Xander lay on his bed in the basement. His eyes were closed and thoughts were running through his mind. Life seemed peaceful and had for quite some time. On the Hellmouth, peace wasn't something taken for granted. It was a rare event, and one that was to be cherished. Usually whenever the gang felt everything was peaceful, some big bad entered the scene and threw everything out of wack. But this time, the peace had lasted enough time, that maybe this time was the real thing.
That life on the Hellmouth was peaceful wasn't to say there was nothing going on. Buffy would still patrol nights and still slay the newly risen vampires, but these creatures had no direction. He though back to the last four years. The first big bads, Darla and the Master were dead. Angel's soul had been returned, Spike was now chipped and therefore not a threat, and Drusilla hadn't been seen in a long time, and so wasn't a threat, at least not to Sunnydale. The Mayor was killed in the explosion that blew up the school and his accomplish Faith was safely away in jail, so even the events which weren't even a year old had already been put to rest.
There was a new group in town, of course, the Initiative. But they seemed to be doing more good than anything else, with their hunting and killing hostiles as they called they, and the chipping of Spike. Also, one of their members, Riley Finn was keeping Buffy happy, and he was actually a normal guy, unlike Deadboy, and so that was also a good thing.
Lastly, Xander's own situation had been uneventful, ever since Willow and Giles had cast their spell of course. After the Hyena situation, and those of Inca Mommy girl, and Ms. French, Giles had done some research and found that Xander was some sort of mystical bullseye, causing spirits and demons to hone on to him for whatever it is they needed someone for. Willow and Giles were able to cast a spell to render him basically invisible to these forces. The spell was painless, and seemed to work perfectly, nothing bothered him anymore. He was able to just lie down in bed like this and have no worries. Life was rocking.
Inside Xander's head however, things weren't as cheery as he thought they were. The spell Willow and Giles had cast had one side- effect that they didn't anticipate, and one that had no apparent effect. In causing him to be ignored by the mystical forces out there, the spell amplified the mystical forces already working on him. Two forces, those of the Soldier and the Hyena awoke from their deep slumbers as soon as the spell was cast. It seemed that both entities weren't driven out when they lost control of Xander, but they were merely put to sleep.
And now they were awake. However, the spell acted as a jail cell for each of them. The Hyena thrashed and whined, but it could not escape the bars of invisible energy that bound it. The Soldier paced back and force in his cell, watching the Hyena intently, wishing for a weapon to put the dangerous creature down, but having none. Instead, the Soldier paced and planned.
In another area of Sunnydale, a figure marched through the white-washed halls of the Initiative, nodding to the salutes of the few soldiers crossing her path. She almost allowed herself to smile, but didn't because such an expression on her aging face would be cause for suspicion among the recruits. And Maggie Walsh knew that the best way of keeping a tight ship was to keep everything day-in- day-out the same routine. After all, the soldiers believed a few iron-clad facts about the Initiative. Some of which were in actuality true and some that were not. However, it was most important that these facts remain true in the eyes of the soliders. Otherwise, chaos would probably insue.
In the minds of the soldiers, the Initiative was a place created to study and eliminate hostiles, or the sub-human creatures such as those in the containment units that she walked by, the thrashing of the demons ignored by her steady glare. In order to accomplish these goals, technology was used. The chips in the heads of the demons that caused them to become peaceful or face unbearable pain. The cells that kept the demons from escaping. All of this was done with technology in the minds of the soldiers.
They were right to a point. Technology was being used, yes, but not to the extreme that was thought. Walsh's thoughts were interrupted when she entered one of the many restricted areas of the Initiative. This particular area required an eye scan, a hand print and a voice recognition and the correct password which changed daily before one could enter. It was one of the two areas with the most security in the entire complex.
Walsh placed her head into the recepticle and her eyes were scanned. Then she placed her hand into the imprint and it was scanned. Afterwards her voice saying the required password, "Velmore Demon" opened the first door. She stepped inside a small room and the door shut behind her. In front of her was another door with no markings except a small key hole. Here she inserted a key and was brought inside. This door again shut behind her, leaving her at the place she wasnted to go.
