DR2 - The Cross of Changes by Nick Midian, Book III, part 9 of 10
Written by Nick Midian

Content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Duncan

English grammar, spelling, slang, Highlander continuity and general
corrections by Theo

French slang, content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Mash

French slang by Alan


EMAIL: jcaballero@euskalnet.net

SPOILERS: For Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3rd season, BUT no Xander/Willow
kissing and no Lover's Walk (welcome to the wonderful State of Denial,
Land of 'Shippiness). Hmmm, I've messed with the third season's timeline
to accommodate it to my necessities. Let's just say that 'Band Candy'
happened a lot later than it did, around the first days of February, OK?

For Highlander: None really, the characters of the TV series and films are
only tangentially mentioned. You just need to know the basics of
Highlander-style immortality, BUT I've always thought that whole
'Immortals have no parents and are found in a little basket' is a... um,
the Spanish word for it is 'chorrada', so let's just ignore it, OK?

KEYWORDS: Romance, Angst, Action-adventure, Violence, Alternate Universe,
Crossover.

RATING: PG-13 with some mild R parts for violence and sexual innuendo.

DISCLAIMER: This story has been written with no intention of profit,
merely for the pleasure of writing and sharing it.

The concept and characters of BTVS (Buffy, Angel, Cordelia, Xander,
Willow, Oz, Giles, Joyce, Spike, Drusilla, Snyder, Faith, Harmony, Lyle
Gorch, Quentin Travers and the rest) are intellectual and legal property
of Joss Whedon, Warner Brothers, Mutant Enemy, etc. Also, the concept of
Highlander and the characters mentioned here (Duncan MacLeod, Amanda
Darieux, Richie Ryan, Joe Dawson and the Society of Watchers) are the
property of Panzer-Davis and Rysher Entertainment.

Michael Deveraux, Rachel Curran, Crystal Parker, Kyle White Owl, Robert
Coltrane, Elvis the Dog, Broderick Egoyan, Damon Frost, Mr. Smith, the
World Committee for Civil Defense and the rest are my own creation.

All the songs and lyrics here are used without permission, they are
copyright of their respective rights owners.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please, understand that English is not my native language,
so any grammatical or spelling errors are my fault, not of any one of my
wonderful beta-readers. If you're thinking of sending any flames, please
be kind with me. I'm a grown man, but I still can cry like a child,
believe me.

SUMMARY: Broderick Egoyan has carefully chosen the right moment to strike,
when friends are against friends and all trust seems about to vanish
between Slayerettes and Archangels. It's right when you think things
couldn't get worse that they get worse.

And now, on with the show. Fasten your seat belts ladies and gentlemen,
because it's going to be a long, hard and jumpy ride...

~~~~~~

The cast for Book III

Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
David Boreanaz as Angel
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Seth Green as Daniel 'Oz' Osborne
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

Matthew Perry as Michael Deveraux
Paula Trickey as Rachel Curran
James Marsters as Spike
Nikki Cox as Crystal Parker
David James Elliott as Kyle White Owl
Elvis the Dog as Himself

Eliza Dushku as Faith Adams
Donald Sutherland as The Old Chess Player, Broderick Egoyan
Sebastian Spence as Damon Frost
Avery Brooks as Mr. Smith

Amy Chance as Aphrodesia
Persia White as Aura

Alan Rickman as Conrad Swann
Wesley Snipes as Talon Pantera
Dennis Rodman as Rush Pantera
Tom Berenger as Colonel Cabbot Ashe
Michael Ironside as The Sergeant
Benjamin Bratt as Santero
Trevor Goddar as Backlash
Dolph Lundgren as Havoc
Rob Rowland as Chopper
Jake Busey as Sniper
Shaquille O'Neal as Beast
Matthew Ferguson as Chip

Bill Paxton as Major Stephen Marsden, USAF
Tom Sizemore as Master Sergeant Ricky Perkins, USAF
John Leguizamo as Airman First Class Charlie Martinelli, USAF
Mario Lopez as Airman First Class Alonso 'Bear' Vasquez, USAF
Patrick Labyorteaux as Sergeant Edwin Walters, USAF

Richard Dean Anderson as Col. Jack O'Neill, USAF
Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson
Amanda Tapping as Maj. Samantha Carter, USAF
Christopher Judge as Teal'c
Don S. Davis as Gen. George Hammond, USAF
Teryl Rothery as Dr. Janet Fraiser
Tom McBeath as Col. Harry Mayborne, USAF
Peter Deluise as Airman Shepard, USAF

with

Kevin Spacey as Robert Coltrane
Nicholas Lea as Jonah Whalls

and

Catherine Zeta-Jones as the Lady in Red


~~~~~~



As with many other things in Sunnydale, the local mall was a building
surprisingly big and ample for such a small town. Two levels were built
with the shape of a three-pointed star, with each one of its three wings
being 200 meters long.

In the exact center of the structure, right where those three arms joined,
a large fountain of Greco-Roman design sat beneath a conical glass
structure in the roof. One that provided a good dose of natural light
during the daytime, and a marvelous vision of the starry Californian sky
at night.

Surrounding that fountain, a legacy of the deceased Richard Wilkins III,
former mayor of the town and one of the most anxious promoters of the
local economy in the last few years, the most exclusive, elegant and
expensive shops opened their doors 24 hours a day.

So the wealthier class of Sunnydale could waste their well-earned
fortunes, as exuberantly as they possibly could.

Of course, one could say that no real rich people would go to a mall for
shopping or social exchange; but this was California, after all, and
everybody knows that life in California is different from the rest of the
so-called civilized world.

Sitting within the terrace of the ground floor, outside the most expensive
of those restaurants, three young women were seated in the middle of an
ocean of shopping bags that showed the logos of the most fashionable
stores.

Their hands were busy with diet milkshakes as they tried to look as cool
and stylish as possible, a thing they'd had years of practice at doing.

"So, I told her..." one of them, the one that seemed to be the leading
voice, said as her companions looked at her with what could only be
described as absolute rapture, "I told her: how dare you come wearing my
dress to my party!"

The young brunette was obviously annoyed, and her friends nodded their
agreement at the wisdom of her words. "I mean, it had to be some kind of
cheap copy, because mine was an exclusive model from Valentino.
Ex-clu-sive!"

"I know what you mean, Aura," one of the other two girls, a blonde, said,
nodding her agreement again, "I don't know who she thinks she is."

The brunette rolled her eyes as her only response. "What do you think,
Aphrodesia? A worthless loser, the world is full of them. She thinks that
just because her father had some luck on the stock-market and made a few
million, she's automatically a member of the upper class." She snorted
with disdain. "Unbelievable."

"Speaking of losers," the third girl entered into the conversation, "do
you know who I saw last week?"

The girl paused for dramatic effect, enjoying the curious stares of her
companions, before finally dropping her bombshell. "Cordelia Chase."

"The Fallen One?" Aura squeaked, almost choking on her diet shake.

"I thought she was dead," the blonde said, blinking repeatedly with a
puzzled stare.

"Don't be a sheep, Aphrodesia," the third girl told her with a small
frown. "Harmony was the one who died, Cordelia... well, now that I think
about it, when she fell in love with that dweeb in high school, it was as
if she had died. In terms of her social life, anyway."

"Actually, if she had died, at least she'd have had a decent wake,"
Aphrodesia agreed, shaking her head and needing a couple of seconds to
notice her companions' stares. "What?"

Far away from them, a distant growl of thunder was heard and the three
young women raised their heads as one to the conical skylight in the
ceiling. The night sky seemed clear and they shook their heads, going back
to their conversation.

"Well, tell us, Chastity," Aura inquired, intrigued, "what did she look
like? Terrible, I guess."

"Well, no, actually she looked kinda good," Chastity explained, arching
her brow. "She was arm in arm with this absolutely gorgeous guy, coming
out from Didier's after dinner."

