Wild Horses
Part 09
By Jeconais
Dawn placed her tray, full of stuff that the cafeteria staff claimed was food, and sat opposite Chrissy. She looked around, and then suddenly stood and shouted, "Ian! Over here."
Surprised, Ian made his way over to Dawn’s table, and looked at her questioningly.
"Take a seat," she gestured airily at the space next to her best friend.
Reluctantly, Ian sat next to the cute blonde.
"No one gets away with helping me out like that without a thank you," Dawn said with a cheerful smile.
Ian smiled shyly. He was fine when it came to dealing with vampires and the ex-soldier and ex-policemen that made up the XTech security force, but like almost all men, he was completely out of his depth when it came to dealing with women.
With a slight shrug, Chrissy smiled at Ian, and accepted his position as a friend and protector of Dawn’s. She turned to her best friend and asked. "Where the hell did you learn that?"
"Learn what?" Dawn asked, sipping on a can of coke.
"You both stared down a group that outnumbered you four-to-one."
Unlike Bruce, Chrissy was more than capable of working out the individual odds.
"Basic psychology," Dawn said. "Isolate the leader, make him too scared to move, and no one knows what to do."
"And you two learnt this, where?" the blonde asked, turning to draw Ian into the conversation.
"Xander," Dawn said.
"Dawn’s boyfriend," Ian replied.
Both Chrissy and Dawn immediately swung their gazes to look at him.
"You know Xander?" Dawn asked, quietly.
Ian nodded. "Yeah, he helped me out after I was attacked by some 'Gang Members on PCP.’ He’s offered me a job with XTech after I get out of school."
"Wait a second," Chrissy interrupted. She might be a natural blonde, but she didn’t suffer from the stereotypical lack of brains that seemed to afflict so many of her compatriots. "Xander runs XTech? Why didn’t you tell me?"
"I didn’t find out till last night," Dawn admitted.
"But Xander’s been planning and building it for the last nine months," Ian said, the surprise showing on his face.
Dawn blushed, incredibly embarrassed. "Well, we weren’t exactly the friends to Xander that he was to us," she admitted reluctantly. "I only found out what he was doing after I moved in with him on Saturday. "
Her blush faded, turning into a look of determination. "I am making it up to him now, though."
Ian smiled at her, his eye twinkling slightly, wondering if he could increase his bet when he saw Andrew later that afternoon.
"Dawn, what does my Dad do?"
Dawn looked at the blonde, confused. "Policeman?"
Chrissy shook her head, "Not any more. He’s now a guard for XTech security."
"No way!"
"What’s his name?" Ian asked, wondering if he knew her dad well.
"Brad. Brad Hooper."
Ian smiled, "Good man, your father. Very cool head on his shoulders."
"I met him last night," Dawn admitted, "but I didn’t recognize him. He was working the desk at Xander’s apartment."
Chrissy looked around nervously, before lowering her voice slightly. "Which means that both of you know what really goes on around here at night?"
Dawn looked at Ian, who nodded. "Yes," she said softly.
"Why didn’t you tell me?"
Ian remained very still, realizing that he was not really a part of this conversation.
Dawn reached out and took one of the blonde’s hands. "It’s something that we’ve always tried to keep quiet, Chris. We’ve always thought that there would be a massive panic if people knew that vampires and demons really existed.
"My sister, Xander, Willow and Giles have been fighting them together since they were fifteen. They’ve saved the world more times than I can remember. It’s only recently that I’ve been allowed to help them. The life we live is scary and dark. We face death all the time, fighting beings that are much stronger than humans."
"Didn’t you trust me?" Chrissy asked softly.
"I do trust you," Dawn said quietly, "but I didn’t want you looking at me like I was insane. You have to admit, if you’ve never seen a vampire or demon, that it’d be kinda difficult to prove they really exist. You’ve been my only true friend for two years now. I wouldn’t have told you about Xander if I didn’t trust you."
Chrissy nodded and smiled slowly, accepting her friend’s words. "So what really happened to make you leave home?"
Ian listened in quietly, trying to hide his pleasure at finding out more about his boss and friend.
Deciding that she would explain about the Slayer later, Dawn replied, "She decided that she was going to accept an offer of engagement from a vampire with a soul."
