A/N: Thank you to my Beta, deiticlast for his help with this. The earliest chapters had some fairly egregious paragraphs. Rereading from the beginning might be good as the first chapters are now much better than the first time around.

Chapter 11.

Giles flew up and up from his old flat while circling around in the rising air currents left over from the sun warming the asphalt during the day. It didn't do to think about the flat as his anymore. He wouldn't be paying the rent on it any more, in any case. He'd already transferred all the money in his accounts to an account in the Cayman Islands. A place that would hopefully be safe from both his creditors and from the council, who would no doubt stop paying him his meager salary and would seek to take back what they viewed as their own, if they could.

Reaching a good altitude, he started circling in a wider arc as he scanned for the others. He wasn't actually sure if they were in two groups or in one big one. After a couple of minutes, it was clear that they were not in the air. They must have all been on the ground fighting something or chasing something. He continued to circle, waiting for someone to notice him and join him in the air.

Another ten minutes and Giles was losing his patience. What if someone was injured (again)? They really only had two fallback spots now; the campsite and Joyce's house. What if one or both of those spots became compromised? It was clear he needed to plan for some contingencies and also devise a method of communication that would not draw more attention to themselves.

Finally, two figures launched off of a house and started heading in his direction. He glided down to join Xander and Amy. Xander was again sporting numerous small cuts and bruises.

"Have you seen Buffy and Willow?" Giles asked.

Xander pointed towards the west. "They went thataway."

Giles looked in that direction and sighed. No one was in the air over there. "Very well, you two with me." He led them downtown. "I need one of you to stay aloft to signal Buffy and Willow if and when they take flight again."

Amy raised her hand. Giles nodded and Xander followed him down until they landed on the roof of a sporting goods store. They hopped down to the alley behind the store and Giles pulled out his set of lockpicks to work on the back door.

"Cool. We're going to rob the sporting goods store?" Xander asked a little too excitedly.

"Yes. Please stay calm and follow me. Keep a lookout," Giles ordered. He picked the lock on the backdoor and shorted out the security system. "That should buy us 20 minutes or so." Probably more than that, he estimated, but he wanted to be conservative and not get caught. It also shorted out the cameras attached to the system so no one would know who or what had robbed the place.

First on Giles' list was radios for the entire team. When he got to the display, he also picked up some throat-mics and ear buds for each of them. They probably would have been too expensive if he hadn't been getting the four-talon discount, but throat mics were almost a necessity, considering how much they'd cut down on wind noise. Without them, the radios would be very hard to use while flying. He also grabbed plenty of rechargeable batteries and a solar charger. He smiled at the thought of batteries that recharged even as they themselves did.

Next, he checked out the hunting section. He liked the children's ideas and initiative in making and testing their own weapons against vampires. But to his mind, the classics were classics for a reason. He only took four crossbows because that was all the store had. Combined with the one now stored at the Summers' house and he would have enough for everyone to have one. The bolts for the crossbows were a different matter. He took the small selection of wooden bolts and left the aluminum and carbon fiber ones. He also took a large stock of arrow/bolt making supplies. Then he went to find Xander to carry all of this for him.

He found the boy in the diving area, looking at a display.

"Why don't we have something like that?" Xander asked, waving at the display of the Shark Suit. It showed a short clip of a woman in a dive suit being bitten repeatedly by smallish sharks and suffering no harm from it.

Giles looked at the Shark Suit. It was essentially just a mail (he refused to call it 'chainmail') suit plus a helmet big enough to house the necessary scuba gear. "Would that we could," he said wistfully. "Unfortunately one cannot simply walk down the street wearing one of those. It would draw too much attention and that would-"

"I know that," Xander interrupted. "But why can't we wear something like that?"

Giles opened his mouth to repeat himself, but stopped. It wasn't like wearing armor would make them stand out any more. They were already giant monsters. He looked at the bruised and battered Xander before he reached out and touched the display. "Well, we're not wearing this one because it's plastic. But you have a good point." He handed Xander the spoils of their thieving. "I know some people who might be able to make something like that for us. But we'll talk about it back at camp."

Giles gave the bag of loot to Xander before they launched themselves back into the sky, Xander's larger wings were better able to get him into the air with the added weight. They met up with Amy, who had flown off and brought back Buffy and Willow. Then the whole group headed for camp.

"Who's here?" Angel asked as he entered his apartment. Something was off.

"A friend," Darla said demurely as she stepped forward into the moonlight wearing a catholic schoolgirl outfit. "Hi. It's been a while."

"A lifetime."

"Or two, but who's counting?" Darla shrugged.

Angel smirked, "What's with the Catholic schoolgirl look? Last time I saw you it was kimonos."

Darla smirked back, "And last time I saw you it wasn't high school girls." She put a finger to the side of her face as if she were thinking, "But then again, word on the street is that she's not exactly a high school girl any more, is she? She's a monster, just like you and me."

"I'm not a monster anymore," Angel insisted.

"No? It sure looked like your M.O. from where I was watching. A little flirting, a coy smile, look like you're about to cry when you can't talk about your tortured past. Please. You haven't changed. Now you're just trying to get in their pants instead of draining them dry, but deep down you're still the same monster I made all those years ago. You can only suppress your real nature for so long. You can feel it brewing inside of you. I hope I'm around when it explodes."

Angel grabbed her and slammed her up against the wall. "Maybe you don't wanna be," he growled.

Darla just laughed, "I'm not afraid of you. And your seduction obviously failed. You know where to find me when you want to rejoin your true family," she told him coyly, leaving Angel alone to contemplate all she'd said.

