The soul stood before them, waiting. His posture, once tall and proud had dropped and his head hung low, his long red hair hiding his face. He was ashamed.
It was a new sensation, at least for him. He had never even conceived the possibility of being ashamed for his actions, it, surprised him. But not nearly as much as the fact that he still was. He had been ruined; oblivion should have been his fate, yet he still was.
Wherever here was, even though he was still very unsure were or what here was, but the odds were he was in his staff no more. Perhaps it was another manifestation of the sea of chaos, but he never was the scholar. He had not been called the soul of flame for nothing.
When he'd come here, ruined, finally defeated, still unsure why he was, they had needed a long time to untangle his mind, to rebuild his concept of self and to free it from the shackles of his impulses, or was it the other way around? It had always been hard to tell which was the human emotion and which was the mazoku.
The clarity that came afterwards was a surprise, a welcomed one, even in spite of all the pain that it came with. It had allowed him to see his actions, all of them, with a new light with a sense of impartiality and detachment...
It was ironic, once he had thrived in the pain of others; it was his very substance but now, now he was over all confused. For one, his thoughts were his own, no influence from the Ruby eye, or his 'brothers and sisters'.
It was just himself now. Ragradia would surely be having a great laugh out of this; well if she'd been alive that's it. He was sure of it, even if the dragon had not intended this to happen.
Perhaps it would have happened on its own, given time, but, but now he knew, yet he wished he could return to the fake comfort of not knowing...
All what had happened, everything he had done, lives destroyed, cities razed, it was his fault.
He understood.
And so he stood before the judges, waiting the harshest of punishments... anything less would be too lenient.
"WE HAVE DECIDED!" boomed the genderless voices of the judges through the chamber. His head dropped lower as he mentally prepared himself for his damnation.
"CHAOS DRAGON, YOU HAD KILLED AND MAIMEND, YOU WERE THE AUTHOR OF UNSPOKABLE CRIMES AND WERE AN INSTRUMENTAL PART IN ONE OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE CONFLICTS YOUR WORLD HAS EVER SEEN. HOWEVER. YOU HAD CHANGED, YOUR SOLE PRECENCE ON THIS ROOM IS PROOF OF THAT, AS IMPOSIBLE AS IT SEEMS. YOU TURNED AWAY FROM YOUR NATURE, AND WHILE YOU CONTINUED ON A DARK PATH, IT WAS FAR FROM BEING THE ONE YOU ORIGINALY WALKED. IT WOULD BE UNFAIR TO SENTECE YOU TO ETERNAL TORMENT, HOWEVER YOUR DEEDS CANNOT BE FORGOTTEN EITHER.
BECAUSE OF THIS, WE ARE GOING TO GIVE YOU A SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE!"
His head snapped up. "What?"
He couldn't believe it. They where giving him a second chance? Him? Impossible! The only possibility was that this was his 'mother's' (actually it was grandmother, but it was just a technicality, she was after all the mother of all.) doing. That'd be a laugh, in a sense; a speck of his old pride made is way back onto his face.
It would have been the proof that he had been right and that his 'older brother', self appointed all knowing brat, had been wrong. The old Gaav would have stood proud asking the judges whether this was or was not LoN's doing.
But his regrets, the weight over his hart, it had undoubtedly changed him. And the word redemption had a nice ring to it. He'd have to give it a try.
"WE WILL SEND YOU TO ANOTHER PLACE, ANOTHER PLANET, WERE YOU WILL BE RAISED AS A NORMAL HUMAN BEING. UNTIL YOU REACH ADULTHOOD YOUR POWERS AND MEMORIES WILL BE LOCKED AWAY AS NOT TO TEMPT YOU, AS TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL.
AT THAT TME YOU WILL BE RESTORED TO YOUR FORMER ABILITIES, TO AN EXTENT, AND TO YOUR FORMER LIFE'S MEMORIES.
IT IS THE HOPE OF THIS TRIBUNAL THAT YOU WILL EARN YOUR REDEMPTION, CHAOS DRAGON. GOOD LUCK."
He certainly had not expected this. Surely he had not expected to still being; however he had to admit it was an interesting proposal.
On some aspects he was still the being of chaos and destruction he had always being.
He was sure that if he willed it enough he could have swallowed the tribunal and restored himself to more than his former power. But the will for that was no longer there.
