Disclaimer in Chapter One - Time to Suit Up!
Author's Notes: This chapter was gonna be much longer but I decided to split it into two. Hopefully I will get the next part up in a few days. Not many questions answered in this one, look for those in the second part.
Enjoy.
Buffy stared, her own body aching, at Xander's prone body on the ground.
'Where had that come from?' she thought as she gingerly stepped closer.
The Slayer checked his pulse, followed by his breathing. Both seemed normal to her, except... He was cold. His body temperature was dropping, his shoulders and arms starting to shiver. She took her coat off; her body gave a protest as she removed it from her bruised form and put it over him. The small garment didn't fit him but seemed to help as his shivering subsided slightly. Then she noticed his hands again. They were glowing, softly pulsing every now and then, it looked warm and yet cold all at the same time. She reached out to touch one of them, lifting his hand up to get a better look.
The leather gloves he wore were fading in and out of sight on his hands, one second, black leather and white fingertips, then they would fade for a few seconds and white flesh with bloodied and cut knuckles appeared. On closer inspection of the cuts the Slayer could see three sharp, metal, knifelike things poking out a few millimetres from his flesh. As she watched they slowly began to grow between his knuckles, finally stopping about an inch long.
"And I thought weird things only happened to him in Sunnydale!" Buffy sighed with a whimper.
She patted her friends head, his skin was almost ice cold to the touch. Frowning to herself she picked him up into a fireman's carry, her battered body easily supporting him as she let out a groan at his weight. He was heavier then he looked, her Slayer strength accommodating for his surprising build.
"I was only joking when I said you were 'soft around the middle', augh."
Everything was covered in snow; they thought it would mask their trail. He ignored the cold as he ran. He had lost the feeling in his feet four miles ago when he had cut through the small stream following their scent. He laughed bitterly to himself and sniffed the air. There, to the right! He was closing in on them, and they had no idea. No idea what they had unleashed. There was a reason he was named after an animal that's ferocity and strength were know to take down prey several times larger than themselves.
What else could you call him?
Bounding from foot to hand and back again he ran like the animal he was deep down. They had used him. Left him for dead. No one did that, no one! They would pay for what they did. He could see it in his mind, he could see the blood, he could smell it, taste it. He couldn't wait to let his claws rip into them.
To tear them apart...
To hear the pop and squish as he separated limbs from sockets.
He heard them before he saw them. A light was up ahead. He slowed, loping on all fours and then crouching as he neared his prey. He stopped; his foot falls would alert them before he wanted them to.
He hid behind a grouping of trees watching them. He stifled a laugh; they had built a fire, no doubt for warmth. The fire would be their undoing. But one question remained... How could he get the surprise on them without them knowing? He looked about himself before finally looking up.
He smiled, his claws unsheathing from his knuckles slowly, the action muffling the usual sound they made. He only extended an inch on each hand before punching his fist into the tree before him.
He climbed.
He climbed to find a perch above their makeshift camp, a perch he could launch his flying clawed death on the bastards that had turned him into a Weapon.
A Weapon... X.
The first thing Xander knew, he was cold.
The second thing, he was moving.
The third?
Buffy was driving.
His eye shot open and he sat up with a gasp of breath. Buffy, startled from his sudden movement, swerved the car, narrowly missing oncoming traffic. He regretted startling her as his whole body seemed to register complaints from the sudden jerky momentum of the car.
"Whoa!" Buffy yelled as she moved the car back into their lane. "You're awake. You're awake."
"Yeah, I'm awake..." Xander agreed with a groan. "Not so loud, I've got a hangover that feels like I married it, had a litter of little hangover children and they all decided to jump up and down on my brain demanding I get up and make them all chocolate chip pancakes... Except for the youngest who's demanding to know what's under my eye patch by poking it with his tiny little fingers."
"You scared me Xander!" Buffy yelled again, Xander winced. "What the hell was that? How did you do that with your hands? The glowy thing and the blood..."
"Glowy thing? Blood?" he looked at his hands. They seemed normal. Flesh covered, pinkish white, not as calloused as he had gotten use to over the years, but that's what happens when you don't work with wood for almost eight months.
And yet...
Something was at the back of his mind... What was it? Blood? That had been there, a lot of it.
