Xander tried to relax as he felt the steady thrum of the engines.
It had been a littlebit more than a year since that fateful day when everything changed for him.
Halloween, the day where he had expected nothing more than a few hours in costume followed by a week long sugar rush.
The Hellmouth had a way of changing things, and in this case had been given aid in the form of the chaos mage, Ethan Rayne. For one night, the costumes chosen to impress or for fun had become the reality leading to a night of insanity and destruction that had nearly killed him while his own choice of costume went on a one man crusade to keep people safe.
If it had simply been normal troublemakers, that would have worked.
But a completely wrecked suit of power armor that his memories from John Hunter had shown as capable of shrugging off anti-tank weaponry had been an eerie eye opener.
After three days of recovery, something that baffled the doctors though it had been the end result of the lasting benefits of that night.
The psionic powers were almost akin to a terrifyingly deadly contagion in how they spread, and once they got ahold of you it took more than death to get rid of the changes they brought to the body.
Fortunately the wild contagion stopped with him, something Xander believed had come from its own fight with the end of the spell that had brought it to the world and as the three strains had also fought between themselves for control, at least until the three stalemated as they had in John Hunter of the world it had first come from.
His weapon was another gift of the night, the shapedancing weapon known as the Quicksilver Axe had changed far to much from its original shape and size to return and had remained as a bonded relic waiting eagerly for its masters commands much as one would see a happy dog at its owners feet.
The alarm sounded and he waved a hand, letting the power surge for a moment to silence the annoying clock in a shriek of twisting metal and ripping plastics before the remainder shattered in a spray of debris and sparks against the wall.
Lights flashed on and he groaned, rolling out of bed with a scowl across his lips.
He just had to buy a god damned clapper.
At least, he figured, school was no longer his problem.
John's memories combined with a lot of the psionic talents and, well, he'd had to be careful in several of the classes in order to keep his head from designing things that would make scientists run away screaming about the broken laws of reality.
Metacreativity and fringetech did not make good bedfellows with even people as normal as the Sunnydalians.
That led to his shot at a quick graduation, something that he didn't even have to mess with Snyders mind to get. The little troll had decided that if it let him either humiliate or eliminate one of the "troublemakers" then he was fine with it.
He wondered if Snyder was still as shocked about the ability he had shown in passing the damned tests with perfect scores.
Shaking his head as he staggered across the room, the place he called his own.
Figuring that he'd need the space, Xander had bought himself one of the old factories that seemed to litter his hometown. It had taken almost an entire month to get it in order.
The offices and breakrooms had been reworked into an apartment of sorts while the rest became his personal workshop.
His eyes blinked as the scent of coffee drew him like a magnet to full consciousness.
That's when he remembered that he wasn't in Sunnydale.
An incident that had ended up classified left him with the ear of the most powerful man in the world, at least as far as most were concerned anyway, and that had led to the beginning of the plan that he viewed as a dream that would be nigh impossible to pull off.
He'd brought forth one of the things that haunted his nightmares, and yet gave him a grim hope that if he suceeded then tomorrow would be assured.
Xander was founding a version of the Shop and was on his way to start recruiting.
He collapsed at the desk of the private jet and thumbed through the list of names culled from the databases of hundreds of the Letters across the entire planet.
The Shop was already beginning to pay for itself, and with presidential permission to recruit from those outside of the various agencies as well as his own funding and only minimal external oversight, well he'd gone for the best.
New York was his first stop, an NYPD officer had quit after an incident that made him want to terminate a specific ADA for her actions, but the officer would make a good recruit.
While in New York, there were others that he could recruit, two lawyers and someone that the CIA had stashed away even with the end of the Cold War.
The Russian would be interesting to talk to wether or not he accepted the offer.
Mike Logan was the first of the dozens on his list of potential recruits.
A grin slipped across his face when a glance out the window revealed the skyline on the horizon.
It had been a littlebit more than a year since that fateful day when everything changed for him.
Halloween, the day where he had expected nothing more than a few hours in costume followed by a week long sugar rush.
The Hellmouth had a way of changing things, and in this case had been given aid in the form of the chaos mage, Ethan Rayne. For one night, the costumes chosen to impress or for fun had become the reality leading to a night of insanity and destruction that had nearly killed him while his own choice of costume went on a one man crusade to keep people safe.
If it had simply been normal troublemakers, that would have worked.
But a completely wrecked suit of power armor that his memories from John Hunter had shown as capable of shrugging off anti-tank weaponry had been an eerie eye opener.
After three days of recovery, something that baffled the doctors though it had been the end result of the lasting benefits of that night.
The psionic powers were almost akin to a terrifyingly deadly contagion in how they spread, and once they got ahold of you it took more than death to get rid of the changes they brought to the body.
Fortunately the wild contagion stopped with him, something Xander believed had come from its own fight with the end of the spell that had brought it to the world and as the three strains had also fought between themselves for control, at least until the three stalemated as they had in John Hunter of the world it had first come from.
His weapon was another gift of the night, the shapedancing weapon known as the Quicksilver Axe had changed far to much from its original shape and size to return and had remained as a bonded relic waiting eagerly for its masters commands much as one would see a happy dog at its owners feet.
The alarm sounded and he waved a hand, letting the power surge for a moment to silence the annoying clock in a shriek of twisting metal and ripping plastics before the remainder shattered in a spray of debris and sparks against the wall.
Lights flashed on and he groaned, rolling out of bed with a scowl across his lips.
He just had to buy a god damned clapper.
At least, he figured, school was no longer his problem.
John's memories combined with a lot of the psionic talents and, well, he'd had to be careful in several of the classes in order to keep his head from designing things that would make scientists run away screaming about the broken laws of reality.
Metacreativity and fringetech did not make good bedfellows with even people as normal as the Sunnydalians.
That led to his shot at a quick graduation, something that he didn't even have to mess with Snyders mind to get. The little troll had decided that if it let him either humiliate or eliminate one of the "troublemakers" then he was fine with it.
He wondered if Snyder was still as shocked about the ability he had shown in passing the damned tests with perfect scores.
Shaking his head as he staggered across the room, the place he called his own.
Figuring that he'd need the space, Xander had bought himself one of the old factories that seemed to litter his hometown. It had taken almost an entire month to get it in order.
The offices and breakrooms had been reworked into an apartment of sorts while the rest became his personal workshop.
His eyes blinked as the scent of coffee drew him like a magnet to full consciousness.
That's when he remembered that he wasn't in Sunnydale.
An incident that had ended up classified left him with the ear of the most powerful man in the world, at least as far as most were concerned anyway, and that had led to the beginning of the plan that he viewed as a dream that would be nigh impossible to pull off.
He'd brought forth one of the things that haunted his nightmares, and yet gave him a grim hope that if he suceeded then tomorrow would be assured.
Xander was founding a version of the Shop and was on his way to start recruiting.
He collapsed at the desk of the private jet and thumbed through the list of names culled from the databases of hundreds of the Letters across the entire planet.
The Shop was already beginning to pay for itself, and with presidential permission to recruit from those outside of the various agencies as well as his own funding and only minimal external oversight, well he'd gone for the best.
New York was his first stop, an NYPD officer had quit after an incident that made him want to terminate a specific ADA for her actions, but the officer would make a good recruit.
While in New York, there were others that he could recruit, two lawyers and someone that the CIA had stashed away even with the end of the Cold War.
The Russian would be interesting to talk to wether or not he accepted the offer.
Mike Logan was the first of the dozens on his list of potential recruits.
A grin slipped across his face when a glance out the window revealed the skyline on the horizon.