Azure Halloween
Summary: Crossover with something of my own invention Halloween fic. Things will never be the same again for Xander.
Disclaimer: Buffy belongs to Fox Interactive and Mutant Enemy. No copyright infringement intended. Anything not recognizable as someone else's work most likely belongs to me. Mitts off.
Chapter 5
There was a splash as Xander dropped down the last few feet, greenish-brown muck covering his boots. His first breath promptly made him feel sick; a horrible stench of rotten and rotting various unmentionable substances struck his enhanced senses almost like a physical blow. He winced and covered the lower half of his face with his hands, only barely smothering the urge to claw at his nose to make the burning stop. The combination of the stench and the strengthened sense of darkness around him was nearly enough to stun him for a moment before he forced himself to take shallow breaths and move on.
The tunnel had, at some time, been lit with small electric lights at steady intervals along the grimy concrete walls. Now, however, only roughly one of three was actually lit. The poor lighting created flickering shadows on the walls. The floor was covered with an ankle-deep layer of viscous muck that made sick bubbling and slurping sounds under his boots, sticking on every step as Xander made his way west towards the core of the darkness he sensed.
The deeper he ventured into the labyrinthine sewers of Sunnydale the fewer actually working lights there were. Dimly lit at best, sections of the sewer tunnels were shrouded in near-complete darkness. It was in the middle of one of these darker sections that something finally happened. One moment Xander was walking down the tunnel, squinting to see through the shadows.. the next he was clutching his head in agony, a sickening wave of nausea washing over him. His eyes hurt like they were on fire; he swayed and had to lean on the sewer wall to keep from falling face-down into the muck.
Slowly, gradually, the pain in his eyes abated into a dull throbbing sensation. Gasping for breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, Xander opened his eyes to find the world changed right before them. He slowly stood to a more upright position staring at his now-grimy hands.. hands that were glowing a dim, dull crimson.
"What the.."
Xander looked up to see the entire tunnel bathed in a faint red glow. The entire world was a mess of red and black, with the tunnel walls the darkest black and his skin the brightest.
…Some kind of innate night vision? Freaky. Handy, but freaky.
His eyes tingling, he shook his head and kept on wading through the tunnel. Night vision or no, freaky or not.. Willow and Buffy were depending on him, he had work to do, and now he could see properly again.
Had Xander had a mirror at that very moment he would've seen his eyes had changed.. the gold had spread out entirely so that no whites could be seen, and the pupils.. they were like a cat's, dilated until they were almost but not quite round, and glowing a faint eerie red.
-
Considering the size of Sunnydale's Undead population and their aversity to sunlight, the sewers were bound to have several vampire nests.. all of which would consider a lone Human a tasty snack. Therefore it was only a matter of time before Xander stumbled upon one of them.. or in this case, they stumbled upon him.
Xander entered a large chamber where several tunnels just like the one he had come from connected to. He had sensed at least five vampires in the chamber long before entering; according to his Xander-sense this was the most direct route to his ultimate destination, however, and he had better things to do than waste time trying to find an alternate route when the others needed him. In typical vampire fashion these apparently figured that Xander was alone, unaware of their presence, weak, and therefore easy pickings.
Unluckily for the vampires, Xander was both aware of their presence and prepared for them. Even if the chamber itself was dark Xander could both see the vampires, glowing faint red in his eyes against the black walls, and could pinpoint them accurately with his other senses. The first vampire to attack him learned that the hard way; hissing, it rushed at him, only to crumble into dust with Xander's stake struck directly through its lifeless heart.
The loss of their companion didn't deter the other vampires a bit as they decided to try and overwhelm him, the sewer muck splashing high from their footsteps. A feral grin tugging at his lips, Xander waited to the last possible second before ducking to the left, away from the vampires' path. He had to bite back a chuckle when they stumbled, finding only empty air where he had stood moments before.
"Come on, is that all you've got?"
