Only The Good Die Young 1
A sea of light and song, that if you focused in enough you might just be able to make out a single mote of light, showing them all to be winged figures.
*One with the universe, floating in bliss, part of the whole*
"Excuse me," a heavily Brooklyn accented voice broke in, floating in front of one of the figures.
*Blending with the host, singing in the universal choir*
"Stop blissing out on universal harmony and listen up, will ya!"
The glowing being stopped singing and faced the speaker.
"Name's Whistler and management sent me because there's a job that needs doing."
A head tilted to one side as it considered that statement.
"Others might be able to do it, but the consensus is you'd do the best job. So, if you wish to help out and further the efforts of the forces of good, this is your chance."
A single nod was given as wings folded back and the unearthly glow that obscured the figure faded, revealing a dark haired man. "We have been part of the chorus for some time."
"That's already been taken into account," Whistler assured him. "We're going to stop at a point where you're still human to reinforce your mortal memories and let you soak up some Hellmouth rays to tarnish the old halo a bit."
"What is our purpose?" the figure asked, perplexed at the requirements.
"You have to stop a group of well-meaning idiots from saving the world and dooming humanity."
"Really?"
"Yeah, they try and wipe out all the evil in people and the human race goes downhill from there, either wiped out by some race less peaceful or they just fading away, as sex does a big nosedive as a means of recreation."
"So we're playing the bad guy?"
"Short term yes, long term no. You are fighting a group that plans on what amounts to world domination and mass brainwashing. They mean well and are good hearted people, but they think they have a right to rule and force everyone to follow them and they can't be talked out of it. The big guy is big on free will, so my bosses got approval to have you fix things."
"We will comply," he said after a moment's thought.
Whistler grinned. Having the Big Guy's approval was basically a lock as for getting the host's cooperation, but it was still nice to have a plan come off without a hitch. "The rest of the details can wait until you're mortal again or closer to being one anyways."
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
"Spike is researching ways to heal Drusilla," Giles said, "could that be the dark power you see rising?"
"It is possible, sir," Kendra allowed.
"Good, then you can go home now," Buffy said briskly. "I'll handle it."
Giles sighed as the two slayers argued. Kendra was invoking feelings of both jealousy and inferiority in Buffy, as well as reminding her that she had in fact died, which made overseeing the both of them a problem.
"I never asked to be the Slayer," Buffy said, just before two men arrived in a flash of light.
Xander stepped in front of Willow, while Giles dove for a crossbow while the two slayers brought their weapons up sliding into identical defensive stances.
Everyone stood frozen for a moment before Buffy broke the silence, "Xander?"
"Buff?"
"When did you become an angel with white fluffy wings?"
"I don't know," Xander replied, "but the real question is, why am I naked?"
"Also a good question," Willow agreed absently, face red as her hair as she peeked over Xander's shoulder.
"We of the Host need no raiment but that which god has granted us," Angel-Xander said, his voice sounding more melodic than Xander's, but still recognizable.
"When you spend your time glowing like a hundred and twenty watt light bulb the details get lost anyway," Whistler added, his Brooklyn accent bringing the Scoobs out of their stupor.
"Who are you and why are you here?" Giles asked, crossbow in hand.
"I'm Whistler, a balance demon in service to the powers that be."
"Be what?" Buffy and Xander chorused.
"The judges for the tests," Angel-Xander explained.
"I though god was the judge," Giles asked cautiously.
"The Powers That Be oversee the tests that you go through on this plane of existence," he explained. "God judges your soul once your time here is done."
Whistler stared open mouthed at the angel for a minute. "That makes a lot more sense than what I thought. I never get any real explanations for things, just orders from above."
"It may have been part of them testing you, but more than likely they were just being dicks."
"Being dicks?" Buffy asked, not expecting that kind of language from an angel, even one that looked like Xander.
"Yes, certain attributes are needed to put pain and hardship in people's way so they can better themselves. You must have a firm view of the picture, a rigid grasp of the rules and regulations of the position, and a complete lack of empathy for what 'lower' beings are going through."
"Sounds like dicks to me," Xander agreed.
"Yes, good doesn't always mean nice," Angel-Xander explained. "Now you were saying something about your duties as a slayer?"
"It is a great honor," Kendra said, blushing and averting her eyes.
"It's a great burden," Buffy corrected her, "and one I didn't ask for or want."
