Pushed over the edge of reason.

[esercito sconfitto]

Xander smiled as she noticed a group of three vampires in expensive clothes heading down the alley toward where they were hanging out, “This should be fun.”

Faith smiled, “Dibs on the leather skirt.”

Xander smiled, “Dibs on the money on the guys.”

She frowned as she calculated the amount the leather skirt was worth, “Fine, but you have to grab it. And I get the girl‘s money.”

Xander sighed, “This is just about the only time I wish that male purses were an acceptable fashion statement.”

Faith smiled, “You could always get a purse honey.”

Xander shivered and whispered, “I’m not that far gone yet. Let‘s just do this.” She turned toward Faith, and spoke in a louder whisper meant to carry, “I’m sure they wouldn’t be interested in hiring both of us, look they already got a girl between them.”

Faith shrugged getting into her part a bit as she unbuttoned a button on her shirt, “Can’t hurt nothing to ask, now can it love?”

Xander had to work fairly hard to keep the smile on her face as the two male vampires’ faces lit up with desire, she gestured to a back door to an abandoned building that Faith had picked the lock on earlier, “Right this way boys.” She smiled as she walked through the door with Faith, she was fairly confident that they would follow either for sex or for food. She smiled as the first vampire walked in, she reached out and struck him hard enough to knock him unconscious before tossing his body into the room. She smiled as she grabbed the second man while Faith grabbed the lady by her hair and slammed her head into the metal doorframe. “So if you do exactly what we say we’ll spare your unlife.”

The male vamped out as he took a swing at Xander. She smiled as she lifted the creature up with one hand and reached out with the other to rip the guy’s pockets out one by one. “Stop thrashing, honestly you’re embarrassing yourself.”

The vampire screamed when he couldn’t break the bitch's grip, he really wasn't happy when he was chained against one of the walls. “What do you want?”

Xander shrugged, “This here is a welcome to Sunnydale mugging, you must be new.”

Faith smiled as she stripped the girl out of her leather skirt and halter-top. She noticed with some distaste that the girl wasn’t wearing anything under the skirt, the girl had a small patch of neatly trimmed blonde hair covering her crotch that matched the girl‘s shoulder length blonde hair, “Hey look, the carpet matches the curtains. Remind me to scrub the hell out of the skirt.”

“Yeah, cause that’s just icky.”

Faith shrugged then chained the vampire against one of the support beams in sight of the other vampire, “So any guesses on how much stuff they have?”

Xander shrugged, “Not really sure, you know that I could always just fly out to sea and down the coast looking for buried treasure right?”

“Totally not the point, but now that you mention it…”

Xander sighed, “Great.”

Faith smirked, “Oh come on, we wanted information.”

Xander nodded, “I guess, not sure how much these guys actually know but hey might as well ask.” She lifted the unchained vampire up with one hand and removed his pockets like she had done with the other one before she shook him awake, “So what do you know of any big bads?”

“What the hell are you talking about? We just came for easy food and you know the hellmouth. We could use someone like you, we could go places.”

Xander smiled as he noticed the two chained vampires coming around, “Excellent, I only have to ask my questions once. So you don’t work for anyone? Do you have a lair with more of your kind?”

The guy shook his head, “No. We work alone.”

Xander sighed and reached out with her free hand to grab the fingers of the hand that was grasping at her hand, she smiled grimly as she twisted and broke several of the guy’s fingers, “I think you’re lying, I’m going to ask one more time, actually wait scratch that. I’ll be right back love, that way when he tells me the others can’t hear. We dust them if they aren’t truthful.” She smiled as she walked into the back room easily dragging the struggling vampire with her.

Faith smiled, “Now might be a good time to tell me what we want to know… it’s that time of the month and my friend is really grumpy. So what’s it going to be?”

~

Xander frowned as she looked over the pile of dust from the two male vampires, “So what do you want to do with her?”

She let her gaze drift over the cute naked vampire’s curves, “We should probably get some pictures for the gang, we could use them for holiday cards.”

Xander shrugged, “You do that, I’ll count the take. Besides we still have to clean out the nest.”

The female vampire for her part was still looking at the piles of dust with dread, the girl had ripped the guys’ toes and fingers off when they had refused to give up the location of the nest, they hadn’t held out very long after that but she had then preceded to rip them limb from limb just to show that they could. “You’re going to kill me anyways.”

Faith smiled, “Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how smart you are.”

Ever the spirit of self preservation Eva decided to go with the slim chance at life the two were offering, “What do I need to do?”

Faith smiled as she clicked off a few more pictures, “Well my friend here, you can call her Sparky, has a practical demonstration for you first.”

Xander frowned at the name Sparky, but figured there were worse things to be called. She smiled as she pulled out a small dime sized object out of her pocket followed by a remote. She walked over and placed the dime sized object in the old rusty bathroom sink at the other end of the room. She smiled as she walked back slowly toward Faith and Eva, “A copy of that little dime sized device is going to be placed in your body, maybe in your skull maybe up your ass, or maybe right next to your heart, and when you do something stupid and you will, I get to do this…” Faith quickly plugged her ears and stepped behind the support column as Xander flicked the switch on the remote and the sink and surrounding wall vanished with a thunderous blast.

