Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Trinity

Chapter Three: The Witch

In the school library, Giles is upset. "This is madness! What can you have been thinking? You are the Slayer! Lives depend upon you!" He begins pacing. "I make allowances for your youth, but I expect a certain amount of responsibility, and instead of which you enslave yourself to this, this..." He stops pacing. "Cult?"

Buffy stands in her cheerleading uniform. "You don't like the color?"

"I'd..." He sighs in exasperation. "Do you, um..." He sets a pile of books onto a cart. "Do you ignore everything I say as a, as a rule?"

"No, I believe that's your trick." Buffy says. Giles pushes the cart to the counter when she skips in front of him and poses. "I told you, I'm trying out for the cheerleading squad!"

"You have a sacred birthright, Buffy. You were chosen to destroy vampires, not to...wave pompoms at people. And as the Watcher I forbid it." He walks back to the table.

"And you'll be stopping me how?"

"Well, I..." He sits on the edge of the table and crosses his arms. "By appealing to your common sense, if such a creature exists."

"I will still have time to fight the forces of evil, okay? I just wanna have a life, I wanna do something normal. Something safe."

Flowers and herbs hang up side down from the rafters to dry and personal items with identification tags. The witch moves around in the darkness. She waves a pendant on a chain over the brew, and then pulls it back. She goes over to a rack and yanks off a doll hanging there by its neck on a wire.

In the gym, cheerleader tryouts are about to start. Girls are stretching and practicing, doing back handsprings, cartwheels and walking handstands. One girl does a round off followed by a back handspring.

Buffy, Willow, Trinity, and Xander come through the door.

"Giles didn't approve, huh?" Trinity says.

Buffy shakes her head. "He totally lost his water. We haven't seen a vampire in over a week. I'd say he should get a girlfriend if he wasn't so old."

"Well, we're behind you." Willow tells her.

"People scoff at things like school spirit, but look at these girls giving their all like this!" Xander says. He notices a girl doing the splits between two chairs. "Ooh, stretchy! Where was I?"

"You were pretending that seeing scantily clad girls in revealing postures was a spiritual experience." Willow teases.

"Who said I was pretending?" He turns to Buffy. "Oh, hey! Here's a good luck thing for tryouts." He pulls a bracelet from his pocket and hands it to her.

"What's this?" She asks.

"What's that?" Willow asks, a hint of worry in her voice.

Buffy looks at the bracelet. "Oh, how sweet!" She reads the inscription. "Your's Always."

"I-i-it came that way, really, they all said that!" He tells her, not noticing Willow breathe a sigh of relief.

Cordelia walks up to them and looks at the girl stretching. "Just look at that Amber. Who does she think she is, a Laker Girl?"

"I heard she turned them down." Trinity says.

Joy, the cheerleading squad leader, steps up with her clipboard and calls for everyone's attention. "Okay, listen up! Let's begin with..." She checks her clipboard. "Amber Grove. If you're not auditioning, move off the floor."

Willow looks around the room and her eyes light up. "Amy! Hi!"

The girl walks over. "Hi."

"I didn't know you wanted to be a cheerleader! You lost a lot of weight."