Author's note: This might take me a while to write, and as much as I'd like
to pop chapters out bi-daily, quality could suffer from this. If someone is
interested in my train of thought on this and wouldn't mind beta reading,
they can AIM me at DeusExSubUbi.
Thanks for the review, keep 'em coming.
Chapter Two: Enter Willow, Exit Xander
Twenty minutes after chapter one.
Xander and Gouken were walking towards the Rosenberg residence at a medium pace, partly due to for all appearances, Gouken was an old man and should not walk faster than 1 mile an hour, another being that Xander is dreading this with every fiber of his body..
Willow has been in his life for as long as he can remember. She was there before the hitting started. Every happy or funny memory he has in his mind has her in it. From yellow crayon breaking Willow to the Willow he conned into watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Special with during the previous Christmas. Her face was as red as her hair from laughing when he showed her the Snoopy Dance. As much as the boy loved her - he knew it was love because she was the only person he felt that strongly about, but would never admit it as it wasn't manly- he knew that he needed Master Gouken's training. When someone saves you from falling face first to death, they make a strong impression in your life. *Like Batman.* Xander muses, stifling a smirk from lurking across his face as he imagined the old man with the cape and cowl on.
Both boys, one old, one young, stood in front of the foreboding house. Xander admired the front yard, where he, Willow and her new neighbor Jesse had a water fight last week. It was so much fun seeing Willow angry and screaming "Prepare to DIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" as she shot at both boys with her super soaker. *Time to suck it up. I can't leave without talking to her.*
Xander walked up to the screen door and knocked. Gouken patted him on the shoulder in an effort to comfort his anxiety. Mrs. Rosenberg opened the door and told Xander that Willow was upstairs reading. Gouken ruffled Xander's hair and started to sit down on the steps. The second he made the move to sit, Sheila beckoned him to have coffee with her. She saw the perfect opportunity to psychologically dissect someone new and she rarely passed that up. She was so engrossed in organizing her subtle question plan she neglected to ask herself what an old Japanese man was doing with a ten year old white boy. Gouken, not suffering from any form of senility, noticed the multiple doctorate plaques on the wall for psychology and braced himself for the coming onslaught...
**************************************************************************** **********************************
Xander crept up the stairs and stood in the hallway for a minute. He took this minute to make sure his eyes weren't watering, that his fly was up, that his ears were clean and his breath not stinky. He knocked on her door, feeling as ready as he would ever be, "EEP! Just a second." was the reply. The door opened to reveal an extremely cute by any standard, ten year old girl with long red hair falling down to her shoulders."Xander!" She squealed, pleased to see her Xander shaped friend. She dragged him over to her bed where a small paperback lie and entered into babble-mode. "Lookit-I- got-a-new-Goosebumps-book-it's-really-scary-it's-about-this-puppet-that talks-an- SNARF!" The sound that cut her off was a twinkie finding its way into her mouth, via Xander's hand. Chewing it she grinned in sugarcoated contentment and looked at Xander. *Xander looks sad, why does he look sad? He never looks sad...* "What's wrong Xander?"
"I'm moving."
Willow's reaction was what Xander was afraid of. It looked as if someone just punched her in the stomach after running over her puppy, putting the car into reverse, running over it again, and then putting it back in drive and running over it once more, at least that is what it would look like if she had a puppy. Right now, she looked crushed, tears starting to swell in her small hazel eyes. Then the question came.
"Why?"
Xander held her in a tight hug and tried his best to explain. "Wills, you know how I sometimes get bruises and stuff and used to say I fell out of a tree or something?"
"Yeah?"
"That's not exactly what happened." Willow dug her head out of Xander's chest and looked up to him not understanding.
"What happened?"
"My dad," Holding his head in shame, "he hit me sometimes, sometimes hard, whenever I made a mistake. But that's not gonna happen anymore. Master Gouken found me today, he saved my life."
Willow's brain kicked into overdrive at the new name and started asking questions. "Who's Goo-ken? What did he save you from? Why do you call him Master? Does he drive a batmobile too?"
Xander couldn't help but smile. "Gouken is a nice old dude from Japan, he's amazing. Think Jackie Chan, only really old but just as fast." Sightly darker now, "He saved me from my dad, he kicked me out the window from my bedroom. Master Gouken caught me by my leg before I hit the ground and became a pancake. He knocked out my dad with just ONE kick and then we came here. He doesn't have a batmobile, but I think I can talk him into getting one and the reason why I call him master is that he's going to teach me how to fight and how to live when I go back to his school."
