2 ?

AN: Alright, to answer a few questions, Aura was added in on a last-minute kind of thing, Jenny went as Sue Richards, a.k.a. the Invisible Woman (though Major Makoto WOULD be kinda fun … if not a touch overkill as far as cybernetics and tech goes, but then again there is no such thing as overkill), and now on with the fic.

(Sunnydale High Library – Two weeks later)

To say that it had been a straining two weeks would have been putting it very mildly in Xander's own not-so-humble opinion – Giles' past had come out in spades when an old demon he used to summon came for his body, had ended up taking Willow's body over and eventually Angel had been used to destroy the demon, leaving all of them terribly vexed and royally pissed; he honestly had never thought that listening to a dark-haired woman swearing in the Romany language, let alone his equally dark-haired classmate swearing in Japanese, would be so invigorating, let alone slightly exciting, but listening to Willow curse Giles out in the Hebrew language was a sight to behold.

Aside from that, though, it had been a pretty normal few weeks as far as things went – Xander and Aura had both been testing their own abilities under supervised conditions (generally with Giles or a revealed-Romany Jenny Calendar) and while neither were masters of their new selves, both were getting closer.

Aura's new powers did not, sadly, encompass all that the comic book character Wolverine had to offer – sure, she had the bone claws, the healing and even better reflexes, but what she did not have were the enhanced senses or the massive amounts of training in the martial and killing arts that Wolverine had; she had come to grip with all of it quite easily, though she had been reluctant to admit that the amount of time she was going to need to spend to perfect the control over these gifts would basically call for her to leave Cordy's group, which had been an event worthy of selling tickets to. Cordelia had not been exactly receiving of the entire ordeal, but by far her own reactions were tame – most of the girls were somewhat catty about her leaving (especially the group she was leaving them for), but Harmony had gone so far as to take shots at the Scoobies, but when Aura had fired back several scathing comments about them (the Scoobies) being better friends than they (the sheep) were, Harmony had acted all offended and stormed off.

Xander, for his part, knew that while the abilities granted to him by his non-human body were more numerous than Aura's, he also had more problems to deal with – over the past weeks he had figured out ways to actually FEEL emotions, experience them again, but even doing that had taken it's toll on his body. The lack of emotion helped him control his body more easily, but when he had felt that blinding rage to FEEL something, he had lost that control and, in the middle of English class, according to Aura, a wave of liquid metal had made it's way across his body and clothes and his eyes had been a metallic silver for several seconds before he felt anything else. Since then he had tried to learn to balance the feelings he wanted to feel with the things he 'needed' to feel – just one day before he had lost his temper and the strength his body possessed and had, quite inadvertently, ripped the door off of the Library off of it's hinges, something that several other students had explained away as 'rotten wood' even though the door, door jamb and door frame had been replaced just a week before.

Jenny, for her part, wasn't having that much of a bad time in that she had nominal control of her powers, didn't have too much in the way of bodily changes (though she had been caught muttering something about stretch marks around her stomach, as if she had given birth), and all in all she was taking it better than the others were. She had tested her invisibility against Xander's and Buffy's enhanced senses, finding that while she could slip past Buffy if she really tried, Xander could still hear her, though he could not see her – this disappointed her, slightly, but that all vanished when Xander had taken her off to the side to talk to her about 'business'; nobody knew what he had told her, but the smile that broke out on her face and the impulsive kiss she gave Xander on the cheek told everyone present that, whatever it was, it made Jenny very happy.

At this time, though, they all came to realize just what could possibly happen in the worst possible way – yes, there had been several deaths on Halloween night, but not all of them had been caused by the Terminator; one had been via a vampire and her name had been Tiffany, but she had also been changed into a telepath of some power. She had, earlier that night, run away from their superior numbers as her two controlled flunkies (two other newly risen vamps) shook off the control she had over them in time to have Aura dust one on her bone claws and for Buffy to dust one the old fashioned way. Unfortunately, Tiffany had gone somewhere and had conscripted massive reinforcements before the team had gotten the chance to regroup and talk about it, which was the situation they now found themselves in.

Xander's scans of the teenaged girl once called Tiffany Farmer showed she stood only five feet tall, maybe one hundred pounds if her almost non-existent clothing were drenched in water, she had frizzy brown hair, jade green eyes and a sinister twist to her lips as the dozen vampires and two demons Xander had never seen before surrounded them. In a word, they were screwed as she began to speak, "Hello, Xander."

"Vampire," the object of her attention spat back at her, only his voice held no emotion she could actually hear. This was interesting – she had noticed him over the past few weeks, noticed that he was a lot smarter and, after seeing him rip the door off of the Library's hinges, a lot stronger than before Halloween; she had been changed that night, in ways she was still trying to figure out, but one look at Xander and she could tell that he had to be on her side, one way or another.

