CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: MEETINGS
The Scoobies sat around the library, books in front of them, the majority of them pretending to research, while only Giles, Joanna, Wesley, Oz and Willow were actually doing anything even slightly productive. Cordelia and Xander had volunteered to go on a pizza run, though they were running far later than they should have been. No one was particularly worried about them though. Buffy and Faith were sitting beside each other, their knees brushing against each other, as they stole glances every few seconds. Whenever they managed to catch each other looking, they would smile, bite their lips in an effort not to start laughing, and force themselves to look away.
Just as Buffy and Faith had once again caught each others gazes, they were distracted by Oz's short exclamation.
"Hey, woah."
Everyone turned to look at the quiet young man, wondering what had caused the sudden outburst. Willow leant across to see what Oz was talking about.
"Hey, big hey woah," Willow commented. In front of her was two photos of what looked to be the exact same person, except one had been taken over a hundred years earlier. "Talk about 'like father like son'."
"How about 'like exact same guy, like exact same guy'," Oz corrected her.
Willow slid the two photographs over to Giles, who studied them closely. Wesley, feeling that he had more of a right to look at them than Giles did, took them forcefully. Giles contained the urge to roll his eyes.
"Mayor Wilkins is over one hundred years old. He's not human," Wesley said with an air of authority.
Buffy and Faith shared a glance. Buffy turned her attention to Wesley, one eyebrow raised.
"Gee, what gave it away?" she asked sarcastically.
Wesley just glared at her and looked once more at the photographs.
"So…is he immortal? A demon? He can't be a vampire, we've seen him in the sunlight," Willow commented.
"My first guess would be immortal," Giles replied.
"Which puts him in the not-human category," Buffy noticed. "Which means that Faith and I can kill him. I mean, he's kinda extremely evil right?"
"Evil or no, he's still rather high profile," Wesley said, looking down his nose at the blonde Slayer. Buffy just rolled her eyes. "Which would mean, that, no…killing him wouldn't be the best of plans at this particular juncture."
Faith stared at the inept Watcher incredulously. "What, you want us to wait until he ascends? Cos, I'm thinking that's not the brightest of plans."
"I second that," Oz commented.
Willow and Buffy both nodded their agreement.
"I never thought I'd say this, but Wesley is right," Giles said.
The Scoobies turned to look at Giles, all of them showing their shock. Giles removed his glasses, feeling slightly flustered. He wiped the lenses on a handkerchief before replacing them on his face.
"If we attack the Mayor and kill him, we'd be risking being caught by police," Giles explained. "And an incarcerated Slayer wouldn't be good for anyone."
"I second that," Buffy said quietly taking hold of Faith's hand.
"So what are we meant to do?" Willow asked, a distinct note of nervousness in her voice.
It was at that moment that Xander and Cordelia walked back into the library, each of them holding several boxes of pizza as well as a few bottles of soda.
"Well, we could tell the entire town that the Mayor's evil and have them all try and kill him with flame throwers," Xander quipped.
The Scoobies and the Watchers all turned to look at Xander.
"Or in the alternative…how 'bout we don't?" Faith replied dryly.
Xander shrugged and put the pizza in front of everybody, Joanna frantically scrambling to move the books and ancient tomes before any grease could stain the priceless volumes. Faith glared at her Watcher as she took in the very unsubtle move.
"Geez, I spill a can of soda over one of your ancient prophecies one time, and I'm forever labelled as a menace to society," Faith said.
"You were just bloody lucky that we'd already translated the most important portion of that prophecy Faith," Joanna replied, her voice icy at the memory of Faith's mistake.
Faith just laughed a little. "You always said that caffeine was the root of all evil."
Buffy and the other Scoobies smirked at the Watcher and Slayer's interaction, finding it endlessly fascinating.
"It wasn't funny then, and it's not funny now," Joanna replied, a scowl firmly in place.
Faith just grinned, not even the slightest bit sorry about it. "Yes it is."
The three Watchers looked somewhat outraged by Faith's comment. Joanna looked to Buffy for help, but the blonde girl just smirked.
"I'm with Faith on this one, sorry guys."
"There's a big surprise," Cordelia commented.
"Y'know, I wouldn't mind seeing you with Faith on this, Buffster," Xander said with a grin.
The comment was met with the usual slap upside the head, the general rolling of the eyes, and the all around silence after the lewd comment.
Wesley cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Perhaps we should get back to the matter at hand."
"He's right," Faith said. She just shrugged at the questioning glances of the Scoobies. "Pizza!"
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Buffy shifted uncomfortably from her hiding spot outside City Hall. She and Faith were on a re-con mission that Wesley had decreed was absolutely necessary. Faith was getting restless, and a restless Slayer was never a good thing.
"What are we doing here again?" Faith asked quietly.
Buffy rolled her eyes, marvelling at the attention span of her girlfriend.
"Were you even listening during that meeting?" Buffy asked with a grin.
"Is it my fault that I'm easily distracted?"
"You're like a five-year-old with ADD."
Faith hit Buffy's upper arm playfully, and was about to pull her girlfriend (again, she mentally rejoiced…) but was stopped by Buffy suddenly tensing completely. Faith knew enough about Buffy to know that she'd just gone into full Slayer mode. Faith turned her attention back to the mission at hand.
Willow had hacked into the Mayor's files and had discovered that a delivery was to be made to City Hall that very evening. They weren't certain what it was going to be, just that it had been difficult to access those particular files, which in turn led to much suspicion. The Chosen Two were to try and discover what exactly the delivery was, and try to intercept it if it was at all possible.
