Author: mkcrl120
Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system.
Summary: Set two weeks after the events in Explaining Africa 3
Authors Notes: I have no clue about Africa. Which is probably always a good place to start writing a story. So if details I've used for place names, and tribal names and whatever are wrong then just (correctly) assume I have no idea what I'm doing.
Rating: 15 by English standards (mainly for language)
Chapter 10c:
"Man-demons..?" Xander repeated.
"They were the first to wear the name." Brouhm calmly explained. "Others also used it ove-"
"Wait..." Xander interrupted before the other man could continue. "Anya explained some of this to me." He paused as he collected his thoughts. "Only the demons from other dimensions are pure demons, the ones on Earth have all been tainted by humanity. A lot of demons call them half-breeds." He briefly explained.
"Very close." Brouhm grinned back. "I wasn't aware that this knowledge had made it to your time... though if it came from Anyanka I suppose that technically it didn't."
"With the portals closing over time, these first man-demons would become known as demons and then eventually in your time as the Demon Lords. They viewed the lesser demons that followed as half-breeds, even though in time they too also became known simply as demons."
"Lesser demons..?" Xander asked, before guessing. "Like vampires..?"
"Vampires are a special case." Brouhm repeated his earlier statements. "These lesser demons are the next part of our story."
"I thought this was all real..?" Xander questioned him.
Brouhm shrugged. "This was how we understood it in my time. The hellmouths and various other portals had mostly been closed for several centuries before I was born."
"The next set to be called man-demons was the next attempt at cheating the humans came up with." Brouhm informed him confidently. "With stealing even just an Aspect of a true Demon causing considerable risk to any humans involved, they came up with a new solution. Unlike many demons, humans raise their young."
"What's that got to do wit- wait, they... eugh." Xander winced as his imagination filled in the gap left unsaid.
"Any unions resulted in an offspring that would have powers close to those of a human trying to capture the Essence of a true Demon. And that child..." Xander noticed Brouhm made a particular attempt to emphasise the word. "...Would be raised as human, with human beliefs so that when they were fully grown and normally extremely powerful they might be inclined to help protect other humans from demons. If raised successfully even from demons with which it shared half of it's parentage."
"Isn't there something about species interbreeding being impossible..?" Xander asked. "I know I nearly slept through most of biology but I'm sure that came up... somewhere."
"Magic can blur a lot of lines that conventional science would have difficulty repeating." Brouhm answered, then with a knowing nod added. "Or else Natalie French wouldn't have taken such a close interest in you."
Xander coughed at the suggestion, 'How does he know so much about me..?' Remembering what Ms French had looked like in human form he briefly imagined what she would have been like for his first time. 'If she hadn't been a giant cockroach.' He corrected himself quickly. 'Not that Faith wasn't a fi-... stopping that line of thought right now.' He thought to himself, glaring again at Brouhm as if trying to discover how his current educator had so much information on him without having the ability to read his mind. "Let's just accept that you know more about this than me." Xander diplomatically responded.
"So now we have several groups of man-demons." Brouhm explained to him. "Some extremely powerful and what you currently call Demon Lords, others with slightly lesser demonic abilities - however these are more likely to be, for want of a better term, on our side. All of these are helping to battle demonic forces from elsewhere."
Xander nodded, indicating he was understanding everything so far. "Cos even the evil demons- man-demons.. whatever, want to be top of the food chain."
"Exactly." Brouhm added. "For the most parts, these would-be Demon Lords were a problem that would have to be faced at a later date."
"Now we returned to an older trick. Gathering an Aspect of the Demon from either these Demon Lords or the Demon-Human Hybrids generally didn't result in the human becoming overtaken by their new demonic side."
"Handy..." Xander muttered to himself.
"Very much so... even in places where there weren't any, friendly or otherwise; once this trick was known and the knowledge had begun to spread, humans could arrange for one of their number to sacrifice themselves via Essence of the Demon with a true demon, and then others could gain Aspects off that one."
Xander found himself wincing slightly at the thought of being the one that gets sacrificed. He wasn't sure what scared him the most about it; knowing he was risking a virtually guaranteed death, or the thought that maybe even the newly lesser-empowered people who received their Aspects from him wouldn't be able to stop him from killing people he might have considered friends or family.
"It wasn't quite as clear cut as I was making out." Brouhm admitted. "Even when humans weren't overcome by demonic forces, and even if they themselves had a good soul..."
