Spark of Genius

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy verse, Girl Genius verse, DC comics or any of the other smatterings of pop culture and literary ideas that I refer to in my story, I just tread through a few other sandboxes.

AN1: Nothing of note here in the author's note, why are you still reading this author's note? Go on. Go read the story. Are you still reading this? Perhaps you come to this site for the wrong reason? I thought you came here for the fanfiction?

AN2: Kudos to anybody who recognized the Yuri character from PC video gaming.

'Thought'

"Speech"

Chapter 16: Birth of a World Power

"Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

~P.J. O'Rourke

Xander was facing an itsy bitsy small minor task, namely remaking a country and turning it into a world superpower in economics, prosperity, and military might. Oh, and he had to do it in seven days.

Xander chuckled to himself under his breath as he gazed out the window of a government building on the palace square, "Heck, if God could make the world in seven days, then remaking a country in seven days should be a snap." He continued to talk to himself as he gazed out over the still cheering throngs of people who were celebrating their liberation in the square. "I mean, of course he was God and all that, and I'm not, but at least I don't have to start from scratch."

Clapping his hands together, and then rubbing them together before cracking his knuckles, Xander turned his black helmeted visage to look at a visual image of Igor that was being projected out of the briefcase sitting on the now clean dining table; the gore and guts of Yuri and Ceauşescu having already been cleaned up in the room. Igor was currently in New Mechanicsburg, but through liberal use of the transportation technology it was possible to beam a communications signal in and out of the Romania, even with it being out of phase with the rest of the world. It was totally against the laws of planer physics that you could locate something that both existed and was simultaneously outside of existence at the same time, but through Xander's spark he had made it work, well, that and a decoder ring from a cracker-jack box.

"Igor, what's the easiest thing on my plate or one of the first things that needs to be decided before I get the manufacturing rolling along with the health, military and governmental reforms enacted?" Xander asked as he walked away from the window, pulled out a seat in front of the holographic projection and kicked his feet up onto the cherry wood table.

The image of Igor, standing just a foot high in the holographic image pulled out his ever ready data pad and started flipping through it.

"It seems sir that a change in image is called for now that you've labeled yourself the 'Leviathan.' I've prepared a series of images and artwork for your perusal to be used in modifying your black flag. I do want to mention that we are pleased that you are honoring the memory of our former master by using the solid black flag as your background." Igor continued.

"Oh, um, ok, um, yeah, that was my goal the whole time." Xander mumbled while rubbing his gloved hand over the back of his neck; he hadn't realized that the solid black flag had anything to do with The Black Heterodyne.

"Yes sir, like I was saying, we do appreciate it as after the master left Europe they primarily used his flags to denote anarchy, piracy, or mourning after death. It will be nice to see it flown proudly by a new despot, brings joy to this old man's bones it does." Igor continued, the image wiping a happy tear from the hunchback's eye, totally unaware of Xander's awkwardness at the moment.

"If you access the image file on your heads up display you will see that I am sending files suggesting mythological creatures reminiscent of descriptions that could fit with details on the mythical Leviathan." Igor stated as his image dragged his finger across the data pad in his hands.

"You've got mail!" A voice stated in Xander's helmet, and a little icon appeared in the upper right hand corner of his heads up display. Xander smiled at the little quirk he had added to his computer system.

Mentally querying the electronic package, a series of images started to appear in front of Xander's eyes.

"No, not a white whale, I'm not Moby Dick. No, not the Hydra, don't want to mess with those whackos. Keep going, no, not the pink dragon, I'm not Puff… keep going, keep going. No, not Cthulhu, too squid like… Keep going, Kraken no, keep going… Wait!" Xander cried out as the images flashed before his eyes quickly, "Go back two images Jarvis." Xander commanded and his AI in his helmet complied.

Xander looked at the silhouette of a three headed golden dragon pictured with its upper body and wings rising out of the rolling waves; one head looked like it was fiercely staring ahead while the other two heads had their mouths open as if they were roaring at the heavens and earth. Xander looked at it for a second, and then started to giggle.

Xander's giggle turned into a chuckle, and then a belly laugh that eventually had tears rolling down his cheeks.

"I always did tell Willow and Jesse that King Ghidorah could kick Godzilla's butt any day." Xander said through his tears of mixed joy and sorrow. It was these little things, these dorky little memories of times gone by that seemed to sneak up on Xander. That caused him to miss what he had lost yet also try and find joy where he was now. Xander still had many mixed emotions about being here in the DC comic book universe where boyhood dreams clashed with the reality of his situation as well as what he had lost. All in all he was making the best of his situation, but he really missed just having friends. Sometimes it was nice to just be a 'Xander shaped friend' or 'He-Who-Brings-Donuts.'

Sniffling his nose, Xander gave a mental command and his helmet seemed to ripple and melt down his face and into the collar of his suit. Xander removed his feet from the table and sat forward in the chair, putting his elbows on his knees as he wiped his nose with the back of his suit sleeve and then used the palm of his hand to dry his eyes before taking a deep breath and then sitting up and focusing back on the holographic figure of Igor, who stoically looking back at Xander.

"Whew," Xander exhaled. "Sorry about that, let's go with the three headed gold dragon rising from the depths of the ocean motif." Xander replied to Igor's earlier question.

"Right away sir, though I do suggest you take a break to… 'relax' with Dora and Tara when you can. It's not healthy for the master to get so pent up as it were." Igor resolutely replied, punching the order into the data pad while ignoring Xander's incredulous look, "Your flags and insignia will be updated to show the new moniker of the Leviathan. Now if you would again pull up your HUD, we can commune on the plan for the week." Igor suggested.

