Cordelia Chase walked down the courtyard of Sunnydale High School. She was the most popular and the prettiest girl in school—at least she had been until stupid Xander Harris had started dating her. Now that wouldn't have been so bad—if he hadn't cheated on her. That had reduced her to the lowest of the low. Right now she was walking with Anya Jenkins, the new kid who didn't know about Xander's stupidity. Yet.

"Anyway," Cordelia continued vapidly, "Buffy Summers was the reason that I completely fell for Xander. Her and her miraculous…oh, what the heck…Slayer Powers."

"Buffy Summers is a Slayer?" Anya asked curiously.

"You know what that is?" Cordelia rolled her eyes. "It's so stupid."

"I know," Anya agreed, taking off her necklace and handing it to Cordelia. "You need this good luck more than I do."

"Thanks," Cordelia said. "How do you know what a Slayer is, anyway?"

"I'm a witch," the vengeance demon explained. "In my opinion nobody needs a Slayer with the black arts around."

Cordelia smirked. "I would so agree with you, except for that Willow Rosenberg. Xander's oh-so-best-friend."

Anya raised her eyebrows at Cordelia. "Was she the one he cheated on you with?"

"How'd you know?" Cordelia asked. "If there's anyone I hate more than Xander right now, it would be Willow…"

"Don't you wish that…?" Anya began, waiting for Cordelia to finish her sentence.

"What?"

"Oh come on," the vengeance demon taunted. "If you could wish anything in the world on Xander Harris, what would it be?"

Cordelia thought for a second. "Wait and I'll give you something truly awful, Anya." She smiled.

"I'm so ready," Anya said happily. "This school is so…" She didn't finish, because she'd almost given away her vengeance secret.

"I've got it!" Cordelia said. She smirked. "Oh, you're gonna love this one…"

Anya raised her eyebrows. "At this point, I'd love any wish you've got, Cordelia." She stared angrily over at Xander.

"You know what I wish?" Cordelia asked. "I wish that Xander Harris was the Slayer…isn't that brilliant?" she asked Anya.

The vengeance demon, however, decided to take her true, veiny form and turned around to Cordelia. "Done."

"What?" Cordelia asked as the world began to fade away. "Wait! That wasn't a good wish. I could have wished that Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale. Or that Xander Harris had never met Willow Rosenberg. Or that I had never fallen for him. Or that he got syphilis."

As she saw Sunnydale High without any Buffy, she shrugged. "Doesn't matter. This should be good. Seeing Xander as a girl. For a demon, Anya was a good fairy."

Cordelia walked into the school and caught up with Harmony, crossing her fingers to be accepted. To her good luck, Harmony waved at her. "Cordy!" she squealed. "Love the dress."

"Thanks," said Cordelia, happy to be included finally. "What's up, Harm?"

"Nothing really…but we can so do something cool now that you're here!" Harmony squealed excitedly.

Cordelia didn't want to say anything about Xander—what if he was a girl, and his name was Lisa or something? Now that would be funny. So instead she asked about Willow. "How's that nerd…Willow, I think? She's nice and…completely miserable, right?"

"Oh, yeah, Willow and Xander," Harmony said, rolling her eyes. "The perfect couple."

"Yeah," said Cordelia under her breath. "I go into an alternate universe and they're still together." Then she did a double take. "See you later, Harm." She headed straight to the library.

"Giles?" she asked, roaming around. The weapons were still there, so Cordelia assumed he was Xander's watcher.

"Cordelia?" Giles said, walking out of the shadows. "What on earth are you doing here? You don't belong in the library, you belong in the cheery world of…er…cheerleaders."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Okay. Right Giles, who's your Slayer?"

"Excuse me?" Giles feigned.

"Oh come on," Cordelia said. "Pointy sticks meet evil vampires; they explode into dust…who does all the pointy poking around here?"

"How on earth do you know about it?" Giles asked, bewildered.

Cordelia crossed her arms. "Never mind. Who's the Slayer? Is it Buffy Summers?"

"How do you know that name?" Giles asked. "She's a potential Slayer, correct, but the real one is Xander Harris."

"And he's a boy?"

"Yes, of course," said Giles. "It's quite irregular, but the Council and I really can't argue with it. Besides, he does quite a good job of it so we aren't complaining."

"Great," muttered Cordelia. "Just great. Where can I find him?"

"Wait a second," said Giles. "You aren't going anywhere until you tell me how you know what the Slayer is."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," said Cordelia, poking her head into the weapons cage. "Does Willow Rosenberg know about all this?"

"Yes, Willow's a very…capable…witch," said Giles. "You get your hands off those weapons!"

"I wasn't going to touch them," Cordelia said. "I just wanted to know if they were the same ones Buffy used."

"Used?"

"I really promise I'll tell you later," Cordelia said, heading out of the library.

"Cordelia, wait!" Giles said angrily, heading after her.

"I'm not a demon!"

hr

Xander Harris ran towards the slimy, blue demon and attacked it with a spinning kick from behind as Larry, Willow and Oz watched. "Knife!" he yelled to Willow. Willow pulled out a shiny silver knife and tossed it to Xander, who stabbed the ugly tentacle demon through the heart.

