To Ride The Lightning
AUTHOR: Methos (ianblyth2005@btinternet.com)
DISCLAIMER: All things BtVS belong to Joss Whedon, The Flash, The Speed Force and all related mythology belong to DC comics and NBC TV, Dawson’s Creek and all characters belong to NBC TV I think... nothing is mine, only the extremely twisted idea...
=/^\=
Xander grinned as he ran down the beach, the entire world looked as if it had stopped for him, everything, it was like someone had just hit the pause button as he ran at unbelievable speeds down the beach, he’d left it late to leave, he’d done a quick patrol with Buffy and Kendra before leaving, feeling safer now that there were two slayers didn’t make it easier to leave the town, especially since he didn’t know how long he’d be gone. Logically he knew that Buffy and Kendra could take care of themselves, they were slayers after all, but having lived with this power for nearly two months and helping them both out on patrols and everything every night, just made it feel like he was more part of the ‘slayage’ as Buffy called it than he had been in a very long time.
It had been two months, two months and nothing was the same anymore. Two months since Halloween, two months since everything changed. It was that night, Halloween when they’d all worn the cursed costumes, that night that he had found the one costume, the perfect costume, the costume he had been searching for for so many years. The bright red costume, scarlet red even, the lightning bolt insignia on the front with gold flashes of lightning on the waist and wrists.
It was perfect, he’d got it with Buffy and Willow, as soon as he saw it he couldn’t believe it, it was so perfect. He’d always been a Flash fan, ever since the superhero had first shown up in Central City all those years ago. He remembered it perfectly, sitting there while his parents argued, trying to blank out the noise of them shouting. Then it was on the news, the scarlet speedster the news had nicknamed him. He’d been entranced by the way the reporter talked about this hero, the first superhero in the world.
No one had ever managed to get more than a blurry picture of him however, but that didn’t matter to him. There were sketches by people who had been saved by The Flash; people had even made their own costumes that looked like the one The Flash wore. The lightning bolt insignia was just perfect, a touch of light on the dark red costume.
So when he saw the costume at Ethan’s store, he had to have it. it was too perfect, not like the clumsy attempts he’d made several times to replicate the costume, this one felt, well it felt perfect, it felt real. It didn’t matter that he’d have to dig into his savings to rent it, even just for one night, the costume was worth it. The owner had even span him some cock and bull story about him finding the costume in Central City itself, he knew that couldn’t be true, could it? The Flash wouldn’t just discard his costumes, even if he had ‘given up’ the superhero life, no one could just throw away such a large part of their life right?
As soon as he’d got home he’d changed into it, it fit perfectly, a bit tight around some areas and a bit loose around the arms, but overall it was perfect. He’d just stood there for ages, staring at himself in the mirror. The mask covered most of his face, leaving only room for the eyes and then framing tightly around his cheeks and jaw to allow movement and speech. He barely even recognised himself in the mirror, the suit seemed to actually stick to his body like some sort of foam, moulding itself to his muscles and form.
A few days after Halloween and no one spoke of it anymore, it was as if the entire town was in denial over what actually happened that night. He knew the truth though, he could feel it in his bones, something had changed. The nightlife of Sunnydale had been dramatically downsized as well, vampires, demons, everything. It was as if a hurricane of violence had blown through Sunnydale and destroyed everything supernatural in one night.
It was little things he noticed at first, like the fact he was eating about five times more than normal, hell, he was even eating more than Buffy was, and she had the ‘slayer metabolism’ excuse. As the days passed on he noticed more things, like when they were out on patrol, things seemed to slow down, almost stop in some cases while he moved about normally. It always happened when a vamp was near, or when he or Willow were in danger of being attacked. The world seemed to slow down leaving him more than enough time to get his stake, get ready and stake the vampire, or get everyone out of the way and leave it to Buffy to finish off.
The others had noticed it as well, they’d just been happy that he seemed to actually have learnt how to fight. Buffy had been a bit puzzled by it at first, saying that she saw him blur around a vampire once or twice during a fight before he staked it.
Giles just laughed at that, telling her it was a trick of the light and that she was just imagining it. He knew though, he knew something was different. Then it finally happened, it was like a switch was thrown in his head and everything changed.
