A Legacy of Chaos: The Babylon Edition
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
A Legacy of Chaos: The Babylon Cut
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5 and EVE Online belong to Mutant Enemy Productions, Babylonian Productions Inc., Warner Brothers and CCP Games respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Authors Notes: This is a spin-off story from my Ship of the Line story – don't worry this does not mean that the other is going to be in anyway abandoned – based on the thought that what if the Powers That Be took action against Xander in the aftermath of the Halloween spell and with it the intervention of the Ascended and a True Deity in said spell, banishing the new born capsuleer to another reality altogether.
If parts of the first chapter seem familiar it is because they have been taken verbatim from the first chapter of the main Legacy of Chaos story.
~~~///~~~
Chapter One
Dampness.
It was the first thing that Xander Harris became aware of. Everything was damp and slimy, and his limbs felt like they were made of wet spaghetti and not skin, bone, and muscle. Slowly he opened his eyes to find himself lying flat on a metallic deck amid a pool of thick golden fluid that was rapidly being drained away through slots in the floor specifically designed for that purpose. He blinked in confusion and awkwardly managed to sit up, it was hard as his muscles didn't seem to want to coordinate for some strange reason and look around in complete and utter bafflement.
He was lying on the floor of a metallic room filled with strange transparent cylinders filled with softly bubbling gold fluid. Though what really freaked him out was what was in those cylinders. Each contained the vague outline of a human body though he couldn't make out any precise details due to his current angle though he could tell that all the bodies were male and all were of the same size and general build.
"What the hell," he said blinking as his voice croaked as if it had never been used before, it was also slightly deeper than he expected.
"Please try to relax captain," a disembodied, somewhat emotionless female voice said from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
"Who the hell are you?" Xander demanded, somewhat foolishly, looking around for the source of the voice and seeing nothing but more of the cylindrical glass and metallic tanks.
"I feared this would happen. Please try and relax Xander Harris," the voice said, "your memories of what has happened to you should fully integrate in another couple of minutes and it can be very disorientating the first time."
Xander frowned and was about to repeat his demand when a tsunami of memories and information came crashing into his mind and suddenly, he knew everything. It came as a slipstream blur of images, impressions, recollections, and feelings. They swept through his mind like a hurricane and what was even more surprising was the fact that not all the memories – in fact a great many of them – weren't his own but belonged to the space pilot he had dressed as after Herr Snyder roped him, Buffy and Willow into escorting a bunch of snot-nosed, sugar high little runts around Sunnydale in the annual quest for Halloween candy.
After what seemed like an eternity it faded away into the background leaving him shivering in reaction in the aftermath. Finally, the worst of the shakes faded away and Xander shook his head to clear the residual disorientation.
"Damn that was… I don't know how to describe it," he muttered even as he carefully got to his feet, his limbs now working properly as his neural patterns completed their integration with his new clone body. A fact that was really going to take a hell of a lot of getting used to, he also now had to a) figure out a way back to Earth assuming that was possible and b) stop Buffy from Slaying him on sight given people did not usually just come straight back from the dead unless they were a vampire or had been raised by dark magic.
"My former captain often said that," the female voice that he now recognized as belonging to Aura, Alexander's A.I replied. "The disorientation will pass completely in another few moments. Neural integration shock is not an unknown phenomenon among capsuleers, especially new ones like yourself sir though it will become less of an issue over time and…"
"…with more deaths," Xander finished even as he shivered both at the thought of dying again and the fact that he was bloody cold as he was kind of naked here. "No offense Aura but I don't plan to die again anytime soon. Now can you tell me where I can shower and get some clothes?"
"There are showers just by the entrance to the clone bay and a dressing room beyond that you should find clothing in there."
"Thank you," he replied as he began walking towards the entrance to the clone bay without needing anymore directions from Aura. "Aura by the way, where am I? This definitely isn't somewhere in Sunnydale after all."
"No, it is not. You are currently in bay one of the cloning facilities of a Fortizar-class Citadel station," Aura answered. "We are currently orbiting a gas and ice giant planet in an unknown system. Curiously if I am interpreting data from the stations sensors correctly this gas giant is located only thirty point one astronomical units from your previous location."
Xander frowned slightly, pausing as he reached for the door controls as he recalled the astronomy sections of his high school physics lessons. Surprisingly, he found it a great deal easier than he was used to and suddenly realized just which planet they were orbiting. "We're in orbit of Neptune then," he said.
"Neptune?" Aura questioned before searching through the station's library files for that name and feeling as close to shock as an artificial intelligence could at what she found. "You mean the eighth planet of the Terran home solar system do you not?"
"Well I'm not referring to the Ancient Roman god of the same name so yeah," Xander answered momentarily confused as to why Aura seemed to be surprised at where the massive station was orbiting. Then he remembered that for Aura, Alexander – indeed anyone from New Eden – Earth and the other planets of its solar system were spoken of and remembered as being objects of myth and legend dating back twenty thousand or so years to before the sudden, violent collapse of the EVE gate wormhole severed New Eden from the rest of humanity. It was amazing when he thought about it that the people of New Eden could talk about Earth and the other planets of the solar system in much the same way they'd talk about the lost civilization of Atlantis.
"How could we possibly be here?" Aura wondered aloud. "I have no records of the station ever being built here and at any rate the EVE gate wormhole reopening would have certainly been headline news all over New Eden."
