Chapter 18 – LA Not So Confidential

She-Ra was flying, literally. On the back of a griffin, to top it all off.

If someone had said what she would be doing right now to Willow two days ago, she would be laughing and calling the person nuts. Right now, her mind was more focused on the lines of 'nothing is impossible'.

"So, Thunderbolt, how did you end up at my house?" she asked. They were traveling way high, but at a moderate speed, so the wind wasn't too bothersome.

/I can't say for certain, She-Ra. Something was attracting me to your house, since quite some time ago. I came all the way from New York to here/ the mystical animal answered with his telepathy.

"New York? How much time did it take you? It was a dangerous trip, wasn't it?"

/I guess it took me the best part of six months. And yes, it was dangerous. But I couldn't resist this...calling./

"I guess it is the same type of calling me and Xander, I mean, He-Man, answered. But the question is, why us?"

/I'm afraid I can't answer that. You see, I always found myself much different from my feline companions. Smarter. Not really intelligent, I believe this came with the transformation, but definitely smarter./

"I guess I still have a few questions to the Sorceress," She-Ra said.

/I want to meet her./

"I know, buddy. Not now, she is probably asleep, but tomorrow. Tomorrow..." and her voice trailed off.

/She-Ra? What is it?/

And she told him. The Sorceress' history. The prophecy. Xander. His probable reaction. And how she was absolutely lost in how to deal with him afterwards.

/He is your friend, right?/

"He's my best friend, my brother, my...everything. I would do anything for him, and he for me," she said. It was only one of the few absolute truths she had in her life.

/So, do what your heart is telling you to do. Tell the truth. And ask him to think it over before taking any actions. She is to blame, I agree. But in her position, would you do anything different?/

"Y-yes...I mean... no," she sighed. "I don't know. I know how those things are, life and death decisions in half a second. They work, you are a genius. They fail..." she didn't complete the thought.

/I agree. So, to lift the mood, want to hunt a few nasty creatures in LA?/ the griffin asked.

"HELL, YEAH! Let's go, buddy!" she screamed, happily.

Good thing about LA, as weird as the sight is, everyone thinks someone is shooting a movie or something. At this time of the night, the streets were mostly empty, but the few people who saw the stunning redhead flying the mystical beast thought only about movies and cool special effects.

She-Ra was using hers and Thunderbolt's mystical senses to hunt. A thin thread was pulling them to an unknown destination to the west.

"Fly higher, Thunderbolt. We are arriving, and I want to give a good look to what we will be facing."

The griffin answered by flapping his majestic wings and climbing above the surrounding skyscrapers. She-Ra finally saw them, two guys running in the front, one of them Willow knew quite well, and a group of vampires and demons running behind, chasing them. They entered an alleyway, and they stopped briefly at a closed fence. The man she knew helped the other scale the fence, and he would do the same if not for a crossbow bolt that suddenly struck him deeply in his right thigh.

The mob stopped, as if savoring the moment, and Angel looked at them, thinking that he would never again deal with gambling debts of anyone, not even friendly Seers. If he survived, that is.

She-Ra nudged the large beast down, and they silently landed behind the demon crowd. Angel had seen her approaching, and thought that if she was leading this gang, he was most surely dead. Definitely.

/She-Ra, wait,/ the griffin spoke over their link. /Can you conjure a barrier around the escaping ones? I think I can help even the odds a little bit./

She-Ra lifted her right hand and spoke a few words in a long dead language. Angel and the man on the other side of the fence were suddenly surrounded by a greenish-blue glow that settled around them.

/Thanks. Stand still,/ he said, jumping into the air above the group of demons and vampires.

Suddenly his massive shape vanished and in its place appeared a large glowing ball of electricity. It exploded in about a thousand bolts of lighting, which scorched the demons and the vampires alike, turning them into dust or goo. Not a single bolt hit the Heir of Honor, even though a few came pretty close, but the shields protecting Angel and the other one were unmercifully hit. The thunderstorm took about twenty seconds, and in the end, only five survivors were standing in the alley.

A big demon was left behind, his hide seemingly made of some sort of mineral substance, and he took every bolt quite well. He stood eight feet tall, arms the size of tree trunks, and nasty spikes protruding from his back and legs. The griffin was back to normal, and he was eyeing the large demon carefully, waiting for his move. She-Ra walked in front of the griffin, cutting his way to attack.

"I'll deal with him."

/He seems tough/ Thunderbolt spoke.

"Yes, it'll be fun, hopefully. Thanks for the help with the others," she said, unsheathing her sword.

/No problem. Be careful./

She-Ra didn't answer. Instead, she ran the distance between them, and in the last possible moment, she jumped up, hitting the demon with a spinning kick to his chin. He flew with the strength of the kick, hitting one of the walls and denting it. He shook the debris and dusted off his hide and stood up. He wasn't even shaken up.

He grinned at her, showing row after row of mean looking teeth, and he charged, huge fist flying in the direction of her torso. She ducked to the side and grabbed his arm near the elbow, twisting her body around and dragging the behemoth with her. He hit the other wall head first and yet again he stood up.

"Damn, you are tough."

