Disclaimer: I do not own BtVS Warhammer 40K.
A Hope in the Grimdark
"Talking"
"Thinking"
Buffy was pacing. She didn't like it when she paced. It meant she had too much energy and couldn't get rid of it fast enough. She didn't need to look around to know her Slayers were the same way. It didn't help that they had no idea where they were. The only thing they did know was they had been yanked through time. If what the big men in the shiny gold armor said was true, they were a couple thousand years into the future. They had been left in what was called a waiting room. And she guessed it could be one, if it was the size of a small hall and covered in gold and darkness.
She finally stopped her pacing by Dawn. "Anything?" she asked.
Her sister looked up from the dataslate. "It's pretty bad, Buffy," she said with a grim expression. "The info here says Terra is the center of something called the Imperium and it's under siege."
"From what?" Kennedy asked from where she leaned against the wall. "Aliens?"
"Daemonic forces, actually."
"Oh good. Something we can take of."
"Then why haven't we?" Faith said. "That's the question that's nagging me." She looked across the room at Willow. Ever since they were asked to wait in this room, the witch had been focusing on finding answers. As much as Faith wanted to urge her along, she knew it was a bad idea. Red worked at her own pace. That was the best way to get results.
But there was something else that was bothering her. She looked back to the door that led out to the rest of the Imperial Palace (even if what little she had seen was bigger than any palace she had been in), then at Buffy. "What do ya think they want with Xander?" It was the strangest thing. The minute they were all brought here, the people who summoned them were all focused on Xander Harris, Watcher, Fix-it man for the Council, and Big Brother of Baby Slayers (unanimously voted by the Slayers). They whisked him away and left the rest of them waiting here.
Buffy considered what Faith said, only to shrug. "I dunno. Maybe it has to do with what happened last year?"
"You mean when a nine-foot-tall human clad in head-to-toe in armor with a gun that would've made soldiers drool, and a sword somehow was mixed with a chainsaw that would've made any lumberjack instantly sprout wood showed up on our front lawn from a giant hole in the sky?" What really sold her sarcasm was the flat tone.
"Yes." She couldn't believe Faith. That day had been weird for everyone.
It wasn't the fact the soldier looked as if he had been in a warzone or he demanded to know where he was and if they were heretics. That was par for the course for them. No, the weird bit was when Xander came out, ax in hand, the soldier took one look at him and immediately knelt, calling him "My Lord."
No one knew why he did that, not even the soldier. He just did. Once everything had settled, the soldier introduced himself as Maxeri, an Adeptus Astartes (or Space Marine once he saw their blank looks). He couldn't believe when they told him he was on Earth in the 21st century. He wanted answers and needed to get back to his own time. And they were fine with helping him out.
It took a little bit of a spell from Willow, but they were able to establish that Maxeri had been grafted with blood and other organs that were distantly related to Xander. "I think it's a grandfather for him, a really distant descendant for you," she explained once everything was done.
That was enough for Maxeri to stare at Xander in shock before kneeling again. Apparently, if his rambling/praying was anything to go by, he was kneeling because Xander's descendant was the Emperor of the Imperium, the man who would create the Adeptus Astartes. Any jokes that might've been made about Xander and royalty died fairly fast when they had to stop Maxeri from drawing his sword and swearing an oath.
It took Willow a few days to prep the spell to send the big guy back ("I'm just hitting redial," she explained). Throughout that entire time Maxeri never strayed from Xander's side, which kinda made it difficult when he had to go out for errands. Everyone breathed in relief once he was sent back.
And now, they were in Maxeri's time, surrounded by men who looked just like him only deadlier, with the mother of apocalypses outside, and they were just waiting in the room. No one liked it and they didn't know what to do about it.
"Hey, guys?" Rona called out. She was at the far end of the room, staring up at a gigantic painting. "Can you come take a look at this? I think I'm going crazy."
Some wandered over to the painting. Dawn followed her sister, putting the dataslate down (quite frankly, reading its contents was becoming depressing). The painting loomed over them all. It depicted a group of men, maybe about twenty in all, standing before a table. They wore armor that made the armor they had seen recently seem drab. There was food on the table, but their plates were empty. The men might've been looking at them but the way they were standing also deference to the one stand at the table's head. Out of all of them, he stood the tallest. Even in the painting, there was this commanding aura about him. If he spoke, they would listen.
The painting's title on the bottom side, just at their eyelevel. "The Emperor and his Sons." Faith read it and then looked at the painting. "So that this Emperor guy, huh?" she remarked, looking at him over. The painting didn't really show his height, but she got the feeling he would be a big guy. "Kinda overdoing it with the bling." Seriously, who wore that much gold as armor?
