Champions of the Universe Original Draft

by Joshua The Evil Guy

AUOne particular Buffy has a destiny very different from the others. Crossover with the entire Dragonball universe, and several other thrown in too. This is the original draft of Champions.

5. The Six Weeks

Champions Of The Universe: 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Disclaimer:           In no way do I own any of these characters, or their histories, except of course for the Powers, the Compound, and the character of Goku, though DEFINITELY NOT his history or name.  All characters and stuff with the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" belong to creator Joss Whedon, and his production companies Mutant/Enemy.  Everything that is Dragon Ball Z belongs to the original creator, and is distributed in America by FUNimation© Productions via Cartoon Network.  This is entirely a work of fiction, and in no way do I promote or believe any of the things within here written, nor do I stand to make any sort of profit.

AN:  Now remember!  The latest part is after a long line of asterisks that probably goes across half or most of the page.

The Six Weeks:

Second Week:

After a full week, and a bunch of other stuff, the Slayer Team, as they learned they were being called simply because of the Team Leader, finally got used to the routine of everything and the next morning they were actually meeting Goku in the private Training Gym rather than having him wake them up.  Unfortunately, the breakfasts had stayed the same, the 'specialized' meals they'd had that first day never to be repeated as far as the humans knew.

Buffy had spent another late night training session in here last night, but had made sure to check that she wouldn't bump into Willow or anyone else by checking in with each of them before she left, saying she was going for a walk.  "Just around" was her reply to Giles when he asked for clarification.

She had kept the levels the exact same as her first late night session and to her own surprise, she was remarkably less marred when she returned…an hour later than she had the first night.

At the moment, she had adjusted her GEO suit, the jacket and boots, to put her in the same as 30 Gs…coupled with Goku setting the room to the same level, she was standing in over 60 Gs, and while she felt heavy, she was not yet sweating.  Hopefully, Goku's exercise whatever it would be would allow her to cover if she did begin to sweat.

Willow, thanks both to Goku's hint and the very helpful tutoring the night before, knew what was coming and was ready for it.  Finally.  The two had worked from yesterday's morning session until a few hours before midnight.  Unfortunately, just as she got back to the apartment, Buffy brushed by her saying she was going for a walk.  She had been hoping to discuss…things with her friend.

Giles was surprised when Nightblade had informed him that no meditation would be required today, and that the Blade insisted on Giles attending Goku's training session today.  Not that the Watcher had grown so accustomed to his weapon to be shocked by this, but it was surprising given the previous, however brief, encounters with it.

Xander was just restless.

"All right," Goku finally spoke after the warm-up stretches had been completed, "something new today.  Something…I think you will all like equally.  That is if you can get it by today.  Most can't get it on the first day, so don't be frustrated if you don't get it instantly, just work harder at it and you might finish the lessons before whoever might be a natural."

"Like you?" Xander sarcastically remarked.  Goku just shrugged and smiled.

"For…rather apparent reasons, I've already drilled Willow in what I'm about to teach all of you.  This."  And with that and no more warning than that, Goku, in a flash of a white/gold ki flame, powered up to his max below Super Saiyan.

Every single one of them, Willow included, staggered back as the energy assaulted their new senses.  Xander, who had only been able to barely sense the huge powers before, suddenly found himself, with his new spirit powers granted with his fusion with the Hyena, extremely more sensitive to energy spikes.

Buffy was a bit too preoccupied with her gut clenching in severe pain at first, but she quickly got over it as she realized what Goku had just told them.  "Wait a sec…you mean we get to learn how to use our energy?  Like you did that first day?"  Goku smiled a bit wider and simply nodded.  "Very cool." Buffy declared.

"All right, before you get into lecture format, let me try something here," Buffy asked.  Curious, Goku just shrugged and motioned for her to go ahead.

Buffy got into a modified Horse stance, mimicking as close as she could the pose that Goku had held over a week before during the demonstration.  Slowly, she focused herself inward, until, using her power sense she felt her own power.  Interestingly, she found that she could feel what her "max level" was, but only on a guess and with no way to measure it she wasn't sure exactly what that level was or could do.

Then, utilizing what she had learned so far, she tried to raise her power level, both tensing her muscles and relaxing them at the same time.  Her senses told her that she had raised her power a fraction, but that was not what she wished.  Then she recalled the few other times her power had risen of its own accord.  Sword fighting with Giles, fighting with Xander, even in her own private training, she had felt her power raise just in response to maintaining her body enough to just survive.

Then she suddenly found the key, no pun intended.  Closing her eyes, measuring her breathing, Buffy tapped a power that few Slayers before had even glimpsed.  The air around the blonde's body began to shimmer slightly, like heat waves coming off the road in a summer heat.  Goku arched one eyebrow, clearly impressed, until something even he didn't expect happened.

"AHHHHHHH!" Slayer suddenly screamed out loud and a barely visible at first and then slowly more consistent ki flame flashed around her.

The clear white flame wavered for only a moment before it got continuously more and more intense as Slayer's power continued to rise.  But that wasn't what surprised Goku.  What surprised him was that Slayer actually lifted three inches off the floor in the midst of her power-up before gently setting back down, the flame dancing evenly and regularly around her now.

"Oh gawd…" Buffy muttered as she stared at what she had just done with only one try.  She looked at her arms and body, surrounded by the flame; she was a mightily impressive sight.

"How…how did you do that?" Goku had to ask.

Buffy looked up at their trainer and then back at herself.  She calmed her intense anger, but kept her power the same and watched as the ki flame dispersed, but her power did indeed remain unchanged from its current level.

"I…I-I'm not really sure," Buffy admitted, as surprised as everyone else in the room.  She clenched her fists and triggered the ki flame again, just by a simple thought, similar as the one that told her arm to clench her fist.  If she didn't know any better, she'd have to say that her body was almost built for this kind of power.  And considering all the things she had learned about her Slayer powers over the past week, that might actually be true.

"I've been able to sense powers since you taught me how to use my Slayer sense that way, during our "tour"?  It, just seemed kinda logical like that I would be able to sense my own along with others.  I've, kinda notice it spike several times since then, but I've never done anything like this," she indicated the flame still around her, "before.  I just, remembering what triggered it the last few times, used that and sensed out what my power was actually like.  Then I-I tapped into it.  It was kinda like getting my second and third winds all at once, and really reaching down deep for some serious strength.  I…it's kinda hard to explain."

"No kidding," Goku muttered before going back to "lecture format" as Buffy had called it.

"Don't worry, it's not a bad thing Buffy.  If anything it's great!  You work with Giles and I'll work with Xander and Willow…"

"Hold on!" Slayer demanded, silencing the trainer.

"Just because I did this-this power-up, does not mean I know how to teach somebody else how to do it!  Heck, I'm still trying to figure out how I did it so I can explain it to myself.  So until I'm shooting beams at you and stopping them as well, you're "taking" all of us!" Slayer put her foot down, literally, sending a small tremor through the room.

Goku stared a bit more intently at her, but Slayer didn't back off for a second, her power evident and the flame growing agitated.  Finally Goku nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.  "Very well," he said finally.  "We'll start where I began with Willow.  Slayer, would you mind powering down now?"

She just nodded and calmed herself totally, the transparent white flame disappearing and her power going back down to "normal".  Goku just nodded back and resumed his position before the line of four warriors.

"Now, we'll begin with the Tai Chi exercises.  All of them Xander.  I'm sure all of you can easily recall them by now.  First, I'll explain the concept, and a possible theory on Buffy's advancement, of ki…"

*                       *                       *

            Several hours later, Buffy and Willow, having already found their energies, were in direct tutelage under Goku while the two men stayed back, going through every move of Tai Chi until they could figure out how to sense and raise their power levels to a noticeable degree.

            "All right Willow, show Buffy what we found out last night," Goku said with a small degree of pride in his voice.  Willow also shown with pride as she got into a simple ready position and just like that, a ki flame of similar make-up to the one Buffy had produced flash-appeared and the Mage's power level rose to a surprising level.

            Buffy blinked in surprise, and across the room, the two men briefly paused to stare in awe and wonder.  "Wow Wills, that's amazing!  I had no idea your power was so strong!" Buffy exclaimed.

            The Mage just shrugged before dropping the flame, her power remaining as it was.  "I'm not as powerful as you though Buffy.  That's pretty obvious, and just from your first try!"

            "Yeah, but it took me like a whole minute to even figure out how to power up and then like a whole other one to get to my max!  You just powered up to an impressive level in a single second!" Slayer defended her friend.

            Mage just smiled back gratefully.

            "Shall we show her exactly what this new ability can really do Willow?" Goku asked not without a small tone of mischief.

            The Mage got an almost evil grin on her face as she contemplated what the trainer was suggesting and she turned a questioning look at the Slayer.  Buffy just shrugged and got into the ready stance Goku had shown them, and then, in under thirty seconds because she knew exactly what to do now, her power shot to her max and she returned Goku and Willow's smirks right back at them.

            "I think I'll wait until Willow here softens you up Slayer," Goku said, again with that hint of mischief in his voice.  Then he stepped back and the Mage got into the identical pose Slayer was in, both their ki flames bright and unwavering.

            "Are you ready for this Will?" Buffy asked her best friend.

            "Lets try not to kill each other, but yeah Buff, I'm ready." Willow answered back with her resolve face on.  Buffy nodded back, and the sparring match began.

            The white, iridescent ki flames shown brightly and steadily around the two, and then all of a sudden it was like two stars in the heavens decided to duke it out and continuously slammed into each other like two raging bulls.

            Buffy moved first, flashing forward faster than even she expected, with a straight forward kick that would either knock Willow back against the far wall, or cut her in half.  Much to Buffy's surprise, neither was the case as Willow moved faster than even Buffy herself had just moved, back-flipping and then jumping up, in over 30 G's!  And sent a flying roundhouse kick directly at Buffy's head.

            Too surprised by the Mage's actions, Slayer was hit full force with the kick and knocked back several feet and flat on her butt.  Getting up quickly, but rubbing her sore jaw, Slayer smirked at the redhead Mage.  "Not bad.  So, think you've got Slayer strength now?  You ain't seen nuthin yet."

            That said, Slayer again launched herself at the Mage, but rather than run right into her, she tapped her well of martial arts knowledge, as did the Mage, and soon the two were sparring in the most lethal combinations and moves.  Style and form was cast aside for the most basic and accurate moves that could be performed, and yet it didn't matter because on skill alone, which was based on the downloaded martial arts knowledge, both fighters were completely even and they basically just canceled each other out, neither landing a solid or full force hit after the one Mage surprise-landed on Slayer.

            Finally, the two broke apart, slightly out of breath, ki flames shining brightly.  'Damn, how the hell did Will get so strong?' Buffy thought to herself in the momentary breather.  'Time for the first lesson Buffy,' Willow thought with glee, charging her power as much as she could.  Mage's ki flame suddenly intensified.  Slayer grimaced and tensed in her guard position, ready for anything.

            In the next moment, Mage suddenly disappeared in a flash of movement, startling the two men on the sidelines.  Slayer didn't jump however.  She stayed perfectly still, her eyes darting all around the room, tensed and ready to spring at a moment's movement.

            Goku was just standing off to the side, watching the events with a smile on his face, his eyes resting solely on Slayer.  Slayer wasn't moving, just standing there, her eyes darting all over the room, almost as though following some high speed unseen object.  Mage was still "invisible".

            In less than a single second, that all changed.  Slayer's eyes suddenly stopped moving, and narrowed as she seemed to focus down on something, and then faster than the men could see her perform the move, she lashed out with her right arm in a clothes line move, and the moment she did, Mage was caught on it and knocked back to the ground.

            After she got up, coughing, Mage asked the blonde, "Howcough-cough-coughdid you seecoughme?"

            Slayer just shrugged and smiled at her red haired friend.  "I didn't.  I sensed you."  Then she got into a different martial arts pose, and waited.  Mage frowned and narrowed her own eyes and got into the opposing stance.

            "Maybe I should be the one to ask how you did that Willow," Slayer commented just before she launched into motion, on the attack against Mage.

            "It's easier than you think," Mage said, her breathing back under control and moving easily to block and dodge all of Slayer's attacks.  "You just move as fast as your ki can carry you, and don't stay still, pause, or hesitate for an instant.  Oh, and don't stay in the same place or a single line, because then you can be seen."

            "But wouldn't all that moving around," Slayer asked, trying a sweep kick that Mage back flipped over, "make a whole lot of noise, or wind even?"

            "Not if you do it right," Mage answered, trying several more roundhouses at Slayer, "And there's also the fact that I let my ki move me not the other way around."

            "Really?" Slayer asked, easily blocking the kicks.

            "Buffy, look at us," Mage said while dodging a strike from the Slayer and then giving a kick in return.  "We're having a normal conversation while having a high-speed fight."

            Goku snorted loud enough for the two girls to hear him.  "You call that high-speed?  Snort! " he sarcastically commented.

            The blonde and redhead paused in their sparring to give him a combined annoyed look.  Slayer turned and looked at the Mage.  Mage turned and looked at the Slayer.

            "Should we show him "high-speed" Will?" Slayer asked.

            Mage grinned and nodded.  "Lets."

            As soon as it was said, the two teenage girls, moving faster than previously thought possible, performed every move that they had just finished, only so fast that only true masters could have performed it so.  Goku frowned when he saw the strength of the hits increase also, as a side result from both fighting at maximum power and taking out all the stops.

            Slayer punched her right fist right at Mage's head, and when it was less than a centimeter away, traveling in less time than it takes for the human eye to close in blinking, Mage's head ducked away fully.  Mage instantly retaliated with a roundhouse which left a black color streak in the air after her leg passed, Slayer jumped up to avoid it and rotated herself with her own streaking leg, aimed right at Mage's head, but the redhead barely managed to flip back in time to avoid it.

            As Goku watched, the movements of the two trainees just kept getting faster and stronger with each passing movement.  Mage was reaching physical heights of performance that would outdo any and every Slayer trained by the Watcher's Council back at their home, and Slayer…  Slayer was outdoing each and every single one of Goku's expectations of her.  No, correct that, she was destroying them.

            Slayer started the attack again by rapid punching Mage, her arm however looked as if it  had split and multiplied and all of her new appendages were attacking the Mage.  The redhead didn't seem to notice this optical illusion however, as her head was moving faster than the multi-limbed arm of the Slayer, just barely avoiding each fist, giving the illusion that for one second she had about nine heads.

            Before Slayer could attack again, Mage raised her left leg and started a rapid kick motion that gave her leg the same optical illusion Slayer's arms had.  Slayer, rather than avoiding, actually blocked the kicks and seemed to blur her form, as when she had on the treadmill the day before, as she successfully blocked all of Mage's strikes.

            Soon after that, both fighters moved closer in and both forms began to blur as they did away with martial arts knowledge and forms, and just started to hit the other as fast and as hard, and as effectively as they could.

            Only Goku could keep up with the movements, clearly at least, but it seemed that the fighters themselves had no clue as to how quickly they were moving, their minds so focused that they only kept up with the next move their opponent made or they made.

            Xander, from the sidelines, was only getting angrier from the display.  He was supposed to be Buffy's sparring partner.  Willow was weak; she hadn't even wanted to participate in the training before.  It wasn't fair that she was suddenly Buffy's equal after he had been for so long.  Xander growled in frustration at himself and let himself get lost in the movements, focusing solely on one point of anger, of rage, of pent up fury.  Focused so deeply, Xander hardly noticed when his power began to raise and only when his movements were as blurred as the two fighters in the room did he notice that finally he could sense his own power.

            And as that happened, something within him…broke.  His fear.

            Xander suddenly grinned savagely as he understood what Buffy and Willow now understood, and he stopped the meaningless movements and turned to face the fighting duo.  He suddenly felt like pure power had been injected into his blood.  He roared, the clear ki flame bursting into existence around him.  But before he could interrupt, Goku shot forward and elbowed his face, knocking the Hyena hybrid back to the wall.

            'Really don't need him interrupting this right now,' Goku thought about Xander as he flashed back to where he had been.  Giles just smiled slightly and continued with seeking his own power.

            Finally, Slayer and Mage jumped back from each other, their power still strong around them, but both were breathing heavily.

            "I don't get it," Buffy gasped as she caught her breath, "On skill, we're perfectly even, and you say I'm stronger than you, but I can't beat you.  Why?"

            "Because you aren't using your full power Buffy," Willow answered through her own gasps.  "You're still holding back.  I can tell."

            "I'm already at my max, I told you that!" Buffy shot back angrily.

            Willow shook her head.  "You're power is at it's max, yes Buffy.  But you aren't directing it as you should.  You have to focus your power into your muscles to get the desired effect.  Like on the treadmill yesterday, you were focusing everything into your speed.  You have to do the same thing here, but not just to your speed.  Raising your power only increases the overall strength of your body, but focusing it is what brings out the real power."

            Goku just nodded along with Willow's sentiments, having taught her the same lesson the night before.

            Buffy frowned as she thought on what Willow was telling her.  Obviously the Mage had already applied this principal to her own fighting, which, if she was right, did indeed mean that she was stronger.  Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, doing as Willow suggested and focusing her strength.  It wasn't as easy as Mage said it to be, but Buffy, somehow, knew she could do it.

            Her ki flame flared again, but this time it began to glow brighter so it was almost solid white instead of see-through.  "Let's go," Buffy monotoned.

            Goku sighed, frowning internally.  He had hoped that by pairing these two up, like Buffy and Xander those first few days, that whatever was bothering them would be settled in fighting.  It didn't seem to be working as Buffy was shutting off her emotions whenever she faced Willow as an opponent, and Willow was still struggling to pick up her own fighting style and was trying hard to not let her emotions get in the way.

            Willow, despite wanting Buffy to succeed in her goals with this, began to wish that she hadn't just given Buffy that hint, because she had a strong premonition, born of the gut, at that moment that she was about to get her ass royally kicked.  She charged her life force once more, forcing it to course faster and hotter through her muscles, raising her power as high as it possibly could go at the moment.

            Her limbs feeling like molten steel, the Mage stepped into yet another martial arts stance, this one a basic karate Tiger stance.  Slayer, her white flame shining and waving excitedly in the air around her, just got into the basic ready stance Goku had shown them their first training day.

            In the next instant, both girls disappeared in flashes of movement.  The air was very tense in the training gym for several very long minutes, only Goku's eyes the obvious movement.  Finally, after several minutes, the girls had apparently tired because they reappeared much the same they had disappeared, except they were on opposite ends of the room, Willow was panting heavily as she slowly slid down the wall to sit on the floor, while Buffy knelt in the same predicament, several feet away from the wall.

            After a couple of minutes, used to catch their breath, they managed to get back to their feet and prepared to go another round.  The ki flames had all but disappeared, no longer important as the very air seemed to speak of their strength.

            Buffy managed to get herself under control first and then noticed that Willow was still struggling to stand at all.  When the Mage finally got herself under control, Slayer got back into the same basic ready-stance.  Mage however, dropped back to her knees less than a second after that, and just after she had let out a breath and was now breathing hard once again.

            "I…(gasp)…yield…" Willow barely managed to get out, this time staying near the ground and only moving to improve her breathing status.

            The Slayer was left blinking in surprise at this but quickly accepted her friend's yield and quickly raced forward to see what the problem was.  "Geez Wills, I didn't hit you that many times," Buffy tried to joke, helping the redhead lean back and better clear her airway.

            Willow shook her head as Goku came up and knelt next to both of them.  "Not…that…" Willow gasped out between heavy breaths.  Goku put his hand on her arm.

            "It's all right, save your strength Willow, just catch your breath.  Explain afterwards." He ordered.

            Willow could only nod in her agreement.

            "That was intense," Buffy told their trainer.  "But exhausting!  I felt like dropping dead on my feet after the first two seconds!  And how come each second felt like a whole minute to me?  I could still keep track of time normally, but it was like everything was moving slower.  Except for Willow.  She was moving at normal speed."

            "Consequence of increasing your power is not only does your strength increase, but so does your speed and the rate at which your senses interpret everything.  Remember, this is your life force we're talking about here that you used just now.  Most of the time it's spent in keeping you alive and from being crushed or absorbed or otherwise destroyed by the very energy of the space surrounding you." Goku explained.

            "I'm actually surprised at how strong all of you are.  Especially you Buffy.  Not everybody should be advancing as fast as you, increased workload or not.  I'll give you that my helping you with your sensing abilities definitely helped in this, but still I didn't expect you to manifest a ki flame on your very first try.  And your being able to increase your power before this…well I think I already displayed my surprise on that."

            "Yeah," Buffy smiled.  "Hey, and when do we get to go back to the Main Gym?"

            Goku shrugged.  "Whenever you want.  We only have lessons in here.  You can go there to workout whenever you want.  But like I said, heavier workload."

            "Right.  No time for a workout," Buffy said sarcastically.

            "So…if I'm doing better than expected, well for all I care that's because of me being the Slayer and everything.  What about Xander and Willow?" she asked.

            "Willow also surprised me by how much raw energy she has in herself, and Xander, despite the changes his merger with the Hyena spirit inside of him, he also had a greater level of life force than is typical of the average human.  To tell you the truth, you all surprised me at how strong your base levels are."

            "That scale I had you hit the other day aside, we actually have taken a more accurate measurement of your power.  Unfortunately, the only base reading we have is a measurement taken when you were still in your home universe, and that energy is only however much is left over to be given off, after you know…"

            "Keeping us alive despite the energy of our universe trying to crush us," Buffy filled in for his pause, getting the point.  Almost.

            "So…what was our base levels…and what would they be here say…now?" Buffy asked.

            Goku shrugged.  "We'd have to measure you again to tell you now, but besides that most people judge their power levels as they appear in their home universe.  Here, everyone's powers are increased from what they were.  Less energy goes towards keeping you alive and therefore more is available for other uses.  Better to go by your weaker count, that way nothing can surprise you later on if your power level here outclasses a guy by only one level, but back home, he outclasses you even more."

            Buffy grimaced and nodded.  Even Willow, who was slowly improving her breathing and regaining enough strength to sit on her own, showed she understood what the 1/8th Saiyan was saying.  "Point," Buffy acknowledged.

            "But as for your base power levels, you Buffy were a level 5, Willow, Giles, and Xander all level 4, the average for most humans anywhere.  And at the end of last week, here at the Compound you understand, you were level 19, Willow 12, Xander 15, and Giles 17.  But you do understand that…"

            "It's not the same levels we would be at back home," Buffy finished for him, her voice sounding like any teenagers getting a lecture from an adult.  Goku smiled humoring.

            "But until we know exactly the difference in energy amounts between your universe and the Compound, there's no way to calculate out how powerful you might be back at you home," he finished lightly.

            "That's ok, I don't mind going by your rules right now anyway.  But what all is the difference anyway?  I mean, other than struggling to lift a weightless barbell, we haven't exactly done anything 'super' other than in our training sessions with you, and that was only after the strength and 2nd Training," Buffy pointed out.

            "Tell her Goku," Willow said.  Goku only smirked and helped Willow to her feet.  She had recovered enough to stand on her own once again.

            "Tell me what?" Buffy asked the two of them.  They shared a look and finally Willow just turned and answered Buffy's question.

            "Remember how when we first got her that we all complained that it was too heavy and we were breathing really hard?" she asked.

            "Yeah?" Buffy gestured for her to continue.

            "That was because the entire Compound, on average, even those walkways, is set to about 10 times the gravity of Earth.  Or the surface, if it had a surface, of Jupiter, or to be more precise, a planet the size of Jupiter.  A normal human is crushed at 10 Gs, after being immobilized at 4 or 5.  And we treated it like 2!"

            Buffy's eyes went wide as the realization hit home.  "Whoa."

            "That's what I said," Willow commented.

            "Then triple that 'Whoa' and add an 'Oh man!'" a voice said from off to the side.  Xander, who had woken up just after Willow had collapsed, was standing just next to Giles, still trying to attain his energy, and had heard the entire conversation.

            "So even without training, or special suits, any average Joe could be Superman here?" he asked for clarification from their Trainer.

            Goku shrugged.  "Basically yeah.  And…it was found out early on that when you place beings from a higher-energy enriched universe in a place like this, they immediately burst forth with the extra power.  Everything you've been discovering for the past few days would have happened the instant you got here if it hadn't been immediately channeled right back to where it spent most of its time.  Keeping you all alive."

            "So that's why keeping the gravity extra high, instead of making us blast off and start blowing everything up, our extra energy immediately goes into our muscles to keep us from being crushed.  And we don't notice the strength-boost because the gravity is kept at a level that makes our super-charged muscles feel normal, except maybe just a bit heavier." Buffy deduced.

            Goku nodded.

            "So do I get a go now?" Xander asked after a full minute of silence.  Laughter greeted his statement and was only interrupted when finally Giles own ki-flame appeared.

*                       *                       *

            The next day was worse.  Not because of the training or the intensity of it, and certainly not because of the moods of the training partners, and not even because of where the specific type of training was.  It was because from wake to past-midnight, everyone's training was entirely alone.

            Buffy was told, as soon as she got out of the sonic shower, to go straight to Second Training.  Apparently the Mariner wanted to advance her underwater training some and with the surprising advancement in ki training that the Slayer had shown, Goku broke no argument and for the next two days that is what she did.

            Willow, even before Buffy went into the sonic shower, had also received a call, and with her advancements in her physical training, her Teachers agreed it was time to start on the meta-physical.  She was gone before the others had even sat down for their own breakfasts, having eaten hers on the run.

            Giles, having gotten his own lesson in ki, and successfully tapped into his, sparred several times with Xander the other afternoon.  The Hyena boy, physically speaking, was indeed stronger than the Blade warrior, but he seemed to be forgetting everything that was in his head, and Giles beat the poor boy on skill alone.  After that, it was always Giles who was knocked unconscious, Xander having learned his lesson.  And ofcourse, Giles was spending the whole day in the private Training gym to be taught by the blade.

            Which left Xander.  He thought of going either to the workout gym or even visiting the Main Gym to get in some workout time, but he blew that off thirty seconds after the idea struck him.  Instead he went directly to the Movable Mess.  Which is where his day became worse than if he'd agreed to become Goku's whipping boy.

            It started out "normal" though.  Xander, Goku having not yet explained how to fly just yet, despite assurances that it was capable for even humans to do it, took one of the flying taxis to the Movable Mess, and upon entering immediately ran into Kramer.

            "Hey X!  Can you believe you're still on the board?  Slayer's still got top position, but you're actually still on the board man!" Kramer said excitedly in his high-whine voice.

            Xander placed an unfamiliar and an uncomfortable smirk on his face and just shrugged.  "Can't say I'm that surprised Kramer," he said to the alien.  "Any news on anybody else challenging Buffy?"

            "Nah, but you got a couple people pegging you for a match," Kramer answered as they walked together to a table.  Xander didn't feel like eating, so he didn't grab a food pad.  Kramer just followed him around.

            "Kramer…what is it you do here?  I mean here at the Compound?  No offense…"

            "None taken," Kramer waved off the question and then shrugged his small shoulders as the two sat down at a lone table.  "I'm a fighter.  I'm just not a very good one.  I used to be the defender of my solar system.  I was the best damn fighter pilot in the entire fleet.  I was also pretty crafty for whenever I got stranded or taken prisoner.  Had quite a few adventures before the Powers suddenly showed up.  After that…  Things changed.  Big time.  I'm no physical expert, but I'm allowed to utilize any weaponry from my universe in the Tournament.  I just have to have it with me or on me by the time my match starts.  For the small, but powerful bruisers, I use an exo-suit that I personally designed.  For the bigger ones, though not as powerful usually…"

            "Let me guess, your star fighter?" Xander cracked with the same smirk.  Kramer laughed out loud and nodded.

            "This next Tournament will only be my second one," Kramer admitted softly, causing Xander to start and stare at his diminutive friend.  Kramer caught the look.  "I know.  Why the heck do you think I leech on to people like you and Slayer?"

            "Kramer I don't think you leech…" Xander protested.  Kramer held up his hands.

            "All right, I fawn over you.  But you guys show real potential.  And you've got Goku as your Trainer.  And Slayer just beat, on raw strength, over ten physically superior to human fully trained fighters last week.  I hear she's actually getting stronger!"

            Xander shrugged.  "Goku showed us how to tap into our life force energy today.  Our…what did he call it, oh yeah…our ki.  Buffy can actually make herself a lot stronger now."

            Kramer shook his head.  "Not allowed in the arm-wrestling matches.  I know what you're talking about too.  Unfortunately my universe is only about five quintillion metras bigger than the whole Compound.  That may sound big, but trust me it's not.  My life force isn't strong enough to take that type of training.  Heck, my body isn't!"  Then Kramer opened his jacket and showed Xander a light display that the young human couldn't understand, even with his implant.

            "I have my suit set to emit anti-gravitons.  I'm standing what would be 1 G to you, despite the heavier gravity of everything here."

            "But…isn't that cheating?" Xander asked, confused.

            Kramer shook his head, "My species is practically born in a weightless environment.  The average citizen would treat 1 G the same way you would 10 Gs back in your home universe."  Xander winced.  "Yeah," Kramer agreed with the sentiment.

            "So…how come we get physical training and martial arts downloaded into our brains…and you get to call on every toy out the wazoo from back home?" Xander asked, confused.

            "Do you use "toys" that often back home, or before you met the Powers?" Kramer asked back in reply.

            Xander frowned and shook his head, not quite connecting the dots yet.  "No.  Actually we face off against demons and vampires, and what works best is wooden stakes, crosses, swords for decapitation, and Willow and Amy use magic, but Amy is just teaching Willow not actually helping us patrol or anything, and…" Xander stopped talking and he slapped his palm against his forehead.  Kramer, grinning, just nodded.

            "OK, never mind that then.  So…who's gunning for me in the arm-wrestling matches?" Xander changed the subject.

            "That is not important!" a loud whiny voice suddenly exclaims from directly behind Xander.  The young warrior, completely caught off-guard that someone other than Kramer would answer his question, jumped nearly half a foot off his chair.  After he calmed down enough to look who had spoken, Xander realized that the answer had been spoken in English.  A bit broken, and accented, but undeniably English.

            "What the…!  Geez man!  Don't do that!  You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Xander shouted at the old human that was standing calmly behind them.

            He was about Buffy's height, just over five feet, with spiky silver gray hair that seemed to be stuck in a permanent starfish pattern.  He looked like he was of Chinese descent and over eighty years old.  But given the fact that nearly everyone here was immortal that might be the least age that he was.  He also wore a large green kimono robe that while draped loosely on him, made his entire thinly form scream of ancient and unknown power.

            "If you could have a heart attack at such a young age then you are not taking proper care of your body!" the old man shouted as he walked up to Xander, making both fighters get to their feet from the sudden move.

            Oh yeah, Xander thought as he added to the mental description of the human, his face seemed to be set in a permanent scowl.

            "One more thing, it is rude to have a conversation with someone you have not been introduced to.  I am Master Fong of the Chi Artisans.  I have retired here to the Compound since on my homeworld I am considered to be dead.  Now who are you?" the old man, Master Fong, snapped.

            Xander blinked for a couple seconds as he tried to catch up with what was going on.  Deciding to play along, Xander just gave the old guy his name, "I'm…War-erhrm-Warrior X.  My friends call me Xander.  Uh listen old guy, I don't know…"

            "My name is not "old guy", it is Master Fong.  Learn it well.  One more thing, you are the farthest thing there is to a "warrior".  I will call you…LaVelle.  One more thing, be here in one hour."  And with that, the Chi Wizard pressed a folded leaf into Xander's hand and then turned and quickly walked away.

            Xander stared after the old guy for half a minute until he was gone from sight and finally looked down to see the leaf in his hand.  He was surprised to see a symbol drawn on it.  All of a sudden, a draft from either the wind outside or an air conditioner picked the leaf up and blew it outside.  Xander was just confused.

            When the young human looked at his friend, Kramer had as close as his species could get to a look of complete and total shock.  "Kramer?  You OK?  Who was that old coot anyhow?"

            The look of anger and accusation that Kramer shot at him only served to confuse him more.  "Are you absolutely out of your mind!  That was Master Fong!  He is the greatest good Chi Wizard in the Compound!!  He was approached by the Powers over thirty years ago, and he triumphed every time he ever entered the Tournament!  Between him, Goku, and if any of the Arch Mages ever entered, Good would be undefeatable, no matter what Evil has on their side!"

            "So why isn't he?  Come to think of it, why isn't everybody here involved with the Tournament?" Xander asked.

            Kramer shrugged.  "Because if even one of them did, then victory is guaranteed.  No matter what.  This isn't like a sport Xander.  This is actually a lot more like "Rich man's wrestling".  The ones with all the power make the bets, place the stakes, and even set up the fighting arena, while everyone under their payroll fights, there are "returning champions" that don't have to fight because they have too much respect, and have paid all their debts.  Goku, Master Fong, the Arch Mages, and quite a few others are those "returning champions".  And the ones with all the power are the Powers."

            Xander stared for a second, absorbing what Kramer had just told him.

            "What's this got to do with this Master Fong giving me a leaf then?" Xander asked loudly, more to be heard over the noise of the Mess than anger.

            Several people nearby stopped and stared at Xander until he noticed and almost growled at them, "What?!"

            They quickly moved on.  "X…you have to go," Kramer said almost urgently.

            "What?  Goku just gave me a free day, I can go where I like," Xander said indignantly.

            "No, that's not what I meant," Kramer said.  "You have to go to the Temple.  The Temple where Chi magick is taught.  That leaf, if I saw right, was the same as a business card.  Master Fong wants you to be his student!"

            Pure silence, except for the engines, surrounded Xander and Kramer.  Everyone was looking at them.  Xander was too shocked to growl at any of them.  Then he shook off his shock.

            "I've already got a Trainer, and I'm not too apt on switching before I'm even done learning from the first one.  Besides, Willow is the one that's studying magick, which by the way, magic and I do not work well together.  In fact we have a restraining order against each other.  I should know after this love spell I had Amy work on me, that's Willow's magic teacher back home, totally backfired.  Instead of getting Buffy to fall in love with me, I had the rest of Sunnydale.  Men and women!  No way am I going anywhere near this temple to learn any type of magick!"

*                       *                       *

            "What the hell am I doing here?" Xander muttered to himself as he stared up at what he assumed was the Temple where Chi magicks were taught.  It was two things, first what he expected it to be, since the old guy that had approached him was obviously Chinese, and second, nothing what he expected.

            The Temple, (as it will be referred to from now on), was almost an exact replica of all those old, forgotten, and cursed, Tibetan temples that Indiana Jones and Lara Croft always ended up in.  It was also brand spanking new looking, and its materials were all modern, and some not even found on Earth.  Technology was also, seemingly, allowed in the temple, such as lighting and environmental controls.

            The moment before he took the first step up to the temple though, a green leaf drifted across his vision.  He opened his hand to pluck it out of the air, but before he could, it rested itself in his open palm.  It was the same leaf the old man had given him in the Mess.

            Definitely freaked out now, Xander felt he no longer had a choice as he held onto the leaf and began to walk up the steps to the Temple.  Not sure where he was going, Xander just walked in the main entrance and stopped and waited for a while at the top of the steps before finally losing his patience and entering the Temple's large archway entrance.

            The moment that he stepped through the arches however, Xander felt a wave of vertigo sweep through him.  He couldn't identify it, or what had caused it.  He ignored the sensation and started concentrating on where to go to next.  Every direction looked the same to his impatient eyes so he just looked down at the leaf and asked it, "Don't suppose you know which way to go, huh?"

            To his immediate surprise, the gold mark on the leaf began to glow a bright emerald green color, which soon and quickly spread to the rest of the leaf and it lifted off of his hand for a second time, although it was quite obvious that this time it was not the wind.  Before Xander could faint dead away or exclaim anything beyond facial shock, the leaf was then surrounded with gold around its emerald green aura and took off like a rocket down one of the hallways.  Xander didn't even hesitate or waste any breath in telling it to wait up.  Normally he would have, but his week at the Compound had given him time to realize that people here did not wait around commenting on what was happening, they were people of action and no waiting at all.

            It also had to do with his merger with the Hyena spirit, and the animal spirit was not one to waste time when chasing down prey that had more than half a chance at getting away.  Xander didn't even notice that he had powered up the moment he started running, only that he was running as fast as he could after the leaf, and it was still pulling away from him.

            He managed several times to boost his speed, but all that did was match his speed and the leaf's until the leaf sped up again and began to pull farther ahead.

            Turning corners at max speed was also a skill that Xander was having to force himself to master as the leaf took many corners and that was usually where it managed to pull a bit farther ahead of him.  After nearly a half hour of the chase, Xander wasn't really paying attention to the time, only that he was getting better at taking the turns and the leaf was still leading on him.  It was over ten meters in front of him when it suddenly disappeared around a corner in the middle of a long passageway, impossible to identify which one by the time that Xander got to it.

            The Warrior barely hesitated, only slowing by one step as he sniffed the air, identifying the trail the leaf had left and turned down the correct passage…right into a large workshop area.

            Workshop was too nice a word actually, as Xander found himself stopped from more than just shock.  Voodoo temples and devil alters were less cluttered and creepy than this place with all of its many ingredients, pots, potions, animals, animal skins, animal parts, plants, and so many other things that Xander's head began to spin.

            At the center of it however was the old Chinese man in a white over robe with a gray kimono underneath, highlighted with a red cloak/cape draped from his shoulders, and small spectacles on the end of his nose.  His balding silver gray hair was wild, similar to Goku's in that respect, but everything else about him screamed "STRICT!" that made Xander, even the Hyena-Xander, cringe and want to go running back where he came from.  The old man, Master Fong as Xander now knew him, was holding the still glowing leaf.  When Xander entered, he began to mutter something and soon after the glow stopped and the leaf crumbled to ash.

            "You are late!" Master Fong shouted, his voice accented and also used to being loud apparently.  "We must begin your lessons immediately!  One more thing.  You will not wear that ridiculous training equipment when you are with me.  One more thing, my name is Master Fong, you are Xander Harris, I will be your instructor in Chi magick.  One more thing, NO INTERUPTIONS!  Speak only when spoken too and only when I ask if you have something to say or ask.  Any questions?"

            Xander opened his mouth, his hand raised to help emphasize his statement.  "No.  Good.  We must begin.  What did I just finish telling you!  Take off that ridiculous jacket!  Now!"  Xander blinked.  Too overwhelmed, he just took off his jacket and dropped it on the floor.

            "Ai-Yah!" Master Fong exclaimed.  "Are you a barbarian?  Hang that up!"

            Xander immediately picked his GEO-jacket back up and began looking for somewhere to place it when he finally noticed the coat rack right next to the passageway he had come in from.

            "Good.  Now let us begin," Master Fong trotted over to one of the clutter filled benches.  "What do you know of herbal remedies?"

            "Uh…nothing," Xander answered, walking over to where the old man stood.

