Plagiarist 7
"Follow me," Julie ordered as she leapt up on a dumpster, and scaled the wall behind it like a cat, bouncing off a light post as she neared the top to clear the spikes in a perfect somersault before she vanished from sight.
Xander looked at the route Julie had taken and shook his head. He shimmied up the light pole and climbed on top of it to get a clear view over the wall and saw Julie sitting comfortably on the flat roof that was just a foot below the top of the wall. She pouted as he ruined her fun. She'd been looking forward to seeing him leap over the wall blindly only to pancake on the flat roof in the moonlight. Xander chuckled and leapt, the tip of his right shoe catching on the top of a spike, causing him to fall flat on his face on the gravel roof.
Julie laughed and waited for Xander to get up and brush himself off before saying, "We really need to get a camera to catch these moments."
Xander thought about that for a moment. "While normally I would say 'filming yourself committing a felony is the height of stupidity', I would like some shots for the photo album for when I go home."
"What is home like anyway?" Julie asked as she scanned the rooftops.
"Demon infested California town that devours the unwary but has a pretty solid local economy," Xander replied easily as he looked out over the zoo.
Julie plucked a piece of gravel out of his chin and smirked. "Sounds like a step up from Gotham."
"In some ways it probably is," Xander admitted, as he thought about the various super villains that were infesting Gotham.
Julie turned to look at Xander as she felt the somber turn of his thoughts. "Gotham is what it is," she said bluntly. "Better men than you have died trying to change it. The most anyone can do is make small, local changes. You can help individuals but the character of the city will remain the same."
"Doesn't mean we shouldn't try," Xander replied. "A bullet in the Joker's brainpan would do wonders for Gotham."
She sighed and shook her head. "If it were that easy it would have been done long ago. Do you know how many grieving parents have gone after him?"
"Hundreds?" Xander guessed.
"Dozens, though hundreds have put in money to have him killed, for all the good it did. The Joker is a curse on Gotham, one that Gotham itself won't let die. Something always saves him at the last second."
"Just like Batman," Xander said thoughtfully.
"How do you mean?" she asked curiously.
"Just thinking aloud," Xander replied. "Let's go help preserve the feline population."
"Alright," she said slowly, deciding she didn't want to talk about depressing subjects like the Joker anymore that night. "This way." Lithe as her namesake, Julie leapt from roof to roof with Xander clumsily following her, but improving as he crudely copied her movements. Reaching the low roof of a hotdog shaped snack bar, she landed on the ground by doing a completely unnecessary triple backflip and was rewarded with the sound of Xander slamming into the ground and cursing while she giggled.
"That was just cruel," Xander grumbled as he cracked his neck and dusted himself off.
"You regenerate and you're having fun," she replied. "Besides, you'll learn faster by making mistakes than you ever will by doing everything perfectly."
"Really?" Xander asked doubtfully.
"It's what my teacher taught me... although I suspect she was just doing it for fun," she admitted with a grin.
Xander opened his mouth to say something, but the roar of a lion drowned him out. The two exchanged glances before running towards the sound.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Anything?" Willow asked Buffy anxiously.
"Sorry Will," Buffy apologized, "even Angel was unable to find a trace of him. It's like he had sex with... the gang and then vanished into thin air."
"Where could he be?" Willow worried aloud.
"If he was dead we would know," Amy assured her.
"I finished the viewfinder," Susan said. "It's kinda wrong to invade his privacy, but we could use it to make sure he's alright."
"Viewfinder?" Harmony asked, distracted from her pool game against Aphrodesia by the girls talking at the bar.
"We usually use it to scout out areas so we can start developing ideas on what to build before we officially start on a project, but we can set it to search for a person instead. All we need is a sample of his DNA," Amy explained.
"Grab a crusty sock from his bedroom floor and you'll have all the DNA you need," Harmony suggested with a grin.
"Seriously?" Buffy asked, a disgusted look on her face.
"He's a teenage male," Harmony replied with a shrug.
"A fresher sample would get better results," Susan said. "Let me grab the clothes I wore yesterday, they should still have a decent amount to work with."
"Meet us in the TV room," Amy told her, slipping off her barstool.
"TV room?" Harmony asked, passing the cue stick to Aphrodesia to follow Amy, Willow, and Buffy.
"Sure," Amy said as she lead them towards the elevators. "The lounge is nice and all, but not the place for watching movies."
"I don't suppose you have guest rooms or something similar?" Harmony asks hopefully.
"Yeah, but they aren't personalized or anything," Amy said, wrinkling her nose as she hit a button and the elevator doors closed, "they are more like motel rooms than anything else."
"How many levels does this place have?" Buffy asked as she stared at the elevator panel.
