Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write these stories because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore it would be appreciated if no legal action was taken against me. I very much doubt that anything you got from me would cover even half your legal fees.
The Next Day
Sunnydale High School Computer Lab
Buffy's POV
Something was wrong and, as much as she didn't want to, the only person who might know what was going on inside Giles' head was his girlfriend.
"Actually I wanted to talk to you for a second?" she said, looking at Jenny face to face.
"Something wrong?" Jenny asked, sounding a little confused.
"Is something important going down?" Xander asked, doing a passable job of his old self. "Something we need to investigate right now?"
"It's Giles," she replied, keeping things short and to the point.
"Well, he's alright, isn't he?" Jenny asked, showing concern for her boyfriend.
"I don't know. Uh, he didn't show up when he was supposed to last night, and then, when I went over to his place, he was acting... well, very anti-Giles," she replied, recalling how the stakeout at the hospital had gone and the visit to her Watcher's apartment. "He wouldn't let me in, and he looked really bad. I-I think he might've been... I think he was drinking."
"He was home alone drinking?" Jenny asked, sounding a bit confused about the atypical behaviour of her boyfriend.
"Definitely hints at something, especially with the police visit G-Man had yesterday," Xander said, interrupting her talk with Jenny.
"POLICE!?" she and Jenny exclaimed at the same time, focusing entirely on Xander.
"Yeah. We found two cops talking to Giles just before computer class yesterday," Xander replied before looking directly at Jenny. "That's why me and Willow were late. Only caught the end of it though that was enough to get us going. Someone got killed two nights ago on campus, a Philip Henry, who was from jolly old London and had G-Man's name and address on a piece of paper."
"If Giles is drinking and pushing you away, I'm betting it's something big and personal," Willow said, sounding worried for her unofficial mentor.
"And you waited until NOW to tell me?!" she asked, feeling a little betrayed that her two best friends hadn't come to her immediately.
"We were planning on going with you to talk to him today or tomorrow," Willow replied, looking a little guilty for not coming forward sooner. "You got ahead of us."
Okay, so that was something she could understand. Still, she wondered what else they knew or had found out since witnessing Giles talking with the police.
"From what I was able to get from the S.P.D. system, he'd been strangled to death by someone strong enough to leave some nasty bruises," Willow said, continuing with her debriefing of his actions. "I tried to track Mister Henry's route back to the airport to see if anything else odd popped up. Nothing distinctly Hellmouthy, though I did confirm that he came here straight from the airport."
"That's a thirteen hour flight, assuming you only stopped once," Jenny revealed with a bit of shock. "Add in a two hour drive from LAX and that's fifteen hours."
"Assuming he didn't sleep on the flight that'd mean something had him spooked enough to power on through fatigue just to get to Giles," Xander said, sounding all business but without the rasp so far. "A man only does that when something urgent pops up. Something he needed to tell Giles as soon as he could or something he was running from and didn't want to risk getting caught grabbing forty winks."
Or maybe both.
If this Henry guy was from England then there was a good chance that he was a Watcher, since who else did Giles know over there aside from other Watchers? If this guy was both trying to warn Giles of something AND was running from someone planning to stop him then it had to have been big. Something big was going on and it was enough to get Giles drunk AND go all stiff upper lip with her when she tried to get him to explain why he hadn't been at the blood heist. Everything she knew made one thing clear: Giles was in danger and it scared him enough that he was trying to keep the rest of them out of it.
"That's it. I-I'm calling him right now," she said, unwilling to be left in the dark when something could be hunting down a man she saw as a father figure.
With that she left the computer lab ignoring everyone else and heading for the library where she'd use the phone to call Giles up. Once he picked up she'd bulldoze through any attempt to misdirect her or shove excuses down her throat. She'd tell him what she'd found out and, if he didn't come clean, she'd go over to his apartment, kick down the door and refuse to leave until he spilled everything.
Arriving in the library, she moved over to where the phone was but before she got there her sense of hearing picked up sounds of movement that definitely didn't belong. Looking harder this time, she spotted a humanoid shadow behind the stacks. Deciding an intruder into the abode of the Scooby gang took priority, she crept towards where the figure was hiding, using every speck of stealth she could muster. Peripherally she was aware that her movements weren't quite like they used to be, that there was a new quality to it, but she ruthlessly shoved it down into the depths of her mind.
She was almost to within arm's reach when the bookcase she was standing in front of began to fall over but her Slayer speed proved to be enough to get her clear of it. Seeing a man hobbling for the exit, she has little trouble getting to him and, with a bit of Slayer strength, she turned him around… to find that it was the guy who ran the costume shop.
The one who was responsible for changing them Halloween night!
"I know you! You were in that costume shop," she declared, voicing her conclusion and getting a confirm reaction from the dark haired man.
"Oh, I'm pleased you remember," the man said before trying to pull out of her grasp, only to fail.
"Kinda hard to forget when you LITERALLY get a full body makeover, along with all of your friends!" she said, shaking him a bit hard to make it clear she was VERY unhappy.
"A definite improvement if I do say so myself," the man said with a sarcastic smile.
She slugged him one, even if a small part of her inside did agree that if all it'd been was physical improvements she would've been happy.
Tall good and all that.
"What're you doing here?" she asked, deciding that a further interrogation could wait until the more immediate problems were learned about and dealt with.
"Snooping around," the man replied and, oddly enough, he appeared to be telling the truth.
"Honesty. Nice touch," she said sardonically but with no less hostility.
"It's one of my virtues," the man said proudly before showing a trickster's smile. "Not really."
"Hey! I've got a great idea!" she said before grabbing the man's left arm and putting it into a joint lock Giles had shown her. "How about I give you a full body makeover? I think you'd look great with your legs bent the opposite way! Just like a chicken's legs."
"A wonderful idea but, just so you know, I'm something of a screamer and I doubt the school's completely empty except the two of us," the man said, sounding mostly confident in his position. "They'll come for a look. Maybe even call the cops. You sure you wan that? I'm pretty sure old Rupert wouldn't approve of that."
"You know Giles?" she asked, not seeing that curveball coming.
"We go back. Way back," the man replied before looking about a bit. "You don't happen to know where he is, do you?"
"Yeah. I do," she replied, moving the rest of the way to the phone but not losing her grip.
