Xander and the Remote Part 5 (Patreon)

Ted Grant looked up as two people stepped out of thin air while he was talking with Diana. “Is there a reason you’re dropping in after hours?”

“Interdimensional time zones are a bitch,” Xander replied as he glanced around the man’s gym.

“Why are you here?” Diana asked curious if she was going to have to fight.

Genie turned to look at Diana. “We recently acquired supernatural strength and would rather not hurt anyone on accident.”

“How much are we talking about?” Ted asked, curious what type of style would be best for the teens.

“A couple tons?” Xander asked, not quite sure but he doubted it was much more than that.

“In other words, you need the basics, strength and toughness testing and basic combat training, right?” Ted asked.

“That would be helpful, we can pay,” Genie offered.

“What are you offering? Because I doubt your money is any good.”

“We could boost you the same way we’re boosted or we could go with gems or gold.”

Ted glanced between the muscular teenager and the girl that could easily have been a supermodel. He wouldn’t mind having increased strength and toughness assuming there weren’t any horrible side effects. “So you’re planning on being a hero?”

Xander nodded. “My world has a bit of a demon problem so yeah, we’re certainly going to help save people.”

Genie glanced at Xander then looked at Ted. “Considering Xander has already averted one prophecy of doom and helped kill a number of vampires, he’s a hero in my book.”

Ted glanced over at Diana. “Demons and magic are more your area of expertise.”

“Do you mind if I check your story?” Diana asked.

“I trust that you won’t pry into our personal lives but yeah, go for it,” Xander agreed, rather amused that he’d honestly be able to say that he’d been tied up by a demigod after she lassoed him. He was slightly sad that she merely draped her lasso over his wrist.

“Are you heroes?” Diana asked.

“I’ve saved the day and I try to help the vampire slayer, if that makes me a hero then great.”

“Fair enough. Were you telling the truth about your story?”

“Yes,” Xander replied.

“How did you know to come here?” Diana asked, curious why they’d come looking for her friend.

“Ted Grant is a noted trainer of heroes even on my world,” Xander replied, happy that he hadn’t had to spill the fact that they were comic book characters.

“Good enough,” Ted said with a smile. “The first step is to run some tests then we’ll get started.”

“Cool,” Genie said happy about learning to fight.

“You say that, now,” Ted replied with amusement, planning on putting them through the ringer.

“Do you mind if I help?” Diana asked.

“Nah, I don’t mind, it would certainly make it easier,” Ted agreed as he headed toward the back of the gym. “Let’s see if you can move my neighbor’s rig that he can’t be bothered to move.”

“Ted,” Diana said warningly.

“Technically, he’s parked illegally, I’m just doing him a favor.”

“Sure you are,” Diana replied with amusement as she followed him.

Xander winced as he reached into his pocket and pushed the montage button knowing that for the next little while things were going to suck.

Xander groaned as they fell out of the tv, feeling like someone had run him over with truck. “Fuck that hurt.”

Genie looked up at the ceiling as she tried not to move. “Can we not do that again?”

“At least anytime soon,” Xander agreed as he waited for his body to heal enough that moving didn’t hurt.

“We should have picked an entry point without Wonder Woman,” Genie grumbled as she thought about some of the hits she’d taken during training.

“I’m sure I’ll appreciate it when the pain stops.” Xander closed his eyes as he tried to focus on something other than the months of brutal training that they’d just suffered through on fast forward. He almost felt sorry for the various villains after they’d upgraded Mr. Grant with a chip of the bloodstone.

“Diana fights dirty,” Genie complained.

“You’re the one that conjured the tape of the realistic version of her rather than the four color hero version,” Xander replied.

“I’ll admit that was probably a bad idea but I figured regeneration would help, not give them an excuse to ramp up the training.”

“Would it be sadistic if I offered Buffy the chance to get advanced training by Wonder Woman and Ted?” Xander asked with a smirk.

“It wouldn’t be sadistic, it would be traumatizing and useful. Besides, he said he’d do it when I asked,” Genie replied amusement then winced as she shifted. “I shouldn’t hurt this much, I’m a genie.”

“Note to self, fighting demigods hurts,” Xander complained as he twisted around so his back was against the couch.

“Why are you moving?” Genie asked.

