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.
Special Author's Notes (CHAOS CHIBI CAT AND DRAGONMAGE8, PLEASE READ THIS!):
Some of you reviewers (thanks everybody!) have been leaving me links and/or e-mail addresses in their reviews and has been systematically devouring them. Chaos chibi cat, in case you did not read the review response at the end of chapter 6, my e-mail address is slahti87 at mbnet dot fi (the link can also be found at my bio). ate the last half of your e-mail address in the review so I could not e-mail you as you asked. Please e-mail me with your questions and I shall get back to you ASAP. I apologize for the inconvenience. Dragonmage8, the RPG system you mentioned sounds interesting but ate the link I assume you left in the review. If you could e-mail me with the link I'd be most grateful.
Apologies to everyone for the long delay.. I've been kind of busy in real life- contrary to popular opinion, I DO have a life outside the Internet- and this particular section of the story seemed particularly sticky to write (thus the delay and the relatively short chapter). I figured I should actually get to moving the story forward or I'll be old and gray before I'm even halfway through.
To all my readers and reviewers, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! You help me keep this story alive! I couldn't do this without you people!
Chapter 7
He was walking down a narrow corridor, tendrils of thin silvery mist crawling up and wrapping around his boots before fading into nothingness. It was a river in his feet, flowing towards whatever lay at the end of the tunnel, pulsing and ebbing along with a faint clear sound echoing all around him. It took him a moment to recognize the sound as something like music.. like hundreds of voices raised in a wordless melody of praise. Something glinted golden to his left; Skye was walking there next to him, clad in the same leather armor Xander had always seen him in.. and the same outfit Xander realized he was now in. To his right, a slim, short figure waded through the mists, details shrouded in shadows and the swirling mists. Somehow, Xander knew immediately that the second figure was a she.. and that seeing her made him feel somehow hollow inside, an aching, empty hole of loss in his gut.
Something detached itself from the shadows behind them, a dark, undefined shape that seemed to materialize from the very walls of the corridor.. walls that seemed to be pulsing with life of their own. For a second Xander felt alarmed, but then he realized Skye and his female companion.. Serena, hadn't Willow told him that Skye had called for? Somehow the name felt right to him.. paid no attention to the whatever-it-was. Xander couldn't sense anything malign from it.. only a sense of curiosity. He promptly settled for observing it from the corners of his eyes as it tagged along them. Soon, a second one joined the first one, no more detailed; it, too, followed them, observing silently from a distance even as more appeared. Soon there were dozens of the creatures, trailing after them and striding besides them.
Xander could now see a faint light at the end of the tunnel.. God, that was one huge cliché, wasn't it.. the faint chorus now growing ever-so-slightly stronger around him, a clear, haunting melody that seemed to awaken something deep inside him, like a name at the tip of his tongue.. he had to fight the sudden urge to throw his head back and add his own voice to theirs. The mist was now flowing faster around his legs, forming indistinct shapes as it swirled along the walls and the floor.
"Where are we? What is this place?"
No-one answered him.. in fact, no-one seemed to even have heard him. The tunnel was now widening slightly, the light growing stronger with every step he took. He could now hear faint sounds form the dark figures around them; faint leathery rustling noises, low rattling sounds, soft hissed voices.. and though so alien to him, everything around him seemed so strangely familiar to him at the same time, a maddening sense of deja-vu.
Suddenly the chorus around them blossomed into an encore of joy and praise, a wave of near-blinding light washing over them; and as all around him creatures of both terrible horror and horrible beauty bowed their heads he sunk to his knees in awe, a sense of incredible presence manifesting all around them. The aura of power he could feel was like the molten core of the sun to Buffy's candle, a feeling of age and might so great it was unfathomable to the mortal mind, beyond Life, Time and Eternity..
