TEASER
SIRACUSA, ITALY - NIGHT
It was a dark night in the Sicilian town square. Robin Wood was thrown back against the trunk of his parked rental car. Some feet away, Faith stood in an old, Corinthian fountain, soaking wet with her face cut and battered.
"Give up?" she grunted, pulling herself back into fighting stance. Robin found his footing, drawing himself over to the sidewalk, where an injured Sicilian child was hiding herself under the table of an outdoor cafe. "Hey, where you think you're goin'?" Faith asked, leaping out of the fountain and crossing the square to Robin. "Party's over here!" Reaching her prey, she broke into a roundhouse kick....
SCHOONSELHOF CEMETERY - NIGHT
A vampire fell back to the ground in a Belgian cemetery, grasping the arrow in his chest before exploding in a cloud of dust. Above his ashes stood Willow, holding her discharged crossbow. She reloaded it with conviction, starring down at the remains with a resolved expression.
"That'll put marzipan in your-." A hand reached out in the dark and grabbed Willow's shoulder. Thoroughly startled, she spun around shrieking like a little girl, her crossbow discharged again. One could hear the distant roaring sound of a vamp dusting in the background as Willow found her center and realized it was only Kennedy that grabbed her.
"Geeze, Will!" Kennedy barked, lowering her sword. "You need to get it together!"
"I'm 'together'," Willow argued. "I'm totally in the all together, but you can't just sneak up on someone when they're in kill-mode."
"Right, more like kitten-up-a-tree mode."
"Well, kinda fighting my way out of the big acre o'dead people, and-. Wait, where's Elise?" They heard a girl scream and turned to see....
LA BOCA, ARGENTINA - DAY
Giles slipped in and out of consciousness as he lay at the mouth of a sunlit alleyway, out behind a little cafe in a small, Buenos Aires neighborhood. Further down the alley, Buffy battled fiercely with a huge, spiny black demon. She took the lid from a nearby trash barrel to fend off it's spines, already swinging a chain she found. They exchanged blows.
"Maybe you're not hip to rules of the game, tiny," she panted. "We fight," she smashed his face with the chain, "you die," she kicked him back against the wall, "and I get to finish my coffee and little cookie thing...." She went in for the final blow when an Argentinean girl with a large book titled "Monstrorum Umbrarum" darted out from the back entrance and over to Giles.
"¿Necesita usted la ayuda, Sr. Giles?" she asked desperately, standing over him and hugging her book. The demon turned to the girl and swatted her across the alley.
"Matia, stay down!" Buffy yelled. The spiny demon turned back to Buffy and slammed her back into the wall.
SIRACUSA
A large, ancient looking vampire reeled backward from Faith's roundhouse, keeping him at a safe distance from Robin and the girl. Feeling her stride, Faith launched into defensive martial arts positions.
"You like my 'Taste of the Matrix' combo?" she gasped, smiling painfully. As the vamp recoiled, Faith gingerly punched him in the nose and backhanded him, all the while making Hong Kong Fooey punctuation-al cries. "How 'bout my Praying Mantis?" As the vamp charged her down, he burst into ashes. She had whipped out her stake and dusted him. Robin, who had been comforting the child, looked dubiously up at Faith.
"Praying Mantis?" he asked.
"Yeah," she grunted matter-of-factly, a note of exhaustion in her voice. "They kill vampires."
SCHOONSELHOF CEMETERY
A Belgian girl had tripped backward when a vamp emerging from the ground had grabbed her ankle. She landed screaming between two graves as hands burst through the surface of there freshly dug plots. Willow struggled to reload her crossbow and Kennedy rushed the furthest vamp, taking his head with her sword. As she engaged with and killed a second vampire, one had managed to creep up behind her, getting her by the neck as she turned. Before he could go in for the kill, he dusted, and as the dust cleared, Willow stood in front of Kennedy, pale and shocked, an arrow clutched in her hand.
"See?" she said in a weak voice. "Together." And she fainted dead away.
LA BOCA
Buffy struggled with the spiny demon, clearly having lost the upper hand. The girl, Matia, had sat Giles up, trying to revive him.
"Despierte, Sr. Giles!" she begged. Giles opened his eyes, his face twisted with pain. "Aquí, tome tu libro," she said gently, prompting him to hold the open book.
