The Monster's Loose

Introduction:- This is the first in a little series I'm playing with. We'll see how far we can go with this one.

And yes, just because I've stated yet another story does not mean that the others I'm writing have stopped. I'm just not making much progress with them at the moment and this is to clear out the cobwebs and take some time away from what has become a major headache.

Disclaimer:- I own none of the characters used here. It's just for fun.

Xander turned in the mirror, it was difficult. Not only was his bedroom much more cramped than usual, but it was hard to get a good angle on what he was looking at. Hunching his back he once again squeezed himself through the doorway and made his way out of the house. Possibly for good.

Xander's drunk excuse of a Father, at least what had passed as a Father beforehand, opened the door to his own room a crack. All it took was a contemptuous glance and the old bastard cowered in terror. Xander chose to ignore the man. He had always been beyond him, in many ways Xander could now see that was part of what drove the man to beat him.

It was pathetic, but all to human. Something he had left behind this night.

Once free of the confinement of the tiny hovel that has been his home Xander could pull himself to his new, true height. It was still dark out but standing, almost naked, in the cool pre-dawn air he felt free in ways he'd never known before. Senses beyond mortal understanding sampled everything. He could taste the bitter salt of the not so distant ocean, the shadow of warmth from the nearest star and everything in between. But a shadow of what he had experienced earlier, yet magnitudes greater than what man, or even demon, could hope to imagine.

His new form was beyond both. Gene-forged by arcane technology and the greatest mind in all of creation. Xander was beyond flesh, beyond sprit. For what he had become there were no words, except one.

Unfurling his new limbs he let a grin spread across his face. This was a curse, there was no doubt about that, but for the next few minutes he was going to enjoy it. Spreading his wings Xander ran. With great strides and a speed that blurred the eye he caught an updraft and took flight.

Buffy quickly checked the brunette wig was in place and opened the door, only to stop suddenly. She'd expected Xander, but instead it was a giant in golden yellow armour. So big all she could see was it's chest, with a cluster of red jewels, like eyes, in the centre.

Reacting on instinct she kicked it away. Luckily the dress got in the way and she couldn't get a lot of power behind it. Lucky for her because she didn't hurt her friend and lucky for Xander because he was just knocked back and didn't break anything.

She realised it was one of her best friends from the yelp he gave as he hit the ground. "Xander!" Buffy shouted gathering up the skirt and jumping to his side.

It took a few moments to get him straight, but once she did and could see the full thing Buffy was seriously impressed. "Whoa Xander! That's truly awesome!" She admitted. When she'd first seen the wings he'd bought at the shop Buffy hadn't much hope but now. "What's it supposed to be?"

Xander tried to spin in a circle but it was difficult for him. He had to have stilts or something in the legs. "I am the Emperor's Angel, Primarch of the IX'th legion. Sanguinius."

"You're who now?" Buffy hadn't followed any of that.

Xander shook his head, the long blond wig moving stiffly showing just how cheap it had been. "A super-soldier from the future." He explained with a shrug that made the wings move.

"Cool." She looked closely at the costume. Now she had a moment and some good light she could see how it was painted paper mache with some extra bits stuck on. "Where you get all this?" She waved at it.

"Jessie" he admitted. "We were making the armour together, but… Yeah, then all that happened. Thought it would be cool to finally use it."

Buffy kept her poker face. She knew how close Xander and his, now dead, best friend had been. He rarely talked about him these days. It was kinda sweet really. "He'd think it was cool." She told him seriously.

Xander gave her a lopsided smile. "Nah, he'd be too busy drooling over you to notice! Buffy, Duchesses of Buffonia, I completely renounce spandex!"

Buffy smirked, remembering the quip he'd made when he first saw the costume in the shop. They both knew she didn't think of him that way. Things had gotten kinda weird when Xander had tried to ask her out last year, but if he was willing to joke like this he'd moved on. Picking up the hem of the dress she gave a mock curtsy. "Thank you kind sir! But you should really see Will!"

Xander landed outside the high school and crept to the library, stealthy despite his immense size. He could sense the Hellmouth now. The raw storm of psychic energy boiling away, a storm screaming to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. Like a volcano trapped under a wafer thin layer of cool marble.

