'Thought'
"Speech"
Chapter 12: A Painful Day
"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain." ~Aristotle
That Xander wasn't feeling well was putting it mildly. His day had started early when he woke up to the sound of a slight honking noise and the feeling of a slight cold breeze. Upon struggling to wake up, he realized that he wasn't in his bed but didn't know where he was. Struggling to figure out what his sleepy brain was telling him, he looked to the left and saw a 'v' of Canadian geese fly, and then he again averted his gaze forward, stretched, yawned, and then rubbed his eyes. It was then that Xander's brain fully engaged and his mental alarms started screaming at him.
'Danger! Danger! Will Robinson, um, I mean Danger! Danger Xander Harris!' A voice screamed in his head, causing Xander's eyes to fly wide open.
Xander's mental answer was to scream 'Shit!'as below him, far below him, was a small doll sized Heterodyne chateau and town of New Mechanicsburg nestled in its scenic mountain valley.
Unfortunately to add to Xander's situation, the mental 'shit' and corresponding mind numbing fear of waking up to find yourself floating at 15,000 feet above the ground caused Xander's flight capabilities to give out, and Xander plummeted towards the ground.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" Xander screamed out in fear as he started falling.
The wind whipped Xander into a tail spin and he found himself tumbling head over heels trying to get a mental grip on what to do. Unfortunately for Xander, the fear of the situation was then multiplied as his genius brain started contemplating such helpful facts as, 'Wow,youreallydoaccelerateat9.8meterspersecondsquared!'or 'Hmmm, I've always wondered if the fear of the actual fall ever killed a man, or if it was always the sudden stop at the end?'
"Not Helping Brain!" Xander yelled, now screaming at himself in his moment of terror as he broke through a light layer of clouds and continued plummeting towards the Chateau and the large 'fish' pond that he had installed behind it.
Having been caught totally off guard and in a situation that the heterodyne memories weren't experienced in, Xander struggled to remember how he had used the Nth Metal in his system to trigger his flight skills; all the while the chateau and its curtilage appeared to be getting bigger and bigger as the wind tore at him and the pair of smiley faced boxers that he had gone to sleep in.
Finally, at 150 feet Xander's fear turned into anger, "I REFUSE to die this way!" Xander screamed at the sky around him, struggling to right himself out of his spin.
With that said Xander's random non-helpful thoughts stopped and his mind fully focused on the rapidly approaching ground and the problem at hand.
"Fly Damn it!" Xander growled as he tried to push his arms out to stabilize his fall and present as much surface area as possible.
At his demand to fly it was like a switch was thrown, and Xander's flight abilities kicked in.
Xander felt his body become lighter and he started to slow down; unfortunately he wasn't slowing fast enough as inertia and gravity had joined forces against him and were unwilling to let go of their hold on his body.
At the 100 foot mark, Xander only had a moment to mentally force his downward vector away from the spire and lightning rod studded roof of the chateau and towards the back pond as he hit the ground; fortunately with a giant splash rather than a splat.
Unfortunately, this is where Murphy decided to add his two cents to Xander's morning in two ways.
First, Xander's prone position and impact had just put him in the running for the 'Guinness Book of World's Records' for 'most painful belly flop.'
Second, the pond was filled with sharks, but not any nice cuddly type of shark like a Great White, no; these were the sharks of a mad genius. These were sharks with freaking laser beams stuck to their noggins.
Xander's impact on the surface of the large deep pond caused a plume of water to shoot back into the sky launching droplets of water and one injured shark into the air to fall back to the surface of the pond.
To add insult to injury however, the injury of the shark spilt blood into the water of the briny pond, and the water was quickly churned into a feeding frenzy of thrashing teeth and blasting lasers.
Xander had been briefly stunned by the fall, thanks to his inhuman constitution and his influx of shrunken clanks that were spreading through his body, still, it only took that moment for the sharks to smell the blood and target the intruder in their midst.
Xander dodged teeth as a wall of mouths seemed to come at him from all directions. Diving deeper into the pond, Xander was fortunate enough to swim out of reach of the initial attack by the predators, but now they were hot on his trail.
