Finding Balance

by BigHead (bigheadfics@yahoo.com), 3D Master (3dmaster@telfort.nl) and Joshua (jab21kill@yahoo.com)

Chapter 1: Search and Rescue

(by BigHead)

Tanzania – Three years after the events depicted in Chosen

For those people who knew the stunning beauty driving the jeep over the African savannah, her current actions were not on par with her personality.  The absolute lack of anything even remotely close to a road, the heat and the weird mission would be enough for her to be cursing since she turned the jeep on for the first time some hours ago.  But the only sounds that came from her mouth were the occasional grunts when the jeep entered a larger hole or stumbled over a larger bump.  And her eyes only paid occasional attention to the GPS screen attached to the dashboard, completely ignoring the beautiful landscape and wildlife.

The mind of Faith, the second oldest Vampire Slayer, was still stuck in a loop that started almost a month ago.

~~O~~

Cleveland – The recent past

She entered the room covered in demon goo, vampire dust and bruises.  None of this mattered to her, since the goo and dust would be gone in a few minutes after her shower, and the bruises would be old history tomorrow morning.  But what was bothering her was the man standing in the other side of said room, calmly browsing a book.

“Yo, G-Man!  What brings you from the land of tweed?” she asked to Rupert Giles, head of the Watcher’s Council and a friend.

“I had hoped that when Xander went to Africa, that infernal nickname would have gone with him, but no.  I should have thought to not have high hopes on anything,” he said, but grinned.  “How are you, Faith?”

“I’m . . . going, G. . . iles,” she said, a bit nervously.  “How’s B?  And the Squirt?  Is everything all right?”

“They are fine.  And the last question is the reason why I’m here.  How are you, Faith?  Really?”

Faith knew exactly what he was talking about, the ‘Incident’.  She instantly changed her body posture to one of defiance, her natural act of defense.  Giles noticed it.

“Calm down, Faith.  I’m not here to reprimand you or anything like it.  I just want to hear what happened.  As a friend.”

Faith relaxed a bit.  “Mind if I sit?” she asked, eyeing the sofa on the other side of the room.  Giles nodded, and accompanied her, sitting on the other side of it.

“So?” he asked, the tone reflecting more care and worry than she would have expected.  She sighed.

“We, I mean, me and Woody, we aren’t in the best of moments.  We have been arguing a lot, y’know?”

“About what?” he asked, albeit already knowing some facts from the other Slayers that lived in the same house.

“I guess everything.  Small stuff.  Big stuff.  We don’t talk much more nowadays . . . I guess it’s been a while since we have a good talk, without shit hitting the fan.”

“I know this is none of my business, Faith, but if it is so bad, why do you still stay with him?”

Faith looked away for several moments.  “I-I’m not really sure, G.  Perhaps because of the past?  He was . . . is a nice guy.  Sometimes.  I guess our time is coming to an end, just that.”

Giles looked at her slightly shaky hands.  She was nervous.  “Can you tell me what really happened?”

A longer moment of silence ensued, before she spoke again.

“Before I left for patrol, we argued, y’know?  I can’t even remember what about.  I was so pissed I almost broke our room’s door.  Rhona went out with me, and while we were walking, I calmed down, but something kept nagging me.  I still don’t know what.  So, we were walking and we hit a group of seven vamps and two demons.  We started fighting them, but something kept building inside of me.  Anger, hatred, pain . . . I don’t know, but when a vamp scored a good hit, I snapped.  I let my stake fall and started pummeling the bastards.”

Faith’s frame shook like a leaf in the wind, and she held her knees as if the world would end any moment now.

“I’ve never felt like this, Giles.  Ever.  Not even when I was evil.  It was like Slaying, only . . . I don’t know . . . tripled.  We get angry when we fight, I guess it’s like fuel to us, but this . . . Anyway, we were fighting, or better, Rhona was, while I was playing Mike Tyson with a demon’s face.  The bastard was already out cold, and my knuckles were hurting, but I kept hitting him.  Rhona tried to stop me, but when she held me, I almost struck her.  I stopped inches from her nose, Giles,” she said, and broke out in tears.

The normally stoic Watcher approached her and held her strongly in his arms, while speaking calming words in her ear.  She cried for several minutes more, until finally gaining some semblance of control.

“T-thanks, G,” she said, still sniffling.

“You’re welcome.  Mind if I ask you some questions about it?  It might help.”

“S-sure.”

“You said anger, hatred.  Against Robin?”

“N-no, Giles.  I thought that at first, but it wasn’t because of him.  It wasn’t directed at him, it just . . . was.”

“You also said it felt like Slaying, correct?”

“More like Uber-Slaying,” she said, and at that precise moment her mind decided to remind her of something.  “I felt this once, G.”

“Where?” he asked, curious.

“Fighting the Turok-Hans with B while Billy Idol was imitating a flashlight,” she said, and made a small smile over the comparison.

“W-well, I guess it should be.  After all, those were unthinkable odds.”

“But that night wasn’t, Giles.  It was normal stuff, go Slay, go Hungry, go Horny.  Not go Nutcase-y.”

“C-certainly there must be some explanation somewhere.  I will check some books in here and ask for HQ to check a few things for me.  But now it’s late and I guess you want a shower quite badly.”

“Yeah.  I can’t imagine how you can handle the smell.  You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?” she spoke, the last part a murmur barely heard.

“Well, you are a woman, which in my opinion is a quite normal setting for craziness.  And you are also a Slayer, which only adds to this factor.  But no, dear, I don’t think you are insane, just over-stressed.  Come on, show this old man the cot where he’s supposed to rest his wary frame.”

“Do you think we have cots?  Those bastard Watchers don’t give us enough money to buy lipstick, and you want us to have /beds/?” she said all that smiling that thousand-watt grin of hers.  This interplay was an old joke, reminding Giles from their travels in the old school bus, while searching for demonic activity in the States they passed.  Said bus now was parked on the side of the Cleveland Slayer’s home, as some sort of trophy or something.  “Come on, Laura left for a while to visit the parents, her room is free.  Where are the bags?” she asked, standing up.

“Rhona has them,” he said, following her. “I also came for another reason, but we can discuss it in the morning.”

“Problems?” Faith asked, while knocking on the other Slayer’s door.  The Cleveland Watcher’s HQ was an old school, which was converted into a training center slash hotel slash library and still school for the Slayers which took care of the Cleveland Hellmouth.  So, every Slayer had her own room, with her own bathroom and some other amenities, like computers, telephones, TVs with cable and so on.  The mentality of the new Watcher’s Council was that Slayers were people as well, so they deserved to be treated as such.  This proved to be quite effective in the long run, since Slayers’ lives were measured in years now, instead of just a few months.

“Not exactly, or at least I don’t think so,” Giles said, while Rhona opened the door to her room.  He thanked her and picked up his suitcase, and they walked to the room he was going to use.  “You know Xander is still in Africa, right?”

“Yeah.  I talked to him a coupla months ago.  He sounded happy.”

“He is.  From him come the best-trained Slayers, the most dedicated ones.  They are specialists in teamwork, and they know some quite dirty tricks.”

Faith knew that as well.  Zanna, the Zimbabwe-born Slayer, which lived in the third floor, was one of the top Slayers on her teams.  An expert marksman, with anything from a pistol to a sniper rifle, who knew demolitions as well and gave Faith a run for her money on the mats.  And one sweet little girl on top of it all.  The Slayers had a saying among them that if a ‘Xander’s Girl’ was among them for a mission, they all would come back alive.

“So, what happened?”

“Some years ago, soon after he went to Africa, he called me one day to ask for a favor.  He asked me to give him ‘carte blanche’ to run Watcher’s operations in Africa, no questions asked.  I argued with him for some time, but he made a promise to, how you say it ‘deliver the goods’.  And he did, we have amazing proof of that.  And that’s how it went until now.  He made a few reports over time, nothing too little, nothing too much, just enough to keep me and the rest of the Ruling Board happy.”

“And?”

“Two months ago, he and the rest of the Slayers which were training with him disappeared.  Or gone underground, I don’t know.  The entire training compound was empty, not a speck of dust left behind.  We sent a couple of Watchers to search for them, and that’s were things get interesting.”

They entered the teen’s empty room, and Giles looked around.  Stakes, a battle axe and some other sharpened objects shared space with stuffed animals, make-up and posters from several young men from rock groups to actors.  He shook his head.  Slayers.

“You sure she won’t mind?” he asked, the gentleman in him always in the fore.

“Nah, I know Laura.  If I tell her you stayed in her room, she’ll probably put the bed in an altar and pray for it, saying you slept in it,” Faith said with a grin.

Giles sat on the bed, and removed his glasses, the hands mechanically cleaning them.

“Anyway, the Watchers go to Tanzania, where the compound was, to try and find what happened.  One night, while on patrol, they find a Slayer fighting some vampires.  She killed them and then she ran away when the Watchers tried to talk to her.”

“That’s odd.  They threatened her?” Faith asked, weary.  She knew how some Watchers could be, sometimes.

“No, John and Karla are new school, and smart people, they didn’t do it.  What was odd wasn’t even the running away, it was the fight in itself.  She was fighting twenty vampires, Faith.  Alone.”

Faith’s jaw fell.  She was the second most experienced Slayer on the planet, and she certainly couldn’t face twenty vampires all by herself.

“H-how?”

“John said that the vampires made a circle around her, and then she did something with her hands and some sort of light came out of her, paralyzing them.  Then she calmly proceeded to stake them all.”

“She cast a /spell/?  Slayers aren’t spell casters, our powers inhibit it.”

“She did not.  Karla is a spell caster of some ability, and she said she didn’t feel a speck of magic being used.  Whatever she did, came from another source.”

“That’s wicked weird.  Another Slayer power?”

“We don’t know.  They searched more and came back empty.  Two days after they reported back to me, I received an e-mail from Xander, which said, and I quote ‘We’re ok.  Don’t bother sending anyone.  X.’”

“So, that’s exactly what you won’t do, right?  Question is, why me?  Why not Red, or B?”

Giles sighed.  That was the hard part of him coming.

“Faith, there are several reasons.  First, Willow is rather busy with our Witches’ Coven, and Buffy isn’t exactly suited for this mission.  She’s rather adamant in her opinions nowadays, and I fear for her reactions if she finds Xander and doesn’t like what she finds out.”

“Again, why me?  I’m not the top person in X’s trust list, even if we made peace with each other.”

“The other reasons.  You are our most experienced Slayer, and you know Xander and how he thinks better than anyone now.  You can hold you own in a fight, if it comes to it, and I know it won’t.  And the last one, I guess you need a break.”

“Me?   A break?  Why?”

“I guess you are suffering from stress, Faith.  Since Sunnydale, you have been fighting non-stop.  I know you think you need to prove something to someone, but this is rather foolish.  You are burning out.  Take some time, go somewhere else.”

“A mission is not exactly ‘time out’, G-Man.”

“This one is.  Finding him shouldn’t be such a problem for you.  We have some clues on where he must be hiding.  Talk to him, get some answers and come back, it’s all.  No Slaying in sight, the African continent is rather calm in that front.”

“Twenty vampires is?”

“A fluke, I guess.  It’s the largest group we ever had reported.  And it was dealt with.”

Faith thought about if for a couple of minutes.  “Can I take Woody with me?” she asked.

“You think it’s wise?”

“Should be a chance to patch things up.  I have to try, at least,” she said, hopefully.

“I guess it shouldn’t be a problem.  I’ll send someone to overview things around here.”

“’k.  When do we leave?”

“Let’s talk about that in the morning, ok?  I need my jet-lagged sleep and you still need that shower,” Giles said.

“Yeah, ‘k.  Have a nice night, G.”

“Thank you.”

Faith walked out of the door, and after she closed it, she murmured.  “No, Giles, thank /you/.”

~~O~~

Tanzania

Faith was still remembering the events from the rest of that night, when the GPS started beeping, indicating she was arriving at the last known place where Xander had been seen.  It was a small village, of a few huts made of clay and hay.  Some children ran away when they saw the jeep approaching, and a single, tall man, came out of one hut.  He was dressed in typical warrior fashion.

Faith stopped the jeep near the man, and climbed out.

“Jambo [Hello],” she said, one of the few words in Swahili she learned to try and talk to people.

“Jambo, mchipukizi.  Mambo?  [Hello, pretty lady.  What do you want?],” the man said, showing Faith the whitest teeth she had ever seen.  It was a big contrast with his dark skin.

“Upekuzi [Searching]  . . . white guy . . . Xander,” she said, losing her vocabulary with the Masai’s answer.

“So, you must be Faith,” the man said, in an impeccable, Oxford-accented English.  “You are prettier than Xander told me.  Welcome, my name is Mboto, but you can call me Mike.”

Faith’s jaw fell all over again, and she got the stupidest face like, ever.  The Masai, Mike, grinned like a maniac.  Faith looked him in the eyes and saw the mirth in them.  So, the face changed from stupefied to pissed off.  “You knew who I was.  Why the charade with the language?”

“Xander said you still owed him a couple, and I could collect one.  I have something for you.  Come with me, it’s cooler inside.”

The Slayer followed the tall man back to the hut from where he emerged.  They entered, and Mike went in search of something.

“How did you learn my language?” Faith asked, while the man still looked inside some pots.

“Went to college in Dar-El-Sallam.  I’m a geologist.  Ah, found it,” he said, giving Faith a sealed envelope.  Problem is, said envelope looked old, far older than a couple of months since he had disappeared.

“When did you see Xander last?” the Slayer asked, while opening the envelope with her name scribbled on the front.

Mike thought it over for a few minutes.  “Almost a year ago.  He brought my sister to visit.”

“Your sister is a Slayer?”

“Yes, she is.”

Inside the envelope, there was a single sheet of paper, with one single line of text on it.  Coordinates for some place.  Faith showed the Masai the paper.

“You know these coordinates?”

Mike studied them for a minute, before answering.  “If I’m not mistaken, those are near the Kilimanjaro.”

Too many questions popped up in Faith’s mind.  Time to have a few answers.

“Since when do you have this envelope?”

“Almost three years now.”

That caught the Slayer.  How . . .?

“How did Xander know?  And it’s addressed to me.  You don’t have any other envelopes, do you?”

“No, just this one.  And how he knew, I guess the vision quest showed him.”

“Vision quest?”

“I guess I must explain it better.  You see, three years ago . . .”

~~O~~

Tanzania – Three years ago

The man arrived in the village close to sundown.  At his side a native guide, which spoke with him in rapid-fire English.  From what Mboto could gather from that distance, the one-eyed white man was looking for someone special.

Mboto was smart enough to know that the special one was Kalinda, his baby sister.  Since the day that she almost broke his back from hugging him, he knew something was terribly wrong.  The nightmares, the inhuman strength, it was too weird.  They had talked and decided to hide those things from the rest of the village.  Mboto approached them, and introduced himself in Swahili.  The guide introduced himself and the white man as one Xander Harris, coming from the United States.

He invited them to their hut, and the moment the white man looked at Kalinda, Mboto knew that the man had found what he was looking for.  Surprisingly, he didn’t force the issue, nor demanded to talk to the girl.  They sat on the ground, and Xander began to talk, while the guide translated it to them.   Mboto wasn’t bothering with the translation, he was focusing on the American’s reactions.  What he heard surprised even him, born in both the mysticism of his people and the knowledge of white civilization.  Slayers, Vampires, Demons, Watchers, Hellmouths, it was all too much information and too weird to understand in one go, and he knew the American was speaking the truth.  No one invented such a story and told it with such emotion reflected in it.  So, he invited them to stay for the night and that they should talk again in the morning.

They accepted, and then they mounted a barrack outside the village.  Mboto and his sister talked for a good part of that night, finally coming to a decision.  She couldn’t stay out of it, the world needed her, and it would be a chance for her to learn new things.  She was an avid seeker for information, much like her big brother.  He didn’t like it, though, so he needed to talk to the American.  He walked out of the hut, going in the direction of the barracks.

Surprisingly, he found the man leaning against a tree, looking to the east. Mboto approached silently.

“She’s your sister, right?” Xander asked in an even tone, without turning.

“How do . . .” Mboto asked, surprised.

“I know she’s your sister? Or that you speak English?”

“Both, I guess.”

“You either learn a few things after seven years in this business or you die.  Since I’m talking to you and like to watch the sun rise, you can guess what I picked.”

“Sorry about the charade, she’s my only sister.”

“I can understand. In your position I would probably do the same thing.”

“She said she wants to go.”

Xander finally turned around and looked at him.

“That’s good,” he said, smiling. Mboto noticed that the smile didn’t reach his eye.

“I thought you would be happy.”

Xander sighed and turned back to watch the sunrise. Problem was, sunrise would still be in a couple of hours.

“I guess I am, to a point. She will have a better chance of survival, by training and learning with us.  On the other side, I guess I’m really sorry I have to do this job. She should have a normal life.  Too many people have suffered already,” he said, hand involuntarily moving to his patch.

“You lost faith,” Mboto said, and it wasn’t a question.

Xander looked back at him, his face answering more than his mouth.  “I guess I lost something different, I lost track of where I’m going.  In this business you live one day at a time, but we always look to the future, you know?”

“I guess so.  Otherwise, you lose track of what you are fighting for,” Mboto said.

“Yeah.  I just can’t seem to look beyond today.  We’ve fought so much, and we’ve lost so much that I’m beginning to think it’s not worth it.”

Mboto was surprised.  The defeated man who was standing there looking to the east was so much different than the one that was speaking in the hut several hours ago.  He could leave his sister with the man on the hut, but not the one he was talking to now.  So, he had to do something, and he knew exactly what.

“I may have something that can help you.  You ever heard of vision quests?”

Xander almost made a joke out of it, but refrained himself.

“Some things, yeah.  I read somewhere that Native American cultures do it.  Why?”

“This is not an exclusivity of the American Indians.  Some African tribes do it as well.”

“Yours do?” he asked, understanding the way the conversation was going to.

“We did, but our holy man died some time ago, and no one knows the entire procedure.  But there is another village a couple of hours north of here where you can do it.  Want to give it a try?  It could help you re-encounter your way.”

Xander thought it over for some minutes. “It can’t hurt.  Can you give me directions?”

“Sure.”

~~O~~

“So, he went?” Faith asked.

“Yes, he did.  He came back a week later with a worried face, talked to me for a while, gave me the envelope, took my sister and left.”

“He looked worried?  What happened?  What he spoke about?”

“Yes, but I believe haunted is a better word for it.  He said he saw some terrible things in his quest, and he had to take actions against it.  He told me you would come looking for him in the future, and he gave me this envelope.  When I asked what he saw, he said only one word.”

“What?”

“Death.”

Faith muted.  In their business, those ‘impending doom’ stuff were daily occurrences, but she never heard Xander speak like that.  He was always the optimistic, even in the worst of times, which was his best characteristic.  For him to be this apocalyptic, he surely had seen some serious shit.

“I gotta go. Can you get me some water?” she asked, already worried in finding her . . . friend?

“Sure. And he asked to tell you one more thing, if you were alone.”

“What is it?”

“Watch your soul.”

Faith froze.  Two minutes passed before she could utter another word.  “You serious?” she asked, trembling.

“Absolutely.”

“I-I gotta go,” she said, still shaking.  Mboto was wondering what could scare a Slayer so badly.

“I’ll fetch your water.  Wait a minute.”

He brought a vase filled to the brim with water for her, and she filled her own canteens.  She said some hasty goodbyes and left, promising to return at some later time.  When the jeep was far away, a teenager appeared from another hut, calmly walking to his side.  He looked at her face, and like so many times before, the shivering of looking into light gray, pupil-less eyes took him.

“[You looked in her?]”

“[Yes, I did. It’s worse than Xander thought.]”

“[You trust him with that?]”

“[I trust him with more than that, bro. I trust him with my soul.]”

“[So why all this cloak and dagger stuff?]”

“[Security.  We aren’t fully prepared yet.  She’ll be pissed, but we will all be safe if everything goes as planned.]”

“[What now?]”

The Slayer known as Kalinda smiled warmly at him.  In that, he saw the little girl he would always love.

“[Someone will pick me up in a while.  Until then, I want to spend some time with my big bro.]”

Mboto smiled, and gave one last look in the direction that Faith had left, offering a prayer of safety and well being for his gods in her name.

Chapter 2: What’s Going On?

(by 3D Master)

Faith took a sip from the water, as her jeep hobbled through growth.  She put the canister aside, and then pulled out her PDA with GPS positioning, and checked her coordinates with the ones Xander had wrote down.  She was still on course, she hadn’t accidentally veered off: good.  She looked around, seeing a herd of elephants casually walk to her right, some zebras to her left, and one was being chased by a lion.  “Fuck me,” Faith muttered, the realization of just how far off the beaten track she was slamming into her like a ton of bricks.  She had been too preoccupied with unpleasant memories.  She shook her head; demons, vampires, incorporeal evils - a few animals shouldn’t pose a problem to a Slayer . . . although she better keep an eye down for the little suckers having venom.

“Get a grip,” she told herself, tossing aside another memory that returned after her thoughts about venom; a slow working agonizing venom.  She shuddered, and then did get a grip.  She saw a mountain loom in the distance, and guessed that’s where she was headed.

Half an hour later she indeed arrived at the mountain, and the coordinates were about right.  Driving partially around, and then up a path, she found herself going around a corner with a wider area behind it.  Bushes and trees were to the right of the corner area, mountain behind it and everywhere else.  Faith drove her jeep until the middle of the little area, and looked around with a deep frown.  There was nothing here, was there?

She pulled her stake from the driver’s seat and stuffed it behind the waist of her pants. That done, she got out, and after checking the ground for snakes or whatever she looked around, taking a few steps forward till she was in front of the jeep.  Why in blazes would Xander send her here?  Why would he and the Slayers under his command and tutelage come here anyway?  It didn’t make sense!  She pulled out her PDA and checked her coordinates again; she was right there wasn’t she?  Or perhaps . . . She walked straight forward till she reached the mountain wall.  She looked up, and around.  On a hunch she put her hand on the stone and slowly moved up and down.  Her eyes widened; there was something there!  She was pretty certain she wouldn’t be able to feel it without her Slayer senses; how the hell would a normal person find it?  Or was that the point?  Nobody would find it?

She felt around a bit more, pulled on a protrusion, nothing happened.  She moved her hand more to the right, and then her eyes caught something; a tiny pattern seemed to emerge from a bunch of seemingly random dents.  She moved her hand to it, and her thumb fit perfectly in one indentation, her index finger in another, and onward till all her fingers fit in it.  Faith took a deep breath, her heart hammering in her chest.  This was just too fucking weird.  She caught herself just in time; that breath had worked.

She ran back to her jeep, pulled out a short sword and sheath with belt, and put it around her waist.  Then she got an extra stake and stuffed it on the opposite side of the first one behind the waist of her tight green utility pants.  A flashlight was next.  She then pulled out her guns that had been laying on the driver’s seat next to her stakes at the ready, and put her double shoulder holster on, over her white low-cut spaghetti-strapped shirt.  She checked her guns - two .45s fully automatic - then checked the ammo, and walked back to the mountain wall.  The guns felt good; previously she had never really had a need for it - she was the Slayer, and relished it too, the adrenaline, the actual fight: guns just seemed too tame, killing from a distance.  Prison had mellowed her out though, and when she and her team had found themselves outnumbered six to one, by demons, vampires and whatever else had been in that group that had come after them, and Zanna - Xander’s Zimbabwe born slayer - had pulled out her guns and taken down a few handfuls of vamps either by shooting out their knees or heads saving them all by leveling the playing field with that action, she had made a point of getting the girl to teach her and Slayers about guns.  By the time they had dealt with the others, the vamps that she had shot were starting to get back up, but they were still far too out of it to resist staking.

