Seeds of Time

Disclaimer: I unfortunately do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own amusement. Sadly Buffy: The Vampire Slayer remains the property of Mutant Enemy Productions and Robotech remains the property of Harmony Gold – thus I am merely borrowing the characters and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result please keep the lawyers firmly of a leash.

Authors Note: This is kind of an AU crossover/fusion story between Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Robotech. Updates will be extremely few and far between, as I will be focusing more on my other works like Second Chances, Pioneers Dawn and This Isn't Kansas so I don't want to hear any griping about another new story. I just thought I'd better share the first chapter with you after it's been sat on my hard drive completed since before Christmas.

Buffy story events begin during the Fourth Season premiere episode The Freshmen.

I would also like to personally thank by Bob Regent and Cyclone for all the help they've given me during this stories development, both as idea sounding boards and as beta readers.

Chapter One

Xander Harris slipped easily into the Bronze, a cautious eye open as always for any sign of a vampire hiding admit the crowd, which there usually was since the Bronze was a favourite hunting ground for younger looking vamps. For once there were none. Which probably meant that the summer lull was still in effect alongside the fact that the Sunnydale vampire community had taken some savage losses during the battle with the late, and very unlamented, Mayor Richard Wilkins and would still be rebuilding its numbers. So he let himself relax somewhat, though after his experience on his road trip from hell, after everything he'd seen and experienced, he never let himself relax completely anymore.

He was just about to make his way through the crowd of slowly dancing teenagers to the bar, he really needed a coke or something, when he saw her. Buffy was wandering through the crowds looking strangely melancholy about something. A quick glance around showed him that there was no sign of Oz, Willow or even Deadboy – though the latter wasn't surprising as he faintly recalled Angel saying he was going to head to LA after the defeat of Wilkins – the blond-haired Slayer was very much on her own her tonight. On her own and very much down in the doldrums by the looks of things.

A concerned frown appeared on his face as he changed direction completely and moved to intercept her. It had been so long since he'd seen her and he wanted to know just what it was that seemed to have Buffy so depressed. Within moments he was standing behind Buffy, who seemed completely unaware of his presence as she looked around with a sad, almost wistful look on her face. Which meant he had the very rare opportunity to surprise the distracted blond bombshell of a Slayer.

"The whole world in front of her," he said the sudden sound of his voice making Buffy visibly jump with surprise, grinning at his success he continued "and she comes back to this dive."

"Xander," Buffy exclaimed spinning around to see one of her best friends standing behind her – a familiar cheeky grin on his face. Without hesitation, and with a laugh of pure joy, she reached out and pulled him into a hug as she'd really missed him – and his infectious good humour – over the last few months. A slight frown appeared on her face as she abruptly became aware that he'd put on some weight while he was away, the muscles on the arms that wrapped around her returning the hug felt corded and really hard. Not to mention the musculature she could feel through the fabric of his shirt. He must have been doing some serious working out on his road trip, she thought.

"Hey Buff," Xander replied returning the hug.

"When did you get back," Buffy asked pulling back and immediately noticing some distinct changes in her best male friend's appearance and posture. Not only was he noticeably bigger, his shoulders broader, but he was standing completely upright instead of his normal slouch, standing in a posture that almost screamed military. Plus his hair was cut shorter and styled differently. But the biggest change was in his eyes, they were harder than she remembered and his face now that she looked at it seemed somehow older. Plus he'd somehow gained a well healed, but at the same time nasty looking, scar above his left eyebrow that the Slayer part of her said could only have come from a glancing hit with a blade or spike of some sort. A scar that hadn't been there before. What has he been up to on his road trip, she thought, if he's been hunting demons without backup then we will be so having words!

"A few days," Xander admitted.

Buffy punched him – lightly of course – on the shoulder in response. "Freak of nature," she replied smirking and deciding not to call him on the changes she'd noted, there would be time for that later when she had Willow as back up, as while Xander could be a stubborn mule with her - not telling her anything if he didn't want to - he had no chance against Willow's infamous resolve face, she could get answers out of him when nobody else could. Right now she just settled for the fact that he was back. "Why didn't you call me? I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Buff," Xander answered, "but you were getting ready for college and I didn't want to distract you. Besides I was looking for a place to live." At the look Buffy shot him he explained. "My folks wanted me to move into the basement and pay them rent. But I thought screw that. If I've got to pay rent I'd rather do it on my own place."

"Those asses," Buffy muttered, "so you found somewhere or are you still looking? If you are I know mom would let you stay in her spare bedroom. I think she'd welcome the company."