Xander sat up straight in his chair and told his helmet to reactivate, enjoying the brief moment of having his face free from the confines of his mask before the rippling nano-clank technology in his outfit again solidified into a solid black mask. The question mark on Xander's mask disappeared, and the new moniker of the three headed gold dragon King Ghidorah appeared as a large broach or pin on Xander's suit's lapel.

Xander mentally started flying through commands and plans as drop downs and CAD designs flew across the inside of his helmet at the speed of thought; the speed of thought for a genius spark like Xander was very fast indeed. The hologram of Igor on the table in front of Xander was furiously typing and moving his hands across his keyboard; fingers seeming to fly as the chief minion did what he did best, assisting his master.

Silently, master and minion worked in sync to create and develop something that was stronger, better, faster and more powerful than either could do alone. It was the very definition of synergy as the plans and ideas, designs and counters, piled up and flew out of Xander and Igor's minds and were formed into tangible ideas, designs and plans that were saved into the AI computers. Igor, being a true bred and raised minion, knew exactly what Xander expected and wanted exactly when Xander needed it, if not before.

Then Xander started to hum to himself as the spark kicked into high gear in his mind. An eerie light seemed to almost shine from Xander's eyes as the ideas that shot out onto the computer's screen were combinations of boyhood memories and science fiction that would warp the mind and send most logical scientists screaming in fear.

Somewhere, Mother Nature and the laws of the universe shook in fear as Xander hit the enter key, and his plans were completed.

Looking up at the holographic image of Igor, Xander smiled from within his helmet, a manic insane smile of pure genius and fanboy glee come to life.

'Having your own country is fun.' Xander thought to himself madly, the understatement of the year.

The hologram of Igor pressed several buttons on his data pad before bowing to Xander.

"It will be as you command, my master." Igor stated from his bowed position before the hologram wavered and dissipated, and the briefcase snapped shut.

Xander hopped out of the chair, the movement from his standing sending the chair he had been sitting on flying across the room to shatter against the wall.

"Bwa ha ha ha ha." Xander cackled madly as he rubbed his hands together. "Let the fun begin!" He finished with a yell, before running out the door to get started on his reworking of Romania.

Xander's country had a lot to do before its date with the world.

All across the country of Romania a feeling of enthusiasm, anticipation and nationalism swept the country. Every man, woman, and child was utterly devoted to the cause set forth by their new leader, the Leviathan, and already they were seeing the benefits.

Food was everywhere and easily accessible. Strawberries as big as elephants were stocked in warehouses beside apples the sizes of busses and piles of wheat, each wheat kernel the size of a child's head. The shrinking and enlargement technology was used to enlarge the everyday goods by magnitudes of a hundred. Cows the size of bull elephants produced bathtub's full of milk, and pigs the size of horses were turned into piles of bacon that would make any man cry at the gorgeous site of so much bacon-y goodness. Next to Twinkies, bacon was right up there on Xander's 'goodness' scale of goodies; not as high as Twinkies and all their godlike glory, but pretty dang close. The food as well as the grass and feed for the animals was enlarged after harvest, that way the soil wasn't overly tapped out, and the overabundance of 'fertilizer' from the enlarged animals was captured and tilled into the soil to recapture the nutrients. In fact, all of the countries waste products were being captured and used, from the carbon and water of car exhaust, to the flatulence and waste of the animals and humans. The carbon and nitrate waste would come in handy with the creation of the military.

The country of Romania was turning green and the somewhat smoggy skies of the major cities were clearing up as little clanks scattered throughout the country fitting caps onto the exhaust pipe of every chimney, vehicle, or waste removal passage and they jetted across the sky on little helicopter blades while dragging devices that ionized the air and drew the chemical particle matter out of the sky. The caps on the exhaust pipes, once applied, sealed themselves in the aperture and couldn't be removed without melting away into nothing if tampered with. However while they were in place, little portals captured every drop of carbon dioxide, harmful waste chemical, or sludge and sent it to a central repository deep in the carved out mountains of Romania. Huge facilities were being mined out of the Romanian mountains, making the mountains mere shells as the outside stayed completely untouched but the inside materials were turned into storage and treatment facilities as the minerals and ore were mined out to create more and more robots and clanks of every type imaginable. All waste products, from the sewage sludge to the industrial waste was captured, distilled into its basic parts through the use of nano-clanks, and then reused to support the industrial growth of a country caught in the largest economic boom in the history of the world. While the countryside around them was being healed and growing healthier, the health of the Romanian people had never been better either.

In every city, township, and unassociated hamlet portals opened up to disgorge busses of medical personnel who were announcing that cure-all shots were available to everybody for free. The people responded in droves, every infant, every grandfather, every mother and everybody in between lined up to get their shots. Through the science of nano-clank technology and the medical knowledge in Xander's brain, plus the Lazarus Pit formula, every citizen of the country was inoculated against the common cold, everyday viruses, and even such nasty things such as AIDS or drug addiction; the little microscopic clanks in the injection went to work repairing damage to the Romanian peoples' bodies from the DNA level on up. Children on the cancer wards had nano-clanks shrink the cancer cells from inside their bodies, the cancerous cells were then broken down and transformed into protein molecules that were then used to rebuild stunted and unused muscles and radiation damaged tissues and bone marrow. Brain and neurologic disorders, diseases, and injuries were treated as the miniature clanks balanced the body's chemistry or reconnected nervous systems that had been severed or broken. Drug abuse was cleared, cholesterol cleaned up, even toxin buildup from alcohol or tobacco abuse was cleaned out of the peoples' bodies as Xander's loyal little nano-clanks went to work. It was a panacea for everything but old age. But with old age Xander also had a plan.

