A quick write up to stretch the writing muscles. Kinda a 'Ship on the Line' story for Xander and Willow but mostly its a take on those power fantasy stories.
Symbiosis Across the Multiverse
It was rare that Buffy regretted pushing her friends to put themselves out there. To splurge a little, to pick a costume that showed a little more skin, to just have fun for a night.
She even joined in, just a bit. She came up with a backstory for her character. Making her noble woman into something a little more than a lady in waiting. Something a bit more exciting, something more in line with her nerdy best friends.
She had so many regrets.
"Xander, I swear to god if you move again-"
-Right, sorry. Not moving.- His voice reverberated in her head, it had more of a raspy lisp than it used to and was accompanied by a ripple in her not-clothes. That last part she was really trying not to think about. -Sorry-
*He can't really help it, Buffy.* Willow said, her voice like a metallic ring at the back of her head.
"Both of you shut up." She hissed out, hands shoved deep into what looked like a black leather jacket. It was oversized but comfortable, it kept out the stiff breeze that was completely unlike the Californian weather they were in not even twenty minutes ago. She, again, tried to ignore what the jacket was made of and where it came from but it was impossible not to think about. Especially when some people kept talking.
*Hey, we didn't ask for this either, missy.* Again the metallic tang of her voice sounded in her head, a second stream of thought that shouldn't be there. Well, a third one. *We're as stuck in this mess as you are. And at least YOU still have your body!*
Xander gave a brief -Yeah- before Buffy snapped out her own response. "Do I!?" The words came out shrill, enough so that a few people gave her a look. On a busy city street that was saying something. "What!?" She snapped, making them turn and go about their business.
There was a few seconds of blissful silence before Xander spoke up, -Soooo, where are going?-
"This way."
-But… why? Shouldn't we be trying to call Giles? Figure out where we are?-
"Because." She said, still stomping along the sidewalk.
*Why because?* Willow demanded, becoming more insistent when she got no answer. *Buffy!*
"Because we can't contact him!" When more people turned to look at her she slid down an alley for a bit of privacy. "We're not on our plane anymore."
-Uh, what does that mean?- Xnader asked, she could feel her skin, for lack of a better word, ripple as he looked around. -This doesn't look like any sort of hell I've read about.-
'Well, it's certainly like one I can imagine.'
-*Heard that-* The voices came simultaneously and sent a shiver down her spine. What was now Willow wiggled with the sensation.
There was no privacy.
She leaned against the wall to calm herself, taking a long breath she wasn't even sure she needed anymore. Her heart rate wasn't even up, it was steady and smooth despite how she was feeling. Despite how all of them were feeling.
"When all… this happened…" She started, hesitating, not completely sure how to explain things without assigning blame. Blame her friends didn't deserve.
She knew they both understood that, she could feel them understanding that. They gave her a minute, radiating assurance and nervousness in equal measure.
"When this happened, who I changed into, Liliana, panicked." How could the woman not? Appearing in a strange town against her wishes to have a black blob try to engulf her and a grey snake trying to burrow into her neck. "She tried to Walk, travel between planes, to shake them… you, off. It didn't work, obviously. It just snapped off the magic stuff that changed us… most of it... leaving me in the driver seat knowing jack all of what I was doing. I landed us the best I could but, yeah."
The two of them were quiet for a bit, leaving Buffy to her breathing as they rolled thought in whatever now counted for their minds. She could pick up surface things, if she tried. Little word bits that she could piece together what they would as next.
-Can you get us back home?-
"I, I don't know." She admitted, hand to her forehead. "I don't even know if I can even Walk like her."
*If me and Xander are stuck like this then, well, you probably can*
And it wasn't like they could leave Buffy, that was proven very quickly not long after they arrived. Buffy, very understandably in her opinion, freaked when she realized that liquid teenage boy was on her and did her best to rip him off. The three of them shared a collective grimace at the memory.
They were stuck with each other, literally and painfully. When they tried to leave the magic started to rebound on them, tearing into them deeper than any knife. It grabbed at their cells, at their very molecules, and tried to eviscerate what was once united. Did the magic that turned them all into whatever they were feed off itself? Off the symbiotic nature in which she and her friends now existed in?
… And that was a lot of big words. She so did not think or talk like that.
*That, uh, that might be my fault* Willow admitted, *These alien god snake things kinda make their host smarter, among other things. It doesn't really explain all the magic mumbo jumbo though."
Probably from Liliana, another leftover to go with her new brown hair. If the theory of the spell feeding of itself and them was true then she probably kept just as much of her costumed self as Willow and Xander did.
Good news in their hopes of getting home, bad news in that Liliana might actually be out there somewhere. She was not someone Buffy ever wanted to meet. She made Cordelia on her worst day look like a yapping chihuahua.
