Chapter 4

Several hours later Xander, Dawn, Buffy, and Willow were listening to the band as they played pool when Ford showed up at the local club. As Buffy, Willow, and Ford started talking Dawn and Xander wandered off to get fresh drinks and talk.

"So how'd the meeting with Ms. C go?"

"It was good." She said as she placed her order. "Ms. Calendar said that she should have the materials to cast an identification spell by Thursday. So I'll find out then if I'm human."

"Dawn…you ARE human. Whether you're the Key or not doesn't change that. Yeah, if you are it means that you weren't born like everybody else…but so what? Who wants to be a follower when you can be a leader? You never know…you could be trend setting a whole new way to have kids. No more pregnancies." He said with a laugh as he put an arm around her shoulders. "No matter what she finds, we'll all still love you. I promise." He added after telling the bartender his order.

"Then why tell me about it. Especially in the middle of the day like that. Janice spent the last 3 periods asking me what was wrong and I had no idea what to tell her."

"Sorry about that. I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Because in the original timeline your character didn't exist until about 3 years from now and a Hellgod named Glorificus showed up hot on her heels. So I'm not sure if with you here now she'll show up earlier or even at all." He said after picking up their drinks and starting back towards the others.

"Well we'll find out in a couple of days I guess." She said.

"Cool. In the mean time, don't worry about it. By the way, do you know who Jonothan Levinson is?"

"Yeah, he's the dark haired nerd in your year that's about as tall as Buffy right?"

Laughing he responded. "Yeah, that's him. Could you do me a favor and strike up a friendship with him? He's going to be important later on and he's super smart. Since I know you're having some issues with keeping your grades up being friends with him should kill two birds with one stone and all of that."

"Kay. I could definetly use some help with Algebra anyway."

They rejoined their friends just in time to hear Buffy say. "I'm gonna go get a drink." As she was walking away she lobbied a parting shot. "Ford TRY not to say anything."

As Xander started to rack up the balls on the pool table for a new game, Willow saw Ford as he looked towards Buffy and Angel as they were talking at the bar. "That's Angel." She commented.

"He's her 'special friend'." Dawn added.

"He's not in school is he?" Ford asked. "He looks older than her."

"You're not wrong." Xander snickered.

As Willow filled Ford in on the details of the Buffy/Angel romance, Xander began to slip into the hyper aware state that the Brotherhood called eagle vision. He did this for two reasons. One, he wanted to practice using the ability some more. And two, he wanted to see if he was able to pick out vampires from the crowd.

After a few moments, Xander achieved the correct meditative state, absently noting that he was achieving the hyper-focus faster each time. There was really no other way to describe it as, for a moment, a pulse that only Xander could see emanated from him sucking the color out of the world and leaving certain areas of the club, people, and items colorless and bland while others were glowing in a rainbow of colors. Being careful to maintain his concentration, the lanky teen did a slow scan of the room.

Dawn glowed with the royal blue of an ally, while Cordelia shown the same as from class earlier the blue of an ally covered in sparks of royal purple that he still wasn't sure about, from where she was sitting surrounded by her minions across the dance floor. Ford shown the red of an enemy and Willow was still a lime green tinged blue, Buffy was blue tinged with silver and black. Angel was the blue of an ally bordered in red and black. 'Lime green…purple…silver…black? None of my memories have ever seen any of those colors when looking at auras. I wonder what they mean?' Xander pondered. 'That'll make hunting a hell of a lot easier if one of those colors indicates demonic.'

As Xander concentrated on maintaining his hyper focus he mindlessly bantered with Willow, Ford and Dawn while they all took turns shooting pool. A short while later Buffy and Angel came over to rejoin the group and some tension laden words exchanged.

'And once again Buffy uses a poor sap to get a rise out of the corpse.' Xander mused. 'She has a lot of growing up to do.' When Buffy asks Ford to take a walk and then leaves with him Xander just shakes his head and goes back to ignoring Angel. As he racked the balls, Angel left unnoticed by Dawn or Willow.

The next day went the same as Monday. Between working out, discussing the new website with Janna and making sure he jumped through the appropriate hoops for the State of California, Xander didn't have a lot of time to hang with Buffy and Willow. Not that they noticed, between Buffy hanging with her old friend and avoiding Angel, and Willow researching Ford for Angel and avoiding Buffy they didn't have a lot of time to miss their Xander-shaped friend. It wasn't until Wednesday after school that Xander got a chance to talk to Jonothan. Dawn had slipped him a note to meet up in the computer lab after school. When he walked in, he found Ms. C, Dawn and Jonothan talking as they congregated around the teacher's desk.

