Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Primal: Chapter 4.2 (Patreon)

She sighed.

She'd been waiting for a half hour already. But, there wasn't a single sign of her best friend whom she'd promised to meet up with today to go clothes shopping with and catch up.

'Probably should have expected her to flake on me.' Buffy clicked her tongue. Her friends had been hell'a awkward all night last night when they met up again, they were constantly walking on egg shells around her, as if she was liable to up and disappear at any moment.

She bet she looked like a complete fool, all dressed up for a day of shopping, and sitting outside a starbucks, alone, for the last half hour. The clerks inside probably thought she'd been stood up or something and thought her pitiful.

She winced.

A lonely ache thrummed in her chest. She never thought Willow would bail on her.

That hurt. Weren't they supposed to be best friends? Sure, she ran off, but she honestly had no other options at the time that she could think of. It wasn't exactly a fun time for her either, getting that fake ID was like pulling teeth.

Another sigh escaped Buffy, her shoulders slumping in defeat, 'Maybe I should just go home.' she mused.

…Home. Home to the mother who was treating her just the same as her friends, more or less.

She was beginning to regret coming back.

She didn't know what to do.

Idly, she ran her hands over her bag, a click coming from it making her blink and look down to see she had pulled it open roughly without even noticing she was doing it in her frustration.

Buffy was about to close it back over, when her eyes landed on a particular item within that she'd just tossed inside this morning. A large, grey gameboy.

She ran her hand over it and chewed her lip for a moment, "…Wonder what Yarden's up to now?" she thought out loud idly.

He'd had to bail last night because he apparently found one of the things he was looking for here in Sunnydale, she wondered if he found it okay?

She knew his cell phone number, but didn't have one of her own to call him. Though, now that she thought about it, she actually could afford a cell phone of her own right now, she was sitting on five grand to do with as she pleased.

Her eyes were drawn to the magic shop as the door opened with a jingling sound and she watched as a smartly dressed men stepped inside.

Just as she was about to look away, her eyes landed on the phone booth not far away from the shop.

Before she knew it, Buffy was on her feet, slinging her handbag over her shoulder and walking across the road and entering the booth.

She dialled his number and waited as the dial tone counted off.

Ring…ring…ring…ring…ring…ring-

"Sup blondie?" his familiar voice rang through the receiver in her ear as soon as he picked.

"How'd you know it was me?" Buffy blinked.

"You're the only one I gave my number to," Yarden replied, "Really, you should be honoured."

Despite her feelings just a few moments ago, her lips quirked up into a small smile, "Yeah, sure," she rolled her eyes, "Are you busy right now?"

"Eh, not really," he replied, "I mean, I'm just out of the shower, which I've been in for the last two hours scrubbing myself raw, but I think I'm as clean as I'm gonna get."

She raised an eyebrow, "Dare I ask why?"

"Let's just say that skinning and wearing a demons skin as a suit to get passed a barrier, is not fun or clean, and smells really really bad."

"Ew!" her nose wrinkled up in disgust and she shuddered at the thought, "That's disgusting. I take it then, you had to, to get one of the things you wanted?"

"Yeah, got em at about seven this morning, had to ditch my clothes and drive back naked, it wasn't fun," Yarden snorted, "But, worth it I guess, since I'm even stronger now."

That was almost hard to believe considering he was already stronger and tougher than her, as much as that rankled her pride to admit.

"Well, good for you, I'm glad," Buffy nodded, "That just leaves what, the Braclet of Amelia and something else right?"

"Yes, the Ring of Amara," Yarden replied without missing a beat, "It's the biggest one I want, but there is one other I was planning on grabbing today, called the Glove of Mynhegon, super easy to get, it's just sitting in a crypt in the Restfield Cemetery."

"I guess you are busy then." She frowned, disappointed. It would be selfish of her to hold him up from getting what he wanted to protect himself from this big bad he was scared of, just because she could use the company.

"No, like I said, not really, it'll take me less than an hour to pick it up, especially during the day when there'll be no demons and shit getting in my way," Yarden refuted, "Shelfing that, what's up with you anyway? I can practically feel the gloom oozing through the phone."

"I don't ooze, that's just like, ew," she retorted on instinct, before sighing, "I was supposed to meet WIllow at starbucks and we would go shopping, but she stood me up."