            Faster than he even saw it coming, Master Fong rapped a bony finger painfully against Xander's skull.  Painful to Xander's skull that is.  "Ow!"

            "I did not tell you to talk!  Of course you know nothing.  That is why I am here to teach you.  Now pay close attention.  You can make the following remedies with the following ingredients…"

*                       *                       *

            Willow was in trouble.  No doubt about it.  She had successfully performed every spell she had learned over the past week, from books, scrolls and everything else she had studied.  The spells were easy to do; she knew them inside and out.  She had also started studying other types of magic; sorcery, alchemy, wizardry, and religious magicks besides her foremost study of wicca.

What she was in trouble over was not what magics she had been studying, or how well she performed in each.  It had nothing to do with the others, or her training with the two Arch Mages opposed to Goku.

She was, apparently, in trouble because she had no control over her rapidly growing power.

"Her power has done anything but go down Archer!" Amana was screaming behind her desk at the towering minotaur.

Willow, at the moment, was sitting in the corner, supposedly studying a book from Amana's library, which she had actually already read, a soundproof magical barrier around her.  It had taken four seconds to get past it without alerting Amana or Archer that she could now hear them.  Three to remember the spell, the last to perform it.

"I know that Amana," Archer replied, his rumbling voice quiet because he actually had no need to shout over Amana's screams.  His whispers did that just fine.  "But if we hold back on showing her new magics then I believe that it will stall her power growth long enough for her to learn all the necessary control."

"Archer!" the 2nd Arch Mage could hardly believe that this massive immortal beast was one of the most powerful magic-users in the omniverse.  "Her power would have grown just as fast if she only had one magic to study.  We've already given her thousands!  Her power, whether we stop feeding it or heavens forbid actually try and stunt it, will continue to grow stronger.  There is nothing we can do about that!"

Archer seemed to sigh, but remained perfectly still as well.  "I know that," he whispered, "I was hoping that she could learn full control if we just let her review what she has learned rather than continue new training…"

"That won't work and you know it!" Amana snapped.  "The spells she's learned so far she could do in her sleep if she so wished!  The only think keeping her from the Power Mage level is her lack of control, and so far she just isn't powerful enough yet.  But that won't remain the case for long."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Amana was silent as her eyes glazed over as she was obviously trying to think.  Her fingers steepled in front of her when she suddenly snapped back to reality and looked her friend in the eye.

"We give her permission to use magic outside of training, and insist that Goku allow her to use whatever spells or magic she wishes to during his training.  He can teach her control over her expanding power, as well as help her to increase it enough to get to the Power Mage level."

Archer nodded, momentarily in the 'Thinker' pose.  "Yes.  I agree.  By the way, do you know that it took her less than five seconds to get past your barrier you put over her?"

Willow blushed and quickly turned back around, ignoring the two Arch Mages, as she should have been doing in the first place.  Willow felt the barrier disappear, and still blushing, she got to her feet, put the book away, and walked to Amana's desk.

Once the new mage was seated, Amana grinned as she finally answered Archer's question.  "No, actually.  I didn't even feel the breach until you pointed it out to me."

"You're getting sloppy," Archer teased.

"I must be if I cast such a low level spell that a basic learner could cast," Amana agreed, the grin still on her face.

"Didn't you say most of your pupils don't even learn that spell until after the third week?" Willow asked with a matching, confident grin on her own.

Amana looked surprised at Willow for a moment, while Archer just grinned down at the mage.  Willow all of a sudden realized what she had done.

"Oh!  My!  I mean, I, I… I'm sorry I never, I mean I, I, I…" Willow started to blubber almost, but Amana quickly put a stop to it before it got that far.

"No, no, it's all right Willow," Amana said soothingly.  "I'm actually very impressed at how much your confidence has grown over the past week.  I am glad that you are, how do they put it these days?  Oh yes, that you're coming out of your shell.  And no, that was not insulting, in fact it was a very good point, and somewhat funny as well."

Willow stopped looking like she was about to cry, and settled for her 'ready' posture, whenever she was listening raptly to a teacher.

"Unfortunately… your confidence is the whole base of Archer's and mine argument," Amana continued with a sour look on her face.

Willow frowned, more confused than hurt by what was said.

"Allow me my friend," Archer interrupted and turned to look down upon Willow.  Willow looked up, still frowning in confusion.

"Our 'problem' can be summed up in a single word little one.  Pride," was all Archer said.

Willow blinked and creased her brow to match her frown.  "Pride?" she repeated.  Archer, and even Amana nodded affirmative.  "But I…" before she said anything else, Willow immediately shut her mouth and turned her brain on, so to speak.

The old proverb, Pride goeth before a fall rang through her mind for several moments before she began to dissect exactly what it meant and what both her teachers were afraid of.  Just about all of the enemies, especially the 'Big Bads' as they called them, that the Slayerettes had fought and defeated, pride was quite often their common and in some cases only weakness.  It was also what made them evil in some cases.

Amy's mother, before she got banished.  The hulking vampire they had thought was the Anointed One.  The Master.  And lately, more often than not, Spike with having the reputation of killing at least two Slayers previously.  Yet Buffy defeated them all.  Even though some of them were more powerful than her.

Two lessons could be learned from these facts, Willow decided.  The first, if you have too much pride, it can go to your head, and if you have a lot of power coupled with that pride, more often than not that person will turn up evil.  Power corrupts, but what it uses to corrupt is pride.

The second, there is always someone out there that can defeat you, whether they're more powerful than you, or less powerful than you.  So just because you won a few battles against "undefeatable opponents" doesn't mean you're all-powerful and can't be defeated yourself.

There was more that her teachers were getting at, Willow was sure, but she needed to think more before much more was said.  First though, something had to be said in the first place.

"You think I'll turn evil, abuse the powers and knowledge you've given me here," Willow stated after she realized all this.

"We gave you no powers little one," Archer replied softly, "Only the knowledge in how to use what you already had."  Willow nodded her understanding.

"But we are worried dear," Amana added after a pause.  Willow nodded again.

Amana sighed and rubbed her eyes.  "How did my own teacher ever tell me this lesson?" she asked aloud, though quite obviously to herself.

"I understand the problems those with power have with pride, and I also understand the consequences of mixing those two up are.  I would like to think I'm prepared enough to control myself," Willow told them.

"I don't think you understand it quite as clearly as you think Willow," Archer pointed out.  "Amana and I are your superiors, for the time.  Your friends are physically your superiors, as well as your friends.  But you have not yet, with our training, placed yourself among normal people, those with no powers whatsoever.  In effort to do good, you might get ahead of yourself and do harm to those normal people, whether in accident or on purpose for those that deserve punishment."

"But… I…I'm only supposed to protect the innocent, not punish the guilty!  That is the goddess's work!" Willow protested, saying what she truly believed about what she was beginning to think of as her religion.  She had actually learned this much here at the Compound than from Amy and her family.

"I am glad you know that, but still… accidents happen," Amana gravely replied to Willow's protest.  Willow frowned again as she considered their words.

"I… I need to think about this.  Would it be all right if we skipped today's lesson and I went on to 2nd Training?" Willow finally asked after several minutes' tense silence.

"Not at all.  I will inform them that you are on your way," Amana excused the Mage.

Willow got up and went to the MTC without another word.  It activated at her approach and she knew that it was already set for her.  Quietly, she stepped through.

*                       *                       *

            Buffy was submerged in a full water tank, the liquid around her, she had been told, the equivalent of her own Earth's oceans, minus pollution and shit.  She had also been holding her breath for up to five minutes before she even entered the water, and had been underwater, doing a basic kata, for at least six more.  She knew this because of a large neon clock visible through the force field holding the water back.

            The Mariner was beside her, only observing, but because he had gills, he wasn't really in any danger of drowning.  Buffy, however, was.  Not that it mattered.  Five minutes after, if she did drown, she would be back to normal, once they had pumped all the water out of her lungs that is.

            The Slayer was only just beginning to feel lightheaded, but she didn't let it distract her any.  According to test results, she had a natural ability to keep her body fully functioning for long periods of time without any oxygen.  She blamed, and all the Technicians agreed, her status as the Slayer.

            With the training she had received here however, she had learned how to increase those fifteen minutes she might have wasted precious energy and oxygen in her blood, to well over thirty, getting quite close to a full hour.  From learning how to breath right, to how to hold her breath and regulate it afterwards, and even some stuff they called 'advanced', which was only slowing down her heartbeat and her muscles need of oxygen significantly.  To her though, it was all actually simple meditation that she had learned from her Slayer training with Giles, as well as some SCUBA lessons her family had taken shortly after she turned thirteen.

            Now she was combining about three separate training arenas into one with this single exercise.  Breathing/holding breath exercises, movement through liquid exercises, and the most important, maintaining her body's fighting ability when low on oxygen.

            The kata was pretty basic, with the only hindrance being that it required her feet to stay on the ground.  Since the water around her was almost identical to Earth's oceans that also meant that it was salt water.  Very buoyant salt water is, very buoyant indeed.

            With almost every movement of her arms, her body seemed to want to try and float to the top, and keeping both feet on the floor of the tank certainly didn't help.  Maybe if the pressure were deeper, the gravity holding her to the floor stronger, Buffy was sure she wouldn't be having as much trouble as she was right now, but as she was already half dead with the settings on her GEO suit combined with the restrictive movement of the liquid atmosphere compared to one filled with air…

            The Slayer was in little mood for distractions, however when the first one in three days suddenly showed up, she found it very difficult to be angry at that distraction.

            She sensed Willow.  Strange how bizarre that statement would have seemed to her just a week ago, now seemed perfectly normal to her startled mind.  Startled enough that she suddenly let out a gasp of surprise, allowing several minutes worth of precious oxygen escape in a single second.

            The life force of her best friend was as clear and omni-present to the Slayer's sixth sense as Goku's first was, but definitely for different reasons.  Goku didn't even try to hold in how much power he had, though he could definitely increase it, Buffy could even now sense him, though he was several thousand miles away.

            With Willow however…  It was something else entirely.  Probably just because of the massage several nights ago and they still hadn't talked about what happened.  Not that anything really happened, but Buffy knew that both their subconscious minds were telling them the same thing, that something had happened… they just had no clue what exactly.

            While focusing on Willow, despite gasping and losing her air, Buffy had also frozen, stopping all movements, which apparently annoyed the Mariner, because he angrily gestured for her to continue.

            Buffy didn't really want to know what he was thinking of her right now, but nevertheless picked up where she had left off, and focused as much as she could on her current exercises.  Though a portion of her thoughts never left Willow's life signature, always keeping track of the Mage.

*                       *                       *

            Giles was going considerably slower than the rest of the team, and nobody was deluding themselves in saying otherwise, not even the Watcher.  And especially not his weapon that was responsible for most of his training.

            In dealing with a sentient weapon, there was always, always, always a common thread in those that wielded them.  A balance between mind and body, a greater ability, either of mind or body, that allowed the wielder to use the weapon to its maximum ability, and for some a greater balance between mind, body, and soul.

            With the Power Blades, this latter balance was not only a requirement, but also a necessity in even being able to use them, let alone pick them up.  The greater ability came from the Blades themselves, as they granted a portion of themselves to their wielder while taking an equal portion from the wielder.

            Physical ability, strength and skill, were the easiest for Nightblade to deal with.  It was the mind and the soul that it needed to deal with first and foremost.  But Giles was even more difficult than it could have imagined, if it were capable of imagining.

            "I… I'm not sure I understand…" Giles stuttered slightly as he stood before the Nightblade on the landscape of his mind, dressed in his usual tweed rather than the training uniform he'd received at the Compound.

            :This is the mind.  Your mind.  You control everything around us.  Through you, I can also control it.  We have already trained much here, but that training was just to build this place, so that you might see and be aware of it. :

            "This," Giles looked around at the 20x20x50 meter wood-paneled room, "is my mind?"

            :It is the representation.  Your mind is many things.  Biologically, it is housed and centralized by your brain, but it is not just your brain.  Your mind extends much further than the body, and has greater control over the body than you could ever guess:

            "I understand that much, about things anyway," Giles replied.  "Yet I, don't quite understand what we are to do here?  I'm already meditating.  Is that what I do here as well?"

            :Meditating allows you access here.  Here I will show you how to control your mind and its many facets and unknown abilities.  I may also show you how to control my power, here.  But for now we will begin by answering your questions.  Once the majority of your questions have been answered, we will begin your mental training:

            "What all will I learn here?  From this mental training?"

            :How to fully control your body.  How to control your emotions, your perceptions, and your dreams.  How to keep yourself from insanity, how to block your mind from outward invasion of any force of power, and how to access my power at will.  You may not see the results right away, but in your physical training, you will:

            For the remainder of the day, Nightblade showed Giles how to control, learn from, and identify all the aspects and abilities that his 'mind realm' allowed him.  As with everything so far, Giles was slow to understand.

            Near the end of the day, Nightblade released the Watcher from his meditation, amazingly enough right as the rest of the Slayer Team were returning.  Buffy and Willow came through the MTC together, conversing about coincidences, and Xander came through about five minutes later.

            "Willow!" he exclaimed the moment he was through the red portal.  "Thank god!  Do you know anything about Chi Magick, or anyone that uses it?"

            "Huh?" she blurted at the sudden question.

            "Come on, you're our magic guru, you've gotta know somebody your training with who knows this Chi Magick shit, right?" Xander prompted again, a wild look in his eyes and actually just about everything about him.

            "Why would you think that just because it has the word magic is in it, that I would first of all know what it is, and second of all know a specific person studying it in this place?" Willow asked logically, and a bit coldly by Buffy and Xander's points of view.

            "Well…because, you're our magic guru… and you've had to have heard of this Chi Magick shit, because if I find out it doesn't actually exist, first I'm getting my head examined, then I'm gonna start busting some heads!" Xander exclaimed with punching his palm with his fist.

            Willow blinked and then rolled her eyes up in heavy thought.  "Actually… yeah, I've read several mentions of Chi Magick in the books I've read so far.  Chinese based, oriented, and created.  It deals with manipulating the life force of a person, the surrounding area, and the universe as a whole on the spiritual level.  It's sort of like the ki training Goku's giving us actually, except far more advanced.  Kinda like comparing Karate with Gang-Gong Kung Fu."  They all frowned at the unfamiliar martial arts name, but their implants quickly filled them in on the style and how the comparison fit.

            "Oh," Xander remarked depressingly, as he seemed to slump down into himself.

            "Xand?  What's wrong?" Buffy asked as they followed the slouching Warrior to the central couch.  Giles too came forward to see what was the matter.

            "This really weird old geezer called Master Fong found me in the Movable Mess, just before I was about to sit down to eat!  He gave me this weird leaf, then told me to meet him at the Temple of Chi Magicks.  Everybody else told me it would be a bad idea to refuse, and partially scared but more curious, I went.  Ten minutes after that, the geezer claims I'm his pupil and starts slapping me and saying "One more thing" a lot and then goes on and on and on about herbs this, herbs that, remedies this, remedies that!  I was about ready to kill the guy by the time he finally told me to get out of there.  I've been trying to find Goku for the past hour, but he's "Unavailable" by the Global things and nobody else knows where he is!"

            At that moment the MTC activated, and out stepped the very person Xander had been looking for.  Goku smirked and then said to Xander, "Maybe that's because he's been in a meeting for the past two hours about your new training schedule."

            "You report to Master Fong at the Temple every day from now on, same as Willow reports to the Magic Tower," Goku explained as he walked up to the group.  "And just so you know Xander, I did not at all object to this.  You were getting too complacent with your free schedule, and you haven't even gone back to 2nd Training.  I also honestly believe that Master Fong can teach you things that you need to know Xander.  You've been letting your hyena half get the better of you these past couple days, and Master Fong can help you master and control that better than I or anyone else ever could."

            "Please explain to me then, where knowing the difference between a salamander root and Wolfsbane come anywhere into helping me master controlling my temper?" Xander sarcastically snorted.

            "Your reason and need for controlling your temper are supernatural X," Goku said simply.  "Master Fong is an amazing Chi Wizard.  The only reason he's here is because of a pupil of his' destiny.  On his home world, he had to be "killed" by a Dark Chi Wizard in order for that student to reach his full potential and one-day defeat that same Dark Chi Wizard.  You can learn a lot Xander.  Willow hasn't even begun studies in Chi Magick, and when she does, she'll be learning them from the Arch Mages, who while are competent, even they'll admit that Master Fong is the absolute best at teaching Chi Magick."

            "What?!" Willow exclaimed at this news.  "Xander, let's trade!" she begged.

            "Be glad to Wills," Xander looked almost relieved, until he felt an unbreakable grip on his shoulder.  It was Goku.

            "Get your rest, because we start early tomorrow morning so you'll have enough time at the Temple tomorrow." Goku whispered into Xander's ear.  Then with a cheery, "Good night!" he turned and left the Slayer Team's apartment.

            "I hate it here," Xander announced.

            "But just the other day you were shouting about all the cool stuff we'll learn to do here," Buffy innocently pointed out.

            Xander shot her a death glare, but it only tickled her into giggles, where Willow soon joined her.  Rolling his eyes, Xander embraced his aching head and walked into his bedroom, where he spent the rest of the night.

            "OK, now that that's taken care of, I'm going for a walk.  I'll be back later guys, but don't wait up.  I can tell it's been a hellish day on all of us," Buffy said as she walked back to the MTC.

            Willow tried to call after her, but it was too late before she could as the blonde stepped through.  Willow sighed and turned to regard the only other person in the room.

            "So how was your day Giles?"

*                       *                       *

            Buffy was in the private training gym again, and this time she was working out in over 50 Gs, as her suit was set to the 45 g/mm the Mariner told her the bottom of Earth's oceans was like, and the room itself just over 30 g/mm3 as well as setting it to slowly increment upwards in gravity every ten minutes.  What made this particular training session unique however, was it the first one where she used her ki.

            The first few minutes, she did nothing except raise and lower her power.  She even tried to stuff her power down so she was weaker than normal, and found out an interesting little fact.  Their ki might keep them alive in higher gravities, but even without it, their muscle strength remains the same, especially after being trained in the higher gravities.  At least Buffy found this interesting.

            After that, Buffy did all of her usual exercises at normal, without raising her power any.  Once she became exhausted enough that she normally would have quit after one more exercise, she instead raised her power to her max, and did all of the exercises over again, but in longer intervals.  Then she came up with at least a half dozen more ways to test and strengthen herself and did those.  Her energy lasted throughout most of the night, and by the point of total exhaustion that she chose to quit at, she only had about three more hours before it was time to wake up again.

            Thankfully, nobody, especially not Willow, was waiting up for her as she crept into her apartment room and instantly fell asleep on the bed.

            In the morning, Goku didn't even show up, and Buffy was allowed to sleep an hour later than the rest of them.  After breakfast, which had stayed lit until Buffy finally woke up and ate, Xander was summoned back to the Temple of Chi Magicks, Giles told them he was going to the Training Gym, and both Buffy and Willow went to 2nd Training in silence.

*                       *                       *

            That evening once everyone had returned, Buffy was feeling exhilarated after her day and was anxious to get to her private training.  Rather than tiring or depressing her, her 2nd Training today had the total opposite effect on her.  It was like being allowed to play in the pool all day, and told that it was work you were getting paid for!  She could now hold her breath for over a half hour with extremely strenuous movements and her depth measurement took her to over 3 miles beneath an ocean's surface.

            Despite being immortal, decompression sickness isn't fun, so she spent the entire afternoon getting schooled, and training, in ways to either minimize or totally cancel that little human flaw without having to compromise on time moving from depth zone to depth zone.

            And although they hadn't been trained together, she heard that Willow had also done extremely well in her training.  Her long-breathed friend was also rumored to have the longest time underwater of anyone.  Her ability to hold it during strenuous movements however was not as spectacular.

            Xander hadn't said a word since he'd come in, only held a cold cloth to his face and lain on the couch ever since.  Of course, neither Buffy nor Willow had asked what had happened to him today, and to be totally honest, she was sure that neither of them wanted to know or wanted to ask.

            Giles showed up last, as always, and appeared to have a headache of his own to deal with, though when Buffy did ask him, he just said it was nothing and went to retrieve his evening meal from the bar.  Buffy let it go with a shrug.

            "Hey, I'm going for a walk, I'll be back late," she told them, after eating her own large meal, and started towards the MTC.  "Don't wait up, I'm not sure when I'll be back."

            If she had been looking at Willow's face at the time, she would have known immediately that she had said the wrong thing.  Although even the female Slayer would have trouble exactly identifying precisely what that wrong thing was.

            "Stop right there Slayer!" Willow's voice snapped out like a whip.

            Buffy froze at first from the shock of what had just happened, and then it slowly evolved into genuine fear, for a number of reasons.  "And just where do you think you're going?" Willow asked, anger radiating off of her in waves.

            Buffy slowly turned around to look Willow in the face, absently noting the shocked looks on the men's faces, which probably mirrored her own.  "I told you, just out for a walk…" Buffy excused.

            "Where out for a walk?  Because I actually went to the arboretum and several other places you've "said" you "walk", last night.  You weren't at any of them and you hadn't been at all according to the local witnesses I asked.  I even double backed to confirm that we hadn't just missed each other.  So unless you've suddenly learned how to turn invisible on your "walks" Buffy, I'm going to bet that you haven't been "walking" at all.  Now.  Where have you been, and where are you going?"

            'Going?' Buffy thought.  That meant that Willow wasn't adamantly stopping her, just concerned about where she'd been, and where she'll be.  Buffy briefly considered constructing other or more lies, since the guys were here too, but one look at Willow's resolve face immediately melted any and all thoughts of deception on Buffy's part.

            "I've been training," she finally answered.  "In the personal gym.  I've also been sealing it so that nobody else could come in and so Goku wouldn't figure out what I was doing."

            "Why would you want to hide the fact that you are training yourself, which I must admit I'm surprised and proud of you for on my part, from Goku?" Giles asked.

            Buffy gave him a look like he was the stupidest person in this universe, this universe of course being the Compound.  "Because I want to beat Goku Giles!  Duh!  And if Goku knows that I'm working harder, then he'll just train us harder and he'll eventually figure out what I'm up to.  Besides, I'm already up to 50 gravitons on my GEO suit."

            Everyone started at that.

            "Uh, Buffy, I'm still on about 15 gravitons per centimeter during regular training, and I'm bushed when we get back!" Xander exclaimed.

            Buffy shrugged.  "That's because Goku keeps the gravity of the room high.  Like around 40 I think was today.  And I'm on 50 gravitons per millimeter."  They all stared dumbly at her.

            "Can I go now?" she asked Willow.

            Who immediately repositioned her resolve face and took the steps forward to be next to the Slayer.  "Only if I come with you.  I need to start working more on my physical training anyway.  Not to mention…we still need to talk," Willow added quietly.  Buffy blinked and numbly nodded her head.  Willow smiled and put away the Resolve Face.

            "Whoa.  Hold on!  Stop!" Xander shouted, getting up from his chair and walking towards the two.  The two girls just stared at him, perfectly calm and waiting for him to say his piece.

            "Can I come too?" he finally asked.  At Buffy's questioning look he added, "I haven't had a decent work out in two days!  This old coot Master Fong is driving me up the wall, and some good hardy training to let me take it out on is just what the doctor ordered.  And if Goku showed up demanding improvements, I know I wouldn't measure up.  Please?" he finally resorted to puppy dog eyes.

            Giles just cleared his throat.

            Buffy rolled her eyes.  "You know, it might just be better if you trained on your own like I have been…" she suggested, but was stopped from further argument by the reemergence of Resolve Face, Xander folding his arms and setting his face, and Giles clicking his tongue like only the British can.  She rolled her eyes again and sighed.  "Come on.  But I'm sticking with my work out.  Just because it's your first time, don't whine and complain to me like you did to Goku.  You are more than welcome to leave."

            Buffy strutted, because she can't march worth a damn, to the MTC, set the coordinates and waited.  Xander and the others behind him quickly stepped through, Buffy last.

            The moment she was in the gym, Buffy opened her Global and it immediately patched to the Training gym handler, Alvin.

            "Hey Alvin, it's me.  Everything ready?"

            Everyone looked in surprise at Buffy.  She was practically mimicking Goku's personality with the way she spoke into the gray device.  What was even more surprising was that they heard and understood the person that was speaking in the same fashion to the Slayer.

            "Sure is Buffy.  All the settings are matched to last night's later settings and the usual safeguards are in place.  Uh… Buffy, I'm detecting three other people in there with you, is this…"

            "I decided to work on some team maneuvers.  That's not a problem is it?" she asked as though she knew it wouldn't be.

            "No, of course not.  But I'm setting it so only your authorization undoes the safeguards.  Is that all right?" Alvin asked back.

            Buffy smiled at him and shook her head.  "Nah, that'll be fine.  Have a good night Alvin!"

            "Have a good training Slayer."  Buffy closed the Global.

            "Who was that?" Willow immediately asked.

            "You sounded very chummy with him," Xander observed.

            Buffy seemed to be developing a new habit with her friends as she rolled her eyes yet again.  "He's the regional manager.  He's in charge of the maintenance and functioning of this gym and about 49 others.  I asked for his help on making sure I wouldn't be interrupted while I trained.  Can we get started now?"

            They all nodded.

            "Fine.  Good.  Authorization Slayer!  50 gravitons per cubic millimeter!" Buffy called.  Then she opened up her Global again, chose the option 'GEO gravity levels' 'Training Gym 41' and then raised it so her "personal gravity" was just over 100 Gs.

            The others, except for Xander, were already on their knees.  Buffy told them, "You can power up you know."  Instantly, ki flames flashed around Giles and Willow and they stood straight once again, although the strain was still obvious in their bodies and faces.  Only after a long hesitation did Xander power up any at all, though not to the level that a ki flame would have manifested.

            Buffy just walked further out into the gym, rather stiffly, and once she was to a good spot, she started several katas to loosen her up and adapt to her record breaking level that she now stood at.  Moving in water and higher gravities only has the difference in that in one, you drown.  And amazingly, her body, despite being in just over 100 Gs, was handling marvelously with barely any powering up at all!

            At first the others just stared at her, waiting for something more to happen, but she stuck to her program and for the most part ignored them, except occasionally glancing their way.  Finally, Xander at the least, they all seemed to remember why they were here at all and began to mimic her, at least in loosening up.

            Xander started with that all-purpose stretch Goku taught them the first day, while Willow did a few different katas from the ones Buffy was doing.  Giles started with the stretch, and then went into something she vaguely recalled as a sword kata, more for broadsword movements than the lighter or thinner blades.

            For the next half hour, they all stretched and loosened up, until Buffy decided it was time for her exercises.  She had been planning to do some more powering-up exercises, but everyone being here kind of threw that out, so she did some basic exercises to start off.  Push-ups, sit-ups and stomach crunches, and then she started running.  She had a heavy sweat going before the first hour was through.

            At the end of that hour, the others seemed to realize they were loose enough and started their own exercises.  Willow mimicked all of the ones Buffy had done, while Xander went off on his own thing.

            Three hours into it, exercises had been done nearly to the point of exhaustion, and Buffy had set it so that the total gravity upon her was 110 Gs.  She was sure that if she weren't immortal and her healing accelerated, there would have been no way for her to have gotten this far.  It also made her nightly visits to the Clinic to get her healing accelerated, worth it.

            But now she was bored, and her energy was too high to be totally exhausted.  It was time.

            While the others were still caught up in their exercises, Buffy walked resolutely away from them.  Giles and Xander dominated the center of the rectangular room, so she walked back to the far end and stopped.

            She sat down on the floor in a meditation pose (Indian style) palms up.  Then she focused all of her senses inward, closing her eyes and controlling her breathing.  She sensed her power, and her potential, though since she had nothing to compare it to it meant little to her, and what her current maximum power level was.

            In a single thought, she forced her power to that maximum level.  The thought had occurred to her during her underwater katas, that if she could learn to power to her max faster than anyone else, she would have a major advantage, the same if she could learn to push all of her power to one aspect of her skills; speed, strength, or endurance.

            In the gym, they all felt Buffy's power go up, but half a second later they all staggered and stopped what they were doing when they realized that she had just gone to her max in less than half a second.  The air compression and energy displacement from Buffy's position might have also had something to do with it.

            The blonde Slayer was actually floating about half a foot off the ground, the pure and clear ki flame shining brightly around her as she did, still sitting in her meditation pose.  It was as if her very energy were pushing the air and everything else away from her, just because it existed.  They all covered their faces with hands and fists, trying to see what their Team Leader was doing.  And wondering how they could do it themselves.  Well, at least Xander was thinking that.

            Buffy was still concentrating though.  She was trying to figure out what her senses were telling her, and identifying what it all meant.  It was almost like she was learning how to move and live all over again, using her senses and body like a baby would before it could crawl, walk, talk, or anything else for that matter.

            She tried several things with her energy, pushing it as high as she could, but not really directing it, focusing it on her muscles, which seemed to make them swell and certainly made her stronger, but not quite as fast.  Then she adjusted her thinking to focusing her power into her speed.  It helped to be running at the time, but she wanted to try it in her current position.  It took a while but she did, successfully, figure it out.

            Then, as she was looking where to focus her energy to emphasize speed, a thought occurred to her to try and focus the power to somewhere besides just inside or a part of her body.  She made the energy exit every pore of her skin, as if her sweat glands had suddenly become fire hoses.  The effect was the little energy display she had done when first powering up…times ten.  It was enough that her friends had to shout at her to stop before she stopped.

            Next, she still moved it outside of her body, but instead she concentrated on something like a balloon or a steel ball, and tried to make her energy mimic that.  It did perfectly, and if Buffy was right, she had just created a shield that would block or deflect just about anything for as long as her own energy held out.

            The last thing she tried was pushing her energy down, so that it was actually less than it normally was.  Wasn't easy to do, but it wasn't any more difficult to do than any of the other things she had done.  The whole thing was like tensing and un-tensing new and unfamiliar muscles.  For a while it chafed her, then it became hard work and shortly after that it became a strength of will to keep it up.

            Slowly, Slayer was learning her limits.  And overcoming them.

            The hour was as close to midnight as it got in the Compound, without having a chronometer to measure the specific microsecond.  Giles had reacquainted himself with old skills with blademanship, Willow was several degrees stronger already, but Xander was still looking for an outlet of his frustration with his new side-teacher.

            "So when are we going to do some actual training?" Xander asked after Buffy had gotten up from her "power exercises".

            "What do you mean?  This is what I do every night," Buffy pointed out to him, sounding as if she had just taken a very restful nap instead of worked herself in new and strenuous ways.

            "I mean sparring!  I haven't had that kind of training since three days ago!  And since we're all here, I figured that you would be wanting to try that too." Xander explained.

            Buffy frowned in thought for a moment before shrugging and nodded her head.  "OK.  I'll spar with you since you're so eager.  Just imagine I'm this big bad mister Master Fong," Buffy teased him while she got into the basic ready pose.

            Xander didn't even do that.  The moment Buffy mentioned Master Fong, all the frustration, anger, and pent-up rage came roaring to the surface, and a very un-Xander-like snarl crossed his face before he launched himself at her with his full power.

            Buffy ducked out of the way of Xander's initial strike, and then dodged the following kicks, and moved to the side of another punch before she saw her opening and pulled Xander forward by the lapels of his jacket, flipping him over her hip so that he went flying against the wall behind her.

            He quickly picked himself up and drew himself out of his rage attack and paused for a moment, thinking.  He powered up again, although he was already at max, and then he vanished in a flash of movement.  Well, to Willow and Giles he did.  Buffy was amazed that even though his features were blurred, she could almost still keep up with how fast Xander was moving, if not with sight, then definitely with the sounds he made.

            He was letting his energy carry him, as Buffy and Willow had that first day they had been taught ki, but he still let his foot hit the ground when he changed direction abruptly.  Buffy had found that if she concentrated enough, her energy would handle everything about sudden movements, including dealing with momentum and inertia.  It might put her body under more stress, but she didn't mind it after being in high enough gravities.

            Finally, after dancing across the room for several moments, Xander homed in on her and Buffy was ready, catching his kick and the following punches, automatically bringing herself to Xander's level.  Her energy was depleted enough as it was, she didn't feel like chasing after him, preferring to let him waste his energy trying to hit her instead.

            Slayer always seemed to stay one, and at times two steps ahead of the brash warrior, only landing hits when it was convenient for her, letting him chase after her and not once did he actually land a solid hit on her.  If he did, she always immediately countered it.

            With every attack it almost seemed like Buffy was toying with him, despite Xander's growing grin and he continued to push against her, only to hit air.  What no one but Buffy knew though, was that Xander had a better chance of beating her into submission than he had at any other time in their lives.

            Her energy was nearly depleted, she was physically exhausted and was running at best on fumes, and then there was the fact that Xander's skills at handling his energy seemed to have improved as much as Buffy's physical status had improved.  It was only due to her title as the Slayer and that increased physical status that she was even still standing against Xander in a full-out sparring match.  Even if it was one-sided.

            Still…  Buffy finally saw an opening for an attack that she could use to her full advantage.  She caught Xander's incoming fists, one right after the other, and then twisted them to momentarily paralyze them, and moving as fast as she could, delivered a four punch combo that instantly knocked Warrior X unconscious.

            Buffy pulled back after that and let go of all her restraints, one moment looking perfectly in control, the next on her knees, breathing heavily from exhaustion.  Willow was instantly by her side.

            "I don't care what you say, I'm taking you back to bed Buffy," Willow told the Slayer.

            Buffy shook her head feebly.  "Can't.  The whole gym… is sealed.  MTC… won't work," she explained between breaths.

            Willow paused in trying to pick Buffy up off the ground, until finally Buffy caught her breath enough to say, "Look, I'll just stay here and recuperate my energy.  You can still train with Giles and when Xander comes to, spar with him.  By then I'll have enough of my energy back to walk, under my own power, back to the apartment.  Not that I'll get to it other than through the MTC that is," she added.  At Willow's continued skeptical looks, she said finally, "I won't move from," she scooted back until she was sitting with her back next to the wall, "this spot until we're all ready to go back.  Slayer's honor."

            Willow finally cracked, smiled and, reluctantly, nodded her head in agreement.

            "All right.  Promise to rest, and no setting the gravity higher.  It's high enough for you as it is apparently," Willow admonished.  Willow turned back to the rest of the room, just as Xander started moaning from his position on the floor.

            Shortly, showing the effort it was due he pulled himself to his knees, holding his head in pain.  "Ugh, somebody get the license plate of the truck that hit me?" he mumbled as he settled back on his haunches with a huff of exerted air.

            "She didn't hit you that hard Xander," Willow told him with a frown set into her face.  "Now get up, I'm your new sparring partner, and I don't plan on ending up on the floor like you men."

            At that even Giles stopped and stared at the suddenly bold redhead.

            "Giles, she said "you men"," Xander pointed out.

            "Yes she did," the Englishman replied back amiably.  "I do believe that had the ring of a challenge to it.  What do you say my boy?"

            "Oh I must agree, that was definitely a challenge," Xander said with an evil grin on his fast as he got to his feet and Giles closed in on Willow's back.

            Suddenly the redhead Mage found herself unexpectedly outnumbered.

            "Ulp!" she squeaked when ki flames appeared around Giles and Xander.  "Buffy!  Help!"

            "Sorry Wills, I promised not to leave this spot, and I'm tapped out.  Slayers honor and all!" The Slayer teasingly excused herself as Willow's back up, thoroughly enjoying what promised to be a good show.

            "Oh.  Whoops," Willow said just before hidden instincts screamed at her and she ducked, back-flipped, and then somersaulted forward, all as fast as she could.  Thereby narrowly avoiding Giles' roundhouse kick to the back of her neck, Xander's leg sweep, and the two men's sudden rush immediately after they found she had dodged both of them.

            Willow could barely concentrate enough to remember to power up so she could have a chance against two other fighters, back flipping away from the guys.  Once she was a safe enough distance away, with the two warriors still rubbing their heads, she forced her body to it's maximum power level, although it took her at least five seconds to do so.  Buffy wasn't the only one who had been practicing.

            The male half of the team, thoroughly embarrassed now, shared a common look, and then both ran at the fully powered redhead side by side.  Willow jumped back and prepared to leap forward in a flying dragon kick, when Xander suddenly shot even further ahead, powering up as he did, which accelerated him even faster through the air.

            Willow could only dodge after that, as she was facing two opponents.  Avoiding Xander's advances usually brought her into close proximity to a blind side attack from Giles, although always at the last second, hidden instincts screamed at Willow to avoid all attacks and advances in just the right way.

            The Mage was thanking everything she could think of to thank that she had enough foresight to cast a spell on herself shortly after arriving here to increase her natural awareness.

*                       *                       *

            Buffy watched from her position on the floor as the rest of her team fought.  It was a humbling experience for the almighty Slayer.  Ever since she was a little girl she had been told she was special.  She was captain of the JV Cheerleading squad at Hemery, and the leader of her clique of friends as well.  Then along came her destiny as the Slayer.

            She was special.  Unique, the Chosen One, and only she could save her classmates and the rest of humanity against vampires and the forces of darkness.

            She had used to love playing 'Super Hero' when she was little.  Now she really was one, and here she was being told that she was the leader of a super hero team made up of her best friends.  And there they were, getting stronger and more powerful, and all because of her.

            She wasn't nearly as stuck up as she used to be, but everyone has issues of pride.  She was the one that had said yes to come here, she was the one who forced herself into late night training sessions, and it was because of her doing that that they were all here now.  Sure, they had chosen to come, but it was all because of her that they even got the choice.

            Buffy dozed for a minute…and during that minute, the dream of her future with Angel resurfaced and showed her what would happen if she didn't heed Goku's warning of her relationship with the souled vampire.

            Sleep with Angel, Angel loses his soul and once more becomes Angelus the Scourge of Europe, now scourge of the Hellmouth, he kills Miss Calendar and at least a hundred other innocent people, some that Buffy does know, and terrorizes her and her friends for months.

            Only now…things are seen from a new perspective.  She and her friends are immortal, each as capable as Goku is with his abilities and the ones they are learning here.  Giles wields Nightblade like a master, and Willow is a very powerful magic-user, but because he was warned she is unable to give Angel his soul back.

            The vision ends this time with Buffy blowing up the statue that held the portal to hell, with Angelus in front of it.  And when she jolts awake, she knows that the very next Tournament after that single key event, they lose and die.

            Two things she learns from this, watching her friends push themselves higher than she thought possible for them or anyone really.  She and Angel can never be together, and even if they could, they could never consummate that relationship.  And second…she is weak.

            Twice she has glimpsed the future through these dreams here.  Both end with her wasting months, unable to do what needs to be done, and even stopping others from doing it, saying she'll take care of it.  Costing hundreds of innocent people, people she is supposed to be protecting as the Slayer, their lives.  Tears spill from her eyes as she silently condemns herself as she realizes this truth and what it means.

