New Fic: Vindellator
May. 3rd, 2005 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jessara40k_lj Xander cursed mentally as the huge demon began the sweep of his axe that would behead the young woman tied naked on the altar and summon a pure demon. There was no way they were equipped to deal with a pure demon, the only reason they'd succeeded against the Mayor was that he hadn't had the chance to come into his full power, they'd killed him before he'd finished his intial feast. Xander's blood would ruin the summoning, he didn't think, just threw himself between the axe and the woman. And then it came down in the middle of his back, and everything turned to light.
Vindellator of the Hidden Aspect of House Caelomundis could sense a deeply corrupted soul in front of him, a true innocent covered and guarded by his body and three bright souled warriors fighting near twenty more corrupted souls. The last thing he remembered was how his peers had carried out their sentence upon him, condemning him to live a human life in another world, this world, where corrupted souls were in much greater abundance than in his own, where he'd resorted to feeding on the vampires who ruled. He knew that the he had just 'died' as a human, and once he restored his energy he would remember that life.
He opened his eyes and fed on the dark soul in front of him, absently noting that the body which housed it was seven feet tall, heavily muscled and scaled, with bone claws like short knives. The other dark souls wore similar form, while both the innocent and the bright souls wore the form of human women, comparatively small. He knew that he had feasted too deeply, and when the creature went limp tore it apart. He'd apparently sacrificed his human life to preserve the innocent soul, and he focused on the molecules in the air around her, freezing those that would be on the curved surface of an imaginary cylinder around her down the the quantum level, forming a shield to guard her six feet in diameter, ten feet in height, open at the top and bottom to allow entry.
Then he ran across the warehouse, to feed more fully. He'd known that he would have to do this to remember who he'd been in this life, he could remember a bit now, that the creature he'd just fed on was a demon, and the three women fighting the other demons were Slayers, mystically enhanced warriors, usually for the Light Powers. As he tore one demon away from the dark haired older woman who'd attracted eight of the things to the other two's six each he noted that there was an undertaste of darkness to her soul, old, and overpowered by the brightness, interesting, but nothing he would consider worth feeding on.
He'd torn apart all eight of Faith's attackers, and drawn all but three of the remaining demons to attack him by those actions before Vindellator remembered that in this past life he'd been called Xander, a normal human who insisted on fighting beside those with abnormal powers, against those created by, or dedicated to the Dark Powers. Still he finished off the fight before he let himself remember fully and consider how his original form differed from the one he'd been put in. There was little difference in most things, he looked like Xander Harris, but with a few minor, or not so minor, differences. His hair was black, not the dark brown it used to be, and it was rooted halfway down his spine. He had both of his eyes again, and they were black as well, and his ears were pointed. He had six fingers on each hand, six toes on each foot, and his nails formed small claws, something like a cat's. But the greatest difference was the huge wings that now sprouted from his back, black as night and each eight feet long.
"Xander?" There was stunned disbelief in Faith's voice, disbelief and more than a little fear. When he nodded she contiuned. "What happened to you?"
"The demon who wasn't trying to bag himself a Slayer was going to kill the victim. I threw myself in the way, and it killed me. Then I came back in this form. I'll give a fuller explanation when everyone's there to hear it, I don't want to have to repeat myself. Rona, Vi, try to find the lady's clothes, and escort her back home will you?"
"Yes Xander." The younger girls chorused, responding to the authority in his voice as if he was unchanged. While they were doing that he allowed himself to fall into the total awareness of his body down to the quantum state of each electron that reached near trance, and then translated himself to another plane, leaving the gore that covered his body behind. He took down the shield he'd created as he translated back to the mundane plane, kneeling by the innocent soul and freeing her from her bonds.
"Are you an angel?" Wonder coloured the woman's words, and Xander nodded, it was as close an explanation as any. "You were sent to save me from those things!" A confident declaration now. "But the others?"
"Chosen to defend the innocent. I was bound into mortal flesh until such time as I died, offering my life for anothers. I cared too much about the destruction of the guilty, instead of about preserving what innocence humans yet retain." It fit into her apparent worldview, and it was even close to truth in a way. He didn't have to elaborate, the two younger Slayers arrived with the innocent soul's clothing. "These two ladies will guard you on your way home, if you will tell them the way."
"Thank you, but won't you tell me your name, angel? And your rank?"
"I am Vindellator, and I do not know what rank I hold, if indeed I still hold any." Faith waited for the woman to leave with barely hidden impatience before she turned on him.
"What was that shit about? You're not an angel, even if you do look like one."