"What's the what people?" He greeted everybody.

"Hey Xand." Dawn chirped. "Jono was possessed on Halloween too. He's willing to talk about it and I figured you and Ms. Calendar would want to hear this."

"Excellent." He said. "Cuz I've been wanting to talk to him for awhile now." He said before turning to the short young man. "Hey Jono…Long time no talk." Xander greeted him.

"Hey Xander. W-what's going on?" The shorter dark haired teen asked. "Dawn said that you and Ms. Calendar could explain what happened to me on Friday night."

"Well, it's like this buddy." Xander said before explaining the truth about reality and the nightlife of Sunnydale. He then went over who the Scoobies were, what they did, and the events of Halloween. "And that's about it…now who did you dress as and what do you remember from your possession?"

"That actually explains a lot. Not just about Halloween but about life in this town." The young genius said. "Well, I dressed up as an ancestor of mine. Samuel Colt. And I'd say I got all of his memories from birth to death and everything in between."

"Who's he?" Dawn asked.

"He was an inventor and business man a little over a hundred years ago. He was the owner of the Colt firearm company and according to his memories a demon hunter. He also designed and built the first revolver." The dark haired young man said in a relieved voice. "I thought I was going nuts before Xander told me demons were real."

"Another cool thing is that he invented and built a gun that could kill anything. Any demon, vampire or other supernatural creature…nothing short of God or the Devil could survive a shot from that gun." Xander chimed in. "Well, we're going to need two of those." Xander added with a laugh.

"Wow." Ms. Calendar said in an awestruck voice.

Smiling Jonothan replied. "It doesn't work that way Xander. Some very specific ingrediants are needed and a significant astrological event must be occurring during the gun's creation in order for it work correctly. When Colt built his version, Haley's comet was flying over head, and since that won't happen again for another 50 years…"

"Well that sucks."

"Wait…how'd you know about that gun Xander?" Jonothan asked.

"Because of who I was possessed by. He had a lot of time on his hands and watched a lot of TV. One of the shows he watched was about two brothers who were demon hunters. They used a gun called The Colt, which was invented by a demon hunting version of Samuel Colt to kill several high level Demons."

"Huh?" Jonothan asked looking thoroughly confused.

"Think of it like the Mirror 'Verse in Star Trek." Xander said. "You're possession is from a universe that was a TV show to my possessor. We're also a TV show to him. Here he's a video game character. And in about 10 years more than likely that show will be made here too."

As everyone looked at him as if he was crazy he continued. "Cordelia's possessor was a TV show character to us and as far as I know none of us or our possessors even rated a comic book in her universe."

"Who'd she go as?" Dawn asked, as she really admired Cordelia's fashion sense and take no prisoners attitude.

"She dressed as a belly dancer and for some reason that translated to having her possessed by Amanda from the Highlander TV show."

"Wow! Does that mean she's Immortal too?" Jonothan asked since he was a huge fan of the series.

"She says not, since she still heals as slow as a mortal." Xander replied. "So she's either still mortal or a pre-immortal."

"Yeah…so what were your costumes?" Jononthan asked the others.

"I got my costume from Party Town and didn't get possessed." Dawn replied.

"I stayed home and didn't dress up." Janna said.

"I went as Desmond Miles." Xander replied.

"From Assassin's Creed?" Jono asked.

"Yeah."

"Cool…so did you keep the memories of his ancestors?"

"Yup, everything about Desmond Miles, Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and Ratonhnhaké:ton is floating around up here somewhere. "

"That's kinda good and kinda bad. They killed A LOT of people. And you remember it all?"

"All of it. But if Colt really was a demon hunter I'm sure you've got some nasty memories floating around up there too."

"Yeah…some of the things those demons did weren't pretty."

"That's actually one of the things I wanted to discuss with you Xander…you too Jonothan and I'll get a hold of Cordelia tomorrow." Jana chimed in. "As far as I can tell, you three and Buffy are unique in that all of you kept the memories you gained from your costume and at a minimum both of you actually seem to want keep them fresh and use them versus repressing them like Buffy is so they won't fade away. All of you need to remember that a person is quite literally the sum total of their memories. Every new experience creates a memory which affects your personality, usually in ways you don't notice consciously. All of you have just gained massive amounts of new memories and that's going to affect you in various ways whether you like it or not." She paused as she looked both of the teens in the eye, trying to convey the seriousness of what she was saying. "It's going to take time for you to process the new memories."

"Yeah, it's a little weird when I run into something new and have information I didn't realize I had tell me what's the what." Xander said.

"Same here." Jono commented.

