I still do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any mythology.

I'd also like to take a moment to thank Tammin for all his hard work, and Dusel for his contribution.

First Impressions

Joyce's Gallery

"Are you sure you don't need to worry about splinters?" Mom checked.

Giving her a reassuring smile, Buffy leaned down to grab a hold of the crate. "I'm sure, Mom. Now relax, I'll have these crates open in a jiffy." Making good on her word, she tore off the lid as easily as another would have opened an envelope.

The blonde spared the contents a brief look, the wooden statue cradled in packing material inside staring right back at her, and then moved on to the next crate. "That's some ugly art," she remarked.

"It's all from Nigeria. And just because it's different does not make it ugly," her mother lectured. "I'll have you know this is some very exciting work. All of them were expertly carved using just hand-tools. The artists had to put a lot of work into each one of them."

Buffy shrugged. "And yet, they're still ugly." The crack of the crate opening punctuated her remark. Putting the lid aside, she caught a glimpse of what was inside and stopped dead in her tracks.

The mask inside was ugly. The eyes cut out of its reddish wood were slanted at an angry angle and the real teeth set in its upper jaw were all fangs. What was worse was the demonic energy Buffy could feel trapped inside it. As she watched, the Hellmouth's ever-present energy leaked into the mask and disappeared shortly followed by a pulse of even fouler mystical energy coming out of it.

The pulse was very weak, but still raised the hairs on her arms. Seeing Buffy's disgusted look Joyce came over and looked into the crate too. "Hmm, maybe I'll hang that in my room. It'll cheer it up and I don't have space for everything here anyway."

Hearing that, Buffy shot her mother a look of disbelief. "Cheer your room up? Mom, that thing is evil. It wants you to suffer!"

"Honestly, Buffy, you have no appreciation for primitive art."

Getting a bit miffed, the blonde went into detail. "This isn't about its artistic value, Mom. I know that thing is evil the same way I know a vampire is." Ignoring Joyce's startled exclamation she went on. "Right now, it looks to be charging up using the actual Hellmouth. And since having your gallery get trashed by some demonic Energizer Bunny would be hard to explain to the insurance, best if we trash it now."

With those words the Aesir summoned Mjöllnir to her hand. "One smashed demonic mask, coming up!" the war hammer crowed.

But before Buffy could even raise the weapon, her mom spoke up. "You will do no such thing. I've paid good money for this and I won't have you destroy a piece of my collection just because you have a bad feeling about it."

Buffy shot her a hurt look, then returned her hammer to its pendant form. "Fine, if my word isn't good enough then maybe Giles can convince you. He's probably got a book about it too and of course those are easier to believe than your own daughter!"

Not giving Mom a chance to speak the blonde Aesir snatched up the mask and stormed out of the Art Gallery leaving her mother no other option than to follow.

Sunnydale High

It was with mixed feelings that Joyce picked up one of the mask's pieces. She was lamenting the loss of investment, yes. But Buffy had been right and her disbelief had hurt her daughter. She was also going to have a good word with her supplier. Although how exactly she could discuss the subject of dangerous magical artifacts with him when he probably didn't believe in magic in the first place was a problem.

But there was another problem she could deal with right now. Joyce looked at her daughter whose posture was still a mix of anger, hurt, and defensiveness. "I'm sorry I doubted you, honey. You were right and I should have trusted you on this. You're the expert after all." She looked back at the piece in her hand. "It's just that I thought I could trust Bill. I've known him since college!"

"He probably didn't know," a mollified Buffy offered. "Giles didn't know what exactly it was either, it took him an hour to find it. And if it really needed the Hellmouth to charge up and actually do something than there's no way a regular person could suspect it was anything but your regular creepy mask."

"And me?"

"Well..." Buffy said slowly. "There's this sweater at April Fools that would make me totally forget about anything traumatic like not being believed by my own mother."

"Uh huh."

6 Crawford Street

Cordelia Chase had been sure Xander was having her on when he gave her the address to his new home. She'd known the street and knew what kind of houses were there. Better said, she knew the kind of money you needed to have to be able to life there.

Seeing what was on 6 Crawford Street hadn't dissuaded her from the idea this was one of Xander's pranks. That this was some kind of payback for having spent the entire summer in Mexico and not talking to him until the first day of school. It was obvious the mansion had spent a while being abandoned, it still half-looked like that. The new, cheap doors she knocked on only reinforced that impression.

