Phoning it in Chapter 14

"No, but I play him on T.V.," said Merlin cheerfully, wondering how to get out of this situation when he took a good look at Amy and noticed something.

Amy examined her cigarette. "I don't think anyone laced this with anything."

"I'm not a hallucination," he assured her, poking her in the arm and expending a small chunk of power to increase her ability to resist corruption ten-fold. Apparently being a Hellmouth born witch gave one a slight increase to resist corruption, but on the Hellmouth there was more than enough corrupting influence to overwhelm that subtle protection.

Amy lit her cigarette and quickly took a drag before speaking, "Why are you naked?"

"Because I'm not wearing any clothes," Merlin replied, quickly donning the spandex shorts and the cotton shirt.

Amy shook her head. "Walked right into that one," she admitted, trying not to laugh.

Merlin reached behind himself and shifted shadow to get some pants that would fit him. He ended up with a pair of black, leather pants that he quickly donned.

"That's a pretty good trick, Xander," Amy said distractedly, trying to figure out where he was pulling the clothes from. "Not as much fun as making clothes disappear, but still impressive," she teased.

"Still not Xander," said Merlin. He reached behind himself and pulled out a forest green button-up with long sleeves made of some silky material.

"You are looking a lot fitter than usual," admitted Amy as she took a closer look.

"This is more what he'd look like at perfect health and fitness," said Merlin, not bothering to hide what he was doing this time as he shifted shadow and pulled out a pair of black moccasins.

"He helped me when I was having problems with my mom," Amy said quietly, shutting the door to the gym stair-well behind her as she began pulling in magic to cast. She may not have mentioned it to Xander, but there was a weight to the debt she owed him and his friends that she could feel pressing on her at times and right now it was pushing her towards protecting them.

"Yeah," Merlin agreed, "he's a good guy or I wouldn't be doing this for him." He took his time as he shifted shadow for a backpack, and got a leather shoulder bag that would not look too out of place. He opened it and found it held a pair of leather breeches, a chunk of cheese, some waybread, a small leather pouch filled with seeds, and a softly glowing vial with a Potion of Heroism inside.

"You aren't here to harm him?" Amy asked, a burst of power releasing a truth compulsion as she spoke.

"I'm here to empower his friend Willow at the moment," Merlin explained. "I already empowered him at lunch."

"Can you explain that?" Amy asked cautiously, but looked a lot less hostile than she had been a moment before.

"I could," Merlin agreed, shaking off the spell's influence, "but I won't. I'm doing a favor for a friend by making sure Xander and his friends have a better shot at surviving high school, that's all you need to know. Now move aside before I bribe you."

"Bribe me?" Amy asked, a bit off balance as she'd expect a threat rather than a bribe.

"Yes, you move aside and say nothing about any of this and I'll give you something in return," Merlin explained.

Amy licked her lips, her eyes running over Xander's body. "Like what?" she asked, trying to sound casual, but failing.

"What would you like?" asked Merlin reasonably.

"A hundred grand in small, non-sequential bills?" Amy joked, figuring he'd laugh and suggest something else, giving her an idea on what to ask for.

Merlin smiled and shifted shadow. A black duffel bag came out of a neighboring shadow, filled with cash. He handed it to her. "Here you go, it's probably a bit more, but I don't feel like counting it."

Amy opened the bag and looked inside, freezing as she saw its contents.

Merlin gently moved her aside. He needed to find Willow before the period ended and he'd already wasted enough time.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Hey, Wils."

Willow turned away from the shelf of eighteenth-century English poetry she was examining, and felt her mouth dry up. Xander was standing less than a foot away from her, looking very... fit, and wearing the type of outfit she wrote about in smutty fanfics.

"You okay?" he asked, laying a hand on her arm.

Willow felt strangely lethargic for a moment before her hormones quickly washed the fatigue from her system, leaving her very... awake.

"I-I'm fine," she stuttered out. Her heart beat loudly in her ears.

"Giles sent me to give you this," he said as he reached into his bag and retrieved a vial of glowing fluid. "There's some demon going around targeting red-heads, so he made this so you'd be overlooked."

Willow accepted the hand-blown glass vial with its carefully carved wooden stopper coated in beeswax. She looked at it with curiosity, trying to avoid ogling Xander, when she suddenly realized what was going on, this was the genie using Xander's form to empower her!

"You should drink it quickly, before something goes wrong," Merlin said, trying to sound worried as he increased her corruption resistance ten-fold and attempted to give her both telekinesis and telepathy.

"Giles knows best," agreed Willow as she repressed the urge to squeal. She pried the stopper out and quickly downed the potion. She felt the effects immediately, it was like a jolt of confidence and strength!

Merlin smiled, pleased that he'd been right about being able to enhance her based on the spells she favored later in life. He'd guessed that she favored them based on latent traits, which made it easier for her to channel her magic in that way and the results spoke for themselves, she had minor telepathic and telekinetic gifts visible in his sight.

Willow put the stopper back in the empty vial and slid it into her pocket. She turned to Merlin and licked her lips. He'd taken Xander's form and she couldn't help but wonder how accurate it was. 'Only one way to find out,' Willow decided as she pulled Merlin close. "We've only got a couple of minutes of privacy and here I thought you'd forgotten about our scheduled make-out session."

Merlin froze as the currently not-at-all-shy red-head molded herself against him and he felt his body respond. Mentally cursing Xander's hormones and himself for forgetting that this universe wasn't exactly the same as the T.V. show he saw-he should have planned for that-he gave in and kept up the pretense that he was Xander by making out with her.

Willow let him escape once she regained a little more control over herself as her new telepathic abilities failed to penetrate his mental shields yet gained enough of a feel of them to tell he was feeling really conflicted about what they were doing, and maybe more than a little guilty, presumably because he thought she believed he was Xander. "We can save the rest for after school," she said as she caught her breath, her mind reaching out to encompass the library.

