Larry surged out of his seat and ripped off his gown. The grip of the makeshift flamethrower seemed to leap into his hands, and he raised it to point at the demon the Mayor had become.

"Flame units!" Buffy commanded.

Larry pulled the trigger, more than half expecting the weapon to explode in his hands. He was gratified when it didn't, even more so when the spurt of flame caused the giant snake-thing to recoil, buying his fellow students more time to get ready.

"First wave!" Xander called from his post to one side of the battle. Larry kept his attention on the Mayor, but from the corner of his eye he could see the others at the front of the battle unlimbering their weapons.

Suddenly, the Mayor attacked. Darting past the flames, he swooped in and grabbed one of the seniors. Pulling back out of range of the flamethrowers, he gulped the hapless student down.

*Chad Watkins,* Larry thought, amazed at how calm he felt.

"Fire!" Xander cried, and the missile crew hit the Mayor with everything they had. A few of the projectiles penetrated the demon's hide. He reared back, screeching in rage and pain.

*There's more where that came from, you son of a bitch.*

The next few minutes passed by in a blur. Larry dodged an attack by the Mayor, burning him badly with a flame blast from close range, and saw more of his friends and classmates die. Taking a few precious seconds to survey the battlefield that Sunnydale High's Commencement had become, Larry saw that the tide seemed to be turning against the vampires, leaving only the Mayor to be dealt with.

"Almost time," he muttered to himself as he brought the flamethrower up for another shot. It sputtered and died in his hands.

"Dammit!" he cried, dropping it and grabbing a spear from the ground. As he rose to the attack, however, he saw the Mayor's tail swinging towards him.

He started to lunge out of the way, then forced himself to stop. *Here we go,* he thought, biting down hard and breaking the capsule he'd attached to a back molar earlier in the day.

Darkness overtook him, and he never felt the blow that ended his life.

His first impression upon awakening was pain. He ached all over. He groaned and tried to open his eyes to look around.

A cool, soft hand was placed over his eyes. "Don't open them yet," a woman's voice instructed him. "You're going to be sensitive to light for a few hours. The pain will go away soon. It's not physical, just your neurons complaining about being shut down. They get cranky when you go into hibernation."

"Where... Where am I?" Larry rasped out. He coughed harshly. A second later, he felt a straw put to his lips and drank greedily. Cool water soothed his parched throat. "Thanks," he said in a more normal voice.

"You're welcome," the woman told him. "And we're in LA. We got you out of the Sunnydale morgue with no problems."

"The battle!" he blurted out, memory coming back to him. "Did we win?"

"Don't worry," the voice assured him. "The good guys won. We didn't even have to step in, which is fine by me. That mess was complicated enough already. We've got a list of casualties for you to look at when you're up to it. Not too many, though. You guys did good."

"Glad to hear it," Larry said, relieved but still worried. "Why are you here, though? I thought..."

"Yeah," she cut him off, "he wanted to be here, but he had to deal with some trouble in Cleveland. I stayed behind to be here when you woke up. I used to be a coroner, so it's always a nice feeling to help the dead come back to life for a change."

"Thanks."

"No problem, kid." She paused. "Are you sure you want to do this? Normally, coming back from the dead would be a big deal, but Sunnydale's so confused right now that I doubt anyone would notice. There's still time to back out. I can tell you, it's not an easy thing to go through."

"I figured," Larry said with a sigh. "But I have to. When you guys came through town looking for recruits, I knew it was something I needed to do."

"Well, we're glad to have you," she said. "We can always use more people with demon experience. Most of us are too focused on the ET aspects, y'know?"

"So I hear," Larry responded. "What now?"

"Well," the woman told him, "you can open your eyes now, I think. Then, we'll head back to New York and get you squared away, starting with the big question."

Larry opened his eyes, blinking against the light, and looked at her. She was about average height, with medium length dark hair. She wore an unassuming but well-tailored black suit and expensive- looking black sunglasses.

"What's the big question?" he asked her curiously.

The Woman in Black pointed a thumb at herself. "I'm Agent L," she informed him. "I don't know what the hell we're going to call you."