Dreams and Ideas

by Shadow Master

These are a collection of fanfic crossover ideas that my admittingly warped imagination has come up with. For the most part this is to satisfy the plot bunnies but if you see a drabbleshortetc that you think deserves to be made into a full fanfic let me k

34. The Princess and the Xander

"The Princess and the Xander

"The Princess and the Xander." By Shadow Master aka Ryley Breen

email: ryleyunderscorebreenathotmaildotcom

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material shown herein. They are the rightful property of their individual creators and associated companies. I make no money off of this whatsoever. I write for my own personal enjoyment and whatever enjoyment the readers experience reading my work.

Note: In the BtVS universe I plan to make this happen in the aftermath of Xander's aborted marriage ceremony to Anya. Instead of not going far as he did in canon I plan him going pretty far in an effort to escape from his mistakes, his insecurities and the visions he saw. This of course leads him into a former White Queen's life. As for when this will occur in the mainstream Marvel universe I think it'd be best if I made it occur n the X-Men Movie universe since I can't seem to pin down just how old Emma is. It varies from artist to artist in the comic book universe how old she appears. Also there is the fact that there is little if any mention of an Emma Frost in the movies giving me more leeway with how I can do things. If you need something more definite than that then think of this as happening a couple years after the conclusion of the Emma Frost eighteen issue series that Marvel put out but it all happened in the movie-verse.

As for the second crossover bit, well, I just can't keep away from giving Xander some kind of powers. I know some people prefer to keep Xander 100 human to show that humans can fight the good fight just as well as those with powers. I partially believe that as well but I also believe that there is a certain point at which humans simply can't go as far as those that are more than human.

The Princess and the Xander

New York Party Hosted by the Hellfire Club

October 31st, 2002

Xander's P.O.V

Well, at least I fit in a bit better than usual. Xander thought as he walked along amidst the crowd of the filthy rich and the corporate C.E.Os, Still don't see why I had to have a real sword strapped to my side, especially a large one like this thing. People'll think I'm compensating for something.

Trust me, darling, when I say that you don't have anything to feel insecure about. Emma thought at him while exchanging waves with people a short distance away, Besides the sword, as you called it is an okatana called Yamato that I recently acquired during that trip to the mid-west we took. This is a chance for me to both complete your costume and show it off to everyone at the same time.

Clever of you. He thought back at her while looking at her with a smile.

"I like to think so." Emma whispered to him as they reached the eye of the social storm.

It was Halloween night and it was a time of the year when the weird was supposed to take a holiday, but he knew better. Ever since that ill-fated Halloween when he'd gone as a soldier, he'd been very suspicious every time that trick or treat season approached. Right up until… until he'd left Sunnydale behind, Halloween always meant some sort of weirdness that targeted him like no one's business and he had a feeling that tonight wasn't going to be an exception. Knowing his luck, some unfortunate rich boy here was going to try to use some random spell he found in some plagiarized spellbook and do a half-assed job of casting it, resulting in chaos galore with most of it hitting him. Emma tried to tell him that he was being paranoid and thinking entirely too much of himself believing that the universe was out to make his life miserable. However, even with her telepathy, the lovely Ms. Frost didn't understand just how insane things could get when it came to the supernatural. Things a person might consider to be completely impossible could be made to happen with just the right spell or ritual performed at just the right time.

I may not know much about demons and magic, my dear, but I know a lot more about how this world works than you might think. Emma thought at him as she escorted him to a nearby balcony, I know that only extraordinary people suffer the sort of bad luck you seem to believe you possess.

"Are you saying I'm ordinary?" He asked with mock hurt in his voice since he knew that she thought better of him than that.

"Alexander you are beyond extraordinary!" She said with that truly beautiful smile of hers, "Besides, I've already scanned most of the people in the room. Aside from the usual corporate maneuvering and fishing expeditions for blackmail material, not one of them is contemplating causing some mischief here tonight."

While he couldn't exactly say he approved of Emma sniffing around other people's minds without their permission, he knew it was just her being her. As far as she was concerned, her telepathy was nothing more than another tool to be used to further her own ambitions. Considering it was a biological part of her body, he could see her point since no one thought that someone using their own intellect was wrong. No one made a fuss if someone used their superior physique to win an athletic competition. True, being able to bench press five hundred pounds was quite a few steps below being able to delve into the depths of another person's mind, but he trusted Emma to know where to draw the line when it came to her telepathic peeping and, until he saw evidence to the contrary, he'd continue trusting her. He knew there was darkness in her soul but he also knew that it was within himself thanks to the visions that Anya's former victim showed him. Most would think that the demon created those images of his future all on his own but he knew that, without some serious homework, no demon could be that thorough in his vision making. Most likely the crystal ball had merely tapped into the darkness within his soul and used it to produce images that would have the most impact on his mind.

Alone, the two of us would probably be heading down some pretty dark roads. He thought as he looked out at the full moon hanging in the sky, Together I'd like to think we can keep the other from straying too far towards the Dark Side.

He was about to turn to Emma and ask her when would be the fashionable and polite time to bow out of this party for corporate sharks when he experienced a familiar sensation. It was a sensation that had become honed to a fine edge over the many years with the Scooby gang, so it didn't take him long to find the cause of the 'someone is watching me' sensation. Looking across the expanse of the large room, he found that the person paying an abnormal amount of attention to him and Emma was a man in his late fifties. Fit but definitely getting up there in years, the man had creepy eyes with one being blue and the other being a pinkish red color. While he was too far away to be certain, the shivers he felt running up and down his body told him this man was as dark as the night outside. Despite what Buffy would say, not all evil in this world came in the form of a demon. Humans were plenty capable of matching and, in some cases, exceeding any atrocity committed by demons in the past three hundred years. Nevertheless, as an agreed upon rule among the Scoobies, they kept their efforts focused solely on the demon community and only strayed towards the human race when and where it was necessary.

In this man's case, though, it'd probably be better to nip this bad boy in the butt before he did something truly apocalyptic.

"His name is Jonathan Arkham and is he's the C.E.O of one of the top ten genetics companies in the world." Emma said, giving him a run down on their distant observer, "On the surface there's nothing out of the ordinary on his record and his company has a chaotic record when it comes to producing anything monumental. The only thing that has made them so successful and kept them among the big dogs is the achievements they've made in the area of gene therapy and viral genetics research."

"So any particular reason for him to be looking at us like that?" he asked, hoping his girlfriend had an idea because he was drawing a blank.

"Most likely because he sees us as the weakest amongst the gathered people here tonight," Emma thought with a somewhat harsh tone from on her lovely voice. "It's been less than two years since I founded Frost International, so that makes me the new kid in this crowd. As for you, you're a nobody as far as he's concerned, so he's probably trying to figure out how best you can be used against me."

"You're guessing? I thought by now you'd have dived into his mind and found out everything from why he's looking at us to who he lost his virginity to." He said, a bit troubled by this deviation from the norm.

"I'm trying but he's somehow preventing me from getting a clear picture of his thoughts." Ms. Frost said with no little annoyance at her lack of progress, "I can say for certain that he is greatly interested in the two of us and is scheming something, but I can't get any details."

"Any idea how he's managing that?" He asked, not liking the fact that the creepy guy was somehow blocking his girlfriend's telepathy, "Could he be special like you?"

Special was a term he used to describe the unique quirk in Emma's genes that gave her her telepathic powers. Most people these days had come up with another name for the newly emerging demographic of people with strange and unusual abilities. Mutants. It had only made the national news stations a couple of months ago but the name was spreading like wildfire along with every fact attached to it. However, like most stories, the newshounds tended to sensationalize things to make sure they got the highest ratings or the most sales possible. He'd read a handful of newspapers that looked like they were keeping things objective, but the majority of those in the news business were only interested in outdoing the competition by any means necessary. It made him seriously pissed off the way they painted mutants as spawns of Satan or genetic aberrations that should be wiped out to the last child. He'd even heard rumors of a hate group popping up calling itself 'The Purifiers' made up of fanatical Catholics who believed they were doing God's work by murdering every mutant they came across.

It made him sick to his stomach when they actually showed pictures of one such victim on a TV news broadcast.

"I don't think so. I don't sense a conscious effort to block my probes into his mind, nor does his body language suggest that he's aware that I'm doing anything." She replied before letting out a huff of anger at her apparent defeat, "If anything, I'd say whatever he's using to block me is artificial in nature like a motorcycle helmet or something."

"So either he knows about mutants or something else that can read minds." He stated quietly before running through the options available to them, "Either way, not of the good."

"Agreed. I think we should make our departure a tad earlier than I had planned." She said to him as she guided him back into the main room and towards the exit, "Until I know more, I do not wish to risk giving that man any more information then he already has."