"I appreciate the offer Buff but I've already found somewhere. Just moved into one of the new one bed apartments on Castle Street. I still need to buy some stuff but it's already starting to feel like home. You can come around in a few days to see it if you want."

Buffy smiled. "I'm happy for you and I'll take you up on that offer," she replied, "so tell me about your trip where'd you go? What did you see?"

"A lot of places and I saw quite a bit," Xander replied evasively. He didn't want to tell too much of what he knew, where he'd been and what he experienced on his 'road trip' yet and certainly not here. That would have to wait until he could get all the Scooby gang together in one place and then tell them and show them the proof he had to back it up. Seeing that Buffy was about to press for details he decided to change the topic. "So where's Willow and Oz? How's college?"

Buffy frowned at the delaying tactic but decided not to call Xander on it for now at least. Another thing to question him about later and bring the big guns of Willow's resolve face out for, she thought. "It's okay," she said mechanically.

A raised eyebrow was the response she got. "Okay once more with even less feeling," Xander replied looking at her with a very pointed look.

Busted, Buffy thought with a mental sigh. Xander could always see through her like that. "No… no it's great," she tried to reassure him as he led her to one of the few unoccupied couches, allowing them to sit. "Willow's all excited and Oz has this really cool house off campus with the band. Don't worry I already checked it out to make sure they were ready for… that time of the month."

Before finding out that Eddie had disappeared she'd gone over there at Oz's behest just to make sure they had the cage set up properly in the basement ready for his next werewolf transformation – after all if she as the Slayer couldn't get out the cage without being let out then there was no way Wolf-Oz would either – as the full moon was only a week away. It had been perfect the Dingoes were well used to Oz's lycanthropy by now and knew how to handle it, which was one less thing for her to worry about.

"And you're sitting here alone at the Bronze, looking like someone just diagnosed you with cancer of the puppy," Xander pointed out, "come on Buff what's the matter?"

Buffy sighed softly. "It's just there's this vampire," she admitted, "she took me down and I don't know how to stop her."

"So where's the gang? Avengers assemble! Let's get it going!"

"No I don't want to bother them. I mean they're just starting college, they don't need this."

"Okay Buff we'll deal with it ourselves," Xander replied. "I've got a couple of new toys that should make taking this bitch down quite easy."

Buffy looked down, even as the Slayer in her sat up at the mention of new toys to use against vampires. Toys which would have to be weapons. "But what if I can't cut it," she said softly.

Xander raised an eyebrow. "Can't cut what! Slaying?"

Buffy nodded. "Slaying, everything."

Xander sighed. Oh for crying out loud, he thought. It was clear that being defeated by this particular vampiress had deeply rattled Buffy, she wasn't used to losing confrontations with vampires, but this was ridiculous. "You can do it," he said. "You're Buffy."

"Yeah, maybe in high school I was Buffy."

"And now you're in college you're someone else? I don't buy it Buffy," Xander replied before getting up and moving to go onto his knees in front of Buffy, before gently taking her hands. "Buffy, I've gone through some fairly dark times in my life, faced some scary things. Let me tell you something, when it's dark and I'm all alone and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero. Ok, sometimes when it's dark and I'm all alone I think, 'What is Buffy wearing?'"

Buffy chuckled slightly at that. "Can we make it that that's something you never tell me about," she asked.

"Deal," Xander replied standing up and offering a hand. "Now let's go see about putting this bitch in the ground. What do you say?"

"I say," Buffy replied taking the offered hand and letting Xander pull her to her feet. "I say thank you."

Xander smiled. "Okay so what do we do first?" he asked.

"First we need to find her. She and her little gang of fellow vamps have been feeding on the freshmen at UC Sunnydale," Buffy replied, "feeding then stealing from them. They stole my stuff from me," she added with a growl annoyance and determination to dust that bitch Sunday and her whole crew replacing her previous depression over being defeated. For the few seconds it would take to turn to dust Sunday would regret crossing swords with her. "Which means they have to have a nest either on or close to campus. We should check the records at the admin offices to see if we can pick up some clues from there."

"It's as good a place as any to start," Xander agreed. "Alright come on, we've got a fang face to find."

Without waiting for a response he turned and began to walk out of the Bronze. Buffy followed having to hurry slightly to keep up with Xander's longer strides. In moments they were both stepping out of the nightclub and out into the surprisingly cool Californian night. To Buffy's surprise Xander picked up his pace somewhat as he turned and started leading the way towards the car park.

