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Teacher’s Pet

Prologue

Buffy battles with a vampire in the Bronze while people watch and scream. The vampire pins her down on a pool table, moves in for the kill.

“May I cut in?” Xander grabs the vampire from behind, pulls it off Buffy and punches it. He knocks the vampire out. “You alright?” he asks Buffy.

Buffy is very appreciative. “Thanks to you!” She gets off the pool table and notices his hand. “You hurt your hand! Will you still be able to—”

“Finish my solo and kiss you like you’ve never been kissed before?” Xander heads toward the stage while Buffy watches him adoringly. Behind her the vampire gets to its feet. Xander breaks the leg off an overturned chair, and throws it, staking the vampire through the heart. He picks up a guitar and gets back up on stage to finish his solo.

Buffy looks up at him from beside the stage and smiles. “You’re drooling.”

Xander wakes up in biology class, seated at a lab bench with Willow.

“Xander!” whispers Buffy, from the next bench over, “You’ve got a little…” She points to the side of her mouth.

Xander finishes waking up, and wipes the drool from his chin.

Dr. Gregory finishes his slide presentation on ants, and brings up the lights. He calls on Buffy to answer a few questions from the last day’s reading assignment, which of course Buffy hasn’t done. He asks her to tell the class the ways in which ants communicate.

Willow tries to pantomime the answers to Buffy from behind Dr. Gregory by touching and sniffing at Xander.

“Touch…and, um…B.O.?” asks Buffy. Several students in the class laugh.

“Thank God someone finally found the courage to mention that!” says Buffy’s bench partner, Blayne Mall.

“That would be touch and smell, Miss Summers,” says Dr. Gregory. He keeps looking at her. “Is there anything else Miss Rosenberg would like to tell you?”

Willow turns away and hunches her shoulders guiltily.

The bell rings, ending the class, and everyone starts to get up to go. Dr. Gregory asks Buffy to stay behind. “I gather you had a few problems at your last school?” he asks after everyone else has gone.

“Well, what teenager doesn’t?” asks Buffy.

“Cut school, get in fights, burn down the gymnasium? Principal Flutie showed me your permanent record. Can’t wait to see what you’re going to do here.”

“Destructo Girl,” says Buffy. “That’s me.”

“But I suspect it’s going to be great,” says Dr. Gregory.

Buffy is a little confused. “You mean ‘great’ in a bad way?”

Dr. Gregory doesn’t. He knows Buffy is smart, if she would just do the homework she could excel in his class, and that is what he expects her to do. “And please don’t listen to the Principal or anyone else’s negative opinion about you. Let’s make them eat that permanent record.”

Buffy leaves, promising to do the reading that night.

Dr. Gregory goes over to a light table and starts examining his slides. Something sneaks up behind him, grabs him around the neck, and drags him away.

Act I

That night in the Bronze Xander overhears Blayne and one of his friends discussing their conquests. Of course Blayne isn’t just interested in any girl. She has to have something to go out with him.

“Something like a lobotomy?” asks Xander.

Blayne is not amused. “Xander. How many times you score?”

Xander gets a little flustered. “Well, uh…”

“It’s just a question,” says Blayne.

Xander tries to recover some cool. “Are we talking today, or the whole week?” Blayne and his friend just laugh at him.

Xander spots Willow and Buffy coming in, and beats a hasty retreat toward them. He slides between the girls and puts an arm around each of their shoulders. He nods back to Blayne and his friend.

“What are you doing?” asks Buffy.

“Work with me here,” says Xander. “Blayne had the nerve to question my manliness. I’m just going to give him a visual.”

Willow is willing to cooperate. She hugs Xander tightly. “We’ll show him!”

Buffy isn’t quite with the program though. She spots someone across the floor, and breaks away from Xander to go talk with him.

Xander watches Buffy go. “Who’s that?” he asks Willow.

“That must be Angel,” she says. “I think.”

“That weird guy that warned her about all the vampires?” asks Xander.

“That’s him, I’ll bet you,” says Willow.

Xander is not pleased. Angel is much better looking than he had hoped.

