Ch.26

They looked to me and I shrugged, not caring. "Not my business or issues. I'm gone either way in the end."

Anya said Buffy could charge for slaying once I'm gone and they argued over Spider-Man. When Dawn asked Xander, Xander asked me and I shrugged. "Spider-Man made money by taking pictures of himself in the suit and selling them to newspapers. When Stark retired, Peter married Morgan, Tony's daughter and the heiress to the Stark Industries empire that spanned fifteen worlds at the time. He didn't exactly need money and besides, from what I heard he went to underground cage fights for cash back when it was him and his aunt who needed cash before he was old enough to vote."

Their mouths opened and Dawn said she thought action was his reward. I shrugged. "Action doesn't pay the bills unless you get paid for it. Life is rarely like comic books, shortstop. It's more often harsher and far more unforgiving. People are more complex than a book can belay. Trust me, I wasn't always a suicidal asshole who drinks too much and looks for ways to off himself. Life just happened to screw me harder than the rest of my friends and loved ones and they didn't have it easy either. Wars, terrorists, killing and life itself in the end."

I shook my head and they dropped the gloomy subject. Buffy headed to the bank and deposited all the cash I gave her which had questions attached to them. She apparently told them her rich boyfriend worked in the sea gold mining business and sold off several months of gold to pay bills before showing them a nugget I'd given her as proof of the gold story.

I had false paperwork and an ID these days so there was enough for me to prove it if I had to, though the boyfriend thing caught me off guard simply because we were at best fuck buddies and worst, casual sex partners. I didn't care much though because there was nothing romantic between us, just decent sex. I wasn't looking for more, I was looking to die.

The big news was there was a demon robbing the bank on her way out. She made it sound like the real disaster was her ruined long skirt. When the demon showed up later that evening after Spike came in, I grabbed the demon by the shirt, lifted him off his feet and made my claws grow on the sides. He gulped as the third one down the center started to come out.

I asked him coldly. "Who hired you to rob the bank and gave you the address to this house? Speak or I start with the parts that don't grow back first."

He struggled and soon screamed before breathing heavily and telling us about the trio of idiots and their tiny king. I raised the blade with blood to my nose and breathed in before dropping him. "Show us. Try to flee and there's no place on this planet I can't attack you and skin you alive for a laugh. Cooperate and I'll send you to a demon realm of your choice. Try to trick me and your death will last long enough to beg me for it."

He cooperated as his tiny brain was overcome with fear and dread. After showing us the Trio's house, I asked him which dimension he'd like to go to. He said he had a cave here and didn't want to leave so I took his head and incinerated the remains. I turned to Buffy and told her. "They smell human. How do you want to handle this?"

She called the police and dropped an anonymous tip from my cellphone. My advanced crystal based phone blocked any traces with a seven billion alien key encryption algorithm so there was no tracing it. We watched the trio get dragged out in handcuffs and arrested for the bank robbery. They were facing down the barrel of a twenty year sentence and a quarter million dollar fine apiece.

Having spent a lot of the stolen cash on toys and cigars they burned money literally to lite, they had to pay it all back there as well. Add that to their dumb master plan written out to rob the museum and make Buffy their unwilling sex slave, the judge wasn't looking to be lenient on their sentencing. Warren Mears tried to escape and the bailiff was forced to shoot him, ending the dumbass.

As for Andrew and Johnathan, they made it to prison and from what I heard, they escaped with magic only to skip town and head for the boarder. I didn't really pay attention to it but Xander kept me up to date on it. Willow and Tara moved into the house and Buffy shared her bed with me in the end because Willow was sort of insistent on saving school money or whatever her real reason was.

She really was a bad liar and so was Tara, but I didn't pry because I didn't care. Buffy told me about another Oz they knew and how Willow was with him. I made sure she and Dawn were getting plenty of time together since she didn't have a job or things to do beyond slaying and living her life. Dawn hadn't picked up a kleptomaniac side so there wasn't a lot of issues.

She did however sneak out on Halloween and nearly get eaten by vampires. Though I think she learned her lesson there so things changed. Xander and Anya announced their wedding and Anya invited me, insisting it was for money and expensive gifts which I didn't doubt for a second. I was rather annoyed about a demon lord of dance a few weeks later.