Her dad had told her about how vampires were created, and Chrissy understood the soul concept. What she couldn’t understand, though, was the idea of a human even considering marrying one.
Dawn held up her hand to forestall any of the standard comments about marrying the undead. "Xander and Buffy argued over it, and all the years of our abuse of Xander’s friendship blew up. She made some bad accusations, and Spike, the vampire, beat Xander up pretty badly. The rest happened just like I told you."
They both turned to Ian. "Your turn," they said in unison, before turning and grinning at each other.
Speaking quietly, so as not to be overheard, Ian took a deep breath.
Flashback
Ian moodily kicked a stone as he walked along the street. "Damn teachers, always on my case," he mumbled to himself. Detention had kept him at school past dust, meaning he was now walking home, alone, in the dark.
"Look what we have here," a mocking voice suddenly interrupted him.
Ian looked around, his eyes showing his fear, as he searched for the source of the voice. A tall biker, dressed in trademark leather and black t-shirt, smirked down at him.
"What do you want?" Ian asked, backing away slowly.
The vampire grinned. "You, for dinner."
As Ian watched, the biker’s face seemed to melt and reform, as it grew ridges and sharp teeth.
Ian did the only thing he could do, he turned and ran. The preternaturally fast vampire caught him easily and held him up by the neck.
"I like it when they fight back. It gets the blood moving and gives them such a delicious taste."
Ian’s eyes slowly lost their fear as he looked at the creature holding him. He pulled his leg back, then, as hard as he could, kicked the vampire in the groin.
An expression of pain crossed the biker’s face, and he dropped Ian, as he crumbled to his knees, clutching his damaged appendages. "You’re gonna pay for that, punk" he snarled. "I was gonna kill ya quick, but I’ll make it slow, now."
Ian growled back at him, deciding that if he was going to die, he was definitely taking this bastard with him. Looking around desperately, he picked up a trash can and, like a WWE superstar, smacked the vampire over the head with it, then followed that up with a second pass across its face.
The boy dropped the now seriously dented can and looked around for more weapons. With great relief, he spotted an old metal baseball bat that had fallen out of the can. Thanking the heavens for his luck, he picked it up quickly and turned back to the enraged vampire.
As the vampire approached, the boy’s mind flicked to wrestling again, focusing on the sound of Bobby 'The Weasel’ Heenan commentating on a fight between Andre the Giant and The Ultimate Warrior.
"You take out the big man’s wheels and the car stops," he had said, as the warrior went to work on the giant’s knees. The advice firmly in mind, the boy swung the bat as hard as he could, catching the vampire, who had expected a body shot, on the knee.
He heard a loud crack as the vampire’s kneecap broke, immediately followed by a loud scream of pain.
In agony, the biker fell to the ground, clutching his knee. Not one to miss an advantage, Ian quickly broke the other knee. As his anger grew, the boy used the bat to its fullest extent, losing his fear as he broke both arms, and then the ribs of the vampire rolling on the floor, who was frantically trying to work out what had gone wrong.
Remembering what he had seen in vampire movies, Ian used the bat against a nearby fence, breaking off a piece of wood. He grabbed and moved back to the vampire, stabbing him in the heart, then watching, surprised but pleased, as the undead creature turned to dust.
Adrenaline flooding through his body, Ian ran home.
"Why are you late?" His mom yelled at him.
"I was attacked by a vampire," Ian said excitedly.
His mother took a step forward and clipped him around the ear. "Don’t lie to me, young man. Vampires don’t exist. Get up to your room, now."
"But —" Ian tried again.
"No buts," his mother interrupted firmly. "Get to your room."
"I thought I was going insane," Ian admitted. "No one I told believed me. So, I went out hunting for them, with a stake and a cross. I didn’t see another vampire for nearly two weeks, and I was so grateful when I finally did, because then I knew I wasn’t crazy, that I almost let him kill me, before I remembered to fight back."
Dawn and Chrissy laughed softly, although they were both looking at him with very impressed expressions.
"Anyway," Ian continued, "I lucked out and ran into the guy who runs the Shotokan Karate dojo, down near the Mall. He took me in, and started to teach me to fight.
