Staring through the crosshairs at the leather clad vampire, Xander resisted the urge to burn the leech down on general principles.
"Who the bloody hell are you mate?" Spike asked as he took a step back from the cornered slayer.
"You must not watch too much television, I'm called Gear," Xander said simply as he tried to keep an eye on all the vampires within the room.
Looking the armored form over, Spike made the connection Drusilla had been warning him about. "So you must be the Tin Man my Dru's been ramblin about," Spike said as he shifted to put one of his minions between himself and the armored man above. "Have to admit mate, I was expectin' someone bigger."
"I'm big enough for this job and that's as big as I need to be."
Spike cursed the emotionless faceplate that kept him from reading the man. "You really think you can save all of them?" Spike asked as he motioned around the crowded room of vampires and victims. "Your only one man after all."
Glancing down Xander froze at the pleading stares of those below him before looking back at Spike and powering up the cannon.
"I didn't come here to save them."
--
Willow chewed on the end of her thumb as she looked over the calculations Xander had written up before making a slight change to one of his equations and staring at the results.
Picking up the paper, Willow walked over to the blackboard Xander had set up and rewrote the equation before staring at the final answer.
Taking a deep breath, she wondered why it was never easy. Walking back to the table, Willow wrote a quick note and headed towards the door. She needed to see an old boyfriend.
--
Kendra adjusted the goggles the Iron Knight… Xander, had given her as she resisted the urge to jump into the fight; she was a slayer, not some mindless berserker controlled by conflict lust. Besides, Xander had a plan.
--
Spike felt a chill run up his spine before the white hats words caught up with him. "Good one mate, almost had me goin' there for a second," Spike said with a smile. "But if you wanted me to believe that, you shouldn't have started out by demanding we let them go."
"True, but I needed a few seconds to prepare after all."
Spike realized something was up as one of the less intelligent minions fell perfectly into the verbal trap.
"Prepare for what?"
The answer came in a flash as a small CO2 canister fired its payload into the middle of the gathered vampire worshippers, vampires and slayer.
Spike managed to get his eyes partially closed when the ball exploded filling the small room with burning orange capsaicin.
In moments the screams of shocked pain from the gathered humans were quickly drowned out by the frantic wailing of the gathered vampires as there sensitive eyes and noses were overwhelmed by the chemical agent.
Spike screamed in pain and rage when shifting to his game face brought new pain as the heightened senses increased the burning from the pepper spray.
Xander cursed under the helmet as Spike dropped to his knees and disappeared from sight beneath the stumbling mass of bodies below.
Making a mental note to fry the leech first next time, Xander dropped the crosshairs over another vampire and squeezed the trigger and with a crackling pop the odds dropped by one opponent.
A shift of movement drew his attention to the side for a second as Kendra launched herself out over the crowd with the grace only a slayer could posses.
Pausing a moment to lock up another vampire, Xander smirked as another opponent dusted.
Looking around for Spike, Xander jerked the battleaxe free of its holster and chopped into a vampire that had blundered up the stairs before doing a recount.
Kendra was dealing with the last two visible vampires. The idiot vampire wannabes were curled up on the floor holding their eyes and Buffy… Freezing as a cold chill touched his spine, Xander turned and cursed as the snarling Spike blinked through the pain while he held the unconscious Buffy Summers around the throat.
Working through the pain, Spike forced himself back into his human guise and sighed as the nearly overwhelming pain lessened considerably and with a final snarl he looked up at the armored form above him. "Well, let's see mate. Nice entrance, Good pre-battle banter, high scores for the gadget and actually bringing reinforcements, but you failed to cover all your bases, and it looks like I just stole 'home' doesn't it?." Spike said as he lifted the slayer as a shield against the armor's weapons. "It's getting' a bit stuffy in here; let's say we take this outside for a spell?"
"I'd really rather not," Xander said as he tried to get a lock on the Vampire and cursed as Buffy was moved to block him. Considering his options, Xander finally started to back out of the underground area.
Spike watched as the armored form moved backwards up the stairs before turning his glare on the reinforcement and cursing in his head. Whoever she was, she showed no interest in preceding him up the stairs. And from what little he had seen of her fighting skills he could tell that she was at least an equal to the blonde he held now. No way was he turning his back on her.
Keeping his back to the wall, Spike circled the room slowly as he made his way to the stairs.
--
Giles sat quietly in his apartment as he stared, torn between the two objects on the table.
The first was a syringe filled with a thick yellow fluid, specially designed by the mystics within the Watchers Council to strip a Slayer of her powers.
The second was a shot glass filled with a nearly as thick clear fluid, it was designed by the mystics in a small eastern European brewery and was designed to strip a human of his mental capacity.
With a sigh, Giles finally picked up the shot glass and slowly poured it back into the non-descript bottle it had come from before capping the bottle and returning it to its shelf.
Giving one final glance at the syringe, Giles left it on the table as he turned back to the books. He knew there was an answer in there somewhere.
--
Xander cursed as his situation continued to degrade. Buffy was unconscious, Spike was out in the open, Kendra was locked down in the sunset club and Xander was rapidly running out of power. "Let her go, Spike." Xander tried, but the vampire simply laughed, his vampiric healing having worked the pepper spray out of his eyes already.
"Don't think so mate, looks to me like I'm winning."
"Not really," Xander countered as he shifted the microwave cannon slightly to make sure he had Spike's attention. "I'm not going to let you leave with her and you can't drop her and run, we're at a standoff and one with a definite time limit," Xander said before the situation clicked within his mind. "You're betting on a vampire or a demon of some sort to come by aren't you?"
"And you're betting you can hold me until the sun comes up," Spike shot back at him. He was mildly surprised as the armored form chuckled.
"No, the suns too far off, no way I can hold you for the next eight hours… I was actually betting on her."
Spike blinked before a crushing pain in his knee was a signal that the unconscious slayer… wasn't.
Screaming in pain, Spike shoved the slayer towards the armored form before falling back on the age old tactic of 'running away like a little sissy girl'
It was a tactic that served him well as there was only a single snapping 'Pop' before spike was gone, leaving behind a half slagged trashcan to attest to the near miss.
Glaring after the vampire, Xander turned to look at the smoking remains of the cannon. With a tired sigh at the thought of the work required to build another one, Xander knelt to check the again unconscious Buffy before retreating down the steps and freeing those trapped within the club.
As he pushed the heavy door open, Xander blinked as he was greeted by a curled fist as it crashed into his helmet.
--
(A/N) YAY! Plot bunnies have returned