Date written: Sun 18 Oct 2009
Author: Starway Man
E-mail: theop at hotkey dot net dot au
Disclaimer: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar, Kuzui, Fox, WB and UPN; I don't own 'em, and I never will. I also do not own any other characters from any television shows, movies, comics, videogames or literature that I might use. This work is meant merely for enjoyment, and no profit is being made off of it. Some of the text is from various TV episodes or movies or comics or videogames or literature, and so does not belong to me of course.
Rating: Overall R, with mostly PG-13 parts.
Symbols: " " denotes speech, ( italics ) specifies thoughts, and # # indicates phone voice.
Main characters: Xander, ensemble
Warnings: There is some violence, bad language, character death and mention of sexual situations in these stories.
Author Notes: A couple of years ago Night Hunter MGS (a.k.a. Matt) wrote an awesome series of stories called "31 Days of Xanderween" (http://www. fanfiction. net/s/3813208/1/31_Days_of_Xanderween), where he published one Halloween fic for each day of October. I was inspired enough to want to do my own version of the concept, and he has graciously allowed me to use his idea for this series of fanfic stories.
Author Notes 2: I gotta say a big thank you to all my loyal readers for bearing with me during yesterday's temporary insanity. Now, this story was actually born out of a conversation between me and Nodakskip concerning who was the best genie on ever appear on TV and the movies – perhaps not surprisingly, we both had different ideas on the subject. That's why I promised him I'd include this little note to say that the genie fic he's currently working on is totally unrelated to this fanfic, and when it's published any similarities between the two stories will be entirely coincidental. But enough about all that – on with the fanfic!
Acknowledgments: My thanks of course to Matt for allowing me to dabble with his original idea this way. Also, my deepest gratitude to all my beta readers – Francis Eugene, Greywizard, American Soldier and Nodakskip – for all their help in getting these stories finished on time!
Classification: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Romance, YAHF
Summary: Thirty-one versions of Halloween, Xander-style. Fic-a-day series.
Title:31 Days of Xanderween Part Deux
***
Story 18: I Dream Of Genie
No. 4 Parkview Crescent, Sunnydale, California
October 31st, 1997
Staring at his reflection in the mirror, Xander asked himself, "How the heck did I ever end up here?"
His blonde female companion smiled viciously from behind him. "Because you're an idiot? A glutton for punishment? Best friends with a complete and utter nerd? Or maybe, all of the above?" Harmony Kendall asked, as she started adjusting her harem girl outfit.
( Bitch, ) Xander thought sullenly, but he couldn't deny that Miss Kendall definitely had a point. The popular crowd had been picking on his best friend Willow Rosenberg mercilessly lately, and his other best friend Buffy Summers couldn't always be there to stop it. So he had gone to Harmony in order to make a deal with her: in exchange for everyone to lay off tormenting Willow for a week, he would be the blonde cheerleader's slave for an equivalent amount of time.
"Nothing to say, Xandy-Wandy?" Harmony came up to him and mockingly put her chin on her shoulder. "Well, when I'm right, I'm right. Aren't I?"
"I believe our little bargain – which finally ends on Monday, thank God – doesn't actually require me to answer that question," Xander replied, turning around and fighting to keep ahold of his temper. "The deal was that I would carry your bags, open doors for you and keep a lookout while you were smoking in the girls' bathroom, not engage in the whole conversation-slash-insult contest thing."
Harmony glared at him, but at that moment Cordelia Chase came into her bedroom. This was her house, and both Xander and Harmony were here only on her say-so; Harmony, because she was Cordy's best friend, and Xander, because Queen C respected the lengths he was willing to go to in order to help a friend – even if she would never publicly admit that.
Xander's eyes went wide at the leopard-like cat costume Cordelia was wearing, because even if she was just as much a social enemy as Harmony – to his eyes, the brunette girl looked pretty darn hot in that outfit, what with the way it emphasised her cleavage. The blonde couldn't hold a candle to her, and as he glanced at Harmony, Harris couldn't help noticing the tell-tale look of jealousy momentarily appear on Miss Kendall's face.
( Oh yeah, there's a reason why that girl's number two on the social pecking order around here... ) he reflected to himself.
"Get out of my way, you loser! God," Cordelia huffed before pushing past him, wanting to check herself out in the mirror. "I probably never should have invited you over here in the first place-"
"Yeah, but if you'd done that, all you'd have heard from Harmony is that you look great. Instead of me telling you that your tail looks somewhat crooked," Xander pointed out.
Cordy yelped as she looked in the mirror, whirling around and trying to see if Xander was pulling her leg or not. "Is he telling the truth?" the cheerleader demanded of her second-in-command.
