Second half…

*

"Giles!" both Buffy and Xander practically screamed as they powered into his apartment.

Giles stuck his head out of the kitchen. "What?" he asked irritably.

"We were on patrol when we encountered some army goons taking vamps prisoner." Blurted Xander at a hundred words a minute, before Buffy could form a coherent thought.

"Pardon?" asked Giles, "could you repeat that? A little bit slower?"

Xander took a breath. Buffy talked instead. "We heard a noise in a copse of trees, and we thought it might be Kayn or something, so we went to investigate. It turned out to be a group of military goons taking vampires prisoner. We don't know what for. The leader was Riley."

"Who?" asked Giles politely.

With pained, and evidently strained patience, Buffy said, "My boyfriend." Then quieter, she said, "but not really, you know, my boyfriend, just, err…"

"Quit it, Buff. You're babbling." Smirked Xander.

Buffy shot him an angry look, but softened it with a small smile. "What I'm trying to say, Giles, if Xander will let me finish, is that some army guys are taking vamps. Not killing. Capturing."

"What for?" Giles asked, a bit behind.

Buffy sighed, "We don't know. We thought we'd better tell you though."

"OK. Thank you. Are you going to go home now?"

"Yes, call me if you need me. Or Xand." Said Buffy, getting up to walk home.

Xander followed, but Giles grabbed his wrist as he passed and indicated that he wanted to talk to him. Xander nodded and stopped.

"See ya tomorrow, Buff."

"Yeah. Bye, Xand." Buffy voice was half dreamy, half unaware. Suddenly what Xander said snapped into her brain. "Hang on. Aren't you going to walk me home?"

"No can do, Buff. G-Man wants to talk to me. Ciao."

Buffy left, and Giles shut the door.

"What ya want, G-Man? This about Kayn?"

"Yes. It's about the Avatar. Oz discovered that the one weakness of the Avatar is love."

"That's it? Love?"

"Yes. But it must be true from both parties or it will not pull the Avatar back from the Abyss. We, that is, Willow, Oz and I thought that Anya would need to come back. So we did a locator spell. She turned up in a demon dimension."

"And that means?"

"She has become Anyanka again. She is of no use to us as a demon."

"I could have told you that. Besides, I don't think that love was mutual from both parties. She decided she didn't love me before the ascension, or she would never have left. And I never really loved her, at least, as she deserved. I was still in love with someone else."

"Who?" inquired Giles, "that is, if you wish to tell me."

"Guess."

"Willow? After all, you did get trapped together. It took Oz and Willow some time to work through the trauma that caused to their relationship."

Xander shook his head.

"Cordelia? You dated her for quite a while, and she obviously loved you, despite the whole insulting you every five seconds, because she stood up to Harmony and Aura for you."

Xander smirked but shook his head again.

"Then…" Giles trailed off, "oh…my… Buffy?"

Xander nodded. Took Giles long enough to figure out.

"Why? Didn't she brush you off and generally treat you like dirt? You're still pining after her?" Giles voice took on the tone of a concerned friend, even father.

"I don't know. It's more than a childish crush. Despite the fact that it started out that way. And Buffy seems to have started to return my feelings; I think that's why she was so unsure about the whole 'boyfriend' issue with Riley."

"Oh my." Was Giles' only response, unsure of the developments suddenly revealed to him.

Xander waited.

"So… in that case… Buffy must be the one to pull you from the brink… when you are called…" Giles seemed to be uncomfortable with the topic now, like it was too close to his heart.

"I suppose, yes." Xander smiled at the older man and started to walk out.

As he stepped into the hallway, pain gripped Xander, so hard that he collapsed on the floor before he could do anything else. Giles gaped and ran forward, but before he could reach Xander, the young man slowly dissolved into the air, losing solidarity, and then flickering in and out of existence like a candle in a draft. The last thing Giles heard from Xander was a moan of pain.

Giles rushed back inside and picked up the phone. Dialling Buffy's number quickly, hoping that she was in, and had got home safe, he swore quietly into the mouthpiece.

~Pardon me?~ the voice on the other end of the line was indignant.

"Oh, sorry, Mrs. Summers. Is Buffy there? It's Rupert Giles."

~Certainly. She just got in. Hold on.~ Giles heard Buffy's name hollered on the other end of the phone. ~It might be advisable, Mr. Giles, not to swear down the phone. Someone might take offence.~ Joyce's tone was teasing.

Buffy came on the line as her mother handed it over to her. ~Yeah, Giles? What's happened?~

The only thing that came out of Giles' mouth was the bare truth: "Buffy. Xander's been called."

~Oh my God. I'll be right there.~ Giles heard the clunk as the phone was dropped in the haste to get out, followed by the hollered excuse to her mother before Buffy ran out, slamming the door behind her.

Giles sighed, and hung up his own phone. He would have to call Willow and Oz, then wait for them to all arrive. It was going to be a long night.

