Title: The Amazing Spider-Xander
Author: B.H. Ramsay
Disclaimer: Characters appearing here belong to either Marvel Comics OR Mutant Enemy
Rating : PG
Pairings(s) X/C, B/A, W/O
Spoilers: S2, S3, more later on
Summary: Xander 's struggles to maintain life as a Scooby and his secret life as a web-spinning superhero
Dedication: To Wesley who did the best version of this kind of Xander-tale, the Shrine of Heroes, everyone at Xanderzone, Crossover Connection & Buffy Crossovers
The girl looked young and afraid which is why the two thugs started following her. She ran fast which is why the chase ended in the cemetery. The two varsity jacketed scholars cornered the girl and closed in for the final charge. They did not notice her retro hairstyle or her heavy clothes and the fact that the graveyard was the complete opposite direction she had been going when they started chasing her never dawned on them..
They definitely did not notice the figure in the body suit descending on a thread behind them.
They did notice when webbing ensnared their legs and feet pulling them into the air. The two struggled uselessly as webbing restrained their hands and feet. The figure dropped into the light, dressed in a blue and black costume. His mask concealed his head and sported a stylized design almost like the spider figure on his chest and back. The final touch was a half cape that hung from the back of the costume at the shoulders. To the casual observers it would have looked like a webbed cape. The two boys hanging upside down where decidedly not casual.
"What the hell is this we didn't do nothing." The thugs whined
"It's, we didn't do anything, Just because you're thugs doesn't mean you have to use bad grammar " their masked captor quipped.
The girl stepped around the hanging boys and hugged the costumed figure that had rescued her. "Thank you sir I don't know what I was going to do."
"I'm sure you would have coped." The masked man replied coolly
"You can go get the police and I'll wait here till you get back." She said looking at the two as though they would burst from their bonds at any moment.
"Yeah well I am definitely a big fan of the police taking care of these two how's about I keep them from being eaten first."
"What are you talking about" the girl asked backing away from the masked man.
"Well even if the eighties hair was not the biggest give away. You're wearing a thick sweater, you've run six or seven blocks but you don't look tired, nor are you even sweating, and it ain't the coolest of nights. So either you're a champion runner with no sweat glands or…"
The vampire girl snarled as her face morphed. "What do you care if I take out a few muggers."
" If you were only eating muggers I'd say more power to you but you have also been snacking on the dupes who fell for the little lost lamb routine." Despite his casual tone, he held his body poised tensely.
The girl charged him and the masked man the man leapt into the air. She turned and grabbed for him. He bounded away, landing crouching on the ground. The vampire rushed him again and he dodged backward avoiding her blows with inhuman ease.
"Gee Chuck, the date started out fine but she seemed to become a different person when I interrupted her dinner." He said sarcastically. He vaulted backward over a pointed fence. The girl leapt into the air. The man shot more webbing at her that dragged her downwards. He impaled her on the points of the fence and watched as her body exploded into dust and drifted away on the breeze.
"What was that?" One of the boys asked nervously
"That was a vampire, a female one. Apparently, she seems to like eating muggers. Care to guess why?"
" We were just playing around."
"Yeah I'll bet. And the fact you exactly match the description given by a UC Sunnydale student that was attacked just last evening, pure coincidence, right?"
"Hey we know our rights we don't have to confess to anything.
"Sure." He said. "That webbing holding you dissolves in an hour. I am sure on a night like this there won't be more then three or four more of those things. Why don't you hang out here and scream about how innocent you are? I know they have great hearing. Won't take them long to find you." The man started to walk away.
"You can't leave us like this."
"Yes I can, but listen I have a friend. She is good at killing those things but seeing as she knew the girl you mugged, you might want to hope she's feeling charitable." He waved at them, then walked off into the shadows.
The two street punks considered screaming then looked at the spot where seconds before a woman had turned into a monster that had every intention of killing them. Then they collectively decided to stay quiet and wait for rescue and hope the person was in a forgiving mood.
