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William Angel was having an extremely embarrassing evening. Not only had the substitute biology teacher, Ms. French, turned out to be some sort of student-seducing insect-demon, but he had stupidly fallen for her wiles and was currently trapped in her dark, cluttered basement, being rescued by Buffy, Dru, and (worst of all) his parents.
As his mum released him from his restraints, he could hear Buffy shouting at the giant 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!"
She then brandished a portable tape player at the ersatz teacher. What emerged, however, was not any sort of mantis-repelling noise, but rather the sound of Angel's voice, dictating what seemed to be a grocery list.
As Ms. French batted away both the tape recorder and the big knife Buffy was holding, William scrambled about looking for something, anything with which to attack the amorous insect. As the Slayer jumped to avoid a swinging claw, his hand closed around a short, pointed piece of metal. Ducking into a roll, he came up directly underneath the creature, and drove the implement deep into the side of its abdomen.
With her opponent thus distracted, Buffy was able to dive for her weapon, while Angel finally retrieved the tape player from wherever it had fallen to. High-pitched squeals filled the air as Buffy finished off the giant mantis, which had reacted to the noise by shrieking and flailing about.
And then, all was quiet. Ms. French lay on the floor in several pieces. Buffy was breathing heavily from the exertion, while Dru, Darla, and Angel looked on in concern.
And William? His attention was fixed on his gore-covered hand, with which he was clutching an old railroad spike.
********
The next day, as the group gathered in the library, William was still carrying the spike (now lovingly cleaned) around with him. Angel looked at him with exasperation in his eyes.
"I taught you that only a wooden stake is capable of harming a vampire, William, you do realize that?"
"Course I do, da, but as we all discovered last night there's more that goes bump in the night 'round here than just vampires." He grinned and flipped the spike into the air. "Besides, it makes me feel all manly." He went to catch it, missed, and made a sheepish face as it clattered to the floor.
"Nice catch, your spikiness." Buffy sniped from the next table. "You know, between that thing and your hair you've got a real theme going on."
"She's got a point," Dru agreed. "Maybe we should just call you Spike and be done with it."
Though from her tone she clearly meant the remark as a joke, William found himself strangely attracted to the idea. "Spike . . . " he repeated, turning the name over on his tongue. "Spike Angel . . . no, just Spike. Like Madonna."
"William," said Angel with a long-suffering sigh, "don't you think that's rather silly?"
"As silly as calling yourself, say, Angelus?"
Angel stiffened in surprise. "Where did you hear that name?" he sharply demanded, starling all the teens present.
"Uncle Ethan."
"Liam," interjected Darla, "perhaps you should leave him be. He's not hurting anything, and besides-" she continued, walking around beside her son, "I think it's rather cute."
"Nice try, Mum," said the newly christened Spike, "But I'm not gonna fall for the old 'Isn't-it-cute' routine."
"Be that as it may," Angel said, "Now that the danger posed by Ms. French has been taken care of, perhaps we could turn our attention to . . . "