*

By the time Buffy got back to Giles apartment, Giles had already called Oz and Willow and they had arrived there before Buffy, having driven rather than walked, well, run actually. None of the three were best impressed to have Giles call them back after they had just left, but Xander was in trouble.

Buffy bowled into the small apartment, and fixed Giles with wide eyes. "Spill." She commanded.

"Very well." Said Giles, "I finished my talk with Xander, and he walked out, only to collapse on the floor and evaporate, almost, into the air."

"Where did he go?" it was plain that Buffy was only just holding herself together.

"I don't know." Mumbled Giles, looking uncomfortably at his feet, fully aware that for once, he did not have an answer.

"You don't know? You DON'T KNOW? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" after the loud hysterical tone, Buffy's voice had taken on a lethally quiet timbre.

"He has presumably gone to Kayn. We will find out soon enough when he starts the diversion."

"Diversion?" asked Willow, "I thought he was going to protect Kayn?"

"Sort of." Replied Giles, "but it seems more likely, indeed, almost certain, that Kayn will use the Avatar as a distraction to the Slayer and any others who may wish to stop him, while he himself opens the Hellmouth and returns to his own 'world' so to speak. This seems to be the tactic that Kayn favours. Using the Avatar as bait or diversionary bait to allow him to do what he wishes unhindered."

"So, we have two choices. We can go after Xander, and save as many people as possible, stopping him cutting himself up with guilt if we save him, or we can stop Kayn. That about covers it, yeah?" returned Willow.

"When." Buffy said flatly.

"What?" said Willow and Oz.

"I said 'when'. Not if we save him, but when. I can't loose him, Willow." Buffy started angry, but it faded into a hopeless tone.

"Nevertheless," said Oz, bringing them back to themselves, "we cannot do anything until Xander shows up."

Giles nodded. "Then from that time we have about six hours to find Kayn and stop him from opening the Hellmouth."

The four sighed. Buffy, Willow and Oz sat down while Giles went to find another book and brew a pot of coffee.

It would be a long week until Solstice.

*

Xander's mind existed in a world of darkness and pain, conscious thought becoming painful to maintain. He could see his body in the 'real' world, but was unable to do anything to control it. Like a passenger in his own head. Kayn's will controlled his body, influenced his mind, and nothing he could do about it would change it. Abstractly, Xander wondered for a few seconds if it was like this for the souls that got displaced by the vampire demon when a person got turned. It wasn't as if he could ask any vampires, and he wasn't about to go through the experience to find out. Since Kayn had marked him, it was questionable whether a vampire would be able to bite him or not, anyway.

He could see Kayn changing his body. While it looked cool, it didn't fill him with confidence.

The Avatar seemed to slowly grow jet-black armour plating from nowhere. If it were not for the darkness already surrounding the Avatar, Xander could have sworn that the armour was sucking whatever remaining light existed out of the air itself, like an isolated black hole, but without the gravity.

Seeing the changes in his body itself was even more disturbing. Xander had very little fat on him before from all the construction work he had been doing, but now it seemed to be all tendons and whipcord muscle. His eyes were slowly turning such a pale grey that they appeared to be constricted pupils on a sea of white. His mouth was set in a permanent rictus grin.

The blade Kayn provided to his Avatar made the armour look like it was the sun shaped and moulded to form armour. The blade itself was so black that it did not really appear black at all, but a complete absence of colour. The eye shied away from looking at the blade, almost as if the brain was rather it wasn't there…

Apparently pleased with his Avatar, and the alterations he had made, Kayn sent Xander back to Sunnydale. The diversion was about to begin.

*

The first Buffy or any of the other knew of Xander's return was on the morning news when it announced that a strange figure in black armour was terrorising downtown near the warehouses, and was moving toward the main street.

"People are advised to stay indoors and bar their windows and doors," the announcer was saying, "Sunnydale police have called out the National Guard and local military bases to try to combat the threat."

"I bet the Initiative are going to be right there as well." Buffy said sourly.

Giles snorted. "Honestly. People ignore the vampires and demons running around here for years, but one armoured maniac arrives and they call out everyone short of Delta Force."

"How do you know about Delta Force, Giles?" Buffy smirked "Don't the Brits have the SAS?"

"Yes, but it pays to be informed about the anti-terrorist squads of where you are stationed. One of my friends on the council in Saudi had his Slayer killed by their squads for 'possible terrorist actions'. George his name was. All the books he had to deal with the evil threats that really did terrorise the area he was stationed in earned his both his eyes gouged out and a hand chopped off. 'Subversive texts' indeed! The government in Saudi is worse than the 'subversive organisations'."

"George his name 'was'?" asked Buffy.

"Yes. He died a few years ago, 'post-operative infection' after a heart bypass. Most Watchers think the Council bumped him off. After all, what use is a blind Watcher?"

"I'm glad I told the Council to stuff it." Said Buffy, almost morosely.