"Uh, I'm not sure," Harmony temporised. "Turn around again..."
"All you gotta do is straighten it a little," Xander said to Miss Chase, coming a bit closer. "You know, just put your hands on your hips and wiggle your ass a bit..."
Cordelia immediately looked at him furiously. "You're so very funny, I was just about to laugh, dweeb! If you think I'm gonna give you a free peep show like that, Harris, you're out of your teeny-weeny little mind!"
"Well, that's already obvious to everyone," Harmony piped up, ignoring Xander's look of surprise. "I mean, look at that costume! I told you to get something that would match with my harem girl outfit, but only YOU would think to dress up as the Genie from that movie 'Aladdin'!"
"Hey, the Genie was a totally happenin' dude!" Xander defended his choice of costume, which included some blue body paint and a fake beard from Ethan's Costume Shop. "He had like phenomenal cosmic powers, even if he was forced to live inside that little itty-bitty lamp!"
"Oh! That reminds me, Harmony, I got you this," Cordelia went over to bureau drawer and got out an oil lamp, which she tossed to her chief lieutenant. "If Xander doesn't behave, threaten to put him back in his lamp; or better yet hit him over the head with it – that'd be a lot more effective in my opinion."
Harmony laughed right on cue, even if Xander's only reply was a dirty look.
***
Somewhere on the streets of Sunnydale, California
Approximately two hours later
The chaos spell was cast, and a pulse of magic rocketed outward in all directions from Ethan Rayne's store. All across the Hellmouth, the power of Janus intruded into anyone wearing anything bought from Ethan's Costume Shop, turning those people into their costumes. In the case of Xander Harris an extra burst of magical power was needed, which nearly drained Ethan's life force; since it took a LOT out of anyone, even a mage of his strength, to create a real-life Aladdin's Genie.
Genie was confused as he glanced around, the moment after Xander's body exploded into blue smoke before reforming into its more mystical aspect. "Okay, where am I? Looks like I'm gonna need a hand here..."
And just like that, four extra arms spouted out of his body as the genie twisted around. "Yo, Al? Jasmine? Abu? Carpet? C'mon people! I'm even willing to settle for Iago here..."
"Xander?" Genie turned around to see a young blonde carrying his lamp on her hip, staring at him with her eyes practically bugging out of her head. "Is, is that you?"
Genie morphed into a parody of Sherlock Holmes, wearing a deerstalker hat and puffing on a pipe. "Xander, eh? Never heard of the chap. I suspect the game is afoot, Watson! Tell me more, hmm?"
"This is not happening. This is NOT happening!!" Harmony muttered to herself, averting her eyes and burying herself in Sunnydale denial syndrome. It was either that or go completely crazy from having all her illusions shattered, after all.
Genie then turned himself into a Roman philosopher wearing a toga. "An interesting viewpoint, my dear. But let me ask you this: if a tree were to fall in the forest and no one was there to witness it, did the tree actually fall?"
"BE QUIET!!" Harmony screamed, grabbing at her lamp and appearing ready to strike Genie over the head with it.
"Is that your first wish?" Genie suddenly quit the comedy routine and resumed his Arabian Knights outfit, which Xander had been wearing earlier on. He didn't know how this person had gotten the lamp from Aladdin, but rules were rules and he had to follow them.
"Huh?" Harmony demanded.
Genie looked around, but there was no supernatural activity around here – unlike just about everywhere else in Sunnydale at the moment – so he got down to the nitty-gritty. He took a minute to explain to the blonde bimbo that she now had three wishes he would grant, insofar as he was bound by three cosmic laws he couldn't break: one, he couldn't kill anybody; two, he couldn't make people fall in love; and three, he couldn't revive the dead. Anything else was fair game, apart from being able to wish for more wishes.
"Are you serious?" Harmony demanded, just when a horde of mini-demons came around the corner and headed straight for the ditzy blonde. She screamed when she saw them, and immediately commanded, "Okay, okay! Take me home! Make everything go back to normal! And, and make me the most popular girl instead of Cordelia!!"
Genie snapped his fingers, glad to be free of his servitude to Harmony so quickly. But something he wasn't expecting happened after granting the three wishes. Something very unexpected indeed.
The blonde girl showing up safe and sound within her home barely required any effort at all on Genie's part, and altering human perception to make Harmony the queen bee of Sunnydale High wasn't too hard either. But trying to counter the chaos magic which was the core of his existence was like plunging a knife into his own heart.
