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.

6. The Last Week

AN: Reminder, the updated part, if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, is after the line of dashes (-)

The Last Week:

On the eve of their 6th week in the Compound, Buffy awoke from a light slumber and even after her customary sonic shower, stumbled sleepily from her room into the main apartment area, only to see Willow sitting in the exact same place she had seen the studious mage in last night, on the couch, pouring over several mountains worth of very old books and scrolls.

"Willow! Have you been there all night?" the Team Leader exclaimed, concerned and aghast at the feat.

"Of course not Buffy!" Willow immediately replied without looking up from her reading. "About two hours after you went to bed I spent an hour practicing my magic skills and then spent a half hour after that regenerating. I've been like this since then."

Buffy just stared at her best female friend, unable to believe what she had just heard and was seeing. "What part of rest did you not get from the other day's lessons?" she asked harshly.

"What part of student of magic did you not get Buffy!" Willow snapped back, actually looking to glare at the Slayer. "You, Xander, heck, even Giles has it easy compared to me! All you've got to do is learn how to fight, and that's pretty easy to learn! The only thing you have to do is get stronger and faster and better. Strength, speed, skill, that's all that matters to you! But me? Me, I have to learn a whole dribble of meaningless facts that help, or at least give me a hint as to how to control, or at the very least manipulate the energies that I'm harnessing as magic!! You have no concept of how trying, how difficult, how extraordinarily hard it is to become a stronger magic-user, because I can promise you this, it is NOT as easy as becoming stronger, faster, or better!"

Once she was sure the redhead was done for the moment, Buffy coughed slightly and made a vague gesture towards the ceiling. "Uhm… Wills?"

Confused, and still flustered over Buffy's overprotective attitude, Willow looked up and startled. During her tirade, her emotions having already been rather high from the late hours and exposure to magic, her anger must have reacted with that magic because roughly one meter over their heads churned a black thunderhead, completely covering the ceiling from view, occasionally letting off a spark of lightning in it's murky depths.

"Oh! Uh… uh oh…" Willow began to panic slightly until she realized that all of a sudden Buffy was at her side.

"It's all right," she said comfortingly. "So. You do know how to get rid of this right? I mean, yeah, the ceiling was getting kind of boring to look at, and this does add a touch of flavor to the place, but you can get rid of this right?"

Buffy's babbling, whether she meant it to or not, helped Willow center her own calm. Now sure of herself and the panic strictly under control, the Powermage nodded confidently and exerted the necessary energies, while waving her hand for effect. The black thunderclouds dispersed immediately.

"Cool," Buffy replied, relief pouring from her.

"Sorry. I'm still working on my fine-control. It's coming along rather slowly. Slower than I'd like to tell you the truth," Willow admitted.

"But it is coming along, right?" Buffy asked, a hint of pride in her tone.

Willow smiled, grateful for such a wonderful friend. She nodded, "Yeah, it's coming along. Just… slowly."

"Better than not at all," Buffy clapped the girl on her knees before getting to her feet and walking over to the Bar to get some breakfast. After the last training session with Goku, the Technicians, or whoever was in charge of it, had finally turned off the alarm for the Slayer Team and allowed them full access to the bar, no limits on time or menus.

"Well that's true," Willow had to admit as she went back to her reading.

"You are going to eat something, right?" Buffy asked around her bit of toast, staring at the back of her friend's head.

"Yeah, sure," Willow answered distractedly.

Buffy squinted her eyes in suspicion.

At that moment Xander came from his own room and stretched languidly as he followed Buffy's example and ambled over to the Bar. "Has she been there all night?" he asked after getting his own meal. Much to almost everyone's surprise, Xander had seriously bulked up over the past weeks, making him just as attractive, or more so, than any jock the state of California had to offer.

"Pretty much," Buffy nodded, secretly eyeing Xander's butt when he wasn't looking. Barely containing the wolf whistle on her lips, she instead bit down hard on her last piece of toast.

"Should I talk with her?" he asked his Alpha. Xander had successfully suppressed, or at the least integrated all of the Hyena's worst instincts so that they no longer controlled him, but rather helped him out whenever he needed them. Some though, still made a nuisance of themselves. Like sometimes thinking of Buffy as his Alpha.

Buffy gave him a sideways glare, but returned her gaze back to Willow. "Only if you want to see what it's like to get struck by a lightning bolt or two."

"Stressed out?"

"Oh yeah."

"Gotcha."

"So what's on you're agenda for today Buff?" Xander asked as they sat back down to eat.

Buffy finished the orange juice she was drinking before answering her teammate. "I'm not really sure. Thought I might swing by Second Training for another try at the Tank. After that, I'll more than likely spend my time in the Main Gym until lunch. Why? What about you?"

"Master Fong," Xander said as way of explanation. "After that… See you at lunch?"

"Sure," Buffy answered. "And hey, if Fong isn't going to hog you for the whole day, how about we head to the private gym and go a few rounds?"

"Sounds great. I'm there!"

At that moment Giles came out of his own room, going straight for the bar like the others, but he did pause for a moment when he saw Willow at the couch, the mountain of books, if anything having actually gotten larger since Buffy first woke up.

"Has she been there all night?" he asked as he took his own place at the bar.

Buffy and Xander nodded, adding, "Yep."

"Shouldn't one of us…"

"No," they both answered together, shaking their heads.

"But…"

"No!"

"Well…"

"Three words G-man," Xander clapped the Watcher on the shoulder, "Light bulb. Your head."

"I understand, never mind that I said anything," Giles immediately turned back to his tea and breakfast.

Moveable Mess

Later that afternoon

Buffy landed gracefully on the patio of the large hover barge, which was the most popular place to eat in the entire Compound. Not often did the Slayer Team, at least since Xander started training with Master Fong, did they eat or even visit the floating kitchen. Buffy's excuse was always that she was too busy training.

A quick look around the rowdy joint told her that she was here first, before Xander at any rate. Having nothing better to do for the moment, she took the roundabout way of getting to the ordering line, walking by the chart on the "sponsored" arm wrestling matches, and was surprised that she was still in the top slot. What surprised her just as much was that Xander was in the third slot; third place.

Getting in line, she quickly picked up her menu PADD and chose a table that was semi-isolated, or at the very least had no people sitting there. Going through the options, Buffy picked a couple of her favorite side dishes, and then just for the heck of it, picked an alien dish for her main course. Thankfully her implant provided translations so she did know what she was getting.

One of the robot servers eventually came by and picked up her PADD and she gave it her order. Within a few minutes, she had her meal before her. Just before she could begin to eat it however, Xander came up behind her and said, while poking her in the back, "Hey Buff, mind if I join ya?"

Startled, Buffy screamed, and let her energy flare as her instinct told her she was being attacked. An energy blast flew from both her hands and exploded on the far wall, creating a very impressive, and charred hole. A few flashes of gold light indicated immortals being reborn by the Powers, and everybody stared at the Slayer.

"God Xander!" Buffy shouted, after making sure that she hadn't caused permanent damage to anything, (the hole in the wall was already regenerating with help from the repair nanoprobes) "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry!" Xander made to defend himself as he sat down, sounding truly apologetic at the same time. "Didn't mean to startle you, I just happened to be coming from the angle which was not in your direct line of sight and then spoke in a normal tone of voice while giving you a very light, non-threatening touch to the middle of your back. Oh, yeah, gee, I'm sorry Buff, how careless of me. Everything I did indicates that I was part of a devious plot designed to startle you."

The sarcasm was not lost on Buffy.

"Seriously though," Xander switched from goof to concerned in the space of a heartbeat, "what's got you so tense? Usually, you're pretty relaxed after you come back from Second Training. Taking a dip in the pool does that I guess."

Buffy frowned and began to eat, without looking at her friend or really answering him at all. Xander recognized this behavior, having gotten to know it, and Buffy over the past few weeks much better than he had in all the time before. He allowed her the time to gather her thoughts, but after he had already placed his own order, and she was half done with her first dish, he decided that was enough waiting.

"Buffy, what is it?"

Her fork paused halfway to her mouth, hesitated, and then settled back on the plate. Slowly, she looked up and met the Warrior's eyes. "It's almost time to go back Xander," she told him straightforward, sounding none too pleased about the fact.

Xander appeared stunned by it though.

"Wh-what? Really? I mean… gosh… has it already been…? Gosh. I… I don't know… Oh boy, wow. Uh… so… are, well, uh, well okay then. I guess… well, I guess we'll just have to make the next few days count for something, huh?" Xander nervously stuttered.

Buffy shook her head and looked back down at her food.

"I don't think we're ready," she confided in him.

He frowned in confusion. "For what? Going back home?"

She shook her head again, "No. For the Tournament. Three months after we get back home… we're going to be fighting our first fight, our first real fight in the Tournament. The Tournament Xander! I… I just don't think we're ready."

"Oh," Xander turned his own eyes downcast.

000

"Are you sure about this? I mean, are you really sure about this? Have you thought it completely, and thoroughly through? Have you considered the consequences? Not only to yourself, but to everyone else?"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, and…well… mostly yes, and kinda no on some parts. I'm blocking out whatever my parents would say when they find out. And I have no illusions about them finding out either," Willow answered dutifully.

Marduk sighed and nodded his agreement, which brought forth a wide and bright smile from Willow's face.

"We'll do it tonight," he verbally agreed. He turned to go, but hesitated at the last second and added, "And you will be sure to make all the preparations, I'm sure?"

"Of course," Willow answered reverently.

"Very well then. Until tonight," and with that Marduk disappeared.

Once he was gone, Willow's composure crumbled and she wailed in her mind, 'What am I gonna tell Buffy?'

000

"Wait, what do you mean a study session?" Buffy interrupted Willow's nervous babbling, which everyone had begun to think was history given the spell caster's new level of power and confidence.

"Well, it's not exactly a study session, but rather something deeply involving things and aspects of… of my power or powers that I've been studying, and…" Willow stopped, gathered her thoughts and took a deep breath all at once. "The main point is, I'm going to be spending the night and the rest of the day away from the apartment, and I will be with Marduk. Ideally I'll see all of you tomorrow afternoon at the earliest."

Buffy, Giles, and Xander just stared at their teammate, dumbfounded for several seconds. Finally, Xander asked, "Uh… OK. Care to tell us what exactly this thing you've been studying is?"

Frowning, Willow hesitated for many seconds, thinking things over in her mind, putting her entire brainpower behind the question posed before her. "I… do not want to tell you," she said carefully.

Confused glances passed around between the other Slayerettes. "Why not?" Buffy asked.

Willow smiled and replied instantly, "I want to surprise you."

Several more glances were exchanged between the other three, before finally Buffy just shrugged and said, "OK, fine. See you tomorrow afternoon." Just like that.

Willow blinked in surprise, and even Giles and Xander were doing double takes.

"Really? It… it's fine?" Willow asked, sounding as surprised as she looked.

Buffy nodded.