The man climbed up a nearby tree and watched the two swinging from a branch. He gave a soft chuckle and grabbed a knapsack from the niche of the tree. Reaching in he retrieved a cell-phone and dialed a local number. While he waited for an answer, he pulled off the mask revealing the face of Alexander Harris, Xander to his friends.
"Hello, Rupert Giles." Came the crisp English accent over the telephone. Xander smiled and shifted the cell-phone to his shoulder and pulled clothes from the sack, which he put on.
"G-man, it's Xander, listen I was working late. Are the guys out on patrol."
"Yes Buffy and Willow were wondering were you are."
"On my way to your place as it happens. But listen, I saw a few people heading to the Fairview Rest Gardens."
"Did they look suspicious"
"No, they were the regular bunch of two guys running after a girl."
"Don't do anything on your own I'll call Buffy, let her take care of it."
"You're The Watcher I'm just the sidekick. I'll wait till they show up…if I can." Hanging up, Xander smiled as he thought of the girls rushing over here, only to find him watching over the two muggers.
He realized he was standing on a grave and hopped away. Looking down he saw that the grave belonged to Joyce Summers: Beloved Wife and Mother.
"Hey Joyce, long time, no see. I guess I have been a little busy lately." Xander glanced at the bundle of mugger hanging from the tree. "I guess we have some time before Buffy gets here. As you heard, I still have not told Buffy my little secret." He shoved the mask and gloves that were part of his costume into the knapsack. This allowed Joyce to give him a piece of her mind …even if it was only what he imagined she would say. "Well Joyce, that's nice of you to say but I think I know Buffy pretty well and if she found out about this …well lets just say that I like things as they are." Joyce would not have understood his keeping secrets from his friends. "Ok if that's what you think," Xander paused for a moment. "Its like I told Buffy the day this started…"
"Bad things happen to good Xanders." The dark haired youth whined as he picked himself from the floor where a demon had thrown him.
"Xander…less talky, more choppy. The blonde slayer snapped as she swirled a sword in a figure eight pattern through the air keeping two beasts at bay.
It was another cave and another dark ceremony. It had begun with the traditional kidnapping of young girls in the area. Buffy, being The Slayer had detected the pattern of demon ceremony requiring virgin sacrifice. Xander had made the comment that he would have been glad to insure their safety by relieving them of the burden of their virginity.
The leader cringed from the attacking Slayer and the Scoobies. He was a pimply-faced teen who had been hoping the power he was summoning would make him both virile and immortal. He ran to the alter and in a moment of honesty realized that if virgin blood was needed for sacrifice anyone's, his own included, might do. Slitting his hands he grabbed a torch and tried to call dark powers. "Demon Lord Arachnis, I give thee virgin blood to prove my worth. Grant me a boon and allow me to prove myself to one of thy daughters as a consort."
Buffy jumped him at that point and knocked the torch from his grasp. The air twisted and a giant spider looking thing came forth. It looked like a tarantula with a deformed woman grafted on top.
Xander stopped and looked at the beast and whistled. "Well I'd say that Walt is officially a leg man.
The spider-demon screamed a challenge and Buffy leapt on top of her and began hitting her. the demon threw the slayer away and began chasing down the Scoobies. Xander picked up the fallen torch and began waving it at the she-beast. She screamed and clawed at him. "Anytime you are ready to get with the heroics Buff." Xander called as the thing forced him back.
Walter cried out." No danm it, not the torch. That's mine." Walter rushed toward them but Buffy smacked him in the face and drove him to the ground.
The spider-demon rushed Xander and knocked him backwards. She grabbed him and triumphantly hauled him closer. Xander reached out to keep the thing off him and got his arm between himself and the spider-demons jaws. Her teeth clamped down and Xander screamed out high and loud.
She released his arm. Just as Buffy came up from the floor and seeing Xander in the things grasp went after it. She belted it hard and beat it back. The demon released Xander to sprawl on the floor. Buffy picked up a sword and slashed at the creature and when it reared up, drove the point of the blade deep into the things underbelly. It cried out as it fell to the ground.
