The Shadow
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any other Universe that I may borrow from; those belong to other People with High priced Lawyers. The concepts involved in these separate television shows or Movies or other fan fiction do not belong to me either. The story I have written however does. This story may not be posted on any pay site or in any way shape or form, make any profit for anyone (I know I'm not making a thing from it).
This is another Xander road trip Story.
Authors notes (rules of this Universe.)
Superman: "Smallville" and "Lois and Clark the New Adventures of Superman" are one story, making "Smallville" happen in the 80s and Metropolis is were "Smallville" has it, in Kansas.
Batman: Bruce started his Vigilante career when the first Batman comic came out, the story explains his youthful looks, and Gotham is in Massachusetts when Boston is.
Highlander: Richie and Connor didn't die.
Sita: The books happened in the 80s and the last book didn't happened, the whole Angel thing happened because of a curse that Darla put on Angel to find that, that will break the gypsy's curse.
Blade: based on the movies, this happened in the 90s. In this universe the vamp killing virus from the third movie, only worked on the Dracula line (these are demon vamps as well and Drac was a demon) and only on the ones in the area (New York City).
In this Universe, as long as you stayed away from the centers on MetaHuman activity, it is very similar to our own. The major center are Metropolis, Gotham and New York City, the minor are the rest of the Major Cities in the world and Smallville and Sunnydale. Smallville, because of the mutagenic effects of the Kryptonite Meteors and Sunnydale, because of an active Hellmouth.
In this Universe, the medical procedure to detect mutants, looks for a specific enzyme in the blood that only mutants have (X-factor), so anybody that have the latent genes for Mutancy (both parents of the mutants) will not have the enzyme. The United States has the highest Mutant rate per capita than the rest of the world combined and New York City is the center of it. All because during the mid to late 1800s that is where most of the immigrants came thru, to come to America and a lot of them carried the latent genes.
/xxxxx/ thoughts
Chapter One
10 June 99
Xander looked at his face in the mirror, he had the ridges and fangs of a vamp but his eyes were gold tinted with green, then there was the fact that he could see himself in the mirror to begin with and he was wearing his crucifix with no ill effect.
He had woken up in a strange bed, an hour and a half ago, with no memory on how he had got there. He felt great, that is until he saw the girl chained to the wall and the blinding pain of hunger hit and he could smell her blood and the horror of what he had become hit him as he blacked out. He came to in the Oxnard Veterinary Hospital, in one of the horse stalls, sitting on the floor with the horse looking at him with the horse version of "are you done yet?" look, he realized that he had just fed on the horse and the horse wasn't hurt.
He some how found the place that he had woken up in and found the girl unharmed by him still there. He freed her and took her to the Hospital and headed home and here he was looking at himself, shifting his face from vamp to human and back again. On the way to the Hospital he had realized that he had his soul, which calmed him down some but not all of the way, he still want'd to know what had happened to him.
He had just gotten off work washing dishes at the Fabulous Ladies Night Club and was heading home, he had just reached for the door to his cheap apartment, when he woke up in that bed and he didn't remember the hour in between. The sun was coming up and he was tired so he lay on the bed to get some sleep before he tested his reaction to the sun.
He opened his eyes and saw that the sun had just set and that meant that he was late for work, with a quick shower and shave he was off to work.
Xander was putting on his apron when the head cook saw him and yelled.
"You're late Harris"
"Sorry Sonny but I over slept, wouldn't happen again."
"Call us next time will you, ok? People have been disappearing around here lately."
"Will do, gotta scrub those pans."
Sonny just looked at the kid, he felt something more than just over sleeping had happened the kid looked pale and a little scared and he wasn't doing his usual jokes ether. He'll keep an eye on him.
Xander spent the rest of the night just trying to be invisible and understand what had happened to him, he didn't seemed to be following the rules of being a Vampire, as he knew them, according to Giles and Angel and the big question was who the hell turned him and he had a stinking suspicion that it was the person or persons that have been making people disappear lately.
Xander got off work at his usual time, around 3 A.M., and headed home, when he heard a muffled scream and his white knight complex kicked in, he was off, around a corner and into an alley. There were four vamps around one of the waitresses from the club. Two stakes dropped down from sheaths on his arms into his hands, he dusted the two vamps nearest him and kick the third in the balls as he told the waitress to run as he faced the last one, a woman.
"Why are you attacking your kind my child?"
"Those demons aren't my kind bitch and you are going to join them soon."
The vampress stepped back in shock as Xanders eyes flashed green with his anger and she felt his soul just as he staked her, just as she dusted she said "I turned you!"
Xander looked around after dusting the last vamp, thinking that was way to easy, maybe it was because I surprised them, and when he thought about the vamp saying that she had turned him, he had a faint memory of being hit from behind and bitten the night before and something wet and salty in his mouth and then something he thought was a dream yesterday only know it felt real.
He had dreamt that he was on a flat plain and a demon was changing him making him stronger, faster and more durable, when the demon was just about to remove his soul so it could move in, the Hyena Spirit that had been trapped in his subconscious was released and consumed the demon and then merged with him, making a few change of it's own, to keep him "alive". From the merging he had learned that the Hyena and soldier boy had merged into one being during the time of that they were trapped in his subconscious and by absorbing the hellmouth energies had gotten stronger and bided their time until they were needed to save him. Also by consuming the demon they had purified the energies that kept vamps "alive", making him something different.
"So Harris even as a vamp you just can't follow the rules." Xander mumbled to himself as he walked back to the room were he had woken up as a vamp to see what his late sire had left him.
As he searched the Apartment he realized that he had full access to solder boy's memories and skills. He found close to 75,000 dollars stashed under the bed in a bag and the keys to a two year old black BMW Z3 with the 2.8-liter, V6, plus some jewelry that he could pawn and some that looked like they could be antiques he could sell.
