"That is not a hellhound," Rupert Giles declared with crisp authority while they were staying up late this evening to welcome Buffy back after her latest Sunnydale patrol.
Keeping her fascinated gaze fixed upon the very entertaining show occurring in the middle of the Revello house living room, Dawn still had to point out to the Englishman opposite her on the other couch, "Uh, Giles, there's the whole glowing red eyes and really big teeth situation going on here – not to mention the fact Carlos turned into one huge magic dog last night!"
Giles just shook his head and then lifted a finger to indicate his lecture was about to begin, even if his audience consisting of Dawn, Evie, and Jay were having a lot more fun watching a massive canine continuously spinning around on the floor while this beast was unsuccessfully chasing its tail.
"As I told your sister and the others during the events of the Sunnydale High prom, the actual term is something of a misnomer. Those creatures referred to then as hellhounds were on the contrary misshapen manlike demons bred for their leaders' wars. There's never been any indication these monsters could transform other people into their kind by biting them. Not to mention that the classic hellhound's behavior is to instead viciously rip their enemies into shreds and then feed upon their brains. Does that look like it's about to happen here right this minute?"
Collapsing onto the carpet with a heavy thud! which caused the entire house to shudder slightly, the panting dog twisted his head around to cagily study the yet-uncaught tail innocently lying there. Narrowing in obvious thought a pair of radiant eyes backlit with ominous scarlet, this supernatural canine clearly decided to ignore that part of his body until it relaxed its guard. Then, pounce!
"Gee, I dunno," Jay dryly commented. "If we toss him a nice, juicy bone, Carlos might do exactly that."
Quickly looking up at the mention of his name, Carlos uttered a happy "Woof!" towards Jay.
Jay grinned in return at his transformed friend, until he became aware of the very exasperated atmosphere now present in the living room. The young visitor from the Descendants dimension glanced around at the others regarding him with mutual annoyed expressions which definitely held him responsible for everything, to then conciliatory toss his hands in the air.
"Hey, just trying to stay optimistic here! You've already found out he's just fine being a dog in that body," Jay pointed at the beast thumping his tail. "And once you change him back, Carlos will get his human smarts back, too, right?"
Giles removed his glasses to polish them, all while cautiously nodding. "Yes, that seems quite likely. However, the sticking point for now appears to be the actual transformation process itself. When I called before dinner, Willow, Tara, and Mal going through my archives reported they were making good progress in finding the proper spell which would work on Carlos but there's a way to go yet before that happens."
Replacing his glasses, Giles stared intently through these at Jay. "You're absolutely positive you told us everything of what occurred during your little…jaunt…through Sunnydale last night?"
That stressed word was delivered with genuine bite, indicating the thorough vexation Giles was feeling towards that little plonker who'd left Buffy's house with his friend on the night in question despite being firmly told by assorted Scoobies how dangerous the Hellmouth could be.
"Yeah, sure, Mr. Giles," Jay calmly lied through his teeth.
He'd already been yelled at so much by everyone over the course of the whole day that Jay congratulated himself for not ever mentioning the cute Harmony girl he'd collided with just after Carlos got bitten by that stupid hellhound or whatever it really was. Who needed the extra hassle, anyway? Of course, it meant he would need to find another way to meet her again, but this was just a minor detail, one he could overcome quite easily.
Hoo, yeah…those lips, that body—
"Ugh!" Evie and Dawn chorused in abrupt revulsion, yanking Jay out of his fantasy of getting much more closely acquainted with Harmony.
Blinking, he looked down at where Carlos was…oh, dude, you're getting a little too carried away with the whole dog thing, aren't you?
Arising from his armchair, Jay reached down to grab Carlos by his furry neck. Hauling Carlos off with a great deal of effort from his extremely indelicate actions involving that canine's tongue and his reproductive system, Jay announced, "C'mon, dude, let's get you some water."
The girls and even Mr. Giles looked rather relieved at Jay's suggestion.
Carlos surged up onto all four paws and amiably followed after Jay leading the way to the kitchen. There, the dog noisily slurped a drink from the filled plastic bowl earlier put down on the floor for him. Leaning against the kitchen entranceway, Jay regarded all this while contemplating with a great deal of wicked glee just how his friend's mom would instantly go to pieces if she ever saw her little boy like this. Though, that'd be much better than Cruella de Ville deciding Carlos would be perfect as her newest fur coat—
A pleading whine broke into Jay's thoughts. He glanced over at where Carlos was now standing in front of the kitchen's back door and giving Jay a rather desperate look.
Rolling his eyes, Jay went over and opened the door. When it was sufficiently ajar, Carlos dashed outside and headed into the backyard darkness to do his urgent business in decent privacy. Jay also stepped out of the house, though he refrained from staring after Carlos. They might be the best of buds and always have each others' back, even with Carlos being a dog right now, but nothing in the bro code required him to watch that.