It was strange, anathema to his self
A test, it was a test; he realized that would set the fate of his very existence. But what could he do? It was better than anything he had hoped for and maybe, far away from his old home, from all the memories and the pain, he could prove himself. Show that he was more than what the Ruby Eye had created, that he and he alone was the master of his destiny, just like a human was.
Yes, it was bound to be interesting, to say the least. He knew those words, thoughts, were bound to be prophetical. Actually he was counting on it.
Then a cocoon of the most powerful magics he had ever witnessed surrounded him.
His sword, his companion for as long as he could remember, a very part of himself, was taken from him and then he dropped to his knees as his powers were stripped from him piece after piece and placed into the blade.
Then his eyesight grew dim as his memory left him to join the rest of his self in his sword and he blissfully let himself fall into a black velvety abyss.
One of the judges stepped forward until it came to a stop next to his crumpled form.
"Don't disappoint us, being of both Light and Dark. All our hopes rest on you and your decision. If you fail, everything shall be doomed."
He didn't hear the words in his unconscious state, but that had not being the creature's intention.
And the next thing he felt was being born, into a new life, a new body but without the memories of what had transpired before it made no difference to the newborn Alexander Lavelle Harris as he field-tested his lungs for the first time.
But in a cave, hidden underneath Sunnydale, a cave created not by the closing of the Hellmouth, or by any natural cataclysm, there stood his sword.
Slowly, softly, it buried onto the rock; as the sword went onto the earth, the ground itself began glowing red hot. As the sword halted its descent onto the ground, preternatural flames sprang to life, giving the small cave a rather unique lightning, running the length of the exposed blade but stopping abruptly on the armguard.
It would sleep on raging flames till he'd come and remember. As he was as he'd be.
For many years it had slept, it had slept and waited, unable to do much more.
Well there wasn't much a sword could do. Sure she could play imagine solitaire, but she cheated a lot an after the first six months of straight victories it became rather dull. well she could relive past battles, after all the master's memories were within, but on the long run it was more or less the same.
Not that it wasn't fun. But it tended to remind her of its current position, and it depressed her a lot.
A depressed sword, now that had to be a first.
Or perhaps it was an addiction to blood and it was withdrawal its problem?
Still, she knew that the time was at hand, that had been why she had awoken from her slumber.
She had also been very disappointed to not see master at the cave, nor feel him anywhere near.
Oh well, it was the time, that much it was sure.
So, it was the time to take things on her own uh. edges?
It really didn't matter, she was a sword, not a philosopher, and so she simply did. Caves were oh so boring.
The 'Time of Boredom' was soon to pass and she would be serving her master in glorious, or at least bloody, battle once more.
After all, that was what Gaav enjoyed the most. And so did she.
It had definitely been a long night for Xander. Too many things had happened for just one night, and that wasn't even counting the O'Toole bomb/apocalypse.
Sometimes his life seemed to get so complicated.
He only had to return the car, go home, and hope to be able to go to school in the morning. who was he kidding? Besides he could always sleep through the first few hours, well he generally did so.
It was then when it happened.
First it was a massive headache, to the point he almost lost control of the vehicle, then it was a drowsiness and, from then on, well it felt like Halloween last year when he was.
He only caught the occasional glimpse, especially when he left the car and moved towards the wilderness.
By then he was mentally screaming his lungs out, to no avail, or he thought he did. It was very hard to tell.
The next thing he knew he was standing in front of an odd sword buried in the middle of the cave.
Well, the sword wasn't really odd per se, but rather the living flame flickering among the blade or the fact that where the sword met the ground it looked like a small puddle of lava?
There was a serious wrongness there, and at the same time, there was an old, odd, familiar smell, that was the better word for it, too.
He had seen strange things in this town, well if he still was somewhere in Sunnydale, or rather under it.
However, he still didn't had any control over his body, and when his hand tensed and went towards the pommel of the sword.
He really did try, as much as he could, but regardless his attempts, his hand closed around the pommel and the world seemed to explode.
Time seemed lo lose meaning, again, as his mind tried to reconcile what his senses picked up.
Easier said than done, some say that the astral plane was not made for human minds and it was just as well, as he was not human, not fully anyway, even if he didn't remembered.
Deep within his soul, the old pride of the chaos dragon flared back to life. With an astral sneer he finally tackled the beast and for a second there was peace.
Then his memories returned.
It was rather fortunate that he was underground, as it contained his screams, as memory after memory was returned.
