(Wo)Men in Black - A Sunnydale based T/W Crossover with the ‘Men in Black’ universeIMPORTANT CAVEAT - I don’t want to get hopes up or to mislead. This story MAY be a one-shot (and can be read as such for now). Or it may be a ‘teaser’ for the much longer ideas I have bouncing around in my head. I reserve the right to change things in the future and ask you to read something quite like it again if things go that way but I need to make changes.
That said, go watch this video on YouTube or at least the first part before the music and tell me you can’t see this how this can work?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRuHk6Drj2UWhether this goes further is entirely up to you as I’ve said below…
K
Story Notes: I like to do a longer post before the first post of my stories. Something to explain myself. Well, here it is. Have you looked at the video linked above? No? Well, go do that. Seriously. Now imagine certain characters… Right. That’s what I was thinking.
Regular readers of mine may well have noticed me saying that I’ve had a BtVS/Men in Black crossover in mind for a long time. Specifically I started with a slightly different version of this scene a few years ago but never quite finished it.
Well, now I’ve written a new version in just four days and had a lot of fun doing so. It might turn out to be just be a one shot, but I have this idea for a story based off this and the situation that results from the way I ended it. Yes, it’s deliberately leaving things hanging. It’s deliberately leaving you wondering where certain characters are or who the mysterious ‘he’ is. That said, you can probably enjoy it as a one-shot because it just might stay that way.
You probably do need to know Men In Black in at least passing detail (another quite old movie I suppose by now and after I already did Indiana Jones), but the key stuff to remember up front is:
how the MIB come in and make sure that people don’t remember the things they saw about the aliens because they get ‘flashed’ by a neuralyzer and told a different, more plausible story. There’s a LOT of mileage in what that can create, which is where I’ve gone here…
Oh, and the MIB use codenames based on letters of the alphabet. So ‘Jay’/J and ‘Kay’/K in the movies (the first letters of the characters real names…) I do that here too. Just with different letters. I’ll let you figure the characters out from there, but it won’t surprise my regular readers at all. (And no, W does NOT work well for that!! I couldn’t go around calling Willow ‘Dubya’ all the time so something else had to be done…)
So… I’m currently interested in pursuing the rest of this story. But I have a lot of other irons in my writing fire. Therefore, if you want there to be more of this story then you need to say so. I have this, some original stories and a continuation of W/T Raiders in my head right now and (to greater or lesser extents) have been working on all of them. It’s time for me to commit though.
I’m not taking votes or requests for prioritising. I just want to know if you think you’d like to read more of this story.
The Raiders sequel will be my NaNoWriMo story in November (as the last two have been) so that one is probably parked until then. (W)IB is just the thing that’s going round my head right now. BUT this… this only continues if I feel there’s a readership for it. It’s an old movie - but a good one - mixed with characters from a show that ended 10 years ago. So… on this one, don’t lurk. Say something. Anything. Otherwise it probably stays a one-shot. I’m happy with it just as it is now, I ‘can’ leave it alone. Honest. It won’t give me the shakes or anything.
If I DO write more of this though - like my other fic from the last few years - I will write the whole thing before I post any more. So even if you’d like more and I go with that, all I will do right now is confirm whether it’s coming or not. In terms of posting there will be a big gap of a few months at least as nothing else exists yet except ideas. I don’t even have a full story structure or an idea of how long it will be (but hey, it’s me so novel length at least).
So that’s the ‘nothing more very soon’ down side.
The up side of that way of writing - for those who haven’t read my stuff before - is that by approaching it that way I have no pressure on me when posting and can go pretty quick rather than either the quality suffering or you having to wait weeks between posts. Once we do get going it’s about every three days from the start through to the end. Overall, if I wanted a quality product, the timeframes are probably the same! I’ve left readers hanging due to medical reasons some years back and I won’t do that again. I hated it. I think they were let down by it too. So be patient and - once/if I say I will - then I will deliver.