With that said, they made their way out of the room and towards the main entrance despite the numerous inquiries from the other people attending the party. Even the person who'd orchestrated the shindig, Sebastian Shaw, had approached them wondering why they were leaving so soon. Emma, of course, gave some high and mighty tale of how she was bored and how she felt the evening would be better spent enjoying a vigorous night at home with him. He'd almost blushed at that but, fortunately, after many such comments from…Anya and more sophisticated ones from Emma, he'd built up some resistance. Not immunity, though, as Emma managed to prove time and again with her creative innuendos and double entendres. It was one of the things that made sure he was never bored around her. As far as he was concerned, though, he was pretty much sure she just kept him around for his wit and the fact that dating a sex crazed former vengeance demon had made him quite skilled in the sack.

Don't worry, darling. Emma thought to him as they walked out the front door to where her snow white limo was waiting for them, I keep you around for much more than just that.

If the smile on her face was any indication, he was in for some serious fun once they got home.

Go Xan-man!

&

Penthouse Suite, Arkham Towers, A Few Minutes Before Midnight

P.O.V of Jonathan Arkham

Mundus himself must be aiding my efforts! Jonathan thought as he strolled towards his private study where he had been spending most of his nights of late.

It was a plan that had been years in the making and, when he wasn't bothered by the petty needs of his board of directors, he was making sure that nothing was out of place. It had been this way ever since he learned of his little brother's failed attempt at gaining Sparda's power by resurrecting the Temen-ni-Gru. He had warned his brother against pursuing his plan when he'd spotted that girl, Kali-Anne, in some town or another and recognized her as the descendant of the priestess who helped Sparda seal the portal. He had told his brother that his plans were far too high profile and would attract unwanted attention both from the demonic community as well as the human defenders of the planet. However his little brother, the court jester of the family, would not listen and had gone ahead with his self-proclaimed perfect plan. However, like some diamonds, his little brother's plan had a flaw in it.

He had not acted with Lord Mundus' blessing.

Their family had worshipped the Darkness, Mundus, for generations and always strived to aide him in whatever the King of the Underworld was attempting to do. Due to the commitment the Arkham family showed their Lord over the centuries, they had been given a great many rewards, greater longevity and immunity to all mortal-practiced magic, just to name two examples. His family had also been permitted access to volumes of demonic magic that no other human had ever been permitted to see, much less learn from. It was from these gifts, passed down to the eldest in each generation, that he'd forged his corporate empire and it was the wealth he gained from his public face that he channeled back into serving Lord Mundus. That was why his plan was going to succeed where his little brother's had failed and it had been a little over a year ago that he'd received proof of this when he'd been entrusted with one of his Lord's trophies.

The Devil Arm, Yamato.

It had once belonged to the traitor Sparda before being passed down to his half-breed son Vergil but fate it seemed had seen fit to return it to its proper place in the Underworld. He'd even been told that the son of the traitor had been put to work serving Lord Mundus and was given just enough freedom of thought to know that he was enslaved. Too bad the half-breed had turned out to be just as much a failure with Lord Mundus' enhancements as he'd been without them. While he hadn't heard it directly from the Darkness Mundus, one of his emissaries had let it slip that an attempt had been made on Mallet Island to bring Lord Mundus to this world. However it had been thwarted not only because of the twin brother of Vergil, the demon hunter Dante, but also from one of his Lord's own creations. A devil crafted to look like the fool's depart mother and trained in the arts of manipulation as well as deceit. That creature had been gifted with life and power by the Lord of Darkness yet she still betrayed him when she allowed her weaker emotions sway her. However, the failure had presented him with a unique opportunity to gain the Darkness Mundus' favor like no other member of his family ever had.

It had been a minefield speaking with his Lord and explaining his grand design without reminding the Darkness of his recent defeat. It was never a good idea to point out weaknesses or flaws in the efforts of one stronger than yourself, since those who did quickly became the recently departed. Besides, he didn't believe his Lord's plan on Mallet Island had been the fault of anyone aside from the underlings placed in charge of carrying it out. After all, he knew all too well from his efforts to gain corporate power that a leader can devise the most perfect plan imaginable and still have it fail if the ones carrying it out are idiots. If one was to succeed, one had to make sure that there was no possibility of failure at any point in the plan, even if it required extreme measures to do so. Fortunately, after the first example he'd made of one of his employees, those that remained had gotten the hint and had worked themselves to death to meet his expectations. In some cases, they did so literally but all that did was ensure that he had nothing but strong employees with both the intellect and stamina to come out on top.

So, while he could admit to a few close calls, he had finally persuaded his Lord to support his grand scheme and the pieces had begun to fall into place. Day after day, month after month, he'd worked to make sure everything was precisely the way it needed to be in order for the venture to be successful. That was why he'd purposefully sold the Yamato into the market because he knew it would naturally gravitate towards the person it'd resonate strongest with. If the person it fell into the possession of had a weak resonance with it, the power of the devil arm would emit a cloud of energy that would attract demons of all sorts that are drawn in by such power. If, however, the person who possessed it had a strong resonance with it, then a sort of symbiotic link would form, granting the bearer greater power than they'd possessed before. So far he'd tested five separate owners who'd displayed sufficiently strong resonance with the weapon to warrant his personal examination. Sadly, none of the hopefuls had displayed a strong enough resonance with Yamato to meet the requirements of his plan and he'd almost been ready to go in a different direction with the Devil Arm.

Until tonight at the party that had been hosted by the Hellfire Club.

It had been something he'd normally ignore or send one of his subordinates to attend in his place but that had changed when his spell on Yamato indicated a very strong resonance with whoever currently carried it. Checking the paper trail, he'd discovered that it was currently owned by an up and coming C.E.O by the name of Emma Frost, whose company was growing by leaps and bounds. Fortunately, her company centered mostly on transport and electronics rather than genetics like his company was focused on. At first he'd thought that it was her that the Yamato was resonating with and so he'd decided to attend the party in person after all in order to examine her. Imagine his surprise when he learned that it wasn't Frost with whom the sword was resonating but her date for the evening. He was a complete unknown at first glance but, fortunately, a few idle questions to the other people in attendance left him well informed. Alexander LaVelle Harris was his name and he came from a lower middle class family currently living in Sunnydale, California. Nowhere near as wealthy as the other guests and not a single business under his control. Nothing remarkable in terms of family history nor was there anything interesting in his social life. That was pretty much the consensus of what the guests had to tell him and it all painted Ms. Frost's boyfriend as a nobody that didn't belong amongst the social elite.

However, the fact that he was a lifelong resident of Sunnydale, California told him all he needed to know to get him intrigued with the boy.

Unlike the other people at the party, he knew the truth about this world, so he knew that the town of Sunnydale sat atop the world's most active Hellmouth. A convergence of mystical energies that attracted the supernatural like a magnet and inspired phenomena that was unheard of elsewhere, save in a few select locales. For the most part, he wasn't interested in such places, since they tended to attract every amateur who thought they could become the next Mephisto. He especially knew about the plan of one Rirchard Wilkins the First, Second and Third to prepare the place for an Ascension. While the fool couldn't compare to him in terms of power, it wasn't worth the potential complications to start a confrontation over. Still, he knew that for a person to last more than three years in the town, they had to learn to acknowledge the truth even if it was only on a subconscious level. For someone to live their entire life there, they had to either know the truth on a conscious level or be close to someone who did.

Then, of course, there was the news that had been coming out of the town of Sunnydale the past six years.

From what he'd learned from his informants, a Slayer had set up shop on the Hellmouth and was breaking every record ever made by her predecessors. Naturally, questions had been asked concerning the whys and the hows of it all and, apparently, the answer was amazingly simple: friends. Apparently the Slayer, one Elizabeth Anne Summers, had chosen to defy Watcher's Council dogma and gained a group of friends to aid her in her duties. He hadn't gotten any real names thought, just nicknames the demons had come up with, but their accomplishments were quite impressive. The Master of the Aurelius vampire clan, the Scourge of Europe, Wilkins in his ascended form, a government Frankenstein and then an exiled but still powerful hell goddess. Not too shabby for a bunch of do-gooders. In any case, he was fairly certain that Mr. Harris was either a friend of the Slayer or had been saved by her on multiple occasions. This alone had been enough for him to perform a particularly strong spell of seeing on the boy to see just how special the young man really was.

It turned out Alexander LaVelle Harris was a real diamond in the rough.

Not only had the boy soaked up a significant amount of background radiation from the Hellmouth, but residual energy from various mystical entities and/or spells. A primal Hyena spirit, a fragment of the Slayer essence, Janus' magic, a love spell and the list just kept going on and on. It was quite astounding that the boy had been through so much and yet was still standing despite it all. However, this also made him ideal for the grand plan he was following with the support of his Lord Mundus. Not only was the boy resonating with Yamato stronger than all the previous owners, but the residual arcane energy running through his system could be put to good use as well.