Buffy isn’t pleased to see Angel either. “You’ll just give me a cryptic warning about some exciting new catastrophe, and then disappear into the night. Right?”

“You’re cold,” says Angel.

“You can take it,” says Buffy.

“No. You look cold.” Angel takes off his leather jacket and puts it around Buffy’s shoulders.

Xander is still watching them from across the dance floor. He is not pleased to see this. He thinks it’s much too warm a night for people to be exchanging clothing.

Buffy notices several deep parallel gashes in Angel’s arm. “What happened?”

“I didn’t pay attention,” says Angel.

“To someone with a big fork?” she asks.

“He’s coming,” says Angel.

“The Fork Guy?”

“Don’t let him corner you. Don’t give him a moment’s mercy. He’ll rip your throat out.”

“Okay, I’ll give you improved marks for that one,” says Buffy. “Ripping a throat out, it’s a strong visual, it’s not cryptic!”

“I have to go.” Angel turns and walks away.

“Sweet dreams to you too,” says Buffy to his departing back.

Buffy tells Giles about Angel’s warning as they walk up the front steps toward the school next morning. “That’s all he said: ‘Fork Guy?’” asks Giles.

“That’s all Cryptic Guy said: ‘Fork Guy.’”

“I think there are too many guys in your life,” says Giles.

They reach a bench where Willow is sitting waiting for them. Giles promises to look into it. He looks up at the sky. “God, every day here is the same.”

“Bright, sunny, beautiful, how ever can we escape this torment?” asks Buffy. She sits on the bench beside Willow.

Giles passes Xander as he leaves for the library. Xander has good news for the girls: Dr. Gregory is missing. “Ergo, those of us who blew off our science homework aren’t as dumb as we look.” He flips the science textbook open on Willow’s lap closed.

Buffy asks if Dr. Gregory is sick or something.

Xander doesn’t think so. He heard something about “missing” but he wasn’t really paying attention. The cheerleaders were modeling their new uniforms at the time. He sees the look Buffy and Willow exchange. “Which is bad?”

“If something’s wrong, yeah!” says Buffy.

“He’s one of the only teachers that doesn’t think Buffy’s a felon,” says Willow.

“I’m really sorry,” says Xander “I’m sure he’ll…” Xander suddenly loses the ability to string syllables together into words. He sees a stunningly attractive woman walking toward them.

She stops in front of Xander. “Could you help me?” she asks.

Xander has to work to come up with an answer. “Uh, yes!” he finally manages.

“I’m looking for Science, 109,” she says.

“Oh, its uh…” Xander looks around, trying to remember where the science classroom is. It has totally vanished from his mind.

Buffy and Willow watch and grin at his reaction. “Oh, God, where is it?” he asks them. They just shrug.

Blayne interrupts. He introduces himself to the woman, and offers to show her the way. “It’s not far from the varsity field where I took All-City last year.” They leave together.

Xander watches the woman walk away. He turns back to Buffy and Willow. “It’s funny how the earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it to.”

Buffy finds Dr. Gregory’s broken glasses on the floor of the biology classroom. She is puzzled that they were just left lying there. She picks them up and puts them on his desk. They have a substitute teacher. It’s the woman from that morning. Her name is Natalie French. Buffy asks her if she knows when Dr. Gregory will be back.

Miss French consults her seating plan to find Buffy’s name, and tells her she has no idea. She just goes where they send her.

Dr Gregory’s notes have told Miss French that they are studying insect life, so she kicks off into a lecture on what appears to be one of her favourite topics: preying mantises. She picks up a small clear plastic box containing a mantis as she walks around the class talking.

“The praying mantis is a fascinating creature. Forced to live alone. Who can tell me why?” She looks around the class, and chooses a victim. “Buffy?”

“Well, the words ‘bug-ugly’ kind of spring to mind.” Buffy gets a laugh from most of the class.

Miss French is not amused. “There is nothing ugly about these unique creatures. The reason they live alone is because they’re cannibals!”

“Eww!” says Buffy. Once again the class sides with her.