Xander twisted and turned and zigzagged through the roiling mass as quickly as he could, but there was no way he was going to come out fully unscathed. The laser blasts were probably the worst as Xander received a hole through his right hand and his left bicep from beams that he couldn't get out of the way of. He dodged teeth, but still took a swat from a few tails that bruised his ribs and would have broken them in a normal human. It was only by exploding straight up out of the pool, using his flying abilities again, that Xander was able to escape; narrowly avoiding one of the sharks that had attempted to leap out of the water after him.
Xander hovered for a second above the pond, the skin of his face and the front of his body was colored lobster red from the belly flop and he was still slightly bleeding from the already closing wounds on his hand and arm; the red color of his skin also quickly disappeared as his healing factor took care of his injuries. Unfortunately his healing still left a slight residual ache that would stay with him for the next hour.
The sharks below him quieted down and only made a few half hearted attempts to blast him out of the sky with their noggin lasers, but Xander was again conscious enough to easily dodge the blasts before he could get targeted.
With that, Xander flew towards the house to start his day.
"What a way to wake up in the morning. Mental note: no sleeping with the window open." Xander stated as he walked inside wearing only his soaking wet smiley faced boxers.
By the time Xander had made it to his room and gotten changed, he was ticked off with himself and his aching body wasn't helping all that much either.
'It's one thing to be faced with a situation I've never been faced with before, but it's another to freeze up when faced with it.'Xander mentally berated himself.
Really, he realized that he couldn't blame himself for one hundred percent of the problem. On top of the fun with the sharks his body was running a slight fever from his natural and primal healing factor fighting against the spread of the nano-clanks. In short, the upgrade of his body made him feel like he had caught a bad cold with fever, headache, nausea and aches and pains; fortunately without the runny nose or cough.
This headache and nausea were further compounded by the entrance of four Jäger Boyz bearing presents and 'food'.
"Boss, Ve broughtz hyu pie und presentz!" The blue Jäger stated, as he shoved some sort of pastery covered spicy smelling pie under Xander's nose.
Xander choked down the bile that his body threatened to gag up at the smell of the 'pie,' and covered his face with one hand while lightly pushing said 'pie' away from his face.
"Und ve vere vonderink if hyu kould givf us a hand?" The red Jäger questioned, waving the severed red furred arm at Xander to punctuate the question.
"Damn, I appreciate the pie and presents, but let's get that arm fixed first." Xander stated as he flinched with empathetic pain when he saw the flopping dismembered arm; besides, focusing on fixing the arm would give him a chance to get away from the 'pie.'
'Ok, so maybe my morning wasn't that bad in comparison.' Xander thought to himself as he picked the red furred arm out of the red Jäger's grasp and pushed past the cream colored Jäger who was carrying a large cloth covered item of indistinguishable shape.
Xander led the way out into the hall and proceeded through the halls and towards the dungeon.
As Xander passed the library Igor stepped up to Xander's side and kept pace with Xander.
"Sir, here are the results of the expansion of the corporation into the major cities of North America and I should have the details for the rest of the world expansion by this afternoon." Igor stated as he handed a portable data pad to Xander, which he took with his free hand.
Xander perused the spreadsheet present on the data pad and saw that his Sparkbuck's coffee shops had already started popping up in cities like Gotham, Metropolis, Faucet City, as well as all of the major cities that he had remembered from his original dimension.
"We had to reincorporate a portion of the company in the Europe in order to maximize the legal and security protection. As always, the corporations have been processed through your minions and holding companies, nowhere was your name attached to any of the documentation or government forms as per your orders Sir." Igor continued as he flipped through one of the handheld computer devices that Xander had whipped together one night while asleep.
Igor then began to regurgitate figures and cash flow projection numbers as Xander led the rag tag group of Jägers towards the chemistry laboratory. The continued diatribe of accounting information added to the smell of the pie that was being carried next to Xander; the combination made Xander's headache and nausea that much worse.
By the time they made it to the chemistry lab, the combination of aches, pains, and accounting information was enough to make Xander want to slay something in order to relieve his mounting frustration.
