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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
"Sounds good," Willow ventured, smiling. "Franco and Marea won't be there for another day or so, but I can't think of anywhere else to go. Can either of you??"
"No," Angel said, somewhat surly because he hadn't been served as well by Lear's hospitality as Buffy and Willow had. Lear Chase didn't know that Angel was a vampire, and in a whispered consultation it had been decided that telling him so or asking him for blood would not be a good idea. Well, he had some blood down in the van.
"Okay, Blackton it is," Buffy agreed. "Maybe I'll try to contact Lora Theron once we get there."
* * * *
The vampire Xander has just attacked roared and grabbed him roughly, shaking him. As the teenager's friends looked on, stunned, other henchvamps gathered around, laying a few well-placed punches onto Xander's head and body.
Xander struggled, trying to fight back again, but he was restricted too badly. Grinning with pure malevolance, the lead vampire made ready to bite at Xander's neck.
But Vanessa had had enough time to get over her shock now. Murmurring a hushed invocation, she pointed at the lead vampire. "Get away," she warned Xander, and let loose a flame strike. Within seconds, that vampire was only a pile of ashes. Xander had been set on fire too, as had another vampire, but both of them managed to put themselves out. Xander struggled to pick himself up, knowing that he still had to defend himself or die, even though what he most wanted to do was lie there for a few hours.
Tojo charged forward amongst the vamps, ready for a fight. This wasn't his style of fighting - he normally liked to stand where he was and let his opponents come to him. But there was no time for that, the vampires would kill Xander before they went for him. The Okinawan watcher tossed a vampire over his body with an aikido throw and settled down to sparring with another.
"Uh..." Cordelia called out, torn between dashing forward to help and staying safely back. "Um, Vanessa, do you have, like, any wooden stakes? The vampires don't exactly let us keep any in our rooms."
The dazed witch roused herself far enough out of the post-spell respite to dig into her war bag and toss a stake to Cordelia, keeping three more out. Cordelia grinned and went over to the vampire that Tojo had thrown, stamping on his knee to keep him down and plunging the stake through his heart.
"Stakes??" Vanessa called out. Tojo extended a glad hand to catch one, and soon was armed. Vanessa shot out a stone bolt, trying to take off a vampire's head, but missed, and collapsed in exhaustion from so much spellcasting during a state of unreadiness. And Xander moaned as he was attacked by the third vampire.
Suddenly, Tojo saw his opening, and another vampire exploded into dust. "Do you wish to be next??" he called out to the two remaining fiends. Looking around and for the first time noticing how many of their fellows had been destroyed, the remaining two vampires turned and ran away.
"Good enough," Vanessa moaned, trying to get her strength back up.
"Unless they recognized us," Cordelia said. "And are going to report us."
"Let us hope not," Tojo said calmly, proceeding along as quickly as he could.
* * * *
Many hours later, Xander collapsed gratefully into his lumpy bed. After getting back from the Resistance operation, he and Cordelia hadn't had long to get ready for another shift of duty at the Bronze. Xander had had to change into new clothes - how he would manage to dispose of or explain the burnt outfit, he didn't know.
Suddenly, before Xander even knew that his eyes had closed, he was in Elysium!! "Hey, what's up?" he asked reflexively, looking around in confusion. Buffy and Willow were sitting on the couch, with an invitingly empty space next to Buffy, and Xander dropped down into it gladly. Giles and Jenny were sitting in the loveseat opposite them, with Kendra, Jenny, and Oz taking up chairs at the dining room table.
"So, uh, the gang's all here, huh?" Xander said, putting his arm around Buffy. "What's up? How's your team doing, Buffyana?" Xander winked at his girlfriend as he spoke one of the sillier nicknames he had for her.
"Um, we're doing fine," Buffy said, absently. "We're back in Blackton, gonna be camping there until Marea and Franco Belone show up. Went down to L.A. tonight to see Cordelia's dad, he's doing fine, although it seems he can't remember Sunnydale very well. He sends Cordy his love, if you can relay that."
"Oh, sure," Xander said with a smile.