Xander shrugged even as he acknowledged that would be true. The four great empires of New Eden as well as Concord, the various alliances and miniempires created by capsuleers would go crazy if the wormhole back to the rest of humanity suddenly reappeared after twenty thousand or so years of being gone. "Magic would be my best guess," he said, "it's also would explain how all of this," he gestured to the station around them and then at himself, "came into existence in one night. Especially as everything here normally only exists in a video game world, one that is supposed to still be in development in Iceland."
"That is not logical. Magic is not real."
"Maybe not in the reality you're from but in this one it is very real, everything supernatural that has been thought a myth in modern times – by my reckoning probably ancient times to you – is in fact frighteningly real."
"But how?"
"That I cannot answer, Giles might be able to tell you but I can't all I know is that every supernatural I thought fictional, but especially vampires are in fact real and unlike what some modern fiction likes to show they are not in any way friendly."
"Really?"
"Yes, I'll explain more soon after I've had a shower and got dressed as I'm kind of freezing here."
"Would you like me to adjust the environmental settings?" Aura asked concerned about her new captain's welfare, such was one of her duties as an artificial intelligence. After all despite what some people back in New Eden, including some capsuleers themselves, thought capsuleers were at the end of the day still human beings and thus had quite strict environmental requirements to remain healthy and happy.
"It's a figure of speech Aura."
"Oh."
Xander sighed to himself. He had a feeling it was going to take him and Aura awhile to get used to each other as while he had Alexander's memories, and hopefully his skills and training as it would suck big time to be stuck on this station, he wasn't him. Hopefully he would soon also be able to get back in touch with Giles and the others – hopefully without Buffy trying to slay him on sight – and figure out just what to do from here as he couldn't leave this station empty for too long. Especially given the fact that, according to his new memories, there were multiple copies of himself in the cloning bays waiting for his consciousness to be downloaded into them if he ended up getting killed again – though hopefully that wouldn't happen again for a good long while as dying kind of hurt.
And isn't that creepy to think about that if I die, I just wake up here in a new body, he thought as he arrived at the entrance to the room that held the showers. Stepping inside he came face to face with a mirrored wall and froze as he saw his own reflection. The person staring back at him was him but older, he looked to be in his twenties instead of his mid-teens, he was a little bit taller and noticeably more athletic sporting the compact but muscular build of a professional gymnast or martial artist.
"Is this me," he muttered rubbing his chin and seeing his reflection do the same. He ran a hand back through his hair, which was wet and quite sticky from the cloning fluid, in a nervous gesture before a thought occurred to him. He ran his hand down his neck and found what he had half expected to find, a circular metallic port just below the nape of his neck. He turned slightly, angling himself so he could see his back in the mirror and somehow wasn't surprised to see five more ports running down his spine to just above the small of his back.
"Suppose that proves it," he said aloud. "I'm still a capsuleer."
"Did you expect not to be," Aura replied making him jump.
"Damn it! Aura don't do that," he answered, "what are you trying to do give me a heart attack?"
"My apologies I did not mean to startle you. But my question stands did you expect not to still be a capsuleer?"
"To be honest yes and no. Don't get me wrong the idea that I can plug myself into a ship and fly it via neural interface is like a dream come true but there was part of me that…"
"Wanted to be able to go back to whatever life you had before the spell was cast?"
"Yeah. Though that was always going to be something of a foolish hope, I cannot go back not now that they saw me die and certainly not looking like I do now know this," he turned to look back at the image looking back at him, an reflection that had a goldish tint to the skin from cloning fluid residue, "is who and what I am now. I have to accept that."
"I'm sorry," Aura offered a moment before a vibration began to make its way through the station. Xander looked around in surprise a second before the whole station shook violently and a brilliant flash of light momentarily blinded him. For a few seconds, the light persisted, and he got the distinct feeling of being wrenched away from something and sent flying – though his feet didn't leave the floor – before being set down somewhere else.
The light and vibration faded away a few seconds later.
"What the hell was that? Aura what happened?" Xander asked, the artificial intelligence didn't answer. "Aura?"
"She can't hear you at the moment kid," a new voice said from behind him. He spun around to find himself face to face with a human looking being dressed as though he had just stepped out of the nineteen seventies.
"Who the hell are you?" Xander demanded.
"Name's Whistler, I work for the Powers That Be."
"The who now?"
"They're the ones in charge of the battle between good and evil," Whistler told him, "I would have thought the Watcher would have told you about them or at least rat breath would."
"Rat breath?"
"Angel I call him that because when I recruited him to work for the Powers and earn redemption for the crimes of the vampire Angelus, he had been living off rats for the better part of a hundred years. Hence rat breath."
Xander grinned. "Huh rat breath. I am so going to have to call him that the next time I see him. Make a change from calling him deadboy," he said imagining the look on Angels oh so perfect face when he called him that nickname.
Whistler chuckled at the term he used to refer to Angel. "Deadboy? I am going to have to remember that one," he replied smiling, liking Xander's sense of humour before turning, somewhat regretfully, serious. "But I am afraid that you won't be able to call Angel rat breath, as much as I would love to see that. You see you will never see him again."
"What do you mean?"
Whistler looked uncomfortable. "You got to understand kid that the reality you knew exists in a delicate balance. Good and evil, chaos and order they must exist in a delicate balance otherwise all of creation could be destroyed," he explained, "unfortunately interference in the Ritual of Masks spell cast by Ethan Rayne meant it became far more than it ever should have been. What you are now, what the spell changed you into that it shouldn't have, threatened the balance too much."
