Night fell and the air was muggy with soon-to-be-falling rain. Buffy wanted to beat the storm out, but with the slow going and the waiting around for midnight in the cemetery, she was starting to think she shouldn't have worn pleather pants.
"I'm just saying, I don't see why we can't just, you know, tell them to take a hike," Willow was saying to Xander and Anya. "I mean, they're just teenagers. Hormone bombs."
"I agree. These 'Marty-Spews' are probably just as smart as whoever made them. Something tells me they're not incredibly bright," Anya thought.
"I think it's 'Marly-News', isn't it?" Xander contributed.
Willow rubbed her head. "No, Buffy said it was 'Murphy-Stus'."
"Murry-Blues?"
"Merry-Chews?"
"It's Mary-Sues!" Buffy hissed, trying to get them to quiet down. "And shush! I think I head something!"
And she did. From out of the Cox crypt came a small group of girls, a dozen of them at the most. Most of them were strawberry blonde or brunette, and they didn't seem as fiery as the others the group had seen. In fact, these seemed paler and less hell-bent on their quest in comparison to their other sisters.
"Where's Dawn?" Buffy demanded of these wan and slightly jumpy girls.
They brought her out and Dawn shook off their grips. The Slayer's sister pouted and crossed her arms. "I don't even believe this."
"Dawnie, come here," Buffy asked.
She tried to, but the girls caught her and held her back. "You don't get her until we get what we want," one of them said, trying to sound formidable but just sounding pitiful.
"Really? What exactly is that?" Buffy demanded. "I'm not really in a negotiating mood."
"Hand over Xander, and you can have Dawn back."
They all were frozen, especially Xander, whose mouth dropped open in sheer disbelief.
"You heard us. Give us Xander and no one gets hurt!" another shouted and stamped her foot.
"You can't have him; he's mine!" Anya retorted, grasping her boyfriend's arm and holding tight.
"Too bad! You're just a silly ex-demon who talks funny. Xander deserves someone much prettier and much more human than you!" one of the saucier ones spat.
Anya, hurt and confused, looked to Xander for some kind of defense. But the boy was too bowled over by his own fan club to say a word.
"No way. Xander's spoken for. You want someone like Spike, we can talk. But no Xander for you," Buffy put her foot down.
Spike's face fell in betrayal, while a few of the girls looked a little hopeful. "Buffy!" he demanded. "You said-…"
"I said we'd leave no man behind. You're a vampire. I can barter with you."
In rage, Spike vamped and snarled. "I don't believe you! Just fight the pansies off and get Dawn!" He made for the crowd, the girls trying to stand up to him as he parted the path with a strong hand. One of them was launched ten feet in the air and landed on her rump with a wail. Spike looked down, de-vamped in surprise, and his face lit up.
"Hey, the ninja-fellow was right! They're not human! I can hurt them!"
The girls let out a collective shriek and made for the safety of the maze of tombstones, flying out in all directions. Buffy made sure Dawn was safe, then went after them to try and ask her questions.
But Spike was making quick work of them, venting his anger at being sold out by Buffy on their poor defenseless selves. While Buffy and the crew were slowly tracking a few down that had hidden in the crypt, Spike was gutting the rest outside to Xander's protests.
"Hey, don't kill them all! Leave a few for me!" he shouted to the wild vampire.
"Leave them for what?" Anya demanded, poking her head out of the crypt.
"Uh…to get to know, I guess. I never knew I had a fan club," he returned, a little embarrassed.
Buffy had lost track of them. They'd escaped into the sewers and she knew she'd never find them. Emerging, she saw that Spike had one of them in his grip, slowly crushing her windpipe.
"Spike! Drop her!" she shouted across the graveyard.
He snarled, his fangs glinting and his eyes glowing yellow, and he let her down slowly, releasing his death-grip. "You got lucky," he muttered to her as she gasped for breath.
Buffy knelt down and got a grip on her shoulder. "Alright, little miss Mary. Spill the beans. What are you all doing here?"
The girl was straining for air, still half-choked. Buffy shot a contemptible glance at Spike, who de-vamped and shrugged.
"We're just here to contact the guys we were made for. It's not our fault!" she managed through breaths.
