Summer in Sunnydale is a time of bright greens and gorgeous, temperate weather. The boulevard is full of happy people walking smiling from matinees or carrying iced lattés to the park, all the while chatting about anything but the Hellmouth beneath their feet.
Light rock music, cheerful and airy, played from someone’s nearby boom box. Around a picnic table in the park were five friends. Xander Harris, Rupert Giles, Buffy Summers, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne and Willow Rosenberg (with hands clasped together) were lazily licking at ice cream cones of varying colors.
Giles was wrapping up a discussion on recent demon-based events. "All the tests I’ve done on the matter are conclusive: The explosion did indeed destroy the mayor. He’s really dead."
"He’s really most sin-ceeeeeere-ly dead," Xander sang.
"Was there any question?" Willow asked. "I mean, we blowed him up real good and all. There were mayor-bits landing all over town for hours."
"Eating here," Buffy said with a smile. "Anyway, I just thought it would be a good idea to make certain he was gone. I had Giles do his Gilesey stuff on the… pieces… just to be sure. We’ve never dealt with a pureblood demon before. Now he’s gone, it’s time to celebrate." She took another lick of her cone.
Oz asked "How so? Any big plans?"
"Hootnanny here and there," Buffy answered. "Mostly just relaxing and dealing with the world of the wig-giving as little as possible. I’m going to clock as much beach-time, mini-golf-time, and party-time as I can. Call me Summer Fun Buffy™."
Xander cocked an eyebrow. "We’re a little determined to forget we live above a mystical spiral of dark energies, eh?"
"Maybe a little… but this is my first summer in years where something horrible isn’t going on. Two years back I was coping with having died. Last year it was runaway time. This year I’m here, I’m happy, I’m going to CONTINUE to be happy, and this plan in no way involves a coordinated attack by the forces of evil. Just mochas and sunshine." She took another lick.
"You seem a little out of it, Buffster… I mean, in a good, happy way, but still. A little mad with power, but replace the word ‘power’ with ‘denial’."
Willow smiled. "Giles, we’re on for tomorrow, right?"
Giles looked up, distracted, then nodded understandingly. "Oh. Yes. Tomorrow."
Xander nudged Willow. "Hot date?"
"We’re making the final preparations for the Sunnydale Memorial Service tomorrow night. I have to make sure the catering’s taken care of, and Giles is Master of Ceremonies."
"M.C. Giles," Xander joked. "Who’d-a thought. I’m soda guy! I pass out sodas to our weary surviving classmembers and the parents of the deceased. I’m living the dream."
Buffy said "Dream… I had a dream last night."
Willow’s eyebrows scrunched. "One of your prophecy dreams?"
"Could be. I don’t know. I’m just so sick of dealing with prophecies and portents of doom that I don’t want to deal with it."
Giles adjusted his glasses and forgot his two-scoop vanilla cone. "A dream? Can you tell us what happened in it?"
Buffy frowned and shook her head. "Nothing, really. Just walking in the graveyard, I met you all, you were acting strangely, something scared me and I woke up. I don’t remember much. I have weird dreams."
Oz asked "Was I there?"
"Yes. You were chasing rabbits."
Oz furrowed his brow and paused, then nodded. "That makes sense. I like rabbits."
"Me too," Willow giggled. "Especially when they go-" Willow was cut off by a scream, somewhere off in the park. Startled, she mumbled "They don’t go like that."
More screams knifed through the air as the Scoobies stood up from the table, all except for Buffy, who held on to her ice cream cone resolutely, facing forward. "Buff," Xander said. "Uh… go time. Screams and all that."
"It could be anything," she said. "It could be a bad tai chi session."
A roar followed the screams. The sounds of people fleeing a group of marauding monsters was hard to mistake. Buffy sighed, stood, took one last lick of her cone, and dropped it in the garbage. "Let’s go." She broke into a run for the site of the screams with her friends at her heels.
They passed a tourist wearing an "I Love Sunnydale" t-shirt and a Disneyland hat, holding a camera. He was standing still, eyes wide. "Some big dogs or bears or something just came out of nowhere and started attacking people!"
They broke through the bushes to see a group of five monstrous demons lumbering about, swiping at people with big claws. Their skin was a mottled greenish-tan, with purple goo oozing from eyes, mouth, and burst pustules, which made up about eighty percent of their surface. They had large horns protruding from their heads and they wore filthy rags.
"You ruined my SUMMER FUN!!!" With this, Buffy ran up and jumped off a park bench, whipping a flying kick into a demon’s face. He few backward and crashed against a tree, then fell down, groaning. Buffy landed in a crouch and spun a leg out to sweep another demon.
Xander ran up to a demon and readied his fiercest punch. "Shoryu-ken!" he shouted. His punch landed mildly against the demon’s shoulder, sounding rather like a piece of balogna dropping on linoleum floor from a height of two feet. "Ow." The demon ignored him completely, focusing on Buffy.
Willow concentrated and honed her energies and the energies around her. A nearby folding chair wiggled, then shot up into the air and bashed off a demon’s head. The demon turned to her. Willow threw her hands up and shrieked. "I’m sorry, I’m sorry!" The demon smashed her with a vicious backhand slap, and she sailed backwards, landing fifteen feet away.
