Afternoon
at the Bronze
By Shadowlander
Part 1
of the Reality Shift Series
Disclaimers - All the characters from the show belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant
Enemy.
Feedback
- Yes, as much as possible : ) Shadowlander1@coastalnet.com
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Pzzzzzzzt!!
“Ouch!..you son of a bit--” Buffy Summers growled jerking away from the
mangled patch of wires and transistors formerly known as the amplifier that
powered her guitar. “Useless piece
of--” she continued to mutter in French adding several rather colourful and
somewhat impossible curses for good measure about the physical well-being of the
makers of the ancient sound equipment.
Tossing aside her screwdriver in
disgust she gave the fried remains of her beloved amplifier a swift kick and
turned her attention to her quietly laughing audience of one. “What?” she asked
before dropping down to sit on the edge of the stage with a tired sigh.
This had not been her week - well,
if she was going to be really honest with herself, her year. She was terribly behind in her schoolwork,
about to fail most of her classes, except for French, which she apparently had
a natural aptitude for.
Who knew she would have a flair
for French insults and curses? Then
there was her mother, who was still nagging her about the whole ‘musician’
thing, the two hour lectures on the possibilities of actually being able to
support herself later in life had gotten really old five
minutes into the first lecture on
the first night. Although that little
fact hadn’t stopped her mother from continuing to try to change her only
child’s mind on her chosen profession.
So what if she wanted to be a musician for the rest of her life? It didn’t matter if she ever got a
record contract or made it
big. Music was the one constant in her
life, the one thing that had helped her get over her parents' divorce and the
move to Sunnydale. Then she had met
Willow, the shy little redhead whose smile lit up the whole room. Well, it seemed that way to Buffy and that
was all that really mattered.
“You’re hopeless B,” Faith replied
with a laugh, leaning back in her chair with her booted feet propped up on the
table in front of her. “You’re so sickeningly in love its nauseating.” The
Slayer continued with an evil little smirk before taking a drink of her
soda. Not that the dark-haired Slayer
begrudged the blonde musician any type of happiness, especially when that
happiness happened to be in the form of her best bud, Willow, she just liked to
tease her friends.
“I’ll remember that the next time
you need mouth to mouth, wouldn’t want you to get a cavity because of me,” the
blonde shot back with a smirk of her own.
Referring to that little incident earlier that month, when Faith went
after the Master on her own without the rest of the gang
as backup. By the time Buffy and the dark-haired vamp
with a soul caught up with her, Faith was laying face down in a pool of water.
“Well since I have absolutely no
desire to ever repeat my little tango with his dust-ship, anytime soon. I doubt
you will be giving me any more smoochies, unless Red is there too - and
willing.” Faith replied her cocky little
grin growing at the immediate reaction from the blonde.
“You can keep you're smoochies to
yourself,” Buffy all but growled, before seeing the laughter in her friend’s
eyes. Ever since Willow had hesitantly
introduced the blonde to her friends in the library, Faith had taken to teasing
the shy hacker every chance she got.
None of it meant in a mean way, the musician had concluded, the Slayer
just liked to watch her Wills turn red. And Wills was learning how to return
the Slayer’s shots with her own fire as they researched and insulted late at
night in the library.
To most outsiders it would seem
that the three of them rarely got along with one another, the way they and
Cordelia were constantly trading insults.
Which was totally untrue, while they did like to tell one another off at
least once a month. They didn’t see it as expressing any hatred,
It was just the gang blowing off a
little stream every now and then. It wasn’t like they ever stayed mad at one
another for any great period of time.
The longest the little group had ever gone without speaking was about a
day and a half, and that was only because Cordelia got stuck in traffic and
couldn’t apologize for telling off the Slayer until Monday morning.
Hell, the whole group would start
worrying if they didn’t pop off at one another on a regular basis; it just
wasn’t healthy in their opinion. They
were friends, in a lot of ways family really, and families argued, so it really
wasn’t all that strange to them. They
would insult one another,
apologize later and get on with
their lives. It was normal...well as normal as it ever got in Sunnydale anyway.
“So you’re going hunting for that
werewolf again?” Buffy asked changing the subject. Sometimes it was best not to let the dark Slayer think about smoochies
and sex too long, she tended to start acting on such thoughts.
Every since that big hairy thing
had evaded the Bronze two nights ago, she had been on edge. Something about the way the creature was
acting, besides the over all “grrr” part and trying to eat several people on
the dance floor, had bothered her. Granted, Faith was able to step in before it
could kill anyone, once Buffy had introduced the creature to the effects of
getting a live mike too close to an amplifier.