            Xander wouldn't hesitate to kill Angel if he became evil.  Giles certainly wouldn't, in fact he would lead the charge, a step behind Xander.  Even Willow would condemn and kill the soulless Angelus given half a chance.  Then she considered it from the other side.  And got the same answer.

            Would her friends kill someone so close that they were in love with that person, if that person got turned?  Yes.  All of them would.  The microsecond they learned the truth their life goal would be to release that person to the afterlife by destroying the demon that held their face.

            But she couldn't.

            It would kill her inside even more than knowing they had been turned.  It didn't matter if it was Angel, Xander, Giles, Willow, or even her Mom.  She couldn't kill someone that she loved.  Hurt them, stop them, maybe even cripple and lame them, but she could never kill.

            It didn't matter her views on killing, whether it made her as much a monster as she destroys every night, or a justified hero, she couldn't kill someone she loved.

            Buffy looked back up at her friends, wondering about the possibilities of the future.  Willow was right.  They did need to think long-term, just not about the things she was concerned with.  What made her visions so horrific was not that she couldn't kill Angelus to save so many people; no it was what happened in between.  Her making excuses, ordering the others around, and stopping them from doing what she couldn't.

            Buffy looked up and stared long and hard as they worked to make themselves stronger.  For her.  For her destiny.  For their destiny with her.  And for themselves.

            'I am the most self-absorbed person in my entire universe.  Maybe even all of them,' Buffy silently decided.  It didn't matter what brought all of them here, what mattered was that they were here, and what they were here for.

            She promised to herself, watching in her weakness as her closest friends became stronger, that she would no longer be the "reason for" with her Team.  She would be their leader, and rightly deserving so.  And leaders were not about themselves.  They were about their teams and the cause.  And their cause was to defeat and destroy evil.

            Now all she had to work on was being about her Team.

*                       *                       *

            Willow wasn't quite certain when her conversation with the two Arch Mages about her using magic in training came back to the front of her mind, but it was after she had gotten quite beaten.  Oh, she wasn't the only one who was hurting, that was for sure, but she definitely wasn't up to Buffy's level on avoiding either.

            Despite her magically increased awareness and heightened senses, some of the attacks Xander and Giles threw at her got through and caused their damage.  It took a large number of hits before Willow had finally had enough and went from pure defense to equal offense and started striking back at the men.  Xander then called for a free-for-all and it was no longer two on one but everyone for themselves.

            A while into the free-for-all, Willow finally remembered she was allowed to use magic in training, beyond just increasing her own physical abilities as well.  Giles also seemed to just recall that he and Xander both had weapons on their backs at the same moment.

            They all jumped back from each other to catch their breaths.  Then Willow thought about it and decided that if she wanted anything more or better than a beating, she would have to use magic, but what spells?  Amazingly her mind brought forth exactly the spells she would need for battle.  She left the lethal ones out of it for now, but that still left quite a few to choose from and she also mentally prepared the counters, no matter that she was facing two warriors who couldn't use magic the same way she could, to each of her spell arsenal.

            Xander and Giles drew their swords, Nightblade gleamed in readiness.

            Willow cupped her hands before her and began to mutter a spell just under her breath so no one else could hear.  A breathless wind blew her hair up and rustled her clothing as bright greenish hued energy started to coil around her arms and pool into the area between her cupped hands, slowly growing in size until a fairly decent sized energy ball was there.  She muttered the last of the spell a bit louder and the ball shined brighter, temporarily blinding all staring at it.  When the glare faded, everyone saw Willow, in a battle pose, floating in the air, a bright green fireball in each hand.

            Buffy woke up a bit from her doze, surprised by this sudden turn.  Giles only stared, always the patient Watcher.  Xander gulped and gripped his katana a bit tighter.

            "Come on then," the Mage challenged, a wild grin on her face.

            Buffy squinted her eyes at that look.

            The men charged at the same instant.  Half a meter from her, Willow cast the fireballs in her hands at them and jumped back, bouncing off the wall and back flipping through the air to land behind them.

            Giles slashed the fireball with Nightblade, disintegrating the attack spell, and chased after Willow.  When she flipped over him, instead of running into the wall, or even trying to follow her flight path, he jumped up and kicked off the wall, allowing him to spin around faster to face the now-behind-him Willow.

            Xander barely managed to duck and dodge the fireball at the same time and almost dropping his sword.  He was the slowest to turn and face her, but lucky for him, Watcher had engaged the Mage, distracting her from attacking him for the precious moments he needed to defend himself.

            Mage wasn't quite sure just how dangerous Watcher was with the mystic weapon.  She remembered the book about the Power Blades and specifically remembered the part about the descriptions of what a fully trained Blade warrior could do with their chosen weapon.  Seeing him slash a powerful magic attack in half was enough to make the Mage cautious, but until she saw a magic attack of his own coming from the Watcher's Blade, she was sure she could beat him, as far as power went.

            Kicking her ki up as high as she could and forcing the power into her muscles to increase her speed, Mage went about avoiding being struck by Watcher's powerful strokes with his Blade, dancing around his slow moving sword as she had danced around Buffy's fists the first time the two had sparred.

            Around that time, Xander had gotten himself back up and was making an attack run, literally, on Willow's back.  She felt him coming and the moment he was behind her, she jumped up and back flipped over him so fast neither he nor Giles could do much in the way of reacting, especially when Willow suddenly kicked the Warrior in his back as she came down from her jump and kicked off of him to jump further back from them.  This had the affect of propelling Warrior X directly into Watcher's still coming attack.  The Watcher had enough presence of mind to see what was happening and to keep from cleaving his young friend in two, he twisted the Blade so that the flat end hit X rather than the sharp edge.

            Unfortunately there was still enough force behind it that the young Warrior was knocked aside like a fly hit with a rolled up newspaper.

            Before either man had a chance to recuperate, or even catch their breath enough to apologize, they became aware that the Mage was flinging magic bolts at them, and Xander was the first to discover that they stung like hell and left you numb for a very long time after the hit.

            Giles was like Luke Skywalker as he deflected or blocked the bolts, however despite his skill, Willow kept enough of it up that he did get hit a couple of times.

            Things progressed very quickly after that.  Willow kept up the magic use, sometimes teleporting out of harms way, most of the time throwing magical attacks of every variety at the two warriors.  Xander, as he used to, almost bungled his way through the match, Giles always narrowly stopping Willow's attack against himself, and barely managing to turn his attacks to non-lethal whenever Willow slipped out of Warrior X's way leaving Xander to face the Watcher's attack on the Mage.

            Buffy began to notice a very interesting fact from her sideline seat.  Her team was not a team.  They were three people and herself who worked at the same goal for the same purpose, but they were not a team.

            She would have to work on this she thought.

            She also began to identify each of her teammates' strengths, and also their weaknesses, as well as favored tactics.  Giles was classic soldier, defend until you got an opening and then attack so fiercely that you drive the other back.  Willow was entirely defensive and incredibly agile and she used that to every advantage she could.  She always ducked or avoided and only attacked from long range.  Xander…

            The Warrior called X just couldn't seem to find his center, his focus like he did whenever she fought him, the Slayer decided.  He was always scrambling after Watcher and tried over and over to every failure to pinch the Mage between himself and Watcher, and she always got out.  That he kept repeating it said that either Xander was strategically stupid, or he was even more off-balance by his anger at his new teacher than the Slayer could have guessed.

            "That's enough!" Buffy shouted over the sounds of fighting once she had regained enough of her strength.  She had lost her stomach for watching this mockery of a bully fight long ago; she only lacked the energy to leave.

            They all stopped and looked at her as she stood up.

            "Return to Normal," Buffy ordered at the ceiling.  Then she ordered the seal to unlock and walked to the MTC.

            "We're coming back here the moment all of our individual training is complete," Buffy told them as they joined her at the portal.  "We've got a lot more work to do than I thought."

*                       *                       *

Third Week

            For the next five days, their schedule remained unchanged.  They get up at the same time, get ready, eat breakfast, and go to their individual training areas.  Buffy and Willow to 2nd Training, Xander to the Temple of Chi Magicks, and Giles to the Training Gym to meditate.

            For Giles, he was progressing, but slowly.  His ideals and Watcher trained views of the world severely limited his ability in Nightblade teaching him without a thorough explanation of the process it was putting him through with a unique exercise.  It was progress, but slow enough that each, Bearer and Blade, were getting frustrated.

            By the end of the week in 2nd Training, both Buffy and Willow were shown the "Labyrinth", the fun name the Technicians called the top level of the fully submerged half of the 2nd Training facility.  Basically it was a swimming obstacle course that's depth was the equivalent of one mile beneath Earth's ocean surface.  Tubes, tunnels, loops, bars to swim around, and even a whirlpool to swim through, were just the beginning examples of what was throughout the entire level.

            Below that, the entire rest of the facility, from beneath that level to the ground level, there was nothing but water.  The very bottom could crush seven of the hardest most indestructible alloys the Compound knew of.  They were told that their outfits could, the jacket and Willow's jumpsuit, could survive the depth.  The only way they could was if they could get their energy to high enough levels to keep the force of water back enough for them to survive, as it did with the energy in their home universe.

            Only the most powerful ki masters could survive the 500-kilometer depth pressure, not even the Mariner had been to the bottom.  Immortality doesn't much help when your body gets crushed like a bug between a mountain and a giant's thumb.

            Xander only complained about what Master Fong was putting him through, but he was still learning things that he never knew before.  Albeit he had never wanted to know them before, but he had stopped complaining when Buffy beat him up and killed him purposely several times because he whined too much.

            And every night, they all went to the Training Gym and worked as hard as they could.  After the second night, Buffy had them working on working together in a fight, anticipating each other's moves, planning tactics on site based on the opponent and what they could do against him.  Willow had speed, Giles had skill, but Xander had strength and endurance on his side, while Buffy was the complete amalgamation of each.

            Buffy proved her point by working with each of them, anticipating and working with each team member's moves and attack style to compliment them and herself and making it almost a joke with how well she and her partner defeated the other two.

            She always alternated the "teams", sometimes two on two, sometimes all of them against her, other times two would be a team and the other two would be on their own, or someone else would be the single man out.  But they did learn.  Willow and Xander were as good a team as Buffy and anybody, and Giles was a compliment in that his skill increased with each battle making him almost as difficult to beat as Buffy.

            Buffy's power was also a topic of interest, as she kept getting stronger.  After mastering 100 Gs in private training, taking her only about three days before she had fully adapted, she upped it to 120 Gs, making the additional gravity external rather than adjusting the settings on her suit.  In response to her greater challenge, Xander too started setting his GEO suit higher.

            Willow's magic use and control were increasing, but slower even than Giles' training with Nightblade was going.  She was exhausted, magically speaking, after less than half an hour of extensive use, and it took her nearly another hour to be fully regenerated from that, even using cross-variant recharge techniques that cut down on the time and helped increase her reserves at the same time.

            Her control over battle spells was perfect.  They were direct spells with only a single result.  It was her other spells she was having more trouble with.  Scrying spells, portals, teleportation, and even shield spells that couldn't hold off multiple physical attacks for very long as it is, almost all of them went wrong in some way or another.

            These required more than book knowledge, these types of magic use required a certain…skill.  Which the Mage was learning the hard way, but learning all the same.

            Shielding spells, Willow made her first priority and practiced them at every opportunity she got, whether it was blocking attacks, keeping people from bumping her in line at lunchtime, or shielding other things from the same or other stuff.  It was tough, and a strain on her magic energy, but it paid off in the end as before the third week began, she could create a magical barrier that could, she believed, with stand the same force Goku had withstood when he had demonstrated "tough" to them that first day.

            Ofcourse she wouldn't vouch for that until it was properly tested.

            When they first arrived, first thing they would always do, would be to seal the gym, and then they would raise the gravity to the level they desired and began stretching.  After completing that, sometimes it took longer, sometimes not as long, then Buffy would start directing exercises.

            Even Giles was forced through some exercises by his Slayer, but more often than not it was in a bit of petty revenge by having him run and do other basic exercises.  Willow was put through her paces by at first working out until she was physically exhausted, and then cast a spell that renewed her body, and then she focused on increasing her magical skill.  And while her skill was slow in coming, while she strenuously worked on it her magical reserves kept increasing.  It still took her an hour to regenerate after fully depleting herself, but it was usually after she had gone on for a bit longer than she had the night before.

            Xander focused himself only on getting stronger.  He and Buffy would spar, and then after he got beat, both of them would start working with and learning their ki while putting it and their bodies through their paces.  Xander, after a few hints from Buffy, started experimenting with his ki as she did, but he didn't seem to have the intuition she did when it came to manipulating his energy.

            Seeing his difficulty, Buffy, after the third night, finally started giving him some pointers, what she had found to work for her and produced favorable results.  Some of her pointers helped him to the same end, while quite a few others were just some things he couldn't do.

            Buffy could now form a full body shield with her ki, as well as direct it to increase her body in any way she desired, and she certainly wasn't dismissing the environmental effects her powering up had.  One night she spent half the time trying to figure out how to control those "environmental effects".

            What she could do easily, or figured out first anyway, was how to "push" everything around her away, and not just the wind either.  She found she could also control certain aspects of the air, by sending her energy through it in controlled burst, she could heat up the surrounding area so it was like Death Valley in summer time, and at the same time cool the air by using her energy to cancel out other heat sources' energy.  Manipulating the wind was just an offshoot from that, heating and cooling the surrounding air.

            Tremors were another side effect that Buffy had wanted to control, but that was one of the things that escaped her grasp each time.  The times she had thought she had it figured out, the next time she tried it, nothing.  She couldn't explain it, and hoped Goku could when she mentioned it to him next.

            Speaking of their Trainer, except for a couple rare instances in the Movable Mess, they had hardly seen him since the day after he had shown them ki techniques.  And despite her desire to not show Goku how much they had advanced already, Buffy, not to mention the rest of her team, were anxious to face the Saiyan again.

            The first day of the third week at the Compound, Buffy became curious as to why their Trainer was no longer taking an active role in their training, though she supposed that he was letting them all get caught up with their Second Training, and he'd said from the start that Giles would train more by himself anyway.  But still… the Slayer missed their, as Xander called it, "torture sessions in which they learned many new meanings of pain and suffering" with the demi-Saiyan.

            She'd thought of saying something to the others before they left, but Giles didn't even come out for breakfast and Xander was looking majorly depressed, while Willow was still giving her "looks" for not giving them both enough private time to talk about "stuff".  She promised to herself to do something about that tonight.

            "So Xan, what's the mean Master Fong doing to you today?" Buffy teasingly asked as she ate.  Xander looked up and scowled at her, she only grinned in return.

            "Something about bio-meta-physical energy formations.  And he repeated it enough times that, yes, I'm sure that's what its called.  Beats me what it is though," Xander admitted, shrugging as he finished his own plate of morning meal.  He pronounced done, feeling fully satisfied, and the plate and utensils disappeared into the green light.

            He got up and went to his room to clean his teeth, something he'd figured out part way through the second week was that the mirror in all their bathrooms, despite appearing as part of or connected to the wall.  Well, there was a catch that opened it up to reveal the always fully stocked medicine cabinet, fully decked out with everything you could possibly need or keep in a bathroom.  Depending on whose room you looked in of course.

            Buffy just smirked at his retreating form and managed to take another bite before she realized that she was now alone in a room with Willow, and it was quite possible they would remain that way for long enough for the Mage to gain the self-confidence to ask…

            "Buffy.  We need to talk about what…what happened the other week.  You've been avoiding me constantly and I know this is not something we should talk about in front of others…" Willow would have gone on, but Buffy stopped her with a look.

            Swallowing, Buffy said to her best friend, "Wills, I don't regret being a shoulder for you to cry on when you need it.  I'll gladly do it again if asked.  But if you're talking about afterwards, in your room, I promise you, there are no misconstrued feelings there.  You were helping me out with a medical condition and incidentally at the same time I was helping you out with your "homework".  It doesn't…it shouldn't matter the state of our dress or lack there of.  Our intent was purely innocent and nothing but pure innocence happened.  And I haven't been avoiding you.  We've just been really busy."

            Willow nodded as Buffy stopped speaking.  "I remember…what you said that night.  Concentrate now on getting stronger so we don't have to worry later.  I promise Buffy, I'll do better.  But…"

            "I know," Buffy said, thinking she had an inkling, and she really did, of what Willow was thinking.  Willow only nodded back.  The rest of the time until Xander came back out was spent in pleasant silence as the friends ate to gain energy for the day.

            Once everyone had eaten and finished cleaning themselves, Buffy headed over to the MTC to set the coordinates for her and Willow to the Second Training facility, when suddenly her Global chirped.  Frowning, as she hadn't been expecting anybody to contact her, she pulled the gray device out and flipped it open.

            "Slayer," she said automatically.  She was surprised at how fast she had gotten used to, as Willow put it "Global etiquette".  That wasn't all she was surprised at when she saw Goku's face staring back at her.

            "Go to the Main Gym.  Second Training has graduated you.  You only go there from now on to practice and train.  Warrior X still goes to the Temple of Chi Magicks, but you and Mage come to the Main Gym.  I'll explain when you get here."  Suddenly the connection cut out.

            Frowning, and suddenly remembering every reason she had ever imagined for wanting to kill and beat the Super Saiyan, Buffy snapped the Global closed and impatiently waved Xander ahead of her and Willow.

            "But…" Xander started to protest, wanting to go to the Main Gym and train there with his friends.  He stopped short when Buffy's eyes squinted at him as though he were the very next vamp that she was going to dust and had pissed her off before hand.  He didn't do anything else; he just stepped forward, placed his hand on the panel, and told the Matter Transfer Conveyer to take him to the Temple of Chi Magicks.

            After he was gone, Buffy shared a look with Willow, who mirrored it back at her, and then directed the MTC to the Main Gym, Training section, and they both stepped through…into a room full of vampires.  That is to say, at least three full battalion armies of vampires.

            "Surprise!" Goku called from above with a couple other fighters with him.  "You now have unlimited access to the Main Gym and all Compound facilities.  Thought I might set up a training program for you to help start you off," Goku explained casually.

            Buffy actually smiled.  She had been taking her Make Seven kitana with her to every training session, and had yet to use it to its full potential.  She popped the bottom of it and the sword became un-hilted.  In a single second, the Slayer had drawn her gold-hilted blade, leaped forward, and cut at least five strokes and was halfway through her sixth, dusting seven vampires at once, and only started powering up and applying that about five seconds after the vampires started to attack her and Willow, which was at least fifteen seconds after Buffy had started attacking them.

            Willow smirked, finally glad to let loose and seeing Goku again helped in that.  Just like every other member on her team, she wanted to see the Trainer's face smushed into the dirt just as bad as they did.  At first she cast a couple fireballs at vampires, once or twice destroying several with a beam of light shot from her fingertip.  They were delaying tactics.

            Finally, after a full minute and a half, she recalled the spell she needed and called out to Buffy, calling her back.  "Buffy!" she grabbed the Slayer's arm and kept her from advancing the vampires again.  Then she focused her energies and then cast her left arm in a horizontal arc before them and shouted "Morra morte!"

            As she did, blue-green energy poured from her hand and from the arch her arm cast, a pure wave of magical energy that grew larger with each molecule that it traveled, flew forward from the warrior pair and then moved onwards to every corner of the Gym, growing so large that it didn't even have to rebound off of anything.  About two feet in front of the wave though, every vampire, every vampire was instantly dusted, crying out in agony as nothing but the dust skeleton was left to be scattered by the energy wave itself.

            By the time the spell was over, roughly in the fifth minute since Buffy and Willow had entered the Gym, only five people remained.  Three of them were floating, for all appearances very casual about the display of power they had just witnessed.  Goku was just smirking knowingly, which told Willow that the Arch Mages had indeed talked to him about letting her use magic in training.  Willow smirked right back.  She was looking forward to showing Goku exactly what all she had learned and could do now.

            Buffy was just staring up at the three other fighters with a blank stare.  She had been working for several days now on keeping her emotions hid.  It still wasn't easy when she was worked up, but when she was either angry or calm, she could usually pull off a very convincing poker face.  She hoped she was pulling it off now as her gut clenched in nervousness.

            The Slayer then pulled out her Global, chose 'GEO suit' and pushed the gravity to a full 100 Gs.  She hadn't even noticed any change in gravity when they entered the Gym, so she had to assume that it wasn't very high.  She was proved wrong as she suddenly felt herself undergo such enormous pressure she almost canceled her change in the settings.  She would have too, if she hadn't felt her body already adapting and knew she could still move, even if she wouldn't be able to perform any spectacular displays of strength.  She closed and put her Global back, having done it so anyone not right beside her couldn't have even seen the device.

            "Not bad, but that's not why we're here," Goku said in the aftermath.

            "Then why are we here?" Buffy asked, but before anyone else could say anything, she added, "I would assume that you would be here to complete our training in the use of ki, as while you showed us all how to access it, you didn't do a thing to help us learn how to use it."

            "Very perceptive Slayer," Goku remarked.  "And yes, we'll be completing your ki training, or as much as we can during this next week.  So please Willow, no more magic."

            She just gave him a sly little smirk as the three flying warriors landed and made their way towards the duo.  "So who are your friends Goku?" Willow asked, conveniently avoiding answering Goku's request.

            Goku smiled and gestured on his right to the very large purple haired fighter who had been one of the ones to blast Goku in the 'tough' portion.  "This, as I think you might remember, is Broly, he's from a different universe than my own, but has the exact same lineage and lives in the same time.  He's also part Saiyan, but for some reason," Goku unwrapped his tail from his waist while both teenage girls could easily see that Broly did not have any kind of a tail, "I'm stronger than he is, and I was also the one to personally train him when he first came to the Compound, as I am training you."

            "Cool," Buffy commented, eyeing the six and a half foot muscular alien.

            "Nice to meet you Broly," Willow said with a smile, and the purple haired man bowed towards the ladies and replied in a soft, intense voice, "Thank you, it is a pleasure to meet the both of you as well."

            Goku smiled and then gestured to his left where a dark-haired human, neither girl could say how they knew, only that he was, who was about a foot shorter than Goku with short hair and bright green eyes, stood and bowed when introduced.

            "This is another student of mine, in fact I finished his training just before I received word that I would be training your group Slayer," Goku added with a smile.  "This is Ryu San.  He's also pretty powerful and he's doing very well in the Tournament.  Enough to survive without even trying actually."

            The three warriors laughed out loud, causing the girls to share confused looks and shrug at each other.  Seeing their joke not exactly working, they stopped laughing and Ryu got down to business.  He looked both girls up several times, his face showing intense concentration, which proved that he wasn't "feeling them up" with his eyes, but looking for something else.

            "You have great potential," Ryu finally told them, speaking Japanese.  Of course they easily understood him.

            Buffy snapped a look at Goku and asked, in Japanese, "Are we going to have to talk in Japanese for the rest of this session now?"  Goku laughed and replied in English, "Don't worry, you'll eventually figure out how to control it, but Ryu's native language is Japanese, so humor him.  Its not like you can't understand him.  And he's right."

            "Thanks," Buffy accepted the praise, but she still wasn't happy about the side effects from her implant.  "Now what are you going to do to help me realize that potential?" she challenged Ryu.

            The dark-haired human smiled at her.  "Whatever I have to," he replied.  She smirked.  "Good."

            Then she turned to Goku and asked, "So now what?"

            Goku nodded and told them, "First, power up.  We'll be teaching you some subtle little tricks that you might have come across on your own with a little bit of experimentation, but this way everything is covered, and even if you do already know how to do it, it's also a good idea to know how others do it.  Now first…"

            For the next four and a half hours, Goku and his friends showed the two teen girls just about everything that Buffy had discovered on her own during their own training sessions, and a couple neat tricks that she hadn't quite figured out yet.

            What took so long was not the teaching though, but the insistence of the Trainers that they demonstrate the technique, and then have the girls do it until both of them had done it well enough to satisfy them all.  Buffy only needed one turn each time, but Willow was the real drag down.  It wasn't until Buffy described it and coached her through them that Willow was soon just as versatile in using her ki as Buffy was.

            "Okay, as neat, and fun, as all this was…" Buffy started to say, "…when are we going to get to the real training, and other than ki projection and shields, what else are you holding back?"

            "Well, there's flying…" Ryu replied.

            "And energy attacks…" Broly added his two cents.

            "And multi-spectrum attacks," Goku finished with a smile.

            "Flying?" Buffy repeated while at the exact same time Willow asked, "Energy attacks?"

            The men chuckled for a couple seconds while Goku answered Buffy's question first.  "Just focus your ki around you, and let it carry you.  It takes concentration and…" Goku stopped talking when Buffy crouched, her aura flashing into existence around her…and lifted her into the air!  She flew straight up for a couple of meters before stopping and hovering.

            "Great!  Now how do I control it?" she asked.

            Goku, and the others, were stunned, but scratching the back of his head, Goku told her, "Uh, just direct your energy as thrust in the way you want to move.  Downwards to go up, behind you to go forward, and so on and so forth."

            Buffy nodded from the air.  She was actually extremely nervous.  She hadn't thought ahead and the moment she got the information she needed from her Trainer, she quite literally took off.  'Need to control that urge from now on,' she thought to herself.

            Just before she was about to employ Goku's further knowledge, she took a look around herself.  She was maybe seven meters off the ground, not supported by anything except her own energy, nothing but people beneath her to catch her if she fell, and nothing supporting her.  She noted that twice, first in fear, and then in excitement.

            She was flying!  Really flying!!

            Humans had dreamed of this for ages and in three weeks and a single conversation, and here she was doing it!  Before her giddiness or her nervousness could paralyze her any further, she took a deep breath and slowly applied what Goku had told her to do.

            Slowly, she ascended higher, and then she turned her body horizontal and began to fly forward some.  She wasn't going very fast, more like she was just hovering and swimming through the air like it was made of Jell-O.  That was because she was still in the equivalent of taking baby steps and keeping her energy output small.

            Taking a deeper breath and steeling her decision in her mind and heart, as well as her stomach from ejecting anything, Buffy put forth all of her energy into her "thrust".  The ki flame erupted around her suddenly and she shot off faster than a jet off an aircraft carrier.

            Just before she would have hit the wall, she shifted and angled herself upright so she shot to the ceiling once again, but before she was even halfway there, she turned back towards the inwards of the room, inverted this time.  Before too long she was doing wild, high-speed air tricks, spirals, loop-de-loops, corkscrews, and everything thing else she could think of to do in the air.

            Finally, Buffy grew tired of the novelty, but still loving it, and angled herself on an approach and slid to a solid stop right where she had taken off from.  "That.  Was SO cool!!" she exclaimed screeching.  "Willow, you have got to try it!"

            Willow smiled with an 'I know something you don't' smile and replied, "But I can already fly.  Magically."

            Goku was ready for that one.  "Yeah, and what happens when some dark wizard in the Tournament casts a magic nullification?  It happens more often than you think.  This gives you an option of something besides magic, and lets you save up that wasted magic for more important spells later on if you have to.  Now since Buffy succeeded so well, let's see you try Mage."

            Willow grimaced, and accepting the logic, she started breathing and focusing on her own ki, and making it pick her up.  She had to power up to her absolute max before she realized that despite the lesser energy in the Compound, she needed at least that much to even hover beyond a single meter above the floor.  Once she had accepted this fact, it wasn't too much longer before she copied Buffy's earlier flight, and thoroughly enjoying herself during the process.

            "Okay, yeah, that was very cool," Willow agreed with her bestest friend as she landed.

            "Told ya," Buffy said smugly.

            "Now we move on to something more difficult," Goku told them.  "You know how to externalize your ki, but all that does is allow you to create ki shields around other objects and affect your surroundings with a more basic version of psychic powers like Psychokinesis and telekinesis.  This is a bit more direct."

            They all stepped close and Goku held his hands cupped before him.  "I'll start off small, so you get the principle behind it first," he said as a small pinprick of energy appeared, no bigger than a single pea.

            "Energy attacks," Goku explained, his voice almost hypnotic, "An art all by itself almost.  Taking a portion of your own life force and using it as a weapon of mass destruction against something, almost anything else.  Ki can be extremely potent in the real world and not directed in a living body.  And even more destructive.  We'll cover multi-spectrum energy attacks later, but the majority of today will be spent in teaching you how to control this aspect of your ki."

            "To begin with, feel the energy in the center of your very being, at the pit of your gut," Goku continued, holding the small energy ball.  "Bring it out, directing it, focusing it, between your hands like this.  Then, as you focus, slowly build it," the energy ball slowly grew to the size of a baseball, "and build it," the size of a melon, "until it feels like its ready to explode, and then…" in demonstration he pointed the energy ball outwards away from the group and as he said the final words, it flew out at an amazing speed and exploded in a spectacular display of power, "…throw it!"

            Buffy and Willow stared, stunned into silence.  Then Buffy shook herself.  She had seen it, seen what it could do, and she was pretty certain that she knew how to do it herself as she had been paying close attention to Goku's energy during the display as well.

            Rather than say or ask anything, she went over what she knew in her mind, as well as what she had just witnessed and all other past displays of energy attacks.  She cupped her hands before her, holding them about a foot apart from each other and then began to concentrate and focus her energy as had been explained to her.  At first, she didn't think it was working, so she just focused on her power and pooling it between her hands.

            Before she, or anyone else, knew it, she was holding a molten yellow energy ball between her hands, at least a couple inches bigger all around than the foot between her palms as she had expected.  Too surprised to do anything with it, Buffy just cast it away from her, as much with her mind and power as with her hands.  The small energy bomb flew towards the far wall, where it impacted an explosion easily twice as powerful as the one Goku had produced shook the Main Gym.

            "Shit!" Buffy cursed.  She wouldn't try that again any time soon.

            Again, the stares of disbelief directed at her, but the guys were becoming used to being surprised by how quickly the Slayer picked things up and began to offer some more comments and suggestions about how to do it.  Willow was in the background, listening intently, not wanting to try it herself until she was very sure of what to do.

            Then she began to introspect the concept of using her life force as a weapon.  From what Goku was saying, and Buffy had already proven, using one's ki in such a manner meant that it was almost entirely uncontrollable.  But it was her life force Willow's subconscious mind reinforced.  No matter its form or purpose now, it was still a part of her and that, to the Mage, meant that she could control it, no matter what.

            While Buffy listened and paid close attentions to the advice the others were giving her, Willow was focusing her attention inwards.  She could use magic, which after a fashion was similar to the life force of the universe, which required a very delicate degree of control.  Well if she could do that with the energy of the universe, what said she couldn't utilize similar control over her own energy?

            Willow powered up and focused her energy between her hands.  At first, nothing happened, and then a small point began to form, but soon dispersed.  It took at least six tries before Willow could successfully form and maintain any sort of energy ball.  When she had finally done it, it was about the size of a small baseball, golden-yellow, and hovering precisely between her palms.

            Taking a deep breath, Willow exercised her focus and control, and sent the energy blast flying out, almost as fast as Goku's and Buffy's had gone.  Everyone saw this, and expected it to blow up mid-air, or even hit the wall or floor and explode.  None of them expected it to suddenly arch upwards at a right angle ten feet in front of the wall, and then do the same at the ceiling.

            Willow was holding very still, her face and eyes scrunched up in intense concentration, her hands still held before her, but showing no sign of following the ki ball or directing it in any fashion.  Beads of sweat soon formed on Willow's face as the glowing ball of destructive energy began to move in the same patterns that the girls had taken when flying.  Not even a full minute after it's formation though, the ball suddenly cast itself at the point where Goku's blast had exploded, and quite nearly matched the explosion the Saiyan had caused.

            In the stunned aftermath of such a display of power and control, everything was frozen until the explosion had finally faded away, but right when Buffy was about to compliment her friend, Willow suddenly bodily collapsed to her knees.  Everyone instantly rushed forward, but amazingly Buffy was still the first one there.

            "Omigawd!  Willow!  Are you all right?!" she screeched.

            "Yeah!  Buffy, I'm fine, really!" Willow's voice was surprisingly strong, but still laced with exhaustion.

            "She's fine Buffy," Goku assured the Slayer.  "Speaking from personal experience, doing something like that takes a lot of energy.  A LOT of energy.  I'm amazed that Willow actually did it.  She just needs to rest for a bit and regain her energy.  It was just a bit of a rush at how quickly her energy was used up."

            "Ain't that the truth," Willow muttered as Buffy and the other men helped her to her feet.

            "Really Buffy, I'm alright, I just got a bit dizzy is all," Willow assured the Slayer one more time.  She didn't seem convinced, but she finally stopped doting, and started gushing.

            "That was amazing Will!  How did you control it like that?  You did control it, didn't you?"

            Willow smiled at Buffy's enthusiasm.  "Yes, I controlled it, and why shouldn't I be able to?  It's my life force, I can do what I want with it.  But, it's harder than learning to walk all over again.  Not only do you have to contend with how the energy wants to flow outwards into nothing or just blow up, but to precisely control it, you have to fight the energy in the space around you as well.  Like all those sharp turns I had it do?  Those were the hardest because I had to deal with the momentum, the friction of the air, and even keeping the thing going instead of coming to a complete stop."

            Buffy blinked in surprise, but Broly nodded when she looked at him, agreeing with what Willow had said as true.  "Well bummer.  I mean I can barely hold onto it long enough to throw it properly, how am I gonna do all that you just did?"

            "I was actually planning on saving that for the advanced lessons Buffy," Goku admitted, scratching the back of his head.  "Today I was just hoping you could fire a single energy ball from your hand.  But see if you can consciously control the amount of energy that goes into your attack this time.  Make sure that it's nothing you can't handle or have to end up throwing away because it got too big."

            Buffy nodded and took several steps away from the group and took a few deep breaths, getting her focus.  Once she felt her energy flowing around her, and keeping in mind both Willow and Goku's advice, she began to slowly build the energy between her hands.  It almost seemed that her power wanted to burst out away from her, but she quickly and strongly pushed it back in line, into her control.

            After a couple minutes of intense concentration, she had a basketball sized energy ball floating between her palms.  She began to take deeper breaths, and then moved her arms so she was about to push the energy ball away from her.  Then, suddenly it flew off!

            About ten meters out from Buffy, it started into a wide, slowing curve, but kept most of its speed as it raced along it's new path before coming to a dead stop and then shooting upwards at a thirty degree angle.  It made a full, circular revolution around the group twice before angling back down, and that's when it quickly began to look unstable and fell to the ground and exploded.

            Buffy, like Willow, dropped to her knees after the energy ball was no more, but she was back to her feet before the others could get to her.

            "You weren't kidding Wills," Buffy said, gasping to get her energy back.  "That was almost like bowling, except that you can actually control the ball, and a whole lot harder than it looks."

            "That's very impressive girls, very impressive," Goku couldn't help complimenting them.  "Now I'll let you get used to this new skill before moving on.  Don't try and control it so much as learn what you can do with it.  Oh, and feel free to use any of us as target practice." Goku added smugly.

            The other two warriors shot death-ray glares at him.  What stopped them from using him as their target practice though was Willow frowning and saying that she would rather just blast the wall.

            The girls practiced for another couple hours, Buffy trying to sneak a blast at Goku, but he always seemed to know when she tried that and it usually backfired on her.  Literally.

*                       *                       *

            Xander, at the exact same time the girls were in the Main Gym with Goku and his friends, was at the Temple of Chi Magicks, and sitting calmly on a stool in the middle of Master Fong's sanctum, while the ancient Chinese Chi Wizard walked around and around the room talking and teaching Xander the basics of how the universe worked, and how chi was a fundamental and vital part of it.  Today, if his earlier claims had any worth of understanding to them, Master Fong was going to teach Xander how to use his own chi as an energy weapon.

            Of course the Wizard didn't say it exactly like that, but that was what Xander understood from between all the "One more things".

            "Ai yah!  You are not paying attention…!" Master Fong snapped his finger on Xander's forehead.

            (AN:  when in Master Fong's speech ' … ' indicates that whining thing Uncle does on certain words, so just take it to mean, like in the sentence above "atten-chAAAAAANN!".  Please keep this in mind for all future uses with Master Fong's words)

            (AN2:  Master Fong is speaking Chinese, therefore Xander, and the rest of us understand him in English because of Xander's Translator Implant.  Ergo, he does not use Chinese terms as they should be properly used.  AKA, I'm stupid and not smart enough to properly research everything I'm having these "experts" "claim", so I'm using a sort of hybrid of American English, and Chinese theological concepts.)

            "Ow!" Xander rubbed the spot.  "Well its kind of hard when you interrupt your explanations by saying "One More Thing" every other word!"  He was interrupted by another rap on his head, "Ow!"

            "Don't talk back!  Now pay… attention!" Master Fong snapped.

            "Yes master," Xander grumbled, still rubbing his head, but paying attention to the Chi Wizard.  Seemingly satisfied with that, Master Fong turned back to his worktable and continued with his lecture.

            "I have already explained about how the soul is a source for great power.  Other than keeping you alive, it also does many more things, the least of which is define who a person can or will be when they are born," Master Fong explained.  "The soul emits many different types of energy, and if used in such a manner, can be an everlasting conduit for energy so that no matter what technology or civilization it is used for, a single soul could power it forever.  The first type of energy is…" He stopped talking and looked at Xander expectantly.

            After a moment, Xander realized that he wanted him to answer and cast his mind out for an answer before the information smacked him upside the head with the answer.  "Oh!  Uh, ki, uh I mean, life energy!"

            Master Fong went on like he hadn't even paused, "Ching.  Life energy.  That which the body needs to continues functioning and living on the fundamental levels.  Scientists call this neuro-energy.  The second… type of energy is…"

            "Uh…mental…energy?" Xander answered uncertainly.

            Master Fong gave him a dirty look but continued anyway.  "The third… type of energy is mental energy, also known as Yi.  Powerful psychics and Chi Masters are the only humans that can use mental energy.  The second type of energy is shen, Spirit energy.  There are many other types of energy that the soul emits constantly.  You, as a warrior in the Tournament… only need to know these three… types of power.  Ki is the term for life… energy, and simplest term to use.  We will call the mental energy Psionic… energy.  Don't ask me, that's what it's called.  And spirit energy.  We will call the spirit energy, chi."

            Xander nodded, indicating he was paying attention.  Then he got confused, which showed easily on his face.  "Uh, isn't it the same thing?  Chi and ki I mean?" he asked.

            "What did I say about interrupting?!" Master Fong screeched, and Xander cringed back, expecting to get hit again, but instead Master Fong went back to pacing.

            "To many, yes, it is the same.  That is because life energy and spirit energy are easily confused with one another.  Spirit energy can only be identified when used by ghosts or those that are trained to use it.  Life energy can easily copy the effects that those trained with spirit energy can accomplish and a great deal more.  But they are not the same.  They all come from the same source, they both accomplish the same ends, but they are different.  Both in training, and because they are!"

