I'll just check.... Nope, no change in the ownership of BUFFY since the last chapter. Drat!
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The two Willows strode off together, chatting arm in arm, and the Slayer and the schoolteacher hung back, Faith keeping an eye out for any denizens of the night who might need discouraging. Eventually Jenny struck up a conversation.
“So, what do you thinks going on?”
”With Red? She’s got one of her bright ideas.”
”Any notion what?”
”Nah. I don’t worry about the intellectual stuff. They give me a target and a briefing and I’m happy. The ideas are the Watcher’s problem. So you’re Giles’ girlfriend, huh?”
”Umm, maybe. Thought I was going to be. Me being a treacherous spy may make that a little problematical.”
”I wouldn’t worry. Our Giles, he’s been holding a torch for you: stands to reason your Giles is going to come round. And these guys, they’re fanatical about giving people a second chance. Hell, I’ve seen them give vampires and demons a chance to redeem themselves. They seem to be able to make it work. Most of the time. You’re not their enemy: you’re just someone with other loyalties. And they all know about the problems family bring. Does mean you’re going to have to make a choice sometime.”
”That could be… difficult.”
”Most choices are. Otherwise people would toss coins more. Ooops, here we are, I think.”
They had stopped outside the main Sunnydale cemetery and the older Willow was looking around.
“Right! We need to find a tomb with a pyramid on top. Buffy said it was around here someplace.”
”Where she went with the Scythe last night?”
”Uh huh.”
”Well, is that it?” The younger Willow pointed.
“Looks like. Faith would you kick the door down for us?”
”Hmm, we’re not being subtle tonight then?”
The dark Slayer strode towards the indicated burial place and gave the door a kick. It collapsed inwards revealing darkness.
“No lights. Did anyone bring a torch?”
The older Willow gave a flick of her wrist and a muttered word and inside torches on walls lit and a soft light filled the interior of the tomb.
“Follow me.”
Inside everything was as Buffy had described it to them, Egyptian themed architecture and suspiciously dust free rooms.
“Halooo! Anyone home?”
Silence greeted the Witch’s call and Jenny Calendar looked at her curiously.
“What were you expecting? Return of the Mummy?”
”Sort of. Let’s look behind those drapes. Ah ha! A sarcophagus!”
”What a shocking thing to find…. In a tomb.” The younger Willow was as confused as her teacher. The witch put her hand on the top slab.
“Okay! Feel that! Just humming with magic! Open sesame!”
And with a spurt of light the lid of the sarcophagus slid aside to reveal the body of an old woman dressed in robes.
“She’s not dead. Just hiding out. Let’s see. The enchantment’s got some sort of trigger mechanism to wake her up…”
”You can tell by just looking?”
”Pretty much… Let’s see now….” Again a murmur of words and a sparkle of power from her hands. And the woman in the robes gave a huge roaring cough and sat up, hacking horribly as her lungs started working again.
“Isis and Osiris! I hate this… This always happens… ” And she leant over the side of the sarcophagus and hawked loudly at the floor. “That’s better. Now… Who are you, what are you doing waking me up and why shouldn’t I just turn you into newts or something useful like that?”
”Hi,” said the witch. “I’m Willow. And that’s Willow too. Sorry to disturb you but…”
”Wait a second,” the old woman said and peered closely at her awakener. “You’re one of us!”
“You can tell just by looking?” said Faith. “Whoah! Wicked potent gaydar!”
The old woman glared at her. “Just a moment, Slayer. This is Guardian business.”
”Wh… What’s a Guardian?” asked the younger Willow.
“I am. She is. And you’re not although… Are you two sisters, or something? Explain yourself, woman!”
”Well, you see….”
”Not like that! The fast way!”
”What do you mean… Uhhh!”
The older Willow’s words were cut off as a beam of golden light shot from the old woman’s eyes and into the witch’s. A moment later both of the women’s bodies were surrounded by a golden halo with beams of light passing between them.
“Ms Calendar… What… What’s happening?”
”I don’t know, Willow. I don’t think.. I don’t think your other self was expecting this exactly. Although the old lady didn’t seem actually hostile…”
”Oh boy! Get back everyone!”
At Faith’s cry they all shrank back against the walls as the two women, now completely bathed in a golden aura, with Willow’s red hair turning bright yellow, lifted up from the floor and began to circle about the tomb, passing bolts of glowing light back and forth.
”Is this good?”
