Spark of Genius

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy verse, Girl Genius verse, DC comics or any of the other smatterings of pop culture and literary ideas that I refer to in my story, I just tread through a few other sandboxes. Oh, and several names are made up, some are real, but the facts have been changed to protect the corrupt and innocent equally.

AN: More fun with Xander. Though he may be growing in strength and skills, so do his challenges. As an aside, have you ever noticed how Superman always gets knocked around a ton before winning the day? Or how much kryptonite actually made it to earth? Yeah, I always thought that was weird.

'Thought'

"Speech"

Chapter 20: Idle Hands

"Idle hands are the Devil's playthings." Unknown

The friendship between Black Adam and The Leviathan had been quickly cemented, not only by Xander's saving of Adam's family, but also because Xander immediately started trading with and working for the benefit of the Kahndaqi people.

Kahndaq had always been treated as a small unimportant country by the rest of the world. Made up of primarily liberal Sunni Muslims, the citizens of Kahndaq were primarily of Arabic decent and spoke the language of their neighbors, Jordon and Egypt, while at the same time clinging to their own ancient culture. The Middle Eastern country didn't have large amounts of oil so the western world had been content to allow the military dictatorship to tyrannically rule Kahndaq without challenge; the western powers only threw a fit when Black Adam took over the country. Because Kahndaq wasn't of any significant strategic value to the western powers militarily or economically, the world had been content to ignore it after making sure that Black Adam and his people couldn't attempt to attack any of their neighbors. Namely, 'unnamed' world powers had mined the hell out of the sandy and barren boarders of Kahndaq; creating large 'devil's gardens' of anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines of every conceivable size and shape, creating in effect a demilitarized zone inside the boarder of the entire country of Kahndaq.

Getting rid of the landmines Black Adam was something that Xander was perfectly situated to deal with, for though landmines are incredibly dangerous to humans, swarms of millions of miniature clanks were perfect for finding and digging up the landmines. So what if a few miniature clanks blew up while digging up the land mines? Almost the same amount of little clanks met a similar if not worse fate in Xander's laboratories every day, and Xander had left standing orders that all disabled or destroyed clanks were to have their parts salvaged and to be remade. Besides, Xander ended up gaining multiple tons of high explosives, waste not want not after all.

Still, this didn't really keep Xander busy, and it wasn't like Xander could stay in Kahndaq for long, fish and guest start to stink after three days after all, and it wasn't wise to piss off a guy who would tear off your arms and beat you with them. Thus Xander had connected Black Adam's chief bureaucrats with Igor and left the career minions to figure out the trade/smuggling details between the two countries. With that Xander went back to Romania. That had let to Xander's current situation, trying to keep busy.

Xander spent the first couple hours back in Romania after dealing with Oolong Island and Black Adam by taking a break with Tara and Dora, but wearing those two out left Xander with more time on his hands still. A bored Spark is a dangerous thing, which was truly shown by the fact that the next twenty four hours saw Xander working through the halls of Castle Bob installing more traps, sensors, and killing machines than could be found in all of the tombs and crypts in the Lara Croft and Indian Jones movies and video games combined.

After that, Xander again went back to dabbling in genetic monstrosities. What started as an attempt to shrink the population of pigeons around the fortress and of the squirrels that had infested the indoor forested gardens inside the castle proper became genetic monstrosities and added layers of defense. First, the lasers on the sharks were upgraded and Xander crossed electric eels with flying fish, then Xander went on to crossbreed the exoskeleton armor and pinching mandibles of stag beetles onto tree climbing leopards. What he ended up with was a moat full of aggressive sharks that liked to shoot pigeons out of the air, flying eels that had a nasty habit of electrocuting people who got too close to the moat and an internal garden with giant spotted meat eating armored beasts that thrived in the trees; but at least he had gotten rid of those pesky squirrels and pooping pigeons. Venus fly traps were cross bred with the tentacle monsters from Xander's chateau, and Xander even did a fair job of reproducing the sleep inducing poppies from the wizard of Oz; now if he could just figure out a way for the gardeners to be able to do their jobs without a gas mask and chainmail armor, he would be set.

Still, that had at least taken up Xander's waking hours for his first day back at his new home, and it was always nice to put those homey touches on one's castle. The real problem started to happen when Xander went to sleep, for when he woke up he found himself standing on top of his fortress with a newly created super magnet that was eerily labeled, 'The Moon Stealer.'

