The Assassin And The Sorceress
Author: Anime Ronin
Rating: PG-13 (will be R later on for blood, gore and swearing)
Summary: Sorceress from Diablo 2 (LOD expansion set) comes to Hellmouth via a botched Town Portal spell and all hell breaks loose.
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story save the Sorceress' name and her personality – don't sue.
Feedback: The coin of the realm, as it is said.
Author's Note: Alright, this is take two, as it were – my first incarnation of this really sucked, so I've tried to re-vamp it (no pun intended) a little and here it is. Note, this will portray some members of the Scooby Gang (three guesses who) as people who can't get the job done or are sheep to said person (this last part will be only temporary – they will see the light). Sorry, but Buffy, Giles and, to some extent, Willow were all very short-sighted in the first few seasons (Giles and Willow improved as they went, Buffy only went down hill) – or rather that is my way of seeing it.
AN2: Also note that the skills that X will show are not those of the D2: LOD Assassin – different world, different skills. Also, while the sorceress will have some of the same archaic weaponry, X will have some cool stuff that I've seen, heard of or came up with on the spot (also, some D&D elements will apply here – mostly to storage).
AN3: This takes place in later S2 – Kendra is already dead, Jenny isn't (she's in a wheelchair for now, but not dead), Angelus is around and about, The Judge has been dealt with and Cordy isn't X's main squeeze as she is currently dead.
Alright, here we go (again).
The Assassin And The Sorceress
Part 1 – Out of the night he shall come.
Buffy and her Scooby Gang looked around at the total carnage that was currently masking the inside of Willy's Alibi Room; there were piles of dust everywhere, bits and pieces of demon hide and entrails, even an entire head from a Polgara demon resting in the chair nearest to the cash register, and Willy, of course, was standing behind the wreck of a bar with his head in his hands, bemoaning his cursed luck.
"What happened, Willy? Some of your customers starting to get out of hand?"
He looked up, "Slayer, I don't know what I ever did to him, but tell you friend that he needs to stop busting up my bar."
Buffy looked over at Giles first, then at Oz, both of whom looked oddly blank, then turned back to Willy, "Who are you talking about, Willy? Oz and Giles didn't do this – they've been with me all night."
"Not them, Slayer – that Harris kid. He came in here earlier looking for some information and then some vamps started to pick on him; your boy lost it and not only dusted them but then started the bar brawl that ended like this." He paused and took a drink from the glass that was in front of him, "I ain't sure what's eating him, but he's got a serious mad-on for whatever pissed him off."
"Xander did this? XANDER did this?" The thought just didn't compute, "Alexander Harris, about yea tall, dark hair, brown eyes, a geek through- and-through?" The rest of the Scoobies didn't seem to be able to compute it either, though Giles did look somewhat false about it.
"Yeah, except for the 'geek' part; kid's been coming in here for a few months, looking for info on who is who in town and who can do what as far as spells can go."
"What kind of spells was he looking for?"
Willy shrugged at Willow, "Healing, mostly; said that one of your group needed a spell to fix one of your screw ups." This made them all wince, but Willy appeared not to notice, "I told him what he wanted to know, but apparently the guy wasn't on the level and the kid took it out on me!" He shivered, "So call him off, Slayer. I never did anything to him."
"He's not with us anymore, Willy; we kinda kicked him out a few months back." She tried not to sound sheepish when she said this, remembering the verbal evisceration that had followed her telling him that he was out of the Scoobies – nobody had been left untouched save Jenny, Dawn and her mother, the former was in the hospital from having her back broken by Angelus and the other two were safely not in the town. He'd used graphic, vile words to describe what he thought of her, of most of them and their 'let's save Angel' campaign, and looked positively murderous when she called him jealous; he'd told her flat-out that if she came near him again he'd kill her and then left even as one of Oz's CD's began to play 'Call of Ktulu'. It had been a bad day for all of them and he'd not spoken to them in or out of school since then – sure, he'd spoken to her mother and sister, even making frequent trips to Jenny's bedside, but never said a word to them that she knew of.
Willy looked shocked at this, "Ya mean he's on his own now? He ain't doing this for any of you?" The barman went pasty white at this, "Oh ... shit."
"What? What's wrong now, Willy?"
"Well, some of the demons wanted to follow him after he left, ya know, to make sure he understood just how bad he'd screwed up by messing with them, but if'n you aren't there to back him up..."
Before Willy could finish, another voice spoke from the door behind them, "They won't have to do anything, Willy." The voice was instantly recognizable, but when Buffy turned to look at her Xander-shaped friend, she was almost floored by how much he had changed. Gone was the lovable goof whom had made her life in Sunnydale bearable, and in his place was a black-clad, cold-eyed, stone-faced person who held a dripping bag in his left hand, "I told you what would happen if the clientele decided to start something, Willy." He slung that bag at the barman, who did his best to avoid it, "Now, make sure you tell your patrons not to mess with me ever again – they might upset me and nobody would like me upset."
"Xander?" He appeared not to hear her as he turned on his heel strode out of the bar. Resolute to at least get him to say something to her, Buffy strode after him purposefully out of the bar, "Xander wait!" She reached him, somewhat surprised how far he had moved with only a walk (even though his legs were longer than hers), and she grabbed the arm of his dark jacket, "Xander..."
He stopped, tense, then spoke, "Turn loose of me, Slayer, before I turn you loose from your arm." His voice was cold, almost to the point that the Arctic looked like a pleasant vacation, but he didn't turn around, merely clenched his right first.
"No, Xander, not until we have a talk."
"Talk? Talk this." She never really saw him move, but one second he was facing away from her an the next his fist was smashing into her face, flinging her back several feet and making her land on her backside even as the others exited the bar.
Having a hard time seeing, as she was sure he had broken her nose, she could only hear him walking away even as both Giles and Willow called after him to stop. Buffy herself wanted to cry that he had even struck her, let alone broken her nose (which was beginning to heal very quickly and painfully) – she wanted her Xander-shaped friend back, but apparently he had changed from what Willy had said and what he had just done.
Giles wasn't surprised to see the bar in such disarray from what appeared to be one hell of a fight, but also wasn't surprised to hear that Xander had come out on top – nor was he particularly surprised to see said young man enter the bar and sling a sack filled with something that had once been alive at Willy before stalking out with Buffy right on his heels. Knowing that the altercation that was to come would not be a very peaceful one, he made his way after the pair and exited the bar just in time to see Xander spin and hit Buffy hard enough to break her nose with a sickening 'crunch' and send her back several feet before turning a walking away. "Good God."
