The Merge 1/?
Title: The Merge
Author: Harikari
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rated: R (Adult)
Summary: Xander isn't exactly the person he used to be. Spike grows attached.
Warnings: Slash, strong language, violence, gore, character death (not the boys!), AUness, etc.
Notes: Starts off during the season four episode Primeval, then goes AU from there. Reviews are begged for.
Xtra Note: This is just a teaser. In other words, the plotbunny attacked me but the muse is not cooperating.
-----Part One
Xander would later tell himself that they should've known.
Willow had botched spells up before, and the Scoobies were far from being the luckiest people in the world. It made sense that something would go wrong.
Xander lit the candle closest to him; blew out the match he was holding before it could burn his fingers. He was nervous, and he could tell that Giles and Willow were nervous, too.
They all sat pretzel-style, knees almost touching while Willow recited the adjoining spell. Xander knew he was supposed to be concentrating on clearing his mind for the spell, but his eyes kept drifting back to the door Buffy had gone through just minutes ago.
She'd gone to fight Adam.
The Slayer and her Slayerettes had been through a lot, but they'd never gone up against something as powerful as Adam. He was a part human, part demon psycho, and he was trying to create an equally psycho army.
"Spirit," said Willow, setting down what looked like an oversized taro card.
"Animus," said Xander as she passed him one of the cards. "Heart." He set it down in front of himself, on the concrete floor. He had to get a hold of himself; had to stop worrying and concentrate on the spell.
"...Mind." Giles put down his own taro, and Willow pulled out the last oversized card. Buffy's card. Xander silently hoped she'd be close enough to work the spell.
"The Hand." Willow put the last card down and started speaking again. Her words were faster now. Xander thought he could feel something, maybe energy, thickening in the room.
It made him more nervous.
Beyond the door behind him, which was blocked with nearly every chair and table that had been in the room, he could hear the quick rat-tat-tat of machine guns. Could hear screams, human and otherwise.
The Initiative soldiers and the demons that had been their prisoners were fighting to the death.
The energy, or whatever it was, seemed almost like a physical presence now. Xander felt like something was slivering up his spine, and goosebumps were rising on his arms.
Willow was almost screaming now.
Was Buffy close enough? Did Willow know what she was doing? How many people had died beyond the blocked doors? Xander's thoughts were seesawing now, and he was having thoughts that he wasn't even sure were his, and...Oh. That meant the spell had worked. Was working.
And suddenly Xander wasn't himself anymore. He was the Heart. And then he was WE. He was Spirit, and Mind, and they were him.
"I've been upgrading," said Adam.
Xander could see the monster now. It was like he, Willow, and Giles were an Essence, floating toward Buffy, and he could see.
One of Adam's hands was a gun - no, a fucking canon - and the cyborg-demon was aiming it right at Buffy's head.
Adam fired, and Buffy didn't dodge. Instead her eyes glazed over, and she paused, and time slowed down to a crawl.
The bullets ripped into the Slayer's body like she was nothing more than human.
Xander found he couldn't scream in essence form.
-----
Before Buffy's dead body hit the ground the Heart, Spirit, and Mind were rushing away and toward the bodies they had left behind.
There was no more Hand, no vessel to inhabit, and the Essence that was Xander, Willow, and Giles needed a body to survive. And fast.
They were back in the room where their limp bodies were sprawled around the squat, burning candles and open spellbooks. Xander felt it as Willow and Giles pulled away to slither back into their physical selves. He began to pull away also, and was already remembering what it felt like to have a body, and what it felt like to be a me instead of a WE, when there was an unexpected tingle.
It was an odd feeling, as if something were rushing through or becoming part of Xander's essence. But it went away quickly and before the brunette really knew what was happening he was back in his body. He could see through his own eyes, and feel his fingers and toes.
He came back screaming, his throat almost instantly raw with the intensity of it. "Nooo!"
Willow, tears running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin, sprung to action first. She jumped up from her place on the floor and moved to the door that led to the secret labs where Adam was.
Where Buffy's dead body was.
Willow had already barked out a spell to move the lab equipment blocking the door when Giles got up, his walk unsteady and jerky, but his face determined.
They were going to go through that door, the same door Buffy had gone through, and try to save the already-dead Slayer from the invincible Adam.
They were going to get themselves killed. Too.
Xander didn't immediately spring up. He felt dazed, felt dizzy and weird and off somehow. He realized he was still screaming; managed to stop. He felt a wetness on his cheeks and ignored it.
He was, unexpectedly, against the wall. Apparently he'd flown back into it when he'd come back to his body.
He ignored that, too.
Slowly, unsteadily, he stood up and went after the others, who were already charging down the lighted hallway that led to the secret labs, and Adam, and...Buffy.
God, Buffy.
Despite his morbid thoughts Xander felt an odd emptiness. Almost as if he weren't feeling anything at all at the moment. In shock, maybe.