"Vampires got him a year ago; he took four of them with him as he went, and made sure he couldn’t be turned. That was when this whole psycho thing started. I couldn’t handle it anymore, not that I was handling it all that well before that. It seemed all I did was fight, whether it was here or at night, it didn’t matter.
"Then, I was fighting a couple of them around two months ago, and winning, when Chrissy’s dad stumbled across us and gave me a hand."
Ian blushed slightly. "I wasn’t too polite, since I felt that he had interrupted my fight. I was so far gone that I was hoping that a Vampire would finally put me out of my misery.
"Anyway, Brad wasn’t going to accept that, and bundled me into a car faster than I could blink." The former-psycho grinned at the blonde, "Your dad can be really scary at times," he told her, his eyes full of respect for the older man.
Chrissy nodded, "I know."
"Anyway, we pulled up outside of some building, and Brad marched me in. I was getting a little worried, as I had no idea what was going on. I was left alone in an office for a few minutes, and I was starting to get back my attitude, when this dark haired guy, who couldn’t be more than 5 years older than I me, walks in.
"He sat down opposite me, reaches into a cupboard and pulls out a couple of cokes. He leant back, swung his feet up on his desk and said, quietly, 'The first vampire I killed was my best friend since childhood. I can still see his face as I pushed the stake into his heart.’
"His introduction really got to me; I felt that, at last, someone knew something like what I had been feeling. We talked all night, swapping stories about vampires, and he introduced me to the fact that demons exist, too. He talked about the Scooby gang a lot, about your sister, Willow, Giles and you, Dawn. He was so proud of all of you, and everything you had accomplished in the years that he’d known you.
"It wasn’t till later, when I started to talk to Brad, that I found that Xander never talked about himself, and what he had done. It had taken some pretty deep investigation by several ex-intelligence people to find out that Xander hadn’t been sitting idly on the sidelines during this. He gives the impression that he was always just along for the ride, that everyone else did all the work. He’s too damn modest for his own good, but he couldn’t hide it from us. He probably doesn’t even know that we’ve investigated him.
"You know why XTech works?" he asked rhetorically, "It’s because of him. The story of the Scooby gang is full of powerful witches, Slayers and uber-humans. Yet every single time, when ever the shit was hitting the fan, the man who saved the world was a normal human. He’s not even the best fighter in the world. He’s just someone who saw that humans were under attack and chose to help stop the attackers.
"It never occurred to him that he could run away, that it wasn’t his fight, that it wasn’t his manifest destiny. One of the guys asked him that once: why he didn’t just leave? He just said that if we were ever going to win, it would need everyone who could, to step up to the plate.
"Given the choice between a chosen Slayer, an incredibly powerful witch, a souled vampire, or Xander, at XTech, we’d take the willing volunteer who gets the job done every single time. Sure, the others are big hitters, but what have they done with it?
"Well, Xander’s used his skill and talent to put together a force that can take the fight to them. None of this traditional 'fight them with stakes at night’ business. Xander believes in superior firepower and whenever possible, superior numbers. Everyone who works for him has been touched by vampires in some way. All we needed was someone who could organize things, get us together, supply us with weapons and teach us how to kill them, and we’d have the ability to take the fight to them, for the first time since the original banishment of demons hundreds of thousands of years ago. Xander is that person. He’s put his blood, sweat, tears and money into making this happen. And despite all his work, he *still* thinks that he’s the weak link." Ian looked extremely irritated that his boss had such low self esteem, and gave the impression that if he met those responsible, he’d take a few steps himself to get a little payback in for Xander.
"He doesn’t know it, but we use him as a major figure in the basic XTech training. His battle with the Zombie street gang is a perfect example of applied battlefield psychology."
"Wait a second," Dawn’s eyes were huge, as she looked in shock at her new friend. "Can you tell me what happened then?" She had heard Xander mention it during the argument last Saturday, but nothing further since then. With everything else that had been going on, she hadn’t gotten back around to asking him about it.
Ian didn’t look surprised that she didn’t know. That lack of surprise hurt Dawn a little.
"I think you should get Xander to tell you, Dawn," Ian said gently. "It’s his decision, not mine, just what he wants to tell you about it."
