Greatest Amercian Xander

Author: Kyle Bernard <csktech[at]yahoo.com>

Ok folks, I don't know where this is going of even if its going anywhere, but its been stuck in my head and I had to get it out. This is not lituature, in fact it's crap. If you like it thats great if ya don't... Oh well

Date 11 May 2003

Latest addition


Voice over: "Once upon a time there were three girls. These weren't ordinary girls, no, not in the least. You see one, her name was Buffy. She, She was the slayer. There was one point where her sun rose and set my world. Sure she had her faults, she was impulsive. She never quiet understood that she wasn't alone in this world. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, we'll get back to Buffy in a few minutes."

"The next young lady is Willow. I've known Willow all my life. Well ok not all my life, but we met over a yellow crayon in kindergarten, so I guess that sorta counts. Will is the total opposite of Buffy; she had flaming red hair compared to the various shades of blonde that the Buffster usually wore. Willows special talent was computers, but she gave that up for magic, almost destroyed the world, but what the hell, I love her anyways."

"Last but not least there is Dawn, The dawn patrol. Dawn was more than she appeared and at the same time, less than she could have been. You see, Dawn was the key to the universe but you'd never have known it to look at her. God I miss her bright smile and the way she would do the goofiest things at the worst possible time, but that too is for later."

"Who am I you ask, and why is this important? That's an easy question. My Name is Xander Harris; I'm 137 years old and the last living survivor from Sunnydale. Yes that Sunnydale. I see you've been paying attention in your history class. I'm not getting any younger ya'know and it's time that the story of how we saved the world, with a little help from some long distance friends, came out."

"And Cut! Great job Mr. Harris." The director turned to his crew, "That's a wrap for the day. Everyone back here at 9:00 am tomorrow."

From behind the camera where she had been sitting, a tall young lady with the classic dark brown hair and electric eyes that were the legacy of her great-great-great grandmother strolled over to the gray-haired Xander Harris. "That was awesome Grand dad, you made Mom, Aunt Buffy and Aunt Willow sound so real. I can't wait to hear the rest of the story?"

"Bah... Don't let that wannbe Steven Spielberg fool you Liz, You want to know the real story get me home and...: Xander sighed heavily, "I'll tell you what really happened," Xander slapped the script that he'd been reading from, "Not this crap."

*****

Harris home

The air car silently touched down on the landing pad. The driver, Joyce Elizabeth Harris, helped the doddering old man out of the passenger's compartment. "Damn it Liz, he scoffed loudly, "I'm old not incapacitated."

Liz's green eyes flared in defiance. "If I waited for you it'd take a week for you to make your way to the house."

Xander chuckled at her stubbornness. "You're just like your great grandmother." Xander gawked at the slight girl. Every time he looked at her, he was amazed how much she did resemble Dawn. She had the same impish smile that commanded her face; identical long brown tresses fell past her shoulders, even longer that Dawnie had worn it, but still the same. The most shocking resemblance was the electric green eyes. Xander could stare into those eyes and swear the His long lost wife had come back to him.

The three-bedroom house was located in back of a large estate that Xander still owned, but ever since Dawn's passing, he'd left the big house to the children. The memories hurt less that way. Liz settled Xander down in his favorite chair and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, she couldn't resist. "Ok grandpa, are you going to tell me or are we both going to sit here waiting for moss to grow?"

Xander cackled loudly. "You sound just like Dawn did when she was your age." He made eye contact with Liz. "You know the resemblance is amazing. All right, all right," he protested the glare she aimed his way, "I'll get on with it. Ok most of what most people know about the Scoobies is crap, and that tri-dee show they made was all right until after the battle with Glory, after that it became fiction. I guess saving the world had become to blasé for the viewers so the studio execs spiced up the story. They killed off Buffy and then had her miraculously revived from the dead. That never happened. In fact after the battle with Glory the Hellmouth settled down for a long while, something about depleted energy, Giles tried to explain it to me once, but he tripped off into watcherness and I was lost."

"But what about the wedding," Liz asked.

A look of pain crossed Xander's face. Honey, the reason that Buffy didn't die from that fall was that Anya broke her fall." The old man fell into a deep silence as the memories overcame him.

