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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
"What do you mean, who are we?" the woman asked. The tone of her voice did seem familiar - strident and high-pitched, yet beautiful in its way...
"Oh," the man said, his face falling. "You don't recognize us. No particular reason you should, I guess..."
"Oh!" Willow exclaimed, actually jumping in surprise and drawing in a breath sharply. "You're... oh, my god. But how?"
Faced with Willow's stunned recognition, Buffy cudgeled her mind to make a similar identification - and suddenly she had made one. "I... I don't understand," Angel protested. "I don't recognize these people either. Who are they, Willow?"
"Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase," Buffy breathed, disbelieving. "Only older. I don't know how, but... that's who you are, right??"
"Yes," Xander said, nodding with dramatic solemnity. "We have come back from ten years in the future - from a future that must never come to pass!"
* * * *
"Move it along," Xander's escort muttered, nudging him hard in the shoulder. Xander continued on through the door. He had been stunned motionless by the realization of where they were headed - the copy center that had been Queen Kaliya's fortress base. Was this a trap? Then again, Xander didn't know of any vampire activity in the copy center recently. The Fireking's minions had set themselves up at the Town courthouse, and at the Bronze, and at the high school. If such a good hideout was vacant, why shouldn't the Resistance set up shop here? It was a very defensible building, and far from the first place the Council of the Dead would look for them.
The resistance runner brought him to a stop in the main room. Akira Tojo was already here, and Cordelia had been only footsteps behind him the entire trip. Most of the other people crowding into the room were unfamiliar, but... "Vanessa!" Sure enough, the redheaded witch was standing close to them with a relieved smile on her face.
"I'm so glad that you're okay," she said, stepping over to Xander. "I wanted to come for you myself, but it was too risky - I might have been recognized. Don't worry. All here are friends of the movement."
"Vanessa Bateman," Tojo said, stepping forward to shake Vanessa's hand. "Is the Resistance by any chance your own doing?"
"I helped get the movement organized, yes," the witch told him with a modest shrug. "It had to be done." She raised her voice. "Friends, comerades," she announced to the assembly at large. "Tonight is a good night for the Resistance! After days of work, I am happy to introduce you to three old friends. They each have years of experience in fighting the forces of darkness. Even though they are under observation by the vampire overlords, I am sure we can all find a way that they can assist in the fight. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Alexander Harris, Cordelia Chase, and Akira Tojo - close friends and coleagues of the Vampire Slayer!" A restrained but happy cheer met this introduction from the assembled Resistance members.
Xander took a tentative step forward, feeling very nervous with all eyes fixed upon him and his friends. "Thank you, thank you," he mumbled self-consciously. "Thanks for all you've said, Vanessa, though I don't know how much we'll be able to help."
There was a noticeable disappointment around the room, and Xander felt as if he needed to make it up to them. "One thing that we do have for you, though, is good news. We haven't been forgotten. Right now, Buffy, the, uh, the vampire Slayer, and the rest of our friends are coming up with a plan to break into Sunnydale, to save us all from the Fireking and the vampires!"
There was more enthusiastic cheering at this. "When?" one voice called out loudly.
"Um, not until midwinter's day," Xander told him apologetically. "There's, um, there's an indication that the fight against Obayana won't be won or lost until that day. So, if Buffy makes her move too soon, she's pretty much guaranteed to lose."
"I think some of this talk is best for fewer ears," Vanessa interjected, trying to keep Xander from bringing her troops any further down now that he'd pepped them up. "So..." The witch trailed off as the security door to the hideout opened on its own. She crossed over to the entryway, a look of grim determination, and two others stepped up behind her.
As the door swung open, the beautiful redhead stepped in, gripping her wooden staff firmly, and with her free hand smoothing down her tunic shirt. "I knew you'd be kinda busy," she quipped, "so I let myself in." Peering with difficulty past the Witchly guardians of the gate, she caught sight of the Slayerettes. "Hi, Xander, Cordelia, Tojo."
"Who ARE you?" Vanessa hissed, exasperated at her apparently total failure to intimidate the intruder.
"W- Willow??" Xander breathed, unbelieving. He charged up to get a better look at the intruder, somewhat discommoded by the maturity of her appearance, but still quite confinced of the truth of his guess. "How - how old are you, Willow?"
"Twenty-eight," the stranger said with a happy smile, and gave Xander a brief hug, shuddering somewhat. "Whoo. I was so afraid that none of you would believe it was me."
"I... what is going on here?" Cordelia whined.
"Um..." Vanessa considered, then made a decision. "Okay, come on, all of you," she said to the Resistance members. "All of you - get going." Soon Vanessa, Tojo, Xander, Cordelia, and the older Willow were gathered together in the study. Once Kaliya's study, Xander knew, but he tried not to think too much about that.
"You guys just joined the Resistance, right?" Willow started obliquely. "I, well, of course, I wasn't here, but I remember Xander telling me about it."
"So..." Tojo paused, then filled in the obvious conclusion. "You are attempting to convince us that you have come from the future, yes?"
Slowly, silently, Willow nodded. "It took me more than six years of concentrated research to develop the spell for time-travel magic. We sent Xander and Cordelia back, too - at a dimensional nexus near Blackton, along an offshoot from the Hellmouth."
* * * *
"'We?'" Buffy asked the older Xander very deliberately. They, the future Cordelia, Willow, and Angel had set themselves up in a large motel room. "Who exactly is we? Who sent you back, Xander."
"We... we call ourselves Resistance Humanity," Xander said awkwardly. "We're, um, an organization dedicated to protecting mortals - um, protecting mortals from..."
"From the demons," Buffy said, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. "The Apocalpyse has come, in your time??"
Xander nodded sadly back at her. "Yeah. Obayana won, he brought the demons back to Earth. None of us really believed it would happen, even you, Buffy. You were willing to give up your life, but you believed to your dying day that you'd stop him."
Buffy gasped in shock, and Xander's face fell. "My dying..." She stopped, breathing heavily to fight back the tears of fright. "When - did - I die?" she asked slowly and agonizingly.
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