At the mention of Sunnydale's most expensive restaurant, Aura and
Aphrodesia arched their own brows in unison.

Aura said, "Didier's? I thought her father lost his entire fortune years
ago, where did she find the money to pay for dinner there?"

"Yeah," Aphrodesia agreed, "and who was the guy? Anybody we know?"

Chastity shrugged. "I have no idea, both of them were like totally dressed
fashionably and they seemed absolutely engrossed in each other. And I
don't know who he was, sorry. Well... actually, he did seem kinda
familiar, somehow."

She paused. "Tall, dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes, a little pale but
ab-so-lu-tely gorgeous. Anyway, I'm sure I would have recognized such a
marvel of a man if I'd met him before."

Smiling, Aura raised her diet shake in a mocking toast. "Well, well, well,
little Cordelia Chase is getting back on track. And I thought that she was
a lost cause..."

Chastity nodded in agreement, chuckling along with her blonde friend. "Can
you believe her? Still hanging with that weirdo Buffy Summers and all her
friends from high school, after all this time. What a bunch of losers."

Blinking in confused puzzlement, Aphrodesia looked alternately at both her
friends. "We were friends in high school too," she stated, getting
recriminating stares from them. "What?"

Chastity was about to answer her when something caught her usually short
span of attention and the young woman raised her surgery-sculpted nose,
sniffing delicately. "Can't you smell it? It's as if something's burning!"

The rumble of thunder was heard again, this time longer and more
persistent, growing with each passing moment.

"It's going to rain," Aphrodesia sighed, "and I've left my convertible's
top down."

"Nah," Aura stated firmly, "it's just a passing cloud. Anyway, we're under
cover here."

At that very moment, the fire extinguishers were activated and a thick
rain fell on the three friends, drenching them to the bone and ruining
their expensive clothes and make-up almost immediately.

The three spoiled sheep got up from their seats, squeaking and yelping in
shock and panic as they ran around. Apparently in search for some cover,
but without doing anything more that move in circles and stumbling against
themselves and their shopping-bags, turned into soaked heaps of paper and
cloth scattered over the floor.

"Aaargh!!" Aura screamed in righteous rage, looking too much like a
drenched chicken for her own good. "My Dad is a lawyer! I'm going to sue
the person responsible for this! I'm going to sue everybody!"

A mechanical beast appeared then round the corner, an unleashed roar
coming from under its metallic bowels as its fat rubber wheels slid
laterally on the flooded floor, spraying water everywhere around its
massive body.

The beast, missing the three girls by mere inches, ran through the
terrace, sending the tables and chairs on its way flying in all directions
before finally colliding with the rim of the fountain.

The black off-road's structure protested, as the front fender made the
stone rim explode into a cloud of flying debris. Then, flying over the
destroyed remains, it crashed against the statue in the center of the
fountain, ripping it from its stand and then running over it, the whole
vehicle bouncing and shaking madly on the course.

Meanwhile, at few meters from there, Aura continued her hysterical tirade.
"And I'm going to sue this place! And those people! All of them!"

The Humvee's rear tires fell on the interior of the stone rim. For a
moment, as the vehicle fought to regain stable traction, they spun freely
and splashed all around a big wave of water that fell right on the
screaming young woman, drenching her even more if such a thing was
possible.

With her spoiled hair plastered all over her face and her expensive attire
turned into a wet ruin as her mascara ran down her face in dark streaks,
Aura remained with her mouth opened wide in the middle of her angry
tirade.

She looked alternately at her shocked friends, and the now escaping
off-road vehicle.

"Well, dear," Aphrodesia told her, also taking her wet hair away from her
face and smiling weakly at her friend, "at least you'll have something
major to tell, at your next party."

Aura just let out a stressed scream.



~~~~~~



Looking at the desolation which Backlash was turning such a nice place
into, Havoc shook his head in recrimination. "Who taught you to drive? A
kangaroo?"

"Nah," the Australian man shook his head as he used the Humvee's front
fenders to smash a new set of flower pots and innocent benches. "It's just
this bloody American car, all the controls are on the wrong side!"

The Scandinavian mercenary shook his head again, and let out a tired sigh.
"Well, at least it seems that we've gotten rid of our friend."

"I bet it won't be long till we hear from him again," Backlash said with a
smile lurking at the corner of his lips. "Whoever he is, he's a bloody
grain of pus on our hairy asses."

"Argh," Havoc grimaced with distaste, "what a disgusting image!"



~~~~~~



Back to the main entrance, Xander reached the metallic escalators as he
awkwardly dodged the human tide of panicked customers that tried, without
any kind of order or plan, to get out of the building as quick as
possible, honking the bike's horn and shouting at them.

"Come on! Come on! Get out of my way, people!! Federal agent chasing a
suspect!! Get out of the goddamn way!!"

It was like shouting at a brick wall, or trying to make the Red Sea part
only with the force of his voice. Moses, at least, had had a damn
shepherd's hook blessed by God.

Growling with impotence, he slipped into his game face a roared at the top
of his lungs, revving the engine up to the point that it was a deafening
storm. "I said, get out of my way!!!"

=Well,= he thought with an inner smile that didn't reach his lips as the
crowd of people parted in front of him and left a narrow way for him to
the beginning of the escalators, =talk about godsends and the parting of
the Red Sea...=

Around him, everything was in chaos as the people tried to escape from the
storm produced by the fire-extinguishers and the wailing screams of the
fire alarms.

It didn't matter that there was no sign of fire or smoke; the crowd, like
a single mindless being, had been touched by the panic, and the fear had
washed over them faster than what any fire could had done.

All that mattered to them was getting out of the building as fast as
possible, to get far away from there without caring who they had to step
on along the way, both figuratively and literally.

Xander clenched his teeth and shook his head as he accelerated and climbed
up the metallic stairs with his Yamaha, the black bike bouncing on every
step of the way.

Had he thought before that he could minimize the damage, both to people
and property, by going to the town's outskirts?

Well, he couldn't have been more wrong.

Leaving the crowd behind, Xander reached the top of the escalators and did
a fast mental run over what he remembered of the mall's situation and
features. The hallway of the second floor lacked the central row of
flower-pots and benches, separating it in two lanes.

Instead, on that level the floor was more like two elevated walkways,
separated by a large gap in the ground that allowed the customers to look
down at the ground floor as they walked along them. Xander used it to try
locating the escaped Humvee as he accelerated, taking advantage of the
lack of pedestrians on that level.

In a minute, he reached the center of the mall. He located the off-road,
speeding up along the east wing of the building towards the glass doors at
the end of that hallway, probably with the intention of getting out of the
building the same way it had entered, although by another place.

Xander sighed and headed in the same direction, using his heightened
vampire vision to search for something, anything, he could use to make
them stop. And then, as he raised his golden eyes for a second to dodge a
missing pushcart, he saw it.

At the end of each one of the three arms composing the building, the walls
were completely made of glass, with automatic double doors on the ground
level to facilitate the customers' entrance from any point of the parking
lot.

There were large, elegant open galleries on the second floor to give them
good views as they enjoyed their ice creams, milk-shakes or hamburgers
from any one of the fast-food restaurants that the mall housed.

When he was a child, Xander had always wondered what one could find
interesting in that view; as the only things that could be seen were the
ample parking lot surrounding the building, and the highway and the web of
roads at the end of it.

As with many other things in Sunnydale, an indecipherable mystery but now,
as he saw the large gangplank of the window-cleaners hanging outside over
the entrance, a real blessing.

Stopping the bike in the middle of the hallway, Xander reached into his
leather jacket and drew his H&K USP Sport Stainless from its holster under
his left arm, taking slow and carefully aim through its specially designed
sights.

There were a lot of good things about being a vampire. But as he aimed at
the chains holding the window-cleaners' platform at more than fifty meters
away from him, with his sharp supernatural eyes allowing him to see each
one of the links with all their small imperfections and differences as if
they were just an inch from his nose, Xander couldn't help but to marvel
at his own abilities and possibilities.

