Welcome to Oxnard - The Xander Harris Tale: 101: Stop rising evil . . . Take out trash – act 1
by Timan
< Condemned historical society building, Oxnard CA >
The blond girl stood anxiously in front of the decaying building as she toyed with the artifact in her hand.
“Okay . . . Spooky.” She said nervously
The girl approached the door with the distinct feeling of fear. She reached out and touched the door handle. With a loud creak the door collapsed onto the ground with a loud, echoing, crash. The girl looked around scared then closed her eyes
“I can do this . . . I am a strong person,” she recited as she entered the building, “I matter . . . people will be attracted to my positive aura . . .”
After a moment she opened her eyes. In the center of the room was three circles constructed out of runes. She looked down and the circle then at the artifact. Nervously she walked into the rings and placed the artifact in the center. At first nothing happened. Confused by the entire experience she started to exit the building. Suddenly a low hum caught her attention. She turned around to see the artifact grow a brilliant green. This was followed by the runes surrounding it begin to glow.
The rings began to turn in opposite directions as a column of light shot upwards engulfing the roof in energy. The girl didn’t pay much attention to this event because something in the energy began to manifest. She screamed loudly as a demon leaped out and stared at her hungrily.
< Oxnard city limit – 5 days ago>
Christi Blake paced in front the ‘welcome to Oxnard’ sign impatiently. She ran her hands through her curly red hair as she leaned her cell phone against her shoulder. Christi was a mid size woman with hypnotic, yet slightly unnerving, violet eyes her. Christi stared around the area in extreme annoyance.
“Well it wasn’t on fire when I left!” She snapped down the line, “God, I leave the club for two minutes and, already, it’s a mistake . . . Okay, Call the fire brigade let them handle it . . . No I don’t think flicking a wash towel at it will put it out . . . look just let the people training in dealing with fires deal with this, okay, I’ll be back in five minutes after I meet up with my errand boy . . . Good see you later.”
Christi hung up her cell and leaned against the sign.
“Note to self: don’t leave the strippers in charge of the kitchen when I go out anywhere.” She said to herself
The sound of an approaching vehicle caught Christi's attention. She stepped forward and waited. Inside the van Xander hummed to himself excitedly as he headed towards the small town of Oxnard. This was day one of his big road trip around the America to find himself. Between the destruction of the high school and Buffy stirring lecture about how to identify a girl as a demon before he thought about dating them he was in high spirits couple that with time away from the hellmouth and the constant bad trying to kill him and his friend and he finally felt like he could move forward with his life.
Christi leaned casually against the sign and watched as the van approached. When it was about a few feet away she casually lifted her hand and snapped her fingers. Suddenly the engine of the van started to splutter. Inside Xander glared at the gauges as he tried to find out the problem. A moment later there was an almighty crash and the van went silent before rolling to a stop.
“Stupid uncle Rory.” He said to himself as he climbed out of the van and opened up the hood.
Christi watched him curiously. He definitely was the one from her visions she just didn’t expect him to be so . . . scrawny. She figured the powers knew what they were doing so she decided not to question them. Christi picked up her handbag and walked over to him.
“Hey,” She yelled at him, “you heading anywhere near the center of town?”
Xander looked over to the woman in surprise. On a cursory examination she didn’t look like a demon but with his luck he never knew for sure. Still he shouldn’t be rude just because there was the slight chance she could rip out his innards.
“That was the plan before my van decided not to fill its job requirement,” Xander replied, “think something happened to the engine.”
Christi rolled up her sleeves and walked to the front of the van.
“I know a little bit about cars want me to take a look?” she asked
“Hey, if you think you can make my auto more mobile go ahead.”
Christi opened the hood and looked inside. She frowned and she poked experimentally inside.
“I think I found the problem your problem,” she replied, “yep, it’s your engine.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“You need one.”
Xander looked at Christi curiously.
“I had one before I left.” He replied curiously
“Well you don’t have one now,” Christi replied looking around, “hey, how about that one lying on the road back there don’t think anybody’s using that.”
Xander frowned as he saw the most essential part of his car lying on the road a few feet back.
“I think that was mine,” he replied despondently, “You wouldn’t happen to know a good mechanic do you? Preferably one who’d accept good intentions as payment?”
Christi patted Xander on the shoulder. She felt bad for the guy especially because of what was going to happen next.
Xander placed the plate on the growing pile of clean dishes. Christi had generously offered him the job after the shocking news that it was going to cost him a few thousand dollars to get his car repaired. When he original planed this epic voyage of discovery he figured it would be a lot more epic then it had turned out. On top of that the constant teasing and jibes from the well-built male strippers left him feeling less then satisfied with his current vocation. Maybe it was for the best if, after he paid for his van to be fixed, he just head back to Sunnydale and work out something else to do instead, hell, maybe there’s an apocalypse he could help with . . . oh! bad thoughts, bad thoughts! He hoped to god he just didn’t jinx himself. A moment later Christi burst into the room and, in her usual state of hurried anxiousness, she paced up to Xander.