Xander drove the car back to his apartment, parking the car in the Wal-Mart parking lot down the street so that no one would ask him questions about the car. By then the sun was coming up when he entered his room, he laid down and closed his eyes for a moment, when he opened them the sun was setting.
Xander laid there for a few moments and was glad that he had two days off, because he really needed to find out just what his strengths and weakness are.
A couple of hours latter he knew a few things, he appeared to have the strength, speed and reaction time equal to Angel, his senses seemed to be slightly better than a vamp and he healed roughly ten times faster than he had seen a vamp or slayer heal. His tests showed that blessed and religious objects didn't affect him and after checking up on the waitress from last night that he could enter homes without an invite. When he meditated to find out if any of the Hyena was left, he found out that he could take the hyena form, he was freaked out for a bit, after he calmed down he was able to change back.
He was feeling a little hungry so he decided to try the pigs blood he had bought from a butcher earlier that night and found it was cold, bland and stale, it just tasted bad, it lessened the hunger but yuck, even warming it up in the microwave didn't help, if anything it made it taste worse.
Xander spent the rest of the night writing E-mails to Willow and Buffy on the lap top he had, telling of his trip so far, leaving out the last two days of course and told them to make a copy for Giles to read, then he tried to watch the movie Grand Canyon, but gave up so he shifted to Hyena form and went on patrol for awhile but found no demons or vamps to pound on, so he went home and waited for sunrise.
During the whole night he didn't feel tired once not even when he was bored, so as the sun stared to rise he sat in a chair by his table planning on checking out his allergy to the sun, as it started to get lighter he started to get sleepy, he fought it, but he never saw the sun peek over the mountains, the next thing he knew he was opening his eyes as he got off the floor, the sun had just set.
"Ah crap! This sucks!"
Xander realized that he couldn't work at the club if every time the sun was up and he was out, not asleep just out. So far every time the sun came up until the sun went down, he blacked out with no dreams, memories or since of time and no control. He was totally helpless. So he called the club and told them that do to a family emergency he had to quit, they told him to come over latter and pick up his last pay check.
After that he went over to the garage and paid for the repairs on Uncle Roy's car and called Uncle Roy and asked if he wanted to come and pick up his car since, Xander was taking the bus to Vegas, a white lie, he did plan on going to Vegas just not by bus, he was taking the BMW.
With that done he cruised around checking out the collage and the other Vet clinics and found that the Oxnard Veterinary Hospital was the only one that worked on large animals and the collage specialized in Marine animals. He found that he had gotten in before by climbing the wall like Spiderman to enter thru an open window on the third floor. He checked out the Horses, cow and lama on the bottom floor and decided on a horse since they seemed to be cleaner. Xander found out that he had a hypnotic whammy ability, when he looked into the eyes of the horse and wished it to stay calm, he found that by taking blood from the source, it produced a warmth that spread through his body energizing him and when he was done that the wound on the horse healed up within seconds. He found a stash of apples in the fridge, which he used to thank the horse, as well as the one from the night before.
After petting and thanking the horses for their donations to the feed Xander fund, he made his way to the back door when he heard somebody coming. Xander was in a short hallway and the only place to hide was behind the door, so moving there he wished that he was invisible just once and the next thing he knew he was elsewhere. He was in a black void looking back into the hall from the shadow of the door he had hid behind just seconds before. He watched as a night watchman passed through the hall on his rounds, never knowing that there had been somebody there just second before.
Xander looked around in the void and saw just by thinking of a place that he had been to before he could see it from some shadow that was in the area, but only places he been to, when he tried places that he knew from books or T.V or the movies nothing happened. He felt on an instinctual level that he should never close all of the portals at once, that he should always, when in the void keep one open, to keep him anchored or he would be lost to the void forever. So all he had to do to go back to Sunnydale was to step into a shadow and step back out in Sunnydale.
"Sweet"
Of course there was the whole he was a Vampire now and Buffy would sense that in a second so He still had the whole summer to come up with a plan, he hoped.
The rest of the night Xander experimented with his new power and used it to go to the club to get his pay check, in cash and then to his apartment to pack his bags and turn his key in then back to his car to put the bags in his trunk. He found that he could check out, while in the void, all of the shadows in a three block radius and skip from one shadow to the other never leaving the void and travel quit fast that way, he found out by accident that he could use the void as a storage place for his stuff and to get at it, all he needed was a shadow such as one in his clothes. By the time he was done screwing around in the void, it was to late to start for Vegas, so he parked his car in the parking lot of the dorms at the collage and used a unused room in the basement of the club as a haven for the day.
Chapter Two
Over five hours and 300 plus miles latter Xander was pulling into a casino parking lot in Vegas. It was one of the lesser casinos, which Xander picked on a whim, to be his home base for the time he spent here in Vegas, plus it was close to a horse stables in the area, so he didn't have to worry about food. So all he had to do was get a room, preferably on the north side of the building, to prevent accidental sunburn you know, and he was set, all he had to do was send his E-mails to Willow and Buffy, put the do not disturb sign out and to bed or in this case, the floor of the closet.
Elsewhere
Two beings, a man and a woman were standing over a shimmering pool trying to find what had disturbed them.
The man "All of our champions are well, as well as the chosen ones."
The woman "But the disturbance had a familiar ring to it."
"Were did you feel it before."
"When the moral revived the slayer and disrupted our plans."
"We talked about this, the over all plan didn't change."
"But we are The Powers That BE, how could a moral screw with my plan like that! The slayer was to die and the Mayor was the one to kill the Master and die himself from the wounds he received in the battle, stopping his ascension plans. Slayer Kendra was the one to battle the judge and die doing it. It's supposed to be Slayer Faith who is to be guarding the Hellmouth and she was to die stopping Adam! So were is the Mortal now?"
"He sleeps in Vegas and the pool doesn't show him anywhere near our Champions, as to interfere in our plans, or to have anything to do with the disturbance. He is nothing!"
