Mea culpa, mea culpa mea maxima culpa. Yes, I know, I keep apologising for long delays in updating but I've been busy. Partly because of work - I went to Dubai for a conference, poor me - and partly for other reasons, but c'est la vie. Plus I'm in love. But that's all I'm saying. So, enjoy and I promise that the next chapter won't take as long! Honest...
Oops, one or two errors. Resubmitted!
As they entered the shop Thorne was busy assessing a black pearl that was presumably owned by the deeply sinister figure in front of them. Whoever he was he had a hunch, a long black cloak and a hood. He also smelt very strongly of peppermint and Oz wrinkled his nose slightly in reaction. Xander looked at him and shrugged slightly. "Best not to ask sometimes in LA," he whispered quietly.
By the counter one of Thorne's ears twitch violently at the sound of Xander's voice but he kept his attention on the pearl. After a long pause he looked up and made a series of popping noises that ended in a firm click. The figure in black took this rather badly, replying with a rather louder series of popping noises accompanied by what sounded like snorts. Thorne frowned slightly and popped back. After a few minutes of this the black figure nodded sharply. A small bag of something changed hands and then the figure limped past the two Jedi towards the door.
Thorne placed the pearl into a drawer and turned to them. "Good day, Mr Harris," he said in his usual unemotional tones. "How can I help you today?"
Xander and Oz stepped to the counter, where the werewolf – or should that be lapsed werewolf, Xander mused – pulled out the emerald and placed it on the counter.
The moment that Thorne laid eyes on the gem he stiffened and his third eye opened fully to glare at it. Then he seemed to relax slightly as he inspected it more carefully.
"A Karren Gem. Or rather a former one. I can sense that the magic has been dissipated even without seeing a horde of evil creatures around my shop." He looked up at the two Jedi and Xander could see a certain respect in his expression. "The annulment of a Karren Gem is a formidable achievement Mr Harris. Most people tend to have short and fatal experiences with them. I was under the impression that they had all been destroyed."
"I had some help. And it was… interesting," replied Xander.
There was a pause and then Thorne nodded. "Very well. How can I help you?"
"My friend here would like the gem recut to the same shape that mine was last year. Exactly the same shape."
Thorne's eyes gleamed slightly as he looked down at the emerald. "Interesting. Another challenge. Every gem is different, you understand and your provisos are very exact." He picked it up and inspected it minutely. Then he replaced it on the counter. "Yes. I can do this. Payment will be in the chips from the process. Please return in 48 hours as before."
Xander nodded and turned to the door, with Oz following him. As they reached the outside air and the door closed behind them his former Padawan frowned slightly. "Interesting character. Neither good nor evil. Neutral."
"This is LA," said Xander grimly, staring up at the cloudy sky and wishing that he had a Jedi robe with a hood to cope with the possible rain that was coming. "We haven't been past the areas that are sinkholes of the dark side yet. Lets get back to Giles and the car. He should have finished at the church by now. Lets hope that Camillo got Finch out of the country ok."
The figure stood on top of the hill staring out at the town spread before it. Streetlights radiated away in brightly lit lines, criss-crossing in a grid with the occasional curve. Here and there he could see a car moving, some quite fast. You didn't want to be on the streets of Sunnydale at night. It was a good survival tip. Stay off the streets, at home, in bed, and maybe – maybe – you'd survive. For a bit. The figure stirred restlessly. This was a bad place to live. A sigh escaped a pair of lips. Then the figure raised eyes to the stars that were twinkling down. Wishing on a star was a useless superstition, but it could be reassuring sometimes.
The eyes returned to the streets beneath. Not far away a stop sign changed from green to red at a junction. Two roads met there and then diverged, never to meet again. The figure's shoulders slumped slightly. It was the right thing to do. He had to leave. It would hurt – god it would hurt! But it was the right thing to do.
Angel stood up slowly and walked back down the hill.
It was dark in the room in the bowels of Wolfram & Hart. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly and then looked back down at the golden sphere. Something was nagging at the back of his mind but he just couldn't nail it down. Damn he was beat. Probably should get some sleep in a few minutes. He frowned. When was the last time that he'd been at home again? Three days ago? Good thing that he'd thrown that pizza away the last time he was at the apartment or by now it would have either have developed a new form of penicillin or broken down the kitchen door and made its way out to the nearest taxi company to demand a job. Yeuch.
A massive yawn forced its way out his mouth and he ran his fingers through his hair. Okay… five more minutes. He was close now, very close. The recording had been taken upstairs and analysed and he had a good idea of the way that the crystals worked. That was the intriguing thing. They were a form of technology, not the enchanted machinery that he had first thought. And that made sense – you could store information onto them a bit like a computer chip only far, far more efficiently. Plus you could process far more power. Fascinating. The only problem was getting a better handle on the way that the power was regulated in this damn thing.
Walt leant over it and stared into its depths. Ah, hang on. What if he turned that main crystal around slightly – there were a series of gradations around it, meaning that it was supposed to be turned. Reaching in he grasped the age-blackened shape and twisted. After some tugging it finally moved. Aha! Little lights were coming on slowly at the base. And there was an odd noise, like a voice speaking very slowly. Interesting. The crystal was a bit brighter now, but it was also illuminating something else. He reached in and scratched slightly at the surface of the crystal, prompting black specs to flake off it, revealing that more of the crystal was glowing than he had thought. Oh hell. It was pulsing.
Walt span around and had almost made it to the door when a bright light and huge noise swept him up and everything went very dark…
Holland Manners looked up as the building seemed to shake ever so slightly. Then he sighed and went back to looking over the paperwork on the Hughes Case. Damn technical department, what were they going to blow up next?
After a while his phone rang and he frowned at it before picking it up.
"Manners."
He listened for a while and then asked a few questions before replacing the receiver. Ah well. That was life.
It looked like a bastardised cross between a rifle and a set of wires that had come down with a bad attack of the hiccups, thought Riley Finn wryly as he looked at the weapon on the table in front of him. Odd wasn't the word for it. He picked it up and hefted it. Okay, the weight wasn't too bad… what about the way it was laid out though? He turned it and looked at the various protrubences. Hmmm. Not as many as he'd feared. Firing grip, trigger, side hold bar, battery slide… Okay that last part was a bit awkward. It was a bit too large.
He nestled it into the crook of his shoulder and stared down the sights. Then he spun 180 degrees, imagined firing it and whipped back again. It felt good. Not too heavy to move quickly but weighty enough to let him have a good feel about inertia and timing.
"Do you like it?" said a voice from the doorway.
Riley hurriedly snapped to attention automatically. "Director Walsh."
"Finn," said the commander as she walked in. She was wearing her white lab coat and looked very serious. "So what do you think of the new version of the ESG-1?"
He looked down at the weapon. "Can I ask what the yield is?"
A small smile quirked one side of her mouth. "We've tried it on test subjects that include HSTs variants one through four. It works, although we're still looking for a reliable power unit that can give multiple bursts. In the meantime-" she reached into a pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a battery pack. "We suggest spare units and the use of other weapons as reserves."
Bringing the weapon down to parade rest and then coming to attention Riley nodded sharply. "Permission to try the weapon in combat conditions Director?"
The small smile came again. "Permission granted. Who do you want to take out tomorrow night?"
"The two new recruits, Miller and Gates. They've been out before but only on milk runs so far. They need something a little tougher. Plus Turner, Director."
"Go."
Faith ducked sharply, one leg lashing out viciously behind her to smash into the knee of the onrushing vampire that had been making the move on her behind her back whilst his buddy tried to mash her head with the pipe. Fangface let out a choked scream that went soprano when she applied the heel of her boot somewhere more personal. Then she dived forwards, rolled once and came up next to the body of the large demon with the green pincer thingies, which still had her sword embedded in its forehead. She reached out and the blade came free with a horrible noise, just in time to parry Fangface two with his pipe, which bent nastily. The vampire looked at it in horror and then she caught it in the neck with the sword, reducing it to dust. The sighing scream caught the attention of the other vampire, which was just about upright by now from her boot to its balls and which wheeled to face her - just in time to also get it in the neck.
