Author: Tohonomike Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners...it will start off with the Joss/ME characters, and any other characters or real-life folks are clearly not mine. NO money is involved. None are mine.
Another week passed, and the day before Xander had noticed Buffy moving back into her mom's house. Brother Marcus after pouring out everything he could remember on the subject of Glorificus and the Key, which wasn't much, surprisingly proved quite adept on computers. Xander put him to work researching on the Internet for any and all references while training ever more intensively himself, meditating and reaching within the memories not originally his own for possible solutions.
"Marcus, we've been at this for the week you've been up, and I was so desperate I even read all that weird reflection rites stuff," Xander shook his head as they ate an early dinner and went through the raw data, "And we're not much further along than when we started. We have a hell goddess that is like a super slayer, but insane. She doesn't seem to have any magic that she uses; it's all muscle. She's not human, but seems to be putting off a big magic signature. Is her human body a host, or a physical shell like an orb of thessula? Is she like the Key? Created to hold something and the body is a connection?"
"The Key is what it appears, now, though thanks to you I've filled out the computerized records on her better," Marcus replied, "But tied to that form and soul, is the core energy itself, so if the Beast is the same, then separating might be either a very good idea, or a very bad idea."
"What do you mean, Marcus?"
"Well, my friend, we might be saving all of the dimensions, but lose this world if her energy is big enough to open the Hellmouth."
"Like an atomic bomb that lets Hell on Earth," Xander sighed, "But what if we could lure her to an island? Then it would only be ourselves that might be in danger."
"Ah, you understand, good, but we'd have to get her there. But what if she doesn't count as a soul? How else might we eliminate her if we can't separate her?"
"Could we use the Dagon Sphere you told me about to contain her in it as energy? So even if she'd not a 'soul' if she can't hit us, she can't hurt the girl."
"It would take research, Xander, but it should be able to do it, but what do we do with the sphere?"
"If we had the money, I'd spend it to have the sphere launched into space at the sun," Xander sighed, then had an idea, "Hey, if the Key opens the path to other dimensions, or in this case all of them, does it exist in all of them?"
"I don't know, but if we could tap her energy to create a portal, maybe we could push the Beast through it and have done with it."
"Wait a minute, Marcus, there was a portal to a Hell dimension in Los Angeles, but I don't know if it can be activated…"
"Ah, a very good idea, my friend, and we hopefully wouldn't need the Key for that."
"I don't like endangering children…"
"And that is what she is, Xander, even though she is the Key, she is a human child."
"What is her name, by the way? And how many people actually know her?"
"I honestly don't know the name. The spell was a modification of a spell we found that called on Chaos magic, but we combined it with one giving form to the energy of the Key for containment. And with the power of the Key, it changed the minds of any who would have been affected within two degrees of separation. Except you for some reason."
"Well, like I told you before, I'm still guessing that since the spell Alexander cast was just about the same time as yours, I was close enough to the casting, and genetically near-identical to the caster, that your spell probably just rolled around us as ours moved passed yours, two types of divine magics not interfering with each other."
"I know, we've been through this, and I wouldn't be alive and we wouldn't have progressed at all if it were otherwise. I merely believe that if we know more about that moment, we might have a better answer than we do now."
"Well Marcus, I think we'll finally head over to the Magic Box and discuss this with Rupert, then see if he has any research materials that would prove helpful."
"How is your magical training coming along?"
"I think as of today I'm finished with what I can do without becoming one of them and that isn't going to happen," Xander replied, "So I might charge some amulets in the next couple of weeks, things that will help the others and yourself to avoid being squished by Glorificus if we run into her, and boost if I start to run low on energy."
"Yes, I'm not comfortable with most magic, but I vote against the squishing," Marcus joked, "Should I wear the clothes and hat you gave me? I do not want to attract the attention of the Beast."
"Yeah, go change, I'll get ready and we'll head over now, I have my…outfit ready, I'm surprised the Count had that kind of humor."
The car headlights turned off down the street from the Magic Box; he was surprised at the ominous quiet that seemed to pervade the area so early in the evening. Looking toward the store, he saw three demons head into the store, a group of six vampires watching and moving in as this happened. Alighting from the car, he turned and asked Marcus, "Can you drive?"
