Xander looked up at the chime of the door and placed what he was doing to one side. Getting up he realised just how long he had been sitting in one place, and stretched slightly to relieve the crick in his neck before he made his way to the intercom. Since the apartment in which he was now living was one of the newest and most high tech in the neighbourhood it was a video system and, after he had made a few changes in the system, he was able to see Jonno standing with Harmony, and that they were both human. Though Harmony appeared to be trying to hide her identity with a hat and dark glasses, the fact that her trench coat accentuated her figure rather than hiding it, made spotting her rather easy. Without a word, Xander buzzed them up and opened the door. Then he walked back to his workbench and put his foot back on the sewing machines peddle.
It was the sound of his sewing that greeted Jonno and Harmony as they arrived at the front door. Glancing at each other at the strange noise, they walked in and saw Xander leaning over what he was working on. It looked like an assault harness made out of leather, and to one side they could see a completed pair of pants and a jacket.
"Jeaz Harris, gay much," Harmony said as she breezed into the apartment, her eye giving the place a critical once over. She had to admit she was actually quite impressed with the tasteful d cor, and though she rolled her eyes at all the boy toys laying around the place, she could see the money on display.
Xander half looked up from his work and smirked at her, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of the best fashion designers in the world men?"
"Yep, and most of the best are gay," Harmony pointed out with a smirk of her own.
Xander chuckled and replied, "All generalisations are false, Harm."
She cocked a perfect eyebrow at that, but held her peace.
"Wow, Xan, nice place you have here." Jonno enthused as he also cast an eye around the place. His eyes in particular came to rest on a state of the art AlienWare PC system set up in one corner with a huge monitor and speakers arrayed around it. He would love a system like that, but then he was not a millionaire; at least not yet.
"Thanks, Jonno, take a seat guys, and I'll be with you in a sec." Xander said, "Kitchen is that away," he added with a wave towards the open plan kitchen just visible from where they were in the apartment.
Jonno nodded and walked towards it. "Want anything?" he asked Harmony.
"Soda," Harmony replied and took a seat in one of the nice plush leather armchairs, one toned leg crossing over the other. She looked at Xander as he was leaning over away from her, and took a moment to admire the changes in him. Halloween had somewhat improved his muscle mass and tone, and he was looking good for it. Better, in fact, than most of the jock boyfriends she had dated. If he were not such a geek, she would date him in a New York minute.
Silence reigned for a while in the apartment and then the sewing machine started up for a long moment. Finally, Xander turned it off with a grunt of happiness, obviously finished. He held up the new garment with a critical eye and looked it over. It would be tough. He had armoured it as best he could, even added some plating for trauma just in case, and it had a series of extra pockets and clips for various things. It was designed for patrol to fit over a shirt and under a jacket. It was pitch black, as were the other two items he had made that evening, and all of them were designed to be as hardwearing as possible.
"Nice get up," Jonno commented walking back into the area with three cokes, one for each of them.
"Thanks," Xander said, "they're for patrolling. I finally told the gang today."
"Does that mean I'm on?" Jonno asked a hint of excitement in his tone.
"Yep," Xander replied, looking at him cautiously, "Just remember this is dangerous and vampires, while nice and flammable, are tricky to fight."
Jonno waved him off, "I know, I know. You worry too much."
"No," Xander replied deadly serious, "I worry just enough."
"Okay, I'll be careful." Jonno said with an eye roll.
"Seriously Jonno, you have to be careful. Don't forget there will be civilians around now and, unlike the game, you can miss and hit them."
Jonno nodded seriously, "That one I am painfully aware of Xan," he said.
Happy that, for now at least, Jono was taking things seriously, Xander took the coke with a smile of thanks.
"They don't know about me do they?" Harmony asked with a hint of curiosity and fear in her voice. She was not sure how to feel about the gang knowing truth be told.
"Nope, they know *of* you, but not who you are. I figured if you want to join us later, I would tell them later on. Until then your secret - your rules." Xander told her seriously.
She flashed him a smile, and then lapsed into silence for a moment. Then her face brightened again as she asked "Have you made what I asked for yet?"
Xander smiled, "Actually I have. I tried to make it as feminine as I could, and I think I did okay. It has some extra stats on it as well. At least I think so, you'll have to try it on and then we should be able to tell from that health sense we all have."