She was the only one with access to this room, besides the occupants, but they spent every hour of their lives here at the moment, as they had no access to anywhere else in the facility. In fact, the three occupants didn't sleep either, since they weren't human. No, the Initiative with all it's righteous goals of creating super soldiers to fight the evils of the world, was in fact run partly by some who if seen by the soldiers would definetly be bunched in the evil category.
The room's other three beings were demons, yes, but they were not of the evil variety. While the soldiers of the Initiative were unable to make such a distinction, Walsh was. These three, calling themselves The Shamans, filled the gaps technology left with their potent magics. It was they who powered the chips nestled in the gray matter of the hostiles. It was they who strengthened the electrified bards in the containment units.
The government who had ordered the Initiative's creation knew nothing of The Shamans. It was knowledge Maggie Walsh kept to herself. She had found out early on that the measures given to her wouldn't be enough to stop the terrors out there. She had contacted these three and offered them a contract to which after much haggling and changing of terms, they agreed to. And now, the Initiative was successful because of them but mostly because of Maggie Walsh's insight into the problem.
The man scratched his chin as he watched the screen monitor someone miles and miles away. The brunette woman sat in a jail cell, looking dejected. She was alone, deemed too dangerous by the warden to have a cell mate. So she sat, or paced or lay down, did whatever she could do in her controlled environment as her life wasted away. She looked like Faith, the Vampire Slayer, shut off from the world after being convicted of murdering two people. Alan Finch, the former Mayor's assistant had been one. The other, an unnamed Professor and Vulcanologist. But yet the girl sitting inside the cell was not Faith, but instead was an ingeneous copy created by none other than the man himself.
The girl mimiced Faith in all ways, from her manuerisms, to her sarcastic jibes, to her beauty. But, the girl in the jail cell wasn't her, in-fact, she wasn't even human. She was a robot, created by his awesome artificial intelligence skills to immitate her in every way. The man turned around and now looked into another monitor. The girl inside, while identical to the first one, was in fact the real Faith. And she didn't look nearly as healthy as her doppleganger. No, the real Faith looked like she was in hell.
She wasn't in a normal prison, or even a known prison. Someone who the man didn't even know had contacted him over a year ago with an offer. The man, with his own employees would be in charge of a project called FX. They would receive a large sum of money if what was needed was accomplished. The man known to the world as Warren Meers had snapped up the opportunity. He had been working on a prototype robotic girl, his former love April, but with the money and resources he now had, it was child's play to create the Faith-bot. He had only two employees, Jonathan Levinson and Andrew Wells.
The duo weren't perhaps the most qualified of all people, but they listened to Warren and in a way worshipped him for the job he had given them. While Warren was the technological genius, Jonathan took care of the information side. In the year since their project had began he had organized a network of spies, and given a day or two at most, he could know almost anything. Jonathan had always been a quiet, shy kid, but the realization of his dreams of money and power had changed the boy into a different man. Warren was grateful for the change. He had known what Andrew was capable of before, but Jonathan had always been the weaker link.
Andrew knew quite a bit when it came to the demonic side of knowledge. And to combo with this information, he was an accomplished warlock, who specialized in summoning. In high school, he kept a nerdish fa�de up to fit in, and this wasn't a complete lie. Andrew enjoyed geekish pleasures as much as the other two. But he had the stone-cold heart of a killer and had no qualms about summoning demons to feed on innocent young children.
The three of them became known as FXCorp, and with their money created an underground complex so they could monitor their charges. On the one hand the Faith-bot in jail near the Los Angeles area, and the other, the real Faith, hidden far below the earth, near the ever beating heart of the Hellmouth itself.
