That first night, nothing happened. Oh sure, Xander was seen by people, somewhat of a spectacle, but at the same time, everyone that had seen the news broadcast several days ago knew what it meant. And he did manage to dust about 15 vamps.
He went back home and fell asleep the moment he hit the pillow, still conscious enough to take the armor off though. Willow had already shown him how to get it into its compact state even while he was still wearing it.
He went out every night after that for the next two nights and pretty much the same thing, except on one night there weren't any vamps about, happened. Then, on the third day as he was driving his ice cream truck and listening to the radio, he thought about extending his patrol all the way to Los Angelus. When the radio report of another bank robbery that had ended in the death of the gunman, two innocents, and a police officer came on, his face grew grim and he started making plans.
Those plans ended the moment he heard from the radio "BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN! A mechanical monstrosity has appeared out of the harbor and is making its way to downtown LA. It is causing mass destruction in its wake and appears to be shooting missiles randomly into the city around it! One moment… There seems to be a man standing at the center of the massive machine, and it would appear that he is actually controlling it…"
Xander wasn't listening anymore. He quickly pulled off to the side of the road, made sure all signs said closed, then opened the skylight and took out a black cloth and tossed off his hat and uniform. He opened the cloth and removed the compact armor while wrapping the scarf around his head as before. Then he activated the armor. Xander lit up, and in a flash of brilliant light, his armor appeared piece by piece in the blazing light until with a final burst, he was ready.
Xander created the hover board and quickly went through the skylight into the air, in the direction of LA. He frowned beneath his helmet as he realized that he would need something faster than the hover board or even a flying motorcycle.
Taking a deep breath, he formed the jet around him. He knew he shouldn't have worried. He was in enough control of his powers that there was no way he could hurt himself using them.
Ten, stress-filled minutes later, Xander was circling over LA, looking for the so-called "mechanical monstrosity". Didn't take him that long to find it.
The report was right to call it a machine instead of a robot, as he could tell, from the fading soldier memories, that it was just a glorified super tank instead of some kind of new automated weapon system. It mostly resembled a two story tall, steel gray, four-legged crab with machine guns, rocket launchers, and laser blasters at every joint and covering its "shell" and the underside. The man mentioned in the broadcast was easily visible from some kind of throne control center at the very top of the crab tank.
Xander dissolved the jet and unconsciously once again formed wings on his back to keep him in the air.
At the moment, the thing was just stumbling out of a warehouse district, but it was coming dangerously close to one of the major highways, and just on the other side of the streets was downtown LA, and it was getting pretty close to rush hour.
A couple of news helicopters were in the air around the thing, keeping well out of its missile range. A modified army chopper and several more police copters were a little closer, trying to make some kind of threat the guy on the throne would listen to and get him to give up. Obviously, they weren't having much luck.
Xander looked behind the thing at its wake of destruction. It had completely destroyed one of the docks and all of the boats there, though thankfully it looked like no people were injured there. From that point it was just random destruction of grooves where it's feet and legs landed and tore up the road, to things in its direct path that it had taken out with its various weapons. Xander took a closer look and realized that the madman had blown up two warehouses and set another five on fire that were in no way close to his path or destination. Most of the fires were already out and what was left was being taken care of as he watched. He saw a lot of ambulances, and other, black colored vans at the other two warehouses too.
He wasn't here to watch. He was here to stop this.
The wings pulled back and up as Xander dove straight for the throne. At least five machine guns and a couple laser canons automatically aimed up at him and started firing. Xander concentrated and the lasers redirected themselves mid-air to destroy all the machine guns and then themselves while he formed a pure white bubble around him until the guns were done for, and before he knew it, Xander was hovering directly in front of the crab tank control throne.
It didn't take long for the man to notice him, but the guy waited until all of the buttons he pressed didn't work before asking Xander, "Who the hell are you and what do you want with me?" He had a gruff, angry voice that sounded like it belonged more in prison than on any kind of throne…except for those found in prison.
"Who I am is unimportant. What is, is that you are hurting and killing innocent people. Stop now, please," Xander said, trying to make his voice sound deeper and more impressive. Combined with his mask/helmet, his voice was entirely disguised.
The guy, dressed in a grayish green suit equipped with various equipment including a welder's goggle set and a helmet of some kind, stared at him in apparent disbelief for a short time before laughing his ass off.
"Are you kidding me?" he screeched between his laughing. "I just got this baby and the first thing I'm gonna do with it is tear open every bank in the city and get myself a retirement fund. So much that I can buy my own island! Now get the hell out of my way!"
"And if I don't? Then what will you do?" the winged, white-armored figure asked.
Smirking, the guy pressed a different button and several hidden compartments all over the crab tank opened up, about six in total, and very large, mean looking laser canons with purple energy coursing over the blast point popped out and all of them aimed at Xander. "I'll say, adios sucker!" he then pressed the firing stud.
Xander had tensed and been ready the moment the compartments popped open. The moment they charged, he was ready, and the moment they fired, he was already acting.
The large purple beam lasers, about half a second after they were fired suddenly, seemingly on their own, decided to switch targets to all of the joints on all of the crab tanks legs. The whole thing began to sizzle and spark and stopped all forward movement, warning lights flashing up before the guy's face.
Xander hovered a bit closer and said in a conversational tone, "You know, a piece of advice…never fire lasers at a person that can control all light. Now please, I'm asking you to stop this and give yourself up so that you might be punished for these crimes and one day redeem yourself in the eyes of the law."
The guy was actually spitting as he snapped, "Fuck you! I don't care what you can do! I'll tear you apart with my bare hands!" Like a rabid dog, that was exactly what he tried to do. Xander just floated back some until the guy actually leaped off his tank and into the open air. It wasn't until he started to fall that he realized what had happened. Like any sane villain, he screamed on the way down.
Lucky for him, he didn't fall far as Xander created a Pegasus solholo and chains on the guy, keeping him on the flying horse and from hurting himself. Once that was taken care of, he sent the guy on the flying horse down to the ground and turned to his next problem.
He couldn't count that it wouldn't blow up or its supports wouldn't suddenly give way, and there was no telling what it might take to move this thing until it was repaired. Taking several deep breaths, he began to concentrate. Hard.
He had never done anything this big before, but as he had discovered, manipulating large amounts of light was more awkward than hard. Like a second sun in the sky, Xander formed the largest solholo he had ever created, and molecule by plasma molecule, it formed.
