Spike wandered down the street, watching the mayhem. Three foot tall monsters were chasing down citizens of Sunnydale, torturing them when they caught them. If they decided to catch them.
"This... this is just neat!," he said out loud, wishing Dru could see this.
He spotted the Harris boy in a soldier get-up, toting an assault rifle as if it were any good in Sunnydale. Spike decided to have a bit of fun before he got around to the Slayer. The entree before the main course.
"Hey, Harris!," he yelled, moving towards the teenager. He checked out of the corner of his eye that his leather coat was billowing properly -- without the right look, you appeared a twit rather than an imposing creature of the night.
"Identify yourself!," the youth said, raising the rifle to point it at the bleached vampire.
"You're up yourself tonight," Spike said insolently. "It's gonna be fun, killing you."
He grinned as a trail of bullets stitched a line up his torso with no effect on the undead, then took the gun off Harris before he hurt himself with it.
"Awwww... no more struggle? You just had to take the fun out of it..."
The soldier once known as Xander struggled, his body slowing until his ragged gasps for air ceased.
Alexander Lavelle Harris's body started to cool on the tarmac as Spike moved on, looking for the Slayer.
Maybe she'd be more fun than Harris.
"Hey! Death! Got another one for you!"
"Dammit, Fate! Can't you see I'm busy?"
"We've got a Sunnydale here for you!"
"Again?! Most of them don't come near me!"
"Well, we can't have him back there, even reincarnated -- he'll muck me up for fifty years or more. Get off your bony arse and come collect him!"
"Screw you! I'm having fun here in Africa!"
"Fine! I don't need you -- I'll just sort out a transfer for him to another dimension!"
"Goddamit, Fate! Just send him back already!"
"I told you once I told you a thousand times! I HAVE GOT FUCKING PLANS! Send the little prick on!"
"Fuck you buddy! I'm sending him to the Underdark!"
Normally, when one reincarnates, one's memory is wiped as a matter of course. Well, consciously. Some spiritual remnants remain.
When Xander Harris was reincarnated, it was only the first spirit tied to him that was mindwiped. The Soldier. Xander Harris came back to the forefront -- back in the driver's seat, so to speak. Hell of a way to cure possession.
The pain! Dear God, the pain! He wailed at the sheer coldness, huddling into a ball before he realised something. His arms and legs were a lot shorter than they should be. Everything was smaller than they should be, and the wrong proportions!
He opened his eyes. Xander remembered a couple of Voices fighting over what to do with him. He'd died, from what he could tell, and was now reincarnated. A greyish white blob was holding him, with more blobs around him. He couldn't understand a blessed word they were saying.
From the look of things, he wasn't in California anymore.
"*Something's different with this babe,*" one of the blobs said. Xander couldn't understand what they were saying -- his ears were brand new, and the tongue was unfamiliar. "*His eyes track us.*"
"*Perhaps this male is not as useless as the rest,*" another blob said, in that weird language that Xander could not follow.
He wished he was back in Sunnydale. The hopeless lonelyness of this reincarnation...
The one once known as Alexander in another life moved quickly and quietly, blind to the heat sensitive eyes of the sentries. The clerics in the House were busy, occupied with fending off an attact by Alak's female relatives. Completely untraceable, a force from nowhere.
For such he was known as now. Alak, of House Do'Urden. He had been raised by Priestess Malice, eldest daughter of Matron Vierna, and had learnt under her his place in the society he had been born into. Dressed in black, his white hair under a concealing wrap of black fabric, covered with a spell hiding his body heat. The only bright objects were his red eyes. He had no identifying objects on his person -- his neck purse, his piwafwi, all left in the care of Matron Vierna.
Black Ops, to use our terminology.
He darted a mushroom -- the fungus would squeal loudly if one not of the House DeVir passed, and that would not do. Moving quickly past, the gargoyles on the front wall sat motionless, unseeing. A frown passed Xander's face -- the guard of DeVir were worthless!
He levitated onto the second storey of the rambling building, sprinting silently to an entry that had dust on the door. He cast Quietus on the hinges, then opened it.
The room within was disgusting. In the corner, a surface elf cowered in a cage. The creatures were rather expensive, and Xander had no doubt it was there for use in blood magic of some sort, to insult Corellon Larethian. He didn't for a moment think of freeing the wood elf -- where would it go? It would be like releasing a dove into a flock of bloodthirsty hawks. On a cot in the corner was a sleeping figure, thin and old even by drow standards. Pharaun DeVir knew too much, could help his House too much.
The powerful wizard died of a slim stiletto inserted in the ear, dicing his grey matter. Alak withdrew the knife, cleaning it on Pharaun's clothes.
