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.
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The reunion of Buffy and her animated corpse with an artificially implanted human soul had gone predictable in Xander's estimation. She had cried and hugged and kissed him, as Angel brooded and glanced fearfully at Xander, Jenny, and Giles when he thought they weren't looking. Eventually, the sight, although heartwarming in its own way, sickened him enough that he decided to leave.
"Giles, I'm heading home for some sleep. I'll see you all manana." he anno9unced to the Brit, who was currently locked in a discussion with Amy and Willow both about magick as he comforted the still exhausted Jenny.
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Very good, then, Xander. Are you certain you'll be alright to make your way home unescorted?" Giles asked with mild concern. Truthfully, he knew Xander could handle himself. He had saved Jenny from Angelus, after all. The question was more for Buffy's benefit as it brought her mind onto her duty and off of Angel; both men understood that before it was even asked.
"He's right, Xander. I'll walk you home." Buffy replied with much greater concern, her eyes still teary from all the released emotions of the evening.
Xander thought about taking her up on her offer just to get her some space from Angel, but ultimately decided against it. He wanted to do a small patrol and work on his repulsor drives anyway. He hoped to have a working speeder of some kind assembled by the summer, and to do that he needed repulsors far larger than the ones on his training remotes. "Nah, I'm good." he finally replied.
"But, Xander! There are vampires out there. I'm the Slayer, I'm supposed to protect you." Buffy protested.
A darker part of him wanted to Force choke her condescending platitudes out of her and show her how strong he really was, but he suppressed it. "I've got my blaster and a couple of pocket sized UV emitters I've been working on. Well, I stumbled upon the design while I was mapping out the best way to make an ion disruptor, but the point is it's like having a flashlight with sunlight in it on me. I wasn't taking any chances of getting jumped while Deadboy was disoriented on the way back." he assured her, certain the techno-babble phase would make her back off.
Buffy was almost as techno-phobic about his inventions as Giles was about computers. She subconsciously felt that because the knowledge that let him construct these things came from what was, to her, an evil spell then the fruits of it were evil and not to be trusted. (Strange how that didn't apply to her suddenly passing French, but still.) Xander could only imagine how she would react to his Force powers. She certainly wouldn't believe he was Force sensitive before the spell.
His little foray drew extra attention from another source, though. "You've built an ion disruptor? Really? That's so neat. Can you bring it here to show me? Or is it too big. I mean that is so neat how you could use that...wait /how/ could you use that? We don't need a disruptor. What good is an ion disruptor on the Hellmouth?" Willow asked.
"I know I'm going to regret this, but what does this device do that would confuse Willow so much?" Giles asked tiredly.
"Well, first off, it's not done. I'll need parts that have to be bought instead of just scavenged to finish it. Luckily me new translation program will help with that. As to what it does, it's like a non-lethal version of a neutron bomb, only you can localize the effects to just what you're aiming at." Xander clarified.
"Huh?" Buffy asked in confusion.
"It will short out and kill electronics, but won't hurt people." Miss Calendar explained.
"Oh." Buffy replied. "Wait, why /would/ you want that?" she asked Xander after a moment to think.
"I can sell it to the military. Think about it, they'd be able to disable an enemy's nuclear weapons, planes, vehicles, communications, etc. with pinpoint accuracy. No more risking taking out places like schools or hospitals as collateral damage. You could basically cripple a target to the point they're fighting with sticks and knives. After that, you could take them out with simple stun guns. No fuss, no muss, way less useless loss of life. The fact I'll make enough to fund my inventions until doomsday on something like that is just a big hefty bonus." Xander replied as if it were obvious.
The groups sat there stunned as they considered this, until Giles finally responded, "That sounds like a very laudable goal, Xander. But can't it be easily twisted to evil?" he asked tactfully.
"So can magick, Giles. I'm trying to keep what I'll release into the world down to the least damaging of things. Ion disruptors, shield generators, repulsor engines, may hyperspace capable vessels someday. That won't stop human nature. Eventually, you just have to have some faith that man's willingness to strive for good will balance out his desire for to commit evil." Xander replied with a shrug.