She motioned her new minions into attacking the others, whom she vaguely recognized as Miss Calendar, the librarian, Buffy Summers, Aura Davis, one of Cordelia Chase's old 'friends' (though even Tiffany had to admit probably the only one of the group who hadn't been gang banged by the entire football team, as her nickname was the 'Ice Maiden' and no guy had ever gotten that close to her) and Willow, Xander's oldest friend, but kept her eyes on Xander as they began to circle, "So, how are you?"

"Been better – I'd ask how you are, vampire, but that would imply I would actually care." She almost gasped as one of her vampire minions charged Xander but didn't have time as he spun around and, with a knife-edge chop, took the vampire's head off as he spun back around to meet her eyes and he spoke, "So, are you going to give up now, or do we have to get dusty?"

Tiffany snarled at him and charged blindly, missing his smirk as he danced out of the way to reveal that, as he had spun, Aura had come up behind him and was waiting with her claws out – Tiffany spun off to one side as her minions began to dwindle in numbers due to Buffy's axe, the librarian's crossbow and Willow's crosses (and where was Miss Calendar?), but not enough as Aura's freaking BONE CLAWS scored a hit on her arm, drawing unmoving blood.

Aura glared at the former human, her claw now smeared with dead blood, "Hello, Tiffany – remember me? The girl you used to torment in junior high?"

Tiffany smiled at Aura and turned her powers onto the girl, "Yes, I remember – you used to do what I said back then and you shall do so again." She smiled as Aura's body stiffened slightly and her battle-ready claws slid back into her hands, "Now, go kill Buffy Summers while I recruit Xander."

Xander watched in mute fascination as Aura nodded and did as she was told to do, her claws sliding out as she snarled and charged at Buffy, who was dealing with the last of the demons at this point – he then remembered that Tiffany had telepathic powers, so he took a very big risk and walked right towards her, "You won't win, Vampire."

Tiffany vamped out and smiled as Xander approached her – just a few more feet and he'd be within her best range, "Awww, why's that, Xander? Anything demon or human that gets this close me I can control." She then turned her full power onto Xander … only to feel it slip away from him as he continued to walk forward, a smile gracing his face, so she tried again, harder, but was met with the same result, "W… what?"

Xander gave her a cold smile, "You said anything human or demon, Tiffany." He then stopped and held up both of his hands, which turned into very wicked-looking battle axes, "I'm option C – none of the above."

Tiffany ducked the first two swings, knowing that things had just gone from slightly in her favor to very against her, and began to run away even as the Slayer began to run after her – Xander, however, had other ideas as he, on an odd instinct, lashed out one axe hand and was almost surprised when that battle axe morphed into a thick rope of amorphous goo and wrapped around the fleeing vampiress' neck with a CRACK as it solidified and took on a textured look.

Buffy stopped short as she saw the thing wrapping around Tiffany's neck even as Aura also slowed while shaking her head as if to clear it, and then looked at the thing that Xander had morphed his arm into, "Xander? I thought you couldn't make mechanical stuff?"

Xander started to pull Tiffany back towards him, "What about it?"

"That's a braided whip you have around her neck." Buffy had to admit, though, that it was a pretty good idea, and she had always been known to watch any Indiana Jones movie that was on the television.

"Complex mechanicals, Buffy, and a whip dose not count as that." He pulled the corpse Tiffany Farmer closer and remolded the whip around her neck into a ring, "Any last words, vampire?"

Tiffany gasped as she looked up into the dead pools that were Xander's eyes, "M…mercy, please."

"Mercy? What's that?" Before Buffy could stop him, Xander altered the ring in a way that spikes grew out of the inside in all directions and severed her head – it was sickening the way the head was left on top of the ring while the body fell away and dusted, a shocked look on Tiffany's face before it too turned to dust.

(Later – Sunnydale Library)

The ride back to the Library had been one filled with silence – Buffy, Willow and Giles refused to speak with Xander about anything, none of them being in a very good mood with the way he had summarily executed the vampire, though it was a necessary thing, and Jenny had gone off to see if she could talk some sense into the group, leaving Xander and herself alone for a while. She had since asked just what he was able to see with his eyes and he was testing out several different modes around her, which allowed her to ask, "So, how was it to kill her like that?"

Xander's vision slipped from the table he had been looking at, having found a new scanning mode that appeared to slowly discern the material makeup of anything he happened to be looking at, and looked at Aura – even as the scanner began to discern what she was wearing and what it was made of, he gave her a curious look, "What do you mean?"

She noticed that his eyes were now blood red, which was new – his eyes changed color given whatever vision he was using and this one she wasn't sure of, "You and Tiffany went to school together for a long time now – did you feel anything when you took her head off like that?"

Different materials like cotton, rubber, brass, nylon and lace began to show up as his scans went on, "No, I didn't."

She arched her eyebrow at him, "Why not?"