“Oh, well, it’s hardly their fault!” says Miss French. “It’s the way nature designed them: noble, solitary and prolific. Over 1800 species worldwide, and in nearly all of them the female is larger and more aggressive than the male.”

“Nothing wrong with an aggressive female.” Blayne tells Buffy quietly. She gives him a disgusted look.

Miss French is continuing with her lecture. “The California Mantis lays her eggs, and then finds a mate…” She pauses by Xander, and looks at him. “…to fertilize them. Once he’s played his part, she covers the eggs in a protective sack and attaches it to a leaf or twig out of danger. Now, if she’s done her job correctly, in a few months she’ll have several hundred offspring.”

Miss French returns to the head of the class. “You know, we should make some model egg sacks for the science fair. Who would like to help me do that after school?”

Every guy in the class puts up his hand.

Xander checks out his reflection in the side of one of the cafeteria napkin dispensers. “I wonder what she sees in me? It’s probably the quiet good looks coupled with a certain smokey magnetism.”

Willow just raises her eyebrows at him.

“Miss French,” says Xander. “You two’re probably a little young to understand what an older woman would see in a younger man.”

“Oh, I understand,” says Buffy. “The younger man is too dumb to wonder why an older woman can’t find someone her own age, and too desperate to care about the surgical improvements!”

“What surgical improvements?” asks Xander.

“Well, he is young,” says Willow.

“And so terribly innocent!” says Buffy.

Blayne cuts into line ahead of Xander. He has to carb up for his one-on-one with Miss French that afternoon. “When’s yours?” he asks Xander. “Oh, right, tomorrow. You came in second, I came in first. Guess that’s what they call natural selection.”

Blayne heads off while Xander searches for a comeback. “Guess it’s what they call a rehearsal!” he says about two seconds too late.

Cordelia appears to pick up her medically prescribed diet lunch out of the cafeteria fridge. She opens the refrigerator door and screams. “His head! His head! Oh-my-god! Where’s his head?”

Buffy, Willow, and Xander rush up to see what’s in the fridge. It’s Dr. Gregory’s headless body.

Buffy sits on the library steps with Willow. Giles pours a glass of water, and hands it to her.

Buffy takes the glass. “No thank you.” She takes a sip from it.

“I’ve never seen…I mean, I’ve never seen anything like… That was new,” says Xander.

“Who would want to hurt Dr. Gregory?” asks Willow.

“He didn’t have any enemies on the staff that I’m aware of,” says Giles. “He was a civilized man. I liked him.”

“So did I,” says Buffy.

“Well, we’re going to find out who did this,” says Willow. “We’ll find them and we’ll stop them.”

“Count on it,” says Buffy. They don’t really have anything to go on though. They know he was killed on campus, probably the same day Buffy last saw him. He was still wearing the same clothes he had on then.

“This is a question that no one particularly wants to hear,” says Xander, “but… Where did they put his head?”

“Good point,” says Willow. “I didn’t want to hear that.”

Buffy wonders if this could have any connection to the warning Angel gave her. So does Giles, but Angel’s warning was pretty vague. He has been doing some research on the Master, and learned of a vampire who displeased him, and cut of his hand in penance.

“And replaced it with a jumbo fork?” asks Buffy.

Giles doesn’t know what he replaced it with, and there is no indication that Dr. Gregory’s death was vampire related. His blood wasn’t drained. There was a recent incident in Weatherly Park in which a homeless man was shredded. It wasn’t anything like Dr. Gregory though. It looks like they may have two problems on their hands.

“Where was this guy killed? Weatherly Park?” asks Buffy.

“Buffy,” says Giles. “I know you’re upset, but this is no time to go hunting, not until we know more. Please, promise me you won’t do anything rash?”

“Cross my heart,” says Buffy.

Buffy climbs the fence into Weatherly Park that evening. She cautiously moves through the shadows. A wino sees her, and tells her that she shouldn’t be out here at night, it isn’t safe. He moves off. Buffy sees someone lying on the ground, and goes to check them out, but it’s just a sleeping bum. She keeps looking.

Buffy notices a pile of cut off branches on a hillside. She moves them aside, and discovers that they conceal the entrance to a large culvert. A vampire, whose hand has been replaced by large metal claws jumps out of the culvert at her.

