Title: Emerald Spark (15/21)
Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.
Rating: Just a little bad language.
Spoilers: Anything and everything.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: After Halloween, everything changes. Sequel to Blackest Night. Part one of Emerald Flame.
Author's Note: Okay, y'know, the reason Blackest Night was originally a one-shot was because I saw only two ways to expand on it: Green Lantern Xander and Future Knowledge Xander. Both of them had already been done and done well by others, and I didn't want to retread ground already covered, so I intended to leave it as is.
Then I got this idea.
Anyanka, Vengeance Demon, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, was faced with a puzzle. She had come here, to this high school that sat oh so conveniently on a hellmouth, to grant a wish. Specifically, the wish of one Harmony Kendall, who had just been dumped rather publicly by one Lawrence Blaisdell. One wish later, and Larry was now playing for the other team. That had been simple. Business as usual, if less violent and bloodthirsty than most wishes.
No, the puzzle was in the male who had seen her moments after she'd granted the wish. The male who she had never met yet apparently knew her name, despite her thoroughness in eliminating that possibility over the past millenium. But that wasn't the real puzzle. No, the puzzle was in the way he looked at her. There was something in his eyes that made her heart pound and her stomach flutter.
She was a vengeance demon. She could sense emotions. It was part of her gig. But what she sensed from him made no sense whatsoever.
Love. Loss. Heartbreak.
In a male. Directed at her.
This... she thought as she rounded the corner and teleported away, ...bears investigation.
Xander bolted around the corner and looked around, scanning the area. Damn. Lost her, he thought with a frown. Stay focused, Xand. That wasn't Ahn, your ex-fiancee. That was Anyanka, man-hating vengeance demon... he reminded himself.
So what the hell was she doing here?
Giving the area another visual scan, he shook his head and headed back to where he had left Buffy, a pensive look on his face. He blinked in surprise at seeing Buffy talking to a dark-haired girl he didn't recognize but who looked vaguely familiar...
"See you tomorrow, Buffy!"
"Sure!" the Slayer chirped cheerfully, waving her off.
Xander walked up and watched the brunette leave, "Um, who was that?"
"Theresa," Buffy replied. "Theresa Klusmeyer. She's my partner in that self-defense class they made us take after the attacks last night. Speaking of which, I thought you were going to take care of our werewolf problem?"
"With the imminent alien invasion, I got a little distracted," he said dryly. His gaze strayed to where Theresa had gone, and he murmured, "I hope things turn out better for her this time around..."
Buffy shot him a Look, "Why? What happened last time?"
He shrugged, "Angelus turned her. Tonight."
"Oh," she blanched. Then something else he said finally registered, "Wait. What alien invasion?"
"Just something I ran into on the way back from Mars," he said, waving it off, his mind clearly preoccupied.
"So, wait," she said, her voice dangerously calm, "you mean you took my mom into a warzone?"
"Err... yes?"
Tara and Willow were sitting together, making study arrangements for that evening, when Xander bolted toward them and vaulted over the table in front of them.
"Get back here, you moron!" Buffy screeched, following him without hesitation.
"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry!"
"I... don't think I want to know," Tara murmured, a little shocked.
Willow nodded, equally stunned, "Right there with you."
Faith looked up as the door opened. She was waiting for a training session in the abandoned mansion on Crawford Street that Xander had turned into his temporary headquarters.
"Geez, X, what happened to you?" Faith blurted out. "You look like you got hit by a truck."
"Trust me, a truck would have hurt less," he said sourly. "Just forget it. You remember what to do."
Faith nodded, then focused hard on a blank section of the wall. Sweat formed a slight sheen across her forehead as she concentrated, glaring at it in futility. Her power ring flared, and she stumbled back, her concentration broken.
"Damn it!"
"Stop trying to force it," Xander said lightly. "You didn't put it there, so it doesn't recognize you. The more you force it, the more it'll resist you. It's a security measure. You have to be..." he searched for the right word, "...polite."
"It's a f*cking lantern!" she glared at him.
"One with literally as much power as you can possibly imagine," Xander said evenly. "It takes more than brute force, Faith, and you're still not grasping the dimensional theory behind the subspace pocket."
"I f*cking hate math."
"I think I understand it now," Faith said, breathing heavily from the mental exertion as they returned to the home she shared with the Baxters. Xander had made her retrieve and stow the power battery a dozen times -- and stowed it himself for her to retrieve it a dozen more -- before he was satisfied. "Thank you, sensei."
Xander blinked in confusion, "What... did you just call me, poozer?"
