"Why are you even here?" snarled Dean Wormer towards the man with an eyepatch.
*Damn good question,* Xander Harris thought, all while keeping a carefully blank expression upon his scarred features. However, when the incensed administrator of Faber College continued his hostile harangue concerning everyone else gathered together in his office today, it soon became clear to a dimensional traveler that this other man had meant something entirely different from what Xander was now pondering.
In spite of it all, after several months since he'd been shanghaied into the Animal House movie by one of those interfering mystical dickwads known more formally as the Powers That Be, Xander wasn't the slightest bit closer to figuring out what exactly was his supposed purpose in this place. Yeah, unlike what'd been presented in the film he'd seen and enjoyed back in his home dimension, there was without a doubt something weird going on here behind the scenes, and it definitely involved the supernatural. He'd already encountered actual magic, not to mention real-life demons running around and covertly threatening the other unaware humans at this school in which Xander was supposed to be enrolled while in the guise of an ordinary college student.
Not to mention the New Council member still hadn't come across anyone around the campus who might specifically fit the hints the Prick That Bumbled had dropped, pertaining to the guy who must be protected and the girl who must be saved. Xander was reasonably confident this latter clue didn't apply to a certain college cheerleader, since all he'd done so far concerning an elated Mandy Pepperidge was to rectify that girl's former ignorance about multiple orgasms.
With this accomplishment, while admirable, still being in no way comparable to something like taking Sauron's ring to Mount Doom, this Delta House fraternity brother seriously doubted any fantasy author would ever write a thousand-page trilogy about that. Though, Mandy had been walking around with a very wide grin on her pretty face nowadays-
"Day and Harris!" Dean Wormer now bellowed, with the sound of his own yelled name instantly bringing Xander's attention back to the office. Critically eyeing the older man shouting at both himself and a sullen D-Day at his side, Xander mentally ranked the following infuriated lecture at, oh, maybe an eight-point-five on the Snyder Scale. Not bad, and the veins throbbing at Wormer's temples were a nice touch, but this still didn't compare to an entire bald head turing pure scarlet in a principal's fury, which the former high-school student had happily witnessed numerous times back in Sunnydale. Though, an interested Xander finally learned just why he'd been summoned here today with his Delta buddies.
Apparently, he shared with D-Day the unbelievable achievement of maintaining for the entire past semester a grade point average of absolute zero. Well, even if the dean plainly didn't think so, it was pretty impressive, and all he'd had to do was to never even bother to attend any of his courses, much less take the exams there handed out by the class teachers. Xander idly wondered if D-Day had done the exact same thing. Glancing out of the corner of his remaining eye towards that specific younger man grumpily slouching in his leather jacket in their line abreast in front of the room desk, Xander looked past his Delta brother to instead see someone who at this moment appeared to not be coping very well with being hauled into the dean's office today.
In fact, Flounder looked totally miserable as he stood there, what with his pasty face, big beads of perspiration beginning to trickle down his forehead, and also, he was beginning to hiccup-
Uh-oh. Xander had just remembered a certain scene from the movie he was inside, and as Dean Wormer also discerned there was something wrong about one of his victims, the Sunnydale native began to imperceptibly edge backwards from the other guys, sliding his feet along the floor. Nobody else in the office noticed this, as they were all distracted by the dean getting right into Flounder's face and demanding at the top of his lungs what was going on, and this young man better talk, right now!
Instantly deciding the best strategy was to move away as fast as possible in order to get out of range, Xander smartly stepped back. This was done just in time for him to wince at what happened next. Because unlike the scene in the movie, nobody cut away at the exact moment when as a consequence of his shaky nerves and the six-pack of beer he'd earlier chugged, the pudgy Delta known as Flounder then threw up all over Dean Wormer in an remarkable display of dead-on-target projectile vomiting.
A couple of very hectic minutes later, Xander was walking through the campus, all while deeply brooding (however much he disliked acting the same way as a certain gone-and-not-missed-at-all vampire). The one-eyed man had broken away from the other Deltas just a moment ago, who were themselves heading back to the fraternity. None of this small group of students had noticed Silver was no longer with them, being instead busy in both congratulating a very stunned Flounder over what he'd just done against a detested authority figure, and also uneasily trying to deal with the fact as a result of everything today, each and every one of them had just been expelled from Faber College.
Strange as it might seem, getting thrown out of school right now wasn't all that bothersome to Xander. Not when he'd recently witnessed something truly astonishing, what had never happened to him before in his entire life. True, after years of battling supernatural wickedness, this New Council member had thought he'd pretty much seen everything when attacking demons and their like with various substances those evil creatures couldn't bear. Holy water for vampires, silver for werewolves, etc., etc… But what he'd watched a few minutes ago had been just plain weird.
Xander Harris had never known you could detect somebody being possessed when they'd just had a Technicolor yawn performed directly on them, coating every square inch of their body. It wasn't exactly anything the Scooby Gang doing library research for the latest apocalypse had come across in Giles' extremely thick and dusty tomes dealing with demonic lore. Nor had the Watcher ever actually gotten around to explaining that same bizarre effect. It might've been for the best, considering how a certain blonde was already sensitive about her weight, and the constant school rumors nastily suggesting the possibility of bulimia for Buffy Summers. If Giles back then had accidentally blundered by mentioning the odd results of what was properly known as emesis upon mentally controlled persons, this Englishman's Slayer would've surely suggested in the rudest manner possible that he was gonna do it first.
Shuddering, Xander remembered once more what he'd witnessed in the office on the third floor of the Administration Building, with this structure speedily dwindling behind himself as he continued walking. The other guys there, they might've been horrified at seeing Flounder blowing chunks all over Dean Wormer, but Xander was certain something more hideous had revealed itself then. Beginning to grow actually angry, Xander growled out loud to nobody in particular, "Dammit, dude, you should've figured it out sooner! It wasn't a case of that guy turning out to be another little tin god school tyrant like Snyder, oh, no! You've got something worse here, a Mayor-type situation!"