Everyone liked the crossbows and radios when they were handed out. "Death from above!" Buffy called out as she accepted hers.

"I'm glad all of you like them. There was another thing that Xander made me think of. We can't hunt everywhere with the crossbows. Many of the cemeteries and other traditional haunts of vampires are shaded by trees or some such. Now, traditionally, Slayers do not wear armor. Especially in recent centuries, as it would make them stand out too much and the increased scrutiny would be risky. But seeing as we are already not going to be associating with many humans, armor could be a good idea. The downside will be extra weight, which will be most noticeable when we're flying."

"No helmet for me," Buffy immediately said. "I am so not having helmet-hair."

"Is everyone else agreed about the armor?" Giles asked and received nods all around. "Very well. Tomorrow I'll ask Joyce to order the armor from a friend of mine, including helmets for all." He cut off Buffy's objections. "Whether you wear them or not will be between you and your mother."

Buffy's face fell. No fair! There was no way she was winning that argument.

Giles hid his smile at that. "Moving on. Joyce and I discussed it and we've decided that she will dust off her chisels and will be carving the gargoyles that will be placed around the city to act as decoys for us. We've also had several other ideas, including moving each of them around the city each night, just like we eventually will be, and modeling the statues after us. So, we'll each need to pose for a sitting with Joyce where she'll take many pictures of each of us to use while she's working on the sculptures. She'll also need our help to move the stones she's having delivered in the next couple of days."

Groans went up at that. Gargoyles or not, they were still teenagers and didn't much care for work.

"Wonderful. All of you, off to hunt now. Call me if you have any trouble, but do try to have one hunt where you do not have a life and death disaster."

Hunting with crossbows from the sky was so easy it was probably cheating. Okay, it really was cheating. Xander figured there were probably laws against hunting while flying, but then again, it wasn't like they could just walk into a grocery store and buy the food they needed. Xander also figured that being a guy would give him an automatic bonus towards hunting skills. He figured wrong. In fact, of the four of them, he was the only one that missed his target, which was embarrassing.

But the girls didn't tease him about it. They just sent him to collect Willow's deer, which had run off, while Amy oversaw the two girls as they field dressed the other two.

He came back with the deer to find that one of the does was field dressed and hanging from a tree and the other was gone. Well, mostly gone. It looked like one of those lion kills on National Geographic. Just bones with a little meat hanging off. And three female gargoyles looking slightly embarrassed to have eaten an entire deer themselves.

"Hey Xander," Buffy said nonchalantly as he landed with the deer.

"Let me help you with that," Willow said, taking her deer from him.

"It's your kill," he told her. "I figured you'd want the heart."

Willow couldn't help but lick her chops at the thought, despite the fact that she'd just eaten a third of a small doe.

The bonus to Xander that Willow was still so hungry was that he didn't have to field dress her kill. After the two uneaten kills were dressed and drained, they took off. There was no more of the sharing of a deer between two gargoyles nonsense. All of them now knew they were more than capable of carrying that much weight and then some. Xander carried one deer himself just to make sure that one made it back to camp.

Giles set about cooking one of the deer. Before it was even half done, all the girls' mouths were watering.

"Okay, that's just getting ridiculous," Xander finally said.

"What is?" Giles asked.

"Their appetite," Xander waved his hand at the salivating girls.

"Well- well gargoyle metabolisms are different than-"

"I eat more than I did before too. But we took down three deer tonight."

"Three? Where's the other one?" Giles looked around to make sure he hadn't missed it.

"They already ate it," Xander said.

"We were hungry," Buffy defended.

"I'm not saying you weren't. I'm just saying something's going on and I just want to find out what. 'Cause I didn't get a bite of the other deer and you guys are already hungry again," Xander said.

Everyone was silent for a few seconds.

"Am I going to get fat?" Buffy broke the silence. "Giles, you have to tell me. Because I don't have any fat-clothes ready."

"I- I- I- don't know, Buffy. I'm afraid a bit of research will be necessary," Giles temporized.

"Giles, come on. You've been researching gargoyles nonstop. You have to have some idea. So spill," Buffy ordered.

Giles reached up to take his glasses off to polish them, but realized again that he no longer had them. He fervently wished he still had glasses to polish so he had an excuse not to meet Buffy's eyes at that moment. Instead, he looked at the stars. "I had rather hoped we'd missed this particular adventure for a bit. You are, all three of you, taking in a good deal more food than you might otherwise?" he waited for the three women to nod. "I'll have to check my books again, but there's a good chance that you are going into heat," he said as he looked off into the night sky again.

"What?"

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Ohmygod! The nest!"

"Nest? What nest?" Giles broke into the cacophony of sound.

Willow blushed under her green skin. "Um, the other day when we were hunting that wild boar. We came across some caves."

"The Chumash Caves," Amy added.

"And we thought it would be fun to make a nest in there. You know, as a backup place to sleep. Except it wouldn't be big enough for more than one or two of us," Willow finished.

Giles sighed. "I'm afraid the nesting instinct probably confirms it, but I'll double-check my books."

"Oh, my god," Willow said. "I'm going to have- I'm going to have- What am I going to have? What are baby gargoyles called?"

"Hatchlings, I believe. Or just babies. And it's not a given that you will lay an egg your first time around. You can also-"

"Eggs! We lay eggs?" Buffy cried before she fainted.

A/N: Check the series info (on Twisting the Hellmouth) for more information on gargoyle reproduction which should no longer be spoilers. And there really are Chumash Caves in the Los Padres National Forest.