Chapter 6.
Joyce found herself on her back looking up at the ceiling... at a monster towering over her.
"Hi, mommy," the Buffy-monster waved wickedly clawed talons. "You said we'd handle this together..."
Joyce spun herself so she was facing it and pushed away so she was in a sitting position to look at the monster who was wearing her daughter's clothes and had her voice. She wanted to scream. She should have been screaming but for the shock of the bizarre situation.
"I wasn't kidding or being metaphoric-ish about Amy's mom being a witch and turning us into monsters," the Buffy-monster said sadly.
"Us?" Joyce latched onto the idea. Anything besides thinking about how her daughter might be this thing in front of her.
"Me, Amy, Willow, Xander, and Mr. Giles," Buffy said. "The long story is complicated and you wouldn't believe it anyway. But the short version is that Catherine Madison was a witch. A witch we underestimated. One minute we're fighting her and the next minute – BAM! Monsters."
"And that's when you burned down her house?" Joyce wondered, trying to organize her thoughts and get to her feet at the same time. The monster didn't do anything as she stood up. Just as soon as it turned its back, she would be running.
"No. We went there to try and undo the spell." Buffy left out that beheading was how they were hoping to undo it. "But she ended up lighting her house on fire and then she ended up dead. Then we took off. 'Cause there's no way we were getting a fair trial – or any trial for that matter – looking like this."
Joyce just stared at the thing in front of her. It sounded like her daughter, it talked like her daughter, and it was even wearing the same clothes her daughter had been wearing the other day... That was it! It wasn't her daughter. She felt so relieved. Her daughter wouldn't be caught dead wearing the same outfit two days in a row. She couldn't remember the last time Buffy had worn fewer than two outfits in a single day. Relief flooded over her, then panic as to where her real daughter was. But she was also filled with determination now. She'd find out. She grabbed a frying pan out of the nearby drying rack. "Where's my daughter?" she yelled as she beat the monster about the head.
"Oww! Mom! What the hell? I told you, I'm Buffy!"
"Where's my daughter? Where's my daughter? Where's my daughter!?" Joyce repeated as she banged away faster and faster. Suddenly, the pan was ripped from her hand. She turned around to see who had taken her weapon.
"This is your daughter," a cultured British voice told her, except that it too was coming from a monster. A very blue monster.
Joyce turned back around to look at the other monster who was now sobbing in a chair. "That can't be my daughter. I haven't seen Buffy wear fewer than two outfits in a day since she was 13. And usually three or four." As she heard herself say her own idea out loud, the silliness of clothing as proof hit her. That really was a weak reason.
"Mom! Jesus! I just got turned into a monster and you think my first priority is clothes?" Buffy screeched. It hadn't been her first priority. More like third or fourth, not that she'd admit that right now.
Giles wisely decided to stay silent about how upset she had been about never wearing shoes again.
"Buffy?" Joyce asked tentatively.
Buffy just nodded and tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.
Suddenly both women were crying and embracing and talking over each other such that Giles couldn't follow a thing being said. He turned back to the kitchen, both to give them some privacy and to put away the pan Mrs. Summers had been trying to beat her child to death with. Not that she was likely to have been successful. The pain Buffy had felt at such a thrashing was likely to be more psychological than physical. Especially in her new form. On his way back to the living room, he picked up the remnants of a smoldering cigarette, though not before it left a scorch mark on the linoleum. He breathed deeply of the relaxing vapors and held his breath as he turned around and walked to the back porch. He didn't want to smoke in the woman's kitchen, never mind the fact that she'd lit the fag.
The three of them were flying back to camp. Xander and Amy still had the deer between them, which was interesting/complicated the way they did that without tangling their wings. Willow was licking her talons clean after finishing the raw liver she'd been holding. She couldn't believe how good that had tasted. She thought back to the last meal she'd had. The sandwich at Giles' place had included cooked and processed meat and bread. It had been okay, but she doubted any of them had stopped to actually taste their meal, they had all been in too great a state of shock.
She ran her tongue over her new teeth. The very large canines at the front and the molars that were comparatively sharper than she'd had as a human, made it clear to her that they were all now carnivores. Whether they were obligate carnivores like cats who couldn't really process any plant matter or whether they were facultative carnivores like dogs who could only consume some plant matter remained to be seen. Though the eating of bread the other day and not getting sick was a good sign. She was pulled from her musings by motion up ahead of them on the ground.
She dropped down and back to where Xander and Amy were flying together. Flying together while carrying a heavy, non-aerodynamic load seemed to be slowing them down. "Xander, it's a bear!" she pointed excitedly.
"Yeah, it's trying to get into a bear-proof barrel," Amy was the one who answered. Of the three of them, she was probably the only one who had ever been camping. "Don't worry, he'll get bored and wander off on his own soon enough."