So much power, that he sometimes feared he would get drunk with it.

Cocking the gun, Xander took a short breath and pulled the trigger with a
sure and firm hand, not even flinching at the pistol's recoil. The gun
backlashed in his hand, ejecting the empty case and loading a fresh round,
and, even before the bullet hit its intended target, Xander fired again.



~~~~~~



"Bandits at two o'clock!" Backlash announced as he drove the Humvee at top
speed to the glass gate that would allow them to get out the mall.

Coming out from a side door and finally making their presence known, a
pair of security guards wearing gray and police-like uniforms took
positions by the double doors and aimed at the roaring off-road with their
revolvers, firing them.

As the weak .38 Special projectiles bounced back inoffensively on the
thick metallic plates of the truck, Havoc leaned his grenade-launcher out
of his side's window and fired an explosive grenade without bothering to
take aim against them.

The projectile passed over the men's heads and shattered the showcase of
the store behind them, exploding in its interior with a ball of fire. It
made the remaining glass on the windows fly off in a cloud of razor-sharp
fragments, and the whole building tremble as if in the grip of an
earthquake.

When the shock wave and the conflagration hit them, the two security
guards were ripped off from the floor as if like flowers by a tornado,
spinning in the air as they were thrown away like broken puppets.

"And that's a 0-2 score for the visiting team!" Backlash laughed,
directing the Humvee towards the doors. "We're going out, mate!"

At that very moment, the glass panels forming the open gallery on the
second floor were shattered, as if by an invisible fist. Apparently, the
same one that sliced the chains holding the window-cleaners' platform over
the door.

And made it fall down and crash against the ground, in a twisted mass of
metal that blocked the exit.

"Watch out!" Havoc alerted his partner needlessly, as he was already
spinning the steering-wheel madly and stomping down on the brakes, making
the Humvee's massive form skid laterally before turning around.

"That goddamned son of a bloody whore!" the Australian roared with a
mixture of anger and amazement as, from his vantage point, Xander emptied
his pistol on them like a madman, the 9mm projectiles ripping sparks and
digging holes on the hood and ceiling of the truck. "I swear that I'm
gonna rip his head off, use his skull as a bucket and paint my house with
his bloody brains!!"

"Stop screaming nonsense and get us out of here!" Havoc shouted at him, at
the very limits of his patience. "To the right! We'll get out using the
last exit!"

Backlash snorted and shook his head but did as told, accelerating again.
"And if he tries to repeat the move?"

Havoc pointed at the glass wall at the end of the building's wing, as they
turned the corner and got into it. It was clean, with nothing that would
obstruct their path and nothing that the young biker could throw at them.

"Unless he decides to throw himself at us, he can't use anything to block
the exit this time. Come on, pal, just step on the gas!"

Backlash said nothing, he just clenched his hands around the steering
wheel and did as he was told. But the truth was that by now, he was
expecting anything coming from their chaser.

Anything. Even a damned white rabbit coming out of a top hat.



~~~~~~



Xander lost no time in holstering his gun and riding again on his Yamaha,
to resume the pursuit. But the truth was that, much to his own annoyance,
he was starting to run out of ideas and getting tired of the whole
situation.

He thought back to the way how the security guards had been blown away by
the explosion and that he had no idea if they were alive, dead, seriously
wounded or what.

These guys had already gone too far, and he had to put an end to this as
soon as possible.

Anyway, he couldn't ignore the fact that the people in that car were
criminals on the loose, that they had attacked and wounded his friends and
that they had stolen something that was not only valuable but seriously
dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.

And he had the feeling that, that was exactly where it was going. Directly
into the worst possible hands.

Arching his dark brow, Xander noticed that he had gotten ahead of the
escaping Humvee, reaching the center of the mall with a couple of seconds
advantage over his targets.

A dark shadow passed over his head and he raised his yes to the conical
glass structure on the ceiling, seeing the unmistakable shape of the black
Huey passing over the building as it flew towards the opposite side of the
mall.

The beginnings of a plan took form inside his head and, although all his
good sense screamed against the idea, he couldn't help but smile
devilishly at it. Reaching to his waist, he activated the frequency
scanner of his radio and adjusted the twin microphones over his throat.

"I'm speaking to the crew of the unmarked Bell helicopter flying over the
Sunnydale mall, can you hear me?" he spoke loud and clear, trying to sound
as calm and self-confident as possible.

Above the mall, inside the Huey, Chopper frowned deeply and looked over
his shoulder at Sniper, who just shrugged with a straight, expressionless
face.

"Yes, we hear you, but we should advise you that this is a restricted
frequency and you're hindering an official operation of the... DEA," he
said, grimacing at his own obvious and shameless lie. "Who are you?"

"Eeehhh!!" Xander exclaimed with an amused smile, mock-imitating the
failing sound of a TV contest siren.

"Wrong answer! But thanks for trying anyway!! Who am I? Let's see... I'm
your worst nightmare, buddy. I'm the thing you don't want to think about,
the creature that you fear in the innermost depths of your subconscious."

He continued, "I'm the elf that Santa Claus kicked out of the North Pole,
the evil Ewok that wanted to eat Princess Leia, the dwarf that looked
under Snow White's skirt when she was sleeping... and man, you're on my
shit list."

On the ground level, inside the Humvee, Backlash heard the conversation
through the walkie-talkie and looked at his partner with a puzzled frown.

'What?' he mouthed silently.

The Scandinavian mercenary arched his own brow and shrugged, softly
shaking his head in blank non-comprehension.

"Now, do you want to come and get me, guys?" Xander continued with the
same playful and wicked tone in his voice. "I'm on the second floor,
northwest wing, going towards the exit. Come and get me, if you have the
guts."

Switching off the radio, Xander closed his eyes for a moment and released
a long breath. "Like I said," he whispered to himself with a half-smile of
incredulity, "I must be losing my head."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Humvee speeding towards the exit
and, as he heard the helicopter over the building getting ready to get in
position, he calculated the time the black off-road would need to reach
the glass gate at the end of the hallway.

"Thirty Mississippi," he started to count backwards, revving up the engine
of his bike, "29 Mississippi, 28 Mississippi..."

At his back, one of the doors leading to the inner staircase and the
bowels of the building, burst open and two security guards came out,
aiming at him with their Smith & Wesson revolvers.

"Freeze! Get down off the bike, with your hands up and clearly visible!"
one of the guards ordered him.

His only vision of the man on the bike was his broad, leather-clad back
and the rear side of the muscular Yamaha he was riding with its customized
license plate slowly rocking from one of its screws. "Do it now, or we'll
open fire!"

Far from obeying his order, the black-clad biker limited his response to a
new acceleration of his bike's engine that made the floor tremble as twin
bursts of white-gray smoke coming out of its twin exhaust pipes.

Deliberately slow, not making any brisk movement, he reached inside his
jacket and, filling the air with the metallic sound of the blade sliding
out of its scabbard, unsheathed a long and curved sword.

Immediately, the two guards cocked their guns. "Drop that! Drop it now!"

Ignoring them, Xander passed the sword to his left hand and spun the blade
around, finally leaning its sharp point on the floor at his side.

"You're making me lose my count," he said calmly and without turning his
head to look at the guards. "Get lost."

"I said, drop-"

"No!" the young vampire roared. Turning his head, full game face on, he
stabbed the two men with his blazing golden eyes, showing his fangs to
them with a vicious snarl as a growl escaped his throat. "I said, get
lost!"

The two guards looked at each other for a short instant and, choosing the
wisest course of action, turned around on their heels and ran away as fast
as their legs could carry them.

Shaking his head, Xander revved up the engine and let the rear tire spin
freely, emitting a dark cloud of smoke and leaving a burn mark on the
floor before finally freeing the brakes.

He allowed the bike to quickly reach its top speed as he crouched down
behind the handlebars, and roared along the long hallway towards the glass
wall at the end of it.

