Chapter Text
Wesley proved once again that he was the superior watcher when it came to research skills. “I believe I’ve found it. It was miscategorized as an augmentation spell when really it’s more of an aggrandizement spell.”
“What’s the dif?” Cordy asked.
“We don’t care,” Alex interrupted before Wesley could do more than take a deep breath. “We want to know two things. What does the spell do and how do we stop it?”
Wesley frowned a bit at only being able to show off a portion of his vast knowledge. “The spell turns the sorcerer into a sort of paragon, the best of everything, everyone’s ideal, but there is a drawback. In order to balance the new force of good the spell has to create the opposing force of evil, the worst of everything, everyone’s nightmare. A terrible monster.”
“And the monster’s linked to the spell?” Alex made an educated guess.
Wes nodded. “Killing the monster will end the spell.”
“So will killing Jonathan,” Audrey added. She stopped at everyone’s look. “What? He cast this spell while we’re in the middle of dealing with two great threats: Adam and the Initiative. He’s getting no sympathy from me.”
No one could really argue with that.
Wesley spoke next. “Yes, but once you’re home, I doubt you’ll be able to kill him. You can kill the monster. And after the spell is ended...”
“He’s so pathetic that he’s not worth killing,” Cordy finished.
“Quite.”
“Will we be able to remember that we need to kill this thing once we’re back?” Faith asked.
“Oh yes. It shouldn’t be a difficult opponent for you either. The trouble will be remembering that you’re the ones that deal with monsters and not to go running to Jonathan for help.”
Alex looked around at his group. “I guess it’s time to go home then. Thanks for your help.”
“You too. Thanks for getting me out without chopping off my hands,” said Angel as he held out a hand to shake.
Alex took it and shook it. It was cold. He still didn’t like Angel and certainly didn’t want to be shaking his hand but he’d shook the hands of worse people as Lord Protector so he did what needed to be done and didn’t let his distaste show. With that, they were off. They biked to the bus station and were soon on their way to be put back under Jono’s spell.
They knew the second they crossed the spell’s threshold as they all—except for Jesse—felt a strong urge to report in to Jonathan but they knew they couldn’t. Still, Jonathan’s mansion was a good place to start looking for the monster and so, after escorting Audrey and Jesse home, Alex and Faith started exploring.
Faith found it first. It looked like a bat crossed with one of Disney’s seven dwarfs. A long beard, very hairy body, pointy ears, and a completely bald head which held the sign proclaiming the monster’s identity. Wes had shown them a picture of the triangle sign of the aggrandizement spell back in LA. She hesitated as a little voice at the back of her mind told her she wasn’t good enough, that she should leave this to Jonathan, that she’d only get hurt. Hesitating turned that last statement into a self-fulfilling prophecy as she was backhanded a good 20 yards.
Luckily Alex came running towards the sound of the scuffle. The monster, not liking the odds, turned and fled. The two heroes chased him until he ran into a dark cave.
“Maybe we should get Jono after all,” Alexander advised.
Faith nodded in agreement before shaking her head to clear it. “No. Remember? We can do this. You can do this.”
“I can do this. I can do this. I- can’t do this.”
“What about your dragon?”
“What about him?”
“Would he be affected by this spell?”
“I don’t know. But he’s too big to fit in that tiny entrance anyway.”
“What about his head?” Faith asked, ignoring the double entendre for now. “Whoa,” she said when the dragon appeared where Alex had been a minute ago.
Alex didn’t bother thinking about whether he was still affected by the spell. He just took a deep breath and breathed fire into the cave. Again and again he did it until the fire would no longer burn inside the cave, so he transformed back. “Whoa there. Stay back and wait.” He grabbed Faith before she could go charging in.
“Wait for what?” asked Faith.
“Hopefully? About 30 seconds.”
Both felt the snap in their minds when the spell ended.
“You burned him to death! Nice going, Al!” Faith held up her hand for a high five.
Alex accepted the praise but corrected her assumption. “Probably not. You saw how the fire wouldn’t go into the cave any more? I burned up all the oxygen. So, yeah, don’t go in there or you’ll suffocate to death the first time you inhale.” He thought for a moment and frowned. “Actually, I just realized I made the perfect vampire lair. They don’t need oxygen and we can’t go in there without scuba gear. Help me block it off and remind me to warn Buffy not to go in here.”
Once they had blocked it by dragging a downed tree over so that the roots completely obscured the entrance, it was time to head to Giles’ for the debriefing.
“Well, to be honest, no one really did any research after the first time you called. It wasn’t until this morning that we found out Tara had been attacked and we really started going at it, and then Anya told us about this world without shrimp and we got sidetracked a bit—which I blame on the spell—but then Wesley called-”
“Talk about a blast from the past,” Buffy interrupted Willow’s speech.
“It was good to hear he’s doing well,” Willow commented before continuing. “And he’d already solved it. We didn’t want to believe it was Jonathan, you know, ‘cause of the spell and all. Buffy was looking for it all day but we’re glad you got it.” She took Tara’s hand in her own as she said the last bit. Tara didn’t say anything, just gave a shy smile and ducked her head. She had been about to accept Alexander’s offer of healing for injuries she received when she was attacked by the monster when Faith had jokingly told the story about Angel getting literally backhanded by Alex. Tara had quickly decided to heal the natural way.
“I- I- I wanted to thank Xander. Have you seen him around?” Jonathan asked.