"Willow!" Oz shouted. He ran forward, grabbing a large fallen tree branch and punching it straight through the demon’s midsection. The thing grunted, then pulled the branch out and bashed Oz across the face with it.
Giles spotted the tourist they’d run past earlier, taking photos from a safe distance. "Golly," the tourist said. "These things sure don’t LOOK like bears!"
Giles approached the man, waving his hands in a warding-off gesture. "No, no, please, no pictures."
"Why not?"
"This… You’re taking pictures of a rehearsal for a very special production of SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK. Please."
Buffy was fighting furiously. The demons seemed to be concentrating on her, which was exactly how she wanted it. She bashed one in the face with a backhand punch, then whirled and kicked another. A set of claws raked across her back. She ducked one’s clumsy bear hug, spun, and grabbed him in a headlock, then used his head as a battering ram into the chest of another. They both burst like ketchup packets of purplish goo as they died.
Xander ran up and kicked one in its sensitive demon dirty regions, and the the already injured creature howled in agony and fell dead. Soon, the remaining demons were cleaned up as well.
"Fooey," she said, wiping her forehead. "They weren’t that tough. Now I’m covered with their slurpedy stuff. Oh, my nice new sundress…"
Oz was helping Willow up. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I just got a little thumped. Hurts."
From the edge of the clearing, someone said "Wow, you sure were great! When’s this play goin’ on? I might have to come see some-a this!"
Buffy squinted to see the man Giles was standing near, grinning stupidly. "What?" she asked. "Play?"
Giles cleared his throat pointedly and said "Yes, yes, the PLAY! Good job, all. This is going to be a terrific PRODUCTION."
Buffy took the hint. "Oh." She paused for a moment, then curtsied.
The tourist was sent off on his way, and Xander glanced at his shirt. He said "I got slimed." He looked down and said "Hey… found something."
The group gathered around Xander and looked. A large chain of ten manacles was laying on the ground, each manacle open and coated with a thin layer of purple goo. They lay near an open manhole.
(cut scene)
They walked back through the darkening streets. "Well, that was humiliating and stupid."
"At least they didn’t hurt anybody," Giles said.
Willow raised a hand. "Um, hello?"
"I mean… civilians. Yes. Well, I’m going to go straight to my books and look into what kind of demons they were. Maybe I’ll find something about why they would just attack people in the park. Buffy, are you-"
"Getting a change of clothes, then I’m sewer-bound with axe in hand."
Xander asked "I’m down for some CHUD killing, can I tag along?"
"Sure thing. We could use your nose, Oz, you interested?"
"Not a problem. Meet you guys there in half an hour?"
Giles said "Good. Willow, I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early for the final preparations for the memorial service."
The group separated. Giles went to his house, and Buffy and Xander went back to the Summers’ household.
"Hi Buffy," Joyce said as they walked in. "Oh my… you’re a mess! What did you do today?"
"Summer fun," Buffy replied curtly as she walked upstairs.
"Don’t mind her," Xander said. "Demons pop out, go ‘rrraahhhh’, Buffy angry, Buffy snub mom."
"That’s the way it goes," Joyce sighed.
Buffy came back downstairs wearing a much more slaying-suitable outfit: Dark green cargo pants and a hooded sweatshirt. She carried her battleaxe.
The two of them went back and rejoined Oz at the manhole in the park. It was fully night now, and the half-moon shone down on them dimly. Buffy kicked the manhole cover off and looked down into the darkness. "Nothing says ‘summer’ like a walk through-"
(cut scene)
"Shhh" she whispered to Xander as they stood down in the sewer.
"It makes me feel better to whistle when I’m nervous. Sorry."
"Something’s weird," Oz said. "I’m not smelling those things down any of these corridors. They’re pretty smelly, but my nose is telling me that they haven’t been anywhere but the manhole column. At least recently."
"So, what, they…" Buffy looked down. She saw an iron ring, about the diameter of a soup can, stuck in the floor like an eyehook. "..were kept here. Chained to that ring."
"Why?" Xander asked. "Why keep some demons on hand, just to release them in broad daylight in the park?"
Oz shrugged. "General mayhem?"
"I guess," Buffy said. "Anyway, can we get a scent on who else might have been here most recently?"
The short musician concentrated, then shook his head. "Nothing. The demon smell is overpowering."
"Whatever," Buffy sighed, lowering her axe. "It’s late, I’m going to bed. Threat averted."
(cut scene)
In a large, dark room, several black-robed and hooded men were chanting arcane phrases and seated in a circle. Chains in the background glinted in the dim candlelight, and cobwebs hung everywhere. The men each pulled out a tiny vial of blood, and began chanting in english.
"In her sight. By our slaves. By her hand. In their graves."
They dripped the blood down into the pentagram inscribed on the floor, where four photographs lay. The photographs were shot in daylight, featuring people fighting. Oz, Willow, and Xander. Giles, in the fourth photograph, was walking towards the camera, holding his hands up in a warding-off gesture.
The drops of blood fell on the photographs, and they began to smolder and smoke where they had landed.
(Cue commercial break)
