The Wizard of Sunnydale

Author: John "hatten" Carlsson
Beta: Hawklan

Disclaimer: I do not own anything or so I claim, except a strange sense of humor. BTVS belongs to Joss Whedon.

Chapter 1 - A new life

Xander was not happy. His father Tony was in one of his rare sober moments, and out of the blue decided they should all have a family outing. His one and only beloved son was fourteen now. They should do something as a family.

It was July the 30th, a day after his birthday and he was sixteen now, not fourteen. Dad always got his age wrong.

It was a bit irritating for him being that he was sixteen. The same age as the Slayer and yet dad always believed he was two years younger than he was. As a recently turned sixteen year old it was humiliating.

Mom just agreed with him, using soothing platitudes, calming down Xander's somewhat irritated mood. The normal behavior of Tony was being abusive and angry while drunk. He was a man who called others, including his own son, worthless. He was man that hated the fact that he had failed in life.

Of course that was when Tony was drunk. Sober was even scarier. Then he was the friendly lovable family father, who loved his family so much. Until he found a bottle and crawled right back in to it and out came the drunken rage of a failed life once again in an often repeated cycle.

It was something big in Tony's life. A past he would never talk about. Xander knew that there were things in his dad's life, which he did not want to talk about any of it even when he was dead drunk. Things, that if you asked him about while he was drunk, would only make him get violent, and if he happened to be sober he found a bottle and drank until he was unconscious.

Happy dad Tony was back in town, trying to be sober and wanting to spend more time with his family.

Jessica looked at her son and said, "Just go with the flow and enjoy it while it last Xander. Your dad hasn't had it easy in life, nor had I. Tony just took it harder."

Xander nodded, they lived on the Hellmouth and he was hunting vampires, dodging demons and trying to keep up with a super powered Slayer and his mom and dad talked about a difficult life. They knew nothing about what was difficult at all.

The night had actually been enjoyable. They went out to a movie and then to a restaurant, not once had Tony even looked at a bottle. He had joined a support group trying to stay sober. Xander trusted this sober period would last a month or two, if they were lucky.

"And then I said to the guy. 'No, we don't have wine a bloody flavor weirdo," Tony told them with a laugh.

Xander shook his head. "You really said to a nut case, wanting blood flavored wine, to get out?"

Tony nodded. "You get all kind of crazy's during the night shifts." He rolled his eyes. For some reason the store had never had real problems with robbers or trouble makers, just weirdos.

Xander was relived knowing that the store his dad worked in had a Wiccan peace spell on it. Anybody could enter, but not do anything violent inside. Unless you where more powerful then the witches that cast the spell. It also somehow increased honesty and made stealing feel wrong.

He shopped for donuts there himself during Scooby nights. He talked peacefully with vampires that where shopping there. Even Buffy had talked to monsters, she normally hunted, in a peaceful way, as neither they nor her could kill each other or do violent things, not even simple things like insulting each other.

As they walked out from the restaurant Xander was laughing, as his dad told him more crazy stories from night shifts. When all suddenly turned painful then dark.

"What the hell are you doing to my son?" Tony yelled, when a punk jumped out and smashed his son in the face, knocking the kid out. He closed his fist, as he jumped forward only to be captured himself.

"Hey look, fast food," the punk said, as his face morphed into a monster's face.

Tony froze, magic, they had finally found evidence of magical beings. After all those years of seeking it, it seemed like their son had found out about magical beings before they did. He wondered if Xander knew anyone able to use magic.

The squeal of pain coming from Jessica interrupted his thoughts. Another four of the beings surrounded them.

One spoke up, "Take them with us. He is the Slayer's pet. I bet we could have lots of fun with him and his family. The slayer will be devastated if we kill him slowly." He gives his gang of thugs a toothy grin.

Another grinned back. "Yes, Angelus will pay us well for this."

Then it all turned dark as both Tony and Jessica were knocked out also.

Later the sound of their son screaming as he was being tortured made them both wake up.

"You bastards," Tony screamed, as he tried to get out from the rope that held him securely bound.

"It's no help Tony. We have to find another way," Jessica said, looking at him with fear in her eyes.

Tony nodded. "Yeah, there is only one thing left we can do," he said. "The last resort."

Jessica swallowed. "For our son," she said, looking at her son that she loved. He was everything that Tony had been before the curse and more, so much more.

"Get ready," Tony said.

Jessica nodded and they started to speak in a strange, power filled language.

Strange runes on their heads started giving off ethereal smoke, as they continued.

Mirror runes glowed and then faded away on Xander's head, but he was in too much pain to even notice.

As the last rune vanished, Tony's eyes glowed golden for a moment, as he said 'Break' and the rope holding him broke asunder.

Beside him Jessica only said 'Burn' and the rope burned away.

With glowing eyes the two stood up. Tony turned his hands towards the vampires and spoke with utter disgust words of summoning. A strange being, like a bird of fire, the size of a small horse was suddenly standing in front of them. "Chase, dust and destroy as many undead and demons as you can old friend. Then return home and tell you brothers that Geshino Tony, Arch mage, and his wife have died."

The bird screeched a sorrow filled song, as it turned is fiery rage towards the undead.

One vampire mumbled, "Ops."

Another vampire said, "This is going to burn." Then he tried to flee but was quickly to dust.