Faith reached the mountain wall again, and took a few deep breaths.  She placed her hand back in the indentations, and pushed.  A moment nothing happened, and then when enough force was reached, the circular pad deepened into the mountain with a heavy clunk.  Faith blinked, nothing more happened: pushing didn’t help.  She tried to twist clockwise, and the pad turned.  Once a quarter of a circle finished the pad suddenly started moving onward on its own.  Faith pulled her hand back in reflex and took a step back, watching as the circle continued turning with ever-increasing loud noises of things twisting, and turning, and moving and clicking.  It was really a quite cliché Indiana Jones moment, Faith reflected, tensing up.  Things started moving left to the pad.  A large rock door like structure appeared - or rather the seams between it and the mountain rock did.  Then the whole rock door moved deeply into the mountain, before pulling upward and disappearing from sight, showing a dark passageway.  “This is absolutely not five by five,” Faith told herself, feeling apprehensive.  Everything about this felt wrong.

Carefully but steadily Faith entered the cave turning on her flashlight.  The walls of the narrow passageway were too smooth to be natural, with the exception of a lot of chips that she couldn’t place.  The differently marred drawings on them settled it as being unnatural.  With a pounding heart Faith continued to move forward, until the cave became lighter, and it wasn’t her flashlight.  She hesitated a moment, and then continued.  Lighter and lighter it became until she finally reached a round enclosed chamber.  Blue-white light came down from some crystals in the ceiling.  In the middle of the circular room there was a slightly raised circle, which seemed to be cut in four sections.  Different patches dried blood were smeared all over the room and the circle.  Faith froze when she looked at the circle; flashing back to a different circle, and all those Turok-Han running and climbing up to them.  The circle here wasn’t the same, but it was close enough to give Faith the shivers.  She took a few more careful steps, entering the circular room, and . . .

Light suddenly came from the circle, and four quadrants slipped away and down.  The light disappeared, and instantly a grey monster came out.  It looked like that Gollum freak, only more vicious, with bigger teeth and muscles, and a lot more dangerous - especially with its glowing red eyes.  An instant later another one of them jumped from the circle, and another, and another, and another . . .

Faith looked shocked, especially when all the demons hissed at her, and obviously considered her a good welcome home feast.  The demons screeched, and obviously started to pounce toward her.  She pulled her guns then and fired the first directly through a demon’s forehead.  It screeched, dropped to the floor, and then lay still.  The demons started surging forward, and Faith ran back out the way she came, firing back at the every growing mass of demons that were coming at her across the floor but also the walls and the ceilings - their claws cut into the rock.

Soon she arrived at the entrance and turned around the corner, needing to reload both guns twice.  Shooting around the corner into the cave, she put her hand back into the pad that was now deeper into mountain.  After a few moments of trying the pad turned again and reached a critical point, starting turning on its own.  Some of the demons came surging out screeching, and in a fluent motion she let go of one of her guns, pulled her sword, and decapitated one.  Fear and adrenaline gripped her as the she could hear the mechanisms turning, and the doorway slowly closing.  While this happened she was hacking and slashing.  She dropped the now empty gun, stabbing another demon that came at her to die.  In a quick free moment, she picked up her other gun again, and was able to get four more deadly shots before it was empty and the door was finally closed.  She kept her eye on the closed door for a few more moments, and then she leaned back against the wall, breathing with relief, and slowly let herself sink down amidst the demon corpses.  She kicked a few directly below her aside so she could sit.  She looked around at the carnage she had wrought, then at the scratches and deeper cuts where the demons had managed to get to her.  Suddenly there was a bright light and a whoosh come from behind the hidden doorway.

Faith looked back and up at the door breathing hard.  Why in blazes would Xander send her here?  Did he want her dead?  That just couldn’t be?  Or had he really taken his Slayers down there to try and stop it, and sent her the coordinates so everyone knew the danger was here . . . that would mean they’d all be dead, and why clean up all your stuff before such a mission?  It made no sense.  Nothing about this made any sense.  She got up slowly, holding her sword.  She took her guns back, reloaded them, and after a moment thinking over it, she once more opened the doorway.  When it was open, the corridor was clean, none of the corpses she had killed inside were there - that light a cleaning method.  She then pulled the corpses that were lying outside in, and closed the doorway again.  Once more there was a light a short while after it was closed.

Faith shook her head; this didn’t make any sense.  “What the flying fuck is going on!?” she screamed out her frustration.  Then she noticed something: something was pinned to one of the trees to the side.  That hadn’t been there before, or had it?  She walked over, and found an envelope.  She took it, and then opened it.  A new note was in there, saying, ‘Come to Masumbue.’

“What the hell?” Faith asked and looked around, trying to see if she could see anyone - she couldn’t.  Masumbue was where Xander had had his operation.  But had been deserted, hadn’t it?  This whole deal was getting even /more/ weird, and given she had just been at a Hellmouth or some friggin’ seal just sealing away a bunch of demons, that was saying something.  With her heart pounding in her throat, afraid it might be another trap, but having no real choice - she just had to be careful, she got in her jeep.  She started it and then drove away.

A moment later a figure stepped casually out of the bushes, greenery disappearing from her to reveal a girl.  “It’s Diria, she was just here,” the girl spoke coolly.

“She figured it out, she didn’t lose control, and she didn’t need my help,” she spoke again.  “Yes, I think it’s promising . . . she’s not capable of detecting an illusion though, she looked right at me too.”

“I’m following her,” she then confirmed, and nodded.  She walked back into the greenery and a few bushes and trees flattened and wrapped around the shape of a jeep.  Diria got in, started it, and drove off gently behind Faith.  The moment her jeep left the greenery on the side of the mountain, the greenery shimmered out of existence.

*****

Kalinda returned to her training, and living village.  First she went to the one she reported to.  Entering the training dojo, she passed a few Slayers in heavy training.  Then she went into the small side office and looked at the woman with long raven hair, and red-brown eyes.  “And?” she asked.

Kalinda looked at her, shook her head, and said, “It’s spread to almost half her body, and not just her chakra.  It’s started to affect her organs and blood as well.”

“Do you think she can get it under control, or is it too late?” the raven-haired woman asked.

“If she starts quickly, preferably right now, perhaps,” Kalinda answered seriously.

“Not yet, we have to test her intelligence first, see if it is being affected,” the woman answered.

“You think it does?” Kalinda asked.

The woman looked at her for a moment, and then said, “Judging from the stories about Buffy, and seeing their correctness given who’s told them, yes.”  Kalinda nodded, and then was told she could go clean up, and start her training.

*****

A two-hour drive and an almost empty tank later Faith arrived at Masumbue.  She looked at the small town in front of her rented car.  Faith was glad this was a dirt road, asphalt would be like a baking plain in this burning sun, even now - with the sun setting - the heat made her uncomfortable.  The town itself held about 10,000 people, and had a diameter of about three kilometers, but wasn’t a perfect circle.  To the left and behind her there was Savannah, forward and to the right of the small town there was a light tropical forest.  The town itself was made of stone, and further down the road - about center of town - Faith could already see shop signs; obviously this town was rather modern, in comparison to where she had been before; although compared to western standards, especially considering the lack of hardened roads, it was still primitive.  She opened the little dashboard cabinet, took out a booklet and checked Xander’s address.  It would supposedly be empty, but she would check.

Once she had the address, and she punched in her GPS as destination, she carefully drove into the town.  She looked around, studied the buildings, and especially the people - if they even were people, she knew of a few demons that could appear human - to see if she saw something that might give her a clue about what the hell was going on.  After five minutes of slow driving, several times going left and right, she reached what was considered the outskirts of town and found what was supposedly Xander’s abandoned house.  The house was nice, had a fence and a rather big garden.  It almost had a ‘white picket fence’ feel and size to it, which meant it would probably be considered /huge/ by the rest of the town’s and African standards.  Faith shut down her jeep, re-checked that she had reloaded her guns, and only then slowly got out of her jeep.  After opening and closing the fence, Faith came up the front door, but decided to go around the white house.  Windows were covered, she found, as if someone inside didn’t want the sun to shine in - in short it didn’t seem abandoned.  Had someone else chosen to inhabit the house?  The windows were all closed though, so perhaps it was uninhabited after all . . . or perhaps they had air-conditioning.  When she rounded the first corner she heard a light thumping, and she carefully walked onward.  Reaching the back yard, she could now identify the thumping as an engine sound, and it seemed to be coming from a shed.  Well, that settled the inhabitation question.  She examined the shed without going closer, and saw two electric cables come out the wall of the shed, and then disappeared underground right away.

She looked around more, and the house had three steps leading up to the back door, which incidentally had a window not covered by anything it seemed.  Carefully she walked up the steps, looked through the window into a kitchen, and saw . . . Xander . . . casually preparing dinner.  Faith’s eyes widened, and kept looking at Xander for a few more seconds, before knocking on the door.  Xander looked up, and smiled when he saw her.  He came over, opened the door, and with a smile and a frown asked, “Faith!  What are you doing here?”

Faith looked into his one eye - the patch really made him look rather mysterious and deep.  He looked damn good.  Then she spoke, “I could ask you the same thing.  You’re supposed to have disappeared.”

Xander raised his eyebrows in further surprise, and stepped aside - even though the sun was still out, old habits died hard.  As Faith walked in he spoke, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Faith turned around to face him, and leant back against the round kitchen table.  “Giles sent me here to go look for you.  He said a couple of months ago, you and your Slayers had just disappeared, but your still here.  He also told me about some Slayers with odd abilities.”

“Oh, not /that/ again,” Xander answered leaning back against the counter, taking a moment to check the cooking food; the smell of which incidentally was getting Faith hungry - ravenous was more like it.  Faith give him a questioning look, and with a smile he said, “I don’t know why Giles would lie to you about me not being here, but “rogue slayers with powers” story is starting to come out my nose.”  Xander actually made the quotes in the air, and continued to do so as he spoke, “Some seven or so months ago a few “people” reported seeing a few and the “council” asked me to investigate.  I did: there are /no/ “supergirl slayers”.  But the reports kept coming in, I kept telling there were none, and apparently those who came here to pick up a Slayer, or deliver one, or for other reasons were given the alternate order to keep their eyes open, and have apparently seen something.  /I/ have yet to see one, I /can/ tell you that I saw some odd stuff when I first got here too.”  Xander pointed up and finished, “It’s the heat, when you’re not used to it yet, you start to see things; especially if you try to look for things that aren’t there, you get to see the very things you’re looking for, even if there’s nothing - many a times did I jump away from nightmarish monstrous snakes, before my body got used to the heat.”

Faith finished listening to Xander’s story, while she was mauling through recent events.  If she couldn’t trust Giles to tell the truth, who the hell could she trust?  Since getting here she was sent on a giant roller coaster ride, wait . . . “Why don’t you know I’m here?  You had me sent a letter two years ago, to Mboto, with coordinates to another Seal.”

“Huh?” Xander wondered.

After some searching through her backpack, she produced the letter.  She gave it to Xander and said, “Look, it’s old.”

Xander quickly looked it over, and smiled, “Old paper doesn’t mean old writing, Faith.”  He gave a few chuckles, and Faith looked both pissed, annoyed and stupid.  “It’s the standard test we give all girls sent here when they arrive alone.  85% don’t even find the lock.  It shows how well they are already in tune with what they are.  As an added extra bonus, those who come here with a cocky, or an optimistic ‘look how cool this adventure is, I’m a super hero’ attitude very quickly get an immediate attitude adjust by a good dose of reality; fighting against overwhelming odds, and most likely die young.”

Faith shook her head, Giles lying still imbalanced her, and she asked, “Isn’t that a little dangerous, not just to the Slayer but to the world as well?  And I could have died.”

Xander shook his head with a smile, “The place is rigged with several big explosives.  If something should go wrong, or something actually seeks to set the things in that cave free, we just have to push a button - the seal and everything will go sky high, after which the mountain comes down upon it.  You were never in any danger too; you were given a guard who knows the place perfectly, and here she is too.”

A black girl arrived at the back door in the kitchen, and Xander grabbed a baking pan, shaking the contents about.  “Diria, exactly why wasn’t I told about Faith coming here?” Xander asked with a powerful command voice, that made Faith shiver - a good shiver, but definitely a shiver - if it could make her, the one it was not aimed it shiver, it had to be far worse for the Slayer.  Judging from Diria’s jittery reaction that was exactly the case.

“W-well, uh, we knew you would never let us put her through the test, and we wanted to play a little prank on her; you were never in any real danger, I promise,” Diria spoke a little shaky.

“I never saw her,” Faith said, rather surprised.

“That’s my area of expertise, /not/ get noticed,” the black-skinned Slayer told Faith with a sly smile.

“You and everyone in on it, will go through several severe disciplinary actions.  Go find all of them, and get them at six sharp tomorrow morning at the square, *now*,” Xander ordered, and the Slayer was off like a bat.  “I’m sorry about that, Faith,” Xander apologized, “they didn’t let you get hurt did they?”

Faith shook her head, “A few scratches, already almost healed.  I just need a shower, and- . . .”  Faith’s stomach growled loudly.

“Food, I take it,” Xander said with a grin that made Faith blush with embarrassment over her traitorous stomach.

“Xander, food ready yet?” a female’s voice spoke as the door to a hallway opened, admitting a beautiful raven-haired woman, slightly dripping and holding a towel.  She only wore a g-string and was topless, which - after surprisedly taking in Faith - she remedied by tying the towel around.  The towel incidentally didn’t even come low enough to cover the women’s entire ass, the lower rounding stayed visible.  The two women took each other in, and Faith was truck by her odd reddish eyes.

“Kurenai this is the infamous Faith Williams.  Faith, this is Yuuh Kurenai, my girlfriend,” Xander said, making Faith looked shocked.  That was a new bombshell, in more ways than one.

The women shook hands, and Kurenai spoke, “I know who she is.”

“You were in on it?” Xander accused.  Faith was curious about this outcome.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” the beautiful woman spoke, looked Xander deep in his eyes, and started a deep French kiss with him.  She broke the kiss again, and said, “Sorry?”

“Oh, for . . . Go help Faith get ready for dinner - clothes, shower, bandages if necessary, you owe her that much; dinner will be ready in fifteen,” Xander said shaking his head in defeat.  “And Faith, hang the guns on the rack, okay?”

“Come on,” Kurenai said and pulled Faith along.

Xander returned to his cooking, then turned around and looked at Faith’s retreating back.  His one eye suddenly changed - to a red one with three black dots in it.  He looked at Faith, seeing her aura now, her life force.  It was the Slayer-characteristic dark purple color, except from her belly the purple had turned utter black.  It covered almost half of her body, a quarter down, and a quarter up.  Throughout the still purple aura Xander could see small flecks of black, sometimes appearing, and sometimes disappearing.  His eye turned to normal again, and he sadly shook his head.

The two women were on their way.  “You don’t seem African,” Faith pointed out, as she was lead into the hallway, toward the stairs and an upstairs bathroom no doubt.

Faith hung her guns on clothes rack, and Kurenai spook, “I’m from Asia.”

Faith’s eyes widened at that and then as they continued up the stairs, she said, “You don’t seem very Asian either.”

Kurenai chuckled and said, “I’m from a rather hidden part of Asia.  On several islands and pieces of main land there are a few counties who carry very different names locally then is known in the rest of the world.  Each of these countries has an hidden ninja village, founded between a century and a few centuries ago with the exception of one very recently founded - the villages took in anyone of any disposition who had any kind of special skills or was willing to put in the effort to become an integral part of the village.  I’m from Konoha, the Fire County’s Hidden Leaf Village.”

“What are you doing here?” Faith asked the woman half-suspicious, half-curious as they reached the top of the stairs.

The other raven-haired woman, that was a few centimeters taller than Faith, answered with a smile, “Apart from Xander you mean?”  Faith gave Kurenai a glare that told her Faith was not amused.

“I mean, how did you and Xander meet, and got . . . acquainted with each other,” Faith clarified.

As Kurenai gestured to the bathroom, she explained, “Xander came looking for us, he’d had some kind of vision, of which I still don’t know all the details.  We met, hit it off, and decided to come with him; help with training the Slayers and all that - he’s just too irresistible.”

Faith smiled, she had heard a few of the potentials-made-Slayers gushing over Xander like that after he was gone.  Well, not quite, but they had most certainly complained about the lack of good-looking, bare-chested, hot-smelling sweaty men doing carpeting, or any good-looking men in general.  It seemed that the old guard of Watchers before a new one was recruited was not very appetizing - apart from Giles in Faith’s opinion, but the Slayers hadn’t seen enough of him to see that.  Now that there was a new guard recruited the complaints were far less - at least when it came to Xander.  Now when the other Watchers were out they were complaining about them being missed.  Slayer drives - sexual included - should not be underestimated.   “So he really /did/ have a vision then?  Apparently without me in it,” Faith said, not knowing if she should be relieved or disappointed about that.

“Yes, could you give me your keys?  Then while you shower I can get your luggage,” Kurenai requested with a smile.  Faith handed over the keys without reservation.

*****

Dinner had been tasty, as well as uneventful.  They had talked about political situations, and resulting danger areas in Africa, with Tanzania in particular which was rather stable in comparison - a reason why Xander chose to put his training facilities here.  Whether conditions, sleeping arrangements - guest room - other requirements had been other topics of the talking.  Faith also asked Kurenai if she just grew up in a village, or if she actually was a ninja. Yes, she was a ninja.  Faith asked her about what she could do.  Her answer: trained from the moment she could walk: she could fight, climb high and fast, very strong, run extremely far and fast, camouflage techniques, illusionary tricks - nothing magical though.

After dinner the first thing Faith did was call Watcher Headquarters, and see what she could find out about Giles and his lie.  Buffy was the one she got on the phone after a short hold.  #Faith, report,# the senior Slayer’s voice sounded from the other side.

“Hey, B, how are you?  Nice to hear your voice too,” Faith replied sarcastically.  How the hell Buffy could still manage to rile her up, Faith didn’t know - but no matter how much they connected back in the now crater, she continued to rub the dark-haired Slayer the wrong way.  She also knew this wasn’t some territorial shit they had kind of discussed, seeing as she has no problems with the many Slayers that came after.

#This is no time for your attitude, Faith, have you found something yet?# Buffy asked across the distance separating them.

“Yeah, Giles lied to me,” Faith spoke bitterly.

#What!?# Buffy exclaimed.

Faith nodded automatically as she spoke, “Yep, sent me here ‘to find Xander and his Slayers who disappeared two months ago’, now I’m here, but no disappearance.  They are right here where they are supposed to be.”

Silence reigned for a few seconds, before Buffy hissed, #That little . . . perhaps I shouldn’t have trusted him just yet!  Faith, your real mission is quite simple; there are reports all over the area, and even a few farther away, of rogue Slayers with a lot of strange abilities . . .#

“Yeah, I know, I’ve heard of them, Xander says they don’t exist.  I have to find them?” Faith interrupted the senior Slayer.

Buffy’s reply came, #Yes, and recruit them if possible.  Also find out why Xander is so incompetent at finding them, and if that’s true replace him.  If he’s lying about them not being there, you have to find out why, and replace him, as well as kick him back here.#

“Xander?  Lying?  About this?  I don’t- . . .” Faith started.

#Faith, like you just said, Giles lied to you, you can’t trust Xander, Faith, don’t let yourself be fooled by his nice and sweet helpful attitude - he’s betrayed me before, you were present I believe,# Buffy’s answer came.

Faith hung her head in shame; even though it wasn’t really her fault, or how the hell everyone could have decided differently under the circumstances.  The dark Slayer sighed: Buffy was right about Giles and by extension Xander though.  She said, “Got you, B, trust no one, and the truth is out there.”

#Exactly, call us when you find something, while I go interrogate Giles.  I get something from him, I’ll give you a call too, bye,# Buffy answered and the phone went dead.

*****

“GILES!” Buffy’s voice screamed as she walked into Giles’ London Watcher Headquarters office.

“Yes, Buffy,” Giles answered with just a hint of annoyance.

“Why did you lie to Faith?!” Buffy demanded with extreme irritation.

Giles drew himself from his comfortable living chair, and said, “I do believe it was you who protested Faith be sent because she’d trust Xander too much.  I took your protest into consideration, agreed with it, and to make her understand she can’t trust anyone, not even Xander, I lied to her.  Now she’s there with a healthy sense of distrust, and also nobody’s there ‘investigating’ Xander who’s already condemned him before he or she even starts.”

“I should never have taken that time off; I /still/ can’t believe you people gave him permission to do whatever the hell he wants to,” Buffy told him angrily.

Giles told her with a smile, “The best Slayers come from him.”

“In firearms usage,” Buffy bit back.

Giles gave Buffy a nod of acknowledgment.  “Speaking of your time off,” Giles spoke friendly, smiling, “how /is/ your significant other?”

Buffy grimaced, almost growled, and spoke, “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, just in case you’re not telling me the truth.”  Buffy then whirled around and stalked out of the room.

With a sigh Giles sat back down.  “Sometimes I wish you had just told me a more convincing lie, instead of telling me the truth,” Giles said.

A side door opened, revealing Dawn, who told him with a sad smile, “You guys never did have the stomach for this cloak and dagger stuff.”  Giles sighed again.

*****

Faith had no idea what to do now.  Xander not trustworthy?  Giles not trustworthy?  She was pacing in her appointed room thinking things over.  She so desperately wanted to speak to Xander, but what if . . . Faith shook her head, as she realized something - she might not know whether Xander was trustworthy, but she did know Zanna was trustworthy.

Faith left her room and went down the stairs.  “Xander?” she tentatively called.

“In the living room,” came his reply.

Faith went to the living room, taking in his DVD home-cinema set; that and the kitchen only two things truly new.  He sat there with Kurenai in his lap, and she asked, nervous about interrupting the two, “C-could I talk to you - alone that is?”

“Sure,” Kurenai answered and left them alone.

Faith walked closer to Xander. He patted the place of the couch next to his, and asked her, “What’s the matter, Faith?”

Faith sat down, and looked at Xander.  “I’m not exactly alright,” she told him sadly.  Xander looked at her expectedly.  “I-I lost control a while ago.  I was fighting demons, and I just dropped the stake and went at it with my bare fists - over and over . . . and over.  Then it happened again . . .” Faith choked up and tears were in her eyes.

“Tell me,” Xander said gently, hugging her close.

“It was the same night Giles came to give me my mission,” Faith stumbled out, remembering.  “At the time Wood and me were having problems and I thought it may have been me, I thought it may have been both of us, I thought that perhaps we just weren’t meant to be . . . in hindsight I’m pretty certain it was all him though . . .”

~~O~~

That Night

Faith finished swallowing her late snack sandwich when her phone rang.  She got out her phone, turned it on, and said, “Hello.”

#Faith, Robin,# the answer came, he sounded out of breath - running.  #We’re in trouble . . .#

“Where are you?” Faith asked, suddenly alert, an adrenaline surge going through her body.  Wood gave her his position.  Faith told him they were coming, put the phone away as she burst into the living room of the Slayer house.  She ignored the Watcher sitting along with three Slayers watching TV, she simply commanded, “Zanna, Jessica, Drew, let’s move.  Robin and his team are in trouble, let’s go!”