"Ten Mississippi, nine Mississippi, eight Mississippi..."

At the same time, as he lifted the front wheel slightly from the ground
the point of his curved katana touched it, producing a rain of golden
sparks with the abrasive contact of the metal against the stone.

In addition, the dark silhouette of the helicopter appeared on the upper
edge of the open gallery, descending and taking position in front of the
large window to aim its weapons at the interior of the building.

"...seven Mississippi, six Mississippi, five Mississippi..."

"What the hell does he think he's doing?" Chopper asked with a squeak as
the figure of the biker grew bigger and bigger on the other side of the
glass wall. "Is he suicidal or what?"

"I don't know, and I don't care!" Sniper exclaimed, losing his coolness
for a moment as he pointed at the biker with his finger. "Just shoot him
down!"

Arching his brow under the fly-like visor of his helmet, Chopper curved
his finger around the trigger of the aircraft's handlebar, opening fire.

The revolving barrels of the twin 7.62mm miniguns installed on both sides
of the helicopter started to spin immediately, screaming with its
characteristic buzz saw-like sound.

A burst of projectiles emerged from them at a rate of 7200 rounds per
minute, ripping the upper glass wall into a myriad of tiny fragments that
fell down mixed with the endless cascade of golden empty shells coming
from the guns' ejecting ports.

"...four Mississippi, three Mississippi, two Mississippi..."

The high-velocity 7.62mm projectiles impacted on both sides of the
upcoming bike, tracing twin paths of bullet holes on the ground as the
floor tiles jumped up in shattered, dusty fragments all around Xander. But
still, he advanced towards the broken remains of the glass wall at top
speed.

"God!" Chopper exclaimed with wide-open eyes as he yanked at the height
and direction bars of the helicopter, taking it out of the way. "That
psycho's going to crash into us! He's a kamikaze!"

"... one Mississippi, zero!!"

Practically at the same time, on the lower level the black Humvee smashed
the double doors of the entrance into an unrecognizable mass of twisted
bars of metal and flying fragments of glass.

Above them, Xander reached the edge of the window, while the helicopter's
machine-guns turned everything around him into a smoking wreck.

There was a moment of silence, of quiet. Everything seemed to be suspended
for a brief second, as if time had stopped.

Then, with a roar that came both from the 4-cylinder engine of his bike
and from his unnatural throat, Xander emerged from the second floor,
leaving a trail of smoke and debris behind him as his bike traced a
perfect arc in the air.

He passed beneath the evading Huey, right between its blades with his long
sword turned into a bright flash of dark silver.

As he swung it over his head with a powerful stroke, the impossibly sharp
blade of the Akani-Kawa opened up a long gash on the metal of the
aircraft's paunch.

The hole immediately spat out a wave of electric sparks and thick smoke
above him, as he started to trace the final descending arc of his flight
towards the ground below.

Falling in perfect synchrony with the roaring Humvee beneath him, Xander's
rear tire landed on the roof of the black military vehicle with a dull
shake.

As the young vampire silently thanked Kyle for the hardened suspension he
had installed in the Yamaha, he turned his arm around in a perfect circle,
blindly slashing the surface of the Humvee's frame as he accelerated with
his right hand over the still moving vehicle.

"Holy Mother of God!" Havoc exclaimed, as the whole truck shook with the
impact of the landing bike and he bounced on his seat moving around to aim
at the invisible attacker. "What was that?"

Then, the blade of the biker's sword appeared suddenly through the
ceiling, cutting through the metal and plastic like a hot knife through
butter. Both mercenaries jumped away from its path, pressing themselves
against their respective doors.

The blade disappeared as fast as it had come, and the roar of an engine
being revved up was heard even over their own motor as a dark shape
appeared on the upper edge of the windshield, quickly filling its whole
area.

Above them, inside the Huey, the cockpit was quickly filling with smoke as
the practically all of the different switches and warning lights of the
aircraft blinked red, and the indicators of height and direction spun out
of control.

"Damn!" Chopper exclaimed as he fought to regain control of the
helicopter, yanking at the two handlebars with all his strength to stop
the Huey from spinning around its main rotor and crashing against the
mall's building. "That bastard's cut the main hydraulics! I'm losing
control!"

Taking his hand off of the useless height handlebar, Chopper quickly began
to switch off some of the controls of the panels above his head,
connecting others in a hurry.

"Changing to secondary hydraulics!" he announced needlessly as, in the
rear section, Sniper held on to his seat with all his strength, trying not
to bounce around and lose the contents of his stomach. "If he's also
damaged them, we're going down!"

"Can't we just eject?" Sniper asked into the microphone, a deep note of
worry in his cool voice.

Chopper chuckled, on behalf of the situation. "This is a Huey, not a F-14,
Snippy. If it goes down, we go down with it!"

Shaking his head, the mercenary marksman rolled his eyes and started to
pray.

Some of the panels' warning lights changed back to green and the pilot
released a breath he didn't know he was holding, sighing with relief as he
recovered the control of the aircraft and made it turn around, following
the trail of the Humvee and the biker on the ground.

With his game face twisted into a grimace of pure rage, Xander sped up and
the black Yamaha jumped off of the off-road's roof, landing on its hood
and bouncing on it with a last squeeze of the gas control.

Falling in front of the still-moving vehicle, handling the bike only with
his right hand and swinging his sword with the left one, Xander looked
over his shoulder through the crackled windshield of the truck.

He shared a hard stare with the vehicle's driver and his passenger, before
offering them a crooked smile full of fangs as the two vehicles speeded
along the parking lot.

"Ha!" he laughed out loud, shaking his head in true amusement. "Tom
Cruise, eat your heart out!"

"Run over that jerk," Havoc growled inside the Humvee.

Backlash just nodded. "Consider it done," he said, slamming his foot down
on the gas pedal once again.

The Humvee's engine roared as it suddenly jumped ahead on the bike's
unprotected rear and its wide front bumper smashed the taillight, license
plate and softail fender, pushing it forward.

Shaken by the hit, Xander cursed under his breath as the Yamaha wriggled
on the road and he fought not to fall to the ground. Looking through the
rear-view mirror, he saw the black off-road gaining speed again and
getting dangerously close to his tail.

The young vampire snorted and sped up at the same time. With a powerful
swing of his left arm, he released his dark katana in the air, launching
it against the windshield like a javelin.

Slicing through the air as straight as an arrow, the Akani-Kawa entered
the cracked glass of the windshield point-first, right in front of
Backlash's face.

The Australian mercenary could only lean to the right as fast as he could
to dodge the sharp blade, as it made its way through the glass and came
into the vehicle with a soft whisper, only stopping when its point was
deeply embedded into the head-rest of his seat.

So fast did he have to move away to avoid his face being stabbed by the
sword, that he banged his head on the window of his door, grunting in pain
with the blow. Havoc quickly jumped to his side and grabbed the steering
wheel, to keep the control of the truck.

"Oh, shit, what a blow," the Australian man moaned, shaking his head in
pain. He felt the right side of his head burning, and something wet
running down the edge of his jaw to his neck...

=Waitaminute,= he thought, opening his eyes in shock, =the right side? The
window's on my left side!=

Bringing his hand to that part of his head, the mercenary tested his flesh
with a chill of dread running along his backbone. When he noticed the
wetness drenching the whole side of his face he knew, even before looking
at his fingers, that they were going to be stained red with his blood.

What Backlash wasn't expecting, by any means, was what he saw when he
turned his head and looked at the thin band of metal joining the surface
of the windshield to his seat. Nailed by it to the headrest, stabbed like
a piece of meat, a human ear dripped slow red tears on his arms.

His ear, he noticed shocked as he brought his hand again to the right side
of his head and his fingertips traced the severed borders of cartilage,
stinging him with a pricking pain.

"That bastard!" he suddenly exploded. "Bloody bugger, damned son of a-!"

