Chapter Two—Another One Bites the Dust

"Crap. You know, I didn't miss this part of it. Get this stuff out of my hair," Buffy screamed at no one in particular.

Spike had his own worries. Trying to scoop off the mess stuck to his leather jacket, he rolled his eyes as he watched Buffy grimace. The slayer had taken on enemies that could destroy the world at the snap of their fingers and she was worried about a little slime.

"What the hell is this shit anyway? Better not be corrosive or there's gonna be hell to pay," Faith added, wiping her hands on the ground.

"I told you to duck," Wes said as he shucked his jacket off.

The only one not affected by the goo was Cordelia. How did she manage to avoid all the mess? Possibly was it because she ducked behind Angel right when the creature exploded? Angel had taken a big hit directly on his chest, probably ruining his only good shirt. Why was it when Angel was a vampire, he could dress for success, while becoming human, he looked like a hobo?

"Better not stain my leather," he mumbled to himself.

They had managed to take down one messy demon. Score one for the home team. By the looks of things though, it took way too much energy and time to dispose of one lowly demon in comparison to the damage they could have done as vampires and slayers. Not that Spike wanted to be turned again. He was enjoying eating again in addition to not frying at sunrise.

Giles tried rubbing his glasses off with his shirt tail, only to make the goo spread all over them. Someone else would have to drive back to the farm.

"That went well," he exclaimed as he pulled off the glasses.

"Yeah, right. It took us twenty minutes to take down the Snot Monster in there. It took all of us, no wait, all of us except for Cordelia, to take the thing down," Faith growled at the only clean person.

Cordelia smiled a little, but mostly stayed beside Angel, who was frowning at his shirt still.

"That was just pathetic. We need to train. Get ourselves in fightin' order, folks. We can be on top again, with just a little effort."

Spike's pep talk wasn't helping matters one bit. Cordelia even phfft'ed his speech. What else could he do to inspire some teamwork in this group of former superheroes?

"We could set up a training room in the barn or even outside if the weather is nice. Can't leave the rest of those girls vulnerable, now can we?"

Buffy nodded yes, then returned to pulling more slime out of her hair. Faith stripped her shirt off, throwing it his way. It hit with deadly accuracy, coating his somewhat clean face with ick.

"Excuse me? I just want to thank you."

Spike pulled off Faith's t-shirt, throwing it back to the last place where she was standing, where Giles was now standing, hitting him squarely in the face.

"Glad to help," Cordelia answered for the rest of the group. "Any time."

"Listen, I have a cousin that's been having trouble with something strange. Could maybe one of you have a look at it?"

They didn't solve crimes or help the helpless now. They all saved the world, at least a few times between the lot of them. This small stuff was for the birds. As he watched Angel take an interest in the guy's other problem, Spike knew right then and there he was going on another field trip with the kids. Just terrific. Being retired had its benefits. No one ready to kill you at a moment's notice. Plenty to eat that wasn't a liquid. A sweet lady to hang out and talk with on a sunny afternoon. Oh crap, what did he know? He was bored silly sitting on his arse doing nothing.

Angel took down the information, gave it to Giles, who promised to give the bar owner a call that afternoon so they could make arrangements to see the problem of his cousin.

This was not what Spike had expected after turning back to being human. They'd be at a disadvantage with no super strength. But they had numbers and hundreds of years of experience behind them. What could go wrong?

Everything.


"Everything is wrong."

Xander didn't want to contradict Jenny just because once upon a time she was his teacher. Everything was not wrong. Well, the fact that he was now dead, that seemed wrong in his book. For the most part, being dead was not fun.

"Why is everything wrong?"

He'd probably asked this question twenty times of the former gypsy slash teacher now guardian angel. She liked to rant now and again, but only to him. Was it because they had history together or because he'd actually listen?

"You're here, right?"

Xander looked down at his clothes, poked himself a few times, knowing that he wasn't waking up from a dream any time soon. Yep, dead was dead.

"I think we've established that I'm here. Your point?"

Jenny sat down next to him on the comfy sofa he had deposited himself on as Jenny worked up to her rant. He wanted to be comfortable this time. The last time, she'd caught him walking towards the cottage, i.e., big man's office. No place to sit while she yelled about the injustice of it all.