And snow.
Blood, snow and... And claws?
"Since when do you have powers?" Buffy interrupted his thoughts. "Did you summon a demon? Have you made a pact with a devil?"
Xander rubbed his temples trying to clear his head. "Yeah Buff, I have. I'm in commune with the beast... I lay with the dark one..."
"Xander!" Buffy shouted followed by a sharp turn around a corner and into the street that housed the place they now called home. "This is serious!"
"So's this Hangover!" He groaned again as the car turned once more, this time into the driveway of their house. "Now it feels like the Hangover children are whining cos there's no chocolate for the Pancakes... And the littlest one is still poking at my eye patch!" he rubbed the patch with the back of his hand.
The car came to a screeching halt in front of the garage and Buffy turned to face Xander. Her eyes went wide and she jerked his hand away from his face.
"Ugh, what'd you do that for?" he whined then gasped as Buffy increased her grip on his wrist.
"Keep your hands away from your face." Buffy warned, releasing him.
"What? Why?" he looked at her confused.
The look didn't last as he registered Buffy's face, her lip was split, the bleeding having long stopped, a large scratch that ran from her right cheek to just below her ear was a dull red, turning purple with bruising and her left eye was purple and blue in an almost comical parody of his own eye patched face.
"Your face!"
"Never mind my face, that will be healed by morning, I'm more worried about your hands!" She snapped.
"Why?" He reached out to touch her bruised cheek.
Buffy flinched away from his touch. "Because five minutes ago you had blood covered metal spikes about an inch long poking out of your knuckles, that's why..." She grabbed his hand and raised it up between them.
Xander stared at her, then his hand, his confused look returning. "What? Spikes...?" he shook his head, and then stopped himself as his world went spinning before his eye. "Whoa... The Hangover kids do not like that!"
"Just keep your hands in your pockets," she said releasing her grip and getting out of the car. Xander grumbled to himself before he too got out of the car and followed the Slayer into the house. "Couch, sit, now!" she instructed, taking their coats and throwing them into the corner of the room while running for the telephone.
"Yes ma'am!" he mocked saluted with a gloved hand and then fell back onto the couch. As she left to get the phone he began to rub his eye patch again. It felt like that little kid was now scratching at the old wound and all the while his arms felt like all the other hangover children were hanging off of them.
"And keep your hands away from your head!" shouted Buffy from the other room, "Hands at your side!"
Xander groaned letting his arms fall at his sides. He then noticed his hands again. 'What a sec, I wasn't wearing these a second ago...?' He looked at his now gloved hands.
"Huh..." He let out before his head fell back against the headrest and his eye closed as his world drew dark again...
She typed feverishly, the only sound in her bedroom was the sound of her keyboard as she tried to cast and code as fast as she could. She was rusty. There was a time when she could hack her way from the Sunnydale Memorial Hospital's Morgue to the Sunnydale Water and Power and still have enough time to try a back door into the National Power Grid. Now she could barely keep her digital bones cast in the right servers. But she wasn't beat. She would retrain herself; the Coven would show her the way.
She was so engrossed in her task that she practically jumped out of her chair when her cell phone began to ring. She sighed and saved the program she was writing and picked up her cell phone, reading the caller ID. She frowned when she read 'Cleveland House'
"Buffy?" Willow asked after she flipped her phone open.
"Something's happened!" Buffy almost yelled down the phone.
"What? What's wrong?" Willow gasped standing quickly, ready for anything.
"It's Xander," The Slayer began quickly. "We were on our first patrol, there were a group of Vamps, and then there was a fight and Xander made the devil horns with his hands and there was this white stuff and then some pink stuff and there were bright lights..."
"Oh. My. Goddess!" Willow gasped, cutting Buffy off. "Did you have sex with Xander?" she whispered into the phone and sat down on her bed. "No, don't tell me... No, tell me..." She paused to let Buffy speak before cutting her off again. "No, don't! OK, tell me... No... Yes! No, don't... No, yes, yes tell me, was he good? I bet he was good! Anya always went on and on about him being good..." Willow relaxed on the bed, laying back and spreading out as she prepared to hear of Buffy's exploits. "Wait, you said he made the devil horns with his hands? Ewww, he didn't do that as he was finishing, did he?"