Spike and Drusilla had attacked the library with about a dozen vampires in tow, Buffy was out, chasing Angelus as always, it had been a trick and they all knew it. He’d even told her to her face that it was a trick but she hadn’t listened, Buffy had always been hard headed but this was as if she just didn’t care about them anymore. Angelus was her prey and damned anyone else that got caught in the action.
So they were just left there to research the Dulac Cross, he’d spend the entire night fuming that Buffy had just ignored him, ignored them all, ignored all the warnings and experience that told her this was a trap. So when the lights went out in the library, he was hardly surprised. Willow had frowned and just said that the power must have gone, but he knew what had happened.
The doors flew open a few seconds later, with Spike and Drusilla storming in, their vampire cronies then following them or sneaking out from behind the stacks. Kendra had challenged them and was fighting with Drusilla when it happened, he managed to just catch it out of the corner of his eye, Spike was holding Willow tightly by the throat, he could hear the strangled shout of fear in her voice as she looked at Giles then to him for help.
That was the moment that everything changed, the library was lit up for a brief second with a flash of lightning and it was like Xander knew in that moment exactly what had happened and why. The world just seemed to stop as he blurred round, a sword from the table just vanished and appeared gripped in his hand barely a picosecond later, the fight was over before Spike had even had chance to ‘vamp out’, he was still half changed when his body turned to dust, the rest of the vampires in the library followed suit barely a second later.
Giles could do nothing but just stare as him, he’d seen it, so had Willow. He was there one minute then barely a second later he was across the library, sword in one hand and a stake in the other, vampires turning to dust all around him and a smile playing across his face.
After that, he found he could do it with ease, turn on his ‘speed’ as he called it whenever he wanted, the distance between his home and the school could be covered in barely a second, hell, he could patrol the entire of Sunnydale in a few seconds and still have time to eat several boxes of twinkies in the time it took the vampires to turn to dust.
It wasn’t all that easy now though, the restlessness came next. He got bored with the world so easily now, he could get bored in-between the time he turned on the light switch and the time the light bulb came on, waiting for the microwave or oven to cook meals was like torture, and that was the thing, he was eating far more now that he was using his speed, five, maybe six full meals a day with plenty of snacks in-between.
Giles had found it first; they all had been researching The Flash, where he came from, where he disappeared to all those years ago. Giles had been the first one to put it together, they’d all been trying to research places where accidents just didn’t seem to happen, where people were saved by an ‘angel’ or a blur of speed. Capeside was the place that came up more than any other, there were dozens of reports stretching back almost six years or people being saved after falling off ladders or people drowning in the river then finding themselves back on dry land without anyone waiting around.
Giles had said that he must have kept the ‘Flash’ powers from Halloween, though as he said, he was ‘flummoxed’ as to how this had actually happened. So now all he had to do was find The Flash and talk to him, he had to, no one else could help him learn about his powers or how to actually use them, no one else could understand what it was like to live in-between the ticks of a clock.
So here he was, Capeside. The sand blew up around him as he stopped on the beach, his slipstream whipping up sand and blasting it around in the wind. The running was the best bit, he had covered almost a thousand miles in under an hour. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t actually eaten for an hour or so, so without a minutes pause he blurred off past an upturned boat, changing into his normal clothes faster than anyone could even see, his ‘costume’ was now stashed in his rucksack and he was comfortably dressed in combats and a loose shirt as he continued to make his was down the beach.
Food was his first order of business, then he’d start his hunt for The Flash. As he made his way down the beach he noticed something odd, Capeside was exactly as the websites and books had described it. A sleepy town, hell, sleepy didn’t do it justice; this place seemed to be the slowest town in the world. Everyone seemed to be walking around at a relaxed pace, even the people driving alongside the beach on this quiet night seemed to be going at a stupidly slow speed. He faltered for a second, wondering if he was actually in the right place, why would the fastest man in the world actually come to a town like this, a town where everything and everyone was so slow.
Checking around him quickly for people watching he blurred off down the beach, happy that there was no one around to see it he quickly scoped out the rest of this part of the town, there seemed to be a few restaurants about that were still open, most of them seemed to be quite busy though, he could see through the windows people half way through eating, frozen in time as he blurred past them. Stopping outside one that advertised itself as the “Marina” he paused, it seemed just to be a pit stop type place with gas pumps for the various boats that were moored on the pier and he could hear voices coming from inside but couldn’t make out how many, all the windows had thick curtains across so he couldn’t really see in, but he could definitely identify two voices, a male and female.