"Stats?" Jonno asked.
"Not tried to make anything yet?"
"Not yet, was going to ask if I could use that sewing machine actually."
"No worries." Xander said, as he walked to a nearby closet and pulled out the top for Harmony. "I think I got the size right." He commented, passing the garment to her.
She eyed it critically; it was black, as were most of Xander's designs, though this one had a line of blue either side of the bodice top. It was shaped to her as best she could tell and would show a fair bit of skin. Not that she was overly worried about that. As she held it in her hands, she had a sense of power from it that was strange, but almost comforting.
Jonno and Xander eyed her with some enthusiasm. Not just because she would look seriously hot in the top either, but also because they were interested in seeing if she could wear if successfully and get the full measure of use out of it. Priests in the game could only wear items made of cloth, but this was real life, and there was no real reason why any of them could not wear whatever they liked. Jonno had already decided to start making his own cloth gear, mostly because it would fit in with his self-image more. Nevertheless, if Harmony joined them, the more protection she had the better.
Harmony had, oddly enough, managed to grow on both of them. Despite the fact she was occasionally caustic and still treated them both like social lepers, this had toned down significantly of late, and she was actually kinda of funny when she let her hair down. They both found themselves being quite protective of her. In truth, that could be a hang back to their characters and they both knew that Priests, while powerful in their own right, needed looking after in a battle situation.
"Got somewhere I can try this on?"
"Bedroom over there," Xander said pointing off to the right, "Or bathroom over there," he said pointing to the left.
Harmony nodded and walked towards the bedroom. "Mirror in here?" she asked as she walked past.
"Yep," Xander answered simply.
Once she was gone, Jonno turned to Xander, "Think it'll work?"
"We can only wait and see. I think it might though. You and I have both noticed the differences. I have a theory about them in part, but if this works I'd just put it down to good luck on our part."
Jonno suddenly laughed causing Xander to look at him strangely. "Sorry, was just thinking of the armour stat on you if you wore Plate and turned into a bear."
Xander laughed as well, "That would be insane. Shame we don't have a blacksmith around, huh?"
They chatted back and forth for a moment as they waited for Harmony to reappear, talking about various things from how their day had gone to when Jonno would start to patrol properly. Then about five minutes later Harmony walked out of the bedroom and did a twirl. "What do you think, boys?" she asked with amusement. She was sure of their response, and it appeared Jonno was actually drooling, and, despite his newfound cool, even Xander was showing that he liked the look.
"Wow," Xander said eventually, "I'm good," he added with a laugh.
"Now I need a skirt to go with it."
"Skirt or pants?"
Harmony tapped her chin in thought as Xander elbowed Jonno out of the dream world in which he was living, "Skirt. I'd look good in this and a skirt."
"That you would," Xander agreed wholeheartedly. "I'll get on that tonight. How long?"
"Just above the knee of course," Harmony said with a smile then frowned, "Or don't you like my legs?"
Xander smirked, and did not reply seeing that trap a mile off. "I'll get on it. Now how do you feel? I sense extra life for sure and I think more potential power from you. What about you Jonno"
"Huh, what, oh yeah, definitely. I'd say it's a success."
"Great, then I'm going to need a few sets of these," Harmony said dong another spin that sent pulses racing.
"Erh - give me some time on that. Buffy has demanded I make her something as well."
"Buffy? Why?"
"She found out I made my own stuff and demanded I make her something."
"She won't be able to make use of the stats though, will she?" Jonno asked.
"You know, I dunno. I was going to make her something with some attack power, and well everything I can imbue into it, to be honest. Give her a little bit of an edge."
Harmony rolled her eyes and sat down, "You are such a loser, Harris, there is no way that girl is interested in you even I can see that. Move on already."
He frowned at her tone of voice. He would have missed it before Halloween, but he could swear she sounded almost jealous. He shook that off, because there was no way Harmony was jealous when it came to him; it just did not compute.
Jonno was also looking at her a little suspiciously, but said nothing.
"Well, what's on the cards tonight?" Harmony asked, "More spell training?"
Xander smiled, "Actually - no. I have a martial arts instructor coming here in an hour to start training us."
"Why?" Jonno and Harmony said together, and then glared at each other.