"Xander slow down," she complained as she almost had to run a bit to keep up with him.

"Sorry, Buffy," Xander replied reducing his pace a bit, he hadn't realised he'd been almost at a brisk marching pace. Going to have to watch that, he thought. Once Buffy was standing by his side he resumed his journey to the car park, whereupon he headed towards the area where motorbikes were kept.

"I thought you had a car," Buffy noted as she followed Xander.

"I did but I lost it," Xander replied coming to a stop by an incredibly sleek, high tech looking motorcycle. Upon the sight of it Buffy whistled impressed, something in its sleek lines hinted at an incredible amount of contained power. "Beauty isn't she," he commented.

"Hell yeah. What is it called?" Buffy asked.

"A Cyclone," Xander replied, retrieving a helmet from one of the boxes attached to the side and slipping it on. "Get on," he said to Buffy as he climbed on. Buffy blinked but followed sitting down behind Xander and wrapping her arms around him. The moment she did so Xander started the bike up, the engine coming to life with an odd rumbling humming sound instead of the deep throaty roar of the internal combustion engine Buffy would have expected it to have.

That's wiggy, she thought as Xander kicked up the pedal the bike and been resting on and manoeuvred the bike out of the parking bay. Within moments they were out in the street and accelerating towards the campus. This is awesome, Buffy thought as the streets of Sunnydale turned into a slipstream blur of shapes, colours and shadows as they powered down the roads at what had to be at least eighty miles an hour. Buffy let herself relax and put her chin on Xander's shoulder, she'd forgotten how much fun it was riding a motorbike as the last time she'd still been living in LA and Pike had started giving her a lift around on his bike – especially after what happened with the Master Vampire Lothos and his coven at Hemery High.

Huh now that she thought about it there were a lot of similarities between Xander and Pike. Both hadn't hesitated to help her in her Slayer duties as soon as they'd become aware of her calling. Both had lost someone they considered a very close friend to vampires, said friend being turned into a vampire and forcing both to dust him, quite early on. Both had stuck by her even when she'd tried pushing them away, though Pike in the end had left feeling he was too much a hindrance, from the slaying. The difference though was Xander was unquestionably a better fighter than Pike had been, plus he'd made it clear that even if she pushed him out the Scoobies he'd keep fighting the darkness regardless of what she said. Plus she had to admit the knowledge and skills from his soldier possession during that infamous Halloween had on half come in handy both against the Judge and a post-ascension Mayor Wilkins.

She became so lost in thinking about the similarities and differences between Xander Harris and Oliver Pike that she didn't notice them pulling up outside the main administration building of the university campus. At least till the feel of the wind rustling her hair disappeared. Mentally she shook herself out of fugue state she'd descended into and climbed off the bike, giving it a wistful look as she did so as it was an incredibly sweet ride. I'll have to get Xander to give me rides on it more often, she thought watching as Xander got off the bike himself flicking a few switches as he did so before deploying the pedal.

"Ah where are the keys," she asked suddenly noticing the Cyclone had no keys.

"There aren't any," Xander replied, "the starter is completely electronic. The security system built into the bike also means that only an authorised rider can start it up." Well unless the Cyclone's in storage mode, he thought recalling some of the things he'd learned about Cyclones, then anyone can start one up if they know how… at least till you configure the starter to only accept a certain rider.

"Wow," Buffy answered watching as Xander slipped his helmet off and put it in the bag it had come out of. "The offices are this way," she said gesturing towards the entrance to the admin building. Xander nodded and gestured for her to take the lead as she knew the campus a little better than he did – he'd never been here before after all and had only been able to find the admin building by following a few road signs. Buffy nodded back in acknowledgement before, without any further hesitation, beginning to lead the way into the building, with Xander following a few paces behind her.

Twenty Minutes Later

Buffy frowned as she carefully studied the records being displayed on the computer screen, while she wasn't a whizz with computers like Willow was she knew enough to work this one properly. The screen was currently showing a full list of the students who'd disappeared after leaving notes in their dorm rooms saying they couldn't handle the stresses of college life. The list was collated to show those students who had genuinely left and arrived home and those who had simply disappeared and were listed only as missing.

There was a clear pattern here. "There are only a few disappearances that cannot be accounted for afterwards," she said. "Not enough to raise red flags, Sunday is obvious being very clever only taking a few to avoid gaining attention to her activities before now."

"When did the disappearances start," Xander asked from where he was standing at another desk reviewing some newspapers they'd found stacked in one of the file draws. He had a feeling he knew where the vamps were hiding from two of the articles but he needed the right answer from Buffy to confirm it.