"Willow!" Buffy did yell down the phone this time. "Something happened. He did something with his hands-"
"I bet he did..." Willow smiled, mischief dripping from her voice.
"No, he dusted three Vamps with his hands. There was no sex! One second he was being held by this girl Vamp in a headlock, the next he was shooting this white stuff from his wrists, pulling the vamps off their feet, yelling something like 'Fireon' and his hand caught fire and he was punching and throwing Vamps into headstones."
"What?" Willow sat up shocked as she listened to what her friend had done.
"Then he grabbed one of the Vamps by the neck, lifted it up off the ground and the Vamps head started to glow pink and he threw it with this Rock looking arm and told me to get down and the Vamp's head exploded and dusted them both..."
"W-what?"
"When I got to him his hands were covered in these red gauntlets and his palms were glowing, he yelled and two bright beams shot from them... And, and... He collapsed and he was cold, but then he woke up in the car and his hands... His hands were..." Buffy finished, stopping to catching her breath.
Willow was about to let her continue when a loud crash of breaking furniture came down the phone.
"Buffy! What was that?" she stood up, not sure what she could do, only knowing that she should stand and be ready.
"I... I think it was..." Buffy said into the phone before her voice became distant.
"Buffy? Buffy!" Willow called down the phone.
Everyone was looking at him.
Everyone.
People shifted out of his way, the ground shook with each of his footfalls as he walked along the sidewalk. He stopped at the curb, waiting for the light to turn green. He grumbled a little to himself. The man next to him who was dressed in a suit and tie and holding a briefcase, gave him a quick glance before turning quickly to the walk button, pressing it repeatedly, over and over again, willing the lights to change.
People were still looking at him.
He sighed and turned from the curb, maybe he would just walk up the block a bit instead of crossing it. Everyone shifted again, making way for his large bulk. It was like there was an invisible force field around him, he took one step forward, and everyone else took three steps back.
At least they had stopped pointing their camera phones at him.
It had been almost six months since the accident that had changed everything. Changed him... But he had to look at the bright side, he was finally allowed out in the city by himself. All those months had been full of tests and procedures, scans and probes, poking and prodding, body and ability mapping... Sure, some of it was clobbering Mole people, fighting techno bugs, battling aliens, and defeating crazy ass psycho ladies, but all of that didn't matter, he was out!
And he was alone.
No security, no escort, nothing... He was free, free to stand in the sun and enjoy the outdoors. Or at least as much as one can in New York City. He had forgotten the feeling of the sun on his skin in those long months of quarantine. He paused in his walking to close his eyes and feel the sun on his skin now. He got very little warmth from it. He could feel it, it was there, but it didn't warm him like it use to. He looked down at his orange arm and moved it back and forth from shadow to sunlight. They felt the same on his rocky exterior, the sunlight only slightly different then the shadow, but not by much.
He turned from the sun and caught his reflection in a department store window. He still wasn't used to seeing himself this large and alien. When you lose what makes you, you, it kind of stops you from wanting to see your reflection. He moved closer to the glass staring into his own blue eyes. They looked normal, they weren't changed, they were human, and they were his. He leaned his head against the glass of the window and closed his eyes as they began to water. He sighed and raised a large four fingered fist up against the window as a tear fell down his rocky face.
"I'm in there, somewhere, right?" he asked no one, opening his eyes again. As if to answer, a large crack formed across the glass of the window from where his forehead was leaning. It spread quickly to where his hand rested, the fracture looking like a sharp angled spiders web. "Uh-oh..."
The glass gave way with an almighty crash, shards shattering into tiny pieces as they fell against his rocky bulk. The sudden displacement of the window meant his new body's balance was thrown and he fell forward, into and through the store front window display, through the brick and mortar frame of the wall and several inches into the concrete foundation and sidewalk.
He was consumed by dust and rubble in his newfound position inside the demolished window display. He rubbed his eyes and began to cough and splutter in surprise as he looked at the destruction he had caused. A few bricks fell every now and then, a couple exploded as they fell on his head and shoulders, the red masonry no match for his orange rocky frame.
As the dust cleared he finally noticed them.
They were doing it again.
Looking...
Staring...