            "Right, gotcha, not the same!" Xander hastily confirmed.

            "Good.  Now, hold this," Master Fong put a crystal shaped like an egg in his hand.

            Confused, and seeing nothing wrong with it, Xander took the egg.  Once he did, it began to glow with an inner light.  It was very faint, but as he continued to stare at it, he could swear that he saw it pulsing along with the beat of his heart.

            "This is a device that can be used to measure one's spirit energy.  YOU HAVE VERY WEAK CHI!" Master Fong yelled into his ear.  It was all Xander could do to stay seated on the stool.

            "We must begin to strengthen it, as you strengthen your ki.  But first…"

            "Yeah, yeah, I have to become aware of it.  So how do I do that?" Xander asked.

            Master Fong gave him a rare smile and Xander's face fell.  Whenever the old coot smiled at him, he knew he was in trouble.  Big trouble.

            "You have to be a ghost," Fong replied easily, before a dagger imbedded itself to the hilt through Xander's right eye.  Death was instant.

            The next sensation Xander became aware of was a feeling of floating, of bodylessness.  That became a little too obvious when he awoke completely and saw himself with a dagger in his right eye, in the middle of a circle of herbs as Master Fong paced the circle.  What was wrong with that was that he was looking down on himself!

            "What the…?" were the first words out of the new ghost's mouth.

            Master Fong was still circling his corpse, steadily chanting "Yu mo gui gui fi di sow.  Yu mo gui gui fi di sow.  Yu mo gui gui fi di sow."  The really weird part of that though was that a trail of bright green energy trailed him and then flowed into the circle around his dead body.  A body that was supposed to be immortal, he realized with a jolt!

            "Hey you old coot!  Put me back in my body before I like start to decompose or something!  What the hell is this anyway?  I'm supposed to be immortal!!" Xander screamed at the Chi Wizard.

            At first it seemed that he hadn't been heard, and then after a moment, Master Fong turned and looked up at him, or at least in his general direction, and chanted one final time, "Yu mo gui gui fi di sow."  After that, Xander felt as if something had changed, although he couldn't even begin to hazard a guess as to what it might be.

            "So," Master Fong's annoying whine suddenly called out to him, "how do you like being a ghost?"

            "You think this is funny old man?!  Change me back!  What if I get stuck like this?" Xander began to panic.

            Master Fong just smiled up at him.  "Simple finishing spell.  The Powers will break through it eventually.  And then you will automatically revive.  NOW, go learn how to use your spirit energy.  You are a free-floating spirit now, it is how you move and can interact with the physical world.  Once you have revived we will begin training your chi to become stronger."

            Before Xander could say anything to that though, the Chi Wizard began to leave the room.  "Wait a second!  What if the Powers don't break through for a couple of weeks?!  And what the hell am I supposed to do in the mean time?"

            For half a second he thought he saw the old man smirk or genuinely smile or something like that, but the next instant he heard in a conversational tone, "You are very stupid."

            "Why you…!" Xander raged, but Fong had already gone.

            He let out a breathless sigh and sagged where he floated.  "Well, I'll be damned before I follow that guy around for my entire time as a…as a ghost." Suddenly this wasn't looking too bad.  Ever since he hit puberty, having ghost powers was one of the things he wanted most.  Now he had them.  "Best not waste this valuable opportunity," he said to himself and easily floated himself upwards and through the ceiling.

            Ten minutes later he finally exited the roof of the Temple of Chi Magicks.  "Geez Louise, how many levels does that place have anyway?" he asked himself, exasperated.

            After that he spent about an hour trying to find his way around.  Eventually he ended up at what he knew as the 'Gym Facility', which housed almost all of the Private Training Gym sectors in the Compound.  Not having anything better to do, he flew in and tried to feel out for any familiar kis with his senses.

            After a moment, he surprised himself in finding Giles' very nearby and he immediately made a beeline for the Watcher.  Half a moment later, he was in the Private Gym and looking down on Giles' still, meditating form.  He smirked as he descended to the Blade wielder's level on the floor.

            Then he remembered something, both from popular media and something he'd come across in one of the scrolls Fong had him researching, about how ghosts could enter people's dreams, and how humans and many other species were closer to the spirit world when unconscious.  Briefly he considered the negative aspects of going into G-man's dreams, but those were quickly cast out in favor of annoying the Watcher some more.

            His decision made, Xander began to focus on entering the G-man's dreams, mostly by trying to figure out how to do it.  Amazingly though, because of his developed 6th sense, he felt his own energy flowing around him in response to his focusing and like a whirlpool, he was literally sucked up into the meditating body on the floor and the next thing he knew, he was in Giles' meditation dream.

            Or actually, the mental construct of his mind that he and Nightblade had made for the purpose of the Power Blade training him in its uses.

            Xander found himself in a square wood-paneled room, while Giles was in the middle of it, sparring against a shadow opponent using the Crane Kung Fu style.  Xander, too shocked to do or say anything at first, just stayed where he was and watched the match with an interested eye.

            Amazingly enough, Giles was decked out in full Librarian tweed as he punched, kicked, dodged and jumped about like the world's greatest martial artist against the shadow.  Even more amazing, Xander saw that he wasn't even sweating, and was easily wiping the floor with his opponent.

            After a couple moments, Xander felt a… a presence become aware of him.  He wasn't sure if it was Giles or not, but he could all of a sudden feel eyes watching him, suspicious, but either unable or simply not doing anything for the moment.

            Giles finally dispensed with his opponent, still not even sweating.  He looked up and startled, surprised to find Xander standing there.  Xander, despite only being like this for a few minutes, had already gotten used to the fact that nobody could see him.  Then he reminded himself he was in Giles' dream.

            Sort of.

            "Hey G-man!  Nice moves you got there," Xander commented.

            "Xan-Xander?!  What in the blazes are you doing…here?" Giles was confused at Xander's appearance in his mind.

            Xander shrugged.  That presence he felt was starting to give him the heeby jeebys.  "Remember that Master Fong I've been complaining about the past couple days?" Xander asked.

            Giles grimaced and almost rolled his eyes, but managed not to.

            "Yeah, well he turned me into a ghost," Xander succinctly finished.

            Giles stared at him for several long moments before blinking wildly and then did a double take.  "Ex-excuse me, he what?" Giles shouted.  "He…he-he actually…killed you?  But, we're supposed to be immortal!"

            Xander shrugged.  "I think what he actually did was kick my spirit out of my body, and then did…what did he call it?"

            :A finishing spell:

            "Yeah! Thanks…uh…G-man, who said that?" Xander froze.

            "Oh, that was Nightblade," Giles answered calmly.

            Xander blinked and almost did his own double take.  "Uh…isn't 'Nightblade' supposed to be a four foot long piece of obsidian that you have on your lap most of the time?"

            "Yes, but don't forget what Willow said about the Blades of Power being sentient.  They feel and think the same that you or I would.  They, he is an individual.  And he's been struggling to teach me how to control my physical body while in this meditation.  You know, controlling my heartbeat and all that.  Of course the first step he says is learning how to move in me 'dream body', or this form right now."

            "Cool," Xander commented, not following a word of it.

            Giles snorted and rolled his eyes.  "You try explaining it!" he shouted at the ceiling.  Or…no, at a part of the wall.  Xander turned and looked and was amazed to see the obsidian blade set on the wall there like some kind of prized trophy.

            Xander realized with a start that that was where the presence he felt was coming from.

            The two men stared at the weapon for several long moments until it became quite clear to them that Nightblade simply wasn't going to respond and was not just thinking over its answer.

            Finally Giles looked at Xander, and then jumped a little, almost glaring at him.  Before Xander could ask what the problem was, Giles exclaimed on his own, "Good lord Xander!  What have you done to yourself?"

            "Huh?" Xander was puzzled, until he looked down at his body and startled a little himself.

            He was exactly as he had been in the dream when he had fully merged with the Hyena, his hands were claws as much as they were hands, his muscle mass was greatly increased, he felt his fangs with his tongue and running his claw/hand through it, felt his hair was much longer and he could guess that it was spotted too, like a Hyena's fur.

            "Oh…that.  Well, you remember Giles when I mentioned that stuff about me still being possessed by the Hyena?" Xander sheepishly asked.

            Giles stared at him for a moment, and then cleared his throat, but didn't actually say anything.  "Well, during that whole 'download' thing, we kind of…"

            :Merged: Nightblade finished.

            Both men looked up at the obsidian weapon, startled somewhat.  "Uh…yeah.  Anyway, it's still me, no…eating you or anything."

            "Yes, well, quite," Giles quite nervously just shuffled about after that.

            "So what exactly are you doing…here?" he finally asked after shuffling.

            Xander shrugged.  "Didn't know where Buffy and Willow are to bug them," he answered simply.

            "All right then," Giles impatiently huffed, "how are you here?"

            "Oh," Xander scratched the back of his head, briefly wondering if that was part of the Hyena half or just his own embarrassment.

            "Well, I kind of flew from the Temple to the Training Gym building.  It's not that far really, and I already told you the old guy killed me and then did some kind of spell to keep me from being revived.  What was it again?" he asked Nightblade.  It did not reply.

            Giles sighed and rolled his eyes.  "HOW ARE YOU IN MY DREAM YOU STUPID CURR!" he yelled, making Xander jump.

            "Oh, that."

            "Yes that!"

            "Well, I saw you were meditating, and I remember how ghosts can sometimes enter people's dreams, so I decided to try it out, and…" Xander stopped talking when he saw the look on Giles' face.

            "Out!  Get out!  I don't care how, but get out NOW!!"  And just like that, Xander felt an unbelievable force push against him and he felt that swirling sensation again, but in reverse, and the next thing he knew, he was getting shot out of Giles' body faster than he could control himself.

            "Ok, okay!" Xander whined as he managed to get his air tumbling under control.  He went off in search of something else to do until the old man's spell wore off.

*                       *                       *

            It took a while, but Xander finally found the Main Gym, where he remembered the girls had been called to while he got chucked back to the Temple of Chi Magicks.  He floated down through the ceiling and then stopped and almost flew back out when a ball of energy flew past him.  He yelped as the energy blast narrowly missed him.

            He watched as the ball continued to curve and fly through the air, before suddenly becoming unstable and crashing and exploding on the floor.  Xander, confused, looked around the rest of the Gym until his eyes settled with relief and understanding on the group, including Goku, Buffy, and Willow.

            He quickly floated down towards them, making sure to be quiet.  Although since they couldn't see or hear him there really wasn't a point in doing that.  Until he saw Buffy shiver when he got within a few feet of her and then she looked around as though trying to find him.  When she didn't see him, she just shrugged and turned her attention back to Goku.

            Xander heard the comment about being used as target practice, and he wondered what lesson his friends had been previed to, and he had gotten shafted for by being a ghost.  He quickly got his answer as Willow answered that she would rather blast the wall until she got better and then immediately formed a ki blast about the size of a baseball and cast it out where it exploded against the wall.

            "Oh you have got to be kidding me!!" Xander shouted.  Of the things he had been real anxious to learn was to shoot energy like Goku and all the other fighters did.

            The second he had shouted, Buffy stopped and started frantically looking around, although mostly in Xander's general direction than just anywhere.  Xander noticed this and stepping closer to the Slayer he asked in a more normal tone, "Uh, can you hear me Buff?"

            Her brow furrowed in concentration for a moment, but her eyes did not lock onto him, still scanning the room, but definitely for him.  After a minute, she shook her head and turned and started forming her own ki blasts.

            Before Xander could say or try anything more, he felt a horrible, gut-wrenching tug that actually did pull him through the air, then out of the Main Gym, through the air, getting faster and faster until everything was just one big blur, and the next thing he knew, he was back in his body, sitting up rigidly.

            "What the…!" were the first words out of his mouth as he sat up.  He quickly stood up when he noticed that Master Fong was there, seemingly waiting for him.

            "OK, again, what was that about?" Xander asked him.

            "Now that you are aware of your Spirit Energy, that which you used to fly with, among other things, we must focus on strengthening it.  Come with me!" Master Fong ordered, broking no argument as he immediately left the room.

            Xander didn't hesitate in chasing after him, as he knew that the entire Temple was nothing but one giant maze and he did not want to get lost.

*                       *                       *

            When everyone got back to the apartment that evening, everyone was tired.  However, Buffy just told them to suck it up, sat them all down to dinner, and then dragged them back to the Private Gym for their nightly Training.

            "First thing's first," Buffy said as soon as the seal was over the gym, "Willow and I learned several valuable things today, and we're going to teach it to you guys so none of us are left behind.  First thing is how to better manipulate our ki, and then we'll get to the really fun stuff like flying and ki blasts."

            Xander definitely perked up at this.  "Neat!  Where do we start?" he asked eagerly.

            Buffy nodded, and smiled at his child-like enthusiasm.  "All right, Wills, you sure you got it?" she asked her friend, who nodded back, confident.  "Then you help Giles.  I'll take mister whiney pants."

            "Hey!" Xander exclaimed.  Buffy gave him a cutesy smile and asked him to challenge her with her eyes.  "Yeah, well I'd like to see how well you could handle the old guy!  I mean it Buff!  He's like this incredibly crabby…ugly, foul-tempered, disowned uncle that you never want to talk about at family reunions!  And as hard as Goku ever is on us, this guy would make Goku and probably even Willow's teachers at the Mage Tower whine and grumble a lot!"

            "But you're learning things Xander," Buffy countered, "You told us that yourself, despite all your whining.  And it's not like you were permanently damaged."

            "Yeah, immortality aside Buff, you killed me, 3 times!" Xander shouted.  They were walking to the other side of the rectangular cube that was the Training Gym.  Giles and Willow had gone to the side opposite.

            "And you think I enjoyed that?" Buffy stopped and stared at him.

            He stopped and closed his eyes, fighting to control the sudden rage within him.  He used to call it the Hyena.  Now it was his temper.  "Part of me…yeah Buff, part of me thinks you enjoyed doing it," Xander huskily whispered, not looking at her.

            Buffy walked forward slowly, and then turned Xander around to look at her.  He startled when he saw tears coming from her eyes.  Real tears, no acting could do that.  "Buff…" he tried to say, but she interrupted him with a shake of her head.

            "Slapping you wouldn't have done a thing Xander, and beating you up to knock some sense into your head also wouldn't have worked," she explained through her falling tears.  "Given that what we usually do here is beat each other up anyway.  I want you to see the big picture here Xand.  We are going to be fighting for our lives.  If we don't get as strong as we possibly can here and now, if we don't learn all that we can from this place…we're going to die."

            She glared at him anew, her tears already drying.  "Now I don't care if you were just trying to make things light like you usually do, or if you expected us to come to your rescue and have me or Giles trade places with you, but I'm sorry, that is not going to happen.  Now I don't care if you have every reason in the world to hate this teacher of yours.  You will continue to get lessons from him and learn all that he can possibly teach you.  And no more complaining or whining."

"I killed you because you wouldn't shut up about the problems you were having with his personality and teaching style.  Thankfully after the third time you got the hint and finally did shut up.  Now I'm giving you a new order and hopefully it won't take killing you even once to get it past your hyena-possessed skull.  Screw liking him.  Learn from him.  No more questions and no more complaints, even to yourself.  If you're feeling bad about something he said or did, then think about this.  In three months, we're going to die.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  Unless, we get strong enough that we could beat Goku.  We beat Goku; we can win, and live.  Any questions?"

Xander shook his head to the negative.

            "Good.  Now, power up and I'll start showing you how to project your ki from your body," Buffy told him and proceeded to demonstrate and show Xander everything she and Willow had learned that afternoon.

            It took roughly the same amount of time, because Buffy would not let up for an instant, insisting on the same method that Goku and his friends had used in teaching her and Willow.

            As an added incentive, Buffy also described what it was like to fly under your own power, as well as giving the tidbits of help that she had received from the others in controlling ones flight.  While Xander practiced with manipulating his own ki, she sometimes formed energy balls which she then juggled with or just played around with, providing further incentive to master the "boring stuff" so he could move on to the "fun stuff".

            Five hours later, the entire Slayer Team was on the same level of ki manipulation, and the men were ready for flying lessons.  Lessons that lasted about two minutes before they were doing their own method of aerial stunts like Buffy and Willow had done.  Willow surmised that it was like she had said when they first discovered how to use their ki.  Because they were in a universe with so much less energy, their own energy, their ki was in the equivalent of a weightless environment and was flying, which made it easier for them to adjust to actually flying.

            "Now comes the fun part," Buffy grinned as she formed another energy ball, the entire team with her now in the center part of the gym.  Within half an hour, both guys were flinging energy balls and shooting beams of ki energy like they had done so all their lives.  However, they couldn't, yet, finely control the way the energy attacks moved like Buffy and Willow could.

            "So what should we do now?" Xander asked, once he and Giles really were fully caught up with Buffy and Willow on skill level.

            "Well… we have a couple options," Willow answered, "We do what we normally do and train in building our strength some more, or if you guys have learned some things that Buffy and I haven't, you could try and teach us about it and how to use it."

            "Well," Xander scratched the back of his head, "remember what I told you Master Fong was going to try and teach me today?  It's not exactly something that can be easily taught.  Especially when you have to be a ghost for a couple hours to even find out how to begin learning it."

            "What is it?" Buffy asked, curious.

            "He said to call it 'chi', and I was somewhat lost in how the explanation goes, but basically souls give off several different types of energy waves, ki, or life energy among them.  Another is what he called Spirit energy, which I think is like ecto-energy or whatever.  Only, this isn't restrained, but depending on what our lives our like, it is either strong or weak.  If it's strong, it always has the chance of getting stronger.  If it gets strong enough, in the right ways, then you could do similar things like what we can do with ki."

            "Really?" Buffy blurted.  "Wow!  Giles, you have any thoughts that you could add to that?"

            Giles stared off in space for a couple moments, for a second one would think he hadn't heard her, but he finally replied, "Nightblade believes that the reason Master Fong had to turn Xander into a ghost in order to master his…you called it chi correct?  The reason that Xander had to be a ghost in order to master his chi is because Xander's was on the weak side.  For the rest of us, less than drastic measures could probably be taken."

            "Cool," Buffy said.  Then she turned back to Xander and seemed to be asking a question with her expression.

            "Hey!  I'm just learning this myself!  There's no way I could teach another person.  Maybe I could tutor, but…" Xander stopped as Buffy continued to stare at him.  He finally realized what she was proposing, and the thought made him slouch.  He remembered his promise to her just five and a half hours ago.  "I'll call him," he finally said, sounding depressed as he pulled his Global out.

            "You can call him tomorrow, or at least mention the possibility," Buffy told him.  "In the mean time…why don't you choose what we do next Xand?"

            Xander smiled thankfully at his Team leader and nodded his agreement, putting his Global away.  Then his smile became more savage as he said, "Sparring.  Let's test these new energy and flying powers of ours."

            Buffy grinned right back, her's a bit more mocking and casually confident at the same time.  Xander subconsciously labeled it her "Slayer smirk".

            "Free for all, pairs, or team on one?" she asked.

            "Free for all," Giles and Willow said at the same time Xander did, causing the Warrior X to look surprised at them predicting him.  Buffy had the same look on her face that his other two friends did and he couldn't let that go so he said, "Am I really that predictable?"

            "Yep," they all agreed.

            "Fine, I'll show you!" he shouted and immediately started powering up.

            The others scattered, and started powering up themselves.

            Despite his strength being nearly the same level, Willow, and especially Buffy managed to power up faster than Xander could, but that didn't really matter since he had got enough of a head start to make them even…well, almost.  Buffy was clearly stronger given what their senses told them, but they had been through this enough times to know that power wasn't everything.

            Once he was fully powered, Xander immediately started tracking the Slayer, and leaped backwards in the nearly 50 Gs, an putting some "power" behind it so that he actually landed on the far wall instead of the floor, and used it to ricochet off to where Slayer was.

            Slayer was ready for him and actually met his charge part way, creating enough force with that first impact that a concussion wave sounded.  The both of them were so intent on their sparring that they didn't even notice.  Willow and Giles did though.

            Looking at the Watcher, the Mage quickly floated over next to him and before he could perceive it as any kind of attack, she asked, "Giles?  Just how powerful do you think they are now?  I mean… look at them?  Do…do you think it's possible we might just be able to beat Goku?"

            Watcher looked at her for a moment before turning his gaze to the other two, and then back to the Mage.  "I'm…not sure Willow… but in this place, anything is possible.  Let's catch up, shall we?"

            Mage smirked and nodded, charging her ki and then taking off at top speed for the sparring par.  Watcher was right behind her.

            Slayer, who had just knocked Warrior X back far enough for both of them to catch their breaths, suddenly tensed, and ducked down while swinging her arm back to catch the Mage in the gut, knocking the wind out of her as well as slamming her in the reverse direction.  Moving with the momentum of her counter, Slayer gave a mid-air roundhouse kick at Watcher's head, who narrowly managed to stop himself and lean his body back enough that she didn't even graze him.

            Realizing that she missed, Slayer started to jump back, but Watcher moved faster, kicking her full in the torso and knocking her back into the Mage, who was just getting up.

            'Giles is getting good,' Slayer idly thought as she shifted her ki to pick herself up.

            Tapping into her well spring of martial arts knowledge, thanks to the implant, Buffy shot down through the air at the Watcher and started laying into him while avoiding his sword strikes and attempts at countering her own moves.

            Warrior X jumped into the fray, or was about to but stopped a bare inch before Watcher would have decapitated him.  Before he could gear up another charge though, he felt a tap on his shoulder and heard Mage say just behind him, "Oh Xander."

            He turned, only to get a fist to the face followed by a kick to the chest, both of which hurt like hell.  When he got up off the ground, he saw a red haired fury coming straight at him, surrounded by both ki and magical flames.  "Oh boy," he mumbled before kipping to his feet and mostly tried to avoid Mage's raging charge.

            Mage saw what he was planning to do but anticipated every one of his moves, and rapidly narrowed down on his position before he could actually avoid her.  Leading with her foot, Mage was suddenly shocked to find the tables quickly turned on her as Warrior X grabbed her kicking leg and using her ongoing momentum, slammed her down into the floor, where she bounced upward from the excess force, and Warrior X leaped up into the air and kicked her in the torso into the nearby wall, which she hit and slid down in pain.

            He almost ran up to her to see if his friend was all right, but Slayer and Watcher's ongoing battle soon distracted him to the point where he was suddenly right in the middle of it and using every iota of his power that he could just to keep from getting instantly killed.

            Mage barely even had a clue what just happened to her.  She was stunned, but also, her mind was trying to calculate how Warrior X could have possibly countered her like he did.  He might have been more powerful than her, definitely in raw strength that was the case, and maybe even faster, but it was just too amazing with how he turned her own attack against her so easily.  She groaned as she tried to direct her power back into her muscles, straining against the brief loss and lethargy of being slammed into a wall gives you.  Groaning, she managed to get to her feet, still trying to orient her self enough to do anything else.

            Warrior X meanwhile was also trying to figure out how he had so easily turned the tables on Mage, so he could do it again.  Although it seemed to be turning out it was a fluke of instinct, which was useless in his sparring with Slayer and Watcher, who were more intent on going after each other, and keeping him in the middle of it.

            He would duck down to avoid Slayer's high kick, only for her to change it at the last second into a up-swinging sweeper kick, forcing him to roll to the side, where Watcher swung his obsidian blade in a downward arch, which Slayer blocked with her katana.  From just the look, it seemed as though the other two were completely ignoring him and he just happened to be there, but when several more things like that where he tried to roll out of the way and one or both of them moved in the same direction just one too many times…

            Finally Xander thought of the one direction that he could move in that they could not make it look like coincidence.  He suddenly, not even making it look like an avoidance of Slayer's attack, jumped and flew straight up at the ceiling.  When he was there, he inverted himself and made it look like he was standing on the ceiling, although it was incredibly more difficult to do as he was flying against the direction of the intense gravity.

            Slayer paused and looked up at him, and smirked in that parody of Goku's smirk.  Warrior X was beginning to think of that as a "Slayer grin" and it also told him that it certainly was no accidents that had kept him in the middle of their fight.  Warrior X gave her a lopsided grin, then drew his own katana, and waited.

            Slayer looked back down at Watcher, who looked at her, then back up at Warrior X.  Then he nodded and together they took off, and then inverted themselves on the ceiling with the Warrior.

            With a whole new perspective to gain control of, they all stopped actively attacking and instead started circling one another.  Because part of this new perspective was making sure that your feet touched the ceiling instead of open air, as gravity was wont to do.

            A couple minutes of circling later, they all felt like they had gotten their "ceiling legs" and started moving closer together in order to begin the sparring match anew.

            Warrior X was the one to attack first, running at Slayer and jumping right into it with her, both their arms and legs flying against one another in a rapid pattern of attack and block.

            Slayer, normally able to just knock him out with one combo, was severely distracted at the moment with keeping her feet on the ceiling, as well as fending off two attackers once Watcher joined Warrior X against her, but from the opposite direction.  It spoke highly of her skill and abilities that she lasted the few minutes she did before a blow to her back by Watcher sent her careening, uncontrolled to the floor where she crashed, and slumped into a brief unconsciousness.

            Surprised at the turn of events, Warrior X almost mistook the training for being over…when Mage suddenly joined them on the ceiling and Watcher turned back to him.  He grinned ferally as he let his instincts rise to the surface, which relished the upcoming events.  His ki flame burst brighter than ever around him as he waited for the others to attack.

            She wasn't even down thirty seconds before the Slayer managed to revive, hurting all over, in particular from the places where she had received heavy or hard impacts.  Groaning, and being careful of her bruised ribs, she knew the feeling by now, she got back to her hands and knees, and then even more carefully got back to her feet.

            Her 6th sense suddenly informed her of the ongoing battle on the ceiling and she looked up to see Mage head rush Warrior X while Watcher tried to bracket the Warrior against her.

            She tried to take a step forward into a jump, but the pain gave her a sudden head rush, making her pause and gasp without sound for a moment or two as the pain washed throughout her.  After a moment, she steeled herself, and took another step.  This time she was ready for the pain and braced herself against it.  She stopped walking and looked back up, breathing heavily.

            She knew she couldn't rejoin, not at her current disadvantage.  Even Giles could clean her clock and throw her around like a rag doll in her present state.  But what could she…

            She almost slapped herself.  Of course!

            She powered up to her max, letting her energy surround her and fill her body.  Then, focusing, but not as intensely so as to control it perfectly, Buffy formed three separate ki balls.

            Watching the movements, she tagged one ball to each of her teammates.  Then she fired.

            It was almost fully draining, given her already straining injuries, but it worked!  The others had hardly even noticed she'd gotten up, and apparently had thought her forming the energy attacks had just been her powering back up and ready to rejoin the battle most likely.  They found out differently when they were all struck simultaneously by an explosion of energies right to their backs.

            "Ahhhh!" they all cried as they lost their concentration and were all severely injured, falling to the floor after the three explosions wracked their bodies.

            In the silent aftermath, nobody was quite sure who was the more wasted.  Not even Buffy, who was now hunched over from the pain of her injuries coupled with less than her needed energy level.

            "OK, unfair!" Mage groaned out as she started trying to move her body again.

            "Some warning…would have been nice…Buffy," Watcher grunted as he got to his knees then his feet to stand.

            The Slayer just shrugged.

            Warrior X got to his feet in silence.  The hyena, or what was left of it as a separate entity, was burning with rage at the blind-sided attack.  It demanded retribution and would not let go until it had it.  Calling up everything he had learned about 'chi' that day to his mind, X cast about for any way to use it as a weapon, but at first was at a total loss.  This just made him angrier, his fist clenching in fury.

            Almost in response to his fury, his clenched fist began to glow slightly.  He never noticed, but he did notice, for the moment, he didn't feel anything but the power of his rage.  Blinded by it, he charged forward, yelling, his glowing fist leading the charge.

            Slayer and the others turned to see what was the matter with their friend when they saw him running straight for Slayer, faster than she could dodge.  His fist hit, connecting with the center of her chest.

            There was a semi-explosion of energy before Slayer was seen blasted back, at a very high speed, straight for the wall behind her, …which had been more than halfway across the room.  She landed, and then crashed against the wall, staying upright against it as the force of Warrior X's attack had driven her into it, cracking some of the wall tiles and creating a mini-crater in it.

            Looking closer, one could see the Slayer was either totally knocked out, or dead, as her eyes were rolled up in her head, but the lids still open, showing white.

            At the sight, Xander snapped out of his rage and just stared, open-faced.

            'I did that?' he had to ask himself, stunned.

            Giles and Willow stared, also stunned, for a couple minutes, sometimes looking back and forth between the new wall decoration and the one who had put it there.  Then they finally processed what had just happened.

            "Xander!!" Willow screeched, totally incensed at what the Warrior had done.

            "I-I-I-I…I'm sorry?" he stuttered, uncertainly.

            "Sorry?!  Why did you do that?  As far as I cared, the sparring match was over and we would rest for a bit before moving on!  And Buffy obviously didn't expect you to blind side her like that…" Willow accused him.

            "Blind side!!" he exploded, his rage coming back to the fore.  "What the hell do you think it was that she just did to us?  Huh?  She!  Attacked!  ME!  And I got retribution for it.  Eye for an eye and all that Willow!  Besides, WE'RE IMMORTAL!" he shouted.

            Willow stopped and seemed to take a step back from her lifelong friend.  What snapped Xander back to reality though, was that she was looking at him the same way that she had when he had let the Hyena go two weeks ago.  He didn't say anything more, but they could tell he was sorry for what he'd said and done by the way his shoulders slumped.

            A soft groan brought all of theirs attention back to Buffy.  Amazed beyond belief, they watched as she groaned again, a little louder, and then her head moved.  None of them had seen the customary golden glow that indicated the Powers bringing someone back to life.  She moved again, and that seemed to dislodge her from the hole in the wall and she immediately fell forward, making a soft and sharp impact sound as she did.  The same sound a watermelon makes when dropped from a two-story building.

            She grunted in pain however, and then groaned again as she moved to get her arms underneath her.  No one else had moved.  They were just too amazed and stunned at the resilience of their friend, that she was still alive instead of being killed on impact, to even allow the thought of rushing to her aid even enter their minds.

            Just as she had gotten her hands in a good lifting position, Buffy almost fell forward again, her energy way beyond low, and her muscles, even when still, were crying in pure agony.  Then, when no one could possibly notice, as she opened her eyes, they were filled with a soft gold-yellow light, it was not the same as the Powers, but before it faded completely, it seemed to make Buffy just strong enough to get to her feet, but no more unfortunately.

            As the Slayer and Team leader slowly walked/hunched/stumbled/dragged herself back to the rest of her team, said team did nothing but stair, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.  When she had finally crossed the distance, she was standing a couple feet from Xander, the other two a number of feet behind him.

            She looked him in the eye, and he almost flinched, expecting to see righteous and vengeful anger guaranteeing a great deal of pain for him.  Instead, he had to do a double take as he saw instead, awe-filled wonderment and excitement in her eyes and face.

            "Xander…" Buffy half-croaked, "…that was AMAZING!" she said, as her voice got stronger and firmer.  Now they all did double takes.

            "Buffy… are you all right?" Giles asked.

            She gave him "that" look, and bit out, "Oh yes Giles, I'm absolutely wonderful, I feel like doing hand stands and running around the world fifteen times over.  What the hell do you think Giles?  I'm beat up, bloody, at least three, maybe five, of my ribs are broken, and my energy is entirely depleted.  Ofcourse I'm not all right!!"

            Then she turned back to Xander and became excited again.  "You've got to teach me how to do that Xan!  That was amazing!  I don't think Goku even knows that technique to teach us.  Master Fong taught you that, didn't he, that whole chi thing you were talking about earlier, right?"

            "Uh…yeah," Xander dumbly replied after a small silence.

            "Great," Buffy nodded, still excited.  "Now that me and Wills are pretty much done with 2nd Training, we can start to focus on fighting techniques instead of just endurance.  Although we're definitely still going to train for endurance, we're also going to start looking and applying every fighting technique we can possibly learn here.  Xander, you can teach me how to do that, right?"

            "Uh…"

            "Xander."

            "Sure, not a problem," he said immediately.

            Buffy paused, grimaced momentarily as she turned to look him more fully in the face, and then repeated in a more deadpan tone, "Xander."

            "Buff…it just happened!" he suddenly exclaimed.  "I don't even remember what all I did.  All I know is one minute, I'm up there," he pointed at the ceiling, "sparring between Wills and Giles, then I feel an explosion on my back and I fall to the floor.  Then I… then I kind of lost my temper.  In a major way I guess, and I just struck out.  I'm sorry."

            Buffy grimaced again and just stared at him.

            Then she let out a disappointed sigh and started to hobble to the MTC, muttering the password to unlock the gym as she did so.  As she walked she explained to the others, "We're done for tonight.  Lets all go to the Clinic and get patched up.  Tomorrow though, I don't care what that blade says Giles or what anyone else had planned, we're all going with Xander to see this Master Fong.  And we're getting him to train all of us."

*                       *                       *

            The very next morning, barely ten hours after leaving their late night training session, the entire Slayer Team were standing on the front steps of the Temple of Chi Magicks.  Willow was impressed by the design and was saying how impressive all the inlaid magicks were, engrained into the very structure and materials itself.  Buffy just thought it looked cool.

            "Yes, well, seeing as how both you and Willow skipped out on meeting with Goku this morning, don't you think we should proceed?" Giles finally lost his patience.

            "Oh, Goku won't even try to contact us for another few hours yet Giles.  I think you're forgetting exactly how early it is," Buffy scolded her Watcher.

            "Guys," Xander waved them on, leading the way, "You have to trust me on this.  Follow me, do not wander off, do not look behind you at a noise, do not look around corners, and for the love of god keep up!  Once we're past the entrance… labyrinth does not begin to cover the inside of this place.  Just keep your eyes on me, and remember to keep up."

            They all nodded and stayed single-file directly behind him.

            Ofcourse after the first five twists and turns, Buffy, who was at the back of the line, started to get bored and started looking around, trusting her sixth sense to allow her to keep track of where she was as much as where Xander and the others were going.

            On a complete whim, just as the group went left, Buffy went to the right and down that passage… and appeared a few meters ahead of the Team; they were walking toward her from her right.

            "What the…?" Xander stopped and quickly looked back.

            Buffy paused and looked at them.  "Cool," she said, smiling at the novelty of it.

            "Buff?  Is that really you?" Xander asked nervously.

            She glared at him.  "Why would you have to ask if it's really me Xander?  We are not in a place were anything completely, malevolently evil exists.  At least not in a way that it could take my place like that.  I just took a different corner and…then you were there," she pointed at the group.

            "Uh, I thought I told you to not do that!" Xander shouted, bordering on panicked.

            Buffy rolled her eyes.

            "Chill out, its not big thing…" Buffy trailed off as she continued walking straight ahead, and then appeared even further down the corridor, coming from the same side of the passageway.

            "Buff, for the love of god, stop doing that!" Xander shouted, and started running to catch up to her.  Willow and Giles quickly followed.  Buffy, instead of listening to Xander, just turned around and went back the way she came.

            She and Xander almost collided, even though she had not appeared where she had been the time before, but they both managed to stop themselves.

            "Sorry," Buffy apologized.  Not really apologetic, but not sarcastic or cynical either.

            "That's okay, but Buffy, you really have to trust me on this.  It's way too easy to get lost in here.  Just…please, please, please follow me and don't go off on your own anymore?  Please?"

            "All right, all right.  Where do we go from here?" she asked.

            Xander looked around, frowning in concentration, then turned to the left and pointed straight ahead, where they could all see the Chi Master's workshop.  "Oh," Buffy replied.

            All four walked in together, but they were the only ones there.  Xander didn't really seem too surprised or upset by this, so the others also took it in stride.  Five minutes later, just as Buffy's patience was about to run out with her friend, Master Fong came in from the entrance opposite the one the Slayer Team came in through.

            He stopped when he saw all of them together like that, and if looks could kill, Xander would be a smudge stain on the floor at the moment.

            "Ai-yah…!  I cannot take on more students.  I have my hands full enough with you!" he pointed his finger at Xander.  "Send your, your friends away.  You must continue your training…!"

            "I apologize Master Fong," Buffy suddenly stepped forward with a bow.  "It was I who ordered Xander to bring us to you."

            Master Fong glared at the blonde Slayer.

            "I am Buffy…er, Slayer.  Xander's Team Leader.  I would like to humbly request that you train… well, all of us." Buffy continued.

            Master Fong continued to glare, and then something in his demeanor changed.  Nothing physically, because he didn't move a millimeter, even his glare remained physically the same.  But still…he no longer regarded all of them with annoyance and frustration, instead it seemed more…curiosity.

            Finally, he walked over to a box on the cluttered counter, opened it, and pulled out the crystal egg that he'd had Xander hold the day before.  He quickly walked over to Willow and gave it to her, telling her, "Hold this."

            She did.  A bright soft green glow the flooded the entire crystal with light burst forth the moment it was in her palm.  Willow blinked in surprise, and Master Fong seemed to be satisfied with that.

            Next he took the crystal chi-detector to Giles who took it without having to be told to do so.  Again, the entire egg was filled to the brim with glowing energy, except that at the very center, not affecting the rest in any way, was a core of black the color of the night.  Master Fong took some time staring at the obsidian blade resting on Giles' back, but finally he took it and then walked towards Buffy.

            He held the crystal before her and she asked, "What is it?"

            Master Fong showed far more patience in his answer this time than he did when answering Xander the day before.  "It measures the amount of shen your soul emits.  It shows how much chi you have."

            "Oh, cool," Buffy commented and took the egg with her right hand.

            Instantly, there was a flash of light so bright that it rivaled the "flash" talked about when atomic devices go off.  What made the difference, besides no radiation, was that the light stayed on, and in Buffy's right hand.

            "Ai-YAH!!!!" Master Fong screamed.  He wasn't the only one.  Willow wordlessly screamed, covering her eyes in pain, Giles cried out briefly, turning his head to the side, but Xander was cursing like a sailor that had just lost a bet.  Or an eye.

            "Shit!  Fuck!  Shit-fucking butt-monkey!!" he cried, holding his eyes and turning away from the light.

            Ironically, Buffy wasn't in the least little bit bothered by the light being emitted from the crystal egg she was holding.  "So…uh, what does this mean?" she asked.

            After a couple more minutes for their eyes to adjust (or be healed by the Powers) to the brightness, they risked looking once more at Buffy and the chi-detector.  It looked like the girl was holding an actual sun in her hand, although with the tinting a little more towards the yellow-spectrum, but not entirely.  They couldn't even distinguish the hand, or the arm holding the crystal it was so bright.

            "Please, drop crystal," Master Fong requested.

            Buffy shrugged and set the crystal on the floor.  The moment she stopped touching it, the light finally ceased, and everyone save Slayer was left blinking to clear the spots out of their eyes for a few minutes.

