A Wizard's Crusade
Prologue
Enter The Fusionist
Disclaimer: I own only the characters that I make up. Any characters you recognize are not mine. The concept of Soul Fusion…well, I'm not sure whether that belongs to anyone specifically, but I borrowed it from the game Shadow Hearts and it's sequel, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, so if it was created by any of those involved in those games, then it belongs to them. I also borrowed two characters from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, namely Jeanette and Therese. This probably will have WoD mentions here and there, so any WoD characters and story elements that appear within belong to White Wolf.
AN: Howdy, folks. I haven't posted any new fiction in a while, or updated any of my old stuff, largely due to a slump. That may or may not change with my old stuff (don't hold your breath, a lot of those muses are still, sadly, uncooperative) but I have been getting some new ideas. This one was born after a binge of Shadow Hearts, and it's sequel, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, followed by watching lots of Buffy and Angel. While not necessarily a crossover with Shadow Hearts, I have blended a few elements into the Buffyverse, such as Soul Fusion. Those of you who have played Shadow Hearts, or Shadow Hearts: Covenant, no, the main character here isn't Yuri, but there are a few similarities, both in powers, backstory, and personality. As far as World of Darkness stuff, that won't be the main focus, but there may be slight crossovers here and there. All WoD stuff in this story is considered to be AU. The main universe here is the BtVS/AtS universe, and this is considered to be after the series finale of both shows. As far as AtS goes, the basics are as follows: Angel died, but they were able to send the demons back. Gunn leads now, and has just come off of "injured reserve" so to speak. Wes is still dead (sadly) and Connor has joined up officially. As far as Buffy characters go, Faith is one of the main characters, and I may have a couple other characters show up, depending on my muses. Ahem. Now that this overly long AN is out of the way, on with the show.
The music blared from the noisy club as all sorts of painted up techno-freaks milled about, dancing, drinking, talking, some snorting, shooting up, or getting it on in a corner they thought was dim enough to hide them. The throbbing bass of the dreary, depressed techno song rocked eardrums and occasionally caused a dizzy spell to those dancing, but no one cared. No one except the guy sitting at the bar, cigarette in his right hand, glass of scotch swirling in the same hand. Ice clinked against his glass as he lifted the drink to his lips and downed a good portion of the glass. He placed it down and followed up the gulp of burning alcohol with a long drag on his cigarette. He ran the fingers of his free hand through his disheveled, slightly spiky, dark chestnut brown hair. His bangs, of course, immediately flopped back down to hand just below his eyebrows, while the rest of his hair fell a bit shaggier around the rest of his head. Red eyes stared down into the alcohol as he pissed away the diminishing amount of cash in his wallet. His tall, lean, muscular frame shifted slightly on the uncomfortable stool the club owner – a nutter of a woman in a too-tight shirt and make-up that suited a demented hooker – insisted was stylish.
He doubted she thought the same of him, what with his loose red t-shirt drooping over the seam of his leather pants, ending in heavy, well worn combat boots. Black belts hung limply around his waist overtop the coat. He knew his clothes looked odd by the standards of those around him, but he didn't care. The club owner herself – Jeanette – was rather fond of him due to his exotic looks. You didn't get many half-Russian, half-Japanese people in Santa Monica, apparently, and she'd latched onto him as her little pet oddity. Not that she needed any other oddities of her own; she was prone to odd sayings that were mostly innuendos and invitations to her bedroom, though they were simultaneously manipulative little phrases intended to get favors done for her. Of course, her fondness for him came at the price of frequent attempts on her part to get him to do things for her.
Luckily, he was just the kind of guy that could tell her to fuck off, no matter how much skin her plaid, schoolgirl style skirt showed, or how much of her ample breasts she put on display in that button-down blouse with most of the buttons undone. Unfortunately, that seemed to just spark even more interest on her part. It made sense, really, even to his less than well-educated mind. He was the only guy – hell, he was the only person, guy or girl – who could resist her, its natural she would be intrigued.