The African, redhead, and brunette were instantly up an about.  After a quick delay to the armory, they were off.  They went as fast as they could in the rickety van they used.  Finally - much too slow for Faith’s liking - they arrived at the street with old rundown buildings.  The four slayers got out, and after quickly checking the GPS with the homing beacon (another idea coming from Zanna / Xander allowing for quick and easy finding of Slayers in trouble) they charged to the old apartment building.  This was the place - although there didn’t seem to be any damage done by demons.  The four slayers looked around carefully once inside the main entrance.  There were some doors, one at least to a utility closet, and to the right of the lobby they were in there was an elevator, and another door next to it with a ‘stairs’ sign.  They raced over to the stairs - any demons were usually in the basement, and with Slayer strength simply jumping down stairs in one bout made them far quicker than any elevator.  The moment the door to the stairs clicked closed behind them, there was click and then suddenly a hissing sound.  A moment later the surprised Slayers started coughing and then they dropped to the floor.  Then a man in a gas mask emerged from the stairs upward, and took the girls with him.

*****

With a groan Faith slowly came to, opening her eyes.  Her vision swam at first, but then cleared.  She frowned when she saw the cold, grey ceiling above her.  She tried to sit up, but found she couldn’t move. She looked left, and her eyes widened when she saw Jessica coming to with a groan as well.  The girl was chained to the wall, next to her was one from Robin’s Slayer team.  With a quick look down and up, Faith found her feeling was correct: she was lying on some form of alter, or slab of stone, equally chained in some kind of cellar.  To the right Faith could see Zanna . . . and Robin, the latter completely free.

“Hello, Faith, good that you’re awake, yes, yes,” Robin said with a smile - a smile that sent shivers through Faith - and not of the kind that made her climb on top of a man.

“R-robin, what are you doing?” Faith asked, aware of two more Slayers coming to, and the fear coming of the ones from Robin’s team in waves.

“You’ll be the first,” Robin spoke turning around and bringing a cart to the front. Several scalpels and other razor sharp implements lay on top of it, as well as several magical ingredients and a spell book.

“The first? The first of what?” Faith said, struggling against the bonds almost automatically, but not budging them one little bit.

“No use trying that, Beautiful, I had them magically enhanced, you won’t even budge them,” Robin spoke with a grin.  Faith continued anyway, as she watched him pick up a scalpel.

“What are you doing?” Faith asked him with rising panic and adrenaline.

“You see, I figured it out; Buffy knew, but she didn’t tell anyone,” Robin spoke with a sickening grin.  “You’re demons; Slayers all of them, what gives you your power is a demonic entity . . .”

“No, that’s not true,” Faith said, struggling harder.

“Oh, but it is, I went researching, spying, after I suspected, and you know why I suspected, Faith, my precious?” Robin spoke with a sweet smile - /far/ too sweet.  Faith didn’t answer, she just struggled, while most of the Slayers just looked at the spectacle in shock.  “It’s because you damn Slayers are skanks, that’s why.  You put demons over humans - when you have children you don’t even love them.  The only thing you can do is fight, abandon your kids, and get yourselves killed by sickening vampires.  Yes, I’ll bet Mother secretly got off on it, on the thrill that perhaps he’d rape her before killing her first, or just the thrill of suffering a defeat at the hands of a demon.  You choose your rapist vampires over your best friends, go to check up on his bumps when one of those friends might be bleeding to death.  Your attitudes of superiority over humans.  Your flirting with men and even demons just before you kill them - yes, I’m ignored, demons more important.”

“I’m not like that!” Faith said desperately, struggling harder.  “Flirts mean nothing with a guy, you know that - and with demons it’s a weapon, puts them off their game, Robin, please.”

“Oh, but I know, Faith, don’t worry, I know,” Robin said gently, and walked over.  He gave her a sweet kiss on her forehead, making Faith relax a bit with confusion.  He then gave her a passionate fiery tongue kiss, which she reluctantly returned in complete confusion.  Robin stood back up and said, “I love you, Faith, I know it’s not you, it’s the demon.  That’s why I’ll cleanse you first.  The ritual requires a sacrifice - the heart from the possessed . . .”  Faith’s face blanched and she redoubled her efforts, while Robin continued, “. . . it will remove the demon from the soul, so the soul can go unblemished to heaven, and the demon will be burning in hell.  I will set you free, my beautiful, I will save you.  I only wish I knew this earlier so I could have saved my mother.”

Robin then bent forward, and moved the scalpel to just in between Faith’s breasts.  “No!  NO!  Robin NO!  Please!  I- I- . . .” Faith was desperate as she struggled harder and harder, perhaps it was better to play along.  “. . . I know too, Robin, perhaps I’ve always known.  But I don’t want to die, there has to be a way to get it out without killing me, letting us all live, Robin?”

Robin looked confused for a moment, and then shook his head, “No, this is the only way.”  He then lowered the scalpel again, while Faith’s adrenaline went through the roof, struggling with every little bit of might she could call upon to break the shackles that kept her hands to the stone slab.

Something inside of her snapped then, and with a roar she pulled.  Robin had done good work: the magically-enhanced shackles really were unbreakable to the Slayer, it was just that he forgot about the stone slab.  With a mighty crack the stone slab broke and sprang apart where the shackles were screwed into the stone.  The shackles and its screws then flew through the air completely unblemished.  With a growl her right hand shot forward, grabbed Robin’s wrist, and squeezed hard.  Robin yelled out in pain, dropping the scalpel. With her left hand Faith wiped it aside.  At the same time she let Robin’s wrist go, and smacked him aside with her now free hand.  She sat up suddenly, not really aware of what she was doing; only the burning, tunnel-vision need to hurt the one responsible burning through her.  She grabbed the shackles around her feet and tore at them with a roar.  Like before, the stone table blasted apart, and the shackles came loose, also unblemished.  Faith then jumped off the slab, and saw Robin already standing with a split lip.  He had a new scalpel with which he lunged.  Faith grabbed his hand before he could hit her, and snapped it with a vicious yank.  As Robin dropped the scalpel, Faith yanked Robin forward and tossed him through the air.  He crashed headfirst into a wall next to one of the slayers and crashed to the floor, where he lay groaning on his stomach.

Growling Faith ran over and smashed her foot with all her might in the middle of Robin’s back.  There was a snap, and Robin screamed out in pain.  Faith brought her foot down again, causing a crack and another scream this time.  While she was doing this she kept hissing and growling profanities.   Then she brought her fists down, each once, feeling her hands slam into the bad guy’s back with satisfaction.  Then she lunged both hands forward, intent on grabbing his neck and squeezing it until he was dead.

Two more hands appeared out of nowhere though, stopping her.  Faith registered the black-skinned hands only as an obstruction, and she put more effort into moving her hands toward the bad guy’s neck.  Only when they didn’t move did she look up - up in the black girl’s face the hands belonged to.  Her mouth was moving, but there didn’t seem to be any sound coming from them, or perhaps there was?  Faintly?  So very far away?  “Faith!  It’s done Faith!”

“You’ve got him, Faith!  He’s already out!  We’re safe, you’re safe!  It’s over, Faith!  You hear me!?” Zanna called out loudly, looking with a little apprehension in the vicious, primitive look Faith had on her face: a simple need to kill, to destroy, to hurt.  For a few moments she was even afraid the senior Slayer might turn on her.  Zanna wasn’t exactly friends with Faith, but she definitely considered herself a companion, a partner.  “Faith, you already got him!  There’s no need to kill him, you got that, Faith?  Do you hear me?”

Finally, much to Zanna’s relief, intelligence dawned on Faith’s face once more, the strength behind her hands slipping away.  Faith then suddenly looked down, recognizing the damage she did to /Robin’s/ body.  “Oh, My God!” Faith exclaimed in shock.  “Oh, My God.”

~~O~~

“I broke his spine, Xan, he’ll never walk again,” Faith sniffed, while Xander closed his arms tighter around her shoulder.  Faith half cried, going closer to Xander, burying her head in his chest, and whimpered, “He was trying to kill me and the other Slayers, which was bad, but he wasn’t exactly right in the head.  I don’t know when or where he snapped, or if he was ever not snapped to begin with, but . . .”  Faith looked up, and looked pitifully into Xander’s eyes, “Xan, I was done hurting people.  I didn’t want it anymore, never again.  I hated myself for what I did - hated myself.  I would never do it again, and now . . . now . . .”

“Shh,” Xander soothed holding her close, and Faith broke down fully, crying and crying.

After five minutes she regained herself, and said, “I spent the whole night crying, mostly in Giles’ arms, but Zanna came along as well.  Th-this thing, something made me go all nuts, all feral, Zanna said- . . . Zanna said you could help me . . . was Robin right?  Is there a demon inside of us?”

Xander looked deeply inside Faith’s eyes, and said, “I don’t know, I don’t think so.  I’ll look into it, thoroughly.  I don’t quite know why Zanna thought I could help, just like that, but I’ll find a way to keep you you, Faith, that’s a promise.  Tomorrow, I will first teach you the eight brocades Qi Gong exercises, and some Tai Chi, and finally meditation techniques.  I doubt they’ll solve the problem like that; but they’re designed to give you balance, and give your mind and your life force power and some control over your body - it should definitely help till I find a more permanent solution, okay?”

Faith looked up at him, sniffed a final time, and slowly smiled.  “Tai Chi?  Qi Gong?  Meditation?  I didn’t know there was a Watcher Academy.  You were a great fighter Xander, but I can’t remember you being a guru.  What happened?”

Xander chuckled, and then said, “Oz should be back tomorrow from a mission with his Slayer team.  You weren’t close to him before or after your trip to the dark side, but perhaps you’d want to apologize to him anyway, for trying to kill his friends and girlfriend and such.”

“Oz?  He’s here?  How did that happen?  And what has that got to do with you being a guru,” Faith wondered out loud, coming steadily out of her funk.

“One and the same story, Faith, one and the same story, want to hear it?” Xander asked her with a smile.  She nodded.  Xander grinned, and said, “Well, now, let me see.  It was just after my vision quest experience, and I can’t really tell you about that - too personal and close to home, and I can’t really tell where - the hermit didn’t leave and hid himself for nothing - and seeing as he came from the Hidden Ninja villages - did we tell you about where Kurenai is from?”  Faith nodded, and so Xander continued, “He was extra secretive, so I’ll just have to give you the basics.  Anyway, this is about three years ago, only two or so months after Sunnydale was reduced to a hole in the ground, and the vision gave the strong notion that I go east.  So I boarded a plane to Thailand, which seemed the right place at the time, and land in the capital’s airport.  That’s where I run into . . .”

“Oz . . .” Faith supplied.

“Am I telling this story, or are you?” Xander asked the Slayer sternly.

“You,” Faith answered sheepishly.

Xander nodded satisfactory, and said, “That’s right, so let me tell the story.”  Faith couldn’t help but smile, and then Xander finished, “and no, it wasn’t Oz, it was Dawn . . .”

~~O~~

Chapter 3: The Hermit

(by 3D Master)

As Xander went to tell the tale - minus the more fantastical parts - to the Slayer lying next to him on the couch, he remembered.

~~O~~

Thailand, Bangkok

Almost three years earlier

*Now what?* Xander wondered after picking up his luggage.  Exiting the airport for one thing of course, but Xander was thinking in broader terms as he walked out of the arrivals hall.  So, here he was.  The vision and the people in it - figments of his drugged mind - had pretty much told him to go here: ‘orient of boxing’.  Further it had told him vaguely that ‘those he would meet, would lead him to the hidden lands’.  Whatever /that/ meant.  Of course the rest of the visions was suitably disturbing, made sense, and was detailed enough for Xander to accept it as an actual, real, meaningful vision - which seriously sucked by the way.

So now here he was: in Thailand, doing . . . who knew what.  He walked into a bigger hall, in the distance glimpses of a cluttered Thai road.  He looked around the equally cluttered hall, chaotically filled with people.  He sighed, and started walking toward the exit, his missing eye giving him a ghost-throb.  As he walked he looked right, and suddenly stopped.  He saw a girl, and not just any girl.  He squinted, rechecked a third time, and then called out, “Dawn!”

Indeed, he was right. The long-haired brunette whirled her head around, and their eyes - precisely her two and his one - met.  The girl’s eyes widened with shocked recognition, and then worked her way through the mass of people.  Xander did the same, and soon the two met somewhere in the middle.  “Great,” Dawn told him bitterly.  “I /knew/ it.  I just /knew/ Giles wouldn’t let me do this mission alone.  Why did I even bother getting my hopes- . . .”

“Ho there, Dawn,” Xander interrupted her. “Giles didn’t send me here.”

“He didn’t?” Dawn asked surprised, and then furrowed her brow. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Africa then?”

Xander smiled at the teen, and said, “Something came up.  I can’t believe Giles let a seventeen-year-old girl wander in here alone.”

“Hey, I can take care of myself - martial arts training, lots of it lately, and I /am/ seventeen, it’s late for Europeans, you know?  Why, a girl in my class went on vacation with just two friends, /last/ year at /sixteen/,” Dawn said, annoyed that she couldn’t properly fold her arms across her chest, packed as she was.

“Calm down, calm down, I believe you, I was j- . . .” Xander hastily said; to have a Summers woman pissed off at you was never good.

Dawn interrupted him, picking up on something, and asked, “Wait, what do you mean with, ‘something came up’?  I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Let’s get a place more private, okay?” Xander asked her.

*****

An hour later they found themselves in a very nice hotel room, reserved for Dawn by Giles, paid for by Watcher Council funds - but not quite, since Dawn exchanged it for a room with two beds.  It was rather nice that Caleb had only destroyed the physical building, and not touched several centuries worth of interest built up over among others inherited funds - something expected of all Council operatives: a will in which all their money is left to the Council.

“Ah, nice shower after that cramped plane,” Dawn sighed in satisfaction as she came from the shower.  Xander had gone first, on insistence of Dawn, so he was already in a set of clean clothes sitting on his bed.  He took the seventeen-year-old in, wearing nothing but a towel, and drying her hair with a second one.  The towel was wrapped tightly around her full breasts, and her flaring hips were visible.  Her face, her lips were quite attractive too - to Xander’s shock.  He had always looked at her like a kid sister, and good friend - especially in the last year in Sunnydale, and now . . . Xander shook his head, and Dawn noticed it.  She delicately turned to regard him and asked, “What’s the matter?”  She looked down at herself, and back in a quick motion, smirked, and said, “What?  I grew up?  Am I sexy?”

“Dawn,” Xander said.  The defeated tone in his voice made Dawn instantly stop her teasing smile.  “You’re very attractive young . . . woman now, okay?  But I have /no/ interest in anything romantic with /anyone/ right now.”

“Okay,” Dawn said, and walked over.  She sat down next to him, tying the towel in her hair.  “I’m sorry.  Is it . . .?”  She trailed off, not really able to say the name, but she didn’t really have to.

“Not just that . . . Dawn,” Xander said, his voice choking.  He shouldn’t really tell, did she still hero-worship her sister?  He felt her arm suddenly around his shoulders, and her head landed against her.  He couldn’t help but smile, and grab her right hand.  “Thank you,” he said softly, and then decided to partially explain.  “While searching for Slayers in Africa, I came across one with a brother.  He wasn’t willing to put her into my care, because I showed him glimpses of my . . . doubts, and pain.  He gave me the option to go to another village, much deeper into the heart of Africa; an old village, with a lot of different rites, some said magic.  He said they could help me get back on track.  I went for both the girl and myself.”

“And?” Dawn prompted gently from her friend and erstwhile crush.

Xander sighed, keeping the more disturbing details to himself for now, “It was everything he said it was, and more.  They too had a Slayer called, and they didn’t allow me to take her with me until after I did a vision quest, the same thing Mboto - the brother - recommended me.  I had a vision alright, it told me to come here, and then the people I meet would lead me to ‘the hidden lands’, whatever that means . . .”  Xander paused and looked Dawn in her eyes, and said, “Dawn, the vision gave me a new purpose, but also gave me even more pain; what I saw is /not/ good.”

“That bad?  What was it?  And I can’t believe /you/ of all people got a vision; judging by last year and the whole power trip Buffy and the others were on, only Slayers and ensouled vampires get them,” Dawn said, a mixture of concern, excitement, and happiness in her eyes.

“I don’t think I should tell you yet,” Xander said, turning his head.

“Hey, I can handle it!  Then we can get Giles in, and shorten this newest threat a good head!” Dawn protested, annoyed at her ‘little girl’ status.

“No!” Xander said forcefully. “It’s not you, I’m not telling anyone yet, time is not ready for it; and /you/ promise me you won’t tell anyone, /especially/ not Giles, Buffy or anyone else in this new Council that’s being built.”

Dawn looked at him stricken, and then nodded, “I promise - this is worse than anything we’ve faced before isn’t it?”

Xander didn’t answer, and instead said with a smile, “Hey, ‘people I meet’, I guess you’re one of them.  So tell me about this mission, ‘cause it seems fate has ordained I’m tagging along.”

Dawn’s left mouth corner quirked up, and she answered, “Through reports there is a group of Slayers active in the vicinity.  A group, however, that does not answer to us.  I’m to find them, observe them, and if possible make contact and recruit them.  I’ve got a week before I have to get back to school; autumn break.”

“Only a week?” Xander asked with raised eyebrows.

“The reports are very detailed,” Dawn said as she got up.  She reached the suitcase she had placed on her bed, and rummaged in it for a few moments.  She then presented the brown folders, and handed them to Xander.  She smiled at him and said, “You think you can keep your eyes in reading mode while I put on my clothes?”

“I’ll try, but I won’t make any promises,” Xander answered with a grin.

*****

A day later, quite far away from Bangkok, somewhere in the bush-bush, Xander and Dawn got out of their rented vehicle.  The two walked to in front of the car, Dawn holding a map.  They leaned against the hood, and checked out the map.  “Okay, according to the reports, they are highly active in this region.  Any idea why they need to be active here?  You don’t suppose there’s a Hellmouth or something similar around attracting demons, do you?  If so, I haven’t yet seen any . . . oh.”

Two green vicious little demons had arrived from the bushes.  They had rows of razor sharp teeth, and were drooling some slime.  Xander casually pulled a gun from the back of his pants’ waistband and shot them both in the middle of the head just before they were going to say something cliché for vicious bloodthirsty things.  Both demons dropped to the ground instantly.  “Chop off their heads, Dawn, you never can tell with demons,” Xander said solemnly keeping them covered.  When there was no movement he looked at Dawn and saw her looking at him in shock.  “A little bit of the soldier boy, and the first thing you’re taught in Africa by the surviving Watchers there: get a gun and learn how to use it, there are things in those war-ridden countries a lot worse than demons,” he explained without a show of emotion.

Dawn nodded, and then quickly stepped forward, pulling a hatchet normally used for cutting plants blocking the way from a sheath on her left hip, and proceeded to cut the demons’ heads off.  “Yuck,” she commented as both she and Xander dragged the corpses off the road and dumped them.  “I’m thinking,” she started after the deed was done, “we won’t have much trouble finding the Slayers around here.”

“I agree,” Xander said, and then, after grabbing some hiking and survival gear from the truck and putting it on, they went into the woods.

They didn’t find any more demons, but they did find their tracks, and soon more.  After moving through the forest for about half an hour, they found tracks of humans.  Quite a few of them.  Xander estimated about a dozen, but since a lot of the tracks were overlaid, he couldn’t be very sure.  After telling Dawn that, the girl asked softly, “More Africa?”

Xander looked up at her, and grinned.  Nodding he said, “The same Watcher taught me, if you don’t want to run in a pack of lions, you better know how to read tracks.”  Dawn grinned back at him, and then they followed the tracks.  Another ten minutes later they found them.  Xander and Dawn quickly disappeared behind a rock and bushes far away once they heard them, and used binoculars to check it.  Slayers had better senses than humans after all, and they weren’t ready to make direct contact like that just yet.  From their position they had a good view how a group of eleven Slayers cleaned out a nest of the same demons that had attacked them earlier.  The nest was housed in a cave, and the demons had tried to charge the Slayers and hoped some slipped past them, but not one survived.  All were gutted, decapitated, staked or otherwise killed.  It was a brutally efficient operation: Xander and Dawn were pleased, the Slayers obviously understood teamwork.

When the Slayers were done, they left, and Xander and Dawn followed them at a discrete distance.  After a while of following, and Xander and Dawn checking their computerized GPS map, they soon figured out the Slayers were heading toward a nearby village.  Having determined their destination, they decided it was best to make contact, and so they stopped sneaking and simply walked heartily.  Obviously, it didn’t take long before the Slayers to know of them, and they were surrounded.  “Who are you?” the lead Slayer demanded.

“Ah, I’m Dawn Summers, and this is Xander Harris,” Dawn introduced the two of them.  “You are Slayers.”

The Slayers looked at them suspiciously, and the lead Slayer said, “True or not, what’s that to you?”

“We’re the ones who made you Slayers,” Xander answered her, and all the Slayers looked surprised.

“Could you bring us to whoever trained you?” Dawn asked with a disarming smile, which she hoped worked as well on Slayers, as it did on men and sisters.  The Slayers could say ‘no’ of course and disappear, but they would simply go to the village they already knew they were heading too.  The only other possibility would be the Slayers trying to kill them, but both Xander and Dawn had decided upon coming down that that option’s chance was slim to none.  The subordinate Slayers looked at their leader, who frowned in concentration as she thought what to do.

The leader then stuck out her hand, and said, “You give us your weapons and walk in the middle of us, you can come.”

Xander shrugged and pulled out his two guns, as Dawn pulled out a stake.  She produced two more stakes, and Xander three.  Then they both placed two knives - utility knives, but they could be used as weapons - in the Slayers’ hands.  The Slayers looked rather astonished as the pile, and they didn’t even have the holy water, the crosses and a few more objects and vials not useful against humans, but the Slayers didn’t know that.  Once the weapons were taken into custody, the Slayers let Xander and Dawn - boxed in between Slayers so they couldn’t do anything - carefully to their village.

Once there, Xander and Dawn were led to a house and a revered man.  The three had a long talk, in which the whole sordid messes on both sides were explained.  The man had talked to them about knowing the legend of the Slayer - from his description he and his family were most likely descendants from a centuries-dead Watcher - and how one girl in his village was called, and then he found more and more.  Xander and Dawn explained about the battle against the First Evil, what Buffy had come up with as a solution, and how they had gone along with it.  The man was most pleased, especially after they offered some knowledge only Watchers would know.

When the three went out the house to celebrate their new alliance, and soon recruitment of the Slayers /and/ the man and his family into the new Watchers Council, the lead Slayer arrived excitedly.  “Sir, he has been spotted again, the slippery one.  Allow us to go after him right this instant so we can finally destroy him!” she reported with glittering eyes.

“You can go, but return their weapons, and take them along.  They speak the truth; they have more knowledge of the supernatural and how to battle it than all of us combined.  They will be very useful,” the old man said.

The Slayers looked at Dawn and Xander, and then the leader nodded.  Not happy, but not exactly unhappy about it either.

*****

The eleven Slayers, Dawn and Xander sat in hiding in the jungle, waiting.  The Slayers had explained about the demonic monster: big, hairy, with large and sharp teeth to tear you apart.  In short: one nasty demon.  And it was smart too apparently, for it had given them the slip four times already.  Xander and Dawn were excited, and somewhat distracted both thinking about how to break it to the Slayers later on.  They, or at least some and then in multiple groups - this area could use multiple Slayers - would have to come to a Slayer training facility.

“There,” the lead Slayer hissed softly, pointing.  Xander and Dawn couldn’t make anything out yet; Slayer superior vision helping the Slayers.  So, they both pulled out their binoculars, as the Slayer whispered, “Coming closer, everyone get ready.”

Xander and Dawn looked through their binoculars.  They then changed the focus till they could see clearly.  Their eyes widened in shock, just as the lead Slayer ordered, “Attack!”

The entire group of Slayers charged forward, as Xander and Dawn jumped up and together yelled, “WAIT!”  The Slayers however did not listen: stakes, swords and other assorted weaponry was pulled, all determined to kill the demon.  Xander and Dawn ran after them, but they couldn’t possibly keep up with the Slayers.  “This way!” Xander suddenly said, veering off to the right, and pulling Dawn along by the arm.

