Spark of Genius
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy verse, girl genius verse, DC comics or any of that, so give it a rest.
AN: I've been having fun writing, so I'm just going to keep going on my stories whenever I'm in the mood to write on that one. I hope people enjoyed the last chapter, more madcap adventures are right around the bend.
'Thought'
"Speech"
Chapter 6: Moving to New Adventures
"I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula and Superman away"
~ Jack Handy
Creating devices while asleep can be a mixed blessing. The benefits are obviously that you can get more work done while still gaining the rest that your body requests. The downside is waking up drooling on your workbench with the imprint of wire mesh on your forehead, that and not knowing what the hell it is that you created.
Xander smacked his lips and rubbed his face, trying to wipe off the gridlines on his forehead from where his head had been resting on the table. Rubbing his eyes, he looked down to see that there was some sort of giant horseshoe magnet attached to a handheld global positioning satellite (GPS) device, a satellite dish antenna poked out of the top, but the antenna had a Jacob's ladder of electrical current running up its length with a snapping sound at the end.
"What the hell?" Xander asked as he looked down at the device, trying to figure out what exactly it was that he had created. Pressing the power button, the screen flashed on, and a topographical map was soon shown, with a red blip close to the center of the displayed map. Words on the screen informed Xander that he should tap the target that he wanted to search for.
Tapping the red light on the screen, a female voice with an English accent stated, "Target acquired, please turn left."
Xander quickly looked over his right shoulder to try and figure out where he should be going.
"Please turn your other left," the female voice directed, still in its proper English direction.
Xander shrugged, and turned to his left.
"Please take ten normal steps forward," The voice commanded from the device.
Xander complied and then looked back over his left shoulder at the device, awaiting the next instruction.
"Please take a sharp right turn, and immediately step forward." The directional device again commanded.
Xander, still looking over his left shoulder at the device, did a fast turn and step to the right, and ended up impacting his nose and forehead solidly into the metal arm of his still bulls-eye bedecked robot HITME.
"Son of A Newton's Apple!" Xander cursed as his head bounced off the robot's arm, his hands immediately going up to cup his nose. A brief string of tears trickled out of his eyes, and he had to blink for a second so that he could see clearly again.
"Holy Saturn's rings Batman, that hurt!" Xander cursed as he rubbed his face to try and get rid of the sting from colliding with the metal.
"You have now arrived at your destination, thank you for using the 'Nth Direction', your handy guide to locating Nth Metal. Have a good day, good bye now." The voice female politely stated before the closing music for Microsoft Windows played and the device powered itself down.
Xander blinked his eyes a few times to finish clearing the tears, and he felt his nose to make sure it wasn't broken. As his vision cleared he saw that the tray that had collected the shard of Nth Metal from Hawkgirl's mace was in front of him. Leaning forward, he pressed a tiny button on the robot's arm, and the collection tray smoothly slid out to him.
Xander picked up the slight moon shaped sliver of the metal and smiled to himself. He had his Nth Metal to test, he had his tracking device.
Detaching the collection tray from the robot's arm, Xander dropped the sliver of Nth Metal back into the tray and then carried it over to his work table.
Xander laid the tray down on his work table next to his cobbled together electron microscope, which relied heavily on duct tape, and grabbed a pair of almost opaque work goggles. Flipping switches, aiming devices, pointing lamps, Xander flipped the switch to power up his analysis table.
Clapping his hands together, Xander grinned to himself and cracked his knuckles.
"Let the fun begin," he said to a smile, as he delved into analyzing the metal. The ominous hum of the machines, the cracking of sparks, and the random chuckle from Xander were the only sounds to be heard for the next six hours.
The bells chimed as Xander exited the 'Greater Planes Psychic & Occult Store' located in a dingy street in downtown Metropolis. The old man who ran the place had given Xander the creeps, but the visit to the store had been profitable in multiple ways.