Xander stalked up to Whistler. "What are you getting at Whistler," he asked a note of menace in his voice that made the balance demon wince. Damn no wonder he was able to bully Angel into taking him into Nest's lair to revive the Slayer, he thought, and no wonder in another timeline he became a Master Vampire after only having been a vampire for a year.
"You got to understand that the Powers didn't want to do this, but they had no choice."
"Out with it," Xander demanded, "stop dodging and say whatever you came here to say."
"Remember the old saying don't shoot the messenger."
"Whistler!" Xander snapped nearing the end of his patience.
Whistler swallowed but took the plunge all the while hoping he survived it. "It is the judgement of the Powers That Be that due to your conversion into a capsuleer and the creation of this station and its contents that you Alexander Harris are too great a threat to the balance," he said, "therefore and forevermore you are banished from your home reality never to return."
"They're…. they're exiling me."
"I'm afraid so," Whistler said looking at him in sympathy. "I'm sorry kid, nobody deserves to be castaway like this but there isn't a choice. If you stayed, then evil would have to be given a capsuleer of their own to balance the scales."
Xander grimaced at that as memories from Alexander surfaced, especially memories of the kinds of chaos and devastation that capsuleers could unleash – when they wanted to or when they were out of empire space and the jurisdiction of Concord – was almost without limit. The mere thought that someone immoral or outright evil back home getting their hands on that kind of power was almost unimaginable. It could easily lead to the extinction of all life on Earth as even light ship-based weapons in New Eden could inflict devastation on a scale that would make the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War seem like the work of children, especially when you started talking about 55mm railguns that fired antimatter rounds.
"Fine," he bit out at last. "So, where the hell, have they dumped me?"
Whistler smirked. "You'll find out. I think you'll like it here as you'll get a chance to give too different groups of self-important assholes a few much deserved headaches," he said, "a world you know well and no its not New Eden. Even the Powers, capricious though they can be, aren't mean enough to dump you into that nest of vipers."
"Sheesh cryptic or what?"
"Curse of being a balance demon I'm afraid, see ya kid," Whistler said with a smirk before vanishing with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble.
"Captain can you hear me," Aura asked as Xander staired at the place where Whistler had just been.
"I can Aura."
"Thank goodness. I have been trying to speak to you for the last few minutes, but you literally seemed to be frozen."
"I'm not surprised someone was talking to me from our previous reality. Can you tell me where we are now?"
"That is why I was trying to talk to you. We were enveloped by an extremely powerful energy burst that has somehow transported the station twenty-four light years to an unknown star system. I am not detecting any electromagnetic or gravimetric readings to indicate the presence of any intelligent life in the system; however, the energy burst has disabled the long-range sensor array. Automatic repair systems are responding however it will be several hours before long range sensors are restored," the artificial intelligence replied, "but what do you mean about talking to someone from our previous reality? Sensors showed no other presence aboard the station."
"I would be surprised if they did," Xander replied, "the reason I was frozen as you noticed was I was being spoken to by Whistler who I believe took me out of temporal sync for our little chat, he's a servant of the Powers That Be apparently they're the ones in charge of keeping good and evil in balance."
"What did he have to say?"
Xander sighed and explained everything that Whistler had told him, only just keeping his voice level as he did so as it really began to set in what the balance demons words, and his exile from his home, truly meant. While he wasn't at all cut up about the fact that he would never see his parents again - any feelings of affection he had once had for Anthony and Jessica Harris had disappeared a long time ago, washed away by the copious amounts of alcohol both consumed on a daily basis to him these days they were just DNA donors nothing more – the fact that he would never see his friends again, would never even trade barbs with Cordelia again – hell he'd even miss Snyder – seriously pissed him off. Beneath the anger there was grief as well at that realization but for now it was buried by the anger that burned like molten lava through his veins.
When he was done Aura was quiet for a few moments as she processed just what it was that he had said. "I'm sorry nobody deserves to be permanently exiled from their home for something that was not their choice," she said at last. "Eternal banishment to another reality seems to be a very extreme action for such an issue."
"Now that I think about it, I believe you are right though I can understand why giving evil a capsuleer of their own would not be a good idea," he admitted. "If what I remember from Alexander is right my kind are capable of unleashing almost unimaginable amounts of chaos and devastation."
"Capsuleers have been known to do that yes especially in low and null-sec space," Aura agreed. "Still eternal banishment seems to be a bit of an overreaction. Though there is nothing that either of us can do about it now."
"Unfortunately," Xander replied as he resumed heading for the showers. Alexander's memories telling him he needed to get the residue of the cloning fluid off quickly before it dried out completely as dried cloning fluid could be an irritant especially in those harder to reach bits. He paused a moment. "Aura you said our long-range sensors will be down for several hours?"
"Unfortunately, yes the energy burst that enveloped us overloaded them and the control systems are spread out all over the station. With no operational crew I only have maintenance drones and auto-repair systems to work with, which means it will take far more time to repair them than it otherwise would. Why do you ask?"
"I was asking as I wanted to know what sensor capability we have now."
"Local scan only so anything up to forty thousand kilometres of the station. If you wish to temporarily extend our sensor range to compensate for the down long-range scans, I could launch some survey probes."
"Do it they'd also give us a good look at the ley of the land in this system, wherever we are, to boot."
"Very well launching probes. The probes will reach optimum scan positions in fifteen minutes."
"Good as soon as they're in position commence scans. In the meantime, I'm going to shower off this cloning fluid residue before it dries completely."
"Understood."
With their conversation concluded for now, they had nothing else to really discuss until the probes reached optimum position to at least somewhat compensate for their down long-range sensors, Xander walked to the nearest shower cubicle and began the process of cleaning off the drying, increasingly sticky and tacky feeling cloning fluid residue.
