Date written: Mon 12 Oct 2009
Author: Starway Man
E-mail: theop at hotkey dot net dot au
Disclaimer: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar, Kuzui, Fox, WB and UPN; I don't own 'em, and I never will. I also do not own any other characters from any television shows, movies, comics, videogames or literature that I might use. This work is meant merely for enjoyment, and no profit is being made off of it. Some of the text is from various TV episodes or movies or comics or videogames or literature, and so does not belong to me of course.
Rating: Overall R, with mostly PG-13 parts.
Symbols: " " denotes speech, ( italics ) specifies thoughts, and # # indicates phone voice.
Main characters: Xander, ensemble
Warnings: There is some violence, bad language, character death and mention of sexual situations in these stories.
Author Notes: A couple of years ago Night Hunter MGS (a.k.a. Matt) wrote an awesome series of stories called "31 Days of Xanderween" (http://www .fanfiction .net/s/3813208/1/31_Days_of_Xanderween), where he published one Halloween fic for each day of October. I was inspired enough to want to do my own version of the concept, and he has graciously allowed me to use his idea for this series of fanfic stories.
Author Notes 2: Hey everyone, thanks again for all the reviews so far; and may as well face it, I've become a feedback junkie. I'm desperate for people tell me something about how well or how badly I'm doing. So having said that, Wrath Shadow, I thought about doing HALO 3, but I eventually decided to go with this instead as I wanted to keep to 1997-98 real world events as much as possible. Still, thanks again for your suggested plot bunny!
Acknowledgments: My thanks of course to Matt for allowing me to dabble with his original idea this way. Also, my deepest gratitude to all my beta readers – Francis Eugene, Greywizard, American Soldier and Nodakskip – for all their help in getting these stories finished on time!
Classification: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Romance, YAHF
Summary: Thirty-one versions of Halloween, Xander-style. Fic-a-day series.
Title:31 Days of Xanderween Part Deux
***
Story 12: Space Command
Ethan's Costume Shop, Sunnydale, California
October 30th, 1997
"May I be of some assistance, young man?"
Xander Harris turned around, a look of surprise on his face. He subsequently saw a guy who was around his father's age, and who was the owner of that distinctive British accent. "Yeah, I'm after a toy gun to complete the soldier look for Halloween tomorrow night."
"A soldier? What sort of soldier? One from the Great War, perhaps?" Ethan Rayne asked, his eyes containing a momentary gleam of interest.
"Great War? I've heard the war in Kuwait being described as a lot of things, mister, but I've never heard it called that before," Xander looked confused.
( Bloody American teenagers, ) Ethan thought to himself in annoyance. ( Have you utterly no sense of history? Hmm... ) The chaos mage suddenly got an idea.
"I was talking about another war," the Englishman clarified his earlier remark, "you may know it as World War One – but never mind that now. Unfortunately, all I have in terms of individual weaponry was in that bin..." Rayne pointed to the empty discount bin. "...but there might be something else I can interest you in."
"Yeah? What?" Xander asked curiously.
"Come with me," Ethan gestured, and took Harris over to the counter. "I have here something very special, something I think a young man of your generation might be fascinated in. And it's something I can guarantee you no one else will be wearing as a costume tomorrow night."
Intrigued, Xander waited for Ethan to dig out that special something as his red-haired best friend Willow Rosenberg joined him at the counter. "Hey, Will. Decided on a costume yet?" Harris asked the cute and yet very insecure and shy teenage girl.
"Yep, I sure have!" the young redhead said enthusiastically, holding up her packaged ghost outfit.
Xander shrugged, thinking that his friend could do better than some wimpy chain rattler again. But at that moment, Ethan rose to his feet from behind the counter with the prize in his hands. "What's that?" Harris asked at once.
"Within this box are the costumes for a pair of videogame characters, which were put into my latest shipment by a friend of a friend. I don't know much about the game itself, except for what's detailed here," Ethan remarked simply, pushing a piece of paper forward. "The game's due for release early next year, apparently. But I'd dare say you might enjoy dressing up as this particular chap, Raynor I believe his name is."
