Title: The Assistant, part 68
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: R
Summary: Merrick didn’t die. AU
Spoilers: season 4
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters.. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
Buffy hadn't really liked the zoo since the incident with the possessed hyenas. Well, to be fair, she hadn't much cared for it before that. She wasn't a girl for animals by and large and besides, the zoo stank. To her Slayer senses it was nearly overpowering.
She entered an hour before closing and simply hid on top of the reptile house, dozing in the warmth of the setting sun. It would probably be several hours before that crazy woman showed up and a little nap time never hurt anybody. Thus it was that she only woke to the presence of her enemies when she heard chanting coming from inside the reptile enclosure. She swung off the roof, landing on her feet in a crouch and assessed the situation.
The bad guys were already inside. She could hear Blondie ranting about her Key. She apparently had a minion with her because she heard a much more timid voice groveling.
“This will work Most Beautiful Glorificus. The avatar will be able to track your Key. We shall know before morning's light where it lies hidden.”
“We'd better, Dreg. I don't have a lot of time left.”
“It will be enough, Glory, er, most Glorious mistress of all things.”
“Get on with it.”
“If, if you would be so kind?” He indicated the glass tank holding the cobra.
She rolled her eyes and smashed the case, reaching in and extracting the deadly reptile with a lightning quick dart of her hand. Pulling the creature out, she held it up to her eyes. “Cute.”
Glory dropped the animal into the large basket that Dreg had carried for just this purpose. He began the monotonous chant that would invoke the reptile god and change this creature to one more suitable to do his mistresses bidding. It was at that moment that Buffy swung into full attack mode.
Glory heard her coming and met Buffy's attack with a devastating blow of her own that knocked the Slayer across the room. Ever game, Buffy hauled herself up and tried again. At first, it seemed as if her blows were having some affect, then Glory struck back and Buffy flipped feet over head as she tumbled across the floor. Glory was simply playing with her. Buffy watched the supernaturally strong woman saunter across the room towards her, at the same time yelling at the minion to start chanting again.
Glory bent down and picked Buffy up, hitting her across the face a couple of times just for the sheer amusement value of making the Slayer see stars. “Where's my Key, Slayer? All you have to do is tell me that little thing and we can be friends.”
Suddenly, the basket housing the snake started rocking. Glory turned, dropping Buffy as her interest shifted to the magic being performed for her. Dreg shouted the final words of the spell and the basket shuddered. There was a moment of quiet like the lull in a storm, then the basket literally blew apart as a giant Cobra-like thing emerged from it's depths. It was hideous.
“Oooo. Pretty!” Glory said happily. “Now, snakey-poo, I want you to find my Key!”
The snake-thing reared up and gave a sibilant hiss. It tore out of the reptile enclosure in a frightening burst of speed. Buffy used it's exit to mask her own escape. As soon as she was clear of the building, she ran faster than she had ever run in her life, heading home to Giles.
Glory turned back to finish with the Slayer and was ticked off to find her gone. “Where did she go, Dreg?”
“I do not know, most Beauteous One.” He tried to grovel while standing, hunched by her side.
She put her hands on her hips, then sighed. “Well, it doesn't matter. She won't stop my new pet and when we find that Key, nothing else will matter.”
“Just so, Glorificus.”
~*~
Buffy tore into the house and panted out her story. Blood dripped from a cut above her eyebrow but she just wiped it aside as an annoyance. “We've got to find that Snake before it finds Spike.”
Giles grabbed his car keys and they ran from the house. They started their search near the zoo and it didn't take long to find the trail of destruction the thing had left in its wake.
“Spike's at Willie's tonight. We need to go there if we can't find it on the street,” Buffy told her husband.
