Xander

Giles looked at the boy, "I'm afraid Xander that you are the best candidate."

"What!" Buffy cut in, "I'm the Slayer, I should do this."

"And because you're the Slayer you can't," Giles tiredly said. "I've done the pros and cons of all of us Buffy and Xander is the best choice."

"Why?" Willow asked, "Why does it have to be Xander? He shouldn't have to do these things."

"Wills, I know you two seem to be thinking that I should be 'fray adjacent' recently, don't know if its because Oz went off to Tibet or Angel left after the Angelus fiasco, but I chose this fight. I think I should be at least given the choice here." Xander put in.

Giles just sighed, "You're both right. Xander this is extremely dangerous, we are asking you to go into the middle of an enemy's stronghold and him using an untested spell that could fail at any moment. No one will this on you and no one here will think any less of you if you don't want to do this but it could put an end to one of the darknesses biggest allies."

"If the Mayor is why the vamps are here then he's the man behind the curtain on why so many of my friends have been killed," Xander said before turning to the girls, "why Jesse is dead."

Giles slipped back in while the two girls were taken aback. "There is also the fact of the nature of this spell. If forces the energy through the person chosen, binding to them not that dissimilar to a possession. Xander being possessed and de-possessed has left him so build up protections, you ,Buffy, are already 'possessed' by the Slayer spirit blocking any sort of bond the spell would create. As for Willow and myself, we both have channeled our own magical energies through our bodies, those would cause interference that would make the spell weaker."

"But-" Buffy began.

"There's no one else Buffy, even if we could find them, neither Oz or Angel would work as they are possessed too. To the point that using this spell on them could cause their inner darknesses to," Giles sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "to cause their own monsters to take them over. The only other person who is both a non-channeling magic user or not possessed is Cordelia and I doubt she would help after what happened between her and Xander."

"Well," Xander said, a huge, fake smile on his face, "Now that that's settled and all our craptacular love lives has salt rubbed in them when can we do this?"

Giles snorted, "Now, Xander, it's after school, so no one should disturb us as the spell should take the better part of an hour. Let's get started."