Genie screamed in pain as he granted the third wish – before retreating deep within his lamp to sleep and recover from his ordeal. ( Oh man, that HURT! )
This in turn meant that Xander Harris was now trapped in the immortal form of a genie...
***
Sunnydale High School Library, Sunnydale, California
November 3rd, 1997
"Where the heck is Xander?" Willow asked, looking very worried. She was present in the library along with Buffy and her Watcher Rupert Giles, and the absent member of the core four was the topic of discussion. "His parents said they haven't seen him ever since he left to go out trick-or-treating; Buffy, I'm really starting to get worried!"
"So am I," Miss Summers nodded her head. "I'm also kinda worried about what happened on Friday night. Giles, what do we know there?"
"You mean that, that business with people turning into their Halloween costumes for a few moments, including yourself and Willow?" Giles asked with a helpless look on his face. "As I told you before, Buffy, I-I-I have no idea what happened. Most likely, it was some sort of spell by a neophyte practitioner which accidentally went wrong, a-and whoever was responsible undid it as soon as they realized what had happened. So our, our focus should be more on locating Xander, don't you think?"
With a shrug, Miss Summers conceded the point. But at that moment, Cordelia came storming into the library with the force of a hurricane. She looked very unhappy, and that was putting it mildly.
"All right, what kind of magical mystical screw-up has happened around here this time?!" she demanded in no uncertain terms.
"We don't know, Cordy. That thing on Friday night-" Willow started to say.
"Who cares what happened on Friday night? I'm talking about right now, TODAY!" Cordy screeched. "What's the matter with you people? Haven't you noticed anything weird on campus since this morning? Suddenly, I'm being treated like last month's news, and everyone's treating Harmony like she's the Second Coming or whatever!"
"I, I beg your pardon?" Giles asked, once again teetering on the precipice of the generation gap.
"Look, Cordelia, popularity contests aren't exactly high on my list of things to investigate right now. Xander's missing, and that's gotta be my priority," Buffy said firmly. "So if there's nothing else-"
"Xander's disappeared?" Cordelia asked, and Willow was astounded to see a smidgen of concern on her face. "This is Sunnydale. You think he got killed by a vampire or something?"
"Yes, that's exactly the most appalling thing you could have said," Giles interjected with a sigh, after seeing Willow and Buffy's upset faces. "Have you, um, ever even heard of the word 'tact'?"
"Tact is just people saying stuff that isn't true. I'll pass," Cordy said forcefully. "So when's the last time anyone saw him? Myself, it was on Friday night before he left my house with Harmony."
"Why was Xander at your house with Harmony?" Buffy looked like she didn't get it.
"You mean, that he didn't tell you what he decided to do for a week? Huh," Cordelia said contemplatively, suddenly figuring that these people didn't actually know Harris as well as they thought they did. "Well, whaddya know..."
"What are you talking about?" Willow demanded, getting a funny feeling about the topic of conversation.
"If Xander hasn't told you, then that's his business," Cordelia said abruptly. "But he and Harmony were hanging out together for a week, suddenly he disappears and Harmony's the most popular girl in school? Something's definitely wrong here..."
The Watcher got it at the same time the Slayer and the computer hacker did. Giles said slowly, "I, I think I see where you're going with this...you're thinking that the two events might be connected somehow? Yes, I think we need to have a talk with Miss Kendall at once. Buffy-?"
"On it!" Miss Summers was already up and heading for the door. A short while later, she hauled a reluctant and protesting Queen H through the doors. "Hey, get your freakishly strong hands off of me!" Harmony ordered the vampire Slayer, but to no avail.
Willow looked around to make sure Giles had hidden himself in his private office, as a member of the teaching faculty he couldn't be present for the upcoming interrogation. The librarian would be running too great a risk of losing his job if Harmony blabbed to Principal Snyder afterwards.
Seeing he was safely out of sight, the redhead then said, "Where's Xander, Harmony?"
Harmony stopped struggling as she faced Buffy, Willow and Cordelia. The question was something she definitely preferred not to think about. "No idea. Now I'm leaving-" she began.
"You aren't going anywhere," Cordelia said with a vicious glare, one that automatically made Harmony cringe despite her new social status around here. "Start talking, Harm. What the hell have you done lately? And if you try to give me the run-around, I'm sure Buffy here knows lots of unpleasant ways to make you cough up with the truth – you've seen for yourself just how much upper-body strength she has. NOW SPILL!!"
The strength of that command was too much for the beta female to resist. "You're never gonna believe it, I sure as hell don't-"
"You'd be surprised just what I'd believe these days," Buffy interrupted. "Is it something to do with what happened on Halloween?'
