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 11a:
"Yeah." Xander nodded in agreement. "I kinda guessed that." He paused to collect his thoughts before asking his next question. "But vampires... surely they'd be practically nothing considering what these people had already faced..?"
"In a way, yes." Brouhm conceded. "But you're looking at it from your point of view. And even if you didn't know vampires were real, then you'd still have many years of mythology to go on. Whereas-"
Xander interrupted him quickly. "I wouldn't know where to even begin looking for facts about vampires if Buffy hadn't come to my school. Hell, without her I'd probably have been a meal a long time ago."
"You might have been one of the victims, accepted." Brouhm informed him. "But you have known about vampires all of your life."
"You mean what I've seen in movies or on TV..?" Xander asked in disbelief. "Most of that Hollywood crap is useless, sure they manage to get some of the details right but some of the crap they is completely irrelevant and would get people killed."
"I was also referring to the many fictional books on the subject." Brouhm answered. "And without going into specifics for each and every vampire breed, I think the various movie producers have done well to cover as much as they have."
"Exactly!" Xander responded automatically, before realising precisely what had been said. "You mean they're right..? Hollywood with all it's shallowness and according to Giles a complete non-understanding of actual history; those people are right..?"
"Not exactly... I mean they're getting things all jumbled up. They attributing mixtures of both powers and weaknesses to single vampires or single groups of vampires; whereas in reality they'd probably be assigned to different breeds completely. But they haven't been any more incorrect than many of the books and stories that preceded them."
Xander sighed and slumped down to the floor. "Hollywood's right about something... I think that's broken my brain more than anything else you've told me."
"But when the Turok Han first started infecting people none of this information was known." Xander blinked and tried to get his brain to drop the subject as he realised Brouhm had returned to the original lecture. "The first few, for want of a better term, generations of Vampires were known as the Unseen Threat."
Xander's eyebrows raised as he imagined the capitilised title.
"If they were smart they could nearly blend into groups practically unnoticed." Brouhm stated. "They had the memories of the person who'd previously occupied the body. They could try to fake that person's personality... if that person's death was known, then they could move onto the next group of people..." Brouhm faded off. "Even within groups of people that were highly informed about demons, remember at this point some of them still had man-demon clans living amongst them... even then, vampires could infiltrate a group and normally kill quite a few members before they were discovered. And if they chose to turn some..."
"Right..." Xander replied, as his imagination filled in the gaps left unsaid.
"There were other factors too." Brouhm continued. "Vampires had the memories of those they took over. They knew any potential weakspots within either that group or any neighbouring groups that person was familiar with. They might know some of the weaknesses of the other half-demons living amongst them... one thing that was in our favour, was that vampires couldn't turn any of the man-demons. But unfortunately they could turn various types of human magic users."
"So considering most of these... man-demons fought alongside us, vampires were probably the major threat." Xander guessed.
"Not so much major... but the most numerous certainly; and the potential they could unleash." Brouhm corrected before explaining further. "If a Turok Han can infect one human, even one without any magical abilities... within weeks there is the possibility that they could take over a large portion of the local area... and if they can do that in an area with a still-usable portal..."
"Shhhhiit." Xander stated as realisation of the potential impact finally hit home. 'I guess that we were kinda living a modern day version of that back in Sunnydale.'
"And now we come to the people you see before you." Brouhm responded, gesturing at the Shadow Men still surrounding them in the form of statues. "Now we come to the tale of the demon-tamers."
"You said that before." Xander responded, as his lone eye glanced around the room at the various immobile people all facing towards a young girl he recognised as the First Slayer. "What did they do..?"
"I told you how an Aspect of a pure demon could be dangerous." Brouhm glanced his way, Xander found himself automatically nodding to show his understanding. "They collected Aspects."
"Collected..?" Xander found himself asking. "How powerful were they..?" 'They'd have been like Gods.' He thought to himself.
"Not very." Brouhm responded, apparently not noticing how Xander's expression changed immediately to one of confusion. "It was not in their power that they excelled... it was in their skill."
"I don't understand." Xander confessed.
"They could steal an Aspect of a Demon... and contain it." Brouhm explained.
"So it kills the demon without killing any humans..?" Xander asked.