Jessica ignored everything, as she summoned a single wind, throwing the vampire near her son trough the wall, as she quickly cast a healing spell on Xander. Removing years of damage and wounds, some of them Tony and she had caused, she realized to her own deep shame. However, what choice did they have? With the curse active they could not think straight. She even found and removed a demonic taint inside his body. It was some kind of crude water demon transformation. His body had already started to remove the taint and she just helped him along, it soon was cleansed and pure again.

Now it was too late for them to be a family, but her son would live and grow strong.

"Before we die, let's make sure our son will survive and learn his legacy," Tony said, looking sadly at Jessica. "Let our powers combine as we teach him faster than the flow of time would allow."

Jessica opened her mouth as if to protest, but then closed it again. "Of course, the last resort spell had combined our strength and powers, as well as doubling it," she said, thinking loud. The last resort spell was simply put, forbidden magic that could only be cast by two skillful magic users, willingly to help somebody, both of them would rather die for themselves than see him or her dead.

The potential of the spell had made it forbidden. It doubled the power of the two wizards that where using it. As well as combine their powers, but it also killed them. Before the sun would rise, Tony and Jessica would be no more. The greater the magic they used the faster it would destroy them.

"Let us break the chain of time," Jessica said, as she spoke words that made reality shiver.

"Cast away the limit of man," Tony said, as he spoke words that made Xander's body flinch in surprise.

"Let us teach our son as much as we can," they said in union.

Then the world seemed to stand still just for a moment, and then the two seem to burn away like a simple candle.

Inside Xander's mind

Xander was surprised to see both, Tony and Jessica, standing in front of a desk and he was sitting, like a student, looking at them.

"Hi son," Jessica said. "This is going to be a surprise, a big one. Years ago, both me and your dad saved a person life."

"A king," Tony interrupted her. "And he was our friend. We saved him from an attack by a group of assassin. The problem was that two of those assassins were related by blood to the king, the former and exiled crown prince and the king's own brother."

Jessica snorted. "But the law was clear, anybody who murdered or killed a person of royal blood, who is not a royal guard doing it to defend the king, inside the palace or the high city of magic is to be banished from that reality or to be executed."

Tony looked firm. "Now before you think that our friend King Reganius IV was ungrateful, it was a royal law. The king could not disobey that law, as the royal laws are laws that dictate what the house of nobles and even the king could and could not do. It would take three kings, one after the other to change or remove a royal law and the nobles could reinstate it, if they felt like doing it. It was of course more than that. The king was a symbol. His power was granted by ritual magic. As long as the king was just, fair, loved and served the people living under his rule, the majority of the people would be loyal to him."

"The king's power in the land was absolute. Each loyal person increased the kings' power. It gave both noble men and commoners and the military a source of security." His mother continued.

"Moreover, while the kings' royal power gave him the ability to destroy an army all by himself or bless the land, making it grow once more, if the crops had been bad, it gave him no ability to protect himself if attacked. That is why he needed royal guards." Tony stated.

Jessica nodded. "Reganius was bound by the rules, laws and magic. Civil war could have been the side effects if he ignored those laws. So he ordered us to be banished to a friendly dimension, where we could live to the end of our lives, as a thank you and a punishment."

Tony took over. "The royal wizard betrayed us. Ignoring the command he secretly put magic runes on us, binding our powers and ability with them, before we were banished. They stopped us from talking about our magic, so that we could not tell anybody what had happened. They also stopped us from using it. You mother was pregnant with you at the time and you were born with part of the curse. When the two of us broke the curse, you were also freed from it."

Like all things there had been a long background story, like the fact that Tony or his wife Jessica would be the next person to hold the title 'Royal Wizard' as his and her skill and power were greater than that of the old fool currently serving. Therefore, there was no love lost between the three of them.

"And that's were comes our problem. You Xander and we are Homo sapience magical, as I like to call us. The real name was High Humans, humans born to do magic. Without the use of our magic, depression and eventually madness can follow."

Xander looked stunned at his parents and then asked, "Why, how, where are we?"

Tony replied, "We took you and us away from the normal time flow and are planning on teaching you what you need to know to survive. The breaking of the seal son is killing us. Just let us teach you so that you may survive."

Seeing the shock and pain in his son eyes, they both hurried to him and hugged him. For a moment Xander seem to struggle, an old fear of being beaten resurfaced, making both Tony and Jessica almost cry in shame.

"We have not been good parents, the curse that sealed away our magic and the fact that without magic our kind goes slightly crazy is the reason. Not an excuse, just the reason we were so awful. I tried to cure the pain with alcohol and other drugs. Your mother managed to limit the pain by doing some drinking. Lately she experimented with meditation and it seem to work somewhat. I was planning on trying that, but now it's too late," Tony said in a sad tone.

Jessica nodded. "Let us help to show you what you need to survive with what time we have left."

Xander slowly raised his head. "All right mom. I will do my best to learn, though I can't promise a whole lot here." he said, feeling so much younger then the sixteen years he was.

"You will find it far easier to learn now that the shadow curse has been removed," Tony said with a smile. "And Uncle Rory? He knows about us. He was the first person we met in this reality and he became like a brother to me."
And then the lessons began.

Additional Note: Our thank you goes to Joe Mow, who was kind enough to look over this chapter again and we hope it is smoother to read now.