Chapter 19 – Saturday: Willow

After her morning ritual, Willow walked to the phone in her nightstand and dialed Xander's home. She was received by a very grumpy Xander's dad, who said very colorfully that his son was not at home. Willow excused herself, hung up and dialed Buffy's house. The Slayer picked up the phone, laughing out loud.

"Yeah?" Buffy asked, amidst giggles.

"Hey, Buffy, I-I guess Xander's there," she answered. Only Xander made Buffy laugh like that. Willow was happy, she hadn't heard the Slayer giving a good laugh in quite a while.

"Hey, Willow, hi! Yep, he's here. Wait up! Xander, it's Wills," Buffy said to the brunette attempting to dance in her kitchen. Xander promptly stopped, and walked to the phone.

"Hey, Wills, what's up?" Xander asked, Buffy steadily controlling herself.

"Hey, I need to see you. Can you come to my home?", she asked.

"Yeah, but I need to stop at a pet shop to buy Ares' food. Can it wait a bit?"

"Then come here first. I also need to go, and we can do it together."

Xander muted for a second. Willow didn't have a pet so far, so, that could only mean one thing; She-Ra had a battle companion.

"Sure. I'll just finish breakfast here and I'll drop by. See you in a few," and he hung up.

Buffy had gone to the living room, and she was browsing channels on the TV. One image caught up her attention and she stopped the swapping.

"HEY, Xander! Come here!" she said, paying more attention to the commercial. Xander was at her side in seconds, and she pointed to the screen.

"...is the Game. Adventure Seeker, premiere tomorrow at 6 PM, only on FOX TV," said the narrator. On screen, there were images of a guy doing some crazy stunts in a racecar, on a bike and even on foot. It looked cool, but what was more interesting were the images of Cordelia Chase with said guy, running from something, dodging fake bullets and looking more beautiful than ever.

"So, that's what Cordy's been up to. Her series is about to premiere, and we didn't even know it. Have you spoken to her, Xander?"

Xander kept mute for a few more moments, looking intently to the screen. Cordy had hit the spot.

"Y-yeah. She called twice, to know about stuff, and us...", he said, trailing off.

Buffy looked at her friend's saddened face.

"You still love her, don't you?"

"Yes," Xander said. "She will always be in my heart, you know? But I couldn't blame her. This is no place for someone like her."

"It shouldn't be to you, too."

"Buff, I love you more than I loved her..."

At this moment, the universe stopped for Elizabeth Anne Summers. Her best male friend, her Xander-shaped friend, her buddy, her pal had just said that he loved her more than his previous girlfriend. And by the emotion in his voice, it was impossible to mismatch the type of love he was referring to.

Damn, he was a friend, the best friend she could ever hope to have, but she just didn't feel like that towards him. It would be too complicated, too hard, too...

/Harder than loving the enemy?/ an inner voice asked.

She didn't have an answer to that. But she was certain, she couldn't reciprocate such love. It wouldn't be fair.

/To whom?/, said inner voice replied, again.

She was the Slayer. She couldn't love a normal guy. She would put him in risk. It would be dangerous.

/More than it already is? Besides, the choice is his to risk himself, not yours./

Nasty little bugger that inner voice.

"...but I've said it once and I'll say it again. My choice. Helping you and the world is my choice, not yours."

Buffy looked him in the eyes, and she /saw/ the feelings in there. Love, caring, honesty. And that shook her up more than any prophecy could.

"Look, I have to go to Wills'. But I'll be back later to help with Faith moving in, 'k?" he said. "Besides, I wanna check her out, see if my theory pans out."

"What theory?" she asked to his smirking face.

"That all the Slayers are hotties."

"Xander!" she said, smacking him another one in the arm.

"Hey, hit the other arm! That way I'll have matching bruises!" he said, massaging the area and grinning.

He walked to the front door, opening it. Ares was sat on the porch outside, sunning himself. Before walking out, Buffy called him again.

"Xander?"

"Yeah?" he asked, turning back to her.

"Thanks," she said, voice filled with emotion.

"Hey, I'm a friend of my friends."

Buffy stopped cold. Xander noticed his slip up, but he managed to keep his face straight.

"He-Man said the same thing to me last night," she said, almost murmuring, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Proves that he knows his stuff. I like the guy already. So?" he asked, without flinching a bit.

"Its just...it's that...ah...nothing. Forget it," she said, reddening considerably. Xander couldn't possibly be He-Man. Impossible. Not a chance in Heaven or Hell.