"Backlash!" Havoc shouted, shaking him to gain his attention. "I can't
keep on driving like this, brake or we'll crash!!"

"That bastard's sliced off my goddamn ear!" the Australian yelled at his
partner, pushing him away to get back the control of the steering wheel.
"We're not gonna stop until he's dead and buried!"

"And how are we going to do that, huh?" the Scandinavian man asked with a
frown. "Are we going to spit at him and call him names, until he gives
up?"

"No," his partner growled pointing towards where they were leading, "we're
going to burn him to ashes."

Not 100 yards in front of them, the Sunnydale Mall's Texaco gas station
sat at the end of the parking lot, the neon lights on its roof shining
with bright and attractive colors and its filling tanks standing in row,
ready to receive any customer.

Havoc smiled evilly and got his grenade launcher ready, shoving a new
explosive projectile into its chamber. "Have I told you lately that I love
the way you think, partner?"

Seeing where they were directing him, slowly but surely pushing him
towards the gas station and not leaving him any space to reduce his speed
or even brake, Xander shook his head and searched for a way out.

He already knew that he wouldn't find anything else apart from lowering
his head, and allowing his adversaries to run over him with their truck.

Xander sighed with resignation and shook his head, knowing what was going
to happen.

"Losing my head?" he growled to himself, licking his pointed fangs. "I'm
way beyond that."



~~~~~~



=What a boring evening,= the young man attending the gas station thought,
stifling a yawn with his fist and looking at his wristwatch to check that
five minutes had passed since the last time he had done the same thing.

It couldn't be said that he was dying to end his shift and going back home
for a night of nothing else to do – but at least in his apartment, he had
a TV. And he could watch some mindless program, and be dressed only in his
underwear, without anybody to tell him anything to the contrary.

Well, not that anyone would notice if he got undressed right then, because
in the last five hours not a single car had stopped for a refill or even
buy a Twinkie in the store.

In short, he was bored crazy.

"God," he mumbled, rolling his eyes, "what I wouldn't give for a little
action..."

A growl of thunder was heard and he looked outside the window at the night
sky frowning, when he saw it completely clear. The thunder, far from
vanishing, grew in intensity until the entire gas station was trembling
with its savage roar.

"What the... ?" he asked out loud, opening the store's door and coming out
of the building.

Gulping down in shock, he watch in open-mouthed surprise as the two
vehicles sped straight towards him like a couple of tattered lightning
bolts, and with no sign or intention of stopping.

The man riding the bike, whose face looked strange somehow, noticed him
standing between the gas pumps and the store and made an unmistakable sign
to him with his left hand as he fought not to be run over by the large
Humvee chasing him.

Arching his brow, the young employee turned around and ran away, thinking
that sometimes God had a damn twisted sense of humor.

Trapped by the black Humvee, Xander was sweating bullets not to be smashed
against the line of parked cars, and the fact that the blonde man was
continuously shooting at him wasn't helping, not at all.

They were reaching the end of the rows formed by the parked cars and
Xander thought that he would have a opportunity to get away, but that
would lead him directly towards the gas station and he was fearing that
was exactly what his opponents wanted him to do.

The truth was, he was unable to find any other way out.

A burst of bullets came dangerously close, and Xander did a brisk maneuver
to avoid them. But he wasn't able to move more than a few centimeters to
the right, until the parked cars made impossible any other action.

The last projectiles hit his bike with an explosion of sparks, as his
headlamp was shattered into pieces and the punished, overheated 4-cylinder
engine started to make a coughing sound.

The young vampire felt something wet in his tights and he looked down,
only to see how the fuel flowing out of a couple of bullet-holes on the
fuel-tank of the Yamaha.

"Oh, no, come on, baby, don't fail me now," he whispered as he reached the
end of the line of cars. "Come on, just a little more..."

As the Humvee launched itself laterally over him with a screech of its
tires and pushed him towards the gas station before heading to the
opposite side, Xander swallowed a thick knot in his throat. He squeezed
the speed handle one last time, risking all in what he knew would be his
last chance.

Inside the Humvee, Havoc smile and fired a fragmentation grenade. It flew
in a fast arc before exploding against one of the gas pumps, ripping it
off the ground and sending it up to the sky within a column of fire.

Holding his breath, Xander clenched his teeth and yanked at the handlebars
of his Yamaha, lifting the front wheel off the ground. He covered himself
with the bike's frame as, in front of him, the whole gas station was blown
up in flames with a thundering explosion.

A mushroom-shaped ball of fire soared into the sky, lighting up the night
and turning the darkness into a red and orange show of dancing, breathing
flames.

Xander released his breath in a roaring scream and the ball of fire
engulfed him and his bike completely, making the both of them disappear in
its burning bowels.



~~~~~~



"Wow! Look at that!" Backlash exclaimed, slamming on the brakes and making
the truck stop with a screech of punished tires as the gas station
disappeared into a ball of fire at their backs, taking the biker and his
vehicle with it. "What a blast!"

Not able to look straight at his partner, Havoc held his breath, his cold
blue eyes fixed on the center of the fireball as it ascended to the night
sky, turning it into a blazing piece of Hell on Earth.

"Too easy," he whispered absent-mindedly, "it's been too easy..."

"Easy?" the Australian man exclaimed with a high-pitched voice, pointing
at the bleeding wound on the side of his head. "You call this eas-"

His voice died in his throat when the dark bulk came out of the wall of
dancing flames, still enveloped by them in a flickering hug.

Recognizing it for what it was, the two mercenaries looked at it with
wide-eyed and open-mouthed faces as the biker lowered his flaming front
tire to the ground. Even across the distance separating them, he stabbed
them with his burning and enraged golden eyes.

"That guy is the Devil," Backlash whispered with astonishment, as he
shifted the car into gear. "The Devil himself."

"Let's get outta here," Havoc said weakly, unable to remove his eyes from
the biker's figure.

Leaving a cloud of smoke behind him, feeling his burnt lungs aching with
each breath he took and with his ears deafened by the roar of the engine
and flapping sound of his jacket at his back, Xander sped directly towards
the Humvee, quickly reaching its rear end.

With both tires in flames and the fuel-tank quickly losing fuel, he knew
that his faithful Yamaha was giving him its last effort, and he wasn't
going to waste its sacrifice.

He was about two meters behind the Humvee, chasing it as it sped out of
the parking lot and back onto the road. Whereupon Xander clamped down on
the front brake with all his strength, leaving the rear one free.

The powerful momentum of the bike made it prance like a metal horse, the
whole frame of the Yamaha launched up over the front wheel as the rear one
abandoned the asphalt and threw him over the handlebars.

Far from fighting it, Xander opened his hands and legs and released the
bike, allowing it to push him into the air and behind the Humvee as his
own vampire powers kicked in.

The black Yamaha spun madly in the air with a protest of folded metal and
exploded with a scream that sounded surprisingly animalistic in the young
vampire's ears. The shock-wave sent him even faster towards the black
truck, as the burning wreckage that had been his bike kept on bouncing and
sliding on the asphalt behind them.

Opening his arms spread wide, Xander's reached out and his claws dug
deeply into the metal of the black vehicle's frame, holding onto them. He
stuck his head into the interior of the Humvee through the broken window
and offered a fanged smile to its occupants.