He tried to get me to sing and I made his puppets explode into showers of blood and wood. He said he smelled power and I grunted. "Leave now or you'll learn what real power is and it won't end in a song, but a messy sludge."

He said he can't because it's in the contract and power of the chant that he has to take the one who chanted back to hell to be his bride. My claws came out and magic poured from me so dense the air vibrated and portals appeared all around him and myself. He sweat dropped as I told him I knew he was lying. I reached threw and speared him through the heart on my claws.

It wasn't enough to kill him, but I raked downwards, disemboweling him as a pillar of solid electricity struck him from above. Balls of fire, icy wind and lightning struck him from all the other portals before he vanished and reappeared missing an arm and a bit wounded. Xander said he was the one who chanted the spell and my portals closed before he asked if he had to be his queen.

The demon lord said it was a hard pass before looking at me terrified. I moved and he fled, leaving town and this dimension. Then came Giles's announcement that he was leaving town and that he bought a plane ticket. Willow had been using a memory spell and it went bad.

We lost our memories and I ended up much more relaxed. Buffy and I still ended up together even memory-less because my animal side could smell me on her. I told Tara and Willow they were together and how I knew, because I could smell the sex on each of us. Joan as she called herself, said I must have a really good nose.

I shrugged saying I must be a cyborg because I felt…not like them. She kissed me and said I felt like her and my claws popped out. They freaked and I had to calm down to make them go back in. Joan touched my hands where the blood was and said I healed.

I turned to the door and told them something was wrong. Randy said the whole thing was wrong and I shook my head. "There's some people out there. I can hear their footsteps but no heartbeats except one and it doesn't sound like ours…human."

There was a loud noise and a call for Spike and the slayer. I went outside and Joan tried to stop my but I told her I wasn't afraid of them even with the dead body smells on them so I was probably fine with my heightened instincts. She told me to be safe before hiding with Dawn. I sort of destroyed the street with the vampires and a shark like demon.

The vampires were dusted once I figured out how to go for the head and the shark demon wanted to negotiate only he lost his head to my claws. With a bit of searching in the magic shop we were able to find the source of the magic on Willow and destroy the stone keeping our memories away. Our memories came back, Giles left town with a sad goodbye from the scoobies and Tara left Willow to get some space and time alone to think.

I soon met Amy whom Willow turned back into a human. Seeing her transform from a rat into a naked human was new. That night Buffy asked me to stay when the watchers council said they had no way of killing an immortal like me before saying they had found something about an immortal that was just like me though and I grimaced as Whistler appeared seconds after Buffy asked and dropped me through a portal saying I didn't see that one coming.

I didn't know if it was because he was dull witted or simply because the powers that be had no other solution, but I ended up falling through time back before the dawn of man. I fell on an old one while unconscious and the impact killed the demon making a massive crater I woke up in the belly of another old one and cut my way out. After finding a place away from the giant demons, I washed up with magic which was far denser here before dining my special suit.

I was billions of years in the past and pissed the fuck off so I hunted and killed demons constantly. Even though they recovered in time, I constantly killed demons before coming to blows with a tentacle demon the size of a small sky scraper calling itself Illyria. It and I fought for thousands of years before we teamed up and slaughtered millions of other demons in this dimension and others.

Illyria built up a loyal army of followers and devout religious servants. It appeased my bloodlust as I gave into the carnage long ago and treated me as an equal despite calling me it's General. We fought again and again until we parted ways when I refused to me it's tool. I tore a bloody swatch across the globe, killing millions of old ones and basic demon in my time of losing my mind.

I'd lost my mind for the longest time to age and constant bloodshed, but I was stopped by a young girl with a pair of scythes. She could barely speak like me, having forgotten the human language after whatever happened to her. She equalled me in savage intensity and strength which gave me pause until I remembered a glimmer of what I used to be.

It all came back like a speeding cement wall to the brain. I dropped to my knees, held my head and roared like a wounded animal. My suit had long since abandoned me because it ran out of power after so long and went back into my ring automatically. I stood up when the girl tried and failed to kill me with her blades and spelled wooden stick.

