Friday

Willow wakes up rather confused as to why her back is sore and her pillow is lumpier than usual. Willow rubs the sleep from her eyes and pulls her head from Xander's lap. A few moments later she remembers that they were watching movies on TV and had fallen asleep on the couch, which rather explained the stiff and soreness, as comfortable as Xander was, not even he could fix that couch.

Willow looks up at Xander's position on the couch, and thinks that he can't be comfortable with his head hanging down like that. It'll probably be worse than my back. She nudges his shoulder to wake him, "Xander, wake up. We are going to be late for school."

"School, humph, burn it to roast yummy marshmallows," Xander mumbled. Willow gets up and grabs one of the throw pillows from the couch, and uses it in the time-honored method of Xander-waking, smacking him with a pillow. "Huh? Wha? I'm up…"

"You are now. Really Xander, burn the school down just to roast marshmallows?"

"Sure, can you think of a better reason to burn down a school?"

"Um, not really, but then that's not to say that it's a good reasons to burn down a school. But anyway, we are going to be late for school. How is the neck by the way?" Willow asks while walking to her bedroom

Xander rolls his neck and it cracks a few times, "Little stiff, but not bad." He thinks for a minute, "You want to see if we could use the box to skip the shower thing or do you want to do breakfast first?"

"Why don't you make some eggs while I go get ready, then you can play some more with the machine & we can fly to school," Willow says as she heads for the bathroom.

"Right, everything where it usually is then?"

"Never moves Xan, unless of course you or I are using them."

Xander quickly has a good sized breakfast of eggs, toast, juice, and bacon waiting for Willow as she gets back from her shower, and goes to take one himself as she eats. Before long, they head to school without further use of the device.

Xander is standing at Willow's locker as she finished putting her books away and grabbing their lunch. "So where do we have lunch today Wills?"

"We could grab a few extra things and go have lunch with Giles in the library, not much chance of having to deal with creeps there, I've been having reflex problems, my wet ware keeps misinterpreting the normal desires to hurt Cordelia, as the command to retrieve the Pulse Pistol. I wound up having to disable both weapons so I wouldn't accidentally summon them in class."

From behind, they hear "Harris, you looser, still hanging out with the wall flower, eh? Pathetic really, when are you ever going to learn?"

"Willow, do you hear something? Kind of high pitched, rather whiny?"

"Yeah, I think it's Larry, behind you," She giggled.

"Oh? I guess I better find out what he wants then." Xander turns around and looks Larry right in the eye with his usual grin. "Hi Larry, what can I do for you?"

"You could die, but seeing as you're too much of a coward, why don't you just leave the area?"

"Wow Larry, your vocabulary is really growing, that was a three syllable word there."

"Don't piss me off Harris, I'm in a bad enough mood as it is, just get out of my face and I won't have to hurt you."

"Nope. Don't think so. Not today. In fact, I'll even give you a free shot. If I even feel it, just a little, I'll transfer to another school, ok? However, if I don't feel it, you leave me and my friends alone, got it?" Xander sticks his chin out a little, "Come on, right here. Don't worry, I'm not trying to trap you into anything, and you've got plenty of witnesses that heard me make the offer, so now's your chance to hit me."

At this point, Larry was obviously thinking it was a really good deal so he steps up, gets ready to hit him, and swings as hard as he can, connecting with Xander's jaw, and feels his hand shatter like he just punched a tank.

It takes a second for the pain to register in Larry's brain, but when it does, comprehension registers in his eyes that, yes, that's pain I'm feeling, a whole lot of pain, and it really, really hurts. Larry of course starts screaming and clutching his broken hand.

Xander looks at him kind of confused for a second before gathering his wits, "Well Larry, I would have thought you knew how to hit someone better than that, I guess you'll be leaving me and my friends alone now," Xander grabs his shirt and lifts Larry to eye level so that Larry is looking into Xander's eyes as they momentarily flash blue and go pupil-less, "Won't you?" he says menacingly.

Larry nods, and tries to run away as quickly as possible, which Xander allows him to do. "Oh, and Larry? I'd suggest Ice for that hand before too long!"

"Done playing with the bullies Xander? Can we go have lunch with Giles now?"

"Sure Wills, I'm kind of hungry myself." He smiles at her and puts his arm around her as they walk off to the library and Giles.

Willow and Xander walk into the library to see Giles busy looking through a stack of books, as though researching something rather intently.

"Yo, G-man! What's up with the Research Party?"

"Xander, please don't call me that." The older man replied with a note of exacerbation. "There was a previously unscheduled meteor shower that began last night and has occurred over most of the globe by now. I am currently doing what I can to ensure that there have been no references to it in any prophesy that I have on record."

"Well, we came in to have lunch with you, and to let you know that my Dad kicked me out of the house last night, so I at the least won't be stopping by this afternoon as planed. Need to find a job and everything. I'm staying at Willows for the next two weeks while her parents are out of town on a working vacation, but I'll need to find a place to live as well."

"I say, Xander, that's quite unexpected. Are you certain that he meant to evict you permanently?"

"Even if he didn't G-Man, I'm going to make the most of this opportunity, and get out from under his thumb. I don't need to take their abuse any more, so I'm going to choose not to."

Giles rolled his eyes at being called 'G-Man' again, "Xander, how many times must I ask you not to call me by that infernal nickname?"

"You don't like it G-Man? Huh, well, I would guess then, at least once more, as I've just used it again and appear to have not stopped yet."

"Then allow me to provide that 'Once More' and ask you again to desist with that nickname."

"Well, I did say 'At Least' so it will probably take more than that, but you never know."

"Xander, we had better get to class or we'll be late." Willow reminded him as she snuggled up to him.

