Joyce Summers tried to stop fidgeting and enjoy the latest episode of "Passions". It was no use. Even though she knew Buffy was all right, she would've killed to hear the sound of her daughter's voice. It was bad enough that she'd barely heard from Buffy since she'd gone to university, but hearing about her from Willow, about her being hurt… Joyce tried to stop glancing at the phone and focus on the latest round of betrayal occurring on the screen.
A scent, familiar scent. Familiar prey. Same prey that was strong, that had fought, had survived. Curiousity. Why this prey stronger than others? Other had died so easily. Prey came often to scent place. Prey could be there now. Go. Hunt. Kill.
Finally, the phone rang, ending Joyce's private torment. She picked it up. "Buffy?"
"Mom?"
"Oh sweetie, how are you?"
"Almost all better," Buffy said. "Lots of cuts, but most of 'em were shallow. I should be out of the hospital real soon."
"I'm so glad to hear that, honey. What happened? Willow just said that you were hurt while patrolling."
"Some new beastie running around town. We still haven't sorted it all out yet. But I just told Giles-"
There was a bumping noise outside, along with a kind of hissing. "Hold on honey, I think there's someone at the door." Joyce went to the door, looked out the window, and saw no one. "Strange, there's nobody there..."
A sudden, terrible premonition burst into Buffy's mind. "Mom, get away fro-" Over the phone she heard glass shattering, followed by her mother's scream. "Mom? MOM!"
No answer.
The Slayer dropped the phone and started running, ignoring the pain from her injuries, the weakness in her legs. She had to get there.
The basement door cracked and splintered under the creature's assault. Joyce huddled in the corner farthest away from the door, and hoped that Buffy was on her way. When the clawed hand had smashed through the window, reaching for her face, Joyce had made a beeline for the closest room with a lock: the basement. She'd hoped that the thick door would keep the creature out until Buffy could get there. She was wrong. Another blow, and the door cracked right down the middle. Joyce could hear something on the other side, something big and snarling. She closed her eyes and prayed for her daughter to come.
Sunnydale's hospital was a long way from Buffy's house, too long for her to run all the way. Fortunately, some luckless hospital attendant had chosen to ride his or her bike to work today and had forgotten to lock it, possibly saving Joyce's life in the process. Buffy pedaled her way home with a speed that would've put some Tour de France competitors to shame, ignoring the pain from her not-quite-healed wounds. Fortunately the storm had long since ended, and Buffy sped her way through a city slick with newly-fallen rain.
When she arrived in front of the house, she jumped off the still-moving bike, and ran inside through the smashed-open door. She paused for a moment inside, looking, listening. The place was dark and silent except for the television, which was still playing "Passions". Buffy realized that this was the first time she'd been in her house in months. Hell of a homecoming, she thought.
Noises, from the kitchen. And they didn't sound like her mother. Buffy moved forward cautiously, ignoring Chad leaving someone at the altar in the background. Entering the kitchen, she saw a broken window. It looked like the thing had already left. Moving further into the room, she looked out the window. Yep, nothing to be seen.
Something warm and loathsome dripped onto the back of her neck. She looked up to see that it was saliva, dripping from the mouth of the creature, which was clinging to the ceiling. It hissed in victory and pounced.
The larger creature landed on Buffy, bearing her to the floor and trying to pin her- again. Twice in one night! Buffy fumed. It gets the drop on me twice in one night, the exact same way! The Slayer was furious, and wriggled out from beneath the creature before it could get a grip on her. Flipping herself back to her feet, she faced her enemy for the first time.
It was definitely taller than her. Her eyes traveled up its long body, starting at the clawed feet, along the powerful-looking legs between which a long tail tipped with a small vicious blade swung. Then the skinny torso, from which two long, slim arms protruded, ending in wickedly clawed, five-fingered hands, and with four spikes growing just behind the shoulders. And the head... The head was like nothing she'd ever seen before.