"Yes I can actually," the monk blushed, "As a boy in Prague I wanted to either race cars or fight evil."
"Now you can do both," Xander smiled as he activated the stealthy mist spell he'd learned quite well.
As he reached the vampires about to enter the store right behind Tara, Xander pulled out a long elegant silvery sword from his sheathe, and smiled as the soulless monsters sensed something off, but not quite.
The sword slashed at full strength, causing the undead to react in shock as the impossibly sharp instrument of death sliced through two necks before cleaving two-thirds of the way through a vamp the mass of an NFL linebacker before it was halted by chains it wore criss-cross over its torso.
Xander laughed, whirled in the direction of the swords path and caused the weapon to spin around and behind him to finish off the large bloodsucker. Inside, the other three relatively young nearly fled into the magic shop, pushing Tara aside as she warns Buffy. Xander walks in to the shop as a camper of hicks pull up next to the just-arriving Marcus.
Buffy struggles with her demon, the vampires turning toward the door as Xander lets his cloaking to fade into mist and reveal him as he drops the spell as he ends one of the three vampires. Pausing to offer Tara a hand up, he smirked large, the overall image he presented awing the vampires.
Buffy was grabbed by a second demon, as Willow, Dawn and Giles kept throwing things at a third. Summoning up his telempathy with as much force as possible, he turned toward the vampires.
"Leave," he ordered, pushing as much fear as possible behind his words.
Forward he moved, stabbing the single outnumbered demon in the throat and twisting as he pulled away toward the Lei-Ach demons that while lifting the slayer up to prevent her from using her superior strength and speed, did not have any idea what now they faced in the immaculately if antiquatedly dressed humanoid in front of them that ordered vampires. Large, flowing cape with red lining, a red-lapeled gentleman's coat and a gold-trimmed black vest, tight black pants and high black boots, the blacks as deep as moonless midnight and the reds the scarlets and highlights of blood itself. The very image of a Prince of Darkness, the cold stare promising death.
author's note: he looks like the Dracula from Castlevania
"Ah, Slayer, we meet anew, and I tell you this, for the price of a kiss I shall rid you of these two as well as the soulless ones."
"How do I know you won't turn on us when they're out of the way?"
"I give my word as a Scooby on the sacred Hostess, Buff," Xander smirked and using his hyena speed as Buffy looked shocked, stabbed the one on her right directly in the throat, then repeating his move with the vampires outside shouted "Duck Buffy!" and whirled three hundred sixty degrees for a double decapitation that ended the immediate threats.
The Maclays stared in disbelief, and Marcus quietly walks in and sits down at the research table.
"What in god's name were all those things?" Mr. Maclay.
"Lei-Ach demons and vampires," Xander replied, graciously offering a hand up to Buffy, "Lady Summers, good evening to you." He kissed her hand like he'd seen done in movies, "And thus your debt is paid."
"I don't understand," Maclay responded, Tara looking guilty.
"I'm not sure I do either," Buffy replied, looking at Tara.
"I'm s-s-so sorry," Tara answered, starting to cry "I was, I was trying to hide." Willow comes forward and kneels by Tara.
"I didn't want you to see what I am," Tara almost whispered.
"What do you mean, what you are?" Buffy asked, "Please explain."
"Demon," Maclay answers when Tara doesn't, "The women in our family...have demon in them. Her mother had it. That's where the magic comes from. We came to take her home before...well, before things like this started happening."
"Ah," Giles nodded at Tara, "You cast a spell on us, to keep us from seeing your demon side. That's why we couldn't see our attackers."
"Nearly got us killed," Buffy responds looking at Dawn.
"I'll go," Tara said quietly, "I'm very sorry."
"Wait! Go?" Willow says in confusion, "I, she just did a spell that went wrong. It-it was just a mistake."
"That's not the point and it's not your concern," Mr. Maclay tells Willow, making the mistake of pointing in her face, "She belongs with us. We know how to control her ... problem."
"I'm bored," Xander feigns melodramatically, stepping forward. He turns to Tara, having had time to thoroughly compare the hicks with his own dead beat relatives, and the controlling look in the father's eyes, "Tara do you want to go?"
