Roads Less Traveled
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 2: Lizard Man
Part Two
"See, Lisa?" Leyna smirked at her twin across the dining room table. "I told you something weird was going on."
"Yeah, yeah." Lisa, aka Khaki, leaned her chair back onto two legs. "Igthymiss toloda mi."
Leyna growled, then stuck her tongue out at her sister. Xander and Dawn sipped hot tea and pretended not to be paying attention.
"So!" Leyna leaned across the table. Xander had just finished his "Chosen Many speech" and a modified version of the "you'll love Helsing Institute" one as well, adding whenever possible that they might be able to find SOMETHING for Lisa to do there as well. Lisa's face had grown darker as he'd gone on, while Leyna just got perkier. "My mystical powers are my ticket out of dead-ville after all? And to a real city! Oooooo!" She shivered. "My lucky day!"
"What Miss Super-Hero here means is," Lisa's jaw was clenching intermittently. "We'll check with Mom and Dad when they get home."
"Of course." Xander nodded.
Leyna had noticed immediately when she'd received the slayer powers back in May. She hadn't known exactly what they were, but she figured that she'd developed super powers, and immediately talked her parents into signing her up for Tae Kwon Do at the local community center. She and Lisa had, apparently, been driving back from visiting a friend at college when Xander had spotted them from the road.
Leyna was obviously excited at the prospect of having special skills her twin didn't possess, but it turned out it had been Lisa who'd been observant enough to pick up on Xander following them, as well as the generally woogy nature of the swamps around them. And it was Lisa who had the information they wanted on the Lizard Man.
"He's been around since about 1988 or so. That's when the big media circus came to town." She glanced over at Leyna. "We were really little then, so I don't remember much, but it was this big lizard-fish thing, and it attacked some kid in his car, a lot like it did to you tonight. There were a whole shitload of sightings back then, but these days its usually just drunken teenagers and local kooks who lay eyes on the thing."
Leyna rolled her eyes. "So not true. Remember when we went out there with Jase and Carter?"
Lisa glowered, and babbled in the twin's secret language for a moment. Leyna babbled back, and soon the two were in a gibberish shouting match, arms flailing, that didn't stop until they ended up toe to toe.
"I warned you what I'd do if you brought that up!" Leyna's eyes promised swift revenge.
Lisa smiled darkly. "You wouldn't. You know you wouldn't. You think because some mystical whatsis decided to give you big arms and not me, that you can push me around, but we both know you wouldn't touch me." She pulled out her car keys and dangled them in her face. "After all, who's got the wheels?"
Leyna huffed, then blew a raspberry and sat back down, much more subdued. Lisa's face returned to its previous calm, and she turned back to Xander and Dawn. "As I said, these days, only drunks and kooks see the Lizard Man."
"Well, file us down under kooks." Xander smiled, having sat through sibling rivalry before. He figured that Leyna must have been drunk whatever night it had been with the boys, and it was something Lisa loved to rub her face in. "Kooks with a rather remarkably scratched up car, and a seven foot Lizard Man shaped dent on the trunk. You're sure you won't have any trouble with getting permission to head to Cleveland?"
"Nah." Leyna shrugged. "We're out of school,"
"We graduated early." Lisa sat back down. "We weren't planning on going to college."
"Which pissed of Mom and Dad."
"But they couldn't make us go."
"Not if we didn't want to."
"But they're threatening us with rent if we stay here,"
"And if we tell them we've got a new school to go to,"
"Far, FAR away,"
"They'll be plenty happy to pay up whatever we tell them we need."
"Tell them we need a lot of money."
Dawn giggled. "We told you. Leyna at least is entitled to a full scholarship. I'm sure we can find one for you too, Lisa."
"Even better. Then when they give us money for school,"
"We can keep it and go shopping!"
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Jesus," Xander leaned against the back door of the battered sedan, waiting for AAA. Leyna and Lisa sat several feet away, discussing the idea of the Helsing Institute in hushed, excited terms. "Wood's going to LOVE those two."