People in the street had gathered in a circle around him, watching him, the 'Thing', as he looked bewildered at his current predicament. Some looked horrified, others laughed while pointing and taking pictures with their cell phones. He tried to stand, his footing slipping in the pile of bricks, rocks and mortar, forcing him back down to the ground with a large boom.
More laughter came, some shrieks of terror and even more clicks of pictures being taken. He closed his eyes, shame and anger filling him before he turned on the gathering crowd.
"What the hell are youse all looking at?" he bellowed in a large gruff voice that seemed to carry for several city blocks.
No one looked at him after that. They were all too busy running away or calling the cops.
He sighed and slowly stood, shifting debris as he got to his feet. With another sigh he dusted himself off and continued to walk, this time back to the Baxter Building, trying not to let the tears come.
He was a freak...
A monster...
The tears came anyway.
The phone hung limply at Buffy's side as she looked at Xander's prone body, her mouth agape. It had happened again. His hands had changed; they were no longer his, no longer normal. They were bigger, about the size of his head; five fingers had become four, orange and made from some kind of rock. But it didn't stop at his hands. The orange rock had encased both of his forearms and ended in two large sharp points at his elbows.
He was passed out again, both of his arms at his sides; the couch, broken around him. His prone body laying half on the floor, half on what were the remains of the couch. Padding and wood pierced the fabric of the destroyed three seat couch.
"Buffy!" Willows voice shouted from the small speaker of the phone. "What happened? Is it Xander? Buffy!"
Buffy ignored the phone, the handset hanging loosely in her hand as she took a step towards Xander. He didn't move, didn't respond as she took another step closer and knelt down next to him.
"Xand?" Buffy placed a hand on the man's chest, shaking him gently.
" 'm a Freak..." he mumbled in a deep huff, a tear moving down his face.
"BUFFY!" Willow screamed from the phone.
Buffy's eyes quickly darted from Xander to the phone forgotten in her hand and raised it to her ear. "I'm here, I'm here!" she gasped into the receiver.
"What happened? Is it Xander?"
"Yeah... It's..." Buffy began, not sure what to say. "He's... He's passed out again, but... His arms are covered with this orange rock like stuff," she told her friend as she ran a hand over one of Xander's arms. "Only, this time he's warm... The Rock feels warm."
"What was the crashing sound?" Willow asked.
"Uh, well... That w-was the couch." Buffy looked at the demolished three seater. "He seems to have broken it."
"He broke it?"
"Yeah" Buffy frowned as she tried to pick up one of Xander's arms. "I think his arms were too heavy." she groaned as she struggled to lift the appendage with one hand.
"Have you contacted Giles?" Willow asked as Buffy heard her moving on the other end of the line.
"No, I thought Magicks before research." Buffy let go of his arm, the rock making a clunking noise against the wooden frame of the couch as it hit. "Because this is definitely magic based, not demon-y and there's no way he would be stupid enough to accidentally summon another demon..." she paused, Willow on the other end of the line stopped moving as she held her breath. "Maybe I should ring Giles."
"Yeah" Willow confirmed. "I can have the Coven packed and in the air in half an hour," Willow said into the phone. "We can be there in eight hours... Give or take a chant or two."
"Chant?" Buffy look puzzled at the handset.
"Technopagans, Buffy," Willow answered. "They make the concord look like a school bus when it comes to fast air travel."
"Oh... Yeah, ok." she turned back to Xander as he moaned slightly.
He moved, his arms slowly shrinking and turning pink, before mumbling " 'Mm ok Reed, really..." and rolled over onto his side, reaching out to a piece of the couch and tucking it under his head and clutching it to his shoulder like a pillow.
"Will?" Buffy asked into the phone.
"Yeah Buff?" Willow paused in her packing.
"Hurry."
This time he woke slowly, the dream fading a little as he rolled over onto his back, blinking a few times as he stared up at the ceiling above him. It was different. It didn't look like the ceiling of his bedroom. And the bed was hard and lumpy, as if the springs had ripped through.
He sat up quickly, finally realising where he was. He turned around and looked at the demolished couch and jumped to his feet, looking around for the thing that had trashed it. There was nothing there. He was alone. He rubbed his head as he had the sudden feeling that something was going on and he wasn't in the loop.
