Title: The Hellmouth is Not Enough (Chapter Five)

Author: Randall Stone

Disclaimer: All characters are belong to someone else.

Summary: England's newest secret agent draws Sunnydale duty.

Notes:
Spoilers: S1-3

Changes: Hopefully everything will be explained in the text. Bug
me if anything is confusing.

Continuity notes:
- S3 proceeded as written (I'm assuming a 'self-healing' view of
history, rather than a 'step on a butterfly and change
everything' view)
- Bond notes: The Connery movies happened, and all the events
from the book happened. None of the Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan
movies have happened. Instead, Bond moved into gradually less
physically demanding roles, finally winding up in an advisory
position for a decade or so before retiring. Think of him as
being physically the way Connery was in Entrapment.

This is a fun fic, so I'll be playing a little fast and loose with
the characters. They should be recognizable, but I'm not making
any effort to match up with S4 canon.

Category: B/X
Rating: PG-14- nothing worse than what's on the show.
Feedback: Yes please.

*****

"Why hello Buffy, Xander. I see you received my message." Giles
greeted them at the door to his apartment.

Xander and Buffy looked at each other, confused. Xander responded
to Giles' statement.

"No, actually, I was just dropping Buffy off for her pre-patrol
briefing. What was the mess- oof."

Xander was interrupted by a blur of red hair that chose that moment
to crash into his chest. When he had caught his breath, Xander
realized that it was Willow expressing her happiness to see him
again.

"Xander! I haven't seen you in forever. How have you been? Did
you miss me? How was England? Did you miss Sunnydale? What are you
doing here? Come here."

"Good, yes, very British, yes, business trip." Xander answered
bemusedly as he followed Willow back into the main room of Giles'
apartment.

Willow stopped him in front of the coffee table, in front of a young
man sitting on the couch. The man appeared to be about Xander's
age, maybe a little older. His most distinguishing feature was his
hair, which was spiked straight up and dyed bright red.

"Xander, this is Oz, my boyfriend. He plays guitar in a band."

"Pleasure to meet you, Oz. Any friend of Willow's is a friend of
mine."

"Likewise."

The two shook hands.

"Ooh, one other thing-" Willow interjected. "Oz is a werewolf."

Xander looked at Oz warily.

"Isn't that a little dangerous?"

"Not really. He just turns into a beast three days out of the
month."

"You're a real believer in equality in a relationship, aren't you?"

Giles cleared his throat loudly, cutting off Willow before she had a
chance to reply.

"I would like to discuss the latest threat to our lives, if that is
quite all right?" Giles looked pointedly at Xander and Willow.

They nodded sheepishly and settled down to listen to Giles' lecture.

"Many years ago the dominant life form in this region were the
Vel'tok demons." Giles held up a picture of a tall, vaguely
reptilian humanoid with blue skin. "They lived in a tribal system
in a near constant state of war with neighboring demon tribes.

"They were in the middle of one of these wars when they were
betrayed. They had hired a mercenary sorceror who was secretly
working for their enemy. He set protective wards that did not
actually protect the city, and cast numerous other ineffective
spells.

"More important to us, he cast a spell imprisoning the Vel'tok
warrior prince, Grachnar, in a pocket dimension. He is sealed off
from this earth and the flow of time."

"Seems like it's not our problem." Xander suggested.

"It wouldn't be, except that my research indicates that the mystical
forces tonight will be aligned in such a way to weaken the barriers
between our dimension and the pocket dimension, allowing Grachnar to
escape."

"Anything special I should know about, or is this just the usual
hack and slash sort of thing?" Buffy asked.

"By all reports he is a fierce fighter. However, Beheading should be
sufficient to kill him. My primary concern is that if he is given
time he could assemble a demonic army to wreak havoc on Sunnydale and
the surrounding area.

"You should be able to overcome him in single combat, but I would
recommend that the rest of us be there to keep vampires from
attacking while you are preoccupied."

"Sounds like a plan. Xander, it's been a while, so you don't have
to come if you don't want to."

"Are you kidding? It'll be like old times." Xander turned to
Giles. "Say, how much time do we have until tall, blue and scaly
comes to play?"

Giles glanced at his watch. "Approximately an hour and a half.
Why?"

"I have a phone call I'd like to make before we go, if you don't
mind?"

"Not at all. The phone is on the kitchen counter."

"Actually, I need to make a private call. It's early in the morning
in England and my boss should just be arriving at the office."

"Oh, of course." Giles picked up the slight emphasis that Xander
put on the word 'private'. "The other phone is in the bottom drawer
of my bedside table."

---

Xander entered Giles' bedroom, closed the door, and walked over to
the bedside table. He pulled the bottom drawer open and withdrew a
nondescript telephone. The black telephone looked like it could
have come off of the shelf of the local Best Buy. It's most notable
feature was a digital display used to display the phone number of
incoming calls.

Xander retrieved his wallet from his pocket and removed a small card
that had a digital readout on the front. Picking up the receiver
he dialed the security code off of his card and was rewarded by the
sound of a dial tone.

