Chapter Three
Buffy woke up in her bed and turned off her alarm just before it went off, as she usually did every morning. But she felt the presence of warm bodies in her room and started to leap angrily and dangerously out of bed to deal with the interlopers. Then she identified the intruders and flopped back down and pulled the blanket up over her head.
"Geez guys, is this necessary?" Buffy asked, nettled, peering out from under the blanket.
Willow, Giles and Dawn were sitting on kitchen chairs and were staring at her. Giles said, "Yes, I am your Watcher and I am ..."
"Watching," said Buffy, "yes, I see that, but watching me sleep seems a little skanky, even for a British Librarian, or maybe especially for a British Librarian."
"Now Buffy," said Giles, "your mother was here too."
"Well that makes its all peachy doesn't it!"
"And I was a little worried by this whole enterprise, even though Willow assures me that I need not worry in the slightest, but that is no consolation I fear, especially in consideration of some of Willow's previous insalubrious experiments in witchcraft; sorry Willow."
Willow was unhappy and upset with Giles' assessment, but couldn't quite think of an appropriate response.
"And besides," Giles continued, "even if everything went swimmingly well, you are in the middle of an operation, and I am here to offer support as well as to hear your report from the field, as it were."
Joyce bustled in carrying a tray with coffee and accouterments. "Wakey, wakey, Buffy. Coffee Mr. Giles? Willow? Dawn? Buffy?"
"Why don't all of you leave, go downstairs, and I'll meet you there after I've finished my morning routine. Unless of course, you want to watch me bathe?"
Giles, embarrassed, got up hastily and said, "No, no, of course not, we'll meet you downstairs. In fact, the rest of us could probably stand to freshen up as well." And he shooed everyone out into the hall.
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Eventually everyone ended up at the breakfast table. "So Buffy," asked Giles, "do you have anything to report?"
"Yes I do," said Buffy, "I actually dusted a vampire last night, and I met some other Shadow Creatures. I must say, my slayer senses were buzzing during my conversation with Blue and Ethereal. I think they were lying to me. The whole shadow state was intoxicating—it was really a lot of fun zooming around."
"Do you suppose," asked Giles, "that you might try a coherent form of report, that is: begin at the beginning, when you gained shadow consciousness, report each occurrence, especially unusual or odd incidents, in order, and stop when you get to the end, that is when you awakened."
"Spoilsport."
Joyce interrupted, "Was it dangerous?"
"Umm, I don't know for sure, but I don't think it was dangerous to me. Dusting the vampire was an exercise in frustration at first, until I finally figured out how to manipulate solid objects while in the shadow state. And in answer to one of our earlier questions, yes, I believe a Shadow Demon can fire a gun, definitely if it was cocked and loaded, maybe if not."
"So no problems with the actual spiritization process?" asked Willow, glancing nervously at Giles.
"There could be one difficulty. According to the creatures I talked to, if my Shadow Self murders my corporeal self, then the Inspirited Shadow becomes permanent, with none of this inconvenient waking up during the day. I kind of got the feeling that's how they are made in the first place. But I am not certain."
"Oh Buffy," said Joyce, "I hate this. I just hate it."
"Don't worry mom, I'm not going to kill myself." Joyce looked stricken, she grabbed a cup of coffee and left the room.
Giles asked, "How certain are you of your control over your Inspirited Shadow? Perhaps we should cut this short and go ahead and reverse the procedure. Willow? How much preparation time do you need?"
"Reverse the...? We never talked about that Giles. I don't even know if it's possible," said a crestfallen Willow, "somehow, the subject never came up before. I just assumed that the shadow would eventually dissipate."
Giles looked daggers at Willow. "Willow, I can't believe that you didn't anticipate this! What's wrong with you!"
"But Giles, you were there too!" Willow was near to losing control.
Buffy stood up, "Hush! None of us thought it through to this part. Obviously there is plenty of blame to go around, but seriously Giles, blaming Willow for not have 20/20 foresight in hindsight is – uh, I'm a little tangled there, but you know what I mean. Perhaps Willow, you could do some research. And Giles, reversing the procedure may amount to killing off a part of my spirit, so let's not rush into things. And in the meantime, I'm pretty sure that there is no rush. I mean, I think that the Slayer-of-Darkness has to ponder for a long time before trying to kill me. And I am hard to kill, as many a beast has found out. And she has a job to do first."
"And one of her jobs is to give me a proper report."
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The next evening the Vampire-Slayer-of-Darkness slithered around in a more introspective spirit of mind. She wandered this way and that, slayed a vampire or two here and there, and tried to find her limitations. Actually, her range of action turned out to be dismayingly broad.
Then she decided to do some detective work. So Buffy slithered into Willy's, of all places, and discovered that the while the regular clientèle were unaware of her, there was a whole coterie of Inspirited Shadows in attendance that noticed her entrance. They were mostly under tables and behind the bar, as well inhabiting a few shadowy corners. They all looked in her direction and the noticeable shadow buzz went silent for a few moments. Then they all looked back to their companions and starting babbling again.
Shadow Buffy recognized Ethereal-Darkness in the shadow of the juke box talking animatedly with other shadow beasties. She slithered over and said, "Hi Ethereal, how ya doin'?"
The others looked blank, since they didn't know any Ethereal. Eater-of-Darkness looked up and realized that this was going to be hard to explain. "Ethereal is just my brother's nickname for me, I am actually Eater-of-Darkness. Guys, this is Buffy-the-Slayer-of-Darkness, a recently spiritized Shadow. Buffy, this is Wavy-Edges-of-Darkness and Transition-of-Light-to-Darkness. They're just visiting Sunnydale, passing through on their way to Carlsbad Caverns for a dark vacation."
"Yes," said Wavy, "how could we resist becoming real for awhile? The Lord-of-Darkness's substantiation spell was quite effective, wasn't it? It's been, gosh, I don't know, at least five decades since I was able to go out and kill something!"
"Oh, I know what you mean," gushed Buffy, "I've been entertaining myself by staking vampires, the look of surprise they get when they realize they're dissolving into dust is a real kick!"
"Vampires huh?" said Transition, "I never thought of that. Hate those critters, they never provide shadows. Don't have much in the way of souls though." He picked up a miniature flashlight from the bowl between them and stuck it in his mouth. He clicked the button three or four times and briefly glowed from within. He put the flashlight down shakily and said, "Woah! What a rush!"
"That's how us Shadow Creatures get high? With light?"
"You're really are new aren't you?" asked Wavy. "Light is generally bad for our health, that's why we inhabit shadows. But, during these real spells, a special light, shining in the red wavelengths, can indeed cause a feeling of, I don't know, how would describe it Eater?"
"Kind of like getting drunk," answered Eater, "although it's an inexact analogue."
"Yeah, Transition added, "but when you combine it with the fleeing of dead souls through through Shadow Flesh, well nothing's better than that, except sex I suppose. The other day out at the big freeway accident I was buzzing for hours. Best high I ever had in a hundred years."
"Big freeway accident?" inquired Buffy, "did you cause that?"
"Oh, no, that was Lord-of-Darkness's accomplishment. He was flying alongside a big truck and was able to cause a wheel bearing failure at a perfect point, man that truck caused a huge pile-up!"
Buffy could only think of one question to ask, "How do shadow creatures have sex?"
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To Be Continued.
Author's notes:
Although I generally look askance at all this importunate begging for reviews that is rampant here at Fan Fiction dot Net, I find that I too have to ask. I am genuinely curious to know if anyone else finds this as fun to read as it is to write.