"Buffy?" Willow and Oz both knelt next to the fallen Slayer, who looked to be doing her best to hold back tears of either pain or regret, but also had a look of near shock on her face that Xander had hit her, "Are you okay, Buffy?"
"No, Willow," Buffy said with a slightly nasal voice, choked with pain as her Slayer healing kicked in and started to repair the broken nose, "I'm not. Why did he hit me?"
"Well, Buffy, perhaps it is that you hit him some time back, after calling him, quote, 'a jealous bastard', unquote, and then left him in the middle of the library two days later unconscious when you snuck up behind him and attacked him." Giles tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but mostly failed – Xander had been asking for a book for a report he needed to do in his English class when Buffy had attacked him. When the young man came to, however, he didn't look angry, merely resolved to do what was necessary.
"But I..." Buffy tried to defend herself, but after a few seconds of looking quite pathetic, closed her mouth. "I just want my Xander-shaped friend back."
"Quite honestly Buffy," Giles told her, removing his glasses and cleaning them, "I'm not sure if he will ever be the person you once knew, nor do I believe he will ever put that mask back on." At Buffy's look of confusion, which was mirrored by both Oz and, surprisingly, Willow, he went on, "The Xander you knew was a mask that he wore – The Fool, or the Clown, as it were; that wasn't the real him, but it was the person everybody knew and could accept, so he merely wore it around you." Knowing that the concept was probably beyond them, Giles let it drop as Buffy came to her feet, the broken nose now very swollen but probably not broken, "Now the question that remains to be answered is why Xander is looking for the healing spells ... or rather, we know whom he is looking at them for, but why is he looking for them. Healing magic is, at best, unreliable."
"He said it was my fault." Buffy sounded as if someone had stolen her favored stuffed animal, a pig named Mister Gordo, as she spoke with a tinge of anger, but soon that anger was replaced by sadness, "Why does he see it as my fault?"
"You didn't kill Angelus when you had the chance." Oz's simple statement was in line with what the stoic werewolf / musician usually was, "You have let him roam free and he put Jenny Calendar into the hospital with a broken back. Hence, you are at fault." While it appeared to Giles that the werewolf was, as always, stoic and in control, it was quite possible that he was going to rip her head off at some point – without Xander around it was Oz whom took the brunt of the male bashing because he was male and a teenager.
"Regardless of that fact," Giles headed off a rebuttal from Buffy and Willow, both of whom looked somewhat upset at Oz for speaking his mind, which happened more often than not now if one happened to be both a Scooby and a male, "we must find Xander and see just why he is doing this for Jenny and to what lengths he is going to find these spells." In the back of his mind, though, Giles knew that Xander would go to any length to help out the paralyzed gypsy woman – he always looked after his friends and when said friends were hurt, he was something akin to the wrath of the Almighty.
(AN: note, this is not trying to make X look like some sort of super being, but they, the Scoobies, are dealing with this side of him for the first time, so they don't know just what he is willing to do in order to get the job done. They will get a clearer picture of just who he is under the mask of the fool/the clown soon enough – AR.)
Even as he left the Slayer on the ground, clutching her probably-broken nose, Alexander Harris couldn't help but grin a tight grin – she had underestimated him again, they all had, and none of his former friends had any real clue what he was doing outside of looking for a spell that would heal Jenny's back and spine. At the thought of the woman, though, the grin vanished and 'hard-ass' Harris came back out to play as he went to his original objective before he was interrupted by the demons from Willy's; Willy had set him on the trail of an old potion maker that could, in theory, make a potion that could heal almost any wound, so Xander was gong to find the potion maker and see if he could get the potion for Jenny's hopeful recovery.
It had been several months since Buffy had kicked him out of the Scooby Gang, just after Thanksgiving, stating that she could not keep carrying him and that he could not fight – he countered saying that nobody had ever taken the time or the effort to try and train him, which she countered by saying that they had better things to do than to train him. That hurt, he later summarized, a lot less in the long run than it did in the moment, but still it had the same effect of making him go off on a tangent that she was as much to blame for the current predicament than anyone because she could not keep her legs closed. After that statement there were several seconds of absolute silence before she accused him of being jealous of what she and Angel had, which he countered with several scathing remarks about what kind of a necrophiliac slut she really was, but then several minutes of blank space where he honestly could not remember anything he said. Whatever was said, though, must have hit close to the mark because when he found himself turning on his heel, he could see the tears streaming down her face and the shocked expressions on everyone (save Oz – his look of shock, overflowing joy and pure hatred were all the same).
Since then he had spoken less than a dozen words to Buffy, Willow and Oz – nothing against Oz himself, but he rarely saw the werewolf; Giles was the one person he spoke to and that was only to get Buffy's patrol schedule in hopes that he would not run across her in any instance. Of course after the one sneak-attack by Buffy in the library that left him on the ground, unconscious, he had been very careful to only speak to the Briton out of school or on the phone – he'd learned the lesson that the attack had provided and didn't make the same mistakes twice.
When he started hunting on his own, it was with the traditional stake, machete and the occasional handgun loaded with blessed rounds, but it soon became apparent that the tools weren't going to cut it, so he began to work on some new ones that his memories of Soldier Boy, several books he had come across in the process and a little imagination had made him think of – he needed good CQB weaponry, versatile enough to take out either vampire or demon, so he came up with a punch dagger that was strapped on to the back of his left wrist and what amounted to a glove with an axe head attached to it for his right hand (good for piercing, slashing and chopping / hacking). Over the next month he had come up with several versions of the weapons but the big breakthrough came when, after dispatching one demon from the Hellmouth in his lair, he came across a pair of heavy bracers with blocky additions on the tops of the wrists – slipping them on, he found that with the correct amount of pressure, the left sprouted a double-sided blade that extended eleven inches past the end of his fist while the right ejected a pair of Wolverine-style blades between his second and fourth knuckles. They were relatively easy to use and maintain, so he kept them.
With each raid he made, it also became apparent that he'd need a way to transport his bounty and it was a tip from Willy the Snitch that led him to an old witch in southern LA that was able to hook him up with some extra storage space in an old rucksack that he had gotten from the same surplus store that he'd gotten the Soldier's fatigues at – each pocket of the rucksack now could hold several dozen items of varying sizes, but overall it didn't feel any heavier than a full backpack. With this he had been able to transport several large tomes and possibly magical items to the witch, whom identified them for a set price, but after a while sent him to another magic user whom could enchant anything with special attributes ... for a price. The first thing on his list was a pair of Nomex aviator's gloves that were hit with the mojo to where he could tell if something was indeed magical or if it were rigged with a booby trap – which turned out to be a useful thing and surprisingly cheap at only a Franklin per glove (they paid for themselves in the first raid).