The angel nodded and raised his hand, bathing Buffy in a white light. After a few seconds he lowered his hand and said, "Go forth and slay no more."
"What did you just do?" Whistler asked before anyone else had the chance to.
"Corrected an imbalance the local I created when we brought Buffy back so long ago," Angel-Xander said. "Buffy Summers is no longer a slayer."
Whistler groaned. "Do you know how much work I had to do to set things up to compensate for an extra slayer?"
"Not to worry, we activated the next slayer in line, so there is a true second slayer line."
"Excuse me," Xander spoke up, "but if Buffy's no longer a slayer won't she be a sitting duck for Spike?"
"She's been touched by an angel," Xander's other self said with a smirk. "Demons will avoid getting within ten yards of her and burn if they touch her. Consider it a retirement package. She can have a perfectly normal life and never worry about running into a demon again."
Buffy sat down, her mind spinning.
"Well, let's get to what we're here for, before angel-boy here makes any new branches of creation," Whistler said.
"What are you here for?" Giles asked.
"Wings needs to scan his younger self to reinforce his memory of being human, which was a long time ago for him and then he's going to weaken the Hellmouth for the next century or two."
"So, you're really me?" Xander asked.
"Older, wiser, and winged," Wings confirmed.
"And naked," Willow added.
"He's got nothin' to be ashamed of," Whistler pointed out drawing some looks. "Get your minds out of the gutter, I mean he's free from sin."
"Seriously?" Xander asked.
"It's a bit more complicated than that, but you'd need to speak celestial to get all the nuances in anything less than three years of study," Wings explained.
"Simplified it is," Xander agreed. "So you're planning a mind meld with me?"
"Just a scan, otherwise you'd wind up closer to my current state."
"And that's a bad thing, sir?" Kendra asked respectfully.
"Humans are meant to be human," the angel explained. "There are some people who shun earthly matters and spend their lives in quiet contemplation of the universe…"
"Like Ghandi?" Willow asked.
"We were thinking of Steve Hawkings, but yes a few religious individuals do fall into that category. Basically, it's hard to be fruitful and multiply when you have shunned all earthly desires and how can you be tempted when you lack any capacity to emphasize with evil?"
"I do like my lustful thoughts," Xander replied, ignoring Kendra's blushing and the general rolling of eyes.
"He doesn't need to fight evil anymore," Buffy said. "I'm no longer the slayer."
Xander looked at her strangely. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"If I'm not fighting evil there's no one for you to help."
"Just because you gave up the fight doesn't mean I will," Xander swore. "Unless all the vampires on earth go poof, someone has to fight them and I'll be right there helping."
"What?" Buffy asked shocked.
"Do you mind if we scan you?" Wings asked.
"Feel free," Xander replied.
Raising his hand the angel caused Xander to glow for a moment before returning to normal. "Wow! I forgot how much fun lustful thoughts were. The ones about Kendra alone are epic and that's not even touching on the ones about Buffy or Willow!" The formerly serene expression he'd had was replaced by a friendly smile and a humorous twinkle.
Giles cleaned his glasses while Whistler tried not to laugh. Kendra discovered new shades to blush and Willow asked "Really?" before ducking behind Xander and pretending she hadn't said anything.
Xander winced. "I'm a teenager so sue me. And other me, I'd suggest some pants now."
Seeing the effects lustful thoughts had on the nude angel, Whistler quickly magicked him a pair of pants to prevent Willow's eyes from popping out of her head or Kendra blushing so hard she actually fainted.
"Thanks," the X-Angel said, putting on the pants before walking to the center of the library, directly over the Hellmouth, and drawing a flaming sword out of the air.
"You guys might want to move back," Whistler suggested, moving back himself.
"What exactly is he going to do?" Giles asked as they all moved back towards the entrance.
The angel swung the blazing sword around a few times before sheathing it in the floor in front of him, ripping open the Hellmouth in an explosion of light.
Even Whistler flinched back from the fury of the opposing forces as Wings' glow went nova, driving back the sickening feel of twisted excitement radiating from the Hellmouth.
He-he's overwhelming the Hellmouth," Giles stuttered, as the angel stood wings outstretched and aura blazing over the Hellmouth.
The group stood in awe as the powers released as they watched the struggle with eyes squinted against the glare.
Slowly the light began to dim as his aura diminished, the flames on his sword began to flicker and he started molting feathers that swirled away on an ethereal wind to scatter around the room.
"What's happening?" Kendra asked, not liking what she could sense.