"Good evening, kind gentlemen," the young vampire said out loud in a
singsong tone, "could you give me a lift?"



~~~~~~



Backlash heard the thunder of the bike's explosion and looked back through
the rear-view mirror with the tiny hope that it would mean the end of that
whole madness.

But, much to his own dread, the only thing he found reflected on the
polished surface of the mirror were a couple of red-gold eyes, boring into
his neck with all the rage and the determination of a burning demon from
Hell.

"God!" he exclaimed, with his voice strangled by fear. "Havoc!"

The Scandinavian man turned around, pulling the trigger of the
submachine-gun attached under the barrel of the grenade launcher, firing a
wave of hot lead towards the vampire on the back.

But the flying projectiles went inoffensively through the remains of the
rear window as the demonic biker seemed to have vanished into nothingness.

"What the hell?" Havoc asked, looking around with a frown.

Driving with his left hand and holding his bleeding wound with his right,
Backlash imitated his actions, searching from the black-clad young man.
"He may have fall-"

He was never able to finish his sentence as a clawed fist came through the
open gash in the ceiling with a powerful punch and grabbed him by the
throat, choking the air out of his lungs and shaking him violently.

Smashing the mercenary's head repeatedly against the steering wheel,
Xander released his semi-unconscious form and extracted his arm from the
interior of the truck.

Then, as the Humvee moved wildly from one side of the road to the other,
he grabbed both lips of the long wound on the metal and tore them away,
pulling them apart until the opening was as wide as his shoulders.

"Oh, come on," he growled with mocked disappointment when he noticed the
blonde man turning his weapon to aim at him through the opening, "do you
think that's a nice welcome?"

With unnatural speed, Xander reached into the vehicle and grabbed the
thick barrel of the grenade launcher, easily ripping it from the
mercenary's hands with a hard yank.

Carelessly tossing the weapon away over his shoulder, the young vampire
grabbed the mercenary with his other hand by the chest of his shirt and
lifted him violently, smashing his face against the edge of the open gash
twice.

Rendering him almost unconscious, before finally dragging him up through
the open wound in the roof's metal.

However, as the opening wasn't wide enough for Havoc's broad shoulders,
the Scandinavian mercenary got stuck in it with his arms uselessly trapped
against his torso. Growling and smiling sideways at him, Xander choked the
yell of fear that came from his throat by the radical way of surrounding
his thick neck with his clawed hand and squeezing it tightly.

They were moving at high speed and, as they advanced along the access road
out of the mall and got onto the highway passing by Sunnydale, they
started to hit the diverse traffic coming and going out of the town.

As they were lurching out of control from one lane to the other, the cars
coming in the opposite direction flashed them with their headlights and
honked at them furiously, as they evaded their maniacal maneuvers.

=If we don't stop soon,= Xander thought, =we're going to have a major
crash.= But first, he had something to do.

"You," he growled at the man as the wind whipped wildly at both their
heads, more shouting than talking and never releasing his grip on his
neck, "nod if you understand me, OK?"

The man nodded weakly, his eyes wide with fear and shock as they looked
straight at the vampire. Xander said, "Who do you work for? What do you
want from us?"

"None... of... your... business... freak!" the mercenary managed to
sputter weakly, shaking his shoulders to free them from the hug of the
metal. "Lemme... go!"

Xander arched his edged brow and smiled softly at the man. "Hmmm, so you
have a backbone after all, huh?"

Tightening his grasp on his throat, the young vampire fixed his blazing
red-gold eyes on those of his prey, boring into them until Havoc's mind
screamed with the same pain that would be caused by an ice-pick into his
brain. "It doesn't matter, you'll tell me everything you know.
Everything."

Havoc gasped like a fish out of water, unable to break away from the
intense, overwhelming look of the Master vampire. Compared to him, to his
power and untamable will, the mercenary was nothing, just a weak whisper
of consciousness.

His ego, his persona, was but a flickering flame in the middle of the wild
tornado that was Xander Harris.

"Yes..." the blonde man whispered weakly, his eyes devoid of any will or
desire, "...you're my Master."

The vampire smiled, tilting his head to one side slightly. "Speak to me.
Tell me everything."

The man released a pained sigh, and looked back at him with his empty
expression.



~~~~~~



Shaking his head, fighting the thick mist of unconsciousness benumbing his
brain, Backlash struggled awkwardly in his seat, trapped against the
window by the dark sword still coming out from the windshield.

He turned his head to see the lower part of his partner's body struck in
the opening in the ceiling and had to blink twice, wondering if he was
having a hallucination or something similar.

=Then again=, Backlash thought, =with everything that's happened today,
this is almost normal. Almost.=

A blinding light flooded the interior of the Humvee and Backlash regained
control of the steering wheel, turning it quickly to take the vehicle out
of the wrong lane and dodge the car coming in the opposite direction,
which honked at them as it passed by their side.

"Well, yeah," the Australian grunted as he struggled to control the
handling of the Humvee, "screw you too, mate!"

Above the black off-road, Xander was momentarily destabilized by the
sudden change of direction, and had to take a hold on the roof's edge not
to fall off of it.

But, just when he was about to resume his fruitless interrogation of the
blonde man, the Humvee's driver slammed on the brakes to the very limit of
the pedal. The large off-road stopped without warning, its tires
screeching against the asphalt.

Losing his equilibrium, the young vampire was flipped over the windshield
by his own momentum and he landed painfully on the car's hood, rolled on
it with the momentum and fell down over the front fenders, getting out of
Backlash's sight.

With the hypnotic link between them broken, Havoc shook wildly, trying to
free himself.

"Now!" he shouted, trying to look over his shoulder at the front side of
the vehicle. "Just run him over!"

"As if I needed you to tell me that," the Australian growled, accelerating
again and launching the Humvee forward. The black off-road's punished fat
tires screamed against the asphalt and Backlash smiled with satisfaction,
still holding the blood-covered side of his face as his eyes shone with
malice.

"I bet he's wishing to be anywhere else right now but under the wheels of
my truck, huh?" he asked out loud as, beside him, Havoc managed to slip
back into the car, scratching his shoulders against the rough edges of the
gash in the process.

Looking back over the seat, the Scandinavian man shook his head, his eyes
still wide open in shock and fear. The biker's body was nowhere to be seen
behind the Humvee's smoking tail.

"Where's his body?" he asked.

"What?"

"His body," Havoc said tiredly, "if we've just run over him, where the
hell's his body?"

As if on cue, a hand appeared over the front fender of the black vehicle.
A clawed hand, whose razor-sharp nails dug into the metal of the hood,
holding onto it as a black leather-clad arm followed it.

And, on its trail, a demonic face full of edges, ridges and planes and
with twin blazing red-gold eyes fixed on them through the shattered
remains of the windshield.

The vampire growled at them, the menacing sound loud enough to be heard
over the engine, and his mouth parted into a vicious snarl that showed
them his long, pointed and dangerous ivory-white fangs.

"Shit," Backlash whispered as the demon climbed up on the hood. "We're
screwed."