Though he couldn't see any details Xander was pretty sure all four vampires had a murderous expression on when they turned to face him again. Xander couldn't resist the oppoturnity to taunt them.
"I've heard that sewer rats can grow huge but this is fricken' ridiculous!"
One of the vampires growled at him. "I'm going to rip your head off and use it as a football, human!"
Xander's grin was devoid of all warmth, baring his sharp teeth. "Feel free to try, fangface. I've got no time for this- walk away now and you will exist to see the next moonrise."
The vampires roared and rushed at him again. Xander snorted and unclipped the Stormhammer. "Didn't think so."
Xander sidestepped the first vampire easily and gave a massive swing with the mace; the enchanted weapon vibrated in his hands with an audible thrum as the vampire shrieked when Xander hit its shoulder. The mace seemed to glow brightly to his eyes; he heard a faint hissing sound from the vampire and guessed correctly the wounds left behind by the mace were scorched and smoking faintly. Before the vampire could react Xander struck again, the silvery thorns scoring several deep scratches into the vampire's face. Wailing in pain, it pressed its hands against its wounded face.. leaving an opening for Xander to sink a stake into its chest.
There was a growl as one of the vampires swung at him; Xander ducked and spun, taking the feet from under it with a heavy boot. It made a splash that sprayed stinking grime everywhere as it landed. His spin made him face another vampire; Xander gave it a feral grin, his eyes blazing a deep crimson. Sensing a dark presence behind him, he leapt to the side a split second before the vampire that had leapt at him from behind would have made contact with him. It slammed into the first vampire with full force and took them down in a hissing and growling tangle of limbs. His hand found a handle at his side and Xander ducked a punch before slashing with his shortsword with lethal accuracy. The suddenly headless vampire exploded into dust.
Xander grinned and turned to face the two vampires that were now trying to climb up. He snatched a stake off his belt and stabbed; the top vampire exploded into dust and before the bottom one could react Xander had grabbed it by the throat with an iron grip and slammed it against the grimy wall. It grabbed his wrist with both hands and tried to twist it.. right until Xander punched it into the face with enough power to stun an ox. It made a strangled noise, feet dangling a good foot off the floor.
Xander gave it a chilling smirk and held up the Stormhammer with his right hand- the left was squeezed around the vampire's windpipe. Arcs of lightning jolted on the metal as the mace gave a low thrumming purr.
"I warned you, fangboy.. now talk. There's a demon nest of some sort west of here- and you're going to tell me everything you know about it or I dust you here and now."
The vampire grabbed his wrist again. Xander raised the mace in warning and the vampire gulped audibly, letting his arms fall to his sides.
"Could- could you be more precise? There are at least a dozen nests out- urrk!"
Xander recognized the voice and realized that ironically enough the vampire was the very same that had threatened him. O how the mighty have fallen..
"This is a new one- three, maybe four days old at most. Cough it up."
The vamp made a nervous chuckle. "Ohh, that one.. she showed up about two days ago. Hasn't come out except when Charlie decided to see if he could get some cash in exchange for protection. Never liked the guy myself, good riddance."
Xander narrowed his eyes. "What kind of demon is she? How far is the nest?"
"I don't know, I never saw her myself! She's about a mile west from here, you can't miss it! Now lemmego!"
Xander snorted and let go, stepping back. The vampire fell with a splash, then stood up and slunk away. About twenty steps away from Xander it turned back and yelled at him. "You haven't heard the las-"
There was a soft 'poof'-ing noise and a splash as a stake fell into the muck amidst a cloud of ash where the vampire had stood. Xander gave a derisive snort and shook his head.
"Idiot."
For a moment he considered trying to find the stakes amidst the sludge, then decided it wasn't worth the effort. He clipped the mace back to its rightful place, slipped the shortsword back into its scabbard, and pushed on towards west.. and whatever demon lay in wait for him there.
