Title: Episode X-IV: A New Force
Author: DhampyrX2
Genre: Halloween remix, the sequel to Halloween, Episode X(ander)
Series: Xander: Twilight Lord of the Sith
Rating: PG-13, just to be safe
Summary: Here's the beginning of my 'Xander: Twilight Lord of the Sith' sequels.
Timeframe: Surprise/Innocence
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I'm poor.
Author's note: things here have gone as per normal in the Buffyverse. The party happened, Oz learned about vampires, Buffy and Angel had sex, he went bad but nobody knows yet, and she's off crying while the others research the reassembled Judge.
Xander grumbled angrily to himself as he read over the book about the Judge in the library. It was all pointless. All these pages said the same useless crap. 'No weapon forged' and 'It took and army of thousands, but only three survived' were the recurring, uninterrupted themes. As he finished another book, he headed back into the stacks to put it away, then try again.
Sithspit this is pointless. What is the purpose of having so many of these moldy old pages if they don't tell you anything you don't already know. Where's a good Holocron when you need one? he griped in his head.
He tried to perk up his mood as he saw Cordy replacing and trading off her books as well. "So, any luck?" he asked morosely.
"Nope. This one says the same things all over again." She replied in frustration.
"Let me guess, No weapon forged, and it took an army?" he asked sarcastically.
"Yada, yada, yada." Cordelia said by way of confirmation.
"Yeah. Well, Giles still thinks the answer might be here." Xander responded, trying to lift her spirits.
"Well, it's not in this one." Cordy said back as she placed her book down and began to thumb through a new one.
Xander sensing her tension, decided to apologize for his earlier outburst as he said, "Look, about earlier. I'm sorry. I was crazed and worried, but I shouldn't have attacked you like that."
Cordy rolled her eyes as she replied, "Well, I'm just reeling from that new experience. It's not like we've been sniping at each other since kindergarten or anything. Oh...wait. We have. Silly me."
"Cordy. I'm sorry, all right. I was out of line." Xander apologized.
After a few seconds pause to think over his words, Queen C replied, "Yeah well, I guess I can accept that. It's just...where do we stand now, Xander?"
"What do you mean, 'where do we stand?', Cor?" he asked back in confusion.
Cordelia looked like she was about to get angry, before she calmed down a bit and replied, "I mean what's up with us. We've been dancing around each other since we kissed in Buffy's basement, and I don't understand why. You obviously feel attracted to me. I'm not blind to that, Xander. And, god help me, I can't get /you/ out of my head either. So why do you back away like I have the plague every time we get closer?"
Xander sighed heavily, thinking over his response, before he answered, "Cordy...I just. Look, I /do/ want you. You're not wrong there. It's just, something I can't explain to you right now. I can't let myself act on it. Let's just forget all the high school status crap for a moment, alright? You and I, we've become friends. And I like that. But, if we became more...it would end badly. And I don't want you or anyone else hurt. I'd die before I'd let anyone I care for get hurt, and I know you'll be in for a bad end if we're together. That's all I can say for now."
Cordelia wanted to slap Xander, cry, and fume all at once, but she didn't. Instead, she looked into the haunted pain in her friend's eyes. She knew this was killing him, but she also knew he was certain of his reasons. For some reason, she knew he was right. She didn't want to believe him, but she did. With tears in her eyes, she whispered, "Okay, let's say I believe even a little word of the whole pile of nothing you just fed me? I'll leave this be on two conditions."
Xander looked almost as devastated as Cordelia as he croaked out, "Name them."
"One, at some point, you tell me your full reasons. And every single solitary thing that's behind them. I get the feeling you won't let me in all the way now, and I can deal. But I want your word that you'll fill me in eventually." she demanded.
"Okay, Cordy. I'll fill you when I can." he whispered.
"Swear it, Xander. Promise me, one friend to another." she added, her face set in stone.
"I swear." he replied, crossing his heart.
"Alright. And the other condition. I want one good-bye kiss. I want to end this whatever we feel on a good memory. No as a weepy girl crying and ruining her mascara." she said, her look pleading.