After making sure to unplug the subconsciously created dooms day device, Xander took several safe steps back while trying to convince his subconscious not to end the world while he was asleep. The only response he got from his inner voices was, 'Eh, we were bored, what else did you expect to happen?'

'Damn,' Xander thought, 'I really need to get a handle on my subconscious, but until I figure out how to do that, I'll just have to keep busy.'

With that thought Xander made his way back down into his megalithic fortress to find something to keep him busy. Apparently finding something to do was easy, for no sooner had Xander keyed himself through the seven different layers of security and traps at the rooftop door, and corresponding mantrap, but Igor was waiting for him.

"Sir, I've taken the time to put together the food projections and tallies on our supplies of imported goods, and we are experiencing shortages on several staples of life and the long term projections on food growth don't look good." Igor reported while handing over a computer panel to Xander before continuing to explain the situation, "It appears that the limited growth cycle of Romania and the fact that we are coming up on our first snow soon does not allow for us to grow enough food to sustain the Jägers. Where as we may have had enough food to feed three million elderly and invalids on their reduced dietary needs, the same number of fully healthy Jäger monsters and quadruple that in healthy citizens is taxing our stores. We gained a small benefit by killing off all violent criminals in the country but we are in need of the Master's help in finding a solution that will solve this." Igor completed, stoic faced and unruffled about the fact that he just reported that they would all starve if Xander didn't come up with a solution.

Xander quickly flipped through the electronic report, and he would groan or curse under his breath every so often. However when Xander got to the end of the report, his face turned a ghastly shade of white and his mouth opened in horror. "NOOOOOOO! This can't be! This is Horrible!" He spat, quickly double checking the figures on the report and cross referencing his finding.

"Yes sir, the general food problem is not good." Igor replied.

Xander blinked and looked up at Igor, having forgotten that Igor was right next to him due to the shock of what he had just read. Clearing his throat, Xander continued to read but also replied to Igor, "No, I was talking about the fact that the box of Twinkies I squashed was the last one in the entire country. Damn, the hostess gods really did send an omen telling me to destroy Oolong." Xander cursed.

His more rational part kicked in then, though Xander's more rational part wasn't the most rational in the world.

"The first stop gap solution that I can think of is to set up a smuggling ring." Xander said out loud while rubbing his chin. The voices in the back of Xander's head threw shouted pros and cons to multiple different solutions that were going through Xander's brain.

The voices in Xander head settled their arguments with a round of rock paper scissors, where fortunately the more rational voice won and they agreed on starting up shell companies to import goods via the transporter system and to use the new alliance with Kahndaq to bring in supplies.

Xander smiled to himself before turning to Igor, "That's what we will do. Igor, set up some shell companies to purchase grocer goods and the other things we need. Contact Kahndaq and see what goods we can purchase through them and offer to have our clanks fully rebuild all of their country's transportation and utility infrastructure in exchange. If we still need more, I believe we found some gold and treasures in the depths of the castle before we rebuilt it, correct?"

"Yes sir. We also found a great deal of wealth at the remnants of Arcane manor. Apparently the towns around the Arcane manor believed the place to be haunted. That was to be in my second report, the Jägers reported that they have fully killed all of the flesh golems called 'un-men' infesting the dilapidated warren that was Arcane manor and we have hired one of the local gypsy tribes to break any of the curses on the property or found on the items on the grounds. The same goes for the treasure pillaged from Vlad's vaults." Igor reported unblinkingly, though the stewards face did get a bit of maniacal glee in it as he described the slaughter of the un-men and the curses that had inhabited several of the items found by the Jägers; who would curse a toothbrush to give somebody diarrhea when they used it?

Xander was still deep in thought with multiple streams of consciousness running through his head, one of which was, 'Does Igor ever blink or crack an emotion other than maniacal glee? So it was that Xander didn't fully concentrate on what Igor had said about Arcane manor until a voice in the back of Xander's head yelled at him.

'Yo, Numb Nuts! Listen up, this isn't algebra class, Igor just said something important.' A snide voice of condescension shouted from the back of Xander's head.

Xander shook his head and looked back at Igor, "Wait, what did you just say? Did I hear you mention Arcane Manor and un-men?" Xander asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow at Igor.