Unnoticed by all, Xander stumbled and sagged against the cave wall wondering what had hit him.
Walter screeched; the torch lay broken and useless on the ground, he had lost.
Buffy scolded him "Walter, Walter, Walter, is being Sunnydale High's AV God not enough. "
"I just wanted a little respect. And maybe a date to a Halloween party." Walter whined
"Walter you kidnapped virgins intending to sacrifice them for a Dark ceremony, what do you honestly think your chances of finding a date are now. "
Walter confronted with the enormity of his mistake fall against the wall. Buffy was already rehearsing the tale that she would tell the police, already on their way.
She turned to watch the rest of her friends. They were hustling the rest of the girls out of the cavern. Walters' cohorts had long ago fled. She would deal with them in the days that followed. Her eyes fell on Xander; he was still leaning against a wall.
"Xan, get the lead out. No resting on the job."
"Sorry, she-bitch got a piece, I needed a second."
"Are you ok?" she asked
Xander looked at his friend. If he told her the spider demon had bitten him, HE could kiss the Slayage goodbye. He knew she was looking for a reason to cut him out of the dangerous stuff. Why give her a reason. "I'm cool, Buffy." He helped the girl next to him out of the cavern.
Buffy nodded, she thought not for the first time that she should really restrict his help. Xander had a lot of heart, but heart alone was not enough of a reason to allow him to risk his very mortal life. Willow and Giles at least had the research thing down pat and Angel when he was available was a solid back up but Xander. Well she would deal with it in the morning.
Xander helped the last of the girls out of the cave and when opportunity knocked, he took off for home. He was not sure what had struck him in that cavern but it has taken a lot out of him. He was shuddering and feeling cold. The night was full of odd sounds and his vision was blurry, he figured a nights sleep would make him feel better. When he got home, he collapsed.
Xander awoke feeling like a million bucks. He felt better then that even. He bounded out of bed and dressed for school. He beat his old man out the door, In a headlong run. The birds were singing, the kids were laughing, the cars were moving slow, the…. Wait…what was that…? Xander slowed to a jog and a car that had been barreling down the street passed him. The driver was doing better then thirty miles an hour and Xander had dashed past him without breaking a sweat.
"Gotta be the shoes." He thought and darted toward an alleyway that fronted the school. He approached the fence intending to vault it as he had done a thousand mornings before. He gathered his strength and sprang. His leap carried him fifteen feet and over the fence. He screamed as his leap reached its apex and he came down in a crouch in the middle of the street on the next block. Standing up he looked back the way he had come, "That is impossible. Nobody can jump that far." That he had just done so was not lost on him. Then he felt a flaring in his head a weird buzzing and tingling that made him turn his head.
Coming toward him was the car he had been out-running its driver was chatting on a cell phone and not looking where he was going even thought he was still speeding. Xander jumped out of the way and car whizzed passed.
"Slow down you moron." He cried out as he hugged the wall he had leapt to. Then it dawned on him. He had jumped into the air and was now clinging to a wall. He looked at his hands, splayed across the brickwork. His fingertips clinging to the surface. Then he looked down he was about thirty feet off the ground. He shut his eyes, "this is a dream this is a very intense and hellmouthy dream, in a second I will wake up and not be clinging to a wall." He allowed himself to fall backwards but instead of the dream ending, he felt air rushing past him. He screamed and thrust his hands out, his fist clenched. He barely registered a tingling sensation along his arms and then the falling stopped. He opened his eyes again. He was hanging a few feet off the ground suspended by a thin tread that stretched from his hands up the side of the building and over top of the roof.
Fearfully he reached up and grabbed the thread in both hands and he slowly began climbing it hand over hand. He had hated the robe in gym and fallen from it many times but here it was. He was climbing the thread as easily as he could walk. Reaching the top, he vaulted over the retaining wall and onto the roof of the building.
"Ok this is just impossible, how could this be happening."
