Summary:

About 8 months after the defeat of the first, Xander and Willow are running a slayer school in Africa. The town, despite not having a hellmouth anywhere near it, has a high vampire population. That can't be good, can it? Sequel to 'The Eye of Xander'.

Spoilers:

All seasons

Rating:

T-rating(13+)

If you're allowed to see the show, you should be allowed to read this. Violence and swearing are kept to the same levels as in the show or lower.

Disclaimer:

I don't own a bass-guitar. I don't have a job. I don't own any chips, 'cause I ate them all. Am I forgetting something here?

Author's notes:

This is the sequel to 'The Eye of Xander'. It's recommended that you read that story first, though it's not a requirement. The story takes place sometime after season 7.

Chapter 1: Orphan

Sister Agnes switched her gaze between the letters she had gotten from the Kenyan authorities and a company called WCI, and the two visitors, who were quite possibly the strangest people she had ever met. On the left sat a young African woman clad in clothes that barely did anything to cover her body. Yet for all the attention she brought to herself with her clothes or rather lack thereof, she hadn't spoken a single word.

On the right sat a dark haired young man. He had a patch covering his left eye, and his clothes, though they at least performed their function of covering the body, didn't look very professional at all. He, unlike the woman, was chattering away with jokes that were not very appropriate at all, but he seemed suitably embarrassed about it.

It wasn't that she hadn't seen any people with similar clothes or attitudes. It was the fact that the man and woman were supposed to be the head and his assistant of an upstanding private school founded by the WCI, at least according to the letters and identification she had received.

"And exactly why are you interested in having Sera Peters attend your school, Mr. Harris?"

Interested was a bit of an understatement. They had not only offered Sera a place at their school, which had three Oxford graduates professing there. They also offered her a place to sleep, food and even a modest weekly allowance for anything else the young girl would need. And once she graduated at their school she would receive a scholarship to attend any college she wished to attend. All of this was free of charge.

"The WCI is a bit stretched thin at the moment. They have enough money to rebuild everything they lost when their headquarters blew apart because of that gass-leak-thingy, but they lack the specialized personnel. So they're hoping to attract some by funding their education."

"They? Are you not employed by the WCI?"

"Er...yeah I am, but only recently. I'm not real comfortable just yet with calling them 'we'"

"And miss Peters is not required to end up working with the WCI?"

"Nope. We're hoping we can persuade her to, but there will be no requiring or forcing involved whatsoever."

Sister Agnes nodded. It all seemed just a bit too good to be true, but really, there was little choice. The limited funds the St. Peters orphanage received was barely enough to keep on going as it was. If Sera was going to attend this school, it meant that another orphan could be taken care of even though Sera would still remain under her guardianship. Besides, she was going to visit the young girl regularly to make sure she was taken care of.

"Would you like to see her now?"

"Yes, very much."

Xander eyed the girl closely. She looked so young and she was young. At the age of eleven she was the youngest slayer in Africa, that they knew about anyway. Her blonde hair barely reached his chest. It was unbelievable that this girl was several times stronger than the average adult.

"You must be miss Peters." Xander stated.

Sera looked at him with curious assessment.

"Just Sera, I don't have a last name." she replied.

Xander nodded in understanding. Last names referred to parents. Something Xander was all to familiar with. He wasn't too fond of his own parents, especially his father, and as a result he still winced everytime he was called by the name of 'Mr. Harris' even though he really didn't have any contact with them. Sera didn't have any parents. Those who had abandoned her hadn't even left her their name. It's why she was registered as Sera Peters. Her last name simply referred to the orphanage.

"I'm Xander."

He stuck out his hand and the young girl shook it firmly. Then he looked around to take in the room. There were six beds and three reasonably large closets, but other than that there was pretty much nothing. The beds were all made neatly and pretty much looked the same with their grey covers.

Sera was still looking curiously at him. It didn't seem like she had made her mind up about him, but if she was scared at all, she didn't look it. Xander wasn't sure how to begin. He hadn't done this too often and usually when he did, he was talking to someone closer his age, someone who's reactions he could better anticipate.

"So, Sera. Have you ever heard of vampires?"

In the next 10 minutes Xander explained about vampires, demons and vampire slayers. He didn't go deep into details, but enough for the young girl to get a basic idea of what was going on.

"You probably noticed that you have become stronger, it's because you are a slayer. That's why I'm here."

Xander watched the young slayer, who had been listening. Though she had occasionally looked surprised and mystified, she hadn't interrupted him at all. Nor seemed there be any indication she thought he was making it all up.

"There's a school in Kisumu, Kenya where we train slayers. I'm here to invite you to attend it."

"Yes." Sera smiled brightly.