Faith paused, the sword poised ready in her hands as she looked around, before she finally relaxed. Then she looked around at the body of the green demon. Man, JX was going to be pissed at her for that. Never disarm yourself he always said, and it was advice that was five by five. But green and meany over there had had a head made of glue and rock or something – the sword had gone in easy but come out hard. She made a note of the face and then strolled on, whistling under her breath and pulling at the piece of cloth that hung from her belt, which she used to quickly wipe both sides of the blade before returning it to its scabbard. Never hurt to be careful with this thing. It wasn't as good as Aquila, to use the name that B kept reminding herself to use, but it had a wicked sharp balance and was almost as sharp as her knife.
She wandered on though the streets, looking around apparently casually but with her senses searching. Quiet night for the assorted nasties so far, she thought. Three fledglings, one floppy thing that had been (unsuccessfully) stalking a terrified Labrador and the party that she'd just left. Par for the course so far. She paused and twirled her sword briefly. She still needed more practice. No matter what she and B did, JX was always a few steps ahead of them, and that sucked sometimes. Slayers were supposed to be the best and she wasn't cool about not being the best. Well, no, she was cool about JX being a Jedi an' all, but it was a case of pride. She paused again and shook her head. Man that was dumb. Pride. No way was she going down that road. Horry would have kicked her butt for thinking that – or rather looked very disappointed, which was worse.
Faith nodded quietly as she thought of her old Watcher. The more she thought about Horry the more she could see her influence on Giles. The guy had a lot of cool stories about Horry, about the things that she'd said and did with his other. He could talk about her with a wry grin on his face and affection in his voice that made her feel as if Horry had just stepped out of the room for a moment.
Another shake of the head. Wool gathering again. Sloppy. She sheathed her sword properly and looked around. Time to do some hunting. Pausing by a set of railings she sniffed the air carefully and then glanced around. When she was sure that no-one was around she grabbed the top of two close railings and flipped up hard so that she was suddenly balancing on top of them with her hands. She held the position for a beat of ten seconds and then flipped herself over the railing to land on the other side. She smiled. Sweet. New hunting ground. She'd never been on that side of town before. Time to see what was out there.
Every time that she went near it her heart thudded in her chest. It was just sooo beautiful that just looking at it was like overdosing on chocolate. Sort of. It sat on the display and just screamed: "Here I am, I'm perfect, put me on" in every language, like ever. It was perfect. And at $900 it was totally out of her league. The best that she could hope for now was something a lot less perfect, something that a year earlier she would have balled up and thrown at a maid with a scream of disgust. But that was then and this was now and life was totally unfair. But she had to learn to deal with it.
Cordelia Chase drew a deep breath and walked across the carpet to the counter, where the others were gathering. It was 9am on a Saturday morning, a time when she was normally asleep. Normally as in her old life. Now it was different. It was time to open the shop and work for a living. She seethed inwardly. Stupid IRS. Stupid Daddy for not sending back the right information. Stupid Mom for buying all those shiny things. She sulked. Life just sucked at the moment.
"I don't suppose that we can get a superconductor at the same place that you got yours?"
"Not unless we find out where that base is, and they might not take too kindly to us walking in and using the Jedi mind trick on them all. Plus they probably have surveillance and I don't want to be identified and have people covered in guns appear at home. My folks might suspect something."
"Ah. Point."
There was a pause as the two Jedi stared down at the power cell and other parts that were spread out on the surface of the table. Then Xander reached into his pocket and pulled out the Jedi instruction book. Placing it in front of him he leafed through it carefully before arriving a page with a complex diagram. Nodding thoughtfully he span the book around and pushed it over at Oz. "That's the perfect version. I used what I had available, as I didn't have the parts to make a superconductor. It isn't just something you can just knock together out of junk or spare parts, you need something that can handle high temperatures and large levels of energy."
He tapped the book thoughtfully. "What we do have however is the parts to build the handle and the energy cell. Plus we have the gem. Which is going to be complete some time tomorrow."
Oz nodded thoughtfully.
"I know someone else in LA," muttered the Jedi. "We might need to pay him a visit while we're there, to check up on him." He paused. "But we still need a superconductor. And that's the hard part." He paused for a moment and then they both turned to stare at the door. A moment later it opened to reveal Wesley, who walked in with a stance that combined nonchalance with nervousness.
"Ah, Xander, Oz. Good morning. I trust that you're both well?" The young Watcher sauntered over, looking slightly more relaxed, but both Jedi could feel the nervousness rolling off him. "Ah, I was going to ask about thegem. I know that it's been cleansed thank goodness, but still… can I ask what your plans for it are?"
Xander and Oz traded glances. "We're working on something, Wesley," said Xander after a moment.
"I see," nodded Wesley, "You're planning something Force-related with it. Another lightsabre perhaps?"
This time the Jedi traded a startled glance. Wesley looked like a pompous twit and frankly there were times when he behaved like one, but he had hidden depths. He was far more perceptive than many people gave him credit for a start. If he could just get past the layers of 'I know it all' and down to the real him, that would be a great start.
Straightening up slightly Xander smiled. "Hopefully, if we can get the parts it'll be a lightsabre for Oz here."
"Green," said his fellow Jedi. "Like Luke in Jedi. Very Consular."
This brought a confused frown to the Watcher's face. "I beg your pardon? Consular? I fail to see the connection between the Jedi and Rome, if I heard the word properly, although I suppose it all depends on the connotations involved and where the roots of the…"
"Whoa, Wesley, time out," said Xander as he cut off the musing babble. Then he sighed. Time to explain. "Wesley, there are two main types of Jedi. Guardians and Consulars. Guardians use blue lightsabres like mine. We are more… aggressive is the wrong word to use. We are more like warrior monks, to use an Earth expression. Like all Jedi we use the Force for knowledge and defence, never for attack. Damn, at this rate I'm going to sound like Yoda.
"Consular Jedi are a little different. Although they use lightsabres – obviously – they are more… diplomatic is one way of putting it. They make excellent ambassadors, they are more empathic in negotiations."
"And they use green lightsabres," interjected Oz.
"Like Obi-Wan I'm a Guardian. Oz here is a Consular as he's a better healer and listener."
"Few words do I use," quipped Oz.
"And something – call it luck, call it fate or the living Force, has delivered us the right gems for us both. I picked up a sapphire in the desert. We found the Karren Gem." He looked down at the various parts and pieces on the table. "And now we need the parts to make a lightsabre. Which is, to sound very Giles – sorry, very Watcher – a bit of a bugger."
Wesley, who had been listening to all of this with a look of deep fascination, raised his eyebrows. "Why would that be? You made your own lightsabre didn't you?"
This bought him a grimace. "I got lucky. Well sort of. I went to LA to sell the gems I found in the desert, met a pal there and ended up in a demon bar – a non-violent one by the way! – where this green-skinned guy read my aura or mojo or something when I sang. Completely freaked the poor guy out, but he saw the future. Got me to the right spot to help Buffy when she fell into a hell dimension and then gave me some information about the main part I needed for my lightsabre, a superconductor. Kind of thing you can't make in your dad's basement even with the best will in the world. I found it in a truck that had been hijacked by a pair of vamps. It was carrying parts for that military base in the general area that we still haven't been able to trace." He frowned. "We need to check that out once we deal with the Mayor."
The Watcher nodded sombrely. "Yes, indeed." Then he looked up with an odd and almost expectant glitter in his eyes. "It, ah, never really ends does it, these challenges on the Hellmouth? One crisis after another. It's almost… invigorating."
This brought about an infinitesimal wince from Xander. "Invigorating isn't the word that I'd use, Wesley. Anyway, c'est la vie. By the way were you looking for Giles or can we help you with anything?"
This seemed to throw the Englishman slightly. He put both hands in his pockets, cleared his throat, winced slightly, rocked back on his heels slightly and finally said: "Can I ask how well you know Miss Chase?"
"I hated her in kindergarten, loathed her in our first years of High School and now I have a disturbing affection and toleration for her. Being a Jedi means that I can look beyond her façade," said Xander feeling faint surprise. "Why do you ask?"
