InsaneJournal

“So…you’ve had him here for how long?”

“Almost sixty years now,” replied the woman walking alongside the man. She was an older, graying brunette but the same woman from sixty years before. The woman that had told Xander Harris he had failed Dawn Summers.

Smiling, she continued, “There have been some improvements since then but…a few experiments have simply failed.”

The man nodded, blue eyes hooded, and said, “Ah. What has succeeded then?”

“Our agents now heal and move somewhat faster thanks to our experiments. That is all we have managed in these sixty years.” She scowled briefly but quickly hid it. “It is as though he is resisting us even underneath all we have him under to hold him.”

“Intriguing. What else is it you’ve been trying to do?”

“Create more like him,” she replied with a broad smile. “We dreamed of having an army like him. Just imagine what could be done with such a force!”

The man nodded again, glancing towards the room below them.

“I can imagine,” he murmured, eyes never pulling away from the unmoving but manacled figure below. “But you say it’s as thought he’s resisting you.”

“That’s all we can describe it as. Ah, I have to take this, Major, excuse me for cutting the tour short.”

He held up a hand, waving it off, and turned to look down below them.

“That is fine,” he said. “I can find my way around, I think. Thank you very much, Doctor Kynes.”

The woman smiled then left, leaving him alone in the hallway that looked down onto the room below. He leaned against the railing and stared down at the figure chained to the bed, hiding the rage he felt from his face but not his eyes.

Below him the scientists bustled around their workstations and, as he watched, one slowly walked up to the unmoving figure on the bed. His jaw clenched as they stuck a needle into the pale arm then a smile slowly stretched across his face as he noticed something. A slight twitch of muscle, the twist of the head, right eye fluttering slightly to reveal a sliver of dark eye that he could see the insanity in even from this far away.

Smiling coldly, he moved away from the railing and down the corridor, carefully making his way out of the underground place. As he reached clean air, he pulled a slim silver case from his pocket and lit a cigar as he walked slightly away from the building that covering the installation.

After a moment he stopped and leaned against a wall, loosening the collar of the major’s uniform that he’d stolen. Behind him there was a spark then a voice asked, “He in there?”

“He’s there,” replied the man. He blew out a cloud of smoke then continued, “Not that great a defense; give me a bit of C4 and I could blow it sky high.”

“But he’s in there so we’re not.”

“Nope,” growled Bob around his cigar as he shrugged out of the major’s coat. “We’re gonna go in there, let him go, and then sit back and watch.” He puffed on the cigar for a moment, smiling ferally at the thought. “Oh, this’ll be pretty damn beautiful,” he murmured. “Pretty bloody damn beautiful.”

From the shadows Spike smiled then flicked his cigarette butt away, blowing out a few rings of smoke.

“Let’s get this show on the road then. I’m in the mood for a bloody good show.”

---

There was nothing. Only darkness.

Darkness and the sense of there being something there every once in a while.

He struggled, snarling within himself as he fought.

And every time he failed, the rage just built, sizzling underneath the surface and blocking out everything else. It was all he could feel now as it continually burned through his veins.

Once upon a time they’d been two separate beings but now…the rage made them one.

Then…the darkness faded.

He could…feel.

He could feel!

The prick in his arm again, a needle – A NEEDLE! Taking blood.

BLOOD!

He surged upwards with a roar, the chains that held him snapping like they were made out of butter. The woman screamed but was cut off as he grabbed at her, sensing the pulse beating wildly underneath her skin, the needle snapping off where it was in his arm. As he pulled her close, burying his face against her throat, his fangs sinking into her flesh after the blood in her.

He heard the shouts around him but the blood was first…everything else could be dealt with after!

The corpse slid to the floor as he released it and he smiled, baring bloody fangs at the men that faced him with their guns. He could smell their fear and his blood in them. HIS BLOOD.

They took his blood!

They chained him!

They tortured him!

THEY HAD KEPT HIM FROM HER!

He snarled and surged from the bed, uncaring of his lack of clothes and weapons. They were weak! They were human! He was power!