"Yes ma'am. See you later Giles, and good luck with the research."

Giles noticed that the two had finally overcome their mutual barriers and became a couple, smiling to himself and returning to his research, he hadn't even noticed that Xander had finally called him by his proper name, not that he would have believed that it would last long had he noticed.

Xander walked out of Marty's Pawn Shop, it was owned by a local demon, with nearly a thousand dollars in his pocket. He headed back to Willow's quickly as it neared on sunset, and he didn't feel like getting caught out alone. He didn't think that any group of vampires would be able to take him at the moment, but he also didn't feel the necessity to push his luck at the moment. Marty had given him what the guns were actually worth as he had not included serial numbers on the guns. He hadn't known about the serial numbers. He also hadn't known how guns were traced, so the seven that he had sold would undoubtedly be very difficult to trace or pattern match.

When Xander finally reached Willow's, he let himself in with the key she gave him this morning and called out, "Willow, I'm back from Marty's."

With no answer from Willow, he checked the kitchen and living room before finding her in her bedroom with her nose buried in a book, the Rifts main book to be precise. Xander remembered that when they had played over a year ago, Willow had always been "Magic Girl" often alternating between a Ley Line Walker and a Techno-Wizard. Xander preferred Psionics, and Jesse had preferred bionics. Amy, who had only played with them a few times, had played mecha pilots.

"Hey Wills, research?"

Slightly startled, "Hm? Oh, Xander, your back, did it go ok? Yeah, I'm thinking about trying the box again."

"Went fine Wills. He said that the guns I sold him lacked something called a serial number, so they were worth more than normal, so I got nearly a thousand dollars from him. I told him I had some jewelry as well, but he told me that he couldn't really move much of that, this being Sunnyhell and all. Guns and other weapons however were always prime commodities, so I worked out a deal with him. If someone came in looking for something specific, he would call me and see if I had one, and I'd hop in the box and bring it over to him. He'd give me two thirds of what ever he made on the sale, and he gets a reputation of being able to get his hands on almost anything, which in turn means more business."

"So you're in gun running now, Xander?"

"Sort of, I mean, I realized that I can't get a normal job, I'm just too young. Labor laws, you know?"

"Well, I'm not happy about the guns, but I'll get over it."

"Good, so what were you thinking about doing with the box?"

"I was thinking a 15th level Ley Line Walker/ 15th level Techno-Wizard might come in handy around the hellmouth. Lord knows we never played any characters up that high, but if I just add those capabilities to myself, well, it should work, and I can always revert back to this if it doesn't work."

Xander picked up his copy of Psyscape and replied, "Cool, if it works out alright, I'll add in the Mind Melter stuff."

Willow walked over to the machine and expanded it back to full size, placed her hand on the palm print and started adding in the abilities from the book, and the machine added in all the little details, as she pictured herself as the most powerful magic user that would never walk the land of Rifts Earth. Only certain races like dragons and Splugorth would have more magical knowledge than she did in a few moments.

Willow stepped out of the box with a brand new backpack over her shoulder, her favorite rifle, the NG-P7, along with various other bits of equipment that a character of that level might need.

They realized at this point that the box really was full service, and that they were really lucky to get it. Now they were worried.

Xander took his turn at the control panel and entered in his desired additions, including the psi-sword and psi-shield, and all the telemechanical powers. After listing all the powers that a 15th level Mind Melter received, he decided to scrap that entire idea as he remembered something out of another book, sort of a super-mind melter. They were called Neo Humans. Xander quickly grabbed the book that they were in and reread their entry. Adding it to himself he walked out of the box, and had to suppress a chuckle at what he had learned.

Xander explained to Willow, "Well, the box, it's called a Morphic Adaptation Unit, or MAU for short. It was invented by the Fwirthian race. This unit is a Mark five, and was developed by their business people to include a demonstration period, which we are currently in. Of course, they didn't think to include a translation program so that people would know that the box only works for 4 days. The machine requires people to pay 52,495 Fwirthi Rakburs to continue to operate past the 4-day limit. I also did an object read that told me that it wound up on earth due to a fire fight between the freighter that was hauling them from the factory to the distribution center, and a very large cruiser. That the devices managed to be here at all is a series of comical errors that could only be coincidence and blind luck. The Fwirthi are terribly unimaginative, and how they came up with this device I really have no idea."

"So, what can't the box do Xan?"

"It's coded so that it won't deliberately cause harm. It won't lower a person's intelligence, and won't alter the body to a less fit state, unless that is the way that person started. It basically takes what an individual operator believes would be harmful and uses that as it's guidelines. I can re-program that out, but I'll leave it in for now, but I already removed the time limit."

"Xander, can it turn Angel back into a human?"

"No, it can't create life, and Angel is already dead. We could probably change him into some other kind of dead thing, but we can't create life. It would be nice if we could simply turn all the vampires back into the humans they were before they were turned, but I guess that would be too easy. I don't know what it would do about the possession bit either, but I suppose we could experiment."

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I think it's time that we let other know what's going on. We know what we have here, and I for one intend to use it for the greatest good. I think we should also use it to protect the people we care about who would be able to handle the existence of the supernatural." Xander paused for a few moments and they both thought things through, "I think we should go over to Buffy's tomorrow morning and talk with Mrs. Summers and Dawn, let them in on the secrets around here, and let them use the MAU. I can imagine what Dawn will try, but I've got no clue about Mrs. Summers."

Willow thought for a few moments before agreeing with him. After a brief dinner and doing their homework, they snuggled up on the couch and watched a movie before heading to bed. Willow enjoyed being held in Xander's arms as they fell asleep.