She nodded slowly, and smiled a thank you at him.
Before Ian could resume his story, his cell phone went off.
"Hello?"
"Ian, it’s Xander."
Ian grinned at Dawn. "Hey Xander." He loved the way Dawn’s eyes seemed to light up when she heard who it was. It turned the already attractive teenager into a devastatingly beautiful young woman.
"Ian, I need a favor."
"Name it, X-man."
"Do you know Dawn Summers? She’s a student in the same year as you."
Ian grinned, "She’s right here, sitting next to me."
Xander frowned, at the other end of the phone, wondering why that statement bothered him a little. "I was wondering if you could give her a lift home, after school, since you’ve got a company car. I’m going to be stuck here till late."
"Not a problem, boss. Want to talk to her?" Ian replied.
"Please."
There was a pause as Ian handed the phone to Dawn.
"Hi Xander," she said, a bright smile on her face.
"Dawn, I’m going to be stuck here till late, because I’ve got the Demon Council coming at six, and I need to prepare places for them to stay. I’ve asked Ian to give you a lift home. He works for me, so you’ll be safe with him."
Dawn stood and grinned at her friends, and took a few steps away, so she could say something in private.
"Xander," the volume she was using had considerably lessened. "Would you mind if I took Ian shopping for some new clothes? His old jeans really don’t suit him."
Xander suddenly felt a huge pang of jealousy shoot through him. The idea of Dawn looking at Ian made him want to attack the younger boy with a baseball bat. But in a mature way. "Sure," he said, in what he hoped was a level voice. "I tried to do that myself, but he wouldn’t accept it."
Dawn’s already bright smile seemed to increase in intensity. Despite standing alone, every single person in the cafeteria was watching her, all thinking that, who ever her boyfriend was, he must be really special to make Dawn smile like that.
She knew Xander well; studying him had been a habit for most of her mid-teenage years, after all, so she recognized the hidden tone in his voice. Xander was jealous that she was paying attention to Ian. He might not admit it to himself, but he was *starting* to think of her like that. She decided to put him out of his misery.
"I’m thinking that he would make a really good boyfriend for Chrissy," she said conspiratorially.
Xander’s stomach seemed to massively unclench, and he found himself grinning like an idiot as he heard Dawn say that. "Good idea, Dawn. See if you can get him a suit as well, he’ll need it later. Don’t worry about the cost, I’ll charge it back to XTech."
Dawn said goodbye and hung up, handing Ian his phone back. She looked at Chrissy, her smile becoming slightly wolfish. "How do you feel about a shopping trip after school?"
"I’m always up for shopping," the blonde grinned.
Dawn turned to Ian. "Xander’s your boss, correct?"
Ian nodded slowly, not liking her smile, at all. Something about it made him more than a little nervous.
"And he’s just asked you to look after me, and see me home safe?"
Ian nodded again, starting to get a slightly trapped expression. He could feel that Dawn was setting him up.
"So, until I get home, your job is to keep me happy and safe?"
For a third time, Ian nodded.
"Excellent. I will be very upset if you don’t come shopping with me, and don’t allow me to get you a new wardrobe."
Ian’s jaw dropped, as the trap Dawn had set was finally sprung. Desperately he tried to find a way out of this. He’d managed to turn down Xander when he had offered.
Dawn reached out and lifted his jaw. "You’re not getting out of this, Ian, so just accept it gracefully."
"But —" Ian started.
"No buts, Ian. I’ve already cleared this with Xander. You’re going to need a suit for work anyway, so it’s now an order. And you wouldn’t want to break an order, would you?"
Ian groaned as he gave in. "Ok, we’ll go shopping."
Dawn and Chrissy grinned at each other again, and performed a high five.
They were interrupted again by a white faced Daryl.
"Can I talk to you?" he begged, looking around in fear. "In private."
Dawn didn’t ask any questions, she just stood up and nodded. "Come with me."
Chrissy and Ian made the same decision, that Daryl was afraid of something and needed protection. They followed the other two, forming a protective triangle around him. Ian started scowling, encouraging people to get out of their way. It was remarkably effective, and left that rest of the students still eating their lunches, wondering what help Daryl needed and how Dawn would do it. No one doubted that the help would be given, or that any of them could have done the same thing. It was, simply, the way of the new order.