"Stop Igor. Just stop." Xander cut Igor's descriptions off in the middle of a sentence on a tri-part merger of several of Xander's holding companies and a partial hostile takeover of coffee shops already existing in several of the target expansion cities and countries. Behind him, Xander listened to the Jägers discussing the merits of beer versus ale and whether a bar fight was better than a cage fight or the other way around, and it was all starting to get on his nerves.
"Listen, I trust you to manage the businesses and you have my permission to sign any forms necessary. I don't need to know the minutia of expanding our coffee and surveillance efforts into an individual city or country. Just come to me when we have a problem or if you have some interesting information." Xander directed.
Igor simply nodded his head and parted company, silently walking back towards the main part of the chateau.
Xander pushed his way through the door of the chemistry lab where he had created Der Jägerbräu and headed towards the chemistry supply closet in the back of the room while at the same time pointing silently to a wooden medical/torture table that was in the room. The red Jäger followed the unspoken order and hopped up onto the table.
"So guys, how did this loss of arm thing happen?" Xander questioned as he walked out of the supply closet, all the while mixing in chemicals and dropping sparking blocks of slimy solid materials into a beaker.
"Vell, ve vere huntink for yer present, und it fought back." The purple Jäger stated with a shrug, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to go present shopping and have your arm torn off.
"I see." Xander stated, not really understanding at all. "Ok then, what is this present?" Xander replied, finishing mixing the chemicals together in a beaker and then adding a shot of high octane Jägermeister to the potion and then lighting it on fire with the flame from a Bunsen burner. With that, Xander turned around towards the Jägers to give the red Jäger the potion.
"Supprize! Itz yer Beeg Hat!" The four Jägers yelled as the cream colored Jäger pulled the cloth off of the gift.
Xander was so surprised that he almost dropped the potion that he was carrying, as his new "Beeg Hat" was smiling at him with more teeth than he knew existed on an animal; it was kind of creepy when the sharp toothed smiling hat was being held by equally sharp toothed smiling Jägers.
The hat was the head of a crocodile, but instead of eyes it had great big blinking red lights on it and perched on the head of the crocodile was a large gaudy gold crown with the words 'Da Boss's Beeg Hat'. To add to the effect of the hat, the purple Jäger quickly pulled out a lighter from his pocket and flicked the flint over the crown, igniting a hidden gas jet on the top of the crown and causing a large flame to shoot up from the top of it.
Xander was so stunned by the hat that he stood there slack jawed while the cream colored Jäger put it on Xander's head.
"Dat loukz goodz Boss." The red Jäger stated with a smile.
"Yez, hyu'll have al der goilz cirlingz aroundz ya now." The purple Jäger agreed.
"Hyu're almost as goot lookink as ve are now." The blue one nodded in agreement.
Xander blinked, and smiled for the first time that day.
"Thanks guys, I know what hats mean to you, so I really appreciate it." Xander stated with a large grin growing across his face, the four Jägers all puffed out their chests at the compliment.
Xander ignored the Jäger without the arm for a second and walked over to a large mirror that was against a wall of the room; who knows why a mirror would be kept in a chemistry lab, but there it was.
Xander looked at his reflection in the mirror, and realized that he had never looked more like a true Heterodyne before. Xander just stared at his reflection. What a site it was, wearing a giant smiling, flaming, predatory hat, carrying a flaming chemistry beaker in one hand, a disembodied arm in the other, and standing in a dark dungeon chemistry lab surrounded by monsters.
"Bwa ha ha. Bwa ha ha ha ha. Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA!" Xander started laughing, cackling, chortling and bellowing with laughter as the stress of the morning kind of got to him and the crazy situation that he found himself in, caused him to finally release part of the tension that he had built up that morning.
"Da boss iz kind uf scary." The purple Jäger whispered out of the side of his mouth to the other Jägers as they stared at their boss crazily laughing his head off.
"Vell, he iz a Heterodyne, vat do hyu ekspeck?" The red Jäger whispered back, and the rest of the Jägers all nodded in agreement.
"Ha ha, oh, sorry guys, I really needed that laugh." Xander stated as he used the disembodied arm to wipe the tears out of his eyes that had formed from laughing so hard. Xander was thinking that his life always seemed so crazy, but that it wasn't often that he got the chance to really take a glimpse at himself and realize how abnormal his life truly was. God, he missed Sunnydale and its boring old regular apocalypse season and set routine of nightly patrol routes.