Setting notes: Firstly, we’re in a mixture of the Buffy and Men in Black universes. But it’s MIB from the movies. I understand that the comics (which I never read) had them as some sort of vaguely fascist group. Not here! It’s the comedy edged movies I’m riffing on here. Specifically the first one. (I never saw MIB3 and in MIB2 - though I liked Lara Flynn Boyle - I never quite got into it)
Second, I need both Tara and Willow to be a little older in this story than was the case during canon events that you might recognise. Not
much older, but essentially I’ve done that by getting the scoobies together in high school as friends but pushing them into college here. As written here, the events would’ve been from the end of S3 but the characters would’ve been in S4 or 5. I may yet want to add a couple of years to their ages if I find I need to. We’ll see, if things continue.
Third, remember that this was back in 2000 (for Buffy and earlier for MIB). The idea of tiny communicators or instant access to information wherever you were really was a way in the future and so more impressive in the film/story! We didn’t all have phones then. Those that did sure didn’t have the internet at our fingertips. Cameras were still cameras. Video was probably still on actual tape. Youtube wasn’t a thing… Yeah, back then MIB’s job was much easier and less focused on censoring Google.
Finally, in terms of events, yes, everyone was in Sunnydale but Buffy isn’t the Slayer. They’ve not been fighting monsters - or at least not within the lore - and (I guess this is important) Tara and Willow haven’t yet met.
Yet.
Can you guess what this story might be about then?
Let’s see.
I want so much to open your eyes, because I need you to look into mine - Snow Patrol ‘Open your eyes.’
Title:
(Wo)Men in Black - A T/W Crossover Teaser - Part OneAuthor: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Absolutely, yes please. That’s why I write for this place, to engage in the discussion about the story.
Spoiler warning: After so much time since both the series and the MIB movie I’m not even dignifying this with an answer. If you love T/W then you saw them on Buffy and if you didn’t see the first MIB movie then you have no idea what this is about so… go watch it. You’ll have fun!
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. No conversion to eBook or other formats please. Enjoy it here.
Summary: A teaser trailer, of a kind, for the series I’ve had in my mind for a couple of years now. Here a key event in BTVS canon runs smack into the world of Men in Black. Posts in 2 parts because it’s me. I can’t even make a ‘one-shot’ short.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS or Men in Black. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property. There may be occasional use of ‘classic lines’ from the source series/movies or others for which full credit is given in advance to the original writers.
Rating: Occasional, tasteful, adult situations and contextual bad language.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. 100% FAQ compliant, 100% of the time. Look it up if you don’t know what that means.
Text convention: Use of
italics denotes either special emphasis if used for a single or a few words in a sentence OR first person thoughts if used for a whole sentence.
Timeline: Things happened a little differently in this universe. Buffy, Willow and Xander became friends in High School but weren’t monster fighting. Buffy wasn’t the Slayer. Maybe there isn’t even such a thing. Now they’ve graduated, Buffy and Willow have gone to college… Which isn’t to say that the things they fought aren’t around… Just maybe, a little different.
Notes: Please see the story notes above for this one.
Thanks to: A certain woman who read this with trepidation, knowing that - if it went over well - she might lose good chunks of my time to more of ‘
that Kitten writing.’ A lesser person wouldn’t have said they thought it was good enough to post.
Please note this is post one of two for length but I can’t put post two up until it comes out of moderation and that could be when I’m not able to post the next part. Post 2 will be up within a day though.Sunnydale, California.“Maybe just a little more urgency?” Agent T suggested to her partner. They were already weaving in and out of downtown traffic at nearly sixty miles an hour.
Which, for their purposes, was still a little pedestrian.
“Really, T? You always get pissy when I hit the red button,” Agent F replied.
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, yes. You do. You
know you get pissy when I hit the red button. Remember the last time?”
T glanced down, looking at her partner’s thumb caressing the trigger that would just about launch them. Enough speed that, if Sunnydale had tunnels, then simple aerodynamics (and a whole lot of thrust) would’ve meant that they could’ve driven along the roof of them.
Upside down.