"So be it."
The same time in Sunnydale, a former librarian is reading an obscure prophesy about the rising of a Master Vampire that never lost his soul, takes an immortal bride and makes war on the demons, vampires and evil men, sending the smarter ones into Hiding.
"Oh Bloody Hell!"
Xander opened his eyes and found himself laying on the examining table, in the morgue.
"What the hell, this can't be happening I put the do not disturb sign out so—ah crap!"
Xander looked around but decided to leave any way, he could retrieve his clothes latter, he had left all of his stuff in the car anyway, so he stepped into a shadow and out in his room, saw that the cops had done a thorough job in the room so he stepped back into the shadows and went to his car to get dressed.
After getting dressed Xander went back to the Casino and talked to the staff, using his whammy when needed to keep them from recognizing him and calling the cops, at the end and a whammy inducted headache, he found out that they had thought he was a drug dealer that the cops had been hunting for, for the past five years. Just typical Harris luck, so he got another room and spent a few hours trying his hand at gambling and like when he was a kid it wasn't a challenge. Ever since he could remember, if he spent anytime in one spot and concentrated, he would start to see the probability patterns around him, it wasn't so much seeing the future but seeing the possible futures, action reaction, which is why Jessie and Willow rarely played any type of card or board games with him, he usually won. So after a few hours and starting with one quarter in a 5 cent slot machine and working his way to the poker tables, by way of the blackjack tables, he had won 15,000 dollars and the deed to five acres of land with an abandoned church on it, out near Henderson. Well with his ability to "See" he didn't have to worry about money, now he just had to figure what to do with the real state.
Xander was standing by the door to the restaurant in the casino when he happened to look in and saw in the far shadowed corner three men talking and the middle man could have been an older Xander/Bingo/ it was the asshole that he had been mistaken for. /Time for him to pay/.
He followed them to the parking lot, by way of the 'void', he saw that they had parked their cars side by side in a unlit part of the parking lot that the security cameras didn't cover, after they checked each others suitcases, they exchanged then the other guys got in one car and left, that's when Xander struck. When Mr "asshole" got in his car he found Xander in the passenger seat and the eye contact was all Xander needed to put the whammy on him. He instructed Mr A. to go to the police station and confess and to tell them were they could find the evidence to back up his claim and his entire customer list as well, and then released him; of course Xander borrowed the suit case from the trunk.
The suit case was full of money, 600,000 dollars worth, so he took half and cruised around town dropping 20,000 dollar packets of money in the Mail or drop off boxes of various churches, Charity organizations and shelters. Before parking the car in another Casino parking lot and crashing in his room for the day.
The next night Xander checked out the land he had won at the poker table and found that the place wasn't as abandoned as he had thought; the place had a care taker on it. The guy that had lost it in the game had done it on purpose, he was broke and couldn't pay the back taxes and the back pay owed the care taker. After talking to the old guy that had been taking care of the place and it was a nice place. Like a small park with an well cared for small Spanish mission looking church on it, the guy who had lost the place had in a get rich scam, swindled the catholic church out of a church that they were losing money on and when the scam failed, he had "lost" in a card game. After taking a tour of the place Xander found a safe haven in the basement of the church, an empty back room that had been used as an office at onetime and it had a heave steel door on it and no windows. He talked to the caretaker and with his help got all of the papers sign, all of the bills paid and set it up so that the church would be used again by the Catholics as long as they paid rent, which was the up keep of the place and the taxes, so long as they never entered the sealed room in the basement with out his permission and to leave his mail in a drop box by the door. All of this cost him 250,000 dollars. This had taken four days to complete, by then he had a cot, chair and a desk set up in the room and had his laptop hooked up to the phone line in the room and all of his personal stuff, from the car and his old room back in Sunnydale, stacked in the room as well. He still had 140,000 dollars left in his war chest; he also had the door altered so that it could be opened only from the inside. Over the next week Xander between killing vamps and demons he saw most of the shows and tourist stuff in Vegas and did his own personal tour of the Hoover dam. Of course he sent an edited version of his tours to Willow and Buffy, he wasn't ready to tell them that he owned a church yet.
24 June 99
The Office of Col. Fury
S.H.E.I.L.D. Carrier
Somewhere over the Atlantic
"Come in!"
"Sir we just got some info from our mole in the F.O.H. they got these videos from one of their people in the Vegas C.S.I."
"What is it?"
"It appears to be a dead body getting up off a slab and leaving the morgue."
"How did they get these Videos?"
"The first sir is from the coroner he had started the autopsy when he had to use the head and left the room and the second is from the security camera in the room."
"Show me!"
Col Fury and the agent watched the first video showing Xander waking up and while he got off the table talking to himself, of which, they were able to read his lips and the second video showed him look around the room and then walk over to a shadow in the corner and fade away.
"Do you have any thing of the subject?"
"Yes sir he was or is Alexander LaVelle Harris, 19 years old, born and raised in Sunnydale California, declared dead in Las Vegas NV. On the 14 of June 99, but the body is missing."
"Was his next of kin or friends notified of his death?
"No sir when his body disappeared, his file was sealed by the F.B.I. and we think that's how the F.O.H. wound up with a copy of the tape."
"Which section of the F.B.I.?"
"Section 13, sir."
"Great the Fascist assholes the F.O.H. think that they have a new Mutant and the people that know the truth about Sunnydale, namely Section 13 and possibly the N.I.D. as well since the have project Initiative in Sunnydale, a new Vampire but I have never seen a vamp pull that disappearing trick before. Anything else?"
"Ah, yes sir, our agent in Vegas found out that an Alexander L. Harris has won some land with a church on it near Vegas sir, he paid all of the outstanding taxes on it and rented it to the Catholic Church."
"Interesting, keep me informed on this and leave me the enter file as well."