"Cordy..." Xander started to say.
"Please, Xander. Give me this much. I want to kiss a boy I actually feel something for. One that respects me, and talks to me like an actual person, instead of acting like I'm just arm candy for their perved out fantasies." she explained.
Xander could only nod in acquiescence to her reasoning. He moved in, and met her with all the passion and burgeoning feelings he would never allow to fully develop.
Cordelia met his incoming lips eagerly, as if hoping one perfect kiss would change his mind and give them both peace in their souls.
It was locked in that perfect, passionate kiss that Willow caught them, making her take off in tears to escape the sight.
It was several hours later, that Xander and Willow met in the hallway that night.
"I don't understand it. I don't want to under stand it. You have /gross/ emotional problems, and things are not okay between us." the future witch exclaimed. "But this is more important then that. So for now, we deal."
"However it has to be." Xander acknowledged.
"So where do we stand?" Willow asked.
"On a pile of really boring books that all say the same thing." Xander replied.
"No weapon forged." Willow recited.
"It took an army." Xander countered.
"Yeah. Where's an army when you need one?" she asked rhetorically.
Tell me about it. What I wouldn't give for a few thousand of Mater Anakin's Imperial Stormtroopers and the Executor at my back right now. Sith, even one good blaster could probably...d'oh! he thought, before his eyes widened and he exclaimed. "Ooh. I think I having a thought. Yeah...yeah that's definitely a thought. Wait. Now I'm having a plan." he said.
Suddenly, the lights went out, and the hallway became dark. "And now I having a wiggins." he added, as he checked his wrist blaster surreptitiously. "Come on, let's get to the library, he added, as he tried to hurry a cooperating Willow on her way."
Their motion was stopped by a call from behind them. "Xander, Willow."
"Angel." Willow said in relief. "We've been worried. Have you talked to Buffy. She's worried sick about you." the redhead exclaimed.
"Yeah. I just talked to her. What's up with the lights?" the vampire asked distractedly as he looked above them, his hands tucked in his pockets, and his face hidden by the shadows.
"I don't know. But I think I might have figured out a way to stop the judge." Xander replied with determination. He felt a little put off, but Angel, being a vampire, always read unusually in the Force, so he ignored the mild sensation.
"Yeah, forget about that. Listen I have something to show you all. Xander, get the others." Angel said, still checking around him.
Xander was thinking more about his plan, than about how odd it was for Deadboy to tell him to do anything, so he simply said, "Okay." and headed off, as Angelus enticed Willow closer to him.
Xander was halfway to the Library, when his Force senses went off like mad, alerting him to immediate danger. With minimal concentration, as most of his attention was devoted to surveying his surroundings, he realized /he/ wasn't the one in danger...Willow was.
The sight that met him was one that would haunt him for years. Willow was crying, held precariously in the clutches of the evil Angelus, as Buffy confronted him on one side, and Miss Calendar held him off with a cross from the other. His face filled with rage, as he contemplated crushing the fool under as many lockers as his Force control would allow him to rip from the walls. Only the fact that Wills would be hurt along with Angel stopped him. Instead, his voice grew deadly cold as he walked forward and said, "Let her go, Overbite."
Angelus actually laughed as he looked back at Xander and replied, "Um, I'm thinking no. Why don't you go get some doughnuts, kid. I'm having a lover's spat with Buffy, and you're bothering me. As usual." He finished speaking with a sneer, as Buffy pleaded with him to stop this and remember who he was.
"Dream on, schoolgirl. Your boyfriend's dead." the vampire spat, even as Xander walked forward and raised his right wrist.
"As you wish." Xander said emotionlessly, his eyes hard, as he fired his wrist blaster into the back of the vampire. Unfortunately, as the blaster was still set merely to stun, it did not do much damage to Angelus' undead flesh. It did, however, have sufficient power to knock him off balance in pain, tossing Willow aside in confusion at the sudden jolt behind him.