There was something to be said
about feedback...it was our friend. ‘At least, the amp went out a hero of
sorts,’ she ruefully thought thinking about the fried remains of the heroic
amplifier she had been trying to fix all afternoon.
“Oh yeah, going to introduce Big
Bad to Mr. Dart Gun, the two of them just have to meet,” Faith replied merrily,
a big goofy-looking grin plastered across her face. After finally taking care of the Master once and for all, a
wasted six months dusting half his minions, including that annoying little one,
just to get close enough to the mutant Uncle Fester. She was looking forward to
wrapping up this little problem too and spending the rest of school year
sleeping in class like a normal teenager.
Thankfully the werewolf problem
didn’t cause too many headaches while she was hunting down the master and his
bratty kids. Well, except for the three
nights during the full moon cycle, sometimes she didn’t get in until after
sunrise the next day as she chased vampires and one really elusive werewolf
around town at all hours.
“You really like that dart gun,
don't you?” Buffy asked cocking her
head to one side, remembering the glazed over look the Slayer got every time
she went near the weapons cage in the library.
“What’s not to like?” came the
eager reply, as Faith pulled her feet off of the table and stood to stretch.
“If I can figure out a way to get it to shoot little wooden stakes my job would
be so much easier.”
“You hear that?” she asked
suddenly her enhanced hearing picking up a stray noise near the back door. Since Big Bad’s little romp through the
Bronze two nights ago, she had also been a little edgy.
Aside from it being the first time
the werewolf had been spotted inside a building, that earlier incident where
she fought it inside the sporting good shop not counting since she was the one
that throw said werewolf through the picture window to begin with. The creature seemed really focused two
nights ago, like it was really determined to get to a certain person in the
Bronze. She hadn't said anything to B,
but Faith was pretty sure that Big Bad had been headed right for Red. Maybe she was overreacting and Red just
happened to be in the general vicinity of the creature’s path that night...yeah
right.
If she believed that one, then Darla
had been one hell of a snappy dresser before Fang dusted the blonde vampire.
Something else was going on with Big Bad, she could feel it in her bones she
didn’t know how it involved Red...yet. But she was going to find out. No one, vamp, demon or otherwise messed with
her friends, it tended to annoy her when one of them got hurt. It made her want to break things, put people
in hospital, and do several other really antisocial things to people and demons
she didn’t know.
In all, it made for an unhappy
Slayer and when the Slayer was unhappy the demon populace was made to feel
pain. It was one of those unspoken
rules of Sunnydale not found in any of the tour guides, along with the fact
that the town itself set over the mouth of hell.
“Nah,” Buffy replied jumping down
from her perch on the side of the stage. “It could be one of bouncers or
something,” she suggested coming to stand beside Faith.
“Yeah could be...wanna take a
look?” the Slayer offered with a twinkle in her eye.
Buffy was near the back door when
she finally heard the noise that had first alerted Faith near the stage. Putting her hand on the handle of the door,
she listened for a moment to see if she could hear the noise again. Sunset was still a few hours away, so it
couldn’t be a vampire.
Then she heard it. A voice she could recognize in a
thunderstorm, just outside the back door.
‘Willow!’ her mind screamed, jerking open the door she rushed outside
without a second thought, reason being overwhelmed by instinct. Her Wills was in trouble and she didn’t care
if she had to go through a chaos demon, but she would get to her girlfriend one
way or another.
*****************
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER!” she
growled, grabbing a hold of the figure that had backed the small redhead into a
corner of the alley, and forcibly pulled him away from her Wills with a
jerk.
“You!” she all but cursed
recognizing the senior that had been following Willow around campus the past
few months. At first they didn’t think
too much about it until he had nearly followed her into the girls' locker room
one day.
After that the gang had closed
ranks around Willow trying to keep the guy as far away from the redhead as
possible.
*********************
Oz, the blue haired senior, rolled
quickly to his feet and charged the blonde standing between him and his
prize. He had been following the
redhead around for weeks trying to get her alone, but one of her friends had
always been hanging around running him off.
But not today, he had caught her alone on her way to the Bronze to meet
the annoying blonde bitch that was the most vocal of her friends running him
off. He had almost had her too, when
the very same blonde had come out the backdoor and ruined everything.