Swallowing hard, Havoc nodded in agreement. "My thoughts exactly."



~~~~~~



Tired, hurt, fed up with the whole situation, worried about his friends
and above all, incredibly pissed with those two guys, Xander grabbed the
handle of his katana, still sticking out of the windshield. He yanked at
it, extracting the long curved blade from the interior of the truck.

Standing on the hood as the Humvee sped at almost 80 mph and dodged the
upcoming traffic, the young vampire roared and lifted the dark gray sword
over his head. He then traced out an arcing slash that sliced off the edge
of the roof, right at the upper edge of the windshield's glass.

Pushed by the force of the wind and the blow of Xander's katana, the
off-road's metallic roof folded up, suddenly turning the military truck
into a convertible and exposing Backlash's and Havoc's heads to the cold
air of the night and the wild wind that ruffled their hair.

The two men looked up at the vampire standing on the hood of their car,
with what could only be described as wide-eyed and shocked expressions. He
spun the sword in his hand so he would be holding it blade-down and lifted
it again, ready to plunge it down on either of them.

"Now, dumb and dumber," Xander shouted with thundering voice, "who wants
to die, and who wants to live?"

The two mercenaries looked at each other briefly and then Backlash slammed
on the brakes again. This time, however, Xander was ready for the maneuver
and he simply leaned down, flexing his knees and digging his boots on the
bumped metal of the hood.

His mouth parted into a devilish grin. "I'll take that as your answer," he
growled, raising the sword.

Then, before he could deliver a mortal strike, the batting noise of a
helicopter's rotors was heard and the black Huey appeared over the lines
of trees bordering the road, leaving a trail of clear smoke coming out of
the open wound on its paunch.

Flying laterally as only an helicopter can do so the gunner at its side
had a comfortable firing position, the Huey stationed over the road and
Xander had to make an effort not to curse out loud.

In the helicopter's rear cabin, leaning out through the opened
sliding-door and with the butt of his Dragunov firmly leaned against his
shoulder-joint, Sniper allowed his thin lips to form an evil, vicious
grin.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." he quoted as he settled the crosshairs
on Xander's figure and his finger curved on the trigger, "...fade to
black."

Flexing his knees, Xander started to move away, but he knew it was
painfully too late.

The first shot thundered over the noise of the rotors and the growl of the
Humvee's engine and, as Xander started to jump off of the hood, a 7.62mm
bullet sliced through the air and hit him in the shoulder with enough
force to complete his movement, propelling him backwards.

Xander closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, as the right side of his
torso was paralyzed by a searing pain. Behind his eyelids, the darkness
was replaced by a million stars.

His feet hadn't left the surface of the hood when the second bullet
impacted into his body, this time five inches beneath and to the left of
the first wound. He felt the full-metal-jacketed projectile dig into his
flesh, piercing his lungs.

They filled up with blood, that immediately flowed up his windpipe and
into his mouth as his trachea was flooded with the precious and vital
fluid.

The taste was coppery and delicious, as always.

The third, the fourth and the fifth shots went through his chest, coming
out his back as his body shook like a puppet in a windstorm. Blood and
saliva spurting out his lips, he didn't even feel it when the sixth bullet
shattered his breastbone and, deviated by the impact, pierced his heart.

If he'd been human, or even a normal Immortal, he would have been dead
even before his body touched the ground.

Fortunately for him, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, he
wasn't.

He was also a vampire, and that meant he didn't need his heart to beat to
stay 'alive'.

Xander slipped off the hood and fell to the hard asphalt, losing the sword
and the little air remaining in his lungs with the impact.

His world was one of searing pain, and he had to make a superhuman effort
to ignore it and keep on moving, rolling away from the front bumper of the
off-road as, at the very edge of his consciousness, he heard its engine
roaring back to life.

With a yell of victory, Backlash accelerated again, launching the massive
form of the Humvee over him and Xander released a tired grunt as he lay
flat on the road, but not quick enough to dodge the front bumper.

It hit Xander in the chest, smashing his ribcage and, instinctively, the
young vampire hung onto it, digging his sharp claws on the metal as a
spurt of thick dark blood erupted from his nostrils and mouth, splattering
the front fender of the Humvee.

Stubborn as he was, Xander refused to release his grasp on the car as it
dragged him along, his legs and lower abdomen submerged beneath the large
hood and the heels of his black mountain boots bouncing and scratching the
rough concrete.

Clenching his fingers around the front bumper, Xander felt the metal
folding and tearing under his supernatural strength, the ragged but sharp
edges cutting his flesh and making his hands bleed.

Ignoring the pain that engulfed his whole being, from his bleeding fingers
to his bruised and swollen chest, from his scratched back and legs to his
throbbing head, the young vampire held on till the last moment with
stubborn pride.

And, in the end, it was the Humvee who yielded and surrendered to him. Of
course, it was a Pyrrhic victory as it meant his own defeat.

The joints of the bumper snapped off with a sound of ripped metal and
Xander, still uselessly holding onto it, fell between the wheels of the
off-road.

The good floor-clearance of the vehicle didn't prevent it from hitting the
young vampire at least ten times with the same number of metallic edges,
and making him roll madly on the rough concrete as the Humvee ran over
him.

=Well, at least the tires didn't crush any of my limbs,= he thought
semi-amusedly as the black vehicle moved away from him. His body, covered
only with torn clothes and a thousand bleeding scratches, finally came to
rest in the center of the lonely road.

At least, now it was over.

Raising his head from the asphalt, shaking it instinctively to recover a
little clarity in his mind, Xander's golden eyes looked straight at the
smoking rear of the Humvee as it got further away.

About fifty yards away from him, its rear tires were suddenly wrapped up
into a gray cloud of smoke as the brakes screeched and the truck's driver
made it spin around 180 degrees with a screech of rubber against concrete.

"Oh, shit," Xander groaned.

Obviously, it wasn't exactly over.



~~~~~~



"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Havoc exclaimed with
astonishment, as his partner made the car spin around and speeded towards
the vampire lying on the road.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Backlash asked back, with a frown and
an expression of ire. "I'm going to finish that bastard off! He cut off my
ear, I'll stomp him like a bloody bug!"

Havoc looked at his partner in silence for a second and shook his head in
disgust, before retrieving the walkie-talkie from the dashboard. "Daddy
Goose? This is Receptor Team, we're gonna stomp a bug and then we're going
back home. Thanks for the help, by the way. Over."

"Don't mention it, pal," Chopper's voice came through the speaker, "it's
been our pleasure. We're having some mechanical problems, so we're already
going away. Good luck – over and out."

Switching off the radio, Havoc looked at his partner sideways. "You heard
him, crush him and let's go home."

The Australian nodded. "Heard and done."



~~~~~~



Xander tried to stand up, but his left leg failed him miserably, the knee
bending at an impossible angle under his body and making him fall back to
the ground. Stifling a curse, the young vampire raised his eyes to the
upcoming off-road and saw that, much to his own worry, it was practically
on top of him.

Grunting and clenching his fangs, Xander leaned all his weight on his good
leg and got ready for one last effort. Flying required a lot of energy, an
level he wasn't sure he had right then, but if he pushed with enough force
at the right moment, he would prop himself up and over the Humvee, dodging
it.

Landing afterwards was a completely different matter, but that was a
bridge he would cross when he came to it.

He spat away a mix of blood and saliva and fixed his red-gold eyes on the
hood of the Humvee, counting backwards from ten to zero as he got ready to
jump.

Surprisingly, though, he didn't even reach four.

The tattered white Honda appeared at the military vehicle's right, coming
from the nearby access road without any kind of warning and flying over
the asphalt with a roar of its over-worked engine.

The sedan skidded on the road and crashed laterally with the Humvee with a
moan of folding metal and shattering glass, pushing it away from Xander
before heading to the opposite side of the road.

With his mouth opening in shock, Xander could only turn his head as the
two cars passed at top speed on both sides of him, the gusts of wind
produced by them ruffling his longish hair and ruined clothes.

Growling with puzzlement, Xander tilted his head to one side. "What
the...?"



~~~~~~



"...hell?!?" Backlash exclaimed, as he looked at the smaller car at their
side through the window.

The white Honda launched itself at them once again and its tarnished,
door-less side slammed their own with an explosion of golden sparks,
making the two mercenaries bounce in its interior in shock.

Finally, the Australian man had a glimpse of the person driving the
offending car and couldn't but to arch his brow in wonder and surprise
before frowning again, this time with a deep expression of rage.

"I should have known!!" he exclaimed with rage. "God brings them up, and
they got together!"

Stifling a curse when the tattered Honda Accord slammed them again,
Backlash decided to return the favor and opened up to the right, before
moving back to the left and striking back with all the weight of the
Humvee's massive body and power of its engine.

Much lighter and less powerful than the military vehicle, the Honda was
thrown effortlessly to the curb, spinning around as if it was trapped
inside a tornado.

It covered the surface of the road with the shattered fragments of its
windows, before ending up stuck in the ditch at the side of the road, with
its rear wheels sunk into the mud and the front ones spinning uselessly a
couple of inches over the asphalt.

"What now?" Backlash asked, as he looked at the crashed car over his
shoulder. "Do we turn around and finish the job?"

Havoc looked at him as if that was the craziest and stupidest suggestion
he had ever heard, which in his opinion, was exactly what it was.

"Are you joking? Forget about them, we have the damn cross, so just point
this thing towards the mansion and let's get the hell outta here. I've had
enough excitement for one day!" he barked.

