Categories > TV > Buffy the Vampire Slayer > Priest of Rathma
Xander, Priest of Rathma A YAHF Crossover of BtVS and Diablo 2
by Jasruv Lundux
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Diablo 2.
Disclaimer Addendum: I don't own Naruto either, darn it all.
=== Begin Chapter 02 ===
Joyce Summers opened her front door and nearly jumped out of her skin as she saw what was on her front door. The figure had a skull for a face, was wearing adark hood and cloak over some kind of armored chest piece, and had two skulls hanging next to a wavy dagger on its belt. The overall impact of looming death was broken by the cheerful tones of Xander Harris emerging from behind the skull mask.
“Hey Mrs. S! Are Buffy and Willow ready to go? Cool costume, who is it supposed to be?”
Joyce took a moment to get her heartbeat under control before she replied.
“You scared ayear off of my life with that getup. Come in and I'll call Buffy and Willow down but it might be a while. I heard Buffy nagging at Willow about her costume. Her heart is in the right place but I wish she would learn some patience and tact.”
The skull mask hid Xander's brief grimace at the casual invitation that Joyce had given him. He decided against trying again to convince Joyce not to invite people inside tonight but resolved to bring up telling her with Buffy and Giles once more. He had brought it up briefly last year after Darla had gotten in and bit Joyce but Giles and Buffy both had denied the need. Buffy let slip that she had been committed to an asylum last year when she had tried to tell her parents about vampires and slaying after burning the Hemery Gym down. He could understand both their viewpoints about the secrecy needed, but he liked Joyce too much to lose her one night in the future because she invited in avampire because of ignorance.
Xander filed the thought away for later as he followed Joyce inside and shut the door behind him. He waited patiently as Joyce called for Buffy and Xander carefully took off his faux Bone Visage helm. It was actually ageneric skull mask that he had glued some loose horns onto but it looked pretty good for a rush job with the miscellaneous pieces he had gotten from the store. He felt some pride as the runes he had made out of painted cardboard cutouts didn't look too bad either where they had been painstakingly placed and glued onto the skull. The cardboard chest piece he was wearing had been painted metallic grey and black with green trim and had more runes attached.
“So Mrs. S, Who is your costume supposed to be?”
Joyce blushed slightly as she turned away from Xander to hide her face. She had been so startled when she had seen his costume earlier that she had forgotten to answer his question.
“The man at Party Town said it was for a powerful woman who was leader of avillage of ninja. Something about trees or leaves or something.”
“Do you mean the Hidden Leaf Village? I thought that that forehead mark looked familiar.”
“Yes. The name was sue something.”
“Lady Tsunade. She is so strong that she can smash a hole in a stone wall big enough to drive a jeep through with one blow, and I think the manga that Ronnie Waller showed me said something about her being a top notch medic ninja. Sorry, I've only read a couple of chapters of the manga she was in so I can't tell you anything more. If you didn't know who she was, why did you get the costume?”
“It was the only thing left in my size that looked halfway good. You don't think I'm too old to wear this do you?” The last was said in an almost syrupy seductive voice as Joyce got back at Xander for his scaring her earlier. The mixed look of panic and temptation made her laugh before he caught on to her tease and joined in.
“I've got to go finish getting ready for the party at the gallery. But don't leave before I can get some pictures. I don't know what your costume is based on, but I can tell that it has some good work in there. Iremember making Buffy's costumes for her school plays so I know how hard it is to do that kind of thing.” Joyce's tone was approving.
“Thanks, Mrs. S.”
“I mean it Xander, you did a good job.” She gave him a quick hug before she turned and left to finish getting ready.
Xander just basked in the warmth of parental praise that was almost nonexistent in his life for a minute before he filed it away in his store of good memories and sat down on the couch to wait.