Well he wasn’t going to take it
anymore, he had only wanted to talk to the shy redhead, get her to go out with
him. Now it seemed that he was going to have to take what he wanted and maybe
shut up that annoying blonde for awhile.
*****************
The sounds of fighting had drawn
Faith out the back door as well, taking in the situation quickly she made two
firm decisions. One, that B was having
a lot of fun without her, fighting a guy with blue hair. And two, that the same blue haired guy was
the one that had been creeping out Willow lately. “All right, do I have to get
a hose?” She questioned reaching for the guy struggling with Buffy. Only to be stopped by a strange little growl
followed closely by a cry of pain.
Shaking off her surprise, Faith grabbed
Oz by the back of his shirt and forcibly removed him from Buffy, momentarily
forgetting her own strength and sending him flying further then she intended.
“Oops!” She said, as he flew into bunch
of empty boxes piled next to the dumpster, taking a moment to enjoy the sound
he made on impact.
“Faith!” Willow's cry prevented
her form doing a little more pounding on Oz, like she so wanted to. Something about the guy annoyed her, maybe
it was his inability to decide on a hair colour and stick with it for more then
a week, such indecisiveness really got on her nerves...and she
absolutely hated that shade of
blue on him. Turning her attention back to her friends, she found Willow
crouched next to a bleeding Buffy.
“What happened?” she questioned,
briefly wondering if he had a knife she didn’t see at first. If there was a
knife somewhere in that alley she was *so* going to hurt blue-boy.
“He bit me,” Buffy replied,
pressing her right hand against her bleeding upper arm.
“What!?”
“He bit me,” she said again trying
to stop the blood steadily flowing down her arm.
‘No that can't be right,’ Faith
told herself firmly after the initial shock wore off. ‘B wouldn't be bleeding that much unless...’ she added to herself
before dropping to her knees in front of Buffy to take a look at the bite mark
herself. “Let me take a look,” she said, trying to keep her own fear under
control. She was the Slayer, she could handle anything.
Well just about anything. “That’s
not human,” Willow said in a dull whisper her eyes wide with fear for her
girlfriend. “Because human bites shouldn’t look like that and even if they do
they still shouldn’t be considered human...”
The redhead continued going into
full babble mode, turning her eyes to Faith begging her to make everything all
right. Because Faith was the Slayer and she could make anything all right, she
always did, it was her gift.
Tearing her eyes away from
Willow’s scared and confused ones, she threw a quick look over her shoulder.
“Damn!” She cursed as she caught blue-boy disappearing around the corner of the
building. ‘Worry about him later,’ she decided thinking fast. She would tear
apart the town if
she had to, but she would find
him. “Giles, we’ve got to get to Giles,” she said firmly, helping Buffy to her
feet. ‘Then I’m going to add blue-boy to the “things-to-Slay” list.’
***********************
The
School Library
Giles looked up from the ancient
tome he was reading when the three young girls came crashing through the
library doors with little warning.
“G, we need you over here!” Faith called out, guiding Buffy to the
nearest chair.
“W-what happened,” he asked
scrambling around the research table once he saw her blood soaked shirtsleeve.
“Blue-boy bite her,” Faith replied
moving out of the way to let the Librarian/Watcher take a look at the
wound.
The redhead had already
disappeared into the office only to return moments later with the first aid
kit, that bordered on actually being a trauma kit; Giles’s private stash of medicinal
herbs and the fire extinguisher.
Although Faith was a bit puzzled over why they would need the fire
extinguisher she wisely kept her mouth shut, Willow looked like she was about
to spit nails.
And while the Slayer did tend to
be reckless at times, she was not stupid. She could tell an emotionally
distraught person when she saw one and wasn’t about to risk getting attacked by
one. ‘No sir, not this Slayer,’ she told herself leaning back against the table
so she could watch Giles work from a safe distance.
Dumping everything onto the table
Willow planted herself next to the injured blonde, her demeanor shifting from
being scared out of her wits to being outraged that he wasn’t moving fast
enough.
“Blue-boy?” Giles questioned
crouching down so he could a better look at Buffy’s arm.
“Oz...you
know the guy that's been hanging around Red a lot.”
“Ah...I thought his hair was
green,” Giles replied absently, carefully peeling away the shredded blood
soaked shirtsleeve. “Ah, I-I’m going to have to re-remove your shirt,” he added
glancing up into Buffy’s pain-clouded eyes.
In the time it took to get to the library, the pain in her arm had
developed into a steady throbbing and she had begun to get a bit light headed
from the loss of blood.
