Ashes on the Wind

[madimpossibledreamer]

I cannot imagine how I somehow managed to miss that Shawn and Gus are pretty much Tony and Rhodey.  Seriously.
~Dreamer~

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: It was only a matter of time before Xander's home base got attacked.  And it's a hard-fought battle.
Word Count: 360
Rating: Gen, Angst

          One of the quirks of the suit he’d found out is that each separate component in his armor runs off a pseudo separate power supply.  His Repulsors run out, the shock tech doesn’t even phase it, he can distract it with the illusions but that’s, y’know, not actually a battle plan, and neither the flamethrower nor the…light thrower, or whatever, he really needs to get on making a snappy name for that one, do much.  But he’s so incredulous at how badly he’s doing that he ends up using those up too.  (The flamethrower’s easy enough to explain—that does run on Normal Person Fuel.  Any automated ‘put self out’ systems are magic-based.)  Just one of the many fun eccentricities of trying to funnel power from a Cedrian crystal to tech.  Even his Exoskel is starting to flicker, which means he has to conjure shields and that’s really tiring.
          The jet boots have the most juice and even they end up flickering out and dropping him midflight, just into a horn-poky charge, and he feels the metal bend (which, this alloy isn’t supposed to do that, it’s designed not to do that, and he half-panics and accidentally triggers the telekinesis and blasts it into the opposite wall hard enough the building shakes, and he’s really starting to have a headache and everything hurts, especially breathing).
          He eventually beats it by repeatedly ramming it into the ceiling using the telekinesis, enough that he has to channel some of his own power through the crystal and into the telekinesis.  Eventually it slumps over.  He feels like that too, and it honestly seems like the ceiling might crash any second, but he doesn’t have time for that.
          He taps the comm because he’s almost too exhausted to even speak, and he needs to save his strength.
          “Xander?”  It’s Buffy.  Of course it is, given that that’s who he dialed.  She still sounds pissed.
          “I know it’s getting kinda late for your trash collector duties but d’ya think you could make an exception in my case?”  He can’t quite stop the yawn, and instantly she’s concerned.
          At least she’s starting to pay attention.  Sometimes.