"I have, well, the greatest admiration and respect for her, but I, um, have noticed something wrong with her in recent weeks. She seems to be somewhat irritable and short-tempered."
"I thought that she was always like that," said Oz. "On the surface anyway."
"More short-tempered and irritable than normal, you mean?" asked Xander. He mentally kicked himself. Something had been off with Cordy recently but they'd all been too busy to wonder about it much. He cursed inwardly. There was no excuse in failing to notice this. She had become a member of the gang, she was far more intelligent and insightful than people gave her credit for. It was just a shame that people were put off by her raging vanity. "You're right, she has been acting a bit oddly recently. I'll ask her. Thanks Wesley, I hadn't thought about it much."
"Oh, well, I just thought that I'd confirm my suspicions. Oh, um, will she, will she be at the Prom?"
The two Jedi did not look at each other as if they had one or both might have started to grin. The Watcher could be very obvious sometimes.
"Wesley she's the social queen of the school. If she wasn't at the Prom then the sun would stop in the sky, the entire fabric of this place would be rent in twain and I for one would be amazed. Yes, she'll be there."
"Oh good! I mean, I'll look forwards to seeing you all there when it takes place. Which reminds me, I must dust off my dinner jacket. I'll see you both later."
"Ah, Xander. Good. Can I have a word?" The Jedi turned to look at the Watcher and then nodded.
"Sure Giles. What's up?"
Raising a finger to scratch his nose, Giles directed a quick look at the other students who were working in the library with various degrees of enthusiasm. Some looked keen, like Jonathan who was sitting at the end of the table with a massive book and who was making a lot of notes and frowning at the same time. Others looked as if they were about to fall asleep or die of boredom. One was even digging a pencil into his leg in a vain effort to keep his eyes from closing.
"My office? Fancy a coffee?" muttered the Watcher and wandered vaguely around the counter, pausing to check out three books and stare in horror at one of the titles.
"The youth of today read such utter drivel. In my day it was a case of expanding your knowledge, not expanding the publisher's bank account. What is a Sweet Valley High anyway? Or a Power Ranger? Oh never mind," he said wearily as they both entered his office where he sank into a chair. "Coffee?"
"Thanks, Giles," said Xander as he accepted a mug and helped himself to the kettle. When he was topped up he turned and perched himself on the edge of the table. "Ok, what's up?"
The chair creaked as Giles leant back and clasped his hands together. "The Ascension is now a week away and I'm becoming increasingly concerned about our lack of ideas about how to deal with the Mayor. I know that people's minds are on the Prom, for a number of reasons, but I have always thought that getting organised early was far better than getting organised late. Even the proverbial nick of time can lead to grey hair eventually."
The Watcher leant forwards again and fixed the Jedi with a searching stare. "Xander I'd like to know about any plans you've been mulling. Any ideas, no, no matter how fleeting. We need a plan. And access perhaps to your memories of a certain General Kenobi."
Xander nodded thoughtfully and drank some of his coffee. He felt rather relieved. The ascension had been getting on his mind as well and his memories of plotting the invasion of Separatist-held planets had been coming to the fore. Planning was everything, as long as you looked at as many possible scenarios as you could think of.
"I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks. Look at it from the tactical point of view, Giles. We know when he's planning to ascend. We know, thanks to Snyder's look of panic on the day that he was told, where he's going to snakify himself, although the troll just thinks that his boss is going to be on the premises and that everything needs to be cleaned three million times from top to bottom around here.
"We also know that he needs food after the process is complete, so that a load of hormonally-ravaged teenagers in silly hats is the perfect appetizer to his reign of slime. So that means the ceremony itself. He can't be killed before that. This brings up the problem of how we're going to kill him and where we can do this far away enough from the others so that the casualty list is kept down. Which," he took another long sip of coffee, "Is the hard part. We need to get him away from the awards ceremony and into a place where his advantages will be disadvantages. I imagine that a 60 foot long snake will be quite fast." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "And quite hard to stop. Plus the lack of hands will be a problem for him – he won't be able to manipulate anything. If we can get him into one place, cripple him, or keep him there for long enough to…" he paused again, his eyes flickering around the room as he thought. "Okay, I think I know where and how. We need to get hold of a few things, but we can do it. I even know how to keep him there. That leaves one problem."
Giles, who had been listening to this with his mouth half open, raised his eyebrows. "Just the one problem?"
"Just the one major problem, Giles. How do we get Wilkins away from the students? What do we use as bait? Or perhaps not what but who?"
They exchanged a long and rather grim stare. Then they started to talk.
When Xander left the library for class he was in a very thoughtful mood. Passing down the corridor filled with chattering students he looked around almost nostalgically. This place had been a major part of his life for years. True, most of his memories were about boring classes, detentions and really dull homework, but there were other memories. Laughing with Willow and Jesse, running out of the doors to go home, helping with demon research in the library with a group of people that had become a family to him. And then the changes that had happened to him, the transition to becoming a Jedi that had altered his life so profoundly. What would he do next? What lay ahead? Once the Mayor was out of the way, what then? He sighed slightly and then grinned. He could almost see Yoda now, shaking his head and muttering about how young Obi-Wan needed to be mindful of the future.
Then he blinked. Anya had appeared out of a side corridor and was bearing down on him like a small but angry thundercloud. "Hey, you! Mr Force-is-with-me!" she snapped.
Xander blinked hard, checked that no one was around them and then grabbed her arm and firmly marched her into an adjacent empty classroom. "Anya, we really need to have that chat about discretion and how you need to learn to use some. Right. What's wrong this time?"
The former vengeance demon narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "You make it sound as if I'm always complaining. I don't complain. Well, not that much anyway. True I am a human again and I'm going to die in a six or seven decades and I still can't get an alcoholic drink and human bodies get sweaty and you'd be amazed the way that things like underwear ride up in your-"
He cut her off hurriedly. "Anya! Too much information! Now," he said, taking the Jedi equivalent of a very deep breath, "What is the problem?"
"It's Jonathan," she said sulkily. "He won't leave."
"He won't leave where?"
She stared at him as if he had gone mad. "Are you insane? Here! The place where Watkins-"
"Wilkins."
"Whatever, this Mayor person, is going to ascend and try to kill everyone in the immediate area. Sunnydale. California." Her shoulders slumped slightly. "He won't leave."
Xander sat on a desk and rubbed his forehead tiredly. This was an unwelcome complication. "What have you told him Anya? And…" he looked at her carefully. The relationship that existed between Anya and Jonathan was an odd one. "Why do you care about him?"
This bought him a look that was a cross between a glare and the kind of rabbit-in-the-headlights flash that you saw occasionally. It also reduced her to a brief silence. Then she finally said: "Care? About Jonathan? Are you insane? I don't… I mean why…" She paused, her eyes flickering back and forth, before rallying again: "Why do you think that I care about him?"
"Because the moment he first set eyes on you he fell over a banister and had to go to the nurse with a minor concussion. Because when he looks at you nothing else matters to him. Because I can feel the emotion that he feels when he looks at you. And you feel it back."
"Do not!" she snapped, with a tense and brittle air about her. She glared at him again, but something was bothering her, he could tell even without the Force. Then her shoulders slumped.
"Maybe," she muttered. "A bit." The glare returned. "I don't understand! He's short, he's not terribly attractive, he has no money, he has no real magical power – yet – and he is not well endowed in any way that I can-"
"Whoa, lets not go there shall we? That's the bad place where no information must ever see the light of day." He sighed. "But Jonathan means something to you."
Anya looked at him, a dozen or more emotions flashing across her face. Then she whispered in a baffled voice: "Yes."
Okay. This was freaky. He held up his hands in a gesture of resignation. "Anya, you're human now. Human feelings, human hormones, human thoughts. Human emotions. We all have them. We all have to deal with them. And… love is a special thing."
She looked at him, the blood draining from her face. "Love?" she asked in a horrified voice.
"It's not a four-letter word," he prompted gently.
"It is to me, why do you think that I got into vengeance in the first place? I was betrayed! He saw a barmaid! Even worse she was older than me! And part English!" she said in a rising tone that set his teeth on edge.