Dawn smiled, then abruptly turned serious. "If he let's Lisa in, anyway." She sighed. "God, I felt so sorry for her last night, the whole time they were arguing. Having a sister for a slayer and being normal SUCKS. I can't imagine how it'd have been to be Buffy's TWIN sister."
Xander shook his head. "Don't worry about Lisa, Dawnie. She's got a good head, and a great attention to detail. She's a natural for watcher duty, and since Giles has been muttering about having to recruit those, too, I doubt we'll have any problems getting her in." He glanced at his watch. "I'm much more worried about how their friendship will do, with them going in such different directions. It'll be tough for them, for a long time, to get used to separating."
"Nah." Lisa jumped up on the trunk behind him. "We'll be fine. Leyna and I have always been interested in different things." She glanced back at Leyna, who was performing an imperfect kata on the lawn across the street. "We're only identical on the outside. Now," She leaned forward, flipping the stake Xander had given her in her left hand. "About the Lizard Man."
Xander stiffened. His mind flashed to an image of Joanna, screaming her lungs out in the woods. He did NOT want these girls getting the idea that they had to take down something that, as far as they knew, had as much luck harming people as Big Foot. "I told you, Lisa. Don't worry about it."
Lisa hrmphed. "This is our town, Xander. We might hate it, but that doesn't mean we can leave it without trying to do something. Now, I looked up some stuff last night after you guys and Leyna had gone to sleep." She pulled a small note book from her back pocket. "No real suspicious deaths in the area that I could find, a couple of people gone missing, but nothing more than what I suppose is the usual. But I did find this."
She held up printed etching of a fish-like creature standing knee deep in a dark swamp. It was off on a few minor details, but there was no mistaking it for being the same sort of thing that Xander and Dawn had seen last night. "That's it, alright."
"I thought so." Lisa glanced back down at her notes. "The local Native Americans used to talk about this thing a lot, back in the day. There was a whole tribe of them, living in the swamps. They were called . . . well, I don't know how to pronounce it. I-n-z-I-g-n-a-n-I-n. They were a race of benignish fish people."
"Benign-ish?"
"Well, they didn't go out looking for trouble, anyway. But they were supposedly very territorial. There's some local legends about them back in the colonial times, when they'd attack forts and stuff, late at night." Lisa looked back up. "What I figure is, when people stop along that road back there, like you guys did with your flat tire, and like Chris, the guy who first saw the thing back in 1988, the Lizard Men get all agitated, and send out a scout to fight you off."
"Can I look?" Dawn held out a hand for Lisa's notebook. Lisa nodded. "Huh. Not a bad theory." Dawn skimmed through the notes again. "Not good hand writing, but not a bad theory. So what's the plan? If these things are so territorial, then attacking one is likely to bring the whole gang out."
"Yeah." Lisa glanced back up at Leyna. "That's what I spent most of breakfast convincing Leyna of. What I'm thinking is, if people don't bother the Lizard Men, the Lizard Men don't bother the people. How soon do you need us to had to Cleveland."
"We were kind of hoping for ASAP." Xander shrugged. "But I think allowances can be made for not-dumb saving people plans. Though we might insist on sending you back up."
"Shouldn't need it." Lisa was smiling again, tucking her notebook back in her pocket. "I was big into law and stuff back in high school, but I didn't get into any of the colleges I wanted, and Leyna didn't even apply. But I bet I could talk the county into posting signs on the road, warning people that the swamps could be dangerous, if and I'm really good, I can probably get the whole swamp to be roped off as a preserve or something. But I'd have to be here to do it. They're not going to trust information coming from Cleveland."
Dawn nodded apologetically. "And it'd take a while. A long while. You know, you don't have to go with your sister."
