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

[thisvorlunatic]

"And we can now tick 'short jokes' off the list," Miles sighs.

[cross_and_bow]

"Sorry, that was uncalled for. Anyway, I can hang back and be ready to pick the thing up if you drop. I don't feel a strong need to give orders, just information if I discern information, and I consider 'duck' valid advice from most sources, including from anybody who's shooting things on my behalf, will that do?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Probably good enough to be going on with. God I miss my soul so much."

[cross_and_bow]

"Do you tolerate people who quip when they're adrenaliney better when you have a soul? Car's this way," she adds, waving him over.

[thisvorlunatic]

Thataway he goes.

"If I had a soul I would be navigating our interactions better in general, but also I wouldn't need to gradually and effortfully force myself to like you and since that project would not exist in the first place it wouldn't be getting set back every time you find and push another of my buttons."

[cross_and_bow]

"Do you have, like, a list, so I could avoid them better, or what?" She hops in the driver's seat.

[thisvorlunatic]

He hops in the passenger seat.

"A list in what format? I could tell you which ones you've located so far, or I could tell you that and explain in more depth why I prefer that you not do those particular things... I'm not sure I have a preexisting list of all the things you might do that would upset me. And some of them are really unlikely." He blinks, acquires a momentary distant look, and then snorts with wry amusement. "Oh, hell."

[cross_and_bow]

"You'll have to be more specific, we're lousy with hells around here."

[thisvorlunatic]

He laughs. "No, sorry, it's just - I was going to say, 'I can't imagine why you would take me prisoner and hold me in a room with the lights on all the time', and then it finally occurred to me that - you remember I told you about those prisoners who were being psychologically tortured - I spent six weeks among them before I managed to free them, undercover as a fellow prisoner, and for some reason I'd been going around all this time since then thinking that since I'd only been pretending, it obviously didn't count as real psychological torture in my case, and I have now recognized what utter bullshit that whole line of reasoning was."

[cross_and_bow]

"Ah. Well. I can't imagine why I'd do that to you either."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I feel very confident that you won't!"

[cross_and_bow]

"Great! Something we can just unproblematically agree on."

[thisvorlunatic]

Snort.

[cross_and_bow]

Drive drive drive orange trees smashed-up beehives.

She parks.

"Voila."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Time to disintegrate a lot of screaming statues. Please stay out of my line of fire. I have been grazed by a nerve disruptor before and the statue's horrible screams convey the sensation pretty accurately."

[cross_and_bow]

"How wide a beam is it?" she asks, hopping out of the car.

[thisvorlunatic]

He gestures a range of diameters between about two and twelve inches. "The strength of the effect varies with distance from the center, and the beam spreads out as it travels through the air. The inner beam is permanent nerve damage, death if it gets you in the brain; the outermost edge is temporary excruciating pain; in between, and after it passes beyond its maximum fully effective range, you're taking your chances."

[cross_and_bow]

"Okay. I am pretty good at dodging shit, stupid superpowers are good for that, I might cut it closer than non-Slayers would be advised if the situation calls."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, it's your risk to take. I just don't want you taking it uninformed."

[cross_and_bow]

"Mmhm, just don't, like, yank your shot wild if I roll under the line of fire with an inch of clearance or something."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Noted."

[cross_and_bow]

"...d'you have limited charge to worry about or is it an infinite ray gun?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'll have to recharge it every so often but I already checked and local electrical outlets present no challenge to my universal power adapters. It would stretch credibility to imagine that I might run out of charge in one battle, unless we spend twelve solid hours disintegrating statues."

[cross_and_bow]

"There might be literal tons of them but they're very heavy so I still don't think it will take twelve hours."

Here is a giant hole in the ground. It's dark down there.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles has goggles in his pocket that suffice to let him see where he's going.

It's probably reasonable to attempt stealth at least until the point where he can tell how many statues he'll need to disintegrate.