"No, but I went along with her beliefs because they seemed to calm her. And Vindellator is my name. I told you, I'll explain to everyone at once, now let me get to my clothes." They routinely carried spare clothes in the jeep, in case what they were wearing got torn up, covered in blood and gore, or burned. This was the first time they'd had to deal with 'consumed when their wearer was remade' though. Vindellator did assume his human seeming, Xander's form save only the colouring, before he dressed, of course.
~~~oo()oo~~~
Vindellator had refused to explain who and what he had become until all the Slayers, and slayerettes were there to hear him, he was not going to explain more than once. He wasn't really comfortable with the idea of telling his story once, let alone multiple times. And so he was chained up in the cellar, chained up and locked in the cage they kept for emergency use, not that either of those things mattered, he could break the chains and through the cage easily enough, but it made Faith feel more comfortable, even if it did upset the other two Slayers under his care.
He looked up when he heard someone come into his cell, sensing a soul once bright, now tarnished with as much corruption as had left its mark on Faith. He bit back his disappointment when he saw that it was Buffy, the woman he'd once considered his hero, who'd come to lose her way after she'd been torn out of a Heavenly dimension.
"Xander, we're ready to hear what you have to tell us now." She sounded uncertain as she freed him, the younger Slayers all idolised him, and she wasn't going to antagonise them by treating him like a criminal, he could see that.
"I'm Vindellator, but I don't mind if you all continue to call me Xander." He followed her up to the largest room in the house, taking centre stage and casually pulling off his shirt.
"Xander, what are you doing?" Giles sounded slightly scandalised.
"Showing you what I truly am, you would not believe it otherwise." And with those words he let his wings reappear, his hair root down his spine and his hands and feet change. There were gasps from the assmbled Salyers, btu they sounded more awed and admiring than fearful or anything else.
"I originally come from another world. I was born as a mortal in this, and condemned to live out a human life as a punishment for, well in bare truth, doing what you Slayers are born to do. In my world there are three species, in order of increasing social status they are elves, humans and vampires. My house, my family, House Caelomundis, have one bloodline that is none of those three, we are known as the Hidden Aspect, our traits are latent and surface occasionally. Those traits are physical strength, speed, stamina and such equivalent to that of the Hellgoddess Glorificous, accelerated healing, to the point that you could cut my heart out and I'd grow a new one within seconds, the ability to switch between a form like my present one, and a human form at will, true immortality, we cannot be killed without a spell nearly as strong as the one used to activate all the potential Slayers, a few other things that don't bear mentioning now, and we feed on souls." Xander paused at that, wondering if his friends would support him or try to kill him. The younger Slayers seemed torn between wanting to attack him and wanting to defend him, with his defenders in a three to one majority, very flattering. Buffy and Willow were horrified, but they weren't trying to attack him either, and Giles was polishing his glasses furiously. Faith was the only one who spoke.
"You feed on souls, what does that mean? Do you kill people to do it, and how often do you have to feed?"
"I don't actually have to feed at all, but I enjoy it, and it gives me more power. I'm a throwback to the orignal, the Nephilim, the daughter of an angel, who introduced this trait to our House, and I like to feed on corrupted souls, evil people, irredeemable for preference. That's why I got into trouble if I'd been feeding on slaves, the victims most of my kind enjoy no one would have cared. But I fed on the vampires of those Bloodlines which had souls - we had many sorts of vampires in my world, some like the Anne Rice books, others like White Wolf, others like the ones in the Necroscope series, and some like the ones you kill. When I feed I don't have to kill, they recover depending on how much of their soul I take, provided I don't reduce them below a certain threshold, but I always prefered to kill my prey, and keep them from doing more evil.
"And I'm a throwback in other ways, I have more abilities than those most of my kind do. We can all sense the state of a soul of course, but I have two other abilities, firstly I can freeze up to 150kg down to the level of holding everything in the same quantum state, and I use this in two ways, occasionally to avoid damage, and more often to put up a type of force-shield, but I have to be careful with that, as not even air can pass through it. I can also translate myself and some small items, up to my mass limit to another plane, and reverse translate in a place of my choosing."
"Translated, you can make incredible shields and teleport. It sounds as if you do this mathematically?" Willow was frowning now, despite Kennedy nibbling at her neck. "But you were never that good at maths at school."
"Yes, they couldn't actually do this to me without my agreement, I agreed provided I was sent somewhere there were more dark souls than in my world. I did not agree that they could make me practically innumerate by my old standards, standards I can now satisfy. I agreed to the human part because I'd been accused of arrogance, one of my...concubines I suppose told me that I had no conception of what her life had been like before I chose her as mine when I asked why she seemed so desperate to please me. They demanded the human lifespan to make sure I couldn't backtrack to my dimension using their spell as a guide. Well, are you going to try to Slay me? I'll even give Willow the spell if you feel it necessary."
"I think I speak for everyone when I say that is not called for. But please do refrain from feeding on humans Xander."
