September 2002

    The ornate double doors the opened into the lobby shattered and splintered as the creature lumbered through.
    "Wesley!" shrieked Fred as she cowered behind a desk.
    The Englishman poked his head out of his office, an irritated look on his face, as if to ask what Fred had broken and why was she screaming about it.  Then he turned his eyes upward, upward, and still upward and looked upon the featureless face of the Slagg demon clumping around in the lobby.
    "Gunn, I’ll have to call you back," he said absently, eyes still fixed on the pale-skinned, porous monster moving toward Fred on four clawed feet.  He let the receiver fall from his hand as he groped for a weapon with the other.
    Fred glanced frantically from the demon to Wesley and back again.  The thought that this was the worst possible time for everyone but she and Wesley to have gone to Caritas crossed her mind.  This thought was replaced by the thought that she could very well die without ever telling Wesley his glasses made him look cute.  Fred was so busy thinking of everything that she didn’t notice Wesley leaping onto the Slagg’s back and burying an axe in its neck until the beast’s roar nearly split her eardrums.  She watched in frozen terror as he was smashed into the wall by the Slagg’s sudden rearing up.  He fell to the polished floor in a crumpled heap, injured and unconscious.
    Fred whimpered as the Slagg progressed in her direction.  She wondered if reasoning with the creature might be worth trying.  Looking at the axe still lost in the flesh of the creature’s neck, she decided that force was not one of her options.
    "Do Slagg understand English?  Maybe they speak Chinese…" she mused shakily to herself, the monster’s claws tapping on the floor as it moved closer.  "They do originate in Asia, after all…"
    Fred suddenly felt a rush of bravery course through her.  To her own shock and horror, she stood up, completely revealing herself to the Slagg.  The demon loomed before her, mouth slightly open in anticipation.  It stopped when its maw was mere inches from Fred’s nose.
    "Now, look.  Look what you did to the doors," she stuttered, her voice trembling so violently she could barely speak.  To her immense surprise, the Slagg turned its head to survey the damage.  Fred frowned, wondering how the Slagg could make out anything when it didn’t have eyes, ears, or a nose.  "See?  Everything’s a mess.  Now what am I going to do?"
    The Slagg brought its mouth so close to Fred that she squeezed her eyes shut and prepared for decapitation or worse.  Surprisingly, all she felt was the edge of a piece of paper.  Opening her eyes, she found that a letter was resting on the Slagg’s pale tongue and it was being held in front of her face.
    "Oh.  Oh, well, thank you," she stammered, gingerly removing the damp, sticky letter.  The Slagg seemed to watch her as she tore the envelope open and read the contents.  Fred furrowed her brows in contemplation.  "Let me see if I have this right.  Ms. Morgan did not have the Senior Partners’ blessing when she—"
    Fred stopped, reading over the letter again in search of her next thought.  The Slagg’s tongue snaked out and pointed to the right paragraph in the letter.
    "Oh, yes.  Thank you.  She did not have the Senior Partners’ blessing when she set a court date and agreed to Angel’s terms in doing so," said Fred, glancing up at the demon, who was nodding almost imperceptibly.  "And now, they’ve asked you to come and give us this letter, and that was very nice of you, by the way, so we can tell you that we’re not going to court anymore."
    A purr-like rumble sounded from the Slagg’s throat.
    "I know it’s a little more complicated than that, but I figured that all the other picky details weren’t really necessary to include in the summary," Fred said, her voice still wavering.  "Well, um, I really hate to have to tell you this, because I’m kinda starting to like you, but we have to go to court.  Angel and Wesley are set on it.  I’m really sorry."
    Instantly, the Slagg reared up and let out a holler.  Fred screamed and fell over.  From her position on the floor, she could see Wesley stirring where he lay.
    "Wesley, stay down!  I think I made him mad!" Fred covered her head with her arms, not wanting to see the claws as they came whooshing through the air toward her head.
    "You think?  What tipped you off?"
    "GUNN!" Fred grinned at him from her prostrate position.  He smiled back, holding up the severed paw of the Slagg.  She gagged and saw that the beast had backed into a corner, foam pouring out of its mouth.
    Wesley crawled feebly to join Fred on the floor.
    "Gunn, I can’t let you fight this alone," he said hoarsely as he attempted to stand up.
    "Uh uh, English.  You’re done.  You just stay down there and make sure Princess Loopy doesn’t try to do anything silly."
