Chapter 17

XANDER HARRIS: THE IRON TAU'RI
By:“Gunsmith3000”
Started 5-19-08
Completed: ?????

Disclaimers: Nothing belongs to me other than this insane idea I have that just won’t let go. Iron Man belongs to Marvel, Stargate SG1 belongs to Paramount. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary: Xander goes as one of his favorite marvel comic characters, but gets more than he's bargained for.


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"....Comes Tumbling Down."


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Loki stared at his latest specimen that lay on the examining table that he put in deliberate stasis for a month. So far, the subject had been a very puzzling study as he had not yet been able to create a copy under controlled conditions. At first glance, the subject was classified as a Tau’ri, though it was puzzling at how found it drifting inside such a radical piece of technology.

In some ways, the rogue Asgard scientist saw that the alien hardware it had to pry off unconscious form was almost comparable to their own in some levels, yet was also a bit primitive at the same time. Though he would be the first to admit that engineering was not his forte, he could appreciate the level of technology the subject had on him. Some of the principles that lay as the groundwork for the exosuit the subject wore had Replicator-like properties, but if the alien had to guess, the nanites that comprised most of the areas within the suit definitely did not exhibit any of the Replicator characteristics that would pose a threat to his ship.

They even had separate functions! He could tell which ones were for medical use for its host and which was for the repair systems for the suit itself. The metallic suit itself was a puzzle. Though it looked primitive, the design was intriguingly different from anything he had come across. All outward appearances gave it the impression of being actual armor. Upon closer inspection, it was not. Each component was composed of grain-of-sand-like hexagonal scales of an unknown metallic substance. The metal’s properties had a unique design to them; he could even dare say it was bio-mechanically engineered in a fashion that was still unheard of. While it wasn’t completely as advanced as it looked, the level of ingenuity that produced this type of result made the little Asgard renegade giddy at the prospect of learning more.

The Tau’ri-like specimen was even more of a puzzle; while his tech was easy to explain, the specimen was not. From all inner and outward appearances, the biological makeup superficially matches them, but upon closer and in-depth inspection, he was not. Cellular rate of regeneration was almost beyond standard acceptable norms classified for that species, even without the primitive nanites helping the specimen’s body recover. Muscle density was also above the norms per comparison scans he filched from Thor on one Jack O’Neill and the others he had experimented on for the past few years since he had been visiting the Tau’ri race unbeknownst to his own people.

More out of habit than not, Loki immediately tried to clone the subject for further study. That was when things started to go in the wrong direction. The first clone did not survive the process, and neither did the second or third attempts. Annoyed, the renegade Asgard tried to recalibrate his systems and started over, but his dismay, it made matters worse. The clones now had trouble surviving the gestation period. Puzzled beyond belief, the alien studied the clone samples against the original and was stunned at the subtle, but major shift in molecular genetics.

Unable to find out why he was unable to clone the specimen, he decided to wake him up and ask it several pertinent questions.

The way the specimen answered his first query brought the first of many veins to bulge on his head.

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Xander just glared at the Roswell gray in front of him

“What the hell do you mean ‘What species’ am I?” He said.

He got his answer when Loki pointed to a screen that suspicious looked like a real-time medical readout. It was undoubtedly his.

Except, for a few glaring errors. While it passed as human per standard Terran equipments, anything else like that of the Asgard would notice the subtle differences.

“What the hell did you do to me?” He bellowed towards the alien.

Loki was taken aback at the vehemence. “I have done nothing to you except try to clone you. I only took genetic samples from your body.”

“Then what do you call that?” He spat as he jerked his head towards the readings.

“I was lead to believe they were your normal baseline parameters.” Loki replied honestly. “I have never come across anything like your kind before. The closest thing matching your physiology is the Tau’ri.”

Xander barely heard the little gray alien as he studied the readouts. He may have not had a physical in a while, but he could have sworn when he did his own physical months ago after the event that whatever changed him during Halloween was over and done with.

From the looks of things, it wasn’t.

If what he saw on the alien screen that showed his current bio-readings were right, he just found out one of the reasons why he was a little stronger and healed a whole lot faster. While he wasn’t able to spot it before when he did his own preliminary physical on his own body, it still didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The readings that showed on the screen told him, plain as day, that he was developing an X-gene. If that was the case, why was his body acting like it was already active?

He looked at the screen one more time, then back at his alien captor, his mind going off into different tangents.

“Get me out of this and we’ll find out together.” He said, finally coming up with a decision he could live with. "By the way, name's Xander."

If Loki had an eyebrow, it would have gone all the way up and down the other side of his side at the unexpected reply.

