Emmett picked his way through the demolished building, stepping over half-burned textbooks, piles of dust and debris and snake chunks. Big snake chunks. His extremely tenuous ties with the government sometimes put him in the strangest places. Namely, Sunnydale, California in an exploded high school, surrounded by snake chunks. It paid well, though.

He kicked a particularly large chunk over and knelt to look at the internal structures. "What the fuck?" he muttered to himself.

"Mayor."

Emmett jumped to his feel and slipped in entrail slime for a second before steadying himself against the half-crumbled wall, staring at the dark-haired kid who had spoken from his perch on a listing staircase a few yards away.

"Jesus," Emmett swore. "You scared the hell outta me."

"Sorry," the kid said. "I'm Xander Harris, by the way."

"Emmett. And did you say 'mayor'?"

The kid shrugged. "Yeah. It's a long story. Are you here in some official capacity, or are you some sort of giant snake groupie?"

"I'm a herpetologist," Emmett snapped. "Government gig."

Xander shrugged again. "So, what kind of snake do you think it is?"

Emmett looked down at the chunk of snake at his feet. "I have no idea. It's not like anything I've ever seen, and there's no species that gets this big. I can hardly tell what killed it - except for the obvious exploding. Maybe gunshots, Jaws type scenario."

"We're gonna need a bigger boat," Xander wisecracked. "Though there are surprisingly few guns around here - for a high school, I mean. Might be a little too high-tech for the student body."

"C'mon, Hector, the mac10 submachine gun was practically designed for housewives." Emmett pushed the snake chunk away with the toe of his hiking boot.

"It's Harris, and we tend to deal more in wood and magic around here. Except for today. Today was a C-4 kinda day."

Emmett moved over and sat on the stairs below Xander. "I really don't understand, and I don't think it's just a 'kids today' thing."

Xander laughed softly. "It's probably better that you don't. Some things really aren't worth knowing."

Emmett looked out at the mess of the former high school and started mentally formulating a scientifically implausible explanation for a giant exploding snake. He barely noticed when the kid clapped him on the shoulder and walked tiredly away.