Backlash nodded in agreement. And although part of him, the one that was
still screaming in pain and holding his sliced ear, told him to do the
exact opposite thing, the Australian mercenary sped up, leaving behind the
remains of the battle at their back.

The thick, dark smoke, coming from the exhaust pipe of their tarnished
car, covered their escape.

"You think we can find a good explanation for all this?" he asked, once
they had lost sight of the white car.

Havoc sighed painfully, and shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm still
trying to understand it."



~~~~~~



Limping severely as he walked to the crashed Honda, Xander retrieved his
sword from the middle of the road and used it as a cane, leaning his
weight on it for support.

Although he knew that his human mask hid his real state, he couldn't help
but grimace slightly every time that he moved his left leg.

He could feel the tissue already healing, the broken bones reassembling
inside his swollen knee and the severed tendons and ligaments rejoining
around them.

But the truth was, the healing process of his wounds was as painful as the
incidents that had produced them.

He reached the Honda at the same time that the driver's door opened with a
protesting crack of bent metal, and the top of a brunette head emerged
from the dark interior of the car.

In spite of his sharp vampire eyes, Xander couldn't get a glimpse of the
driver, because of the cracked windshield and the darkness surrounding
them. The only light was provided by the full moon hanging in a starless
sky above them, and it wasn't until the driver came out of the car that he
could see her face clearly.

Cordelia.

Bruised and dirty face, wide and bewildered eyes, tousled hair and torn
clothes, she looked at him with a curious expression that he couldn't
decipher. She seemed furious, eager, scared and excited at the same time.

As if all those feelings were boiling inside her and trying to come out,
but no one of them could gain the upper hand over the rest.

All he knew was that her presence was a calming force, a balm that washed
over him, making him feel more relaxed and in control immediately.

And that in spite of her actual looks, she was so beautiful that it
rendered him breathless.

Arching her brow as she rounded the car and came closer to him, Cordelia
stopped at an arm's length from him, and looked down at her bare feet sunk
into the mud of the curb.

Wiggling her toes, she took them out of the mud with a grimace of
discomfort. "Great, just what I needed to complete a perfect day. A mud
bath for my feet."

In spite of the situation, Xander couldn't help but chuckle with
amusement, but the action only served to make him grimace in pain when a
wave of pain passed through his healing ribcage. "Ouch! Don't make me
laugh, Cor. It hurts too much."

At hearing this, Cordelia took a good long look at his appearance, his
ragged and bloodied clothes and the unmistakable bullet holes in the chest
of his black T-shirt and leather jacket.

He brought her hand up and very gently, reverently, she traced the
contours of the wound in the middle of his chest with her fingertips.

When she raised her face and Xander was able to see her eyes, he noticed
her worry but something else too. Something he wasn't able to identify.

Maybe it was fear, and maybe it was something completely different. The
young vampire wasn't sure it had to do anything with him, either.

"Are you alright?" she asked weakly, not really meeting his eyes with
hers.

He nodded slowly, half-closing his eyes before bringing his free hand to
her face and cupping her cheek. "Perfectly fine," he whispered, "I'm
indestructible, remember?"

Snorting, she shook her head with a reproachful stare. Xander just gave
her a goofy smile, as his thumb traced slow and soft round motions on her
cheek.

The effect was more than comforting, it was mesmerizing and Cordelia
leaned on his hand, closing her hazel eyes for a brief moment.

Suddenly, she felt more tired than ever before in her whole life.

"And you?" Xander inquired softly as he examined more closely the bruises
and cut on her face, specially the ones on her throat. Purple finger marks
staining her flawless tan skin, someone had tried to strangle her. "Are
you alright?"

Without thinking, she shook her head but then, remembering something, she
opened her eyes and looked straight at him. A myriad of feelings passed
behind her eyes at that very moment, so fast and so raw that Xander wasn't
able to classify them all.

But, for a second, he thought that Cordy, his brave and strong Cordelia,
was going to crumble in his arms.

Then, Cordelia seemed to reach the same conclusion and she straightened
her back, putting on a mask of hardness on her face. The change was so
sudden and unexpected that Xander had to blink and look twice, to be sure
that the woman in front of him was the same one as before.

Even at the end, he wasn't very sure she was. This Cordelia had a layer of
steel in her eyes, that didn't allow him to read what was really happening
inside her.

She was closed off to him, and that frightened him more than what he had
ever thought possible.

"I'm alright," she said tensely, although both of them knew it was
perfectly obvious that it was a blatant lie. She shook her head, and
stabbed him with a hard glare. "Well, actually I'm not. What I am is mad
at you, Mr. Pee-Wee the vampire."

Xander arched his brow and shook his head briefly, confused. He had to
make an effort not to grimace in pain. He was hungry, his knee was killing
him and he had a major case of a near death-induced headache.

"What?" he asked, a little more harshly than what he intended. "You are
mad at me?"

She nodded, with an expression that said that it was perfectly obvious.
"Yeah, you left me behind as if I was some kind of... annoying baggage or
something!"

Opening and closing his mouth, Xander pointed around them with a violent
wave of his open arms. "Hellooo?!? Have you noticed what's going on here?
Did you really expect me to carry you on the back seat while I chased
those guys?"

Cordelia looked at him as if that was a stupid question, and nodded in
affirmation.

The young vampire could do nothing more than to shake his head, and
chuckle. "You, Cordy, you're really something."

God, she was crazy and he adored her.

Cordelia lifted a perfect eyebrow as, by silent accord, they started to
walk away from the crash site and the useless Honda. "Can you even find
something funny in all this?"

Xander shrugged and allowed a soft smile to cross his lips, but said
nothing. For a few moments they just walked side by side in silence, along
the road back to Sunnydale. Xander was limping and leaning on his sword,
as Cordelia made an effort not to crawl, she was so tired.

A couple of minutes later, still without exchanging a word and without
looking at each other, they reached out with their hands and entwined
their fingers tightly, walking hand in hand.

Looking sideways at her, Xander smiled crookedly and lifted a dark
eyebrow. "Does this mean you're not angry at me for leaving you behind
now?"

Cordelia snorted without turning her head to look at him. "You can't be so
lucky, dweeb-boy."

Finally yielding and sharing his smile, she shook her head as Xander swung
their linked hands. "Don't think too much of this, Xander. I'm doing this
just because I don't want you to leave me behind if you decide to resume
the chase."

He sighed tiredly, as a crunching sound came from his knee when it snapped
into place. "Don't worry, I don't think I can gather the energy or the
will to do it right now."

"So, what now?" she asked with a small frown. "They still have the cross,
right?"

Nodding softly, Xander mirrored her expression. "Yeah, I wonder what they
need it for. And what Faith has to do with it."

At the mention of his sire's name, Cordelia looked straight at him for the
first time, fighting not to look too worried or, even when she couldn't
believe it, jealous. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."

"In my experience there's no such thing as 'just a coincidence', Cordy."

The young vampire sighed again and raised his eyes to the full moon above
for a short second, before returning his gaze to the road in front of
them. "Anyway, we'll have to leave it for tomorrow. Right now I just want
to go the hospital, and see how our friends are doing."

Cordelia nodded softly, and the two kept on walking in silence. Some
minutes later, it was Xander who broke it with a puzzled frown.

"How did you find me?" he asked out of nowhere.

She shrugged, with an enigmatic smile. "Well, I just followed the trail of
destruction," she said with a wink. "You do know that the Sunnydale mall
won't ever be the same again, don't you?"

Xander returned the smile, and shook his head with amusement. "Well,
Cordy," he sighed, surrounding her shoulders with his arm and flashing an
enormous grin, "it's all just part of the job description."

Cordelia looked at him seriously for a couple of seconds and then,
chuckling, she leaned on him as they walked towards Sunnydale once again,
in a deep but comfortable silence.



~~~~~~




To be continued...