"So am I," replied Giles, "after all, by now you would have been recalled to the Council for 'attitudinal realignment' months ago."

"What's that?" Buffy asked puzzled.

"What? 'Attitudinal realignment'? Its just Council jargon for reinforced indoctrination." Giles replied bitterly. It seemed that he had some experience of it.

Buffy still looked blank. Big words weren't her strong point.

Giles sighed and explained, saying; "Brainwashing."

Buffy's expression darkened instantly.

Willow thought it was time to intervene before the conversation got even more morbid and depressing. "Hadn't we better see if we could go find Xander or Kayn? I'm sure we don't want the army trying to flatten Xander."

Buffy looked up with a possessive expression on her face. "Right. Find Xander: Check. Beat Kayn into the floor: Check. I'm primed for a good ass-kicking."

Oz and Willow looked on worriedly as Buffy stormed into the storeroom where Giles stored all of his Slaying equipment. She seemed to be taking this a bit too personally.

Giles stood and walked in the opposite direction, picking a key up from the mantelpiece, he headed over to the closet and bent down to the floor. Oz heard a click and the floor opened slightly, revealing an assortment of slightly more up to date weaponry, as well as what appeared to be a pair of Katana's, razor sharp and trimmed in what looked like silver and the grips were wrapped in black silk ribbon. Two small metal skulls hung from the ends of the ribbon.

Oz whistled at the beauty of the weapons. Buffy reappeared from the Slayerstore, and stopped short when she saw the two blades.

Oz asked, "Is that silver?"

"No," replied Giles, "its platinum."

"What are they for, Giles? I've got a sword." Asked Buffy, holding up her battered short-blade for inspection.

"Not like these, you haven't Buffy." Giles replied almost reverentially. "These were a gift to me, from a Japanese Slayer who I looked after for a short time. They were her family's blades, given to me for safe keeping while she avenged the death of her family. Caused by vampires. They are the most precious possession I have, because I failed her. They have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds, possibly even thousands of years. They must never, I repeat: never, be used against vampires. It will corrupt the blades. Other demons, fine. Half-breeds like vampires will cause serious problems."

"That sounds like an understatement." Smiled Buffy, uncomfortable at the importance Giles connected to a sword.

The smile angered Giles, but only slightly. "This is not a laughing matter, Buffy, or indeed even a smiling matter, do not use the blades against vampires."

"OK, OK. Geez…"

Giles placed one blade on the table, and drew the other out only a fraction of its length.

"Why is the blade so slick, Giles? Even oil wouldn't get it like that."

"The blade is semi-mystical. Forged by the greatest sword-smiths and sorcerers in Japan, it is self-sharpening, and is practically indestructible; it will cut through just about anything without too much difficulty."

Buffy reached down to the blade on the table, picked it up and started to draw it. Giles noticed when she had half drawn it.

"No!" he called out, gripping the handle over Buffy's hand and sliding the blade back into the sheath.

"Why? I want to inspect the blade." Complained Buffy.

Giles went into lecturing mode again, "Buffy, do not draw the blade unless it is going to be bloodied. That also is very important."

"What if I just want to clean the blade or something?" Buffy's voice got whinier.

"The blade must be bloodied." Giles said the tone of his voice left no room for argument.

"So, what? If I want to clean or inspect the blade I have to cut my arm with it or something?" Buffy's voice sounded as if she was expecting a no.

"Exactly."

Buffy did a double take.

"Also," Giles continued, "make sure that both faces of the blade are bloodied. I will not bore you with the reasons why."

Buffy gulped at the importance that the blades held for Giles. "Very well." Was all she could say. What else could she say?

Now Buffy had a weapon.

*

Xander watched with a listless disconnection to the real world. He was destroying a series of warehouses, systematically killing everyone in or outside of them and then levelling the building. The cops, for the most part, were letting him do it. They followed him; close enough to try to stop him if he started attacking innocent civilians, but far enough away to avoid the Avatars wrath.

He was doing quite well for himself. It was almost as if the cops were keeping score. Two drug smuggling rings, one of which the Sunnydale PD recently lost five officers in a fire fight with, a few homeless bums, and a hell of a lot of vamps who were too frightened of Kayn to risk hunting, and therefore tried to starve. They died irrespective of whether they went out or not.

Xander marvelled, in a detached way, at what the blade did. Whatever the Avatar struck at started to fracture a fraction of a second before the blade actually touched. It would take a sharp eye, however to notice that. If a normal person, it would be practically undetectable, and even Buffy might miss it.

Then, with the birds eye view his displaced position gave, Xander noticed the Initiative sneaking up from round the back of the warehouse complex. Dressed all in urban camouflage gear, they were almost invisible if you didn't want to see them in the shadows properly. And the inhabitants and law enforcement of Sunnydale were all good at not seeing or hearing things. Again, like before, they were armed with the tazer weapons. If Xander had a face in the incorporeal existence that was his for the time, you would have seen a smirk.

