Summary: Shock! Giles knows what videos are?

Crossover: Bastard!!, Slayers

Disclaimer: I don't own Bastard!!, Slayers, or Buffy the Vampire Shagger. Although, if the respective owners want to swap for a couple of CDs that's fine.

Feedback: Yeah, baby!

Pre-fic Comments:

I *hate* plotbunnies.

Don't expect this one to live once I've gotten the original bunny nailed down as bits and bytes.

* * *

Xander wandered into the Library, the home of the one man stand against 'American illiteracy.'

The only way he'd normally enter it was if another crisis had arisen, like when homicidal superpowered vampires had been sent by the local Master. Oh, and also when Buffy was practicing her Slayer moves.

The teenage boy grinned, remembering last time. Gyrating, sweaty teenage Slayerly Buffy...

Then he shook himself. Cold showers... cold showers... Mrs Kerbopple!

Okay, that was better than cold showers. A mental image of his crabby English teacher. He just hoped that Giles could help him.

"Hey, G-man!," Xander yelled once he got through the doors.

"Kindly remember, Xander, that this is a library and deserves a certain measure of respect. Also, do /not/ call me G-man," Giles sighed.

"I'm after a copy of the Cliff Notes for The Crucible? Mrs Kerbopple set an essay for it, eugh, and if I don't get a C at least..."

Giles sighed. "I suppose it was too much to hope you'd come to learn something."

Xander grinned. "All play and no work makes the Xanman Xander! So... Cliff Notes?"

Giles waved a hand towards the 'Fiction' shelves. "The Crucible is over there, under Arthur Miller. While I would rather you read the play, if you really must have the Cliff Notes they're in my office."

"Thanks!"

Xander made his way into the office. He found the Notes under a spellbook and... a video tape?

"Holy...! Giles, what are YOU doing with a videotape?"

The British watcher blushed slightly. "A colleague sent it to me, as it is a Japanese animation of events recorded in a very old history book."

Xander picked it up, reading the label. Bastard!!, eh?, he thought to himself. Cant be too bad, if someone called it that.

"Mind if I borrow it?," he yelled.

Another sigh. "If you must. I warn you, however, I don't know what is on it as I find myself lacking the drive to bother watching it."

If he knew the G-man... "You don't have a VCR?"

"Er... quite."

Now it was time for Xander to sigh. "We can watch it at Willow's house, if you want. We live in the twentieth century, you know?"

Jeez, didn't Giles realise it was time for him to join the eighteenth century, let alone the twentieth?

Giles pushed his glasses back up his nose, from where they had slipped down. "I suggest you leave to work on your essay, Xander. Before I find work for you."

Xander eeped, sliding the Cliff Notes and the videotape into his bag. The spellbook fell in unnoticed, sandwiched as it was between the Cliff Notes and the videotape.

"Now, if there is nothing else?," Giles asked slyly.

"Ah, no, gotta work on that essay," Xander joked. "Later!"

* * *

Xander sat down to the TV, bowl of popcorn on hand. His mum had finished watching Coronation Street, dear old dad had gone to bed (fallen onto the bed, if truth be told) and now the telly was all his. He'd done his essay -- it wasn't A+ material, but he was sure that he'd pass Mrs Kerbopple's standards.

Before he even pushed 'Play', his mum yelled out, "Alexander! Don't you have that up too loud and disturb your father!"

"Okay, Mum," Xander yelled back, placating her.

"And don't yell!"

He pushed 'play'.

"Several hundred years after the fall of human civilization," the narrator began, "it was a lawless period, a time without order. Only blood, flesh, bone and iron. It was also a time of sorcery. Having been terrorised by demonic beings their entire lives, human beings were miserably inadequate and forced to subsist in a foreign, bestial environment."

"This is great," Xander said, munching on the salty goodness. "Giles'd love this -- it's like his Slayer speech on the big, er, tiny screen. Those knights sure are useless, though."

He laughed as the mighty sorcerer, when implored to save the city, flipped the priests and rulers the bird. Hahaha... true, the man was an asshole, but he had style.

"Dammit!," Xander cursed, as a different show started playing once the first episode of Bastard!! finished. He was starting to enjoy it, even with all the heavy metal references.

He philosophically shrugged, and settled down to watch this... Slayers series. Cool. Named after Buffy.

* * *

The next morning found Xander at the school library, tape in hand, as soon as Giles arrived.

"Hey, G-man!," Xander greeted him. "Got any more of this 'Slayers' series?"

"I beg your pardon?," Giles asked, cleaning his glasses. "Ah, my colleague that lent me the tape is known as a bit of a hoarder when it comes to Japanese cartoons like the one you're holding."

"Hook me up, yo!"

"What?"

Xander sighed. He was gonna have to take this slowly. "This stuff is even niftier than Transformers. Ask your friend if I can borrow the rest of this 'Slayers' thing!"

"Alright. While you're here, do you know what happened to the spellbook that was in the same pile as the Cliffs Notes and the video cassette you borrowed?"

"Spellbook?," Xander blinked. He fossicked through his bag, before finding something. "This it?"

The book in question was very old, and had a severe black leather cover, with a flat, misty white gem mounted in the center of the cover. Written in red letters was the title; 'A Primer To The Arts, by Lina Inverse and Naga the White Serpent'.

"Ah, yes," Giles said.

"Is this the same Lina Inverse as on that cartoon?"

"Yesss...," Giles said, trying to figure out where Xander was going with this.

"Cool! Can I borrow it? Thanks!"

Giles sighed, and cleaned his glasses again. "I should have expected that, with the way he got those other magic books out. Although why he'd want to know about pagan rites..."

* * *

Post-fic Comments:

No, I'm not throwing him into the deep end with Bastard!!