"I am incapable of feeling bad for a vampire, Aura." Blue dye number 27, polyethylene, and … green dye number 4? Error – does not computer; "Never felt sorry for staking a vampire before, don't feel bad about staking one now, Aura." He paused them, the error message going away as he masked looked down to where the scan was coming from with just looking down into his hands, knowing what he was about to say would be hard for her to accept, "I can't feel pity for anything, at all." Ahh, cotton underwear with green shamrocks on them.

Aura nodded at this, her mind trying to cope with what she had just been told – something, however, niggled at her mind, "What's with your eyes?"

"Spectrometer scanning – tells me what you are and what you're made of … or in this case, what you're wearing and what it's made of." She gave him an odd look and he relented, "I can tell whatever you're wearing, regardless of what's over it." Aura blushed lightly as he felt a true grin tug at his lips, "I mean, green shamrocks?"

Aura growled at Xander as she saw the grin touch his lips, "Tell anyone and I dunk your sorry ass in liquid nitrogen." He bowed to her slightly and the issue was dropped, allowing them to sit there in the library, just sit there and saying nothing for nearly ten minutes.

SCHLUCK-SCHLACK. Xander didn't even pay any mind to the sound the first time it happened, his mind off on other things, but when he heard it again, he looked down in time to see the cause of it – Aura was extending her claws and quickly retracting them, each time she did it, though, it was followed by a grimace of pain on her part, which made him ask, "Why do you do that?"

SCHLUCK-SCHLACK, "Do what?"

SCHLUCK-SCHLACK, "That! Isn't it … painful?"

Aura nodded, "Yeah, it is." He gave her an odd look and she went on, "I was kinda hoping that this was all some kind of bad dream, and that the pain would knock me out of it somehow."

He gave her a wan grin, "I'd say the same thing, too … but only if I could feel pain."

She felt her eyes grow to the size of dinner plates as her mind processed his words, "You … can't feel pain?"

Xander shook his head at her, "No, well, not yet, anyway. I can feel a few things, but so far pain and pity are the only ones I can't feel."

Aura was silent for a moment before she spoke again, her voice thick with both sadness and regret, "I envy you, Xander, not being able to feel pain like that. I'd give just about anything to be able to do that, hell, to just be able to give someone else my nightmares about what I'm becoming."

She looked over and saw Xander looking at her, "I envy you, Aura, because you can feel those things, hell, that you can even sleep." She saw something akin to a haunted look in his eyes as he looked back over at her, "Aura … I haven't slept since that night – humans need to sleep … and I'm not human, not anymore." He then clenched his fist and three claws of his own sprang out of from the back of his hand, "I'd kill to be able to sleep … perchance to dream…"

She arched an eyebrow at him, "Shakespeare?"

He nodded, "Yeah – one good thing out of all of this is that I'm a computer now and have all of the advantages of it." He smirked and she could see a little bit of humor come to his eyes, "My Geometry and Chemistry teachers think I'm possessed, again, but this time by an Uber-brain like Willow's."

She gave him a speculative look, "So, you're good with computers now, right?" He gave her a 'you're joking, right?' look and she went on quickly, "Well, what would it take to get you to change my Trig grade?"

He gave her a surprisingly easy and, in the back of her mind she would admit, sexy smile, "What's it worth to you?"

She leaned forwards and traced a finger over his chin as the doors to the Library opened again, "Depends on how high of a grade you give me."

Xander smirked at her slightly as he noticed that Jenny was in a foul humor as she stormed towards them, "It's probably worth more than you have, Aura, but let's see what Jenny has to say, first."

She had stormed into the Library, almost being brought up short by the sight of Aura leaning over and smiling at Xander somewhat suggestively, but even as he gave the girl an answer, Jenny could tell that he knew something was wrong with her, "That man is impossible!" As if of one mind, both teens quirked their right eyebrow at her and she went on, "Rupert! He's acting so …"

Even as her mind apparently tried to come up with a word, Aura and Xander both tossed out words that could possibly describe how Giles was acting, "Stubborn?"

"Childish?"

"Piggish?"

"British?"

"Ego-centric?"

"British?"

Aura gave Xander a look, "You already said that."

Xander looked at her, "It bears repeating."

Jenny felt a chuckle escape from her lips even as Aura tittered a little, "Yes, you're right, Xander – he's acting quite childish and quite British for some reason." She then sighed and walked over, sitting down between the pair, at which point she ignored the slight growl she got from Aura, "And if I see any evidence of your tempering with the grades, Alexander, I WILL be forced to expose your tampering."

He gave her an easy grin, "What makes you think I'll leave any evidence behind for you to find, Jenny?"

Aura just rolled her eyes and sighed as Xander and Jenny began to talk about the various ways to get in and out of certain systems and got up, stretching out and walking over to sit on the other side of Xander – he was comfortable, if nothing else.

AN: Okay, peoples, that's it for this chapter – a little animosity built between them all, which will be brought to a head and dealt with in the next chapter. Reviews, please.