OCTOBUFFY – a SPIKE BLOND story

CHAPTER 7

A/N - so very sorry for the delay in posting this. Lou tidied and sent and made better AGES ago, but due to complications in the real world, it's been sitting waiting for me. Lou is made of awesome. So, here it is. Hope you enjoy.

 

“G?  Xander?  Oh thank god -- I’m so glad to see you...but can you look away.  Nudity issues here.”

 

Xander was gaping like an idiot, his mouth open and a shining trail of drool making its way down his chin.  Now he had even more reason to be envious of his best pal, and he cursed the idiocy that had stopped him from spotting Buffy Summerpenny’s potential before 00666 noticed her. 

 

Not that it would have mattered of course, he thought, wryly.  If ever there was a match made in heaven – or hell, given the genus of one of the lovers – it was Spike and Buffy Blond.  He’d never had a sniff of a chance.

 

Still...gotta admire the view...

 

It took a slap to the side of his head from G to stop him ogling Buffy’s goodies.   And it took a shrill shout from Buffy to stop the gadgetmeister doing the same thing…

 

“Hello?  Wanna fix me up with a coat or something?”

 

“Ahem. Yes, of course, Buffy.  I do apologize...”

 

G bemoaned the lack of his trusty tweed jacket left behind on the jet, but shrugged off the top of his stealth gear and handed it over, averting his eyes – mostly – as Buffy shyly wrapped herself in the dark material.  His eyes were drawn down to her feet, however.  Either Buffy had waded through some sickly green paint, or her toes were about to drop off from gangrene.

 

“Buffy?  Do you feel...all right?  I can’t help but notice the unhealthy tinge to your extremities.  Do you have a fever?”

 

Buffy snorted.  “Nope.  Not so as you’d notice.  No temperature, no pulse, just a hell of a craving for raw red meat...”

 

The quartermaster removed his glasses, relying on the well-worn routine to divert his mind from things he couldn’t deal with while he set his emotions in order.  Raw red meat?  No pulse...bugger...

 

“Ahem...Buffy...am I to take it that you believe you are...undead?”

 

“Well, I understand the politically correct term is ‘alternatively living’ but yeah, I think I’m turning into a vampire -- with the lack of circulation problem, obviously.”

 

Xander managed to rouse himself from his fugue state, adding to the discussion.  “And you’re embracing the bloodletting because...?”

 

Buffy shivered.  “Got injected with some experimental drug, courtesy of that slimeball Nautilust.  Knocked me out, came round in here .  Before that, though, Anyanka and I were...”

 

“Anyanka!  She’s here?”  Xander barged past G and stood in front of Buffy, more bothered than he’d care to admit that the beautiful Slav might be in danger.

 

“Yeah, the big ho.  She totally would have sold me out to save her skanky ass too, probably lying in the lap of luxury – or lap of Nautilust – as we speak.”

 

Harris scowled and cursed, drawing a shocked glare from G at the colourful vocabulary.  What he wasn't going to do to Nautilust wasn't worth mentioning, but there were more pressing concerns at hand.  Such as how they were going to get off the sub and whether that was actually possible now that Buffy appeared to be going through some sort of mutation.

 

G regained his focus and reminded Harris that he was on a mission.  The spy gritted his teeth and nodded curtly, breathing hard to calm himself down.  G was right; Anyanka wasn't his primary concern right now, which although true, did little to ease his aching heart.

 

“Xander?  I'm sorry; I'd forgotten - well to be honest I hadn't even realised that you were so into her.  I'm sure she'll be fine.  I'm just cranky.  And hungry...”

 

G and Harris exchanged an alarmed glance as they saw Buffy's eyes glint golden.  They both recoiled from her, but thankfully she didn't notice.  She was too busy staring at the webs that were forming between her fingers.

 

“I don't get this,” she said as she checked out her toes to find skin growing there too.  “What am I?  I figured vampire because of the hearing and the smells, not to mention the urge to rip out Anyanka's throat, but vampires don't have webbed toes – do they?”