"Why are you here and they're not? I mean, come on. They get to be human again and you're dead?"

Jenny had wanted to know from Doyle as soon as everything had changed why two vampires had been given the right to be human again while she and even he stayed dead. The fact that Cordelia went from dead to very much alive kind of irked her too, but she knew to tread lightly on that front with Doyle. The man was hurting enough as it was to lose Cordy to the living.

"Wrong place at the wrong time? Listen, Jenny. I don't like being here anymore than you do. The fact that those two bloodsuckers are human again pisses me off too. But there's not much we can do about it, now is there?"

Jenny turned to him, one eyebrow shooting up into the air. She was thinking. He didn't like it when she planned. It had already gotten them in trouble twice with Doyle. Doyle's face had turned beet red as he yelled at them for interfering in someone's life. Jenny had not played by the rules either time. Not like Doyle was famous for following rules either. Now that he was boss, rules were supposed to be followed.

"What if there is?"

Oh no, no, no. He loved his friends too much to put them through another death. Willow and Buffy both would not deal well with another death. Not that he even liked Angel or Spike, but they were there to help protect Buffy and Willow, if even just a little. Either one would lay their lives down for his two best friends. Going along with Jenny this time would get them in heaps of trouble and not be to anyone's advantage.

As he stood, Jenny crossed her legs and grinned, like she had already started planning and implementing her strategy.

"Do not, I repeat, do not follow through with what you had planned. I may not like either one of them, but it's not like Buffy is the slayer and Willow is the witch at this point. They need Angel and Spike. Stay away from them."

Jenny stood directly in front of him now, ready for battle. If it came to that, he'd do battle with her. In life, she'd been fierce and feisty, but she'd also betrayed Giles and not been very truthful with any of them, putting all of them in danger more than once. Giles may have been able to forgive her because of her circumstances, but Xander wasn't Giles.

"On whose orders? Yours? Remember, they're the reason why you're here."

"Really? I thought it was a bomb. Thank goodness I didn't feel a thing."

"Yes, because it would have hurt a lot. Blood, guts everywhere. Pain is so overrated."

Anya. He didn't even have to look over his shoulder to know that his former fiancée had entered the room. It was kind of like a breeze with Jenny when she entered or exited a room. With Anya, the room swirled in all colors of the spectrum, then exploded into a million tiny pieces. At least, only to him. Doyle called it a gift. Xander called it damned annoying.

Xander not only was a guardian angel, he could also read people, dead or alive. Not like Cordelia was when she was alive. Gah, with the pain and anguish of some kind of visions that the Powers thought she needed to help Angel. No, this was one bona fide pain in the ass thing he seemed to inherit from another angel who had earned her wings. Since retirement wouldn't come for quite some time for him, now the reading was his.

Jenny in his eyes was turning a dark brown, which was not very attractive on her. Anya stayed a bright pink, he thought just so she could match her dress. She was playing with him. Anya was the only one who could manipulate what he was seeing. Damnit.

"Coming from someone who caused men pain for thousands of years," Xander reminded her.

"Don't care. Jenny, remember what Francis told you the last time you tried something like this?"

Jenny's aura turned from dark brown to deep red in a millisecond. She was working up to having a good fight with Anya. The buttons were being pushed by a master. Why did she fall for Anya's button pushing?

"Anya, I was handling this," Xander tried to explain just as Jenny pushed him aside.

"Handling what?" Jenny exclaimed as she tried to crowd Anya. "Keep your handling to yourself, Xander."

He didn't know who pushed him out of the way, but landing on his backside wasn't pleasant at all. The very few times Willow and Buffy got into it, it wasn't this vicious. Oh wait, it was. Willow almost destroyed the world. If it hadn't been for Xander and his speeches, Willow probably would have gone through with it all. None of them would be having his little spat right now. This, he could handle.

It didn't take much to freeze both of them in their tracks. Another perk of the job. Doyle had sat him down immediately after Xander had appeared in this realm. Since he had never met the Irishman, he had no idea what was going on, or even if he was dead. He wasn't hurt, he didn't feel dead. Doyle had explained to him everything that had happened, about the explosion, about where he was and what his job was going to be.