"Well than, it's even more urgent that you get these new memories processed and integrated as soon as possible." Janna said. "Normally that would take weeks at a minimum. What I would like to do with your permission is cast a spell I've found to help you process them faster."

"Yes please." Jonothan eagerly volunteered.

With a look of trepidation Xander said, "I don't know Ms. C, me and the mojo don't exactly go together like sponge cake and ooey-gooey creamy goodness."

"Trust me Xander, it'll help." She urged her student.

With a heavy sigh and a look of resignation he said, "Okay. So when are we doing this and how long will it take cuz I've got to meet up with Willow and Deadboy at nightfall and the last thing I want is to space out during a fight."

"Dead Boy?" Jono asked.

"Dawn can fill you in." Xander answered before turning back to the pretty teacher and waiting for her answer.

"The spell will take about 15 minutes, and Dawn you can either stay and go."

"Do Xander first since he's got somewhere to be and I'll go next." Jonothan said.

"I've got to get home, I'll let mom know I'm staying late tomorrow so Jono can help me with my Algebra and I'll answer his questions about Sunnydale." Dawn said.

"That'll work." The shorter man said to the Slayer's little sister.

"Alright then. Let's get started." The pretty Gypsy said as Dawn left the computer lab.

Pulling some mystical knick knacks from a cupboard at the back of the classroom, Janna began to cast a spell from her personal grimoire, the text containing the spells a witch knows. It was an old spell of her clan created when her clan were body snatchers. Her ancestors would possess a person's body and with the aid of spell gain their memories. Having modified the spell to help her students, it would now drain the emotional content from the memories while simultaneously sorting and storing them for easy conscious retrieval. An hour later the spell had been affectively cast on both teens and Jonothan had left.

Once the spell had been cast, Xander felt an incredible sense of relief as he no longer had multiple voices whispering in his ear at every moment. As Xander and Janna cleaned up the evidence of the ritual Xander asked, "Did you talk to Giles last night Ms C?"

"No…my clan still hasn't responded. Which I suppose is all the answer I need." She said despondently.

"I'll fill him in on your history and you take it from there?"

"Thanks Xander."

"I'll do it right now. Go home and I'll have him call you." The young man said as he walked out of the lab.

Moving quickly through the hallways Xander walked into the library. "Hey G-man, you got a minute? I've got something we need to talk about and it's kind of private." The teen said as he looked around at a couple of students who were staying late to study.

"Certainly Xander." The British librarian responded, turning to give the teen his attention from where he was shelving books. "Follow me." He continued before heading straight for his office.

Once they had settled in to the cramped space with the door shut, the teen began. "Okay, so I found out some stuff about Ms Calendar that you need to know and she can't tell you herself."

"What? Why couldn't she tell me herself and just what do you think you were doing spying on her? " The older gentleman began in a tirade before the dark haired young man interrupted.

"Whoa! Hold up Giles. I overheard a conversation and asked her about it. She was trying to get permission to tell you this stuff and they were denying her. She's under a magically binding oath and can't discuss this subject with anyone who doesn't already know. Luckily since I overheard…Well, now I'm in the know and can inform others. Get it?" He asked sarcastically. "Now don't freak out. Jenny Calendar's real name is Janna Kalderash of Clan Kalderash. She's a member of the Gypsy clan that cursed Angelus a century ago, and she's here to ensure that the curse doesn't break. Apparently their seer sensed that the curse was weakening and sent her here to find out what was going on."

Paling rapidly, the older man pulled off his spectacles and began to polish them furiously as he processed what his young student had just told him. The woman he might be in love with was a spy, the curse that kept the leader of the Scourge of Europe from killing was vulnerable to being broken, and the Slayer could be in danger. With the hundreds of questions swirling around in his head he vaguely heard Xander say…"She'll be at home all night. I suggest you guys talk. Oh, and Giles…she really must like you if she was trying to break with her family in order to tell you this stuff." With that the young man stood and walked out of the office.

Later that night after getting a call from Willow, he met up with her and Angel in order to do some snooping around a new place called the 'Sunset Club'. Walking down an alley in the industrial district, the trio had just spotted the address that the young hacker had dug up when she said, "The only thing I could track down was this address. The Sunset Club. I still didn't find anything bad though."

"He leaves no paper trail, no records, nothing. That's pretty incriminating Willow." The vampire said.

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to vote with Dead Boy on this one."

"Could you NOT call me that?"

"I could." The teen said as he knocked on the door for the club. When an old fashioned viewport opened, Angel said "We're friends of Ford's." After getting the nod, the trio entered into the gloomy interior. Glancing around the gothically decorated room lit by candles, the walls were covered by oil paintings, with some antique furniture taking up most of the space and a door in the far wall. Walking through the second door they found themselves on a mezzanine overlooking a large circular room filled with a bar, several coffins and quite a few people dressed in gothic attire. A circular staircase leading down ran along the wall.

