A/N While the Mayor, as presented in canon, is a huge illogical puzzle we never get an explanation for, there are canon events I can theoretically tie to him. And while I'm not going as dark as Sphygmus' scenarios have laid out there is some damage I can have the Mayor do to the Scooby Gang. Also, I think I've come up with a plausible hypothetical reason for why he mostly left the Scoobies alone prior to him doing the ritual to become invincible. And obviously Faith won't be joining up with him in this story. The way she just abruptly decided to join up with him isn't well explained on the show, yes fans say it's because she decided to be evil and I say it's because she was severely traumatized and suffered a mental break, but the show itself just leaves it up to the audience to try to explain.

A couple of bits of house cleaning, to respond to a couple of reviewers. A guest reviewer asked about Angel doing Magic and who might have done the spell work for him. In Revelations, the one with the Glove of Myneghan, Angel does start a ritual to destroy it, so he does have some familiarity with Magic himself and in Angel the show he participates in a number of uses of Magic, although he's not the Magic user in those instances and he knows the Transuding Furies, strange Magic users and it's never explained how, so those are possibilities.

Kyro, Buffy was accepted to Northwestern on the tv show, her grades were awful according to Snyder, but she did really well on her SAT, so between that and a glowing recommendation letter from Dr. Rupert Giles, formerly of the British Museum and head of the Ancient Cultures Club the Scoobies used as their cover for always being in the Library, it's possible she could get into a very good college. 8-)

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"Last night we ran into a little mystery." Buffy informed Wesley. "Faith and I were attacked while on patrol by vampires wearing some kind of medieval inspired uniforms and one of them was carrying swords, a long and a short one, both had jewels in them. While we were dealing with the last one, something grabbed the swords and took off with them."

"Two swords, a long and a short one?" Wesley looked thoughtful. "That sounds familiar." He went to the Library shelves and pulled out a book and rifled through it. "El Eliminati, fifteenth century dueling cult, their numbers dwindled in later centuries due to antivampire activity and a lot of pointless dueling." He showed her a picture of the swords. "Did the swords look like these?"

Buffy tilted her head to get a better look and nodded. "Yeah, the jewels stand out. Are they real? Because that would be cool."

"I have no idea, I'd have to examine one to have any idea. They were believed to have been extinct. They eventually became the acolytes of a demon named Balthazar, who brought them to the United States, specifically here, as in Sunnydale, a century ago."

"Damn, the Hellmouth just keeps drawing them in. Apparently they're not extinct because we ran into four of them last night. So what happened to them in-between them arriving in Sunnydale and now?"

"Good question. They were driven out of Sunnydale and Balthazar was believed killed. He had an amulet that gave him strength, exactly how and what type of strength isn't recorded. The amulet did end up in the possession of a wealthy landowner named Gleaves and was believed buried with him in his masoluem. If Balthazar and his followers are still around, they may be looking for that amulet."

"And given that we ran into them in a cemetery last night, means they probably have a good idea just where it's buried." Buffy concluded. "You should call Faith and Xander and have them check out Greaves' mausoleum."

"A good idea. Mr. Harris' Magic studies are coming along nicely, as his is self defense training and he is profienct with modern weapons, as well as crossbows."

"Yeah, if he has to he can fight one on one with a vampire and do pretty well." Buffy admitted. "But he'd prefer not to get close to one at all."

"No one wants to get close to a vampire. We need to determine which cemetery Gleaves is buried in."

"That's a Willow thing." Buffy told him. "It's daylight and the vamps aren't going to be out and Xander is going to want to limit any extra blood he needs to deal with being in the sunlight himself, so have Willow check the online archives and we can send Faith and Xander straight to it. Save a lot of hassle for everyone in the process."

"Another good idea, she's teaching a class right now, I believe, so as soon as she's finished, I'll speak to her and then call Faith and Xander. You should get to class yourself."

"On my way."

Willow was able to locate which cemetery Gleaves was buried in and Xander picked up Faith and the two of them were able to retrieve it easily with Xander complaining that he didn't mind a tan, why did the nanites have a problem with it? Mostly because he didn't want to even think about the extra bag of blood he'd need.

"If I take Cordy up on her offer, it means I could afford to eat a lot of steak cooked rare. So much better than another bagful of blood."

Not a lot Faith could comment on any of that. At least not any comment that's printable.