Aside from the whole 'no soul and demon occupying the body' thing, there were occasional advantages in being a vampire. You had a really long life, as long as you stayed away from toothpick and pencil factories, not to mention Slayers during that certain time of the month. If you did get hurt, you would heal really fast, even during the last time when you forgot to pay attention to the calendar and answered without thinking that, yes, her butt did look fat. The broken fingers from having a toilet seat repeatedly slammed on your hand cleared up right away, you bet.

As he ran at his top speed through the streets of Sunnydale on Halloween Night, Angel continued thinking about the plus factors in his unlife's current condition. Never being out of breath meant that he could laugh forever at the top of his lungs at what had happened to Xander Harris.

In the Crawford Street mansion, Angel had been staying home during the night's festivities, occupied by his usual schedule: brooding, tidying up, brooding, checking for split ends, brooding, doing a Barry Manilow medley just to torment Angelus, and for a change, moping around the house while wondering if Brenda Walsh would ever return to Beverly Hills High School. He'd just been about to write a letter to Aaron Spelling when he felt an unbelievable wave of magic wash over him, and looked outside the house at the bedlam now in the streets of Sunnydale.

Angel had anxiously made his way to Buffy's house, despite being delayed numerous times to protect people from creatures from the movies, television, comics, and all of mankind's stories. Finally, he'd gotten there just in time to break up an attack from several demons who saw their chance to try to kill the Slayer during the confusion.

Angel turned up a side street, looking around, while at the same time thinking about what had happened then in the Summers house. He had to admit, it was a new one on him in personal combat when your opponent was distracted by a red-haired girl stepping nearly all the way through him and then turning around to actually stay in his face while shouting, "BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!" Plus, Angel had never seen anyone actually clobbered by a frying pan, as had happened to his foe right after that by a really-built brunette in a tattered cat costume.

Once he'd removed the demon bodies, Angel had come back into the house to undergo one of his existence's oddest events: being greeted by a simpering Buffy Summers. Quick explanations had been made while the girl in the pink dress had clung to his arm, calling him her "true protector" and basically giving him the willies. At least the distraction of a ghostly Willow in a most….unusual outfit and the other girl giving him a cold-eyed stare meant he could keep his conversations with Lady Buffy short.

Angel had to admit to the two girls that he had no idea of what had happened, or how to do anything about it, and he had listened to Willow's call to Giles that had been interrupted by the man's roar of rage at the first mention of the name 'Ethan Rayne' along with an impressive outburst of obscenities as the blushing girl described the man who had sold them their costumes. Quick directions had been given to the librarian on where to find that man's costume shop and he'd promptly promised to go there and sort things out, in a tone that even Angelus found disturbing, before Giles had abruptly hung up.

The vampire had been edging away from the most dimwitted girl he'd ever met and trying to politely peel her fingers off his arm, when he'd had a brainwave and offered to meet Giles at the costume shop. A dry look from the brunette, whose name he found out to be Cordelia, meant that his motives weren't any secret to her, but then Willow had looked concerned and she suggested that instead, he go see if Xander Harris was all right. Looking around, Angel had been a bit surprised that the boy wasn't with the girls as he always seemed to be, and the vampire had asked what had happened to him. Willow and Cordelia had looked at each other then, and giving a sigh, the most intelligent student in Sunnydale High had told Angel all about a certain costume.

The vampire had managed to get out of the house and at least halfway down the block before howling with laughter.

A wide grin on his face, Angel now headed into the industrial section of Sunnydale. Looking up a side street as he passed by, the vampire saw a van painted in green and blue with red flower petals on the sides drive across the intersection further down the block. Skidding to a stop, Angel spun around and ran down the street, reaching the intersection quickly enough to see the brake lights of a car driving away from him. He shouted, "XANDER!"

The brake lights lit up as the car stopped, and then it made a quick u-turn to slowly drive towards the individual in the black clothing standing in the middle of the deserted street and having a fit of the giggles.