~~//~~
Sometime later, dressed much as he had been back in Sunnydale when the spell had been cast, Xander emerged from the changing room off the shower room. Somehow, he hadn't been surprised that he knew his new sizes and the fact that there had been plenty of different bits of clothing present for him to chose from. The only thing that was missing was the fact that he didn't have a CAR-9 burst scrambler pistol belted to his right thigh – which had made such short work of Spike he would always remember the look of surprise and horror on the bleach blond master vampires face as the heat of the plasma bolt set his undead flesh on fire – which strangely made him feel a little naked. Not that I would be in any danger from any intruder here, he thought knowing that the station would have some truly lethal – and sometimes quite fiendish – anti-personnel defences ranging from plasma blasters to laser nets to nano disintegrator sprays.
"Aura?" he called out.
"Yes Captain?"
"First off please stop calling me captain all the time. Call me Xander."
"As you wish Xander. Is there something you wanted to know?"
"Yes, there is, have our probes reached their scanning positions?"
"They have yes. I have begun running scans of the system."
"Have you found anything?"
"Indeed, I have. While the system is as uninhabited as it first appeared, it is rich in resources including several asteroid and ice belts plus the innermost planet is a lava world. The third planet has a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and water vapour, it would not be that difficult to terraform it. Curiously, I am picking up an artificial structure at the gravitational balance point between the fourth planet – a class three gas giant which we are currently orbiting – and its largest moon. It appears to be emitting tachyons."
"Tachyons! Why would it be doing that," Xander wondered aloud then frowned as Whistler's words about his place of exile being a universe he knew very well. "Aura can you show me a visual image of the device?"
"Of course." A holographic screen blinked into existence in front of him even before the AI stopped speaking showing him a visual feed from one of the camera drones that buzzed around the outside of the station. The object appeared and Xander's eyes widened as he recognised it.
The object took the form of four metallic pylons, studded with small solar panels, arranged in a diamond pattern. Running along the inner surfaces he could see glowing ribbons of energy as numerous fusion reactors inside the pylons continually generated the power that was needed to energize an exotic – and until now fictional to him – material enough to produce the subatomic particles needed to open a portal between normal space and an alternate dimension used for faster than light travel.
"I know what it is," he breathed aloud.
"What is it?" Aura asked curious both about what the device was and how Xander knew about it as it didn't look like anything from New Eden so he wouldn't have memories of it from her previous captain.
"It's a jump gate," Xander replied. "It's a device that energizes an exotic material called quantium forty which create a stream of subatomic particles that create a portal between normal space and an alternate dimension called hyperspace which is used for faster than light travel. Since there are no landmarks or star patterns observable in hyperspace each jump gate creates a tachyon-based beacon allowing navigation. The tachyon beacons are also used as part of an interstellar communications network."
"Fascinating might I ask how you know this?"
"Because back home it was the background for a science fiction television series, and a series of role playing game books, called Babylon Five and I'm… well a geek at heart or at least I used to be till Jessie was turned into a vampire and I watched him turn to dust on the other end of the wooden stake I was wielding at the time."
"Interesting I believe that on top of our transit to this reality you have just confirmed one of the more esoteric aspects of multiverse theory."
"Oh, which part?"
"The part which states that what is fiction in one universe can be real in another."
"Oh, that bit," Xander replied with a slight smile.
"That's odd," Aura abruptly said.
"What is it?"
"Energy emissions from the jump gate are increasing. I believe it might be powering up to generate the portal you spoke about. Should I raise the shields?"
"Since we don't know whose space, we're in that would be a good idea," Xander replied as he kept his eyes focused on the display to see the jump gate power up and activate. The effect was almost identical to what was shown in the television show in that a series of energy pulses ran down the length of each of the pylons as the reactors and quantium forty capacitors discharged. However when the energy pulses reached the end of the pylons the effect was different as instead of each pylon firing a single pulse each emitted a series of four pulses that combined together at the exact centre point between the pylons. Immediately the glowing blue whirlpool of an incoming hyperspace jump point burst into existence filling the space between the generating pylons with the vortex. A vortex that looked somewhat different to what he was used to seeing as the blue was a shade of the colour that he had honestly never seen before and the transition point between hyperspace and normal space at the centre was not a dark circular mass, instead it appeared to be a glowing point of light.
The light pulsed and a ship appeared from the centre shooting out of the jump point like a bullet fired from a gun. Behind the newly emerged ship the vortex contracted and closed with the minimum of fuss leaving Xander to examine the ship that had just appeared. It was blocky and angular with a grey, white and blue livery along the hull. The presence of five huge turrets two on the dorsal hull, one of the ventral hull and two on the flanks of the vessel confirmed its nature as a warship. A warship whose design and configuration he instantly recognised from both the television show and the RPG games that himself, Willow, Jesse and sometimes Jonathan and Andrew used to play.
It was an Earth Alliance Hyperion-class heavy cruiser.
~~~///~~~
Authors Notes: Well that's the first chapter of this AU of A Legacy of Chaos done. I am not sure how far this particular story is going to go, I have a definite plan for now though it could change depending on a) how this is received and b) if my muse for it continues to cooperate. I also wish to restate that the main Legacy story has not and will not be abandoned – I am already working on a new chapter for that as well as a new chapter for A Left Turn at Albuquerque, hopefully I will have them ready sometime this month but considering the mayhem that can unfold around here in the build up to Christmas I can obviously make no promises.