Faith didn't know about her watchers. She didn't know there was a copy of her in some posh Los Angeles prison. All she was concerned about was the hell she was currently in, and in revenge. Her prison was not a nice place, not at all. It was roughly squarish, with the walls a dirty brown, and no windows. The air crackled with magical energy, and the left-most wall pulsed like that of a beating heart. She had no need to eat down here, and nothing to do, but rot away to nothingness, or plan her revenge. Since rotting away wasn't exactly high on her list of priorities, she planned.
Before she had been incarcerated here, she had planned to march to the authorities and give herself up. After all, Angel had been a great supporter or hers, her first friend she could bare her soul to and know she wouldn't be judged for her crimes. B? She was little miss judgemental after all and could never get around the Alan Finch debacle that had driven a wedge between them. But once she was stuck here, those feelings of redemption remained strong at first, but gradually waned and were now nothing more than fleeting memory.
Of course, her newest decent into evil wasn't exactly Faith's fault this time. When anyone rests this close to the Hellmouth, close enough to feel the heart of hell pulse with every slow beat, the evil of the portal begins to seep into the person's mind and heart. Ever so slowly, the dark power corrupts, eliminating the person's compassion, and feelings of hope and love, and leading to the darker feelings, such as despair, rage and the passion for revenge.
Having no need to eat, or even sleep, she had had months to just keep thinking of vengeance - it was the only way she kept sane in this hellish environment. She thought of what had happened when she decided to go give herself up. It was after she had tortured Wesley, and Angel had given her sanctuary. Talking to the souled vampire was a new experience for Faith. He actually cared about her, and saving her. Those in the past that had tried to save her did so because she scared them, and they were worried about their own safety.
B, of course, managed to barge in when Angel and Faith were experiencing a nice moment, but for the look on her face, that pain her words caused were worth it. Though nothing sexual was going on, Faith could see that Buffy couldn't believe Angel would have moved on, even though she was screwing around with soldier boy. The vampire would hear none of Buffy's complaints however and ushered Faith upstairs to deal with the blonde Slayer.
Faith remembered listening through the floor and being amazed that Angel would come to blows with the radiant powerful Buffy over her! Angel was willing to punch his love's perfect face over the girl no one wanted. It was that moment, more than anything, that let to her later decision to turn herself in. Then of course, was the whole situation with the Counsel's crack team coming in to take her down, but compared to her moment of epiphany, that was just another dangerous situation, and being a Slayer, she had been in too many of those to count.
When she saw the souled vampire was going to take the fall for her actions, she had to act. The old Faith would have let him rot for being foolish to take the fall. But the Faith of that time, couldn't. The current Faith? She didn't know. Even though she wanted revenge and only revenge, Angel had shown her kindness, and he was the one person who was exempt from her plans. She ignored her rage for the moment and focused on the past again.
B had come in to stop Angel from taking the fall. She could understand his compassion, his willingness to die so another could survive. However, she couldn't understand why he was doing such an act for the salvation of a murderer, and someone who Buffy could never forgive. Was B there for some other reason however? Was she just stalling Angel so her captors could take her away? When she escapes this hellhole, the other Slayer has some answering to do.
Because when B was talked to Angel, trying to talk him out of giving himself in, Faith entered the police station and confessed. And then everything got confusing. She was ushered into a conference room so her confession could be recorded. Her savior and his ex- lover stood watching, silent. A policeman entered after her, but she never got a good look at his face. The room they entered was closed from the outside, so Angel and B couldn't see what was happening. That was probably B's fault as well, maneuvering Angel away so he couldn't see her fate.
The policeman, or whoever he was moved up right behind her and slipped his hand in front of her. The next thing she knew there was a rag of chloroform over her mouth and a syringe entering her side. She tried to cry out, but no sound came forth. Her consciousness was rapidly fleeing her, as she grasped out for anything to make some noise to bring in the cavalry, but nothing was in reach. At the last moment before she went under, she swore she saw a perfect copy of herself sitting on the other side of the table - and then everything was black.