-
Slowly the air in the sewer was turning warm and dry. The stench of rot and sewage was now overlain with something that made the hair on Xander's neck stand up.. the smell of death and disease, the foul aroma of illness Xander had smelled around Willow but far, far stromger. If he concentrated on his Xander-sense the disease particles were a dense torrent around him, driven away from the nest and into the streets by the warm gust he could feel on his skin. The walls, he realized, were now not covered with sewer slime but a tough, rubbery substance his vision interpreted black but Xander assumed to be dark green; when touched it felt cold and clammy to the touch like dead skin. At some places it was smooth and glossy but at some places the texture was kind of wavy, almost ribbed.. it gave him the uncomfortable feeling of being inside something living and breathing.
A strange sense of deja-vu washed over him.. he could imagine Skye standing in a dark corridor, the walls covered with black, hard, chitinous resin, the man examining the wall with the same distaste he felt now. The stench of blood and death and something acrid and burning filled the air as the man turned to look at someone beyond Xander's field of vision.We must go now. We beat them back for now but they will return soon.
I know, beloved. Come, let us leave this foul den of Shadow, a melodic female voice answered him. Although Xander had never heard never heard the speaker before he knew the woman had meant much for Skye.. more than anything else.
"I stand by your side.." Xander echoed the last of the memory fragment, then shook his head to clear the stupor. Unlike the previous ones, this one had not been painful at all.. it had just left behind an increased feel of wariness. Whatever horrors Skye and his companion had faced earlier had left behind a deep dislike of areas like the one he was in now.
As he watched a part of the.. whatever happened to cover the wall seemed to bulge slightly outwards. Xander tensed, ready for anything as the substance seemed to bubble; at first the bulge was the size of a grape, then a ping-pong-ball, an apple.. it swelled up to the size of a grapefruit before popping like a diseased cyst. A this dust filled the air, taken away by the gust. As the resin smoothened again where the 'bubble' had been Xander realized that the 'dust' had been spores of some kind.. probably of the very disease that had taken over the city. Xander bared his teeth in a low growl and straightened up, determined to head into the demon nest.
He would've felt much better if the walls didn't occasionally have pits and niches in them large enough for something roughly human-sized to hide in, though. He hated jumping at shadows.
-
He was close now, the air warm and thick with the smell of disease, the walls covered in a layer of hardened resin.. Xander could feel the presence of the demon nearby as a dark pressure on his mind even when he was not actively trying to sense it. Reaching out, he could sense it as a mass of darkness closeby.. swarms of disease particles surrounded it like a vortex, flowing outwards and into the sewers. Streams of brilliant energy conjoined near it, outlining a large chamber. From the amount of live high voltage cables within Xander assumed the room was some kind of a maintenance chamber for the local section of Sunnydale's power network.
He could see a faint pulsing light at the end of the tunnel (the pun was entirely unintentional) that seemed to brighten on every step he took. Slowly his eyes began to tingle in warning; moments later a burning sensation shot through them. Hissing in surprise, Xander closed and rubbed them; when he opened them again he could see normally.
He felt the demon presence much stronger now as he neared the end of the tunnel; the light he had seen was coming from behind the corner. Careful to not make any sound, Xander leaned on the wall and peered cautiously through.
The tunnel made a steep incline just after the corner to keep the sewer muck out. The floor, walls and ceilings were all covered with a thick layer of dark brownish-green resin that seemed to flake into dust in places; the dust was taken away by the wind blowing through the sewer. Beyond the incline the tunnel opened into a large chamber, lit with fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling. He could barely make out a lone figure in the rear of the nest. A short check with his Xander-sense didn't hint at any others within.
Xander took a deep breath and drew himself to his full height; checking his weapons, he thought of Willow, Buffy, Giles and others above and steeled himself for anything. The stakes and holy water attached to the belt slung across his shoulder were all set and ready; the Stormhammer was a comforting weigh on his back, seemingly thrumming with anticipation.
This is it, folks. The Scoobies are counting on me.. I can't fail. I won't fail.