"No." Came Brouhm's immediate answer. "The demon would normally live. But it would be temporarily weakened. Giving them chance to either kill it or escape depending on what it was."
Xander looked lost again. "But if they didn't kill it what was the point..?"
"The Aspect was the point." Brouhm replied. "If they could contain it, they could study it... and when they studied it, they began to understand it."
Xander waited patiently for him to continue.
"Once they understood it, they could filter out parts they didn't need. Either concentrate or dilute parts they did want as appropriate. They could take a potentially fatal Aspect and filter it down to a substance that was actually useful. They could then give those abilities to a human by allowing them to consume the substance in question."
"They went around providing powers..?" Xander asked in amazement. "Like some pre-history version of the X-Men where the mutations are done purposely..?"
Ignoring that particular comparison, Brouhm moved on. "They'd been doing this for years... travelling across as many lands as they could. Whenever they came across people who knew of a new type of demon, they'd make enquiries... trying to discover if the demon could be taken down... giving them time to collect and contain an Aspect with minimum risk."
"Sounds like they were very successful." Xander nodded in the direction of the people within the cave. "New types of demon..?"
"Why do you think so much of this world has so many different mythologies..?" Brouhm asked before continuing. "Different lands means different portals which means..."
Xander finished the sentence off for him, "...it connects to a different dimension, with different creatures living there."
Brouhm sighed and addressed Xander's other comment in a sadder tone. "There weren't as successful as you think, there were twelve of them when they set off. Not all collections were performed without fatalities. These were all that were left."
'Think I understand loss pretty well.' Xander thought to himself. 'He's barely mentioned my relationship with Anya, wonder if he's aware of the details and is being quiet out of respect..?'
"Considering every time they went up against a demon they still only got enough power to infuse in one person, they began to change their tactics." Brouhm confessed. "Even though the resulting empowered humans would be weaker, the demon-tamers moved their targets onto Demon Lords and the half-breeds... creatures from whom they could steal Aspects with more ease."
"Okay." Xander agreed.
"But they wanted to try something more extravagant, they realised they'd become mere shadows of their former selves... and the products they were creating had nowhere near the abilities the ones they'd used to create. But with only three remaining, their magics were nowhere near as strong as they once were."
"So they were getting frustrated..?" Xander asked. "But they couldn't do much about it without facing near certain death."
"Correct." Brouhm acknowledged his understanding with a nod, raising his arm and leading Xander into another section of the cave.
Xander blinked as his eye got used to the new light level. This section seemed to be better lit, glancing to the right he noticed that there was another hole higher up on the cave wall. It allowed light to stream into the cave, reminding Xander of being inside Churches when the only natural light came from windows higher up in the walls. 'Well without the multi-coloured affect from the stained-glass designs.' He corrected himself internally.
The light shone brightly onto two figures in the centre of the room, a woman standing over a man who was lying down on what looked like a crude stone altar. The woman held a weapon over the man and seemed to be frozen in the action of taking his life.
Xander recognised both the weapon and the man immediately.
Brouhm continued with his story. "Then something happened the demon-tamers didn't expect... they met me and my wife."
Back in the apartment
Amy watched with fascination as Faith dived headfirst into the portal. 'She really is fearless.' Was her initial thought.
She noticed that Roger was frozen as he stared at the portal with unblinking eyes. 'Unlike someone else.' She thought a little unfairly.
She was distracted as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, Shote had begun heading directly towards the portal.
Pulling up short, he tried again to gain entrance by waving his hands through the portal and then finally stepping towards it, as he walked harmlessly out the other side it was obvious it was still refusing to accept him.
"So it does allow Slayers then..?" His frustration apparent in his voice for the first time.
"Maybe Xander was a special case." Amy offered, thinking back to his exposure to Hellmouth energies both throughout his life and when they finally closed it and destroyed the town. 'And he was at ground zero when the Slayer activation spell was cast... maybe he caught some residue effects from that..?'
Her mind was still running through possible explanations when the portal closed suddenly and Roger started running in her direction.
"Get down you stupid bint!" He screamed as he headed in her direction.
"Shote! Move now!" She heard him instruct his friend loudly as he bodily collided into her.