“Its blue today,” Faith commented
leaving her safe position to step closer to Willow and Giles who were both
trying to take off Buffy’s shirt without causing her too much pain. Batting their hands away, she briefly caught
the musician’s eyes with her own. “Hate to be doing this B,” she said in a low
voice before grabbing a handful of fabric in each hand and ripping the shirt
open down the front.
“No you’re not,” Buffy replied
with a weak smile, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
After a moment, “You're right, I’m
not...so am I better than Red at tearing your clothes off?” she couldn’t help
but ask, a naughty little grin shining in her eyes as she retreated to her
former position.
“Wouldn't you like to know...”
Buffy shot back as Willow slipped the ruined shirt off over her shoulders,
Giles having turned his attention to the medical supplies and...the fire
extinguisher.
Giving his Slayer a confused look,
he decided to drop the matter when Faith only gave him an amused smirk and a
shrug. Some things he was just happier
not knowing, he decided before opening the medical kit and rummaging around
inside it for bandages and the disinfectant.
Returning his attention to his
patient, he set about cleaning and disinfecting the injury as best he could.
“You say you were bitten by another student?” he asked after a few moments,
having finally gotten the bleeding to stop so he could take a closer look at
the wound.
“Yeah,” Buffy replied, trying to
crane her head around to see what he was doing to her arm. “Came out the back door
of the Bronze and found Oz backing Wills into a corner,” she explained between hissing as Giles cleaned
the wound as carefully as he could. “We got into a fight, then Faith showed up
to pull him off me...he gave me this in return.”
“Was there anything else? Anything unusual?” he asked, his mind
racing. He knew that the bite had not been made by a human, it couldn’t have
been. There were two rather deep puncture marks around some badly torn skin. The bite mark seemed familiar he just
couldn’t place where he had seen such a bite.
It wasn’t a vampire bite, too early in the day for that. No this was something else entirely, he
decided, trying to remember just where he had seen the bite mark before.
“Yeah.. ah, there was this
growl...not like a vamp. More like a
dog or something,” Willow replied placing a hand on Buffy’s uninjured shoulder.
The overwhelming panic that pretty
much taken over when she had first seen all the blood was leaving her as Giles
calmly cleaned up the musician.
‘Why does Giles have the fire
extinguisher out?’ she asked herself, giving Buffy’s shoulder a reassuring
squeeze.
“A dog?”
Giles questioned, looking up from his work sharply.
“Yeah...at least that is what it
sounded like anyway,” Faith answered pulling herself out of her relaxed
position. ‘Oh damn!’ she cursed, her mind already working. “Red where did you
put those autopsy photos from last month’s werewolf attack?” she questioned
remembering just why the bite seemed so familiar to her back in the alley.
“W-werewolf attack?” Willow said
in a really small voice, a feeling of dread going through her and settling in
the pit of her stomach.
“Yes...the werewolf attack, I need
to see the bite marks,” Faith replied trying to remain calm because if what she
thought had happened really did happen then B’s life had just become a hell of
a lot more complicated.
“Giles?” Buffy asked while Faith
and Willow descended upon the library’s computer where the redheaded hacker
kept most of her ‘somewhat illegal but very valuable’ information. “What’s
going to happen to me?” she questioned in a small voice once she had gotten his
attention.
She wasn’t kidding herself, she
had seen those autopsy photos just like the rest of the gang had, she knew what
bite marks they were talking about on the remains of the werewolf’s
victims. She had also read up on the
whole werewolf curse, when the first victims started to turn up a few months
ago. She knew perfectly well that she had just been screwed over by a werewolf
named Daniel Ozbourne. And that now she
had the curse too.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we
come to it,” Giles replied after a moment. “But first we have to make sure that
you are confined for the evening…it’ll be sundown in a few hours, you need to
be safely locked up by then,” he continued, his eyes never once leaving the
young woman’s face.
He could tell that she was
terrified and that she was trying to be brave in the face of a very uncertain
future. ‘But it’s a future she will not be facing alone,’ he vowed to himself,
knowing beyond all doubt that he would not rest until he found a cure for the
werewolf curse.
The End?
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Well, not really, this story is
continued in “A Night in the Library” the second story in the Reality Shift
series as well as the rest of the series itself as the Slayer and her band of
misfits try to keep the Hellmouth
from going nova on them. Anyone interested in seeing how the rest of
the ride is like?
Shadow