Xander had no problem with this. It was like staking vampires back home.
He paused on the way out. A book had an intrigueing title on the front -- 'Walking The Planes' -- with a black glass sphere resting on the top, about half a foot in diameter. Xander pocketed it. He sincerely wanted to go back to Sunnydale. After forty years in this hellish dimension, he wanted to go home.
Once back in his small room at House Do'Urden, he looked over the book he had taken from the dead wizard. A small purple fire, magically created, danced above the pages, heatless. He had received a minimum of thanks. Which he had expected, even if he had achieved great skill at carrying out his tasks given him.
Xander buried the resentment and read through the pages.
'While it is complex to open a portal, using my Stone which I have designed myself, it is a simple matter for even the simplest of minds. One takes the Stone created using my ingenuity and lines it in faery fire, waving it in a circle in the air while thinking of one's destination.'
He groaned at the selfcenteredness of the author. Wizards, he had found, were never lacking in ego. Still, it couldn't hurt to try. At worst, he would be flogged by Matron Vierna and then have the Stone and book taken off him.
Xander, also known as Alak Do'Urden, put on his swords. He then strapped his knives to his person, then picked up the Stone. He had no desire to take anything from this world with him.
Picking up the Stone, he lined it in purple faery fire, one of the abilities possessed by drow nobility along with levitation. Standing, he carefully moved the black Stone in a circle in the air, leaving a trail of purple fire where it had passed. Alak kept a careful image of Sunnydale in his head. He'd forgotten a lot after forty years, so he concentrated on the last images he had of the small town. Spike walking away from his dying body, lined by trees and tarmac.
Once the circle was complete, the air within the circle silently transformed from a view of his room's door to a view of a Californian suburb at night, bright streetlights stabbing into his red eyes like the surface of the sun. He endured the discomfort and walked forwards, into the light.
Xander looked around. Though half-blind from the streetlights, he could make out shapes. He squatted next to a cooling body, reaching out an obsidian black hand to it before stopping.
His face.
His old face.
His face before Spike killed him. Still clad in the military fatigues, assault rifle thrown roughly to the ground beside him. When he looked at what he used to be... a hint of wetness threatened to show itself at his eyes.
Alak snorted. He was used to this, he told himself. With a quick movement, he pulled the wrap off his snow white hair.
"Hey! Get away from him," he heard. The voice had a tinge to it, in a strange language.
Xander looked blankly at the tall figure dressed in the black twopiece suit. After forty years, he could barely remember speaking English.
"*What? Go away, commoner!,*" he spat out of pure habit, emotionless mask falling into place.
After forty years, he had been forced to adopt mannerisms of a typical Illythiiri. These did not go away simply because he returned to another life.
The man in the suit put on his game face and attacked the demon crouched over Harris' body. He didn't know what the demon was up to, but he wouldn't harm any more humans!
"*Lloth take you!,*" Xander howled at the figure, only now remembering who it was. Angel.
Xander ran, looking for shelter before day came. The streetlights were bad enough; he shuddered to think of what the sun would be like to his delicate eyes!
"... and so he yelled something at me, then ran off," Angel finished explaining to the scoobies.
"So I find him then Slay him?," Buffy asked. "What did he look like?"
"Slender, obsidian black all over except for snow white hair, red eyes, tapering ears. Black clothes, two swords, knives all over," the Irish vampire summarised.
Giles took his glasses off to clean while he thought that description over.
"Ah! Willow, get me Hawk's Compendium?," he commanded.
"Why? That doesn't have any demons in it," Willow said as she got the old book.
Giles opened it to the index, flicking through it briefly before settling on a page.
"Descended from the Illythiiri elven subrace, the drow were cursed into their present apppearance for following the goddess Lloth down the path to evil and corruption," Giles read out loud.
"Demon. I kill?," Buffy asked.
Giles' head snapped up. "Buffy, demons take lessons from these creatures in torture and fighting. I sincerely doubt you are capable of damaging it."
"Well, we could banish it or something," Willow suggested. "I've been reading about that kind of thing."
"Angel, keep an eye out for this creature," Giles said. "Lord knows we're busy enough with Spike and Drusilla; why did we have to lose Xander and get another enemy?!"
After checking the dweomer of lasting was still working on his weapons, and performing maintenance on them, Xander slept in the abandoned basement. It had numerous chinks of light entering it, so he was forced to sleep in a long storage container along one wall. The situation was analogous to sleeping in a rock concert with or without ear muffs.
The irony of sleeping in a coffin-like container was not lost on the reincarnated Xander.