"He's expending almost everything he has," Whistler explained. "Relax, we planned for this."
A roar thrummed through the air as a large scaly head burst out of the Hellmouth and clamped down on his leg. The angel, most of his feathers gone and his aura barely existent, beat at the head while cursing a blue streak.
"How about that?" Xander asked, as Kendra rushed forward to help him.
"Oops!" Whistler said.
Xander quickly ran over to the head as the X-Angel got the head pried loose with Kendra's help.
"Use the hilt to knock out his teeth," the angel ordered gesturing towards his sword with his chin.
"Why don't we cut off his head?" Xander asked as he easily drew the sword from the floor and stumbled back having expected a lot more resistance.
Buffy tried to help them but her strength was gone and she hadn't had a chance to adapt yet.
"Cut off its head and it'll grow two more," the angel explained, he and Kendra having gotten firm holds. "Knock out its teeth and it'll pull back through the hole on its own, plus it's payback for it biting me."
Xander laughed and cheerfully hammered away, knocking out teeth and gaining some minor cuts from the sharper fangs. Willow and Giles helped weigh its neck down, to prevent it pulling loose, while Buffy tied a rough bandage around the angel's leg to stop the bleeding.
"I thought angels were all about forgiveness," Buffy said, "and why didn't it burn when I touched it?"
"I've shed most of my angelic nature to counter the Hellmouth," he grunted, pulling its jaws apart, "and this isn't a demon, it's a dragon. Release!"
Everyone jumped back as the head pulled itself downward and vanished in a burst of light, leaving the floor whole and undamaged.
The angel gathered up the teeth and piled them on the table while Xander swept up the feathers and shook his hand occasionally, trying to shake off the throbbing pain by force of will.
"Your wings are looking kinda demony," Buffy said, as his wings had almost completely molted, revealing scaly silver skin beneath the remaining feathers.
"That would be draconic actually," he replied. "Survivors of dragon bites, which are rare in the extreme, absorb some of the essence of the dragon."
Kendra and Xander shot alarmed looks at him, having gotten some wounds from the fangs, as his remaining feathers continued dropping lazily to the floor.
"Dragons aren't demons and much like man they choose their own path," Whistler spoke up.
"I'm far more dragon than angel now," the ex-angel said. "Should make saving the human race easier."
"Pardon?" Giles said.
"Another branch of creation." Wings waved it off.
"I was hoping to make a lot less of a splash here getting you ready," Whistler said.
Wings rolled his eyes. "Sure you were." Picking up a couple of feathers from the floor he handed them to Whistler. "Freely given feathers, that should give you a little more slack."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," Whistler said a little shocked as he put them in his battered gray suits' jacket pocket.
"I need some clothes and something to put the teeth and feathers in."
"What are you going to do with them?" Giles asked.
"They can be put to a variety of uses while I fight the forces of light," Wings explained. "See there is a certain balance to be maintained within the human heart, or the world ends and not with a bang but a whimper… or maybe a sigh."
"He has to play villain on another earth so humanity doesn't die as happy, but essentially mindless drones," Whistler explained.
"Being human is about having the choice between good and evil, remove that and it's no longer humanity."
Giles went to his office and returned with a box containing a black leather jacket, a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and a pair of black motorcycle boots.
"I wondered where those had gotten to," Xander said.
"I thought you might prefer not to be reminded of certain events, so I put them in my office," Giles explained as Xander's other self got dressed, Whistler providing socks and an undershirt.
"Possessions of my possessions," Xander told the confused looking slayer.
Willow rolled her eyes and wondered if Xander could get any vaguer. "Xander got possessed a couple of times and those are from the possessions."
"Jacket and boots from Hyena, and the shirt from Thomas Magnum," Buffy summed up.
"I liked that shirt," Xander complained.
"We didn't," Buffy and Willow chorused.
The other Xander chuckled and began putting the feathers and fangs in the box.
"That little voice I picked up has helped a lot!" Xander protested.
"Little voice?" Kendra asked, as the former angel used a feather to heal Xander's hand from the earlier battle.
"I went as a generic soldier," Wings said, gesturing with a feather that had turned pink from absorbing Xander's blood. "But as I have his memories as well as my own and as I recall, Thomas Magnum had a small psychic gift that he referred to as the little voice in his head."
"Not much help on tests, but it's prevented me from doing some pretty stupid things," Xander said.
