bulk of L.A.'s nightlife is of the vampire and werewolf variety, one gun is to be loaded with ammo gel rounds. The gel is a mix of silver nitrate and a UV radiant something invented by the previous tenants of Scooby Central. They're the bullets that glow in the dark."
Selene was familiar with gel rounds. Both vampires and lycans had just started using them when she had left their ranks. For obvious reasons, they hadn't combined the two substances together as the Scoobies had done. Selene wondered if she was going to have to kill a fellow vampire. The prospect didn't perturb her as much as she thought it should.
"Your second gun," Ash continued, hauling out several boxes of ammunition and putting them on a table, "will be loaded with Teflon coated armor piercers. Those are the bullets with the silvery-looking finish. Although they are popularly known as 'cop-killers', I like to call them 'demon-killers'. Some demons have some pretty good natural armor and gel rounds just suck at penetration. Not only that, most demons aren't allergic to silver or ultraviolet radiation anyway. However, an armor piercer in the brain will just about stop any demon, even if they can heal the injury. The trick sometimes is actually figuring out where they keep their brain. Don't forget to pick up extra magazines for your guns and definitely DO NOT FORGET which gun is loaded with what ammo."
Selene obediently loaded her guns with the recommended ammunition. Luckily, her own personal weapons used a common caliber, so she didn't have to resort to borrowing guns from the armory.
"Finally, there's your melee weapon. This one is mine," Ash said, picking up a chainsaw. "Whether you use a sword, axe, or baseball bat, sometimes bullets just don't cut it and you gotta resort to old fashioned WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"
Everyone jumped. Ash was glaring at the other human member of their party. Dawn had been examining a fire ax she had picked up. Someone had carved the end of ax's wooden handle carved into a sharp point.
"I'm your team witch," Dawn said defensively. She unconsciously held the fire ax in front of her in a ready position.
"You're the Slayer's sister!" Ash shouted at her. Selene suddenly realized that Dawn hadn't given her last name. No one else had. "I am not going to be responsible for you getting hurt!"
"Hey, I've been on patrol with Buffy," Dawn retorted, bristling. "And I didn't even know much magic back then. I can hold my own in a fight."
"No, absolutely not," Ash said resolutely. "I want another witch."
"Fine, I'll get the alternate for tonight," Dawn told him. There was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. "I hope you like Andrew better."
Ash hesitated. "Andrew. As in Andrew Wells?"
Dawn nodded.
"Don't go anywhere, kid," Ash told her. "Load up. You're with us tonight."