"Ah, sí," he gasped, straightening his glasses. "Gracias, Matia." He took the book from her and looked up at the demon, speaking defiantly in Latin. "Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina!" He read aloud: "Quassa hostes mei!" The spiny demon's outer shell shattered, the innards erupting in black slime, exploding on them all. Buffy panicked and shielded herself with the trash lid. Matia and Giles were completely doused in guts and slime. "Pequeña puta!" Giles groused to himself fractiously, slipping on ooze as he struggled to his feet. Buffy dropped her makeshift weapons and sighed as her cell phone rang.
SIRACUSA
Faith's cell phone rang. She answered.
"What?"
SCHOONSELHOF CEMETERY
Willow sat woozily on a tombstone, answering her cell phone.
"Yeah? Oh, hey! Hi!"
LA BOCA
Buffy answered her call.
"Xander?" she spoke up hastily. "Wha- yeah, we're fine." Giles gave her a dirty look as he mopped his face with his handkerchief. "Is it ready?" she pressed on. "...Good. We're on our way." She put away her cell and folded her arms with an imperturbable expression, making Giles look at her analytically. "It's time."
NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA - DAY
A beautiful autumn morning at the newly erected Summerland Academy. A number of girls were filing into the large multipurpose auditorium adjacent to the main school building as the shrill sound of a whistle broke the forest's silence. Andrew Wells' nervous voice could be heard coming over the P.A. system.
"Good morning, slayers an' everybody, and welcome to Orientation Day at 'Summerland: School for the Gifted'. I am Andrew, you're master of ceremonies, wishing you a happy and constructive school year. Somebody hid my Queen record and my Breakfast Club soundtrack, so I'll be treating you to selections from 'Peter and the Wolf'. I can be found broadcasting from the old lodge today, should culprit choose to return my property. And remember those ponchos and galoshes tonight, ladies, because there's a chance of showers in the weekend forecast...."
Buffy Summers, Robin wood, and Rupert Giles stood before the sea of young slayers, handing out colors coded folders. Giles tried to rein in the chaos by getting the girls' attention with a small pea whistle. He sounded it intermittently while directing the girls toward the main set of doublewide school issue doors. Rona followed behind two new Slayers, rolling her eyes acrimoniously at Giles.
"There's always gotta be some control with these people. Honestly, sometimes I don't know why I'm here." A few girls giggled and a rather young looking girl about the age of twelve voiced her own view of Rona's comment.
"To learn to be a Slayer? They're supposed to be the only ones left in the world who know about Slayers, right?"
"I hear there's a few people in L.A.," said a skater-y girl just before she popped a wad of gum into her mouth. "Maybe even England. Show's what you know, short stack."
Rona and the other two girls bulldozed into the crowd, each one pushing into the other and ultimately into Giles, who was overtaken in the commotion. Buffy sighed as the whistle got louder for a moment, then groaned loudly in frustration. She and Robin turned their attention to the slayers, never noticing Giles's disappearance.
"It's all coming back to me," Buffy grumbled. "School was never really my thing. But, the first day can be fun. New people, new clothes, no homework. Just as long as you're not confused out of your mind."
"There's an air of innocence about it, isn't there?" Robin asked with a certain amount of agreement. "They look so eager, so ready for anything. I wonder if they really know what they're getting into?"
"I think some of them do," Buffy mused as she mechanically handed binder after binder to each girl that passed her. "At least most of them've learned the basic 'vampire bad' in the short time they've been slayers."
"Were you that eager?"
"No, I was terrified. I mean, I was this happy, dumb cheerleader, all about boys and the many shades of nail polish. I thought vampires were things in movies. Nobody warned me that I was gonna be...y'know, chosen."
"Yikes," Robin sympathized with a grimace as he passed off the last of his binders. "Most of them are warned, trained first once they've been noted as a potential."
"That's what I hear at least," Buffy shrugged. "I never did get the Slayer Handbook version of it."
"It's a boring read, really. Archaic morals, contradicting motifs...."
"You've read the handbook?" She shook her head as she handed her own last binder out. "God, can someone get me a Xeroxed copy so I'm not the last person on earth to read it!?"
"It was my mother's," Robin chuckled. "You mean you never got one? That explains a lot." She threw him a dirty look. "Anyway," he went on, "I think it should be revised.... Which is what I would've said, had the Council not be vaporized."
"Hey," she said to herself with a wicked smirk. "Now there's a whole council of slayers, and Giles is the only watcher.... Sweet revenge!"
"Uh, don't be too hard on him," he laughed.