Buffy felt the same way. The golden leaves around his brow would've been enough. He didn't have to go for everything gold. She was half-tempted to find this guy and take him on a shopping trip. "What's wrong, Rona?" she asked, getting back on point.
"Don't these guys look like Xander?"
That made everyone look at the painting again. "Uh, not really?" Dawn said. Not even the Emperor's sons looked the same. She didn't know how he managed to get such a variety of children (seriously, one had skin that was literally red!). The best guess she had was that he slept around, a lot.
Rona didn't back down. "Look at their eyes," she insisted. They looked at the painting again. Again, the eyes varied. Perhaps two or three shared the same color but that was it. Everything else about the eyes were different.
And yet…there was something that made them keep looking. They weren't sure, exactly. There was a quality in some of those eyes, especially in the Emperor. Yeah, the guy looked stern and serious but there was a hint of…
Of warmth, of watching people he knew live and succeed. The Slayers knew that because Xander had the same kind of warmth in his gaze.
Once they saw it, they couldn't unsee it. And it was a lot easier to find in the eyes of the Emperor's sons. It didn't matter what the shape of their eyes were, those were Xander's eyes looking back at them.
As she contemplated that, Buffy found herself looking at the Emperor again. "Guess this guy really is Xander's descendant." If she tilted her head, she could kinda see Xander's features on him. Although that long hair kinda threw things. She knew for a fact Xander would not be caught dead with hair that—
Willow snapped out of her spell with a gasping scream, shattering the silence. All Slayers whipped around, ready for a fight. There was none to be had, though. The only thing they saw was their friend on the ground, trying to breathe.
Kennedy and Buffy reached her first. "Willow, what happened?" Buffy asked as Kennedy pulled her into her lap.
It didn't take long for Willow to get her strength back. She shot to her feet, looked around the room and said, "We need to go, now. We have to rescues Xander.' With a wave of her hand, the doors slammed open.
Their guards were surprised by the sound, even more so when the Slayers rushed out and swarmed them. What came next wasn't a fight, just two men who didn't have a chance and were knocked out for their troubles. "This way," Willow said, pointing down the right of the hallway.
No one had rushed off, not yet at least. Faith took the chance to get in close to Willow. "Alright, what's goin' on, Red?" she asked. "You're acting like boytoy is walking right into a trap."
"He is," Willow answered. "I was able to slip through the palace's defenses and find out what's going on. Xander's being taken to see the Emperor." The note of panic in her voice had them running even faster.
"So, he's meeting his descendant. Not seeing why that's got us rushing around."
Willow looked her right in the eyes, letting them convey how panicked she was. "That's because the Emperor isn't Xander's descendant. He is Xander!"
It was a trap.
Xander knew it was a trap when he had been led away from the Slayers. The giants in golden armor didn't tell him anything as they led him deeper into the palace. They also made sure that he couldn't get go back, surrounding him on all sides and using their height to block his view. What glimpses he had told him that while the palace was magnificent, it was also heavily damaged, possible on the verge of collapsing.
That was what he had been told. Earth (Terra, they called it) was under siege, had been for months, from the forces of Chaos. The Imperial Palace was the last place on the planet to withstand the attacks but even then, they were losing. Whoever was in charge had a plan. But for it to work, they said Xander had to meet with the Emperor.
The further they went down, the more something twinged in Xander's mind. He couldn't place it exactly, but everything started to feel…familiar. But it couldn't be. He had never been here before. He didn't even know where "here" was on Earth. His escorts certainly weren't going to explain anything.
When the walk finally ended, they stood before a door made of steel, looming over them all. "You will enter alone," the lead guard said, his deep voice rumbling from underneath his helmet. "We will stand guard."
"Alright, fine," Xander said as he walked forward. "Thanks for the dime-tour, by the way. Really was impressed by what I couldn't see." The faint sarcasm died against their silent stoicism and stayed like that when the door closed him.
The room he was in was massive. It had to be in order to house the manmade hill before him. Oh sure, it was some kind of building with stairs leading upwards. But the sheer size of it made him think of a hill. Xander craned his neck and saw a faint glow at the peak. That was probably what they brought him here for.
Once he started climbing the steps, that twinging feeling grew. He had been here before. But how? Xander's confusion only kept him climbing. He reached the peak faster than he should've. Some kind of magic had to be involved, at least that's what he would've been considering if he hadn't been too busy staring at the sight before.