“Because I hurt too much to stay on the floor and far too much to crawl up on the couch...” he trailed off as she vanished in a shower of sparkles that flew over to the couch. “That’s cheating.”

Genie giggled as she reformed sprawled on the couch. “I’m fairly sure that’s in the job description,” Genie replied as she teleported him up onto the couch next to her.

“You’re forgiven,” Xander replied as he pushed the stop button on the remote to stop the video then flipped the channel when he saw it was just a vacuum commercial.

“What are you looking for?” Genie asked curious what he was looking for.

“Amusing shows or mindless entertainment while we finish healing,” Xander replied as he flipped through the channels. “Mostly I’m looking for a present for Buffy.”

“Why?”

“I’d rather butter her up a bit before we suggest training and a nice shiny weapon is a Slayer’s best friend.”

“Getting her a weapon right before you send her to a hellish training nightmare might be a little counterproductive,” Genie replied with amusement.

He said, “It would also give her a chance to get used to fighting with a weapon that she can’t break.”

“If were you, I’d be more worried about getting Willow a gift that will make up for her getting dropped into a training montage.”

“Considering her stance on physical activity that might be a bit difficult…” he trailed off as he flipped the channel and it landed on Back to the Future II. “Or not. I’m sure she’d appreciate a hoverboard or a Mr. Fusion.”

Genie snickered. “I know Sam would love a Mr. Fusion, especially if you could get the plans. It would certainly help with power consumption at the base.”

“We can certainly try,” Xander agreed as he turned the volume up and waited for a good opportunity to jump into the movie. 

Thankfully by the time Marty was in the future and looking at stuff his regeneration had kicked in enough that he could move without hurting. He pushed the button on his remote that pulled them into the movie.

Genie looked around at the strangely futuristic city. “Where to?”

Xander smiled as he saw a ten year old girl zoom by on a hoverboard. “We’re going to need money and I don’t have nearly enough on me to deal with inflation so let’s hit a pawnbroker and sell some gems then hit the secondhand shops for computers, videos and games that haven’t came out yet.”

“It’s worth a shot.” She knew a lot of the shows would be wildly different but that wasn’t really a bad thing for their purpose. “To the pawn store,” she declared as she headed off at a brisk walk which was about as fast as she wanted to move right then.

Xander followed her, hoping she knew where they were going. Thankfully it wasn’t that hard to trade some pirate booty for cash and pick up a ton of old games, programming language books and the programs that came with them and large box filled with movies as well as couple laptop computers from the early 2000s that should be an upgrade for what they were using. “We’ll probably have to come back with Willow at some point.”

“Probably,” Genie admitted as she glanced around the isles. “If you want to keep looking through the movies, I’ll go pick up a Mr. Fusion and a couple hoverboards.”

“Sounds good,” Xander agreed. “Don’t forget any easy documentation they have so that Sam can reverse engineer them.”

“No problem.” She teleported close to the nearest store that sold Mr. Fusions.

Xander headed over to the section of the shop that had the newer second hand electronics and picked up one of the clear tablet computers. ‘I bet Willow would love this.’ He put four of the tablets in his cart then headed for the counter. ‘I wonder if Jack would like a hover jeep?’ he mused as he waited for the clerk to help the woman in front of him.

0o0o0

Genie looked at the large collection of random junk that they’d hauled out of the television and piled on the bed. “I will admit that we might have went a little overboard.”

Xander glanced at the shrunken hoverjeep floating over his bed that Genie had been nice enough to shrink. “Maybe a little. Any idea how to register the jeep legally?”

“Legally might be stretching it but I could set up a fictional company then register the various patents without too much trouble but you’d still run into a bunch of legal issues trying to fly it around.”

“Something to consider. Can you toss it to the planet where Jack is going to have his next mission?” Xander asked jokingly.

Genie laughed. “If you wish but the jeep looks a bit too American for them to take it as alien.”

“Any suggestions beyond scrapping it for parts and starting a tech company?” Xander asked, curious if Genie had any alternate ideas.

“That’s probably for the best though I’d use an alternate identity considering you’re not exactly known to be a tech genius and wouldn’t want the publicity anyways.”

“Fair enough,” he admitted, having realized years ago that no one really cared about your grades as long as you got at least Bs on everything. “We might be able to pass off some of the computer tech as stuff Willow came up with but the Mr. Fusion would put a target on us I’d rather avoid which means we’re going to need someone to take the credit.”