"I...nothing happened on Halloween," Harmony said far too quickly. "I didn't see anything!" She quickly dug into her school bag, and dumped the oil lamp Cordelia had given her into Miss Chase's hands.
"I think this is yours, Cordelia. And if it still has any connection to that dork, Harris, I don't want to know about it!" So saying, Harmony turned tail and ran.
"What is that?" Buffy said, as she took it from Cordelia and examined it.
"A gag Halloween gift, y'know, because Xander dressed up as the genie from Aladdin for Halloween..." Cordelia said, before she noticed Buffy and Willow's eyes go wide. "What?"
"You don't think...?" Buffy breathed in disbelief, staring at her best friend.
"No. It couldn't be! But...what if it's true?" Willow asked timidly, her eyes wide at the implications.
"What if what's true?" Miss Chase demanded; she hated it whenever she was excluded from the gist of the conversation.
Buffy didn't answer. Instead she just rubbed the lamp – and then, not wholly to her surprise, blue smoke came out of the lamp and formed itself into Xander's normal, handsome features.
He rubbed his eyes and said, "Man, that was some dream! It feels like I slept for a week. Hey..." he looked around. "What am I doing in the library?"
"Oh boy..." the female trio looked at each other, wondering if they were the ones dreaming or not.
***
The Sunset Club, Sunnydale, California
November 5th, 1997
Buffy was trying to reason with her former friend Billy 'Ford' Fordham, even though she knew that she was most likely just wasting her breath.
It had been a wild couple of days. Not long after that conversation in the library, Giles had tried to come up with some way to turn Harris back to normal. But despite the Scooby Gang's intensive search through his collection of arcane volumes, there was nothing he could do; there was no spell or ritual available to undo the results of Ethan's chaos magic, and Xander couldn't turn himself back into the human he'd once been either.
Apparently, Alexander Lavelle Harris was stuck as a 17-year-old genie until the day he died...which would only happen if his lamp was ever destroyed. The self-pity party had lasted for a while, until the male teen realized that things could have been worse; for example, he could have been stuck forever inside the lamp, and go completely insane from the solitude factor.
Buffy had felt horrible about all that, granted. But she had also been stunned to know that she now had three wishes. As has been said, that was one of the rules the genie had to live by; whoever rubbed the lamp and summoned him forth, he was duty-bound to grant said wishes.
Disappointed to find out how Xander couldn't turn her undead boyfriend Angel human, Buffy had subsequently decided that her first wish was for her not to be the Slayer anymore. Which had sounded fine in theory, until her first fight with a female vampire had convinced Miss Summers to demand her powers back, a wish which Harris had readily granted.
"Ford, I am THIS close to completely snapping right now," Buffy finally snarled, since she was currently locked up in a former bomb shelter with her fifth grade crush and a bunch of fools who thought that vampires were 'exalted' creatures who were going to 'bless' them. The Slayer stared downstairs at the crowd for a moment and then added, "These people aren't gonna get turned, are they? They're just a free meal for Spike and his minions."
"Technically, yes," Ford nodded. "But I'm in. I'll become immortal."
"Yeah? I've got a big newsflash for you, brains trust: that's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop where you used to live. And it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you!" Buffy raged helplessly.
"It's better than nothing," Ford shrugged, not appearing to care about that.
"And your life is nothing?" Ford just snickered at her question, which automatically raised Buffy's blood pressure. "Ford, these people don't deserve to die!"
"Well, neither do I! But apparently no one took that into consideration, 'cause I'm still dying!" Ford suddenly shouted back at her.
Buffy began to realize what the situation was now. ( So, that's why he's doing this! )
"I still look good, don't I? Well, let me tell you something: I've got maybe six months left, and by then what they bury won't even LOOK like me. It'll be bald and shrivelled and it'll smell bad." For less than a moment, Billy Fordham looked furious at his lot in life, at the sheer injustice of it all, before he calmed down and looked Buffy right in the eye.
"No thanks, I'm not going out that way," Ford declared firmly in no uncertain terms.
Buffy turned away, but Ford just kept on going with the verbal attack, "Oh, I'm sorry, Summers. Did I screw up your righteous anger riff? Does the nest of tumours liquefying my brain kinda spoil the fun?"
Buffy just shook her head. "You'll never know just how sorry I am, Ford."
"I don't want your pity. These people?" He pointed downstairs to where his deluded followers were waiting for the so-called 'Exalted Ones'. "They're sheep. They wanna be vampires 'cause they're lonely, miserable or bored. Me, I don't have a choice."