When she awoke again, she was lying on a black marble table or perhaps an altar. There were three voices speaking to each other, sounds that burned into her brain so they would never be forgotten. They spoke of scientific bullshit that didn't make any sense to her, so she ignored them, and instead tried to figure out where she was. Quickly, she realized she was chained to the marble surface - with manacles that glowed blue. Not good, she thought, and scanned the room, trying to take in whatever she could, without giving away that she was awake.
Time slowed to a crawl, and she didn't know how long she lay on the surface. Perhaps, hours, perhaps days, time meant little to Faith anymore, it was only a measure of the strength of her rage. The longer she remained next to the Hellmouth's heart, the more the anger grew inside of her like some sort of demonic fungi. At last, the bearer of one of the voices entered the room, and Faith got a look at him.
He seemed almost familiar, some face she had seen at some party with B and the others, or perhaps in B's chemistry class when she had convinced the perfect Slayer to skip school. Or maybe this person was from her past. She had come across hundreds, maybe thousands of people in her past, and most of them, were just part of a fog. Only a few stood out for whatever reason. But this boy, at that's all her was, a boy not became a prominent figure in Faith's mind. She had no idea who he was, or why he had her tied here, but that could be found out later, after she escaped. How na�e she was then, Faith thought, to think she would surely escape.
The boy entered the room and said some words from a language she didn't understand. But she did get the result - her chains strengthened against her, squeezing her arms and legs. It took all her strength and control not to gasp out in pain and let the boy know she was awake. After all, so far she had figured out this boy was the one in charge of the magical chains. That was something to be filed away at least. The boy turned around, "Jonathan! Do you have the location yet? The package is ready to be shipped."
Faith thought of any Jonathan's she knew, but she couldn't come up with any. The name just didn't tie itself to a face as it did with B or Xander or the others. The second voice came back, "Almost, almost, yes!" The voice was happy and excited. "I've got it. Oh man." Now the voice became cautious and worried. "Andrew, you better know what you're doing. The boss wants her nestled next to the Hellmouth itself." The boy, Andrew shook his head and mumbled, "That will up the price, " and turned back towards his captive.
Andrew flexed his fingers, the knuckles popping in the effort. And then he began to chant in a low voice. Where normal words had flown from a moment ago, now unpronounceable ones came, with way too many consonants and very few vowels. At first nothing happened, but then Faith felt her muscles become taught as she was frozen, caught in whatever spell he was casting. Her thoughts of escaping quickly became dreams of it, as he waiting in increasing horror for what was to come.
After all, being nestled next to the Hellmouth didn't exactly sound like something you'd ever want to do, or even consider doing. Surely B couldn't have something to do with this now? Sure she hated Faith with a passion, enough to stab her in the chest, but this, this was torture if not outright cold-blooded murder. She was expecting demons to crowd where ever she ended up and while she would fight them, eventually they would overrun her defenses and flay the skin from her bones, and then lick them clean. No, B was involved, of that she was certain, but she wasn't the mastermind behind all of this.
Andrew's voice started to raise in volume as two more people entered the room. She imagined they were the sources of the other voices. One was the Jonathan guy, and the other one, she had no name for, nor did she know who was who. But they were obviously both involved as they smiled gleeful grins and watched the scene. Sweat began to pour from Andrew's brow as his voice was taken up another notch.
Faith began to feel movement, in the marble below her. The cold smooth surface began to shake and bend against an unseen force. Andrew's voice grew to a fever pitch, and his words became squeezed together, until he wasn't pausing anymore, but a continuous stream of gibberish poured forth from his lips. The shaking increased and rubble began to chip off the ceiling as the whole room joined into the rumbling. As rock started to fall from the ceiling it avoided Andrew like he wasn't even there, but the others ran for cover. Chunks hit Faith but she couldn't feel them.
Then the air itself began to crackle and burn. If Faith could move she would have cried out, instead she attempted to grit her teeth and bear it, but she was frozen still to watch in painful agony. Then reality started to flicker and fade away. She wanted to scream, to yell out in terror, but no words would leave her lips. She knew without a fraction of a doubt that she was now doomed. The flickering became faster and faster until it was all a blur. And then it all went black.