“Sounds like something to discuss with Willow. Either way, we really should look for a way to store everything.”

Genie used a touch of magic to scan through the various movies to see if there was anything suitable. “Huh, we could visit Diagon Alley and pick up some expanded chests or jump into a horror movie that has a magical book that has a bunch of spells for creating interesting magical mirrors and expanding rooms.”

“How is that horror movie worthy?” Xander asked, wondering how badly the book was cursed.

“The book was fine as far as I can tell, the wizard was just a creepy bastard. He used the magic from the book to create mirrors to watch people and created funhouse mirrors that twisted people to match their reflections.”

“That sounds promising. Wait, Diagon Alley, isn’t that from Harry Potter? Willow was trying to get me to read it.”

“Yep, seven books, eight movies, the special effects are amazing,” Genie said as she pulled the horror movie video tape and the box set of Harry Potter DVDs out of the pile.

“We should probably save the Harry Potter stuff until Willow is done with school so we can enjoy it together. Anything else?”

“There’s an animated short for Dungeons of Dredmor that might be fun.”

“Dungeon of Dredmor?” Xander asked warily.

“It’s a game or at least it’s a game in the other world but the animated short shows off two important things, the wizard keys and an Anvil of Krong which is basically a way to get a random enchantments on things.”

“Wizard keys? Like keys that open doors?” Xander asked, thinking of times that would have been useful for running around with Buffy.

“Nope, the wizard keys open pocket dimensions or rather teleport you to and from a pocket dimension where you can store stuff.”

“That sounds useful, any negatives?” Xander asked curious what the downsides were.

“In the game the pocket dimension has a gate device that you input addresses in that takes you to various locations or random random hell dimensions if you screw up the address.”

Xander raised his eyebrows. “That sounds dangerous.”

Genie shrugged. “Nah, the portal is a weird color and you don’t have to step through if you don’t want to. Besides, I’m not sure the gate would even still connect to any of the hell dimensions in the game.”

“It’s probably worth checking. If we grabbed multiple keys, would they go to the same place?”

“No clue, I’ll know more once we have a couple sets and I can take a look at how the magic works,” Genie replied as she set up the animated short on her new laptop.

Xander pointed his remote at the computer screen and pushed the button so he could reach into the screen. “What am I grabbing?”

“The ornate box on the ground, it has the keys inside of it.”

“Ah, that,” Xander replied as he saw the ornate box on the ground the adventurer was heading towards. “Yoink!” he exclaimed as he reached into the screen and pulled the box out a second before the adventure grabbed the box. He opened the box and grabbed the keys then blinked as the box vanished and he felt a pulse of magic wash over him. “What was that?”

“Huh,” Genie muttered as she looked at the magic in the keys then followed the connection to a newly created pocket dimension. “At least that part works.”

“What do you mean?” Xander asked as he looked at the keyring. It looked a little archaic but he doubted anyone would really look twice at it.

“They’re bind on pickup which makes this a lot easier.”

“Do you want to reset it or watch the rest of the short?” Xander asked as he watched the adventurer that looked like a knock off Indiana Jones cut his way through a group of monsters.

“Might as well watch the rest of it,” Genie said as she watched the adventurer use a machete to cut his way through the monsters until he got to an anvil. “I wonder…” she trailed off as she watched the adventurer toss his fedora on the anvil and it glowed with divine light for a second. “Huh, that’s interesting, seems pretty random.”

Xander reached through the screen and stole the man’s hat off his head. “Anything useful?” he asked as he tossed the hat into Genie’s lap.

Genie examined the magic on the hat. “It increases the chance that you’ll get a decent hit and be able to return the favor and gives you a bonus to dodge. The anvil also imbued it with the power to increase your mana regeneration so that’s sort of useful.”

“Sounds good, let’s steal another box,” Xander said as he pushed the button to return the tablet to normal so Genie could reset things. 

She reset the animated short.

Xander zapped the tablet again. “Go for it.”

Genie snickered as she reached into the tablet and stole the box. “We should probably steal enough boxes for the rest of the crew.”

“Probably,” Xander replied as he watched the man glanced around angrly. “If I swapped the hat, would it be something different or would it just make the mana regeneration better?”