Because of the aerodynamics of driving at hundreds of miles per hour.
That was something she never, ever wanted to try again. At least not without good reason. Staying clear of New York and it’s tunnels seemed like a good way to do that. Just another reason why being assigned to Sunnydale was better than Manhattan.
“Crown Vic’s weren’t made to move that fast,” she chided, relieved to see F’s thumb shift away from the button. These cars were barely made to move
this fast. Her partners reflexes were equal to the task though and they never came close to hitting anything.
“I don’t know what to tell you, T. This one was.”
From the ground up. This hadn’t been a retrofit either. The technology to make that kind of performance possible wasn’t out there in the public realm today, let alone back in the 80’s.
This car was almost older than she was. A cast off from Manhattan office where it had seen good service before a presence had been required here in Sunnydale.
And that it was an old car was just another reason why the red button didn’t seem like a good idea. Never would.
But all the same, more haste? Maybe?
“Well, I - I just don’t like it. And I didn’t
say hit the red button. I just said that - maybe - a little more urgency was in order. Foot on the gas. That’s all. Foot on the gas, not the thrust.”
“Cool your jets, T. My foot’s down and I’m not even thinking about the brake. You know, now that I think of it, I’m usually the one looking to rush into trouble.”
“And I’m the one trying to prevent it being trouble in the first place,” T agreed, wincing as F swerved around a pedestrian with one hand on the wheel and not even looking at the road.
Knowing F could do it, doesn’t mean that she was able to - fully - relax.
“Well, it looks like we messed that one up. Dickie’s gone on the rampage and you
know what we’re going to have to do about that.”
It wasn’t even a question, nor did she try to make it into one. She sighed, but only because her partner wasn’t wrong. Dickie was… Well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t warned them this was coming. But she’d really thought that after their last little chat they could’ve avoided this… unpleasantness.
Of course that was what they were here for. When things got unpleasant with their ‘guests’ someone had to make sure that the resulting stench didn’t overwhelm the entire world.
People weren’t ready for that. Wouldn’t be a long time yet. “Just… get us there,” she said.
“I’m on it. But what’s your problem, T? It’s just another night in Sunnydale.”
“People are probably dying,” she pointed out.
“People are
always dying,” F replied, still not watching the road more than half the time. “Our job is to make sure that there are still some left in the world. That there
is a world. And that it’s not us. In that order.”
Yeah… there was that.
Here they were saving the whole world. One day at a time.
Dressed in black.
————————————
“Willow - duck!”
She was proud of how fast she did as instructed just as the jet from the super soaker arced over her shoulder, a fine drizzle of holy water spattering her cheek and neck as Xander took the shot at the monster.
And melted its face.
Score!
“I’ve got your back,” he said.
She wasn’t sure
why these things didn’t like water from the church font, any more than she was certain why monsters were attacking the graduating class from the High School but… they sure didn’t.
Score one for their old school librarian who’d insisted that they bring the squirt guns along and load them up like something from ‘Lost Boys’. He might’ve seemed crazy - after all, those vampires he kept ranting about couldn’t exist could they? - but then…
Look at what they were doing now? None of this could be happening either.
Except that it was.
And much as they’d come here to try and stop something they hadn’t understood but was going to be really, really bad - they weren’t making the difference that they needed to. Not the one they’d intended to.
They were just about staying alive. A success, for sure. But not enough.
“We’re not doing enough,” she gasped at him, stabbing at one of the monsters that was keeping them penned in. Vampire? Zombie? Whatever it was - it clearly only meant to hold them here so that… So something worse could happen.
Something they could see coming all around them.
If they lived, then she was probably going to get the blame for this one.
Probably.
After all, she’d been the one who wanted to come down and see the graduation ceremony because she’d been doing some coaching as a favour to one of her old teachers. Then she’d told the crazy librarian about it and then he’d been all ‘you have to go and stop something bad happening’ and then she’d had to ask Buffy and Xander to come with her because when it came to stopping things that were really bad, she wasn’t really equipped for that.