Now all he had to do was acquire the boy from that mind witch, Emma Frost.

&

Private Penthouse of Emma Frost, The Following Night, Emma's P.O.V

I cannot believe how lucky I am. Emma Hazel Frost thought as she looked down on the sleeping form of her boyfriend.

Yes.

You heard correctly.

Her boyfriend.

Those two words that she thought she'd never really utter ever again after that time with him at E.S.U. After Ethan had rejected her when she'd told him about her telepathy, she'd begun to think that perhaps Astrid had been right when she'd said that mutants were superior to ordinary people. After all, with her telepathy, she'd seen firsthand the hate and bigotry that existed in the minds of ordinary humans during her time there. Most of the students there had never encountered a mutant before and were basically just repeating the same soundbites the media was putting out. It was mob mentality on a large scale with many of them not even bothering to think things through rationally. Seeing all of that had made her decide to just write off baseline humans as a means to an end and that end was to act as her stepping stones to greater heights of power. After all, if normal people won't give a mutant girl like her a chance then why bother trying to be friends with them at all? Just use them and lose them. That had been her motto in the years that followed E.S.U but that'd all changed when she'd decided to go clubbing with the middle class instead of rubbing elbows with the elite as there was just so much pomposity and filth a girl can take before she needed to try something different.

So she'd gone to this place called The Bottom Line and danced the night away, trying for just a few hours to forget every problem she had by living for the moment. For the most part, it'd been fun but then she'd passed by Xander who'd been sitting at the bar working on his third beer. The misery, the grief and sadness he'd been giving off had been powerful enough that even with her mental defenses up she managed to pick it up. On a whim she sat down a few chairs down from him and ordered a drink while carefully peeking into his mind to see what had him so bummed out. It wasn't a deep probe, just what was on the surface, but that was all she needed to get the full story on one Alexander LaVelle Harris. Apparently a couple weeks before he arrived in NYC, he'd been all set to walk down the aisle and get married with his then girlfriend Anya. Then apparently some mutant, who Xander thought was a real demon, used some sort of mix between illusion casting and telepathy to make him see his own worst fear, the fear of becoming just like his drunken asshole of a father. Apparently the slideshow from hell he'd been treated to shook him to the core and he bailed completely running as far as he could.

It turned out he could run pretty far.

All the way to NYC.

He found a roach motel he could afford and was working as a dishwasher grabbing as many hours as he could in order to not be kicked out onto the streets. In a way, she saw him as a kindred spirit of sorts since there were quite a few similarities where their histories were concerned. They both had families they despised, they both were doing the best they could to distance themselves from that family and after a lot of personal trauma they'd both chosen to start fresh someplace else. Looking a little deeper, she found that Xander, as he preferred to be called, wasn't all that bad a person once you look past the brooding he was doing. In the end, the flickering remains of the thing she called her morality decided she'd try to do the guy a favor, her good deed for the month, you might say, so she'd followed him after he'd left the club and delved into his mind to get a better idea of how to approach him and figured out what would be the best thing she could do for him at this point in time. However, it was about halfway to where she learned his apartment was when a scream cut through the night that sent him off running. Naturally she followed, albeit at a safe distance, and when she saw him next, she was shocked by what she saw. He was throwing down with three thugs and even though he was a little tipsy at the moment, he was actually not doing too badly. However these weren't your standard thugs like the ones that worked for Lucien back pre-E.S.U, because she'd never seen thugs with ridged foreheads, fangs and glowing golden eyes. At first she thought that they were mutants but she'd never known of mutants with identical abilities like this, then she thought that they might be triplets or something but, upon closer inspection of their faces, she could see they weren't the same age nor did they have similar facial attributes. However, the real eye opened happened next and made her wonder if the mutant that ruined Xander's wedding really had been a demon.

Xander successfully slammed a sharp piece of wood into the heart of one of the thugs and within seconds said thug turned into a pile of ashes.

Now, she might not be the genetic expert or the authority on mutants that Charles Xavier was, but she was fairly certain that mutants aren't supposed to do that. They were not supposed to turn to ash if someone slammed a carved piece of wood into their hearts like a knife. However, she didn't have a whole lot of time to think things through because right about then was when Xander's luck ran out. Thugs two and three abandoned their prey, some college student out for a night of clubbing, and double teamed him. A thundering right hook to the jaw slammed him into a wall and she didn't need her telepathy to know his mind had temporarily stalled, so she decided that this would be a pro bono good deed that could be acted on as a warm up for the real deal later. Reaching out with her mind, she latched onto the minds of the two thugs with the intention of freezing them in place until Xander got his head screwed on straight. The moment she made contact with their minds, though, she was overwhelmed with a malevolent and voracious consciousness unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. She fought against these sensations and tried to do what she'd set out to do but in the end it became too much and she had to cut her tie to them. Fortunately it'd been enough of a distraction to the two demons that Xander was not only able to recover but stake the two vampires before they could react.

After that she'd decided to wait a bit before doing her good deed for Xander (saving him from those vampires didn't count in her mind) and so began to walk away home. However, the touching of those two minds, those two evil minds, had left her a bit shaky in the brain department making her walk less than smooth. That was how they first met and never was there a time that she'd wished she could have done something all over again. He'd seen her walking unsteadily away and presumed that she was in shock over what she'd seen and maybe she'd been hit by a flying piece of debris (her nose was bleeding again). In the end she decided to use this as a way to get to learn more about him the mundane way since her mind was still too sore to use telepathy painlessly. So, after he escorted her home (didn't get quite the awe soaked response she'd expected) and after she took some Aspirin for her head, they got to talking about what happened. Most she had learned from her peek into his mind but there were other things he shared that she hadn't known. He told her about 'the truth', as he called it, about how demons and the supernatural were real, and how he'd worked with some people to fight the good fight. Naturally she verified everything he said by dipping into his mind to view the thoughts behind the words and she was pleasantly surprised at the lack of deception used. He basically told her everything he knew aside from the identities of his friends, but she knew about Buffy, Willow, Giles and the others already.

When he was done, she could tell without 'looking' that he was worried that he was overstaying his welcome and was looking for a smooth way to exit, stage right but she still wanted to learn more and, although she'd never acknowledge it until later, she kinda… sorta…,found him attractive. In the end she'd decided that the best thing she could do for him was get him a job so that he could move out of his roach-infested room and into something a bit more respectable, so she got him a job working at one of her smaller electronics firms as a fixit man and maintenance person. He'd asked her how she'd pull that off and she just said that she was friends with someone high up the corporate ladder (like at the very top!) and could call in a favor. After that, she'd dropped in every now and again when he was working late or when he had the weekend free and chatted with him for a few hours. She told herself in the beginning that it was just to get more info on the supernatural and demonic from him. She tried to convince herself that she had no interest in someone so middle class whose only special ability was that he was a magnet for weirdness and female demons. However, as one meeting turned into five and then evolved into hanging out like the two of them were friends, she was forced to concede that perhaps there was something more going on.

As the weeks passed, she found herself brushing off any advances made by other men, even if they were handsome enough to star in a major motion picture, because every time she thought about fondness and guys, Xander's face popped up. It was during a night in watching a foreign film she'd been meaning to see that it happened, though, and it was a night she'd always remember fondly. Unlike most men who'd probably have started complaining within twenty minutes, Xander had actually made an effort to both understand and enjoy the movie. She could tell from a surface scan of his mind that most of what was being conveyed in the film went right over his head but, whenever he didn't understand something, he tried to crack a joke about it and that made her laugh. If she had to pin it down to one thing, she'd have to say she liked Xander because he was so open towards her and wasn't trying to trick her into doing anything. After the viper's den that was the Frost mansion back in Boston, after Lucien's crew and then that mess at E.S.U, she'd almost given up hope that there was actually a single decent person out there. He pretty much kept things honest both in spoken word as well as in thought with only a few understandable exceptions.

It was both refreshing and caused her to treasure the time she spent with him.