Despite everything he couldn't resist sneaking a glance to his right, where the woman who had plagued his subconscious thoughts ever since from that accursed Halloween night even though he had never seen her face before. She was small, nearly petite, kneeling on the floor with her head bowed respectfully down; he guessed she was close to five feet tall if she stood straight up. Her hair was a shade of shimmering metallic silver- like frozen starlight, a fragment of a voice whispered within his soul- that fell as a glittering curtain down to her shoulders. Her whole frame was slender, nearly fragile-looking, clothed in a dress of the same glowing green of sunlight seen through the leaves of a great birch tree, gold shining in the bracelets on her slim arms and the single golden hoop through her left ear. Her eyes were the brilliant color of finest emeralds, large and almond-shaped, set in a hauntingly fine-boned, nearly foxlike face, further accentuating the feeling she might fall down and shatter any moment.. and yet in her entire posture was a feeling of concealed steel, even though on her face was a look of sadness that seemed to squeeze his entire heart in grip of frozen steel talons. A pang of tearing loss and regret washed over him and he dropped his gaze back onto the mist-covered floor, ignoring the faint burning sensation in his eyes.
"Drach'shul'wynn." Skye's voice rumbled from his left where the man had kneeled on the floor, and even though he had never heard that alien language before, the very sound of it rough on his throat, he knew exactly what he had said. Drach'shul'wynn.. 'dragon-parent-man'.. the Dragon Father.
A part of his sour curling tightly in terror, Xander looked up into the greatest eye he had ever seen. It reached seemingly eternally to everywhere around him, the iris glowing in all the colors of the rainbow.. the slit pupil colored the deepest black with tiny glimmering points of light deep within. Stars were born and died within that eye, the life and death of a single galaxy but a moment for one who had kept silent vigil since Time itself had begun. As the eye focused down onto him Xander instinctively knew there was nothing more terrifying in all the Hells than to be looked upon by that eye and to be found wanting.
THIS PLACE IS NOT YET FOR YOU, MORTAL.
Xander didn't even have time to flinch before his world was consumed by light and shrouded in darkness.
----
Awareness crashed through his nerves accompanied by a sudden rush of energy like liquid fire surging through his veins. His startled shout came out in a short rumbling noise like a thunderclap; sweat covering his skin in a thick, cold sheen he spread his arms, claws ready to rend, tear, crush..
Claws!
Xander brought his hands before his disbelieving eyes, his soft, entirely human fingers completely normal if not for the faint aura of electric sparks crackling between the digits. For one moment he'd thought.. what, it eluded him, the feeling fading like a fever-dream as the rush of energy slowly dulled and faded into what he had accepted as its normal, steady pulse like a second heartbeat. He allowed himself to quiver as he remembered the dream or vision or whatever he had awakened from; he could still remember the feeling of age and power like a sea of endless energy surrounding and smothering him, whispering around him.. compared to this Angelus was nothing, the Judge was a mere mote of dust on the shimmering jewel that was Creation, brushed away with nary a thought..
And he still lived. Xander couldn't but help the feeling that on some level he had been judged and had survived the process with his soul and body intact if thoroughly shaken. The same pulse of energy that had banished him from the vision could just as well have wiped his mind out, fried every neuron in his body and left him a soulless vegetable.
And he didn't even know who he had faced.
----
Xander stuck the leather-bound tome he had been perusing back into its place with a disgusted hiss. How is it possible that Giles has one of the largest, vastest, most detailed collections of information on demonic, occult, divine and supernatural here and there is nothing here on a god symbolized by one sekath huge eye! There were gods with the normal two eyes, there were gods with no eyes, there were gods with a hundred eyes, there was even something called Gruumsh the One-Eyed and All-Seeing, but there was nothing on a god with eyes with stars inside them.
..on second thought.. What the heck does 'sekath' mean? There was a short, sudden flash within his mind. ..Hard to translate exactly, but nothing polite. God I hate my mind sometimes.
"Nothing there?" He heard Willow's soft voice from behind, accompanied by a whiff of her perfume. At least she didn't use too much of the stuff.. whatever Cordy had put on had nearly made him sneeze just to get rid of the stench after she'd passed him in the corridor. Sometimes his enhanced sense of smell really stank. Literally.
He made a low 'hrrmmnn'-noise in his throat. "Nothing. Any luck with you?"
A sigh. "Same here. Are you sure you heard him correctly?"
Xander sighed and turned towards her, twisting his neck to the side to get rid of a crick. "Positive. Drach'shul'wynn, the Dragon Father- also known as Dachar, the Dragon Lord of Ages, the Scion of Time, the Crystal Dragon or the Crystal Sentinel. I.. I hate how this works- I remember his name, I know I know more, but I just don't remember! It's there on the tip of my tongue, but I- I- arrgh!"