Faith blinked at the destruction, shit Giles had said the blast would be decent sized but shit it was loud. “Wicked, I vote we stick it up her ass.”

Eva stared at the two insane girls with horror, “What do I need to do?”

Xander shrugged, “Not much, we just want you to give us the locations of all of the vampires coming into town, keep an eye on things, don’t eat people and drop us a line when you hear interesting gossip. Oh and if we are forced to blow you to pieces, our necromancer friend will bring your essence back and we will stick you in a doll for all time, forced to watch the world go by but never able to do anything about it.”

Eva screamed when the girl jammed her with a strange metal tube like object in the back. She felt a stabbing pain as the tube pressed almost all the way to her heart.

Xander smiled, “I don’t recommend trying to dig that out, the air would probably set it off, and well they would be picking pieces of you out of the sidewalk for years. We‘ll expect a call in three days. Oh and if you tell anyone about us, well what happened to the guys will seem kind.”

Faith smiled, dropped a business card on the ground and punched the girl in the face hard enough to drive her back into unconsciousness. She smiled as she and Xander left the building a few hundred dollars richer.

~

Xander leaned against the wall a few blocks away from the old building, she wiped her mouth, “Gah, next time we just kneecap them, then steal their stuff and stake them. Less moral issues that way.”

Faith sighed, she hadn’t really enjoyed having Xander rip the guys apart but she had wanted a rather strong message sent to the girl. She wasn’t exactly happy about using the girl to ferret out hiding spots but sometimes you had to let a small fish go to get a big fish. “So how about we go clean out the nest, no moral issues there.”

Xander smiled, “Sure, right after I find something to wash my mouth out with.”

Faith handed her a flask, “Use that for now, there’s a drinking fountain in the park close to where we’re going.”

Xander frowned, “What’s in it?”

Faith sighed, “Water, Spike nicked the good stuff, said I wasn’t old enough. Bastard.”

Xander took it and washed her mouth out, and spit the water into the overgrown flowerbed. “He’s right. Besides you‘re less sexy when you slur your words.”

“Oh please, I haven’t been drunk in years, since before I got here actually.”

Xander smiled, “You’ll have to tell me about it.”

Faith grinned, “Would you believe me if I said it was Willow’s fault?”

Xander chuckled, “Before Halloween? No, after living with the girl the last few months? Hell yes.”

Faith smiled, “She’s a bit of a wild child, a bit more this time around, but she had more things happen the last time.”

Xander smiled, “So back to the story.”

“So there I was, innocently studying in the library when.” Xander held up her hand, “You in the library? And innocent? Now I know you’re making this up.”

Faith smiled, “Well if you don’t want to hear about what Willow wears late at night while reading when she thinks no one else is there… or what got her so hot and bothered that she would…” She smiled over at Xander.

Xander just chuckled, she was fairly sure that Faith was just telling stories but it was a nice distraction from thinking about Eva.

~~

Dawn smiled as she stripped out of her clothes and joined Willow, Tara and Miss Calendar in the large hot tub. They had acquired it last week and had promptly decided that it made the perfect place to continue their discussions on magic. While they could have the group discussions in one of the various lounges or conference rooms, there was something especially relaxing about sitting in a large hot tub under a starlit night sky.

Willow smiled as Dawn slid into the water, “So, how’s the homework coming?”

Dawn picked the open spot between Tara and Miss Calender to slide into. “Did the school work, the magic homework, I’m still working on moving a pencil in a straight line.”

Tara smiled, “At least you’ve got the moving part right.”

Dawn smiled, “Yeah.”

Tara grinned, “I’ll help you out some more in the morning if you want.”

Dawn nodded eagerly, “Thanks. Just wish I didn‘t have to go back in two days.”

Jenny smiled, “I’m not exactly looking forward to having to deal with the idiots nor walking the short distance between the car and the school. Alucard is right, stupid sun.”

Willow nodded, “So anyone have any ideas for projects?”

Dawn yawned slightly as she stretched her feet out, “Assuming Buffy gets back with her new toy, and Xander hers, what do we do about Faith’s weapon? I mean other than the Troll Hammer and the Scythe, we don’t exactly have an excess of mystical weapons laying around.”

Jenny reached up and pushed a stray lock off of her face and back where it belonged, “We could always try to make some. I mean Rupert could make the tools needed to forge the weapons, after that…”

Willow grinned, “Shouldn’t be too hard, besides it might help with the metallurgy testing for the new armor.”

Tara smiled as she turned toward Jenny, “So how did the date go?”

Jenny grinned, “It was nice, a moonlit nighttime stroll on the beach with a picnic lunch. It was nice, and peaceful.”

Dawn giggled as she slid into Tara’s lap, “How many vampires did you kill?”