Sparks off my skin triggered the animal instincts in me again and I took her. She hadn't expected it and I had no sane thought beyond instinct. She muffled a grunt and I smelled the distinct twang of blood as my animal side moved savagely in her. Over and over there in the forests of Africa, two beings of immense power grunted and panted.

Over and over again until my animal side faded and I came back to the forefront fully the bare assed and fully fucked slayer beneath me rolled from her stomach as her face paint had washed away with sweat from the heat around us. She lay there wearily and spoke in a language I barely knew the basics of. She asked if I was a demon.

I shook my head and showed her my claws, tapping them to her scythes before putting them away. I picked one of her scythes up and tapped it to my skin, telling her the words combined weapon and man. She nodded slowly before I closed my eyes and told her changed and beast inside. She looked at me weirdly and said the same but I went to shake my head only to stop and shrug.

She touched her wet hair below and looked at the seed before looking to me and touching her stomach. I sniffed the air and shrugged, not knowing if what she meant was a fact or just a possibility. I carried her to a cave my animal side had claimed before laying her on a bed of leaves, straw and a cloth I took out. Over the next few days she challenged me again and again and I lost control, taking her when the animal in me emerged.

She seemed persistent and when we brought down a horde of old ones together, she approached me for sex without provoking me. I told her no and she attacked me only to get what she wanted when I lost control of my savage animal nature. She became pregnant a year into our meeting and by the time we brought down most of the old ones, she gave birth to a daughter of mine.

She was pregnant again when we brought down the last old one in this dimension, Maloker and she died from her wounds. The battle shattered her second Scythe and the sisters of the guardians came, telling me it wasn't all my fault. Their high priestess used magic to fuse the broken blade with my claws before they took my daughter and left saying she would be protected by the order as a service for her sacrifice.

I tried to say no, but the high priestess told me the demon that sent me here would kill her if they ever found her. I put enochian runes on the child and kissed it's head, telling them. "Sin, her name is Sin, after her mother."

The female priestess nodded and I left only after giving them my rings to give to her. The legend of the immortal human beast that mated the first slayer had spread through a few tight lipped assholes and no one else. I spent years recharging my suit using sunlight until I was able to use it's nanites to make a new arc reactor core. Once it was at full power again, I'd barely with a sub par reactor core, I worked on imbuing it with magic absorbing enchantments to draw power infinity and power it.

I shaved Riddick style with a sharp rock to get rid of my beard and unkept body hair before spending millennia building my own organization in the Ten Rings. I started from the basics, just using warriors until I had a following of thousands. We were assassins, warriors and scientists, believing in no religion but studying magic for power in our war against evil as we did our sciences.

Soon into the early Egyptian era, I'd built an advanced city, taught a full generation of ten thousand how to do everything from the ground up. Suits like my own were synthesized and soldiers were given the Extremis serum after the super soldier serum. Basic Uru weapons enchanted and ready to go were our forte. It wasn't anything fancy, just axes, swords and other weapons.

I used my claws while acting as their leader in the war against demons and evil. Demons died in the shadows and while humanity suffered, the Ten Rings grew to alleviate that suffering a great deal. All our members had enochian tattoos, slaughtered hundreds of demons and at least lived to train nine generations. Generations of slayers sought out rumors of the immortal beast under the watcher's council that formed after the shadow men.

Many were saved by us in times of need in secret while they lasted a bit longer before they were killed off fighting some demon or other. When the sixteen hundreds came around, TR Industries shipping company was built as well as the offshoot TR Beverage company. Demons, pirates and countries like the crown of Britain paid big money for alcohol and safe guaranteed shipping.

Pirates refused to attack our ships by the seventeen hundreds because it always ended badly for the pirates. No ship of TR shipping had ever been seized and Sir George Wight led the company's face. He had been knighted and we did pay taxes to the crown even from the colonies so no one screwed with TR Industries. I spent time as a pirate and ended up bedding several slayers to pass the time with my vengeance in the forefront of my mind.

I'd learned of my presence in the past because of mentions of Illyria, but the watchers council had known me by the immortal beast lover of the first slayer. I stayed on Nassau in the Bahamas for the next decade and bedded several women I knew to be apart of the Black Sails universe. Eleanor Guthrie and Max the whore were amongst them. As was Miranda Barlow which was surprisingly easy to bed.

