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Out of Africa
by spikeNdru
Genre: Gen; Action/Adventure
Pairings: Xander and Ensemble; no pairings yet.
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Two years post-Chosen
Disclaimers: The characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox; they aren't currently using
them so I'm borrowing them for awhile.
Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
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Chapter Seven
Xander had picked up several maps at a gas station and the three Scoobies gathered around the kitchen table and poured over them for nearly an hour in an attempt to locate Connor's address.
Willow tucked her hair behind her ears and stood to stretch.
“If we knew what he looks like or if we had something that belongs to him, I could do a locater spell . . . but we don't. What? Why are you both giving me 'the look'?”
“Uh . . . locater spell?” Xander began as tactfully as possible.
Willow expelled her breath with enough force to lift her bangs in the air current. “Okay, okay! Not so good with the locater spells. You know, I darn near ended the world with dark magiks; I changed the world with white magic; a simple little locater spell shouldn't be beyond my capabilities! I don't know why something always goes wrong with my locater spells. It's my Achilles heel, I guess.” Willow sighed. “Okay. Back to the maps.”
“What about your computer?” Xander asked. “Can't you get directions from Yahoo or something that would help us find this kid's house?”
A look of guilt passed over Willow's features. “I was sort of hoping you wouldn't think of that,” she admitted.
Xander narrowed his eye. “Why? What are you up to, and how come you didn't tell me?”
“Up to? Me? Nothing!” Willow gave him her best innocent-face.
Xander laughed. “Not convincing me, Will. I've known you too long to fall for the butter-wouldn't-melt look.”
“I sort of lent my laptop to Dennis for awhile. I didn't think we'd need it today, so I told him he could use it.”
“He's not IM-ing Faith again, is he?” Dawn asked anxiously.
“No . . . he set up a MySpace page and he's already got 237 friends. He's talking to them, that's all.” Willow took a deep breath and then continued in a rush, “And-possibly-reading-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-fanfic. What? It's pirates! He knows about pirates and doesn't need a lot of backstory like he'd need for Alias or something!”
Dawn rolled her eyes and called loudly, “Dennis? Are you here? Is it okay if we use the computer for a few minutes to look up an address?”
Dawn started for the living room and Willow and Xander quickly followed. Dawn glanced at the computer screen. “Look, I'll just open a new tab and it won't affect what you're doing at all, okay?”
Xander leaned forward to peer at the screen over her shoulder. “What is he doing?”
Dawn flashed him a grin. “Downloading a Star Wars fan-vid by someone called Cybermintz. Uh, Dennis? You do know that they're brother and sister, right? Never mind. Forget I said anything. Enjoy your vids. What's the address again, Willow?”
They stared at the screen as a full page and a half of directions appeared.
“This guy lives so far out of town, I'm not sure it's still Los Angeles,” Xander commented.
“Sure it is . . . see? The map says 'Greater Los Angeles Area',” Dawn observed. “Do you have a printer, Willow? Yeah, right! I'm sure you lugged a printer on the plane from South America! Sorry. That was a stupid question. Somebody hand me a pen and paper and I'll copy the directions. Thanks, Dennis. We'll be through in a minute, and you can get back to doing your thing.”
Dawn rapidly copied the directions and closed her tab. She and Xander moved to the kitchen table to compare the written directions with the maps.
Phantom Dennis maximized a blank page from Word. Willow? He typed. May I ask you a question?
“Sure, Dennis. What can I help you with?”
What does Slash mean?
“Um . . . that's when writers or vidders take two characters of the same sex and sort of gay them up. Uh . . . things were pretty Pleasantville-ish when you were alive, right? Maybe you better stick to stuff marked 'Het' for now and I'll explain more about Slash later, okay? Xander was traumatized for weeks when he accidentally came across some really inventive Doogie Howser slash when he was a teenager. He had no idea you could . . . never mind. We've gotta go try to find Connor now, so I'll see you later . . . and you can show me some of your vids, if you want?”
“Ready, Will?”
“Yep. See you later, Dennis. Have fun!”
Willow waved goodbye and hurried to catch up with Dawn and Xander. Oh dear lord, she thought, suddenly understanding how Giles must have felt mentoring the Scoobies. I've created a monster! Not that Dennis is a monster—more like a cyber-ghost, maybe. Willow giggled as she locked the apartment door behind her.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Their first minor set-back occurred when they realized that the address they sought was in a gated community. The whole area was very rustic, with lots of large trees blocking their view of the houses.“What do we do now?” Dawn asked.