"Well, who sent you?" the Slayer demanded.
At this, the girl silenced herself and wouldn't answer.
"Well," Angel mentioned nonchalantly. "We could always make good use of those chains in my house. And Buff, you've got plenty of sharp pointy objects that could come in handy-…"
"Alright! Please, just don't use the pointy things!" the girl cried. "We're here because the place we live in is too crowded, and we just started spilling out. If we make contact, we get to stay here. It's like heaven."
"Make contact?" Buffy asked warily. "What does that mean?"
The girl blushed, and Giles, ever the all-knowing Watcher, perked up his head with a grin. "I know!" he exclaimed, one finger in the air. "Make contact. It has to be physical, at least in all definitions I can relate to this sort of thing. And it must have some sort of emotional tie as well. Not just regular touch will do. Something reserved for very special occasions, but not too personal or everything else could be disjointed."
They all cocked their heads with the physical embodiment of the phrase, "What the hell does that mean?"
Anya shook her head. "It means they have to kiss or boink, right? But they can't boink, because that would affect others around them and destroy our plane of existence!"
Xander rubbed his head. "So…they make out with anyone the opposite sex?"
"No, honey. Just the person they're after. In this case, this one has to kiss you so she can stay here. But we're not gonna let that happen," she commented with a small smile. "No one can kiss you but me. And maybe Buffy or Willow if it's friendly and there's no tongue involved."
Xander looked a little downhearted, but he hid it quickly. Then a flash of insight hit. "Wait…other guys in the group, please, tell me none have them have gotten to you yet! Tell me I'm not the only one getting no Murray-Crew action."
Spike shook his head and laughed in his throat. "Would you feel better if we said yes?"
"Yes!"
"Then sure. I dunno about Angel, here, but I personally haven't felt the burning desire to do the tongue-tango with a Kindra Demon that just shows up on my doorstep. How 'bout you, mate? Getting a little hot around the collar around all these birds?"
Angel shook his head and sneered. "Like I'd tell you if I did. Which I'm not."
Buffy rubbed her temples. "Ok. So, all we gotta do is keep any of them from kissing you guys. Easy. Easy as pie."
Willow got an idea. "I know! We could…lock them up in a room somewhere until we get rid of all of the Marcy-Stews!"
Xander gave her a flabbergasted face. "You'd leave me alone with two vampires who wouldn't get to feed for what could be days? Will, come on! Do you want to kill me?"
"Oh, shut up. Not even raging hunger could get me to bite you!" Spike snapped.
"Hey! I seem to remember a night you had to stay at my place and I had to tie you up!"
"And I seem to remember telling you that you weren't exactly a 'nummy treat', if memory serves."
Willow, Anya and Buffy cocked heads at one another at the phrase "nummy treat".
"Alright!" Buffy demanded. "More plans?"
Xander shook his head. "As long as it doesn't entail the locking of me in a room with those two, I'm game."
"Sod off, you poofter."
"Shut up and speak American English!"
"Guys! Damn it, we're trying to keep you guys low-key, and you're having a shouting match! Does the phrase 'low-profile' mean anything to you?"
They gave her nervous, embarrassed glances and shifted their weights. Everyone tried to brainstorm.
"What about just wailing on them?" Xander suggested. "You know? Some good old-fashioned slayage. Grab, stab and move on."
"Some of them are human, Xand. We can't kill humans."
"No they're not," Spike added. "If I could hurt them, they're not human."
"Offense meant, Spike, but you've been neutered and you're still a vampire," Angel said with a sneer.
The platinum-blonde bloodsucker looked to Buffy with a flabbergasted face. "Do I have to defend myself against these meatheads all night or are we gonna find some way to stop this?"
"Ok! More ideas. Come on, use your brains, guys."
The area was silent before Giles finally had an epiphany. "Wait. That ninja fellow! He seemed to know about these Mary-Sues; much more than we do. Shouldn't we find him?"
They all agreed. Saddling up, the group made their way back to the Magic Box. Completely unaware of the figure that dropped down on the lone girl, severing her body in two and spilling a shiny bead-like orb from her body which was promptly picked up and placed in a sack along with several dozen more like it.