Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns the characters of BTVS.
Summary:
But it's an accident... and leads to a vampire slaying competition between
Buffy/Willow/Xander and Faith/Cordelia/Oz.
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"Wow," Faith murmured appreciatively as she climbed to her feet and retrieved the crossbow. "You'd think a 200-year old vamp would have better reflexes."
"Buffy's going to kill me!" Cordelia exclaimed hysterically. Trembling and pale, she turned to Oz, desperate for a word of support.
"Yep," he said, gazing thoughtfully into the darkness. He thought back to the rather uneventful manner in which the evening had begun.
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At the Bronze. He'd finished the show and was looking for Willow; he hadn't seen her in the audience. It wasn't like her to miss an event, no matter how routine - residual guilt, he figured. Then he saw Cordelia - or rather, she spotted him.
"Oz!" she called with mock enthusiasm. "By yourself again?"
"Cordelia," he responded, "have you seen Willow?"
"Not recently. Why? Did the others leave you out of yet another of their road trips to Hell?"
"So, you have seen her," he asked, "just not recently?"
"She was in here an hour ago - just long enough to grab Buffy and Xander - you remember Xander, right? Your girlfriend's boyfriend?"
He sighed. "Did they tell you where they were going?"
"They said something about checking the graveyards. Where else would they be on a school night?"
"Thanks," Oz said as he headed for the door. He noticed Cordelia was still following him when he reached the street. He turned back to her and said hesitantly, "Um, thanks Cordy. Nice seeing you."
"Can I come along?" she asked.
"Umm... okay... why?"
"The Bronze is dead." Oz looked at her skeptically - the club had been as packed as he'd seen it on a Thursday. "Alright," she said, turning away from him. "I just want to tag along because I miss the excitement, okay? I liked being part of a team - even a team of freaks. You guys were my friends - real friends not like the ones I almost have now."
"Let's go."
"Want to see my crossbow?"
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Oz had to admit that he liked the crossbow. It was a very expensive toy she had ordered from one of her father's hunting magazines - complete with a night sight. It looked very dangerous and very illegal. At the first cemetery, Cordelia had let him play with it; with a few well-placed shots, he verified that there were no vampiric trees on the grounds. In the next graveyard, they saw two figures wrestling amongst the tombstones - one of the figures vanished suddenly. Oz stopped the van and they got out, heading quickly to the scene. By the time they got there, the slayer was gone.
Oz and Cordelia called out Buffy's name a few times.
"Are you sure it was Buffy?" Oz asked.
"No, it as probably some other vampire slayer," she responding caustically.
"Like me?"
Oz and Cordelia whirled around at the sound of the voice. Cordelia found herself sprawled on the ground before she knew what had happened. Faith stood over her, Cordelia's new crossbow in her hands. "Nice," Faith commented as she idly targeted Oz with the weapon.
"Faith," he said.
She reached a hand out to Cordelia and helped her up.
"Hey kids," she said, an infectious smile playing about her lips, "miss me?"
"No offense," Oz began uneasily, "but aren't you one of the bad guys these days?"
"Yeah, but I'm on vampire detail anyway. The mayor says there're too many free lancers; he wants me exterminate the lone wolf types," she said as she smiled at Oz. "Bring them in line. The mayor likes team players. Got your van?"
"Yes," he responded suspiciously.
"Great!" Faith beamed, "Then you can give me a ride to my next appointment. Been getting a little old walkin' from one end of Sunnydale to the next."
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The next stop on Faith's itinerary was in the bad part of town. Faith kept the crossbow for herself and distributed stakes to Oz and Cordelia - apparently, she'd deputized them. They left Oz=92s van across the street and entered a dilapidated building. Faith and Oz moved quickly through the dimly lit wreckage while Cordelia struggled to keep up as she stumbled over debris. On the second floor, Faith stopped and picked out a door. Mumbling inaudibly to herself, she kicked open the door and rushed into the room. Oz followed. A dead girl lay on the floor, very little blood leaking from her still body. The window was open. Faith was at it in an instant and raised the crossbow to her shoulder, firing quickly. "Missed his heart," she hissed and barreled back out of the room and down the stairs, knocking Cordelia down in the process. Oz followed, helping Cordelia up as he passed.
They were now hunting the wounded vampire through the alleys and abandoned buildings of Sunnydale. Faith adamantly refused to go on to the next target; she insisted that her slayer abilities would enable her to track the creature. Oz and Cordelia trailed after her, hoping to survive until sunrise. After what seemed like an eternity, Faith suddenly stopped them. "It's there, in the alley," she whispered, her back to the wall. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, "I can feel it, moving slowly towards us."