Given that he was still pretty new to this, and it was the first time he had used his powers in this way, what he did was impressive enough, even if what he created wasn't. Basically it had two "Mickey Mouse" legs, it's entire body nothing but a big round bubble, and two, just as long and large as the legs, claws on arms, which was about five times the size of the crab tank.
Once the massive solholo was made, Xander kept up his mega-concentration and had it pick up the tank, and being careful of the helicopters in the sky, as well as where its feet stepped, being real careful of that, he had it move the damaged crab tank to an open and empty lot not too far from the damage zone. After that, he quickly dissolved it away and breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, his wings and the Pegasus were still there, as well as his armor.
He saw the police pull up in lots of squad cars around the criminal and his solholo, and once he was certain enough officers were there to cover the guy, no matter what tricks he might be able to play, he dismissed the Pegasus creation, and the guy fell to the ground roughly. Xander smirked beneath his helmet, but only stayed around long enough to make sure the guy was in custody with no way of hurting anyone else.
After all that, he finally noticed all the helicopters, both police and news reporters, the latter aiming cameras at him, around him and began to focus on ways of getting out of there. He flew higher up, above the choppers, but one of the police copters rapidly got above him, trying to keep him from escaping. Xander could only imagine the radio chatter this would be causing as he watched all the other helicopters try to keep him hemmed in. He flew towards the direction that was opposite Sunnydale, and several times had to cut it close to hitting the helicopters, both the spinning blades and the compartments themselves.
Finally, he got ahead of them all and knew immediately that the jet was out of the question. He briefly considered a rocket pack, but didn't feel it would safeguard him from the wind well enough, not as fast as he needed to go.
Then he remembered an old Disney movie Willow had made him watch when he was like 8. He 'lit up' brighter than before, temporarily blinding those chasing him and with the extra light, created a solid capsule around him, which after a second of shaping to look like a solid white version of the alien ship in "Flight of the Navigator", elongated into a needle-head version and shot off at speeds in excess of Mach 2.
Xander could see where he was going and knew that he had to get it so they couldn't track him back home. So he aimed his capsule upwards until he was in the very, very high atmosphere, but still in it, and then angled it so that Sunnydale was right below him and he shot back down at even faster speeds so that even if they could detect his heat trail, they wouldn't be able to see what had made it. At least not on radar.
As with all of his solholos, momentum and most motion physics seemed not to apply as he stopped exactly a foot above his truck with the only feeling he received was the same when you tap the brakes at a stoplight. He quickly dissolved the capsule and dropped back into his truck before anyone could ignore him (AN: He's in Sunnydale, remember?) and then put his armor back in its compact form and of course got rid of the light armor first, and put both it and his cowl back in his pocket and put his uniform and hat back on, and continued with his route. He hoped nothing bad happened because of all this.
The microsecond that Xander got home from work he knew that he would rather be grilled by police and newspaper reporters than what was about to come. At least they didn't know where the baby pictures of him were, or knew his most embarrassing moments with the supernatural. And he didn't fear what they could do to him either.
He walked in, ignoring what else that was going on (which was basically nothing), and walked to the flashing answering machine, briefly hesitating before pressing playback.
"First Message: Xander! It's Buffy. Scooby meeting, tonight, 8 o'clock. Usual place. BEEP!"
"Next Message: H-hey, i-it's Willow. I guess Buffy's already called. Uh, Xander would you mind meeting me at the coffee place right before the meeting? Uh, see you when you get off work, maybe. Bye! BEEP! End of messages."
Xander took a deep breath and let out a long, slow sigh. He went downstairs to shower and change, and then he went directly to Buffy and Willow's dorm room. If Buffy called a meeting herself, then he knew she would still be at Giles, if not talking to all of her "sources", namely Willy the Snitch. Willow would be alone.
Then he caught sight of Oz walking in right ahead of him and let out a sigh of frustration. Then he followed the guitar playin' werewolf, and caught up with him on the stairs so they knocked on the door together.
"Xander…" Willow said in relief, and then she noticed the person beside the Bang Baby and she said with enthusiastic happiness, "Oz!" She immediately leaped forward and gave him a kiss so he could not doubt that he had been thoroughly kissed.
"What are you two doing here?" she asked after they entered the dorm room.
"Why else," Xander commented, "I got Buffy's message and wanted to start early and maybe escort her…or more likely be escorted by her to Giles' since messages directly from the Slayer on my answering machine are not a sign of good things to come."
Willow giggled and said, "Good point. And you mister?" she poked Oz in the chest playfully.
"Wanted to see you," he said simply.
The redhead immediately melted into his embrace, "Awww…" and then kissed him again.
After Xander had counted to 100 and counted off two minutes on the clock, he softly cleared his throat. No reaction. He waited another whole minute, and they were still kissing all through this, and then he practically shouted and still managed to make it sound like a cough. Willow and Oz jumped apart from each other, a deep flush spreading across Willow's face.
"It's great, I mean it's really great that you two are so…in to each other, but could you please hold off on the mushy stuff while I'm still in the room," he begged. Then he switched to serious in an eye blink and asked Willow, "So, Wills, what's the bat signal for? Buffy find some uber-bad on patrol last night, or Giles find some apocalyptic prophecy?"
"Uh…you haven't been watching the news?" she asked, sounding slightly afraid.
Oz frowned, not from Willow's tone, but because quite obviously he hadn't been watching the news either. "Not really, I've been making spending and Rent money all day," Xander answered her evenly.
"Uh huh, well…I'll let Buffy tell you. We've got to start heading that way anyway. Come on," she said as she grabbed her things and led them out the door, locking it behind them, and then they walked to Giles as quickly as they could.
Not too surprising, they found Buffy already there, grilling Giles, who apparently had no better clue than the rest of them. Except maybe Willow, while Xander feared this was about "him".
"Hey guys, you didn't have to come early Xan," Buffy said the moment she noticed them.
"Actually, pretty much the moment I got your message I headed over to your place and met up with Will and Oz. Showing up early, after that became mandatory," Xander joked, eliciting a smile from Buffy. However no amount of laughter or smiling could remove the barely veiled fear he saw in her eyes.
"So, what's the sitch Buffster? New Big Bad? Already?" he asked, moving over to the couch.
"No, nothing…well, it may be nothing… haven't you been watching the news?" she snapped suddenly.
"Uhhh…"
"Apparently we're the only ones that actually do that anymore Buffy," Willow said with a peculiar tone that made the blonde Slayer blush.
"Well then…" Buffy started to say, but Willow interrupted her by calmly walking around and switching on Giles' television. The channel that it was on just happened to be showing a special news report. At the moment there were just commercials on, but there was a scroll bar announcing the report that was "ongoing".