They entered an empty classroom, and shut the door firmly behind them.
Daryl started to pace, running his fingers through his hair.
"Don’t take this the wrong way," he begged. "But, Ian suggested that I become friends with you, instead of falling in love with you." He was obviously distraught, the words tumbling out of his mouth.
"I thought that it was a great idea, but I wanted to know a bit more about you first. Anyway, I hacked into a few places I probably shouldn’t have, and I ran across some really strange things." He paused, seeming to think about how to phrase the next thing he had to say, so that they wouldn’t think he was crazy.
"Do vampires really exist?" he finally blurted out. "Because I found all sorts of things pointing to them. And what the hell is XTech? It looks like they’re some kind of private army fighting them!"
Dawn visibly relaxed, as did Ian and Chrissy. "Yes, Daryl, vampires do exist," she reassured him. "And yes, XTech is a security force put together to fight them. So it’s not something you need to worry about."
"You all know about Vampires?" Daryl sounded shocked.
Dawn grinned at him, pleased that he was taking the revelation as well as he was. "Vampire fighter," she pointed to herself. "Vampire fighter," she pointed at Ian. "Daughter of a vampire fighter," she pointed at Chrissy.
"My boyfriend runs XTech, and Ian works for them, part time. Chrissy’s dad works for them full time."
"Oh, wow." Daryl calmed down a bit, apparently relieved that he wasn’t going crazy.
Dawn looked the small geek over, and decided that he needed a few minutes to digest what he had just been told.
"Where did you hack?" she asked
"Hmm?" he appeared distracted, "Oh I started at the DMV, they’ve put a new firewall in place, but not much else."
"Nmap portscan?" Dawn asked.
Daryl blinked at her, suddenly focusing on her. He hadn’t thought that anyone else in the school even knew what a port scan was, never mind knowing what the best program for it was.
"Yeah, it allowed SSH connections through."
"Ahh," Dawn said with a smile, "Let me guess, it was running an old version of SSH?"
"Yeah," his voice was becoming awed at the display of knowledge by this incredible young woman.
"So you 'ploited the SSH1 CRC32 hole?" Dawn smiled, and decided to help the obviously stunned geek out. "A friend of mine taught me to hack a few years ago. I’ve kept up with the latest developments."
Ian looked at Chrissy, his expression clearly asking if she had any idea what they were talking about. The blonde girl grinned back at him and shook her head, as she gave him a miniscule shrug of her shoulders. She was finding out more and more about her friend this week, and was enjoying it.
Daryl was willing to start worshipping Dawn again. A gorgeous girl who knew how to hack? The only remaining question was how well she could shoot, and what kind of arsenal she possessed. He wondered if she would mind if he started calling her Trinity.
His mind suddenly pushed the answer to the vampire questions he had asked it.
At an early age, he had developed the ability to ask himself some questions, and be able to do other things while his brain solved them for him. The questions he’d asked were, "What do I do, now that I know they exist, and how do I become friends with Dawn?" His brain, being extra helpful, gave him an answer to one of the most puzzling questions of his life, which he had asked some time ago. "What do I do with my life?"
The reply he received was simple, "Help them and join XTech."
Daryl smiled, the major dilemmas in his life now solved. "Ok, what’s the state of XTech’s computer department?"
"Why?" Dawn asked, a bit puzzled by this question that apparently came out of the blue.
Daryl bit his lower lip, trying to work out what he should do next. He wasn’t used to dealing with people, preferring his computers. Computers were always logical. You put information in, you got information out. If the information wasn’t what you expected, then you made a mistake when you gave it the information. People were illogical, and that scared him a little.
"I’ve always felt like I was supposed to do something with my life," he tried to explain his reasoning to the three of them. "I just never knew what. I thought I’d be a programmer, but the thought of being another John Carmack doesn’t thrill me. Strange as that sounds. I can make computers do anything I want, I’ve had several submission accepted by Linus and I’m well known on Kernel Trap mailing list.