Xander sighed. "That was then. This is now. Times change. You've changed. Reach out with your feelings. And I ask again, what have you told him?"
She eyeballed the ceiling in exasperation. "Nothing important. I just said that nasty things happened in Sunnydale and that it might be a good idea to go away – far away- a week from now. Not that he listened. He just said that he'd fight what comes. He was very… chivalrous. Sort of, for a short human who sweats sometimes." Her gaze returned to him. "Talk to him. Tell him to go away. Far away. I can join him then. I can work out these strange feelings. Especially the dreams. You see, there's this one where he and I are naked and he-"
"Anya! Too much information again? Okay, I'll talk to him. And may the Force be with me."
Shaking his head slightly he walked out and headed off to class, pausing along the way to dodge behind a stanchion in order to avoid Snyder. The principal swept past muttering a constant litany under his breath that sounded a lot like: "Check the square, check the caterer, make sure the school, is clean, clean, clean, damn it, students make a mess, check them, clean them, check the square…" and so on. Shaking his head at the back of the receding figure of his least favourite person in the area Xander moved on.
It wasn't until lunchtime that he was able to find Jonathan, who had taken his lunch tray to a window and was staring out of it in a rather vague manner that suggested that wherever his mind was, it wasn't on the strange substance that might have been meatloaf, if the recipe called for an unhealthy sheen to the object.
Xander paused and then sat down next to him. "Hey," he said, staring down at the limpness that was supposed to be a chicken salad.
"Mmm?" came the reply and then Jonathan turned to look at him. "Oh, hey Xander," he said, blinking hard.
"I need to have a word with you. How's life?"
This bought him a rather baffled look. "Fine," said Jonathan eventually. "Why d'ya want to know?"
"I talked to Anya a little while ago."
Something gleamed behind Jonathan's eyes for a second and he put down his fork. "Ah," he said. "What did you want with her?"
Taking a deep breath Xander looked hard at him. "How much do you know?"
"I'm sorry? Know about what?"
"How much do you know about this place. Sunnydale. The High School. Anya."
"Oh," said Jonathan, swallowing hard. Then he lowered his voice. "I know that weird things happen here. I did some digging, putting a few things together after seeing some stuff. I know that this place is Boca del Inferno. The Mouth of Hell. A Hellmouth. I know that vampires and other things live here. And I know that Anya is linked to those things somehow. Oh and Buffy is involved somehow. I think that you all are, in some way. In a good way though. I think that you fight things."
It was a good thing that Xander had been holding on to the Force while Jonathan had been saying all of this or he would have spat half of his orange juice over three rows of otherwise unsuspecting students. Instead he sighed. This place kept getting more and more complicated at times. At least tonight's dinner with his parents would be relatively easy. Then he looked back at Jonathan. He had the sudden sneaking suspicion that more people knew about Sunnydale's real night life than he thought. It was an interesting thought. Then he started to talk.
Tony Harris raised his glass of red wine. "To Xander," he said with quiet but immense pride. "And graduation."
Xander raised his own glass of orange juice. It was another three years until he could drink legally, but the dinner was a celebration of his graduation and a belated 18th birthday bash. That he was sort of 18 anyway. In Earth years that is. What his Jedi memories made him, he still wasn't sure. But it was time to put the Hellmouth to one side for a moment and celebrate.
"To Dad," he said in response. "And the new manager of the store." Then he turned to his mother, who was smiling with quiet pride. "And to Mom, who is about to be the new manager of Sunnydale Books."
It was a good moment. The Harris family never usually went out and celebrated and in past years his parents hadn't had much to celebrate. But tonight was different. For one thing they were at a decent Italian restaurant. For another Uncle Rory was also there, looking sober, even though he was sniffing at the wine suspiciously and obviously wishing it was beer.
The Jedi Knight paused to take a moment in contemplation, letting the conversation between the three others wash over him. His family had changed a lot over the past year and a half and he wasn't sure still what the catalyst had been. Perhaps it was the fact that his parents had been proud of him – of his rising grades, of his ability to talk through any arguments, to keep the peace in the house with a quiet word, of his ability to put up with Snyder. His father's first words – in private – after meeting the principal had been on the lines of "How the hell did a stunted troll like that get to run real people?" followed by: "And how do you keep yourself from bad mouthing him?"
Xander's response had been: "Patience, Dad. That and control. Or a voodoo doll, not that I'd go down that road." At which point Tony Harris had laughed so much he almost crashed the car.
And now they were here, in this place, having a good time. Xander sighed internally. He had already made some arrangements ahead of the graduation ceremony in a few days. His parents were about to "win" a trip to San Diego, courtesy of the money that Giles had salted away from him months earlier from the sale of the gems that he'd found in the desert cave. As for Rory, Uncle Will was busy upgrading his garage and Rory had surprised himself by volunteering to help out. For a fee of course. But they would all be out of the town. That was the important bit.
Then he paused as the others all exchanged a long look before turning to him. His father looked partly proud and partly embarrassed. "Ah… Xander. Your mom and I wanted you to know just how proud we are of you for graduating with the scores that you have. What you've done is amazing."
If only you knew what else I do, thought Xander with a sudden sense of guilt. The things I do that I can't tell you about.
"I'm sorry that we can't afford to send you to college," his father was saying now, the embarrassment – and was that a faint amount of shame? – increasing, "But we can give you this." And Tony Harris leant over and placed a set of car keys on the table. "You'll find it on the drive back home. The convertible that's been sitting in the garage for years. Rory and I rebuilt it over the weekends. It belonged to me a long time ago. And now it's yours. I'm… we're… very proud of you."
Xander Harris, Jedi Knight, grabbed the Force hurriedly to seek peace. Otherwise he would have displayed extreme emotion. Instead he picked up the keys, looked at his father and smiled.
"Thanks Dad."
Sometimes the living Force could throw up a surprise. And that was nice.
"Shitshitshitshitshit… Forrest! You got anything over there?"
The Initiative soldier grabbed at the pouch on his hip and shook his head emphatically. "Nope, just regular ammo here. Working on it though. Hand is quicker than the eye."
Riley looked back at the tall thing that was busy reducing the knife that it had grabbed off the now-unconscious Sergeant Turner into a pretzel and let out a long breathe. This was not looking good at all. The ESG-1 had not been the success that he had hoped that it might be. The voltage on the first HST they had met hadn't been quite high enough, so that the vampire had just shuddered a lot and then come at them again before getting a shotgun blast in the neck from Graham that had reduced it to dust.
They'd replaced the power pack and upped the voltage for the second encounter. Problem was that had been a bit too high and just reduced the vampire to a cloud of electrically charged fiery dust. Then they'd bumped into this puppy, which had taken three blasts at almost point blank range and shrugged them all off. It was large, green, armoured and nasty. Fortunately, after knocking Turner out with an almost absent-minded backhander, it was now too enraged to be able to decide which of the three remaining members of the patrol to attack first. Based on the way it was gibbering however, it was close to making a decision.
Riley reached down quickly and pulled open the sheath on his shin, before tugging out the long old-fashioned bayonet within. Strictly non-regulation, but hey, it was that or get filleted.
"Shotgun won't work on this thing!" yelled Graham to one side.
"Anything heavy calibre?" replied Riley.
"Yeah, give me a sec," replied Forrest, as he fiddled with something beside his leg.
The thing let out a bellow at this point that raised the hairs on the back of Riley's neck. "Kill you all," it shouted, "Kill you and eat your hearts!"
"Sorry," said Forrest, "That's off the menu for tonight. Eat this!" He pulled up the ESG-1 from behind his back and aimed it. Riley's mouth dropped open in horror until he saw the almost-drained three battery packs jury-rigged onto the weapon. Then the tip of the ESG-1 flared with blue-white light as it collected the charge, which flew across the air in a powerful arc of electricity… which the green thing shrugged off again. It grinned nastily, stepped up and pulled the energy weapon from Forrest's grasp before tossing it away – a long way away, it went sailing off the edge of the roadway they were standing on. Then it grabbed Forrest by the neck and threw him against a nearby car, where he sagged unpleasantly.
"What you do now?"
