At the moment, Buffy Summers was having a wonderful time letting out her unabashed mean streak. The young lady's viciousness was normally well-concealed from a world which when it looked at this specific Slayer only saw then a pretty face, a sexy body, and always among her stylish clothing a pair of shoes in the latest fashion simply to die for. It should be kept in mind, though, even before becoming the latest daughter of Sineya that a certain fifteen-year-old girl didn't achieve the title of Queen of Hemery High by being all sweetness and light to her cowering subjects. Nope, whatever her age, it took a first-class bitch to accomplish this feat.

In a wretched hive of scum and villainy (copyrighted), Buffy brutally punched Willy with stunning force right between his eyes. The Alibi Room's rat-like owner and bartender would've ordinarily been sent sailing backwards through the air by the force of this tremendous blow to then slam painfully against the rear wall of Sunnydale's seediest demon bar. Except, Buffy's other hand was inexorably clutching with iron-hard fingers onto Willy's upper right shoulder, holding him helplessly in place over the bar counter which he'd been dragged forwards onto mere seconds before.

Waiting impatiently until her interrogation victim for tonight had recovered the teensiest bit, Buffy declared into his glazed expression, "Willy, just because I haven't been here for a while, it doesn't mean you've got a free pass for not talking to me when I ask you questions!"

To emphasize her final words (and just because it was so much fun), Buffy decked Willy again.

Scattered throughout the rest of the bar, this supernatural drinking place had its remaining few unearthly customers there at the other tables now hunched over their orders while otherwise remaining apprehensively motionless lest they capture the Slayer's cranky notice. Three small heaps of ashes and a widening puddle of goo on the saloon's grimy floor showed where a trio of vampires and one completely innocent demon bystander had already made this fatal mistake.

Confident those jerks behind her wouldn't dare to try anything, Buffy then demanded from a whimpering Willy, "So what's going lately in the north warehouse section by the docks? All last week, there's been a lot more disappearances there than usual, even for Sunnydale!"

Without moving a muscle, all the listening unholy creature at their seats mentally shifted into alerted attention. For some reason (possibly due to the constant over-indulgence in applying excessive amounts of blonde hair dye which had a genuinely deleterious effect upon her intelligence), the Slayer never considered that loudly asking such questions before a crowd of suddenly intrigued fiends might give these same monsters a hint or two as to the where, when, what, why, and who those meddling kids known as the Scooby Gang were going after next. Indeed, the eavesdropping demons were already totting up inside their deformed heads exactly which of the town's Big Bads they could sell that little tidbit of information freely bestowed to them a moment ago.

This same oblivious girl giving her captive another good smack in the face for not answering fast enough also evidently never realized this was why a specific snitch was allowed to exist in the first place by the local criminal community. Willy was the perfect person to feed Buffy Summers the proper Hellmouth rumors, gossip, and other word of mouth intelligence in order to keep the Slayer occupied by going after the town's low-level demon villains while the more upper-class nasty pieces of work could carry out their own evil schemes in decent peace and quiet. In turn, that weaselly individual at present shoved back onto his feet and then getting his head pounded hard against the top of the counter in between bouts of pained whining was permitted to both stay alive and in business running Willy's Alibi Room.

Everybody else of the dark side now in the bar also felt it wasn't any scales off their frontal nasal projections over how much that underhanded, short-changing, little shit of a human got beaten to a pulp during an average of twice a month by the Slayer. No, far more interesting was the prospect of scoring some serious cash for being the first one to pass onto any interested parties this latest news.

Swiveling its half-dozen eyes as one towards the other monstrous patrons there, to then at where the young warrior woman across the room was engrossed with yelling into Willy's cringing face already blossoming with heavy bruising, and finally at the nearby front door of the bar, an unfortunate decision was made by a dead-broke demon. Surreptitiously arising from its seat, an equally furtive sidle was made by this fiend toward the exit. Once it was outside, then the next thing to do was to find the closest customer with the deepest pockets and tell them-

During one more step made by the departing demon leaving as quietly as possible, Buffy continued to maliciously describe Willy's family tree by mentioning how many times his ancestors had clearly somehow bred with the Rodentia family in the past. Without pausing in this obnoxious speech or even looking behind herself, the Slayer reached with blurring speed with her free hand into a pocket of her designer jeans, pulled out from there a slim knife, and she flipped this weapon over her shoulder in a single quick motion.