"Yes sir" and the agent left.
After an hour of reading the file on Xander, Col Fury called his old friend, Director Horace Gordon of section 13. After talking to Horace, Fury learned that Section 13's seers had learned that Xander had been turned in Oxnard on the 10th and that due to having been possessed, twice, he had kept his soul and was an entirely different breed of Vamp and so far seemed to be a white hat. Fury had Xanders file put in with the files of the other so call "Enhanced Humans" for now, and code named him Shadowwalker. Then Fury starts typing on the computer.
S.H.I.E.L.D. ENHANCED HUMANS
Subcategory: Vampires (Souled)
Name: Harris, Alexander LaVelle Born: 1980 Turned: 10 June 1999 Sire: Countess Sara Smyth (300 tears old) (deceased)
Notes:
Due to having been possessed twice the subject never lost his soul. Has the ability to shape shift into a Hyena, shadow walk and also has the ability of an old master Vampire, Hypnotism, so far appears to be a "White Knight". Medical profile shows he has the X-factore, never showed any powers to date, prior to turning.
When done Fury hit enter and another screen popped up.
S.H.I.E.L.D. ENHANCED HUMANS
Subcategory: Vampires (Souled)
Sita aka Alisa Perne, Elisabeth Ann Summers (Yaksha line) (last of the line) (5000+ years old) (Married to the Immortal Tutankhamen aka Thomas Kommen, in summer of 1998) (known to impersonate Slayers from time to time.)
Angel aka Angelus, Liam O'Connel (Aurelius line) (Cursed with a soul) (263 years old)
Blade (Dracula line/Dhampir) (Daywalker) (37 years old)
Morbius aka Michael Morbius (N/A biochemical imbalance) (Living Vampire) (33 years old)
Harris, Alexander LaVelle (Aurelius line/Mutant) (Shadowwalker) (19 years old) (Possible Progenitor of a new breed of Vampire?)
Chapter Three
30 June 99
Xander had been slowly heading east on his resumed road trip, he had seen the Grand Canyon and Zion national park, so far and was now in Colorado Springs, he was here to pay his respects to Soldier boy, he was standing by the grave of one Major Charles Kawalsky, USAF, Special Forces. Xander felt that by having Kawalsky's memories he was in a way keeping him alive, of course he also had the racial memories of the thing that had possessed Kawalsky at the end and killed him. Xander had been playing around with the idea of patenting some of the alien technology but that would probably bring the NID to his door, not good.
Xander had raided a small vamp nest, last night when he had first shown up in town, which left him with some jewelry and an eight hundred year old bastard sword. He thought about selling it but now he will keep it, it could be handy in the slayage. Also he found that if the shadow was big enough he could take the car with him when he shadow walked.
03 July 99
Xander was in Metropolis Kansas; he had stopped in Smallville for the day and then went on to Metropolis. He had one of the best cups of coffee he had ever had at the Talon and had an interesting talk with a Mrs. Kent, whose son works as a reporter for the Daily Planet in Metropolis, before he left the town; she had reminded him of Mrs. Summers. Now here he was in the City of Tomorrow, looking at the statue of Superman in Centennial Park, when he heard a muffled scream in the park and Xander was off, running to were the sound of a struggle was coming from, in a hidden area of the park. He saw three men struggling with a dark haired woman, so Xander interfered.
"Say isn't this a little stupid considering who lives in this city?"
The men looked at the kid in surprise.
Thug #1 "Your not supes" then to the others "get him".
Xander sighed "Its all ways get him or kill him; it's the story of my life". Xander weaved and bobbed to keep from getting hit, to him they were slow, but what bothered him was that they were a little faster that a professional fighter and from the few blocks he had done about as strong as him and he heard faint whirs like motors coming from them, but he heard their hearts as well. When there was an opening he took them out with a punch and them helped the lady up and removed the restraints on her.
"Hey lady, are you all right?"
"Great thanks for the save how were you able to fight the cyborgs?"
"They may have been strong but they have glass jaws. You need to go to the hospital or any thing, my car is near by."
"No I'm all right, Mr.?"
"Harris Alexander Harris, Ms.?"
"Kent, Lois Lane-Kent."
While the whole thing had gone down, Superman had been watching from 5000ft. He and Lois were checking up on a rumor, that something major was going down in Metropolis, when they got word that one of their snitches wanted to talk to them in the park. Lois had gone in to talk while Clark watched from on high; it had smelled like a trap. Clark was just about to go save the day when the kid looking at the statue had took off running, saving Lois from the cyborgs. A couple of things bothered Clark, one the kid shouldn't have been able to hear Lois and he moved way to fast for a normal human and when he scanned Xander with his x-ray vision saw that he wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating ether and when he added the enhanced hearing and speed Clark didn't like what that added up to. He had a history with vampires. But this one wasn't acting like one he was saving a life, not taking it.
Just when Xander was going to comment that he had met her mother in law a few hours ago, there was a rustle in the bushes and a bright flash of green light and then darkness.
Superman dove He couldn't see who had stunned Lois and Xander, a quick scan showed Lois was still breathing, or hear them ether. Just as Superman landed to try to find out who had ambushed Lois, he was hit by the light and found, as he blacked out, that it was a Kryptonite based stunner.
"Check on our guests Harley."
"Yes Mr. J, the reporter and Supes are out, the kid is dead."
"Ah well, thems the breaks, wake up our minions so they can carry our quest to the lair, and put them with our other guest."
"Sure Mr J."
An hour latter Xander wakes up, "Ow, what the hell hit me?" After looking around and finding himself alone, Xander entered the void and tried something he hadn't thought of doing before, instead of trying to go to a place he tried going to a person. He tested it out on Cordy since she was in L.A. and he had never been there before and it worked, he could see Cordy was at a party and Angel looking a little uncomfortable in the background? Next he thought of Mrs. Kent and saw she was in a cage in some sort of warehouse, along with Superman and Batman all in separate cages. Xander carefully checked out the area from the void thru the shadows, he didn't want to set off any traps. To confuse who ever had captured the heroes, when Xander exited the shadows he was in hyena form.
