Sleepless

Xander, Willow, and Jesse watched the double feature 'John Carpenter's Vampires' and 'From Dusk till Dawn' with a lot of laughter from the boys and squealing from all three, though if pressed the boys would claim it was all Willow.

"I wonder why there are so many different legends about vampires," Willow said. "I mean they always change the details. Did you notice how different the vamps were from one movie to the next?"

Xander shrugged. "Depends on the special effects budget I think. Well that and what the director thinks would look cool."

"No I mean in folk tales, Dracula is pretty standard for what effects vampires in American stories, but in other countries they are completely different. In Hungary vampires appear to be human, but sneak off into the woods at night to shed their skin and become owls, who then hunt for human prey."

"Do they still drink blood?" Jesse asked.

"I think so," Willow replied.

"I guess different things scare different people, cause truthfully bats are scary, but a vampire that turns into an owl around here I'd probably take it out with a pellet gun," Xander said thoughtfully.

"Vamps are king, but do you know what the lamest monster from the movies is?" Jesse asked.

"The Mummy?" Willow guessed. "Because I'm pretty sure a guy on crutches could escape from him."

"No, but that is a lame one. You could defeat a mummy with lighter fluid and a match. Those bandages look really flammable."

"Creature from the Black Lagoon," Xander guessed. "I mean it's just a walking fish. You could shoot it, which most monsters can ignore, and all that's left at that point is to decide if you'd rather have ketchup or tartar sauce with him."

"Got it in one," Jesse agreed. "And I have to admit it's also the only monster I'd consider edible."

Willow nodded, surprising the two boys. "What? I like fish."

"Lamest Superfriend not tossed in for laughs," Jesse challenged.

"Aquaman," Xander guessed.

"Wonder Woman," Willow tossed out.

"Wonder Woman?" the two boys chorused.

"The only female Superhero in the League, dressed like a striper, and can force people to tell the truth by tying them up, how lame is that?" Willow complained.

"Sounds like the plot from that movie we 'borrowed' from your uncle Rory," Jesse suggested.

"You guys were watching movies and you didn't invite me?!" Willow complained.

"Didn't think you'd want to watch it," Jesse said.

"I might have, if just to hang out with you guys."

Xander leaned over and whispered something in Willow's ear that made her blush bright red.

"Ok, never mind. Lamest hero?" she stuttered out.

"Aquaman, much like the creature from the Black Lagoon. He may be kickass in water, but he's useless outside it," Jesse said.

"And probably goes well with tartar sauce, I mean what else would you serve with white fish?" Xander snickered as his two friends groaned.

One year later…

"What's a matter dweeb? Did your friends finally realize what a loser you were and ditch you?" Cordelia sneered.

"At least I had friends," Xander replied.

Cordelia almost stumbled back from the lifeless look in his eyes. A vague memory began to surface, but she quickly pushed it back down and hurried to class. Xander continued to the principal's office. He'd tried to continue as if nothing had happened, like everyone else seemed to do, but Jesse's death and Willow's refusal to say why she had to go and ditch him at odd times to hang out with that new girl built up until he basically stopped seeing her and something had to give.

"Hey, Mr. Flutie, can I speak to you for a minute?"

"Sure…" his voice trailed off leadingly, he still didn't know all his students by name.

"Harris, Xan- Alex Harris," he introduced himself deciding to make a clean break.

"Well Alex, what can I help you with?"

"Well, I've been taking advanced placement classes for quite some time and barely scraping by as you can tell from my grades. And I've decided just scraping by isn't enough. If I'm going to get into college I'm going to need a better GPA and more than likely a sports scholarship. So I was considering dropping back into normal classes and joining the swim team."

Xander had chosen what team to join based on the old folk wisdom that swimming was the best form of exercise. Sure he'd managed to survive a couple of attacks, but it was a close thing and he'd never be able to put Jesse to rest in the shape he was in right now.

Principle Flutie practically beamed. It was so rare that he found any of his younger students taking an interest in their scholastic career. "How about I drop you into the normal classes and start you on the swim team, but we, just for a month to see if it works, give you a tutor and have you continue with the advanced coursework? That way if you change your mind you won't have to play catch-up. It's always best to keep your options open after all."

Alex smiled. "Sounds like a great idea. Can I start today?"

"Of course."

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Coach Marin examined Alex closely. He looked a bit too broad shouldered to be a medal winner, but looks were sometimes deceiving. "Give me a few minutes; let's see what you've got."

Alex hopped in the pool and started swimming as fast as he could. The coach sighed. The kid didn't have much, no grace, no speed, no power. 'Best nip it in the bud now,' he thought to himself. What followed was a grueling three hour instruction the basics of swimming and effective but painful excursive done in the water.

"I've seen enough," the couch announced and waved a tired Alex out of the water. He waited till Alex was out of the water and dried off his face. "I've seen better, a lot better. "I've also seen worse, but not much. Normally I'd simply put you through the wringer till you quit, as a matter of fact that is what I was doing, but even my top swimmers would have dropped before now and you've shown improvement as we've worked, meaning you have a lot of stamina and are capable of listening. As long as you have the drive to improve, you have a place on my team," Coach Marin promised.

