1X

Author: Cyclone <cyclone[at]citynet.net>

Feedback: Please be gentle.

Distribution: Gimme credit and a link. Plus, archived at http://fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=62966 or http://fanfiction.net/~cyclone

Rating: I'm gonna go say PG.

Spoilers: For Buffy, up to Grave. For the other, everything in the movie.

Disclaimer: Most of the characters depicted herein belong to that jackass Joss. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Summary: Someone hunts the Heart of the Scooby Gang.

Author's Note: Don't. Just... just don't, okay? I know I shouldn't do this, but I had to get it down before the plot bunny flew away.


Prologue

Alex and his partner raced up the stairs.

"Who's the target again?" he asked.

Funsch glanced at his handheld database, "Alexis Harrison."

Alex nodded as the two stopped, peering through the stairwell door window into the crowded mall.

Funsch did a double-take when he saw Alex putting his gun to his own chin, and he smacked the gun aside, snarling, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"You know how it works, Evan," Alex said calmly. "I die, he dies. We'll never find him before..."

A gunshot rang out, and screams filled the mall.

Alex's eyes narrowed, "It's too late."

The two moved.

*****

Forcing his way through the crowd, Funsch spotted their fugitive first. "There he is!" he bellowed, pointing. "He's heading for the parking garage!"

He saw Alex leap into pursuit, and the gap between him and them grew wide, fast. As soon as he got into the parking garage, he broke open the first car he found and hotwired it.

*****

Alex ran as fast as he could, but Harris was still pulling away as he fled toward the ground level. Funsch didn't have a chance at catching up, even in the car, not with the traffic crowding the lanes.

Alex glanced at the edge of the building, then altered his course and leaped out of the building, catching the lip of the level below and vaulting back.

Harris slowed when he saw Alex ahead of him, and time seemed to slow as the two drew their guns and fired. The magnetically-accelerated bullets tore into the parking garage even as the two broke right, dodging and circling, spiraling closer, until finally, Alex felt Harris's gun in his belly, and he held his own gun under Harris's chin.

"You won't do it," Alex hissed.

"Neither will you," Harris shot back.

In a flash, the guns were holstered, and the two traded blows. As Harris drove him back, Alex ground his teeth, then lunged forward. He tagged his adversary with one-two-three blows to the chest, but Harris grabbed him and slammed him against a pillar, cratering the concrete, and pummelled him against it.

"You can't beat me, you know that," Harris sneered, touching a device at his wrist... and vanishing.

*****

Funsch slammed the brakes and bolted out of the car. He knelt at Alex's side, "Jesus, can you walk?"

Alex rose unsteadily, "I'm fine. But we lost him."

Funsch shook his head, "Doesn't matter. We know where he's going."

Alex nodded grimly.

"There's only one left."

TBC…