Seymour Berkowitz chewed a salt tablet and checked his camera. The salt tablets were a constant in his life now, he craved the stuff, but it was the least of his worries. No, the fact that when he cut himself shaving he bled luminous green, that was worrying. He was wondering of Faith and Xander were having some similar problems and how best to ask them about it. After all, he remembered all three had been sprayed with identical blood from one of the demons they killed ‘that night.’
Linda was driving and he was checking his gear, or at least the stuff he would never go anywhere in Sunnydale without. Camera, film, flash, batteries, 45 Caliber pistol with illegal 16 round magazine loaded with hollow-points with wood carefully wedged into the hollow, four spare magazines for above, loaded, 9mm Taurus, ammo and magazines as for the 45, INS ID, official invitation to the 1999 Sunnydale High School Graduation Ceremony, yeah, it was all here.
That was just the stuff he was keeping on him at all times, of course. He had a lot more in the boot, including two boxes of ammo for each pistol a copy of ‘The Anarchist Cookbook’ with some of the harder to get essentials in case there was time to plan. Oh, and some spare clothes and cameras, afterthoughts like that.
“So Seymour, why are we going to see a priest as our first stop in town?”
“Getting the ammo blessed.” Was his offhand reply, he was still checking his pack, making sure everything was in order, not just present.
“Ok.” This was their first big assignment together; they had just covered minor things on a day to day basis so far otherwise. “So, looking forward to the ceremony?”
“Yeah, I mean it’ll be broad daylight, it’s not like I’m expecting trouble or anything.”
Sunnydale High School Graduation Ceremony, minus a few minutes.
“Yes Tony we’re fine.” Linda Kolchak said, speaking to Tony Vincenzo, editor of the LA office of Independent News Service. He was a bit of a worrier, really.
“Actually we met them last night, both of them bleed green like Seymour.” The response was loud enough for her to pull the microphone away from her ear.
“I’m sure we mentioned it before Tony, anyway Xander and Faith are both here and promise to talk about it later, if there is a later.” She responded breezily. “No Tony, that’s how they phrased it, ‘later, if there is a later’, that’s a quote.”
“No Tony, not an ideal spot the photograph the ceremony but we are assured it has a good field of fire for when the vampire army attacks.”
More shouting, he could actually hear the sound clearly enough to make out some of the words over the general hubbub.
“How do we Kolchak’s keep getting into what Tony?” There was a fairly long answer to that.
“Yes, Uncle Carl did mention the time you sent him out for a story on poverty and the elderly and he came back with one about shape shifting monsters from Hindu mythology.” The brown haired woman responded. “I still don’t understand why you never printed it, it seems like a good story to me.”
More shouting. The photographer was not really paying attention to it, he was shooting off rolls of film as fast as he could. Xander had taken one look at his ‘essential supplies’, in particular the detonators, and said ‘I knew there was a reason I liked you’ before ‘borrowing’ them and a few other items. The ex-cop had the feeling that this was probably going to be a memorable piece of photojournalism.
Berkowitz had several cameras with him, to allow for different situations, breakages, and so on. He had them set up on stands to shoot the scene from different angles. They covered the officials and the speaker’s platform, as well as the students and a few other spots.
“Tony I honestly don’t know much about what’s happening other than the Mayor planning to turn into a dinosaur sized demon and eat the students.”
More shouting, the editor’s blood pressure medication was getting a real workout today.
“Yes Tony, that would probably make it harder for him to get re-elected, I’m not sure what his post demonhood political career plans are.”
“Well if you think it would still make him an improvement over Nixon I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Tony, Tony, I have to go, the principal is announcing the start of the ceremony.”
In the weeks since ‘the battle of the tunnels’, Xander and Faith had changed a lot, and brought Wesley along for some of it. But the rest of the Scooby’s were remarkably resistant to change, especially when the outsiders initiated it. Willow seemed incapable of taking her oldest friend seriously, Buffy never took anyone but herself and Angel seriously, and the rest took their cues from them.
Faith was up against a different prejudice, but the result was the same. She was seen as useful but not really a part of it, and blamed for allowing ‘the zeppo’ to participate rather than pushing him aside ‘to protect him.’ That Xander had quite publicly showed them up when he, Faith and Berkowitz had shot their way through a demon stronghold none of the other even suspected existed and prevented a demon summoning was also received less than warmly. They were comfortably dismissing her as ‘psychoslut’, ‘the second slayer’ who was exiled to a sleazy motel despite Joyce Summers having a spare bedroom available and a willingness to do anything at all help the girl who was taking some of the risk out her daughter’s life.
Wesley had been dismissed as a ‘useless prat’ within the first few seconds of meeting him by everyone, and the fact that the younger Harris had learned how to shoot from him had not helped. It was Xander knowing how to shoot that had made him an effective fighter, Faiths fighting partner and then her partner generally. The junior watcher simply was not listened to, even, or more correctly especially, when he was right.