 

G replied in an uncertain voice.  “I believe not unless they were congenitally so, Buffy – but to be honest you'd know far more than I.  Without seeming indelicate, you are more familiar with vampire anatomy than anybody else in the Service.”

 

Buffy's bottom lip started to tremble as she was suddenly hit with a wave of longing for Spike.  He'd make it all better.  If only he was—

 

Her voice rasped as she spoke.  “Guys.  Much as I'm happy you're both here – where's my husband?”

 

G and Harris panicked and moved closer together.  They didn't really have an answer for her.  Whilst it had seemed a perfectly reasonable and logical thing to do, not to send Spike Blond to his wife's rescue while they were still at HQ, faced with the semi-naked, ticked off and seemingly dangerous Buffy Blond now, they were both at a loss.  Xander nudged G into stuttering out a response.

 

“Well, erm...as you know, Buffy, erm... he's undergoing evaluation.  W deemed it prudent that he complete his assessment.  I'm sure he'll be waiting for us back at HQ.”

 

The two men weren’t expecting the total breakdown that followed. Buffy sniffled, her face creasing before letting out a wail of despair and sinking to the floor.  The jacket slipped from her shoulders to leave her naked again and clearly showing that her back was mottled with iridescent greeny-black blotches.  She also appeared to have the beginnings of gills showing at her neck and some strange growths along her sides, like buds of extra arms.  Xander tried hard to hide his disgust, but he couldn’t help a shudder.  G swallowed hard then moved towards Buffy, steeling himself to cover her up and hold her through her sobbing.  It was imperative that she calm down, or none of them would escape. 

 

Eventually she stopped keening and raised her face to her rescuers.  “Okay.  I'm done.  Sorry.  Got a bit pathetic for a second but I'm good to go now.  Please can we get out of here?”

 

Giles swiftly got to his feet and rooted around in the pack he had with him, searching for suitable clothing for Buffy so that they could escape.  The fact that they didn't have a contingency plan was a tiny bit of a problem, but not insurmountable.

 

However, the fact that Buffy had started making a strangled sound and tearing at her throat did appear to be a huge issue.  She was gasping, her eyes bulging as she tried to drag air into her lungs.  The vampire lack of needing to breathe would appear to be simply one step in her continuing evolution into something else.

 

G watched with horror, the garment he'd found forgotten, as he stood, frozen, in front of her.  Xander pushed past him and picked the probationary spy up, striding fast to the tank in the corner of the room and dumping her into it.  G opened his mouth to protest, but the words died on his lips as Buffy immediately somersaulted in the water, the rudimentary gills he’d spotted earlier rippling as they filtered the water. 

 

“But...but...”

 

“Oooh yeah, G-man.  Right there with ya.  Looks like it's gonna take some rethinking to get us back to the homestead.  Haven't got any ruby slippers in that pack, have you?”

 

+ + + +

 

Spike Blond throttled back the two-man jet's controls and settled into an approach pattern.  From now on, he was flying blind.  Nautilust's secret hideaway could be anywhere, and he was relying upon a good deal of luck and his emotional connection with Buffy to guide him.  W's tinny voice echoed in his headset as the jet levelled off.

 

“Blond – anything yet?”

 

“She's near.  Nothing's showing on radar or sonar so I guess you were right about the equipment.  Next to bloody useless.  I'll just do a grid search pattern, see if anything grabs me.”

 

“Fuel?”

 

Spike checked the gauges and frowned.  “Not bad, but not excellent.  I figure we have maybe two, three hours tops before we have to turn back.”  He paused, trying to stave off the panic that was about to overwhelm him.  “I'm not leaving without her, W.  I'll ditch in the sea if I have to – it’s not like I need to breathe and I'm not getting any older.”

 

W believed him.  They'd broken every record getting there as it was and so far as any regard for aviation authorities was concerned, there'd been none.  Blond was so focused it would be a poor decision indeed for anybody to try to stop him.  And it certainly wouldn't be her.