Next on the list was a Nomex and Kevlar balaclava and bandanna combination that hid his face, protected the melon and the neck from any flailing attacks or sharp teeth – he'd nearly been bitten twice in the process of looking a place over for stuff and he didn't want to push his luck any more than he wanted to. After another two hundred dollars, he wasn't readily identifiable due to another enchantment that altered his voice slightly, making him sound like Robert DiNiro rather than Alexander Harris; nothing that survived his attacks could ever identify him by sight or sound, which had saved his ass on several occasions when the demons came looking for him – it was surprising how many had gone after Mr. DiNiro due to mistaken identity, really, but all in all it was a good thing to have.
Of course, there were the drawbacks the new job too; he had to sift through the chaff and detritus of information that Willy provided him to find the one or two nuggets of information that were on the level, and when they didn't pan out, he had to go to Willy's bar and rough up some of the clientele to make sure the weasel didn't try to pass him some bogus intel. Doing so had made him more than a few enemies in the demon community, but it also made him a name in the process and sometimes, as Buffy had occasionally proven, a name could open doors that would have otherwise remained closed – that name was Umbra, or Shadow, because that was how he struck, entered and left, by way of the shadows.
Speaking of shadows, he realized that he was nearing his objective and quickly pulled on the balaclava and bandanna to disguise his features, unzipping the Kevlar-lined sleeves of the biker jacket he wore to cover the bracers, and then flexed his left forearm just enough to jettison the blade with a metallic 'snick'. It never hurt to go into a situation a little over-cautious, especially when dealing with Sunnydale, as he knocked on the door.
"Umbra, I presume?" The voice was older, wiser, but also held a timbre that resonated within the doorway. The figure was that of an older man, maybe in his mid-to-late sixties, with cropped silver hair, a deep, weathered tan, and numerous wrinkles that bespoke of extreme age or worry.
"And if I am?"
"Then you have come to seek a healing potion for your ... injured friend." The man stepped out of the way and allowed him entry, not speaking as he did, but let out a slight sigh of relief when Xander retracted the blade into the bracer, "How are you this evening, young man?"
"I've been better, sir. She has a C-5 / C-6 spinal injury with no movement below the waist; can you help her?" (AN: I think this is right – it's either C or L, I can't remember.)
The old man nodded more to himself than as an answer, "Perhaps, but it will not be an instant cure – the potion will take time to do its work."
"How long?"
The old man shrugged even as he began to mix components into a mortar and pestle, "Sometimes a day or even as long as a week ... if it even works at all." He ground the components into a fine powder and then added a green mucus-like substance that turned the concoction a deep, angry red color with a sizzle and some slight wisps of smoke, "Ah, excellent." He poured it into a large jar and then scribbled down some instructions of a piece of loose leaf notebook paper, "One cup should suffice, then burry the rest of it in the freezer for a week and a half before trying to use it again."
Xander accepted the jar and then reached into his pocket, slowly as the older man tensed, then removed a small wad of cash, "How much?"
"Two hundred dollars should cover it – it has never failed me before, nor does it spoil if kept at or below room temperature." The old man accepted the money, counting it quickly, before nodding, "Call me Cain, young man."
Xander couldn't help it, "And I don't even have to go to Chinatown for your help."
The man rolled his eyes, "Like I haven't heard that one before."
Xander left the residence and hoofed it across town, sticking to the darkness as a precaution, before coming to rest in one of the sections of town that never saw any demonic action – it was just off of the University and held several condo complexes, one of which was held by Jenny Calendar. Checking his six as he went, he made his way across to her apartment, not at all surprised that the Slayer was there even as he opened the door with the key she had given him.
Jenny was surprised that the concoction tasted rather nice, despite the fact that it went down like a cup of cold molasses and was a pain in the ass to get out of the jar and cup she had been given to drink it out of by Xander. The whole affair of him giving her the drink had come to a rather abrupt end when he snapped out the blade on his left wrist and laid it to the throat of the Slayer – in a cold voice he had told her to back off and, once she had done so, he gave Jenny her drink.
It started out slowly, a slight tingle that went from just above the middle of her shoulder blades and began to creep down, occasionally pausing and spreading, but the tingle remained even as Xander went to put the rest of the healing potion into the back of her freezer, "Thank you, Alexander."
"No problem, Jenny." He still wore the balaclava and bandanna, which made him sound as if he were Robert DiNiro (she personally like Al Paccino – Scarface was one of her favorite movies), but it was obviously him even though.
Rupert, for his part, looked as if he were going to be sick, "Xander, where did you get that weapon?"
"Stole it from a demon I killed – it's not like he was going to be needing it anymore." His voice was flat and emotionless as he spoke, putting the bottle into the back of her freezer before reaching down into the lower portion and grabbing himself a beer, "The spoils of war."
"It could be demonic, Xander. Perhaps you should give it to me to research..."
"No, it's not demonic, Giles – I've had it checked four times by four separate people and they all agree it's just a tool used to hack, slash and kill, all three of which happen to be part of my new specialty." He grinned a skeletal grin through the balaclava and opened the beer before removing the material from his face to drink, "Call me Umbra, if you don't mind."
Giles went grey in the face and looked as if he were about to pass out, "The assassin?"
"Among other things." He shrugged, "I tend to take a more pro-active way to doing things around here, Giles, instead of waiting for the shit to hit the fan like you and Buffy do."
"So you're the guy that is scaring everyone at Willy's and around town?" Buffy sounded oddly neutral as she asked her question.
Xander took a pull off of his beer and shrugged, "Not that it takes much to scare the locals in this place, but yes. I mean, if you could scare them, then I should, right?"
"It's not the same, Xander," she snapped at him. "I didn't choose this, it chose me."
"As you have told us many times before, yes, but let me stop your next oh- so-tired rant; yes, I CHOOSE to do this because I WANT to do this, so you and everyone else can say precisely dick about it." He paused his next drink, looking oddly perturbed, "I think we've had this discussion before, Buffy, and if memory serves me correctly, you didn't influence me then, nor will you do so now."
"But you could get KILLED!"
"Just as I could by walking across the street and getting hit by a car, or having a cardiac moment after eating something you cooked, or even being hit by a bolt of lightning. Life is dangerous, Elizabeth, and it's that little bit of danger that makes it worth living." Jenny saw him grin hugely even as he took another drink of his beer and then lost his grin, "My choice, not yours."
