A.N.

Please extinguish all smoking materials and place your seats in a full upright position. Do not hang hands or heads out of the windows... I do hope you're buckled up.
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Darkness Calls Chapter 12
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Storm Warning

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BAMM BAMM BAMMMM

"Ungh... Damn it..." Xander mumbled half coherently as he struggled to sit up in his bed. Drusilla's arm draped across him made the going difficult at first, but he finally managed to achieve sorta a sitting-up position as he glared blurrily at the clock. "Gods-damnit..." He muttered. "It's only 2:30..." Groggily he stood up and started throwing some clothes on as he stumbled towards the bedroom door and eventually towards the front door. Normally he didn't wake up this bad, but the earlier events of the day had him wiped.

He was fully awake before he got to the front door though.

Not that he was worried that it was any of the First's minions, for a couple of reasons. First was the simple fact that the bad-guys wouldn't have bothered knocking, and second was the fact that Drusilla had put a magickal 'fence' around the apartment that would have fried any would be assassins on the spot.

That didn't stop Drusilla from being two steps behind him either. She'd just managed to truly be with her kitten and she wasn't about to let him face anything without her by his side.

The door started to vibrate again from the next round of pounding on it when he yanked it open. Considering the force of the blows he'd been expecting either Faith or Buffy to be on the other side so he was fully unprepared to have Willow and Dawn almost run into his apartment.

One good look at their faces pushed his worried feelings up to an 'Oh Shit' feeling.

"Wills, Dawnie... What's wrong? Was there an attack at the house? Are you okay? What's going on?"

Willow all but threw herself onto Xander's couch and looked up at him pensively. "Xander..." She trailed off for a moment and then drew a deep breath, obviously collecting her thoughts. Dawn perched herself on the arm of the couch almost hovering over Willow's shoulder. They both looked worn out, scared and angry.

"Did Buffy do something...?"

"No. Yes. Well, not directly. No attack at the house either. It's... well, Buffy came up with another of her plans...." Xander almost groaned aloud at hearing this news. "And Dawnie found something."

"Okay Will... you're starting to scare me here" Xander pulled an overstuffed chair over to directly in front of Willow, sitting down in it and looking at her intently. Dru quietly slipped into his lap, her concern for two of the most important people in Xander's life evident on her face.

Willow sighed for a moment and then rubbed her face with her hands. Sharing a glance with Dawn, she sighed again.

"Which do you want first? The bad news or the worse? 'Course I'm not sure which one is actually the worser 'cause like the more I think about it the more I really think they're related somehow and Buffy is all 'Willow you've gotta make up this spell so we can win' and then Dawnie read the Codex which is all 'You have to make the right choices' and then there's the Codex itself and... Willow slowly stopped talking and she looked lost for a moment.

Dawn's eyes were slightly glassy as she simply nodded her head in time with Willow's comments.

Wordlessly Xander looked at Dru for a moment, and then rising off of his lap she gathered Dawn up into her arms and hugged the girl, while Xander leaned forward and did the same for Willow for a few minutes.

Finally Xander pulled away just a little and he studied Willow's face for a moment or two.

"Better?"

Snuffling just a little the redhead nodded. "Yea, better now."

"Good." He settled back into his chair and Drusilla climbed back into his lap, her having ensconced Dawn in at Willow's side moments before.

"Okay..." He started, drawing a deep breath, "What did 'Little Hitler' do this time?" Aggravation and exasperation were very evident in his voice as he asked this.

Willow and Dawn both winced a little and they shared an undecipherable look. Then Willow started filling Xander and Dru in on how their morning had gone.

"Around 10:30 or so Buffy started yelling for everyone to gather round 'cause she had a 'Great Plan'" The other three occupants of the room could clearly hear the quotation marks in Willow's voice. "Anyways, long story kinda short... She's convinced that the axe she found, her 'Slayer's Scythe' as she calls it, is just full of Slayer power..." Willow's voice trailed off and her gaze turned inwards for a moment. "She wants me to make a spell up from scratch and use the Axe as a focus in order to activate all of the Potentials."

