He hated Snyder, he really really hated him. Not only did he forced him to troup around with a brunch of small kids, but he also had decided that they had to wear his type of "decent" costumes. Snyder had made them draw lots with costume choices written on them.
Buffy had drawn the princess, lucky her, she'd wanted to go as a noble lady anyway, so there was no big difference for her. Willow was silently grumbleing over the ghost, but at least she could wear something nice under her sheet. But he... ? Again he glared at his lot, hoping for it to change through pure force of will. But it still read the same.
He sighed and hoped that Ethan's had something halfway decent for him.
Ethan listened to his woes and then started to smile. "Don't worry young man, I think I have the perfect costume for you."
"Harris!"
"Mr Snyder?"
"Harris, what is that?!"
"My costume, Mr Snyder."
"I thought I'd given your lot decent costume choices! I don't think that THIS is a decent costume, Harris!"
Xander bit the inside of his lip to stop himself from grinning. Instead he pulled a book out of his backpack, opened it on a marked page, then handed it to the troll as well has the lot he'd drawn.
"As you can see, Mr Snyder, this costume followes the directions given in the lot exactly, I checked."
Snyder glared at him, but unfortunately for him, Xander was absolutely right.
"Just get out of my sight, Harris!"
"Yes, Mr Snyder."
He walked away, softly humming a happy tune under his breath.
She heard a ripping sound and turned around. Willow gasped. Where Xander had stood a moment before, there was now a seething mass of darkness. And then, something was forming in that mass, was emerging from the darkness, like it just had been born from it.
Tall. Dark. Final.
The figure was more real than reality and it hurt to look at it.
And then it started to move.
Willow shuddered as she heard the sound the air was making, as thousand times thousand times thousand razorsharp feathers sliced through it.
Two mighty wings unfolded to their fullest, before the figure lifted off, flying away to collect the souls of those that lost their life in the chaos around her.
Willow shuddered.
The Angel of Death was partolling the streets and tonight his name was Xander.
Ethan looked at the shattered bust on the floor and sighed. His fun had been over far too soon. He nursed his still aching chin. Ripper might be wearing tweed these days, but he still hit as hard as in the old days.
Then suddenly there was a noise behind him, a noise like thousand knives cutting though the air. He didn't know why, but the sound was setting his nerves on edge. Ethan turned around and the next moment he wished he hadn't.
A dark giant stood behind him, shrouded in shadows. The dark figure was about 7 feet tall and its closed wings surpassed its height by 2 and a half feet. Wings with feathers made out of hammered steel.
Ethan remembered the costume and suddenly it wasn't so funny any more. He didn't know why this costume was still active, the only thing he could think about, was the sheer unadultered terror, that was washing through his veins.
The giant reached out for him and he found himself in the merciless grip of two clawed hands.
"The costume, what pattern did you use for the costume?"
The voice was like a choir of millons of voices and yet at the same time monotone and singular. Ethan felt compelled to answer.
"A book, a horror novel, written by a German author. His name is Hohlbein and the title of the book is 'Azrael'."
A sinster smile flittered over the strangely featureless face of the Angel of Death.
"Then you are a bigger fool than I thought you to be. Tell me, did you read the book?"
Ethan whimpered and shook his head. He'd only searched for a fitting description of his costume and had linked it to each other via the spell.
The creatures claw punctured its own hand and then the dark being smeared its blood over Ethans face.
"You better read it then... in the time you still have left."
The hands pushed him away and when Ethan looked up again, the Death Angel had vanished with the sound of thousand knives slicing through the air when its wings moved.
It felt like he was waking out of a bad dream, but Ethan was cured of that notion, when he whiped his forehead and his fingertips came away bloody, with the blood of the Angel.
"... How did it feel to be able to walk through walls?"
He listened to Willow and Buffy, but his mind was far away. How should he explain what had happened to his friends? He knew he couldn't keep it a secret for long and it would be better if he came clean with it now, then have a big mess about trust issues later.
"... Xander? Hey, Earth to Xander, anybody home?"
"Just thinking, Buffy. What did you say?"
"I wanted to know how it felt like for you. How did it feel, to be the big bad Angel of Death?"
Shockmethod, he decided.
"Well, there is a tiny teeny problem with it, Buffy ", he said smirking and released the hold on his form.
It only took a moment of Not-Being, of ripping darkness and fluid shadows and then a winged dark giant stood, where Xander had been before.
"My costume never stopped working."
Willow screamed, Buffy jumped for the next weapon and Giles dropped his glases.
"Xa..Xander? Oh my God! How did that happen?"
Xander turned back into his teen-form and started digging through his backpack.
