Xander lifted his head. Okay, so he was wearing a loincloth that barely covered that which needed to be covered. So he had a frickin' collar around his neck and a leash banging against his chest. So his hands were literally tied. So he had to face off against a guy so powerful that they had to find some shmo with a destiny to fight him and even HE had trouble taking him down.

That didn't mean he was beaten.

Well, okay, technically, considering the bruises that covered his body from his battle against Darien, he WAS pretty well beaten, but that was past-tense beaten, not present-tense beaten. Or something. The point was, he wasn't going to quit.

"Rogue?" Xander glanced at the X-man, noting that she'd quickly regained her composure. Made sense, he wasn't wearing much less than Psylocke ever wore around the x-mansion. Or Storm. Or, well, any of the other X-men. Come to think of it, why the hell had Rogue blushed in the first place? Must be part of the whole southern belle thing. He shook his head internally, trying to get his internal monologue back under control. Keeping his knees firmly in the together position to try to avoid flashing anyone unnecessarily, he turned his back on her. "Can you break the chains?"

"Sure, honey." Her gloved hand brushed against his arm, and after a brief moment and a sharp tug, he pulled his arms forward.

"Thanks." He shot her a smile, then turned to Mike. "Clothes. Now." He turned back to his team. "Right. Who here has seen the Matrix trilogy?"

Mike, Steve, and Frank raised their hands, of course. So did Darien, Locke, and Shaun. Artie continued bouncing and posing. Rogue tried to examine her nails through her gloves. Picard wore an expression that seemed to read "I'm from several hundred years in the future. We didn't bother with your puny movies. Anything made after 1940 is crap." The starship captain could be very subtly expressive when he wanted to be. Honeysuckle tilted her pony-head and fluttered her pony-wings.

"What's a matrix?"

"Okay, Darien, Locke, Shaun, you're on planning committee with the geek triplets. The rest of you, um, talk amongst yourselves." The team split up. Xander turned back to the geeks. "Mike, clothes?"

Mike was bent over his tablet, his tongue sticking out slightly in concentration. "Two seconds." He finished a sketch with a flourish, and a pair of blue pants materialized out of nowhere.

Well, they looked like pants, anyway. Sort of. They had two legs, and a waist band, but that was about it. The waist was approximately 15 inches, while one of the legs was at least a 40. The other was probably about 30-something. There was absolutely no way they'd ever fit him. "Mike, what the hell?"

"I'm not a fashion designer, okay?" Mike scowled at the pants and turned back to the tablet. "Let me try again."

"Keep at it." Xander sighed, glancing down at his loin cloth. "Right, what do we know about Agent Smith?"

"He can possess people." Steve offered. "And dodge bullets."

"He's a computer program," Darien shrugged. "Hates humans, sees them as a virus."

"The guy who played him was also in ‘Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'." Shaun turned his cricket bat over in one hand. "Made it damned hard to take him seriously as a bad guy."

Mike glanced up. "And that helps us, how?"

"Mike, you're on clothes duty. Something I can actually wear." Xander glanced at the clock. Time was running out. "Right, how do we stop him?"

"Find Neo?" Darien shrugged.

Locke shook his head. "No time, and against the rules. He manipulates the laws of physics enforced by the Matrix program. He's aware that it is only a virtual reality situation. Only our expectations and faith in those laws keep us from matching his strength and dexterity."

Xander nodded. "So,"

"So if you have faith that you, too, can over come the laws of the universe, then you can." Locke peered at him. "You have to maintain that faith."

Xander shut his eye. "Right. Right. Faith. ‘Do you think that's air you're breathing?'"

"‘There is no spoon.'" Mike muttered, his head still bent over the tablet. Another pair of pants appeared. They might have fit Honeysuckle. "Dammit."

Xander glanced back up at the clock. "No time. Okay. Weapons. What do we have?"