Once he woke, it was night again. Xander sat to think about the situation.
Angel had seen him with his dead body, and had immediately gotten the wrong end of the stick. Living past two hundred obviously did less for humans than it did for drow. Xander had forgotten english and so, had not been able to explain.
Meeting the scoobies would have to wait until he had remembered enough english to explain what had happened.
There was something he could do while he tried to remember how to speak Good England, though. Hunt down that bastard Spike. Thinking of what to say to that undead asshole was surprisingly good for his english skills.
He couldn't torture him without being able to speak to him, after all.
Spike sat in his warehouse, thoroughly bored. He was waiting for the appointed time to go to that nightclub had arrived.
"Miss Edith wants to go now," Drusilla whined.
"Look, baby, we have to wait," Spike snapped.
"I'm so glad for you," a perfect voice said.
"Who's there?," Spike asked. "We're not running a bleedin' boarding 'ouse here. First that Ford louse, now you."
A black figure dropped to the ground, red eyes burning. "Oh, I'm not looking to stay."
"Who're you? Miss Edith says you're all fun and games," Drusilla said dreamily, swaying towards the figure.
The figure pulled the black wrap covering his head. Snow white hair cascaded down to his mid back. Spike sucked in a breath.
"Dru love, get away from 'im! He's drow!," he yelled, not daring to move himself.
"You still don't recognise me?," the figure asked. "You should. You killed me after all."
Spike thought a moment. He'd killed lots of people, and said so.
"Just last night..."
"Harris?!," the bleached vampire yelled. "Look, if there's anything I can do--"
Xander smiled. "Why, thank you Spike. I'll look after Drusilla for you, then."
"No! Give her-- aaaaaaargh!"
Spike found it rather hard to argue with a faceful of holy water.
"Are we going to play now, kitten?," Drusilla asked. "The stars and Miss Edith all say we'll have tea and cupcakes..."
Xander smiled. "Worse. I'm going to leave you to yourself."
He left the basement, closing the door behind him. Drusilla whimpered, unable in her weakened state to get free.
"Kitten? Dru's been a naughty girl, she'll be good again... Daddy?"
Giles sipped at his tea the next day. "I've done some more research, and have found some weaknesses we can use to attempt to disable this drow character."
"I found some binding spells," Willow said.
"Great," Buffy said. "What's the sitch?"
"It seems he is almost blind during the daytime, and his weapons will not last long normally under sunlight," Giles said.
"That's it?," Willow asked. Giles nodded.
"Great," Buffy said. "Should I hunt him down now?"
"No, I think we'll wait for Angel to report back," the Watcher said.
Drusilla twisted about, wrists tied to a beam above her head in the basement. She had had to hold her position all day, shifting slowly as the beams of light moved according to the sun. In the corner, Xander slept in the storage container.
"Kitten? Dru wants to pet her black kittie..."
She whimpered, wanting Daddy to come save her.
Xander knew the gang would be at the library -- if he waited, Giles would eventually be there alone. So he sat on the roof, hidden by darkness, watching through the skylight until Buffy left for the Bronze, with Willow accompanying hir.
He moved back to ground level, then moved to the library, casting Quietus on the doors before moving through them. Xander remembered them as being rather noisy. Alak had no illusions that the Watcher would welcome him with open hands -- he had to establish a threat so that Giles would try to think, rather than reach for a stake.
Moving quietly behind the british man, he put a dagger against Giles' throat. He had no intention of doing anything, but Giles didn't know that.
"Don't move," Xander whispered. "I am going to move, and you are not going to shout or yell or anything like that. Agreed? Raise your hand if so."
Giles silently raised his hand. It was shaking slightly.
Xander put his dagger back inside his clothes. "Now. What do you know about reincarnation?"
The watcher, surprised at this question out of leftfield, responded automatically. "The spirit, rather than passing on, forgets all from it's life and is born again in another body. Rather simple."
"What if the spirit was possessed by a soldier on Halloween?"
Xander moved to sit across the table from Giles, flinching as Giles looked at him with an uncertain expression.
"A...are you..."
"Xander? Yeah," he responded. "It's been forty years for me, since Spike killed me..."
"Prove it." Giles voice firmed, his expression now neutral.
"Natalie French," Xander started. "Bug lady, seduced me into a cage in her basement. Buffy resuscitation--"
Giles waved him to a stop. "That's enough for me."
The British man leant over the table, hugging a stiffened Alak. "Welcome back! We were so worried!"
"Please don't do that," Xander quietly asked. It was going to be hard to overcome the habits of forty years.
Spike paced along the wall of the warehouse, thinking.
