Zeppo unMASKed

Summary: Xander's feeling pushed out by the Scooby Gang, and a mystical mask might be what he needs to prove himself. Takes place S3 – The Zeppo

I own nothing

Chapter 2

Xander's Room – Next Morning

Xander woke up in his bed, still in his clothes from the night's patrol. He groggily sat up, rubbing his face, and feeling completely hung over. As he did, memories of the night before hit him and he rushed to the mirror in his bathroom.

Satisfied that his face is not green and his clothes are normal, he walked back to his bed. His foot hit something as he moved to sit down and he spotted the mask, laying on the floor, looking back up at him. He picked it up, and flipped it around.

No shimmering.

Xander sighed, as he tossed the mask on his bed. "A dream… It was only a dream."

Sunnydale High

Xander got to the school, less enthusiastically than most were used to. As he entered the front doors, Xander noticed that the rest of the students seemed happier, and that there was no Snyder in sight.

He saw a flash of red and jogged up to Willow. "Hey Wills, what's the what?"

Willow turned to her long time friend, excitement in her eyes. "Oh, Xander! Did you here about Principal Snyder?

Xander felt the air leave his lungs as she said that. "Uh, no. What happened?"

"He was attacked last night in the school parking lot." Willow explained. "He had a wrench or something tightened around his…uh…" Willow turned red as she thought of where the tool had ended up.

"I got it." Xander said, stopping her from continuing, as memories of the night before came back to him. "Uh I gotta go, see you later Wills."

The red-head nodded, not noticing the weird expression on her friends face as he rushed to his first class.

Sunnydale High - Lunch

Xander calmly walked past Doug and Les, two of the School's football players, as they tossed a football back and forth. His mind was back to what he had though to be a dream.

Doing things that he shouldn't have been able to do, killing eight vamps, and the hurting Snyder had been a bonus. 'I wonder if I could take on Buffy and Faith?'

He thinking if he should tell the rest of the Scoobies, when he walked into Jack O'Toole, resident school psychopath and bully, spilling his chips and soda to the floor. O'Toole looked down at his spilled lunch and then at Xander.

"Boy, I am so sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going." Xander apologized. "Is your lunch okay?"

"What are you, retarded?" Jack asked, clearly not amused.

"No! No, I had to take that test when I was seven. A little slow in some stuff, mostly math and spatial relations, but certainly not challenged or anything." Xander said, shaking his hands in front of him. He pointed down to the spilled lunch. "Can I get you another soda?"

"I oughtta cut your face open." Jack threatened, looking at Xander as if he was nothing.

"Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa... It was an accident." Xander said, as he tried to defuse what he thought was turning out to be a bad situation. "Cool down."

"You wanna be startin' somethin'?" Jack asked, a grin spreading across his face.

"What? Starting something?" Xander asked, grinning and chuckling. "Like that Michael Jackson song, right? That was a lot of fun. 'Too high to get over, yeah, yeah...' Remember that fun song?"

Jack took a step toward him, and Xander stepped away nervously. Jack smiled as he leaned close. "I get my buddies together, we're gonna kick your ass till it's a brand-new shape." He then pushed Xander, almost dropping the twice possessed teen. "Now get outta here."

Xander wasted no time walking away…and right into Cordelia.

"Boy, of all the humiliations you've had I've witnessed, that was the latest."

"I could've taken him." Xander defended, pointing to the retreating back of O'Toole.

"Oh, please. O'Toole would macramé' your face." Cordelia said with a mean smile on her face. "He is a psycho. Which is still a lot cooler than being a wuss."

Xander took another glance at O'Toole. "Why is it that I've come face-to-face with vampires, demons, the most hideous creatures Hell ever spit out, and I'm still afraid of a little bully like Jack O'Toole?"

"Because, unlike all those creatures that you've come face-to- face with, Jack actually noticed you were there." Cordelia replied sharply.

"Why am I surprised by how comforting you're not?" Xander sighed.

"It must be really hard when all your friends have, like, superpowers -- Slayer, werewolf, witches, vampires -- and you're, like, this little nothing." Cordelia cheered inside as she watched Xander look down. "You must feel like Jimmy Olsen."

"I was just talking to..." Xander laughed before becoming suddenly offensive. "Hey, mind your own business!"

"Oooh, I struck a nerve." Cordelia said. "The boy that had no cool."

"I happen to be an integral part of that group." Xander said, even beginning to doubt his own words. "I happen to have a lot to offer."

"Oh, please." Cordelia called out as she turned to leave.

"I do!"

Cordelia stopped and turned back to her ex. "'Integral part' of the group? Xander, you're the, the useless part of the group. You're the Zeppo. 'Cool.' Look it up. It's something that a sub-literate that's repeated twelfth grade three times has, and you don't."

She turned and walked away with a satisfied smile on her face, as she left a devastated Xander in her wake. "There was no part of that that wasn't fun."

Library

Xander entered through the stacks and headed to the front. He stopped as he heard the voices of Buffy, Willow, and Faith.

"So you two coming B, or not?" Faith's voice asked.

Xander peaked around the side of a bookshelf, and spotted the brunette Slayer sitting on the table in her usual leather pants and belly shirt. Buffy and Willow sat in chairs facing the younger Slayer.

"I don't know Faith; we are supposed to be looking up the Sisterhood of Jhe, for tomorrow night." Willow said, her thoughts returning to the night the master opened the hellmouth. "I don't think going to some club called D'oblique counts as research."

"All the more reason to go." Faith said, jumping off the table. "Tomorrow could be our last day on Earth; shouldn't we go out and live a little? Besides, its in LA, will be back with enough time to study up on the hell bitches."

"I guess." Buffy answered a smile on her face as she thought of the research free night ahead of her. "It's not like Giles or Xander have to know."

Faith looked confused. "Why not X? Thought he was part of the group and all?"

"We're trying to keep him out of danger," Willow said, already liking the idea of hanging out with the two Slayers. "That means pushing him out of all group activities, even those not Slayer related."

"That sounds kinda harsh, Red." Faith replied, a small part of her thinking of the male Scooby. "He may not be much of a fighter, but at least he tries."

"Doesn't matter." Buffy said with an air of finality in her voice. "We keep Xander at arm's length, and out of all slaying matters."

Xander turned so his back was to the bookshelf, Cordelia's words running through his head along with those of Buffy and Willow. Finally he headed back the way he had come, ditching the rest of school.

Mayor's Office

Mayor Wilkins III was looking over the medical reports the hospital had on Snyder. He looked up at the deputy mayor, Alan Finch. "A wrench locked on to his groin. Well that's a little peculiar."

"Y-yes it is s-sir." Finch stuttered, knowing full well what the man before him could do to him without losing a link of sleep.

"Ah well, what's done is done." Wilkins' said, tossing the report on his desk. "So how goes the "proclaiming" of the funds for my graduation surprise?"

"Uh, y-yes, the uh, p-proclaimers are ready for tonight." Finch said, thinking of the group of heavily armed demonic bank thieves that were at this moment preparing to rob the First National Bank of Sunnydale.