Part Four
Sewer Rats
The shock leaving him, Xander looked away from Buffy and around the rest of the Bronze dance floor. He spotted the other two, Cordy and Heinrich, standing at the edge of the crack. Already Heinrich was lowering some rope into the dark abyss, trying his best to ignore the moaning from below.
“This is your captain speaking, we will be making a quick descent into the sewers and a nice dusting is expected. Please fasten your seatbelts and place your seats in the upright position. Thank you for flying Slayer Airlines.” Heinrich grinned as first Cordy, then Buffy, began the descent into the sewers.
Finally it was just Xander and Heinrich staring eachother down. Xander’s pulse quickened as he told himself that it would be Heinrich that looked away first. But that was not to be, for an annoying itch in his eye made Xander blink.
“Not having any second thoughts about this are we fang face?” Heinrich smiled evilly.
“Gee…aren’t we the mature one. And to answer your question, no I’m not having second thoughts. I never really had first thoughts either. In fact, I’ll go down first just to show you!” Xander puffed out his chest and strutted past Heinrich with a heroic grin on his face.
Xander gripped the rope tightly as he looked down into the darkness. Below he could make out nothing but inky darkness.
< Not to worry Xandy boy. Just a few feet and you’ll be in the sewers. You’ve been in them before…right? Oh dear… >
* * *
The gang stood in the centre of a large tunnel, just beneath the crack. Each held a stake and a torch. Instead of normal light, the torch’s beams gave off a red glow. Xander remembered Angel telling them something about the torches being the only forms of artificial light that didn’t attract the Vampers. Due to some genetic defect the Vampers couldn’t see red.
< Strange, I wonder why they wear red shirts then? >
Cordy shone her torch down both ways of the tunnel. After a while of thinking she turned back to the other three.
“I’m guessing that the Prophet will be in the area that stinks the most. I suggest we split up and…” Cordy began to give the team a gameplan before Heinrich interrupted.
“Split up! No, that’s not good. If we split up, then we could get eaten…like Vamper home-delivery…or something. I say that we stick together a-and….you know…kick butt?” Heinrich smiled sheepishly, ignoring Xander’s snickering.
“Hmmm….well, we would cover less ground…but…okay, we won’t split up so Heinrich doesn’t feel like a walking meal.” Cordy sent a wink in Xander’s direction.
“Oh no, I’ll still feel like a walking meal….just not so home-delivered.” Heinrich gave another sheepish grin.
Without any more words the foursome set off down the tunnel, heading towards the worse smelling area. After a few jumpy moments when someone stepped on someone else’s toe, the group arrived at a four-way intersection. Each tunnel was just as smelly.
“Oh dear…which way now?” Buffy looked on in despair.
“Don’t worry, Cordy will lead the way….won’t you Oh great Slayer you?” Heinrich looked hopefully in Cordy’s direction.
“Ahh…well, I’m just as stumped as you guys are. The only person who could have known where to go was Alex.” Cordy’s eyes misted over with memory.
“Well, thanks to dimension boy here, Alex isn’t with us any more…” Heinrich flashed a look at Xander.
“Gee, well um…maybe I still have a little of Alex in me? Like the only way to get rid of a demon is by exorcisim right? And since no exorcisms were performed, the demon Alex must still be inside me.” Xander looked around at the others.
“But Alexus won’t help us, he’s evil and probably on the Prophet’s side anyway.” Buffy turned to face Xander.
“I don’t know…there might be something left in him. It’d be fun finding out…” Heinrich’s evil smile came back.
“Okay…I’ll do it, see if I can get in contact with this…Alexus guy.” Xander closed his eyes and began to search his mind for any demons.
* * *
He was walking through a maze made from hedges. Yet no matter which way he turned, he found himself always heading in the same direction – towards the center of the maze and not out. Overhead the sky was a dull red and full of gigantic, black storm clouds. Xander felt himself shivering, yet he felt neither afraid nor cold. He knew where he was. He was walking through his mind.
After awhile he came upon a statue of himself carved in stone. Yet, unlike him, the statue had an evil scowl on its face.
< Ahhh, so this was the demon Alexus….nice looking guy. >
Walking around the statue Xander looked for any cracks. There were none. Whatever had happened, he had locked the demon away within him. As Xander was turning to find a way out of the maze, he heard a voice in his head.
“Welcome back Alex, good to see you…come on, why don’t you try to awaken me. I forgot what it felt like to be alive. Perhaps you could awaken me and together we could revel in the marriage of both our worlds…life and undeath together as one. We could be unstoppable. Well, whaddya say?”
Xander looked back at the statue, and his eyes widened at the sight of a crack right down the centre of its face. An eerie green light shone from it.
“Come on Alex, I can tell that you want to set me free. Come over to the statue and let me out.”
Xander slowly walked up to the statue of himself and without any more thoughts touched the crack. With a mighty roar the statue exploded into dust and there on the ground stood Alex.
“Wow, you look good…have you had a haircut or something?” Alex smiled at Xander.
* * *
Xander awoke with a start and sat up straight. Standing around him were Buffy, Cordy and Heinrich. He gave a sigh of relief which was soon followed up by a swear word as he noticed that he was still in the sewer. He quickly stood up and cleaned some of the sewer muck off himself.
“What happened Xander? You just blacked out on us.” Cordy looked at Xander with a worried look on her face.
“I…I…don’t know…” Xander scratched his head trying to remember what had happened.
< Xander…it’s me, Alex…I’m glad to be back. Now, listen to me, the Prophet is a formidable enemy…but maybe now we can defeat him. His lair is down the left tunnel. Oh and by the way, don’t get any ideas about Cordy…we have a…uh…thing… >
Xander smiled as he heard the familiar voice of Alex in his head. Nodding to himself, Xander told the others where they were to head. As he led them down the tunnel, he noticed Cordy giving him a strange look.
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