Chapter 11: Salvation
Without further hesitation, we all leaped through the vortex. Upon us landing on the other side of the vortex, we came upon what we sensed was an ancient land. We found ourselves dressed in old garments from the first century, the clothing of biblical times. In a ring of stones, Lucia appeared dressed in white garments of a woman from Bethlehem. Lucia instructed us where to find Christ and his twelve disciples. Giles,Mr. Revelatori and Dr. Jacobi were the only ones in the group who were skilled in such languages such as Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. "The time is near at hand, you're not going to change but to make history", Lucia said. "Now go before the agents find Judas and kill him in order to plunge the world into an eternal darkness from which the world may never recover", Lucia said.
Lucia produced a white dove and heaved the dove into the sky. "Follow the dove, to stop the evil agents from killing Judas and then to assure that the prophecies are fulfilled", Lucia said. Buffy and I as well as the rest of the gang pursued the dove all the way to Jerusalem. Even in the night sky, the dove was visible. We kept following the dove everywhere it flew. It finally roosted near a rooftop, Buffy noticed a man rushing through the streets. On the rooftop near the spot where the dove roosted, was a man dressed in black, dressed in the clothes befitting the time and place but black nevertheless. He was aiming a rifle armed with a silencer and a telescope. "Now I know there were no rifles, nor silencers and not even the telescope was yet invented", Buffy said.
Buffy immediately made a sling in the tradition of David and Goliath and took the nearest stone and flung it high and hard enough to knock the rifle out of the sniper's hands. The impact of the stone throw was so strong that it literally knocked the sniper off his feet and the rifle out of his grasp. The rifle fell down, as it did Mr. Revelatori waved his hand and shot a ball of light at the rifle causing the weapon to disappear in midair as Buffy rushed to the rooftop of the building. The man in black was rolling in pain from Buffy's blow. Buffy pulled the veil off the sniper's face, "I knew it was you", Buffy said immediately upon recognizing the agent. It was the same man in black that she had seen in the cave with the Great Destroyer Cannon in Sunnydale, two-thousand years later literally. "Why?", Buffy asked. "We only wanted to make the world a better place", said the man in black.
"Do you really think that by stopping the crucifixion and altering history you really think you'd make the world a better place? How could you be sure it would be better?", Buffy asked. "There's something called faith", the man in black said. "Well your faith is sadly misguided and misplaced", Buffy retorted. "You're only a child, how or what would you know?", The man in black said. "I'm the chosen one", Buffy said. "The chosen what?", asked the man in black. "The chosen one", Buffy repeated. "Chosen for what?", asked the man in black. "Chosen to fight evil", Buffy retorted. "Am I not fighting evil too by trying to stop the crucifixion?", The man in black asked. "That's not fighting evil, that's going against the will of God", Buffy replied.
"How do you know this is God's will?", the man in black asked. "Gee, I can tell you skipped Sunday school!", Buffy quipped. "I'm an atheist, I never had a religious upbringing", The man in black said. "So how can you be guided by faith?", Buffy asked. "I'd really have to go, I don't have time to argue. I have a mission to accomplish", The man in black said. "So do I", said Buffy. "Besides who sent you on this mission?", Buffy asked. "The government of the United States of America and who sent you?", The man in black inquired. Buffy shrugged and said, "I was sent by a higher authority". "Yeah, right little miss holier than thou!", retorted the man in black. The man in black swung at her and Buffy successfully blocked it and a martial arts battle ensued. Kicks, strikes and blows were exchanged until the agent lunged at Buffy, tripped and fell off the roof where he laid on the ground below dead.
A big hole opened in the earth below him with flames and screams which swallowed his body and consumed it, closing as suddenly as it had opened. Buffy climbed down from the rooftop and met the rest of us on the street below. "He's been taken care of", Buffy said. "Now we don't him to worry about", I said. "Look!", Willow said pointing to the dove as it flew again. "I think we should keep following it", Xander said. "Aren't we finished, we stopped the bad guy right?", Cordelia asked. "I have a feeling our mission here is not quite over yet", Giles said. "Is it?", Jenny asked. "It isn't", Mr. Revelatori replied. We followed the dove as it took flight again all the way to a garden, a garden where we would meet the man himself, Jesus Christ.
As we went further in to the garden, we beheld a man alone as though making himself ready to pray and meditate. The man turned to us and spoke Aramaic. Giles struggled with his memory in an attempt to speak to the man. The man then turned to speak English to everybody's astonishment. "Fret not, for I know your language and all the languages that I created at Babel", said the man. "Are you---?", Buffy began to ask. "I AM THAT I AM, the one who sent me to die for the sins of the world", the man said. "Jesus of Nazareth", I said. "It is I", He replied. "I know that you all are from another land, another time and another generation and your mission was not to change, but to make history ", Christ said.
"Why was I chosen?", Buffy asked. "Because it's your calling and as you've been chosen to answer your calling, so it is with the Son of Man, seven years shall you all endure tribulation and then the end shall come", Jesus said. "What do you mean?", Buffy asked. "All shall be made in due time. You and I shall die to save the world", Jesus said. Buffy's face turned to a gloomy sad expression. "Weep not daughter, for like me you shall defy death and for a time you'll be with me", Christ said. Everyone was crying. The gang and I were wiping away our tears. Angel and Emilie wept tears of blood. "There is not much time for the time is drawing nearer for us to fulfill our destinies. I know it's been hard for you Buffy for you have the weight of the world, I know what it's like but remember let it be the father's will and not that of ourselves", Jesus said.
"It's after all the will of my father who brought us here, so that you may understand and be witnesses, let your friends be your disciples for you will need them as they will need you", Jesus said. I noticed a bright star from heaven descend and draw close to us until it finally landed before us. It was Lucia. "You must go now", Christ said. Christ turned to me and said, "There are other plans for you, you must return to your family for you have a different calling. The same shall go for you, Angel, after Buffy slays the great serpent you shall take Cordelia with you to a great city and fight for the souls of men in that great city", Jesus said.
"As for you, Emilie. You shall walk a lonely path and your mission will be of solitude", Jesus said. "Giovanni Revelatori and Dr. Jacobi Armani, you have been my loyal disciples and the capstone of my word. I remember you when you, Giovanni, penned down my final revelation in the island of Patmos, it is you who I've kept immortal so that you may be an eternal witness of all that was and is to come. Your reward and Dr. Jacobi's reward shall be great for your ministry and the fact that you are helping make my word as clear as the light of day to those worthy of the hidden mysteries of my word, for as I have told some who are here today will be alive when I come back again you and Dr. Jacobi will be my two witnesses at the end of the world", Jesus said and embraced Mr. Revelatori, which means "John the Revelator" and then turned to embrace Dr. Jacobi as well.
"Farewell to all of you, some I will meet again while there are others whom this will be the only time we'll ever meet. Now is the time to depart", Christ said. Lucia opened up the vortex and we all leaped through it and back to our own time. We found ourselves back at the Sunnydale library wearing our own modern clothes again. Some of us wondered whether or not all this was a dream. Lucia appeared to us again and said, "You were all there, trust me. I wasn't a dream". We spent the rest of the night, reading the New Testament. When we finished, we went home and slept.