As the spell wove its threads through the town of Sunnydale, people were given false memories. Possessions began to reign supreme as costume wearers became the submissive, if not dormant, personality; to be replaced by the very essence of the one their costume represented. For others, the possession was not simply complete without the physical properties changing, forming a second skin around the wearer. With this new husk, and a new reigning personality, demons and monsters truly began to roam the streets on this night of All Hallow's Eve. As horrible and chaotic these circumstances were, none were changed more so than a singular individual.
The chaotic nature of Xander's very aura simply drew in any and all chaotic energy in the surrounding area. The result was one that no one could have foreseen; however, where chaos is concerned, a true ending can never be truly conceived.
It was almost fortunate that the spell would, at some point, shut out Xander's own consciousness. However, 'some point,' was far too long of a time to wait. The pain was so intense that it overrode any thought; chaotic or serene, it mattered not.
Xander's eyes rolled to the back of his head as he began to spasm. Food eaten earlier that day found its way back to the hard concrete. Veins were pulsing red and blue, becoming clear to any who would witness this horrific sight. Though, as luck would have it, no monster, demon, or any living soul would venture near this tortured body.
With these fierce spasms, bones and muscles would snap and reset within moments. Xander's very genetic make-up began to evolve and change into something entirely non-human. His structure became far more dense, his internal make-up foreign to what it used to be. While his muscular structure remained the same outward, within was a different case entirely. His very being changed into something that it was never meant to be; however, in the end, not a living soul could tell as the spasms came to an end and he lay peacefully on asphalt.
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Kent Farm, Smallville Kansas
A soft, warm, and motherly voice floated up to an unresponsive son.
"Clark, did you not hear me? Dinners ready!"
Shaking her head, Martha Kent made her way up to her son's study. Her eyes widened as she saw him asleep. Not that she expected much different, the past two weeks had been quite hectic for her son, but finding him asleep, while hovering midair above the couch, was a sight that she had not been expecting.
"Clark. Clark? CLARK!"
No amount of frantic yelling or physical contact could wake the hovering form of her child. With a frantic pace, and worry in her eyes, she went to find her husband. Perhaps Jonathan would know what to do.
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Sunnydale
A pained and exhausted groan escaped his lips. As his eyes slowly opened, the world seemed to crawl into focus. As his eyes began to focus on the colors of his surrounding environment, a pulsating headache began to form. Things looked different than they normally did. But slowly, very slowly, they were returning to normal.
With every breath he took, his chest constricted; muscles that had never been used before straining and complaining at new sensation. Clark clutched his chest with the slight pain. Closing his eyes, he tried to regulate his breathing until he could do so without the constant ache. Slowly but surely, he succeeded. Instead of the pulsating pain, his body just became a dull ache backed up by the massive headache that simply felt like it would never go away.
Slowly, Clark pulled himself from off the ground. While the strain was more than he was used to, he came to the realization that everything felt harder to do. It was as though he had been awake and running for god knows how long, and he was ready to drop and sleep for a decade.
The only thing that kept him on his feet, as steady as he was able to keep himself, was the adrenaline rush he was receiving from the scene that could only be described as chaotic, going on around him. His mouth hung open as he found tiny monsters chasing after screaming children and adults. There were large beasts and animals that seemed to be content on preying on the older crowd. And as chaotic as all this was, what surprised him the most was hearing a feminine voice shout out a name in his direction.
It was a name he had not told anyone about. Yet it was a name that he had not been able to get off of his mind since the young stranger had jumped in to save his life, and wound up opening his eyes to a world that existed far outside of the crazy messed up world he was already subject to.
"Xander? Xander, are you all right?"
Clark turned around. His eyes widened as he recognized the girl that had come to the hospital when Xander had been injured. Of course, now he knew he would never forget her. Well, not with what she was wearing tonight. He had judged her as the shy type, yet extremely protective and worrisome about her injured friend. Having her dressed in those clothes, shyness went right out the proverbial window.
Blushing slightly while looking at the ground, Clark stammered. "Um, ah, Willow, right?"
Willow stopped short at the sight of her best friend blushing and avoiding her eyes. She had seen him flustered before, especially when he put his foot in his mouth, but his mannerisms were definitely off. This was something she was sure of; after all, she knew him better than he knew himself. And beyond that, why did he sound so unsure of himself when simply asking her name?
"Xander, are you ok?"
While still looking at the ground, Clark furrowed his brow in confusion. She, Willow, had been calling out for Xander. Now she seemed to be under the impression that he was Xander.
