A/N: I've finished my editing, my friends! Let us rejoice, and be merry, and update, for Pete's sake, whoever Pete is! Wait- I know who Pete is, he's a character from another story of mine. Well then, yes, let's certainly update for Pete's sake.

1.

Ellen Serafini, known as El to anyone with any common sense, poked at the dime-sized bruise to the far left of her forehead. It had crossed her mind to be mad at the girl in the hallway for distracting her from the pencil she had been so masterfully floating, but she decided she was madder at the teacher for being so boring. Ms. Garfield was fine for getting the beginners started, but El had had just about enough. The girl in the hallway was trumped once more by El's anger towards the laws about underage Wiccans practicing magic. El had decided early on that there was far too much foolish thinking in the world and if people would just listen to her, a lot of time would not be wasted. Like the time spent in this class, for instance.

"Excuse me," El's salvation and sister, Vienne, had popped her head into the classroom, "Can I see El for a minute?"

Ms. Garfield acquiesced and El darted from under her suffocating blanket of boredom and joined Vienne in the hallway. "New news?" she asked.

Vienne squinted at El's bruise, "What's that?"

"Pencil dropped. What's going on?" Vienne didn't look too worried or shaken up, but El wasn't one for small talk.

"There's a new girl in your room. I want you to make her feel at home."

El immediately whined, "Can't you get one of the mentors to do it? New kids get on my nerves." Vienne didn't reply, but stood silently. El peered at her sister, "Oh no, you didn't, Vienne! You had one of your stupid dreams again, didn't you?" Her question was an accusation.

"You know, for someone who is studying magic, you're terribly narrow-minded about premonitions."

El refrained from deploying her searing speech about how most clairvoyants had been proven frauds, even among the highest powers that trusted them, in the Merge. She merely groaned expansively, "You might as well tell me what it was about, then."

Vienne's face lit up in excitement as she launched into her description of the dream, "I saw you and the girl. You were older, I think. You were fighting something-"

"Did we look cool?" El deadpanned.

"Most things are fuzzy. I've been having the dream a lot. Only you were clear for a while, until I saw her in the House. Then it was weird, like I had the dream again in a flash just looking at her. Then I knew it was her."

"Vienne, we're Slayers," El spoke slowly, as if not to a person more than twice her age, "If your big prophetic dream is about us fighting something when we're older, you are not instilling in me any greater faith in the powers of premonition."

"I think there might be another girl there too, someone I can't see yet. And I don't think you were fighting something normal, like a demon or vampire. It didn't feel like that."

"Something different- right. I'm going back to class now. Have one of the mentors look after the Pot, okay?"

Before Vienne could protest, the door to the classroom was shut and El was gone. The Administrator sighed and set off on the walk back to the House. She wished she could say El only disobeyed her since they were family, but she couldn't. Pound for pound, the young Slayer had a bigger ego than the most pompous of Big Bads. She was also one of the most gifted Slayers the Eighth Slayer Academy had ever seen, academically as well as physically. No teacher held El's favor or attention for very long. They were either too stupid or boring or "got on her nerves," meaning they tried to stand up for themselves in the scorching ray of hostility El sent every last one of them. Due to this prickly attitude, El had no friends in the school besides Vienne and precious few of the most kindly Administrators. Knowing she would die a slow and horrible death if El ever found out, Vienne had cautiously hoped throwing Geneva and her sister together under the guise of mentorship could result in a bond for both. The dream had shown no antagonism between the two as they'd fought, which also indicated to Vienne that they may hit it off. But El had made it clear; she would not accept any thinly-veiled attempt to set her up with another Slayer like a toddler in daycare. Vienne sent a quick prayer to the Goddess to see El and Geneva clear to each other, and returned to her light particle string game.

2.

El walked into her room in the dormitory wing after classes as night fell. She was wary of the new Slayer Vienne had tried to dump on her. But the only one there was the girl from the hallway. El inwardly groaned, She must be the new Pot, and I smiled at her! Crike, why did I do that? Now I have to be nice to her! El sidled over to where the girl was emptying her suitcase into a cabinet.

At a loss as to how to begin, she blurted out, "You're the new Pot?"