 

“Understood.  But you'll give me some warning, right?  I do need to breathe.”

 

Spike chuckled.  “Agreed.”

 

He continued to search the area, closing his eyes periodically and trying to sense Buffy.  He had a vague feeling that he was near to her, but nothing specific. But, as W had briefed him on the trip, Nautilust's base was beneath the ocean and masked by jamming technology until he chose to surface.  There was no reason to expect that they would just come across it straight away.  They had the latest transmission coordinates from Harris and G to help them locate it, but that had been hours ago and Nautilust may well have moved since then.  All attempts to raise G had failed so far; so here they were, Blond guiding the aircraft through every search pattern he could think of.

 

An hour passed with nothing showing up, and Spike was growing tetchy and impatient.  The jet was circling lower and lower and the growls emanating from the vampire were echoing through W's headset.  She opened her mouth and closed it a number of times before finally squeaking out a few words.

 

“Anything?  Can you sense her, Blond?”

 

Spike snapped back at her.  “Do you think I'd be here if I could, W?  For fuck's sake, don't be so stupid, woman.  Stop yammering and check again for something from G.”

 

W quirked an eyebrow at his irreverent and disrespectful tone but let it pass, given the circumstances.  She silently checked for communications; there were none.   

 

“Sorry, 00666.  Nothing.  But maybe that's a good sign.”

 

Although she couldn't see his face, she could imagine the raised eyebrow and the disbelieving look.  She waited for the snarky response, but instead, the jet started to dip alarmingly fast and alarmingly steeply.

 

“Sod this for a game of soldiers, W.  I'm going down.  I'll walk the ocean bed if I have to.  Looks like you'll have to fly solo.  You up to it?”

 

W gritted her teeth, but managed to mumble a 'yes'.  She hated flying, hated it even more when she had the controls.  But if the vampire was determined, she'd no choice.

 

Spike took the jet down until the spray from the ocean obscured the cockpit window.  It was still a hell of a drop to the water, but he'd fallen off more than one tall building in his time and he was still here.  And he saw no other option.  Buffy needed him, he could feel it – and he wasn't about to let her down.

 

“Ready, W?  I don't think we can go any lower without risking the jet.”

 

“Yes, I have her.  You're all set.  I'll stay as long as I can before heading back.”

 

“Understood.”  Spike made to disconnect the headset, but stayed his hand as W shouted his name.

 

“William!”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Make sure you come back, all of you.”

 

With a cocky grin, the spy removed his headset, disengaged the safety harness and popped the canopy.  He saluted W --- and was gone.

 

“Goddess be with you,” W whispered as she familiarised herself with the jet's controls and thanked the merciful heavens that she'd kept up with her field training.  One anxious eye on the fuel gauge, she checked once again for communications from G.

 

It was going to be a long wait.

 

+ + + +

 

“Oops, I did it again…” Nautilust sang gleefully as he stirred his unholy chemical cocktail with a glass rod.  By now Buffy Blond would be in the second stage of her transformation and it wouldn’t be long before she’d be his to command.  And what a bonus to discover an infiltrator on his sub!  He’d intended selecting one of the party girls to be the recipient of his slimy gift, but what could be more apt than it be a spy from MI13, his former employer?  Almost kismet, in fact.  And that it would be their top spy's wife no less – deliciously appropriate.  It was as if she'd been sent to him.

 

Once again he marvelled at his own genius .  He'd been born with a purpose that had remained unappreciated by the brain-dead boffins at MI13, but he'd show them.  With the papers he'd pilfered before his hair’s-breadth escape, he'd been able to complete his experiments and if these trials were successful, the world would be his for the taking.  His beloved aquatic realm would spread between landmasses and he would be the ruler of the green-blue vastness he surveyed.  The overcrowded, polluted nations of the world would be at his mercy when they came begging for his resources; worms without gills or flippers, they would drown and decay into food for his pretty babies.  All would be as it should be.