Shrugging to himself he adjusted his backpack to it was comfortable on one strap over his shoulder and decided this was as good a place as any to eat. As soon as he walked through the door he had to smile, it was an old style restaurant, well, hardly a restaurant, more a ‘cafe on the pier’ type place. There were two people sat in a chair on the other side of the room looking through some sort of magazine or something, study date he guessed as he made his way over to one of the many empty seats in the room and dumped his bag on the floor carefully before making his way back to the main counter.
“Hey,” He grinned at the man that was stood there, there was a shorter brunette girl with him that seemed to be glaring at the man who was concentrating on stacking as many soda cans top of each other as he could while leaving the young girl to serve and do all the work.
“Hey, what can I get you?” She asked, turning to Xander with a smile.
“Just a coke,” He replied with a smile. “You do food here as well?”
“We’ve just turned off the fryer,” The girl said with a frown. “I could probably rustle you up a burger or something though.”
“Sounds good to me,” Xander grinned. “Whatever you can throw together, I’m famished.”
The girl looked like she was about to respond when a bell rang from outside calling her attention away. “You want to get that?” She asked the man who was still stood there playing with various soda cans on the table. “Fine, I’ll be right back.” She smiled forcefully at Xander before walking off outside to deal with the customer that needed fuel for their boat.
“Food’s off tonight,” The man frowned at him as he managed to knock over one of the cans sending the sizable tower to the floor in a clatter of noise. “Try down the road, the eatery might still be open.” With that he seemingly just dismissed Xander mentally and just went back to picking up the soda cans and trying his tower again.
“Fine, whatever,” Xander muttered as he grabbed his back and walked back out through the doors, it was getting late anyway, he could always just find the motel he was staying at and get food in the morning. Giles had sorted it all out for him, he had two weeks paid up at the motel, figuring by then he would have found The Flash or would have found out that The Flash was nowhere in the town and it would be time to move on. “Hey,” Xander shouted as he saw the girl walking back towards the doors as she finished filling up one of the smaller boats that was now pulling away from the pier. “Look, I’m kinda lost here, I’m looking for the Riverside Motel, any ideas?”
“That’s just down the road, hang a right after the video store and you’ll find it.” The brunette smiled at him as she gave him the simple directions.
“Right, thanks, Xander by the way.” He held out his hand by way of introduction but took it back when she just smiled softly at him and waved it off.
“Joey,” She introduced herself. “Sorry but i’ve got grease all over, so another time.”
“Sure thing,” He grinned back. “Anyway, food’s off apparently, so i’ll see you around.”
“Maybe,” She smiled at him as he started walking back down the pier and on to solid ground again. “Maybe.” She whispered when he was out of earshot and smiled at his retreating form before making her way back inside to do the clean up.
=/^\=
After settling into the motel he’d crashed pretty much immediately, the run to Capeside had nearly wiped him out and without any food to replace his lost energy he was pretty much burnt out as he got to his motel room. Thankfully the room was pretty comfy with a nice bed and a desk for him to do his school work on while he stayed here, the alarm woke him up and some god awful time in the morning and he had to physically restrain himself from throwing the ringing clock across the room or out of the window.
“Oh come on,” He muttered as he looked at the clock, half seven in the morning, he hadn’t seen a half seven in the morning for months. Not since he got these powers and could run to school in a heartbeat, but he’d set the alarm to give him time to scout out the area at normal speed, not wanting to alert anyone to his presence already, and most importantly to give him time to have something to eat before he started school.
He dressed in a blur, washing and drying himself in a fraction of a second and was out of the door before the cover on his bed had even settled back to the mattress. “Capeside, right.” He frowned, shivering slightly in the cool morning breeze. This was nothing like Sunnydale, back home it was already nice and warm as he normally ran to school, here the ocean breeze made it feel like winter for him. A quick blur and he had another sweater on as he made his way into the main town.
It seemed that the town was just as sleepy by day as it was by night. There really didn’t seem to be much here, several coffee shops were already opening for business he noted as he made his way into the main town, a video store was hanging its ‘open’ sign up in the window and several other shops were opening already.
“Jeez, doesn’t anyone sleep in here?” He muttered as he jogged down the road, an open air cafe at the bottom of the road catching his eye. The thought of a morning coffee followed by a large fry up was already making his mouth water, maybe he could get two fry up’s without raising too much attention.
