Let me tell you, I was not at my best, those next seventeen or so hours were bad…as much as I tried to shut out the flood of death even as the fires spread throughout Sunnydale and the very dry countryside. Giles at some point strapped me into his little car with his most-prized possessions, and evacuated with the rest of Sunnydale. Listening to the radio or overhearing him as Giles and Angel watched the news reports, by the time of the next Reset, half of Sunnydale and nearly 20,000 acres (8000 hectares?) of surrounding countryside were aflame from the wildfires. Tens of thousands in the coastal areas evacuated with little if any notice, and the National Guard was being sent in to keep the peace and assist in the fire lines.
I remembered everything Kronos had ever done, and suspected that if I ever broke out of this looping, I'd be something more than he was. But what? Everything I'd felt angry with Giles over in his Ripper years paled on almost any given day of the Horseman. I could feel the bottled power inside of him, demanding in its own way to become more. I desperately wanted to forget, but Ripper's spell had meant that wouldn't happen. I'd thought it might've been neat to know of the far past, maybe even learn about slayers and such. Maybe a little one-upmanship of Ripper'd be enough to make him feel better. But in his time and world this Kronos had met a dozen slayers and some of them had lasted days…
I have to tell you, the next sixty-five days didn't really have much in the way of entries or fascinating acts. I was absolutely desperate to do something to clear my mind. Six days in a row I basically grabbed Giles keys and a sword, and then drove to Ethan's shop. I simply pushed him aside at sword point and destroyed the statue. He attacked me in a rage each time and I managed to kill him six different ways, each time a darker, longer and more exquisite death that left me worse off than the reset before.
When night fell each time, and no magic swept the town, I did, stealing guns and munitions, and laying waste to every demon-associated establishment in the town. Four times I went home and let my father experience what I did for all those years. And the last two times I shot the bastard in several painful places and left him to die.
Twice I ran into Jonathan in his too-big Alexander the Great costume and lost it, running away sobbing and weeping madly in the streets until police officers tried to intervene. Each time, four officers died and a Xander-shape ended up in the hospital.
Six more times I walked into Ethan's shop and simply blasted the Janus statue, but somehow the bastard must have had a half-dozen of the things on the premises because once the spell swept through, I'd force my way in, kill Ethan and destroy yet another statue. After the twelfth time, simply killing Ethan or even torturing him ceased to provide even a temporary relief to my guilt and anguish. I'd ceased to think of him as human, and I felt I was lessened also.
Eighteen more days I robbed Ethan, shot up a couple of statues and watched cable television…a lot. I ceased to care, but it didn't matter since a Reset was always there to remind me of my true situation. It was interesting for a while, but I decide to snub my nose at whoever might be the force behind this mess, by 'squandering' the gift. I'd rob Ethan, go shopping for supplies and rent a place with a good-enough kitchen, left a note for Giles to open at six o'clock, then let for each of ten days Hiryoku Sakai, Chen Kenichi, Wolgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, and Prudhomme make up for seventeen years of crappy eating and lack of proper food references. As a result, I now enjoy eating things I'd rather not talk about, and in case the Apocalypse comes down to a cooking contest, I'm the Lobster Slayer, baby. I only cut myself badly a half-dozen times when I practiced the next days, and can now proudly don a tall chef's hat instead of the hairnet.
Ah, cable while depressed. The crap I sat through led to at least one funny encounter with a vampire at the Bronze. About the time I finished my cooking phase, I dressed up as Willy Moscone after dressing up against his long-time nemesis. I know only those of you as old as dirt might remember the name, but come on, I think the story is worth a read.
Willy had realized something was wrong when he didn't remember how he'd ended up practicing on a substandard table in a kid bar. 'What the hell,' he thought, 'I haven't felt this good since I was twenty.' He broke, then proceeded to call out and sequentially place all fifteen balls into pockets with only two no-leaves. He repeated this, and as had been the case many a time, a crowd began to gather. Since Willy wasn't playing for money, but for the fun of it, he began to include trickier shots, more banks and the occasional jump shots.
Eventually someone needed to prove something as he was racking again.
"I'd like a game," a tall pale man stated, placing a hundred dollars on the table.