"Oh, ok, so you're still gonna be in Sunnydale, just not with your dad. That's ok." She hugs him, but she doesn't feel him hug back so she looks at his eyes again and understands. "The school isn't in Sunnydale, is it?"
"No, its not. It's in Japan"
Willow's eyes bulged at that. Xander didn't know Japanese, he didn't like sushi much, the only thing that Willow knew that Xander liked that came from Japan was Samurai Pizza Cats and Nintendo. "But-but-but-but you don't KNOW Japanese, or their food or-"Xander's hand tightly held her hand as he cut her off with a goofy grin.
"I guess I'll learn. I can't copy off you forever, Wills."
"I know, but, it's just..." She whispers: "I don't want you to leave me."
Xander moves in to hug his Willow in an effort to reassure her. "I'll always be your Xander. Don't matter if I'm in Japan and start eating rice twinkies or down the street. I'll only be gone for the school year, Ken, Ryu and I will come back here at the end of every training year. Ill send you all of the cool postcards I can find every week. It will fly by, promise."
Willow clung to her Xander as if her life depended on it. After an immeasurable time, she let go and spoke again. "I'm....okay now. I'll miss you Xander Lavelle Harris, but I understand why you gotta go. When do you leave and who are Ryu and Ken?"
Xander smiled his trademark lopsided grins. "I donno, but we can find out in a few minutes. Anyway, Ryu is a Japanese guy like Master Gouken. Ken is Ken Masters. Both are two years older than us, but Ken went to our elementary school." Xander went to her bookshelf and opened up one of her older yearbooks. He tracked down a picture of Ken with a crewcut and a rat tail. and broke out laughing and even pulled off an impromptu snoopy dance. Willow giggled at his foolishness and moved to tickle him, which turned into more of a tickling tackle. After rolling around for a while engaged in mortal combat, the two let up and just looked at each other, grinning. "Thank you."
Willow's face shifted into puzzled mode. "For what?"
"For being you, for being my friend, for understanding why I gotta do this. You're the only good thing to ever happen to me."
"Just make sure you come back with a bunch of comics for me, 'k?" She flashed an impish Willow-grin. "You can always come back here, and I'll always be your Willow. Understand mister?" "Yes ma'am"
The two got up and proceeded downstairs, interrupting Mrs. Rosenberg's interrogation of the elderly Master. "Ah, Xander, is this the Willow you spoke of?"
"Yes sir." Said Xander. Willow moved forward and extended her hand upwards to shake the old man's.
"It is an honor to meet you, young lady. Xander thinks very highly of you. What did he say? 'The awesome-est girl on the face of the planet.'?" Both kids blush and Gouken laughs heartily. "You two can play tomorrow with Ken and Ryu, our flight leaves two days from now so you have plenty of time to say your good byes." Gouken glanced outside and noted the darkness. "Why don't we call this a night? It has gotten late." Gouken estimated the time to be 7:30 or so, early enough for any number of undesirable fiends to start lurking about.
"Ok. We can play water war tomorrow Wills." Xander grinned as Willow's face lit up at the idea of using water weapons of mass destruction on more people than normal.
"Alright! Night, Xander!"
"Night, Wills!"
The males took their leave to settle in for the night.
**************************************************************************** **************************
Departure Time
Yesterday had been the best day in Xander's short life to date. He had two new friends, no more dad beating on him whenever he spilt the milk, or beer, or water, and he had Willow laughing most of the day. They had a water-war, with the winner being Willow -*who'd have thought the little redhead had such good aim with a super-soaker?* was Ken's reasoning for his utter defeat. After that, they went for ice cream, Xander and Ryu managing to get it all over most of their faces instead of their mouths, much to the amusement of Gouken. The day ended with all four kids playing video games at the arcade until Gouken felt it best to get the kids inside. You don't live to be 100 without finding out about the things that lurk about in the night. Gouken knew that he would eventually have to teach his students about this harsh reality, but until then, he did not want to ruin what innocence they had.
Today was much more somber. After Xander confirmed he had Will's address properly memorized as well as her list of comics the day nose-dived into seriousness. Willow accompanied them to the airport with the permission of her parents. After a final baker's dozen hugs from a teary eyed Willow, Xander boarded his flight to the beginning of his fate.