For those too old or frail for the nano-clanks to fully repair, the offer of immortality as a Jägerkin was offered and accepted. Throughout the entire country the old were made young and hearty again as old men and women gained the strength, power and agility of the Jäger and the will and loyalty to serve the Leviathan who made their continued life possible. In this way Xander not only helped his people stay alive and healthy, Xander also gained the second largest standing military force in the world at over three million loyal soldiers; not counting the original Romanian military force that was left after the 'Primal' got through with it.

Education and retraining were rampant as those individuals who had previously been involved with the medical, elderly care or other now 'non-necessary' industries and who were not needed for emergent care or research were easily retrained due to the use of the same nano-clank technology that Xander used to mentally control his computers, only here the computers put the equivalent of a college education or master level trade directly into the brain of the recipient. In this way not only did Xander's military and civilian populations receive the training they needed, but massive educational boosts in basic literacy and education were free and widely spread throughout the population. No longer would socioeconomic forces play a limiting factor in what jobs a person could get as the training and education were readily and quickly available for all who wished it. Coupled with Xander's speech and the enthusiasm for growth and gain, the people flocked to become productive citizens of the Romanian Nation; one nation, under Leviathan.

Romania and its people were becoming somewhat scary in their rapid growth into a Utopian society, all the more scary when after three days the entire population had been inoculated against sickness by nano-clanks loyal to Xander. It wasn't the lack of illness in the country that was scary, it was that after the nano-clanks had been injected that on the third day all of the violent or fraudulent criminals and corrupt members of Romania found their bodies marching them into the nearest police station to turn themselves in. The criminals were unable to tell lies and willingly spilled all of their secrets, including the bank account numbers and stashes of money or goods from their nefarious deeds, all of which led to Xander gaining incredible amounts of money and material goods that had belonged to organized crime or corrupt individuals. Though this lack of personal freedom would be widely decried throughout the Western World, if they knew it was going on at the time, the results spoke for themselves as the crime rate in Romania dropped to zero in the space of six hours. This freed up the parks and streets from crime, and commerce flourished as people were no longer afraid to walk the streets after dark, even in the formerly poorest of neighborhoods. The nano-clanks enabled Xander to almost instantaneously sort through the prisoners already in captivity and free those who were innocent while simultaneously judging and punishing those who were guilty. The nano-clanks uploaded a report to a massive computer that Xander's minions had built and housed at his castle. The supercomputer, much vaster in power than any computer ever built at that time on planet earth, was truly alive, and a copy of Xander's personality had been uploaded into it but with fail-safes that totally slaved its will and goals to that of the living Xander. Perhaps the only computer that could have competed with Xander's was the computer hidden in the fortress of solitude by Superman. The computer tended to Xander's flock like a benevolent Big Brother, making sure that the people of Romania had everything they could want to survive and thrive with, only watching out for criminal actions and then detaining the person until they could be dealt with. By dealt with, Xander meant repaying their debt to society by working in Xander's factories or harvesting goods in the fields that would make Romania self sufficient from the rest of the world. Those who wished to be redeemed could work. Those who were truly irredeemable murderers or sociopaths were painlessly euthanized and harvested for parts; again, a mad genius can never have enough human body parts and brains to experiment with.

The only major problem that Xander couldn't fully fix immediately was the country's dependence on fossil fuels, but Xander had plans for dealing with that after the country had phased back into place with the rest of the world. There were bigger problems to face then dependence on foreign oil, and Xander was sure that with enough money he could supply his country with the fuel it needed until he could solve that problem. No, Xander's main problem was making sure that the country existed in one piece when it phased back into the world as Igor had forwarded him files suggesting that Russia and other countries around Romania were already debating about who should own the land in the crater left by Xander taking the country out of phase.

Xander was sure that when he brought the country back to its proper place that the world was going to be even more riled up than they already were. The existing superpowers of the world were not going to be happy when they saw the type of military force that Xander was able to create in a mere seven days. The shear level of technology and firepower that Xander was planning on creating would be both a blessing and a curse as the superpowers and Romania's neighbors were not going to be happy one bit that the country had militarized as much as Xander planned. Alternatively, the world would be clamoring for free access to the technologies that cured illness, pollution, crime and hunger and Xander knew that he would have to protect his countries assets for fear of the larger countries trying to steal his gifts to his people. Vacuums and changes in world power tended to get a bit messy, that's why Xander was convinced that he needed to make his military so strong, so awe inspiring, so fearsome that nobody would believe it worth their while to tangle with him and his adopted country. Xander might be a mostly insane genius with some inklings towards world domination, but gosh darn it he was going to make the citizens of his empire the happiest and most prosperous citizens in the whole world if not the whole universe.

Towards the goal of military dominance Xander created the Machine Mountains where the weapons formed from fantasy and boyhood reading of comics and fiction were made reality. Restarting the dilapidated factories of Romania was just the beginning as Xander's manufacturing efforts expanded until the entire insides of mountains were turned into gigantic factories and production facilities for his war machine; the former contents of said mountains going into the ever hungry machine that was Xander's new factories of war machines.