While he waited for his girls to come downstairs, he remembered when Willow had showed him and Jesse the new game she had gotten two summers ago. Diablo 2was hands down the greatest game he had ever seen and he spent a lot of that summer over at Willow's house playing it on her computer. Jesse had played a dual axe wielding Barbarian and Willow played aSorceress. Xander had played a Necromancer, a character who formed the basis for his costume in fact. Xander's biggest regret back then was that only one of the three could play at a time. He hadn't played it since Jesse had been turned, real life had become too close to the game.
Xander came out of his bitter sweet memories as Buffy came down the stairs and he had to admit that she made that fancy dress beautiful. Of course, Buffy could probably make a burlap sack look gorgeous.
He felt compelled to declare. “Buffy! Duchess of Buffonia! I completely renounce spandex!”
Buffy took in his costume for a few moments and looked briefly for her mother before saying.
“You're looking particularly dark and looming tonight. What are you supposed to be?”
Xander read Buffy's expression as 'Why do you look like something I should stake?' but ignored that and sidestepped her question as he said.
“I want to see if Willow can guess.”
“Well let me present. . . Casper.” The disappointment in Buffy's tone was obvious as Willow came down in a ghost costume with a 'Boo!' sign on the front. Willow's voice came out from under the sheet as Xander came into her view.
“What! Oh my goodness. I can't believe you look so much like your character! How did you do it?”
Willow's voice was beginning to accelerate and Xander interjected quickly.
“Willow, breathe! I saw this at the store,” Xander held up his skull mask “and found enough other miscellaneous pieces to make all this.” he waved up and down his costume.
“Why didn't you tell me, I could have dressed up as my character and we could have gone as a matched set.”
“Well, A) you two abandoned me at the store before I found this stuff and B) I needed all the time since then to actually get everything done. Bonus though, I had some extra stuff and made some prezzies for you two but unfortunately, ghosts can't use them so I will just have to hold onto yours.”
Ignoring the sputtering sounds that Willow was making, he pulled a seemingly engraved stake from the small backpack that had been hidden by the cloak he was wearing. He handed it to Buffy who looked at it bemusedly for moment as he explained.
“Milady Buffy, I am dressed as a character from a computer game that Willow, Jessie, and I used to play called Diablo 2.” Understood between the three teens in the room was that Jessie's absence was the reason that Xander and Willow didn't play it anymore.
“I have presented you with what is called a grand charm in the game, aBurning charm of the Valkyries in fact. May it keep you safe this night from ruffians, villains, and rampaging sugar hyped munchkins. Oh and be careful of the runes, they were stickers I got from the costume store, I'm not sure how well they'll stay on.”
Buffy nodded at the thoughtfulness of him giving her a reason to be carrying a stake even if tonight was supposed to be safe. She gave him a brief curtsy and spoke in a courteous and slightly haughty english accent.
“I would thank milord, but alas you have neglected to mention both your name and station in life.”
Xander responded in his best Masterpiece Theater voice.
“I apologize for that milady. My name is Xanmortan and I am a Priest of Rathma, often referred to by the coarse and unrefined as a necromancer. It is a distinct pleasure to make your acquaintance this fine evening. I had hoped to meet my good friend Redwisp the Sorceress, but alas she is nowhere to be found.”
Willow had been watching the two banter back and forth while debating whether or not to take off her sheet to get whatever Xander had made for her. His last teasing statement decided her that what she was wearing was at least slightly better than an authentic sorceress costume would be and took off her sheet.
Xander caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to take in what ever Buffy had nagged Willow into wearing. He was still for several moments as her took in, again, that Willow was in fact a girl and agood looking one at that.
“I should have brought a really big stick.” Xander muttered under his breath before continuing.
“Good look for you Wills, really. Or are you going by Redwisp tonight?”
Willow looked at her lifelong friend with exasperation as his teasing tone before she answered.
“Yes, it is Redwisp for tonight. Now, unless you want a Fire Bolt in an embarrassing place, you mentioned you had something for me?”
“Ah, yes. Threatening the potential gift giver. There is the Sorceress that the net has learned to fear. I hereby present you with your Archangel's Dimensional Shard of Incineration, complete with your favorite socketed runes. And your Archangel's amulet of Revivification. Sorry they're not any of the set pieces you have, but I didn't have anything that looked close enough to fake something up.” Xander pulled the two items out of his backpack.