"My word," Giles muttered. "I'm sorry to have been so dismissive Buffy, but…are you sure that it is this "angel" character we heard about last week?"
At that moment the report came on and everyone sat down to watch it.
"If you're just joining us, an experimental weapon system was stolen earlier today by former Army Intelligence officer Mark Richwood, who was discharged from service seven months ago when the project he was working on, incidentally the same weapon system that he stole today, was canceled and blackballed."
The screen switched from the reporter to the LA docks where the crab tank was still sitting, and then showed several shots of all the damage. "According to police reports, Richwood was planning on using this "crab tank" to break into several banks in downtown LA and steal all the money he could at each before moving on to the next city. But fortunately for LA rush hour…he was stopped," the reporter's voice continued as the scenes showed across the screen.
Suddenly, footage from the earlier fight, minus sounds, was shown and there was a brief silence, allowing everyone watching the pictures could figure out what they were seeing. A black and white armored figure, with glowing white wings coming from his back, was hovering right in front of the tank, and for a moment looked to be trying to talk to the pilot. That was proved wrong as the tank fired several laser blasts at the figure, but he just waved his hand at the beams and they turned back on themselves, blowing up the canons as well as damaging the tank.
The screen went back to the newsroom. "The "white knight" that stopped an armored car robbery and rescued a young woman in the small town of Sunnydale just the week previous appeared suddenly on the scene before Richwood could get to the crowded highways and safely stopped the menace, and then placed the unstable weapon system in an area where if it did explode or collapsed in on itself, it could do so without harming any innocent people in the area."
"Police and other aircraft in the area tried to detain this White Knight for questioning, but according to eye witnesses, he "turned into light and went back up into heaven", is a quote from one of the pilots that chased the supposed angel after he resolved the threat of the crab tank menace."
Willow, apparently having heard enough, turned the TV off after that.
"Oh my," Giles mumbled.
"Same guy?" Xander asked Buffy.
She nodded. "It has to be. I mean we all saw it, and those pilots said that he turned into light, it has to be the same thing."
"What if it's not a thing?" Oz asked.
"What do you mean?" Buffy immediately snapped.
The werewolf shrugged. "What if it's a guy?" he asked.
"A…human, imbued with supernatural powers over light?" Giles asked, following what Oz was saying.
Again, the band member just shrugged.
"Well…which is it G-man? An honest-to-Heaven angel, a demon that kills other demons, or a guy with powers? And which one is more dangerous?" Xander impatiently asked.
"Oh, the demon would definitely be the more dangerous," Giles said immediately. "An angel would have no intentions of harming any human, if stories are to be believed. And if it were a threat, we would have already heard something from our sources. The demons would definitely be talking more than they are."
"And what if…what if he's human?" Buffy asked, very nervous.
There was a big hesitation on the ex-Watcher's part. "So far, this…entity, whether human, demon, or angelic, he has only done good. Killed vampires, stopped a robbery before innocents could get hurt, saved a young woman from…from something quite terrible I'm sure. And now he stops a major threat that not even the National Guard could have handled without a great deal more damage to the area and far many more lost lives. However, with humans, there is always the seed of corruption. If this White Knight as the news is calling him, is human, and he ends up becoming some sort of threat, then the most we could do would be to talk him back to the side of good. The side he's on right now."
No one saw it, but Xander had a huge, pride-filled smile on his face at those words.
"So he's definitely good?" Buffy asked, sounding almost disappointed.
Giles chuckled. "Yes, Buffy, as near as my judgment can tell, he is very good. I must admit that I am curious as to the source of his powers though."
"Well, hey, what if he's a chosen one like Buff and it ends up that the Big Guy said to him "Hey! You're my new chosen one, you get the powers of an Angel, and not that pansy Dead Boy vampire." And then Micheal and Gabriel would be like, "Well how come we can't just go to Earth?" and then the Big Guy would be like…"
"We get the idea Xander," Willow said, while trying very hard not to laugh. Xander, embarrassed now, stopped talking.
Buffy, also with a smile on her face, nodded. "All right. Xan, you wanna patrol with me tonight? I figure with this White Knight guy going around there won't be much action and I need entertainment if I can't get any action."
Xander laughed and nodded his head, agreeing to accompany the Slayer, when he suddenly stopped. In a thoughtful voice he asked, "So is that this guy's official name now? The White Knight?"
Willow shrugged and answered logically, "Well why not? The Daily Planet got to name Superman, and the Gotham Tribune named Batman I think. The news that first reports about a new hero usually gets to name him if he doesn't already have a name. I guess KTLA gets to name the White Knight. Plus…didn't he tell that girl that he was a 'White Knight'?"
"Well…yeah, but you don't think he told her that as saying his name, do you?" Xander shot back.
Willow just shrugged with a half-smile on her face. "Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't. Guess we won't know unless we can ask him ourselves huh? Why? Do you think he'll mind being called White Knight Xander?"
Xander squinted his eyes at his long time friend. Then he suddenly lightened up and remarked, "Now who wouldn't want to be called a White Knight. Isn't that like an automatic good guy name?"
"Got a point there Xan," Buffy interrupted the "argument" between her two bestest friends.
"I'll see you later tonight after your patrol Buffy," Willow said getting up, Oz getting up with her, "Oz and the Dingoes have a gig tonight and I'll be with them all night. So don't wait up."
Buffy and Willow giggled, while Oz had a "man's look" on his face and both Xander and Giles looks of disgust. "Enough, get out of my house you teenagers you!" Giles threatened them and effectively throwing them out for the night.
A few days later showed more and more headlines and news stories about this mysterious new hero "White Knight". Some fame seekers claimed to have seen him at night or at certain times of the day, which coincidentally coincided with Xander's break times. The Tabloids also took up some of the attention.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Xander snorted as he read the headline on the tabloid as he paid for his groceries for the day. "I HAD THE ANGEL LOVE CHILD OF THE WHITE KNIGHT" and below it was a picture of a cherub right next to yet another picture of an Elvis sighting.
He was in LA for the day, since the Sunnydale Supermarket never had what he wanted or needed; he had flown here after work to take care of his errands, which also included stopping by the bank to deposit his paycheck. Luckily his bank had a branch here in the city and it wouldn't take much to hold his groceries while he took care of that. Thankfully he was only getting the essentials today, leaving the heavy stuff like shampoo, soap, and laundry detergent for after the bank, and another patrol of the city as the White Knight in case anything more like the crab tank happened.
Thirty minutes later, Xander was cursing his luck.