Out of the pages of Mechwarrior came the clan Omnimechs of all sizes, huge hulking platforms for weapons that walked the earth like behemoth 'Old Ones'; if Ares the God of War had been watching Romania while it was out of connection with the world, he would have wet himself with glee. The mechs came with heavy armor, fast mobility, jet boosters, and Nth metal based anti-gravity fields. The mechs armaments included magnetic encapsulated plasma-round guns, rail-guns, and gauss cannons that launched rounds as large as VW Beetles, TSEMP (Tight-Stream-Electro-Magnetic-Pulse) weapons, missile launchers, repeater laser blasters, and more machineguns and Gatling cannons then the entire German army had guns during the Second World War. Yes it sounded like overkill to most people, but Xander's motto was, "There is no such thing as overkill, there are only dead enemies." Ultimately the lasers had been easy to make, as every two bit villain in the DC comic book universe had a laser gun or two. The rail-guns, gauss cannons, and the guns that launched plasma rounds were just upgraded, enlarged, and tweaked versions of Xander's Marshmallow Gun of Doom or his Toastmaster 2000s. Furthermore, every MacGyver with a roll of duct tape and some chewing gum could make a machinegun, missile launcher or Gatling cannon. All of this coupled with Xander's transportation technology and power sources allowed for a much cooler system than what had been written about in the Mechwarrior books. Both cooler figuratively and literally as the machine wouldn't be carrying around a fusion engine in its guts as a power source and could vent the heat away from weapons as quickly as it was created. This was just the armored mechanized ground vehicles in Xander's army.

On top of creating more and more defensive clanks and terminator robots, Xander needed to get armor for his millions of Jägerkin soldiers and regular standing army. To answer his needs, Xander turned to the classics, at least what any geeky sci-fi fan considered the classics. From Starwars came the Dark Trooper III armor as Xander's main military needed mobility as well as heavy fire power and a strong defense. Hulking black and gold dragon emblazoned power armor equipped with jet packs, repeater Gatling blaster cannons, thermal detonators, plasma and fragmentation grenades, and missile launchers were standard equipment for the highly computerized armor that would boost the already super strong Jäger's to new heights of strength and speed. Xander was absolutely adamant about the grenade, because nothing says 'I love you' like a thermonuclear grenade; it was a good thing the Jägers had super strong pitching arms.

The armored shell of the Dark Trooper III armor was made from the same stuff that the Omnimechs were armored with. Xander had decided that the armor needed to be totally different than the demon hunter Jägers that accompanied the 'Grey Knight,' so he started with metallo and then combined it as an alloy with compressed carbon layered and laminated at the atomic layer by hordes of nano-clanks that had been shrank to a degree that it took an electron microscope to see them. This mixture of carbon, collected from Romania's waste and pollution, and metallo was just as strong if not stronger than any Phrik blend from the original suit of armor in the books and video games. The mix of incredible pressure and transphased heat treated carbon and metallo made armor had the indestructibility of metallo multiplied by the hardened and reflective ability of the diamond-ized waste carbon. Basically, you really didn't want to shoot it with a laser, as your laser was likely to bounce right back at you and make sure you never had to worry about having kids.

For airpower, Xander had stuck with mass producing the Starscream units that he had created earlier, at least that was what he was willing to show the world at the moment. Growing up in the Harris household had taught Xander to hide his true abilities, to always have something in surplus for the bad times, and that those who are in power will do whatever they can to retain that power; these lessons brought to you by the loving fists and belt of Anthony Harris.

Though all of the manufacturing processes and improvements were carried out by Xander's minions and clanks, Xander was hardly being lazy during the remaining days before his country would be revealed to the world. Not only did he have to build something special to protect Romania's coastal waters, he had a lot of work to do with the hearts and minds of his enemies.

By dealing with the hearts and minds of his enemies, Xander didn't mean trying to win over the rest of the world, no, he had a backlog of brains to tinker with. Principally, Xander had the brain of Yuri to deal with along with any secrets that the now dead telepath had left behind. Thus it was the morning of the eighth day of Romania being out of phase with the rest of the world that found Xander digging through the government buildings Ceauşescu had left behind.

Deep in the bowels of the main executive branch building on Palace Square, Xander's clanks had discovered a hidden chamber behind a wall within an unused woman's restroom. Xander knew it was Yuri's hideout, as only in the DC comic book universe did a villain hide his layer by putting signs up on the bathroom's door saying, "Out of Order, stay out on pain of death and the frying of your brain!"

The brain bit had been a little hint as to who had placed the sign.

"What is it with creepy villains using the woman's bathroom as the entrance to their secret layer? Somebody's read a bit too much Harry Potter I'm afraid." Xander said to himself as his helmet scanned the wall of the girls' bathroom and directed him to a faucet on the 'dirtiest' sink Xander had ever seen.

Reaching out for what appeared to be a brown smear covered faucet, Xander was silently thankful that his Leviathan outfit included gloves. Xander turned the faucet on the sink and watched as the wall and the sink split in two and then sank into the floor; revealing a lighted stairway that led deeper under the building.

Xander stepped onto the first step going down, and it was only by the grace of his super hearing and speed that stopped Xander from being impaled by spikes that shot out of the ceiling above the step.

Xander dived forward and rolled bouncingly down the steps before landing upside down, limbs akimbo, against a solid plate steel door at the bottom of the steps.

Righting himself, Xander turned and looked up the stairs and saw that the spikes had again retracted into the ceiling, seeming to disappear in the concrete at the threshold.

"Tricky bugger, weren't you Yuri." Xander said out loud as he shook his head.

