"Ah, the Bronze; loud, smelly, but with just the right number of people to prevent Xander slayage," said Xander as he sat down with Buffy, Willow and Oz.
"People don't notice when I slay vampires, what makes you think they will notice if I kill you?" asked Buffy in a low tone, but without any real malice.
"Because you don't want to look bad in front of your boyfriend," said Xander while indicating the door Angel had just walked through.
"So how was space?" asked Willow when Buffy and Angel started to make doe eyes at one another.
"Quiet, cold, but full of the solar radiation goodness that makes a half Kryptonion body good," said Xander just before Cordelia walked in with her current stud of the week.
The talk quickly degraded to the everyday matters of the teenage world. If a stranger had walked by he would have simply seen a group of friends and one shy clinger on, nothing more.
Of course this is the Hellmouth, where all good things must be torn down and destroyed. This fact was nicely punctuated when a middle aged Englishman came crashing into the club in a frantic dash looking for a particular group of teenagers.
"Xander, Buffy, if I may have a moment of your time," said Giles as soon as he reached the table.
"Aren't you the librarian?" asked the jock Cordelia had brought with her.
"Yes well, these two are notoriously lax when it comes to returning books on time," said Giles in a quick attempt to make a cover story.
The jock gave everyone a disbelieving look to which Oz simply said, "Man takes his job seriously." To this the jock simply shrugged and did what all Sunnydale residents did and started to try and forget that anything unusual ever happened.
"Did you check out the east coast like I asked you to do?" Giles asked Xander.
"Briefly, but then I saw a tanker about to capsize, so I didn't look too close. Is there something wrong?" responded Xander.
Giles simply turned on his car radio, and turned up the volume so the two teenagers could hear.
"-led. Once again Gotham City has been encased in green flames. While these flames don't appear to be burning anything or giving off heat they are dangerous, and have injured several people. The National Guard has closed all roads into Gotham, and all flights to Gotham, Metropolis, and New York have been canceled. Stay tuned for any further developments," said a voice that crackled as it came out of old speakers.
"Damn it," cursed Xander as Giles turned the radio off.
"I assume by your reaction that you have reached the same conclusion that I have," said Giles in a serious tone.
"Wait, you guys know what's doing that?" asked Buffy.
"The Green Lantern," said Giles and Xander together.
"Imagine having a ring that could grant your every wish, just so long as you wanted it enough," said Xander. "The ring could do just about anything you wanted, as long as it had enough power from the lantern."
"The Watchers Council was unable to uncover any weaknesses pertaining to the constructs created, but the reports of that time have recently become suspect," said Giles.
"It had a weakness, but I'm not sure that it will still work without the ring getting its energy from the lantern," said Xander.
"Excuse me?" asked Giles. "How did you come to that conclusion?"
"A friend of my father has the lantern Giles, but the ring was lost when Green Lantern was killed in a vampire attack. Before you ask, the person that has the lantern can be trusted, and no, it wasn't stolen from him," said Xander.
"Are you sure?" asked Giles.
"Yeah, this guy is as trustworthy as you can get, and anyone who could take the lantern from him would be so powerful that they wouldn't need the lantern in the first place. No, whatever is powering the ring now isn't coming from the lantern."
"That still leaves with the question of what to do," said Giles.
"Get the others out of the Bronze and do a research party," said Xander. "The lantern is old Giles, older than anyone probably believes. Green Lantern reshaped the lantern into a 'modern' train lantern from an old Chinese lantern, there's no telling how many times it was reshaped before then."
"Do you really think the lantern has been used before the 1940's?" asked Giles.
"Without Dr. Fate, it's a good place to start," said Xander as he started to look around.
"So what are we going to do?" asked Buffy.
"I'm going to fly to Gotham as fast as I can, and the flight would probably kill you. If I thought that I could slow down enough to bring you along I would, but the people in Gotham need help as fast as they can get it," said Xander.
"Okay go, but there's no way I'm going to let you fight the next one alone," said Buffy.
As soon as he was sure his friend understood Xander took off only stopping at his house to drop off his civilian clothes, and the library to pick up some supplies. After completing those tasks in under a minute he reoriented himself and started to fly towards Gotham at speeds that would put most modern aircraft to shame.
Half way across the country another significant conversation was taking place.
"We have to do something!" raged a man.
"We don't know what that is or how to fight it. Besides neither of us are as young as we once were, or as fit. If we go we're just as likely to get ourselves killed," said a woman in a reasonable tone.
"I know, I just don't like feeling helpless," said the man in a calmer voice.
"Neither do I," said the woman. "We have been using our gifts to help others for over fifteen years now, but we were always careful. What's happening in Gotham is already too public, there's no way we wouldn't be noticed, and we don't need a modern day HUAC making our lives miserable."
"I know," said the man as he sat down on the couch and started to hold his wife as they both watched the live coverage on the television.
If either the man or the woman had bothered to look behind them one tenth of a second ago they would have seen their son in deep though. Now there was no trace of their son except for the quickly fading golden witchfire that led toward his bedroom.