The Slayer turned to face him again. "Were you always this stupid? See, I wasn't pitying you when I said I was sorry. Because you had a choice, Ford. You could have come clean with me right from the start and I could have fixed your brain cancer problem, just like that. But instead, you opted to go for mass murder." She shook her head in sadness and pain.
"XANDER!!" Buffy roared, summoning her genie for her last wish.
A cloud of blue smoke erupted out of thin air, reforming into Xander Harris. "You called?"
"What the-?" Ford gaped at the new arrival, this wasn't part of his plan at all.
"Lemme introduce you to a friend of mine, his name's Xander – he's a genie. As in Aladdin, the flying carpet and everything else," Buffy told the dying youth bluntly. "Like I said – I could have wished to give you your life back, Ford. The rules say he owes me three wishes, and I've already used two of them. I could have wished to save you – but instead, I'm going to have to save these morons from their own idiocy."
She turned to Xander, ignoring the priceless look on Ford's face. Buffy ordered the genie, "As soon as the vamp posse comes in here, wait long enough for the dumbasses to realize that they're all going to die before teleporting everyone to safety. Even him," Miss Summers noted as she indicated Ford with a nod of her head. "Because when everybody disappears I doubt Spike's gonna turn Ford into a vampire for services rendered, like he was planning on happening."
"As you wish." Xander glared harshly at Fordham, who he now considered a Vidkun Quisling or Benedict Arnold. Not for the first time, the genie lamented the fact that that no-killing-anyone rule from the movie applied to him, but there was nothing he or anyone else could do to change that.
***
Apartment B, 523 Oak Park Street, Sunnydale
March 1st, 1998
It had been many months since Billy Fordham had run away from Sunnydale with his tail between his legs, and just as a side note, he was now suffering the horrible terminal stages of his disease far away from the Hellmouth. But no one in the Scooby Gang cared about that, least of all Rupert Giles.
Ever since the nightmare of the sleepwalker demon named Eyghon, it had been just one thing after another where his Slayer was concerned: the Order of Taraka; the homicidal robot Ted Buchanan; the Bezoar demons; the Judge's arm; the werewolf named Oz; and last but not least – Angel becoming perfectly happy, and losing his soul.
Giles rubbed the oil lamp, which he had acquired from Buffy after she had used up her last wish. "Xander? We need to talk."
After the customary blue smoke vanished, Harris appeared before the Englishman. The genie glanced around at the apartment, which looked like a crime scene. "Giles? What the heck happened here?"
"Angel – or rather, Angelus, I should say," Giles looked and sounded like a hollow, broken man. "Jenny's dead."
"WHAT?"
Giles quickly explained how and why that soulless monster had killed the undercover gypsy woman, and Xander could easily fill in the rest for himself. The Englishman had used his services twice before; to banish Eyghon from Jenny Calendar's body, and to drop the Judge's arm into the mouth of an active volcano in South America.
Now, obviously, it was time for his last wish – revenge on Angelus.
"You know that you can't just wish for Dead Boy to become dust, my powers don't work that way," Xander reminded him.
"I haven't forgotten. No, all I want from you is the power to kill him myself. I don't care how you do it, just as long as I burn that bloody warehouse of his down to the ground – with him in it," Giles said, the anger starting to swallow him whole.
"Buffy can't do it, can she?" Xander asked slowly. "She still sees her boyfriend whenever she looks at that vampire. Am I wrong about that or what?"
"That's neither here nor there-"
"Oh, I beg to differ, G-man," Xander interrupted. He had acquired a lot from Genie's memories, including a greater understanding of human beings – the wishes were always either selfish or selfless in nature, after all. "Think about it: Buffy's gonna be mucho upset once she finds out what you've done.
"What WE'VE done, I should say," Xander amended himself slightly. "You're ready to deal with the consequences regarding that part of it, right?"
"You know what I want. Just give it to me. That's my third wish," Giles said through clenched teeth.
"Done," Xander said simply, as he snapped his fingers and Giles suddenly felt like he was being roasted alive.
He screamed loudly, but the pain quickly faded down to tolerable levels. "What have you...done to me?" the British man asked in a strangled voice, still feeling like he was in a sauna.
"You wanted to burn that place down? No problem. You're now a pyrokinetic, Giles," Xander shrugged. "A fire-starter. Snap your fingers."
The Watcher did so, and was rather startled to see a ball of flame burst into existence in his palm. "Bloody hell!"
"You should practice a bit with your new ability before you go after Angelus and his friends," Xander offered Giles some wise advice. "Learn how to aim and shoot properly, I mean. And just so you know, the power will be gone once your last wish is fulfilled."
