THIS IS HOW THE WORLD ENDS
by perletwo
Buffy pounded at the bathroom door. "DA-awn, c'mon! We're gonna be late for the Scooby meeting!"
Sprawled on the hall floor behind her with his back against the opposite wall, Spike nudged Buffy's ankle with his bare foot. "You know there's no reasonin' with 'er in this state, luv..."
"I'm not coming out!" Dawn shrilled back. Even through the wood, Spike's vampire-sensitive hearing detected the high waver Dawn got in the middle of her voice when her emotions were about to overpower her. "EVER!"
"Only one thing for it then, Niblet," he called through the door, keeping his tone light. "Buffy'll get the home-schooling materials in the mornin' and you an' I'll start working on your lessons while she's at work. Would you mind if we wired up some kind'a intercom system, though? All this shoutin's rough on the throat..."
"You're making fun of me!" Dawn snarled.
"Oh, you betcha, kiddo," Buffy replied. "Now, isn't it a lot worse to be made fun of for how you're *behaving,* instead of for just a little thing like a zit?"
A muffled wail emerged from the bathroom, followed by the thump of something thrown against a wall. Then...silence.
"Dawn?" Buffy knocked over and over, resisting the impulse just to put her fist through the wood. "Dawn?"
Nothing. She and Spike looked at each other, out of ideas.
"Well, I thought that went rather well, Slayer," he murmured drily. Buffy closed her eyes and let out a "grrrrrr" of frustration.
After an hour and a round of hasty phone calls, the Scooby Gang sat assembled in the Summers' living room, bickering over a box of pizza.
The last to arrive, Dawn crept downstairs in an unseasonably heavy turtleneck sweater. The garment was aptly named, for she kept retracting her chin down into the collar.
Everyone studiously pretended not to notice.
"Pizza, Dawn?" Anya asked solicitously. Dawn shook her head and shrank deeper into her sweater, and everyone glared at the vengeance demon. "*What?!*"
"A-a-a-HEM! Call this meeting to order?" Giles' voice rose in desperation, and all heads turned toward his seat on the sofa. "We've got a new breed of demon in town. Well, actually it's a very very *old* breed of demon, it's been in hibernation under the Hellmouth for -"
"GILES?" Buffy cut in, and he stared at her openmouthed. "How-do-we-KILL-it? That's all we need to know."
"A-ah. Ah yes. Quite." Giles tried to do his usual clean-the-glasses trick, but found his hands already full of pizza and gave up the attempt. "They're called Sjkiouya demons. In their dormant state they resemble a particularly mangy stray dog. When they attack, they grow to four times their original size and begin to take on the general shape of a grizzly bear."
"Ohh-kay, so we're trying to find the junkyard dog from Hell," Willow said. "Preferably before it turns into a teddy bear with an attitude problem."
"Spike? We're supposed to be putting up with you instead of picking up your remains with a Dustbuster on account of your expertise with demons. Ever meet one of these things?" Xander asked, to a murderous glare from Buffy.
"Heard tell of 'em. Never seen one," the vampire answered, unperturbed, from his perch on a hassock at Buffy's feet.
"Darla use'to say the Master had one as a pet when she was turned, an' Dru'd sometimes see 'em in 'er visions. Always figured they were a myth, myself - the Demon-American community's got some'a its own, y'know - but, I dunno, time gets all bollixed up in those visions 'a Dru's. Maybe this infestation's what she was seein' back then." Buffy's hand drifted down to brush possessively at Spike's curls. He leaned into the stroke, and Xander rolled his eyes.
"Hmmrfrrlyyy cckrrrriiitttt?" Dawn asked, voice muffled through the the heavy collar, and all the Scoobies turned to stare. Dawn cringed.
She pulled the collar down two inches, fold resting just below her lower lip, and curled her hands around her mouth to conceal the rest of her lower face. "What do we do if we find it?"