"Yes sir, Arcane Manor is approximately one hundred kilometers from our current location. The Jägers cleared out an infestation of nasty little flesh golems with a propensity to eat human flesh. From the remains of the damaged library and an office that we found, the residence used to be owned by a Dr. Arcane who was apparently obsessed with the occult. The contents of his books and journals seem to describe his obsession with immortality, demonic forces and with a creature referred to as 'The Swamp Thing.'" Igor expanded on his earlier statement.

As Igor explained the situation to Xander, Xander's eyes started to gleam and Igor's earlier maniacal glee started to now show on Xander's face. An eerie light seemed to shine on Xander's face as if he was thinking crazy thoughts; which knowing Xander and his Spark was probably what he was doing.

"Bwa Ha ha ha ha ha Ha!" Xander bellowed at the ceiling, his head thrown back in laughter before he began to do a little Scooby dance. Without thinking about it, Xander picked up Igor and started waltzing around the hallway where they were standing.

A sudden flash of a camera and the voice of Bob the Castle saying, "Heh, blackmail photos, he he he." Snapped Xander out of it.

Xander blinked, and realize that he had picked Igor up off the ground and was currently dipping the startled hunchbacked steward as if they were doing the tango.

Xander blushed and quickly stood up while placing Igor firmly on the man's feet.

"Um, sorry about that, but your statement gave me an idea so good that I could have kissed you." Xander tried to explain with chagrin.

Igor merely looked back at Xander and raised an eyebrow. "If The Master has the urge to kiss or tango somebody, might I suggest he go and visit with Tara or Dora?" Igor questioned before turning and leaving Xander, not waiting for a response.

Xander yelled after Igor to start up the smuggling ring with the found gold, and Igor didn't reply as both Master and Minion knew that the other knew what to do; Xander's command was probably overkill as it was. As the head minion, Igor always knew what Xander wanted before Xander commanded it.

Xander remembered why he had gotten so excited, and the maniacal grin came across his face again. Yelling at the ceiling, Xander queried, "Bob! Which laboratory did we relegate the Nth Direction Device to?"

"Hey Xander, or should I call you 'twinkle toes?'" The voice of the fortress stated with humor, which now sounded like what Xander remembered Jesse's voice sounding like; a tribute to his dead friend whose interest in comic books had helped Xander have the knowledge to survive and thrive in this new dimension.

Xander shook off his chagrin as Bob the castle continued speaking, "It's down in sub-basement sixteen, laboratory twelve, right between the smelting and metal working facilities and near the secret passage that leads to the chemistry distillation center." The Fortress explained.

Xander smiled, before quickly taking off in a sprint, using The Flash's speed skills imparted through Xander's Amazo inspired nano-clanks; a little voice in the back of Xander's head made a mental note to see about expanding his nano-clank Amazo power collection in addition to Superman's strength and flight powers and The Flash's speed. More though Xander was focusing on the modifications that would need to be made to a device to point Xander to the solution to his Country's food problems, well that and on dodging the traps and trip-falls that the castle threw at Xander to keep Xander in shape.

Bob the Castle wasn't as set on giving Xander exercise like the Chateau was, but the Fortress had informed Xander that if Xander wasn't kept in shape, both Bob and Xander would never hear the end of it from their Aunt the Chateau.

Xander had dodged the last of the giant band saws that had popped up in his path after leaping over, under, or around the missiles, projectiles, and rabbits with 'mean streaks a mile long' that Bob had unleashed on him. Why Xander had imprinted Bob with the memories of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail Xander didn't know, but the fuzzy bunny rabbit that ate humans like celery was downright frightening.

Fortunately for Xander, he made it safely to the confines of his distillery laboratory and knew he was safe. The rule was no attacking Xander while he was working on his experiments, while a crisis was going on, while Xander was 'entertaining' ladies, or after his daily exercise regimen was completed. Slowing down, Xander entered the distillery room that was now swarming with chemists, botanists, alchemists, poisoners and doctors. Xander's education system had enabled him to fully staff up his many different research and development branches, and the chemical distillery was just one of the areas of the fortress that was swarming with working citizens/minions.

The distillery wasn't merely a small room with the 'Mr. Perfect Coffee Engine' that Xander had originally used to get in touch with his inner Heterodyne and internal personalities. No, now giant thirty foot tall hoppers and stills dotted the room with work benches, centrifuges and chemistry hoods making up a portion of the large room while the walls were covered in glassed in rooms with hazard suit wearing scientists and techs who purified and combined chemicals to formulate anything that Xander could ever want or need. Still, a corner and workbench in the room was left unused and roped off for 'The Leviathan's' private usage. The scientists didn't know who Xander was without his helmet on, didn't even know his name, but they knew he was the head of the labs and had been granted permission by The Leviathan to use his personal equipment.