"Just because we're powerful with magic now, and probably won't ever need it, does not mean that we should ignore other ways of protecting ourselves. There may come a time when we are unable to cast, or shift in my case. On the other hand, when we are in a public place and cannot use our spells anyway. We will need to fall back on something else to help protect others and ourselves. Besides, Martial Arts teach control and discipline, as well as raise our general fitness levels. None of that sounds like a bad thing to me."
Grumbles were his answer, but neither Jonno nor Harmony told him no outright, so Xander figured he had won that argument before it even got going.
~#~
Jason Bell arranged the various magical items he had prepared around himself. He was sitting in the centre of a pentagram, his ceremonial robes arrayed around him. His eyes lit with an almost religious fever on the centerpiece of his collection. A goblet that appeared to be made out of black metal he had coined as fel iron in his head. It did not matter to him that Fel Iron was green in World of Warcraft, he had his delusions, and he was not letting anyone tell him differently. Thanks to Halloween night a month and a bit ago, he had ascended, and he intended to make full use of that. Already he had killed a few of the jocks who had tortured him for years, and he had enjoyed it. His black and green shadow bolts killed them painfully while leaving no evidence for the police to collect against him. He felt like a god now, but even that much power was not enough for him; he wanted more, as much as he could get his greedy hands on, in fact. Thus he had used his families' money to reach into the demonic underworld and his own considerable influence over demons to find this goblet.
The goblet was said to be able to traverse dimensional barriers and he wanted to do just that, to reach out to a powerful demon and drain it of its fel energies. That would charge him up even more than he already was. The demonic taint that flowed through his veins was unlike anything any human had felt before and he had been unprepared for it. The very first time he had cast a spell had, in effect, been his undoing.
Where once there had been an unassuming twenty something college student, there was now a shell of a man obsessed with power and gaining more. He did not eat, or drink anymore; instead he used the twisted demonic energies to survive and they allowed him to do just that, but not without cost. Not that Jason Bell noticed that cost, or noticed that his eyes were turning black, or that his shadow seemed to be separate from him and starting to turn to a slightly glowing green color. His eyes were focused on the possible source of more power that existed right in front of him.
His weak voice mumbled the last few lines of the spell he had created; activating the goblet's innate abilities, and the dimensions were severed into a portal that lay in front of him, snapping and hissing with power; an almost angry display of magical portent.
Then Jason Bell made the last mistake of his current existence and reached out mentally into that portal, smiling when he made contact with a source of immense power. He welcomed it into his being and, at that very moment, Jason Bell was no more.
~#~
Liam Sanders stepped off of the bus and looked around warily. He hadn't been back to Sunnydale since Halloween night. A night that had wrought some changes in the young man. Officially he went to LA for college, but he had been thinking of moving to the arts focused college of Sunnydale, and had been checking out the campus the night in question, in particular one of the fraternities of the campus and had visited their party, which had just gotten plain old fashion weird in short order. In fact the entire night had pretty much put him off the idea of attending Sunnydale U' completely. Until he had noticed some changes in himself.
It had started slowly at first, weird dreams of battles against creatures that he hadn't ever seen before. Memories of places that he couldn't have been to nor heard about. Then he had noticed an awareness in the people around him, how healthy they were, how powerful and a few other minor details. He found whilst down his fathers gun club that he was now a dead shot with anything that came to hand, and in some cases he had managed to literally blow apart some of the targets. Though he was happy, in those cases that he had been alone on the range, after hours. Then he had found he could track just about anything anywhere. He knew, for instance, that there was a rat in a nearby dumpster, a dog down the alley and something that he didn't even recognize appeared to be moving underneath him.
To put it simply, he had become about as freaked out as he had ever been in his entire life. Then, as his father had taught him, he pulled himself together and began to investigate what could be causing the changes wrought within him. This was one of the reasons he was now back in Sunnydale; the place where it had all started.
Jason was not quite sure how he was going to find out what had happened, though he had a few ideas. Firstly he was going to go and check out where he had brought his costume, and then he was going back to the frat house and ask a few pointed questions. Then maybe, just maybe, he could pick up a trail, since as of late he was so good at following them.
He shouldered his rucksack with a few essentials in its depths and set off towards the nearest hotel. First things first; he knew he had to find somewhere to lay down his head of an evening, as he sensed that being out at night in Sunnydale was not a good idea.