Willow was working on her laptop when a dark shadow loomed over her, full of hate and malice. She looked up and gulped.
"H-hi, Principal Snyder." Willow squeaked.
"Rosenberg. Now what might you be doing?"
"Working on homework?"
"Really." He grabbed her laptop and pulled it around, stared at the screen, and then returned it to her.
"Well, you don't seem to be doing anything wrong, but yesterday someone thought it would be amusing to infect our computers with a virus that did nothing but show lesbian porn over and over again. It was damn hard to get rid of. Very sophisticated virus. Of course it was the kind of prank a high school student would pull. A brainy one. Like you, for example."
"But I don't even watch porn! It gives me hives!"
"Every high school kid watches porn. It's a statistical fact. I've got my eye on you, Rosenberg. You're my top suspect since you hang around with that Buffy Summers. She's a bad influence, a troublemaker. Which makes you one by default. Have a nice day." Snyder's toothy smile was that of a predator who knows his prey is cornered with no way to escape, and then he strutted off. Willow gave a loud sigh of relief.
She set back to work when more ominous shadows appeared, disrupting her efforts.
"It's the Willster!" Buffy said cheeringly, sitting beside Willow and hugging her tightly.
"Hi Buffy. Please let go. Willow can't breathe or concentrate." Willow gasped out.
"Oops. Sorry Will. Whatcha doing?"
"Yeah Will. You look like such a busy beaver we just had to rescue you from that terrible monster called schoolwork." Xander chimed in; sitting beside Willow on the other side of the bench, then thought better of it and sat on the grass.
"Homework. Very busy. Shoo."
"Whatever, Miss Grumpy. We can help. What are friends for?"
"Speaking of a terrible monster, what did the Snydman want anyway?" Xander asked.
"He thinks I'm responsible for infecting the school computer network with a porn virus." Willow answered without looking up.
"You?! My little sweet and pure Willow! Shame on you!" Buffy teased.
"They make porn computer viruses? Where was I when this happened?" Xander wondered.
"Guys. Doing homework." Willow said, pointing at her laptop and giving them the resolve face.
"Fine, we're going. Come on Xander. Our best friend is running us off with the proverbial torches and pitchforks." Buffy said.
"We'll just go find someone who appreciates us for our gratuitous and skillful slacking off. Hmph!" Xander declared mock-snottily. They marched off with their noses in their air. Willow rolled her eyes and mumbled something to herself.
Once again setting to work, her concentration was again shattered like ever so fragile glass.
"Hey Red. Is B around?" Faith asked, walking up to her.
Willow pointed in the direction Buffy and Xander had gone without glancing up from her screen.
"Thanks." As Faith began swaggering off, she walked behind Willow, looked at her screen, and then said, "By the way, you got number 11 wrong." she commented without breaking stride.
As Faith walked off, Willow threw her hands up in the air, turned off her laptop angrily, stuffed it in her bag, then ran around the bench in circles, screaming: "I give up!" at the top of her lungs. People looked at her strangely.
"Hi. What are you doing?" Oz asked as he went up to her.
"Freaking out. Let's just go to class." Willow said, embarrassed.
"Ok." Oz said.
They walked off.
Giles pulled a couple of volumes out of his private collection in his office, and began to exit. Naturally he was quite unprepared to bump into a hot blonde gal standing in his office doorway (no, not Buffy.)
Startled, Giles jumped backwards and almost tripped over his chair, his books flying out of his desperately clutching hands.
"You're jumpy today. Are you alright?" Helen said, concerned, as she snatched his books out of the air and handed them to him.
"Y-yes. Tried American coffee today. Never make that bloody blunder again. Been wound up all morning. Speaking of which, how did you show up? It's 9 AM."
"Came up through the sewer entrance in the basement." Off Giles' look, she added, "Which you were obviously unaware of."
"Ah. I can't believe I had forgotten that. At any rate, I'm afraid I haven't found anything new on the spell that Ethan used to bring you and Neil and the others here. Where is everyone else, by the way?"
"They're sleeping in Neil at the moment. I still felt sort of wired, so I abstained, wandered around, and ended up here. I sort of figured you hadn't found anything yet, so I swung by to help."