Until next time stay safe everybody.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5 and EVE Online belong to Mutant Enemy Productions, Babylonian Productions Inc., Warner Brothers and CCP Games respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Authors Notes: This is a spin-off story from my Ship of the Line story – don't worry this does not mean that the other is going to be in anyway abandoned – based on the thought that what if the Powers That Be took action against Xander in the aftermath of the Halloween spell and with it the intervention of the Ascended and a True Deity in said spell, banishing the new born capsuleer to another reality altogether.
If parts of the first chapter seem familiar it is because they have been taken verbatim from the first chapter of the main Legacy of Chaos story.
~~~///~~~
Chapter One
Dampness.
It was the first thing that Xander Harris became aware of. Everything was damp and slimy, and his limbs felt like they were made of wet spaghetti and not skin, bone, and muscle. Slowly he opened his eyes to find himself lying flat on a metallic deck amid a pool of thick golden fluid that was rapidly being drained away through slots in the floor specifically designed for that purpose. He blinked in confusion and awkwardly managed to sit up, it was hard as his muscles didn't seem to want to coordinate for some strange reason and look around in complete and utter bafflement.
He was lying on the floor of a metallic room filled with strange transparent cylinders filled with softly bubbling gold fluid. Though what really freaked him out was what was in those cylinders. Each contained the vague outline of a human body though he couldn't make out any precise details due to his current angle though he could tell that all the bodies were male and all were of the same size and general build.
"What the hell," he said blinking as his voice croaked as if it had never been used before, it was also slightly deeper than he expected.
"Please try to relax captain," a disembodied, somewhat emotionless female voice said from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
"Who the hell are you?" Xander demanded, somewhat foolishly, looking around for the source of the voice and seeing nothing but more of the cylindrical glass and metallic tanks.
"I feared this would happen. Please try and relax Xander Harris," the voice said, "your memories of what has happened to you should fully integrate in another couple of minutes and it can be very disorientating the first time."
Xander frowned and was about to repeat his demand when a tsunami of memories and information came crashing into his mind and suddenly, he knew everything. It came as a slipstream blur of images, impressions, recollections, and feelings. They swept through his mind like a hurricane and what was even more surprising was the fact that not all the memories – in fact a great many of them – weren't his own but belonged to the space pilot he had dressed as after Herr Snyder roped him, Buffy and Willow into escorting a bunch of snot-nosed, sugar high little runts around Sunnydale in the annual quest for Halloween candy.
After what seemed like an eternity it faded away into the background leaving him shivering in reaction in the aftermath. Finally, the worst of the shakes faded away and Xander shook his head to clear the residual disorientation.
"Damn that was… I don't know how to describe it," he muttered even as he carefully got to his feet, his limbs now working properly as his neural patterns completed their integration with his new clone body. A fact that was really going to take a hell of a lot of getting used to, he also now had to a) figure out a way back to Earth assuming that was possible and b) stop Buffy from Slaying him on sight given people did not usually just come straight back from the dead unless they were a vampire or had been raised by dark magic.
"My former captain often said that," the female voice that he now recognized as belonging to Aura, Alexander's A.I replied. "The disorientation will pass completely in another few moments. Neural integration shock is not an unknown phenomenon among capsuleers, especially new ones like yourself sir though it will become less of an issue over time and…"
"…with more deaths," Xander finished even as he shivered both at the thought of dying again and the fact that he was bloody cold as he was kind of naked here. "No offense Aura but I don't plan to die again anytime soon. Now can you tell me where I can shower and get some clothes?"
"There are showers just by the entrance to the clone bay and a dressing room beyond that you should find clothing in there."
"Thank you," he replied as he began walking towards the entrance to the clone bay without needing anymore directions from Aura. "Aura by the way, where am I? This definitely isn't somewhere in Sunnydale after all."
"No, it is not. You are currently in bay one of the cloning facilities of a Fortizar-class Citadel station," Aura answered. "We are currently orbiting a gas and ice giant planet in an unknown system. Curiously if I am interpreting data from the stations sensors correctly this gas giant is located only thirty point one astronomical units from your previous location."
Xander frowned slightly, pausing as he reached for the door controls as he recalled the astronomy sections of his high school physics lessons. Surprisingly, he found it a great deal easier than he was used to and suddenly realized just which planet they were orbiting. "We're in orbit of Neptune then," he said.
"Neptune?" Aura questioned before searching through the station's library files for that name and feeling as close to shock as an artificial intelligence could at what she found. "You mean the eighth planet of the Terran home solar system do you not?"
"Well I'm not referring to the Ancient Roman god of the same name so yeah," Xander answered momentarily confused as to why Aura seemed to be surprised at where the massive station was orbiting. Then he remembered that for Aura, Alexander – indeed anyone from New Eden – Earth and the other planets of its solar system were spoken of and remembered as being objects of myth and legend dating back twenty thousand or so years to before the sudden, violent collapse of the EVE gate wormhole severed New Eden from the rest of humanity. It was amazing when he thought about it that the people of New Eden could talk about Earth and the other planets of the solar system in much the same way they'd talk about the lost civilization of Atlantis.
"How could we possibly be here?" Aura wondered aloud. "I have no records of the station ever being built here and at any rate the EVE gate wormhole reopening would have certainly been headline news all over New Eden."