All that was needed was the right impact at just the right point and the whole planet would be ripped from reality and set adrift in the Warp. Here and now, drawn to the focus point, Xander could feel the knife's edge before him. The fate of billions upon billions of precious human lives rested, here, in the balance. Those born, those yet to be. They're psychic screams echoed through eternity, the all too possible probably of failure clawed down the fabric of time at him.

The horrors overwhelmed him. It took all the strength Xander did not know he possessed to drag himself into the empty Library before he passed out.

Willow woke up only a few moments after collapsing. It wasn't that she could suddenly breathe again, more that she didn't need too.

Terrified, she stood up and saw something impossible. Her own body, still in the white sheet ghost costume. Only it wasn't her, it couldn't be. "Oh my God!" Willow staggered forward, no longer standing in her body. "I'm a real ghost!" She gasped.

This wasn't possible, Willow reasoned. She couldn't be dead, could she? Before she could do anything about it there was a scream in the distance. Reacting without thinking Willow ran out into the street.

As soon as she did, she saw him. Curled up in a ball the gold costume was unmistakable, under the white wings, that were now a lot bigger than they had been last time she saw them. "Xander! Xander?" Willow called out, not knowing what could have happened to him.

It was a year before they'd met Buffy that Xander and their friend Jessie discovered a new game war-something four thousand. Willow had been too busy studying to really pay much attention, but the two boys had gotten really into it. The figures were expensive, but the pair read a lot of the background and thought it was great.

Xander wasn't stupid, he just didn't apply himself to school stuff. So after last Halloween, when the two of them had the idea to dress as their favourite characters, Jessie and Xander had done a great job. Going all out to make the costumes out of whatever they could find. Then Jessie had died and Willow thought Xander had scrapped it all. Instead he'd built tonights costume out of the left over parts and the wings he bought at the new costume shop.

Willow took a step forward, trying to figure out a way to shake Xander, when he moved.

It was like a ripple of strength, his whole form shuddered. Even the fake wings that were somehow much bigger than they should have been. Slowly, like an enormous ice shelf cracking off a cliff, he stood up. And up.

Xander, or what should have been Xander, rose. Standing proud and tall, easily twice the hight Willow could ever hope to be and then some Xander was suddenly a giant. Even bigger than before. His wings, no longer cheap plastic moved all on their own. A brilliant bright white they somehow picked up every red light on the street, to the point where they almost glowed with the colour of blood.

That wasn't the biggest change. Neither was how he was suddenly much taller, or how the once crude costume was beautiful golden armour. No, the most impressive thing was Xander's shear presence. The way he stood there, like a statue of a god brought to life, was breathtaking.

If Willow was alive she would have fainted.

"Xander?" She asked, hardy able to speak.

The living angel looked down at her. It was Xander and not at the same time. Willow could see his features, only now they were perfect. The angle of his jaw, the arch of his eyebrows, should not be so flawless, but they were.

Words failed her, and then he spoke. It was musical, long words that flowed into each other. It sounded almost Latin, but Willow didn't recognise it.

"I don't... I can't understand you." She admitted.

He blinked in confusion before looking up into the sky for a moment. Then, with a wry smile, he pointed to the ground. It took her a moment to catch up, remembering what little she knew about Xander's costume. "Earth. We're on Earth."

"Earth." He repeated before gesturing to his and then Willow's mouth.

"English. I'm talking English." She quickly explained.

"English. Earth." The angel said carefully. Then, to Willow's surprise, he said in haltingly "I know not what... foul trick of my damned Brother... this is... but I will never follow his path."

"This isn't a trick!" She told him desperately. "I dressed as a ghost for Halloween and now I think I am one. My friend dressed as, well you and... Here you are."

"Here I am." He agreed. "For now. I don't know how either, but I sense this fate is only temporary. Soon your friend will return to you and I... a much less desirable doom awaits me."

"Doom?" Willow gasped.

Like a child knowing how to hold their breath underwater Xander built a psychic shield around his mind. A wall of will between himself and the shifting sea of Warp energy raging against the thin protection of reality. Slowly, painfully, he awoke. Pulling himself to his feet Xander could feel his body as it still struggled with the genetic changes forced on it to hold the raw power he now possessed.

He had no choice but to let it happen. It would continue even if he tried to kill himself. If such a thing was possible. It took a Primarch, or the Emperor, to kill a Primarch outright and while that wasn't what Xander was, yet, he was far too close already.