Shaking his head to clear the memories of his former home, Xander turned towards the Jägers.
"Here, hold this for a second while I grab the duct tape." Xander stated as he walked back over to the red Jäger and handed over the flaming potion and the dismembered arm.
Digging into one of his ever present pockets of goodies, Xander pulled out a large roll of duct tape; totally ignoring the fact that he'd pulled a roll of duct tape out of a pocket on his jeans that was too small to contain said roll of duct tape.
Xander then proceeded to duct tape the dismembered arm of the Jäger back to the shoulder.
"Dat's gunna schmot ven he rips dat uff." The purple Jäger stated to the blue one while nodding towards the duct tape Xander was using on the hairy arm and shoulder of the red Jäger.
The blue Jäger nodded fiercely in agreement; no male of any species enjoys having their body hair ripped out by duct tape.
"Ok, so drink the potion and you should be good in about five minutes." Xander stated as he stepped back from the red Jäger.
It was a good thing that Xander did step back, for no sooner had the red Jäger swallowed the whole flaming potion in one gulp then the red Jäger's eyes had watered and a mass of flames were belched out of his mouth to singe the eyebrows of the cream colored Jäger standing a good two feet away.
"Yum, schpicy." The red Jäger stated as he smacked his lips and began to test the mobility of his already moving reattached arm.
Xander smiled at the Jägers, they were fun to be around, if not a bit crazy.
"So Boyz, where did you get the hat from?" Xander asked casually by way of continuing the earlier conversation.
"Ve got it in de severs uf Gotham." The red Jäger answered proudly.
A cold trickle of dread slowly started to spread down Xander's neck.
"Yeah, dere vere dis guy fightink vith dis large krocidile, und ve decided to help out und get hyu a Beeg Hat." The purple Jäger added with a smile.
Xander cringed as he slowly removed the hat from his head, he had a pretty good idea what was sitting on his head, but he knew he had to ask to be sure.
"Um guys, did either of these two figures happen to mention their names?" Xander asked, hoping and praying that he was wrong.
"Vell de vun dressed in black und vearink de kape kalled de krocodile kroc before ve killed de krocodile und made dis great pie." The cream colored Jäger stated.
"De guy in de black kape vasn't very friendly, but he deed giff us de schpices for de pie und dis nize toothpick." The purple one added, picking his teeth with what Xander knew was a batarang.
Xander palmed his forehead. 'Yep, I was right, they made a hat out of Killer Croc.' Xander thought. Sighing to himself, he rubbed his hands on his face while he quickly thought about how he felt about the Jäger's killing the croc and 'processing' him.
'Well, Croc was more animal than human after all. Heck I would have probably killed Croc for being a murderer anyway.' Xander rationalized to himself as he started pacing back and forth across his lab; the Jägers were all busy enjoying the pie by this time.
Xander stopped his pacing and turned to the Jägers as a thought struck him. "Um guys, please tell me you didn't kill Batman, the guy in black?"
"No boss, ve chust gaff him de same lesson hyu gaff us, don' vare kapes. Ve chust tied him up in his kape und left him dere." The blue Jägers stated proudly before reaching for another slice of pie.
Xander just started pacing faster. 'They freaking tied Batman up in his cape; never saw a villain do that one before. Not that the guy knows I was behind the prank and the break in, but if he ever figures out who I am, I'm in a world of trouble.' Xander thought furiously, his thoughts flying through possible plans of dealing with the current situation. Eventually, he came to a simple conclusion and stopped pacing to face the Jägers.
"Ok guys, new rule. No minions, robots, or Jägerkin are to have any contact with Batman, and all Jägerkin must stay out of Gotham City unless I say so. Understand?" Xander stated with a serious look on his face.
The Jägers all stopped their eating and looked up at him. They understood a command when it was given, and this was a command. They didn't really understand why Der Boss was making the command, but then they didn't believe they needed to know why. The Jägerkin thinking was, "Our duty hain't to ask vy, our duty iz to fight und flirtz vit de goilz."
