[holo] taxon wars episode one: a new nerd

[likevegeta]

[ holo ]

Scotland. They were fleeing to Scotland for their lives.

And Andrew was dreaming of hot pockets. Or rather, he was dreaming of a lack of hot pockets. Specifically, the empty box with a sticker attached, stating that this box should not be empty because the remaining hot pocket was Andrew's and Andrew's alone. He had gone out and bought

Comments

[visual]

[slaying]

"...Andrew?"

The holo catches her attention. She has only barely begun to find her way around the tablet -- but a few crash course lessons from Dawn have helped her out. Buffy looks to be a mix of concerned and...and something else a little less identifiable. "Sorry to burst your prediction bubble but I guess we're way, way beyond Initiative levels of creepy, here."

[holo]

[likevegeta]

"Buffy!"

There's relief simply sweeping over his face. His gaze whips from the board back to the phone, a smile chasing away that previously exhausted and paranoid expression. Today? Today was a very bad day. A very, very bad day - and hearing word from Slayer Prime makes it significantly less of a bad day - but, priorities. Andrew makes his way over to the wall and snatches the board up, rubbing it against the side of his dirty hoodie in an attempt to destroy the evidence. It's a moderate success - the dirt seems to have effectively smeared the marker, leaving everything slightly blurred.

He considers this enough of a victory for now. "Okay, after the day I've had? No way. Initiative ranks higher than any George Romero film ever." To be quite honest, though he's fought zombies in real life - he still can't stomach seeing any of the Dawn of the Dead movies in full. There's a shiver just thinking abou- and there goes that image of Skinless Warren kissing Claire Higgins

[visual]

[slaying]

"Aliens, Andrew." She does not bother keeping on the kid gloves for the boy who went from enemy to hostage to guestage to ally in the span of a few months. And instead of worrying, Buffy focuses on the fact that she was actually relieved to see Andrew come out of the last battle alive. There was a bridge-o-trust being built and Buffy can always use more of those. "This is apparently all down to aliens."

[visual]

[likevegeta]

"Aliens?" There's a dubious note to his voice. "A-are we talking Queller demons?"

But they weren't near advanced enough to pull something like this off, were they? Aliens? Real aliens - kidnapping him?

[ visual ]

[breakmychest]

"Well, look what the hamsters dragged in."

Though Andrew wasn't the first person Spike would have picked to come back, he wasn't exactly unhappy to see him. The one question, of course, was if he remembered being here before.

[ holo ]

[likevegeta]

"Spike? Hi! It's been so long!"" For once, Andrew cannot come up with a reasonable explanation for this. As far as he knew, Spike was still in LA doing Champion of Justice / Dusky Knightish things with that evil Lawfirm... then again, well, the last time he'd seen the vampire he'd been snooping around Rome, trying to find a lead on Buffy.

And, in retrospect, perhaps that story about the Immortal had been a bad idea. A funny, funny idea - but one that could possibly end with two infuriated vampires kicking down his door. Which he didn't need, since he currently had no door and Goatmen did enough kicking for a lifetime. "Did you just say hamsters?"

[ visual ]

[breakmychest]

Lucky for Andrew, the previous Buffy already explained that little misunderstanding, though unluckily for Andrew, Spike still carries a bit of a grudge, both for that and the double-crossing. It's not a very big grudge though, since in the long run, neither mattered much.

"Yeah, I did. What's the last thing you remember before showing up here?"

[holo]

[likevegeta]

"Uhm... Skinless Warren and Goatmen." The former was probably never, ever going to leave his mind. No amount of mental cleansing could remove that particular sight... but he's more okay with it than he was - or would be if no one had informed him of his friend's new found deformity. Or would that be disability? What exactly did not having skin fall under?

[ voice ]

[nomorevengeance]

Oh, it's you.

[ visual ] this will happen at least twice more /cliff

[likevegeta]

By this point, Andrew had finally picked up that tablet. He's not sure what to make of this situation, really. It's so far removed from even Sunnydale standards of normal, but the concept of the whole thing makes him smile. Alien kidnappings? Much better than demonic possession, or evil fish that can take over your body - or reruns of Italian Passions, which had gone downhill in recent seasons. But perhaps he was just bitter and still mourning the loss of Timmy.

It's mundane thoughts like these that keep him relaxed and - well, at least not panicking outwardly. He spins the phone in his hand, absently nosing through the functions until he hears that voice.

"A... anya?" Suddenly, the world was spinning. Anya? Anya was dead - it was one of those undeniable 'you are dead' things, much like Jonathan was. This was... was it the First?

[ voicel ] pfft, it still happens to me.

[nomorevengeance]

Well, yes. Who did you expect?

