Title: Fifth Knight (2/?)

Author: Cyclone

Feedback: Please be gentle.

Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.

Rating: I'm gonna go say PG.

Spoilers: Up to Chosen and Moonlight Rambler.

Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to a bunch of other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Summary: Decades into the future, while investigating a string of "vampire murders" in Japan, Xander Harris finds himself with something very unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay, does anyone have any suggestions on how to shut down a plot bunny farm? Well, at least I'm pretty sure no one's done THIS crossover before.

All things considered, I'm amazed things went as well as they did. For one thing, no one died.

Well, no one stayed dead, anyway.

Yessirree, welcome to Xander's House of Resurrections. Fifty percent off if you bring the body at time of purchase.

Hell, if things had turned out just a bit differently, real estate values would be down the drain, as a fair chunk of Japan would've been vaporized.

Now, I just need to figure out what to do now. What I know now, what I've just learned... it's nothing the Slayers' Council needs to know.

--Excerpted from the Operational Journal of Alexander L. Harris

"Why are you doing this?"

Xander started and glanced at Anri. It was the first time in the days since he met her that the green-haired sexaroid had spoken to him. Sylvie was out; apparently, she'd made a friend or two since coming down. He looked away as he tried to figure out how to answer that.

"Is it... do you enjoy it?" she asked hesitantly.

"Hell, no!" he snapped angrily, glaring at her. "Riley might get his rocks off by having some bloodsucker bleed him dry, but not me!"

She cringed away, and he immediately regretted his knee-jerk reaction, his anger dissolving into nothing.

"Hey, I..." he stuttered to a halt, then paused and collected his thoughts. "I didn't mean you, Anri. I have... a history with vampires. Real ones. They hurt and torture people for fun." He looked at her, "You and Sylvie... you're nothing like them... and that's why I'm doing this. To save you as much as anyone else."

"I..." Anri trailed off.

Silently cursing her "owner" for whatever he'd done to her, Xander reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Hey, not all humans are bigoted bastards, y'know. Some of us are actually pretty decent folks."

She flinched away slightly, and Xander pulled his hand back, holding his hands up. "Okay... don't touch. Got it," he murmured. Clearing his throat, he asked hesitantly, "Anri, I... is there any way I can help?"

Anri backed away from him, and huddled up against the wall, shivering, staring at Xander, her eyes wide. Door creaked open.

Xander turned and found himself with a very pissed off Sylvie on his hands.

"What did you DO to her?!"

"Gak!" he gakked as Sylvie hauled him up off his feet by his throat. His gaze tracked to the fist reared back, and he braced himself. Sure, sexaroids weren't as strong as Slayers, but they were plenty strong enough to break his face in.

"S-stop!"

Sylvie froze and dropped Xander, rushing over to Anri's side.

"Anri? Are you all right? What did he do?"

"I-I'm fine," she replied softly. "H-he didn't do anything." She looked over at Xander, then turned away and added even more quietly, "Except try to help."

"So," Xander said, "you're going to hit GPCC tonight?" Since the... incident... a few days ago, Anri had opened up a little -- a very little -- and Xander had grown even more inclined to help.

Sylvie nodded as she tucked the pistol into her bike suit.

"I'm coming too," he said, turning toward his suitcase.

"You're in no condition for something like this," Sylvie replied.

"I'm a lot tougher than I look," he snorted, rooting around in his suitcase.

He never saw the blow coming.

Anri stared at Sylvie, a horrified look on her face. The other 33-S shook her head and said, "It's better this way."

"Ohh, what hit me?" Xander groaned as he blinked his eyes open.

"Um, Sylvie did," came the timid reply.

Xander blinked a few more times at the green-haired young woman at his side. It took him a moment to match her face to a name, and then the events earlier fell back into place.

"Shit," he muttered, slipping to English for a moment. "How long was I out?" he asked, returning to Japanese.

"About an hour."

Xander cursed again, this time in Japanese. He rose to his feet and reached back into his suitcase, pulling out the hand cannon he'd been seeking. The revolver was of a large caliber, and it sported a laser sight/rangefinder mounted under the barrel. It fired custom rounds with second stage rocket accelerators that ignited based on calculations made by the rangefinder for optimum penetration. At the right range, it was capable of punching through even battle boomer armor with relatively low recoil.

Anri gasped at the sight of the weapon as he loaded its five-chamber cylinder. He pulled out a police-band radio from his suitcase as well and flicked it on worriedly.

Firefight spotted on Highway Five! Heading north northeast!

Images flashed in Xander's left eye as he brought up the map and tracked the reported location.

"Kuso," he muttered, bolting for the door. "That's Sylvie!"

"I'm coming too!" Anri called, a step behind him.

"Sylvie!" two voices chorused as the 33-S tumbled from the DD battlemover's cockpit and into the arms of the blue Knight Saber.

Sylia turned toward the other voice and silently cursed. Priss's faceplate had shattered, and she'd tossed the helmet aside. Her identity was compromised.

It was a man in his twenties, dark hair and eyes. Her sensors didn't pick up anything special about him beyond a cybernetic eye, but they did bring her attention to a large handgun of some sort in a shoulder rig.

She primed her laser. Just in case.

Xander raced toward Sylvie. The Knight Sabers. He was hoping he'd be able to avoid them, but once the DD entered the picture, that had seemed unlikely.

Still, one could always hope.

"Uncle Xander?!"

"Linna?!" Xander turned and found himself staring at the green Knight Saber. He waved a finger at her and scowled, "We're going to have a very long talk about this later, young lady!"

He whirled back to Sylvie, ignoring the stunned expression on the blue Knight Saber's face. He didn't recognize her, but that hardly mattered.

"Sylvie?" he asked tentatively.

"Xander... the disk..." she said, unzipping the top of her bike suit and pulling it out.

He took it and stared at it hard, "Sylvie, did you get everything?"

"Yes, why?"

Xander smiled, "Then don't worry, Sylvie. We'll bring you back. I promise."

Sylvie smiled back and slumped in the blue Knight Saber's arms. She looked at him hard, red eyes glaring at him, "'Bring her back'? How?! She's DEAD!"

"Never stopped me before," Xander murmured. He shook his head and said, "She's..." he hesitated, but plowed on, "she's not quite human, okay? With what's on this disk, we can fix her. We just need this data and the right equipment."

It was almost comical how fast she'd turned to look at Saber Prime. A very small part of Xander's mind wondered if one could suffer self-inflicted whiplash.

He turned and saw Anri walking up hesitantly and sighed.

He'd told her to stay in the car.

This was going to be interesting.

Author's Postscript:

cackles maniacally Two twists, one part, with a free cliffhanger to boot!