It was four months later that she decided that the time had come to test the waters and see if there was any point to taking things to the next stage. The two of them had become good friends (even if she hadn't told him she was the C.E.O of the business he worked for just yet) and so she'd wondered if they could take things beyond that. Still, she had to be careful and test his reactions to certain things to see where he stood on specific topics. She had perfect recollection of how Ian had responded when he'd found out she was a mutant and that she'd used her powers to make sure he wasn't fired from E.S.U., so she started things off by flipping the TV to a channel she knew was doing a story on the whole 'mutant problem' and then monitored his mind to see what he thought of it. Surprisingly enough, the knee jerk reaction most normals had towards mutants wasn't anywhere near as strong as it usually was and for the most part he was taking the news broadcast with a grain of salt. She'd chatted with him about it and found out that while he was concerned about mutants, he wasn't basing his position on mindless fear and hatred like everyone else. Both with his spoken words and with his thoughts, he was thinking things through with such objectivity that she wondered why he thought he was dumb. From his point of view, the core issue with mutants was that the variety and potency of the powers were such that normal humans no longer felt safe. He believed that while conventional law enforcement and rules might be enough to keep normals in check, they were woefully inadequate when it came to keeping mutants in check. She'd reacted a bit strongly at that but the reason he gave pretty much took the wind out of her sails.

'Just like not everyone chooses to do the right thing, odds are not every mutant is going to choose to use their powers responsibly'

He'd gone on to saying that it was for those mutants who didn't use their powers responsibly and tried to walk all over everyone else that new checks and balances needed to be made. While she still didn't like it, she had to admit that some sort of new system needed to be put into place, otherwise it'd get chaotic out there. After all, if there were mutants like Astrid out there but with the power to fire off energy blasts or demolish buildings, then they'd only make things harder for the rest of the mutant population. While she wasn't like some mutants who probably just wanted to live ordinary lives, she knew that if the normals were pushed too far, she could lose everything she'd gained since her powers manifested. Her company, her home, her freedom would all be either restricted or outright eliminated. That was something she would not allow to happen. However, Xander's position on mutants and what she'd learned from him about his life on the Hellmouth turned out to be enough for her to take a chance with him. If the worst happened and he rejected her like Ian had, she'd simply rewrite his memories and then her secret would be safe.

With no hesitation and no beating around the bush, she told him that she was a mutant and a telepath.

He just sat there looking at her with his eyes wide open and his jaw hanging loose and, for a moment, she was expecting him to call her a mutie like all the bigots out there did when they encountered a mutant. The 'huh' he uttered before losing the shocked expression on his face, though, left her a little surprised as well since it was contrary to what she'd been expecting. From there, he had asked her questions about what she could do and when she'd gotten her powers. From the way he was talking, it was like he thought she'd just told him she knew some obscure language or had a unique athletic ability that was perfectly within the realm of normalness. When she'd called him on that he'd explained that he knew a Slayer, someone with enhanced physical prowess, and his best friend since pre-school was a powerful magic user. When compared to that, he said that mutants weren't all that strange and that he wasn't like the racist bigots out there who mobbed a person for being different. For a moment she didn't want to believe what he was saying, tried to convince herself that he was lying to her, but when she checked his mind to make certain she found nothing but the truth there. It was such a blow to her world view, such a joyous thing, that she'd actually begun to cry with happiness at finding someone normal who truly didn't see her as a freak or monster. It was still a moment she made sure Xander avoided because a Frost wasn't supposed to go all weepy like that. Nevertheless, it was right then that she'd decided that with his 'so? Your point?' response to her being a mutant telepath, that she wanted them to be more than friends.

She told him this during their next date with no room in her words for misinterpretation.

He agreed but with one stipulation that he was oddly stubborn about.

He wanted her to look through his mind from top to bottom.

To say that she was absolutely shocked was an understatement because usually it was the other way around when it came to telepathy and ordinary people. Even she herself wouldn't think to let someone into her mind and see everything that she was! It only took him a few minutes to realize that she required an explanation and he gave her one that both made her happy and sad. It made her happy because he declared his love for her bluntly and that he trusted her to keep what she saw inside his head confidential. The sad part though was that he wanted her to look inside his head because he wanted her to know precisely who she was dating. He had said that even if he tried to be as honest as possible with her, he'd still probably color the truth or unconsciously keep things from her. However she knew the true reason: he was still shaken up by those visions of the future that the demon had showed him right before his aborted wedding to Anya. He wanted her to see everything because he expected her to reject him the second she saw all there was to know about Alexander LaVelle Harris. It was a defensive mechanism for the most part, a way of protecting the both of them from a potentially disastrous relationship, but mostly it was just Xander's usual self-depreciating mindset. She'd see it every once and a while whenever he made fun of himself or whenever someone tried to compliment him on a job well done too much.

He really doesn't see just how good he really is. She thought as she slipped out of bed and walked towards the kitchen.

After promising to keep whatever she saw confidential, she entered his mind and went from the earliest coherent memory to the moment he showed up at her apartment today. It took a while, even when she was essentially reviewing the memories at the speed of thought, but three hours later she'd seen it all. Her thoughts had been a maelstrom at what she'd seen and, for a time, she hadn't known what she wanted to do first. She'd wanted to hunt down Tony and Jessica Harris so she could reduce their brains to a pile of shit! She'd wanted to thank the Scoobies for keeping Xander from going down the same path as his parents. She'd wanted every member of the Sunnydale government and local police department locked away in their own worst nightmares for the rest of their lives! She'd wanted to send a smug letter to Anya for turning Xander into such an expert lover. In the end, though, she had come to the conclusion that even with all his flaws and shortcomings, Xander was still Xander and her desire to become more than friends with him hadn't faded in the least. When she'd told him this it was he who began to tear up even though he did the best he could to stay a manly man.

He needn't have bothered.

She was able to determine that for herself after she'd dragged him off to her bedroom.

For the next twelve hours straight.

From that night onwards they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend with neither of them doing anything to hide it. However, the truly entertaining moment didn't happen until the next official social gathering of the Hellfire club when she decided to take him along. She'd told him that it was a yearly event for the social elite that she was required to go to in order to avoid rubbing certain members the wrong way. He'd been hesitant, as usual, to go to a place where he wouldn't fit in but she told him it'd be fun and that if anyone asked, they'd feed every person they met a different story. It'd be hilarious watching to see if anyone believed the lies and even funnier to see them try and pass them around only to encounter new ones. The picture of several members of the social elite believing the tall tales enough to pass them around only to find out they'd been fooled was enough to coax him into the monkey suit, as he liked to call it. From there, the fun had continued right up until the present and she didn't regret for one moment how one whimsical decision to do a good deed wound up bringing her so much happiness.

Opening the fridge to get out a can of diet soda, she shivered a bit as her distinct lack of clothing caused her to have goosebumps up and down her body. Fortunately she was no stranger to goosebumps, especially after that last trick Xander did before they both fell asleep. While she might not like the fact that she hadn't gotten there first, she was quite grateful that the nympho former vengeance demon had gotten to Xander before her. Thanks to that blunt woman's insatiable desire for sex, her boyfriend had become quite the skilled administrator of pleasuring and had enough stamina to keep it up for a LONG time. Still, if she ever saw the woman in person, she'd make sure that any thoughts the woman once known as Anyanka might have about reclaiming her ex-fiancé were promptly altered to benefit one Emma Frost. While she was certain from her waltz through his mind that Anya was the past for him and something he wouldn't be exploring any time soon, she didn't want to take the chance that the nympho was going to go all stalker on the two of them.

She was about to move over to her desk to check the stock market when she suddenly dropped the soda can in her hand. It wasn't that she'd seen anything shocking or that she'd intended to drop it but rather the fact that her arm had suddenly gone completely numb. Her time to consider this was reduced to nothing swiftly because her legs followed the example set by her arm, causing her to fall to the floor. She tried to fight it, or at least locate who was doing it so she could make his/her/its brain go 'pop', but her mind was quickly becoming about as responsive as a pet snail. The last thing she saw before her mind went dark was a pair of very expensive men's shoes cross her field of vision.

&

Sub-Level 13 of Arkham Towers, Security Level SSS

Xander's P.O.V, Six Hours Later

O-kay! This is definitely not a warm comfy bed with a very pretty naked blonde curled up next to me. Was the first thing Xander thought upon regaining consciousness, Definitely not a promising start.

Opening his eyes, he found out that he was strapped to some kind of medical table with restraints placed at every crucial point to eliminate even the slightest bit of beneficial movement. Another thing he noticed as he used his eyes to perceive what he could was that someone had dressed him in some rather strange (but nonetheless comfortable) clothes. A navy blue duster that was gold on the inside, tan fingerless gloves, knee high boots, black pants, black vest and, unless he was mistaken, black shirt. The part he didn't like, for Deadboy reasons, was that the clothes were either leather or silk in nature and there was no way he'd ever approve of being dressed like Overbite. Directing his gaze to the surrounding area, he had to wonder at the tastes of the person responsible for his new look because even a fashion challenged idiot like him knew you didn't mix gothic architecture with oriental trimmings. Obviously he was either in the craziest person in the world or the dumbest for hiring the craziest interior decorator on the planet.

"Ah! I see you've awakened, Mr. Harris." Came a voice he didn't recognize but a tone he most definitely did, "Or could I call you simply Xander. That is the name you prefer to go by, isn't it?"

