Welcome to Buffyness and Nightlurkers Presents: Fray, Issue #7 – “Chapter Seven: The Gateway”! In the previous installment, Melaka Fray avenges Loo’s death (slightly) by kicking a bunch of Lurks’ asses! News of the complete and utter decimation of this swarm of Lurks gets back to Harth, who is finally genuinely surprised at how strong his sister is. No matter, Icarus will personally make short work of her!

And he arrives shirtless to the warren. Fray ain’t even scared.

What’s going to happen is that they’re going to talk for a bit, fight for a bit, and he’ll retreat to let his master know that he really sucks and is useless to the cause! Icarus never stood a chance.

Fray, Issue #7 [April, 2002]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Chapter Seven: The Gateway”

Harth takes a sip of blood out of his ornate chalice. “A time of joy is upon us,” he says, addressing his personal pile of dead people. “A time of rebirth… and terrible endings. Awaken.”

Eep, that sounds like it’s going to royally suck for anyone who hates getting attacked by vampires! Speaking of which, Fray and Icarus have a standoff. “So,” he says. “You ready to do this right?”

THEN THEY BUST OUT THE CHESSBOARD. KING’S GAMBIT, FOLLOWED BY THE CUNNINGHAM DEFENSE. THIS ONE’S FOR ALL THE MARBLES.

Smack talking occurs without any movement. Icarus goads her while Fray instructs Urkonn to stand down. “This is my kill,” she says, readying her axe with the pointy stick.

“You really think you can put me down, girl?” Icarus sneers. “What have you got besides a shiny new axe?”

Fray slowly brings the axe down to her side.

“Faith.”

And then a whole mess of faith lands right on top of the Big Bad Vampire.

Ma’am? This is not a parking spot… ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am?

Erin emerges from the sunroof. “That’s for my brother, dickhead!”

Melaka helps her sister out of the totaled car. “Hope I didn’t spoil your big moment,” Erin says, sizing up her ruined vehicle. “Nah,” Melaka responds, “I’m pretty sure I was about to get my ass killed.”

Now that THAT anticlimactic piece of business is over, Urkonn hands Melaka her axe back with his trademark rictus grin. Erin is like “BAH!”, but Melaka assures her that this particular demon is on their side! “Don’t ask me why,” she adds. No time to continue this little family reunion with Third Wheel Urkonn, there is much to do to prepare for the inevitable attack on the warren. “Icarus coming after me means things are going down probably soon. Tonight.”

Buzzkill Urkonn says that’s not all of it. The Gateway is going to be opened by Dickhead Prime. The Gateway that will allow the demons to return to Earth where they’ll kill your plants and eat all your potato chips. “It will be the destruction of everything,” Urkonn says ominously. They’re going track mud through the house.

This Gateway thing, it’s impossible to know how it’s actually going to open and what Hatch is going to do to get it to open. If it’s one of those combination locks, then it’s going to be really hard to open. That’s a lot of combinations! He’ll be there a while!

Melaka turns to Erin and asks how many people she can recruit to help fight the good fight. The answer is a fat zero, sister. Erin’s cop buddies aren’t talking to her much since she refused to turn in her own sister… but… ugh… fine… she’ll try to convince them… I guess…

GREAT! Sounds good. I hope you have a million friends, Erin, because Harth totally raised a whole army from the dead. Using hella language like “acyalai, tai-ei athrumm moneyti”, some real black magic shenanigans.

We’re here for the buffet!!

Meanwhile, a small crowd has gathered help in the war against the vampires. There’s Cathy and Gimpy Joe and Jim-Bob with a crowbar. Loo’s parents showed up to avenge their one-armed daughter’s sad death. Mom apologizes to Melaka for tossing her out of the bar that one time. “I know you always looked after Loo,” she tells her. Melaka looks away guiltily.

Even Kettie Rawls showed up and that guy is a penis face! Melaka smiles all the same. “Glad to have you, you fat slug.”

Urkonn is less than optimistic, but Melaka does a whole speech about how their little warren has a lot of heart. Good thing Erin shows up with a whole cavalry, because a lot of heart ain’t enough. You’ll get fucking massacred with heart alone. Remember that kid with the Heart ring from Captain Planet? Useless.

Melaka boggles. Erin pulled through! Good for her! She owed her, god fucking damnit! Good work! “Turns out, there’s more than a few of us have seen enough of the Lurks. And don’t give a rut what the brass says.” Well, the sentiment is nice even if that didn’t make a lick of sense! Melaka has never been so happy to see the police in her life. Usually they’re crushing her neck beneath their knees.

“The ones that will not fight should stay in their homes. Lurks cannot enter a home uninvited.” Looks like Urkonn has watched his share of Buffy! Say what you will about vampires, but at least they aren’t rude!

So remember: stake through the hard, decapitation, sunlight, fire, and Frasier reruns. Anything else will just piss them off. Oh look, there they are now!

*gaggle of drooling vampires saunters up the road*

“They come. Sooner than I’d thought. More than I’d even begun to fear. They come looking for death. And death is psyched to see them.”

We’re here for the buffet!!

The battle is underway. A big mess of swords and guns and plumes of dust. Screaming burly men and snarling purple demons. Neck stumps. Sweaty palms.

The sheer number of vampires is staggering. The humans don’t have enough manpower. “We’re losing,” Fray thinks as they just keep coming and coming, converging upon the lowly Lowers residents. “The only way of stopping them… is to burn ourselves down. And here’s the real teat-wringer: Just when I start to think the war might be lost… I find out it hasn’t begun.”

Out of nowhere there’s a fucking dinosaur terrorizing the city. I shit you not. wtf.

Should’ve expected it, though. It’s right there on the Issue #7 cover.

“RRAAHRR!” and whatnot.

On its back is the tiny, tiny Harth. He smiles smugly, like he’s riding a demon dinosaur or something equally as ridiculous.

“The Gateway…” Urkonn breathes as he stares up at the massive reptile. “Melaka! Its womb is the Gateway! It will birth legions of demons! It is the portal into our world!” OK, Mr. Big Shot Know-It-All. The womb is the Gateway, huh? How do you know this? Did you skip ahead in the book?

Erin zips by on her flying motorcycle and Melaka grabs onto to the bottom. “Take us up,” she says calmly. “We gotta bring that thing down. Any of your squaddies carrying pulse bombs?”

Hell no, poopypants. They’re on their own. ALSO, it’s fucking Harth up there! Did you see him! He’s wearing his Harry Potter glasses and everything! He’s riding a dinosaur, Mel! That was always something he dreamed about!

The dinosaur swipes at the motorcycle and Erin loses control. Melaka gets shaken and loses her grip.

This comic book about vampires is starting to lose me with the dinosaurs. Now it seems totally unrealistic!

The dinosaur gobbles Melaka Fray up like a tasty chicken nugget.

Final Thoughts

Short write-up today! The penultimate issue was obviously a setup to the much bigger standoff. Harth is going to get those glasses smacked clean off his stupid nerd face, that’s for certain.

Or Melaka dies. That’s equally as possible!