"Right. Thank you," Rupert grunted, trying to decide where to go for some target practice and gathering up some weapons.
( No, Giles, don't thank me, ) Xander thought to himself as the Englishman left the apartment and he disappeared back inside his lamp. ( Because I'm pretty damn sure Willow and Buffy aren't gonna do that. In fact, I'm thinking they're going to be pissed at me for a VERY long time... )
***
The Bronze, Sunnydale, California
September 28th, 1998
Xander wasn't wrong; it had been over six months, and still both the Slayer and the apprentice witch weren't talking to him except when they had to.
Angelus, Spike, Dru and their minions hadn't stood a chance against the empowered Watcher that night. Once William the Bloody and the rest of the cannon fodder had been taken care of, a screaming Drusilla had been incinerated as she tried to run away. But Giles hadn't made it that quick for Angelus, oh no – he wanted the Irish-born vampire to suffer before he ended up ashes.
Just this once, the Scourge of Europe had been the prey and not the predator as he had run around the burning warehouse, desperately looking for a way out but not finding one before 'Ripper' had hunted him down and torched him.
Unable to take out her feelings on her Watcher – someone who Buffy had felt couldn't really be blamed for what he'd done – the Slayer had chosen Xander to bear the brunt of her anger instead. The screams and diatribes had lasted quite a long time, too, far longer than one might have reasonably expected.
Harris hadn't taken offence by it; he'd known that Miss Summers had to vent to someone, or otherwise go completely insane. He'd also known that she couldn't physically hurt him, genies simply weren't part of the Slayer job description. What HAD hurt were the accusations of jealousy, that he had led Giles down the garden path of revenge for his own petty desires.
Willow's accusations were even worse – that Xander had orchestrated the whole thing, that Giles had never asked for his fire-starter ability and had been forced to kill all the vampires in the warehouse. It simply couldn't sink into her brain that the genie was a slave, in every sense of the word; even after Giles had asserted that he had done everything out of his own free will, Willow still refused to believe that Xander hadn't been responsible somehow.
That was because the genie had some freedom of action, and was able to perform some acts without a wish. But Willow still couldn't believe that Xander was unable to affect anything concerning life and death, and the young woman had developed serious trust issues ever since the whole genie upgrade; she simply wasn't happy with the fact that the boy she'd been crushing on ever since kindergarten now had so much god-like power at his disposal – and that she didn't.
So apart from making her own wishes regarding der Kindestod, the Sunnydale High poltergeist and the swim team fish monsters, Miss Rosenberg had cut Xander out of her life completely after moving on to her boyfriend named Oz.
Just then, the genie's supernatural senses tingled, and Xander turned to the front of the nightclub. A brunette girl roughly his own age had entered the establishment, and to his eyes, she was an absolute knockout. Long, smooth legs, luscious curves in all the right places, and that face – perfect mix of angel and devil, plus full red lips that seemed to just reel him in...
( Whoa! Down, boy, ) Xander thought to himself, shaking himself free of his inappropriate lusty thoughts – he may have been a genie, but he was also still himself. ( Now this is why God created woman, and made her into a Slayer! If only I was still human... )
Xander didn't wonder why this girl was one of the Chosen crowd, and neither did he suspect that elsewhere the girl named Kendra had failed her Cruciamentum test recently; he only knew that an incredibly hot babe had just come into his life. And if he'd still been human, he might have gotten worried – because just when you feel that something's finally going right in your life, that's the time when something is about to go wrong instead.
***
The warehouse district, Sunnydale, California
February 10th, 1999
Faith Lehane was in full fight-or-flight mode, and as the vampires came at her, she threw herself into battle without even thinking about it.
Her life had gotten a whole lot better ever since coming to Sunnydale, there was no doubt about that. In Faith's book, meeting Xander Harris was also the best thing that had happened to her ever since her Watcher had been killed. The guy was a frickin' real-life genie, for crying out loud, and not too bad to look at either as far as the male gender went.
To fully initiate her into the Scooby Gang, Faith had been allowed to rub the magic lamp and obtain three wishes from Xander. It had been something of a shock to realize her sister Slayer and her friends really hadn't been kidding her about all that, but Miss Lehane had quickly gotten over it. It had been an old childhood dream to have a genie grant her three wishes, after all.
All things considered, the girl had used them wisely so far; the first had been to have enough power to kill Kakistos, the almost-invincible vampire out gunning for her. The second had been for Harris to banish Gwendolyn Post, the fake evil Watcher, into a hell dimension to stop her from killing everybody after she'd obtained the Glove of Myhneghon.
