BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.
"So, would you be related to Tara through her bastard of a father," Willow asked. "Or is she your-?"
"Am I a bastard, myself, you mean? Well, I was an orphan until a bit ago," Remy interrupted with an edge to his tone. "So I'm not used to thinking about myself in those terms. Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I've had hopes that my real family... Cared that I wasn't there. Now that I've met the men s'posed to be my dad and my brother, I have the feeling I'd have turned out mean and hateful myself if I'd grown up there. I've no idea about my mother..."
"She was wonderful," Willow said. "Or, so I've heard. And my... Tara... She's-"
"Tara's awesome," Xander stated, patting Willow's shoulder. "She's the best thing to happen to my friend here in... Well, since..."
"For de love of... Please tell Gambit there be no love triangle goin' on here," Remy said, holding his head. "I've been through one or two and you remindin' me of a friend o' mine who's had at least three, one with herself as de 'other woman', just does not bode well."
"Oh," said Willow. "No, nothing... current."
"As interesting as this is, we need to keep moving," Buffy said firmly as she turned back around. "Keep talking, but do it single-file. We need to get to Giles and hope that we can walk out of this mess with everybody alive and the prettily packaged arsenal we came here for."
##
"Assuming this Glory woman be an ongoing problem," Remy said, putting the clues together as he eased himself down the narrow staircase. "And dat she's out to damage the world greatly, we're down here to stop her, right? If this Giles of yours is trying to save the town where my Tara has put down roots, I'm obliged to help, even without the occasional threat of bodily harm."
"Yeah," Buffy said, pausing a moment to turn her head. "But they're fun. So, how'd you wind up here?"
"That's a bit... Complicated," Remy said. "Well, word came from a friend that Tara and I at least have the same mother... This Tara Maclay we're talking 'bout here, right? Shame to go through all this awkwardness for nothing."
"Yep, that's my... One and only... Um... How'd it work out for your friend," Willow asked from the steps above them, having decided to resolve something that had been bothering her. "The one with more love triangles than you?"
"She died several times," the Cajun said with a sigh. "Or near enough to it. Sometimes it resolved the love triangle, but it usually just delayed it. Right now she's dead and... she's staying that way."
Andrew and Giles were steadfastly ignoring each other when a crystal fell to the ground and exploded with a loud pop. Smoke from the crystal's fragments resolved into a large humanoid shape, which shambled down the hallway, gaining definition as it went.
Before they could decide what it was turning into, it turned a corner, moving quite out of sight.
"So, classically these challenges come in threes," Andrew said. "Think the last one will be a swarm like the first one, or-"
"Yes, but, these witches were fairly economically minded. The only crystals at risk here are my purple one," Giles said, rubbing the rock he'd slipped into his front pocket. "And your green one. I don't expect they'd risk more than two to try and keep them.
"Unfortunately, not only are these next to useless without the proper activation and binding spells, there's only one copy available for us to use," Giles continued, pointing towards a sheet of paper floating in mid-air above a pedestal. "Meaning we'd have to share it. And, as you can see, it's quite out of reach."
"Oh, so, that's the missing piece," Andrew said, smiling. "I can help with that. I packed my dungeoneering gear, so I should have a telescoping pole somewhere in here..."
As Giles raised an eyebrow, Andrew started digging through his backpack. His hand closed slightly around the lighter he'd thrown in with the rest of his stuff.
Sighing, Andrew forced his hand to relax and he moved on to a more vigorous search.
Between his slight dislike of Giles and the vague disappointment he'd felt about the lack of a third challenge, the news that there was only one instruction sheet in the room resolved something in Andrew's mind.
It was only a matter of putting the plan into practice.
He had decided to create the last challenge himself.
Remy wasn't sure how he felt about his sister being involved with Willow. Then again, not knowing what his sister was like in the first place didn't give him much room to form an opinion.
