Chapter Ten
by Lionheart
I O I O I
Feedback is the coin of the realm.
I O I O I
Chaos, Balance, and Order were not interested in human welfare, they were only interested in Chaos, Balance and Order respectively. Balance was not about good triumphing over evil. Balance was about the status quo.
Balance was not, could NEVER be, one side of the scale or the other. It was the scale itself. And whenever the scale itself becomes interested in keeping the two sides equal... well, once the scale becomes involved it ceases being an impartial judge and stops being what it was good for - measuring.
Balance was not Justice. It wasn't it's job to make sure that both sides were playing fair. Nor was it Destiny, dealing out what was appropriate to each side. No, Balance was only a yardstick, a measuring tool to say what existed. It had no part in deciding what to do with that information.
If Balance became involved directly it became a crooked judge, like a referee at a sporting event who was determined to make sure that both sides came out with the same score, no matter the differences in skill or how well they played. The game didn't work if the teeter-totter itself started to decide to keep both sides level with each other. That was never its job, and it defeated its own purpose whenever it tried to do so.
In short, once Balance became a player determined to affect the outcome, it could no longer do what Balance was good for. It had fallen from it's purer state and could no longer claim any right to be involved at all.
However, good luck telling a crooked judge to leave the game. That would be like asking Mayor Wilkins nicely to step down from government and all of his plans. He just wasn't going to do it; not on his own, not voluntarily.
At that point it defaults to a higher power to kick them out, and luckily Good and Evil were both far more powerful than either Chaos, Balance or Order.
Those two forces played an epic game using legendary pieces. But Evil was starting out with an initial advantage in this case. Corruption was their gig, their stock in trade. Anything corrupt was Evil's servant, so they already started out in control of the forces of so-called Balance, and had been using it for some time to get the side of Light to steadily accept greater and greater levels of Evil in their world, doing nothing to oppose it as it expanded because Balance said more Evil was needed in order to retain equilibrium.
Because that was how Evil did things. It lied.
Lots of people were truly bought into the concept that Balance was good, the only true good, and more good than Good.
They were wrong, most desperately wrong.
In this case, having broken its original purpose for being, Balance had become a servant of Evil. And its servants danced to its tune, so corrupted Balance, serving Evil, did its job for it and passed on those lies promoting Evil.
Fortunately Good had its toe in the door in one or more places as well.
I O I O I
A man known to a small few only by the later-applied nickname of Mr. Mage Dude (something that would've affronted his dignity if he'd heard of it) had arrived in Boston on a related trip, stopping by some elders of the Rosenberg clan to report in person upon the results of his recent inspection done of the most neglectful situation Ira and Sheila Rosenberg kept their daughter in.
It had only been a few weeks. And, having seen to his own affairs just barely enough to squeeze free this time for a short hop to his clan's allies, he was on his way to the point of meeting when he was jostled by a young girl who also, he happened to notice, be a pickpocket.
Catching the girl's arm and freezing her with a spell, the mage reclaimed his wallet and took a moment as he did so to read out of her aura the basics of her story.
Hmm, mother was an alcoholic when she was alive, recently started bouncing through this American foster care system, a potential Slayer (though this, in itself, was unremarkable, as there were thousands of them and most never got activated - the sad and regrettable part being that those who did got guaranteed an early grave, with the least fortunate ones not even having the meager comfort of staying in it).
So the little brown-haired girl told a tale of a tragedy all too common, one the mage had seen countless times before. If not for the recent disgust he felt over the neglect given to Willow Rosenberg, the mage would have notified the Watcher's Council to do something about sending this girl a Watcher, which would at least have taken care of her basic needs, then gone on with his life without a single thought back on the topic of the petty thief.
But the agony of the wound of seeing Willow's sorry state would not let him leave it at that. Being a gypsy, he had nothing against her being a pickpocket or a petty thief. His people were justly infamous for being those themselves. And also famous for taking (in some case kidnapping) children to raise for their own, especially runaways or orphans like this one.
Sadly, the man known to a select few as Mr Mage Dude had no time to take in a fosterling of his own. Nor was the custom of adoption strong enough in the younger generations for him to just foist her off onto one of the younger members of his clan who had free time available.
The older ones, like him, were either too tired or too busy, most of them on important clan business from which they could not be interrupted without consequences which would be dire.
