Welcome to Buffyness and Nightlurkers Presents: Fray, Issue #6 – “Chapter Six: Alarums”! Loo is dead and I’m sad. In the previous installment, Melaka gets a hard, HARD dose of reality when she learns that not only is her brother a vampire, but that it comes with amoral meanness and evilness. He may look like Hatch, talk like Hatch, and even have Hatch’s memories, but it ain’t Hatch no more. He hella socks her in the stomach as hard as he can while she’s crying! What a dick!

Melaka tries to explain her situation to her sister Erin, who doesn’t believe her. Not about Hatch, not about being the Slayer, not about all the leprechauns and gremlins she’s being seeing stealing her vegetables out of the fridge. So Melaka gives up on her and returns to her apartment, where she finds Loo dead on the floor.

This is going to be the kick in the pants that Melaka really needs to take this Slayer shit seriously! Avenge Loo’s death! And Hatch’s too, I guess. Maybe. Fuck that guy, though.

Fray, Issue #6 [March, 2002]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Chapter Six: Alarums”

“You do not want a war. You have known violence. You have suffered loss. But you have seen nothing of war.”

Fray carries Loo’s body down the street, numb. “War is not just the business of death. It is the antithesis of life. Hope, tortured and flayed. Reason, dismembered, grinning at its limbs in its lap. Decency raped to death.”

Fray enters the tavern, owned by Loo’s parents. Daddy Loo cries over her body.

Time to Slay it up! Time to lead, which will be the hardest thing Melaka Fray has ever done, since she hasn’t made very many friends along the way who will rally her on. “People will not listen, but you have to make yourself heard.”

Urkonn has a gift for her: a kickass ax-type weapon with pointy, wooden stick on its other end. “It is a weapon forged eons ago, for the Slayer alone. Lost for centuries.” Well, if it was lost, how was it suddenly found?? Plot hole!

She stands in front of her people, and she says some very important words…

“Survivor is on in fifteen minutes.”

AND ALSO…

“There’s been a murder. There’s been a murder and there’s gonna be more. Every one of you is in danger.”

This is really rallying them up! Great leadership. Warmth.

When Fray mentions that the Lurks need to be stopped, the townsfolk go PSHAW and PFFFT and HURP. Lurks ain’t nothing! These people can kill a whole mess of Lurks with a kitchen fork! Stab stab! Get out of here with your Lurks!

No. Pay attention. Lurks are bad, m’kay? They’re coming and they’re going to eat your necks with A-1 steak sauce. The murmurs of the people are scattered, skeptical, and hesitant.

Why does she know about this? What about the police? When are they coming, exactly? Where are my danged pants? Who pooped the bed? And so on.

One guy gets right up in Melaka’s face. “Why the hell should we listen to you, anyway? You’re a thief!” Good point. She steals things for a living, that’s true. She gives them to some fish guy, that’s also true. Where was I going with this?

“You got some turf war with the Lurks brewing, don’t think you can spin folk into the middle of it ‘cause they’re broke up over a little dead cripple!”

The guy regrets saying this immediately. The awkward silence is broken by an older man wearing an Elder robe. Posturing, no doubt. “What do you want from us, Melaka?”

She wants vengeance! Justice! Maybe a couple of plants for the apartment! Need a little fresh oxygen! Maybe a couple of dogs! Companionship! Maybe some nail clippers! Grooming is important! “I don’t know yet,” she sighs. She just wants them to be prepared for the worst, is all.

More rumbles from the crowd. Sounds like a bunch of fear-mongering! Go monger that fear somewhere else, lady. “So who is this guy?” asks Mr. Little Dead Cripple. “Who’s planning this big-ass massacre?”

Heh heh. Uh.

Hatch stands at a podium, addressing his own people. He is the One Who Will Lead! We know that already. But the question, the real question here, is if these Lurky Lurks even know where they’re being led? “I’m leading you to glory. I’m taking you straight to Hell.” Yeesh, well I didn’t sign up for that, sir. Hell has imps with pitchforks and those things hurt.

Vrill and Boluz (Urkonn’s bosses) chat about whether or not Hatch can actually awaken the Beast and open the gateway. There’s always a beast and a gateway involved with this sort of thing. “He has all he needs: the talismans, the incantations – and the will.”

We got literally no one else to count on! We hired her for this purpose. You try to fire her! You be the asshole!

Boluz is the fat one. Vampires are barely a threat, he says! Weaklings. The weakest form of half-breeds, in fact! Can barely tie their shoes without huffing and puffing and needing a nap. Vrill is the skinny, weaselly one. He says YES, ABSOLUTELY, THIS FOUR-EYES MOTHERFUCKER CAN AWAKEN THE BEAST AND OPEN THE GATEWAY! Take this seriously!