When she awoke she found herself in this very cell. She gradually learned she didn't need to eat anymore, which was a good thing since there was no food. She also didn't need to sleep, and her body didn't need to expel wastes. It was like she was caught in a bubble within time. She still wore the same clothes she had brought to the police station in Los Angeles. They weren't fraying yet, in fact the black hadn't faded at all.
But while her exterior remained the same, inside she became twisted and dark. All she lived for now was revenge, hatred, and pure crisp rage. The three boys, B, and anyone else involved would be wishing that had sent her into the Hellmouth and ended her life. Faith lifted her head and her eyes flashed black, a grim smile growing on her face. The ones who had wronged her would pay. And she would have fun bringing about their worst nightmares.
For a deaf man with tunnel-vision, standing at the back of the room, the scene in front of him could be at a normal church with humans in the pews, some standing up with their heads bowed, some in knee-bent prayer. The man in the pulpit, the priest, spewing forth religious doctrine from his book of scriptures while he spreads his hands widely. Tunnel-vision would be necessary so the depictions on the walls could be ignored, and the man would have to be deaf since the language sprouting from the priest's mouth was definitely not normal church talk.
In fact, the beings filling this room, were definitely not human and this place was surely not a church. Demons of all shapes and sizes filled the pews, listening raptly to the sermon of the demonic priest. To be here, to be allowed to listen to such glorious speech was a privilege for the demons, not a right. The speaker was a Demon Lord of such power that he had once sat at the right hand of the King of Hell, and the listeners had been invited here for a purpose.
Azrael did nothing without a reason. He had been alive for millennia in human terms, and each action he took, whether his plans stretched days or centuries was never done on a whim. Every small deed took hours of planning that he himself did, research his committed and exchanges of information he partook in. Other demons, given the status of Demon Lord would likely pass off such lesser deeds to others, but Azrael didn't trust anyone, and since his life- span was unlikely to end any time soon, time was on his side.
The demons in the pews shifted in anticipation. There were many rumors of the Demon Lord Azrael. Some said he had been one of the original Fallen Angels to accompany Lucifer out of Heaven. Others said he was the first demon the King of Hell created out of the ether in his new realm. Whatever was to be believed, this Demon Lord was not someone you ignored an invitation from. When he wanted to speak, if one could listen, one would do anything to be there.
And so, when Azrael had sent invitations as freshly deceased humans with the invitation scratched into their flesh, every demon accepted his offering and was here, filling the seats in front of him. He knew that would come, and he needed them to be here. In audience was the leader of every major demonic clan in existence. His latest plan was of epic proportion, and it was necessary these clan leaders did what he told them to do.
This place had been a church once where pitiful humans came to listen to worthless prattle and pray to an unlistening god about their useless lives. And while those inside the structure had been of no import, the church itself was a beautiful piece of architecture. That was the one thing Azrael admired about the lemmings above, they truly knew how to create art. The church had been created in the Gothic period of Earth's history. It had taken years to build, and the final result had been awe-inspiring.
When Azrael laid his eyes upon the structure, he knew he had to have it. So he spent the next forty human years of his existence coming up with a suitable plan to get it done. In the end it hadn't really been difficult. All that was necessary was giving some semi- powerful wizards a promise of power and they delivered him his church, full of petitioners and the priest on Sunday Mass.
Those humans still decorated the church, centuries later. When the building had reached it's final destination, sitting on a mountain of skulls in Hell itself, the priest had had the audacity of invoking the name of the King of Heaven's name for all of Hell to hear. The holy man paid for his crime still as he had been fused to a Satanic star and made immortal. He was in constant pain hanging high over the altar. His screams had long since frayed his vocal chords, but he was in a constant state of agony and would be as long as Azrael ruled this area of hell, which in all likelihood would be forever.