"Yes Giles. But my true name is Vindellator, not Xander." After that the meeting began to break up, with the younger Slayers targeting the three who'd been there when Xander had 'died', and Vindellator himself with questions.
~~~oo()oo~~~
Vindellator of the Hidden Aspect of House Caelomundis could sense a deeply corrupted soul in front of him, a true innocent covered and guarded by his body and three bright souled warriors fighting near twenty more corrupted souls. The last thing he remembered was how his peers had carried out their sentence upon him, condemning him to live a human life in another world, this world, where corrupted souls were in much greater abundance than in his own, where he'd resorted to feeding on the vampires who ruled. He knew that the he had just 'died' as a human, and once he restored his energy he would remember that life.
He opened his eyes and fed on the dark soul in front of him, absently noting that the body which housed it was seven feet tall, heavily muscled and scaled, with bone claws like short knives. The other dark souls wore similar form, while both the innocent and the bright souls wore the form of human women, comparatively small. He knew that he had feasted too deeply, and when the creature went limp tore it apart. He'd apparently sacrificed his human life to preserve the innocent soul, and he focused on the molecules in the air around her, freezing those that would be on the curved surface of an imaginary cylinder around her down the the quantum level, forming a shield to guard her six feet in diameter, ten feet in height, open at the top and bottom to allow entry.
Then he ran across the warehouse, to feed more fully. He'd known that he would have to do this to remember who he'd been in this life, he could remember a bit now, that the creature he'd just fed on was a demon, and the three women fighting the other demons were Slayers, mystically enhanced warriors, usually for the Light Powers. As he tore one demon away from the dark haired older woman who'd attracted eight of the things to the other two's six each he noted that there was an undertaste of darkness to her soul, old, and overpowered by the brightness, interesting, but nothing he would consider worth feeding on.
He'd torn apart all eight of Faith's attackers, and drawn all but three of the remaining demons to attack him by those actions before Vindellator remembered that in this past life he'd been called Xander, a normal human who insisted on fighting beside those with abnormal powers, against those created by, or dedicated to the Dark Powers. Still he finished off the fight before he let himself remember fully and consider how his original form differed from the one he'd been put in. There was little difference in most things, he looked like Xander Harris, but with a few minor, or not so minor, differences. His hair was black, not the dark brown it used to be, and it was rooted halfway down his spine. He had both of his eyes again, and they were black as well, and his ears were pointed. He had six fingers on each hand, six toes on each foot, and his nails formed small claws, something like a cat's. But the greatest difference was the huge wings that now sprouted from his back, black as night and each eight feet long.
"Xander?" There was stunned disbelief in Faith's voice, disbelief and more than a little fear. When he nodded she contiuned. "What happened to you?"
"The demon who wasn't trying to bag himself a Slayer was going to kill the victim. I threw myself in the way, and it killed me. Then I came back in this form. I'll give a fuller explanation when everyone's there to hear it, I don't want to have to repeat myself. Rona, Vi, try to find the lady's clothes, and escort her back home will you?"
"Yes Xander." The younger girls chorused, responding to the authority in his voice as if he was unchanged. While they were doing that he allowed himself to fall into the total awareness of his body down to the quantum state of each electron that reached near trance, and then translated himself to another plane, leaving the gore that covered his body behind. He took down the shield he'd created as he translated back to the mundane plane, kneeling by the innocent soul and freeing her from her bonds.
"Are you an angel?" Wonder coloured the woman's words, and Xander nodded, it was as close an explanation as any. "You were sent to save me from those things!" A confident declaration now. "But the others?"
"Chosen to defend the innocent. I was bound into mortal flesh until such time as I died, offering my life for anothers. I cared too much about the destruction of the guilty, instead of about preserving what innocence humans yet retain." It fit into her apparent worldview, and it was even close to truth in a way. He didn't have to elaborate, the two younger Slayers arrived with the innocent soul's clothing. "These two ladies will guard you on your way home, if you will tell them the way."
"Thank you, but won't you tell me your name, angel? And your rank?"
"I am Vindellator, and I do not know what rank I hold, if indeed I still hold any." Faith waited for the woman to leave with barely hidden impatience before she turned on him.
"What was that shit about? You're not an angel, even if you do look like one."
"No, but I went along with her beliefs because they seemed to calm her. And Vindellator is my name. I told you, I'll explain to everyone at once, now let me get to my clothes." They routinely carried spare clothes in the jeep, in case what they were wearing got torn up, covered in blood and gore, or burned. This was the first time they'd had to deal with 'consumed when their wearer was remade' though. Vindellator did assume his human seeming, Xander's form save only the colouring, before he dressed, of course.