The cafe was quite quiet as he made his way in, ordering a large coffee and a ‘special breakfast’ with extra sausages and bacon off the menu. He smiled at the waitress as he paid then made his way outside to find somewhere comfortable to sit, somewhere out of the way where he could keep his eye on everything to see if there was anyone or anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t think he’d actually manage to see The Flash on his first day in Capeside, but there was the hope anyway.
There was a couple making out in the next table from him as he sat down, papers and books were all over their table as they ignored everything else, focusing on each other. He remembered how he’d been like that with Cordelia before he left Sunnydale, she’d broken up with him however when she’d found out he was ‘a freak’ as she called it. It had hurt for a while, but now he was over it, just thinking that anyone that would push someone away just because they were different, well, they’d be lonely for a very long time or would eventually have to grow up.
He noticed the brunette from the gas station last night making her way across to the couple with a scowl on her face; she noticed him and seemed puzzled for a minute before waving shyly at him.
“Hey,” He grinned, waving back.
She paused for a moment before she sat down next to the couple and pulled them away from their make out session and started talking to them in hushed whispered.
Xander just decided to ignore them for the minute; he’d have plenty of time to catch up on high school gossip, or to actually find out where the high school was once he’d eaten. Pulling out a map from his pocket he unfolded it on the bench table, Giles had helped him with it before he’d left Sunnydale. It had ever supposed sighting of The Flash in Capeside on it, marked in red. ‘Mysterious savings’ were marked in yellow and questionable events were marked in black. Also the only graveyard in Capeside was marked in blue, that had surprised him, coming from Sunnydale where they had a dozen or so graveyards to a town twice as big with only one, that just seemed strange.
“Xander!” His name being called threw him for a minute as he flashed his head up from where he was staring at the map and looked around; it wasn’t the girl that was calling him, but rather the boy who was making out with the blonde on the table.
“Yeah?” He asked cautiously as the brunette looked at him shyly.
“Come on man, join us.” The boy responded with a laugh. “We don’t bite.” He laughed; missing Xander’s frown as he turned back and kissed the blonde quickly.
Shrugging in decision, Xander quickly folded up the map again and thrust it into his pocket, his breakfast hadn’t arrived just yet so he had time to change seats and talk to people, he assumed they were friends of Joey and Jack’s, probably people in the same class as they were. He smiled at the three as he made his way over to the table and sat on the empty side of the bench. “Hey,” He smiled at Joey who smiled back.
“Hey, i didn’t get much chance to say hi last night, I’m Joey, this is Pacey and Andi.” Joey introduced them.
“Hey,” Xander smiled over not sure as to what else he could say at this point.
“So, are you a new student?” Andi asked, breaking the ice and turning to get as much information out of Xander as she could.
“Just here for a few weeks,” Xander shrugged. “Maybe longer, don’t know.”
“You came from California to Capeside, tell me, how does that work?” Pacey asked in amusement. “I mean, you’ve got California, beaches, babes, well, need I say more, and then you’ve got Capeside, which, and lets be fare here, doesn’t exactly have, well, anything really.”
“I’m just looking for an old friend,” Xander smiled, mentally adding vampires, demons and Hellmouths to Pacey’s list of California attractions. “I heard he might be staying around here so I came to take a look.”
“This friend got a name?” Pacey asked with a raised eyebrow.
Xander just smirked back in response. “Ahh, breakfast, do you mind?” He asked in amusement, noting to rest of the table was filled with paperwork and books as the waitress brought over his large breakfast.
“Oh, sorry, my bad.” Andi babbled out at a speed even Willow would have been hard pushed to match as she started gathering all of her papers together and putting them in a pile in front of her.
“Thanks,” Xander grinned as the waitress put his breakfast down in front of him and left him to it.
“Dude, don’t you worry about calories?” Pacey asked in amusement after a moment of watching Xander dig in to the large breakfast.
“Um, nope,” Xander shook his head after swallowing a mouthful. “Besides, I only got some chips last night,” He grinned over to Joey. “The rest of the food was rained off.”
The rest of his breakfast he ate in silence as he just listened to the three people argue about some sort of smear campaign that was going on at the school, the girl, Abby is seemed, was placing a well thought out campaign throughout the school with posters all over the place about why she should be voted in and attacking Joey and Andi on several levels personally. Even after last night Xander had left with an intense dislike for the girl, now after hearing a good part of what she was saying about Andi and Joey he found he really didn’t like her.