One handed she took the phone receiver off the hook and dialed Giles' apartment, putting it to her ear to listen to it ring. It took three rings in the end before someone picked up and, based on what she was hearing, her Watcher's hand eye coordination wasn't very good at the moment.
"Hello?" Giles said, definitely sounding like he was still a bit intoxicated.
"Giles it's me," she said, deciding to go with a standard opening.
"Buffy, u-unless this is an emergency, I'll see you on Monday," he said, obviously trying to brush her off again.
"Really? Then I guess I'll just talk to the owner of the costume shop myself," she said, going with something she knew would catch her Watcher's attention. "Maybe he'll know why your old chum Philip Henry flew all the way to see you and then drove two hours only to be killed two nights ago. If you won't talk, maybe he will."
Silence followed and she could only guess that Giles had been floored by what she'd said and needed a few moments to compose himself.
"Cat got his tongue?" the man asked, sounding gleeful even though he was in pain.
"He's there with you? Listen, Buffy, you're... you're in grave danger while Ethan's there," Giles said, sounding distinctly worried for her. "I want you to put the phone down and get out of the library as soon as possible."
"I'm not going anywhere until you give me some answers!" she yelled into the phone, reflexively tightening her grip on the store owner's arm.
Before she could say more glass shattered as someone tried to climb in through the window in Giles' office. Angling her head just right, she looked into the office to see what looked to be a reject from a zombie movie and its movements supported that theory since they were not human in the least. Releasing the store owner, she prepared for the things arrival and when it got to within arm's reach she began to deliver kicks and strikes to keep it from getting a grip on her.
Seeing the store owner bolt for the door, she was very grateful to see Xander and the others come in.
"Stop him! Don't let him get away!" she yelled even as she kicked the zombie off its feet.
She didn't see what happened next but her acute sense of hearing did tell her that a clean getaway was not what the man got.
Exchanging blows wasn't getting her anywhere, though, and she didn't know why she'd thought it would. Zombies were even worse than vamps because they didn't have the IQ to know when they were outmatched or react right to pain and injury. They just kept coming at whatever they wanted until they were either physically incapable of doing so or they got it. Taking a moment to look over its shoulder, she saw that the door to the book cage was open and with this an idea formed. With determination she pushed her offensive, forcing the dead body further and further back before kicking it right into the book cage. She knew it wouldn't remain dazed for long so she dashed forward, slamming the door to the book cage shut and locking it.
Backing away as she watched it fling itself at the cage door, she relaxed a bit once she saw that however strong the zombie might be, it wasn't strong enough to bend steel much less break it.
It was contained. For now.
Turning to face her other captive, she was pleased to see that Xander had the store owner on the ground, arm locked and with the man's head pinned with his leg.
He wasn't going anywhere.
"Bring that chair over here," she said to Willow, who immediately moved over to the piece of furniture. "Miss Calendar, get some rope. Should be some in the office."
"Right," Jenny said before entering the slightly messy office.
Given all the noise that'd probably been carried across the phone line, she imagined it'd be ten or twenty minutes before Giles showed up. Or thirty, Giles' car being what it was. This was time enough to see what more leverage she could get out of him in order to make sure Giles didn't have anything to hide behind or dodge with when he got here.
Xander's POV
"So you're the guy that thought it'd be SO cool to turn people into their costumes Halloween night?" he asked rhetorically, since he already knew the answer.
"In my defence that little bit of magic did not go according to plan," Ethan, that was his name, said with a slightly uneasy smile. "Can't imagine what caused it to go wrong."
"So you're not just a prankster but incompetent, too," he said with a bit of snark at the news that what'd happened to him and the others was not by design but by accident.
"I did NOTHING wrong. Everything involving the ritual was by the book, lad," Ethan said, sounding only a little defensive. "If something caused it to go wrong, it wasn't anything I did."
"Botching it might've been someone else's fault but you still did the spell," he said, making a mental note to look into outside players around during Halloween. "Mind telling us why?"
"Why, for the entertainment value, lad!" Ethan said with a broad trickster smile. "Well, that and a chance to tweak Ripper's nose. He used to be such fun but one little mishap and he went crying back to mummy and daddy. Thought it might be nice to revisit old times with him."
"You did this for KICKS?" Buffy exclaimed, stepping forward and punching Ethan in the jaw. "Have you any idea how messed up you've made us!?"
"That's one of the fun parts of chaos magic, dear girl: you gather the ingredients, mix them together and see what happens," Ethan replied, taking a moment to shake off the effects of the punch before putting his best smile back on. "While the effects of the spell were only supposed to last until sunrise, I must admit to feeling intrigued to see how all of your makeovers will change things. One monkey wrench thrown into the works would be fun enough but six should make for quite the show."
He saw Buffy going to deck the guy again but knew that if she did it might wind up breaking the guy's jaw or knocking him out. Neither possibility was conducive to getting the answers they needed so he did his best to hold her back.
"Stand down! He's no good to us unconscious," he said even as he wound up having to put more and more strength into holding the Slayer back. "If he's the one who fired off the spell then maybe with the right bribe we can get him to help us undo what happened to us."
This did calm the blonde Slayer but the glare from the eyes was so potent that for a moment he was worried about the possibility of a new pyrokinetic ability manifesting.
"As much as I'd love to draw things out and make you think otherwise, I'm afraid I can no more turn you back to your old selves than I can snap my fingers and get a million pounds," Ethan said with a bit of disappointment at the fun he was willingly avoiding. "Chaos magic is called that because it's inherently unpredictable once it's unleashed and logic is pointless when attempting to combat it."
"Bullshit. If it can't be controlled then why aren't we all misshapen blobs?" he asked, letting go of Buffy but still making sure to be in a position to block her. "Changing us like this takes precision, control, otherwise we'd all look like plastic toys melted on a skillet."
"The chaos only kicks in after the ritual is complete, dear boy. Think of it like taking a rubber ball then throwing it at a specific spot on the wall," Ethan said casually, like they were talking about something they read about in school. "The ball will hit the target it's aimed at but where it goes from there is anyone's guess, really."
"Actually if you take some variables into account and were aware of them when you threw the ball you could make some rather accurate guesses as to where it would go," Willow mentioned offhand as she looked at the zombie like he was a lab specimen. "But I understand the analogy."