Batman was having a crappy day, following a tip he had gone to New York to check on a rumor that Sebastian Shaw was working with the Joker on some sort of deal for the hell fire club, something about immortality. Batman could have told them that immortality sucks, he may not be immortal him self, but he was 90 years old and looked like he was 35 and he had watched friends and family, as well as a few enemies that he respected, all grow old and die. All because, over the last 60 years as Batman, he had crossed paths many times with Ra's al Ghul and his daughter Talia, three of those times he wound up in the Lazarus Pit, the last time was in 69 and he has only aged ten years over the last thirty. But how he ended up here was, he had slipped in to Shaw's office in the hell fire club and was checking for any info about the Joker when he was stunned by a green light and now he was here, in Metropolis. Of course Joker had searched him and removed his various gadgets but for some reason he never removed his mask. He was checking on his fellow captives, Lois was awake, pissed and worried about some kid named Alexander who was with her when she was Ambushed and Superman was groggy from the Kryptonite alloy hand cuffs he was wearing.
Batman was working the false tooth loose, so he could use the chemicals in it to get out of his bonds when a huge alpha male hyena with green eyes walked out of the shadows and started to check things out such as the cages and their bonds, what really surprised Batman was when the hyena went over to Jokers pet hyenas and they cowered before him.
Xander checked out the cages and the bonds on the prisoners and realized that he needed a distraction since the Joker was in the offices on the upper level and was talking to a woman and a dark haired early middle aged man that just screamed power and money, so he went over to check out the pets and was surprised when they cowered before him and he could since that they would follow his orders. So he shifted to human form and let them lose and told them to go play with the rich guy.
Batman watched as the big hyena changed into a young man that let Jokers pets loose and told them to go play with Sebastian Shaw and the hyenas ran up the stairs toward the office, Batman was starting to like this kid.
Xander snagged the keys on the table near by and ran over the cages and opened them up and released the prisoners, just as the cursing, yelling and things breaking was heard coming from the office as well as Harley trying to shoot the hyenas and their laughter. If it wasn't for his Dark Knight reputation, Batman would have been laughing his ass off at what he heard coming from the office he just wished he had a camera up there.
(The language coming from the office is to harsh for our young readers so just use your imagination.)
Clark could feel his strength returning as he looked around to check on Lois, she was leaning on the cage trying not to laugh at what they were hearing, and he looked over at Bruce and saw that even though he was in his dark brooding persona he could see the suppressed laughter in his eyes.
"Ah excuse me but I believe these are yours, Batman sir" and Xander handed Batman his utility belt, Xander couldn't believe he was standing beside Batman and Superman.
Batman nodded his head and put the belt on.
"Alexander isn't it"
"Yes sir"
"Could you call off Jokers pet hyenas so we can go save the bad guys from themselves."
Xander looked at Superman for an instant as his brain got into gear and then he let out a sharp whistle and a few seconds latter a couple of happy hyenas came down from the office. Superman with a smirk turned to Batman and asked
"Shall we?"
Batman nodded, he knew if he talked he would loose it and be in hysterics. The both of them went it to the office and looked at the three people in it, three very chewed on and pissed off people, moving quickly Superman took care of the Joker and Harley and Batman took out Shaw with knockout gas.
Jimmy Olson had followed the cops to the warehouse were Superman was at and saw Lois was already there and that Superman and Batman were talking to the police and a unknown young man in black was standing with them so he took some pictures as Lois talked to Perry on her phone, when he asked who the kid was, Lois in an absentminded way said "o that's the shadow".
For the last three hours he had been working on the computer trying to get the face of the kid that Lois called the shadow to come out, but like Superman's face that always seems to be out of focus the kids face was in a shadow that shouldn't be there. He took it to Lois and Clark, after some discussion decided to print it as is.
After several hours of talking to the cops with Superman, Xander was able to leave, by the time he got back to his car it was almost morning, so after finding a place to safety park his car he shadow walked to his room in Vegas and crashed for the day.
The info on Xander was being up dated, in the computers of S.H.I.E.L.D. and F.B.I. section 13, as well as the computers of the Paranormal sections of the British M.I.6 and the French Secret Service.
The next night after checking on the Jokers hyenas at the zoo, Xander saw that the Daily Planet was calling him The Shadow and Lois hadn't given his real name and how he had helped in the capture of the Joker and the criminal mutant Sebastian Shaw and that all of the evidence found at the warehouse as putting Shaw away for decades and this time his high priced Lawyers couldn't get him off.
Chapter Four
07 July 99
Xander was now in New York, he had left Metropolis after reading the Daily Planet and deciding that he wouldn't push his luck and left, he saved a guy called Gary Hobson, from some vamps, in Chicago. Gary was in the hero biz too and he did it by getting tomorrow's paper today and saving people. After doing a quick tour of the city he continued on to Gotham were he just passed thru, the city gave him a serious, get out off town, wiggins, so here he was in the big Apple.
Xander had been driving thru New York when he realized that he didn't have a clue to where he wanted to go, so he parked the car and shadow walked to were Lois Lane was. She was still at work with her husband Clark. After the usual pleasantries he asked if they new of a good hotel he could stay at in New York, they told him to try Bryant Park, he also asked her why she didn't put his name in the paper, they told him that with all of the heroes that they had met thru Superman, they thought he needed to keep his anonymity, plus like Superman, his face just didn't show up in all of the pictures taken that night. When Xander met Clark Kent he liked him, but he felt he had met him before, his sent was familiar but he couldn't place it until Lois mentioned Superman that's when he placed it, Clark was Superman. After some quick talking, babbling really, they promised to keep each other secrets; of course Lois laughing about it didn't help.After getting set up at the Bryant Park Hotel, Xander went for a walk; he had to think about what had happened at the Planet. He now had the phone number to Superman and thru him quite possibly Batman. Xander knew all he had to do was think of Batman and shadow walk right to were he is at that moment but he really didn't want to go to Gotham and he really didn't want to know who he was during his day job.