Connected to the torso by a thin neck, the head swept backwards, extending far behind the creature's back in a sort of curved oval shape. The face of the thing was almost all mouth, a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth, naturally. Bizarrely, the creature didn't have a moving jaw; instead the teeth were anchored in muscular, mobile black gums which moved the teeth up and down. No eyes, no nose, nothing in that head except that freakish maw. The top of the head was armored with a strangely smooth and shiny substance, sort of like a bone helmet. In fact, the entire outer body of the creature reminded her of armor; instead of skin or scales, it had a hardened exoskeleton, like an insect. The entire appearance of the thing conveyed the impression that this was an efficient, all-natural, top-of-the-line killing machine.
Buffy took all this in during the split second before the creature attacked. The tail, moving with the speed and grace of a striking snake, came up and over the thing's shoulder towards the Slayer's face. She twisted her head to the side just in time to avoid having the tail driven through her head, but not fast enough to avoid a shallow cut on her cheek. Buffy groaned as she felt a burning sensation in the cut ten times worse than iodine. The damn tail was poisonous! But now she was mad- mad at being ambushed, mad at having her home invaded and her mother threatened, mad at how revoltingly unnatural the thing was. She kicked her right foot upwards, driving it into the creature's chin. It staggered backwards, baring its teeth and hissing in fury. Buffy expected that. It was what most beasties did before she kicked their asses.
What she didn't expect was for a second mouth to open within the first and bare its teeth in an identical expression. "Whoa," she said, "that's got to make it harder to pay the dentist bill."
Unfortunately, the creature didn't much appreciate Slayer humor, for it leapt almost before Buffy finished speaking, and then the battle was on in earnest.
Giles would have been proud of the way Buffy handled the pounce. She fell onto her back, kicking her feet upwards into the creature's chest, and used her legs along with the thing's momentum to send it flying over her into a cabinet. The cabinet splintered under the impact and plates and glasses tumbled out, shattering on the creature's smooth head. It was unfazed however, and was now furious. It advanced on Buffy with vicious speed, slicing with its claws, stabbing with the tail, driving her back.
Ducking a clawed hand reaching for her throat, the Slayer seized the creature's wrist in an iron grip and pulled, trying to throw it to the floor, but the creature remained on its feet. Suddenly, that second mouth opened again and shot out of the creature's head on a short, muscular tube-tongue. Buffy flinched back as the grotesque mouth clamped shut on her hospital gown and slithered back into the alien, tearing away part of her gown.
This was getting way too freaky.
Buffy changed strategies and backed up even faster. The creature followed eagerly, allowing the scrap of gown to fall to the floor. Reaching the kitchen counter, Buffy placed her hands on it and pushed herself up, kicking out her legs at the same time. The momentum of the thing's attack carried its face right into her feet. The creature was knocked off-balance, and Buffy seized the opportunity to dive past it and make a beeline for the cutlery drawer.
Hearing the creature snarling behind her, she opened the drawer to find what she needed most: weapons. Her Slayer senses screamed, and she threw herself to the side in time to avoid being torn to shreds by the creature's pounce. As she dodged, one of her hands grabbed a steak knife from the drawer. She landed, rolled, came up, and threw the knife almost without aiming. The throw was perfect, the blade tumbling through the air straight into the center of the creature's chest. The exoskeleton cracked and green blood spilled from the wound as the thing writhed and collapsed. It was over.
"Buffy Summers, in the Kitchen, with the Knife," she proclaimed, feeling justifiably pleased with herself. The satisfied grin vanished from her face, however, when she saw the blood begin to eat through the floor, smoking and sizzling as it dissolved through the tile. The damn thing had acid for blood! Buffy shook her head in disbelief and went to find her mother.
She found her lying limp in the basement, claw marks on her throat. Fearing the worst, Buffy knelt down to check her mother's pulse, but before her hand could make contact, Joyce's eyes snapped open. "Buffy!"
"Mom!"
"Are you all right?" Buffy asked.
"Are you all right?" Joyce asked. They stared at each other for a second, then hugged one another as hard as they could. Joyce described how the thing had smashed its way into the basement and cornered her like a rat, only to suddenly dart upstairs- "It probably heard you coming, honey," Joyce said- to lay its trap. That had been the last thing Joyce had seen before fainting dead away. "Is it gone?" she asked.
