Watchers Headquarters Oxford 31st July 1999
The Watchers compound was a combination of a series of great houses and their massed lands owned wholly by the watchers themselves, as the majority of the watchers work was done in secret the Watcher's headquarters was set in a massive complex of underground rooms and tunnels designed and built over hundreds of years of work by the watchers themselves.
Now for the first time in almost a decade the entire council from the youngest and most junior of the twelve to the oldest and more revered head of the council were assembled by an alert.
"The proceedings may begin." The head slammed a gavel on the desk in front of him.
"Sir." A young member of the Watcher's mystic overwatch committee approached them, "Approximately Ten days ago the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart, the biggest amalgamation of evil doings on the planet was destroyed utterly by a thermobaric device detonated on the ground floor of the building, within a space of a minute the entire building and it's archives were obliterated without survivors. The entire building, its contents and its people were destroyed without any form of return possible."
"Who did this, and how?"
"We don't know, however the senior partners have sent a memorandum to the other four offices in Paris, Tokyo, Rome, and Moscow to be on the lookout for something called an Untouchable, they believe he may have been responsible."
The twelve men looked at each other, as the heads of the various departments they had each had access to the little information available to the Watchers about these Untouchables.
"However." The younger watcher spoke up. "The Los Angeles Police have found evidence that points to a young man of our acquaintance, clicking on a switch the projector brought up computer file already set up on the system.
Name: Alexander Lavelle Harris
Age: 18
DOB: 17/10/80
Place of Birth: Sunnydale California.
Status: Unemployed.
Notes: Alexander 'Xander' Harris is currently a member of an expanded human defence of the primary Hellmouth in Sunnydale California, however it is believed that he is a normal human with no noticeable skills that would assist in the defence in any long term plans.
However it is known he has been the repository of two separate possessions over the course of his time on the Hellmouth See Notes: Hyena possession RTG: 02:1997 and Soldier possession RTG 11:1997 and 07:1999
Even with his lack of skills, Mr Harris has survived for close to three years with minimal long term physical or psychological damage due in part to luck and to his remarkable tolerance of the mystical and magical powers arrayed at Sunnydale. It is believed that he is of no threat and his removal is not considered at this time.
Addendum: Mr Harris recently considered by Watcher Recruiting services, vetoed by Councillor Quentin Travers 21st April 1999.
"Mr Harris' fingerprints have been confirmed as being on a 'calling card' found at the destroyed building, he is currently on the run and being hunted by Interpol, the FBI and LA county Police and sheriff departments. We also believe mercenaries recruited by Wolfram and Hart are also hunting for the man, a large scale mobilisation of the Order of Taraka has also been requested by unknown sources. As of now no-one has been able to find the young man."
"Thank you Mr Smith that will be all." Travers motioned the man out the door, the young watcher bowed to his peers and left the room. The projector shut down as the conference turned inwards.
"Contact the Coven, have them trace him." Quentin said
"Sir, the notes from the investigation show that the coven have attempted to find him and have failed."
"That is impossible."
"We also believe that the Senior Partners, the Order and the Powers that be have looked for him and are unable to see him, captured memos show that there has been no sign of the young man at all."
"When did they fail?"
"Sir?"
"When did he go off the radar?" asked the Head of the council
"He was never on the radar Sir; he was believed to be of no consequence so when the traces were attached to Summers and her group he was left alone, by your own orders sir." The youngest of the council said to his peer, "We have never had a trace on him except when he was under surveillance earlier this year."
"Then it's possible." An older white haired councilman said. "The young man is an untouchable."
"Possible? Yes, likely? We don't know, we know nothing of these people outside of the fact that cannot be seen by mystical forces and they are close to invisible to mundane forces as well."
"Then what do we do?"
"If he did this he's messing with the plans of this council and the balance that we are fighting to hold, contact all wetworks teams, all covens and all watchers worldwide Alexander Harris is to be terminated on sight."
"Yes Sir."
Sunnydale
California.
Same day.
6pm
Willow Rosenberg sat in the coffee shop in town, for over a week she had been following the news as the police and everyone else hunted for her best friend, his phone call a week ago had been the only communication they had had over all this time and she was scared for him, to the point she hadn't slept in almost two days and she was a wreck.
