Brushy, Brushy, Brushy

Xander shook his head unable to believe what he was hearing. "So let me get this straight, since I don't kiss your ass I'm out?"

"What? I said nothing of the sort!" Buffy protested.

"No, but that's what it boils down to. I question a lot of your decisions and your conclusions. I never 'salute' and freely admit to anyone who asks that the queen has no clothes. You claim it's all out of concern for me, but we both know better," Xander finished calmly.

"Dammit, you're disrupting their training!"

"You mean their brainwashing, right?"

"It's no such thing!" Giles interrupted. "It's simply the background and history of the slayer line in modern times."

"I've seen it, remember?" Xander said flatly. "And it bears as much resemblance to what happened as Russian propaganda films do to reality."

Giles winced. "The new slayers need someone to look up to, they need a leader to follow."

"They need spells to make them gullible enough to swallow all this crap and you don't call that brainwashing?"

"The only spell they have cast on them is one that allows them to memorize the coursework quicker so they can concentrate on physical training," Willow replied. "It doesn't make them follow or obey anyone."

"I looked up the spell you were using, Willow and I read up on the side effects. It makes it easier to learn by allowing the material to be imprinted directly into the brain bypassing all of a person's mental filters meaning they automatically except it as the truth."

"They can always change their minds and question things," Willow defended herself. "It's easy as pie to make them question the entire course just by asking them to think about it."

"I know, and yet when I set up a sign saying 'There are three sides to every story, my side, their side, and the truth', you had it removed and my telling them to question everything got me called in here as disruptive, so obviously it's brainwashing you want, but I keep screwing that up for you."

"Dammit, Xander! Sure we have to cut a few corners, but that's only because we're pressed for time. The longer we take the more girls die. Does it suck? Yeah, but we don't have a choice!" Buffy yelled.

"Well at least we wouldn't be killing the girls ourselves," Xander said coldly. "Because make no mistake, that is exactly what you're doing. You brainwash these girls into being Buffy clones or rather into what they think Buffy is, which is a standard even Buffy can't match and then you send them out there to die trying to live up to the hype!" Xander shook his head. "You know what? I'm out. My biggest fear these days is that I'll wake up one morning, look in the mirror and find I've become like you three. That's not something I'm willing to live with."

"I don't see your slayers doing all that hot!" Buff called to his retreating back. "How many died last month?"

"Yes, five cases where slayers were misinformed of what they were facing all in a row and only affecting my girls," Xander said. "Turns out the slayer you put in charge of mission assignments was told by you that my girls were unimportant in the grand scheme of things, so she decided that it was unimportant to have any investigation done before sending them on missions, like she would any other slayer."

"I—I didn't mean it that way!" Buffy protested horrified. "I just meant it didn't matter whose girls they were, they are all slayers."

"Drones don't question their queen," was his parting retort.

Typing by: Stephenopolos

AN: Decided it was too grim to use.