"Even though, by contributing, I was helping people, it didn’t seem enough. Like my help was too indirect, to insubstantial. But then I found out about vampires thirty minutes ago, and I’ve felt more alive this last half hour than I have in my life. There’s a war going on, and no one knows about it. Can you think of anything better to dedicate your life to? Some of the stories I read were horrid, in-depth reports about the tortures that vampires have put humans through. And now, I find that someone’s putting together an army to take them on and beat them. It’s exciting, it’s rewarding. I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and I want to help. I need to help. I *choose* to help." His voice gained in confidence as he realized that he was speaking the absolute truth. "I choose to help," he repeated.
Dawn smiled at him, a hint of respect in her gaze. She turned and looked at Ian quizzically. He shrugged and pulled out his phone, dialing a number.
"Andrew? It’s Ian. I’ve got a question for you. You looking for skilled hackers?"
He listened for a second, and then explained what Daryl had just said. He passed the phone to the geek.
"Err, Hello?"
"Daryl, is it? My name’s Andrew. I’d just like to know if you’d be willing to pop down to our office on Saturday."
"Of course, Sir," he said.
Andrew laughed at that. "Please, don’t call me sir. Call me Andrew. Ian will tell you where we are. If you’ve got your own laptop and would prefer to use that, feel free to bring it. If not, don’t worry, we have some very up to date computers here."
"What time?"
"Make it 11A.M. You’ll be meeting me first, and if you are as good as Ian thinks you are, you’ll be meeting the boss."
"Ok," Daryl gulped nervously.
"I’ll see you on Saturday then. Goodbye." Andrew hung up.
Daryl handed the phone back to Ian, "I’ve got an interview on Saturday. First with Andrew, then with the boss." The geek looked stunned, and then looked at Dawn as something clicked. "Your boyfriend?"
Dawn smiled. "Not quite. But he will be, soon."
Chrissy and Ian both grinned, while Daryl looked slightly confused.
The school bell rang, signifying the start of afternoon classes. After a goodbye, Dawn and Chrissy headed off to English.
Ian put his hand on Daryl’s shoulder, making the boy stop.
"Please keep the fact that Dawn’s boyfriend is the head of XTech secret. It’s much safer for everyone if it’s not widely known. There’s also a slight legal problem, as Dawn is living with Xander in his apartment, because of a domestic situation rendering it impossible for her to live at home."
Daryl nodded. "I promise. You said make friends with her, and I want to do that."
"You made a good start," Ian said with a grin. "Come on, you’re in my physics class aren’t you?"
Coach Bradey was irritated. His star quarterback had been embarrassed by a slip of a girl, and his best linebacker was now in the hospital ER getting his leg set in plaster. And they had basically done it with Principal Woods’ blessing! Still, he had Ian and Dawn for Gym in the final period, so he’d get some revenge there.
After changing into the standard shorts and t-shirt, the senior students gathered around the coach, as they always did before separating into the individual sexes.
"I think," Bradey said, "that we will deviate from our standard plan today. Instead, we’ll play a game of dodge-ball."
Groans came from most of the girls; the idea of having a heavy ball thrown at them was not appealing.
"Erm, Coach," Dawn asked, "Would you mind if Ian and I did some sparring, instead?"
Coach Bradey smiled; he was going to enjoy saying no. He wanted Dawn to be hurt by a ball.
"I think that would be an excellent idea, Dawn."
Bradey looked around, shocked to find the principal in his gym.
Robin had decided to pop down at the start to the lesson, since he was well aware that the coach was fanatically loyal to his football players, regardless of the effect on the rest of the school. He was really very predictable.
Dawn grinned happily, and moved over to the mats, Ian following her.
She pulled her hair back into a pony tail, and smiled cheerfully at him.
"You sure you want to do this?" he asked, a little concerned about accidentally hurting her.
Dawn nodded. "How about we take it slowly to start with, then see where we can go from there?"
Ian nodded. "Let’s go."
He leaped forwards, his left foot snapping out as he aimed a roundhouse kick straight for her head. True to his word, it wasn’t any where near his top speed.
Dawn dropped into a crouch and spun clockwise, her right foot shooting out, and hooking towards Ian’s ankle.
Recovering from his kick, Ian jumped Dawn’s response, landed a few paces away from her and held up his hand. "Sorry, I should have known better. Want to really go for it?" he asked, a somewhat feral grin on his face.