Yeah, I found managing my animal side with fighting and fucking was better than suppressing it and losing control in rage induced blackouts. Max was my personal whore whom only ever served me and Oz the bloody was quite famed, renowned and feared in Nassau. My crew was all ex slaves who were given what they called witch strength. They all had the super soldier serum and vaccines for all the diseases present in this time so they never got sick.

Max played her games in the whore house, knowing she was untouchable in all of Nassau because she was mine. Miranda was simply free extra sex while Eleanor came to me or Max when Max wanted her. I'd killed many men who thought to rape Max or even talked such words so not even Vane or Flint's men dared joke about such things.

Flint thought me mad and maybe I was with those the last mess I made in Nassau drew eyes of fear and terror. Eleanor used her cunt to her advantage and made it clear I'd kill anyone she asked of me so long as it didn't cross my benefits or Max's. My ship, the Ravager, was filled with the most bloodthirsty and dangerous pirates in all the oceans. Still, I drew the line at making prizes of TR Shipping company's ships.

They were above board and while competition for the Guthrie shipping magnet, Eleanor knew I had ties to them. Even Max couldn't sit for a week when she suggested using those ties. She enjoyed it but she was very sore and tired for a long time. She accepted my no because I wasn't the type of man anyone wanted to cross, especially my whore as she called herself.

More than once she'd had to have the madam of the inn spray her clean because I'd gotten carried away and didn't pull out. She called it my sly punishment, saying she'd stop someday if it persisted and just let me raise the bastard. When I came back from the recent hunt, Max told me of a hunt whose prize was worth mentioning and the location was for sale by a man who'd know. After a long and hard fuck, I told her to set up a meeting or tell him to stop hiding in the next room if he wanted the money.

She didn't even blink as I went to my clothes and tossed out a bag of pearls on the table. She didn't bother to cover up as she went next door while dripping seed with each step. I donned my trousers and sat on a chair, waiting. She came back saying he wanted to have the pearls examined before he'd show himself.

I shrugged. "Send for an appraiser. If the prize is worth the cost I'll foot the appraiser's bill, but I need something from him beyond his promise of a prize if I'm to pay for the location. Tell him that I give my oath as a captain of Nassau that I'll not force his hand either way. If he won't show his face after the appraiser gets here, I'll not be doing business with a ghost, your word or not Mon Cheri. I have my honor and I trust you, but I don't trust a man who won't show his face regardless of the price. Especially when he watched me take you."

She hesitated and nodded, telling me she'd let him know he has until the appraiser gets here to come to me as a man of even basic honor. I stopped her and cupped her before she smiled asking if we were going to give him another show. I shook my head. "Wash and put on clothes. I'll call for the appraiser. I don't like others appreciating the goddess I worship."

She kissed me and I told her she tasted of Eleanor's cunt. She said Eleanor was here this morning and her cunt is delicious. I didn't argue and just stood up, warning her we'd continue when business is done either way. She said her cunt couldn't wait before asking if I knew her cut of this.

I waved her off saying I didn't care because I'd give her the money regardless if she'd just asked, no matter the amount. She smiled and kissed me before calling up the madam. I turned to the peep hole and growled, telling him through the wall to avert his eyes or I'd go through the wall and take them from him. I sent for a runner who brought the appraiser while I watched lazily as Mrs.Mapleton cleaned out Max.

I peaked and ate an apple by the time Max was dressed, feeding her a slice before the runner boy returned with the appraiser. Max came back saying that if the pearls were right he said he'd show himself. I scoffed before waving the Appraiser on. "As if I'd keep worthless things on me. Very well, get on with it. The seller needs five thousand gold in pearls. Find them in the bag and appraise them already. One will be your payment, I could give a fuck which one. Lie or try to take more and you will be a memory because I will know, understand?"

The appraiser nodded quickly, scared out of his mind and nervous as fuck. Max touched his shoulder, calming him and saying as she sat across my lap that I'll not get violent so long as he's honest with his opinions and doesn't take more than what's owed. He calmed down while I stroked her tuft of hair under her dress. She lounged about and kissed my neck, while the appraiser said they were all of extremely high quality to his shock.