They drove down the street, heading for the seedy bar at the edge of town and were in time to see the large Cobra-thing literally snaking its way down the street. Giles sped the car up and slewed it around in the street, blocking the ensorceled reptile's path. Buffy leaped from the vehicle before it even came to a complete rest and dove at the creature. It hissed and tried to bite her with fangs as long as her forearm. She dodged the first strike and jumped on its back,
After trying to buck her off, it decided to simply ignore her and began speeding away, Buffy riding it's back like some insane parody of a bronc rider at a rodeo. She began sliding down its slick neck despite digging in with her heels. It finally stopped in annoyance and tried to thwack her with its tail. She ducked the first blow and tightened her grip on the creature's neck. It tried to buck her off again, rearing and then rolling in an effort to dislodge her. It finally scraped her off against a tree, leaving a large portion of her skin on the rough bark.
She dropped off and looked around, spotting a barrier chain used for cordoning off lines in front of a busy club. Unfastening the chain, she pulled it towards her till she had about twelve feet piled around her feet. After grabbing it up, she sped after the giant snake and managed to wrap the end of the chain around it's neck. She braced her feet against its back and tightened her grip on the chain, slowly cutting off the beast's oxygen supply.
The snake flopped around tossing her back and forth, scraping her against more trees, sidewalks and fences than she had thought existed in Sunnydale. It finally gave a death rattle and slumped over. She gave the chain an extra jerk just to be sure, but the snake lay still. She released the chain and rested for a few moments against one of the trees now liberally decorated with her blood. She heard a car pull up and saw that Giles had finally found her again. She looked over at him and then turned back to the snake in time to see it rise up.
“Playing 'possum, huh?” She struck it as hard as she could with her fists, knocking it back against the ground. Once it was down, she pummeled it till it's skull caved in beneath the fury of her blows. She struck it over and over and over. “You rotten, evil...thing! You are gonna die. Die. Die.” Each word was punctuated by a fist sinking deep into the beast's head and throat. Her hands were covered in reptile blood, brains and gobbets of flesh.
Giles finally came over and put his hand on her shoulder. “It's dead, love. It's dead.”
“Got to be sure,” she panted. “Can't let it find the Key...”
Giles stepped back to his car and pulled a sword from the trunk. He began hacking the remains of the creature apart. Only when it was in twenty or thirty segments, was Buffy reassured it wouldn't come back again.
She looked at the havoc they had created. “Um, how will we clean this up, Giles?”
The steaming pile of bloody flesh was appalling. “I have some garbage bags in the car. I suppose we should bag up what we can.”
She nodded. “Still going to be gallons of blood here in the morning.”
Giles hesitated for a moment. “Can't be helped, I suppose. Let's get this thing bagged. We can stop and drop the bags in different dumpsters along the way home.”
“Yeah.” Now that the adrenaline rush was leaving her, she was feeling the pain of her wounds. None of them were very bad by themselves, but she was scraped from head to toe, bruises on top of bruises, and covered in disgusting snake parts. She actually felt sick with hurting, finding places that she hadn't felt being injured spring into pain-filled life. “Let's go. I feel...bad.”
They bagged the snake bits and spent another half hour driving all over town dumping the bags. Buffy slept and let Giles take care of the disposal. He ended up carrying her into the house. Her appearance caused a great deal of alarm in the family as she was literally covered in blood.
Joyce, at Giles request, started a shower for her. He would have given her a bath, but didn't want her soaking in the reptile blood. Buffy didn't even wake up when he placed her in the tub. Stripping off his own clothes, he got in and picked her up again, washing the blood off them both and inspecting her injuries. When they were both clean, he slipped into a pair of jeans and carried her to their room. He got the medicine kit out and tended the worst of her scrapes and cuts before slipping her into a soft nightgown that wouldn't bind on her battered body. After tucking her into their bed, he slipped on a tee-shirt and went back downstairs to join the others.
“What happened, Rupert? Did our mysterious blonde do all that damage?”
“No. Buffy caught the metamorph. It put up quite a battle.”
“Was it able to report back with news of the Key?” Merrick asked.
“No. She stopped it in time.”