Xander started reading the paper. He had to admit, the Englishman had certainly found something he liked. The character described, Jim Raynor of the soon-to-be-released StarCraft videogame, was described as a decent and honourable man, always willing to do the right thing no matter how difficult it may be. Someone fiercely loyal to his friends and his cause, and willing to put it all at risk for the protection of those who could not defend themselves.
Xander read further, wanting to learn more. He was intrigued to learn that Raynor was not the most intelligent man in the galaxy, but nonetheless was extremely resourceful and persistent in the face of unfavourable odds. Initially a marshal based on the fringe colony world of Mar Sara, which was controlled by the oppressive Confederacy of Man during the 26th century, the videogame involved Raynor becoming a space commander and tangling with a number of alien races; the humanoid Protoss, and the insectoid Zerg...
"Xander? Are you gonna stand there reading that thing all day?" Willow's annoyed voice cut through his consciousness. "This isn't the library, you know!"
Xander looked up, feeling embarrassed and quickly putting the paper aside. He said to Ethan, "Jim Raynor sounds like quite the guy, yeah. Okay, how much? To rent the outfit for tomorrow night, I mean?"
As her life-long romantic crush started negotiating with the owner of the costume shop, Willow picked up the paper and read it herself. Skipping over most of the information related to Raynor, Willow's eyes focused on the part where the central character of the game fell in love with a red-haired woman named Sarah Kerrigan. Someone briefly described as "graceful and deadly, exceedingly agile and athletic, possessing jade-green eyes and brilliant red hair usually worn as a ponytail".
Willow didn't bother to read further and learn more about Sarah, however, and learn about all the horrible things that happened to her in the course of the videogame: in which she ended up a spiteful, conniving, mocking, double-crossing, flamboyant Zerg-human hybrid.
Entranced by the idea of being someone that Xander had fallen in love with, Miss Rosenberg quickly cast aside her ghost outfit and began her own negotiations with Ethan. In exchange for some far-reaching word of mouth publicity, Rayne let them have both costumes at a substantial discount; Willow covering the difference that Xander couldn't afford in a gesture of true friendship.
Ethan just smiled to himself, as the two teens joined a blonde girl who was eyeing an 18th century noblewoman gown. When he had a free moment, Rayne saw the blonde reluctantly head over to the supernatural costume section, as apparently the redhead was urging her to get the Xena outfit instead. ( Well, well. I suspect this'll be interesting tomorrow night... )
***
Somewhere on the streets of Sunnydale, California
October 31st, 1997
James "Jim" Raynor cursed violently, before his eyes widened in amazement.
This wasn't the ruined Protoss homeworld of Aiur, which he had witnessed the Zerg invade and nearly annihilate before the Protoss templar known as Tassadar had sacrificed his own life to destroy the evil insectoid hive mind. This place looked like an ancient version of Earth or Terra, Raynor's own home planet.
"What the-?" The former marshal and 29-year-old commander of "Raynor's Raiders" looked around for Fenix, the powerful and cunning 397-year-old Protoss who had become his ally in the war. No luck, unfortunately. ( Damn it, where is he? And where the hell am I? )
Just then, Jim heard loud cursing and the sounds of a fight. Turning around, he grabbed his gun and headed off towards one of the nearby houses.
What he saw when he got there, though, astounded even him.
Wearing a soft work shirt, worn cotton pants with a leather jacket and high leather boots, the redhead wielding a knife in battle against some...things...was someone Raynor recognized at once. "Sarah? SARAH!"
Raynor charged into battle against the red and green mini-demons without a second thought. He had initially believed Kerrigan had died on the lost world of Tarsonis, slaughtered by the Zerg after being betrayed and abandoned by the man named Arcturus Mengsk; and as horrible as it sounded, that would have been an infinitely more preferable fate compared to what the Zerg had actually done to her. And yet here she was, impossibly alive and human again...
Once the demons – children possessed by their Halloween costumes thanks to Ethan's chaos spell, just like Willow and Xander – had either run off or been knocked unconscious, Sarah took a closer look at the man with a neatly-trimmed moustache and beard, plus a flak jacket and distinctive tattoos on his arms. "Jim? JIM!"
She automatically came closer, but Raynor took a step back.
"Sarah, how can this be you? The last time we saw each other, you'd become a Zerg thanks to that damn retrovirus..." he said uncertainly.
"What are you talking about?" the psychic woman inhabiting Willow's body looked utterly confused.
