SquidgeWorld Archive

Alexander 'Xander' Lavelle Harris, teenager, friend, protector and saviour of the world (with a little help from his friends, specifically Buffy) was having a bad day and what looked to turn into an even worse night. This morning, the seizures of his childhood, a dim memory at best, had returned full force and then some. After the first seizure which not even Willow knew about, everything had gone crazy. Firstly his sight had blurred, for one horror stricken moment he had thought he had lost his sight but when his eyes cleared he realised that he could see even better that before. Following this his body had start ache and burn all over. The heat had spread from his eyes and had seeped into other parts of him. He felt like every part of him was on fire and as the day progressed these feelings only got worse and worse. This brought him to his current predicament. The entire Scooby gang had turned out for tonight's patrol. He really didn't feel up to the task though. As the group walked through the current graveyard, Xander noticed that where earlier his sense had got sharper, they were now getting duller and duller and he found it getting harder to think.

Xander looked up through blurry eyes at Willow who it turned out had been talking to him for the past 10 minutes.

"Xander! - Xander, what on earths wrong with you, usually by now you've cracked at least 10 tasteless jokes," Willow frowned and took a closer look at her childhood friend. "You're ill aren't you! What are you doing out here if you're ill," she drew in a breath to continue her verbal barrage but as she did so the sounds of a fight reached them and on the nights wind came the familiar voice.

"Would you please hurry up?, I do have other stuff to do you know."

Xander broke into a run with Willow trailing behind, never realising that he was running faster that before. He and Willow arrived on the scene of the fight see Buffy take out the last vampire. She turned to smile at her relived friends, only to see the relived look turn to one of horror as they stared behind her. She had half turned to see what had so scared her friends, she caught a glimpse of something black and scaly before she was knocked to the ground, landing with a couple of broken ribs as a consolation prize. As she attempted to recover from the injury, the thing decided that now was the time to finish her off and ignoring her friends. A foolish mistake. Xander dove at the creature, somehow knocking back and holding off the creature until Buffy shoved a stake through it's heart. Xander turned to her with a goofy grin and unfocused eyes
and tried to say,

"That went we--" he didn't finish as he collapsed to the ground.

_____________________________________

Three strangers watch from the shadows as Xanders friends take him to a nearby hospital.

The first shadow spoke to the others, "he is the one, let the Trial By Fire begin!"

The others echo the shadow, "he is the one, let the Trial By Fire begin!"

Part 2

The last thing Xander remembers is blacking out in the graveyard after distracting the new demony thing that was trying to kill them. He remembers Willow and Buffy looking at him in shock, after that his vision seems to fade. He seems to find it harder to think, to feel, and then for some strange, weird reason the ground seems to up and hit him in the face. It takes a couple of seconds before it register's that in fact he was the one to hit the poor ground, he slips further and further into darkness, a darkness unlike any he'd ever seen before. He felt himself fall through that unfamiliar darkness and out the other side to a LIGHT, a light so bright it could pierce the veil of confusion that had fell on him, and pierced his soul so that he feels the greatest warmth he'd ever felt. For some unknown reason he felt like he was coming home.

Xander wakes up in a strange, yet airily familiar room. He felt that he had been in this room before. It was a huge room that had a high vaulted ceiling. The room is supported by intricately carved marble columns. He looked up at the vaulted ceiling, and started in surprise, carved into the vast surface were what were mainly battle scenes. As Xander looked around the room he saw that the walls were coved in carvings. Carvings that made him slightly nervous, What set Xander on edge was not the carvings but the fact that the carvings were moving as though the little figures in them were actually fighting. As looked closer he was surprised to find that he could actually make out the faces of the little figures.

He wandered about the room his astonished eyes gliding from scene to scene, from battle to battle, yet here and there among the endless battle scenes, were carvings of what could only be described as tranquillity. They stood out like fortresses against the battle fields, but as he looked closer he saw that they were all being eaten away by the battle scenes.

He was about to begin a proper examination of the room, when one corner of the room caught his eyes, at first he wasn't sure what he was seeing. He looked closer at the scene that had caught his attention. To an outside observer it would have seemed that he paled, and his eyes opened wide in shock and for a brief time, a time so small that it could have been imagined his eyes turned totally silver. The receded almost as fast as it came and then he let out a small gasp of shock.

"That's US!"

"Yes young one, that is your cadre of warrior's," came a beautiful voice.

Xander spun around trying to find the source of the female voice. All he saw was a spark of light that seemed to flicker in the room. As he noticed it the light grew and became brighter and brighter, so bright he couldn't look at it. the the light had faded he was astonished to see a beautiful and absolutely ravishing woman. Her eyes glowed a bright silver that looked a lot like the silver his own eyes had been moments earlier.

"Who-Who are you and where am I?" he demanded

The woman smiled at his question, "I have had many names in my lifetime, young Alexander, but you may call me Alisendra. And at the moment your body is on the way to the hospital but I have a feeling your referring to here. Like me, this room has many names in it's long life but the most recent one is the Room of Space and Time. It is also the reason you can be in two places at once but that is for another time. I think you have other questions?" she said with a gentle smile.

"Why am I here? Because personally I think your after Buffy you know, the Chosen One I mea-" he was interrupted when she raised her arm.

"No Alexander I need you because I need to awaken you to you're heritage, your blessing and your powers," the last she said with a voice full of sorrow.

"Me! I don't have any powers, I'm no powers boy, nothing special. See I'm normal." he paused taking deep breaths.

"I'm sorry Alexander but you do have powers due to your ancestry," she drew a deep breath "Al-Xander I have to tell you that well your a Guardian of Time"

You could have heard a pin drop in the following silence then THUD the sound of a body hitting the floor.