Summary: No! Doc Frankenstein is in the building!

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!

Had a visit from my family today. I love my brother like... well, a brother, but Gawd, don't it annoy you when someone goes 'um' every other word? Like, um, in conversation, um, when you're trying, um, to talk to, um, someone about something, um, but they keep pausing, um?

* * *

The next day at school, Xander staked out the balcony with Buffy and Willow. Faith was basking in the sun just below the balcony, listening while the other three talked.

"Any sign of our suspects?," Xander asked. "I'm getting an itchy... fireball hand?"

That was the problem with using magic, rather than good oldfashioned shootin' irons. You could try and use the same cliches, but they just didn't sound right.

"Not yet," the senior Slayer said. "I don't get it. Why would anybody wanna make a girl?"

"You mean when there's so many pre-made ones just laying around?," Xander asked, looking down at Faith. The look was not lost on any of the three girls. "The things we do for love."

"Love has nothing to do with this," Buffy acidly disagreed. "And stop staring at Faith."

"Who's having to resort to dead guys?," Faith asked lazily, drawing a brief snarl from Buffy.

Willow looked between them worriedly. "Uh, guys, and guyesses, whichever you may or may not be, uh, can't we just get on?"

"Maybe not, but I'll tell you this," Xander began, "people don't fall in love with what's right in front of them. People want the dream. What they can't have. The more unattainable, the more attractive."

"The whole Garden of Eden thing?," Faith asked.

"Exactly."

"And for Eric the unattainable would include everyone," Willow commented meanly. Buried resentment from years of coming second place at the science fair bubbled to the surface. "That's alive."

The two girls on the balcony got up from the railing to leave for class.

"Uh, Eric's sick enough to do something like this, but what about Chris?," Buffy asked. While somewhat a pessimist, she wanted to believe that it wasn't all bad. "He seems like a human person."

Xander got up to follow them, as Faith jumped up a storey to the balcony to join them.

"I dunno," Willow thought out loud. "That thing with his brother was really hard on him. And he talked about death a lot. Maybe he just wanted to get one-up on it."

"Say hello to Doc Frankenstein and Igor," Faith joked. Willow smiled at her quip.

"But it's not doable," Buffy protested. "I mean, making someone from scraps, actually making them live."

"If it is, my science project's definitely coming in second this year," Willow said, trying another joke. Xander grinned at this.

"And speaking of love...," Xander trailed off as Giles approached their general direction, obviously distracted by the also approaching Miss Jenny Calendar.

"We were talking about the re-animation of dead tissue," Willow said, puzzled.

"Do I deconstruct your segues?," the mage grumbled.

"Hey," Buffy said to Giles.

"Oh! Yes. Hello," the not-entirely-with-it Watcher said.

"Still no sign of our mad doctors?," Buffy asked.

"What? Oh! Uh, corpses, yes. Evil. Huh. Very good," Giles mumbled as he watched the female teacher. Very, very good."

"Okay, Giles, just remember, 'I feel a thing, you feel a thing...' But personalize it," the Californian Slayer instructed.

"Personalize it?," Giles asked, puzzled.

"She's a technopagan, right? Ask her to bless your laptop. Have fun."

"What? Oh! Don't...," Giles began, slowing as the group left.

"Best of luck," Xander said, obediently following Willow.

"...leave?"

"Later, loverboy," Faith smirked, sauntering off to the Library.

"Good morning, Rupert," Miss Calendar said in passing.

"Uh, Ms. Calendar?"

* * *

In the science classroom, the frantic hacker was paging hurriedly through an advanced biology textbook -- the thing was of postgrad level, at least.

"I still don't get how Chris could do it. I mean, arresting the cell deterioration is one thing, but," she began, before being interrupted.

"Hello!," Xander squeaked, holding up a head preserved in a large glass jar. "I wanna get ahead."

The hacker decided to manfully (womanfully?) ignore the joker. "Maybe an electrical current combined with an adrenaline boost."

"For the love of God, can somebody scratch my nose?"

"Well, it's official. Chris and Eric didn't come to school today," Buffy said as she entered the room to join the two.

"That's no coincidence," Xander pointed out.

"Maybe they finished their project," Willow theorised.

"God! What if it worked? What, what if that poor girl is walking around?," Buffy said. "Worse still, what if she looks like Faith?"

Faith might be a Slayer, but she was trying to take Xander from Buffy. And Buffy didn't let /anyone/ take anything of hers before she was good and ready to throw it away.

"I can think of worse things than a girl looking like Faith," Xander grinned widely. "A /lot/ of worse things. Like looking like Cordelia, or Harmony, or Amy."

"What could Living Dead Girl be thinking?," Buffy asked, continueing her morbid panic attack.

"And what are they gonna do with her?," Willow asked. A thousand perverted situations flitted through her mind.

"I don't think we need to worry about that just yet," Giles said, entering the classroom with Faith in tow. "I spoke to a press person this morning about the remains. The police have finished sorting through them, and apparently they found three heads in the dumpster."

"They only had three girls," Buffy said, thinking of the three that were killed in the car accident. In Sunnydale, they would probably be the only non-vampirised corpses.

"Precisely."

"So, they don't have the whole, uh, package?," Willow asked, wanting confirmation.

"Heads must be no good. Huh. I found 'em attractive enough," Xander shrugged. "Well, obviously I'm not as sick as Chris and Eric."

"Based on what the police have put together, I would say they're one step short of completing their masterpiece," Giles mused.

"One step," Willow repeated.

"No, one /head/," Xander corrected, ducking as Willow threw the biology textbook at him.

* * *

Post-fic Comments:

If the parts come out slower, blame it on the fact that I've just gotten Need for Speed: Underground. That game is too addictive for my own good.