Disclaimer: I don't own anything here. I'm also poor due to a stack of DVDs and a collection of video games that's close to 600 games for a dozen systems. Please don't sue me!

Author's Notes: I live! It's been forever and a day since I've done anything relating to fanfic, and oddly enough, it's the most Buffy-centric thing I've ever attempted. Some 'shipping here, but to reveal now would be telling. ;-)

"What's the name of this thing again, Will? An Ashanti demon?"

"Not Ashanti, Buffy," corrected Willow, "Vishantrai. Totally different."

"Well, that's a relief," announced Xander sarcastically. "Although I for one wouldn't mind listening to the melodic, sinister stylings of a demony songstress."

All three of Xander's companions-Buffy, Willow, and Dawn-groaned at his joke loudly, and with good reason. "Xander," moaned Willow, voicing her exasperation.

"Come on, Will," replied Xander jokingly, "don't tell me you wouldn't mind having a demon like that around."

"You know that I prefer blondes, Xander," answered Willow with a slightly mischievous look on her face. "Right, Buffy?"

Buffy caught the look, and its meaning, and put her arm around Willow waist as she said seductively, "Absolutely. Wasn't last night proof enough?"

Xander's jaw dropped almost as fast as other parts of his body rose to full attention. Dawn similarly lost her cool, screaming loudly as she covered her ears and shouted, "Virgin ears! Virgin ears!"

"It didn't bother you at all that summer when Buffy was dead," mentioned Willow knowingly.

"Well, you weren't doing...it with my sister," complained the thoroughly grossed out teen. "And at least Buffy is quiet."

"And just how would you know that?" asked Buffy, now showing definite signs of annoyance.

"Well, there were all those times when Riley would stay overnight and have a big grin on his face in the morning." Willow snickered, causing Dawn to take the defensive. "What? What'd I say?"

"Riley always had that look on his face," answered Willow. "The guy's like a big ol' puppy dog."

"Hey!" interrupted Xander, sounding as if he were hurt. "I thought that I was the one who was like a puppy dog."

"Sorry, Xand," said Buffy with a bit of mock sympathy in her voice. "You just look like a manly world-saving guy." After letting Xander bask in his own glory for a moment, Buffy added. "Besides, Willow and I need you to think that you're all buff so we can go make out while you and Dawn kill this demon."

Yet again, Dawn was shocked beyond words. "Buffy!"

Well, almost.

"Jeez, I can't even make a series of crude sexual jokes anymore," groused the Slayer. "Why even bother saving the world?"

"Well, I appreciate the joke," remarked Xander earnestly.

"Eww, Xander," answered Dawn as the three women stopped to absorb the implications of Xander's "appreciation".

"I have to go with Dawn here," announced Buffy. "That was pretty 'ew'."

The group started walking again, and soon Buffy and Dawn were bearing down on Willow, who had yet to express her disdain. "What?"

"You're supposed to voice your disgust, Will," said Buffy in a motherly tone of voice.

"Why?"

Dawn spoke next, nearly channeling the spirit of Cordelia as she did so. "So, you actually like it when a guy admits to getting off on you? How sick is that?"

Shrugging, Willow said, "What can I say? That guy is my best friend. Besides, he doesn't have a chance with me, so what kind of person would I be to destroy his perverted fantasies?"

"Aren't we supposed to be hunting something?" asked Xander, now quick to change what was quickly becoming a very painful subject.

"I guess so," responded the Slayer with a little pout. "What does this thing do, anyways?"

"It has some power over time," said Willow, with an apparent lack of confidence in her voice. "It's all a bunch of vague Giles-y prophecies and double talk. The only thing that's clear is that its victims end up kinda insane."

"Insane?" asked Buffy, just a touch of old fears rising in her as she spoke. "How so?"

"The accounts talk of people claiming things that either couldn't have happened, or wouldn't have, at least not for some time. Best friends who the victims claimed they had never met. Enemies being recognized as life-long loves. Fiancés being recognized as husbands or wives-and claiming that they had families. Just really strange stuff."

"Oh, like Angel falling in love with Cordelia?" asked Xander, taking time to laugh at that ridiculous notion.

Buffy glared at Xander for a moment, and began laughing herself when she realized how preposterous the idea was. "That's a good one, Xander," she replied between rounds of laughter. "Angel in love with Cordy...like that'd ever happen." Willow and Dawn joined in on the joke, and laughed with the others for a moment or two before Buffy returned to the matter at hand. "How can that be possible? The bizarro world where Angel loves Cordy and all that?"

"Temporal folds," murmured Xander, much to everyone's surprise. "It's a big Star Trek thing-this one episode had Worf shifting through worlds, where little things would be different from the last world, until things were totally different."

"You are such a geek, Xander," noted Buffy with a bit of disgust.

"But a world-saving geek," responded the onetime Zeppo with pride.

"Yes you are," replied Buffy as she handed him an axe. "Now, go save the world with Dawn while Willow and I have wild sex inside one of the crypts."

"EWWWWW!"

"Still joking," announced the Slayer sarcastically. After a brief pause, she added, "Xander, Dawn, go that way," while pointing in a westerly direction. "Willow and I will circle the area, we'll kill this thing, go home, and party."

"A party? Cool!"

"It was just an expression, Dawn," shouted Buffy as she and Willow began circling. "Besides, I'm pretty sure you have some homework to do..."

"Spoilsport," groused Dawn as she and Xander headed off in their assigned direction.


"So," declared Buffy after a very long and uncomfortable silence, "how are things?"

"Better," replied Willow awkwardly as she looked up from her book on the Vishantrai demon. "Still a little freaked about last week at the library, though."

