NIGHT TWO

Buffy's foot connected unexpectedly with a root and she tumbled forward through a bush to see nine startled faces looking back at her. "Hey, look. I win," she said, and poked her head back through the bush to tell the rest of the team that she'd found the location.

Jeff Provost sat on a chair probably fit for a lifeguard and smiled smugly. "Good of you to join us, Jeff Tribe."

Xander scrambled through the bush and caught himself before he fell onto his face. "Yeah, well, sorry we're late. Our undead navigation system went on the fritz," he explained, jabbing a thumb backwards and nearly poking out Wesley's eye.

"And yet I'm the only one who noticed the end of the hedge about ten feet from where the rest of you morons pushed your way through it," Spike said smugly, walking out into the arena. Xander stepped forward, saw the opening Spike was referring to, and cursed under his breath. Then his face matched Buffy's as he noticed the other tribe staring at them from thirty feet away.

"Oh, bugger," Spike said as he saw who Buffy was staring at.

"Hi," she said breathlessly.

"Hey," Angel returned, smiling faintly.

"Anya?" Xander whispered.

"Xander?" she said back.

"Look, I know Riley's a swell guy and all, but I think that maybe I should be the one you're hugging right about now," he commented. Anya finally unlatched her arms from Riley's middle and ran toward Xander enthusiastically. They met in the middle and kissed passionately.

"Aw," Willow managed, face perfectly back to normal. She was shortly ambushed by a crowd of Tara, Oz and Kennedy, all of whom were slightly hesitant to make contact, but all of whom wanted to see her. Kennedy hugged her first, then Tara, and finally Oz, who was doing his best not to become half-wolf until after the challenge. Willow glanced from face to face and looked very perplexed about the whole situation.

Spike came up and stood next to Buffy, staring at Angel with matching intensity to Buffy's, but in a totally different sense. Riley came up and stood next to Angel, still massaging his side where Anya had been hugging him too tightly for the past hour or so. "Hey," he said quietly, nodding his head.

Buffy glanced from Angel to Riley. "Oh. Hi! …Oh. Geez. That must be awkward for you," she mumbled. Spike roared with laughter as he imagined the terrible time both these gents of Buffy's love life must be having. He knew that if there was one person who hated Soldier boy more than he did, it was Angel.

The other six participants stood idly in a group, all awkwardly saying hello to each other and waiting for a spirited greeting just like the others were getting. Giles found a particularly sharp-looking rock and started to clean under his nails with it indifferently, realizing he was stepping back into Ripper mode and not caring much one way or the other.

"All right, tribes, if you could maybe separate yourselves so I can hand out your tribal scarves, that'd be great," Jeff called over the contestants. The crowd slowly stepped away from each other, Xander and Anya the last to part. The host jumped down from his lifeguard chair with a handful of scarves that matched his shirt. "Here you are, Jeff Tribe," he said pompously, handing them out one by one.

Faith raised an eyebrow. "'The Jeff Tribe?'" she scoffed. "Man, and I thought we were bad off with being 'The Provost Tribe.'"

Jeff looked hurt. "What's wrong with those names?"

Kennedy laughed. "Are you joking? You're joking, right?"

Jeff frowned. Giles also laughed at the host's stupid expression as he neared the other tribe. "What she's trying to say, you ignorant burke, is that you can't just go prancing about naming our tribes after yourself. That's like me naming my dog after myself. It's bloody stupid, if you ask me," he finished as Jeff reluctantly gave him a scarf the same colour as his pants.

Spike raised an eyebrow and stepped back from Giles. "That Watcher had better watch it. He's startin' to sound like me a bit."

Cordelia squealed in delight as she got the scarf. "Be right back," she said, and hurriedly disappeared behind an ample bush. She returned seconds later wearing the scarf as a shirt. "Finally, something warm to wear. So, Jeff, what's the challenge?"

Jeff didn't say anything.

"Aw, now we've gone and hurt his ickle feelings," Spike said tauntingly.

"Have not!"

"All right. Go ahead, then."

