Machida, Part 2

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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October 6

It had been a while since Buffy had done this. 'This' being dress and act like a Queen Shark on the prowl. After over a year as a somewhat more 'forgettable' member of the school-age masses it felt very strange trying to slip back into the old mold. Certain parts of her absolutely refused to fit. Sometimes she couldn't believe what a naive idiot she'd been before she was Called. Back then a tragedy had been not having just the right pair of shoes to go with a killer outfit.

That sort of mentality seemed very shallow and stupid to her now that her eyes had been well and truly opened to the ugly, unfair, and outright lethal facts of life. Unfortunately, she hadn't really learned the lesson right away. She'd gone from that shallow mindset to one that declared she was 'special' and didn't need help from a couple of losers. Thank all the gods that ever existed they'd both been too stubborn to walk away, especially Xander. Buffy still went cold all over whenever she thought about what *would* have happened if it hadn't been for him.

Jim and Jon both had gotten her head screwed on straight about the whole 'special' thing over the summer. They drilled it into her head that she had unique skills but no matter how good she was, she *needed* backup. That no one could go to war alone and expect to live.

She honestly pitied any Council people that showed their faces in town. Jon had been particularly hot under the collar over their normal modus operandi. She wouldn't put it past him to kill anyone from the Council that tried to mess with her, provided she didn't get to them first. She would be only too happy to kick their asses herself. The proof of how wrong they were in their methods was plain to see. Giles had told her that Slayers killed and average of four vampires and other demons per night, excluding apocalypse situations. Last year the Scoobies had averaged ten dead vampires and demons a night. Since they'd started training to work as a team, they averaged fifteen a night. That had changed when Spike took control of the vampires in town. Their numbers had dropped since then, but that was because there were markedly fewer vampires running around.

Willow had been able to uncover a massive list of girls who had been last seen at a Delta Zeta Kappa party before they'd gone missing. While they had little doubt that some of those girls had fallen prey to Sunnydale nightlife on the way home, that didn't explain all of the girls. Something very hinky was going on with that fraternity. Unfortunately they still didn't know what it was. So she and Cordelia still had to go in and take a look. Buffy was just glad that Jon was on their team. It meant they didn't even have to try to wear comms or risk the things going on the fritz at exactly the wrong time.

Not that wearing communication gear was a thought she'd had before Jim and Jon had got a hold of her. She'd had to admit that a lot of the stuff they'd had to tell her was remarkably commonsensible. It helped they'd both apparently had experience working with small groups in the military (and in Jon's case the SGC) so they both knew small-group tactics pretty damn well. Even Blair had gotten in on the act by encouraging her to read a number of books on military tactics and strategy. Not all of it was applicable, but it was a good place to start and gave her ideas. It also made her even angrier at the Council, because those books made it all too clear that the Council hadn't exactly been training Slayers for war. At best, they had been training Slayers to be martyrs. Buffy really couldn't imagine what being a Watcher raised-and-trained Slayer must be like.

Buffy gave her head a shake and refocused on getting ready. She'd chosen her outfit with care. A very short-skirted and form-fitting sleeveless black dress with a fairly wide black belt. She'd chosen the dress because not only did it show her figure off to advantage, but the belt provided her a place to hide a few throwing stars. Her hair was piled on top of her head and secured by what looked like two pins but were in actuality two short but sharp-tipped skewers. She was also wearing stiletto heels. Impossible to run in, but easy to get off and break the heels off for use as yet another weapon. This way she wouldn't be walking into the place unarmed. Giles, Xander, Jon, and Willow would be waiting for word from her and Cordelia. They would be carrying weapons for themselves and for her, since they'd decided that storming the place armed to the teeth right off the bat wasn't the best idea.

She headed down to the kitchen and got a hug and a kiss on the top of her head from her mom before she headed out and met Cordelia at the Bronze. Cordelia looked unflatteringly surprised at Buffy's appearance when Buffy arrived. Cordelia was dressed in a spagetti-strapped, low-neckline red dress that showed her off to advantage. Unfortunately, it didn't have the look of something even marginally practical to fight in. Buffy figured that was because Cordelia hadn't had to consider functionality in a fight when buying her clothes until she'd started hanging with the Scoobies more in the aftermath of the dumpster full of body parts incident. Buffy had a year's practice at finding things that she could fight in while still looking relatively nice.