About five minutes after he'd walked in, and been waiting in line for those five minutes, a bunch of heavily covered up individuals, roughly around thirty at Xander's first count, came storming in through the front and side doors and quickly spread out. They didn't shout or make any noise beyond what was necessary. They left two people at every entrance, which they quickly closed and locked, while a couple others went about closing all the shutters and disabling the cameras.
The first noise that this was a robbery came from one of the young, incidentally female, tellers screaming as one of the covered guys pointed a gun at her. With that, a general ruckus and commotion floated around for a bit, but was quickly quieted when one man walked in and fired a single shotgun shot at the ceiling.
The first thing that Xander noticed about him was his size. He was a big man, at least six and a half, maybe more, feet tall. And he certainly wasn't gangly or thin like all those basketball players. In fact, he was so muscular and wide that Xander briefly wondered if he was supposed to be taller.
He was wearing a mask that covered his entire head; one half of his head covered in black, the other in red the color of blood. His costume was the same colors, but with no specific pattern to it other than just to cover his body. But that wasn't the only thing covering him. Aside from some armored boots and gloves, he had ammo belts all around him, and attached to each belt was a gun, different one with each belt, and a combat knife.
The weaponry didn't really impress Xander. His armor, not including the black super-kevlar Willow had gotten for him, could easily handle and stop all the bullets this guy could throw at him. What impressed, and inspired a little fear in Xander was the way this guy moved.
Long forgotten, but remembered, Soldier memories reminded Xander of the way a soldier moved, and what those movements could mean in combat. This guy was moving in a way that the Soldier memories were telling him to run back home screaming for 'Mommy', or 'Buffy' in Xander's case. This guy was way beyond hardcore.
He handed the shotgun off to one of the other armed men that had come in and immediately started into a parade stroll down the bank aisles. People automatically parted before him, scrambling back, but the other men kept people from getting too close to the windows or exits.
That is, until he came to Xander. Xander was scared out of his wits, but he wasn't being 'Xander' right now. He was being the White Knight.
The man slowly stopped, and then turned and looked down into Xander's brown eyes. Xander stared up into the cold, heartless, uncaring green eyes, and repressed a shiver. The man just smirked under his mask and let out a dry chuckle. "You've got guts kid. If you want to keep them where they are, don't try and play the hero. No one is going to get hurt…unless some idiotic hero shows up."
Xander almost scowled, but as much as this guy radiated power, contempt, and unbearable evil, the Bang Baby could tell that he was also telling the truth. Not daring to risk innocent lives, Xander just bowed his head and stepped back with the rest of the crowd.
The man stared at him for a moment longer, before continuing on his way until he got to the employee entrance to the teller area. He calmly walked in and then over to the central teller booth. There he jumped up on the counter and began to address the crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I truly apologize for the inconvenience," he began. "No, no, don't worry. We're only here for the bank, and keep your preppy wallets in your pants you stupid sheep. We'll be out of your hair momentarily… unless of course some one tries to interfere. And I'm sure that none of us want to be stuck in here all night while the local police foolishly try to negotiate with me. Pointless really. Now, no one touch any alarms, and no heroics. Wouldn't want someone getting hurt in the crossfire, now would we?"
Xander was livid inside, but he hid it well enough that none of the men looked at him twice. He actually had been about to do something, like create a hologram of a squad of SWAT running in, or dash to the restroom to transform, but the leader's little speech quickly changed his mind. So for now, he just glowered at them, waiting for his first opportunity where it was safe to stop them.
Then he paused. They weren't robbing the people, but something here at the bank. Maybe he should just follow them instead, after they left. Even if they went via the sewers, it should be pretty easy for him.
After that, there was mostly silence; the only sounds coming from some whimpering cowards or children and from the Vault area where the safety deposit boxes are normally kept. Xander just stayed right where he was, keeping his eyes on the leader.
Barely fifteen minutes after "breaking in", the robbers that had been in the safe suddenly ran out, the one in the lead holding a safety deposit box, carrying it to the masked leader.
"You got it?" the leader gruffly asked the moment they were before him. In reply, the man just opened the box and showed him what was inside. Even though his face was hidden, Xander got the impression that he was smiling at what he saw, and then he nodded and the robbers began to pack up so to speak.
"Thank you for your cooperation. See, now was that so hard?" the leader said as he was the last to leave.
Xander didn't even bother with his business at the bank now, instead going out one of the side entrances and pulling out his black scarf and armor that he kept with him more than his wallet these days.
Already three blocks away, in two vans, one of them armored, Slade, the assassin/terrorist/Bounty Hunter for hire to the highest bidder, was admiring how well his plan had gone off without a hitch. Wolfram & Hart did not often bother him, especially with such trivial things like procuring some ancient scroll hidden away in a safety deposit box by it's previous owner before Wolfram & Hart had had him killed, but the money was worth it and it just so happened to work well with his plans involving another project of his.
The men were all Wolfram & Hart people, but they were good soldiers and never talked back.
"Take us downtown and through the suburbs a couple times to be sure we've lost any tails," Slade ordered the driver, "Then swing by the offices so I can drop this off and get my check. Then I'll need a ride to the air port."
"Yes sir," the driver answered in the affirmative, just like a good soldier should.
Then he crashed into a wall.
A wall that hadn't been there before.
A wall in the middle of the street. And made of light.
"Well, well," Slade pocketed the scroll in a belt pouch. "I finally get to meet this illustrious White Knight. Should be interesting."
"Tell me about it," a muffled voice said from above. Half a second later, the armored car's roof was peeled back by a solid white can opener which dissolved after completing its work in the noonday sunlight.
The black and white armored figure hovered above the thieves on what looked like a disc of solid light, making most of the men in the van squint against the glare. Slade was not one of them.
"So what do you want?" Slade asked him. "You vigilantes always have something that always sets you off and makes you demand justice for all. What's your gimmick White Knight?"
"Gimmick?" White Knight repeated. "Actually, I was just on a patrol of the city and I saw an armor plated van with gun mounts being followed by an unmarked, four year out of date, dirty van that you always see in the movies, and I thought to myself, 'Self?' Yeah? 'I think something is up here.' I think your right Self. 'Let's check it out self.' Good idea I said to myself."
"Funny," Slade monotoned.
"I thought so," White Knight glibly replied.
The men in the unmarked white van suddenly poured out, all toting heavy weaponry, and started to fire live rounds at the super hero. White Knight just automatically created a light shell around him, which either stopped or deflected the gunfire. In the distraction though, he also had time to gather the necessary light to create a complete and very solid dome over the shooters and the entire van in fact.
