Chapitre 19 :

°Disclaimer still in the prologue.

° Just to avoid confusion:

"speech"

'Mind speech'

It was already past noon when Xander and Ripper woke up from their sleep. Angel was still asleep and wouldn't awake till the evening and they didn't want to disturb Kyle and Oz as Oz needed his rest and the two of them needed to talk alone. So the two met in the kitchen and prepared lunch, they cooked enough food for everyone, in the case of Kyle and Oz becoming hungry as well. Once they had eaten they decided to go to the library to study what they had found in Willow's basement. They had left the book's copy and the drawing there last night, knowing that they would want to research it as soon as they could.

First they wanted to look through the book; they opened it to the first page but were shocked to see it written in a foreign language. They looked at each others in a mirror like expression of surprise, before returning their attention back to the book.

Ripper was the first to speak, "It seemed to be written in hieroglyphs, but I am in no way fluent with this language."

Xander took the book and opened it to another place and said, "Well it seemed that after a while the language turned to English, but we are lucky that Mayaeb knew how to read them and that she left me the knowledge."

The two stayed there, reading the book the whole afternoon, only disturbed once. Kyle had gone to see them on his way to the kitchen to speak to them about Oz. He needed to tell his Alpha the extent of the abuses Oz suffered at Willow's and Buffy's hands, and that Oz needed to know and learn about his Werewolf's heritage to help him feel secure with his new feelings and instincts. Xander nodded his agreement, knowing that Oz was sleeping if Kyle took the chance to leave him alone; he invited him to sit on the couch in front of them and told him that they were ready to listen when he was.

Kyle's body was tense when he sat down; his gaze was becoming darker at an alarming rate as rage flowed from and through him in waves. Xander and Ripper sat up at that look concern evident in their eyes and posture. Xander gently took Kyle's hand in his and rubbed it in comfort, feeling the distress that was nearly hidden by the row rage Kyle was feeling. Kyle finally explained that once they had left his room, had held Oz till they went to sleep. Though an hour later he had been awakened by Oz moving and crying as he was trapped in a nightmare. Kyle had helped him through it, trying to wake him gently and had been relieved to see Oz react positively to the sound of his voice. Once awake, Kyle had gathered him in his arms rubbing his back with one hand while the other was gently stroking his hair, soothing him. They had talk a little about the pack before they went back to sleep.

He had hoped that Oz would be able to sleep without nightmare for the rest of the night this time, but not another hour later he had been jerked awake again by Oz trashing in his sleep. Kyle awoke him once again but this time tried to make him talk, knowing that by sharing his fears he would be able to feel a little safer and protected. Oz couldn't talk about it but he asked Kyle to open their link, that way he would be able to show him what happened to him. Kyle's presence in his mind as well as physically would be able to help him through it.

Oz's mind was nothing like the minds of the other members of his pack, his was extremely dark and fragmented, and it was pure chaos. He didn't try to look at the memories surrounding him, they weren't his to watch and only with Oz's permission would he look at them. Oz was beside him looking tense and frightened, as he was leading him through a broken and damaged path. His mind was a real maze, where he would have lost himself had Oz not be there with him.

The first memory they went through looked like a big piece of broken glass dangerous and harming if you weren't careful. Oz told him that they looked that way because they had or were really hurting him, and Kyle was sad to say that they weren't a lot of memories that weren't looking like that. They entered it and they found themselves on their high school's ground watching as an unaware Oz was saying goodbye to Cordelia and Larry while Willow was looking at them in anger.

Oz was on his way to rehearsal knowing that even though Devon went out of town for two months the rest of the group had to continue to train. Devon would respect them by training alone and they would respect him by continuing their rehearsals. He was happy that his group was working seriously on improving their skills and wanted to do his best as well. As he went through the dark alley, that lead to the soundproof room they were renting for their rehearsals, he heard someone following him in the alley. Wary, he slowly turned his head back when everything went dark.

He awoke attached to a wall in a basement of sort, it was dark and through his confusion Oz was beginning to feel scared. Before he had the time to remember what happened to him the door of his 'cell' was opening. A figure came in, a figure he recognised with the help of the light coming from the opened door; it was Willow and she didn't look too happy.

Oz was completely confused and shocked as he asked; "Willow…? What is going on? Where am I?"

She looked at him as if he was stupid and laughed sounding completely crazy. "What is going on?! What is going on is that you are being a little too friendly with that dumb cheerleader! You are mine and you should remember it!" She answered.

"Yours?! Are you crazy? I'm not a possession and certainly not yours" Oz exclaimed.