Cordelia fumbled in her purse for her crucifix - she pulled out two and handed one to Oz who accepted it gratefully. Faith spun around the corner - a sudden blur of motion. The crossbow was knocked from her hands and her shot went wild, hitting nothing. Faith was flung away, into the opposite wall. The monster ran, rounding the corner - straight into Cordelia's stake. A look of surprise crossed Angel's face before he vanished in a cloud of noxious dust.
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It would be another hour before the sun was fully up. The three of them sat in the doughnut shop, one of the few places open this early. Faith had generously offered to buy the food and coffee, and was now flirting with the doughnut boy while Cordelia and Oz sat in shock at a table.
"You can't tell Buffy," Cordelia pleaded, "You know what obsesso-girl's like. Or Willow or anybody."
"What about Faith?"
"Why would she tell Buffy?"
"Why wouldn't she?"
Faith returned with two dozen doughnuts of all varieties and three steaming cups of bad coffee. She began to wolf down her food immediately. "It was great having you help," she commented between mouthfuls. "Especially you, C. Angel was top of my things to slay list. Way to go."
"Y-you're not going to tell Buffy, are you Faith?" Cordelia asked plaintively.
"Been thinkin' on that since you dusted him," she said. "I'll make you two a deal. You help me out the next few weeks, you know, clean up the vamps and I'll keep quiet. What about it?"
Oz and Cordelia exchanged glances.
"Hey, it'll be fun!" Faith enthused. "What else are you going to do in Sunnydale?"
"For how long?" asked Oz.
"Say, three weeks?" she suggested.
"Okay," Cordelia agreed quickly as she looked hopefully at Oz.
He sighed. "Can I carry the crossbow?" he asked.
"Sure thing, wolf-man," Faith responded, "just make sure you keep it aimed in the right direction. Aren't you guys going to eat anything?"
Oz picked up a doughnut and bit into it resignedly. "Jelly," he remarked appreciatively.
"Oz said they killed two more last night," Willow said. Xander, Buffy and Willow sat around a table littered with neglected tomes on the supernatural while they discussed the activities of Oz, Cordelia and Faith. Giles had been trying for the last half-hour to get them back to work - researching the latest cult that had come to town.
"That means they've killed 9 this week," Xander commented, "they're 4 ahead of you now, Buffy."
"I can't help it," she said sullenly. "I've been patrolling the graveyards every night but I just haven't run into any vamps."
"This... competition is childish," Giles interrupted, "Eventually, one of you is going to get killed with this one-upsmanship. Now if we could just get back on task..."
"Maybe you're patrolling the wrong areas," Willow suggested, "I mean, what if it's like natural selection - you've hunted the vampires who like graveyards to the brink of extinction so the ones that are left are those who are genetically predisposed to avoid cemeteries."
"Where should I patrol then, ice cream parlors and church socials?" Buffy asked.
"You should end this nonsense and get back to our research," Giles said tersely.
"What is a church social, anyway?" Buffy asked.
"You can't quit 'til we're even," Xander protested.
"I don't want to be even, I want to be ahead," Buffy responded petulantly. It was too much for Giles; he abandoned them and retreated to his office in disgust.
"So, what are they up to tonight, Willow?" Buffy asked.
"I-I don't like being a spy," she said hesitantly. "I think Oz is getting suspicious."
"Don't think of it as being a spy, think of it as being a double agent," Xander suggested. "I'm sure Oz gets way more information about us than we do about them."
"They're going to start cleaning out the sewers," she confessed.
"Get the vamps where they live," Buffy mused. "What do you say to a field trip guys? Beat them at their own game. Can you pull up the maps of the storm sewers?" she asked Willow.
"Yes, but like I told Oz, they're kinda out of date and there are caverns and stuff that aren't on the maps," Willow replied. "Even with maps you could get lost own there for days."
"Not with you to guide us," Buffy said smugly. "Be ready by sundown guys."
"Not a big fan of sewers," Xander said.
"Me neither," Willow chimed in.
"Hey, you guys don't like the way I patrol so you can help out," Buffy retorted. She frowned suddenly. "Have either of you seen Angel lately?"
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It was a few minutes after sunset when they arrived at the entrance to Sunnydale's underworld. Willow had insisted on bringing a first aid kit and rope - which Xander was carrying - in addition to the usual crosses, stakes and flashlights. Oz's van and Cordelia's car were parked nearby. Buffy climbed down first into the stagnant, ankle-deep water filling the subterranean passage and splashed into the darkness, followed by her somewhat less than enthusiastic companions.
"In about 100 feet more," Buffy commented, "there's a series of natural caverns. On the right." She pointed her flashlight in that direction.