Buffy sulked even as Alexander walked over towards the bed, "You okay, Jenny?"
"Fine, Alexander, and I can feel the potion doing something." She saw him pull the blanket covering her legs back and expose her feet, looking at her before stroking his finger across the bottom of her foot, "No, nothing yet."
"Well, he did say that it might take some time." He rubbed her leg, she could see that, but then jerked his hand back, "Alright, Cactus Woman, I'll stop by later on and check up on you again, then we'll take care of you're ... problem."
She gave him a dry look. "You try shaving your legs when you have no use of them."
"Hey, I offered to get them waxed for you, as it is supposed to last longer," he said somewhat defensively, grinning the entire time and pulling the blanket down back over her feet.
Jenny only stuck her toung out at him in a response, which made Rupert sigh, "Oh, very mature of you, Jenny."
It had been a week since the last time the Scooby Gang had seen the former Scooby, as he still avoided them in and out of school, but the light load of vampires and demons in Sunnydale and also in the surrounding areas attested to the fact that he was still out there. The legend of Umbra, Buffy told them one evening after a visit to Willy's, had grown to nearly epic proportions after a tale of how he killed a quartet of Polgara demons in their own lair to gain the favor of a lower god – it was a completely cock and bull story, that much was for sure, but it made for a good story none the less.
Jenny, on the other hand, was very much a success story in the respect that she had regained feeling in both of her legs and could even wiggle her toes some, but she could not support her own weight on her own due to the length of time she had been bed-ridden and the muscle atrophy that had set in. She was their sole contact with Xander and it was she that Giles found himself going to when something of grave importance came up that they would need to inform him and listen to his advice or any rumors he had heard of on the subject.
"And exactly why should he come here, Rupert? To have your precious Slayer talk down to him again and denigrate his abilities for any and all to hear?" Jenny never spoke kindly about or to Buffy outside of school and rarely spoke to the Slayer even while in school, so her waspish response wasn't all that out of character when Giles found himself speaking to her.
"No, Jenny, but there have been certain rumors in the community of another hunter, a magic user by all accounts, that have begun to worry both myself and the Council, so I would like to ask him if he has heard anything."
"And if I have?" Giles found himself jumping nearly four feet into the air at the sudden voice of Robert DiNiro, causing him to spin around and see ... nothing?
"Xander? Where are you?"
"Right in front of you, about two feet just on your right." The voice was disturbingly smug even as Giles did his best not to react when he felt his glasses being plucked off of his face and simply vanish into thin air, "What do you think? Neat trick, right?" There was a shimmer in the air and then, like a mirage in reverse, Xander faded into view in his full regalia of a dark oil duster, balaclava, bandanna, gloves, fatigue bottoms, boots and with the glasses in his right hand.
"What was that? Have you been practicing magic without supervision?" He obviously could not figure out where to start with his questions, even as Xander handed him his glasses back, but even through the balaclava Giles could see that Xander was smiling a somewhat cheeky grin.
"Not quite, G-man; it's an enchantment on my body armor that lets me cast a spell for a set cost, has set results and parameters. Cool, isn't it." He pulled down the balaclava and, as Giles had suspected, was wearing a very cheeky grin, "Now, what did you want to know about this woman that the demons are calling my girlfriend or my wife, depending on whom you ask?"
Motioning him to follow, Giles went to the main table and waited for everyone to get situated before he went on, "Do you know whom this person is, Xander?"
He shook his head, "No, I've heard some rumors and a few tidbits on her tactics, but nothing overly solid as to just whom she is." He frowned slightly, folding his fingers into a steeple in the front of his face, leaning back into the chair slightly, "And that's what worries me – she sweeps in like a gale wind, zaps people with fire, lightning and ice, then vanishes like a fart in the wind after an apparent objective has been met."
"An elemental Sorceress?" Giles could feel his stomach tightening into a tight ball of acid, remembering the last elemental Sorceress that the Council had been forced to deal with nearly twenty years before – it had taken three separate Slayers to kill her and even then nobody was sure she had been killed as her body had simply disappeared.
"Yes, but she seems to have a few neat tricks like teleporting, telekinesis, a shield that can stop bullets, freezing armor that hits anyone who tries to hit her and she can summon fire-breathing beasts with a mere flick of her wrist."
"You're worried, aren't you," Oz chipped in from the other side of the table, his face, as always, impassive.
"Damned right I'm worried. One of the more absurd stories I've heard is that she's trying to get the Order of Teraka to take notice of her and offer her a job, but seeing as this is the Hellmouth ..." he didn't have to finish the statement as everyone knew never to discount the implausible on the Mouth of Hell. The silence stretched out for a moment before he spoke again, "So, what have you heard about her, G-man?"
"Don't call me that," Giles found himself saying out of pure reflex, seeing both Buffy and Willow smile out of the corner of his eye but both Jenny and Xander not even twitching as he took off his glasses and began to clean them. "No blessed much, Xander, which is why I asked you here. Is there anything concrete that you can give us about this Sorceress?"
"Female, she appears to be of Arabic decent, dark hair and eyes, dusky brown skin, wears what appears to be a skirt and a vest, boots with armlets, a tiara and fights with a staff. Mid to late twenties, well conditioned, appears not to speak when she casts her spells and she can sling them rather quickly, too." The analytical, clipped tone surprised Giles in the respect that it sounded as if Xander respected her for not only her actions but for the vague descriptions that could be given about her.
"So nothing USEFUL, then," Buffy stressed, somewhat bitterly.
"Only if you do not read between the lines, Buffy," Jenny snapped at her somewhat peevishly. "She's fast, strong as far as magical reserves, well- versed in hit-and-run techniques, and very good at disappearing when the action is over. She's obviously done this before and has made it to where nothing but the vaguest descriptions can be given of her, so that means that she's holding back."
Before Buffy could retort to that, Xander shot to his feet, ejecting the double-edged blade from the bracer on his left arm as he did, and spun until he was facing an empty space in the room ... which appeared to be just a bit too empty at the moment, "How about we ask her ourselves?"
"Yes, you could do that," a disembodied voice, much as Xander's had been earlier, said from the spot of air that his weapon's point was just in front of, "and you can also remove that weapon from my throat, child. Had I wanted to harm you or anyone else here, I could have done so in the previous hour I have been here." Much as Xander had, a woman faded into view, dressed in dark colors and with her hair back into a rough tail, her eyes shaded against the light by a pair of stylish sunglasses, and with a bladed staff in her hands that contradicted the curious look on her face, "What gave me away, young Assassin?"