Great! Let's start the evil mastermind speech! He thought with a roll of his eyes at what was coming before replying, "Only my friends get to call me that and this isn't exactly the best way to become one of mine. Next time try a shipping box full of Twinkies."

"I shall try to keep that in mind," Said the male voice that was soon revealed to be Jonathan Arkham when the old man walked into his field of vision. "However, I don't think you'll have much of an appetite for snack cakes when all is said and done."

"Is this the part when you tell me your brilliant Machiavellian scheme to rule the world or something?" he asked with as much disinterest as he could manage, "'Cause if so, please just give me the cliff notes version. TV's pretty much reduced my attention span to nothing."

"Heheheheheheheh! I find it rather amusing that you have a sense of humor like him considering what's about to happen to you." Arkham replied with a creepy smile as he moved around the table, "As to your request, I suppose I can grant it considering that it could very well be your last. Suffice it to say that I seek several potent artifacts currently in the possession of several strong beings. I need an operative of sorts to retrieve them for me. I've chosen you."

"Gee Whiz! Boy, do I feel lucky!" he sarcastically exclaimed before fixing the man with a 'yeah right!' look, "So what are these so called potent artifacts?"

"I suppose it would do no harm to give you the list prior to the process." Arkham said fiddling with something outside of the Xan-man's field of vision, "The Codex of the Infinite Planes, the Crenshinibon, the Eye of Vecna, the Hand of Vecna, the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus and the Wand of Orcus. All these artifacts are currently in the possession of several strong beings some of which are human practitioners of the dark arts while others belong to a much older breed of being. I have tried to acquire them myself but, sadly, each attempt has met with failure so I have chosen to take a more unconventional route."

"Sorry to say that kidnapping and contracting outside help in the form of uncooperative help isn't all that unconventional. Pretty common, actually." He said doing his best to rub his captor the wrong way, "Knew a guy back in Sunnydale who used to do it pretty often."

"Ah, yes! The dearly departed Mayor Richard Wilkins first through third." Arkham said as he concluded his work behind the table, "Quite the ambitious man trying to achieve Ascension, but a little too confident in his own scheming. If he'd been more thorough, odds are you and your friends wouldn't have defeated him. Fortunately I have accounted for every possible detail and planned for every possible direction things might take. Nothing can foil my plans."

"Yeah. Whatever!" he said as though distinctly unimpressed with what he's heard so far, "So, you think you're just going to have me march into where ever these knick-knacks are, grab them and then waltz right out again? Nice plan!"

"Actually that is basically the plan with a few minor additions." Arkham said before gesturing to someone outside the Scooby's field of vision, "For one you won't be going alone on these retrieval missions. Originally that had been what I'd intended but, after seeing your lovely bed partner, I decided to revise this part of my scheme."

Without warning, the medical table he was strapped to began to tilt forward until it was positioned so that he could see a great deal more of the room. This proved to be a bad thing since it allowed him to see that Emma had been abducted as well and someone had chosen to dress her up in a new outfit as well. It had better have been a heterosexual woman because, if it turned out to be anything else, then he was going to be seriously miffed. Leather corset, leather pants, leather choker and twin leather forearm protectors made up the ensemble that had been placed on the C.E.O of Frost International. At least the old man had had the sense to make the clothes completely white in color since that was Emma's favorite color. Maybe when they somehow managed to turn the tables on this nutcase, she'd wear it from time to time because she looked stunning. Oh, who was he kidding!? She could dress herself in a potato sack and he'd still consider her gorgeous.

"I decided that your lady friend here will go along with you on your missions." Arkham said as he approached Emma with one hand behind his back, "Her skill with mind magic is quite impressive but obviously self-taught, considering she failed to pierce my mental shields at the party. Fortunately I have something that should give her an edge over the enemies you will likely face."

Then with great speed and viciousness the bastard stabbed a blade of glass into her heart all the way to the hilt guard. This horrible act ripped the lovely Miss Frost into consciousness and as she screamed in pain a blinding light filled the room rendering all incapable of keeping their eyes open. When the screaming stopped, so too did the light disappear, revealing Jon standing in front of Emma, his arms behind his back, and no glass blade in sight.

"Emma! You bastard! What did you do to her you asshole!?"

"As I said I have given her something that should give her an advantage over your future adversaries. The blade I stabbed your lady friend with is called the Diamond Dagger of Freyja and bestows great power upon those possessed of a strong will." Arkham said as he wiped what blood remained on his hand onto a handkerchief, "If Emma Frost possesses a strong enough will, she may very well thank me for the gift. If not? Well, let's just say that I didn't have to worry about disposing of the remains of the other ladies I attempted to use it on."

While his mind was able to connect the name Freyja to the Norse pantheon of deities, he'd never heard of a Diamond Dagger with her name attached to it. In any case, he figured it was safe to say that any mystical item with the name of a powerful deity attached to it was not something to sneeze at. What came next, though, stopped him from thinking things through any further for as he watched the now unconscious form of his girlfriend slowly take on a glassy sheene. No, not glassy, but rather her body began to resemble something more like a giant diamond statue of his girlfriend cut and carved with such detail so as to be almost lifelike. Her eyes then snapped open to reveal twin pools of ruby red and she gasped for air like a person who was starving for air before once again falling unconscious. The transformation her body had undergone then reversed itself rendering her appearance once more as human as it'd been before. A smile emerged on Jonathan Arkham's face but it was anyone's guess whether or not it was a good sign or a bad one.

"It would seem that Ms. Frost's will is every bit as untamable as I'd heard. She has matched wills with the Diamond Dagger of Freyja and emerged victorious." Arkham said with satisfaction in his voice as he tucked away his blood cover handkerchief, "It will be a while before her new powers finish familiarizing themselves with her body but then I still have to give you your 'equipment'. Move him into the circle!"

With that, someone or something began to wheel the bed he was strapped to away from where Emma now rested after her alteration. Fortunately for him he could see where they were wheeling him and saw that the 'circle' Arkham had been referring to was a magical circle filled with runes, symbols and diagrams. He'd never be able to tell anyone what each symbol meant since he wasn't the brain trust of the Scooby gang but, generally, as a rule, the more complex something magical was, the more of the bad it was. A minute later he was positioned in the center of the magic circle with several small…things…skittering around doing this and that. He sincerely hoped that those creatures hadn't been the one to dress him and Emma because, if so, then he'd probably toss his cookies watching what the C.E.O of Frost International did to them. While he had a mean streak of his own when crossed, Emma could often out perform him in those areas when properly motivated. With her telepathy allowing her to literally see what her target most feared or despised, it granted her the unique ability to craft her revenge into something truly vicious and tailor made for her victim.

"Now, Xander, while this will be an upgrade such as what we did to your girlfriend, it will be somewhat more thorough and most likely painful." Arkham said as though he was some doctor giving a patient a dumbed down explanation, "Sadly, this must be done while you are conscious and not under any painkillers whatsoever. On the plus side, however, if all goes as planned, your recuperation time should have you waking up right about the time Miss Frost comes to. Prepare yourself!"

A vigorous chanting began in the room, tones and feelings in each word that did not match up with the hugs and bunnies he'd find preferable. Deciding that it was now or never, he renewed his efforts to get free and put his entire heart and soul into it. No matter how he struggled, no matter what kind of strain he put on the straps, he was not improving the situation one bit. When the various patterns, symbols and runes began to glow with a bloody red light, though, he knew he couldn't give up. The timer on his escape window was counting down and, if he didn't pull something off soon, it was going to be too late. Sadly, despite the adrenaline that was pumping through his system, his strength was still insufficient to break his restraints.

Looks like we have an uninvited guest.

The sentence that had just been spoken in his mind rattled him completely because not only was it someone else's voice, but it also had barely raised a red flag in his mind as not belonging. Normally when something foreign was introduced into his mind, his sense of self would reject it immediately or make him aware of it. However, instead of a bomb raid siren, all he'd gotten was the equivalent of someone's car alarm going off. He wondered if that meant that the magic was forcing him to accept it as his own thought or if it was merely awakening what was already there. In either case, it meant that he had to redouble his efforts to clad his native thoughts in armor so that he'd be able to distinguish them from the foreign ones. Using every trick that he could recall from his research sessions with the gang and the few that Emma had managed to teach him, he covered one memory after another, starting with the ones most precious to him and working his way out from there towards the lesser and more irrelevant ones.

A dark and storming night, rain falling everywhere, and he was gazing at the full moon that was only partially obscured by the clouds above. He was waiting for someone, someone he knew all too well and someone who had something he desired very much. The rain coming down on him didn't bother him because in the end it was simply weak water and thus of no concern to someone such as he. The wind was even less of a concern, although the chill it caused him made him wonder if it was anything like the chill he'd feel once he claimed his father's powers. He remembered all too well what it felt like the moment his inner devil had awoken and it still caused him to smile fondly from time to time.

