Ghostslayers
by Anne-Lise
[reviews]
Willow walked between the tall stacks of UC Sunnydale's occult reference section. As she ran her fingers idly down the spines, searching out the volumes she wanted, she failed to notice the books behind her inexplicably cross from one shelf to another as if moved by unseen hands. It wasn't until the index cards spewed forth from their drawers that she realised something seriously weird was going on. Frantically she ran down one aisle and then the next until she came face to face with...
*
"Concentrate," Giles asked, as Buffy stared deep into the crystal. "Clear your head and focus, try and see the image in your mind."
"Is it a star?" Buffy asked.
"It is a star!" Giles exclaimed. "Very good!" He gave her a bright smile. "All right..." he turned back to Xander. "Think hard." He drew another card from the top of the pack. "What is it?"
"Circle?" Xander guessed.
"Ooh, close!" Giles turned the card over so that Xander could see the square. "But very definitely wrong." He pressed the button on the small panel in front of him and gave Xander a painful electric shock.
"Yeow!" Xander cried. "Dammit!" Just as Xander was about to grumble (again) about being Giles' lab rat, the phone rang.
"Hello?" Giles answered. "What? Attacked? We'll be right there." He placed the phone back in its cradle. "Willow's been attacked in the university library!"
*
Xander entered the library to see Willow sitting in a comfy reading chair not looking too worse-for-wear, while Wesley seemed to be listening to a desk with a stethoscope.
"Borkis mah weh nop teh valdar!" Xander intoned. For added amusement, he picked up the leather-bound tome of 'Cute Demons, How To Capture By Means Of Ice-Cream' and dropped it on the desk with a resounding thud.
"Oh, you're here!" Wesley exclaimed as he flew out from under the desk.
"What's the situation?" Giles asked.
"Willow witnessed a free-floating full-torso vaporous apparition!" Wesley said, excitedly. "I took PKE valance readings... They were off the scale! Buried the needle!"
"So..." said Buffy. "What exactly are we dealing with?"
*
Xander sat down next to Willow while Buffy headed off into the stacks to see if she could spot anything eldrytch. He gave her his best-friend smile, and looked at the sheet of paper in front of him.
"Wesley gave me this list of questions to ask," he said.
Willow nodded. "Okay," she whispered.
"Have you, or any member of your family, been diagnosed as schizophrenic or mentally incompetent?"
Willow threw him an angry stare. "You know my father thinks he's Napoleon!"
"I'd call that a big yes." Xander ticked a box. "Are you habitually using drugs, alcohol or stimulants?"
"Um... Do mochas count? 'Cos they're like real high on caffeine..."
"Another yes." Xander ticked again. "Are you, Willow Rosenberg, menstruating right now?"
*
"What was that?" Wesley quavered. "It sounded like a scream."
Buffy shrugged. "Sounds like Xander's foot found its way into his mouth again."
"Are you sure? I could have sworn that was a girl's scream."
"Oh, I'm sure." A crash came from up ahead. "Come on, its on the move."
"Look!" Giles whispered as they tuned a corner. "Symmetrical book-stacking!"
"Oh yes!" Wesley said. "No human being would stack books like this!"
"Actually," Buffy pointed out, "that's how we left the pile after we did research into Muntar demons last week."
"And the ectoplasmic slime?" Giles asked.
"Oh, that's new." Buffy crossed her fingers. "Let's keep moving."
"Its here!" Giles said, as they rounded yet another corner.
"A full torso apparition!" Wesley breathed.
Buffy gave the ghost the once-over. "So," she asked, "what do we do?"
*
Buffy collapsed laughing on the grass outside the campus gates. "That was your whole plan?" she wheezed. "Get her?" She broke into a fresh peal of laughter.
Xander grinned. "Can you believe the Watcher's Council fired this guy?" he asked.
"Oh yeah!" Willow smirked.
"Now come on," Giles pouted. "It seemed like a reasonable plan at the time."
"I liked the bit where the ghost grabbed Wesley and smothered him with ectoplasm," Willow ventured. "Although, having to resuscitate him with mouth-to-mouth did kinda kill the moment a little." She spat on the floor again, trying to get rid of the taste of ectoplasmic goo.
"Oh yeah!" Xander looked over to where Wesley lay in his faint on the floor. "Has the weasel woken up yet?"