Jeanette's twin sister, Therese, however…that was another story altogether. Therese hated the mere sight of him. She was far more professional than Jeanette, usually clad in gray or black business suits. Square frame glasses rested on her nose, and her blonde hair was always kept tied back in a ponytail, not in two pigtails, like her sister. Her personality was nearly anathema to her sister's, as well. Whereas Jeanette was a manipulative, attention-craved slut with a knack for seduction and subtlety, Therese was manipulative, arrogant, blunt, and every ounce of her was grade A bitch. To Therese, Jeanette's little pet oddity was nothing more than a street urchin that needed to be chased out of the club with a broom, or, if she had her way, a double-barreled shotgun full of rock salt.
Tonight was the man's lucky night, though. Jeanette was probably out screwing one of her many, many, many no-strings-attached boyfriends, and Therese was apparently on business in downtown LA. This gave Byron Watts, street urchin and pet oddity, time to think.
It had been a bad day, and he'd come here because he was new in town and it was the only place he knew that served alcohol. To most people, the words 'think' and 'alcohol' didn't belong in the same sentence, but when one was defending an orphanage from attacks by demons, well, nothing was normal. For Byron, it was all the worse because of the life that had come before that.
His father had been in a government job, though what job it was exactly Byron had never known. He'd heard his father use the term "Black Ops" once, but, well…that just didn't fit. Not when his father was going up against vampires, demons, wizards, and all sorts of other whacked out creatures that belonged in fairy tales instead of reality. Not when his father was a creature in his own right.
Which is what eventually lead to the downfall of the family. Byron had been ten at the time, and his father had been away on business. The family had been living in the middle of nowhere, working a farm, and Byron's mother – a woman whose voice he could barely remember, to say nothing of the lack of a physical image of her in his memory – had home schooled him. There was a tiny little town nearby that the family helped feed, and Byron had begun to make friends there. That night, though, it all came to a brutal end. Byron wouldn't learn until years later that an enemy of his father's had caused the disaster. This enemy was powerful sage, whose name Byron had long since forgotten. That night, the sage infiltrated the small town and turned them all into monsters, dead corpses that shambled and hungered for living flesh. The sage had sent them to the farm, and Byron's mother had died protecting him. Byron looked her in the eyes as she died, and it was then that the blood of his father woke from it's sleep.
Byron had changed into a towering demon with claws, wings, leathery black skin, and magical powers and slaughtered all of the monsters sent to the farm. Hours later he had returned to normal, terrified by the vague recollections of what he'd done. He ran from the farm, but days later, had been found in the wilderness by a demon that had sensed the carnage. He'd been sold into slavery by this demon, and though he was taught the basics of what other children were taught in schools, he was also forced into things…disgusting things that would cause nightmares until the day he died. He had barely escaped this slavery a month ago, when a pack of demon hunters had struck at the demon that was then his master. Byron had been attacked as well, and had been badly beaten and burned, but he'd managed to escape, collapsing on the steps of an orphanage in Santa Monica, California. The children and staff found him there, and together took him in and nursed him back to health. The caretaker of the orphanage was a kindly old witch, and she'd sensed him for what he was the moment she laid eyes on him.
After all, the power of Soul Fusion had supposedly been extinct for close to one hundred years. Finding someone with that same power on your doorstep wasn't exactly an every day occurrence, even in the world of the supernatural. Such a power enabled those capable of using it to fuse their souls with those of monsters they've cowed into submission. In essence, it allowed those gifted with Soul Fusion to change into monsters, while retaining their human minds.
Since then, he'd turned the attic of the orphanage into a loft and protected it from the repeated attacks by groups of low-level demons. The children had nursed his battered soul back to some semblance of peace and happiness, and the staff had nursed his broken body back. The kindly witch had taught him many things as he got better, things a normal guy his age would know, allowing him to function in society a bit easier. He owed them his life and, perhaps, his soul…he would defend every single one of them with his life.
Today had been a bad day. A few of the children had almost gotten hurt, and as with most things that went wrong, Byron blamed himself. He'd retreated from his makeshift loft and walked to the club, Asylum, hoping that Jeanette and Therese would be out. He felt a little better, now that he'd had something to drink and a smoke, not to mention the fact that his prayers concerning the owners of the establishment having been answered. So he finished the scotch, paid the bartender the rest of what was owed, and slipped out of the club, never noticing the pair of eyes watching him from a corner that really was dim enough to hide things.