"Do you think I'm He-Man?" Xander laughed loudly. "I wish, I truly do. But in the Universe Wheel of Fortune, my number had the legend 'absolutely normal guy' written under it. Sorry, Buff."

Buffy calmed down and smiled. He was right. Thank God.

"Hey," he said, "gotta go. See you later."

"Bye. And thanks again," she said to his retreating back.

Buffy still kept watching him go for another minute, mind wandering around his revelations. But she couldn't think about that right now. Not right now.

She sighed, and wandered back in. Time to do the worst job ever impugned to a Slayer. Wake up Dawn.

Xander walked quickly to Willow's home, Ares following behind. He was still berating himself on the slip-up, but at the same time, he knew that the charade wouldn't last long, Buffy being or not being thick. So, he needed a plan. But, what plan?

He knocked on Willow's door, which was opened a moment later. The redheaded wicca was too nervous, Xander could notice. She looked to Ares, and then she looked down, to her own feet. Twisting between her legs was a beautiful black/gray cat with an imposing air. He stopped at her side, licking his front paws.

"Your buddy?" Xander asked, and Willow only nodded.

Ares gave the cat a good look, like a wolf stalking prey, and the cat looked back, as if saying 'don't even think about it, mutt!'.

"Ares, keep cool and play nice. Besides, this cat is meaner than he looks, if he chose my buddy Willow as a partner."

Willow grinned with the comment, nervousness dissipating a little. "Come in, Xand," she said, and they went to her room. Xander sat on the ground in front of her bed, as he always did, Ares resting his head on his thigh.

"Oh, I forgot. Xander, this is Scratch, which is also Thunderbolt. Scratch, this is Xander, who is also He-Man," Willow said, making the introductions.

"Scratch," Xander said, acknowledging the feline, which only looked him disdainfully. Xander noticed. "Awfully full of himself, ain't he?" he asked, pointing to the cat.

Willow giggled. She sat on her bed and sighed.

"Before I begin, give me your Sword," Willow asked, hand extended.

Xander didn't even think about it. He removed the sword from the pocket dimension and gave it to Willow. She grabbed his sword, and she kept it in her lap.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"Xander, I know you since kindergarten, and I know what you're gonna do after I tell you what I have to tell you. So, the sword stays with me, 'k?" Willow said, Resolve Face on. Xander didn't even argue, but he knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say.

"First the small things: why aren't we telling Buffy about us?"

"You know, I was thinking the same thing before coming here. I slipped up with her, and luckily I managed to diffuse the sit. Problem is, I trust the Slayer, it's Buffy I have a problem with."

"What? But Buffy is the Slayer. I don't get it," Willow said, confused.

"I know you don't. Seeing Faith yesterday gave me perspective on it. Do you know when the slayage is good and we stumble on a lot of vamps?" Willow nodded, confirming it, "Do you remember how Buffy gets? She goes all focused and suddenly Buffy is gone and the Slayer comes forward, all speed and strength and moves, you know?" Willow nodded again. "Faith is exactly like that, but all the time. She is all business from start to finish. She knows the drill, she knows it's her job and she goes all the way into it. She is The Slayer, from start to finish. Angel would be a pile of dust in the first meeting they had, all that time ago, if the sit was reversed. Buffy is a normal Californian girl who got selected for the worst job on the face of the Earth, and she can't quit. So, normal girls do normal things, like go shopping, talk to her friends, hang out, things like that. Normal girls can reveal things once things start getting better or worse. Buffy can say the right thing to the right boyfriend or the wrong thing to the wrong boyfriend. Get what I'm saying?"

Willow nodded, Xander was right. "So, we never tell her?"

"I didn't say that. All I'm saying is that now I don't trust her enough to tell. Let's give it time and see how it goes, ok?"

"Ok, and speaking on Angel, I stumbled on him in LA yesterday night."

"Yeah, how's old Captain Hairgel? Still on the silent and broody act?"

Willow told Xander about it, and when she told him about the change in the clause, he grinned like a madman.

"Well done, Wills. So, if I see Angelus again, it's bye-bye vamp, hello dust-buster!"

"Same thing I said to him. And I absolutely loved Thunderbolt," Willow said, patting the cat's head. "Ok, now I have the important thing to tell."

"What's up?"

"After you stormed out of Buffy's home yesterday, I stayed behind, and Dawn told me the rest of the history," Willow said, seriously.