"Are you kidding? My day has come! Hey, Giles!?" Buffy turned gloatingly to look for him, realizing just then that he'd disappeared. "Huh. He's starting to that thing where he's gone now, too. Maybe I really should get collars with bells on them -- or maybe I should give out more whistles...." They looked at each other and shook their heads in disgust. "Nah." They heard a faint, high-pitched sound coming from the hallway beside the multipurpose room. "Ooh, that would be the chosen one. Come on, I think he needs rescuing...." They went inside and followed the sound of panicked whistling to the connecting hallway.
"Where did he get that whistle?" asked Robin.
"At the gift shop in Buenos Aires, I think." She started to fume as she recalled the trip. "He said it was for directing the 'different houses' of students, or something, but lately he's been blowing it to emote. When he's mad, when someone's not listening-. I think I ever heard him blow it when he was hungry."
"So I'm guessin' you wanna stomp it into tin foil?"
"Stomp somethin'...." They stopped in front of the teacher's lounge, where they found Giles looking over the modest accommodations, totally lost. He glanced over his shoulder at them as they entered the room, letting the whistle fall from his lips to hang on the ball chain around his neck. He cleared his throat.
"We really ought to place signs on the inside of the doors as well as out," Giles noted, trying to sound casual, but looking utterly nonplussed. "Promote a feeling of orientation and simplicity.... Where am I, exactly?"
We cut to the southern end of the school. Xander was giving Dawn a tour of the campus before classes started. They walked down a hallway, heading to the new library.
"This place is so the kick!" Dawn gushed, giddy as she looked the school over. "When Angel called and said he'd be financing us, I thought we were gonna end up with clap board and those cheap-ass Sims doors. Or something all gothic."
"Yeah," Xander sighed, "when the crews came down here, he'd drop by every night and make this big stink about tempered glass in the windows. Lucky for us, I was here to supervise."
"Xander, I don't think you were supposed to do that."
"Hey, I'm a licensed professional. Well, not 'licensed' in the sense of having one anymore, but that's just a formality, think some Mormons. I have experience, baby."
"Couldn't have gone the extra mile and supervised us up a Starbucks?" she asked. As they entered the library, Dawn was flabbergasted by the scale of it.
The library at Summerland was dark and labyrinthine, every inch of wall space covered in books, all bathed in the beautiful and eerie morning glow from the over-large picture windows and the panoramic skylights above. It had a full two stories, the second of which could be accessed by a great, oak staircase. The main floor had a large pentagon like seating area, where the floor was sunken in a few feet, carpeted stairs leading down into it. Dawn thought it looked like an empty pool, and had the fleeting urge to fill it with water.
"Dawny," Xander began proudly, "say hello to the new Bat Cave."
"Hello, new Bat Cave," she gasped, gazing around her in wonder. "It's so...bookie. Did you help with this?"
"Well, I put in my two cents." He gestured to a massively large, reinforced book cage to the right of the door. "Figured it'd come in handy. Want me to lock you up before classes? Test the durability?" He held the door open for her, making her roll her eyes at the geekiness of it.
"Uh, no thanks...."
"Aw, come on! You're the only one of us that never got locked in a book cage. Think of it as...a Scooby rite of passage." Dawn took a quick, self-conscious look around.
"Okay," she giggled, running into the cage, "but you have to lemme out when I say!" He shut the door and she spazzed out, growling and rattling the cage door. after a minute of that, when she'd gotten the thrill out of her system, she turned to Xander and smiled complacently. "Alright, now let me out."
SUMMERLAND ACADEMY - HOME ECONOMICS ROOM - 8:21 A.M.
Willow and Kennedy were preparing for class. The first bell rang and a few dozen girls came filing in. Willow sat on a high stool at one of the workstations, nervously rearranging her materials. Kennedy took a seat next to her.
"Okay, everyone," Willow began to address the class. "Simmer...everybody. Welcome to Home Economics. I'm Ms. Rosenberg, and this is my assistant, Kennedy. Now, let's start with something small. We're making the big cookie today. Everybody has a recipe book in front of them, so mind the ovens and have fun, everybody. ...And simmer."
"You said simmer twice," Kennedy noted, rubbing her hand over Willow's shoulder affectionately. "Restless?"
"Kinda," Willow muttered rapidly, her voice quick and bubbly. "It's like -- okay, I'm used to teaching, but, butterflies. What if...I'm not good at Home Ec? What if -- what if I scar them for life, completely ruining the joy of baking for them forever, a-and their kids have'ta buy cookie dough incense, just to get their comfort cooking fix?"
Kennedy gave her a glib smile. "You had a coffee, didn't you?"
"I might've, there might've been coffee."
"It's okay, Will. I'm nervous too, but we can handle this, and it'll probably get easier. I'll take care of the hard stuff."