“No clue, you’ll have to try.” She snickered as she handed him the fedora.

Xander reached into the tablet and swapped the man’s fedora. “Do you think Buffy would wear a fedora on patrol?”

“Probably not unless we can prove that it would help, a lot,” Genie replied as she watched the adventurer cut his way through the monsters.

“It’s worth a try.” Xander waited until the fedora flashed with light then reached into the tablet and stole the hat. “Anything good?”

Genie looked at the magic on the hat. “Everything from before and wand crafting which would let you create magical wands out of random stuff if you had a N-Dimensional lathe.”

“Where do I find one of those?” Xander asked with a touch of amusement.

“Same place as everything else, in the dungeon,” Genie said with amusement as she opened her box and claimed her keys. She smiled brightly as she checked the keys and discovered that they were linked to a different pocket dimension than Xander’s keys. “The keys open different pocket dimensions which means we should be able to grab boxes for everyone without worrying about them opening to the same pocket dimension and finding our stuff.”

“Cool.” He frowned slightly as the animated short ended. “How tough are the demons?”

“They start weak enough that a college professor was dropping kill them with a machete and get progressively harder the deeper you go but we should be good for at least the first ten levels without too much trouble, more if we pick up some armor first.”

“Good point,” Xander replied as he fiddled with his wizarding keys to see if he could make them work. He blinked as they found themselves and the bed and all of the loot on it in the middle of a cobblestone tiled room with grey stone walls. He spun around, trying to make sure that no one was lurking in wait. He blinked as his gaze landed on the strange arcane looking device attached to a freestanding door near one of the walls. “I’m guessing that’s the portal?”

“Yep,” Genie replied as she used magic to try to figure out how the portal device worked. “Huh, yeah, that’s less than useful without coordinates.”

“Oh?” Xander asked warily.

“It’s set up to drop us in a random hell dimension if the correct coordinates aren’t typed in.”

“That’s a nasty security feature,” Xander muttered as he started moving the stuff off the bed so they could bring the bed back with them.

Genie shrugged. “On the upside the demons probably have decent magical items or at least they did in the game.”

“Something to consider when we have a reliable method of escape,” he mused as he worked on stacking the DVDs he’d picked up.

“Like a genie?” Genie asked with amusement as she cleared some of the cobwebs away from the machine.

Xander grinned. “I was actually thinking about something we could hand out, like Dorothy’s Ruby slippers from OZ or something you could break that would take you back to a safe location that we could hand out.”

“I can’t see Sam or Jack wearing ruby slippers but some type of break in case of emergency token would be good.”

“Something to work on,” he agreed as he looked at the large pile. “Can you snap your fingers and sort everything…” he trailed off as Genie snapped her fingers and everything floated off the bed other than the Black Cauldron DVD, the collector’s editor set of Harry Potter DVDs and the mirror magic horror movie. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Genie replied with a grin as she directed the rest of the collection to float off to the side and settle on the ground gently. “I figure we can grab shelves and chests and such in Diagon alley then worry about sorting everything.”

Xander smiled as he glanced around the large room. “A couple nice couches and a whiteboard or two for the projector and this would be almost perfect.”

“Almost?” Genie asked in amusement.

“We’d need a bathroom and a fridge for it to be perfect,” Xander said with amusement.

“Considering time is sort of stopped while you’re in here, a fridge wouldn’t really help and you’d need a magical toilet.”

“How does that work?” Xander asked as he walked over and sat down on the bed.

“It’s magic,” Genie replied as she walked back over to the bed and sat down next to Xander. “It’s a weird pocket world. Either way, we shouldn’t need to eat while we’re here and if we do, I can conjure pizza.”

“I guess that works for now. Any idea how we’re supposed to get back?” Xander asked hoping that she’d have a trick that didn’t require him learning a complex formula or incantation.

“Focus on your wizarding keys and say there is no place like home?” Genie teased.

Xander laughed as he focused on returning to the real world and reappeared with the bed and Genie. “That worked despite the less than useful Wizard of OZ bit.”

“I figured it was traditional,” Genie replied with a snicker as she picked up the horror movie and headed into the living room.

“Probably,” Xander admitted as he grabbed the rest of the DVDs off the bed and followed her.