Thanks for the review, keep 'em coming.
Chapter Two: Enter Willow, Exit Xander
Twenty minutes after chapter one.
Xander and Gouken were walking towards the Rosenberg residence at a medium pace, partly due to for all appearances, Gouken was an old man and should not walk faster than 1 mile an hour, another being that Xander is dreading this with every fiber of his body..
Willow has been in his life for as long as he can remember. She was there before the hitting started. Every happy or funny memory he has in his mind has her in it. From yellow crayon breaking Willow to the Willow he conned into watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Special with during the previous Christmas. Her face was as red as her hair from laughing when he showed her the Snoopy Dance. As much as the boy loved her - he knew it was love because she was the only person he felt that strongly about, but would never admit it as it wasn't manly- he knew that he needed Master Gouken's training. When someone saves you from falling face first to death, they make a strong impression in your life. *Like Batman.* Xander muses, stifling a smirk from lurking across his face as he imagined the old man with the cape and cowl on.
Both boys, one old, one young, stood in front of the foreboding house. Xander admired the front yard, where he, Willow and her new neighbor Jesse had a water fight last week. It was so much fun seeing Willow angry and screaming "Prepare to DIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" as she shot at both boys with her super soaker. *Time to suck it up. I can't leave without talking to her.*
Xander walked up to the screen door and knocked. Gouken patted him on the shoulder in an effort to comfort his anxiety. Mrs. Rosenberg opened the door and told Xander that Willow was upstairs reading. Gouken ruffled Xander's hair and started to sit down on the steps. The second he made the move to sit, Sheila beckoned him to have coffee with her. She saw the perfect opportunity to psychologically dissect someone new and she rarely passed that up. She was so engrossed in organizing her subtle question plan she neglected to ask herself what an old Japanese man was doing with a ten year old white boy. Gouken, not suffering from any form of senility, noticed the multiple doctorate plaques on the wall for psychology and braced himself for the coming onslaught...
**************************************************************************** **********************************
Xander crept up the stairs and stood in the hallway for a minute. He took this minute to make sure his eyes weren't watering, that his fly was up, that his ears were clean and his breath not stinky. He knocked on her door, feeling as ready as he would ever be, "EEP! Just a second." was the reply. The door opened to reveal an extremely cute by any standard, ten year old girl with long red hair falling down to her shoulders."Xander!" She squealed, pleased to see her Xander shaped friend. She dragged him over to her bed where a small paperback lie and entered into babble-mode. "Lookit-I- got-a-new-Goosebumps-book-it's-really-scary-it's-about-this-puppet-that talks-an- SNARF!" The sound that cut her off was a twinkie finding its way into her mouth, via Xander's hand. Chewing it she grinned in sugarcoated contentment and looked at Xander. *Xander looks sad, why does he look sad? He never looks sad...* "What's wrong Xander?"
"I'm moving."
Willow's reaction was what Xander was afraid of. It looked as if someone just punched her in the stomach after running over her puppy, putting the car into reverse, running over it again, and then putting it back in drive and running over it once more, at least that is what it would look like if she had a puppy. Right now, she looked crushed, tears starting to swell in her small hazel eyes. Then the question came.
"Why?"
Xander held her in a tight hug and tried his best to explain. "Wills, you know how I sometimes get bruises and stuff and used to say I fell out of a tree or something?"
"Yeah?"
"That's not exactly what happened." Willow dug her head out of Xander's chest and looked up to him not understanding.
"What happened?"
"My dad," Holding his head in shame, "he hit me sometimes, sometimes hard, whenever I made a mistake. But that's not gonna happen anymore. Master Gouken found me today, he saved my life."
Willow's brain kicked into overdrive at the new name and started asking questions. "Who's Goo-ken? What did he save you from? Why do you call him Master? Does he drive a batmobile too?"
Xander couldn't help but smile. "Gouken is a nice old dude from Japan, he's amazing. Think Jackie Chan, only really old but just as fast." Sightly darker now, "He saved me from my dad, he kicked me out the window from my bedroom. Master Gouken caught me by my leg before I hit the ground and became a pancake. He knocked out my dad with just ONE kick and then we came here. He doesn't have a batmobile, but I think I can talk him into getting one and the reason why I call him master is that he's going to teach me how to fight and how to live when I go back to his school."