Xander shrugged even as he acknowledged that would be true. The four great empires of New Eden as well as Concord, the various alliances and miniempires created by capsuleers would go crazy if the wormhole back to the rest of humanity suddenly reappeared after twenty thousand or so years of being gone. "Magic would be my best guess," he said, "it's also would explain how all of this," he gestured to the station around them and then at himself, "came into existence in one night. Especially as everything here normally only exists in a video game world, one that is supposed to still be in development in Iceland."
"That is not logical. Magic is not real."
"Maybe not in the reality you're from but in this one it is very real, everything supernatural that has been thought a myth in modern times – by my reckoning probably ancient times to you – is in fact frighteningly real."
"But how?"
"That I cannot answer, Giles might be able to tell you but I can't all I know is that every supernatural I thought fictional, but especially vampires are in fact real and unlike what some modern fiction likes to show they are not in any way friendly."
"Really?"
"Yes, I'll explain more soon after I've had a shower and got dressed as I'm kind of freezing here."
"Would you like me to adjust the environmental settings?" Aura asked concerned about her new captain's welfare, such was one of her duties as an artificial intelligence. After all despite what some people back in New Eden, including some capsuleers themselves, thought capsuleers were at the end of the day still human beings and thus had quite strict environmental requirements to remain healthy and happy.
"It's a figure of speech Aura."
"Oh."
Xander sighed to himself. He had a feeling it was going to take him and Aura awhile to get used to each other as while he had Alexander's memories, and hopefully his skills and training as it would suck big time to be stuck on this station, he wasn't him. Hopefully he would soon also be able to get back in touch with Giles and the others – hopefully without Buffy trying to slay him on sight – and figure out just what to do from here as he couldn't leave this station empty for too long. Especially given the fact that, according to his new memories, there were multiple copies of himself in the cloning bays waiting for his consciousness to be downloaded into them if he ended up getting killed again – though hopefully that wouldn't happen again for a good long while as dying kind of hurt.
And isn't that creepy to think about that if I die, I just wake up here in a new body, he thought as he arrived at the entrance to the room that held the showers. Stepping inside he came face to face with a mirrored wall and froze as he saw his own reflection. The person staring back at him was him but older, he looked to be in his twenties instead of his mid-teens, he was a little bit taller and noticeably more athletic sporting the compact but muscular build of a professional gymnast or martial artist.
"Is this me," he muttered rubbing his chin and seeing his reflection do the same. He ran a hand back through his hair, which was wet and quite sticky from the cloning fluid, in a nervous gesture before a thought occurred to him. He ran his hand down his neck and found what he had half expected to find, a circular metallic port just below the nape of his neck. He turned slightly, angling himself so he could see his back in the mirror and somehow wasn't surprised to see five more ports running down his spine to just above the small of his back.
"Suppose that proves it," he said aloud. "I'm still a capsuleer."
"Did you expect not to be," Aura replied making him jump.
"Damn it! Aura don't do that," he answered, "what are you trying to do give me a heart attack?"
"My apologies I did not mean to startle you. But my question stands did you expect not to still be a capsuleer?"
"To be honest yes and no. Don't get me wrong the idea that I can plug myself into a ship and fly it via neural interface is like a dream come true but there was part of me that…"
"Wanted to be able to go back to whatever life you had before the spell was cast?"
"Yeah. Though that was always going to be something of a foolish hope, I cannot go back not now that they saw me die and certainly not looking like I do now know this," he turned to look back at the image looking back at him, an reflection that had a goldish tint to the skin from cloning fluid residue, "is who and what I am now. I have to accept that."
"I'm sorry," Aura offered a moment before a vibration began to make its way through the station. Xander looked around in surprise a second before the whole station shook violently and a brilliant flash of light momentarily blinded him. For a few seconds, the light persisted, and he got the distinct feeling of being wrenched away from something and sent flying – though his feet didn't leave the floor – before being set down somewhere else.
The light and vibration faded away a few seconds later.
"What the hell was that? Aura what happened?" Xander asked, the artificial intelligence didn't answer. "Aura?"
"She can't hear you at the moment kid," a new voice said from behind him. He spun around to find himself face to face with a human looking being dressed as though he had just stepped out of the nineteen seventies.
"Who the hell are you?" Xander demanded.
"Name's Whistler, I work for the Powers That Be."
"The who now?"
"They're the ones in charge of the battle between good and evil," Whistler told him, "I would have thought the Watcher would have told you about them or at least rat breath would."
"Rat breath?"
"Angel I call him that because when I recruited him to work for the Powers and earn redemption for the crimes of the vampire Angelus, he had been living off rats for the better part of a hundred years. Hence rat breath."
Xander grinned. "Huh rat breath. I am so going to have to call him that the next time I see him. Make a change from calling him deadboy," he said imagining the look on Angels oh so perfect face when he called him that nickname.
Whistler chuckled at the term he used to refer to Angel. "Deadboy? I am going to have to remember that one," he replied smiling, liking Xander's sense of humour before turning, somewhat regretfully, serious. "But I am afraid that you won't be able to call Angel rat breath, as much as I would love to see that. You see you will never see him again."
"What do you mean?"
Whistler looked uncomfortable. "You got to understand kid that the reality you knew exists in a delicate balance. Good and evil, chaos and order they must exist in a delicate balance otherwise all of creation could be destroyed," he explained, "unfortunately interference in the Ritual of Masks spell cast by Ethan Rayne meant it became far more than it ever should have been. What you are now, what the spell changed you into that it shouldn't have, threatened the balance too much."
Xander stalked up to Whistler. "What are you getting at Whistler," he asked a note of menace in his voice that made the balance demon wince. Damn no wonder he was able to bully Angel into taking him into Nest's lair to revive the Slayer, he thought, and no wonder in another timeline he became a Master Vampire after only having been a vampire for a year.