"Well, OK then. Um, I'll see you guys tomorrow," she waved, smiling brightly, before turning and disappearing in her teleport signature. (A flash of green light similar to Q from Star Trek TNG)

Giles and Xander then walked around and faced Buffy, crossing their arms, confusion quite clear on their faces. "OK, who are you, and what have you done with Slayer?" Xander demanded to know.

Buffy smiled slightly, but just shrugged again and calmly answered, "I'm not her boss. She can do what she likes, and if she wants to do some kind of magic experiment or whatever, that's fine by me. That's up to her. What matters is that she told us about it in advance and warned us that she would be absent for a night and a day. That way, none of us are worried about her."

Giles had to concede the logic on that, but Xander was not about to let the problem escape so easily.

"But she's going to miss tonight's training session, as well as tomorrow morning's with Goku and Broly in the Main Gym. The Slayer that has lived in this apartment for the last 5 or so weeks would not let any of us, especially Willow, the physically weakest member of this team "slack off" to do whatever she wants. Especially since that Slayer just this morning confided in me that we don't really have a chance at winning the Tournament."

Buffy just stared at her friend. Then she turned around and walked to her room. Just before she opened the door, facing the wall, she told both of them, "That Slayer won't win the Tournament. And neither will the Warrior X you're trying to be Xander, or the perfect partner for that sentient sword of yours Giles." She turned and faced them, "Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Willow are going to win it. We can't stop being who and what we are just because it might increase our chances at survival."

"Don't worry, we'll find a way. But until then… just try to remember who we are, so we don't forget when we go back," she added before entering her room, leaving the men to contemplate her words.

000

The next morning, Buffy found herself waking on the couch in the living room. Startled, and wondering why she was not in her bed, she sat up and looked around. Then she remembered, coming back from their nightly training session, and she decided, impulsively, to wait up for Willow, even though she consciously knew that her redheaded friend wouldn't be back until this afternoon some time.

She didn't know why she had waited, and as she stood up to work out the kinks in her back, she wondered what had possessed her to sleep on the couch anyway. In the mean time, she needed a shower, breakfast, and then she had to start her day. It was in the middle of her sonic shower that she remembered the scheduled training session with Broly and Goku in the Main Gym. Looking at the time, she knew she'd be early, but what the heck, she could get in a few extra rounds against the demons the Gym's computer could come up with until Broly and Goku got there. Same for Xander and Giles if they chose to come.

Grabbing a quick cup of coffee, to go, from the Bar, Buffy quickly made her way to the MTC and set the coordinates for the Main Gym. Surprisingly, the moment she stepped out of the glowing red portal, other than her there was not a single living soul in the massive training environment.

That is, until the computer recognized her, scanned her fighting potential, and used it's holographic interfacing imaging systems to create a life size Kortoth demon. A large, eight-foot tall demon with blackened scaled skin, lava-glowing eyes, and sharp horns, tusks, and even arm and knee spikes as well as a bladed tale. It growled out nonsense in what should have been the demon's native language, although it sounded more like the roar from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to Buffy's human ears.

The Slayer smiled, then cracked both her knuckles and rolled her head around, loosening up a couple muscle groups, before taking the steps forward to begin her workout.

000

By the time Goku and Broly got to the Main Gym, Buffy was in the thick of it, up to her knees. Literally, there were demon parts strewn all over the gym, and around Buffy they measured up to just past her knees. And yet still more demons, not just Kortoths, but giant demon snakes, and then there were these vampire-like things, only they had really big heads, talons instead of hands, and no hair, save for what came out of their pointed ears. When Buffy asked later, Giles rather blandly told her they were Turokahn, an ancient breed of vampire. The closest that there was of the first vampire.

Those, Buffy just casually ripped the heads off of or blasted them away with a Slayer Strike.

When Goku and Broly entered the gym, Giles and Xander right on their heels, the men all just stared for several long minutes while Buffy kept up her workout, although she still looked pretty fresh.

"Uh, Buffy!" Goku called out, distracting the Slayer just as one of the bigger and nastier demons the computer had created attacked her from her blindside. Growling to herself, Buffy glared at the demon, and then with a primal roar she powered up to her maximum, the golden ki flame exploding around her, blowing away all of the demon parts and almost vaporizing as well as blowing away the still standing demons.

In the aftermath, the computer just conceded defeat and made all of the . . . all that remained of the opponents, disappear. Buffy stood there, ki flame waving gently in its own breeze, her hair blowing wildly in the wash of her energy. Then she glared with a foul grimace in Goku's direction, and in the blink of an eye, she flashed to directly in front of him and told him, "Please don't do that again. Power up or let me know you're there before just talking like that. Good as I am, I'm not as fundamentally aware of your presence all of the time. Now, are we ready to get started?"

"You mean you haven't already?" Broly asked with a teasing grin, running his hand back through his purple hair to keep it out of his eyes.

Buffy just grinned at him and started walking back out to the middle of the chamber.

000

Much later, Buffy, Xander, and Giles all limped out of the Gym, while both Broly and Goku went out rubbing sore muscles, and not sore from muscle strain. The demi-Saiyans weren't injured enough to even considering going to the Clinic, while Giles left for the private Gym saying Nightblade was talking about this being a perfect time to learn some healing techniques the Blade needed to teach its bearer. Xander didn't really have a choice as Master Fong immediately summoned him from the Main Gym and Xander was forced to go on to the Chi Temple for more training. So, Buffy, alone, went on to the Clinic to get patched up from their training with the Super Saiyans.

After their initial encounter with Clinic procedure (Do what the nurses indicate for you to do or be knocked unconscious and have it be done anyway) the Slayer Team had gained a great deal more experience in how to get the proper treatment they were seeking. And even though Slayer's own etiquette lacked the refinement the "Doctors", if such creatures could actually be called that given their extreme lack of humanity, required of most of their patients, they still treated her and the Team.

The Doctors were all of one race, not found anywhere else in the Compound, or so the Slayer Team had been told, and treated everything that they encountered, even each other, like machines. Machines with no feelings, no emotions, and despite having expressions of and actually feeling it, no pain.

And the remark about no humanity, applies mostly to their bedside manner. Their loyalty to the Compound and their jobs have never been questioned, not even by the Slayer Team. It's just that after spending nearly a month and a half here in this alien environment, the humans chosen by the Powers had discovered, met, and even befriended hundreds of different species that were as "human" as anybody from their homeworld. Some were even better than several "true" humans they all knew back home.

And then they meet the aliens running and in charge of the Clinic. Sometimes it was easy to forget in a place like the Compound exactly where they were.

After a bout of intense massage therapy, Slayer got up and headed to the main walkway of the Compound, the usual way they took to get to the Moveable Mess. Only this time, feeling more pain in places she really didn't want to think about, she decided to just take a stroll along the way.

In all the time she and her friends had lived here, and it was lived, she had always been training, recuperating, or hanging out with her friends and doing one of the other things. She never just . . . walked along and enjoyed all the wondrous and amazing things about this place.

For one thing, the level of technology and architecture was decades, if not centuries beyond anything this 20th Century girl knew and was familiar with. And while the sky was most often a murky gray, sometimes, like today, patches of an iridescent blue filtered through the cloud cover.

A couple hours later, during which Buffy had even taken a walk through the arboretum, finally having done so after saying she had so many times, Buffy took an MTC to the Second Training facility, and registered herself for some underwater level exercises.

As she walked along to the lower levels of the Upper Half, dodging her way around the cluttered floor of testing and training equipment, she found herself caught by one of the first creatures she had ever met at the Compound.

"Well hey there Slayer! Long time no see!" one of the technicians called out as she passed.

Stopping, she turned and looked to see who had addressed her. She smiled as she remembered the short dolphin-manlike creature that had inducted the Slayer Team into their Second Training. "Hi! Chad, right?" she asked, trying not to sound too unsure.

"Chedwindallawhee! actually," he said, but grinned all the same. "I see you've developed that gift you've got about surviving. I heard about the Test. Congratulations."

Buffy grinned back. She didn't have to ask what the 'Test' was, she knew that was what most of the people were calling the training session where she had actually managed to knock out Goku, one of the greatest fighters in the Compound.

"Thanks. Hey, it was nice seeing you again, but I've got to get going. I booked some time in the Lower Half," she said as she started to walk away.

But Chad dropped what he had been doing and started walking after her, "Well here, let me escort you. Least I can do with the leader of one of the most promising Teams to come out of the Compound in a good long while."

"I do know the way. The Mariner gave me the full tour when he started to supervise my training," Buffy started to say, but stopped speaking when Chad looked up at her in shock.

"First Goku and then the Mariner?! The Powers must really have blessed you for you to receive such attention. I'm sure you've heard . . ." Chad started to say.

Buffy nodded, interrupting him, "Yeah, I've heard a lot of the stories. And then I've heard the facts from both men's mouths. Very rarely is hearsay and rumors ever truly accurate enough compared to the truth. Anyway, the Mariner graduated me the other day, and now I'm just getting in some practice time. I may have my ki and greater lung capacity, but he can still swim circles around me. I'm just hoping, with practice, I can get half as good as he is in the water."

"That would be a miracle indeed," Chad agreed as they took the lift from the main, Third level of the Top Half down to the Second level. The First Level, directly beneath them, was entirely submerged and was basically just a really big airlock and decompression chamber, and connected directly to the Lower Half, which was just as tall and deep as the Top Half, except that it was entirely filled with water. It had taken 4 weeks of time at the Compound before the Mariner had finally taken Buffy into the Lower Half. After a week of doing nothing but training in the Lower Half with the mutant, he had finally graduated her.

Half an hour after her chat with Chad, Buffy had worked her way through the airlock and past the fully submerged level into the upper parts of the Lower Half. The Obstacle Course.

Suffice it to say, the Obstacle Course was exactly that, except underwater and made for underwater exercises, and only covered the top 1/6th of the depth of the Lower Half. Bars meant for swimming around, holes meant to be swam through, walls meant to be swam around, and even a maze near the bottom part of the Course, an underwater maze, but still just as harrowing and dangerous as any maze in the Compound. Buffy's 'graduation' was preceded by her running every obstacle and passing through the maze, going down another mile in the water, and then all the way back up to the beginning, running through all the obstacles a second time, in a certain time limit. Her current record is 3 hours and 47 minutes and 19 seconds.

This time though, as she swam as quickly as she could through every obstacle, around every pole and bar, through every hole, around every wall, and going to every corner of the maze before going to the end she knew so well, her goal wasn't timing, but physical limit.

An hour and twenty minutes from starting the Obstacle Course, the fastest she had made it through the first round yet, she hovered over the inky blackness of the bottom 5/6ths of the Lower Half for a few seconds. Because of lighting, and the material actually glowing, the Obstacle Course was well lit, same as any Olympic or other kind of swimming pool back home. But from here on down, it would be more like the true depths of the ocean.

Pitch black, unable to see even your own body unless you brought your own light source, cold enough to freeze anything with a higher freezing temperature than water, and enough pressure to crush many known types of metal canisters. Even the hardest and densest material, the same metal her sword was made out of, would be crushed at the bottom most depth of the Second Training Lower Half.

