NT: Interlude: Meanwhile, In Sunnydale

Xander Harris was pretty wigged out. Sure, he'd seen some weird stuff over the past couple years, but he'd largely gotten used to a certain level of wigginess. A lot of supernatural stuff was in his wheelhouse now, especially after meeting Ulysses. This, though, seemed different somehow. See, he was standing over a corpse in the alleyway behind the Local S-Mart, which wasn't super unusual. The fact that whatever had killed the Corpse had burrowed underground wasn't unusual either. Plenty of things that went bump in the night furrowed, after all, he'd even fought some back when they'd been fighting the Whirlwind, those Ankheg things that had been summoned. No, what was unusual was the chitinous spike that was sticking out of the Victim's Torso.

His mystic radar wasn't pinging off of the spike that was lodged in the Victim's chest. It also wasn't pinging off anything else in the area that wasn't just ambient bad juju from the Hellmouth. Granted, Xander himself didn't exactly have the mystical juice for anything more than a baseline scan. He just wasn't good with the Mojo, and it'd taken him months of trying to even get a basic scan up and running. He wished Amy were here, she'd be more than capable of scanning for stuff Xander missed. Unfortunately, she was dealing with another issue, some guy out in Oxnard had summoned a Member of the Sidhe, one of Oberon's Grandkids or something, called a Leannansidhe. Apparently, it was a type of fae that didn't have to stay in Avalon thanks to the Powers That Be and Elder Gods allowing Members of the Third Race below a certain power threshold to stick around on Earth.

Regardless, while Ames was dealing with that, Xander was doing his patrol when he'd come across this little slice of weirdness. He hated to do this, especially since it'd squick him out a bit, but he grabbed hold of the chitinous spine and pulled. It came out of the Victim's chest with a sound like squelching meat, which was just all kinds of gross. Then, once he had the Spine, Xander made his way back to Ulysses' Loft, which his group had been using as their base of operations since Ulysses had left town. Hopefully, he'd be back soon. Not to get all sappy, but Xander missed the guy. Sure, he still had Oz to hang out with for male bonding time, but Oz wasn't super talkative most of the time, and outside of him, Xander only had female friends. It wasn't a great look for a guy.

Of course, when he entered, he was alone. Oz was on a Date with Willow tonight, and Sheila was still out on patrol, hitting the six cemeteries on the South Side of Town. There'd been a buncha Vamps milling around the Old Valentine Mausoleum out that way where the Mobster Eddie Valentine was buried back in the fifties. Valentine played a part in the whole Secord Affair in the thirties with the Nazis and the Hughes Rocket Pack, so Xander, Amy, and Sheila figured the Vamps might be trying to get into thr Mausoleum and swipe whatever the Old Man had been buried with, possibly blueprints to the Hughes Rocket Pack. It was better that those Vamps got dusted now, just in case they managed to break in. The last thing they wanted to deal with over the summer was Jetpack Vampires, after all.

As he entered, however, the lights turned on without him hitting the switch. Immediately, Xander rippled his Chi, startled and preparing to fight, when he saw that it wasn't a Demon or anything, but Sonya Blade, Ulysses' Contact with the US Special Forces. He immediately powered down his Chi Enhancement and fixed the Special Forces Captain with a glare. She gazed back at him, unimpressed, which caused Xander to quip at her in frustration.

"Don't you know it's rude to startle a man like that?" He questioned.

"Yeah, well, this couldn't wait, and nobody else in your group seems to be home, so I figured I'd just wait for one of you to return." Shrugged Sonya Blade.

"You couldn't have called Ulysses?" Queried Xander.

"He's on another continent right now. We've got something that needs to be dealt with here and now." Insisted Sonya Blade.

"All right, what's so urgent?" Asked Xander.

"Last month, we discovered a crashed alien spacecraft resting on the bottom of the sea floor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, around a quarter of the way between Hawaii and Tahiti. We sent a team down in an Underwater Habitat to study the thing, only to find that some sort of Psionic Sphere was aboard the alien ship that began causing problems. In the ensuing two weeks, the team dealt with the problems caused by the Psi-Sphere, destroying the Underwater Habitat in the Process." Informed Sonya Blade.

"And? What's that got to do with this? This doesn't seem like a psychic thing to me, more like a Xenomorph thing." Questioned Xander as he pulled the Chitinous Spike out of his inside coat pocket.

"I'm getting to that if you'll just let me talk. Or do you have more smartass remarks?" Queried Sonya Blade.

"Right, forgot you're not a fan of the pop culture references. Go on." Sighed Xander.

"Anyway, what we didn't know at the time was that the ship containing the Psi-Sphere wasn't the only crashed alien ship down there. Thanks to the explosion of the Underwater Habitat, we uncovered another crashed Alien Ship. This one was a lot cruder, with twin railguns mounted on the front. Our best guess was that it's some kind of Pirate Vessel that crashed four hundred or so years ago. Normally, we'd recover the wreck to study whatever tech we could, but there was another problem. Not everything on that ship was dead." Continued Sonya.

"So we're dealing with Space Pirates?" Asked Xander.

"No, we're dealing with something the Space Pirates, apparently a ship of a Pirate Faction from another Galaxy called the Turanic Raiders, brought with them when they crashed. Some sort of insectoid egg was on board the ship and had apparently come out of dormancy and hatched shortly before our team was sent down. It slaughtered several Special Forces Operators before escaping through a flooded deck. From what we've been able to recover from the computers of the crashed ship, the thing is some sort of hyper-evolved predator called a Hydralisk. Apparently, the Pirates planned to sell the egg to a Gladiatorial Arena on a distant planet when their FTL Drive Malfunctioned, causing the crash." Explained Sonya Blade.

