Title: Carve the Crimson Road (7/??) Author: Tim Williams Rating: TV-14 or so. Violence. Pairing: Buffy/Xander, a few hints at others Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, etc. Even the ideas are probably things I've read and half forgotten. Joss owns Buffy, Xander, and crew. Distribution: Take my fanfic! Please! Feedback: I'm totally obsessive compulsive about checking my mail for feedback. Please help me with my problem? ;) Spoilers: Late season 4. If you know who Adam is, that's about all there's going to be. It's kinna nonspecific. Summary: Making a deal with the devil, of sorts. The final battle against Adam, maybe? Aftermath, sort of. Author's Notice: This is the original part 6. We're not meandering as much as I thought I would. Oh, well that's not a bad thing. I did decide not to do ALL the stuff I'm going to do with the Initiative right away, though. There's still the whole *gets hit upside the head*. I mean, I have some plans about some stuff that will happen somewhere and at some time in the future. Yeah, I think that's it. Also, after the fic, I'll discuss some stuff that I've been asked. Given the time I'm finishing this, there might be a few more gramatical mistakes than normal, but I still blame the spellchecker! Dedication: To all those wonderful people who take the time to read this fic, and doubly so to those who give feedback. *** It had been a great evening. Buffy and I were on our first date two days after Riley's funeral, and it was, quite possibly, the single greatest date of my life. Though, looking at the competition... We'd gone out to a decent restaurant. Not fast food, but also not so fancy that we'd feel uncomfortable. Afterward, we went walking through the park. I made Buffy hold my hand and skip down the path chanting "tra-la-la" for a few minutes before we collapsed onto the soft grass in a fit of giggles. She said say she always wanted to do that with a nice normal guy. I'm about as normal as they get, on the Hellmouth, at least. Rapidly, we'd gone from giggling to kissing to some serious making out on the cool, damp ground. We spent several timeless moments before we heard a twig snap. "Well, well. You waste no time, do you Buffy?" It was Riley's friend, the black guy, in commando gear, holding a blaster. Forrest? I think that's it. Buffy rolled off me and stood up to face him. "Finn's not even been in the ground a week and you're out here making it with someone else. Move on fast, don't you?" I got up to face him as well. "Hey, you're..." his eyes narrowed as he got a good look at me. "So, did you two have it planned out from the beginning, or was it a spur of the moment thing. You know, just for fun, take a guy, make him fall in love with you and get him killed." I could see the hurt expression on Buffy's face, even in the pale moonlight that filtered through the trees. "I didn't..." "Come on, Buffy. You think we're stupid? We salvaged Adam's internal records. Your new boy toy over there could have destroyed him at any time." He was glaring at me now. "Hey, I-" I was angry. How dare he say things to my Buffy. Yeah, "my" Buffy, I realized that I thought of her that way now. It'd been less than a week and already we were at a very relationshipy place. "-wanted her for yourself? Is that it?" "NO!" I made to move toward him but he held up a hand. "I don't care, anymore. I've got my orders." "And what orders are those, soldier?" my voice was low and dangerous. I'd been practicing. "Neutralize and retrieve subjects responsible for the destruction of Project Adam." We'd been trapped. I should have known all along. The Initiative's goons weren't necessarily the smartest people around, but they knew what both I and Buffy could do and how to stop us from doing it. I caught a glint of moonlight on gold in the bushes to the side just in time to shove Buffy out of the way. The blaster shot took me full in the chest and I fell down, unconscious. The worst part is, it was still the best date of my life. *** I'd noticed a disturbing trend in the way I've been waking up for the last few days. The whole "just five more minutes, mom" thing seemed like something that happened on another planet. Definitely not part of planet Xander. It was cold. I was curled up on the bare white floor of a small room. The only clothing I'd been left was a flimsy medical gown. I rolled over and sat up, trying to figure out where I was. Spike told me about the containment facilities the Initiative used. That seemed like a good candidate for the location of this room. Three walls were tiled with the same white material while the fourth was made of some clear plastic. Well, I'd guess it was plastic. Glass doesn't make a good door for holding in angry demons. I tried to take stock of my situation, but the cold and the pain in my chest seemed to be the only things I