"I am Loki." The alien replied.

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Back on earth, Eternity had managed to get them out of their shell-shocked state and happily informed them that while Xander was still part of the demon-hunting group called “Scooby Gang” or “Scoobies” for short, but because of the Halloween incident and who a few people went as, the chess board drastically changed. Thanks to the costumes a few of them went as, the spell had some far-reaching consequences. Like Xander, a select rare few retained their memories and abilities.

Some inherently good, some were downright evil.

Then there was Eternity, a formerly unknown Sunnydalian named Richard Todd, the very first human to have become the Celestial humanoid representation of the Universe. Xander wasn’t the only one who wanted to be unique during that fateful night. The former human had bought his black spandex costume at the same shop as well. The costume used to be a black Batman costume but was changed when the glue and the glitters he had placed onto the costume to represent stars and galaxies to emulate the real Eternity in the comics.

A vampire had gotten to him before the spell could activate, when it did, it produced some very surprising results as the “costume” permanently stuck to him and caused him to become part of the very fabric of existence the moment his soul was passing on into the afterlife.

It was enough to have caused a change that an Alan Rickman look-alike shanghaied him from the halfway point where souls were sent to be “processed” for judgment with a unique job offer for him directly from the Almighty.

To become the checks and balances of an antiquated system that badly needed an overhaul, while at the same time, serve as the humanoid representation of one of the first primal creations The Creator ever made: the universe.

It was a ridiculously overpowered job. The Creator told him that he wouldn’t even be part of the doublet system like the rest. The Creator then commanded him to make sure everyone played fair, and then gave him more than enough power to back it up.

So it was that when the PTB’s started their flawed plan in regards to those lives in Sunnydale, the Big Boss decided to have him step in.

Task one: manage Angel away from the PTB, commonly know amongst the younger Angelic choir as the Pricks That Be.

Task two; make sure no one messes too much with Xander’s newfound purpose, meaning that to the PTB, he is off limits.

Task three; let the Slayer team called the “Scooby Gang” know that - while Xander, through a twist of fate, had changed - they are not within their rights to alter Xander’s decision in the long run, free will and all that. The last he said while he pointedly looked at Willow as he barked an order to Janna and Anna Kalderash to train the budding witch in the finer arts of Wiccan witchcraft and its moral repercussions if left unchecked.

Buffy, he advised to stem her bull-headedness and overblown sense of self or it would lead to her self-destruction, and drag others down with her. Pride can only go so far, he said, while he reminded the blond slayer of Xander’s words when they crashed down in on Angel in his mansion. Buffy really was a good person deep down inside, but she just had too much emotional baggage sometimes. To Giles, he admonished the man to act more rationally and not let blind prejudice and preconceived notions cloud his judgment, and that time was supposed to make him wiser, not stupider.

To everyone else, he simply advised them not to lose sight of the truth and never lose faith even in the face of insurmountable odds. He winced internally as he told them this; time would only know when things would get worse before they got better.

He sighed once more before he faded into nothingness; there were a few things to set into motion after all, and give a certain minor deity a tongue-lashing for allowing a demented chaos worshiper to besmirch his name with a misplaced prayer past Samhain.

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With the help of Loki, Xander was able grasp the base knowledge behind the Asgardian technology and their science. While a few of the things he learned went over his head, he was able to familiarize himself with enough data to help with his own research on his still-changing condition while trying to find alternative means to escape the alien version of the nutty professor. As impressed as he was with the little mad scientist’s goal in his drive to save his dying race at all costs, the way the twit went about it was so skewed that it bordered a thousand miles off on the moral compass. It reminded him of The Collector, with Doctor Doom-style sensibilities in regards to his governing and safekeeping of Latveria.

He was finally able to pin down at least part of his supposed “mutation”. If his increasing knowledge was any indication, his possible mutation was akin to an X-man codenamed: Forge. In essence, he was some sort of Technomancer of the mutant variety, able to learn and adapt any technology to his needs.

While that answered a few of his questions, it did not explain how he had acquired something akin to the regenerative abilities that was at least a fourth’s of Wolverine’s. he was a bit smart enough to relay to the grey alien a little white lie when he said that everything is as it should be, and that it was “normal” for his alien “race”. No need to give the little weasel info on an alternate universe full of mutants to play with if the Asgards had the ability to cross dimensions.

Now, if he could only find out where Loki stashed his suit and the Halcyon, he’d be a very happy camper.

Cricking his neck, he went to work on trying to coax the Asgard computer to divulge the location.

