FIC Not Even Jimmy Olsen (4/6) (BUFFY)

[blairprovence]

Mr. Giles reappeared from his office carrying a long, thin leather case. He held it out to Buffy, who tugged on the end, pulling out the biggest damn sword I have ever seen - not that I've seen a lot of them, but this one had to be almost as long as Buffy was tall. "There aren't a lot of things in the world that a sword won't hurt," she murmured, smiling in satisfaction as she hefted the blade with astonishing ease.

 

"Lead it back here," Mr. Giles told her. "Take no unnecessary chances. We'll be waiting."

 

"Got it," she said, giving him a mock salute before turning and striding toward us. I backed away from the wickedly sharp metal, but Cordelia held up a hand.

 

"It was trying to get in through the door to the faculty parking lot," Cordelia told her. "And I don't think it was in a very good mood."

 

"Thanks," Buffy replied, vanishing through the doors. I stared after her for a moment, wondering how I could possibly believe what my eyes had just seen. But no one else seemed to think it was odd that the school librarian kept a sword in his office, or that he would arm a student with it and send her out into battle with a giant green monster that could not possibly exist. I felt like I had somehow entered the Twilight Zone without being aware it.

 

Mr. Giles moved to the book cage and unlocked the door. "You said Holy Water had no effect on the creature?" he asked Cordelia as he went inside.

 

"Not that we could see," Cordelia said, tossing her purse onto the table. "Maybe it's not a demon. Hey, where's Wesley?"

 

I wondered who Wesley was, and why Cordelia cared where he might be...and how in the world I could be possibly listening to her have a conversation with the word 'demon' in it.

 

Xander snorted and rolled his eyes, but Mr. Giles merely responded, "He left right before you got here. He thought he had a book at home that might help us identify our adversary."

 

Cordelia's eyes widened in horror. "You mean he's out there? With that thing?"

 

"He went out the back way, to the visitor's lot," Mr. Giles said as he reemerged from the cage holding some kind of wood and metal contraption. "I'm sure he's just fine, Cordelia." He handed the object to Xander. "Now, I think it would be best if you and your friend stayed in my office. I don't want to send you out undefended elsewhere in the school, just in case Buffy should have some difficulty leading the creature back here."

 

It sounded like a good plan to me, but Cordelia shook her head. "No way am I hiding under the desk, Giles. I may not be a member of your little gang anymore, but I'm at least as good with a crossbow as Xander is." She planted her hands on her hips and regarded him mutinously. Mr. Giles studied her set expression for a moment, sighed, then finally nodded, disappearing back into the cage.

 

"Hey," Xander protested.

 

"She's got a point," Willow noted as she knelt down behind the book checkout desk. "She did hit the center of the target three more times than you did."

 

"The sun was in my eyes, all right? And I hadn't had anything to eat all day," Xander complained as he loaded a bolt. "That test was so not fair."

 

"Grapes sour much?" Cordelia quipped as Mr. Giles reemerged with another crossbow.

 

She held out her hands, but he hesitated. "Now, Cordelia," he admonished, and I could swear I heard amusement in his voice, "aim for the big green monster, all right? And only shoot when the rest of us are at least three feet away from it."

 

"Don't worry," Cordelia replied, sending a smug glance toward a scowling Xander, "I'll only shoot the green monster, no matter how much someone else might deserve it."

 

"Thank you." Mr. Giles handed the crossbow to Cordelia and headed back toward his office. "Do you have sufficient tranquilizer darts, Willow?"

 

I blinked in stunned surprise as shy little Willow Rosenberg stood up from behind the book desk and hefted a very scary looking rifle in her hands, checking the sights with practiced aplomb. "Yes, I think so. But we're going to need to order some more before the next full moon."

 

"I'll make a note of it."

 

My gaze moved from Willow and her gun to Xander, who was polishing the crosspiece of his weapon, to Cordelia, who was handling her own crossbow with alarming competence - and then down to my own hand, which still held the cheap plastic watergun. I wondered when I was going to awaken from this totally bizarre dream.

 

Mr. Giles emerged from his office carrying another sword, which appeared to be the not-so-little brother of Buffy's behemoth. He made a few experimental lunges and smiled in satisfaction. "All right, Willow - I think your best vantage point will be from the stacks upstairs on the left side. Cordelia, you take the right. Xander, you get behind the corner of the book cage. And take some stakes with you." He turned to me, cocking his head to the side as though noticing me for the first time. "If you would please lock the door of my office behind you?"