Xander had been wandering thru central park for the last two hours, he had stopped several muggings and a group of F.O.H. thugs from beating the crap out of a homeless person, a low grade mutant, the person didn't have any powers to speak of just some weird purple eyes that gave him a slightly better night vision than the rest of humanity.
Xander had just staked his third Vamp that night when he heard a fight in a secluded part of the park. When he got to the place, he saw Sabertooth fighting a young woman about Xanders age, she was using a sword and was good, very good but she was still loosing, Sabertooth was to strong and fast plus he was healing just about as fast as she could cut him. What caught Xanders attention was three things, the smell of blood, the sight of the miniature lightening closing her wounds and the fact that she was Soldier Boy's twenty year old niece, Rachael Joy Kawalsky.
Rachael was having a crappy day, it started out with her loosing the summer mid term paper she had stored on her computer but not on a back up disk, so when her, ever so helpful younger sister accidentally erased her hard drive she lost most of the summer terms work and she had to turn in her paper by Monday and here it was early Thursday morning. Then she was fired from her job, it was straight out of the movie Friday, she was accused of stealing, it didn't matter that she was in class at the time. Then she had to find her sister who decided to go partying, with out telling her where she was going, only to be challenged at the party her sister was at, by the time she had won, dear sister with her two so called friends, St. John Allerdyce and Tabitha Smith, were seen headed out across central park at three in the morning, with her following at a stumble in slashed and bloody clothes, only to run into this ass hole who's friends had just kidnapped her sister and she was loosing. Rachael felt an intense pain in her chest as Sabertooth got passed her guard and shoved his craws into her heart. As she started to black out she saw a young man step out of the shadows and shoot Sabertooth between the eyes.
Creed was riding an adrenalin high from the fight with the girl he had just killed when he heard a voice behind him.
"Hey asshole lets see how you heal from a 45 inducted headache."
Them he saw a flash of light then nothing.
When Xander saw Rachael die at Sabertooth's hands that was it, he pulled one of the pair of stainless steel colts he had gotten off of some gang banger vamps and shot Sabertooth between the eyes. Xander was surprised to see that Sabertooth was still breathing even though he wasn't healing as fast as before; when he checked Rachael he saw the miniature lightening was healing her massive chest wounds. He was just about to sit down in shock when he heard the cops coming so he picked up Rachael and stepped into a shadow to take her to his room at the Bryant Park Hotel. Once in the Room Xander quickly stripped Rachael out of her bloody rags and wiped her down before putting her in his bed, then took her clothes and the towels he used and dumped them in a dumpster in Sunnydale.
Buffy was on the roof of the bronze just thinking, her patrol was light since it was the summer lull and the vampire and demon population was light. She had just come from the hospital checking on Faith, she was still in a coma. She had just got done talking to Tom it seems he had died in an accident on set and had to leave L.A. so he was setting up a new Identity and was coming to Sunnydale to go to college with her, this made her happy to have her hubby here with her, of course there was the fact that the rest of the scoobies didn't know she had gotten married to an old friend from her Egyptian days, during the summer she ran away, only Joyce knew. Buffy felt something change in the alley behind the Bronze, as she watched she saw of the shadows got darker and then Xander walked out of the Shadow, threw a small garbage bag into the dumpster and then walk back into the shadow and disappeared. Buffy jumped off the roof into the alley to check on what Xander had just thrown away, it was bloody shredded womans clothes with the blood of three people on it. One woman and two men, the most blood from the woman, one man and the woman that wore the clothes were immortals and from the taste and smell of the blood the woman won, but the other man she knew, Victor Creed aka Sabertooth, she had worked with that asshole back in the early 60s when she was in the CIA. She and Xander were going to have a long talk soon, especially to the fact that he was a Vampire, a souled vampire.
With a gasp for air Rachael woke up, she looked around and for the second time in her life she found herself in a strange room, the first time was two years ago when she had her first death and woke up in the motel room of Connor MacLeod. She had been hit by a drunken driver crossing the street at night in a small town in Pennsylvania on her way to college. MacLeod was the only one to see it happen and got her out of sight real quick. He brought her the rest of the ways to New York were she was going to go to College anyway and had become her teacher and friend. Of course the first time she wasn't naked, but she was still more worried about her baby sister, Star. She was out of bed looking around with her sword in her hand, it had been lying on the bed beside her and her purse was on the bed as well, when Xander came thru the door.
Xander walked into his room after getting rid of the bloody clothes, he didn't want to explain the blood on his bed if he had just laid Rachael on it in her blood rags she was wearing at the time, when he found himself with a sword at his throat.
"Ah, hi, I see your up and around, my names Xander and I will be your host for the evening. Besides the obvious what do you need?"
Rachael smirked at the surprised look on the cute guy's face, that just came in even if he was a little pale, and the whole host thing made her start to like him a little more, so she dropped the sword and asked.
"A large stake dinner would be nice and is that asshole Sabertooth dead? If he isn't I would like to know were His friends took my sister."
She watched as his face became stone when she told him that her sister was kidnapped. Then he answered.
"No, I put a bullet between his eyes, but he was still breathing when I got you out of there before the cops showed up."
Before they could continue their conversation the door was kicked open and four big guys with F.O.H. arm bands came in, caring pistols. Xander moving at top vamp speed, grabbed Rachael and her purse and jumped into the bathroom closing the door and in the dark, Shadow walked in to the void. The F.O.H. thugs were only a half a second behind him but found nobody in the bathroom and no way out.