"Excuse me?" - - "She What?!" Xander's and Dru's voices competed to be heard for a moment as each seemed genuinely bewildered by what Willow had said.

"Activate the Potentials?" Xander finally got out.

Willow nodded her head. "She wants to make all of the Potentials into full- blown Slayers."

"Okaaay..." Xander started and then stopped speaking. After a small laugh he started again. "Run that by me one more time Willow. She wants to make all the Potentials at the house into real, full out and out, Slayers?"

"No Xander." Dawn interjected. "Not just the ones at the house...She wants to make All of them, every Potential there is, into a Slayer."

"Is she out of her fucking mind?"

All eyes turned towards Drusilla in shock.

"What? Everyone here was thinking it." She commented petulantly.

No one had a snappy comeback to refute that fact.

Xander finally shook his head in bemusement. "How many are we looking at here Will? Fifty? Sixty? A hundred or so?"

"It could be thousands, Xander." Came her quiet reply.

"You've got to be kidding me..."

"No, unfortunately, I'm not. Every text I've been able to find on it tells how the Council never, ever, had a full accounting of all of the Potential Slayers that are out there. No one knows. And yes, we're talking the whole world here."

Xander's mouth hung open, whether in disbelief or shear surprise was hard to tell. Dru for her part was obviously thinking furiously about the possible ramifications of what Willow had said.

Dawn and Willow, for their part, were actually watching Dru a lot more than they were watching Xander. She'd been acting amazingly sane the whole time that they'd been there and they were a little amazed at her.

"Can... Can you actually do this?" Xander finally got out.

Willow's gaze turned inwards yet again and her face became contemplative. "Can I? Probably... Yes." Her head nodded as she said this. "Yes, I could... The thing is, is that I won't."

"Okay." Xander stated as both he and Dru nodded their heads. There was no argument there, just a simple acceptance of her statement. "Okay... Why won't you?" Xander immediately raised his hand in order to stop Willow's almost squeal of anger. "I'm not arguing with you Will. You say you won't do the spell, that's fine with me. I'm sure you have a good reason. I just wanted to know why you won't do it. Your reasoning."

"Oh. Sorry." Willow hung her head for a moment. "It's just... Buffy went off when I told her I wouldn't do it. So did Giles, he was backing her up a hundred percent. And..." Her voice trailed off and she looked truly miserable sitting there.

Xander looked over at Dawn in confusion until she mouthed the name 'Kennedy' at him.

Oh. Ouch. Shit. Xander winced internally. It was very common knowledge that Kennedy had a mad-on about becoming a Slayer and he was very certain that she must be well and truly pissed to find out her lover had the ability to make her one... and wouldn't. He spared a glance at Dru, who had obviously come to the same conclusion judging by the look on her face.

"Anyways..." Willow's voice started again, her having had a chance to catch her bearings during Xander brief bout of introspection. "I thought about it long and hard... and then I told Buffy I wouldn't do it. She ranted and raved and ordered me to do it, not listening to what I was trying to tell her. K- Kennedy... she..."

Willow started to break down again and Xander and Dru both pulled her into their embrace, trying to sooth the distraught Witch.

Leaving them be for just a moment or two, Dawn picked up the tale. "It wasn't pretty in there and after putting up with more of their crap than I would have, Willow finally told them all to go to hell and went to her room. Buffy sent that bitch Kennedy... Whoops, Sorry Willow. Anyways she sent Kennedy up there to try and talk Willow into it."

Willow nodded tearfully and sniffled some more. "S-She..." Willow's voice trailed off yet again as she tried not to cry. Xander in the meantime was desperately trying not to let his anger show, being major league pissed at her obviously now ex-girlfriend. After looking in Dru's eyes for just a moment he also decided that it was a damn good thing that Kennedy wasn't present at this moment, because he seriously doubted that he'd be able (or willing) to keep Dru from beating the shit out of the girl.

Willow shook for a little bit longer and then pulled away from them. "I... I... It's okay. Honest." Her voice was still a bit unsteady but Xander knew the 'resolve face' was working its way out.

