TITLE: Back In Black – (3/?)
AUTHOR: Wicked Raygun
E-MAIL: wicked_raygun@yahoo.com
SUMMARY: Xander returns to Sunnydale as an evil vampire… And that's the easy to understand part.
RATING: R
SPOILERS: General spoilers for seasons 1 through 7 for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and for seasons 1 through 4 of Angel. Everything else is of my own invention.
DISCLAIMOR: I refuse to believe this is necessary. Does anyone here actually believe I own this stuff in any way? Well… To the folks who do own a piece of the Buffster and/or her friends and enemies, I mean you no harm. I'm simply borrowing your toys to put on a little puppet show. I promise to bring them all back in near-mint condition. Even Spike.
FEEDBACK: Everyone needs a little love. It makes the world go round and writers post faster. Just remember that the next time you want to know what happened to Nonsense. J
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This takes place roughly three years after the end of season seven, but in my version Sunnydale didn't go all cratery. The Sunnydale Hellmouth is gone though.
AUHTOR'S NOTES 2: Also, for those who are interested in some of my other work, including Hero Complex, and Nonsense, it can be found here:
And here:
That's my brand spanking new website, created by the wonderful and talented Joanne W. and was the coolest Christmas gift ever! Please, go to her site, read her fine work and leave many reviews for her as well.
Now, onto the show.
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Episode 2-20 Part 3 – The Prodigal Sons
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Xander sighed when he finally spied the Magic Box, an action which caught Buffy's attention. She didn't have to ask to know what was bothering him, but she decided that she would wait for Xander to bring up the subject himself.
"So…" he began slowly. "Who's running the Box, now?"
"Well, technically, Willow, I guess – legally, anyway. She handles all the magic stuff, suppliers and such. But Dawn's the one who handles everything else, though: bills, financial statements, making sure the roof doesn't fall in on our heads… It's more her shop than Willow's, really. She loves the place."
Xander nodded. "The more things change…" he said to her, poignantly leaving the rest of the cliché unfinished.
Buffy nodded, agreeing with the sentiment completely.
~~~~~~***~~~~~~
The bell hanging over the door of the Magic Box jingled, signaling Buffy and Xander's return. The first thing they noticed was Angel leveling a crossbow at them. He blinked when he saw Buffy and lowered it.
"Thank God," he said with relief evident in his every word and movement. "I was getting restless waiting for you." He approached Buffy and hugged her. The protective way he held her let Buffy know that the hug was more for his benefit than her own, and she returned it with equal fervor to soothe her husband.
"Did he really slash your tires?" he asked after a few moments.
Buffy shrugged. Angel frowned. "You know, it's one thing to try and kill you, but to go after the car…" he joked. Buffy's return smile was genuine.
Angel finally turned to Xander, seeming as if he hadn't noticed him before.
"Xander… Non-evil Xander?" he asked his wife. She nodded and Xander held out a cross, displaying the fact that his hand wasn't on fire. "I'd say it was good to see you, but under the circumstances… Are you alright?"
"I've been better," he said evasively, feeling slightly uncomfortable about having to witness the couple being intimate and feeling more than a little surprised that Angel had said so much so quickly.
Angel nodded, understanding not to press the issue any further.
Dawn, Willow and Kennedy ran in from the back room, each of them carrying various weapons and books.
"Are they here?" Willow shouted. And then she stopped cold as she saw Xander, dropping a battleaxe and several books to the floor in her surprise. Her hand flew to her mouth as she noticed that Xander wasn't wearing an eye-patch.
Standing just behind her, Dawn and Kennedy looked just as surprised.
"Hey, guys," Xander said somewhat sheepishly.
Willow and Dawn broke out of their respective trances and ran full-tilt toward Xander. They both threw their arms around him and each other, forming an awkward group hug, and clutched him fiercely.
Buffy and Angel watched as Xander looked vaguely uncomfortable for a moment before he finally gave in and hugged them back, a look of relief on his face.