Therefore, only the strongest ki warriors, with the ability to push back the pressure with their own energy, had ever made it to the bottom. Buffy, before she returned home, wanted to be one of those warriors.

Hovering just below the end of the maze, she stared straight down, unable to see anything, even with her Slayer enhanced eyes, almost as good as cats as far as seeing in the dark went, and she even had her ki flame ignited around her. Not to keep the water out, not that she would waste her energy on that without first learning how to convert some of it into oxygen for her to breathe. She only had it burning around her to enhance her muscles, and also to provide precious illumination to her light-starved eyes.

She still couldn't see anything beneath her.

Taking a metaphorical breath, since she was holding it, Buffy clenched her body, and exerted her energy just enough to ensure that her muscles wouldn't freeze on the way down, and then with another exertion of her energy, she shot down into the murky depths. From this point on, it wasn't a matter of lungpower, but energy control and strength, so using it to propel her to the bottom instead of just her legs wouldn't be considered cheating in the slightest.

Despite the heat provided by her own light and energy, she felt the overwhelming chill all around her. It was kinda scary, but kept her focused, through fear, on her goal.

Some can always keep track of time, no matter where they are or what they are doing, you ask them and they'll tell you exactly what time it is and however long it's been that they've been doing something, they'll know that too.

Buffy is not one of those people.

What was actually twenty seconds of her blasting down into the dark depths of the Lower Half, felt to her like more than two hours. With only the light around her body and only her own body to feel or mark the passage of distance, which was completely impossible since she couldn't see the edges of the tank, which actually were marked with the depth, and all she felt from the water was cold, not even a current, she couldn't tell how far she'd gone, or how long she had been going.

Finally she just thought of the obvious; start counting and then deduce the amount of time from the number she got to. By the time she got to 300, she had already gone one mile of the depth of the Lower Half. By the time that she got to 1,200 she began to get a little worried because she had been going as fast as she could, straight down . . . at least . . . she thought it was straight down. It was beginning to get hard to tell, and by her count, 20 minutes, she should have gone far enough to be almost halfway to the very bottom, but she still didn't feel any extra pressure. Her energy seemed to be more than strong enough to keep her from being crushed by whatever depth she really was at.

Doubt creeping into her thoughts, she slowed down a bit, and almost, but not actually, stopped. She mostly just stopped exerting her energy and let gravity and momentum, of what she could feel of it, continue to pull her down.

Meanwhile she tried to remember whatever trivia she had learned about the Compound, hoping to remember the exact height, aka depth, of the entire Second Training Tower, since the Top Half and the Lower Half were exactly the same size in all dimensions, if she could just remember . . .

Buffy suddenly convulsed, but not because of lack of oxygen, but she finally felt the pressure begin to affect her. Her ears were pounding and her skull felt like it was about to implode. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the Slayer very and suddenly angry.

With a silent explosion that was only heard at the surface of the water in the bottom of the Top Half, the Slayer's body let out a wave of energy that for a moment actually did light up everything around her. Even the walls of the tank, which showed a big 3.4 with the letters 'm.i.' beside them. There were other numbers, some for alien races, quite a few for human languages, but that was the one she noticed first.

'3.4 miles,' she thought to herself. 'I don't even know what crush depth is for a human but I've obviously passed it if my ears have anything to say about it. Time to power back up.' She decided and did just that. Instantly all of the pressure side effects she had been feeling went away like they had never been there in the first place. With another thought, she was speeding back down to the bottom at top speed once more.

She started counting over again, and this time when she got to 1,200, she didn't so much as pause and kept going. However, after having not seen or felt anything since her temper tantrum by the time she got to 6,000, by her count almost an hour, she began to get worried again, and wondered once more just how deep this went.

She was running low on air, this alone having been the longest she ever held it before, but she had never been allowed to go to her full power before either, and she was also taking the extra precaution, had been ever since before she entered the water, of infusing her energy in her blood with the oxygen, making it last longer. However she was also starting to get lightheaded and that meant she was only a half hour at most away from the delirium she had been told she went into when oxygen deprived.

So it was a really big surprise for the Slayer when all of a sudden, she felt something hit her nose and face very painfully.

It surprised the hell out of her, but no air. The Mariner had been extremely strict ever since that day Willow had surprised her during Second Training, and had almost completely ridden Buffy of the nasty bad habit of gasping for air when surprised.

She stopped herself and backed up some, holding herself still while she rubbed away the pain. She felt the tenderness around her nose for a bit, but apparently it hadn't broken, thankfully, and she exerted a little more energy to provide some light so she could see exactly what hit her.

If she was surprised when she hit it, that was nothing compared to when she saw a smooth, completely black surface directly in front of her face, and reflecting her own light. Worried that this might be either another swimmer, or worse some kind of trick, Buffy looked all the way around her, in every direction possible.

She froze stiff when she saw the glass wall not ten feet straight out from her.

Her eyes went wide and she double-checked herself, making sure she didn't feel any ailments or that her ears weren't bleeding or something else like that. And as near as she could tell, she was just fine. And on the bottom of the Lower Half.

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000

As much as Xander just wanted to drop dead in a corner somewhere after the training session with Goku and Broly, he immediately got a request to join Master Fong at the Temple. There was only one thing wrong with that, Xander knew.

Master Fong didn't give out "requests".

With a sigh, Xander programmed the MTC accordingly and quickly navigated the labyrinth of the Temple of Chi Magicks, and found himself back at the 'garden area' where Master Fong had once taken the entire Team when Buffy had requested of him to train them in the same Chi techniques he was teaching Xander.

"You are LATE!" Master Fong screamed at him the moment he stepped into the training room, straight out of an old Kung Fu movie.

"Yeah, I got here as fast as I could, what did you need?" Xander asked, finally having figured out what the deal was with the crotchety old Chi Wizard. He liked being crotchety.

"Your chi and spirit energy have finally developed enough to be taught three of the most basic chi attacks any Chi Warrior can use. Every Chi Warrior can use spirit energy. It is their weapon in battle. One more thing, demons use spirit energy to develop terrible attack techniques, much like Ki-users develop their own techniques. Humans can do many more things than just attack with spirit energy. But they can use it to attack as well." Master Fong lectured, pacing back and forth.

"One more thing. The three most basic attacks are the Spirit Gun, and variations, the Spirit Wave, and variations, and the Spirit Aura. The Spirit Aura has no variations, it is meant to supercharge ones body to inhumanly superhuman proportions! One more thing, the Spirit Aura drains more chi and spirit energy than the others and their variations combined! One more thing! Spirit Aura increases the power of one's muscles, so in a fight to increase power you must learn how to increment your energy. If you do not, you will not be able to increase your power! One more thing!"

"This is a forbidden technique?" Xander guessed.

Master Fong rapped him once on the forehead. "DON'T INTERRUPT!"

"Now, first, the Spirit Gun! Bring forth all of your chi, NOW! Then focus all of it to one point at the end of your fingertip! Hold up your hand!!" Master Fong continued to drill Xander as he focused his Spirit energy, as Master Fong had been drilling him in that for weeks beforehand, and began to direct it to the point Master Fong directed him to at the end of his right pointer finger. Strangely, it began to feel pleasantly warm, and then warmer still until he would actually call it hot.

"NOW!" Master Fong yelled, almost directly into his ear, "Imagine the trigger in your mind! Aim your finger at that big rock! Then FIRE!"

Xander did exactly that, having long ago learned not to hesitate or ask questions when Master Fong was in this frame of mind. As he watched, and aimed his finger at a big rock, about six feet tall that had been set up in the corner of the room, a faint red glow began to form at the tip of his finger, until he 'fired' that is. A bright multi-colored, but mostly reddish light suddenly shot out from his fingertip, right at the big rock, leaving a faint rainbow trail, until it hit the big rock, and there was a blinding explosion which actually rocked the floor, a smoke cloud filling the room following the explosion.

"OK, what was that?" Xander asked, coughing until the smoke cleared enough for visibility. Now he knew why Willow had shielded them that first day Goku had been demonstrating.

"The Spirit Gun technique," Master Fong answered matter-of-factly. Then he hit Xander on the head with his bony finger, and shouted, "PAY ATTENTION…!

Grumbling to himself, Xander sighed and did pay attention as Master Fong immediately went into the Spirit Wave technique involving using his entire hand instead of just a finger, which took Xander almost ten tries to do it even once, and a lot more practice before Master Fong said he did it properly, producing a similar explosion as the Spirit Gun had.

Then Master Fong started to explain the Spirit Aura technique. But, fortunately for Xander, he did not demand an instant demonstration from the young warrior. Instead, he went back and began instructing Xander how to do the numerous variations of the first two techniques, including the Shot Gun, the Shield, the 5 Finger Spread, the 360 Aura Blast, the Semi-Automatic (Xander's nickname for what Master Fong called the Triple Shot), the 1080 Aura Blast, the Full-Automatic (Hyper Bullet Spread), and the Force Spirit Wave. Each more difficult, and requiring more energy than the last to even perform once, but Master Fong wouldn't quit until Xander had done each perfectly, so by the time it was finally over, Xander was so pooped it wasn't even funny.

Breathing hard, and sweating like he'd just gone fifty rounds with Buffy, Goku and Broly, Xander stood before the ever calm and perfectly poised Master Fong in the center of the now-ruined training room, thanks to all of Xander's "practicing".

"I have one last thing to teach you, before you may retreat to your rest," Master Fong told him in a tone that was rather different for the Chi Wizard.

"The Spirit Aura," Xander guessed between gasping breaths.

Master Fong nodded. Now Xander paid attention, seeing as the old Chinese man hadn't rapped him on the head for interrupting like he usually did.

"Each person has their limits, and I do not need my chi-detector to see that you are near the end of yours. But in order to properly do the Spirit Aura technique, one must go beyond their limits, otherwise they will die when they attempt to perform it. After today, if you successfully manage this, you will discover that the other chi attacks I have taught you today and that you already know will become even more limited than they are by your level of strength. This will be a severe and constant drain on your chi, but if you can do it properly, you will never be in danger of losing your life . . . unless you lose the fight."

"Of course," Xander agreed.

Again, Master Fong didn't hit him for his comment, driving home to Xander exactly how serious this was.

"I am ready Master," he switched gears, bowing to show respect and his willingness to go along with it. With monumental effort, he also controlled his breathing so it appeared he was breathing normally now.

Master Fong nodded once again, turning away, a faint tear in his eye as he whispered, "I know."

000

In the Slayer Team's Private Gym, Giles was meditating. Again.

:You have grown much in your time here. Far more than many of your race ever accomplish. There, however, remains the fact that you can only harness and control only 15 of my power.:

Nightblade was speaking to Giles, as always, directly into his mind as he meditated there, but for once, the Blade of Power was not tutoring the Watcher in how to delve into his own mind and control his autonomic functions, or even on how to control temper and breathing control. For once, for the first time, Giles was meditating on his own and looking to find out his own limits. Without Nightblade's tutoring.

I am fully aware of what I have done. And I am aware of my limitations. That is why I'm trying to find out how much further I have to go. Giles communicated back to his weapon.