[Sorry, Andrew, she doesn't know that in the future she's dead, so she just... is blunt. Also, she can't really remember your name.]

Do you remember being here before?

[ visual ]

[likevegeta]

"Sigourney Weaver?" And really, he did. Andrew expected some hardcore military woman who could beat back the kidnapping alien scum. Someone fictitious and fit for this setting - certainly not Anya.

He shifts, looking away from the tablet for a moment... here before? "No, I've - um, been in Rome! Since, that... thing happened. I-- was I here before?"

[ voice ]

[slayersidekick]

[ Because Willow has still not recovered quite well enough to be available for webcam visual transmission, but she knows that voice, she knows that person in the entrance room. And although every part of her knows he's brand new and there's a chance he won't remember anything at all that happened in Taxon, not the bodyswitch or working at Tamper and Trick or anything, she still can't help the first thing that comes to mind. ]

...What did you do to my magic?

[ Sorry, Andrew. Willow's not in a good way right now. ]

[ visual ]

[likevegeta]

The storyteller had seen the many sides of Willow Rosenberg. From a distance he had seen 'Just Willow', the sweet, shy girl in Sunnydale High. He had seen Willow, the skilled wicca warrior who could combat any evil from the monitors in the lair. He'd seen her slow descent into addiction any time he bothered to look up from Halo, too. He had seen Dark Willow up close and personal. But, of all the Willows, he'd known Earth Mother Goddess the longest. He trusted her - after all, you don't let someone you're terrified of fly you across a continent or quote movies with them.

"Hey, Willow!" Even so, the tone of her voice makes him stop - makes that smile falter. "Your magic?"

[ voice ]

[slayersidekick]

[ ... ..... The look on his face finally cuts through her anger and she sighs, blowing it all out in one quick breath. On the one hand, it's probably good that he doesn't remember. On the other... she really wanted that talk. ]

Never mind. [ If she sounds huffy, that's because she is. ]

...Did you just get here?

[ voice ]

[likevegeta]

Yeah.

[ ... A nervous smile. It's been a while since he's heard an agitated Willow... well, at least towards him. ] Someone said I was here before, but, well, I don't remember it at all...

[Visual]

[just_axe_me]

Sure, there were a lot of things that would get Sam Axe's attention -- but keeping it and making him respond was a smaller list. On that list was, depressingly, the hint of fear in a bluster that the captee had friends, okay, and whoever did this was going to be really sorry: that thrown in with conspiracy theory and a scared kid, well.

His tablet had been propped up on the wall when a scared squeak like a stepped-on poodle had distracted him from counting the contents of Maddie's drawers. From then on, it was fighting a losing battle, culminating in him hitting the Visual button to give Andrew the sight of a stranger's face: a not-unfriendly, older-guy stranger's face, but still.

"Buddy, it's okay," he said, and dropped the cleaning rag on the countertop. "It's all going to be fine, you hear me? Just your everyday, average alien kidnapping, happens to the best of us. What's your name?"

[Visual]

[likevegeta]

As a science fiction enthusiast, Andrew was not opposed to the idea of alien life. Actually, he had spent many a night as a boy looking up at the stars and imagining epic battles going on just beyond this solar system. Once upon a time, he'd even spent a time hoping he had been born on a planet far, far away and had been sent to Earth on some grand quest. After a while, those dreams became replaced with dreams of demons and super villainy... and that had proven far more dangerous and weird than the idea of LGMs ever had.

So where once he would have lept to the immediate and true conclusion of alien abduction and then proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes begging his new overlords not to dissect him - he is instead staring quite openly at the area and wielding his white board like a shield, praying to Kami that someone's got some senzu beans because he, unlike Willow, cannot recover from surprise lobotomies. Government conspiries and experiments on demons and ex-demon summoners were much more real than aliens

[Visual]

[just_axe_me]

"Hey, Andrew. I'm Sam. Sam Axe." Something about his name tended to slip out in a Bond, James Bond cadence, something Fi had accused him of before, but hey, when you had a name as fortunate as Sam Axe's you were allowed a little leeway. He pushed the cleaning rag away with much more cheer than he had picked it up in the first place. "Just another inmate in the old Sing-Sing here. Never been here before, right, kid? You got anyone to pick you up?"

Well, just look at him being Mr. Helpful. He said, "I'd offer you a consolation beer, kid, but you look about sixteen."

[Visual]

[likevegeta]

That was not lost upon him. Andrew smiled - already finding himself liking the stranger. It really didn't take much - a love of Galaxy Battles, some knowledge of Space Trekking, a chance that they may have seen Rat Man - or a simple reference to one of his favorite movie franchises. It really didn't take much. "No, but, I know where I need to go."

But that comment makes him frown. "I'm twenty-two!"