Can the girl do what it takes? Hopefully! Because everyone’s screwed if she can’t!

Speak of the devil, Melaka walks off with Urkonn. Things could have gone way better. “They wouldn’t even listen! I probably shouldn’t have started hitting people.”

Ha! Well, when has it not worked in the past! Old habits are hard to break.

They head back to the sewer pipe from which she emerged after Harth threw her around for a bit. Perhaps they could go through the pipe system and find him again? Find him before he attacks more people in the Lowers? That would be fantastic. Let’s try it.

Urkonn doesn’t wanna. A dark place is exactly where Harth would want them to be. “We can search above ground,” he suggests. Good enough. Fray asks him if he thinks Harth got some of that Slayer gene, and Urkonn admits that he can’t be sure either way. BUT, Fray obviously is the one with the strength. This has gotten brought up before, so I’m sure it’ll play an important part in the arm wrestling competition they’ll have to have in the final installment.

Fray decides to climb up a large, abandoned building. Through the wall, she can hear a woman crying in distress. Fray blasts through and discovers two Lurks cornering the woman in an empty room. Slaying time!

BOOM POW WAP SMACK CHUGGA CHUGGA

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! Eat it, shitheads!

She channels all her rage and fury into the fight, and soon it becomes natural. Like her weapon is an extension of her arm! Like her arm is an extension of her body! Like her body is there, man! “…as it flows… everything into place, perfect, and I finally do what I was born to do.”

“I Slay.”

Hooray! Character development! This is the stuff, man. This is the business.

The two Lurky Vampires, she finally stabs both of them with the pointy wooden end of her weapon. In one shot. And, as we all know from watching Buffy, the two of them crumble into brown dust. Fray doesn’t know that though, she’s very surprised. Don’t they have Buffy in the year 2700? They’re missing out.

“Whoa-ho! Did you see that? They, that was – the thing is just them going poof!” Fray says eloquently while the damsel and distress tries to get her attention. There are way more where that came from, unfortunately. “Lurks travel in packs,” she thinks. “Urkonn may have mentioned that.”

Urkonn joins the fight. Fray lops off heads while Urkonn bites arms. A match made in Heaven. Or Hellmouth. Eventually, Fray gets pushed into the water and held down against a rock near the bottom. For a split second she worries, but then she’s all “I got this” and then gets it. If you know what I mean. Maybe.

Soon enough, the threat has been eliminated. “How do you feel?” Urkonn asks. “Besides wet?” Fray responds. “I feel good.”

Word gets back to Harth about all the Slaying, and he’s less than happy. I can tell because he hides his face in the shadows, the universal sign of unhappiness. “She did what?” is all he says. Not at all the slam!

Elsewhere, Erin had actually taken her conversation with Melaka to heart and looks into this Icarus fellow. He’s got a file, no record. It is already known that Melaka killed a gaggle of Lurks, but there are no bodies. THINGS ARE CURIOUS. Maybe Gunther set them up? No. Melaka must be telling the truth! Arrrghhh, this is so complicated!

Erin’s partner and ACAB-in-crime, Broder, thinks Erin’s in the loony bin if she’s going to start listening to her degenerate sister about anything. Think about it! A Lurk Revolution?? Largely nonsense! Glad we agree.

Gee, maybe if we didn’t start trying to kick her ass, she wouldn’t be out there kicking our asses.

Harth is a little bit down the dumps, insofar as a vampire can be down in the dumps. He’s more surprised than anything, that his sister has all the strength that she has. Some real Slayer stuff, as it were. And it’s all Icarus’ fault! Harth glares at him. Icarus apologizes with a bow of fealty and promises Harth that she’ll be dealt with handily.

“Icarus.” Harth stops him as he’s about to leave the room. “I’ll want the body.”

Why? So he can fuck it? That’s about 100 kinds of gross. Goddamned vampires and their depravity.

A few of residents of the Lowers witness Fray stabbing a Lurk, turning it into a pile of dust. “Do you get it now? Do you see? They’re not human.” Fray urges them to go tell their family and friends and co-workers and random passers-by that these Lurk Jerks will murder them all the first chance they get! Get serious, people. “Tell them. Tell them what’s coming.”

“Why don’t we just show them?” Icarus is shirtless, ripped like the dickens, full of tribal tattoos like a douchebag.

Fray narrows her eyes and grips her weapon. “My hand. It doesn’t shake at all.”

Final Thoughts

IT IS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG, GUY. A phrase I hate, but I felt it was the only way to convey my feelings about the situation. Melaka Fray is gonna tear a bitch up! Grab the popcorn.