Turned out none of them were.
No, she hadn’t known this - whatever this really was - was going to happen.
And the thing was, these monsters that were herding them and keeping them all in a group weren’t the worst thing here.
I’m a smart girl, I can see how this is supposed to go. We’re obviously supposed to be food for the belly of the beast.And the beast in question was an elected representative of the people. Because the one-time Mayor of Sunnydale was… well…
There was really no other way to put it.
He was a big snake. And that might sound all kinds of freudian but it was also undeniably accurate. You just had to look. He’d changed before their very eyes. And we weren’t talking about pythons or Discovery Channel big, but a
giant snake that was going to make every snake in the world question his manhood and feel all kinds of inadequate.
Yes, it was
that big.
And right now, size seemed to matter.
“We’re doing everything we can!” Xander insisted. “We can’t get past them to do anything else. We’re just trying to stay alive here. What else is there?”
She didn’t answer his question because she didn’t really have an answer to give. All she did was mutter. “
Knowing what we’re doing would’ve been a start.”
This was quickly turning into a disaster. Being told ‘bad things’ were going to happen meant that they’d felt obligated to try do something about it. But ‘bad things’ were about as far as they’d gotten in terms of really understanding it.
Once there had been a Mayor. Now there was a giant snake.
Go figure.
It hadn’t been
entirely unexpected, not if you listened to the ravings of Mister Giles, the High School’s old librarian, kicked out the year they graduated for being… well, a little paranoid and crazy. Now, a couple of years later, he was holed up with all the books that had been locked up at Sunnydale High.
But now it seemed like he might’ve been right all along. A lot of people were going to owe him an apology. It was tough to feel vindicated though.
Tough to feel anything but fear, actually.
Mayor. Snake. Even if they really didn’t understand
how it had happened. After all, it was a bit out of the ordinary. Even if, for a moment, you accepted that men could turn into snakes then there were other questions.
Science wasn’t that much of a help this time. Biology
might get you there. Maybe. After kind of a reach. A big reach. After all, it was true that everything was linked at a vestigial level. But you didn’t see people turning into fish or whatever, which was about as likely as the idea a man could turn into a snake.
Even if there had been that weirdness with the swim team…
But even if the biology worked out, the physics certainly didn’t add up. Man sized… man. Man sized snake. That worked - at least in terms of mass. But man sized man into giant snake that could wrap itself around a school, eat people whole in one gulp and must weight tons?
You couldn’t pack that much snake into a man sized package.
He hadn’t even been a
big man.
Just… a local politician.
Her mom had voted for him last time around, she was pretty sure. So…
Why the death, destruction and snakiness now?
As the cartoon would say, ‘there were mysteries afoot.’
And ‘jinkies'.
Of course, in the cartoons you found out the monster was really a man in disguise. The old lighthouse keeper. The man who ran the funfair. The caretaker at a creepy boarding school.
She looked up at the giant snake as it dove down and…
Swallowed Principal Snyder in one gulp.
That’s definitely not the lighthouse keeper.————————
“Oh-oh,” F said.
“Oh-oh?” T checked as they turned onto… Yeah, now she got it. “Oh. Yeah. Oh-oh.”
Now they could see the High School and… there really weren’t likely to be running any classes there next year.
Maybe not ever again.
“You told him about this kind of thing, right?” F asked, finally giving it a little extra gas so that the speedometer touched seventy when most people would be thinking about braking.
“I told him.”
“Good, because I sure as hell did too.”
Two warnings. It was an unwritten rule. Ignore two warnings and you were a violator. Any immigrant who’d been here as long as Dickie knew that. No question about it. In addition to the treaty which let him be here at all - and made the whole planet accorded neutral territory - there were plenty unwritten rules about it was going to be policed.
Which meant he knew where he stood.
And where they stood.
“I’d still going to try to talk to him,” T said, weighing the situation. Dickie was a giant snake. Wrapped around a school building and… there were kids there. Of course, you couldn’t unfurl yourself from a human sized ‘container’ and not open no less than three simply massive stomachs that’d feel really very empty after the transformation.