"I'll need to see four more of those to get me interested," Willy told him as he walked the cue toward the breaker's end. Four bills landed, "your break, friend?" The man accepted.
Four games back and forth, the guy was good, making up in natural grace the slight difference in talent in only thirty minutes. The crowd had gathered and ebbed, the serious aficionados remaining. The pale man was giving off a weird feeling, and on the fifth game, he dropped two thousand on the table.
"Let's play for greater stakes," the man challenged softly, slight French to the accent. Willy checked the wallet and found that amount. The Frenchman stood directly beyond the table, staring at Willy as he was about to break. Willy started to pull back as two things happened: The magic of chaos started to ebb away, and the man spoke again, "By the way, my name's Demuerte," and his eyes flashed vampire yellow.
"I know," Xander Harris replied, slamming the cue ball hard into the racked balls, sending them flying. Demuerte was quietly and briefly stunned that the mortal was not put off by his fool-proof tactic, only to find the cue now hurled successfully through his heart. Demuerte watched as only the eight-ball dropped into a pocket.
"Good shot," the vampire complimented as he exploded into dust. The assembled crowd hushed in awed frozen silence, as Xander calmly picked up all four thousand dollars from the table.
"Not a bad pool player for a vampire," Xander remarked, "Usually they don't have that much patience or love of the game before they cross the bounds of ethical play. Any non-vampires feeling like playing?" Two of twenty let out knowing snickers of appreciation as they and the rest relocated elsewhere.
Xander needed to figure out how to deal with the situation. This was his first clear-thinking moment in many weeks. He sat in the Library and after reviewing show characters, he was back to where he began. There was one man who'd been through what Kronos had, and come out of it a regular-enough person. It involved the possible use of tweed and a blue ink marker, but he could get to Ethan's before he needed to kill the bastard again.
He'd managed to outfit himself properly and even managed to trick Jonathan into redressing as Duncan Macleod to kind of make up for the Caspian thing. When Jonathan turned the corner from where Xander parked, the latter gasped and sobbed for fifteen minutes before getting a hold of himself and back to the school.
Xander dodged Larry, and managed to convince Buffy and Willow to 'follow the master' and get done early. The prospect of early finishing was enough to sway Buffy, and thence Willow. They finished with just a little time to spare by the time they burst into the Library, startling Giles. Xander quickly retrieved Phil and the book, whipped off the sheet from Willow and told them he'd dressed as and would become Adam Pierson in 5-4-3-2-1 and the wave of chaos magic struck again.
"What in bloody hell am I doing holding a large rodent?!" Adam/Methos bitched as he assumed Xander's body. 'And how did my quickening shoot up so drastically,' he thought as what amounted to an internal quickening rendered him unconscious, all the memories eidetically assaulting the rider who'd been known as Death.
A half-hour later he'd awoken to the feeling of a familiar Immortal's quickening and accent in the room.
"Macleod," Adam bemoaned, "What's going on? What happened?"
"Apparently, Adam," the slightly different voice replied, "We're in the bodies of two young people in California instead of our own, and we're in a school library."
"Just when the day couldn't get any better," Adam muttered, "Can I get a bloody beer or whiskey? I'm sure there's more to your tale."
"Y-you can have tea," a British accent replied, "And watch your language around the students, please." Adam thumped his head back on the large tome in front of him, 'I knew it would get worse. No alcohol.'
"Thank you, Uncle Robert," a pretentious female voice responded with great smugness, "There'll be no devil's drink in this place."
Adam's head burrowed deeper into the book, his sigh deeper, "Mac, if you're truly my friend you'll take my head now, I'd consider it a favor."
"Sorry, Methos," Duncan/Jonathan chortled, "Just consider it part of your path of redemption."
"Well, that's touching but not goin' do ya a whole lotta good, now is it?" William the Bloody asked as his eight minions followed him into the library and flanked him. "So, the Slayer's all fluff and noise, huh? This ought to go quick."
"Macleod, kill the vampires will you?" Adam/Methos sighed as he sipped his tea. Looking up, Macleod and Spike were just staring at each other, than him. Adam arose from his seat and drew his sword, "I take it you're the local vampire guy?"