Once they were taken care of, he turned his attention back to Slade.
"Interesting," Slade remarked under his breath at the display of power.
"You ain't seen nothing yet," White Knight remarked glibly, right before he completely vanished, disc of light and all.
Slade tensed, unsure of this opponent. He certainly wasn't one to fear the unknown, but when facing someone like the White Knight, he much preferred to be more prepared for whatever tricks they could pull. Know thy enemy, know thyself, and the path to victory shall be clear.
There! A slight flicker of motion, Slade grinned and reacted as fast as thought, punching the visible White Knight as he reappeared on his right side. Slade's grin faded as he watched his fist pass harmlessly through the black and white armored figure.
"What the…?" Slade turned as he felt a tugging sensation at his belt and growled when he saw nothing, until he turned back to the image of the White Knight, who was teasingly holding the scroll Slade had put in his belt pouch when the truck crashed.
Growling like an enraged mountain lion, Slade just jumped up through the hole the White Knight had made in the roof, leaping over ten feet easily into the air and landing on his feet on the sidewalk. People had already disappeared with the crash, and the sirens in the air spoke of the police on the way.
And leaning almost casually against the side of the wrecked armored truck, holding the scroll as his image had been, was the White Knight. "So…" the super hero drawled casually, "You know who I am, probably because you're a professional criminal and I have been in the news quite a lot recently, but, and I must apologize for this, I don't know who you are, and I didn't get the chance to learn the name of the last guy I trounced. No offense."
"None taken, I assure you," Slade answered in the same casual manner, but his tone was decidedly cold.
"I'm known as…Slade."
White Knight stood and put the scroll behind him, and when he retrieved his arm, the scroll was as good as gone. He started to walk towards the masked assassin, "Nice to meet you Slade. Say hello to Supes!"
"That is the oldest—Argh!" Slade was stunned as he felt a very powerful blow knock him down from behind. When he looked up to see what had hit him, he couldn't help himself in staring a little. Because floating about three inches off the ground, ready for more, was a solid white Superman. If not for what he had already seen and knew about this White Knight, Slade would have known right then and there that this was not the real Superman and was part of the new hero's mysterious powers.
"Clever," Slade commented before kipping to his feet and knocking a blow back at the solid white hologram. Pain lanced up his arm as the solholo reacted the same as if he had tried to knock the Sears Tower over with a punch!
The white "Superman" just gave the assassin a lopsided grin, and returned the punch, almost knocking Slade off his feet, making him back up a couple paces and definitely giving him a bloody lip.
Before he could retaliate, Slade felt a tap on his shoulder and he looked and saw a pure white Captain Marvel, who gave him the same grin before slamming him with a punch that was easily twice as powerful as "Superman's" because that one actually did knock him off his feet.
"You don't play fair kid," Slade grumbled, getting to his feet.
"And what the hell would you know about 'fair'?" the White Knight asked angrily. Before Slade could reorient himself fully, White Knight was running right at him, glowing much brighter and just before he got to the assassin, he was surrounded in bigger and pure white armor that kind of looked like the Juggernaut from the comics. Now Slade felt like he really had been hit by Superman and Captain Marvel.
He flew up into the air, now his nose bleeding too, from the force of the hit, when suddenly a flash of light blazed past him and when he managed to look up, the White Knight, supported by very angel-looking wings, was hovering there above him, his right fist pointed at Slade. Slade's eyes widened when he saw one of those spring-loaded boxing gloves you usually only see in cartoons, white of course, aimed right at him. At the apex of his flight, the glove "fired" and knocked Slade back to the ground at easily twice his lift off speed.
Groaning, more at the stupid pun that had come to mind rather than at what had just happened to him, Slade got to his hands and knees, even as his opponent settled to the ground a short distance away from him. Instead of standing again, Slade just fell sideways and then rolled so he was sitting, looking at the hero as if they were playing at a park.
"You know what? I think I'm beginning to like you. White Knight is a misnomer for one who doesn't play fair," Slade teased.
He got the impression the so-called "Knight" was smirking at him when he answered, "Do I look like I care what you think of me? You are first off, a criminal, second you don't seem to care in the least about human life, and while I do follow a code, a code of combat is not part of that. So when I fight people, and I use the term loosely, like you, I fight on your terms. Any questions?"
"Yeah? You bullet proof?" Slade asked as both his hands shot out, both with guns in them and firing their deadly spray of lead faster than the White Knight could move.
He held up his hands, and the same shield he'd used earlier had started to form between him and Slade, but before it was fully constructed, a number of the bullets had already gotten past it. They clattered to the ground, flattened, in the aftermath of the roar of the gunfire.
"Well, that answers that," Slade said mostly to himself.
"I'll take those!" a harsh voice snapped out as two beams of light, ending in claws, reached out from the White Knight and tore the guns from Slade's hands. A third, before the assassin could fully react, the end shaped like a hammer, pushed him back against the wall of a nearby building, the claws trapping his wrists and feet before the beams vanished, leaving the very solid restraints.
"Now I've got a question," the White Knight spoke sourly, "Do you think you could carry an entire building on your back after uprooting it from it's foundations? Because that's the only way you're getting out of those restraints until the police come with a full S.W.A.T. team to take you away."
"I don't have to tear out the whole building, kid," Slade answered back, "I just have to tear out the mortar around your little restraints."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Take a look at what building you're attached to," the White Knight smugly crossed his arms.
Slade looked up, and then right behind him and almost groaned with frustration. The local LexCorp office building, and they built all of their buildings with the new age stuff, not to mention the outer walls were all always solid lead.
"All right kid, you've won this round, but I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again," Slade growled.
"Yeah, like on the prison television in the dining hall." Creating a couple more solholos, the Knight moved the armored truck and van, with the Wolfram & Hart people safely inside, off the main streets, just as the first of the cops and S.W.A.T. were arriving. With a final cocky salute to the still captive assassin, the White Knight flew on the wings of angels into the bright sunlight.
Slade sighed with disappointment. So much for the rest of his money.
It was the next afternoon as Buffy and Willow were spending some, recently very rare, quality time with Xander. It started out with Xander getting everyone some ice cream cones, and joking about the advantages of being the Ice Cream Truck Man. He even made it sound like he was a super hero.
The girls certainly thought it was funny.
"So Xan," Buffy asked, licking her ice cream cone, "Other than being 'Ice Cream Truck Man'," she said it like he had, with the deep voice and 'superhero pose', "what have you been up to lately?"