A limousine pulled up in front of City Hall, and the two Slayers watched quietly as two vampires emerged holding a large box. Buffy and Faith exchanged a silent glance before leaping out from their hiding spots and heading the vampires off before they could get into the building. Faith attacked the first vampire, who was definitely not a fledgling. The vampire could actually fight, and would have given Faith a run for her money if she hadn't been so keyed up.
The second vampire, the one with the box, was less eager to get into a fight with Buffy. He kept the box in his hands as he tried to fend off Buffy's attack, except it was hard for him to counter-attack when he was so weighed down. Eventually, in his anger, he cast the box aside and gave his all to the fight.
Both Slayers ducked, punched, dodged and fought to the best of their abilities, quickly overcoming their two vampiric foes. With the two vampires suddenly back to back, Buffy and Faith simultaneously staked their victims. They grinned at each other through the settling dust and exchanged a high-five.
"Synchronised slaying," Buffy commented.
"New Olympic category," Faith agreed. She pulled Buffy towards her and kissed her, running her hands along the blonde girls back. Buffy lost herself in the moment, forgetting what they'd come to City Hall for. She sighed happily, but eventually pulled away as oxygen became an issue.
Faith reached her hand up to touch Buffy's hair, tucking a strand of it behind Buffy's ear. Buffy smiled softly at the taller girl and leant towards her for another kiss. Faith was only too happy to oblige. They reluctantly pulled apart completely and Buffy turned away to grab the box, thankful that it hadn't gone missing in the aftermath of the fight.
"C'mon, let's get this back to Giles."
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Giles, Wesley and Joanna stared at the large box that rested on the library desk, each of them with equally intrigued expressions on their faces. Wesley was flicking through books, making annoying 'hmmm' noises every few seconds, causing the other two Watchers and the Scoobies (minus Cordelia, who had left an hour earlier, too bored to actually stay and help) to roll their eyes and suppress the urge to choke the man.
"Eureka!" Wesley yelled, pushing his chair back and standing up in his excitement.
"He actually says 'eureka'?" Faith asked incredulously.
Buffy just shrugged and looked expectantly at Wesley. "Any particular reason you've gone all Archimedes on us?"
Giles looked at his Slayer in shock. "You know who Archimedes is?"
Buffy glared at him. "I don't sleep through all my classes y'know."
"I thought that you got that from that show on the Cartoon Network we were watching the other week," Xander said, looking confused.
Buffy kicked his shins under the table. "You're meant to be on my side."
Giles smirked knowingly and turned the focus of the conversation back to Wesley. "What did you discover?"
"It's called the Box of Gavrok," Wesley explained, drawing himself up to his proper height. He glanced over the text again and paled significantly. "Good Lord."
"I hate when they say that," Xander commented dryly.
"Contained within the box are approximately fifty or so billion creatures known as Arachnoxias. Creatures with the physical appearance of spiders, only larger. They are capable of killing a human being in less than ten seconds. They eat flesh and are incredibly aggressive. They move with immense speed and if just one was to be released, it would be the end of us all," Wesley said.
They sat in silence for a moment, taking in what Wesley had said.
"So, that would be a 'no' vote to opening Pandora's Box," Oz said quietly.
"Rather unanimously I should think," Giles replied.
"So why does the Mayor need the box? Cos…spiders…ugh," Willow shuddered.
"Well, according to this," Wesley began, pointing back at the book in front of him, "it indicates that in order to fully ascend, it would be imperative to ingest at least a dozen of the creatures contained within the box. Without this ritual, the Ascension would be null and void."
"Wait, wait…ingest? As in eat the spiders?" Faith asked, scrunching her nose in disgust. "That's wicked gross."
"Alright, so…obvious question…how do we destroy it?" Buffy asked.
"Well, it's not just physically. It has to be done ritually as well, with some down and dirty black magic," Willow explained. A smile came to her face at the thought of being able to perform magic to help the group out. She liked being able to do more than just float pencils.
"Hang on, we don't know what such a ritual would require," Wesley said, looking disapprovingly at the Scoobies. He really didn't like the way they raced into plans without giving them proper thought.
"I think the Breath of the Atropyx is fairly standard for this sort of thing," Giles said quickly, a small smile of satisfaction creeping onto his face at being able to get one up on Wesley. He flipped through his book of Dark Rituals and passed it to Xander. "Fairly simple recipe. Xander?"
"I know…I'm ingredient getting guy," Xander said taking the book and looking through it.
"Faith and Buffy should stay here," Joanna said. "Just in case any of the Mayor's lackeys decide to try and get it back."
Giles nodded his agreement and looked at Oz and Willow. "Perhaps the two of you could escort Xander to the Magic Store. Safety in numbers and all that."
Willow and Oz nodded and stood up, shrugging into their jackets. "I'll drive," Oz said as the trio walked out of the library.
The Watchers turned back to their books. Buffy and Faith couldn't help but grin when all three Watchers picked up their teacups at exactly the same time.
"How did we get stuck with the Brit brigade?" Faith whispered.
"Dunno. Think they'd notice if we found a corner behind the stacks?"
Faith grinned at the question and looked at the Watchers who were thoroughly engrossed in their reading. She hesitated a moment longer before grabbing Buffy by the hand and racing up the stairs.
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S&K.