Though Xander had been able to ascertain that the Nth Metal was significantly denser and harder to work with than steel, its alternate characteristics had taken a bit of time to figure out. For instance, when putting a slight charge through the metal, along with a harmonized frequency of vibrations, the metal had exhibited lighter than air, or anti-gravity capabilities. The tensile strength and durability of the metal was everything Xander could have wanted from it, however he had been unable to analyze on his own whether the metal truly reflected magical interference. That's where the old voodoo priest who ran the occult store had come in handy.
Xander had brought the shard wrapped in a piece of cloth he had ripped off of the red silk blanket from Zatanna; waste not want not had been his thinking at the time that he stuck the cloth in his coat pocket. The old man/priest had been impressed with Xander's small sample due to the fact that the metal refused to be charmed or distorted by any of the cantrips or enchantments that the old man had attempted to cast on the fragment.
When the old man had announced his inability to charm the metal, Xander had done a little snoopy dance right there in the middle of the story; he was careful to avoid knocking over the display of shrunken heads and dark idol statutes. Xander had been so happy in fact that he decided that if he was at the store, that it was best that he gain some more detailed knowledge on the more mystical elements and figures of this universe. So happy that he emptied out the cash in his wallet purchasing several old tomes on vampires and undead from the old man, a new edition of Tobin's Spirit Guide, and a blessing on the silver cross that Xander had been gifted by Willow shortly after they learned that the things that went bump in the Sunnydale night were real and left really big bumps.
Xander was so happy with the outcome of the metal and his purchases that he left with a whistle, totally forgetting to ask the old man about any good Jamaican food restaurants that he should go to in the area. Taking a few steps away from the store and down the street, Xander remembered about wanting to ask about the restaurant he should go to.
Turning around to return to the store, Xander was surprised to find himself facing a burned down building, condemnation paper and police tape stretching across the charred remains.
"Um, uh, seriously wigged out here." Xander said to himself as he slowly backed away from the store, not turning his back on it until he got to the curb at the corner of the street. At that point he turned and sprinted away from where the store should have been, back to his again blue and red painted semi truck, aka Optimus.
As Xander jumped into the truck and told Optimus to "Hit it! Get out of here now!" Xander reminded himself that this was another example of why he hated magic, and why magic seemed to like to mess with him.
As Xander drove away, he swore he heard the laugh of the old man breeze by on the wind outside the truck's window.
That only made Xander drive faster.
Three days later, it was all over the news, and boy was Hawkgirl going to be ticked off. It must have been a slow day for the news, because the Hawkgirl fight over the Ohio cornfields was on every channel.
Ok, so maybe the fight in itself was pretty interesting itself, and the fact that robot was cracking jokes and being zany the entire time added to its repeat watching value. But Hawkgirl in a wet white T-shirt, totally nipping out for the entire world to see? The news stations were in a devoted frenzy of producers, commentators, reporters, and special interests reporters that was like a bus of starving kids being released in a fudge factory after being released from a week at "fat camp"; they simply couldn't get enough of it. Add to that the details released by the news stations that the tape had been sent in to them by the reclusive playboy of Gotham, Bruce Wayne, and this was the story of the year. It had everything, celebrities, heroes, battles, hot half naked women straining on film, and that was before the interviews…
Xander was laughing his head off, only muffled by his mouth full of Twinkies and his slurps of coffee as he watched the reporters' interviews catch the heroes totally unprepared.
"Mr. Wayne! Mr. Wayne! May we have a second of your time?" the reporter on the screen yelled as the screen showed Bruce Wayne getting out of a luxury stretch Rolls Royce that had just pulled up in front of a charity ball (the night before the video was release).
"Sure, I'll give you a moment. I suppose you'd like to talk about what the charity is being supported tonight?" Bruce Wayne replied with a debonair smile.
"No. What our viewers want to know is what is your relationship with Hawkgirl and how did you get the half naked video of her fighting the robot? Is it true that she is bearing your love child? What does the Green Lantern think of you filming his alleged girlfriend while she was half naked, and are you responsible for the robot that attacked her?" the reporter rapid fired questions at Bruce.