Everyone looked at Willow for a moment before writing it off as just another sign of her academic interests.
"Then that brings us to why you're here," he said, deciding to move things along. "You had to know that there were some people who weren't all that happy with what your 'bit of fun' did to them."
"Personally I don't see what you all have to complain about," Ethan said, sounding like he thought they were being a little ungrateful. "The ladies got a makeover that, as far as their peers are concerned, is beyond perfection. No plastic surgery scars whatsoever no matter where you look. The epitome of female beauty, if I do say so myself. As for you, young man, I should think that you would be pleased at receiving the skills of the legendary Big Boss himself, along with a body that's well on the way to matching the MSF founder."
"Big who?" Buffy asked, looking at him and then at Willow before landing on Jenny.
"Big Boss was the codename of a famous American soldier. I didn't dig too deep since a lot of the files on him are black on black, but it sounded like he singlehandedly managed to prevent all out nuclear war back in the sixties," Willow replied, turning away from the growling zombie. "Then he left the American military to form Militaires Sans Frontières, or Military Without Frontiers, which basically was an army for hire. They didn't last very long, only three years, before one of their clients decided to wipe them out in 1975, or at least that's what a lot of news reports said."
"Ah, children! SO trusting of what the adults tell them. It's pathetic, really," Ethan said with a bit of a mocking tone towards Willow. "Allow me to remind you, dear girl, of the old adage that history is written by the victors. The winners can be complete bastards but since their enemies aren't around to say otherwise, they can say that the losers were complete bastards even if it was a complete lie."
"And I suppose you know the truth?" he asked with a bit of sarcastic disbelief.
"Not the whole truth. You'll probably need to undergo the Ritual of Mnemosyne to get that but I do know a bit more thanks to the circles I've travelled," Ethan replied, sounding quite pleased at turning things around in his favour. "The redhead was right that Big Boss managed to stop the nukes from flying back in the sixties but the reason he left wasn't because he was greedy. The truth of the matter was that during that little adventure he got a rather brutal introduction to how soldiers are generally treated by those giving the orders. They're expendable tools to be used however the government saw fit. Need a scapegoat for some sort of massacre? Hang it on the operatives who you sent in to stop it but failed to do so. Having a few hundred men building something secret and then the political climate changes? Abandon them and erase all knowledge of their existence while also issuing kill on sight orders if they try to return home. Big Boss probably got sick of all the backstabbing betrayal and decided to strike out on his own."
"Oh, come on! That's just Hollywood bullshit!" Buffy declared, completely unbelieving that the people in power would do those things. "You're making things up."
"Must be nice looking at the world through your rose tinted glasses, my dear," Ethan said mockingly at the Slayer. "I'd almost like to be there when reality stabs the truth into that fluffy little brain of yours and you crumble to pieces."
Buffy made another charge at him but again he got in the way because, until Ethan had outlived his usefulness or Giles got there to fill them in on the danger, they needed the smarmy Brit.
"Now where was I… oh yes! Big Boss set up his little private military operation alongside a friend of his, Kazuhira Miller. They became a haven of sorts for soldiers who'd been abandoned by their native lands or simply could not find peace as a civilian. They took on jobs but were careful not to choose ones that'd get them on the bad side of one of the super powers since they were something of a small operation," Ethan explained with all the enthusiasm of a storyteller. "Then, sometime in '75, they stumbled into something that was a little bigger than it'd looked like in the beginning but still they emerged victorious. This sadly had the side effect of putting a rather uncomfortable spotlight on them and so someone with a rather nasty grudge against them decided to remove them from the stage. The number of MSF survivors could probably be counted on two hands with a few fingers left over."
"Not much of a legendary soldier if his operation only lasted a few years," Buffy said with a bit of condescension that caused something inside of him to flare up a bit.
"Actually Big Boss and his friend Miller were two of the survivors and back in the mid-eighties started another PMC group called Diamond Dogs, though they operated mostly out of Afghanistan and Africa, if I recall correctly," Ethan said, putting lie to Buffy's comment. "After that the stories get a little contradictory. Some say he was in one country while others say he was still with the Diamond Dogs. The point of all this is that you should never trust what the newshounds or the government tell you, little girl. Dig around and find out for yourself."
He had to admit that what Ethan had laid out was not entirely unfeasible, even if he didn't think it was as flamboyant as Hollywood often made such scenarios appear on screen. History was written by the winners and, so long as they eliminated any evidence that contradicted their story, they could say anything about anyone and most people would believe it. Whether it was because of trust in the elected members of the government or just that they didn't want to see the darkness that existed in the world the result was the same.
Before he could try to pry more information out of Ethan the door flew open to reveal a somewhat disheveled Giles, who definitely had some of the same signs as his parents when they drank a bit too much.
"Is everyone alright?" Giles asked before visually making the rounds to see for himself.
"No problems here, G-Man," he replied a bit quicker than he usually did.
"We're okay," Jenny replied, adding her opinion to the matter.
"The only thing we have to worry about is Mister Walking Dead over there," he said, pointing to the zombie who looked to be getting more enthusiastic now that Giles was here.
Curious that.
"It can't be," Giles gasped, clearly recognizing who the zombie used to be.
"Yes, it can," Ethan said with no small bit of amusement. "Hello, Ripper."
"Ethan Rayne," Giles said with a chill that surprised just about everyone in the room. "Why have you come here? Did you bring whatever that is here?!"
"We both did, Ripper. You've been having the same dreams I have," Ethan replied, his face never losing its smile. "If you really care for these children as much as you seem to, I'm surprised you haven't left town already. As for me, I just thought that I might stand a better chance of surviving with you around instead of on my own."
"More likely you hoped I would act as a distraction so you could get more lead time," Giles snapped, not believing the benign statement one bit.
"More lead time against what!? What's going on, Giles?" Buffy asked, not liking one bit about being left in the dark.
"Tell her, Ripper," Ethan said, his smile only growing with mischief. "Tell her about the good old days."
Before more could be said the zombie somehow found strength it hadn't previously shown and broke out of the book cage with such energy that the door slammed into Miss Calendar, knocking her out.
"JENNY!" Giles cried out as he went to her side.
Nice idea but not good enough, he thought as he moved to the side of the two adults before making Giles carry the computer teacher further away from the zombie.