"Is that smoke?" Willow asked as she noted a swirling dark mass pouring from a crevasse in the side of the tunnels.
"I don't think smoke moves like that," Xander said as the cloud swept toward them. "I think it's..."
"Bats!" exclaimed Buffy as the swirling bodies reached them. The intrepid vampire hunters fled back down the tunnel as the tiny flying mammals swept silently about them, wingtips brushing them lightly in the darkness. And then, as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone. The three of them came to a halt.
"Vampires, demons, cults and angry mobs I can handle," Buffy giggled, "but bats are scary. Let's head back down."
"I-I dropped my maps," Willow whimpered.
"Maps, shmaps," Xander said as he struggled to regain his manly composure, "we don't need no stinkin' maps."
"Y-you don't think we'll run into any more bats, do you?" Willow asked.
"Hey, at least they weren't vampire bats," Xander responded flippantly.
"No, they wouldn't be. Vampire bats only occur in the tropical areas of South America," Willow said.
"How does something like that evolve anyway?" Buffy asked.
"I'm thinking mad scientists with a little too much time on their hands," Xander offered.
Willow slipped into full lecture mode, saying, "Actually, biologists think they began as insectivores that ate bloodsucking insects feeding on large animals. Then they would also lap up any leftover blood from the wound, and from there, they went straight to drinking blood. There's a type of bird that lives in the Galapagos Islands that drinks blood, too."
"No more Discovery Channel for you," Buffy said.
"I had a dream about bloodsucking hummingbirds once," Willow continued, " they always looked like giant mosquitoes to me. We would put blood in the hummingbird feeders to keep them satiated so they wouldn't bother the children."
Buffy stared incredulously at Willow, then plunged on into the dark corridor. Willow and Xander followed.
"What children?" Xander asked.
"Oh, um, in my dream I was married and had some children. Two of them - a girl and a boy," she told Xander. "I-I had forgotten to put blood in the feeder and poor little Rosalia got attacked."
"You named your imaginary children?"
"Hurry up!" Buffy called as she slipped down a side passage.
"We're coming!" Willow shouted back as she rushed to catch up.
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"We haven't found a single vampire - not that I'm complaining," Xander moaned. "How many hours have we been down here?"
"It'll be one in about 5 minutes," Willow responded cheerfully.
"Of course we haven't found anything with you two making enough noise to wake the dead," Buffy snapped. She stepped around a corner then jumped back, a crossbow bolt protruding from her shoulder. "Faith!" she shouted, "I'm going to kill you!"
Willow fumbled with the first aid kit. A faint voice drifted down the passage. "Buffy? Was that you?"
"Cordelia," Buffy groaned.
Cordelia came forward, apologizing profusely. "I got separated when we ran into a cave filled with bats," she explained, "Oz had the flashlight. I didn't think I would ever find my way out - I think we were lost before the bats."
"Afraid of a few bats and your hunting vampires?" Xander remarked.
"What if one had gotten tangled in my hair?"
"That's just an Old Wives' Tale," Willow said as she applied bandage to Buffy's injury. "Just stand still and they'll use their sonar to fly around you."
"So, did you shoot anyone else while you were lost, or was it just my lucky night?" Buffy asked.
"I thought you were a vampire."
"When did vampires start carrying flashlights?"
"I'm sorry. I was scared."
"Nice crossbow," Buffy said as she suddenly noticed Cordelia's high tech weapon. "Where'd you get that?"
"I ordered it from a catalog. And Faith got the mayor to buy a couple of extras for her and Oz," she responded. "Want to try it out?"
"Yes," Buffy said as she reached for it eagerly.
"Hold still," Willow said.
"Oooo... I like this," Buffy enthused, "no splinters. Night sight. Black non-reflective surface. I wonder if Giles would get me one."
"You can have mine," Cordelia offered. "I am officially finished with monster hunting."
"Cool. This is almost worth getting shot. I always felt like I needed a tetanus shot after using mine."
"Can we go home now?" Cordelia pleaded.
"Yep, let's get out of here," Buffy said.
"What about Oz?" Willow asked.
"He got himself lost, he can get himself unlost," Buffy said callously. Willow whimpered in protest. "The more I think about wandering around in the dark with people shooting crossbows at us, the more my survival instincts tell me Giles was right about this vampire killing competition. We'll wait for Oz at the entrance," she said to mollify Willow. "Hey Cordy, have you seen Angel recently?"
"N-not recently," she said evasively.
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It took them two hours to find their way back out with a momentarily delay while Buffy got to try out the new crossbow on a stray vampire with very satisfactory results. No sooner had they reached the surface than Cordelia left, with a final apology for the shooting. It was two AM before Oz sheepishly poked his head out of the manhole.