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Somewhere within the ship, Loki was again in front of the alien power armor and its sentient craft. So far, the craft had negated any inquiries Loki had in regards to its construction and programming. Annoyed, the diminutive alien worked on the armor and tested its nanorepair units by introducing Asgardian technology into the mix.

The armor’s nanites were a little resistant at first, but after a bit of struggle, it accepted the new technology and slowly tried to incorporate it with its own systems with them as the dominant factor. Assured by the partial success, he tried to see what effects the nanites had on another piece of technology and see if it could subvert it to its own use as well.

It was a simple matter to transplant a few of the suit’s micro-AI repair nanites and aim it towards the stasis pod that had the highest security level rating on the remotest part his ship that was away from any sensitive and prime materials.

Loki didn’t have to wait very long, once the foreign nanites were inside the pod, it shuddered and convulsed on the monitor screen. He started to worry for a bit until the pod stopped moving. He looked away from the monitor as his hand reached for the diagnostic console for a closer scan. Suddenly, he heard a loud bang coming from the pod room over the monitor. Alarmed, he switched to an external view of the pod room and his already enlarged eyes widened further to comical proportions.

“Oops.” He said as the pod lay in pieces when he saw that the supposedly dead remnants of the Replicator inside were now missing.

The little alien hit the panic button for a ship-wide hostile boarding alert and hover-chaired it to his labs at full speed, punching commands along the way.

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Inside the main laboratories, Xander’s head snapped up at the sound of the alien klaxon. He had managed to coax the Asgard computer to show the possible location of his armor and weapons platform when it shut down in favor of blasting him with warning signals. According to the alien/English translation, a hostile intruder had gotten loose inside sector B-84, and that it was Loki who sent up the alarm.

The sound of a teleportation beam coalesced near him, reacting on autopilot, the young genius dove for cover. To his surprise, it was his armor. He went towards it and was further surprised to find it a bit different. It was in that moment that the door to the labs opened and a very panic stricken Loki scrambled inside aboard his hover chair.

“What the hell happened to my armor?” He growled towards the mad scientist.

“I have incorporated a few Asgardian technologies within your primitive suit to upgrade its operational capacity.” Loki replied as he started arming his hover chair with advanced projectile weaponry he had copied and refined from the SGC. “I believe they would be of some help to you. Please put it on.”

“I still don’t even know what half of your stuff does!” Xander griped as he put it on, he found that some of the on board response time became was little quicker on some of them while others became even more sluggish as the system was still in the process of absorbing the new tech. “Why the hell am I even putting it on?”

“I have tried to integrate what little I have learned from your armor and pitted it against the remains of one of our deadliest enemies aside from our genetic instabilities.” Loki replied. “I tried to see if it could subdue and subvert the remains of a Replicator.”

“A what?” Xander exclaimed as he stared at the little alien that started to resemble a little grey Rambo. “You’d better start explaining, Loki.”

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Techno alien bugs, he thought. The Marvel Universe got the Brood; I get the technological version of a self-replicating roach with a hunger fetish for anything advanced, Xander thought with a loud groan.

Xander was that close to erasing the demented Asgard for his stupidity. From what he had learned in the short amount of time afforded, the Replicators were like enlarged nanites with a singular drive to assimilate and replicate every technological “food” it could get its hands on. Somehow, Loki had managed to get his Stark-created nanites into the remains of one of the Replicators to see if it could assimilate the Replicator technology into itself.

Unfortunately, the Replicator sub-system programming imbedded with each dead part absorbed his own nanites instead and used it to repair itself.

That was good and bad news. Good news: he knew how to deal with his own systems, he had prepared contingencies in case any of his tech ever went rogue. The bad news was that he had little to no knowledge of how a Replicator worked, much less any of the Asgardian tech it had now supposedly assimilated.

“Run this by me again.” He asked Loki. “Exactly what have you guys been able to glean on Replicator technology and on how their independent blocks actually worked?”

The grey scientist pointed to the readouts he displayed on the wall screen for Xander to study.

Inside Xander’s mind, the Stark collective racked their combined minds for a solution. After a few seconds, they came up with a risky one.

“Loki.” Xander said after a few moments of silence between them. “What do you have in the way of a matter/anti-matter energy dessipator machine?”

Loki stared at the person in front of him. “None.” He replied.

“Then let’s start building one.” Xander said, in full Stark mode. “Show me what you’ve got and let’s see if we can do this fast.”

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Loki was amazed at the amount of resourcefulness that the being in front of him had. The supposedly human Tau’ri was a quick study once he had a crude grasp of basic Asgardian technology. His race had never gotten this idea past the theoretical stage because of the power requirements and the devastation it could possibly cause.