-
Xander did his best to ignore the growing sense of deja-vu as he entered the actual hive. The resin gave ever so slightly underneath his boots, softening his footfalls; the disease particles swirled in a vortex around him as he drew the Stormhammer and approached the demon. It had its back towards him at first, kneeled to manipulate something on the ground, but as he got closer it stood up and turned to face him.
The vampire had called it 'her' but this had not been exactly what Xander had had in mind. He estimated her height was slightly taller than Willow, with a humanoid body. Her skin had a sickly greenish tint to it and the same resin that covered the walls seemed to stick to her as well, covering her skin like a shell that gleamed almost like metal. The resin around her fingers seemed harder that normal, sharpened into glittering claws. Her all too delicate human face and dark hair would have made her look like a sixteen- maybe seventeen-year old girl except for her eyes, which were colored an unnatural red. She seemed almost too fragile or harmless to be a threat but Xander knew better than to trust first impressions on the Hellmouth. He could sense waves of darkness and disease flowing outwards from her as she looked at him with a kind of idle curiosity like one would give an unusual insect of some sort.
"How did you get here, mortal? You should be in a coma by now." Her voice was unnaturally deep for someone her size, vibrating through the chamber and sending shivers down his spine. A part of him- the Skye part- was practically screaming 'Danger!' at him.
"I'm an ornery bastard like that. You are the one responsible for the plague."
A single thin eyebrow rose. "Perceptive, are you? I assume you came down here to stop me.. like a mere human could stop me."
Xander made a rumbling sound in his throat. A memory was surfacing again; it felt rather like someone had opened a door in his mind and let stuff out. He could feel rage building up inside him, ready to explode into actin.
"I know of you and your ilk, plaguelord, servant of Chaos. You can bleed, you can die.. only one of us will leave this place alive." The words were coming to Xander unbidden as he raised his free hand to point at the demon. The Stormhammer crackled and hummed in his hand, the handle feeling warm and almost living to the touch. "You have no place here, banished one; the moment you set foot on these grounds you were doomed. Such has the Dragon Lord decreed and so shall it be- thou and thine kind shall fall!"
The demon's face twisted into a mask of fury; it screamed of rage, a horrible screeching sound that reverberated through the chamber, and made a grasping motion with its cloven hands.
"Die, fool!"
The walls came alive. The resin cracked and splintered; dozens of groping tendrils shot through the cracks and reached for Xander, hardened clawlike tips gleaming. Xander rolled out or the way, the tentacles slamming into the floor where he had stood a split second before. In an impossibly fluid move he snatched a stake from his belt and hurled it; it spun through the air and would have hit with lethal accuracy if not for the thick carapace of hardened resin covering her chest. The stake hit it with a solid thwack and bounced off, the tip dulled and splintered from the impact.
She shrieked again and motioned with her hands and the tendrils came back; Xander ducked and parried, then snatched his shortsword and slashed. The blow cleaved one of the tentacles into two; greenish-black ichor flowed from the stump as it was drawn back inside the wall. The remaining tentacles trashed and squirmed in a sickening pattern. Xander hopped, ducked and rolled, weaving his way through the flailing mass, slashing and cleaving through the mass of twisting flesh. A deep growl rose from his chest as he snatched a dagger from his belt and threw it at the demon. A tentacle snapped out and struck it out of the air; at the same time one managed to breach his defenses and scored a slash to his left upper arm. Xander hissed in pain as he felt the wound burn; it was shallow, little more than a scratch, but it was bleeding.. and a black substance from the tentacle had been spilt onto the wound. The whole arm felt cold and numb; for a moment he had to concentrate on dodging any other attacks.
The demon laughed, a sinister cackle that made the hairs on his neck stand up. "Fool! The venom will make short work of you!"