Years earlier

"BUFFY!" The piercing scream split the night as Dawn Summers watched her sister take a swan dive into the expanding pool of energy. There was nothing she could do but watch as the portal between dimensions rapidly engulfed Buffy. Below her Dawn watched as the fight between Glory's minions and the rest of the Scooby gang stopped, halted by the sight of the portal closing. When the portal was the size of a small car Buffy Summers fell with a sickening thud.

Xander watched as his fiancé was crushed. "ANYA!" he screamed into the night, already knowing that it was too late. He rushed over to her and began to weep for his lost love.

Present time

"There wasn't anything I could do. The next few weeks I was hopeless. Giles and Willow tried to comfort me, but their words were just meaningless. I didn't care that the world had been saved. The only thing I knew was that the only person who'd loved me with the same passion that I loved them was dead." A panicked look crossed the old man's face. "I couldn't even look Buffy in the eye. And the very worse thing, Buffy knew it; she knew I blamed her for Anay's death." Xander sat straight up, a look that Liz had never seen before and a confidence that had been lacking since Dawn's death claimed Xander Harris. "That's where the real story begins"

Sunnydale, Years earlier

"Xander Wait." Dawn went rushing out to the old Ford Taurus that Xander was packing his meager belongings into. "Damn it Xander, at least you can let me say goodbye"

"Dawn patrol, he said while closing the trunk. "You don't think I'd leave with out giving my favorite teenager one last hug."

"You don't have to do this," Dawn pleaded as she grabbed the carpenter up in her arms. "Please Xan give it some more time."

Sadness filled his reply. "I wish I could Dawnie, but the pain is too fresh and everything I see around here reminds me of losing Anya. Xander stopped in mid-sentence, "I can't even look her in the eye Dawn." Tears started leaking down the young girls face. "Hey don't cry hon, I'll be back when I can deal."

Dawn sniffed back the tears, putting the best face on. She grabbed Xander in a hug and pulled him to her tightly. "You'd better be." She moved a little closer, "I'm going to miss you," She whispered into his ear.

Three weeks later Xander sat in the middle of a desert wondering what he was doing there. It wasn't like he had anything planned he didn't care where he went, just so long as it wasn't Sunnydale. Xander slammed his fist against the dashboard, silently cursing the broken gas gauge. "All right, It's the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, oh yea I'm doing great on my own."

Before he could answer his own question, a thunderous flash of light filled the windshield blinding Xander for a moment. "Holy shit," he swore as he covered his eyes with his forearm. With his eyes watering, he removed his arm and tried to blink the after image away. "Naaaa couldn't have been." Xander looked back up and once again he saw only empty desert. Relief flushed his body, He wasn't sure what he saw.. "But I'm damn glad I didn't see it. No one would ever believe me that I saw an actual UFO."

A tapping on the window caught Xander's attention. There was a curly haired man standing next to the car trying to get Xander's attention. Xander rolled the window. "Where the hell did you come from?"

The thin man brushed his blond hair back. "Why from the ship of course. A look of confusion on his face, you did see the ship didn't you.

"Umm, well, yea sorta. But I figured it was.... Xander stuttered, "Ok I thought I was going nuts."

"That's ok, I thought the same thing the first time I saw it too. Well since you did see the ship then I have the right guy."

"Wait a second, the right guy... the right guy for what?"

"For this," The stranger handed Xander a slivery box that seemed to have no top or bottom. "just put your hand on the top of the box and it will take care of the rest."

Xander looked at the box, than back at the man, then back to the box. Shrugging his shoulders, he placed his right hand on the box. An electrical charge ran up his arm, causing all the hair to stand straight up. A strange blue white glow surged from one side of the box as it opened, revealing a bright red suit.

"Sorry about no instruction manual, but I lost that year's ago. Oh I'm Ralph Hinckley. What year is it ?"

*****

Present time.

Liz listened to her grandpa with an ever-growing disbelief. Sure, he had been known to tell some. Well lies, but they were usually very entertaining. "Ok what could a red suit and a UFO have to do with how Sunnydale was destroyed?"

"Not much right then, but I have to set the background so you will understand the rest later. Now where was I?"

