Inspired by re-reading Girl Genius and this fic by staringiscaring, I present a re-imagining of our favorite series in a reality of steam and dark sorcery...


*****

"NOOOOOOOO!"

Anne Summers whipped her sabre through the neck of one of Count Von Zandt's minions. The half-vampire half-mechanical spider--what did you call those things? spidertaurs? sampires?--dissolved into ash and brass flakes as slayer strength and Toledo steel severed its armored spine. The Count himself rolled in agony, his vast ironclad bulk cracking with the stress as his engines exploded. The pretender to the undead throne of London less ashed than exploded in a cloud of fiery debris. Anne ducked a stray bit of shrapnel.

"Some, argh, help here?" A hand waved from beneath an overturned sarcophagus.

"I told you to be adjacent to the fray!" Anne levered the mass of cracked marble off "Xander" Harris.

"I had him at my mercy," insisted her boon companion, brushing dust off his peaked cloth cap. "This was, uh, shamming as part of my master plan."

"Of course." Anne grinned. "Although your scheme to sneak holy water into the Count's boilers worked."

"At your service, my lady." Xander sketched a bow. "No one messes with Anne the Vampire Slayer and Xander the Great--ow, ribs, ow."

"We should examine you on the ship." Sir Rupert Giles emerged from the shadows, dispatching a crippled minion with a stake-dart from a pepperbox pistol. "Anne. Five minutes. You were a little off the pace."

"I am going to slay," Anne grumbled, "that stupid pocketwatch o...

Title: School's Out
Fandom: BtVS
Characters: Xander, Cordelia
Warnings: R rating, spoiler for end of S3


School's out for summer
School's out forever
School's been blown to pieces

"We're taking a moment," Oz said. "And, we're done."

As one, the Scooby Gang turned their backs on the smoldering ruins of Sunnydale High. For Xander it was the perfect way to end his high school career: power walking out of the smoke and flames with all his friends action-hero style. Sure beat his usual vision of how graduation was supposed to go. That usually involved him watching from the sidelines as the new janitorial staff hire while Willow did the valedictorian speech. Seriously, this was the coolest moment ever. They should have gotten the Dingoes to do a bad-ass guitar riff as background music.

No dusters, though.

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Title: Fairytale of New York (3)
Fandom: BtVS
Characters: Ensemble, core cast and Sunnydale survivors
Warnings: None for explicit sexuality or violence.
Ships: Gen, aside from canon relationships by "Chosen"

I go out walkin'
After midnight
Out in the moonlight
Just like we used to do

The Drake garage was like Cordelia's closet: something for every occasion, and dressed to impress. It was less a garage than a luxury dealership underneath an old coach house at the southeastern wing. A drive-in elevator on the back wall would bring up any of the Drake toys for a spin around the city. The best of Italian, German, and Japanese automotive engineering waited on four wheels and two, each example on their own platform. From the heavy smell of wax, Kennedy's family didn't bring by their cars down to the local wash. Each vehicle had the sheen associated with the weapons Giles kept for special company.

Xander sat behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang, parked in the small section devoted to classic American iron. His one-day reign as Car Guy had ended the second his Uncle Rory had seen the dents on the Bel Air's bumper. Still, enough of Lysette's lecture had drilled through to let him recognize the model. This? This was the car he should have taken on the road trip that hadn't seen much road or trip. The Porsches and Mercedes over there were too bloodless, the Italian ones too finicky. What you needed was solid Detroit steel to see this great land of ours. Unfortunately, the metal-to-rust content in the AMC Gremlin he had ended up buying had put the lie to "steel" and "solid" in the above description.

Xander turned up the volume knob on the CD player.

Every road trip needed music.

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Title: Peekaboo
Fandom: BtVS
Characters: Marcie Ross



Before, I was an emotionally disturbed borderline sociopath with serious body issues and a scalpel fetish.

Now I work for the US government!

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Behold! Methos at Twisting the Hellmouth was inspired to do this amazing banner for "Pigtails and Tweed"

Many thanks to betas frogfarm and tigerlily0484. Check out the former's long running FtVS and the latter's fic "When the Floods Roll Back" on their respective LJ's.


