Thank yous to my readers and reviewers, I'm glad you are liking the story so far.
CHAPTER 2
"Next!" the woman behind the counter called buffeting her long nails. Her dower disposition and clothing completely at odds with the cheerful red apron proclaiming 'Welcome to Pepper's Pizzeria.' She looked expectantly at the lanky man and the dog following him.
"Hi," Shaggy said cheerfully, already salivating at the aroma of baking pizzas. "We'll have four large pizzas with everything, two plain cheese larges, one with extra-cheese, four cokes and a sprite, and breadsticks, oooh and do you have any of those dessert pizzas? Like with chocolate on them?"
"No."
"Better add like another two orders of breadsticks then."
"Four large pizza's with everything, two cheese, three breadsticks, and five drinks. That'll be $76.39. We'll call you when it's ready. Thank you for eating at Pepper's please dine with us again. Next!"
"Come on Scoob, no sense in waiting standing up." Shaggy led the way over to a table near the juke box. They sat in a sprawled fashion, each taking up their respective bench. Suddenly Scooby's ear perked forward.
"Wraggy look!" He exclaimed, pointing.
"Daphne!" Shaggy cried.
Daphne was sitting at a corner table with three other girls, a redhead that resembled Velma and two blonds, and a dark haired man, who appeared to be attached to one of the blonds. She didn't look up a Shaggy's cry, so he got up and went over to her table. "Daphne," he began, stopping when he noticed her outfit. She was wearing a tight black tank top and form fitting jeans. "Daphne!"
"I'm sorry," she said, looking up. Her eyes where hazel-blue, not brown, he noticed. And her hair was slightly curly. "Are you talking to me?"
"Sorry," Shaggy apologized. "You look exactly like a friend of mine."
"It's no big, I'm Buffy."
"Shaggy and this is Scooby Doo."
"Willow, Tara, Anya, and Xander," Buffy said nodding to each of her friends in turn.
"Scooby Doo?" Willow interrupted. "I heard Mysteries Inc. was coming to give a talk on campus but I didn't realize it was this soon. Wow, this is so cool! You guys are so awesome going up against all those demons." Seeing the look her friends where giving her, Willow added, "I mean, I know how hard that is and you don't even have a Slayer or magic or anything!"
"Will," Buffy interrupted when she paused to inhale. "Breath."
"Buffy, this is Scooby Doo and Shaggy from Mysteries Inc. You know we're the Scoobies right?"
"I have to side with Will on this one Buff. Wow, and may I add Zer! I'm Xander; it's nice to meet you." The guy offered his hand, looking just as star-struck as the red head. Scooby grabbed it and pumped Xander's arm vigorously.
"Xander I think you should pay some attention to me now," Anya said. "Xander's my boyfriend," She addressed Shaggy. "You can't have him."
"Anya, honey, I'm straight."
"So was Willow when you kissed her when you where dating Cordelia, which turned out to be a good thing because then Cordy got all upset so I was sent to help her with the vengeance stuff but then my necklace got broken and I lost my powers --and was very angry about that! But I'm over it now because I have you but I want to keep you so it's important for other people to know that you're mine."
"Wow Will, I think your babble is contagious."
"You catch any of that Scoob?" Shaggy asked out of the corner of his mouth.
"Uh huh Uh huh."
"Groovy."
"So," Buffy said, taking back control of the conversation. "You're giving a talk at the university?"
"Yeah. Well it's mostly Velma's deal; she's like taking over this psych professor's classes, the rest of us are like just for the question and answer session."
"P-p-professor Walsh's c-classes?" the other blond spoke up. Watching the intensity in her blue eyes Shaggy missed Willow subtly threading their fingers together below the cover of the table.
"Yep." Shaggy watched puzzled as friends shared a communal worried glance. "Am I like missing something?"
Xander gave an ironic half smile. "I hate to be the downer here, but Professor Walsh was killed by a demon-"
"Demon!"
"Vwemon!"
"Why us Scoob?" Shaggy sobbed.
"Hey it's of the good though," Willow interrupted their panic. "Buffy's the Slayer. And she, well, Slayed it. I mean we helped with the powerful magics and all. You see, I cast this spell so that me and Giles, he's Buffy's Watcher, create like this super Buffy and we did this big fight thing and she ripped out his uranium core. It was very cool." She shared a smile with Tara. "So poof, no more bad guy."
"Oh phew. There, you see Scoob? Nothing to worry about." Shaggy said, trying to act causual.
"All's well in the world. Plus, now Glory's got everyone tied up, so even the garden variety Vamps are at a minimum." To her credit, Buffy didn't let her fear seep out into that statement, although her Scoobies all knew it was there. They all shared that fear after all.