            "Unbelievable," Master Fong huskily whispered, after his eyes had cleared up he picked up the chi-detector and returned it to the box he had gotten it out of.  "Your chi is, pure.  The purest that I have ever heard of.  And powerful.  Very, very, very powerful."

            Master Fong was silent for a moment.

            "I will accept the responsibility of teaching you all how to use your chi the way I teach Alexander.  I can do no more than that."

            Buffy immediately bowed at the waist, her hands held together in front of her.  "I, we thank you very much for this honor Master Fong.  We will not disappoint you.  I promise."

            "The only ones who would be disappointed would be yourselves if you failed," Master Fong corrected her.  "Now, come, we will continue with yesterdays exercises in order to begin teaching all of you."

            The Slayer Team quickly followed the Chi Master out of the sanctuary.

*                       *                       *

            Master Fong took them to a training area of the Temple, which looked like it was straight out of a Kung Fu movie.  There was a matted gym with paper walls that slid away to reveal a small courtyard with rocks, bridges, trees, and a stream running through it.

            First off, he got Xander started meditating.  The difficult part came that he had to meditate while balancing himself on a pointed rock.  Fortunately he was seated cross-legged on a wooden platform.  His balancing wasn't so good.

            Giles just went and meditated by the stream and Master Fong really didn't seem to mind that.

            Willow, he took back to his sanctuary and showed her his library, where she immediately started reading every one of them.  Buffy, for those few minutes, just started to warm herself up in the gym.

            Shortly, Master Fong returned, and as Buffy was doing a kata, Xander was getting yelled at and being put into a different, much more difficult exercise and then left to himself to do it successfully.  Eventually anyway.

            Once he was through with Xander, Master Fong approached Buffy, watching for the last few minutes of her kata.  She finished, having known he was there the whole time, but concentrating more on her warm up.  After she was done, she turned to face him and bowed respectfully to him.

            A faint, glimmer of a smile crossed the Chi Master's face, before settling on a more neutral expression.

            "The witch I can understand wanting to be my pupil.  The one known as Watcher, he will need discipline if he is to master his weapon.  You I cannot figure out.  Why do you want me to add to your training?" Master Fong asked.

            Buffy shrugged and replied, "Normally, I wouldn't.  In fact I'd be doing the bare minimum to pass here.  Normally.  But 3 months after they send us home…we're going to have to compete in the Tournament, and word has it that only someone of Goku's power can even stand a chance.  Xander showed a potential last night in Training.  A potential for a power that is more powerful than anything we've seen yet, and that was only after one lesson.  I want to protect my friends and ensure that they'll live, no matter how many Tournaments we go into.  And to do that, I need to become as powerful as I can become."

            Buffy paused and took a couple steps forward.  "I need you to teach me the power that you are teaching Xander.  This isn't about the power, and in my book, it's never about power.  It's always about what you do with it."

            Master Fong nodded.  "Good answer," he said slowly.

            Buffy waited, half expecting him to shout out that while it was a good answer, it was still the wrong one.  He surprised her again.

            "You do not need my training."

            Buffy stared for a few seconds, and then did a double take and blinking her eyes to make sure they were seeing right.  "Huh?" she blurted.

            "Your power, your chi is so great, so powerful already, that it will shape itself.  I have heard the boy say you are the Slayer.  As a Slayer, you have several basic powers, but what you, and many others do not know is that the Slayer's powers extend beyond the physical.  Your life force, your chi, your very soul perhaps, is a representative of you being a Slayer.  All you need from me is knowledge of how to focus your mind, body, and heart.  Your power will handle the rest."

            Buffy nodded, understanding.  "But…well, once I know…what to do…how do I make myself stronger?  With the technique I mean."

            "Ai yah!  I just told you!  Power will take care of it!" Master Fong lost patience and walked out to the garden.  Frowning, Buffy followed and he sat her down in a rather peaceful corner of the garden and began to instruct her in a meditation technique that would allow her to fully access her 'chi'.

*                       *                       *

Fourth Week

            Willow was surprised to get a call telling her to go straight to the Mages Tower as soon as she could, and before breakfast too.  She at least ate something, knowing that if she was going anywhere for Training today, she would need at least some energy.  She decided to wear her blue overalls today, deciding that she was tired of the black.  Then she left for the Mage Tower the moment she was finished and the others were off.

            When she walked through to Amana's office, she was surprised to only find the normal automations there that cleaned and maintained the office.  Concerned, she only searched the place long enough to confirm she was the only living thing in there, and other than some herbs and plants she was, before she realized what the message she'd gotten really meant.

            It had said to go straight to the Mages Tower, nothing about Amana's office, or any of the training rooms she'd been in so far.  "Oh dear!" Willow blurted worriedly as she hurried to the MTC and placed her hand on the panel.  "Uh, Mage, Mages Tower…Main Entrance?"

            To her immediate relief, the portal activated, meaning that there really was a main entrance to this place, and that was probably where she was supposed to meet her teachers.

            She stepped forward and walked through the glowing red circle…

            …into an empty steel and cement courtyard of sorts.  Well, not entirely empty as she saw four figures in the exact center of the area.  She walked forward some, and then looked behind her and saw what she knew beyond all doubt was the outside of the Mage Tower.  Basically it was a tall, white and silver obelisk with windows at intervals.  Of course Willow recalled what Amana had told her that first day so long ago, that on an almost constant basis, the Mage Tower was being shifted so all of the floors were numbered starting from the very top.

            Once she had taken her surroundings in, Willow shifted her attention fully to the four figures apparently waiting for her.

            Two of them, in the center of the line of four, she knew very well as they were Amana Grael and her other teacher of the Arch Mages, Archer.  The one standing next to Amana, and only reached up to her waist in maximum height, appeared to be of a partially humanoid species, but also took a great deal after the rodents of Earth, at least in appearance.

            It had a brown furry tail, and in fact most of its skin, all that she could see of it really, was covered in dark brown fur.  It had beady, but very intelligent eyes, and a snout-like mouth and nose, but again, covered in brown fur, save the nose.  It wore a loose-fitting tunic, similar to Amana's in design, but made for it's own stature.  All in all, it reminded Willow of a character in a book she had read in elementary school called "Mole".

            The figure standing next to Archer was actually as tall, or maybe a little bit taller than the Minotaur.  It appeared that way at first anyway, but as Willow walked closer to the group…the fourth person's height didn't change.  At all.  His height stayed exactly the same as she closed the distance from the MTC to standing right in front of him.  Willow realized after thinking about it that it was more than likely some kind of natural illusion spell.

            Besides that, the figure was more than impressive enough.  Its skin was a golden bronze color, but more than that it seemed to glow with the essence of magic through every pore of its skin.  He, Willow now realized the creature was displaying but masculine features, was dressed in, if she had to guess, Babylonian style garments, but more gaudy and extravagant than anything the Babylonians could have ever done or had.

            Mostly it was a white silk loin cloth lined with real gold thread, a bronze, silver, gold, and jewel necklace that would make the Pharaoh's of ancient Egypt drool with envy, and bands of solid metal that Willow couldn't identify around his forearms and calves.  He was barefoot.  He was also wearing a mask that she knew she should recognize, but could not for the moment.

            Willow made sure to remember etiquette when she spoke.

            "Teachers," she bowed.  "You summoned me?"

            "Yes, we did.  Half an hour ago," Amana replied.  Something more in the words than the tone told Willow that she had been expected to appear immediately.

            "I apologize for my less than prompt arrival Teacher," Willow spoke.  "I was having breakfast as I received the summons.  Knowing our training, I felt it would be better to have the energy necessary to complete whatever exercises you would have for me."

            "Smart girl," the one with the gold magical skin retorted.  Willow held her tongue.

            Amana just gave the man a look.  Nothing was meant by it; just a glance to see that he had spoken.  Willow wondered what this was all about, but still held her tongue.

            The masked head then turned to look directly at the young Mage and she felt as if the spotlight of the omniverse had just turned on her.  And she was never one to be put in the spotlight.

            "But then again, maybe she isn't quite as quick-witted as you said Arch Mage 2, if she doesn't even respond to an alluded insult," he added in a very insulting tone.

            Willow recalled seeing Xander knocking Buffy out with a chi-punch, and then how the Slayer handled the resulting confrontation with the Warrior.  The Mage, Resolve Face (capitol letters) in place, turned and looked the man in the face, as she could not clearly see his eyes.  She still did not say anything.

            "Have something to say mage-let?" he asked with his tone the same.  "Then say it."

            "I would not presume to defend the Arch Mage when she can very well defend herself, and I would also have the gall to presume that she and Archer would not summon me to introduce me to anyone that would insult or insinuate anything wrongful or negative about herself or her teaching methods.  As for my wits, I keep them about me well enough to know when to follow etiquette and when to turn someone into a toad for insulting myself or those that I respect as friends and colleagues.  Is there anything else that you would like to insinuate about myself sir Arch Mage?"

            Everyone stared, even the 'Mole' creature, at the incensed Mage and the calmly staring man that Willow had called an Arch Mage.

            "Perceptive too," he concluded the conversation with a nod at Amana.

            "Willow," Amana caught her pupil's attention after a moment to let the air clear, "Allow me to introduce, as you have no doubt already guessed, Archer's and mine colleagues in title of Arch Mage.  This," she gestured to her side at the mole creature, whom bowed upon being recognized, "is Arch Mage 4, Milo."

            Willow's eyebrow quirked all on it's own at the simple name, and the 4th Arch Mage caught the gesture and apparently knew what it meant.

            "It's actually sort of a self-chosen name.  My race, when they come of age, chooses a name for themselves.  It signifies them becoming their own person, instead of just the offspring of their parents.  I chose Milo." Milo told her.  His voice was actually very humanlike, although the language he spoke was anything but English.

            Willow nodded and smiled, hoping that he got the body language in that she understood what he meant.

            "And this Willow," Amana said almost reverently, and gesturing at the gold-bronze skinned man, "is Arch Mage 1.  Marduk."

            Willow froze.  Not literally, but all higher-brain functions ceased completely.  She took a couple breaths to get enough oxygen to restart her mind, and then swallowed the lump of bile in her throat preventing the O2 from reaching her lungs.  Finally, enough of her brain was working once more that she could operate her speech centers.

            "mm-mmmm-M-mm-mar-Mar-d-d-d-dd-duk…mm-Marduk!  Th-th-the Babylonian god of MAGIC!!!!" Willow screeched.

            "The same," the man in the golden mask said in a too-casual tone for Willow's taste.

            She now easily recognized that mask.  It was an almost exact replica of one found in an archaeological dig in where ancient Babylon was thought to have been.  Specifically what was discovered to be one of the temples of Marduk.  The mask represented the ancient god's presence in ceremonies it was thought.

            She just couldn't handle this right now.  Without thinking, she lifted her left hand and shouted at the same time, "Just hold on for one minute here!"  She did not notice the wave of green energy that left her hand as she did so, but she did notice that afterward, all but herself and one other creature in the courtyard completely stopped moving.

            For half a second the Mage just stood there trying to absorb everything, and then she noticed what she had just done.  "Whoops," she mumbled to herself, looking at the frozen forms of Amana and Archer.

            "Whoops is right young mage-let," Marduk said sarcastically, causing the girl to jump slightly.  He noticed this and said, "What?  You didn't think that your magic, no matter how powerful or skillful would actually affect me, a god of magic itself, did you?"

            "Uh… actually, I didn't mean to do that.  It just…kind of happened…" Willow replied meekly.

            Marduk's head tilted to the side, as if he were trying to get a better look at her.  Or he couldn't believe what she had just said.  It was difficult to tell with the mask on.

            After several moments of this, the god shrugged and reached his well-muscled arms up and released some kind of catch behind his head as he said, "Well, it's their own damn fault.  That's kind of the reason that Amana and Archer brought all of us together like this…" Marduk paused as he fully removed the mask from his head and face…to reveal a handsome but very human face.  He had unruly black hair, dark brown eyes, and his bronze complexion continued to influence his face.  In fact, Willow could easily believe that he was from the Middle East.

            "Your powers are growing and evolving very quickly Willow," Marduk continued, walking over to a bench at the edge of the courtyard.  Willow unconsciously followed.

            "I've heard Amana and Archer having several conversations like that about me," Willow meekly replied as they sat down together on one bench.

            Marduk nodded.  "I had heard they gave you the 'pride' talk, and all the warnings about going to the dark side.  But that's not why I am here.  Milo's only here for show.  All four Arch Mages appearing before you an all that.  See, the thing is, Archer and Amana… they can't teach you any more.  Oh, they could tutor you and stuff, but it would be entirely up to you in which way to push your magic.  They could give you knowledge, and maybe even some insights into certain skills.  But."

            "They can't really teach me anything more," Willow finished for him, understanding.

            Well, only halfway understanding.  "But me on the other hand…" Marduk trailed off.

            Willow looked up at the god, confusion written on her face.

            He smirked, reminiscent of Xander's, and answered her confusion, "Well, I don't like to toot my own horn, but I am a god of magic Willow.  I'm not going to be taking you away from Amana and Archer, let's just say that I'm stepping in to help."

            Willow's brain was on overload.  "You-u-y-y-you w-want t-t-to teach…me?" Willow stuttered.  Marduk nodded, the smirk never leaving his face.

            "OK," she replied meekly again.

*                       *                       *

            Buffy was in the Private Training Gym, meditating as Master Fong had taught her.

            It was rather simple, the only difference in it opposed to yoga meditation was that you did more than breath and relax, you also focused your chi to flow in an aggressive and more highly packed manner.  In short, she was super-charging her energy.

            According to Master Fong, for her, Xander's chi being too weak for this exercise, and Willow's chi being too wide-spread for her to do anything like this just yet (something to do with magic apparently), this was supposed to allow her chi to chose its own way of functioning as an energy attack of any kind.  When she asked him about charging all that energy into one's fist or feet, or any part of the body, he explained that was a simplistic technique of using spirit energy, and even after, or before, her chi chose it's own attacks, she would be able to use chi-punches and kicks as much as she wanted.  Which she had been for the past week or so in the nightly training sessions.  But then, so had all the others since they had learned how to focus their energy as such.

            Slowly, breathing steadily and regular, Buffy moved her body only as it was wont to do, flowing with the energy of her soul.  It was surprisingly easier than she had thought it would be, because the body actually wants to move and flow with the energy of the soul, but the mind constantly and too easily overrides that desire.  In this exercise, Buffy was putting her mind on hold and making it take a back seat, letting the body do what it wanted to do…for the moment.

            She was still in control, and not a single part of her forgot it for a moment.  She knew what she had to do, knew what she wanted to do.  All that remained was the matter of doing it.

            Continuing to breathe, Buffy began to agitate her energy, making it move faster, and faster through her body, but her movements remained the same, slow, calm and patient.  Although maybe a tad bit jerkier.

            She forced her energy to go even faster, although she could somehow tell that if she continued, it would be the same as making a nuclear reactor overload, but according to Master Fong that's what she wanted.  She super-charged it and made it move faster, making sweat bead on her skin.

            The energy just couldn't take that, and almost immediately, her body, still moving with her energy, went rigid and it was as if the core of her soul took over for her primary consciousness, and knowledge and words were ingrained in her mind as her right arm lifted of its own accord, palm flat until she was pointing her palm straight out and her voice shouted with an almost ethereal quality, "SLAYER STRIKE!"

            Instantly, her hand barely flashing with the energy of using the attack for the first time, the image of a wooden stake came flying out of her palm.  It wasn't quite real, especially with energy-dust also being projected around it, (similar in theory of smoke being projected by the engines of the space shuttle as it launched into space).  But when it struck the wall, over ten meters away, with a *POP* "CLANG" sound, it was proved to be real enough.

            Surprised at the results, Buffy quickly raced forward and looked at the impact point.  There was a small dent, roughly the same circumference as Buffy's own fist, in the metal.  Buffy thought about this and remembered seeing all of this metal take immense punishment, not the least of which was incredibly powerful ki blasts during the Slayer Team's training.  The most, other than the time Xander had almost knocked her through the wall, she had ever seen this metal show for all the damage it took was scuff and scorch marks.  And here she had just made a dent in it.  A dangerous and confident smirk rested on the Slayer's features.

            "Now if I can just figure out how to do that without meditating for twenty minutes at a time," she said aloud to herself.  She stepped back out into the middle.

            Breathing, and focusing inward as she had been, Buffy felt out her chi.  With barely any conscious effort worth a strain, she supercharged her energy to nearly the same level it had been right before she had first used her new special attack.

            Except now she felt that she could control herself.  She could charge up her energy as much as she wanted, but with her mind in control instead of letting her body flow with the energy, it would only be a matter of concentration to keep from attacking until she wanted to.  Perhaps she could even release a more potent form of the attack if she charged up enough.

            Maintaining the energy at the current level, for now, the Slayer began the real test.

            Breathing deeply, and concentrating on her chi, Buffy tensed every one of her muscles, and then powered up as high as she could.  After she was done, Buffy couldn't keep the giddy smile off of her face.  Her chi levels remained completely unaffected when her ki levels raised or changed in any way.

            Just to be certain, she tried several of the energy techniques she had learned in manipulating her ki.  Creating a ki shield, blasting out energy and creating a mini-hurricane  around her, and forming and throwing a couple energy blasts.  The only thing affected was her physical energy levels, (she was tired), but her chi remained the same.

            Now for the ultimate test, she decided, forming a low-level ki blast.

            She fired it straight out, and when it was only a couple feet from the far wall, she exerted her power over it, and drew back her right fist, calling the ki ball back to her.

            Breathing in meditation again, Buffy held out her right palm, straight at the oncoming attack.  She let go of her controls on the energy, and it burst forth with almost twice the force her first time had.

            "SLAYER STRIKE!"  The stake surrounded by dust flew forward, straight and true.

            Then it went right through the energy ball with nothing else happening.  Until the ki ball struck Buffy head on and exploded.  The Slayer had been staring, dumbstruck, to avoid it.

            There was another *POP* "CLANG" sound that was actually heard over the aftermath of the explosion, and Buffy knew she would find another dent in the wall.

            "Ow!" she cursed as she got up from the explosion.  She wasn't hurt, just a little black in the face from soot and maybe a scratch or two.  "What the hell happened?" she asked herself.

*                       *                       *

            Giles was in his apartment room meditating.  He was also in the training gym that Nightblade had helped him to construct out of nothing but his own thoughts.

            In the 4 weeks since he had received the mystic blade, he had made greater progress than he had believed possible.  It was really quite shocking to the Watcher, just exactly what all the mind could do, when utilized without limitations of conscience and society.

            In fact it was even more amazing in just how much the mind actually controlled the body.  Instead of having it go on autopilot all the time, Nightblade had taught him how to control direct functions of the body, from adrenaline production, to immune response, to metabolic healing!  Of course with his immortality, the healing part wasn't as nearly impressive as it normally might have been, but still, it was impressive.

            Also there was more to the mind than just body control, and Giles was exploring a number of those abilities at the moment.  One of which is the speed at which the mind thinks and processes information from the senses.

            Watcher spun around mid-air, almost before the instant he thought of doing so, to avoid the thrust his shadowed opponent struck at him.  Again, almost before he had the thought, he caught the mental version of Nightblade that he had thrown into the air before beginning his evasion in his right hand and began to advance and over power the shadow warrior.

            The actual Nightblade was in its usual place, mantled above the confrontation on a wall of the dojo that Giles had constructed as the representation of his mind.

            Silent, it's only communication in pure thoughts that only Giles could ever here, it watched over its bearer as he trained his mind.  He was doing better than when he had started off, although he still wasn't on…her level.  But Nightblade wasn't going to compare them.  It wouldn't be fair.  They're different people and the Watcher was doing the best he could.  Nightblade knew this for a fact, due mostly to being inside the Watcher's mind.

            Giles thrust forward with the dream version of his obsidian blade.  His opponent blocked with a cross-guard parry, which normally would have sent Giles flying across the room.  At this moment in time it only served to make him take a step back and parry the next lightning swipes the shadow threw at him.  Each moved as fast as humanly possible, but landed with enough force to cripple the average human.

            Of course, this was all in the mind.  Giles' mind to be precise, and just as he could easily make the shadow disappear with a wave of his hand, or force it to follow a preset pattern that he could easily predict, Giles instead was commanding the shadow to use every dirty trick in the book that he had ever tried, or could try now, against him.  It was proving to be a most exhilarating, and dangerously close exercise.

            The two circled around each other more, testing each other's defenses with an occasional thrust or swipe and defending with a parry or a block if it could not be diverted to the side.  After a couple rotations of this, Giles finally stopped, and then moved with no more warning than that.  In less than six moves, he had disarmed his shadow opponent, cut open the lower part of his abdomen so his guts, if shadows had guts, would fall down at his feet, and then impaled him through the heart.  As a finishing move, Giles neatly removed its head, of course without once dropping his guard.

            :Well done: Nightblade complimented him.

            Giles, sweating, just nodded as he watched the shadow disappear.  "Well, it certainly puts a new spin on the old past time of 'shadow fencing'," Giles chuckled to himself and his weapon.

            After a moment's hesitation Nightblade responded, :Yes.  Quite.:

            That only prompted Giles to greater laughter as the sentient blade turned his own phrase that he used against Xander's bad jokes against him.  Giles took as much pleasure in the simple act as he could, for he knew from experience already that it would not last long.

            :What have you learned?:

            He hated it when he was right when he wanted to be wrong.

            Having caught his breath, from both the exercise and laughing, Giles answered tiredly, "That since my opponent was basically 'me'… I can be defeated.  Against someone stronger or more skilled, or only against someone who knows my skill level and can predict or anticipate me.  I need to work on unpredictability as much as increasing my skill level and power."

            Silence, but only for a moment.

            :By being unpredictable, you are predictable, because you can only react in the ways that your body and mind know how to react.  In this you are limited.  If you can overcome this limitation, your skill level will exceed anything that any human alive or living can accomplish.  To do this, you must equally raise your power, but only as your skill increases.  Now, recharge your energies and we will conduct a physical exercise next.:

            "I understand," Giles politely replied, and he did.  He assumed his meditation pose in the center of the dojo, the center of his mind, the copy of Nightblade resting across his knees as the true Nightblade was in the real world.  He began to focus his mental energies on replenishing that which he had just expired through mental control of bodily function.

            :Good: Nightblade observed.  His bearer was becoming more and more adept at learning what he taught him.  He might just be able to accomplish his goal of 40% power by the end of the 6 weeks.  Only time would tell.

*                       *                       *

            "Ai-YAH!!  No more!  Go home!  I cannot take any more of your foolish attempts at something so simple!  Go home!  NOW!" Master Fong was screeching as Xander picked up his GEO jacket and scrambled as fast as he could for the nearest MTC.

            He only narrowly missed getting hit by something he didn't even see, only felt, but all the same was glad he had dodged whatever it was.  Turns out it was a floating representation of Master Fong's fist, pointer fingers extended, and continuously trying to rap him on the head.  Xander didn't think as he pushed his palm against the black panel and shouted a destination, using his other arm to swipe at the hitting and floating projectile or whatever the heck it was.

            To his utter astonishment, he seemed to have got it right as he stepped through right into his apartment…and at the same time into a hurricane of magic energy.

            The moment he stepped through the MTC deactivated, only to reactivate thirty seconds later, depositing Buffy, who stopped short the same as Xander had, and for the same reason.

            "What in the…" she muttered, disbelieving.

            Willow was in the middle of the room.  The exact center of the room.  As in floating between the top of the ceiling and the middle of the floor.  And she wasn't the only one flying about.  There were what had to be almost 4-dozen books flying around in geo-synchronize orbits from the glowing redhead.  Yeah, that was the other thing; Willow was surrounded by an aura of power that was decidedly not her ki flame.

            For one thing it was green, and another it wasn't moving it was just…there.

            Books weren't the only things flying about, but the trouble was that neither Warrior nor Slayer could identify what the other things were.  Some were rings of power the same color as Willow's glow with an energy ball traversing the ring, others were miniature suns with what coulda been actual solar systems around them, also orbiting Willow, and then there were the meteorites or comets or something fiery and made of rock just flinging around the room bouncing off whatever it hit.

            "Uh Wills?" Xander called over the noise that all this was making.  Just think of the loudest rock or heavy metal concert you went to, take out the order of the notes and replace the artists' voice with a very high-pitched whine and that would be close to what this sounded like to Buffy and Xander's ears.  Only this was about five times louder.

            The amazing thing though, as they thought about it, was that the noise wasn't hurting their ears, it was just making it difficult to get Willow's attention.

            They tried calling out several more times until Buffy's patience finally expired and she powered up some and shot an energy ball almost right across Willow's nose.  Well, almost because before the blast even got within five feet of the floating redhead, every meteorite comet thing diverted itself from whatever course it was on and instantly attacked the energy blast, protecting Willow.

            After that things started to slow down and the noise, bit by bit, stopped until it was just Willow floating, surrounded by a green aura, with all the books slowly changing their orbits to land neatly on the coffee table.  Once all the other commotion had stopped, Willow began to lower herself to the ground and when she was at the level where she could put her feet under her, the glow finally subsided and it was just Willow standing there, looking embarrassed.

            "Sorry guys," she apologized.  "I had hoped to finish before anybody else got back, but it took me a bit longer than I thought it would."

            "That's okay, what was that?" Buffy asked all at once.

            "That was my homework," Willow answered smoothly.

            Her two best friends gave her incredulous looks as well as the same look Ricky Ricardo had whenever he said "Lucy, you got some splaying' to do!"

            Willow sighed and gestured to the couch area.  "This might take a bit to explain," she began.

            "Start at the beginning I always say," Xander told her.  "It's always the best place to start."

            Willow smiled and giggled a little, but nodded.  "Remember I got the call this morning to go to the Mages Tower?"  They nodded.  "Well, after a bit of misinterpretation on my part, I got to where I needed to go and I met with Amana and Archer, I've told you about them, right?"

            Again they nodded.

            "Well, uh, I… um… I got to meet the other two Arch Mages; you remember how there are only four of them, right? And…"

            "Willow, you're stalling," Buffy interrupted with a glare.

            "I got a new teacher.  He's…Arch Mage 1.  The most powerful magic user at the Compound." Willow told them with a grimace.

            Buffy and Xander shot each other confused looks before turning back to their friend and Xander saying, "Kay, I'm not getting the part where this is stall-worthy."

            Willow nodded and continued, "His name is Marduk.  And…he's a god."

            They stared.  "Huh?" both blurted at once.

            "Specifically he's the Sumerian god of magic.  At least that's one of his titles.  In our universe it is anyway.  He's really a nice guy and…"

            "Your teacher is…a god?" Buffy repeated, stunned.

            Willow nodded.

            "And the homework thing…?" Xander asked.

            "A mental exercise that he taught me today.  Only one of the things he taught me in our first lesson.  Guys, this is hardcore.  I mean…I could learn to do some serious stuff here.  In fact, just because Marduk is my teacher, I've already been given Powermage rank, even though my power isn't yet enough to warrant that."

            Buffy and Xander shared a look and then looked back at Willow, not quite sure what to say.  "Uh…so…how is this going to affect our nightly sessions?" Buffy asked.

            "It won't…not directly anyway," Willow hastened to answer.

            "I mean, I'll still go, although I might be tired if we had a late session or I might skip one night so I can complete like I said homework, but I'll be there.  And with Marduk teaching me I'll be able to use more magic, or at least a larger variety than I've been using so far."

            Shrugging, Buffy just told her friend, "Well, it sounds really great.  And you're learning so I'm sure your happy with this.  Just be sure to let us know if you need help with anything, okay?"

            "Oh, yeah!  Sure!" Willow was smiling and boisterously excited once more.  "And I am learning a lot.  And it's a lot better than just trying to find my own strengths like I've been doing so far.  How are things going with you Xander?"

            "Master Fong just kicked me out because I can't form a proper spirit orb," the warrior grumbled.

            The girls looked at him, Willow with an inkling in to what he was saying, but Buffy was just annoyed and partially appalled.  "You mean just because you couldn't do one thing, he kicked you out?  That's harsh."

            "Yeah well…" Xander blushed, scratching the back of his neck.

            "How many things did you blow up first?" Willow asked with a knowing smirk.

            Xander's blush deepened.  "About half the walls and all of the statues and stone works in the garden," he answered, embarrassed.

            Buffy's eyes lit up with understanding.  "Ohhh…  Well, after all that, I think I might have kicked you out too.  Did you ever manage to get what he wanted done right?" she asked.

            Xander shook his head.

            Buffy's face hardened.  "Then you'll practice all tonight until you do get it right, understand Xander?" she told him strictly, but with compassion and sympathy as well.

            Xander gave her his patented lopsided grin and nodded.

            "Good.  Maybe after you can show me how to do it and then we'll have a round or two of sparring, that sound good?" she asked with a smile.

            "Sounds great," Xander agreed.

            "So where's Giles?  He here yet Wills?" Xander asked after a moment and walking to the Bar to get some afternoon snack.

            "I haven't seen him," the Powermage admitted.  "If he's in his room he hasn't come out cause I know Buffy was in the gym since after Lunch."

            "I haven't seen him either, but…" Buffy stopped talking for a second, before she froze completely in something akin to shock.  Before the others could ask her what was wrong, she was digging for her Global and pulled it out and opened it to the primary menu.

            She scrolled for several seconds, selecting specific options before her face went completely slack in a parody of horror.  "FUCK!!" she cursed loudly.

            She grabbed her friends and before they knew it they were on their way through the MTC to the Main Gym.  When they got there, Giles, Goku, and Broly were there waiting.

            For a change, the Main Gym was almost as filled, as it was the day they had first gotten here, but Buffy was more focusing on apologizing to their Trainer and his friend.

            "It's about bloody time!" Giles snapped, quite obviously impatient.  "We've been waiting here for almost half an hour!"

            "Yeah well, I was busy, and Xander and Willow had lessons they needed to complete," Buffy snapped at her Watcher while walking up to Goku.  "So if we're so far behind already, lets get this over with already!"

            Goku just gave her his customary smirk and turned around.  "It's just a catch-up lesson Buffy, nothing to get your panties in a twist over."

            Buffy gave her own smirk and replied, "I'm not wearing any panties.  What's to catch up on?  We already know all the techniques that you've shown us in manipulating our ki.  As well as several of the multi-spectral wave attacks.  What else is there?"

            Goku turned and smirked at her, and then continued to walk along, Broly walking on ahead.  "Before we get into that, Slayer, I would like to introduce you to some people.  They're another team here at the Compound.  This is their first day of training; they just got here yesterday as a matter of fact.  Broly is their Trainer."

            They quickly walked towards one of the groups that were spread throughout the Main Gym, Broly already standing beside them.  There were four of them, all female, and quite obviously teenagers, no matter how developed they seemed.  What was more interesting was that they were all in similar matching uniforms, but those were not the uniforms the Slayer Team or anyone else they had seen at the Compound wear before.

            The outfits looked like something from the comics or a cartoon almost.  A skintight white bodice that could have just as well been a white version of Buffy and Willow's leotards, but with a colored skirt, each color different for each girl, starting at the hips and ending even with the bottom of the waist.  They also had colored bows held by jeweled pendants on the chest of the bodices, and then extended into scarves kinda like sailors used to wear on their dress uniforms.  Each girl also had a gold tiara with a colored jewel in the center of it on their foreheads, and white gloves that completely covered their forearms, lined at the elbows with the same color the skirts were.  When they turned around, they could see that another large bow of a different color accentuated the skirts at the small of their backs.

            The tallest was just less than six feet, if not at the mark exactly, with chestnut brown hair held back in a billowy ponytail, a rose beret holding it in place.  She looked like a tomboy type, although she was most certainly female from her long legs and body shape.  Her green eyes held a fierce strength, but it was masked under a general happiness that was almost infectious.  Her skirt and scarf color were orange, the bows a royal blue, and she had bright orange pumps on her feet.

            The second was a girl short, boyishly cut, blue (yes, BLUE) hair, a pale, almost oriental complexion, sea blue eyes, and in fact her skirt and bow color were also blue, the latter baby blue.  She had knee-high solid blue boots on her feet and gave off a conflicting aura, like she was shy and quiet and at the same time had an aura of confidence that made you want to listen to every word she had to say.

            The next girl had coal black hair to her shoulders, bright green eyes, and a very tan complexion, making her look Hawaiian.  Her scarf and skirt were bright royal red, the bows a dark purple, and she had bright red pumps on her feet, similar to the ones the tall girl wore.  She was slightly intimidating because she gave off that aura of someone that always tried too hard to make you her friend.  Especially with the way she seemed to be hanging on every one of Broly's words.

            The last girl was an image of commanding presence if ever there was one.  Waist-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and she looked American, especially with the way that she looked at the newcomers like she knew everything there was to know already.  Her outfit was slightly different from the others because she wasn't wearing a bodice, but a two-piece shirt and skirt.  The shirt was little more than a white T-shirt, a red scarf tied around the top of it, but she also had a navy/black velvet vest on over the shirt and scarf, a blue flap hanging from the back of her neck.  The skirt was blue and had a red bow on the back of it, but she also had bright red knee boots like the girl in blue had.  Her tiara had a yellow jewel though.

            "Slayer Team, meet the Senshi Team," Goku introduced.

            "Hi!" Buffy greeted immediately.

            The other blonde, the one in what may as well have been a Japanese schoolgirl uniform, glared at her and folded her arms crossly.  "Who're you?" she snapped in English.

            Buffy looked hurt for a second, but let it go as she answered, "Well, my name is Buffy Summers, but my codename is Slayer.  These are my friends, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, and Giles.  His codename is Watcher."

            "I'm sorry about that," Broly apologized.  In a language not heard on Earth.  The Senshi team glared hatefully at him.

            "It's ok," Buffy replied in English, "She didn't offend."

            "Oh Mina, are you being bossy again?  I told you that people don't like you when you're that way," a perky high-pitched voice suddenly squeaked out from the side.

            The source was revealed to be another blonde, also with pale skin and blue eyes, but her hair was actually longer than the first one, drawn into two pigtails with two ball-like bundles of hair on top of her head.  She looked to be about the same age as the other girls, but she was dressed in a pink long-sleeved shirt and green skirt, nothing uniform about it.

            "And Mr. Broly, you know it's quite rude to speak those other languages of yours when we don't know what you're saying," she spoke in Japanese to Broly.  The mighty and very large demi-Saiyan blushed deeply and scratched the back of his head and muttered an apology.

            "Hi!" the new girl greeted perkily, holding out her hand to Buffy, who took it gently and shook hands with her.  "I'm Serena Tsukino, but all my friends call me Bunny!"

            "Well, actually, my full name is Elizabeth, but I hate that name, so everybody calls me Buffy," the Slayer replied back.

            "Wow!  That's so neat!  It's practically the same name!  So what do you do here?" Bunny gushed.

            "Serena!" the other blonde called Mina snapped.

            "No, it's all right," Buffy waved her off and answered Bunny's question.  "Actually I'm sort of a student here.  Goku here is my…uh, our Trainer.  These are my friends, Xander, Willow, and Giles."

            "Hi everybody!"

            "Uh…hi?" Willow answered uncertainly.

            "Hello Bunny," Xander replied, wearing his lopsided grin.

            "Hello," Giles nodded.

            "Wow, you're cute," she sidled up to Xander, whose grin deepened immediately.

            "Serena!" Mina shouted.

            Looking like a wounded puppy, Serena quickly walked back to the group of girls, incidentally so she was between the tall one in the orange outfit and the one with blue hair in the blue outfit.

            "I am Sailor V, leader of the Sailor Soldiers," Mina stiffly introduced her team to the Slayer Team.

            Buffy shared a look with each of the people behind her, but didn't say anything to Mina's statement.

            "This is my second in command and team tactician, Sailor Mercury, civilian name Amy Mizuno.  Then there's Sailor Venus, Lita Kino, and Sailor Mars, Alia Site." Mina finished the introductions.

            "It's very nice to meet all of you," Buffy reinforced, smiling.

            "And you've already been introduced to Serena Tsukino," Mina added with a touch of annoyance to her tone.  Bunny just stuck her tongue out and held down her eyelid at Sailor V.

            Buffy just smiled a bit more warmly in Bunny's direction, then turned her attention to Goku.  "So…now that we've met…now what?  Are we going to train with each other today?"

            Goku grimaced.  "Not exactly.  See, the Senshi Team just got here yesterday.  This is their first day of Training.  Broly asked me to swing by with you guys sort of like the Demo I did for you that first day…only you guys do it instead, since you're actually being trained."

            Buffy nodded, understanding the issue and certainly not mad about it.  In fact she would have appreciated the same if she was in the Senshi's position.  "Cool.  So, Big Ape, what would you like us to demo for your new star pupils?"

            "I'd actually like to see what's so special about you that students have to teach us something!" Sailor Mars, Alia grunted.

            Buffy arched an eyebrow at the tone, but otherwise didn't really respond.

            "That's a start," Broly grinned.

            Slayer Team smirked.

            "So, what's they're specialties?" Willow asked.

            "They all have magical powers and superhuman abilities as far as agility and speed go, except for Bunny of course.  Mars controls the element of Fire, Mercury controls water and ice, while Venus controls light and thunder.  Sailor V utilizes the elements of wind and earth, while having greater physical abilities than all of the others." Broly listed.

            Willow smirked and nodded.  "I'll hold back Buffy, you and Xander can go ahead."

            Buffy's expression matched Willows and nodded her agreement.

            The Slayer turned and regarded each of the "Sailor Soldiers" with a critical eye, sensing which of them was the strongest.  She smiled at Bunny and asked in a friendly tone, "So how about it Bunny?  Want to spar a little?  Just to know what you'll be going up against in the Tournament?"

            Everyone looked shocked at the short blonde, and not Bunny or Mina.  Bunny herself started laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.  Mina just looked ticked.

            "I'm not here for…training did you call it?" Bunny laughed.

            Buffy's face scrunched in confusion, especially when she saw Goku and Broly and Ryu looking at her like they were.

            "Uh…just the Sailor Soldiers are getting trained here Buffy," Goku explained.  "Serena is sort of like a Princess that the Senshi Team is meant to protect.  She's here because they wouldn't come otherwise.  Not even for just three days."

            "Oh.  Sorry," Buffy apologized to the Sailor Soldiers in general.

            "Yeah, and how come you picked Bunny-butt if you thought that she was one of us?  She doesn't even have any powers!" Alia asked Buffy.

            The Slayer shrugged.  "I just sensed who had the greatest power.  Bunny is a lot more powerful than you might think."

            Every single one of the Sailor Soldiers snorted and rolled their eyes while Alia commented, "Yeah right!"

            Bunny blushed crimson and looked down, embarrassed.

            Buffy gave the Senshi Team a harsh smirk.  "Yeah.  Right," she said in different tone entirely.  "Sometimes it is the non-powered people who do the most good and have the greatest potential for power.  Take Xander here for instance.  Four and a half weeks ago, he was practically nothing.  I wouldn't have even had to break a sweat to break him in half, literally."