From newer to older
First it was the memory of the tribunal, of feeling his powers pealed from himself, of how oblivion truly felt.
Then it came the memory of a group of adventurers, all wary, fear in their faces and yet there had been something else there.
He remembered the flat-chested red haired sorceress, the blond haired swordsman that wielded the Gourn nova; the stone skinned chimera and the very well endowed young white priestess.
And of course the brat. Hellmaster Phibrizo, the architect of the war of the monster's fall, amongst other devious plans.
It was the memory of his demise.
What followed where disjoined pictures, scenes, and sensations of his time of rebellion.
To fight to live another day, to plan, to manipulate, and to brutally slain his enemies in battle.
Those had been the good times, well, not compared to the last eighteen years of relative peace; but it had been the time he had been his own monster, well sorta, after all what kinda monster had a human soul?
His memory went back to that day. HE was in his dragon shape, a dark and foreboding three headed dragon facing off the Aqualord. She, the water dragon god, had taken a serpentish shape, like a Chinese dragon of this world, except her body was in blue and purplish hues.
Ohh, yeah, he had just being a way for the Shabranigdu's fragment to focus power. But still it had been his fight.
And Ragradia proved to be far more powerful that one would have given her credit.
In spite of the barrier, in spite of breaking her off from the rest of the Dragon gods, she had fought like a demon. Pun intended.
And amazingly she had sealed off the Shabranigdu's fragment in a block of her ice. An ice that only a power far greater than Ragradia's could hope to break it, only several of the Shabranigdu's fragments could hope to accomplish that.
That had effectively ended the war of the monster's fall, though the fighting continued; neither side had any serious plans any longer.
However, in that action she had expended most of her power in that, and was almost ruined.
By that time he had not being in any better shape, his physical form was barely holding himself together.
Then, she just turned towards him; she knew she was done for. But there had been something in her eyes.
He had paused the attack, in doubt, unsure what he was seeing. To this day he was unsure of what he saw in Ragradia's eyes.
The next thing he knew she was coiled around his body, he was far to weak and the differences in power to great to escape her or to fight back.
"I should have known better, I should have, but I hope this will make you understand, Chaos Dragon, that I hope"
There had been a nostalgia in her voice, and then he had felt pain, a pain that was beyond understanding as his physical self was obliterated, and his astral self, his true self, was placed within a human soul.
At first he had thought that Ragradia had simply wanted to seal him off within a human soul, like Ceiphied had done with the Shabranigdu fragments, but her parting words.
No, she had wanted to give him something else, perhaps it was perspective. or.
And that was what happened. That was the birth of the large, larger than life, red haired juggernaught that lived for battle and for survival.
It always amazed him how fast the human soul was able to 'corrupt' him, in spite of thousands of years of being a blight upon the world. it only took a few decades before he was all but ready to renounce to that path.
True, taking over the world wasn't any better, but it was a decision born out of desperation and the desire to survive.
Very unmazokuish things.
Now he remembered.
It was a dubious privilege, but it was also a part of himself.
Who'd have known the truth that hided beneath the 'zeppo'?
Yeah, he should have known that nobody who lived on the Hellmouth could be normal, but to find out that one is or, rather, was a blob of negative astral energy that feed off the negative emotion of the living beings, well, it was a hard thing to imagine.
Well ok, he wasn't that anymore, well he wasn't too sure what he was now. Unlike last time, he was not trapped in a human soul, he was the soul, and more importantly he had a real physical body. Not just the astral echo that mazoku had. Or so he thought.
The pro was that he'd probably be able to do magic, he had always wanted to and well, had a real body.
On the other hand he wasn't probably as durable as before, and he didn't had a clue in how both natures mixed.
Well he had always been a warrior, not a sage.
Course, the real issue here was why oh why he had been sent there. The Hellmouth was no place for him to be, if he wanted to earn his redemption sending him there sounded like rigging the game or taking a very calculated risk.
It sounded way too much like tempting fate, sure he had his pride, and he had no real reason to take over the world.
Besides good guys or not, they were all plotting little bastards. So, there had to be a reason, something to have a being of his power, to justify the gamble.
Bah, it would probably snap into place latter. The more important matter was what to do next.
He was still pretty much Xander. It was no surprise, if a blank soul had able to 'corrupt' him in such a short time, then eighteen years or so of humanity well, it did take precedence over his millennia of mazokuish existence.
Yes, the humans had always been the key to the whole mess, not that he was going to go around telling it to people, or beings or whatever.
