Life of the Weird: 9
chapter 9
Xander groaned as he woke up. Wait a minute...Woke up?
"Shouldn't I be dead?"
"Sarcophagus," Sam said quietly.
Xander slowly opened his eyes and realized that his "pillow" was Sam's leg. "I thought those things just fixed you up. I still feel like I've been through a meat grinder and have a headache from hell."
Sam shook her head.
Xander glanced around...Oh crap. They were in a large room. The term 'room' being used somewhat loosely. It was more like the 'torture the captives' stadium.
Daniel was lying down his head on Carter's other thigh. Xander twisted slowly every muscle in his body burning like it was on fire. Daniel was out cold yet but looked unmarked. Unlike Sam who had the starts of bruises on her face. "Oh, so you got the privilege of being spectator, huh?" Xander struggled with the words, his head still hadn't completely stopped spinning and his mouth was dry as a desert.
Sam's eyes filled with anguish.
Xander gave her a weak smile and hoped it was encouraging.
"You are ill, weak!" a female voice crowed triumphantly.
Xander twisted again, and bit down yet another groan. Teal'c was strapped to something that was not quite an upright table but was more than a post, with his arms tied above his head. Big guy didn't look so good. He was ashen under his dark skin, covered in sweat and was trembling. Shit. Tretonin was wearing off. How long had they been here? Teal'c was fast approaching critical need of another dose.
Xander bit his lip as he saw the device pointed at Teal'c. Ribbon Device. Teal'c didn't make a sound somehow. Damn that pissed off the Goa'uld. Good job, T-man. Xander thought. Teal'c couldn't take too much more though, not in the shape he was in from Tretonin withdrawal.
Jack's voice was heard as he cussed out Glory. The insults were as creative as they were slurred. Another twist, slow and cautious, Xander saw Jack who was a bloodied mess strung up by his wrists. It seemed Snake Glory liked things messy, not just pain sticks and ribbon devices. She went for knives and whips and good old-fashioned beatings as well.
Glory. Crap. It looked like Glory but he didn't think it was, at least not completely, close enough though. This one had once been just like Sunnydale Glory. But as with Sunnydale Glory when the "host" was killed, as Ben had been back when Glory had been stopped, then the foothold Glory had in that reality seemed to have been lost. This one was a Snake-head alright, and seemed to have the memories of Glory and be able to do some mojo, but the hellgoddess head-sucking thing seemed to have gone with the hellgoddess-parts. That this Glory couldn't suck information out of peoples brains with her hands was only a small consolation. She had the knowledge of a Snake and a hellgoddess, and seemed to be able to pull off at least a little mojo. His only evidence of that "fact", that she couldn't do the mind-sucking thing, was that she hadn't and was beyond furious she was getting no information from them. He figured if she could do the mind-sucking she would have by now.
~*~
"Son? You have any idea what's going on?"
"I--I'm not sure." Andrew hedged looking around the living room of Xander's house, at the portrait of the Giles family. Joyce and Ripper and their six children--Will, Elizabeth, Willow, Xander, Andrew and Dawn. Why couldn't that portrait be real? Every fiber of his being wanted it to be real, not the images of vampires and demons, of Slayers and Turok-Hans and Bringers and...
"Son."
"If it's Glory, we're so screwed that it isn't even funny." Andrew said shakily.
"Glory?"
"Glorificus" Andrew swallowed. Maybe, if they were lucky she wouldn't be completely goddessy this time.
"Son, you've heard of a Goa'uld named Glorificus?"
Andrew shook his head. "No. Not a Goa'uld. A real goddess...a hell goddess who nearly destroyed our world--our earth. The earth Dawn Xander and I are from." Andrew swallowed. "I didn't remember, til earlier tonight...Dawn doesn't remember I can't explain how I know that but I know it." She didn't, couldn't know. She--no Dawnnie would have freaked would have done something if she remembered. "We're the last line of defence in keeping something safe. I remember. I shouldn't remember. Xander would have been the one to remember. I--wasn't supposed to know. Not...not unless something happened to Xander. I know that much. Mr. Giles would never have --"
"Your father?"
Andrew shook his head. "In that reality I was Andrew Wells. Dawn and Buffy were sisters. Their mother was Joyce Summers. Buffy was a Slayer. A warrior for the Powers that Be. She--she killed demons. She was the chosen one with these powers--she was stronger, healed faster sometimes she had prophetic dreams. Willow was a witch. A really really powerful one. Willow Rosenburg. Xander was Willow's best friend. He and Willow started helping Buffy fight demons when they were sophomores in highschool. William the Bloody was a vampire born and turned sometime during Queen Victoria's reign--the only thing any of the records agreed on was that Victoria was on the throne. Span of a good twenty years where he was claimed turned by several different sources. Some books called Drusilla the Mad his Sire, means she was the one that turned him. Other books claimed Angelus turned him. Angelus was Drusilla's Sire and well, Dru was kinda loopy so even if she turned him it was probably Angelus who did the teaching of vampire stuff."
"Son--"
"Mr. Giles was Buffy's watcher" Andrew continued and began to pace the room. "Every Slayer has a Watcher, they watch em, train em. Teach them how to fight and research prophecies and how to kill this or that demon. Most people don't know there are demons or didn't. By the time we got shipped here that was fast coming to an end, the world was going to end. When Glory--it all goes back to Glory and everything that happened after it. See Glory was trapped she couldn't quite break out of her hell dimension or get to her hell dimension--I'm not quite sure I wasn't part of the group then and well it was really bad, they didn't talk about it much, the ones that were there.
"Glory needed this--thing--cause that's the only way she could get to or unlock the hell she was supposed to be ruling. There are a lot of hell dimensions, probably as infinite a number as there are alternate realities... These monks kept it forever. But Glory was killing the monks and getting too close, I think she killed most of them. The few that survived died doing the magic that passed the Guardianship of this thing that could rip all the barriers of every world of every dimension down. They'd all kinda bleed into one another, some would be destroyed outright, the rest would be overun with demons and monsters or flames or ice or...just pure hell everywhere. The thing can't be destroyed. Eternal. Has to be guarded, protected, kept safe from those that would use it like Glory would. Giles sent us here."
Andrew frowned and shuddered. "Why? I don't know...there aren't demons here, that has to be why. He sent us here 'cause we were the last ones left. Buffy, Willow, Tara, Anya, Oz, Ms. Calendar, Faith, everybody, of all of us that he taught and trained and helped save the world we were the last three. So he sent us here. And he sent the thing that Our Glory was wanting with us. Xander remembered. I-know Xander remembered. He was the oldest. The strongest. The one that had been fighting demons the longest. Dawn and I were supposed to have safe normal lives. And Xander would know, then he'd pass it on when he died to the next keeper... I shouldn't know. If Xander was okay I wouldn't know..."
"Son--"
"If they went to check out any version of Glorificus they are in deep trouble and something happened to Xander, I shouldn't remember."
George Hammond stared at the boy. Andrew's eyes glistened with unshed tears of pain and horror.
"I shouldn't remember this life isn't real, my memories of this life aren't real. Something's happened to Xander. Something, really, really bad."
Part 8
tbc...