"Oh, ok, so you're still gonna be in Sunnydale, just not with your dad. That's ok." She hugs him, but she doesn't feel him hug back so she looks at his eyes again and understands. "The school isn't in Sunnydale, is it?"
"No, its not. It's in Japan"
Willow's eyes bulged at that. Xander didn't know Japanese, he didn't like sushi much, the only thing that Willow knew that Xander liked that came from Japan was Samurai Pizza Cats and Nintendo. "But-but-but-but you don't KNOW Japanese, or their food or-"Xander's hand tightly held her hand as he cut her off with a goofy grin.
"I guess I'll learn. I can't copy off you forever, Wills."
"I know, but, it's just..." She whispers: "I don't want you to leave me."
Xander moves in to hug his Willow in an effort to reassure her. "I'll always be your Xander. Don't matter if I'm in Japan and start eating rice twinkies or down the street. I'll only be gone for the school year, Ken, Ryu and I will come back here at the end of every training year. Ill send you all of the cool postcards I can find every week. It will fly by, promise."
Willow clung to her Xander as if her life depended on it. After an immeasurable time, she let go and spoke again. "I'm....okay now. I'll miss you Xander Lavelle Harris, but I understand why you gotta go. When do you leave and who are Ryu and Ken?"
Xander smiled his trademark lopsided grins. "I donno, but we can find out in a few minutes. Anyway, Ryu is a Japanese guy like Master Gouken. Ken is Ken Masters. Both are two years older than us, but Ken went to our elementary school." Xander went to her bookshelf and opened up one of her older yearbooks. He tracked down a picture of Ken with a crewcut and a rat tail. and broke out laughing and even pulled off an impromptu snoopy dance. Willow giggled at his foolishness and moved to tickle him, which turned into more of a tickling tackle. After rolling around for a while engaged in mortal combat, the two let up and just looked at each other, grinning. "Thank you."
Willow's face shifted into puzzled mode. "For what?"
"For being you, for being my friend, for understanding why I gotta do this. You're the only good thing to ever happen to me."
"Just make sure you come back with a bunch of comics for me, 'k?" She flashed an impish Willow-grin. "You can always come back here, and I'll always be your Willow. Understand mister?" "Yes ma'am"
The two got up and proceeded downstairs, interrupting Mrs. Rosenberg's interrogation of the elderly Master. "Ah, Xander, is this the Willow you spoke of?"
"Yes sir." Said Xander. Willow moved forward and extended her hand upwards to shake the old man's.
"It is an honor to meet you, young lady. Xander thinks very highly of you. What did he say? 'The awesome-est girl on the face of the planet.'?" Both kids blush and Gouken laughs heartily. "You two can play tomorrow with Ken and Ryu, our flight leaves two days from now so you have plenty of time to say your good byes." Gouken glanced outside and noted the darkness. "Why don't we call this a night? It has gotten late." Gouken estimated the time to be 7:30 or so, early enough for any number of undesirable fiends to start lurking about.
"Ok. We can play water war tomorrow Wills." Xander grinned as Willow's face lit up at the idea of using water weapons of mass destruction on more people than normal.
"Alright! Night, Xander!"
"Night, Wills!"
The males took their leave to settle in for the night.
**************************************************************************** **************************
Departure Time
Yesterday had been the best day in Xander's short life to date. He had two new friends, no more dad beating on him whenever he spilt the milk, or beer, or water, and he had Willow laughing most of the day. They had a water-war, with the winner being Willow -*who'd have thought the little redhead had such good aim with a super-soaker?* was Ken's reasoning for his utter defeat. After that, they went for ice cream, Xander and Ryu managing to get it all over most of their faces instead of their mouths, much to the amusement of Gouken. The day ended with all four kids playing video games at the arcade until Gouken felt it best to get the kids inside. You don't live to be 100 without finding out about the things that lurk about in the night. Gouken knew that he would eventually have to teach his students about this harsh reality, but until then, he did not want to ruin what innocence they had.
Today was much more somber. After Xander confirmed he had Will's address properly memorized as well as her list of comics the day nose-dived into seriousness. Willow accompanied them to the airport with the permission of her parents. After a final baker's dozen hugs from a teary eyed Willow, Xander boarded his flight to the beginning of his fate.