Footsteps. The footsteps of the one he had been waiting for were getting closer by the moment and so he turned his focus but not his head away from the moon. Listening to the footsteps, he had to wonder what it'd be like to see his brother after so long. He imagined that the fool was still behaving like a child, wasting his time with one thing or another, instead of living up to his status as a Son of Sparda. In the end, it didn't matter because he could get what he wanted in the end and this was but an early step towards that.

The footsteps came to a stop and it was now time to start with the usual banter.

You showed up.

O-kay! So either I'm being fed the memories of someone's dysfunctional family reunion or being set up to go after someone.

What caught his attention the most, though, was the fact that his mind's inner alarm system had gone down once again from a car alarm to someone's clock radio. The more this ritual was allowed to go on, the more it seemed these unfamiliar thoughts and memories were reducing the concern level for his brain. Was the overall plan to make him think that these memories were his own? Make him think that he was someone else? Possible, but somehow it didn't feel quite right thinking of it like that. In the end, all he could do was redouble his efforts to put mental armor plating on his true memories in order to keep them from being destroyed. As long as they continued to exist, he was confident that he could fight off whatever brainwashing Arkham was attempting or at the very least make whoever he'd be turned into a little more honorable. It was as this thought crossed his mind that he began to notice a tingling sensation flowing throughout every vein in his body. He hadn't felt it earlier because it'd been very faint but now it was like static electricity to him and while odd, it wasn't altogether unpleasant. However, as was usually the case, it didn't stay that way for very long because in seconds the tingling turned first into annoying pinpricks before evolving into stabbing pain. Whether this was a result of an attack on his body or his mind he didn't know but as the pain increased he knew that a beating from Tony Harris was going to seem like paradise compared to what was coming.

He wasn't that far off for soon the pain he felt throughout his body was such that it was taking all he had not to give Arkham the satisfaction of a scream.

They stood in a marble building of some kind, in front of a big door, him and some kind of bald priest with some serious scarring on one side of his face. He felt as though this scarred man's value to him was decreasing by the moment and perhaps with this final door the priest will have outlived his usefulness to him. He feels nothing about how he will in a few minutes be taking the life of another human being. It does not have to do with the fact that the man sacrificed his own wife who loved him truly thus making him irredeemably evil. Good or evil do not factor into his decision at all. It is all about logic, reason and his quest for power that he cuts away the unneeded ties once they stop being of some use to him.

That is all.

Soon we will reach the lair of judgement. Temen-ni-gru will finally regain its full function and lead us into the Demon World, the world where Sparda's power has been sealed. And the one who will lift the incantation is you, his own son. It must be fate. Spoke the priest as he used his power to unlock the door before them.

With the door open he walked forward intent on completing the process of breaking the arcane seal that his foolish father put into place. However his were the only footsteps heard for Arkham was staring back the way they had come obviously expecting someone to be following them.

Does that woman really bother you? He asked, testing to see if his theory regarding the man was true.

What are you talking about? Arkham asked with a growl as though he believed it no one's business but his.

Why didn't you kill her? Perhaps, because she is your daughter? He asked with some disdain at the idea of letting anything block one's pursuit of power, Did some pesky fatherly love get in your way?

That is none of your--! Was all Arkham was able to say and needed to say to confirm the suspicion that this man would never achieve true power with such hindering emotions.

With speed and precision that had been honed over many years of training, he unsheathed Yamato and plunged it into the fool's body.

To further your study of the black arts, you sacrificed your loving wife, to become a devil as well. Knowing this, I thought you'd be more useful to me, but I was wrong. He said as he used Yamato to direct the man's movements a little before plunging the blade deeper, No wonder your attainment of power is incomplete.

What about you? You're an incomplete being as well. Arkham growled both in pain as well as anger, Both demon and human blood mingle in your veins.

Rage filled his being and almost manifested on the surface but instead he directed his emotions into actions by yanking the blade out of the man's body, executing a lateral slash across the stomach and then sliding the blade back into its sheath.

Shut up. He said with the chill of the last Ice Age in his voice, Now that the final door is open, I have no use for you.

With that he walked into the room ahead, the room that contained his destiny, without sparing the one who'd aided him thus far a single glance.

Great! I'm going to be taken over by a power hungry ice prince with apocalyptic ambitions! Xander thought as more and more his mind as well as his body was changed by the spell being cast.

That was pretty much the last coherent thought he was able to form before the pain became so much that all he could do was receive the information from his senses but not interpret it. He could not interpret Jonathan Arkham walking towards him into the arcane circle that had now reached a level of glowing akin to a large spotlight. He could not understand when the man unsheathed the sword, Yamato, from its sheath and raised it above his head in an obvious stabbing position. Nor could he perceive the pain when the blade was brought down and pierced his heart before continuing out his back. No, as the darkness claimed him, the darkness of unconsciousness, the only thing he could do was listen as the bastard above him spoke a single sentence.

"Welcome back to the human world, Vergil!"

&

Five Hours Later, Sub-Level 13 of Arkham Towers, Security Level SSS

I really must cut back on those pina coladas! Emma thought to herself as she slowly began to regain consciousness.

Opening her eyes, she found herself in a room that appeared to be two parts sorcerer's lair and one part mad scientist's laboratory. All in all she couldn't say much about the one who decorated the place but she made a note to make sure that whoever did it never laid a finger on any place owned by her. When she attempted to get off whatever table she had awoken on she found herself to be strapped down tight. Raising her eyebrow at this fact, she then realized that she was also wearing clothing and that went contrary to her last recollection of being nude. However, considering how vulgar and unappealing it would be to have her perfect body on display for lord knows who, she might consider being merciful to the person who saw fit to give her clothes. They even had the forethought to use her favorite color when coming up with the design so she could very well see herself keeping the outfit when all was said and done.

I could have done without the bondage, though. She thought as she tested the strength of the straps, Then again, it does give me an idea for the next time Xander feels adventurous.

At the thought of Xander, she immediately began to wonder what had happened to him. She herself was no stranger to kidnappings or being targeted by others because of her wealth but if she was the target, would they have done anything to anyone else who might be in the room. Her positive side wanted to believe that whoever might have been sent after her would have been professional enough to avoid unnecessary killing. However, her more realistic side informed her that that was wishful thinking and therefore it would be more reasonable to assume that either her boyfriend had been brought along or he'd b-been…

NO! I refuse to believe that much life could be so tragic twice! She thought angrily as she reached out with her mind to find the brain she'd become so fond of.

Searching for Xander the fastest way she knew of, via the astral plane, she sought the familiar sense of humor and the unconventional way in which her boyfriend. With every second that passed without success, though, she found her worry increasing as, with her telepathic skills, she should be able to find anywhere in the city. She was fairly certain that too little time had passed for her kidnapper/s to have moved her clear of the city, so it shouldn't have been this hard to find him at all. Yet, no matter how much ground she covered mentally nor how thoroughly she sought, a sign of where her boyfriend could not be found. The panic this began to inspire within her grew with every moment she failed to locate her love and, as per the usual whenever she became upset, it became more difficult to use her telepathy to its full potential. In the end, though, her efforts ended in failure but she did not let this cause her to give up hope because there were plenty of reasonable explanations for why she couldn't find him. One could be that someone had placed him somewhere that hid him from her powers. While mutants were only just now making headlines, she wouldn't be at all surprised that various companies and governments had already developed countermeasures. Another possibility was that she had seriously misjudged the amount of time that had passed and she truly was in another city or perhaps even in another country. With these two possibilities to hold on to, she returned to the physical world so that she could free herself and escape.

Opening her eyes to once again behold the material world, she began to look around the room she was in so that she could see what she had to work with. True, her usual M.O was to use her telepathy to manipulate her enemies into helping her achieve her goals. However, as the room was empty, she had to look for an alternate means of achieving her freedom and that meant using whatever was on hand. Casting her eyes about, she saw nothing immediately within range of her position that she could use to either undo or cut through the straps. However it was as she cast her gaze further from her position that she saw a sight that shattered her thoughts and caused a numbness of disbelief to manifest within her soul.

Laying on a table, restrained, with the Yamato pinning him to the table, was the man who had caused her to rethink her opinions on normals.

Xander.

"NNNNOOOOO!!" She screamed in agony and grief as she left the table she'd been on and crossed the room to where her heart had died.