Turning back to the fight, he could see Buffy laying into the zombie with her usual flair, sending it back into the book cage then to the floor. But instead of a KO it turned out to be just a brief respite before the corpse was back to its feet and looking to start round three. However, before it could get close enough to do so it froze with a look of shock on its face, it collapsed to the ground before them all. THEN, just to make it even more disgusting, it dissolved into luminescent goo that spread out in all directions.
A bit of it touched his shoe but, fortunately, none of it managed to get to the inside.
He'd hate to think of the rash he'd get from something like that.
Giles' POV
"Well, there's something you don't see every day," Willow commented with a bit of shock from her position next to the library counter.
"Unless you're us," Xander said with a bit of rasp leaking into his voice.
Point.
Looking down at Jenny, though, he could see that she hadn't yet recovered from the blow to the head and was still unconscious. While he didn't think Eyghon would've been able to increase the strength found in Philip's body all that much, he was concerned about the harm done to her head. Picking her up, he carried her into his office before setting her down on the small couch he had in there hoping that she would recover soon.
It was then that she heard the sound of quick feet running out of the library but he could guess fairly easily what the reason was and who had left. If he knew his old 'mate' Ethan then the prankster had taken advantage of the distraction caused by Eyghon to free himself from his restraints and fled. Once Buffy had realized this, she no doubt had run off in pursuit but he doubted it would take her long to realize that it was pointless. Buffy had many good qualities that helped her in performing her duties as the Slayer but tracking abilities were not one of them. The blonde seemed to lack the supernatural ability to sense demons and, in terms of tracking, looked for the obvious footprints or signs of a still disrupted environment.
Ethan wouldn't be so sloppy.
Once he was certain that Jenny would be comfortable, he exited the office for the questions he knew would be sent his way. While originally he had no intention of telling them anything, what Buffy had revealed to him on the phone implied that they already knew enough to investigate the matter themselves. If he stonewalled them he knew that their teenage impulsiveness and defiance would only make them push onward without him. Without the benefit of experience they would almost certainly underestimate Eyghon and that would lead to tragedy he would prefer never manifested.
There was, after all, no question in his mind that Eyghon was not through yet. He had thought the sleepwalker had been finished before years ago and yet today proved otherwise.
"I lost Ethan," Buffy said after returning through the library doors. "Giles, what's going on?"
"It is not something I like to talk about. Were it not for the work you apparently have already done, I would not be talking to you now. Rather I would be insisting that you stay out of this very personal matter," he replied, fighting to suppress the urge to keep the facts to himself. "It was years ago, when I was twenty-one, and I was studying history at Oxford. I hated it. The tedious grind of the study, the… overwhelming pressure of following in my father's footsteps as a Watcher. I… dropped out."
He remembered those days so long ago when he was like a wild bird fighting to get past the bars of his cage and soar into the open sky. Like so many people he had dreams and goals, careers he wanted to pursue, but his father had made it clear that there was no other acceptable path but that of a Watcher. Sadly, at the time he'd lacked the financial foundation to break away from the bastard so he'd gone along with the wishes of the head of his family.
For a short time, at least.
"I went to London and threw in with the worst crowd that would have me. We practiced magic, nothing too big and mostly for pleasure or gain, but then Ethan and I came across something… more," he explained, remembering the approach to that darkest of days.
"That zombie," Buffy said, making it clear that she could see the connection.
"Eyghon, the sleepwalker. One of us would… go into a deep sleep and the others would, uh, summon him. It was an extraordinary high, better than any conventional narcotic, but dear God we were such FOOLS," he explained bitterly as he recalled how that night had gone.
"You couldn't control it," Buffy said, anticipating how events had unfolded.
"One of us, Randall, he lost control. Eyghon took him whole. We tried to exorcise the demon from Randall but it killed him instead," he explained as echoes of his friends pain filled cries rang through his mind. "No, we killed him. We thought we were free of the demon after that. But now he's back. And one by one he'll kill all who bears his mark."
"You and Ethan are the only ones left?" Buffy asked, putting a fine point on the situation.
"Yes. Our only good fortune was that there was no dead or unconscious body for it to jump into when Philip's body dissolved," he said even though he refused to take any comfort for himself. "Still, given the plethora of corpses in Sunnydale, I would put good odds on him finding one to sustain him temporarily. Then he will come after me or Ethan."
"Then we have to get the both of you in one spot so we can protect you," Buffy said, taking charge of the situation. "Then we can work on a way to get rid of it for good."
"But I don't know how to get rid of it," he said with no small bit of worry. "Killing its host only slows it down, as has been proven with Randall's death, and the ones Eyghon killed before arriving here in the body of Philip. Exorcism is also not an option since Eyghon is a demon of no small power."
"While I go and try to find Ethan you and the others grind through the books to find an answer. Maybe… maybe Willow and Xander can help you find something you missed last time," she said, trying to reassure him by pointing out the value of alternate points of view. "Until you do, I'll work on containing it."
The brightness of the optimism that only the young possessed help bring a small grin to his face but it was swiftly followed by the haunting memories of the past.
"Buffy…I'm sorry," he said, causing the blonde to pause in her motion to leave the library once more.
"I know," she said before resuming his march and disappearing from sight.
Silence reigned in the library for a time but it was broken when Willow began to walk to the bookshelves in back, stopping to look over her shoulder once she reached them.
"Which section is Eyghon in, Giles?" Willow asked, her interest in information showing through her voice.
"Etruscan. Around five hundred BC," he replied, remembering the book that had been used so long ago and what was readily available on the Sunnydale High School library shelves.
It didn't take long for the redhead to gather a stack of books and with them in her arms she returned to the main library table so they could look through them. Contrary to what the children no doubt thought he had not committed the contents of every book in the library to memory, so he was not certain of what Willow's books contained. That uncertainty was both hope encouraging and harrowing.
Did he dare to dream? To believe in a better outcome than what had happened with Randall?
On the Hellmouth that was a dodgy question to say the least.
An Hour and a Half Later
Willow's POV
"Here! I've got it!" she exclaimed, holding up the book. "'Eyghon, also called the Sleepwalker, can only exist in this reality by possessing an unconscious host. Temporary possession imbues the host with a euphoric feeling of power.'"
"Yes, however unless the proper rituals are observed, the possession is permanent, giving Eyghon full access to the host," Giles said, no doubt recalling the research he'd done while he was younger.