~~~oo()oo~~~
Vindellator had refused to explain who and what he had become until all the Slayers, and slayerettes were there to hear him, he was not going to explain more than once. He wasn't really comfortable with the idea of telling his story once, let alone multiple times. And so he was chained up in the cellar, chained up and locked in the cage they kept for emergency use, not that either of those things mattered, he could break the chains and through the cage easily enough, but it made Faith feel more comfortable, even if it did upset the other two Slayers under his care.
He looked up when he heard someone come into his cell, sensing a soul once bright, now tarnished with as much corruption as had left its mark on Faith. He bit back his disappointment when he saw that it was Buffy, the woman he'd once considered his hero, who'd come to lose her way after she'd been torn out of a Heavenly dimension.
"Xander, we're ready to hear what you have to tell us now." She sounded uncertain as she freed him, the younger Slayers all idolised him, and she wasn't going to antagonise them by treating him like a criminal, he could see that.
"I'm Vindellator, but I don't mind if you all continue to call me Xander." He followed her up to the largest room in the house, taking centre stage and casually pulling off his shirt.
"Xander, what are you doing?" Giles sounded slightly scandalised.
"Showing you what I truly am, you would not believe it otherwise." And with those words he let his wings reappear, his hair root down his spine and his hands and feet change. There were gasps from the assmbled Salyers, btu they sounded more awed and admiring than fearful or anything else.
"I originally come from another world. I was born as a mortal in this, and condemned to live out a human life as a punishment for, well in bare truth, doing what you Slayers are born to do. In my world there are three species, in order of increasing social status they are elves, humans and vampires. My house, my family, House Caelomundis, have one bloodline that is none of those three, we are known as the Hidden Aspect, our traits are latent and surface occasionally. Those traits are physical strength, speed, stamina and such equivalent to that of the Hellgoddess Glorificous, accelerated healing, to the point that you could cut my heart out and I'd grow a new one within seconds, the ability to switch between a form like my present one, and a human form at will, true immortality, we cannot be killed without a spell nearly as strong as the one used to activate all the potential Slayers, a few other things that don't bear mentioning now, and we feed on souls." Xander paused at that, wondering if his friends would support him or try to kill him. The younger Slayers seemed torn between wanting to attack him and wanting to defend him, with his defenders in a three to one majority, very flattering. Buffy and Willow were horrified, but they weren't trying to attack him either, and Giles was polishing his glasses furiously. Faith was the only one who spoke.
"You feed on souls, what does that mean? Do you kill people to do it, and how often do you have to feed?"
"I don't actually have to feed at all, but I enjoy it, and it gives me more power. I'm a throwback to the orignal, the Nephilim, the daughter of an angel, who introduced this trait to our House, and I like to feed on corrupted souls, evil people, irredeemable for preference. That's why I got into trouble if I'd been feeding on slaves, the victims most of my kind enjoy no one would have cared. But I fed on the vampires of those Bloodlines which had souls - we had many sorts of vampires in my world, some like the Anne Rice books, others like White Wolf, others like the ones in the Necroscope series, and some like the ones you kill. When I feed I don't have to kill, they recover depending on how much of their soul I take, provided I don't reduce them below a certain threshold, but I always prefered to kill my prey, and keep them from doing more evil.
"And I'm a throwback in other ways, I have more abilities than those most of my kind do. We can all sense the state of a soul of course, but I have two other abilities, firstly I can freeze up to 150kg down to the level of holding everything in the same quantum state, and I use this in two ways, occasionally to avoid damage, and more often to put up a type of force-shield, but I have to be careful with that, as not even air can pass through it. I can also translate myself and some small items, up to my mass limit to another plane, and reverse translate in a place of my choosing."
"Translated, you can make incredible shields and teleport. It sounds as if you do this mathematically?" Willow was frowning now, despite Kennedy nibbling at her neck. "But you were never that good at maths at school."
"Yes, they couldn't actually do this to me without my agreement, I agreed provided I was sent somewhere there were more dark souls than in my world. I did not agree that they could make me practically innumerate by my old standards, standards I can now satisfy. I agreed to the human part because I'd been accused of arrogance, one of my...concubines I suppose told me that I had no conception of what her life had been like before I chose her as mine when I asked why she seemed so desperate to please me. They demanded the human lifespan to make sure I couldn't backtrack to my dimension using their spell as a guide. Well, are you going to try to Slay me? I'll even give Willow the spell if you feel it necessary."
"I think I speak for everyone when I say that is not called for. But please do refrain from feeding on humans Xander."
"Yes Giles. But my true name is Vindellator, not Xander." After that the meeting began to break up, with the younger Slayers targeting the three who'd been there when Xander had 'died', and Vindellator himself with questions.
~~~oo()oo~~~