Her mind didn't even comprehend that she had somehow snapped her restraints as though they were made with paper. She didn't even know that the emotion in her footsteps were damaging the floor as she ran over to her boyfriend's form. All that was on her mind was that once again someone she loved, someone she could see spending the rest of her life with, was dead and it was somehow her fault. There was no other reason she could think of when it came to how things had turned out this way. Xander was essentially a nobody to her enemies and thus didn't warrant this kind of treatment. She knew that Xander himself had enemies in the demon community because of how he'd aided the Slayer in Sunnydale but she somehow doubted they'd have gone for such an elaborate set-up. Slowing to a silent walk, she crossed the final six feet to the side of the table upon which rested the body of her love. He was so… still. Someone who an unknown number of hours ago had been so full of life that he'd inspired to push her stamina to its limits. As she approached, she could see that whoever had killed him had stabbed him through the heart so hard that the blade had gone clear through Xander's back and through the table itself.

I…I have to get him loose. She thought as her mind slowly began to work properly once more, I can't leave him here. I won't!

Reaching out with both hands in order to pull the sword from her lover's chest, she was once again shocked speechless as hands made of a diamond-like substance entered her field of vision. She tried to move away from them, thinking that they were someone else's hands, but the diamond constructs followed. It took some flexing, some finger wiggling and the touching of the table in front of her to convince her but, eventually, she realized that near transparent limbs were hers. Obviously there was something more than a mere kidnapping/murder going on at the moment but, in the end, she decided that it didn't matter. Her objective remained the same: get the Yamato out of Xander and escape. However, just as she was about to once again reach for the sword, a shaft of light appeared from a door that had just opened. From that shaft of light a group of shadows approached and she realized that she'd just run out of time.

"Now the time has come to see if my plan is—" spoke the voice her mind attached to one Jonathan Arkham before it came to a surprised stop.

Turning to look at him, standing just inside the door surrounded by his subordinates, she could tell that he was surprised to find her both free as well as awake. However that surprise turned to a slick businessman's smile as he casually strode towards her with his hands behind his back.

"Ah, Ms. Frost! Glad to see you up and about." Arkham said as he began to circle around her, "I see you have an impressive command of your new abilities as well. I suppose it is not too surprising, coming from a member of the Frost family."

"If you know who I am and what family I belong to then you know you're not leaving this room alive, you bastard!" She said in an Ice Queen tone of voice that would have frozen molten lava inside of half a second, "Why did you kill Xander!?"

For a moment, barely a second, the asshole in front of her looked genuinely surprised at her words but then a condescending smile blossomed on his face. This lit a fire in her that made her all the more determined to make him suffer but then the monster had to make things worse for himself by chuckling right to her face.

"What is SO funny?" She asked deciding that she'd demand an answer before she melted his brain like butter on a hotplate.

"Well, my dear, I was merely amused that for one so adept at mental sorcery you seem to be completely ignorant of other facets of black magic." Arkham replied as he chose to regain some measure of professionalism in his behavior, "Then again, since it seems as though you were self-taught, I suppose it's not that surprising that you lack a formal arcane education."

Mental sorcery? He thinks I'm some kind of witch? She thought as the odd turn of events reigned in her anger a bit.

"As for dear Mr. Harris here, well, I suppose I'll have to have my people perform an autopsy and see where things went wrong." Arkham said with as much respect as one might bestow upon a lab rat, "I guess he was just a worthless nobody after all."

"YOU ASSHOLE!!" She screamed in rage at the insult the bastard had thrown at the memory of her deceased boyfriend.

What came next, though, turned out to be a surprise for everyone in ways none present could have foreseen. She had intended to attack the man with her telepathy, to dive into his mind and subject him to the worst mental tortures she could conceive of, but instead diamond fragments were launched from her polished skin. Dozens and dozens of needle shaped pieces of diamonds flew across the open space between her and Arkham and only through the mindless sacrifice of one of his subordinates did the prick survive. When the assault came to an end, aborted by the shock the attack produced in her, she watched as fragments that had been on the verge of firing from her body merge back into her body. Questions flooded her mind and she tried to figure out what was going on and how she'd done what she'd just done.

"Extraordinary! It would seem that the process that had originally been meant only to provide the bearer with increased durability and strength has mutated somewhat." Arkham said like so many introverted scientists who were better with numbers than people, "It would seem my investments in the supernatural are about to make me quite wealthy indeed. Take her!!"

She had been about to fire off a witty remark about how they'd have to catch her first but the words died in her mouth as unnatural shapes pulled themselves out of portals in the floor. They looked like something out of a horror movie and at a grand total of twenty-five strong she had to ask herself whether she should be worried or flattered at the moment. In the end she had to table the question as the monsters attacked her head on with their bladed weapons and moderate speed. Falling back on what was immediately useful, she once again attempted to launch a psi-attack in the hopes that it would unleash a barrage of diamond needles and was not disappointed. Much. Pieces of diamond were indeed fired from her body and when they encountered an enemy it was like watching a hail of bullets tear apart a target. Only in this case, her 'bullets' went through a full three enemies before their momentum was spent and lodged themselves into the third enemy. Bringing her hands up she tried to use them to direct her assaults with more precision because, while her foes apparently had IQs consistent with animals, they were smart enough to try to attack her from all sides.

Focused assault through use of the arms: successful! She thought as she began to use movements she'd learned from both her martial arts instructor as well as her mentor in firearms to dispatch foe after foe.

However her satisfaction was short lived as she realized that Arkham was summoning more and more of these demons in an effort to defeat her. Judging from the look of growing fury on his face, Jonathan was moments away from saying 'screw capturing her, just KILL HER!'. Unfortunately for her, though, it looked like he might get his wish since, even with the penetrating power of her diamond needles, the demons were getting closer and closer. Eventually the time came where she had to face her foes hand-to-hand but that wasn't all that hard since she soon found out that Arkham had been truthful when he'd said that the process would increase her strength. A punch that she'd intended to merely break ribs actually caused her to impale the beast on her arm with her fist sticking out the back. Knowing that she didn't have time to think through what had just happened, she decided to use the present situation to her advantage and used the now dead demon as a bludgeoning device to hit the other demons. Eventually she grew tired of her arm being hindered and, with a wind up and a thrust, she transferred the momentum to the corpse causing it to fly off her hand and collide with oncoming monsters.

The fighting went on for what seemed like hours even though scarcely twenty minutes had passed since the first blow had connected. Only peripherally was she aware that she wasn't getting as tired as one might expect from fighting so intensely but that mattered little since she was on the very of being overwhelmed by sheer number. It seemed that no matter how many she managed to tear apart, three more would always replace the one she'd dispatched. It was getting to the point where she barely had ten feet of breathing room and that was mostly because the demons were getting in each other's way. In the end it was a one-two combo from some sort of ape demon that took the wind out of her sails and sent her crashing to the ground. She tried to get up but every time she reached the hands and knees point, she'd be pounded until she was back on her stomach. In the end even she had to admit that she was at her wits end as to how to handle the current situation without getting pummeled some more.

"Well done, Ms. Frost! This has made for a most thorough exhibition of your enhancements." Arkham said as he walked through the throng of demons who parted before him like the Red Sea, "I've been told by those in the security room that they caught the entire battle on tape. It'll make for quite the demonstrational video for any potential buyers who wish to undergo a similar process. Of course we'll need to find out what precisely triggered the mutation that allowed you to fire diamonds at me but I am confident my people can figure it out. Goodbye, Ms. Frost."

With that, Arkham gave the universal 'off with her head' gesture and she watched as two scythe-wielding demons brought their weapons up high to do just that. However, before they could begin their downward swings, a geyser of energy shot up from Xander's last known location, stopping everyone in their tracks. For five whole seconds the column of energy remained and for five whole seconds everyone watched to see what would happen next. When the geyser of energy finally dissipated, the sight which greeted her eyes both brought her great joy but also a bit of worry. Standing in the midst of an obliterated table was Xander, a white aura pulsing around his body, and, with surprising nonchalance, her suddenly alive boyfriend caught the descending okatana without even looking. He was ALIVE! However when she looked into his eyes there was something off there and she didn't mean the fact that his eye color was shifting back and forth from brown to blue. No, it was something more crucial. It was the promise of death and defeat that was burning ever hotter in his eyes. His hair had also been changed to a snow white color that hung loosely over his eyes, giving him an unkempt but no less dangerous appearance.

She was about to call out his name but, as sound was about to leave her lips, he vanished in a blur of blue only to appear in the middle of a group of demons with the Yamato drawn from its sheath. It was the fact that the demons slowly began to slide to pieces around him that made her realize that, in the space between a blink, he'd closed the distance between his targets and dispatched them with ease. This made even the dumb demons take a few steps back as their survival instincts told them that perhaps a stronger predator was now in their midst. Before they could think of withdrawing, though, Arkham's eyes took on a crimson glow and the monsters grabbed their heads in pain. It didn't last though as their arms fell to their sides like they were zombies. Was Arkham stopping them? No. Two seconds after she thought the fight might be over the monsters charged Xander's position with a suicidal ferocity and an unrelenting desire to kill him.