"Right, but here's the interesting part," she said, taking her time in revealing the important part of the passage she'd found. "'Once called, Eyghon can also take possession of the dead but it's demonic energy soon disintegrates the host and it must jump to the nearest dead or unconscious person to continue living'."
"Yes, and as I mentioned earlier there is no shortage of dead bodies. Given the town's history and the likelihood of bodies being hidden in walls, floors or containers of a suitable size, forcing it to abandon whatever host it has likely found by now will do little good," he said, repeating his earlier point.
"We know that, Giles!" Xander snapped, with his Snake rasp firmly in place. "Got anything a bit more original to share?"
The Watcher looked a little hurt by the words but offered up nothing in response to Xander's question.
"I thought not," Xander said with a bit of a snap.
"Snapping at each other's not going to help either, Xander," she said, trying to keep friction from distracting them all from the matter at hand.
"I know it's just a lot of this could've been avoided if he'd just been straight with us from the beginning," Xander said, having reigned in a bit of his hostility. "After speaking with the cops he should've called us all in. We could've been ready for zombie Philip or at least been further along in researching a solution. Instead we're behind the curve and playing catch up!"
"Then we had best not waste any more time. Right?" she asked, not noticing that a slight British accent had snuck into her voice.
"Then I need to go to the bathroom," Xander replied, getting to his feet. "Back in a bit."
Seeing him go, she had to wonder if Buffy's concern about their Halloween inheritance seeping into their true selves. Xander had always had a bit of impatience but so did every teenager, but he'd never scraped up against Giles like he had since Halloween. All of them respected the Watcher as a source of knowledge guiding them through the dangers of the Hellmouth and giving Buffy the knowledge she needed to kill demons. Sure, her best friend and crush refused to accept certain things but that was inexperience or youthful defiance showing its face.
What happened just now… was something more.
I hope it's just one of those 'phases' Mom's always talking about, she thought as she looked back into the book she'd read to the others in the hopes of finding a loophole.
Reading more, she scrutinized every line for something useful but it just gave more of the same. Whoever wrote the book seemed focused more on how Eyghon could be summoned and what was required for the demon to remain in this dimension. A dead or unconscious body with which to interact with the realm and eventually the demon would destroy its host body, forcing it to move on to the next. It'd have made things so much easier if the demon could only possess those with its mark on them because that would limit its options to either Ethan or Giles. Indeed, it would mean that Eyghon was gone for good since neither man had been anywhere near the zombie Philip when it'd turned to goo. However, if that wasn't the case, then they needed to come up with something different.
Dead or unconscious. Unconscious or dead.
Over and over these two states went through her mind but they didn't ping with the sound of a possible solution. According to Giles, a human spirit couldn't combat Eyghon reliably enough to stay in control, never mind expel it through sheer force of will. A dead body provided no opposition since it was essentially an empty shell already waiting for some spirit or another to climb into it, though most probably didn't see the point given the state of most of the dead bodies in Sunnydale.
Most of the…dead…bodies…
"I've got it!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and looking at the others with excitement on her face.
"What do you mean?" Giles asked sounding curious but not optimistic.
"All of the bodies Eyghon has possessed up until now have been empty or the spirit of the owner wasn't strong enough to resist it," she replied, laying out her revelation to those present. "But what if there was a spirit inside of a dead body strong enough to fight it off? Maybe even cut the connection to this realm permanently."
"Well, in theory it could work, but where would we… OF COURSE!" Giles said with his intelligent mind quickly able to figure out what she had already deduced. "Given his age, the demonic spirit inside of him will be quite strong. Not as much as the Master's spirit or others of their breed, but that might not be necessary."
"Did Angel ever give you a way of contacting him?" she asked, hoping that they wouldn't have to go hunt down the vampire with a soul.
"Indeed he did. He provided me with one in case of emergencies," Giles replied, hoping sparkling in his eyes for the first time since the whole crisis began.
"Call him," she ordered as she moved towards the library doors. "I'll go get Xander."
Striding quickly she navigated the hallways to the closest bathroom, since she knew her best friend well enough to know which one he'd go to. She had to grin just a bit at how she expected Xander would react to the news of them using Angel as a weapon to get rid of Eyghon. He'd probably say something about Angel at last being good for something. While normally she'd chastise him for something like that, she was in such a good mood that she was willing to let it slide just this once.
"Xander?" she asked, arriving at the men's bathroom. "You in there?"
"What is it?!" Xander asked back with a bit of anger in his voice.
She jerked back a bit at the heat but assumed he'd been griping in the bathroom and she'd just had the bad fortune of arriving when it was particularly strong.
"I figured out a way to get rid of Eyghon for good," she said, pushing her reaction aside. "It'll work! Even Giles looked optimistic."
"Did he now…" Xander said in an oddly malicious way. "That's very interesting."
"Yeah, so let's get going okay," she said, getting an odd feeling from what she'd just heard.
"Sure. Wouldn't want to miss the show," Xander said, never quite losing the unnerving tone that unsettled her.
Waiting for him and hoping that what she'd been hearing was just the echo of the bathroom and nothing more. Eventually the door opened but, when Xander was revealed, she knew immediately that something was wrong and not in a small way. The expression on his face was composed of a malevolence that she had never before beheld on her best friend's face but it was the eyes that told her the most.
Green eyes.
Green glowing eyes that never boded well for anyone human atop the Hellmouth.
"Xander?" she asked, hoping that this was some sort of joke or new trick.
Rougher than Xander had ever grabbed her before, and with enough pressure that she was pretty sure that there'd be bruising afterwards, he gripped her arms. "What do you think?" asked a voice using Xander's mouth but in no way mirroring it.
Before she could reply she suddenly found herself airborne before she slammed into what she suspected was a wall and slid down to the floor.
Definitely bruising, she thought absentmindedly as she regained coherence. And a lot more if I don't think quick.
Seeing what she presumed was Eyghon controlling Xander's body striding towards her, she wondered if she should try to call out to Giles for help. No, that would only put her mentor in danger since he was one of the targets that the demon was after and Buffy was still out searching for Ethan. Jenny was out of the question since she'd taken a bad blow to the head and hadn't yet regained consciousness.
No, she had to get out of this situation on her own.