A contemplative silence settled over the group then as they all mulled over what Xander said, although only Jenny understood even a fraction of what it truly meant to him. That silence was finally broken when Buffy asked, "Are you /sure/ you don't want me to walk you home?"
Xander rolled his eyes, and was ready to break out into the argument all over again when someone unexpected spoke up for him. "He'll be fine, Buffy. Believe me, after the way he took down Angelus, I'd be surprised if Spike didn't have vampires sending him thank you cards full of cash. They won't harm him, and if they tried, his gear can make up for anything they throw at him." Angel cut in quietly.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Deadboy. I'll be sure to tell Captain Peroxide I want those gifts in non-sequential bills if I see him." Xander shot back with a jaunty salute before he made his exit.
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The Twilight Lord of the Sith was patrolling one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries, his Force senses stretched out to their max to detect the familiar signatures of his friends and enemies alike to alert him if they were near as he tracked down and destroyed several vampires that night. He had actually fried the first two to final death with his Force Lightning just to purge the anger he had toward Buffy's derision of his ability to care for himself.
With his senses extended as they were, he was rather shocked when a voice piped up from behind him. Nobody should have been able to get in under his radar like that. "You sure did screw up a lot of people's plans tonight, kid." a voice with a heavy Brooklyn accent stated in resignation.
Xander spun gracefully his blue lightsaber, chosen that evening for its Jedi connotations should he need to use it in front of the gang and explain himself, snapping to life in his hand to level it at the unknown creature.
Whistler raised his hands in alarm as he backed away a step and said, "Whoa now, take it easy there Obi-Wan. I come in peace."
"Then you really shouldn't be comparing me to Kenobi. My master had a forgiving soft spot for him. I find far less sympathy for a man that would train a child to kill his own father without even knowing who he was. Never mind that point of view crap about 'Vader' destroying 'Anakin'." Xander spat venomously. Of all the Star Wars characters he had come to identify with real people, only Palpatine held a greater place of contempt in Xander's heart.
"Uh, well hold on there Luke, then?" the Balance demon suggested nervously.
"You are not human, and you don't read in the Force at all. State your business quickly before you become target practice." Xander stated in the cold tones he had inherited from Vader.
"I just came to talk to ya, is all. My name's Whistler, and I'm a balance demon that works for the Powers that Be."
"/Balance/ demon? How very droll considering my position." Xander replied skeptically, his saber still at the ready.
"Yeah, well, I ain't exactly thrilled with the title sometimes neither. Trouble with balance is, it means sometimes you have to work in some scuzzy shit go good don't get to strong. Normally it's the other way around, what with evil being more proactive and everything, but every once in a while..." Whistler elaborated, his face taking on an angry look at the end.
"And what does this have to do with me, exactly?" Xander inquired in a slightly bored tone.
"Like I said, you pissed some folks off, your Lordship. The Powers had plans for ol' Angie's alter ego that are permanently shot to hell now and the big man up stairs won't let them fix things." Whistler said his face breaking into a grin at the end.
"You look happy I screwed your bosses over." Xander replied dryly as he killed his blade and hung it back on his belt.
"Yeah, well they played Angel an' me both for chumps and I ain't exactly doin' cartwheels over it. See, they had me recruit old Deadboy to humanity's cause back in the day. He was supposed to be my special project, my crowning bit of balance...a vampire fighting for the light full time. When I found him he was brooding so hard he was living as a bum in NYC living off rats and afraid to talk to a human for fear of loosing it. I taught him how to be a person again. He was supposed to come here, assist you all, and stop a big bad demon from coming forth. At least, that's what /I/ was told." the demon bitterly explained.
"Except Angelus was supposed to be the one in charge when this demon comes out to play and they didn't tell you that." Xander supplied seeing where this was going.
"Worse." Whistler replied in disgust. "He was going to bring him forth; your little Slayer would be forced to send him to Hell where the /ensouled/ version that was just restored minutes after Acathla was awakened would suffer for centuries, their time, which is a few months here. The fallout from all that would domino into some seriously effed up shit."