could concentrate on for any length of time. Here I was, mostly naked, with no equipment, locked in a cell by a military organization that made the Green Berets look like mama's boys. Well, I realized, I wasn't totally without equipment. I touched the disk on my left wrist. They hadn't managed to take that from me. On a hunch, I stood up and walked over to the clear door. I made a fist and let it have it, full force. Have I ever mentioned that my hunches aren't very good? I yelled out in pain and nursed my hand, now with bleeding knuckles. I heard laughter from the cell beside me. "Oh, you think it's funny, do you?" "Funny!" a voice, deep and savage, agreed. "I don't see you getting yourself out of here..." The voice stopped laughing and I head a pound from the cell beside me. And another and another. It went on for a little while before the beating stopped. "Didn't think so." A growl was the only answer. I don't know how long I waited there, hours probably, before a technician came in to stand in front of my door. A few seconds later, Forrest walked into view. I growled a little, myself. "Sir," the tech said. "Are you sure about this?" "I'm sure." He glared at me form the other side of the door. "I want to talk to him." The tech nodded and stepped aside. "Alright, Xander, that is your name, right?" I nodded slowly, holding in my anger. "I just want to know one thing." I glared at him. "Where's Buffy?" He looked at me and laughed. "You seem to forget who's in the cage." He didn't seem amused, at all. "My questions first." "Ask." "Why?" "Why what?" "Why did you let Agent Finn die like that?" "I didn't..." "Don't lie to me. I've seen the footage. You made short work of Adam all by yourself, but not until after Riley was dead." "I... I couldn't before." "Are you some kind of demon? Hybrid, maybe?" "No... I'm human... at least, I think I am." "I guess we'll just have to cut you open to find out." I glared at him. "You wouldn't." "Yes, we would. The order's been passed down to pull you and your little friend apart and find out what makes you tick." "Where's Buffy." My voice was low and dangerous again. "Surgery prep, by now. Or maybe they've already started working on her." "Bastards." I growled and swung at the plastic door again. The difference is, this time, three sets of cracks appeared in the otherwise clear surface. I swung again and again and the cracks spread and soon the whole door was a webwork of them. I heard the tech screaming something from the other side of the wall, but I was too busy pounding to pay attention. Then I heard the sharp hissing of gas being released. I gave a couple more swings before I was overcome and fell to the ground. *** I don't know how long I was out, but it couldn't have been longer than few seconds. Sirens were going off and I could still hear the tech on the other side of the glass, frantically calling for reinforcements. I stood up again and started pounding the cracked door. One, two, three swings and it shattered. The tech tried to run, but I caught him from behind not three steps later. "Where's Buffy," I hissed into his ear. The poor man just screamed and rolled his eyes in terror. "Tell me or die." He didn't. I did. I held the blade into him for a few exquisite seconds as his life energy poured into me, filling me. This time, however, there was something different. With the vampire, there had just been energy, raw and pure, but with the tech... I felt something... almost solid... get pulled out of the tech and into the blade and then it just... went away. I mean, the sword only passed along the faintest traces of it to me, but the rest was drawn off somewhere else. I didn't have much time to contemplate it, however, as the sound of running boots and sirens made me realize that I was in the middle of a bad place. Forrest's voice rang out, giving orders, as three commandos with blasters trotted my way. The stopped outside of my range and took up a defensive position, weapons leveled at me. Forrest soon appeared behind them. "Alright, we can do this the hard way or you can just get back into the cell, Xander." "Go to hell." "Fire." Three blasters fired within the space of a few seconds, and I wholly expected to be unconscious. Or dead. But I wasn't. It tickled a bit and I felt the electricity running through me, filling me with yet another kind of power. I lifted one hand to point at the soldiers and felt a brief stabbing pain in my palm as a small spike exuded itself. My rational mind was only beginning to register this when my irrational mind gave the command to fire. The spike, trailed by a thin metallic cord, shot from my wrist with a stinging sensation and embedded itself into the first soldier. Some of the blaster power I'd absorbed flew out along the line and nailed him, putting him out instantly. I jerked my wrist and the line