“These look almost exactly like the stuff in the game! You should make the rest and we could enter in the cosplay contests at the local cons and. ..” Xander interrupted Willow before she could really start in on the babble.
“We can talk about that later, Redwisp. Now, before I escort you and Duchess Buffy to the pack of hyperactive runts that Herr-Fuhrer-Snyder has saddled us with for tonight, Lady Tsunade, Fifth Hokage of the Village hidden in the leaves, also known as Buffy's mom, wants to take pictures of the three of us before she or we leave.”
“Thank you for the introduction Xander.” came Joyce's voice from the door to the kitchen. She stood there holding her camera and waved for the three teens to pose. After a quick whispering between Buffy and Willow, they stood to either side of Xander and faced Joyce.
Xander looked towards Joyce as he drew the painted troll doll head he was using to represent his character's Blood Lord skull that was used for defense and to boost his necromantic skills, and the wavy dagger that Ethan had given him for free. His character's version was called a Weird Fanged Knife of Transcendence and like his character's, it had various runes in it that made it indestructible, able to ignore all of a target's defenses, prevent the healing of wounds that it inflicted, and hurl the target struck away as if it had been hit by agrizzly bear.
Xander saw Joyce trying, and failing, to hide a smirk and asked.
“They're giving me rabbit ears aren't they?”
Joyce just nodded and waited for the two girls to settle down. They did shortly and she took the pictures and then wished them a good night as she left to go to her party. Before she did, Xander gave her an amulet as Buffy was wearing a cameo with her costume and didn't need it. Joyce tried to decline the gift but Xander was insistent as he pointed out that Lady Tsunade was supposed to have an amulet but one hadn't come with the costume. She accepted the necklace and complimented him again on the quality of the piece.
The three teens locked up as they left and proceeded to the school.
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
As Ethan finished his invocation to Janus across town, both the bust before him and the dagger he had formed from a copy of that same bust glowed. The bust located in Ethan's shop was undoubtedly the more powerful of the two, but the dagger resonated and fed back into the master spell encompassing the town. As everything enchanted by Ethan was temporarily transformed, the dagger became real with all the properties that it would have had in the game. Including the Zod rune which made the dagger indestructible.
As the dagger had been worked on by Xander, he had formed a link with it. The dagger's resonance created in essence a permanent copy of Ethan's spell but limited to the things that Xander had worked on that night as he became the stand in for Ethan in the spell copy.
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
Xanmortan, Priest of Rathma and slayer of the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction looked around in puzzlement. When he had shattered the master Soulstone, he had certainly never expected to appear in the middle of some strange village that was apparently under some kind of demon attack. He instinctively began to inventory what he had available to him. His favorite wand and dagger, a Blood Lord's head for defense, Lornicated Mail, Vampire Fang Belt, a Bone Visage helm with what felt like seven filled sockets, a chromatic amulet that he could feel boosting his strength, some nonmagical shoes and pants, two magical charms, and not a single potion or scroll.
Xanmortan reached out to feel the Balance between the worlds of Life and Death and staggered for a moment at the sheer wrongness of the area. It felt like the portion of the Burning Hells that he had pursued Diablo to in order to kill the Demon Lord of Terror. His mystic senses extended towards what appeared to be strange forms of the Fallen and found that True Life was being twisted into these mockeries. He could feel an unfamiliar taint maintaining the twisting and reasoned that if he could locate the source of this taint and eliminate it, the humans, children if he sensed correctly, would become their true selves again.
He sighed, as he realized that he had barely finished the grandest of quests and yet here he was starting another in order to protect and redress the Balance. Time to get to work.
=== End of Chapter 02 ===
AN: I know that in the game the Archangel Tyrial is the one that smashes the stone, but I always thought that if your character is strong enough to kill major demon lords they should be able to smash a glowing rock.