Sipping her coffee she looked out at the street and noticed her other best friend Buffy on her way in as well, she had taken it as hard as Willow had when they had lost contact with their best friend. They had expected to only have sporadic contact with their third especially with his trip going so far away from California, but the fact he will only be in contact every so often while half the country is looking for him made them even more scared than they would admit.
They had been in contact with almost half the surviving class of '99 as each had asked them about Xander, 'where he was', 'was he alright', and the ever popular 'did he really do it, I mean he helped blow up the school'. Even Cordelia had called to find out if Xander was OK after hearing that he had been framed for mass murder and terrorist actions.
They hadn't been able to tell anyone anything except they were certain he wasn't anywhere near the building when it went up, Buffy entered the shop and sat by Willow another cup of coffee already there for her.
"You guys ok?" A third voice spoke up, from the side Jonathan Levinson, an old friend of Xander and Willow's walked up.
"Hey Jonathan."
"You two doing Ok?"
"Yeah we're ok, little scared though." Willow said. "You?"
"Me?" he asked surprised. "I'm fine, just fulfilling a promise."
"What promise?" Buffy asked.
"Xander came to see both me and Oz before he left, he asked us to watch over you two if anything happened to him while he was out there, considering I know what's going on around here."
"That's sweet Jonathan, thank you." Willow Said.
"He'll be okay you know, I've yet to see anything keep him down for long. He'll find a way back."
Both girls hugged their small friend, surprise was evident as they did so but he merely let them go as they pulled away and retreated back to his own drink nodding to Oz as the older man walked by.
"Police at Xander's House."
"What?"
"There looking for him."
"He's not even here."
"Doesn't matter, these are LA police not Sunnydale."
"Wait a minute, if they are LA police…" Willow's eyes opened wide and she shot up and out of the shop at close to slayer speed, quickly followed by Buffy at the same speed, Jonathan and Oz merely looked at each other and followed the girls as they headed towards Xander's house.
Outside the building the four of them could see a pair of police cars and a large van, both Harris parents were struggling against the police that held them, Tony threatening the police while Jessica just struggled as she was pulled away.
Willow approached the closest policeman and gaught his attention.
"Excuse me what's going on? Where are you taking Mr and Mrs Harris?"
"Can't tell you that I'm sorry.
"At least someone's going to take them to task for their action, Xander deserved better than those two as he grew up."
"So you are friends with Alexander Harris?"
"Yes." She replied, "I've seen the news officer and I just don't believe he did what they say he did, he was a kind and gentle man. Completely different to his parents."
Another car came up as they talked to the policeman, Buffy watched as an angry Detective Stein stepped out of the car and walked towards the gaggle of policemen, he flashed his badge and from what she could ascertain the Detective wanted to see whoever was in charge of this operation.
A tall dark skinned man approached the Detective and started to talk to him, Stein started to rant about something but all Buffy could make out were the words, 'My Town' and 'idiots from LA'. From behind the tall man a shorter white male came up and punched Stein hard sending the detective down to the ground.
Picking Stein up the other man slammed him against the van and clasped a pair of handcuffs on the man, forcing him around the LA cop thrust a large file into the man's face showing him the papers within. Stein's face went pale and he visibly gulped as the man talked to him, the LA man took Steins badge and gun from him and threw the annoying detective into the back of the van alongside the Harris'.
Stein noticed Buffy as he sat up from his harsh treatment at the hands of the none too stable LA cop, she merely smiled and waved a little at the deposed policeman and laughed as the doors closed.
"Serves the bastard right." She said to herself.
"Excuse me you kids shouldn't be here, could you move along." The dark skinned detective had walked up to the four teenagers whilst they had been watching his partner physically and verbally beat the crap out of one of the foremost thorns in their sides. He looked at them with a stern but not unfriendly expression.
"Hang on Rodge." The other man said. "Miss Summers? Elizabeth Summers?"
"Uhh yeah, I'm Buffy Summers, Detective?"
