Summary: When your world has just has the rug yanked from under your feet, what do you do?
Crossover: Berserk, Flame of Recca, Naruto and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Disclaimer: I don't own what other people do.
Feedback: (I don't write this part -- you do! Think of it as the audience participation aspect.)
Co-author: Chandra Bridges
Pre-fic Comments:
Feel free to speculate on what's gonna happen... conclusions will be neither confirmed nor denied.
"This narrow-minded S.O.B. Has not a wound to mend And all I can do is pray to God He'll get one in the end" - Crash Test Dummies -- "Thick-Necked Man"
Willow waved to Xander. "Hiiii!"
"Hey, Wills," Xander grinned at her, apparently completely recovered from the events of the last night. "What's up?"
"Nothing much," she said. "Buffy and I wanna talk to Giles this morning about last night, you want to come with us?"
Xander flinched imperceptibly. "I... think I'll pass, thanks all the same."
"Are you sure," Willow asked. "Because Giles might know something about this whole thing, and what side-effects we might have, and--"
"Sorry, Willow," Xander apologised. "I guess it is a good idea."
Hey, maybe the old Englishman would know something about getting rid of those pesky traces of peanu--er, possession.
"Have you done your homework, yet," Willow asked. Some things never changed.
"Would you believe me if I said yes," Xander asked.
Xander, for a change, was concentrating hard on his lessons that morning. Solving equations for x meant that his mind had to work on that, and that alone, leaving no room for extraneous thoughts. For once, the fact that he had to work hard to understand mathematics worked in his favour, although nothing dulled the constant ache from the 'Brand of the Sacrifice' on the back of his neck. He'd put a band-aid over it this morning to hide it, and to also soak up the blood seeping out. From what little he wanted to remember of Guts' memories the Brand would never heal.
His only problem was when the class ended, and the blessedly dulled sensation found in concentrating on numbers faded.
"Xander," Willow asked. Her wide eyed, naive innocence seemed sullied, now, with a more worldly outlook in the way she held herself. "We're kinda going to see Giles, now."
"Can't we just repress and forget all about last night," Xander asked plaintively.
Hey, it worked for him.
"What if it happens again," Buffy pointed out.
Xander sighed heavily. The only problem with repression. He'd done it for the hyena possession, and a year later boom, possession again.
"I hate being the world's buttmonkey."
Billy Fordham looked up as he spotted Buffy. Better to talk to her now, find out what she knew.
"Bu--," he began. She obviously didn't hear as she walked through the Library doors with her friends, a redheaded girl and a brunette boy. He jogged up to the doors, then paused as he overheard some of the conversation while standing right in front of the still faintly swinging double doors.
"Me, I was a kunoichi, or female ninja, and Buffy was too," he heard the redhead say.
Buffy? She knew Japanese? She barely knew 'konnichi wa' at Hemery High. He knelt at the door, one ear pressed to the gap between doors.
"Hey, G-man," Xander called out.
"Don't call me that," Giles said as he looked up from one of his more obscure books. "What can I do for you?"
"We kinda had a heap big party last night, and the girls think you oughta know," Xander shrugged. His eyes rested on the book cage for a moment before moving on quickly.
"What exactly occurred," Giles asked, setting down the book.
"There was this new shop, right? Ethan's Costume Shop," Buffy began. "We all shopped there, since Herr Snyder dictated both our costumes and our costume sources to us."
"Me, I was a kunoichi, or female ninja, and Buffy was too," Willow said nervously, remembering her dress. "And Xander was this mercenary."
"And, right at the end of taking around the sugar hyped runts and offloading them onto their unfortunate parents, we all became our costumes," Xander said. "What fun! Ain't life grand?"
"I see," Giles said. "I take it the spell ended, then? Given that you, you, you are currently... well, yourselves? How, exactly, did you end it?"
"Buffy and I -- or, rather, the kunoichi possessing us -- could trace back the spell, and... um, talked nicely to Ethan until he told us how to break it," Willow said. "There was this really, really creepy bust that we had to break to break the spell -- it had a male face, and a female face on the back of the head."
A still fading shred of personality mirrored Buffy's satisfaction for a moment.
"Oh, dear," Giles said. "Did you manage to... subdue and acquire the man, Ethan? Who was he?"
Giles paused a moment. "Erm, kindly forget the subdue part of that."
"Sorry," Willow said, "but he kind ran away really fast while we were recovering from the whole not-being-in-control-of-our-own-bodies thing."
"Unavoidable," Giles said, clearly disappointed.
Xander rubbed the back of his neck, where his neon green shirt's collar hid the Brand. During math class it was just an ache, annoying but nothing like this. As soon as he stepped into the library it felt like part of his neck was trying to crawl off and head south for the winter.
"So, what's the what with the bookwork," Buffy asked. "Another bad guy?"
"Erm, no," Giles said, picking up the book and walking over to place it back on the shelf. "I'm afraid that a most peculiar individual was attracted here and I was busy last night. I, I was merely... looking up some information for him."
Xander's eyes were shuttered for a moment.
"What was it," Willow asked. "Because I'm totally Information Girl if I need to be!"
"I sincerely doubt you'd know anything about the man's topic of interest," Giles said. "He wanted to know more about the four Godhand."
"Which means...," Buffy trailed off.
"Er, yes, well, they are four beings with, with immense power and not particularly friendly to humanity in general," Giles said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. "One of their more endearing characteristics is their tendency to ascend their human followers to Apostles, by the supplicant sacrificing their ties to humanity. Typically, by sacrificing their human associates -- loved ones, colleagues and so on."
