Summary: Certain books have found their way to Sunnydale, pre-Buffy.
Disclaimer: I dun' own nuttin'!
Feedback, it makes me write faster. (You know you want to do the feedback thing.)
Pre-Fic Comments:
You can blame Luis for my idea with Giles. Muahahahahaaa
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Giles slumped back onto the tall stool as he lowered the crossbow. The plaster bust, focus of Baxter's Messy Reversal, was currently raining down gently on the crowd, who thought it was a great joke. Well, except for the once costumed, now changed people. He spotted Xander reach out to a fading line of power.
"Don't touch that!," he shouted over the din as Xander's right index finger touched the power, the Tarbaby Rune latching onto it.
"What?," Xander asked, right before he fell unconscious.
"It's still flowing from Eris," Giles continued. Why did no one listen to him?
"What's up with Xander," Jesse yelled.
"Give me a hand," the Watcher yelled at the Slayer as he grabbed one of Xander's arms. The Watcher and the Slayer hauled the comatose teenager out of the Bronze, Willow and Jesse trailing after.
Outside, it was possible to talk to each other without yelling.
"What's wrong with Xander?," Willow asked Giles, worried about her friend.
"He touched a line of power that was still connected to Eris, the Goddess of Discord," Giles wearily explained.
"What?," Buffy asked. "So he lets go, no one gets hurt."
"The Tarbaby Rune doesn't work like that," Jesse said. "It's the Tarbaby, not a fishing hook."
"Precisely," Giles said, cleaning his glasses. "Uh, Eris won't let him absorb her power and her. We can't affect her actions in any way. The best course of action in this situation would seem to be to wait it out."
The five of them were jumped as they made their way to Giles' car. The four awake and conscious people got out the glove and stake which were by now standard issue, and proceeded to try and scratch the vampires. Luckily, they were all normal Sunnydale originals, and thus fairly easy. Comparatively speaking.
"Buffy," Giles shouted. "Would you be so kind as to pass me a crucifix?"
"Sure thing," the Slayer yelled to him. She pulled out a medium sized wooden cross and threw it to tbe British librarian.
"Yeouwch!," Rupert Giles screamed as the cross burnt his hand like a hot poker. "What the devil was that?!"
"Uh, Giles, are you still Giles?," Jesse asked.
"Yes, I bloody well am, now give me a hand and stake these bloody vampires!"
* * *
Lasombra covered his face with his right hand, sighing deeply. He looked at the vampire across the table from him.
While they were horribly inferior to his breed of vampire, he had had hopes that the demonic vampires would be of some use.
"Explain this to me once more, Seth. You attacked the Slayer and her friends with ten newly turned, yes?"
The sole survivor nodded nervously. None of the old guard of Sunnydale knew what to make of this new master of the town.
"They were armed with weapons that could vaporize you by merely scratching you," Lasombra continued, dead pan.
Nod. Nod. A faint sheen of sweat could be seen on the demonic vampire's forehead.
"Why did you not attack them from a rooftop with a sniper rifle?," Lasombra asked. "At least then, you'd manage to kill one before they scattered."
"Ah, we, were going to uh, get some guns but we saw her and, uh, just got so mad that--"
"Stop," Lasombra commanded. "Please, try to control yourselves. I want this Slayer and her friends to stay alive for awhile."
The demonic Seth looked nervous. "You want a Slayer alive, Boss? Are you going soft on us?"
Lasombra's eyes narrowed. "Your kind truly are imbecilic, are you not? We now know exactly how this girl will react to threats. We know who her companions are, we have a general idea of their resources. It's a case of the devil you know."
Seth nodded again. He wanted to rip Lasombra's throat out for that imbecile comment, but knew he wouldn't get more than a step before those solid shadows got him again.
"You will attach yourself to Johnson's squad," the Whitewolf vampire decided. "He has shown some intelligence. Perhaps you can learn /something/."
* * *
Giles sat in the library, thinking. He'd sneezed on the way over, and had gotten scaly red skin and horns.
He wasn't sure how he'd managed to regain his normal appearance, but wasn't complaining.
"I don't get it," Jesse said. "You haven't been bitten by a demonic spider, have you?"
"Spider?," the Watcher blinked.
"Spiderman became Spiderman by being bitten by a radioactive spider," Buffy explained. "Don't you watch any TV?"
"The first Rite!," Willow realised. "It must have affected you as well, Giles."
The Watcher readjusted his glasses, pushing them further up his nose. "I'm not surprised, with that demonic music."
* * *
A team of four men got out of a black Toyota on the edge of Sunnydale. They were dressed in black clothes, with coats over the top.
One walked back a bit.
"Bloody hell," he said. "What a useless sign."
"You shouldn't've driven," another said. "You're daft at driving, Bill."
"Daft yourself," Bill complained. "They shouldn't've put that sign in the middle of the road.
"The bloody sign wasn't on the bloody road, you twit!"
"Well, it isn't now, is it? I hit the thing, didn't I?"
"Look," the third said. "Here're the stumps where it used to be. See? Nowhere near the road."
"Well, no one's gonna miss the thing," Bill muttered. "'Tisn't like it was anything special."
The third picked up the sign, hammering it into the ground slightly. It stood up by itself, like a spoon in custard.
Somewhat wobbly.
"Bugger fixing it," the second said. "Cheap American construction."
"Right."
"Right."
"Well, what're we standing around here for? I'm parched from all this talk!"