Xander let his senses affirm that Willow was unhurt, as he continued to stare coldly at Angel, his wrist extended, the smoking barrel of the tiny blaster now visible. "That was a stun setting. Obviously enough to sting you dead carcass, but not enough to do anything permanent. Allow me to show you the kill setting. I don't know if it will do you in, already being dead and all. But I'm willing to risk it." he said in that same dead tone, as he flipped a switch on the device.
Angelus didn't bother with any witty banter, as he turned and ran off like a bat out of hell, feeling the heat of red blaster bolts the whole way as Xander stood his ground and kept firing at the erratically dodging vampire.
He only calmed down enough to swear violently a good two minutes after their former ally was out of sight. As he took stock of his surroundings, he noticed all three women that had been in the hall, as well as all the people that had been in the library, whom were attracted by the sounds of his fire, were staring at him incredulously.
"Guess I have a bit of explaining to do, huh?" he asked rhetorically as he met the eyes of every person staring at him in the hall.
Xander say there calmly as Giles yelled at him, Willow babbled, and the others looked at him like he was some kind of science experiment. Well, the others except for Buffy. She was too busy staring off into space and trying not to cry, to get involved in the conversation.
"How the bloody hell could you not tell us of things like this!" Giles roared.
"I did!" Xander spat back. "I told you I got into engineering because of Vader, Giles. And I told you I was tinkering with some tech in my spare time. Several times in fact."
"You never said you were making deadly ray guns in your spare time!" Giles countered.
Xander rolled his eyes as he responded, "Darth Vader designed most of the working fighters in the Imperial Navy, Giles. I could build a damned TIE fighter blindfolded if I had the proper materials and equipment. How the hell is a damn emergency blaster such a big deal? Do you think a closet tech head that commands that many troops would have been ignorant of what they were armed with?"
"That doesn't change the fact you had something so dangerous..." Giles replied a bit flustered.
He was interrupted by Xander standing in indignation and shouting, "Hello, Hellmouth! Where does it say I should let an advantage go and become an easier target? I designed this blaster," he said showing the device strapped to his forearm, before he reached into his jacket, which he had left in the library on a chair during the recent confrontation, and pulled out his pistol sized sidearm, "and this one, so I wouldn't be a sitting duck. In case you didn't notice, my /actions/ saved Willow's life in the face of Angel suddenly going nuts!"
"Be that as it may, you should have informed me." Giles replied stuffily, still obviously flustered by the boy's outburst.
Xander laughed sarcastically as he spat, "And say what? Giles, I'm making weapons light years ahead of the primitive caveman gear our little mudball provides, using the memories and knowledge of a man that was seen as a dangerous loose cannon of an ogre, someone to be feared, even by his own troops. Either that, or seen as a flat out monster by the Rebellion. Never mind I /talked/ to the man. That I was in /his/ head as much as he was in mine, and that I know he wasn't all evil. In fact, alot of what people say was just surface crap, and he was really a fair, sensible, if a bit naive and fatalistic, man led around by a damned psychopathic tyrant. He was still seen as evil to you, and you would have been scared of all this. Would knowing I /liked/ and /respected/ Vader make you feel any better?"
"Well, of course not." Giles answered feebly.
"Oh, then I guess I did the right thing keeping quiet. On all counts." Xander seethed, as he sat down and glared at the Watcher.
"Perhaps, you did." Giles conceded tiredly. "Either way, that is not the matter at hand we need to discuss. We need to discus the Judge, and figure out what made Angel turn against us."
"What?" Buffy asked distractedly.
"Yes. Something must have been the catalyst. The trigger, if you will. Buffy, you've spent more time with him then anyone. Can you think of one thing that..." Giles said, only interrupted as Buffy fled the room in tears.
"Buffy wait. We need to discuss..." He called out to his Slayer.
"Giles, shut up." Willow interjected, as she watched her friend take off with concern.
"Well, could this get any worse. Buffy's a wreck, the Judge is assembled, and now Angel's on his team." Cordelia said in exasperation.
"Well, I don't know what happened to Angel, but I think I may have a way to deal with the Judge. If Giles doesn't freak out on me." Xander said to the room at large.
END PART 2