"Nope." Buffy stretched to loosen her diaphragm. Too much laughing... her sides hurt.
"Anyway," Giles said. "I wouldn't say the experience was totally wasted. I think, with the readings Wesley made before he passed out like a baby, we have an excellent chance of catching a ghost and holding it indefinitely."
Willow glanced at the notes Giles had made. "If the ionisation readings remain consistent for all ectoplasmic materials," she pondered, "well... we could really kick some ass!"
Buffy looked up like a dog that had heard the chain rattle. "Oh?"
Willow blushed. "Well, in a spiritual sense, of course."
"Are you serious about being able to catch a ghost?" Xander asked.
Giles nodded. "Yes, I think so."
"Then let's do it!" Xander seemed suddenly enthusiastic.
"Do what?" Giles asked.
"For whatever reasons... Call it fate, call it luck, or karma... I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe you were destined to get canned from the Watcher's Council!"
Giles looked gobsmacked. "To what purpose?" he asked.
Xander's grin seemed impossibly wide. "To go into business for ourselves!"
The scoobs looked at each other, nodding.
"Um... Where are we going to get the money?" Giles pondered.
"I don't know..." Xander replied. "I don't know."
*
"Cheer up, Giles!" Buffy said with a smile. "Everyone has three mortgages nowadays."
"But at 19%?" Giles stammered.
Xander cut in. "Look, we're on the threshold of establishing *the* indespensible defence science of the next decade. Professional paranormal investigations and eliminations. The franchise rights alone will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams!"
"Are you sure?" Anya asked. "Only I have some really wild dreams. There was this one..."
"And why's she here?" Buffy asked. "Since when is she a part of all this?"
"Hey!" Xander frowned. "She's perfect for our secretarial needs."
"Which in Xander's case means making coffee and having a cute ass to watch," Anya piped in.
"Damn right!" Xander agreed.
Willow bit her lip.
"Whatever!" Buffy rolled her eyes and kept walking.
*
"Wow!" Buffy called out from the floor above. "Does this pole still work?" She slid down the pole to the floor below. "I love this place! When can we move in?"
Giles stared, speechless. "You do realise this used to be a strip club?" he asked.
"Nope?" Buffy shrugged. "But I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Who found it?"
Xander sidled away. Slowly.
"Whee!" Willow slid down the pole to join them. "This place is great!" she said, breathlessly. "We should stay here, tonight! Try it out!"
"Pyjama party!" Buffy agreed excitedly.
Giles ruefully shook his head. He felt a migraine coming on.
*
As Tara started packing her shopping away, she heard a noise coming from the fridge. She ignored it, at first, because she was used to the appliances making strange noises in her apartment. Especially with all the free-flowing magic that sometimes made things move around a little of their own accord. However when the eggs started jumping out of their boxes and cooking on the kitchen counter, she realised things were moving beyond the normal background weirdness. This was bordering on poltergeist territory. Suddenly, the fridge door opened and she saw a pair of hellhounds prancing in front of a balefire-lit Incan pyramid. She looked at the more muscular of the two dogs.
"Mom?" she queried. "Is that you?"
Fire lanced forth from the hellhound's mouth. "Zuul!" it cried.
"Guess not." She closed the fridge door and continued unpacking her groceries.
*
Anya slammed her hand down on the bright red button. Upstairs, Willow's PC beeped and a message popped up saying, 'You've got ghosts!'
"We've got one!" Anya screamed, for good measure.
Buffy slid down her pole first with Willow only a second behind her. Xander started to slide down his pole, but slipped and landed on his butt.
"Hey!" he cried. "Not funny! Who greased my pole?"
Buffy gave Willow a high-five as she walked past. "That's for the webcam hookup in my bedroom," she smirked.
The scoobs packed into Giles' car and Xander floored it. With a squeal of tyres the Citroen edged out of the strip joint at a sedate twenty-five miles per hour.
*
Spike opened the door to his crypt. His hair seemed different, somehow. More like David Bowie. He rubbed his crotch suggestively.
"Are you the Keymaster?" he asked in a husky voice.
Dawn blinked, then shrugged out of her halter top. "Close enough," she said. "Close enough."