Xander shrugged, having finished his fudge-cycle a while ago, and answered evasively, "Not much really. Go workin', makin' money, getting my paycheck, and using said paycheck to buy groceries and increase my life savings."
"Savings? You wouldn't happen to be meaning bank savings would you?" Buffy asked.
Willow looked at her female best friend, wondering what she was up to.
"As a matter of fact oh Mistress of the deductive reasoning," Xander flashed her his lopsided grin, "The First National Bank of Orange County. Same, if I recall correctly, as yours and your Mom's, and the only bank in town."
Buffy blushed slightly, and looked away briefly. When she looked back, she was actually blushing more and looking rather sheepish as well.
"Uh…I don't suppose you, either of you, heard about, well…you know? The White Knight? He stopped a bunch of bank robbers at a bank in LA the other day. Unfortunately, the one thing they stole was missing when the police finally arrested them, so because there was no evidence, they couldn't be convicted." Buffy told them.
Xander winced, looking away from the others, at the mention of the missing evidence, i.e. the scroll Slade had stolen. Xander had looked at it afterwards and decided that something like the scroll, which was written in several languages he had seen in a great many of Giles' books, was far too dangerous to even be put back where it was, let alone in police lock-up. He was still trying to figure out a way to get the scroll to Giles without it seeming a little too obvious. At least none of the press was reporting on what was stolen, if they even knew.
"It must just make him so mad, something like that," Buffy said.
"Huh?" Xander blurted, confused.
Buffy's blush increased slightly. "The…White Knight. It must make him really mad that those crooks he helped catch are just going to be let right back onto the streets. I bet he's mad. Don't you think he would be mad?"
Willow's amused expression immediately shifted to concerned and angry when Buffy turned to look at her, and she immediately made agreeing sounds, "Oh, yeah, mad! I would be too. Darn our justice system and the 4th Amendment."
Buffy turned to Xander, who was still confused, and showed it.
"Buff…I don't think the White Knight is about making sure the bad guys, in this case bank robbers, are punished for the sake of being punished. He's more about learning from mistakes and second chances. He doesn't want enemies, he just wants people to live in peace without having to worry about their lives from moment to moment, and it would be better if the criminals he catches repented and reformed themselves rather than just ship them off to jail just to get them off the streets."
Buffy and Willow blinked in shock at their male friend. The former in mild awe, the latter in worried terror that he was practically telling Buffy his secret identity.
Then Xander gave them his lop-sided grin and said, "Besides, isn't that what Chosen One's do? Besides being the butt-monkeys of the universe that is?"
Buffy snorted with laughter, and Willow breathed a sigh of relief.
"So what else you two want to do?" Xander asked, smiling.
Buffy sighed. "It's too early to go to the Bronze," she said, "What about the beach? It's been a while since we've been there, and it wouldn't take long to swing back by the dorms or Xander's place to get swim-stuff."
Xander's grin became a bit lecherous as he got a step behind the girls and then came up between them, draping his arms over their shoulders as he said, "Ah, my two favorite babes in bikinis!"
Both females rolled their eyes, but before any more talk of beach, or Xander's perversions could be spoke of, Willow remembered something.
"Oh! I just remembered there's a carnival in town. Well, in LA actually, but it's closer than actually going into the city. We could go there and then come back in time for patrol and other stuff," she suggested.
That sounded a bit better than just waiting for the Bronze to open or even just going to the beach for the afternoon. So, with that plan in mind, the Slayerettes went to the Circus.
It was barely two hours before Buffy, Willow, and Xander were all sitting on benches in the Big Tent of the "Magical Circus of Light", named as such because most of the attractions with this particular circus had to do with light. Whether that be light bulbs, mirrors, prisms, or laser light shows, but even though Xander could now outdo everything that this place had to offer, it was still fun, even if only because he was with his two best friends.
Just as the show was about to start, smoke-makers began to release an eerie, white fog into the center ring, and all of the main lighting went out, or in some areas started to flicker, indicating the show was about to begin. Once the entire center ring was nothing but a cloud of white smoke, the lasers turned on and the light show began.
'Nice light show,' Xander thought to himself, 'but I can do better.'
Out of the corner of his eye, Xander thought he saw Willow looking at him like she knew exactly what he was thinking. Before they got caught starring at each other though, they quickly turned their attention back to the show.
After some dramatic music and some more fog entered the ring area, all of the surrounding lights, save for the lasers, suddenly quit. Several moments after that, amidst the muttering cloud, there was an incredible flash of light. Xander hardly blinked, but everyone else in the big tent screamed out in pain, however brief.
When the glare had faded, a man in a very weird costume was standing in the middle of the ring, the fog completely gone. He was a skinny kind of man, looking kind of like what any geek the gang knew in high school might have grown up to look like. He was wearing a black body suit with a big light bulb emblem depicted on the front, as well as silver boots and gloves. What made him look really silly was he was also wearing a light bulb on top of his head. A big one too.
"Greeting ladies and gentlemen," he said in a voice that matched his body perfectly, "I am the amazing Dr. Light!"
"Could this guy get any more cheesy?" Xander asked his friends.
Willow tried to hold in her laughter, which resulted in a barely concealed snort, while Buffy chuckled softly. And if it wasn't for what happened next, they probably would have kept on laughing.
"Now, gaze if you will into my magnificent Orb of Light!" he shouted, and as he spoke, a really big disco ball, probably with a light source inside of it, appeared suddenly at the peak of the big tent.
Everyone automatically, of course, looked up at it, even Xander. Who a moment later, felt a tingle at the back of his neck and a moment after that, right before his eyes there was a flash of light, which actually did blind him for a second, forcing him to look down again, shaking his head and trying to clear the spots from his eyes.
When next he looked up, if they were capable of noticing anything, Buffy and Willow would have seen that Xander's eyes were solid white, just like they are when he was in "uniform". Unfortunately, they, as was everyone but Xander and "the amazing Dr. Light" were still staring up at the orb of light, mesmerized.
Now that his defenses were up, Xander could easily see the streamers of light coming down from the orb and going into everyone's eyes, except they were avoiding Dr. Light entirely and somehow were being bounced off of his. Identifying them was another matter entirely. But, after the appropriate poking and waving in front of their faces and seeing the results on Buffy and Willow and everyone else in the place, the purpose really wasn't too hard to figure out.
Trying to keep from attracting too much attention to himself, Xander creeped through the crowd to the restroom, which was surprisingly empty, and quickly suited up in a burst of blinding light.
