Despite its name, its clientele, and the fact that it was located in its own pocket dimension, the Henchman's Bar was just like any other watering hole throughout the Multiverse. It was the cherished hangout for an assortment of minions, goons, underlings, and the like from all known times, existences, and realities that gathered together after a hard day at work, gratefully downed their brewskies, and then enjoyed a chance to safely grouse among themselves about their boss's latest stupid scheme. Much later on in the evening, if they were lucky, the newbies on their first visit to the bar would be the recipients of various, mostly-drunken, handy tips on how to survive working for people whose idea of employee relations was to expect absolute obedience for such orders as, "You there, what's-your-name, get ready to single-handedly fight off the Justice League while I escape through the secret tunnel!"

Over the years, a spot at the back of the bar, by the bulletin board with its bowling league sign-up sheet, had become covered with graffiti that presented some of the more sensible advice dispensed by uncredited, third-rank, subordinates before they'd passed out at their tables. On the wall by the phone nook, diverse beings had scraped with flint knives, hacked with battleaxes, and burned into the plaster using their laser pistols such hard-won pearls of wisdom as:

THE JOKER HAS NO SENSE OF HUMOR REGARDING THE JOY-BUZZER GAG BEING USED ON HIM.

IF YOUR DARK LORD INSISTS ON WEARING A CAPE, ALWAYS HANG BACK A FEW PACES WHILE MARCHING AFTER HIM; THEY GET REALLY CRANKY WHEN YOU STEP ON THIS.

IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO ATTRACT LEX LUTHOR'S ATTENTION BY YELLING, "HEY, BALDY!"

NEVER GOOSE SAURON.

From where he was hesitating by the restroom door, taking enough deep breaths to sustain him throughout his speedy micturation inside there without inhaling (a bunch of guys capable of firing their machine guns at full auto towards a hero standing six feet away and missing every single time isn't going to have all that good aim at anything else), a new addition to the graffiti caught the minion's eye:

TO ALL VAMPS: IT'LL HURT A LOT LESS IF YOU DELIVER AN ORIGINAL THREAT RIGHT BEFORE YOU ATTACK THE WORST GUY POSSIBLE.

*Wonder what's the story behind that? Ask around when it's your turn to buy a round,* mused the minion to himself, just before he yanked open the men's room door and dashed inside towards the nearest urinal at his full speed, hastily working at the fly zipper of his jumpsuit, all while holding his breath and feeling his eyes starting to burn.

Several months earlier, in his body of Mayor Wilkins, Xander balefully watched the ashes of the destroyed vampire drifting away from him further down the alley, carried along by the mild breeze of the Halloween night. The teenager who'd been changed into someone thirty years older snarled out loud, "Way to go, dude! Like it wasn't totally the wrong thing to say, 'Good thing for me that I like my dinner well done!' You deserved everything you got, even though I didn't know it was even possible!"

Mirthlessly smirking to himself, Xander sardonically replayed in his mind's eye how that vampire had looked in his final seconds of absolute agony, when the furious boy had magically teleported a minuscule drop of holy water right into every single one of that demon's nerve clusters throughout his entire body. That must have created for the vampire an ultimate state of pure pain just before he'd dusted, sadistically reflected Xander, who went on to thoughtfully wonder if he could do the same thing to Ethan, only with acid then instead of water. *Worth a shot, if I can't get my hands on an Australian jellyfish, those really nasty ones that can kill with their poisonous stingers, a funnel, and a tube of K-Y jelly.*

Xander Harris was not in a good mood.

He hadn't thought it was possible, but after spending valuable time and magical energy fixing what had been destroyed by the rampages of those changed by their Chaos-imbued costumes, Xander's ire had only increased. When he'd stepped out of anyone's sight into a nearby alley to start mystically scanning Ethan's location for whatever wards, defenses, or protections that mage had surely created, being accosted inside the passageway by a stinking vampire had been virtually the last straw.

*PROTECT PACK! PROTECT PACK!*

"Oh, now what?" muttered Xander under his breath at this sudden mental eruption by Hyena. He'd thought the Primal animal spirit had finally been incorporated completely into his mind, with no further trace of her personality remaining. Though, it had been more like he and no one else had suddenly become conscious of something, as if remembering a vital task to be urgently accomplished. Frowning, Xander checked his thoughts, to then abruptly realize what Hyena had been warning him about.

Just because he'd recently subdued and confined those people changed by Chaos magic, it still didn't mean that it was absolutely safe to be around and about Sunnydale tonight. When Xander bemusedly checked Wilkins' memories, the Mayor quickly confirmed Rupert Giles' assumption explained earlier to the Scooby Gang that the town's vampire and demons regarded the concept of Halloween with utter disdain, and in the main, those creatures stayed inside their lairs during that holiday, allowing humans a rare night to walk without fear on the city streets. Normally, that is. Tonight had been anything but normal.

With worry beginning to appear on Xander's mature face, he realized that the vampire he'd encountered a few minutes ago might have been lured from his hiding place by the uproar of all the anarchy occurring tonight. And if that demon had come out…so could others, to find themselves sharing the night with Halloween trick-or-treaters.

Now his blood really turned cold. Xander cringed inwardly at the idea of vampires running amok among the children of Sunnydale, and he desperately asked Richard Wilkins inside his mind for advice, without even noticing that rather than contacting another personality, it was more like searching his recollections of other events like this and what actions had been taken, to either be repeated again, or to try something new. This meant that Xander soon made a decision that a firm hand was needed, and at once, without ever thinking if it was him or anyone else who'd quickly come to that conclusion.

Stepping out of the alley, his face set, Xander stood on the street sidewalk, effortlessly calling up Sunnydale Syndrome around himself to shield his next actions from anybody's prying eyes. In the next instant, the man in his formal suit (and still barefoot - he'd never bothered to change that during the last few hours) raised his right hand to chest level, index finger pointing away in front of himself, while he ran through his mind the spell he was about to cast with Hellmouth energy. An abrupt, last-minute thought called for his attention, and Xander grimaced to himself, grumbling, "Buffy's gonna owe me for this."

Altering his casting to allow for a single exception, Xander went back to work, until he could feel the spell within his body straining to break free. At the perfect moment, Xander then shot out his right arm, to point at nothing in particular down the street, as this act was symbolic only, when the teenager now cast his spell, pouring into this exactly the proper amount of Hellmouth energy to accomplish the specific hex he'd just performed.

In his mystical vision, Xander watched with grim pride as what looked like an intangible bolt of lightning burst from the tip of his pointing finger, a streak of supernatural force about ten feet long, that hurtled down the street to instantly vanish from sight. Staring after this while lowering his arm, Xander blinked away sudden tears, as he whispered into the night, "This one's for you, Jesse." He'd done what no one had ever thought possible, using the power of the Hellmouth itself that the Mayor would have never allowed anybody else to control.

The spell that Xander Harris had just cast would now hunt down and destroy every single vampire in Sunnydale. Besides Angel, of course.

In a totally unconscious display of youthful petulance over having to make that particular omission in his spell, Xander sullenly kicked the concrete sidewalk as hard as he could, only to then immediately realize, as pain shot upwards from his seriously-stubbed toes, that while Hyena's mystical toughness had kept his bare feet from being injured all through the night, there were limits to this protection. Hopping around along the now-cracked sidewalk on one foot, as he gingerly cradled his other throbbing foot in his hands, Xander gritted, "I don't care how many goo-goo eyes Buffy sends in his direction, Captain Hairgel's gonna pay for that!"