Humanity
by Espresso Rabbit

Chapter one
Joan had already decided that today was a Bad Day. The number of things that had gone wrong was absolutely staggering. That left her late for her last class of the day, and frantically dumping things out of her locker in search of the textbook she needed.

“Looking for this?” a voice said behind her. She whirled around to see a man she guessed was a substitute teacher holding up the book she had been searching for.
“Umm, yeah. Thanks.” She took the book, then began shoveling the others back into the locker. “How did you know?”
“I know everything about you, Joan.” She paused, and looked at the man who was apparently God in horror. She barely managed to resist the temptation to slam her head into the locker door.
“This day cannot get any worse,” she muttered as she finished stuffing her books into her locker.
“Oh, I’m sure it could,” God commented pleasantly. The horrified look was back instantly. “Not that you should be worried,” He added.
“Gee, thanks. So what glorious ‘suggestion’ do you have to make to me today.”
“Just for today, it would be more of a favor than a suggestion.” Joan raised an eyebrow. “There’re some people coming into town today. I’d like you to
be nice to them.”
“Any specific people I should watch out for, or just everyone new in town?”
“Three people. Two women: one with red hair, one with blonde. The guy will be missing an eye.”
‘Missing an eye?’ Joan mouthed. Then she spoke sarcastically. “Why do I get all the fun jobs? Surely there’s someone else who’s not having nearly as
much fun being your instrument as I am.”
“Nope,” God smiled.
“Great. And is there any particular reason I should be nice to these people?”
“You’re late for class,” He smiled and walked away, leaving Joan fuming.


“Arcadia.” The redheaded driver said. “You can almost see the children and puppies and happy ice cream trucks.”
“And what exactly do you think of when you hear ‘Sunnydale?’ Apparently, their police force is second only to the Sunnydale PD in stupidity, though,” the man in the passenger seat said.
“Wow,” Said the blonde sprawled in the back seat. “Gotta love small-town America.”
“Arcadia’s not even that small,” said the man. “Compared to Sunnydale, it’s practically huge.”
“Well, I guess demons can’t always go for the quaint ambiance. And in the bigger cities, it’s easier to cover up.”
“When did you two become so jaded? I’m the one who lost an eye.”
“Sorry, Xand,” the blonde smiled. “It’s just…” she sighed. “I thought Sunnydale was bad. And how many apocalypses have we stopped in just the past four months?”
“Three,” said the driver. “We used to get one a year. Now one a month. I thought we destroyed the First Evil. Doesn’t that warrant a vacation?”
“Still demons out to destroy the world, Willow. And I don’t think we destroyed the actual First. Just…its current ability. Now a lot of the demons are trying to pick up the slack.”

There was silence for a few minutes, as they drove towards Arcadia.
“Still,” Xander said a few miles later. “Why Arcadia? I mean, sure…high crime rate, but near as anyone can tell, it’s all human. There’s no demon network, no major vampire nests. Not even a Wicca group.” Willow glanced over at him darkly. “Why make Arcadia the next focus for world annihilation?”
Buffy shrugged. “All I know is what Giles tells me. In this case, Giles tells me the next apocalypse is going to be in Arcadia.”
“There’s something powerful in Arcadia,” Willow interjected suddenly. Buffy and Xander exchanged glances. The coven had hinted as much, but they hadn’t been able to get anything solid out of them. “Not evil, I don’t think. Just…powerful.”
“Well, hopefully this big power will be on our side,” Xander said.


chapter two

return to Tales of Arcadia