"Ok, so, first, we make sure they notice us." Cordelia said. "Easy enough, really. It's not like either of us are dogs. Wrangling an invite might be a bit trickier, but hopefully not too much so."

It was a simple enough plan. Buffy knew that Xander and Jon were already in the Bronze somewhere, to keep a eye out. Xander had said something about Jon needing the practice the Bronze would give him with his senses. Knowing what she did of Sentinels, Buffy couldn't disagree with that. The place was obnoxious enough for her, and her hearing (the only sense she was sure was different) was only slightly above human normal levels.

With Cordelia's able assistance, it took them less than half an hour to garner the attention of some DZK boys. It took about another ten to secure an invite to that night's party. Buffy played the part of the slightly ditzy blonde cheerleader to the hilt the entire time. She let the guy she'd ended up dancing with lead her out of the Bronze and towards the college campus.

The DZK frat house was rocking at something like twice the decibel level of the Bronze. It was loud enough to make Buffy flinch mentally even as she smiled outwardly. From the moment they walked in the door, Buffy knew this wasn't going to end well. There was something like three times the number of girls here compared to the number of guys. Worse, the guys were very intent and insistent on serving drinks. From the way many of the girls were acting, Buffy suspected there was something other than alcohol in the drinks. Something that rendered the girls pliable and amenable and suggestible. It took all her skill to accept the various drinks, arrange it so that she got rid of them without drinking (and didn't get caught), and fake an increasing level of attitude similar to the other girls.

It was definitely of the bad, but not the sort of bad that the Scoobies dealt with so far. That fact didn't stop Buffy from making a mental note to tell Willow to do what she could to ruin these idiots if this was all that was going on.

Then the boys started moving the girls to the basement, using some thin-ass excuse that the girls, hopped up on whatever had been in their drinks, didn't even realize was suspicious. That was when things got really, really interesting. Because there was a big crack in the floor of the basement, and ...

"Snake." She said, her voice level. "Really big, really ugly snake in the basement. Hunting party is a go. Watch the girls, they're drugged." She kicked off her shoes immediately and shouldered her way to the head of the group. Or, she tried to. The DZK boys, realizing she was nowhere near as drugged as she was supposed to be, immediately converged on her. She started whaling on them. From somewhere else in the crowd, Cordelia started laying about with more enthusiasm than skill. Buffy was relieved that she'd managed to avoid getting drugged insensible. She was going to need the help Cordelia's distraction provided until the cavalry arrived.

Jon was grateful to be out of the Bronze. That place tested his senses to the limit. Tracking Buffy from a distance was so much easier out in the open, away from the music. So of course she had to head in somewhere where the music was even louder. For a minute there, Jon wasn't sure he'd be able to keep track of her. Actually, for a minute or two, he did lose her.

"Dammit, I can't ... it's too fucking loud." Jon grouched.

Xander patted his shoulder. "Switch to scent, then." He advised. "Less interference with that."

Jon grumbled, but did as Xander suggested. It took him another minute to dial his hearing down to normal, get his sense of smell dialed up, and ferret Buffy's scent out of the mass of scents coming from the frat house. It didn't allow him to pinpoint her exact location the way sound did, but he'd know her general location and whether or not she was in danger.

It ended up being one of the longer continuous tracking exercises Jon had undergone since he'd hooked up with Xander. It was more than a little tiring, balancing keeping track of Buffy with keeping his other senses actively tracking Xander so he didn't zone. Fortunately, Xander had taken to his role as Guide like a duck to water. He prattled on endlessly about various things, sometimes starting debates that Jon had to actively participate in. He also patted Jon on the shoulder or shoulder-bumped him at irregular intervals.

Not having to do things via trial and error helped Jon and Xander immensely. Thanks to Blair and Jim's hard-earned knowledge the two of them had managed to avoid zones entirely so far, and Jon had only suffered a couple of spikes early in their stint in Sunnydale. They did have to tweak Blair and Jim's methods, but tweaking something was a whole hell of a lot easier than coming up with what to do from scratch.

Eventually the party started to die down. Xander patted Jon's shoulder. "You'd better dial hearing back up now. Since nothing's happened yet, I'm betting it will now, with the party dying down."

Jon agreed with that assessment, and carefully started to bring his hearing back up. He got it up just in time to hear Buffy's calm declaration. He made due mental note that her scent hadn't changed in the slightest. Clearly, tracking her and expecting a change in her scent wasn't going to work. Either that or it'd take something a lot more dangerous than a 'big damn snake'.

