Power of One- by: Zodiac

Alexander

"Alexander!!!" my mother yelled at the top of her lungs.

"You're going to be late for school!" This was the fifth time that she had called me. Pretty soon she was going to get impatient and head up here. I could have just made things easier for myself and headed downstairs, but I had come up with the words for an awesome song. All it needed now was a good melody.

"Now I know you heard me calling you young man?!" Startled, I looked up to see my mom standing in my doorway.

"You don't know that for sure," I said as I strummed a few chords on my guitar.

"You're half whitelighter, you could hear me call you on the other side of the planet. Now go before you're late for school, again." I rolled my eyes and reluctantly put down my guitar.

"I wouldn't have to worry about being late if you would just let me orb there," I said as I grabbed my backpack and car keys.

"You know the rule, no using your powers for personal gain." That was a statement I heard often. Who made that stupid rule anyway?
"Okay then, when can I use my powers and have it not be considered personal gain?"
"When we're being attacked by demons, or saving innocents," she said as I followed her out of my room and down the stairs.
"But when we're attacked by demons you make me go to my room, and you guys never take me when you go save innocents."
"Because most of the spells we use are power of three spells, and –"
"-I'm not part of the power of three, yeah, I know. It's not like I don't get reminded of that everyday of my life."
"Now that's not fair Alex, we have never made you feel like you weren't an important part of this family."
"No you didn't, you just made me feel obsolete." We stood there for a few seconds just not speaking, until finally I had to break the silence. "Whatever, just forget I ever even said anything." I turned and walked off towards the door.
"Alex! Alex, get back here right now!"
"Just in case you haven't noticed, I go by Lex now, not like you care anyway though." And with that, I closed the door and got in my car.
My first stop before heading to school was to go by my friend Usher's house. I always gave him a ride to and from school. We've been friends since we were 2. He's the first person that I told about being a witch.
"Another fight with your mom?" he asked as he hopped into the passenger seat.
"Something like that, how could you tell?"
"The way you came speeding down the street, you only do that when you're pissed. So let me guess, it started off with the talk about your powers, which eventually escalated into the 'You make me feel obsolete because I'm not part of the power of three argument', right?" I just stared at him with a look of absolute disbelief.
"Has being a werewolf for five years suddenly made you psychic? Because that is exactly what happened."
"No, being a werewolf has heightened my senses and made me incredibly strong. Being your best friend for 12 years is why I know what happened, and besides, you and your mom have that argument once a month. And honestly, I don't know why you even bother; your mom isn't going to have two more kids just so you can be a part of the power of three."
"I know that, and I'm not asking her to do that. I just don't think it's fair that I don't ever get to use my powers," I said as I pulled into the school's parking lot. With that sentence, Usher began laughing hysterically.
"What? What's so funny?"
"You are. Talking about how you don't ever get to use your powers! Dude, you use them everyday, which, by default, makes your arguments with your mother pointless," stated Usher as he closed my car door.
"Hey, they're not pointless. These monthly arguments are all part of my plan to gradually wear her down. See, one of these days they're gonna take me with them on a demon vanquish, and when they do, I in turn will display my kickass fighting skills." I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, trying hurriedly to catch up to Usher.
"And what would doing that prove?"
"It would prove that they were wrong about me, and I would know that I wasn't as out of place as I feel sometimes," I said as we entered the school.

As we walked down the halls of our school, I feel people's eyes on us. I could also sense their emotions as they watched us. Some watched in anger, some out of envy, and some out of lust. Having the power of empathy really sucked sometimes. Feeling other peoples emotions, when half the time you don't understand the reasoning behind them, is a lot to deal with.

"Is that what this is all about?" asked Usher as we stopped at our lockers. "You trying to fit in with your family?"

"No, not exactly. It's about my trying to fit in with the world."

"What do you mean? We're champions for good, that's how we fit in the world. You most of all seeing as you're all, Mr. Higher Power and stuff. What's left to question?" asked Usher as he leaned against his locker, intent on hearing my response.

"Everything, we must be meant to do more with our lives than just be champions? What about careers, families?"

"Come on Lex, that stuff is many years down the line." "True, but college isn't. My dream is to go to Yale, and I don't plan on doing what the rest of my family did, and settling with U.C. San Francisco, or U.S.F."

"But I plan on going to U.C. San Francisco, and so does Gabrielle, and Marco, and Lucas," said Usher.

