5?
(Sunnydale High Gym)
He was impressed with the quickness and the strength that his son was putting into the hits on the heavy bag and also with the stamina – most people Alex's age, when they started out fast and strong, ended rather quickly, but Alex had been going at the bag for nearly ten minutes and didn't show signs of stopping.
Beside him, Jessica smiled slightly, "He's come so far so quickly, Adam – before Halloween last year, I doubt he could have lasted five minutes on that old bag you had in the garage, but the other day I watched him attack it for nearly an hour and he still looked like he could go even longer when he was done."
Adam nodded as his son jinked out of the way of the bag, spinning and planting his elbow into where a man's shoulder blades would be, "Where did he learn to fight? Those moves … they're similar to what they taught us in Ranger school."
He felt her shrug as Alex planted a knee into his 'opponent's' breadbasket, "I'm not sure, and he won't tell me – he's a good boy, Adam, and I know he's not involved with the gangs around here, but I think …" He looked at her and she went on, almost sadly, "I think they've attacked him in the past, and he's learned to defend himself."
Adam looked back at Alex and made a mental note to check for any and all former Army Rangers, or military in general, in the area who might have taught his son, if for no other reason than to see just how much Alex had learned. "He's good – not quite like he's gone to Ranger school, but he's not far off as far as his conditioning. When did this happen?"
"Again, after Halloween – I'm not sure what happened that night, but whatever it did, it … it changed him, Adam." He could hear the hitch in her voice, "After that, he started working out like a man possessed, he started locking things in his room … he started standing up to Tony, hell, he even started to take the bottle away from me." He knew she had been something of a social drinker in the past, but it had deteriorated greatly due to his little brother – he and Tony were going to have to have a 'chat' later on, at some point or another. "It came to a head not long ago, when Tony found Alex in the garage, working out – I caught only part of it, but Alex … he was ready to kill Tony."
Adam looked at her and then at his son, who delivered a hard, fast and deadly shot to where a man's throat would have been, and began to wonder just what is son was really capable of.
For his part, Xander was starting to get bored – he'd worked out most of his general aggression on the bag in the first few minutes, a bunch of old stuff for the next five and n now was just going through an old routine from Light Drop as his parents watched him. He wasn't angry with Adam like he was with Tony – that level of hate was reserved for just Tony and all demonic vampires in general; what he was pissed off about was the chicken shit way his father had cut and run on them when he was just a toddler; he understood that as a Ranger Adam had a lot of stuff he had to do, but he could have at least sent a fucking CARD on occasion, let alone visit.
With one final hit, he walked away from the bag and began to towel off – he had a lot of things to do that day, and beating on a heavy bag, as fun as it was when he envisioned Tony's face there, wasn't one of them.
(Later – Harris Household)
Adam had to give it to his son – a room of a teenaged male was supposed to look like a bomb, or ten, had been dropped on it, but the room he was looking at was squared away to a level that any Platoon Sergeant would have been proud of; he looked over the things on the walls, mostly pictures and such, but he then noticed that there was a small shelf of books with titles he couldn't pronounce or understand – Tobin's Spirit Guide, Delomius Demonology, Werecritters N' Things? What kind of stuff was Alex into? He continued leafing through the titles, finally coming across titles he was familiar with – Edmund's Ballistics and Theory of Arc Trajectory, Firepower Through the Ages – tenth edition, Metallurgy: Methods To The Madness, and The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Not exactly what one expected to see on a teen's bookshelf, but to each his own.
He looked again around the room and saw several odds and ends he could not think his way around, 'Why in the hell would my son have a stake next to his bed?' and ones he did not want to think his way around, 'Why does this smell like blood … but is bright pink?', and one he wasn't sure what to think of, 'Tattoos: Meanings Behind the Art – Jessica is going to kill my son.' It was then, though, that he noticed that, under the bed, there was a rifle case – he carefully pulled it out even as his mind screamed at him to turn around, but he ignored it and jimmied the locking mechanisms on the case and opening it only partially.
"Less than a day here and you're already snooping through my stuff – that must some kind of a fucking record." He dropped the case and saw Alex in the doorway, leaning against the jam with his arms crossed, eyes flat and lips drawn into a thin line – it was an expression Adam knew well, with as many times as Jessica had used it against him in the early parts of their marriage and their entire courtship.
Adam looked first at Alex and then at the gun case, "Am I going to find anything illegal in here, son?"
Alex walked forwards and opened the case for him, pulling out a sheaf of papers and handing it to him, "Covered."
Adam ignored the papers and looked in shock at the weapon there – it was large, beefy, mean-looking, black matte coloring and its specs had come across his desk about two weeks before, "Alex … what in the hell are you doing with this weapon? It's being considered –"
"Yeah, DOD contract for intra-ship defense, among other things; if you check those papers, you'll see I supplied the prototype and my partner made the official schematics." The weapon was in a class of its own, hailed by several branches of the military, and several militaries, as a godsend, but that didn't explain anything as to how his son had managed to get his hands on it. "I've signed papers saying that this came into my possession through legal means and, as of 0700 yesterday, according to Candy, we have a patent on it." Alex gave him a cold grin, "If the US military wants it, it's going to pay through the nose for it."