Willow smirked. “Drive up to the gate,” she ordered.
Xander shrugged and slowly approached the gate. Willow leaned over him to speak to the security guard. She met the guard's eyes and made a small movement of her hand.
“These are not the droids you are looking for,” she said softly.
The guard waved them forward as the bar raised. Xander turned an interesting shade of puce. As soon as they had passed through the checkpoint, Xander exploded with laughter, letting out the breath he had been holding until he thought he'd pass out.
“Ohmigod, Willow! Don't do things like that without giving me some kind of warning. I almost lost it right in front of the security guard!”
Willow looked supremely satisfied with herself. “I've always wanted to say that, and this just seemed to be the perfect time.”
“You've been practicing that for years, haven't you? Just waiting for the right time to spring it on me.”
“Yep. Gotcha good, didn't I?”
They slowly drove through the community, looking for the correct address.
“There!” Dawn said finally, pointing. The garage on the property contained a fairly new mini-van and an empty slot. Parked in the drive behind the van was a dark green Jeep.
“I'm guessin' Dad's car is gone, Mom drives the mini-van and the Jeep's Connor's,” Xander said.
Both passengers agreed with him. Dawn jotted down the license number of the Jeep.
“Let's get out of here,” Willow suggested. “Unless you think we should just go knock on the door and introduce ourselves?”
“No . . .” Dawn said slowly. “It's probably better to stick with the original plan.”
Xander hummed the first few bars of M.C. Hammer's theme song. “Da da da duh, da duh—it's stakeout time!”
They exited the community and turned the car back toward LA. They drove a quarter of a mile, then Xander stopped the car and backed into an overgrown access road. He carefully backed up until the car wasn't obviously visible from the road, but still provided a good view of passing traffic.
“I noticed this road when we were looking for the development,” he said. “If Obi-Wan here hadn't gotten us in through the front door, I was hoping this may have been a back door while the homes were under construction, but it also works as a look-out point.”
“Cool,” Dawn said. “My first stakeout.”
“They're actually pretty boring,” Xander replied. “Hey, Willow, remember when we were waiting with Giles for Who's-it to rise? How many hours did we sit there with nothing to do?”
“Too many! That's why we packed a lunch and I brought Travel-Monopoly, and this one has checkers on one side and backgammon on the other. I figure only one of us at a time needs to watch for the Jeep and the other two can hang out. We can take shifts so we don't get stale.”
Xander had a thought. “What if he doesn't go out at all today?”
Dawn laughed. “He's a teenager, Xan. He's been home from college for over a month. There's no way he's gonna spend all his time cooped up in the middle of nowhere with the 'rents. Believe me, some time within the next 12 hours, he's outta here. And if I'm wrong, we take turns sleeping in the back seat and wait till he does leave.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
It was a little before 7 p.m., and Xander was nearing the end of his second shift, when he saw the Jeep drive past them heading to LA. Xander quickly turned the key in the ignition and followed. He was glad the kid chose to leave before his shift was over; he realized he'd neglected to ask Dawn if she even had a driver's license. And if her driving was anything like Buffy's . . . Oh, well, problem averted, so he decided not to mention anything at the moment. He'd find some subtle way of asking Dawn and Willow about licenses before another stakeout was planned.Both Dawn and Willow were hanging over the front seat in the excitement of following the Jeep. Xander appreciated their help so he could concentrate on driving. It was a good time of evening, too. The sun wasn't in his eye, but it wasn't dusk yet, either. He decided to consider the ease of tailing the kid a good omen.
They didn't have any trouble keeping him in sight on the highway, but as they got closer to LA proper and the traffic increased exponentially with each mile, Xander was glad of the two extra pairs of eyes.
“Left on the next street!” Willow called out, and Xander put on his turn signal.
Dawn pounded him on the shoulder. “Turn right, turn right!” she yelled in his ear, and he made the turn.
The directions continued as they left the populated areas behind and entered the warehouse district—most buildings dark and deserted and closed for the night.
“What the hell is this kid up to?” Xander muttered as he watched the Jeep pull into a multi-level public parking garage. Xander waited a few minutes before following. They found the Jeep parked on the 5th level, but the kid was nowhere in sight.
Xander found an open spot three cars away from the Jeep. He was surprised to see so many cars this late in the evening, but then decided that maybe Angelinos who lived in the nearby residential areas garaged their cars here.
The elevator was not in use and the three stared at each other in consternation until Dawn noticed the sign for the stairs and began to run toward it. Xander and Willow hurried to keep up. Dawn grabbed the handle and pulled the door open and then paused, listening.