Body armour.

What good was that going to be against the Sword of Kayn? Even the metal girders that made up the frame of the warehouses snapped like rotted kindling.

Riley was in the lead. He waved his arm and three of his troops moved forward to manoeuvre round and surround the black armoured form. When the Avatar was surrounded, Riley closed his fist and all the troops opened up with the tazers.

The Avatar staggered slightly at the unexpected charges of electricity that flowed into him, but recovered and turned, to see Riley, his eyes wide with shock.

Stepping forward, the Avatar raised the blade to strike that 'insignificant insect' as Kayn told him.

The fraction of a second needed to do that gave the troopers time to reset their weapons to the maximum setting. A single one of the tazers on maximum, if fired for half a second, would be enough to cook an elephant, well enough that it could be eaten if you like 'medium-rare' elephant.

Nine tazers were fired, at full charge, for eight seconds, until the batteries ran out. Riley was too scared to fire, after all, he had a creature that looked like it had congealed out of the night standing not five feet away with an arm raised to strike.

The Avatar staggered and collapsed at the sheer amount of energy pumped into it. Xander looked on, interested that despite being invulnerable to most things, enough electricity could overload his, or rather, the Avatars central nervous system. Electricity was a modern invention, after all, so the people who originally fought Kayn could be forgiven for not discovering the weakness.

Unfortunately for Riley, as the Avatar weakened, his grip on the blade loosened sufficiently for it to fall out of his grasp. Riley was underneath. It cleaved through his shoulder and severed his right arm like it was warm butter. Cutting through flesh and bone with equal ease.

People ten miles away could have heard Riley's scream. Buffy did.

"What was that?" she asked, panicked, bolting up from her seat in surprise.

"What was what?" asked Willow back innocently.

"The scream! What caused it?" Buffy sounded almost terrified.

Willow shook her head, looking at Oz and Giles, "Sorry, Buffy, I didn't hear anything."

"I'm going out to check." Said Buffy.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" asked Giles gently.

"Yes." Was Buffy's terse response.

"I don't. We need you to fight Kayn. Not get involved in some dispute on the streets."

"But… Giles… that scream was really blood curdling! Someone could be in serious trouble!"

Giles callousness in the next statement shocked all three of the teens present. "Leave it alone! Leave domestic disputes and street fights to the SPD, no matter how inept they are with other issues. Your job, unless you've forgotten is to kill vampires and 'supernatural' threats. Which means Kayn, not a couple of pimps who got into a fight over a hooker."

Buffy sat down again and shut up, in case she got another chewing out from Giles. Willow and Oz looked on in shock.

"Sorry. That was out of line," Giles apologised, collapsing onto his seat while rubbing his brow, "but Kayn must rule all else for the time being. We cannot let him get back to his plane. He will be able to cause untold havoc here if he does."

Buffy, Willow and Oz just nodded, still too shell-shocked at the outburst to say anything.

"Come on," said Giles, "we'd better get to the Masters crypt to find Kayn. That is the main entrance to the Hellmouth. He'll want to make an entrance."

Buffy nodded again, almost on automatic, and picked up the two Katana's. Willow picked up a small crossbow that had a 'clip' of five miniature bolts. They had explosive tips. Oz picked up Buffy's discarded short sword and a cross. Giles picked up the lost Initiative tazer and a small book. At the inquisitive look he received from Willow, he explained, "ice spells." A confused smile and a nod greeted the clarification.

The four marched off in a return to the Masters lair.

*

The Avatar woke, aching and angry.

The Initiative hadn't wasted any time in getting him back to the labs and starting experiments on him. There was a short bald scientist that was prodding him with a probe, trying to figure out how he moved in a suit of armour that apparently had no joints or obvious methods of removal. He was so involved in discovering a joint that he missed the slight movement of the Avatar completely unaware that his life was about to be forfeit.

The Avatar ended his life quickly. When the man turned away, he thrust a gauntlet-clad hand straight through the man's back and tore his heart out the front. The poor scientist couldn't even gasp. He was dead before he realised what happened.

Pulling his hand back, the Avatar let the scientist slump to the floor. Looking intrigued at the man's heart in his hand, the Avatar squeezed it with a sickening squelch. Gore splattered the walls, and the Avatar examined his prison.

A plain white tiled room, now a sick scarlet, and a gurney sitting in the middle of the room, which he had woken up on. He destroyed the camera in the corner by tearing it out of the wall. Wires fizzed pitifully. What appeared to be an electric field covered the exit. After the warehouse, the Avatar had learned:

Be careful of electricity.

"What the bloody 'ell is going on in there?" swore a British voice from the next cell.

The Avatar called on the knowledge of his host. "Hello, Spike." He managed to grind out.

"Bloody 'ell! Harris! What the friggin' 'ell did they take you for?"

