A Baguette Too Far
Chapter 4, By Cassandra Courtney
Intermission
Okay guys. This is nearly it - Part 4, oh yes, we're nearly done. The cat is in the bag and the bag is going in the internet. No, that can't be right.
Anyway, if like most people (including me), you've lost the plot, here's a quick summary"
ANGEL IS DEAD
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Yes, I know, he's been dead for centuries, but this is definitely it, the end. Thank Cod.
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BUFFY IS UNDEAD
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Let's face it, it was bound to happen eventually.
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XANDER IS UNDEAD
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But he's had lots of fun with Nigel.
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GILES IS, UM, GILES
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Big shock there then.
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WILLOW IS A WITCH
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Yeah, fully-fledged and complete with all the special effects.
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ROMANCE IS DEAD
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Especially after that sex scene.
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OZ IS IN PIECES
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Well, he was in part 2, but since then he's just sort of disappeared, and I think we'll assume he's playing his guitar.
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THE BAGUETTE IS IN
CHUCK
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Well, in this version of time, Willow never did discover the depraved being and he's probably at it right now.
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DOYLE IS CONFUSED
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But unlike most of the others, his sanity is very much intact.
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THE PEN OF MY AUNT
IS IN THE GARDEN
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And I hope it's very happy there.
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Well, I'm so glad we got that little lot sorted out. Now, are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin...
"Wait!" Giles called out, scrambling to his feet and pulling on his trousers. This time he did not bother to reclaim his vest - it had already wandered off in the search for something (or someone) to eat.
"Why? What did you have in mind?" Willow asked, finally locating her left shoe. "Round 2?"
"Uh, well... If, uh... If you're offering?" Giles managed.
"No." Willow walked to the door.
"Actually, I was thinking of finding a blueberry muffin and covering it in... No, that's not it... Ah! Let's go stake Buffy."
"No! Not that bad stake pun! While we're at it, no snake, lake, fake or cake puns! The joke was wearing thin, damn near anorexic in part 3! I'm not going down that road ever again." Willow seemed slightly vexed.
"Look, Willow." Giles emphasised by pointing his glasses at her (he actually took them off 2 parts ago, but what's a Buffy episode without a little continuity error? I really have to get out more often, don't I? Still, never mind, the canoeing season starts soon...). "We have to find the solution to this baguette problem. I mean, we have to reach the crazy, improbable, but strangely fitting solution to the whole thing, fix all the unresolved sexual tension and have the appropriate funny/sad ending. There isn't much time - this is part 4!"
Willow looked at him, realising this was the truth. "Okay, but you'd better put some clothes on. I'm not rescuing Sunnydale with you looking like that - your back hair isn't even combed."
"But I don't have any spares. My vests have all been freed by Greenpeace and released in the hills of Serra del Tumucumaque! Not to mention, these're my last pair of, um... Well, semi-clean trousers." Giles protested.
"Why? What hap- No, on second thoughts I don't want to know. Go into the RS room - there's always bits of clothing lying around there. Get into something suitable for the dramatic finish and I'll meet you outside the library in 5 minutes." She instructed, holding the door open.
Willow also left the lab, kicking a can down the corridor as she walked. Rounding a corner, Willow saw a man in a tuxedo lounging outside the library. The fact that he was in full evening dress, complete with bow tie, didn't bother her. What did was the fact he was smoking.
"Um, excuse me?" She asked pointing at the no smoking sign.
"Huh!" He humphed in a superior sort of way, and exhaled deeply.
"Huh?! Just who do think you are, huh-ing in that way?" Willow demanded. "Who do you think you are?"
"Bond. Jamessh Bond." He murmured sibilantly. "You are - ?"
"I'm the person who'll tan your arse if you don't clear that smoke between me and my library." Willow threatened.
"Your library?" Bond asked, suddenly interested. "Well, Missh, why don't we go insshide? I could pretend to be one of your bookssh, and you could check me out?" He leaned forward, smiling seductively.
Willow turned her back to him, hoping if she ignored him he might go away.
"Oh fine then." He grumbled. "There goessh my perfect record. I guesssh I'll jussht go diffusshe htat bomb."
"That what?!" Willow asked incredulously, but a hole had been lasered into the wall and Bond had disappeared.
"Is this too casual?" Asked a familiar English accent.
Willow turned and stared.