Nightblade just let out its version of a sigh.

:There is still much that I have to teach you about how to use me. But those lessons must wait for you to reach the proper level of strength and skill before I can even reveal what those are to you. So this . . . :

Is pointless, yes, you've said so already. This isn't about be having a magic sword. This is about how much stronger I can make myself. Buffy is right. We need to buckle down hard in these last few days. If we cannot beat Goku and win before we are returned to Earth . . . we'll have no chance in the Tournament. Giles sent back.

:Goku is one of the strongest fighters for the Compound in the Tournament. If you could beat him at all, there is absolutely no one in the Tournament you'll be fighting that you can't utterly destroy.:

Giles paused in his meditating, turning another fraction of his attention to the mental presence the living weapon was inside his mind. Exactly he replied with the mental equivalent of an evil grin.

Nightblade spent all of one instant of a microsecond thinking that over before he came to a decision.

:Then it is time to show you the levels of combat magic I can perform.: Nightblade announced, as he tended to do when teaching the Watcher another lesson in its use.

Giles' eyes snapped open, his mind snapping back to full consciousness as he repeated, aloud, "Combat magic?"

:Of course. What? Did you honestly think that I only was about making my bearer a perfect warrior that can use his life force and body and mind as pure weapons, enhanced through my own power? I can enhance your own magical abilities as well. I also have my own magic. And not the pure science that your Willow is studying, or the parlor tricks that combat mages in your world use. One might think of it as one of the stronger and more impressive martial arts of combat magic.:

Where do we begin? Giles immediately asked, getting to his feet.

000

Buffy just stood there for a minute, her ki flame still surrounding her, and her body in perfect control. Not crushed, or going into fits, or even being overly aggressive, as she had been told that's what she got like whenever she was oxygen deprived. There was a bit of a pressure, she could feel it, and the cold of the water, on her skin, but that was it. 100 Gs of her morning workout was harder.

Looking around, Buffy found that there really wasn't much down here. Until she saw something in the short distance, which looked kind of like a reflection of candle light. Seeing nothing else but black, she started walking towards it.

Walking was just like trying to walk in a pool, but for some reason easier than walking in a pool had been for her before. She guessed it was because of her heavy G-training. Though compared to the heavy all-encompassing pressure and resistance of her gravity training, it was actually a little bit more difficult.

Gravity just pressed down on you and pulled you to the strongest center of gravity. The water, in it's 10 mile depth pressure, was pretty much ebb and flow, but mostly flow. Half the time, when she expected her foot to hit the floor on her next step, she would find that the currents from her own motions kept her free-floating for a bit.

Finally she got close enough that she saw that the candle light was a lot more, and a bit bigger than just a candle. And it was moving towards her as she moved towards it.

'A mirror? Down here?' she thought to herself.

Not feeling an urgent need to get back to the surface at this exact second, and curious about it, Buffy kept walking towards the light. Corny as that sounds.

As she continued on though, she began to notice more of a soft glow around the light. Like there was more light around it, or just beyond it, but not as bright or intense, so it was more like a glow in the black water rather than whatever it was.

Maybe five minutes from landing on the Bottom, Buffy finally came close enough to see what she had been looking for. And it was her own reflection, of her ki flame at least, but it wasn't a mirror.

'The entire Lower Half is surrounded by a glass wall?!!!' Buffy stared up as far as her eyes could see through the immense glass wall, which, thanks to no lighting on the inside, was only able to be identified and seen through when you were a few meters away from it. On the other side, as far as she could tell, was a normal street of the Compound, whatever was on the outside of the Second Training Facility.

'No way is anybody going to believe me about this,' Buffy thought as she ran her hand over the inside of the glass. It felt like glass, underwater, but there was nothing special about it, until she realized exactly how thick this thing had to be to hold as much water as it did.

Oh I don't know. I believe it.

Buffy turned, and charged a little bit more of her power, her ki flame shining bright gold.

Not willing to waste the air, or the uselessness of it, the Slayer kept her mouth shut and just thought as loud as she could, 'Who's there!!'

In response Buffy felt an energy spike and almost directly above her, there was a flash of light. She thought it had a green tinge to it, but after so long in black on black water with only her own energy as a light source, it was difficult to tell.

Soon, quicker than she expected, the source of the energy spike approached her position, forcing her into a defensive fighting position until her eyes finally made out the figure in the dim lighting provided only by the bright gold, and bright green ki flames.

For a moment, as the green-covered redhead settled on the floor with her, Buffy remained frozen to the spot. Then she began to try and shout at her friend, recalling just in time where they both were and how talking on any level would be a bad idea. So instead, she just crossed her arms and glared at her best friend and Teammate.

Willow quickly, and easily identified Buffy's mood, and smiled gently to placate her for a moment. Then she tapped her temple and smiled brighter. Holding out her other hand, a bright globe or yellow/orange light began to form above her palm before shooting over to Buffy and striking the Slayer right on the forehead.

Surprised, she almost shouted in outrage, until she suddenly realized that she could hear Willow. But not as though she were speaking, she was hearing Willow's thoughts!

Sorry Willow thought to her in what she realized was some kind of magical telepathy. I didn't mean to scare you like that, honest! I went back to the Apartment first, but no one was there, so I asked around and found out that you were here, and I needed to get my own sort of graduation in Second Training, so I thought I'd join you down here.

Trying it out, Buffy realized she could separate the thoughts she 'sent' to Willow, and those that were her own private thoughts. Similar in many ways to choosing to speak and keeping your mouth shut.

Willow? What's going on? How did you do this? Did you teleport down here?!

Willow seemed to giggle suddenly, but Buffy doubted she actually did, seeing no air bubbles escape her.

Well, in the reverse order, no, I didn't teleport. I followed you, going as fast as I could, using a water-flow spell that made me move even faster through the water. I only just caught up with you. As for how I did the telepathy spell, rather simply. It's actually one of the spells Amana taught me, I've just never needed to do it before. And before . . . I didn't have the power to maintain it longer than a few minutes.

And now you do? Buffy asked.

Willow nodded.

That's . . . kind of what last night was about. Buffy . . . I have a new code name.

The blonde narrowed her eyes in suspicion and just kept her arms crossed and waited.

I'm now . . . the Wiccan.

The Wiccan? Buffy asked with all the emphasis she could put into the words.

Again, the Power Mage nodded, because that's exactly what she was now, in addition to having the title Wiccan. Currently there aren't any other Wiccans around. The last Wiccan, Goku told us about, and she actually taught Marduk! Marduk is a god Buffy. A Babylonian god on our world. So that's been a long time if you actually think about it. Willow explained.

Buffy would have sighed if she could have afforded to. So she just settled for fidgeting in the water and wringing her hands a little.

So what else does this mean? No, what all does this mean Willow? she demanded.

Willow nodded and then seemed to hesitate and communicated, Can we continue this on the surface. I'm sure you must be running low on air, cause I know I am, and certainly will be by the time we get back to the Top Half. And only if one of us passes out on the way am I going to risk teleporting out of here. I'm not so certain on whether or not I'll take a bunch of water with us.

All right. But first take off this telepathy thing. I don't want to get distracted. Going up is a lot harder than going down.

The Wiccan agreed and then waved her hand at Buffy and over her own forehead, and just like that the Slayer couldn't hear Willow's thoughts anymore. For some strange reason, she felt that as more of a loss than she expected to.

Shrugging it off, the both of them reignited their ki flames and aimed upwards and quickly, even quicker thanks to Willows water-flow spell, blasted off towards the Top Half.

000

Much later, after drying off and a few more excuses, and working their way through the throngs of awed onlookers and Technicians, Slayer and the newly dubbed Wiccan made their way back to the apartment.

Buffy was feeling pleasure and no small amount of pride in being able to already reach the bottom of the 2nd Training tower. As she already knew, only the strongest of ki warriors could even reach half way, let alone all the way to the bottom.

When the two were finally back in their apartment, sitting facing each other on the sofa, Buffy confronted her red haired friend. "All right, give Rosenberg. What's this Wiccan title really all about? Are you an Arch Mage now?"

"No," Willow answered, blushing slightly. "I'm nowhere near that powerful. Yet. Suffice to say, I have officially made wicca my religion of choice. I serve the Goddess, the female counterpart to God and Jesus. At least in the grand scheme of things. Don't ask me to explain the relationships between gods."

"Well, you could always ask your tutor," Buffy teased, referring to Marduk.

"Yeah, he tried to, and I still don't quite get it. But that's the personal aspect, I am now a practicing Wiccan in the sense of the religious Wicca. Power-wise . . ." Willow trailed off a little.

"Power wise?" Buffy repeated, gesturing for her to continue.

"Power-wise I got a major boost. A major boost Buffy. I'm talking serious power here. And I think I proved it by meeting you down at the Bottom of the 2nd Training tower. I channeled a portion of my magic into my life force, which then boosted my body to where I could survive the same way you did."

Buffy's eyes went wide at that explanation.

"Oh, no, I can't do that for a fight. And I think I explained it wrong anyway. I cast a spell that translated my magical reserves into physical reserves, so I had just enough power to actually make it down to the bottom and back up to the top. It didn't increase my power in any way, or make me like Super Saiyan strong, it just kept me from running out of energy."

"Oh, well, that makes a lot more sense," Buffy agreed, just vaguely getting it.

"Yeah," Willow agreed.

"So . . ." Buffy wasn't sure how to continue.

"Right, power," Willow picked up where she'd left off. "Besides a major increase in my power reserves, I also got a big boost to the amount of energy I can handle when actually casting. And I think, won't swear to it, but I think as a result of that, my chi attacks have been increased in power as well."

"Well that's good news," the Slayer agreed. "Do you think it'll be enough to help us beat Goku next time?"

Willow shrugged. "Maybe. He's . . . powerful Buffy. I mean, even going all out and letting go with all of your power like last time, recent strength and power increases included, do you think you could even hurt that Ultra Super Saiyan form? Speed aside, if he muscles out like that in our next fight, there's no way we could beat him."

"I'm working on it," Buffy promised. Then sighed. "Unfortunately I'm worried that it's actually going to take me a hundred years, literally, to become strong enough to beat any of his Super Saiyan transformations."

"Especially that last one," the redhead added.

"No shit," Buffy sighed and put her head in her hands. "OK, enough pussy footing and feeling sorry for ourselves and what not."

"Huh?" Willow blurted at the sudden change in topic.

"Let's go to the Training Gym and spar a few rounds. I went to the Second Training to unwind from earlier with Goku and Broly with Xander, but since I actually managed to pull off reaching the very bottom, I'm even more wound up, and I think Broly's got his hands full enough with those Soldier girls."

"Senshi," Willow corrected.

"Same thing," Buffy retorted.

"Come on, we haven't actually sparred since that day Goku first showed us how to tap into our ki! You claim to be even more powerful than before, I know I'm strong enough to KO a Super Saiyan at least once, and we're no longer stressing each other over a big nothing. We can go all out without any guilt and not worry about a thing. Willow, we're immortal. Get that through your skull!"