Scrambling to her feet, she tried to make a run for it but barely got a few steps before a pair of hands grabbed her and threw her to the ground back the way she'd come.
"Oh no! You're not going anywhere," Eyghon said, looming over her. "You're the perfect bait to lure Ripper out. He'll even give himself up willingly to see you released alive. I wonder what his reaction will be once I have both him and you before going back on my word and killing you before his very eyes. Or maybe I'll keep you alive and torture you to death while he watches. Either possibility has its perks."
In flashes, bits of R's memories popped up for her to see and they showed the times when the gadget maker had either been required to witness 'interrogation' or study the various techniques in order to come up with ways of countering it for MI-6 agents being sent into the field. If this demon knew of even half of the techniques or had some that surpassed what human methods could produce, then this frightened her.
It frightened her a LOT!
It was a fear that rose as the demon reached out to her with the body of her best friend.
However just as it was about to reach her something strange happened that she could not have foreseen.
Eyghon stopped or, judging from the way the hand was shaking, it'd been STOPPED.
Was Xander somehow managing to fight the demon for control of his body?
"GRRRR! No hurt pack!" came a growly version of Xander's voice. "NO!"
This struck her as odd and it only got worse when she saw the green eyes change to glowing yellow because she remembered a past incident when she'd seen glowing yellow eyes.
The hyenas!
"Back off, mutt!" Xander's body said with Eyghon's voice as the demon gained the advantage and the eyes turned green. "This is my body! Go back to your den!"
"Not happening, Melty!" the growly voice of the Hyena snapped back as the eyes went back to yellow. "Pup MINE! Pack MINE! You go or DIE!"
Back and forth this went, with the demon gaining the upper hand for a moment before the hyena somehow managed to grab control for a few moments. It all came to a head, though, when with a more human howl of defiance Xander's body ran away from her, shoving the exit doors of the school open and left to disappear in the night. Did she dare hope that her friend had added a third side to the internal battle or was it simply the primal hyena inside of him choosing to change the location of the fight?
Whatever the case, maybe she needed to tell Giles what was going on.
The situation had changed to them trying to force Eyghon out of a corpse to forcing it out of her best friend.
The Hellmouth luck had struck again.
Where All Things Are Possible Yet Not
Xander's POV
Well, this is depressing, he thought as he looked about the dreary landscape around him.
Still standing in a swamp in the middle of a rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightning, was definitely better than the horror show he remembered being a spectator for before. Hurting Willow, seeing that look of fear on her face, it'd been enough to let his 'tenant' off her leash with the understanding that it was only to protect 'pack'. His houseguest didn't seem to have a problem with that but, after the first few exchanges with the demon, it became clear that while it wasn't a complete mismatch, there'd be no early victory.
The Primal Hyena Matriarch was a shadow of her former self, with most of her strength having been forced out during the final confrontation with the zoo keeper, but it (she), had been regaining strength over time, albeit at a snail's pace. How long would it take before it was fully restored? He couldn't say but, so long as the spirit didn't try to seize control again, he wasn't opposed to just leaving it be. Its presence had given him some benefits that had saved both his life and the lives of the Scoobies, so that had granted it some leeway.
However Eyghon had proven itself to be no slouch either but he got the feeling that its possession of him was incomplete for some reason. It didn't take brain surgery for him to realize that the transmission medium for the demon's spirit had been the goo the previous host body had turned into. He had thought himself protected since there'd been no skin to goo contact but, if he was right, it'd only ensured a weak connection and an incomplete possession. The bathroom had been the soonest the demon had felt capable of taking his place in the driver's seat and it had not been a pleasant experience being yanked out of the driver's seat of his own body.
Nevertheless, the demon was managing to hold its own against the Hyena Matriarch, making possession of his body a seesaw situation.
In the end he'd been forced to add his own will to the fight and it'd been enough for him to regain control of his body, albeit shakily. Naturally he'd run out of Sunnydale High School as quickly as he could to put some distance between himself and those Eyghon might use as hostages should it regain control. His memory of the route he'd taken had been… blurry… and the last thing he recalled before winding up here.
Wherever 'here' turned out to be.
"You shouldn't stay out in a storm like this for too long," a quiet voice commented from behind him. "You'll catch your death."
Turning towards the voice, his eyes fell upon a glasses wearing man in a hooded raincoat standing in the water same as him up to his knees. He couldn't make out the features all that well since the hood was up but from the voice at least he guessed the guy was maybe a little older than Giles. The camo pants the guy was wearing made him think that he was a soldier or fan of soldiers, but that was all he could see.
"What about you? I don't see any houses around here, so you had to've been out here longer than I have," he said, not trusting the man but not distrusting him either.
He needed more information for either of those possibilities.
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," the man said with a small smirk. "I've been here a long time, seen many a storm, and haven't gotten sick yet. Strong constitution, I guess."
"Well, if you've been here awhile, I don't suppose you know of a place close by so we can get out of the rain?" he asked, deciding he'd take advantage of a local's know how.
"There's a cave behind a waterfall I sometimes go to when I'm in the area," the man said, looking in a specific direction. "It's not too far. It's no Belmond Grand Hotel but it should suffice for now."
"Lead the way then," he said, not wanting to stay out in the open any longer than he had to.
If he was here there was a chance that Eyghon was as well and these were poor circumstances for fighting a demon in.
Slogging his way through the water he followed the man in the raincoat, hoping it was as close as was claimed because the only time that he wanted to be knee deep in water was at the beach. As they proceeded, though, he began to notice changes in the surroundings that struck him as oddly quick for the pace the two of them were walking at. When they finally reached the edge of the swamp they'd been slogging through, allowing them to step up onto solid land, he was glad even if it only reduced the sogginess by a little bit. Even though there didn't seem to be a well-worn path, the man in the raincoat did appear to be following a trail that only he could see.
He couldn't quite fathom how long it took but eventually they arrived at the waterfall and, following the man along a narrow path to the side, he soon found himself in the cave. It was dark but a flash of light from the falling lightning revealed the remains of a campfire, with a small stack of dry wood nearby.
"Sit. I'll see about starting a fire," the raincoat man said, moving over to the stack of dry wood on the side. "We both need to dry out, after all."