"Aha!" Giles mumbled around a bite of pizza, pleased to have a ready answer. He swallowed a big bite, set his pizza down and wiped his hands, then reached to the floor below him for a bag resting against the front of the sofa.
"There is a spell which will send the Sjkiouya back to their native Hell-dimension, used successfully in the last Sjkiouya infestation - these are those Sjkiouya's progeny."
"You just like sayin' that, don't'cha Watcher? Sjkiouya. Sjkiouya. Sounds like a sneeze," Spike snarked, and Xander hooted.
"Gezheundheit," Dawn giggled, and everyone but Giles laughed.
"We are all going to be thoroughly versed in this spell before we leave here tonight, and we'll have the necessary supplies for the spell on our persons at all times." Groans from all around, and Giles held up a hand to shush them.
"This is important, people. You must not under any circumstances touch the Sjkiouya in its dormant state. The creature interprets any physical contact as an attack and triggers the transformation. Several members of an animal rescue group learned this the hard way, which is what alerted me to the demons' presence in the first place," Giles said.
Dawn paled. "Buffy, my friend Janice is a member of that group."
"We'll get rid of them long before she crosses paths with one," Buffy said softly, reaching over to take her sister's hand, and Spike nodded firmly.
{{Or maybe not,}} the Slayer thought ruefully, watching the teen play tug-of-war for a heavy nylon leash with the junkyard dog from Hell.
"Janice!" she called, leveling her crossbow. "Step away from that dog, please. I've got good reason to believe it's rabid. Dawn, you got the - the prayers?" Dawn nodded, holding up the parchment with the spell on it.
"Ohhhh no. I'm not lettin' you anywhere near this little guy!" Janice yelled, circling in front of the demon-dog.
Dawn paled again. "Janice, please, *please* don't touch that dog. Just let us take care of it, okay?"
"Oh yeah. Sure. Let you 'take care' of him with the Acme Portable Crossbow Kit? I don't *think* so, Zit-Girl!" She nailed Buffy, who had been sneaking around Janice's side in search of a clear shot, with a pointed glare.
"Janice, right?" came a voice from behind her and the dog, and she whirled. Spike, all gleaming leather and peroxide, emerged from the shadows. "You remember me? I'm Dawn's friend, the one that 'elped you out Halloween when you stumbled onto somethin' cute that wasn't a'tall what it appeared?"
The dog growled and she took a step backwards, just as Willow raced up alongside Buffy.
"This creature's got a lot in common wi' your date from Halloween," Spike said softly. "Let 'im get too close an' it'll be your throat that pays f'r it. A few'a y'r RSPCA chums'd tell you that...if they could."
Janice wavered visibly, and Willow's eyebrows raised. "Wow. Spike, the Teen Whisperer," she murmured to Buffy, who shrugged.
Dawn, nearly radioactive with tension, took up the drumbeat. "Jaaanice, we're trying to HELP you. We don't want you to get mauled like the others! Please! Buffy knows what to do - "
"- with that big ol' crossbow she just HAPPENED to have lying around the house? Yeah. Riiiight. Mom's right, Summers - your sister's a violent, burger-flippin', street-walkin' SKANK. Why'd you *think* she won't let me hang out at your house, an' lets you spend all the time you want at ours? Why'n't you go just home and bathe in Clearasil again, Dawn?"
Janice had been backing steadily away from Dawn, Slayer and Scoobies perched tensely on tiptoe as she neared the Sjkiouya. Buffy made a tiny squeak of dread in her throat as her shins came within a hair's length of the demon -
- and then the creature ended the suspense, by lunging into the backs of Janice's knees with a loud snarl.
Instantly the transformation began, waves of power crackling off the demon as it assumed its true form with a massive roar. At the same moment, Spike dove for Janice at maximum speed and tackled her a fraction of a second before the bear-creature's claws caught her on a down-swipe. They merely grazed her shoulder instead, ripping her sleeve and cutting four long, deep gashes in her shoulder and bicep.