"Having the image of your dead girlfriend tell you it'd be a good idea to kill yourself isn't exactly supposed to be fun, Will," stated the Slayer. "Although the world hasn't exactly been Disneyland for you this year..."

"Yeah," agreed Willow. "You know it's a bad year when the best news is that your best friend loves you even when you're about to kill him just before you destroy the world."

"I don't know," answered Buffy coyly. "I seem to remember a time when a certain someone I know would have considered hearing Xander Harris say, 'I love you,' to be the best year of her life."

"I'm kinda gay now, Buffy," reminded Willow. "Plus there's that whole, 'I'm over you,' thing that we dealt with a couple of years ago."

"The point is, Willow," noted Buffy, "things change. Sure, Tara dying is always going to hurt, but you're not going to spend the rest of your life saying, 'That year was the worst year of my life.' You'll spend more time remembering the good stuff, and not dwell on the bad so much."

"Oh!" shouted Willow eagerly. "Like how I never mention how bad the lemonade you made for Parent-Teacher Night was?"

"Hey!" cried out Buffy, her feelings now hurt. "You said that it was good!"

"Sorry."

"Uh, what does this thing look like, anyways?" asked Buffy as she looked ahead.

Not noticing the panic in Buffy's voice, Willow looked in her book without paying mind to her surroundings. "Let's see...tall..."

"OK..."

"...scaly..."

"Check..."

"...big teeth..."

"Uh huh..."

"...lots of drool..."

"I'll say..."

"I don't believe it," finished Willow with a note of astonishment. "It does sort of look like Ashanti."

"I'm sure Xander will be pleased," remarked Buffy, now sounding incredibly anxious.

Closing her book, Willow looked at Buffy and asked, "Uh, why do you want to know what it looks like?"

Pointing as the extremely angry looking Vishantrai demon in front of her, Buffy said blandly, "I think I found it."

Before Willow could answer, the demon shouted something in its native tongue, then raised its hands at the two and blasting both Willow and Buffy with a lightening-like energy. Both women were thrown back by the attack, each colliding with a gravestone as blackness claimed them.


"Buffy?"

Willow groaned as she sat up and started to look for her friend. "Buffy? Where are-" Willow spotted the Slayer some four yards away, unconscious. "Buffy?" Looking around for the Vishantrai demon, Willow frantically shook her friend in an effort to awaken her. "Buffy! Get up!"

"Its alright, Dawn..." mumbled Buffy, still heavily dazed. "Mom won' mind if you skip school today..."

"Buffy, come on!" Glancing over her shoulder fearfully, Willow urged, "Buffy, you need to kill the demon!"

"Tha's OK, Mom," mumbled Buffy. "Faith can do it..."

"Faith's in jail!" screamed the redhead, desperate for Buffy to save their proverbial (and non-proverbial) bacon. The problem is, the Vishantrai heard her, and decided it was high time to finish this little escapade once and for all.

"Oh, crap," muttered the witch as she steeled herself for battle.

"Incendiere!" Normally, that word, as shouted by Willow, would cause a large fireball to appear. Now, however, it did nothing.

"Illuminos!"

"Aquamentos!"

No matter how hard she tried, none of Willow's spells seemed to work. Not that the Vishantrai cared or anything, for it smacked Willow in her face. "Well, that wasn't very nice," replied Willow as she wiped blood from her nose, not pausing to realize that the rather large demon had failed to send her flying.

Willow again attempted a spell, but was stopped by a hard uppercut from her opponent. Battered and dazed, the redhead teetered for a seeming eternity as the Vishantrai prepared for its finishing blow...

SHHTHUNK!

The demon screamed out loudly as it was hit in the shoulder by an arrow. Now distracted, the Vishantrai ignored Willow as it looked for the creature responsible for the attack.

"Willow!"

The Vishantrai saw two humans approaching, and one of them (the same one carrying the crossbow used to injure it, as well as the one shouting) looked mighty pissed. It didn't have to wait for the humans to attack again to get the hint; instead, the ugly terror decided to (wisely) cut and run.

"Hey, Xand..." Willow's greeting to her oldest friend belied her current state of consciousness. Namely, that of, "barely". "S'OK if I take a nap now...?"

Willow didn't bother for Xander's response, instead opting to pass out in his arms. "Will?" asked Xander, nervously. "Willow?"

"She's out cold, Xander," noted Dawn with concern, however obvious the statement may have been. "If it did that to her, what did it do to Buffy?" Turning, Dawn began shouting her sister's name, the fear in her voice as thick as the night itself. "Buffy!"

"She can't be too far from here," replied Xander. "I'm going to get the car." Dawn nodded as Xander picked up Willow and carried her off to relative safety.

"Buffy, where are you?"

Dawn began panicking as a figure rose from one of the graves, convinced that something very not Buffy-like was coming to get her. The Slayer's younger, artificial sister prepared herself as the shape stumbled closer. Finally, it spoke.

"Dawnie?"

"Buffy?" Dawn nearly tackled her big sister, too relieved to notice that Buffy was in about the same shape as Willow: bad. "Are you alright?"

"Concussion," answered the blonde heroine with the economy of words inherent in someone who really doesn't feel like talking. "Where's Will?"

"Xander has her," replied Dawn. "He's getting his car so we can go home."

"Sleep is good..." murmured Buffy as she started to walk forward, only to stumble. "Whoops..."

"Let me help," offered the younger Summers girl as she grabbed ahold of her sister. "Then you can go home and get some rest."

"Mmm...sleep..." answered the Slayer as she started moving forward gingerly, into the night and towards the safety of Xander's car.