Early one morning, while leaning upon the railing of the scenic overlook, Xander Harris admired the majestic panorama of the Tennessee Pass on Route 24 in the Rocky Mountains, with these peaks looming all around the only person presently at the viewpoint. Ignoring the thin air of his stop, which was over two miles in altitude, the young man continued to enjoy how his road trip had brought him all the way here from California. Eventually, a protesting grumble from his stomach reminded Xander that he should get back into his Jeep and find a place to eat in the Colorado town that had to be just ahead down the road, judging by the city limits sign a hundred feet back from the place where he'd pulled over.

Standing upright and beginning to turn around, Xander froze in mid-spin, right foot held a couple of inches off the ground, as an all-too-familiar shimmer of white light appeared over his body. With a strong feeling of dread, Xander put down his foot while hastily glancing at the front of his newest form, only to breathe a sigh of pure relief at seeing this time, he was a guy. With serious muscles, too. *Okay, red costume and blue cape. Who dressed like that in the Legion of Super-Heroes- It can't be him!*

A wild look of delight appearing on his changed features, the young man in his latest manifestation of a DC Comics character dashed over to his car, where he admired his reflection in the passenger's side window. Cackling with glee, Xander whooped, "Hot damn! Mon-El himself!"

He'd been through this often enough so that Xander wasn't too freaked out at seeing a wide grin on a totally different face that beamed back at him from the window glass. Striking a heroic pose just for the sheer hell of it, Xander mused out loud, "The guy who was a match for Superboy, having all the superpowers but without any weakness to kryptonite! Any kind of that glowing stuff - green, red, blue, gold, silver, jewel, chartreuse, good ol' Mon-El could toss this into the general direction of Pluto without feeling the teensiest twinge!"

Tilting his head while he continued to study his reflection, Xander watched a faint frown of concern appear on the handsome countenance there, as the Sunnydale native realized from how the Chaos magic from Halloween possessing him was feeling, it was going to be one of his shortest manifestations, not much more than another minute or so, if that.

"What a waste," grumbled Xander. "It would've been really nice to fly back to my hometown a thousand miles away in just a couple of seconds and then wipe out every hostile demon there. Especially since I don't think that magic affected Mon-El, unlike Superboy." His brow wrinkling in thought, Xander continued to speak to himself. "Or, did it? I'm not really sure, so okay, maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to go up against anyone with serious mojo back at the Hellmouth." Looking unseeingly off into the splendid scenery, the man dressed in the colorful costume mused, "Say, what was my - his - weakness, anyway?"

After a few more moments of unsuccessful recollection, Xander shook himself, as he became conscious that he was wasting valuable time. "Okay, no flying - dammit! - 'cause you might switch back in mid-air. How about superstrength? I think I can hit the mountain a dozen miles across this valley-"

Grinning in glee at the prospect of using his new powers, Xander bent down to pick up a small rock, and turning to eye the peak he'd just selected as his target, the young man brought back his arm and then Mon-El threw the rock with all the force he could manage with his muscles.

It was pretty impressive how far the stone went, maybe a hundred feet away, until it plunged down out of sight into the valley below. Staring in disbelief at his failed attempt, Xander also immediately felt an agonized complaint from his overstressed right arm and shoulder, yelping in pain as he grabbed at this aching limb.

Bewilderedly rubbing his arm, Xander warily eyed the ground at this feet for another rock, to then bend down and pick up with his left hand an example of this minor geological feature the same size and weight of the last one. Examining this closely, the young man found nothing strange about the stone, until he clenched his fingers around the small piece of granite, expecting to reduce it to dust at once.

Nothing happened. Grimacing as he increased the pressure of his left hand, Xander at last admitted defeat while wincing at the resulting soreness of his fingers when he grudgingly let go of the stone, which dropped to the ground and bounced away, totally intact.

Xander frantically tried everything else, to no avail. Superspeed, heat and x-ray vision, even flying (despite what he'd said earlier) - none of those worked, either.

In the middle of his final attempt at getting further than a few inches off the ground than hopping up and down took him, Xander had the accustomed shimmer of white light cover his form and then vanish. He irritably glanced over at his car to see there in the window reflection his usual face and body, with the latter dressed in everyday jeans, boots, and a 'Dingoes Ate My Baby' t-shirt.

For the next couple of minutes, Xander turned the air blue with an uninterrupted streak of profanity. Stomping around in a circle while cussing, Xander balefully eyed everything in his vicinity, until his gaze lit upon his car, whereupon he stalked forward to give the right rear tire of his Jeep a good kick. Finally getting himself under control, the young man gritted to himself, "That shouldn't have happened!"

Pausing as he thought it over, Xander had to agree with what he'd just said. Scratching his head in puzzlement, the high-school graduate on his road trip muttered, "Every other time when the Chaos magic I got by accident at Ethan's the day after Halloween manifested itself, even if my powers were wonky or less than what any member of the Legion of Super-Heroes really had, I could still use them or feel them there! So, why not this time?"

Beginning to pace back and forth, the worried survivor of a lifetime spent on the Boca del Infierno tried to think it through. "Could the Chaos magic in me be wearing off? Nah, it felt the same like always. So, what else? Maybe Mon-El couldn't use his powers because his vulnerability to lead prevented this? Oh, yeah, that's what his weakness was - but it doesn't make sense, either! It's not like anybody was shooting at me with lead bullets or whatever when I was trying to use his pow-"

Coming to a dead halt in everything - his monologue, his pacing, his very train of thought - Xander stood there utterly motionless for a full minute, his eyes squeezed shut in absolute exasperation. At last re-opening his eyelids, which revealed a truly evil glower, the young man moved again, this time stalking away from his car down the road to the street sign placed a hundred feet away at the side of Route 24 Going around to stand in front of the sign, Xander kept his glance lowered until he got his incensed breathing under control. Finally, the recipient of Ethan Rayne's last joke upon the town of Sunnydale looked up to read what was on the city limits sign:

WELCOME TO LEADVILLE, CO.

ALT. 10,152 FT.

Ignoring the merest speck of organic flesh in their midst, the imposing mountains paid no attention to the furious shouts ringing throughout the pass: "Are you having fun? Yes, you are, you Chaos magic little bastard! I'm telling you, it doesn't matter where you hide in me, one of these days I'm gonna get my hands on you! All I need from you for the rest of my road trip is for you to start saying 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' AAARRRGGGGHHHH!"