AN: Dawn isn't present as she hasn't been incarnated yet.
by Jasruv Lundux
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Diablo 2.
Disclaimer Addendum: I don't own Naruto either, darn it all.
=== Begin Chapter 02 ===
Joyce Summers opened her front door and nearly jumped out of her skin as she saw what was on her front door. The figure had a skull for a face, was wearing adark hood and cloak over some kind of armored chest piece, and had two skulls hanging next to a wavy dagger on its belt. The overall impact of looming death was broken by the cheerful tones of Xander Harris emerging from behind the skull mask.
“Hey Mrs. S! Are Buffy and Willow ready to go? Cool costume, who is it supposed to be?”
Joyce took a moment to get her heartbeat under control before she replied.
“You scared ayear off of my life with that getup. Come in and I'll call Buffy and Willow down but it might be a while. I heard Buffy nagging at Willow about her costume. Her heart is in the right place but I wish she would learn some patience and tact.”
The skull mask hid Xander's brief grimace at the casual invitation that Joyce had given him. He decided against trying again to convince Joyce not to invite people inside tonight but resolved to bring up telling her with Buffy and Giles once more. He had brought it up briefly last year after Darla had gotten in and bit Joyce but Giles and Buffy both had denied the need. Buffy let slip that she had been committed to an asylum last year when she had tried to tell her parents about vampires and slaying after burning the Hemery Gym down. He could understand both their viewpoints about the secrecy needed, but he liked Joyce too much to lose her one night in the future because she invited in avampire because of ignorance.
Xander filed the thought away for later as he followed Joyce inside and shut the door behind him. He waited patiently as Joyce called for Buffy and Xander carefully took off his faux Bone Visage helm. It was actually ageneric skull mask that he had glued some loose horns onto but it looked pretty good for a rush job with the miscellaneous pieces he had gotten from the store. He felt some pride as the runes he had made out of painted cardboard cutouts didn't look too bad either where they had been painstakingly placed and glued onto the skull. The cardboard chest piece he was wearing had been painted metallic grey and black with green trim and had more runes attached.
“So Mrs. S, Who is your costume supposed to be?”
Joyce blushed slightly as she turned away from Xander to hide her face. She had been so startled when she had seen his costume earlier that she had forgotten to answer his question.
“The man at Party Town said it was for a powerful woman who was leader of avillage of ninja. Something about trees or leaves or something.”
“Do you mean the Hidden Leaf Village? I thought that that forehead mark looked familiar.”
“Yes. The name was sue something.”
“Lady Tsunade. She is so strong that she can smash a hole in a stone wall big enough to drive a jeep through with one blow, and I think the manga that Ronnie Waller showed me said something about her being a top notch medic ninja. Sorry, I've only read a couple of chapters of the manga she was in so I can't tell you anything more. If you didn't know who she was, why did you get the costume?”
“It was the only thing left in my size that looked halfway good. You don't think I'm too old to wear this do you?” The last was said in an almost syrupy seductive voice as Joyce got back at Xander for his scaring her earlier. The mixed look of panic and temptation made her laugh before he caught on to her tease and joined in.
“I've got to go finish getting ready for the party at the gallery. But don't leave before I can get some pictures. I don't know what your costume is based on, but I can tell that it has some good work in there. Iremember making Buffy's costumes for her school plays so I know how hard it is to do that kind of thing.” Joyce's tone was approving.
“Thanks, Mrs. S.”
“I mean it Xander, you did a good job.” She gave him a quick hug before she turned and left to finish getting ready.
Xander just basked in the warmth of parental praise that was almost nonexistent in his life for a minute before he filed it away in his store of good memories and sat down on the couch to wait.
While he waited for his girls to come downstairs, he remembered when Willow had showed him and Jesse the new game she had gotten two summers ago. Diablo 2was hands down the greatest game he had ever seen and he spent a lot of that summer over at Willow's house playing it on her computer. Jesse had played a dual axe wielding Barbarian and Willow played aSorceress. Xander had played a Necromancer, a character who formed the basis for his costume in fact. Xander's biggest regret back then was that only one of the three could play at a time. He hadn't played it since Jesse had been turned, real life had become too close to the game.