Xander smiled and nodded to the techs as he walked through the area, stopping to read results from several of the scientists and techs or to answer questions regarding problems that his researchers were having. Finally making it over to the roped off area, Xander ducked under the ropes and clicked the on switch to start powering up the distillery. After making sure the system was clean of any of the chemicals that had been present in the past usages, Xander ordered the castle to transport down a literal ton of green grass, flowers, mosses, tree leaves, conifer needles and algae to a holding tank next to his work area. A humming snap of energy discharge to Xander's right and the weight gauge on the holding tank reading one ton told him that his deliver had been made. Xander walked over to the tank and pressed several buttons on the attached digital panel. After setting the machine to first 'frappe' and then to 'liquefy' Xander made sure the plant material had been rendered to the right consistency to be used in the distillery before opening the nozzle and starting the flow of fluid into the distillery machine.

Setting a large multi-liter beaker under the output spout, Xander pressed several more buttons and the distillery started pulling the essence of plant life out of the soupy mess in the tank.

Xander remembered how he had woken up one morning to find himself next to a radically different distillery from when he originally created it. The notes that Xander's hand had scribbled while he was asleep stated that he had been trying to distill items down to their base plutonian elements, namely earth, air, water and fire. Though the distillery hadn't worked as originally designed, showing that not every experiment that Xander tried worked as planned, the device had been surprisingly good at breaking things down to their essence.

For instance, Xander had inserted a flock of butchered chickens into his machine to try and find out what it was that made so many things taste like chicken; his scientists were still examining the liquid extract for uses in making inedible products edible, or at least taste like they should be eaten.

Then there was the essence of Twinkie. Xander was kicking himself for wasting his second to last box of Twinkies by having them run through the distillery machine. However, the liquid essence of Twinkie had sent Xander on such a euphoric trip that he was convinced that he was on the right path to creating either the ambrosia of the Gods, or the fabled Elixir of Life. Either way, it was damn good. It was too bad that it took an entire box of Twinkies to make one tablespoon full of the godly perfection that was essence of hostess.

Xander's ponderings on the past uses of the machine was interrupted by the sound of drizzling fluid that plopped into the beaker. The first drops came out kind of globulous, a few drops at first, but then a drizzle as a bright almost ethereal glowing green fluid the consistency of chilled tree sap flowed into the beaker. Xander leaned down to look at the fluid through the walls of the glass beaker, and he was amazed as it almost seemed like he could see pictorial landscapes of forests, plains and rich gardens flashing from inside the depths of the fluid; he had distilled "The Green."

Igor's comments about Arcane Manner and The Swamp Thing reminded Xander about a force that existed within the DC Comics that wasn't magic, it wasn't science. It was simply called "The Green." The Green was the force within all living plants, the essence of the earth and all living green or growing plant matter on planet earth; there were even stories of The Green being a force that spanned the universe and connected to all plant matter, whether on earth or from extraterrestrial sources. Though The Green, in its small liquid essence could possibly have some capabilities of being used as a fertilizer, the fluid before Xander had a better usage, as a tool for finding those who could control The Green; for locating those individuals who could control the very growth and form of plant matter.

The machine before Xander stopped producing the liquid Green essence and powered itself down after completing its task. Xander picked up the fluid and carefully carried it over to a seemingly seamless wall. Looking around to see if any of the other researchers in the room could see him, Xander realized that one of the large silo hoppers of chemicals blocked his view of the rest of the room and vice versa. Laying his hand on the wall and willing the nano-clanks in his body to communicate with the systems in the wall, a clunking sound of multiple metal bars being retracted was heard and a door sized portion of the wall sunk in a bit and then retracted to the side. As Xander walked into the dark recess behind where the door was, the door sealed itself behind him and lights came on showing that he was in a small metal closet looking room.

Pressing a finger to what looked like a rivet on the wall; the floor beneath Xander's feet began to move downwards, showing that the metal closet floor was really a hydraulic lift. When he reached the level below where the distillery was located, Xander put his hand on the door and closed his eyes as the clanks in his system communicated an image of what was on the other side of the hidden door; pinhole cameras showing that the smelting and laminating room was open as it appeared the engineers and workers had all gone to take a break and left the automated systems monitoring the armor making process.

