Amber Blood

Chapter 2

Xander gulped as he suddenly had the attention of everyone in the room, maybe this wasn't such a good idea, but there was no way to back out now, as Buffy and Willow would keep on at him until he told them. Might as well get this over with now.

"What is it Xan?" Willow asked.

"I knew it!" Andrew declared, "You're the one that's eating my food!" No one even looked in his direction.

"No, Andrew I'm not," Xander said. "Although if you had Twinkies, you only have your self to blame," he amended after a second thought. "I'm taking about what happened on Halloween."

"While I'm sure it's fascinating Xander," Giles said. "I'm not sure that it's relevant." Xander smiled.

"Trust me, Giles, this is very relevant." At this Anya suddenly had comprehension in her eyes. She got up and moved to stand in front of him.

"You don't have to tell them anything," she said. "They won't understand." Xander smiled at his ex-fiancee.

"Ahn, they're my friends and I've kept it secret for long enough," he said.

"Alright, but don't come running to me when they try to exorcize you. Except if it's for comfort sex, I'll never say no to orgasms and you're the best at giving me them," she told him. Xander shifted at her comment, even after years of getting used to her rather canned manner about sex, he still didn't like her talking about their sex life like that. They were sniggers from some of the younger potentials.

"What have you not been telling us?" Buffy asked. Xander took a deep breath.

"You remember Halloween five years ago," he said, five people nodded. After all it was only Buffy, Willow, Giles, Dawn and Andrew that would have remembered that.

"Yeah, I got to be Boba Fett for a night, it was so cool!" As always no one paid Andrew any attention.

"I remember B telling me about that, you all got turned into your costumes, right?" Faith said.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "I was Miss Useless and Xander came to my rescue, like a knight riding a fiery steed, but without being a knight or actually having a steed. Thanks for the flashback."

"You went as a Prince, but we never found out what country you were a Prince for," Willow said to Xander. Everyone turned to stare at him, and again Xander had second thoughts about telling them, but it was too late now.

"Corwin, wasn't just a Prince of a country, he was a Prince of Amber." Xander turned to Giles at this point. "Hey, G-man, has the council ever heard of an Amberite?" he asked. Giles startled at the, to him, sudden change of direction. He blinked then cleaned his glasses in thought.

"It is, erm believed that Amberites are Demon Lords that rule over one or more hell dimensions. Not much else is known about... Whatever is the matter with you?" Giles asked as Xander tried not to fall into a fit of hysterical laughter.

"Oh god, sorry," Xander said once he'd recovered enough to speak without laughing again. "It's just that you've got that so wrong. While they do rule many dimensions, we most definitely are not demons."

"We?" Robin asked in a mix of suspicion and hostility, as he moved into a defence stance. Shit! Willow looked like she was about to hyperventilate.

"OhmygodXandersademonhesgoingtokillusallandtakeovertheworldandopentheHellmouthandandotherreallybadthings!" Kenndy put her arms round her girlfriends shoulders.

"Breath Wills," Xander told her. "I'm not a demon. I'd never hurt you or anyone here, take over the world, or do anything with the Hellmouth other then close it."

"You should get with the explaining," Buffy said, she now had her arms crossed and looked homicidal.

"I told you they wouldn't understand," Anya said.

"Not now Ahn."

"How come she knows all about this and you never told us?" Dawn asked.

"He never told me," Anya said. "I found out after I became a demon again, he just screams power." This really wasn't helping Xander's case at all.

"So not helping Ahn."

"Again with the explaining." Buffy demanded.

"Ok," Xander said. "Corwin was... is a Prince of a place called Amber, another dimension. Not a hell dimension or a heaven one, just another dimension." Xander sighed at the lost looks he was getting. "Look think of it this way, anything that has ever been thought up in books, films or T.V really exists and more if you have the power you can visit them. That's what an Amberite is, someone born with the power to move between these worlds at will." It was far more complicated than that, what with Courts of Chaos, the two Patterns and the Logrus but now wasn't the right time to get into that. The dominate expression was one of confusion, Robin and Buffy still looked unconvinced of his non-demon status, Giles looked intrigued, and Willow seemed to be trying to work out the possibilities of what he was telling them. Andrew looked star-strucked, and summed it up very well.

"Star Trek exists?" Xander almost laughed again.

"Yes, Star Trek exists."

"I knew it!" Andrew said. "Can you take me?" Xander looked at him horrified at the idea of Andrew let lose on the Federation.

"No."

"Please!"

"No Andrew."

"But..."

"No." Andrew opened his mouth again. "And if you ask once more I'll take you to a Borg cube and leave you there!" Andrew wisely shut his mouth. Giles cleared his throat drawing Xander's attention.

"I'm I right in thinking you now have that power?" he asked. Xander nodded.

"Yeah, I'm an Amberite."

"How?" Willow blurted out. "When everyone else turned back they didn't keep anything."

"I'm not sure," Xander said. "The best I figure is that in order for Corwin to possess me, a link between me and the Pattern, that's what gives Amberites their power, had to be formed, and as the Pattern is more powerful then the magic used, it couldn't be broken once the spell ended. But for the link to stay I had to be an Amberite after the spell ended so I was. I think I'm technically Corwin's son now."

"So not a demon?" Buffy asked. Xander gave her his trademark Xander grin.

"No Buff, I'm still the same Xander you know and love." Buffy seemed to relax at the very Xander comment.

"Just not human?" she asked.

"Well I'm at least half human." he said.

"How'd you figure that?" Robin asked.

"All Amberites are at least half human."

"Why?" Dawn asked. Xander grinned at her.

"Well, Dawnie, Amberites are one big family, to be more than half Amberite there would have to be incest. If I am Corwin's son I would only be second generation Amberite.1" There was a chorus of 'ewes' from that revelation.

"Well, after that revelation, I still fail to see how any of this can help us with the current situation," Giles said.

"The Shadow walking, isn't all I got from the Amberite package, G-man."

"What do you mean?" Willow asked.

"I was hit by a Troll Hammer, twice, but didn't even get a concussion. It should have killed me, if I were human it would have."

"Of course," Anya said, "I didn't say anything at the time, as I thought he wasn't trying to kill you, after all he was trying to get you to chose between me and Willow at the time."

"So you're tough, didn't stop you losing an eye," Faith said. Xander shrugged.

"Doesn't matter, it'll be back within a year or two." They stared at him for being so blasé about it. Xander smiled and picked up one of the heavier swords that was leaning against the wall and with little effort bent it to a right angle, then tossed it over to Faith, who caught it by reflex and stared at the bent metal then at Xander.

"Damn," she said.

"I have a plan, to show the First Bitch, why she should be afraid of me," Xander said.

"Why should it be afraid of you?" one of the Potentials spoke up.

"For the same reason Glory never attacked me, why the First has never appeared to me, I have power."

"What power?"

"What you gonna do?"

Xander grinned.

"I'm going to call a few friends."

1, That is if you don't consider Oberon the first generation. I don't as he wasn't born in Amber.

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