"We were on the planet Char," Raynor said slowly, but at least he'd stopped backing away. "You were transformed into one of them, you – you came and destroyed our base, you said you were looking for the Protoss fugitives..."
"I don't remember any of that," the psychic woman still looked confused. "So...are you saying the Zerg won our battle against them?"
"No," Raynor said firmly. "We stopped them. After Tassadar and I were rescued from Char, we finally destroyed the Zerg on Aiur. But that still doesn't explain...this. How were you de-infested of that Zerg DNA?"
"I have utterly no idea," the green-eyed female shook her head, her ponytail swinging wildly as she put away her combat knife. "But believe me, I'm not complaining about it at all!"
Man and woman stared at each other for another moment; and then, as if by pure animal magnetism, they rushed into each other's arms and kissed like there was no tomorrow. Jim had his tongue in her mouth, fiercely exploring before she returned the favour; their hands groping and caressing one another.
"Uhhh...we should stop," Sarah finally said reluctantly. Her assassin's training and the neural implants designed to control her mental abilities made the woman focus on the big picture, no matter how much she wanted to rip off Raynor's clothes and ride him like a wild stallion right there on the porch. "The area's not secure..."
"You're right," Raynor said just as reluctantly, as he let her go. He had great respect for her intelligence, just as much as Xander did for Willow's. "What do you think, we look for a warp gate to get off this planet?"
"Let's find out where we are first," Sarah replied, taking a moment to fix her clothes. "Any ideas?"
"Looks like ancient Terra to me," Jim said, as both of them stepped off the porch, guns ready. Then his eyes went wide at the sight of an angry Xena warrior princess striding over towards him, chakram held threateningly in one hand and the black-haired woman babbling in incomprehensible ancient Greek.
"Okay, this is different..." he muttered in annoyance.
***
Elsewhere on Sunnydale's streets
A while later
"Why do these terrible things keep happening to me?!" the popular girl named Cordelia Chase asked herself, trying to keep it together.
She'd just barely outrun a Sasquatch-looking creature not far from the Summers residence, her leopard-like cat costume was almost ripped to shreds, and now she was trying to make her way to the high school library. The place which meant 'safety' in her mind, these days. "I'm cursed, that's what it is. I've got to be..."
Just then she saw the people she'd been hoping to see, even though Cordy would have never admitted that either to herself or anyone else. "Xander! Willow! Buffy!"
The dork and the nerd turned to face her at once, with the freak doing so less than a moment later. Cordelia was stunned though when she found herself staring down the wide barrels of some very strange-looking guns. Not to mention a funny-looking circular blade of some sort.
"What are you people doing? Come on, we gotta get off the streets! Can't you see what's happening around here?!" Miss Chase gestured to chaos all around them.
"Who are you?" Sarah and Jim said in unison, just as Xena asked the same thing in ancient Greek.
"What?" Looking around anxiously for any signs of attack, Cordelia was nonetheless horrified to hear that these people had no idea who SHE was. Everybody knew who Cordelia Chase was, it was like an unwritten law! "What's the matter with you idiots? It's me, Cordelia! And why is Buffy the blonde wonder babbling in some weird-ass foreign lingo?"
"Buffy?" Sarah asked, glancing at Xena; who didn't seem to recognize the name at all.
"Look, uh...Cordelia, we've got a bit of a situation here," Jim said sardonically. "Can you tell us the quickest way to get off this planet? Like, where's the nearest spaceport?"
"Xander Harris, this is not the time for your jokes, damn it! Come on, we've got to get to the library!" Miss Chase started running as a roaring monster came upon them. The two people from the 26th century took aim at it, but Xena beat them to it with an amazing display of acrobatics that knocked the demon out cold.
"We follow her?" Sarah asked, gesturing to the fleeing Cordy.
"Sounds better than nothing to me," Jim shrugged, as they began to follow and Xena brought up the rear.
***
Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale, California
Less than half an hour later
Rupert Giles, high school librarian by day and Watcher to the Slayer by night, had begun to get rather concerned by all the noises emanating from outside his domain – when four extraordinarily dressed young people burst into the library.
Rupert's eyes went wide as he recognized Cordelia and the others. "My word, what are you-"
"Giles, we got trouble!" Miss Chase said, indicating behind her. "These three losers have gone absolutely nuts, and it's a complete madhouse out there!" She quickly collapsed onto a chair at the table.
