"Come on, Spike. Move it! That THING is about to have us for a midnight snack and YOU want to play with it? KILL IT ALREADY!" Xander shouted at the bleached-blonde figure in black as he tried to edge passed.



"What do you bloody well think I'm tryna do? This thing looks like an easy kill, but it sure as hell ain’t!" Spike hollered back as he ducked a punch from the ugly purple demon. As he circled around the thing, trying to keep between it and the others, he noticed something rather disturbing. "Oh bloody buggering hell. This thing is MALE and it looks to me like he's desperate for a shag!"



Suddenly the demon made a move towards Spike's left side but changed direction and darted past him on the right... knocking Xander into a tree as he headed straight for the slender, dark-haired teen that was trying to become one with a tombstone. "SPIKE! XANDER! HELP!!” the girl, Dawn, screamed. "HELP!"



"OI, get the fuck away from the girl, mate. She ain’t for you, you bloody idiot!" Spike shouted as he tackled the demon from behind, trying to distract it. But he was flung headfirst into the tombstone beside Dawn, stunning him momentarily.



Once again the demon reached for the young girl, but was stopped painfully when its hand went violently missing. The cause of the missing hand became apparent as a lithe blonde figure dressed in black stepped between the demon and its intended victim, wielding an elegant sword. "I believe you were asked to step away from the girl. It really would be to your benefit..." The blonde was cut off as the creature charged her, enraged. With a quick side-step and a bone-jarring thrust of her sword, the blonde embedded her sword in the stomach of the demon. "See, you really should have listened, but I guess the head you think with has no ears. Let me see if I can solve that problem for you." She twirled her sword once around her wrist and with a flourish, lopped off the protruding and offending member. "There, that should enable your OTHER head to do the thinking for you... or maybe not." She grimaced in disgust as the offending member wiggled a little on the ground before dissolving into a puddle of goo.



The wounded and enraged beast surged up off his knees and barrelled almost blindly toward the blonde. Who promptly side-stepped him and, bringing her sword down across the back of his neck, handily beheaded him. "Seems to me you’ve lost your head. But, as you were rather stupid, it’s no big loss." The now-dead demon slumped to the ground and started to dissolve. "OOOoooOOOooo, I like the ones that clean up after themselves," the blonde quipped as she turned to look at Dawn. "Are you okay?" she asked the young girl.



Dawn just stared in awe and admiration. "Oh wow, you killed it. It’s dead. Oh WOW!"



Spike regained his senses and sprang to his feet. "Okay, that is bloody well IT. Prepare to die..." Spike then noticed the dissolving corpse and the lithe blonde standing only a couple of feet away. "Oh, it’s already dead. Well then, looks like that problem is solved." He sauntered over to the girl who had apparently killed the demon. "Hello cutie, name's Spike,” he said with a smirk.



Dawn interrupted, "My name's Dawn, but Spike calls me Nibblet. And wow -- thanks for, you know, killing that thing…cause I was sooo not interested in whatever it had in mind. No sireee bob."



At this juncture, Xander, who was sprawled face-down on the ground, groaned loudly. "Did someone get the number of that bus?" He rolled over and blinked twice, then suddenly sat up. "Where is it? We gotta stop it, it’s after Dawn!" He clambered to his feet, looking wildly around him and promptly stumbled over his feet, sending him to ground once more in an ungainly mess of limbs.



"Oi, Whelp, less with the falling and more with the standing. We have company, " Spike snarked, never once taking his eyes of the darkly-dressed blonde.





A soft giggle penetrated the darkness. "Oh please, don’t stand up on my account, it’s not everyday that men fall at my feet." A short pause while the girl seemed deep in thought. "Oh wait, yes it is. Except they are usually minus their heads."




"Do a lot of killin’, do ya then?" Spike questioned as he lit a cigarette, never taking his eyes off the shadowy figure. "And I didn’t quite catch the name, luv."



"I do enough; some people just don’t know when to leave well enough alone. And I never tossed you my name,” she snarked back.



Dawn went over to help Xander to his feet. "She came out of nowhere , Xander. And was all *SWOOSH* with that sword of hers. She lopped off that demon’s parts!" Dawn started chattering loudly.



"Parts? She cut off his... parts? As in...” Xander whispered faintly as he swiftly covered his own precious package.



"Yup! She just *SWOOSHED* the sword down... and the part fell off! It was soooo cool!" Dawn exclaimed.


"So you castrated the bugger then, before you killed him? Good on you, luv. That blighter had nasty intentions towards my Nibblet,” Spike said. "Why don’t you come on out of the shadows and let us get a good look at you then?"



"Dawn knows who I am, but what I would like to know is... WHY is a twelve year old running around after dark, on the damned Hellmouth of all places?" Anger colored the words spoken by the shadow-enshrouded blonde.


Dawn peered into the shadows that were hiding the woman who had saved her from a fate she refused to contemplate. "I know that voice... But its impossible, she's in Paris ..." As the blonde stepped out of the shadows, Dawn gasped, then squealed, "BUFFY!" and ran towards the mystery woman, all sense of caution abandoned.





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