How had he gotten home?
The last thing he remembered was walking with Buffy in a cemetery, no, wait... They were in the car, she told him off, told him to be careful of his hands, something about spikes? He looked at his hands, they looked normal. But he remembered blood, bruises...
"Buffy!" he gasped, remembering her face. "Buffy?" he called out, running from the room and towards the kitchen.
"Xand?" Buffy called out in answer as he entered to find her sitting at the dinner table, phone clutched to her ear.
"Buff, what happened?" he asked, rubbing his head again.
The Slayer just gave him a worried look and turned back to the phone.
"He's awake," she told whoever she was talking to. "Ok... Yes... Just get there as quickly as possible," she said softly. "Yes... I'll try... Ok, we'll meet them there."
"Buffy?" Xander sat down next to his friend.
"Giles, I'm scared." Buffy said bluntly.
Xander looked at her quizzically.
"Ok... Thanks. See you when you get there." Buffy smiled and hung up.
"Ok Buff," Xander half smiled. "I got the Wiggins good and aplenty here, what's going on?" he asked as Buffy looked to him, then his hands, both clasped in front of him. "The last thing I remember we were in a cemetery, and there was a scream, then I'm running almost naked through a snow covered forest, then I'm in the car and you're driving and telling me to be careful of my hands, then I was walking through New York City and suddenly I wake up on the ground on top of a trashed couch... What's going on?" he asked with a pleading eye.
Buffy just stared at him, biting her lower lip, the cut she received earlier that night was almost healed, as she thought what she should tell her friend.
"Oh crap, I didn't make us go out for a celebratory drink after our first patrol back? Did I?"
"No..." Buffy finally said, standing.
"Then what happened?" Xander asked again.
"I'll tell you everything, I promise," Buffy said, putting an arm under Xander's and guided him to his feet. "Once we get to the New Magic Box…"
"But the Magic Box isn't finished…" he interrupted.
"Doesn't matter, some people are meeting us..." she said guiding her friend to the front door.
"People?" Xander asked as they grabbed their jackets. "Who?"
"People who can help," Buffy pushed him through the front door and towards the car.
"Help? Help with..." Xander began his speech turning into a mumble. "Wha...?"
Xander fell mid step, Buffy catching him; her Slayer reflexes the only thing that saved him from face planting into a flower box.
"Whoa!" Buffy called out as his dead weight fell into her arms. "Not again!" She almost growled.
With a grunt she shifted him onto her shoulder as she had done in the cemetery and moved him back to the car. If it wasn't her imagination, he almost seemed to weigh more than he did an hour ago. Opening the passenger door she lowered him into the seat, the car squeaking out a small groan as the suspension took his weight.
"Guess it's not my imagination then." She sighed as she ran to the driver's side and hopped into the car.
"Shooters loaded..." Xander mumbled as she turned the ignition.
Buffy turned to look at her friend as she noticed his breath cloud before him. She placed a hand on his forehead; his skin was cold to the touch again.
He landed on all fours, his fingers spread out on each hand as he steadied himself after jumping from thirty feet up. He remained crouching as he flipped his left wrist up, a small cartridge popping out of the small device strapped to it. With a small sigh he pushed a replacement cartridge into its slot and replaced his shirt and glove around his wrist. He was gonna have to figure out a way to either increase how much fluid the cartridges held or find a way to load some kind of magazine into his shooters if he didn't want to have to keep stopping every three hours or so to refill his webs.
"Maybe I could build some kind of speed loader I could wear on my waist," he said to himself standing to his full height.
The night wind moved around his body, his costume and mask fought back some of the wind's chill, but not all of it. The speed loader left his mind as the wind chill replaced it. Maybe he would rethink the blue and red tights. After all, he had never given much thought to what he would do when it got to winter and he had to deal with snow.
"Oh crap that's cold!" he gasped as he leapt from the building's rooftop and began to free fall through the night air. "I never even considered 'Shrinkage' in this thing... Maybe I should ask MJ if there's any noticeable shrinkage underneath the uniform... Or is that inappropriate to ask a girl you've only just started dating and made out with a few times?"
He extended his left arm in front of himself and pointed his wrist at a building.