"I'll do whatever it takes," Alex promise.

"I'm going to hold you to that," the coach agreed. "You aren't even fit for a third stringer yet, but in a month to six weeks I expect to have you up to the second. I'll be honest, I want trophies and awards and I'm more than willing to work you half to death to get them, but what do you want?"

"I want to get stronger, I want to get faster, I want to get tougher," Alex said.

The coached nodded. "Glad to hear our goals mesh. We train Mondays and Thursdays, the body needs time to heal itself. IF you overdo it you simply tear down muscle rather than building it up. Follow my training schedule and I will make you stronger and faster in far less time than if you worked out daily. We do have some leeway in grades, but I don't like to rely on that, so Wednesdays everyone is here for a mandatory study session. I know all the tricks for increasing your learning speed and retention rate, hell I invented some of them. Do you have any questions?"

"No Coach," Alex promptly feeling a lot better about his decision to join the team.

"Good. Normally tomorrow is a training day, however since you have just joined I'll be running a series of test on you. I need a solid baseline so I know how far I can push you. Dismissed."

Alex found himself marching to the locker room and wondered when he'd joined the military.

The coach was a strange guy, looked about what you'd expect a grey haired fifty plus older gym teacher to look like, but he exuded authority and sounded a lot more intelligent than you'd expect, even with the slight Russian accent.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

Alex checked another question about his past history while Coach Marin did something medically with a blood sample involving lasers and a floating holographic model of Alex's DNA.

"Have I entered the Twilight Zone?" Alex accidentally asked aloud.

"Nyet, huh. I mean no," the coach replied, not even looking up from what he was doing.

"Then why am I looking at technology that would make a technophile hump your leg while the school's history books still say that JFK is the current president?"

"Because I am a genius and I use my own equipment," he explained. "You see I grew up in Russia during the Cold War, where my intelligence was immediately noted and put to work. By the age of sixteen I had enough degrees to…choke a very large mammal and so I was put to work on something straight out of the comics. They wanted me to create a super soldier."

"Captain America comics gave them the idea to make super soldiers?" Alex asked in disbelief.

"That's what they claimed, but it turns out that was just propaganda, they'd actually copied the idea from the X-men comics where the Russians had done that. Personally I think they had their heart set on Wolverine," he said thoughtfully.

"They wanted you to turn soldiers into Wolverine clones?"

"Well he does kick ass, but I was only on the part of the project concerning training and healing so it's all speculation really."

"So what happened?" I mean, now did you end up here as a measly swim coach?"

The coach chuckled mirthfully. "I worked day and night for close to thirty years making advances that no one else had, but before we could finish, they shut us down and buried my work. I understand hard work to accomplish something, but all that work for nothing?! Nyet!"

Alex actually grinned as the Coach's English went all to hell and he waved a fist in the air. Something about him just reminded Alex of a terrier yapping. "And?"

"And nothing. I moved here because Sunnydale is partially a blank spot in terms of the covert community. I'm pretty sure bum fuck Egypt has more importance. Here I can finish my work in peace, collect some trophies and retire happy."

"All this for some high school trophies?" Alex asked doubtfully.

"I'm from Russia, I worked for thirty years on a top secret project and they didn't even give me a plaque. I want acknowledgement, but too much acknowledgement would end up with me being assassinated so I figured out amount needed to satisfy me and here I am."

"And what do I have to do with this?" Alex said cautiously.

"I think that should be obvious. You want to get stronger, faster, tougher and I want to complete my formula and get my name on a trophy. If you don't catch what I'm offering here I can tweak your IQ up about forty points. Unfortunately the side effects of that serum is narcolepsy, which would make you completely useless for my purposes, so forget I suggested that."

"You want to make me a supersoldier," Alex said flatly.

"You want to be a supersoldier. It is everything you asked of me and I get my awards when you win the swim meets!"

"You can really do this?" Alex asked.

"Yes, I really can," Marin promised. "I have a series of…enhancements ready. They come in stages so I don't have to worry about you dropping dead from shock. Each enhancement boosts your physical capabilities in whole or part as some are designed to enhance healing and make you more hearty rather than stronger or faster so you can survive the next boost. It takes time to become a superhuman, well that or a ninety eight percent casualty rate. I chose time."

"Good choice," Alex said faintly.

"I'm glad you agree. So if you agree to become a god amongst men drink this," Marin said handing him a beaker of orange fluid.

Alex braced himself and downed the fluid, waiting with his eyes screwed shut for the serum to do its work.

"Why are your eyes shut?" Marin asked curiously.

"Didn't I just drink a boost?"

"No, you just drank a screwdriver in celebration!" Marin said cheerfully and downed his own beaker of orange fluid.

"A screwdriver?" Alex asked.

"Don't worry, the first boost was adjusted so it'd turn off the genes for chemical dependency," Marin replied cheerfully. "When do I get the first boost?" Alex asked.

"Half an hour ago, I took the blood sample to see how well you adapted to it."

"What?!"