"Oh wrong answer…" she sang "Too bad for you! We will do it the hard way!" She said furious.

"What…" Oz said confused. He didn't had the time to move away before a necklace was spelled linked to his neck.

"Like I said you are mine and this necklace will only help you remembering it. Don't speak with anyone other than me or you won't like the outcome! All I will say is that it will hurt… Oh and if you try to approach that girl again, you won't like what I will do to her as well." Willow said sneering at him.

After that scene Kyle went through a lot of memories that fly by him without really stopping. They were all of Willow forcing Oz in a relation with her by punishing him when he refused her something; he had watched as that necklace choked Oz every time Willow thought he went against her. The next memory he stopped through was one that made him ill.

Oz had refused to let Willow kiss him, moving away from her. She had been furious, Buffy had been there at the time and it had only added to her humiliation. She had let Buffy beat him into unconsciousness and they had dragged him to the basement, cuffing his wrists to the wall. Once they were sure he wouldn't be able to escape his chains, they revived him with cold water and began to punish him. That day had been the worst day of his life; that day he had been raped by two girls who had laughed at him, humiliating him with their acts and words. They had told him he was weak and unworthy, that no one would ever love him, after all his family knew where he was but they never went to rescue him. It was that day that his mind finally broke, that he finally lost all hope.

Then other memories submerged Kyle, memories where he was forced to submit to Willow and Buffy; every time Willow would be angered she would take it on him, beating him and forcing himself on him. The last memory he stopped through was extremely painful to watch.

Oz was once again chained to the wall, black and blue from a recent beating, but he was anxiously fidgeting, trying to escape his binds. It was the first time he had seen Oz tried to get free since his mind broke, but Kyle understood why, when he saw Oz began to transform in a twisted version of his werewolf's form. It must have been the full moon and Oz having never learned to accept his wolfish nature couldn't control the change. As the transformation ended Willow and Buffy came in, as rage and shock filled their eyes. All Kyle could see was Buffy advancing on Oz with her fists shaking before everything went black.

A second later he saw Oz in his human's form beaten, bloody and broken, he was waking up when Willow entered the room once more, but this time she was shouting at him that he was a monster, a freak… She told him that he shouldn't even exist, and that he didn't have to worry because as he was her, she was going to fix him. At the end of that last memory Kyle sense the fright and horror coming from Oz. For a few minutes he was frozen in place by the intense feeling he had felt as they came aware of their surroundings once more. Then all that came from him was rage and furore at what Oz had to go through because of Willow and Buffy.

As Kyle finished his explanation he could feel the same anger and rage he had felt, coming from Ripper and Xander. They talked to each others for half an hour about what they had seen, hoping to calm themselves down before Kyle returned to see the boy upstairs. He promised to let Oz known that they would come to see him once Angel has awaken, as Xander and Ripper had found something important while studying the copy of the book made by Willow. He then went back to the kitchen to retrieve his and Oz late lunch and went back upstairs to his room.

Since then the two left in the library had the time to finish reading the book and where horrified by what they found. They would have never thought it possible but what they did found had only made them more wary of Willow. She was that much more dangerous, but that did explain a lot of things. Now all they were waiting for was for Angel to wake up and Kyle to call them. Ripper and Xander waited for a moment while relaxing and talking together, nothing disturbed them till they heard the door of Angel's room opened. They were surprised to see it was already dark outside and began to walk up the stairs. They were just meeting Angel in the hallway when Kyle opened his door and call them in.

Oz was sitting on the bed looking a lot better than the day before, he was more relaxed though nervous and smiled as Kyle went to join him back on the bed. He let himself be embraced in Kyle's arms, feeling more comfortable and safe than he had for a while, and watch as the others sat on the bed surrounding them. They first explained to Angel what had happened to Oz in the 'care' of the girls and showed Oz that nothing was his fault, that he was a victim. When they had reassured him that they weren't thinking badly of him because of what happened, and that they would do everything they could to help him heal, Oz regained a light feeling of confidence and asked.

"Why? Why would she do that? And what did she meant by 'fix me'?"

Watching Oz's distress increase at an alarming rate, Xander looked at Ripper and said. "Ripper and I found that answer within the book we brought back from Willow's basement, well the copy of the book." At that everyone was looking at him curiously.

Xander sat more comfortably beside Kyle and smiling at Oz began to explain.