Dawn nodded eagerly, her eyes bright with excitement and a matching grin on her lips, too, each of them recognizing in the other an equivalent level of skill they so often found lacking in their usual opponents. This was a *lot* more fun than dodging hard rubber balls.
They paused and bowed to each other, then began to fight seriously.
The students playing dodge ball quickly abandoned the game as the sounds of the fight reached them. Ignoring the fuming coach, they formed a circle around the two fighters, almost awed by a level of expertise few of them had ever seen demonstrated.
Dawn and Ian were having a fantastic time. Having some Slayer powers meant that Dawn was never able to practice with someone her equal. Buffy was a lot stronger and faster than she was, as were the vampires, while the SIT’s weren’t nearly up to her standard. Ian was perfect, a human who had been training harder than she had been for the past four years, and who was nearly as strong as she was.
Ian felt the same way. When he fought Vampires he was always the weaker one, but when he had fought others in the dojo, he had always hit too hard and either had been disqualified or the other person had been instantly knocked out, not leaving him with much training. Dawn was perfect.
Their two styles were also very different. Dawn’s seemed a mix of Aikido and kickboxing. Moves designed to use Ian’s strength against him were easily mixed with kicks from impossible angles and amazing agility.
Ian’s was a much less graceful style; it almost seemed like a distilled version of most of the major 'hard’ martial arts, akin to the type of instruction given the elite special forces of the various nations’ militaries. It seemed to use the same brutality some of the onlookers had seen earlier. Punches didn’t seem to travel very far, yet had his whole body behind them. Kicks that would have broken ribs were either dodged or blocked by the smaller girl in front of him.
After a few minutes, the two combatants were sweating, but not breathing heavily, the crowd started to cheer. The split was about fifty-fifty. Ian’s protection of the Queen and his acceptance by her had already started to repair the damage engendered by his reputation as the school psycho for so many years.
Faking a punch towards Dawn’s face, Ian spun and snapped a spinning heel kick to her side. He felt a burst of pride as Dawn blocked it again, grabbed his foot and tried to slam her elbow into his knee. He pulled back hard, regaining his balance.
As Ian dropped back into a defensive stance, Dawn continued forward, flowing into an attack pattern that would make maximum use of her superior speed and agility. As she drove a left-right combination of short punches towards Ian’s abdomen that were intended to pull his guard down and away from his head, Dawn chambered her right leg as she snapped her hips to her left, her leg floating upward and forward and gliding over Ian’s slightly lowered guarding hands.
Reacting instantly to the barely registered attack, Ian pulled his head back as he brought his left arm back up to protect his upper body, trying to deflect the kick away from his head, as he drove his right hand forward in an attack on Dawn’s torso.
The slim brunette immediately snapped her right leg down to the floor, and continued her counterclockwise spin, chambering her left leg and then driving it up under Ian’s arm and inward, ignoring his punch and letting it slide past her, a bare centimeter away from her body.
Ian twisted violently, one hand barely blocking the kick before it crashed into his ribs. He stepped forwards, slipping into a side-facing horse riding stance, his right foot to the fore. He raised his right hand, as if he was going to throw an outside block, but didn’t form a fist. As his left foot passed his right, he swept an outside sword hand strike at Dawn’s neck.
Before the crowd had a chance to gasp at the deadly move, Dawn twisted to one side, grabbed his hand as it flew towards her and stepped into him, flipping Ian over her shoulder.
Ian let himself go, landing smoothly and rolling to his feet with ease.
They continued to spar for another ten minutes, with the once-disgruntled coach suddenly looking at them, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He had visions of winning the all-state karate championship, in both male and female categories filling his mind. He’d never seen anyone fight the way these two were currently doing.
Ian knew that they were both equal fighters, that Dawn was as good as he was, and he was actually pleased with the fact. So he made a decision that anyone who had known him before Xander had saved him, would have claimed that he would never do.
Using a move borrowed from Jeet Kun Do, that Giles had shown her once, Dawn threw a low kick to Ian’s legs. She then moved in as fast as she could and threw a quick series of hand over hand short punches, which Ian blocked. Ian’s memory threw an image of Bruce Lee doing this once, so he immediately realized what she was going to do next. As she finished the move with a hard knee strike to his chest, Ian deliberately moved his hands a little slowly, letting the kick through.