And then Xander opened the door. "You actually live here?"

"Uh, yeah," he said as he moved out of the way to let her in. "Why else would I tell you I live here?"

"Maybe because your crashing here or, I don't know, house-sitting and you want to impress me." Cordelia walked further into the house, noting the cheap furniture and the big fireplace. To the right, in some kind of side-room, she could see wood and a workbench.

"Nope, I own this place fair and square." He walked past her. "Want a tour of the place?"

She nodded. "But first, I want to know how. And then, why?"

"The why is easy. I so didn't want to live with my parents anymore and thanks to Giles with a little help from Willow, this place is a fortress. As for how..." Xander got an impish smile. "It's a standard rule that after you slay the end-boss, you get his loot."

"Don't geek out on me, Harris," Cordelia growled.

It didn't make much of an impression on him. In fact, he came a little closer. "Remember those Children of Loki I told you about right before you went on vacation?"

Frowning, Cordelia nodded. She'd missed it on account of her parents dragging her along to some benefit in LA, but Xander had told her all about it. "Turns out they're loaded and seriously behind the times. Stashed away a bunch of silver and gold coins and all of them are more than a hundred years old. I used part of my share to buy this place."

She mulled that over for a moment. "You're rich now?" That felt a bit odd. "That's great, I guess."

"And here my friends were warning me about gold diggers," Xander joked.

Punching him in the arm would be more satisfying if it actually hurt him a bit, but Cordelia did it anyway. "I'm being serious here! You were this poor loser when we started dating, but also a great guy. And now you're rich and... good-looking. I kind of feel like I've been shallow all along after all."

"Ah, well, in my defense I always was good-looking." Seeing her rear her fist back for another punch, he held up his hands in mock-surrender. "Okay, okay, I'll be serious. And I've never thought you were shallow," he assured her as he started rubbing her arm in comfort. "But if it helps to convince you, I could just give my money away and go live in my parents' basement. I'm sure they won't ask for too much rent."

Cordelia couldn't help but smile. "Thank you, but I think I'll get over it without that. Although," she said as she eliminated what little space was still between them, "buying me dinner at Pierre's would help."

"Hmm, living in my parents' basement or take you to a fancy restaurant. A fancy restaurant or my parents' basement, what to chose, what to chose."

"Oh shut up," she said before kissing him. The tour could wait until later, right now there was something else she wanted to get reacquainted with.

Sunnydale, Bronze

Reclining in a chair, sipping from her soft drink while listening to the music with her friends, Buffy felt very content with her life. Sure, the way her friends were all coupley and together made her miss Angel, but that miss was a familiar one by now. It didn't hurt so much as it threaded a momentary line of sadness through her thoughts. But it wasn't enough to spoil her mood.

Movement on the dance floor drew her attention, a couple moved off to somewhere quieter bringing a pair into view who were dancing a little more energetically than anybody else. The girl's moves were at least not as dated as the guy's, who was dressed as if he'd come straight out of the era of disco. The blond gasped as her other senses finally got a good look at them.

And apparently she wasn't the only one to notice the couple. "Check out Slut-O-Rama and her Disco Dave," Cordelia said disparagingly. "What was the last thing that guy danced to, K.C. and the Sunshine Band?"

"I don't think he's seen a lot of sunshine lately," Xander opined. "Must be new in town or he would have known that vampires can go into the Bronze..." And there he waited; probably hoping his friends would chime in. They didn't. "I thought it was funny," he mumbled defensively. "So who wants to go rescue the girl?"

'So he noticed the vampire, but missed what she is,' Buffy mused. Not that she could blame him, even she had trouble with the dark, elusive energy that signaled a new Slayer had come to Sunnydale. "I think she'll do fine on her own, Xan. She's the new Slayer."

"Really?" He looked at the girl with renewed interest earning him a sharp elbow from Cordelia.

"Just remember that we'll have to pretend I'm just a slayer and you two are normal people," she reminded her friends.

"Guess that means I can't invite her to stay in my mansion," Xander quipped. Then, seeing Cordelia's glare, he quickly amended, "Not that I would."

