TITLE: Xander Muyo: Hogwart's Style Part 1C
***
Xander and the girls followed Harry and his friends through the corridor and went up the marble staircase. There were portraits along the next corridor they came upon and Xander ignored them, but the girls noticed how the people in the portraits whispered and pointed at them. Interesting, I am definitely going to like it here, she sent to her companion. Both laughed at the same time. They were led through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. Climbing more staircases, they followed Harry and his friends. Harry turned around.
"You have to be careful when using the staircases, they tend to move and disappear at times. So you may get lost, but you'll eventually get used to it," he said, when they were suddenly interrupted by a loud bang and a loud rude sound.
"Oh great! Peeves," Harry grunted. "He's a poltergeist," he added for the newcomer's benefit. April and Ariana simply lifted an eyebrow in interest. Xander felt something creepy make his way up his spine. Having lived on top of the Hellmouth for so many years had brought him into contact with lots of different nasty things. A poltergeist was the last thing he wanted to encounter right now.
"Yeah, and a really annoying one at that," Ron added.
"I heard that, Weasley!" Peeves said, appearing right in front of the group. He started zipping around them and finally Xander had enough, "look fool, leave me and my friends alone or else…" he said, threatening.
"And what are you going to do?" the poltergeist laughed. "Tickle me to death?"
Before Xander could do anything, Harry walked up to Peeves. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, pointing to the lightening scar on his forehead. "I know you do, and you know who has been helping me understand it." The poltergeist turned even whiter than usual.
"That's right. The great Bloody Baron," Harry said. "So you'd better get going before I tell him you disrespected me." Peeves made a quick getaway, and Harry and his friends laughed. "Don't worry guys. I was just messing with him, I love when I can trick someone who deserves it," Harry explained to the newcomers.
Curious April moved up to Harry, "Who's the Bloody Baron?"
"Oh, he's one of the Hogwart's ghosts. He is the Slytherin ghost. Every house has a ghost, and ours is Nearly Headless Nick. He's a great ghost and nice to everyone," Harry replied with a big smile to April. Her beauty didn't go unnoticed by him or Ron, much to Hermione's annoyance.
At the end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a blue silk dress.
"Password?" she said. "Carpe Diem," said Harry. "Which is what Dumbledore told me before we left," he answered to Ron and Hermione's questioning looks.
As they walked in they noticed that everyone had gone to bed except Pumpkin and Katie Bell, who happened to be one of the new female prefects for Gryffindor.
"Hi Katie," said Harry to his fellow Quidditch player. "Hey Pumpkin."
Katie ended up telling them how to get to the training area before they went to their designated sleeping areas. Pumpkin and Xander walked up to the 7th years sleeping quarters. "I picked the bunk bed because I knew you where going to end up being stuck with it," Pumpkin said to Xander.
"Thanks man, I'll take the top bunk," Xander said gratefully, jumping up on the top bunk and quickly fell asleep.
***Gryffindor 7th years sleeping quarters, 4 a.m.***
Damn another side effect of my so-called power, less sleep needed. To bad too, I love to sleep and that dream about Buffy and Faith… His guilt of what happened before entering Hogwarts came back to him full force. I miss then so much… but I betrayed them. They'll never want to have anything more to do with me now. He got up, tired of just lying there, and decided he should get his daily training routine done with before classes started.
Remembering what Katie told him the night before, Xander went to the training facilities. As he walked through the corridors and the marble staircases he grew more determined. He had to fulfill his training. What bothered him was why he had to do it. Tsunami never told me why, just that it had to do with my destiny. She's so hot I couldn't say no…, he mentally chuckled.
In outer space the entity known as Tsunami blushed at hearing his comment. He has to learn to block his thoughts when handling Akiri-ken, she thought.
Xander noticed that no-one was about and was grateful for it. Exactly why would anyone be up at this time?
Finally making it to the facility after half an hour of wondering around the corridors, he stopped at a door. "Self-image," he said and the portrait of a body builder moved a side and revealed a massive room.
There was large track that had a sign next to it that said, "One-mile around. Don't hurt yourselves, you bloody wussies." Xander smiled at the sign and wondered who made it. In the center of the track were loads and loads of lifting equipment, from barbells, to loose weights, to weight machines, etc. Xander was stunned that a magic school would have so much equipment. Next to the track was what he assumed was a sparring area and next to that was a set of mats. Along the wall where he entered, were all kinds of weapons on display, from practice bokken, fencing swords to fighting staves.
He started off with a simple jog of 5 miles and then walked over to the mats and spent a half hour on an extensive stressing routine. Once he was done stressing he waked up to the wall with the two wooden bokken and grabbed them.