Caught between his desire to provide care for the girl and his inability to do so, the mage decided to do the best he could by combining several of these approaches. He would send the young girl off to live with a younger member of his clan, because the only guarantee of failure was not to try, and it might just be they'd be lucky and it would do both the girl and his great nephew some good. But in case that did not work out right he would also notify the Watcher's Council of her presence.
Then, to add a bit of insurance to both of those, he added a spell muttered under his breath, a "Damsel in Distress" marker used in the old days as a sort of hero magnet, although it had always added a sort of allure to young ladies that made men more interested in caring for them.
That would perhaps be enough to get his modernized nephew to want to care enough for their clan traditions to take the young girl in. So, concluding that spell with the marker now in place, he put money in the girl's hands and sent the hypnotized young lady off to the airport to purchase a ticket to LA, a letter of introduction to his nephew in her pocket.
Now once more out of time, Mr. Mage Dude went on his way to that meeting.
I O I O I
"So, what all did you get, oh Masked Avenger and protector of innocent maidens?" Amy coitishly confronted the young man in his house while Jesse was sticking a tape in the VCR behind them and Willow had gone off to relieve severe bladder distress caused by not wanting to be away from Xander's side a single minute. Amy batted her eyelashes at the new Xander. "Or should we just assume that you are going to be sliding down poles to your Batcave any minute or go rushing off to find Lost Arks?"
The youth in question took her hand and bowed over it, grinning roguishly. "Ah, just the basic package." He waited a moment as he heard a toilet flush in the background, and soon they had Willow with them to overhear his brief summation. "Due to my rather generous progenitors, I have have training but no experience in being an expert swordsman, rider, general athlete, manager of estates (according to firm farm practices and codes of laws that sadly no longer exist), minstrel and dancer (both in styles you'd find rather tedious, if not outright painful), dandy and fop, as well as fluent proficiency in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch and of course English."
"Why so many languages?" Willow furrowed her head as she wormed her way back into Xander's side, where he most graciously accepted her, having already released Amy's hand. There was a bit of scowling on the redhead's part for the blonde's poaching while she'd been absent, but the quick pout of both grief and remorse, intermixed with sorrow, turned a bit of that into guilt on Willow's part for hurting her rival when she was on top of things.
Not enough guilt to get her to share or anything, of course.
Xander very appropriately appeared to ignore this tiny little exchange. It was just polite manners to pretend certain things didn't happen, even though most of the gossip behind closed doors was about picking apart every tiny little detail of them.
"Spanish is obvious," he declared, drawing the ladies' attention back to the question. "It was the native language of my glorious ancestor. Naturally he wished for me to speak it, especially around the ranch, and while training it was the default language of choice. Portuguese is obvious, also, as they're so closely related one may as well call the one a dialect of the other. Plus, we Spaniards have fought too many wars with our Portuguese neighbors not to know their language. The latter goes for French and English, of course. Our fleets clashed often enough, and prisoners taken with sufficient regularity, as to make them nearly a necessity for any well-bred noble for whom escape was the only alternative to paying an expensive ransom."
He coughed delicately into a handkerchief he had produced for the occasion. "That's the romantic view, of course. In truth, Spain, while proud, had very little art or poetry to compare to France's accomplishments in those areas. So, to provoke one's mind away from boredom, visits to France and imported French literature were hardly uncommon among the upper crust, when we weren't at war, that is. Also, between the Dutch and the English, there was very little world trade they did not dominate. So learning those languages was sadly a necessity for anyone wanting to travel, which Don Diego did later in life."
Elegantly tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket, he declared, "Also, I have a scholarly, yet not fluent, grasp of both Latin and Greek. I read them quite proficiently, but speak poorly. The mastery of those tongues was the mark of any educated person, and most of the grand works were written in them. Although there was still a market to be had for trashy French novels, of course." He finished with a petite smile. "But no one would admit to that."
Jesse cried out with triumph over getting the tape to play, and as the group moved to join him, Xander added one last comment, "As something of an afterthought, my relatives saw to it I was worked through all of the books I'd previously sprained my brain memorizing."
"So what are we watching?" Amy changed the subject so she could divert some of Willow's glares from her.
"Teenage Cannibal Stewardess Vixens Unchained," Jesse supplied with a bright smile, claiming one of the big recliners with a good view of the set, before he endured the pelting of small objects the girls threw at him. "Just kidding," he raised his arms, laughing. "It's an old classic: Grease, since I figured we would all soon be High School students."