 

He cackled, delighted that things were going so well.  With a flourish, he added a dash of seaweed essence to the swirling contents of the test-tube and removed it from the rack.  Time to give Anyanka Jenkinskovitch her own shove up the evolutionary ladder.  No point wasting a chance to test out more variations on his genome list. 

 

But first, he would contact Gwendolyn Post and advise her of his progress.  It wouldn't hurt to keep the sour-faced bitch sweet, at least for a little while.  And maybe he could check on the whereabouts of the infamous Spike Blond while he was at.  He didn't want any more uninvited guests crashing his party – not yet, anyway.  Once Buffy’s metamorphosis was complete, there would be nothing the master spy could do about it.  It would be fun to see his reaction at his wife's appearance.

 

Maybe he'd get the joke.  Nautilust chuckled away to himself as he sauntered over to his computer to log on to the secret communications network and put in a signal to Ms Post.

 

+ + + +

 

“I really cannot see any other option, Harris.  We must get to the cavern and retrieve the long-range communicator, report in to W and seek help.  There's nothing we can do here without support.”

 

“Yeah, and what do you suppose W is gonna do?  Send us a big plastic bag to carry her and her water home in?”

 

G shook his head and tutted .  He was already feeling agitated due to his inability to come up with a plan for Buffy's escape.  No matter which way he turned the problem over in his mind, he couldn't see a way out for all of them.  He risked a glimpse of Buffy as she swam in the tank; she was rapidly becoming more and more suited to the aquatic environment.  The nubs of arms on her sides had grown, writhing appendages linked by webs of skin…they reminded him of tentacles.  In fact, now that he looked closely, she was quite clearly mutating into some sort of hybrid... octopus.  Or a squid; he never knew the difference.  A humanoid squid, obviously, and judging by the pursed lips and narrowed eyes, a very angry one.  At least she was still Buffy, there was no mistaking that glare.

 

G admitted defeat.  There was nothing they could do.  “I ...I have no idea how we get out of this,” he whispered to Xander.  “We're on an enemy submarine, inside a secret underground lair, beneath who knows how many leagues of ocean, and if we try to escape with Buffy, she'll likely die.  I'm sorry.  I have nothing.”

 

Harris felt sorry for the normally unruffled G.  He'd never seen him so upset, or at least, not since W had been kidnapped by Weisswurst at any rate.  But he couldn’t come up with a solution either.  The only option open to them was to leave Buffy where she was and report in.  Maybe W would know something; either that or Blond would come along and make chopped liver of Nautilust and all his minions. 

 

Blond.  Harris thought of his best friend with a heavy sigh.  He was going to take this hard no doubt, and no wonder.  And god knows what he'd do to the two useless sidekicks who'd tried – and failed – to rescue his beloved Buffy.

 

“Alright, G.  We'll head back to the cavern.  I'll go check the corridor; you try and let Buffy know what we're doing...somehow.”

 

“There's no need, Harris.  She can hear us.  She may look different, but she's still herself.”  The two men looked over to Buffy as she floated near to the glass.  She nodded her understanding, long hair drifting around her head like pale seaweed.

 

The corridor being clear and the guards still out for the count, they took their leave of Buffy, turning as she banged on the glass to get their attention.  They could just make out one word as she smiled and moved her lips.

 

“Spike.”

 

Maybe they wouldn't need a plan, after all.

 

CUT TO: a sleek figure powering through the murky waters, his platinum blond head leaving trails of bubbles in its wake.  He stops for a second, turning and treading water, before swimming furiously in a different direction.  He mouths, silently, 'Hold on, Buffy.  I'm coming for you, love.'

 

In the tank, Buffy senses his approach and settles back to watch the carnage.  She just hopes her vampire likes her calamari...

 

DOO . DOO . DOOOOOOO; DOO. DOO. DOOOOOOO; DOO. TE. DOO.

 

TBC...