*
"You look worried." Buffy noticed as she considered Willow's concerned expression. Willow's eyebrows threatened to break free from the top of her head as her mouth formed a perfect 'O'. She shook her head in denial.
"Oh n..n..no," Willow stammered. "We just wearing unlicensed, untested nuclear accelerators on our backs. We've no reason at all to be worried. No reason at all!"
Buffy turned to Xander. "Fire me up?" she asked. Xander did the honours then backed away... Only to leap forward again.
"Proton accelerator!" he cried. "Proton accelerator in new places!"
"Sorry!" Willow gulped. "Just be glad mine's turned off." She threw him a quirky smile.
The customers of the Espresso Pump regarded the newcomers for a moment then fled the premises. Screaming.
"I told you we should have left the gear in the car while we picked up Mochas," Buffy sulked.
"In this neighbourhood?" Willow asked, incredulously.
*
"So what is it?" Buffy asked.
"Its a river of snot," Xander replied, eyeing up the green viscous liquid. "Willow! What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Taking samples. This stuff is really weird!"
"No shit," Buffy commented.
*
Willow loosed herself into the apartment she shared with Tara.
"You there?" she called out. A pair of red eyes peered out at her from the darkness, and she became aware of a feral growling.
"Goddammit!" Willow swore. "Why do all the people I go out with turn into dogs?"
In the darkness, the hellhound whined.
"That's it!" Willow grabbed Tara by the scruff of her neckfur and dragged her into the bathroom. "You get to sleep in here tonight, missy!" She closed the door behind her. "And no drinking from the toilet bowl!" she screamed. "I have to kiss that mouth, remember!"
*
"You did what?" Buffy giggled and nearly choked on her toast.
"I shut her up in the bathroom," Willow admitted. "She'd have just got hair all over the duvet else."
"Good call," Buffy agreed cheerfully.
"But it was lucky, because otherwise I'd never have found out about this... Watch!"
Willow ladled some green goop into the toaster and tuned the radio to a Jackie Wilson number. The toaster started to dance around the table impressively.
"I'm impressed," Buffy admitted. "So what does all this tell us?"
Willow bit her lip. "I think the most important lesson is," she said carefully, "when you need to drown out a whining hellhound, don't mix Iron Maiden with an unknown lubricant on Mr. Bendy."
Buffy winced and nodded in agreement.
*
"So, what's the sitch between you and Tara?" Buffy asked.
"Oh." Willow stared forlornly at her fingernails. "I think she's lost all interest in me. I said to her, its either me or the kibbles. But I guess she was seduced by those evil biscuits."
"Damn girl, I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
Willow chewed her lip and looked up into Buffy's earnest face. "Do you still have those tight red leather pants?" she asked. "I'm ready for a subtle change of image."
*
Cordelia turned on her TV set in time to catch Giles staring nervously into the camera.
"Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?" The ex-librarian asked.
"Depends whether dad's been on the smack again," Cordelia muttered, loudly.
Buffy's face suddenly came into extreme close-up.
"Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?" The Slayer queried.
"All the time!" Cordelia nodded.
"Have you ever seen a spook, spectre, vampire, demon, werewolf, ghost, or an egg that turns into an icky alien facehugger?" Willow asked.
"Three for three!" Cordelia agreed.
"Then call GhostSlayers!" Giles' enthusiastically cried. "Our rude and inefficient yet fiscally motivated ex-demon is waiting to take your cash. Call now!"
"We're ready to believe you!" Buffy, Giles and Willow unconvincingly chanted in unison.
"And if necessary," Buffy added, "I'll kick your evil ass!"
Giles' frown faded to black as the advert ended. Three more ex-high-school staff members came on next and screamed "Whassap!" at each other in a bid to sell a new brand of hearing aids. Cordelia turned the TV set off again.
The cute little demon in the corner of the room watched her carefully, licking its lips.
"Lunch!" it cried, and sprang at her.
*
Giles peered uncertainly over Anya's shoulder as she tapped keys. On the computer display, a poor 3D model of Cordelia's head showed her alpha-wave patterns. Buffy, Willow and Xander stood in one corner, heatedly discussing something and pointing at Cordelia, who sat hooked-up in a chair in the middle of the room.
"According to these readings," Giles stated, "there's absolutely nothing wrong with you."
"So I'm not going crazy?" Cordelia asked.