Author: Anime Ronin
Rating: PG-13 (will be R later on for blood, gore and swearing)
Summary: Sorceress from Diablo 2 (LOD expansion set) comes to Hellmouth via a botched Town Portal spell and all hell breaks loose.
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story save the Sorceress' name and her personality – don't sue.
Feedback: The coin of the realm, as it is said.
Author's Note: Alright, this is take two, as it were – my first incarnation of this really sucked, so I've tried to re-vamp it (no pun intended) a little and here it is. Note, this will portray some members of the Scooby Gang (three guesses who) as people who can't get the job done or are sheep to said person (this last part will be only temporary – they will see the light). Sorry, but Buffy, Giles and, to some extent, Willow were all very short-sighted in the first few seasons (Giles and Willow improved as they went, Buffy only went down hill) – or rather that is my way of seeing it.
AN2: Also note that the skills that X will show are not those of the D2: LOD Assassin – different world, different skills. Also, while the sorceress will have some of the same archaic weaponry, X will have some cool stuff that I've seen, heard of or came up with on the spot (also, some D&D elements will apply here – mostly to storage).
AN3: This takes place in later S2 – Kendra is already dead, Jenny isn't (she's in a wheelchair for now, but not dead), Angelus is around and about, The Judge has been dealt with and Cordy isn't X's main squeeze as she is currently dead.
Alright, here we go (again).
The Assassin And The Sorceress
Part 1 – Out of the night he shall come.
Buffy and her Scooby Gang looked around at the total carnage that was currently masking the inside of Willy's Alibi Room; there were piles of dust everywhere, bits and pieces of demon hide and entrails, even an entire head from a Polgara demon resting in the chair nearest to the cash register, and Willy, of course, was standing behind the wreck of a bar with his head in his hands, bemoaning his cursed luck.
"What happened, Willy? Some of your customers starting to get out of hand?"
He looked up, "Slayer, I don't know what I ever did to him, but tell you friend that he needs to stop busting up my bar."
Buffy looked over at Giles first, then at Oz, both of whom looked oddly blank, then turned back to Willy, "Who are you talking about, Willy? Oz and Giles didn't do this – they've been with me all night."
"Not them, Slayer – that Harris kid. He came in here earlier looking for some information and then some vamps started to pick on him; your boy lost it and not only dusted them but then started the bar brawl that ended like this." He paused and took a drink from the glass that was in front of him, "I ain't sure what's eating him, but he's got a serious mad-on for whatever pissed him off."
"Xander did this? XANDER did this?" The thought just didn't compute, "Alexander Harris, about yea tall, dark hair, brown eyes, a geek through- and-through?" The rest of the Scoobies didn't seem to be able to compute it either, though Giles did look somewhat false about it.
"Yeah, except for the 'geek' part; kid's been coming in here for a few months, looking for info on who is who in town and who can do what as far as spells can go."
"What kind of spells was he looking for?"
Willy shrugged at Willow, "Healing, mostly; said that one of your group needed a spell to fix one of your screw ups." This made them all wince, but Willy appeared not to notice, "I told him what he wanted to know, but apparently the guy wasn't on the level and the kid took it out on me!" He shivered, "So call him off, Slayer. I never did anything to him."
"He's not with us anymore, Willy; we kinda kicked him out a few months back." She tried not to sound sheepish when she said this, remembering the verbal evisceration that had followed her telling him that he was out of the Scoobies – nobody had been left untouched save Jenny, Dawn and her mother, the former was in the hospital from having her back broken by Angelus and the other two were safely not in the town. He'd used graphic, vile words to describe what he thought of her, of most of them and their 'let's save Angel' campaign, and looked positively murderous when she called him jealous; he'd told her flat-out that if she came near him again he'd kill her and then left even as one of Oz's CD's began to play 'Call of Ktulu'. It had been a bad day for all of them and he'd not spoken to them in or out of school since then – sure, he'd spoken to her mother and sister, even making frequent trips to Jenny's bedside, but never said a word to them that she knew of.
Willy looked shocked at this, "Ya mean he's on his own now? He ain't doing this for any of you?" The barman went pasty white at this, "Oh ... shit."
"What? What's wrong now, Willy?"
"Well, some of the demons wanted to follow him after he left, ya know, to make sure he understood just how bad he'd screwed up by messing with them, but if'n you aren't there to back him up..."
Before Willy could finish, another voice spoke from the door behind them, "They won't have to do anything, Willy." The voice was instantly recognizable, but when Buffy turned to look at her Xander-shaped friend, she was almost floored by how much he had changed. Gone was the lovable goof whom had made her life in Sunnydale bearable, and in his place was a black-clad, cold-eyed, stone-faced person who held a dripping bag in his left hand, "I told you what would happen if the clientele decided to start something, Willy." He slung that bag at the barman, who did his best to avoid it, "Now, make sure you tell your patrons not to mess with me ever again – they might upset me and nobody would like me upset."
"Xander?" He appeared not to hear her as he turned on his heel strode out of the bar. Resolute to at least get him to say something to her, Buffy strode after him purposefully out of the bar, "Xander wait!" She reached him, somewhat surprised how far he had moved with only a walk (even though his legs were longer than hers), and she grabbed the arm of his dark jacket, "Xander..."
He stopped, tense, then spoke, "Turn loose of me, Slayer, before I turn you loose from your arm." His voice was cold, almost to the point that the Arctic looked like a pleasant vacation, but he didn't turn around, merely clenched his right first.
"No, Xander, not until we have a talk."
"Talk? Talk this." She never really saw him move, but one second he was facing away from her an the next his fist was smashing into her face, flinging her back several feet and making her land on her backside even as the others exited the bar.
Having a hard time seeing, as she was sure he had broken her nose, she could only hear him walking away even as both Giles and Willow called after him to stop. Buffy herself wanted to cry that he had even struck her, let alone broken her nose (which was beginning to heal very quickly and painfully) – she wanted her Xander-shaped friend back, but apparently he had changed from what Willy had said and what he had just done.
Giles wasn't surprised to see the bar in such disarray from what appeared to be one hell of a fight, but also wasn't surprised to hear that Xander had come out on top – nor was he particularly surprised to see said young man enter the bar and sling a sack filled with something that had once been alive at Willy before stalking out with Buffy right on his heels. Knowing that the altercation that was to come would not be a very peaceful one, he made his way after the pair and exited the bar just in time to see Xander spin and hit Buffy hard enough to break her nose with a sickening 'crunch' and send her back several feet before turning a walking away. "Good God."