Xander nodded, that had occured to him as well.
"Sometimes even if both of those were working on our side, gaining an Aspect of the Demon might still have some unfortunate side effects... like becoming a monstrousity that burned anyone nearby, being unable to communicate with humans so was unable to prove what side you were on or that you were even in control, or was required to digest a human liver to survive."
Xander thought about it some more. 'This is considered the good level of getting Aspected..?' "Sounds like it's still quite risky."
"When the choice is a dangerous risk that may or not result in the deaths of your people, let alone your own death or nearly the guaranteed extinction of your species what would you choose..?" Brouhm answered in a serious tone.
Xander closed his eye and his allowed that thought to linger in his head.
"Everyone's in it together." Brouhm stressed the term. "You either risk it all to hope some survive, or you simply wait for when it's your people's turn to be wiped out. You can't wait for some other group to magically arrive with the answers, and hope they share the results of their risks with you."
Xander felt his jaw involuntarily clenching.
"Somehow, and this is where it gets vague even in my time." Brouhm explained. "The tide was slowly turning. Portals were being closed... the man-demons or half-breeds as they were known were creating new offspring by breeding between them and new types of demon were coming out, types that simply weren't a lesser version of what was coming through the portals. Types with abilities no-one had seen before."
"There was more infighting now between various demon clans or those that still remained human." Brouhm admitted, "But overall it seemed we were winning, there was a risk that the definition of we that might have been changing."
"Then for the first time the demons came up with a solution that worked in their favour." Brouhm informed him.
"Is this something to do with Balance Demons, cos I have heard a few little rumours-" Xander began before getting interrupted.
"No, no-one's ever been fully sure what occured with that particular breed of demon or even who they answer to... what happened was that demons from other dimensions had always been trying to replicate our own methods so they could use them against us." Brouhm answered. "They'd capture and try to raise half-breeds themselves, but instead raise them to view humans and other lesser half-breeds as either slaves or cattle. On the times this was successful and these groups did make it to Earth then obviously this caused further issues here."
"When it came to half-breeds you weren't familiar with you don't know which side they were on."
"Was wondering why in my own limited experience of demons they tend to vary between friendly, human-tolerant up to wipe out the human-race." Xander confessed to him.
"Not all the genecidal ones were the product of pure demonic influence." Brouhm corrected him. "Some merely reacted to attitudes they themselves faced. Now multiply that by several millennia... even your own Watcher's Council has done quite a lot of damage in regard to human-demon relations, and that's why we-" He drifted off, leaving Xander to worry about what was unsaid.
"No matter." Brouhm paused, apparently to regather his thoughts. "They caused some of the issues you face today, but not the main one."
"What was that..?" Xander queried absently, attempting quite unsuccessfully to let go of this discussion yet.
"Demons got lucky." Brouhm responded.
"How..?" Xander asked, more in shock at the short answer than anything else.
Brouhm's reply was as brief as his last one. "The Turok Han."
Back in the apartment
For the second time Faith found herself getting frustrated when both Amy and Shote walked harmlessly through the portal again.
"Fuck!" She shouted to no-one in particular. "Me Slayer, staying away from the portal... Xander not Slayer, Amy and Shote also not fucking Slayers. So they can't go through the portal, but Xander fucking does... What the fuck is going on here!!!"
She turned away as she saw both Amy and Roger flinch slightly at her tone. Her questioning gaze met Shote's as he quickly turned a placed his arms inside the portal and left them there.
"What are you doing now..?" She watched Roger ask his oldest friend.
'Right,' She remembered some of their earlier talks. 'Shote was the one that introduced Roger to the nightlife- well confirmed it for him or some shit.' She reasoned to herself. 'That was why he wanted me to play practical jokes on him. Shote's knowledge might match that of Amy's.'
"Xander was standing similar to this when he seemed to get dragged through." Shote calmly answered. "Seeing if it works or not."
"If it works, I'll do the same." Amy stated fairly quietly from behind him.
Faith noted that the other woman was watching her travelling partners hands as if trying to work out what he was doing.
"Good." Faith responded, idly swinging the axe in her hand about. 'Could really do with a demon turning up soon.' She thought to herself, desperately hoping the others couldn't read the body language she was trying so hard to hide.
"Amy, try this." Shote asked, gesturing for him to join her.
Faith watched in anticipation as Amy joined the older man, both standing there wiggling their hands in the middle of the siwrling mass of blue.
