XANDER HARRIS: EXECUTIONER 5
"Faith"
"Patrol!" yelled Oz, in a whisper-shout voice.
The others ducked behind tombstones and tombs, hiding from the probing search light of the Initiative hum-vee. Initiative forces were out in number, rumors of the impending arrival of Faith having all of Sunnydale in a panic. Free from the clutches of vampire rule for less than a day and already a new, vicious vamp was making to step in and retake control of the city.
Or, at least, the general populace thought that to be the case. Riley, though he had not reported it to his superiors, knew the same truth that the remaining members of the Scooby Gang did; that Faith was coming to Sunnydale for revenge.
Spike had virtually taken charge of the group in light of Xander's…regression, and had quickly organized them all into preparing for the night's battle. It was decided that it would be best to get it done and over with, Faith would only terrorize the town if they didn't, so they decided to at least give themselves the home field advantage. While Oz, Tara, Willow, and Spike prepared the Sunnydale Cemetery with a few surprises, Xander had gone and had a conference with Riley.
Riley had complete understood what Xander wanted, free reign for his group to battle Faith no matter what, but Commander Finn had had a problem with it. Weighing the decision through, Riley had agreed to do some finagling with the patrol schedule, giving the gang a two hour window in which the cemetery would be unmonitored. If Riley was as good as his word, then this would be the last patrol to pass by until midnight.
"Clear," reported Oz, the hum-vee turning onto a main road and speeding away.
"Okay, it's ten o'clock," started Xander. "We better hope that Faith shows up in the next ninety minutes. Well, maybe hope is too strong of a word."
"Xander," said Willow, in a mock-threatening voice.
"Bloody wuss," snarled Spike. "Look, just get her into the tomb and I'll do the rest. If she goes right after sissy boy here, then he can run screaming into my home and let me have a go at her."
"Sissy boy?" admonished Xander. "I'll have you know that I killed over two hundred and fifty vamps in the last ten years!"
"And where in the bloody hell is the Executioner now?"
Xander glared at him, his anger rising, but not reaching anything near the levels it once had. His drive, his desire to see the vampires destroyed, had faded in the hours after his slaying of Angelus, and his brief spiritual contact with Anya had cleansed the feelings from him completely.
"Oh, that's right," continued Spike. "I forgot. You made your peace."
"Hey, I can do this!" said Xander, jabbing a finger against Spike's chest. "There's a lot more to me than hatred."
"Xander," said Willow, softly. "There is a lot more to you than hatred, but that's all that there was to the Executioner."
"Then I say," he paused slightly, "we don't need him."
The others looked at him in silence, all them glad to have back with them the Xander of years past, the Xander that they had grown up with and had cared for. But though none other than Spike would say it, they wished deep down inside that the Executioner was there, at least for tonight.
"Right then," said Spike, rolling his eyes. "Let's get ready, the bitch'll be here any time."
Spike turned to head for his tomb, planing to lie in wait for the ex-slayer, and his ears picked up a swishing sound. He knew instantly what it was, and even from which direction it had come, but his reflexes weren't fast enough to react to it. A searing pain enveloped his senses, and he looked down at his chest in dismay, the shaft of the crossbow bolt sticking out directly where his heart was.
"Oh bloody hell," he managed to get out.
Spike blew apart in a cloud of dust, Tara screaming as he disintegrated right in front of her, buffeting her with grains of brown and grey matter. The others let outs gasps of shock and surprise, immediately scanning the area for the shooter that had so easily killed one of their members.
Faith stood atop Spike's very tomb, decked out in her black leather pants and vest, and sporting a white tee-shirt. Her hair was cut short, flat across the top and spiked up, and her eyes sparkled with a mix of hatred and lust that looked perfectly at home above her bright, red lips.
"You know," she said to the group as she tossed her crossbow aside, "I never knew why you guys kept him around. Even before he became the Slayer's pet."
Willow reacted first, whispering words of power as she went through the motion of throwing something, and a sparkling ball of red energy shot from her hand. Faith did a side flip from the roof of the tomb, hitting the edge of it on her hands and propelling herself to the ground to land on her feet. The magical missile hit the exact spot where Faith had been standing, blowing a hole in the tomb that was left glowing red hot and smoking.
From within the holds of her vest, Faith pulled out a compact machine-pistol and unleashed a short burst that stitched a trail of bloody holes across the transforming chest of Oz. Screaming out in pain, Oz was thrown backwards over a tombstone, hitting the ground fully human once again. He looked up into the night sky with empty eyes, and they knew that he was dead, his still chest covered with blood.
"Didn't know he was allergic to silver," said Faith, smiling cruelly.
Willow and Tara both unleashed their powers, tossing one magical blast after another at Faith, the vampire easily avoiding them with leaps, ducks, and rolls. The night kept giving way to flashes of red and blue, both of the Wiccas straining their abilities to the limit in an attempt to bring the vamp down.
The previous night's ordeal still affecting her, Willow was the first to falter, dropping to one knee as her body rejected channeling any more energies. Xander ran to help Willow up, and Tara was momentarily distracted, filled with concern over her weakened love.
Faith did not miss the opportunity.
Leaping with all of her strength, somersaulting in the air, Faith landed before the overwhelmed trio, a wooden stake in each hand. Faith thought it incredibly amusing that, now a vampire, she continued to use the tools of her former trade in any instance that she could, and the stakes were her favorite. With the strength of a Slayer, enhanced by her vampiric condition, she slammed one stake into Tara and the other into Willow, killing the two Wiccas almost instantly.