Not much of the past few moments were making any sort of sense, but he was really beginning to get that bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was sure that his world was about to be turned around once again.
Glancing all around him for the young man, praying to find Xander, but knowing he wouldn't, he wasn't too surprised to find the same chaotic scene, but no young brown haired men standing around him.
It was then that he began to take notice of how many things were off, other than the obvious. He felt beyond sluggish; his head was pounding worse than any after-effect caused by meteor rocks. While he was feeling aches and pains, it was more like he had, and was still, stressing and stretching muscles after straining himself. Straining himself wasn't something that happened all too often. And afterwards, the feeling that he was currently experiencing never seemed to last more than a fleeting moment.
He glanced down at himself and quickly took note of something that was both wrong and important. He was currently wearing his varsity jacket he received for making the football team. While the jacket didn't fit like it normally did, that was almost missed when he realized that he had last left his jacket in Sunnydale. His musings were cut short by the scantily clad redhead just in front of him.
"Xander, are you ok?" As he looked up, she went on before he could answer. "Everyone seems to have turned into their costumes. Everything has gone so crazy."
Clark looked around him once again, and couldn't agree more. Everything was crazy, there was no denying that. He looked back at the worried redhead and asked the first thing that came to mind.
"Um, what was it you dressed as?" Both of their faces began to blush at the question.
"I was dressed as a ghost!" Clark's head snapped up as he gave her a questioning look. She blushed a little more but held his gaze with a worried one of her own. "Don't you remember me wearing the ghost costume, Xander?"
Clark shook his head with a sad expression on his face. "I'm afraid I'm not Xander."
Her hand went up to her mouth at his declaration. " Nononono, you are Xander Harris and we have beenfriendssincebeforewecanremember."
Clark had to shake his head. With his already pounding head, it was a bit difficult to decipher the end of her sentence. After a brief moment of silence, the end of her statement had finally been resolved into his own head.
Shaking his head, he repeated what he said earlier. "Look, my name isn't Xander, it's C-"
He never got to finish as Willow interrupted him. "Yeah, I know, it's Kent, Alexander Kent. Actually it's Detective Alexander Kent, but please believe me, that you really aren't a cop. You are my friend, Alexander HARRIS."
She was breathing hard, and he wasn't sure if that was ironic because she supposed to be a ghost, but he'd put off that line of thinking for a later date. She said that he was a cop, and that his first name was Alexander. He mentally snorted, of course Xander was short for Alexander; he had a friend who went by the name of Lex, he should have realized.
He was brought out of that useless line of thought when he noticed the slight pressure in the waistline of the back of his pants. Reaching back there, both he and Willow were surprised when he pulled out a gun. Being the person that he is, using a gun was never necessary, and even if it had been, shooting someone was something he wasn't sure if he could have brought himself to do. However, the protection the gun allotted, that being the ability to protect others seemed to flow through him. It was something he had always felt in the back of his mind. That feeling, that need, had been quite a driving factor in making him the man that he was today, but now that need, that feeling, seemed more pronounced.
Patting down his pockets he pulled out a leather holder that held a badge declaring that he was there 'To Protect and To Serve.' If there was any saying that better defined who he was, what he wanted to be, he couldn't think of it. However, the slight smile on his face when reading the inscription transformed into an expression of shock and dread when he read the name that identified the badge holder as 'Kal-El.'
He slowly closed the badge and put it back in his jacket. After emptying the bullets from the gun, he thought about throwing it away somewhere, but decided that could cause more harm than good, and placed it, empty, and back in his waistband under his coat.
He took a deep breath as he regarded the wide eyed redhead.
"Look, my name is Clark. As far as I know, I'm not now, nor have I ever been, a cop."
He took a deep breath as he regarded the chaotic scene. Off, just to his right was a parked car. With wide eyes, he made his way over to the reflection of the glass window. Not truly believing what he was seeing, he crouched by the side view mirror and took in the reflection of the young man who was not himself. It was the reflection of Xander Harris, and only one thought could course through his head at seeing what he really didn't want to think about, though he had already known this situation to be true.
'Smallville weirdness has nothing on Sunnydale.'
He stood up from his crouched position. The sounds of utter chaos raining all around them began to make its presence known. He quickly made his way back to Willow. The seriousness of the situation taking over any protests his body was still making. Though, truth be told, his body was feeling quite a bit better. There was still the pounding headache and the overwhelming exhaustion that made him believe that he, or Xander, could sleep for at least a month, to start with.
His statement was short and sweet and brought Willow out of her revere.