It had probably started off as a throne, slathered in gold as it was. But at some point, it transformed into a life-support machine, going by all the tubing and wiring was anything to go by. Somehow the throne/life-support was glowing. Or rather, it was the massive corpse on the throne that was glowing.
If there was flesh still on that body, Xander didn't see it. The skull might've had scraps of hair left. They probably just hidden at the back underneath the tubing. One of the eyes had a red glow to it, a chilling light in the socket where Xander had lost his. The clothes it wore tattered and frayed but they still held together.
It was a horrifying sight, for a normal person. For Xander it was just another day, another body. The only thing that was different about this one was it sitting in a throne. The more he looked at it, the more the body felt familiar somehow. How, he didn't know.
He glanced back down the stairs and could only just make out the door. No point going back down when those giants were going to block him. They wanted him to do something. "Maybe they want me to touch the corpse," Xander thought. He looked at the body again and saw the outstretched hand. "Oh man, they want me to touch the corpse?" Why was it always something like this? Gah, at least vampires cleaned up after themselves. All that was needed afterwards was a vacuum cleaner!
"Might as well get it over with," he grumbled. He ambled up to the corpse and reached for the hand.
The second flesh touched bone, the throne in the cavernous room disappeared. So did the corpse. In its place was the man it had been. And Xander knew. The fact that this was the Emperor of the Imperium, still somehow alive but encased on the Golden Throne didn't matter.
No, what he knew was that he was looking at himself, only not really.
The Emperor wasn't Xander but rather his soul. Their soul. Xander wasn't the first life. They had always existed, in one form or another, since the beginning of humanity. They lived, they fought, and they died. Xander caught a brief of his previous life, hunting for relics while fighting Nazi, before the rest of it swam through his head. With each new turn, the soul became a bit more powerful, a bit more aware. Finally, the next life went to the most powerful shamans it could find to learn how to harness the power of the soul. It took to the lessons with the passion of a wolf on the hunt. And when it learned everything, it used those same lessons to make the soul immortal, powerful, wise, and able to remember everything that came before, just before he killed himself.
And thus, the Emperor was born.
When the time came, he was there to unite humanity under his banner and lead them into a new golden age in the galaxy. Xander saw it all, the triumphs and the mistakes. Including what led him to be encased on the Golden Throne.
At the end of all, Xander opened his eye and gazed upon the Emperor. They couldn't have been more different, with the Emperor towering him in shining gold armor and both eyes burning in the same hue of gold while Xander was more comfortable in a workman's clothes and an eyepatch over his left eye.
"Good God, you are an idiot."
The Emperor of the Imperium, the so-called God of Humanity, stared at him in absolute silence. That was because he was shocked. It seemed throughout his long life, no one had dared to say that to his face.
"I mean, really?" Xander continued. "What exactly was the plan here? You just take over my body and go out there to fight the bad guys, leave me here in your place? Do the words 'temporal paradox' mean nothing to you? And that's not even looking at the problem that are already baring down on you, most of which are your fault to begin with!" He glared at the larger man. "Or are you going to say that what happened to your sons was out of your hands?"
There was a sick sniggering from behind him, the kind of sound that made someone feel disgusted just by listening to it. Xander turned around and saw four people standing there in the void. He knew them. They might've been wearing familiar faces, but they weren't those people.
These were the Chaos Gods.
"Please, don't mind us," said Nurgle. He had dressed up as the Master, with the differences being the unworldly force and the pus leaking from his hands.
Tzeentch clapped Mayor Wilkins's hands. "Yes, it's not often we get to see the Anathema get lectured like this."
Slaanesh giggled as she flipped Glory's hair back forth. "The confusion just radiates off him. I can practically taste it." Her tongue, longer than it had any right to be, slithered out of her mouth. "Oh yes, I can taste it."
"Keep going," demanded Khorne. "Don't just stop at yelling. Punch yourself. You know you want to."
Amidst all their egging, both Xander and the Emperor were silent. The latter stared at the Ruinous Powers with open loathing, a feeling they met with smug grins and leers. Xander didn't have the same loathing, not yet. The sight of them was infuriating enough. And a part of him wanted to scream and run. Good thing he had something to go on.
"Two things," he said, looking at Khorne. "Why Warren?" Seriously, he could not figure out why the Chaotic Power most obsessed with blood, fighting, and skulls decided to take on the face of Warren Mears. "The guy was a maggot."
Warren's face took on that familiar smirk. "But you so desperately want to cave his face in for what he did, don't you?"