"I've gotten it through my skull Buffy," the magic-user snapped back. Then surprised the Slayer by smirking, rather confidently. "OK Slayer, you're on. Let's go."

Buffy's surprise quickly turned into anticipation as she lead the way to the MTC.

000

Xander, exhausted, mentally, physically, and (not to be taken religiously) spiritually, stumbled into the Clinic, only to be immediately taken to the back and thrust, rather painfully, onto one of the steel tables where patients were treated. Treated to what depended on the mood the soulless bastards that ran the place were in.

Apparently they were in as good a mood as they were ever in as they just had the nurse droids, as Xander liked to think of them, hook him up to the life force replenisher, a device that connected to him much the way a blood-pressure pump would, except there was one on each of his arms and legs.

They couldn't actually "replenish" a person's life force, instead it just pumped raw amounts of whatever type of energy the being hooked up to it needed or used, and instead of taking hours of rest and eating food, the cells absorbed the energy directly from the machine, allowing them to build up enough that a fighter could use his energy again.

Xander, grateful for the reprieve from being prodded and poked with needles and muscle regenerators, Buffy tended to need that a lot thanks to her high-level gravity training, just lay back and relaxed, breathing quietly.

After about a minute of silence, Xander was brought out of his relaxation as Giles' voice interrupted his quiet, "So, what did Master Fong do to you today?"

"Ahhh!" Xander shouted, nearly jumping off the table.

"G-man! What the hell are you doing here?" Xander shouted at him.

"Much the same as you, I'd guess," Watcher remarked, gesturing to his body, which was hooked up to an identical machine as Xander was.

"Oh. Well I know why I'm here. Master Fong expects perfection in everything, and I'm learning an entirely unique way of using my life energy as a weapon. So what are you doing here hooked up to the ki gas pump?" the Warrior asked.

Giles rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well, if you must know, Nightblade was teaching me a new form of power of his own. Actually, he taught me how to use battle magic. The kind that I can use in conjunction with his power. And makes what Willow used against Goku in the last bout look like sparklers in a two-year-old's hand."

"Are you shitting me?" Xander demanded.

Giles glared at the cursing, which Xander caught so he quickly revised his question, "Are you kidding me?"

"No, I am neither," Giles replied calmly.

"I don't buy it. Besides, with what Master Fong just got through drilling into me, I could probably top what Willow threw at the Super Saiyan too! Heck, if I wanted to, soon as I'm at top strength, I could probably beat Buffy now!"

"I severely doubt that," Giles drawled. "I definitely could though."

Warrior X glared at Watcher and demanded, "Prove it."

"I'll be glad to once we're released from here," Giles accepted the challenge.

"Main Gym, the microsecond we get out of here," Xander set the time and place.

"I'm sure that those there now would be more than glad to let us settle our difference of opinion. Any rules of taboo you'd like to settle on before we leave?"

"Huh?"

"Things we don't use against each other, or the level of the gravity," Giles clarified.

Xander thought about it. "Whatever gravity combination Slayer's at right now. No holds barred."

"Agreed."

Five minutes later, Giles was released, but Xander still had another half hour wait.

"I'll be there soon G-man!" he promised as the Watcher disappeared through the MTC.

000

"OK, so how do you want to do this?" Willow, aka Wiccan asked as they stepped through the MTC into the Training Gym.
Buffy, aka Slayer, shrugged, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and wrapping it with a wire. "Well, nothing immediately lethal. I mean, you having magic and all, you could probably make my blood boil before I throw the first punch. So . . . I guess we'll start out easy. Our base power levels and no energy attacks. Hey, let's make it more interesting."
"How so?" Wiccan asked as she started stretching there on the floor.
Slayer, already limbering herself up, answered, "Let's make a bet. First one to use energy attacks, not their energy, but like a ki ball or a chi-attack, loses. And the winner gets an ice cream sundae with extra chocolate, on the loser of course."
"I hope you don't mean that literally," Wiccan muttered as she finished stretching and began to warmup. "Besides," she added, "everything is free here, it's not like it would be a big loss."
"I know, but the winner also gets to pick the toppings and the loser has to eat the same thing," Slayer added with a sly grin.
Wiccan's was a bit more knowing as she replied, "Knowing what you like . . ."
"Chocolate," they both interrupted the magic-user's speech.
". . . I don't think I'd have a problem if I lost. But I won't lose."
"Oh really? OK, I'll make things a little bit easier on you. You can use magic to defend yourself, but a magical attack, fireball, whatever, that counts as an energy attack," Slayer amended.
"Deal," Wiccan and the Slayer shook hands, and then leaped apart from each other as their ki flames ignited around them and their power began to rise.
Slayer, her gold flame surrounding her like living fire, stared, a little stunned at the newly christened Wiccan. Because her ki flame was an unmistakable emerald green!
"Part of the Wiccan package?" Slayer asked, indicating the color change.
"You tapped your potential to get a gold ki flame," Wiccan pointed out, "Last night, I tapped my full potential."
Slayer accepted that for an answer, and then hunkered down as the Wiccan made the first move.
With a surge of energy and flash of movement, Wiccan rapidly cut the distance between them and lead with a powerful kick, which sent the Slayer flying back, only just reorienting herself in time to block the power mage's follow up attacks.
Staying on the defensive for the moment, Slayer thought about what Wiccan had told her so far about her new power increase. She hadn't mentioned anything about physical enhancements, but the Slayer wouldn't put it past her to cast speed, strength, and agility spells on herself. So far though, Slayer was liking what she was seeing. Wasn't on Goku's level, but it was definitely above the level Willow had been at before.
Blocking a final hit, Slayer's ki flame re-ignited, more intense than ever, and faster than the Wiccan could dodge or block, hit her with a blow that nearly ripped the Wiccan's arm off, considering Slayer had been holding it when she hit. Lucky for the Wiccan, the Slayer's punch had been stronger than her grip on the arm.
Wiccan arched in a straight path for the floor of the training gym, landing in a skid that actually cracked the force-field enhanced material. Shaking herself, she got back up, and put the resolve face back on. Time for her first spell.

Breathing deeply and regularly, Willow's eyes began to glow as she tapped the energy realm around her, the realm of magic. Normally mages of any level or type tapped magic through other sources. Elemental fields, a planet's geo-magnetic field, the astral plane, or even through 'gods' and 'spirits' and tapped into them for an inkling, a bare shaving of the power those things tapped naturally by being connected to the realm of magic, which was more than just that, but for the moment it's what the Wiccan was using it for.

But she, she was tapping it directly.

Brilliant green magical energy erupted from her hands and soon surrounded the Power Mage, her eyes blanking out for a moment, before channeling and being suffused by the same energy. With an ecstatic cry, Wiccan reveled in the feeling of pure, absolute power she felt. But only for a moment before her intelligent mind focused all of that raw energy into direct power for her to use in her spell.

000

"About time," Watcher nearly growled as Warrior X finally stepped through the MTC into the Main Gym.
"Don't blame me," the young man retorted, rubbing sore muscles, "Those Docs in the Clinic do not know how to treat a guy. But whatever. I'm at full power and ready to go G-man."
"Tell you what Xander, let's make a bet," the Watcher said as they walked further out into the Main Gym. "If I win this little bout, you will no longer call me G-man. Ever again."
"And if I win?" the Warrior asked a beat later.
Watcher hesitated, and then answered, "Then I will no longer ask you to stop calling me G-man."
"Sounds good G-man," the dark haired warrior agreed as they began to space themselves apart for the fight. A couple other fighters were around them, some still in their own sparring matches, but a few, recognizing who they were, stopped to see what they were up to.
Ready G-man?"
In reply, Watcher pulled Nightblade from the sheath on his back, which prompted the warrior to immediately draw the katana on his own back. Without really being clear on a signal, Warrior X just decided to go with his instinct, and immediately started raising his power level. A moment later proved that he was good to have trusted his instincts and parried the blow a fast-moving Watcher had swung at him with Nightblade.
With a quick twist X let the swing over extend and landed a solid punch in Watcher's gut. The man wouldn't let himself fall in the trap of doubling over and standing still though, and quickly jumped back. With a smooth screw he fired two lightning balls with his sword. X shot backward and fired a small beam of energy disintegrating both attacks. He twisted to his left and locked Nightblade between the two palms of his hands, in an age old blocking a blade technique. He grinned at Watcher, and then with a quick motion he twisted the blade from Watcher's hands and rapidly attacked hand-to-hand to press his advantage. Several punches and kicks the watcher blocked or ducked, but he wasn't as fast or as powerful as Xander so several attacks came through. Giles flared his ki, shooting backward and ran up a wall, while Xander fired several ki blasts at Giles. Most missed completely, a few were close enough to jar Giles. Mid ceiling though, Giles grabbed his sword that he had made fly to him, and fired a sudden powerful energy beam from his sword.
Giles grinned when both he and Xander it was too surprising for Xander to avoid the beam. Instead Xander braced for the impact, raised a barrier and took it head on. A powerful explosion later and Xander went flying back, twisting through the air, bruised, and a little burned here and there, but still conscious and able to fight.

000

Slayer hung back for a moment, having seen some of what Willow could do, both magically, and whenever she put her mind to it. Not to mention, she wasn't about to make the same mistake Goku did and rush headlong into what could be a truly devastating attack.

On the other hand, it could also be some kind of freezing or time manipulation spell that Wiccan could use to run circles around her, but not knowing how to counteract something like that, yet, the wisest course of action was still to stand back and wait and see what the Power Mage was up to.

Suddenly Willow shot forward, Buffy's eyes widened. She saw a thousand Willows in one go. The witch was tapping time alright, but it wasn't an attack (thus losing the bet) but it was to make herself go faster. Buffy shot backward, and then off to her right before she crashed into the wall. The hundred Willows (now that Buffy was at speed, the relative difference was less) went after her, coming around the bend. Buffy tried to block the first punch, but suddenly, the hundred Willows shot to the right and then at her again. Slayer poured all her speed into the dodge, and saw the opening Willow had left. Instantly she punched at Wiccan's face.

Buffy's eyes widened when her fist stopped moving. She looked at it; it was looped by an energy ring. She felt her other hand pulled up equally wrapped in a ring. Buffy looked at a smiling Willow, who had glowing eyes. "I guess you lose the bet," Buffy said with raised eyebrows, rather surprised Willow would lose it this easy, then feeling energy wrap around her waist. The multiple Willows effect disappeared.
Willow smiled and shook her head, and told the half-helpless Slayer, "Sorry, Buffy, but no. You can consider what you walked into the magical version of a spider web, all defense, no attack."
"It seems you're using up power to keep it going," Slayer observed keenly.
Wiccan grinned and then her right fist lashed out and landed in Slayer's stomach. "Oof!" Buffy supplied, doubling half over, keeping herself from going all the way, and noticing the red glow around Willow's fist. Slayer felt her hands loosen, but couldn't move in time for the follow up uppercut; the red glow giving it surprising strength - or rather, she realized, a concussion wave. Buffy felt herself becoming dizzy, powered up in response, and then blasted away from Willow.
Damn, that was not something to walk into again. She watched Willow circle her a bit, always keeping her directly in front of her. Right, that web could only be projected right in front of her, and judging from Willow's heavier breathing that time spell had used up serious amount of power; the witch probably couldn't use it very often. She had to use her speed advantage to outflank the witch, and keep an eye out for more time speeding. Buffy wasn't about to underestimate Willow though; the witch would undoubtedly stop the use of this technique if Buffy could outflank it and thus leaving her open. So if Slayer wanted to make the most use of this weakness, she'd have to make it good on the first try.