Letting her at least have the pretense of being 'okay' for a moment Xander gave her his standard lop-sided grin in an effort to play along. "So... what were your reasons Will? Seeing as how at least we'll listen to you."

Dru decided that she liked holding her so she moved over next to Willow, wrapped her arms around her from the side, and just lent her as much support as she could.

"W-Well, i-it's l-like this..." It was hard for Xander to tell if Willow was stuttering because of her being upset over Kennedy or if she was stuttering due to the closeness of Drusilla. Either way, it was endearing but it made it difficult to understand her. Luckily, Dru seemed to realize this at the same time and she backed off just a tiny bit.

"T-The first thing that I thought of was that I remembered how much Buffy used to complain about being made a Slayer." Slowly at first, then quicker, Willow's voice gained in strength. "Remember how she used to say how she hated not being given a choice? How she wanted to just be normal?"

Xander and Dawn nodded at this comment, both of them having plenty of memories to support Willow's comment. "If I actually cast that spell... it would be like raping an untold number of girls. I'd be stealing their lives. I mean, yea, right now the situation sucks, one girl is chosen like some giant 'Powers-that-be Lottery, but it's better than doing it to all of those girls."

Xander nodded his head in agreement; not responding verbally as he didn't want to interrupt her now that he'd her actually got her to talking.

"Then there's the simple fact that the Powers set it up so that there was only one Slayer. Why they settled for only one, we'll probably never know. But, and granted it's just a 'but'. But what if by making all the Potential Slayers into full Slayers, I upset the balance of things. I'm not a Power... I don't have the right to even try and do that..."

Damn... I hadn't thought of that at all

"And speaking of balance..." Willow was starting to talk faster now, the analytical part of her starting to take over. "Anya and Giles went and talked to the Oracle didn't they? Beljoxa's Eye. Remember what they said it told them?"

Xander closed his eyes and thought, trying to recall the exact words.

"The mystical forces surrounding the chosen line have become irrevocably altered, become unstable, vulnerable. The First Evil did not cause the disruption, only seized upon it to extinguish the lives of the chosen forever." Dawn supplied in a quiet voice. "And it's because Buffy lives... again."

"Exactly." Willow said. "Me, Xander, Anya and Tara brought her back. We upset the balance..." Willow's voice trailed off as her eyes got bigger and bigger.

"Then the way to beat the First would be..." Dawn started.

"We need to restore the balance." Drusilla stated.

"Or Buffy needs to die. Again." Added Willow morosely.

"Shit." It was a tossup as to who said it first.

Nobody spoke or even moved for quite a while, the ramifications of what Willow had imparted on them held them there.

"Well... So, was that the bad news or the worse news?" Xander asked trying desperately to lighten the mood. Unfortunately his attempt fell flat as Willow and Dawn exchanged a very worried glance.

"Awww shit. Now what?" He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

Drusilla moved back across and sat in his lap again, cupping his cheek with her hand for a moment, lending him her support and love.

Dawn wordlessly handed Xander the book she'd carried in with her which had been discarded to the floor earlier.

Xander looked at it in trepidation. "Awww Damn. Not another Prophesy... like all we need is a new Prophesy."

Willow looked at him with haunted eyes. "It's not a new Prophesy, Xander. It's an old one."

"Huh?" Xander was fully confused now. He looked at the book again. "I should know this book shouldn't I?"

Willow's face betrayed her inner turmoil as she nodded. "Turn to page 328. The loose papers are the translation I made of it."

Xander opened the old Codex and started reading as Dru followed along, reading the original words.

"Wait a minute... I know this... But..." His voice trailed off and he looked at Willow as if lost. "This can't be right... That's not they way that..." He glanced over at Dru and with the sad look on her face he knew that it was true.

"It gets worse." Was all that Dawn could say. It was tearing her up to see Xander taking it like this.

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It was hours later before they managed to verify certain pieces of information and put a decent working plan together.

It wasn't going to be pretty.