"Sir, I suggest using your flight ability next time you decided to dive down a staircase." The proper English voice of Xander's AI Jarvis suggested to Xander in an unflappable monotone voice.

Xander was about to snark back, but then paused for a second as he realized that his AI was right. Xander realized that he wasn't thinking like he had super powers, he was thinking and reacting like yay old Xander Harris of Sunnydale USA. Xander had all these smarts, but he needed to not just act and react, he had to remind himself to get his abilities to be second nature.

'Something else to put on the to-do list.' Xander thought to himself.

'Make sure to put the Harem up there on the top of the list also!' A little voice shouted in the back of Xander's head.

'What? How did you get out of that room? Back into the back of his head libido, this is no time for Xander to be thinking with his dick.' A second voice commanded.

There was the sound of a brawl in the back of Xander's head, followed by the locking of many bolts and padlocks on a door, followed by the sound of the clicking of a safe's dial being turned.

'There, back to work you!' The second voice commanded Xander.

Xander just shook his head and turned to focus on the plate steel door before him, a security keypad on the wall to the right of the door.

"Thank you Jarvis, I'll try to remember." Xander told his AI while focusing on the steel door.

"So, 'What Would Superman Do' in a situation like this?" Xander postulated out loud while examining the door.

A brief second later, a grin grew across Xander's face.

Punching both fists at the door with his fingers jutting like claws, Xander buried his fingers into the thick steel door as easily as if he was sinking his fingers into play-dough or silly-putty. Wrenching backwards, Xander tore the four inch thick steel door out of its fittings and threw it behind him and up the stairs. Xander watched the door sail up the stairway as easily as a kid would throw a Frisbee, and then turned around to look at the now empty doorway as he heard the flying doorway 'clang' as it impacted into something in the bathroom where the secret entrance was hidden.

Xander took one look at the doorframe and let out a whistle as he was impressed with what he saw there.

Wide eyed, Xander spoke to himself, "Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking about 'What Would Superman Do?'" Xander said to himself as he admired the green glowing rocks that had been imbedded all around the frame of door in the ceiling, walls, and floor.

Xander stepped towards the door and leaned in to examine the glowing rocks, "Jarvis, please analyze the green stones. Is that what I think it is?" Xander questioned.

"Yes sir, the rocks are cut and polished stones of green Kryptonite. Apparently the late Mr. Yuri had planned ahead for possible interference from Superman or a member of his species." Jarvis reported, the inside of Xander's helmet showing the radiation readings and wavelengths as spectrometers and rotating three dimensional diagrams of the kryptonite were shown to Xander on the inside of his HUD.

"Well, Batman always did refer to Superman as a boy scout, so no harm in taking a page from his book and 'always be prepared.'" Xander said with a smile as he laid his gloved hand over one of the stones in the door.

"Absorb," Xander commanded verbally, and the nano-clanks in the glove that made up the material of Xander's glove, currently colored black, seemed to ooze, swarm and pour off of his hand and into the small space between the edges of the green kryptonite stone and the threshold of the door. When the nano-clanks receded back into the material of Xander's glove, there was only a hole in the wall where the stone had been.

"Cool!" Xander exclaimed with a smirk, "Yay, that's magic and Kryptonians down, only a million other things that could potentially attack and kill me left to go… Wait, that's not good." Xander finished to himself, at first happy at his progress and then realizing that he still had a lot of work to do to keep himself safe.

Xander punched a couple portions of the doorway a few times, both for better access to the kryptonite stones as well as stress release based on the bit of anxiety that arose in Xander. Xander had been going with the flow so far, but it was that little niggling in the back of his head that sounded like Anthony Harris that told Xander that he was painting a proverbial target on his back by becoming a world leader and that Xander was a still vulnerable; the voice had just called Xander a 'wimp' but Xander translated it into the rest with worry.

Sighing as he tried to change his thoughts to something other than his dear old dad, Xander picked the remaining kryptonite stones out of the cracked cement of the threshold and dropped the stones into his pocket before entering the room and switching on an old fashioned power switch that sparked and then energized the equipment in Yuri's former hide out.

With the connection of electricity multiple weird devices came to life as Jacob's Ladders shot bands of sparks between their relays, containers with different colored fluids that contained animal and human brains started to bubble, and a light popped on over a blanket draped medical table and a work bench that had several bloody hacksaws on it and a few large leather bound tomes.

Xander walked into the room, stopped to tap on a glass container that had a floating brain in it and green bubbling fluid. Tapping on the container had the brain leaping towards the side of the jar as if trying to escape or attack Xander's finger. Xander quickly removed said fingers from the side of the container and backed away slowly. Turning his attention to the medical table and work bench, Xander walked over and flipped through a couple of tomes.

It was the cover of the second tome that caught Xander's attention, for right on the middle of the black leather cover was an embossed golden trilobite.

"You've got to be shitting me." Xander mumbled as he flipped open the cover of the book to the title page. There in neat yet somewhat ornamental cursive scrawl was the title, 'Inanimate to Animate, Bringing the Dead and Undead to Life,' by T.B. Heterodyne.

Xander flipped through the pages quickly as his reading speed and aptitude for learning quickly devoured each detail on the pages he quickly read.

"Wow, apparently Yuri didn't learn the trick with the frankfurter and the stein of beer in this book, but The Black Heterodyne clearly states how he keeps the brain healthy outside the body as well as the ability to form rudimentary controls based on brain wave modulation and electrical stimuli." Xander spoke to himself as he continued to quickly read.