"No," she said quietly, Maclay about to say something when Xander grabbed the man's pointing finger.
"I should break this, since you could have hurt my Willow," Xander told the loser, "So I'm only going to say this once." Everyone in the room but the hicks felt the magic channel as Xander readied his telempathy, and looked at the Maclay family. "Leave forever."
"Whew! Ya know, Tara, I never realized how much the mojo takes it out of you," Xander remarked to the girl next to him, "And that's the first time I've actually tried that on so many people. So what was so special about today they wanted to take you away?"
"M-my birthday," she said.
"Really? Mine too, does scaring away the bad family members count as a present?"
"Yes sir."
"Sir?" he responded, looking confused. He heard Marcus clear his throat.
"You still have the spell going, Xander," the monk told him, causing an embarrassed look to appear on the face of the 'Dark Prince.'
"Oops," he smiled, dropping the glamour that made him look different, but the clothes still fit quite well. The Scoobies gasped, except for a still-wary Buffy, "Hey Buff, what's with the threatening pose?"
"You don't feel like Xander," she stated, but didn't attack, "Who are you?"
"I'm Xander Harris, and I'm not commenting on what you feel."
"You know what I mean!"
"Okay, why don't we lock the front door, sit down, you tell us all how I feel, and the brainiacs can guess? Oh, by the way, this is Marcus, I saved him while you were fighting at the warehouse."
"That was you!" Buffy exclaimed, "How? I never saw you, then he was gone."
"Let's go through twenty questions, and then Marcus and I need to discuss that with you and Giles. Giles?"
"B-Buffy, once he is seated, we'll all sit and discuss this, as we do know Alexander has moved into the castle."
"Okay, Buff, now that you're not threatening me, how do I feel?"
"You feel like Faith…or Willow…"
"I feel like a hot babe, no wonder my dating history sucks."
"No, I mean like a Slayer or a Witch…"
"So, you see me, a slayer, a witch…how about a guy with an earring singing in a coffee shop?"
"Oh! That would be Giles!" Willow smiled as she guessed, then frowned, "What else?"
"Okay, that all adds up to one thing…"
"Th-the unity spell?" Tara guessed, receiving a big smile and nod from Xander.
"That's part of it, but why don't you think back to what you saw up in the mountains, and add that…"
"Why don't you just tell us, Xander?" Giles asked, "And save us a lot of trouble?"
"I want you to understand, but not simply fly off the handle and go 'oh, bad guy, slay him,' Buffy," Xander smiled with disbelief, "'Cause if you figure it out in pieces, and we talk about it, it won't be as overwhelming. So, mountain me?"
"Xander told me that he'd gotten all of the soldier memories back," Buffy quietly recalled, "and all the benefits of being the Hyena."
"Eep!" Willow squealed, flashing back to that bad moment between her and Xander.
"Relax, the spirit itself isn't here, Wills," Xander sincerely told her, "And I'm sorry for the way it treated you. Okay, we have Hyena, Soldier, Unity, and a guy with links to bats."
"Bats?" Buffy asked, "links to Dracula?"
"Ah, my favorite slayer, remember that you and I were both linked to the master, I mean Dracula, and I had the unity link with you, so when this all happened, I got a double-whammy of Dracula's whatever," Xander lectured, polishing a ring as though he were polishing glasses like Giles, which Dawn noticed.
"Hey, you're acting like Giles!" she said pointing at the two men.
"I seem to have picked up his mental framework for dealing with this stuff, and actually like reading," Xander admitted, "He was the mind in the spell after all…"
"And your strength comes from the slayer?" Giles asked, "Or the hyena?"
"Well, I think the hyena, mostly because the slayer stuff kinda kicked the butt of all the vampire stuff?" Xander considered with a nod, then seeing waiting looks, continued, "You see, we're talking about mystic links, revived magics from faded but not eliminated states, and through the unity spell I have my link to the world of Vamp Willow."
"Eep," Willow squeaked a little softer and controlled, blushing red at the experience of dealing with her other self.
"But that's an alternate reality, isn't it Xander?"
