Smaller
Than Sunny
Parts
3 & 4
By Sam James
Crossover - Buffy (post S7-so SPOILER WARNING) and Smallville (s2). Note that even though Buffy S7 aired at the same time as Smallville S2 nothing in the two series requires that correspondence. So, in this crossover, Buffy S7 has happened but Smallville S2 is just starting.
For a few scattered moments, while chasing the strange frog-like being that neither Willow nor Spike recognized, Dawn was able to imagine herself back in Sunnydale, a town that no longer existed, chasing demons with her sister, now dead for the third and final time.
She had met with Willow after school. Once the new computer teacher had cleared her classroom of other students, mostly males who could not believe that Smallville high school would hire someone so young and pretty as a teacher, she and Dawn were able to talk freely.
"You totally surprised me showing up here," Dawn said. "I thought you and the others were trying to collect all the other new slayers?"
Willow's face flushed. "Well actually&ldots;"
Dawn shot an accusatory glare at Willow. "There's one here in Smallville right? That's the real reason why you're here. It's not because anyone cared about *me*!"
"Dawnie that's not true," Willow said. "If it just was a matter of a finding and watching a neo-slayer, any of the remnants of the Watchers could have done it, like they have in all the other places slayers have appeared. It certainly doesn't take both me and Spike here together to do *that*. I volunteered to take Smallville because you're still in danger. And we couldn't very well tell the Watchers about why you need special protection." The fact that Dawn was the key, mystical energy in human form, still was the old Scooby gang's greatest secret.
After talking some more and reminiscing about their fallen friend and sister, the two agreed to meet after their dinners to do some patrolling.
Armed with several stakes and a long knife hidden in sheath beneath her pants, Dawn patrolled the Smallville graveyard along with Willow and Spike. Willow had warned them to keep an eye out for a girl doing the same in the off chance that the mystery local slayer had taken up her duties.
"Couldn't you just magic up some sort of compass thingie to point to the new slayer, Red?" the souled vampire asked.
Willow shook her head, producing a cloud of red hair. "Normally yeah," she told them. "Ironically enough, I can't because I'm overqualified. Because I cast the slayer spell, I'm connected to all the slayers everywhere and it's hard for me to pinpoint one in particular, especially since there's some strange energy here in Smallville. And I'm still not-fully recovered girl after casting that spell anyway." That last was perfectly understandable as Willow had single-handed altered the conditions of the extremely ancient and powerful Slayer spell, extending Slayer powers to all the potentials Slayers. Now, instead of one slayer a generation, there were hundreds as everyone who could become a Slayer, did so.
"Strange energy?" Dawn asked. "Might that be the rocks from the Smallville meteor shower that Chloe said was having strange effects on people? She has this whole wall of weird things that have taken place. You need to look to see if these are demons or if she's right about these being the result of meteor mutants."
"Well, actually, mutants would be a change to the DNA that can be passed down to future generations," Willow said pedantically. "If these rocks, or more properly meteorites, are giving people weird abilities after they're born, that's not mutation."
"Whatever," Dawn rolled her eyes. "It doesn't really matter if they're X-Men or Spidermen. If Chloe's right, then these rocks may be what's screwing up your magic."
"Don't fret, little bit," Spike was confident. "There hasn't been a slayer born that I couldn't track down."
Willow glared. "Your usual way of tracking down a slayer is to stage a massacre and dare her to stop you."
Spike lit a cigarette. "Always worked in the past."
"But without a watcher, this new slayer won't know anything about her purpose. She'll be having dreams of past slayers but probably will just think too many anchovies on her pizza or something," Willow was in full babble mode. "She might not even believe in vampires."
By this time, the trio had left the graveyard, without spotting a single vampire, and had moved into town. Suddenly, Willow's babble was interrupted by froglike being that hopped onto them, snatched Willow's purse, and made a giant hop up a building.
"Hey!" Willow objected. "It took my purse! That's my magic supplies!"
Spike gave chase, his senses expanded to take in the smells of the town, the stench of gasoline, the omnipresent odor of fertilizer, the tantalizing aroma of coffee, and a whiff of slime that smelled froglike. He ran, with Willow and Dawn struggling to keep up, until he confronted the frogthing near a stream on the edge of town.
Spike punched, getting his hand slimy. The frogman jumped up, higher than Spike could, landed and on its hands, and kicked Spike into a tree, knocking him out.
"Levitar!" said Willow, levitating the frogman. She caught her bag with her mind and floated it over to Dawn. She turned to confront the frog, extending both hands toward it. Getting a good look, she shuddered for a moment with "frog fear." "Explusium Avi&ldots;"
"Willow no!" Dawn shouted. "You can't kill it unless we know it's a demon. It might be a person with those rock powers!"
Willow hesitated, conflicted. She did not recognize it but there were many demons she had not yet encountered. Her confusion broke her mental hold, and the frogman jumped away.
"Where's that wanker?" Spike was still dazed. "I'll give em a right proper thrashing, that's what I'll do."
"Was it a demon then?" Dawn asked Spike.
