Chapter Twenty-one

"So, now what do we do?"

"I'm afraid I'm at a loss for the moment. That demon friend of Anya's was our only hope."

"You can't give up!" Dawn was trying hard not to cry. "Willow? Tara? Somebody? Do something!"

"What do you want us to do, Dawny? We've tried everything we can think of."

"Then think of something else!"

"Dawn, just calm down," Xander told her. "We'll think of something. We just need time."

"But Buffy could DIE! Xena could kill her and she'd never come back to me."

"Don't you worry, Dawn," Tara explained. "When we figure out how to get her home, we'll certainly do it before anything bad happens to her."

"You're sure? You're positive you can?"

"Very positive. That's the neat thing about time traveling into the past – you can pick out any time you want to go to."

Dawn seemed to settle down some, hoping she could trust them to save Buffy.

Suddenly Dawn screamed out "BUFFY!" Her voice sounding of shock, and horror, and fear.

They all looked in the direction Dawn was facing, and in the exact spot she disappeared from was a filthy, bruised, bloody, and seemingly lifeless Buffy.

……………..-

Gabrielle could no longer stand by and do nothing. She ran out to Xena and Buffy, picking up the battle staff on her way. She then stuck it between the two of them and with one end on the ground began pushing up on the staff will all her strength, trying to pry them apart.

Seeing she needed help, Ephiny ran out to her, followed by several more women.

Gradually they began to separate them. Ephiny was able to pull Xena's fingers away from Buffy's eyes, and Gabrielle managed to release Buffy's death grip on Xena's neck.

By now there were at least ten Amazons helping to separate them. Five each dragging Buffy and Xena away from each other, straining against superior, yet weakening strength.

And despite their exhaustion, the two warriors still tried to get to the other.

"Look at their eyes!" one Amazon said. "They looked possessed!"

"Something, or someone has done this to them," Gabrielle declared. "An evil shaman or shamaness no doubt. Maybe one who has a grudge against Xena, and in Buffy found someone with the power and speed to kill her."

While she was talking, Gabrielle noticed a woman she didn't recognize had approached her, then knelt down near her, waiting.

"What is it?" Gabrielle snapped, in no mood for ceremony.

"I – I think I may know who did this thing."

"Will you stand up?" Gabrielle's concern was turning to anger. "Who are you? What do you know?"

Standing up, but still not meeting Gabrielle's glare, she said in a trembling voice, "My name is Tana. And I believe Alara is responsible."

"Alara? Why would you say such a thing?" Ephiny asked.

"She – she was talking to me earlier, right after breakfast. She was saying if it hadn't been for Xena's insistence on taking the guest hut, the matriarch of her clan, the one we know as Old Mother, would not have died from sleeping on the damp ground."

"What?" Gabrielle was dumbfounded. "She did no such thing!"

"What else did she say?" Ephiny asked.

"She was saying what a great battle it would be if Buffy and Xena were to fight. And she said it would be her wish to see it happen. And when I agreed, she said 'it would be so' or something like that. Then she disappeared! Vanished in front of my eyes!"

Ephiny turned to Gabrielle.

"It was said that Old Mother had the ability to contact the spirit world. Could it be that when she died Alara inherited her powers?"

"That has to be it," Gabrielle concluded. "She cursed them. Doomed them to fight until one of them is dead."

"What can we do?"

"We have to find another with the power to undo the curse."

"But who? And where?"

"I don't know, but we have to. Otherwise one, or both, will die."

All the while the speculation was going on, Xena and Buffy were regaining their strength, then without warning, each barreled through their guards and ran at each other again.

They met head on, both with handfuls of hair, jerking and throwing the other left and right, using head butts, and knees to the midsection.

Then Gabrielle had an idea, and she began to yell out as loud as she could, "ARES! ARES! SHE'S KILLING XENA! XENA WILL DIE! XENA NEEDS YOU!"

There was a bright reddish flash, and Ares was there.

"What are you saying? Who's killing Xena? HER?"

"By the gods, Ares! Can't you see what's happening? Look at them! They've been cursed. They will fight until one of them dies. You have to stop them!"

Ares watched for a few moments, and realized Gabrielle was right. Xena was fighting like a mad woman, not like the trained warrior her knew her to be.

From both hands two bluish energy orbs flew out, striking Buffy and Xena, knocking them apart and unconscious.

"I didn't say to kill them!" Gabrielle yelled as she ran to Xena's side.

Ares walked over to them.

"I didn't kill them, I only knocked them out."

He stared down at them then wave his hand.

"The curse is gone. They're back to normal."

"Then why aren't they waking up?"

"They've expended almost all their life forces fighting each other. Even if neither one had killed the other, they still would have died."

"You have to save them. Fix them! Cure them!"

"I'm a war god! I don't go around healing mortals!"

"But this is Xena! And I KNOW you aren't going to let HER die!"

"Oh, all right!"

Ares snapped his fingers, and a bearded man with a serpent wrapped around a staff appeared.

"Aesclepius, the God of Healing," Ares announced.

"Ares! What is the meaning of this?"

Ares pointed down at Xena.

"Heal her."

"You know I don't work that way. I do my healing through my priests and their disciples in a Healing Temple. Or at the very least, on a healing altar."

"Fix her or I'll send so many armies against your temples you won't HAVE any. Or altars! Now do as I say!"

"Zeus will hear of this!" he warned, then knelt down to the bruised and battered Xena.

"She is badly injured. She is near death."

Aesclepius moved his hand above her, his fingers moving rhythmically up and down, going from head to feet and back again, mumbling words no one could understand. After doing this several times, he stood up. Xena's cuts and bruises were gone.

"It is done."

"Why isn't she moving?" Gabrielle asked. "Why didn't she wake up?"

"Her body is healed. It is her life force, her soul, that needs time to recuperate. She will sleep until midday tomorrow."

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" Gabrielle said to him.

Then gesturing toward Buffy, she asked, "But do you think you could also heal her as well?

Aesclepius glanced down at Buffy with a degrading sneer, then looked at Ares.

"I now take my leave. You haven't heard the last of this, Ares. At this outrage!"

"Yeah, whatever," Ares said as Aesclepius disappeared.

He turned to Gabrielle.

"When Xena wakes up, you can tell her that she owes me. And I expect to be handsomely repaid!"

"She will, I promise you. But one more thing, before you go."

"NOW what?"

"Buffy. Please, you have to send her back to her own time. She doesn't belong here."

"Like I really care?"

"I know you don't, but look at it this way – if you do this, then Xena will owe you two favors. Two BIG favors. It can't get any better than THAT!"

Ares took a annoyed breath and walked over to the prostrate, unconscious Buffy. After looking at her for a few moments, he unexpectedly squatted down, studying her. Then waving his hand over her much as Aesclepius had done, Buffy disappeared.

"Okay, it's done! And Xena owes me, twice!"

"Are you sure she went back to the right place?"

"Of course I'm sure! Do I have to keep reminding you that I AM a god?"

"But how did you know where to send her?"

"There was a thread, a very tenuous, barely perceptible thread linking her to wherever she came from. I just sent her back along that thread."

Without another word, the God of War vanished.

T B C