Title: Unnatural 1/8

Series: Unnatural!Verse. Part One.
Author: Miz Thang
Summary: post-Shells, Illyria has a few thoughts on things. The people she has to deal with. This takes a little twist on canon. I'll just say this doesn't turn out to be a happy ending fic.
Spoilers: Season 5 of Angel, up to Shells, and some plot points beyond that.
Warnings: Spike/Illyria. Sex. Character Death.
Rating: FRM

Notes: The first three chapters are short, mainly because in the beginning it had been a series.

Unnatural

Chapter One: Personality Disorder

She knew who she was. She was the great Illyria, God-king of all she desired. Except, she wasn't. Not anymore.

Not with the vile humans that crawled around the earth of this time as if ants. Not with their failure to recognize her greatness. Not with many of them hunting down her subjects, the demons that would serve her, and killing them off. One by one until there'd be no more left.

Not with this new world she didn't understand and could never hope to conquer with their rules, and customs. They were a different people from the ones that lived in her time, evolved to a point of arrogance and insolence. Without her army, she could never hope to defeat them.

Not with these walls that always surrounded her, making her feel as if she were suffocating. Not with her Qwa'ha Xhan dead. And not with the beings she was forced to seek companionship with treating her as though she were nothing more than an insect they could squash.

What made it the most terrible? That she had the shell's memories running rampant in her mind. She desperately wished she hadn't accompanied Wesley to the wizard's house, and that he hadn't broken the trinket that unlocked all she saw and knew.

And at this moment? At this moment she wanted to destroy and/or rule the world., but save the nice taco shop a few blocks away, because of that time she went with Gunn; they'd done everything she'd asked and even put extra sour cream on the side.

Except she wasn't fond of this sustenance humans ate called tacos. She'd never been anywhere with Gunn. And she had no idea what this thing called sour cream was or what its entire purpose was.

She didn't know who she was. She couldn't tell if she was the sweet quantum physicist that couldn't help being nice to Spike, even if he hated Angel and she was pretty sure he was flirting with her only to forget about Buffy.

Or maybe she was the battle warrior woman. The demon that spared no being mercy and cared of no other but herself. That had a high opinion of herself and her worth compared to the others around her. Held the opinion that she could rule. And that Spike was the ideal pet.

Perhaps she was neither, or was she both? Was she the sniveling sensitive human that had a capacity for weaker emotions such as love, kindness, grief and affection? Or was she what she felt like? Cold-hearted, uncaring.

Wesley was discomforted by her presence. With her ability to become her shell. He tried to pretend he was only fascinated by her history, her change. But she only made him feel pain. Heartache. Her existence made him realize what he'd lost, wished he had back. Or that he could be reunited with it. He didn't want her pretending to be the human that once inhabited the body. It revealed painful memories. Memories that could break his already fragile human mind.

Angel ignored her greatness. Her ability. Who she was. He treated her in the same manner as he treated Spike, and at times, his other followers. He ignored that, if she so desired, she could obliterate him, no matter her decrease in power. Sometimes she wondered if he though himself invincible, or if he forgot how insignificant everything he did was. Didn't realize the unimportance of the shell she now occupied.

Lorne ignored her presence. She did not understand why. He confuse her a great deal and she preferred to ignore him as well. Gunn reeked of guilt. Guilt of letting her tomb into the country, into the building. Of indirectly putting the shell in danger. It was bothersome.

Spike did not compare her to the shell. It could be that he had not been acquainted with the shell for a long enough period of time for a great deal of attachment, but she wanted to believe that he'd adjusted to her presence. That he accepted it as a part of life.

She left Wesley's office without warning, effectively ending their conversation, and sought out Spike. She found him where she expected him. In the room of fighting.

"Will you fight me?" she questioned.

He shrugged and they started.

It was...refreshing to be around Spike. To that, both sides of her agreed. And she was grateful for that tiny bit of certainty. It gave her purpose and a new direction.

She had most certainly wasted her precious energies on Wesley. He was a lost cause, surrendered to the memory of the shell. When the time came and he was able to take back what was rightly hers, she'd rule. And, if the attachment grew any larger, with Spike at her side.