"Why does it have to be snakes?" Jon bitched. "She says there's a big damn snake in the basement, and to watch the girls because they're drugged up."

"Right. Shall we?" Xander asked, grinning at Jon as he hefted the axe he'd become increasingly fond of over the last few weeks.

"We shall." Jon pulled his own knives while having to suppress the wish for a P-90. He knew damn well they'd do no good here, but he was used to using them to make bad guys cry for their mommies.

Giles, who'd been standing a few feet away with Willow, the pair of them keeping quiet so Jon could monitor Buffy, spoke up. "Willow, keep to the rear. You'll be in charge of getting the girls out of harm's reach while we deal with the snake and the frat boys."

Willow nodded. "Right."

Without wasting any more time, the four of them headed for the frat house door. Jon took great pleasure in kicking the thing in.

The first floor was mostly people-free, with only two frat boys in evidence. Jon took great pleasure in using some of his Spec Ops training to take the two of them down and out of the equation. Willow, armed with zip ties, quickly trussed them up and dragged them into a corner where they'd be out of the way. She didn't make any attempt to make the transfer easy on the two boys.

The three men quickly headed down the stairs. It was ... rather an odd scene. There were something like twenty girls standing about, dull-eyed and unconcerned, being guarded by a single frat boy. Buffy and Cordelia were back to back, trying to keep four more frat boys at bay and deal with what truly was a big, ugly snake at the same time.

Jon went straight for the lone frat boy while Giles and Xander quickly started herding the girls back up the stairs to Willow. Xander briefly wished they'd brought the crossbows, which had been vetoed on account of their having to fight in a very enclosed space where firing arrows wouldn't really be possible. It wouldn't have been possible in the frat house proper, but down here there was enough room for it, and the extra firepower might have helped against the snake.

Fortunately, with the girls so suggestible, getting them back upstairs proved to be ridiculously simple. Then it was down to the frat boys and the damn snake. Knocking the frat boys out of the fight proved to be easy enough. The snake proved to be an entirely different matter.

They worked as a team trying to deal with the snake. One or two of them would draw the thing's attention while the other two tried to sneak in and take a whack at it. Unfortunately, not even Buffy's enhanced strength was putting a dent in the thing's hide.

"There has *got* to be a way to kill this thing!" Xander yelled after a few minutes, dancing out if its reach.

"See if the young men know. I have never encountered this particular demon before." Giles shouted back.

"Got it." Jon said. "Give me five and I'll see what they know."

Jon backed away from the fight and headed for one of the knocked out frat boys. It didn't take long to wake the idiot back up. Nor did it take all that long to acquire the information he wanted. He might only look sixteen, but he did have all of Jack's knowledge and experiences, and that made for a rather formidable interrogator when he put his mind to it.

He raced up the stairs and headed for a small office at the back of the frat house. There, hanging on the wall was a sword. He yanked it off the wall and raced back down the stairs.

"Buffy, heads up, got something for you." Jon yelled.

It took a minute for Buffy to manage to get close enough to Jon for him to hand her the sword. "We've tried swords." She pointed out, hefting the one she'd been using.

"This one has special spells on it or some shit." Jon said.

"All right. Worth a try anyway. We're getting nowhere as it stands."

Jon went back to helping distract the thing from Buffy. The next time she took a poke at it, the sword didn't bounce off. It actually cut the damn thing. The snake shrieked in rage and took a vicious swing at Buffy, but she'd already danced back out of range.

It took another ten minutes of frantic dancing around before Buffy finally managed to get a really good swing at the thing, and succeeded in separating its upper half from its tail. It let out a godawful noise that got cut off halfway through, and then collapsed on the basement floor, clearly dead.

For a moment they all stood there, panting and staring at the now-dead demon. After a few moments, Cordelia broke the quiet with a disgusted shriek.

"I have blood all over me! I've ruined this dress! I should have known better than to let you idiots con me into helping you!" She whined.

She kept going as she stormed up the stairs. The Scoobies exchanged amused eyerolls behind her back as they joined her.

"What do we do with the frat boys?" Buffy asked.

"I am unsure." Giles admitted. "They will not be brought to justice in this town, so bringing them to the police station is pointless."

"Leave that to me, guys." Willow said as she joined them. "I can make sure they end up ruined. Especially if Major Carter helps."

That made Jon laugh. "She will." He said. "She definitely will."