Shaun held his cricket bat aloft. Darien and Locke both had pistols. Xander turned to the rest of the group. Rogue just punched one hand into another, Artie struck a particularly absurd pose, Picard pulled out his phaser, and Honeysuckle raised her eyebrow ala the Rock. Xander closed his eye again, groaned, then took a second look at Picard's phaser. "That ever have any effect on holographic projections?"

"On the holodeck."

"What about outside it? Does it, I dunno, disrupt electrical fields or anything? Maybe we can just screw up Smith's programming." Xander scratched at the skin under his manacles. "Does that make sense?"

"It's a possibility," Mike offered. He was still scribbling away on his tablet, though Xander had given up hope for pants before the battle.

"Right." Xander considered his options. "Okay. When we get out there, I want Rogue and Honeysuckle in the air asap. Darien, did Marshall make any extra counteragent?"

"Couple batches."

"Then you go invisible. We want as many tricks up our sleeves as possible. Artie."

"Fearless leader!"

Xander stared at the so-called "strongest man in the world" for a long moment. "Keep bouncing. That oughta confuse the hell out of him. Picard, Locke, you're with me. Maybe we can get him in a crossfire that he can't dodge. Shaun, you're on distraction with Artie." He scanned his team. "Got it?"

They offered a variety of assents. Xander nodded and turned to the door. "Let's go kick some computer ass."

"We miss anything?"

Xander spun to see Mehri and Susan leaning against a wall of the preparation room, looking smug and, well, incredibly hot. They were dressed in tight jeans and t-shirts bearing early eighties cartoon characters that were stretched out of proportion across their ample breasts. He swallowed.

He still had no idea who they really were. "Just about to go into battle."

"Agent Smith." Mehri nodded, looking incredibly saddened for a moment. "We heard. You have a plan?"

Xander glanced over his rag-tag crew. "Yep." He went back to peering at the two. Susan held out an uzi, butt first. He took it cautiously and held it away from his bare chest. She swept her gaze up and down his torso and blushed cutely.

"Good to hear." She averted her gaze, as though disappointed that his body might be marred soon by lots of bloody, mortal wounds. Xander tried not to think about that. "We wanted to wish you luck."

"Thanks." Xander stared at them for a moment longer, trying to work out if he recognized them in a pop-culture way. He still didn't. "Well. We'd better get going."

Mehri's eyes flicked to the clock. "Yeah." She stepped over to Mike, who glanced up at her from his tablet, then flinched and licked his lips. "I'll work on drawing you some clothes, yeah?"

"Er, yeah." Xander held the uzi up with one hand and reached for the door handle with the other. He jerked his head to signal his team. "Guys, let's go."

"Laaaaaaadies and gennnnnnnnnnnnnntlemen!" The Announcer's voice echoed over the Arena. "Alexander Lavelle Harris and team SMG Teacozy!"

The crowd in the stands didn't match the Announcer's enthusiasm.

"Who will this intrepid team battle today?" The Announcer paused for drama. "None other than that scourge of the Matrix, that obsessive, evil bastard, AGENT SMITH!"

The crowd went nuts. They really seemed to want to see Xander dead. He decided against flicking them off; considering what he was wearing, they would probably just laugh at him. He flexed his hands into his fists and stared across the field at Agent Smith as he stepped out the door on the other side of the field.

Come to think of it, Agent Smith looked a heckuva lot like Manny.

The agent stopped about a quarter of the way across the field. He cracked his neck in what was probably supposed to be a confident, threatening manner, but was so cliched by action heros and villains everywhere that Xander almost laughed. Smith lowered himself into a stance, then swept his sunglassed gaze over SMG Teacozy. He straightened.

"Mister Harris. This," Smith's nose wrinkled, his sibilant Ss rolling off his tongue with a sneer. "This is an insult."