Xander stood frozen, his entire being numb from the slaughter he had just witnessed, terrified in the knowledge that even Angelus had not been as fast or as brutal as Faith had just been. In less than five minutes, she had killed the only friends he had had left, forcing him to experience the nightmare all over again.
Ten years ago the evil of Angelus had created the killing machine that came to be known as the Executioner. Tonight, less than a day after his death, the Executioner was reborn through the vile actions of Faith.
Once again it was too late to save his friends. Once again he had to live with the knowledge that he had failed them, letting them die at the hands of a vampire. Once again he pledged that he would not stop until the death of the dark creature. Once again, Harris the Executioner walked the face of the earth.
Harris's boot caught her below the chin, Faith's head snapping back from the kick that sent her flying into a tombstone almost ten feet away. The thick, marble epithet shattered from the impact, and Faith lay squirming in slight pain as Harris strode up to her with hatred once again burning in his eyes.
"I was wondering when you were going to join the party," quipped Faith, rising on one arm to look up at Xander. "Maybe now I can have some real fun."
Faith arched her back and pushed off with her hands, righting herself before the attacking Harris. She immediately lashed out at him with a series of swift strikes, Harris deftly countering each one of them and trying to get in a few of his own.
Smacks and thuds echoed through the air as they continually blocked each other's attacks, the battle seemingly almost a stalemate. Harris finally managed to get a hit in, sending Faith spinning to the ground, and leapt at her, hoping to snap her neck with a well placed kick.
Faith caught his foot, twisted and pushed, and Harris flipped backwards, landing at an odd angle. He went down to one knee with a sharp snapping sound, and pain lanced from his ankle all the way up his leg. He knew that it was broken, put he pushed the pain from his awareness, rising to meet Faith's challenge.
"Damn, but you're almost as good as she was," said Faith, facing him with an evil smile. "Tell you what. Let me make it quick, and you can be my new boy toy."
"I think I'd rather have your ashes on my mantle," replied Harris.
"Come on, Xandie. Don't you remember how much fun I can be?" she coyly asked him, slowly running her tongue over her lips. "We could rule this world, you and I. You'd like it a lot more than you think."
Harris had one shot at ending this, and he decided to take it now. A snap of his wrists and two stakes slid down the arms of his trench coat, his hands firmly wrapping around the finely honed pieces of wood. Pushing off with his good foot, he brought the stakes up, holding them together as he lunged at Faith.
She was not unprepared.
Moving with speed that amazed even Harris, Faith clasped both of the stakes in her hands, ripping the weapons from his grip and tossing them into the darkness. She then grabbed his hands and flipped him over her shoulder, slamming him onto a large, marble slab that cracked with the force of his impact.
Dazed, pains racking his body as his senses swam in a thick blackness, Harris grunted as Faith landed on top of him, straddling him like an excited lover. She pinned him there, her fangs gleaming brightly as she smiled, and she leaned down and kissed him passionately.
"Are you sure?" she asked, finally breaking the kiss.
Harris spit in her face.
Snarling with rage, Faith pulled another stake from her vest and drew her arm back in readiness to slam it down into Harris's chest.
"That was so the wrong thing to do," she said.
Elsewhere…
Buffy was thrilled to see Angel and Cordelia standing outside of Xander's room when she arrived, and it took the edge off the anxiety she was still feeling from having just hunted down and killed a demon. She hugged Angel in greeting, then Cordelia, bringing a smile to the trailing Spike's face in response to the friendly greeting she had only offered.
"What's he doing here?" asked Cordelia, pointing at Spike.
"He helped me find a demon," answered Buffy, holding up the blood filled vial. "Now, please tell me you can undo this…whatever it is."
Angel looked a bit apprehensive, and both Buffy and Spike knew him well enough to know that that was not a good thing.
"What?" demanded Buffy.
"Only Xander can break the curse," informed Angel.
"Curse?" asked Buffy, confused.
"It's not a bloody curse," quipped Spike. "The little Wicca screwed up a spell she was trying on sissy boy."
"A spell of enlightenment, yes I know," countered Angel. "Giles informed me of everything. Unfortunately, she centered the spell on the ring she had given him."
"The one that Giles gave her," stated Buffy.
"A ring of despair. Her magic reactivated it, and now Xander's living out his darkest wish, and it's killing him at the same time."
"But he can't wake up," Buffy nearly yelled. "How can he break the curse?"
"Wesley found a spell that will help us get to him," said Cordelia.
"Exactly," confirmed Angel. "Two of us can go join him, in this world that his mind's created."
"How in the bloody hell is that going to save him?" asked Spike. "I can't imagine there'd be much to one of his imaginary worlds."
"Then what?" asked Buffy, glaring at Spike.
"Then we have to make him realize that it's not real, before it's too late."
"Before what's too late?"
"He can die in there, Buffy," said Cordelia, a worried look on her face. "Just as if he were in the real world."
"That's how the ring works," added Angel. "It traps the wearer in a netherworld of their own creation, and brings about their darkest desires, their darkest fears, and it uses those to kill them."
"Let's do this, then" said Spike, drawing looks from the others. "What? He kinda grows on you…like a puppy."
A surprised, and mystified, look passed over Angel's face. Cordelia rolled her eyes and added a "what ever", while Buffy just looked at him with shock.
"I could just put him out of his misery," countered Spike, trying to save face.
"Tell me what we have to do," said Buffy. "I want to get in there now."
"I'm going, too," said Anya, the others turning to see her standing along side Giles in the open doorway of Xander's room. "As much as he likes you, Buffy, he might only listen to me."
Buffy nodded.
"We'd better hurry," spoke Giles. "He seems to be slipping again."
To Be Concluded…