"Not one I've met," Spike said, lighting a cigarette to make himself feel better. "But there's a bloody lot of us. It's more likely a demon than a bloomy rock mutie or whatever this Chloe git was going on about."
"Still, we need to check," Dawn said. "We can't just go killing humans who happen to be a bit different, right?"
Willow and Spike exchanged a look. "Of course not, sweetie," Willow said brightly. "I'll do some digging when I get back to my place. And I still have those computer tests to go through so it will be another late night for me, just like college. What time do you have to be home?"
Having a bit of time before her curfew, Dawn suggested that they go to the local coffeehouse. Willow said that she did not usually drink coffee this late, but allowed herself to be persuaded as she did have to stay up to research. Spike declined, saying he doubted they carried his drink of choice and he wanted to hunt up the frogman to go another round.
The coffeehouse, the Talon, was a converted movie theater that still maintained the original marquee, now advertising "Try Our Organic Apple Pie." Although it was nearly nine, the place was packed, mostly with teenagers.
"Clarkie!" Dawn called out, recognize a friend from school. A large, well-built young man that Willow recognized from computer class, the boy who typed so quickly, waved from the table he was sharing with an older man. Willow looked closer and realized that, although completely bald, the man was most likely no older than herself.
Grabbing her coffee, Dawn made her way to that table, Willow followed in her wake. The two teens began jabbering away. The man lifted an eyebrow at this behavior and addressed the red head. "You must be the new teacher, Miss Rosenberg. Clark was quite impressed by you."
"Please call me Willow," she said with a smile and waited for the man to introduce himself. He just smirked at her. Finally she said, "And you are?"
Both Clark and the man looked shocked. "He's Lex Luthor," Clark finally said.
"Pleased to meet you," Willow said. "Is that Lex short for Alexander? One of my best friends back home is named Xander."
"Indeed," Lex gave an aristocratic wave. "And where might this home be?"
"Sunnydale, California" she answered. "What about you? Are you local or imported?"
Clark and Lex exchanged a glance again. "I'm Lex Luthor" the bald man said, as if this conveyed all the information Willow needed.
"Sorry, not from around here, don't know the people yet."
"You haven't heard of Lex Luthor?" Clark was astonished.
"I don't want to shatter your image of teachers," Willow teased, "But we don't know everything outside our field. I'm afraid I wouldn't have heard of you unless you're a businessman who founded a big computer company."
"Or are a demon bent on world destruction." Dawn put in as if making a joke.
Lex smiled. Here was a person who did not have preconceived notions of what it meant to be a Luthor. A rather pretty person at that. Exerting all his charm, he said, "Actually some here would consider me a mix of the two&ldots;"
The two were still talking when Lana closed the coffeehouse down around them.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: Background check
Please do a full background check and dossier on one Willow Rosenberg, currently computer teacher at Smallville High School and late of Sunnydale, California. Expedite this and I'll pay a bonus. -LL
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It was fortunate that Willow had drunk more than one cup of coffee as she stayed up quite late that night. She had talked with Lex for over an hour at the coffeehouse, long past normal closing time. Conveniently, Lex turned out to be the owner of the Talon and simply told Lana, who managed it, to let them be; someday she had to hear the story about why he trusted a teenager to run the place. Perhaps because he was so young himself? Willow did ask the businessman why he spent so much time around high school students. He grinned and told her to ask again in another week after she had spent more time around Smallville and seen what it had to offer.
When she finally did get home, she honestly had every intention of researching the frogman. Really. She poked around a few demon databases, set the computer to search through the scans of Giles' occult library that dated back to her own high school days, but still soon found herself typing "Lex Luthor" into a Goggle Internet search box.
What she found corresponded roughly to what the man had told her, although the media reports and websites focused more on the scandals and Lex's image as the ne'er-do-well son of fertilizer tycoon and chemical baron Lionel Luthor. This was quite different from the ambition that Willow sensed burned in the man. The Metropolis papers had a story about how his extremely wealthy sire exiled his son in a small town where he would be unable to cause trouble for the family corporation, but Willow noticed that the Smallville Ledger had stories about how the son had turned the local fertilizer plant around and saved his father's life during a major tornado. "So, which is the real Lex Luthor?" she wondered. There was a mystery about the man and Willow could never resist a riddle. "I'll have to do some hacking this weekend," Willow thought.
Reluctantly, she turned her attention back to her research, flipping through a couple of catalogues of demons and monstrous beings without finding the frog.
Unbeknownst to Willow, that very frogman was in big trouble. Spike had not given up the chase. He much preferred his own way of getting information first-hand to Willow's research in books and computers. Carefully, he tracked the frog through the cornfields surrounding Smallville and through three of the irrigation ditches that funneled water to the farms. Giant jumps from the frogman's powerful legs kept it in the lead but Spike's relentless tracking ensured that this gap did not widen. By speeding up and slowing slightly, Spike drove the frogman toward the graveyard, familiar territory to any vampire. Fog that swirled from the ground covered the gravestones, making a difficult chase even harder as both parties had to dodge these obstacles, barely visible in the moonlight.