In a black car on the street a report was given to the man in the shadows of the back seat.
"Report!"
"Sir the kid grabbed the girl and jumped in to the bathroom and vanished sir and we lost the signal from her purse."
"Keep searching I what that mutant and I want her sister as well."
"Sir, the girl that was in the room was her sister."
"Keep searching."
Xander watched and listened to the conversation from the shadows, as Rachael looked around in shock.
"Were am I? And who are they?"
"They are antimutant goons who are members of an antimutant group called the Friends of Humanity and they were after your sister if what they told their boss is correct and they believed her to be a mutant and they want you as well and the have a tracking device planted in your purse and you are in a shadow dimension that I use when I want to get around real fast."
"This isn't my purse it's my Sisters and just how far can you travel in this dimension?"
"We can step out of a shadow in Sunnydale California if you want, as long as I have been to a spot before or a person I can go to it by this Dimension with out traveling the actual distance to it."
"Can we go to Metropolis I have a Cousin there."
"No problem I was there about a week ago who is your cousin?" Xander already knew from Soldier boy's memories.
"Lois Lane-Kent"
"Met her when I was there, they were the ones who told me to get a room at that Hotel. But we need to get you some clothes, as much as I like you in the nude, I don't want to explain to Lois why you are running around naked."
"Perv"
"And proud of it"
Xander took Rachael to her apartment and kept a lookout while she took a quick shower and dressed in black jeans, black t-shirt and a black duster, Xander kept the purse in the void and he came up with an idea to give the F.O.H. the wrong Idea of his Jumping capabilities and give then the run around at the same time.
They were going to follow Xanders route in reverse, first stop Gotham. Xander homed in on Batman and found him in a where house in Bludhaven, fighting some vamps and some demons.
"Rachael all of the people except Batman and the guy in the cage are ether vampires or demons and they all can be killed by decapitation."
"Not a problem."
Batman was again in the fight of his life, Nightwing usually took care of Bludhaven but he was busy tracking down Killer Croc and Batgirl and the Huntress were after the scarecrow and Robin was home with the flu, which left him tracking down an associate of Shaw's, one Mortimer Toynbee aka Toad. He was trying to find out what Shaw and the Joker were up to, which put him in the mess he was in, he hated the supernatural, especially vampires and demons, he usually let people like Dr. Strange, Dr Fate or even Jason Blood aka Etrigan the Demon, take care of this type of situation, but no the idiot Toad had to go and piss off a master vampire by the name of Spike and it was up to Batman to save his sorry ass. Just then Batman saw a shadow darken and Xander and a black haired woman the same age as Xander, (think Kristin Kreuk from Smallville) exit the shadow, each caring swords and swing into action, in a matter of a few minutes there was a lot of dust and puddles of goo were the vamps and demons had been standing.
"You know this can't be good for your rep if every time I see you I'm saving your Bat ass." Smirked Xander as he looked around to make sure there wasn't any more bad guys in the area.
"I would be such a smart ass Shadow I know your secrets and weaknesses" said Batman with a growl
Rachael wasn't sure what to do here she was in the same room with the Batman and he was seriously scaring the crap out of her, and what was with the Batman calling Xander, Shadow?
"So who's your friend in the cage?"
"He goes by the name of Toad, he was working for Shaw, I was hoping he could tell me what Shaw and the Joker were up to."
"Let me guess a mutant?"
"Yes"
"Xander walked over to the cage with Toad in it."
"You wouldn't happen to know a gentleman by the name of Sabertooth would you?"
"He's a friend, what of it, flat scan!"
Both Xander and Rachael asked the same question at the same time.
"Flat scan?"
Batman answered.
"He means nonmutant or more precise a normal human."
"He thinks we are normal people?" Asked Xander
Batman just glowered at the toad as the Toad cringed in his cage. Xander looked at the toad in surprise and asked the toad.
"You think that a 90 year old man, that just fought six vampires and four Fyarl demons to a standstill, is normal and that a twenty year old woman, using a katana sword, fought Sabertooth for fifteen minutes before losing and is standing in front of you an hour later, normal and me who just used a shadow as a door way, normal, I haven't been normal for the past month now, boy are you in some serious denial."
The toad still trying to be the mutant bad ass that he liked to think he is, answered.
"Yes if your not a mutant a Homo Superior then yes."
"What is this Homo Superior Fascist Nazi crap; just because you have a couple of different genes than the rest of Humanity you think you are a different species? Man who was your Biology teacher anyway, that only makes you a different race at best, not a different species."
By this time Xander was piss of enough to cause his eyes to change from brown to green and glow and his voice was taking on a growl to it. Rachael was standing back and watching as the man that saved her was radiating power, casing her to get an buzz almost like that she got when she was near another immortal and she was beginning to realize she was in way over her head here. Batman watched as the Toad started to pee his pants, he really liked this kid. Toad thought that Spike was scary but this kid was truly scary.
"Who are you, what are you?"
Batman answered.
"Lois Lane called him The Shadow and he is Lamia Rex the true Master Vampire."
At the word Vampire, Xander put on his game face, he was surprised at himself at his tirade and was glad to let Batman take over, because if he heard any more master race crap he was going to kill Toad, he had heard all about Auschwitz from Willows Grandfather and he didn't want that to happen again. Rachal was surprised to find out that Xander was a vamp, she had helped Conner kill a few vamps when they helped Whistler a couple of times and after meeting Blade and Hannibal King knew that there was a few good vamps out their, but Xander had never in the hour that she knew him, acted like a brooder like Blade or Hannibal King. Toad in a quavering voice asked.
"And Her?"
Before Batman could answer, Rachael stepped up to the cage and allowing her quickening to flow out of her body making small electrical arcs dance around her eyes and hands answered him.