"The Spider-demon, dummy." a voice called out.
"Excuse me?"
The person in front of him was dressed in casual clothes topped with a fedora hat. "The demon, the one that goober Walter called up using his ceremony, Buffy killed it."
"She bit me." Xander recalled the pain as he fingered the healed wound on his arm where the thing had bitten him. " Who are you?" He asked the newcomer
"Whistler, Angel knows me. I look after things try and keep things on an even keel, I try to keep things in balance."
"Well news flash, I just crawled up the side of a wall that's pretty out of balance for me."
"Not anymore it ain't, Arachnis's kid chose you so you get all the powers of his earthly totem animal which as you have figured out is a spider."
"OK, how would I get rid of this, I don't want to be some demon's bitch."
"The bitch of a bitch, you are funny. Anyway since Buffy killed her that won't be a problem."
"But, and I sense a really big one."
"You have demon juice in you now. The essence of the beast; it grants you her powers, normally since Arachnis never signed off on the wedding, you would be toast and your soul would be ripped apart but The Powers That Be are letting you keep the goodie-gift bag of powers that come with.."
"I'll go to Buffy and Giles, they will help me."
"Yeah you could do that, but why would you?"
"My powers are from a demon. Kind of puts me on Buffy's radar."
"Well if you feel like telling her, go ahead. In theory, her responsibility at that point would be to take the powers away from you. Your little slayer has kind of a scorched earth policy. At least when her emotional attachment isn't a problem."
"Well I can't very well go running around with the proportionate strength and abilities of a spider. Someone is bound to notice Xander Harris wall crawling and web spinning."
"Hello." The demon called knocking on Xander's skull. "Anybody up there? They have these cool gizmos called masks. Used properly they conceal ones idenity. " Whistler sighed exasperatedly " Look, the Powers are giving you a shot at being all you can be, consider it a Champion tryout. You get a few powers and the PTB's watch what you do with them. If you want to be the big hero-boy, go right ahead. OR you could run wild and be The next Big Baddie , your choice."
"I'm not amazingly inspired."
"Welcome to the wonderful world of being a champion
"I never wanted to be a champion"
Whistler snorted. "You've been wanting an upgrade since you ran into Little Miss Stakes a lot."
The youth blushed on the rare occasions when he did pray, it tended to be begging for powers so he could help (read impress) Buffy. "Like I said kid, your choice, use them, don't use them, do good, do evil. Just remember, with power; comes responsibility."
"Alright already, I'll be a good boy"
"There you go, now if you will excuse me I have to see a man about a horse race."
"Will I ever see you again."
"If you are very lucky no, if not well we will see. In the meantime, can I make a suggestion; Party Town has a wonderful selection of items and establishing good relations with the owner now could pay off in the future."
"Party Town, aren't they that hoity-toity costume shop."
"The same." And with that, Whistler was gone.
It was lunch period and Xander was trying to figure out what to do. He had avoided Buffy and Willow most of the morning but they would be in his class next period. For all he knew Buffy had some kind of demon radar that would go off the second he got anywhere near her. Willis would want to study him; Giles would want to exorcise him.
Why does this kind of stuff happen to me He thought. His new senses allowed him to know what was going on all over the room. The Conversations, the tossed food, the shoved body, He straightened. There was Larry, the hulking jock was terrorizing a kid. Andrew was his name. He was about to ignore it like normal when his inner-Xander started poking him. With great Power, comes great responsibility He thought. Of course, no one told me that I had to get my ass beat by the school man-mountain.
As he was debating getting up, someone launched a milk carton in his direction. His new awareness flared, he was beginning to find names for things and this he labeled Spider-sense (patent pending) he reacted without thinking flicking the tray from his lunch upward it intercepted the carton and sent it looping higher. The milk filled projectile arced high over the tables and landed with pinpoint accuracy on Larry's head. The jock looked around wildly and caught sight of Xander standing with tray in hand. Xander looked at Larry and then the tray in his hand and felt the hulking behemoth making the two plus two connection.