While it was true, it was beside the point. The fact that it wasn't actually Warren helped Xander keep his cool. "Second, which of you were Evil Lawyers Incorporated?"
The question made them all chuckle. "The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, eh?" remarked Nurgle. "Haven't heard those titles in a long time now." Instead of staying somewhat cryptic, he raised his hand, along with Khorne and Tzeetch.
That was all the answer Xander needed. He wasn't going to ask who was who. That would just lead to a guessing game that he did not want to play right now. Besides, he was talking to beings that could possibly try to make his life hell if they got bored. But there was one thing he knew about bad guys. They didn't like upsets or sudden twists. "Alright, you can go," he told Slaanesh.
The dismissal was quick and even a little polite. It still took everyone else a moment to understand what he had just said. "Excuse you?" asked the Prince of Pleasure.
"Hey, I'm dealing with Wolfram and Hart. I don't need to deal with the Skunk." He sniffed the air and recoiled. "Or would it be the Skank?" She was horribly offended by the insult and unable to come with a reply. It seemed that even though plenty of people cursed the Chaotic God, none had done it to her face.
"XANDER!"
The scream blasted through the void, surprising him. Everyone else didn't even have the decency to look confused. Xander sighed. "Excuse me a moment," he said before following the scream. An image sprang into his mind. It was a fight just outside the door, between the Custodes and the Slayers.
After the initial shock, he got annoyed. "Hey!" he shouted through the link, broadcasting his voice through the air. The fight came to standstill. Good, he had their attention. "What are you doing? If you wanna fight, go fight the bad guys. You know what, big golden guys, you go do that!" If the enemy was at the gate, holding the best of your people back so they can protect a door seemed rather stupid. "The Slayers can take over." The Custodes didn't move, not at first. They didn't want to abandon their mission. So Xander glared at them. "Are you disobeying your Emperor?"
That got them moving. The Slayers were surprised by how they just upped and left. Willow got over it first. "Xander, whatever you're doing, stop!" she told him. "It's a trap!"
"I know. I'm handling it. You guys just make sure I'm not interrupted, okay?"
"What? No!" He could already feel the Warp moving to her actions. "Just give me a moment and I can stop—"
Xander knew she would do what she was saying if she wasn't stopped. So, he whipped out the secret weapon: his own version of the Resolve Face. "Willow, I am handling it," he told her, and the Slayers, again. "Trust me and watch my back, alright?"
His best friend stopped and frowned. She mumbled something about "Not fair," but turned around and faced the corridor. So did the rest of the Slayers. Now that was taken care of, his attention came back to the creatures before him and the Emperor. "Back to what we were doing."
"You should've let them fight," Khorne said, frowning. "It would've been great."
"I'm sure it would've, but we've got bigger problems. Like you three."
"Four!"
He glanced at Slaanesh. "Why are you still here?" Glory's face went red at the dismissive question. Xander chose to focus on the other three. "So, what was the plan? Wait for the Big Golden Moron to make a mistake and just swoop in?"
"Yes," Tzeentch said with a grin. "He did make a deal with us, so long ago. He did his best to wiggle out of it but there was still an imprint we could focus on. We just chose not to, until we had the perfect opportunity." His arms spread out in a welcoming gesture. "Like now."
"You and your schemes," Khorne grumbled.
"Now, now, his schemes are what got us here," Nurgle remarked, waving away the bloodthirsty god's annoyance. Then he smiled at the human. "Your little friend certainly helped when she disrupted the Palace's wards searching for the truth. I don't think she even knows it's still there. Certainly made it easier for our forces."
Yeah, Xander could feel that. The Emperor might've been stuck in one place but he could still feel what was attacking his Imperial Palace. And just how much ground they were losing every hour. And he couldn't do anything because he was held back, by a past life and the Ruinous Powers.
Khorne stopped his grumbling as a sick grin crossed his lips. "Guess it's about time we got to it, huh?" He stepped forward with hands eager for blood. "About time too."
Slaanesh got in front of him. "Oh no," she said. "I got him first. He needs to pay for the insults." She threw Xander and the Emperor a leer full of nasty intention. "I'm going to make him scream for mercy, after I have him." Xander couldn't deny the shiver that ran down his back at that. He'd be an idiot to say those words didn't scare the crap out of him.
Then Nurgle cut her off. "You'll get your turn once I'm done with him," he declared. "He could do with a bit of aging. I wonder how he would feel about his other eye rotting out." The smile he gave was full of teeth and mucus.