Xander glanced back at his team. Locke and Picard held their guns at ready, one in cargo pants and a sweat stained t-shirt, one in federation uniform. Rogue was in her traditional green and yellow, which clashed horribly with the bright pink of Honeysuckle's hide as they hovered side by side. Honeysuckle's wings tinkled joyfully as her wings blurred with the effort of staying aloft. Shaun had tied his tie around his head and spun the cricket bat from hand to hand. He was still wearing his electronic's store uniform. Artie was resplendent in his red and blue striped shirt and tight red pants, gleefully bouncing about and posing with a look of utmost seriousness on his face. He looked down at himself, slaved out in his glam loin-cloth and gold chain leash, matching the gold chains that dangled from both his red leather manacled wrists. He grinned.

They did look kinda ridiculous, didn't they.

"Oh," he scoffed. "Like you're all that in your MiB suit and your doofy sunglasses. What are you supposed to be, new wave?"

"You look like a chartered accountant!" Shaun swung his bat again.

"I think," Smith dropped back into his stance. "That I will enjoy this." He leaped.

*Bang!*

Agent Smith suddenly changed trajectory, flying sideways, his body twitching and shuddering as one side of his head disappeared in a gory cloud of blood made up of greenish 0s and 1s. He landed in the dirt and stopped moving, then slowly faded out of existence.

With a slightly musical shattering sound, Darien appeared. He held his pistol in one hand and stared down at the ground at his feet. He was grinning. "Heh," he said. "Dodge this."

"Fawkes." Xander grinned. "You magnificent invisible bastard. I could kiss you."

Darien glanced at his outfit and smirked. "Let's not."

"Xander!" Willow's voice was the first thing that greeted Xander as he lead the way into the victor's room. She flung herself at him. "Xander! I was so worried! You won! That was amazing! What the hell are you wearing?"

Xander blushed. "Willow. Good to see you too. Darien gets the credit."

"Bah." She stepped back, about an inch, then disentangled Xander's wrist chain from her hair. "And who came up with that plan?"

"Um," Xander glanced back at the group. "We had a plan?"

Darien shrugged. "Distraction," he nodded to the team, "plus invisible sharp shooter. Sounds like a plan to me."

"I can live with that." Xander turned back to Willow. "How'd the Jesus fight go?"

"It was fine. This Jesus doesn't care about lesbians or witches and he pointed out he's Jewish, too, and he's actually a really nice guy and even fights really well and he doesn't even LOOK like Jesus." She leaned in close to him, lowering her voice to a whisper. "He has an EARRING."

"So your team . . . ?"

"Has a guy who doesn't die. Well, he dies, of course, but he comes back to life. We were comparing vampires for, like, three hours. Apparently lesbian skin keeps them from dying in the sun." Willow scowled. "Which is, like, the dumbest thing, ever,"

Xander hugged her again, being more careful with the chains hanging from his wrists this time. She squeezed him back, sighing happily, then pulled back again. "Weiss says he has something weird to tell you, but he got called to battle a few minutes ago. He's fighting Cheetara."

Xander sighed as melodramatically as possible. "That guy gets all the breaks." He glanced down at his outfit again, then looked at Mike and Mehri. "Any luck on the clothes?"

Mehri proudly held out a stack of army-green and cammoflage clothing, topped by a pair of black boxer briefs and a black gun belt. Xander accepted them cautiously and unfolded the pants. They were well cut and sported numerous pockets. He had a feeling they'd fit him perfectly. He glanced back at Mehri, who put an arm over Mike's shoulder and winked. Mike looked pale.

Xander set the clothing to one side and smiled slightly. Sure, he was still achy from fighting Darien. He was still trapped in a bizarro universe, forced to fight any number of fictional characters who could all kick his ass. He was still wearing the loincloth from hell. But he'd gone up against his first real bad-guy and won. He had a team of heros to back him up, and a group of friends who were willing to help out even if they were officially his competition.

Who knows? He just might be able to win this thing. Plus, he had clothes now. Clothes that would fit. They were quite possibly evil clothes, but that still beat out the loincloth.

Look out Multiverse, here comes SMG Teacozy.