Title: Fairytale of New York (2)
Fandom: BtVS
Characters: Ensemble, core cast and Sunnydale survivors
Warnings: None for explicit sexuality or violence.
Ships: Gen, aside from canon relationships by "Chosen"




Busy, busy.

Andrew Wells tapped his way through the schedule on his Palm Pilot. He sat at his desk in the butler's office. The office was little more than a small room off the kitchens with an antique roll top desk taking up most the space. One wall was covered with small light bulbs connected to the bell pulls in each room. He kept an eye on the bulbs in case he was needed. One must be attentive. Of course, the office wasn't "his" at all. He had merely appropriated it while the Drake family staff were at the summer house in the Hamptons. Still, it was a quiet place for him to work out the day's schedules and the bills he needed to submit to Miss Kennedy.

Andrew noted down rearrangements for dinner's place settings. Nafisa and Ruth had had a teensy tiff today. Putting them on opposite sides of the room would give them the space to calm down. One had to be sensitive to the feelings of exuberant young women. Closing the application with a stylus tap, Andrew tucked the personal organizer into the inner pocket of his jacket. He smoothed down the dove-grey fabric. One must always be ...

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Hey folks. I'm back, with a new tale. This is a sequel to "Why She Fights".

Title: Fairytale of New York (1)
Fandom: BtVS
Characters: Ensemble, core cast and Sunnydale survivors
Warnings: None for explicit sexuality or violence.
Ships: Gen, aside from canon relationships by "Chosen"


"Thanks for the lift, Clem," Faith said, slinging her bag over a shoulder.

"My pleasure!" replied the demon with a face only a shar-pei could love. "You saved my bacon from those guys in Baker."

"Yeah, well, it's this redemption kick I'm on." Faith shrugged. "No big. Call it quid pro."

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Unabashedly porny, kinky AU ficlet of Dark!Willow/Faith set by the end of Season 6. Consensuality between the two parties involved is ambiguous to say the least.

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Anne was in her Yellow Period. Dipping the roller into the tray, Anne painted the walls of the new nursery a sunny hue. She had gotten plenty of practice doing this when setting up the Teen Center. Days of investing literal sweat equity into an office building one step away from the wrecking ball. Spray cans hissing, Tater and Deirdre threw up a graffiti mural of the residents of Hundred Acre Wood in hip-hop style. Poo on the turntables, Piglet in shades rocking the mike. Volunteers in the hall outside put together a crib donated after a quick call to one of Anne's contacts. Everyone pitching in to welcome the new life born into their midst.

It was a good start.

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How to respond to the fire alarm in your apartment building when it goes off at 2:30am in the morning:

* Lurch awake

* Grab robe, long parka, and boots.

* Head out front door, checking for heat. Or go out on fire escape/balcony

* Realize it was false alarm, grumble, go back to bed.


How I did it:

* lurch awake

* robe, parka, boots

* CAT! Where is pet feline, can't leave her to fiery and smoky doom

* Wrestle with cat carrier buried in closet, prompting cartoonish comedy avalanche noises

* Cat has ran under bed and into bed frame via hole she clawed

* Grab catnip, try to lure out

* Snarl, bodily lift up bed (with bad back, even, adrenaline is a wonderful thing), dump out cat

* Seize cat in full nelson, stuff in cat carrier like I was making sausage

* close carrier, stumble out door in robe/park/boots

* stand like an utter twat with scared and annoyed cat banging head against carrier door as I discover it is false alarm

* stay awake until Oh God O'Clock due to adrenaline and bad Chinese take-out consumed with father

* wonder why the hell I put myself in danger over animal-- *flop* *nuzzle* *scritch* *purrrrrrrr* Right.

    Of all things, I've been nominated in the Porn Without Plot category for the Willowy Goodness Awards for Completely Gratuitous Shower Scene


   Yay me!

Their hands roamed over each other's bodies. Anne pressed close to her lover's form. In a few hours she would have to go back to the grind of the diner. Avoiding Mitch's gropes, dealing with smart-ass customers and small-time cons who tried to play twenty-and-one. Here, now, under the covers of this badly-sprung bed in this tiny apartment? She was happy.

