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: Passion
Xander smirked cruelly as he finished trussing up Angelus in a secure sub-basement of the CRD lab that had once been used as a clean room. It was now going to be the temporary home of a former, and soon to be again, broody putz of a vampire. At least it was until the restoration spell was completed and Angelus was all soulful again. The thought of the merciless vampire being the prey rather than the predator for a change gave the Twilight Sith in training a deep sense of satisfaction as he secured and welded the bars of Deadboy's far too small cage. A cage that was made of solid steel and secured by a lock nobody on earth but Xander could open, much less pick, right now because all the mechanisms were internal and moved by the Force rather than a key or electronic system.
The vampire Angelus was finally beginning to stir from the horrendous blunt trauma by vending machine that would have killed any normal human. He did not like the position he was in when he regained lucidity. He was in a cage, hog-tied with what felt like overly large handcuffs at his wrists and feet, and was staring into the dead eyes of what he knew was a far greater predator than he would ever be.
"Xander." the vampire said evenly, as he worked his wrists and tried to think of a way out of his predicament. He was unpleasantly surprised when his escape attempts resulted in a painful shock that sent his whole body into convulsions for a few seconds.
"Hiya, Deadboy." Xander replied cheerfully as the vampire stopped shaking. "I probably should have warned you that I designed those binders with you in mind. Well, you really didn't give me a chance to say anything yet, but still. I didn't think you'd be dumb enough to try to escape right in front of me. My bad."
The Scourge of Europe growled at his captor, as he tried to break free again, only to get a much longer and more painful shock for his trouble.
"I probably should have mentioned the progressive stun shocks too. Silly me." Xander commented with an evil smile.
Angelus actually shrunk back a bit at the boy's grin as he responded, "Might have been polite of you, Xander. Or should I just call you Vader?"
"Close, Overbite, but no cigar. Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader is my Master in the Force arts, but I'm still Xander Harris here. I just understand alot more about alot of things." Xander responded cheerfully, as he lit a green training saber and poked Angel in the nose though the bars.
The vampire jumped back from the painful shock, certain he would lose half his face to the blade, and looked confused when he didn't, even as he cried, "Darth Vader is a movie character, you nutcase! The Force isn't real!"
Angelus' ability to expel air to form words was cut off then by an unseen icy grip at his trachea, choking off his rant.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Xander purred in an approximation of his Master's voice synthesizer, as he held up his hand in a claw like grip and silenced the vampire. "The Force is quite real, my not so dear prisoner. I'm just the first person on Earth to have received proper training in how to tap it, thanks to Ethan's little spell." he added as he released Angelus from his Force grip, and poked him again with his training saber, this time in his far too vulnerable chest.
He laughed as the vampire let out a frightened shriek, certain he was about to meet his end. "Oh, relax, you gel-headed, doofus. It's a training saber. It's set to hurt, but not cut through flesh. Do you really think the Jedi wouldn't have had safer blades to teach young children on? What a maroon." he taunted, as he held the glowing green blade in his hand to demonstrate that it was painful, but safe.
Xander deactivated the green lightsaber then, and drew his red an blue ones in its place. "Now these, are fully functional. I could cut you, the cage, and well...any material currently on this planet into pieces with either one of these no problem." he explained conversationally.
Angelus was certain he was going to soil himself, despite the inherent impossibility of a vampire accomplishing that feat, as he stared into the deadly glow of the blades. He tried in vain to struggle free of his bonds again, and let out a sheik at the increased voltage running through his carcass as a result.
Xander sniffed the air exaggeratedly as he deactivated and replaced the sabers, before he asked, "Does it smell like ham in here to you too, Angel?" He waited a few seconds, only getting inarticulate groaning from the vampire in reply, before he said, "Oh, that's right. It's just you trying to escape again. Silly me. I'm so forgetful all of a sudden."
Angelus, knowing he was bested, and as good as dead, saw no reason not to throw some meaningless defiance toward the Sith holding him. One thing he had leaned from Angel was that if you pissed off someone that already hated you enough, they might give you a quick death in their rage. It had almost worked on Spike when they were going to use Angel to revive Dru a couple of months ago. Maybe it could work here?
"Well, you were always stupid like that. Although I have to admit, you did impress me with all this. For a stupid loser nutjob with no future, you sure do know how to threaten me without having the guts to act on it. I'll just bet Buffy might even give you a sympathy grope for all this trouble. Well, at least as long as I was there to watch and get jealous. She wouldn't touch you otherwise." the vampire taunted.
Xander looked at him like a particularly disgusting bug beneath his shoe as he replied, "You think I want to catch whatever second hand social diseases you left her with? And you're calling /me/ crazy?"
Angelus looked a bit non-plussed, before he spat back, "It must just eat you up I got there first."
