Deeply digging a hairy finger into an equally hairy ear, Bates tried to rid himself of the last few notes of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" that were still bouncing around in his brain. Pulling out his finger with an audible 'pop!', the leader of the outlaw motorcycle club then glowered around the saloon. The guy, who'd finally discarded the empty Everclear bottles he'd been juggling, to instead start tapping out a drum solo with his fingers on the tabletop as his finale, was once more seated at his chair and giving Bates a true shit-eating grin that wasn't doing a thing for the biker's fragile temper.

*Fucker must be some kinda freak, got a third kidney or somethin' else, whatever keeps him alive after downin' that load of booze. I sure as hell ain't tryin' it, but maybe….* Trailing off in his mind, Bates now consideringly examined his followers, trying to decide if any of those scumbags might be more successful, and if not, which of them would be the least missed. Their leader didn't make the slightest secret of what he was doing, which was why all of the other bikers were now glaring at him, their body language also clearly expressing: "NO fuckin' way!"

These delightful minions were quite happy to follow Skullripper around during his usual leadership of offending the regular citizenry; doing the occasional rampage of looting, plundering, and ravaging; and giving anybody who looked the slightest bit crosswise at them a good ass-kicking. However, they each preferred staying alive to do all of that, and nobody else wearing the colors of their club had the slightest goddamn intention of swallowing enough ultra-high-octane booze that would have allowed a drag racer set track records. It wasn't worth dying over, as would most certainly happen, just like playing Russian roulette with a revolver having all six chambers loaded with bullets. Bates fuckin' well better not push it.

Despite his brutish appearance, which perfectly matched his usual behavior, the leader of the club wasn't stupid, understanding well enough the military adage, "Never give an order you know will be disobeyed." Bates instead sent towards his followers a really scornful look, as deserved by those who dared to call themselves bikers but still wouldn't show off their machismo by doing something both extremely idiotic and having a clear likelihood of being fatal. All the rest of the motorcycle gang simply stared back at Bates, each sharing the same identical expression of, "Yeah, so fuckin' what?"

Finally having had enough, Bates switched his glower at the pair still sitting at their table, with the woman now appearing totally bored, and the guy actually giving him a sympathetic look! Feeling his temples beginning to throb, the biker leader snarled at the one-eyed man, "Okay, you win that one! Now, you fuckin' well better come up with somethin' else for you to do, that we can do too, or I'm gonna call off the bet and THEN we start bein' pure mean and nasty!" Bates' developing headache lessened, as he felt the unspoken agreement of his bikers behind him, who were all starting to get a bit impatient for their evening's atrocity.

Xander Harris thoughtfully considered that depraved statement, and then the man brightly offered to the bikers, "Well, how about something with serious potential for bloodshed, mutilation, and the other good things of life?"

There was a disbelieving silence in the bar for a few moments, until Bates managed to regain his voice, to hollowly deliver, "Huh?"

Beaming at the flabbergasted bikers, the one-eyed man now lifted up his hands, to flip them over, keeping the palms flattened and the fingers pointing right at the woman by him, in the unctuous presentation by a truly sleazy game show host or a reduced-to-kids'-parties stage magician, as Xander now intoned in a plummy voice, "Gentlemen, I present to you the lovely Faith, who shall be my gorgeous assistant in our next production. Lovely Faith, will you begin?"

Rolling her eyes in utter exasperation, the woman now sullenly straightened up from her chair on Xander's right side, all while muttering under her breath at the smirking man with the eyepatch, "You call me that one more time, I'll kick your ass higher than the space shuttle."

Plastering a look of mock alarm on his face, Xander called out after Faith stomping her way over to the bikers, "It seems that my exquisite helper is in a bit of a mood tonight, gentlemen. I entreat you, treat her with the utmost courtesy, as she completes her appointed task."

Bates looked down at the beautiful woman who had stopped before him, her upper torso at the level of his solar plexus, as she tilted back her head to give him a withering glance, accompanied by an equally disparaging comment, "Gimme yer knife, an' hurry it up, big guy."

The biker blinked, and he also heard the indrawn breaths of his followers at the woman's rudeness. Knowing that he had to show everyone at once that nobody could get away with dissing him, but still in a way that would also keep things going, because Bates was actually a little curious about whatever was going to happen next, the man-monster's brain worked furiously, until he came up with an actual plan.

In a blur of action, Bates drew his gigantic bowie knife from its belt holster, and then he slammed it down point-first onto the bar counter next to him, sinking the blade an inch deep into the wood (further along the bar, Joey cringed at the damage done to his property, and that bartender made a note to himself to get more wood sealant at the local hardware store). Ignoring the cowed owner's flinch, to instead glory in the snickers of his buddies, Bates let go of his weapon and he leered at the woman now staring at the knife gently vibrating as it stood straight up from the bar counter. "There ya go, honey. Ya want it, ya take it, and after we're all done, I'm gonna show ya somethin' else that matches it in size and the damage it can do."

Keeping her face blank as the entire bar now rang to the bikers' raucous guffaws, the woman took a step past Bates, to now stand right in front of where the knife was embedded in the bar counter. Patiently waiting until the malicious laughter died down and she was sure that everyone was paying attention to her gazing at the knife, Faith now said, "Ohhhhh, it's soooooo big and soooooo hard, and it makes me feel soooooo horny."

Every word of that woman's offhand drawl was delivered in an absolutely deadpan monotone, as far from female sexiness as it was possible to get, at the same erotic level of a sixty-year-old Bengali grandmother conveying from her Mumbai office building's cubicle that consumer service's stereo assembly instructions.

Unable to believe his ears, Bates would've ordinarily gone berserk in the next couple of seconds, until something truly fantastic now occurred to prevent this. Casually reaching out with her right hand, Faith gripped the handle of the knife, her fingers unable to reach all the way around, and then she smoothly pulled the mammoth weapon free out of the bar counter in one easy tug, all while showing the same lack of effort as that exerted when yanking a single Kleenex tissue out of its paper box.