"You're gonna die. And I'm gonna be there."
Keeping a superior smile fixed upon his handsome features, Angelus decisively made up his mind. That last little piece of impertinence was the final straw. It'd been somewhat amusing to taunt Xander Harris while hearing his fast-beating heart and smelling the fear that was rolling off him, but enough was enough. Whatever that high-school student might have said moments before in the hospital corridor, about the risk of attacking him in front of the currently-unaware security guard, policemen, and orderlies elsewhere in the corridor, this might have ordinarily made good sense, but Angelus was now in no mood to listen to reason. A nice, gory slaughter was looking better and better, in fact.
About to change into game face, the master vampire instead flinched away from something utterly unexpected. A sudden shimmer of pure white light had appeared over the body of the scared-stiff boy standing before the door to Buffy's hospital room. Anxiously wondering about the significance of this bizarre occurrence and how exactly should he react to this, the demon waited in tense expectation for whatever would come next. Equally ready to flee or attack, Angelus absently held onto his gift bouquet of flowers, while he then gaped in sheer disbelief at who'd just materialized at where Xander had been a mere second ago.
Standing there in the hospital corridor, fortunately out of sight of the other humans around, a very strange-looking young woman blinked in shock, to then hastily examine her body, lifting her arms and glancing down her front. She certainly didn't resemble any of the races of humanity that the startled vampire knew about, what with the girl's shoulder-length purple hair, dead white skin with a pair of small antennae rising from the upper corners of her forehead, and some kind of light blue, butterfly-shaped birthmark or tattoo in the center of her pretty face. This completely unknown female was also wearing a rather ugly one-piece uniform covered with irregular dark green and brown splotches.
An odd thought abruptly popped into Angelus' head as he continued to stare: Could this unidentified girl be from a demon species he'd never previously encountered? Her unusual looks, not to mention how she'd suddenly appeared from out of nowhere while the Harris lad had vanished, highly favored an explanation that involved magic or the supernatural. This was the Hellmouth, after all.
Frowning at that possible answer, Angelus' mood quickly shifted into wariness. Harris had been involved often enough with female demons before, so the undead Irishman risked a cautious sniff, while also listening to the hearts-
*What the shite? Hearts?*
Despite his whirling thoughts, Angelus knew beyond a doubt that he'd heard correctly. The young lassie over there had a pair of hearts steadily beating inside her trim body. Not only that, she had perhaps the strangest scent he'd ever come across, an uniquely searing combination of hot peppers and rotting oranges which was actually making his eyes water-
"Hey, Deadboy, why're you still hanging around here where you're not wanted? Get lost, and don't ever come back, asshole."
Angelus gawked at this very familiar attitude coming from a total stranger. At the same time, there was now upon the face of the young woman there a certain malicious smirk, which the male demon had all too much experience with, so as incredible as it might seem-
"Harris? "
"That's my name. Don't wear it out, Captain Forehead," snarked the girl. An instant later, her icy sneer changed into an exceedingly dangerous gaze, accompanied by a matching poisonous tone when she added, "I meant it, you piece of crap. Take off, or I'll reduce you to a bubbling puddle of goop on the floor, you coward."
A vast wave of rage surged inside Angelus' mind at being spoken to with such insolence by a little bitch who looked even frailer than Harris in his original body. Except…not even the Slayer's lapdog was insane enough to say something like that without being able in one way or another to back it up. This merited further investigation, so the vampire managed to sufficiently control his blazing temper to demand, "What in Satan's name happened to you, Harris? And why should I give the least tinker's dam about paying attention to any of your big threats?"
That maddening smirk was back upon Harris' changed features, as she (he?) mockingly answered, "That's for me to know and for you to find out, corpse-face. Though, me being like this is a kind of hint on why you should already be running like hell, same as the last time when you and Spike and Drusilla did that, when the three of you were at the mall a while back."
A baffled Angelus protested, "I've never seen you before, whoever you are! What're you talking about?"
An evil grin was then bestowed upon the perplexed vampire, as the girl snickered, "Remember your big, bad Judge and how he got reduced to demon take-out? I'm part of the same bunch of people the guy who did that belonged to, dumbass! We take down supervillains who make you look like toejam!"
Despite himself, Angelus edged back another step. He'd never been able to figure out what exactly had happened to destroy the Judge, given the need to abruptly dodge a fired rocket and then having to leg it with his vampiric companions while being pursued by a furious Slayer. Nor had the entire confusing matter made any more sense afterwards. And now, here was evidently another one of those people with unique abilities, who was doing…nothing? *Hmmm.*
Thoughtfully eyeing the small woman across the corridor, Angelus tried, "I've noticed, despite all your boasting, that you haven't lifted a single finger against me. It suggests, Harris, you might be totally bluffing. What do you have to say about that?"
Rolling her eyes, the girl then shot a disgusted look towards the vampire waiting for her to reply. "Unlike you, Mr. Hairgel, I do my best to avoid collateral damage. We're in a hospital, as you know quite well, and I won't put other people here in danger from my powers." Seeing the sudden flash of evil glee appear in Angelus' eyes, the superheroine snapped, "But I will if necessary to defend myself and Buffy! You do anything right now, such as trying a quick attack to take me by surprise, and I'll make your face melt off your skull! If you're still considering it anyway on the off chance you'll get away with it, you should know that what I have will work on you even after I'm dead!"