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Anne Steele worked through the jumble of account statements on her desktops, both real and virtual. Outside the closed door of her office, she could hear the muffled chaos of volunteers passing out the new batch of clothes donated to the East Hills Teen Center. Like tossing chum into a shark tank. Really, she should be out there-- Anne kneaded her temples. No. This first.

Bills, always bills which were never quite balanced by the month's donations. The street kitchen van needed a new alternator, an inspector had ordered the kitchen's wiring brought up to new code, a thousand other costs. At least Virginia Bryce had sent in her usual handsome monthly check; Mr. Nabbit had promised nearly new computers for the life-skills lab. And, if needed, she could dip into the two and a half million a certain law firm would have to be kept in the dark about. It would mean a few extra "anonymous contributions" to launder the money.

Hard work. Six months spent bussing tables in the cheapest diner in Los Angeles taught you quick how to juggle figures, though. Anne could handle it.

She had it on the highest authority.

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Norristown, PA, 2005

Some cases stay with you.

Detective Len Fenerman watched the crane lift its burden out of the old sinkhole. The forensics team took infinite care as the rusty safe was placed on a tarpaulin pegged out on the ground. The coldest of cold cases, perhaps. But one that had lived on in the department's collective memory; no one wanted to screw up on this one. The techs worked over every inch of the outside of the safe, in hopes that the son-of-a-bitch would have left behind trace. Wherever George Harvey was right now, everyone on the force wanted every chance they had to nail him when his devil's luck finally ran out

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Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor...on the accordion.

Rock it hard core, baby.

Then the children of Israel cried unto the Lord their God, because their heart failed, for all their enemies had compassed them round about, and there was no way to escape out from among them.
Thus all the company of Assur remained about them, both their footmen, chariots, and horsemen, four and thirty days, so that all their vessels of water failed all the inhibitants of Bethulia.
And the cisterns were emptied, and they had not water to drink their fill for one day; for they gave them drink by measure.
Therefore their young children were out of heart, and their women and young men fainted for thirst, and fell down in the streets of the city, and by the passages of the gates, and there was no longer any strength in them.


Book of Judith: 7:19-22

Pain. Between her thighs, in the wound at her side, at feet still unused to walking barefoot on sand and stone. Was this Purgatory? Bethany wandered among the hills, lost and alone, as if a soul denied the balm of Heaven and the judgment of Hell. What had she done to deserve this? What was her sin? Was this a test? The Hebrews had wandered in the desert, enduring many trials, before coming to the Promised Land. The Lord Jesus had suffered on the cross. Bethany walked in the valley of death, but she feared not. God would provide. He provided the dew she had licked off the leaves of a bush this morning, the dead bird she had eaten raw at noon. He had given her the strength to--

To.

So much blood.

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A note: the atrocities of the Lord's Resistance Army are all too real. Those who are disturbed by scenes of sexual abuse and other horrors should take note.

+++

In the eighteenth year, the two and twentieth day of the first month, there was talk in the house of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians that he should, as he said, avenge himself on all the earth.
So he called unto him all his officers, and all his nobles, and communicated with them his secret counsel, and concluded the afflicting of the whole earth out of his own mouth.
Then they decreed to destroy all flesh, that did not obey the commandment of his mouth.


Book of Judith: 2:1-3

Imatong Hills, Uganda, May 2003

Forty days and forty nights.

Bethany floated out of herself while her husband grunted into her. Forty days and forty nights it had seemed she had been walking with the men. It could not have been that long. It felt that way, as if she were with Noah in the Ark while the rains came down. Before, she had been in school with the others. The Sisters had said she would have a cake for her birthday. Fourteen candles, there would have been. But then the men of the Prophet had come in the night. Most of them were only boys--stolen from villages or from the fields, forced to carry guns almost as tall as themselves. Leading them were older boys and men, mad from the Prophet's words and years of living in the bush. They had shot the gatekeeper of her boarding school and fallen upon the dormitories. Bethany's class and three others had been marched out into the jungle to become wives and concubines. Now she was the Lieutenant's wife.

She had screamed the first time.

She had learned not to after the beating.

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What it said on the tin.