"And that's great, if that's what you guys want, but that's not my dream." And that's when it happened. That's when I really pissed him off. "Screw your goddamn dream!!! We all promised each other that no matter what we would stay together, which meant all of us going to the same college. When we would made that promise, the dream was staying together, no matter where it meant we would end up. And now you have the nerve to say that something that you partly came up with wasn't your dream?! Dude, that's really selfish." And with one last mean glare at me, Usher stormed off. For a second I considered following him, to try to patch things up, but then again, what would have been the point. My college plans would have been made public sooner or later. And I didn't see why he was pissed at me for being honest.

"What did you do to Usher?" asked Marco as soon as I turned to head to homeroom. Unluckily for me, he had our friends Gabrielle and Lucas with him.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I started walking down the hall. "We just ran into him like a minute ago, and he nearly took our heads off. So I asked him what the hell was his problem, and he's all like, 'ask your friend Lex'."

"So he's all pissed off and of course it has to be my fault right, right. Thanks for the confidence."

"No one's blaming you, we're just wondering what happened," said Gabby.

"Fine, he's pissed because I told him that I want to go to Yale," I stated flatly. They stood there silently for a second, not saying anything. Just letting their brains process this new information. Lucas was the first to speak.

"But I thought we were all going to go to the same college. That was the plan, right?"

"Yeah, but my plans have changed, I've changed. Now that I'm, well whatever the hell it is that I am, I realize that there's more to the world than just San Francisco, more people that I'm meant to help."

"So what exactly are you saying?" asked Marco, still not getting the gist of it.

"Well, as one of the powers, I'm not supposed to get involved in everyday life. Heck, I shouldn't even be living on earth right now. So why when I asked did they let me stay on earth and still be a higher being?"

"Why don't you just ask them yourself, you do talk to them."

"I have asked, and they both told me that it's something I have to figure out on my own. Maybe I'm supposed to be like Cain off of 'Kung Fu'. Traveling the world and helping the innocent."

"You're talking about the bigger picture, right. Not just helping people in one place, but globally," said Lucas. Finally, one of them got it. But if anyone really understood the whole champion thing, it was him. Just like me, saving people was a genetic in his family. The stories of his grandfather

Angel and his gang were legendary. I grew up hearing stories about them, and about their notorious last battle. If the five of us were lucky, we would grow up to be half the heroes that they were.

Now I know what you guys are probably thinking. Here I am, going on and on about Angel and his gang, when my mother and aunts are the infamous Charmed Ones. Aren't they equally as great? Yeah, sure, but how many apocalypses have they stopped? I don't think I have enough fingers to count how many the Fang Gang stopped. And they hardly ever used magic, whereas my family uses magic to deal with demons all the time. Now me, I like to get my hands dirty. I'll take using an ax or a sword to cut off a demons head over blowing it up with the flick of my hand any day of the week. That's where the real rush is.

"Yes, that's exactly what I meant," I said to Lucas with a sigh. "We could start up an agency, not just for the protection of innocents, but services as well. We could be the good version of Wolfram and Hart. There would be offices all over the world, especially in the cities where there was a Wolfram and Hart." The more and more I talked about it, the more and more that I liked the idea. We would be a global agency for good. I quickly began to imagine all the people that we could possibly help if this dream ever became a reality.

"Whoa, that's big Lex. The five of us would never be able to accomplish that," said Gabby. The four of us still stood in the hallway talking, not noticing that the hallway was becoming more and more vacant.

"Maybe not, but isn't it worth a try? The most important thing that we get out of this is that we get to help a hell of a lot more people. But secondly, if we accomplish this, even half of this, we will be legends. Not just legends because of who we were related to, but because of what we did," I said.

"Who says we want to be legends?" said Marco.

"I do. It's funny how easy you guys can forget that I'm an empath, I can since the longing you have for identities of your own. You guys are sick of being compared to the Fang Gang."

"Like you're not?"

"No actually, I'm flattered. Besides, if we are being compared to them, then that means we're doing something right." Since the demise of the Fang Gang back in 2004, the art of being a champion and saving lives became solely for witches and slayers. Mortals, sighting the fates of Wesley Wyndam-Price, Winifred Burkle, and Charles Gunn, as reasons for them to stay neutral, remained clueless and in the dark as to what was going on in the world around them. That was up until about five years ago, when all five of our lives changed.