"What? Cordelia, what are you talking about?" the Watcher demanded. Then his eyes went wide, as he saw the people possessing Willow and Xander pointing some sort of futuristic guns at him. "Oh, good Lord! Willow, Xander-"
"They're not our names. I'm Jim Raynor, and my friend here is Sarah Kerrigan," the man said, putting his gun back in his holster even as Sarah continued to cover Giles carefully. "Your name's Giles?"
"Well, yes-"
"Do you have any idea how we got here? And how we can go back to where we came from?" Sarah demanded bluntly.
"I, I don't understand," Giles stammered. "You're who? And go back to-to where, exactly?"
"Good point," the former marshal said slowly. "I figure we wanna go to my ship, the Hyperion. Do you know of any spaceport around here?"
"Spaceport?" Giles felt his jaw drop down almost to the floor.
"This IS Terra, isn't it? Wait a minute, what's the year?" Sarah suddenly asked. Upon hearing the answer, her eyes went wide as she turned to face Raynor. "Jim, I think we're in big trouble..."
"Yeah," Raynor started fidgeting nervously. He wasn't a coward; if he knew where and when he was then he refused to bow down to fear during familiar circumstances. Right now, though, he had no clue what was going on and no idea which way home lay, so that made him a mite anxious.
Just then Xena spoke up in her native language, annoyed and wanting to know what the heck the others were saying. Giles listened to her in surprise, before trying to respond haltingly with the few words of ancient Greek that he knew. The dark-haired warrior princess suddenly beamed in delight; and after being reassured that this place was not a bastion of Rome, despite its use of the Roman alphabet instead of the Greek one, she just settled down to get an idea of which way the wind would blow next.
"Cordelia? You seem to be the only one here who's currently in their right mind. Could you possibly explain to me what's happened?" Giles asked her as nicely as he could.
"Well, let's see," the brunette girl got up from the chair. "I was on my way to the Bronze, when everything just dipped straight into totally insane-o territory. Little kids turning into demons, who began to kill people – and believe me, after witnessing that, I will be in therapy for at least a month! I managed to outrun Jo-Jo the Dog Face Boy, but not before I almost got mauled, and when I finally run into the Three Musketeers here? They're acting as nutty as everyone else!" Cordelia complained. "Why the heck does everything keep imploding around me? You people, it's got to be all your fault!"
"What ARE you talking about?" Sarah demanded in confusion. With her powers she could sense that the foolish girl-child wasn't a liar, but the truth simply didn't make any sense to her.
"I don't know, and quite frankly I don't care," Jim said, making a decision. "We should get out of here, Sarah. These people can't help us, I'm pretty damn sure about that."
"No, no, please wait, Xa – Mr. Raynor," Giles corrected himself in time. "Cordelia, I have a question. Why did you remain yourself tonight, and not become affected by whatever's happened to Buffy, Xander and Willow?"
"Beats the heck out of me," Cordy shrugged, not caring about that much. "And hey, can we focus on my problems for a minute? Look at my costume, it's ruined. It's not like I have any chance of getting my deposit back from Partytown now!"
Giles said slowly, "Partytown, you say. Is, is that where the others got their costumes as well?" He was gradually starting to develop an idea about what was going on here.
"Oh, please, like any of those three social rejects could afford to shop there?" Cordelia said scornfully. "They probably got their outfits from that new place that opened up a few days ago, Ethan's or whatever it was called."
"Ethan's?" Rupert echoed in dawning horror. "You'll have to take me there at once-"
"Are you out of your teabag-swilling MIND?!" Cordelia yelped. "I'm not going out there again, I barely made it here alive and in one piece!"
Xena spoke up again, wanting to know what the others were saying. After Giles explained in his own somewhat confused and atrociously accented way, she volunteered to escort the older man to his destination. Upon getting the address from Cordelia, the warrior princess and the Watcher left, Giles cautioning the others to stay here and remain safe.
"I still say we should get out of here," Jim said to Sarah after Giles and Xena left. "What the heck is us staying here going to accomplish?"
"How about staying alive, doofus?" Cordelia told him crossly. She then yelped to find the tall and well-built man pointing his gun directly at her head.