Back in the big top, Dr. Light was issuing his first commands to his new army of hypnotized circus goers. Cackling insanely to himself, he shouted to the crowd, "Now my legion of hypnotized slaves, you will all obey me with no question! You will all obey Dr. Light!"
"Yes Dr. Light" the resounding crowd repeated.
"First order of business, give me all the money you own!" he shouted with glee, cackling with laughter.
Before the crowd could repeat that back though, the White Knight, flying on angel wings flew into the big top and shouted equally loud, "Sorry to break up the act Doc, but I will not allow you to rob these innocent people. Even if the only thing they did wrong was pay money to see your show!"
Dr. Light stared in disbelief at the spectacle the White Knight provided, hovering across the ring from him. "And who," he drawled, "are you?"
"Funny, I thought everybody knew by now," White Knight joked, subtly working on calling all of the light the orb was sending out to him, and away from everyone else's eyes. Slowly, but far more difficult than it should have been, it was working. "I've heard the news and several other people call me the White Knight. I'm not really inclined to argue with them about it. All I do care about is protecting innocent humans. Now, since you haven't really committed a crime... yet, I'm willing to let you go unpunished, provided you turn off that hypnotic orb up there."
Snorting, Dr. Light took a few steps forward and put his fists on his hips and stuck out his chest. What would have been an intimidating and heroic pose on anyone else, just made the uber-geek look even more pathetic.
"So, you figured it out have you? Well, I don't really care about some superhero nobody that doesn't even make the Daily Planet headlines. No one can defeat the awesome power of light! And as for my crime, it's only just begun, and I'd like to see you, you glorified snot nosed arrogant poser with wings try and stop me!" And with that, Dr. Light raised both his fists and shot a powerful beam of yellow light right at the White Knight.
"Well, on the power of light, I'm forced to agree with you Doc," White Knight said casually as he raised his left hand, as though to knock the beam of light aside. Instead it just curved around him like he was a rock in the stream and then making a sharp U-turn and slamming back into Dr. Light's torso in a matter of seconds.
The beam of light was raw, less uniformed light, and White Knight could easily control that. In fact, he had figured out what was giving him so much trouble with the orb. He could manipulate Dr. Light's attack because it was just raw light, the only difference between it and what the sun shown down was the intensity of it. The light streaming down from the orb was more controlled, uniform light, designed to go into the human retina and open the mind to suggestibility. Hypnolight might be a good term for it.
Raw light, the White Knight could form and mold into uniform or do anything else he wanted to with it. Uniform light, doing what it was designed to do, was far more complicated to change or form into something else. But he knew he could do it.
And with the good Dr. Light out from his own blast, he could be less subtle about it.
Landing in the ring, light suddenly flared around White Knight as he used all of his strength to call the hypnolight being emitted by the orb to him. Instantly, he had it. Now he just had to do something with it. And seeing the Doc get back up from his own blast, White Knight thought it ironic to use it as a weapon against him.
With a sharp twist of his will, the streamers flowed around him until they blurred together to form a very familiar solholo, the same Juggernaut armor that he had used in his fight against Slade.
When Dr. Light got back to his feet, and regained enough of his senses to stand without wobbling, he stared in confused disbelief at the transformed White Knight. "Wha—what did you do?" he asked weakly.
"Rather simple really," White Knight replied, his voice unchanged despite his new appearance, "I can control light you see. So I am now directing all of the light your orb up there is emitting, and transforming it into this very solid holographic armor I am now wearing. And because that light is now going into my new armor instead of everyone's eyes, the audience should be waking up any second now."
"What! That... that... that's impossible! I am the amazing Dr. Light! I alone control the power of light in all it's prismatic joy! I developed this technology myself! No one could have a more sophisticated version! It's impossible!" Dr. Light was raging, even as mumbles and muttering from the crowd began a hissing whisper throughout the big top.
Buffy and Willow were confused for several moments before managing to get their bearings and realized what was going on, and to see the sudden and new spectacle at the center ring.
"Wills? You okay?" Buffy asked.
"Uh... yeah, I think so," Willow replied hesitantly. "Got all my major and very important body parts. Omigawd! Buffy, look!" Willow pointed down at the center ring where Dr. Light and a glowing white hulking figure stood, poised to fight.
"Omigawd!" Buffy repeated, and then her panic increased several factors when she realized that Xander was no longer sitting in between them. "Willow! Where's Xander? He could be in trouble if..."
"He probably went to the bathroom without us seeing," Willow immediately excused her friend, already knowing that it was said friend that was the hulking white figure facing off against the criminal that had tried to hypnotize everybody at the circus for who knows what nefarious purposes.
"You've ruined everything, you accursed White Knight!" Dr. Light shouted with a squeak.
"White Knight," Buffy whispered, staring in shock.
"Turn off the orb and promise to leave peacefully and I'll let you go. There doesn't need to be a fight between us, and I certainly don't want to hurt you," White Knight offered the villain one last time.
Dr. Light just snorted and then did something on his belt, and before anybody could say anything more, there were suddenly a dozen or so copies of Dr. Light, each identical.
"Now lets see how you handle my holograms White Knight!" the Doctors all said together.
"Funny thing about holograms," the White Knight interrupted, "The ground they're standing on doesn't need to be stable for them to still be standing. It's quite another matter for humans."
Even though he could easily see and detect the real Doctor Light, or even dispel all the holograms with a simple thought, not wanting to fall into some kind of trap he might have set up, White Knight instead raised his solholo-encased fist in the air, and then with all the might he could muster, he slammed that fist onto the ground, creating a small tremor that amazingly enough was limited to the center ring alone, but it got the desired effect as the real and human Doctor Light lost his balance and fell to the ground, the holograms disappearing shortly after that.
Seeing his foe defeated before their fight had even begun, White Knight calmly crossed his arms and stared at the fallen Dr. Light. "I'm giving you one last chance here Doc," he shouted across the distance and over the noise of the suddenly cheering crowd, "Turn off the orb, and leave. I will not chase you and I will not hurt you. You've committed no crime here, and I'm not about to hand you over to the cops for doing nothing more than working in a circus and having a really dangerous show stopper. It's your decision."
Dr. Light slowly began to get up. He glared hatefully at his nemesis, and his hatred exploded moments later. "I've committed no crime, have I? Well here's my first crime ever! MURDER!" he shouted and got to his feet, pointing his now brightly glowing fists right at the White Knight.
"See if you can handle pure, intensified ultra violet radiation fool!"
White Knight stared at the spectacle in front of him. The surrounding light was pooling around Dr. Light, very much the same way that it did around him when he created a solholo, except something very weird was happening that only the White Knight could see.