“Why!?” Dawn said, running along, no longer being held.

“I recognize his pattern, I taught him that; very effective against vampires - and I do not like the implication it’s effective against Slayers as well.  He’ll circle back, do some weaves and arrive there,” Xander said breathing hard as he and Dawn ran hard on a shorter route.

“What’s Oz doing here anyway?” Dawn asked still in shock at the appearance of their long lost friend on their binoculars.

“No clue,” Xander said, and they turned left, putting in an extra effort in a sprint - the heavy plant growth making running difficult.  They reached a small clearing no more then four meters across, and on the other side appeared a black-haired Daniel ‘Oz’ Osbourn - dye being hard to find in the middle of a rainforest.  His eyes widened, both in shock and fear.  The werewolf hesitated - wondering for a brief moment if his erstwhile friends would come hunting him - then decided to trust his friends, and his sense of smell that didn’t detect any magic or chemicals on them that might be used to alter their state of mind.  He surged forward, went between Dawn and Xander, and turned around just behind them.

“Where to?” Oz asked.

“Wait right here,” Xander said, as sounds betrayed the Slayers were only close behind.  Oz waited apprehensively and watched as the Slayers arrived at the clearing.  “STOP!” Xander commanded and indeed the lead Slayer and the few behind her stopped. They looked questioningly and surprised, but by far means they had not relaxed.  “What are you doing!?  He’s not a demon, not a monster.”

“You step away from him, he transforms,” the Slayer warned, wondering why the one with superior knowledge of the supernatural didn’t know this.

“I know, he’s a werewolf, it’s a disease, not a demon,” Xander said hastily, and with authority.  “He’s a human being for twenty-eight days of the month. Only during a full moon, and the day before and after does he transform into a wolf.  Lock him up during that time and there’s no foul.  Better even, I know Oz here, he’s learned how /not/ to transform during a moon, that means he’s human all the time.  He’s not a demon, he’s /not/ evil, and you’re /not/ supposed to kill him.”

The lead Slayer growled and took a step forward.  “Your friends with a monster?  I don’t know if I still want to have anything to do with you and me.”

“He’s not a monster!”  Dawn called out.

The lead Slayer said as she stepped forward, “We’re Slayers, we’re here to kill the monsters.”

Xander pulled out his gun, and pointed it at her, while Dawn pulled her crossbow from her back.  “I will not let you kill him, and I prefer not to kill you,” Xander told them with steel in his voice.

Dawn added for good measure, “But if we have to choose between him and you, you’re the ones who’ll go down.”

“He’s not human!” the lead Slayer called out as if that was enough, and the other Slayers agreed with that sentiment.  “So we kill him, before he can kill humans.  That’s our sacred duty.”

“You’re not human, you’re stronger, faster, heal faster,” Xander countered with mounting nervousness.  He was started to think he couldn’t convince them.  “Do you have to kill yourself?”

The Slayer snarled out, “We’re /not/ monsters.  We’re /human/ all the way.  We are the Chosen Ones to fight the Darkness.  We kill the likes of him.”

Oz tried to get Xander’s attention, but failed.  “How do you know,” Xander growled out suddenly angry, “you’re not worse monsters than Oz here could ever hope to be?”  Dawn and Oz, and especially Dawn, looked with shock at that question.  Then two Slayers came swinging from a tree on either side of Xander and Dawn, and kicked Xander’s gun, and Dawn’s crossbow from their hands.  The other Slayers charged.  “RUN!” Xander said.

“This way!” Oz called pulling Dawn in a diagonal backward direction.  Xander followed as they ran.  Oz pushed a particularly sturdy branch forward, saying, “Xander, duck.”  The branch sprung back - Dawn right behind Oz was past it - Xander ducked, and the branch flung over him.  It slammed solidly into the Slayer right behind him, and with an ‘oof’ she was launched backward off her feet, and slammed into more Slayers.  This gave Xander time to pull his backup gun from his ankle holster.

Oz disappeared into some undergrowth, and Dawn and Xander followed. The wolf’s instincts were sharper than ever it seemed, as he crawled onward underneath plants, just high enough to let Xander under as well.  “So, Oz,” Dawn said softly, and sarcastically friendly. “What are you doing here?  We were here to find some rogue Slayers, which we found and joined on a hunt.”

Oz grinned unseen by his companions behind him, and answered her, “Rumors of a hermit around here that helped someone take full control of the beast.  I thought I’d beaten it a second time, met a girl I liked - almost killed her.”

“Well good, it’s so nice to know that if the Slayers don’t kill me, an out of control werewolf will,” Dawn joked and looked behind her when she heard Xander shoot.  A painful groan from behind him showed they had not fully lost the Slayers.

“Unless I hit them in a vital place, this little gun won’t hurt a Slayer much,” Xander said, urging Oz and Dawn onward.  Soon after they could stand back up, and run through a clearer part of the jungle, Xander shooting backward occasionally.  With Oz sense of smell guiding them away from Slayers, they weaved through the jungle desperately, trying to stay ahead of the super powered girls, but their speed was just too much - they gained steadily, and Xander was running out of bullets.  Add to that that Xander was certain of only one Slayer he incapacitated enough she wouldn’t be running after them anytime soon - things looked bleak.

Xander looked back again, seeing a Slayer gaining rapidly.  He started squeezing the trigger . . . and the gun was gone.  “What!?” Xander exclaimed in surprise, and found himself a moment later in a sticky substance.  Looking forward with difficulty, it seemed it was a spider web, and next to him Oz and Dawn were equally trapped.

“Oh, shit!” Dawn said, struggling, but only managing to entangle herself more.

“Lucky us,” Oz commented calmly.

“Lu- . . .?” Dawn was about to ask, and then she too noticed the ravine that was only a few steps further.  She swallowed and said, “Yeah, lucky.”

There was a poof, and the three of them bent their heads back to see a man in white robes, with blue patches, and odd sandals standing there.  His white, cut-short - almost shaven bald - hair, gave the three an idea he was rather old.  The Slayers beyond him came to a sudden surprising stop.

“Old man,” the lead Slayer said, having no wound at all.  The two Slayers next to her had a red patch on their arm, but it didn’t seem the arm was useless: already healing.  “Out of our way.  The small one is a monster, a killer, and the others wish to let him go on killing.”

“Please leave,” the man said calmly, but his voice took on an increasing haunted air as he continued speaking, “I have no desire to kill you, but I will if I have to.  These three are now under my protection, and I will assure you that none of them will kill anyone.  Once again, I have lost the appetite to kill a long time ago, so please leave.”

“This is your last chance old man,” the Slayer growled.

The man spoke again, the pain in his voice almost tangible, “Please, do not force me to kill you, leave now.”

With a rapid movement the Slayer tossed two razor sharp knives, and they hit perfectly.  Both penetrated the man’s neck, and were stained red.  Xander, Dawn, and Oz looked in shock, then even greater shock as there was a poof, a lot of smoke, and suddenly the man was no more.  In his place there was a wooden log in which the clean knives were sticking, and it dropped solidly to the ground.  “What!?” the Slayer exclaimed with huge eyes, and the others were surprised as well.  She looked around, getting a little afraid and then ordered, “Find him, kill him, quickly!”

Two men, looking /exactly/ the same as the old man of before, appeared from behind two trees on either side of the Slayers.  The Slayers they appeared next were too surprised to react to them grabbing their heads at the same time.  All they managed to do was widen their eyes too late, as their heads and necks were wrenched powerfully to one side, and then the other.  Two snaps from either Slayer’s necks already told the tale.  The Slayers dropped bonelessly to the grounds, dead.  The Slayers closest looked shocked for an instant, and then enraged they charged and landed a massive punch on the men.  Both of them were launched of their feet, then there was another poof, some smoke and the men were gone.  Fearfully the Slayers took a step back.

“Why do people always force me to kill them?” a pained voice asked behind the Slayers and they whirled around.

One Slayer charged, screaming in fear and rage, bringing the stake in her right hand down.  The old man took a step back, while he pushed her attacking hand aside without any force in his arm it seemed.  The Slayer’s left hand came up for a punch and the man did the same.  Then he suddenly ducked down, and took a powerful step forward, slamming both hands in the Slayer’s gut.  The Slayer gurgled out in pain, a crack coming from her ribs, blood shooting from her mouth, and then she was launched off her feet, flying up and over the other Slayers who paused in shock.  The girl landed squarely on a piece of wood sticking out, with penetrated through her back and out her chest.  She gasped in surprise, and then slumped in death.

The Slayers now attacked en masse.  Straining their heads to watch the fight, Oz, Dawn, and Xander watched with dropped jaws as the man danced between the Slayers.  He twisted one up and over him using her own punch against her, and sending her flying with another double handed blow to her stomach like the first.  She broke her back as she crashed against a tree.  At the same time he ducked underneath a punch, and kicked out and up with his left leg, catching a Slayer underneath her chin.  Her head snapped back till her neck broke and she slumped to her death.  He jumped up and over a charging Slayer, landed in front of another, and slammed a right hand on her chest.  The Slayer choked, coughed up blood, and looked with wide teary eyes at the man, before she died of cardiac arrest and dropped to the ground.  At the same time, his left arm hooked behind a left punch of another Slayer, and twisted the arm back behind her.  With a quick yank he broke her neck, and threw her against another onrushing Slayer.  This continued for another minute, and then all the Slayers had been killed - they hadn’t even laid a finger on the old man.

The man, now extremely distraught, slowly walked toward them, then a meter or so away sank to his knees.  He was crying. Then he looked up into the sky, and asked in sobs, “Why do they always force me to kill them?  Why?  Why couldn’t they just leave?”

“Um, sir?” Dawn prompted.

The man slowly stood up, made some odd hand gestures and the web that was holding them disappeared.  The three friends dropped to the ground with various ‘ow’s, ‘ooh’s, ‘oof’s, and ‘that hurt’s.  “I am Kanasi, I live nearby, and you seemed to be needing my help,” the man told them, as they struggled to get up.

“I’m Xander Harris, and you just . . .” Xander looked at the corpses around, and then continued, “Jesus, killed eleven Slayers without breaking a sweat.  What are you?”

“A ninja,” he answered sadly, and then bitterly added, “an assassin from the shadows that has long since lost the stomach for killing - sadly I seem to be forced into it anyway.  I came here to live in peace and quiet all those years ago when I couldn’t stomach it anymore.”

“Was that magic?” Dawn asked with wide eyes, looking at the log with knives in it, and the place where the net had been.

“Yes, no,” Kanasi answered solemnly.  “Some would call it magic, but those practicing actual magic will say without a doubt it is not, and it isn’t, the two work on a fundamentally different level - magic can do more.”

Oz took several steps forward, and said, “I’m Oz - I think you’re the one I am looking for.”

“You wish to control the beast inside you?” Kanasi asked with a sad face.

“Yes,” Oz said with surprise. “How do you know?”

“The beast is obvious,” Kanasi said with a sad look.  “It will take a long training.  Until now, you seem to have controlled it by controlling your emotions.  Of course, when you come into a situation where your emotions are powerful, you once more lose control.  The beast comes forth using your chakra - your life force, crudely put - you control some of it with your emotions - you wish to fully control the beast, you need to control your chakra directly.”

“Would you teach me too?” Xander asked on impulse.  He did not know exactly why he asked, but he did anyway.

“And me?” Dawn added, and Xander give her a look that told her he would have a talk with her.

Kanasi looked at them, and then asked, “What for?  Do you just want power?  Do you wish to better defend yourself?”

The three of them looked at each other for a moment, and then Xander turned to the hermit, saying, “You didn’t seem confused when I said they were Slayers, so I take it you know of them.”

“I know of the legend, and I believe there is supposed to be only one,” the mysterious ninja answered them.

Xander nodded, and said, “We - that is Dawn, me, and several friends, one very powerful witch and a Slayer mostly - changed it.”  And so Xander explained the demons walked the Earth before man, the origin of the vampires, the demons still walking this Earth today - at which Kanasi didn’t seem so much surprised - and then Buffy arriving in his hometown, the Hellmouth and in major lines the events of the past seven years.  “We fight the darkness,” Xander finished, “this would be to fight the darkness better.”

Kanasi looked at each one of them one after another for several long moments.  Apparently satisfied with their sincerity he nodded in agreement, he then looked at the Slayers he killed.  Xander was the one to say, “First, we will bring their bodies back, so they can be buried by their family.  Then we will return here.”

*****

The bodies trailed behind the three of them on stretchers.  It was a morbid task, but they had to do it.  Xander had finally found the time and place to speak to Dawn, without the ninja hermit nearby, “Dawn, you have to get back to school at the end of the week, remember?  You cannot stay here and be trained.”

“Let me ask you a question first, Xander,” Dawn said sternly.  “What did you mean with how the Slayers knew they weren’t worse monsters than Oz?”  Xander looked away.  “Well?” Dawn demanded.

“I’d like to know that too,” Oz added.

“Like I said, the time is not- . . .” Xander started.

Dawn interrupted him angrily, “The /hell/ it isn’t!  What was in that damn vision!?”

Xander looked at the two who were expectantly looking at him.  He sighed deeply, painfully almost, and then, as they continued walking, he told them the contents of the vision.

Suffice it to say, the reaction Xander got was one of utter shock.  Dawn then said, “I’m training with this geezer, and that’s final.  I’ll do the schoolwork here, I’ll ask Giles to send the proper textbooks, and take one of those correspondent tests, or do tests in local schools, perhaps there is even an English-language school here.”

“But- . . . “

“Uh, uh!  This is not just about the world, but about my sister as well, Alexander.  I /will/ stay!” Dawn said looking into his eye.  The look was both steel determination, and a pleading to agree.  Her being seventeen, she knew she could be sent back and there was nothing she could do about it.  Xander nodded, and then looked down.

*****

The three of them arrived defeated at the former home of the Slayers.  The people in the village looked with shock at the bodies being dragged on the makeshift string of stretchers; four behind the men, three behind Dawn.  One boy ran back straight to the home of the man who had taught them.  Xander, Dawn, and Oz gently set the stretcher they were holding down once they were in the village.  The old man came out of his hut and looked at the dead slayers, tears instantly in his eyes.  “What did this?” he choked out.

“What did you teach these girls?” Xander asked painfully.

The man looked up, anger marring his crying face, “Are you suggesting /I’m/ re- . . .?”

“They were going to attack him, he’s not a demon.  Oz here is not only a friend, but someone who helped fight the Darkness with us.  I told them to stop it, I and Xander placed ourselves in between him and the Slayers, then they decided we should be killed as well,” Dawn said sternly, rapidly.  “We had no choice but to defend ourselves.”

The man charged with a roar.  Xander grabbed one of his hands, and with his other hand he placed his earlier retrieved gun at the man’s temple.  “There’s been enough death today.  Don’t force me, any of you,” Xander said, becoming aware of the villagers looking angrily at him.

“He’s a werewolf, a monster,” the old man hissed angrily, looking at Oz.

“Someone suffering from cancer isn’t a monster,” Dawn answered the man. “He’s a human being, he has a soul and all.  On top of that, he’s learned enough control he doesn’t transform anymore during the full moon and the day before and after; he doesn’t kill anyone or anything.”

“If he doesn’t, then how come people have seen him transform?” the man hissed, the pain and rage on his face palpable, teeth bared.

“I was attacked by demons,” Oz told the man painfully.  “High strung emotions, adrenaline surges while fighting for my life brings forth the transformation.  Although I don’t have control when I’m in wolf form, during my travels I have put enough right and wrong in the wolf that I don’t eat humans, and only hunt and eat animals.  Just like a normal wolf, or tiger, or eagle.  I have not killed a human in years, and I never will again. I’m making sure of that - there are only very specific . . . and very specific emotions that would make . . . no strangers.”

Xander started back up slowly, indicating to Dawn and Oz they should do so as well.  “We’re leaving,” Xander said determinedly, aiming the gun gently from left to right, “we wanted to attend their funeral and pay our respects; it’s obvious we are not welcome here though.  That’s too bad, but don’t try to stop us, I will defend my and their lives with deadly force if necessary.”

Slowly the three of them left.

*****

“Giles, I need time off, what happened here . . . you’ll get the report, I need some emotional calming down,” Dawn told Giles, completely telling the truth, even though not the whole truth.  “Yes, yes, I /know/ you said it’d be tough, but even you will realize your ‘tough’ is peanuts compared to what I went through.”  After Giles spoke some more, Dawn said into the hotel room’s phone, “You’ll just have to send me the books, Giles, so I can study while relaxing, but I need time away from the Slayers.  I just need to be me for a while . . . Like I told you a few days ago, Buffy probably won’t even notice I’m gone, ever since she met that Immortal something or other . . . Thanks, Giles, see you soon I hope.”

Dawn hung up the phone and looked at her two male friends.  “That’s that,” she said solemnly.  Xander nodded equally, sitting slumped on the bed.  Dawn and Oz looked at him, after he told them what he saw in the vision they understood much better how defeated Xander must feel - they felt a lot of it themselves.  But both had a good idea that Xander felt like this even /before/ the vision, and Dawn knew for certain.  Thinking back to those final months in Sunnydale . . . back then other things - like staying alive - had preoccupied her not to pick up on it, but Xander had seemed defeated and lackluster even back then.  She guessed it had only gotten worse after Anya’s death, his let’s-go-do-this attitude about the new Council and the Slayers before shipping off to Africa must have been an act - a good one, but just an act.  The difference between those last months in Sunnydale and now though, was that Xander had a sense of purpose that he lacked then - a goal - but that seemed to make the basis of his mood only worse.  She vowed she would find a way to make him better.

Chapter 4: Training

(by 3D Master & Joshua)

The hermit ninja Kanasi stood before his three new students, deep in the jungle, at the dwelling he had built for himself.  He looked at them for a few moments, and said, “All three of you will require the same basis, so I will start with teaching you all the same basics.  Each of you however along the way will require different things, and so your training will diversify sooner or later.  We will start with basics of crudely put your life force, your chakra, also chi in some parts of the world.  Chakra and chi are the same, yet different, you will understand that after I explain them individually.”

He looked at them for a moment, all three were enraptured.  He nodded in satisfaction, and said, “First, Chakra.  Chakra is energy of the body mixed with energy of the mind; in combination it can be made to do a wide variety of things.  The energy of the body is at its base chi, but not quite, more on that when I explain chi.  The way the ninja have done this, is with hand seals.  There are twelve.  Each one makes the chi in your hands and torso interact in a different way - I believe scientists would call it interference patterns - each pattern allowing for several different things to be done with it - which is where the energy of the mind and the molding of the two comes in.  One can make long strings of consecutive handseals, including repeating the same one; the combination will unlock a variety of abilities and techniques.  I will now show and teach you the twelve handseals and the images you need to conjure up along with them in your mind: Rat, Horse, Ox, Ram, Tiger, Monkey, Hare, Bird, Dragon, Dog, Serpent, and Boar.”  Kanasi showed the seals when he named them.  When he was done with all twelve he went in-depth with each one, going closer to his three students so they could get a better look, and to manually correct their finger positions when necessary.  With every seal he taught them the pictures to place in their minds and the way to imagine their chakra flowing.

When he was finished with that, half an hour later, he once more took position a bit further away from them.  “As you noticed, it is hard to do, your fingers are not very limber.  Ninja are taught and trained these seals when they are still children.  You will have to practice these extensively, every free moment would be preferred on top of the times I will schedule in, until you can perform them blindfolded.  The seals are more than a tool to form the chakra, repeat these seals and with the mind engaging enough, and they become ingrained - just performing the seal will make your mind automatically bring up the required chakra flows and images.  It’s a great advantage - especially for the younger users who are easily distracted - it means that even under the most straining situations, you could still perform your jutsu - your techniques - if you still have enough chakra left of course.”

“It’s also a drawback, isn’t it?” Dawn asked the hermit.

Kanasi smiled, nodded with satisfaction at the girl’s perceptiveness, “Indeed: it means that if you’re good enough, and you understand the concept of chakra flows behind the seals well enough, just watching the handseals would allow one to understand and anticipate which technique is coming - even if one has never seen it before - and prepare an appropriate response or even counter, especially if the handseal combination is very long.  Further, if one is good enough, just watching a technique being performed once, would allow one to do the very same technique as well, in essence copy it perfectly.  Indeed, there are known people who using breeding programs have developed bloodlines - I believe the western modern world presently calls them genetic traits - for the specific purpose of copying techniques.  It also means that I think you started at a too old an age to learn it, if I didn’t know of chi, that is.”

Kanasi had a small smile when he saw their wide-eyed reaction, and then their relief to his final sentence.  He continued before they could speak.  “When I left my homeland, I wished to stop killing, and the entire essence of ninja chakra techniques is about killing.  There are only a very few exceptions - a few places where medical ninjas and medical techniques were developed, but I was not born in any of those places.  Once I arrived here, I went to look around for ways to use chakra not to kill.  I found a group of monks in China who used what they called ‘chi’, and it seemed remarkably similar to chakra.  These monks used it to fight as well, but they put their effort in not killing, just incapacitating if they had that luxury, and the rest of it were exercises to build up the chi, to draw it in their bodies, to improve their health, and their immune system through - even, so they believed, lengthen their life spans.  The difference between their use of chi, and our chakra is the engaging of the mind.  Although present, it is much less present so, the main thrust coming from the specific movements of the body.  This makes chi-use less diverse, less complex, and you can do less with it, however it also makes it more primal, more raw, and I’m pretty certain, more pure energy, more power.  When you learn chakra seals along with the chi exercises and building up your power through them, you should be able to overcome your late starting age.  I think you three are getting ready for some action, right?”

“Yes, most certainly for me,” Xander said with a low tone.  “The whole explanation was fascinating, but I think I’m about to spring roots.”

Kanasi chuckled, and then started the practical session of the chi health exercises.

*****

That evening they ate with the old hermit for the first time.  They sat below and in front of the ninja’s very well constructed tree house at a crackling fire on which they roasted some vegetables and meat.  Where the ninja had gotten the vegetables from, the three friends didn’t ask and didn’t really care.   “All right,” Dawn said, then took the time to swallow away a mouthful of food.  “We’re in the dark here.  You’re a ninja, great going, and you’ve given some hints to where you’re from originally, but that’s about it.  Obviously you and others like you are no longer the pure physical-only ninja of old, and I doubt you’re from Japan.  Explain.  And how old are you?”  Xander looked up, and gave a nod.  Oz looked interested as well.

Kanasi gave a smile, and then said, “I suppose anything that isn’t secret should be shared among sensei and students.  I am sixty-eight years old.”  The three friends’ eyes widened in shock.  A sixty-eight-year-old had killed eleven slayers without a finger being laid on him!  A sixty-eight-year-old!  What would a ninja in his prime be like?  Kanasi ignored their shocked faces, and spoke, “A few centuries ago, bullets seemed to make the ninja superfluous.  Many clans disbanded, many others continued fighting with guns, some were slaughtered and then there were several clans and ninja who broke from the disbanded clans that weren’t about to give up.  In their minds, ninja could still make a difference, they just needed to find out how.  They left Japan in search for other pastures.  They hid themselves on the islands of Oceania.  There are thousands as you know, trying to find them, is like a needle in a haystack, more specific however, I cannot get, they are not hidden for nothing.  There are names for the countries to the outside world, sometimes they are officially part of a different country, but within they are known by different names.  Many of the countries have, or have had hidden villages - hidden ninja villages - a country’s military might.  Any interest in these places by the ‘official’ government has long ceased, nobody wishes to go there anymore.  I am originally from the Hidden Village of the Mist.”