Yarden was silent for a moment, then she heard him huff and could practically feel him rolling his eyes, "That's rich, considering the biggest problem you went through at all was because of her giving Angel his soul back," he snorted, "Well, if she wants to ditch you, fuck her, she should be the one apologising to you, not the other way around. Wanna come with me? Doubt there'll be anything quite as interesting to you as new clothes, but there might be some treasure hidden in the crypt as well, I'll split it with you."

…You know what.

He was right!

She told Willow not to try the spell. Giles told her, and even Xander told her. But she barrelled right ahead anyway, and because of her, she sent Angel to hell instead of Angelus. Angel himself would have been in the afterlife, at rest, and Willow ripped him right out of that and got him sent straight to hell.

He didn't deserve that!

"…Sure, can you pick me up?" Buffy agreed. She was suddenly in the mood to beat the crap out of a demon or two and vent a bit, hopefully there'd be one or two prowling around the crypts even if it was the middle of the day.

"Sure, gimme fifteen minutes, just gotta dry myself off, throw my clothes on and then I'll be right over." Yarden replied.

"Kay, see you then." Buffy bid him goodbye, before hanging up when he did the same.

Fifteen minutes huh?

She planked her rear on a bench just outside the phone booth and pulled out the gameboy. That should be enough time to 'grind' out a few levels for her pokemon as Yarden called it.

She needed to get Dragonair to level fifty-five if she remembered right from what Yarden told her to evolve it.

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Dragonair reached level thirty-eight before Yarden arrived, and she got her hands on this kind of interesting looking pokemon called Hitmonlee that had spring legs for kicking.

She could only imagine how useful spring legs would be for kicking in a fight. Sadly, Buffy would have to settle for doing it the old fashioned way.

And as luck would have it, they did run into a demon on their way through the Restfield Cemetery.

She ducked under a large, long, sharp bone skewer aiming straight for her face and lashed out with a kick, catching the huge green scaly demon she was fighting at its heels and tripping it, then while it was briefly in the air, followed through, spinning around and lashing out with her other leg and punished it with a kick to the face that slammed it into the ground, hard.

She sprang back from the grounded demon and grinned at the stocky boy behind her, "Do you think that counts as a Double Kick attack?"

Thankfully, it was October already, so the sky began to darken earlier in the day around this point, and thick clouds had rolled in blocking the dipping sun from view.

"Looks fine to me," Yarden grinned back, "Maybe try a Mega Kick or a Hi Jump Kick next?" he nodded behind her and she felt the air whistle behind her.

She shuffled into a little whirl as the demon roared through her previous spot with its other hand in a massive punch, "Mega Punch misses a lot you know." she taunted, jumping up and lashing it with both feet right at its neck.

The demon gave a gagging roar of pain and stumbled back from the blow, despite that though, it didn't fall.

It sure was a hardy thing.

"How was that?" she asked as she landed, the demon roaring and making to charge her once more.

It wasn't very smart though.

"Five out of ten." Yarden shrugged as he stepped up behind the demon, punching it in the back of the head. A startled roar of agony left its maw as it was bodily lifted up from the force the blow and sent flying towards her.

"Then how about…!" Buffy spun to get momentum and lashed out with a spinning snap kick right up into its chin just as it reached her, "This!"

A crack resounded through the air as its head snapped back, its neck broken and the corpse of the demon spun, backflipping through the air to land in front of Yarden, dead.

"Six point nine," Yarden shrugged, "You should be careful with kicks like that when you're wearing a dress like that, I mean I don't mind the view, but I get the feeling you don't wanna give everyone a show."

Buffy blinked, suddenly remembering she was wearing a thin, airy pink sundress.

"Well, whatever," she shrugged, she didn't feel embarrassed at all since he wasn't making a big deal, plus, "It's not like you haven't seen everything already." she was still trying to process the fact that he'd seen her in all manners of dress and undress, and having sex…a bunch of times at that.

"Hey, I'm not complaining, at least here I don't need to see Spike or Angel," Yarden shrugged, before pausing and grinning at her, "By the way, fyi, I'm bigger."

Buffy gave him a confused look, "…Bigger?" what the heck did he mean by-

Her eyes widened, and she coughed, "Didn't need to know that," she grimaced, "That's gross."

It was good to know though. Just for reference, nothing more than that. Really.