Wiccan waited patiently, mentally prepping a number of back-up spells, including a fast-teleportation that would put her directly behind the Slayer no matter where she was, but until Slayer made a move, she was effectively stuck with her hands tied behind her back.

Wiccan was powerful now, especially after last night, but she knew without any doubt that in a head-to-head close up confrontation with the Slayer, she'd be mince meat.

Slayer knew this as well. Wiccan's best field was long distance offense, with spells, chi techniques, and given her new power boost, probably even ki attacks. The only thing that was keeping Slayer safe, for the moment, being long distance at the moment, was the bet of the first one to use an energy attack loses. Wiccan obviously didn't want to lose, so until Slayer could bring this in up close and personal, without getting caught in a magical trap, they were at a stalemate.

Finally, the impatient Slayer couldn't take it any longer, and her adrenaline-upped brain wasn't coming up with any solutions. "Screw it," she muttered and powered up to her absolute max, a scream tearing her throat as her golden ki flame exploded around her. Then, channeling all of her power into her speed, she shot down straight at Wiccan, moving faster than the human eye could follow, leaving a yellow gold energy trail behind her.

Wiccan's eyes went wide. She should have predicted this! She knew Buffy better than anybody, and the Slayer wasn't exactly Miss Nobel Thinker. She certainly wasn't dumb, but she was impatient, and just sitting around trying to think about stuff never sat well with the Slayer.

"Uh oh," Wiccan muttered, only able to see Slayer because she was flying right at her. About a foot from where Wiccan could have triggered the energy web though, Slayer suddenly vanished, one second there, the next just gone.

Wiccan turned around immediately, hoping to predict what her friend was trying to do, but instead she couldn't even sense Slayer anywhere beyond nearby, like she was in several places at once.

'Or maybe it just seems that way,' Wiccan realized, 'because she's moving so fast, my senses can only keep up with the after-images of her, and since she's not even staying still, it seems like she's in several places at once!'

Despite knowing that to stay still was to invite attack, Wiccan had no clue what she could do that wasn't a wasted attack or would seem like cringing back to avoid a blow. Frozen with indecision, the choice was taken from her as Buffy appeared out of thin air, seemingly, directly behind her, a kick already flying for the spell caster's head.

Wiccan's first clue was the incredible amount of pain that had suddenly appeared, starting at the back of her head, while her second was the sensory input that told her she had just been kicked in the back of the head with a very hard boot. Her next clue was how her body, entirely out of her control, suddenly went flying, more like tumbling actually, straight for the wall.

Before she could greet the wall though, she caught the barest glimpse out of the corner of her eye, and she knew the Slayer wasn't through with her yet.

Forcing her body to move, despite its condition and protests, she exerted a tiny fraction of energy to reorient herself, and just managed to raise her fist to block the punch Slayer, flying parallel at the same speed with the Wiccan, threw at her.

However, just because she could block it, didn't make a bit of difference, as the sheer force of Slayer's blow diverted the Wiccan's course to the floor, which she bounced off of after making a small crater in the force-field enhanced material, going halfway to the ceiling, before she reached the apex of her flight and hung in free fall for a few seconds.

Those seconds were all that were needed for Slayer to catch up, appear in a flash of movement above the power mage, double up her fists and raise them above her own head. Then she grinned down at her and gave her a cocky, shit-eating grin before slamming with an enormous amount of force to Wiccan's torso, nearly tripling the speed she would have hit the floor with.

The crater was several meters in all directions from its epicenter, Wiccan, and at least a couple feet deep. Wiccan, however, just got up and dusted herself off. Slayer stared - shocked.

"What the . . ." she started to say, when she felt a piercing pain in her gut and suddenly found Wiccan's fist as the source of said pain. " . . . hell?" she finished weakly, falling to the floor from her position in the air.

"Stone skin spell combined with a hyper speed portal," Willow explained as Buffy fell to the floor. "All non-offensive spells, unless used properly. And also, only physical, not energy attacks."

Just before she would hit the ground, Slayer's ki flame ignited around her and she halted a few feet above the crater that had been the floor. Slowly, she righted herself and set her feet on the ground, rubbing her stomach as she did. "Damn Wills, that hurt!" she cried out, her face an annoyed grimace of pain.

"It's kind of supposed to, Buffy," Wiccan just grinned down at her blonde friend.

"Yeah, but now I'm going to have to hurt you," she retorted like she was quoting some driver's manual. Wiccan paled, and her eyes widened slightly.

000

The moment Xander regained himself, he blasted away to his left, not allowing Giles to take advantage of his moment of being out of control. Once reoriented, he pinpointed the Watcher by his energy-signature.
"Spirit Shotgun!" X called, blindly firing at the Watcher's signature. The separate blasts had the desired effect. Watcher had to maneuver delicately to avoid the expanding blasts of energy, and the moment he was past them Xander was on him. Watcher was shocked when he realized that X had kept some of his full speed hidden, and now the punch that came at him with good long speeding start was totally unavoidable. It landed squarely on Watcher's cheek, and as a pain flared through his head, a bruise forming almost instantly, he was launched tumbling backward.
"KAMEHAMEHA!" X yelled and fired the devastating beam of energy at almost point blank range. X was intending to end this sparring bout quickly to start another, having thought the combination was lethal, but like him Watcher too had kept something in reserve.
"Slayer's Defense!" Giles called, holding his hand out, charging the very, very powerful mixture of chi and ki shield around him. A moment later the Kamehameha exploded on the shield, and once the dust settled he stood unscathed, looking at the still flying Warrior X.
"Damn!" Xander muttered in surprise, then grinned, this was going to be more interesting after all. Giles too grinned up at X, knowing that the fight with the boy was going to be even tougher than he thought he'd be.
"Let's try something new G-man!" the Warrior cried as he began pooling chi energy in one hand and ki energy in the other. Normally he would never have tried this, drawing on his life force with two different forms was the same as burning the candle at both ends, and then throwing it into the fire. But he had managed to knock Buffy into a crater more than a foot deep with a chi-powered punch, and he would need some long distance attacks. And he just wanted to know if he could actually do it.
He was right about the energy drain, he discovered as he began charging several blasts in the one hand, and maintained the energy in the fist in his other.
Watcher briefly wondered what the young man was up to, before he decided it didn't matter and he lowered the only chi-attack, more of a defense really, that he had been able to teach himself. Nightblade had also assured him it was more than likely the only "technique" he would ever be able to do so with.
Instead of waiting for Warrior X to make the next move, Watcher gathered his energy, holding Nightblade above his hand, holding on with both hands. Just as the Warrior launched a number of powerful ki blasts in his direction, and began following them in at a high speed, Watcher let the energy reach its climax and brought his Blade down in a powerful swipe, which burned the air, an energy wave lashing out straight at X!
X twisted to the right as some of his blasts were destroyed by the energy wave. The rest of his blasts flew past. Some Watcher destroyed with his blade, the rest he carefully avoided. X looked with surprise as Watcher's bright blue energy wave changed course and followed him around.
X grinned in appreciation and sped up, going straight for Watcher the energy wave following him. Let's see what he does now! Xander thought, knowing that if Watcher made the wrong move he would lose right now.
Giles looked as X sped to him, his eyes widened. With a flick of the blade and a moment of concentration, the energy wave changed course. "You're not going to make me hit myself, Xander," Watcher said with a little disappointment that Xander would underestimate him.
Xander grinned, and said, "You've lost, Giles." Xander sped up, charging a normal energy ball and firing at him. Watcher used his obsidian sword to get rid of it, moving the other direction, incidentally toward his own wave, and Xander waited for him. Xander made a punch, which Giles neatly avoided. Xander then kicked with his right leg up and around. Giles turned and flew up to avoid it. Xander backed away some, and charged his Spirit Wave, and pointed his open palm at Giles oncoming wave of energy.
"Xander? Are you crazy?" Giles exclaimed when he realized what Xander was going to do.
"Spirit Wave!" Xander yelled and a wave of energy fired out directly at the other wave. Giles was unable to make it dodge, so he retreated to limit his own damage. The waves collided and the two antithetical energies exploded with massive force, immediately blanketing large parts of the gym. Many of the other fighters present decided it would be a good time to leave, and those that could teleport did, taking as many with them as they could and leaving the rest to try and make their way to the portal out of here.
Xander didn't avoid the blast, he went straight into it, straight for where he felt Giles struggling to get out of the blast radius. "Warrior's Fury!" Xander yelled out, instantly a soft red glow surrounded his body, staying close to him instead of flaring out in flame like bursts of energy with his normal power up, and his eyes switched to a cold pair of twin orbs of complete blackness. The Warrior's Fury technique boosted his ki, speed and strength temporarily, and with this he flew into the blast. Energy crashed against him, and cut him open in many places. He grinned, he welcomed the pain, and pushed forward.
Giles was struggling with the blast, he didn't have time to charge the shield again, and it would limit his maneuverability in this mess. Suddenly his eyes widened at the sight in front of him: Xander, bleeding from multiple cuts, his uniform torn in places, teeth tight together, he emerged like a specter or demon, all red and twisted out of the blast. And worse, faster than he would have thought Xander could possibly move!

A moment later Xander's right fist rammed into his gut. He doubled over; the punch was so massive he almost touched his toes with his chin, and since X himself was next to him, only the hand in his gut. As Giles was pushed in front of the still moving Xander, he heard Xander say, "Learn this lesson well, G-man . . ."
X held back a bit, and then followed up with a massive upper cut, stretching Watcher back straight and sending him diagonally up into the air, using his gained speed he sped around and in front and above Giles, all the while continuing to tell Giles, ". . . if you want to win, you'll not only have to take risks, but sometimes you have to be willing
to take damage." Warrior X looked into Giles astonished eyes, and then with a roar he made devastating downward twisting kick, smashing Giles into his gut and sending him crashing down to the ground. With a powerful groan Giles smashed to the ground. He lost his grip on Nightblade, and the sword skidded away.
Xander landed down next to Giles and stretched out his hand. Giles coughed and some blood came up. Xander grinned down, charging another normal average day ki blast at his down stretched right hand, and he said, "Time to get in contact with you inner Ripper again, Watcher. Perhaps Willow and Buffy have yet to learn this lesson, and we get to teach them the way I taught you, eh, G-man?" Then he fired the blast down intending to open a big wound on Watcher's torso, killing him instantly. "I'll wait for you to wake up, friend," Warrior X said with a smile.
It all happened so fast that Xander would be wondering for years to come exactly what happened in that single instant. One instant, the blast had been heading straight and true, right for Giles' chest, mere centimeters from killing the man. The very next, Nightblade was back in Watcher's hand and reflecting the blast right back at Xander's head.