Xander had listened half-interested, until Kanasi spoke about ‘hidden’.  Like the vision had told him: people would lead him to the ‘hidden lands’.  Whole villages and countries of these people!  In their prime!  Such military might . . . a flicker of hope and new look upon the world awoke in him.  “Kanasi-sensei,” Xander started, as the hermit had asked to be called.  “What if I told you, I had a vision in which I was sent to find someone to lead me to the ‘hidden lands’?  Would you still not tell me?”

Kanasi looked at him, then down, thought for a moment, and said, “No, for multiple reasons.  Were I a cynical man, I’d say you told me a story about a vision just to get me to tell you.  Just because you had a vision doesn’t mean it will come true, must come true, and that I should help you fulfill it.  Finally ‘hidden lands’ could mean about anyplace on the Earth, visions and prophecies are like that.  Never saying everything, being vague enough that if you’re looking for meanings you can usually make a few things fit with the offering occurrences.  However, I will see whether I will tell you or not during our training.”

*****

With a painful ache Xander landed on the ground.  He groaned and looked up at the tree.  On a branch sat Dawn, laughing.  ‘Put your chakra to your feet,’ he said.  ‘Then use the chakra to stick to the tree and run up it.’  He barely got two meters, and probably not even that!  Dawn though, seemed to be able to do it much easier.  There was a smack and an even more powerful groan from Xander right.  He looked over and grinned; at least Oz was even worse at this.  Xander got up, and ran up the tree again, dropping back down once more.

*****

The knife hit Dawn in her neck, there was a poof, and a log dropped to the ground from where she just was.  “Yah!” Dawn yelled, and Xander turned to his left, seeing Dawn in the air and two perfectly thrown kunai flew at him.  He only barely managed to avoid them.

*****

“Receive your opponent’s attack without force, be empty, and yield,” Kanasi explained as he caught Xander’s attack, taking a step back.  A few meters over, Dawn was attacking and Oz was similarly defending himself.  “The essence of Yin-Yang, the essence of Tai Chi.  Done right, well executed, some of your opponent’s chakra will be taken by you, so that you can hit him with his own energy.”  Kanasi hit Xander, Oz hit Dawn.  Xander was launched away from the hermit, while Dawn just took a step back at the impact of Oz’s punch.

While Xander lay groaning in pain, Kanasi turned to Oz and said, “You still have a long way to go.”

*****

Kanasi looked at Oz when he stood right across form him.  It had been a month since they first got here.  Xander and Dawn weren’t here, and Kanasi told Oz, “It’s time your ways part.  You are the wolf, you’re power is great as the wolf.  You’re training will not be control, or subtlety, it will be chaos.  When you transform, you chakra is whirling like a vortex.  We’re going to focus on you being able to ride the vortex, and keep your chakra - and thus the transformation - under control.  /This/ will be about never letting that vortex of energy consume you, to ride it like a surfer does wave.  Let’s begin.”

*****

Kanasi sat in a lotus position across from Dawn, who was in the same position.  “Dawn, you felt a stirring in your stomach?  A tug of something energetic during your training?”

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Dawn answered the old man.

Kanasi smiled, “You told me about your origin: a magically created vessel for something called the ‘Key’.”  Dawn nodded.  “You are a magical construct, a magical construct to hold this very powerful Key energy, a similar energy had to be stored in you to keep it contained, and not let it consume your body.  That storing energy, is still there, and I think you can access it.  Doing so however, requires you to become hyper aware of your body and your energy; after all this isn’t simple chakra or chi, it’s energy on another level.  In short, for a large part, I will be flying blind here.  To get awareness though, you will have to meditate a lot from now one.  Let’s begin.”

*****

“I will teach you a jutsu I created myself, Xander, one that has no seals, and that is extremely difficult to master,” Kanasi told the one eyed man.  Kanasi held up his right hand, and a small ball of energy formed in it.  “Behold, the Piercing Needle.”  Xander watched as the Ninja hermit walked over to a tree and casually slammed the glowing ball into it.  There was a flash, a rumble, and then Kanasi took a step back.  Xander’s eye widened in shock.  There was a hole in the tree, that he could see clear through.  Behind the tree there was another tree, equally pierced, and behind that a third, but the hole in that one didn’t go all the way through.

“Whoa,” Xander muttered looking closer to see if his eye wasn’t deceiving him: it wasn’t.

“Catch,” Kanasi said, and Xander stood back, catching the two water balloons the old sage had thrown to him.  Xander looked surprised at the balloon, wondering when and where the old man had gotten the time to get balloons.  Had an illusion been teaching them at least once?  Obviously none of them could even come close the sage’s power and tricks, nor could they see through his illusions if that was the case.  The ninja himself was holding a balloon as well.   “In order to learn this technique, there are three steps.  This is the first.”  The balloon in the ninja’s hand burst, water spraying upward like a fountain.  He continued, “the key to this technique is pooling your chi at the hand.  You’re goal is to make the water pierce the balloon.  Once you can do it with both hands, make sure you can do it with both hands simultaneously.  I give you only one tip: contraction and expansion.  One of the important things of this is, for you to figure it out yourself.  Have fun.”  He then walked away from Xander, leaving a whole bucket full of balloons behind him.

“Ah, man,” Xander muttered in defeat.  Then he started concentrating on the balloon in his right hand.  Nothing happened.

*****

It was two weeks later, when Kanasi and Dawn were in deep meditation - a golden glow was flowing around Dawn, centered on her belly - that Xander came to the old ninja.  “I finally figured it out,” Xander said without a particular air of victory or triumph.  “First one expands the water in the width, bringing it down and putting potential in it.  Then one pushes it upward rapidly contracting it as thinly as possible, the tip preferably as small as a needle.  The resulting impulse of the contracting water with the narrow impact is what does the trick.”  Both balloons, one in either hand, simultaneously burst, two fountains of water spraying up and coming down, wetting Xander’s hands, wrists, and sleeves further.

“Ah, good,” Kanasi said with a grin, as Dawn looked at Xander with a huge smile, the golden energy continuing to gently flow around her.  The sage ninja got up and disappeared into the tree house.  A few moments later he returned with a basket full of rubber balls.  He tossed two to Xander who caught them.  Kanasi grinned at him, and said, “First stage; basics of the technique complete.”  He picked up a ball himself, held it up.  With a little flex the ball’s side facing the sky exploded, and then the rest of the ball was limply flung away.  “Second stage; build up power.  Go train, I will continue Dawn’s training.”

“Ah, man,” Xander said again, looking at the balls and then left the two alone, dragging the basket behind him.

*****

Another three weeks later Dawn landed against a tree, and hung against it.  It had rained earlier, and so she had to balance on the slippery bark for a moment.  She threw several kunai at Oz who bounced away to avoid them.  The kunai became enveloped by a golden glow and suddenly switched course, directly at Oz.  Oz made a few hand seals and said, “Ice Barrier Jutsu.”  He placed his hands on the ground, and water vapor rapidly raised up, and froze in a barrier, just before the kunai.  Unable to change course on time, the kunai embedded in the ice.  Oz then turned to Dawn, who jumped away from the tree, and he tossed a kunai at her.  The kunai in the ice though kept glowing, wiggling, and burning.  Ice melted under the pressure and energy, and finally burrowed through the barrier.  Much too late Oz noticed it, and the kunai embedded in his chest - not a single vital place because obviously they were training.  Dawn landed on the ground, took a few steps forward, and grinned, “Got you.”

Oz poofed, revealing a wooden log and it dropped down.  “Not quite,” a male growled behind Dawn.  Followed by an oof as Dawn’s elbow smashed in his ribs.

“Yes, quite, I /knew/ you were going to do that,” Dawn answered with a grin.  Oz growled then and picked Dawn up.  She squealed when she was tossed away, and she realized the fight had only just begun.

Kanasi sat down below, on the side, and nodded with a smile, making mental notes on their progress, or lack thereof in other areas.  “I did it, I finally did,” Xander’s voice sounded from his right.  He was breathing hard, and Kanasi just raised his eyebrows.  Xander presented the rubber balls on his hands, and then squinted his eyes in concentration.   A blue glow surrounded him as he continued to increase his power.  Then with a scream of extreme effort the tops of the balls finally blew and the rest dropped to the floor.  Xander then sank to his knees, breathing deeply.  Kanasi grinned, and said, “Very good.”  He got up, and walked over to a tree.  He then charged his attack and slammed it in the tree, forming a hole.  “Final stage, finding the control and focus to do that.  Now you must basically relearn the first stage, only with much greater power and keeping it focused in the exact space you want it to go, condensing it better.  Hop to it.”

Xander groaned, “Ah, man.”

*****

Kanasi, Xander, and Dawn watched - the latter two stunned - as Oz transformed.  Fur rapidly grew on him. He grew a bit bigger.  His hands became paws. His clothes ripped, although some managed to stay on him.  His face elongated into a snout, and grew fur also.  His eyes then turned into the fierce eyes of the predator.  The cracking of bones as they rearranged sounded eerie.  Xander and Dawn got ready now that the transformation was nearing its completion, just in case Oz couldn’t control his form.  Once complete, the wolf growled and barked at the three humans.  “Oz?” Dawn asked.

“Hey, Oz, it’s me, Xander, you got control there yet?” Xander asked, not enjoying the prospect of having to beat the crap out of his friend, even if he was in wolf form and wasn’t going to feel it - at least not until after he awoke, which begged the question whether his werewolf healing would heal him before Oz woke up.  Neither Dawn or Xander were afraid for their lives, with their newfound abilities a primitive wolf shouldn’t be too much of a problem.  They were, however, worried about sustaining a bite in the process and becoming a werewolf themselves.

The wolf barked again, growling, and then calmed down.  The primitive rage reflecting in its eyes gained a more measured and intelligent outlook.  Its stance became less aggressive, and it looked at them.  “Hi, guys,” the wolf spoke with a low growling voice, and Dawn gave a shocked squeal.

“You can speak in that form,” Xander said in surprise, and Kanasi casually nodded, pleased his training was effective, but he looked expectantly.

“It seems that way, and . . .” WolfOz hunched up his eyes, looked up at his two friends, and added, “There’s something else.”  Oz seemed to be concentrating, orange chakra started flowing around him, and Xander and Dawn looked interested.  Oz gave a groan, his chakra intensified, and then cried out.  There were cracks, the same cracks accompanying his reshaping bones earlier.  A moment later it became visual as well; arms, legs and torso changed.  Oz came to stand up, his snout became a little shorter, the chest broader.  His front paws slowly changed into clawed hands, and his legs became straighter.  A bit longer the transformation took, and then there was a seven foot, hulking wolfman standing in front of them.  The shirt had fallen off, but Oz was glad his ripped jeans - like the Hulk - had stayed put.  He knew, that even though Dawn was over sixteen, and close to seventeen now, she was still a virgin and if she got a glimpse of his privates, one Xander Harris in his ever protective ways would beat the crap out of him for it.  “Well, how do I look?” Oz asked the amazed Xander and Dawn.

“That’s so cool!” Dawn exclaimed with a huge grin.  “I’ve got my very own cuddly, fuzzy wolfy!”

“Dawn!” Xander and Oz exclaimed in shock.  Kanasi chuckled.

“Just kidding.  Sjeez.  Get a grip, guys,” Dawn told them with a big grin.

*****

Kanasi stepped back, pulling Xander along over his shoulder and slammed both hands in his stomach.  With a groan of pain Xander was launched away.  He landed on the trunk of a tree and jumped back.  He kicked out, and Kanasi gently blocked it.  The hermit attacked again, and this time Xander took a step back, catching the ninja’s arm, locking it. Xander then made an uppercut with his right arm, directly to the elbow of the left.  Kanasi’s left hand grabbed his right by the wrist though, holding him there, and slammed a foot into Xander’s stomach.  With an ‘oof’ Xander took several staggering steps back.  He was ready to go though, and saw the next attack coming.  He moved his left arm to parry it.  For the past several minutes the sparring match had been nothing but getting beat up, it got to Xander, he was rather pissed, not to mention desperate to score at least one hit, or least protect himself more effectively.  Kanasi was undoubtedly pulling his punches, but Xander didn’t feel that at all. He felt badly hurt, he needed to protect himself - at the very least for his hurt pride, whatever little there was left of it after the past few years.  Suddenly, for some reason, everything in Xander told him to parry on the left side instead - he did.

Kanasi’s eyes were wide for multiple reasons when Xander perfectly parried the left kick, and then attacked with both hands to his stomach.  His feint had left him unguarded and the double-handed slam hit perfect.  With a groan of pain it was Kanasi’s turn to be launched off his feet.  Xander then ran forward with a growl, preparing to take advantage of his advantage.  Just as he was about connect a devastating attack, he ducked underneath Kanasi, pulled two kunai, twisted around and threw them directly next to a tree.  The ninja hermit appeared from behind the tree, directly in the path of the knives.  His eyes widened, and then he caught the triangular knives by their ringed handle.  Then he ran forward.  Xander was shocked, his eye widened.  Kanasi was coming at him far too fast for him to defend himself.  The bastard had obviously not even gotten close to using his full power - not even when fighting the Slayers.  A moment later his powerful hands grabbed Xander’s arms, and he said, “Hold, this fight is over.”

“Why?” Xander asked in confusion, relaxing a bit.  Oz and Dawn came over as well, shocked at Kanasi’s speed, but also Xander’s sudden change.

Kanasi looked at him for a tiny moment, and then said, “Why did you ignore the illusion?”  Kanasi indicated the still standing version of him with a shrug.

“Because it’s an illusion, it’s got a log in it,” Xander said, and once more his remaining eye widened.  He blinked several times, then looked at Kanasi, and he said slowly, “I can see your chakra.”

“Dawn, the bucket with water,” Kanasi requested.  Dawn, who had completely forgotten she had been carrying it, lifted the bucket up, looked at it for a moment and then quickly came over.  Oz did too, both of them looking at him with wide eyes.  Xander felt a little apprehension at their stares, and he had to muster up the courage to look into the water.

Xander did, and sucked in his breath.  “Wha!?” he said in shock, seeing his reflection.  The iris of his eye was red.  Red!  And it had a black ring in the middle, on which were two black dots: two black dots with a tail - two small swirled dots directly across from each other.  “What’s that!?” Xander asked in shock.

“Remember how I told you some clans created advanced bloodlines?  Genetic traits?” Kanasi asked him.  All three nodded.  “That’s one, the Sharingan, from the Uchiha clan of the Konoha village.  Some say the eyes can see the future, can copy justus, see through illusions, and a whole lot more.  Now that you have control over your chakra, it must have come out under stress of fighting this battle with only one eye - a compensation for losing the other.”

Xander blinked and looked around calmly, muttering, “I does seem like I have depth perception back without having to look left and right constantly.”

Kanasi nodded, and said, “I cannot help you with it, or teach you how to use it, only the Uchiha clan can.”

“But how did I get it?” Xander asked him, somewhat freaked out.

“That too, is something only the Uchiha’s might be able to tell you, I do not know, although . . . the first two letters of Harris, are the last two of Uchiha - there might be a relation there,” Kanasi said, with Oz and Dawn looking at Xander in shock.

Xander hesitated a moment, and then asked half-worried, “So, I’m not a monster?  I’m not infected by a demon or anything?”

“No, it’s nothing but genetics, just like the color of your hair,” Kanasi told him.

That relieved Xander, and his Sharingan eye dimmed, returned to normal.  “Huh?” Xander muttered, seeing everything like he saw before.

“Can you activate it consciously?” Kanasi asked him.  Xander blinked and then tried to focus, nothing happened.  “Try routing chakra to it,” the ninja hermit suggested.  Xander concentrated, doing as suggested. Suddenly his Sharingan came out again, and to Xander’s surprise the eerie super clear vision, and seeing things he shouldn’t be seeing was back once more.

“That could come in handy,” Oz commented with raised eyebrows.

“Indeed, but it obviously uses up chakra.  Can you see through objects?” the hermit asked, and Xander shook his head.  Kanasi nodded, and said, “I suggest you use it with moderation, and never learn to rely on it.  The eyesight can obviously be blocked, and if an opponent does exactly that, you’ll be in serious trouble if you don’t know how to fight without your new eye.”  Xander nodded in agreement.  “Now, let’s continue our training, you have yet to master the third stage.”

Dawn perked up and said, “With his new eye, will you tell us . . .”

“No,” Kanasi spoke and turned away.

“Bastard,” Dawn muttered darkly.

*****

It was another week later, just about five months since they started their training with the hermit, that Xander walked over a tree next to where he was teaching Dawn something new.  He grinned, and charged the little ball of energy.  With a little yell he smashed it into the tree.  A moment later the sawdust settled, and a hole was visible in the tree.  In the tree behind there too was a hole, but not all the way through.  Kanasi grinned and walked over to Xander.  “The other hand?” he asked.  With smile Xander performed the same move with his other hand.  “Only a hole three quarters through?” the hermit asked.  Xander looked at the old man for a moment, and then did as asked, then automatically did the same with his other hand.

Xander then said, “And there is more.”  He turned around, charged a ball of energy, saying, “The power of the ball lies in the impulse of the thrust, if you never let that impulse out . . .”  He sent the ball flying away, grinning, and said, “like keeping the back with the front . . .”  The ball crashed against a stone, and then there was quite a powerful explosion.  The stone was gone, and Xander said, “it needs another direction to escape.”

As Kanasi laughed heartily, Oz came running from his training, looking around, and asking, “What was that?”

“Xander demonstrating his new technique,” Dawn said in awe.

“The key to its power lies in the needle-thin chakra points,” Xander explained with a smile, looking at the old man.  “It took me quite a while to figure out I had to create a whole lot more, some even pointing into the blast to allow for the outward ones - it took me a month to master that even /after/ I knew what to do.”

“Good, very good, it speaks highly of your intuition that you understood you could fire it as well,” Kanasi spoke and then grinned.  “Then we can now go on with the /actual/ reason that I taught you that technique.”

“Huh?” Xander asked, his momentary good mood at finally figuring the thing out already dampening.

“Tell me, have you not wondered why you are so powerful?” Kanasi asked him with a grin.  “Fighting on the Hellmouth for seven years has helped some, but still, the energy you have accumulated would take a ninja ten years of training since he was two years old.  Dawn here has the advantage of her magical essence, and Oz has his beast, you don’t though.”

“I’m guessing the Hellmouth, and not the fighting,” Xander answered a little perturbed.

“Some, but not nearly enough,” Kanasi told him in no uncertain terms.  “Have you ever been defeated, or just hit, and wondered why you’re still alive?”

Xander looked down, not really liking to be put on the spot in front of his friends, and then answered, “I was hit by sledgehammer once - several times in a row - bigger even, heavier.  I was launched across the room like I weighed nothing, I found it a little odd, but my broken wrist took my attention away.  I wondered even more when said hammer turned out to be a magical Troll god’s hammer that then brought down a hell goddess, but the death of my friend kind of hampered my ideas to investigate, and . . . I guess getting hit by a magical blast that combined with a temple ruin would kill all life on Earth and get nothing but a few scratches always had me stumped.”

Kanasi’s grin had widened, nodding, and he asked, “Dawn told me you were possessed once, a dog was it?”

“Hyena,” Dawn corrected automatically.

“You’ve been possessed more often, haven’t you?” Kanasi asked him.

Frowning Xander said, “Well, if you count turning into your costume one Halloween . . .”  Kanasi looked expectantly, and Xander added, “I was part of a spell that unified me and three friends - one a Slayer - and invoked the Slayer’s ancient essence to make her powerful enough to take down a very powerful cyber-demon-man . . . and I was split into two once, and put back together.”

“I’m glad I left,” Oz deadpanned.  Dawn and Xander glared at him, but Oz didn’t react.

Kanasi was nodding, and smiled, “Exactly, and each of those events, as well as taking the magic blasts to end the world, put energy in you, some chakra, some chi, a few bits magic that got reformed into chakra.  I’ve been noticing it since our first training, there are at least four different chakras in your body, and that’s why you could take the hammer and the magical blasts.  When they damaged or penetrated one chakra, they still had several layers more to go, and they just couldn’t pass all.  It’s also why you can generate so much energy, you can draw more of your own out, while the others keep your everyday bodily functions going.   Now, for magical attacks and items, those other chakras are great protection, but I think you’ve noticed in our sparring matches, it’s useless against more mundane attacks.”

“I suppose,” Xander said, with Oz and Dawn going over from Kanasi to Xander and back, wondering what this was leading to.

“The technique I taught, wasn’t just for the technique, mastering the technique requires an enormous amount of control over your chakra,” the ninja master explained, finishing with, “That means you should have enough control and knowledge of chakra now to find and access the other inert chakras, and fuse them with your own.”  His three students looked with wide eyes at the master at that revelation.  He pointed to a position, and Xander slowly walked to the place.

Xander looked at the sage for a moment, and then Xander formed a hand seal.  He sank to his knees, and closed his eyes, searching deep in him.  He brought out his own blue chakra first, forming a glow around him, and searched onward.  Xander’s eye opened for a moment, when he indeed could still feel more chakras in his body.  He closed his eye again, and with an audience in bated breath watching, he brought out a dirty red chakra.  He opened his eye to watch it, and guessed it was the Hellmouth’s energy.  He searched more, and a yellow chakra came out, then an orange one, and a dark green one.  “Fuse them together, huh?” he asked of the old master.  The man gave a nod, and so Xander started to try and push them together.

“Not just outside, inside as well,” Kanasi told him, and Xander nodded, mentally slapping his head that he forgot.  He forced the red and the blue a bit together, then pushed the others in along the way.  He pushed gently, trying to imagine the energy grappling into each other, and they did.  But only a short while, before the energy refused to continue.  Xander groaned out, clenching his teeth as he pushed harder and harder.  “Haaah!” he started, increasing his power, pushing them together with might.

“Calm, not so much power, it’s control you seek,” Kanasi advised and Xander nodded.  He calmed down a bit, starting to look for more subtle ways.  He stayed standing there, sweat gathering on his forehead as different colors of chakra swirled around him.  Seconds steadily turned to minutes.

Dawn couldn’t hold on her excitement any more and encouraged, “Go on, Xander!  You can do it!  I know you can!”  Oz gave an acknowledging grunt.

There!  That was it, Xander realized.  If he just let one frequency interact with the other, let them slide into one another and not against each other.  More and more the chakras merged.  The visible energy around him churned and swirled, started to twist and turn around him.  Some chakra flowed upward, wrapping into the others.  Colors slowly started merging.  This was it.  Xander could see it, /feel/ it.  Just the last little bit, control didn’t help here anymore he realized.  He forced them together, gritting his teeth, and then roared, out, “AAAAAAHH!!!”

Just before Kanasi was about scold Xander again, it happened.  The swirling vortex of multiple colors energy sped up another few notches, and started flickering as they were forced together.  Suddenly, as if ink was poured into water, the different colors disappeared, merging together in a swirl of blue, much darker blue than the almost ethereal blue a human standard had.  With a burst the vortex grew in size, both vertically as well as horizontally, and a powerful burst of wind blasted into the spectators.  The energy was burning so brightly now it was audible.

“Whoa!” Dawn muttered in shock.

Oz nodded.

And Kanasi thought, *More than the sum of its parts, indeed.*

Xander was amazed, he had never felt such power, never felt so strong.  He just had to try it out.  He jumped, and turned around, with great speed.  He was certain that somehow he was using his chakra for some of the speed and movements on an instinctual level.  With a roar he slammed his fist about halfway up against a tree . . . and straight through.  The trunk splintered and exploded into fine strings of wrinkly wood, and then the top of the tree simply toppled over backward.  Xander pushed off against the remaining trunk, and rammed his feet against another tree with the same result.  The large top toppled over toward Oz, Dawn and the hermit, and so Xander bashed the entire top of the jungle tree away into another direction.  Having testing his newfound power thoroughly he landed on the ground, and looked at his arms and hands in amazement.  Then he drew his chakra slowly back into his body.