"Buffy?" Willow and Oz both knelt next to the fallen Slayer, who looked to be doing her best to hold back tears of either pain or regret, but also had a look of near shock on her face that Xander had hit her, "Are you okay, Buffy?"
"No, Willow," Buffy said with a slightly nasal voice, choked with pain as her Slayer healing kicked in and started to repair the broken nose, "I'm not. Why did he hit me?"
"Well, Buffy, perhaps it is that you hit him some time back, after calling him, quote, 'a jealous bastard', unquote, and then left him in the middle of the library two days later unconscious when you snuck up behind him and attacked him." Giles tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but mostly failed – Xander had been asking for a book for a report he needed to do in his English class when Buffy had attacked him. When the young man came to, however, he didn't look angry, merely resolved to do what was necessary.
"But I..." Buffy tried to defend herself, but after a few seconds of looking quite pathetic, closed her mouth. "I just want my Xander-shaped friend back."
"Quite honestly Buffy," Giles told her, removing his glasses and cleaning them, "I'm not sure if he will ever be the person you once knew, nor do I believe he will ever put that mask back on." At Buffy's look of confusion, which was mirrored by both Oz and, surprisingly, Willow, he went on, "The Xander you knew was a mask that he wore – The Fool, or the Clown, as it were; that wasn't the real him, but it was the person everybody knew and could accept, so he merely wore it around you." Knowing that the concept was probably beyond them, Giles let it drop as Buffy came to her feet, the broken nose now very swollen but probably not broken, "Now the question that remains to be answered is why Xander is looking for the healing spells ... or rather, we know whom he is looking at them for, but why is he looking for them. Healing magic is, at best, unreliable."
"He said it was my fault." Buffy sounded as if someone had stolen her favored stuffed animal, a pig named Mister Gordo, as she spoke with a tinge of anger, but soon that anger was replaced by sadness, "Why does he see it as my fault?"
"You didn't kill Angelus when you had the chance." Oz's simple statement was in line with what the stoic werewolf / musician usually was, "You have let him roam free and he put Jenny Calendar into the hospital with a broken back. Hence, you are at fault." While it appeared to Giles that the werewolf was, as always, stoic and in control, it was quite possible that he was going to rip her head off at some point – without Xander around it was Oz whom took the brunt of the male bashing because he was male and a teenager.
"Regardless of that fact," Giles headed off a rebuttal from Buffy and Willow, both of whom looked somewhat upset at Oz for speaking his mind, which happened more often than not now if one happened to be both a Scooby and a male, "we must find Xander and see just why he is doing this for Jenny and to what lengths he is going to find these spells." In the back of his mind, though, Giles knew that Xander would go to any length to help out the paralyzed gypsy woman – he always looked after his friends and when said friends were hurt, he was something akin to the wrath of the Almighty.
(AN: note, this is not trying to make X look like some sort of super being, but they, the Scoobies, are dealing with this side of him for the first time, so they don't know just what he is willing to do in order to get the job done. They will get a clearer picture of just who he is under the mask of the fool/the clown soon enough – AR.)
Even as he left the Slayer on the ground, clutching her probably-broken nose, Alexander Harris couldn't help but grin a tight grin – she had underestimated him again, they all had, and none of his former friends had any real clue what he was doing outside of looking for a spell that would heal Jenny's back and spine. At the thought of the woman, though, the grin vanished and 'hard-ass' Harris came back out to play as he went to his original objective before he was interrupted by the demons from Willy's; Willy had set him on the trail of an old potion maker that could, in theory, make a potion that could heal almost any wound, so Xander was gong to find the potion maker and see if he could get the potion for Jenny's hopeful recovery.
It had been several months since Buffy had kicked him out of the Scooby Gang, just after Thanksgiving, stating that she could not keep carrying him and that he could not fight – he countered saying that nobody had ever taken the time or the effort to try and train him, which she countered by saying that they had better things to do than to train him. That hurt, he later summarized, a lot less in the long run than it did in the moment, but still it had the same effect of making him go off on a tangent that she was as much to blame for the current predicament than anyone because she could not keep her legs closed. After that statement there were several seconds of absolute silence before she accused him of being jealous of what she and Angel had, which he countered with several scathing remarks about what kind of a necrophiliac slut she really was, but then several minutes of blank space where he honestly could not remember anything he said. Whatever was said, though, must have hit close to the mark because when he found himself turning on his heel, he could see the tears streaming down her face and the shocked expressions on everyone (save Oz – his look of shock, overflowing joy and pure hatred were all the same).
Since then he had spoken less than a dozen words to Buffy, Willow and Oz – nothing against Oz himself, but he rarely saw the werewolf; Giles was the one person he spoke to and that was only to get Buffy's patrol schedule in hopes that he would not run across her in any instance. Of course after the one sneak-attack by Buffy in the library that left him on the ground, unconscious, he had been very careful to only speak to the Briton out of school or on the phone – he'd learned the lesson that the attack had provided and didn't make the same mistakes twice.
When he started hunting on his own, it was with the traditional stake, machete and the occasional handgun loaded with blessed rounds, but it soon became apparent that the tools weren't going to cut it, so he began to work on some new ones that his memories of Soldier Boy, several books he had come across in the process and a little imagination had made him think of – he needed good CQB weaponry, versatile enough to take out either vampire or demon, so he came up with a punch dagger that was strapped on to the back of his left wrist and what amounted to a glove with an axe head attached to it for his right hand (good for piercing, slashing and chopping / hacking). Over the next month he had come up with several versions of the weapons but the big breakthrough came when, after dispatching one demon from the Hellmouth in his lair, he came across a pair of heavy bracers with blocky additions on the tops of the wrists – slipping them on, he found that with the correct amount of pressure, the left sprouted a double-sided blade that extended eleven inches past the end of his fist while the right ejected a pair of Wolverine-style blades between his second and fourth knuckles. They were relatively easy to use and maintain, so he kept them.
With each raid he made, it also became apparent that he'd need a way to transport his bounty and it was a tip from Willy the Snitch that led him to an old witch in southern LA that was able to hook him up with some extra storage space in an old rucksack that he had gotten from the same surplus store that he'd gotten the Soldier's fatigues at – each pocket of the rucksack now could hold several dozen items of varying sizes, but overall it didn't feel any heavier than a full backpack. With this he had been able to transport several large tomes and possibly magical items to the witch, whom identified them for a set price, but after a while sent him to another magic user whom could enchant anything with special attributes ... for a price. The first thing on his list was a pair of Nomex aviator's gloves that were hit with the mojo to where he could tell if something was indeed magical or if it were rigged with a booby trap – which turned out to be a useful thing and surprisingly cheap at only a Franklin per glove (they paid for themselves in the first raid).