Something crackled. Xander raised his hand, clenched in a fist, and saw tiny snakes of electricity arcing along his skin. Willow made an eep-ing noise and Xander actually growled at the hand until the arcs faded back into his flesh. "..I hate it when it does that." At least G-man wasn't around at the moment.
Willow's eyes were roughly the size of hubcaps. "..Does that happen often?"
Xander snorted. "Normally I can suppress it at will. If I'm anxious or annoyed or just plain pissed off it kind of wells up like that."
Willow sighed and gave him a dry look. "..It's a wonder you haven't zapped Snyder to somewhere next month already, then."
Xander entertained the thought for almost a full second. "Don't tempt me. The troll even smells annoying."
Willow snickered. Xander smiled faintly just before his Xander-sense perked up. Two blips, approaching fast.. they didn't as much feel dark than they somehow resonated with the surrounding darkness. Willow must've seen something on his face; she turned towards the library doors and took a few steps back just as he instinctively maneuvered himself between her and the doors. A tingle in his back made him hope he'd brought the Stormhammer. He still wasn't sure how far he could thrall the thing from- not to mention explaining big hunks of steel flying across Sunnydale on their own volition could be tricky.
Xander mentally prepared himself for anything just as the doors slammed open and five feet of blonde Slayer sailed in closely followed by a taller dark-skinned girl. Xander had exactly half a second time to wonder exactly how the heck he could sense Slayers now as well before his brain made the connections and recognized the second girl as Kendra.
It didn't take him as long to remember what had happened the last time the Jamaican Slayer had been in town. This just couldn't be good.
"..Ohh boy."
----
A decidedly pale-looking Giles walked out of his office, polishing his glasses and shivering. The bad feeling gnawing on Xander's gut just intensified.
"That was the museum," Giles said quietly. "The curator has been found dead and the artifact has been stolen, by person or persons unknown. Although," and he nodded to the sombre-looking Jamaican Slayer, "Based on the information provided by Kendra's Watcher, we can be in no doubt that what is inside is definitely Acathla."
"..and a catty-la-laa is?" Buffy prompted. Xander held back a wince at the pronunciation. Sure, some demon names- okay, most of them- were difficult or just painful to pronounce, but when magic came into play, you had to be very careful with your words. Thank the Dragon Lord she's not a spellcaster.
Giles leant on the table and crossed his fingers. "Acathla was a demon summoned in the ancient times to bring an end to this world. His particular power was.. well, by drawing breath he would inhale the world and all that lives here into Hell- or one of the Hells, none of which are particularly pleasant."
Hellplanes, Skye's voice rumbled through Xander's head. Dimensions conquered by the remnants and descendants of the First Ones originally banished into the Void between the Planes by the Elder Gods.
"Fortunately, before he could draw that breath, a knight, a.. a champion, if you will, skewered Acathla's heart with his sword, killing him."
Acathla the Devourer was one of the lesser lieutenants of the First Ones to lead their assault back onto the Material Planes. For millennia he left behind a swath of destruction fit to make the Crystal Dragon proud only to vanish without a trace. It is thought he was destroyed in combat, though no actual proof has ever been brought to light.
"..If, however, that sword is removed from his petrified body.. Acathla's body will continue its last action, and Earth will be sucked into Hell."
"Why is it always Hell?" Buffy groaned. "Don't these things have any imagination?"
"Such is their way" Xander muttered low in his throat. "Death and Chaos they were spawned of, and that chaos they wish to spread into the mortal realms.. and it is our duty to hold back the waves of Darkness.. 'Til the stars dim and the moon shatters, 'til the sun fades and winds die, 'til the end of Life, Time and Eternity, 'til Death and beyond in Rebirth we hunt, we protect, we destroy.."
Willow, who was standing right next to him, gave him a worrying look but didn't say anything. Buffy and Giles didn't look like they even heard him.
"I believe we should assume that Angelus has Acathla and is planning to revive him. Until we have more information we must to be very careful. Buffy, Kendra, I want you to patrol with great care tonight. Do not use the usual routes and do not stay late. The rest of us will-"
"Will hit the books for information," the others chorused.