“Now /that/ is impressive,” Oz said, nodding his head.  Dawn just looked amazed.

“About halfway a kage’s power.  You might actually be able to defeat me now, in a battle with just power, you still lack the number of jutsus,” Kanasi said with a grin.

Xander looked at him suspiciously for a moment, and then said, “You’re lying, and what’s a ‘kage’ anyway?”

Kanasi chuckled and turned around towards his tree house, and said, “Well, that concludes my training of you three.”

“What!?” Dawn asked in wonderment.

“You wish to learn more, you will have to go the hidden villages - the hidden lands - of which I will provide the location - since I can’t teach Xander anything about that eye of his, and his vision told him to go there, it’s only proper you go there,” Kanasi told them walking to his house.  “You will learn about ‘kages’ there.”

“When did you decide this?” Xander asked in some annoyance.

Kanasi turned half around and said, “The moment I noticed your multiple chakras, I knew you were absolutely telling the truth, and you weren’t just trying to trick me into giving you the location.”

“Was that /before/ or /after/ I asked you to tell where they were?” Xander asked him suspiciously.  Kanasi just grinned.  Xander groaned, while Dawn and Oz looked with wide eyes.

~~O~~

“Wow,” Faith muttered, when Xander said he was finished with his tale.  Faith still didn’t know the full extend of Xander’s abilities, but she got an idea he was quite a bit stronger.  “Oz can really turn into a half-wolf half-human creature on two feet?”

Xander nodded, and said, “Yep, a real werewolf, were meaning ‘man’, or ‘human’.”

“Amazing,” Faith muttered just before her eyes fluttered closed and she fell asleep.  Lying on that couch in Xander’s arms had had an extremely calming effect on her, and her body’s need for sleep finally exerted itself.  Xander grinned, and very gently picked her up.  He watched as Kurenai emerged from behind the door frame, looking at the two.

Kurenai smiled, and said, “It still amazes me, how those super tough, supernaturally endowed girls can look so sweet and fragile the moment they are asleep - and it’s even more of a contrast with Faith here.”

Xander smiled and said, “Same happens with you.  Which guest room did you put her in?”  And Kurenai led the way.

*****

England

“RRRAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRR!!” the oldest living Slayer roared out as she threw the very full dumpster at the demon at a very high speed.  It helped that it was on wheels.

The demon, a Pholikall breed, snakelike demons with scales, two legs, and an upper torso and neck and head like an Anaconda Python, hissed in terror as it was thrown and then wedged between the alley wall and the dumpster.  It was just passing through and unfortunately just as it had finished with an evening snack of a bus load of tourists when the Slayer happened upon it.  Or more like to it.

Because Pholikall demons have a specific preference in their meals - young]human children, between infancy and 10 years old - a mass of digestive feeler tentacles at the base between its legs also gives most Pholikalls a perverse pleasure while consuming their prey.  The London Police would be listing the death of the St. Mary Preparatory Academy’s Social Science Class field trip as a wild animal attack.  Of course nobody would mention, in the cover-up, that the wild animals that could have done that were over 5,000 miles away in a tropical jungle somewhere.

Buffy had actually been walking back to her apartment she shared with Dawn, Willow and a few other Slayers from the Watcher Headquarters, foregoing the car that evening after the phone call from Faith.  The entire mess was just so damn frustrating that she needed to cool off before going home to rest.  She was not on patrol.

But then she saw the van, and smelled the blood, as well as something else.  Something else that was too familiar to ignore.  The sight inside the tour bus immediately sent her mind reeling, and the stench nearly caused her to puke on the spot.  Instead, her eyes darkened as she felt the darkness within her roil, overwhelming her psyche in seconds.  Whatever had done this was going to pay, and pay dearly.

Taking a breath, she immediately had the demon’s scent and had tracked it down within five minutes.  She didn’t even consider the possibility that this demon might be too powerful for her, or even try to surprise it.  She was too far gone by that point and where years ago - even when she’d been pretty experienced, but before her deaths, she might have erred on the side of caution and made sure she could take the demon as quickly and cleanly as possible - now she came roaring down the alley and hit the demon before it even knew what was happening.

From then on it was a blood bath.  The Slayer tortured the evil creature, tossing it around the alley like a two year old with a doll it didn’t like.  When it tried to fight back, she snarled and started to beat on the thing even harder until it lapsed back into defending itself when she slowed again to make it pay some more.

When it was finally done the carcass lay in a pile of goo in the middle of a gore-covered alley.  With blood, guts, and other various parts the walls and ground were painted.  Buffy stood in the middle of it all, glaring hatefully down at what remained of the demon, only her hands and a single drop of blood on her cheek showing any sign of the demonic remains.

Unlike Faith, who was shocked by her rage, Buffy just looked down with satisfaction at the blood bath. Without a trace of shock, she turned around and walked away, feeling better.

*****

Buffy entered her London apartment, not even bothering with taking her coat off, or reacting in the least bit to Willow and Kennedy making out on the couch.  “Goodnight guys, I’m hitting the sack,” she grumbled at them, quickly walking down the hall to her bedroom.

After she was already halfway there, she faintly heard Willow welcome her home, and then immediately go back to kissing her girlfriend.  Anger and frustration suddenly welled up within the elder Slayer’s mind, but was just as quickly pushed to the side and repressed down with all the rest of such impulses.  Besides, Willow wasn’t the only one that could relieve stress through sex with someone like Kennedy.  It was just Willow happened to have more time for the relieving stress part, while Buffy seemed to be stuck with compiling it.

“Hey beautiful,” a dark and dangerous voice spoke from the shadowy darkness of her bedroom.  Buffy didn’t even pause in her undressing.

“Not tonight, Adrian,” she growled at him, her bloodshot eyes dull and dark in the low twilight.  “There’s a lot of shit going on right now and I’m not in the mood for your ‘evil’ little games tonight, all right!”

The creature known as the Immortal, also known to extremely few as Adrian Tepes, the half-human son of Dracula, and a lot older than most thought Dracula actually was, stepped out of the shadows and embraced the nude blonde from behind.

“Want to talk about it?” he whispered in her ear.

“No, I just want to sleep.  I’m so tired . . .” her body was wearing down, it was more than obvious in the half-light of the room.

The Immortal smirked to himself, and then replaced the ‘concerned boyfriend’ mask upon his face and guided his Slayer to the bed.  “Then rest, I’ll take care of you.  Trust me, I’ll take care of you . . .” he proceeded with hypnotizing her into a deep and restful and relaxing sleep, and then calling upon his power, he stood over her and took in the status of her aura, his demonic reddish yellow eyes glowing in the darkness.

“Won’t be long now, my beautiful Slayer,” he whispered in the night.  “Soon I will have a mate /worthy/ of being my queen, and having one of the only creatures that have ever existed that could ever match my own dark soul.”

Resisting the urge to laugh maniacally, he instead joined her in bed, and continued raping her and her soul.

Chapter 5: Inner

(by BigHead)

Whiteness.  The floor, the ceiling, the walls – if they existed – were completely white.  She could not sense the distance, or the height or anything like that, only the stable ground where she was standing was proof that she was . . . somewhere.

Faith looked around and to herself, noticing her nude state.  That’s how she usually went to sleep, so she was in doubt if this was a dream or something more Hellmouthy.  Since she didn’t believe there was one nearby she opted for a dream, so the dark Slayer decided to go with it, and started to walk forward.

She walked for quite a while, in her perception, and nothing changed.  She tried to scream, but no sound came from her mouth.  *This is getting really odd,* she thought, and she gave a few more steps, finally noticing that the ‘ground’ was reflecting her nude body.  She smirked slightly, while appreciating her own image.

Then she saw it.  A small drop of something blackish, oily-looking, right between her feet.  Before she could bend to examine it, another drop fell near it, and they /moved/ towards each other, forming a bigger drop.  ‘What the fuck?’

She saw another drop, and the situation repeated itself, the small blob getting slightly bigger.  Faith then started searching her own body for signs of a wound.

Then, she sensed something /shift/ inside her, and she instinctively moved her fingers towards her nose.  It was wet, and when she looked to what it was, her fingers were coated in the black stuff.

That /thing/ was her /blood/?

The oily substance flowed down her hand, dropping to the ground where it joined the enlarging black blob.  Then, a searing pain in her gut folded her body in half, and she grabbed her lower abdomen, where the ugly scar from where Buffy had knifed her was located.  Her hands and arms were instantly covered in the black ooze, which kept on falling to the ground and growing.  In an instant of clarity caused by the pain, she noticed that her ‘reflection’ was not repeating her actions, instead, it was ‘standing’ menacingly under her, with a feral grin imprinted in her face.

Then she felt another bolt of pain in her shoulder, where an old wound caused by a demon so long ago reopened, and more of her ‘blood’ started pouring down.  Another old one, this time in her left thigh made her lose her balance, and she fell to the ground, the ooze now pooling between her open legs.  In an astounding sequence of pain, almost all of her old wounds reopened, and the black thing poured out in buckets, her mind screaming all the time.

Then, as suddenly as the wounds appeared, they disappeared, leaving Faith down in the ground exhausted, with a pool of black ooze extending in a perfect circle right in front of her feet.  The pain receded a little bit, and she managed to lift her upper torso, holding onto her elbows.

Her ‘reflection’ had vanished, and she was alone once again, except for the black stuff that was her ‘blood’.  It remained perfectly still, as if it was a giant inkblot in a piece of white paper.

A few moments later, she managed to move a little bit better, so she crawled on all fours to the blob, and with a probing finger, she touched it.

It felt . . . cold.  Chillingly cold.

She removed her finger instantly, and looked around, trying to find anything that would make sense to her.

Then, in the exact center of the blob, a ripple began forming as if someone had dropped a stone in it.  Soon, the ripple was affecting the entire surface of the black pool, and Faith as well.

She was /scared/.

She backtracked as much as she could on all fours, her energy almost at an end.

The blob started changing, the center of it rising like a fountain, twisting, moving, shaping up like something human-shaped.  The Slayer’s eyes grew like saucers, and she tried to backtrack even more, but failed miserably, landing on her butt.

The blob then finally assumed its final form, and it was . . . her.  Or an exact replica of her nude body, only made of the black stuff.

‘What the fuck are you?’ she asked in her mind.

The Black Faith looked at her and ‘smirked’, and in a speed far superior than Faith’s own powers, grabbed the Slayer’s neck and began to squeeze.  And she heard in her head a voice that meant the end of everything that she believed in.

‘I am you.’

Chapter 6: Questions

(by BigHead)

Faith woke up screaming, covered in sweat.  Panic-dilated eyes looked around frantically, the perception of depth and color around her dropping the screaming a couple decibels, but not much.  The feeling of clothes on her body added to another couple decibels lower, and the complete lack of any pain whatsoever finally made the screaming die down to a wracking sob.

She hugged her knees and dropped back to the bed, crying like she never cried before.  The dream fueled a bout of memories, old and new, and all of her ghosts came back to haunt her once again.

‘I am you.’ Her parents.

‘I am you.’ Kakistos.

‘I am you.’ Xander.

‘I am you.’ Finch.

‘I am you.’ The Mayor.

‘I am you.’ The professor.

‘I am you.’ Buffy.

‘I am you.’ Angel.

‘I am you.’ Robin.

The names and images swirled in her mind for a long time, until a small voice began to be heard over the cacophony of screams and accusations of them all.

‘I’ll find a way to keep you you, Faith, that’s a promise.’

Faith didn’t know if she should start crying all over again or what.  But that phrase kept going on and on, finally supplanting all of the rest, and calming her down so she could at least act again.

The dark Slayer finally focused on the silent house, the only sound around her was the constant hum of the air conditioner.  She stretched her senses as far as she could, her mind picturing her surroundings.  No one around, faint traces of sweat and perfume and . . . eggs.  Breakfast was either forgotten or something was waiting for her downstairs.  She hopped out of bed, and she landed surprisingly on unsteady legs.  She had to balance herself for a second, holding on to the nearest wall.  After her nerves and legs were steady enough, she walked slowly to her duffle bag.  She grabbed some clean panties, the jeans that someone had removed and hung up for her from yesterday and a clean top, walking to the bathroom.

She took a shower, letting the water flow through her entire body, adding to the effect of calming her frayed nerves.  Once finished, she decided to have one final test, and looked at herself in the mirror.  The Faith that looked back was a woman that was crumbling slowly inside, but thankfully she didn’t see any hint of her ‘dark’ self.

After her chores, she came out of her room, noticing a piece of paper taped to the door.  It had a small note and a map.  The note simply said that breakfast was waiting for her downstairs, and the map was for the training compound.

She went down straight to the kitchen, and found a small post-it note in the oven saying ‘Look here’ and another in the door of the refrigerator with the same message.  In the oven she found a tray with eggs, hash browns, two muffins and something pasty that she couldn’t identify.  In the fridge she grabbed some orange juice, skipping the coffee entirely.

She sat on the small table near the refrigerator and began eating mechanically, neither hungry nor really tasting anything, but her Slayer metabolism was something that she couldn’t ignore.  She kept on thinking on what Xander had told her yesterday.

Faith finished eating and cleaned up after herself.  Before going out, she picked up her guns, her cleaning kit and cleaned both weapons thoroughly, the motions relaxing her frayed state to a manageable level.  After cleaning and reassembling the weapons, she reloaded four of the six clips with blessed hollow points filled with wood alternated with silver ammo.  The last ones she filled with Teflon-coated anti-armor bullets.  She put two ‘blessed’ clips in the guns, and she holstered one of the guns in her back, leaving the other in her combat rig.  Two clips disappeared in the pockets of her jeans together with a couple of stakes she found hanging around the house.

She finally stood up, putting a large button-up blouse on top of her clothing to hide the gun, grabbed her backpack and left.  Faith looked around and found that her jeep wasn’t where she had put it last night, it was under a large tree a few meters ahead, protected from the burning sun.  She entered it and turned it on, and what wasn’t her surprise when the fuel gauge hit full once again.  Someone had filled it up yesterday, she would have to remember to thank whoever did it.

Map spread on the seat at her side, she started the small journey to the compound, while trying to focus on the issue if she should trust Xander or not.  Faith arrived at the compound some minutes later, and she noticed the absolute lack of vehicles around.  It wasn’t truly that far from the house, and she believed that she could make the course running in less than fifteen minutes.  But, in this sun, it would make her feel as if she was running a marathon.  It was a large area with high walls, and Faith could see the corner of a roof from inside the car.  It wasn’t by any chances new, and because of the size of it, it was either a soccer field or something similar in the past.

She shut the jeep off and climbed off, adjusting the pistol at her back.  She was instantly hit by two things, sounds of a fight or sparring and the heat of morning sun.  She walked calmly to the closed, iron gate and banged on it with her foot several times, the sound echoing like a large gong.  The sound of sparring suddenly ended, and her senses detected someone approaching from the other side.

The gate was opened by a girl a bit smaller than Faith, with chocolate skin and strange eyes.  Faith backed down a step, trying to classify her as something else than a Slayer, because she actually didn’t know anyone with pupil-less gray eyes.  Her hand almost traveled to her gun, but the disarming smile that the girl sent her way and the outstretched hand curtailed her action.

“You must be Faith, right?  My name is Kalinda,” the girl said, the name making Faith finally relax.

“Mike’s sister?” she said, finally shaking the offered hand.

“You saw Mboto?” the girl asked, face splitting in a larger grin.  “How is he?  Is he all right?  He asked about me?” Kalinda asked rapid-fire, getting out of the way and letting her sister Slayer pass.

Faith actually laughed with the girl’s reaction.  “Calm down, calm down.  You sure you don’t have a redheaded lost sister?”

“Huh?”

The older Slayer laughed again, walking side by side with Kalinda over the small tunnel behind the gate.

“Never mind.  Yeah, I saw him, he’s ok and he says he misses you,” Faith said, and she noticed the girl visibly relax with the news.

“Thank you,” the girl said, and a sheepish smile appeared in her face.  “You aren’t mad, are you?” she asked.

Faith looked at her and smirked.  “Ah . . . not much.  But this could be dangerous, y’know?”

“Nah, almost all of us went through it, and no one got seriously hurt.  Generally, the newbies either run like heck or don’t even find the damn lock.  A few fight back, but even those are smarter than average.  And we knew Xander wouldn’t let us do this with you, so we kinda did it behind his back.”

They finally arrived at the training facility.  It was a heavily modified soccer field, and Faith only recognized it as such because one of the goals had been converted into some sort of target range, with wooden silhouettes hanging from the upper bar.  There was a roofed steel structure, and under it a lot of weight lifting equipment and the racks for weapons.  Nothing metallic was left under the sun.  The only building with walls was a wide structure that bordered the entire right side of the field, probably the firearms practice range and storage.  The ex-field had a running track around it, and she could see a group of four girls running around with speeds that would make an Olympic athlete kill himself with envy.  Another two girls were sparring over a clear spot a few meters away, under the supervision of Xander’s girlfriend, Kurenai.  Xander himself was standing off to a side, watching the running girls with a stopwatch in hand.  Faith couldn’t let the image pass, since he was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless muscle T-shirt, leaving tanned skin and muscles pretty apparent.  She wolf-whistled, finally grabbing his attention.  Kalinda, at her side, grinned, sharing the sentiment.

Xander looked up and smiled, and walked closer to them.  He lifted a hand, and without making a sound, he made a small hand gesture, which made everyone stop what they were doing and focus on him.

“Ok, people, gather round,” he said, while Faith approached.  He looked her in the eyes, and noticed her state, and using his incredible abilities of understanding ‘his girls’, he gave her a strong hug.

Faith stiffened for a moment, but as soon as she felt the strength in those arms holding her, she relaxed.  The feeling was so great she almost started crying all over again, but her strong sense of self made her grab a modicum of control before she started.

“You all right?” he murmured near her ear.

She shook her head no, and answered back “Later, ok?”

He let her go, and the dark Slayer almost jumped forward to feel the sensation of security he brought her back again.  “Sure,” he answered, seriously.

“Ok, everyone, this is Faith, the second oldest Slayer alive.  Faith, this is everyone.  Personal introductions later, alright?  And please, include in those your apologies as well, because that was /not/ nice?  Faith, rest assured, the punishment was . . . adequate,” he said, smirking, and she watched the girls groan.

“What did you do, Boy Toy?” Faith asked, and she noticed every single head there lift with mirth in the eyes with the use of his nickname.

“Let’s just say that ‘cars’, ‘going out’, ‘dates’ and ‘Slayers’ in the same phrase won’t be happening in the next month or so, and leave it at that, ok?”

“Sure, but you are mean, Xan.  You know how Slayers get after a good patrol,” she commented while smiling, and saw more than one head nod in agreement.

“Not mean, slave driver, more likely,” she heard Kalinda murmur at her side.  She stifled a laugh.

“Ok, people, introductions made, now back to work.  Go,” Xander said, and the girls returned to their previous activity, with the exception of Kalinda, who walked away, and sat down on a bench a few meters away.

“She ain’t training?” Faith asked Xander, looking to a sitting Kalinda.

“She is recovering from a wound, nothing very serious, but I’m going easy on her for a coupla days.  The physical damage wasn’t much to a Slayer, but she got pretty spooked over it, so I’m being nice for a change.”

“What happened?”

“She got cocky.  Demon almost broke her neck, after dislocating her shoulder and cracking a coupla ribs.  She’s healed, but the psych hurt is still there.”

“I can imagine.  And what’s with the eyes?” she asked, curious.

Xander didn’t miss a beat.  “Not sure.  She is like those old, Chinese, legendary blind guys from the movies, which see more than we do.  She can see perfectly well and then some.  And she has one of the greatest eye-hand coordination I’ve ever seen, even for a Slayer.  But enough of her, what happened to you?”

Faith told him about the dream, and her feelings on the subject.  Xander listened intently, eye focused on hers.  When she finished, Xander took a deep breath, and grabbed her arm lightly.

“Look, I asked for a few friends to do research on it, and I have a few other options available to me.  Right now, what I want you to do, is to search within yourself for a coupla answers.”

“How do I do that?” Faith asked.

“Meditation.”

They walked to the roofed area, and Faith sat on the ground, in which Xander accompanied her.

“You know how to do it?” Xander asked, noticing that Faith had assumed the lotus position with fair ease.

“Yep, Linda taught me how and I did some while I was . . . away.  So, nothing new here.  But I’m scared, Xan,” she finally said, admitting her fears and confirming her trust in him.

Xander nodded, taking a final decision in his mind.  Yes, he would help her.  And train her all over again.

Time to start.

“No need to be scared, I’ll be here, I’ll help you the best that I can.  So, let me start.  Ever heard of chakra?”

Faith nodded, “Indian skinny guys, right?”

Xander laughed.  “Yes, they use it.  Chakra is a powerful force, the force of life itself, and everyone has it.  Slayers, not so surprisingly, have more of it than our average Joe, because of the Slayer essence.  It can help you balance your inner self with your outer self, in other words, mind with body.  Your mind affects your body and vice versa.  So, what I want you to do first, is find your center, your chakra.”

“How?”

“Search inside of you for Faith.  Not the Slayer - Faith.  A tip, you can find her here,” he said, resting his hand a bit below Faith’s breasts.

“Ok,” she said, and closed her eyes, respiration evening out and almost disappearing.

Xander stood up and kept on looking at her for a while.  He let his Sharingan out for a moment, and he saw both her chakras stabilizing.  Good.

She had a chance, thank God.

*****

Faith woke up from her trance with mixed sensations.  First, was the sensation that it had been a bust, since she hadn’t felt a thing, but at the same time she knew that she had attained a sense of balance that wasn’t there before.  It was a nice sensation, but she realized it was a fleeting one.

Well, better than nothing.  She stood up, noticing that the sun had slanted greatly in the sky, it was mid afternoon by her accounts.  So, she had been meditating for the best part of six hours.  Nice.

It was then that her stomach made an important reminder that she hasn’t eaten lunch, growling furiously.  She looked around, searching for Xander, and noticed him sparring with Kalinda.  It was light training for a Slayer, but pretty hard for a normal guy.  Apparently, Xander was holding out ok, using some serious moves on her.  She made a mental note on his technique and noticed that, while he had a few flaws to be capitulated upon, he was extremely good.  If not for Kalinda’s strength and speed, he would beat her in a pinch.

She walked closer to them, and was intercepted by the other Slayer she knew, Diria.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi.  Do you have anything to eat around here?” Faith asked.

“Sure, follow me.”

They walked to the wide building, and entered over a door to the right.  Diria navigated them both over a small corridor, and they ended up in a large kitchen with all the amenities.

“There is food in the fridge, and you can heat it up in the microwave over there,” she said, pointing up to a bench with three different ovens.  Faith opened the fridge and helped herself, and heated up her dish in the microwave.  Diria sat down with her and they chatted amicably while Faith ate.  The older Slayer discovered that Diria was an Ethiopian famine survivor, who was adopted by English parents when she was very little.  Her parents still live in Ethiopia, as doctors, and when they learned about her calling, they were wary, but ended up supporting her, since what she did was also for the benefit of mankind.  They chatted for another half hour, and then walked out to a cooling African afternoon.

Diria walked on over to her fellow Slayers, and Faith stood to a side, leaning to a post, watching the activities.  The place was calm enough, even considering the sparring going on to a side, and she felt a small smile appearing on her face.  Suddenly, she saw Xander jerk for a moment and stand up taller, looking around.  Kalinda did the same, and so another coupla Slayers.  Faith hadn’t felt a thing with her senses, but what was awkward enough is that Xander was looking straight at her.  Well, not straight at her, but just past her.