She reached for a cookie sheet and Willow plucked it away, returning it to it's designated position. "Aw, that's sweet -- but that doesn't go there."
"Do you want me to grease the pans?"
"Well, ya kinda hafta do it a certain way."
"I can grease a pan, Will," Kennedy assured, getting perturbed.
"Of course you can grease a pan, silly! ...But...don't grease my pans."
"They're not 'you're' pans."
"Oh, I know that! For all intents and purposes, they're not my pans. But see these pans?" She gestured to all of the pans at her workstation. "Okay? These are mine." Just then, Dawn came rushing into the room, looking disheveled and annoyed. "Dawny!" Willow started, a little shocked. "Hey, simmer down. What's up, why are you late?"
"Had a little trouble," Dawn growled, slumping down in the seat opposite Willow. "Xander wouldn't lemme out of the book cage."
After first period, a fair amount of the students and teachers wandered the halls in disorientation. Willow had been splashing her face with cold water in the bathroom and caught sight of Xander on her way back to class.
"Hey, Xander!" she called out, trying to catch up to him. "How was Shop Class?"
"God, don't ask," he grumbled down-heartedly as they walked down the hall. "The kids these days, they got not respect. None of them took me seriously!"
"Well, you are kinda missing an eye. Being a Shop teacher, it's not good for establishing competence, the whole mutilation thing. Remember Mr. Vance, with the missing fingers?"
Xander giggled wistfully, but his expression fell to grim realization. "Oh, god. I'm Mr. Vance now? When did this happen!? ...Being a Shop teacher bites!" as they walked on, they were passed in the hall by Dawn, who met up with Rona and the girls she was talking with earlier.
"Did you guys take hand-to-hand?" Rona asked the others. "That Faith is a full-on psychopath!"
"Faith is teaching fighting?" Dawn asked in disbelief. "I thought Giles was-."
"No," the skater-y girl interjected. "Mr. Giles was teaching swordplay or something. He made us touch a knife, it was freaky."
"I only got Home Ec.," said Dawn. "But, it was eventful! We made the big cookie."
Giles strode past them in the hallway, looking as though he were taking inventory of the students. "No running!" he chided some of them. "This is a school, not a.... Where the bloody hell am I?" He walked toward the front doors and found Buffy and Robin by drinking fountains, looking absently at the empty Principal's office. "Oh, thank god!" he sighed, clustering in with them. "I stepped out to wash up after class and got a bit...turned around."
"That's funny," Buffy said absently.
"I assure you, it isn't," Giles went on. "If I don't get back soon, it could muddle the whole schedule."
"No, not you being lost -- lame. I mean the principal's office. It's kinda weird having one and no principal. Like vampires with silverware. And yes, being a slayer has tragically affected my analogical skills."
"You could be the principal," Robin suggested faintly, not really paying attention. "Being the longest running slayer, you're kinda the natural choice to lead the school."
"Maybe," said Buffy. "But Giles has all this teaching experience." She turned casually to Giles. "You could always do the headmaster thing?"
Giles shook his head dismissively. "No. I rather think those days are behind me, now. Robin, on the other hand, was cut down in his prime, you might say. It's only fitting that he fill the position."
"Yeah, you're right," Robin conceded quickly. "I am the only one here with a teaching degree."
"You are a teacher," Buffy went on. "You're not a slayer, or anything, but you could teach. You could teach lunch. You know, I should probably be the one to-."
"Teach lunch?" Robin asked curtly.
"As the only Council representative," Giles interjected, "leading slayers is more than my just my calling. It's a destiny, handed down through generations-."
"All of which you were present for," Buffy mumbled. "I mean, let's face, I'm the only one qualified-."
"Qualified?" Robin laughed. "I've seen your résumé, Buff. You're not qualified to melt cheese on SPAM."
"Excuse me for taking care of my family and saving the world," Buffy snapped. "I'm sorry if actually important things got in the way of formal education-."
"Important things!" Giles snickered. "Please, you act as if you were the only one with serious problems. You have no idea the pressure I was under during school -- over the family loss and contention, the daily curriculum, the nightly occult studies-."
"Yeah, young Giles is the perfect example of grace under pressure!" Buffy snarked. "Tell me the part about invoking dark magics and killing your friends again?"
Giles gave Buffy a cold, threatening stare, then slowly brought the whistle up to his lips. She yanked it from his hand, breaking the ball chain; threw it on the floor and crushed it flat under her heel, making him gasp deeply in horror. While they continued to quarrel, Robin felt something tug his sleeve. He found himself being dragged around the corner by Faith, who was still flushed from the workout of her first class. They could hear Giles and Buffy's argument as they walked a few doors down to the multipurpose room.