But the other Powers didn't like that and started squabbling amongst themselves. If it wasn't for the fact he dealt with Slayers arguing over every little thing, Xander would've been amazed at the sheer pettiness in front of him. Didn't make the fact he was in a lot of trouble any different. These were beings that could eviscerate him with a thought, if they wanted to.
Fortunately, he had an idea and they mentioned something he could use. He looked at the Emperor. The giant man knew what he was thinking. The glare warned him to stop. He didn't. The Powers stopped their bickering just in time to see him approach the Emperor. "What are you doing?" Tzeentch demanded.
"Something this guy didn't want to," he answered. "Look out, I'll about to make things uncomfortable for you four." One more step and he merged with the Emperor. To quote some of the anime-loving Baby Slayers, he "went Super-Saiyan."
Once the two different version of the same soul merged, Xander had the Emperor did, including the imprint. The Chaos Gods said they used it to come here. But it could go both ways. He reached through the imprint until he found their power, their souls.
When he had those, he yanked. Hard.
There were two ways to contend with the Chaos Gods on an equal footing. Either become a God, or become the Warp itself.
The Emperor, despite what his Imperium might've thought, had no wish to be a God. He never considered the second option.
Xander did. Using the connection, he pulled power from the Ruinous Powers and fed it into his own soul. It flowed freely, filling what he was until he became more. More than a man and more than a God.
He became the very thing they proclaimed themselves the rulers of.
Boy, was it a rush.
Xander could feel everything. Every twist and churning sensation in the Warp. Every daemon and Chaos Marine baying for blood, eager to swarm Terra. Every ship, trapped in the storms, fighting hold on and reach their destination. The power was all his. He just needed to reach out and rule.
He'd be lying if he didn't say he wasn't tempted. Finally, it was him, Xander Harris, King of the Cretins, loser of Sunnydale, who had the power. No one would look down him anymore. If he wanted to, he could make them piss their pants, over and over!
But he didn't, for two reasons. 1st, he was not Warren. 2nd, he had made his peace with never being in the spotlight a long time ago.
So he used the power to start simple. He took a deep breath, and a rumble echoed through the galaxy. It started slow, only to grow in volume and pace. Every pysker of every race knew that something was coming. They had no idea what was happening. All they could do was hold on.
Finally, the breath was released, and a roar blasted its way through the galaxy. In that roar was a single word.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"
The silence that followed was deafening. But in that silence, they came. It did not matter if they were dead, sealed away, trapped, or even on the other side. They came, all of them, because of a simple fact of life:
When one's father called for them, they answered.
And so, the Primarchs appeared before him. Even the ones thought lost, the 2nd and 21st primarchs, Seo-Jun Yong and Reth Maina, stood with their brothers. The ones who had turned traitor, fallen to Chaos, Xander found the ties binding them to the Chaos Gods and broke them with as much thought as he would a cracker. The taint fled them, disappearing into the Warp amidst the Gods' screams of shock. Clarity flooded the once-traitorous Primarchs, making them realize what they had done. But while some were horrified by what happened, more eyed the being who brought them here with wariness and possible contempt. But even they were awestruck by what the being had commanded. His word had reached beyond the Warp, beyond life, and reached one thought forever lost.
Horus Lupercal, 16th Primarch and once Warmaster of the Imperium, stood amongst his brothers and beside the man he knew to be his father. Together, Xander stood united with his 21 sons against the Chaos Gods.
And he wasn't done.
His attention first turned to Slaanesh. The Prince of Pleasure didn't try to hide how she hungered for everything and anything. If it could be felt, tasted, indulged in, she wanted to experience it. And she would want more. So Xander tweaked her perception a bit. There was a simple way to experience it all. She didn't have to look outward, simply inward.
Which she did, at a blinding fast pace. One second, she was there. The next, she had started biting her own arm and disappearing while her realm fell upon each other and essentially imploded.
Compared to her, the rest of them were simple enough. All that was needed were simple actions. In Nurgle's realm, he found a cage in the gardens, holding a goddess. He broke open the cage and showed her a way to freedom. Nurgle's shocked realization announced he knew what he had done. The Lord of Decay vanished back to his own realm, but it would be too late. His prisoner was gone and free.
For Khorne, all he had to do was signal two boyz to his location. Didn't take long for two big green hands to grab Warren's shoulders. "Who wants a krumpin'?" asked Gork.
"Plenty o' teef for bashin'!" Mork chimed in.
Khorne's eyes went wide. He may be the Blood God, the one who hungered for battle and death. But even he had limits and Ork stupidity was well beyond that. "Oh n—" That was as far as he got before he was yanked out of the void.