Instead, he strolled alongside the house, enjoying being outdoors after a whole day stuck inside. Or as just about anybody else would've put it, being in the…heh…doghouse. Jay idly circled the suburban home, out into the front yard, and then back again on the opposite side yard, where there was waiting for him a girl in a very skimpy bikini.
Correction: Harmony in a very skimpy bikini.
Stopping dead in his tracks, Jay gawked at the incredible sight before himself. It was Harmony who opened the conversation with a very perky, "Hi, Jay!"
"Hi," Jay managed. There was no way he could keep from further asking, "Uh, why are you here in the middle of the night without any clothes on?"
Approvingly glancing down at her barely-legal swimsuit, Harmony looked up with a gleaming smile at Jay. "I like to take a quick dip in our pool when it's really late! It's so peaceful and all that, getting me tired out for bed!"
At that point, Harmony extended both arms skywards and did a seriously sensuous stretch of her trim body which tested to their absolute limits the strength of the tiny pieces of fabric covering this girl. Bringing down her arms, Harmony then patted her mouth with the back of a hand to hide a fake yawn. She finished this performance by flashing Jay another toothpaste grin.
Judging from the glazed look now in her prey's eyes, it was time to move in for the kill. Well, no, not really. That could wait a little longer. It'd be more fun to drag things out a bit, see exactly if those brawny biceps matched the rest of his body. Harmony then purred towards Jay, "Why don't we take a swim together? It's only a block away."
That was quite true, as previously verified earlier this evening by Harmony. That other neighborhood house with its pool had this home's occupants spending the night away somewhere else, leaving things free and clear for some private hanky-panky…which Harmony was absolutely determined to achieve tonight.
In the middle of his sudden brain meltdown, Jay still remembered the numerous blood-curdling threats he'd received from four females also currently living at the Revello house – Buffy, Dawn, Mal, and Evie – if he ever dared to take one single step on his own past the boundaries of the Summers home after sunset. On the other hand, nobody had forbidden him from going off with someone else…
"Great!" Jay eagerly responded. "Just let me tell my friends where I'll be—"
Harmony frantically interrupted, waving her hands to and fro in a hasty negative gesture accompanied by, "No, no! You can't do that!"
"Why not?" blankly replied Jay.
Harmony's thoughts scurried through her normally empty mind in an anxious search for some presumably acceptable excuse to prevent that luscious guy from ruining the vampire's scheme. Miracle of miracles, Harmony Kendall actually produced from out of thin air an adequate pretext.
"Uh, Buffy Summers lives here, right?"
Jay just nodded in his predictable confusion.
Sheepishly digging a big toe in a perfectly charming-yet-sexy manner upon the side lawn, Harmony told Jay, "Me and her, we've never gotten along since high school when I beat her out for the last spot on our cheerleading team. She's held one nasty big grudge against me since then."
"Oh," blinked Jay. His gaze sharpened towards where Harmony was hopefully waiting to see if he'd really buy this. Jay then carefully inquired, "You mean, you were a cheerleader then?"
"Sure."
Ding! triumphantly went something deep in Jay's subconscious. Harmony caught a smattering of this by the quick flash of elation then passing over Jay's face, and she was equally swift in sealing the deal by her announcement: "Want to see one of our old routines?"
Again, Jay just nodded, only this time in sheer eagerness.
Beaming at Jay, Harmony struck a pose of one arm held straight up over her head with a clenched fist and the other fist on her cocked left hip. Then, bringing both hands together, she began rapidly twirling these around each other at waist level as if demonstrating the shake of a pair of invisible pom-poms. All this was accompanied by Harmony beginning to bounce up and down on her feet along with chanting, "Razorbacks, Razorbacks, go, team, go!"
Doing a continuous high-step from one side to the other, Harmony spun around to present her back to Jay, who watched in utter concentration while she wiggled her butt several times as if to make a now-missing cheerleader skirt flip. Seeing as her tight rear was now covered solely by her bikini bottom, this sight was even more spectacular than usual, which Harmony confirmed by doing another half-spin to mentally gloat over Jay's open mouth.
*Yeah, all I'll have to do is tow him along by his nose out of here,* Harmony gleefully thought. *The big finish should make him completely forget about saying anything to his friends before we leave!*
Harmony rhythmically began a series of high kicks with one leg and then the other. When she judged it was time, a last grand flourish of her invisible pom-poms ended with Harmony dropping to the lawn in a full split, to freeze there in that victorious pose.
"Hugghhhhnnnnn," Jay gurgled in his dazed appreciation.