"I'm his bride! And your friends, Sabertooth, St. John Allerdyce, and Tabitha Smith helped to kidnap my baby sister, so were did your so called friends take her."
"Pyro and Boom Boom, Who is your sister?"
"Star Kawalsky."
"O Shit, O shit I'm so screwed."
"You better talk or I'm show you what I can do with this sword and your groin."
Both Xander and Batman winched.
And the Toad spilled, It seems that Star's kidnapping was tied into what ever scheme that Shaw and The Joker was up to, when Rachael hear it had something to do with immortality she winched and it wasn't that big of a surprise to find out that the privet school that Star went to in her freshman and sophomore years in high school, was a school for mutants run by mutants, Xavier's School for the Gifted. When she asked him why did they need Star for their scheme, he told her that Star's was unusual in that she had more than one ability, she has three mutant abilities they are, a healing touch, she can heal anything short of death, she absorbs the ambient energy around her, electromagnetic, gravic and kinetic, she uses the energy to generate a Force Aura, a bio force field around her body that makes her nearly invulnerable, allows her to fly, greatly enhances her strength and to project plasma blasts, this bio force field is believed to be the power behind her healing ability and the third power is the ability to disrupt or shut down another mutants ability for an hour at a touch. When asked why they needed her, he told them that it was believed that her bio force field made her immortal or at the very lest very long lived. And why they wanted Rachael was to get Star to come to them and if she didn't they had heard Star talking in her sleep saying some thing about the fact that her sister didn't need her healing power because she had her own healing factor similar to wolverine's and the F.O.H. wanted them for the same reason, and he didn't know were they took Star.
Xander told Batman why they had shown up like they did, Batman said he would let Xavier know about Star and who had shot Sabertooth.
It was an hour latter before Xander and Rachael could leave, with the cops showing up to take Toad in and the reports trying to find out what had happened.
In the office of the man who the F.O.H. thugs had reported to in New York City, the phone rang, the name on the desk said Grayson Creed.
"Report."
"Sir we have the Signal from the Kawalsky girls purse, its in Bludhaven."
"Did you get her?"
"No sir by the time our people got to her the place was swarming with cops and reporters."
The girl?
"Not there sir, but her sister and the guy from the hotel was there and according to the rumors they helped Batman take down some vamps and captured the mutant scum Toad."
Do we have a name for the man helping the sister?
"The papers are calling him the Shadow."
"Were are they now?"
"When they disappeared a few minutes ago the signal stopped for a second then reappeared in Chicago. We believe that the man is teleporter sir."
"Keep me informed."
Latter Batman picked up a phone and hit speed dial.
"Hello Bruce how can I help you."
"Hello Charles I'm calling about one of your former students a Star Charlene Kawalsky, she was kidnapped slightly over three hours ago."
"Do you know by who."
Bruce told Xavier what had happened over the last week.
"And this Alexander Harris he was the one that shot Sabertooth in central park?"
"That what he told me why?"
"I have been tracking a low powered mutant since the end of May, I pick him up in Oxnard and since the 10th of June he disappears during the day and he seems to jump around like a teleporter from time to time what can you tell me about him."
"He grew up in Sunnydale California."
"Well that explains why we never picked him up on Cerebio before; the hellmouth energies masked him from the rest of the mutant world."
"According to Nick and Horace, since the age of 15 he has been hanging out with the slayer and helping her, in the process he was possessed by an animal spirit, a hyena and the ghost of a special forces soldier, a Air Force Major working at the Star Gate Command, and it was the two processions that allowed him to survive being turned by a Vampire in Oxnard on the 10th of June, besides his vampire abilities he can take the shape of a hyena and shadow walk and why you don't pick him up during the day is that he is in a coma during the daylight."
"Well that explains a few things, thanks Bruce, I'll let the X-Men know about Starfire being kidnapped, you know your great-granddaughter would like a visit by her favorite grandfather you know."
"Tell her that I'll be in New York this weekend and I'll come by to see how her grades are."
"Oh she just love that good by Bruce see you in a couple of days."
"Good by Charles."
Chapter Five
Still 07 July 99
Xander and Rachael stayed in Chicago long enough for Rachael to get something to eat at an all night dinner and then they sat on the roof of the Daily Planet for a few minutes so the F.O.H. people could get a lock on them then they did the same on the roof of the Talon, in Smallville, during the hole time they talked about their lives an what they were and the strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, they stopped at the grave site of Charles Kawalsky, where Rachael put some flowers on the grave. Xander showed her some of the best scenery to be seen under noon light in the Grand Canyon and Zion national park, after that Xander took her to his place in Henderson and spent and hour hitting the slot machines in Vegas, then at last they were standing on the second floor of the Bronze in Sunnydale, after a quick spot at the Harris home to plant the bug from Stars purse, they were now looking down on the die hard partiers who were still out at three in the morning Pacific time, when Xander felt a small strong hand on his sholder. When Xander turned and saw who was behind him he about fainted.
"Hey Buffy what are you doing up so late?"
"Oh I had some thinking to do, since I saw my Xander shaped friend who was suppose to be in New York on his great road trip, step out of a shadow and drop some bloody clothes into the dumpster out back about four hours ago."
Buffy turned to Rachael.
"Hi I'm Buffy Summers and you are?"
"Rachael Kawalsky and I've only been a friend of Xander for said Four hours."
During Xanders panic attack, his senses were saying that something was off with Buffy, even thou he could hear her heart beat, it was to slow and a sixth sense told him that he was standing by a master vampire a very old and powerful, souled vampire with a capitol M.
Now that Buffy was close to the two she could smell the quickening on Rachael and knew she was less than a decade old immortal and that Xander was only a month old vampire but definitely not a fledgling or a minion, even at a month old he had the presents and power of a master vampire, roughly 500 years old. / Way to go Xander/
"Xander"
"Yea Buff"
"You have some explaining to do."
"So do you Buffy."