Xander growled, a deep rumbling sound from his chest more felt than heard; the wound was itching furiously now, but the feeling was slowly returning to the limb. He ducked a stabbing tentacle, clipped the Stormhammer back to his back, jumped over a low swing, wiped the gunk from the wound with a free hand and drew the Stormhammer again just in time to parry another blow.
"You have no power over me!"
The demon narrowed its eyes and made a shooing motion. The tentacles came at him again, but this time Xander was ready; instead of backing off or ducking to the side he took a couple of running steps forward and leaped directly into the writhing mass. Whatever move the demon had been anticipating, this definitely was not it; Xander barreled right through the tentacle mass and slammed into the demon with full force. Before she could react Xander swung the Stormhammer with all his might. The blow hurled the demon clear across the chamber and halfway up the wall where she slid down in an almost comical fashion. The shell of resin had held but only barely; a network of cracks ran out from the point of impact on her side. The tentacles fell slack, then withdrew into the wall.
The demon picked herself up and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Her eyes widened when the hand came back stained with a thick black liquid.
"You.. HURT ME!"
Xander's fangs glittered. "You can bleed. You can die."
Her eyes lit up with a fierce red glow and she leapt at Xander; at the same time Xander released a low growl and pounced. They collided midair with a jarring thud and fell into a tangle of claws and fists. Xander did his best to avoid getting those claws anywhere near his face while trying to concentrate his attacks on her already weakened side. Suddenly something wrapped around his ankle and pulled him off her; Xander looked back and struck with the Stormhammer, messily severing the tentacle, but too late; she had already righted herself and the walls were alive with cablelike tendrils again. This time they seemed to be much more coordinated and careful; Xander had to keep ducking and weaving to avoid being hit, often dodging several simultaneous attacks from different sides. This time Xander knew what he had to do; apparently she had to keep actively commanding the tentacles. If he could distract her long enough to get to her..
Another tentacle swept at him and was promptly severed. Xander grabbed some stakes and hurled them at her in rapid succession; as he had expected several tentacles doubled back to deflect the projectiles. The stakes were followed by daggers, some vials of holy water, and finally.. Xander changed his grip on the handle of the Stormhammer and hurled it. It spun through the air with a graceful arc, humming all the way. Like with the previous missiles, a tentacle moved to intercept it.
There was a sharp crackling, sizzling noise and a flash of blue as the tentacle touched the mace; suddenly all the tentacles were twitching and jerking uncontrollably as the demon shrieked of pain. Xander saw his chance, leapt over a flailing tendril and delivered a crushing kick that tossed the demon on her back. The cracks on her resin armor widened; small bits of the green shell were now flaking and splintering off. She snarled and kicked out, throwing Xander away from her. She was stronger than she looked; Xander rolled and skidded and finally came to a halt near the opposite wall. The walls rippled again and a new set of tentacles emerged. Xander's eyes widened; he had his shortsword but the Stormhammer was lying on the floor too far for his liking, still sparking with energy.
The tentacles headed for him and he scrambled up, headed for the mace and desperately dodging the tendrils.
Oh comeoncomeoncomeon..
Instinctively he held a hand out at the mace; a single word ran through his mind. "Thrall!"
The Stormhammer suddenly quivered on the floor and shot through the air at his outstretched hand. Xander snatched it out of the air, surprised and pleased at the same time. Thrall, a memory fragment whispered in his head, was Skye's language for 'come', and one of the command words for the mace.
Growling wildly, he spun and struck at the reaching tentacles; thunder crackled through the mace, forming a white-blue halo of energy around it. Where it hit the tentacles it left blackened and charred marks that smoked faintly. A red haze enveloped his senses as the growl escalated into a rumbling feral snarl filled with anger and rage. His swings turned faster, stronger, more instinctive as the rage burnt through him; it was like fire and ice coursing through his veins.
The tentacles retreated under this new assault.. then began coiling together. Originally roughly as thick as a man's wrist, they flexed and entwined to form fewer but thicker tendrils that resembled tree trunks as they swung at him. The entire chamber shook as one of the tentacles struck the ground where he had stood mere moments ago, sending bits of green resin and black liquid flying everywhere.
