58: A Wild Youth
BtVS Fanfic
Alexander Lavelle Harris, Halloween Night. Perhaps one of the more overused tropes in fiction. Yet, once upon a time, his Halloween was much closer to everyone else's, yet still had a profound impact, and it started with a bet. Who it was with doesn't matter (he lost, after all), but it ended up with him in debt and wearing the first superheroine's outfit he saw in Ethan Raine's shop. It had next to no effect on him after Halloween, except for having a better understanding of girls, a slightly better physique (still totally human, but athletic an a little built) and a bloodline (and an appearance that showed it, a tiny bit) that made him 1/32 African. No powers, no real boons… well, he was more comfortable outside, but that was it.
Then a fateful trip to the zoo occurred, and he got possessed by a hyena. He came out of it stronger than he had in the original timeline, at the cost of being even more beastly. Thankfully, he was more reserved, and ended up getting fed (raw meat, of course) by the other Scoobs rather quickly, but still not much had changed.
Then came the third part: a serious back-to-the-wall threat while he was out walking with Dawn. He turned into an anthropomorphic hyena-man and ate their attacker. That night, he found himself on the African plains with a hyena prowling around him, attacked on instinct, and woke up with bloody claw marks all over his body (none of which were particularly deep, thankfully).
Three weeks, a case of increasingly severe exhaustion, and a terrified and utterly stumped group of Scoobs later, he had enough. When he arrived in his dreamscape once again, he didn't attack, and just waited. The hyena stared at him, and he stared back. The hyena crouched and growled, he glared back and snarled. It chuffed and lay down, and he snerked and turned around, came in a circle, and lay down at its side. Six hours later, it got up, bumped him in the chest with its nose, and vanished into the grasslands. When he woke up, he found he could turn into a hyena or hyena-hybrid of any percentage (he likes keeping just the eyes), he had the hyena's strength, speed, and instincts, and he was well-rested. Happy with this, he went to the library, told everyone he had made peace with the hyena and his general upgrades (he kept the shapeshifting quiet. Figured it might stir up trouble), they had a mini-celebration, and he went to sleep for real for the first time that night.
The next new moon, he found himself on the planes again. With a cobra. Barely surviving, it took him a week to beat and make peace with this one, gaining poison resistance, amazing reflexes, and a weakness to sunlight (made him sleepy). Then the next new moon brought a wild boar. And the next brought a rhino.
What will this wild warrior do?
(Empowered by a variant of the medallion that Vixen wears in DC, but lacking animal spirits. Can create chimera forms.)