"You got to understand that the Powers didn't want to do this, but they had no choice."
"Out with it," Xander demanded, "stop dodging and say whatever you came here to say."
"Remember the old saying don't shoot the messenger."
"Whistler!" Xander snapped nearing the end of his patience.
Whistler swallowed but took the plunge all the while hoping he survived it. "It is the judgement of the Powers That Be that due to your conversion into a capsuleer and the creation of this station and its contents that you Alexander Harris are too great a threat to the balance," he said, "therefore and forevermore you are banished from your home reality never to return."
"They're…. they're exiling me."
"I'm afraid so," Whistler said looking at him in sympathy. "I'm sorry kid, nobody deserves to be castaway like this but there isn't a choice. If you stayed, then evil would have to be given a capsuleer of their own to balance the scales."
Xander grimaced at that as memories from Alexander surfaced, especially memories of the kinds of chaos and devastation that capsuleers could unleash – when they wanted to or when they were out of empire space and the jurisdiction of Concord – was almost without limit. The mere thought that someone immoral or outright evil back home getting their hands on that kind of power was almost unimaginable. It could easily lead to the extinction of all life on Earth as even light ship-based weapons in New Eden could inflict devastation on a scale that would make the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War seem like the work of children, especially when you started talking about 55mm railguns that fired antimatter rounds.
"Fine," he bit out at last. "So, where the hell, have they dumped me?"
Whistler smirked. "You'll find out. I think you'll like it here as you'll get a chance to give too different groups of self-important assholes a few much deserved headaches," he said, "a world you know well and no its not New Eden. Even the Powers, capricious though they can be, aren't mean enough to dump you into that nest of vipers."
"Sheesh cryptic or what?"
"Curse of being a balance demon I'm afraid, see ya kid," Whistler said with a smirk before vanishing with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble.
"Captain can you hear me," Aura asked as Xander staired at the place where Whistler had just been.
"I can Aura."
"Thank goodness. I have been trying to speak to you for the last few minutes, but you literally seemed to be frozen."
"I'm not surprised someone was talking to me from our previous reality. Can you tell me where we are now?"
"That is why I was trying to talk to you. We were enveloped by an extremely powerful energy burst that has somehow transported the station twenty-four light years to an unknown star system. I am not detecting any electromagnetic or gravimetric readings to indicate the presence of any intelligent life in the system; however, the energy burst has disabled the long-range sensor array. Automatic repair systems are responding however it will be several hours before long range sensors are restored," the artificial intelligence replied, "but what do you mean about talking to someone from our previous reality? Sensors showed no other presence aboard the station."
"I would be surprised if they did," Xander replied, "the reason I was frozen as you noticed was I was being spoken to by Whistler who I believe took me out of temporal sync for our little chat, he's a servant of the Powers That Be apparently they're the ones in charge of keeping good and evil in balance."
"What did he have to say?"
Xander sighed and explained everything that Whistler had told him, only just keeping his voice level as he did so as it really began to set in what the balance demons words, and his exile from his home, truly meant. While he wasn't at all cut up about the fact that he would never see his parents again - any feelings of affection he had once had for Anthony and Jessica Harris had disappeared a long time ago, washed away by the copious amounts of alcohol both consumed on a daily basis to him these days they were just DNA donors nothing more – the fact that he would never see his friends again, would never even trade barbs with Cordelia again – hell he'd even miss Snyder – seriously pissed him off. Beneath the anger there was grief as well at that realization but for now it was buried by the anger that burned like molten lava through his veins.
When he was done Aura was quiet for a few moments as she processed just what it was that he had said. "I'm sorry nobody deserves to be permanently exiled from their home for something that was not their choice," she said at last. "Eternal banishment to another reality seems to be a very extreme action for such an issue."
"Now that I think about it, I believe you are right though I can understand why giving evil a capsuleer of their own would not be a good idea," he admitted. "If what I remember from Alexander is right my kind are capable of unleashing almost unimaginable amounts of chaos and devastation."
"Capsuleers have been known to do that yes especially in low and null-sec space," Aura agreed. "Still eternal banishment seems to be a bit of an overreaction. Though there is nothing that either of us can do about it now."
"Unfortunately," Xander replied as he resumed heading for the showers. Alexander's memories telling him he needed to get the residue of the cloning fluid off quickly before it dried out completely as dried cloning fluid could be an irritant especially in those harder to reach bits. He paused a moment. "Aura you said our long-range sensors will be down for several hours?"
"Unfortunately, yes the energy burst that enveloped us overloaded them and the control systems are spread out all over the station. With no operational crew I only have maintenance drones and auto-repair systems to work with, which means it will take far more time to repair them than it otherwise would. Why do you ask?"
"I was asking as I wanted to know what sensor capability we have now."
"Local scan only so anything up to forty thousand kilometres of the station. If you wish to temporarily extend our sensor range to compensate for the down long-range scans, I could launch some survey probes."
"Do it they'd also give us a good look at the ley of the land in this system, wherever we are, to boot."
"Very well launching probes. The probes will reach optimum scan positions in fifteen minutes."
"Good as soon as they're in position commence scans. In the meantime, I'm going to shower off this cloning fluid residue before it dries completely."
"Understood."
With their conversation concluded for now, they had nothing else to really discuss until the probes reached optimum position to at least somewhat compensate for their down long-range sensors, Xander walked to the nearest shower cubicle and began the process of cleaning off the drying, increasingly sticky and tacky feeling cloning fluid residue.