“Seriously man, where do you put it all?” Pacey asked as Xander quite happily cleaned his plate, mopping up the last bits of sauce with a bit of break before popping it into his mouth, the breakfast had filled him up quite nicely but he could still go for a few snack cakes or something before he was at full energy again.
“High metabolism,” Xander shot back with a smirk as he pushed his tray aside. “So, what’s the school like here?”
“Its school,” Pacey smirked back before either of the two girls could answer him.
“Ahh, a man after my own heart.” Xander laughed as he got up from the table. “And speaking of which, where is the school anyway? I’ve got to see the principal before i start, get my class schedule and all that.”
“No problemo,” Pacey grinned. “We were just heading there ourselves, right ladies?” He smiled as Joey glared at him while Andi started shoving all the papers back into her rucksack. “I’m sure we can help a new student find his way around
“Of course,” Andi smiled at him brightly.
The walk to school had been pretty easy, barely fifteen minutes out of the main town. It was quite a large school as well, Pacey had pointed out the gym, which he apparently avoided like the plague, the football field, the swimming pool and the cafeteria. By the time they had actually reached the main building Xander felt like he could find his way around quite happily without a map or anything anyway.
“Well, this is the principal’s office,” Joey broke in, pointing to a large office on the opposite wall where ‘Principal Green’ was stencilled on the door in white lettering. “And we have to get to English.”
“Ohhh, yeah,” Andi smiled. “So, I’ll see you later?”
“Catch ya later man,” Pacey smiled and slapped him on the back.
“See ya,” Xander waved them off as Joey just smiled at him as the group made their way back down the halls. They all seemed like a pretty good bunch, Pacey definitely had his sense of humour, even if they all did seem to use way too many words to get simple notions across. He stifled a laugh at the thought of putting Oz in the same room as this group, he’d either drive them mad or calm them down a bit. “Here goes,” He shrugged before knocking on the principal’s office door and walking in.
=/^\=
The morning had gone a lot quicker than he’d expected it to, which was saying something for him. He’d had to see the counsellor first, just to check that he wasn’t the ‘slacker’ that his records apparently said he was. Everything had gone well there of course, though the counsellor had recommended he try out for some of the school sports as he seemed to have ‘lots of energy to burn’. He’d nearly laughed out loud at that but managed to keep his control.
So now he was heading through the corridors trying to figure out where all of his classes actually were. He only had Film Studies in the afternoon so he figured he might as well get there early and make sure he was in the right place so he didn’t have to walk into an already full class and draw even more attention to himself. He was now finding his way round the new school quite happily, figuring it would be best to do that before he actually threw himself in to finding The Flash. He figured the best way to blend in was to act like a normal high school student and then do his ‘hunting’ by night, at least that way he wouldn’t have any awkward questions from teachers or students about what he was doing all the time. He’d grabbed a snack, a snack being three bacon sandwiches and two full packets of twinkies along with a few energy drinks from the cafeteria, and now he was trying to work out his way how to actually get to the gym through the maze of corridors that all seemed to be painted with the same yellow and blue school motif.
“Hey,” He smiled as he caught up with another student. “Any chance of some help here? I’m looking for...” He paused as he dug out his schedule and checked the room number. “Film Studies,” He said simply when he noticed the schedule he’d been given didn’t actually have the room numbers on them, only class names.
“Sure,” The student smiled at him. “I’m just on my way there myself.”
“Finally,” Xander breathed a sigh of relief with a grin. “I thought I’d be lost for days here.”
“It’s quite easy when you know where you’re going,” He smiled over. “You new here? I haven’t seen you around before.”
“Yeah,” Xander nodded. “Just transferred for a few weeks, first day, Xander Harris,” He introduced himself with a smile holding out his hand.
“Dawson, Dawson Leery,” He smiled as he held up his arms, showing they were full of paperwork and books about a place called ‘Witch Island’. “Sorry.” He laughed.
“Right,” Xander grinned. “So, film buff then?”
“It’s my life,” Dawson explained seriously. “What made you come to Capeside then?”
“Just looking up an old friend,” Xander smiled as he followed Dawson’s lead through the corridors of the school and into the classroom he’d been looking for. “So, class project then?” He asked, nodding to the books that Dawson was placing carefully on the table.
“History,” Dawson said simply. “We’ve got to do a paper chronicling the Witch Trials that were held here during the 18 century as a precursor to the Salem Witch Trials, but I got permission to do a documentary instead.”