The Avatar ignored him. Concentrating, he called the Sword back to him. It materialised in his hand five seconds later, covered in blood, and dripping yet more.

Striking at the electric field, the Avatar watched in interest as the energy crawled up the blade and dissipated about half way. He sliced at the bars viciously, and with all his strength.

The bars exploded outwards, impacting on the opposite wall.

The Avatar stepped out.

If Spike had been human, he would have had a heart attack. But then, if he had been human, he would not have heard of Kayn, or his Avatar, or indeed have been in the Initiative labs.

The Avatar turned and sliced the glass that held Spike in his cage.

"Thanks, mate, I owe y' one." Said Spike as he edged out, fully aware of what the Avatar did to 'lower' forms of demon.

The Avatar closed the distance between them, Kayn's wish to kill inferior specimens powering his move. With his blade paused scant inches from spikes throat, the Avatar examined the host's feelings about this vamp.

Hatred, fear, but mixed with a healthy dose of cool, almost icy, respect.

"Run. Now."

Spike backed away, but when what he considered to be a safe distance away, stopped and asked, "You're Harris, but not. You're also the Avatar, but not. How did you get like that?"

The Avatar chose to show him what he wished; again showing Kayn's influence did not completely control him. The armoured helm seemed to melt into the rest. Revealing Xander's head complete with grey eyes, and rictus grin.

Spike gasped and asked, "You were Marked, huh? That sucks. More than a vamp." He had the bad taste to laugh at his own joke.

The helm reformed. The Avatar reversed his grip on the blade and thrust backward viciously, just as a soldier was coming round the corner, to check why the cameras were off. The nameless soldier died before he could see there was anything wrong.

"Nice." Spike was impressed despite his fear in the face of the Avatar for his unlife.

The Avatar turned and walked in the direction the trooper had come from. Spike realised the conversation was over and it was time to depart. He headed for the nearest air vent, to tell any demon that would listen to get out of the Hellmouth. Bad stuff was about to happen.

*

Xander watched the Avatar despatch Initiative goon after Initiative goon. It was heading for the command centre.

The Avatar was thirsting for vengeance on those that had imprisoned it. No one did this to the Avatar of Kayn...

No one.

*

Spike crawled out of the air vent and spat on the ground. He was in his favourite cemetery.

"Bastards. I hope Harris fuckin' kills ya all!" To say Spike was not happy was an understatement.

Buffy dived over a tombstone and struck Spike in the middle of his back, taking them both to the floor. Sitting on top of Spike, who was face down in the dirt, Buffy whispered viciously, "You just mentioned Xander. Where is he?"

Spike looked at the Slayer. "Hello, darlin'" he said, "din't expect to see you here!"

Buffy raised the stake she was holding. "I won't ask again, Spike."

"OK, OK. Goddamn it. He's down in the bowels of the Initiative, or that's what they call 'emselves. Bunch o' pansy asses if y' ask me."

"Why were you there?"

"Got myself capture a few weeks ago, I think? Time runs different when you're starving and nearly mad with pain. The sods are making some super-demon hybrid down there. Tryin' for the, and I quote, 'ultimate warrior'" Spike waved his fingers in the almost universally accepted sign for inverted commas, "the vamps and other demons that they didn't want, they either cut up to 'understand' their anatomy better, or stuck a friggin' chip in their heads. They did the latter to me. I can't bite anything. Honest."

"Why should I believe you?" asked Buffy curiously.

"Why would I lie? I want to get those bastards!"

"Prove you can't hurt anything. But if it's a lie, I'll stake your ass so fast you wont even be able to blink."

"OK. On who?"

Willow stepped forward timidly. Oz looked about to protest, but Willow waved at him to stop.

"You, Red?"

"Yes."

"Alrighty." Spike looked more than a little apprehensive. Even more so than Willow; if that was possible.

Spike dived for Willows neck, but just scant inches short, he recoiled in extreme pain.

"Argh! Bollocks! I shoulda let ya stake me! It'd 'urt less!"

"Looks like that proves it." Said Giles, amused by Spikes demonstration.

"OK, Spike, we believe you. Now get, before I decide to stake you anyway." Buffy's voice made it sound like it may be fun.

Spike held his hands up. "Don't ya wanna know about your little X-man? Eh?"

Buffy looked daggers at him.

"He was captured by the Initiative and managed to escape. He freed me. He's become the Avatar of Kayn. I don't know why 'e didn't kill me." Spikes voice sounded puzzled as he finished. "By all rights 'e should have, I mean, Kayn 'ates all 'inferior' demons, and 'alf-breeds like vampires are even worse. The Avatar should 'ave killed me outright, but it let me run instead. He seemed majorly pissed at the bastards, and seemed to be heading for the command centre to finish the military goon squad permanently."

Buffy did a double take at this piece of news.

"Can't say I blame 'im, meself." Finished Spike with venom.

"Buffy, we can't waste much more time, Kayn will be opening the Hellmouth in about an hour. We must stop him." Giles seemed to be more and more edgy.