"Man my life is weird!" He said before pressing his middle fingers to his palm...
*THWIP!*
The web hit the targeted water vain and went taut, carrying his weight as he held onto the thin thread, his body swinging down before he began to climb again. On instinct at the apex of his swing he extended his right arm and shot another web at the nearest building, letting go with his left hand and grabbing this new thread with his right.
"Maybe I can get Johnny to ask Reed to help me design an insulated suit for when it starts snowing." He thought aloud. "Cos this cold weather can't be good for the 'boys', or I guess for the whole Spider-'MAN' image."
This time instead of shooting another web he let go of his last thread and sailed through the night air and landed silently on a Water tower overlooking a group of police cars set up in a road block, their lights flashing as police officers stood with guns drawn, pointed at a lone gunman, a hostage under his arm.
"Guess it's time to go to work..." He smiled under his mask, shooting a web in front of himself and jumping from the tower.
She drove in silence, watching her friend from the corner of her eye as she made her way to the half-finished campus. She stopped the car at the entrance way, pausing to look out her window at the large sign Xander had insisted be installed. She was surprised as she read the inscription.
"Future site of 'The Joyce Summers School for Gifted Girls'?" she read the large letters of the sign that depicted an artist's rendering of the Main building along with a picture of a smiling Joyce holding her two daughters in a loving embrace. "I thought it was going to be called The Chosen Academy?" she half frowned before a small smile replaced it as she looked at her mom's warm, smiling face. She looked at Xander and shook him gently, trying to wake him and failing, at least he was warmer this time she touched him. "We're here Xand, time to see if all the planning was worth it."
It didn't take her long to find the new Magic Box; it was the only building which seemed the most finished, all the others she passed had either large scaffolding covering the outsides, no windows, no roof, or no walls, or just bare I-beams and framework. The other clue was the tall woman in glasses and a tweed jacket and skirt that stood outside with a rather stern look on her face and three women standing beside her along with a gurney.
"Ms Summers." the woman inclined her head in greeting as Buffy pulled up in front of them and quickly exited the car.
"Just Buffy" She threw over her shoulder as she moved to the passenger side.
The woman nodded to the other three women and they moved to open the door and retrieve Xander.
"Stop!" Buffy ordered the women, her tone heavy with authority. "I'll do it."
"Ms Summers, we were summoned here to help so the Coven and Mr Giles will have everything they need to help with whatever affliction Mr Harris may be suffering from."
"And I understand that Mrs…?" she paused trying to remember the woman's name.
"Mrs Elaine Dyson, we have met on many occasions…" Mrs Dyson sighed.
Buffy opened the car door and moved to pick Xander up. "Right, Mrs Dye."
"…Son" The woman corrected. "And I must insist you allow us to help."
Buffy froze and turned around to face the four women. "Are any of you Slayers, Mrs Dye?"
"No, I am a Watcher as you already know and these ladies are training mages and medical staff." Mrs Dyson sighed, crossing her arms.
"Didn't think so," Buffy looked up at the Watcher. "So unless you all have Super strength you're keeping to yourself, I'm gonna pick him up, whatever is happening to him he's getting heavier," she turned back and reached into the car.
"Oh…" Mrs Dyson stepped to the side so the women could move the gurney closer.
"He broke a couch back at the house and the car has been groaning the entire way here." Buffy put an arm under his legs and behind his back and lifted her friend with a groan and a slight strain. Just as she was standing up she heard a large, long 'RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPP'!
She froze for a second before turning and placing Xander on the offered gurney, the frame straining as it took his weight.
"What ripped?" one of the women asked.
Buffy turned back to the car to see a large patch of the chairs upholstery missing. "The-the seat…"
Mrs Dyson lifted up Xander's left hand, a large piece of the upholstery attached to his palm. As everyone stared she tried to remove the fabric, unsuccessfully.
"Get him inside," Mrs Dyson ordered. "Perform every test, Magical and Medical."
A/N 2: So, how did I do? More confused? Hopefully there is some relief coming in the next chapter. I will say my favourite thing about this chapter is my little dream sequence of Ben walking in NYC. It was one of the first things I wrote in this story and I especially like the last few lines of the dream.
Please Review and I'll try to get the next half up soon.