Xander's brow creased, his face changing to an atypical serious façade.

"Look, Wills, I don't want to hear..." Willow's lifted hand and Resolve-Face made him shut up.

"You need to listen, so you can understand and know what we have to do, and why. And before you go all pissed off at her, remember that we all make mistakes, and some of them are harder or more damaging than the others. We're teenagers, who will guarantee that we'll be good or bad adults?"

Xander still kept his mouth shut, but Willow saw his face relaxing slightly, and his demeanor changing a bit. Score one for the home team.

"Ok, so she blew up Grayskull and the explosion flattened Eternia. A few humans survived, and a lot of Mon survived also, because they were a kind of underground race. You remember she said that Grayskull's energy affected a lot of beings, right?"

"Yeah. So?"

"She was the most affected. You see, when her body disintegrated over the explosion, her soul stayed behind, and she found out that it was fused with a lot of Grayskull's energy. She was a part of Grayskull. The biggest part that stayed behind. But somehow she couldn't create another body herself, and she couldn't use the magic fully, only passively. So, she stayed behind, like some kind of Watcher."

"Like Uatu from Fantastic Four? Can watch, but can't interfere?" he asked.

"Exactly. So, she saw the swords, which by the way are truly indestructible, being taken by Mons, and the place she called home became an arid desert. The surviving mankind fought with sticks and stones for survival, while the Mons took over the planet. You see, the Grayskull Event empowered a few Mons, and they became warlords and warlocks. It even caused what we could call mutation. A single race became several different races. Interbreeding gave origin to new species. War ensued, among themselves and mankind. Incredibly, the humans were not affected by the events, so they started losing the small ground that they had."

"What happened?" Xander asked, enthralled by the story. Damn, it could give an excellent fiction, if it wasn't true.

"The Sorceress Energy decided to interfere. She couldn't use her powers actively, so she used them creatively. If she 'possessed' a man for a small period of time, said man would have access to a small part of her powers. So, a mage was formed. But those things were only temporarily, and she could only possess one man at a time. But she found out that if she possessed a man or a woman while they were conceiving a child, the transfer would be permanent, and the child would be a mage or a witch."

"Then they started winning?" Xander asked.

"Yep. But, problem is, they were not facing one enemy, but various. The factions and clans of Mons were relentless and vicious. And one fully trained mage was something too time-consuming, and they didn't have a manual from which to train. Everything was trial and error."

"I wouldn't want to stay close to a training mage without knowing what he's capable of," Xander said, grinning.

Willow grinned with him. But the problem was, Xander wasn't catching the hints. Time to place things more clearly on the table.

"Xander, doesn't this start to look familiar to you?"

"What? Aside from the Lord of the Rings storyline, no, it doesn't."

"The Mons," Willow said, slowly.

"The Mons? What does the Mo...The Mons," he said, slowly this time." De-Mons. Demons?" Xander finally made the connection.

"Yes, Xander. Demons. The Swords never left Eternia, because we are on Eternia."

"Oh, shit," he murmured.

"So, what you're saying to me is that the Watcher's tale on the beginning of mankind is actually true, and it was caused by the Sorceress fuck up?" he asked, stunned.

"Without the language, but yeah, that's it."

"I'm gonna kill her," Xander said, standing up.

"You will do no such thing! Now, SIT!" she screamed. He sat, scowl on his face, hands trembling with hatred. "You will listen to the rest of the story and we will talk to her, but just /talk/, got me?" she said, Resolve Face on, and an attitude Xander had never seen before. The brunette nodded once.

"All right, let me continue. So, mankind, now our mankind, started fighting back, but the scales were too tipped to the side of the demons. A group of interdimensional beings noticed the fight in our dimension. They were already powerful beings on the side of good before Grayskull powered them up even further. So, they foretold that if the demons kept on, they would become too powerful and they would eventually overrule Creation itself. So, they devised a plan, and came here."

"What were those beings called?" Xander had a good guess.

"Sorceress called them the Elders."

"Hmmmm. Ok, go on."

"So, they came here, and somehow they could see and interact with the Sorceress Energy. They told her about their plan, and she agreed. They struck a deal and they prophesized about the future times. First I'm going to tell about the plan and then the prophecy, 'k?"

"Sure."

"Ok, the plan was to empower special humans to fight for the side of Light. They chose seven icons, seven concepts for lack of a better term, and they combined and divided their powers among those seven special humans, the Champions: The White Knight, The Red Queen, The Black King, The Seer, The Scholar, The Savior and the Slayer."