"It says here… no no, that hypothesis is wrong as Vlad 'the Blasphemous' Heterodyne clearly stated in his dissertation on 'the proper cooking and gene modification of human and monkey brains' that thoughts can actually be read, directed, as well as trained, through the use of chemical and electric manipulation and addition." Xander mumbled to himself while continuing to read. Xander was absolutely absorbed in his reading and a little tune started to play in the back of his head as he pulled a pen out of his pocket and began scribbling something in the margins of the book before crossing out another section of the original text while adding in his own notes.

Mentally commanding his helmet to retract, Xander stuck the nib of the pen in his mouth while humming a sparky tune as he continued to read through The Black Heterodyne's tome on creating zombies, ghouls, vampires, and controlling brains; totally unaware that the pen in his mouth was turning his tongue blue.

Xander's eyes took on an excited glow as he quickly whipped through the tome by his ancestor and then hurriedly read through the other books and their thousands of pages in a matter of minutes.

Closing the last book, a journal written by Yuri in his quest to control the minds of living humans, Xander turned to the medical table beside him and whipped the sheet off of the large hulking figure. Strapped to the table was a cross stitched corpse of a man that looked like a bald Frankenstein monster; Xander paused as he looked at the corpse and the mental gears in Xander's head seemed to skip a beat and then work in over time.

The voices in Xander's head were yelling back and forth over the possibilities of his latest idea.

'Nein! Nein! Das est nein gut! It es a vaste of time and too stupid to be funny.' A voice that sounded like Colonel Clink from Hogan's Heroes yelled in Xander's head.

'Whoa dude, like chill out man, you're totally messing with my peaceful and fun loving vibes here man.' Xander's inner Californian stated; the sound of a bong hit following the righteous dude's counter argument.

Xander shook his head to shut up the voices before again focusing on the large body lying on the table. 'Perhaps Igor was right, perhaps it isn't smart for sparks to get so pent up, as I just had the strangest idea about getting the corpse to join me in a tap dancing and singing duet of Putting On The Ritz.' Xander thought before shaking himself and then covering the corpse again while taking the pen out of his mouth and putting it behind his ear.

" Mental note, make sure to go have some fun with Dora and Tara after all of Romania comes back into phase with the rest of the world." Xander mumbled to himself while picking up Yuri's notebook and walking over to a shelf that contained jars of floating brains.

Flipping open the notebook of Yuri that was in his hands, Xander looked back and forth between the scribbles on the pages and the brains on the shelf as his smile grew into something a little bit frightening.

Pulling his glove to his mouth, Xander mentally commanded the material covering his thumb to recede and then stuck his thumb into his mouth and bit down on his flesh, drawing a few drops of blood before his healing factor quickly repaired the self inflicted wound.

Xander spit the little bit of blood and saliva out on the ground and then command, "Ten-Hut!"

Suddenly, the nano-clanks that had been in Xander's drop of blood un-shrunk themselves and Xander was left with roughly thirty to forty little clanks piled up before him; little clanks that quickly hopped out of their pileup and then stood at attention before giving Xander a salute with their little metal clawed hands.

Xander's manic smile only got larger, as one of his earlier inventions actually worked; he hadn't been sure if the clanks would really grow larger again when they left the body and were commanded to (there had been a bit of a possibility that the rapid growth of so many clanks in the same area could have formed a small nuclear explosion due to overlapping matter, but oh well, such is science).

Quickly getting his brain back in gear, Xander started rapid firing orders to little clanks and they started scattering through the room before running back towards the containers of brains with electrical wires, paper clips, chewing gum, duct tape, circuit boards and a controller from an old Atari game console, and bailing wire. You can never have enough bailing wire.

Xander reached up on the shelf and pulled down a couple of containers of brains and brought them back over to the work bench which he cleared of tomes and writing materials with a sweep of his arm before setting down his arm full of brains.

Wires were quickly inserted through the lids of the jars, the fluid in the jars, and into different parts of the brain, the bubblegum was used along with the paper clips, and the duct tape was added to make sure that Xander's idea worked. 'Because everything works better with duct tape.' Xander thought to himself as he continued to make connections and tweaks to the wires that led to the Atari game console.

Finally, plugging in the joystick controller and connecting electricity to his conglomeration of wires, Xander called for somebody to find him a TV or computer monitor as well as some old video games.

Two little clanks came running across the room to Xander, both carrying stacks of Atari video games that came from who knows where. Another three packs of clanks swayed heavily carrying a pile of monitors and TVs that threatened to fall over and crash with the back and forth balancing motion that the little clanks were forced to do while moving the leaning tower of electronics towards Xander.

Xander quickly plugged monitors into the console array and multiple monitors before popping in a game of 'Space Invaders'. The load screen popped up, and then a series of bug like aliens flew down and then began to drop bombs towards a ship that Xander controlled across the bottom of the screen, shooting back at the bugs and using his super reflexes to quickly destroy all of the invaders on the screen.

Soon the second level started, but rather than playing it himself, Xander twisted two paperclips together, causing a spark to form and mildly electrocute Xander before the ship on the screen began to move about and again easily dispatched the enemy invading fleet; but this time Xander hadn't moved the controller at all.

"Yes! Wa Ha ha ha ha ha! It worked!" Xander cackled and jumped up and down in a little Snoopy happy dance before focusing on the screen and the brain that was now controlling the ship as it almost effortlessly destroyed the invading fleet of aliens on the screen.

Xander continued to madly laugh to himself as he attached secondary wires to another brain, and then a series of other brains, before setting up a second TV and plugging in the old Atari game 'Combat;' Xander only had to take the cartridge out and blow into it once to get it to work.