Next on the list was a Nomex and Kevlar balaclava and bandanna combination that hid his face, protected the melon and the neck from any flailing attacks or sharp teeth – he'd nearly been bitten twice in the process of looking a place over for stuff and he didn't want to push his luck any more than he wanted to. After another two hundred dollars, he wasn't readily identifiable due to another enchantment that altered his voice slightly, making him sound like Robert DiNiro rather than Alexander Harris; nothing that survived his attacks could ever identify him by sight or sound, which had saved his ass on several occasions when the demons came looking for him – it was surprising how many had gone after Mr. DiNiro due to mistaken identity, really, but all in all it was a good thing to have.
Of course, there were the drawbacks the new job too; he had to sift through the chaff and detritus of information that Willy provided him to find the one or two nuggets of information that were on the level, and when they didn't pan out, he had to go to Willy's bar and rough up some of the clientele to make sure the weasel didn't try to pass him some bogus intel. Doing so had made him more than a few enemies in the demon community, but it also made him a name in the process and sometimes, as Buffy had occasionally proven, a name could open doors that would have otherwise remained closed – that name was Umbra, or Shadow, because that was how he struck, entered and left, by way of the shadows.
Speaking of shadows, he realized that he was nearing his objective and quickly pulled on the balaclava and bandanna to disguise his features, unzipping the Kevlar-lined sleeves of the biker jacket he wore to cover the bracers, and then flexed his left forearm just enough to jettison the blade with a metallic 'snick'. It never hurt to go into a situation a little over-cautious, especially when dealing with Sunnydale, as he knocked on the door.
"Umbra, I presume?" The voice was older, wiser, but also held a timbre that resonated within the doorway. The figure was that of an older man, maybe in his mid-to-late sixties, with cropped silver hair, a deep, weathered tan, and numerous wrinkles that bespoke of extreme age or worry.
"And if I am?"
"Then you have come to seek a healing potion for your ... injured friend." The man stepped out of the way and allowed him entry, not speaking as he did, but let out a slight sigh of relief when Xander retracted the blade into the bracer, "How are you this evening, young man?"
"I've been better, sir. She has a C-5 / C-6 spinal injury with no movement below the waist; can you help her?" (AN: I think this is right – it's either C or L, I can't remember.)
The old man nodded more to himself than as an answer, "Perhaps, but it will not be an instant cure – the potion will take time to do its work."
"How long?"
The old man shrugged even as he began to mix components into a mortar and pestle, "Sometimes a day or even as long as a week ... if it even works at all." He ground the components into a fine powder and then added a green mucus-like substance that turned the concoction a deep, angry red color with a sizzle and some slight wisps of smoke, "Ah, excellent." He poured it into a large jar and then scribbled down some instructions of a piece of loose leaf notebook paper, "One cup should suffice, then burry the rest of it in the freezer for a week and a half before trying to use it again."
Xander accepted the jar and then reached into his pocket, slowly as the older man tensed, then removed a small wad of cash, "How much?"
"Two hundred dollars should cover it – it has never failed me before, nor does it spoil if kept at or below room temperature." The old man accepted the money, counting it quickly, before nodding, "Call me Cain, young man."
Xander couldn't help it, "And I don't even have to go to Chinatown for your help."
The man rolled his eyes, "Like I haven't heard that one before."
Xander left the residence and hoofed it across town, sticking to the darkness as a precaution, before coming to rest in one of the sections of town that never saw any demonic action – it was just off of the University and held several condo complexes, one of which was held by Jenny Calendar. Checking his six as he went, he made his way across to her apartment, not at all surprised that the Slayer was there even as he opened the door with the key she had given him.
Jenny was surprised that the concoction tasted rather nice, despite the fact that it went down like a cup of cold molasses and was a pain in the ass to get out of the jar and cup she had been given to drink it out of by Xander. The whole affair of him giving her the drink had come to a rather abrupt end when he snapped out the blade on his left wrist and laid it to the throat of the Slayer – in a cold voice he had told her to back off and, once she had done so, he gave Jenny her drink.
It started out slowly, a slight tingle that went from just above the middle of her shoulder blades and began to creep down, occasionally pausing and spreading, but the tingle remained even as Xander went to put the rest of the healing potion into the back of her freezer, "Thank you, Alexander."
"No problem, Jenny." He still wore the balaclava and bandanna, which made him sound as if he were Robert DiNiro (she personally like Al Paccino – Scarface was one of her favorite movies), but it was obviously him even though.
Rupert, for his part, looked as if he were going to be sick, "Xander, where did you get that weapon?"
"Stole it from a demon I killed – it's not like he was going to be needing it anymore." His voice was flat and emotionless as he spoke, putting the bottle into the back of her freezer before reaching down into the lower portion and grabbing himself a beer, "The spoils of war."
"It could be demonic, Xander. Perhaps you should give it to me to research..."
"No, it's not demonic, Giles – I've had it checked four times by four separate people and they all agree it's just a tool used to hack, slash and kill, all three of which happen to be part of my new specialty." He grinned a skeletal grin through the balaclava and opened the beer before removing the material from his face to drink, "Call me Umbra, if you don't mind."
Giles went grey in the face and looked as if he were about to pass out, "The assassin?"
"Among other things." He shrugged, "I tend to take a more pro-active way to doing things around here, Giles, instead of waiting for the shit to hit the fan like you and Buffy do."
"So you're the guy that is scaring everyone at Willy's and around town?" Buffy sounded oddly neutral as she asked her question.
Xander took a pull off of his beer and shrugged, "Not that it takes much to scare the locals in this place, but yes. I mean, if you could scare them, then I should, right?"
"It's not the same, Xander," she snapped at him. "I didn't choose this, it chose me."
"As you have told us many times before, yes, but let me stop your next oh- so-tired rant; yes, I CHOOSE to do this because I WANT to do this, so you and everyone else can say precisely dick about it." He paused his next drink, looking oddly perturbed, "I think we've had this discussion before, Buffy, and if memory serves me correctly, you didn't influence me then, nor will you do so now."
"But you could get KILLED!"
"Just as I could by walking across the street and getting hit by a car, or having a cardiac moment after eating something you cooked, or even being hit by a bolt of lightning. Life is dangerous, Elizabeth, and it's that little bit of danger that makes it worth living." Jenny saw him grin hugely even as he took another drink of his beer and then lost his grin, "My choice, not yours."