Willow and Dawn moved back from him a little, standing there mouth agape as they looked on in astonishment at his new eye and, once again, Buffy finally saw hints of her old friend as he fidgeted a little under their gazes.
Willow made gaping, hollow sounds while vaguely pointing to Xander's eye and then her own, desperate to get her meaning across.
It was Dawn who finally asked.
"How did you get your eye back?"
Xander smiled sheepishly. "Well, long story short… Magic."
"Is it real?" Dawn asked in awe, reminding Xander of the tiny ten-year old in a ponytail he'd first met all those years ago.
"Real enough," Xander said with a small smile. "My vision's better than twenty-twenty."
"When?" Willow finally managed to say.
"Oh… A little over a year ago now," he said thoughtfully.
Both Willow and Dawn stepped back as if slapped.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Willow said, hurt and betrayal clearly etched on her features.
Xander wilted. He could always stand up to Buffy, but Willow and Dawn were another matter entirely. For the first time tonight, he truly felt like pond scum.
"I-It's complicated," he said with a nervous stutter and with all of his earlier conviction about living his own life gone.
Buffy held back her own scoff, knowing that Xander didn't need anymore antagonism; and so, instead, she intervened.
"Guys, there's other stuff we have to deal with now. There's an evil vampire that looks like Xander out there. Everything else can wait."
Xander spared a thankful glance to Buffy before looking back to Willow and Dawn.
"You should probably sit down. There's kind of a lot to tell." Xander caught Kennedy's eye, and nodded to hear. "Kennedy. It's good to see you again."
Kennedy looked back at him for a moment with the same intensity she used regarding anyone and then nodded back, a small grin on her face. "Likewise."
Everyone moved to the long table by the back of the store where all sorts of books had already been piled up and opened. Everyone sat down except for Dawn who went to retrieve the books that had been dropped earlier, and Xander who thought it would be better if he sat up for a while. He placed his hands on the back of a chair, leaning on it a little, as he looked back at all the expectant faces around him.
Xander sighed.
"Where should I start?"
~~~~~~***~~~~~~
Xander's cue stick dashed forward and back, coming eerily close to the cue ball without actually touching it. One last bob and Xander hit the cue ball flying above the oddly placed eight ball with a small jump before landing with a wooden clang on the pool board, sending it against the far wall where it rebounded at the exact place he'd meant it to strike. The ball rolled back and then struck the eight ball, sending it slowly to the opposite side of the board where it finally rolled into the corner pocket.
"Well, buddy, I do think that's my win. Pay up," he said with a grin.
The teenager grumbled, but pulled out a twenty dollar bill.
"Now, now. Don't pout. You're lucky I won. I'm a very sore loser," he said, grinning much more wickedly now. The teenager just rolled his eyes and walked away.
Xander leaned on his cue stick and sighed melodramatically. "Kids today."
His eyes scanned the Bronze once again, but so far he hadn't found what he'd been looking for. He heard the creaking of the main entrance and turned to see who was coming in. He smiled.
"Finally," he said impatiently, before moving off to hide in the shadows.
~~~~~~***~~~~~~
Many things had happened over the past two years, and the fact of the matter was that, for better or for worse, Xander just wasn't the same man he was when he left Sunnydale. And standing there looking at the faces of the people he loved from his past, he never felt so different.
But how to explain that to these people, he wondered.
Xander shook his head and took a long, steadying breath.
"Okay… um, before I start, does anyone have any questions?"
Everyone but Buffy raised their hands.
"Questions that don't involve my eye?" Xander asked with a sigh.
All hands went down.
"Okay, different approach," Xander said to himself. "Uh, well, let's see… Oh, I got it. Uh, for the past two years, I've been… I guess, helping people, occasionally, with… uh, well, you know, uh… demons… and stuff." Xander took a deep breath. Saying all that had taken a great deal out of him.
"You're a demon hunter?" Angel asked, none too unsuccessful at hiding his surprise.
"Well, that would be the technical term."
"But I thought you were going to live a normal life?" Willow asked.