Lisa twitched, still watching Leyna. "I know. But we've never been apart for more than a month before. It's kind of . . . scary-sad. She needs to go, get this 'I'm SuperGirl' thing out of her system, I think, but you said the creepy things follow the slayers, and I think I'd freak if I thought she was out risking her life while I stayed safe at home with the 'rents."
Xander nodded. "As the normal one with a surrogate family of super-types, I know what you mean." He cocked his head. "Stick around here for awhile, work the legislative angle. You're always welcome, if you decide to come up to Helsing to visit, or stay. If anyone complains, you can take my room, and tell them to talk to me about it." He blushed. "Not that I have that much pull, being, as I said, the normal one, but I command some respect, I can always refuse to fix the windows."
Leyna bounded over as the tow truck pulled up. "So!" She glanced at Lisa. "She tell you the plan?"
"Yeah." Xander rummaged through a bag for a moment, then pulled out a pamphlet. "You up to being a slayer without your sis for awhile?"
"Are you kidding me?" Leyna rolled her eyes. "Time away from my mothering other half? Sounds like a blast." She smiled, but it was weak. "You're both rolling off to the next slayer, aren't you?"
Dawn nodded, as Xander jogged over to talk business with the tow truck driver.
"Are you going to be in Cleveland when I get there?" Leyna glanced down at the pamphlet, running her thumb over the image of the converted hotel.
"Probably not," Dawn shrugged. "We've got our job pretty well cut out for us. Our first scheduled break isn't until March."
"Geez." Leyna glanced at Lisa, who was studying her nails. They all took a few steps away from the car, as it was pulled up onto the truck bed. "All these girls, just like me. I was kind of hoping I was, you know, one of a kind."
"Don't see why," Lisa smiled. "You never have been,"
"And never will be."
"You're stuck with me."
"Yuggrbl toth!"
"Neespro angli!"
Xander and Dawn called out their goodbyes as they climbed into the truck, but they feel on deaf ears. Leyna the Slayer and Lisa in Khaki were at it again, and it looked like they would be for awhile.
end part two
tbc in Sweet Home Alabama, coming soon
by Casix Thistlebane
Story 2: Lizard Man
Part Two
"See, Lisa?" Leyna smirked at her twin across the dining room table. "I told you something weird was going on."
"Yeah, yeah." Lisa, aka Khaki, leaned her chair back onto two legs. "Igthymiss toloda mi."
Leyna growled, then stuck her tongue out at her sister. Xander and Dawn sipped hot tea and pretended not to be paying attention.
"So!" Leyna leaned across the table. Xander had just finished his "Chosen Many speech" and a modified version of the "you'll love Helsing Institute" one as well, adding whenever possible that they might be able to find SOMETHING for Lisa to do there as well. Lisa's face had grown darker as he'd gone on, while Leyna just got perkier. "My mystical powers are my ticket out of dead-ville after all? And to a real city! Oooooo!" She shivered. "My lucky day!"
"What Miss Super-Hero here means is," Lisa's jaw was clenching intermittently. "We'll check with Mom and Dad when they get home."
"Of course." Xander nodded.
Leyna had noticed immediately when she'd received the slayer powers back in May. She hadn't known exactly what they were, but she figured that she'd developed super powers, and immediately talked her parents into signing her up for Tae Kwon Do at the local community center. She and Lisa had, apparently, been driving back from visiting a friend at college when Xander had spotted them from the road.
Leyna was obviously excited at the prospect of having special skills her twin didn't possess, but it turned out it had been Lisa who'd been observant enough to pick up on Xander following them, as well as the generally woogy nature of the swamps around them. And it was Lisa who had the information they wanted on the Lizard Man.
"He's been around since about 1988 or so. That's when the big media circus came to town." She glanced over at Leyna. "We were really little then, so I don't remember much, but it was this big lizard-fish thing, and it attacked some kid in his car, a lot like it did to you tonight. There were a whole shitload of sightings back then, but these days its usually just drunken teenagers and local kooks who lay eyes on the thing."
Leyna rolled her eyes. "So not true. Remember when we went out there with Jase and Carter?"
