Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Belongs to Joss Whedon and various studios. Dungeon Keeper belongs to Bullfrog and EA.

Author's notes: Ride, Gambler Ride. An idea that I was going to add to Poker, but decided against. Inspired by talks with Psyckosama and some Addventure threads I took part in.

-o-o-o-

He could see it, the look in her eyes as he watched the two of them. It would break her to do what she was about to, what she had to. Because he could also see the humanity returned to the eyes of a monster. Lost, confused, longing. He saw it all and he knew then what he had to do.

Giles was set down without even a second's thought as he began to move. So focused was she on the moment, that she never saw him, never sensed him as he picked up the fallen blade. So focused, lost in her own little world as she told the one would had been a monster, and could be again, to close his eyes, that she never even noticed the heavy pommel falling to the back of her head, until there was a sharp, crack of pain and all she knew was darkness.

"Xa….nder…?" There was a note of confusion in the creature's eyes as he stared back at the boy in front of them, an instinctive flood of emotions coursing through his addled mind. "Wha…?"

"Angel." The word left his lips as almost a curse before he twisted the figure about, roughly pushing the newly reensouled vampire away from Acathla. "This is going to hurt."

"Huh?" The confusion lasted only a moment before a wet gasp of pain left his lips as he could feel the sharp explosion of pain as the boy shoved the sword through his chest. "W-… why…?"

"Because, I'm not going to let you break her." There was a twisting look of anger momentarily flashing across Xander's face as he ripped the sword back out before it faded into a resigned smirk as he turned and then shoved the blade roughly into the statue as he could feel the Hellish energies suddenly pulling him forward. "Make your choice, Angel. Are you a man or not?"

And the vampire could only stare as the boy never looked back, staring forward as the pulsing waves of energies that had been so recently been spilling out around them, curled back, enfolding him in their embrace before in a flash, he was gone. Wound already healing, the creature known as Angel could only stared, in confusion, as finally memories began to settle into his mind. Suddenly, a soft, moaning groan drew his attention, and he silently stared at the stirring form of the blonde Slayer.

"Wha…? Owwww… What hit me?" Buffy groaned softly as she pushed herself up, before staring blankly at Angel for a moment. "… Angel…? What…? But…"

"Xander." Angel breathed quietly as he slowly rubbed against his chest. "He… hit you. Then stabbed me… Then stabbed that and vanished."

"Wait, Xander?" Buffy frowned, foggy memories pulsing through her mind as she struggled to clear her thoughts. "He… he was supposed to save Giles."

A soft groan drew their attention to the wall nearby, where the man in question was leaned back into place, his broken bloodied body crumpled back, but still alive. As his eyes fell on the man, Angel felt himself go even paler as he was assaulted by the memories. Memories of what he'd done to the man in his quest to understand how to unlock the stone form of Acathla.

As Giles slowly took a soft, shuddering breath, he saw the pair of vampire and Slayer staring back at him, before his delirious mind pieced together one missing factor. His eyes turned, he stared at the bloody sword jutting out of the demon statue, before the words left his lips softly. "Oh, Xander… what have you done?"

-o-o-o-

There was a sudden, welling desperation clutching at his chest as Xander felt himself tugged into the welling funnel of energies. That momentary peace he'd felt, the calm certainty, it all fell away as he quickly came to a desperate realization. He was tugged into a vortex. A vortex leading to hell that was in a demon's mouth.

Ignoring the nervous quips his mind desperately whispered to try and distract him from that truth, he began to struggle, fighting, desperately back against their pull. A part of him, the resigned, rational portion of his brain noted it was hopeless, an impossible task he'd set for himself. But still he fought, he'd never much liked that part of his way anyway.

Whether by fluke, or by chance, his struggles were noted, if only for an instant. A moment's notice and a probing curiosity by a careless presence far removed from anything the boy could comprehend and the fragile path he was riding, shattered. And as it shattered, he was cast about, flung from his straying path into the veils of ether.

Drifting, as again the fear came, gripping at his heart as he could feel the way it poured into him as he travelled aimlessly between dimensions. He didn't know what to do, where to go, he was surrounded by thousands upon thousands and thousands of little lights, destinations, but their possibilities overwhelmed him. Then, as the ether poured down into his body, he bit out a sudden scream of pain as he could feel the energies eating at him, like a great blister of pressure building up inside of him, threatening to explode from within.

Blind with fear and pain, he reached out, pushing himself towards the nearest destination, towards the nearest point of light. He didn't know how he did it, he wasn't even sure how he was moving through the gap between realities. But, instinct answered his desperate need, and suddenly he felt himself shoved back into reality. Or, at least a reality.

But the pain never lessoned. It kept welling up inside of him, as he could feel the way his skin was beginning to blister up into dark, pulsing boils. He felt thick, sticky tears running down his cheeks, and with a whimper he realized his throat wouldn't even let him scream.