"Yeah, whelp, that'd be me," he said slipping into game-face and swaggering almost all the way to Buffy, as Methos drew a revolver from his trench coat and brought it up. "And as all I want is the Slayer, stay where you are or die, unless your gun there can actually do something more than hurt?" Spike's hand reached for Lady Buffy…
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack then 'poof' and three screams, one of them from Spike as a bullet tore at his cheek and through his ear.
Two more swords could be heard clearly sheathes as Methos lunged forward to stab Spike in the left eye, giving the screaming Lady a chance to escape.
"Now, you'll die painfully, Whelp," William the Bloody screamed as he looked at his bloodied hand and lunged at full speed as Giles and Duncan each charged a vampire with ill-intent and Willow secreted Buffy into Giles office.
Methos side-stepped the enrage vampire, choosing to decapitate a minion coming up in support. Turning, Methos smirked at the evermore angry vampire as it prepared to try again, breaking a chair for his own weapon as another minion dusted.
Methos charges, Spike charged, and a holy-water-filled balloon struck Spike in his head, causing him to scream and rope his attention long enough for Methos to drive home his blade into Spike's chest and put a little quickening behind it. The vampire screamed as he ran up the sword and then tried to pull it out. Methos twisted the weapon as first he, then the sword whirled away to meet a minions charging from behind. Methos' parry sliced off his opponents clubbing arm at the elbow, and Methos rolled and slashed back to meet Spike's chair leg.
"You can't beat me, boy!" the vampire screamed, swinging again at full vampiric force and speed. Methos chose to lunge inside and stab upward through the vampire's mouth and brain regardless of the hit. Spike's scream was cut off as the steel sliced into several key arteries within the brain and rendered him unconscious. Methos, slammed hard by a considerable percentage of the force of Spike's last blow, flew back into a wall, taking him briefly out of the fight, as Giles and Duncan shared a dusting and the other minions, left over from before Spike came to town, left their leader in order to survive. Walking over to the prone vampire, Methos drew out his blade and decapitated the vampire, leaving nothing but dust.
"Now, can we bloody straighten things out," Methos declared, exasperated just a bit, "Or do I have to let a little of the Horseman out to get an uninterrupted explanation?"
After that, I felt less-destructive as I had a little more perspective in dealing with such things as nightmares. Instead of Halloween, I decided to switch to bowling, chose a couple of champions to try out, then stuck to myself bowling for beers for the next ten go-arounds. This proved mildly rewarding, since after the disgust Ethan had displayed over my other 'rather domestic' choices in spite of the money, it was now even greater and I was at least able to wallow with mostly non-demonic drunks. It only took a couple of days more to practice my trick shots and regularly bowl a '270' before it lost its appeal. Like vengeance that wouldn't stick, it lacked. A lesson Methos had learned well.
About an hour into his thirteenth bowling for beers, he gave up, got into the car he'd stolen from Giles, and decided to mosey around on his way to the Library. It was fifteen minutes into the spell, and he was depressed, angry and bored.
He found himself driving near Joyce's gallery when he saw Dawn sneaking away from the party she was supposed to be attending. He drove up slowly as she turned the corner away, and as he turned,, he honled the horn twice. She jumped in shock and fear, causing him to exit the vehicle and head toward her.
"Dawnie, I'm sorry," Xander exclaimed, "I didn't think you'd react that badly." She just stared at him in confusion for a moment before speaking.
"Xander, why are you driving on this street tonight, you never have before," she half-confused, half-remembered, "Does that make sense?"
"What do you mean?" Xander responded, "It sounds like you think I shouldn't be driving her right now, tonight."
"I-I now this is going to sound strange," Dawnie replied, "but I feel like I'm just waking from a dream about tonight and that each time the dream changes just a tiny bit for me, and sometimes the things I hear about you. Tonight, I finally said to hell with it, and as soon as I got around the corner, it was like waking up. Then someone had to honk at the just waking up girl."
"So you notice things are…repeating, except for you?" Xander asked intently, amazed. The girl nodded, unsure.
"Except this is the first time of breaking out of it," she assured him, "A-and there was kind of a green flashiness to it like I'd passed through… something, and now I feel…normal?"
"Well, Dawn," Xander said with a deep sigh, "I hate to tell you this, but it's Xander-Hog Day, and unless your break-out breaks us out of the loop, you've just joined Mr. Depression on his Road to Nowhere…"