Moving to the edge of the remains of campfires past, he sat down and, while the raincoat man went to work to create a new one, he considered once more how he'd gotten from Sunnydale to wherever here was. The fuzzy area between his last clear recollection of Sunnydale and when he realized he was in the swamp made it hard to determine how much time had passed. It could have been in the blink of an eye or it could have been weeks in between those two points. Nothing he could recall Willow revealing about Eyghon suggested that the demon was capable of teleportation and everything else he knew required some sort of setup in order to work.
That left only one possibility that checked all the boxes.
"We're inside my mind, aren't we."
"What makes you say that?" the raincoat man asked, taking a box of matches out of his pocket.
"I remember where I was before arriving here but nothing to let me know HOW I got here," he replied, looking at the man a little harder. "Sunnydale might be weirdness central but even there there's usually some kind of warning before something strange happens. Plus this doesn't look like anyplace near my hometown. The only thing that makes sense is that we're inside my mind."
"A respectable line of logic but not foolproof. There are drugs that can rob a human being of consciousness before they even realize they've been injected," Raincoat man said as he scraped the match against the side of the box, lighting it. "A suitably stealthy operative could also have crept up on you and delivered a blow somewhere to render you instantly unconscious."
"Both cases would mean someone saw me as valuable enough to grab and dangerous enough that a surprise attack was the best way to do things," he said, shaking his head at the idea. "Up until Buffy showed up I was just another teenage guy and since then I haven't done anything to make a name for myself."
"You're far too humble, I think," the raincoat man said with an amused grin. "After all not just anyone could manage to defy prophecy like you did."
This bit either confirmed that the man had been keeping a close eye on the Scooby gang or this meeting really was taking place inside his mind. In either case he needed to be more guarded in the presence of this unknown being lest he give away something that lead to the Scoobies being harmed.
"Depends on how you see things. The prophecy said that Buffy was going to die and she did, but it didn't say anything about her staying dead," he said, deciding to use logic against the being. "It's possible that the prophecy was fulfilled."
"You know better than that, Xander," Raincoat man said reprovingly as he worked to get the fire going. "Prophecies that only state that someone is going to die mean that they're not going to come back. Still, I commend you for thinking the matter through. Not everyone would take the time to examine their situation as you have."
"When you live in Sunnydale, paying attention to the details is a solid survival trait," he said, deciding to at least get the most basic info first. "So… you got a name or do I just stick with 'Raincoat Guy'?"
"My true name would be meaningless to you so instead I think I will give you the codename I received during the second world war," Raincoat Man replied with a somber smile. "During that war I was called The Sorrow."
"Why? Because you cried a lot?" he asked, not quite certain why anyone would be called 'The Sorrow'.
"No. The members of my unit were given codenames based on the strongest emotion we took into battle," The Sorrow replied with a shake of his head. "I took sorrow because due to my ability to commune with the spirits of the dead I heard their lingering cries of grief and loss their souls held after leaving their bodies. Hearing such things, I was filled with sadness as well. How could I not? Many of the regrets the fallen soldiers had I could sympathize with and shared upon my passing."
"You're dead?" he asked since this bit of information changed the game board somewhat.
"Yes. Over thirty years dead," The Sorrow replied with an echo of regret. "I died at Tselinoyarsk, a region in the southern area of what was once the Soviet Union. Slain by one I considered a trusted comrade."
"Why?" he asked, unable to fathom why anyone would kill someone they trusted and had fought beside.
"Why does any soldier do anything? Orders. Orders from the leaders of our respective nations," The Sorrow replied, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
"If someone gave me orders to kill a friend, I'd tell'em to shove it up their asses!" he declared with all due sincerity. "I would be a man first and a soldier second."
"And what if by refusing to kill your friend dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent people would die?" The Sorrow asked, peering deep into the flames of the campfire.
"We'd find another way. A better one," he replied, refusing to concede that killing a friend was permissible.
"So young. So innocent," The Sorrow said with a saddened tone of voice. "Even after all you've been through already. I wonder if you'll be able to say the same in the years to come. Given the blood that runs through your veins, I somehow doubt it."
His face frowning in anger at the implication that he had no choice but to follow the path trodden by Tony and his mother. "I will walk my own path. I will live by my own choices. I will be a slave to no one's blood."
"Yes… yes, that is how it should be," The Sorrow said with a look of approval. "Perhaps you can avoid the same pitfalls that've ensnared them."
"Whatever," he said, dismissing the man's cryptic talk as something annoying and best ignored. "Don't suppose you know how I can get out of here? I can't stay lost in my own head forever. Not with Eyghon taking my body for a joyride."
"Your spirit guide is managing to hold the demon at bay for the time being," The Sorrow said as images of his body staggering about an alley appeared in the flames of the campfire. "No one should come to harm and your adopted sister already has a plan to save you. You have time."
"Sorry but I'm not willing to just sit on my mental ass while others are working their butts off," he said, shaking his head in refusal. "How do I get out of here?"
"If you insist in getting involved in the struggle between the Matriarch and Eyghon then I will not stop you," The Sorrow said with mild disappointment. "Go down that tunnel and follow it to its end. Be warned, though, that there is another presence in your mind besides the primal spirit. That presence might not be so willing to let you step into harm's way."
Looking at the tunnel The Sorrow had pointed towards, a part of him paused due to its spooky ambiance but the same will that drove him to fight the good fight each night. Getting back to his feet, he strode towards the tunnel only to pause just before reaching its mouth.
"Will I see you again?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at The Sorrow.
"Perhaps. The walls between the spirit world and the world of the living are thin atop the mouth of hell," The Sorrow replied with a shrug of mystery. "Besides… she would want me to guide you as best I can."
"She? Who's she?" he asked, puzzled by the man's words.
"That… is a story for a different time, Alexander," The Sorrow replied as he began to fade away before his eyes.
Damn cryptic! he thought with a growl before proceeding at just above a jogging pace into the tunnel.
The Streets of Sunnydale, Night
Buffy's POV
How can things go so wrong?! she thought as she followed Angel who was tracking Xander by scent.
She had tried as best she could to find Ethan following his escape, but she'd quickly been forced to admit that, for all that came to her naturally as the Slayer, tracking skills did not. However the stubbornness that could be found in her family kept her searching for a while longer before returning to the library in defeat. She returned to see the library a maelstrom of activity, with the Scoobies wearing faces that caused the worry inside of her to spike. She'd grabbed Willow and demanded answers but, when the redhead had turned to her, the expression had her wishing that she could take back her inquiry.