Buffy quickly input a query, the result flashing up immediately on the screen. "They weren't too common before 1981," she replied.

Xander smiled. "Bingo," he said picking up two of the papers. "Check this out," he added pointing to the older of the two. Buffy immediately picked it up and scanned the indicated article.

"Psi Theta fraternity house loses its charter," she read aloud, "house to be closed for renovation."

"Now look at this one," Xander replied handing her a paper dated for three months ago just before Mayor Wilkins ascended into an Olvikan – and had been promptly blown to bits by them with Sunnydale High being unfortunate collateral damage.

"Former Psi Theta fraternity house lies empty and dormant while zoning issues drag on before the city council," Buff read aloud before smiling. She recognised this tactic as they'd both seen it before, vampires often took up lodgings in old abandoned buildings and if they were there awhile then said buildings tended to get wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape by the Wilkins administration. Though things were starting to improve at City Hall now that Wilkins was dead as many of his cohorts had died with or shortly after him, apparently there had been a number of arrangements involving magic in them that had been literally annulled the moment Wilkins died, but it would still be months or years before all the 'vampire ass covering' Wilkins had done was undone – if it ever was. "We got a winner," she said her smile turning into a predatory grin as the Slayer in her anticipated vengeance against the vampiress who'd humiliated her so earlier this evening.

"You up for a little reconnaissance mission Buff," Xander asked.

Buffy's grin turned into a look of confusion. "You mean where we paint pictures and stuff," she asked.

Inwardly Xander groaned and resisted, just, the impulse to shake his head in exasperation. Buffy could be so dense at times, really living up to the 'dumb' blond stereotype, often on purpose or so he believed. "No, that was the Renaissance," he replied.

"Oh," Buffy answered blushing slightly in embarrassment, grateful that Giles and Willow weren't here to see her make that faux pau both the ex-Watcher and the redheaded budding witch would have been most annoyed with her. "Sorry it's been a very long day."

"Come on," Xander said before leading the way out, Buffy hurrying after him more than ready to kick some fang face butt if Sunday and her minions were indeed hiding in the old fraternity house.

A few minutes later, she was once again climbing off the back of Xander's bike. The surprisingly quiet engine allowing them to get much closer to the boarded up, derelict looking building than they otherwise would have been able to on such a vehicle without alerting any vamps inside that company was potentially coming. She was about to start for the side of the building, to climb up to the roof to glance through the skylight that all the frat houses in the complex had, when Xander spoke from behind her.

"Buffy," he said the tone of his voice making her turn around. To see Xander offering some kind of knife to her. "Take this," he said, "I don't have a stake with me but this should help."

"Thanks," Buffy replied accepting the knife and frowning. It didn't feel like it was made of metal, the blade was too smooth and gleamed wrong in the light, it also seemed oddly blunt. And was that a tiny button built into the hilt? "What kind of blade is this?"

"It's called a vibroblade," Xander replied, "press the button."

Buffy did so and the blade immediately began emitting a faint but extremely dangerous buzzing sound and her Slayer senses picked up that it was now vibrating hard in her hand. She looked at Xander questioningly.

"It's now vibrating at a level that means the blade can cut through just about anything," Xander explained. "Should be easily able to cut off a vamps hand and probably even their heads if they get in too close."

Buffy looked back down at the knife and made a few experimental swings with it, it felt good in her hand not as good as a stake but damned close. "I like it," she said looking back up at Xander as she pressed the button again which stopped the blade vibrating. "As much as I like the new toy where'd you get it," she asked curious.

"Same place I got the Cyclone," Xander replied. "And that's a…"

"…long story," Buffy finished for him before slipping the blade into her pocket. "Alright let's go check this place out."

Without waiting for a response she climbed up the closest drainpipe to the roof. Xander followed but more cautiously just in case the somewhat rusted cast metal drainpipe buckled under his considerably greater body weight. By the time he reached the roof Buffy had already approached the skylight, brushing a few dead leaves away so she could look down into the lobby of the former frat house.

"Score," she said spying Sunday and her little gaggle of minions inside. Her grin of triumph at finding them turned into an annoyed scowl as she observed Sunday holding up one of her favourite skirts. "Oh that's my skirt you're never going to fit into it with those hips," she said, "we found them. I can see most of my stuff but I can't see my weapons chest. They must have left it back in the dorm."