In a smooth motion, she turned around, surprised with a man standing in a relaxed posture at her back, not five feet away, reading a book, and with a young kid at his side.  He was a bit taller than Xander, with white spiked hair and a curious bandana around his left eye, and a mask covering his face up till his nose.  The kid had long black hair, with the same bandana around his forehead and the same weird eyes as Kalinda.

Xander approached quickly, and when he was close enough, he bowed respectfully to the man, which only response was a lifted eyebrow.  Faith found that extremely odd.  How did the guy sneak up on her?  And why hadn’t she felt a thing, but Xander and a few other Slayers had?

"Kakashi-sensei, good to see you,” Xander said in passable Japanese.  He approached and extended a hand, which was firmly grasped.  "Not that I find this good, but why are you here?" he asked, a tinge of worry in his voice.

“Tsunade-sama wanted to be sure you were doing right with the Slayers’ training, and she knew you wouldn’t know how to train Kalinda properly.  That’s why Neji is here with me,” he said, pointing to the austere looking boy at his side.  Xander bowed slightly to the boy, and he answered properly, bowing in the same fashion.

“Good, good.  Come on, let me introduce you to an old friend of mine.  How’s Diamond Chick?” Xander asked, and he noticed that Kakashi was snorting under his mask.

“I don’t know how she lets you call her that, but she is ok,” he said.

“My impeccable charm,” he said, now in English, and approached a slack-jawed Faith.  Since when could Xander speak Japanese, or whatever that was what he was speaking?

“Faith, this is my sensei and friend, Kakashi-san, and his student, Neji.”

To that, Neji snorted and mumbled something inaudible even to Slayer hearing.  Faith decided to copy Xander and bowed respectfully.  The tall ninja bowed back, even more than with Xander.

“Aren’t you feeling a little hot under all this black clothing?” she asked the ninja, who laughed a little.

“No, I grew accustomed to it,” he said, in an impeccably accented American English.  “It is an honor finally meeting you.”

Faith was struck dumb with his answer.  “A-an honor?  Why?”

“Not every day you meet a true hero,” he said, without missing a beat.

She reddened perceptibly, losing all her powers of speech.  After a few moments, she regained enough composure to answer back.  “I-I don’t know what weird-ass stories Xan told about me, but I ain’t no hero.”

“Every Slayer is a hero in my opinion,” he answered back.

“Not me.  I killed people.  Innocent people,” she said.

“Who didn’t?” he replied somberly, a hint of something in his visible eye.  Faith silenced again.

Xander found the reply odd as well, but refrained on asking.  He turned on to the Slayers, which were approaching slowly.  “Kalinda, front and center, now,” he said in a normal voice.  The chocolate-skinned Slayer detached from the group and approached them.

“You speak English?” he asked the young boy.

“Better than you speak Japanese,” he replied with a snort.

“Oh, God, just what I needed, a smart-ass.  Kalinda, this is Neji.  Neji, this is Kalinda, he’ll help you with your training, ok?” he turned to the boy for a moment.  “Refrain from using visible Chakra moves for a while, ok?  I don’t want to spook Faith there.”

“Why?” Neji asked, surprised.  He thought . . .

“She doesn’t know yet, and she’s coming from a horrible situation.  Check her out with the Byakugan when you have a chance, and you’ll see what I mean.  I wanna introduce it to her slowly, ok?”

Neji nodded, and walked to the girl, shaking his head in disbelief.  Weird Americans.

Kurenai finally appeared, and talked briefly with Kakashi, Xander picking up part of the conversation.  Just normal chattering among old friends.  He couldn’t let the smile appear on his face.  Kakashi’s appearance would certainly help out with Faith’s situation, and Neji would help a lot with Kalinda’s Byakugan training.

Faith approached him.

“Didn’t you say that Oz was supposed to show up?”

Xander finally noticed the time and he focused on her question.  “You know, you are right.  He should have been here for a while.  I wonder if he came across anything out of the ordinary.  But he knows how to take care of himself.”

Faith looked to the sky and snorted.

“What?” Xander asked.

“In this line of work?” Faith answered with another question.

And that made Xander’s brow crease with worry.  He just hoped he was ok.

Chapter 7: Werewolf in Trouble

(by 3D Master)

The training compound, formerly soccer field, was surrounded by a wall.  Lining the wall was a small pavement, then there was a bit of sand and finally the grass started.  The sand did duty as a running track.  A few gunshots came from the building on the right, which was built within the walls, thickening them a bit.  To the left was a similar structure, but unlike the building on the right which was thickly walled and securely closed with bullet proof windows and doors, this one was open, allowing entrance.  The left building contained the kitchen and a few cooling down and recreational rooms during breaks, and as such didn’t need the security a building filled with guns and ammo needed.  It also housed further on into the walls themselves the showers, the toilets, the changing rooms, and lockers for the Slayers, and the same for men.  This building is where Xander and Kakashi were, while Neji had taken Kalinda further in the building to do some training with her eyes - conveniently away from Faith /and/ good see-through-walls practice.

Xander had casually sat down and looked out on the training field, where the redheaded - dyed fiery red - Diria was teaching Faith some basic Tai Chi movements and the mental focus accompanying them.  Kakashi looked coolly at Xander, standing casually.  “Take a look, sensei,” Xander said, nodding outside and giving Kakashi a small smile.

Kakashi raised his right eyebrow for a moment, and then turned to the field. He raised the head band that covered his left eye, revealing a red eye with three swirls: the same eye as Xander when he activated it.  “Interesting,” Kakashi said, looking around, taking in the Slayers.  “Not unlike Naruto, yet completely different,” Kakashi spoke, and Xander nodded.

“The Nine-Tails and his chakra is sealed; you only see it when he uses it,” Xander mentioned casually.

Finally Kakashi settled on Faith, and even the usually unflappable Kakashi took in a sharp breath.  He lowered his bandana down again and looked at Xander.  “So . . . it is true.  What about the others?” Kakashi asked him casually, but Xander noticed the hint of worry.

“Chakra and chi control seems to allow them to keep the demon contained,” Xander told him steadily.  Kakashi put his bandana back down, then looked down, their single eyes peering into each other.  Xander added, “As well as use its power.”  Kakashi nodded gravely.

The door to the left opened and in came Kurenai.  Her hair was damp, and not wearing any makeup, having washed it off during her shower.  Kakashi turned to look at her, Xander just grinned, always feeling better when she was in the same room as him.  “Kakashi-san,” she greeted with a slightly surprised smile.

“Kurenai-san,” he returned the greet.

Kurenai walked over to Xander and sat gainly down in his lap, making sure he was well-aware of her alluring presence, without becoming super playful and gratuitously teasing him.  She wrapped her arm around Xander’s shoulder and told him, “I can’t believe you made me take the same punishment.  Thirty rounds on the obstacle course every day, no car, grounded for two weeks?”  Kakashi’s right eyebrow raised a bit, even as he seemed to relax his body even more.

Xander shrugged and told her, “Sorry, Kutey, but the girls were right.  You helped them out putting Faith through that, you have to get the same punishment; or they’ll start to get the idea if you have something you get preferential treatment.”

Xander looked from her to Kakashi, and thought of the first time he met both.

~~O~~

Some two and a half years earlier

“Are you certain we’re going the right way?” Dawn whined once again, avoiding a puddle of water.  They were everywhere, having rained recently - they would know; the three of them were still wet.  They - Dawn, Xander and Oz - were walking through a thickly grown forest, almost a jungle really on one of the islands of the Oceanian Archipelago.  Thick backpacks were on their backs, and Dawn had lost patience quite a while ago.

Oz kept characteristically quiet as Xander said frustrated and angry, “No!  It’s called the /Hidden/ Village of the Leaf, not /Obvious/ Konoha!”

“Okay, okay,” Dawn muttered, flinching back a bit at the sudden anger coming from Xander.  Xander wasn’t usually that angry, he could be that sarcastic, but never that bitterly angry.  She had to find a way to cheer him up.  She looked to her right at Oz, who merely raised an eyebrow at her, which made Dawn nod in satisfaction: she had a mission.

Xander suddenly stopped, making Dawn and Oz do the same.  He peered around from the corners of his eyes.  Dawn and Oz did the same, taking in trees, the occasional bush on the ground.  Xander’s eyes widened first, the others followed.  Instantly they jumped away in three directions, just in time to avoid a net.

Dawn twisted around her axis, landing on a high branch, seeing a quick red motion to her left.  She twisted as she jumped onward back down, and tossed twenty kunai all at once.  The red motion revealed herself to be a stunningly curvaceous, raven-haired woman in a red and black outfit: a short slanted skirt, a top with one strap over her right shoulder, and a little net-thingy over that.  Dawn made a motion with her hand and her kunai twisted in all directions.  A moment later the woman was surrounded by onrushing kunai.  The woman suddenly twisted around her axis as kunai neared, and Dawn - still falling down - looked in surprised at what had to be a ninja caught the knives one by one.  “No way,” Dawn muttered surprised.  The woman stopped twisting, and with it stopped being blurry, and a with a single motion threw twelve kunai at Dawn - six across from another six and between each was tied a rope.  A moment later the ropes reached Dawn, and was wrapped tightly in them as the kunai circled her and eventually wrapped into the ropes.  A moment later Dawn thumped painfully and wrapped tight on the ground.  “Ugh,” she muttered and started struggling to get out; the woman had already moved on to her next target.

Xander quickly jumped to another branch.  Someone was close by gunning for him, but he had yet to see him.  Suddenly from behind a branch a man appeared that was obviously a ninja.  He wore a vest with a lot of pockets over a blue shirt and pants, and had grey hair.  What was odd though, was that he wore his bandana diagonally, covering his left eye.  For only a single moment Xander allowed himself to be moved by the irony of facing a one-eyed ninja.  The two came closer.  Xander landed on a branch and then somersaulted backward off it, landing on the ground, and forcing the ninja to come down at the sudden movement.  Below the ninja threw a punch, which Xander parried, pushing the arm aside, and doing the same with the second puch.  Swiftly without a sound his open palm slammed into the ninja’s chest and sent him flying away.  Immediately Xander threw his right elbow back, slamming in the chest of the same ninja, causing him to stagger back.  A moment later both of them disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Xander made no sign of surprise, turning around to his right, and jumping back as the ninja jumped from a few bushes.  He threw three kunai at Xander, who drew one of his own and deflected his opponent’s with it.  Water splashed about, as neither man cared for avoiding to step into a puddle.   The ninja had another kunai out, and Xander blocked it with his own, gauging the power of finally the real ninja.  The two ninja looked each other in the eye, and Xander noticed the respect there.  Suddenly though, the ninja zipped away so fast.  Xander was strong, immensely strong he had found out after joining his different chakras, and he was fast, but he was nowhere this speed.  He turned around to where the ninja was behind him, and got a solid punch in the gut for his trouble - which he took with the tightening of his muscles just in time.  The ninja’s eye showed a slight hint of surprise, but then stepped back, splashing water up high deliberately.  Xander moved forward.  So did the ninja’s right hand, moving in the water, and from underneath the cloth covering his nose and lower face, came a slightly muffled, “Suirou no Jutsu.”

Xander’s eye widened as the water suddenly formed in a bubble around him, and shrank forcing him into a crouch.  He had been to late - knowing this jutsu well as it was one of those that Kanasi had taught him.  Trapped in the water prison, Xander needed a way out, and there really wasn’t a way unless he could disrupt the ninja’s concentration on keeping the water.  Somehow Xander doubted his opponent was going to give him long.  Xander made several handseals, which the ninja saw through the see-through water.  His eye widened as Xander said, “Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu.”  The stating of the technique was a way to focus the mind, and not strictly necessary.  Xander and his friends had quickly found that wasting to much mind power on pronouncing the original language names was counter productive, unless it was a name that was easily pronounced.  The Water Clone Technique was one of those that was easy to pronounce.

Around his opponent water flushed upward and formed into exact copies of Xander which attacked.  The ninja however wasted no time and charged his chakra into electricity in his left hand.  Xander’s eye widened as the ninja stuck it into the water prison.  A moment later the electricity had surged through the water and into Xander.  “Agh!” he called out as he jerked about by the electricity, then slumped into unconsciousness.   The water clones instantly dissolved into the water they were made from, and splashed onto the ninja.

The ninja let his prison go and looked down at Xander.  “Impressive,” he said coolly and then proceeded with tying his quarry up.

Oz peeked from behind the tree to his right, which was he was facing with his back.  He had seen how quickly and easily the female ninja had dealt with Dawn.  But where had she gone?  Oz sniffed again, and then his eyes widened.  How had he missed her?  He turned left and smashed his fist into the ninja that came flying at him.  As he hit her, he got his answer: after connecting with her solidly she disappeared in a cloud of smoke - obviously just a chakra construct and thus no smell.  He smelled her now though, but suddenly from both the tree above him, the ground below him, and his back came three more female ninja - all the same one in red.  The one from the ground grabbed his legs, the one above grabbed his shoulders, and the one behind grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back.

He grunted and growled trying to break free - but they were strong.  He was about to transform and unleash all his power, when he guessed the real ninja came into view.  She came from his right, diagonally: up wind.  He should have known!  She looked him in the eye, and then connected a powerful jab with her open palm against his chest, above his heart.  There was a momentary glow at her palm, and then he felt himself slump into unconsciousness.

*****

With a groan Xander slowly returned to the land of the conscious.  “Xan!”  When he heard the urgent whisper coming from Dawn, he was awake instantly and looked around.  The first thing he noticed was that he was chained up.  He wondered if he was strong enough to break them.  Left from him was a kneeling Dawn, who was wrapped in thick rope.  To his right was a groaning Oz, lying tied up on the floor and slowly coming too.

He was in a rather spacious room; the floor made of wood, as were the walls.  Two doors were on both left and right side of him, and a third double door behind him - but he didn’t know that yet.  There closet filled with books, and one with cups and plates.  The closets looked imposing - made of wood, painted dark, some glass windows.  Xander’s carpenter nature admired the workmanship fleetingly.  The three of them were in front of an equally impressive desk and chair.  Blonde hair came up from the back of the chair.  Beyond the chair were windows, looking out over a villages that was half jungle.  To the left, in the corner of the window, could be seen part of Mount Rushmore.  Correction, now that Xander took the faces in better, it was obvious they weren’t the American presidents, but it was something similar.  Xander noticed some eight guards around the room; two in front of the window some ways apart, another two on both the left and right walls, and finally - purely by his other senses - two behind him.

Further there was one young woman holding a small pig standing next to the big chair. She was stroking the pig gently.  There were three more ninja.  Two males were to Xander’s right, standing next to each other - they were the guy that beat him, and a guy dressed in some sort of green jogging suit, over which he wore the same pocketed jacket the one-eyed guy wore.  The man’s flat hair reminded Xander somewhat of Bruce Lee; but Bruce pulled the look off much better.  To Xander’s left and behind him and his companions stood a woman in red.  It took Xander exactly 1.32 seconds to take in the whole room.

“You okay?” Xander asked Dawn as he surreptitiously tried to find a way to untie his chains.  Dawn nodded, she didn’t seem frightened - just nervous.

With another groan Oz fully rose to wakefulness, and set up on his knees, looking around unflappably.  He asked Xander and Dawn if they were alright with a single look.

“There!” a woman’s commanding voice sounded in heavily accented English, and the chair turned around.  “Now that you are all three awake, we can have a little talk.”  The turning chair revealed a stunning blonde, who looked to be in her mid-twenties.  A small diamond-shaped something Xander and his friends couldn’t identify was on her forehead.  She wore a dark-brown to green chamber jacket over a grey/brown wraparound, forming a V at her cleavage - and what a cleavage.  Both Xander and Oz had to struggle to keep a smile from forming as they saw a pair of the biggest breasts they’d ever seen on a woman directly in front of them.  And although Xander usually preferred somewhat smaller, he was still a man.  Next to them, they could practically hear Dawn roll her eyes.

The beautiful big-breasted woman stood to give her a little extra in the imposing department, and said, “Good, you speak English, as I expected.  Now, in order to get to Konoha properly, one would have to ask for it’s location in several official places who will send you through two more checkpoints, while your background is checked to see if you are trustworthy.  /Especially/ if you’re not from the islands.  You didn’t; you simply asked in several places for a most likely position, I’m guessing cross referenced it with some information you already had, and came looking.  It’s the reason why you were greeted the way you were, and not allowed to knock on the gate.  I’d like to know who you are, and why.”

Xander looked from Dawn to Oz, having given up on getting loose once he realized they had reached their destination, and was confident they weren’t going to be killed, given they were still alive and what he knew.  Neither of his companions gave any indication they wanted to take point on this, and so he sighed, and said, “My name is Xander Harris . . .”  Xander nodded his head to his left, and continued, “This is Dawn Summers, and finally Oz Osbourne.”  Xander ignored the slightly odd looks at the final name.  He continued, “A few months ago I had a vision, which lead me on some very obscure hints to Thailand and an old hermit ninja who had left the village for personal reasons.  He taught us what he knew till he said that continuing to learn from him would waste our precious time, so he gave us directions to Konoha.”

The woman stayed silent for a bit, looking suspicious, and asked, “Why Konoha?”

Xander looked at the woman, and Dawn took him in quietly, taking in his almost expressionless face - now that she thought about it, he had pretty much looked a lot like that the last year in Sunnydale as well.  Perhaps he was worse than Dawn thought?  Now what to do about that though?  Anyway, Xander’s short contemplation was over, and he answered, “He said the Uchiha clan were the only ones who could teach me about this.”  Xander let his strange new eye come out, and it had the desired effect.  No matter how hard they tried to be inexpressive, everyone who could see his eye showed they were surprised at the sight.

The woman with the pig stopped stroking it, and even whispered, “Sharingan.”

The red-dressed female ninja suddenly came several steps forward, and turned to look at Xander.  Her eyes widened as she saw the red eye, dotted with two small swirls halfway from his pupil on a small black circle.   The blonde woman suddenly leaned dangerously forward on her desk and said, “/How/ did you get that eye?”

Xander gave a pale imitation of a smile, and answered, “I was hoping /you/, or rather the Uchiha clan, could tell /me/.”

The woman looked sternly at him, and then the expression deflated, and she sat down with a sigh.  “I am Tsunade, Hokage of the Leaf,” she said with some annoyance.  Xander’s eyes widened at the title the woman identified herself with.  Oz stayed typically cool.

Dawn’s teenage hormones made her blurt out, “Kage. That’s what Kanasi said.  So ‘Kage’ is village leader.”  And if Dawn guessed right the most powerful ninja, or close to at least, in the place.

“Kanasi,” the one-eyed ninja who defeated Xander spoke with some interest.  “The legendary missing-nin from the Mist.  He is the one who taught you?”

The three of them nodded.  Tsunade took back control, saying, “The Uchiha clan is no more.  Some years ago one of them slaughtered them all, including his parents.  Only his younger brother he let live, he . . . he left to pursue his quest for vengeance against his brother.”

Xander sucked in a breath in disappointment and defeat, which Dawn once again noted.  The Xander she once knew and crushed on, would never show defeat.  Xander said, “Then there is no one who can teach me to use this.”

Tsunade folded her hands together and rested her chin on them with her elbows on the table, taking in the three strange visitors.   Finally she came to a decision, “Perhaps there is.  Kakashi.”  She looked from the corner of her eyes to Kakashi.  The one-eyed ninja hesitated a moment, then stepped forward, and lifted his bandana.

“Whoa,” Oz said, as he saw the same eye in the man’s left eye-socket as Xander’s when he channeled chakra to his - except that the man’s Sharingan had three swirls as opposed to Xander’s two.

Kakashi looked a bit surprised at Dawn, and he said, “Her chakra is golden.”

“Hmm?” Tsunade said, still thinking with her chin on her folded hands.  She made a wave and said, “We’ll get to that later.”  She pointed at Kakashi and asked, “He got his by implantation after he lost his own eye.  Did you ever get an implant?”

“I’d have gotten two,” was Xander’s almost empty answer, and pointed at his eye patch.

Tsunade nodded in understanding.  “Gai, would you cut them loose,” Tsunade said.

“Yes!  Tsunade-sama!” was the man in green’s enthusiastic reply, giving a thumbs up that had the Sunnydale crew stumped.  The man rapidly pulled a kunai, and cut the ropes on Dawn and Oz in an instant.  The two stood up, Oz showing his too large clothes, and the green man unlocked the chains around Xander with a quick technique.

“The vision, Mr. Harris, what exactly was it about?” Tsunade demanded of him.

“How much do you know about demons, vampires and the other nasties out there?” Xander asked as he and his friends moved their bodies to get circulation going again.

It was the female ninja that spoke this time, “Enough, given that one giant demon-fox attacked our village some dozen years back.”  Tsunade threw the ninja a sharp look by merely moving her eyes to her.  “Sorry, Tsunade-sama,” the ninja said, bowing apologetically and taking the same step back.  “I’m Yuuhi Kurenai,” she put in quickly.

“Well, then I can skip that part, and I won’t look crazy either,” Xander nodded with satisfaction, and began to tell his tale.  Of the Slayers, of making two, of Dawn, Glory and the Key - since Kakashi’s Sharingan had revealed that secret anyway - of the First Evil and of making many to defeat his army, and then his vision. What it entailed, what the crisis was, what was going on.  Finally he was finished.

Everyone was enraptured by the tale, as well as impressed what a bunch of untrained teenagers managed to do - not so impressed with other things they managed to do.  “This the truth?” Tsunade asked, having to be sure.

“That is easily verifiable!” Gai spoke up with a huge grin, his teeth glinting and giving a thumbs up sign.  “All they have to do is give the good-guy pose!”  Everyone looked at him, and Dawn was the first to catch on.  She put out her thumb and grinned.  Oz eyebrows raised at her gesture and mimicked her, much to everyone’s surprise except Gaia’s.  Xander looked from one to the other, shrugged and did the gestures as well.  “Verified!” Gai said, going into the pose himself for a moment.  “They’re telling the truth!  No bad guy could ever pull off that pose!”

The Sunnydalers lowered their thumbs, as Kakashi nodded, the others looked stunned, apart from Kurenai who said, “It’s just putting out a thumb and smiling, Gai-san.”

Gai nodded, and said, “And no bad guy can do it just like that, they can try, they can make a bad approximation, but none can do the true good-guy pose.”

“No offense, Gai, but I would like a little more certainty,” Tsunade said with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice.  “Kakashi,” she said with authority.

Kakashi nodded, and looked at the three newcomers.  The swirls in his eye suddenly started turning around the circle.  “Tell the truth, is the tale true,” Kakashi droned.

“Yes,” Dawn and Oz answered like dummies, while to the ninjas surprise Xander shook his head free.

“Impressive,” Kakashi muttered once again, placing the bandana back over his exposed Sharingan, as Dawn and Oz were freed from the spell.

“Hypnotization,” Xander said, looking at Kakashi with a look that said he wanted to be taught.  Kakashi’s look was questioning, and Xander replied bitterly, “I’ve been hypnotized and mind controlled before; the last time I vowed I never was anyone’s butt monkey ever again.  I looked up techniques to block it, strengthening my mind - it seems it worked.”

“Butt monkey?” Kurenai asked amused, eyes sparkling.  Xander turned a dead gaze at her, and shrugged.

Tsunade sighed and brought the meeting back on track.  “So apart from training, what is it that you want to do about your vision here anyway, if it indeed is true?” the Hokage asked, her thick accent sounding oddly to Xander.  “Hire us to fight the demons for you?”