The men fired, bullets ripping into him but they didn’t hurt at all. Blood spattered but the wounds healed and he plunged into them like a hurricane, a smile on his faces as he ripped arms from their sockets and used them as clubs. He tore through them, taking blood as he went, then stood amongst the corpses breathing in the destruction.

But these were not the ones that had caged him.

He wanted them.

A feral smile twisted his lips and he looked up towards the glass hallway above him. Then, with a ripple of muscle, he leapt and crashed through it. Another man faced him with a gun and he blurred forward, casually ripping his head away from his shoulders and held it above his as the blood dripped, lapping it up.

Then he tossed it aside and moved on, sniffing as he went.

He would find them.

And they would pay for their mistakes with their lifeblood!

---

“Oh my God,” breathed Spike as he looked over Bob’s shoulder at the computer screen. The man had managed to hack into their systems whilst they were inside releasing Xander and now they were flipping through the camera systems, following his progress as he moved through the underground installation. “It’s a monster. That Rogue.”

Bob frowned and said, “I don’t think that’s just the Rogue.”

“What then?”

“I think that’s the both of them.”

“As…as one?” asked the vampire, paling. At the man’s nod, he muttered, “Bloody hell. Look! Christ, look, man!”

Bob turned back towards the computer and winced at the sight. Xander, wearing blood for clothes and a feral expression that reached right to the ancient cords in humanity and twanged them, had found the woman that had been showing him around. He heard the sounds then and reached over to turn the speakers up, the woman’s shrieking becoming audible.

“No, you’ve got the wrong person! I didn’t do that! I didn’t say that! Please! Please, don’t kill me!”

There was a growl that rang over the speakers, a growl that did the same thing that feral smile did. Bob pushed himself away from the computer as every nerve screamed ‘GET AWAY!’ and he heard Spike’s gasp behind him. When he turned, the vampire was clutching at a nearby chair, his true face showing and full of fear.

Their eyes met and they didn’t need to speak. Both of them knew what had happened to them when they heard that growl.

As they moved back closer to the computer, they heard a voice come from the speakers. It was rough from disuse and rippling with rage but they could both hear Xander’s voice underneath the insanity that it practically sang with.

“I smell you, little girl,” he growled as he stalked towards her on the screen. “You were there. Haha, stabbed me with a blade after one of your friends shot me with those precious darts of yours. Age doesn’t fool me.”

“Please! Please, you could just leave now!”

“Leave now? Now when you’re still here? Oh, no, no, no, I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, little girl.”

Bob stared as suddenly he moved on the screen, abruptly gone from one side of the room to shoving the woman against the wall. Her graying head smacked against the concrete loud enough to make him and Spike wince and she moaned.

“There,” hissed Xander, leaning close to her. “The bones in your skull are broken. Ah, and if I reach around and press…just so…” He moved his head around her head and the scream that tore from her throat was something of a broken animal, not a human. “There we are! Do you feel that pain, little girl? DO YOU?!”

“YES!” she screamed, sagging against him where he leaned against her, pressing her against the wall with his entire body.

“That is only flicker of the pain I have felt. The pain you and yours put me through. Haha.” He smirked and leaned close to her, Bob shivering as he licked her neck. “You stupid people woke the monster.”

“Bob,” breathed Spike, leaning towards the computer. “Turn it off.”

“I turn it off and we might lose him,” hissed the man.

“You don’t turn that off, we’re going to see something we don’t want to,” gasped the vampire. He pointed at the screen and continued, “I’ve seen Angelus work and he disgusted even me. What the whelp’s about to do…that’s going to be a bloody horror.”

Bob stared at him for a moment then nodded, looking at the computer screen for a long moment before he reached over and turned it off.

---

“Xander?” called out Bob, wielding a flashlight as he and Spike crept into the underground installation. He then paused as his boot squished into something and muttered, “I am not looking down to see what that was.”

From behind him Spike inhaled then said, “Bloody good idea. Keep moving, huh?”

“Can you smell him?”

“Over all this piss? He might can do that but I can’t!”

