"So that giant-guy is really going to keep that thing around?"
"That's what he said, Buffy," Willow replied. "It seemed kind of nice. Nicer than the other two, anyway," she added quickly, seeing their looks. They sat around one of the smaller research tables in an empty classroom, enjoying a post-mayhem round of drinks with Grey, Xander, and Spike. Tara, exhausted, had begged off and gone to bed.
"How about the Dawnster, coming through in the clutch," Xander said. "And let's not forget who taught her to use the crossbow, hmm?"
"Um, that would be me, Xander," Buffy said, scowling at her friend.
"Well, yeah, sure, the shooting part. But which one of us served as a big, puffy target? That's right. The Xand man." Everyone laughed.
"So you've been teachin' the nibblet some fightin' moves, have you?" Spike asked. He took a long pull on his mug of ale and replenished it from one of several pitchers of cocktails. Besides the drinks, they still had a plate of cookies out on the table. Xander had already ravaged the donuts and devoured his personal stash of Twinkies.
"Yeah. With everybody gone," Buffy said pointedly, "we thought she should be better able to take care of herself."
"And she can handle the down-an'-dirty part of it? The in-your-face and all that?"
Buffy nodded, touched by his concern. "She's getting good. She can take Xander already."
"Hey! Not fair! She has training and stuff. All I know is carpentry."
"And I'm sure you could build a mean wall to hide behind," Spike said, tongue in cheek.
"Shut up, Junior. You of all things should fear my skill with a saw."
"Bite me, Harris." They glared at each other across the table.
"Can't say the same, can I?"
Spike glowered at him.
"Quit it," Willow said, her voice serious. "Come on, guys. Post-meal fun, holiday drinks among friends. Just don't talk to each other, if all you're gonna do is fight."
"He started…" She gave Xander a black look that shut him up. Spike smirked and swallowed more ale.
"Why do you call him Junior?" Grey asked.
"As in Deadboy, Junior," Xander answered. "You know who Angel is?" Grey nodded. "We didn't get along much. Angel's Deadboy. He's Spike's grandsire. Hence, Deadboy Junior."
"Aah, I see."
"You know what?" Buffy said, her thoughts wandering. "It's kind of sad that there's another place on Earth, besides Sunnydale, where whacky stuff happens often enough that sitting around having drinks with a vampire after an imp attack is considered normal."
"I thought it was kinda nice having something go wrong that wasn't all Big Bad-y," Willow said. Again, they gave her skeptical looks. "What? I mean, nothing super terrible happened. No one really got hurt. It was pretty funny, even. That's a big change for us."
"Hey, Buffy?" Grey said later, when the conversation flagged. The Slayer's eyes shifted to him as she poured another drink. "You've gone up against a lot of big-time bad guys, right? Not just vampires or demons. I mean serious players."
"Uh huh."
"What did they want?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what was their goal? Something's been bugging me, and the whole thing with the imps just crystallized it."
"The imps aren't exactly the biggest of the bads," Xander said.
"I know. They were in it for the fun, not really for anything else. That isn't true for real villains, though. At least not the major ones."
"Careful there, Jedi. Sometimes it is," Spike countered. "I'd like to think I commanded a certain villainous respect, but I all ever really wanted was a good feed and a good shag, with a healthy spot of violence now and again." Buffy rolled her eyes at the vampire.
"I know that, Spike. But you're not the take-over-the-world type, are you?"
"No," he conceded.
"You're wondering what Voldemort is doing, right?" Willow said.
Grey nodded. The Scoobies all looked thoughtful for a minute.
"Ending the world has always been a big theme," Buffy remembered. "Death, chaos, destruction – each one a mission statement for the boardrooms of Sunnydale black hats."
"Except without the Hawaiian shirt day that softens the blow of evil corporate policies," Xander chipped in.
"So that's it?" Grey asked. "Just lots of violence? No other agendas?"
"Mostly they wanted power," Willow said, thinking over the major evils they had faced. "The whole 'death of the humans' factor – not so much a big deal to any of them. It was more like a side effect than anything else. The Master was all Hellmouthy to give him strength. The Mayor spent a hundred years working to get the power of a really big snake. Even Glory just wanted to go home and rule her own world."
"Sounds like Voldemort," Grey said. He had already figured that out. "But what's he going to do with his power? That's the part I don't get. He's not exactly in line for Minister of Magic or headmaster at Hogwarts. He has enough power to get anything material he might want, and he could certainly control anyone he wanted to. What else is there? World domination sounds good in comic books, but practically, it just isn't possible."
"Maybe he's kinda like Bane," Xander said thoughtfully. No one but Grey, who gave him an interested look of appraisal, understood his meaning.
"Bane of what?" Willow asked.
Xander shook his head. "No, not bane of something, Will. Bane is one of Batman's enemies."
Buffy groaned.
"Hear him out," Grey said. "I know Bane, but I don't see the connection."
"Think about it. What did Bane want? To be the big enchilada, right? Baddest of the bad boys? He didn't want to be mayor or anything. He just wanted to know that nobody could stand up to him, that he was THE MAN, like Batman was. So he broke Batman," Xander concluded.
"So this guy …"
"Voldemort."
"Whatever, Will. This guy wants to be Batman?"
"Come on, Slayer, pay attention," Spike broke in. "Chubs is saying that Voldemort doesn't want anyone around powerful enough to question him. It's not a bad guess," the vampire grudgingly admitted. "Nobody really knew what the bastard wanted the first time he rose to power. He had his Death Eaters, an' a sodding lot of them, and people feared him. Thought he might take down the Ministry and set himself up in its place, but he never got the chance."
"I don't know. Somehow, being the biggest kid on the block doesn't seem like it would be enough for him," Grey mused. "We need to start thinking about how to find out," he told them, "or we could be really late getting to the party."