000

In the next second, Slayer disappeared, Wiccan half a beat behind her, and then an explosion rocked the Training Gym as a chi-powered fist met with a magically spelled fist, half a second later it repeated three more times in rapid succession. The culmination of the explosions finally forced the fighters apart, blasting them to opposite sides of the gym. Slayer grinned, having learned how to put up with this from her last fight with Goku, and dove right into the explosions, angling for where she sensed her opponent.

Wiccan coughed slightly, staring at the burst of energy that had come from the clashing of hers and Slayer's power, somewhat surprised that it was that potent. Then a flicker of energy caught her attention, and her eyes widened as Slayer came blazing out of the receding explosion like a Valkyrie out of Hell!

Instantly, Wiccan recast the 'web' spell, as she called it, and only just in time as Slayer was caught in it just as Wiccan finished casting it. With a scream of frustration, Slayer's ki flame reignited, having gone out when caught, and her power, subdued under the web's influence, began to rise once more.

Wiccan was too stunned by this change in her opponent to take advantage of her weakened, albeit temporarily, state, frozen by a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and terror.

The raw power the Slayer wielded had always intimidated Willow to some point, but now that she understood the basis for that power, and what it meant . . . it truly terrified the magic-user at some points. That all that power was given to her best friend was both a comfort and a worry. Comfort because she knew Buffy would never intentionally hurt her. Worry because she didn't fully know what such power would do to the young woman.

Slayer couldn't believe how stupid she was! She fell into the same trap, again! And after having known how to counter it too! It frustrated her to no end that she had been so stupid. And that made her madder than hell!

A scream of rage tore her throat, the golden ki flame sparking with even greater power, raging against her restraints as much as she was. And that's when it happened. For a moment, the briefest of moments, that she almost missed it, the web faltered, just a little, enough for her power to rise a little more, but not enough for her to even move a little bit.

'That's it!' she realized, 'I can't cast any sort of counter spell to this, nor can I even begin to figure out its weakness, but I can overpower it!'

With that thought in mind, Slayer began to pour every ounce of her energy into bringing out more and more of her power.

Wiccan too soon realized this, but unfortunately, she was just as trapped as the Slayer, because the spell couldn't be removed until the one caught in it was forced backwards, instead of continuing forwards. And given the Slayer's current, and rising, level of power, only some kind of energy attack would get the Slayer out of her face.

But that would mean losing the bet, and she wasn't ready to do that just yet. So she did the next best thing, and used her teleportation spell.

Slayer didn't even notice when Wiccan disappeared from her sight, but she did notice that she was no longer being held back, and as a result, surged forward, and careened completely out of control right at the wall!

"Ooo, that had to hurt," Wiccan winced as her friend hit the force-field enforced wall head first, and creating a decent sized hole in it as well. Not that even the Slayer could go completely through the several meters, if not miles thick walls.

Before Wiccan could make another comment though, Slayer flashed from the hole to directly above her, and answered angrily, "It did."

Gulping, in appreciation for her predicament, Wiccan raised her power level and met the Slayer head on as they began to trade blows at a blinding speed.

Wiccan was good, but even with her stone skin that she was rapidly losing, she really didn't stand a chance in hand to hand against a slayer, certainly not /this/ slayer. Soon a particularly vicious punch landed smack on her chin, and groaning in pain she was launched backward. Undoubtedly Buffy would use her prone form to land more damage. With a quick spell she teleported away, just before Buffy's fist passed through the air where she had just been.

Wiccan reappeared on other side of the training room, and looked at Buffy growling in frustration. That was it! That was the key to winning the bet. The one weakness Buffy had never really learned to overcome: the very essence that made her so powerful was a predator. An enhancement to hunt and kill demons, and it wasn't particularly patient or nice. It was violent; a kill first, then kill some more killing machine. If Willow got Buffy worked up enough . . . Wiccan grinned; undoubtedly she'd lose the match this way; but she'd win the bet. Then she burst forward, taking Buffy straight on, who was coming right at her. Suddenly Buffy shot around; just like Willow expected, a frustrated Buffy may fall for a trap twice, but not thrice. The Slayer was far too fast for Willow turn around and block the punch, so Buffy's fist ripped through empty air.

Buffy's eyes widened, then grimaced. She looked up and saw a grinning Willow on the other side of the room again, arms folded superiorly over her chest. "Slowpoke," Wiccan teased the Slayer.

"/What/!?" Buffy exclaimed with mounting anger.

"You heard me: slowpoke," Willow told her again, grinning widely.

With a yell that fell in between a roar and a growl Buffy shot at Willow. The witch quickly flew to the right; not really bothering with the trap again, she'd down this worked up Slayer would be held by it anyway. Buffy was so close now, Willow could probably count her lashes, and she stuck out her tongue, just before teleporting. A dangerous growl issued from Buffy who changed course directly, only to move her fist through empty air once again.

"Stand still!" Buffy screamed as her frustrations starting taking over.

Willow started feeling the strain, teleporting over and over again was quickly draining her power, but Buffy was definitely getting worked up. Just a little bit more. Willow put her thumb on either cheek, wiggled her stretched out fingers, and stuck out her tongue, flapping it around and adding the annoying sound. "OOH! You just /wait/!" Buffy screamed and shot forward, faster than ever. Willow only barely managed to perform her teleport spell, making Buffy once more hit only air.

"Neener, neener, neener, slowpoke, just like a little snail!" Willow teased with a far too huge grin.

"THAT'S IT!!!" Buffy exploded, her chi flame bursting wildly around her, so powerfully her hair whirled around. Dark predator eyes focused on Willow, and anger bursting Buffy in a new power range, along with the dark looks made Willow swallow heavily with fear. She was certain Buffy wasn't /really/ going to hurt her, but she really very much never ever wanted to be the Slayer's enemy. "You're going down!" Buffy roared, and with her hands into the air, her ki burst outward in a sphere, rapidly covering the entire gym like a shockwave.

Willow swallowed again, especially when Buffy started firing energy balls in every direction. The only way to avoid damage now, would be to teleport /out/ of the training ground, and she had used up so much of her power already. Focusing all her power into a shield, she braced for the impact, which arrived a moment later. Pain lanced through her as the ki wave crashed into her, and then not one as expected, but the one on course and a few more energy balls crashed into her - the latter after changing course. Explosions rocked the entire gym, straining the energy shielding, and Willow cried out in pain as several explosions rocked her body, tore holes in her clothing, and lacerated her skin in the same places. She was flung backward, until she crashed painfully against a shield-protected wall, and then slumped.

She heard the angry cry of her friend, coming straight at her to finish the job. Willow opened, and grinned at the rapidly approaching slayer, saying, "I win."

Those two confusing words stopped Buffy just a meter short of Willow. She frowned - wasn't she the one winning? - and asked, "What?"

"I win. I win the bet," Willow grinned even wider. "You used energy attacks first."

Buffy blinked, then blinked again watching her friend's face split into a wide, triumphant grin. "OOOOOOHHH!!" Buffy then exclaimed, realizing she let her inner slayer-fire got the better of her. Buffy then grinned down evilly at Willow, pulled her fist back, and said, "Get ready for payback."

Willow swallowed.

000

Still moving at an enhanced speed, reaction time and muscle speed all increased, Xander only lost the front hairs on his bangs to his own blast as he jerked his head backwards, working to dodge it. Jumping further back, Warrior X only just avoided being sliced in two as Giles attacked him with a horizontal slash. If the slash had just been that, X wouldn't have worried. Instead it was Giles launching another energy wave, and the Warrior was way too close to even begin to dodge it.

The wave picked the body up and dragged him along for several meters before exploding in a tremendous explosion, letting Warrior X fly back until his limp body actually hit the wall of the Gym.

"Ow," he muttered, half out of it as he slid down onto his feet, still having the energy of the Aura Force technique running through him, so he was able to actually stand on his feet, although walking or anything else wasn't much of an option at the moment.

"Did you really think I was at my maximum, boy?" Giles taunted him, his voice taking on a more rugged and angry tone. "I wasn't even trying. In fact I was downplaying myself to move more at your level. Or rather . . . the level I thought you were at. Well done, Alexander."

Warrior X's eyes suddenly snapped into focus, and he scowled at the Blade wielder. "Don't," he hissed, brilliant red flames suddenly erupted around him, overpowering the normal white ki flame he had shown until this moment, "Call," his muscles too began to show just how much stronger they were and a few among his biceps increased in size, "Me," leaping into the air, the angry red ki flame leaving an after-trail in his wake, "ALEXANDER!!" he roared as he began to fire volley after volley of ki blasts at Watcher, too many for him to either dodge or try to overpower them with another energy wave.

:His father must always call him that,: Nightblade observed to Watcher as he cast the 'Slayer's Defense' shield again.

'Indeed,' Giles merely reminded himself that this whole fight was about Xander not calling him G-man anymore. He grinned savagely as Warrior X finally subsided in his attacks and let the smoke clear. To find Watcher staring up at him beneath a soft blue glowing dome of energy.

"Arragh!" Warrior X shouted his frustration and tempered his energy, waiting for Watcher to come out from behind his turtle shell.

Which he did momentarily, ready to bring it back up at a microseconds notice, depending on what Warrior X would do next.

Rather than waste more energy, knowing the Watcher could just summon the impenetrable, so far, shield again, he tried to think of another tactic.

Until Watcher suddenly shot forward with a surprising burst of speed, catching him off guard, and then he remembered to move and shoot up into the air in hopes of avoiding the G-man's attack.

An attack, which rebounded off the wall that had been behind the warrior and angled up to slam into him from the back. Crying out with pain, Warrior X tried to turn around to retaliate, when he felt a sharp stinging followed by overwhelming amounts of pain. He was just as suddenly hurtled through the air to land in a rolling skid on the floor, several hundred feet away.

All the other fighters stared, most backing off to the sidelines or just outright leaving, while a couple of the others, obviously more powerful, either ignored it and continued their own exercises, or stood back to watch, occasionally commenting with their companions.

It took a few moments for Xander to figure out what had happened. Giles had stabbed him in the arm! Said arm was now hanging limp at his side as he got back to his feet, but it was the pain that was the most distracting.

Grimacing as he struggled not to cry out and mostly ignore the pain, Warrior X stood back up and glared with complete rage at Watcher. His bright red ki flame ignited with a burst of energy and his power rose tremendously in just a few seconds.

His workable arm clenched into a tight fist, around which a very different red-hued aura came into existence. He had only learned it today, but Master Fong had drilled him so thoroughly that it was the same as if he'd been using the techniques for years.

Drawing his fist back, he aimed at Watcher and secured his footing.

"SPIRIT WAVE, HA!" he shouted, flashing his fist forward and open right at Watcher. A giant, at least ten feet across in diameter alone, red energy blast shot out, and with speed faster than any living body could travel, shot across the distance between Warrior and Watcher.