"…." Bruce Wayne was speechless. The perfect smile was still pasted on his face, but every person watching the interview at home could tell that the lights were on, but nobody was home.
It took a few seconds, and then Wayne's only response was, "What?"
A seriously incredulous look came across Wayne's normally perfectly quaffed and rugged face.
The repeat of the question by the reporter was drowned out by the other reporters smelling blood in the water and moving in for the kill, yelling all sorts of questions at the billionaire playboy; a playboy who could be seen to be frowning and holding out his hand to block the camera as he stated, "no comment."
Xander almost fell off his seat laughing as he watched the interplay. He'd actually helped stump Batman! Xander was thrilled. Sure, this was Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne, but Xander knew that Bruce Wayne was only the mask that Batman wore.
The interview with John Stewart, the Green Lantern, wasn't nearly as much fun; what with his simple scowl and response of "no comment." However, watching the screen go fuzzy as Hawkgirl attacked the camera with her mace, now that was priceless.
Just as Xander watched an uncensored version of the video play on one of those entertainment celebrity TV shows, the sound of an old fashioned telephone ringing sounded through the warehouse. The only problem was that Xander didn't have a phone.
Xander's eyes went large and round. He immediately jumped out of his chair and started yelling to his clanks.
"Achtung! All stop! Run Silent, Run Deep!" Xander yelled as he dived towards his work bench and immediately threw a large lead lined sheet over the analysis equipment. Xander hit a big red button that killed power to the entire warehouse, and then dived under the blanket covered workbench.
Clanks scurried every which direction, as hatches were opened in the walls and floors and robots dived into them. Number 5 and Number 6 backed into openings under a large section of hull platting from a tanker ship and pulled a hinged lead trap door with a layer of simulated debris over their opening to their hiding place.
Fortunately for Xander both Optimus and HITME, now dubbed and remodeled/painted to look like Starscream from the old transformers cartoon, were out on errands for Xander. Xander had made sure that Starscream didn't have the same voice or behavioral patterns as the cartoon character; that was one problem he didn't want to have to deal with. Besides, he had a bigger problem to deal with at the moment.
Superman was about to fly over the junkyard.
Xander didn't know if the Justice League's Watch Tower orbital station had tracked Starscream back to Metropolis from the fight, or if Superman was just doing a sweep of the outskirts of the city. If it was the first, then Xander was pretty sure that he would have been overwhelmed by heroes right after the fight. Either way, Superman's ability to see through anything less dense than lead was something that Xander didn't want to have to deal with, especially since his robot had just beat the crap out of Hawkgirl on national television.
That was why he had rigged up the radar to pick up any flying object larger than a bird, but smaller than a small plane. Chances were that if it wasn't a bird, and it wasn't a plane, then it was Superman.
The phone alarm hooked up to the radar went on to ring one more time, and then stopped, leaving the entire warehouse in silence; only the sound of the wind issuing through the cracks in the warehouse could be heard.
It was Xander's thinking that Superman probably only focused in on sounds like voices or screams for help or perhaps bank alarms going off. Every day sounds such as telephone rings, TVs, honking horns, and the regular clanging and pounding of everyday life would be tuned out by the Man of Steel and his super hearing ability; at least Xander hoped so.
A few seconds later, Xander's camouflage was put to the test as a whistling sound flew over the warehouse, the sound of a cape flapping in the air could be heard as the breeze of the flight caused it to snap and pop in the wind.
Xander held his breath as he listened to the sound passing overhead.
The sound slowly faded into the distance.
At the one minute mark, the phone rang again, and Xander let out a sigh and began to breath normally again.
Crawling out from under the table, Xander pulled the lead blanket off of his equipment and reached over to flip the 'on' switch to the power. The hum of booting computers and refrigerator compressors returned with the flow of power.
"That was close," Xander said to himself as he looked around the warehouse. "I've come too far to be stopped now, and I refuse to be branded a villain in this universe." Xander stated. He walked over to one of the warehouse walls and banged his fist against it twice.
