"Why doesn't he wake up? It is over, we've won, so why isn't he waking up?" Angel asked distressed.

"Because his mind isn't here, yet. He's found the balance and now he is spreading it through the entire multiverse. And it isn't over yet either, the change has just begun and it will take a very long time until the scales will be finally balanced. You will soon find this world changed beyond your wildest dreams, as the spreading balance is rewriting the book of destiny and the fates' loom is restringed to weave a brand-new pattern into history." The oldest among them said simply and for one short moment they all got a glimpse of the true age and wisdom hidden behind an eternally youthful face and a stormy temperament.

For a moment Ares watched as the two lifemates of Xander started to understand just what the Chaos Child was doing for each and everyone of them, before his attention was taken to someone else. After the Force of Light had left her body, Buffy had collapsed on the soft earth of the park, her body thankfully returned to her former state. He walked towards her unconscious form and carefully picked her up.

"I should have expected that you were drawn into this." He said to the unconscious girl as he gently cradled her in his arms. "Always in the middle of chaos, you remind me so much of her." Memories of another warrior woman flashed through his head as he compared her to his stubborn, raven haired child he had had so many hundred years ago.

Giles looked up at this comment. "What is she to you?" He asked as he saw his Slayer cradled in the arms of the God of War.

"She is my daughter, like all previous Slayers before her and all the Slayers that are yet to come. When the religion of the Jewish God took over, they had a problem. All the monsters, demons and other nonhumans didn't simply went away like the gods. They remained and without the old gods sleeping with humans and having demigod children which later always became heroes and demonslayers, their followers were in great danger. So they approached us, three of his messengers and asked for our help. The Fates told us we had to help them or the world would be destroyed.

So Athena and I sat together and worked out a system. Athena trained the first batch of what would later become the Watchers and I went to Earth, to choose a woman. Her child became the first Slayer. After a while the Christians took over the Watches Council and managed to ruin it in a couple of years. They made a lot of rules regarding the Slayer, because the old men were afraid of them. They tried to completely control them, something that is not really possible with my girls, they all have a thick head and are stubborn as hell and when the old men manage to train all the individual thoughts out of their brains, the girl in question is as good as dead and I have to watch another of my daughters die. You see, while Athena's job was done with the training of the first Watchers, I still go down to Earth, choosing the mothers of new Slayers. Always married ones, those that want to have children and will care for them. I appear to them in the form of their husbands and after it is done I plant the memories of that night in the husbands brain. And their daughter will be born and grow up having a normal life, until the day she's chosen. At least," and now he threw a dark look towards the watcher, "that was the way we planned it to be. That way the girls had something to fight for, family and siblings to protect, not the detached robots the council is brainwashing them to be. Now that the world has changed, we will be active again and I know that Athena had been seething and bitching about the watchers stupidity for a long, long time and the first thing she's going to do is kick their collective asses!"

The anger of the Wargod was an almost tangible thing, surrounding him with a flamelike aura of power. The others could feel a rising of power and there was not much needed to ignite the famous short temper of Ares. Thankfully Xander choose that moment to wake up.

***

He blinked several times, the light of the moon hurting his eyes, eyes no longer accustomed to light. How long had it been since he had had a body, how long since he had left his other halves behind to spread balance through the multiverse? Xander didn't know, he had lost all sense of time and space as he had been drifting through all layers of reality and fantasy. His brain hurt as he tried to remember everything he had seen.

Slowly his eyes adjusted to the dim light and he looked around. The place... the place seemed familiar to him... someplace he knew he should know. His lifemates were here, with him and there... Suddenly he knew why he should know this place, it had been here, where everything had started... but that had been so long ago, hadn't it? It seemed so long, so long ago. His fingers clawed into the soft earth and wasn't it strange to have a body again, to feel, to be. Angel's fingers were softly caressing his face. Yes it was strange to be in a body again, strange but so good. He sighed and everybodys attention turned towards him.

"He's awake!" Wesley exclaimed. "How are you feeling?" His voice was full of worry... and love.

"Strange, I feel strange," he muttered, "but good."

*****
tbc