"Sgt Riggs, Martin Riggs, this is my Partner Sgt Roger Murtaugh, we were going to try to contact you and your friends here after we finished with the Harris' and that idiot Stein but as you are here would you mind answering some questions."
"Now?"
"If it's inconvenient we can come back later tonight."
"Might be easier, uhh my mom's house should be okay."
"Good, well then we'll be around tomorrow about 7pm, if you could have everyone you can there that knows the younger Mr Harris."
"I'll try."
"Thank you Miss Summers, that's all we can ask. Come on Riggs."
"Bye Miss Summers."
"Bye." She replied. "That was weird."
"You're telling me." Answered Willow, "Come on we better tell Giles he'll want to be there."
Miami Florida That night.
Xander Harris stood in the woods his twin handguns out and safeties off, both were loaded with hollow points and ready to fire. His Scooby sense flaring he turned and fired two local vampires losing their heads to the powerful rounds with a third losing much of his torso and upper abdomen.
The surviving vampire collapsed in pain his internal organs shredded and hanging out from his body, Xander holstered a single pistol and walked towards the prone vampire the barrel never leaving the vamp's head. The moonlight filtered through he trees and hit him on the face allowing the vampire to see him for the first time.
"Oh shit, it's you, you're him."
"Who?"
"The guy everyone's hunting, Harris the LA skyscraper guy."
"What do you mean everyone's hunting?" He asked
"Word on the street man, everyone's after you, the Police and FBI and Wolfram and Hart has the Terakans after you, probably more as well."
"Shit." He fired and blew the vampire's head off his shoulders turning the bloodsucker to dust. Before wind even blew the dust away he was already moving back to his commandeered vehicle, swapping out the hollow points for standard bullets he put the guns back into his holsters and replaced the illegal ammunition in the hidden strongbox behind the back seat.
In the back of his mind however a part of Xander that was still the young man whom knew little of the world was wonder just how he knew what to do with his weapons, the same small part was more than slightly scared at what he was becoming.
The car sped off into the night as the young man started to think about what was going on, for a week he had been hiding from the police and other agencies, now he had assassins and mercs on his tail and if he was right the Council and god knows who else would be sending people after him.
He was in the shit now.
Watching the road he had to take stock of his resources, he had money and ammunition to serve him for a while, no one knew he had this car and if the police stop him he'd be able to fake his way with the IDs he had.
Why hadn't he been caught by now? The senior partners, the council and anyone else of that ilk had all kinds of spells that could have found him by now but why hadn't they already killed him?
The answer was not forthcoming.
Higher Dimension
"Well?" The white winged being said.
"He didn't let me give him the message my lord?"
"What did he do exactly?"
"Threatened to put a bullet in my brain If I didn't leave, I didn't feel like finding out if I could survive it or not."
"I must admit I wasn't expecting that, father made a good choice with this one."
"What now My Lord?"
"There is nothing we can do, return to you duties Whistler and be careful we don't know what the other side will attempt to do when they learn of our young untouchable, we must do what we can to make sure they do not go too far."
"What about the Powers that Be My lord."
"We are unable to do get directly involved with them, however I think we have a few of our own people to help young Mister Harris. Not champions as such but it looks like we'll have to use them anyway."
"The Hidden Souls my lord?"
"Indeed Whistler, Indeed." Archangel Michael of the Heavenly Choir said.
Sunnydale General Hospital Ward 3 Room 316 2nd August 1999 12:00pm
Rupert Giles stood inside the room of one Faith Lehane, the fallen slayer pale and wan in the hospital bed numerous tubes and machines attached to her even after almost two months in the bed. The middle aged man looked out through the window into the sunny day outside, he turned around as heavy footsteps came from the doorway.
At the doorway stood a very tall and hefty looking man, taller and broader than many he had seen the man's face had fallen from confusion to shock to fear as he approached the young woman lying in the bed.
"Dana?" He whispered quietly, "Oh God Dana,"
He approached the bed dropping the case he had carried in, he dropped to his knees next to his comatose daughter and grasped her hand.
"It's okay Dana, Daddy's here, everything will be alright?"
Giles took that moment to speak up.
"Mr Lehane?"