And then there was Tzeentch. Despite the claims of him being the Weaver of Destinies, Lord of Change, and other titles, he was also the very definition of OCD. Everything had a place in his realm. Even his plans were laid out to exact detail. That way, he knew everything that would happen. Anything that changed only did so because he willed it. If the realm of Tzeentch was to be painted, it would've been a great library, holding all the secrets he hoarded.
So, all the being-formerly-known-as-Xander did was unlock the doors and let a fellow joker know.
Mayor Wilkin's eyes panicked as Tzeentch saw what was happening. "No no no no no no no!" he screamed as he turned and vanished. He might've run now but by the time he got back, it would be too late. His precious library would ever be despoiled by a Great Fool.
And just like that, the power driving the daemonic force besieging Terra was gone. Before long they were driven off the planet. Victory was achieved. But more than that, the Ruinous Powers themselves were stifled, a great deal of their power either lost or distracted. They would recover, eventually. But for now, they were distracted and gave the galaxy not only a chance to breathe, but to recover.
There was more he could do. But he didn't. Instead, he let the power go, flowing back into the Warp, and then separated himself from the Emperor. It was a weird sensation for Xander, becoming himself again. Was that what it was like for a snake when it was shedding?
Any other thoughts he might've had decided to take a backseat as he realized 21 gigantic men in armor were looming over him. "Who are you?" demanded Leman Russ, Wolf King and 6th Primarch, as he fingered his axe.
A Darth Vader joke crept up his tongue, only to see the men waiting for an answer and decided to flee back down his throat. Best idea to keep his head was to tell the truth. "I'm the guy who'll eventually become him," he said, pointing at the Emperor. When the big guy stayed silent, he looked over and saw how impassive he was.
The Primarchs weren't saying anything. So Xander did. "Really?" he demanded. "You're standing in front of all your sons and you're not gonna say a damn thing? After all this time and everything you've all been through? Nothing?" His future self was still silent. At that point, he gave up. "You know what? I'll take care of this. You go away."
It was a stupefying sight for the Primarchs. No one dared talked to the Emperor like that. The fact that this baseline human did so, and successfully dismissed him too, they almost couldn't believe it. Magnus the Red, the 15th Primarch, only just had to touch the Warp before the truth was confirmed. "You are our father," he said for them all. "Or…you will be our father." Try as he might, the confusion lingered in his tone.
That was all Sanguinius, 9th Primarch and known as the Great Angel, needed. He walked over to Xander and stood by his side, his wings hovering almost protectively above him. "If he will become our father, then I say he is our father," he said. "He is owed our respect, especially from those he rescued.
There were plenty of mutterings and thoughtful looks at his words. But one didn't "Rescued?" repeated Mortarion, 14th Primarch and renowned as the Pale King, whispered. "Is that what you call what he did? What if we didn't want to be rescued? What if we were fine where we were?"
"I can't believe that, Mortarion. You, of all of us, should—"
"I what?" The challenge stirred his brothers. Weapons were being reached for. All it would take was the wrong word to set them all off.
Before it happened, Xander acted. He walked over to Mortarion and stood before him. Since they were still in this void created between him and the Emperor, he had some control over it. The first thing he did was give them a new view. The sight of a great blue sky and endless grass stunned them so much, it took them a moment to realize they also stood at the same height as the man.
Mortarion pushed aside the warmth of the sun and the wind brushing through his hair, focusing on the matter. "What sorcery did you do?" he demanded. His hand clenched Silence tight.
"No sorcery. This is still my head." Xander looked the pale man in the eye. "I might not be the Emperor, but I'm enough of him for you to listen to what I have to say."
"You—"
"I'm sorry."
It took the Primarch a second to recognize those words. Hell, it took them all a second. They were simple words, but never something they would've expected from the Emperor, past life or not. Mortarion had to find his voice again. "You're…you're sorry?"
Xander nodded. "On Barbarus, you were cheated of your goal, the man you wanted to kill. I could say the Big Golden Moron did it because he wanted to make sure you were okay, and maybe on some level that's true. But he mostly did it so he could get you onboard with what he wanted. I am sorry for what was rightfully yours." The Primarch just stared, trying hard to understand what he had said.
And he wasn't done. "I made a lot of mistakes. Some can't be forgiven." His feet brought him over to Angron, 12th Primarch and Lord of the Red Sands, free of the Butcher's Nails for the first time in a long while. "I shouldn't have taken you away from your people. I should've gone down and helped your rebellion. There are no excuses for what I did." Like his brother, Angron didn't know what this all meant. The man meant each word he spoke. More than that, he agreed with what Angron had always believed.