            Buffy crossed her arms and glared harder.  "Now he's my sparring partner, and less than a week ago he knocked me with a blow that sent me half the distance of this room.  Yeah, really big room.  We call it the Main Gym.  And what's more is that even before we came to this place or even knew about this place, Xander's saved my life at least twice over.  Word to the stupid bimbos in schoolgirl outfits, power isn't everything.  If I've learned one thing here, that's it."

            "So what can you do that a non-powered human can beat you up?" Mina snarled.  It was not a good look on her face, which just went to say how angry she was at Buffy's words.

            The Slayer just smirked at her and walked a distance away.

            Taking a breath, she got into a power-up stance, and then did just that, powering to her max in less than ten seconds.  When she had first started learned how to tap her ki, it took very little time to reach her maximum power because she really didn't have that much power.  Now, two weeks after…well lets just say that ten seconds is very, very fast.

            The ki flame flashed around her in a burst of light and energy.  Once she was at her max, she started to supercharge her ki and with a mighty explosion from her ki flame, she shot into the air, doing aerial stunts that turned heads.  Just as she was coming in to land, she charged a small ki ball between her hands and let it loose only a few feet in front of the Senshi Team, making sure that Bunny was being protected by the bodies of both her team and the teenage girls.

            The explosion was very small and all it really did was make a really big noise and a flash of smoke that smeared soot over the faces of those that did not create a ki shield in time.  AKA; the Senshi Team.

            Buffy landed calmly in front of her team, her arms still crossed and asked, "Would you like any further demonstrations…girls?"

            "Way ta make friends Buff," Xander mumbled right behind her.

            "Uh, no, I think they got the point," Broly quickly intervened.  "Thank you for the help Buffy!"

            "No, that's all right Broly," Mina interrupted him and stepped forward until she was practically standing on Buffy's toes.  "Flying around using wind and light isn't as impressive as you might think to us, girl.  And I really don't appreciate having a smoke bomb being flung in my face.  Now why don't you show us what you can really do?"

            Buffy winced slightly as she pulled her feet out from under Sailor V's boots, and then calmly turned around and started walking away.  As she turned, she gave a look and nodded to Xander, who began to walk parallel to her in the same direction until they were both over twenty paces away.

            "All out X," Buffy called across the distance.  She only received a nod in reply.

            In a flash of light and sound, their clear ki flames appeared around both fighters and mostly just danced around in the wind created by the existence of their energy.  Once their power levels were at their max, they began to slowly circle each other, never taking their eyes off their opponent.

            Not counting training sessions, this would be the first serious sparring battle between these two friends since their first week here at the Compound.  And they would not be starting off slow this time around.

            With a yell, Warrior X crouched down and then launched himself with incredible power towards the Slayer.  Half a microsecond, the time it would take for the eyelid to close while blinking, before he would have tackled her, Slayer side-stepped and rotated her body in a counter-clockwise motion while extending her left leg, and put even more force behind it by angling it upward and putting her upper body into it as well.

            Warrior X saw the attack coming and it was a miracle and a half that he managed to react fast enough to bring his arms and legs up to block it.  The force of her kick, combined with his momentum sent the Warrior flying high in an arch that almost touched the ceiling of the mammoth room.

            Mid-air, he managed to reorient himself and caught himself as he began his downward arch.  Flying, he considered several long-range attacks before the Slayer suddenly took long-range out of the equation.

            Yelling with the exertion, Slayer came in at easily twice the speed Warrior X had flown with earlier, nearly eliminating the possibility of him preparing a countermove.  He dodged downward as she came upon him, and then pushed both his feet into her gut and sent her flying out of control beyond him.

            Surprised, but not letting it get to her, Slayer concentrated on controlling her flight and moving back to continue the fight, until her sixth sense warned her that Warrior X was already one step ahead of her.

            Twisting around mid-air, Slayer caught and deflected Warrior X's opening hits and started to throw some of her own, despite being upside down while he was right-side up.  Moving so fast that their limbs blurred, even to their own hyper-enhanced vision, they hovered there in the air, trading blows for several minutes before Slayer got in a lucky shot and sent Warrior X tumbling through the air to the ground, almost right in front of the spectators of their group.

            Slayer flew down to continue, but found she didn't have to go all the way as Warrior X met her halfway.  Even as other fighters trained and fought around them, the two physically most powerful members of Slayer Team battled as if they were the only ones in the room.

            Goku knew better though as he watched the battle.

            Buffy was holding back, but at the same time, so was Warrior X, which was not a trait that Goku had seen in him before.  Then, as he watched both fighters steer each other away from the Sailor Soldiers, as well as several other fighters when they got too close to other training matches, he realized what was happening.  And he swelled with pride.

            Slowly, as the blows between them became even more furious, both fighters landed on the ground to continue the battle.  X, the moment they were settled on the floor, tried a sweep kick, which Slayer somersaulted backwards over, and staying up in the air so she could send a high kick into his face when X stood back up before landing back on the ground herself.

            Knocked back a couple paces by that blow, Xander instinctively growled, but then immediately slammed down on those instincts with an iron will that surprised even him.  He was just grateful not to lose control again.

            Taking only a moment to recover from her kick, Warrior X quickly raced back in and started to fight the Slayer once again, but by this point he could tell she was holding back more than was necessary.

            However, when she blocked or avoided more than half of his blows, and started to retaliate and every single one of hers hit while he was lucky to get maybe one out of every three shots he sent her way through her defenses, he began to realize that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't holding back more than was necessary.

            Suddenly she got him with a surprise combo of a roundhouse punch to the face, knocking his head around, a knee to the left side of his ribs, kick to his right knee, making it automatically bend so he lost his balance, and to finish it up a big roundhouse kick to knock his head back around to the other way.

            For a moment, as he fell to his knees, he was seeing stars on a black and red background, and then the lightheadedness passed and the pain caught up with him.

            Instincts immediately warned him that the Slayer wasn't done and moving faster than anyone thought he could move, surprising the Slayer as she was about to knock him out with a blow to his neck, he lashed out with his own punch to her face, which briefly stunned her enough for his rising knee-kick to knock all of the air out of her lungs.

            Not giving her a chance to retaliate or recuperate, Xander jumped into the air and began to rotate his body in a horizontal clockwise motion, and landed a devastating kick to the middle of Buffy's back.  She went down, knocked to the ground, and hurting like she'd just gotten rolled over by a garbage truck.

            Xander, in a feat that no human without ki training could pull off, managed to catch and right himself to land on his feet, instead of falling to the floor with Buffy.

            His wounds and pains caught up with him again and made him back off enough so they both could recuperate, although he really hoped the snot-nosed bitches in what he could have sworn were outfits that were illegal in all Eastern countries, and certain States of the US, had learned the lesson Goku had impressed into them that first day.

            To stay alive here, you needed to be strong, you needed to be fast, you need to be tough, and just as important as all the others, despite Buffy's little speech earlier, you need to have power.  If they were going to survive at all in the Tournament, they really needed to learn that lesson.

            Finally, after staying on the ground for over 30 seconds, Buffy started to get to her feet.  Although it was slow going, and not the rushed, fighting way that he knew she could get up if she was intent on continuing this sparring match, having seen her do so in training before now.  Xander could only hope that that meant he could have a little bit more of a breather.  Those last two blows to the head gave him a killer headache.

            Buffy looked up at him and smiled, then quickly got the rest of the way to her feet and nodded at him.  He sighed with relief as she remarked, "Yeah, we're done Xan.  Pretty good.  You got me good with that last little maneuver of yours.  I am impressed."

            They walked the rest of the way back to the group, where most of the Sailor Soldiers, and Bunny, were staring at them, stunned.  There were even some jaws on the floor.  Well… except one.

            "Not bad," Mina, suitably impressed but not wanting to lose face, intoned as they came up.  "Your good, I'm willing to admit that.  And if what you say about your friend here, Warrior X, is true, then I can definitely see the advantages of the Training offered here."  Then the familiar scowl, which looked so out of place on her beautiful face, returned.  "But I doubt you could handle a first class daemon."

            Buffy rolled her eyes, and then rubbed a sore spot that Xander had hit early in the fight as she rolled the kinks out of her shoulder.  "You wanna test that theory?  Even though the big boys said not to, I'm thinking you need a hands on lesson.  What do ya say V-girl, wanna go a round or two?  That is, if you could even survive to the end of round one."

            Xander, still holding his head as the pounding slowly, very slowly began to subside, shook his head and rolled his eyes.  "Buff, you just put me through the ringer.  I'm not up for another sparring match of any level."

            "What's the matter?" the one called Alia, Sailor Mars teased him.  "Afraid to see how well you could do against a couple of teenage girls, or are you just so weak that it's easier to take the chicken's way out?"

            Xander's eyes squinted dangerously, his instincts rising to the surface once more, but he made sure to keep them in check, although it was a struggle.

            Willow, however, watching from the sidelines, knew the outcome, no matter Xander's status, as neither he nor Buffy had powered back down.  Smiling, she said to her friend in the same tone, although a completely different manner that Mars had spoken in, "Gee, that sounds like a challenge to your manhood Xander.  I don't know about you, but I think it is like a sacred duty that you now accept the challenge and fight her."

            Xander gave his long time best friend a quirky grin; his headache lightening up even more with the flush of adrenaline his instincts had given him when Mars insulted him like that.  Giving the dark haired girl a darker grin, he just nodded and stepped forward.

            Immediately, the red and purple clad Soldier charged with a flying kick, which Xander quickly and neatly avoided.  She tried to trip him up with a sweep kick, but to him she was moving so slowly he treated her leg like a jump rope.

            Backing off to gauge his reactions, Mars smirked and then charged in again, a little faster, with a punch to his face.

            Instantly, his hand moving faster than she could see, he caught her fist and without thought, really he was not thinking, he retaliated with a palm strike to her lower abdomen, a non-lethal blow.

            Instantly, the Sailor Soldier of Mars was blasted back, out of his grip like she had been shot out of a cannon on a battleship.  All the other fighters in the gym immediately got out of the flying projectile's way, so Mars didn't stop until she crashed, still vertical and in practically the same position she was in when Xander hit her, against the far wall.

            She was instantly dead, her neck and several vertebrae in her spine breaking if not shattering, her lungs and all the organs in her lower abdomen all caving in and those not protected (and crushed) by bone were instantly liquefied.  Blood came from several pores, as well as her eyes, ears, mouth and nose as the warrior of fire crumbled to the ground.

            Thankfully, the distance was so great that the human Sailor Soldiers, and Bunny, were unable to see all of this.  They only saw Xander hit her, and then Mars flying back and hitting the wall before crumbling to the ground.

            Xander stared, stunned at what he had done, and also with the enhancements to see what he had done.  Then he looked sheepish as he scratched the back of his head and shrugged at all those staring at him.  "Whoops."

            Sailor V, her jaw now joining those on the ground, just looked back and forth from the place on the ground where Mars was, and Xander, who was looking more embarrassed than guilty.  She tried to ask what the hell had just happened, besides the obvious, but only little grunting sounds escaped her throat.

            Buffy, also catching on to what had happened, and knowing she wasn't the only one after seeing Willow's smirk, decided to explain to the obviously confused Senshi Team.  "What?  You do remember me telling you that Xander was an ordinary guy before coming here right?  I guess I forgot to mention that I was the Slayer before I came here.  I was at least five times stronger, faster, and everything else than a regular human.  Now, recall what I also said about Xander now being my primary sparring partner.  It may look like we're throwing hits on your level girls, but that's because we're nearly equal in our strength now.  When fighting each other, we put on a good show, but when fighting normal kids, like you, well…" She just gestured.

            They bristled slightly at being called "normal kids", but then took another look at Mars, and even the ever-prideful Sailor V looked more subdued.  Buffy smiled, they had learned their lesson.  As the Slayer Team themselves had learned, just in a less painful way.

            "She's going to be all right, right?" she asked discreetly to the Trainers when the Senshi Team was distracted once more.

            "Oh, yeah," Broly said, "She's already reviving."  He pointed and indeed the now-familiar golden glow of the Powers could be seen, even by the Sailor Soldiers, from this distance.  Nodding, the Slayer Team and Goku then turned around and walked away.  "Now what?" Buffy asked their Trainer.

            Goku sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and forehead.

*                       *                       *

            The next day, in the afternoon after Xander and Willow's lessons, and Buffy had spent the morning in the Exercise Room and then spent an hour in the lower half of Second Training and Giles meditating, Goku met the Slayer Team in the Private Training Gym.

            "So what's on the agenda for today Saiyaman?" Buffy teasingly asked the Trainer.

            Goku scowled, she knew how much he hated his codename, but the scowl didn't mar his face for long as he remembered she was only teasing and meant it only in good fun.  "Today, I find out how much you've learned," he replied with a Saiyan smirk.  "Yesterday concluded all that I had to teach you in technique.  Now all I have left to do is measure your strength, and see what needs to be done to increase it.  All that will remain after that is experience, but you'll have time to take care of that when you return home."

            Buffy gave him a Slayer smirk right back.

            "Cool.  So that means that today we…" she left the sentence hanging.

            "Spar," Goku nodded, finishing the sentence with the word she had half-expected.

            "Yes!" Xander pumped his fist.

            Goku smirked and got into the ready stance he had shown them four weeks previous.  "So show me how much you've learned," he kept the same smirk on his face, unfurling his tail.

            In response each of the Slayer Team got into the same stance, out of habit automatically powering to their max as fast as they could.

Goku beckoned them over with a very 'Bruce Lee' like gesture.  The four warriors, roared out as they shot forward and Goku's smirk deepened.  He simply backed up.  Buffy realized the move first, and backed off.  Giles, Willow, and Xander realized it too, but much too late.  They slowed to keep from smashing into each other, and were much too busy avoiding each other to notice Goku moving back in.  With three well-placed punches, all three of them were sent flying to their own corners of the gym.

Buffy came in and threw her right fist at Goku, who blocked it, and followed up with his own. Buffy blocked his, and the two started trading blows, until Goku suddenly backed up and fired an energy ball at her.  She avoided it only barely.  The reason of Goku's backing up became quickly apparent.  The other three members of the Slayer Team returned to the fold. They had to make a course correction to catch up to Goku, but they didn't seem to be making the same mistake as earlier.  Goku blocked one punch, then a second and third.

Xander had had enough, and growled, his hyena half screaming out for retribution. He charged a ki-ball and fired it.  Goku avoided a deft punch by Willow, and bashed the relatively uncoordinated ki-ball aside, directly into Giles' face, who was flung aside by the explosion.

Buffy in the mean time had jumped over all of them, twisted in the air, and came down behind Goku with the intention of kicking him in his back.  Goku had far too much experience to fall for it, and with a remarkable show of speed, flew in the air, directly over Willow.  Buffy's kick went straight for Willow's stomach.  With all her effort she reversed her energy on just barely kept herself from kicking Willow in her stomach.  Too bad for Buffy, Xander and Willow did not have the same self-control.  Xander's punch connected with Buffy's jaw at the same time that Buffy got hit square in the stomach by Willow's fireball. Buffy was flung back diagonally at the impacts until she crashed into the wall, unable to catch herself, and groaned out in pain.

"Ohmigod!  Buffy, I didn't mean . . ." Willow started, but that's as far as she got, when Goku kicked her in her back hard, and a moment later she joined Buffy groaning against the wall.

"You're all going to have to better than that," Goku commented neutrally.

"KAMEHAMEHA!" Xander yelled out, sending the massive ki-wave against Goku.  The 1/8th Saiyan his raised ki braced himself, one-foot back, and catching the wave on outstretched hands.

"Better, but still not good enough," Goku stated, a little strain in his voice.  He raised a ki shield, pushing the weaker energy wave back a bit, and fired two small balls of energy directly into the Kamehameha. The explosion that followed, rocked the gym on its foundations, but neither warrior, was really effected by it.

With a yell Xander attacked, completely giving in to the primal urges within him. He traded several blows with Goku, but the Saiyan warrior was not to be outdone.  He grabbed one of Xander's punches, and twisted it, pulling Xander through the air, and past him.  A kick to Xander's stomach sent him further on his upside-down way.  Goku twisted around, his ki-flame bursting into existence, as Giles hacked down with his magical blade with a roar.  The blade landed in between Goku's left thumb and index finger, and there it stopped, never hitting skin.  Goku's ki-enveloped fingers holding the flat side of the broadsword.

Goku smirked at the astonished Giles, and said, "Nice try."  Goku kicked out, sending Giles flying back again, but held on to the sword, so the Watcher was weaponless.  "Do try not to lose it so easily next time," Goku said with a deepened smirk.  He tossed the sword to his other hand, and threw it.

The sword drilled through the air, flying in a nice arc, twisting around its axis, across the distance between the Saiyan and the Watcher.  Giles was still groaning from the impacts, when he noticed Nightblade flying right at him. Eyes wide instantly, he held up his hand, and his blade came to a standstill, hovering in the air mere millimeters in front of his chest. Giles shirked his fear in that instant and knew from that moment on that Goku could never pull that kind of trick again.

Buffy was standing again, Willow next to her, and over looked the situation, annoyed by Goku's casual smirk. "Guys," she said with authority. "This ain't working, we have to get more coordinated, work together more."

            "I'm up for suggestions!" Xander literally growled at her.

            Buffy shot him a glare that had the same calming effect that an Alpha snapping at a disobedient cub had.  She glared at Goku who was floating casually in the air, his arms crossed and the same smirk on his face, his tail hanging free behind him and a clear white-ish ki flame flowing smoothly around him.

            "Follow my lead!" she ordered and took to the air.  The others immediately ignited their own ki flames and rose into the air as well, but waited to see what the Slayer would do before trying to attack anymore.

            Buffy glared down angrily at the Saiyan, trying to go over all of their options.  She didn't even know for sure if she could take him let alone all of them at once.  The few times they had successfully all worked together it was usually in team-up, when it was three on one or two on two.

            Buffy blinked as the shock traveled through her.  That's it!

            "Will!  X, Watcher, cover!" she shouted and then dove straight for Goku.  Willow was right on her tail, diving just to the left and a little above the blonde.

            For the moment, he was just hovering there, seeing what they would do.  Buffy was sort of counting on this as Xander and Giles flashed away to their positions while Willow flew in behind her.  Less than ten feet from their target, Buffy's left hand, at her waist the entire time, suddenly held up three fingers so only Willow could see, then drew them back and held up two fingers.

            Willow immediately understood and started charging two magic bolts, basically magick versions of ki blasts.  As Buffy's hand counted one, and then formed into a fist, Willow fired the bolts at two opposite spots above and on either side of Goku's still-frame.

            By this point Buffy had reached the Saiyan, and as expected, he flashed away, but at the exact same instant, Giles reappeared and deflected one of Willow's bolts with Nightblade while Xander appeared on the other side and fired another, more controlled ki ball.

            Half an instant later, the ki ball exploded, connecting with the bolt Giles had deflected and stopping Goku just above the explosion where all four converged on him, taking extra care to not hit each other.

            Goku blocked a punch from Buffy, kicked away another punch from Xander while using his other ki-enamored fist to block Nightblade's slashes and Willow's close range bolts that mostly just stung.

            Throughout it all though, Goku's expression never once changed.

            "You know," Buffy said conversationally as she ducked under an attempted counter from Goku, and at the same time lashed out with her feet into kicks, "the least you could do besides smirk at us like that is critique us while you beat the living snot out of us!  It's only fair, given that you're our Trainer."

            Goku's smirk faltered into a frown for a moment, but his movements kept pace with theirs.  "You know," he replied in the same manner, "if you can talk and fight at the same time… you're not giving me your all.  Given how much stronger I am, you don't have the right to whine about that.  Now why don't you all shut up and start showing me exactly what all you've learned."

            Buffy squinted in anger, and subconsciously boosted her power just a little higher.  Every other one of her punches was now getting through, her movements much faster than before, and even Goku had to admit that she had gotten stronger.

            Although, not strong enough.

            With a roar of his own, Goku powered up even more, using the excess energy build-up to create a shockwave that knocked the Slayer Team back down to the floor and several meters away from him.

            Now, a solid ki flame, the color of crisp and very bright snow on a cold winter morning surrounded his strengthened frame.  It might have been an illusion, or maybe it was just the effect of his life force given visual form, but it looked like all of Goku's muscles had somehow become more well-defined, if not bigger in some way.  Add to that the blood lusty look in his eyes, coupled with that unchanging smirk of confidence on his face, the Saiyan now truly appeared to be of the bloodthirsty race.

            Buffy gulped, nervous not at the sight her Trainer presented, but with the level that his power was at now.  Before she only had the beginning levels of his Super Saiyan transformation to compare herself against, and for a while there she had thought she had been getting pretty close.

            But…she hadn't considered what his power could become like in this form.  It hadn't ever occurred to her that in his normal form, his power could go to almost anything below what his power was like as a Super Saiyan, and despite not *being* a Super Saiyan, that was still a lot of power.

            Taking a breath to calm herself and swallow her fear, Buffy got to her feet and considered her options.  Finish this lesson half-heartedly, expecting to get beat with the next punch and knowing that she only survived because Goku wanted her to.  Or…fight like she was going to win.  No matter what.

            It was like molten adrenaline injected right into every single one of her veins and arteries all at once.  She couldn't explain it, not yet at any rate, but something deep inside her, deeper than the Slayer spirit that always made her come out on top of every demon she fought, deeper even than her own morals and emotions, something ignited her with the passion to fight and to win.

            A shockwave easily equal to the one Goku had used to knock them aside blasted out of the Slayer as her ki flame ignited around her, making it look like her aura was on fire.

            She took a step forward and then grinned savagely at Goku.  Calmly she slipped her GEO jacket, which was set to at least 100 Gs off her shoulders and cast it aside where it landed with a heavy thud against the floor.

            Wearing only the black leotard and black gi pants and boots, Buffy lifted herself off the floor until she was vertically even with Goku.  Her senses reached out without even trying, determining Goku's power level and what she would need to do to beat him.

            Giles was in considerably worse shape.  Slowly getting to his feet and using Nightblade as a support to help him stand, Giles asked the Blade in their mind-to-mind communication, 'Well, I'm rather out of ideas at the moment.  Any suggestions on how I can help my Slayer?'

            Nightblade was silent for the moments that Buffy was powering up even further, Goku staring amused at her.

            :The chi techniques.  They are you're only chance of any surprise or success at all.  In conjunction with your use of me, you might be able to formulate an attack that the Trainer may not anticipate.  But you must be prepared to take advantage of such a distraction.  You cannot continue trying to knock him away with side-blows.  You must try to cut him.  He would not be here, as he is if he could not protect himself against you with me in your hand.:

            'I will not kill,' Giles thought back adamantly.

            :He's immortal, you're immortal, and I refuse to teach you the one attack that could alter that, not that it can in his case.  And what are scratches compared to being atomized by energy?:

            Giles growled to himself as he raised his power once more, hoping that his energy would hold out for long enough.  'All right, you've made your point.  Can you help me to focus?'

            :Of course:

            While Giles was 'focusing', Buffy had finished powering up, her power, to their senses, almost equal to what Goku's was at the moment.  Given that, even as he could sense the same thing they could, Goku's outward expression remained unchanged, they all knew the Saiyan was still holding back.

            In the blink of an eye, Buffy vanished from her point and another eye blink after, so did Goku.  Concussion waves could be felt from all over the gym as the Slayer and Saiyan traded blows, but none of them could easily keep up with their speed.

            Willow was flushed and breathing heavily.  Painfully she got to her knees and saw Xander do the same just across from her.  Groaning with the effort, the Powermage got to her feet and started over to him.

            Her magically heightened senses warned her a millisecond before it happened and that proved to be just enough time for her equally enhanced instincts to take over and raise her power and pour it into her speed as she shot forward with everything she had to avoid being right between two blows from the Saiyan and Slayer.

            Flashing right next to Xander, who was getting to his feet, Willow helped him and kept her senses open, not wanting another close call.

            "We've gotta get back in the fight," Xander said with such savagery in his voice Willow flinched away from him for a moment.  "Buffy's all alone against him."

            "Xander," Willow hissed insistently, "Control yourself.  Don't fall into your instincts so easily.  Use them, don't let them use you, like last time," she reminded him.

            Now he flinched, and then he breathed meditatively before he nodded to her, much calmer.  He looked at her, that same connection they'd had ever since kindergarten, where they could almost read each other's mind just by the expression the other wore.  "Ready?" he asked, his voice angry, but not as savage as it had been a moment before, more controlled.

            Willow nodded and replied "Double-team?"

Xander nodded back.

A second before they took back to the fight, they turned to each other and said at the exact same time, "Don't hit Buffy."  Realizing what had happened, they smiled at each other, nodded again, and then flashed away at nearly the same speed Buffy and Goku were moving.

            An instant after they went, Giles too started to move with the same speed.

Buffy was in her element, and completely focused upon the Saiyan in front of her, who just refused to stop smirking.  He deflected blow after blow, and the ones that did go through his defenses didn't do as much damage, at least not as much as the ones that got through her defenses.

She screamed in rage, her ki going up just another notch, and she lost herself in her anger.

Which was not a good idea.  One wild swing was all Goku needed, and exactly what she gave him. He grabbed her arm, twisted it under his own and pinned it to his body. He went sideways and rammed a vicious elbow in Buffy's face, right under her nose.  Buffy knew the follow up combination in her compromised state would be the final thing in this match . . . but it never came.

Instead she flew backward from the impact and she forced herself to slow down son instead of crashing into the floor, she landed.

She opened her eyes, the blood flowing from her nose already slowing, and saw Xander and Willow taking on Goku together, but Giles seemed to be hanging back a bit, waiting for an opening, not wanting to hurt his own team mates.

            Buffy knew she couldn't let herself lose control like that again, and while Xander lost his control against her earlier and had nearly overpowered her, against a more experienced fighter, losing control would mean a certain loss; too many uncoordinated attacks, they could use every single opening - and there would be a lot - against her.  Filing away this important lesson, she yelled as she let loose her energy in rage, controlled rage, and returned to the fight.

            Goku in the mean time was still smirking, enjoying the match. They had gotten tough, he actually had to put forth an effort, but that it would be his victory was undoubted.  The Powermage and Warrior X were attacking him with everything they had, but they were getting to the end of their ropes.

Having being going on the same routine for some while, blocking, kicking, punching, he decided to switch gears suddenly.  As he blocked one of Xander's punches, he suddenly moved forward, and went on his side, kicking his right foot out.  Willow was completely unprepared and got the kick square in her stomach.  With a loud 'oof' she was flung backward and didn't stop until crashing into a wall and dropping to the floor, either unconscious or dead.

Never losing sight of any of his opponents, Goku let go of Xander and twisted around, avoiding the stabbing motion of Giles' obsidian weapon.

Lashing out suddenly with a white-hot-glowing fist, right after, Giles managed to catch Goku hard enough in his torso he blew backward and was doubled over from the force of the energy punch.  The Trainer was surprised briefly and it took him some moments to orient himself.  Normally he only got hit like that by the other warriors on his level of power.

Goku quickly made a backward somersault, flipping over Slayer.

She flipped around, Giles and Xander quickly joined her at her sides. "Let's get'em," she hissed, and her companions nodded.

They rushed forward, Xander and Giles attacking low, so Goku went up, and so did Buffy.  He blocked her first blow, the second hit.  The hit jarred him a little, and he blasted off to the right.  All three of his opponents charged energy attacks right at that moment, aiming for him.

Four energy balls, two from Buffy, two from Xander came at him, while Giles was still busy with a powerful-looking yellow energy beam.  Goku veered off to the right, narrowly avoiding the wall, the energy attacks unable to make the same maneuver exploded against it.

Giles put both his hands out, screaming with the pressure of firing the energy beam, going after Goku with it.  Slayer and Warrior X started firing more ki balls after Goku as their first ones were destroyed.

Goku fired one of his own ki balls, which blew up one of those that came for him. He swatted aside a second, and then raised his chi in a shield around him, his arms crossed in front of his face.

The ki balls impacted and exploded.  Goku felt the impacts, and was impressed that they were able to damage him, even if it was inconsequential injuries.  Not even flesh wounds.

Immediately after Giles energy beam hit, Goku put his hands out, pushing back against the ki beam, pouring his own ki against it.  He moved back under the beam's onslaught, but it could not hit him yet.

Giles watched with satisfaction as he pinned the demi-Saiyan under his beam.  Xander and Buffy shot alongside it, intent on taking advantage of Goku's compromised defenses.  Giles was determined keep the pressure on so Buffy and Xander could finish it, so he poured more of his energy into the ki beam.  Too late he realized his mistake.

Suddenly Goku let himself rotate backward, the beam flying over him, and impacting and exploding against the wall. The dust and light the explosion threw up, temporarily blinding Buffy and Xander, while Goku continued his back flip down to the floor. He landed on his hands, and pushed off immediately. Giles having depleted most of his energy with that beam, and no way to bring up whatever defenses he had left, decided it was time for that distraction.

            He drew Nightblade back up and channeled all of his energy, and his chi that Nightblade had been helping him to focus, into the blade itself, and raised it for and overhead chop.  Goku saw this, but he just smirked again and raised a ki shield around his body, as he had before.

            :Lets teach him some respect: Nightblade whispered into Giles' mind.

            Faster than Goku could react to, Giles brought the white-hot glowing blade down in a powerful chop, powerful enough that everyone watching swore he could have literally cut the air.

            Something much more impressive happened though.

            Almost exploding, but more like flowing, from Giles slice, chi energy, burning white hot, cascaded down through the air, directly at Goku, who was flying right into it.  He didn't even have time to slow down as it impacted on him, and then forced him to crash back down on the floor.  When the energy finally dissipated, it revealed Goku, lying haphazardly on the cracked and broken floor, effects from throwing such powerful energy directly at it.

Buffy and Xander, no longer blinded by the glare from the explosion, stared at the scene for a couple moments before a noise from Giles got their attention.  "Now," he said weakly, slowly hovering down to the ground, not even having enough energy to keep flying, let alone fighting.

            Nodding at their mentor, they exchanged their own look, and then decided to go with Giles example and try out one of their secrets they'd been keeping from their Trainer.

            Xander, with only one chi attack that Master Fong called one of the most basic that any chi warrior could do with knowledge of how to tap their chi, but told Xander that he only had enough chi built up in him that he could only perform this attack once per day.  So far, he hadn't even used it once, but now was the best time he was going to get to.

            Buffy just pointed both her palms at Goku and focused on her inner energies.

            Moving as one, the two remaining Slayer Team fighters fired their chi attacks together.

            His right hand pointed down in the shape of a gun, Xander shouted as bright crimson energy shot out like a gunshot from the tip of his finger, "SPIRIT GUN!"

            "SLAYER STRIKE!" Out of both of her palms, two energy-stakes flew out and impacted, one on each of the Saiyan's shoulders.

            The red energy beam pounded at the center of his chest, but what made him cry out "OWW!!" was Buffy's Slayer Strikes.  He tore off his own GEO jacket to stare, almost disbelieving as bruises were forming before his eyes where the attacks had hit.

            OK, now he was impressed.

Still, not too much the worse for wear; he stood back up and reignited his ki flame, still burning bright and angry.  He shot forward suddenly, rammed a fist into Giles stomach, doubling the librarian over.  Goku switched up and over instantly, while his face was at Giles chest level, Goku kicked down, sending Giles crashing down to the floor. Then Goku righted himself, looking over at Buffy and Xander.  The last two left assessed the situation, and Goku spelled it out for them. "Two down, two to go," he told him with his ever infuriating smirk. "Much, much better though."  Buffy gave a sneer, and then she and Xander blasted downward to continue.

"Not quite," Willow muttered under her breath as she forced herself off the floor, leaning on one arm. The other she pointed at Goku, and she started muttering in an unknown tongue, her eyes glowing bright green as she did.  Her spell complete, she slumped back to the floor, groaning as she lost consciousness again, "I'm out."

Goku was ready for the two of them as he smirked across the room.  He would see what these two could do still.  Too late he noticed the tiny sliver of energy, rapidly blossoming into a full-blown magical spell.  As Xander and Buffy blasted toward him, he felt his power being subdued, his muscles felt like they were lead, and this…something wrapped around him tight enough to hurt. His head slumped, even the muscles in his neck were lead, and thus below he saw green plasma rings surrounding his upper and lower torso.  *What the . . . ?* he thought and started exerting his energy, trying to flex his arms, hoping to tear the rings apart, but they refused to budge.  In fact they even refused to let him tap into his energy.

Buffy and Xander saw what happened, and gave each other a grin. Their Trainer was going to get it now.  Payback for all the bruises and painful lessons he had given them over the past few weeks.

They reached him, and together smashed their fists into his face, sending him flying backward. They moved onward, grinning, and followed up with a kick to his head, careful not to hit the plasma rings for fear of breaking him free accidentally.

Goku was fed up with this.  His ki flame returned, golden this time.  He roared out in anger, and his hair stood up and turned golden, and the powerful plasma rings were torn apart with ease.  For just a moment Buffy and Xander were startled, but then quickly continued onward.  Two hits, three hits, while Goku was still a little out of it, and he actually staggered (as far as that was possible while one flew) back a bit, before finally moving to his left, avoiding a punch from Buffy.  He blocked one of Xander's kicks, and then kicked out.  His foot smashed into Xander's torso, and the young man flew back like a rocket, until crashing into the wall, actually damaging it, and falling down.

Buffy punched with a defiant scream, and felt her fist touching something, then pain blossomed into it, and it stopped completely.  It felt like she had just broken her arm punching the hardest element known to the omniverse!

Buffy took a good look and her eyes widened.  Her fist had hit Goku's open palm, and it had done absolutely nothing.  She looked up into Goku's eyes, green, green bloodthirsty eyes.  To her credit, she stared right back into them, her resolve and that deep force that made her want to win, shining through hers just as much as Goku's overbearing, and sure-fasted confidence was shining from his.

Goku grinned, and before she knew what happened she was doubled over, pain blossoming in her belly, where she guessed Goku's fist – moving too fast for her to see - had hit her. Then she was sailing down and smashed painfully into a wall.

Goku lowered himself to the floor, letting his ki flame disappeared, but he stayed in Super Saiyan transformation. "Not bad!" Goku complimented the groaning fighters lying around his feet.

            Buffy staggered back to her feet, the only thing allowing her to do so was the same thing that forced the following words from her mouth.  "We're, not done…yet."

            Goku just stared at her, his expression unchanging.

            For a moment, just a moment, he considered going back to normal Saiyan to finish this match, but no.  She needed an example, to be shown *exactly* how outclassed she and her team is.  He smirked at her, and then charged, planning on "playing dolls" with the Slayer before finally killing her.  Make the hurt just that much more personal.

            Buffy surprised herself just as much as she did Goku when she suddenly charged forward, and for that moment, she was moving at the Super Saiyan's speed.  She fell forward onto her hands, like she was doing push-ups, which meant that Goku's charging punch missed her completely.

            Next, she rolled forward, maintaining her weight on her hands, and then pushed off of the ground, launching herself into the air away from Goku.

            Raising her power some, Buffy exerted her energy to reorient herself so she wasn't flying feet first through the air, but backwards.

            Somehow, she sensed Goku fly up past her, no doubt intending on attacking her in the back to send her crashing back to the floor.  More of its own accord rather than her own, her body rotated once more so she flipped around, her left leg extended, and catching Goku in the chin with the point of her boot.

            What surprised the 1/8th Saiyan was that it actually hurt!

            Taking the brief reprieve, however short it was, Buffy put as much distance between herself and her Trainer as she could before turning to face him once more.  Knowing she couldn't hope to beat him as a Super Saiyan alone, she looked around for any support she could draw from the rest of her team.

            Willow was passed out from where she had cast her last spell.  Xander…she shied away from that sight, but let's just say he would not be getting back into this fight.  Giles was in much the same condition as Willow, except asleep on his knees, also no help.

            Wait a moment… Giles…  Hello idea!

            Buffy smirked and drew her gold-hilted katana.

            "A sword is not going to make a bit of difference Slayer," Goku told her, rubbing his chin.  It was cut, dripping a couple crimson drops onto her Trainer's skin.  "You can't hope to beat me in this form."

            That same…energy surge filled the Slayer with a second wind as she glared hatefully at the Saiyan.  "I'm going to win," she told him.  "Thanks Giles," she muttered privately as she channeled all of her chi energy into…her sword!

            She ran her fingers over the flat edge, admiring the strength that the weapon had.  As her digits danced across it, the metal was surrounded by its own aura of power.  By the time she'd taken her fingers past the tip, the sword was glowing the same as Nightblade had been when Giles had done the same thing Buffy did.

            Goku stared, his eyes wide as he felt Buffy's power suddenly increase…way past his expectations for his student.  That was when he paid attention to the sword.

            Buffy felt an understanding shoot through her entire being.  She had only ever felt something like it once before, so she treated it much the same.  She let the energy build, and build, and build…until it burst.

            Faster than he could react, Buffy sliced her glowing blade through the air, but unlike Giles, just before she did she cried out, "SLAYER SLASH!!"

            In a clean arch, the energy coalesced into a single shape rather than a wave of energy, looking partly like a crescent moon, but flying with the same speed.

            Lucky for Goku, he was not rushing into it this time, but memory is not what made him dodge.  An unbidden instinct flashed through his mind, and less than a foot from it hitting him, he dodged downward, landing on the ground.

            Curious, he turned and watched as the crescent energy attack crashed against the far wall.  It did not explode however.  Instead…it left a groove that matched its forward shape (a straight line with a point on both ends) and went three feet deep before dissipating.  Goku stared, his eyes going wide.

            Just in time, he turned his attention back to the Slayer, who was charging another such attack.  He dodged it just in time as well.  That one however left a three and a half foot deep crevice.

            Worried, Goku tried to think of something.  Buffy managed to shoot two more of the Slayer Slash attacks at him as he did so.

            Finally, Goku remembered a memo he had gotten a week before, that the Slayer Team had been seen going into the Temple of Chi Magicks.  Was that what this was? He asked himself.  He could confirm later, but for right now he had to go with the assumption that these attacks Buffy was using was something Master Fong had taught her.  His best bet was to make sure she couldn't get the opportunity to use them anymore.

            Flashing out of sight, Goku advanced on the Slayer, who somehow managed to keep up enough with him to actually defend against his high-speed attack.  After that, she used her sword in the more conventional use, and it was a credit to the makers of the blade that no matter how many times she struck it against his ki shield, it never so much as cracked.  It was a credit to Buffy's strength that it also never glanced or bounced off either.

            He wasn't exactly standing still there either.  She blocked and dodged as much as she could, but her own defenses were weakening far faster than his were.

