BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Star Trek:TNG by Roddenberry and Paramount.


Giles casually hid his baseball bat behind him as he escorted the last of the group of children inside the school. He'd chosen the weapon as one appropriate to a 'normal' teacher called into the defense of his students, quite apart from the pouch of holy water and magical supplies he'd grabbed from the back room on hearing the chaos roaring through the streets of Sunnydale.

Fortunately, the spell had ended before he'd had to witness any of its victims doing things irrevocable. The one pairing of pint-sized Jedi and Sith he'd noticed had been evenly matched enough to not actually burn each other, although the street was littered with parts of severed cars...


Ethan froze as the vampire tracked his gaze over his body, Starfleet uniform and all.

"Well," Angel said, nodding. "From the location and the description, I'm assuming you're Ethan?"

Ethan's mind froze. In his panic, he threw on the American accent he was most comfortable with.

"No, I'm Derek," the mage said in passable New York tones. "Went out as Captain Picard, wound up here before my crew scattered. We need to get going, there's a flood of demons around the corner getting organized."

Angel shrugged. "Fine, my group has a car parked down the street. You lead the way."

"Anything you say," Ethan said in a calming tone as he raised his hands slightly. "I just want this night to be over."

He had the time to take a few steps past Angel before something clicked over in the vampire's mind.

Angel promptly shoved him up against the building that housed his recently vacated store.

"Seriously," Angel snarled. "You were that television repair guy in New York. The one who said he couldn't fix exploded demons, even mostly mechanical ones. So pitiful, so clueless, when I'm crying my heart out to you. You better be the sorcerer, or you're not only someone who messed with a vampire's head and followed him across a country – you're so completely off the Slayer's radar she won't notice if anything should happen to you..."

"To be completely fair," Ethan said, slipping back into his native British. "That magitek experiment was an early prototype. I couldn't have brought it back to life. It died from something I didn't know I'd built in. You really should be thanking me, I mean I did make something that was your friend for years. You were so pitiful, a bundle of rags, just waiting for something to happen. Wasn't it a good thing, after all?"

Angel pulled Ethan forward and slammed him against the building again. Ethan let out a muffled 'Ouch.'

"This isn't going to go well for you." Angel snarled, leaning in. "That's a Star Trek uniform and I've been wanting to beat up someone wearing one all day..."

"Hey, Angel," Xander yelled from the mouth of the alley. "What's taking so long?"

Spurred on by his voice, a mob of demons spilled around the back corner of the building, Spike and Drusilla quickly taking position in the middle of the pack.

Angel stared Ethan directly in the eyes. "You weren't kidding about the demons, were you?"

Ethan had time to blink before the vampire grabbed him and pulled him into a full run.


A babble arose from concerned parents as they gathered in the library, which had somehow become a triage center for scared kids.

"What could have caused this?"

"Something in the candy?"

"No, how would it have gotten everywhere in town?"

"Mike! You were there at Ethan's right? Anyone not get their costume from him?"

"I did!"

"We did!"

"Sarah didn't, but she wasn't the one trying to bite people."

"Ethan?" Giles raised his head at the name, a dark suspicion forming behind his eyes.

"Let's form a mob and storm the place," yelled a father. His son stood next to him, still dressed as Frankenstein's monster.

"People," Principal Snyder burst through the double doors of the large room. "People. Please. I've just received word it's a gas leak. Nothing anyone could have done about it, besides better funding. As for you," he turned to Giles who had unobtrusively began to gather his things. "I don't want you running off until the last of these kids is home safe."

"With all due respect," Giles said with an edge to his voice.

"With all due respect," Snyder parroted. "What are these scared and vulnerable people going to do if abandoned by an authority figure at this point in time? Think of the children."


Her heart pounding, Buffy sunk to her knees on the roof of a building facing the costume shop and braced herself for the memories to hit. She waited and waited. All she found for her troubles was a single brilliant sensory experience of Deanna's favorite chocolate dessert before it sunk back into the general fog of the half-alien's life.

"Oh, come on." Buffy stood up and began to pace. "Willow dressed up as me. I should have an extra set of memories floating around. I mean, Willow dressed up as a ghost-me. It had to have been Willow, right? Why would anyone else dress up as a dead version of me? Except, Willow didn't dress up as me, did she? It's not fair for her to remember spending time with Angel as me without me getting in on it. Was she right about those clothes being so not her enough that magic decided she wasn't?"

"Pardon me for eavesdropping," yelled Cordelia from the sidewalk. After her team had dusted the last vampire, she'd parked the car they'd 'borrowed' next to the one the Starfleet crew had arrived in. "But are you going to be up there all night?"