 

Gulping, I nodded, glancing surreptitiously at Cordelia as I crossed the linoleum, but she was absorbed with checking her weapon. The door clicked shut behind me as I entered the small room, muting the murmur of their voices, and in the new nearsilence I could almost believe that this wasn't happening, that I wasn't trapped in the library awaiting the appearance of a large green floating monster while the weirdest kids in school and the librarian prepared to defend us like knights of old.

 

I laid the gun on the desk and turned to survey the office, which was crammed cheek to jowl with old books, filing cabinets, and various odd artifacts. At any other time, I would have been delighted to rifle through all of it, but I was chiefly concerned with what was about to happen outside. Luckily, the librarian's office had a window, through which I had a pretty good view of most of the outer room, except for the bookshelves on the near right. I watched as the others took their places as ordered. Mr. Giles remained in the center of the floor, his legs braced wide and his sword outstretched, facing the door.

 

I stepped back without looking and stumbled into the corner of the desk. The rolling chair behind it skittered out of reach, leaving an opening underneath large enough to hide me. I was torn between crawling under the desk for cover and staying where I was to get a good view of the action, but I finally settled for crouching low behind it, peering just over the top so that I would barely be visible through the window. I judged myself to be as safe as I could possibly be without being home in my very own bed - or anywhere else that wasn't inside this school.

 

Of course, for all I knew, the monster had x-ray vision or something, and hiding was totally pointless.

 

Suddenly Buffy burst through the swinging doors at a dead run, sword upraised. She looked like one of those kids from the game show 'You Can't Do That on Television' - absolutely covered in dripping green slime. "It's coming!" she shouted as she quickly shrugged out of her muck-covered blouse, revealing a relatively goop-free black tank top. "And it's not happy!" She tossed the blouse on top of the book counter.

 

"Are you all right?" Mr. Giles asked as they took up position next to one another, like two halves of one whole. I could barely hear them through the glass.

 

"Great!" she grinned through the goo. "Feels like a really icky facial."

 

He smiled back and murmured something that made her laugh.

 

And suddenly the monster was there.

 

The creature stood - well, okay, floated - before them, and it displayed none of its earlier reticence to press an attack. It struck out lightning fast with one arm, aiming for the librarian, but the man moved faster than I ever would have believed he could, dodging sideways and striking out with his sword simultaneously. Still, the monster managed to catch him with a glancing blow, and I realized that it wasn't simply aiming for blunt trauma anymore. Its arms had...transformed somehow, growing sharp, serrated edges, which sliced cleanly through the man's sleeve but fell short of drawing blood.

 

Mr. Giles' thrust, on the other hand, struck the monster's undefended side, causing an eruption of green liquid to spill out on the floor, accompanied by a keening howl the likes of which I'd never heard before. I clapped my hands over my ears, but I could still feel the pressure of the high-pitched wail against my eardrums. Outside, the backup three all flinched and jerked backward, but Mr. Giles and Buffy never paused in their attack. They moved utterly in sync, like some sort of weirdly violent ballet routine, and by working together they almost negated the monster's chief advantage, which was that it did not require two of its limbs to stand up with, and could therefore strike at them with both its arms and its legs, which it did with utter ruthlessness.

 

The battle raged on fairly equal terms for a few endlessly long minutes. Then suddenly Mr. Giles' right foot skidded midlunge on a patch of slime, and he fell dangerously inside the range of the creatures attack radius. Buffy immediately shifted over to pull him to safety with her left hand while still striking at the creature with the sword in her right. The moment she bent down there was an immediate eruption of bolts from Xander and Cordelia's crossbows, followed a millisecond later by a tranquilizer dart from Willow's gun. All three projectiles hit their target with pinpoint accuracy (assuming they had been aiming for the vaguely chest-like area, that is), and the creature, which had been about to deliver a stunning blow to Buffy's weakened right side, reared back in obvious pain.

 

Buffy gave the librarian's arm a mighty tug and he flew backward to safety, barely managing to hold onto his sword as he crashed into the library table. For a few brief moments, Buffy faced the creature alone, but instead of retreating like any sane person would have, she pressed the advantage her small size gave her, darting in to slice it wickedly across the torso. The monster's legs shot forward automatically in response, the reflex action taking her by surprise where planned strikes had failed, and she took the full brunt of twin blows to her chest. She skidded backward, directly into the librarian, who had just regained his feet. They went down in a tangled heap of arms, legs and swords, presenting an irresistible target for their foe.