Giles stood in front of her. Gone was the 'tweedy librarian' look. Gone was the 'outside of work librarian' look. Gone was the 'recapturing my Sex Pistols lost youth' look. Even gone were the hideously stained trousers. Instead, he wore fish net stockings with tight black leather underwear. A diamond stud collar was round his neck and he had a ghastly piece of costume jewellery hanging from one ear.
"Wha-?! Huh?! But?! You?! Aaagh!!!" Willow finally exploded. "What are you doing, you raving nutcase?!"
Giles looked at her innocently. "You said to wear something worthy of the dramatic finish. Besides, look how well the lacework on the bodice matches my complexion."
"I don't give a rat's arse about your complexion! You need help!" Willow was furious.
"Je regret, J'ai eu une journee difficile au bureau." He apologised, switching into French for no apparent reason.
Willow looked at him curiously. "Do you have any baguettes on you?"
Giles produced a breadstick, and a grin that forced Willow to back away. "You haven't eaten any have you?" She asked, almost as afraid of him as she used to be of his vests.
"Hah!" He yelled suddenly, causing the witch to leap up into the air. "Got you!" He threw the breadstick on the floor and walked towards her. "I was thinking, maybe the reason I haven't yet given in to the power of the baguettes is because I'm English."
"Great," Willow mumbled. "You, Spike and Ethan are gonna end up the only ones not all, um, baguettish, in Sunnydale."
"Don't forget Wesley." Giles pointed out.
"But he isn't even in this parody!"
"Does that matter? Neither is Ethan, and Spike didn't really appear: This parody has such a low budget that they had to use Xander."
"That will teach them to blow the budget on Sean Connery. What about the Irish? Do they have a chance?"
"I reckon so." Doyle confirmed from the library door he was leaning on.
"What are you doing here? Willow asked, desperately trying to hold on to her sanity.
"Ah, well. Seein' as how Angel's gonna come over to LA, I thought I'd be safer if I moved here - Oh, by the way, thank yeh for getting rid of him." He sauntered into the library. The other two looked at the closing door, looked at each other, and followed him in.
Inside, Doyle walked up to Buffy, and lay two fingers on her neck. "She's undead, Jim." He remarked to the man in the dry suit and flippers who clumsily padded to the door.
"I prefer the term 'living impaired'." Buffy objected.
"Okay, this is decidedly odd." Giles complained. "More to the point, we're still no nearer to the fitting solution to the baguette problem."
The man in the dry suit stopped and turned to them. "I'm sshorry, I have failed to difusshe the bomb. You sshall have to evacuate the schchool." He apologised through his snorkel.
"What did he say?!" Giles asking, re-adjusting his stockings.
"We've got to leave! The school's gonna blow!" Willow yelled as she ran out of the library.
"Oh," Giles grunted, still fiddling with his suspenders.
"Jaysus! Of course!" Doyle was overjoyed. "Don't yez see?! The school blows, takin' Pilchard with it - Goodbye to all yer baguette problems! We use up what's left of the special effects budget, an' I can go back to regular appearances on Roseanne!" He ran out the room.
Giles, finally happy with his underwear, looked over to where Buffy and Xander had been lying. They were gone. On closer inspection, Giles saw the metal cube with the digital display.
"0:07" It read.
"Thank Cod." Giles muttered. "This is where Bond cuts the right wire, saving the world as we know it."
"0:06" It taunted.
"Mr Bond?" Giles pleaded. "Could you just, um, rescue me?"
"0:05"
"Buffy?!" He tried.
"0:04"
"Anyone?!" He was desperate.
"0:03"
"Pleeeaaaase!!!" Giles screamed at the top of his lungs - He didn't even have a vest to save him.
"0:02"
He sank to his knees, unable to stand the tension any more.
"0"01"
Giles looked up at the Digital Display of Doom.
"Oh fuck." He muttered as the final digit clicked to zero.
"This never happened to the other chap." The man in the kilt and frilly shirt remarked to Willow and Doyle as they watched the walls of the library bow in then explode. A giant breeze block hurtled through the air towards the bushes.
The block landed heavily, shattering on impact. Fortunately for us, it sent a large shard of concrete into the brain of Principal Snyder, killing him instantly. Unfortunately for us, Joyce Summers was protected by Snyder's body, and so she survived. Being a little dim, she didn't realise he was dead until she noticed how little effort he was putting into their 'forbidden-love-so-we-just-do-it-behind-the-bushes' sex.
Once, long ago, Joyce would have been horrified, disgusted beyond words. That was before she moved to Sunnydale. So now, she just carried on, not caring that the man inside her was actually dead as a, um, dead thing. Besides, his being dead didn't make any difference to their usually sleazy sex (you guys never heard of rigor mortis? I know it takes 4-6 hours to set in, but this parody doesn't have time for reality). In fact, it meant that it at least lasted longer than 84 seconds.