The car rolled right up to the vampire and then stopped. Angel wonderingly reached out to touch the front of the van that was now the current incarnation of a teenage boy that the vampire loathed. He found that what was before him was indeed totally real, despite having existed only as a cartoon for decades. At that, Angel, who had been Angelus, and before that, Liam from Ireland, finally lost it.

Leaning his shoulder against the front of the car, the vampire wrapped his arms around himself, closed his eyes, and guffawed totally without any restraint, his entire body shaking with mirth that resounded throughout the empty street and the blank-walled warehouses in the block.

Eventually, it had to end, as Angel let go a last few chuckles and opened his eyes to see he was looking down the radiator grille of the van that had stayed unmoving throughout it all. There was something caught in the metal grating there. Idly curious, Angel shifted his position from leaning against the van to straighten up, and he reached out and pulled away a cloth from the bars. As if that had been a signal, Xander-van now stirred, his motor running steadily, and rolled back about fifteen feet from the vampire now examining what he had in his hands in the glare of the van's headlights.

Angel looked at the cloth with puzzlement. It was just a black rag, until he turned it over and held it up in the light shining from the van to see that it was actually a bandanna, with a white skull-and-crossbones symbol embroidered on it. Angel stared at this in total bafflement, until his attention was distracted by the increasing rumble of Xander-van's engine.

The vampire looked up to see the van in the street staying stock-still as the noise of the car engine began to echo throughout the block. Angel took a step forward, bringing up the cloth in his hand, and started to ask, "Xander, what's this thing here and---"

The growl of the engine increased.

Angel abruptly came to a stop and stared at the front of the vehicle with its wide windshield, spare wheel, and broad and glittering radiator grille. For some odd reason, Angel had the impression that the van was….glaring. At him.

As nonchalantly as possible, Angel took a step backwards.

The van rolled forward a few feet.

It was a bit difficult, but Angel reached deep down into himself and added a touch more nonchalance to his next step.

The van rolled a few more feet forward.

Angel tried to recall a different word for 'nonchalance' while taking another---

Oh, the hell with it.

He spun around and ran for his unlife.

Behind Angel, the van's engine roared with power and its wheels screeched against road asphalt before they caught and hurled the car forward.

Knowing there was no way even a vampire could outrun a van with a fervent thirst for the demise of a being with an obsession for every known hair-product, Angel frantically looked ahead for a chance to get out of the street. Unfortunately, the road was lined solely with warehouses with blank walls, rolling steel garage doors, and steel-reinforced front doors. He couldn't afford the few seconds necessary to tear his way into these buildings, when the delay would result in having a Goodyear tire being used as a suppository on him.

Looking further ahead, while hearing the noise of the van coming closer, Angel was thrilled at seeing a small alley just a block down the street, on the right. Tucking his arms against his sides, the vampire tried to find any more possible speed in himself as he pounded straight ahead. He couldn't let Xander know what the Irishman was going to do until he made a break for the alley at the very last second, lest the van cut him off and then turned him into a two-dimensional vampire on the surface of the street. Angel managed to pick up the pace on his panic-stricken flight, yet the van seemed to be coming nearer. He knew better than to turn his head around to look, yet it sounded as if it was going to be really close.

Keeping his head forward, Angel waited until the last possible moment when coming up to the alley, and then he cut to the right as hard as he could. A howl of pure rage came from the van's engine, with the car nearly touching the running vampire, and it shot forward in a surge of power that overtook Angel.

He'd almost made it, but the van managed to clip Angel on his hip, the front right corner of the van colliding with the vampire hard enough to launch his body through the air unerringly into the alley.

The entire street reverberated with the sound of skidding tires as Xander-van ferociously braked and then spun around in the tightest possible curve when his speed slowed enough for him to turn without tipping over.

The van quickly drove up to the alley opening and came to a stop, its headlights shining on something….interesting.

A metal garbage can rolled out of the alley, accompanied by sound effects: DINKAdinkaDINKAdinka, etc.

The loud noises came from the rim of the garbage can clattering against the asphalt, while the softer noises were the intervals when Angel's nose was squashed against the ground, cushioning the outer edge of the circular section of the garbage can when it revolved to bring that extremely unhappy individual's face pressing down.