"Vampires! Glory! Oh Nooo! ...Wait, who's Glory?"
Good question, Buffy thought.
"The latest Big Bad; but don't worry, Buffy can take her… I hope," Willow explained. "Hey maybe we can walk you back to your hotel and meet the rest of the Mysteries Inc. for like protection, just incase any vampires show up?"
"Will this take long?" Anya asked. "Xander promised me orgasms."
The dark young man reddened noticeably. "You didn't hear that. An' we talked about how we don't share details of our sex lives in public."
"That wasn't details, details would be if I mentioned how you –"
Xander clamped his hand firmly over Anya's mouth. "We'll be leaving now. It was nice meeting you." He stood up and dragged Anya out of the booth and towards the door.
"Don't mind Anya, she's just like that," Buffy told a very shell shocked Shaggy and Scooby.
"Like no comment," Shaggy finally said once he could get his mouth working.
"Actually about the walking thing, I'd love to go but I have to check in with Giles before meeting Riley for patrol. Its not quite sundown yet, so you should be safe. Plus Will' and Tara are both big bad Wicca's, their mojo should be able to handle any Vamps that come your way."
Willow visibly preened at the praise for her Wiccan skills.
"S-so where are you staying?" Tara asked.
"At the Days Inn a few blocks from here. It's pretty close to the campus so we can walk there on nice days rather than have to risk Fred's driving with the Mystery Machine." Shaggy said, smiling at her.
"Wikes!" Scooby added, backing up Shaggy's assessment of Fred's diving skills.
"Cool." Tara said, nodding her head.
"I take it Fred's not a good driver?" Willow asked. "If he's anything like Buffy I don't blame you."
"Hey! I'm not that bad a diver. Okay there was that one time in high school with Mo-," Buffy broke off and then went on with a false cheerfulness. "With the van, but in my defense she should have never given me those keys."
"Well she was kinda high on dark magic chocolate," Willow allowed. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think I'm going to split though. Gotta get over to Giles. Glory. Danger. Slayer. Bye Shaggy. It was nice to meet you, um, both of you. Will, Tara." Buffy stood up and exited almost as fast as Xander and Anya had.
"I shouldn't have brought that up," Willow said guiltily, glumly looking at the table top.
"It wasn't your fault," Tara said quickly, shifting closer to Willow and squeezing her hand. "Y-you just mentioned Buffy was bad at driving."
Willow looked up at Tara with sad eyes and half-smiled. She leaned into Tara's welcoming shoulder, accepting the comfort her girlfriend was offering.
Shaggy and Scooby, who had gotten lost earlier during the conversation (knowing nothing about Buffy's Mom's ill health or the bewitched chocolate incident), suddenly jumped to their feet as another garbled announcement came from the microphone at the counter. As far as both Willow and Tara knew there where no actual words in the announcement, they had all relied on Buffy's Slayer hearing to tell when their orders had been ready, but Shaggy and Scooby both had super senses when it came to anything related to food.
"That's us!" Shaggy informed the girls.
"W-wow, you could u-understand that?" Tara asked, looking impressed.
"It's a gift," Shaggy said modestly.
The four of them proceeded to the counter. Willow and Tara offered to help carry the stuff, but in the end only Tara wound up carrying one of the bags of breadsticks. Burdened by tall stacks of pizza boxes Shaggy and Scooby lead the way out into the darkening streets of Sunnydale.
They kept up a light conversation back to the hotel, although Tara would occasionally have to touch Willow's arm to remind her that she was babbling when her nerves about meeting Mysteries Inc. got the better of her.
"So Tara," Shaggy eventually asked as they approached the hotel. "I was, like, wondering if you'd, like, care to go to the movies sometime?"
Tara stopped walking and turned a bright burgundy as Willow's jaw hit the pavement with an audible thunk.
Wow! Willow thought. One of Mysteries Inc. is hitting on my girlfriend, that's so c– Hey! He's hitting on MY girlfriend!
"I, um, I-I-I-I c-c-c-can't, I-I-I-I-I," Tara started, stuttering so badly she could barely talk.
"She's my girlfriend," Willow said forcefully, grasping Tara's freehand. Relieved, Tara nodded.
"Oh," Shaggy said awkwardly. "I, uh…"
"F-friends?" Tara asked.
"Friends." Shaggy smiled. He transferred the stack of pizzas to his left hand and they shook hands. "I'm gonna go get the door," Shaggy said as he let go of Tara's hand. The rooms Mysteries Inc. were staying where on the ground floor and had doors opening to the parking lot. Tara and Willow lagged behind a bit as Shaggy fumbled with food and keys.