Buffy attacks the vampire with a quick series of punches and kicks, while avoiding its slashes with its claw. She flips the vampire to the ground, and stabs at its heart with her stake. The vampire rolls out of the way in the nick of time.

They are interrupted by the arrival of the police—with flashlights and dogs—coming to investigate the noise. They are led by the wino that had earlier warned Buffy to get out of the park. He was really a cop. The vampire flees. Buffy chases after it.

The vampire runs up to the fence at the edge of the park. There’s a woman walking along the sidewalk on the other side of the fence carrying a couple of bags of groceries. The vampire follows behind her for a few yards, and then scales the fence, and drops down behind her.

Buffy arrives in time to see the woman turn around calmly and look at the vampire. It’s Natalie French. To Buffy’s amazement the vampire recoils away from Miss French in fear, and runs for the shelter of the nearest manhole. Miss French continues to walk home.

Act II

Buffy goes to see Giles in his office the next morning. He is a little upset that Buffy went hunting after promising that she wouldn’t.

“Yes. I lied. I’m a bad person. Let’s move on.” Buffy tells Giles about her encounter with Claw Guy. “And I saw something else. Something much more interesting than your average run-of-the-mill killer vampire. Do you know Miss French, the teacher that’s subbing for Dr. Gregory?”

“Yes. Yes, she’s lovely.” Giles smiles. He then remembers to show some decorum. “In a common, extremely well proportioned way.”

“Well, I’m chasing Claw Guy last night, and Miss Well Proportioned is heading home,” says Buffy. “Claw Guy takes one look at her and runs screaming for cover.”

“He what? Ran away?”

“He was petrified.”

“Of Miss French?”

“Uh, huh!” says Buffy. “So I’m an undead monster that can shave with my hand. How many things am I afraid of?”

“Not many, and not substitute teachers, as a rule.” Giles thinks that it would be a good idea for them to keep an eye on Miss French, which is Buffy’s cue to leave for class.

Buffy is intercepted by Principal Flutie on her way to biology class. “You saw Dr. Gregory didn’t you?”

“You mean yesterday, in the cafeteria when we found him—”

“Don’t say ‘dead!’” interrupts Flutie. “Or ‘decapitated,’ or ‘decomposing.’ I’d stay away from ‘D’-words altogether. But you witnessed the event, so this way, please.” He starts to lead Buffy down the hall.

Buffy tries to tell Principal Flutie that she’ll be late for biology class.

Flutie isn’t interested in that. Everyone who saw the body has to talk with a crisis councilor. “We all need help with our feelings. Otherwise we bottle them up, and before you know it, powerful laxatives are involved. I really believe if we all reach out to one another we can beat this thing. I’m always here if you need a hug—but not a real hug!” He pulls away from Buffy a bit. “Because there’s no touching in this school. We’re sensitive to wrong touching.”

Buffy doesn’t think she needs to see a councilor, but Flutie will hear none of it. “No, you have to talk to a counselor and start the healing. You have to heal.”

“But Mr. Flutie, I—”

“Heal!” Flutie points to a chair next to the councilor’s office.

Buffy sits in the chair to wait her turn. She can hear Cordelia inside telling the councilor about her experience. “I don’t know what to say, it was really— I mean, one minute you’re in your normal life, and then ‘Who’s in the fridge?’ It really gets to you, a thing like that. It was…let’s just say I haven’t been able to eat a thing since yesterday. I think I lost, like, seven and a half ounces? Way swifter than that so-called diet that quack put me on. Oh, I’m not saying that we should kill a teacher every day just so I can lose weight, I’m just saying when tragedy strikes, we have to look on the bright side. You know? Like, how even used Mercedes still have leather seats!”

Buffy rolls her eyes.

Buffy finally manages to escape from the councilor. She arrives very late for biology class and takes a peek through the window in the door to see what’s happening. What she sees is not good. “Oh great. Pop quiz.”

Miss French is walking up and down between the benches, keeping an eye on the student’s work. She pauses behind Xander and puts her hand on his shoulder. “I think you meant ‘pollination’ for number fourteen.” She squeezes Xander’s shoulder. “I’ll see you here after school?”

