Author's Note: Continues from the previous chapter 'WAY Beyond The Bottom Of The Barrel'.

"Okay," Warren announced in their lair.

(Well, it was the Mears house guest room, but he and the rest of the Trio had taken it over tonight for their lair, all right?!)

Unaware of the author's snippy correction, Warren continued while glancing at his notes, "There's definite evidence the whole city's under some kind of magic spell causing everybody to forget dangerous things happening to them. I checked all the newspaper obituaries for the last decade or so, and basically we've got a higher death rate than Beirut during the whole civil war there! But nobody even notices!"

"A real Douglas Adams SEP field?" Jonathan said thoughtfully. "If that's the case, how come we're still not affected by it? Like we were before along with the rest of our hometown?"

Shrugging while reaching out for a handful of potato chips in the open bag on the side table they were sharing, Warren suggested, "Maybe because of the balance demon who showed up last weekend to talk us into helping the Slayer. That for sure opened up our eyes to the entire supernatural stuff happening here. Now that we know, I guess it doesn't work any longer on us."

"So, who's doing it? And why?" piped up Andrew from his seat in the corner armchair.

Warren shook his head, "No idea. We'll have to find out, carefully. If it was cast by somebody here, they've got serious wizarding power. I mean, that's around the twentieth level in D&D or even higher. I'll get busy with that. In the meantime, what'd you find out about the Slayer's Watcher, Jonno?"

Wiping off a greasy hand from his own mouthful of potato chips on his pants leg, Jonathan triumphantly tapped his own stack of notes on the table. "Am I good or what? Sunnydale High's got a new school librarian, all the way from the British Museum in London. His name's Rupert Giles, with doctorates in ancient languages and mythology. Can't be anyone else but the Watcher for this Buffy girl."

"A genuine Sage!" Andrew happily burbled.

Nodding in concurrence, Warren yet asked expectantly of Jonathan, "And…?"

"And what?" was Jonathan's confused response.

That earned him a very disgusted expression from their leader, along with an exasperated, "Just one guy? That makes absolutely no sense at all!"

Andrew and Jonathan didn't seem to get it, causing Warren to grumpily lecture them, "Do any of the G.I. Joes go on missions only by themselves? Not a chance! They're a full military unit with all kinds of support personnel! You need people to work the radios, maintain their aircraft and vehicles, provide medical services, what have you!"

"Ohhh…," Jonathan realized, echoed by Andrew. The former had to sheepishly admit, "Yeah, when I learned about this Giles guy, that's all I expected. I'll dig deeper in the computer files. There must be some recent real estate records of other people from England moving here. Don't worry, I'll find them!"

"You better," Warren warned.

Satisfied that Jonathan would soon buckle down and produce results, Warren switched his attention to where Andrew was eagerly clutching to his skinny chest the thickest stack of notes of the three young men there who'd been busily researching ever since that balance demon calling himself Whistler had huffily vanished without actually confirming they were to be Buffy Summers' champions in Sunnydale.

More kindly than usual, Warren invited Andrew to commence, "How'd you do, nerdmeister, learning about that girl who's coming here?"

"I found out lots of stuff when I hacked the Los Angeles city computers!" Andrew proudly declared. "Buffy's entire school grades from kindergarten on, her doctors' files, the credit cards she uses…"

Trailing off with a sudden frown developing on his pimply features, Andrew then admitted to his listening friends, "There was something really weird about the bills, though. Like, why would anyone need and buy so many ladies' shoes?"

His intent expression abruptly brightened into a pleased smirk, especially when Andrew confided to Jonathan and Warren, "I figured that one out, actually. All it took was a quick visit to the mall here and getting this pair for myself."

Andrew now appeared truly smug when he lifted his right leg to display what was presently on the end of this foot. "I never knew women's shoes could be so comfortable! Pretty, too."

There was a momentarily pause in the Mears guest room, with Warren and Jonathan trading uneasy glances with each other from the corners of their eyes. To be honest, they had instantly noticed Andrew's newest sneakers when he'd come to the house tonight.

It'd been seriously hard not to, what with these sneakers covered all over with glittering, silvery rhinestones…

In a silent shared decision, Warren and Jonathan abruptly decided to behave like every other teenage male in America confronted with one of their compatriots acting far more girly than normal and acceptable. That is, they'd ignore it and hope it went away on its own.