Xander came out of his bitter sweet memories as Buffy came down the stairs and he had to admit that she made that fancy dress beautiful. Of course, Buffy could probably make a burlap sack look gorgeous.
He felt compelled to declare. “Buffy! Duchess of Buffonia! I completely renounce spandex!”
Buffy took in his costume for a few moments and looked briefly for her mother before saying.
“You're looking particularly dark and looming tonight. What are you supposed to be?”
Xander read Buffy's expression as 'Why do you look like something I should stake?' but ignored that and sidestepped her question as he said.
“I want to see if Willow can guess.”
“Well let me present. . . Casper.” The disappointment in Buffy's tone was obvious as Willow came down in a ghost costume with a 'Boo!' sign on the front. Willow's voice came out from under the sheet as Xander came into her view.
“What! Oh my goodness. I can't believe you look so much like your character! How did you do it?”
Willow's voice was beginning to accelerate and Xander interjected quickly.
“Willow, breathe! I saw this at the store,” Xander held up his skull mask “and found enough other miscellaneous pieces to make all this.” he waved up and down his costume.
“Why didn't you tell me, I could have dressed up as my character and we could have gone as a matched set.”
“Well, A) you two abandoned me at the store before I found this stuff and B) I needed all the time since then to actually get everything done. Bonus though, I had some extra stuff and made some prezzies for you two but unfortunately, ghosts can't use them so I will just have to hold onto yours.”
Ignoring the sputtering sounds that Willow was making, he pulled a seemingly engraved stake from the small backpack that had been hidden by the cloak he was wearing. He handed it to Buffy who looked at it bemusedly for moment as he explained.
“Milady Buffy, I am dressed as a character from a computer game that Willow, Jessie, and I used to play called Diablo 2.” Understood between the three teens in the room was that Jessie's absence was the reason that Xander and Willow didn't play it anymore.
“I have presented you with what is called a grand charm in the game, aBurning charm of the Valkyries in fact. May it keep you safe this night from ruffians, villains, and rampaging sugar hyped munchkins. Oh and be careful of the runes, they were stickers I got from the costume store, I'm not sure how well they'll stay on.”
Buffy nodded at the thoughtfulness of him giving her a reason to be carrying a stake even if tonight was supposed to be safe. She gave him a brief curtsy and spoke in a courteous and slightly haughty english accent.
“I would thank milord, but alas you have neglected to mention both your name and station in life.”
Xander responded in his best Masterpiece Theater voice.
“I apologize for that milady. My name is Xanmortan and I am a Priest of Rathma, often referred to by the coarse and unrefined as a necromancer. It is a distinct pleasure to make your acquaintance this fine evening. I had hoped to meet my good friend Redwisp the Sorceress, but alas she is nowhere to be found.”
Willow had been watching the two banter back and forth while debating whether or not to take off her sheet to get whatever Xander had made for her. His last teasing statement decided her that what she was wearing was at least slightly better than an authentic sorceress costume would be and took off her sheet.
Xander caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to take in what ever Buffy had nagged Willow into wearing. He was still for several moments as her took in, again, that Willow was in fact a girl and agood looking one at that.
“I should have brought a really big stick.” Xander muttered under his breath before continuing.
“Good look for you Wills, really. Or are you going by Redwisp tonight?”
Willow looked at her lifelong friend with exasperation as his teasing tone before she answered.
“Yes, it is Redwisp for tonight. Now, unless you want a Fire Bolt in an embarrassing place, you mentioned you had something for me?”
“Ah, yes. Threatening the potential gift giver. There is the Sorceress that the net has learned to fear. I hereby present you with your Archangel's Dimensional Shard of Incineration, complete with your favorite socketed runes. And your Archangel's amulet of Revivification. Sorry they're not any of the set pieces you have, but I didn't have anything that looked close enough to fake something up.” Xander pulled the two items out of his backpack.