Buffy sulked even as Alexander walked over towards the bed, "You okay, Jenny?"
"Fine, Alexander, and I can feel the potion doing something." She saw him pull the blanket covering her legs back and expose her feet, looking at her before stroking his finger across the bottom of her foot, "No, nothing yet."
"Well, he did say that it might take some time." He rubbed her leg, she could see that, but then jerked his hand back, "Alright, Cactus Woman, I'll stop by later on and check up on you again, then we'll take care of you're ... problem."
She gave him a dry look. "You try shaving your legs when you have no use of them."
"Hey, I offered to get them waxed for you, as it is supposed to last longer," he said somewhat defensively, grinning the entire time and pulling the blanket down back over her feet.
Jenny only stuck her toung out at him in a response, which made Rupert sigh, "Oh, very mature of you, Jenny."
It had been a week since the last time the Scooby Gang had seen the former Scooby, as he still avoided them in and out of school, but the light load of vampires and demons in Sunnydale and also in the surrounding areas attested to the fact that he was still out there. The legend of Umbra, Buffy told them one evening after a visit to Willy's, had grown to nearly epic proportions after a tale of how he killed a quartet of Polgara demons in their own lair to gain the favor of a lower god – it was a completely cock and bull story, that much was for sure, but it made for a good story none the less.
Jenny, on the other hand, was very much a success story in the respect that she had regained feeling in both of her legs and could even wiggle her toes some, but she could not support her own weight on her own due to the length of time she had been bed-ridden and the muscle atrophy that had set in. She was their sole contact with Xander and it was she that Giles found himself going to when something of grave importance came up that they would need to inform him and listen to his advice or any rumors he had heard of on the subject.
"And exactly why should he come here, Rupert? To have your precious Slayer talk down to him again and denigrate his abilities for any and all to hear?" Jenny never spoke kindly about or to Buffy outside of school and rarely spoke to the Slayer even while in school, so her waspish response wasn't all that out of character when Giles found himself speaking to her.
"No, Jenny, but there have been certain rumors in the community of another hunter, a magic user by all accounts, that have begun to worry both myself and the Council, so I would like to ask him if he has heard anything."
"And if I have?" Giles found himself jumping nearly four feet into the air at the sudden voice of Robert DiNiro, causing him to spin around and see ... nothing?
"Xander? Where are you?"
"Right in front of you, about two feet just on your right." The voice was disturbingly smug even as Giles did his best not to react when he felt his glasses being plucked off of his face and simply vanish into thin air, "What do you think? Neat trick, right?" There was a shimmer in the air and then, like a mirage in reverse, Xander faded into view in his full regalia of a dark oil duster, balaclava, bandanna, gloves, fatigue bottoms, boots and with the glasses in his right hand.
"What was that? Have you been practicing magic without supervision?" He obviously could not figure out where to start with his questions, even as Xander handed him his glasses back, but even through the balaclava Giles could see that Xander was smiling a somewhat cheeky grin.
"Not quite, G-man; it's an enchantment on my body armor that lets me cast a spell for a set cost, has set results and parameters. Cool, isn't it." He pulled down the balaclava and, as Giles had suspected, was wearing a very cheeky grin, "Now, what did you want to know about this woman that the demons are calling my girlfriend or my wife, depending on whom you ask?"
Motioning him to follow, Giles went to the main table and waited for everyone to get situated before he went on, "Do you know whom this person is, Xander?"
He shook his head, "No, I've heard some rumors and a few tidbits on her tactics, but nothing overly solid as to just whom she is." He frowned slightly, folding his fingers into a steeple in the front of his face, leaning back into the chair slightly, "And that's what worries me – she sweeps in like a gale wind, zaps people with fire, lightning and ice, then vanishes like a fart in the wind after an apparent objective has been met."
"An elemental Sorceress?" Giles could feel his stomach tightening into a tight ball of acid, remembering the last elemental Sorceress that the Council had been forced to deal with nearly twenty years before – it had taken three separate Slayers to kill her and even then nobody was sure she had been killed as her body had simply disappeared.
"Yes, but she seems to have a few neat tricks like teleporting, telekinesis, a shield that can stop bullets, freezing armor that hits anyone who tries to hit her and she can summon fire-breathing beasts with a mere flick of her wrist."
"You're worried, aren't you," Oz chipped in from the other side of the table, his face, as always, impassive.
"Damned right I'm worried. One of the more absurd stories I've heard is that she's trying to get the Order of Teraka to take notice of her and offer her a job, but seeing as this is the Hellmouth ..." he didn't have to finish the statement as everyone knew never to discount the implausible on the Mouth of Hell. The silence stretched out for a moment before he spoke again, "So, what have you heard about her, G-man?"
"Don't call me that," Giles found himself saying out of pure reflex, seeing both Buffy and Willow smile out of the corner of his eye but both Jenny and Xander not even twitching as he took off his glasses and began to clean them. "No blessed much, Xander, which is why I asked you here. Is there anything concrete that you can give us about this Sorceress?"
"Female, she appears to be of Arabic decent, dark hair and eyes, dusky brown skin, wears what appears to be a skirt and a vest, boots with armlets, a tiara and fights with a staff. Mid to late twenties, well conditioned, appears not to speak when she casts her spells and she can sling them rather quickly, too." The analytical, clipped tone surprised Giles in the respect that it sounded as if Xander respected her for not only her actions but for the vague descriptions that could be given about her.
"So nothing USEFUL, then," Buffy stressed, somewhat bitterly.
"Only if you do not read between the lines, Buffy," Jenny snapped at her somewhat peevishly. "She's fast, strong as far as magical reserves, well- versed in hit-and-run techniques, and very good at disappearing when the action is over. She's obviously done this before and has made it to where nothing but the vaguest descriptions can be given of her, so that means that she's holding back."
Before Buffy could retort to that, Xander shot to his feet, ejecting the double-edged blade from the bracer on his left arm as he did, and spun until he was facing an empty space in the room ... which appeared to be just a bit too empty at the moment, "How about we ask her ourselves?"
"Yes, you could do that," a disembodied voice, much as Xander's had been earlier, said from the spot of air that his weapon's point was just in front of, "and you can also remove that weapon from my throat, child. Had I wanted to harm you or anyone else here, I could have done so in the previous hour I have been here." Much as Xander had, a woman faded into view, dressed in dark colors and with her hair back into a rough tail, her eyes shaded against the light by a pair of stylish sunglasses, and with a bladed staff in her hands that contradicted the curious look on her face, "What gave me away, young Assassin?"