"No... can't do that... what about..."
"Master, should we hunt this fool?," a minion asked him.
Spike backhanded the idiotic ex-football player. "No, you idiot! The drow'll only stake her."
A voice sounded from the rafters. "Perhaps you need a drow to counter that drow, then."
Spike looked up. "Who're you, then?"
"A priest, and that is all you need know," the voice said. The man dropped to the ground.
He was clad in leather, a short sword sheathed at his waist. The leather jacket, loosely closed, revealed a purple shirt underneath with a medallion with an undistinct design on it. This priest was drow, his hair dyed red to match his eyes.
"Keep talkin', and maybe we can sort something out," Spike said, grinning.
He forgot something -- appearance is nothing.
"Er, quite," Giles nodded. Both the British and the Drow were averse to public displays of affection, one more than the other. "Buffy and Willow will be most happy that your ah, death was not quite as final as they had thought."
"When do they get back here?," Xander asked, voice possessing an otherworldly lilt to it's accent. He pulled his hood back over his head, feeling exposed in the middle of the Library.
"They should be back within a quarter of an hour, assuming that they are not distracted," Giles said.
"I've taken Drusilla away from Spike," Xander said casually, as if it were a small thing.
"Really? Records of his behaviour indicate that he wouuld take that poorly," Giles blinked.
Without taking his eyes away from the table, Xander placed a black cloth mask across his face. It dissolved into a black shadow that hid the contents of the hood very effectively.
"Come out, Angel," he said, voice possessing even more of that strange accent.
"How did you hear me?," the undead Irishman asked. All he could see of the figure sitting with Giles was an all encompassing black cloak, face hidden.
"The hinges of your trapdoor squeak. And the stench of your demon can be smelt even from here."
A look of anger flashed across Angel's face for half a second. "Giles, who is this?"
"An old friend of ours," the Watcher said easily. "I can only assume that he is waiting until Buffy and Willow return to explain."
The figure wordlessly nodded.
"Good," Angel smiled hesitantly. "We could use help. I just heard that Drusilla has been kidnapped by the Drow."
A smirk appeared on Giles' face for a moment, disappearing before it could register fully. "Really? It would appear that he is not, then, aligning himself with William the Bloody."
"He'd have to be rather dim to do that, yes," the figure said. "While some must kill to live, he lives to murder."
This stranger was rapidly unsettling Angel for some reason that he could not verbalise. He turned, relieved, as the Slayer and the budding witch burst through the doors. While the Quietus spell was still in effect upon the hinges, Buffy banged one of them against the wall quite loudly.
"Hey, Giles, I forgot my...," she began, trailing off as she spotted the newcomer. "Who's the new guy?"
"Hello, Buffy," the figure said, taking off the hood and the shadowy mask. It changed back to a small fragment of fabric as he took it in hand. "Remember me?"
"Uh, no, we'd kinda know anyone with such a hardcore tan," Buffy wisecracked. "Uh... oh crap. You're that Drow, aren't you?"
"You're half right, Buffy," Giles said. "Do you want the other half of the story?"
"Shoot," the Slayer said.
"Xander was murdered by Spike while possessed by a soldier, that Halloween night. When one dies, the mind is wiped and the spirit is sent on to another life."
"Oh!," Willow realised. "So the Soldier got erased, and Xander got his self back!"
"Quite," Giles nodded, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. "However, he was reincarnated in another dimension, where time does not move in the same fashion as it does in ours."
"Say hello to the nice young forty year old Drow," Xander smirked.
"XANDER!," Willow sobbed, flying into his arms.
He tensed for a moment, almost grabbing two knives in a reflexive action that he cancelled at the last mooment, before hugging her back hesitantly. "It's been forty years since I've seen you, Wills."
"So, what've you been up to?," Buffy asked, turning a chair around and leaning on the backrest while she sat on it.
"Killing evil wizards, priestesses and other Drow, you know how it is," he smiled.
"Killing?!," Buffy shrieked, getting up and pacing. "They had souls!"
"Some of them were pure evil through and through," Alak growled back. "My last kill liked to rape surface elves and cook his enemies from the inside out with his magic! By the Abyss, that place would give Spike wet dreams for years!"
The Slayer was torn between her morals, and her indoctrination by Giles to not kill the living.
"He was in quite different circumstances, Buffy," Giles said, putting his glasses back on. "A Slayer and a non-Slayer have a world of difference between them."
"Why didn't you try and live with the good people, Xander?," Willow asked.
"I tried that when I was... twenty, I think it was," Xander reminisced. "I think I've still got a scar I got from an arrow trying to get away from wood elves after trying to explain."