"I can get another whistle!" they heard Giles threaten.
"You can get a hundred whistles!" Buffy shouted maniacally. "And I'll stomp every one! All the whistles in the world couldn't help you...." The sound died off behind them as Faith walked into the multipurpose room, her gym bag slung over her shoulder.
"Seriously, Robin," Faith sighed, "you really need to just tune those two out."
"Sure," Robin joked, "but then it's just easy listening in my head and that clouds up everything else." He closed the gym door and stretched a bit. Gingerly testing his tight muscles, he reached up and loosened his tie. Faith set her bag down and sat Indian style on a mat to do some stretches before class, even if it was just orientation. "So how's your first day in the wonderful world of teaching been, Miss Faith," he asked with a small, teasing grin as he leaned against the bleachers.
"Dunno," Faith said, mid-stretch. "This'd be home room."
"Think it'll go well?" he amended. "I mean, you're stretching for homeroom and a view of the rules and grading scale."
"God I hope so. Not exactly used'a this."
Robin moved toward Faith and crouched beside her. "I'm sure you'll do just fine. We tried to pick courses you'd excel at teaching."
"So wha'd they stick you with?"
"The boring sorta stuff, Economics, Slayer History, and English."
"Damn...you're not jokin'." Faith smirked, getting ahold of the end of Robin's tie.
"Well I love a challenge," he went on. "Economics can be more fun when you try to explain it like an island that only imports guns and cake." He let Faith pull him down for a deep kiss. "I'm thinking chocolate," he murmured against her lips with a smile, "everybody loves chocolate, right?"
"Well, I do," she laughed softly.
He grinned and pulled another kiss from her. "See, somehow I knew that."
"Oh yeah? Maybe you're genius material?"
"Or psychic. Andrew's been trying to convince me I'm the black Charles Xavier." He chuckled, stroking Faith's cheek with his thumb. "Personally, I don't see it. I'm more of a dashing, Will Smith in 'Bad Boys' kinda guy. What d'you think?" He tugged on her earlobe with his teeth.
"Uhh,...are those movies? 'Cause I'm not a big whale dork, so I got no clue what you're talkin' about."
"Yeah, they're movies -- hey. Are you implying that I'm a dork? What happened to genius?"
"Bill Gates is a genuis...and a dork." She smirked and wrapped his tie around her hand, reeling him in for another hungry kiss as the doors swung open and a few of the students came in early, before the bell.
Robin rolled over Faith and pinned her arms down. "And that...is how you pin down a Valdari demon."
"Yeah, and this is how you take advantage of a blind spot-." With that, Faith tossed Robin back onto the floor, mounted him, and straddled his waist, pinning his wrists to the ground.
He coughed, wide-eyed, having had the wind knocked out of him. "You win," Robin choked, "that's why you're the one teaching hand-to-hand...."
Faith grinned and glanced up at the early students. "Uh, hello, in the hall until the bell rings! Says so right on the door."
The girls scurried out, giggling to each other, and shut the door. Robin looked up, remembering himself. "Sorry -- inappropriate 'school hours' behavior...."
Faith squirmed on top of him, an expression of complacent satisfaction playing out on her face. "S'okay. Much my fault as it is yours."
Robin closed his eyes for a beat, and then smiled. "Thinkin' at the moment, more your fault, if you keep movin' like that..."
"Like, what?" she gasped, trying for innocent.
Robin flashed her a reciprocating look. "I think you know more than you're letting on." Faith tucked her hair behind her ear and got to her feet, lending her hand to Robin. After pulling himself up to full height, he gave her a small kiss on the forehead. "Good luck, Faith," he said kindly.
"You too."
"Thanks.... Maybe tonight, we can meet for dessert?" He winked as he opened the door and slipped out. The bell rang and large group of young slayers started piling into the classroom.
SUMMERLAND MULTIPURPOSE ROOM - AFTERNOON
The rest of orientation day went by in a mad rush, most of the gang teaching their perspective classes. But no one saw Buffy again until the afternoon assembly. Along with Xander and Willow, she stood on the stage of the packed multipurpose room; ready to impart her special Buffy wisdom -- the old SIT survivors sat in the front row. While the students noisily settled into the bleachers, Willow stepped up to the podium.
