Summary: Party! Picnic while we exhume!

Crossover: Bastard!!, Slayers

Disclaimer: I don't own Bastard!!, Slayers, or Buffy the Vampire Shagger. Although, if the respective owners want to swap for a couple of CDs that's fine.

Feedback: Yeah, baby!

Pre-fic comments:

One of these days I'm gonna write a songfic to "Last", or "Wish", by NIN. I'm sure none of you want me to, but hey...

* * *

Buffy left the Library to go fetch the resident hacker, the only one who could work the 'infernal machine'.

"Oh!," Giles said. "Ah, Xander, my colleague has sent more video cassettes for you. Er, these seem to be movies, rather than the episodes that you're used to."

"Movies?," Faith asked. "You're a movie geek, X?"

"Not quite," Xander grinned. "These are /good/ movies. Wanna watch 'em with me tonight?"

"I dunno," Faith said. "Places to go, people to see, autographs to sign... you know how it is."

"I, er, borrowed one of the school televisions and video cassette recorders to watch one of them," Giles said, as if making a grave admission, "and they were quite amusing."

Both teenagers turned around to look at the librarian in surprise.

"Giles, you know how to work a VCR?," Xander asked, stunned.

"Miss Calendar may have watched these tapes as well," Giles admitted. An admission that she'd set the equipment up, in other words.

"For a moment there I thought they were porn, but if Old Faithful likes 'em...," Faith trailed off. "Oh well, maybe they'll still be good."

"Er, has the Council arranged suitable lodgings for you?," Giles asked.

"Some flea pit hotel," the new Slayer shrugged. "No big."

"I would offer you a place to stay, but the proprietries involved..."

"'S cool."

Buffy and Willow returned about now. Willow was quite surprised to see a new face in the Library.

"Hi!," Willow said. "Are you Giles' niece or something? Because we don't really get many visitors here, not that I'm saying that's a bad thing at all, although people really should read more."

"Hah!," Faith snorted. "No way in hell. The name's Faith."

"Oh, okay. I'm Willow. Uh, does she know?"

Giles nodded. "Quite. She's the new Slayer -- it would appear that Buffy's brush with death at the beach was more than a brush."

Willow looked at the new girl. "Cool. Uh, this search shouldn't take long. I'm probably the only girl at school who has the coroner's office bookmarked as a favourite place."

Then Queen C decided to join them. "Hi. Hate to interrupt your little undead playgroup, but I need to ask Willow if she'll help me with my science fair project."

"It's a fruit," Willow said absently, fingers stroking the keyboard.

"What's a fruit?," Xander asked.

"She is," Faith smirked.

"Where did you crawl in from?," Cordelia asked, looking Faith up and down. "My God, could you get any more trailer trash? Girl, you need a new wardrobe, stat!"

"I found it!," Willow yelled to Giles. "Meredith Todd died in a car accident last week."

"I would have asked Chris to help me," Cordelia said, "but that would have brought back too many painful memories of Daryl."

"How was her neck?," Buffy asked. If it was broken, then Meredith probably hadn't been vamped.

"Of course, I have learned to deal with my pain," Cordelia continued.

"Fine, except for being broken."

"Hello!," Cordelia interrupted. "Can we deal with my pain?"

"Oh, did you chip a nail?," Faith asked, with sickly sweetness. "Go back to your fellow cheerleaders, little girl."

"Hey!," Cordelia interrupted. "Just because you have a crappy life doesn't give you the right to take it out on me! God, what did I ever to do you?"

Giles left his office, new cup of tea in hand. He absently patted Cordelia's shoulder in a vague attempt to make her go away. "There, there." He continued walking to the stacks.

"It says that Meredith and two other girls in the car were killed instantly," Willow noted out loud. "They were all on the Fondren High Pep Squad, on the way to a game."

"You know what this means," Buffy said.

"That Fondren might actually beat Sunnydale in the cross-town bodycount competition this year?," Xander joked.

"She wasn't killed by vampires," Buffy said. "Someone dug up her corpse."

"Eww! Why is it that every conversation you people have uses the word 'corpse' in it?," Cordelia complained, face showing distaste.

"Okay, so we got a body snatcher," Xander summarised. "What does that mean?"

"Someone's been reading way too much Lovecraft?," Faith asked. Everyone looked at her. "What, a girl can't read wicked scary books no more?"

"Uh, h-here's what I've come up with," Giles said as he returned from the stacks. "Demons who eat the flesh of the dead to absorb their souls. Or, i-i-it could obviously be a, a voodoo practitioner."

"You mean making a zombie?," Willow asked.

"This mean they're gonna do the doll with nails in it trick next?," Faith asked.

"Uh, multiple zombies most likely," Giles said. "For most traditional purposes a voodoo priest would require more than one."

"So we should see if the other girls from the accident are AWOL," Buffy said. "Maybe we can figure out what this creep has in mind if we know whether or not he's dealing in volume."

"So, we dig up some graves tonight?," Xander asked, voice hinting that he might not want to. His curiousity and sense of morbidity would ensure that he would show, however.

"Oh, boy! A field trip!," Willow joked. "Are you gonna call Angel?"

"I don't think so," Buffy said.

"I thought you were gonna play suckface with the nice ol' vamp," Xander commented.

"Angel and I have been, um," Buffy began, before giving up. "Never mind. As far as Angel's concerned, I'm taking the night off, okay?"

"Trouble in paradise, girlfriend?," Faith smirked.

"Shaddup, Faith, Xander," Buffy grumped.

"So we're set, then?," Xander asked. "Nine-ish? BYO shovel?"

"And I'll pack some food," Willow continued. "Who else likes those little powdered donuts?"

Faith gave the two of them a very strange look. "Uh, I like those creamfilled donuts."

"Solid!"

* * *

Post-fic Comments:

I had fun with this :)