Jeff pouted as he climbed slowly back into his lifeguard chair. Then he sat up straight and looked at them all with authority and superiority again. "All right. Has anyone gotten fire yet?" Members of both tribes put up their hands. "Whaaat? Already?" Jeff whined, then re-regained his composure. "All right, fine. Has anyone found food yet?" Oz smiled triumphantly as all members, Spike exempt, raised their hands instantly and proudly. The Provost Tribe remained motionless. They'd given up the hunt and had earlier cracked open their stash of rice, eating it enthusiastically before Giles stopped them when he realized that this rice was supposed to last them another month.

"Well," continued the host in a way that only a man who's eaten well in the past twelve hours can speak. "Here's your reward: One person from each tribe will be sent away to a lovely cabin the rest of tonight and tomorrow until the immunity challenge, complete with comfortable beds, a warm fire, and a large buffet. Yes, it will have delectables for those of the blood-sucking variety, too; warmed human blood if you're soulless, the best pig's blood there is if you're not.

"So here's how you're going to win." Jeff clapped his hands and a dozen cameramen came and whipped a sheet away from a hefty apparatus. "Two people will compete per round, one from each team. The four people from each team that complete the course the slowest will move on, two people from each team will move on from that round, and the final round will determine the winners. There will also be a small prize for the slowest round made. Any questions?"

"Just one," Spike said. "What the hell is that?" he asked, pointing to the thing the gents had just uncovered.

Jeff smiled. "You'll see. Now, you've been selected to compete against those of mostly equal skill and strength, and Buffy and Faith, you're our first lucky contestants. Step up to these little trumpet-shaped things. I'll count you down."

The two Slayers approached as Jeff instructed. "Count us down to… what, exactly?"

Jeff's smile didn't disappear. "You'll see, I said. Ready, in three, two, one…"

The crowd took a collective intake of breath. Buffy and Faith had completely disappeared. There seemed to be some sort of coloured light going through the mess of pipes, one leading occasionally, the other always catching up. Spike snarled and stepped forward boldly, inspecting the machine. When he couldn't figure out a way to get Buffy back, he morphed his face and climbed up the chair before Jeff even knew what was going on. "Bring her back," the vampire demanded, lifting the host up by his collar and threatening to throw him the ten feet to the ground. Jeff smiled and laughed despite his imminent doom, and pointed to some pipes identical to the ones Buffy and Faith had disappeared through just as Buffy ungracefully got thrown out of one. Faith followed not far after. They both coughed and sputtered on the ground as Spike left Jeff alone to make sure the blonde Slayer was all right.

"Well, Faith won that thrilling round. I use the term 'won' in such a way that suggests that Faith tumbled out second, but she's closer to the reward than Buffy. But that doesn't mean Buffy's out of the picture yet; if more than four people beat her, then she still may well win. That was spectacular, girls. You may take a seat," he told them. He then clapped his hands and the rest of the group watched in amazement as a small scoreboard above the weird machine flipped to Buffy and Faith's names, and then numbers flipped to show how long they took. Buffy has a time of 45.97 seconds; Faith with a time of 48.06.

"Why slowest time?" asked Willow skeptically, helping Faith to sit down as she continued to cough and hack.

Jeff smiled and didn't say a word. Buffy saved him the trouble. "The reason people aren't doing this alone is because they're fighting against each other in there. Faith and I were brought to some kind of poorly pixelated arena. I say pixelated because it was exactly like an arcade game. I don't know how to describe it. Just do your best and you'll be fine," she finished croakily, bending over and sending out a new spell of coughs. Spike talked her slowly through it, and he actually seemed to be helping. Angel and Riley tried very hard not to stake the gent in question.

"Kennedy and Drusilla, you're up next," Jeff stated, still smiling that pompous smile.

The process repeated. Drusilla tumbled out of the machine first, and promptly started crying. Angel hurried over to rescue her despite his strong dislike for the insane vamp. The times on the scoreboard flipped, and Kennedy was in the lead above Buffy but not above Faith.

Then it was Spike and Angel, of which Angel won; followed by Riley and Oz, of which Riley won; then it was Cordelia and Tara (Tara won), followed by Dawn and Willow (Dawn won), and Xander against Anya (Xander tumbled out first, which didn't surprise many). Finally it was the two Watchers. Wesley came out in about thirty seconds, while Giles took almost twice as long. He was in the lead by far, followed by Faith, Anya, and Kennedy.