The Chosen One still had one more wish up her sleeve...
...and tonight was the night she was going to have to use it.
"FAITH, NO!" Buffy screamed, as Faith jumped in to stake the Deputy Mayor named Allan Finch, thinking that he was a vampire. But it was too late; the deed was done, and the human started to collapse to the ground, blood pouring out of his punctured, still-beating heart.
"XANDER! SAVE HIM!!" Faith screamed on instinct, as the genie showed up and granted her third wish – just in the nick of time.
And thus, Miss Lehane never spiralled down into a path of darkness, betrayal and hatred...
***
Sunnydale High School Library, Sunnydale, California
April 26th, 1999
Cordelia Chase knew that she was taking a risk in doing this, but she had no other choice. The 18-year-old girl was desperate, and desperate times called for desperate measures. So she rubbed Xander's lamp, and waited for the genie to appear.
After the customary blue smoke, Xander appeared before her. Instantly, a dark look appeared on his face as he saw who was present. The genie said to her, "Cordelia. Well, this is a surprise...okay, not really. I was actually expecting it a long time ago."
"Before you get all judgmental, just hear me out, you idiot!" Cordelia flung out the insult without even thinking about it, and then she did something that almost made Xander's jaw drop to the floor. "I'm...I'm sorry I called you that, I hope you'll forgive me?"
"Okay, who are you and what have you done with the real Cordelia? OW!" Harris then yelped, as the girl slapped him. "Okay, obviously this is the real you, and my world is no longer entirely out of kilter. Fine. Now, you said something about hearing you out before getting judgmental?"
Cordelia nodded, as she began to fight off tears. "I-I-I'm broke, Xander. As in no more money. At all! Anywhere! Everything's been taken away – even my horse Keanu. My clothes, my cell phone, my car, all of it – because Daddy's been cheating on his taxes. For the last twelve years, apparently. Now he's gonna go to jail, and my mom's practically in a coma. I, I can't stay at home anymore, 'cause we, we, we no longer have one. That's why I...I did this. I just – I didn't know what else to do!"
( Oh my God, I think she's serious! ) the genie thought to himself. "So. Wish number one is to get all your money back somehow, right?" Xander asked with a lot less antagonism than before.
"Your bet your genie ass it is!" Cordelia nodded furiously.
"Done," Xander told her after snapping his fingers. "Look in your right pants pocket. You'll find a winning lottery ticket, one that'll be worth roughly three hundred million dollars in about a week's time-"
"I don't think so."
Both mortal and genie turned around to see a tall, silver demon with spikes all over his body, who then grabbed Xander by the neck. "Hi there. Name's Skip," the demon mercenary said before he abruptly found himself holding nothing but smoke.
Xander re-materialized in front of Cordelia; the genie had instinctively acted to protect her against this intruder. "Hello yourself, you demon asshole. My name's Xander. Now beat it before we throw down, and your ass gets kicked into a brand-new shape – this is your first, last and only warning."
"No can do, boy. See, I know you can't kill me. Not to mention the Powers finally got off their asses and sent me here to kill you, which will undo all your wishes. And before you ask why? You've done too much damage to the destinies of too many people around here," Skip smirked, thinking that it was very ironic how he was being paid a freaking fortune to do this by his secret employer called 'Jasmine'.
"What are you talking about?" Cordelia demanded. ( Oh, right, the lamp! He wants to destroy it – hey wait a minute, this guy wants me to be POOR!? That's it, I oughta wish for Slayer powers to personally do a bit of demon-slaying on his ass! )
"Funny thing, doll face – but you've got one heck of a destiny in store for you, and if you don't go to LA like you're supposed to...well, it'll be bad. Trust me on that," Skip said in her general direction.
"Really?" Xander riposted. "Now, why should she do that? You think I didn't know about the Powers That Be, and their messenger boy Whistler? He tried to recruit me, kinda like he did Angel back in the day. That idiot balance demon mentioned how Los Angeles is gonna need a Champion, since Dead Boy's not around anymore – but in my opinion, a liar like you obviously isn't what he had in mind..."
Skip roared and reached forward for the lamp, intending to demolish it. But Xander teleported Cordelia away, leaving Skip grasping thin air. The demon briefly looked ridiculous before he straightened up.
"Where is she?" the mercenary demon demanded, as he stared around in disbelief.
"Would you believe, right behind you?"
Skip whirled around, only to see a Slayer-shaped fist heading for right between his eyes. Reeling back, he bumped into Xander who took the opportunity to rip off one of Skip's spikes and toss it to Faith, before he shoved the howling silver demon forward.