"You're gonna take Kayn?" Spike was incredulous.

"Yes." Buffy held up the two sheathed Katana's. Spike laughed. "You're gonna take 'im with two pansy pieces of Japanese metal? Good luck!"

Giles growled at the insult to a lost Slayers family honour.

"You'll need help. I volunteer." Spike was practically snickering.

"You?" this time it was Buffy who was incredulous.

"Yeah. If that particular demon lord gets back to his own plane, the Masters plans to make hell on earth are gonna look like a pre-schoolers temper tantrum. I've even seen Kayn's world. It makes the seventh level hell look like the Antarctic."

Buffy nodded once and the group with their cannon fodder extra walked the hundred feet or so to the entrance to the Masters crypt.

*

In the main command centre of the Initiative sat Riley Finn, the stump of his arm now cauterised so he didn't loose any more blood.

The Professor, who just happened to be Buffy's psych teacher, was chewing him out again.

Walsh.

Bitch.

The two words were synonymous, for the time being, as far as Riley was concerned.

"We'll have to release Adam," she was ranting on about a demon hybrid they had created, and Riley hadn't known anything about until he returned with his arm missing "you were our first trial, and evidently a failure. We will have to take… steps." The last was hinted darkly. Riley swallowed, not in fear, but trying to loosen up his vocal chords again so he could respond.

"First trial?" Riley muttered quietly, a voice hardly above a whisper was the best he could manage at the time. Fortunately for him, Walsh was too busy starting the Adam Release Protocol to listen.

"Adam will be released in 24 hours." The computer stated coolly. It was a failsafe to stop him from being released in the spur of the moment, as he was, as far as Walsh's funding agencies were concerned, just too damn powerful.

Walsh walked back to Riley. "How could you let a freak like that remove your arm by dropping the blade?" Walsh accented each of the final words, to leave no one unsure about how unhappy she was. "He was already captured, you just had to move out of the way!"

Riley just sat there and let it wash over him. If he tried to stand up for himself, it would only prolong it. Best to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

"You are useless now. Leave!"

"But…" Riley was about to argue then, but the wall exploded into the room, showering scientists and computer operators with rubble, crushing them.

The Avatar stepped through the hole, blade in hand.

Walsh stopped her tirade long enough to look down into the non violent research pit, where the sword was being examined, to see it no longer there, and the scientist that had been assigned to it lying in a pool of blood, his own.

"You really should pay more attention." Deadpanned the Avatar in a voice so unlike Xander's that it was unrecognisable. It seemed to echo forever.

"That," said Riley, pointing at the figure with his remaining hand, "is what took my arm."

Walsh stood in shock. The wall that the Avatar had burst though was nine-foot thick reinforced concrete.

Walsh snapped out of her daze. "Security!" she screamed, "get in here now!"

The Avatar merely stood and looked interested as soldiers flowed into the room, all armed with tazers or assault rifles.

"Kill him!" screamed Walsh, "I want to examine him!"

The soldiers complied, the assault rifle carriers opening up first.

Most died when the Avatar deflected the bullets with his sword. Those bullets he didn't deflect pinged harmlessly off his armour.

The tazer troopers stood with a slightly greater chance of survival. The electrical arcs couldn't be deflected, but the Avatar seemed to learn. Catching most of the arcs on the blade, where it dissipated quickly. The arcs that did contact with the armour made the Avatar stagger a bit, but there were not enough of them this time to take him down.

Walsh looked on in horror. "Fire again! Full power!" she sounded hysterical.

"We did ma'am!" one soldier shouted back.

"The batteries are dead!" cried another, "we need to recharge!" The statement was accompanied by the low pitched whine of their blasters cycling back into charge mode, but it would take a long time without external assistance from a power point.

Before they could do anything, the Avatar charged, staying eerily silent. The only sound the Avatar made was his feet striking the floor. The soldiers died before they could scream.

Blood now covered almost ever inch of the command centre. Not one person left standing was left free of the gory decoration; all were drenched in it, with the Avatar in the middle of the carnage.

"Riley, stop him!" shouted Walsh.

Riley's military training cut in before he could think. "Yes, ma'am!" he called.

Picking up a battery pack for one of the weapons, Riley held a tazer that had fallen near his feet down with one foot, while extracting the battery pack and putting in the fresh one. Picking up the weapon with his one remaining hand, he aimed it unsteadily; after all, he was right handed.

Pulling the trigger, he looked horrified as the Avatar again caught the arc on his sword. Realising that it was futile to use guns, he pulled a combat knife and charged. The Avatar seemed to humour him; after all, he didn't die instantly. Getting one or two good hits on the armour, before he realised that likewise, that was futile.

Picking up Riley in his free hand, the Avatar searched his memory for a suitable phrase.

"To the victor go the spoils." Riley's obvious confusion just enhanced the pleasure.

