Chapter 1
"It's so your turn to clean the weapons, Xander Harris!" shouted Cordelia Chase, whipping her head around and sending her blonde-streaked brown hair flying with it. She poked the other brunette in the stomach. "Remember the whole Chrem'ytli demon thing the night before last? I cleaned the swords and Gunn's axe! It's SO your turn. I scrubbed so hard that I needed to get another manicure." She looked at her fingers, inspecting the newly refined nails, before raising her eyes to her ex-boyfriend, tempting him to disagree with her.
"Fine!" Xander groaned, throwing his arms into the air. "But I'll have you know that last night, I cleaned the Freskle slime off of Wesley's crossbow and Angel's katana, Gunn's axe, my axe, and the axe that Dawnie used. But, hey, I don't care about taking turns because I'm just here to clean the weapons, Vision Girl."
With that, Xander glared at the brunette and turned on his heal to the weapons cabinet, pulling out the green-blood encrusted weapons before taking out the rag (which had been one of Xander's old Hawaiin t-shirts) and a bottle of cleaner before settling in to work. Regretting her actions a little, Cordelia sighed and headed over to the weapon's cabinet. "Xander, pull out another rag that you call a shirt, and scoot over. I'll help you."
Since the battle against the First Evil and Anya's death, Xander had been snappish and withdrawn. It concerned Willow, Dawn, and Cordelia, and they had been conspiring for a few weeks about kidnapping him and taking him out to a club. He needed to get out. He needed exposure. He needed someone to lean on.
And Cordelia, being the insanely nice and generous person she was, spent as much time as possible without being obvious with Xander. "Remember in senior year Harmony tripped in the cafeteria?"
"How could I not?" replied Xander, throwing a grin at Cordelia. "That had to be the most embarrassing thing she's ever done… Besides getting turned."
"Yeah," laughed Cordelia. "She couldn't spend an hour without a mirror. How could she spend the rest of her unlife without being able to see her reflection?"
For the rest of the night, Cordelia and Xander were talking about high school, and that's how Willow Rosenberg and Dawn Summers found them after their shopping trip.
"Xander!" called the redhead, lugging a few bags into the hotel. Mostly they were Dawn's, as she was the compulsive shopper, and Willow had just laughed as the little brunette hopped from store to store looking eagerly at all the clothes like a little kid in a candy shop. Blowing a lock of red hair out of her green eyes, she grinned when she heard his laughter, leaving the bags by the front desk, Willow went a little further into the hotel to see Cordelia and Xander throwing raggedy shirts at each other. "Now, now you two! What have I said about throwing around rags?"
"Um, nothing?" Cordelia giggled, throwing the shirt in her hand at Xander, who grinned and caught it.
"She's got you there, Wills," laughed Xander as Dawn walked in. He threw the shirt back at Cordelia, who squealed since it was a rag covered in the green blood they had been cleaning off the weapons. "And don't call my clothes rags!"
Dawn picked up one of the shirts and giggled, throwing it at Xander. "With the design and style of that shirt, it's no wonder it became a rag!" Dawn laughed, blue eyes sparkling, hiding behind a couch as a shirt was thrown at her. "Hey!"
"You had it coming, Dawnie!" snickered Cordelia, dodging a shirt thrown at her. Soon, there were shirts flying everywhere, from behind the couch, behind a nearby armchair, and from behind the weapons cabinet. Willow sighed, knowing that if Angel were to come out from brooding all day over nothing and everything he wouldn't be happy about the mess, and stepped closer to the fight.
"Now listen," Willow began, taking on a condescending tone that sounded oddly like a mother scolding her child, "you three shouldn't be throwing the rags around. Angel might come out and-"
But she was hit by a shirt, with crusted something on it, and Willow squeaked in disgust before flinging herself behind the weapons cabinet. "This means war!"
Xander and Willow versus Cordelia and Dawn.
Wesley found them grinning and panting in a pile of dirty rags ten minutes later when he came down to check on a translation. Frowning, he said, "What on earth are you four doing in a pile of dirty rags?"
The four giggled and laughed, before picking themselves off the rags and putting them away in the bottom drawer. "Just playing, Wesley, or would you not know how to play?" Willow giggled, throwing a smile at him over her shoulder to lessen the insult. She meant nothing by it, he could tell, and he too grinned.
"Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" Wesley replied before shaking his head and moving towards his office.
Since Xander, Willow, and Dawn had moved into the hotel after battling the First Evil under Buffy's order. As she needed to be on a hellmouth, she had moved to Cleveland to control that one, as Giles set up a new Watcher's Council to train new Watchers for the hundreds of Slayers all over the world that had been activated. Xander and Dawn were considered Watchers, and after new slayers were found, they'd be sent to L.A. and be trained under them. Wesley, too, was considered a Watcher, but declined the job in favor of helping run Angel Investigations. Sighing, Wesley sat down at his desk and picked up a large, leather-bound, weathered book nearby, and retrieving the smaller red leather book from the top locked drawer.