The other parishioners were no longer alive, but had each died in spectacular fashion, and their bodies, preserved over the centuries so their wounds and the nature of each of their demises could be cherished. Each former man, woman, and child was now one of the works of art Azrael enjoyed so much from the world above. He had taken each famous piece and created one of his own. He had works of art that mimicked Michaelangelo, Raphael, Picasso, and Leonardo Da Vinci among others.
But the clan leaders had certainly not come here to pay tribute to his genius. They were mostly a pitiful lot, with only a few being worthy of his respect. However, to keep with the proper procedures, they all had to be invited here. Most of the demonic clan leaders were beings of pure violence who would rather bathe in the blood of humans for forty days and forty nights then summon, bind and torture an Angel for example. On a whole they were much too obsessed with human kind to be much of a use to him, but he needed them all the same.
The devilish parishioners were starting to fidget. All Azrael had done as of yet was give them a welcoming speech that had perhaps been a tad too long. He had to remember most of his audience had little brain power to speak of, believing they were all invincible, so thinking about anything was a waste of time. He decided he needed to move onto the subject at hand, after all, the sooner he could get these piles of flesh out of his home, the better it would be.
"My friends, thank you for coming. I will now get to the reason you are all here with me in my humblest of abodes. I wish to tell you a story, of an event that happened nearly one thousand human years ago. I know not all of you were alive then, some were still the ether that had yet to be shaped into your glorious features, but let me speak my piece none the less. I doubt you will be anything less than pleased about the final result."
It paid to be a good host even if it meant lying through his teeth with flowing speech that would impress his guests. He pushed on.
"How many of you are proficient in the art of wizardry?" He paused while the arms or arm-like appendages of a handful of the sixty-six demonic guests shot up. He sighed. Without the occasional spell to occupy his time, he would often be bored. He didn't know how the others got on without it. "Ah, thank you. Well then, those of you who are able to use magicks would know that nearly one thousands years ago, there was a flicker in the power. Spells failed for the briefest of moments, but even in the tiny lapse, it led to some catastrophic results." Those who had raised their body parts a moment ago stood rapt, leaning forward, listening. Good - he pressed on. "Many lesser beings on the world above died when the lesser beings they summoned broke free, or the intricate spell the had been weaving failed at the wrong moment."
"The coffers of Zaliel, Keeper of the Damned had never received such a filling in such a small time. Our Army of Darkness' sorcerer division was tripled in size. It was truly a glorious day. Now, some of you may already know of these events and might be wondering why I would be talking to you of a minor happening, a glitch in Magic that is otherwise not important?" He paused, and sure enough he was rewarded with the nodding of quite a few heads. Fools, he thought, they have no idea how important that event was.
"Well, I have been in existence for longer than any of you and in all that time, there have only been a handful of moments where magic has stopped working. Just a few seconds, each time. Through my contacts and my books, I researched these events, and found that they have always been documented to happen on our day of rest, every one thousand years, that is to say in human terms, Halloween night."
At this there was some stirring in the crowd. Finally, he thought. One of them, oh what was her name, Xlalthia, decided to speak. "My Lord, excuse me for interrupting, but if I understand right, I believe you want us to act on the Day of Rest. That would however, as you know, break those few laws the King of Hell has given us. I do not think that would be the wisest of ideas, My Lord."
His mouth broke into a small grin, "Beloved Xlalthia," he paused to watch her beam at the mention of her name, "your concerns are noted. However, you will soon see that I have no desire for you, or any in this room to break the rules of the King of Hell. Just hear me out, you will certainly not be disappointed." At that there were some murmurs of acquiescense, and Azrael continued. "I believed there was more to these flickers in magic than just coincidence, and so, though it took me nearly three centuries to break through the seals, I have found that there is a being who controls all of magic. She is called The Eternal Magus."
