A Doomed Existence
Author: Anime Ronin
Rating: R (nertz to the other system)
Summary: Xander went as a soldier on Halloween … but this soldier has left more than a few things behind, and he's used to dealing with demons.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
AN: This is an amalgamation of the book series and the PC games – some facts will be right, some will not, so please bear with me.
AN2: I plan to only make this a one-shot, but we'll see where it mutates to.
1/1 (?)
(November 1, 1997)
His hands slid the components into place with the practiced ease of someone who had been trained over hours, days, weeks, even, to assemble the assault shotgun that had somehow made it's way into reality, but in all reality he'd never see the weapon before the previous night – he had been roped into taking kids out Trick-Or-Treating by the Troll, Quark himself, the late-yet-not-lamented Principal Snyder, as had both Buffy and Willow, and they had gone along with it in order to stay out of more trouble than they were bound for in his book. They had gone of Ethan Rayne's shop to go get costumes, or in his case, parts for his costume, and the man had sold them enspelled items that would, later on that night, turn them into said costumes – in Willow's case, she was a ghost, in Buffy's case she had been turned into a pain-in-the-ass noblewoman who was scared of everything, including her own shadow, but he was different.
He'd planned to go as a soldier, nothing really special, just a generic soldier, but Ethan Rayne, after a vague mention of G-man's name, had pressed into his hands a plastic pistol, an assault shogun, a backpack, a bandoleer and some cool body armor with gauntlets that was actually made of some metal plates sewn into a leather backing, banded mail, Ethan had called it, for the exact amount of money he'd had on his person at the time. At that point, Xander should have known that something was up, but he was too jazzed at the thought of screwing the guy over for obviously-superior stuff, and now he was kicking himself for that even as he finished assembling the shotgun and loaded the drum magazine, working the action to load a 12-gauge round into the chamber before safteying the weapon and putting it aside, looking over at the banded mail.
The armor and gauntlets didn't look like much, but they had saved their collective asses last night, several times in fact as it somehow shot out some kind of light all around him for about fifty feet, a light that was dangerous for vampires, including one certain vamp who had been sniffing around Buffy WAY too much for Xander's own liking, and that wasn't all – the gauntlets actually grew wooden stakes that could be snapped off and used as weapons, and Solider Boy had, after some initial freaking out, explanations from Willow, swearing and blowing things apart with his pistol and shotgun, gotten into it, too. He'd have to get G-man to tell him what the hell it was, he decided as he looked at the gauntlet on his arm and watched as it grew another wooden stake – it was way too good to have it around and not know what it really was, and what it would cost him in the long run.
Soldier Boy wasn't real, yet the memories that were wracking through his mind told Xander otherwise – battlefields on Earth, on Mars and on Mars' moons (though it, in REAL life, did not have a pair moons named Phoebes and Demons) had marched through his dreams, turning them into nightmares of human blood and of faces he never knew, the roar of weapons fire from the previous night mingled with the sounds of screams from demonic things that should not have ever existed, the smell of blood, sweat and cordite thick in his nose and even the slight tingle that came from the fact that all of it, the memories, nightmares, even that one pleasant time with Arlene, was fake, nothing more than a game for the computer and a set of books. All of this went through his mind as he fastened the bandoleer across the armor and then loaded and holstered the pistol he'd also gotten from Ethan's at his side, a pistol that had ended Rayne's existence the previous night, another memory, another face, but this one was impossible to forget.
Finally he ran his arm through the sling he'd attached to the assault shotgun, a big, blocky black looking thing that looked like an M-16 on steroids, one that fired 12-gauge rounds out of a 20-round drum magazine in either semi-automatic or full automatic (a function that had left his wrist hurting the previous night, given the amount of sheer power the weapon put out on full auto), had an under-mounted flashlight of some kind and one that could, if it happened to be in range, easily take off a vampire's head with a single caress of the trigger. He'd have to rip it apart completely in order to figure out how to make replacement parts, because he would not let such a useful weapon go to waste, not on the Hellmouth, he decided as he pulled on Deadboy's long black jacket, the only thing left of the vampire after the last burst of light his armor had produced.
"You are Alexander Harris, of Sunnydale, California," he reminded himself as he went towards his window, off to meet Giles and the other Scoobs at the Library, "Not Lt. Flynn Taggart, formerly of the Marines Light Drop Fox Company, now of the Citizens of State …Christ, where in the hell is Arlene when I need her to kick me in the ass?" Xander shook his head, remembering the feisty redheaded best friend, combat survivor, bedmate and pain-in-the-ass and how she had died somewhat ignominiously of old age before going out of his window and dropping off of the roof of the porch. He would run to the Library, as a start to his new training regimen, because he was VERY out of shape by Soldier Boy's standards … and now his own standards.
AN: Just a quickie – should I continue with it? If not, don't bother posting it on XZ site, please.
AN2: Yes, the Armor in this fic exists – dnd Armor and Equipment Guide+3 Banded Mail, named Vampire Hunter. On command you get Protection from Evil and Daylight spells, and once a day you can cast Starburst on a 15th level Cleric scale – protective symbols from Good deities, a high neck of thick leather, Vampire (and only Vampire) energy drains happen at a negative 2 level, and the armbands of the gauntlets produce stakes that can be broken off and used (+1 weapons at 1d3, threat range 19 – 20, piercing), but if broken off, stakes take a full round to grow. Any non-Good character who wears it takes a negative 1 level that, when the armor is removed, is returned – cannot be returned any other way, even with a Restoration spell.