Settling down for a long evening of translating, Wesley pushed his glasses up his nose and set to work, scratching notes down on a legal pad with a cheap felt-tip pen. 'This may turn into something…'
-
Later, after the shirt fight had been cleaned up, the weapons put away, and the day's shopping hung up and folded into drawers, Cordelia sat at the front desk, crossword in one hand and a blue pencil in the other. Chewing on the eraser as one particularly hard line stumped her, she glanced up as the Hyperion doors opened. Grinning, she set both items down and stood, stretching, before following Charles Gunn and Winifred, Fred, Burkle into the kitchen. "What'd you two get?"
"Tacos!" Fred exclaimed happily, setting the two bags she carried down on the table. She toyed with a strand of her loose brown hair. "Well, we stopped for tacos for me, but the rest of you get Chinese."
"Again?" Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "That's the third time this week."
"If you wanna start cookin' be my guest, Cordy," Gunn replied, settling his four bags down on the counter. He removed four two-liter bottles of soda to put into the small refrigerator. "Otherwise, get used to Chinese. No one else is complainin'."
"Chinese again?" exclaimed an excited Dawn, bouncing around the kitchen. "Did you get me pepper steak and onion?"
"How could I forget, girlie?" Gunn smiled at the young woman, passing her her food. "Last time you hounded me for days until I got it right."
"For good reason," Dawn argued, digging into the white paper box. "Thanks, Gunn."
Xander stepped into the kitchen a few moments after Dawn, with Willow right behind him, looking at the dancing Dawn. "I'm sorry 'bout her, Gunn. Willow gave her chocolate."
"I'm sorry," Willow began. "She wanted chocolate so I gave her a tiny, itty bitty piece so she'd stop hounding me, and then she asked for more, so I said to myself, 'Why not?' and gave her some more, but then she got all hyper and started bouncing around the room and the bed and started skipping down the hallway, so I'm sorry for feeding her chocolate and"
"Calm the babblin' Willow," laughed Gunn, handing Willow and Xander each a container of shrimp fried rice. Xander nodded his thanks before leaving for his room to eat. He never ate in the kitchen. The black man turned and walked to the doorway of the kitchen. "Just sit and eat and don't worry about it. I'm gonna go get in English here… Be right back."
The four girls sat down, Dawn at the kitchen island swinging her legs every which way, while Cordelia, Willow, and Fred sat at the table, munching on their food while exchanging small conversation. And when Gunn and Wesley walked into the kitchen, they had to fight the urge to bust out laughing as the four girls were talking about Angel's overly-gelled hair.
"Here ya go, English," Gunn said, handing Wesley the carton of vegetable lo mein.
"You got Dawn the right order, then, I suppose?" asked Wesley, smiling at Dawn who sat at the kitchen island happily eating her pepper steak. Snapping the hashi, Wesley dove into the lo mein. Pausing, he looked at Gunn. "Did you get sesame seeds?"
"Of course, English," replied Gunn, nodding his bald head and throwing a little packet of sesame seeds at the older man. Sitting down next to Fred, Gunn opened his box of General Tso's chicken with a small carton of white rise nearby. As kid from the streets, Gunn only eats with a fork.
"Well, I'm going to look at that prophecy again," Wesley announced after dumping the sesame seeds into his lo mein. "It's an interesting poem written in half-Japanese, half-Arabic, that alternates between both and I'll see what I can make of it. If it's important, I'll let you all know."
Pushing his glasses up his nose, Wesley bustled out of the kitchen carrying his carton of lo mein and a glass of water. Gunn rolled his eyes and smiled affectionately.
"Workaholic."
-
"So, Willow was just standing there and I was asking her if this pretty sky-blue dress looked nice on me, which it did, and then she just totally drooled! She was asleep with her eyes open, standing up! I was like, waiting for her to wake up by snapping my fingers and stuff but - "
Cordelia fell to the floor, gripping her head and letting out a pain-filled scream. Gunn and Fred immediately rushed to her side, while Willow quickly poured a glass of water and got the painkillers out. Dawn sat there, feeling guilty, like her constant talking had given the once-brunette-but-now-blonde the vision. Scrambling for a piece of paper, Cordelia wrote down four lines.
7:00 PM
Redhead named Orenda
Tsuki-Ookami
Big red demon with tentacles and seven yellow eyes, and green teeth
"There," breathed Cordelia, before throwing back the pills and gulping down the glass of water. Clearing her throat, Cordelia looked at Gunn and Fred. "There was a clock on a wall outside the club, a big digital one, and it was at seven. It was dark out. There was a whisper of a name, Orenda, this redhead female. Go get Angel out from the Lair and take an axe. Tentacles. Lots of them. Take Wesley, too."
"I'm on it, Cordy," grinned Gunn. As Gunn exited the kitchen, Cordelia climbed back into the chair, slumping against the high wooden back.
"These visions are so annoying," Cordelia complaining, stuffing a lump of shrimp into her mouth. "I mean, yeah, I get that Angel needs his connection with the Powers. But why the pain? Why can't they be pain-free?"
