TITLE: Dark Journey

SERIES: [prologue] Poltergeist

AUTHOR: Scorpio

ARCHIVE: The Nesting Place, CKoS, CoST and any list archives that want it.

FANDOM: Xena:WP/Buffy:tVS

SPOILERS: Buffy - seasons 1 though 5, Xena - all

PAIRING: None (currently), eventually Ares/Xander and Spike/Xander

RATING: PG-13 (series: NC-17 overall)

CATEGORY: Crossover, AU, adventure

WARNING: Dead Strife

DISCLAIMER: Xena boys owned by Flat Earth Prod and Buffy boys owned by Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. Old temperamental computer owned by Scorpio.

SUMMARY: Strife is bored with Tartarus and being dead. He's not going to take it anymore.

DARK JOURNEY
by Scorpio

WINTER, 1927
5TH LEVEL OF TARTARUS, ASPHODEL

Bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored. //sigh// Beyond bored.

Strife looked around the cavernous main gathering area of the 5th Level of Tartarus for the ten billionth time. //I wonder if Great Unc Hades would let me redecorate?// He'd seen everything there was to see in Asphodel at least fifty times and he'd done everything there was to do here just as often. //After all, there's only so much trouble a guy can get into down here, especially after more than 2000 years of the same old same old.//

And it was getting worse every year. All of the mortal souls were being reborn, sent back to the world. Even the bad ones who had been punished eventually served their time and got to go back. And with all of the Gods either dead or trapped by the twilight, fewer and fewer mortal souls came back after they died each year.

So, here he was, trapped in an afterlife of eternal boredom with his endlessly annoying family and almost no mortals to pick on and bother. //Death sucks.//

More out of something to do than any real curiosity, Strife decided to explore a long unused passageway that lead up to the surface and the mortal realm. Almost two millennia ago, that particular passageway had been used frequently. Especially by Hermes. It had been his favorite route to use while delivering messages to Unc Hades from the Old Goat. The Messenger God also used it to lead mortal souls to Cheron, but not always. There were several passageways for that.

However, Strife chose that particular passage on that particular day. He wasn't really expecting anything unusual, he just wanted the scenery to change, even minutely, and he wanted a few hours away from his family. //Not that I wish Unc Ares a slow painful death or nothin', but at least if *he* were here I wouldn't always be so fuckin' bored all the time.//

So, he walked down the stone corridor. The walls weren't smooth stone set in mortar and placed one upon another like at Hades' palace, however they were polished from thousands upon thousands of hands that had caressed it as the mortals traveling down into Asphodel felt their way along the path. The same went for the floor. The natural stone had been worn smooth from hundreds of thousands of feet shuffling over it.

After a bit, the dim ruddy light from the lava pits on the 5th Level of Tartarus began to fade away and the corridor grew dim and dark. That didn't stop Strife. Not only was he a God, but he was dead and this was the land of the dead. Even once all the light had been left behind, he could still see well enough.

The passageway twisted and turned, always leading upwards. Sometimes it went on straight for a long time and sometimes it twisted into a tight spiral. It was a path he was very familiar with, even though it had been at least three centuries since he had last walked this way.

After another 20 minutes of strolling along at a lazy clip, Strife discovered something completely and totally new.

A hole. In the corridor wall.

Strife suspected that the floor to ceiling jagged hole had originally started off as a slight fault in the stone. Over time, the fault grew into a crack and the crack grated against itself, widening and creating even more faults in the stone. Then, sometime in the last few centuries, something must have happened to break away all of the weakened and loose stone. Rubble from the passageway wall lay in huge fragments and chunks on the floor and the rough edges of the hole were crumbling more even now.

For a long long moment, Strife stood there staring, contemplating and considering. He had known long before his death of something called the "Underdark". In fact, Bacchus had been the first of the Greek Gods to encourage his followers to seek sanctuary from mortal humans in the Underdark. Other non-humans soon followed them.