"Interesting, now what do we have here?" Desperately, Xander looked around, searching for the source of the voice, trying to pinpoint the possible aid. "In quite the predicament, aren't you, little traveler. This is why should never stray carelessly into the ether."

The words held a casual, slightly sadistic amusement as he felt more than saw the presence hovering around him, almost taunting him in a cultured male tone. "Of course, you can't really respond to me, can you? The ether is twisting your body… Mortal flesh is hardly meant to contain it… And well... it should be an entertaining show to watch your demise."

The fear flashed again in his eyes, as he desperately managed to shake his head in fearful denial, ignoring the cracking spikes of pain it earned him .

"Oh, not ready to end are you?" The creature, whatever it was, seemed to ponder the words for a moment, before finally he could hear the decision in its voice. "Perhaps… there is a way. But, that all depends… on how much you're willing to give up to survive, I wonder hmmm?"

There was a hesitation now in Xander's eyes as he stared fearfully around him, before another spasm of pain washed through his flesh, forcing him to curl into himself even as his body screamed in protest against the smallest of actions.

"Not much longer now." The voice seemed more amused with each passing moment as Xander could feel it, twisting around above him. "I wonder… could you even make it hmm?" It seemed half way between speculative and mocking as it studied him. "Well, little dying mortal… A line if you will… In that pit… you might just find the chance you need to live, or possibly just the death to free you from your torment."

Dark eyes, wet with blood flashed open, and somehow how found the vague shape the voice had indicated. Within him, he pulled on the simple, primal need that yearned from the depths of his soul. The need to live, to keep on, the refusal to listen to that little voice in the back of his head that said he couldn't handle it. That he was too weak to survive, that he should just give up entirely and curl up and die.

Pulling on that need, he forced himself, uncurling from that position, and dragged his unwilling body forward. Inch by inch, pulling by twitching, twisting fingers that pulled back into a clutching grip that dug into what he slowly realized were cold, hard stone. An observation that was again filed away and for the moment forgotten amidst the growing sea of pain as he pulled himself slowly further towards the hole.

It seemed like an eternity, the way he could only inch forward as he felt the blisters weltering up underneath his skin. He bit back a scream as one burst, oozing out a glowing, pulsing neon colored fluid. Then there was another, then another. The rough surface of the stone ripping away the ever thinning layer of skin between them and the air as he moved slightly faster, desperation building up inside of him. Then, finally he pulled himself over the edge, and fell down into the pit.

Vaguely he recognized the wet splat he made as he impacted on… something. Something that he could feel felt vaguely like flesh. Cold, dead flesh.

For a moment he lay there, too tired, his mind blanking out the knowledge of pain, as he managed to marshal his thoughts enough to marvel at the fact that he'd made it as far as he had. Then, the pain returned, as another blister erupted. Exploding out this time as the fluid poured down onto the thing supporting him. Another, and another erupted across his body, the splattering into the flesh he lay atop, soaking into it as he finally managed to find his voice and let loose a scream.

Everywhere that neon fluid struck, the flesh drank, greedily absorbing it as color began to slowly return to the long dead flesh. As he felt himself almost completely lost in the pain, Xander felt the flesh suddenly lurching upwards. The sudden motion, like the beat of a heart, marked the final, painful explosion he could handle, and with a groan, he closed his eyes and let oblivion take him.

"Hmm… Sleep well, little Keeper." The voice chuckled, a cold, calculating thing as he hovered over the boy's body. "Because when you wake… we will have work to do."

-o-o-o-

With a soft groan, Xander slowly awoke a warm, gentle, rhythmic pulsing. Everything seemed odd, disjointed as his mind struggled to handle an excess of information flooding through his senses. Groaning softly, he opened his eyes, only to immediately clench them shut as a wave of vertigo passed through him.

"Careful, Keeper. Things tend to be… delicate the first time one such as you awakes. Wouldn't want to go and mess yourself." The voice from before noted with a pulsing sound of amusement . "Your mind is still struggling to compensate for the new flow of sensory information. Your trip through the ether has helped accelerate things, but still you were only mortal after all."

"Ya know, could you stop with the riddles and make with the splainy?" Groaning softly Xander reached up and carefully began to rub at his suddenly throbbing temples. "Like… Why what hell dimension am I in and stuff like that?"

"Ah, a bit more learned than the average mortal, but still so limited." The note of amusement only grew further as the voice chuckled almost sardonically. "But to answer your question… None. If a hell dimension was your intended destination, I'm afraid I must disappoint you. Though, that would explain the ether exposure you were suffering from when you arrived."