As Xander walked amongst the Primarchs, he saw more than just them. Within each of them was an aspect of himself, something that defined and drove them, such as Montarion's Determination, what should've been Angron's Empathy, and Sanguinius's Idealism. "But while I've made mistakes, there were those that weren't my fault entirely," he said, coming to a stop before the 4th Primarch, the Lord of Iron, and his Genius.
Perturabo glared at the man. "I did everything you had asked of me," he said through gritted teeth. "All the thankless work, breaking all those sieges, I did them."
"Then why didn't you ask for something better?" Xander asked, stopping him before he got going. "If you had, it would've been given, and you would've had a chance to shine. But you never did. You chose to suffer in silence, hoping someone would take notice." His hard look faded for somberness. "I am sorry that I never noticed but you must share the blame."
"Just like you," he told Magnus, his Magical aspect. The one-eyed man stayed silent as Xander came before him. "You were told countless times not to meddle with the Warp, but you kept doing it. You kept going into the deep end because you thought you knew better. And looked what happened because of it." Magnus said nothing because there was nothing that could be said. Xander's anger faded and was replaced by concern. "I warned you because I wanted you to think about what might happen. Actions have consequences, Magnus. I hope you understand this now."
Before the Heresy, he would've been galled to admit that he had been wrong. But after so long, there was only one thing he could say. "I do."
Xander found the next Primarch waiting for him. Lorgar, the 17th and known as the Urizen, stared back with a defiant look. "You would still chastise me for what I did, after all this time?" demanded the man who held Xander's Faith. "I worshipped and loved you, Father. Yet you took all that I offered and spat in my face! Why should I apologize—?!"
"LORGAR!" The shout was sudden and furious, cutting through his rant. Whatever righteous indignity he had was washed away as his angry father stood over him. He averted his eyes, only for a hand to bring his face forward again. The anger was still there but it was tempered. "You were told, countless times, to stop worshipping me as a god," Xander said in a much calmer tone. "You were the one who choose to keep doing it."
"What else was I supposed to do?" he asked in a quiet voice. "I was a priest. I believed in something greater than me. Who else should I have worshiped?"
"Mankind, and its promise. If you had venerated what made us unique, I would've been content." Whatever defiance was left in Lorgar died away as he realized that simple answer. And again, Xander knew where he had gone wrong. "I'm sorry that I never taught you that."
He had plenty more to say, to those who turned their backs and those who stayed loyal. Even to Seo-Jun (who held his Bloodthirst and was wiped out against one of the first battles against Orks) and Reth (his Humor who had been taken by Cregorach before he had succumbed to madness). But there was one above all else who needed his words. Horus, his Self-Worth, said nothing as he came close. He looked just as he did before his fall. Only now, those confident eyes were horrified and subdued. When Xander approached, he looked away. "Father, you—"
"Horus." Again, his voice cut through the protests. "I trusted you with leading the Imperium while taking your victories as my own. I shouldn't have done that, just like I should've trusted you more with what I was doing. You had been with me the longest and I should've trusted you."
He shook his head. "I should've come to you with my doubts. If I had, maybe you would've shared some of your plans." It was a small hope of his, back before everything went wrong. Even now he didn't know if it would be true.
Much to his surprise, Xander smiled. "Maybe. But even though I had given you a lot, there's one thing I never did." He looked at all of the Primarchs. "Something that none of you were given. Might be a bit late but no time like the present, right?"
From an outsider's perspective, Xander split into multiple versions of himself, one for each Primarch. They themselves had suddenly transformed into children, easily small enough to picked up.
Which the Xanders did. Each Primarch was hugged against his chest, their heads resting on his shoulder. Strange as it might've felt for some, all of them just knew they were safe and protected in his hug. "You are my son," Xander whispered as he rocked them. "And I love you."
It might not have been enough. But for the moment, it was.
As Terra recovered, the Slayers took the opportunity to head back their own time. Willow had no trouble working the spell since it was just like what they did with Maxeri. Xander was fine with leaving, even after he let the Primarchs' souls go free, either to their lives or deaths. Before he had separated from the Emperor fully, he had looked at the Imperium and broadcasted their combined disgust at what Humanity had become. A message was left for them, something to burn into their soul. A single phrase.
"You are better than this."