Xander smiled and punched in the number for the home office. The
phone was answered after the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Hello Moneypenny. Don't say I never call."

"To what do I owe this rare honor, Xander?"

"I'm hurt- I can't just call to enjoy your dulcet tones?"

"Not on this line."

While Miss Moneypenny was usually as cheerful and flirtatious as her
mother had been, the early hour was clearly having an effect on her.

"I have some news for the old man. Could you put me through?"

Xander was answered by a clicking noise over the line, and a gruff
greeting.

"007?"

"Yes sir. I have some news on Finn."

"What is it?"

"It seems his entire factory is manned by vampires. I took the
pictures to prove it and dropped them off at our field office. I
also heard him talking to somebody about operation 'Grand Slam'. I
don't think that this is just an encryption case any more, sir."

"The code name could simply refer to the chip... but the vampires
concern me." M sighed. "We're going to have to bring the CIA in on
this. We have a good working relationship with a man there, but
don't push it. Officially, you were taking a vacation to visit your
old home we called and pressed you into service. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. I think you and Felix will get along just fine."

---

Xander exchanged some administrative information with M and then
headed downstairs to catch the tail end of Buffy's battle briefing.

"Xander- can you handle a crossbow?"

"Pointy end of the arrow away from me, right?"

Buffy gave him a look, then pointed to a spot on the map.

"You'll be stationed here, with Giles. Your job is to hold off any
vampires in the area- try not to shoot any of us."

---

Xander stood next to Giles on a small hill located in the Olde
Sunnydale Cemetary. They had a good view of the whole area,
including the spot where Buffy stood about fifty feet away, holding
a nasty looking short sword.

The cemetary seemed more ominous than usual. Thunderclouds were
gathered overhead, and lightning flashed in the distance as thunder
rolled through the cemetary. It was still only drizzling on the
Scoobies, but it was clear that the storm could break at any time.

They hadn't seen any vampire activity all night, perhaps due to the
weather. Vampires didn't like getting wet any more than humans.

Buffy had been in position for about fifteen minutes. She was about
to turn and ask Giles when Grachnar would be appearing when she saw
what looked like a small rainbow appear in front of her. Reality
seemed to twist as the rainbow rippled and expanded. It grew larger
and larger until finally solidifying into the demon's form.

Grachnar was certainly a physically imposing specimen, standing over
seven feet tall. His blue colored body was well muscled and criss
crossed with battle scars. He was wielding a wicked looking blue
scimitar in his right hand. The only parts of the demon that were
not blue were his eyes, which glowed an eerie red.

"Fools! Who dares to oppose Grachnar!"

"That would be me."

Grachnar looked around for a moment before looking down and spotting
the petite form of the Slayer.

"A little girl? I will grind your bones to make my bread!"

"And fee fi fo fum to you too. Is it that hard to be even a little
original?"

"I-" Grachnar was cut off by the twang of a crossbow being fired,
followed closely by a loud thwack as the bolt embedded itself into
his calf.

Grachnar responded to this by howling in agony and falling to the
ground. He curled up into a fetal ball and rolled around on the
ground, screaming continuously.

Buffy was puzzled for a moment as she watched this display. She
then shrugged, raised the sword over her head, and brought it down
through Grachnar's neck, decapitating him and putting him out of his
misery. She watched his body dissolve into a green goo, then turned
to face the approaching forms of Giles and Xander.

"Mind telling me what happened there?"

"Well, suffice it to say," Giles removed his glasses and began to
polish them. "Not all creatures keep their genitalia in the same
place."

Giles paused for a moment as he, Oz, and Xander winced in a moment
of cross species empathy. He then turned to face Xander.

"That was an exceptionally fine shot, by the way."

"Thanks, G-man." Xander summoned up a goofy grin. "Just don't ask
where I was aiming."

---

Giles and Xander arrived back at Giles' apartment shortly before the
storm broke. Buffy had elected to walk Willow and Oz home directly
from the cemetary.

Giles watched the torrents of rain pounding against his windows for
a moment, then turned to face Xander.

"Are you trying to blow your cover?" Giles asked angrily. "And
mine as well? Or did you skip the course on *covert* operations?"

"Hey, calm down. You know as well as I do that the girls are never
going to think of me as anything more dangerous than donut guy. Do
you really think Buffy is going to guess that I'm a secret agent?"

Xander waited for Giles to stop pacing before sitting down and
continuing.

"Now look, maybe watching Buffy roll around in the mud fighting a
demon is your idea of a good time." Xander paused as his eyes
glazed over slightly. "Never mind. The point is, I'm here to
accomplish a mission, not stand around in the rain playing demon
hunter."

Seeing that Giles had calmed down, Xander quickly filled him in on
the goings on at Riley's factory, and the news from the Home Office.
Giles had only one question.

"What are you going to do now?"

"I think it's time I met Mr. Finn. Socially."

***