But it was too late.
Xander.
Eyghon had somehow possessed Xander.
She'd been all set to go running back out there only to be stopped by Giles. According to her Watcher they had a plan of sorts to stop Eyghon but that it required that they move as a group rather than individuals. Her independent nature, the part of her that was the Slayer, was strong and sometimes it took someone on the outside to help her suppress that nature.
This time it'd been close between the urge to go off on her own and the influence of her Watcher convincing her to remain with the group but in the end the latter won.
"This way," Angel said after taking a few sniffs of the air, a puzzled look on his face.
"What's wrong?" she asked, not liking anything that puzzled Angel.
"His scent. It's mostly Xander but I'm picking up something animal and something demon along with it," Angel replied as they all proceeded quickly after their possessed comrade.
"Not surprising, given what Willow told us," Giles said even as worry laced his words. "The animal smell is likely the remnant of the primal spirit, whereas the demon smell is Eyghon."
"I thought we got rid of the hyena!" she snapped, angry that a foe she didn't particularly like had made what should've been a final goodbye meaningless.
"The ritual that the zoo keeper used to draw the primal hyena spirits into him should've pulled every last one of them into his body," Giles said with more guesswork than hard facts. "I can only surmise that the spirit that'd been inside Xander was particularly powerful, perhaps even the matriarch of the pack, and somehow managed to resist the pull of the ritual to some degree. What's left inside of Xander is most likely little better than a fragment of the primal spirit."
"Then as soon as we get Eyghon out of Xander, that fragment is next," she said, leaving no room for negotiation.
"Of course, and since it is a fragment, it should be substantially easier to remove," Giles said with a nod and only a little concern.
"It better be," she said as the group of four proceeded to navigate the pathways of Sunnydale at night.
A little over fifteen minutes later the sounds of violence reached their ears and, out of fear for what Xander's body might be doing or might be having done to it, she broke into a Slayer sprint. As such it didn't take her long to reach the source of the violence and what she beheld filled her with both surprise and a small bit of fear.
The people involved with the violence were three vampires and Xander.
Normally this would have her sprinting in there to take care of the vamps because there was no way that her best guy friend would be able to survive an encounter like that on his own. However, in this case, not only was Xander's body managing to hold his own but it was steadily gaining the advantage. However the moves her friend's body was using were far from graceful or efficient. Instead they were brutal, savage and ruthless.
They were the moves of an animal.
The fact that Xander's body was proving to be gaining ground against three vamps showed that the bloodsuckers weren't anything special in terms of combat ability or were so lost in their own demonic instincts they couldn't come up with any real strategy or technique. Nevertheless the damage being done to Xander was mounting. She could already see bleeding gashes and bruising on her friend's body, all of which were going to need medical attention soon.
Time to get to work, she thought, pulling a stake out of her pocket and diving into the fray.
A second before she to within range the four fighters sensed her but by then it was too late. One vampire was dust in an instant and, when she moved onto the next one, it only took two or three exchanges before she got her opening, allowing her to add another slaying to her record. It was by this point, though, that the last vamp realized the odds were against it and began to retreat but, before it could, Xander's body pounced on it and began to rain down punch after punch on it. Before long, despite the vampire's superior strength, its face was looking like the loser of a one sided boxing match.
"Xander! Stop!" she exclaimed before her mind cogitated to the fact that it was likely either the Hyena or Eyghon in control.
With speed enough to give most people whiplash Xander's head turned to look at her, his eyes glowing yellow and looking very feral.
However, when Angel and the rest of them arrived, the eyes shifted to Giles and, in that instant, something unanticipated happened: Xander cried out in pain clutching his head as he rolled off the vampire to the side. Fear and worry shot up within her, causing her to move towards her friend, almost absentmindedly staking the vamp that was just regaining its senses at the same time. Just as she began to look for any sign of injury, though, the pain seemed to vanish from the body of her friend and, when the eyes opened, they were not golden but rather a demonic green colour.
"Thank you, Slayer," an inhuman voice that could only belong to Eyghon said. "Your little distraction proved to be just what I needed to get rid of that pest."
"What?" she asked, not fully keeping up with the shift in circumstances.
WHAM!
Before she realized it, a blow to the head knocked her on her ass, dazing her for a second but long enough for Xander's body to rise up to its feet.
"I'll explain it simply, you brain dead little girl," Eyghon said with contempt. "The beast was fighting me, keeping me from attaining full control, in order to protect all of you. The lowly blood demons distracted it a bit but not enough for me to make my move. Then YOU showed up. I think you know what happened next."
"Yeah, well, I hope you liked your one shot because you're not going to get another!" she said, kipping back up to her feet and falling into a fighting stance.
"Oh? So you're perfectly okay with battering your friend's body to a bloody pulp?" Eyghon asked sarcastically as it slunk about. "After all, as long as it's of use to me, I'll keep using it, but once it becomes useless I'll just abandon it. Perhaps I'll take your body next! It'll certainly make things more interesting, eh, Ripper?"
"Let's see how amusing you think this is!" Angel said, charging past her with arms raised to fight.
It was at this point that she expected the fight to turn against Eyghon since, unlike the vampires it'd fought before using Xander's body, Angel was completely rational and one of the better fighters she knew.
Almost as good as she was but not just quite.
However, just when it looked like Angel was going to succeed in restraining Xander, her friend's body moved, almost looking like the limbs were moving of their own accord, slipping under the attacking arms to grasp at the souled vampire's jacket. Then, in a single smooth movement, threw Angel over Xander's shoulder to the ground hard enough to half-bounce once.
It was completely unexpected and beyond what anyone thought should've been possible.
"Well, now, this is a pleasant surprise," Eyghon remarked, looking at the arms that'd done the throwing. "I'd thought this boy no more than another sack of meat for me to use but it looks like this body has a few surprises in it. Yessss… traces of another linger in his limbs. This is going to be FUN!"
With that Eyghon used its host to attack and, after three exchanges, it became evident that whatever plan Willow and Giles had come up with was not going to work out quite as smoothly as they'd hoped.
A plan she realized she was still in the dark about.
If Willow and Giles came up with it then it has to be good, she thought as she tried to think of how she could help it work. It just needs a chance to work.