"Everybody?" She said timidly into the mic. Her amplified voice barely carried over the noise and the slayers continued to talk amongst themselves. "People...? Hey!" A hush fell over the crowd and Willow composed herself. "Okay, simmer down. Buffy would like to say a few words, and here she is to say them, so please give her your full attention. Thank you."
Willow stepped aside and Buffy took the podium.
"I don't know any nicer way to say this," Buffy started, a somber tone dampening her voice. "What you signed on for isn't just a school or camp. It's an army,...and the only thing that stands between this world and the forces that wanna destroy it. The Slayers. Maybe you haven't been told about the vampires, demons. Monsters. Maybe you have. But whatever you've been told, you're probably afraid now. You are if you've been paying attention. It's the things we all fear, and we're the ones who have to fight them. I went through what all of you are going through now, and it scared the hell out of me. But I don't feel sorry for you. If anything, feel sorry for the other side." A rowdy girl in the back hollered her approval. Buffy flinched and continued. "I know some of you don't understand that. Some of you are wondering whether or not you're brave enough, or strong enough.... You are. Whoever you are, whatever you've been through -- you're here because you're the chosen ones. Chosen to beat back the rising tides chaos. It'll be hard, and painful, but it'll be worth it. Maybe not for you, not yet anyway, but when you understand -- months or years from now -- what you've meant to the world, everything before this moment will be a blur. A dream. You won't be jack squat compared to what you'll become." Xander broke into a simple-minded grin at the words 'jack squat'. "So now you know you know what you are," Buffy went on, "and how I feel. I know I'll be proud to lead you into battle anytime, anywhere-."
Buffy's speech was cut off sharply by the house lights going off.
SUMMERLAND MULTIPURPOSE ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON
There was a great rumbling noise in the auditorium. Buffy felt someone grab her arm as she squinted through the relative darkness.
"Will?" she whispered anxiously.
"Yeah," Willow responded. They heard a girl scream. Something bumped into them, groping at them and stepping on their feet. "Xander!" Willow called out dumbly.
"If this is a P.R. stunt to punch up the drama for your speech, Buff," Xander rambled, "gotta say, it's leaning a bit towards the grotesque-."
"What?" Buffy snapped. "Somebody get the lights." They heard a voice scream, and then a chorus of others followed it, panicking and shrieking like children. "Where's Giles?"
"Big shock -- he's in the library," Xander replied.
"Go there, tell him what's going on."
"I'm on it -- in the land of the darkness, the one eyed man is king."
"That's the land of the blind, Xand."
"Then the playing field is level at last!"
"Will," Buffy growled sarcastically, "make sure he doesn't flush himself or something. I love you guys, but I am not putting my hand in the toilet."
Xander and Willow stumbled away as Buffy went upstage and searched for the light switch along the wall, moving toward a glowing exit sign. The sound of panic grew nearly deafening. As she moved past a knot of rigging, she felt something foreign for a split second. Tall and solid. Before she could identify it, it spun around and landed a swinging backhand to her jaw, screaming something unholy. Buffy staggered sideways, clinging to the rigging.
"Mess with the slayers, you're gonna loose yer frickin' fronts!"
"Faith!?" Buffy asked.
"Screw you!" Faith snorted, cringing in the relative darkness as she realized who she hit. "Scared the crap fantastic outta me -- what are you doin' sneakin' up and pervin' on people like that?"
"I was trying to find the light switch, Faith."
"What, that big light-switchy deal back there?" Faith asked, thumbing over her shoulder -- no real logic sinking in.
"You found it?" Buffy asked dryly as the noise in the auditorium died down.
"Yeah, an' it ain't down the small o'my fresh and silky back."
"Never mind, I'll get it myself. Just -- make sure the girls get out. Keep 'em calm, take 'em to the library."
"No sweat, B. Where'd ya think they went?"
"Well, the fire exits didn't open, so my guess is they piled out to the main hallway."
"Good call." Faith plowed confidently past her toward the other end of the stage.
Buffy heard her speedy footfall and then the door shutting. She muttered to herself as she felt her was through the dark and struggled to take a small stairway without falling. "Well, sure, if you wanna leap majestically through the din like a big, cool-. Ooh, light!" She found the large, industrial switch and threw it up. The house lights came back on and Buffy found herself near the stage exit. She peered out into the auditorium. No one was there.
Out in the brightly lit hallway, Faith found Willow were taking roll call of the huge group of scared and injured girls. Two were holding up one lifeless teenager.
"This everybody, Red?" Faith asked.
"Just about," said Willow. They heard a loud, crashing noise.