Moving too fast to be dodged, this thrown knife hurtling through the air sank to its hilt into the topmost eye of the multi-orbed demon trying to sneak out without being noticed by Buffy. Yeah, like that'd ever happen, especially with all the reflective surfaces of the bottles in front of her giving the Slayer a perfect chance to stay aware of all that went on at her back. Smirking at the heavy thump! made by the collapsing corpse of her latest kill onto the bar's floor, a pleased blonde then haughtily declared into Willy's paling countenance that unless he spilled everything else he knew, this creep was gonna be really, really sorry!

However…

Before Willy could even begin talking, an entirely different occurrence then took place, causing Buffy to freeze in rare astonishment during it all.

From the gap at between the end of the bar counter and the far wall where the person serving drinks could walk out from behind this furniture into the larger portion of the room, a very strange beast now appeared. Scuttling on all fours towards the monster lying lifelessly there just before it would've dissolved into non-existence as was normal for Sunnydale demons, this new and very unique animal with a thick coating of unnaturally bright mustard-colored skin and a stubby form came to a halt next to the unmoving corpse.

Jaws the width of a manhole cover and filled with a good many sharp teeth then gaped wide open, only to promptly clamp shut onto the demon's whole head including the knife still sticking out from there. Paying no mind to this weapon, the incredible beast then started backing up on all four clawed feet. Easily dragging along the entire body of a deceased demon, the only sign of any possible exertion felt by the beast were a series of soft whistles coming from the upper nostrils of the blunt muzzle, all of these sounds sent at the otherwise silent room's occupants watching this with utter fascination throughout everything.

Eventually, both the beast and its towed burden disappeared behind the bar counter. A few seconds later, distinct chewing and crunching noises issuing from there announced that for something, dinner had just been served!

Soon overriding these ghastly sounds was Buffy's very wary question directed at the bleeding man still in her unyielding clutch, "Willy, what the hell is that?!"

Spitting out a tooth fragment, the Alibi Bar's owner sullenly responded, "My dog."

There was a pause.

With total incredulity creeping into her tone, Buffy repeated, "Your…dog."

Regaining some control over his aching neck muscles which had caused his skull to feebly droop in a girl's grip, Willy gave an actual self-righteous nod. This newfound pride was also evident in what came next from him, "Yeah, first one I ever had. His name's Rover, of course."

Buffy's own voice was now absolutely flat. "You named your dog Rover, is that right?"

Peering out from between a already-swelling pair of eyelids which were soon about to develop into a magnificent set of black eyes, Willy just sent the Slayer a puzzled glance, as if wondering what was so hard to believe about that. He, along with the entire bar, and undoubtedly the entire surrounding neighborhood quickly learned otherwise.

Shrieking at the top of her lungs, Buffy bellowed, "THAT'S NOT A DOG!"

When the echoes of this stopped ringing throughout the room, a stubborn Willy insisted, "Is too!"

Glaring at the snitch acting all like he wasn't aware of how dangerous it was to disagree with her, Buffy snapped, "Oh, no, it isn't! For one, no dog looks like that, as if somebody poured over it a couple gallons of the same kind of totally garish cheap mustard that gets slathered over the franks you buy at a ballpark!"

"Hey!" Willy protested with genuine resentment. "That's my favorite color, thank you very much!"

From behind the bickering pair, one of the demons sitting alone at its table interjected in a deep rumble, "Yeah, seeing how Willy's teeth are the same shade as Rover's fur, it was probably love at first sight for them both."