"What." The man looked at him confused in more ways than one, "No, Tasker, Harry Tasker."
"Oh, My apologies, I assume you were sent here by a tall hark haired youth of mutual acquaintance?"
"Harris, Alexander Harris, he told me to come here. I hoped, I wanted to believe he knew where my daughter was."
"Mr Tasker, if this is your daughter then you should be aware that she has been travelling under an alias for a while, what did you say her name was?"
"Dana, Dana Tasker."
"The young lady has been travelling under the name Faith Lehane for the last year or so, at least since her arrival here in Sunnydale possibly earlier."
"Who are you?"
"Forgive me, my name is Rupert Giles and I'm afraid that anything else is a rather long story, one that you may want to hear."
"Tell me."
"Not here Mr Tasker, this is not the correct setting for what I'm about to tell you."
"I'm not leaving my daughter, Mr Giles."
"She is as safe here as she can be, Mr Tasker and it is imperative that you learn of what has transpired in this unfortunate turn of events."
"Speak English." The Austrian man said angrily.
"You need to find out what happened here and why."
"Was that so difficult?" Tasker growled, "I am not leaving my daughter."
"Very well, I shall leave you to your vigil. However if you change you mind, this is my address, it would be a good idea for you to learn the truth about what happened to Fai.. to Dana from her friends."
"Alright, I'm making No promises Mr Giles, but I'll try. Please leave me to spend time with my daughter."
"Indeed, good Afternoon Mr Tasker.""
"Mr Giles, thank you for looking after her."
"I just wish I had done more Mr Tasker, I just wish I had done more"
1630 Revello Avenue Sunnydale 7pm.
The unmarked police car pulled up to the whitewalled suburban town house, the light sun was still high in the sky giving the entire area a warm and welcoming look to it, if it hadn't been for the uncontrollable urge to run from the two like a bat with a rocket shoved up it's arse the two policemen would likely have enjoyed their time in the small town.
Shuddering unconsciously the two detective sgts left their car and walked up the path to the house's front door, the door opened up as they noticed a tall blonde woman of early middle age watching from the doorway.
"Mrs Summers?"
"Yes."
"I'm Detective Riggs this is Detective Murtaugh, we're with the LA police department."
"Yes of course, Buffy said you would be coming around to see us." She opened the door a little further letting the two men in, the lack of invite now ingrained into her mind. "You wanted to talk to us all about Xander?" She asked motioning them into the ront room.
Already seated were the rest of the Scoobies plus one Jonathan Levinson, the entire group were silent as the two policemen walked into the room. Willow was scooted up close to Oz while Giles and Jonathan looked up obviously being interrupted mid discussion about something or other.
"Detectives." Giles stood up, "I'm Rupert Giles."
"Mr Giles, Detective Riggs this is Detective Murtaugh and I assume that Miss Summers has informed you about the reason we wished to speak with you all?"
"Indeed about Mr Harris."
"Yeah, can you tell us when you last talked to him?" Roger asked.
Remembering his promise he answered truthfully. "Two days ago, he informed me about a friend of ours that would be getting a visit from her father. She had believed him dead for a while and Xander sent him here to find her."
"Did he tell you where he was?"
"No he didn't I think he's decided to leave us alone until such time as it's safe to come back."
"Mr Giles, I have to ask this." Martin said, "Is he responsible for the destruction of the Wolfram and Hart Building in LA?"
"No Detective, Xander is a good man and would not be willing to murder innocents no matter what the cost. He denies he was anywhere near the building when it went up and as such I believe him."
"Detective Riggs, Xander's innocent can't he just be left alone?" Asked Willow
"Not until we can find out who did this." The detective said kindly, "Mr Harris is the primary suspect in a massacre of thousands of people and unfortunately it seems that the LA Governor wants Alexander as fast as possible."
"Why would anyone think he did this even with this 'card' at the site?"
"His records were removed from the Sunnydale police department and shown to the necessary people before anyone knew what was happening, his records are not light reading considering what was said about him, funny thing is that all the signatures about Alexander's supposed theft and gang warfare problems were signed by the same man."
"Let me Guess Stein." Giles said rhetorically.