It didn't help them one bit.

In a maelstrom of blades and blood, she watched as her boyfriend tore through the demons in seconds despite their lack of caring when it came to their own lives. Every time it looked like they had him cornered, he proved to all that it might as well have been a trap for them. However it wasn't just swordplay for Xander because when things even got the least bit dicey for him swords of energy appeared mid-air before flying down to spear their designated prey. In a matter of moments, the only demons that remained were those immediately surrounding her and Arkham, all the rest having been reduced to pieces. Taking one hand off of Yamato, he regally pushed the hair that'd been partially obscuring his hair so that it rested atop his head.

"Let. Her. GO." Xander said as though his was the voice of God for all the authority it held.

"It would seem that tonight is my night for surprises." Arkham muttered with muted anger in his voice, "An impressive performance, Alexander. However I don't feel like surrendering just yet. I think, instead, we'll move things along to the main event."

With those words, he lashed out with both his arms, putting them into the heads of his subordinates to either side. Then things really took a turn for the bizarre when Jonathan somehow sprouted new arms from his torso without damaging his clothes one bit. Those new arms did as the original pair did and inserted themselves forcefully into the heads of the subordinates Arkham had brought into the room with him. This caused those that were holding her down to lose much of their strength and she didn't hesitate to free herself and put some distance between her and her enemies. Looking back in the direction she'd come in, she was treated to such a sickening sight that she wondered if her vomit would turn out to be diamond in nature as well. Instead of something a little more pleasant like the man merely absorbing energy or something, the flesh of his subordinates was actually merging with his own flesh in a disgusting way. When the flesh of the subordinates was more than halfway absorbed, Arkham's form began to grow much larger in all measurable ways. Height, width, mass and weight all increased at an ever increasing speed.

By the time all the merging was done, they were facing a demonic being easily halfway to the ceiling in height and arms that could very well crush diamonds.

"NOW THEN! WHERE WERE WE?" Arkham asked in a booming voice as he looked down with four eyes at his adversaries.

"We were at the part where you die." Xander replied before blurring forward to attack Arkham.

Not wanting Xander to face this threat alone, despite how formidable his skills appeared to be now, she fired off a salvo of diamond shards from her body towards the four eyes of the head. This time, sadly, instead of turning the asshole's head into so much shredded meat, the transparent needles barely penetrated the skin a quarter of an inch. Nevertheless, they did distract Jonathan from Xander, so mission accomplished. With a horizontal slash that looked like it had a little something extra added to it, her boyfriend succeeded in opening up Arkham's chest before, blurring clear of the counterattack. The success was short lived because, two moments after the counterattack, the wound sealed itself up, leaving only a faint scar behind.

"AN ADMIRABLE EFFORT! ONE WORTHY OF VERGIL SPARDA! HOWEVER, IN THIS FORM, I AM NIGH UNBEATABLE!" Arkham bellowed with confidence concerning his victory, "SURRENDER NOW AND I WILL MAKE YOUR DEATHS AS PAINLESS AS POSSIBLE."

"How's this for an answer!?" She yelled before directing a dense volley of diamond needles at the most sensitive spot on the male body.

Not surprisingly, Xander flinched in sympathy as Arkham's chances for future procreation dropped to zero.

"YOU BITCH!! DIE!!" Jonathan bellowed before sending a punch her way that stretched towards her at a speed she could not dodge.

Fortunately she didn't have to because, in a blur of blue, Xander appeared in front of her and used the Yamato to not only protect her from the attack but cause the fist to part to either side of them. Then, with a blur of shiny, reflective steel, the parted halves were severed from the rest of the arm, causing them to shrivel up and turn to ash.

"It is now the end for you, Arkham." Xander said before moved faster than she'd ever seen before, faster than she could see period, only to reappear on top of Jonathan's demonic head.

She expected Arkham to try and swat her boyfriend off or curse at the two of them some more for causing him so much trouble. However he just stood there, staring straight ahead, until Xander sheathed the Yamato and the truth was revealed in all its gory detail. One after another cuts appeared on either side of the demon's body, at every vital area as well as every joint, right up to the head at the very top. Then, like a skyscraper made of wooden blocks that suddenly found itself missing a crucial piece, the demonic body fell to pieces with Xander jumping clear halfway through the disassembling stage.

She was in awe.

There was no other way to describe her reaction to what she'd seen.

While she had never doubted that Xander could handle himself against a few vampires and maybe a decently strong demon, this was a whole other ball of wax entirely. He had just decimated dozens of demons and taken down a titan-sized demon as though it were a light workout. It made he wonder once more what Arkham had done to the two of them she knew that it all had to wait until they were elsewhere.

"Xander? We'd better get going." She said trying to sound as though everything were normal, "I don't think we want to be around when Arkham's employees find off we just put them on the unemployment list."

Turning towards her, Xander fixed her with a gaze, a blue eyed gaze, that froze her to the spot and made her wonder if she'd made herself a target by speaking. However her concern was unfounded because, after two seconds, the eyes returned to their normal chocolate brown even though his hair remained snowy white in color.

"Yeah. We have a big job ahead of us, too." Xander said as, bit-by-bit, more and more of what made him him came back to the surface.

"What do you mean? You mean the powers?" she asked not sure she understood what he was referring to, "Well those will take some practice but that's nothing new to me and I should be able to help you out too."

"No, I mean we have to get those artifacts before Arkham does." Said her boyfriend as he began to look about for the exit, "If they're half as important as he says they are, then we can't let them fall into his hands."

"What do you mean? Jonathan Arkham is dead. You killed him." She said not understanding why Xander's short term memory seemed to be on the blink.

"No he isn't. If half of what I saw is true, then guys in the Arkham family don't die this easily." Xander said before looking down disdainfully at the remains of his final foe, "It's even possible this wasn't the real Arkham. Regardless of whether it was or not, now that I know how important those items are, I want them to be in the best of hands. But right now I need the most important thing when starting a new quest: info."

"So who're you going to call?" she asked gaining a better understanding of where her love was coming from.

"G-Man." Xander replied before striding towards the door.

G-Man? Rupert Giles? She thought as she remembered the nickname Xander'd given the ex-Watcher, This must be pretty serious if he's willing to contact his old friends again.

Jogging to catch up with him, she looped her right arm through his left arm and decided that perhaps it was time that the C.E.O of Frost International took some time off. A sabbatical of a sort. To her knowledge, there was nothing big on the agenda that needed seeing to so, if her boyfriend was going off on an adventure to save the world, then she was tagging along for the ride.

It'll definitely be more exciting than our usual dates. She thought with a smile as she and her boyfriend left the room filled with the carnage they'd caused.

&

Penthouse Suite, Arkham Towers, Same Time

"IS IT DONE?" Came the booming voice from within the dark mirror that hung on the wall.

"Yes, my Lord Mundus. Both of them have taken to their new enhancements well and are well prepared for the trials ahead of them." Jonathan Arkham replied from his humbled position before the mirror, "Soon Alexander LaVelle Harris will embark on a quest to acquire the items I told him about in an effort to keep them from my evil hands and, as a result, be required to face some of the most powerful beings in the human world. Those that would have blocked your conquest of this world will be eliminated by his every growing power until none remain when you set foot on this world."

"ASSUMING HE DOES NOT FAIL ME AS VERGIL DID." Mundus said as three glowing crimson orbs appeared in the mirror with energy arcing between them.

"I have already put plans into motion to ensure that he receives aide from another should his strength prove insufficient on its own." Arkham said with the confidence of certainty in his voice, "How ironic it will be that the Sons of Sparda will once again prove to be unwitting pawns in the plan to aid you in crossing over."

"PROCEED WITH YOUR PLAN, JONATHAN ARKHAM." Mundus said with the three orbs glowing extra brightly to emphasize the Dark Lord's mood, "HOWEVER, KEEP IN MIND THE PRICE OF FAILURE."

With those words, the mirror lost both the orbs as well as the darkness it once had until it looked to be no different from any other mirror. Rising from his position on the floor, he strode over to the window that overlooked the city and smiled at how his brilliant plan was all coming together. The connection had been established between Vergil's body in the demon world and the body that housed its spirit in the human world. With every increase in power that Alexander experienced, the connection would grow stronger as well until all was ready for a portal to be opened. Then his Lord Mundus would cross over into this world and all would fall before the Darkness both demon as well as human. The boy wouldn't even realize his role until it was too late!

"Glorious!" He said with glee as he looked down on the lands that would soon be his as reward for bring his master here.

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