Quickly, Xander played the 'Combat' game's modes of Biplane and then Jet, followed by several different versions of the Tank game that were included in the classic Atari 'Combat' cartridge. Again twisting together several more sets of paper clips, Xander watched as the first brain controlled the units though the different versions, and then the other sets of brains that Xander had set up in the series started to play the games against the first brain and against each other as each subsequently learned from the first; each brain improvising and using its full ability to play the game as they had nothing else to divide their concentration.

Xander was laughing his head off with glee and was constantly doing the Snoopy dance as the brains in the background were playing through the combat games, a nice demo of things to come.

"Ha ha ha! Excelent." Xander commented as he slouched over and tapped his fingers together rapidly in imitation of the cartoon character Mr. Burns from the Simpsons TV show.

Xander smirked at his own antics and stood up and then looked at his watch to check the time.

"Good, I've got a half an hour to go before I have to get ready for the parade." Xander said to himself after looking at the time on his watch.

Xander quickly swung around towards a cabinet that was in the back of the laboratory, accidentally knocking over a container on the room's central table, a jar that contained the vicious brain that had earlier tried to bite Xander's finger when he had tapped on the glass.

Ignoring the crashing sound behind him, Xander walked towards the cabinet that was slightly open and pulled it open to find an old fashioned tube radio and a few pictures of a short scrawny pale faced boy with braces and head gear.

Picking up the picture, Xander took a look at it for a second before realizing who was in the picture.

"God Yuri, no wonder you wanted the world to bow to you. You must have been teased mercilessly when you were a child. And what with that head gear, you were already half way there to picking up radio waves if not controlling other's minds." Xander said looking at the picture before chucking it over his shoulder.

Little did Xander know, but the vicious little brain that had attacked his tapping finger previously had escaped from the smashed jar that Xander had knocked off the room's center table. The blackish water in the jar spilled across the ground, and said brain, upon escaping from its jar and coming into contact with the air, had formed a pair of legs and a jaw with nasty little teeth. The little sucker had been in the process of leaping at the back of Xander's head when the picture, just thrown over Xander's shoulder, intercepted the brain sucker mid air and knocked it to the ground; giving the little brain sucker a little concussion.

Xander next picked up the radio.

"Ah ha! Perfect, just what I needed, I should thank Yuri." Xander said to himself while smiling.

Xander reached into his pocket and pulled out the head of Yuri.

"Thanks Yuri." Xander said to the head as he held it up to his face, before chuckling at his own actions and then setting Yuri's head down on the cabinet; Xander was a mad genius after all, so insane actions were part and parcel of a normal day in the life.

Xander then picked up the radio, flipped it over and began to disassemble the old-time device.

Connecting several of the wires from the transistor tubes to the tubes attached to the back of Yuri's head, Xander made several tweaks to the assembly before looking at it from the right, and then the left.

"Damn, going to need the helmet to see if I'm able to hit the right harmonics." Xander mumbled to himself, nonchalantly pulling the pen from behind his ear and throwing it over his shoulder while mentally ordering his helmet to activate.

Totally oblivious to what was going on behind him, Xander's pen flew over his shoulder and again intercepted the jumping brain sucker mid leap, this time skewering it and ending with it pinned to the ground by the force of Xander's nonchalant throw. Though Xander was no Gordon Freeman, he had just stopped an invasion of the body snatchers before it could even begin; and he didn't even have to use a crowbar.

With the speakers disconnected from the radio or Yuri's head, Xander flipped the switch on the former radio and began to turn the dial. At the point where Xander heard, "This is the BBC, and now we send you over to the Department of Silly Walks…" Broadcast inside his head, Xander smiled at the realization that that he had found the right frequency for brain waves.

"Wonderful," Xander mumbled to himself as he picked up the head and the radio assembly. "Now if I can just find the proper material to shield my thoughts from telepathy, it should be perfect." Xander continued to speak to himself as he absent mindedly stepped over the now dead brain sucker and carried Yuri's head and radio assembly over towards the work bench where the brains were playing video games.

Xander continued to think to himself as he disconnected all of the brains and pocketed them along with the Atari consol, Yuri's head, the radio, and the conglomeration of bailing wire, electrical wires, paperclips, bubble gum, and duct tape.

Walking out of the room and towards the stairs, Xander was heard to mumble as he hit the light switch.

"Hmmm, according to the read outs on the helmet, wrapping my head in a slight layer of tinfoil like material should protect me from any telepathic attacks." Xander mumbled.

With that, the lights went out and only Xander's footfalls up the steps, with a hopping noise over the top step, could be heard before the sound of the secret entrance's walls again closing shut echoed down into the formerly secret laboratory.

The time on Xander's watch said that it was 11:00 AM, one hour before Romania's unveiling to the world.

The eyes of the world were focused on the disappearance of Romania. Alien invasions of large cities, supervillain attacks on monuments or sections of countries, and city wide catastrophes were things that the United Nations had experience dealing with when it came to 'weird' problems. Never before, however, had one of the member nations of the United Nations simply disappeared. Not only had the people of Romania disappeared, but every rock, pebble and ounce of earth and sky was no longer there, leaving a vast wasteland and scar on the earth that had the experts on the news nations wildly postulating what the hell had happened and what that weird red light could have possibly been. The world leaders were further riled up over the forced landing and disappearance of their own citizens who had been already in the country at the time of the 'Red Flash,' whether in one of the planes that had been forced to land, on a train passing through Romania, or even just living or visiting the country at the time of the disappearance. Even the religious leaders of the world were up in arms, some groups picketing in front of the United Nations held signs bearing messages about 'The End is Near, Repent!' or other statements regarding dooms day. The chaos outside the United Nations building in New York City was further exacerbated by conflicting religious and ideological groups taunting each other or trying to out yell each other.