It all started with Gabrielle. She was ten years old and had been outside playing in her front yard when a man named Whistler approached her. He told her that she was a vampire slayer, the chosen one, one of many vampire slayers actually. The slayer was always a girl, who was chosen to fight the vampires, the demons, and pretty much anything and everything that you could think of that was evil. Gabby had been a slayer since the day she was born. Her being a slayer explained her super speed, super strength, quick reflexes, and fast healing. Now she had finally reached an age to where she was old enough to train and patrol.

Since Marco, Lucas, Usher, and I were her best friends, she told us immediately. Since Gabby felt she could trust us enough to tell us about her being a slayer, I decided to finally let everyone know I was witch. They were pretty shocked, but other than that they took it all pretty well. On that day we all decided that Gabby would have to fight alone, we would help her. We knew that we needed at least one adult who knew the truth, someone who could cover for us in case any of our parents were to get suspicious. We chose Lucas' dad, Mr. Riley. He surprisingly hadn't been all that shocked when we told him about Gabby being a slayer, and my being a witch.

That was when he revealed to all of us about how he was really the offspring of two vampires, Darla and Angel. Not Lawrence and Colleen Riley, who Lucas had always known as his father's parents. He told us how his real father Angel used to be known as Angelus. He was one of the most brutal and ruthless vampires for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. That was until he killed a gypsy, and her family cursed him with a soul. From that point on Angelus was known as Angel. Angel spent years atoning, helping the innocent. It was his path for redemption that lead him to the town of Sunnydale. It was there that he crossed paths with the most notorious slayer of them all, Buffy Summers, who was now the head of the new Watchers' Council.

Angel remained in Sunnydale for about 2 ½ years. You would think that with a name like Sunnydale, the town wouldn't need a reformed vampire, let alone a slayer. But as you will come to find out, looks can be deceiving. Sunnydale was just the opposite of sunny. Wait a minute, let me rephrase that. It was sunny there, don't get me wrong, the town didn't have the eternal darkness thing going. I mean, it was sunny during the day, but at night it was completely different. That still doesn't sound too much better. Look, what I'm trying to say was that Sunnydale was a very evil, evil, evil, and I mean EVIL place. It belonged to the vampires, and demons, and pretty much every evil thing that you could possibly think of.

Sunnydale was hell, the mouth of hell actually. Within Angel's time spent on the hellmouth, he experienced a few life changing events. First, he fell in love with Buffy, the slayer, had his soul taken away and reverted back to his evil ways, tried to bring about an apocalypse, and had his soul restored right before Buffy stabbed him and sent our hero Angel to hell. Wait just a second, Angel's tale isn't finished yet. You've only heard the first year and a half.

So when we left off, our champion had been sent to hell, and by the woman he loved no less. Now one thing you should know, is that time s a lot different in hell than it is on Earth. A period of one Earth day is 100 years down in hell. Angel was there about 4 ½ months. That's around 100 Earth days. Which means he was there for 10,000 years. 3,650,000 days. 87,600,000 hours. I could get into minutes and seconds, but the mere thought is just too depressing.

Just think about it, that's a long time to be anywhere, especially hell. Imagine what being in a place where you're tortured everyday for that long was like. What do you think that would do to a person? Slowly but surely, you would start to lose your humanity. You would be like a wild animal. And that's exactly what Angel had returned as.

No one can tell you why Angel was returned to Earth. Heck, I couldn't even tell you. I'm guessing that the Powers That Be knew Angel had more good to do, and they intervened. That intervention allowed him to go back to Sunnydale, back to Buffy. It took a few weeks, but eventually, with Buffy's help, Angel was able to remember the life he had on Earth.

Once he was back to normal, Angel helped Buffy and her Scoobies(friends), figure out a way to stop the mayor from ending the world. It shouldn't come as any surprise that the mayor of Sunnydale, just happened to be a demon. Well, he planned to ascend to high demon status on the night of Buffy's graduation. But Buffy was ready for him, along with the whole graduating class of '99. In the end, Buffy ended up blowing the mayor, and Sunnydale High School to pieces. When all the fighting was done, Angel of his own accord, left Sunnydale to go to L.A. Even though he loved Buffy, he wanted her to have a normal life, and that wasn't with him.

"Lex! Lex!" yelled Gabrielle, breaking my concentration. "We're late for homeroom, again." "What?" "Where's your mind at Halliwell, we gotta go." She grabbed my hand, and hurriedly pulled me up the stairs. Well seeing as I'm late, I guess the rest of the 'Angel' saga will have to continue later, maybe during study hall. I'll have plenty of time then.

TBC