So now the students were battling the mayor and the vampires, but mainly with the improvised weapons. Kolchak and Berkowitz were providing a suppressing fire against the vampires on the lower level, going for legs and head shots after the experience of the last battle they had fought together. The legs were enough really, since a bone hit crippled the vamp for long enough to make staking it comparatively easy and safe. Still, they could have had the whole force re-equipped. It would even have lowered their profile, students going to school with guns being far less unusual than going their with battle axes and improvised flame-throwers, after all.
In the end Xander and Berkowitz were among the Killed in Action. The ex-cop was killed covering the evacuation of the parents, taken down by a swarm of vampires that drained him dry before dropping to the ground a few steps away from his corpse. Xander was hit by a piece of flying concrete when the school exploded, which took his head off as neatly as a giant pair of scissors might. They were loaded into body bags at the scene and left to one side while the casualties for whom medical care would make a difference were treated.
Willow would have been screaming with rage at Faith, blaming her for ‘Xander thinking he could fight and getting killed’. She would have been, but she was inconsolable with grief, and had been given a tranquilizer. Now she was just sitting on the grass, staring into space as Oz held her. Buffy was in only slightly better shape, with Cordellia sitting and saying between sobs that she should have at least thanked him for the prom dress. Giles was doing his British Stiff Upper lip – Stoic Acceptance of Cruel Fate thing, that being what upper class Englishmen do in this sort of situation.
Linda was sitting on the grass with Seymour's cameras, distracting herself with the mindless technical task of checking they were alright. Wesley had been carried away in an ambulance, and Faith was sitting by herself with a bottle of Jim Beam she had been planning to split with her only friend as a victory celebration. It was half-empty as she took another slug direct from the bottle.
“Hey Faith, you promised to save me some.” She heard, and, this being the hellmouth, assumed it was a ghost. So did everyone else, since they had seen the headless corpse and nothing in their experience came back from that.
Of course, none of them had encountered a Mohra demon, except Xander, Faith, and Berkowitz, who had been too busy killing it and getting sprayed with its blood to be able to identify it to Giles, who COULD have identified it. So they all looked at him dully, each with his or her own hellmouthy explanation of his appearance.
“You hear to haunt me Xandman, I deserve it I suppose.” The dark slayer was blaming herself as much as everyone else had been blaming her, which was a lot.
“No, I’m here to be celebrate the defeat of mayor mcsnake, and Gman, we SO SERIOUSLY have to find out what kind of demon that was that bled over me.” He was grinning and then turned to Linda before continuing. “Oh, and Linda, go get Seymour because he had a bunch of ex-vampires who are about ready to start worshipping him and it’s giving him the willies.”
Xander had unzipped his body bag from the inside to find the cameraman’s empty beside him and the vampires that had drained the ex-policeman sitting confessing their sins to him as if he was some kind of god. In a different timeline some Mohra demon blood had gotten into Angel, a few years in the future, and turned him human. The demon itself had recovered from the ‘slice and dice’, that being its power, and come back to nearly kill him and Buffy. Eventually the day had been made to never have happened in the futile hope that Angel as a souled vampire could somehow keep Buffy alive.
“You’re alive.” Faith said in wonder, as she hugged him. “He’s alive, you’re not a ghost, you’re alive.”
The Scooby’s gathered to hug the one returned from the dead. Xander borrowed Faith’s salt tablets and swallowed a half dozen, Mohra demons use huge amounts of salt, it is a distinguishing feature of the breed.
Linda Kolchak walked over and hugged her working partner, checking carefully that he had a pulse first, she learned fast that way, then made a phone call.
“Tony, great news, Seymour’s ok.”
“Yes Tony, I did tell you he was dead. I said that because he was dead.”
“No Tony, he was pronounced dead officially, there’s a death certificate and everything.”
“Oh, no, he’s back too.” She paused while she listened. “Yes Tony, we had a camera filming in that direction, we got the whole beheading on film, plus a death certificate.”
“Ok, I’ll ask. Xander, how do you feel?”
“Fine.”
“My editor wants me to interview you, it that ok?”
“What do you mean you were kidding, we have an interview with a man who’s head grew back after losing it in a battle with a 60 foot demon and a horde of vampires. It’s a great human interest piece.”
“Tony, what’s that thumping sound?”
“Ok Tony, next question. Why are you thumping your head against your desk?”
“No Tony, not all Kolchaks have unusual lives. Anyway I’m a reporter, its not that unusual a life, lots of people are reporters.”
“Name a normal Kolchak, what do you mean Tony?”
“Well there’s cousin Peter he, no, bad example, what about my sister Lucy, she…No, another bad example. Hey I know, we have a cop in the family, a nice normal guy, Uncle Carl’s sister, what’s her name, her son.”
“No he’s a fed, has an office in Washington.”
“Yes Tony, absolutely, I’ll fly out there to interview him next week if you like. The normal Kolchak, the boring one, hell, from what I hear he doesn’t even rate an office with a view.”
“Name? He’s called Mulder, Fox Mulder.”