And there was your problem right there. He was hungry after the change.
“Sometimes you’re too soft,” F said.
“No,” she countered. She didn’t actually think she was soft. It was just… a different way of dealing with things. They each had their strengths, but where they overlapped was that they worked well together. It was as good a partnership as she could’ve hoped for. Between them, they could deal with anything. They’d proven it. “It’s for those kids. Not him.”
“Like I said, too soft.”
But even her partner wouldn’t just give up on those kids. She’d bitch about it - probably every step of the way - but F would do the right thing in the end.
Usually.
“Hmmph.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll do it for the children. But
then we expedite his snakey ass? Right?”
She nodded. Agent F was much more comfortable with the ‘violent’ aspects of their calling, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t admit the necessity. Sometimes you just had to get these beings off planet. Neutral territory the Earth might be - the only such place at least in
this galaxy - but the quid pro quo for that was that every arrival understood that they could be extradited if their behaviour didn’t meet certain standards.
And whose job it was to do that.
Everyone who came here, whether to claim sanctuary or to do business, understood it. They made their marks to confirm it at immigration.
Those who wouldn’t go… they got
expedited instead.
A fast track solution.
Usually as fast as you could pull a trigger.
“Call it in?” she wondered, knowing very well what F was about to say. It was a little ritual that they had.
“After.”
Fair enough and besides, it was their responsibility. Their back up wasn’t supposed to that kind of job. That was why it was the back up. But she did hesitate for a moment, pondering. “Does he even have an ass?”
They both looked out at the giant snake and she imagined that similar thoughts were running through their minds at that moment. Giant snake? Ass?
“Remember that quad-dimensional roach from Infalas Three?” F asked.
Despite the name, much more like a worm. At least in their three, visible dimensions. “Uhuh?”
“Didn’t we decide we kicked it’s ass?”
“I think we were being metaphorical,” she explained, recalling the conversation. “And you’d been drinking when we were talking about it.”
“But only thirty seconds from sober,” F said. “Kay. Well, anyway, lets keep it simple. Whatever I kick,
that’s his ass.”
She nodded, pleased with the solution. “Works for me.”
After parking they got out of the car and both took a moment to straighten their jackets. Knowing that these suits wouldn’t - ever - crease or stain didn’t change the fact that you just felt it was something you had to do.
It was - as they said just before you put it on - ‘the last suit you’ll ever wear.’
In F’s case also the first. Probably. That was one thing they’d never talked about.
But they - the pair of them - made black look
good.———————
“Buffy!” Willow yelled, running to her friend and grabbing the pointy-toothed, bumpy faced creature that was trying to… Yeah, now she saw it as a spectator she could tell that these things were definitely trying to
bite them.
Did that make them more like vampires? Zombies bit too, right? In the movies? That was how the infection spread and other people became zombies.
But there was the slightly less fictional ‘zombie’ myth that originated in voodoo. And…
why do I know all this stuff?That’d be her geek-side.
She shoved the zombie-vampire-thing back. “Get off my friend, freak!”
Buffy’s right hook did much more to persuade him than her shove, but she thought she’d been getting the idea across.
Yeah. Bitch. Don’t hurt my friends. “Thanks, Will.”
“De nada,” she replied. “Umm - Principal Snyder just got eaten.”
Buffy stopped, perhaps for the first time since everything had gone bad. Really stopped. Considered and then asked her question. “You don’t mean in a good way, right?”
“Not that I’m an expert or anything, I don’t think there
is a good way - not for guys at least.”
Or for anyone without a current, romantic life.
Buffy pulled a face, showing just what she thought of that kind of diet.
“Point.” This time Buffy was doing the shoving. Shoving her. Moving her out of the way for… spin kick? Where had
that come from? Buffy had always been very… well, Buff. But more in your cheerleader kind of way. Not Bruce Lee.
If she’d only done that to Cordelia Chase then she might’ve stayed on the team…
“Wow, Buff, you’re really taking those self-defence classes seriously.”