    Wesley tried to protest and passed out.  Gunn nodded once at Fred and turned to the wounded Slagg.
    "Hey, baby, check you out!  You are making an awful mess over there," he called out, shaking his head disapprovingly at the seething demon.  He hefted his sword onto his shoulder, swaggering toward the beast.  "Drool stains?  Those things just don’t wash out.  And you need to find a dermatologist, fast.  You think the skin thing works for anybody but Michael Jackson?  You’re dreaming."
    Enraged, the Slagg launched at Gunn from its three good paws.  Gunn ducked and took a hard swing at the creature’s underbelly.  A gash opened, showering him with a steaming, pale green liquid.  The Slagg howled, swiping Gunn across the back with its claws.  Gunn sucked in a breath as he felt the hot blood pour over his back.  He fell to his hands and knees, slipping in a puddle of his own fresh blood.
    "Oh, no you didn’t," he rasped through gritted teeth.
    Hearing the whoosh as the Slagg’s claws came hurtling toward him for another round, he rolled out of the way at the last second, bringing the sword down on the Slagg’s forearm.  The blade sliced deeply into the pale flesh, bringing another shower of pale liquid.  Stumbling in his hurry to get to his feet, Gunn was caught off guard as the Slagg locked its jaws around his midsection, elevating him high in the air.  He could feel the fangs tearing into the softness of his belly, and he prepared for the worst.  Suddenly, the jaws loosened, and Gunn found that the floor of the lobby was rushing toward him at an alarming rate.  He hit the cold surface with a gut-wrenching smacking sound.  Scrabbling around on the bloody floor, trying to ignore the feeling that his insides were starting to come out, he found the hilt of the sword.  He gripped it with his left hand because his right arm was broken in three places.  Setting his jaw, he lay on the floor, waiting for the Slagg to come back for more.  Sure enough, the beast was leaning over, mouth hanging open in preparation.  Gunn, vision blurred in pain, waited until the last possible moment.  When the Slagg’s mouth loomed close enough, he jammed the sword in and up, penetrating into the demon’s skull and instantly killing it.
    Gunn scrambled to get out of the way when he saw the monster’s massive bulk hurtling toward him, limp in death.  He didn’t get far with so many broken bones.  The lump of demon flesh that was the Slagg’s head landed squarely on his lower body.  Gunn cried out as one of the fangs pierced his left side.
    Fred was frozen in panic.  She felt woozy and realized that she hadn’t been breathing.  When the noise of the fight had suddenly stopped, she jerked violently to her senses, screaming and crying and calling Wesley and Gunn’s names all at the same time.  She saw Gunn lying on the lobby floor, impaled on one of the Slagg’s teeth, and moved to help him, but then she saw Wesley, his face paler than usual and he showed no sign of breathing.
    "WESLEY!" she shouted through her sobs, hitting him on the chest with trembling, opened palms.  "Wesley, please…"
    The sound of Gunn vomiting blood took her attention away from the pale Englishman for a moment.  She was about to go to Gunn when Wesley suddenly sucked in a choked, wheezing breath.
    "Fred!" he gasped.  "Are you alright?  Where’s Gunn?"
    Unable to form words anymore, Fred pointed a bent and shivering finger at Gunn’s blood-soaked form.  Wesley rolled over on his stomach with great difficulty.  Fred mindlessly helped him pull himself to Gunn’s side.  When they were close enough to really see the damage, Fred turned away sharply, retching in a corner.  Wesley cautiously put a hand under the young man’s head.  Numbly, he reached out to gauge the severity of a wound Gunn was covering with his one good hand.
    "No, don’t," Gunn whispered, gurgling noises issuing from his throat.  "My guts’ll fall out, man."
    Wesley nodded, blinking profusely against the tears that were forcibly welling up.  Gunn turned his head and vomited more blood.
    "I never thought you would come back," Wesley whispered almost inaudibly.  "I always assumed that you wouldn’t return to us once you made your decision to be back with your friends.  But you…you…oh, God!"
 Gunn’s smile too soon became a grimace.  He motioned with a finger for Wesley to get closer so he could hear.
    "Always been me and you, English.  Me and you…" he gurgled, trailing off as the last life he had in him faded away.  Wesley stared in disbelief at the single and final tear that fell slowly from Gunn’s unseeing eye.
    Fred turned again to the corner, retching uncontrollably.