He was going through the door when there was a loud shout and a startling bang. What looked like a Bigfoot From Hell had come through the door. The other door. The chairs and tables that had been blocking it had been thrown like they were nothing, and suddenly the sounds of shooting and explosions, and dying soldiers were closer, and louder, and more real.
The demon went straight for Xander.
The brunette felt something rising up in him, something that might or might not have been panic, when the shaggy monster was grabbed from behind by strong hands and thrown, with apparent ease, into a wall.
The demon hit the wall, slid down to the floor, and didn't move again.
"Nasty, that," said Spike, owner of the strong hands. He was still looking at the shaggy dog-like demon, breathing in and out deeply, even though he didn't need to. He looked up, wild-eyed and practically glowing with the joy of the fight. "Lucky for..." He trailed off. "What the bloody hell...?"
But Xander didn't stay to listen to the rest. He turned and sprinted down the lighted corridor. He could hear Spike, in his heavy Doc Martens, following behind.
"Where's Buffy?" This from Riley, who had come running from the opposite side of the corridor. There was a bloody slash across the left side of his chest, a tear in his soiled shirt exposing the red stickiness and mangled flesh beneath it.
Willow and Giles didn't answer the guy. They just shouldered past him and kept running. Riley must've seen the looks on their faces, because the former Initiative soldier paled and spun to follow, the worry for his girlfriend evident in his eyes.
They reached the room where Buffy had been shot down, Xander only barely avoiding a collision with Riley. But that didn't really matter because the next second Spike came running around the corner, slamming into him from behind.
Xander, surprised, let out a little grunt of pain and took a few involuntary steps forward.
In front of him was the room he'd just seen Buffy killed in. It looked like it was set up for surveillance. There were screens and computer equipment everywhere, the screens showing miniaturized soldiers and demons as they slaughtered each other. Brutally.
Live TV. What a joy.
And then there was Adam. He was standing there in all his glory, his body glinting with machinery and discolored with demon flesh. He really was half and half, some of him slimy and some of him thoroughly technology.
He was huge, too. And the pseudo of a man stood there, looking up at the screens with something like pleasure written on his face, ignoring the dead body not ten feet away.
"Buffy?" Riley asked, whispering, and soon soldier boy was kneeling by the Slayer's slumped form, running his hands over the blood and the gaping bullet holes, horrified.
Willow started chanting something, loud and angry. Her eyes darkened until they were almost completely black, and a rush of energy was suddenly surrounding her, causing her bright red hair to fly wildly around her face. "Goddess Hecate, give me strength..."
Xander looked over at Giles. The Watcher was standing there looking at Adam with a rage the brunette had not often seen the man show.
He was Ripper now. Angry and violent, and more poweful, but still unable to do anything about the psycho robot who had just murdered his Slayer.
Murdered....Oh, man. Buffy.
Willow threw a ball of sparkling, powerful energy that looked something like fire at Adam. It hit its target; the mix and match skin absorbed it.
Willow fell to the ground, exhausted. "No, no, no," she was saying, and Xander didn't know if she was denying the fact that their best friend was dead, or that her spell hadn't worked, or both.
Probably both.
Adam turned then. His eyes were black pits, and he looked less than impressed to see the Scoobies. Less than pleased.
Riley was still kneeling by Buffy's side, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he muttered something under his breath. Willow was spent, her chest heaving and tears leaking from her eyes. Ripper looked mad; he stepped closer to Adam.
Xander didn't know what Giles was planning to do; but it didn't matter. The hybrid was invincible.
The cyborg was facing Willow now. There was a click, a high whining sound, and Xander realized the monster's arm was transforming back into the canon.
He was going to shoot through them all, just like he'd shot through Buffy.
And then the strange emptiness that Xander had been feeling was suddenly replaced with an unbelievable anger; a determination.
It was a feeling that wasn't his own. Sure, he wanted to protect his friends. Sure, he felt like doing something, anything. But this feeling brought a strength and power and surety with it. He could do something for his friends. He would do something.
"Whelp!" He felt the air stir as Spike grabbed for him and missed; didn't take the time to wonder why the demon who had been so ready to betray them to Adam was now trying to help.
The demon-human didn't even have time to turn. Letting the feeling inside of him guide him, Xander's fist plunged into the monster's back, breaking through skin and metal alike and into the core of Adam's artificial body.
He felt the warmth of the power cell beneath his fingers and pulled.
Adam dropped lifelessly to the floor, guts and wiring exposed through the hole Xander's fist had made.
Dazedly, the brunette looked at the power core - Adam's life force, he told himself - in his hand. It wasn't very large at all. It was glowing green, still working. Xander let it drop to the floor.
He looked around, saw four wide-eyed stares directed his way. There was a cool breeze running throughout the room. Probably air conditioning. Xander shivered and wiped his hand, the one he'd punched into Adam with, on his jeans.
"Xander?" asked Willow, voice shaky. She looked as though she was still trying to accept what she'd just witnessed. "Xander...What?"
Xander looked at the sprawled, cooling body of the Slayer and blinked. "What am I doing over there?" he asked, just before things went dark around the edges and the floor came up to meet him.