"Focus on your surroundings…you're more in tune to them than you think."
Angel's low voice was right next to Buffy's right ear and she could feel his cool, hard body lightly against her back. Buffy took a deep breath and tried to follow his instructions, trying not to be annoyed that she was blindfolded. It was a little hard to focus when he was this close to her. Buffy scolded herself silently. You've been sleeping with him since high school…control yourself!
Angel's voice brought her back to the present. "Think about how you can sense when me, or another vampire is near. About how you can feel it," Angel continued, not moving from his spot behind her.
Buffy smiled a little and said, "Don't you know it." She couldn't resist wiggling her hips against him a little bit.
"Buffy, focus," Angel admonished. Even though she couldn't see him, she could hear the smirk on his face at her comment. "Tap into that sense."
Angel backed away from Buffy, watching her carefully. Although she was blindfolded, she seemed to be scanning the environment with her other senses. Her tiny body was tense, a spring loaded weapon ready to snap into action. Her hand opened and closed around the stake she was holding. Angel leaned against a headstone and waited.
Buffy heard a slight noise in front of her and readied herself. A vampire emerged from the woods and rushed at her, snarling. Buffy waited until the last second before hitting him with a quick combination of punches and kicks before staking him efficiently. Another vampire rushed out of the woods and came at her again. Buffy made quick work of him, and the two more that followed. Angel watched Buffy with pride, glad this little exercise was going well.
Suddenly a fierce roar that was most definitely not a vampire came from the woods. "Huh?" Buffy said to herself, confused. She ripped off the blindfold just as a large demon barreled towards her. Buffy stared wide-eyed at the long sword the scaly demon grasped in its hand. She neatly sidestepped it, but the demon quickly recovered and came at her again. Buffy cursed to herself, wishing she also had a sword, or at least a knife.
She traded a few blows with the demon, expertly avoiding the sword, slowly gaining the upper hand in the fight. Just when she thought she had him in prime positing for a stake to the heart, the demon vanished right before her eyes with a small popping sound.
Buffy looked around, confused at how the demon suddenly vanished. She looked over at Angel, who hadn't moved from his spot next to the headstone. He looked just as confused as her, and shrugged his shoulders to indicate he had no clue how that happened.
Buffy heard another popping noise from behind her. Just as she was about to turn around to resume her fight with the demon, she looked down and saw that the demon's sword was now protruding about four inches from her abdomen.
"Shit…" Buffy muttered to herself. Angel winced. Buffy threw her hands up in exasperation and said, "Willow! Since when can demons teleport?"
The graveyard around Buffy and Angel wavered and then melted away to reveal the brick walls of the training room at the Magic Box. Willow sat cross-legged against the wall, busily typing away on her laptop. Giles leaned against the wall, sipping from a mug of tea as he looked down at Willow's computer screen.
"Sorry," Willow said, glancing up at Buffy and Angel. "Must be a bug. I'm looking through the code now."
"It's okay Will. Sorry for being snappy," Buffy said as she walked over to her bottle of water sitting on the ground against one of the walls of the training room. The witch just smiled up at her in response and continued to type away on her laptop.
Since Buffy's resurrection and subsequent readjustment to normal life, she had become more and more focused on honing her Slayer skills which resulted in a great deal of time spent in the training room at the Magic Box with Giles, and Angel when he was in town. The virtual reality training sequence was something new that Willow had come up with. Along with Jenny, they were able to combine magic and technology to create scenarios for Buffy to train in, all designed and controlled from Willow's laptop.
Giles looked up from the computer screen to see his slayer and her vampire talking in hushed tones, their bodies mere inches from each other. Giles had a feeling that if the two were alone in the training room there would be far less than inches separating them. Angel picked up the small towel that was on the ground by Buffy's water bottle and draped it around her neck. She whispered something to him and giggled, and he tugged at both ends of the towel around her neck to bring her face closer to his. Giles couldn't see the vampire's face, but if he could, he would bet there was a predatory smirk on it.
Giles cleared his throat and said, "Despite the…glitch, good job tonight Buffy." At his voice, Buffy peered around Angel and smiled. "I'm sure that Willow and Jenny can fix our teleporting demon problem," Giles continued. Buffy couldn't help the soft snort of laughter that escaped her at Giles' clear dislike of incorporating modern technology into her training sessions. Angel cocked an eyebrow and looked down at his girlfriend in question. She glanced back up at him as if to say, 'Later'.
Giles, feeling like he was intruding on some private conversation that only the two lovers could follow, cleared his throat again as he looked down at his watch. Just past sunset. "Buffy, why don't you head off on patrol while we sort through this," Giles said, gesturing down at Willow, who was seemingly oblivious to their conversation as she typed away on the laptop.
"If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em," Buffy said as she grasped Angel's hand and lead him out of the training room.
Once the couple was out of the training room, Willow looked up at Giles and said, "What was that about?"
Giles sighed and said, "I don't think we'll ever know," before taking a sip of his tea.