Geneva whirled around, startled, "Oh, yes. I'm the new- what did you say?"

El's nervousness made her snap, "The Pot! The Potential. I know you're a Slayer already, but we call new girls Pots, short for Potentials."

"Oh, I see," Geneva said, her eyebrows jumping in understanding, "Yes, I'm the- Pot." The term didn't sound very complimentary to her.

"I'm El Serafini. You've met my sister, Vienne?" Geneva nodded. "Right. 'Night then."

El removed herself to her own bed, and Geneva let her. She'd had a tiring day among the five-year-olds learning the most basic physical Slayer skills, and then having to shift herself back to normal learning for her academic classes with her own age group. All this plus being the new girl in every class. By the end of the day she was frustrated by her physical classes and bored to tears by her academic ones. Though her physical teachers had assured her she was doing fine for a beginner, she felt like an awkward giant among the tiny, lithe five-year-olds. She was beginning to resent her father more than a little as well. How could he have done this to her? How could he have thought the problem would just go away if he hid it long enough? Geneva shuddered to think what would have happened if she had waited one more year before finally coming to the Academy. This knowledge made her grateful to be here now, and pushed her to work hard. Maybe she could catch up to her fellow eight-year-olds in the physical classes before long. Her last lucid thought as she slipped into dreams was to wonder how she and El got to this strange place, and what strange creatures they were fighting, and who they were fighting them for.

3.

Six years later

"Wake up, Geneva," El placed her hands on the mattress and jiggled it mercilessly. "You know," she said above the springs' tinkling, "Someday you're gonna get kidnapped in your sleep, and I'm not gonna do a thing to stop it."

After working out that there was no earthquake, Geneva crawled from her bed towards the bathroom.

"It has awakened!" El cried, "It lives!"

Geneva rolled her eyes and dragged a brush through her hair.

"Breakfast call was five minutes ago, creature of the blond lagoon." El flicked a fair lock off of Geneva's shoulder. Her own hair was bound away from her face as usual. She'd passed that cute little girl stage of chunky curls and had moved on to a mop of wild tresses that defied the control of everything from hair spray to magic spells done in the dead of night. Naturally, El envied Geneva's straight, blond hair as much as Geneva envied El's dark, wavy hair.

"Like they care," Geneva said as she tried to work out the bumps in her ponytail. She hated bumps.

"You're missing the important thing here, Geeves," El admonished as she tossed Geneva's wrist top to the blonde girl, who was yanking the day's clothes over her head, "I'm hungry, and so are you. You're so lucky to have me around, or you'd never eat. You'd just sleep and sleep and sleep and then you'd never be an active Slayer."

"I never asked to be an active Slayer," Geneva said, clipping on the micro-computer as the pair walked to their dormitory's cafeteria.

The cafeterias comprised one end of each of the dormitories. They had vaulted glass ceilings that curved up to connect to the roof of the building. Along the interior wall resided the buffet girls chose food from, and the rest of the area was populated by white tables with four chairs each.

"Oh sure," El countered, "Because your lifelong dream was to stay in that stupid valley for all time with the whole crazy, inbred Redgate bunch."

Geneva didn't comment. Over the years in the Academy she had become aware of her family's political standing. She didn't like it, she knew she didn't agree with it, but love for her mother and at least a vague bond to her father prevented her from vocally taking a side. So she said nothing, a course of action proved time and time again to be the best one. Besides, El did enough talking for the both of them.

"I mean, who has blond hair anymore, really? It's like a genetic impossibility," El continued.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, El," Geneva replied with a wickedly sympathetic smile.

"Oh, oh, that's nice. Slick one, mutant. How 'bout you focus that tremendous wit on the buffet, huh?" El and Geneva grabbed their food and sat down at a table. It wasn't long before they were joined by Vienne, who smiled a hello at the pair. "Why do you always smile like that when you see us?" El asked pointedly, "You'd think we were betrothed or something."