“These look almost exactly like the stuff in the game! You should make the rest and we could enter in the cosplay contests at the local cons and. ..” Xander interrupted Willow before she could really start in on the babble.
“We can talk about that later, Redwisp. Now, before I escort you and Duchess Buffy to the pack of hyperactive runts that Herr-Fuhrer-Snyder has saddled us with for tonight, Lady Tsunade, Fifth Hokage of the Village hidden in the leaves, also known as Buffy's mom, wants to take pictures of the three of us before she or we leave.”
“Thank you for the introduction Xander.” came Joyce's voice from the door to the kitchen. She stood there holding her camera and waved for the three teens to pose. After a quick whispering between Buffy and Willow, they stood to either side of Xander and faced Joyce.
Xander looked towards Joyce as he drew the painted troll doll head he was using to represent his character's Blood Lord skull that was used for defense and to boost his necromantic skills, and the wavy dagger that Ethan had given him for free. His character's version was called a Weird Fanged Knife of Transcendence and like his character's, it had various runes in it that made it indestructible, able to ignore all of a target's defenses, prevent the healing of wounds that it inflicted, and hurl the target struck away as if it had been hit by agrizzly bear.
Xander saw Joyce trying, and failing, to hide a smirk and asked.
“They're giving me rabbit ears aren't they?”
Joyce just nodded and waited for the two girls to settle down. They did shortly and she took the pictures and then wished them a good night as she left to go to her party. Before she did, Xander gave her an amulet as Buffy was wearing a cameo with her costume and didn't need it. Joyce tried to decline the gift but Xander was insistent as he pointed out that Lady Tsunade was supposed to have an amulet but one hadn't come with the costume. She accepted the necklace and complimented him again on the quality of the piece.
The three teens locked up as they left and proceeded to the school.
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
As Ethan finished his invocation to Janus across town, both the bust before him and the dagger he had formed from a copy of that same bust glowed. The bust located in Ethan's shop was undoubtedly the more powerful of the two, but the dagger resonated and fed back into the master spell encompassing the town. As everything enchanted by Ethan was temporarily transformed, the dagger became real with all the properties that it would have had in the game. Including the Zod rune which made the dagger indestructible.
As the dagger had been worked on by Xander, he had formed a link with it. The dagger's resonance created in essence a permanent copy of Ethan's spell but limited to the things that Xander had worked on that night as he became the stand in for Ethan in the spell copy.
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
Xanmortan, Priest of Rathma and slayer of the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction looked around in puzzlement. When he had shattered the master Soulstone, he had certainly never expected to appear in the middle of some strange village that was apparently under some kind of demon attack. He instinctively began to inventory what he had available to him. His favorite wand and dagger, a Blood Lord's head for defense, Lornicated Mail, Vampire Fang Belt, a Bone Visage helm with what felt like seven filled sockets, a chromatic amulet that he could feel boosting his strength, some nonmagical shoes and pants, two magical charms, and not a single potion or scroll.
Xanmortan reached out to feel the Balance between the worlds of Life and Death and staggered for a moment at the sheer wrongness of the area. It felt like the portion of the Burning Hells that he had pursued Diablo to in order to kill the Demon Lord of Terror. His mystic senses extended towards what appeared to be strange forms of the Fallen and found that True Life was being twisted into these mockeries. He could feel an unfamiliar taint maintaining the twisting and reasoned that if he could locate the source of this taint and eliminate it, the humans, children if he sensed correctly, would become their true selves again.
He sighed, as he realized that he had barely finished the grandest of quests and yet here he was starting another in order to protect and redress the Balance. Time to get to work.
=== End of Chapter 02 ===
AN: I know that in the game the Archangel Tyrial is the one that smashes the stone, but I always thought that if your character is strong enough to kill major demon lords they should be able to smash a glowing rock.
AN: Dawn isn't present as she hasn't been incarnated yet.
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