Before he could even think about defending in any way, the wave was already upon the Watcher, reacting mostly instinctively by blocking his face with his arms.

"Whoa!"

"No way!"

"By the Powers, that kid is powerful!"

A general round of exclamations and comments came from the other fighters, staying well out of range of the still ongoing fight, and no one was under any delusions that it was over yet.

When the energy wave finally dissipated, Watcher was revealed to be on the floor, his arms still over his face, but the rest of him was either torn, burned, or smoking at the very least. And when he finally moved to stand back up, his movements were slow and somewhat awkward.

"So . . . Alexander," Giles commented with a teasing, shit-eating grin, "you too have finally stopped holding back."

Xander gave a very hyena-like growl of anger, his ki flame becoming even more agitated. "Don't call me that, G-man!" he shouted.

"Well . . . now you know how it feels at least," Giles told him seriously. "Now, let's finish this bet, shall we . . . Alexander?"

Both fighters flashed out of sight, moving too fast to be seen with normal eyes, only the concussion waves from when they clashed giving any hint as to where they might be at any moment.

It was obvious that Watcher had the advantage in skill and control, but Warrior X was exuding a raw power that more often than not ended up surprising the Watcher. The Warrior was knocked to the floor or wall or ceiling, or forcefield window more often, but he always got back up. The few times Watcher was knocked into a crater, it became more and more difficult for him to recover from the decimating blow.

Finally, the two men stood in the center of the Main Gym, both gasping for what breath they could get, both injured, bleeding in Xander's case, and Giles even had a few broken ribs and a broken ankle from a failed kick that X had taken advantage of.

"You . . . can't . . . keep this . . . up . . . forever . . . Xander . . ." Giles worked out between gasping breaths. He was actually floating above the floor, to help keep the pressure, and the pain, off of his ankle.

Xander renewed his angry glare at his opponent, and then straightened while remarkably improving his breathing. "Neither can you, Giles," he darkly replied.

The absence of the accursed annoying nickname in that instance told Giles that he had crossed some unknown line in Xander's eyes. How or what that was, Watcher had no clue, but he did know one thing. He was finished. Just looking at Warrior X told him that, and considering how the fight had gone so far, that surprised him more than anything else X had done so far in this fight.

Warrior X wasn't in as good a shape as he appeared to be. He was on empty, but he couldn't let his opponent know that. Feeling weak was all right, it was a part of nature, nothing was infinite. Showing weakness however, was instant death. And his hyena half would not allow him to show even a bit of weakness, even if he was already dead.

But he did have enough energy for one last attack. One last strike. One last grasp at life by ending his opponent's. Entering a familiar stance, Warrior X poured all his remaining energy into the pooling attack between his hands.

"KAAAAAAAAAA . . ."

Watcher's eyes widened as he observed Xander doing the impossible; charging an attack of sizeable proportions when both he and Giles had nothing left. Watcher didn't even have enough energy to make use of his shield any longer.

"MEEEEEEEEEEE . . ."

Watcher had no choice, he tapped into Nightblade's energy, using it to temporarily supercharge what remained of his own and began building his own attack, hoping it would be enough to let him survive, at least, Warrior X's attack.

"HAAAAAAAAA . . ."

Bluish white energy began to form between X's cupped hands, shining brighter and blotting out the red of his ki flame, beams of light escaping between his fingers and hands like the beacons of a lighthouse using a halogen lamp.

"MEEEEEEEEEEEEE . . ."

"Kamehameha!" Giles shouted, firing his own attack, as powerful as he could make it, as fast as he could gather the energy, but in the next instant it didn't really matter.

"HHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" Xander fired.

000

Buffy and Willow were laughing as they came back into the apartment, their clothes still battle-scarred, but thanks in large part to Willow's power upgrade and her knowledge of healing spells, they were not.

"That was great Will! I mean that! This Wiccan thing is pretty awesome I have to admit. But I'm also willing to bet that you can't single handedly take out all of the 4 Arch Mages, can you? Like the last Wiccan could." Buffy said.

Willow smiled wistfully and shook her head. "No, still can't beat Marduk. I mean, come on Buffy, he's the literal god of magic across more than 10,000 realms, ours included. Besides, skill-wise, I'm pretty much the best there is at the moment, save Marduk. Magically speaking of course. The ritual last night . . . it confirmed that I have the knowledge and skill with magical energies that I needed. Now all I need is to build up my power, and without cheating and going extremely past the moral line in the sand, that's going to take time. So . . . I would like cocoa, fudge, and with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top on my mocha. If you please," she added with a dirty smirk on her dirty face.

Buffy stared for a moment, and then just laughed, both of them heading over to the bar. Then they stopped as the MTC activated once more.

Xander, laughing his head off in a slightly frightening manner due to the memories it brought forth, lead the way, followed by a grumpy, and pouty Watcher. The men stopped, and more importantly Xander stopped laughing, when they finally noticed the girls there.

"Willow!" Xander shouted, and moving faster than thought, crossed the distance between them and had the redhead in a fierce and loving hug. "I missed you! You were like . . . gone, and OK you weren't gone far away or for very long, but you were gone and so I missed you!"

Laughing at being in the arms of her best friend, Willow returned the hug, with just as much pressure, surprised that she could dish it out just as well as handle it. No more complaining to Buffy about being oxygen deprived when being hugged apparently.

"That's all right Xander, and if I had been gone longer than a night and a day, I would say I missed you to, but I wasn't gone long enough," Willow teased him.

Frowning in confusion, Xander finally released the Wiccan and asked, "Should I be going 'Hey!' right about now?"

Smiling, she just shook her head, and hugged him again.

Smiling himself, he just muttered, "I'll take that as a no then."

During all this, Giles had rejoined them across the room and once the two best friends had separated, nodded towards Willow, saying, "It's good to have you back Willow. So . . . what is the surprise?"

"Oh! That's right!" Willow exclaimed, being reminded of her last words to them all before going to Marduk's the night before. "I'm the Wiccan now!" she said with a bit of flare.

The men stared, uncomprehending for about thirty seconds, until something clicked in Giles' mind and he nodded. "Yes, if I recall correctly, Goku said that the last Wiccan was one of the most powerful magic-users at the Compound, and actually trained the current 4 Arch Mages."

"Yeah, well, that's kind of an exaggeration," Willow told them, blushing a little.

"So you're like the Super Girl of magic now, huh?" Xander asked, trying to put in an analogy he understood.

"Not really. More like I got a power boost so I'm closer to Buffy's level than I was before," she answered.

Eyebrows went up in appreciation.

"She's not kidding," Buffy supported her friend, "We just got back from testing out this new power of hers. It was a close match all the way. Until I revealed a few more powers of my own and mopped the floor with her," she smugly added.

Willow glared at the blonde, "You did not 'mop the floor with me' or anything like it! I had you on the ropes until . . ." she trailed off.

"I mopped the floor with her," Buffy smugly finished for the redhead.

"I'm actually kind of hoping you don't mean that literally," Xander commented with a dry bit of humor.

Giggling, Buffy shook her head to the negative. "Naw. But she did good. I'm going to have to watch myself in future sparring matches. You guys are seriously starting to catch up with me. So, what have the two of you two been up to? . . . Too?"

Staring for a moment, they all just shook their heads to clear the confusion from 'Buffy babble', and Xander answered, "Well, let's just say, you weren't the only one doing some mopping, and I am also forced to admit, Wills ain't the only one with a new bag of tricks. G-man's got some serious skills, and if it weren't for the fact that I beat him, he could probably give you a serious work out of your own Buff."

"Really?" Buffy eyed her Watcher for a moment.

"So you two were having your own sparring match?" Willow asked.

"Yes, although . . . we did have somewhat of a . . . wager going on, on the side," Giles added through a blush.

Buffy and Willow shared a look. "So what was yours?" the blonde asked.

Xander looked between the two of them and responded, "What was yours?"

"We asked first," Willow pointed out.

"I wanted to see if it were at all possible to get Xander to stop calling me . . . G-man," Watcher answered as he huffily walked around the group to his place at the Bar.

The teenagers all burst out in giggles and laughter for several minutes, which continued as they ordered a dinner meal, and Willow was forced to pay up on her and Buffy's bet.

000

"So, seriously," Xander asked Buffy later that afternoon, "How good is she? Because I distinctly remember that the last time we trained together, even with magic boosting her, Wills could hardly keep up with all of us, let alone give you a work out."

"Seriously?" she replied a moment later. They were in a spare Training Gym that Alvin had let them into while their usual one was still being repaired from Wiccan and Slayer's earlier bout. The district manager was still shouting about that last energy combo Buffy had used, exploding a Kamehameha wave and then riding the shockwave to deliver a chi-powered neck-breaking punch. Buffy had just grinned and planned to use it the next time she fought Goku.

"Seriously," Xander repeated.

"She is better," she admitted to him, "and she's smart, and she can use magic like she was one of the Arch Mages, at least from my point of view. Unfortunately, since mages typically control or at the very least influence outside forces, we aren't going to see a magic battle until the Tournament."

Xander could tell she was quoting Willow directly, since he had once asked the redhead the same question.

"But," he leaded.

Buffy sighed and stopped the kata she had been performing, Xander followed suit. "But," she sourly admitted, "she doesn't have what I have. Hell, you have more of it than she does."

"What?"

"Raw power. And if she does have more power than what she's shown so far, she needs to. Because she's still not strong enough to beat me. And I can't beat Goku, but I came damn close that one time." She suddenly slumped and dropped to the floor, looking utterly defeated.

This disturbed Xander a great deal because he had never seen Buffy like this. Ever.

"Buff, what's wrong?" he begged to know so he could fix it.

"We're going to lose Xander," she whispered hoarsely, tears welling up in her eyes, showing to him just how much her inability to utterly defeat Goku was affecting her. "We're going to die in 3 months, and it's all my fault. I should have said no!"

"Hey! I thought we had talked about this," he embraced her, and was starting to freak out by how easily she let him. Unbidden, and uncontrolled, his instincts surged suddenly, and his body reacted accordingly.

"You are a great . . . team leader," he almost said Alpha. "And look at what we can already do. Goku said it himself, the first few times he went to the Tournament, he lost so badly that the bad guys actually let him live. Now I'm not saying we should lose so badly we're laughed out of the place, but I'm not going to let you beat yourself up before it's even close to time for worrying about something like that. You're a beautiful, vibrant, wonder, alive young woman. You have more to enjoy than to worry about. Worrying makes you old too fast. Don't worry Buff. I'll do absolutely anything I have to to protect you."

Buffy looked up at the end of his speech, staring into his eyes.

"You think I'm beautiful?" she asked, sounding surprised.

'That's what she hooks onto after all that?' he asked himself, barely able to keep control of his much baser instinct to just nod in reply.

Neither can say what caused it or even who did it first, but the next thing either of the young warriors knew, they were kissing. Pulling back suddenly, they stared into each other's eyes for only a moment before they surged back together in a much more heated kiss.

TBC... Sooner than later I hope.