Simultaneously glancing over and glowering at this unwanted offering from the peanut gallery, Buffy and Willy then heard a sharp crack! coming from lower down and behind the counter. Apparently, the discussed animal being passed off as the barkeep's canine had now gotten to consuming one of its meal's thighbones, which had just been bitten in half with a single chomp.

This realization produced from Buffy a determined, "I don't care what you say, it's got to be something else than a completely ordinary pooch! Those pets are perfectly fine with eating canned dog food, not chowing down on demons!"

Looking past a triumphant Slayer convinced she'd made her point at last, Willy paid no attention to Buffy. Instead, he directed a snaggle-toothed leer at his unearthly customers scattered throughout the room. Besides proving the horrible truth of a recent slur upon this man's complete lack of dental hygiene, this was accompanied by Willy's snickered, "Rover's such a good boy! Besides saving me money on what to feed him, my dog makes sure nobody pushes me around now!"

Okay, that was it.

Effortlessly yanking Willy again over the counter with her hand still holding onto his shoulder, Buffy stood there nearly nose-to-nose with this once more alarmed barkeep, who really shouldn't have said this last. Observing how Willy's overconfidence had quickly changed back into proper fear of her, a newly smug Buffy started to get things back to normal with more intimidation and punches, until she was abruptly interrupted.

With the piercing sound of a thick steam pipe spraying outwards its contents after it'd been accidentally punctured, a tremendous HISSSSSS! resounded throughout the bar. This scary noise came from exactly where Rover was lurking in concealment while seeing its owner being in peril from a taken-aback Slayer.

Casting a cautious gaze at where that weird animal had previously emerged from behind the counter, Buffy sensibly kept her eyes aimed there lest she be caught by surprise in any attempt by Rover to defend his master-

Oh, boy, now she was thinking it was a real dog!

Still holding Willy off the floor, Buffy didn't turn her head while insisting one last time, "Listen, you little jerk, that damn thing didn't growl or bark at me just now like a real dog would! I've had about enough of this! You either tell the truth about no-way-it's-Rover, or I'll-"

In the middle of her unfinished threat, a disapproving voice came from behind. From out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw this speaker was the same demon who'd earlier insulted Willy. With growing amazement, she heard this monster declare, "Dogs are really good judges of character, Slayer. Rover knows you're being mean to his owner, and otherwise acting like you're not a dog person."

"What?!" yelped Buffy.

In her further shock, she let go of Willy (who promptly slid backwards off the counter and dropped out of sight behind this furniture), to then whirl around and confront the demon who'd just said that. Angrily placing her fists upon her hips, Buffy retorted to the room at large, "I am too a dog person! They love me and I love them! The same goes for cats and horses, even when I couldn't have any for pets because Daddy was totally allergic to animal hair! He even had such a bad case of this that I needed to shower at the stables after my riding lessons before coming home!"

This didn't seem to impress anybody there, who were each and every one regarding Buffy with evident condemnation shown by various misshapen features. Grinding her teeth in frustration, Buffy then grouchily straightened up, sent an evil look at the staring demons, and then stalked off towards the front door with an air of affronted dignity. Past the portal, she slammed it shut hard behind herself while leaving, in one final bit of spiteful revenge.

Waiting a few more minutes to make sure that scary girl wasn't coming back or otherwise hanging around to listen on what was about to be said, the spokesdemon thoughtfully eyed where Willy had struggled onto his feet and pulled out a medical kit from behind the bar.

Beginning to patch himself up, the battered proprietor then heard an impatient, "Okay, Willy, enough's enough. It was a lot of fun to mess with the Slayer's mind, which has to be the whole reason you instantly made up the Rover scam in the first place, but bets are at stake here. Now, like you promised to tell right before she barged in, exactly what kind of animal is it you've got there?"

Tenderly placing a bandage across his throbbing nose, Willy nevertheless sent a victorious smirk at the waiting demons. In the end, he straightforwardly admitted, "Well, before I cut off the tail and painted him yellow, Rover was an alligator."