Buffy felt a ripple along her scalp, indignation riding in her chest until a blonde bang fell in front of her eyes.
-Sorry, just thought this would help a little. Y'know?-
Buffy pulled at the hair, examining the strands of blonde and feeling them between her fingers. When she let go she gave her first smile they arrived wherever they were. "It does. Thanks Xander."
-No problem!-
"Now fix the jacket."
-0-0-0-0-
Freshly blonde and wearing a trendy biker chick outfit Buffy walked down the street with more of a bounce in her step. By mutual agreement the three of them decided they would see where they actually were before they had Buffy tried to get them home.
It took a minute, more than a few in fact, but they eventually found a newspaper stand. It was weird, it was almost like no one was reading a newspaper, not even the grumpy oldmen at the bus stops. Instead everyone was playing a gameboy or something.
"New York? We're in New York?" She whispered as she pretended to browse the various magazines and snacks, avoiding the eye of the stand owner. "How are we in New York?"
*Is that not how it's supposed to go?* Willow asked, tentatively drawing Buffy's eyes back to the newspaper to read more than the heading. Buffy grit her teeth but bared with it. *Didn't you say that the Liliana lady traveled between Worlds?*
"She Walked between Planes." Buffy corrected, "She doesn't teleport, not by Walking at least. It takes concentration just to get somewhere you know about, like a lot, and I had no clue what I was doing."
*Then how did you get us here? How did you decide here?*
"Honestly? I just kinda followed a tug. Like this was the right way to go… familiar, I guess."
-Uh, does that Planeswalking thing include time travel or am I reading a typo?- Xander asked, still looking through Buffy's eyes and drawing the other two out of their conversation. -Cause that looks alot like 2009 to me.-
"*What?*" The girl's shared the thought as they leafed through the papers to double check him. Then the magazines just to be sure.
"You going to buy something girl? This is not a library. Scram if you have no money." They blinked at the man's rough accent and scowl before stepping away, hands raised and thoughts whirling.
"It doesn't work like that." She muttered, her mind trying to grab onto Liliana's memories. The slippery things revealed very little, almost nothing in fact.
-Well we either time traveled or we are in an extra weird episode of Sliders… Don't know what sounds better.-
Sliders? She was about to ask what that was when she gained a vague impression of a show about traveling to alternate Earths from him.
'That's so weird.' She thought, tilting her head back and looking up. She couldn't see much of the skyline from where she stood, she thought the sky in New York would be more brown, like LA, but it looked so blue and bright. Everything looked brighter, sharper too.
It reminded her of how the world started to look after she was Called as a Slayer. But times a couple hundred. She had a feeling why but really didn't want to think about it.
Squinting her eyes she thought she caught something. A tower that she didn't recognize from any movie or magazine. What was that?
She walked further down the street, taking a few turns to get a clear view to settle her curiosity. When she did catch sight of the building Xander stopped them in her tracks.
-Holy shit.- He said as they looked up at the tall grey building, stylized bricks creating a large 'n' shape just above the midpoint of the building. More telling, and obvious, was the large blue '4' laid inside said 'n'. -That's the Baxter Building! You brought us to Marvel! We're in Marvel!-
Off to the side, through Xander's nerding, Buffy heard something. Following the sound she looked into the distance, into the skyline, to see a hulking black figure flinging itself their way. A long pink tongue trailed out from pointed white teeth as it screamed bloody murder
And looking right at them.
-Holy fucking shit, We're in Marvel.-
An:
Again, a quick write (2-3 hours) but it was fun. Might continue just for the impending fight scene.
Anyway, background of the story is that Buffy gave Xander a few dollars for a better costume (Venom) half in apology half to help her convince Willow to get a non-Casper inspired costume (generic goddess). Because they were hamming it up Buffy made up a backstory for her costume, a Lady Vess who was a bit of a temptress and her powerful family was having a bit of a rough time.
End result? A Planeswalker has a Symbiot/Klyntar and a Goa'uld/Tok'ra as passengers.
Why did they turn into Symbiotes? Because intentionally or not that's what they dressed as, the symbiotes not the hosts.
So, basically, this is a Buffy/MTG/Marvel/Stargate cross at minimum but that never stopped these kinds of ideas.
Possible plots to explore:
-Liliana knowing someone temporarily commandeered her spirit/soul. She is not happy.
-The implications of Willow turning into a Goa'uld on her Earth meaning that it is inherently a Stargate cross.
-Access from the Marvel/DC comics showing up and showing why Planeswalkers don't show up often in the comics.
-The Slayer Spirit's reaction to this, if it hasn't been converted into the Spark.
Sidenote: yes Buffy can now do magic, she just sucks using Liliana's Black magic. I think she would lean more towards Red or White magic when she gets the hang of it.
Hopw you enjoyed.