Buffy made it into the kitchen. "What kind of messed up fairy tale is this? I so don't remember vampires in Cinderella." Buffy started pacing, trying to separate her thoughts and evaluate what she was going to do. "Okay, assess the situation. I'm in a fairy tale world and I have no idea how to get out of it. The evil step witches are vampires who are looking for a human dinner. Spike's a prince in a stupid palace, who's probably drinking the night away and flirting with a bunch of girls. Meanwhile I'm trapped at the House on Haunted Hill." Buffy paused and looked out the door. She ran out and to the barn. "This is the only place they would hide slaves," she said to herself. She kept her eyes open and walked carefully toward the end. She made it to a cage, which held two men, one woman, and a child.
"Oh no!" the woman said. She grabbed the little girl in front of her and pulled her to the wall. The two men stood in front of them.
"Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you." Buffy looked around frantically for a hook holding the keys. She turned back to the people and asked, "Where are the keys?"
"How should we know?" the man with black hair asked. "You take them with you."
"Great." She took a look at the cage. It was quite sturdy for any normal human being to try and get out of but with her Slayer strength Buffy would be able to kick it in. "Stand to the side." They did as they were told before Buffy kicked in the door with her right leg.
"How did you-" one of the men started to ask.
"Not now. Just run as far away from here as you can." They stood there, waiting for the catch. "Run!" Buffy yelled. The guy with black hair picked up the little girl and ran out. The other man took the woman's hand and followed.
As they ran across the field, Gabrielle came to the kitchen door. "What are you still doing in the barn Cinder-" Her eyes were caught by the four people running from the house. "Mother!" She turned and ran inside. "Mother! She let our food go!"
Buffy went into the kitchen and kicked Gabrielle in the back. "See this problem, I can handle. I'm somewhat of an expert."
Gabrielle turned to her. "You're gonna get it." Her face transformed into vamp mode and she growled.
"Now is that how a proper young lady should behave?" Gabrielle ran towards her, obviously expecting an easy catch. Buffy jump kicked her in the face and elbowed her in the back. Gabrielle ran at her again and Buffy slammed her down on the wooden table. It broke under the impact, creating a nice handful of stakes. Buffy grabbed one of the broken legs and rammed it into her chest.
Dana and her stepmother arrived in the doorway and noticed Gabrielle was gone. "Where is my daughter?"
Buffy stood up in Gabrielle's fresh ashes. "I'm standing on her." They looked down, putting two and two together.
"You ungrateful little brat!"
"Ungrateful? You make me do all your chores when this is my house and you think I should be grateful?"
"We had a promise," Dana interrupted. "We don't eat you, you do all the work."
"And feed you live people!" Buffy yelled.
"Enough!" her stepmother interjected. "Now we will eat you."
"Go ahead and try. It'll be funny," Buffy suggested with a smile.
Dana and her mother growled, baring their fangs. They were about to move in for a bite when someone yelled, "Buffy!"
Buffy's eyes wandered, wondering where the sound came from. "Spike?"
"Buffy!"
"Spike!" Buffy yelled back. Dana took this diversion as a chance to attack. She lunged at Buffy but she just used Dana's forward momentum to shove her into the stone wall.
Spike ran into the kitchen not completely shocked by the sight. "We got a problem."
"Yeah, I caught that."
"Buffy behind you!" Spike warned. Buffy turned around and was greeted with a punch to the face.
"How do you know Cinderella?" the stepmother asked.
"We have a history." With that, Spike landed a right hook on her left cheek. She was stunned for a second but quickly tried to take action. She resorted to a backhand punch but Spike blocked it and snap kicked her stomach.
Buffy elbowed Dana in the abdomen, spun behind her and then kneed her in the back. Buffy grabbed a broken piece of wood and ran it through, piercing her heart. "What's your problem?"
Spike kicked out the stepmother's feet and rammed a stake into her heart. "My problem is there's a horde of angry women at the ball that became vampires."
"Giles," Buffy said in worry.
Spike gripped Buffy's upper arms with his hands and reminded her, "It's not him."
"Right. So, let's go fight your problem."