It was all because the vampire was in the most ridiculous posture of his entire existence. Stunned by being hit by the van, Angel had been lofted into the alley to carom off the side walls and to drop neatly into the garbage can as expertly as Minnesota Fats in sinking the nine-ball when there was no pressure.

The most humiliating thing about it was that when falling limply into the garbage can, Angel's body had jackknifed, his lower body folded against his upper body, so that his arms were pinned behind his back, his legs were poking straight up, his head was between his thighs, and his rear end was resting on something that was squishy and damp, with the indescribable liquid beginning to soak through his pants.

The garbage can came to a stop in the middle of the street, and then it began to rock slightly, as Angel desperately tried to use his vampiric strength to rip apart the container. Unfortunately, he couldn't get any leverage to accomplish this, despite increasing his panicky efforts when the van shining its headlights at the garbage can slowly began to increase the rumble of its engine.

Across the town from a van and a vampire, a fist made a solid thump! when it landed, with the slightest twist of the hand at the last second that splits the skin. Ethan Rayne was smashed back into his chair, his rebound in falling forward interrupted when two hands grabbed the front of his shirt, and used it to pull the battered man up into the air, holding him dangling a few inches from the floor, as an icy voice spoke three words.

"Talk or die."

Looking deep into the eyes of the man who'd broken him, Ethan knew he'd pushed Ripper too far. Spitting out a piece of a chipped tooth, the shop proprietor managed to gasp, "The statue! Smash the statue!"

There was a second's hesitation as Rupert Giles wrathfully stared at the man who'd once been his friend, and realized he'd been told the truth. The librarian then let go as the man fell to the floor, ignoring the hollow thud of Ethan's head hitting the ground and that man's groaning descent into unconsciousness, to turn and stare at the small statue of Janus across the room.

The only thought in Angel's mind as he frantically squirmed inside the garbage can was, I really don't want to die like this. It's so….so….UNDIGNIFIED!

The van's roaring engine reached its ultimate horsepower level just before releasing its brakes.

A hand with bruised knuckles wrapped around a statue and threw it to the ground, smashing it into uncounted pieces.

Angel saw several tons of steel, glass, and plastic turn into a hundred and sixty pounds of teenage boy carrying a cardboard box festooned with toy car parts. There was a shocked look on Xander's face for a moment, until his eyes rolled back in his head and the boy slumped forward in a faint, with the box breaking his fall as it crumpled into a heap of cardboard and shattered plastic.

A few minutes later, a freed Angel stalked towards Xander. It might have been more menacing, if after every few steps, Angel hadn't stopped to gingerly shake one leg after another, to flick off whatever liquid had been clinging to them. He hadn't looked behind himself to see what had happened to the back of his pants, or into the garbage can he'd finally escaped from, to see what his rear end had been pressed up against.

This was Sunnydale. It could be anything.

Angel finally stopped in front of Xander, looking down at the unconscious boy. There seemed to be nothing seriously wrong with him, as according to the vampire's ears, Xander was breathing normally and his heartbeat was fine. Of course, this might soon change, considering the vile mood Angel was in.

As he stared at Xander, Angel was seriously considering doing something to the boy that Angelus was bloodthirstily proposing. Or, at the very least, giving young Mr. Harris a good kicking.

Finally, the signs of a titanic struggle inside his mind evident on the vampire's face, Angel looked up, towards the heavens, and muttered, "Somebody is going to owe me for this." He reached down towards Xander.

A few minutes later, a still-fuming Angel walked away from the place where he'd almost met his end. His irritation had been only slightly lessened by ripping the cardboard box into tiny pieces and taking off every toy car part, laying them in the street, and then stomping all of them into splinters. The vampire shifted the still out-cold boy he was carrying over his shoulder, and suddenly looked thoughtful.

He reached down Xander's legs to lift him up until Angel could wrap his right arm around the back of Xander's knees, with the upper two-thirds of the teenager dangling down Angel's back. An innocent expression on his face, Angel began to saunter down the street, his gait causing Xander's head and chest to swing back and forth, until the boy's face began to slap against Angel's still-damp rear end, with accompanying liquid smacking sounds