It was this rather odd sight of her mother having sex with Snyder's corpse that greeted Buffy's eyes as she fled from the school. Xander also looked slightly bemused, and to make life simpler, he ended it by just biting Joyce.
"Well," Buffy said thoughtfully. "That ties up another loose end. Is there anyone that's still alive?"
"Willow and Doyle. I think we killed pretty much everyone else." Xander answered.
"Shall we?" Buffy asked with a grin.
"We shall." Xander said, taking her arm and skipping merrily down the pavement. Buffy chased after him frantically, really pissed off that he had taken her limb.
"So, what're yeh gonna do?" Doyle asked as he, Willow, and a man in a white dinner suit strolled past the burned remains of the library.
"Oh, I think I'll go into B-Movies until I sink into obscurity. Also, my left eyebrow has signed a two year contract to appear as various forms of facial hair, with the occasional part in wildlife films - it specialises in hairy caterpillars." Bond explained, lighting a 2 foot cigar.
"Not you, yeh eejit!" Doyle despaired, den demanded defiantly (alliteration, eat yer heart out!). "How come yeh don't look a bloody thing like yer man in the first filums?"
"That's because I am Roger Moore - it's quite simple. Old Sean was as bald as a coot, and the producers reckoned that he was loosing his sex appeal, but sticking me in a safaru suit would have the female population falling over themselves to get to this Bond character."
The trio walked on in silence for a moment until Doyle spoke. "I'm goin' back to LA. What with yer man Angel bein' a big pile of dust an' all I reckon it's safe. Plus, I hear this is a great time of year fer a Carribean cruise! See yez!" Then he was gone into the darkness.
Left alone with Bond, Willow was scared. She wasn't worried because of his reputation as a drinker, womaniser and all round sadistic bastard. She was scared because Roger Moore had disappeared and been mysteriously replaced by a bloke with the world's worst Arab disguise, and a face like a constipated trout.
Bond too was nervous, but that was due to the fact that Giles' remaining vest (which had left the library during the sex scene) had returned following the explosion in the library. At this moment, the vest (known to it's friends as Yorrick), was scuttling about in the undergrowth, and was currently stalking one of Bond's shoes.
"Hey! Willow!" Xander called from behind her, having returned Buffy's missing limb.
"Hey, Xander." She replied, aiming a kick at Yorrick, who scuttled off into the undergrowth with one of Bond's shoes in his clutches. Bond didn't care; he had once again metamorphasised, was wearing black combat gear, and no longer looked like a constipated trout.
"What??!!" Xander was confused.
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Besides, take comfort in the fact we're now onto the last Bond - he can't do it again." Willow explained.
"I can always do it again." Bond objected with a strange smile.
"Please bite him?" Requested Willow.
"With pleasure." Buffy growled, joining Xander. However, she arrived in time to see Bond run into the road and bungy jump off the wall of the reservoir.
"Do you reckon he knows it's only nine feet high?" Buffy asked.
There was a loud crash.
"Shouldn't have thought so." Xander said happily, then bent to pick something up from the bushes. "Hey! At least a small part of Giles survived the blast!" He showed them the blood-stained diamond stud collar.
Buffy pulled it out of his hand and held it to the light. "About time, good riddance to that wanker." She laughed and tossed the only surviving part of the librarian aside.
From the bushes, suddenly there was a loud squeak. Yorrick shuffled from his hiding place. He looked forlornly at the necklace, then flung himself at Buffy, wrapping himself around her neck. As a vampire, he knew he couldn't kill her by strangling, so using every ounce of his strength, he constricted further. Buffy's artery severed. Several vertebrae could be heard crushing. With a final wrench, Yorrick detached her head, and within seconds, the ex-Slayer was a pile of dust being washed away by the run-off from the fire hoses trained on the school.
Yorrick, near exhaustion, lay slumped on the ground. Recovering slowly, he pulled himself upright and lurched over to the necklace. Quivering, he whimpered in grief, trying to desperately cuddle the jewellery.
Xander walked over to the traumatised Yorrick and gently stroked him. "Poor little fella." He picked up both Yorrick and the necklace with amazing tenderness. Willow looked up at Xander, gingerly touching his fangs, then kissed him softly on the lips. She put her arm through his, and with Yorrick, they walked wordlessly down the road, into the moon-set.
The End