"This," said Graham and loosed a whole clip of bullets from his heavy calibre automatic at the thing, which staggered slightly at the impacts as bit of armoured carapace flaked off and shattered along its body and head. When it looked up green stuff was oozing from a few spots on its body and it looked mad as hell. Madder even.
"Hurt me. Silly metal things. Kill you now." It stood up at this and bellowed again at Graham who was trying to put in a new magazine in record time, who was desperately looking up as the thing approached, its fists balling and its arms coming back to crush the life out of him and then…
It looked down at the hilt of the bayonet as it jutted out of the one spot of the splintered carapace that Riley had been able to reach as it thundered past him. A slow stream of nasty green-black ichor was oozing down from the wound. "Oh," it said slowly as it stood there, frozen in place. "Ow." And then it fell over like a tree falling, shaking the earth as it hit the ground.
Riley looked at the shaken Graham for a long moment and then relaxed slightly as he looked at the dead demon. "Cover me," he said quietly, pulling out his reserve automatic from his ankle holster and then approaching the motionless thing very, very carefully, keeping the gun aimed at the open and apparently unseeing eye that was staring at the stars. Cautiously he kicked the side of the thing and then paused. A slightly harder kick followed. Still nothing. He relaxed slightly. It seemed to be dead. That or it had discovered the concept of subtlety really quickly, which given its fighting style seemed very unlikely.
Riley looked around at the battleground and then slumped tiredly against a lamppost, sliding down to rest at the same eyelevel as Forrest, who was rubbing his neck. "That wasn't much fun," he said wryly. Then he reached up to a pocket and pulled out his radio. "Patrol One to Base," he snapped, trying to put some energy into it.
There was a pause and then the radio crackled: "Base here. Authenticate."
He closed his eyes. Procedure was procedure, but it felt a bit unnecessary here. "Finn, Riley. Alpha three seven delta delta tango."
Some electronic chirped and then the voice said: "Confirmed."
"Immediate evac required following combat with HST. Two WIA. Transmitting GPS co-ordinates now." He pressed a button on the side of the GPS unit that was attached to the radio and waited.
Another pause and then the voice said: "Evac on the way, Finn. ETA four minutes twenty seconds."
"Confirmed, base." Taking a deep breath he replaced the radio into his pocket and looked around. Graham was checking on Turner, who was still unconscious. "How is he?"
"He'll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up," came the reply.
"You okay Forrest?"
"I've been better," replied the soldier as he gingerly felt at the bruises around his neck. "What was that thing?"
"New class of HST for me. Just hope that we don't find many more of them any time soon."
Forrest nodded emphatically and then winced in pain. "What happened to the ESG?"
"Oh, that thing. Our green friend threw it away. I think it went over there somewhere," he said, flipping a finger at the void behind him.
"Damn. Will the Director be pissed with us?"
"Yes. But as the damn thing was more trouble than it was worth, it'll pass. Cleanup crew should find it."
"Sweet." There was a pause. "So does this kind of thing happen all the time?"
"Nope."
"Okay."
"Come back here and fight like a scum-sucking undead lowlife, you diseased weasel!" yelled Faith as she pelted down the road after the fleeing vampire. This wasn't how it was supposed to work. They leered, they fought her, she slayed, everything five by five. They were not supposed to take one look at her, scream like a girl and head off so fast that they almost had smoke coming off their heels.
"No way man!" wailed the vampire as it looked over its shoulder wildly. "Why should I stay still enough to get dusted by one of the Slayers?"
She glowered. The first thing that she'd done to try and stop the damn thing had been to pull out her knife and throw it, aiming for its neck. Unfortunately fangface had swerved slightly in mid panic-stricken flight to dodge a mail box and her knife had sunk into its shoulder instead. She was not going to lose that knife, it was too wicked cool to lose.
"Damnit, why can't life be easy sometimes?" she panted, and reached into a pocket for her emergency stake. This wasn't going to be easy, but all she had to do was slow the son of a bitch down, so a leg wound would do it. She half-grinned, imagining what Horry would have said about her using tactics for once instead of slaying first and thinking second.
Just as she was bringing the stake up to throw she picked up the sound of an approaching car and paused for a second. Damn, witnesses were a pain. Then she blinked as a red sports car flashed past, driven by someone who was holding the wheel with one hand and clutching a crossbow with the other. She barely heard a deep twang over the roar of the motor and then the vamp was suddenly part of the scenery, drifting down to the ground in a cloud of dust while her knife, still riding on the vampire's momentum, embedded it self in the side of a mailbox. The wooden quarrel bounced off a for sale sign into the leafy upper reaches of a tree, where something gave out a short and very terminal squeak. After a second a dead squirrel fell out.
She slowed to a halt and stared in astonishment at the car as it slowed down ahead of her. No way was it being driven by who she thought it was. Trick of the light, it had to be…
The car did a quick three-point turn and then came back down the road towards her, slowing as it did. A face poked out of the window.
"Ah, Faith. I saw you chasing that inhuman creature and I thought I'd render assistance," beamed Wesley. Then he frowned. "Admittedly I was aiming for its leg, but I failed to take the recoil, so to speak, into account. Physics can be such a tricky thing at times."
She just looked at him for a moment and then inspected the car. "Hell Wesley, where did you get this?"
The beam returned, becoming more smug than before. "Watcher's Council lottery. I won the big prize this year. I wasn't going to enter, but than I thought 'Carpe Diem!' after thinking about life here on the Hellmouth and threw my hat into the ring!"
"You thought about fish?"
"No, Faith, Carpe Diem. It's Latin. Means 'seize the day', in a rough and ready translation." He got out and pulled out his handkerchief to brush away a non-existent smear of dirt. Then he leant against it in what he obviously thought was a cool way. It made him look as if there was something wrong with his hips.
"Okay…" she said, as she walked up to the mailbox to retrieve her knife, looking absent-mindedly at the name stencilled on the side. Whoever this Steve Dallas guy was who lived there was, he going to have a wet letter problem if it rained at all soon, judging from the size of the hole. "Thanks with the assist, Wes. Might have taken a bit longer to run the weasel down otherwise. Never had a fang face take off like that on me before."
Her Watcher – as opposed to her secret Watcher, the G-Man – nodded appraisingly. "Yes he was rather fast wasn't he? I take it that he knew that you were a Slayer."
"Yup, saw me and got wings on his feet real fast."
"Much to his cost," he said cheerily. "Can I give you a lift?"
She looked around thoughtfully. It had been a quiet night so far and things looked under control. She could do with an early night for once – it was all of 12:15 a.m. "Yeah sure, thanks Wesley." She raised her eyebrows. "Can I drive?"
"No," came the rapid response. "You're not insured on this at the moment."
"Spoilsport," she pouted as she opened the front passenger door and slid in. "Okay, lets drive."
By the time that they'd reached the junction of Sixth and MacMillan Faith had discovered the cigarette lighter, had praised the acceleration, had picked up on the slight creak that the gear pedal made every time Wesley changed gear, had put her heels on the dashboard three times and had discovered that the radio could pick up some good and very loud music stations. Wesley had told her not to smoke, had preened at the praise, promised to get the pedal oiled, tried to dust the dashboard whilst driving and firmly turned the radio off. Faith had finally accidentally pressed the button that folded the roof down automatically and Wesley was slowing down to try and rectify that little matter when they both noticed the figures fighting on the overpass that they were about to pass under.
"Damn," said Faith as she pulled out her knife and hefted it automatically as they passed under the roadway. "That thing does not look like it's human, Wesley."
"I agree," said her Watcher grimly. "Kantoth'll demon unless I miss my guess. Has a very hard outer carapace, but once you pierce it or crack it, it can be easy to kill. I wonder who the men in black are? I'll park over there and-"
There was a faint whistling noise and suddenly an odd-looking gun fell out of the sky, hit the steering wheel, bounced and caught Wesley a nasty crack on the side of the head before flying off into the rear of the car. The Watcher's eyes crossed and he swayed before slumping bonelessly.
"Shit!" said Faith as she grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and levered herself up to get enough room to flail out with a foot for the brakes. It took a moment of fumbling to get the keys out of the ignition, but finally the car came to halt having mounted the curb and embracing nature in the form of a hedge, which leant over drunkenly.