He wasn't exactly sure about the group Tara was spending time with, either. From what he'd gathered, Buffy or the so far unseen 'Giles', was the leader and they, as far as they knew, were on the side of good. Whether they used methods he'd find acceptable or if they were people who met their goals no matter what the cost, was something he'd have to find out for himself.
He'd expected Tara to be working with magic, from what he'd heard in her dorm... which was also where he'd heard that he had a good chance of finding her at work in a cemetery.
"Should've asked this sooner," Remy said to Buffy. "But, have you seen Tara tonight?"
"Nope."
"Well, how many cemeteries in walking distance?"
"Five," she answered. She raised an eyebrow, but he couldn't see it from his position. "If you extend that to the town limits and keep the list to the 'official' ones, there's twelve, including this one."
"Riiiight," he said, wishing that he had someone he could talk to freely.
On reaching the lowest floor, Buffy and Remy peered down the corridor, noting as they did so that the torches on the wall magically lit.
##
"So," Willow whispered to Xander. "You think he's working for Glory?"
"Nope," came his reply. "This feels like something the mayor would've done, but I haven't seen much long term planning on her part. She did that snake ritual the day she bought the items, right?"
"Yeah, and he is older than us, which makes more sense," Willow said. "We all have pasts, right?"
"On the other hand, it could just be that Glory called in some smarter help," Xander said, turning his head over his shoulder. He stumbled slightly as he stepped out into the room at the foot of the stairs.
##
Hearing Xander and Willow reach the end of the stairs, Remy turned to face them. This meant that his first impression of the monster was a hand swinging for the side of his head.
Being knocked down gave him a chance to enjoy the architecture.
The floor was densely packed earth, but the walls were wooden and of a quality seen in well-made cabins. There were wooden arms hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of what appeared to be a network of tracks.
Overall, the place gave more of the impression of a haunted library or an assembly plant than an underground crypt.
##
Shaking his head slightly, Remy sprang to his feet in a smooth motion. Whatever it was had to have been moving extremely fast in order to get behind him that quickly.
When he turned and saw that Buffy was holding her own, if not exactly making headway, he wasn't exactly surprised.
The creature had a soft translucent upper body, but its feet looked as hard and as cold as stone. Each time Buffy hit it, her fist sunk in slightly and bounced off faster than when it went in, as if the creature had the skin of a tightly stretched drum.
Its punches didn't seem to be doing much damage individually, but it had one thing going for it. It was extremely fast.
Within a few seconds, Buffy's body was sore and she knew she'd be a mass of bruises for awhile until her healing factor kicked in.
Fortunately there didn't seem much else the creature could do to her, until its punches started slowing down. It was hitting her less and less often, but with a rapid increase in force.
Remy noticed that the creature's arms appeared to be getting more and more solid as the greyish color of its legs traveled up length of its body. In fact, the arms were losing their soft and rounded shape, becoming more chiseled and angular.
The creature spun and, in a sudden punch, knocked Buffy half-way across the room.
"De thing's turning to stone," Remy called. "Gambit don't think this will be a pillow fight no more."
"It's an Elemental," Willow shouted. "I haven't seen this kind before, but it must be channeling whatever it comes into contact with."
##
Remy locked eyes with Buffy from across the room and yelled: "You want to take dis high or low?"
"High," Buffy shouted and began charging towards the elemental.
Before the elemental could shift its focus back to Remy, he was already next to it, smacking it across the back of its legs with his staff.
Buffy launched herself in the air, landing a kick with both feet in the center of the elemental's chest.
The creature's firmer, denser skin was unable to redirect blows as well as it had when it was mostly channeling air, so the kick hit with full force.
At the same time, the blow to the back of the legs shifted the creature's weight forward suddenly, such that the difference in solidity between its upper and lower halves made it bend in a way that it just wasn't supposed to. Many of the veins of stone which had been creeping up the elemental's body simply shattered with loud cracks.
The elemental skidded across the floor, slamming into a wall with a loud crash.
##
Their happiness was short-lived, however, as the elemental rose to its feet and, on reaching for a torch, set its hands on fire.