"BUFFY! Start the spell!" he yelled over his shoulder, pinning the teen to the ground and shielding her with his body.
"Oh myyyyy..." Janice breathed, wriggling slightly under Spike as a hormone surge swept through her and focused her attention with laser-precision on the bleached-blond atop her.
In the Scoobies' split-second of shocked hesitation, however, the demon had swung a heavy paw at Willow and Buffy, destroying their magic supplies.
"Aw, BOLLOCKS..."
As Buffy and Willow scrambled to salvage their herbs, candles and charms with as much help as Spike could give them without releasing Janice, they all became aware of a steady high-pitched whine. Willow grabbed Buffy's arm and jerked her head to the right, and her friend's eyes followed the motion.
Dawn was wailing, building up to an unearthly shriek, a phosphorescent green glow shimmering around her and spreading out in waves toward the Sjkiouya. Her whole body was shuddering with the surplus of power overflowing it, and Willow rushed to grasp her hand.
Pointing both their clutched hands at the Sjkiouya, Willow ground out the spell chant through clenched teeth. Giles and Xander, alerted by the noise, came upon the alley then. Giles cast the herbs into the circle of light and Xander brandished a lit candle, both adding their voices to the spell.
A whirl of green glowing energy opened from within the demon's midsection, spreading out through its thick pelt and swallowing its lower torso. Blank concrete and brick showed beneath the ring of green fire, while the Sjkiouya's torso hovered above.
As the noise and fury began to subside, the ring of fire moved up over the Sjkiouya's chest, arms and finally head, swallowing it whole and shrinking into a tiny shower of sparks.
Silence deafened the Scoobies. All was back to normal.
"Well." Willow cleared her throat, and Dawn shuffled her feet. "That was interesting..." the redhead mused, eyeing Dawn.
"Janice!" the teen cried, starting forward, but Willow caught her.
Giles put a hand on the teen's shoulder. "Ah...I believe there may be a bit of trouble explaining all this to your friend, Dawn. I know you're worried about her, but perhaps -"
"Worried about her hell! I was *going* to knock her block off for what she said about Buffy. And about my zit!"
"Erm, Dawnster? *What* zit?" Xander pointed to her chin, and she hurried to check her reflection. Meanwhile, Buffy made her way over to Spike's patch of ground.
"Wowwwww," Janice breathed, hypnotized by the bright blue eyes above her. "So, you do this sort'a thing often?" she drawled, batting her eyelashes.
Another "grrr" of frustration escaping her throat, Buffy yanked Spike to his feet by the bicep. "Wot? Wot'd *I* do?" he mumbled, hurt.
"Ya did good, honey," she sighed, extending a hand to Janice. "I'm going to have to tell your mother an animal tried to attack you, Janice," she said. "If she doesn't mind my saving your ass while on my streetwalking rounds, that is."
"Hey, I don't make this stuff up, I just report it," she answered, dusting herself off. Then she turned a coy smile to Spike. "Call me, 'kay? Dawn's got my cell number..."
"Ya know Janice, I really think you could use a ride home safe," Willow said, wrapping an arm tightly around the girl's shoulders. "We can talk on the way about you getting a nice safe volunteer position at the animal shelter where we got Miss Kitty Fantastico..." Janice's reply was lost as the witch led her away from the alley.
A squeal from Dawn made Spike slap his hands over his ears. "OW! Jeez, that's almost as bad as the chip goin' off!"
"The zit's gone! The zit's gone!" She bounced up and down, beaming at her reflection in the window.
"Yup. That glowy green Keyness of you works better'n Oxy-Clean, Dawnster," Xander replied, to a sigh from Giles.
"Figure out how to bottle that green stuff and you can keep me in the style I'd like to be accustomed to, Dawnie," Buffy cracked, leading her away from the alley as well.
"Hey! Guys! Can we do this again tomorrow night?" The wind carried Dawn's plaintive request back to Spike, Giles and Xander, who groaned in unison.