"Mmm," Willow gave out a satisfied sound as she joined Xander on the plush sofa. "So who brought treaties?"
"One moment please," Xander dashed into the kitchen with a touch of ungentlemanly haste, reappearing moments later with a traditional bowl of popcorn and tray of finger foods. Amy, who had dashed along to help, found the only thing left another large bowl and, while she brought it out, found herself lifting aside the cloth covering it and staring down into the contents before raising her eyes to Xander.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, no, no!" Xander bubbled cheerily, stepping up to her side. "At first I thought 'Aha! I will use a transformation cantrip to change a Twinkie into actual food, thus enabling me to chomp on their yellow goodness while still remaining within Willow's dietary guidelines.' But then it came to me, during the midst of my preparations for retaining the vital appearance, taste and feel of a Twinkie in spite of having actual nutritional value, that the cantrip would merely expire and my masterwork would revert to a solid chemical composition during digestion anyway. But that led to the OTHER discovery! And a far more important one, even if I do say so myself! For, you see, if whatever I transformed was going to revert in my stomach due to the spells' short duration, then I could transform ANY FOOD I WANTED INTO TWINKIES and shortly after enjoying their delectable goodness they would regain their nutritional content! Thus, I present to you Example A, which used to be a bag full of brussel sprouts." He pulled off the cloth with a dramatic flourish and waved to a revealed basket full of Twinkies, before taking and consuming one with a huge smile on his face.
Laughing, Amy selected one, while Willow waited until he sat down, then she snuggling into his side reached over and took one too.
Jesse hit the 'Play' button on the remote control.
I O I O I
While the movie wound down Jesse, sprawled as he was over a very plush recliner, lazily considered the changes in his friends. He didn't think it through with complete clarity, and he definitely didn't voice them or write them down for later, but his summations were mostly accurate.
One of the first and most obvious things to note, as Willow was positively thrumming with happiness as she clung to Xander's side getting a massive charge out of the 'Together Forever' song the movie ended with, was that in the wake of the massive shock of discovering that vampires and other icky nasties existed, was that each of them had reached out in their own way for something to anchor them.
Willow had grasped on to Xander, obviously. But then again so had Amy. Both chose the empowered one as their rock to shield them from this storm, and Jesse had to admit that looked plausibly logical on the face of it, stand by the guy prepared to deal with things and you ought to be alright.
Xander himself was less prepared to deal with things than either girl would like to admit. Jesse could see that... well, up until yesterday at any rate. His oldest friend had been changed by meeting his ancestors (and who would have guessed that he had ZORRO of all people in his family tree?!)
Before casting that 'meet my ancestors' spell Xander had been on shaky ground, putting his trust in Mr. Mage Dude that his preparations would be enough to see them through - but it was kind of hard to trust a guy you'd never recall seeing and knew no details about. Besides, the knowledge base, while useful and giving an excellent start, wasn't complete or all they'd need.
No, that had been a shaky anchor, but still the best one Xander had until he'd gone and gotten personal training by one of the most legendary figures in California's history. Now he'd placed his trust in Zorro, and it looked like his old friend was a thousand times better anchored against the stresses that accompanied their new knowledge than before.
Jesse admitted to himself that his own anchor had become faith. He knew his friends too well to place all of his trust in them. They'd been, all of them (him included) losers and goofballs too long for his deep, gut instincts to believe they alone could save themselves against the newly revealed supernatural horrors. It was fine to try, but they'd needed something beyond their own efforts to succeed. And Jesse had found the answer in faith.
Believe in God, that he could save them? Oh yes, he could do that. It didn't even matter, strictly speaking, if they'd died, as the divine still had power to save their souls.
That was something he could believe in, could use as his anchor, and privately he wondered if he mightn't have the strongest anchor of them all.
A very small core of fear still deep within his heart hoped and prayed they never had to face that test, that he'd never be forced to see any of his friends broken or destroyed by the dangers they now realized existed.
But a small part of him also realized that he might.
I O I O I
After waking up, Xander only had to make a sword (with silver inlaid cross at the tip) and summon a pooka of his many times great grandfather's steed before he could go into the hero business himself.
The pooka was the easy part, and the mighty steed Tornado was once again ready to bear a hero into battle.
The sword was not much harder, although it took quite some doing to make a proper blade. In olden days the question of victory was determined not just by the skill of a swordsman, but by the perfection of his blade, and it took no small amount of work to make a fine one.