The last question was half humorous, and half disdain.  Xander chose to ignore it as he answered, “I don’t know.  I just followed the vision’s . . .”  Xander trailed off.  He remembered thinking about the ninjas in their prime and their military strength as such back in Thailand when Kanasi mentioned them.  That brief hope had quickly been crushed because he didn’t really see what to do with it, but Tsunade’s words gave him an idea.  “Yes, but not hire, and not just you.  All of you, all the hidden villages; that won’t be enough, but through Riley I should be able to get at least one army in it as well.  Although not quite hire, I don’t have the money to hire all of you.  I’m thinking if you want to stave off certain destruction, we’ll have to fight together.”

“No way in hell is that possible.”  The one who had spoken was the girl with the pig, and she took several steps closer.  “Some of the villages are our enemies, or are enemies with another village.  They’d never follow an enemy village into battle.”  She made a gesture to stop the protest that was about to come from Dawn, and continued, “Even if it is from armies of demons who were going to wipe out all of humanity.  They’d think the village leading the fight would be ready to stab them in the back the moment the demons are neutralized.  They’d take their chances alone.”

“Unless the leader isn’t from any village, but an outsider,” Tsunade stated with finality, head still resting on her hands, peering speculatively at the three strangers that had arrived here, settling on Xander.

“Me?” Xander asked.

“Him!?” the woman said in shock.

“Hey!” Dawn and Oz protested on behalf of their friend.

“Shizune,” Tsunade warned her friend.

The woman wasn’t finished though, and said, “No offense to you or him, Tsunade-sama, but he couldn’t lead himself out of a pack of butter.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Tsunade said keeping her eyes locked with Xander, who was getting nervous, but didn’t have enough strength to show it.  “I said similar things about Naruto, remember?”

“If he thought sending a few dozen of those girls against tens of thousands of demons was a good idea; and not with small hidden attacks, but what amounted to a full frontal attack, I don’t think I’m overstating things, not much at least,” Shizune pointed out heatedly.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly thinking at all,” Xander felt the need to defend himself for some reason, and then frowned at his words.

“Exactly my point,” Shizune said.

“No, it is not,” Tsunade said while a thin smile that grew in a smirk as her eye.  “You’re the one who planned out the attack on the big snake you mentioned?”  Xander was about to answer ‘no’, when Tsunade interrupted him, “I’m not talking about the idea, I’m talking about the strategic plan.”

“Well, I’m the only one who knew how and where to set the explosive not to kill anyone outside, it’s this Halloween soldier possession you see, one of the chakras that was in me I told you about,” Xander said putting away down his involvement, “meant I had to do the details too.”

Tsunade nodded and said, “You said the attack on the hell goddess was a collaborative effort.  What about the cyber demon?”

Xander answered her, “Magic you know, not- . . .”

“Uh, uh,” Dawn piped up, shaking her head.  “That was you, I remember you said something about becoming someone with Giles and Willow’s brain and magic skill, and Buffy’s bodily strength, Giles just knew that could be done with a spell.  You got the idea.  You brought the rocket launcher to get the Judge as well.”  Dawn turned to a Tsunade who’s eyes were glinting more, “Was this overgrown smurf that was said no weapon forged by man could kill.”

“Yep,” Oz confirmed coolly, before Xander could protest.

Tsunade had a deep smile, and said, “Kakashi, Kurenai, you’ll train them.  One of the first things you two do; teach him some self-esteem.”  Xander was flabbergasted, as were most of the most others.  Tsunade continued, “When you think he’s ready, lead him to the other villages, and have him convince them.  In three months there’s another Chuunin exam; I’m certain that the others just like me would want him to prove he’s capable as a leader, which means he’ll have to pass it.”  Tsunade turned back to Xander and said, “The Chuunin is the second rank of the ninja; they’re squad leaders.  In the exam you’re graded on your ability to lead, to think of strategy and tactics.”  Tsunade thought of something, and turned to Kakashi, adding before anyone could protest, “Kakashi, teach him at least one language that is commonly spoken here, he needs to be able to converse with the villages and their kages directly, and I’m not sure they all know English.”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama,” Kakashi answered coolly, letting his one visible eye glide of the three somewhat surprised people with some intrigue.

“Tsunade-sama,” Shizune said with surprise.

“Shizune,” Tsunade interrupted her with a raised hand.  “He’s the only one, don’t you see?  He’s the only one who could get the other villages to follow along, he’s the only one who had contact with the other country’s military, the only one who’s fought battles with both chakra, magic, bladed weapons, the guns and explosives warfare, and knowledge of planes and ships warfare through his possession.  If it’s as bad as his vision says it’s going to be, we’re going to need it /all/.  He’s the only one who can stand in the middle and forge a working army out of such diverse and conflicting ways to fight.  I’m not willing to take the chance his vision is nothing; if it /is/ nothing, it doesn’t matter, if it /is/ and the world doesn’t have a functioning, ready, big-enough army . . .”  Tsunade left it at that, apart from saying, “That’s my decision.”

~~O~~

Xander looked up at Kurenai’s face, who still sat on his lap.  He smiled and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth, a brief contact of tongue.  Then he pulled the her off of him and got up.  “Oz is late,” Xander said darkly, having given the werewolf enough time according to him.  He walked to the door on his left, and entered it, Kurenai and Kakashi following him.  He took the first door on the left in the corridor.  The small room was mostly beige stone, the floor white tiles.  Inside the room was a table, a few stairs and multiple portable radios hanging on the walls.  A bigger, stronger non-portable radio on the table, behind which sat a relatively average looking African Slayer.  “Misia,” Xander called sternly and the girl looked up, startled a bit.  “Has Oz called in yet?  If he isn’t here by now, he should have contacted us.”

“Uh, no,” she answered, eyes widening at Kurenai and Kakashi entering behind Xander.

“Contact him then,” Xander said and leaned on the table.  She nodded quickly and turned up the power to the radio.

“SH to Wolfman, SH to Wolfman, please come in Wolfman,” she called into her microphone.

Static.  After a few moments waiting she changed the frequency and tried again, but the result was the same.  Xander straightened up, and turned to his right, grabbing a portable radio from the wall.  Then he turned onward and walked resolutely out of the room.  Kakashi and Kurenai made way, and they followed him back to the refreshment / kitchen area.  “NEJI!  KALINDA!  GET OUT HERE!” Xander called out loud as he exited onto the compound, where his twenty Slayers were training.  He pointed out five rapidly, and as behind him Neji and Kalinda joined up behind the other two ninjas, he commanded, “We lost contact with Oz, he’s late, we’re going to find him!”

“Yes, Xander,” the five Slayers he pointed out called, half concerned for their sister Slayers, half-excited at going on a mission and fighting some demons.

“I’m coming with,” Faith said, walking up to him.

“No, Faith,” Xander said gently with a raised hand.  “You haven’t fought in a jungle, and I don’t have time to give you a jungle survival course.”

“But- . . .” Faith tried to protest.

“Faith,” Xander said sharply, gesturing to the armory - the Slayers making tracks.  “If six well-trained Slayers and a werewolf knowing jungle terrain intimately are having trouble, you’ll only slow us down and get yourself and others in danger, you understand?”  Faith bit her lip, every instinct in her telling to help out, but she nodded.   Xander held up the overgrown version of a walkie talkie and said, “Be with the radio though, we can always benefit from your experience.”  That seemed to settle Faith down and she nodded reluctantly.

Xander strapped the radio to his back as the Slayers returned fully armed with stakes, knives, kunai, a few with swords or an axe, and a gun.  One Slayer held a fully pocketed ninja vest and tossed it over to Xander, who put it on smoothly.   Another Slayer tossed a gun belt with multiple clips, as well as the .45 gun of course, and Xander put it on in stride.  He had turned to the back of the compound where there was a smaller exit, and he and his entourage exited there, running.

Faith remained watching them leave for a bit, before turning to the building to go to the radio room.  The other Slayers waited for a bit, and then a few went after Faith and the others continued their training.

*****

The moment Xander’s group was certain Faith could no longer see them, they sped up.  Jumping in one go onto the nearest roof and jumping to the next.  A little later they reached the edge of the jungle and jumped onto a branch, then jumped with all fours to the next tree and new branches, then again, and again with ever increasing speed.  Soon they were moving fast enough to be ticketed within built up areas if they were in cars.

About an hour later, Xander said, “Kalinda, Neji, we should be close by enough.  Far sight, find their exact position.”  Xander had regularly tried the radio, but apart from headquarters they got just static.

The two of them nodded, and muttered, “Byakugan!”  Veins around their eyes stood out as their eyes activated, which was visible by slight ridges in the irises showing they were tensed up and ready.  The group of ten continued to move forward at great speed.

“Seeing them,” Neji said after a while, and Kalinda nodded.  “Eight degrees right, approximately eight kilometers.  All are injured, one heavily - five Slayers, one werewolf.”

The group of ten changed course as one, putting even more speed into it, and Xander said, “Good, that’s all of them.”

Kalinda added, “They are under attack by some hundred demon dog-like things.”  Their speed increased even more.

*****

Oz and his five Slayers were fighting practically back to back in the middle of a small clearing.  The demon dogs were all around them, often growling, waiting for the right time to strike and jumping in high.  Or they simply came at the fighters rapidly over grown.  A black-skinned blonde-died girl lay unconscious on the ground, chucks of flesh bitten out of her arm and stomach.  A Latina Slayer was standing above her to keep the demons off of the downed Slayers as well as herself.

The Latina, and all the Slayers, were frightened, especially when the demons came jumping at them.  The sleek black-skinned, shiny dogs, barely bigger than a scrawny street dog, but deadly.  Three rows of individually movable tiny teeth were in their mouths, but the glowing red eyes were the worst; as if hell itself came to tear you apart.  One of them did exactly that, and the Latina slammed her fist into the side of its neck, making it tumble back.  There was another demon dog jumping her from her side though, and the Asian Slayer just next to her had her hands full with a few of her own.  It latched onto her upper arm, and the three rows of teeth started sawing her flesh away.  “Aah!” she screamed, as another ran forward and went for her unprotected lower left leg.  Her scream grew, and then turned to fury.  “GET OFF ME!” she screamed, kicking the demon on her left leg off, then wrenching the one on her arm, crying in fury and fear.  The dogs sensed her fear and weakness and came at her en mass, jumping her from the front, both her sides, and even diagonally, easily twenty in all.  Pure instinct made her form the hand seals, and then grumbled, “Water Shield Technique.”  For it, she used some of the water in her own body; seeing as it was eighty percent water, but she knew she couldn’t do that often or she’d dehydrate.  Instantly she was enveloped in a cocoon of water, that the dogs stayed stuck in, howling in fury their prey was denied them yet again.  “OFF!” she screamed, and the water shot outward, washing the dogs away and making them tumble and bang into their fellow demons. Then they got up and growled angrily.

“Oz, we can’t keep this up!” the Asian Slayer said, getting very apprehensive as she tossed a dog back into the crowd by its tail.  “None of us have much chakra left either.”

Oz growled, and ripped open a demon’s flank with his claws before tossing it away.  After it landed it got back up, limping this time.  Oz bashed another demon that had been eating his leg on the top of its head with the side of his fist, then kicked it so it flew off.  “Joo-eun, don’t worry,” Oz said with a grimace, his snout moving to produce he words giving him an odd look.  “I’m sure the others will have come looking; they’ll be here soon enough, just keep it up a little longer!”  He sent another demon flying back, as the Korean girl nodded and ducked below a jumping demon.  Oz looked over to the Latina, and asked quickly, “You okay, Tamaya?”

“Just thirsty, perhaps I should do as the vampires do, and drink some demon blood?” the Latina said grimly, trying to keep up her bravado as well as her companions, and it seemed to be working.

Oz nodded, and then blinked.  He took a sniff to verify what he thought he smelled, and gave a quick look to his left.  “In fact; they’re just about here, just a minute more, girls.”

And so the Slayers buckled down, beating demon dogs down.  But the dogs weren’t slowing down, in fact, they were stepping up their attacks.  More and more jumped at the Slayers and the werewolf at the same time.  One black girl froze as she saw a dog coming at her very close - directly at her neck.

Suddenly the dog yelped, and dropped to the floor, rolling once as a new Slayer arrived.  “You got trouble with a few nice doggies, Cythia?” the Slayer asked with a big grin, reaching for the downed demon dog, as nine more figures landed all around the exhausted original six.  One Slayer immediately sped to her downed sister and got out a first aid kit.

The Slayer picked up the dog by the neck.  “No!” Cythia yelled. “Don’t kill it!”  But it was already too late, the dog’s neck was snapped, and the new arrival tossed it to the other demons.  They were standing, growling, holding their attacks in order to study the new arrivals.

“What do you mean?” the new Slayer asked, and Cynthia pointed to the dead dog; its eyes no longer glowing.

“Oz, okay?” Xander said as he was standing next to his wolfed out friend, looking at the dead dog as well.

As ripples formed at the demon’s forward flank, Oz greeted back with happy twinkles in his eyes, “Xan, one Slayer down.  On me nothing that isn’t already healing.”

The demon’s skin tore open, a new dog snout coming out of it, eating the skin with its razor sharp teeth, that ripped it apart easily.  Eyes glowed, and then the dog jumped out, covered in some of the blood of its predecessor, giving the black demon a smooth shiny look.  The wound from which the dog came, then started closing up, skin pulling back.  Finally the wound was no more, the demon’s eyes suddenly started glowing again.  It shuddered, then stood up, shook itself, and growled at its prey.

“There were five,” Oz snarled viciously breathing heavily, “we killed them easily, then there were ten.  Killed them and there were twenty.  We decided to check if chopping them in multiple pieces helped . . . now there are over a hundred.  They’re like land piranhas crossed with an amoeba.  We ran out of ammo a long time ago.”  Xander looked from the corner of his eyes to the wolfman, who in his half-man form was anything from the cool reserved guy he was normally.  No matter how often Xander witnessed it; an Oz that wasn’t perfectly collecting continued to seem wrong somehow.  Not to mention that a clothed werewolf looked odd; Oz had learned to wear clothes several sizes to big, so that when he transformed they wouldn’t rip apart.

“I see your dilemma,” Kurenai commented coolly.

“Where’s your radio?” Xander asked as the demons steadily started to become more animated, obviously having decided the new arrivals weren’t that big of a threat, and ready to attack.

“They ate it,” Oz commented with finality.

Juu-eun decided to add, “Something in the temple was jamming it; we tried to get far enough a way it would work again.”

“Let’s test just how much damage they can come back from,” Xander said and pulled his gun, removing the clip and stuffing it in a free carry slip.  He pulled a new one out, one covered in several Japanese letters.  Oz looked appreciatively, knowing what it was.  One of the ninjas tools were small papers, tags, with the same signs, charged with chakra.  Activate it, and they explode - Xander had decided to create bullets with those tags wrapped in it - these were it.  He quickly loaded the clip, aimed at one demon dog, and fired.  A moment later the dog screeched in pain and started wriggling on the floor.  A moment later there was a big explosion and the demon was mostly shredded completely, spraying the other dogs with blood and mashed demon flesh.  Only two legs, the head and the tail remained, lying gruesomely on the ground.  The other dogs howled at the loud noise, and slowed down again, re-evaluating their prey.

Kakashi looked at it with a raised eyebrow.  “Bullets with exploding tags inside them,” Oz clarified, making Kakashi and Neji look impressed.  Then it happened: the pieces of the demon dog started rippling, and slowly flesh and bone started growing from the neck, the pieces of leg and the tail, wrapping together to form tissue.  Soon there were four dogs with just flesh, and a little later skin and short fur covered that.

Then they got up, and Kalinda said, “Now that, was just disgusting.”

Xander put his gun away, got the radio off his back, and said, “Well, we’re going to need some research.”  He activated the radio . . . and just got static.

“Shit,” Xander muttered and looked around, the demon dogs becoming agitated again, then nodded.  “All right, here’s the plan.  Me and a Slayer are getting far enough away to use this thing; you guys need to keep them busy and here for a bit.  All right?”

“No problem,” one Slayer said.

Kakashi just nodded.  “Not a Slayer, I’m coming with,” Oz said, interrupting the moment, and clarified, “Better ears, if we get a garbled mess, I might be able to understand it anyway.”

Xander nodded.  As the dog’s growling grew in volume and their boldness grew back to old proportions, he said, “Go!”

For the first time in quite a while the humans attacked, much to the surprise of the demon dogs.  As eleven people shot outward - Tamaya stayed with the downed Slayer - two more shot much higher into the air.  Kakashi and Kurenai forged several shadow clones as they all attacked the dogs - the clones looking exactly like themselves.  The dogs were bashed, tossed away.  Neji slammed his hands in the dogs shutting down non-vital internal organs, to keep it crippled at least for a while.  Gunshots sounded along with the fist fight; bullets tearing through flesh in legs and back sides: hurting and disabling as many of the demon dogs as possible.

Xander and Oz had landed on a branch, and sped up and over the demon dogs, hoping they wouldn’t notice them leaving, at least not right away.  The sped onward for twenty seconds, when Xander pulled the radio from his back, and tried it.  It worked!  “Slayer Headquarters to Leader One, come in!” the frantic voice of Misia sounded.

“Leader One here, we need research,” Xander called out through the radio and stopped on a branch.  A heavily breathing Oz doing the same next to him, as a relieved sigh came through radio.  “We got some black dogs, red glowing eyes, split in two and revive when you kill them.  Tear it apart and the individual bigger chucks will grow new ones.”

*****

In the radio room there were four Slayers, and one called, “On it!”

Faith’s eyes were wide though, and she called, “WAIT!”  She jumped forward and grabbed the microphone.  “Xander, I know those things; fought them two years or so ago.  The only way to kill them is either using some stake or bulled made of gold through the heart, or fire; but the things down to bones and charcoaled flesh!”  She let go of the send button, and listened.

The return sound wasn’t nice; jags and pops, from which came, “A- . . . Fa-”  Then just static.

The Slayers looked at each other for a bit, and then Faith said, “Get me some gold weapon, I’m going after them.”

“No!” Misia objected. “It’s just interference, let’s give them a minute.”  Faith grinded her teeth together.  “A minute won’t matter,” Misia added.

“And not a second more,” Faith grumbled.

*****

The radio crackled and muffled Faith’s voice after her first sentence.  Xander frowned and looked at Oz.  “Gold heart, or fire, I’m pretty sure,” Oz told Xander, who gave Oz a grateful look that he had made himself come with Xander.

“Acknowledged, Faith,” Xander send back and there was only static.  There was a growl and a dog was on a branch one tree over.  “I hope,” Xander muttered, as Oz growled angrily.

“It’s the damn demons themselves,” Oz snarled angrily.  “Nasty bastards,” he added, realizing just how dangerous these things were if you couldn’t contact anyone close enough by them, and they just multiplying.

“Fire,” Xander said, and grinned, tossing the radio over to Oz who caught it.  He made the seals, and said, “Flame: Fireball technique!”  Then he sucked in breath, brought one hand to his mouth, and as the dog jumped forward, blew hard, sending a fireball from his mouth forward.  A moment later the dog was enveloped in fire, and his fur lit.  It screeched in pain, and wriggled trying to get the fire out, making it change course.  It slammed into the tree trunk next to Xander instead of against Xander and fell down, howling and screeching all the way.  It thumbed on the ground, dying instantly.  Still on fire there was a rippling, and a new dog attempted to get out, but was soon howling and screeching as the fire consumed him to.  Then things went quiet, as there was only bone and charcoaled flesh remaining.

“YES!” Oz exclaimed in victory, making a fist.  “FINALLY!” he growled in addition, just as new growls sounded and a group of demon dogs arrived.  Xander grinned and jumped down, starting his new technique.

Making the handseals, he called, “Flame: Mythic Fire Flower technique!”  As he landed he once more brought his hand to his mouth and blew; but instead of a big one, now came a string of smaller fire balls.  Each changed course and enveloped one demon dog each, who went screeching to their deaths.

As Oz landed next to him with a bloodthirsty look on his face, Xander pulled out the radio, and sent, “SH, you can hear me, we got it.”  Multiple sighs of relief came from the other side, and the two of them started running back to the main battle.

*****

Back at the main battle, the Slayers and the ninjas had fallen back in a smaller formation; having noticed to there consternation that even non-lethal attacks became lethal and new healthy dogs joined the fight.  Since the dogs’ death meant forming a new dog, and completely healing up, they simply had no normal healing; no blood coagulating, and so they bled to death rapidly.

Then the screeches from the dying dog reached the Slayers ears; too far away for the non-enhanced hearing.  Kalinda looked into that direction, and said, “Byakugan.”  Her eyes activated and she shot forward with her vision, quickly finding Xander and Oz - and burning dogs.  “Fire!” Kalinda exclaimed triumphantly, “And they stay dead, no new demons!”

Kakashi’s eye immediately focused back on a few dogs that jumped him.  He grabbed them by the necks and tossed them back with a twirl, then started handseals, calling, “Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!”  A moment later he fired multiple fire balls from his mouth, just like Xander did earlier, and multiple dogs went screeching to their death, sometimes lighting his companions

A cheer came from the Slayers, and then Kurenai and several of them pulled instant chemical torches from somewhere on their being, quickly lighting them with a quick motion over the top.  She ducked below a jumping dog, and sliced the hotly burning over its belly.  It caught fire, and dropped down screeching.  Kurenai quickly kicked it away, before its fire might become a threat to herself and the others.

A little later Xander’s still away voice called as loud as he could, “Fire!  Gold through the heart!”

He wasn’t loud anymore quite a bit away, but it was audible even to ones without enhanced hearing, and Diria hissed, “YESS!”  As more demons met fiery torches, or more of Kakashi’s fire balls, the Slayer got out her gun, and replaced one clip with another.

“You brought golden bullets?” Cynthia asked in disbelief.

“I’d like to be prepared for anything,” Diria answered as she shot demon dog through the heart.  Screeching the dog dropped to the floor, and writhed as golden fire started consume it from the inside out, quickly engulfing the entire dog.  She looked over for a moment to say, “I was girl scout before I became a Slayer.”

She went through the clip quickly, her gunshots joining the chorus of death screeches and fire.  Once the closest dogs were killed off, Kakashi said, “Behind me!”  They all did as told, and he made a different set of handseals, then said, “Katon: Karyuu Endan!”  Bringing his hand up to his mouth and breathing out, he let out a massive blast of fire that engulfed everything in his path; everyone but Kurenai and Neji quite impressed.  It was enough fire and heat to kill the Slayers as well if they were still in the way.

“Flame: Fire Dragon Blast!” Xander’s voice sounded from their right, and a moment later the same attack came from him; shooting alongside the Slayers, engulfing all the demon dogs that was in the circle surrounding them there.

After several more of the attacks from Kakashi and Xander all the demon dogs were destroyed, and a good section of the jungle was on fire.

*****

After having extinguished the fires, the most injured were sent home.  The downed Slayer had been awoken, but still couldn’t walk so they had taken her along as well.  Two of the newcomers had gone with them as escort.  Thus five Slayers and their teachers, a total of  nine people, reached the temple where the trouble had begun.  It was overgrown with jungle, and barely recognizable as a building even now.  There was a vaguely a dark opening, and some exposed, carved rock here and there.  The stairs looked more like a natural overgrown slope than artificial - it was old, really old.  Oz, now in his human form, wearing his too large clothing oddly well, and his wounds all but healed, said, “We had to burn through several illusions to find it, so I’m assuming that wasn’t the only line of defense.”

Xander nodded, and said, “Eyes open then.”  He activated his Sharingan.  Kakashi lifted his bandana revealing his Sharingan, and Neji and Kalinda activated their own eyes.  Then Xander set foot on the first step.

To Be Continued . . .

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