Chapter Six

(For the whiners)

Disclaimer: Universal owns the Mummy, Joss owns Buffy
Title: The Adopted Brother (the title sucks, any ideas from any of my readers?)
Author: Kate R.
Fandom: BtVS/The Mummy/Mummy Returns
Pairings: N/A
Warnings: None really, not yet, just updated the mummy to modern times is all I did.
Summary: The Harrises adopted a white boy from Egypt who left after awhile. He cared about Xander but he had to leave to save his sanity and to find what was left behind (Ardeth in this case). When they hurt Xander and get reported for it, he's called. And Xander's Adopted brother comes and gets him.

Notes: This is post season one of Buffy. She and Willow aren't home in the beginning which is why Angel and Giles saved him and not them. Do not expect them to be portrayed nicely in this fic when they show up in it. Xander will have changed because he left the Hellmouth, they will have not. And he changed without Willow.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was actually barely a month later when he made a choice to change.

He'd gone with Ardeth to see what he did when he wasn't at the house with them and so far he thought it was 'kinda cool'. Ardeth set patrols up for the Forbidden City of the Dead, just like all the lead soldiers in his favorite movies did, and people obeyed him immediately. They called him 'Commander Bey' and did exactly as he said, exactly how he said he wanted it done.

Rick had told Xander once that Ardeth was the King of the Medjai so he guessed that meant all Medjai everywhere would obey him just like this group was. Interesting.

It was his third day out, Ardeth said they'd be here at least three more but he could call Rick if Xander wanted to go back early, when he got into the thick of what Ardeth did. All the time he'd been here, Rick had been telling him, lecturing him, talking to him, about what Ardeth did. But not until he saw it did he truly understand.

Tureg raiders came, red swathed, calling on the cursed ones to grant them victory and kill the Medjai who stopped their Master from rising again. Ardeth only had a small group of people with him, not counting him because he had no clue how to use a sword, and they were going to fight all these bandits alone.

Xander saw Ardeth take the lead position with his men, raise his sword, and give the command to fight. And then Xander saw what Rick had meant about Sand and Blood. He watched until he saw Ardeth take a hit, saw his people try to turn to get back to him before the Tureg could finish the job, and saw that they wouldn't be fast enough.

So he acted.

He ran across the sand, no idea how as he'd never run across sand like this before, staggered and tripped until he could get between Ardeth and the Tureg guy coming for him. Xander picked up Ardeth's sword, even though he had no clue how to use it, and held it like he'd seen Ardeth doing. The Tureg leaned up over him and Xander, looking into the bigger man's eyes, saw nothing but hatred and madness. He didn't even see the coldness that was in most vampires that he knew, excepting Angel, and he knew this person could not be reasoned with. In that instant, he fully understood what the Medjai did and why.

The Tureg screamed something in his face, he thought it might have been 'DIE!' in their language, and he thrusted with the sword blindly. There was a sound of flesh tearing, (and wow, he didn't know that had a sound.) and then a warm, sticky liquid was on his hands. Opening his eyes, he saw that the Tureg had been stabbed or impaled himself, on the point of Ardeth's sword. Stabbed, he thought, because he'd thrusted the sword.

He pulled the sword out and shoved the bigger guy so he didn't land on Ardeth, and then turned over so he could see his friend. Ardeth was looking at him, not in shock or awe, but as if he'd just done something unexpected.

"Are you all right?" Ardeth asked him. Xander wiped his hands on a cloth one of the other Medjai gave him and nodded.

"Are you?" he asked.

"I am fine," Ardeth told him, sitting up, "Thank you."

"Alex and Rick need you," Xander told him, "I couldn't let some red swathed guy kill you."

"I think," Ardeth told him a she got to his feet, "That you need me, too. Talji, go and get the ink."

"You Majesty?" the second in command asked.

"He has fought with us, protected us, spilled blood for us, he is Medjai."

"He is Medjai," two of the others spoke.

"What does that mean?" Xander asked.

"It means I can teach you a little bit more than I was going to," Ardeth told him as t a pot of blue ink was brought to him, "Left Hand."

Xander gave him his left hand and Ardeth tattooed it after cleaning it so no germs got in.

"What does it mean?" Xander asked after Ardeth was finished and had spoken a spell to make it heal.

"Warrior," Ardeth told him, "Blood Brother"

"Is that why the two faces?"

"Yes," Ardeth told him as he put the case away, "Not even Alex has that one."

Xander blushed a little that Ardeth had seen he was jealous of some of what Alex had that he didn't.

'The training will be much harder, now, Xander," Ardeth told him, "When I gave you that mark, I initiated you into Medjai training."

"Will you be the teacher?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Xander said, "Cool. How will we do this if we're going back to Sunnydale?"

"I can train you there as easily as here," Ardeth told him, "Come though, I think you've seen enough for one day. Talji, you're in charge, I need to take the young warrior home."

"Take care, Commander Bey," Talji said as Ardeth led Xander to their horses.

"I always do, Talji," Ardeth said as they turned the horses towards Cairo, "Imshi!"

And they rode back to Cairo and the house there that was more a home to both of them than any place they had lived before.