yeah that happens if you turn into a vampire

[cross_and_bow]

(prologue)

Bella slips into the school by a side door; she just saw a thing and she thinks she's seen it in a book before and thinks it's supposed to be mostly harmless but before she wakes Giles up over probably nothing or kills a likely neutral demon she wants to check.

And she pushes into the library.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

"Thanks."

[thisvorlunatic]

"The person I used to be would be trying very hard to make friends with you right now."

[cross_and_bow]

"You should have all the same memories and everything; if you want to be him..."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Turns out all of my social skills were built on a solid foundation of genuinely liking and caring about people and valuing their well-being and personal fulfillment for its own sake," he says. "That's the reason the loss of my soul is hitting me so hard. I used to be a fucking miracle worker. I could charm blood from a stone. I raised armies and won wars and regularly accomplished the impossible on the strength of my love of helping people and unshakeable personal integrity. And now I do not have those things. But I still have the intensely ambitious nature that drove me to keep throwing myself into the kind of situation where I could accomplish such incredible feats, and the memory of being able to pull it off, alongside the knowledge that if I tried the same thing today I'd fucking die. So I am trapped in my worst nightmare, and my worst nightmare is the loss of the very skills that would most advantage me in escaping it."

[cross_and_bow]

"That's an interesting problem to have. Well, there's supposedly an extremely unpopular quest you can undertake to get your soul back, I told you which book it's in. You could also try to get a witch to curse you but then it doesn't stick on very snugly, it's dumb."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Thank you for your help."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm gonna let you go. I am even gonna Xerox the relevant chapter of the book for you," she says. "Don't make me regret it. Toss me the book?" She holds out her hand.

[thisvorlunatic]

He pulls the book from its stack and tosses it to her. It lands neatly in her hand.

[cross_and_bow]

And she goes over to the copy machines and makes some copies, though she looks over her shoulder an awful lot.

[thisvorlunatic]

Admiral Naismith sits at the table and doesn't do anything.

[cross_and_bow]

Presently she has a neatly stapled copy of the chapter to toss back to him. "Collect your friend, get out of here, I've got shit to do, make sure finding you again isn't any of it."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Enjoy your population control."

He catches the copied chapter and goes into the stacks to retrieve his friend.

[burning_gold]

His friend is really unhappy about this whole situation! So unhappy! But off they go.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella doesn't shoot them! She shelves the books they took down and looks up her probably harmless demon and confirms it's harmless and leaves a note for Giles on the library desk and goes home.

[thisvorlunatic]

Zeke and Miles go back to Zeke's place (and get distracted by vampire makeouts) and dig into the photocopied chapter (and get distracted by vampire makeouts) and start in on planning Miles's soul reclamation quest (and get distracted by vampire makeouts) and go to sleep and wake up (and get distracted by vampire makeouts) and wait until sundown to go raid the butcher's again (and, on the way, get distracted by vampire makeouts). Miles wears his jacket this time. It's fireproof, which seems handy.

[cross_and_bow]

And that's when there's a crashing sound out front of the butcher shop and a familiar voice swearing painfully.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hell," says Miles. He starts in that direction immediately.

[burning_gold]

"What are you doing?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Declining to let myself down."

[cross_and_bow]

Apparently the vampire slayer has been attacking some large rocky-looking white thing that is not a vampire, and it flung her through a window into what fortunately turned out to be a mattress store. She's regrouping, but the thing is advancing on the broken window now. The state of the sidewalk suggests that crossbow bolts just bounce off.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles considers this scene for a fraction of a second, then pulls his nerve disruptor and shoots the statue-like being.

That has an effect.

The thing's featureless white surface begins to disintegrate at the point of impact, releasing wisps of white smoke and an unearthly wail. Cracks spread across the creature's body, and it falls apart into multiple pieces, and the pieces into smaller pieces, and the smaller pieces into smoke, and when there's nothing left of it but a fading cloud the scream finally stops.

"Well," remarks Miles. "That was more dramatic than I expected."

[cross_and_bow]

"Thank you," says Bella, picking glass out of her arm.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm trying not to add to the list of things I'm going to be disappointed in myself about forever, and letting you get killed would definitely belong there."

[cross_and_bow]

"I appreciate that. How are you doing?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Do you happen to have a few hundred dollars I can borrow for a plane ticket to South Africa?"