Xander got up from the table and made for the exit to the cafeteria. Larry was not the king of the defensive line cause he moved slowly. He moved to block Xander. The other students could sense an ass beating was in the making, stopped eating and started gawking.
"Think you're really funny Harris, Maybe it's time someone shut that fat funny mouth of yours"
"Funny me oh no Larry old buddy, not a funny bone in my body and speaking of bones could we not break any of them."
"Too late pusbag, you and geek girl (his pet name for Willow) been acting all high and mighty lately."
"That was wrong of me I see that now, could we forgo the beating."
Larry swung, Xander watched as the fist reached out curving through the air. In that moment, he knew where that fist would land and felt his body twitch away from that space. God he thought there was another fist swirling through the air, he stepped out of its way. Then out of the path of the right that was coming again at him.
Onlookers were amazed at Harris' reflexes Larry tossed punch after punch Xander just evaded them as though he were smoke. Larry's fist was homing in on him and Xander reached out intending just to stop his wild flaying and get him to calm down. As he grabbed the hand, he twisted it aside so that he could look at Larry in the eye. However, Larry wasn't looking at him. he was looking at his hand. His hand that was turning many interesting colours as Xander was twisting it at the wrist.
Xander was as amazed as Larry was. He released the boy's hand "I am so sorry Larry." Xander broke into a run, moving fast. It was not until he ran into the library that he realized where he had been going.
He burst though the door. "G-man, I'm in trouble."
"How many times have I told you…"
"I kind of went postal on a school bully and."
The doors to the library burst open and Snyder came barreling though them. "So he's here why am I not surprised too find a disruptive student with you Giles."
"It wasn't my fault." Xander whined
Snyder was not in a good mood. "Tell it to the counselor preparing your suspension."
"Why would you suspend him." Giles asked innocently
"He almost twisted a kid's arm off at the socket."
"This would be the same Larry Francis that has been mentioned several times as bullying certain students. "
"This would be the same Larry Francis that is the backbone of the Defensive line on the football team."
"All the more reason that the Harris boy should serve a few days detention to cool him off. Anything more severe and all the people Larry has bullied, might decide to come forward and formally file a complaint with the school district."
Synder looked at Giles and blinked "you wouldn't dare crumpet-boy."
"Haven't you read your history, we crumpet-boys can be a tricky lot."
"You had better hope I've forgotten this by the time the schools library budget is up for review." Snyder stalked out of the library. Xander heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thanks Giles."
"How did you manage to take out a boy that outweighs you by 15 pounds at least."
"Got lucky," he said evasively "I guess some of those lessons you been giving Buffy have filtered into my Xander-like brain. "
"Well file this lesson along with them, control, since you have obviously have absorbed some of the techniques I've tried to teach Buffy, you can absorb the most important of them. What you know gives you power and with…"
"Great Power there must come great responsibility." Xander echoed "Man oh man Giles, I love a good platitude as much as the next guy but please."
"You might have hurt that boy or yourself trying something I taught Buffy, she is The Slayer and is stronger and faster then you are."
"I wonder if that's still true." Xander mumbled
"What was that?" Giles asked him
"Nothing G-man how's about I work off my karma by studying. I have an assignment on Spiders coming up. I thought I would put in some book time."
"Zoology is in the corner try not to fight anymore. And if you have to fight, please don't get caught."
Xander headed in to the stacks and found a big book with pictures. Spiders came in many varieties. He checked off all the abilities he seemed to have and might also have. Fast, strong, agile, spins super strong webs can stick to any surface. He was getting in the reading when noises distracted him. He emerged from the bookshelves to see Buffy and Willow hands on hips looking at him.
"Xander what's the big idea starting a fight in the cafeteria." Buffy screeched
"How was he to know what was going to happen." Willow said defensively
"What now, is Larry waiting for me after school "
"Worse Snyder just dumped escort duties on us we are babysitting kids this evening when they go trick or treating. "
"Xander Luck, always bad."