A/N Reddit posts that have commentaries on the Buffy and Angel shows sometimes have some extremely interesting posts made. I recently read a couple of different posts, one where several comments criticized Xander's black and white view of vampires and his refusal to view them as people or to understand that the world isn't black and white, it's gray and that obviously the message of the Buffy and Angel shows was lost on him.

What makes the post interesting is a rebuttal that was posted where another commenter tells them they're the ones who missed the message of the Buffy and Angel shows and points to a speech Lindsay gives in season five of Angel where he tells Angel, 'evil is winning and you're allowing yourself to be corrupted because everyday you work for Wolfram and Hart you're learning to compromise with evil. Champions don't compromise with evil, they fight it.'

Of course that commenter ended up with a lot of backlash for daring to contradict the original post.

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They ran into demons about an hour later that charged them yelling cows!

"Did they just call us cows?" Heidi asked, glancing at Rhonda.

"Sounded like it." Rhonda agreed. "That's awfully rude of them, we should teach them some manners."

"Oh, I so totally agree." Heidi stepped forward and met one of the on rushing demons with her baseball bat by slamming it into his face. It's quite probable that he swallowed some of his own teeth given how hard she hit him and most definitely broke some of said teeth. Rhonda was right behind her slamming her own bat into the stomach of another demon and when it bent forward nearly loosing its lunch, she brought the bat around and slammed it down on the back of its head, almost taking the head completely off and she most definitely crushed the back of the skull with the metal bat.

Heidi finished clobbering the one she was dealing with to death and turned to see Xander shooting his crossbow and hitting a target in the chest. "Stupid cow!" The demon snarled at him. "Don't you know anything? I am no cow with my heart in my chest!"

"Thanks for the info." Xander fired again, this time hitting the demon through his eye. As the metal bolt pierced through the eye and into its brain, it spasmed and collapsed to the ground. Kyle jumped over it and attacked the next one behind it hitting it hard and fast, breaking its arm as it tried to shield its head from the barrage of blows. Turning away from Kyle it found itself facing Tor who hit it so hard, its head practically turned 180, before it too collapsed. The final demon fell to the Librarian and his sword. Wow, who knew Mr. Giles was actually good with that thing? Or that he looked hot for an old guy? Heidi shook her head, eww.

"Nice work, guys." Xander complimented them. "D'Hoffryn said the demons here enslave humans, I guess dehumanizing them and calling humans cows fits into that. Come on, we need to keep looking. I can't help feeling we need to hurry and find Buffy, I hate how upset Mrs Summers is because of that damn wish."

The others fell in beside him, silently and unconsciously offering comfort. Strange how quickly they were adapting to sensing each other's feelings. The group continued to press on through the forest alongside the mountain looking for caves or evidence of humans and hopeful of finding Buffy soon. The sounds of combat had them quickening their steps in case there were humans in trouble and they came out in a clearing and found what they'd been looking for, Buffy Summers. Fighting alongside a large muscular man and several smaller humans against a large number of demons.

"Heidi, Rhonda, help those ones over there." Xander pointed to the right and the two girls charged forward. "Tor, Kyle, over there." Xander pointed to another couple of humans and the boys rushed forward to help as Xander began firing his crossbow again and Giles began slashing with his sword.

Buffy realized more humans had joined the battle and looked to see how they were doing. They seemed familiar but she wasn't sure why and then she saw Xander calmly firing a crossbow and hitting demon after demon in the eyes. For a moment her mind refused to accept that Xander was actually here, in Pylea, because that would mean he'd come after her and she'd honestly thought he was too angry to try to help her.

'I guess I was wrong.' She thought. 'He came after me again.' And then she saw Giles fighting with a sword and realized they'd both come after her, these two people who had reason to hate her had chosen to save her. A punch from a demon brought her attention back to the battle and she grabbed its arm and threw it towards Groo, who shoved his own sword through its neck, beheading it. She turned back toward Xander and saw that he'd run out of crossbow bolts. He stepped toward a demon and smashed the bow itself across its face and head, splintering it. He shoved the broken piece into its messed up face and finished it off by dropping the remains of the crossbow, grabbing it by its arm, swinging it around and slamming it head first into a tree.

All of sudden the only sound in the clearing was the sound of humans sucking lung fulls of air as the battle ended with the last demon gurgling as Giles impaled it by shoving his own sword through its neck.

"Am I glad to see you guys!" Buffy smiled. "I was afraid I'd be stuck here for the rest of my life."

An awkward silence met her heartfelt declaration and Buffy's smile faltered at the blank faced, cold eyed look on Xander's face. "Xander?"

"Your mother's waiting for you, whenever you're ready to go." He stepped back several feet from her and carefully crossed his arms behind his back. Xander wasn't taking the chance that he'd lose his temper and hurt her, he couldn't. But that isn't to say, he wasn't tempted.