"We need to stop this." He waved his hand to envelope the chaotic scene surrounding them.
After trying to process as much as she could, Willow's eyes lit up.
"Buffy, we need to find her! She'll know what to do."
Clark nodded once. "All right then, let's see if we can find her. What did she dress as?"
A smile crossed Willow's face as she thought about the beautiful dress Buffy was wearing to impress Angel. Her smile turned into a frown of worry as the ramifications of what wearing such a dress might mean.
"She dressed up in a 16th Century gown." She shook her head, her worry plain for all to hear. "My god, she won't have a clue what's going on." Her eyes showing the urgency, she ran up to Clark. "We have to go and save her, make sure she's ok."
Clark nodded and then seemed to be listening for something. When he looked back up, he gave a quizzical expression before glancing back at the frantic read head.
"What direction was she when you last saw her?" After having what he thought reconfirmed, he nodded his assent and both of them took off at a quick pace; well, what was a quick pace for Willow, and what was a slow crawl for what Clark was used to.
Out from the shadows appeared a bleached blond vampire, in full vampiric visage. He smiled at his little minions; those minions being the unfortunate souls who had purchased a costume of demonic origin. It was sure to give them nightmares for a long time to come.
"Did you kiddies hear that? There's a hapless Slayer out there." He smiled his feral smile at the nodding mini-demons. "It'll be the sweetest hunt, the sweetest kill, and the finest blood you'll ever be privy too." His smile tuned into a full fledged smirk as he waved to his little hoard, while eyeing his vampiric minions hanging in the background.
"Come one then, let's go and bag us a Slayer!"
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To say that Willow was having a bad night would be the understatement of the century as far as she was concerned. If 'Buffy' called her a harlot, strumpet, and god knows how many other names, one more time, she was going to find some way to kill her. Corporeal or incorporeal, she really didn't care. She was smart, she'd figure a way to do it.
To make matters worse, Xander kept leaving them for a moment of time here or there. He'd make some lame excuse as they made their way to the library. Giles, Willow remembered, was one of the few people she knew that wasn't wearing a costume, and may know what was going on and how to stop this.
And to make matters worse, Angel had shown up just as Xander had gotten back from one of his periodic leaves of absences. She still wasn't sure how the guy kept disappearing on them, or where he was going, or how in the hell he got back without them knowing about it. There was simply a slight breeze and he was gone, or there was a slight breeze and he was back. The guy, Clark, was worse than Angel.
She had at first been glad to have Angel there. Lady McUseless seemed to cling to him when Xander wasn't around. They had been making their way towards the library when they were intercepted by a hoard of mini-demons.
Angel had been forced to show his true nature, causing Buffy to scream and run away, hopefully not into a 'demon car' and it was only the return of Xander, or Clark, that had chased off the rest of the demons and had been able to find and bring Buffy back.
Both herself and Angel seemed to be willing to knock her out and just carry her along, but Clark, or Xander, wouldn't hear anything of the sort. After that, she clung to him, giving him a good excuse not to explain how he kept disappearing and just how he had managed to ward off the kids turned monsters by looking at them. If she wasn't mistaken, they had actually left the ground smoking as they ran away. And all that he had to show for it was a pounding headache that he kept saying was making him dizzy.
Willow had thought that their bad luck might be turning around when, by chance, it seemed as though he knew who, or what, was responsible for all of this chaos, and had gone to take care of it. She had always known that Xander was hard headed about doing things the way he wanted, but it seemed that this Clark felt that all of this, and stopping all of this, was a responsibility that fell upon his shoulders. In a way, it reminded her of Buffy.
So here they were, Her, Buffy, Xander, or Clark, and Angel, all taking cover in the library. It was obvious that Clark wanted to get out there, what he was seeing, or hearing was beyond her. She figured the reason he wouldn't leave had something to do with the obviously untrusting glances he sent towards Angel's direction every ten seconds.
All of this she could have dealt with. It was Spike busting into the school with the theatrics he loved so much. It was utterly frustrating to watch her friends fight, or cower in Buffy's case, in the ensuing conflict.
To think, it was almost a blessing that the scared noblewoman had taken to hiding. When she had finally found her courage, it was at the wrong time, of course, and showed just how stupid, or perhaps panicked, she was. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her past the demons and outside. As Spike and a few of his vampiric minions began to gave chase, Willow's shout of 'Buffy' alerted the men in the room that things were about to get out of hand.
