Ch. 7: Peeping Charisma
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Buffy asked angrily, pulling on her bikini top. She didn't appreciate being...interrupted.
"Sorry," Charisma apologized. Her hand was still clamped over her eyes, which was why she was facing several feet away from the pair. "Really really sorry. PTBs gave me the green light, so here I am."
"Green light for what?" Angel asked, pulling on his shorts.
"I'm your guide while you're here. Kinda like your guardian angel."
"Um, you can open your eyes." Charisma pulled her hand away from her eyes and put on a pair of stylish black sunglasses. Dressed in a pair of white leather pants and a white tank top that stopped just above her midriff, she hardly looked like an angel. Her waist-length dark hair was blowing all around her face, and she looked up towards the sky impatiently.
"Could you guys lighten up on the wind effects, here? I feel like my hair's tryin'-a suffocate me." The wind instantly died down, and the teenaged angel faced the two warriors with a grim expression. "Sorry about the whole 'popping-up-out-of-nowhere' thing. I got the okay that it was alright for me to pay you guys a little visit. Guess I was misinformed," she added, shooting a glare at the sunrise.
"So...why exactly is it you're here?" Buffy pulled on her tank top and her skirt wrap.
"Told ya. I'm here to look out for you, make sure you stay on track, and...yes, I know, Faith, relax." She pointed upward and spoke. "Faith says they've discovered something."
"You know Faith?"
"Yep. Well, at least when we were alive. Don't see much of her anymore, what with her being a Power and all. ...I'm a Slayer," she added, smiling. "Or, at least I was."
"And who are you again?"
"Hmmm, never did introduce myself, did I? Charisma Moss."
"I'm Buffy, and this is-"
"Believe me when I say introductions on your part aren't necessary. Practically everyone on the Higher Plain knows who you two are. ...You guys are legendary." Buffy indulged in the idea of being a legend, until Angel broke in the conversation.
"What've the Powers discovered?"
"That you're not supposed to be here," she replied casually. Angel raised an eyebrow.
"They couldn't have discovered that before?"
"You don't get it. None of this is the way it's supposed to be. Something happened that night in Los Angeles. Something that changed the results of the battle, which in turn caused the Apocalypse, which in turn made the world the way it is today, which is why you're here."
"So...what was it?"
"Your guess is as good as mi- ooh! Doughnuts!" Charisma spied a nearby doughnut shop opening up, and her eyes lit up. "Be right back," she sang out cheerfully, and promptly made her way across the street.
"That girl...is very weird," Angel remarked.
"You got that right. ...Angel, all of this is very weird.I mean, we were up there for about three hundred years, and we've been down here for the past sixteen-"
"-Eighteen-"
"-Not knowing who we really were, and now that we remember, we're supposed to save the day again?"
"That pretty much sums it up. Except for the 'save the day' part. From what that kid said, it sounds more like we're supposed to change the world."
"Give the vampire a prize," Charisma muttered through a mouthful of rainbow-sprinkle doughnut. Angel gave her a look. "Okay, former vampire. Whatever. Point is, you're right." She continued to munch away.
"Care to elaborate?" Angel asked, feeling slightly annoyed at her flightiness.
"Sorry, it's just that I haven't had a doughnut in over three centuries," she replied apologetically. "After a while, you get these wicked cravings. ...Anyways, I already told you all we know. Willow took a look through the old Powers' files and things, and she found some prophecy or something that indicated that when the Apocalypse was over, the world would be in peace. Only it's over, and there's none."
"Maybe it was a different prophecy," Buffy thought aloud.
"Nah, that was the final one. Or it was supposed to be the final one, at any rate. 'The vampire with a soul shall wage war on the Evil Ones and they shall be cast from this plain forever.' Sound familiar?"
"Well...maybe it didn't mean me," Angel mused quietly. Charisma laughed.
"Boy, you guys are really clueless."
"It's not like Angel wasn't the only vampire with a soul," Buffy replied indignantly.
"Lemme explain something to you," the teenager began, taking a sip of her chocolate milk. She leaned casually against a palm tree and smiled knowingly. "The Powers That Be see all, hear all, know all. When they see something that's going to happen in the future -well, the future to us lesser beings- they transfer this knowledge to Seers."
"So the Seers are the ones who write the prophecies?"
"Don't get ahead of yourself there, Blondie. So, where was I? Ah, yes. Sometimes, when the Powers see events of an apocalyptic nature, they have to give mortals more warning, more help."
"So they write prophecies?"
"Nope. They delegate that task to the more literate angels. 'Cause see, we're really the only beings that can move at will between the Higher Plain and here. Well, the Powers could, but then there's the whole shifting-of-the-universal-balance thing...really catastrophic. Totally not worth it. ...So anywho, the angels write some obscure piece of junk that only total nerds can decipher, and dump the lot of it on Earth."
"Where is this going?" Angel interrupted. "What does this have to do with anything? You say that something went wrong that night when we fought, that this world's been changed? Sitting around here listening to you droning on's not gonna help. What's the point of this little lecture?"
"Calm down, Cupcake. I'm gettin' there, I'm gettin' there. My point is that no matter how obscure a prophecy may seem to you mere mortals, no matter how many possibilities you can fathom, the PTBs always know exactly what a prophecy refers to, exactly what's being foretold. Cordelia's assured me that it refers to you, Angel. She's also assured me that if we don't find a way to reverse what happened, things are only gonna get worse. See, by resurrecting you two, the spell you cast was broken."
"What spell?" Buffy asked blankly.
"When you two sacrificed yourselves, your blood created a barrier, banishing the Senior Partners from this plain of existence. But now that you're alive again..." Charisma trailed off, her meaning plain. "So, here's your mission, if you choose to accept: Go back in time, find whatever it was that made the world turn out this way, and stop it."
"And how the hell are we supposed to do that?" Angel demanded.
"Well, you'll need a large amount of mystical energy to pull it off. Plus the Amulet of Hermes."
"The Amulet of-?" Charisma pulled a long golden chain out of her pocket. On the chain was a large stone, the size of a fist, and it sparkled all kinds of shades of blue. Set in gold, with inscriptions around it, it looked positively ancient. Charisma tossed the amulet to Buffy.
"Okay. ...But what about the mystical energy?" Charisma rolled her eyes.
"I would've thought you'd be able to figure that one out." Buffy's eyes narrowed slightly. This girl couldn't be suggesting what she thought she was suggesting.
"I thought we destroyed it," she said quietly.
"You did," the angel replied, her voice serious. "But that wasn't the only one."
"Right, right. ...There was another one..."
"Honey, care to clue me in?"
"Cleveland, then?" Buffy asked Charisma.
"No, the one in Cleveland's far too dormant. Actually, Sunnydale was your best bet, that one was most active. But since you took care of that one..."
"Where, then?"
"Y'all are goin' to Brazil," Charisma replied cheerily.
"What's in Brazil?" Angel asked.
"The Hellmouth," Buffy replied quietly.
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