"At first we were shocked to find that the book was written in hieroglyphs, but we quickly notice that after a few pages the language changed to English. We thought that Willow had stolen it like she had done to Ripper and mine's books, but as I went back to the hieroglyphs I noticed that I was able to read them. Apparently 'Were-Hyenas' were keeper of knowledge, and of forgotten and ancestral magic; so after merging with Mayaeb I gained not only the knowledge of languages I had never known before but also the knowledge of powerful magic.

"First you have to know that Willow is way older than she seemed.", Xander said and then went on, on explaining.

Willow was born during the time the first 'Weres' were created; she was a young woman with ideas of power and leadership. She wanted to show everyone that she was superior and should reign on Egypt. Though in that time and place, women were seen as child bearer, housewife… they had no other right and Willow felt terribly oppressed. She wanted so much more for herself; and she would have loved to take the place of the Pharaoh.

So when she first started to feel her magic, she used it for her own selfish needs, not caring that she didn't have the blessing of magic herself. She didn't hesitate in harming others to obtain what she wanted in the first place as well and it had been during her research on a way to increase her power that it had first arrived.

She had been at her home when one of her neighbours had come in; he had told her that the Pharaoh had asked for all magic users to be brought to the palace. Everyone knew that she could use magic as she had taken great pleasure in boasting about her abilities. The man was a user as well and was only happy to go as he knew the Pharaoh would pay well for his services, but on the contrary Willow wanted her freedom.

As they began to argue Willow started to panic, she knew the guards were coming their way as the villagers would be too happy to tell them where they could find the magic users. They were extremely afraid of them and would be relieved to see them away and controlled. She was searching for a way out when she saw the butcher knife on the table behind her, and a plan began to take form in her mind.

Looking defeated she told the man that he was right and that she was going to follow him, waiting impatiently for him to turn is back to her. Then in a matter of seconds she plunged for the knife and cut the man's throat without feeling any regret. As the man was dying she felt his magic returned to the earth and in a moment of greed focused on redirecting it to her. She realised it worked as she felt her own magic increase, and ran as far away as possible from the palace when she heard the guards coming. She fled to one of the darkest part of the city to escape being found. There she worked on what she had done to retrieve the man's magic for herself and realised she had the power to see the magic flow through peoples and could use it to steal the magic from them.

At first she had perfected her technique on humans, letting them think that they had depleted their magical reserves and that they had lost its use. As they hadn't been taught differently, they thought it possible that magic could disappear without them feeling and knowing it. But as time passed more and more magic users were brought to the palace to become priests and soon Willow found herself, without magic to steal from anyone. She had been using the stolen magic to prolong her life, and now she was fearing to start aging again. She hadn't realise that what she was doing was forbidden, evil and of course very addictive, and that was the first mistake in her plan.

Till then she had stayed hidden from humans and magic herself, but now she had to move on a bigger prey. A prey that had more magical abilities and was a lot more dangerous than any humans could hope to be. That prey was the 'Weres'. She attacked the weakest at first knowing that she hadn't a chance with the powerful ones, but the more power she gained the more she wanted. She continued like that till the last Pharaoh fell not knowing that the magic had been observing her since she began her killing spread. 'Weres' were magical in nature so by stealing a part of their nature, she was killing them. Once the Pharaoh fell she joined the people that were leading the 'Weres' massacre, manipulating some and supporting others.

What she hadn't planned was for the magic to avenge her children. The complete loss of her magic made her loose the little sanity she had left and till the first reappearance of magic users she had been researching a way to gain her magic back. She had found in some priest's books she had stolen, a ritual that would work in the same way she had been using her magic to steal others before. The only problem was for her to wait the reappearance of a magic user because as she had begun to age again, she had not a lot of time left. And reappear they did… The difference though was that because her magic was gone she had to kill the magic user during the ritual to focus it on her, and even then it was limited as once the magic was depleted she had to do it again. So she promised herself to improve the ritual with time.

"The first part of the book was a journal detailing this story; the other part was the evolution of the ritual through the years. As I understand it, now the ritual enables her to put her victim in a coma while she is using their magic. That way she can used the magic longer than before as her victim is still alive, and she is able to have more than one victim at the same time" Xander concluded.

"That's a problem" said Angel. "It seems that we won't be able to take care of Willow before we left Sunnydale. We will have to free her victims before anything can be done about her."…

AN:

°Thank you for reviews!!!

Emeralden Rapley: Hope this chapter continue to please you^^

Veronica: Thanks!!! A HP crossover? Hmm, it seems to be going there doesn't it? ^^ And thank you for the grammatical error, I'm trying to reread every chapter to fix them, but sadly some are passing through… Though I'm happy to say it's fixed now^^

Carlough: Happy to see you back^^

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