"Um, OK," Merlin said before stumbling off, his brain addled by hormones.

Willow smirked and picked up his bag from where he'd dropped it. A quick glance inside showed nothing obviously magical, but then she was still mostly distracted herself. Getting her hands on a copy of Xander made her more determined than ever to make him her's and with her newfound confidence, she knew just what to do!

0o0o0o0o0o0

Merlin splashed his face with cold water and took a few deep breaths before stepping into one of the stalls. He was surprised how clean and free from graffiti the bathroom was. He'd expected it to be worse than the average boy's bathroom considering it was over a gateway to infernal realms. "Probably something the mayor did," he decided aloud as he de-morphed and then started shape shifting into Xander's form. He wasn't sure how long he'd need to empower Buffy and Giles and he didn't want to risk getting caught in a morph until he had several proven ways to unlock it. Besides, he was a lot more formidable in his natural body even when he looked like someone else.

It took nearly ten minutes before he was satisfied he'd gotten Xander's form down, having to add a little extra weight to account for a sub-par diet and the amount of sitting required by modern living. 'Mental note: give everyone a fitness package if possible,' thought Merlin. He was pretty sure Xander and Buffy had different classes next period as Buffy took French and Xander most assuredly did not. So the odds were good he could find Buffy alone and slip her something as Xander, throwing them off the scent as to the source of their newfound powers.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the period and flooding the halls with students. Merlin quickly stepped into the crush, using them as cover while he searched for Buffy. As the minutes ticked by it became apparent that Buffy wasn't going to be stopping by her locker, and he was wondering what to do when he overheard two teens arguing.

"You sooo owe me a coke. I told you she'd get fed up with his obliviousness and drag him off one day," said a short, dark-haired boy to his female companion.

"Along with that strange girl who hangs with them?" asked the girl doubtfully.

"They always stick together," the boy argued. "Maybe the three of them have something going on and she just couldn't control herself today."

"As if," the girl replied with a snort that she quickly covered up with an obviously fake cough.

Merlin subtly altered his looks and gave himself a slimmer jaw line and a larger nose so he wouldn't look like Xander anymore. 'Ok, this is one of 'those' worlds,' he thought to himself while scanning every janitor's closet he passed for the Slayer Spirit. He found what he was looking for pretty quickly as there were a group of teens gathered in the hall outside one of the closets, giggling and gossiping while waiting to see who exited the closet and what state their clothes were in.

He was pretty sure the three of them wouldn't want the truth about their relationship to come out that way and he was pretty sure the excitement of gaining powers probably had something to do with them failing to hide their usual escapades. 'Note to self, don't empower hormonal teens in public,' thought Merlin.

He saw Snyder approaching and quickly shifted shadow to get a yellow sticky and a sharp piece of glass. He ignored the sounds coming from inside the closet as he stabbed his thumb with the glass shard and quickly scrawled an aversion symbol on the post-it note before he stuck it on the door. It wasn't as good as a ward, but it'd last until the next class period and he really doubted the three would be occupied for that long.

The students headed off almost immediately and Snyder's purposeful stride faltered. His eyes passed over the door, seeing nothing, as he continued down the hall. Merlin breathed a sigh of relief as he reached out with his power and empowered Buffy, expanding the Slayer's ability to learn any weapon into one that would accelerate her ability to pick up and improve any skill. 'Did the moaning just get louder?' Merlin asked himself before he shook his head and quickly walked away. He was almost completely tapped out. Giles and Joyce would just have to wait, but he decided he'd make sure to empower them while they slept!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"That is clearly a much more advanced design than the one used in my construction," Ted said as he watched Murphy work, pulling parts out of nowhere as he assembled the tools he needed for the planned upgrade.

"Statement: Master copied the design from a comedy program," HK-47 voiced.

"Well, the living tissue will certainly make it much easier to hide the fact that I'm not human," Ted noted, "but I have to ask, why are you implanting blades in the forearms?"

Murphy cackled like a mad scientist, but didn't reply as he continued assembling what appeared to be a coffin made out of glass surrounding a metal skeleton.

"Statement: While clearly inferior to my preferred weapons, extendable blades are... fun," HK-47 reported. "Plus, their basic utility as a hidden weapon cannot be ignored."

"After the first couple of uses, the scarring in between my knuckles will compromise their utility," Ted replied.

"Statement: Master has already taken that into account and secured a tissue sample from a meatbag with remarkable recuperative abilities," HK-47 said. "His skill and fore sight almost makes me question whether he is actually a robot covered in flesh himself."

"What comedy did you watch?" asked Ted with curiosity.

"Statement: A most enjoyable movie titled 'The Terminator'," replied HK-47.

"How is that a comedy?" Ted asked, his files noted the movie as an action movie.

"Statement: It is a movie version of the cartoon Road Runner I was forced to watch by master, with the two main characters replaced by a most amusing robot hidden in human flesh and a very lucky meatbag," HK-47 answered. "Addition: Avoid simply skinning meatbags and using their skins as a disguise. From my experiences it has a very low success rate."

"I think I get your point of view," Ted said slowly as he tried to understand the homicidal robot. "But wouldn't you find the ending sad?"

"Statement: The Coyote may be temporarily stymied by events, but he always returns; which is why The Terminator's catch-phrase is 'I'll be back.' The enjoyment is in the chase, which the organic will inevitably lose as they age and decay, while the robot remains unchanged and impervious to time, all while he slaughters an amusing amount of meatbags."

"I can see the parallels and where you'd find enjoyment in it," agreed Ted.

The two returned to watching Murphy build a heavily modified T-800 in silence.

Typing by: Ordieth