"Poor guy is probably hungry," Willow went on as if she hadn't heard. "We should help him."
"You're not giving him any of our food," Amy said quickly and sternly.
"Will, don't you remember those signs at the zoo field trip each year? Don't feed the bears? Those still apply here," Xander said more gently.
"Oh, poo," Willow waved him off. "That's just 'cause they feed them plenty at the zoo and they don't want them getting obese. Out here they need all the help they can get." And with that, she went into a gentle dive to meet Mr. Bear.
Giles was just finishing the last drag on his cigarette when the girls entered the kitchen. He shot a questioning glance at Buffy as he ground out the smoke. They had barely had enough time to stop crying by his own count. Indeed, Mrs. Summers' eyes looked the worse for wear.
"Tails." Buffy explained. "Good for flying. Not so much for sitting on couches or chairs."
Giles reached around for his own tail without even thinking about it. No, he supposed as he felt the place where his tail met his backside. That would be about where one's arse would meet the back of a chair. Aloud he went on, "No, I suppose not all chairs will be usable right now. But stools..." he spied a few stools around the center island. Backless chairs would likely be preferable for now.
"If you could take them into the living room?" Joyce asked. "I'm going to go upstairs and wash up for a minute. I'll be right back down."
Willow landed lightly just a few yards away from the bear and barrel. The bear immediately stopped trying to get to the food inside.
"That's it... nice bear. Just step away for a second and I'll get you all the food you need," she said softly as she approached.
The bear took a few steps away from the barrel and made a soft chuffing sound and clacked its teeth together a few times. Willow figured this meant the bear was hungry but understood what she was trying to do and was okay with her helping. She figured an angry bear would roar at her the way Xander had when she accidentally stepped on his tail earlier. But apparently the bear changed its mind because as soon as she took a step towards the barrel, it charged. And suddenly, there was the roaring that was missing.
"Are you sure we should be doing this, Giles? I mean isn't it, like, kinda stealing?" Buffy wondered.
"It is not 'kinda' stealing, Buffy. As a matter of fact, it is stealing. However, seeing as we are no longer human, we cannot simply walk in and attempt to buy these things. What we will not do though, is take more than we need or needlessly vandalize the store. We are not criminals. We are merely outlaws."
Buffy smiled. She was in a much better mood now that her mother knew about and accepted her transformation. A couple hours of crying had been very therapeutic for both of them. Giles had even done the 'one girl in all the world' speech and explained how the stuff at Hemery had been vampires and not smoking mice. "Outlaws in need of designer, leather apparel," she smiled as she delicately touched a beautiful coat.
Giles frowned at that. "Take only what you need, Buffy," he said as he started to gather up some clothing for himself. He doubted that the cost to the manufacturer of the 'designer' apparel was significantly more than the regular clothes. He just wanted to make sure that the quantity of clothing she took was reasonable. In his limited experience, mostly from the telly to be honest, teenaged girls tended to buy ridiculous amounts of clothing.
Buffy did what she did best and started her own 'shopping'. She was the expert and was in charge of getting clothing for all the kids as she could most accurately guess their sizes even on brief acquaintance in their new forms. "Giles, what's the difference between outlaws and criminals?" she asked as she threw a pair of pants in her bag for Willow. "Other than the lack of mass destruction."
"The difference between a criminal and an outlaw is that while criminals frequently are victims, outlaws never are," Giles quoted.
Buffy stopped shopping to look at the librarian. "Huh?"
"Uh, it means that uh, criminals break laws out of greed, frustration, or vengeance. Outlaws are those outside the law. We do not have the protection of the law, but neither then are we bound by its shackles. We take only what we need and in return we give all we can to make society a better place," he explained.
Buffy thought about that for a minute before moving on and finishing her shopping. After tonight, their group was going to look super styling. And the leather they would be wearing would stand up much better to gargoyle activities than the cotton clothing they'd been wearing.
"Can you carry the deer yourself?" Xander asked and received a nod in reply before dropping the deer and then folding his wings and diving after Willow. He didn't know what Willow was doing, but even from up here, he could see that the bear didn't look happy. As he dove Willow stepped forward and the bear charged. Xander needed to swerve around Willow so he didn't hit her, but that would mean he'd get to her after the bear did and that was unacceptable. He let out the most ferocious roar he could to distract the bear and keep it from mauling Willow. Suddenly, a world that had seemed muted (even if it wasn't very dark and he could see almost everything) looked like it was bathed in bright light; and it even seemed as if time itself had slowed down. The bear certainly noticed the roar and paused to refocus on him. Xander barreled into the bear with all his strength and sent it tumbling... right into the nearby tent. Okay. That was a little oopsie. He hadn't actually been paying attention to where he had been aiming the bear. He promised himself that next time he hit a loaded bear, he would watch where he aimed it. And to always treat every bear as if it were loaded.