"Excellent. No one else but Willow seems interested in helping to research, so an extra hand is always welcome." He handed her one of the volumes she had caught earlier, and they sat at the table and began poring over the thick books. After a couple of hours, Giles sat back, rubbing his eyes in growing annoyance.
"Nothing?" Helen asked.
"Not at all. I may need to contact the Council. What information I have on soul magic has proved to be sketchy at best. How about you?"
"The same. They need an index and table of contents for these books. It's like trying to find a clean needle in a pile of dirty needles."
"And a bloody editor to snip out all the irrelevant parts." Giles sighed.
"Exactly."
"Time for some tea, I think." He rose and went into his office.
As Helen kept reading, Buffy, Willow, and Oz chose that moment to walk into the library.
"Well, hey. I thought you would be with everybody else maintaining your vigil over Neil." Buffy said in greeting.
"Is he still in the hospital?" Willow asked in concern.
"He should be getting out soon. Book?" She waved one of the discarded thick books at them.
After everyone had taken their seat (and a book), Helen glanced around at them and commented: "Aren't you missing two members of your gang?"
"Cordelia ambushed Xander outside a broom closet and dragged him in. So last year." Willow answered grumpily.
Willow's mood darkened further when Faith came in. Faith spotted Buffy and walked over and was promptly handed a book of her very own before she could say anything. She sat down dejectedly and started flipping through it.
"If I have to be in research hell, so do you, Faith." Buffy said in response to Faith's mood shift.
"I kinda need to talk to you about something, B. Been lookin' for you for two hours." Faith replied.
"Can it wait?" Buffy said distractedly.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." Faith tried to sound nonchalant, but a glimmer of hurt appeared in her voice. Willow tried to hide her smile at this. Fortunately for her, Faith didn't notice. Helen did however, and raised an eyebrow at her. Willow's smirk vanished and she kept reading, guilty at having been caught. Buffy and Oz missed the whole exchange, being lost in their own thoughts.
Giles walked out of his office and was pleased to see them researching.
"Right to work, I see. Where are Xander and Cordelia?"
"Broom closet." everyone replied, even Faith (guess she knows the score, huh?)
"So last year." Giles said dryly.
Everyone looked at him like he had just said he milks female kitty cats for fun.
"What? If anyone hangs around you lot long enough, they pick up a few things."
He swaggered back into his office.
"Giles has the cutest ass." Faith whispered, smirking. "Not nearly as cute as Neil's people like Helen here or Neil himself, but nice."
"He does, at that." Helen agreed silently.
"He must work out." Oz said softly.
Willow just squirmed uncomfortably, becoming steadily more discomfited.
"Can we not talk about Giles' butt please?!" Buffy whined vociferously, and then put her hand over her mouth.
"What did you say Buffy?" Giles asked from the office.
"I said, "Wow, Giles sure does work his British butt off! He's an inspiration to us lazy Americans!" Buffy said hurriedly.
"Strange topic of conversation, Buffy."
"Well, you know me. Strange and funny Buffy!" Buffy laughed nervously.
Giles just walked out of his office, smiled at her, shook his head, and walked up the stairs to the second floor of the library.
Everyone except Buffy and Giles (who was out of earshot) started snickering.
"Shush!" Buffy hissed.
The nurse was checking Neil's vitals closely, so she completely missed the shadows oozing under the door.
As she busied herself about her duties, they edged closer and closer, until they wrapped around her, stifling her screams in an instant.
She met her death in silence as she was consumed by the shadows, never to be seen again.
Neil's dark side reemerged from them once more and stood over Neil as he lay sleeping in bed. She reached out a hand and caressed his forehead. Neil stirred briefly, and then drifted back into slumber. She kissed his head and stood back.
"I think it's time for a little darkness, don't you?" she said. Her hand snaked down and touched his shoulder. Blackness began oozing from her fingertips and spreading through his skin.
"How unfortunate this won't affect your little protectors, but they were never what I was after in the first place, were they? Now say ahhhh."
Neil's eyes snapped open, glowing black.