Vienne tried to rein in her proud grin. She'd thought for sure after El's first refusal to have any involvement with Geneva that they'd never be friends, but apparently her prayer to the Goddess had paid off wonderfully. The two were inseparable, at least until Geneva had to go to her physical classes in the lower levels. They were in the same classes academically; it appeared Geneva's skills in deduction and other mental processes were quite exceptional, while her physical skills stayed average. She showed no particular magical aptitude; for which her mother was quietly relieved, if Vienne's conversations with the woman were anything to go by. Overall the girl had settled in nicely with El to bolster her. Likewise she had smoothed some of El's rough personality with her calm demeanor. They were a team, whole and complimentary. Though Vienne couldn't believe that had played a part in the information she had to share with the girls.

"Is that the news?" Geneva asked, nodding to the small chip in Vienne's hand.

"Yeah, thought you might be interested." The Administrator pushed the chip into the table's drive at the base. Virtual screens flickered up in front of each of the chairs at a slanted, readable level.

"Seems they've finally done their thinking," Vienne said as Geneva and El examined the first page of headlines.

"'Visit to alien planet scheduled for 2113,'" El read, "'After first contact several years ago, politicians and scientists set a date to meet the extraterrestrials on their home planet.' Took 'em long enough, huh? I remember when they first came here. Wasn't that the same day you came to the Academy, Geeves?"

Geneva nodded as she read.

"I knew it! That's why you have all that freaky, unnatural blond hair. You're one of them! Get her, Vienne!"

"They do come in peace, you know. They're not trying to enslave us."

"Oh, right. That's what they say now. Just wait, as soon as we set foot on their planet in will come the warships and that'll be that."

"I love how much faith you put in our ability to protect Earth."

"Hey," Geneva interrupted the verbal sibling warfare, "It says they're taking a group of Slayers with them as protection. Like bodyguards. I wonder who'll be chosen."

"Probably the tops from the First Academies," El said, "Right, Vienne?"

The Administrator smiled coyly, "Oh, I wouldn't say that. I mean, the best of the best don't necessarily have to go to the First Academy in any region."

"What, so they'll be scouting different Academies?" El snorted, "Nice, Slayer talent agents, I like that. I hope the obstacle course isn't too hard, and the guy who checks our teeth and genitals has clean hands."

Geneva grimaced at the image of a Slayer pet show. Sometimes she felt she could easily do without her friend's alarmingly vivid imagination.

"Who says they haven't chosen already?" Vienne innocently inquired.

This caught both girls' attention. "New news, Vienne?" El wheedled with hungry eyes.

"How would I know who they picked? I'm just a lowly Administrator," Vienne said in mock irritation. It faded with her next words, "Though they do notify first relations of a Slayer picked for special duty." She ate in silence until El looked approximately like a volcano primed for eruption. Then she remarked with extreme innocence, "You didn't happen to check your mail today, right, Geneva?"

Geneva blinked and called up her mail with the touch of a few buttons on her wrist top. Among the ever-present junk mail was her mother's e-mail address. The e-mail's subject read in a bold font: CONGRATULATIONS, GENEVA!!! Raising an eyebrow, she opened the e-mail, whereupon a tiny image of her mother filled Geneva in on the extent of her pride regarding her daughter's acceptance as an ambassadorial bodyguard. As the e-mail concluded, Geneva looked up at Vienne.

"If you scroll down a ways you'll find the official letter from the Slayer/Watcher Council," the Administrator said with a proud smile. And she was proud, though she couldn't quite understand why the Council had chosen Geneva, a Slayer by all accounts as average as they come in physical terms. Vienne didn't see how Geneva's high intellect would come into play as a bodyguard.

Tucking away her disappointment, El gave her friend a warm smile, "Congrats, partner."

"Not so fast, Miss Congeniality," Vienne said, "I see you haven't checked your mail either..."

After gaping at her sister's mind-boggling evil, El pulled up her own mail before her next heartbeat. Scrolling past congratulation messages from her family, she opened the e-mail from the Slayer/Watcher Council. Her eyes got exponentially wider as she read. El spent the rest of lunch making a sound much like a door's rusty hinges, "Eeeeeeeee..."

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A/N: That chapter was fun on a bun, if I do say so myself. Anyone mind the time jump in the middle there? Sorry if you do, but I gotta get this wagon train a-movin', if you get my drift. I got plans. But enough about that, review please!