The wind being taken out of her immediately as he tried to manhandle her towards the door.
Unknown location
Faith felt the portal energies dissipate from around her, bracing herself for the landing she tensed herself ready to roll whenever she hit the ground.
Which never came.
She tried opening her eyes, but they were unresponsive refusing to acknowledge her command.
She concentrated on her senses, if she was blind for some reason then she'd have to learn to rely on other abilities.
There was very little sound wherever she was, and she couldn't feel any wind flowing past her skin.
'In fact there's nothing to confirm I'm still falling at all.' She realised, concentrating deeply she thought she could feel rock beneath her feet. 'My bare feet..?' She thought confused.
She tried to breath in deeply, maybe shout out Xander's name in the hope that he was somewhere close. Her body ignored these instructions just as it had the one to open her eyes.
'Some sort of paralysing effect then..?' She reasoned, her mind leaping over possibilities that this was the creature's method of attack.
'Didn't do it last time.' She reasoned, remembering what the other's had told her.
'Then again, they only dealt with the initial conflict where it was just knocking them around... it was Spike that faced it most. Maybe this did happen...' She figured. 'Maybe it didn't work on a vampire, or maybe it did and he didn't seem the point in tainting his little rep cos he managed to kill the fucker before showing it to the others... if Xander's dead Spike, I am really gonna fucking kill you!' She promised to herself, wishing she could scream in frustration and wasn't locked in her own mind.
'This is nothing like the coma.' She thought to herself, as she realised she was at least getting some information from her senses. 'Maybe it's some form of coma-lite caused by demon poison.'
'Man, I wish I could hear something in this place.' Faith debated internally. 'Fuck, even the sounds of Xander fighting with a demon would be welcome, cos at least then I'd at least know he was still alive... even if I can't get free and save his ass yet.'
She wanted to lash out, she wanted to scream, she wanted to go looking for Xander and if the worst had happened kill the fucking thing responsible. 'This time permanently.'
She was so distracted as she went through a list of her wants it came as quite a surprise when her body involuntarily stood up and opened her eyes without any instruction on her part at all.
In the new cave
"That's you..?" Xander asked, as he walked forward to examine the frozen statues. "You haven't aged a bit." He joked, before moving his glance onto the woman standing above the frozen Brouhm wielding the Slayer Scythe. "And that's your wife..?"
"Yes." Brouhm answered easily. "That's my Merkak."
Xander noticed the other man smile fondly in the direction of the woman. "Happy marriage..?" He asked in confusion, attention flicking between Brouhm's loving look and the potentially murderous scene captured before him.
"Very much so." Brouhm responded.
"I thought this all occurred before you created the Slayers..?" Xander asked. "Cos she's carrying the Scythe..?"
He was back to wondering if Brouhm could read minds again as the other man answered his unasked question. "She's not a Slayer... and it's not a Scythe... Stupid name for it really."
Xander paused, he didn't even know which of the many questions running through his mind he wanted to ask next.
Finally he settled on. "But this is set later than in the other cave, right..?"
"No." Brouhm answered. "The two events were taking place simultaneously."
Xander's eye glanced in the direction of tunnel which led back to where they'd previously been. "I don't understand."
"I know." Brouhm replied.
"I thought you were gonna be a fellow demon-tamer." Xander stated. "Helping to up their number."
"No." Brouhm responded with a laugh. "I have nowhere near their level of skill... nor even their power."
"So what are you..?" Xander challenged the other man. "And what's she... erm, Mar-kirk..?"
"Merkak." Brouhm repeated.
"Merk-urk." Xander tried, then tried again. "Merk-ack..?"
"Close enough." Brouhm smiled.
Xander repeated his question. "What are you two..?"
"Married." Came the initial response. "Or at least as close a comparison as you have today."
"I meant-" Xander began before being interrupted.
"Soul-betrothed might be a closer literal definition." Brouhm mused outloud.
"Sure." Xander tried again. "But I meant-"
"I know what you meant." Brouhm replied. "We'll come to Merkak in a moment, but first we need to return to the story."
"What Are You..?" Xander repeated more forcibly.
"I'm a Seer." Came the response.
End chapter 11a