"How would you know that?" Questioned Xander.

"We pulled the information from the Pirates' Computers before the power systems crapped out on us." Responded Sonya Blade.

"Right, but like, wouldn't they be in a completely alien language?" Queried Xander.

"Triarch Industries has made a Universal Translator Program for decoding text, including computer code. It's actually pretty handy, all it needs is to be sent into a system to learn the syntax. It usually takes an hour or so to get it done." Answered Sonya Blade.

Xander had heard of Triarch Industries. It was a Company headquartered in Los Angeles that seemed to be making all kinds of high-tech stuff, from literal laser weapons for the Special Forces to Flying Camera Drones for Showbiz and even Recreational Hoverboards for the Skater Kids of the Future. Apparently, they'd also dipped their toes into the software market. That made sense, they were a corporation, after all. Why not try and sell as many thingamajigs and gadgets as you could in as many markets as you could, to try and make as much money as you could. Shaking his head, Xander refocused on the task at hand, fixing Sonya Blade with a look.

"All right. So this thing swam here, then? That means it's strong enough for that. I'm guessing it shoots these spines, too. What else does it have going for it?" Asked Xander.

"It also has claws for close-range combat and was able to shrug off multiple bursts from MP-Five Submachine Guns using armor-piercing rounds, and was only slightly hurt by Laser Pistols." Added Sonya Blade.

"Right. That's why you're turning to us to try to kill it with mojo." Opined Xander.

"That and because it's here in Sunnydale." Agreed Sonya Blade.

"All right, then. I'll talk to the group when they get back. It could be a day or so. Ames is out in Oxnard dealing with something that could be bad right now." Warned Xander.

"We'll try and keep it busy, but it can burrow, and the sewers in this town are a nightmare to navigate." Nodded Sonya Blade.

And with that, Sonya stood up from her chair and left the Loft, walking out the front door. The next night, once everyone was back at the Loft, Xander laid out the situation to Sheila, Amy, and Oz. That there was a Killer Alien Bug in Sunnydale, that it had all the various abilities and qualities that Sonya Blade had stated, including the ability to shrug off blasts from Submachine Guns and Laser Pistols, and that they had no idea where it could strike next because it was burrowing and using the sewers. Surprisingly, it was Oz who volunteered to track the thing, using his Heightened Werewolf Senses, the tracking abilities he'd gained last Halloween, and the Chitinous Spike that Xander had grabbed from the corpse last night. As Amy needed to save her magical power for the inevitable confrontation, this was the best plan they had.

Following Oz as he tracked the Hydralisk was tense. Xander almost lashed out at a shadow twice. There was a kinda sense that they were being hunted even while they were hunting the Hydralisk that wigged Xander out something fierce. Of course, his nervousness elicited snickers from Sheila and a roll of the eyes from Amy, the traitors. In the end, though, the trail that Oz had been following led to another body. One of the Cheerleaders from School, Lishanne Davis. She'd apparently been coming back from her shift at the Big Kahuna Burger when she'd been attacked by the Hydralisk. The body was missing its right leg, gnawed off as if the Hydralisk had grabbed a snack for later. It was squicky as all hell, but they were used to that by now. Unfortunately, the trail ended a few feet down the alley at another burrow into the sewers.

It seemed they'd be tracking this thing for a while, as it was clever enough to cover its tracks by burrowing into the rat's nest of sewers and catacombs of the Sunnydale Underground. Xander had only been down there once, to save Buffy during that whole debacle with the Master. He had needed Angel's help to navigate down there, and with Deadboy gone to Hell in a literal sense, the only way they were gonna be able to find anything down there was with magic. That meant Ames had to set up a ritual if she wanted to be at full power when they actually went after the thing. That was gonna take time and preparation, especially with the warded bits of the Sunnydale Underground needing to be burned through.

And while they were stick prepping, three more bodies would turn up, killed by the Hydralisk. When they finally managed to get a bead on the Thing's nest, Xander was eager to finally go and deal with it because of that fact. This thing had killed enough already, after all. He had no idea that when they went down there, they would find more than just the Hydralisk. There was an entire Demon City under Sunnydale's streets. Unfortunately, they couldn't think about that now and had to focus on the Hydralisk. Slipping down a side tunnel, away from the Demon City, Xander and company headed to slay the Hydralisk.

They would revisit that Demon City later. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we see what's been going on in Sunnydale over the Summer. Xander, Sheila, and Amy have been hunting for Ulysses and Buffy while they're out of town, and events have conspired to stick an Alien Monster in Sunnydale. At the same time, they have found the secret underground Demon City beneath Sunnydale that Mayor Wilkins set up decades ago. Meanwhile, the Trio have continued inventing and just making dumptrucks of cash in the background. That's all part of their plan to buy puppet politicians and rule the US as the power behind the throne. They're close to being able to finance a mayoral candidate for Sunnydale as a first step, which is going to put them on Mayor Wilkins' Radar.

Other nineties stuff this chapter includes mentions of the Crashed Ship and Sphere from Sphere, the Turanic Raiders from Honeworld, Hydralisks from Starcraft, S-Mart from Army of Darkness, Oberon, Avalon, and the Third Race of Sidhe are from Gargoyles, Sonya Blade and the Elder Gods are from Mortal Kombat, Eddie Valentine and the Hughes Rocket Pack are from The Rocketeer, Ankhegs are from Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons, and Big Kahuna Burger is from Pulp Fiction. Everything else is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude with Amanda as we check in on Ulysses' Favorite Quickened Immortal. Then we'll be back with Ulysses' POV for the South Town Wrap-Up and his leaving the City.

Stay tuned. . .