"Well, that was the plan. And for a little while I did, you know, live a normal life."
"And how long did that last?" Dawn asked.
"Oh… About a month." Everyone looked about to say something at once. "It just sort of happened," Xander explained defensively, hoping to head off the accusations. "One day I went to go get a cup of coffee at this diner, and the owner was… well, dead. And, well, there were vampire marks on him, and, you know, after seven years of active duty on the Hellmouth…"
"You got involved," Buffy finished for him.
"Right. And I didn't call you guys and told you what was up because I thought that it was over. I figured, it was just a fluke. You know, a random demonic incident, but… After a while, things just sort of kept happening and… I couldn't just do nothing," Xander finished with a sad sigh, before turning away from them.
Xander leaned on a bookcase and Buffy once again saw the misery that radiated from his very being. Bad things had happened to Xander in San Francisco, of that she was sure.
"Anyways… without going into a whole lot of detail, I ended up pissing off this coven of dark witches. I should've stopped them earlier, but I thought I could help them… I don't know, not do evil, I guess; like I did with Willow and…" Xander consciously trailed off again, seeming to the others like he was hiding something. "Well, they were the guys who made my evil twin."
"So he's a spell?" Willow asked.
"According to one of the witches I found… yeah."
"Found?" Dawn asked, somehow knowing she should dread Xander's answer.
Xander took a deep breath. "He slaughtered them. All of them. Then he desecrated the bodies so that I couldn't just cut off their heads to reverse the spell that made him." Xander scoffed in disgust. "He was very thorough about it."
Willow nodded, despite being disturbed by the imagery his words had brought up.
"Wait, if you found one, then that means one of the witches made it out alive, right?" Dawn asked.
"He found her later and finished the job," Xander replied darkly. "I couldn't protect her."
"Oh," Dawn said softly.
"Do you know what kind of spell it was, Xander?" Buffy asked to break the tension. "Maybe we could find a non-violence solution."
Xander sighed. "I know the purpose of the spell, but I don't know exactly which spell it is. And believe me when I say that we've looked through every spell book imaginable."
Everyone else looked at each other individually, noticing the looks of confusion on each other's face and decided that they hadn't heard wrong after all.
" 'We'?" they all asked in unison.
Xander chuckled nervously, then turned his head, feigning interest in the walls.
"Hey, have you, uh, painted the walls a different color since I've been here last?" Xander asked, avoiding the question.
~~~~~~***~~~~~~
She was struggling for her life down that alley. It was a futile struggle, of course, which was probably the reason why Xander enjoyed watching from a distance.
The power of it all, he mused with a wicked grin, so much more pleasantly intoxicating then the most powerful narcotic. He was tempted—more than tempted, really. Compelled—to let this struggle continue to its natural conclusion, knowing full well that her life had really been in his hands all this time as he let this creature of the night drain her dry.
But the practicality of the situation made itself known to him. It would be light in four or five hours, and he couldn't expect another group of vampires to come into the Bronze. Perhaps they finally figured out that to do so meant death at the hands of the Slayer and her team.
The bottom line was he was hungry.
With an almost reluctant sigh Xander dashed forward, taking as much advantage of his vampiric speed as he could without revealing his true face. He quickly staked one vampire, taking him completely by surprise.
"Let her go, demons of the night! Or face my wrath!" he bellowed in a mock-heroic fashion. Oh, he was going to enjoy this, he thought excitedly. The gallant savior, once again. If he wasn't a demon, he thought, amused, he would almost miss it.
The vampires turned to him, somewhat fearful until they got a good luck at him, They'd been expecting the Slayer—or one of, anyway. Now they were just angry that he had interrupted their meal and killed one of their own; although, they seemed to be angrier about the former than the latter.
Two rushed him headlong while the other held onto their meal. Xander snorted at the tactic and felt a pang of genuine regret. He shouldn't have killed that first vampire, but his damn leftover 'human' instincts got the best of him and now he was only going to have to fight the three of them.