Xander must have shaken his head a hundred times in disbelief as Doyle explained why he was chosen to help. Then he read a list of do's and don'ts, which were mostly don'ts. Then he showed Xander another list. Xander could slow down time, see people's auras, and purposely freeze any individual he wanted. Cool was on the tip of his tongue just before Doyle told him that if he used it wrong, Xander would go to hell. Damn Powers and their rules.

What he didn't find out about until later was the fact that he was pretty special. Most angels did not have powers such as his. Doyle had some, but he wasn't showing his cards. Cordy must have had some, but obviously not enough to stop from becoming human again. She certainly couldn't keep her friends from losing what little advantage they had over the bad guys, including all the slayers.

That's what they needed to work on: getting the slayers their powers back. Doyle had told him to back off on that one, but Xander was determined to not give the forces of evil one more advantage on the playing field. And here were these two fighting about nothing much. He was not going to take out two more of the good guys just because of their very shady, well killing, pasts.

"Get a grip, you two."

Xander picked up Anya, moved her back about five feet, then stood between the two of them again, this time a little more aware and determined to keep a lid on it all.

"I hate it when you do that," Jenny declared as she unclenched her fists.

"Unfair advantage," Anya added, standing down.

"Which I will use again and again until you two kiss and make up. Understand?"

"I am not kissing her," Anya slipped in.

"Oh god, you are so literal."

That's what he had loved about Anya, honest and literal in any situation.

"No touching Angel and Spike. Understand?" Xander demanded as he pointed at Jenny.

"Touching? Wait, we can touch?"

"Anya," both Xander and Jenny yelled.

"Right. I know we can't touch. Didn't Cordelia touch though? Of course, she got thrown out of here. I wonder if that would work."

Xander hung his head down, hoping that she'd run out of steam and shut up.

"Go to hell," Jenny told her, which made Anya give her an angry look. "Not you, that's what would happen. Geez."

"There is something I need from both of you."

"Xander, I know you've always wanted a threesome, but I don't think now is the time."

Xander turned to Anya, made a slicing motion with his hand across his neck.

"Anya, it's a job. I need information. The slayers are sitting ducks. It's gonna be chaos on Earth soon if we don't figure out what's going on and why they have no powers left."

"Doyle said to not touch that one," Jenny explained, crossing her arms.

"Well, ladies. We don't have to tell Doyle, now do we?"

Both agreed to help him out and to keep quiet while doing it. If it was the last thing he would do, he wouldn't let Buffy and Willow get hurt by what had transpired. Doyle wasn't talking, but there might be others that would talk.


"Nothing?"

"No, sir. No luck."

Roger Wyndam-Pryce wasn't making any progress on this project at all. He needed the slayer and he needed her now. His special ops people could only hold things together as much as they could. England was rife with new demons every day. The Hellmouth in the United States was crawling with the undead. Why wasn't he making any progress?

His overtures to his son went nowhere. It wasn't like he was expecting him to turn over a new leaf and join with him to fight evil. He was living with evil in teaming up with Faith and her kind. He deserved what he got.

Only Roger needed the boy's power. It might make his job a little easier if he had someone at his side that could protect the slayer if she was not ready. If Giles had not gone and ruined his chances of finding the new slayer, things would have turned out differently. The records showed nothing. Every girl that was a potential had been accounted for in the records. Someone had slipped through the cracks. Since there wasn't much time, he'd sent out teams to scower the world to find his new slayer.

Those who were still on the Council begged him to hurry with his quest. The ones that had decided to stick it out with him still had confidence in him, at least until evil threatened the world again. Their luck had held for now. Would it be enough time to find the new slayer and train her? Or had their luck finally run out, leaving them without that one last line of defense?

He hoped that once the slayer was located, he could train her, meld her into his own slayer, so that what had happened over the last decade could not happen ever again. Slayers were not meant to have ties, were never meant to be coddled, were never supposed to have friends and family. They were put on this earth to defend it against evil. It was about time Giles and his ilk learned that lesson.