Lisa glowered, and babbled in the twin's secret language for a moment. Leyna babbled back, and soon the two were in a gibberish shouting match, arms flailing, that didn't stop until they ended up toe to toe.
"I warned you what I'd do if you brought that up!" Leyna's eyes promised swift revenge.
Lisa smiled darkly. "You wouldn't. You know you wouldn't. You think because some mystical whatsis decided to give you big arms and not me, that you can push me around, but we both know you wouldn't touch me." She pulled out her car keys and dangled them in her face. "After all, who's got the wheels?"
Leyna huffed, then blew a raspberry and sat back down, much more subdued. Lisa's face returned to its previous calm, and she turned back to Xander and Dawn. "As I said, these days, only drunks and kooks see the Lizard Man."
"Well, file us down under kooks." Xander smiled, having sat through sibling rivalry before. He figured that Leyna must have been drunk whatever night it had been with the boys, and it was something Lisa loved to rub her face in. "Kooks with a rather remarkably scratched up car, and a seven foot Lizard Man shaped dent on the trunk. You're sure you won't have any trouble with getting permission to head to Cleveland?"
"Nah." Leyna shrugged. "We're out of school,"
"We graduated early." Lisa sat back down. "We weren't planning on going to college."
"Which pissed of Mom and Dad."
"But they couldn't make us go."
"Not if we didn't want to."
"But they're threatening us with rent if we stay here,"
"And if we tell them we've got a new school to go to,"
"Far, FAR away,"
"They'll be plenty happy to pay up whatever we tell them we need."
"Tell them we need a lot of money."
Dawn giggled. "We told you. Leyna at least is entitled to a full scholarship. I'm sure we can find one for you too, Lisa."
"Even better. Then when they give us money for school,"
"We can keep it and go shopping!"
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Jesus," Xander leaned against the back door of the battered sedan, waiting for AAA. Leyna and Lisa sat several feet away, discussing the idea of the Helsing Institute in hushed, excited terms. "Wood's going to LOVE those two."
Dawn smiled, then abruptly turned serious. "If he let's Lisa in, anyway." She sighed. "God, I felt so sorry for her last night, the whole time they were arguing. Having a sister for a slayer and being normal SUCKS. I can't imagine how it'd have been to be Buffy's TWIN sister."
Xander shook his head. "Don't worry about Lisa, Dawnie. She's got a good head, and a great attention to detail. She's a natural for watcher duty, and since Giles has been muttering about having to recruit those, too, I doubt we'll have any problems getting her in." He glanced at his watch. "I'm much more worried about how their friendship will do, with them going in such different directions. It'll be tough for them, for a long time, to get used to separating."
"Nah." Lisa jumped up on the trunk behind him. "We'll be fine. Leyna and I have always been interested in different things." She glanced back at Leyna, who was performing an imperfect kata on the lawn across the street. "We're only identical on the outside. Now," She leaned forward, flipping the stake Xander had given her in her left hand. "About the Lizard Man."
Xander stiffened. His mind flashed to an image of Joanna, screaming her lungs out in the woods. He did NOT want these girls getting the idea that they had to take down something that, as far as they knew, had as much luck harming people as Big Foot. "I told you, Lisa. Don't worry about it."
Lisa hrmphed. "This is our town, Xander. We might hate it, but that doesn't mean we can leave it without trying to do something. Now, I looked up some stuff last night after you guys and Leyna had gone to sleep." She pulled a small note book from her back pocket. "No real suspicious deaths in the area that I could find, a couple of people gone missing, but nothing more than what I suppose is the usual. But I did find this."
She held up printed etching of a fish-like creature standing knee deep in a dark swamp. It was off on a few minor details, but there was no mistaking it for being the same sort of thing that Xander and Dawn had seen last night. "That's it, alright."