"I'm starting to see why you'd be glad they failed." Xander replied seriously.
"Yeah, well the thing is, they didn't fail. They don't move direct enough to call it a failure. They call it you screwing it up with your Sithy self. So, by special request of folks both higher up and lower down on the food chain then they can touch, I've been asked to inform you that they're going to start upping the ante to try to off ya' so they can get back to screwing with the lives of your friends." Whistler responded solemnly.
"Why them? Why not just try to screw with me too?" Xander asked after a moment to let that sink in.
"You're too strong. See the thing with the Force is...it's the essence of all creation. Like the green Muppet said, 'Life creates it. The rock, the tree, the air between us...' and all that stuff. Your Force sensitivity, even if you were never trained, meant you would see through any manipulation directed right at you too easy. The best they could do was to keep everyone else far enough back to make you a bit player so you wouldn't see through their plans for the others." Whistler answered.
"And then I got Master Anakin in my head and got training on top of that shielding that prevents me from being pushed aside." Xander surmised.
"Bingo. Now you're beyond what they want to risk attacking with subtlety. Hell the Judge was an asswipe compared to your power. You could have zapped him even without the blaster and we both know it. It wouldn't have been hard to rip him to pieces from across the room with a few flying blades. Most of what they have would be too easy for you to beat. So...they're upping the ante, like I said. I can't tell you how because I ain't been told that. I was just informed that you should be warned." Whistler confirmed.
"Why? I mean, why warn me if the Powers keep stuff in balance?" Xander asked.
"They're one rung on a ladder in one direction. People higher up near the roof and down in the basement want to see where you can take all of this. They want to see how humanity grows up with some help from its own instead of just what the PtB doles out before taking something away to keep it even. Anything they pull here, they're doing without help. I just want you to know that." Whistler replied.
"Good to know." Xander responded evenly. He didn't trust a word the demon had said, but he didn't discount a word either.
The Balance demon nodded in respect to the young Sith before he turned to walk away off into the night. He paused just before he was out of earshot and called out over his shoulder, "Hey, Kid? When you see Angel you tell him I'm sorry for all this, but he still makes a better hero than I thought. Oh, and if I knew about Angelus, I'd have left him as Stink Guy and just helped him catch the rat.
Xander smirked as he replied, "I'll give him the message." as he watched the demon fade into the shadows and disappear.
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Spike was beside himself as to what to do with Drusilla. She had been singing back and forth between weeping for 'Daddy', fuming at 'Kitten', dancing about how dangerous 'Kitten' was and back again for the last couple of hours.
"Dru, pet. What the soddin' 'ell is this all about? Did the Slayer finally dust the poof?" he finally asked in exasperation.
His sire rounded angrily on her wheelchair-bound childe with a growl, before shaking her head fretfully. "No. Not the Fluffy golden Slayer. Daddy's attentions had her all hurtful and sad. She would never hurt him proper. Kitten bound him, he did. Tied 'is hands in irons and let the bad teacher resurrect the Angel-beast. He used his darkness to blind Daddy somethin' awful and his light to help the mean ol' teacher break up our happy home." she replied in her usual random way.
Whoever this Kitten is, I'll have to send him a fruit basket, then. Spike thought to himself as he replied, "You mean the returned his soul to him?"
Drusilla nodded fretfully as she broke down into tears and collapsed into his lap to cry over her lost Daddy again. Still she couldn't be too cross with her yummy Twilight Kitten. He was just doin' what the stars told him to do just like she always tried to do. But that didn't make losing Daddy hurt any less.
"Now, now, love. It will get better. You know that Angelus wouldn't want you to suffer for the sake of those wankers and their spells. But right now, we need to get out of here. The factory isn't safe any more without the Slayer gun shy about attacking us for Angel's sake. I've been having to boys scout places to go and I have one all set up to move to. We'll pack up tonight and build a new home and then we'll make the Slayer pay." Spike consoled as he held her. In his mind though, he was thinking, At least until I'm upright we'll play bloody house. Then we're gone and never looking back before Droopy and his toys get creative enough to kill us all.
END PART 8