Looking back at the mouth of hell he scowled. It was one thing to know of it, another to feel... to understand. He remembered Jessie's words after he'd been turned into a vampire. How he was connected, and heard the worms in the Earth. Xander was that and more. Jessie had a pale reflection, a faint shadow of what he possessed now.

Vampires were just the start. Ignoring the Hellmouth Xander looked at the bookcases that lined the room. An archive of foreign knowledge. Describing creatures that stalked the dark places of this world. Warpspawn, neverborn, shedim, daemon. Whatever you chose to call them, they existed. They would try and fracture reality. Billions of those that inhabited this poor world had no knowledge of the knife edge their destiny rested upon. Before this night Xander knew that, but now he understood. Like the difference between being told of a pain and experiencing it.

Understanding came as easy to him as the complex mental shield he'd constructed. With it came a terrible truth. The dangers were great, knowledge was a weapon and like all weapons if wheeled incorrectly even more dangerous to the fool that used them.

With a sudden insight he understood Magnus, his damned mystical brother... No not his brother, Sanguinius's brother. He was the one that studied the mystical and arcane, searching for answers and finding them. Answers that led him down the cursed path of the traitor.

Here he was, on the precipice of the same mistake. Answers were one thing, truth was something completely different.

Xander knew all to well even being aware of the dangers was a conceit he could not afford. Neither was ignorance. Only by walking the razor edge between could he find his way.

The feathers on his massive wings rippled as he set his shoulders and reached for the first book.

Cordelia ran, screaming, from the monster chasing her. If she survived this it would be the last time she believed little Miss Buffy. Halloween supposed to be quiet. Like hell! "Help!" She cried out again.

A sudden shadow flew over her head and Cordy tripped over her tail. Falling head over heels she tensed herself, expecting to be jumped and eaten. She wasn't. There was a confused noise and a howl of dread before a thump. Then nothing.

Opening one eye she gasped. It was an angel, not the hottie in the leather coat, but an actual angel. Dressed in gold and with what looked like a halo. With one hand he reached down. Cordy felt and almost electric thrill as he picked her up. All around them the demons ran, fleeing the giant.

"Who, who are you?" She asked.

"I am known as Sanguinius. Come, this is no place for a mortal.

Wordlessly she obeyed as he lead her away.

Xander was deep in the stacks, absorbing information on the monsters of this world when his enhanced hearing picked up voices heading for the Library.

"Giles, you didn't see him!"

"Yes, Buffy" An exasperated English accent replied.

"No, you don't understand…"

"Buffy, Willow, I do understand. You've both explained it quite clearly to me. Xander became an angelic warrior and flew off to save people last night."

"We have to find him!" Willow begged as they entered. Xander ducked behind the bookcase, waiting for the right moment.

Giles took off his glasses an began polishing them. "We will, but not right now. Before we do anything we have to know exactly what sort of spell was used and how it might have effected him."

"Giles!"

"We can't afford to run around half cocked." He patiently explained. "If Xander is hurt then we would waste valuable time looking in the wrong places. What do we know of this angel?"

Xander smirked. "All together too much Giles. All together far too much."

"Wha?" Buffy gasped as Willow shouted "Xander!"

He heard them running up the steps. "Wait! Do not come up here. Not yet."

"Xander, is that you? You sound… different." Giles couldn't hide the doubt in his voice.

"I am different. I cannot be sure about how the spell effected the others, but Sanguinius was not entirely of this world. He was a being beyond mortal means and measures." Xander admitted. "Being him affected me."

Xander could sense the rising fear in the room. "Affected you, affected you how?" Buffy asked, stunned. "Are you okay?"

Checking to make sure the bedsheet he'd tied around himself was in place Xander rose again and stepped into view. "You tell me." he challenged, looking down on his friends.

"Good Lord!" Giles swore and dropped his glasses as they took a collective step back. Both Willow and Buffy looked at him with wide eyes and open mouths.

"This is going to take some getting used to." Xander admitted and then looked closely at his oldest friend. "Buffy, you might want to catch Will."

The Slayer blinked, not understanding the words. "Catch Willow?" She echoed just in time for the redhead to collapse in a dead faint. "Oh, that makes sense now. Catch her. Right." Then, with distressing predictably, Buffy also fainted.

Xander tried not to sigh, remembering how the nobel woman The Slayer had masqueraded as the night before had exactly the same reaction. "At least she didn't hit her head, this time."

End The Monster's Loose