As the song came to an end, the Slayer got close with the vampire and then pointed at the door. Taking the hint, the 70's relic put his arm around the girl and started to lead her outside. "You stay," Buffy told the others. "I'll go and welcome her to the Hellmouth. We'll be back in a minute."

Moving past the bar a guy tried to talk to her, Buffy was pretty sure he was a classmate, but she breezed past him. She had no time or real desire to explain to him she was spoken for right now. Opening the door, the blonde stepped out of the Bronze.

***

Faith couldn't help but grin as the vamp pressed her against the chain link fencing. It was her first night in the 'Dale and she'd hit the jackpot at the first club she'd gone to. Not only a vampire to play with, but the Slayer was pretty sure the blonde girl she'd spotted inside was Buffy. She matched the description anyway.

The sound of footsteps getting closer only confirmed it; the blonde was probably following poor, defenseless Faith to rescue her from the big, bad vampire. 'Time to make an impression.'

"Stop struggling, this won't hurt," the vampire told her. The words only added to her good mood because boy was he wrong; grabbing the demon's neck with her left hand Faith easily pushed him away before elbowing him in the face. With the vampire staggering back, Faith jumped onto a crate she'd spotted before to get some more height and then off the crate with a jumping roundhouse kick that knocked Disco Stu to the pavement.

Looking over, she noticed Buffy had arrived. Except she didn't look confused or puzzled like Faith had expected. Instead, she seemed to be taking it in a stride that some stranger was kicking a vampire's butt. Forging ahead, she smiled at the blonde and approached her. 'Okay Faith, time to show your stuff.'

"Hey," she said out loud. "It's okay, I got this. You're, uh, Buffy, right?" Adding that little uncertainty was a nice touch but all she got from Buffy was a single raised eyebrow. Faith also got her first good look up-close of the infamous Buffy. From the stories her Watcher had told her she was expecting someone that was sort of like her; a hot and tough chick with superpowers, only blonde and not as tall as her.

But Buffy looked, well, she looked like a girl, a girly girl. 'She looks like a cheerleader,' Faith thought with distaste. 'This is supposed to be the girl that took down the Master?'

Buffy was looking her over too, but Faith couldn't tell what the blonde thought of her. And she'd run out of time to figure it out too, 'cause that damn vampire took that moment to jump her from behind.

A headbutt solved that problem. The vamp let go but Faith wasn't done with him. This time she grabbed him, holding him for a moment to introduce herself. "I'm Faith." And then finished by twisting her opponent around and shoving him into another section of chain link fence.

While he was busy gathering his wits, Faith pounced on him burying her fist in his back followed by a knee in the same spot. Another couple of punches later, Faith threw the now thoroughly sorry demon to the ground. And that's where the problems started.

By this time she'd imagined snatching the stake from Buffy's hand while she was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Except, and she looked over at the blonde again just to make sure, her fellow slayer's hands were empty. Getting worried now, Faith looked around trying to find something else she could use to finish the vampire off.

At last, Buffy said something. "Forget your stake?" The humor in that voice stung just a bit, especially 'cause Faith had wanted to be the one on top in this meeting. It was also a pleasant surprise, because that voice was nothing like the ditzy one Faith had been imagining, despite the Californian accent.

Of course, she wouldn't let a little thing like this leave her speechless. "No worries, I never have problem getting some wood, B." Seeing the blonde's shocked expression brought some of her confidence back.

Too bad it wasn't the only thing getting up. Stu growled as he lunged at her, but Faith didn't pay too much attention to his attack even as she side-stepped it and helped him plow straight into another fence. Because she'd seen the crate she'd used earlier as a step-up and it was made out of wood.

She was crouching beside it in two steps and had broken off a piece of it by the time the vampire tried its luck again. A mule kick stopped his charge cold and doubled him over leaving his chest in the perfect position to be stabbed as she came up from her crouch.

As he finally collapsed into dust, Faith instantly felt better. And hungry. She almost started to walk towards Buffy to give her back her stake when she remembered that her scheme hadn't gone to plan. Mourning the loss of a good line she couldn't use now, she let the improvised stake clatter to the concrete.

And then just stood there, a little unsure now how to proceed. Nodding to the club, Buffy took the lead. "Come on, let's get inside and I'll introduce you to the gang."

Not having any better ideas and looking forward to getting something to eat, Faith shrugged and followed.

TO BE CONTINUED