This little factoid brought out the murmurs again, and they escalated into voices and shouts. He waited for them to quiet down. "It seems however, that despite her name, this being has a lifespan of one thousand years. On our day of rest, she leaves her sanctuary where she cannot be touched or harmed and enters the earthly world to pass her power to her successor. This girl is chosen in advance, and there is only one girl each generation that can fill the post. The transfer of power usually takes only a moment, thus the flickering of magic. But imagine my friends, just imagine if that moment could be stretched from a second to a minute to an indefinite period of time?"
"Imagine the chaos, my friends that would result when the sacks of flesh above realize their magicks are now useless. The coffers of Zaliel would overflow and the balance of the war might be tipped a little in our direction. All I ask is you listen to what I have to say, for I have a plan that will change everything." He had them now, he knew. They would follow him to their deaths if need-be, which they might very well have to do.
While Hell was aflutter over Azrael's invitations and Earth was at a rare state of peace, at least for the moment, a girl sat cross legged in a plain white room. She didn't look to be over the age of eighteen at the most, and she was dressed in plain peasants clothing, the clothing of a child a millenia ago. In fact she had sat in the same position, with her eyes closed for the vast majority of that time, in this room with no visitors at all. Some would think of such an existance and wonder how anyone could manage such a dreary life.
However, the girl known only as Virginia had no such complaints. She missed certain regular human haves such as the seeing the sun rise, feeling the golden orb's rays on your face on a particularly hot day, and savoring the taste of a good meal, but had she refused her current post, it was doubtful she would have lived long enough to enjoy such things for much longer anyways. And in the end, other options to a girl born in the Christian Year 985 weren't nearly as exciting or interesting as this.
She would have probably grown up working on her parent's farm, and passed away early, perhaps with a husband at her side, perhaps not. Maybe her death would have been painless, maybe she would have gotten sick first, or perhaps she would have been killed. To her, such an existance was much more dreary than her own. After all, had she remained on Earth a millienia ago, she would have likely spent most of her life in the room of a cottage, spinning fabric or something similar.
Instead, she sat in this room in perfect health and fitness despite the fact that she never, ate anything, did any exercise or slept. After all, she was the current occupant of the post known to a select few as the Eternal Magus, and her sphere of influence was the power of magick. It was she who wove the Weave that caused magick to function. It was she who decided if any particular spell would succeed or fail, according to the mandate she had been given.
Like she often did when there was a lull in the casting of magic on Earth and beyond, she thought about her past, before she accepted the post of Eternal Magus, when she was just a normal girl in a world so different from the current one that if a visitor could see both times concurrently they would swear there was no way the two scenes came from the same planet.
The year was 1000 A.D, and England was in a constant state of war. The northern folk, be they Vikings or Danes or Swedes were pummelling the country. Some battles were lost, but in the key battles to keep England whole, the host armies were somehow victorious. The country-side, especially near the oceanic border was ravaged from pillaging and plundering invaders. But the central area of England was largely untouched. The villages were still ruled by the same kind of folk who had ruled for a long time, and the life of the peasants was just as bad as it had ever been.
Virginia grew up in a small, badly built home that was frozen in the wintertime and too hot to handle in the summer. It hardly did anything to keep the rain out, either. But, regardless of it's failures, it provided the family with a sense of protection, whether it was warranted or not. Virginia lived with her mother and father, as well as four brothers and one sister. Their family was in charge of keeping a strip of land, and for the meager food that they were given, they had to harvest the crops. The men in the family were expected to help out in the fields, while the women aided indoors, sewing together clothes, and making what meager meals they could afford.
Virginia realized she wasn't a regular girl fairly early on. It started off as having especially vivid dreams. They included fantistic creatures such as dragons, unicorns and the like, as well as impossible magicks in a duel of wizards. She had always had a good imagination, as thinking is something to do when you are accomplishing the same duties over and over and over again, but her thoughts had never penetrated into her sleep before.