I grunted. "No shit, I've taken tons of prizes and I've nothing to spend my share on besides my lover here. The fucks I give about other women and booze. No ship can compare to mine and my crew spends enough of their money on booze and women or their families. I've no interest in anything besides the next prize and the seductress in my lap."

Max grew moist and as my fingers delved deep and my thumb worked her bud. She moaned into her throat and bit her lip while the appraiser tried not to look and instead focused on the pearls. Soon a small pile lay out as he said they were worth five thousand there. I pulled my hand free and bought out a leather pouch, putting them inside before telling the appraiser to take his payment and fuck off.

He took the largest Pearl in the bag without hesitation and left knowing it was like the rest, peal quality. I put my bag away and told Max. "Go get your conspirator and tell him to come here if he wants his pearls because I want to hear about the prize from his lips."

She went to stand up and I pulled her to me, making her clean my finger except my thumb which I cleaned while she sashayed out next door. The small bag of pearls remained on the table. Max came back in with John Silver and I looked him over. He was apprehensive and visibly terrified because he knew of me, the most terrifying man to sail the seas or so rumors say.

I grunted and turned to Max. "This is him? He looks more about to piss himself in a corner rather than to sell information on a prize."

I turned to John. "Nut up kid. If I wanted you dead I'd have killed you the moment I entered this room and heard your heavy breathing on the other side of the wall. I allowed you to live so until our business is done either way, you've nothing to fear of me. I've given my word after all."

He swallowed and nodded before gaining a voice. I took Max's hand. "Mon Cheri, tell the madam to prepare the tunnel for our friend to escape in. He looks about ready to rabbit and if he's not sure he's safe he may never speak."

Max nodded and told me not to pay him until she returns for her cut. I grunted and smacked her rear, telling her she was in for a long night after this for all the silly subterfuge. She rolled her eyes and left while I turned to John. "Speak boy, lest you irritate me more for ruining my afternoon. No prize is worth my time with Max so this better be good."

He coughed before using his silver tongue and telling me of the Urca De Lima. He set the page of it's location on the table and I looked it over before nodding, identifying the location it would've went down. I picked it up and burned it before telling Max to take her cut and send him out the tunnels.

She took her cut and I grabbed John by the shirt front, lifting him with ease to my eye level. "Well this information to anyone behind my back and I'll cut your silver tongue from your mouth, just so we're clear. I'm aware you've had time to memorize it and I assure you, I can track you across any ocean to any distant land and take you apart in a way that would make the gods themselves pity you."

I dropped him to his feet and he nodded seriously pale now. He got his payment and I sent word to my crew to beach and clean the Ravager, taking off all except the necessary cargo and guns. I sent word to have Charles Vane, Anne Bonney and Jack Rackham brought to the inn and instructed to wait in the dining area on me. The runners took the coin and left with the messages.

I closed the door and made a mess of Max in a good way. She was loud, throaty and quite vocal, mostly because I was a bit rough and used her ass as well as her cunt. She was very tired and in need of sleep when I walked down to the tables in my trousers and sat at the table Jack and Anne were eating at with Vane drinking wine. I turned to the madam. "Send Max a hot meal, a change of sheets and fresh bath water. She'll need your assistance as well in cleaning up. I was quite put out with her."

The madam asked if she was alive after all that and I gave her a droll stare. "More alive than you'll be if you question me again. Do as I say and get paid or get dead."

She nodded shakily as I turned to the waitress whore serving us, Idelle. I pulled her into my lap and slipped my hand up her dress, turning to Vane who grunted. "You're in a mood. So which is it because if I'm to fight for my life it's only fair you tell me now."

I grunted. "If I wanted you dead you wouldn't be breathing right now. I called you here to propose a courtship. The prize is quite large and it'll take both ships to carry the cargo back. It is…significant."

He raised an eyebrow. "How significant?"

I shrugged. "Significant enough to warrant a man o war escort, possibly two."

His eyes brightened and Jack called me insane if I have such a prize in mind. I turned to him. "You've no need to worry boy, my men and I can take the escorts no issue. I simply lack the manpower to man two ships and I'll be damned if I'm leaving half the prize behind."