Xander looked at her in astonishment. This young girl had so readily accepted everything he had told her. So far every time Xander explained a slayer about vampires and demons, she was disbelieving and demanded proof, and even after they got proof they didn't really believe him. On the other hand, all those slayers had been several years older.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes." She returned with a determination that rivaled Willow's 'resolved face'. Then she added with an even wider smile. "I'm going to be a superhero."

Xander returned her infectious smile. This recruitment was going better than he had hoped for.

"Speaking of superheroes..." He opened his backpack, fished out something between the stakes, holy water and other weapons and handed it to Sera. The young slayer looked at it and her eyes lit up. The look on her face at the sight of the first edition of the Amazing Spider-man was indescribable. Xander couldn't remember the last time he had seen such a pure joyous expression, and that over a single comic book! Though, looking around the room it was obvious the girl didn't have much possessions, let alone comic books.

His smile vanished and he turned back to serious.

"Being a superhero isn't easy, you know. It will be difficult. Sometimes you will have to fight when you don't want to. Sometimes you won't win your fight and often you and other people will get hurt. It's a very dangerous job. And you won't be fighting for several years, we'll leave that to the older slayers."

Sera nodded, but hadn't changed her resolve.

"What about you? Are you a superhero too?"

Xander smiled sadly.

"No, I'm not. I don't have any superpowers. I'm just the guy who fixes things that are broken when another demon thrashes the house."

"What about your eye, what happened to it?"

The question took him off guard. He would have been angry or at least annoyed by it if it wasn't for the utter curiosity the girl showed. Usually when people asked, they showed him pity but without really seeming to care at all. Others just looked at the eye-patch with pity, but didn't ask at all. Which one was worse, Xander didn't know. This time he didn't mind explaining, he just didn't know how much of it to tell her.

"Eight months ago there was this really strong demon Caleb. He was much stronger than even slayers and he was guarding something called a Scythe, a powerful axe-like weapon only slayers can wield. We attacked him at an old vineyard he used as his base, but he was too strong. He knocked out Buffy, our most experienced slayer, in a single blow and everyone else was fighting these other demons, called Bringers. They weren't as tough, but there were a lot of them. I attacked Caleb, but I was no match for him. In that fight my eye got injured beyond repair."

"But you won in the end, right?"

"No we didn't, we lost. We fled before any more of us got injured. A few days later Buffy returned to the vineyard on her own. She took the Scythe and slayed Caleb with it."

"So, you're not a superhero, but a regular hero."

Xander felt amusement at the thought of a hero being called 'regular', he felt amused about himself being called 'regular', but this was the first time he had been called a hero. He wasn't exactly sure how he felt about that. On the one hand being called a hero was flattering, but the simple fact remained that he wasn't one. A hero wouldn't have left his fiancée at the altar. A hero wouldn't loose sleep over a small thing as losing an eye. If he had been a hero, he wouldn't have frozen at the sight of the gun when Warren decided to try and kill Buffy with it. If he had been a hero, Tara would have been alive and Willow wouldn't be as messed up as she was.

"No, I'm not a hero."

"But you fight demons! If slayers who fight demons are superheroes then aren't regular people who fight them regular heroes?"

"I don't fight demons as much as that I get tossed around by them. Heck, most of the time, I'm the one who needs rescuing. I'm the damsel in distress, not the knight in shining armor."

Sera laughed at that and Xander in turn grinned. Then the young girl turned serious.

"Then why do you fight?"

For an eleven-year-old she sure knew how to ask the tough questions.

"Because I...I can't just sit around and do nothing, and in rare cases my blundering actually turns out to be useful."

Sera nodded and smiled, though for the life of him, Xander couldn't figure out why she was smiling.

The two of them spend another good part of an hour talking about Sera's life, her current school and the slayer school. Sera agreed to sleep on whether she was actually going to attend the slayer school. Xander found himself trying to impress some more of the negative side of being a slayer on her, but everything he said seemed only to strengthen her resolve. Usually he had to do the exact opposite to try to even get a slayer to check the school out.

As Xander and Meko left the orphanage to return to their motel room he reflected on how the 'recruitment' had gone. Sera was smart, that was certain. Not Willow-smart, the young girl didn't get straight A's at school, but she was perceptive and curious but careful. She had managed to surprise him 4 times in just a single conversation and with everything that Xander had seen there weren't many things that surprised him. Things at 'slayer high' were definitely going to be interesting with Sera around.

Author's notes:

Ok, I must say, Wow! This chapter came to me as a surprise, even though I wrote it myself. Originally Sera was going to be playing a small role, but now it seems that she's going to be one of the main characters together with Willow and Xander. Buffy, Giles and Dawn are going to be playing lesser roles and they won't really be appearing in the first few chapters.

Where as 'the Eye of Xander' was a story based on a single idea I had, 'Demon of Elgon' is going to be a mix of ideas, which will make the story longer. Also, while I have the big lines of the story in my head, I will be writing the chapters on the fly, whereas the previous story already had a first version written when I started posting chapters.