you're in the jungle, baby / you gonna die

[lucetimods]

Who: All draftees
What: Fighting the Third Party... and perhaps the wildlife.
When: June 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. (Characters will be pulled out at 11:59 of the 6th.)
Where: An as-yet unmapped by the Malnosso tropical rainforest.
Summary: Here are your details. Try to stay alive, won't you?
Rating: Anywhere from PG to R.

No cut for you. Most of you will know how this works by now; if you don't, follow the lead of the others, or perhaps look to the last draft's fighting post for ideas. Don't forget to use your handy dandy character tags. Go forth and conquer thine enemies!

Comments

[consultmybooks]

It's true that most newborn vampires will feed first on the people they knew as humans.

...but Jack was the first one it wanted. Not Buffy, or Andrew, or Xander. Jack.

[simplestgift]

Because he stole your pocket watch.

[consultmybooks]

I'd already gotten my revenge for the pocket watch, actually - I hexed him, and from what I hear it was terribly effective.

No, this was entirely thanks to Buffy's concerns over the last couple of months.

[simplestgift]

Why? It isn't as if he would hurt her.

[consultmybooks]

He had hurt McCoy at some point in the recent past, or so she told me.

And it believed he would hurt her.

[simplestgift]

That was very thoughtful of it.

[consultmybooks]

Yes, wasn't it just?

...I remember what it felt like, that night. Hating him badly enough to want to kill him myself, believing that he didn't matter enough that Buffy would be happy he'd died.

It's not a memory I like having.

[simplestgift]

[Kennedy's lips part, but it takes some time before he says anything.]

Do you think...you could have been angry with someone else?

[consultmybooks]

[Giles considers this carefully before replying.]

It's possible.

[simplestgift]

And you...you felt this when you weren't yourself. It was something else, and you only remember it.

[It was a demon craving murder, not Giles himself.]

[consultmybooks]

It was still my mind, even if it wasn't my soul guiding it.

Memories processed just the same, in the end. Memories of what it did, and thought, and felt. Those were what I was left with, at the end.

[simplestgift]

[Kennedy goes very, very quiet. The same anger he remembers, still bottled up somewhere, dangerous and violent as something that came out of a demon. As if he needed more reason to doubt that he's a good man.]

[consultmybooks]

I was only out for a night.

Then Buffy managed to lock me up for the rest of the week.

[simplestgift]

[Some rapid blinking.] That's good.

[consultmybooks]

Very good. [Still with him, Kennedy?] That, coupled with the hex, means that under most circumstances Jack is as eager to avoid my company as I am his.

Recently, probably for Buffy's sake, he's been playing nice.

[simplestgift]

[Because this could get less comfortable.] You put a hex on him. You and...and Willow, you do these things?

[consultmybooks]

Not normally. For one thing, I'm not anywhere near as powerful as Willow is - I don't have a natural talent for magic.

For another, hexing someone is very bad magic that never ends well and by my time, Willow is supposed to know better.

[simplestgift]

Supposed to? And what about you?

[consultmybooks]

It was a serious lapse in judgment, common sense, and basic decency on my part, yes.

[simplestgift]

[He still looks uneasy, but there's nothing to be done by berating someone who is already penitent.]

It isn't any wonder, then.

[consultmybooks]

No, it isn't.

...if anything, I owe him.

[simplestgift]

But...the worst of it, you weren't even responsible for. [He gets that much. He doesn't blame Derek for the broken wrist, anyway.]

[consultmybooks]

[It took a while - it took people in the same state as he'd been that he could reassure in such a way - but Giles gets that, too. He doesn't blame Derek for the bite scars on his throat.]

No, I wasn't. The demon had the reigns.

It's not a distinction I'd ever had to manage before then.

[simplestgift]

It's one thing to be told it wasn't your responsibility. It's another to believe it.

[Although "believe" isn't necessarily the right word.]

[consultmybooks]

I wasn't the only one to wind up a vampire that week.

So did Willow, and Andrew.

I couldn't very well tell them that it wasn't their fault if I didn't believe it wasn't mind.