She approached him, trading her sword to her left hand. He tried to punch her again, but she dodged the blow, and she hit him in the gut with enough strength to punch a hole in an aircraft carrier. The demon folded up, finally feeling the punches, and he was hit again by that – to him – small hand. He flew backwards, hitting the ground and creating another depression in the already battered up alley. The griffin jumped backwards a bit, almost landing outside the alley.

/Do you need help?/ he asked.

"Not when I'm having so much fun."

The demon approached again, this time more carefully, head still ringing from that last punch. He feinted a left jab, to which the woman tried to deflect with her sword. He managed to evade the cut and to land a right-handed punch to her face. She flew sideways, mauling a couple of innocent trashcans, and burying herself in the pile of garbage around her.

The demon turned his back to her, going to the two other he was hunting earlier. No human could resist such a punch, she'd probably broken her neck.

Suddenly the pile of garbage exploded outward, and the woman walked out of it, covered in all sorts of dirt and dejects.

"Now you've pissed me /off/. No more playing with you," She-Ra said, under gritted teeth.

She murmured something, glowing for a second, and all the garbage disappeared from her as if it never were. The mystical warrior approached him, and stood stock still at striking range. The demon swung a fist at her, with enough power to transform the woman into minced meat.

What was his surprise when an open palm held his fist, the owner of it not even shaking with the impact. She-Ra grinned a devious grin at him, and she began closing her hand. The rocky hide under it, and she guessed his bones or whatever it was that he had, began crumbling under the unsurpassed strength of the Heir of Honor.

The demon screamed loudly, the first sound he emitted during the whole fight. He tried to remove his hand from the grip, but the woman didn't even budge. He tried to kick her, and She-Ra's counter-attack was to pull the fist she held with so much strength that she dislocated his shoulder and made him fly over her, landing in a heap at her back.

The monster tried to regain his footing, only to be knocked back by a well-placed kick on his chin. He tried to stand up one last time, but his battered body only kept him on all fours. She-Ra approached, sword in hand.

"This is the part where I should say 'There can be only One!'?" and with a mighty strike, she cut off his head. She turned her back to the dissolving remains, and approached the awed men in the back of the alley.

"So, you are Angel, the vampire with a soul," She-Ra said, sheathing her sword.

"Yes," the vampire said, too stunned with what he had seen. "And you are?"

"She-Ra, Princess of Power."

The other man's eyes opened wide, and he couldn't suppress a giggle. Angel turned to him. "What?"

"Tell you later. Please, forgive me," he said, turning back to She-Ra. It wasn't wise to piss off a woman who could do what she had done.

"And you are?" She-Ra asked.

"Name's Doyle, I'm..." he began, putting all the charm that he could on the introduction.

"Not interested," She-Ra said, and the half-demon shut up. "I've heard of the Gypsy curse."

"Who told you that?" Angel asked.

"I know a lot of things, and I knew someone from the Kalderash clan."

"Janna," Angel spoke, subdued. One more thing he had to pay for.

"Yes. For that, I should kill you right here and now. But..."

"Hey, lady, wait up, Angel here is..." Doyle started, only to be stopped by She-Ra's lifted hand.

"I'm not finished. As I was saying, the clause of happiness is stupid. I know how you broke it for the first time, and nothing can guarantee you'll break it again, whether voluntarily or not. So, I'm willing to change the clause."

Angel frowned. "You can do that?"

"I have the knowledge, yes."

"And change to what?"

"To one thing I won't have the slightest qualm in killing you if you ever broke it. Betrayal."

"What?" Doyle asked, incredulously. Angel was mutely looking at her. He could smell something in her, something familiar, and at the same time not.

"Easy. If you ever betray any of your friends willingly, any one of them, you will lose your soul again. And I /will/ kill Angelus without a second thought or the slightest regret."

"Do it," Angel said, without missing a beat.

"Can you live with it, knowing that you cannot betray a friend, for whatever reason it is?" She-Ra asked, expecting the right answer.

"I can't help on feeling happy for some reason, even if it is for the wrong one. Damn, a drug can do that to me. Betrayal, it takes a much more considered act, one that only I can decide upon. And if I do that..." his voice trailed off. He knew of the consequences.

"So be it then."

She-Ra began chanting in another dead tongue, far older than mankind, hands stretched in front of her. Angel suddenly had his arms and legs locked at his sides, and he was levitating two feet above the ground. Doyle kept looking at his friend, waiting for the events. An orange glow appeared around him, and Doyle could swear he saw two different things appearing from him, one dark, one light, but they disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. And She-Ra kept chanting for a few more moments.

Then she stopped, and the vampire fell to the ground, a crumpled, yet 'alive' mass of undead flesh.

"The deal is struck," She-Ra spoke, in a tired voice. That took quite a bit out of her. "He'll be useless for the rest of the night. Take him to someplace safe, and tell him that I'll know if something happens."

"I'll do it," Doyle said, while trying to help his passed out friend.

The mystic warrior walked in the direction of her companion, looking at the damage caused by her fight. She concentrated a bit and spoke three words in Sumerian, and the walls and the ground re-constructed themselves.

She-Ra mounted the griffin without saying another word, and he took flight yet again.

"I'll make a bet with you, mate, that the lady comes from Sunnydale," he said to Angel. He looked around the alley, to the charred remains of his debtors. "On second thought, no bet."

He pushed the vampire outside, and hailed a cab moments later.

- To be continued -

Author's Notes: My site is finally up. Check it out.