In reply the Jägers all gave a "Yez Boss," and a salute; the Jäger holding the pie dropped it on the floor so that he could salute properly.
Just as Xander was about to give more instructions, Igor rushed into the room.
"Sir, We have a problem." Igor stated, clearly a bit agitated.
Xander palmed his face again as he thought, 'What a day!'
"What is it now, Igor?" Xander replied, turning to focus on Igor.
"It's the coffee shop in Gotham sir." Igor explained.
Xander cringed, it had to be Gotham. 'Some days it just doesn't do to get out of bed, especially when you float out of said bed and end up above it by 15,000 feet.' Xander thought.
"What's wrong with the new coffee shop in Gotham, Igor? Are we out of coffee? Did we get robbed or something?" Xander questioned.
"No sir, the minions assigned to the Gotham location were all killed, and then they got up and left the shop." Igor answered.
Xander's brain hiccupped at that statement, and he played it over in his head again, and the results of the replay made him angry.
"What do you mean that the employees were all killed, and then got up and left?" Xander growled, anger beginning to cloud his features as Xander quickly marched out of the room towards the security center that he had his minions install at the transportation center. The idea was that though physical security measures would draw too much attention to the coffee shops, visual surveillance of the facilities would enable Xander to rush forces to any location that came under attack.
"Just that sir, several human looking beings rushed into the store right before closing time and were able to attack and apparently kill the workers and customers." Igor filled Xander in as they continued through the Chateau and out the front doors, the Jägers immediately formed up silent guard positions in a square around Xander.
"Why do you say human looking, and how many did we kill with the hold out weapons that I supplied my stores?" Xander questioned, the anger and frustration of the day was building to a peak, and Xander was furious that somebody had attacked people that Xander had the responsibility to care for.
"None of the attackers were killed sir. One barista and a busboy were able to pull the pistols you had supplied and shot to kill. Chest shots were made as the film shows the bullets exiting the backs of the beings while causing significant tissue damage; yet the wounds did not kill the beings. In fact they didn't bleed at all when shot but seemed to bare fangs and attack with inhuman speed." Igor stated as they entered the transit center and proceeded towards the security station. The minions that they passed could see that Xander was angry, and a sudden electric feeling started to build in the air as anticipation started to build in the populace of New Mechanicsburg.
Xander did not like the news that Igor was giving him. There was only one thing that Xander knew of that could take a bullet to the chest like that and still shrug it off with a smile as it spilled the blood of its victim. Added to the fact that then said victim willingly followed their attacker out the door after getting killed pretty much cinched the deal in his mind.
Igor led Xander through the cavernous security room built under the transit center; minions were sitting at thousands of monitors that showed split screen views of all of Xander's properties and stores.
"Show me the attack." Xander commanded, and the main 20 foot by 40 foot screen in the room changed from a map of the world to a replay of the security screens from the Gotham coffee shop.
The screens cleared to show the workers tidying up the store and helping the last minute customers receive their orders. Then four figures, three indistinct men and a woman dressed in what looked like a secretary's tight business skirt and heels walked in, the main feature of said foursome was that their skin was bleach white. Then the action started as the woman grabbed a man who attempted to hold the door open for her as he exited. Just like that, the girl extended fangs and proceeded to slice out the man's throat.
Screams poured out of the speakers for a second before Xander yelled angrily for the sound to be cut.
The viewers then watched passively but with anger growing on their features as they watched the barista and the bus boy pull forty caliber semi-automatic glocks and open fire on the girl. Said 'girl' took two shots to the chest, knocking her off of the man who was clearly dead as his unseeing eyes stared openly up at the camera as the rest of the action continued. Unfortunately, the girl got back up and two of the three men went for the busboy and the barista who continued to shoot at the attackers, clearly showing hits as desiccated guts and gore punched out of exit wounds in the backs of the assailants. The cameras continued to film as the attackers killed all of the people in the coffee shop, stopping to dig their fangs into the throats of the struggling humans and spreading blood liberally around the room before walking calmly out of the store. A minute later the corpses twitched and seem to rise from the ground as if they were picked up by the strings of a marionette, then they too walk out the door to no doubt spread their misery.
