Disclaimer: I do not own anything, it all belongs to other people, but I can still dream, can I?

A 35th story in my Halloween short story series. Different answers to the challenge:

'what if Xander dressed as something different for Halloween'.

Authors Note: It has been a very long time since I last wrote a fic, or a chapter for my longer fiction. But Real Life can be cruel and I needed the time for myself. So now I'm slowly starting to write again and hope I regain what I've lost during my long absence.

A Matter of Perception

Simone of the Zordiak

He did not know when it had started, maybe after Willow had tried to destroy the world in her grief, maybe sooner or sometime later. But he did knew when the first changes had become noticeable. About a week after Sunnydale had become the "Crater-formally-known-as-Sunnydale" his hair had gained white roots. During the next months it slowly had become totally white.

Xander had listened to may theories why it could have happened, but secretly he had his own idea why his hair had lost colour.

He had not said anything about it, but he had noticed several other changes, slowly, steadily, working their way through his body.

Maybe it had started with Willow supercharging his body with the raw earthmagic on Kingmans Bluff, maybe the trigger had been the loss of his eye, he couldn't exactly pinpoint the beginning of his changes... most of them where internally anyway. But he had a good idea why he was changing. All he needed to do to get his answers were a few bloodtests and he was preparing everything so he could do them at the next possible opportunity.

-o-o-o-

The news were not good. So many Slayers had been woken all through the world, people had noticed. Greedy people, who were trying to make profit out of their knowledge.

And Slayers suffered.

Since the culprits were human, no Slayer could be sent against them, not without breaking the "No Human Slaying" law the council was enforcing.

But he was now Slayer. And in the last few months, ever since he had found the answer in his bloodtests, he had started to distance himself from the council. He had a feeling that neither Giles, nor the others would like the answers he had found.

For it was Willow's fault, Willow's and Ethan Rayne's and... Caleb's. The loss of his eye, even if it had been the wrong one for this character, had been the final trigger for his transformation. But without the magic Willow had thrown at him, the transformation would have failed and without Ethans' costume-matrix still floating around in his aura, there wouldn't have been a transformation at all.

In his eye, it was all for the best. Where no Slayer could go, because of the human factor, he would interfere. Slayers were meant to be feared by demons. He would become the one, humans would fear.

And now he was ready. He had reworked the uniform several times, for what had worked on paper didn't have the same results in real life colours. But it was still very much recognisable.

There were many Slayers, many demon-hunters now and they didn't need a one-eyed carpenter. What the world needed and what he was prepared to give to it, was a new Deathstoke, the Terminator.

End