Xander Harris is sitting at the bar, playing with his glass that's sitting in front of him. He appears to be slightly drunk but the fact that he is no where near old enough to be in the bar much less here to drink should have been the first clue that he wasn't drunk at all.
"She was a really, really pretty girl. No correct that she, she was a hottie.All that flowing dark hair.And her rack..oh man....She, she had - I mean - her hair was... You know? - -You kind of remind me of her.Except for the part that you've haven't dumped me yet.Also also – you know – the hair. I mean – the hair." Xander stammers out as he looks over at the guy sitting beside him. It is a burly black guy with a clean-shaven head.Xander than turns his head and glances over his shoulder at a group of three guys and two girls playing pool behind him.
One of the guys comes and leans on the bar next to Xander and says to bartender: "We want to cash out."
Xander looks up at him with a drunken grin and says "Man your girls look nice.You guys plan on getting lucky tonight?"
The guy at the bar doesn't even bother to even answer him and only gives him a disgusted look.
"Here you go." the bartender said after coming back from his register and handed the man his change back.
"Okay, guys, let’s go. Let’s get out of here and go find some real fun." the man said after pocketing the change and than he and the other pool players left with the girls.
Quickly Xander straightens up in his chair and after a beat he gets up no longer laughing and follows them out.
CUT TO AN ALLEYWAY BESIDE THE BAR
"You guys really know the doorman? I mean you can get us into the Lido?"asked the blonde girl as they made their way further down the dark alley.
"You know what I'v changed my mind and I'v decided that I don’t want to go clubbing anymore. I want to party, right here and now." one of the men from the bar says as he grabs the girl roughly.
"Hey back off perve!" the blonde says as she tries to push him away"No one said you could grope me yet!"
As his friend grabs the other girl the other man grabs the blonde girl by the throat and vamps out into his game face"Shut up and die bitch!"
Just at that moment Xander walks down the alley toward the group staggering and apparently drunk"Excuse me. ‘scuse me. I’m sorry. But has anybody seen my car? It’s big,and it’s shiny and it goes very fast."
"Piss off, pal!" the vamp snarls at him.
Xander walks up to him and leans in to get a closer look at the vampires face as it growls at him again.Xander let's out a small laugh"Piss off?Are you one of Spike childe?"Xander reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of Certs and holds it out to the vamp: "Uhh, breath mint?"
The snarling vamp throws the girl into some nearby trash cans and swings a wild punch at Xander. Xander easily blocks the punch and , knocks the vamp down, spins around to knock the second vamp running up in the face, then kicks out at the first vamp just getting back up.The third vamp who had been hanging back a little during the fight rushes in and tackles Xander to the ground, but Xander catapults him over his head and gets back up.After seeing the two vamps jump up and start charging him from opposite sides Xander triggers the stakes concealed in spring-loaded wrist sheathes under his sleeves and stakes both at the same time.They quickly turn to dust.
The last remaining vamp comes back at him and hits him over the head with a trash can.Xander drops to the ground but is quickly back up with a growl even more ferocious sounding than any vamps growl ever heard before in history.
"You shouldn't have done that."Xander snarls as he hits the vamp in the stomach hard and then threw him high enough to let the vamp spin in the air and lands on top of a cars windshield cracking it.
During the fight the two girls had been to scared to do nothing but watch, but now that the it was over the blonde girl who was bleeding from a cut on her forehead approaches Xander.
"Oh, my god! They were…"
Xander with his back turned to them could only say"Go home."
"Thank you." the girl said as she steps up closer and almost touches his shoulder.
Smelling the blood from the cut on her forehead Xander is no longer able to control the spirit inside him.As he spins around to face her the blond looks shocked at his glowing gold eyes.He stares at her bleeding cut and feels the urge to hunt and feed flare up in him. "Stay away from me."
The girls back off allowing Xander to stalk down the alley feeling disgusted with himself for almost letting the beast take over. Breaking a slat from a wooden crate nearby Xander stakes the vamp still lying on the cars hood without even looking. The girls watch him leave once again to shocked to move.