Xander opened his eyes and stepped back as the secret passage doorway opened up and he entered what was basically the heart of his armor making facility. Large cast pour spouts, rollers, drawers and presses were present in the warehouse sized room, with loading and shipping elevators present along with limited range transporter relays that enabled the workers to move the heavy polymer and metal material around the room. In the center of the room were two devices of particular interest. First was a tank of highly controlled chemicals that was kept at a very high temperature. Inside of that chemical mix doubly-shrunk nano-clanks the size of tiny molecules worked layering atoms as close together as possible before phase shifting a second layer of atoms, also layered as close together as possible, and laminated to the layer above and below it. It was creating a type of armor that Xander figured should stand up to about anything, the only problem was that it was impossible to create in larger batches than ten by ten foot at a time, and even then the only way Xander had to work with it was to use the transportation technology to literally make portions of it disappear to another location. Fortunately the scrap could be reused, but the recycling process was just as painstakingly difficult and time intensive as the creation. Xander's workers and tiny nano-clanks had been working on the first ten by ten sheet for over two weeks and still hadn't been able to complete an inch thick sheet yet.

However it was the second one of a kind device in the middle of the room that was Xander's focus. Five glowing blue orbs of transdimensional energy were arrayed with straight compressed diamond tubes coming off of them, all of the tubes opposite ends pointing at one spot inside a lattice work of crystalline pyramid blocks that could be moved and then reattached to each other. The nature of the pyramid crystals was such that Xander could create a space in the middle shaped like a facetted gemstone. Xander walked up to the device, making sure the safety was on before quickly removing the pyramid blocks and then reassembling them until the open center of the shape was that of a marquee gem cut; the darker faceted 'bowtie' in the center of the marquee cut was what he was aiming for with his end product. Then, carefully pouring the essence of The Green from the beaker into the shape, Xander put the remaining pyramid shape back on top, sealed the blocks together, and then put the blocks back into the center of the device.

Heat, pressure, and time. That's what it took to form a diamond, that's what it took to form any sort of gem. Here in front of Xander was the device that did all of those in a second. A quirk of the dimensional energy that leaked from fully tapping the energy spheres was that time moved differently in other dimensions. When the shear amount of energy, heat, and time impacted from five different dimensional portals opened up and pointed at the same spot they could flash crystallize a gemstone.

Retrieving a pair of welding goggles, Xander set the arming switch on the machine, and then moved back five steps to where the control panel was. Resting his hand on the panel, Xander communicated with the electronic systems to start the countdown to firing the device. By activating the control panel a klaxon sounded, warning workers in the area to be wary of the experiment going on in the smelting lab, and giant metal blast walls rose up out of the floor and dropped from the ceiling to cover the machine.

As the blast walls sealed, Xander put the goggles on over his head and made sure they covered his eyes before turning his back towards the blast walls. The countdown behind him turned verbal as it hit number five.

A mechanical voice stated, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, activation" before a blast of energy from the device filtered so much dimensional energy at the essence of The Green that a flash of light issued even through the solid metal blast walls and flooded the smelting room with a flare of white light; a light that would have blinded Xander for a while if he hadn't been wearing the goggles and been facing the opposite direction.

Even still Xander had to blink his eyes a couple of times after removing his goggles, and then wiping his eyes he turned to see that the blast walls were retreating.

Smirking to himself, Xander walked up to the targeted array between the five transdimensional orbs while ordering the castle to shut down the device fully. Reaching in, Xander retrieved the arrays and started to loosen the pyramid blocks. As the blocks broke away, Xander eventually was left with a perfectly glowing green facetted gem. It was weird, but as Xander brought the gem up to the light, he swore he smelled the scent of a pine tree car freshener issuing up from the gem.

Shaking his head at the weirdness that seemed to be a constant in his life, Xander walked out of the smelting facility and took a right into the hallway. A quick right again had him walking into a storage room where devices of all kinds were on the wall.

Sitting in a cubby hole on the wall was the Nth Direction device, right next to the Point-Of-View gun and Xander's version of a tricorder. Some workers had questioned the purpose of the gun and the tricorder being in a room of tools for the researchers, but it was soon pointed out that they were both there for the sole purpose of making sure the scientists didn't kill each other if such nerdy debates arose such as, "Who was the better star trek captain" or "who would win between Superman and Batman" or even "Metric system versus the U.S. customary system of measurement." Such geeky arguments had led to past bloodshed; bloodshed which fortunately didn't spread too far due to the limited level of physical fitness of the majority of scientists and researchers.