*****

 Snow reminded Buffy of miracles.      She had seen snow before.  Mostly during the Christmas trips to her Aunt Marge in Napierville as a kid.  She had seen snow after.  Like that time David Nabbit had invited her to go to Gstaad while they were finalizing the budget, and she had said she didn't have anything suitable for Gstaad, and then he had casually given her the kind of credit card which brought on a reverential hush when it was presented in a retail setting.  Not that she had gone overboard or anything.  Just a few suitcases--well, wardrobes--to put in the pack of the corporate jet headed for Gstaad.  Buffy felt that deserved further emphasis.  Gstaad.  Where there had been snow, which she might have even noticed if she had not been a little bit distracted she was in Gstaad

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"A werewolf attack?" McGee asked, beer mug frozen halfway to his lips. "Really?"

"Right out of American Werewolf in London," DiNozzo said, sipping his own draft with relish. "First year on the Baltimore homicide squad. Five chewed-up bodies, spread over three nights all over the Western. What we used to call a 'full Cleveland'."

"A serial killer who wore leisure suits and white belts?" McGee's brow wrinkled in confusion.

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Note: this a sequel to Pigtails and Tweed

****

Director of Mossad Eli David stared out at the landscape passing outside the car window. Highway One was an apt symbol of Israel's position in the world. The main highway linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem wound among the Judean hills in its eastern reaches. North and south were the Occupied Territories--promised by Hashem to His chosen people, now contested between Israeli settlers and the Palestinian rabble who squatted there. The route to the capital was a narrow, precarious path snaking between enemy lands. The burned out hulks of tanks and trucks along the fringes were memorials to the intense fighting during Independence and the Six Day War, to keep the road open to the heart of Yis'rael.

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Our Slayers, Our Selves by Andrew Wells, Esq.

Into every young woman's life comes a change. Before, she is a shy bud closed against the world. Then, one day, it comes. The bud trembles with life and strength. The miracle happens. A new day dawns as her petals open to greet the rosy-fingered dawn of a new stage in her life. She has become a glorious, vital flower. Naturally, there will be questions.

Among them may be "I can now bench-press a Volvo?"

Weirdest informational hand-outs, ever.

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One thing about DC: great sense of production values. Abby sat next to Ziva on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The Reflecting Pool was the darkening blue of an early summer day shading to twilight. The Washington Monument rose up like a don't-think-of-Jimmy-Palmer-at-all spire, the tip glowing bright from the setting sun. If you squinted, you could see the National Mall and the Capitol Building beyond. Tourists and District inhabitants clustered around the Memorial and the banks of the pool. Some took pictures, others followed tourist guides, some even were having al fresco dinners on the grass. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. Statistically, of course, at least one of them might know about demons and vampires and an eternal battle between good and evil. Here, though, in the fading day one could only see the world and the beauty in it.

"'I know about pigeons, Lilly'," Abby said, sipping Caf-Pow through a straw. "Kate always quoted that when we came here."

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She could do this.

Sweat trickling down her back, Abby stood before the entrance to Autopsy. The underground room, with no sunlight, and all the dead bodies. One of which might suddenly come to unlife and slowly slide out of the morgue drawer when your back was turned and it would be Ari, only not Ari, something even worse than Ari wearing his face. And it would be Abby down there instead of Kate, like it should have been the first time around.

She could do this.

She had to do this.

Ducky had to be warned.

A small yet strong hand in the small of her back. Her life seemed to filled with small yet strong women. Abby could see Ziva as a Slayer: dark hair flying, stake whipping out, carving a swathe through a horde right out of Army of Darkness. A David destroying a thousand Goliaths. Now it was alright, it was fine. Ziva was here. Ziva was one of the team. Ziva had learned the Gibbs Rule #0: Always have your partner's back. Someone had her six. Abby could do this.

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"Happy birthday, Tim!" Abby said, rushing into the bullpen with gift boxes in her arms.

"Thanks. But it's, uh, not for a few months." McGee blinked when he opened the box. "A cross? Perfume?"

"Never too late to accept Jesus in your heart." Abby hung the gaudy wooden crucifix around his neck.

"Gah!" McGee flinched when she doused him with several puffs. "Garlic! Much too much garlic!"

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