"Nice people," Buffy said.
"In that not nice at all way," Willow added, not wanting Giles to get the wrong impression.
"Continuing on," Giles continued. "Once a follower has ascended they will be granted the ability to change between a human form and a demonic form at the cost of their remaining humanity and any chance of redemption. There are no common themes for the appearance of the demonic form, other than that it is nothing that can ever be mistaken as natural. The abilities of the demonic form vary from Apostle to Apostle, but they will all have either the ability for rapid regeneration or the capability to withstand attacks that should be fatal under any other circumstances."
"Joy the new and improved demon model, even harder to kill," Buffy inserted.
"Yes, well," Giles continued. "The general path of progression for their minions is from a follower, to lesser apostle, to true apostle. There are references to a different ascension but any details regarding this possibility are unfortunately either vague or incomplete. One fortune thing is that all followers or Apostles can be readily identified by an object that they must have in their possession; it resembles an egg with misshapen faces, called 'Behelit'. The exact nature of the 'Behelit' is unknown but based on what I have found in my texts a 'Behelit' must be present in order for a follower to ascend to an Apostle."
"So, slicey slicey dicey dicey," Buffy summed up, striking all the important notes. "What about the four big bads?"
Xander's eyes were shuttered. Buffy was good. Buffy was damn good. But he didn't think she'd have a hope in hell of beating the snake warlord, let alone something like the slug count. And they weren't even True Apostles. Not with her normal style, geared towards vampires and less-tenacious demons.
"Yes, well," Giles continued. "One of their number, Slan, resembles what we would term a succubus, another, Void, is a nightmarish version of the Grim Reaper, and the remaining two can not be properly quantified... floating things tends to be the most common description of them. Their names are Conrad and Ubrik. Thankfully their number is currently incomplete, if they number was complete I shudder to think of what they could do. Buffy, I must advise you that there is a very real possibility that should the Godhand ever be summoned by a supplicant atop the Hellmouth they could gain continued access to our dimension."
"Just the kinda people you want running the whole shebang," Xander joked.
"They themselves are servants of another power, one that my books have no information on," Giles said, frowning at his inability to find an answer.
Strange that it wasn't mentioned that the Godhand is led by the original Godhand -- Void, Xander remembered. And Giles' information was out of date -- they are complete. The fifth Godhand is Femto, who was once known as Griffith, Guts' former friend who betrayed everyone who trusted him. Xander felt vaguely sick, now.
"In the interests of maintaining my solid C Minus average across all my subjects," Xander said, "I believe I've got a date with a box o' junkfood now."
"You didn't lose your goodies from last night," Buffy asked, incredulous.
"Buffy, he is Xander," Willow pointed out with a smile.
"I went back and got me and my kids' haulage this morning," Xander said, relieved at the change of subject. "I'll hang onto the kids' for a week, and if they don't turn up I'll have 'em."
"You sure are being patient," Willow said suspiciously.
"Would you believe it's my good deed for the day," Xander asked.
"Nope. Talk, mister."
"I'll talk, I'll talk. All the old ladies thought I was a sweetie for helping the little angels and gave me heaps o' sugary goodness," Xander admitted.
Everyone else rolled their eyes.
"Very well, Xander," Giles said. "Go on. I'll let you k-know if anything comes up."
Billy pulled back from the library door, breaking into a run.
What the hell had happened with Buffy?
One thing stuck in his mind, though -- he could possibly save himself with one of those Behelit things.
"And all is good with the world for once," Xander said, moseying on out the door.
"If the Godhand could gain continued access to an alternate dimension," he heard Giles beginning as he walked off. For a moment, he wanted to hang back and hear whether Guts really existed. But only for a moment.
As he walked down the corridor, he pulled out a peppermint and looked at it. For some reason, the mere sight of rarely-had confectionary didn't make him smile like it usually did.
"Harris," Larry called out. "We still have to finish our talk from yesterday. Without your bodyguard around."
"You sure you wanna do this, Lar? I can pretty much say you're not like how this is gonna end."
Xander started to walk past Larry heading for his locker, when Larry grabbed his shirt sleeve as he passes by.
"Where to you think your going? Why I'm going..."
Quicker than Larry could react, Xander brushes Larry's hand from his sleeve. A second later Larry finds himself dropped to his knees with an arm around his neck.
"Larry, Larry. I did warn you didn't I. Feeling a little slow today are we. But I guess that's what you can expect from someone like you now isn't it. You see Larry you're in a very bad position right now, all I have to do is just add a little more pressure and the football team is down one player. So I'd say it's your call, we can continue this little event to its conclusion or you can agree to be a good boy and I'll forget this happened."
A chill started creeping down Larry's spine, it wasn't the fact that Harris had him down on his knees in front of him. It was the fact that during Harris' little speech he sounded like someone ordering a meal from the cafeteria. Like this happens every day, and he just happens to an appointment in Harris' schedule.
"Well Larry what's your decision, should I inform your coach he needs a new player?"
There was really only one choice left, it seems what ever the hell happened to Harris changed him, and Larry sure the hell didn't feel like gambling today.
"Agreed, Harris."
Before Larry could realize the arm was released from his neck. Only one thought was running thought his mind in that instant as he was scrambling back up to his feet 'Get away, Get away quickly'.
"You... you psycho," Larry retorted, backing up a few steps before turning and running.
Suddenly shaking, Xander leant against the nearest wall. A memory swam out of the depths that appeared last night left by his uninvited guest. A memory of Gutts doing nearly the same thing to one of the men under his command that disagreed with his commands during a battle.
What was happening to him?