"Just nine," Amy replied. "We have three above ground and six below. Why do you think we needed tons of metal?"
"You guys are stupidly awesome," Harmony said with a grin.
"Thanks," Amy replied as the doors opened on the top floor and they stepped out into a hallway lined with floor to ceiling windows, recessed lighting on the floor allowing them to see all the stars in the night sky without glare interfering.
"Uh huh," Willow said absently as she took in the view.
"I know," Amy said, pleased with the response to her design. "During the day it's also pretty cool and there's a deck on top, but it's a bit windy."
"Why put the TV all the way up here?" Harmony asked.
"Because extended periods of time in low light conditions can cause depression and throw off your sleep cycle, so a bit of nice healthy daylight helps counteract that," Amy replied.
"Low light?" Harmony asked, confused.
"Ever gone to a movie theater?" Amy asked rhetorically, "They dim the lights so you only see the screen, just like most office jobs set office light levels to three quarters or less of normal daylight so you'll naturally focus on your computer monitor. The low light levels can actually trigger Seasonal Affective Disorder, but most people simply end up with depressed serotonin levels. Anyway, a good strong dose of sunlight helps counteract that and restores normal brain functionality."
"Office work depresses people," Harmony agreed as Amy opened the door to the TV lounge which was a large circular room with a number of tables and chairs, a small wet bar, and a couple of rows of theater style seats set in front of the largest TV they had ever seen.
"If you played video games on this, Mario would be life sized," Harmony said in awe, as the blackout curtain closed behind her.
"Popcorn and sodas?" Buffy asked.
"Behind the wet bar," Amy replied.
"I don't care what it costs, you are never getting rid of me!" Harmony swore.
"Visualizer on, 2D mode," Amy said, causing the enormous screen to come to life, briefly displaying a logo of a barely dressed Xander, Willow, and Buffy with the words 'Three Lovers' below it.
"What was that?!" Buffy demanded.
"That's our logo," Amy replied as Susan arrived carrying a green G-string. "We made it when we finished our apprenticeship and became our own company," she said proudly.
"You never mentioned anything like that!" Buffy told Willow.
"I retained less Builder lore than you did French," Willow replied, blushing bright red. "I don't recall any of our personal history."
"We have personal history?" Buffy asked quietly while Harmony retrieved a bag of popcorn to eat while watching the ongoing drama.
"I don't know," Willow offered lamely. "Maybe?"
Amy and Susan exchanged glances and grinned.
"We're builders," Susan said realizing what their problem was, "that means local laws and morals have very little meaning to us."
"Plus we're young builders," Amy added, "meaning we are very hormonal. Naturally, we'd form strong connections with the Builders we are close to."
"It's not like we're married to each other or anything," Susan said, trying to reassure her.
"Yeah, this is more like a short fling," Amy agreed. "Give it a couple of centuries and we'll probably go back to just being friends."
"Centuries?!" Buffy and Willow exclaimed.
"Immortals, duh!" Harmony said, rolling her eyes.
Susan stepped behind the wet bar and stuffed the G-string somewhere they couldn't see, while the TV lit up with the words 'Analyzing Sample' followed by reams of data. As data flashed across the screen, Amy and Susan's eyes got wide.
"What?" Buffy asked as she saw Willow struggling to understand what she was reading.
"Xander has jumped timelines, his DNA is continually undergoing mutation, and... he needs more potassium in his diet," Amy noted.
"I hear pineapples are good for that," Harmony suggested.
"Jumped timelines?" Willow asked anxiously.
"No biggie," Amy said, "we can build an artificial nexus and have him home before Easter."
"That's five months away!" Willow complained.
"That's almost no time at all," Susan said with a shrug, not understanding why Willow was so worried.
"But who knows what could happen to Xander in the mean time!" Buffy exclaimed.
"It's only five months," Susan rolled her eyes.
"How much trouble could he find in that short of time?" Amy asked doubtfully as the screen flickered and brought up a live view of the source of the DNA in the visualizer.
The five girls watched as a horribly scarred man was fighting a leather clad woman with a whip, while Xander was fighting a bunch of thugs and number of large cats were running loose attacking everyone.
"And it's only been a couple of days," Harmony said, as they watched Xander pick up one guy and use him like a club against his friends before he was tackled by a tiger.
"Xander!" Buffy and Willow screamed at the screen, afraid that they'd just seen their friend killed, but another tiger pounced on the one on top of Xander and the pair rolled away hissing and spitting, allowing Xander to climb back to his feet and proceed to lay waste to everyone around him with a complete disregard for his own wounds.
"See?" Amy said, "He's fine."
Typing by: Abyssal Angel