Suddenly, the hairs on Spike's arms stood up and the vampire froze in shock. A Yegsulth demon. Spike might not know what the frogbeing was, but he certainly knew far more than he wanted about the enforcers of the demon world.
Fearing the vampire pursuing him and ignorant of the new threat, the frogman ran right into its clutches. The demon stretched out his blue scaled arms, grabbed the frogman by his neck. Enormous hands twisted, large muscles budged, and the frogman's neck broke within seconds.
Not daring to move, his body hidden among the gravestones, Spike watched as the demon stared at the dead frogman in some confusion, lifted it over its shoulder, and began carrying it back to his master, doubtless to inform it that there was, as the little bit had said, something strange in Smallville. Spike frowned; it had not been so long since he was the master vampire in Sunnydale that he had forgotten how big bads react to strange doings. First, see if there is a threat. Second, see if that something can be used. If the rumors were right, a demon who sought to channel the power of the key would soon know about another power source in Smallville.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The next day, before school started, Dawn found Clark, Chloe, and Pete in a huddle in the hallway near their lockers, talking with Lana.
"I don't see how you can be so energetic this early in the morning," Pete was complaining to Lana.
"It's one of the perks of running a coffeehouse," Chloe put in. "And I mean perk literally."
"It's not early," Clark protested. "Not when you have to milk the cows, feed the chickens, toss bales of hay around, and eat breakfast all before the schoolbus comes."
"Right, Clark," Pete said. "It's not like you don't miss that bus half the time anyway." Clark nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders with a sheepish smile.
"Hi guys," Dawn said, inserting herself into the group. "What's the scoop?"
"Lana's just filling us on the latest from the Talon." Chloe enthused. "Apparently Lex Luthor and the new computer teacher were getting mighty friendly after the place closed to everyone else."
"But he's a guy!" Dawn protested without thinking. All four looked at her. "I mean, he's a rich guy," Dawn backpeddled, realizing that Willow would not appreciate students gossiping about her sexual preferences. "What would he want with someone like Willow?" Only Chloe noted this automatic use of the teacher's first name.
Pete snorted. "Luthors always take the good stuff. And Ms. Rosenberg clearly is the good stuff." Clark nodded as Chloe fumed. Dawn just found the whole thing amusing.
Dawn's first period was a lab in advanced Chemistry. Dawn wanted to partner with Chloe, the only one of her friends in the class, but Mrs. Gregory assigned her to Sally Lawkin, who confessed herself much better in gym than in chemistry. Inevitably, Dawn found herself doing most of the work. For Social Studies, the teacher assigned the class a reading about ancient Egypt and spoke about how their culture and beliefs differed from 21st century Smallville. Dawn found the talk far more useful as a source of information about Smallville than on ancient Egypt which was fortunate, since she had to live in the former and needed a quick primer on the morals and customs of this strange land.
In Gym, the "teacher" tossed them a bat and ball and had them go outside to play softball. There Dawn found that Sally was correct, the girl was far better at sports than she was science. "Wow! When did you so good?" one of the other girls asked her. "Oh, we played a lot in Summer camp," came Sally's reply.
Chloe, who had been the absolute last to be picked by a team, acted as if the whole thing was beneath her. "What has the ball done to me that I should want to hit it with a stick?" she joked. "Now some people I could mention..." and she shot a glare to where the boys were playing. Dawn herself glanced over from time to time, looking for how well her new friends were doing. Pete clearly was throwing himself into the game, sliding into the bases and running aggressively to catch the ball. Clark though, seemed to be holding himself back. Dawn recognized the signs from when her sister appeared in public. Clark did well but something in his moves made Dawn think he could do better, that he was hiding something.
"Is Clark on a sports team?" she asked Chloe, acknowledging that the young journalist was her best source of information on Clark.
"He and Pete tried the football team," Chloe replied. "But Clark has all these chores on the farm and the coach turned out to be a pyromaniac, so he dropped it. You'd think someone of his size would be better at it, wouldn't you?" and she turned her adoring gaze on her large friend.
"Bit of a klutz, though," Sally commented, overhearing the conversation.
"I suppose sometimes," Chloe said, "But at other times," and her eyes became unfocused and she sighed unconsciously as her body swayed briefly as if to a waltz.
The girl's game was won by Sally and Dawn's team, despite a lack of effort by Chloe, while Pete's team easily defeated Clark's among the boys. The "teacher" blew his whistle and everyone went to the showers. The "teacher" had not said a single word to any of the students.
The bell rang and students ran out of the classrooms, ignoring their teachers who had been interrupted mid-sentence. In the hallway connecting the gym to the rest of the school, the Yegsulth demon lurked, disguised in a trench coat and hat. The pull of the dried blood on his knife had taken him to this many chambered hive where the human young were warehoused. Now he would snatch, grab and take the key energy to his master. The knife, which had previously bled the key atop a tower in Sunnydale, glittered in hallway's florescent light. He sensed he was near the knife's target. A few more steps, and he would strike.
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