"Apart from you, Willow," Giles corrected. "I want you to concentrate on the soul restoration spell. If Angelus plans to plunge us all into Hell one way of preventing it could be bringing Angel back."
That comment earned a confused blink from Xander. When Willow headed for the deeper recesses of the library he followed her; the moment he was sure they were out of reach he stopped her.
"Willow," he began, his voice lowered into a deep thrum, "What was that about a 'soul restoration' spell?"
He got a confused look from her. "You don't know?" she whispered.
He frowned ever-so-slightly. "I've been.. otherwise disposed." The faint glint of his golden eyes and the nearly unnoticeable flash of fangs as he spoke told her everything she needed to know.
"Miss Calendar was working on it before she.. before she died. It's a modified version of the Gypsy soul curse that was originally used on Angelus. We- Giles and I- think we could use it to restore Angel's soul. It's.. the ritual's more complex than what I've ever tried before.. but I'm sure I can do it." Her voice had gained a steely edge when she got to the last sentence, coupled with pure stubborn resolve creeping into her features.
Xander allowed himself the faintest of smiles. "If there's anyone who can it's going to be you, little tree." While Willow was still blinking over the nickname the smile vanished from his face, replaced with a cold, hard certainty that seemed alien on his formerly carefree person. "I.. I'm no mage, Willow, but I know what you're about to do requires enormous amounts of energy. One wrong gesture, one misspelt word.. all that power has to go somewhere. Be careful. In the ritual.. I shan't leave thy side, if thou wouldst have me."
'Til Death and beyond.. We protect. Skye purred in his soul.
I#I#I#I#I#I#I
Review Responses
Alex Darkfire: Thank you! My Finnish teacher always said I tend to write long, good descriptions.
Ragnhild: Thank you! I have the beginnings of several crossover fics on my hard drive plus a good-sized folder filled with writings, but most are far from fit for publishing. So far none of my original works have found their way onto the Internet, but I've been thinking of correcting that..
Dnic5: Not quite as strongly as in the beginning, but still going thanks to people like you who review!
M. Kearney: Thank you for a well-though out review! It's good to hear a reviewer likes what they've read but even better when they can actually tell what they liked and why. After so many people have asked me to publish my original work I've been seriously considering it; trust me, if I do get around to uploading anything you will be the first to know.
Pong: Sadly, not as soon as I would have wanted it myself. Sorry about the delays, hope you're still reading.
Shadz: Thank you for review. Sadly, I have to admit I haven't seen that much of Dragon Ball (regular, Z or GT) since it isn't aired here in Finland; what little I know of the series comes from a few stray episodes I've seen on tape or from miscellaneous crossovers I've read here on I merely used DBZ as an example. Hmh, maybe if I can get to actually know the show I could see if I could fit Skye in there somewhere..
Dogbertcarroll: Thank you for the tip, I'll keep that in mind.. I'll be the first to admit that that chapter wasn't exactly the best one of the story, I'm far from satisfied with it.
DaBear: Thank you for reviewing! Xander's reaction to the storm is one of the many things he got from Skye; I guess the closes equivalent for a standard Human would be sunbathing. Where a Human relaxes in the sun he absorbs energy from the wind and the thunder.
Dragonmage8: Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are. That particular chapter is indeed nearly shamefully short; I'll be trying to make the next chapters a little longer. I dislike reading itty-bitty three paragraph long chapters myself; they make a story look 'choppy', at least in my opinion.
Tom: Thank you! I'm trying my best!
Kyle: I'm glad you liked it, thank you very much!
Sil: Ask and thou shalt receive. I hope you liked it.
Destiny's Dragon: Thank you!I'm glad you think so!
Candy Dawn: At the risk of sounding like a smartarse, about six pages ago.. Sorry, couldn't resist. Thank you for reviewing, and I'm very sorry for the delay.
Ronin100: I'm glad you like this; thank you for reviewing and, again, I'm sorry for such long delays.. stupid writer's block..
Suzuka Blade: Thank you very much! I'll do my best:snatches the bag midair: Hey, these look kinda good..
Thank you all, see you chapter 8!