"Godamnit," she said after a long moment and then checked Wesley. Yup, still unconscious, with a nasty bruise on the side of his head that was turning into a lump. He didn't look too bad otherwise. Then she picked up her knife from the footwell where she'd thrown it and looked back up at the overpass. Whatever had been going on there had stopped from what she could see from her viewpoint, no men in black, no nasty thing with horns, no nothing. She sighed and replaced the knife in its sheath. Then she looked into the back seat where the odd gun was lying. It looked like a mad cross between a gun and the electrical section of a hardware store. Okay. Better get Wesley to Giles and the others.
Wesley came out of the office feeling far better than he had going into it a bit earlier. Young Oz's healing skills with the Force were really most impressive. While the lump hadn't gone away entirely – Oz had pointed out that he was still learning when it came to healing – it was still significantly reduced and the blinding headache was now merely a dull shadow of its former self.
The Watcher and the Jedi came out to find Mr Giles, Xander, Buffy and Faith all looking at the strange gun with a great deal of interest.
"Okay," Xander was saying as he gently unclipped three odd-looking objects from the thing, "These look like powerpacks. Verrrry primitive ones, capable of just the one shot only, and inefficient enough to mean that while they can only provide shot, there's sufficient juice left for another if used in combination with other ones. Sort of. Looks like someone got ambitious and short-sighted at the same time. Bad combination."
"So it's an electronic gun?" asked Mr Giles, tapping the desk with his pen. "Like a, um what's the word, blaster?"
The Jedi grimaced. "Yes and no. It looks like someone tried to build something that could pack a punch but then loaded it with breadcrumbs. Might be enough here to set fire to a vampire, if you got the setting right." He paused. "Let's open it up."
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Xander?" asked Buffy. "You're not going to blow up the library are you? That would make Giles here all pouty."
Xander paused and shot Mr Giles a very odd and very fast look. "No, Buff," he said in a level voice that hid a faint ghost of amusement. "I'll be very careful." He reached out to grab a screwdriver and got to work on disassembling the gun. Five minutes later, as they all watched in fascination he straightened up. "Sithspit, that's a surprise," he muttered. Then he leant back over and pulled out a piece of equipment from the guts of the gun. It was about a foot long, not counting the trailing wires and was roughly cylindrical if you didn't count the odd projections.
The Jedi laid the thing on the table and pored over it for a second before unclipping more bits off it, stripping it down still further to a smaller cylinder. He held it up and looked hard at it. "Similar serial number to mine," he breathed and then looked up at the others. "Guys this is a superconductor. A very advanced one, similar to the one that I rescued from that hijacked shipment last year." He grinned suddenly and then placed it on the table. "It'll need cooling crystals but… it's usable Oz."
The two Jedi exchanged grins. "The Force is with us."
There was a tapping noise and they looked back to Mr Giles, who raised both eyebrows at them. "At the risk or curbing your excitement at finding something that Oz can use for building his lightsabre, I'd like to bring you back to the here and now. We have a weapon here that is rather advanced, by our standards anyway. Xander, I think that your appreciation earlier this year that there is an experimental facility of some sort in the area is a sound one. Although we cannot take our eye off the proverbial ball with regards to the Mayor's Ascension, we can keep our eyes open for any potential complications from that direction." He looked around at them all and foe the first time Wesley realised why his father has expressed such confidence in the man's abilities, despite the unorthodox history of the Giles family in the Watcher's Council. He looked, for a moment, as if his face was made from rock, all sharp angles and glinting eyes. A hard face. Then the older man smiled slightly, and the illusion was gone. "Be vigilant. But not at the expense of enjoying yourself at the upcoming Prom. Faith, are you sure that you don't want to attend? You can come as my guest, you know."
Faith raised an eyebrow. "Come on, Giles, can you see me in a Prom dress? Drinking unlaced punch?"
"I concede the point. But still, a party is a party."
"Thanks but no thanks, Giles." She looked over at Buffy. "B can carry the Slayer banner. I think she looks better in anything pink and fluffy."
Buffy grinned impishly, a gleam in her eye. "I can do the Slayer version of fluffy!"
"And in the meantime," said Xander as he picked up the superconductor, "Oz and I have some work to do."
"More training?" asked the laconic werewolf.
"Build a lightsabre and then train. And train, and keep on training, because lightsabre combat is different from sword combat. More emphasis on balance. Lighter blade, so to speak, but different strokes."
The two Jedi drifted over to the other end of the table, where they kept talking quietly. Mr Giles sighed. "I'd better get the extension cord out if I'm going to have my morning coffee when they charge that power unit," he said despairingly to Wesley's utter bafflement.
It was fascinating, she thought as she circled the dead demon in her private lab. The outer carapace was extremely hard, and had only been shattered by high velocity bullets at very close range, followed by a British bayonet, 1942 pattern, that Finn had inherited from a great uncle. But still…
Maggie Walsh smiled quietly, as she pulled her surgical mask up over her nose and looked over the various scalpels and saws at her disposal. Despite the loss of the ESG-1, she had been impressed by what Finn had been able to do. He was as good as her initial estimates had been, possibly more so. And the sample that he'd provided her with was fascinating. If it could withstand such charges from the ESG-1 then could it take a blast from a staff weapon? This was going to be interesting. She held up a scalpel and started to slice the demon open.
There should have been no satisfaction from owning a material item such as a car, and yet Xander felt a distinct feeling of contentment as he drove down the street. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, he was picking up nothing evil anywhere close with the exception of the traffic cop that was eyeing the passing cars hopefully, Oz finished building the outer casing of his lightsabre and now all they needed to do was pick up the reshaped gem from Thorne in LA.
But first he had to rent his tuxedo, which was the one fly in the ointment as it meant dealing with salespeople. They tended to deploy vast amounts of smarminess in an effort to make a sale, something that he was now immune to.
He pulled into a parking bay, carefully paid the meter and walked along the street, looking in at the shops. Sunnydale's business community always reminded him of an ice rink suspended over a ravine. The ice could crack at any moment, but the skaters kept circling and twirling and generally ignoring what was literally beneath their feet.
Then he noticed the van up ahead. It was rocking slightly. He stretched out with the Force and then frowned slightly. There was something non-human in the back of the van. It felt like a cross between a demon and a dog and it was thinking incredibly violent thoughts. Mainly about men dressed in tuxedos. This was… freaky. Then he noticed the mind of the driver sitting in the front of the van. It was hard not to, it felt as if the person had tapped into an ocean of spite and petty jealousy. It felt like a vindictive five-year-old, except that a child wouldn't have access to whatever the hell the demonic thing in the back of the van was. Xander sighed and walked up to the driver's window, where he tapped gently on the glass to attract the attention of the man inside. There was a startled moment and then a blond guy about the same age as he was wound the window down. He looked familiar. Oh yes, the name came to him now. Tucker Wells. "Yes?"
Xander reached out with the Force gently. "You're going to tell me what you're doing."
"I'm going to tell you what I'm doing…" repeated Wells, looking glassy-eyed. "I'm going to ruin the Prom by releasing a pack of hellhounds into the hall. They're going to kill all the people who made my life a misery in school. I've trained them to attack anyone in a tuxedo. I'm going to release the one in the back now as a test."
"No, you're not."
"No I'm not?"
"No. You're going to unsummon your pack of hellhounds and rethink your life."
"I'm going to unsummon them and rethink my life," repeated Wells.
"You're going to take a more active approach to things and stop being petty."
"Stop being petty," he mumbled.
"Starting right now."
"Okay," said Wells as he started the van.
Xander watched the vehicle drive away and shook his head. That had been lucky. Another crisis nipped in the bud and hopefully a life saved from evil, although admittedly low-grade 'lets be stupidly and violently' evil. Then he turned back to the shops. Okay, shopping time. Time to make with the penguin suit.
For a second time he stopped dead. He could see someone being served in the formal dress shop in front of him. She was looking at a long gown and was gesturing reluctantly. And opposite her, looking helpful was Cordelia Chase. A Cordelia Chase who was letting off vast amounts of humiliation. He could tell that without the Force. After a moment an older woman approached the pair and dismissed Cordelia with a wave of the fingers as she started to talk to the customer about the dress. And Cordelia… went without a word.