"Yep." Riggs Said, "Fortunately we have jurisdiction in this case now, your friend seems to be a good man, but we do need to take him in to sort this all out."
"I'm sorry detective but we have not heard from Xander for a while, he does contact us from time to time but doesn't tell us where he is or what he's doing."
"We figured as much, I know a lot of police want to catch him to put an end to this but everything seems to point towards your friend just a bit too much, if he had been responsible then I doubt he would have put his fingerprints all over the only evidence we have."
"Then it's a set-up." Buffy said.
"We don't know Miss Summers, everything is just too tidy for me."
"Riggs is slightly paranoid, but he's usually right." Murtaugh said. "If your friend does get in contact will you let him know that we want to talk to him, just give him the number on our card, it should come through to us and not the switchboard."
"Of Course."
"Sorry to take up your time."
"Not at all." Joyce said.
With that the two policemen left the house and returned to their car, driving off they looked over the file they were given about Harris earlier.
"What do you think?" Roger said
"They're telling the truth as far as they know it, they really don't believe he did it either but they aren't covering for him like you would expect."
"So they have heard from him."
"Yeah, but like they said he wouldn't have said where he was just in case they were questioned, he's covering his own ass as well as theirs so we couldn't get anything even if we tried."
"So where is he?"
"Long gone old friend, out of California by now."
"So what now?"
"Now we go back to work doing some real policing."
Miami Florida That Night.
In the two weeks since the moment the Wolfram and Hart building had blown up their retainers had been involved in a manhunt unlike any in their history, thousands of assassins from W&H's own people, the Order of Teraka and associated Infernal orders has begun combing the United States for the human that dared to strike against their employers.
Hundreds more had been killed by the other groups in their quest for the young man, the knowledge that a bounty unlike that since the destruction of the Templars so many years ago would be theirs to collect when they took the human down and presented him to their masters.
More news had filtered through the 'grapevine' that more mercenaries from the other side were working to find the boy, the Watcher's council and the Vatican had both send out orders for the execution of the one thought to be responsible for the change in the balance that they held so dear.
By this time every demon, human or other knew intimately the face of Alexander Harris, his profile (what there was of it) had been studied by the best that the Assassin had to try and gauge his next movements, something that had now led them to the state of Florida in hopes of taking the boy alive.
"What's so difficult about taking this kid anyway." A seven foot tall Gok'ra demon rumbled, "He's only human."
"Terry, Robinson's only human and look at him." The smaller Chaos Demon Dennis, said.
"Well that's different he's been trained by some of the best even if he did kill them afterwards."
"Well every side of this game wants him dead, he must be some kind of threat."
"You know I heard he's from Sunnydale." The three foot demon on the Gok'ra's shoulder said, "He survived fighting there for years."
"You reckon?" Dennis said.
"Yeah," Boris said. "They blew up the school with an ascended old one type in it and killed him, SPLAT, what's more I heard this kid interrogated a Zombie and as thanks decapitated it."
"There is no way some kid like this is that capable." Terry responded.
"No it's true, I even heard he went up to that Vampire Angelus and told him to get lost or he'll stick his cross where the sun don't shine."
"Ok now we know you're making things up." Dennis said.
"Well don't say I didn't warn you."
"So what do you think he's really capable of?"
"Well he did supposedly blow up Wolfram and Hart, the Black thorn are really pissed off, well what remains of them anyway, kid used a fuel/Air bomb to blow it apart." Said Terry
"That's impressive." Dennis said
"I want to know where he got his stuff from to do that." Terry grinned, "If we catch him I'll ask him."
"Why are we doing this again?" The smallest demon asked.
"Come on that reward, we can hide out where we like and have no interruptions, maybe buy an island or something."
"Yeah, I got nothing against this kid but the entire planet's out for him…" The voices began to fade out as they walked on out of the warehouse district and into the marshlands just behind them.
Walking out of the shadows, Xander Harris tucked one of is pistols away and shook his head almost mournfully.
"Hunted by assassins and mercs great, and I had to come across a bunch that had personalities, this was so much easier back home where everyone was just trying to destroy the world"