Buffy shook her head. “He and his wife headed out for a vacation. They didn’t say when they’ll be back.”
“Xander’s married?” Jonathan asked, shocked.
“Yeah, and he has a kid. Also, he goes by Alex now.” Buffy figured she should get the word out for him as she knew Alex was getting sick of explaining the name change.
“Well, tell him I said ‘thank you’ when you see him and I’d love to tell him in person if he wants to hear it.”
“I will.”
“So... Faith?” Jonathan asked. People outside of the Scooby gang only heard about half of what went on inside of it, but the feud between Buffy and Faith was public enough. Not to mention their fight in broad daylight on campus just a few weeks ago. When he heard that the two of them had buried the hatchet, he just had to ask.
“Yeah. She hurt Alex even worse than she hurt me. I didn’t think it was possible, but she managed it. But then he forgave her anyway and even has her doing most of the babysitting while he’s away. I guess I figured if he could do it, I could do it, too.”
“I like your airships. They’re much faster than the ones in Rivellon.”
“Yes, and cheaper too. Just about anyone can fly here if they really want to,” Alex said. They’d done the math and for a modest income, it was about 1% of a year’s pay, each way, per ticket to fly from LA to Anchorage. They’d started out comparing expenses to a month’s rent or a month’s groceries, but it turned out that Sunnydale was much cheaper than the average cost in the US for both those main expenses. So now they compared expenses to a fictional yearly income for a laborer so that Audrey could have a frame of reference for the cost of things.
“Though it is nice that we’re rich and can fly first-class,” Audrey added. She had seen the cramped seats of coach and had thanked her husband for booking the more luxurious arrangements. They had stood out in first-class of course. Not for their casual dress—there were some men in suits, but several others were dressed comfortably too—they stood out for being so young.
Once the plane landed, they headed right out, not having checked any luggage—they wouldn’t be staying long. They started walking east on Airport Road. They had to head north for a bit on Minnesota Drive but turned east again on Tudor Road. According to their map, this road would get them as close as possible to the mountains they wanted to get to.
They got some directions from a local in a brown and gray truck as to how to get on the hiking trails. Once clear of prying eyes, Alex took Audrey’s backpack and transformed into a dragon. He waited until she was securely seated on his back and gave him a pat to let him know she was ready. A running jump later, and they were in the air. He could hear the shriek of joy from his rider and smiled.
Alexander stayed low for several minutes until they were well clear of any humans and the foothills below them started to become small mountains. Higher and higher they climbed then, pushed up by thermals of rising hot air and ocean breezes pushed skyward by the mountains. Once they reached as high as the winds would carry them, he dove. Wind drowned out his wife’s joyous screaming this time, though, he already knew she enjoyed this as much, if not more, than he did. Probably because she didn’t have to do all the work in getting them to height in the first place. He pulled out of the dive and used his speed to zoom climb back up.
Next he did a loop. Audrey always loved the feeling of flying upside down. On his last dive, he corkscrewed down and then skimmed the tops of the trees while dodging imaginary wyverns.
His speed bled off in those maneuvers and he was forced to find another thermal to take them up for another round. They went like that until it was nearly sundown before they headed back to find a hotel for the night.
Audrey, being a mother, couldn’t help but wonder how Jesse was doing without them as they ate their dinner. And afterwards... she had two draconian katras (one for tonight and one to switch back) hidden in her bag and a plan to get her husband to agree to use them.
Jesse was having the time of his life playing with “Aunt Faith.” She had as much energy as his dad to keep up with him but she never went away to fight a war (as far as he knew anyway).
“That looks exhausting,” a voice said nearby. “Is it hard for you to be babysitting him?”
Faith looked and was surprised to see Tara without Willow. Faith threw the Frisbee they were playing with particularly hard so the kid would have to chase it down, giving the adults some time to talk. “Nah. Kid’s old enough to clean himself so all I gotta do is wear’im out, order some pizza, and carry him to bed when he conks out watching Aladdin. Not sure the kid’s even seen the end of that movie.”
Tara gave a shy smile at Faith’s description of her duties. “And breakfast?”
“Leftover pizza, of course.”
Tara actually giggled at that. She pulled a thin container from behind her back. “We uh- that is, Willow and I- uh.”
Faith took the present and opened it to find a necklace with her name on it. “Wow,” she said as she absently caught the Frisbee that had been heading for Tara’s head.
Tara meeped, having not realized how close the toy had been until Faith caught it. Once the disk was on its journey back again, she could talk. “It’s just like all of ours. Only you can wear it and you can send out a distress signal if you’re in trouble.”
“Help me put it on?”
“I can’t. That’s part of the magic,” Tara explained. “But I can hold your hair for you while you do it.” As she was holding the hair she just had to complement it. “You have lovely hair. I’m glad Alex didn’t get it cut.”
“He was going to cut it?” Faith asked in mock horror, turning around to model the necklace.
Tara nodded. “And get your,” she swallowed and licked her dry lips as she glanced down, “boobs reduced too.”
“Not my girls! That bitch!” she laughed. Yeah, she agreed that Alex didn’t make a very good girl. Little did she know that somewhere in Alaska, Audrey was vehemently disagreeing.
“Why are we here, again?” Buffy asked.
“We’re making nice with the government agents by attending their kegger,” Willow answered.
“Who are you?” Spike asked as the door to his glass cell opened.
Adam held out a hand. “Come with me if you wish to not cease existing.”