Riley found himself falling to the floor, and an excruciating pain as the Avatar sent the sword through his waist, cutting him in half. Blood sprayed about as Riley thrashed weakly. He raised his head enough to see his legs lying about five feet away, and his guts spilling out of what remained of his body.

The last thing Riley saw was the Avatars boot coming for his head, and then nothing, as his skull made a sickening crunch on the tiled floor.

Walsh looked at the devastation that this, this, creature, had wrought on all her hard work. Back up against a wall, she had nowhere left to run.

"No… It wasn't supposed to be like this…" Closing her eyes, Margaret Walsh accepted her fate as the Avatar stalked toward her.

A fraction of a second later, her head went flying across the room, severed neatly from her body and landed on a nearby examination table, while her body collapsed in a soggy heap where she had stood. The Initiative was no more.

*

The Avatar felt the pull.

His master called.

*

The Avatar materialised in the Masters cavern, to see the fight between Buffy, Spike and his master not progressing well at all for Kayn. He looked to have several minor cuts, and one or two, which would be quite lethal to a normal human, and some demons.

Buffy looked none the worse for wear, sweating slightly, but not a great deal. She had both katana's drawn.

Spike looked like he was having quite a good time, but his smile dropped when he saw the Avatar standing in the corner.

"Buffy!" he called, "your little friend is here!"

Buffy glanced over at the wall, where Xander had appeared. It gave Kayn an opening. Swiping her with his claws, he sent her flying, and she lost her grip on one of the blades.

Buffy landed hard at Giles feet, swearing her head off for looking away from a fight. Looking down at her top, she saw four angry slashes in the fabric, and blood underneath.

Willow levitated the lost katana to Buffy, and then released a bolt at Kayn. It caught him full in the chest, and exploded. A shower of green blood was the result.

Kayn hissed in anger and pain then gestured to the small group that had gathered again. "Kill them!" he snarled.

The Avatar started forward. Raising the Sword of Kayn, it came crashing down where, only moments before, Buffy had crouched. Swiping the blade sideways, he narrowly avoided decapitating the ducked Spike, and put a shallow gash in Willow's leg.

Willow fell backwards crying out in pain at the cut.

Spike looked at the floor where a lock of hair had just fallen. He growled, "You're gonna pay for that mate! Do you 'ave any idea how 'ard it is to cut your 'air when ya can't go to a barber or can't look in a mirror? Bah!"

Oz, seeing his mate hurt, couldn't withhold the change it evoked. He quickly turned away while his transformation to wolf occurred.

Buffy rolled forward and tried to hamstring the Avatar, but the blades just hit and ground off the armour, not even leaving a scratch. Kayn watched on in amusement as the group vainly attempted to wound something that was almost invulnerable.

Willow seemed to have recovered from the surprise of getting cut. Deciding that she couldn't fight her oldest friend, she aimed the crossbow at Kayn again. Two bolts hit Kayn before he noticed she had fired. Purely by accident, one hit him in the shoulder, and the other hit him in the eye. As the explosive detonated, Kayn staggered and screamed, then recovered enough to pull the bolt out of the now ragged socket that used to be an eye.

"KILL THEM!" he screamed one final time.

The anger and rage in that command seemed to give new fuel to the Avatar, who redoubled his efforts, but still seemed strangely reluctant, as if something held him back.

At that moment, the transformed Oz leapt from the shadows where he had been slowly becoming the wolf. Catching the Avatar full in the chest, he propelled him backwards until he overbalanced and fell. The Avatar rolled and pinned Oz beneath him. Pulling the sword back to strike, he paused as Buffy yelled out, "NO! Xander! Don't!" Willow joined in the coaxing, saying "Xander, that's Oz! Don't kill him! Please! Don't kill him!" Willow was crying as she finished this.

The Avatar looked hard at Oz. He pulled his head back to look better and lowered the blade. The wolfed out Oz just growled at the creature pinning him to the floor, in a weak position. Helm sliding away, just like it had to Spike in the Initiative base, Xander mouthed, "Oz?"

Buffy and Willow took that opening, "Yes! Oz! Xander, please remember! He's your friend! We all are!"

The Avatar looked round at Buffy, Willow and finally Giles and Spike. "Willow?" he asked in Xander's voice.

"Yes, Xander. I'm here." She answered.

"Buffy?" he asked, seemingly more and more confused and disoriented as he spoke. The further his disorientation became obvious, the more his voice sounded like it used to.

"Yeah, Xand. I'm here too. I… I… love you."

"Buffy?" Xander seemed to be having trouble putting things together.

"Yeah, Xander?"

"I… lo…ve you… too." He replied, but it took time to grate out, as if he had forgotten how to talk, or at least form words coherently. Kayn was trying to rest control back from Xander's mind, to turn him back into the fully-fledged Avatar, one who would obey without question.

Buffy smiled. Xander held out the sword and rolled off Oz.