 

"Hey, Ugly!" Xander shouted as he stepped out from behind the protective mesh of the book cage. He unleashed another bolt from five scant feet away while Cordelia and Willow peppered their adversary through the suddenly clear field. The creature rounded on Xander as its most convenient target, and even I could see that he'd made a grave tactical error by giving up his limited cover, no matter how well-intentioned his action had been. The crossbow wasn't much use as a close-quarters weapon, and I had a feeling the sharp wooden stick he wielded as backup was not an adequate trade-off.

 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Willow fumbling to reload her gun, but I didn't think the tranquilizer darts were having any effect on the lumbering creature, probably because its body chemistry in no way resembled your average rabid dog's. Buffy and Mr. Giles were scrambling to their feet, weapons at the ready, but they were too far away to do Xander any good. Then I heard Cordelia shout, "Hey, Monster!" Her yell was nearly as loud as the creature's earlier bellow had been, and the noise drew its attention for one brief moment.

 

Which was time enough. Cordelia let loose another bolt, this one aimed directly at the creatures head, and she drilled it, right between its pseudo-eyes. The impact sent the creature reeling backward toward the library doors, and Xander took advantage of the respite to duck back under cover.

 

All I could do was gape. With the various bolts protruding from its head and torso and numerous slashes dripping noxious liquids, it was a wonder the creature could still function, but each blow seemed only to enrage and energize it further. I began to wonder if it could be killed. And I knew that if it couldn't - well, I'd be the only one left after the defenders inevitably fell, and I didn't think it would make any fine distinctions between combatants and non-combatants when it swept the room clean. Swearing guiltily under my breath at my own massive self-involvement, I nevertheless ducked down a little further behind the desk.

 

With a feral roar the creature came back at them, moving so quickly it was almost a blur, and I realized it was enraged to such an extent that it had almost become a berserker, all the more dangerous for its single-minded ferocity. It bore down on Mr. Giles, plowing heedlessly through his deft sword blows, crowding him back against the book counter. The librarian's parrying became even swifter, if that were possible, but it was clear that his jeopardy was every bit as serious as Xander's had been. The creature really wanted to hurt him.

 

Buffy responded to the threat to Mr. Giles with an arcing blow from behind, which lopped one glowing leg cleanly off, allowing the librarian time to roll sideways up, over and behind the counter with such practiced ease that I wondered how many times he'd done it before. But his sudden absence from the field allowed the creature to round on Buffy, and her position between it and the other three armed members of the group meant the gun and crossbows were useless.

 

And it was quite obvious that the monster did not appreciate her chopping off a limb - not that you could blame it, really. It howled in fury.

 

The dismembered leg rolled across the slime-encrusted floor as the creature lunged to attack Buffy once again. She shouted something at it, clearly a taunt of some kind, but I couldn't make out the words. Her sword came up to clash against one serrated arm, but whereas the leg had severed agreeably, the arm repelled the blow as though it were also made of metal, and slowly the creature backed her toward the book cage, trying to trap her against it as he had cornered the librarian earlier.

 

Speaking of... Mr. Giles had regained his footing and proceeded to climb up on top of the checkout counter, shouting something to Buffy over the monster's roar.

 

She nodded, and redoubled her attack.

 

It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Her sword streaked under the fluorescent lights, moving so quickly that it was no longer visible as anything but periodic flashes of metal. Her expression was deadly calm and controlled, though, as if making a statement that what she was doing was really the easiest thing in the world. Slowly, slowly, she managed to push the creature back toward the center of the floor.

 

And then further.

 

The monster never saw it coming. Mr. Giles, taking advantage of the extra height the counter afforded him, reared back and swung his sword in a sweeping half circle, beheading the creature neatly from behind.

 

The head bounced to the floor, and a moment later the body collapsed as well, transforming before our eyes to coalesce into a large pile of gelatinous goo. Buffy's eyes went wide, and she looked up at Mr. Giles for an explanation. He just shook his head, and everyone stared down at the puddle, dumbfounded. And in the sudden silence I could hear Cordelia's startled exclamation quite clearly.

 

"Ewwwww!" 

Part 5