"No way!" he shouted as he watched the light actually being stripped of something that looked dark purple to his Bang Baby enhanced eyes, and the rest of it was being discarded like the bones from a stripped animal. All of that light was creating a larger and larger mass of purple energy, all directed at him, and he really didn't want to test his "armor" against something he didn't even begin to know how to describe.
Dodging however seemed to be an impossibility, and if he didn't want to try his armor against it, he certainly wasn't going to risk an innocent bystander's safety by allowing a ricochet or being unlucky enough to be behind him. Thinking quickly, White Knight poured all of his will in manifesting a solholo shield several meters in front of him. At the very least it would give him another seconds time to think.
Just before Dr. Light fired the ultra-violet blast, White Knight's shield, looking like a larger, thicker, and white version of an old knight's shield, appeared in glow of white light, angled slightly backwards due to White Knight's awkwardness at the moment.
"DIE!" Dr. Light screamed and fired, incidentally right at the shield.
Instead of puncturing through the shield, or breaking up upon it, or even being stopped cold, like almost everyone was expecting it to do, the bright purple beam hit the shield, and then was reflected almost directly upwards, thanks to the angle, and then it exploded upon the still functioning orb at the top of the big top. The blast only lasted for a second or two and the exploding orb was much the same as a TV or a boom box exploding, dangerous only to those within a few feet of it. Since it was almost fifty feet in the air, no one, except White Knight and Dr. Light were in any real danger, because of falling debris.
Little quick physics lesson. Everything dark or black, absorbs all, or at the very least all visible light. Those that are a color, blue, green, red, yellow, whatever, they absorb all of the light properties except for the pigments that reflect whatever color it is. White objects, people, whatever, white is the opposite of dark or black. It reflects all light, absorbing none of it. At least, visible light.
White Knight's powers do not, (this has been mentioned before), work with only visible light, but all forms of light, and thereby radiation. Most especially including Ultra-violet.
When he created the solholo shield, he was using all light to create a "white" shield. Thereby it reflected Dr. Light's ultra-violet blast, and coincidently enough, at the same time destroyed the device the Doctor had been using to attempt his crime. And if it weren't for the White Knight, he would have succeeded in committing it.
Seeing the Doctor collapse in the face of his device's destruction, White Knight saw that he no longer needed to be on guard. The villain was beaten. He dissolved the shield and his Juggernaut armor. Moments after revealing his normal armor to the crowd, White Knight was distracted by the shouting and applause from the crowd. Something caught his eye, and he couldn't stop the swell of enormous pride in his gut when he saw Buffy smiling at him and applauding as much, if not the most out of all the crowd. Willow, beside her, just had that 'I'm proud of you Xander' grin on her face, which meant as much as Buffy recognizing him and applauding him. With a simple bow to the four corners of the crowd, the White Knight accepted the applause and then turned back to the defeated Doctor Light.
With simple constructs, he used rope the circus had lying around and tied him to the central pillar before summoning back the light he had used in the fight and recreated his angel wings, and with one final mid-air bow to the crowd, he flew out the entrance and took his leave. The crowd went wild.
Barely ten minutes later, Xander had finally caught back up with his friends, searching desperately through the excited crowd until he had found them. "Guys!" he shouted when he saw them just ahead.
Everyone, having gotten a better show than they paid for, was leaving, but at the same time several ambulances and the police had arrived to inquire about the trouble that had been reported. Several glory hounds were already giving lengthy reports, and interviews for the one news van that had showed up, even while the majority of people at the circus were just trying to get home.
Buffy and Willow paused, looking back as they heard Xander's voice, and then saw him making his way towards them through the crowd. By the time he made it to them, he was breathing heavily from the strain.
"Xander, where have you been?" Buffy demanded to know. "We've been worried sick!"
"Sorry Buff," he apologized once he got his breath back. "I snuck out to the bathroom just before the show started. After that, trust me, you don't want to know any more."
With a sick look on her face, Buffy silently agreed with her friend, and then startled when she realized that he had missed the entire thing that had her so excited. "Xander, you're never going to believe it," she gushed suddenly.
"What?" he asked, confused as they continued to walk along to the exit.
"The White Knight, you know that angel guy that saved that girl and has been on TV so much..." Buffy began to talk very fast.
"You mean the guy that you've been talking about almost nonstop for the past three days?" Xander interrupted with a grin on his face.
Blushing, Buffy continued, "He was here! There was this guy, I think he called himself Mr. Fight or something like that, but anyway. He tried to use this really big glowing disco ball to hypnotize everybody and then all of a sudden the White Knight shows up and saves everybody! He did something with his powers I think that made the disco ball not work anymore and then he totally whaled on that Fight guy before tricking him into destroying his own disco ball! He was amazing."
"Who? Dr. Light?" Xander asked, concerned.
Buffy looked at him horrified before slapping him on the arm. Painfully.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"The White Knight was amazing!" she corrected Xander. "And... hey, how did you remember the guy's name?"
Willow looked panicked for a moment, but Xander took it in stride and only shrugged as he replied, "I passed several people that were talking to the police while I was looking for you. They kept talking about this "maniac" that kept calling himself Dr. Light. Pretty logical to deduce from that Buff."
"Oh, yeah, I guess it is, Mr. Vulcan," Buffy teased him.
Xander automatically put his right hand in the Vulcan greeting and said in a monotone, "Live long and prosper." That broke them all up and the laughed all the way to the bus stop.
"So, are we going to tell Giles about this?" Willow asked while they waited for the bus that would take them back to Sunnydale.
They all looked at Buffy, who scrunched up her face in thought for a moment before answering, "Nah. I've made big enough noise on the White Knight that I'm sure he's not even interested in hearing anything more about him. Besides, the news finds out more about him than we can. And now I'm convinced that he's not some kind of demon or anything like that. I mean, he just saved almost a hundred people's lives, and from what I've seen of his powers, if he wanted to, he could do a lot of damage. Even Superman would be hard pressed to take him down if he wanted to go the villain route."
Xander looked at his hero, surprised. "Really? You think the White Knight could take on Superman?"
Buffy looked back at him, and said with total certainty, "Absolutely. Superman's great, I mean... he's Superman. But the White Knight..." she trailed off as her eyes glazed over briefly, "... He always gives the people he's fighting a chance to turn around and do the right thing. He works to redeem them instead of just stopping them, like Superman does."
Willow and Xander exchanged a brief look after that, until the former shrugged, not sure what to say.
"You know, I never thought of it like that," Xander finally said.
End Part 3