But his friends were likely to see the difference in the before/after.
"Well, I'll figure it out, I always do. Of course the thing is what I am going to do with you" he said to the sword. It was a rather large, uh, huge, even for his former bigger than life self. On him. on him it would look like something out a squaresoft game.
"Guess, it will be an astral pocket for now"
"Please master, not that"
"What?! You... you talk?"
"Uh. yes?"
Ok, this was a bit too much for him. A talking sword. Well it had been a fragment of himself, so it could have developed some emotions or something, but.
He could feel the headache coming.
"Since when?"
"Uh dunno. a few decades? I was really, really, bored and. you have any idea what it is to be in the same place for twenty years?"
"Eighteen, and no."
"Well, pray you don't find out. it is boring, boring, boring. and I don't wanna go to another dark place again!" somehow he as sure his sword had just pouted. The simple concept gave him goosebumps
"You do realize you don't really see things but rather astrally feel everything around you. And that even from an astral pocked you'd be able to see pretty much anything around me?"
"Uh. ah. I didn't know that" he didn't feel the headache coming any longer. It was already here.
It was hard to tell what was more disturbing, that his sword spoke or that it spoke like a Californian airhead.
Finding the way out of the cave wasn't nearly as complicated as he had thought. However, well, somebody had decided to loan his uncle's car for uh, ever.
Well, nothing is ever easy. Oh no, call it fate, petty gods or a bored out of her skull Lord of Nightmares; things at least for him are never easy.
So perhaps it shouldn't have surprised him to fin his car, well his uncle's car, missing.
Oh but it did.
"Damn"
"Master?"
"Uh... somebody stole my car."
"Uh. what's a car?"
"It's a. never mind. guess I'll walk"
Oh yeah, it was embarrassing. Especially considering who. oh yeah, he felt really stupid now.
So he could either walk back home and apologize to Uncle Rurry or. well he could track the car down and teach whoever had taken it exactly why it was a bad idea to steal things from him.
"Uhhh. I pick two, I pick two!!" right, he had to be stuck with the bubbly sword "It'd been ages since we spilled blood, please master, pretty please?"
"Well, sure, but I make no promises regarding blood spillage"
"Oh. but why master? You used to soo love to cut em down to size"
"Because. I want to earn my redemption?" oh, and he even formulated it in the form of a question. Two points.
"Ohh. that explains it. except."
"Yes?"
"What is redemption?" why him? Why these things happened to him?
Tracking the car was not very difficult. True, it would have taken a superior tracker to follow the trail, but hey, he was mazoku, or used to, or whatever. that meant he cheated.
So he looked the car astrally, and fifteen seconds latter he had found it.
The place was one of the many abandoned warehouses in the bad part of town. It always surprised him the number of gone out of business buildings there. or rather how people just didn't noticed it. True, there was the 'human self denial' but even that had its limits.
So, he just teleported there, or rather moved through the astral plane towards said place.
It was an educational experience, as the astral plane was not exactly the same as it was back home, it could be the difference's between staffs or rather a consequence of the lack of mazoku over here.
The warehouse looked as rundown as he had expected. Even though there were signs of resent use.
Carefully he moved towards one of the side doors and once he convinced it to open, read kicked it out of its hinges, he moved inside.
The place turned out to be a chop shop. It was rather well lit and in spite of the outward look it seemed in very good conditions in the inside.
His car was, as he had expected, still in one piece.
Luckily there were only five workers/mechanics/thieves/going to meet an ugly end at the shop at the time.
Well, he wasn't going to kill them, no, he was after all seeking redemption and killing a bunch of car thieves, as cathartic as it could be, it was counterproductive.
Beating them up to an inch of their lives and leaving them in front of the police station, on the other hand.
Well, the chop shop boys did not liked to be so rudely surprised, especially by somebody they had not seen before.
"You walked onto the wrong party, human" at that all five well, vamped out.
He should have realized they were not humans. First they operated an illegal business, at night, in the bad part of town and second, they did had a larger than normal astral echo. That had to be the blood demon or whatever it was called.
Somehow to their senses he was human. all the better. Still, that also meant he didn't had to be lenient. But he had to be careful.
So he did something rather unexpected, he sneered.
That puzzled the vampires. After all people tended to react in one of two ways, either they tried to flee for their lives, and after a short chase they were drained an disposed, or they begged for their lives, to no real avail.