“So you get to do a film instead of writing a ton of boring stuff down,” Xander grinned; it seemed like the perfect way to get out of a boring assignment to him. “Nicely done.”
“That and we have our own little piece of history here, Witch Island,” Dawson smiled, passing him the book before moving to the back of the room and picking up various pieces of equipment.
“Right,” Xander muttered, feeling a bit uneasy about getting away from the Hellmouth and then being thrown in with witches and witch trials straight away. He checked that Dawson was turned away from him before quickly blurring through the book and reading it at superspeed before placing it back on the table, it seemed that the witch trials here had some disturbing history behind them. Girls being banished to an island with no food or shelter just because the town thought they might be witches, the idea really didn’t sit well with him as he knew that witches were good in their own right, well, maybe not Amy’s mom who had tried to kill Buffy last year, but aside from that. “Not exactly my sort of thing,” Xander said finally as Dawson made his way back over to him with various camera’s and blank tapes. “I mean, Witches are people too right?” He grinned as Dawson looked at him as if he was crazy. “If they exist anyway,” He quickly covered up. “I mean, they’re just people, i don’t see why they were persecuted just for having different religious beliefs right?”
“You seem pretty adamant about that?” Dawson asked as he sat down on a desk opposite Xander and stared at him.
“Well, Witchcraft is a religion right?” He waited for Dawson to nod slowly before he continued. “As such, it’s illegal to discriminate against right?” He smiled as Dawson thought this through before nodding. “So Witches are just practicing their religion, just like priests or anyone else, who are we to say what’s real and what isn’t?” He smiled, he knew for a fact that witchcraft worked, so that made it pretty real to him, at least as real as the Christian symbol of the cross that worked for warding off vampires. He’d never actually figured out which religion was the one that was the one for him, but as they both worked he wasn’t going to dismiss one as ‘real’ and one as ‘myth’ when they both seemed to have their own ‘proof’ behind them.
“You make an interesting point,” Dawson mused as he fiddled with a blank tape in his hand. “I wouldn’t mind getting some more of your thoughts on tape for the documentary, i already planned on making the documentary in a way that highlighted the hypocrisy and religious persecution that happened,” He paused with a grin. “And you seem to have a personal belief that the Witches were right.”
“Hey, whatever,” Xander shrugged. “Does that mean I can get credit because i pretty much suck at history and this being my first assignment...” He trailed off leaving Dawson to take pity on him.
“Alright, i have a few friends that are helping out, what’s one more.” He laughed at Xander who grinned in enthusiasm. “But as long as I can get your thoughts on tape first.”
“As long as the documentary isn’t biased, I’ll do whatever you want.” Xander nodded with a smile.
“Deal,” Dawson smiled back as people started to file into the class and take their seats. “We’re starting tonight, meet me on the pier on the north side of town and i’ll introduce you around.”
“Sounds like fun,” Xander smiled, inwardly berating himself for doing this when he would be losing a night of Flash hunting, but if he wanted to fit in here then he had to do the school work, and having friends here might make the few weeks he had to stay here that much more enjoyable.
=/^\=
Xander was the first one on the pier it seemed, it was a quiet out of the way area with forest land around in and the river stretching off into the distance. A man seemed quite happy to laze on the small wooden boat at the end of the pier with a news paper so he found himself content to just relax and look around while he waited for Dawson and whoever else was coming. He could see ‘Witch Island’ off in the distance and while it didn’t look all that forboding by daylight, the thoughts of girls being banished to die slow deaths there left a shiver on his spine. The book said that there were various tourist shops there already but that no one currently lived on the island as it was supposedly haunted by the ghosts of the girls that died there.
“Ghosts and witches, and i thought i left the Hellmouth back in sunnydale.” Xander mused as he pulled some snacks out of his backpack and started munching trough them. He’d packed enough to satisfy his appitite for a while, or to feed a small army, whichever way you looked at it. it should be more than plenty for him as long as he didn’t have to use his speed for any amount of time, which he was hoping not to.
“Nobody brought snacks?” A voice echoed through the forest pulling Xander’s attention back to the path that led down to the small pier, he could now see four people making their way down towards him with Dawson leading the group. There were also the two students he had met this morning following him, along with another girl he hadn’t met yet.