Miss French seems to sense that she’s being watched. She turns her head to look around. Her head keeps turning until she is looking straight back toward the door, as Buffy ducks back out of view.

“No, I’m not saying she craned her neck.” Buffy tells Willow as they enter the library. “We are talking full on Exorcist twist.”

“Ouch!” says Willow.

Buffy has also noticed that Blayne—who had a one-on-one session with Miss French yesterday—isn’t in school today. Willow heads for the computer to see if she can find anything about why he’s absent.

Buffy asks Giles if he has learned about anything which will strike terror into the heart of a vampire. She also has a bit of extra information for him: “Try looking under things that can turn their heads all the way around.”

“Nothing human can do that,” says Giles.

“No, nothing human,” says Buffy. “There are some insects that can. Whatever she is, I’m going to be ready for her.” Buffy heads off toward the library stacks.

“What are you going to do?” asks Giles.

“My homework.” Buffy disappears into the stacks. She comes back out a few seconds later. “Where are the books on bugs?”

Miss French is preparing a snack when Xander shows up for his egg sack session. “Oh, Xander! I’ve done something really stupid. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Oh, forgiveness is my middle name!” says Xander. “Well, actually it’s LaVelle, and I’d appreciate it if you guard that secret with your life.”

Miss French laughs at his joke. “I have a teacher’s conference in half an hour, and I left the paint and papier-maché at home. I don’t suppose you’d like to come to my place tonight to work on it there?”

“Come to, uh… your place?” Xander has a quick flashback to his guitar solo dream.

Miss French writes her address on a piece of paper for him, and tells him to come by at 7:30. Xander leaves, feeling very good about what he thinks might happen.

Miss French goes back to preparing her snack. She shakes several live crickets out of a plastic container onto a piece of bread. She folds the bread over, and starts to eat, enjoying the way the crickets crunch as she chews on them.

Buffy comes out of the stacks carrying a book. “Dig this!” she tells Giles and Willow. “‘The praying mantis can rotate its head 180 degrees while waiting for its next meal to walk by.’ Ha!” She slams the book shut. Giles and Willow don’t make any response. “Well, c’mon, guys. Ha!”

“Well, Miss French is sort of big. For a bug,” points out Willow.

“And she is, by and large, woman shaped,” says Giles.

Buffy comes down the stairs. “Okay. Factoid 1: only the praying mantis can rotate its head like that. Factoid 2: a pretty whacked-out vampire is scared to death of her. Factoid 3: her fashion sense screams predator.”

“It’s the shoulder pads,” says Willow.

“Exactly,” says Buffy.

Giles considers Buffy’s evidence. If she’s right Miss French must be some sort of shape shifter, or perception distorter. He remembers the work of a friend of his from Oxford, with advanced degrees in entomology and mythology.

“Entoma-who?” asks Buffy.

“Bugs and fairy tales,” says Giles. “If I recall correctly, poor old Carlyle—just before he went mad—claimed there was some beast—”

Giles is interrupted by a beeping from Willow’s computer. Blayne’s mother has called the school looking for him. He never came home last night. Willow also remembers that Xander is supposed to be with Miss French right now.

Buffy tells her that she will go find Xander and warn him. She wants Willow to hack into the coroner’s office to get Dr. Gregory’s autopsy results.

Giles starts to go into his office to make a transatlantic phone call to check with Carlyle, but he stops and turns around. “Um, this computer invasion that Willow’s performing on the coroner’s office, one assumes it is entirely legal?”

“Entirely!” “Of course!” say Willow and Buffy together.

“Right,” says Giles. “Wasn’t here. Didn’t see it. Couldn’t have stopped you.”

“Good idea,” says Buffy.

Giles disappears into his office.

Buffy catches up with Xander outside the school. She tries to tell him that Miss French isn’t human.

“I see,” says Xander. “So if she’s not human she’s…”

“Technically? A big bug,” says Buffy.

