A/N Yes, this is a crossover with the Crow, specifically the Brandon Lee movie, not the comics or the other movies. The one with Brandon Lee, with him staring as Eric Draven, is the only one I enjoyed and I never read the comics. The list of a Crow's abilities comes from the Crow wiki and includes near invulnerability, immortality, crow form, which is the ability to turn into a crow themselves, enhanced strength, superhumanly acute senses, including the ability to see through the eyes of the Crow that guides them, enhanced agility, speed and reflexes, tactile empathy and telepathy, which means they can feel emotions and read other people minds when they touch objects or people. This may include vampires, given tactile telepathy is more akin to braille than seeing a reflection from a mind, which is how Angel explains to Buffy why she can't read his mind when she has that aspect of a demon telepathy. Crows also have an enhanced healing factor and are experts at close quarters combat and marksmanship.
As for the makeup, there's differences in that between each movie and the comics according to the Crow wiki. It can be applied with face paint or burned on or just appear without being actual makeup when they're in Crow mode. This is how Xander's is going to be, as something that just appears. Honestly, the idea of him deliberately painting himself to look like a clown or a mime is just not Xander.
Dawn will appear soon, but Xander's going to find a few things out first.
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While Xander showered and dressed for school the voice in his head of the big crow, his guide through this mission of vengeance, explained his new abilities to him, some of which reminded him of Buffy's abilities, only more so. The being able to turn into a crow himself sounded like fun actually. He took the time to think about why his soul would carry pain and a need for vengeance apparently so strongly that it called out to a spirit of vengeance and moved it to empower him. What exactly made him hurt so much and who or what did he want vengeance against? It was too easy to just say vampires or Angel, there had to be something else there, right? Things hadn't been going great lately, the break up with Cordy that didn't make any sense, Buffy deciding to make him fray adjacent even after everything he'd done to help made no sense either. That same battle that made her decide that, she'd had to protect Willow, not him. All that hurt, but it wasn't enough to carry a great pain, was it? Angel endangering his life yet again and this time succeeding in getting him killed might warrant some anger filled vengeance but enough for a spirit of vengeance to empower him? It wasn't adding up any more than whatever stupidity Buffy and Angel might have been up to with Faith last night did.
"Why me?" He asked the crow. "Why would this spirit choose me?"
"You haven't realized it yet, none of those you work with have either, you see more than you know. You always have, in fact it would have eventually earned you the actual title The One Who Sees. You see truth, you see what is hidden, beyond the surface. You have the capacity to bring out the best in others because you see what they don't, which would have also earned you the title the Heart. The ability means you've seen something without knowing you saw it and what you saw is why you have so much pain and such a strong need for vengeance that you've been empowered. Once you know the real source of that pain you can finally go after vengeance."
"I died last night." Xander pulled a shirt over his head. "As part of whatever was going on between Buffy, Angel and Faith. Buffy sent me to find Angel, did she know he was going to hit me or did he just take advantage of the moment? He's endangered my life before, using me as bait against Spike on parent teacher night and not caring if Spike killed me, leaving me barely conscious in Faith's motel room when he kidnapped her for his and Buffy's stupid idea of an intervention and then last night. What were they doing with or to Faith? I think we need to start with answers about last night. Can you find Faith for me? I want to talk to her, get her take on what was going on last night. I have a couple hours until class starts." Angel leaving him at the motel room was niggling at the edges of his mind, why? Wait, why was Faith living there? Why hadn't they known she was living there? How did Angel know she was living there and why didn't he say something to the group? Wasn't Giles, when he was her Watcher, supposed to find her a safe place? They all knew vampires could get into motel rooms, if they hadn't known it before, they certainly knew it after Kakistos trashed her room when she first got to Sunnydale. Why hadn't he remembered that himself the two times he'd been in her room? Had he noticed it subconsciously with this seeing thing the crow said he had?
His vision changed and he was confused at what he was seeing and then he realized he was seeing through the crow's eyes as it searched for Faith. Then he saw her as the crow spotted her.
That wasn't her room at the motel, looked like Faith had come up in the world in the last couple weeks, was everyone keeping secrets from him?