"Buffy if there's one there's gotta be three hundred."
"Not likin' those odds." Buffy tried to think of something. She was starting to get a headache that felt like someone was pounding on her head with a mallet. She would know what that felt like. "Is this why no one else likes to do the planning? All the head hurting and complicatedness. I'm the brawn, I'm not the brain."
"Right about that," Spike said.
"Let's see you think of an idea," Buffy replied with an attitude.
"I already did. My idea was to get the Hell out of there and find you."
"Running away doesn't count as an idea!"
"Why not? You think of ideas and that's what I thought."
"Yeah well you think of lots of things but that doesn't make them ideas."
"Technically it does, love."
"Do not call me that and no it doesn't." Buffy walked outside in hopes of clearing her mind. She needed to come up with an idea and so far she had… nothing. There was no spark of a thought or even an inkling. Where's Willow when you really really need her?
"Uh, Buffy," Spike said with a hint of distress and awe.
"Not now Spike," Buffy insisted. She kept her eyes on the horizon. Maybe if the sun would just come up things would be better.
"Buffy," he said with more urgency.
"What part of not now-" Buffy turned to Spike and stopped mid sentence when she saw the oncoming stampede of vampires. "Oh crap!" Buffy turned and ran. Spike paused a moment, unsure of what happened, but he quickly joined in.
"Thought running away wasn't an idea love," Spike said, randomly turning his head to see how far ahead they were.
"It's not an idea. It's instinct. Two completely different things." Buffy pushed herself more, trying to get more distance in her steps. Buffy's mind started to work, taking in the sights and forming a strategy. Buffy grabbed Spike's hand and pulled him toward the town. "I got a plan." Spike followed her lead, which led him into a wood shop. Spike's eyes darted to all the possible stakes around him. "Start breaking stuff. I'll be right back."
"Whaoh,
you want me to make stakes by breaking up these chairs and
tables?"
"Spike, I don't have time to argue."
"But I can die from a splinter, now you're putting me in the center of a room of wood!"
"They are vampires too and we need stakes. Now break some stuff and I'll be right back." She ran out the front door and Spike rolled his eyes at the room of death. He picked up a chair and broke it on the floor. Next he grabbed a small table and smashed it against the floor's stone surface. Buffy was back in a matter of seconds. "We gotta go!" she grabbed some stakes and ran out the back door. Spike took a couple stakes and followed her outside and into the woods. He zigged and zagged his way around the trees, keeping his eyes on the blonde in front of him. Buffy stopped suddenly when they came to a roomier part of the woods.
"Why are we stopping?" Spike looked around and noticed there was a fifteen-foot circumference of no trees around them. "It's like Mother Nature's coliseum."
"Shut up."
Buffy put a wooden handle in his hand. "What's this?" Spike wondered aloud. Buffy walked about six feet away with a wooden handle that resembled his. "What the bloody hell is this?"
"It's a butcher tool."
"What, they confuse the hunk of dead meat with two pieces of wood?" Spike made her idea sound ridiculous.
"No, look moron." Buffy put her finger right above a thin black line. "This is very sharp and hopefully very effective when it comes to a vampire's neck."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. It wasn't labeled. I thought 'oo, sharp thing. Good." They watched the oncoming mob. "Just hold it tightly and go for the neck."
"Are we supposed to keep this up with everyone of these birds?"
"That's why there are stakes for back up." Buffy looked forward and noticed the nearest vamp was only ten feet away. "Get ready!" The vamps ran straight for them, most to Buffy. Spike and Buffy tugged the wire and twisted around each other to decapitate as many vamps as they could. They were dropping like flies. They took out over a hundred in five minutes.
Finally they were left were left with about fifty vamps. They were preying along the cover of the trees. They watched Spike and Buffy turn around frantically in hopes of catching one of them in mid attack instead of being caught by surprise. "Now what Slayer?"
"Just keep your eyes open."
"Not likin' that plan. Why don't we just split up and take'em on?"
"Did you notice how good this plan was working? I say we stick with this plan because they aren't in here because they're scared." Then Buffy yelled out to them, "Right?"