"I don't kno-" Amy began, before Shote cut her off.
"Tingled. Before he went through Xander said it tingled." Shote explained. "I'm getting nothing, are you..?"
"No." Amy answered quickly. "It may as well be a hologram, there's nothing physically there."
"Rog... you try it." Amy suggested.
"But..." Roger began before Faith cut him off with just a look.
"I'm just saying..." Roger began, as he walked up and thrust his hands into the portal. After a few seconds, Amy grabbed his hands from the otherside and physically pulled him through. "Arghhhh... don't kill me!" Faith heard Roger shout, apparently not expecting any such action from someone he'd been working with. "Oh god, it was just you."
"What's wrong with him..?" Faith found herself asking immediately.
Amy meanwhile had dragged the both of them into the centre of the portal. "Are you tingling..?" She asked him.
"No." He responded, Faith noted he looked very uncomfortable where he was.
When Amy finally released him he quickly leapt out to the side, Faith spotted he was breathing heavily and only seemed calm when he finally reached the wall near the doorway and leaned against it. Both Amy and Shote walked casually over to him, Faith noticed Shote walked directly through the portal, apparently unconcerned whether he was going to be pulled into it or not anymore.
When all three stood together by the door, she spotted Amy reassuringly patting his arm. "What's up..?" She asked.
"When you pulled my arm, I suddenly thought whatever grabbed Xander might have grabbed me too." Roger confessed to them. "It's just what Shote said, it looked to me like Xander was dragged through."
At their looks he added. "I didn't register it before, but then suddenly I thought something had got me, and my mind came up with the worst situa-"
"What if something did pull Xander through..?" Shote asked, interrupting the other man.
"What..?" Faith asked before her brain caught up with her. Amy was apparently going through the same thought processes.
"There is a demon on the other side." The other girl stated aloud before Faith could.
"The supposedly dead one..?" Shote asked. "Xander could be in there with that."
And with that Faith was already moving towards the portal. Clasping her hands tightly around the axe she dived in after her friend, hoping against all odds that Xander was still holding his own against the demon.
Back in the cave.
"Turok Han..?" Xander repeated in a confused tone. "You said they were like rats to the other pure demons."
"That is correct." Brouhm answered. "But they were capable of something no-one expected. They were capable of directly affecting humans."
"Wouldn't that be a good thing..?" Xander asked. "Yeah, they were less powerful than the other pure demons, but weren't humans trying to take powers off demons originally..? And anyway, can I just say that they were far easier to deal with than the Mayor was."
"The Mayor..?" Brouhm asked, lack of understanding obvious on his face.
'Either this guy is playing me, or his knowledge has the weirdest gaps in it.' Xander thought to himself. "The Mayor. Turned himself into a big snake... ringing any bells..?" Xander offered as a reminder.
"No." Brouhm replied, eyebrows raising as seemingly he grasped the concept. "An Ascension of some sort..? You dealt with it of course." Xander nodded slowly, his remaining eye scrutinising the man standing opposite him for any hint of falseness. "You found a skull of a Cabarno..?"
"Erm, no." Xander answered.
"There's no-one local to California that coul- you didn't make a deal with a Zjorkica." He practically accused. "I mean they might be interested in you, but you wouldn't risk-"
"No Ze-Dorks-Ski-whatevers." Xander replied automatically. "What do you mean interested in me..?"
"You don't stay on topic very long, do you..?" Brouhm seemed to muse aloud. "You must have all driven Giles quite crazy."
"I don't- We dro-" Xander blinked, forcing himself to concentrate on one thing at a time. "Turok Han. What makes them so dangerous compared to all the other demons considering they're doing what people were already doing..?"
"The Turok Han weren't sharing their powers, limited though they may be. Nor having their powers stolen off them." Brouhm informed him. "They were infecting others."
Xander shrugged, "What's the difference..?"
"There was no risk with the process-" Brouhm began.
"Good." Xander interrupted.
"No Bad." Brouhm corrected. "There was no risk, cos no-one gained a Turok Han's powers without completely losing their soul."
"There was no risk because it was simply over... their humanity was over-ridden and could then be used against others. Although the types of powers and weaknesses bestowed upon those infected differed slightly, resulting in what could be considered different breeds, but instead all those infected by the Turok Han lived under one name."
Xander's eye went wide as he thought he'd made the connection. Brouhm quickly confirmed it for him.
"Vampires."
End chapter 10c