By: Gunsmith3000

Started 11-17-2000

Finished: ?

Disclaimers: BTVS and its indicative characters belong to Joss Whedon, WB, Mutant Enemy, and Paramount. Silver Surfer belongs to Marvel Entertainment. Any other recognizable iconic characters not of my own original creation belong to their respective owners/company/creators/et al. And just so you know, I'm taking inspiration from Ron Lim in how he drew the Surfer as well as how he looked in the Fantastic Four sequel combined in how he looks.

Summary: YAHF Xander as The Silver Surfer with multiple crossings, 'nuff said.

-YAHFX-

My name was Alexander Lavelle Harris. I am the Silver Surfer.

No, not THAT Silver Surfer who goes by the name of Norrin Radd. I'm the OTHER Silver Surfer who does not go by the name of Norrin Radd.

I paused a while back from rushing through the corridors of space during my impromptu slalom from the former Kryptonian star system when the feeling of first flight euphoria faded as I took stock of my new home, namely this universe. The endless reaches of space seem close to the touch of my fingertips. I am both humbled and frightened at the expanse before my very eyes as I float serenely amongst the stars. Were I still human, I would have already suffered bouts of vertigo as there was basically no human way to tell which was up, down, left, or right.

Again, I gave silent thanks to Q for allowing the exchange of personality and knowledge to take place. Instead of the mind-numbing fear that I should have been feeling as I drift alone in space, I look around in joy and wonderment. This is indeed a sight no human mind is yet ready to see firsthand. My cosmic awareness sings as the proverbial stellar winds caress me in the endless vacuum of space, telling me of the slight nuance that inhabits the current sector I was in.

I frown for a second as I suddenly detect a slight ping on my cosmic senses before a flash of light heralded the arrival of the one person who helped cause my current state of existence. As the light died down, I stared at the nearly omnipotent being. I could feel my jaw unhinge in surprise at what he was wearing.

"Enjoying the view?" Q asked, clad in a replica of Galactus's raiment instead of his usual Star Trek Next Generation captain's uniform.

"Yes." I reply in all honestly as I stand up from where I sat on my board and smile at my supposed master. "You do know that you have to enlarge yourself by a magnitude of several thousand to pull of being Galactus, right?"

"Psssh!" Q snorted as he smirked back at me. "Didn't you learn from a small animatronic movie puppet that size doesn't matter when it comes to power?"

"Touché." I said, and asked the first thing that came to my mind since I was forcibly ejected into this reality. "So, why did you send me to this universe? The possible DC universe, to be exact – one with a Superman and god knows who else is here? "

"It's more or less as an apology from me to you by way of my son." Q shrugged in reply. "As I've said before; you're banned from your home universe and I can't have you showing up in Norrin's despite the fact it can probably handle two of you without imploding – but rules are rules – so I just scanned your mind instead and granted one of your childhood fantasies to come true."

"And probably have fun in this universe at my, or at their expense?" I asked.

"You know me so well." Q said as clapped his hands and laughed. "And it's still your proverbial first day on the job!"

"But enough of that." He continued. "There's something I need you to do for me." And he aimed his left arm and pointed in the direction of a large, multi-colored nebula in the distance.

"Consider this as a bit of a first lesson from me to you." He said. "Not everything in this universe – and actually in ANY universe – will always be what we perceive it to be. Some questions will need answers, some answers will need questions. The point of this little exercise before you go any further on your journey towards this reality's Earth - is to find out which is which with whatever you will find."

"Hmph," I snort into the airless void as I stared at the direction he seemed to want me to go to. "And here I thought I've left all the cryptic annoyances behind in Sunnydale. Can't you vague that up any less —"

Whatever else I was going to say died in my throat as I found myself alone again in a field of stars. Q had somehow decided to vanish quietly rather than the usual modus operandi exit as seen on the shows.

"Right." I said to myself as I urge my board onwards to my current task, courtesy of Q. "Time to see what an ultra-dense nebula looks like up close and personal."

As I flew toward my destination, I find I wasn't at all annoyed at this abrupt detour via Q. At least it will give me something to do in the meantime while I adjust to this universe and fine-tune my cosmic awareness so as to better navigate my way around space.

-YAHFX-

It was huge.

Even at nine hundred million Earth miles away, the nebula is the largest I've ever seen. None within Norrin's memories could even match something of this scale. I wonder if it's still safe to even call it a nebula as upon closer inspection, it wasn't. At first glance from the furthest distance, it had the look and characteristic of such a stellar phenomenon as the literally dense cloud gave off "pulses" of electromagnetic radiation.

Now that I am closer, it looked more like a very hyper-dense cloud of gaseous energy and possibly, matter. My cosmic awareness was giving me conflicting information the closer I got to it. If I were to hazard a guess; any space craft within the area even at this distance will most likely be limping out of here or worse, become dead in the proverbial water.

Amongst the jumbled stellar white noise my cosmic awareness was feeding back to me, I did indeed spot what looked like a loose formation of derelict ships off to one side as well a veritable debris field heading inwards from all direction. In fact, the debris field was slowing being added to the titanic gas cloud ahead. Now it makes some sort of sense as to why I was picking up possible matter within the cloud itself.

I toured the derelicts and scanned them for any possible signs of life and sadly found none. They all ran the gamut from the less technologically advanced ships to something that would most likely put a Kryptonian vessel to shame and maybe beyond it – in fact, I've identified possible Kryptonian ships in the mix as I recognized a few bearing their script on the hull. There were even some ships that seemed techno-organic. The furthest away from the phenomenon were the most primitive while the most advanced were able to go further in. However, regardless of all that, none seemed to have any success. Q brought me to another graveyard, this time, of possible explorers of the phenomenon before me.