All were trembling like mad when Jeff applauded the final time and the scoreboard flipped to show who made it to the second round and who got disqualified. He gave a blast of laughter and turned to the sputtering contestants.

"On the Jeff Tribe, people who got to the second round are currently: Kennedy, Dawn, Buffy and, I think this took everyone by surprise, Tara."

"What?!" exclaimed Spike.

"One the Provost Tribe," Jeff shouted over Spike's profanities, "Giles, Faith, Anya, and Oz.

"However, if any of you wish to quit now, the next people get automatically nominated. Does anyone wish to withdraw? Keep in mind that it'll be much more challenging now because we won't be able to match you with someone of your ability; someone like Anya might be set against a Slayer, for instance."

"Did you use me as an example because you think I should quit? Because I'm not. Let's do this," Anya said enthusiastically, though she winced and collapsed into a fresh set of coughs once she stood.

Jeff smiled. "No one wishes to quit? All right. Let's go. Kennedy versus Giles."

Giles apparently wasn't consistent with his standards of winning; he tumbled out of the machine first and Kennedy found her way out in about 55 seconds, still not beating his record. Dawn and Faith went next, Faith winning by a sizable margin. Buffy and Anya went, Buffy winning quite emphatically, too, and finally Tara and Oz went, Tara unable to take it and tumbling out of the machine barely ten seconds after she went in, unconscious. Willow, being in the 2001 frame of mind that she was in, squealed in fear and scurried over to her unconscious honey. Oz realized something was wrong and forfeit what may have been the best run there would have been to help Willow move Tara off to the side.

He looked up at Jeff on his tall chair with eyes unnatural to any human and started sprouting fur on the back of his neck. "Why would you do this if you knew it was dangerous?"

"Not my responsibility. I gave her the chance to quit."

"But if you knew it was this dangerous, she shouldn't have been participating in the first place. No one should have." Oz tried to prevent his teeth from growing out and succeeded, but barely. He was on the edge.

"Look, I'm sorry, but there's nothing…"

"Don't give me that. This girl is in danger because you led her to it."

"Oz…"

"She got kicked out of a machine that creates violent mind images while condensing people into small coloured light. How can you not…"

"Oz, you're wolfing out," Willow said, grabbing his arm tightly. He looked over at her and growled, and then saw that the arm she was holding was covered in a light fur. He watched Willow until he calmed down. Then he attended to Tara, picking her up and carrying her back toward their tribe. Jeff visibly relaxed.

"All right. The winners of this round are Faith, Buffy, Kennedy and Giles. Two people from each team. Anyone copping out?"

"I'm doing this solely for Tara's purpose," Buffy decided with hatred.

"Do as you will. Buffy versus Giles. Go."

Giles came out first with a time of 58.44 seconds; Buffy came out with a time of 58.59 seconds.

"Kennedy versus Faith. Go."

Faith tumbled out first with a time of 56.09, and Kennedy clocked in at 56.99.

"Giles and Buffy are the winners," Jeff said resignedly.

"I forfeit my share to Tara," Buffy said indignantly, regarding the host with disgust.

"And I forfeit mine to Willow," Ripper said. He was Ripper now; he wasn't Giles at night. He didn't care for a night in a cabin because he felt he was better than that. Also, Tara wouldn't have any fun in a cabin alone unless Willow was there with her, now, would she? "Besides, she needs the time. Having one's nose being attached to one's chin for hours mustn't be terribly pleasant," he added with a laugh. The silence echoed around him and Willow was horrified that he actually mentioned it.

"But…" protested Jeff, breaking the silence and saving Willow from being questioned for the time being.

"Shut up, Jeff. Show me where the cabin is," Buffy replied, picking up Tara and following the reluctant Jeff, Willow following close behind. Jeff returned shortly to the others.

"You all can go back to your tribes. I'll see you here tomorrow night, two hours after sunset, for the immunity challenge. Goodnight."

"You're a piece of work," Spike spat. Then he couldn't think of anything else to say, and he waited for Buffy's return before he followed the rest of the Jeff Tribe back into the woods.