"And he's still willing to bankroll us, which should help," Buffy continued. "Hey, wait a second... you're touching me." She gestured to the arm Xander had around her shoulders. "How is it he can touch me? Not that I'm complaining or anything... far from it..."
"Jenny was doing some work on the alignment," Willow told them. "You still can't touch person to person, I don't think, but if there are clothes, and no tight pressure, then yeah."
"Oh, cool," Buffy said. "But I think Giles and Jenny have something to tell us." She gestured to the older couple sitting across from them.
"Uh, okay..." Giles began somewhat uncertainly. "Something... something very strange has transpired here. We... getting on for one in the morning, your time, the two of us suddenly remembered things - things which had never happened."
"Huh?" Buffy said, confused. "Come again?"
"We recalled a series of events that weren't consistent with how this evening actually took place," Giles told her. "In which we found out that, um, that you had been visited by emissaries from the future - your own future selves. A Willow from ten years in the future came to Sunnydale, and Xander and Cordelia from the same time frame met up with Buffy, Willow, and Angel in Blackton."
"They claimed to be revolutionaries against the demons in their time," Jenny said, "and I guess they were, but they were also posessed by demon spirits to lead you astray. Only Xander's perceptiveness led him to unmask the spirit and get into contact with the true Willow."
"At her suggestion," Giles said, "you arranged to remove the magical rings which, um, which stablized them in this time stream... which, the Future Willow said, would cause them to vanish from this time frame as if they had never existed. Which is exactly what seems to have happened."
"So, how do you guys remember?" Xander asked. "Are you like Guinan, able to feel alternate timelines??"
"Guinan?" Giles muttered, confused.
"Star trek character," Jenny told him. "Well, in my memory of this, the future Willow told me that there was a difference between Earth time and Elysium time. Maybe it's the fact that we were here in Elysium that allowed us to regain the memories of our alternates, once the end of the old timeline was reached."
"Uh, okay," Willow said after a moment. "Do you remember anything else? Anything that might be helpful?? You say that there was a demon order in their time - do they say what caused it??"
"Obayana won," Buffy guessed. "He won and he brought the demons of Hell over wholesale - is that it?"
"Yes, Buffy," Giles told her. "But Willow - the real Willow from the future, as opposed to the demon spirit - was able to provide quite a bit of useful information. There was... a postcognition, in her time - a prophecy after the fact, about three tasks you would have to complete before you could kill Obayana. They were... um, well, Jenny, I think you would remember them better."
"First," Jenny rhymed off, "to destroy the Order of Taraka and their retreat in the Himalayan mountains. Second, to obtain the Discus of Demonslaying from the Hall of Heroes. Third, to find the lost Fortress of the Chosen Ones."
"Wow..." Buffy breathed. "I don't even know what most of that means, but I bet I'll be pretty busy trying to do it all."
"Indeed," Giles said, nodding. "Marea and Franco should be able to help - and if there's anyone else you can think of to request aid from, it should be a good idea. Willow also left other pieces of advice - a reminder not to challenge Obayana before the Solstice, or before he has actually started to open the Hellmouth. She described a route into Sunnydale from underground, bypassing the shield - it's a little more vague than I'd like, but it should give you a way to start."
"Except," Jenny took over again, frowning, "She said that you guys, Buffy, Angel, Willow - you should stay as far away from Sunnydale as you can, until the last moment. And to leave your plans vague, so that it won't be easy for Obayana to spy them out."
"Well, I can map out that path," Xander suggested. "Even get the Resistance to help, too. If it's a route in, then it's a route out - we just need to follow it the other way."
"Yeah," Buffy said. "Wow. Suddenly this whole thing has gotten a LOT bigger, if you know what I mean."
"But on the other hand," Giles reminded her, "our chances are better now that we know what we're up against. Even if we didn't know that they were so bad before."
"Yeah," Buffy whispered, a tear starting to form at her eye. Xander started to hold her closer, but he could feel the damn 'alignment,' whatever it was, shift, and his arm was about go through her. So he held Buffy as tight as he dared, rather than let her slip through his arms.
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