"Thanks, Will," said Xander, racing towards the dead demon.

"Isn't he going to disappear?" Larry asked, turning the demon over with his toe. "He looks like Davy Jones. You know—from Pirates of the Caribbean."

"I guess the tentacle demons don't," Oz pointed out.

"He's really slimy," Willow said distastefully.

"You have a point," Xander said. "Slaying is never fun with slime there."

"And it is fun otherwise?" Larry asked.

"Not really."

"Xander!" Cordelia said racing towards Larry, Willow, Oz and Xander. The four of them quickly tried to hide the dead blue demon by standing in front of it.

"To what do we owe this displeasure?" Xander asked.

"I need your help."

"With votes for prom queen?" Willow said. "Sorry, Cordelia."

"No!" said Cordelia. "Giles wants you, Xander. He said you had an overdue book or something."

"Oh," Xander said too quickly. "I'll be right there."

"We'd better go with him," Willow said. "Because…you know…he might need help paying the fines or something…" The three Scoobies scuttled off.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "That was way too easy." She noticed the blue demon lying dead on the ground. "Ew. Tentacles."

Cordelia ran off quietly to follow Xander, Willow, Larry and Oz as they met Giles. He hadn't asked for the four of them of course, but it was a good way to get them together so Cordelia could explain herself. She wasn't exactly sad about Xander being the Slayer, but it was a little weird, and she was from an alternate universe.

"Cordelia!" said Willow angrily as Cordelia walked into the library unannounced. Several demon books were scattered around, and Giles looked confused.

"Why did you send the four of them to the library?" he asked Cordelia. "I know you are aware Xander is the Slayer, but it was quite unnecessary."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "I'm from an alternate universe, blah blah blah, some demon did some magic thingamabob, blah blah blah, I wished that Xander was the Slayer…here I am. Ta-da!"

"So I'm not really the Slayer?" Xander asked.

"You are in this reality," Cordelia said. "Like that's a comfort."

"So who was the Slayer in the other reality?" Larry wanted to know.

"It was Buffy Summers," Cordelia told them. "Do you really want to know my life story growing up in a different universe?"

"It could be very helpful," Giles said, taking off his glasses and polishing them.

"Buffy was your best friend the Slayer," Cordelia told Xander and Willow. "Xander and I were dating when he cheated on me with Willow, and I broke up with him. Duh. So this demon girl Anya did this veiny wish thing and I wished Xander was the Slayer. And now he is."

"You couldn't have come up with a better wish?" Larry asked, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry," Cordelia said. "I could have wished…what, exactly on Xander?"

"I don't know! Something—not Slayer-related!" Larry said.

"I thought it would be funny to see him as a girl," Cordelia explained. "But that didn't exactly work like I wanted it to."

"Cordelia, you said that a demon brought you here?" Giles asked, racing towards the reference books.

"Yeah. Her name was Anya, and she had this necklace…" Cordelia took it off and gave it to Giles. "She turned up right after Xander and I broke up."

"Wait," Xander said, pointing fingers between himself and Cordelia. "We…were dating? How? Why? HOW?"

"I had a fit of temporary insanity," Cordelia said. "For a year."

"Why…Cordelia?" Xander choked out. "Why?"

"Sorry to ruin your Broadway act," Oz told him, "but we've got a demon."

Giles held out a book to Cordelia. "Is this the one you saw?"

Cordelia took it. "Looks like. Funky veiny thing." She read a couple words. "This is the demon of bad breakups?"

"Anyanka is a very powerful vengeance demon," Giles said pointedly.

"Of bad breakups."

"Yes, essentially," Giles said dismissively to Cordelia.

"Different universe," Oz said thoughtfully. "That's really deep."

"You never change," Cordelia said.

"Yes he does," Larry said in a fit of bad humor. "About three days a month he changes into a hairy wolf."

Cordelia looked over at him. "Larry? Aren't you a football player?"

"Maybe in your dimension," Larry said heroically. "But here I decided to give up the art of the pigskin for the greater good of destroying demons."

"Okay, okay, different dimension, your point being…" Xander said in the air of someone trying to move things along as fast as they could.

"There's really not a difference," Willow said. "We're all safe here."

"Well, I thought you might want to know," said Cordelia, nettled.

"We would," Giles said. "Now please leave Cordelia."

"As long as I'm here, I might as well be a Scoobie or whatever. I want in on the Slaying," Cordelia said. "I can help. Once upon a time in a different dimension, I killed a vampire with a spatula."

"That's a new one," Willow said, interested.

"iThank you /i," Cordelia said. "Buffy didn't agree."

"Who the heck is Buffy anyway? Does she even exist in this reality?" Larry asked.

"Yes. She's a potential Slayer who lives in L.A.," Giles said.

"Oh."

"I liked football Larry better," Cordelia told them. "I'm going to help research with you."

"I'm not complaining. Do you see me complaining?" Willow asked.

"Researching Cordelia. That's what you call an oxymoron," Oz said.

"Shut up," said Cordelia, reaching forward to take a book off a shelf.