With the help of Xander, they were able to fine-tune the hastily cobbled heavy weapon onto the man’s armor while Loki tied the other into the ship’s mainframe to carry out a wideband pulse within the ship’s own infrastructure. He hoped that would be enough for them.

Sufficiently armed, the two went to work to try to save his ship.

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Back on Earth, Kendra – now known widely as Kassandra Rhodes – was having the time of her life within the holo-simulation chamber while Anna monitored her vitals via the control room.

Her physical therapy was unlike any other as it not only included the basic exercises that most of the recovering patients got, but it also included basic armor training. The training sims also had a smart AI representation of Xander Harris as he instructed her on her armor’s capabilities and how best to handle them even with her Slayer reflexes. In time, she would be ready to don the armor and take Xander’s place in the interim in safeguarding the Hellmouth along with the Slayer and her Slayerettes. Also, the Slayer was briefed in regards to Kendra’s upcoming involvement once she had sufficiently recovered. Buffy demanded to have an armor made for her as well, but here demand was shot down when she was told that only Xander knew how to make one from scratch and that not even Jarvis will give the go-ahead until he got the final OK from his Creator do so. No way in hell was the AI going to give out Iron Tech without Xander’s express approval.

Life went on, as it always does. The summer had ended and school had was now in session once again at Sunnydale High, and the Slayer and her friends were thrust once more into adventure. Along with them, Kassandra Rhodes had also enrolled there for her last year of schooling. As the Jamaican Slayer finished her morning therapy, she left the room to get ready for her first day at school.

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In another part of town, a raven-haired teen woke up with a gasp, her nightmares of what happened before haunted her. Still shaking, she clambered into the shower of her dingy motel room. She had forced herself to run this far, she won’t stop now. Not when something told her that this was where she was supposed to go.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter how bad the rep concerning the Hellmouth was, somewhere in this town lay her salvation.

Besides, this was the only place where rumors of a silver-armored being that fought against the darkness had originally come from.

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Back at the Asgard ship, somewhere out in the universe…

“I DON’T CARE!” Xander screamed at Loki as he fired another pulse at the oncoming Replicators. “We can’t have them getting to the data files!”

“But all of my research is in there.” The grey alien whined. “I must not lose all of them.”

“Damn it, Loki!” Xander was beyond exasperated, they had been fighting non-stop for the past three hours by his reckoning. “Just get what little you need and PUNCH it!”

The small alien wasted no time as he took a memory cube crystal that barely managed to remain functional with his original work and activated the dessipator pulse tied to the ship’s infrastructure and concentrated his attention back towards the battle on his main bridge.

The muted, low-level pulse was ignored by the remaining Replicators as the continued their onslaught against the organics within the weakening command center. Half a nanosecond later, which they supposedly measured in their version of years, what was left of the Replicators ground to a screeching halt just short of overwhelming the two organics.

The two combatants shook off their fatigued state in mid-combat as a loud groan followed their enemies’ actions throughout the Asgardian ship as they got rid of the last of the Replicators infesting it. They shared a look and then glanced at the main viewer and it was a toss up as to whose eyes were widest in shock at what they saw. They had somehow strayed towards a planet and the ship was falling into its gravity well with the grace of a meteor.

They turned back to each other, then back at the viewscreen as they saw the that the ship’s outer hull was already heating up abnormally fast in its mad plunge into the unknown planet, then back to face each other.

“Oh. Shit.” Loki said in Asgardian.

“What you said.” Xander muttered as he had a hunch that whatever the little psycho was saying was a curse as they both broke off and ran in the opposite direction.

Xander pounded towards the area where Loki had sequestered his weapons platform while the deranged little gray maniac hover-chaired it to his own personal escape shuttle.

Both were thinking that it was going to be one hell of a ride, in either direction. Neither noticed the memory cube Loki took accidentally drop onto the floor in his haste to get into his little escape ship before the larger vessel shook apart in its planetary entry.

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Night had fallen hours later planet-side as Xander walked gingerly around the crash site cursing a mile a minute about the things he’d like to do to the little alien pipsqueak if he ever got his hands on him. He would have died if he hadn’t been able to get to his armored weapons platform and into the defensive shields of the Halcyon inside the doomed Asgard vessel in time. He was glad he was still in one piece with whatever the little weasel did to his armor. The alien’s tampering with the Iron technology also caused it to incorporate some of the damned vessel’s own Asgardian technology in the process, turning it into a bizarre mix of human/Shi’ar/Asgard hybrid thanks to the self-repair nanites that didn’t just stop at simple repairs. Due to Loki’s shenanigans, the nanites also incorporated Asgard technology into the units and created a unique mix that he had yet to study until the repairs and meshing were complete.