“I don’t know - they didn’t teach me that. It - just seemed to come… naturally.”
The bumpy faced biter thing was down on the ground beside the one she’d punched and might’ve been concussed. If it wasn’t then it should’ve been. Because… ouch. Buffy had really caught it, sent
it spinning before it landed. Which should’ve been impossible because - you know - physics.
But physics, like biology, seemed to be on vacation. Or at least a short weekend break to the cabin.
“Do it again?” she asked, pointing at another attacker.
And another one went down.
“Wow. You’re like a lethal weapon or something.”
Buffy’s half smile vanished as soon as it flowered. “It’s not helping though - whatever
these are, they’re trying to pen us in. Herd us to… that.”
The big snake.
Not wanting to speak for the others but she thought it’d be bad enough to get eaten (not in a good way) but worse than that to be joining Principal Snyder.
“We’ve got to do something,” she agreed. “But what?” There seemed little point to kicking the snake… Unless he had some vulnerables, somewhere… vulnerable.
If he was still a he.
“I was hoping you’d know, brain-box.”
“You’re the ones with the new, ninja skills. Me? I’m just little old me and - who’s that?” she asked, looking at what looked like a government issue car pulling up. A really fast and
old government issue car, like off the TV shows. But even so… Was it help? The Feds? The police?
IRS?
As the occupants got out, she could see that they were both young women. Obviously so - even from this distance. One with dark hair, down around her shoulders. The other a lighter brown and fastened up, a little prim with it.
They moved with a calm assurance that she found… actually, impressive. They could see what was going on, took it in for a second, and then… just got on with whatever they were here for.
And whoever they were, they sure liked black… Black suits. Black glasses. Black car and probably shoes too.
But if they were going to be any use here then they’d better be packing bazooka and she couldn’t see how they could be hiding
those in the suits.
Because, whoever they were, the cut just made those black suits look
good.
Nope, no bazooka in there.————————-
Absently T’s hand flicked upwards to check her inside jacket pocket. Yup, the neuralyzer was there. Just as it always was and it’d been no more than a habit to check. But they’d been spotted and there were people around. Lots of people.
That meant that all of them were going to have to forget everything that happened here.
Anyone who didn’t need to forget would be dead.
She was hoping for the former but this job taught you to plan for the worst.
“Think we need anything from the trunk?” F asked as they took in the scene for a moment.
She considered, looked at Dickie - or the parts of him they could see as he was entwined with the school building, ripping parts of it down not through malice but just as he moved. Bigger than she’d thought, for sure.
“Might be an idea,” she agreed.
One of the most surprising things, one that F still struggled with sometimes, was that size really
didn’t matter. Look at both of them for a start, not exactly big girls. And both of them carried small, pistol-type disruptors of Arquillian design that - in the right circumstances - could flatten a small town before the power-pack even started to show amber.
They had access to a truly tiny weapon, one that seemed like a toy even in her small hands but when you fired it - if you weren’t braced properly - would throw you across a street.
So they knew, they really knew, that size (much as F might insist otherwise) didn’t matter.
And yet… they still sometimes felt the need for something, well, bigger.
Usually Agent F was plenty capable of making some sort of smutty joke about that. She’d proven it several times. Or maybe, with her lifestyle choices, they really weren’t ‘jokes’ but pertinent observations. But that was beside the point. Today, at least, F didn’t seem to need to tell her about bigger being better.
Opening up the old fashioned trunk, F reached in and tossed her one of the massive Tri-Barrel Plasma guns and then picked out one for herself. A flick of a switch and it was charged with a round selcted, ready to fire. Oh, and the sort of pump action effect you saw on every TV action show.
Just because.
Maybe it made the guys feel better somehow, but it really didn’t do that much for her.
No, not just guys. Her partner too. The way Agent F looked, the way she - almost - caressed the elongated barrel (even when she thought she wasn’t being watched)…
Guys and F.
Yeah, those two things went together.
Frequently.