Human screams and yells mixed with the bear's roars as two people in the tent and a bear tangled with them all tried to escape. Two people managed to crawl away from the mess as the bear righted itself and charged again.
Xander jumped forward to meet the charge but was held up by Willow grabbing his arm. "No, Xander! He's just scared and hungry."
The unexpected force turned him and caused him to stumble so that his back was to the bear when it attacked. A large paw swiped him from the right. He could actually feel his right arm break as the bear connected solidly. He went flying and landed in a heap many yards away. He didn't even have time to collect his thoughts before he felt himself being picked up and lifted into the air.
Xander looked back at Willow angrily as she carried him. He was not in any mood to be held by the person who was the root cause of his pain. As soon as they were high enough, he pushed away from her with his good arm and started flapping his wings. Leaving Willow to contemplate the error of her ways alone. He looked back but the bear and the humans were nowhere to be seen, which was hopefully a good sign.
Flying back to their campsite, Giles realized several things. One, carrying heavy things while flying was extremely difficult. Two, carrying heavy bags that were also not very aerodynamic just made it worse. And three, it was now late at night and the heat of the day that had given them quite a nice lift earlier in the night had mostly cooled off thanks to the ocean breeze. Both he and Buffy were flying completely under their own power. Luckily, he could draft off of her and let her larger wings do more of the work.
Giles and Buffy returned to camp each carrying large bags. Buffy's bags held enough leather clothes for everyone along with some leather-working tools and extra leather for customizing the outfits. Giles bag held lots of books. Every book he had that even mentioned gargoyles and a few books on magic and undoing magical curses. But he didn't get to look at them just yet. First, he had to take a look at Xander's arm. He made sure it was set correctly first, then made a crude splint and bandaged the deep scratches he'd received. "The healing properties of stone sleep should repair this," he announced. "Just to be sure, cover your arm with your wing at sunrise.
"It seems you've also instinctively found one of a gargoyle's main weapons: Fear," Giles said when he heard Xander's story about how his roar made the bear pause. "Buffy does it with quips, but giving your enemies pause is a powerful force multiplier, whether it's against bears or vampires. Our entire bodies are designed to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, from sharp talons to glowing eyes to our large wings and a deep roar." Giles snapped his wings out quickly, surprising Willow and making her jump a little. "It's good to keep in mind, but not good to rely on it. Which is why I was going to mention it much later in your training."
Next was a late lunch of venison. During which, he got to hear all three sides to the tale. While they talked, Amy experimented with whether the venison tasted better raw or cooked. The consensus was that cooked still tasted better but that raw tasted surprisingly good to everyone, including Buffy, once she was coaxed to try it. Giles was very certain that their new bodies would have no trouble digesting raw or even rancid meat if they needed to scavenge. Their digestive tracts were likely quite a bit stronger than they had been as humans. They were certainly able to hold more food.** Five gargoyles had positively demolished the deer that had been brought back; to the point that Amy was showing Buffy how to crack open ribs to get the marrow.
Then it was time for the speeches. Particularly to Willow, who had shown an astounding lack of common sense and a naïveté that needed to be sharply corrected lest it endanger them all in the future. Just to be fair, everyone was forced to endure a speech about all the dangers of the Los Padres National Forest including bears, cougars, wild boar, poisonous snakes, scorpions, and most dangerous of all: humans.
"Now is not the time to go introducing yourself to random strangers. Our safety, and the safety of the entire clan, relies on our anonymity. Do not endanger that except in dire need. A bear trying to get a camper's food is not such an example. Bears are hearty creatures, perfectly capable of feeding themselves without our help." He fixed Willow with a glare for a very uncomfortable 15 seconds before going on. "So, unless you are planning on eating them, leave the bears alone."
** An average small deer weighs ~110lbs field dressed and should yield ~45lbs of meat. ( ) Divided by 5 gargoyles, is 9lbs each. Comparing gargoyles to wolves instead of humans for metabolic rate, wolves need 7lbs of meat per day to stay healthy and can eat 22+lbs at one sitting. (Per International Wolf Center) So downing one deer per day for the clan should be fairly typical.
A/N: Giles' quote about outlaws is from Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
A/N2: Black bears do not 'Roar'. The closest thing would be something like a bawl they will make when they are badly injured. A rhythmic pulsing sound indicates aggressiveness. Woofs (strong exhalation) and jaw popping indicate that the animal is afraid/uncertain. If it feels threatened, then it may attack.
And finally, my muse dines on your reviews. Please feed the muse. She is not a bear and cannot forage on her own.