"So, we're good here," Faith mumbled, distracted by the sound. "B said she wanted you to take the kids t'the library. Sounds like she could use some back-up...." Faith turned and ran headlong toward the crashing.
"Faith!" Willow shouted.
"See ya!" Going around the long way, Faith hit the end of a lesser hallway, following the sound. The stretch of hall in front of her intersected with another from the other side of the auditorium. She went to turn the corner that led into it and got stopped in her tracks -- Buffy flew out in front of her and slammed into the row of lockers at her left. Faith heard growling and peered around the corner to see something that made her eyes widen with fear. "Hot damn...."
Back in the library, Willow herded in the last of the slayers.
Kennedy rushed over and met her with a bear hug, stroking her hair back. "Is everybody okay?" she asked.
"I dunno," Willow sighed miserably. "I still haven't found Dawn."
Xander, who hand been helping and injured girl by the stairs, turned and bounded over to them, almost tripping over his feet. "You mean Dawn wasn't with you guys?" he asked frightfully. "Oh, god. Where would she be...."
Giles and Robin descended the stairs, Giles with a book in one hand and a burning pot of red oil in the other.
"We need to spread out and find her," Kennedy insisted.
Giles set his things on a worktable. "There's a weapons cabinet beside the book cage," he said. "Better to arm yourself before going back out into that."
Robin headed over and pulled the tall cabinet doors open. He threw Kennedy a rifle and took out a double-barreled shotgun off the wall for himself. Searching the shelves a second, he found a zippered vinyl case containing tranquilizer darts. "Are we gonna sing the demons to sleep, too?" Robin asked Giles, his voice snarky and disapproving.
"No," Giles quipped, folding his arms and meeting Wood with a sarcastic tone, "I thought I'd open a school full of children and hide bullets in the cabinets with colorful Easter grass."
"Sorry," Robin grumbled, loading his gun. Kennedy went to do the same, took the bag of tranqs and then the two of them headed out.
"Be careful," Giles called after them.
At that same time, Buffy and Faith tangled with something wolf-like in the hall. It was huge and muscular -- nearly the size of a grizzly -- and covered in tangled black fur. It tackled the slayers together, three masses sliding across polished floor, and it started crushing the life out of them. Fighting for breath on their backs, side by side, they turned to each other briefly. Faith looked into the beast's beady, human-like blue eyes and gave Buffy a knowing gaze. They both pulled their knees up and kicked-off hard into the monster's massive chest, sending it sprawling back. They got to their feet quickly.
"What do you think it is?" Buffy gasped in pain.
"I could give a rat's ass," grunted Faith. The beast was recoiling a few feet way when, without warning, the power went down over the whole school. "Who the hell keeps doin' that!" she asked herself, voice breaking.
Meanwhile, in the library, Giles and Willow were burning herbs and lighting candles as their power went out.
"Rona," Giles called out, heading with his light to the weapons cabinet. "There are flashlights and more candles in the chest outside the restrooms. Pass them out and don't give candles to the younger girls." Rona nodded and waved her two new friends over to come and help her. Giles took a crossbow off the wall, then pulled out keys from his pocket and unlocked a tackled box full of arrows. Taking only what he needed for a few shots, he relocked the box and loaded his bow. "Willow?" At his call, Willow sped over to Giles and he handed her his candle. He picked up a large, army-issue flashlight with his free hand. "Finish the protection spell and watch over the students. I'd wager the others could use a hand out there."
"You're leaving, too?" Willow asked, sounded disappointed. "I can't take care of all these girls by myself."
"I need a powerful enchanter to finish the spell, Willow. Can you do this for me?"
After a moment, Willow smiled gloomily. "Good luck."
"Not as of late, but I appreciated the sentiment." He smiled back at her gently, then turned and left her standing in the doorway.
"...Watch your back," she said.
Out in the shadowy maze of hallways, Robin and Kennedy advanced cautiously toward the sounds of fighting. They heard a creaking sound behind them and spun around to see Giles turning his flashlight on with a sober expression.
"I've brought light," he said simply. They nodded and turned back to the noise.
Suddenly, Faith barrel-rolled out in front of them, spinning into the wall. Kennedy sprinted out into the darkness at whatever swiped Faith and fired at it. The thing swatted Buffy down and lumbered out into the light of the windows from an open classroom. Robin fired on the beast as well, but seeing it in the light, with three darts hanging from it's hide, it was clear to him it would take a bit more to bring the thing down. Faith rose to her feet and raced back down the hall toward the library.
"You're running away!?" Kennedy shouted after her in disbelief.