Two ran out from the woods and Spike and Buffy got into their stance. Suddenly, they both were knocked over from behind. Spike rolled to the left while Buffy rolled to the right. Buffy kicked her legs up in the two vamps faces and landed on her feet. "Do you have the sharp thingy?"
"Sorry love, I dropped it." He knocked one to the floor with a kick to the head. She scrambled out and stood to fight. Spike side kicked the advancing vampire in the stomach. She went flying backward, landing hard on her back. The other vamp rushed him but Spike grabbed her legs and pushed them up, forcing her into a back roll away from him.
"You dropped it!" Buffy blocked a punch to her head and kicked the vamp's stomach before punching her in the face.
"You dropped it too!" Spike retaliated. More vamps emerged from the woods. Buffy whipped out her stake and killed the two vamps she was dealing with before three more arrived. She spun kicked two of them in the face and gave the third a right hook. One of the vamps punched her from behind. Then she kicked her behind her knees, making Buffy fall to the ground. Buffy tried crawling away with her hands searching through the grass but the vamp jumped on top of her and turned her over.
"Now who's afraid?" The vampire smiled. She opened her mouth and went in for a bite.
Buffy tied the sharp string around the vampire's neck and pulled. The girl's head rolled off and she turned to ash. "You, if you had enough time." Buffy took the vampires out quickly with her tool. Spike was winning on his side but he could use a little help when thirty more girls joined in the fight. Buffy came up from behind and decapitated five in a heartbeat. The sixth turned around and kicked Buffy in the stomach. Then she punched her across the face. Buffy ran towards the nearest tree, the vamp right on her tail. Buffy got a couple steps up the tree, flipped over the vamp and decapitated her.
Spike staked four and was kicked in the abdomen by another. "A little help Buffy!"
"Right."
After about ten more minutes they were all gone. "Now that was a rush," Buffy said. She was wearing a huge smile. "I feel like Faith right now. I feel so energetic and powerful. I got a complete body rush going on. I just wanna-" She stopped when she looked at Spike. Finishing with 'have sex' didn't seem like such a good idea so she opted for, "enjoy a really big cookie."
Spike scoffed at her. "A cookie. I can see your so called Slayer counterpart fighting a bunch of vampires and then hunkering down on a soft sofa to eat a nice cookie."
"You never met her," Buffy defended.
"But from what I was told she enjoyed tight leather pants, fighting and having a bit of a rough and tumble." Spike gave Buffy his sexy stare.
"No one mentioned the cookies? She used to carry bite size ones with her all the- wait, why am I defending myself. Especially to you."
"I think someone's ignoring what's between us."
Buffy gave him a horrific scowl. "Between us? There's nothing between us. Except space. And I'd like to keep it that way."
"Won't argue with ya there love."
"Stop calling me that. It's creepy."
Spike shook his head. "Well, now what do we do?"
"Nuh uh. This whole fighting the vampires thing was my idea. It's your turn."
"I fought too," Spike reminded.
"But we used my idea of the butchery… thing."
"I could've come up with that."
"And I could've come up with running away." Buffy smiled at her great arguments.
"Damn it!" Pernicus yelled. "They were so close to being killed. How did they- how could they- I can't finish a thought. There were three hundred and twenty-six girls there and half of them were gone in ten minutes. She is good. Maybe you need to try something else like, I don't know, actually killing her. "Cause I for one-" Pernicus started making a choking noise.
Iniquity's pointer finger and thumb were shakily in the form of an 'o' on her left hand. "Pernicus, when I inquire for you opinion I expect you to give it. If I pronounce nothing to you, you pronounce nothing to me. If I hear one more sound come out of your mouth, that I did not query you to make, I will kill you in such a way that not even the strongest magic will be able to bring you back. Understood?" She looked at Pernicus and his face was becoming very red and some veins were popping out of his head. "That's right, you can't talk because I'm closing your wind pipe. How about you kick your feet if you understand." Pernicus's feet looked like they were having a spasm before Iniquity dropped her hand. Pernicus fell to the ground and he was taking deep breaths and coughing. "Now, time to change things up for our little Slayer and her vampire friend."