Keeping his countenance blank, Angelus inwardly cursed the lack of the normal cues he got from humans which revealed if they were lying. All the sounds and smells given off by that weird female were just too different to help him make any kind of decision…but he still wasn't buying it. Harris knew exactly what kind of monster Angelus was like, so if she could protect herself, that woman surely would've done it already, no matter what she'd just said! *No, let's put a little more pressure on her…*
"Little boys - and girls - shouldn't lie to their elders, Harris," crooned Angelus in a disdainful, sing-song tone, beginning to drift nearer, but still maintaining the perfect balance to instantly strike or dodge, whatever was necessary.
A resigned look appeared on the woman's face, as she calmly folded her arms across her chest, to then say in a very bored voice, "Fine, if you really want a demonstration, then just hold out your flowers."
This comment made Angelus halt in his tracks, as his jaw dropped. Whatever reaction he'd been trying to goad his opponent into, that hadn't been what the vampire had expected at all. Glancing down at the bouquet in his left hand which he'd been holding throughout their entire conversation, Angelus looked up to see the young woman take a few, steady steps forward from her former position in front of Buffy's door, and then she stopped within easy arm's reach, her eyebrows raised in clear expectation.
After dithering for a moment, Angelus warily held out the bouquet, waiting with ready tenseness if the girl chose to attack. Instead, after giving the fuming vampire an amused look, the superheroine bent forward, her arms still crossed, and she then huffed a single breath upon the tops of the flowers held a few inches below her mouth.
Instantly, every single flower wilted, with all the colorful petals and the stems turning pure black and then melting, with this noisome slime dribbling onto the back of Angelus' hand. Recoiling at once in pure horror, the vampire opened his fingers and frantically shook his hand, sending the vile liquid that was the remnants of his bouquet splashing onto the hospital floor, which made a nasty, squelching sound when the goo hit the tiles. Right after that, Angelus started madly scraping the back of his hand against his pants leg, only to be interrupted in the middle of this by a merciless girl:
"Skin starting to itch yet, Deadboy? I've heard from the sole survivor who managed to get it off quickly enough that a wire brush and then a blowtorch worked like a charm-"
Looking up from their various jobs, the other people there in the corridor had their attention caught by the departing black streak that the automatic front doors opened for just in time. Staring after this meant nobody noticed the bizarre young woman stepping back to stand again in front of Buffy's door, her face calm and her arms still held across her chest. As she stood there, Xander Harris was desperately trying not to be sick in reaction to the end of his successful bluff. He most decidedly did not want to see whatever was in Infectious Lass's stomach.
Trying to get his mind off this, Xander thankfully found something else to think about, now that he wasn't in a life-or-death confrontation with a master vampire facing a superheroine from the 30th century. Who, in fact, shouldn't have been created in the first place by this latest example of Chaos magic left over from that damn Halloween!
A very puzzled look passed over the multi-colored face of Drura Sehpt, who from what Xander remembered, wasn't even a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes at all! Oh, she'd indeed tried to join that group, but the young lady with the power of making anybody sick had shown during her demonstration upon a nervous Star Boy that she couldn't effectively control her abilities. Star Boy had become seriously ill and then collapsed, which hastily ended the demonstration. Equally swift had been the Legion's decision against letting Infectious Lass join, or even having her anywhere near them!
A very discouraged Drura Sehpt had then done what seemed to her was the second best thing. If she couldn't be in the big leagues, then she'd settle for something lower, which was becoming a member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, a bunch of hopeful rejects possessing various minor, absurd, or just plain weird powers. Best of all, her new friends managed to tolerate having around themselves someone who unfailingly inflicted upon her compatriots a new and utterly ridiculous disease every other week. There'd been the Granderian Gender-Reversal Germs, for example…
While mulling this over, Xander had been absently rubbing the side of one of his new antennae with a slim finger, until a shimmer of white light appeared and then vanished around him, leaving his larger male finger hanging in the air just above his conventionally-shaped human forehead. Sighing with relief now that tonight's craziness seemed to be at an end - him back to normal, Angelus gone, Buffy safe - Xander leaned against the door, and he continued his watch over his friend, knowing that all was once more right with the world, or at least as good as it got while living on the Hellmouth. Maybe he'd never figure out just why he'd managed to change into Infectious Lass in the first place, but frankly, who cared, now that it was all over?
He would put off thinking about the rest until later, when he was sure of having a safe opportunity to go completely to pieces, about getting away with bluffing Angelus, given that Infectious Lass's powers worked only on living beings. The flowers had been a total gamble, but apparently they were still alive even after being picked and made into the bouquet. However, it was extremely unlikely that Xander could've actually infected Deadboy with any kind of disease whatsoever, what with that vampire being a supernaturally-animated walking corpse. Feeling beads of relieved sweat breaking out in the small of his back now that the crisis was decisively over, Xander sternly reminded himself that he'd again managed to protect another of his girls, and nothing mattered more than that.
The White Knight resumed his guard, never to know that with typical Xander Harris luck, he'd just undergone a particularly wonky Ethan Rayne special. In an alternate universe a millennium from now, Infectious Lass would still spectacularly fail in her membership try for the Legion of Super-Heroes, but during the ensuing vote, a private feeling of sympathy would cause one of the current members of this group to secretly vote for her, if only to prevent that nice young woman from being unanimously blackballed.
Once the votes had been tallied, it was then found out to everyone's horror, that through an truly incredible coincidence, they'd all (even a recovering Star Boy) felt sorry in the exact same way for Drura Sehpt, which resulted in this thrilled girl getting a record 100% approval vote on the confidential ballots. Feeling obligated to abide by the vote no matter how preposterous it was, the entire Legion gritted their teeth, welcomed their newest member, and surreptitiously enlarged the medical facilities in their headquarter to triple their former size.
Which, for the next couple of years, turned out to be barely adequate.