Xander doesn’t believe her. He thinks that Buffy is just jealous because he has met someone new. “There’s nothing I can do about it. There’s just this certain chemical thing between Miss French and me.”

“I know, I read all about it,” says Buffy. “It’s called a pheromone. It’s a chemical attractant that insects give off.”

“She’s not an insect! She’s a woman, okay? And hard as that may be for you to conceive, an actual woman finds me attractive. I realize it’s no mystery guy handing out leather jackets, and while we’re on the subject, what kind of a girlie name is ‘Angel’ anyway?”

“What does that have to do with—?”

“Nothing!” says Xander. “It just kinda bugs me.” He leaves.

Xander arrives at Miss French’s house. She greets him at the door wearing a very low cut dress. Xander’s attention is rivetted on her cleavage.

“Should I change?” she asks. “Is, is this too…”

“No, no,” says Xander quickly. “It’s, the most beautiful chest— dress I’ve ever seen.”

Miss French is amused and invites Xander into her living room. She hands him a martini. Xander is very flustered and just tosses back the drink, taking it all in one gulp.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” asks Miss French. “Have you ever been with a woman before?”

“You mean, like, in, uh, the same room?”

“You know what I mean.”

Xander is getting even more flustered. “Oh, that, uh… Well, let me think. Um, yeah, there was, uh… several!” Natalie starts to run her hand through his hair. “I mean, and, uh, quite a few times… and then there was, uh… oh, she was incredibly…” Xander gives up trying to pretend. “No. Uh-uh.”

This isn’t a disappointment to Natalie. “Oh, I like it. You might say I need it.”

Xander is starting to feel a little woozy. He also thinks that he hears some cries for help.

Natalie takes his hands in hers. “I don’t hear anything. Your hands are so hot!”

Xander gets a sudden flash of Buffy saying “Oh, you hurt your hand!” from his dream in biology class. He is also starting to feel very faint.

“Buffy,” says Xander. “I love Buffy. Wow! So that’s a martini, huh?”

“Mm-hm,” says Natalie.

Xander is having trouble staying awake. “Your hands are really…” He sees them transform. “Serrated! Oh, wow, that martini, I…I really think I have to…”

Xander passes out. The giant preying mantis who was Natalie French drags him away.

Act III

Xander wakes up in a cage in the basement. He dimly sees a six foot tall insect like creature moving in the shadows. “Miss…French?”

The insect turns to face him. “Please, call me Natalie.”

Giles is trying to get his friend Carlyle on the phone. “Frankly, madam, I haven’t the faintest idea what time it is, nor do I care. Now, unlock his cell, unstrap him, and bring him to the telephone immediately. This is a matter of life and death!”

Willow has gotten the coroner’s report, complete with colour pictures. Buffy matches the marks on Dr. Gregory’s neck to the picture she has of preying mantis mandibles. It’s a perfect match. “It’s the way they feed, head first,” she tells Willow. “It’s also the way they mate. The female bites off the male’s head while they’re…”

“No, no, no!” says Willow. “See? Xander’s— I like his head! It’s where you find his eyes, and his hair, and his adorable smile…”

“Hey, hey, take it easy, Willow,” says Buffy. “Xander is not in any immediate danger. I saw him leave school. He’s probably safe at home right now.”

Xander backs as far away from Miss French as the cage he’s in will let him. He is startled when someone touches him on the shoulder. It’s Blayne in the neighbouring cage.

Blayne is freaking. “Oh, God! You got to get me out of here! You got to! She, she, she gets you, and, uh…”

“What?” asks Xander, “What does she do?”

Blayne has gone incoherent. “Oh, god! Oh, oh, no!”

“Blayne! What does she do?”

“She, she, she, she takes you out of the cage, and she ties you up, and, and…she…she starts moving, and throbbing, and these eggs come shooting out of her! And then…”

“What?” asks Xander. “Then what?”

“She mates with you!”

“She…”

“That’s not the worst part!” says Blayne.

“That’s not?” asks Xander. He is having trouble believing that.

“You seen her teeth?” asks Blayne. “Right while she’s, you know, right in the middle of…I saw her do it! I don’t want to die like that!”