”Dunno,” said the Slayer. “But I’m not volunteering to get in the way of those blaster beams or whatever they are…”
The light built to a climax as they watched and a sort of subsonic screech passed through their bones and then just as suddenly it was over and the two women were standing facing each other on the floor, with Willow’s colour back to normal and thoughtful expressions on both their faces.
“I see your problem,” the old lady was saying. “But you’ve got to see mine…”
”I do,” said Willow. “But there’s really no alternative. And Buffy’s W-I-S-H….”
”For goodness sake, child, you don’t suppose any sort of demon is going to be able to get through wards I’ve set up do you?”
”You remember I told you what Caleb did to the other you?”
”Good point.”
”Anyway, what Buffy’s done has probably rewritten most of the books of prophecy for this timeline anyway so…”
”All right, all right, you’ve got me… I just hate being woken up early. I’m always cranky if I don’t get my full hundred years of sleep.”
“Uhh, excuse me? What exactly is going on?”
”Oh, Ms Calendar! This is Chra’histra. She’s a Guardian.”
”And what’s that when it’s at home?” asked Faith.
”The Guardians are the other half of the Council. We split with the Shadowmen over what they did to create your kind, Slayer, and went into hiding. I’ve been sleeping, waiting for the chance to help at the end as the prophecies are fulfilled and the Hellmouth is closed. I was supposed to be woken when the First Evil came to town, ensure that any civilian population got out of the way…”
”Oh,” said Faith, “that’s why the sudden emigration…”
”… and then ensure the Slayer got the weapon we had made for her and tell her about what it can do. Unfortunately, it appears that in the world you came from all our plans went for nothing because I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head!”
“Well, okay. Here and now we can retrieve the Scythe for this timeline’s Buffy and…”
“Not a good idea, Slayer. The Scythe rests in a solidified block of the blood of the last True Demon to walk the Earth. When it is taken from the black blood it is only a matter of days, perhaps hours before the End. One way or another, the Hellmouth will open fully and one side or another will triumph.” She looked over at Willow. “I understand that you won in a… most unpredictable manner.”
”Buffy’s idea,” said the older Willow, shrugging. “Surprised me that it worked too.”
”It seems part of the reason it worked is that the spirit of my counterpart in your world hung around after her death and managed somehow to pass on some of the knowledge and wisdom of the Guardians at the moment of you invoking the power of all the Potentials. And so initiating you into our Order.”
”Yeah, got that in the briefing we just had. Along with enough magical knowledge to make my head hurt. Do any of you have a painkiller?”
“Pain is the price we pay for learning. I’ll try not to rush your younger self so much.”
”What?” The ‘younger self’ was alarmed. “Say what?”
“You have a destiny child. A chance to become a Guardian yourself and learn to control your undoubted gifts. She,” a nod to the older Willow now popping some paracetemols Ms Calendar had in a pocket, “decided that you needed a teacher. And she thought of me. To be ummm, Merlyn to your Wart, if I caught the literary reference in her mind correctly.”
”Oh, right. I’ll have to lend you the book. Uhh, do you have anywhere to stay? If you’ve been sleeping for a hundred years…”
”This pyramid is my home. And there is enough gold and other necessities stored here to supply me with what I need. I will need someone to repair the front door though.”
”Humm. Right. It just might be a bit difficult to arrange phone service and grocery deliveries to a tomb… Though again, maybe not in Sunnydale… I’m going to have you as a teacher? As a tutor? Well, I suppose that’s good….”
“Of course it’s good, Willow,” Jenny came up and took her pupil’s arm. “You’re going to be taught by someone who knows what they’re doing and I can go back to teaching you programming and web security, which is what I’m paid for.”
”Ah, you are not without power, yourself young lady! You are of the Rom, are you not?”
”Yeah, the Kalderash tribe…”
”Ah, I knew a sorceress of the Kalderash when I was last awake. Remarkable woman. You have something of a look of her. Tell me, do your people still wander? Or has the curse laid on them by the Council been broken?”
Jenny blinked. “I’m sorry?”
”Is it no longer known? I thought it common knowledge among the Kalderash: that the Watchers were the ones who drove the Rom from their homeland and cursed them never to settle in any place. I thought it was excessive punishment, myself despite what your ancestors did but…”
With great self control and restraint Jenny just said: ”No. Actually, no. It’s not generally known… I think I’m going to have to have words with my Uncle Janos…”
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