Lesson upon lesson upon lesson. He knew them like the back of his hand. He had learned them from an early age. To meld a slayer, a watcher must be firm, must not buckle to pressure to let the slayer have a life, and foremost, a watcher must never, ever get close to his charge, other than to provide means of eating, sleeping and clothing her until such a time as she perishes.

Wesley had broken all those commandments. Good for him.

Since none of the slayers had any powers anymore, he couldn't let them train with each other until they were ready again. So straw dummies it was. Faith still had her moves down, if just a bit slower and less aggressive than she was before. The inactivity hadn't hurt the human part of her. She was in shape, but not enough to take on a strong demon on her own.

Training had come naturally to her, just as it had to Buffy. Some of the other slayers were having a tougher time adapting, since they had not been out in the field much, if at all before they'd all changed back. Buffy was fast, agile, probably a little better than Faith actually, but he still would not ever let her go up against a demon by herself either. Faith had been more about power as a slayer. She lost that ability, but Buffy was always going to be quick. He need not mention that to either one of them, although he had just found out that afternoon that Giles agreed with him. Their notes were not shared with anyone. Neither former slayer needed to know their musings.

At this point, Wesley didn't know what to do. They were not ready, would never be ready to tackle what they had taken on before. Possibly teaching them how to use weapons would help, but he didn't want them to rely on something mechanical. What if they lost the weapon or something went wrong with it? It wasn't like they had many weapons floating around the farm as it was.

Money was tight, every tight, although with Angel and Cordelia's ingenuity, they were starting to bring money in to pay for food. The girls were getting more experience fighting, but sending out ten people at a time to take down one or two demons at a time took its toll. Three girls had already landed in the hospital, thank goodness none of them seriously injured. The money was welcome, the injuries were not. Wesley did not want to get anyone killed just to pay the bills.

Cordelia budgeted, Angel and Spike brought in the clients and he and Giles trained the girls to do their best. It wasn't enough. His research time with Giles and Willow netted nothing on why the slayers were turned back into ordinary girls. The fact that the world could possibly be without a slayer was disheartening to say the least, very dangerous if something bad emerged from the ether.

From what Giles could find out, there was nothing really horrible on the horizon, but no one was placing any bets on that theory. The fact that his father had kept making inquiries helped fuel that urgency to find out what had happened and how they could fix it. They didn't have the resources of Wolfram and Hart, they didn't have the network of people to work on this problem. It was just them, some shady characters that Giles knew and some luck. He just wished he knew of another way to gather the information they needed.

The books. Most of the books that they needed were still at the Council. Giles had books, but they had gone through those several times with no luck. Time was not on their side. There had also been warnings out there that his father was searching for something. Wesley would love to know what his father wanted so badly to let it be known that there was a search.

Faith missed hitting the straw dummy again, showing fatigue. She'd been training for hours, improving her technique slowly. There was only so much a body could do though. He'd have to make her stop if he wanted her fresh and ready in the morning to help train the others.

"Faith, time to pack it in."

Faith not only ignored him, she punched the straw dummy even harder. Faith and stubborn were used together quite often. He didn't want that to happen tonight. His head ached from the researching and fighting. Sleep had become a thing of the past. He hoped that Faith hadn't noticed his weight loss or how much grey he had in his hair. This whole thing was making him old, much older than he had ever felt before.

As he walked over to make her stop her workout, Faith took a swing at his head, barely missing. Before he could counter, her other fist landed directly against his jaw. She still packed a powerful punch, even without the slayer power. His jaw would have been broken otherwise. If he fought back, if he tried to counter her punch with one of his own, he would have injured her. So instead, he defended himself as best he could without lashing out at her. It was just frustration on her part.

"Faith, stop this instant."

"Fix this. Do you hear me? Fix this."

The fight went out of her so quickly, he hadn't taken his arms down until he heard her crying. She sat directly in front of him, covering her face with her dirty hands. He had never seen her look so defeated, even after the Beast had beaten her to a bloody pulp.

Crouching down onto the floor, he attempted to uncover her face, but she resisted. Instead, he gathered her in his arms, holding her tight until she wanted to talk. Her talking consisted of saying hello to him in the morning and asking him to pass the salt. Their relationship had gone downhill except when it came to sex. Sex still mattered to her, or was a release she wasn't willing to give up, yet.

