Title: Sunnydale Heroes – Part 4 of 7
Author: Wicked Raygun
Summary: AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.
Disclaimer: Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.
Notes: This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.
Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that, the story really does become mine.
Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.
Distribution: Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.
Three teenagers burst into the Library at the same time.
"Giles!"
"Yes, yes, what is it?" Giles asked in a rushed tone, responding to the urgency in their voices.
"Jesse is missing!" Xander said.
"Who?"
"Jesse. He's our friend." Xander took a moment to look dejected. "I was supposed to meet him last night at the Bronze. I can't believe I forgot."
Xander and Willow took some time to explain the situation to Giles.
"And the police want to write it off as him being a runaway!" Willow said, nearly crying as she finished the story.
Giles hesitated before speaking. "Not to sound impolite, but is there any chance of that actually being the case?"
"No way," Willow said with complete confidence in her voice.
"Jesse's home life was pretty much 'Leave it to Beaver'. He loved his family. There's no way he'd bolt," Xander said.
Giles sighed. "Alright, let's assume that something did indeed happen to him, something supernatural. I'm afraid that there isn't much we can do."
"I could look for him," Buffy said, pleadingly.
"I second that idea," Xander said quickly. "And I'm going with."
"No, you're not."
"He's my friend. So, yeah, I really am."
"Go where?" Giles asked pointedly.
The teenagers deflated.
"The only lead we have is that he may have been at the Bronze last night. Did either of you two actually see him there?" he asked, directing his question to Buffy and Willow.
They shook their heads dejectedly.
"And even if you did, the club is closed until tonight. You won't be able to talk to anyone until then." At the depressed look of the teenagers, Giles continued, "I understand you want to find your friend. That's understandable – admirable, even. But without more information, the best thing we can do is to continue researching—"
"Angel!" Xander said suddenly. When he saw the blank looks on everyone's faces he said, "You know, dark, mysterious I-can-draw-the-future guy. He might know where to find Jesse."
"I suppose that is a possibility," Giles said, considering the idea. "Did he give you a means to contact him?"
Xander's mood soured again. "No. He didn't," he said quietly. But then his eyes lit up. "But he did give me this!"
He ran to his book bag, which he had thrown haphazardly on the floor. After a moment of searching, he pulled out a small black box and handed it to Buffy.
"Angel said that I was supposed to give you this when the time was right."
Buffy opened the box and found the silver cross inside.
"Um, it's really pretty," she said unsure about how she was supposed to use the cross to find Jesse. "But I don't know how this is going to help us."
She began to pull the necklace out of the box to examine it further, and noticed that as she did a small compartment was revealed. And in this compartment was a folded up piece of paper. Buffy opened it up and saw a picture of her and Xander talking to a pale man sitting on a red chair.
"Is this Angel?"
"Yeah, that's him."
"Freaky. Are you sure he's not just a stalker?"
"Guys, look," Willow said. "There's an address on the back."
Buffy flipped the drawing over and sure enough, Willow was right.
"Looks like I'm coming with, after all," Xander said with a smirk.
Roughly an hour later, Buffy and Xander found themselves at a rather run down apartment complex. Xander knew the area pretty well, so they had arrived quickly enough.
The only real delay had been when Principal Flutie had caught them trying to leave the school. With a little verbal shuck-and-jive, they managed to get away from him and then go over the fence. Buffy had leapt over acrobatically, while Xander just flew. Both were pretty impressed with the other.
After that, Buffy had asked him lots of questions about flying, though many of them he couldn't answer since it was all still new to him. When she asked if happy thoughts worked, for example, he mumbled something about "attempt number three," and grimaced.
Finally, he just said to her, "Look, when I got a better hang on it, I'll take you up sometime."
He had meant it innocently enough, and was still very worried about Jesse, so he missed the odd look Buffy had given him afterwards.
He, in turn, had also asked her several questions about slaying and vampires, all of which she answered rather easily, having been down this road with Willow the night before. She didn't open up quite as much to Xander as she did with Willow. She held some things back, like being committed to an institution, her Watcher killing himself to save her, and the senior named Pike who had dropped out of school and ran away to parts unknown after helping her.
She wasn't sure why she held so much back, except to say that Xander was a boy, and she generally never felt that comfortable talking about private stuff with boys.
But soon enough, they had arrived at their destination. Xander knocked on the door. After a few moments, Angel's voice told them that the door was open. They stepped inside and found him sitting on the red chair from the picture.
"You know it's funny," he said to them, while smiling disarmingly. "I had just sat down, too."