Xander didn't have a use for those two items nor the other series of sonic screwdrivers or other power tools that he had stored in the room. He was there for the Nth Direction device.

Taking the device out of its cubby hole and carrying it and The Green gem over to a work bench, Xander flipped over the device before he popped the back of it off and then grabbed a soldering gun.

Humming to himself 'Waltzing Matilda,' Xander rewired the machine with a few minute changes before mounting The Green crystal in the center of the circuit board and then setting the system to pass a constant current through the stone. Snapping the cover back on, Xander flipped the machine back over and hit the 'On' button.

"Woah, Crikey mate. Hold on a moment while I take a gander about the world. Ta'day we're hunt'n for the elusive Green wielder." The machine stated in an Australian voice that sounded very close to that of The Crocodile Hunter, a bit of a tribute to Steve Irwin who to the best of Xander's knowledge didn't exist in the DC comic book universe that Xander now found himself in. Still, Xander couldn't think of a better person to help guide him through the wilderness.

A holographic map of the world appeared in a flash above the newly reformatted directional device, the map appeared as a grid of the world in a green and black grid.

"Alright mate, let's see what little darlings we can find today." The machine continued in the excited voice of an Australian male. "Well looky there! What do you know, I see several places that have people connected to The Green. Please select your desired location mate." The machine finished while multiple glowing red dots started to pop up around the world.

Some of them were in places where Xander didn't know anything about such as the Outback of Australia, in the jungles of Brazil or India, in the Himalayan Mountains and even a few scattered through the Midwestern plains and west of North America. However it was the three glowing dots in Louisiana and Gotham that really drew Xander's attention. Two of those three red dots were glowing brighter than any other ones on the map, supposedly showing that the individuals at those locations were more strongly connected with The Green.

Xander saw that there were two in Gotham, and when he had the map zoom in he noticed that one was in Slaughter Swamp on the outskirts of Gotham, while the other one looked to be inside Arkham Asylum.

Xander scowled in thought for a second and stroked his chin before speaking his thoughts out loud, "Hmm, well the dim spot in Slaughter Swamp must be Grundy, so that's a no go, and I'd bet that the bright dot in Arkham is Poison Ivy." Xander signed as he thought about Poison Ivy. He had always had a soft spot for the villainess who had been a brilliant botanist before being betrayed and turned into her current form. If it wasn't for the fact that Ivy was attempting to save the earth by killing humans, Xander would have tried to approach her to help solve his problem; as it was though, he would have to see about offering her a chance to make the world a better place when he had enough political capital to protect her without the Justice League as well as Batman attacking him.

Flipping the map to shift to Louisiana and the last of the remaining three dots that currently interested Xander, Xander decided on his target, "Looks like it's going to be The Swamp Thing and the Louisiana swamps after all." Xander ordered his machine.

"Woah, crikey. There are poisonous snakes and alligators in there. Water moccasins! Danger, Danger!" The machine warned.

Xander gave it a thought, and then shrugged, "Well I was looking for an excuse to add the new shield technology to my nano-clanks. I guess there is no time like the present to get it done." Xander stated as he got up and carried his tracking device with him towards the energy field laboratory.

As he walked, Xander started humming and whistling a song to himself while he thought, 'I wonder if putting the discharge weapon in the clanks in my hands would do the trick to bleed off energy?' He thought. Then a second thought went through Xander's head, 'Hey! The Castle and Chateau have been messing with the color and light spectrum of the energy fields. I wonder if they've figured out a way to absorb light or even project images in the energy field? I could make a stealth field like the Predator movies!" Xander thought, and his smile took on an insane gleam.

With that, Xander was taken over by his spark of genius, and his whistling sounded through the halls as he quickly walked towards his energy labs. Throughout the castle the minions smiled to themselves as they heard the whistling and grinned evilly, their Master had started to create something new, and wonderful chaos was no doubt soon to follow.

AN: Well, I actually had a lot more that I originally planned on putting out in this chapter, but that would triple the length of the chapter apparently. This is a good stopping spot so this is where I'll leave it for now. However, please note that I nailed out this chapter so quickly because I had a lot of encouragement. Thank you to everybody who sent me reviews or private messages commenting about the last chapter. Every time I read a note about the story I start thinking about it again and come up with more things that make me want to write, so thanks and please keep it up. Cheers!