Willow was already making her way through towards the wall, ready to bypass the usual route out of the building, when she saw Xander, or Clark, plow through the minions between him and the door and make his way out of the room without any real pause. She shook off her surprise as Angel made a likewise move. If she had thought things were going to get better at that point, she was sorely mistaken.
Whatever adrenaline Xander, or Clark, had been on, seemed to fade away. Sure, a few good punches had damn near thrown that vampire for a loop. Now, however, it seemed as though that energy was gone. Xander was on the ground, and the blonde vampire had a malicious smile on his face as he choked the life out of her bestest best bud. Angel and Buffy were being held back by the minions and she was simply choking back her sobs as she helplessly watched the monster kill her friend.
Spike marveled in the feeling of having his hands around the kid's neck. There was something personal about watching the life slowly bleed from the body of a victim. Having the kid try to pry his hands away from the throat, a useless attempt, though still stronger than the kid had any right to be, almost gave him a euphoric state.
"Oh god, Whelp, I can't even tell you how good this is. It's so much more pleasing than I'd ever thought." He leaned in. "I can't wait for me and my Dru to have our way with your precious little Slayer before we drain her dry or turn her outright." He drew his head back, that malicious smile ever so present. "Tell me what do you think of that, Whelp?"
The struggling stopped and at first Spike thought that it was the end. It was when he actually looked deep into the eyes of his victim that he saw it. It wasn't the fear of death, it was the true realization of hate.
Clark had never outright hated anything or anybody. Not really; sure, there were people he didn't like, and situations that upset him. But hatred wasn't something that he had truly ever felt, not without red kryptonite at any rate. But he had come to a realization. As dangerous as vampires were to begin with, he 'HATED' this particular vampire.
Perhaps it was the stressful situation, the extreme exhaustion or the pounding headache, but he did something that he never thought himself capable of doing. He had had to use drastic action in the past, but it was never something he took pleasure in. And while there was nothing truly pleasurable about what he was about to do, he didn't feel that feeling of guilt that he would associate with committing a drastic action. Perhaps it was because he was 'Protecting and Serving' those around him. Perhaps it was because he needed to protect the body of the young man he was currently in. Perhaps he would lose sleep over this action later. But for now, it was an action that simply needed to be taken.
Spike was sure he was seeing things as the white rims around those brown eyes seemed to glow a yellow and red for a moment. In the next moment, there was only a searing heat and immense pain. He screamed the screams of the truly damned as his hands, once clenching the throat of his hapless victim, now covered his smoking eyes. Spike flung himself off of the prone form, his minions rushing over to him and carrying the cursing vampire away.
Just as Clark had begun to use his heat vision, the wave of chaos energy, that which had held the spell together pulsed and vanished. That which might have utterly destroyed the vampire merely wounded him severely.
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Xander felt the hands clenching his throat withdraw as a scream of pain and rage could be heard piercing the night. It was the last thing he was aware of before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and unconsciousness claimed him
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Above, in the realms beyond that of the mortal plain, a trial, or meeting of sorts, was underway. Their discussion was to be that of the chaotic entity that had come into their midst in the recent past.
Most had overlooked the young man as unimportant. And by the time his true nature as a chaotic wild card could be ascertained, a firm 'hands off' policy was implemented by none other than The Creator.
Now, things had changed; the wild card had been changed. What could be done, for good or evil? Could he be swayed or destroyed outright? Even if the direct hands off policy would still be in affect, it may be necessary to take an indirect approach to deal with this wild card.
In the background, a balance demon named Whistler shook his head with a hint of sadness. He had been watching the young man named Xander since his presence was first felt. He genuinely liked the kid, if for no other reason than the kid's dress sense. He also had the personality one could, and did, grow to admire. If one were to look.
The Powers and Oracles would only see what they wanted to see, and the end result would be thrust onto his shoulders. He truly hoped this turned out for the betterment of good, but somehow he knew that fear would win out.
As an agent of Balance, he knew he should abhor all aspects of chaos. However, was he the only one who could see the innate characteristic of balance within the reaction of chaos? Without chaos, a balance would never be achieved. And nowadays, in order to balance out the war between the light and the dark, the light needed the help. It had always been that way for as long as he existed. Perhaps that was why he felt as though he were really working on the side of light. Though, at times, he felt as though his assignments could extinguish the light in some of his charges. He just prayed, to whatever deity of the light might be listening in, that today's trial would result in a triumph for the light.
Because he feared that it was far more than the life of one kid that was on the line here.
Good or bad, balance or chaos; only time would reveal the result. He knew that the future was unwritten, but now was now. And now he had an important meeting to attend.
May God save his soul.