Xander was a whirlwind of thunder and destruction, dodging attacks with liquid grace and attacking with an unnerving ferocity. Droplets of thick black blood sprayed the air as he landed a good blow with the Stormhammer; the steady drone of the mace had turned into a low roar like distant thunder, growing moment by moment, blow by blow. Sweat flowed freely as he crushed an incoming tentacle practically into wet pulp, the stump quivering and bleeding profusely.
There was a screech of pain and fury and one of the tentacles came down with enough force to crush a car. Xander managed to dodge that one.. but not the smaller tentacle that followed. The impact hurled him clear across the room and into the wall.. he hit it hard enough to by all rights crush every bone in a normal Human body. Something in the resin next to him gave way with a screech of crumpling metal.
"Now, mortal, I have you!"
Xander could sense the pulse of power from next to him and realized he had almost hit a switchbox of some type nearly buried in the resin.. an active switch box if the blue sparks were any indication.
"No" Xander growled, raising the Stormhammer, "just DIE!"
The mace found its mark and tore its way through the metal shell of the box. Power flowed through the metal into the mace and Xander's hand. The mace flared a brilliant blue-white blinding light as the energy gathered in Xander's body and found a release.
Electricity crackled on his skin and gathered to his outstretched hand. The entire chamber shook in the roar of superheated air as an arc of blinding energy lanced forth from his palm; the demon screeched in pain as the tentacles crumpled into dust around them.
-
The Stormhammer sent a final surge of power through him and flickered out; Xander stumbled forward and yanked the mace off the wall, breaking the connection. By all laws or Nature he should have been extra-crispy by now.. but his clothes and skin were unmarked except for the faint streams of steam rising from his body. An incredibly thick smell of ozone and burning filled the air; piles of dust and ashes, the only remains of the tentacles, littered the ground. The demon was lying its back directly in the middle of a large scorch mark on the floor, at least twenty feet away from where it had stood just before the thunderbolt had hit it.
Most of the resin armor was shattered or missing; the remaining parts were blackened and burnt. Every bit of skin he could see was blistered and burnt, weeping black blood. Xander would have thought her dead if not for the low moan she gave when he approached.
The sense of darkness Xander received from her was dimming rapidly as he kneeled by her side, the Stormhammer at the ready. Her black hair was scorched but her face was mostly unmarked except for a thin trail of blood flowing from the side of her mouth. Xander leaned over her; she made a groaning noise and opened her eyes..
Her blue eyes.
Xander flinched and recoiled. Demon or not, she looked war too much like a wounded Human girl to his liking.
"What.. where…"
She even sounded human now. The feeling of darkness flickered and faded more rapidly; her eyes were searching but clouded with a thin milky veil Xander recognized as the one thing that comes to all living things.
"..hurts.. daddy"
Xander's eyes widened. Oh sweet God no. Not now, please.. not a human host!
She shivered; Xander couldn't help but leaning closer. The cold truth hit him like a physical blow. According to a memory fragment plaguelords took on human form.. by infecting a human host.
"Shhh.. it'll be over soon.." Inwards Xander raged at cruel fate; outwards he had to fight to keep his voice steady.
"cold.. scared.."
Xander cupped her face in his hands. "Don't be. Sleep now.. let go."
Her eyes were now glazed almost entirely over; Xander cradled her head in his lap as she shivered agan.
"..I see.. ..the eye.."
She shivered again and stilled. Xander gently swept two of his fingers over her eyes, closing them. A low keening noise welled up in his throat. He gently set her down and picked himself up.
Moments later a call of pure rage and sorrow echoed through the tunnel network. Vampires and demons alike shivered and wondered who had pissed what off.
-
Whew. Eight pages and nearly five thousand words in one chapter. I'm on a roll.
Layce74: Thank you!
Dogbertcarroll: I'm glad you liked it.