Xander and the Starks in his head designed the suit well, but now… it was hard to tell which part of the suit was his and which part belonged to the damned former Asgard ship. He was only marginally thankful that it was still operational even if half of the systems still seemed to be undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts as it affected his own “homebrew” Shi’ar based armor tech. It was a minor miracle that the safety purge override that was purely Shi’ar in its base security algorithms was still functional, as it was; his armor was now simply just that, armor until the modifications finished. The semi-sentient automated systems that helped control the internal stability of the Mark 1 as whole was dead after it had finally overcome the systems malfunction that Loki introduced into it when the midget psychopath attempted to alter it by combining Asgardian tech with his own without regards to failsafes. He was also using some of the Halcyon’s self-repair bots to reboot his armor systems and pump in extra nanites to help him control the armor until he could get back to Earth and overhaul the entire suit.

He scanned the area around him one more time, but finding nothing of much importance amongst the downed vessel, at least those that he could understand enough to use. Disgusted at his misfortune, he made his way back to the Halcyon. According to the little twerp, they were located in one of the most remote areas of their quadrant in space that the Asgard had abandoned exploring before Xander’s armor decided to take matters into its own hands. Deranged as he was, what Loki said made a bit of sense to him. If you really wanted to be alone to do whatever crazy shit you wanted to do, you pick the last place anyone with common sense will go.

Once he made it to Hal, he went straight towards the emergency compartment and activated the security latches through the still functional recognition program in his gauntlets. A few moments of tense silence, the AI came online from its own self-repair stasis.

“Good evening, Hal.” Xander said to his current partner. “Give me a rundown of your self-diagnostics. Let’s do this by the numbers, buddy.”

Without hesitation, the AI complied as it listed report after report in its systems status. So far, Xander was elated that the weapons platform was already at 75% complete in its repairs and power ups.

That was the good news; the bad news was that he was not completely sure if his own armor was still space-worthy. He could probably complete the process Loki was trying to do and turn his armor into a true Human/Shi’ar/Asgardian hybrid unit. The only problem with that was if he could use the unfamiliar Asgardian technology inside the downed spacecraft. Heck, he didn’t even know if any of it was still operational after a crashdown like that. The matter/anti-matter energy dissipater had managed to short out 99 percent of the systems to make sure the Replicators on board the ship died.

He sighed and checked the rations he stowed inside the Halcyon’s many compartments. The first box that had the lozenge-sized meal tablets were intact and that meant that he had as much as two months “food” supply if he stretched it, but after that, he would have to look for actual food. The next box held the hydration tablets, also close to a two-month supply of “crystal-cell water”. Both tablets were one of the many things the alternate Starks had come up with regards to survival gear. The process in manufacturing the tablets were simple due to a specialized sort of bioengineering; they used a completely automated, self-contained environment until the tablet was complete.

As he popped one of the meal lozenges into his mouth, he glanced back at the crashed ship, his brows furrowed in thought.

This was going to take awhile, he thought. After he took stock of the ship, he would take Hal out for a planet-wide recon to see what sources they can scrounge up once the AI finished its self-repairs. In the meantime, he punched in a code onto the control armrest of the Halcyon to launch a planetary orbital probe for this world like the ones he had launched for the planets in his home solar system.

Once done, he used his suits enhanced strength to lift the weapons platform and carried it towards the open underbelly of the crashed Asgard ship. Using some of the larger debris, he fashioned a makeshift lean-to and got ready for his first night sleeping on an alien world.

High above the planet, the probe started gathering data on the world below it as per its programming, sending data back to the Halcyon at regular intervals while its creator slumbered.

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Deep within the planet’s oceans, which had originally once been dry land, a faint shudder along the ocean floor started up and began doing something similar to the probe. However, unlike its usual route to shut down for another roughly forty millennia interval, the signal it found circling the huge planet it chose to hide in awoke a long forgotten feeling within its systems.

Admittedly, it was curious for the first time in a VERY long while.

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TO BE CONTINUED....


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A/N: Sorry for the delay, work has been hectic for the past few weeks. The stress overloaded me and left me with little time to write. I also got carried away and started playing WoW (that's World of Warcraft, to those still that haven't played it yet) to relieve said stress. All in all, I hope you like my latest effort in this chapter. As usual, corrections and rewrites abound from time to time -- if I have time, that is.

-- Also anything that I forgot to mention will be posted as I fix whatever needs to be fixed. Ja ne!