"We need your help," Xander said, cutting to the chase.
"That's an understatement."
"My friend, Jesse, he went missing last night. We were wondering if you could help us find him."
Angel paused. "I'm sorry to hear that. I heard that vampires were out feeding last night. So if your friend went missing, then he's probably dead. Or worse. You shouldn't bother looking for him."
Xander looked like he had been slapped, so Buffy took over. "Do you know where he might be or not?" she asked impatiently.
He hesitated. "Yes."
"Then tell us."
"No."
"Are you sub-human or something? Vampires sometimes take people alive to feed on later. Jesse could still be alive."
"But more than likely, he's not. You're a Slayer. You know that better than anybody. It's pointless to try and go after him."
"We're trying to save a friend! You do know what that's like right? Having friends? People you care about?"
A sad look crossed Angel's features, before he sighed. He stood up and wrote some directions on a piece of paper and handed it to her. Buffy looked at it and then nodded.
"I don't suppose you're coming with us?" she asked.
"I'm not interested in dying just yet."
"Yeah, I pretty much thought so. Let's go, Xander."
Just as she was walking out of the apartment, Angel said, in a quiet voice, "Don't go."
"Deal with us going," she said, without skipping a beat.
Buffy did not so much as pause at the dour man's concern, but Xander hesitated a moment. He glared weakly at Angel and then left, too.
When they were outside, Buffy asked if he was okay.
"I thought that, you know, that he was a good guy," he said, sounding disappointed and bitter. Buffy felt that he may have been hero-worshipping Angel a little. Then Xander's face hardened. "Whatever. We don't need him. Let's go find Jesse."
"Right."
"A mausoleum?" Xander asked a half hour later when they were walking into the graveyard indicated by Angel's directions.
"Yep."
"Seriously? A mausoleum? That leads to a sewer?"
"Yeah, I got to admit, I've been doing the Slayer thing for a while now and that's a new one on me too. You freaking out?"
"No. And maybe a little yes."
"Well, as long as you're so sure."
"No, I mean – okay, see the thing is, I'm not freaking out. But I am kind of freaking out about the not freaking out, you know?"
"Not really. But don't let that stop you."
"I mean, yesterday my life was like 'uh-oh, pop-quiz!' Today, I'm trying to deal with the fact that my best friend's Jean Grey, my other best friend is being held by vampires, and, oh yeah, I can fly – which is completely cool, and yet utterly useless down in a sewer."
"All valid points, but I'm sensing there's more to this."
"Yeah, see, the thing is none of that freaks me out. And it should be, right? I mean, okay, vampires. We're having a conversation with vampires in it. Heck, I'm carrying a cross and stake that my High School librarian gave me to fight vampires with. I should be way more freaked out about this. At the very least running and screaming in a manly fashion. And yet, I'm not. What does that say exactly?"
At that moment, they arrived at the mausoleum. Buffy took the pause in the conversation to look into Xander's eyes, and spoke seriously. "It means you want to save your friend."
He nodded somberly at that.
"So stop freaking about not freaking, and let's go do some heroics."
Xander smiled. "Aye, aye, Captain."
Back at the High School, Willow was continuing to help research for Giles during her computer lab time. She had finished the actual assignment given by Miss Calendar in about two minutes. Now, she was going through some newspaper records looking for possible signs of The Apocalypse, or possibly just a regular old apocalypse without the capitalized "The", since, according to Giles, this kind of thing happened every now and again.
She didn't want to dwell on the idea much.
It was then that she overhead Cordelia and Harmony spreading rumors about Buffy. At first, she tried to ignore it. It was Cordelia, after all. The girl probably couldn't help but be horrible to everyone that wasn't in her clique. But after a while, she just couldn't stand it anymore.
Someone asked her why Buffy had been kicked out, and Cordelia called her a psycho loony. That pissed her off.
"No, she's not."
"What?"
Willow turned around in her chair to face them. "She's not a psycho. You don't even know her."
"Excuse me? Who gave you permission to exist?"
Willow turned away, furious. She was going to be the better person. She was going to be the better person. She was going to be the better pers—
"Do I horn in on your private conversations? No. Why? Because you're boring."
Willow's eyebrow twitched. Bitch got to go.
She stood up carefully, making a point to not show any hostility or malice, and went to deliver the class assignment that she had printed out ages ago. When she was right behind Cordelia, she noticed that Harmony had placed her purse next to the monitor they were using.
