Two Jedi and a Hellmouth…
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or Star Wars.
Summary: Sequel to 'Second Chances'. In the Aftermath of Halloween, new powers are discovered and possibly a new love for Xander Harris
Rating: PG-13; just to be on the safe side.
Author's Notes: Thanks for all the reviews
dogbertcarroll: What do mean dressing up as the perfect victim?
Flying J: yes I am the same Sithspawn from spacebattles and yes, marvelous things are in store for Xander and Lily.
Rankokunalpha1: thanks for pointing those things out to me I'll get around to fixing them some time soon.
Vld: Relax, I have no intention of Turning Tahiri dark. The titles 2 Jedi not a Jedi and a Sith Lord;) She's currently a little gray but not dark. And as for knowing the dark side, well Tahiri knows it, but Lily still doesn't. A Tahiri/Jaina pairing? I didn't know they existed!
May Contain Spoilers for various events and books in the Star Wars Saga!
Chapter 3 Musings in the BronzeXander Harris sat in the Bronze with his oldest best friend, Willow Rosenberg, listening to the booming music of one of the local talent bands. He and Willow were sitting on one of the club's couches idly discussing the aftermath of Buffy's card catalogocide by lightsaber.
"So, how long do you suppose Giles is going to be mad at us?" Xander asked of Willow as he scanned the crowd to see where Buffy had gone.
"Uuuh…what do you mean us? It was your lightsaber that she was used!" Willow said absolving herself of any blame in the incident.
"Well…You watched, he'll blame you for doing that!" Xander teased.
"Uh, uh, I'm the teacher's pet…and he likes me more than you two," she retorted smartly.
Xander opened his mouth to retort to her smart-alec remark and paused. He sighed, "Yeah, you're right," he said dryly.
Willow giggled.
"So, where'd Buffy go?" Xander asked, changing the subject.
"Vamp," was Willow's succinct answer.
"Ah," Xander remarked as he tried to find a more comfortable position on the couch.
"So…" Willow began innocently, "You know, you never got round to telling us about what you remember of Anakin Solo's memories…" she trailed off giving him a wide-eyed look of innocence.
"Sure, I'll tell you…as soon as Buffy gets back," he replied not giving in to her imploring look.
Willow pouted at this, "Come on Xander, you've kept me in suspense all day, I can't take it anymore!" she urged him to talk, but he held firm. She sat back in a pout and waited impatiently for Buffy to return.
Buffy came back after ten minutes, still dusting off the remains of a vampire from her clothes. She walked slowly back to them and sat in the chair next to the couch Xander and Willow were sitting on.
"What took you so long?" demanded Willow irritably.
Buffy glanced at her friend in surprise, "I didn't take that long!" she protested. She turned to Xander after taking in Willow irritated mood, "What did you do to her while I was gone? I left her in a perfectly good mood!" she demanded of Xander.
Willow answered for him, "Mr. 'I've got a Big Secret' refuses to say anything until you return." Willow turned to Xander, "She's back now so spill!"
"Yeah, what's the stitch?" Buffy said adding her own enthusiasm to Willow's. "We've spilled our guts all day, now it's your turn," she continued.
Xander looked between the two determined females that he was sitting with, "Well, what do you want to know?" he asked of them.
"You tell us," they both intoned at the same time.
"Fine whatever you say," he paused to collect his thoughts and as Buffy and Willow watched his eyes unfocused and seemed to gain a far away look and then he shuddered, "I remember Palpatine touching me while I was still in my mother's womb," his voice was icy cold now.
Willow gaped at him in disbelief and shock while Buffy looked at him in confusion, "Who's Palpatine?" Buffy asked of him.
Xander gave her a weird look, "You know…The Emperor."
Buffy's confusion grew worse, "Whoa, wait a minute didn't he die before you-I mean Anakin was born?"
"This was the Resurrected Emperor," clarified Xander.
"Resurrected Emperor? I'm guessing that wasn't a good thing…" Buffy rambled on.
"Ya think," Xander retorted dryly, looking at her pointedly before continuing, "It's not one of my favorite of Anakin's memories, hell between that and his infamous grandfather, Anakin's always felt the specter of the Dark Side looming over his shoulder."
"I'll bet…" said Buffy sympathetically. Willow was still frozen by this bolt from the blue that was Xander's first revelation.
Xander waved his hand in front of her face without eliciting a reaction, so he turned to Buffy and said with a smile, "I think we've broken her."
Buffy eyed him and then nodded sadly.
Xander glanced mischievously at Buffy before back to Willow, "Willow!" he shouted while snapping her fingers in front of her face.
Willow shook herself, "What?" she said in surprise.
They laughed at her antics.
"Hey!" she said annoyed at her friend's laughter, "It's not funny!"
"From here it is!" retorted Buffy while still giggling.
Willow gave her a betrayed look and continued to watch as her friends laughed at her. She turned to glare pointedly at Xander, for a simple stare it said a lot; I know your deepest darkest secrets that Buffy doesn't know about, continue or else!
Xander stopped laughing, "Well anyway," he continued quickly, "Most of my memories aren't that scary. My mom-I mean Anakin's used to drag as around the galaxy as a part of her diplomatic duties, she showed us so many wonderful worlds. We saw the ocean world of Mon Calamari, their gigantic floating cities and their awe inspiring coral reef systems…we got nothing on Earth that even begins to rival the Mon Cal reefs," Xander said with a smile as he remembered Anakin's visit to Admiral Ackbar's homeworld. "You know, some of the underwater life there remind me of dinosaurs."
"Wow," said Willow, impressed.