"Well, possibly not." Giles agreed, cleaning his glasses. "But it does beg the question why you're wearing a Viking helmet."
In the corner of the room, Xander collapsed into another fit of uncontrollable giggles, going 'Woot!' and spinning in circles, fists in the air and legs flailing. Buffy and Willow simply high-fived.
Cordelia took the helmet off. "This isn't a medical scanner?" she asked.
*
Spike opened the door to his crypt. His hairstyle seemed less like David Bowie and more like Ken Dodd. In the background, Dawn lay fast asleep on the sofa. Her hair had gone the way of Scary Spice.
"Are you the Keymaster?" Spike asked in a husky voice.
The ancient vampire, pallid and with bat-like features, blinked in surprise. He frowned, then shrugged out of his tight leather pants. "Close enough," he said. "Close enough."
*
"You actually live here now?" Cordelia asked as she stared in thinly-disguised contempt around Xander's room.
"Yep. It sure beats living in my parent's basement."
"Definitely!" Cordelia agreed.
"Hey!" Xander shot to his feet as an idea hit. "Wanna try out my pole?"
*
Willow whispered into Buffy's ear softly. "Are you sure you want to try this?"
Buffy nodded. "I think so. Will it hurt?"
Willow shook her head. "Not if you relax." She smiled her pixie smile. "Feeling relaxed?"
"Nope!" Buffy grinned.
Willow giggled, and continued to slather green gunk over Buffy's...
*
"You don't think its too subtle, do you? You don't think people might drive down and not see the sign?" Buffy chewed her lip thoughtfully.
Willow looked up to where the old strip-joint's pink neon tubing had been re-formed into a large succubus rubbing her legs suggestively. (A slight modification from the original cowgirl sign.) Behind the succubus, an animated stake plunged in and out.
"Where did you get the cool neon stake from?" Willow asked.
Buffy blushed. "It used to be a lot further down, and upside down," she admitted.
Willow stared at the sign some more. "Do you think..."
"No," Buffy cut her off. "I don't."
*
"Anya, any calls? Any messages?" A pause. "Any customers?"
"No, Mr. Giles." Anya reported dutifully.
"It's a good job, isn't it. Please, type something." He removed his specs for a cursory polish. "We're paying you for this after all."
"You are? Wow!" Anya started typing extremely rapidly.
*
"If something's going to happen," Xander stated as he opened the door to Cordelia's apartment, "I want it to happen to you first. After you!" With a flourish he gestured for Cordy to enter first. He followed her in. "Hmm. Lot of space," he noted. He squeezed the bulb of a strange Willow-concocted gizmo. It beeped pathetically every so often as he looked around.
"That's my bedroom," Cordelia slammed the door before Xander could take another step. "Nothing happened in there."
"Yeah, that's not what everyone at school said." Xander muttered. "This the kitchen?"
"Yep." Cordelia showed Xander the functional kitchen. Only the microwave showed any signs of use. "I was about to make dinner when I heard a noise coming from the fridge. I was about to phone for a repair guy when this... thing... jumped out at me screaming, 'lunch!'"
"And that was when it latched onto your tits?" Xander grinned.
"It wasn't funny!" Cordelia fumed.
"No. Of course not." Xander wiped at the nosebleed that was threatening to make his head explode.
"It wasn't!" Cordelia crossed her arms and huffed.
"Well, whatever it is, it's gone now." Xander said.
"How can you be so sure?" Cordelia frowned.
"Well, I'm pretty certain there's no monsters clinging to your..."
*
"So," Buffy asked. "How'd you get the black eye?"
Anya stared at the table miserably. "Willow said there was no petty cash left to buy food, so I suggested roasting Miss Kitty."
"Oh my god! No wonder she hit you."
Anya nodded. "She said there was only enough for one."
Buffy's reply was lost as the phone began to ring. Anya picked up.
"Yes, of course we're serious," she said. "You do? You have? No kidding." Excitedly, she scrabbled about for a pen and paper. "The address? Oh yes, we'll be discrete. We're noted for our discretion."
*
Giles' Citroen burst through the door of Sunnydale Museum. The car pulled up at the security guard's office, knocking over those silly red-rope partition stumps. "Which way to the demon?" Buffy shouted through the window.
The guard, speechless, pointed towards the Egyptian department.