ONE HOUR LATER
Xander walks down a street and enters an old run down office building in a not so nice section of neigborhood.He walks down a couple steps and through one of the offices on the ground floor and gets into an elevator and pulls the metal grating closed, the elevator begins it's slow movement up to one of the upper floors.
After the elevator stops and opens Xander gets out takes off his coat as he walks into his apartment.He undoes the empty wrist sheathes where the hidden stakes had been, steps over to a weapons cabinet, takes off his shirt and drops it over the back of a sofa.Xander than freezes and sniffs the air and looks over his shoulder at the person he had already knew was there because of his smell.
"I like the place.I mean it’s not much with the view, but it has a nice bat-cave sort of an air to it."said the man as he walked into the apartment.
"Who the hell are you?"asked Xander slowly moving his hand toward the gun in jacket pocket.
"Doyle the name."the man said as he played with a deck of cards in his hands.
Xander not detecting any danger yet decides not to draw his gun and turns around from the weapons cabinet to face the man "What are you?You don’t smell human."
"Now that’s a bit rude. So happens that I am very much human."said Doyle who than sneezed which allowed blue spikes to pop out all over his face. "On my mother’s side at least." Doyle shakes his head and the spikes disappear back into his face.
Doyle walks past Xander and looks around the room for a time before turning back to face him"Well, I came in uninvited, so you know right off the bat that I’m not a vampire and I'm also not part hyena like you."
"What do you want?"asked Xander getting more agitated and still on full alert for he still didn't trust this human/demon hybrid.
"I’ve been sent by the Powers That Be to make you an offer." Doyle told him
"The Powers That Be?Who the hell and what the hell are the Powers That Be?"
"Let me tell you a little bedtime story."said Doyle as he watch Xander sat down on the ratty old couch in the one room apartment.
"Save it I’m not sleepy."
"Once upon a time there was a Zeppo and just about everyone thought he was the most useless guy in all the land. All his so called friends tried to keep him out of the slaying and the other action in an effort to protect him."Doyle said using his hands to make air quotes when he said the words to protect him"Like I was saying his friends thought he was weak and was always getting hurt when they all went out to slay.But all of that changed one day on a school field trip to the zoo.For you see while there our future hero found himself possessed by an alpha hyena spirit that day."
"Okay. Now I’m sleepy."said Xander faking a big yawn still keeping himself at a save distance from the man.
"Yeah, well, it is a fairly dull tale and it needs a little sex, is my opinion to spicy it up some.So sure enough enter the girl.Pretty little blonde thing she is,Buffy is her name,Vampire Slayer is her trade.And our Zeppo falls madly in love with her,but the girl won't give the hero of our story the time of day.And to add insult to injury she gives him that old tired line about just wanting to be friends when our boy asked her to the Spring Fling.So not wanting to lose this very important girl that he loves our young hero the Zeppo becomes her most trusted friend and along with another pretty little thing named Willow the three of them,became.....well, I guess the technical term you guys used was...the Scooby Gang.So a few months later when our Zeppo gets possessed by the hyena on said field trip his friends quickly jump to it and manage to banish the hyena spirit from the young man or so they thought.Now a year later our boy falls in love for real this time with the Queen of Sunnydale and her name is Cordelia Chase.Our boy loved her but in one move of dumbassness he destroyed that relationship.But he didn't have time to dwell on that fact because a few months later our boy was fighting to save his life during his high school graduation.OurZeppo found himself being attacked and badly wounded by four vamps.In order to survive the attack the man had to release his hyena spirit from it's cage that was inside his mind and he lets it run wild and free.It kills the vamps and than helps his friends stop the mayor Ascension to pure demonhood.Later in an effort to keep from going insane because of the three personalities battling for supremacy in his mind the young man merges the hyena,the soldier and his original spirit together to form a whole new and deadly person.This gave him not only the memories but the powers of all three spirits and so in that instant the new and improved Xander Harris which is standing here in front of me was born."
Doyle than while still telling the story walks over and opens the small fridge and than looks back at Xander in disbelief "Say don't you have any beer?"
"No I'm only eighteen."said Xander shrugging his shoulders"Can't buy it."
"Come on, you must have something stronger than Pepsi here!"