But as the saying went, at least now they were loaded for bear.
And giant, alien snakes.
“Remember,” she said. “We’re going to talk to him first.”
She could see - or even feel - the wave of disappointment from her partner. But she accepted it. “What about all these others?” F asked hopefully.
Yeah… there were a lot of drones around the place. Like any vermin - cosmic rats jumping ship - you couldn’t keep them off the planet. They came in as little more than pests. Fortunately though they didn’t have the intelligence or the brains to do more than re-animate recently deceased corpses and wander around looking for trouble to get into. Occasionally one might act, somewhat, smart but they always revealed themselves in the end.
And then someone like them would find them and have them put them down.
Part of their public service mandate.
So she shrugged, not bothered either way so long as they helped the people who were trapped by them. “Sure.”
“Awesome. So you talk to Dickie, that was your idea, I’ll clean these guys out. Then we’ll see where we are.”
“F - ”
“I know!”
“Okay, then.”
They didn’t bother locking the car. Anyone who got in while they were gone would be flash frozen. And she’d watched her partner take a hammer to the last car thief who’d tried it and now he was - literally - resting in pieces.
The bureau was serious about its anti-theft devices.
But it had really left a mess they’d never quite been able to get out of the seats.
—————————
“Are those
bazookas?” Willow asked.
“Huh?”
“Nothing - I was just wondering if those were bazookas?” When she could, she was still watching the two young women who’d pulled up in the black car. Black suits. Shiny silver weapons of some sort. Rifles? No, bigger than that. So big that they didn’t look like they should be able to wield them at all. But they did. With the same calm confidence that none of the rest of them were able to feel in the circumstances.
So were those the bazookas she’d wished for?
Heavier artillery than their super-soakers, that was for sure.
“Really - uh - not sure you should be looking at their boobs right now, Will,” Xander chided her.
“Bazookas! Not bazoomba’s!”
“You say tomato, I say tomato. Think I could have a little help?”
“Oh - sorry, sure.” While he held the bumpy faced bitty thing still, bent backwards in his grip, she took careful aim, adjusted her stance and then took a short at it run to… kick it in the nuts.
Trial and error had determined that even if it wasn’t taking these things out of the fight it was putting them down just as effectively as anything else they’d tried. At least for the ones that looked male.
Even if it made Xander wince. “Good job!” he said. “And… never, ever do that to me.”
“I won’t.”
“I want your word now.”
“I promise, I won’t kick you in the nuts.”
“So you were looking at boobs?” Xander asked with all the enthusiasm for the subject of just about any young man. Even one in desperate circumstances.
“No!”
Though, now he mentioned it…
Actually, nope, nothing had really changed. She’d
always considered that boobs were just awesome and hadn’t ever really met anyone who disagreed.
“But - ”
“For the last time, bazookas. Not boobs. Look at those two.”
“I can’t - the suits are - it’s not easy to tell - ”
Even at this distance she was willing - if they had to do this - to say that no one walking into the High School grounds with black suits and big silver guns was likely to disprove her awesome theory about the boobage. But the guns, the weapons - what the hell were they?
She’d watched as much TV as anyone else and never seen anything like that outside Star Wars or… They looked like ray guns.
And could they really help? The confidence that those two had - seeming fearless in the face of a giant, school shaking snake - was actually kind of reassuring. But was it misplaced?
On the other hand, right now,
any help looked like being really valuable.
She watched as the two women strode, as if the world wasn't ending right here, into the school grounds and… Wow.
That bitey creature that had come for them was just… Gone. The brunette had just pointed the silver rifle and pulled the trigger and… Atomised. Completely blown away. It didn’t even look like there were parts.
Poof.
Gone.
With plenty of purpose, the darker of the pair started to do the rounds of all the bitey-man sized things anywhere near her. Just levelled her gun. Pulled the trigger and… gone.
This while the other, the lighter haired woman just targetted the one bitey-thing that got in her way. She was obviously heading for the snake. Sunnydale’s former Mayor. No, he was still the elected Mayor, just a former
human.