Tara shifted slightly to give Dawn a better seat.

Jenny smiled in memory, “Only one, it was a bit of a mercy killing by that point.”

“Mercy killing?”

“Rupert and I were, well let’s just say he didn’t care for the interruption.”

Dawn frowned, “Interruption?” Her face twisted up, “Icky, never mind.”

Jenny chuckled as she purposely chose to misunderstand what exactly Dawn was saying icky about, “To borrow a word, quite. Rupert dazed the creature with a stun weapon then proceeded to take out his frustration with the tire iron. At least we know they sort of work on the demonic vampires.”

Willow nodded, “So where do we want to go from here for magical studies?”

Dawn’s face lit up, “I want to learn to make vampires explode.”

Tara blew air on Dawn’s ear, “Maybe we should stick to the basics.”

Dawn twisted to glance at Tara, “How is that any fun?”

Tara grinned as she raised her hand and conjured a wisp of fire over her hand, “Fire’s rather basic.”

Dawn smiled, “Oh.”

Jenny chuckled, “I think I want to learn that trick you have for magical hacking, it might come in handy soon, I want a better idea of what’s going on when the Initiative comes online.”

Dawn frowned, “Isn’t that not for a while?”

Willow yawned, “The place had to be built at some point, so I’m not exactly sure when things started. It might be a good idea to check around.”

“If there is nothing else I should probably check on Rupert, make sure he isn’t doing horrible things to the toaster again.” Jenny chuckled as she stood up, “Is the morning soon enough Willow?”

“Sounds good.” She smiled as she watched Jenny’s bare behind as her teacher headed for Giles’ workshop. After she was safely out of hearing distance she grinned at the other two girls left in the tub that had been doing the same thing. “Teachers shouldn’t look that cute.”

Dawn grinned before leaning back against Tara and relaxing, “Or they all should.”

Tara grinned as she ruffled Dawn’s hair, “No, then we wouldn’t get any work done.”

Willow smiled, “Speaking of work how do you think Xander is doing?”

Tara shrugged, “Don’t know, hopefully they haven’t ran into Glory or anything in their travels.”

Willow nodded, “We can hope.”

~

Faith frowned down at the large troll that was clutching at his groin, she glanced over at where Xander was holding the Troll Hammer, “That’s just cold man. Seriously cold.”

Xander glanced up from his examination of the hammer. “Hey wasn’t my fault he called you something he shouldn’t have.”

Faith smiled as she glanced around the alley where the troll god was currently laying broken and defeated. They had summoned him and challenged him to a duel, things had sort of gone south when he had called her a whore and Xander had taken exception to her girlfriend being called such things. She was fairly sure that there was blood or maybe urine soaking through the guy’s crotch. “Maybe you should just finish him.”

Xander nodded before bringing the hammer down on the troll’s head. “I so need a shower.”

Faith nodded, “Hot tub?”

Xander grinned, “Hell yeah.”

“You know what we could use?”

“What’s that?”

“A massage table by the hot tub.”

Xander grinned, “That shouldn’t be hard, we can stop for supplies on the way home.”

~~

The next day Giles set the last piece carefully in place on the machine. He backed up several steps and wiped the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief. He folded the handkerchief once before setting it on the table. He glanced at the strange almost alien looking device, it all came down to this, either it would work or it wouldn’t. He had sent the girls off on a shopping trip to make sure that none of them were around in case anything went wrong. Jenny had refused in case something went wrong, so she was currently watching things from her spot by the work bench. He muttered a prayer to Murphy and flipped the switch. He blinked, he wasn’t dead. His face broke out into a grin as the Arc reactor lit up and started humming exactly like it was supposed to. He checked the dials and read outs to make sure everything was working as it should. “It works, no more insane electric bills.”

Jenny smiled in relief, “Buffy will be happy to hear that. Not to mention not having her watcher blown up.”

Giles smiled, “There is that.”

~

Glory frowned as she listened to the two idiot mortals frantically babble about how they didn’t have a daughter and had never had a daughter. She smiled as she ripped their throats out in order to get them to shut up, “I’ve got you now my precious key.” It hadn’t taken much convincing to convince the local barkeep at the local hang out to spill the beans on the slayer and her friends. After that it had been simple to track down the new girl in her life, well it had been simple to tell her minions to do it. Such a task was beneath her. She glanced at the clock on the wall. She scowled, she was running late. She glanced at Murk, “How many more demons do we have to kill for Toth?”

Murk pulled a small journal out of his robes, “Most excellent one, we have only five left. Half an hour tops.”

“Remind me to kill Toth before I leave.”

“Of course of Glorious one.”

~~

Carter collapsed into her chair and hit the button on the monitor to turn it on. She groaned, she had just gotten back from her latest off world mission and she really didn’t want to deal with more of the crap warnings right now. She just wanted to grab one file then head home. She had the mouse icon halfway to the button to close the application when her brain kicked in and finished processing what it said, “Well crap.” She hurried out of the room looking for O’Neill.