"I know I'm going to regret this."sighed Xander"But can you get back to your story."
"Well when our former Zeppo returns from his summer road trip and his friends find out about this merger they decided to attack him in an effort to capture him and return him back to his original progaming.But our former Zeppo likes this new feeling of power flowing through him so he resist.So after a very short battle against his friends the witch,the watcher and the slayer which he won by the way the man leaves town and secretly heads for L.A. to start a new life."
Xander gets up off the sofa"Okay first off I didn't secretly head to L.A.or any where else for that matter.I don't give a damn if Buffy and the rest of the gang know I'm here.And second you'v just told me the story of my life, but since I was there for every terrible minute of it, I already knew all of it. So why aren’t I kicking you out?"
Doyle looks into the refrigerator again and grabs two cans of Pepsi and hands one to Xander who takes it and than Doyle lends up against the wall"Because now I’m going to tell you what happens next. You see this new warrior for good, he thinks he’s helping. Fighting the demons and vamps.He's also staying away from the normal humans so as not to be tempted to let his new dark side that he's trying to control from taking over and hurting them.But our new hero he’s cut off from everything and everyone.But most of all he's cut off most from the people he’s trying to help."
"I still manage to save ‘em.Who cares if I don’t stop to chat with them trying to become their friend."Xander said setting his can of Pepsi down on the coffee table and crossing his arms.
"Tell me Xander when was the last time you had a true friend?When was the last time you felt love for someone?"
"Cordy"whispered Xander thinking back to the only woman who he ever really truly loved.
"Left you with a bit of a craving, didn’t it? Let me tell you something, pal, that craving for love and human connection your going to miss it.If you don't try to reconnect with the human race your going to become more and more distant from the so called people your supposed to protect.And when that happens that dark side you try to keep under control will burst through and take control."Doyle said suddenly as he pushed himself off the wall "You know I’m parched from all this yakking, man. Let’s go treat me to a Billy Dee."
Cut to Xander and Doyle walking on the street.
Doyle carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag: "It’s not all about fighting and gadgets and stuff. It’s about reaching out to people, showing them that there’s love and hope still left in the world."
A homeless lady comes up to Doyle and asks him for some change.
"Get a job, you lazy sow!"Doyle yelled at the woman and than turned back to Xander"It’s about letting them into your heart. It’s not about saving lives; it’s about saving souls. Hey, possibly your own in the process."
"I still want to know who sent you."said Xander still not one hundred percent trusting Doyle.
"I’m honestly not sure.They don’t speak to me direct. I get visions.Which is to say great splitting migraines that come with pictures.A name a face.I don’t know who sends them. I just know whoever sends them is more powerful than me or you, and their just trying to make things right."
"Why me?" Xander asked confused on why some higher power would be concerned with him.
"Because they've seen that you've got potential boy and you see with Angel death during the ascension the Powers That Be battle plan was severely turned to shit."
"I'm not following?"
"You see in the original blueprints The Powers That Be planned on having Angel as their champion here in L.A.But his death has left a huge vacancy and now the PTB have decided that you're their new champion to fill that vacancy."
"Ok but why you?"
"We all got something to atone for."said Doyle as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper"You see I had a vision this morning.When the blinding pain stopped I wrote this down."
Xander reads the paper "Tina."
"Nice looking girl, needs help."
"Help with what?"
"That’s your business."smirked Doyle" My part is just to take down the names and other info for you."
"I don’t get it. How am I supposed to know…" said Xander confused looking down at Tina name on the paper and than back at Doyle
"You’re supposed to get into her life, remember? Get involved."said Doyle and than sighed a little in frustration" Look, high schools over, boy.It’s time to make with the grown up talk."
"Why would a woman I've never met even talk to me?"
"Now don't take this as a come on kid but have you looked into a mirror lately?What I'm trying to say is that your not bad to look at.So use that in your favor."
"I’m not good with meeting new people."
"Well that’s the whole point of this little exercise, isn’t it?" smiled Doyle"This will help you get back into that game that we call the human race.So kid tell me are you game?"
Xander could only look at the note again and nod his head yes.He was game.
To Be Continued
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