The startled cry accompanied by Ed’s shout for his brother told Xander that the brothers were down, and he would have to act fast to keep them from vampire food. A quick glance at Buffy showed that she was concentrating on only one vampire and not even putting her whole effort into staking it. Shaking his head in disgust, Xander grabbed the spear that had clattered against his foot as he shifted his grip slightly on his stake to comfortably hold the two at the same time, and stepped between the Elrics and the vampire.

“Hey ugly! Try me for a change!” taunted Xander, deliberately drawing the vampire’s attention away from the blonds struggling to untangle themselves and stand again. The vampire hissed and lunged at him, and Xander brought up the spear, acting on instinct. The cool metal shaft rang with the force of the blow and Xander grunted as he somehow managed to keep ahold of his weapons.

*Man why couldn’t this be a wooden spear?* Xander thought as the metal began to bend under the vampire’s blows. As if in response to his thoughts, a warm tingle raced down his arms as a green light surrounded his hands and the spear. The vampire stumbled backwards, surprised and wary, and Xander could only gape in his own surprise as the felt the stake *melt* into the spear, petal changing to polished wood and another six inches appeared on the length. Then the light faded, leaving a simple wooden spear in Xander’s hands.

Shoving the weird stuff aside for later, Xander lunged, quickly staking the vampire with his wooden spear before turning to attack the next one only to find everyone looking at him in a mixture of emotions and all the vampires were gone. Willow was staring at him in surprise while Giles wore a look of stunned amazement. Buffy was glaring at him, suspiciously, almost accusing him of hiding whatever it was he could do. But it was the calm acceptance on the faces of the Elrics and Roy that caused his hands to shake and his gut to clench in a totally unfun way. That look stated that not only was Xander doing something completely normal for them, but it was also completely accepted.

Ed finally detangled himself from his brother and stood, pulling Al to his feet as well. Then he clapped his hands once more, summoning that strange blue lightning again, and ran his left hand down the blade, looking like he was pushing it back into his metal arm before the lightning faded.

“Y’know, it’d be kinda nice if we could go somewhere without every damn thing that crawls out of the woodwork tryin’ ta kill us,” drawled Ed, tossing Roy a glare.

The dark haired man smirked. “Must be your winning personality, Fullmetal,” he taunted, tugging his coat sleeves straight.

“What the fuck is going on?” demanded Xander, feeling everything that he had pushed aside earlier starting to build up as the strangeness that had made up his reality since meeting Buffy and finding out about Sunnydale’s night life decided to take a right turn into the Twilight Zone. “Stranger than normal things are happening to me, and you three act as if it’s completely normal to create a green light that merged my stake and this spear.” He thrust the spear towards the Elrics as if offering it to them as hysteria started leaking into his voice. “I’m the Zeppo, the normal one. I’m not suppose to have funky powers or strange abilities. What the hell is happening to me?”

He stared at the three strangers, silently demanding an explanation, even as the spear in his hands shook with the tremors coursing through his body as he waited for an answer.