The spike crashed right through Skip's left eye, piercing his brain and killing him instantly.
***
Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale, California
May 21st, 1999
"Okay, I wasn't expecting this..." Xander muttered to himself, as he saw the keynote speaker for the graduation ceremony – Mayor Richard Wilkins the Third – become a huge, sixty-foot-long demon snake.
"DO something, Xander! Stop him before he kills anybody!" Cordelia utilised her second wish, as she very correctly suspected that this was right time to use it.
Xander looked around, and saw that there were vampires coming out now that the scheduled solar eclipse had begun. Obviously, the Scooby Gang had been caught flat-footed about this year's annual apocalypse; unfortunately, the Deputy Mayor Allan Finch hadn't been able to tell them much before he'd hightailed it out of town that night.
"Go tell Buffy and Faith to handle the vamp situation!" Xander ordered the female teen.
Miss Chase ran off amidst the screaming students. As Xander studied the problem, he knew the first step had to be fight fire with fire; so, he too assumed the form of the pure demon known as Olvikan, and engaged the transformed Mayor of Sunnydale.
Hamstrung by his inability to kill, Xander could only wind his demon body around the Mayor's as the evil creature went on the attack. The two whale-sized demons quickly started rolling around on the ground, and there was a great deal of destruction to the school property as Wilkins and his assailant rose up and crashed down, again and again and again.
Crunch! There went the north wing. Smash! There went the south wing. The science labs, the gym, the swimming pool – all gone with a thunderous roar. The two demon bodies then heaved up, before coming down one last time – and the Mayor, terribly weakened by his injuries and his failure to feed on his human smorgasbord in time, screamed incoherently, twitched once and then lay still.
The second pure demon body dissolved into blue smoke, before Xander Harris reformed his human self amongst the Scooby Gang. He moaned, "Oh man, that really hurt..."
That was all he had time to say before Cordelia, Faith and even Buffy and Willow threw themselves at him and they all engaged in a gigantic group hug.
***
Outside No. 4 Parkview Crescent, Sunnydale, California
Later that night
"So, Cordelia. You've still got one wish left. What'll it be?" Xander asked, as he, Faith and the Chase girl stood outside the manor.
"This is where it all began, Faith," Miss Chase said to the Slayer, apparently ignoring Harris completely. "This is where Xander, Harmony and I dressed up for Halloween about eighteen months ago, the night he got turned into a genie."
"I'd say cool, but that'd be a lie," Miss Lehane nodded her head.
"I think back, y'know, and I can't help wondering how everything might have turned out if Harmony hadn't been such a complete bitch to Willow the previous week," Cordelia mused.
"Well, my opinion, we'd all be dead right now; gobbled up by a huge-ass snake demon," Faith commented sarcastically. "That thing was pure evil, even just looking at it."
"Hey!" Xander commented at once, taking that as a slur against himself. "I'm standing right here!"
"Yeah, so you are. What do you think we should do with him?" Cordelia asked her new friend.
"Well, from what I hear New York City has a big demon and vamp population that needs to be taken care of, and I'm sure Wesley the wimp is gonna follow me there," Faith grimaced at the thought of her nominal Watcher. "That means I could do with having the Xan-genie around to keep him in line..."
"What?" Xander looked clueless about where this conversation was going.
"You want for us to be roomies for awhile? I was planning on moving into a place in Long Island," the rich girl informed the Chosen One.
"Now that sounds cool," Faith nodded. "Alright, deal."
"What are you guys talking about?" Harris demanded, looking from one female to the other.
"Okay, for the hopelessly dumb one around here? I'm not gonna use my last wish, Xander – ever," Cordelia informed him.
"But, but if you don't, that means..." Harris looked flabbergasted.
"You get to experience a lifetime alongside me and Faith before having to deal with the whole genie thing again. And just so you know? I don't care if Giles was never able to discover anything to help you become human again; he's not the all-knowing big guru guy. If there's any way to get you your life back, we'll find it in the big city," Miss Chase said simply.
"Oh! Thanks...but, but – what about Buffy and Willow? You want me to leave them, just when things are finally getting good between us again?" Xander demanded.
Faith rolled her eyes and rapped her knuckles on his head. "Genie, remember? You can instantly pop in to visit them any time you like!"
"Well, yeah, there is that..." Xander had to admit sheepishly.
Thus, the plan was soon settled. The arrangements were made, the farewell party took place, and when it was time to depart the Hellmouth?
The Genie Express, namely a real-life flying carpet containing two girls and a guy, was certainly a sight for the Scooby Gang to see.
***
Next: Story 19 - The Last Action Xander