Buffy, bleeding from the head, pulled herself up and grabbed the monster's back leg, trying to pull it back from the others. Taking the lead as the Robin and Kennedy fell back, Giles danced his flashlight in the beast's eyes, stunning it momentarily. He took his shot. It stuck in the creature's neck, barely annoying it. He loaded the second arrow clumsily and dropped the flashlight as Kennedy cocked her gun. The struggling monster looked at her, it's eyes startling her as she tried to take aim. Giles shot the monster in the hamstring of it's free leg, causing it's hindquarters to buckle. It threw back it's head and howled, shocking Kennedy into squeezing the trigger prematurely. The dart glanced off the lockers and jack-knifed into the air. As it fell, it embedded itself in the back of Giles's hip.
"Oh, bloody brilliant!" he shouted at Kennedy, yanking the dart out as he sunk lethargically to the floor, right in the monster's path. From down the hall, Faith ran at top speed toward them and jumped in front of Giles with a larger than average fire extinguisher. She sprayed the creature's beady eyes and smacked it's skull with the broad side of the tank over and over, until Robin and Kennedy put a few more tranquillizers in it. Finally, the beast gave in and toppled onto it's side, it's breath wheezing like a dog. Faith dropped the tank and looked a Giles tepidly, having no clue he'd been tranq-ed. Buffy rushed over to him and checked for other injuries.
"H-he's gonna be okay, right?" Kennedy stuttered, sounding a little worried. "It's just a tranquillizer."
"...He's gonna be out for a little while," said Buffy, carefully taking his glasses off and slipping them into his breast pocket. She looked up and Kennedy accusingly, her lips pursed, and then turned to Robin. "Take him back to the library. We'll be behind you with this thing. Gotta find out what is -- how to kill it."
SUMMERLAND SCHOOL LIBRARY - DUSK
There was low, rolling thunder. The sun was setting by the time Faith and Buffy were able to drag the wolf creature into the library, shoving it into the book cage. There were Slayers all over with lit candles and flashlights, mostly settled down in the pentagon. Xander had long since come back with Dawn, who was in the cafeteria, scamming chocolate milk and red Jell-O. Giles had been laid out on a clear space of the main stairs, and Dawn was leaning over him with a little green jar of smelling salts. Willow was at a worktable, burning herbs and finishing a spell, reading from one of the new tomes Giles acquired in La Boca, "Liber Magorum" by Nicolae Maximoff. She had the pot of oil simmering on a Bunsen burner and carefully lowered in a bismuth nugget on a pewter chain.
Willow chanted:
"The Magi's Oil, aide this wildlings way, Armor of the Hero, grant thy blessed stay, The Ring we make, let no man break, Panoplia Herois, Potio Magorum.... Annulus defendans a malo!"
There was an audible distortion in the atmosphere. The pan of oil began to boil and darken, thick smoke rising. Willow turned back to Buffy and smiled.
"I give you a no-carnage zone," she chirped. "In a manner of speaking. No overtly evil thing can enter the library. This Nicolae Maximoff has access to some pretty heady stuff. And his Swato of Pomona -- not that I had time to read it, given our dire circumstances -- was so involved! And there are chapters here, on dream interpretation-."
"So this ring of protection thing should work?" asked Buffy.
"Like a groom after a sumble!" Willow giggled to herself, but noticed no reciprocation. "It...looses some funny in the translation. But, yeah, this should keep the violence out until we can figure out what to do about Clifford, here."
Buffy turned back to the book cage, trying to push it's door shut on the creature. "Hey, Faith?" Buffy grunted. "Mind givin' me a hand with this?" Faith stood stock-still beside her, frowning at the picture windows. "What?" Buffy looked over her shoulder at the window, not seeing and thing remarkable. Dawn looked up from tending to Giles. "Is this you way of gettin' out of the muscle work? 'Cause if you think I'm gonna do this by-." Dawn suddenly shrieked. She was starring wide-eyed at the window. "Dawn? What is it? What did you see?
Buffy looked again, walking toward the window. There was a rumble of thunder and she saw a firefly go by. It lit the dark for a moment, moving over something black and ragged, and then blinked out. She went closer, and let her hand rest on the window frame. The fly blinked on again, and lit the features of a large, canine face...and beady, hazel eyes.
"There's another one?" Dawn asked sheepishly. A flash of lighting lit the nightscape for less than a second, and Buffy jumped back fearfully. Some of the girls started screaming when they saw them.... There were a dozen similar, wolf-like monsters, circling the school.
To Be Continued....