The dreams started the day she turned sixteen. She was startled the first morning when she woke up with them. She wanted to tell them to her mother, but something deep in her consciousness warned her that she probably shouldn't. So she kept such thoughts to herself. Overtime, the dreams became more and more vivid, and then, when she turned seventeen, she began to have visions during the day. At first, she thought she was day-dreaming, but her eyes were open. The creatures appeared everywhere she looked, hiding in the walls, playing in the rafters, and rolling around the floor. However, they would not touch anyone, and avoided the other humans like the plague. When they started to appear more and more frequently, she first thought she was crazy and her mother should know, but again that something in her consciousness stopped these thoughts.
It was only when she hit the age of eighteen that everything came to a head. At first, the creatures she saw were perfect in shape, just like the ones in her dreams. But as time passed they began to shift and blur together at times. It was only when the year hit 1000, however that they truly metamorphed into something different. At this age, she stopped seeing creatures and instead saw blobs of blue, green and white light. The meshes of light started to shift together, and fit into some sort of strange puzzle. The lights were all around her, the fields, everything. As the puzzle was filled she noticed it looked like a weave of some sort, like what she had been sewing with her mother this morning.
At that moment, time seemed to stop. She recalled her mother was telling her something, or perhaps yelling at her for being distant and not paying attention to the important things at hand. But all of that didn't seem to matter. Time was frozen and a sound wafted into the room. It was a voice, a beautiful feminine voice. Against her will, she began to sing along and found her voice was just as beautiful. She had never done any singing before. The art of the voice was for the nobility and them alone. The peasants had no time for such frivolties.
The music though seemed natural. As if she had been singing such a strange melody her entire life. The notes flew off her tongue, the words in some language she didn't know and yet was fluent in. As her voice and the other's meshed into one, the world seemed to flicker almost, as the weaves around her moved to the beat of the music. Something definitely odd was going on, but Victoria wasn't worried or scared. The something deep in her consciousness was egging her on, as it always seemed to do.
She stood up from her place at the loom, all the while singing the mysterious notes. She strode outside of her home, something she rarely did and never unless she was instructed to, and looked around. Though her brothers and father were frozen, the fields bloomed with life. Fantastical creatures roamed the area, unicorned grazed in the field, dragons flew in the sky, but these figures seemed old-hat by now.
It was the human-like figure that caught her attention. The other stood singing as well, in the center of the fields. She wore ancient looking clothes, but she couldn't have been older than Victoria was, except for that look in her eyes. The other's eyes were very old, too old entirely for the body they were apart of. As Victoria walked up to her, the other's singing stopped, and so to did Victoria.
The other, who's name was Eve, spoke of an opportunity for Victoria. To control all of which she saw here, to have powers beyond mortal belief. The catch was, her life as it was would end. She would disappear from the world and lose her ties to her family and friends. In fact, Eve would take over her body, taking the life she would leave behind. It was not an easy decision, but in the end, she decided to take it, because she knew, that by turning it down, she would lose contact with this wonderful world within a world she had found. Besides, Eve assured her she would be able to watch over her family when there were lulls in her duties.
She accepted the other's offer and without a chance to take it back she felt the world flicker again. When it returned to normal, she was sitting cross legged in a white room, with a scroll laying on the floor in front of her. Cracking open the seal on the scroll and rolling it open, she began to read, though she had never been taught. The scroll explained what her duties were, and how to perform them. Thus she sat, and began her one thousand year stay as the Eternal Magus.
Virginia sighed as her thoughts returned to the present. Her time was nearly complete, and while she enjoyed her duties, she couldn't wait to life again as a woman, to eat and sleep, and dream like everyone else. She didn't yet know who the name of her replacement would be or where this person was, but she was confident such information would be given to her in time. For now, she would continue her duties as always, and wait in anticipation for the coming day that would change her life - again.
Meanwhile on Earth in a town known as Sunnydale california, a blonde girl was experiencing similar things to what Virginia had a millenia before. The dreams had started a few years ago, at the age of sixteen. She had known of magic before, but nothing like what she had seen in the past two years. She knew something was going to happen, but she couldn't tell what. However, she had learned to be patient given the family she lived with, and waiting for something as miraculous as this could be was something worth whatever time it took to arrive.