Once everyone got back home, barely any time had gone by. They were all tried and just wanted to sleep. Everyone agreed that explanations could wait until morning. To his credit, Giles, accepted the reasoning after he saw how exhausted and disheveled the Slayers were. Although he did wonder how Xander had a second eye again and why he had a sudden interest in an archeologist by the name of Dr. Henry Jones Jr.
Of course, morning came with its own problems. Somehow overnight, twenty cribs had appeared in the HQ's main hall. It was a sight that baffled everyone. "Uh, Giles?" said Willow. "Did we miss something?"
"I assure you, Willow, you didn't." Giles was half-tempted to start wiping his glasses. The only reason he didn't was because his old students hadn't gotten up to their usual antics yet. At least the cribs looked well-made. Clearly the mark of a skill craftsmen. He was even tempted to wonder if Xander had done them.
Faith wandered over to one of the cribs. Just like she suspected, there was a baby inside. It was a cute looking one, sleeping with a wolf plushy held tight. But she still had questions. "Who the fu…fugu," she corrected herself, "would leave us twenty babies?"
"Twenty-one," Dawn announced from where she stood by one of the cribs. "This one has twins."
Xander froze as a feeling wormed its way through his stomach. He counted the cribs again. Still twenty. But this time, he noticed there was a Roman numeral attached to each crib. He went over to the one labeled XVI and looked inside to see familiar eyes. The baby smiled a gummy smile and reached out for him. He picked up him and rested him in the crook of his arm.
As he started swaying in place, a lot of the Slayers noticed. "Wow, you look like a natural there, Xander," Buffy remarked with a smile. And she had thought he had been good with the Baby Slayers.
"Just feels right," he said. "Although it doesn't explain why they're here." That feeling hadn't left yet.
"Wait, there's a note attached to this one," Giles announced from where he stood over the 1st crib, note in hand. "It's addressed to you," he told Xander.
He went over and took the note. Like Giles said, his name was there. And underneath was one line.
Let's see you do better, self-righteous jackass.
And just like that, everything clicked. Somehow, the Emperor sent the Primarchs back as babies so Xander could raise them. "Oh, that lazy son of a—!" He cut himself off when he noticed the baby was still in his arm.
Everyone else was watching him again. Willow was puzzled while Faith and Buffy were a little suspicious. "I take you know what this is all about, Xander?" Giles asked, hoping to get to the bottom of things.
"Uh, you could say that?" he said with an uneasy smile. He already knew this was going to be a very long and awkward discussion during breakfast. He was now a father to 21 babies sent by his future life, and there wasn't even a mother involved.
Even for Harris luck, this took the cake.
End
Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.
Xander Harris's soul eventually became the God-Emperor of Warhammer 40k. The irony of that alone had me writing this story. Along with the image of Xander looking at his future self, all he had done, and calling him an idiot.
What I tried to do here is fuse the two origins of the God-Emperor, with the massive number of shamans and psykers killing themselves so their powers would flow into one person and the idea that the God-Emperor is a Prepetual. Here, it's the same soul, just one that grew and learned each time it reincarnated. By the time the Emperor had come along, it was because the soul was able to pass along all the knowledge and powers it had gained from the previous life, without the need to learn everything all over again.
If the first three Chaos Gods had been around for a very long time, it would make sense they would take on other identities. Like the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. And since Slaanesh wouldn't have been, for lack of a better word, born until the 30th Millenium, she wouldn't have existed when Xander was alive or when Angel was fighting Wolfram & Hart. Hence why he was more focused on the other three than her.
Somewhere on Spacebattles there is a chart about the Primarchs, defining what attribute they took from the Emperor and how it was both good and bad for them. I was intrigued by it, and I wanted to do same here. (If anyone knows where that chart is, let me know. It's very helpful). While it could've been easy to label Horus as Ambition, it didn't exactly feel right to me. I took a look through Horus's history and realized that, since he was found first, he wanted to stay the best of the Primarchs. His entire sense of self-worth hinged on that. It was simple what to label with him after that.
One thing I noticed when I was researching the Primarchs was how similar their names were. Very European and/or English. If the Imperium encompassed all of humanity, that means all the cultures too. At the very least they could've had a Primarch with a foreign name. So, I brought in Seo-Jun Yong and Reth Maina, Korean and African names respectively. Seo-Jun Yong was inspired by The Weaver Option by antony444. I'd also like to thank AnimeRonin and their story Called in Japan for the idea regarding Xander's past life.
Alright, now I've got another idea for a sequel. After all, Xander is now a father to 21 children. Can you just imagine the chaos they would cause when they reached high school?
I'll see you all next chapter!