            Finally, he just caught her sword in his left fist, and held it, letting it past the ki shield to hold it against his Super Saiyan skin.  He pulled it, and her, closer, so they were face-to-face.

            "The Make Seven is a wonderful, and very impressive weapon.  Made of several of the densest, and therefore the strongest alloys the Compound knows of," he told her matter-of-factly.  "But.  It does have its weak points.  Warriors strong enough to break the alloys in their bare hands for example.  I already told you Buffy…your weapons won't make a bit of difference.  Only you can do that."

            Goku felt more pressure, the difference something like a garbage compactor crushing an aluminum can, against his skin from the blade.  Buffy inched her face closer as she put even more pressure into her sword.  "I'm going to win," she hissed at him.

            "If you're talking about the Tournament, I hope so," he told her.  "But if you're talking about this fight…" Goku's ki flame ignited all over again, and as it became more and more intense, it indicated how much the Saiyan's strength was rising.

            Being right next to him, Buffy barely needed her sixth sense to feel it.

            As a final point almost, Goku's fist squeezed, and then crushed, breaking the blade into several pieces, even as Slayer still held it.

            She tried to defend against the next hit, but it came too fast for her to even see it coming.  Goku kneed her gut, and then with his right hand, broke her neck with a chop.  If he were in his normal form, even at maximum power, the blow might have only knocked her out at the most, like you see on those spy sitcoms where the secret agent karate chops the minion on the neck and he falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes.  As a Super Saiyan, he broke her neck.

            She fell to the ground, dead.  The moment she landed, both she and Warrior X were surrounded by golden glows, indicating the Powers were reviving them.  Goku quickly, with laser thin blasts, instantly killed both Powermage and Watcher, causing them to also be revived by the Powers.  Instant death, instant revival.

"Well done, well done indeed," Goku applauded them all as they got to their feet, fully healthy with full energy to boot.  "You've improved a great deal in a remarkably short time.  Your coordination still needs a bit of work, but you've got the right ideas about fighting now.  Especially you, Mage, you actually forced me to go Super Saiyan."

"It's not fair," Buffy pouted from her corner, and everyone looked at her. "We almost had you, Super Saiyan or no Super Saiyan."

Goku laughed, and retorted, "You came nowhere close to 'having me'.  I think I proved that with that last little demonstration."

"Demonstration?" Giles prompted not knowing what to expect.

            In reply, Buffy went over and picked up the shards of her sword, showing them to the rest of her team.  "Uh…isn't that supposed to be made of some of the densest materials the Compound uses?" Willow squeaked.

Goku's smirk deepened and both he and Buffy nodded.  They all gulped and stared, the implications alone enough to make them realize what this meant exactly.

            Buffy didn't care about her broken sword though, or what it meant.

            "You weren't even trying, were you?" she growled out, angry.

            "Of course I tried," the Trainer let go of his Super Saiyan transformation, "I just didn't go all out."

            "So what is your maximum power?" Buffy demanded to know.  "How strong would we have to become to actually have a chance at beating you, no matter what your form.  No, scratch that, how powerful will I have to be to defeat you in your most powerful form?"

            Goku smirked at her, but while it held amusement, it wasn't mocking as before.  "Please, Buffy, I have to keep some secrets.  Part of my charm is my mysterious nature.  Keep's you guessing."

            "So in short," Xander answered, "more powerful than we even have the scope to imagine?"

            Goku's answering smirk told them the Warrior was right on the money.

            Buffy snorted and threw up her hands in exasperation.  "Any hints on how to get stronger?" she demanded to know.

            Goku nodded, no longer smirking, and quite serious now.

            "We'll start working on that right now," Goku told them.  "First, the higher the gravity, the more workout your physical body gets, but don't forget to rest, otherwise it won't get stronger, just more beat up.  Sleep each night counts as rest.  As for increasing your energy strength, part of that comes from increasing your physical strength, but there are exercises I'll show you right now that can help you out there."

            Each of the Slayer Team nodded.  Buffy and Xander put their jackets back on and everyone got in line to continue learning from their Trainer.

*                       *                       *

Fifth Week

Buffy awoke from a pleasant dream.  She couldn't remember what it was or what happened in it, but she felt a content and peaceful relief as she came out of the dream world and into the real one.  It was the first night since they had come to the Compound when she hadn't had a nightmare about what her and her friends future would be like if she slept with Angel and unwittingly released Angelus, the demon that he had been before he regained his soul.

            Yawning and stretching the last of sleepiness from her body, Buffy crawled out of her bed and walked straight to her bathroom.  She had slept in the nude so there was no need to remove any thing as she stepped right into the sonic shower and let it do its thing.

            Clean as hypersonic frequencies can make a human body, Buffy finished getting ready, putting on her same leotard and pants that she had worn for…gosh had it already been five weeks?  As always, they felt as fresh as if they were brand new when she fit them on.

            She slid her GEO boots on, but held off on putting her jacket on, wanting to enjoy her unencumbered movement for as long as she could.  Goku, for half of the past week had shown them and pushed them all through strength-intensive training exercises.  Buffy even continued all of these exercises when not being directly trained by Goku, and as a result, she now had her GEO suit set to 250 Gs, while on average while training the gym was set to 100 Gs, which meant that she trained in over 350 Gs.

            It wasn't just that easy though.  She had visited the Clinic for the dreaded massage therapy, which really *did* hurt as much as rumor said it did, and other rapid healing techniques for overstressed muscles at least once a day.  Sometimes twice a day.

            The trips to the Clinic didn't automatically make her able to stand in 350 gravities either.  They only healed the damage to her body that standing in 350 Gs did to it, instead of having her bed-ridden for months, maybe even years to properly heal from it.

            And she wasn't the only one that had been going to the Clinic regularly.

            Willow didn't have a GEO suit, so she only trained in the gravity of the gym, but for one without Slayer stamina or healing, 100 Gs was more than enough to warrant daily Clinic visits.  Xander did have a GEO suit, which he set to only 100 Gs, meaning he trained in over 200.  Willow blamed it on Xander merging with the hyena spirit.

            Giles, who meditated more than killed himself exercising, had only ever visited the Clinic once.  To get his Universal Translator implanted.

            All of them were already awake and about this morning.  Giles, as he most often was these days, was meditating in the 'training mat' area.  Xander and Willow were at the bar, talking.

            "No kidding?" she heard Xander ask their redhead friend, who nodded back.

            "Yep.  I'm really excited about it too.  I'm sorry I won't be there this morning for Goku's training, but I'll definitely be there for this evening's training," Willow promised.

            Buffy quickly walked over to them and took her place at the counter.  "So what is it you're going to be doing this morning while Giles and I are getting our buts kicked by Goku and Broly?" she asked.

            Willow smiled.  "It's not that bad.  Besides, you guys don't really spar anymore, you just work out and train.  And if you're talking about what happened the other day on the shooting range, you've improved since then!"

            Buffy blushed as she recalled the event Willow was talking about that had happened two days previous.  Goku had taken them to the Main Gym and set up a series of targets for them all to shoot and destroy with energy attacks.  Willow, who could have used magic, used ki instead and was on par with Goku's skill.

            The targets weren't just stationary archery targets though, they were moving, flying, dodging, some were even shielded, round little probes that had the red and white target painted on them.  Lets just say that when it was Buffy's turn…it was not pretty.

            "Xander was better than me!" Buffy exclaimed to Willow's coddling.  "And don't try and change the subject, what are you doing today?"

            Willow's smile grew so wide Buffy was afraid she might accidentally split her head open.

            "Marduk, believe it or not he hates being called Arch Mage, contacted me about five minutes ago and told me that he's going to be giving me a very special lesson today.  He wouldn't say what exactly, but he kept grinning, so I know it's going to be good.  I'm not due there until after breakfast though."

            Buffy frowned.  The alarm should have gone off by…

            The klaxons and flashing lights suddenly started up, almost as if bidden by her thought.  They all stared and looked at each other for several moments, Xander looked over his shoulder to see Giles perfectly still, his meditation uninterrupted by the loud noise.

            Buffy waited about five more seconds before she glared up at the ceiling and surprised herself by shouting at a volume that easily outdid the alarm.  "WE'RE UP ALREADY YOU STUPID—" the volume went up just in time to cover the string of curses coming out of the Slayer's mouth.

            They all exchanged another glare and Buffy charged a ki ball and without any more warning than that, fired it at the ceiling.  The alarm cut out shortly after that.

            "You'd think after us getting up before that thing goes off for the past two weeks that they would turn it off," Buffy commented as the breakfast bar came to life.

            Noises of agreement came from her friends as they ordered their morning meals and began to eat.

*                       *                       *

            Willow teleported into the courtyard in front of the Mage Tower.  She smiled, and then quickly patted herself down to make sure that everything had made it with her.  The first time she'd tried to magically teleport somewhere, her clothes had shown up about a minute after she did.  Now that she finally had gotten the knack of it, she didn't use the MTC anymore.

            "Well, it's about time," Marduk snapped from directly behind her.

            Willow jumped almost a foot in the air and barely managed to suppress the scream in her throat.  She turned around and glared at her Teacher.  "That, that was, was, was…" she stuttered.

            "Mean?  Cruel?  Not nice?" he offered.  He was unadorned today; wearing what Willow might consider 'normal' clothes.  A deep purple silk blouse with no collar, and black dress pants with high-gloss leather shoes.

            Willow glared, having gotten her adrenaline surge under control and bit out, "Not funny."

            Marduk laughed loudly, echoing across the courtyard.

            "So… you promised a very special lesson.  I'm here, and now I'm waiting," Willow teased.

            Marduk nodded, and got his "business face" on, which was similar enough to Willow's own Resolve Face that she thought it deserved it's own title.

            "Correct my pupil," he spoke deeply, "Come," and he teleported away.

            Willow concentrated and reached out with her magical senses, quickly finding the trail that Marduk's teleporting energy left behind.  She also tested it against 'traps', a rather embarrassing tale of how Marduk had taught her that lesson by having her teleport, naked incidentally, into one of the public locker rooms connected to the Main Gym (for the warriors that don't have their own apartment when they're at the Compound).  The male locker room at that.

            There were no extra magical trails, or even masked trails, or masked energy signatures.  Since there was no trace of any obvious trap, or even any underlying one, Willow quickly caught up with Marduk's trail and teleported herself to his location.  Just to be on the safe side, she also prepared a levitation and shield spell for when she reappeared wherever they were going.

            A good thing too, because she appeared right next to the magic god some thousand feet in mid-air and the winds were strong enough to fling her all the way back to where she had come from, but fortunately the shield made it feel like a gentle breeze against her.

            "What I will teach you over the next few days I have only ever taught to three other individuals Willow," Marduk spoke seriously.  He looked serious too, and Willow was not of any mind to be any less serious.

            "The other Arch Mages," Willow guessed.

            He nodded.

            "From the moment you appeared here, I knew that you would be able to learn these particular types of magic.  You would have been given to one of the lesser teachers, just a Mage or a 1st level Powermage at the most.  But then…"

            "The spells I performed in the demonstration," Willow guessed again.  Marduk nodded.

            "I personally intervened and had Amana become your teacher.  After your first lesson, she agreed in my opinion of you, and got Archer to start helping her out with you.  Once they decided you were ready, and you had reached the level of Powermage, I entered the picture."

            Willow nodded, following his logic.

            "Remember the day we met?  In a flurry of emotion, you froze three Arch Mages.  Three Arch Mages!  Do you know what it would take to do that?" Marduk asked.  He didn't expect an answer, so she didn't reply.  "I'll be the first to admit that they were sloppy.  They should have had ready-use spells on hand, to counter anything you could have done.  But not even Amana or Archer did so, and they knew you better than any of us at that time.  The thing is…" Marduk floated slightly closer to Willow, bending down a little to look her right in the eye.  "The thing is Willow, you have enough raw talent with magic that you could probably vie for my position as the Deity of Magic.  But that's all you have, raw talent."

            Marduk backed up and let out a heavy sigh.  He was looking at Willow, and it was the way he was looking at her that made her slightly uncomfortable.  He looked… like he was disappointed.

            "Last week Goku tested all of you.  Your team.  Slayer Team.  All of your teachers and trainers have seen the tapes.  Normally things in the Private gyms aren't recorded for any reason, but Goku was testing how you all handled.  Tests are always monitored in one form or fashion."  Willow nodded, indicating she understood and was not offended that the event had been recorded, and that Marduk and the others had all seen it.

            "Tell me Willow," Marduk asked slowly, pronunciating each syllable, "If you can freeze three Arch Mages in a moment of panic, why didn't you just freeze Goku in the same way and walk all over him?  Better yet, why didn't you turn him into some kind of frog or a newt or even a harmless amoeba?  I had taught you spells that could allow you to turn other mages of equal to your power into those kinds of things by that time without any sort of side effects, and I know you could have done it!  Goku isn't even a magic-user!  So please tell me why you limited yourself to a few magic bolts and a restraining spell?"

            Willow, at first was confused about what Marduk was talking about, and then she began to feel a little guilty herself, and then ashamed.  When he asked her to explain, she quickly cast her mind out for any plausible explanation as to why she hadn't thought of using more powerful spells in that instance.

            "Well… I, uh, well, um…  You see…  I think, well, I think it was because… because we were in a sparring match, and in sparring matches you're supposed to fight physically.  So I only cast physical spells, or spells that were equal to what all of us could physically do.  And… to be perfectly honest… it just never occurred to me to use any more powerful spells." Willow timidly answered.

            Marduk closed his eyes and sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  "Willow…you're supposed to fight like you will have to fight in the Tournament," he calmly explained.

            Willow frowned with confusion.

            Before she could speak though, "In the Tournament, Willow, anything goes.  Anything!  The only, ONLY, things not allowed and expressly forbidden are mass-destruction weapons.  Like creating a black hole, or maybe even some kind of weapon that destroys mass."

            "But… what about atomic bombs?" Willow asked.

            Marduk snorted.  "Those are limited destructive weapons.  The kind of mass-destruction we mean is the kind of weapon that can literally wipe out an entire universe, if not a huge chunk of one.  Anything and everything else beyond things like that?  Hell, it's encouraged."

            "Oh," Willow muttered, mulling over the new facts.

            "Now, next time, you'll think a little bit bigger than your fists and fireballs?" Marduk asked gently.  The redhead smiled and nodded, promising it as much to herself.

            "Good.  Because what I will teach you over the next few days will seem like so called 'atomic weapons' compared to what you already know.  They are the 14 Forbidden Arts.  In essence, and I stress the word essence, they are the most primal and elemental magics that exist in any universe.  They go beyond what the elements are, into what they can be.  What makes these Forbidden is because these magics do not take from the surrounding mana of the universe as you have been taught to do so far.  They come primarily from your own mana, your own spirit and soul.  But it's more complicated than just that, but don't worry, I'll explain it better in a moment."

            "The reason they are forbidden, and because they come from yourself more than any other type of magic, there is the very, very real chance that using any one of them to full potential will cause all the energy of your soul to be used up in the spell.  In short, you would die.  But not die and pass on as your Wicca teachings speak of reincarnation, or religion speaks of heaven and hell.  To use any of the Forbidden Arts would risk wiping your soul out permanently.  No reincarnation.  No Heaven.  No hell.  Not even oblivion.  Your soul, per chance, would simply no longer exist."

            Willow gulped, fully comprehending exactly what this meant and how dangerous it is.

            "Now, first, the names of each Forbidden Art; Pyromancy is Fire Magic, Vaposmancy is Wind Magic, Geomancy is Earth Magic, Hydromancy is Water Magic, Toreutmancy is Metal Magic, Technomancy is Magic of Technology, Necromancy is Magic of Death and resurrection, Vitamancy is Magic of Life, Astromancy is Magic of physical Space, Cosmomancy is Universal, or dimensional, Magic, Sanguismancy is Blood Magic, and Genemancy is a term for Sex Magic.  Last, and most dangerous of all, because only I know and can even perform the last two Arts.  Amana, the 2nd Arch Mage, can perform all of the others, and she is the only to do so in many millennia.  The unnamed Art, and Ethermancy, the Magic of Magick.  Only, only" Marduk growled, his eyes glowing, showing how serious he was, "ONLY if you master each and every one of the others will I teach you either of the last two.  And even then, only one unless you master it as well as you master the others."

            "Let us begin," he intoned.  And they did.

*                       *                       *

            The end of the 5th week, on the last day before the 6th and final week for the Slayer Team's training in the Compound, Goku took them all to the Main Gym for another "test".  Most of the Fighters that normally would be in the middle of the Main Gym, training and fighting, were in the Observation lounge behind the two-story For-lass window, eager to watch how well the Slayer Team would fair against their Trainer.

            For every night and waking minute of free time that they had, Slayer Team had been privately training, working more and harder and harder to make themselves stronger, faster, more powerful, and above all else a better team.

            Now it was all being tested.

            "All right," Goku said, being slightly dramatic as he stood at the center of the massive dome that was the Main Gym, "I hope you're ready for this kiddies.  Because there's not going to be a timeout, and I'm thinking I won't hold back like I did last time."

            "You always talk big, but we've gotten to know you well enough when it's just talk," Slayer snapped back.  She turned to her team, Powermage, Warrior X, and Watcher.  "Are we ready for this guys?" she asked.

            They all just gave her a small nod and a wide grin, before setting their faces back to battle readiness.  She gave them her own nod before turning back to Goku and told him, "We're ready when you are Saiyaman!"

            Goku gritted his teeth a little, but let the anger pass.  His great uncle Gohan was a moron.  And he was a moron for letting himself get stuck with the same codename.

            "You don't actually think you can beat me already do you?" Goku asked them with his infuriating patented Saiyan battle smirk, confident that he wouldn't even need to transform, unless of course Willow tried to restrain his power with magic again.

            "Beat you?!  We're going to humiliate you!" Buffy told him with a growl, getting angry quickly at the insult and the always infuriating smirk. Her ki flame burst into existence, and her team followed her lead, their energy flaring up.

            Goku's smirk deepened – much to Slayer Team's annoyance – and his ki flame became visible as well.  "Let's go then," he told them.

            Working with the strategy they had worked out for the moment, the Powermage cast out both her arms, raising and igniting her magic and shouted the Sumerian word for 'Immobilize'.  Or a synonym anyway.  Goku more felt than saw the wave of magical energy coming at him, but before he could fully react, it hit him like a hammer, and just as sudden as that, he couldn't move.  He was still powering up, his energy was skyrocketing, but he could not move his body!  What was worse was that he couldn't create a ki shield or even use telekinesis!

            "How long will the spell last Mage?" Slayer asked.

            "Long enough for us to power up our attacks as much as we can, and for me to prepare a few more spells," she answered and began preparing said spells.

            Slayer nodded and gestured for Watcher and Warrior X, who drew their blades, and all of them began to power up.  They had learned their lesson the first time, and they were not about to be drawn into close quarters when the time their opponent was frozen was still undetermined.

            Goku thought of going Super right off the bat, but even as he struggled, he felt whatever was paralyzing him weaken.  He would not let Mage trap him like that again.

            As he watched, straining against the magic that held him, Warrior X and Slayer were both powering the strongest Kamehameha waves that they had yet to date performed.  Powermage was doing something else entirely, but just from seeing it, Goku knew it would be no good for him.  And if she was going to try and transfigure him into something else . . . well, they were all in for a very big shock.

            Watcher was the most surprising, because during the reprieve of non-attack from Goku, he was not powering an attack like the others, but sitting cross-legged on the floor, meditating.  Knowing what he did about the Blades of Power this was not surprising, Goku's smirk deepened and with a final roar of energy, he broke the magic bonds holding him.

            At the exact same moment, Buffy and Xander released their building attacks.

            Goku was impressed.  Much better than the last time.  First off, they were working together more, and utilizing their strengths to what he hoped was their maximum, current, potential.  He had actually expected the Powermage to start using magic like this that first round they fought like this.

            Only having enough time to brace himself, Goku caught the two-joined-into-one K-wave, and for the first half of the floor, let it push him back before he started to push on it himself.

            As he held it to a stand-still, his feet just over ten feet from the wall, he admitted to himself that their power had certainly increased since the last match.  Just not enough to make even a combined attack powerful enough to singe the hairs on the back of his hand.

            Smirking, he powered up just enough for him to almost casually toss the K-wave up to the ceiling where it exploded with a blinding flash of light.  Using the flash as a cover, Goku dove into the fight, flying parallel with the ground straight for the Slayer Team.

            Despite the glare from the explosion, the Slayer Team saw what he was doing and burst forward on their own.  In response, Goku shot up in the air to avoid a head-on-head collision.

The Team broke apart, enclosing the Saiyan.  He grinned in appreciation, seeing their much better coordination, much to the annoyance of the Slayer Team who interpreted it as some kind of put down, not understanding the Saiyan's appreciation for good opponents to fight – there were so few who could measure themselves with him.

            "Slayer Strike!" Slayer exclaimed and a stake of pure energy shot from her palms. Goku twisted aside, directly into the path of an onrushing Xander who's feet were glowing and coming directly for his face.  Goku rapidly grabbed Xander's leg and twisted his motion and threw him directly at Powermage.  She moved lightly to the right, as Warrior X twisted around his axis and stretched out his hands. Powermage grabbed his hands, and twisted him around, throwing him back at Goku.  Goku blocked one of Slayer's punches, and then Xander's glowing foot smashed directly into his face, twisting Goku around counter clockwise, while Willow, Buffy, and Xander repositioned themselves.

            Watcher came in with a yell, letting Nightblade slice down with incredible speed. Purely on his sense of ki, Goku shifted to the left, and then smashed his elbow against the sword's flat side right as it zipped by.  He brought his arm back, hitting Giles in his stomach. The watcher doubled over, but refused to let the pain slow him down. He moved with his momentum, and twisted around the arm, using it like a gymnastics beam. He let go of the sword, letting it float in mid-air for a moment, grabbed Goku's hand, twisted around and pulled the Saiyan over his shoulder.

            Goku wasn't surprised, but he was most certainly pleased with his students' improvement. Watcher held onto Goku's arm for a moment, maneuvering him right into the onrushing Warrior X and Slayer, with above them Powermage floating in air, chanting a spell and having a big dangerous looking red ball of magical energy in between her hands. Goku could choose, defend himself against the kicks, or the ball of energy. He chose the ball of energy. He raised his chi, his arms crossed up in front of his face. Slayer's kick, and Warrior X's chi kick – foot glowing with dangerous energy – smashed into Goku's stomach. Pain blossomed in his abdomen and he let out an 'oompf'. The two warriors twisted aside so Willow's ball of energy didn't hit them, and instead hit Goku at practically the same time. The ball pushed Goku down and then exploded powerfully, the shockwaves sending Goku down all the way to the floor.

            Goku did a somersault just before he hit the floor and landed on his feet. He got up and looked up at his star pupils, and grinned deeply. "All right, now this is what I'm talking about. Warm-up over," he said, and then with a roar powered up to his max without transforming, "Let's get the real match going."

            "Oh, you'll get your real match," Xander growled, and his friends nodded.

            "Team, let's do it!" Buffy half ordered, half suggested. They all gave a nod, and then with a roar – except the ever-poised Giles – their ki flames became more intense, wind whipping around them as they powered up to their own max.

            Goku knew better though.  Of all the people that he had ever trained at the Compound, he's never known anyone like Buffy.  She was like him, and not just in personality either.  She felt her blood sing when she fought, she knew how to fight and how to follow her instincts as much as her training.  She would hold just a little bit back, just like she did the last time they fought.  And seeing how much they had improved in fighting so far since then, he relished the aspect of facing her singly again.

            He smirked at them and calmly waited to see what they would try first before going in there and busting heads together.

            They flew down in a straight line, arrowing for the demi-Saiyan until they got just within range and then Slayer flew off to the left while Warrior X flew to the right and Powermage and Watcher came parallel with each other and rushed Goku.

            Slayer, from the left side started throwing ki ball after ki ball at him, apparently trying to blind him from the actions of the others, while Warrior X from the right side was firing a ki beam, which was dispersing on his ki shield.  Again, a tactic to blind him from the actions of Powermage and Watcher.

            Goku neatly dodged Watcher's attempt to attack him with his Blade, but that actually put him in the path of Powermage's oddly glowing hands, which was quite obviously a magical attack of some kind.  Like a strange after effect, Goku heard Willow's voice cry out, "Elemental Power Spirit Attack!"  Didn't change the fact that he was blasted away from them and feeling like he was getting pelted with sharp rocks, getting burned alive, cut by razor sharp winds that could strip a rhino to white bones in seconds, and drowned in water that burned as much, if not worse than the fire.

            Slayer stared, smiling brightly as she landed beside her best friend.  "Awesome!" she exclaimed.  "What kind of spell is that Wills?"

            "Wasn't a spell," the Powermage answered breathlessly.  Her energy wasn't affected, but it was quite an exertion to launch such an attack.  "It's a chi attack, like you're Slayer Strike, or Xander's Spirit gun thing.  Only I use the spirits of the four elements to power it and . . . well, you can see the results."

            "No kidding," Warrior X stared, seeing Goku pinned up against the far wall, smoke rising from him and the charred crater around him.  A black streak in front of him reveals the path that Willow's attack took him.

            Suddenly, Goku's eyes snapped open, and his energy levels blasted back to where they had been.  Everyone on the Slayer Team gulped, and Giles gripped Nightblade just a little bit tighter.

            "Xan, we're going in.  Giles, protect Willow.  Wills, see if you can come up with a succession of those attacks, or several that are even more powerful.  We need to win this, now!" Slayer shouted as she ignited her ki flame and launched herself towards Goku, who was still getting out of the crater Powermage had blasted him into.  Warrior X was right on her tail.

            "Now that . . ." Goku said as he landed on his feet, " . . . was a very . . ." he stood straight and clenched his fists tight, " . . . very . . ." he took a step forward and half a moment later Buffy and Xander were right in front of him, " . . .very good tactic!" he shouted as he side stepped both attacks and spun a couple roundhouse punches into their faces, knocking both of them to the wall on either side of his crater.

            "Distracting me with feints and blinding attacks while setting me up with a two fold primary attack.  And a damn powerful one at that.  I see much improvement," Goku smirked at them.

            Slayer actually growled and she felt that same super-adrenaline surge that had kept her going the last few times she fought Goku.

            "Shut up!" she said as she punched him in the face, actually knocking him back a few steps.

            "I'm complimenting you, and you tell me to shut up?" Goku asked as his head dodged around all of the punches Slayer was trying to hit him with.

            Watcher had caught up with his teammates by this time and Goku was forced to alter his dodging tactics, given that avoiding a well-used blade is very different from being in a fist fight.  Warrior X also joined in on the fray, giving Goku a whole slew of problems as both Slayer and Warrior X weren't the amateurs they were when they first got to the Compound, and Watcher is a living terror with that blade in his hands.

            He had to abandon the avoid tactic and blocked or reversed most of Slayer and Warrior X's attacks, and mostly worked to get away from the ebony slashes of the Watcher.

            Suddenly, he knew what they're doing, and grinned at them to communicate that he is aware.  Half a second later, Xander flinched back, like he was half-ready to dodge out of the way of something.  From the way he flinched, Goku easily figured the direction the blindside attack would be coming from.

            Ducking under a horizontal slash from Watcher, he then backflipped upwards, rotating several times to avoid Slayer's sweep kick and Warrior X's roundhouse kick.  A half a second after that, he flashed away to the direction opposite where X had indicated the attack would be coming from.

            "Surprise!" he suddenly heard just behind and above him.

            Genuinely startled, he turned and stared, only seeing Powermage fire a green energy beam that looked like two beams with one spiraling around the other.  Again, the very moment it hits him, almost point blank in the torso, he hears that ethereal after effect of Willow's voice shouting, "Special Cannon Spirit Attack!"

            It felt like he was getting drilled through by the hardest known substance there was.  Before he could even be blasted all the way to the ground, Willow repeated the attack with her other hand, sending another blast through his torso, and then she shot another with the original arm, and then another with her second.  Four attacks send the Saiyan careening for the floor, creating not only another crater, but tearing up the force-field enhanced floor as they knocked him a few more meters past the impact point.

            Stunned, briefly, he forced the energy needed to look down at whatever injury he had from the attacks.  He almost counted himself lucky as he only saw that it had ruined his tank top by burning a hole that showed his slightly reddened abs through it.

            Glaring back up at the Powermage, he now designated her the prime threat in the bout, and figured a plan to take her out as quickly as possible, if only to save himself further embarrassment.

            Kipping to his feet, ki shield up, to help him deflect any further energy or magic attacks from the Powermage, Goku jumped up and flew at top speed for the magic user.  Just before he got there though, Slayer came almost out of nowhere.

            Goku blocked her initial attack, and backed up slightly to give them both some fighting room.  He hadn't expected her speed to increase so greatly!  Deciding to test her reaction time, he started to force her into a kata, a pattern that her implant should help her into quite nicely, and then when she's set into the pattern, he'll change it on her and K.O. her, taking her out of the match and the others to carry on without her.

            The punch, kick, block pattern came quickly and easily for both of them, but Goku realized his mistake quickly when Buffy did not hold to the pattern.  In fact, she did everything in her skill bracket, which was considerable, to punch, kick, and block him in the most difficult and flare dramatic way she could and still get away with keeping up with the pattern he's holding.

            This all happened in about two or three seconds, and both warriors had already traded over a hundred blows.  Knowing she's adapting just for the sake of being adaptable, Goku was forced to change tactics once more when Powermage and Warrior X joined in the fight, Watcher barely a second behind them.

            The others didn't have the speed advantage that Slayer did, but Warrior X seemed intent on carrying more strength with his blows rather than speed, while Powermage, not used to the physical combat, entirely, utilized superior agility, dodging, weaving, and striking and moving back again wherever she could before Goku could fully react to her.

            Watcher soon joined in on the pile up on the Saiyan, and while before, and even now, Goku expected them to be hitting each other as much as him, or at the very least trying to avoid hitting one another, they moved as one, avoiding or just missing being hit by their team mates and all without taking one single fraction of power from their attacks.

            'Now this is a team,' he thought to himself as he raised his power again, putting forth the new energy into a wave of energy that he used to blast them away from him with a shout.

            As before, they were blown back, but not as far as they had been the first time he did that, and Slayer . . . she was only knocked back a good five of six feet before she charged in again, moving as fast as ever, only hitting just a little bit harder.

            "We need a new tactic," Giles pronounces, "Buffy can't keep that pace up forever."

            "Any suggestions Watcher?" Xander asks, sounding quite serious.

            Willow's eyes widened suddenly and gathered the other two near to her and tells them, "I've got an idea.  Keep him distracted.  Go help Buffy.  And try to keep him in one place if you can.  This is gonna take a little bit of..." she giggles suddenly, grinning, "... time."

            Confused, but willing to go along with their magic user's idea, the men shrugged towards one another, nodded to the Powermage, powered back up, and launched into the air to help Slayer against the Saiyan.

            Not taking anymore chances, Warrior X drew his sword and went in swinging with it.  Slayer managed to see him out of the corner of her eye, as well as feel his and Watcher's approach, and moved her head into just the right position so that X's sword only whistled by her ear rather than cut her anywhere as it aimed in on Goku's neck.

            Unfortunately, the 1/8th Saiyan saw Xander coming full on and leaned back so that he actually had a full centimeter between the blade and his skin.  He leaned back forward and tilted his head at an angle to simultaneously dodge Giles' strike and Buffy's punch.

            With a little more maneuvering, Goku managed to avoid both men's swords for a few more strikes while narrowly dodging Slayer's closer and closer attacks.  It was really quite amazing, he mused as he brought forth his full skill in 'not getting hit' and watched as with each move, each exercise of her muscles, every second of her attack and his defense, and each iota of her power, Buffy, the Slayer, became better and better, right before his very eyes.

            And he thought only Saiyans or demi-Saiyans could do that.  Or reincarnations of an annoying pink blob with an even more annoying name.

Willow finished mumbling her spell in the back of the fighting, focused on Goku, and then grinned in satisfaction.  Xander and Buffy, halfway through a double team move stopped and looked surprised at Goku.  Who wasn't moving a muscle, he just hung there. "What the . . .?" Buffy mumbled.

"Yes!!" Willow exclaimed with a satisfied grin.  Her three teammates turned to look at her.  "I froze him in time," she explained to them triumphantly.  "Now we can kick his butt uninterrupted, and the moment I break the spell - free him from his temporal prison - he'll get every single move we did on him all at once!"

Buffy and Xander were a tiny bit miffed that Willow hadn't let them in on that little strategy, but quickly pushed that aside – both realized it wouldn't have been good to rely solely on Willow's time manipulation abilities.  Besides, feral grins spread across both their faces, Slayer and Warrior in perfect sync: time for payback.  "You know," Giles stated, always the party pooper, "I can't help but feel this is cheating."  Both Buffy and Xander, as well as Willow looked at the Brit with disbelieving eyes.

"What are you nuts!?" Xander asked him shocked.

            "Are you kidding me?!" Buffy screeched at the same time.

That was as far as they came, a small rumbling drawing their attention to Goku. Suddenly the air around him vibrated and turned golden, and then Goku was no longer frozen – in fact he was no longer a simple Saiyan.  He just finished his roar, and his bloodthirsty, green eyes looked back at his students, who gulped when they saw the golden hair standing up and waving gently with all the energy that was flowing through and around them.

"Shit," Willow muttered, just before Goku flashed out of existence, reappeared in front of her and smashed his fist into her gut.  Xander, Giles, and Buffy looked shocked at the scene of Willow doubling over and gasping out in pain.

"Bad idea," Goku growled and then smashed the magic user down to the floor with a massive overhead double-handed punch that sent extreme pain through her back. Willow landed with a painful thud, and she groaned as she turned herself over onto her back.

"'Why didn't you just freeze him, and walk all over him, he's not a magic user,'" Willow muttered in disgust and then slowly turned herself back over and forced herself onto her hands and knees with difficulty from her pain. "Marduk, you bastard, I'm gonna kill you," she added groaning, as above her; the fight was going on full throttle, and the Slayer Team was /not/ on the winning side.

            Goku had been ready for Powermage's spell, having gotten a nice little preview of what she was capable of at the beginning of the fight.  The second she tried to hold him in place again he went Super Saiyan.  Because it was a temporal freeze spell, it was not instantaneous, but in the equivalent of a second in his frozen state, he transformed, and as expected, his energy wash alone was enough to neutralize her spell.

            Now the real fight had begun.  He wasn't fighting at his maximum power yet, but Goku figured if they could handle, as normal humans, the beginning levels of a Super Saiyan in what was actually a few magnitudes more powerful than it was in its normal environment, they could survive their first Tournament.

            What was surprising the heck out of him, as he blocked and dodged their renewed attacks, was that they were more than handling it.  They were practically meeting him head on.

            For whatever reason, whether they just weren't expecting it or they were genuinely afraid for their now immortal lives, during the first test, after he had gone Super Saiyan, the entire team, with the exception of Slayer, crumbled under fear and practically gave up.

            Now, it would seem they were expecting him to go Super Saiyan, and secondly, all of them were just as determined as they had been in the beginning to beat him.  As everybody at the Compound knows, a fight is only half of what happens in the ring.  The other half, the important half is mental.  If you let fear or pride control you, chances are unless your opponent is a complete buffoon; you're going to stand a large chance of losing.  And the same went for your opponent.  If you can make him just a little bit afraid, intimidate him just enough, you've got it in the bag.

            Goku had the first test in the bag after he went Super Saiyan.

            Now . . . well, it was no longer 'in the bag', but neither was it for the Slayer Team.

Punches and kicks were traded between Warrior X, Slayer, and Goku.  Watcher joined in the fray, slicing his sword down at the Super Saiyan. Goku bashed the sword out of the watcher's hands, flinging it flipping end over end until it embedded itself in a wall.  At the same time Goku fired a massive ball of energy at Buffy and Xander. The thing exploded right in the middle of them, and the shockwave sent them flying away from Goku.  Watcher extended his hand and a moment later his blade had flown back into his hands.  Goku parried the next sliced, and kicked Watcher aside. Then while Buffy and Xander were still recovering from the massive blast, Goku extended his hands, drew in his energy and screamed, "FINAL FLASH!"  The resulting release of energy was incredible, wide, raw, and almost all-powerful.  Buffy and Xander looked with shock at the massive beam hurtling straight at them.  The combined their ki into a powerful shield, and were flung back as the beam exploded with such force they were rattled through even with their combined shield.

This left Goku free to take out his biggest threat: the one with the most amount of techniques and abilities he could /not/ easily defend against, abilities that if connected and completed fully could be fatal: Powermage.  The mage was muttering a string of words, and fired a beam of energy at the Super Saiyan intending to turn him into a toad or something worse.  Not surprisingly, after Goku had freed himself from her time freeze, he smacked the beam aside and then rammed a fist into the mage's stomach, doubling her over. Then he slammed her down to the ground with a double-handed hammer blow. The Powermage groaned in pain at the impact of the hands, and more so when she crashed painfully to the ground. Goku then blasted down, and as Willow weakly fluttered open her eyes, she whispered, "Oh . . . crud."  A moment later Goku's foot crashed straight through the redhead's stomach, coming out the other end.  Coughing up blood she lifted her head, seeing the hole the Super Saiyan had made and muttered, "Shit."  Then her head slumped and she died.  Willow was out of the fight, even if the Powers did revive her before the fight was over, which was doubtful according to Goku, a hole that size took some time healing up.

The Super Saiyan turned around and looked at the shocked remainder of Team Slayer, who looked at their fallen comrade. Then their faces turned grim, and Goku knew he was in for one hell of fight. Good! He smirked, and said, "Now that the weakling is out of the way, we can have ourselves a real fight. Let's go."

            Buffy stared, briefly stunned at the display of casual brutality from the man that was supposed to be helping them to become stronger.  In her conscious mind, she knew that eventually Willow would be OK, every other part of her was screaming in outrage that first of all her best friend, Willow Rosenberg, computer expert, Powermage and all around very nice person, had been killed in cold blood.  Second of all, GOKU HAD KILLED WILLOW!!

            A terrifying, bloodcurdling scream literally rocked the Main Gym.  A tremor that knocked several of those standing on the floor (in the observation dome) onto their asses, and even made the air tremble slightly, making those in the air turn towards the source in alarm.

            Buffy, the Slayer, stood about ten feet above the floor, hovering in the air, but facing the rather gory display of her best friend's body.  Her ki flame was raging around her like it never had before, the only true outward display of the girl's pain and anger.

            As they all just stared, too shocked at her outburst to do anything at this moment, Slayer's power began to rise, even more than it had before.  Even more, much to the shock of all the men watching, than the girl's power had been in the Slayer Team's private training sessions.  Goku especially was shocked at the level of power his prize pupil was displaying.  He never expected her power to rise this much even in the entire 6 weeks that they were here!