“Blayne! Blayne! Chill! It’s okay,” says Xander. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get out of this.”

“You got a plan?” asks Blayne. “What is it?”

“Just, uh, let me perfect it!” says Xander.

“Oh, god…oh god…oh god…” says Blayne.

“It sounds exactly like the creature you described.” Giles tells Carlyle on the phone. “You were right all along about everything. … Well, no, you weren’t right about your mother coming back as a pekinese, but…”

Giles finishes up on the phone and goes to tell Buffy and Willow what he has learned. Carlyle calls it a She Mantis. This creature assumes the form of beautiful woman lures innocent virgins back to her nest.

“Virgins?” asks Buffy, “Well, Xander’s not a, uh…I mean, he’s probably…”

“Going to die!” Willow heads for the phone.

Buffy wants to know if Carlyle had any advice on how to kill this thing. Giles tells her that he recommended cleaving all its body parts with a sharp blade.

“Slice and dice,” says Buffy.

“Well, whatever you do,” says Giles, “it had better be certain and swift. This beast is extremely dangerous.”

“Well, your buddy Carlyle faced it, and he’s still around.”

“Yes, in a straitjacket, howling his innards out day and night,” says Giles.

“Okay, Admiral, way to inspire the troops!” says Buffy.

Willow returns from phoning Xander’s home. He wasn’t in. His mother told her that he said he was going to a teacher’s house. She didn’t have the address.

Buffy tells Willow to get Miss French’s address from the school records, and she tells Giles to get a recording of bat sonar.

“Bat sonar, right,” says Giles. “What?”

“Bats eat them.” Buffy tells him. “The mantis hears sonar, its entire nervous system goes kaflooey.”

“Where am I going to find—”

“In the vid library,” says Buffy. “There’re no books, but it’s dark and musty, you’ll feel right at home. Go!” She starts to assemble the rest of her arsenal.

Xander breaks loose one of the bars between his cage and Blayne’s. Blayne thinks that’s great, until he notices that it just means that he can get out of his cage, and into Xander’s. He asks Xander why he did it.

Xander raises the bar. “A weapon!”

Blayne sees Miss French coming toward them. “I think you’re going to need it.”

Willow prints out Miss French’s personnel file, as Giles returns with the recording of bat sonar. Buffy has collected the rest of her weapons.

Willow glances over Miss French’s file. According to it, she’s 90 years old.

“And extremely well preserved,” says Giles.

Blayne slides through the hole Xander has made into Xander’s side of the cage. “He did that! Not me!” he tells the mantis. “Take him! Not me! Take him.”

Giles’ Citroen pulls into the driveway of Miss French’s house. He, Buffy and Willow jump out and rush up to the front door. Buffy is about to kick the door open when a little old lady opens it. She asks them if they are there selling something.

“I’m looking for Miss French,” says Buffy.

“I’m Miss French,” says the little old lady.

“Natalie French,” says Buffy. “The substitute biology teacher?”

“Goodness, that’s me! I taught for over thirty years. I retired in 1972.”

Buffy turns back to Willow and Giles. “I can’t believe this! She used Miss French’s records to get into the school. She could be anywhere!”

“No, dear!” says Miss French. “I’m right here!”

The mantis selects her next mate. “Eenie, menie, minie…”

Xander is moe.

Act IV

Xander slowly comes out of the cage. He strikes the mantis with his bar, and makes a break for it. She catches him as he is running up the stairs.

Willow is desperate. Xander could be anywhere, but Buffy knows that they’re in the right neighbourhood. This is the street where she saw Miss French before. Willow plans to start banging on doors to try to find her but Buffy doesn’t think they have time for that. She has an idea for how to find her. She lifts the cover off a nearby manhole, and pulls some rope out of her weapons bag. She tells Willow and Giles she won’t be long, and drops out of sight into the sewers.

The mantis ties Xander up spread-eagled with leather straps around his wrists.

“Oh, yeah, here it comes!” says Blayne.

“What?” asks Xander. “What’s happening?!

“How do you like your eggs, bro?” asks Blayne. “Over easy or sunny side up?”