Luckily, all of the finest swords out of antiquity were made, in no small part, by magic. Ancient smiths recited psalms or spells as they hammered, and the best knew magical secrets not even the finest technology could match. Legendary wootz steel was almost entirely a product of magic, for example.
Zorro had known and passed on to Xander not only the secrets of ancient Toledo steel manufacture, but of lost Gypsy secrets as well, back from an age when those mysterious wanderers were at the height of their magic, and could produce weapons that rivaled the famous Toledo blades. Only a few magician smiths could boast as much.
Those secrets, combined with those recorded in the Japanese manual that Mr. Mage Dude provided, and Xander was prepared to create a blade of truly legendary magnificence.
But that would take time. So, for the moment, he contented himself with a cheap, ten dollar sword stamped by mass production machinery out of pot metal, that he could pick up at a corner pawn shop.
Sheltering in a church, ready with holy water balloons in case they needed to cover his retreat, the trio of Jesse, Willow and Amy watched Xander use his new skills, and rather cheap blade, to ambush a pair of wandering vamps, late at night.
It was like watching a cat play with mice.
It almost didn't matter that the boy had no sword worthy of the name, as his bullwhip was almost more deadly.
Xander used his whip mostly to slice open pockets, pull away bracelets, rings or other jewelry, before slaughtering the vamps, effectively robbing them so the loot did not go to dust as he sliced off their heads with his sword.
He did this mostly because his official guardian, Rory, wouldn't let him touch any of the money he'd gotten from his parents' deaths until he was eighteen, and Rory was determined to force Xander to be responsible with a small allowance first.
Well, with parents like his had been, Xander couldn't blame Rory for assuming the worst about his ability to act responsibly. However, a small allowance wasn't going to put him in the vampire staking business. There was expensive stuff to be found or made, yes, but some of it still had to be purchased, and he wasn't going to be able to do that on a comic book stipend.
So he found himself in a surprising situation of being in possession of great wealth, and yet living as poorly as before.
One of the great twists there was finding each of his parents had bought a car in the other's name, a high end sports car and a really attractive luxury sedan (both status-mobiles) and hidden them away for the 'afterwards' celebration - but Rory doesn't let him use them, putting them up on blocks so that Xander could learn to drive on a junker that won't matter too much for his first couple of accidents, and so that he can learn auto repair.
Both of the cars his parents bought were VMIs (Vehicular Manifestations of Inadequacy), attempts to compensate for their own failings by having really cool cars. The one his dad had purchased and squirreled away was a really nice, bright red jaguar. But his mother's blew him away. She'd gotten (how he didn't know) a silver Rolls Royce Phantom with the extended wheelbase.
Xander's Uncle Rory wouldn't let him touch either of those two cars until he hit his eighteenth birthday - which was reasonable from the perspective the adult stood at, namely no teenager has ever taken good care of their first car (or so Rory thought), and it was better to get all of that out of your system on an old beater that nobody would miss, rather than a million dollar sedan that royalty would not feel out of place in.
Yes, Xander's parents had somehow finagled (don't ask him how, he couldn't tell ya) to get those extra powerful engines and armored inserts normally reserved for celebrity conveyances.
Hey, Sunnydale was a dangerous town. He could see somebody in the know wanting such design features. He just had a hard time picturing how two no accounts like his parents had GOTTEN them!
And the entire thing, every bit of it, had been sheltered under a little-known sort of trust usually the province of the very, Very rich that divided it all up into its own separate cubbyholes and engaged in enough legal chicanery to beggar disbelief, but had managed to preserve all of his parents' assets, every dime of them, while negating all of the bills.
Xander hadn't believed such a thing was possible until he'd seen it in action. But, that was what top lawyers got paid big money for, he supposed. That his mom had even known a clerk in such a place, able to copy enough paperwork and get a junior lawyer to work on the forms enough to get it happen was no small accomplishment.
But she had done so.
Be that as it may, he now had a car, as Rory felt there was no way to keep a teenager wheel-less when he had two such grand prizes to his name. So, to prevent adolescent swindling of the really expensive automobiles out onto the roads, he'd gifted him with a starter car.
It was a beater, a rusted shut 57 chevy that, if it had seen better days, they were awhile ago. However, the promise of his uncle was that if he could fix it up, then he'd take him in to get his driver's license.
Wheels meant status, especially for High School Freshmen, even in spite of having been nerdy outcasts before.