"Ethan is a Chaos mage, but he is not stupid, Giles. If he had put a normal angel costume in the shop, the spell would have tried to pull the true angelic essence into the wearer. That would have caused a backlash of immense properties, all centered on the caster of the ritual. So Ethan decided to take the closest non angelic beings whos description matched with that of angels. Im the case of my costume he chosed a book. A horror story of a German author. Its name is 'Azrael' and the costume is that of Mark Sillman after his final change."
He pulled a book out of his pack and showed it to the watcher. 'AZRAEL' was written on the cover in big gothic letters and the picture was an image of his dark form.
"I read the book. Mark Sillmans metamorphosis was possible through the means of a drug. A very unusual and dangerous drug. Its name is Amphetamin Z 7 Reciprocal Ascarin Ethylmaescalin Lophophinderivate, or, for short, 'AZRAEL'. It was invented by his father and designed for Mark's bodychemistry. Mark is the dominant AZRAEL carrier. And yes, I did say carrier, because AZRAEL is infective, as much or worse as HIV. People, that come in contact with his bodyfluids or that of another AZRAEL carrier, are infected with the drug and become sucessible to him through his dreams. Yesterday, I was Mark Sillman, the Sillman, that was in the final phase of AZRAEL. His body was my body and his bodyfluids where mine. When the bust was shattered, I stayed the way I was, because my body was saturated with the drug. My body adapted to the drug and now I am the dominant carrier. Like Mark, I am in the last phase of AZRAEL, but unlike him I know what has happened and I can control the effects the drug has on my body. A fact, Ethan was very unhappy to learn about."
"What did you do to him, Xander?"
"I infected him, Giles. I smeared my blood over his face and mouth and now he is sucessible to my dreams. Don't worry, I won't kill him. I will just give him a taste of his own medicine."
Xander's smile was sinster as he spoke.
"Ethan is going to sleep for a long, a very long time. And he is going to dream. I really want to know how he will feel, when he becomes the victim of his own chaos."
He stood on top of the belltower of St. Gabriels and watched. Somewhere down in the graveyard, Buffy was slaying vampires.
Xander sighed. Ever since helloween and his resulting change of status, his relationship with the other scoobies had become strained.
Giles had been quite upset about his punishment of Ethan. Xander couldn't understand it, all he had done was locking Ethan into a dream of falling victim to the forces of chaos and true, he would only be released from this dreams when Xander allowed it, but unlike the victims Ethan had left behind, he would suffer no bodily harm. Many of Ethans victim would have wished that it all was only a dream.
Willow had been shocked by his ruthlessness and scared by his apperance. Though she wasn't a strict practicing member of the Jewish community, she had been raised with enough religious texts to be afraid of Azrael... even if this Azreal wore the form of Xander.
And Buffy? He shook his head. Buffy was fascinated by him. She had claimed that she could understand him. Suddenly he had become a lot more attractice to her. Xander knew why. Subconciously Buffy was attracted to danger, the more the better. And you couldn't get any more dangerous than him.
But he had no desire to let himself be used to satisfy her craving for danger. He wanted to be more than just a cheap thrill for her.
Yet is wasn't meant to be. Even if she truly loved him, he could never be with her, for the fear of infecting her was too big.
He closed his eyes and his body flexed, his teen form giving way to that of the dark angel, his real form. That was something he'd decided the others didn't have to know, that Xander, the teenager was only a disguise, a form he assumed to better interact with humans. But his true form was that of the proud, dark avenging angel.
Xander leanded back against the cross, looking up to the nightsky. This place was perfect to think, which was why Xander had choosen it, he'd a lot to think about.
He had reread the book, trying to find out more about Mark's and his own abilities. The results had been earthshattering. While the book had been mostly discribing Mark's grisly crusade of venengance, it had also yielded information about another, more breathteaking power of Mark's. The ability to create. And not to create simple matter, but the ability to create life. Mark had, unknowingly, recreated the woman he loved, but that he had forgotten about after his first Azrael shock.
If Mark could do it, he could do it, too. The only question was, did he really want to do it? True, he could recreate Jesse, bringing him to life and having him live in a normal way, but would that be fair to him? Jesse had been a good friend, had lived a good life and Xander expected him to be in heaven. Did he really want to pull him out of there? He sighed and shook his head. No, it wouldn't be fair to him. And anyway, he wasn't God, had no desire to be a god and in his eyes, only God should have the ability to create life out of nothing.
"True thoughts, son."
He jumped and nearly fell of the roof as he whirled around.
Behind him stood a man in a rather elegant looking suit. Xander didn't know how, but he knew that his man wasn't human at all, but that he also didn't meant to harm him.
"You are not human. Who are you? And what are you?"
The man smiled thinnly and then he displayed his own set of wings. Wings that, unlike Xanders razorsharp and steely ones, looked white and fluffy and completely like you would imagine an angels wings to be.
"Behold," the man intoned, "for I am the Metatron. Herald of the almighty and voice of the one, true God!"