Xander sighed deeply. What the hell? He pushed the door open and walked inside.
Passing through the shop he looked in hidden amusement at the ranks of dresses to one side and the tuxedos to the other. Then he sensed a presence to one side.
"Can I help you sir?" said a cheerful voice, which then stopped dead in its tracks. "Oh. It's you."
"Cordelia, you're working here aren't you?"
"I can't hide anything from the great… Jedi," she said, whispering the last word. There was a strained pause. Then she dropped her shoulders in resignation. "Daddy had a visit from the IRS a while back. Seems that he hadn't been declaring all that he should have been. For a few years. So they took it. They took it all. House, money, dresses, everything. There's no money left for mom or for me and there's barely enough left to keep Daddy's business going. And I don't know how long it'll last.
"So if I want to have the Prom dress that I would've thrown away a year ago, I have to work. It's that simple. And after that there's no more skiing trips, no more jaunts to Paris… just work. Just life." She looked up at him and her next comment seemed to die on her lips. "I was going to say that you're loving this, but that would be the old you wouldn't it? Not the new you," she said with a perception that he had never seen in her before. "Not now."
He stared at her sadly. "No, not now, Cordelia." He paused as a woman with a smile that looked partly sincere appeared to one side.
"Miss Chase, is this… gentleman looking for anything in particular?"
"She's being very helpful," said Xander, reaching out with the force. He did not like doing this twice in five minutes. It made him uneasy. Tucker Wells had been a more important case, but this was more trivial.
The woman's smile became slightly warmer while her eyes lost their focus slightly. "Cordelia's being very helpful."
"She's going to show me to the tuxedos in a minute."
"Show you to the tuxedos," she repeated.
"You need to check on something over there."
"I need to check on something over there." She turned and walked away.
Cordelia, who had been watching this with her mouth half-open, grabbed at Xander's sleeve. "Can you make her give me a pay rise? Or let me have a discount on that dress over there? The red one?"
Xander just looked at her and she deflated slightly and rolled her eyes. "Oh right, oh great Jedi, let me guess no personal gain? That's so unfair!" She hissed.
"Cordelia, I'd live to discuss semantics with you, but, well, I'm not gonna." He looked up at the dress that she'd been pointing at. "You're working here to get a shot at that dress?"
"No," she pouted, "I'd kill for the dress I pointed at, but at the rate that I'm being paid I'm going to have to settle for something less nice. Like that heap of rags over there."
"Okay, point me in the direction of the men's department."
"Over there."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome, she said sourly and stalked off. He shook his head at retreating back and then looked to see where her now slightly befuddled boss had gone to. He needed to have a quiet word and a dip into his savings. If Cordelia wanted that dress, then she would have it. It was only fair.Then the open road called. To LA. And then back as fast as possible. They had a lightsabre to build.
The last piece clicked into place and then the handle was closed carefully. Oz blew out a long slow breath of air and then watched as Xander reached over and picked it up. "Is there a ceremony for this?"
"I think we're making a new one here and now," said Xander quietly as he reached out to place the newly completed lightsabre in the hands of his former Padawan. "This makes you a Jedi Knight in a way that I can barely come close to explaining. You've come a long way, Oz. You've seen things that have proved that you can tread the right path, that you can avoid the temptations of the Dark Side. You're ready now and this lightsabre marks you as a Jedi. As someone who knows where the line against the night has been drawn.
"This lightsabre represents that which gives you a responsibility to help the needy, to defend the innocent, to always be ready to fight the Dark Side. It's no cliché to say that you have great power now – and great responsibility. Use it well."
Oz flicked the switch and the green blade sprang to life in the air above him as he looked at it. "I will."
"Good. Do or do not, there is no try. All I have to do now is train you properly in its use. And then… you must choose your own path." He smiled. "Oh and even Jedi can enjoy a party. Have a great time at the Prom with Willow."
As he turned away to the door and his costume change he thought about just what they had accomplished since he had started to train Oz. The werewolf - lapsed werewolf to be accurate, as he hadn't transformed for months now - had come a long way.
"You don't seem too disappointed at getting passed over for class clown, Xander," said Willow as she hung onto Oz's arm. This was true and he raised an eyebrow before shrugging.
"I guess it isn't as important any more, Wills. There are more important things on my mind these days. Quips and the making with the witty banter are still there, but there are other things." He smiled at the couple. "Life changes."
There was a fumbling noise behind him and he turned to see Jonathan adjusting the height of the microphone before clearing his throat nervously. "Um, there are two more awards to give out tonight, ones that the committee didn't tell the school about. I guess that there were a lot of write-ins. First things first, is, uh, is Buffy Summers here tonight?"
There was a startled pause and then a spotlight came on to reveal a stunned Buffy standing next to Giles. She gulped once and then smiled tentatively at the people around her as they formed a circle around her.
Up on the stage Jonathan nodded at her, smiled briefly and then fumbled in his pocket for a piece of paper, which he unfolded. "We're not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you, but that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you. We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here."
A series of shouts went up at this. "The swim team!"
"Weird earthquakes!"
"Hyenas!"
"That indestructible rhino appearing on the football pitch!"
"The school getting covered in bees!"
"Snyder!" This last call brought an explosion of laughter that died away as Jonathan cleared his throat again and continued reading from the paper.
"But, whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you, or helped by you at one time or another. We're proud to say that the Class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history."
To Xander's surprise the crowd started to applaud, a growing swell of noise that filled the room. Glancing over Xander could see that the Slayer was actually blushing and seemed to be speechless. The noise died again as Jonathan flapped his hands for silence.
"And we know at least part of that is because of you. So the senior class offers its thanks, and gives you, uh, this." He fumbled behind the podium and then pulled out a little silver-painted umbrella attached to a small plinth. "It's from all of us, and it has written here, 'Buffy Summers, Class Protector.'"
As the crowd started to applaud Xander joined in enthusiastically. It was typical of life on the Hellmouth that even when you thought that you'd seen everything, something came out of left field to surprise you. And this was something that could give you a bad case – or a good case, depending on your perspective – of the warm and fuzzies.
Prompted by a very gentle push from Giles, who looked as if he was about to explode with pride, the blonde Slayer made her way down an opening aisle of applauding people to the stage, where she was presented with her Class Protector award. From the emotions that she was projecting Xander could tell that she was very close to crying. As she rejoined Giles and the applause started to die down Oz and Willow appeared next to the Jedi.
"Nice," said Oz approvingly.
"Yeah," he told his pupil. "That means a lot to Buffy."
Beaming widely, Willow said: "Did you see her face? I thought she was going to explode! That's something that-"
"And we have one last award," said Jonathan from his position on the stage. "Like the last one this is a new category. Is Xander Harris here tonight?"
The crowd went quiet again and the Jedi could feel the number of faces suddenly turning in his direction. Then he was suddenly blinking slightly in the light of the spotlight that had lit up Buffy moments earlier. Resisting the need to squint he straightened up slightly and looked at the stage.
Jonathan had by now taken out another piece of paper and started to read from it. "People change but you seem to have changed the most. We've all noticed how, whenever there's a fight or an argument, whenever there's been a confrontation or a face-off, you've been there. Whenever someone's been in pain and needed to talk, you've been there. And whenever weird things have happened, you've been there to deal with stuff.
"The class of '99 has asked me to give you this," And Jonathan pulled out a small award plinth that had been painted silver and which had a gleaming metal faceplate attached to it. "And it says here: 'Xander Harris, Class Peacemaker.'"
As the crowd started to applaud Xander made his way down to the stage, trying to do his place to keep this thoughts calm. He didn't deserve this, he thought wryly, he'd just been doing his job as a Jedi. Mediating was something that came naturally now, was something that he found that he had to do. And it wasn't hard – a quiet word here, a quick interjection here, listening, talking, and being thoughtful. There had never been one outstanding moment, just a series of minor moments. But people seemed to have noticed.