Xander was no longer the desperate teen needing attention that he once was, however Jesse WAS, and even Willow could use the confidence boost that came from an image upgrade. Plus, having been raised by Zorro, Xander now knew just how valuable a thing societal status could be - and how to use it.
Well, you can't use it if you don't have it, and getting it was something of a problem under ordinary circumstances, particularly when you had years of being a bottom feeder to counteract. So, having a car and driver's license was a downright necessity to start their high school careers with.
Thus fortified with courage and determination, the teens sat around looking at the old bucket of rust that was Xander's new car.
"I'm lost." Jesse shrugged.
"It's hopeless." Amy agreed.
"Maybe we could paint over the worst of it?" Willow tried to offer helpfully, but her doubts could easily be read in her voice.
Xander approached the vehicle, up on blocks and missing tires, looking for all the world like some kind of car zombie, an undead automobile surrounded by the skeletons of other wrecks in the scrap yard. He flicked a spot of rust and mused thoughtfully, "Well, if this were smaller, maybe some of those spells in that 'care of weapons and armor' spellbook could do something. It is, after all, just rusted metal, and those spells claim to be able to cure SMALL patches of that. It's just this is waaay outside that zone!"
Talk of magic immediately perked the group up. That was something they were good at, and quite frankly, this job looked like nothing else would do it.
"Well, what about breaking it down into smaller bits?" Jesse offered, feeling the first twinges of hope. "If we could disassemble the thing, maybe the parts would be small enough to use those spells on?"
Xander touched an exposed bolt and snorted. "Maybe. But it's rusted shut. You'd need the strength of a demon to screw this off."
"How about if we enlarge it?" Amy offered hopefully. All eyes turned to her and she explained. "I did that once when my mom handcuffed me to my bed for a ritual I didn't want to take part in. I'm sorry, but losing weight by having demon spiders crawl over you to perform liposuction is SO not my deal! But when she was getting all trance-like to get to the summoning, I used a minor growth spell on my handcuffs. Once they grew to basketball hoop size it was easy to slip them off and sneak away. I never did tell my mom how that spell failed. But if you just expand the nuts off the bolts?"
Startled, Xander thought of the rules of magic he knew and produced a cantrip that should have the effects he wanted. Applying that to the nut on an exposed bolt, the little loop of metal expanded to about twice its size and sprang right off.
Xander caught it in his hand, a smile growing on his face.
Willow was beaming, clapping her hands together in joy. "Okay! Now all we have to do is learn those rust removing spells!"
"Hang on just a second," Xander whispered, trying to concentrate. "I know those spells, but I think it better if we take those principals they are based on to make a practice cantrip set for us to use. We are, after all, going to be doing a lot of this," he waved absently to the rust-mobile, "And I don't want us to miss out on a training opportunity. Besides," this time he gave them a wide grin. "The spells in the Japanese book about enchanting weapons and armor don't cover this extent of rust damage. So we'll have to start small, on stuff like this bolt. But if we use our tutorial cantrip method to start, we can do that, then eventually move up to larger parts, and then hopefully get to the frame!"
He opened his hand to reveal the nut, now rust free, resting in his palm.
"Hurray!" the group cried, then got to work helping him disassemble, then repair the automobile, shrinking bolts and enlarging nuts as needed.
Not far into this process they learned one of the great truths of auto mechanics. "Help! I can't lift this thing!" gasped Amy, struggling under the weight of a part that she had just taken off.
Fortunately, it wasn't too large a one, and the two boys were able to rush to her rescue, between them heaving it off of her, and setting it safely aside.
Then it was time to make jokes.
"Hey, Amy, looks like it's time to hit those weights! Man! I can't believe you can't bench press a car yet. Are you not eating your Wheaties?"
"Somebody make me a levitation charm," Amy growled dangerously.
"Poof! You're a levitation charm!" Jesse snarked, right before she chased him around the scrap yard behind Rory's auto body shop.
I O I O I
Author's Notes:
What can I say? I felt like pulling this down off of the Dead Story pile for a brief look-see at what I'd planned for it before. There exist so many plans for this...
Actually, I think what killed this the most was the utter disinterest that people at a Xander-centric forum had in it. They, who claimed as their central interest Xander-focused stories, told me that it wasn't worth reading because I was taking so long to get Buffy into it.
Huh?
Oh well, no accounting for taste, I guess.