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"Observe. Shovel. Not a shovel. The shovel." Xander was careful about the emphasis on his words, as he continued, a maddening grin showing. "What we got here, sport, is a gift from God. Literally, ya know?"

The First Evil slowly began to back up until it stopped at the man's slow shaking of his head. "Uh-huh. My turn to gloat now, at the proper time. This thing," he casually shook the shovel, "is composed of all the shovels that are and ever were, for any loose material -- coal, snow, sand, soil -- in agriculture, construction and gardening, throughout all of humanity's time on this world. From a clump of dirt on the earliest farms to every spadeful needed to dig the Panama Canal, to all of the excavations going on right this minute throughout the entire world. And it can summon up, concentrate, and send on all the force needed throughout all of that, both the work done and the weight lifted. Every single bit of it. Your little pets just got hit with, oh, probably the entire weight of the Himalayas mountain range. Including Mount Everest."

The First Evil stared with horror at the satisfied-looking man across from it. Suddenly, its eyes narrowed, and it shimmered into a new form, beginning to say, "You've still made a mis---"

"HEY! Hey, hey!" shouted Xander, cutting off the First Evil. He stared in puzzlement at the being standing before him. "Who're you supposed to be?"

The scruffy, middle-aged man in a disheveled mid-century suit with sweat stains under the armpits, saggy jowls, increasing baldness, and beady eyes, glowered at Xander, and shaking a sheet of paper at him, the stranger blustered, "I'm Senator Joseph McCarthy!"

The young man just looked incredulous and then frowned, tilting his head to examine his enemy's current form. "Uh, I think I slept through that class. Am I supposed to be scared of you?"

On the other side of the cavern, an Englishman closed his eyes and muttered, "Dear Lord….," abruptly stopping and wondering if he should discontinue saying that, considering what had happened.

Glaring at Xander, the First Evil shimmered again, from the Wisconsin senator into a new form. A look of evil satisfaction appeared on the face of the young teenager now standing there at seeing how Xander's face had frozen into tight-lipped fury.

"Hey, bro," drawled Jesse McNally, smirking at how Xander's fist tightened around the top of the shovel, but with the one-eyed young man otherwise making no other move at the manifestation of his best friend for most of Xander's life until the Scooby member had staked his blood-brother after he'd become a vampire.

Now hugely enjoying himself, the First Evil went on, "As I began to say, you've still made a mistake. So what if my forces are gone now? I'll just try again in the future, in another way, and you won't be able to stop me. Your little toy," the teenager's voice changed to deep disdain, "might have carried the day for now, but it didn't affect me."

Xander's lips drew back in a mirthless smile. "Because you can't be touched. You're immaterial. Insubstantial. Between."

"Gee, bro, you swallowed a thesaurus? 'Course, that wasn't all you swallowed, when you were with that little former-demon bitch over there," sneered the First Evil, waving his arm at the group helplessly witnessing the confrontation between man and monster. Anya blushed, and looked down as others shifted to glance at her. There was a great difference between her saying something like that, and another doing it just to hurt Xander.

The First Evil inwardly exulted, as Xander clearly snapped. A look of rage on his face, the man jerked up the shovel out of the ground and flipped it up to hold it horizontally, the blade of the shovel pointing right at the amused fiend, as Xander took a step forward and thrust the blade directly at the First Evil.

This being held stock still, arrogantly expecting the farm tool to simply pass through its intangible form and gleefully looking forward to further taunting the mortal who had dared to oppose him. It looked down, waiting for the failure of the attack.

The shovel drove into its chest and stayed there.

The First Evil blinked. For the first time in its existence, it felt….pain.

Swaying, the monster slowly lifted its head and looked at the man at arm's length from it, receiving a steady gaze from Xander holding firmly with both hands the handle of the shovel, pitilessly keeping it embedded in the form of a being as old as the world, whose time had finally come.

"Between, remember? This thing stuck in you isn't just a weapon. It's a tool, and it's been used to turn up the soil of this world to plant farms and gardens, to bring new life and nourishment for humanity. And when the time comes for humanity to depart this world….this has been used to dig the graves to reverently bury the bodies of those who were loved. This shovel's absorbed all that. Life and death, sucker. Between."

The First Evil might have crumbled to the ground, if it wasn't still held up by the man's tool, as Xander bent forward to whisper into the monster's face now realizing it was actually facing death. "You really shouldn't have turned into Jesse, 'cause I'm gonna make this hurt."

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5374736/2/