"'Sensei,'" she repeated.
"Okayyy..." Xander said, still not getting it. "Why 'sensei'?"
Faith shrugged, "Can't really just use your name -- whole secret identity thing -- and we're both Green Lanterns, so that'd be silly. We're not colleagues yet, but I don't exactly work for you either, so that leaves out 'boss.' You are training me, but there's no way in hell I'm calling you 'master,' so 'sensei' it is."
"Okay," he nodded, turning it over in his head for a moment. "Works for me... padawan."
"Huh?" she blinked at him as they entered the living room, where Willow and Tara were studying.
Xander shot the two on the couch a faint smile as they looked up and waved, then turned his attention back to Faith and shrugged, "That'll make sense in about a year, when Crapisode One comes out."
"Didn't like the movie, I take it?"
"No one liked the movie," Xander snorted. "There were Trekkies offering their condolences."
"So... why don't you do something about it?"
"Two reasons. One, I'm afraid that if I did, they'd find some way to make it even worse, as impossible as that idea seems to me. Two, if I don't do anything to change it, I won't feel compelled to go see what changes I may have caused, thus keeping me from being scarred for life yet again."
Willow looked up at him, leaned toward Tara, and stage-whispered, "Beware the Xander-logic. You can see how frightening it is."
Xander frowned, then a glowing green hand tweaked her nose.
"Hey!"
He stuck his tongue out at the redhead.
Tara giggled, and he shot the blonde witch a warm smile. She flushed and looked away. Xander was glad to see them all getting along so well, especially Willow and Tara. It was a long way from the love they shared last time, but he had no doubt that that would come in time. No, the real surprise was the way they acted around Faith. They liked her, trusted her. More than that, they had accepted her as one of their own, something which the Willow he remembered -- that strange, white goddess with Willow's face -- never would have.
Damn, it's good to have my Willow back, he thought fondly.
"AHH!!!" Willow shrieked and nearly jumped out of her skin as a glowing green Xander hugged her from behind. Hyperventilating, she glared at the real Xander, "What the hell was that for?!"
He shrugged and dismissed the construct, "Just felt like hugging you, and I was too lazy to walk over there."
Willow glowered, "Faith? If you would, please?"
"Sure, Red."
Thwap!
"Thank you, Faith," the redhead smiled sweetly at her.
Xander scowled and rubbed his head, then shot Tara a pleading look, "Tara? Please?"
She blinked back at him, then gave him a look that was somehow both apologetic and impish, "No, I don't think so."
"Traitor," he pouted.
Daniel Osbourne stirred.
"'Bout time you woke up, Wolfboy."
He looked around. He was in a cave, one with a rather large boulder resting conspicuously near the entrance. Leaning against said boulder was a familiar figure. Not that he had ever met the younger man, but given his latest obsession, he couldn't have avoided seeing him if he'd tried.
"I know you."
Xander straightened up and shook his head, his expression hard, "No. You really don't."
"What's going on?"
"You're a werewolf," Xander said bluntly. "Three nights a month, you get hairy and slobber a lot. I caught you before you could eat anyone and sealed you up in here for the night. You've got one more night this month."
"Huh."
Xander turned to leave, then paused.
"Oh," he said over his shoulder, "and about Willow, just so you know, she's like a sister to me, and if you hurt her, I'll beat you to death with a shovel. After beating you half to death with a shovel, giving you time to wake up, and then using the shovel's blade to perform several amputations. Capiche?"
"...'kay."
Xander nodded, then continued on his way. He had one more stop to make.
It had taken Xander some time to track down Carl Marin's laboratory. The man was a genius when it came to biochemistry and genetics. Why he was content to coach a swim team -- turning said swim team into his own lab rats -- was beyond Xander's comprehension.
For a change, the lab was not in one of Sunnydale's numerous abandoned warehouses. Instead, it was in an abandoned hotel near the docks. It hadn't taken much to set the whole room alight. The notes were already so much tinder, and the chemicals would be destroyed long before FDS arrived.
"NO!"
"Wha-?" Xander turned...
WHAM!
...and rocked back from Coach Marin's haymaker even as the swim team coach shouldered past him and ran into the lab. Xander turned, "No, wait! I..."
BOOM!
The fire must have spread faster than he had expected and reached one of the fertilizer bombs he had laid, or maybe the chemicals were more volatile than he had anticipated. Either way, Xander barely managed to use his ring to shield himself before the explosion shattered the building.
Author's Postscript:
Hope you enjoyed it.