With a half-hearted apology, Buffy jumped down to the street. "Didn't notice you there next to... Is that the Sandersons' car?"

Cordelia sighed. "We have the keys. If anyone notices we took it, blame it on a gas leak causing everyone to hallucinate, with you as the designated driver rushing people to the hospital."

"That's better than the sedan." Buffy waved a hand. "As far as I know, Spike still has the keys."

"Spike?"

"Start the car," Xander yelled as he and Angel and Ethan ran across the pavement, a pack of monsters hot on their heels.

Cordelia dove into the car as Buffy reached for the crossbow the other-her had picked out for Deanna. Buried in the mob as they were, she couldn't get a clear shot at the leaders. Spotting an opportunity, she fired a shot and slid over the hood of the car.

The bolt sailed through the air, piercing Drusilla's uniform and embedding itself in her skin, shattering the vials of holy water Beverly had been carrying in a pouch. Drusilla screamed and fell to the ground, twitching, as one of Spike's legs gave out from the resulting spray. A few demons started batting at themselves in pain and disgust, but the more resistant ones in the area of effect just started running harder.

Buffy opened the rear door before shoving herself into the front seat. Xander took up position next to the car and started firing crossbow bolts into the melee as Ethan and Angel wedged themselves into the car.

Xander turned and had almost made it to his seat before a terribly fanged demon he'd shot through the eye made a large dive and sunk its teeth into his leg. At his screams, Angel reached over to help. A short frenzy of motion left the demon's skull crushed and Xander safe in the car at the expense of a chunk of his flesh.

Buffy reloaded her weapon. "Gun it!"

Cordelia slammed her foot on the gas and peeled out as Angel applied first aid, using strips torn from the young man's uniform.

Angel snarled as Ethan reached over with a jar of salve. "Seriously," Ethan said. "You want him to lose feeling in his toes or something? Even immediate help won't guarantee a full recovery. This will, as long as you don't mind the affected area breaking out in scales for a few weeks."

Sighing, Angel took the jar and lathered some of it around Xander's wound.

Cordelia's breathing calmed a bit when they were blocks away. "Seems like we need the hospital after all."


Giles perked up as the phone rang. The library had mostly cleared of children being reunited with their parents and he was hoping for word from the group of young people he was responsible for. He'd received no answer at the Summers' residence and had been reluctant to phone the other numbers without a better picture of what was going on.

"Hello?"

"Giles," came Buffy's voice. "We captured this wizard named Ethan Rayne. We're at the hospital – Xander's beat up, but he should be fine. We were all possessed by costumes the guy made and stopped it by breaking a two-faced statue head. Angel says it was probably 'Janice'. Can you do a very quick search for side effects and get over here? We're really not sure what to do with him as the bad guys all generally get away or explode by now."

Giles ground his teeth and gazed around the room. Asking Buffy to hold on, he tapped one of the elder students on the shoulder and asked her to start collecting phone numbers so he could get permission to drop the last bunch at their houses.

He returned to the phone and took a deep breath. "Seems I'll have a slight delay anyway while I get these trick-or-treaters ready to be returned home. Research should pass the time nicely."

"Giles, why does he want us to call you 'Ripper'?"

"... Please tell me someone's punched him already."


Angel and Buffy sat with Ethan in the waiting room. Cordelia had wanted nothing to do with returning the car, so she had volunteered to stay with Xander seeing as how her ride wouldn't 'be available until midnight.'

After a bit, Buffy broke the silence with a shaky smile. "Angel, Troi may not have been able to read you directly, but she could tell there was a large wall between the two of you that only worsened when the rest of the crew showed up. Now that she's gone, would you like to talk about it?"

Angel gave a sharp and bitter laugh. "I was wondering how you wound up in that uniform. Looks like I had a heart-to-heart with Willow." With a shake of his head he reached out to hold her hand, then leaned forward to stare into her eyes. "I'll tell you what you want to know, later. In the car?" He angled his head in the direction of Ethan. "Not where he can listen and gloat."

Buffy flicked her eyes to the side. "Good point. I mean, he did approach me with the costume when I was wanting to impress you..."

Ethan, for his part, was practically vibrating, considering this small scene of comfort was his first official confirmation the two were in a relationship. He grinned widely. "You should have seen the dress she was headed towards. All pink and ruffles, practically stank of uselessness and Colonial American angst."

Angel shook his head. "He's right, that would have been worse."

Buffy blinked. "What?"

"Right now," Angel said. "Let's just leave it as both choices raising bad memories. Directly in the case of the gown... I really do like the character you went with, at least later versions of her."