Xander rolled his eyes then. "You're pathetic, you know that right? All this 'throwing yourself to the lions to get a quick end' crap is really pointless right now, because I'm nowhere near ready to kill you." he replied in the tones of an adult chiding an errant child.
Angelus fought back the shiver of fear that reply elicited in him as he forced a laugh and responded, "Like I said, you don't have the guts."
Xander looked at him seriously then, as he knelt down to get closer to eyes level with the vampire trapped in the four feet square by four feet high cage, and said, "You have no idea what I'm capable of, vampire. I have the interrogation methods the Jedi and Sith both developed over millennia of dealing with each other in my head. I also have the ones my Master, and /his/ master, Darth Sidious, came up with over the development of the empire. I could leave you a screaming wreck for millennia as you rotted in here, forgotten and alone, with a single thought. Keep that in mind while I head off for the day."
Xander watched in satisfaction as the vampire cowered before him as he stood and headed for the door. As he turned out the lights, leaving the room in total darkness, except for the door, he tossed out over his shoulder, "After all, I have to get some sleep before I head to school. It seems I have to help Miss Calendar tidy up a mess some idiot 'knowledge seeker' made of her room last night. Oh, and if by some miracle you escape, there's UV lamps and remote blasters set to way past your tolerances in every doorway from here to the exit. I hope you have some sunblock with you if you try to leave. Ciao."
With that said, he closed and locked the door behind him, leaving not a single photon of light left in the room, as Angelus howled and screamed at him to come back and face him, in between screams as he pulled at his bonds and was fried by huge amounts of current for his trouble.
Xander strolled home that night with a savage smile as he whistled the Imperial March jauntily.
The next morning, Jenny Calendar, aka Janna Kalderash, had a smile on her face that some would have said would need to be surgically removed; one only matched by the similar, but more flustered one on Rupert Giles' face. As she made her way into the room that morning before school, her grin faded a bit, but was not removed at the sight in front of her.
Xander was crouched at her desk, setting up the connections for a new computer to replace the one they had disposed of last night after Angelus' attack, whistling the Imperial March.
She was about to speak up then, when Xander interrupted her forthcoming words. "Just a couple of more seconds, Miss Calendar. I just need to check these connections." he said without turning to face her, as he stood up, and headed to the other side of the desk to boot up the system.
"Um Xander, what are you doing?" she asked, curious as to why he would be in her class installing a replacement computer this early. She expected him to delay their talk as much as possible, with her tracking him down after school.
"Remember last month when I promised you a rebuilt computer that would be more to my standards these days?" he asked rhetorically as she walked up behind him and watched him boot up the system. "Well, this is it. Surprise, I finished early. Sorry you had to get it like this." he said as he turned to glance at her and walk her though the new OS parameters and systems.
Jenny was in awe of her new present as the boy in front of her walked her though the system and its capabilities. It could already hack almost every system on Earth without her even having to work at it, according to his descriptions, and was hundreds of times faster and more efficient than anything else she'd ever worked with, all while maintaining the facade of being a regular PC.
"Xander this is..." she said, at a loss for words as to how to continue he thought.
"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" the Force user replied proudly, as he got up and let her sit down and put the computer through its paces.
After a few minutes of exploring her system, which only made her want more time to do more with it later in private, she turned her head to regard Xander, who was tapping away on what looked like a modified Newton palm pad, and said "So, about that full explanation?"
Xander shrugged as he put away the pad and replied, "Well, like I told you last night, Master Anakin let me know I was Force sensitive that night, even before he inhabited me. Other than the knowledge we shared from our Master/Padawan bond, and from reading each other's lives, the only real change in me physically was an increased midi-chlorian count."
Jenny looked a bit confused as she nodded and said, "Midi-chlorian count?"
Xander smiled boyishly as he replied, "Sorry, forgot how much just isn't common knowledge here for a second. Midi-chlorians are almost atomic level symbiotic organisms present in all living things. The more of them you have, the more connected you are to the force. Once you reach a certain level in you blood, well that how they're counted anyway, you're considered force sensitive. Master Anakin's count was well over twenty-thousand, higher than even Master Yoda's. And, I guess mine is at that level as well, from what we could tell. It's not like he had a counter with us that night, or that he'd have had a reason to learn to build one that I would have inherited. We just went by how strongly he could feel the Force with him, and I haven't felt any drop in power since he left me after the spell."
"So, you're saying you're as strong with the Force as Vader himself, then?" Jenny asked.
"As strong, yes. As well trained? Not by a long shot. I have all the theoretical knowledge in me, but I still need to work to get in up to snuff in practical applications." Xander clarified.
"So that makes you what then?" Jenny queried.
"Someone with a full boat of both Jedi and Sith teachings to choose from from the start, according to my Master. He said I would be able to understand both the Light and the Dark, and choose my own path through them." Xander replied
"So are you a Jedi in training, or a Sith?" Jenny pressed, slightly afraid of the answer, but wanting desperately to know after last night.