"I just felt the need to flex," Yarden shrugged again, then crouched over the dead demon and grabbed its arm, "Now, this is interesting."

Honestly, Yarden had such an odd way of speaking sometimes. Flex, as in, flexing a muscle to show off his muscles?

"Interesting, how?" she put it out of mind for the moment, watching as he examined the long bone spike coming from the demon things arm.

"This is a Polgara demon, a really strong species, though you probably already know that." he explained.

"Yeah, way stronger than your typical vamp, this thing was almost as strong as me and way more durable," Buffy nodded, not as a fast, though, "But what's so interesting about it? I've fought and beaten stronger."

"These skewers, it has one in each arm," Yarden gestured to the skewer, and Buffy winced as he gripped it hard and ripped it right out of its arm, "These things are tougher than steel hell, they can punch right through a wall of iron like a hot knife through butter, I'm gonna keep these." he added, before proceeded to dig into its other arm and dig out the other skewer.

"…Why?" she asked, despite not wanting to know.

Please, please just want to make a weapon like a dagger or something out of them. She really hoped it wasn't what her first thought jumped to. Yarden, was all about 'gains' as he liked to claim.

"Let's just say I know a few guys that could make these really useful to me." he replied.

"Cool." Buffy took that life line happily, and banished the thought, asking nothing more.

"Right, let's get a move on then." he stood up a moment later, holding the pair of bloody bone spikes under his arms.

Buffy nodded and ignored them, picking up her handbag from where she left it and they continued on.

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"So...is this it?" Buffy asked just fifteen minutes later, staring down at the corpse within the crypt Yarden had led her to, a freaky armoured gauntlet thing, with clawed fingers and a bunch of like, spiky grips coming out of the end and piercing into the corpse arm to keep itself attached, "The Glove of Mary Poppins?"

"Yep, like I said, easy huh?" he replied, "And check it out, loot and everything, these will be worth a pretty penny." he pointed at the head of the corpse, where a smattering of pure gold coins were spread around its head for some reason.
Probably some kind of magical voodoo or mojo or whatever using them, or maybe the guy was just vain like that?

Yarden reached into the coffin and picked the coins up one by one, "Eighteen of them it looks like, so nine each then." he grinned, storing half of them in the back pocket of the jeans he was wearing and handing the rest to her.

"Yay?" Buffy accepted them with a raised eyebrow.

It was just a bunch of coins.

And she said as such, not really anything to be excited over.

Yarden looked at her as if she was stupid and she squirmed, "What..?"

"These are pure gold you know, roughly thirty grams at that from what I can tell," he explained slowly, and she figured that may have meant something, but she didn't know, "…Meaning, each of these coins is probably worth at least five grand or more, probably more."

Buffy blinked slowly, before her eyes flew wide open, "Wait…..what?!" she gaped stupidly.

And he'd just handed her nine of them. Which meant, he just gave her what amounted to forty five thousand dollars, without even blinking.

"Your mom would probably be able to tell us better, what with what her job is and all," Yarden shrugged, before cracking his fingers and holding his hands out, Buffy shifted as she felt something shift in the air, "Exhaurire petitio desiderium possessionem!" he suddenly chanted, all wizardy-like.

And before her eyes, glowing green…goop? Dripped out of his hands in the shape of a long bubble, or straw and she watched curiously as what looked like crackling electricity began to seep up through the goop into Yarden's hands.

"Oh yeah, that's the fucking stuff right there!" Yarden cackled suddenly, reminding her a bit of Xander when he was all hyena-boy.

It was kind of creepy.

Her skin prickled and she felt like a thick, tangible energy was being unleashed in waves out of Yarden's body.

It only lasted for a short period, maybe a minute at most before the electricity puttered out and disappeared and then the green goop disappeared right after at.

Yarden released a literal moan that made her shiver, "…Oh this is even better than I imagined."

"How so?" Buffy forced herself to ask.

Yarden shook his head and grinned at her, "I've got the power of best girl." he replied simply, and held his hands up, and she blinked as what seemed like electricity sparked between his fingers.

"So you're a spark plug now?" she shrugged, "And what do you mean by best girl?"

…She felt a little insulted.

"I'm an electromaster now blondie," he laughed, and walked out of the crypt, "Well, I have electrokinesis now, but eh, potato, tomato and all that other nonsense."

Buffy pouted, following after him.

She felt really insulted now.