Xander immediately winced at the word suffering, as unbidden a sudden swell of phantom sensations rippled through his mind. Groaning again he shook his head, ignoring the pulsing throb of pain the action earned him before he spoke once more. "How about you say that again, only actually making sense this time?"

"Mortals." The sigh was audible in the voice as Xander could practically imagine the patronizing look its owner was likely giving him. "I suppose you want me to explain it again, using simple words, with so very few syllables?"

"Would probably help," Xander agreed with a wincing nod of his head. "Because, not the brightest Scooby in the group here."

"Hmph. At least he's aware of some of his limitations," the voice muttered softly before speaking up as it continued. "Very well. Where ever you were headed, you never made it. The path you were on was disrupted for some reason or another and you were cast into the ether, that which fills the void between dimensions."

"Ah, right, painful stuff with all the lights?" Xander asked with a nod of his head.

"Quite." The voice answered before continuing. "As you were ill equipped to face the perils… That's another word for dangers…"

"Noted and known." Xander quipped back with a light flicker of annoyance in his tone. "Not THAT dumb."

"Of course." The voice answered in a smooth, condescending drawl. "Now as I was saying, with you ill prepared for those perils, you were infused with a rather fatal dose of ether contamination. As you might remember, you were on your way to a rather spectacularly painful end. If you hadn't managed to drag yourself to the Heart… well… Ether poisoning is known as one of the worst deaths known for a reason."

"The Heart…?" Xander paused a moment, as he felt the warm, pulsing rhythm beneath him. "I'm going to guess… the thing I'm lying atop now?"

"Yes, a Dungeon Heart. One that was rather… incapacitated before your arrival." The voice gained a tinge of bitter anger in it as it said the last, before slowly forcing down the emotions in it and continuing. "But, fortunately for us both, you were in the unique position to revive it. Though, your survival was amusingly unexpected."

"So, you had me make with the crawling like a worm to amuse you?" Xander frown slightly as his lips twitched down, as he slowly allowed himself to open one eye and fought back against the sudden wave of vertigo that seemed to wash over him.

"No, that was merely an enjoyable extra." The voice assured him, even if he couldn't immediately locate its source. "I simply expected the Heart to devour the energies you were bleeding off, along with the rest of your life force in the process of its revival. The odds of your survival… were rather abysmal. Still, I figured you would prefer a relatively clean death, as opposed to being turned into a festering pile of blistered flesh, oozing out ether induced unpleasantness as you slowly die over the course of several years."

"… That does not sound of the good," Xander stated simply before slowly taking a deep breath and beginning to examine his own body. "So… how come other than a serious lack of wearable clothing, I look like my normal self, without the oversized, exploding magical pimples?"

"How… eloquent." Xander smirked slightly as he could practically imagine the frown of distaste that rippled across the speaker's voice. "You bonded with the Heart. It in turn bled off the rather impressive excess of energies inside of you and healed you. I honestly expected for you to end up like most who bond to a Heart, nothing more than a spirit bound to it."

"That's of the good then, isn't it?" Xander asked almost worriedly as he slowly opened his other eye and began to look around. "And where are you, anyway?"

"No, actually it is NOT of the good as you put it." There was annoyance now in the voice as agitation fed through it. "It means you're in a handicapped position during the most crucial period in establishing yourself as a proper Keeper."

"Wait, wha-huh? Keeper? Establishing myself? Handicapped?" Xander stared blankly ahead before shaking his head. "Of sense, you are not making."

"Dungeon Keeper. That is what those bound to a Dungeon Heart are called. And if you are not able to turn this place into a proper Dungeon, your fellow Keepers will be most eager to turn on you and destroy you." The annoyance in the voice grew for a moment before falling into a sigh of annoyance. "And most Keepers begin without a mortal body to restrict their conscious. In fact, it is generally only the older, more powerful Keepers that are able to create a body for themselves to inhabit to interact with the world."

"So… translation?" Xander asked curiously.

"It's like…" the voice paused, struggling for an analogy, "You have two sets of eyes, each looking in a different place and you're unable to process that currently."

"Errr…" There was another wave of vertigo as Xander tried to stand up, only to be bombarded with a strange… perception. He wasn't sure how else to put it, he simply perceived the room, not with his eyes, and their limited range, it wasn't simple light, reflecting off the surfaces. No, he could perceive it all, everything all at once, and even into the stone and earth beyond it. "Wow. That's weird."

"Quite." The voice agreed before continuing. "And it will only get worse. The further you travel, the most jointed it will become, especially if you travel beyond your territory in your body."

"Gonna take some getting used to." Xander admitted with a nod as he slowly began to examine things around himself. "So, again… where the hell are you?"

"Oh, around." The answer was rather purposely vague as it echoed around the room and Xander frowned slightly, concentrating even as he couldn't seem to find anyone in the room other than himself.

"Right… around. Uh huh."