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"Just where the HELL have you been?!" Buffy stood on the front steps and glared at Willow and Dawn as they walked up.

"Hi Buffy... Nice to see you too."

The volume of Buffy's voice dropped considerably as she turned her eyes from her friend and her sister and towards Xander and Dru. "Look, I'm glad you're here... I have a plan, a good one this time. We can win this, I know we can." Her voice took on almost whiney, pleading quality that made Xander's teeth itch, but he played it cool for the time being.

"I know Buff. Will and Dawn told me about it." Seeing her face start to darken as Buffy rapidly jumped to the conclusion that he'd be against her plan (even if he was...) Xander held his hands up. "Woa there... We're here to actually talk about your plan. Honest. I really want to hear what you want to do."

It wasn't a lie. Not even a small one. Xander wanted to hear what Buffy wanted to do. After he found out what he needed to know though. And after she found out what she needed to know.

Buffy promptly hurried into the house with a big grin on her face calling for the 'inner circle' to meet in the Dining Room, and yes, she meant right now, thank you.

Xander walked in and seated Dru, pulling out the chair for her and settling her in.

Under cover of that he handed her a small oblong black object.

She smiled at him and assured him quietly that she would be a good girl.

Everyone filed in fairly quickly. Kennedy snagged a chair and glared at Willow for a moment before feeling a set of eyes glaring at her. Shifting her gaze for a moment she found herself looking into the eyes of a pissed off Vampire. She almost opened her mouth in order to say something, but thought better of it at the last moment.

Just before the last of the core gang finally appeared, (This being Faith and Robin) Xander excused himself for a moment and headed towards the kitchen, ostensibly to get Dru a drink. Motioning for Giles to follow him he stepped into the kitchen and then rapidly opened the door to the cellar and descended the stairs.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Giles followed him down the stairs in an effort to find out what the younger man was up to.

At the same time in the Dining Room, Drusilla made a small gesture to Willow and Willow promptly released the spell she'd had on hold.

Buffy started to lurch to her feet but the look on Willow's face stopped her cold. "Just sit down and listen Buffy." As the others started to get fussy Willow raised her voice "Just sit down and listen for a change. Everyone needs to hear this." She looked over at Drusilla who promptly set the small black object in the middle of the table. "No one outside of here can hear what is being said in this room and no one is entering or leaving here until we've heard what's going on."

"Honestly Xander... What is going on?" Giles asked slightly exasperated.

"You know, that's a good question G-man. I'm hoping you have some good answers." Xander smiled grimly and pulled the pistol out of its holster at the small of his back. Pointing it at the older man he waved it vaguely towards Spikes cot over next to the wall. "Have a seat Giles... for some reason I think this is going to take a while."

"What is the meaning of this?!" Giles' voice started to get louder and harsher. "You bloody little pillock I'll..."

"Stuff it Giles. I've seen the Codex. You remember the Peragrum Codex don't you Giles? The one from waaayy back when?"

Seeing the older man's face start to go ashen, he knew that he'd hit a weak spot.

"I've seen the real Prophesy Giles. The real one. You know, the one that you said had Buffy dieing at the hands of the Master?"

Giles started to open his mouth in order to reply but Xander overrode him. "Neat thing that Prophesy, Giles. In the real one there's all kinds of stuff you neglected to mention. It goes on to say some very interesting things. Like how Buffy was supposed to die and then be saved by the 'White Knight'. Like how you knew ahead of time it would call a second Slayer... and that Kendra would die. Yep... All kinds of stuff. All the way down to the possibilty of multiple Slayers."

Giles seemed to deflate before Xander's eyes while upstairs a table full of people sat and stared in complete shock at a small walkie-talkie sitting in the middle of the table.

Taking off his glasses Giles almost started to polish them for a moment and then he sighed and simply put them back on. "Alright Xander... What would you like to know?" He finally asked resignedly.

"I have all kinds of questions, but I guess the biggest one is who exactly are you working for? I know for a fact that you're still working for that bastard Quentin Travers. I'm just wondering if you're also working for the First Evil."
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End of Chapter 12.

QSK