"Somehow I doubt that being your father will gain us favor if you decide to sell it, then."
Xander gave his father a chilled grin, "Wow, maybe I did get some brains from you – gods know I got my temper from mom." He went to his closet and shucked his blue t-shirt, opting for his traditional black night-time shirt and grabbing a field jacket for the night, as he didn't want to arouse suspicion from his father too much.
Adam narrowed his eyes at the solid-sounding thump from Alex's jacket as he put it on –he knew that sound very well, but he didn't say anything as Alex grabbed a bag from the inside of his closet, "If you're curious, the porn's on the top shelf, money's between the box springs and mattress, and the gun case key is … well, I'm not telling you that." With that, his son was out the door, jetting past his mother.
"I see you've met the ever-moving night creature that is our son," she said with a wry look on her face.
He didn't return it, "Jessie … I'm going after him – something isn't right." He made sure to close and re-lock the case as well as he could, not wanting to arouse his ex's suspicions about their son. Alex was up to something … and he wasn't sure he liked what his mind was proving to him as to what it could be.
(Crestfield Cemetery – Later)
Xander knew that, even after twenty minutes of mindless wandering, where as he had started out on a rendezvous with Buffy and Willow in the cemetery, that while his father was a Ranger, he wasn't the best there was at shadowing somebody – half a dozen times Xander had caught him cold, but he'd let it go; he was used to Vampires shadowing him, so a 40-ish year old human male with military training wasn't exactly in the same ballpark. What HAD caught his attention, though, was that he could hear someone else shadowing Adam on a nearly parallel course.
After another ten minutes, though, he came to a clearing and decided to end the chase, "Look, whoever you are, I know you're both pulse-less and have been following the old man for at least twenty minutes – why not get your undead ass out here and take on someone who has anger issues to work out."
He got a response, though one he honestly did not expect, "Oh, do let your anger build, Alexander – it will make you blood taste so yummy, it will." Dru melted out of the shadows, her normally insane grin now looking disturbingly normal, "Tell me, Alexander, what do you think of my new clothes? You destroyed my old dress, if you recall."
He looked and saw that she was now showing that she had a leather fetish of some kind – low-slung pants, high-reach boots, a corset fringed with red lace and elbow-length gloves all in leather, but also, and he hoped he was wrong about this, a leather thong? "Cow back in for the undead, Dru?"
She nodded happily at him, twirling around slightly, "Yes, it is, though I must say the snacks who were wearing these won't be needing them anymore." She smiled at him evilly and morphed her face into her game face, "Tell me, Alexander – do you want to live forever?"
Adam stopped cold as the woman in black leather morphed into something … not human and asked his son about living forever – his son's voice, though, caught him off-guard as it was rather amused, "Since when did you join the Marines, Dru? Only they asked that question, I think."
Dru hissed at the boy, who was mocking her slightly as he matched her as she began to circle him, "Do not mock me, boy – I am offering you eternity."
He nodded at her, his hand sliding behind his back, "I know you are, Dru, and I'm telling you no – I quite like the ability to get a tan."
Adam watched as the brunette in a leather thong hissed at his son, her fingers becoming claws, "I will have you, boy – you took my childe from me, and now you will replace him."
Alex shivered mockingly, speaking in the same tone of voice, though with a bad Southern accent, "Oh, Ahm so sca-ared." His face then lost the false humor, becoming deadly serious, "Dru, I want you to understand that this isn't personal for me – your kind are an abomination and your kind will DIE if they cross paths with me."
Dru hissed at him, "One of my kind will be lucky enough to kill you, boy, and when they turn you they will make a monster worthy of Angelus' title, no, BEYOND the title of Scourge of Europe! I can see your inner darkness, boy, and it fills me with lust – so few humans are as naturally volatile as you are."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Dru," Alex said with a tone of false sadness, "but the only way you are going to kill me is if I take you with me, thus you can't turn me." Adam's mind tried to catch up with this even as his son's hand whipped forwards, revealing a pistol in his hands, "Goodbye, Dru."
She sneered at him, morphing her face back to its human guise, "Your mundane bullets may have stopped my childe, but won't stop me."
She stopped sneering at Alexander's predatory grin, "Who said anything about mundane, Dru? You inspire creativity." With that, he pulled the trigger, repeatedly.
Adam watched as his son pulled the trigger until the slide locked back, the gun barking out and each round hitting the woman in her chest, some even blowing through her as her face was schooled into a look of shock. With one last utterance of, "Kitten," Adam watched her … dissolve… into dust as Alex calmly reloaded his weapon.
"You can stop hiding – dad, it's over," Alex called out, swapping out magazines before chambering a round.
Adam stumbled out from the brush he had been hiding behind, his mind whirling to catch up but it was suddenly stuck in neutral, "That …"
"-wasn't human, yeah, I know." His son nodded slightly and put his gun away, taking out a small bag and walking over to where his brass had flown to, making sure to pick up every once, "Look, can this wait until tomorrow? Maybe then you think it was nothing more than just a bad dream."
From the look on Adam's face, Xander knew that wasn't going to happen.
AN: Okay, big explanations next time – review, please.