The Citroen jetted off at a respectable five miles per hour and came to a rest as the aisle between two sarcophagi narrowed a little too much for the battered car to squeeze through.
"Gah!" Willow struggled to climb out through the window. "This looks so easy on TV." She watched Xander fling himself out and land with a graceful forward roll. "Hey!" she accused. "How'd you do that?"
Xander shrugged. "A mis-spent childhood watching Starsky and Hutch." he admitted. "Also, I forgot my nuclear accelerator. Need a hand?" He helped Willow clamber out from her wedged situation.
Buffy climbed over the hood of the car to join them. "Let's split up!" she ordered. "We can do more damage that way."
Xander grinned. "Now you're talking!"
*
"There is one thing I want to know," Buffy said as she and Willow walked the corridors alone. Xander had gotten the short straw and was off patrolling the Nigerian Mask collection with Giles.
"What's that?" Willow sucked mocha through a straw.
"Did you really eat Miss Kitty?"
Willow snorted her mocha. "Do you really think I could eat a defenceless little pussycat?" she asked.
Buffy smiled warmly. "I didn't think so."
"No, Tara ate her." Willow wiped her mouth. "We get through at least six Miss Kittys a week. Isn't that right, Tara?"
From the shadows, a voice said, 'Woof'.
*
"Giles?" Xander called out into the semi-darkness. "You there?"
No answer. Xander gulped, unable to break eye-contact with the cute little catgirl demon licking her paws in the middle of the hall.
Suddenly Giles was at his side. "My goodness," Giles said. "A nekogaaru. Quick, look away. The effect of their nipples is supposedly mesmerising."
"No shit?" Xander took a few more polaroids for good measure. "How do we defeat them?"
"Um," Giles racked his brain as his distinguished composure began to waver. "Actually, I think it involves ice-cream."
As soon as the words 'ice-cream' were uttered, the catgirl demon stopped licking her paws and strolled over to rub against Giles' legs.
"Get Buffy!" Giles' scream dopplered away as he fled the building, area and State.
*
The owner of the Sunnydale Museum glowered at the scoobs. "I had no idea it would cost so much!" he railed. "I refuse to pay!"
"No problem!" Buffy shrugged. "We can put it right back where we found it. Tara, cough up the goods." Tara whined.
"Okay! Okay, I'll pay." The owner forked over four big ones. "Now, please leave!"
Buffy gave Willow a high-five. "Wanna go celebrate?"
Willow gave Buffy a radiant smile. "Your place or mine?" she asked.
Following depressedly behind them, Tara whined once more. Her tail dragged miserably along the floor.
Buffy looked over her shoulder. "Hey Scooby," she said. "I'm sure there'll be some extra kibbles for you, too!"
"Yip!" Tara followed dutifully along, happy once more.
*
Xander knocked self-consciously on the door to Cordelia's apartment. He checked himself in the glass of the door, and tried a smile or two. They seemed fake. Suddenly the door opened, and Cordelia stood before him in a figure-hugging red negligee.
"Are you the GateKeeper?" she asked.
"Nope." Xander frowned.
Cordelia shut the door on him.
"O...kay." Xander knocked the door again, and Cordelia opened it.
"Are you the GateKeeper?" she asked.
"Yep?" Xander tried. Cordelia loosed him in and took off her negligee.
Xander fainted.
*
As daylight faded, Dawn awoke to a strange soreness. "What did I *do*?" she wondered. She saw a pale vampire lying beside her with a huge smile plastered on its face, so she staked it. Instead of the usual dust motif, the vampire simply dissolved into a skeleton.
"Cool!" Dawn exclaimed. She noticed an acute absence of Spike, and the door to the crypt was wide open. "Come back!" she called. "I want my underwear back!"
*
Spike stumbled dazedly through the streets of Sunnydale with Dawn's underwear on his head. He came across a police officer on a horse.
"Are you the KeyMaster?" he asked.
The horse shook its head, fear sparkling in its beady eyes.
"Hey!" The police office cried out. "What's your beef?"
"Am I talking to you?" Spike asked. "Moron!" He continued to stumble away down the street.
The police officer let him go. You see such weird shit on the darkened streets of Sunnydale. Best just to let things lie.