"History. Though we made a pretty big mess of your kitchen... your insurance doesn't cover that, does it?"
"Don't worry, it won't be the first time I've- oh God." Joyce's eyes went wide, staring at something behind her daughter. Buffy turned to see the creature, the wound in its chest all but gone, the bleeding stopped, crouching on all fours at the top of the stairs. It began to slowly stalk its way down towards them, tail twitching behind it like a cat's.
Buffy's first thought was for her mother. She swiftly picked her up and draped her like a piece of laundry over the nearest water pipe. "Hey!" Joyce protested. As Buffy's mother, she was more used to picking her up. Buffy ignored her; it was undignified, but safer than being on the ground.
The creature jumped over the last few steps and landed at the bottom of the stairs. She ran at it, intending to strike before it could. Raising itself onto its hind feet, it swept its tail at her legs, attempting to trip her. She leaped over the tail and scissor-kicked the creature in the chest. The alien's exoskelton absorbed the blows well, and it countered by tackling her while she was still in the air. They crashed to the ground together, the creature on top. Buffy rolled out from under it before it could pin and slash her and got to her feet. "Mom, go!" she yelled.
Joyce dropped down from the water pipe and ran upstairs as the creature struck again. Now it was wary of Buffy, and kept moving as it tried to sting her from long range with its tail. The Slayer managed to dodge the tail's strikes, but found herself being backed into a corner. She launched a high kick at the thing's face, only to have her foot was smacked aside by a clawed hand as the creature continued its advance. She was almost trapped... Suddenly, something THUNKED down on the back of its head. As it pitched forward, Buffy saw her mother standing behind it wielding a… leg of lamb?
Meh. A weapon's a weapon, she thought. She took the frozen leg from her mother, surprised by the weight it had. "You're supposed to be gone," she lectured.
"You were in trouble!"
Buffy heard the creature starting to rise behind her. "Go!" she told Joyce as she whirled around with the edible makeshift sledgehammer at the ready. The creature was now on its feet, and looked REALLY mad. Buffy swung the leg at its head, but it ducked and countered with a swipe at her gut. She jumped back and kept moving backwards to the center of the basement, knowing she needed room to use the leg effectively.
The creature followed, cautiously at first, then suddenly launched a flurry of clawing attacks meant to slice her to ribbons. She warded off some of these with the leg, dodged the others, then threw a low kick to the creature's gut, stunning it. She followed up by swinging the leg of lamb up and over in a complete circle, then bringing it up in an whooshing underhanded blow that caught the creature squarely on its chin. The force of the blow lifted it clean off its feet and sent it flying up and back. It crashed down onto the hard, unforgiving basement floor, two of its teeth tinkling down beside it. It was over. The thing was out cold. Buffy raised the leg over her head for the killing blow that would crush the creature's skull like an egg.
"Buffy, stop!" It was Riley, at the top of the stairs. He ran down, blaster pointed at the creature. "Professor Walsh told us to take this thing alive if at all possible."
"Are you kidding?" She asked. "This thing's a killer."
"It's a new kind of killer," Riley said. "And we need to learn all about it, and we can't do that if you turn its head into road kill."
Buffy sighed and lowered the leg. "Fine. It's all yours. Careful- thing bleeds acid."
"You won't regret this," Riley assured her. "Is your Mom all right?"
From upstairs came a blood-curdling shriek. "MY KITCHEN!"
"Guess so," Buffy replied.
Joyce came down the stairs, groaning. She looked at her daughter. "Buffy... next time, could you just let me die?"
Buffy laughed. "No can do Mom." She looked at Riley. "Y'know.. if people see that mess, they could start asking questions that the government doesn't want..."
Riley sighed, lifted the handset and called for a "Full cleanup and containment team. You will need tile grout, a window, and kitchen cabinets. Look, don't ask questions, just get over here." He turned back to Buffy. "Giles sent me to look for you. When you tore out of the hospital like that, we knew something was wrong."
Buffy looked at the creature, which still showed no signs of stirring. "Nothing's wrong now," she said confidently.
The alien twitched, as though to prove her wrong.