"Faith, I want to fix this. I'm trying," he whispered when her cries had died down.

"Try harder. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

Wesley didn't know how much more of this he could take. The powers he had from Vail were sucking the life out of him slowly, while Faith seemed to be taking the rest. Emotionally he was spent. Physically he was on the edge.

"I don't know how much more I can do," he finally announced, getting the reaction he thought he'd get. It had gotten her attention.

Her face was streaked with tears, dirt and a bit of mascara. She looked a bit frightful, but he knew what she was like underneath. That's why it made what was coming all the more difficult for him to do.

"You're not giving up on me, are you?"

"Not on you," he answered, knowing that he could possibly do that in the future.

"But since you've already given up on yourself, it's just a matter of time for me."

Faith pushed him down, getting up and dusting off her pants. This was the Faith he hadn't wanted to see tonight. He wanted her fighting for her future, even if his didn't look so promising.

"I will never give up on you."

"You already have. Look at you. You're wasting away to nothing. You don't say more than two words to me unless we're training."

Wesley carefully pulled himself off the dirty floor, not wanting to injure himself. Just moving sometimes pained him so. His bones felt like they'd break if he moved the wrong way. He'd taken to not going with the group on their excursions just for the fact that he was a liability now with his physical condition deteriorating.

"When I say you have to fix this, I mean you. I don't care about the slaying shit, I care about you. Whatever is wrong with you is eating you up inside."

The pleading look on her face made him realize that she really did care about his wellbeing. It couldn't be enough though.

"I've tried."

"No, you haven't," she yelled back. "Damn you. You are not trying. How many times have you been beaten down only to bounce right back up? This isn't you."

It was him. It was his life, such as it was.

Faith took his head in her small hands, making him look into her eyes. The fight, the fire that she had in them when she was a slayer was still there, if but a little dimmed.

"I can still kick your ass. Starting tomorrow, we're fattening you up. Workouts. Enough sleep. If not, I'll knock you out if I have to. You are not giving up. Do you hear?"

He tried to hear her. The buzzing that had started moments before was making it difficult to hear her words. He could see her mouth moving, then her eyes bunched up with worry. She pulled her hands away from his head, almost like she had been burned.

"Wesley, would you like to come out and play?" rang through his head.

Play? Who on earth would want to play? As he turned to see who was speaking, Faith ran past him, hitting a wall and bouncing back hard against the ground. Mark appeared out of the shadows, dressed in leather and spiked hair. The geek look was gone. The black eyes he now sported looked more sinister.

"Oh, you don't look so good, Wes. Neither does your whore of a slayer. Ooops, forgot that. Not a slayer any more. She's just a bitch with an attitude."

Wesley had thrown up a ward against Mark, but he knew it wouldn't hold for long. His power seemed to seep into the ground right where he stood. Was Mark causing all this to happen? That was the bet Wesley would place. His father didn't have the strength or magicks to do it. Mark did, even if it was borrowed power from Giles and Willow. If he could harness the power, possibly take it away from Mark, then taking him down wouldn't be a problem.

"Tell you what, Wesley. You go on thinking that you can take me on. While you do that, remember that every day I'm out there is every day you get weaker. It's all mine. Or it will be when you die. Until then, I hope you suffer."

Wesley motioned for Faith to stay where she was. She had gathered herself back together and was going to make another go at him. Nice that she still wanted to defend him even in her state. He couldn't risk her getting injured.

"Mark, I will figure this out, in time. And when I do, you're going to hell."

Mark laughed at his statement and disappeared just as quickly as he appeared. He must have a portal too, Wesley thought. Something Dawn could work on and put a stop to.

Collapsing to his knees, Wesley felt more drained than ever. Faith now cradled him in her arms, just like he had not moments before. What a pair they were. They went from being on top of the world to this. It couldn't get any worse.


Author notes: It always gets worse, Wes. Always.

Boy oh boy, I wrote Xander. Not a character I've written in great detail, ever. Hope I did OK. I sort of wanted to give him lots of fun stuff to do because in life he was just the carpenter. So have fun with this. Thanks to all who have reviewed. Y'all keep me on my toes. Please don't hesitate to point stuff out if you don't understand. I love questions or comments.