*
Anya answered the phone. "Uhuh? She just answered the door in her underwear, then removed all her clothes. And you did *nothing*? Why am I not believing you? Oh. She did? Well, okay." She hung up.
Buffy gave her a curious look. "What was all that about?"
Anya shrugged. "Xander called in to say Cordelia's wearing no clothes and claiming she's a Key."
Buffy blinked. "Dammit! How many of these things are those damn monks gonna keep shoving into my life? Call Willow. We'd better check her out."
Anya smiled. "I bet Xander's way ahead of you there."
*
Xander answered the door with a goofy smile.
"Hey guys!" he greeted. "What's the sitch?"
Buffy slowly lowered her crossbow. Willow kept her nuclear accelerator in a firm grip, just in case. Giles joined them.
"So, where is she?" he asked.
Xander grumbled. "She's in the bedroom," he said. "But trust me when I say, you really do not wanna go in there."
Buffy, Willow and Giles made a rapid dash for the bedroom. Xander stayed by the door.
"Told you," he said as Willow made an equally rapid dash for the toilet, her face green. "Spike turned up about 10 minutes ago. They've been at it since."
Buffy rounded on the X-man. "You could have given us a better warning!" she stormed.
"Yep!" Xander agreed. "And you could have so not greased my pole. My ass still hurts."
"Not as much as its gonna!" Buffy retorted and aimed a kick.
"Hey!" Xander hid behind Giles. "Giles, stop her!"
"Just calm down, the both of you." Giles peered into the bedroom again. A sudden white light flared into existence and Giles staggered backwards.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
"What was that?" Buffy peered into the bedroom. She saw lightning flicker around Spike and Cordy's prostrate bodies and they both turned into mutts.
Willow peered through the door. "That happens way too much around here," she muttered. She watched the two hellhounds begin to rut. "Out of the way," she commanded. "I know how to deal with this."
As the other scoobs cleared a path, she pulled out (seemingly from nowhere) a SuperSoaker 2000 and pumped it. Then she made free with the soaking.
"How'd you know what to do?" Buffy asked impressed as the two hellhounds slinked away from each other.
Willow gave her a Look. "It was just like this between Tara and Oz when Tara was on heat," she said. "The house smelled of damp carpet for *days*."
Buffy nodded sympathetically as Giles cleaned his glasses.
"I think we're in trouble," he said. Buffy stared as a spiky-haired woman in tight white leathers scritched Cordelia between the ears.
The newcomer stared at the Slayer.
"Are you a God?" she asked.
"Nope," Buffy admitted. "But I've killed a few." She pulled out her nuclear accelerator. "Die, bitch!" she screamed and let rip with a poor special effect. The beam hit the demi-goddess square in her chest and she disappeared.
Buffy sniffed. "Well. Chalk up another Big Bad as toast."
"Um," Giles commented. "I believe your levity may be unduly warranted."
"That's English for: 'Don't speak too soon!'" Willow offered helpfully.
A discorporate voice boomed, "Choose the form of your destruction!"
Buffy blinked. "Come again?"
The discorporate voice boomed, with a hint of frustration, "Choose or perish!"
"Clear your minds!" Giles screamed, albeit a tad late.
"The choice has been made." The voice claimed.
"What?" Giles glared at the scoobs. "What were you all thinking? Come on, spit it out!"
Xander shrugged. "What do I always think about?" His eyes widened. "Oh no!" he whispered. "What a way to go!"
"It's my fault," Buffy quavered. "I tried to think of something harmless, something that couldn't possibly hurt us."
Willow looked at her in concern. "What were *you* thinking about, Buffy?"
"I mean, how could it possible be dangerous?" Buffy quavered.
"What?!" Giles demanded. A sudden *crump* noise echoed in the distance, and Giles ran to the window.
Willow masked her emotions behind her Resolve Face. "What did you do, Buffy? What were you thinking?"
"Oh my God!" Giles' mouth dropped open as he stared down the street.
"No, it can't be!" Buffy entered a semi-comatose state. "Puffy Xander!" she whispered.
*crump*
*
"Puffy Xander? No way!" Willow stared at the Slayer incredulously. "Giles? Buffy's gone bye-bye." Getting no response from the ex-librarian, she turned and saw Xander and Giles glued to the window.
"No way," Xander commented, "does my ass look that big."
