It was a happy carload of Slayers and one other person that warm night in Santa Monica. They were cruising along the Pacific Coast Highway in Tanya's classic '61 Lincoln Continental convertible (with the top down, naturally), heading towards the beach pier to celebrate another triumph over supernatural evil.

Their battle at Point Dume State Beach less than an hour ago against the usual demonic cult attempting to summon Leviathan and drown the entire West Coast had been surprisingly short and sweet. For once, the New Council received advance warning from one of this organization's researchers to get there in time before the sacrifices had their throats cut, which was always a good thing.

Especially for the sacrifices, of course.

Anyway, Tanya, Phoebe, and Amy had been guided by this same researcher to the exact roadside spot atop Point Dume's cliffs where the midnight ceremony below was about to turn bloody. It'd been definitely fun for the Slayers to plummet right onto the demons' heads from where they'd already climbed down halfway there and commence what those warrior women did best. Afterwards had come the prisoners' release from their bonds accompanied by the pointed suggestion that these rescued victims should, you know, forget about the whole vastly enthusiastic dismemberment of their captors and resulting complete dissolving of body parts.

It wasn't like anyone else was going to believe them, were they?

Waving goodbye to a bunch of traumatized people taking to their heels who were probably never going to spend another day at the beach if they could help it, the Slayers climbed back up the cliff without any trouble to find the smug researcher waiting for them in Tanya's car parked at the top. Hogging the front passenger seat to boot, without even calling "Shotgun!"

Tonight, though, the girls were willing enough to let Andrew Wells get away with this. It was certainly different from the difficult reputation this guy brought all the way from Cleveland and the Slayers House there, where Andrew was rumored to have driven everyone nearly insane over his total geek obsession with the Star Wars universe. Changes, revisions, trivial details nobody else cared about…he'd pontificate upon these at much too excessive length at every opportunity, even against increasingly extreme threats.

The Los Angeles Slayers House was reasonably suspicious at the start that this guy had been transferred simply to their location just to get him out of Cleveland's hair. Their wariness soon changed into cautious optimism when Andrew never showed any signs of excessive fanboy attitude concerning George Lucas. Rather, he buckled down into a purely professional mode, learning everything he could about the city's demon residents and their potential nefarious plans.

That resulted in this evening's success, and now three beautiful women and one fairly presentable man were on the road with their goal in sight. Stopping at the red signal a few blocks from the pier with its illuminated Ferris Wheel slowly spinning, the Slayers were taken totally by surprise over Andrew Wells going berserk.

This began with him stiffening in his seat and then screaming angrily at the top of his lungs at the car halted ahead of them, "YOU BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT!?"

Flinching away from the sheer irate volume unexpectedly coming from their researcher, the girls — Tanya at the wheel and Amy and Phoebe from the back seat — peered with mutual incomprehension at the completely ordinary SUV now pulling forward at the green signal.

Clawing at his seatbelt and actually starting to foam at the mouth, Andrew turned to Tanya and peremptorily ordered her through sprays of spittle, "RUN HIM OFF THE ROAD! THAT'LL TEACH THE GUY—!"

A quick grab and unlatch of Andrew's seatbelt from Tanya was followed by Amy and Phoebe acting just as quickly in seizing the raving Sunnydaler by his shoulders and next hauling him entirely over the convertible's front seat. The latter Slayers then stowed Andrew face down on the rear seats' floormat, holding him there with four stylish boot soles set immovably onto the squirming man's back.

Brushing back a disheveled lock of hair, Amy wonderingly asked nobody in particular, "What the hell just set him off?"

"Dunno," grunted Tanya, pressing the car's gas pedal to catch up with the other vehicle. "See if there's a clue somewhere on that SUV."

Fortunately, the next stoplight went red, too. When their convertible came to a rest behind the SUV, it was closely examined by three Slayers…who then groaned in unison over one really bad piece of luck that'd happened to them tonight.

Laminated onto the SUV's rear window was a cutesy car decal image of a family unit consisting of four people: Dad, Mom, girl, and boy. What differed that image was all of these individuals were presented as Star Wars characters. Dad was Luke Skywalker and Mom was shown as Princess Leia, which was sort of icky given how in the movies it'd eventually been revealed they were in fact related as a twin brother and sister to each other.

That aside, the laminated girl and boy were equally adorable as miniature representatives of Luke and Leia, down to the light saber held by the boy and the girl's bun hairstyle.

Obviously, whoever owned the SUV was a truly dedicated Star Wars fan, which normally wouldn't have bothered Andrew Wells.

However…

Like many states, California was quite willing to issue to car owners a custom personalized license plate. For a fee, obviously. There were some rules about this, usually having to do with the Department of Motor Vehicles' firm refusal to issue a license plate carrying obscene connotations of any kind.

To be fair, that specific SUV's plate itself wasn't indecent at all. How could it be, what with simply showing the invented name of a minor movie character from a 1977 science fiction film who was on-screen for only about a single minute?

That is, the name of: GREEDO

The whole solution to tonight's mystery was in the addition to the license plate of a metal frame running completely around this rectangular ID and showing on the frame's bottom edge the drawing of a futuristic blaster accompanied by a terse message: HAN SHOT FIRST.

Tanya sighed when the light changed to green again and the SUV drove away, that driver unaware of the ridiculous confrontation they'd narrowly avoided from a man dedicated to the simple truth of Lo, What The George Sayeth Shalt Be So, Forever And Ever, Amen.

She glanced over her shoulder at where Amy and Phoebe also had identical disgusted expressions upon their faces.

"What's he doing now?"

Phoebe glanced down past her left knee to next report, "Chewing on the floor mat, looks like."

Rolling her eyes, Tanya contemplated how the pier was no more than a block ahead. That left them the sole choices of parking there or driving past to return to the Slayers House and put Andrew Wells into the house's infirmary with a nice, strong sedative. Or for preference, a straitjacket.

She quickly decided in a fervent declaration to her Slayer friends, "Listen, how about we just lock Andrew in the trunk while we party away for the rest of the night?"

Phoebe and Amy stared at each other over hearing that. They soon developed slow, wicked smiles of agreement along with wholehearted approving nods directed towards Tanya.

And that's exactly what they did.

Author's Note: I've actually seen this SUV with its decals and license plate near where I live.