“He's going up!” she said, and started to climb the stairs.
Willow and Xander stared at each other in puzzlement, then entered the stairwell to follow Dawn. They heard the clang as the door to the roof shut and rapidly climbed the three flights of stairs.
They exited the stairwell, but there was no sign of Connor.
A flash of movement seen from the corner of her eye caught Willow's attention and she grabbed Xander's arm. Her fingers bit into his bicep as she pointed. A tall, slender youth was running across the roof of the warehouse next to the parking garage and as they watched, he gathered himself and gracefully leapt to the next roof.
“I hope you don't expect me to follow him!” Xander exclaimed. “The kid must be part mountain goat!”
“Let's see if we can spot him from the ground,” Dawn suggested as she turned back to the stairwell. She went down one flight and then ran for the elevator on the 7th level.
~*~*~*~*~*~
They came out at ground level and turned in the direction Connor had been traveling by roof-top. They ran down the street and hoped they wouldn't overshoot and lose him. Dawn was in the lead—Willow envied those long legs again—and she came to a sudden halt and flung out both arms to stop Xander and Willow. Xander remembered his mom used to do that all the time while driving that old station wagon that was manufactured years before anyone had even thought of seat belts.When she was sure she had their attention, Dawn pointed.
Connor had evidentially reached the building he wanted, because he was silently making his way down an old rusty fire escape. Xander was sure that if any of them had attempted that descent they would be accompanied by clanging, screeching metal, but the kid moved soundlessly. He paused, as if listening or sniffing the air or something, and then gripped the railing with both hands, swung his body perfectly horizontally, and let go. He hit one of the windows—behind which the Scoobies could see a faint, flickering light, now that they knew where to look—with both feet and crashed through the window. The sound was very loud in the silence, and the Scoobies realized they had all been holding their breath since the urban gymnastics began.
“Let's go!” Dawn said urgently, and she started toward the building.
The door was padlocked with a heavy chain, but Dawn started around the side of the building and yelled, “There's an open window—hurry!”
Dawn clambered inside, Xander clasped his hands to give Willow a leg up, and then he crawled through the window after them. Once inside the building, the sounds of fighting became audible. The three pulled out stakes, and Xander started up the rickety stairs with Willow and Dawn close behind.
They arrived at a long open room with rusting machinery scattered around at intervals. There were also several ratty couches, boxes of clothes, and two young girls chained to the wall. Connor was managing to hold at least six vampires at bay.
Willow tried out her nifty new trick with the stake, with great success. The vampire she chose exploded into a pile of dust. The other vampires stared at her in shock. Their momentary lapse of attention was all Connor needed. He shot out both arms and a pair of stakes released from their wrist sheaths to slide smoothly into his hands. Two more vampires met a dusty end.
Xander rushed the nearest vampire and tackled him. The vampire fell to the floor, with Xander clinging to his back. The vampire tried to twist out of Xander's grasp, but Willow's flying stake found its mark.
Dawn hurried to the two girls. “Hold still!” she ordered, as she hacked at the chains with a small hand ax.
Connor picked up a female vampire and threw her at Xander. Xander braced his feet and grasped his right wrist with his left hand for support. Connor's aim was true and she flew directly toward Xander and was impaled on his stake. Xander brushed the dust from his hands as Connor snap-kicked the last vampire in the jaw. The vampire's head snapped back, leaving his chest open to Willow's heart-seeking stake.
The girls were still screaming hysterically, although Dawn had freed them both from their shackles. Dawn was trying to herd them toward the steps, but they clung to each other and huddled against the wall.
Xander wiped his hand on his pants, cleaning it of most of the vampire dust, and extended it to Connor.
“Connor Riley, I presume? I'm Xander Harris.”
They shook hands and then Xander indicated Dawn, who was still trying to convince the hysterical girls that they were safe now and able to leave. “That's my friend, Dawn Summers.”
Dawn raised one hand and wiggled the fingers in a friendly 'hello' and then turned back to her charges.
Xander turned slightly to introduce the third member of their group. “And this is—”
“Willow,” Connor said with a grin. “Where's Faith? Thought she'd be with you.”
Five eyes stared at him and all three Scoobies' mouths dropped open in shock.
As if sensing a change in the atmosphere, the two girls mercifully shut up. They also stared at Connor.
Dawn recovered first and took advantage of the moment to shepherd her charges toward the stairs.
“Looks like we're done here. You guys wanna go get a burger or something? I'm starving!” Connor said and followed Dawn down the stairs.
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Continue to Chapter Eight
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