"Yours," Tara whispered quietly, pressing their foreheads together.
"Always and forever," Willow agreed. She was unable to even try to prevent a wide, blinding smile from spreading across her lips.
"Wuh-oh," Scooby said as Shaggy dropped the keys.
"Oh man," he grumbled as he bent down to pick them up. He fumbled around for them on the ground, unable to see them in the darkness that had fallen as they crossed the parking lot. A low growl sounded next to them. "Hungry Scoob?" Shaggy teased.
"Vwasn't me," Scoob replied. A pair of glowing yellow eye emerged from the darkness beside Shaggy, who was still bent over looking for the keys.
"Waggy…" Scooby warned.
"Hang on Scoob," Shaggy said as his fingers encountered the cool edge of metal.
"Waaagy!"
Shaggy straightened up as the creature growled again.
"Not your stomach."
"nuhuh."
"Vampire right behind me."
"uhuh uhuh," Scooby confirmed, all four knees trembling.
Shaggy and Scooby let out ear piecing shrikes as the Vampire pounced on Shaggy.
At the sound Tara and Willow jerked apart and sprinted for Shaggy.
"Absisto!" Willow screamed, throwing out her right hand. A wall of white energy pulsed out of her outstretched hand and slammed into the Vampire, knocking him off Shaggy before he could bite down and scattering the remains of the pizzas across the hotel wall.
"Shaggy? Scooby!" Velma called as she and Daphne poked their heads out of the next door down in time to see the Vampire fly past. "Jinkies!"
"Watch out!" Tara screamed at them as the Vampire stood up and launched himself at the nearest warm body: Daphne. They fell backwards through the door. Daphne failed at the Vampire with the hairbrush she had been using when Velma had heard the commotion outside. She connected with the vampire's nose and the head of the brush snapped off. The Vampire pulled back, not releasing his grip on her, and snarled more in anger than pain.
Tara reached them first and paused outside the room. Quickly she chanted "DESINO ITUM, GLACIALAS PRAVUS!" Tara slowly crumpled to sit on the ground as the energy for the spell left her and shook her head a few times as if to clear it.
Immediately ice crystals formed on the vampire, freezing him in place on top of Daphne. Getting a good look at his 'game' face for the first time, Daphne shrieked, and desperately tried to shove him off her. The jagged handle of her hairbrush, still clenched in her fist, pierced the undead's heart as she struck his chest and he crumbled to dust.
"Everyone okay?" Willow asked as she reached the doorway brandishing her cross. She knelt by Tara, who placed a calming hand on the redhead's arm.
"Daphne!" Velma cried, helping her friend stand up as Willow did the same for Tara.
"I'm fine," Daphne said. "Ugh, I'm covered in dust… it's in my hair!" She frantically brushed out her clothes. "What the hell was that?"
"Vampire," Willow said causally, shrugging. Wow, Willow noticed, Daphne and Buffy really did look a lot alike. "He didn't hurt you did he?"
"No."
Velma bent to study the dust. "Vampire: A reanimated corpse that is believed to rise from the grave at night to suck the blood of people turning them into Vampires. Immortal but can be killed by sunlight, holy water, beheading, or by being stabbed through the heart with a shaft of wood. Judging from the dust this was the real thing."
"No kidding," Shaggy said as he and Scooby joined them inside. "Too real if you ask me."
"There goes our vacation," Daphne said. "If Patrick knew about this he is going to be in so much trouble."
"What I don't understand is how he came inside," Velma pondered. "I thought they had to be invited."
"Public building," Willow explained. "Things like hotels and college dorms are public domain so Vampires don't need an invite, they can just come in, la-dada-da-dee, never mind the fact that you're staying there. Oh! I'm Willow and this is Tara."
"Hi," Tara said half waving with her right hand while she nervously picked at her skirt with her left hand. Her eyes darted from Daphne to Velma before returning to the ground.
"It's really, really, nice to meet you," Daphne said. "A few seconds later and I would have been dead, or undead. Thank you."
"That was a really nice spell you did Tara," Willow reflected. "I don't remember that one in any of the books; you'll have to teach me sometime."
"S-sure."
"So I take it you guys are white witches. You didn't seem surprised by the Vampire, do you run into them allot?"
"Vampires, Sunnydale, kinda go hand in hand what with the Hellmouth and all. We're friends with the Slayer." Willow said, beginning the traditional explanation.
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Latin meanings:
Absisto: 'go away' or 'desist'
Desino itum, glacialas pravus: rough translation 'stop movement, freeze evil'