"Really? Wouldn't that be a little scary?" asked Buffy.
"Well for the most part no, though the Kracken really left an impression on Anakin for quite some time," Xander said off-handedly.
"Kracken?" asked Willow with curiosity.
"Consider it a sea-monster type creature," answered Xander simply.
"Oh…that's all?" said Buffy not knowing how to react to that statement, she shared an unsure glance with Willow.
Xander missed their byplay and continued to reveal his memories to his friends, "I've been to dozens of worlds Corellia, Drall, Dagobah, Yavin IV, Coruscant, Honoghr, Wayland, Kashyyyk, Ithor, Dantooine, and dozens more. "
His friends were very impressed with that list.
"Really? That's fantastic Xander. So what was the most memorable place you've been to?" asked Willow.
Xander thought about it for a few minutes, "That's hard to say, I mean, some of the places were absolutely spectacular to me and others weren't…but they would be by your standards. I mean I'm used to Coruscant but for you an entire world that was one massive city would be unbelievable. There were towers there that stretched upwards for kilometers straight up…some even stretched above the clouds…"
Amazement was spawned on the faces of Buffy and willow at this remark but Xander continued on, "…Then there was Kashyyyk, that was Chewie's homeworld by the way, it was similar Coruscant, lots of large linked cities with structures kilometers high-the only difference is that on Kashyyyk the cities can technically be considered , by our standards at least, as massive tree houses. The only thing holding the cities up are the trees they are built on. The trees themselves can grow to be kilometers in height, as high as the buildings are built on Coruscant."
"A city tree house?" asked Buffy in disbelief.
Xander shrugged, "Basically yes."
"I bet there are some really happy boys on that world…they don't need to build their own tree house, they're living in one!" joked Buffy in awe.
"You think that's impressive you should have felt what it was like to stand in the middle of one of the Baffor groves on Ithor…" Xander said simply.
"Buffer groves of I Thor? What does Thor have to do with you? Isn't he a god of some kind?" asked Buffy.
Xander hid a small smirk with his hand, "That's Baffor groves of Ithor, "he corrected.
"Isn't that what I said?" Buffy retorted, "Well? Are you going to explain"
Xander smiled knowing that his answer would once more stun them, "There's a type of sentient tree," was Xander's very simple answer, "You usually find them gathered together as a forest."
Buffy blinked in surprise, Sentient trees? Wait a sec, SENTIENT FORESTS!
"Oh my god Xander, you mean like Dryads?" Willow asked wondrously.
It was Xander's turn to be confused, "What are Dryads?"
"They were like the spirits of each individual tree that had taken on a humanoid form, they're very well known in Earth mythology," Willow explained to the confused Xander.
"Oh…well no the Baffor trees weren't like that at all. They talked to the Ithorians through telepathy and that was only at very select times," Xander said dismissing any similarity to these Dryads.
TELEPATHIC SENTIENT TREES! Buffy's mind squeaked in disbelief, "Are you sure you're not making this all up, Xander?" she asked in doubt.
"It's all true Buff," Xander answered unequivocally.
Buffy took his answer and sat imagining what it would be like walking through a forest of that kind-the words 'the forest has eyes' took on a whole new meaning with what Xander was saying.
The rest of the evening passed by the trio quickly as Xander continued to tell his friends about his new memories. He mainly stayed to the good memories and avoided the other bad ones, he deflected their questions about what the creature that had hunted them on Halloween was by repeatedly shocking them with little tidbits of spectacular information that sidetracked them.
He hadn't mentioned anything about the Yuuzhan Vong invasion or how bad it had gotten, nor had he mentioned that the sentient Baffor groves of Ithor had all gone up in flames in an eye blink another victim of the Yuuzhan Vong's unbridled incomprehensible aggression and bloodlust.
He'd mentioned working on the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo and Chewbacca, sparring with Jedi Master Luke Skywalker at the Jedi Academy, flying his own personnel X-Wing starfighter, building his old lightsaber and various other tidbits and encounters with the 'who's who' people of Star Wars.
He told them about some of his happier adventures, how he and Tahiri had released the trapped spirits of the Massassi children and awakened Master Ikrit from his slumber on Yavin IV. About some of the friends he had made at the Jedi Academy while he was training to be a Jedi Knight.
That last thought played over in Xander's mind a couple of times before he caught the implications of; while he was training to be a Jedi Knight…
With every passing day Xander was identifying more and more with Anakin Solo as if they were merging into one person.
Xander just couldn't understand it. He sat there trying to comprehend it all.
Willow asked a question that caught Xander's attention.
"What? What did you say?" Xander asked, coming out of his revere
Willow rolled her eyes at Xander and said, "I said, well if you've still got your powers then what about Tahiri? I mean the girl that was dressed up as Tahiri, what do you think happened to her? Does she still have all her powers, like you?"
Willow's question struck him like a ten-ton freight train. He'd forgotten all about Tahiri!
Uh, oh…how could I have forgotten about her! I did only find myself kissing her before we even had a first date! Xander thought dryly to himself. Inside him he felt the part of him that had been Anakin Solo long for the girl that had been his friend for so long and who had become so much more in the end.A second twenty-ton train ran him over again. If she had all her powers then she was alone and he assumed she was in the dark about the Hellmouth!
This did not bode well if his assumption was right!
She was alone and didn't understand how the Hellmouth could influence the unwary.
Xander turned to find himself under the direct scrutiny of his two friends, "Guy's we need to find her now! Right away!" he exclaimed seriously.
Author's Notes: Hope u like this chapter. Please Read, Enjoy, and Review. Sorry for the delay. Also things should pick up more in the coming chapter.