"I can go and check," Xander replied knowing why she wanted the weapons chest, or at least some of the weapons from it. The vibroblade knife he'd given her was only a last resort weapon after all and not really something to take vampires on with if it could be avoided.

"Go. I'll keep an eye on this bunch," Buffy acknowledged. "If my weapons chest isn't there then Willow will have a few hidden in her room. My rooms 214 on the second floor, Willows is 265 on the same floor."

"I'll be as quick as I can," Xander replied before climbing back down the drainpipe.

As her best male friend disappeared Buffy turned her full attention back to watching the vampires. Just in time to see the long haired male vamp pull a familiar stuffed white pig from one of her cases. "Mr Gordo," she growled, enraged that the vamps were touching her favourite childhood teddy her rage only grew as the vamps began to chuck him back and forth amongst themselves laughing and joking the whole time. Oh you're all going down for that, she thought as even Angelus had known better than to mess with Mr Gordo.

She began so annoyed that she didn't notice that she was putting increasing pressure on the dirty glass of the skylight. At least till with a crash the glass shattered and she fell through landing hard on the floor two stories below before she could even begin to react. The suddenness and violence of her appearance momentarily stunning Sunday and her crew into silence.

"Unh," she groaned as she got her wits back, before looking up to see the shocked look on Sunday's face morphing into one of evil anticipation. Oh crap, she thought.

Xander was just about to put his helmet back on to drive the short distance to the dorm areas of the campus when the sound of breaking glass from the direction of the frat house turned vampire nest caught his attention. Great something did have to go wrong didn't it, he thought knowing what had most likely happened. Buffy had leant too hard on the skylight glass causing it to shatter, as having been abandoned for the better part of twenty years the buildings windows wouldn't have been upgraded to double glazing, which would have sent the Slayer crashing to the floor right into the middle of the vampires.

Knowing he couldn't leave now, Buffy had already lost to this particular bunch of vamps once tonight and it was unlikely they would refrain from killing her a second time. He had to act now, even if that meant revealing more of what had happened, what he'd gained over the summer, to Buffy sooner than he would have liked. Deciding there was no time to get into body armour he quickly opened one of the smaller side bags and withdrew a sleek metallic pistol.

Thumbing the activation switch he turned around and ran up to the boarded up door of the former Psi Theta house, the weapon in his hand vibrating as its pre-fire chamber filled with energy from the capacitor in the handgrip. He wasn't surprised to find that the door was locked though it was obviously weak as a few kicks snapped the locking bar and sent the door flying open. He quickly charged in…

… just as a male vampire with long brownish-blond hair was turning towards him, attention obviously drawn by the sound of the door slamming open. Without hesitation he pointed his weapon at the vamp and fired sending a coruscating blue-white beam of energy smashing into the torso of the demonically reanimated corpse. Immediately the vampire screamed in a combination of surprise and pain as the laser drilled into its body before erupting into flames as the searing heat of the beam instantly set clothes and undead flesh alight. A moment later he crumbled outline imploding into fiery dust that collapsed into the floor.

Even as the first vampire dissolved into oblivion Xander targeted and fired on the next two vamps in rapid succession. Both vamps, one male with short black hair and one a female with red hair a few shades darker than Willows, like the first screamed in pain and surprise even as they burst into flames. Only two vamps remained, one another male who looked like he was about to wet himself in fear the other a taller blond haired female who'd been about to attack Buffy but who was now gaping in shock at the sudden death of three of her fellow fang faces in less than a minute.

It proved to be a fatal mistake. Shaking off her own shock at the sudden destruction of three vampires, the manner of their destruction further reinforcing the need to have that conversation with Xander about his road trip, Buffy attacked Sunday delivering a round house punch right to the face. Sunday flew back from the force of impact, crashing into a pile of stuff and becoming instantly buried under nearly two decades of accumulated possessions and detritus. Not about to give the vampiress time to recover Buffy picked a wooden tennis racket up off the floor and snapped the head off turning the handle and shaft into a crude, but effective, stake.

As she heard the snap-hiss of the energy beam from Xander's sci-fi pistol lash out again, and the following scream of pain and terror from the last minion as he burst into flames, Buffy charged forward. She reached Sunday just as the vampiress, face now fully vamped out in a combination of pain and fury, started to stand up shoving the debris aside angrily. Only for Buffy to quickly deliver a devastating snap kick to her face that sent the vamp crashing to the floor again.

"You know in about the three seconds it will take you to turn to dust," Buffy said conversationally as she dropped to her knee's straddling Sunday to prevent the dazed fang face getting up again. "I think you'll conclude that your fatal mistake was touching my stuff," she finished before driving the makeshift stake down into Sunday's heart.