He walked up to the sparring area and sat down in a meditating position placing the two bokken on the side he smiled and closed his eyes. He thought back to when he was hit by stupid beam and how that incident changed his life. I wonder if it's a curse or a blessing, Willow will not be pleased that she was wrong; he mentally chuckled at the last part.
***Flashback***
We enter Xander's new apartment and see two Xander's talking to each other.
"We're completely identical," said SuaveXander with a goofy smile.
While ScruffyXander responded, "Yeah, we checked out some stuff in the car on the way over." Seeing Anya's frown and arched eyebrow he quickly says, "Fingerprints!"
Anya turned towards the others, which included Buffy, Willow and Giles, "Well, maybe we shouldn't do this reintegration thing right away. See, I can take the boys home, and... we can all have sex together, and... you know, just slap 'em back together in the morning." Her last statement was said with a lot of excitement and she just dreamily smiled at the prospect of what she wanted. Giles tried not to look appalled as Buffy and Riley grinned.
SuaveXANDER immediately yelled, "She's joking!"
ScruffyXANDER, on the other hand, went against his counterpart, "No she's not! She entirely wants to have sex with us together. Which is... wrong, and, and it would be very confusing." But everyone could see his eyebrow arch as he thought of pleasing his lover.
Giles answered, totally disgusted. "Uh, uh, we just need to light the candles. Also, we should continue to pretend we heard none of the disturbing sex talk."
"Check. Candles and pretense," Willow babbled happily about her being able to use magic, and show how good she was with it.
Everyone moves around getting stuff ready, except the Xanders.
"It's not like it'd be cheating. They're both Xander," Anya said as she smiled sweetly to the Xanders.
ScruffyXANDER looked at this counterpart confused, "Now, hold on a sec. If you weren't putting a whammy on people with the shiny thing, how'd you do it? How'd you get the promotion?"
SuaveXANDER replied, confidently and proud of himself, "Well, I'm good at that stuff. "
ScruffyXANDER was shocked, "I am?"
"Yeah," responded the other.
ScruffyXANDER still confused, "And hey, how 'bout that lady, huh? The apartment manager."
"How weird was it when she called me "mister"?" SuaveXANDER laughed. The Xanders grinned goofily at each other.
"We're ready. We should do it now," a totally sure Willow said. The Xanders turned their grins toward her.
Starting to get worried Anya stated the obvious, "What'll we do if this doesn't work?"
The both Xanders looked at each other then, in unison, "Kill us both, Spock!"
Laughing Buffy looked at them, "They're ... kinda the same now."
"Yes, he's clearly a bad influence on himself," a smirking Guiles replied.
Getting tired of waiting ScruffyXANDER yelled, "Hey, summon the goddess. Chant the chant. Let's do it."
"Actually, it's not that hard. Your natural state is to be together. Toth's spell is doing all the work of keeping you apart. I just have to break it. So you two ..." She took them both by the hand and positioned them inside the chalk markings, "stand right here. Side by side. We don't want you to end up with two fronts, now do we?" a serious Wiccan replied.
ScruffyXANDER looked scared, "Are you sure you know how to do this?" The other Xander also didn't like how things where looking.
Ignoring them Willow exhaled, "Here we go. Brace yourselves."
The two Xanders closed their eyes and prepared for the inevitable.
"Let the spell be ended."
Xander stood there whole, still with eyes closed, "You gotta be kidding. 'Let the spell be ended'. That's not gonna work." He opened his eyes and sees there's only one of him. "Oh!"
Willow smiled proudly.
A little disappointed, Anya whimpered, "I liked it the other way. Put him back."
Buffy raised her eyebrows.
Later that night
Xander had finally finished unpacking and had noticed that Anya had already moved some of her things into the master bedroom.
As the night progressed Anya got restless and ripped his shirt off and started to kiss his chest. "You know this would be better if there were two of you." Totally annoyed at his girlfriend for saying something like that while they were being intimate, a white light engulfed him and there stood two of him.
Unlike before there was differences he noticed, but couldn't think about them… because his thoughts where interrupted.
"Thank you, thank you …" giggled Anya as she rushed to take off her clothes.
After a few hours of being "intimate" with Anya and totally wearing her out and promising her that they wouldn't tell the others about his condition she fell asleep.
The Xanders got out of bed carefully, and went to the living room to find out what they where going to do about the situation NOW.
Sitting across from each other, they just stared and compared themselves. "Seems like we're the same. I don't feel weak. I feel like always," Xander1 said.
"Yeah. Maybe instead of returning us to one, breaking the spell did something else. I vote we tell Giles," Xander2 said.