"Fucking Vampires! I hate mother fucking Vampires! Fuck fuck fuck!" Xander yelled punching his fist through a consol that lit up in sparks and caught on fire; a minion quickly shot it with an extinguisher.
Xander started pacing, talking to himself as the minions made a space large enough for him to continue moving without being impeded; the Jägers stood at the corners of his path and faced out as if looking for threats that could attack Xander.
"I don't know which world this is damn it! Is this the world of the cartoon movie Batman v. Dracula where Batman is able to dust Dracula and change all of the vampires back to humans, or is this one of those where even Batman gets bitten and turned into a Vampire?" Xander said angrily to himself as he turned and paced back the opposite direction he had just traveled.
"Damn it, this could even be the beginning of that alternate earth where everybody is turned into Vampires. Dare I chance Batman being able to handle it himself?" Xander questioned to himself, as he turned and again focused on the screen in the center of the control center, the screen was in the middle of replaying the scene where the woman tore out the throat of the man who had politely tried to open the door for her on his way out of the coffee shop.
Xander stared at the screen and got more and more angry as he watched it. In his mind the figures of the victims took on the faces of his friends, and when he saw the busboy who looked so much like Jesse get his throat ripped out, that did it.
"Fuck Batman! I'm going to kill them all! Every last Mother Fucking Vampire I can get my hands on." Xander yelled in fury, shaking his fist at the screen before turning to face the stunned minions and Jägers who had never seen this dark side of him.
Xander's eyes clearly showed an inner darkness and promised of pain and death as he turned towards Igor and the town's folk who had pledged themselves to him.
"We're going to war boys and girls. Boyz, I'm rescinding my previous order, We are heading back to Gotham." Xander stated with an evil smile as a shadow seemed to cover his features, almost visibly twisting his features with his cold fury.
A dark light began to shine in the eyes of the witnessing towns folk and Jägerkin as their replying smiles took on an evil hue, responding to Xander madness tinged look.
"Blood for blood, body for body people. We are going to finish the job of The Black Heterodyne should have done once and for all." Xander yelled, his voice rising to a pitch, and then he started issuing orders.
"Igor, recall all of Da Boyz and get a work crew building robot 32D from my war chest and mass producing armor set Mark VIII for Da Boyz." Xander stated to Igor before turning to the Jägerkin. "Break out the Toastmaster 2000's Boyz, it's time to Bar-B-Q us some Vampires." Xander commanded.
With that, the lights of the command center went to red and people started purposefully running around while outside air-raid sirens started sounding and townsfolk started running towards stations and jobs that they were pre-assigned in just such a situation.
Xander double timed it out of the command center and headed back towards the chateau, all the while issuing orders to Dora and Tara who had formed up behind him while he was talking. Dora and Tara were relaying Xander's messages through communicators and acted as a portable communications network for him while at the same time one Jäger took off sprinting towards the new Jäger barracks and the other towards the armory which was situated under the town's post office; the remaining two planted themselves as bodyguards at Xander's sides.
As Xander marched along he pointed to minions who were running by and ordered that the strongest burliest men of the town to meet him in the forging laboratories to work on the armor.
The people of New Mechanicsburg were humming with activity and the old timers peppered their work with retellings of past invasions of rival cities and the wars that The Black Heterodyne had led them in.
Two thousand miles away in the State of New York, the City of Gotham was already under siege and didn't even know it. Neither the Dark Knight nor the citizens of Gotham knew it, but the city would play witness to a clashing of two of the most fearsome military forces to walk the world; one populated by the empowered undead and led by the self proclaimed 'First Vampire' Dracula, the other filled with monstrous and mechanical constructs led by a mad genius White Knight.
"Not a White Knight," Xander said to himself as he took out the drawings for his armor and spread them across the work table in the forging room deep under the chateau. The drawings showed an 8 foot tall hulking figure of metal with a skull like mechanized mask and skull and scarab motif for designs on the knees and chest.
Xander pressed a button on his desk and over a ton of the dark grey colored Nth Metal was dumped into the smelter.
"Definitely not a White Knight any longer, now I'll be the Grey Knight."