Cleveland. Home of Rock and Roll, Drew Carey, and the Hellmouth. Many, including the author, would consider the last two to be connected.
Certainly, the last thing one would expect would be a group of short, svelte girls with stakes fighting in a suburban basement with vampires, a man in full armour bearing the brunt of the undead assault with his longsword. Blood decorated steel, as the man disabled the undead via trauma for the girls to then stake. When he got the chance, he simply went for a decapitating swing. Given the close quarters of the basement, this was not possible all the time.
Xander panted as he decapitated the last vampire in the nest. While one nest wouldn't normally be enough to tire him out, the group had gone through several nests that night in an attempt at preventing any vamps from running. "That was fun," he said, kneeling to clean his longsword on a stray piece of fine fabric. He frowned at the blood staining his armour -- if left too long, it could rust the metal. He had no doubts that the fabric underlying the armour as padding was already stained. "On a scale of one to ten, I give it five. ""I thought vampires dusted, not blooded," one of the younger girls observed. "They do," Xander said, sheathing the longsword once he'd cleaned it. "I make them bleed to make it easier for prettier people to dust them. ""Oh, okay," the girl said, mollified. She was far more used to inflicting blunt trauma, bruising and so on to soften up her targets, rather than cutting them up. "Who's up for ice-cream?," Xander asked, taking off his helm. "Me!," half the girls yelled. "You're a bad influence," the oldest, yet not the tallest girl said. "Who, me?," Xander asked, pretending innocence. "All part of the service, Buff. To the Mystery Machine! ""Buffy's not driving," the younger girl from before said immediately, as the group began climbing the stairs. "We've cleared this house, so we're done for the night," Xander said, going over the house's layout in his mind. "And Anna's driving." "Why not me?," Buffy demanded. "I'm the oldest Slayer." "And I'm the oldest Knight," Xander retorted. He then pulled out his trump card. "Aaaand... it's my van. I get to say who drives."
Buffy frowned. Crash one car, and you're marked for life.
Back at the house that Giles had bought, Xander started taking off his armour once he got inside. and in his room. He paused when someone knocked on the door. "Come in!" "I take it there wasn't any trouble?," Giles asked, entering Xander's little room. "Nope, Big Daddy G-man," Xander shrugged, undoing a particularly stubborn strap. "They sure seem to like attacking me rather than the girls, though." "Please, don't call me that/," the English Watcher frowned. "Oh, are you sure you're alright? ""That's why I wear this," Xander returned. Having taken the plate armour off, he began pulling off the chain mail, then the padding. Now down pretty much to his underwear, he grabbed a towel and made his way to the bathroom. "Did you make sure that Andrew isn't getting... inventive for tea?" "Yes, I made sure," Giles reassured him. A strange smell made it's way to the hallway, where Xander was opening the bathroom door. "Although... please excuse me."
Xander laughed as he heard British yelling and American apologies in the background as he closed the door. When they'd bought the house, it had initially had two bathrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. Giles, Xander, Andrew, and Wood had immediately labelled the smaller downstairs bathroom as 'MALE ONLY', and the upstairs one 'FEMALE ONLY'.
The fact that that meant that they didn't have to clean a bathroom used by a few thousand Slayers had nothing to do with it. Neither did the short to non-existant waiting line for the guy's bathroom. Honest.
Once Xander was out, clean, and clad in a bathrobe, he carried his armour out to the living room and went to get his cleaning gear. "Xander!," Willow frowned. "You'll get everything dirty again." "No I won't," he said. "See, Ma! Newspaper!"
The redhead pointed triumphantly at Xander. He looked down dumbly to see if there was a bug or something on his bathrobe. "You'll get THAT dirty again!"
Xander shrugged, sitting and beginning to clean his armour. "Oh well."
Buffy came down the stairs, having jumped the female bathroom queue by dint of status. "That's one thing I've got over you, Xander. No cleaning for me!" "I'm not in trouble if the other side has knives or swords, though," Xander pointed out. "I wish I had this stuff when we were in high school."
Giles wandered into the living room, open book across his left arm while he turned pages with his right hand. "Ah, Xander, there you are," he said. "I've been looking for you, due to a set of unfortunate circumstances. ""G-man, I'm tired," Xander said, grabbing another cleaning rag.
"It seems that the game that inspired your Halloween costume, and thus your current method of fighting, was inspired by a real-life order of knights," Giles said, ignoring Xander's physical state. "That would be bad, wouldn't it?," Xander asked. "I mean, I remember the Order. I don't wanna have to face them, they're good people in a bad place. ""There... may be a way for you to locate them, and then the Council can attempt negotiations with the demon involved," Giles said.