With a groan of pain, he was thrown back several feet and landed on his back, winded. He held up his hand in submission and smiled weakly at her as he gasped for breath.
"I give," he whispered, his voice still managing to carry to the ears of everyone who had gone quiet as the final move had landed.
The cheers and applause that was followed were deafening as the students responded to the sort of display that they had only seen on TV before. Dawn stood in the middle of the mat, panting hard, sweat running down her face, her face flushed. She had no right to look beautiful, but she did, nonetheless.
She walked over to Ian and held out her hand, and he grabbed it and let her pull him up. "Good match," she said loudly and hugged him.
Ian smiled and hugged her back, "You too, Dawn."
"You two can take the rest of the class off," Wood said with a smile. He’d enjoyed the fight as much as the students, and contemplated asking Xander if he could help out with their combat training. While the kids were very good, they both had room for improvement.
"Yes," Coach Bradey agreed, still looking a little stunned. "The rest of you, back to class as normal." Dodge-ball was forgotten.
Ian and Dawn grabbed a drink and sat on the bleachers, watching the other students.
"Why did you let me win?" Dawn asked, curiously, quietly letting Ian know that she had realized he had let her kick through his guard.
"From a pride point of view, I knew we were equal," Ian started to explain. "I’ve never been the sort of person to care what others think. But, *you’re* the class protector, Dawn.
"You’ve got no idea how much the school has changed, have you?"
Dawn shook her head, her eyes wide as she looked at him.
'Xander, you’re a hell of a lucky man,’ Ian thought to himself, the slightest bit of envy coloring his thoughts for a moment, before he mentally shook himself and banished the negative emotion, replacing it with happiness that his boss had finally found a woman who fully appreciated him.
"Everyone hated the old guard; they were arrogant, obnoxious as hell and made life miserable for everyone but themselves. Over the last few days, you’ve stopped that, and stopped them. People are no longer miserable about coming to school. Take earlier today - why did you step in and save Daryl?"
"Because of Xander," Dawn said slowly. "Not directly, but he’s always been the one to stand up for people being bullied. He couldn’t fight, so he’d insult them and protect his friends by taking the beatings for them. He’s always throwing himself in front of danger to protect someone else."
Ian nodded. It was almost surreal, to find that the more he peeled off the various layers of Xander’s cloak, the more he found he admired the man.
"When I saw Daryl about to be hurt, I knew that Xander wouldn’t let it happen, so I couldn’t either."
"And you’d do the same for anyone else?"
Dawn nodded, "Of course."
"That’s exactly what I mean, Dawn. You went to the rescue of someone so far beneath you in the perceived school social structure that you shouldn’t have even known he existed, let alone care about him. Everyone knows that you’d do the same for them. Everyone looks up to you. Haven’t you noticed how many people are dressing up, more carefully and less casually, like you do, now?"
Dawn shook her head. "Not really, no."
Ian just laughed softly. "How’s it going with Xander?" He asked, changing the subject, sensing Dawn’s unease.
"Slowly," she admitted, "but little things tell me it’s working. He hasn’t called me Dawnie or Dawn Patrol for almost a week. It’s like he knows I’m grown up, now. I catch him watching me occasionally."
Ian smiled, pleased, and again wondered if he could change the bet he had placed earlier.
It was with a degree of shock that he realized that he had made friends with Dawn. And probably Chrissy and Daryl, too.
Dawn smiled at him, suddenly struck by a similar thought. She had her own Scooby Gang, now.
Daryl was her Willow, a shy geek, a genius at computers.
Chrissy was her Xander, not so good in a fight, at least not yet, but really good at making people laugh and breaking any tension. She was also as fanatically loyal as Xander was.
Ian was her Angel, only without the whole vampire and doomed love affair business. The fighter who could match her, and would help her take out the night.
Xander was her Giles, only without the tweed and father-daughter relationship.
XTech was the Watchers Council, only without the hidden agenda, and run by her future boyfriend.
She smiled. As long as she didn’t screw it up like Buffy had, she was set for life.