Aside from his school scores, Xander Harris wasn't a stupid man. In fact, he was quite intelligent and clever, but he had to admit that school was too boring to pay attention. So, his sadly under-used brain started firing at amazing speeds, processing all of that in moments.

"Willow, I'm not going to wait for the prophecy, because I have some idea of what it is about. So, care to repeat to me, slowly, the titles of those ...Champions?"

"What, the White Knight, the Red..." Xander nodded yes.

"The White Knight."

"Me."

"The Red Queen"

"You."

"The Black King."

"Angel."

"The Seer."

"That one I don't know. Next."

"The Scholar."

"Giles."

"The Savior."

"Other one that I don't know. But if I can make a wild guess, I bet He died for the last time some two thousand years ago."

"And the Slayer. Buffy," Willow put her hand to her mouth, surprised. She hadn't made the connections, aside from Buffy. So, the prophecy was right.

"I guess this prophecy has something to do with all of us gathering at the end of times or something like that, right?"

Willow was still too shocked to answer. Xander went out of the room to the kitchen. He grabbed two glasses and filled them with some orange juice he found on the refrigerator. He returned to the wicca's room, giving one of the glasses to her.

"Thanks. And yes, the prophecy said that the Champions and the Heirs would return to defend the world one last time, and all that had been done would be undone," she said, sipping her glass.

"I guess that their scripts were a little off. After all, you, and me we're Champions and Heirs if I'm not wrong, and we have two Slayers, not one. And we seem to be lacking a Seer and a Savior. So, undo what? The Sorceress fuck up?"

"She said yes. And that's where we have our job. But let me finish the history lesson, ok?"

"Sure, go on."

"All right. The Champions were Chosen, and the magic made them empower another being as soon as the previous one had died. We started winning, bit by bit. After a few millennia, the Champions had the demons cornered. In a last attempt, they mixed themselves with us, thus making vampires. They were like fast-food demons, numerous, vicious and easy to produce, so to speak. But the mages and the Scholar, they devised the ultimate plan. Using the still present dimensional energy from Grayskull, they opened several gateways to a lot of dimensions. They managed to shove most of the demons to those dimensions, but a few stayed behind. By the time they managed to close the portals, only a few true demons stayed behind, and a lot of vampires."

"So, we have the story of the Hellmouths and the reason why evil is attracted to them. Anything else?"

"I don't think...Wait, I almost forgot what happened to those Elders and to the Sorceress. Well, after the Empowerment, they became too weak to remain behind. The Elders went back to their dimension, and Sorceress still kept wandering the planet, this time even more powerless. She couldn't empower anyone anymore, but she kept her vigil over the war, whispering advices in the right ears and so on. A few millennia after the war was won, she was drawn to a mystical place, and she was kept in the care of a few monks. She managed to tell them her history, and they began planning for the future. So, we came to now, and the prophecy."

Xander finished drinking his OJ, and looked her straight in the eye. "Shoot."

"Well, the prophecy states that we'll be together again to face incredible odds, and when the time is right, the war will end. And the key to winning is...well...The Key."

"Dawn. But she's the Key to what?"

"Grayskull. You see, she has a lot of Grayskull's energy still in her, so, when her body reaches maturity, she'll be able to make a spell and reconstruct Grayskull, draining all the leftover power that spilled over into other beings and dimensions. So, we won't have any more demons, vamps, super-powered beings, Hellmouths, nothing. Only normal humans, and probably the Heirs, since our powers were older than the Event."

Xander's jaw dropped.

"Our mission is to help in the fight until the time comes, but mostly to protect Dawn until she reaches eighteen," Willow finished, and dropped on her bed, emotionally drained.

"I need to think things through, and I need to walk," Xander said, after a few minutes. "Care to join me?"

Willow stood up. "Sure."

"Can I have my sword back? I promise I won't hurt Dawn, but I need to speak to her alone. Let's go to the pet shop and we go to Buffy's later, ok?"

The wiccan returned the sword to Xander's hand. He looked at it for a minute, before storing it in the pocket dimension in his back.

"And tonight is She-Ra's patrol night, right?" Willow asked.

"Sure, o' Princess of Power. Wouldn't think of you missing such fun. Let's go, girl," he said, getting out. "By the way, do you know what Cordy's been up to?"

"No, what?" Willow grabbed Scratch from his resting spot and they went out to an almost normal Saturday afternoon walk.

- To be continued -