At the sound of the blows, the hatches throughout the warehouse popped open and disgorged the population of clanks and robots of all sizes that had been in hiding under the lead lined floor or in their hidden redoubts.
Xander walked over towards the screen that was once again showing the film of Hawkgirl getting blasted by cold water. He smiled resolutely and laid his hand on the screen as he thought for a minute.
The clanks slowly gathered around, hanging from the ceilings, on the tables and the floors, attached to the walls. They were waiting for what their creator and master was going to do next.
Xander pulled himself out of his introspection and looked around at his little friends. Then a large smile came across his face.
"Ok gang. We've done a good job here, and made a good start of things. However, it's time that we moved to safer pastures and found our self some Nth Metal along the way. You know what that means don't you?" Xander stated as he gazed upon his legion of little mechanical minions.
His smile turned ornery. "It means ROAD TRIP!" Xander shouted at the end. He immediately started firing off orders.
"Little clanks, pack up the equipment, parts, partial projects and valuables into the shipping containers." Xander ordered.
"Number 5, get on the radio and figure out when Optimus and Starscream are going to get back. Number 6, find me another two semi-tractors that I can mechanize like Optimus, and a few over the road trailers that are in serviceable order." Xander continued to direct his minions.
With that, Xander rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He had always dreamed of going on a road trip, and though this was under totally different circumstances than the one he had been looking forward to after his senior year. He was going to make the best of it.
The convoy of darkly tinted windowed trucks had been on the road for only about ten minutes when a distant 'thump' sound issued from the direction of Metropolis city behind them. Xander smiled to himself as the cell phone on his lap gave him a text message telling him that both of his little parting gifts to the city had gone up successfully.
Optimus and Starscream's errands had been very successful. Between the two robots, Xander had been able to acquire a nice supply of soap, diesel fuel, blocks of potassium, a ton of sugar, and enough fertilizer and sulfur to fill up a rancher's feedlot.
The thump that had just issued through the earth and air had been the destruction of the warehouse, blasting it into little tiny bits. After effectively pissing off Hawkgirl, the Green Lantern, and the notorious detective Batman, Xander hadn't wanted to leave behind any evidence of his time in junkyard; well, any evidence besides the seventy foot smoking crater and the rain of metal slivers that would continue for the next fifteen minutes. Besides, what red-blooded American male teenager didn't love big explosions?
It was really was true what they said; enough soap and you really could blow up anything. Though, the one ton fertilizer bomb hadn't hurt either.
That left the sulfur, potassium, and sugar. Well, right about now Superman, and Lex Luthor for that matter, would be busy trying to evacuate the Lex Corp towers. When combined and ignited, the rotten egg smelling sulfuric concoction of potassium and sugar would burn for a good hour, releasing a yellowish putrid smoke that would take months of cleaning and millions of dollars before the towers would be fit for living or working in.
Xander had merely wanted to show Lex Luthor what Xander thought of him, even if Luthor would probably end up blaming it all on Superman. The fact that Lex Luthor had always gotten away with his crimes had always bothered Xander when he read the comic books, and now it was his chance to stick it to the villain.
With a smile on his face, Xander drove Optimus off towards the north east out of Metropolis.
"In 300 miles, turn right at exit 42b for Gotham." The Nth Direction device told Xander in its polite feminine English voice.
"You heard the lady Optimus, let's get this convoy a' rolling." Xander smiled as he spoke to his truck.
The radio clicked on and stated, "Affirmative Xander prime." Then it clicked over to an oldies station.
Xander sang along to the radio, "On the road again. Just can't wait to get back on the road again…"
AN: A shorter chapter, but a good place to stop. There was a lot of information crammed into this chapter, but in many ways it was a necessary transition to the world at large. If Xander is going to do the adventures that I want him to, he's not going to be able to stay in Metropolis for the long hall. I Hope you enjoyed it. Happy Thanksgiving. (The next two chapters are written and waiting to be editted by the betareaders.*)