"Maybe 'cause then you wouldn't notice it as much? You might pass it off as a dream," explained Willow. Waving a hand, gesturing around the room in a Willow-ish way, she continued. "With all the demons you see, it's likely that you'd have dreams about them. Now, if you had a vision, without the pain, would you pass it off as a dream?"
Cordelia shook her, head, even though she stammered, uncertainly, "N-no! Of course not!"
Giving her a pointed look, Willow crossed her arms over her chest. Huffing, Cordelia leaned forward onto the table. "Fine. Yes, I probably would."
"Thus concluded, pain is necessary," Fred chirped through a mouthful of taco.
-
As Drusilla danced with Miss Edith on the balcony above the foyer, a chime echoed through the mansion, bouncing off the dark stone walls, causing Drusilla to groan with delight. Her Champion was here. A minion opened the door, beckoning the mage in. "Drippy droppy, fresh and clean… Fall upon earth and water. How have you been?"
"As well as ever, Dru," came the curt response from the irritated mage. "Now, will you tell me why I was disturbed at three in the morning?"
"Vision," Drusilla replied, dancing down the hallway to the steps. "Chaos, chaos everywhere, and not a drop to spare. What were you doing that I disturbed you?"
"Plotting," her Champion replied, tapping his foot in impatience. His Seer was a wacky one, but his anyway. "Something for Ripper."
"Now, now, drippy droppy," giggled Drusilla as she tried to sound chastising, ushered him into another room, a completely bare, stone room, with one hand while the other poked him. "You know that Ripper wouldn't be happy. And unhappy Ripper isn't a fun Ripper."
"Actually…"
"Here, now," Drusilla interrupted her Champion, motioning to the room. "This is where you'll be summoning them from. The Powers need you to get the little muffins here…"
"Drusilla, what the hell are you rambling on about?"
"The Children of Destiny. They need to be brought here," Drusilla replied, dancing again with Miss Edith. "The final apocalypse will come to be when on the earth are the Children of Destiny. Born from the Champions of the past, of the old…"
-
"Loyalty steadfast, hearts of gold," Wesley read from the small leather-bound book. "Strong in spirit, body, and mind-"
-
"Here, their fates they will find. The end draws near and they win or fall, and together they fight with thirteen in all." Drusilla continued, singing the prophecy and dancing around the barren stone room.
-
"Three with night skin, two with powers, two determined to win, two hunting for hours," Wesley's brow creased in thought. This prophecy was rather detailed while still being vague…
-
"One with clarity of mind, one destined to protect the key, one with more knowledge to find, one longing to be free…" Drusilla stared up at the dark ceiling, spinning in a circle. "Using insanity," giggled Drusilla, pointing to herself, "and chaos," she pointed to her Champion, "for the Powers' will to be done, On the field all at once…"
-
"Are the Children of Champions." Sighing, Wesley finally dropped his pen and gripped his head. Switching from Arabic to Japanese and back again was tiring and confusing… But the end result being a fully translated prophecy was well worth the headache. Hopefully he could tell everyone at dinner…
"Hey Wes," Gunn knocked on the doorway of his office. Wesley looked up, squinting with no glasses on, at the tall black man. "Get yer stuff together. Cordy had a vision that's due to happen at seven, and we've gotta get Gel-Man out of hiding."
Nodding, Wesley rubbed his eyes before placing his glasses on his nose and grabbing a crossbow. He'd announce the prophecy after they were done killing… whatever needed to be killed. It wasn't as if the prophecy was going to be set in motion yet, right?
-
"Sons and daughters of the Champions, drippy droppy," Drusilla reminded the mage, tapping at the circle of herbs that her Champion had laid out. "Into the hotel, all at once if you can. Can you, drippy droppy?"
"How often have I told you not to call me that, Drusilla?" her champion replied, setting down a thick, old, worn tome. A knock upon the door to the stone room sounded. "What?"
"Mr. Rayne," a minion said, peeking his head in. "We've gotten the goat's blood you wanted."
Ethan Rayne smiled. "Excellent. Do you have the goat as well?"
"Yes, Mr. Rayne," the minion replied, ushering two more minions into the room, the two new minions carrying a large goat. "Is there anything else you require, Mr. Rayne, Mistress?"
"That's all, boys," the male brunette laughed, dragging the goat over to the circle. "Thank you for the goat."
"It was no problem, Mr. Rayne," the two new minions replied humbly, bowing out of the room. The last minion shut the door.
"Well, if that's all you need, Drusilla," Ethan began, a wild gleam forming in his brown eyes, "than I think we're ready to set that prophecy in motion."
end Chapter 1.
Word Count: 2,808 words.
Author's Note: Last chapter, Dru-speak was supposed to be hard to follow. I wanted it to be cryptic. Did anyone guess who the people were? Also, forgot to put this in the prologue, but watch for major amounts of OCs. The full summary states that the CHILDREN of Champions are coming. Saying such, the prophecy is about the OCs. Can you guess the parents of the Children?
Review responses:
Imzadi: I'm glad you think it's interesting. As for the people, you have some right, and some wrong. It will be revealed in all good time. Keep reading and reviewing to get the clarification you need.