All of them without power, and without ANY sign of life as I headed further inwards. That is twice now, that I find myself amongst the dead. I'm beginning to believe that Q has a morbid sense of humor. Just because I helped the graveyard shift fighting the undead is no excuse.

Seven hundred thousand Earth miles closer to my destination, the loose debris field now takes on the effect of Saturn's rings as whatever strange gravitational pull inexorably drags them closer at more than a snail's pace. I could no longer see much of the stars as the gaseous expanse seemed to stretch to infinity ahead of me.

Four thousand Earth miles and closing, the gaseous expanse almost fills every which way I see. At this distance, the gravilectronic disturbances in the area are getting worse - and I have little time to marvel at how I am able to withstand the physical forces that would have shattered lesser ships, much less whatever beings were within them as I continue onwards. For a split second, I remember that Norrin was pretty much able to survive a black hole and a supernova – this would probably be a piece of cake.

Just within a literal stone's throw now to the expanse for a being of my speed, my cosmic awareness suddenly pinged on the "wrongness" of what was before me. It took being this close to the damned thing for my newfound senses to realize that this was NOT a completely natural one-in-a-billion chance phenomenon. As I realize this, I felt another ping on my cosmic sense towards my immediate right.

Out of all this mess, it seemed that I had picked up a very faint life signal.

I turn my head and espied what looked to be the remains of a possible bio-ship that seemed to have miraculously made it this far against all odds. It was, like the many smaller cloud of debris heading towards the expanse, continuing on its inexorable crawl to meet its fate. I raised my right arm and compelled the derelict biotech-ship to me. Had this been alive, it must have been a sight to see; now it's more than less of the shell it once was as the nearly skeletal remains approached at my bidding. Initial scans with my senses that there were no signs that it had been peopled with crew at all.

I urge my board to close the distance as I halted its approach, carefully slipping inside the remains until I face the faintest echo of the life signs I detected. Nestled amidst the dead hulk was a sphere the size of a basketball.

The faint life sign was coming from the sphere, as if it was in some sort of protected stasis. Deciding to put this puzzle aside for the moment to face the expanse, I gathered the inert biotechnological material where the sphere had rested and transmuted it into a shell that would protect it as I planned to carry it with me wherever I went. I then shrank it down and affixed it towards the front of my board and allowed it to be covered in the same silver cosmic glaze that coated it for further protection. Not wanting the remains of the biotech-ship to join the expanse, I released the molecular bonds that held the dead husk and dispersed it into open space – forcing it away and free from the effects of this space Sargasso. For whatever reason that led it here, it deserved a better burial than this.

Finished with my task, I gather myself from my musings and stared at the expanse before me. It was time to get to the "heart" of the matter - literally. Using the rampant energies around me, I flared my cosmic aura into the visible spectrum as I construct a shield bubble for whatever I may face ahead to close around me and started flying towards the expanse itself.

Just because I may seem indestructible doesn't mean I should leave myself open to whatever lay before me. The Alexander Harris part of me that was brimming with well-deserved paranoia at the unknown is what help me set myself apart from who Norrin was as the Surfer. He would just fly into that mess ahead with little regard, supremely confident that his own powers that were given to him by Galactus would be enough to let him brave the possible dangers ahead.

Had I had taken the time to make a more thorough examination of the dead biotech ship I would have noticed a very familiar marking that was barely noticeable on the scorched hull before the rest of it disintegrated. It wasn't until later on my journey around this universe that I realized what I mistook as a random energy misfire was actually the telltale emission the energy of a green lantern ring as it hightailed itself back to Oa despite the astounding interference coming from the area.

While I knew that in comic-book canon that the rings had a limited sense of sentience due to the AI incorporated into the ring's design, it was never really explained just how much sentient it would be if given the chance to actually evolve past its mere basic programming. One would wonder as to the ring's motivation for not returning immediately to its primary masters after the biotech ship died.

Perhaps out of a sense of loyalty to its former bearer, it was somehow staying to offer either solace or passive protection to whatever I had taken with me. That last hunch would be proven true later on when I'd meet up with the ring's new bearer in the future.

But that is a story for another time.

-YAHFX-

It took some doing, but after traversing the incredibly dense gaseous expanse, I was able to punch through the other side. Imagine my shock when I find out that it's hollow. I had exited the gaseous expanse in what appeared to be a starless void as my senses detected a VERY significant drop of radiation close enough to approximate open space that was tightly wound around this area. I extended my senses and I could clearly "see" that the expanse was indeed still there at the sides and a little ways up AND below to form a self-contained bubble.

And within that bubble, was a micro solar system consisting of at least seven planets – one of them, surprisingly cloaked for some reason - haphazardly revolving around a very peculiar star. The planets themselves had a strange orbital pattern that belied any known human doctrine on the matter.

Had I been still human, I would have found the sight unsettling. Now, however, I just wanted to get to the bottom of this new mystery Q has presented to me.

-YAHFX-

-TBC-

-YAHFX-

A/N: surprised to see me? It's been a very long while since I've written anything due to an abundance of real life troubles. Before anyone asks, I have not left my other stories behind. I am just starting to get back into writing... albeit slowly. A very close family member had been diagnosed with cancer late 4th quarter of last year and it's taken me this long to come to grips with the fact one day soon they will be gone. They've been a part of my inspiration to write... so I try to soldier on. Of course in real life, I am swamped with work, and helping that certain family member by spending time with them as much as I can before they are taken away from me. In a way I am a bit angry that shit like this happens to people you really care about. My advice to my readers? Make sure you spend your time wisely with the people you care about for there will come a time they may be suddenly gone and all you're left with are regrets because it's too late to turn back the clock.