"Boy, we blend right in." Willow commented nervously as she looked down at the clothes her mother made her wear.

"In no way do we stick out like sore thumbs." Xander agreed glancing down at his own jeans and t-shirt.

"Look around. You guys check downstairs." Angel commanded.

"Sure thing bossy the cow." Xander responded before leading Willow down the stairs lining the outside of the room. Walking down they walked by a man standing in a coffin and wearing an elaborate movie vampire costume.

"Hi!" He greeted the trio with a wave.

Waving back and looking around Xander commented, "Are you guys noticing a theme here?"

"As in 'Vampires' Yay!?" Willow responded.

"That's the one."

A pretty blonde with pale skin and a rather revealing costume walked up behind them before commenting. "You guys are newbies. I can tell."

As Willow spun to face her she quickly defended them. "Oh, no. We come here all the time."

"Don't' be ashamed. It's cool that you're open to it. We welcome anyone who's interested in the Lonely Ones."

"The Lonely Ones?" Willow asked as Angel came down the stairs behind them.

"Vampires." Angel answered.

"Oh, we usually call them the nasty, pointy, bitey ones." Xander commented.

The blonde went on to talk about the misconceptions in popular culture about vampires and how they were special and not really monsters at all until Angel interrupted her.

"You're a fool."

Giving the vampire a dirty look she stalked off as Xander looked at Angel as if he were a moron.

"You really are a people person aren't you Dead Boy." Xander commented.

"I've seen enough. They're children making up romantic and tragic stories about vampires to comfort themselves in the dark. They don't know anything about vampires; how they live, what they are, how they dress…"

He trailed off on his unconscious rant as a young man dressed exactly like Angel came down the stairs and walked right by them. Uncomfortably clearing his throat, Angel led the two teens back up the stairs to get out of the club. As the vampire walked the two teens home they discussed various scenarios as to why the childhood best friend of the slayer would hang out with a bunch of wannabe vampires.

The next day Xander was brought up to date by Buffy during lunch about Ford faking the staking of a vamp that later came to the library and stole a book. She also told him about Drusilla, and that Angel had come clean as to what he, Willow and Xander had done last night.

"Hey, Buff. We were just trying to look out for you. If we were wrong we didn't want to worry you for nothing and if we were right you'd lose a friend and we wanted to let you down easy."

"I'm the Slayer Xander. It's my job to handle stuff like this. You could have been hurt. Don't do it again." She commanded.

Fighting back the urge to comment, Xander merely nodded and walked away. 'I have got to hurry up and get my combat training going. I wonder if Cordelia could use a sparring partner?' He thought to himself.

At the end of the school day he checked in with Ms. Calendar in the computer lab, along with Dawn, Jonothan, and Cordelia. As the sun glared in from the window the computer teacher quizzed the boys on how their night went and whether they'd had any more nightmares.

"Actually it was the best night's sleep I've had since Halloween. That and I don't have multiple thoughts every time a new subject is brought up so I can actually think straight again. It's great!" The Xander said as Jonothan nodded along with his statement.

"My head is definitely clearer. All the information is still there, but it's both easier to access and not as distracting. Before I had to really concentrate to remember anything, and now it just kind of flows…just like all my other memories. The memories are also much clearer and…I don't know how to describe it, more ordered maybe?" He finished in a questioning tone. "They're all razor sharp and crystal clear now if I think about them or try to remember something, but if I'm just doing homework, or reading or conversating they just kind of flow along with the other memories and don't distract at all."

"Well in that case I'll take care of Cordelia and hopefully that will take care of the major problems." The undercover Gypsy said.

"Good. I'm next! These memories are absolutely wrecking my social life." Cordelia whined imperiously. "I had to break up with Devon because every time he talks about his music I have flashbacks to when Amanda hung out with the Beatles and how much she would love to kick his butt for being such a musically pretentious idiot. Not to mention what this lack of beauty sleep is doing to my looks. 1,200 years of decapitations isn't good for my beauty sleep. I think I actually have wrinkles around my eyes now!"

As the boys sat in the corner and quietly discussed making some hidden blades for Xander, the beautiful teacher cast the modified memory spell on Cordelia. Once the spell was complete the four teens moved to perform a quick clean up of the ritual ingredients before moving on to other topics.