Hm, I don't know if we should. What should I tell the other me? I don't feel weaker, this could be cool. I can be in two places at once, Xander1 thought.
"Wow, I just heard what you thought! Cool," Xander2 said.
"Cool! Yeah, but it's up there in the weirdness factor," the other laughed, pointing his finger into the air.
"You know what I was thinking…" before Xander1 could finish he was interrupted.
"Of course, you where thinking that when we split we where thinking of making Anya happy, and if both think of being one again it may work the same way," a smirking Xander2 said.
Totally annoyed Xander1 just grunted. "Damnit, you didn't have to interrupt me you know. I just wanted to say it out loud to see if it made sense. I wonder if I can block my thoughts from you," he said, an evil smirk appeared on his face.
"Nope. Well not yet," the other laughed.
They both willed themselves to be one and where engulfed with a white light, and the one Xander stood there, disoriented, as his mind tried to put the separate memories in order.
***End of Flashback***
Xander stood up and concentrated on becoming two, "Hey number one," Xander2 said to Xander1 in his best 'Captain Picard'.
"Hey to yourself… or is it myself, second?" Xander1 replied with a chuckle.
"Stop calling me 'Second'," the other replied testily.
"Well stop calling me number one. Call me first," Xander1 said, giving the trademark lop-sided smile.
Xander2 just grunted and they both got serious. Both of them picked up one bokken, Xander1 got into a relaxed stance, while Xander2 just stood there waiting. Both momentarily concentrated so that they could talk to each other while sparring but also block all other thoughts.
You know I am going to mop the floor with you, Xander1 taunted Xander2.
How can you beat yourself up? That's just wrong, besides your only half strength, speed and endurance than when we're together, Xander2 replied as he tightened the grip on his weapon and circled Xander1.
Easily, by splitting myself up. Both Xanders shot words back and forth, but they kept the tone of their words dry and controlled. Xander1 jumped and landed on Xander2's bokken and flipped back kicking Xander2 in the face. Take that, you wussy.
Xander2 got back up and charged his counterpart, and swung the bokken at his opponent's feet, while spinning on horizontal axis and kicking Xander1 in the face while he tried to dodge the bokken. You were expecting that where you? I am so going to make you my bitch. Oh, man! I just kicked myself in the face!
The sparring when on for another hour before both of them bowed to each other and stood next to each other. Yo First, I think we should practice our synchronized sword play.
Finally taking a lighter tone, Xander1 replied, My thoughts exactly, second. He chuckled at the last part. Annoyed at his counterpart, Xander2 let the mental barriers fall completely and felt the effect of fully reconnecting with his counterpart. For the next hour they went through sword routine after sword routine, finally stopping when they heard clapping from behind them.
Both Xanders turned around at the exact same time and said, "What do you want, old man?" Not surprised that their so called 'grandfather' had been there for the past twenty minutes.
Not showing his surprise at Alexander knowing he was there the man replied, "You know the basic Juraian movements very well, Alexander."
"Yes, Tsunami's knowledge transfer was very detailed. She didn't give me the knowledge of the Royal Family's martial arts, though," Xander1 pointed out.
"Yes, the reason for that is because I am to train you in it. Long ago, Tsunami and the Royal family made an agreement not to give the knowledge of our arts away, only through hard work and training with family would it be passed on."
"Great. More training. I am really starting to get tired of this. So how come you're not bugged about my little show before?" Xander2 asked the question, sounding annoyed.
The older man stood perfectly calm as he answered. "Don't worry about the training. You already know the basics on which our family's art is based. As to your current state, it looks as if you have another trait that other Juraians lack. I assume it is due your relationship with Tsunami."
"Err, wrong Jeeves. It's magic, pure, evil, dark magic that created Second over there," Xander1 was trying to get the old man to stop being so calm.
"Hey, you where the one created, numbskull," Xander2 grunted testily, obviously hurt by Xander1's comment about him being created by dark magic.
Well, you are.
No I am not. And you're not the main Xander. It takes both of us to be that.
"I see." Katsuhito was still not fazed whatsoever. "I only know of one other being with this property, but you say it is magic. This I must look into."
"Hey, I will not be anyone's experiment. Keep your hands to yourself." Xander2 backed away.
"Relax, Second. He won't do that. He's our grandpa. Right?" Xander1 turned and looked at Katsuhito waiting for his question to be answered.
***Out-sided on Hogwart's grounds***
It was barely two in the morning when two solitary figures slid silently through the darkness of the night. April and Ariana, having slept for four hours, were now taking their morning jog.
Did you find a safe spot, Carol? April asked the AI linked to the three-way Link-up in her brain.