As he received the award from an awkwardly smiling Jonathan, Xander suppressed a moment of pride. That emotion was something that a Jedi did not indulge in. Pride could lead to arrogance, arrogance could lead to anger, and so one down to the primrose path to the dark side.
Looking out over the applauding crowd he could see the others, Buffy and Willow beaming at him, Oz smiling, Giles nodding in satisfaction, Wesley looking oddly non-smug, Cordelia and Amy waving at him, Anya looking around in confusion and, at the back of the hall, the dark and tuxedoed shape of the vampire with a soul.
Xander stepped down from the stage and walked over to his friends.
"Well well, " he said in a slightly husky voice. "Looks like they noticed a few things Buff,"
"Yeah," she said happily, looking down at her award. "Looks like the good fight comes with sparkly bits attached!"
Behind him Xander could hear the band starting to set up. Giles cleared his throat. "Um, ah, congratulations both of you. I must say that American teenagers can be remarkably perceptive sometimes. It makes up for the overuse of the word 'dude'. Just about." He looked around as the lights started to dim for the dancing. "Please, everyone, enjoy yourselves tonight. We don't often get a chance to have a party, but in this case I think that it's a case of carpe diem." He smiled at them all, but they all knew what he had left unsaid. The Graduation ceremony was just days away. But tonight it was time to dance.
"The Maxwell case is a done deal, the defence settled with us out of court for 15 percent above the settlement price that we were asking for in return for the return of the photos and the video footage of the defendant and the demoness. We have a reserve copy of both just to be on the safe side, plus the details of the dimension that the demoness is hiding in." Lilah smiled and Lindsey scowled inwardly. She had done a good job admittedly, but it was never good to see a rival doing well. He looked away back down to his notepad. Why was he feeling like this, like it shouldn't matter what Lilah did? She was an ambitious cast-iron bitch and he should be feeling a lot of professional – and personal – rivalry against her. But nothing at the moment.
"Good job, Lilah," said Holland as he scribbled something on his notepad. Then he looked up. "Well, a good week all round. Please submit your reports on time and I'll see you all on Monday. Have a good weekend."
With a general muttering of subdued conversation and rustling of papers the room started to empty, the end of the meeting being the cue for a nondescript office cleaner to come in and start to tend to the plants by the window. As Lindsey walked through the door he noticed that Lilah was looking rather smug.
"Something amusing?" he asked her as they walked down the corridor. She stopped and raised an eyebrow.
"You're getting slow, Lindsey," she purred. "Didn't you pick it up during the meeting?"
"Pick up what?"
"Harry, can I have a moment?" said Holland's voice from the room and he saw Wolfit turn to walk back into the room, where the doors closed suddenly. A chill went though him.
"Now you see it, don't you? Poor Harry. He had the wrong friends." She turned and dismissed him with a wave of a languid hand. "You should make sure that doesn't happen to you." Then she turned back. "Watch."
Harry turned back into the room with an inward sigh. This was bound to be about that damn case involving that will drawn up by that equally damned lawyer Dallas. It had more loopholes than a lace doily and he was half tempted to put a contract out on the halfwits life so that he never bothered the legal profession ever again.
Manners was making a few notes on an internal report at the end of the table and looked up as he approached. "Ah, Harry, I just wanted a quick word with you. How's the Cat case going?"
"We should come close to a settlement in a week or so. The will's legally just about alright but we need to close down some of the possible complications. My team's working on it." He heard a puffing noise to one side and he caught sight of the cleaner using a water spray on the deep green leaves of the plant next to the window.
"Good," said Holland approvingly. "Always good to delegate. Well done Harry."
"Thank you sir," he replied and made for the door again. Just as he was passing the cleaner Holland cleared his throat.
"Oh by the way Harry, did you hear about that accident the other day?"
"Accident sir?"
"In the research department. Terrible thing, one of the labs exploded. Led to the death of a technician."
Harry Wolfit's mouth went very dry suddenly but he turned back to Manners and raised an eyebrow. "They do always have accidents down there sir."
"They certainly do, but in this case the guy – one Walter Hutchins – was quite experienced." Manners leant back in his chair. "He was a relative of your wife I'm afraid."
Harry kept his face stoical. "What a shame."
"Yes. Interesting last words too."
"Last words sir?" He said in a level voice. Damnit he'd left the lightsabre back in his desk. It might be useful now.
Manners pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it. "'I wanted… see Harry… kill Manners.'" He read out. Then he looked up with eyes that were as hard as granite. "I applaud the idea of revenge, Harry, this firm was built on it. But over ambition does come with a price tag attached. Goodbye Harry."
Harry stared at him for a moment and then pulled the top off his pen, ready to stab the murdering bastard with it, only there was suddenly a small cold piece of metal against the back of his neck and as he tried to turn he suddenly wondered where the cleaner had gone as he couldn't see him and…
Lindsey jumped slightly as the blood and other matter splashed on the glass partition. Then the door opened again and the cleaner came out unscrewing a silencer from his gun before vanishing down the corridor, as nondescript as ever. From inside he heard Holland tell his secretary that a clean-up crew would be needed for the conference room.
Turning back to Lilah he could see that her smug grin had hitched up a notch. "Helps if you know what to look for," she purred and then sashayed off to the lifts. Lindsey shook his head and moved on. There'd be a new face at the morning meetings and he wondered idly who it was. Ah well, that was something minor to worry about.
The lift doors opened and Lilah exploded out of them, pulling off her fashionable shoes so that she could run faster. She had just 15 minutes to get into Wolfit's office before the security team got there to strip it completely, the usual practice when someone had their contract terminated with extreme prejudice by the company. A short amount of time, but enough to see if there was anything worth looting from the place. Dead men had no secrets and she had found out some pretty neat things from other equally dead people. Reaching the office she checked the door quickly, failed to find any security marks that placed it out of bounds and moved in.
She had a routine for this now, a routine that was fast and efficient. Close the door almost completely so that any approaching security people could be heard a way off. Check the back of the picture that invariably hung on the wall behind the chair. Nothing, but then only a moron would have hidden anything there. Parkinson had been a moron but Wolfit had not been one. She stared at the carpet, looking at the join where it met the walls. No lumps, no discolorations so nothing left under there. The filing cabinet was too obvious for words and she didn't even look there.
Which left the desk. She bent down to look under it. Nothing taped to the underside, no disks wedged underneath. She made a note of the construction though. It was a wooden box, so there might be something inside it. Straightening up she went around the desk and opened the side drawers carefully. Nothing in there. That just left the main drawer. She slid it out and stole a glance at her watch. Damn, seven minutes 20 seconds gone already.
Nothing in there either. Then she frowned. She had heard something metallic click as she had pulled the drawer back, but the only metal objects in it were some paperclips, which did not click at all. Aha. False compartment. Reaching in she tugged and pulled for half a minute, conscious that time was ticking away. Then she got lucky. Pushing against a certain place resulted in a soft wooden sound as a compartment opened up. She pulled it open quickly.
Okay, a picture of his family, how predictable the sad sentimental bastard. Then a report. Hum, this looked promising. She pulled it out and stuffed it in her bag. Then she saw what was underneath and stopped dead. No. That was impossible. But why would he have something like that hidden in his office?
Something rattled far off down the corridor, accompanied by the rumble of voices. Lilah jerked slightly. Damn, no more time. She grabbed the object, pushed the compartment back in place, replaced the drawer and was walking down the corridor by the time that the security detail had moved into Wolfit's office. The object was safe in a pocket and she caressed it with a secret smile. A few months back an informant had given her a very garbled account of a demon that had vanished after telling a few people that he had a real lightsabre. Nothing had come of it and she'd chalked it down to stupidity. Now she wasn't so sure. She would find somewhere quiet and safe to look at it in more detail. She had the sudden feeling that something significant had happened but she couldn't put her finger on what or why. But the feeling was very strong.
Acting on an impulse she stopped dead and looked around carefully. No-one around. Then she darted into a supply cupboard to one side and pulled the object out of her pocket. Okay, a series of controls down the side, along with one button that was larger than the others. She pushed it.
A red blade extended itself with the distinctive hum and she stared at it, her face bathed in the red glow. And then she smiled.