"Ethan," growled Giles, the Watcher having approached them quietly. "Should have known it was you from the first sign of chaos. It has your stench all over it."

"Oh, Ripper." Ethan's smile grew wider. "So good to see you again in the flesh. I've been telling them all about you, how this spell would have fared much better with your personal touch, had we pulled this off back in the good old days."

Buffy shook her head. "He ran out of stuff he wanted to say a while back. We should talk details later, but it sort of took the wind out of his sails when I made it very clear to him that no matter what he said, however true, I was going to assume he was leaving out all the parts where you were the good guy or only focusing on stuff that won't make sense outside the right context."

"I'm short on stuff to say, yes." Ethan leaned forward in his chair. "When we meet on terms more favorable to me, there's some things I can show you that he, even at the top of his game, won't be able to explain away so freely."

Giles clenched his fists, his eyes suddenly alert as he scanned the waiting room for potential witnesses and found too many.

Angel frowned at the dark look on Giles' face. "Rayne's indirectly responsible for at least one murder tonight," said the vampire. "Not to mention how not being able to stop himself from killing someone is going to give that guy some horrible mental scars. That said, the mage did come through in a small way, with some quick healing when we needed it..." Angel cringed as his right hand suddenly morphed into a crocodile's claw.

Frowning, he held it up in Ethan's face and waggled his new set of claws.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the mage said, unashamedly. "The salve seems to have a much more immediate effect in the undead... Happy Halloween?"

##

Outside, having said their goodbyes, Ethan frowned as Buffy started the 'borrowed' car and began to pull away. "What do you plan on doing with me?"

"Well," Giles said. "Truthfully, it involves handcuffs."

Ethan half-turned, just in time to see the fist that knocked him out.

As he dragged the dead weight of the mage into his own car, Giles' ears perked up at the sound of an argument. He quickly determined it to be Angel and Buffy switching seats as the Slayer had apparently pulled out of the far end of lot and rounded the block much too fast.


Buffy groaned as they turned onto Revello Drive, Angel having filled her in on more of the details. "So he pretends to give me something from a hopeful future that's actually aimed at triggering your past and lures me in with 'empathy' primed to work on everyone and everything but you?"

"The last bit may be giving him too much credit, that's not exactly common knowledge..." Angel trailed off as they pulled into the Sandersons' driveway. "Oh, they're here. That's not good."

Buffy sighed. "I'll handle this."

The door opened at the Slayer's knock. A tall African-American woman stared down at her. "Well, you look rough. Mind explaining what happened?"

Buffy took a deep breath and explained about how they'd panicked when Xander had been attacked by something. "You've seen him around my house, right? This... Just seemed like the best option."

Mrs. Sandersons shook her head. "Bad night all around." She went into brief detail about how her daughter, Tamora, had dressed as a small feathered dinosaur and how she'd basically lost any sense of herself during their candy patrol. "When she finally came to her senses, it took us ten minutes to help her down from that tree." She sighed. "Nothing to do about it. Just pay for the damage to the latch and from the blood in the back seat and we'll call it square."

"Deal."


Angel looked up from his perch on Buffy's bed and smiled on seeing her re-enter the room, dressed in her casual clothes.

"Well, this is me again," Buffy said, rubbing the loose fabric of her shirt. "Back to normal, all blonde and combat senses."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Yeah." Buffy sighed, her smile fading. "I'm glad I don't have trauma to bounce back from, but I'm worried about that guy who dressed as the fang and flesh suit." They'd stopped by the block of the dead woman's house but the person in the costume had long since fled. "Read as a 'guy', right? Think I glanced over his chest in the mirror, but I can't say I was trying to pick out details." Angel wrinkled up his face and gave a sharp nod. "Anyway, those emotions were horrible and dark, above and beyond what it actually did. Think there's anything we can do to find him?"

Angel stood up and walked over to Buffy's homework supplies. "May I?"

"Sure?"

A surprisingly short amount of time later, Angel returned with a very detailed sketch of the 'face' and upper torso of the inside-out vampire.

"Wow," Buffy softly said. "This is amazing. Disgusting, very, but amazing. How did you?"

Angel shrugged, his mouth turning up at the corners. "I can sketch... Need to concentrate more with these claws, but the hand itself works well enough."

"Nice. It's not going to be what his costume looked like normally, but I can show this around at school... Or we could run it by Ethan, assuming he's available and willing to give a straight answer." Buffy held up the picture and frowned in thought. "Ever consider illustrating the Watcher diaries?"

Angel tilted his head to the side. He wasn't poor by any means, but a lot of the funds he had this side of the Atlantic were on the wrong coast. "Definitely not under my real name... Think they'd pay me?"

"Huh."