“Eggs? She’s going to lay some…” Xander remembers Miss French’s lecture on mantis mating habits.

Buffy pushes Claw Guy out of the culvert in the park. She has its hands tied behind its back. She pushes it toward the street where Giles and Willow are waiting. She knows that it can lead her to Miss French.

Buffy forces the vampire down the street ahead of her until they come to a house that it’s more afraid of than it is of her.

“This is it!” says Buffy. “Better than radar!”

Claw Guy has been working at the ropes tying its hands behind its back with its claw. It finally slices through them, and attacks Buffy. It knocks her to the ground.

Buffy crawls backward away from the vampire as it moves toward her. She’s stopped by a low picket fence. Claw Guy lunges at her, and Buffy breaks off one of the pickets. She uses it to stake the vamp.

“Kiss me!” says the mantis as she moves in on Xander. “Kiss me!”

“Can I just say one thing?” asks Xander. “Help! Help!”

Buffy breaks through the window into the basement. “Let him go!” She’s followed by Willow and Giles.

Buffy attacks mantis with two jumbo cans of bug spray, while Giles and Willow free Xander and Blayne. She pulls out a machete, and a pocket tape machine.

Buffy advances toward the mantis. “Remember Dr. Gregory? You scarfed his head? Yeah, well, he taught me, you do your homework, you learn stuff. Like what happens to your nervous system when you hear this!”

Buffy turns on the player. Giles’ voice comes out of it. “…extremely important to file not simply alphabetically…”

“Giles!” calls Buffy.

“It’s the wrong side!” says Giles.

The mantis knocks the tape player from Buffy’s hand. It slides under the water heater. Giles goes after it. Buffy fights with the mantis. Xander picks up one the cans of bug spray which Buffy had dropped and tries to help, but Buffy pushes him out of the way.

The distraction gives the mantis a chance to land a blow on Buffy, knocking her to the floor. Buffy kicks out from her position on the floor, landing a couple of good blows herself.

Giles fishes the player out from under the water heater, and flips the tape. He turns it on, full volume and the basement is filled with squealing.

Buffy recovers her machete, and gets back to her feet, while the mantis goes into convulsions.

“Bat sonar!” says Buffy. “Makes your whole nervous system go to hell. You can go there with it!” She wades in with the machete, and starts chopping the mantis into pieces.

Buffy wipes the blade of the machete off on her pant leg when she’s finished.

Giles turns off the tape. “I’d say it’s deceased.”

“And dissected,” adds Willow.

Xander and Blayne are very thankful for the rescue, and Xander apologises to Buffy for ignoring her earlier warnings.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” says Willow. “It’s so unfair how she only went after virgins.”

“What?” asks Xander.

“I mean, here you guys are, doing the right thing,” says Willow, “the smart thing, when a lot of other boys your age—”

“Flag down on that play,” says Blayne. “I am not—”

“Well, you see, that’s the She-Mantis’ modus operandi,” says Giles. “She only preys on the pure.”

“My dad’s a lawyer,” says Blayne. “Anyone repeats this to anybody, they’re going to find themselves facing a lawsuit.”

“Blayne! Shut up!” says Xander.

“I don’t think it’s bad. “I think it’s really…” Willow sees Xander picking up the machete. “…sweet! It’s certainly nothing I’ll ever bring up again.”

Xander isn’t thinking of Willow though. He takes the machete and starts hacking at the mantis’ nest, slashing all the eggs that have already been layed there.

Epilogue

Angel shows up at the Bronze to congratulate Buffy on the recent reduction in the vampire population. She offers to give him back his jacket, but he tells her to keep it. It looks better on her.

Angel walks away into the crowd. Buffy watches him go. “Oh boy!”

They have another new biology teacher. There is nothing the least bit interesting about him, in either appearance or the way he teaches. He is a complete bore. Half the class struggles to stay awake as he drones on.

On the way out of class Buffy picks up Dr. Gregory’s broken glasses which are still sitting where she left them on his desk. She puts them in the pocket of his jacket which is still hanging in the closet. She doesn’t notice the cluster of eggs under the closet shelf. They are starting to hatch.

Death Toll