A quick mental shove and the purse toppled over spilling its contents everywhere. Cordelia and Harmony busied themselves picking up the various makeup supplies and other loose ends that had fallen out.
The next part of Willow's revenge was a little bit more delicate. She focused on the keyboard, with gentle telekinetic nudges.
Alt F4
No, I do not want to save changes. But thanks for asking.
Tab
Space bar
When Cordelia and Harmony cried out that their program was gone, Willow smirked.
Vengeance delivered.
"You're making too much noise."
"Huh?"
"I said you're making too much noise. Your footsteps are echoing."
"What? Do you got like super hearing, too?"
"Yes."
"Damn. How come I only get just one?"
Buffy glared at Xander.
"Sorry. Just thinking out loud."
"Well, stop that. We're trying to be stealthy." She turned away from him and kept easing her way down the tunnel.
Xander paused for a moment, and then continued. "Uh, is this any better?"
Buffy stopped walking, but didn't bother to turn around. "You're floating, aren't you?"
"Um, yeah," he said sheepishly.
Buffy rolled her eyes and tried not to let her amusement show in her voice. "Show off."
She failed.
After another ten minutes of quietly moving down the tunnels, Buffy spoke again. "They're close."
"How can you tell?"
"No more rats."
Xander grimaced, but said nothing. He was quickly coming to the conclusion that Vampires were not good people to hang around with.
Eventually, they came to a wooden door, the type one would see on a house. It obviously didn't belong down here.
Buffy motioned for Xander to stay quiet, and checked the handle. It wasn't locked. She took a deep breath and opened the door quickly.
And there was Jesse, face down on the floor.
"Jesse!" Xander stopped floating and went over to him. He shook him for a moment and was relieved when he started moaning. He blinked several times before staring at Xander in confusion.
"Xander?"
"Jesse, man, are you okay?"
He shook his head. "I am not okay, on an epic scale. It's been the weirdest day."
Buffy shined a flashlight on a chain that was attached to Jesse's leg. When Jesse saw it, he groaned. "Oh, come on, seriously? A chain? The guys with weird faces wasn't enough?"
"It's cool," Xander said to him, reassuringly. "Buffy's a superhero."
"Hold on," Buffy said. When she grabbed the chain and snapped it in two, Jesse's mouth fell open.
"Do you think anyone heard that?" Xander asked, looking around nervously. And sure enough, they could hear vampires heading toward them, and moving fast.
"You okay to run?" Buffy asked Jesse, checking him over for any wounds.
In response, Jesse stood. "I am cold, pissed, starving and terrified, but I will so run like the wind to get the hell out of here."
"Sadly, for you, it won't be that easy."
Jesse groaned. "Oh, come on. Not you again."
Standing off to the side was Darla and a group of vampires who all had their demonic faces out. They were all smirking.
"I wasn't aware that we were expecting guests." She turned her head to Xander. "Just fly in, did we?"
Xander gulped. He finally recognized her from the night before.
Darla looked to the vampires on either side of her. "Well, what are you waiting for? Kill them."
The vampires rushed in, and Buffy met them with well-aimed punches and kicks.
Xander moved to help her, but then he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder that made him cry out and fall to his knees. He turned to see Jesse gripping his shoulder like a vice. In a split second, Jesse's other hand grabbed him by his shirt. He let go of his shoulder and lifted him up with a single hand, leaving his feet inches from the ground in what should have been an impossible feat of strength.
"Jesse? What are you doing?" Xander asked, with fear lacing each word.
His friend shook his head, and looked at him confused. "I don't know. I just feel so – so hungry." And then, Jesse's face changed into that of a vampire. "I need to feed."
"Oh, God."
Jesse smirked. "Sorry. Don't think he's listening."
"Xander!"
A blonde blur tackled them to the ground. From the tangle of limbs, Buffy emerged, lifting Xander up and tried to drag him away, but she felt Jesse grab onto her wrist. She reeled a fist back and then punched him.
But her fist hit nothing.
She tried again and again, but each time her fists seemed to just go through him without connecting.
"Cool, huh? Now let me try."
Jesse's hand dove at her neck, like a snake. It phased through her skin and came into contact with her throat. And then he just seemed to squeeze. She tried to breathe, but a pain unlike any she had ever felt before overcame her.
Xander was shocked to see what his friend was doing to Buffy, but was able to recognize that he had to stop it. He tried to hit him, but had the same problem Buffy had: his hands just went through him. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the flashlight that was hanging off his belt and flashed it in Jesse's eyes.
"What the hell?"