How boring, he thought, as he dodged and countered the first barrage of clumsy haymakers that came his way.
He easily sidestepped one vampire's awkward kick, then grabbed the wrist of the other who tried to club him from behind with his fist. He kicked the first vampire away and proceeded to wrench the arm of the other vampire around until a wet snap was heard and the vampire's forearm had been broken so brutally that a sharp fracture grotesquely punctured his skin, his howl piercing the night as deeply as his bone fracture had pierced his arm.
The first vampire, after a prompting from his leader who still held their squirming would-be victim, rushed Xander again, but with much less enthusiasm.
Xander popped him with a short jab, ending any momentum the vampire had, and then stabbed his eye out with the sharp point of the bone fracture.
"Never rush somebody unless you mean it," Xander admonished the vampire with a grin.
Xander let go of his vampire playthings, pulled out two stakes and with no other fanfare staked the both of them.
"Just like old times," Xander said to himself, faking a flux of emotional nostalgia.
The leader holding the girl, shook with fear. "He-hey, m-man. Th-there's no need to get violent. Y-y-you can have her. I've been meaning to go on a diet anyway," the vampire explained weakly.
"I'm not one of your kind, demon!" Xander bellowed, hamming it up as he remembered to stay in character.
"Huh?" the vampire muttered, confused by the whole situation. "Ah, to hell with it," he said before pushing the girl to Xander, hoping to make his escape.
Xander side-stepped the girl then grasped the vampire by his shoulders, flinging him toward the brick wall. Dropping his act, Xander leaned into his ear, and whispered pleadingly, "Can you try to at least make me look good? I'm trying to get laid here."
The vampire stared at him in complete shock.
"What?"
Xander shrugged then stepped back, giving the vampire enough breathing room to recover and fire off his own wild punch which he didn't dodge.
Xander stumbled for a second from the blow, more for show than any loss of balance he suffered. The vampire returned with a round of jabs that were more swipes in the air than punches. Xander dodged and blocked the first few punches then allowed the last one to connect with his chest, although he shifted his stance so that the last hit mostly glanced off him.
Xander played it up though and faked a stumble backwards, doing his best to hide his grin.
The vampire, meanwhile, was beginning to actually believe he was winning this fight, and began to mock Xander.
"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you're not exactly as tough as you looked."
Idiot, Xander thought snidely.
Deciding to go for the finish, Xander palmed a stake from his jacket and waited for the gloating vampire to come just a little bit closer…
"Just what the hell were you thinking, huh, pal? Did you actually think you could tango with ME and get away with it?"
'Tango?' Please… Xander scoffed mentally, faking a hacking, wheezing cough to hide his amusement. Just a little closer, moron…
The vampire stopped next to him, his hand curling to a fist to deliver another blow.
"I want you to know all about me, before I kill you. I…"
The vampire released his punch, and Xander caught it with one hand and plunged his stake through his un-beating heart with the other.
"Hit like a girl?" Xander finished for him. "Yeah, I noticed."
The vampire crumbled into dust and Xander took great pleasure in blowing specks of his face away before it flittered away or fell to the ground.
Xander stood up dramatically and looked at the attractive girl cowering by a dumpster. Her skin was a deep shade of brown despite a tinge of pale from her fright with her hair hung about her cute face in rivulets.
Xander faked having bruised ribs by holding his midsection tightly as he walked towards her. His ruse of pain made her shiver.
"Are you okay?" he asked, feigning concern and pain.
"What were those things?" she asked in a clear voice, and Xander was impressed despite himself. Most people stuttered with fear after their first vampire attack, but this young woman had held herself together.
This is going to be so much fun, he thought.
"They were vampires," he said matter-of-factly. "They're evil." Xander briefly fantasized about ripping out her throat with his teeth and showing it to her before continuing. "You're lucky to be alive."
~~~~~~***~~~~~~
For twenty minutes Xander was chewed out by Buffy, Dawn and Willow respectively. Only Angel and Kennedy, mercifully, didn't say anything. In fact their only reactions were surprise—from Angel—and amusement—from Kennedy.