Smirking to herself, Harmony easily rose to her feet, chest heaving in several deep breaths. She didn't really need to do that, of course, what with the vampire thing, but that would certainly put the cherry on top for it all. Indeed, Jay appeared to be ready to follow Harmony even to the furthest ends of the Earth as long as he got to watch her exquisite ass in front—
"YYYEEEEEE!" shrieked Harmony at the top of her normally non-working lungs, abruptly leaping right towards Jay to collide with him and send this young man toppling over backwards while the both of them were entangled with each other onto the side lawn.
Stunned a bit from both the impact from a clutching girl's body and his unexpected hard landing against the ground, Jay stared up with honest bewilderment at Harmony sprawled full-length upon him and looking with equal confusion over her shoulder at something behind themselves.
What the heck had that been? Just a second ago, something hugely solid and blunt had just rammed itself with unerring accuracy right between her butt cheeks, so naturally Harmony had jumped ahead and away from that…giant dog with the glowing red eyes sitting on his haunches?
Carlos tilted his shaggy head in confused canine cognition. After having a truly satisfying crap, he'd next been attracted by those noises of the two-legs close by were making and then how that skinny, fur-shaving female who smelled so weird was bouncing around all over the place. When she'd stopped to stand before his master, Carlos took the opportunity to come up from behind to check much more closely that strange scent, getting up really close and personal with his muzzle as only wayward dogs can pull off.
The dog's head now turned at the sounds of other two-legs' voices calling out both Carlos' and Jay's names from the other side of the house. Harmony's own head whipped around to glare at the residence, knowing now that her cunning plan to abduct Jay tonight had just completely gone to hell. No, the only thing to do was to instantly scram before that old librarian and Buffy's sister found them both and recognized Harmony. However, there still might be a way to get a little bit of a win from this whole stinking disaster.
Looking down into Jay's face, Harmony said quickly to him, "Sorry, got to go! Buffy and Dawn don't like me all that much, remember? Just stay quiet, and I'll see you again soon! Bye!" With that, Harmony next gave Jay a fast kiss and then scrambled off of him.
"Hey, what—" protested Jay to no avail. He watched Harmony disappear with surprising speed into the dark.
Switching his gaze at where Carlos was still sitting there, Jay fiercely glowered at his best friend in that animal form. "Dude, you're gonna pay for this someday, I swear!"
Giving a joyous bark, Carlos launched himself at Jay. This meant Evie, Dawn, and Giles mere seconds later found Jay lying flat on his back, sputtering and futilely trying to fend off with both hands Carlos slobbering with a massively drooling tongue all over Jay's face.
Even though a fuming Harmony was now stalking through Sunnydale's deserted streets, this vampire might've taken a modicum of comfort in knowing at least one part of her scheme for tonight had turned out to be absolutely successful. During all the advance devising of a way to entice Jay from the Revello house, Harmony came to realize there was one real stumbling block about the whole situation. Mainly, Buffy Summers, the Slayer.
It was easy enough to stay hidden to watch Buffy leave her house on her nightly patrol. That superhuman young woman hadn't ever been all this good at sensing vampires as long as they were as far away as possible, so that took care of that. No, the big problem was if Buffy cut short her patrol or came back home early for some other reason. Harmony glumly foresaw this would probably result in her being dusted quicker than you could say "Mr. Pointy!"
So…how to make sure that little bitch stayed busy elsewhere in town? After a great deal of thought inspired by fervent visions of Jay burying his handsome face into Harmony's cleavage and then motorboating away like nobody's business, Harmony conceived of a genuinely excellent deception to sidetrack Buffy.
About an hour earlier:
Punching down the brand-spanking-new door to Willy's Alibi Room, Buffy burst into the demon saloon, ready to kick ass and take names. Except…nobody was there but Willy himself, seated behind the bar and pressing a dirty towel wrapped around some ice cubes against the right side of his face.
Lowering the towel to reveal a spectacular black eye already puffing into vivid colors, Willy impassively regarded the startled Slayer. He next declared in a very grouchy voice, "Oh, it's you. Figures."
Looking around the otherwise deserted saloon save for themselves, Buffy switched her attention back to where Willy was still eyeing her in evident dislike. "What happened to all your customers tonight, Willy?"
"They left a while ago," a grumpy Willy muttered. "Some big-shot demon's throwing a party at one of the unused warehouses at the docks, open to everybody. Free booze, free blood, free victims; you know, the usual."
Buffy's fists tightened in anger and she began striding towards Willy behind the counter. "You better tell me exactly where, mister, or you're gonna be really sorry—"
"800 Clifton Street," Willy promptly replied. At Buffy's surprised look when she halted dead in her tracks, Willy just shrugged. "What? If those bastards deserted me without a second thought, they deserve everything they get. That'd be you, Slayer. Have fun."
Buffy blinked several times, trying to take in how things had just gone off the rails here. The way it usually worked on patrol, she stormed into the Alibi Room, beat up Willy for the latest news on Sunnydale's nightlife, and meanwhile also took out in the bar maybe a vamp or two deep in their cups objecting to this intensive interrogation. It seemed kinda like…cheating, getting the information so easily this time.