Jesse backed away from Buffy. This gave her a chance to take a deep breath and send a kick to Jesse's midsection.
"Come on," she managed to say while coughing violently. "We have to leave now!"
"But Jesse!" Xander pleaded.
"He's not your friend anymore!"
They ran.
Unfortunately, the route they had taken was soon blocked off by quite simply the biggest vampire Buffy had ever seen. She tried to surprise him with a jump kick, but he batted her away like she was merely a pesky fly. She recovered enough to try a simple punch and kick combination, only to have each move blocked effortlessly.
Thankfully, Xander managed to get out a vial of holy water that Giles had given him, and he threw it at the vampire's face. The vial broke, spilling its liquid contents all over the large vampire's chest. It roared in pain. And with this distraction, Buffy and Xander were able to run past him.
They continued on, but soon enough other vampires appeared and the two teenagers had to improvise. So now, they were taking a new route into different tunnels. They had no clue if this would lead them outside, but they had little choice. A left here, a right there, their route was random and meaningless, but it was better than waiting for the vampires to catch up to them.
And then they came to a dead end.
It was a fairly large open space for a sewer, extending out in a thirty foot diameter circle. The only possible exit, other than the way they came in, seemed to be a tunnel. But the entrance to it was forty feet up a sheer wall. At one time there had been a ladder that led up to this tunnel, but it had apparently been broken off years ago.
"Xander, we need to get up there, now!"
"Right!"
Xander pulled Buffy towards him and held her around her waist, while she put her arms around his neck. She had barely just enough time to process just how awkward this was to do with someone she barely knew before they started floating up.
At that point, she was too amazed to care.
When they were halfway up, Xander felt a sudden pain on his foot. He looked down to see the large vampire he hit with the holy water holding onto his shoe by a single hand. Xander shook his leg and his shoe slipped off, taking the vampire with him.
But with Xander's distraction, what had once been a controlled ascent turned into a near panicked flight. He misjudged the distance to the top, and hit his head on the ceiling. If not for Buffy's quick reflexes he would have tumbled down forty feet into a sea of hungry vampires. She managed to catch him, and get onto the ledge safely – an impossible feat for anyone other than a slayer.
After that, she led a stumbling, punch-drunk Xander down the tunnel. Eventually, they came to a manhole and exited onto an empty street.
Breathing heavily and still running on adrenaline, they looked at each other and realized something horrible.
They had failed.
Back in the tunnel, Luke raged.
"They escaped! Impossible!"
"And, yet, true," Darla said, sounding annoyed. While Luke continued his ranting, she turned to the Master's new child. "You. The one who could fly knew you. He called you Jesse. Who is he?"
Jesse looked at her, confused, but answered anyway. "His name is Xander. I've known him since we were kids."
"Is he some sort of mage?"
"Mage?" Jesse asked with clear amusement. "No, but he is a level four paladin. Now, if you don't mind, I have some questions of my own."
"You dare presume to give us orders?" Luke asked, now focusing his ire on Jesse. "You will do as you are told, you insolent brat, and answer our questions."
"Let me think about that – Uh, no. I don't think so."
"You dare mock me?"
"Pretty much, yeah. But don't take it personal. I mock everyone. It's my thing."
Luke roared and shot out a devastating hook that would have knocked Jesse's head off – would have, if it connected. Instead the punch sailed right through him.
"Hey, do that again. I could use a breeze."
Frustrated, Luke swung with his other fist. Again, nothing.
"Hey, batta, batta! Come on, batta! Swing!"
Another fist. No contact.
"Strike three. You're out."
Jesse smiled and then jumped through Luke. When he was on the other side he reached through his back and found the vampire's heart – and then he squeezed.
Luke fell to the floor, screaming in pain, while Jesse just laughed maniacally.
"That's right. Kneel before Zod, bitch!" Jesse taunted. "Hey. I'm curious about something—"
Jesse pulled out Luke's heart. First the heart, and then Luke turned into dust.
"Huh. Looks like I could," Jesse said to himself thoughtfully. He theatrically dusted off his hands and then turned to Darla, who stared back at him in utter shock. This fledgling had just killed possibly the most powerful child that the Master himself ever sired.
"How did you do that?" she asked, quietly.
Jesse just smirked.
"Okay, I get it. You're curious about me. And who can blame you, really. After all, I'm a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, with a creamy nougat center. But let's start with my needs. As you can imagine, I have a lot of questions, but we'll start out with this—"
Jesse's amusement was replaced with a threatening scowl.
"What the hell am I?"
End of Part 4