"I thought so." Lisa glanced back down at her notes. "The local Native Americans used to talk about this thing a lot, back in the day. There was a whole tribe of them, living in the swamps. They were called . . . well, I don't know how to pronounce it. I-n-z-I-g-n-a-n-I-n. They were a race of benignish fish people."
"Benign-ish?"
"Well, they didn't go out looking for trouble, anyway. But they were supposedly very territorial. There's some local legends about them back in the colonial times, when they'd attack forts and stuff, late at night." Lisa looked back up. "What I figure is, when people stop along that road back there, like you guys did with your flat tire, and like Chris, the guy who first saw the thing back in 1988, the Lizard Men get all agitated, and send out a scout to fight you off."
"Can I look?" Dawn held out a hand for Lisa's notebook. Lisa nodded. "Huh. Not a bad theory." Dawn skimmed through the notes again. "Not good hand writing, but not a bad theory. So what's the plan? If these things are so territorial, then attacking one is likely to bring the whole gang out."
"Yeah." Lisa glanced back up at Leyna. "That's what I spent most of breakfast convincing Leyna of. What I'm thinking is, if people don't bother the Lizard Men, the Lizard Men don't bother the people. How soon do you need us to had to Cleveland."
"We were kind of hoping for ASAP." Xander shrugged. "But I think allowances can be made for not-dumb saving people plans. Though we might insist on sending you back up."
"Shouldn't need it." Lisa was smiling again, tucking her notebook back in her pocket. "I was big into law and stuff back in high school, but I didn't get into any of the colleges I wanted, and Leyna didn't even apply. But I bet I could talk the county into posting signs on the road, warning people that the swamps could be dangerous, if and I'm really good, I can probably get the whole swamp to be roped off as a preserve or something. But I'd have to be here to do it. They're not going to trust information coming from Cleveland."
Dawn nodded apologetically. "And it'd take a while. A long while. You know, you don't have to go with your sister."
Lisa twitched, still watching Leyna. "I know. But we've never been apart for more than a month before. It's kind of . . . scary-sad. She needs to go, get this 'I'm SuperGirl' thing out of her system, I think, but you said the creepy things follow the slayers, and I think I'd freak if I thought she was out risking her life while I stayed safe at home with the 'rents."
Xander nodded. "As the normal one with a surrogate family of super-types, I know what you mean." He cocked his head. "Stick around here for awhile, work the legislative angle. You're always welcome, if you decide to come up to Helsing to visit, or stay. If anyone complains, you can take my room, and tell them to talk to me about it." He blushed. "Not that I have that much pull, being, as I said, the normal one, but I command some respect, I can always refuse to fix the windows."
Leyna bounded over as the tow truck pulled up. "So!" She glanced at Lisa. "She tell you the plan?"
"Yeah." Xander rummaged through a bag for a moment, then pulled out a pamphlet. "You up to being a slayer without your sis for awhile?"
"Are you kidding me?" Leyna rolled her eyes. "Time away from my mothering other half? Sounds like a blast." She smiled, but it was weak. "You're both rolling off to the next slayer, aren't you?"
Dawn nodded, as Xander jogged over to talk business with the tow truck driver.
"Are you going to be in Cleveland when I get there?" Leyna glanced down at the pamphlet, running her thumb over the image of the converted hotel.
"Probably not," Dawn shrugged. "We've got our job pretty well cut out for us. Our first scheduled break isn't until March."
"Geez." Leyna glanced at Lisa, who was studying her nails. They all took a few steps away from the car, as it was pulled up onto the truck bed. "All these girls, just like me. I was kind of hoping I was, you know, one of a kind."
"Don't see why," Lisa smiled. "You never have been,"
"And never will be."
"You're stuck with me."
"Yuggrbl toth!"
"Neespro angli!"
Xander and Dawn called out their goodbyes as they climbed into the truck, but they feel on deaf ears. Leyna the Slayer and Lisa in Khaki were at it again, and it looked like they would be for awhile.
end part two
tbc in Sweet Home Alabama, coming soon