"You okay, Buff," Xander asked as with the familiar eerie scream of a vanquished demon Sunday exploded into a plume of dust.

"I'm fine," Buffy replied standing up and brushing the grimy, grey dust that had once been Sunday off her clothes before turning to look at Xander. And the pistol he was still holding but which wasn't thankfully trained on her. "What is that?"

"This," Xander replied holding up the pistol, "it's a SAL-9 Laser Pistol. And before you ask I got it at the same place as everything else."

"We so need to have that conversation," Buffy said.

"We do," Xander agreed. "But it's a very long, complex and sometimes painful story that I really only want to tell once – and that's going to be hard enough. Thus I would prefer to tell the entire gang at once as its going to take all of us to stop it."

"Stop what?" Buffy asked as she felt what she could only describe as a coldness like liquid nitrogen run down her spine at the look on Xander's handsome face. A look of someone who was burdened by a terrible knowledge, a knowledge he couldn't, and wouldn't even if he could as it wasn't in his nature, escape from.

"What else? The end of the world."

"Again?"

At the long suffering and somewhat exasperated tone in Buffy's response Xander couldn't help but laugh. It was true that they'd faced numerous attempts to bring about the apocalypse and destroy the world over the last few years. Faced and defeated them, sometimes by the very skin of their teeth, all. But this was different, this time he'd seen the worlds end and the incredible sequence of events that had led up to the end of those who could have stopped it decades before the event itself took place.

"Yes again. Unfortunately this time it does happen and the world gets pulled into hell or so close to it that it doesn't matter," Xander replied. "It happens because the ones who could have prevented it, could have stopped them, were all dead by then and had been for a long time."

"Who was it and who was dead," Buffy asked hoping to get a little bit of information that she could tell Giles and the others that would convince them whatever it was that Xander had to tell them, whatever had happened to him on his road trip, was something they all needed to hear a.s.a.p. She found that she already believed him, the things he'd shown her and the look in his eyes being more than enough to convince her that he was telling the truth and that something horrible was going to bring about the end of the world.

Xander sighed and decided to give Buffy a little bit of information. "December 17th 2044," he said, "the inactive Hellmouth currently beneath the town of Yelizovo on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula will open as a result of the dimensional barrier being weakened. An army of extremely powerful demons led by some of the weaker members of the Old Ones will come through. They'll use some pretty powerful demonic magic to widen the breach they'll cause allowing the rest of the Old Ones to return."

Buffy paled at that announcement. "What about the Slayer surely whoever succeeds me or Faith as Slayer would stop them," she said.

"They would have but by then the Slayer was dead, Buffy. In fact all the Slayers were dead, the entire line destroyed."

"What how?" Buffy demanded to know horrified at the prospect that the line of Slayers, the line that had protected the world from the vampires, demons and forces of darkness for thousands of years, would end.

"That's part of the longer story, Buffy," Xander replied, "but suffice to say for now we have to find a way to stop it, stop the ending of the Slayer line so that there will still be a Slayer to stop the Old Ones vanguard and close the Hellmouth again before the main force of demons, and the Old Ones themselves, come through."

"I'll say," Buffy agreed, already vowing to herself to do whatever she had to do to ensure that the line of Slayers wouldn't be broken by anyone and that there would be a Slayer in Russia waiting to boot the demons back into the hell worlds and seal the Hellmouth. Maybe Giles will be able to call the Council and tell them about the threat of the inactive Hellmouth beneath Yelizovo. Maybe they'll be able to somehow monitor it and stop whatever weakens the barrier allowing it to be opened, she thought.

"Okay," she said after a moment of thought. "We need to have that conversation but I can understand you only wanting to go through it once. So here's what we'll do myself, Willow and Oz all have final period free tomorrow, we can meet up then, and I'm sure we can get Giles to come especially if I tell him what you just told me."

Xander nodded. "You can come to my apartment then," he said, "it's at Carter Place on Castle Street. Apartment 6."

"We'll be there," Buffy agreed, resolved to get everyone there to the meeting at Xander's new apartment. Then she looked around deciding to move on from the depressing topic to her more immediate – and personal - concern. "Will you help me get all this stuff back to my dorm room?"

"No problem, Buff."

Author Note: Well that's the first chapter I hope I've got you all interested to find out just what happened to Xander on his road trip, why he looks like he's aged a couple of years in just three months and how he has a Cyclone months before the SDF-1 even arrives on Earth.