Title: Xander Harris: Year One (Chapter One)

Author: Randall Stone

Disclaimer: All characters are belong to someone else.

Summary: Some are born to destiny. Others make their own.

Notes:
Spoilers: S1-4

Continuity changes: Hopefully everything will be explained in the
text. One note- Veruca tragically stepped in front of a bus the
day before she was going to be turned into a werewolf, so Oz will
be hanging around.

Also, when time periods are skipped, assume that season 4 happened
as in canon except where noted differently. I don't have a whole
lot of changes early on, and I don't want to transcribe the first
few episodes.

Rating: PG-14- nothing worse than what's on the show.


*****

Riley followed Forrest into the briefing room and sat down. The
room was outfitted like a small college classroom, complete with
five tiered rows of desks, a whiteboard, and an overhead projector.
Forrest sat next to Riley in the second row, behind two hispanic
men who appeared to be twins.

Riley was just starting to fidget in his seat when a man entered
with an armload of folders. The man handed the folders to Forrest
for distribution and walked to the front of the room.

"Good afternoon gentlemen. My name is Graham Miller, and I've been
assigned to introduce you all to the Initiative.

"First of all let me make sure I remember the names of the new
guys. You look like a Riley Finn, and here we have-" Graham looked
at Forrest for guidance. "Jose and Miguel Caparoja?"

"Miguel and Jose, big guy." Forrest corrected him. "And you owe
me ten bucks."

"Damn. You'd think I'd know better than to bet with you by now.

"OK, let's get the procedural stuff out of the way. While you are
with the Initiative, you will be known as 'Agent', whatever your
rank. So Agent Finn, Agent Caparoja, etcetera. You will continue
to accrue promotions and raises in accordance with your actual
rank, but you will not acknowledge in any way your ties to other
military branches while with the Initiative.

"If you'll please open your folders to the first page, you'll see
an organizational chart. Note that the military force is divided
into four five man teams. Each team's commander reports directly
to Commander Schultz, who heads up the entire project. We here in
this room will form one team, headed up by Agent Finn. We are
assigned to help Dr. Walsh, a civilian researcher."

"Researcher?" Riley couldn't help asking.

"Yes. Which brings us to the million dollar question: what's this
whole thing for? If you gentlement will turn to the next page,
you'll see-"

"Vampires?!" The three exclaimed almost in unison.

"Vampires, demons- we call them all hostile sub terrestrials now.
Our mandate is research and capture. I sense skepticism. OK, here
we go." Graham entered a code into the keypad attached to the
podium.

When he finished, the section of wall containing the whiteboard
slid aside, revealing a hidden room. A table rolled out from the
room, and then rotated to bring the face of the table upright. All
of this was accompanied by the whine of electric motors at work.

Strapped to the table was an ordinary looking man. White male,
early thirties, a little out of shape. The most unusual thing
about him was how securely he was fastened to the table. Solid
metal bands encompassed his wrists, ankles, and neck.

"Colin here is a vampire. Hello, Colin." Graham nodded towards
the table.

"Hello, Graham" Colin looked at Graham hungrily and licked his lips.

"Specifically, Colin is a vampire who has seen Silence of the Lambs
too many times. As you can see, he looks like a normal human
being. In this state, vampires range from two to four times human
normal strength. In their altered form, strength can increase up
to one hundred percent.

"The altered form, or 'game face', will be invoked in times of
stress, anger, or-" Graham picked up a bottle of water from his
desk, placed his hand over the top, and inverted the bottle,
dampening his hand. "Contact with holy objects."

Graham slapped his hand against Colin's arm. Riley jumped
involuntarily as there was a sizzling sound, and Colins face-
changed- into something horrifying. The primitive part of Riley's
mind screamed at him to run, run as far away from this thing as
he could. It took a moment for him to compose himself.

Graham looked around the room, noting the shaken faces of Jose,
Miguel, and Riley.

"Starting to believe now, aren't you? Now, another interesting
fact about vampires is that they heal very quickly. Wounds that
would kill a human being will only slow a vampire down. Watch."

Graham drew a silenced nine millimeter pistol from his belt, placed
it against Colin's chest, and fired several shots. The group
watched with rapt fascination as the wounds in his chest slowly
but visibly healed themselves.

"So, if you want to do serious damage to a vampire, you have to be
smart about it. Beheading, a stake through the heart, and sunlight
or burning in general will be fatal. Crosses and holy water burn.
Running water and garlic do nothing.

"Included in the folder are the strengths and weaknesses of
vampires and the other hostile sub-terrestrials we know about.
Are there any questions at this point? OK.

"Thank you, Colin." Graham entered another code in the keypad.

"Any time, Graham." Colin smiled as he was wheeled out of sight.