Shaking his head in disgust, Xander kept inattentively striding along, never noticing when he left the campus and entered the small town of Faber. He was more occupied with further berating himself, "Remember that demon in the basement back there? He mentioned it'd been months since they took over the place, waiting for the soul which was gonna show up! This isn't Sunnydale, with people managing to ignore anything strange! Somebody had to tell the janitors and other people to leave the basement alone, with the glamour spell making sure of this. What was his name- the big cheese, Mr. Evil Overlord with the stupid title- Oh, yeah, Grazlar the Mighty. He's gotta be whoever took over the dean."
Coming to a dead stop in the alley he'd been unthinkingly passing through, Xander grimaced in utter dismay. This was most decidedly not of the good. The New Council member was perfectly okay with the physical stuff battling against nighttime monsters over the years: see demon, kill demon, party with the Slayer(s), repeat. Just like it'd been ever since a teenage boy in a California high school library had eavesdropped onto a stuffy British guy and one very sexy girl.
Unfortunately, things had advanced well past that. It'd turned into magic stuff, and as Xander dolefully reminded himself, he still had a tendency to have magic become positively wonky around Willow Rosenberg's bestest bud. Only the most powerful witch in the world could successfully cast spells upon him, and trying on his own anything that took more than the least little mystical effort, such as breaking the glamour spell, could have consequences ranging from somewhat amusing to actually dire. Giving the back of his skull a rueful rub, Xander meditatively grumbled, "It'd be over right away if I could just pass on to the dean what's in my head that deals with unwanted guests. Wil's mojo got rid of Trooper easy enough, but there's nothing I can come up with on my own to drive off that gatecrasher in Wormer's brain."
At that precise moment, Xander's face turned bleak, with his thoughts now taking a very sinister tone. A Sunnydale survivor's Spidey sense was presently going off at full blast. Something big was coming, and it didn't feel good for anyone in town or gown. That meant, if necessary, he might have to do something…extreme to permanently solve the Dean Wormer problem. No matter how much Xander currently preferred otherwise. Still, ever since his hometown's disappearance off the face of the earth, the one-eyed man in the alley had reluctantly done things like that in order to save innocents at risk.
He'd done worse.
Unexpectedly, Xander was jerked out of his grim contemplation due to the awful sounds suddenly drifting from further up the alley. These were a gruesome combination of heavy objects thudding into human flesh, and accompanying moans of purest agony. Staring in bewilderment at the back of what looked like a motel, Xander also heard from one specific window, a familiar, gloating voice saying, "Hit the bastard harder! I want his face to look like chopped liver, so Mandy will know better than to ever meet this Delta asshole ever again!"
A few moments later, just as Greg Marmalard was gleefully watching the biggest guys in Omega House kicking in Eric Stratton's ribs, the motel room door crashed open. Jerking his head around to stare in disbelief at who was now standing in the open doorway, it took Greg only a fraction of a second to decide to immediately leave the premises by jumping out the rear window. Despite taking the bug screen and curtains along with him, Greg hit the ground running, desperately glad to get out of there. Given the savage expression shown on Xander Harris' face, the cowardly Faber senior would've eagerly dived through a shut window, glass and all, to escape from what was sure to happen back in the room.
Indeed, the confused other Omegas left behind in the motel room were now listening to someone very calmly saying, as if to himself, "They're humans, you can't kill them just for this. On second thought, they look like jocks, which means they're used to pain. So, it could be said you're simply doing them a favor by introducing them to a whole new level of suffering, which will stand them in good stead during their future athletic endeavors. After they've learned to walk again six months from now, of course."
Giving the paling Omegas his most evil smirk, Xander cracked his knuckles, and he genially asked, "Okay, who's first?"
The raucous discussion at the top of everybody's lungs in the downstairs living room of the stripped-bare Delta House abruptly shushed in their absolute shock when Silver walked into the place carrying over one shoulder a seriously beaten-up young man having the house nickname of Otter. Gently laying down his groaning burden onto the sole remaining piece of furniture in the room, a couch against the far wall, Xander then stepped back, leaving the other anxious guys to instantly cluster around Eric now holding a motel towel against his bleeding forehead. Watching in forbidding silence as the injured Delta brother explained everything, Xander was inwardly occupied in going over again the strategy he'd come up with on the way here.
Obviously, Grazlar the Mighty Moron was going to make his big move soon during the homecoming parade. It couldn't be otherwise, not when it was right there on the very first page of the Evil Overlord's Handbook, all done in ornately-decorated capital letters: The Grand Culmination Of Your Ceremony To _ (fill in the blank) Must Take Place With the Maximum Possible Audience.*
*Even if you have to hand out free tickets in order to pack solid the rear seats.
Seemingly not paying any attention to the enraged brothers listening to one of the most idiotic and yet hilarious rabble-rousing speeches ever given, Xander was in reality biding his time, waiting for the proper moment. There was no chance he could successfully go up all by himself against what Buffy would surely call in her usual name-mangling manner "Grisly the Minnow." However…any second now, the entire Delta House was going to want to seek revenge in the worse possible way, and all that'd be needed was for someone to point them in the proper chaotic direction.
Sure enough, right after the fraternity students had reached their maximum level of fury, a tall figure stepped forward in front of the crowd. Attracting the awareness of all there by this, everyone became quiet, expectedly watching Silver clearly about to say something. Looking around with a glittering eye, the scariest Delta brother now commandingly spoke: "Gentlemen, I have…a cunning plan."