"I'd hate to see you without it then," Giles snarked.
"Hey!" Xander complained good naturedly.
The other Xander chuckled and used the pink feather to heal Kendra's hands turning it blood red. "Dru had something similar until she was driven mad and turned. The ability to use and listen to that inner voice is found by, let's call it a person's level, so her's got a lot stronger after she was turned."
"What do you want me to do with this?" Giles asked, looking at the red feather that had just been handed to him.
"Make a dream catcher and put it in the attic of the Summers' residence, it'll provide another layer of protection to the house and prevent an incident that would have killed Joyce in a couple of years."
"Being the slayer finally got my mom killed?!" Buffy asked worried.
"No a brain tumor, stress, and finally an aneurysm killed her. A dream catcher made of empowered blood and my feather will heal the mind mentally and physically over time, preventing the problem. Of course there's no guarantee she would have gotten the tumor here, since it's a different world, but odds are good."
"OK, enough changes," Whistler said, "we gotta split."
The two vanished in a flash of light, leaving the Scoobs to blink the afterimages from their eyes.
"OK, now back to dealing with Dru and Spike," Xander said.
"And the assassins," Willow spoke up.
"Since Buffy's no longer the slayer and been blessed by upstairs, she might be safe from the assassins, but just to be sure we should guard her until the final assassin is gone," Giles said.
Buffy opened her mouth to say something, but froze as her new situation hit her. "I could hide out with Angel," she suggested.
"No you can't-" Xander began.
"Just because I'm no longer the Slayer doesn't mean you can tell me who I can and can't date!" Buffy protested, interrupting him.
Kendra spoke up. "Let her kill de vamp if dat's what she wishes, one less vamp on de Hellmouth is always a good ting."
"I don't like the guy and his dating habits should land him in jail," Xander said, "but he's actually showing up and fighting, so he gets at least a little slack in existing from me."
"What?" Buffy asked paling as she asked, the memory of what the angel said coming back to her.
"Oh god, Buffy, I'm so sorry!" Willow blurted out, as she put the clues together.
"That bastard!" Buffy yelled.
"You wanted a normal life, no demons, no slaying," Xander explained solemnly. "Angel was part of the life you wished away. You chose not to be part of the fight anymore, believing the cost to you wasn't worth it. You don't have the right to complain just because everything you wanted wasn't handed to you on a silver platter precisely the way you wanted it."
Buffy lashed out still hurting from the loss, "you did this! Your other you made this happen to break up me and Angel so you'd have a chance!"
Xander shook his head sadly. "I won't date you for the same reason I turned down Cordy in your basement today. It's not looks alone that does it for me. What I want most in a woman is one who can't turn aside when they see something wrong. I once thought that was you, but when you chose to have a normal life and turn your back on all the people the vamps kill you proved all I had was a crush, because you're not the girl I thought you were. Just like your response shows you only have a crush on Angel, because you're just ignoring the bits of him you dislike, or you would have realized what had happened earlier."
Willow's mind was going in all directions as she processed what Xander had said.
Buffy paled like she'd been shot while Kendra considered his words and what they could mean for her.
"You don't ask for much in a woman, do you?" Giles asked dryly. "Just that she be a hero."
"I don't ask for anything I don't do myself," Xander replied, "and I'm no hero. Besides doesn't that apply to you too? I've seen you risking your life for others and trying to help."
"I'm also making up for a misspent youth," Giles said quietly, reminding Xander of his Ripper days.
"Since you've probably saved well over a hundred people for every one you hurt as a young punk, I think you've already more than made up for it."
"Some things are not so easily forgiven," Giles said sadly, "and redemption is found in effort not numbers."
"And if you were female and had a decent rack I'd so jump you right now," Xander joked.
Giles laughed despite himself.
"I'm not saying I'm not swayed by a killer bod, but for any serious relationship, that's my standard." Flakes of ash fell off the sword he held, unnoticed.
"I gotta go use the bathroom," Buffy said.
Willow stood up to go with her, but Buffy waved her back. "I'm safe for the moment, unless they're tracking my soda consumption."
As Buffy stepped out of the library she saw Cordelia, leaning against the wall with her brow furrowed in thought, not even noticing Buffy standing just a couple of feet away.
She decided not to interrupt as she had her own problems to work out. Walking to the bathroom she had to ask herself just as Cordelia was, "Am I who I want to be or can I be more?"
Typing by: Bankrupt Samurai!