"OK, now for the fun part: weapons. If you'll look at the last
page of your folders, you'll see the specs on one of these babies."
Graham pulled a blaster from beneath the podium. "Think of it as
the world's biggest, baddest stun gun. To use it you simply aim
the pointed end at your target, and pull the trigger here. The
effective range is about fifty yards.

"The weapon has three power levels, which you can select here. On
setting one it will knock out an adult male. Setting two will take
out a vampire, as well as most other demons that we have
encountered. Setting three, well, we call that one 'barbeque'."

"The police department would love to have one of those" Jose said
softly, almost to himself.

"That brings me to my next point. When used on a human, there is a
small but non zero chance of inducing cardiac arrest. So don't go
around testing them out on your friends.

"This concludes my portion of your orientation. Agent Grant will
now take you on a tour of the facilities, including your barracks.
Good day gentlemen."

As they were leaving the room, Forrest couldn't help but chuckle at
the stunned expression on Riley's face.

"Pretty impressive, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I mean, wow. This is like something out of a movie."

"Don't get too excited, farmboy. We're not here to play hero-
we're here to work for the United States' goverment."

-----
TEN DAYS LATER

Xander knocked on the door to Giles' apartment and waited. Soon
the door was opened by a somewhat disheveled looking Rupert Giles.
Of course, disheveled on Giles meant that his shirt sleeves were
rolled up and he was wearing his second best pair of wingtips.

"Hey G-Man, what's shakin'?"

"Xander, right now I'm in the middle of organizing the books that
we liberated from the library. And don't call me that."

"Hey, that's cool, I can help you out while we catch up." Xander
breezed into the apartment. "I finally finished moving into my new
apartment and I realized I haven't talked to any of you guys since
the whole Sunday incident."

Xander saw Giles' surprised look. "What, I can't rent a new
place?"

"I would have thought that your total lack of a credit history,
rental history, or employment history might have presented some
obstacle."

"Hey, with Sunnydale's vacancy rates landlords are willing to
overlook a lot. It's the first time the vampires around here have
ever helped me out. Plus I have some cash saved up from my-"
Xander shuddered, "summer job.

"So, anything happen since I saw you last?"

"Well, it turns out that Buffy's roommate was a demon that was
summoned back to her home dimension last week."

"Cool, so she and Will are roomies now? Isn't it nice how things
just work out sometimes?"

"Quite."

"OK, let's get shelving. How hard can it be?"

Several hours later, Xander was staring blankly at the book in his
hands. Finally reaching a decision, he placed it on the shelf.

"There. I think I'm finally getting this system of yours."

"Yes, place the book randomly and wait for me to correct you."
Giles reached over Xander and put the book in its proper place.
"Xander, why are you really here?"

"Visiting my favorite ex-librarian?"

Giles just looked at him.

"OK, ok. It's just that I've been feeling a little...left out. I
mean, I've hardly seen Buffy since I got back. She, Will and Oz
have the college thing going, and you all together seem to be
handling all the supernatural stuff. I'm just...unemployed guy.

"I was thinking, and I know this sounds kind of silly, but maybe
you could lend me some books on demons and magic and stuff, so I
could read them be useful with the research stuff."

"Xander, I am certainly always one to encourage reading. However,
I would suggest that if your real issues are with Buffy, that you
discuss them with Buffy. She has been quite busy with school, and
may not realize that anybody is feeling left out."

"You know what, you're right. Could I use your phone G-Man?"

"Of course. And-"

"I know, I know." Xander walked over to the phone and picked it
up before realizing that he didn't know Buffy's new number. "Um-"

Wordlessly, Giles pointed to the pad attached to his refrigerator.

"Thanks." Xander dialed her number. "Hey. Buffy? It's Xander.
Yeah, it has been a while, that's why I'm calling. I'd like to
get together and talk- yeah, tomorrow's fine. Espresso pump?
Cool, see you at four."

Xander hung up the phone, feeling good about life. "Thanks Giles.
Oh man, I gotta run. See you later."

"Xander!"

Xander turned.

"Here are some books that will prove educational, should you have
the time to-"

"Yeah, great." Xander took the books Giles was holding out to him.
"I'll get right on them. Later."

Giles sighed as Xander turned to go. Xander was brought up short
as he opened the door.

"Anya?"

*****


Thus endeth chapter 1. We're looking at ten chapters total right
now. I know this one was a little Riley-heavy, but there are a
couple reasons for that. Number one, I want to set up the
Initiative as a somewhat believable military outfit, rather than a
bunch of college kids playing soldier. That'll take some time.
Secondly, strong behavioral habits take a while to break (i.e.
grown men who still can't fight back against physically abusive
parents), so it's baby steps for the Xand-man.

-- Randy