While Cordelia and Dawn talked about all the places Cordy had seen and things she'd done as Amanda, Jonothan and Xander were working on plans to acquire weapons for the fight. Jono had some ideas for inventions that he could patent and weapons he could build to help bring in some much needed cash to help with the fight. Jono also agreed to help Xander get everything in order so that he could become an emancipated minor. After about an hour the other teens left, Cordelia to do some shopping and Jono and Dawn to work on Algebra in the library.

"So? How'd it go?" Xander asked.

"Worse than I hoped and better than I had any right to expect." The teacher said with a depressed look on her face.

"What did he say?"

"He ranted about me being a spy. But then he thanked me for going against my family. He was upset when he found out about the weakness in the curse and said that he would talk to Buffy about it."

"I seriously doubt that's going to do any good. She's too hung up on the tragic romance of it all too just break up and move on." The dark haired teen commented. "But at least now we can say 'I told you so'."

"I hope your wrong Xander." Janna commented before continuing. "I would hope she's smart enough to put the lives of other people over her feelings for one boy."

"Me too." He said before continuing. "So I was going to go about this the traditional way, but since your magic was such a big help with the memories I was wondering if you had a spell that would boost my physical abilities so that I could match the slayer. Your spell has ensured that my muscle memory issues have smoothed out and I'm already in good enough shape to be able fight and win. But if I'm gonna go up against creatures with four times my strength and speed I'd like to be able to match them if I can."

"I don't know Xander; those kinds of spells are dangerous. Besides, nothing I could do would be permanent."

"Well, I just figured it couldn't hurt to ask. Relying on a hormonal teen in a life threatening let alone world threatening situation is not of the comfort making persuasion, if you know what I mean."

"Actually there might be away." Janna said in a thoughtful voice. "You were possessed by a primal spirit last year."

"A hyena alpha spirit actually…why?"

"Well a spirit like that would have granted you enhanced senses and greatly increased physical attributes."

"So what? You and Giles exorcised it."

"Well a possession like that isn't just exorcised. A totemic spirit like that is bound to a specific person for life." Janna commented. "In order to remove it we would have had to kill you. So, we didn't remove the spirit. We suppressed it."

"WHAT!?" Looking absolutely stunned Xander looked back at the beautiful teacher in shock. "You're telling me I've got that evil thing still inside me?"

"It's not evil Xander."

"You do realize that while I was possessed I acted in a VERY not good way towards Buffy right? And you want to put me under its control AGAIN? Are you nucking futs?!"

"Xander, a spirit like that has no concept of good or evil. It operates on pure instinct, YOUR instinct. Deep down you wanted to be with Buffy, and it must have thought she would be a strong mate. There is no love in the animal kingdom, that's why the females of most mammals go into heat, otherwise they couldn't propagate." Janna said while making eye contact to make sure that her student was really paying attention before continuing. "The problem was you had no idea what had happened to you and as a teenage male you weren't exactly been mister self-control. But now, with the added wisdom from your memories you should be able to control it and yourself." Janna finished.

"So what exactly are you talking about doing to me?" Xander asked wearily.

"Well if I do it right, I'd be turning you into a male slayer…kind of." Dawn answered.

"…" Looking down at his feet and then back to the beautiful brown eyes of his obviously crazy witch teacher, the young man had no idea how to respond to that statement. As her dark haired student had a minor mental meltdown the young witch began a detailed explanation of what would be necessary for the crazy scheme to work.

"Basically I create a talisman that will allow you greater self control to help combat the stronger instincts of the spirit. Now the talisman isn't meant to be a permanent solution. You'll have to gradually be weaned off of it so that you can learn to control it on your own. But it's a shortcut for the years of mental discipline you'd need otherwise." Janna said.

"So if I'm understanding you right, you want to give me some kind of necklace or something that will help me hold on to the me of me after you unleash the hyena spirit."

"Basically." Janna said with a nod.

"And you're positive that I'll be able to control it, and won't hurt anybody."

"Yes."

"When?"

"It'll take a couple of days to create the talisman so sometime next week." Janna replied.

"I trust you…so okay."

After agreeing to the witch's proposal Xander left her to continue her work as he headed to meet up with Angel and Willow. Apparently Buffy had gone to the Sunset Club to confront Ford. As the two childhood friends and the souled vampire entered the alley leading to the club entrance they spotted Buffy and a group of people exiting the building. Walking up to her Xander was just barely able to make out what Buffy said to her boyfriend as she was given a hug.

"You guys are just in time."

"Are there vampires?" Willow asked her only female friend.

"They're contained in the pit. They'll breakout eventually so we might as well leave. We can come back after they're gone."

"Come back for what?" Xander asked.

"The body." Buffy answered in a quiet voice.