~~//~~
Sometime later, dressed much as he had been back in Sunnydale when the spell had been cast, Xander emerged from the changing room off the shower room. Somehow, he hadn't been surprised that he knew his new sizes and the fact that there had been plenty of different bits of clothing present for him to chose from. The only thing that was missing was the fact that he didn't have a CAR-9 burst scrambler pistol belted to his right thigh – which had made such short work of Spike he would always remember the look of surprise and horror on the bleach blond master vampires face as the heat of the plasma bolt set his undead flesh on fire – which strangely made him feel a little naked. Not that I would be in any danger from any intruder here, he thought knowing that the station would have some truly lethal – and sometimes quite fiendish – anti-personnel defences ranging from plasma blasters to laser nets to nano disintegrator sprays.
"Aura?" he called out.
"Yes Captain?"
"First off please stop calling me captain all the time. Call me Xander."
"As you wish Xander. Is there something you wanted to know?"
"Yes, there is, have our probes reached their scanning positions?"
"They have yes. I have begun running scans of the system."
"Have you found anything?"
"Indeed, I have. While the system is as uninhabited as it first appeared, it is rich in resources including several asteroid and ice belts plus the innermost planet is a lava world. The third planet has a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and water vapour, it would not be that difficult to terraform it. Curiously, I am picking up an artificial structure at the gravitational balance point between the fourth planet – a class three gas giant which we are currently orbiting – and its largest moon. It appears to be emitting tachyons."
"Tachyons! Why would it be doing that," Xander wondered aloud then frowned as Whistler's words about his place of exile being a universe he knew very well. "Aura can you show me a visual image of the device?"
"Of course." A holographic screen blinked into existence in front of him even before the AI stopped speaking showing him a visual feed from one of the camera drones that buzzed around the outside of the station. The object appeared and Xander's eyes widened as he recognised it.
The object took the form of four metallic pylons, studded with small solar panels, arranged in a diamond pattern. Running along the inner surfaces he could see glowing ribbons of energy as numerous fusion reactors inside the pylons continually generated the power that was needed to energize an exotic – and until now fictional to him – material enough to produce the subatomic particles needed to open a portal between normal space and an alternate dimension used for faster than light travel.
"I know what it is," he breathed aloud.
"What is it?" Aura asked curious both about what the device was and how Xander knew about it as it didn't look like anything from New Eden so he wouldn't have memories of it from her previous captain.
"It's a jump gate," Xander replied. "It's a device that energizes an exotic material called quantium forty which create a stream of subatomic particles that create a portal between normal space and an alternate dimension called hyperspace which is used for faster than light travel. Since there are no landmarks or star patterns observable in hyperspace each jump gate creates a tachyon-based beacon allowing navigation. The tachyon beacons are also used as part of an interstellar communications network."
"Fascinating might I ask how you know this?"
"Because back home it was the background for a science fiction television series, and a series of role playing game books, called Babylon Five and I'm… well a geek at heart or at least I used to be till Jessie was turned into a vampire and I watched him turn to dust on the other end of the wooden stake I was wielding at the time."
"Interesting I believe that on top of our transit to this reality you have just confirmed one of the more esoteric aspects of multiverse theory."
"Oh, which part?"
"The part which states that what is fiction in one universe can be real in another."
"Oh, that bit," Xander replied with a slight smile.
"That's odd," Aura abruptly said.
"What is it?"
"Energy emissions from the jump gate are increasing. I believe it might be powering up to generate the portal you spoke about. Should I raise the shields?"
"Since we don't know whose space, we're in that would be a good idea," Xander replied as he kept his eyes focused on the display to see the jump gate power up and activate. The effect was almost identical to what was shown in the television show in that a series of energy pulses ran down the length of each of the pylons as the reactors and quantium forty capacitors discharged. However when the energy pulses reached the end of the pylons the effect was different as instead of each pylon firing a single pulse each emitted a series of four pulses that combined together at the exact centre point between the pylons. Immediately the glowing blue whirlpool of an incoming hyperspace jump point burst into existence filling the space between the generating pylons with the vortex. A vortex that looked somewhat different to what he was used to seeing as the blue was a shade of the colour that he had honestly never seen before and the transition point between hyperspace and normal space at the centre was not a dark circular mass, instead it appeared to be a glowing point of light.
The light pulsed and a ship appeared from the centre shooting out of the jump point like a bullet fired from a gun. Behind the newly emerged ship the vortex contracted and closed with the minimum of fuss leaving Xander to examine the ship that had just appeared. It was blocky and angular with a grey, white and blue livery along the hull. The presence of five huge turrets two on the dorsal hull, one of the ventral hull and two on the flanks of the vessel confirmed its nature as a warship. A warship whose design and configuration he instantly recognised from both the television show and the RPG games that himself, Willow, Jesse and sometimes Jonathan and Andrew used to play.
It was an Earth Alliance Hyperion-class heavy cruiser.
~~~///~~~
Authors Notes: Well that's the first chapter of this AU of A Legacy of Chaos done. I am not sure how far this particular story is going to go, I have a definite plan for now though it could change depending on a) how this is received and b) if my muse for it continues to cooperate. I also wish to restate that the main Legacy story has not and will not be abandoned – I am already working on a new chapter for that as well as a new chapter for A Left Turn at Albuquerque, hopefully I will have them ready sometime this month but considering the mayhem that can unfold around here in the build up to Christmas I can obviously make no promises.
Until next time stay safe everybody.