"In the middle of a desert with a guy named Ralph, staring at a red suit in a box," Liz quipped.

"Who's telling this story, you or me?" Xander withered under the glare that Liz shot his way. "Ok, back to the desert and the red suit."

Desert setting years past

"Huh," Xander grunted. "How can you not know what year it is?"

"Well, Ralph tripped into his science teacher mode, "Einstein was right one the effects of near faster than light travel is a time dilation." The blank look on the kids face told Ralph that he'd already lost the kid. "I've been riding around with them. Last time I was here was 1982." Ralph looked at the kid sheepishly, "can you please tell me who you are and what year it is, and do you know where we can get a good cheese burger?"

Oh hell, thought Xander, won't be the first strange thing I've ever seen or done. He snickered to himself silently, not even the strangest. "He offered his hand to the stranger, "I'm Xander Harris, nice to meet you, it's 2001."

Ralph's blue eyes went wide in excitement, "Great Bill might still be alive. Ralph noticed the Xander hadn't finished, "Sorry."

"That's ok. I was just going to add that I know of a couple of places, but we aren't going anywhere, the damn car is out of gas."

"I'm pleased to meet you Xander Harris. Look I know this is going to sound very strange but if you do as I ask; then everything will become crystal clear. Take your clothes off and put on the red suit."

Xander stared at Ralph as if he was a three-headed chicken, "I've seen a lot of strange things in my life. No way, not a chance in hell!"

Ralph looked skyward as he unbuttoned his shirt. "I told you that He needed the instruction book. He turned his attention back to Xander, "Give me the suit." Xander sat there while Ralph stripped to the skin. "Well." Ralph said. "Give me the suit; it's getting damn cold out here."

Shaking his head and grumbling under his breath, Xander grabbed the suit. The suit felt like metal but there was also a silky smoothness to it. For some reason, there was a familiarity to the suit that Xander felt that he should recognize, but that thought faded as he gave the suit to the naked schoolteacher.

When Ralph was fully dressed in the suit, he stuck his head through the window. "I'll push and you steer, OK?" Ralph made his was back to the trunk thinking, I hope this works. "OK Xander lets go." He leaned against the trunk and pushed with all of his might. The car started rolling slowly, after a few hundred feet Ralph was sweating like a pig. Oddly enough, the suit looked just as fresh as the first time Ralph had seen it. "Looks like they made some changes with it," He said to himself. "Crap Xander maybe the only one that can use the suit."

The car came to a stop and Ralph strolled over to the passenger's side of the car and sat down with a thunk. His curly hair soaked with sweat, he sat there for a few minutes trying to catch his breath, "Look Xander," he panted. "You're going to have to wear the suit and push. That's the only way we are going to get out of here.

Xander knew when he had the upper hand; lord knows he'd been on the wrong side of that equation enough times to recognize that. "I'm not doing anything until you tell me what the hell is going on."

Ralph hung his head; He'd hoped to tell most of the story in better circumstances because there were restrictions on what he could say. "I was a high school teacher. One summer I was scouting locations for the geology labs and like you, my car died in the middle of the night and wouldn't start. An intense light filled the sky. I thought I had wandered onto government property, instead I found the same box that you did." Ralph's eyebrows lifted in thought. "I don't know how I knew; I just knew that I was supposed to use the suit for good. Unfortunately, somewhere I lost the instruction manual that came with the suit so I had to figure out what it could do on my own." Ralph wasn't about to tell Xander that his losing the instruction manual was by the aliens designs.

Xander asked the obvious question, "So what can the suit do?"

"That's one of the things I'm forbidden to tell you. Part of the process is learning what you can and can't do. I guess they thought the user would be more careful that way."

"Great" said an exasperated Xander. "You want me to become the red Power Ranger but you can't tell how or why?"

"That's about it. I can give you hints and one hint is that I know if you wear the suit you can get us out of here." A general silence ensued while Ralph removed the suit and Xander donned it.

Xander wiggled around a bit against the tight material. "Feels like it's alive." It was only then that he realized that he was no longer sweating against the heat of the desert. "Wow, this is pretty cool. Okay teach how did you get out of the desert?"

"I drove my car." Ralph's words tailed off as both of the men looked at the ignition switch.