However, Kayn, using the last vestiges of control that he had on the Avatar, ordered him to attack Buffy. Mechanically, the Avatar stood and approached. Sword raised, ready to strike Buffy, he made eye contact. The pain and loss in those blue pools held his arm in check.

"Xander… no…" Buffy was frozen to the spot.

"Buffy… I… MOVE!" the last word was a shouted command, and Buffy rolled, only to see the blade embed itself where she had just been kneeling. Xander let go of the blade and lay on his back, panting at the effort involved in defying Kayn.

Kayn snarled. His Avatar had overridden his dark centre by the 'love' he held for the blonde Slayer bitch.

In watching the downfall of his Avatar, he had not paid attention to what Giles and Spike were doing. The ice storm spell hit him hard, and started to freeze him solid.

Spike approached the almost frozen body of Kayn. Shivering slightly, he smiled, like he had a joke to tell, "you know, I would love to tell you to 'burn in hell' but where you're from, it'd be like 'olidaying on the Costa del friggin' Sol. So I prefer freeze. Yeah…" Spike leaned forward like he had a confidence to tell. "This time, we'll bury you five miles beneath the arctic ice. Or how about Siberia? That should be real nice this time of year. They consider minus 50 a heat wave…"

Kayn just glared. He couldn't do anything else.

"Freeze, you hell spawned son-of-a-bitch." Those were the final words he heard before he became demon Popsicle. Spike grinned to himself. "I always wanted to say that!"

*

While Oz went back into the corner, on Willow's insistence, to change back to him human form, Giles bound the wound on her leg. It was only superficial and wound be healed in a couple of weeks.

Buffy's Slayer abilities stood her in good stead. By the time she had finished gathering up everything, the wounds inflicted by the Sword of Kayn had healed. Moving over to pick up the Sword itself, Buffy just stared when she couldn't even lift it an inch, let alone pick it up. She told Giles, and his reply was that if she couldn't pick it up, how on earth did she expect him or Spike to?

Spike was still mourning his lost hair, holding it in his hand and looking at it sadly, but seemed to be happy that his face was the last thing that Kayn had seen before being frozen. He was now pestering Giles to take him out for a drink. He wanted a Bloody Mary. With real blood.

Xander was the worse for wear. The guilt over the deaths he had caused tore into him, and he thought he could never atone for the lives he had taken, even those of Walsh and the drug smugglers. When Buffy said she couldn't pick up the Sword of Kayn, he snorted and crawled over to it. Looking at it as if it were a poisonous snake, Xander grasped the hilt and lifted it as if it were as light as a feather. His final act before curling up into a ball and crying like a baby was to thrust it so far into the bedrock of the Masters lair that the hilt was half buried. No one but him would ever be able to remove it.

The battered and bruised Slayerettes, and one very amused Spike, trudged out of the Crypt, and went their separate ways.

Buffy took Xander with her, and her mother agreed to look after him.

Willow and Oz left for a short time, on sabbatical, to heal and help each other come to terms with what happened.

Oz wanted to see if he could find a reason why he changed and kept a reasonable degree of control over the wolf. Especially when it wasn't anywhere near full moon.

Giles got lumbered with the chipped Spike.

*

The computer in the Initiative labs merrily chuntered away to itself, unaware that everyone that was there was dead. With no input, it maintained the last command it had been given.

"Adam Release 22 hours and counting"

"Adam Release 21 hours and counting"

"Adam Release 20 hours and counting"

…

…

"Adam Release Protocol Complete. Adam released. Please evacuate the labs."

As the alarm sounded, sirens wailed and lights flashed. Well, one light flashed. The only one left whole after the debacle that had taken place.

*

The demon/technology hybrid known as Adam stalked out of its containment lab. Red light bathed it every few seconds as the emergency lighting flickered. It took one look at the carnage that surrounded it, and exited the Initiative base to wreak its own brand of destruction…

*

This enhanced and expanded 'Mark of Kayn' was hard work, far more so than writing the original. For some strange reason, Fanfiction.net insists on making its word counts for my stories a lot higher than they should be. If anyone has a viable reason why this is happening, please tell me, cause I can't think of one...

This is now about 14060 words. A couple of sequels I've written will be posted soon, but the plans I've got for more wont materialise for a long time. A rewritten 'Journey of Discovery' will make an appearance soon…

Stuff I'm currently working on includes:

Journey of Discovery 2

Xander the Jedi 2

A Xander/Darla fiction

Buffy/X-Men crossover

Xander is a male Slayer

Xander is a secret agent. NOT James Bond style!

Buffy/Highlander crossover (Vampiric Immortal)

Buffy/Highlander (just an Immortal, kind of dark)

An attempt at a BTVS novel

And of course, further 'The Mark of Kayn' stories.

If anyone has a particular wish to see a story before another, e-mail me with a request and I'll try to concentrate on that one (or ones!)

Paradigm Shifter.