Chapter Four: Tantrum Time

Or, Invasion of the former Scoobies!

 *Xander*

"Boy, I'm scared. And excited. And consumed with dread. I'm glad you're here." -Kate

It took me almost an hour to find what I was looking for. Unfortunately what I was looking for had become something unexpected. Or something. Anyways. I nearly tripped on Jonathan where he lay sprawled in what the little resort had that passed for an alley. Said alley was really the slightly shaded place between the grocery store and the gas station. Jonathan was lying in an unconscious heap next to a raunchy smelling trash barrel.

I only had a moment to register his presence before I became aware of a low growl coming from the other side of the trash. I grabbed up a stake from my pocket and waited anxiously for something to move. After about a minute I heard a surprisingly familiar voice come from where the growling had originated.

"Xander?"

"Cowering the a closet is starting to sound like a reasonable plan." - Oz

My room smells funny. And my bed is curiously not squishy. And there's no warm Riley pillow… With a groan I decided that it was time that I face facts. I must've fallen off the bed again. With a sigh I pushed myself up off the cold floor and blinked fuzzily at my surroundings. Everything was blue. Light, seamless blue. I took a moment to get the sudden vertigo from staring at the seamless blue out of my mind. Why can't I wake up in a nice cheerful meadow with sunshine and chirping birds with Riley and Angel frolicking naked in the marigolds? I sighed. No rest for the slayer-types.

Getting to my feet I looked around the blue I was in. There wasn't much of anything to look at. Just a blue floor and a cornerless blue…blueness. "Okay, I already hate blue." I grumbled. I was starting to remember the events leading to my capture. I remembered spell-ingredient hunting with Jonathan and meeting up with Oz. Then there were flashes of (ick, blue) light and voila! Waking in the land of the un-blue challenged.

I stretched myself a bit, making sure I wasn’t too stiff. I didn't seem to have any permanent damage to deal with, so I figured that the aliens had just knocked me out and dropped me here to take a nice nap. Shrugging to myself, I started walking forward, hoping to locate a wall in the blue. It took me a minute and a half to give up and flop onto the floor again. "Okay, so the blue is there to make me crazy, there're no walls, and the floor isn't even hollow." I considered trying to punch through the floor but decided to wait until I was desperate to risk bodily harm.

Five seconds later the aliens presented a new shock for my perusal. A whole opened in the blue ceiling and a body fell through to land with a solid smack on the floor in front of me. The whole closed up before I could react, and so I was left with a body to play with. Great.

I took a good look at the unconscious figure, hoping for some help. Lying facedown, all I could make out of it was that is was female with shaggy dark brown hair. After a moment I turned the body over and jumped back to land ungracefully on my ass. "Faith?!" Faith groaned in response and her eyes flickered open briefly. "Faith, wake up!" I demanded. Well its not the best company, but its better than endless blue I suppose. I waited impatiently while the other slayer blinked blearily and tried to focus on me.

"B?" I rose my eyebrows at her, waiting for a more intelligent response. How the hell did she get out of prison before the zap? She just went in! "Oh my god Buffy!" She gasped suddenly and promptly burst into some very un-Faith-like tears. Before I could answer her disturbing sobs, a tennis-ball size hole opened in the ceiling and a tube lowered into our prison. Greenish gas started to filter in through the tube. Faith started to wail in pure terror, crawling across the floor to cling to my legs.

"Don't let them take me! Don'tletthemtakemedon'tletthemtakemedon'tletthemtakeme!" She murmured into my pant leg while I tried to shake her off. Despite my efforts not to breathe, alas I fell, for I am human, and not an unbreathing nylon-polyester blend.

"But I just got so bored!" - Spike

Between smoking and pacing and singing to meself, I managed to keep distracted from the fact that my pet was out looking for imperiled folk alone in the day where I couldn't help him or watch him or reach him to lock him up in a dark cave for all eternity so he would never be out of my sight again for about three minutes. After those three minutes I started cursing the stupid unconcious soldier git and his mum and his mum's mum and his mum's mum's mum. After that I don't really remember all that I said to him but I finally resorted to poking him in the calf with the tip of my pocket knife and saying "Ow." to the subsequent pain in my skull for entertainment.

To say the least, when my boy returned from his search an hour later, I was ecstatic enough to forget to cover the now bleeding spot on the soldier's calf and managed to drop my knife on my boot at the perfect angle for it to bounce off the toe and stick me in the shin. Ow. So Xan was met with a scene that made him ask stupid unnecessary questions like:

"What the hell happened to his leg?", "Why are you hopping?", and the favorite, "Did you just stab yourself?". I, of course, had a bloody genius answer to all these things.

"I...er...was bored." This illicited red-faced 'I'm going to kill you!' face on dear Xander. "The git'll be fine...it'll take his mind off 'is lack of arm!" And why? Why must I try to defend myself? I should just run for my unlife while he's distracted figuring out what I did wrong.

"You got bored so you decided to stab Riley?" Xander asked in a slow, meant for children voice. I nodded, rubbing at my shin. "And you didn't think that was a bad thing to do?" I tried out my innocent face. "Of course. It makes perfect sense. You don't have a soul, so it makes no difference to you. Stab the wounded and defenseless! Just a game like Go Fish!" His voice had risen until he yelled the last bit. Then he did something he'd never done before his stint as a woman. He closed his eyes and took a deep calming breath before continuing in a more normal voice. "Alright. This is my fault. You're a vampire. I should've known better to leave you in charge of anything." He said, the anger in his eyes turning into hurt. Thats when I felt a very un-vampire-like pang of guilt, which in turn made my cold blood boil.

"Damn straight I'm a vampire! I'm evil, love. You forget that?!" I knew it was a stupid thing to say and I got confirmation of that when those expressive brown eyes closed off. No more hurt, no more anger, just hard emotionless brown.

"Right, stupid me." He answered in a small voice. Then he turned his head to look to someone in the hall, reminding me that he'd been gone. "We've got more wounded. We need to move everyone to the lounge. Do you think you can set up a few beds without killing anyone?" The pure disdain in his voice made me wince. I turned to fix up the soldier to be moved but he stepped between me and the bed. "Beds only. You've done enough damage."

"Right." I hissed and left the room. I'd almost gotten to the lounge before containing my frustration failed and I buried my fist in the wall.

"Do you need help with that or is it dead?" A curious voice asked from the doorway to the lounge area. I turned my head to look as I pulled my bloody fist out of the wall. It was the wolf-boy that Red had been dating. He was looking pointedly at the hole in the wall. I took a deep calming breath and grinned at him.

"Nah, I think I got it." Oz nodded sagely and turned to limp into the other room.