“Xander, great,” Dawson smiled as the group approached him. “Let me introduce you, this is...”
“Pacey and Joey,” Xander filled in with a grin. “I met them this morning while i was having breakfast.”
“Hey man, so Dawson got you into this as well then?” Pacey nodded in greeting.
“And this is Jen,” Dawson introduced the fourth member of their group, a small blonde that just exuded confidence in her short leather jacket and tussled blonde hair, she just nodded at him with a sultry smile.
“Hey,” Xander nodded back. “And i’ve got snacks, maybe not enough for everyone, but enough for a while.”
“Ahh, a man of planning and thought, i like him already.” Pacey laughed while Dawson shook his head at the antics.
“Are you ready for witches and magic then?” Dawson said with a laugh as the man on the boat started to get ready for them to board.
“I just want to go on record as saying there is no such thing as magic, witchcraft or witches,” The blonde said firmly. “Witch is just a buzzword created by people to shun young women who have their own style or beliefs, people don’t like what they can’t understand so they create myths around them and then persecute them for their own fears.”
“No magic?” Xander laughed. “Oh believe me, there is definitely something to magic, you just have to look in the right places.”
“And you would know?” The blonde asked him while taking a moment to actually look him up and down.
“Maybe,” Xander grinned. “There’s definitely something to witchcraft, i wouldn’t dismiss it as easily as that, trust me, it’ll come back and bite you in the ass one day.”
“Prove it,” She said firmly, standing in front of him as she crossed her arms. “Go on, prove to me that witchcraft isn’t some fantasy made up by people to persecute the very people that they are afraid of.”
“Jen,” Dawson said, trying to break this up before Xander got alienated from the group before the assignment had even begun.
“It’s alright,” Xander grinned at Dawson as he dumped his bag on the floor and took his coat off. “Alright magic 101,” He grinned as Jen rolled her eyes as his theatrics. “Nothing up my slieves alright?” He smiled as he rolled up his slieves tightly to his elbows. She nodded as he turned his arms around making sure that she could see everything he was showing her. “Right, name a flower, any type you want.”
“And what, you’re just going to produce this flower for me?” Jen said with a smile.
“Maybe,” Xander grinned.
“It’s impossible, magic doesn’t exist,” Jen said firmly ready to walk away from him.
“Oh come on, tempt me,” Xander laughed when he noticed both Dawson and Pacey were looking at him in amusement.
“Fine, a white tulip,” Jen said firmly as she turned back to him. “So, where is it?”
He grinned slyly before blasting off down the trail as fast as he could, he knew it would take him less than a second to get into town and grab a tulip from the flower shop on the corner of the main street. He made it easily, leaving the money for the flower on the counter as he blasted back out of the store, his speed making it seem like the entire world had stopped for him as he sped back down the trail and stood back in his position after placing the tulip gently in Jen’s hair. The entire operation had taken barely half a second as normal time resumed for him he let out a laugh as his slipstream caught up with the group and blew their hair around for second before dying down.
“Well?” Jen asked again, oblivious to the tulip that was now perched in her hair just above her left ear.
“Man, how, just how?” Pacey laughed at him, his eyes wide at the show of ‘magic’ that Xander had just put on as proof.
“What?” Jen asked, looking around the group to see what had everyone staring at her with wide eyes, Dawson looked like a kid in a candy store while even Joey actually looked impressed by this as she walked over to Jen and picked the tulip out of her hair and showed it to her. “Wait... how?”
“Magic,” Xander grinned as he picked up his back again and slung his coat over his shoulder. “Just because you don’t believe in it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
“But...” Jen tried to find a suitable argument for this as she stared at the tulip in her hand.
“Come on you guys,” Dawson caught their attention again. “Witch island beckons, we’ve only got a couple of hours left, so let’s make the most of it.”
“Sounds good to me,” Xander grinned as he moved over to help Dawson with all the equipment that he was now slowly loading on to the small boat.
“Man, you’ve got to show me how to do that some time.” Pacey stated as he came over and helped with the bags as well. “Come on, help a brother out.”
“Trade secret,” Xander laughed as Pacey frowned at him. “Come on,” He laughed as he helped the blonde on board the boat with a smile. “If you’re good I’ll show you some more later.”
“There’s more?” Pacey asked with a grin. “What else can you do?”
“Card tricks,” Xander grinned as Dawson started to talk to the brunette who was helping him put the last of the bags on board the boat.
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