It didn't puzzled them for long as the leader, well it had to be, after all it also had the largest astral body of the group, ordered them to charge.
The sword on its part was humming happily and muttering blood or carnage or something in a rather cheerful rhyme as she was retrieved from her astral sheath.
Some things are best left unexplained or described.
What followed was short and bloody, or rater dusty.
Xander reacted to the vampire leading the charge with a horizontal cut, splitting the vampire in two at the navel area, before it promptly dusted.
He turned around in time to slash a second vampire diagonally, from the left shoulder to the right hip, a clean and fluid motion. The look of surprise and fear on the vamps face were simply priceless, and delicious, before it dusted.
He almost didn't had time to defend from the third bloodsucker, but he just sidestepped and grabbed the thing by the nape of the neck with his free hand and using the vampire's own momentum he threw it towards the opposing wall, braking its neck as he let the vamp go.
By then, the surviving vampires knew that something was wrong, well two of them at least, the third had blacked out when he hit the walls and he was in no position to do anything.
The pause, the doubt, Xander used it and charged towards them. Actually he was after the leader, but he was not going to leave the other bloodsucker alive. It was a matter of principle.
Of course, by then both were trying to flee. He went for the last lackey first, neatly opening his head at the eyeballs level, the wound proved too much and as it was also dealt astrally the demon howled in pain before it too became so much dust.
When Xander turned towards the leader vamp, he had just left the main area of the shop closing a rather heavy looking door behind him.
Lou was leaning heavily behind the closed door, he knew he didn't had much time, but then again this was the most secure room in the warehouse. He had to be safe here; there was no way he could.
He had been a vampire for ten years, he had seen so many things since then, and yet nothing was similar to that. that.
He had cut through his men worst than any slayer had ever, no could ever accomplish.
His senses told him it was human, but he couldn't be.
At that time the reinforced door was thrown of its hinges along with the vamp, trapping him underneath it.
Lou yelped in pain as he felt an extra weight on top of him. Still, He managed to turn around to see him.
Xander slowly made its way towards the vampire.
Truth was he was lacking intelligence, here he was in the Hellmouth and yet nothing was as how it should have been. Not that it was a bad thing, as the slayer was no real threat against his kind, and he wouldn't fare much better either.
Oh yeah he was more than capable to deal with most low and midlevel mazoku, but against a general, or a priest? He was dead meat.
But it didn't explain why there weren't any mazokus around. Oh yes, things could vary with the staff, but there was the feeling of wrongness here that was uh, well, raising all sort of flags in his mind.
Last time that happened he went off to meet/annihilate a small band of adventurers lead by a petite (flatchested) redhaired sorceress.
And he tended to learn from mistakes. Sometimes.
He grabbed the vamp from the nape of its neck and slowly lifted him from underneath the door.
"Now, you and I are going to have a little hart to hart"
"What. what the hell are you?"
He grinned, oh yes he was going to enjoy this.
Ok, so perhaps it was not the best of his ideas.
He had stricken quickly, destroying the center of awareness of the demon and taking its knowledge and astral body onto himself.
That was what had him in the current situation; he was feeling like shit.
The demon had felt oily, yeah that was the best way to describe, and it was not a demon as Giles had said. It was more like the negative aspects of a person given dominance. While it wasn't all that different from turning a human spirit onto a mazoku, it lacked the balance and finesse it had.
No, here it was just the violent and aggressive aspects that were supped up to insane levels. That and a stupid adoration for power and strangely enough obedience towards some beings, probably greater demons or something, but they weren't mazoku, he was sure of it.
Worst of all it knew nothing asides from what the human knew.
It certainly didn't paid for the discomfort, or the urge to through up. again.
His sword wasn't helping a bit with her inane five-year-old questions, or her complains regarding vampires being not bloody at all.
Well, at least he had the car back. With a bit of luck he'd be home in half an hour and be able to sleep it off till morning.
Yeah, one of the few definite perks of humanity was sleep and the dreams that came with it. Tonight unconsciousness was good enough; actually, it would be ideal.
While he was not looking forward towards going to school in the morning, he didn't had much of a choice.
Since the vamp had proven to be unreliable of info, perhaps Giles library would be able to answer his questions.
Of course there was also the issue whether or not he should tell his friends.
They would likely see some differences; after all he never was a good actor, on either life.
And he had thought his life was so complicated a few hours before.
One of these days he was going to learn to shut up.