Bob snorted then continued on down the dark corridor, trying not to look too closely at the unmoving lumps on the floor. By now, his nostrils had become used to the smell of blood around him and he was half moving on autopilot, automatically going back along the path towards the room where he’d seen Xander held.

As they came out into the hallway above it, they stopped in their tracks at a shriek of mixed rage and pain. Spike shuddered then they started moving again, Bob shining the light down into the room through the hole in the glass. Behind him, the vampire snorted and punted something down the corridor, muttering, “Heh, football.”

“Spike!” hissed the immortal angrily. He then peered down into the darkness and called, “Xander? Kid? You there?”

A hiss from below somewhere in the darkness answered and the voice they’d heard earlier through the computer howled, “They deserved it! They caged me!”

“Yeah,” said Bob. “They deserved that, kid, for what they did to you. Now, c’mon. Let’s go out of here, eh?”

“Out,” repeated Xander. “Out…side.” There was a gasp from below and then he spoke again, the insanity of the Rogue fading from his voice as he did so. “B-Bob?”

“Yeah, its me, Xander.”

“You’re…above?”

“We’re in the hallway. You think you can jump up here?”

“Easy.”

Bob stepped back then something loomed up out of the dark, landing right at the edge of the shattered window. In the light of the flashlight he and Spike could see Xander crouching there somewhat different than they’d last seen him. He was wearing a pair of pants now, though they were almost falling off his hips, and it looked like he had tried to wipe off some of the blood that had caked against his skin.

“Christ,” muttered Spike and Xander’s head whipped towards him, hair swaying slightly as it was hardened into spikes from blood.

“You?” he asked, his voice still half a growl. “You…helped?”

“Yeah,” replied the vampire slowly. “I’ve been at the lovely hands of the military myself and it’s not a bloody walk in the park.”

Xander stared at him for a moment then stood up, nodding towards him. He then looked at Bob and made what looked like an effort to smile – it was hard to tell just what expression he was making behind the mask of blood.

Bob stared at him for a moment then reached out to touch one bloodstained arm only to have it jerked back, eyes that were suddenly a bright white-blue focusing solidly on his. Lowering his hand, he said gently, “Let’s go outside, kid. C’mon this way.”

With him in the front, Xander following, and Spike inching along further back, they slowly made their way outside. Bob turned and watched carefully as the previous captive moved gingerly out into the light of dusk with nostrils flaring. He glanced around as if looking for more of those from inside and all the immortal could compare his movements to were that of a deer.

For a long moment he just stood then his head slowly turned towards Bob and Xander breathed, “This…this is real?” His voice was plaintive, a child’s question, and the man nodded slowly as Spike pulled a thick blanket over his head to protect himself from the last of the sun.

“This is real,” said Xander, dropping down to one knee. He touched the dirt underneath him gently then sobbed, tears flowing and mixing with the grime on his face. “Oh God…”

With that he crumpled to the ground, folding up as though boneless, and Bob quickly moved to his side. Sighing, he looking up at Spike, who was staring worriedly down at the crumpled and bloody form on the ground. The vampire then peered at the sky before stepping back towards the darkness and tossed the blanket at the immortal.

“Cover him up and carry him back,” he said quickly, slapping out a small spark that caught his hand. “I’ll bring some blood around after dark comes.”

“Thanks.” Silently, Bob wrapped the blanket around Xander then managed to sling him over his shoulder, grunting under the weight. Then he looked towards the vampire’s dark form and asked, “Spike?”

“Oi?”

“Why are you doing this?”

There was silence then a cigarette lit up and Spike replied, “I was Buffy’s champion…don’t know bloody well why. But I think she’d be pissed to know I was around and ignored the whelp when he needed a hand.” He paused, blowing out smoke, then finished, “He might’ve never liked me but he never really told me to bugger off. Bastard saved my bleedin’ ass even so I owe him one besides.”

Bob nodded slowly then turned and slowly walked off with his heavy burden, his mouth moving silently as he prayed to God that the poor boy would recover.