quickly wound back into my forearm. I'm still not sure how that thing works. This all happened within the space of, at most, three seconds. The other two soldiers were still recovering from the fact that I had shrugged off their blaster shots when I was up them, blade singing and spilling their lifeblood. Forrest had been the first to assess the situation and he did a damn good job of it. He ran. I'd like to think that makes him a coward, but I know that if I was in his position, I'd have done the same thing. I gave chase, hellbent on his blood, hell, the blood of everyone who got in my way. He dove through a doorway and slammed a panel to the side. I got to the arch just as the door hit the ground, sealing it off. Growling, I lifted my right hand again, balling it into a first. This time, I noticed that dull metal glinted through the split places on my knuckles where I'd tried to batter the cell door down. Steel reinforced fist. That'd explain why I was able to smash so strong a barrier. More than that, though. The knuckles had changed shape to be almost pyramid shaped. I'd needed that to focus my punch onto small parts of the plastic to get it to crack. Of course, I didn't marvel at my hand long before I slammed it into the door before me. Three major dents and a little one marred the steel door. Three. Five. Nine punches and it gave way as well. There weren't any guards behind this door. It was easy enough to figure out what was going to happen next. They knew where I was going, so why come looking for me? I cursed silently. Of course they were right. I was either going to rescue Buffy or try to escape. Their blasters weren't any good against me, and I was certain they wouldn't be able to out hand to hand me, even if there were thirty of them, which there well might be. What worried me was that they were going to have guns. Honest military hardware. Metal skeleton and resistant to electricity or not, I didn't like the idea of being filled with lots of little holes. Probably not good for my health. That's when an idea struck me and I turned back down the hallway I'd just come from. Two could play at this game. *** END FIC Additional notes, you might not want to read them as they do contain hints as to things to come. The first question I'm going to address is the one I asked, way back in part one. Namely, where does the title come from? Well, there's an samurai RPG called Legend of the Five Rings (it's based off a card game, but is amazingly good). One of the principals of the game is that magic either comes from one of the four elements or from blood. Blood magic is, like, the worst thing you can do. Tantamount to raping your daughter while you kill your mother on the social spectrum. The people who practice it are called "Maho-Tsukai" or, literally, slaves to magic. The evil magic is the spawn of a dark kami (ie, god) that lives to the south of the Emerald Empire. Those who use its power are calling upon him and serving him, whether they know it or not. Furthermore, the power has an effect not unlike radiation poisoning or cancer on those exposed to it for any length of time. They gain something called "taint" which is a creeping black sickness (that glows green at later stages). Those who have far too much taint are taken over and walk into the southlands to meet their fate. Most are killed by the oni (demons) there, but a few are strong and end up being met by the strongest of the Dark Lord's minions. They then learn the "Maho-Bujin" fighting school. The first rank technique (each school has five ranks, each rank one all important technique) is called "carve the crimson path" (I misswrote the title here, but I like "road" better, anyway). It, essentially, makes the Maho-Bujin an indomitable killing machine. This, of course, is at the price of being wholy a servant of the most evil being around. A being that craves blood and souls and the like. Foreshadowing, much? The second question is where does the disk/sword come from? That's a harder question, since it's not really a concentrated thing. The disk I hit upon as a mark. Marking him as the chosen one, etc., for all to see. I've toyed with quite a few incidents where it's important in my head, but I doubt any will see type. The blade was put in since (1) the gist of the story seems to be "Xander gets super fighting powers and something goes wrong" and (2) it's just cool. The blade's behavior harkens to Stormbringer in a lot of ways, but not in others. Certainly, the blades have greatly different powers, though both sing and comsume their victims. As you might have noticed, the blade is, by no means, the only thing the disk is doing for Xander. So far he's found a spiked fist, resistance to electricity, line taser, and resistance to gasses, etc. Something's due to change in the near future, but... well, it'll be a surprise.