"No, because I have some really disgusting but luckily way faded memories as being Vamp Xander. Remember, I got a lot of this from Anya, but she was wrong about the alternate. If it were, she would have been stranded, in that universe. Cordelia was already dead, and where was the alternate Cordelia? And Anya's spell with Willow was reaching through the fabric of time for the necklace. Anyway, so I have two links to Dracula, a link to Vampire Me, a Unity spell link through Willow to Vampire Me because of Vampire Willow."
"So what's the slayer got to do with that?" Dawn interrupted.
"Good question, the slayer slays vampires, and so it went after the mythic vampire links as they were starting with the boosting, but since all the vampires in question were sired as master-levels by The Master, or in Dracula's case, were centuries old, I'm able to wield most of the magic spells of the Dark Prince, but due to the slayer and hyena, I'm drawing from my own reserves, not demonic ones."
"Wow, so what magic can you do?" Willow asked.
"I can do most of what Dracula's publicists seem to say he can do, though I can't fly up on top of buildings yet," he admitted, "And as you saw, I'm able to transfer some energies into boosting the body's own capabilities."
"I must caution you on the use of darker magics, Xander, they can overwhelm you," Giles responded, sounding like a confession, "Do be careful."
"Oh, they're more like innate capabilities, Giles, once cast, at least here on the Hellmouth, it takes almost no energy to maintain," Xander also admitted, then with a serious look turned to Willow, "Wills, because of the mystic links, and because your first real spell was a soul curse, you really need to concentrate on discipline and avoiding the automatic use of magic; on the Hellmouth, you'll become addicted to the dark magics without even noticing it, and I can feel them bending towards you more than the rest of us."
"What? I'm careful…"
"You need to be really careful, and if I learn magic beyond the type I use now, I will need to be equally careful, and most importantly, Tara doesn't want to lose her Willow."
"Oh, yeah," she smiled at Tara, "If Tara will help?"
"Of course I will," the girl agreed, then began the questions, "So what else did you get from the unity?"
"Not a lot, I'm a solid back up for Willow, Buffy and Giles, but I don't have the memories, though I have excellent ability in Romany, Latin, British English, French, Turkish, Russian, Italian and German, though other than Romany the accents are flat. I'm guessing from Dracula, but it seems to carry Giles overtones, which makes me feel better about it. And I seem to like wearing these clothes, or at least a better class of darker attire."
How did this come about, Xander?" Giles finally asked the question.
"A messenger of the Aesir dropped by and cast a Blessing to redress the balance between Natural and Unnatural energies, and I was at the epicenter. So, with a spell reclaiming or restoring I got the bonus prize."
"Good Heavens."
"Yeah, so I finally caught a break, and have been working at since that night, and have mostly figured it out," Xander said, mainly to Giles, "But in spite of what I've told you, it is almost entirely based on my own anecdotal experience."
"And now you talk like Giles," Dawn stated, shaking her head.
"So am I tentatively accepted as to my identity and current non-hostility, G-Man?"
"Except for that last comment, I suppose we shall."
"Um, were you all taking Tara somewhere for her birthday?" Xander asked.
"Yeah, the Bronze," Willow said, "Why?"
"I'm going to suggest that Marcus and I have our talk with Giles and Buffy while the rest of you go on ahead. Don't worry, they'll be along in just a few minutes."
"You're not coming?" Willow asked.
"I want you to be comfortable with who I am, not who you used to think I was."
"Oh," Willow considered, not quite sure of the second part of the remark.
"I-I think you should be there," Tara suggested, then add quietly, "You said it didn't matter if I'm part demon."
"You don't smell anything but human, Tara, though that strawberry citrus hair conditioner makes my brain smile. Right Buff?"
"Yeah, his brain is smiling, I can see it from here," the blonde slayer smiled as she took an exaggerated look in his ear.
"Ah, a palpable hit," Xander smiled, then turned back to Tara, "Thank you for the invitation, we'll see after this discussion whether I'll be able to make it. But, Buff, I meant if you focus your slayer senses on Tara, do you get any kind of demony vibe?"
"No, so either there isn't any, or it's so little it doesn't matter anymore."
"Okay everybody, let's get to it."