            Buffy screamed in pain and rage again, and it was immediately followed by a very large spike in her ever-rising power level, and at the same time that an even longer tremor passed through the Main Gym, something . . . changed about the Slayer's ki flame.

            Goku was the first to notice it, and he pushed himself off the floor and into the air, although away from the raging Slayer, not sure what she would do next.  Then, she screamed, and her power rose even higher, again and whatever happened to her ki flame happened again, only a little bit longer this time.

            The tremors didn't stop this time, but just kept getting worse and worse as the Slayer's power kept rising slowly, but it just didn't stop going up, or even slowed enough to call it a pause.  Goku's eyes went wide with amazement when she let out a fifth, terrifying, heart-wrenching scream, which seemed hollow and went on for far longer than the others did.  Because Buffy's power had just surpassed Ryu's maximum power and was rapidly approaching his alternate twin, Broly's power level.  Untransformed of course.

            The flicker in Buffy's ki flame was no longer a flicker.  Instead, it was like an inner flame was struggling with the ki flame that raged around her now, trying to burst forth and be free.  A sharp, golden color, not too dissimilar from Goku's own ki flame, surrounded Buffy's body and was throbbing as it kept trying to push the colorless, angry ki flame she had displayed up until that point, out of the way.

            Goku knew he should be doing something, even if only continuing the match with Xander and Giles, but . . . he couldn't.  This . . . whatever was happening to Buffy, it was too important, too fragile, and far too beautiful to risk distracting her now.  Not when she was on the cusp of reaching and attaining a power that she had only ever dreamed of before.

            With a final, terrifying scream, and with the tremors reaching the highest point and it felt as though the entire building the Main Gym was in would topple over any second, the golden glow around Buffy's body intensified to a near-blinding point before exploding outwards in a wave of energy that rivaled just about everything Goku had yet thrown at the Slayer Team.

            When everyone could see again, the shakes had stopped, the screaming had quit, and Buffy hovered there in the air, tears streaming tracks down her soot-covered face, and a bright, airy yellow gold ki flame surrounded the Slayer!

            Half an instant after it took everyone to take all that in, she disappeared, moving so fast that everybody lost track of her for several moments.  Even Goku couldn't track her until she landed her fist in his stomach, doubling the Super Saiyan over from both the speed and the strength at which the attack had landed.

            While he was reeling from that pain, Slayer doubled her fists up and brought them down as fast and as hard as she possibly could, her arms surrounded by the yellow fairy-fire of her life force, to the middle of his back, knocking him down into the floor, which caved in a little from the pressure being exerted on it with a small crater about the size of Goku's body.

            Seeing that their foe would not be moving for several seconds, Buffy flew higher into the air, staying directly above Goku and started pooling her energy towards an attack.

            Warrior X and Watcher both saw this, and quickly decided to lend their own attacks towards the effort.  So, Xander flew around off to the side while Giles flew closer to the downed Super Saiyan and began prepping his own Kamehameha wave.

            Xander, more for variety and the off chance of causing more damage to the man that had just blatantly killed one of his best friends, charged a different attack.  He could now, thanks to both Buffy's and Master Fong's training sessions, perform the Spirit Gun attack several times a day, with differing levels of power behind it.  Of course, with all of his power behind each, he could only pull it off about five times before his spirit energy was tapped out and he had to rely solely on ki and physical energy to continue.

            Goku groaned in pain, getting to his knees and rubbed his stomach a little where Buffy had punched him.  That had hurt!  A lot too.  And he was a Super Saiyan.  With his ki shield up . . .

            That had been what really surprised him.  The only way that Buffy's fist could have reached him, like it did, and cause this kind of pain, was if her own ki shield had been of perfectly equal frequency and amplitude but of exact opposite phase to his own ki shield - thus the two canceling each other out . . . or slightly more powerful than the one he had been projecting.

            He was gonna go with slightly more powerful, since the fact of anybody matching ki energy frequencies and amplitude but opposite phase with an opponent in the middle of a fight was so outrageous that . . . no, she just got a major power boost and he had underestimated what that had done to her energy.  That was all.

            Several energy spikes around him suddenly caught his attention and he looked up just in time to see Giles finishing powering up his own kamehameha attack, and on the other side, Xander was pointing his finger like a gun at him, which could only mean one attack in particular, and then he shifted his attention to the largest spike he sensed, and he couldn't repress a slight shiver and a gulp of anxiety at the level.

            Students should not be THIS powerful!!

            Maybe by the time of the Tournament, after the end of this initial Training, three more months on their homeworld, and even an additional re-training session thrown in there adding another week.  But before the initial training was even through?!!

            "KAMEHAMEHA!!" Giles screamed, firing a blinding bluish white energy wave directly at the stunned Super Saiyan.

            "SPIRIT GUN!" Xander shouted himself as he "pulled the trigger" in his mind and a large, bright red burst of energy shot out, homing in on Goku himself.

            Above, the Slayer was gathering all of her energy, all of it; ki, chi, it didn't matter.  She was not going to let Willow's cold-blooded murder go unavenged.  Even when it felt like her entire body was about to burst or self-destruct with the amount of energy she was building up, she kept gathering even more of it for striking down the golden haired monster that had killed her best friend.

            Even as she watched Giles and Xander fire their own attacks, knowing that neither would do any good as she kept her eye and really all of her senses on the target, she pooled every last drop of her power into her next attack.

            As before, despite feeling like she was going to erupt any second from all the energy, a sudden knowledge struck the rage-filled Slayer.  Knowledge which she used, taking the last of her energy and focusing all that she had gathered between her cupped hands at her side.  The energy, first just a trickle of power, then a river, and then she let loose the floodgates.

            As everyone watched, a small molten ball of yellowish energy formed between the golden Slayer's hands as she hovered directly above the Super Saiyan.  It grew to about the size of a large softball, except made of energy and very, very bright.  Almost too bright to look at.

            As Goku was just getting to his feet, and Watcher and Warrior X's attacks were well on their way to him, Buffy's face twisted in anger, and maybe even with the effort of delivering her latest attack.

            Throwing the ball of energy like it really was a softball, directly at Goku, the Slayer shouted, her voice echoing with the level of power she had gathered and was using, "SLAYER FLASH!!"

            The ball of energy flew downward fast.  Faster than anyone expected it too.  And certainly faster than even a Super Saiyan at present level could react to, as he only had time to look up before it was upon him.

            Even as Giles and Xander's energy attacks were mere feet from striking Goku dead-on, Buffy's Slayer Flash came to rest about one foot directly above the gold fighter's head.  And then it exploded.

            All of a sudden, everyone understood why the small little ball of energy was so bright and difficult to look directly at.

            The Slayer had just created a miniature sun.

            The ball of raw plasmatic energy reached Goku, who raised his ki shield. At that moment Xander's and Giles' energy attacks hit Goku, and he took the brunt, as the Slayer's attack hovered there eerily, producing an odd high pitched sound full of devastating potential. While Goku was still protecting himself from the two combined attacks, something stirred in 'Slayer Flash' mini-sun. Even Buffy looked astonished at it, her instincts telling her the results would be devastating but not fully understanding what would happen. The ball expanded in size, sending out small pulses of raw energy in shockwaves, but they didn't really do anything. Then the mini-sun darkened rapidly, blackness engulfing its insides; the mini-sun was undergoing a mini-nova! Suddenly it collapsed in on itself, shrinking rapidly, another instant later it was reduced to a pinprick, and then . . . all went white.

            The entire gym was reduced to a white glare, everyone closed their eyes against it. Goku raised the power in his ki shield, Buffy, Giles and Xander quickly following his example. Then from pinprick from whence the light had come, the massively powerful yellow shockwave of energy was released. The whole room was reduced too a deafening sound as the sphere of energy expanded with incredible speed. It blasted against Goku's shield, and went through it before Goku could reinforce it. The lower part of his pants and the remainder of his shirt wrapped around his torso were shredded, and then the energy attacked his body, forcing him flat.

            The shockwave reached Giles and Xander then, and they were flung back like feathers in the wind. The soared back side by side, until they crashed painfully against the force field guarding the gym's walls. Buffy pushed against the shockwave with her hands, the energy washing around her, but it took every last bit of available power to keep herself from being swept aside like her two friends. Perhaps using that attack hadn't been such a good idea after all, she thought. The gym groaned in protest as the energy blasted against its shields. A few sparks at the generators indicated that they didn't come out unscathed.

Unfortunately, Willow was dead and unable to defend herself. She was pulled along by the shockwave not like a feather by the wind, but like a feather in a volcanic eruption. Her healing body bounced off two force field walls before coming too a stop, her body singed, her supposedly invincible blue jumpsuit becoming torn and ripped under the onslaught, leaving her with a barely modest strip of cloth across her upper body, and shredding her pants legs into strips, and leaving only a toga like wrap around her waist and whatever remained of her panties intact - if the others weren't preoccupied with trying to stay alive they'd have some interesting words about her choice of underwear for sure.  For once, Willow had foregone the leotard undergarment and put on a silk shift with matching g-string, green in color.

            Then, as fast as it came, the blast was over, leaving a crater and lots of smoke where Goku stood.  Xander and Giles carefully opened their eyes and looked at the column of smoke. "Did we get him? Did we get him?" Xander asked excitedly, the energy of the attack still messing with his sixth sense; he couldn't feel Goku's ki.

The three remaining living members of the Slayer team kept looking at the smoke, and as the charge in the air dissipated they slowly could feel again. "Apparently not," Giles said slowly getting up, as did Xander.

Goku came walking out of the devastation, his upper body naked, and his pants torn in many places. Bruises and cuts, and burns all over his body, but it was obvious the damage was all superficial, he may be looking worse, but he really wasn't that much worse for wear. He casually made some stretching exercises, grinning deeply. Tangling with a nova had made him forget all about his shock of the surprising strength and skill of his charges, now he was all Saiyan – loving every moment of the battle.

He was still smirking and stretching as he enthusiastically said, "Wow, you guys - especially you Slayer - are far more powerful then I ever expected you to get while training here. As your trainer, I must be doing something right!" He smiled at his little joke, and then the harmless smile turned to the dangerous battle smirk of a Saiyan, and he said, "All right then, time to kick it up a notch. You've only been fighting the low end Super Saiyan, so let's see how you fair against one a bit more powerful."  With a quick yell his ki flame returned, and then standing calmly he raised his ki quite a bit.

"No, fucking way, that blast should have taken him out but HE'S POWERING UP!?" Xander yelled out in frustration. "G-man, exactly how far does that bastard's reserves go?  Please, tell me it isn't endless." Giles uncharacteristically growled out in frustration.

            Buffy screamed. Her scream was filled with frustration and anger, it was primal, her Slayer instincts vaguely telling her she'd failed to protect one of her friends and that was absolutely unacceptable. She shot downward, her golden flame of ki crackling with raw power. She connected her punch with Goku, on his outer arm as he blocked it. Then followed a flurry of blows, each blocked by the Super Saiyan, who in turn attacked himself, which she blocked.

            Warrior X and Watcher's jaws dropped at the display, and for a moment they just looked at the two super warriors in awe. Then X got his bearings, his ki flame burning bright again, and hissed, "Let's go!" Giles brought out of his stupor, nodded determinately. X shot at Buffy and Goku, Giles right behind him.

            From a distance, and knowing Buffy would dodge successfully, Giles lashed out with an energy wave from Nightblade, a move that had surprised the Saiyan in their last battle.  As expected, Buffy easily moved out of the way of the oncoming wave of uncontrolled white energy.  Unfortunately, so did Goku.

            Xander, in a bid right after Giles' failed attempt, charged another full power Spirit Gun and fired it, focusing only on Goku.  And at a critical moment, just as the Super Saiyan was setting up to block another fury from the Slayer, the blast of spirit energy connected in his blind spot, adding another burn to the middle of his back.  The distraction of pain and attention was just what Buffy needed to capitalize to land a full fury of unguarded blows against the Super Saiyan, adding to his injury.  He quickly pulled himself back together however and resumed the battle with Slayer.

The two fighters quickly joined Buffy in attacking Goku, but Goku was far faster than the two, and so not in the mood. The last few seconds fighting Buffy had sent his Saiyan instincts in overdrive. He was facing a challenge – as long as he refrained from seriously powering up – something Goku did not face often. He wanted to measure himself with her, and Giles and Xander's interference most assuredly got in the way of that. With a double feint to his left, Goku went to the right. Buffy fell for it, leaving the two less powerful warriors all alone to the Super Saiyan.

Grinning Goku blasted a hole in Giles chest, sending him flying aside, killing him even before he smashed against the force field. Goku ducked underneath one of Xander's punches, smashed his own into his gut. Xander doubled over in pain, before he even knew what happened Goku had twisted around his axis, and snapped Xander's neck with a devastating kick, letting him fall unceremoniously to the floor.

            "There, just us," Goku said with a grin. Buffy saw her two friends slump in death, her golden energy crackling.

She screamed in indignation, screeched even, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!" and with that, flew at Goku with everything she had, and more. She pushed herself to greater heights with every punch raising her energy even if there was nothing left to raise it with. Goku was going down, it was that simple to her. But her punches did not often break through Goku's defenses and his all the more to her. She went into a cold fury, only the enemy and her rage was what mattered. Vaguely she heard Goku tell her she would never beat him if she was out of control. Satisfyingly she managed to land a solid right punch across his chin, making his head snap back a little, and sending him back. He pushed his feet out though, catching the unaware Buffy in her gut, sending her back as well.

            Xander, not instantly dead as everyone had thought, was mere moments away, but for the moment his paralyzed body was watching Buffy fight on with a fury and wildness he had never seen in her before.  And he also knew, from her erratic movements and her slowly dwindling well of energy, that she was letting her instincts take control.  Something he'd had trouble with from the beginning and had worked to control ever since.

            If this kept up, they would lose even worse than they had the first time!

            Determined to help his friend in some way, any way, he cast his mind out for any possibility, no matter how crazy or remote.  Suddenly, at his call, a memory came forth.  Master Fong keeping him out of his body, and being able to go anywhere in the Compound, even into Giles mind!

            Together, with everything that had been drilled into him about energy control and energy transfer, a large part of healing with Chi Magicks is the transfer of life energy from one source to the one needing healing, Xander began to concentrate, remembering the words and everything else that he would need to cast his 'spirit' along with all of his 'spirit energy' out of his body the same way that Master Fong had done to him.  The key, first of all, was that had to be dead.

            Not a problem.

            Within moments of gathering his energy, Xander's body died, and his spirit was ejected from the mortal coil.  Not wasting any time, recalling what Master Fong had also said about the Powers reviving him upon death unless prevented, and even those prevention methods were extremely temporary, ghost-Xander quickly flew to the exhausted Buffy's tired frame, and without thought, possessed her.

            Actually . . . possess isn't the word.  Bonded with seemed to fit the description better, because that's what it felt like!  One second Xander was there, in her body, trying to figure out how to give her his spirit energy, the next, their energies merged in a way that should have been impossible, at least according to what Master Fong had explained to him, and then the merged energies pooled together and they easily doubled, before Xander suddenly found himself drawn back out of Buffy's body, and back into the darkness of his own.

            Buffy didn't know, or care where her new wind had come from, but she didn't let it go to waste.  Instead of wasting time on gathering the full amount of energy she could put into it again, she formed two, much smaller molten yellow energy balls in her hands, about the size of ping pong balls.

            With a shout, and throwing both her hands at Goku, Buffy attacked, "SLAYER FLASH!"

            As before, the smaller balls flew out faster than Goku expected, even faster, probably because they were smaller, than the original attack, each sphere stopping on either side of him before expanding to the size of large beach balls, and even quicker moving onto the nova phase.

            Goku had prepared, but still, being attacked by close range novas from both sides, at least half of each got through his defense.  As he was recovering, after the energy had dissipated, Slayer flew in and began another furious assault, which he heartily joined in.

            After a bout of attack/block, block/attack, Slayer finally saw an opening and capitalized on it while her super-charged brain also thought ahead of how Goku would defend or counter it.  She sent a roundhouse kick to his briefly unguarded ribs and simultaneously threw up her arm to block his counter-punch.  Unfortunately, she missed the second fist.

            The force of both blows sent both fighters flying away from each other, landing on the floor a short distance away.  Slayer didn't even land, as she caught the floor with her hand and cart wheeled herself back onto her feet.  Goku just landed on his feet.

            Taking a moment to breath, both warriors glared at the other and immediately got back into combat postures and gathered their energies once more.

            "KAMEHAMEHA!!" both warriors screamed and shot the two massive beams of energy at each other. The two blasts collided and struggled for dominance. At their collision point they grew in size as more and more energy was poured into them from both sides. The two warriors flew at each other at the same time, shortening the beam, but enlarging the middle part all the more. The both of them screamed out continuously, as only the middle part was really separating both. The middle part had already become twice as tall as either of them, and was flashing violently. Bolts of energy crackled out from it, smashing into the ground, or the ceiling, occasionally singing the warriors.

            "YOU'RE . . . GOING . . . DOWN!!" Buffy screamed with effort, pushing forward, putting more strain on the colliding energy.

On the sidelines Xander, Giles, and Willow were revived at almost the same instant, and the first thing they saw from their place on the floor was the raging battle of energy.  They could do nothing but stare in awe.

            After a few moments though, they became aware that the others were also now alive and awake and they soon gathered near to the 2-story window of the observation area.  Before they could really say much to each other, let alone even greet one another, there was another flash of energy from the still clashing warriors.

Even though Buffy could not see Goku, she knew he was smirking at her, and it drove her onward even more. Finally the energy could no longer be contained, and exploded outward in every direction. Both warriors continued onward, going straight through the energy.

            Everybody else in the Gym, mainly Giles, Willow, and Xander, weren't quite as fortunate and had to do a little bit more work to dodge being vaporized by the excess energy.

            "Holy SHIT!" Xander cursed as he flew upwards and tried to avoid one of the blasts of energy.

            Willow, seeing this, and knowing exactly what she had to do, concentrated and focused what remained of her magical energy.  Physically, she had been fully revived, but to fully revitalize her magical energies, it would require a great deal of rest and mediation after the battle finally ended.  But for now, she made due with what little remained, and suddenly a barrier shield came up between the rest of the Slayer Team and the still clashing Slayer and Super Saiyan.

            When several more of the blasts of excess energy aimed itself at the Slayer Team, it hit, and then dissipated against Willow's mystical barrier.  All across the rest of the Gym, everywhere the destructive energy went, craters or explosions of surprising magnitude flashed.

Goku's greater experience with this won over, and his punch connected with Buffy's cheek. Her head and body were flung back, sailing back, blood flying from her mouth indicating her broken jaw. The both of them somersaulted backward and landed on the floor. Goku was ready, and examined Buffy; her energy was rapidly decreasing.  "You can't win," Goku stated with a smirk.

Buffy lost it, completely this time, all she saw was red, and she growled. It startled Goku: the growl was not that of a human, but of a beast. Buffy was no more; there was only the Slayer, possibly influenced with some raging Hyena emotions as well, and with a burning need to defeat the Super Saiyan across from her.

Her body shuddered as it drew upon every last tidbit of energy it could take from itself and around her – adrenaline, hormones, instincts, ki, electrical signals in the brain, and even heat.  More energy than Buffy had any right to be able to handle, and indeed probably couldn't.  Buffy's ki flame crackled wildly suddenly, becoming shakier, uncontrolled spikes, and bolts of energy flying around at the outer edges.  And again, where no one, not even Goku or Buffy herself noticed, there was a tiny flash of gold light around her pupils, gone before it was even there to begin with.  With a bloodcurdling scream Buffy shot forward suddenly, faster then she had ever moved before. Goku's eyes widened, he was startled by the inhuman growl, now the sudden speed acceleration, and as Buffy came closer, her eyes - empty with the exception of inhuman blood thirst - gripped him.

Goku froze for just a moment and that was all the time the Slayer needed. A devastating punch connected with Goku's chin, right on the unguarded nub of nerves there, followed by a rather ominous crack. Buffy's fist continued onward, launching the Super Saiyan off his feet, and twisting him on his own axis through the air. He landed a moment later, side of his face first to the floor, his body twisting onward, no way enough to break his neck, but enough to twist his nerves even more, the combination too much. Goku's golden flame disappeared, his hair turned back to black, and then he skidded onward a few more meters, rolling over, before coming to a stop – unconscious.

Buffy bristled, breathing in and out heavily like a bull.  She was only vaguely aware that Goku had lost his transformation.  She took a step forward, determined to finish it . . . and then her ki flame flickered and died. Her legs crumpled beneath her, unable to support her weight any longer, and she sagged to her knees.  She had demanded too much of her body, it had literally self-destructed, boiled itself internally.  Her vision swam as her organs burned out, muscles ruptured, and her brain liquefied in her own skull.

Still, she was determined to keep going, the only thing she still felt was the need to kill and protect her friends that way.  Buffy was reduced to pure Slayer instincts and nothing more.  But determination was no longer enough, with blood flowing from her ears, nose and eyes, she keeled over, crashed with her face and chest against the hard floor, and lay still.

            "Oh my Goddess," Willow gasped as she stared at the suddenly quiet scene.

            There was a long and eerie stillness in the Gym all of a sudden.  And then Xander had to be Xander and go and ask, "Did Buffy just K.O. a Super Saiyan?"

            More silence.  Thoughtful silence this time.

            "Uh . . . yeah," Willow answered.

            "Does that mean we won?"

            This time, after another minute or two of eerie quiet, Giles answered, "Well, we were all killed, or died in the act of knocking him out . . ."

            "But."

            "But . . ." Giles added, "Buffy did, as you put it, K.O. him, so . . . yes.  I do believe we won."

            "YES!"

            Xander fell to his knees, his arms up in the air in exultation.  Then he quickly got up and started doing the Snoopy dance, chanting, "We won!  We won!  We won!"

            "Xander!" Willow snapped again, but he wasn't really paying attention, so she just ran over to Buffy's body by herself, examining the extent of her friend's injury to see how long it would take her to heal.

            What she saw . . .

            Xander finally stopped his victory celebration when he saw Willow suddenly fall weakly to her knees and start puking a short ways from Buffy's body.  Buffy's dead body, he realized as he felt the absence of her life force.  Saddened now, Xander sobered his celebration and started to go over to his friends, but Willow put up a hand that stopped him.  His concern for Buffy overrode his common sense though, to such an extent that he still didn't notice Willow's lack of attire, nor did she herself, or Giles.

            "Don't . . ." she started to say, but couldn't finish.

            Right about that moment, they all heard an unfamiliar groan, and it certainly wasn't Buffy.

            Goku was in more pain than he'd been ever since his first Tournament.  And remembering such an embarrassing moment in his life, only added to his pain as he struggled his way back to consciousness.  Wondering why he hurt so much, he went back over his last few memories.

            That's right, the fight with Slayer Team.  Buffy and him going full at it, and then . . . the change.  The more animal than sentient creature feel to the Slayer as she growled at him, and then she came at him with completely inhuman speed and hit him with a punch so . . .

            Oh.

            Goku wasn't very familiar with being knocked unconscious, but he did have experience.  Slowly, careful of his injuries, because apparently the Powers hadn't saw fit to fully heal him yet, he sat up, rubbing his jaw, which he was sure was broken, or at least cracked.

            Ever more careful, he hobbled to his feet and holding one hand to his ribs, the other to his jaw, he began to limp his way across the floor to where he noticed most of the Slayer Team was waiting and watching him.

            Despite the pain that talking would cause, Goku needed to assure them that the test was over, so risking looking like a wuss, he spoke, "It's all right," he said with a heavy wince, "Fight's over.  I was knocked out . . . so you guys win."

            That was when he noticed that none of the Slayer Team were particularly ecstatic, in fact all were very subdued at the most, and Willow was on her knees with a mess in front of her, crying.  His concern shown on his face, and after several minutes, she finally noticed and answered his look.

            She pointed behind her, where he finally noticed the still-laying Slayer, and said with a weak and trembling voice, "B-b-b-Buffy's d-d-dead."

            Goku nodded, being careful of both his injury and the redhead's emotions.  Then he gestured for her to continue.  "L-l-l-l-l-look . . ." was all she could say before dissolving back into tears and almost puking again.  Braver then she felt she should be, but her compassion demanding it, she crawled back to Buffy's broken form.  Xander knelt down with the body as well, and Giles walked to behind him and looked down as stoically as his emotions mustered.  Xander and Giles looked at the broken body of the Slayer, what remained of her brain running from her ears and pooling beneath her.  Half a second later, looking very green, Xander quickly turned back around and made his own mess on the floor.  Giles cried.

            Confused, Goku limped a few more spaces until he could look down on the Slayer's dead body, which should have healed by now he thought.  Until he actually looked at her.  Pale, and working hard not to throw up himself, Goku closed his eyes and shied away from the sight, turning back to the rest of the team.

            He'd never seen it, but he'd heard about fighters that pushed their bodies and their limits so far that they quite literally self-destructed after a fight.  And not emotionally, but their bodies just broke down, some organs and body parts exploding, others just wearing out and no longer able to function.  He couldn't imagine the force of will power it would take to do something like that.

            A golden glow faintly went over Buffy's body, and although she still looked like a mess, Buffy slowly, bit by bit, opened her eyes.  "You're awake," Willow said with a relief she shouldn't be feeling after so long with them reviving all the time.

            "Win?" Buffy croaked out with difficulty.

            "Yes, but you're dead," Giles was the one to answer.

            "Dead?" Buffy asked weakly as she was still healing up by the Powers immortality.

            "Dead," Willow said, tears still streaming from her face, but smiling. "As in your brains are leaking out of your ears."

            Buffy blinked and looked over.  As she kept looking, she saw Willow's breasts, her naked torso, and despite Willow's hunched over position, her silk g-string panties.  Willow noticed Buffy's odd look, blinked, and finally noticed Xander's lecherous grin.  Curious and concerned, Willow looked down and instantly her face was as red as her hair as she, in vain, tried to cover her revealed skin, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Nice," Xander commented, and Buffy managed a smile that was both supportive and filled with humor.

            "Panties during training?" Buffy whispered.  Giles of course, his ever-British self, had turned away, while Goku smirked at the bonding going on between the members of 'his' team.

Willow glared at her two friends, and told them, "Perverts."  She mumbled a spell and then, with a flash of green light, she was once again fully clothed.

*                       *                       *

Apartment

Two hours later, Buffy had finally been healed.  Since the Powers saw fit to restore her pain receptors last she suddenly got assaulted with a bunch of aches that probably wouldn't go away until she had a chance to properly stretch and rest. Goku had been healed too of course, both having needed a trip to the Clinic after the fight.  Despite the Slayer being dead, it had taken an unusual amount of time for her to fully revive.  Self-destruct deaths weren't typically an issue that came up in the Compound.

            They were all now sitting around the Slayer Team's apartment, Buffy pacing, Willow and Xander on the couch, Giles in a recliner, and Goku in a seat taken from the nearby table.  They'd been just sitting there, with the exception of the pacing Slayer, for the past half hour, since Goku had been released from the Clinic.

            Finally, the impatient blonde couldn't take the silence anymore and boldly proclaimed to the 1/8th Saiyan, "OK, so I beat you.  Yay me.  Now what?  I mean, you said we had to talk Goku, so we came here to talk.  Now what's to talk about.  I beat you.  Simple as that."

            "There's nothing simple about this Buffy," Goku countered seriously.

            "Then start with the simple stuff and we'll move onto complicated after we deal with the hard stuff, because just sitting around here staring at the walls is wasting time that we could be using to train!"

            Everybody stared at her in shock.

            "You can't be serious Buffy!" Xander exclaimed.

            "Buffy, what do you think it is that we just did, if not a training session done to the max?" Giles tried to figure out what was going through his Slayer's head.

            "Exactly!" she exclaimed.  "And three out of four were killed while the fourth died anyway while the opponent was only knocked out!  Beating you, Goku, has been our primary goal from the get go, but while I may have just done that, I'd rather be alive to gloat over your vaporized corpse than settle for the half-victory we got today!"

            Inside, Goku couldn't help the swelling bud of pride he felt for the warrior that had been his student.  Outwardly, he kept his face as neutral as possible and responded to the blonde with, "I'm glad to hear that I've had that much an influence on your training.  And I'm extremely pleased at how powerful all of you have become.  None more so than you Buffy.  However what I need to talk to you about is not about your training, at least not entirely."

            "Then what is this about?" Willow asked.

            "Buffy," Goku turned back to face the Slayer, "you have surpassed all that I could teach you.  I am no longer you, or your team's Trainer.  I'll be more than happy to train with you and even teach you a few more tricks if you like, but given what just happened in the Main Gym . . . you can only do better on your own.  You have the knowledge and the know-how to continue your training, and you yourself could continue to train the rest of your team, of that I have no doubt.  But the main thing is, I'm no longer your Trainer."

            Buffy nodded, actually looking a little sad, but she accepted what he said without complaint or argument.  Another way that she had matured, she realized internally.  And another way that she hadn't matured, "And the other reason you dragged us here to 'talk'?"

            Goku smirked.  "You still aren't strong enough to win the Tournament, let alone beat me."

            Just as expected, the others raised protests and made comments on how he was overselling himself, but Buffy just stared right at him.  After a minute of the noise, Buffy raised her hand and after a minute or two, the others stopped talking and stared at her.

            "Tell you what, let's go back to the Main Gym, I'm sure they've finished repairing it by now, and you will show us exactly why we can't beat you.  Unless you have a problem with that?" Buffy demanded.

            Goku, still smirking, stood to his feet and shook his head, "No, no I don't have a problem with that at all.  Shall we go?"

*                       *                       *

Main Gym

"No holding back?" Buffy asked for the fifth time.

            "No holding back," Goku agreed for the sixth time, just a trace of annoyance in his voice.

            They were back in the, repaired, Main Gym.  It looked as if their fight of just a few hours previous had never happened, or they were in a different place, but it was the Main Gym.  Nanotechnology was truly a fascinating wonder.

            All of the Slayer Team, and their former Trainer, were present and for the moment just standing in the middle of the Gym, apparently waiting for Goku to work up enough nerve to get rid of the last of his secrets and show Slayer Team his true power level.

            "I'm going to give you a lesson on the basics of the Super Saiyan," Goku told them. "I'll go through it step by step, instead of to my max in one go, okay?  Okay, then."  Goku transformed, the golden glow surrounding him, green eyes, and golden blonde hair.  Slayer Team watched expectantly.  "This is what you fought last time, and at the beginning this time."  The team nodded, no problem here.  Goku powered up some, and said, "This is what you fought at the end today."   The team nodded again.  Then Goku's power suddenly jumped immensely.

            "Whoa," Xander whispered shocked some.  The others nodded in agreement.

            Goku smiled, and said, "This is an intermediate step, Super Saiyan maxed out without going to extreme measures, simply powering up."

            "Extreme measures?" Giles requested dryly.

            Goku grin, with a little strain his power went upward suddenly, enormously upward.  His muscles bulged, until he looked like body builder instead of a sleek fighter.  "This is what some in the past – erroneously if you ask me – have called Super Saiyan stage two," Goku told, the wide-eyed team.

            "Goddess," Willow said looking at the Super Saiyan.

            "At this, most of your attacks would be useless against me," Goku told them.  The he roared, and his power boosted upward even more, and his muscles grew to ridiculous extreme.

            "Damn," Buffy said, looking at the impressive and even fearful sight.

            Goku told them with a little strain even, "This is Super Saiyan stage 3, or Ultra Super Saiyan, something a few called the true Legendary Super Saiyan – which is very false.  My power is immense, but it has a grave weakness, the bulk slows me down considerably, and makes me less maneuverable.  Against an opponent almost equal in power, mostly useless."  Goku let his muscles deflate, his power go down, and he was back at the level before the 'extreme measures'.  "So, my ancestor had to find a solution to that problem – his answer, not raw uncontrolled power, but gentleness, control," Goku explain, and then his power went up and up, the energy blasting past the Slayer Team's, any loose hair whipping about, much like before with the Ultra Super Saiyan.  This time Goku's muscles stayed the same, but there was an intangible quality to it now.  "Super Saiyan, full power," Goku explained calmly, giving them a smile.  "This is Super Saiyan maxed out, power at max, speed and maneuverability maxed out, it's all about careful control, and inner peace. Let me demonstrate."  Goku shot away with incredible speed, shooting left and right across the gym.  The Slayer Team looked astonished, and tried to follow him, but as hard as they tried, they didn't manage much more than a yellow blur.  They would be surprised if untrained humans would see more than an elongated streak.  Then Goku set down again, the Slayer Team looking astonished.

            "Shit," Xander cursed.

            "So this is you all out, huh?" Buffy asked a little subdued, her mind already racing, trying to figure out how to match Goku blow for blow. The Super Saiyan nodded.  "We've got one hell of a long way to go," Buffy muttered shocked.  Willow and Giles nodded in agreement.

            "Good, then you understand," Goku answered, he waited a moment longer, and then his power rose with explosive force.  The Slayer's Team's jaws dropped in shock.  'Let's do this the long way, give them a show,' Goku thought with a smirk, and then brought his arms out, hands balled into fists. He screamed, his power shooting upward with ever increasing speed.

            "Oh, no," an alien in worker's clothes, and with a companion said in a doorway in annoyance.  "We just fixed the place!"  A rumbling slowly started to grow, shield generators sparked, cracks started to form in the walls.

            "We deserve a raise, and statues," his companion said in irritation and awe.  "What do these damn fighters think they can do if they don't have us to fix their training equipment, huh?"

            Goku's power in the mean time was still rising.  His aura slowly became more intense, an occasional bolt of lighting flashed in it.  His muscles changed, they seemed more sleek, hardened, like unbreakable slabs of stone.  And the Slayer Team could only watch, and exert their strength to keep from falling on their asses.  The floor of the gym shook as it tried to cope with the new power, but to no avail.  Goku's hair stood up straighter, the electric bolts came with greater frequency, and then with a final push it was done.  A shockwave of energy was blasted outward from Goku's body as the transformation to next level was complete.  The energy wave pulled the Slayer Team off their feet, and crashed them against the wall – they felt the shield give way then.  The shields indeed could no longer handle the power increase and collapsed.  The once force field-enhanced windows of the gym were blown out, and the shockwave went onward, out of the gym, across the compound.  Windows shattered, air cars and hover equipment stalled, and people immediately looked up in astonishment, shocked.

            "The main gym," a few said, and they, and others quickly went to check up on what was happening.

            Across the Compound, Broly, training with his own team of trainees, suddenly looked up and smirked.  Without hesitation he called a halt to the training and set the coordinates on the MTC for the Main Gym.  He needed all the help he could get in deflating the egos of the super heroine team of protectors.

            Goku stood there, hands balled into fists, and a little outward.  "The Ascended Super Saiyan, or Super Saiyan 2 for short," Goku said his gaze intense.  The Slayer Team looked with shocked faces.  They had scarcely imagined power like this.  Goku's ki flame burned with raw power, pulsing with a dangerous intensity.  The lightning bolts sizzling through it gave the whole spectacle a sense of otherworldly power.   Several groups of people came filing into the gym, Broly and the Senshi Team one of them, and they all looked at Super Saiyan 2 Goku with awe.  "Now to max it out," Goku announced, and his power once again shot upward, energy washing over everyone.  The gym trembled, and cracked, and groaned as Goku's power rose beyond otherworldly levels.

            "Gods almighty," Mina muttered in shock as she had trouble standing with the building seemingly shaking apart.

            Slayer Team was pushing back at the incredible amount of power to keep from getting pushed through the wall.  "Fuck me!" Xander yelled out in shock.  "You wish!" Buffy automatically shouted back, despite being nearly overwhelmed herself.  Willow's lips quivered a little in fear.  Buffy shook her head in disbelief, and Giles muttered something unintelligible.  Above the gym, thunderclouds formed, and lightning flashed down, accompanied by thunder. Hailstones came crashing down upon the ground, the wind picked up into a full-fledged storm.

Finally Goku stopped his power up, and stretched himself out a little, relaxing.  Slayer Team looked at him.  "Fuck, that's . . . I guess we've . . ." Buffy muttered with her mouth mostly agape.  She was stopped by Goku's deepening smirk.

"Now, to ascend beyond the Super Saiyan ascended beyond the Super Saiyan," Goku said, as he bent through his knees, his arms went into a straight angle. "This . . ." with an explosion Goku's power rose even more, to the complete and utter shock and fear of the Slayer Team.  The electric bolts came almost continuously now.  " . . . is Super Saiyan level three," Goku said, and roared out. The floor and ground beneath his feet split open, the cone of energy surrounding him expanded, energy blasted out from him.  His hair started growing longer, his feet sank into the ground, and as the gym start rumbling even more the cracks formed into a star pattern and reached outward, tearing open.

"STOP IT!!" Buffy screamed out in some fear, realizing with a cold shock that Goku could probably kill them all with just energy he was generating from his transformation.  They weren't going to stay dead of course, but that didn't mean it wasn't a singular unpleasant experience.  "WE GET IT!  WE GET YOUR POINT, DAMN IT!  WE CAN'T BEAT YOU!!  STOP IT!!"

Several massively powerful lightning bolts shot from Goku into the sky, tearing apart pieces of the building's roof, revealing the blackened sky overhead.  The building started shaking more, before Giles was the first to realize that it wasn't the building, but the ground itself.  Then with a start, Xander figured the next one and voiced it, screaming in order to be heard, "FUCK!  HE'S MAKING THE WHOLE PLANET SHAKE!"  Giles, Willow, and Buffy looked back at him, shock written on their faces when they noticed he was right.  Outside, through one of the holes in the walls, one of the less sturdy buildings collapsed partially.

"WE GET IT ALREADY, STOOOPP!!" Buffy yelled again.

Suddenly the shaking stopped, the storm overhead calmed down - although it still raged on – and all suddenly became quiet.  Super Saiyan 2 Goku stood in front of them, grinning from ear to ear.

"Bloody bastard," Giles commented for them all.

TBC…

_________________________________________________________________________

AN:      FINALLY!!!!!  IT IS FINISHED!!!!!

Now for the cryptic, episodic ending questions that must be on everyone's minds by this point;

Now that Goku's true power has been revealed, what will the Slayer Team be forced to do to catch up with their former Trainer?

What will Buffy decide to tell her mother when they go back home?

Will Giles master the powers of Nightblade in time?

Now that Goku is no longer a full-time Trainer, what will he do?  Will there be anymore bouts between himself and the Slayer Team?

And the ultimate question, will the Slayer Team be ready for the Tournament, or are they going to die in 3 months time?

All this and more, answered in the next chapter; "The Last Week"

IF there are any true and depth worthy problems, you can always contact me privately at the.evil.guy@grandt.com and I have never meant to offend or discredit anyone in anyway with anything that I have ever written.  Ever.

All in all, this is meant as enjoyment, for me in writing it, and for you in reading it, and that should be my biggest concern.  Which it is.

So, please enjoy!

;

-- Joshua