However, from the sound of it, she had a Slayer mission to accomplish, wiping out lots of demons and saving their captives from a horrible death. Right, let's do it.
"Okay, Willy, thanks," shortly responded Buffy, turning around and heading out back of the bar through the wide-open doorway.
Willy sighed with relief and pressed the clammy towel once more against his aching head. He was too thankful for not getting punched out again to bother wondering just why that girl vampire who'd earlier half-destroyed the bar because of learning about Spike's true death had come back tonight to tell everyone about that dockside party. Even odder had been her hitting him just after warning Willy to keep quiet when the Slayer came calling, specifically about this same vampiress. Anything else he could spill, but if Willy developed a loose mouth about her, she'd—
A throat was politely cleared in front of Willy. Uttering a short yelp of shock at being caught unawares, the bartender yanked away his towel and stared at where Buffy Summers was back again at the counter.
There was an actually apologetic expression on this young woman's pretty face, matched in her tone, while Buffy told Willy, "Sorry, fella, but, it's like, you know, traditional. Besides, I won't sleep at all tonight thinking about how lopsided you look with only one black eye."
Before Willy could even begin a protesting whine, the Slayer wound up and clouted Willy with a really good wallop, directly in his previously uninjured eye.
Around the same time:
Standing at the major compass points in Giles' living room where a magic ceremonial circle had been chalked onto the floor, Willow was at the north, Mal was at the west, Tara was at the south, and…
A shoebox possessing a lid punched with airholes covering this small cardboard container had been placed at the east point. Little rustling noises were coming from inside this shoebox.
Mal glanced over with an incredulous expression on her face at Willow. "I can't believe you left her like this for so long!"
Willow looked seriously guilty at that well-deserved reprimand.
She tried to divert the scolding this witch was receiving with, "You're sure it'll really work? I thought transformation-reversing spells had to be absolutely specific, like Carlos' case."
Tara attempted to calm things down in her soft voice, "We're just p-practicing it for now, sweetie. Once we t-test everything a few times, that should show us the m-mistakes to safely fix before we t-try it for real on Carlos. In the m-meantime, it can't hurt to do a run-through on h-her since nothing else we've d-done had any effect at all."
Mal nodded. "What Tara said. From what you've told me, this probably won't change anything, but it's still worth a shot. Okay, both of you ready?"
Willow and Tara also nodded. They held out their hands to clasp these with the other witch and also with Mal. The latter girl took a deep breath and slowly released it. Her eyes began to glow green, followed by Tara and Willow beginning to chant in an ancient language.
The chalk marks on Giles' apartment floor soon started to radiate a soft white illumination. This luminosity included the shoebox, from which the rustling noises had stopped when the witches initiated their vocalization.
Through her mystical vision, Mal was seeing things going better than she expected. Concentrating on the transformation spell memorized by her, green energy materialized in the hand she was holding with Willow. A startled look appearing on her face, Willow still didn't stop chanting even when the energy transferred itself to her own hand and then traveled up her arm, across Willow's shoulders, down the other arm, and moved onto Tara's hand, leaving behind an emerald trail through its path.
A faint smile now curving Tara's lips, this witch also kept on intoning the proper words for a body-altering spell. Eventually, both Sunnydale residents came to the end of their chant, declaring with raised voices their ardent appeal for a successful outcome. At the same time, Mal's green energy flared into vividness, matched by the chalkmark illumination's equally sudden brilliance.
Sagging from the abrupt termination of the enchanted power they'd each been using, Willow, Tara, and Mal all simultaneously closed their eyes in weariness…which meant they were all taken by surprise by what next occurred. Particularly Mal.
At the same time Maleficent's daughter heard a girl's voice vehemently declaring over and over, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!", she reeled from the utterly unanticipated brunt of someone else's body jumping up against and then wrapping all their arms and legs around herself.
Her eyes flying open while she instinctively embraced the other person in turn to keep from falling over, Mal stared into the teary face of a complete stranger nose-to-nose with her.
Mal also became aware of the fact she was holding onto the bare flesh of this stranger's back. Already dreading what she was going to see, Mal's gaze lowered to reveal the girl clutching onto herself was totally nude.
In the next instant, the other girl yet repeating "Thank you!" gratefully pressed her head against Mal's cheek. At long last, Amy Madison's nightmare of being nothing more than a magical rat was over…and she owed it all to the other girl she was still hugging.
Mal's problems, on the other hand, appeared if they were just starting. Looking over Amy's shoulder at Willow and Tara staring open-mouthed at them both, Mal appealed to them, "Little help here?"
Naturally, at that exact point, Xander Harris arrived back at G-man's apartment after his doughnut run, carrying several boxes filled with sugary goodness and catching his daughter cradling in her arms a definitely familiar naked girl…