Willow joined them at the window. Her mouth became an elongated 'O'.
"How the hell are we gonna kill *that*?" she demanded. Then an idea hit. "Cross the streams," she muttered. Giles blinked and came out of his stupor.
"Didn't you once say that crossing the streams would be bad?" he questioned.
"I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing." Xander said. "How bad?"
Willow chewed her lip. "Try to imagine every molecule of your body exploding at the speed of light. Or, there's a possibility of total protonic reversal. Either way..." she shrugged. "It could be interesting."
"Cross the streams!" Giles groaned.
Xander prodded Buffy with the toe of his boots. "Buffy doesn't seem to be with us anymore. What do we do?"
Willow stared at the Slayer. "I could enter her mind and find out what's going on in there..." she ventured.
"That would be extraordinarily risky!" Giles cautioned. "Not to mention disturbing!"
Willow nodded, then she walked over to Buffy and slapped her silly. It had no effect, so she pulled out the SuperSoaker 2000 and let rip.
Buffy blinked. "I'm good!" she claimed. "Let's go kick this nimble little minx's ass!"
"Where do you hide that thing?" Xander asked.
Willow just grinned.
*
Buffy, Willow and Xander stared down the street as a big Puffy Xander *crumped* its way closer. Giles stayed behind with the car in case the scoobs needed to beat a hasty retreat. At least, that was *his* story.
Buffy glanced at Willow who stood with her chest thrust out heroically. Buffy looked to Xander, who had his nuclear accelerator held in a dashing pose. She collapsed in a hysterical giggling fit when she realised they resembled the cover of Charlie's Angels.
"Buffy!" Willow admonished. "We need you focused!"
"Yeah," Xander chipped in. "Get with the program."
The Slayer pulled herself to her feet. "You know," she said, "this could be our last few moments on this earth... So I really have to do this." She grabbed Willow and gave her a soul-crushing hug, clamping her mouth on the surprised wicca's. Xander goggled, and Willow's expression seemed oddly reminiscent of the time Giles had hugged her after finding out she wasn't dead; it'd been an alternative her.
"What's wrong?" Buffy asked Willow. "You didn't seem to mind last night...?" She giggled at Xander's expression. His eyebrows were attempting to achieve orbit.
"P..p..p..public!" Willow stuttered.
Buffy fought off the hysterics once more and fired up her neutron accelerator. "Let's commit deicide!" she exclaimed.
Willow gave her an impressed Look.
Buffy blinked. "I do study, you know."
Willow continued with the Look.
"Well, sometimes." Buffy amended as Willow fired up her own nuclear accelerator. Xander fumbled for a moment, and made with the decibels.
"Well..." Buffy shouted over the din, and the *crump* *crump* of the approaching Godxander, "Its been fun!" She made with the special FX.
"Liar!" Xander grinned, and his own beam of wavy light smacked into his alter-ego.
Willow just shook her head as she let rip. Unexpectedly, she went flying backwards, her feet at least 3 feet off the ground. She came stumbling back to join the other scoobs.
"First time?" Buffy asked sympathetically.
Willow nodded.
"Caught me that way too," Buffy said. "You have to lean forward when you press the trigger."
"Thanks for the belated info." Willow agreed.
Despite the force of three protonic beams against its immense bulk, the large Puffy Xander continued to edge its way closer.
"Now!" Willow cried. "Cross the streams."
The other scoobs did as they were told, and the large Puffy Xander exploded.
*
"Ptooie!" Buffy said, as she got coated in falling slime. "Why can't Gods just turn to ash like vampires."
"Bugger," Xander muttered, so coated with green slime that he looked just like Swamp Thing.
"Hey!" Willow cried out. "We're still alive!"
The scoobs, relieved and gooey, made their way back to Giles' car.
*
Buffy lay in bed and regarded her partner.
"You must have realised," she accused.
"I didn't, I swear!" Willow claimed, her ears red with embarrassment.
"You did! You lying little witch!" Buffy sat up and crossed her arms.
Willow giggled. "How did you guess?"
"I knew it!" Buffy tickle-attacked Willow. "It was the way you giggled when Xander turned on the radio in Giles' car! You *knew* that green slime we all got coated with was Mood Slime!"
Willow leaned forward and licked Buffy's ear.
"Let me make it up to you," she whispered.