"I'm a genius. I knew you were going to agree before you finished the first page of the psych eval," Marin explained.

"Then why make me finish it?" Alex asked.

"Because this test tells me much more than just that," Coach Marin replied. "It also says you are afraid of clowns, becoming an alcoholic and failure in general."

"Wow," Alex said stunned.

"There is more of course but I figure I'd deal with those three first. You can no longer become an alcoholic without a great deal of work and shortly that will be impossible. In another two boosts alcohol will no longer affect you like it does others; it will become a stimulant to you, like coffee only more so, but getting drunk will be impossible."

Alex began to sit up straighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders

"As for failure, of course you're going to fail," the coach said bluntly, causing Alex to slump. "Everyone fails. You know what is different between genius and failure? It is not giving up. It is trying the same thing again and again until you succeed. Trust me when I say that you have not failed nearly as much as I have. I have failed at things you have never dreamed of. Fear of failure, bah! If you have not failed, you will never succeed!"

Alex began to grin. "And the clown phobia?"

"We'll go beat the hell out of a couple. Trauma happened when you were little, so now that you are big you bloody a clown's nose and it goes away."

Alex laughed but the coach just smirked. "Seriously?"

"Yes, they are easy to locate. Clowns actually have a society of sorts, I did a dissertation on it. There are bars and places that are clown only during certain times. It's very fascinating how no one really notices, it's social invisibility. If you see a couple of clowns enter a place, you simply assume they are there for a private party, not that they are having a party themselves.

Alex froze.

"What? What's wrong?" the coach asked.

"I'm now picturing a huge clown conspiracy where they use their social invisibility to assassinate people and slowly take over the world! Maybe when people talk about those clowns in Congress it's not just a figure of speech!" Xander began to hyperventilate and the coach quickly slapped him in the face.

"Get ahold of yourself! That's already been taken care of!" Marin shouted.

"What?" Alex stared at Marin in shock. "You mean I'm not nuts?"

"No, you are nuts but you are also right. KGB used dissertation as basis for their own squad and it was quite successful. Even when people saw them in action no one believed them and calls to the police were written off as prank calls till it was far too late. But they became victims of their own success. There were simply too many dead agents and too many reports of clowns to be ignored, so the US made their own clown commando unit to take them down."

"And they never tried to make another clown squad?"

"Nyet. Getting budget for unit full of clowns the first time was a miracle, but doing it twice? Besides I knew it was hopeless when I learned what kind of clowns the US was sending against them."

"Kind of clowns?" Alex asked.

"Da, there are three basic types of clowns, with several subtypes. What most people think of when they think of clowns is the circus clown. They are distinguished by their big floppy shoes, red button nose, white face paint foundation and large pants."

Alex nodded.

"Now, as there aren't enough circuses to fill the demand for clowns and waiting till a circus was in town to hire one would make scheduling birthday parties problematic, a subset of the circus clown called the party clown came to be."

Alex shivered, knowing he was talking about his hated foe.

"One thing you must remember is that circus clowns are carny folk, so they are tough and unpredictable fighters, but party clowns lack their strength and toughness so if you see a clown and there isn't a circus in town, you can probably take them."

"So America sent circus clowns?" Alex asked.

"Nyet, circus clowns are of European origin. America wanted its own clowns, so they developed them from a distinctly American pastime, the Rodeo."

"Rodeo clowns?"

"Da. Rodeo clowns moon bulls on a daily basis, risking life and limb to protect cowboys. They wear clown clothes made of much rougher material, less makeup and cowboy boots."

"SO the three main types of clowns are circus, party and rodeo?"

"Nyet, party clown is subtype of circus clown. Third type of clown is Mime."

"So Rodeo beats Circus. Circus beats Mime and Mime beats Rodeo?"

"Nyet, Mime beats nobody. Mime is French!"

"What about Kabuki?" Alex asked.

"Is subset of ninja not clown, only superficial resemblance."

Alex nodded. "Sounds a lot more dangerous than a rodeo clown."

"Da, but they are never seen outside a noh theatre."

Alex nodded. "So what's on the agenda?"

"Sticking you in a tank and programming you full of schoolwork so you don't have to waste time studying and I don't have to worry about my star ending up on academic probation."

"Programming?"

"Da, programming. Part of the formula was designed to make it easy to brainwash soldiers, I've simply changed the programming from being obedient soldier to being straight A student. You go to sleep in the tank and when you wake up you have at your fingertips not only skills needed to memorize and manage large amounts of data, but you also have all the facts you need to ace all tests for the next six months."

"You're going to brainwash me to get straight A's?" Alex asked doubtfully.

"Brainwashing is what American education system is based on! It was designed off Prussian model which was created to turn out loyal citizens. You, as well as everyone else with half a brain, know most of what the school teaches you is useless once you leave."

"I always wondered about that," Alex replied frowning.

"We are just skipping all the bull, programming the knowledge useful straight in while giving you the skills to appear to be one of the brainwashed masses."

"No useful skills?"

"Some, just not many. School just is not conductive to learning."

Typing by: The Last Primarch!

AN: Also wrote this many years ago.