Her fear were only increased as Xander easily replied, "A Sith." without even considering it. When he felt her increasing fear, he elaborated. "I can't be a Jedi, because I refuse to lock away my emotions to live a life trying to reach Zen-like tranquility. 'A Jedi knows no passion.' For better or worse, I'm a passionate person by nature, just like my Master before me. If the Jedi had taken that into account, and been willing to bend on a few points early on with Anakin, they never would have lost him to Palpatine's manipulations. The Emperor knew just what buttons to push to drive a wedge between Anakin and the order. Once he did that, he had his new apprentice, simply by way of elimination of choices. Anakin was too angry to be a Jedi, Palpy offered him the Sith, and them manipulated him to keep him stuck there for twenty years instead of calming down.", he explained to the teacher before him.
"So, you're a Sith, because you refuse to stop feeling angry?" Ms. Calendar asked, concerned.
"Not just anger. Emotions like love and joy are sacrificed the same as anger, fear, lust, and hatred are, according to Jedi law. I can't live a dead existence like that. Instead I'm trying to strike a balance between the light and dark. Since I know both of them from day one, I'm less likely to swing to one extreme or the other, because I know what they are from point of view of the same man experiencing them. I don't want to become as trapped in the Darkside as my Master was any more than I want to embrace the Jedi ways alone." Xander elaborated.
"Then what are you? A grey Jedi?" she asked, still a bit confused, but with a better understanding of what Xander was telling her.
Xander shook his head as he replied, "I'm no Jedi. Even with the problems he had, Master Anakin respected the title 'Jedi' too much to let me sully it like that while using the Darkside freely. I'm a Sith in training, no question about it. I'm just not training myself to become a 'Dark Lord' of the Sith."
"Then you're a Light Lord of the Sith?" Jenny asked, a small quirk of amusement in her eyes.
Xander pondered that deeply for a few moments, ignoring her quip. "You know Drusilla keeps babbling about seeing Twilight when she looks at me. That I'm all Light and Dark together. As weird as it sounds, I think she has some weird kind of Force sensitivity that even her turning by Deadboy couldn't kill." he said in a thoughtful tone.
"You're not planning on training her, are you?" Jenny asked aghast.
"Of course not." Xander retorted, insulted at the insinuation. "But I think I might steal the term from her. I guess you could call me the Twilight Lord of the Sith." he said, smiling at how right it sounded to him even as he spoke it.
Jenny found herself smiling in response to the wholeness she felt coming from the newly crowned Twilight Lord of the Sith before her. After a few moments of basking in that complete feeling, she felt she had to ask, "So, what did you end up doing with Angelus last night?"
Xander smiled evilly as he shrugged and responded, "Oh, he's...around. Let's just say I've given him a place to think about what he's done while we recompile the soul spell."
Jenny's grin actually matched his in malice for a second, before she sighed, and replied, "That won't take too long at all, I'm afraid. I found my disk that I saved it on last night while you were on a bathroom break. Once we get the materials, including a new Orb of Thessula, together we can try the curse. I even told Rupert about your translation program helping me reconstruct it."
Xander looked a little disappointed for a second before he sighed and said, "It's just as well, I suppose. All his threats and curses would have become boring after more than a few days."
The Romani woman smiled in sympathy as she asked, "Are you sure you still want me to try the spell after what you did in front of Angelus last night to protect me?"
Xander never hesitated as he replied, "Definitely. Buffy's a wreck, and only his return to form will soothe her. Besides, he knows how to keep secrets when he's his normal brooding self. He won't squeal on me. Besides, bringing back the one true Deadboy will be a better torture for Angelus and his crimes than anything I could ever do to him. Living with that idiot for eternity is worse than Hell."
Miss Calendar laughed at his response, agreeing fully, even as she asked, "I take it you don't want me filling in the others either, then?"
Xander nodded in agreement, as his face went a bit blank while he tapped the Lightside of the force, and responded, "It's not time for them to know yet. You knowing was a necessity. We'll know when the others will need to be filled in." He shook his head after saying that, as if trying to wake up, before he added, "Besides, Giles was having puppies over a simple blaster. Imagine how he'd react to me throwing around the Force in battle, or cutting up vampires with my lightsabers."
"That was kind of creepy how you zoned out there, Xander." Jenny informed him conversationally. "But still, I can agree with your reasons. On one condition." she added with a wicked grin.
"And that is?" Xander asked with a similar grin.
"You let me see where you have Angelus trussed up before we all bring Angel back. I really want to talk to him about destroying my computer and trying to kill me." she replied in a sly tone.
"My dear lady, it would be a pleasure." Xander replied just as slyly.
End Part 6