The scene inside the United Nations was no less chaotic and loud as leaders from every nation of the world either demanded answers or demanded a piece of the pie as Romania's former neighbors argued over how to divide the new land that was now unpopulated. Giant screens throughout the auditorium and on television monitors throughout the halls and conference rooms of the building all showed a hulking crater of jagged earth where once Romania stood, empty of any life. It was only the fear that the country might again reappear and crush any who entered the crater that stopped countries like Russia or war torn Kasnia from marching troops into the crater; well, it would have been more of an air drop as the bottom of the crater was several miles deep. All the eyes of the world were focused on the problem of Romania, and subsequently, all of the eyes in the world were watching when a second flash of red light appeared, and on the eighth day Romania returned to Earth.

At first there was silence, as everyone stared open mouthed at the television monitors as the country reappeared. The television screens quickly flipped over to a CNN like news channel that was retransmitting the news from Romania, as every broadcast station in Romania was focused on downtown Bucharest and a newly paved and installed vast strip of hardened concrete that replaced the formerly tree lined main street, Bulevardul Unirii. Where the Fantâna Piata Unirii used to stand was now a grand arch spanning the stretch of twenty four lane concrete road and arching over two hundred and fifty meters into the air. The arch was jaw droppingly large and was made out of a bands and twists of black and gold metal twisted together into a giant endless serpentine knot that made the individual foot wide 'threads' look like they were covered in the scales of some sort of reptilian beast. Interspersed with the black and gold 'threads' were blue and red colored 'glass' conduits that seemed to snap and fluctuate with ever flickering energy of some sort, though the glass seemed to sparkle like diamonds for some reason. Perched on top of the almost gaudy arch was a golden figure of a three headed dragon rising up out of the waves of a golden ocean. The dragon's heads, with their gem like eyes, looked to be screaming at the air, the earth, and right straight at the camera that was focus up the length of the street, broadcasting the new sight. The spectacle was awe inspiring to everybody who was staring at the TV screens, it was incredible that something that huge and ornate could be built and raised in the span of just eight days. However it was the sound and sight of what was marching en mass under the arch that scared the crap out of the world.

There is no forgetting or denying the impact of the sound of three million metal armored feet marching in step together, shoulder to shoulder, rank upon rank spanning the entire length of Bulevardul Unirii and disappearing into the park that was at the head of the Bulevardul. The world watched stunned, as row upon row upon row of hulking black armored troopers marched, accompanied by the cadence of the heavy metal marching tune of the song Hell March; Xander was a bit of a goof after all, and had never been all that interested in marching band music. Hovering and flying over the city at just the level over the rooftops were gigantic hulking military machines; behemoth mechs with rocket boosters and anti gravity systems courtesy of gravitational fields cast by infused and energized Nth metal. The machines were obviously armed to the teeth and at least five ambassadors to the United Nations lost the control of their bladders when they saw the sight. Then there were the jet fighter craft. The forces marching or hovering over the street and buildings seemed to be shaded by the constantly passing shadows of 'V' after 'V' of passing flights of Starscream fighter craft; the world didn't know what they were, they just knew that there were a lot of bombs, missiles, and guns attached to the fighter craft.

Though the military forces were dead scary, though the military might projected to the world was the thing of nightmares for Romania's neighbors and the world powers, what really scared the watching dignitaries was the reaction of the Romanian people to the mass of forces moving through their capital city and fanning out over the entire country. The Romanian people were cheering. From every window, every rooftop, and every sidewalk in Bucharest, the people of Romania had turned out to cheer the frightening black armored military forces, waving Romanian flags as well as black flags that contained a silhouette of a single figure of a gold three headed dragon coming out of golden waves. Commentators that were broadcasting on the news were announcing that the scene of cheering was happening in every Romanian city and town; the people were emphatically in support of this new military power that was no doubt in charge of their country. It didn't seem like the noise of the marching feet, the Hell March music, or the cheering could get louder, but it did.

The camera filming up the street at the military parade saw a flickering of red light above what would come to be known as 'Leviathan's Arch' and suddenly a black helmeted and suited figure with a blood red tie was seen to be hovering over the city and the street where the soldiers marched. At the figure's appearance, every marching soldier snapped their long multi-barreled weapon to attention and thrust their free fist against their chest in a salute, every person in the crowd screamed in joy, and every world leader felt the hair on the back of their neck stand on end and a cold sweat break out on their body. The Romanian announcers were broadcasting messages about "Thus appears our mighty leader, the Leviathan; may he rule forever, may he rule in all things, and may he be blessed in his care and guidance of our country" the message translated.

The black clad figure continued to float, standing upright, down the street waving to his people and over the black armored forces that marched beneath him; while he was on the screen the cheers of the people were deafening. The parade and march of the warriors and war machine would continue for hours, and the world leaders were speechless at the spectacle.

Romania was definitely under new management, and the world would never be the same again.

AN: Good stopping spot. I originally was going to stop before the parade, but then figured it would be better to just have a longer chapter and include the military presentation in this chapter rather than the beginning of the next. If you enjoyed, let me know. I'm thinking I might wait on uploading new chapters to this story for a bit and focus on catching up on a few of my other works. The responses I get will let me know which way to go.