"Knock it off with the attitude. I've had just about enough of you that I'm gonna take tonight," Raynor said warningly, making Cordelia back off in fear.
"Put it down, this is pointless," Sarah lowered Jim's arm. "Killing her won't accomplish anything except make you feel good for a few moments."
"Well, right now I'm willing to settle for pretty much anything I can get," Raynor grumbled, sending one last glare in Cordelia's direction.
"Then I've got an idea," Sarah began to drag Jim away into the library stacks. "This time, the area is secure – we'll hear her screaming from a mile away if anything comes in here, right?"
"Sarah, I do like the way you think," Raynor smiled as he escorted the red-haired woman away.
After they left, Cordelia just cringed at all the moaning and bumping noises coming from within the aisles. "Ugh. This could only happen to me..." she muttered, covering her ears.
***
Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale, California
November 3rd, 1997
Cordelia Chase was very glad that things had gone back to normal on Friday night not long after Giles and Xena had left, because in her opinion the constant stress was sure to put age lines on her face. That was something that could not be tolerated, as to someone of her mentality you were old and wrinkly by the time you reached the age of twenty-five and Cordy was in no hurry to grow up that fast.
"So what did you guys get up to for Halloween?" she asked her Cordettes carefully, wanting to gauge how the situation lay there.
"Oh, God, it was terrible!" the girl named Aura almost sobbed. "Did anyone else see that awful shade of lipstick worn by the lead singer at the Bronze on Friday night?"
"Yeah. God, it was horrific!" the cheerleader named Harmony Kendall nodded. "It made me want to throw up, I swear. How can that woman possibly bear to look at herself in the mirror? And don't get me started on her shoes-"
( How is it they can repress so much? And more importantly, why the heck can't I do it anymore? ) Cordelia suddenly snapped, her temper frayed by the fact that her so-called friends were terminally clueless and she was like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind amongst them. "Harmony. Did it ever occur to you that there are other things in life besides fashion and shoes?"
"Cordy, what is wrong with you? Did you hit your head or something?" the blonde named Gwen demanded. The way the other girls were gaping at the leader of the pack, it was obvious that such a thought had never once entered their minds.
"It's just there are...things going on in this town, and you guys can't see past the ends of your surgically altered noses!" Miss Chase said haughtily.
"Hey! My nose is the same one that I was born with!" Harmony snapped back.
"Oh, so when you disappeared for three weeks during summer break, you really did go to the Caribbean?" Aura asked with a sugary tone.
"That's right!" Harmony said huffily.
"So how come you didn't come back with a tan?" Gwen asked archly.
"Well...it rained a lot," Miss Kendall said weakly.
"In July?" Aura pounced in for the kill.
Sighing to herself as the gaggle of young women walked along, Cordelia began to mentally tune out her companions. ( This is awful. What am I supposed to do if I can't stand my own followers anymore, hang out with the Library Loser Crowd? ) That thought alone made her want to shudder, it was bad enough she was dependent on those people to save her life every other week...
"Oh my God, look at that!" Harmony's screeching voice brought Cordy back to Earth. "I knew it, I knew it, I just knew it would happen!"
Cordelia's eyes searched along the line of sight Harmony's finger was pointing in, and her eyes went wide at the sight of Xander and Willow sitting up against a tree and kissing in public. And it wasn't a brother-sister type kiss either, unless something seriously twisted was going on.
"Come on, Cordelia, pay up!" Harmony said triumphantly. "You bet me five bucks that those two would never get together last year, and now I've won!"
( Damn, and here I thought Xander would never settle for anyone other than Buffy! ) Miss Chase mused to herself in annoyance, as she unslung her book bag. Cordy then watched Xander pawing Willow with only the barest vestige of jealousy. Deep down, her ego was bristling that someone she was subconsciously attracted to had the temerity to never even worship at her altar, but she had no desire to admit that to anyone – including herself.
( Well, never mind. Let 'em be happy together and raise a whole family of losers and computer nerds after high school's over! What do I care? ) Cordelia grumbled to herself as she paid up. Then she said to Harmony, "Hey, wanna go double or nothing on that bet? I know Michael Czajak's been making eyes at Amy Madison lately..."
***
Next: Story 13 - Tinamou