“Hey Xand could you do me a huge favor?” she asked
Xander put down the wash cloth and looked over to her.
“Sure, what’s the what?” he asked
“I gotta scoot into town for a few and I need you to do a couple of things for me.”
“Alright”
“Great, Okay,” she said double checking her to-do list, “First I need you to do a once over on the front tables, I think the Henderson Bachelorette party got a little excite with the Champaign, Secondly the ice buckets behind the bar need to be refilled before tonight, after that I need you to run into town and stop a girl from summoning an unstoppable evil that will consume everything, after that I need the trash taken out to the dumpster and can you make sure that the trash is all the way in this time. I don’t want another call from the sanitation . . .”
Xander looked at Christi in surprised shock.
“Hey! Whoa! stop for a second,” Xander exclaimed, “Unstoppable evil?”
“Yeah some blond girls gonna summon a Sipadu Demon using native American calling stones, actually, can you do that before six I need you back for the evening rush.”
Xander shrugged at Christi in annoyed confusion. Christi put her hand on his shoulder and looked at him curiously
“What the hell? When did demons come into this?”
“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Christi replied, “Why do you think I hired you?”
“Personally, I thought it was for mount dish-more over there.”
“Well, yeah, that and to help me with maintain the good / evil balance.”
Xander stared at her completely perplexed. Christi rolled her eyes and looked at her watch.
“I’m gonna have to explain everything aren’t I?”
“I think ‘explain’ is an understatement.” Xander replied anxiously
“Okay, a few centuries ago, this town was the sight of a great evil. An ancient demon called Oxnard was planning on making this world his own . . .”
“So the demon’s named after the town?”
“More like the other way around, actually it’s funny, in the native tongue Oxnard means ‘do not live here’. Anyways, a tribe of natives conned him into the center of a square of mystic totems which trapping him in this towns borders forever, unfortunately, it trapped a whole bunch of other evil as well and you’re gonna need to stop them from doing mean stuff.”
Xander shook his head in disbelief.
“Wait! Me? Why me?”
“Cause I asked nicely,” Christi replied absently, “and because I won’t pay you if I don’t.”
Xander stared at his employer in disbelief.
“Did I just get sucked into Bizzaro World?”
“No, listen, a lot of things go bump in this town and they need someone to stop it.”
“If you know all this why don’t you do it?”
“Please, this place would fall apart if I left it alone for five minutes,” Christi snapped, “This is the stitch I get these vision things about the bad being all evil, I send you and you stop it kay?”
Xander stared at his eccentric employer curiously.
“Who are you?” Xander asked
“I’ll explain that when you get back. C’mon there’s not much time.”
Christi handed Xander a note with an address on it. Xander wasn’t sure about this request but the ‘no get money’ threat of Christi’s convinced him to comply. Xander took the note then grabbed his coat from the corner.
“Alright but we’re gonna have a talk about hazard pay after this.”
< Condemned historical society building – 20 minutes later >
Xander arrived at the aged building cautiously.
“Just go in and talk,” Xander said to himself unconvincingly, “That’s all I need to do . . .”
With that he approached the entrance and tentatively stepped inside. This was the exact point where he felt woefully unprepared. The blond girl cowered in the corner as the Sipadu hovered over the top of her. The Sipadu was lizard like, about seven foot tall with long spindly talons and piercing golden eyes. Xander looked at the creature in shock.
“ . . . Really gotta read the fine print of my contract.”
Suddenly the Sipadu moved in. with time severally limited Xander picked up a nearby pipe and charged at the demon. He slammed it over its head with the pipe with no effect. The demon swung around and growled at him.
“Oh great plan,” Xander said to himself, “Let’s make the giant demon even madder.”
The Sipadu charged at Xander knocking him against the back wall. Xander blocked its approaching attack with his pipe as he did so he looked over to the girl.
“Get out of here!” he yelled
The girl nodded and headed for the door but as she got closer to him she stopped and looked at him curiously.
“Xander?” she asked
Xander looked up at the girl in surprise.
“Harmony?”
“Oh my god! This is, like, so weird what are you doing in Oxnard?”
“Ah . . .”
“I thought I was the only one from high school who got out of town, hey; do you think anybody else is here?”
“Harm . . .”
“Oh, I know,” Harmony, “We should totally organize a reunion. I got this friend who . . .”
“Really love to chat Harm,” Xander said urgently as he slowly tired against the Sipadu, “but I kinda got this lizard guy trying to eat me to deal with.”
“Oh, right.”
Harmony looked around the area and picked up a nearby plank of wood. She started to repeatedly beat the demon over the head. The Sipadu swung with one of its talons knocking her to the ground. Suddenly it sniffed the air. It looked behind itself. With lighting fast reflexes the demon leaped off Xander and burst out the side wall. Xander watched it leave in concern. It may have been all of the years on the hellmouth talking but when something far away gets the attention of a vicious demon it never goes well for anybody involved.
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