There's a forest to the west of the Hogwarts Castle. It's full of interesting creatures… some nice, some not so nice. Those that are nice seem to have become friends. The others… well, let's say that my EM guns got a decent warm-up. A few low-power EM pulses scared them off.
What kind of creatures? Ariana asked curiously. So far, we've seen moving mirrors and staircases, a poltergeist, a phoenix, and a hat that can speak with telepathy.
Carol chuckled. I know… the startle when you met the phoenix went straight through whatever blocks I erected around the end of the link of you two. Now, as to what I've seen. The unicorns are nice and friendly. The dragons seem to be indifferent to the 'White Muggle Car', and there was a giant three-headed hellhound that tried to eat me. Needless to say, I would have given him indigestion, so I convinced him otherwise.
April and Ariana chuckled audibly. Unicorns, dragons and at least one Cerberus, April listed. Cool. This place is so cool… I can't wait till the classes start. I want to know the who, what, and how of this place.
You're not alone, Ariana said with conviction. Who knows when summoning a dragon can be a handy thing to do. And if the unicorn-horn really is as powerful as legends have it, who knows what breakthroughs we can make?
April nodded solemnly. We might even lengthen our lives… we're almost halfway. Only eighteen more years before it's over.
Death at thirty-five, Ariana said. Perking up, she continued, at least we'll be able to say that we've lived. We've seen the world, learned pretty much anything we could get our hands on, and have our bodies and minds under flawlessly perfect control.
Hey, guys… Carol said at the moment, her mind obviously watching something else. April and Ariana immediately connected to the white car's sensors, and watched through the AI's senses.
What is THAT? April choked.
I think that would qualify as a 'troll', Carol noted dryly. April and Ariana's rhythm stocked, and the twosome came to an abrupt halt. To anyone who would have seen them, the two girls went from a twenty kilometers an hour pace to a dead-stop in a single step. And I think that raising a club and howling constitutes as 'friendly', Carol added as the beast came running towards her. Stun-charge. Loaded.
It…eh… shrugged off the charge, April commented, swallowing hard.
Incapacitation charge. Loaded, Carol noted, firing again. The Ai let out a breath of relief. It's gone. Good. I wouldn't have liked that thing to dent my bodywork, or scratch my paintjob.
April and Ariana chuckled, and continued their leisurely jog of twenty kilometers an hour around the lake, the conversation picking up as if it had never changed topics.
***London, England: Watcher Headquarters***
A short, ugly fat man dressed in tweed walked into a large assembly room that was currently filled with only 5 members. The fat man, named Quentin Travers, walked and greeted the head council of the Watchers' Council, "The second slayer, Faith Spencer, has been released from prison."
"Why have we not been notified of this development sooner?" one of the members spoke softly, but with much anger.
"Her release was unexpected and we were busy following the development with Miss Summers."
"Yes, what is the development with Ms. Summers, and why did you not request more resources to Watch over the other Slayer?" another of the members asked angrily.
"Miss Summer was in some sort of shock and was not performing her Slayer duties back in May, but the situation changed. When released from prison, Miss Spencer confronted Miss Summers and they now currently perform their Slayer duties together." He ignored the last question.
"Has Miss Spencer shown any signs of turning against the other Slayer?"
"No. As of now they currently residing in the same residence and have been performing their duties…" before Travers could continue he was interrupted by the head of the council.
"Who performed the Slayer's duties why she was incapacitated? And why did we not hear of this sooner?"
"None of the Slayer's friends helped with the duties. An unknown force did keep the forces of darkness at bay. We tried to find and contain this force, but it eluded us. As to why the council was not informed before of this development, I assumed you would want more information."
"You assume too much Quentin; do not overstep your place again. What is your assessment of the entity that took the Slayer's duties? Also, what do you propose we do with the current Slayers?"
"We could not find any information on the entity, other than it took out a large force of the demons. I would assume it is a threat to the future of the council and any means to capture it, if it appears again, should be taken. As to the Slayers, I propose we eliminate the Slayer Faith as she is an element that can not be controlled."
"Yes, I agree with the assessment that we need to capture this entity, but I do not agree with eliminating the Slayer Faith Spencer at this time. We still need to keep ties with Miss Summers and she is currently protecting the other Slayer. But keep surveillance on them and report anything significant directly and only to us, the rest of the council does not need to be aware of current developments."
Not happy that Faith was not going to be removed, Travers acknowledged what the council agreed on and turned and left. Making plans on how he could find a way to remove the unpredictable Slayer. The council was made to control the Slayers. Faith must be removed.'
End of Part 1 of Hogwart's style