Now he was… something else.
Could they do that to him? Atomise him the same way?
Wow, that would’ve been easier.
“Buffy! Incoming - I mean, help - help is incoming. I think. Maybe.”
Who
were those girls?
And where did they get those guns?
—————————-
“Di-“ T coughed, inhaling what was left of one of the drones Dickie had hired to make this work for him. “Great, I love the taste of drones.”
Agent F - who’d taken aim and blown the drone apart from a distance - favoured her with one of her big grins. She was in her element. Fighting bad guys. That was what she did, the detective work part of the role usually fell to her. If that was inconvenient in leaving her partner breathing in atomised drone then… Tough luck. “Don’t worry,” F said. “You’re welcome.”
Another cough, then she tried again. “Dickie!” She felt like she was being ignored when he didn’t come right around to her so she called him again, this time prodding his flank with the muzzle of the plasma gun.
Of course, last time they’d spoken he’d been a mild mannered local politician with a secret he was keeping from the voters.
You know, like most other elected officials.
He certainly hadn’t been in his native form like he was now.
It was most likely that he’d just not heard her though. He’d always been courteous and polite when she came to see him in his office. “Oh, hello, Agent T,” he rumbled as his head swirled around and giant - but recognisable - eyes came to regard her. She could see herself - almost full size - reflected in the pupils. “Can I help you with something?”
She kept the plasma gun pointing in his general direction. It was easy when he was so large and - well - all around. Missing him would be the bigger trick than hitting him.
All she was careful to do was not point it in his face. That seemed like it was too confrontational. Not to mention impolite.
It seemed like something her partner would do.
“Help me? Dickie - we talked about this. We talked about this more than once.” It was Dickie and he’d never really been any sort of problem with him until now. He’d obeyed the rules and always checked in when they - or their predecessors - had asked him too. Never violated the terms of resident alien licence. Never stepped foot outside his prescribed area.
Now he didn’t have feet.
But word had it he was even the very definition of a model politician - if there was such a thing - it’d probably been easy to write off the threat that he presented simply because… Well, when did politicians ever go through with anything they said they would?
He had…
Of course, that might be a very modern - and western - view. After all there were plenty of politicians in the past - and today in other parts of the world - who’d made good on their very dangerous polices.
Wars that had claimed millions of lives had been caused by those kinds of men and women, but not by politicians like Dickie. None of the other races had even noticed little old Earth until the radio messages that the world had started to emit in the early twentieth century had reached other stars and invited them to come visit.
He wasn’t the first alien to reach elected office, but you had to wonder what a politician who was a giant snake might accomplish?
Not much. This ended here.
Now.
“Aww, T - ”
“Don’t you ‘aww, T’ me, Dick Wilkins. What did I tell you would happen if you even thought about doing this?”
“T - ”
“What did I tell you?” she repeated.
“You said you’d extradite me,” he said and if a giant snake could have body language then his said ‘dejection’. Maybe a little sulkiness. Which was as alien on him as his current shape - after all, he’d been one of the most relentlessly upbeat ‘people’ she’d ever had to talk to.
“That’s right, I said I’d send you right back to Pardalan, didn’t I? Didn’t I?” She prodded him for the answer.
“Yes,” he sulked.
“And
then what did I say?”
“Gosh - I - I don’t know, T. Nothing, I think.” This time it was his eyes that betrayed him. He was looking around. Looking for F, probably. He’d always been - rightly - warier of her. Most aliens were. A predator was something the whole galaxy could recognise.
Of course, underestimating her had caught a few of them out too.
“No, Dickie, you
know what I told you. What was it? Come on, say it.”
“Aww, T - come on. You can’t do
that to me.”
“Dickie, you’ve left us no choice,” F said, stepping out beside her. “Right, T?”
She felt a little regret as she nodded, knowing that they were playing by Arquillian rules. Warning and then… They both pulled the trigger together.
————————-
Split for length - continued in the next post which will be up as soon as I see this has come out of moderation