Basically, the Underdark was an interconnected series of underground caverns and corridors that ran all beneath the surface of the planet. There were access points to the Underdark from land, from the sea and now apparently, from Asphodel as well.

Idly, Strife wondered if *other* Death Realms also had access to the Underdark and if those passages would still eventually lead to the Mortal Realm on the surface. He couldn't reach the surface Mortal Realm from Asphodel due to all the entrances being magically blocked off to any but Uncle Hades any more. But perhaps he could reach the Mortal Realm *this* way?

//I'd still be dead...but I'd be able to do *some* stuff up there. Maybe find Unc Ares? Maybe have a little fun?//

And if the Underdark was still populated by non-humans? No problem. He was dead and he was a God. Smirking to himself in satisfaction and feeling a long thought lost sense of excitement and glee, Strife stepped through the hole, leaving the Underworld for the Underdark.

Instantly, his body lost it's sense of physical being and he became a glowing misty ghostlike creature. It was an odd sensation that startled him badly for a brief moment, but he soon realized that this just confirmed that the Underdark was *still* part of the Mortal Realm...just underground. All he had to do was find a way to reach the surface.

He wondered if he still had his God Powers, but he figured that he could experiment along the way. After all, there were certain powers that a God was *not* supposed to lose, even in death. A mortal soul trapped above could only be seen by those with the "gift", but a dead God could be seen by whoever the God wanted to see them. They could also hide their presence at will. He should also be able to read minds and if he needed to do something that required a physical body, he could possess someone. That was tiring though and could only be done for short periods of time unless the "victim" gave their conscious permission to be possessed. //But who in their right minds would want that?//

Deciding that he could work out the details if and when he reached the surface, Strife continued his journey, this time exploring the unknown boundaries of the Underdark.

SUMMER 2001
SUNNYDALE CALIFORNIA, THE HELLMOUTH

Strife had been wandering around the Underdark for a little more than 7 decades. In that time he had run across literally hundreds of different races of beings that made their home underground. Some were violent. Some were peaceful. Some were frighteningly intelligent and others were barely sentient. Some were solitary hunters or scavengers while other's lived in large underground cities of amazing wealth and beauty with their own laws and societies.

Strife had *rarely* been bored during his stay in the Underdark. His only complaint was that his status as a "dead God" limited his ability to interact with these non-human mortals on the level he craved. Well, that and he missed his Unc Ares more than ever. He just *knew* that the War God would *love* to get his hands on these creatures, especially the more violent and intelligent species.

But Ares was trapped in a cursed tomb on the surface, unable to free himself or access his powers. It was that thought that drew Strife onward in his search for a way to the surface. He knew that if he could get up top then he could find someone who could unleash Ares upon the world. He just had to get there.

And so he moved ever onwards, ever upwards.

Until one day he came across a midsize cavern that held many iron wrought candelabra, chairs and tables, skeletons and books. And a ground level fountain. These things were crafted in a style unfamiliar to him, not being anything he recognized from any city or people of the Underdark. Curiously looking around, he found one book that just happened to be lying open. The damp had gotten to the delicate pages of the book, marking them with mold and mildew, but he could recognize the writing. It was old, with faded ink and musty parchment, but the language was Latin.

Latin.

//Oh shit! Oh fuck! This thing's from the *surface*!//

If Strife had been corporeal, he'd have been sporting a boner he was so excited. He was close...very close.

Looking around, he saw more evidence that he was near the surface, that these things had come from above. Then he found it. A corridor that was obviously man-made and which lead out into a type of aqueduct system. Giddy with his discovery, Strife followed the passages, always going against the flow of the water, knowing that it was coming in from above. From the surface.

It only took about another hour and then Strife made it at long last. The surface.

He was free of the Underdark and now it was time to explore the world. Learn about all of the changes that had taken place in the last 2000 years or so. Find a "host" to latch onto and then track down Ares. And set him free.

END: Dark Journey

Challenge Portion of the Program

I would love for someone to write up some short stories detailing Strife's adventures in the Underdark as he passes through various locations, cities and clans. Any takers?