Finally, Xander lashed out.
"Hey!" he shouted at them. "It's not like I recruited anybody!" Xander paused. "Right away, anyway," he said somewhat softer. He mustered up his conviction again and finished with, "Believe me, I did everything I could not to get other people involved."
The gang quieted down a little, as Xander's indignation faded.
"After a while, that just wasn't an option anymore. Things got bad. Apocalyptic bad. And I needed the help."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Angel interjected. "Are you telling us you stopped an apocalypse?"
Xander hesitated, then nodded.
Angel smirked. "Well, whatdya know…"
Buffy, Willow and Dawn weren't amused, but were somewhat mollified by that.
Finally, Buffy spoke up.
"Xander, if things were that bad, why didn't you contact us. If there was an apocalypse, you should have called us. We would of come running."
"By the time I found out I was facing an end-of-the-world scenario, it was too late to contact you guys. And after that…" Xander sighed. "I got cocky," he said venomously. "I thought that we—that I—could handle it… People are dead because of that."
"Xander… what happened wasn't your fault," Dawn said. "You didn't ask for this."
"The hell I didn't!" Xander spat. "People I cared about are dead! Did you hear me!?! Dead! And all because I had a jonesin' to play the valiant superhero who does no wrong! I should have stopped those witches LONG before this! But I didn't have the guts!"
Xander fixed a glare on them all and spoke with a cold, low snarl. "Annie—the witch in charge of the covenant—she decided to play a joke on me and you wanna know what the punch line was? Me turning into a demon."
There were gasps from nearly all those in the Magic Box.
"Only she missed and hit a friend of mine instead. One of the finest examples of humanity you'd ever find on this miserable rock we call a world, and I had to watch him become a monster… I watched him chase down the woman he loved, and nearly snap her neck because he was hungry!"
Xander paused to take a ragged gasp.
"It was evil and wrong. And in order to get her to reverse the spell, I threatened her… When I should have done more than threaten…" Xander scoffed. "Only one sure-fire way to reverse a witch's spell… Cut off her head."
Everyone except Willow gasped… Willow just looked back at
Xander in horror.
"Xander that's enough!" Buffy spat angrily. Xander just snorted back at her contemptuously.
"Well, personally," Angel spoke in a menacingly calm voice, "I haven't met your evil vampire twin, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what he's like."
"Don't you dare judge me, Angel," Xander seethed.
"No, I think I will. Do you really think you're ready to take a life, Xander? You know, for the greater good and all… Because from personal experience, I can tell you it's a bit messy."
Xander scoffed. "You don't know what I'm ready for." And with that Xander turned to leave.
"Hey! We're not finished here!" Buffy yelled.
"Well, unfortunately for you, I am," Xander called from over his shoulder. "This was never a get-together. It was a courtesy call. This is my problem, not yours. I'll handle it."
"Like hell," Buffy muttered. "Willow, stop him."
Willow called out a clear word of power and Xander's arms and legs halted in mid movement. For a brief moment, Xander resisted Willow's power, but, in the end, his body involuntarily succumbed to her will and he was suspended half a foot from the ground. She willed him to turn around to face them all, and Xander glared at her, his face a painful mix of hurt and betrayal.
"Let me go, Willow," he said venomously slow, his muscles and willpower working furiously to combat the spell all the while.
Willow's concentration faltered for a brief second, but she kept up the spell.
Dawn moved up to Xander with shackles in her hands to bind him. Xander fixed his glare on her instead and she wilted, handing the chains to Kennedy who hesitated for a second until she took a look at the utter pain on Willow's face at having to assert her magic upon him.
Ex-girlfriend or not, no one made Willow hurt like that, she thought angrily. Then she placed the shackles on his hands. She then proceeded, with Willow's magical assistance, to tie him to a chair.
A look of insanity crossed Xander's features and then he laughed disturbingly.
"Be it ever so humble there's no place like home, huh?" he quoted.
******To*Be*Continued******