Xander groaned under his breath at the sight of the apparently ransacked shop. He had meant to meet up with Wills and Buffy just over an hour ago, but he'd lost himself in flipping through his treasure trove of manga and comic books. By the time he'd glanced at the clock a long time had passed, and he was very late. Partytown was still an option, but it would be very expensive...

"Ahem. I was actually closing."

Xander jumped and spun around in shock.

"Don't do that!"

The man's eyebrows arched as Xander caught his breath, hand clasped to his chest.

"Sorry. Its just that someone I know, Giles, he does that all the time. I think he enjoys watching people freak when he sneaks up behind them."

The eyebrows remained arched, but there was a brief flash of recognition in his eyes.

"Giles? This wouldn't happen to be Rupert Giles by any chance, would it?"

Xander nodded.

"School librarian. You know him?"

"We were actually good friends in our youth... could you do me a favor and not tell him that I've set up shop here just yet? I'd like to surprise him."

Xander quickly nodded in agreement again, happy to help.

"Excellent. But I'd be a poor businessman if I asked you to do something for me with nothing in exchange... I know. All of the full costumes have already been sold, but feel free to see if you can put together your own costume from whats left. Free of charge. It would really cost me more to store all of these for next halloween than I could possibly hope to sell them for... whatever's left over, I'll just throw out with the rest. It's really two favors for me, if you think about it the right way."

Much as he doubted he would really be able to put something together from the toys and pieces of clothing left over, Xander was incapable of avoiding the allure of free stuff. It wasn't long at all before he was wandering through the store with a basket, rummaging through the sad, pitiful remnants of what was left after a screaming horde of children had taken their pick. There were a few toy knives here and there, a couple masks, two or three sets of fake vampire teeth... his eyes swung back to the knives. That one plastic bayonet looked almost like the kind that Paladin Anderson would use in the Hellsing manga.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment as his brain suddenly kicked into overdrive. This was a good idea. No not just a good idea, this was an excellent idea. Rather than just taking a couple of accesories to make himself average, like a normal costume of a beastman or magician... or an army officer, like he'd been considering... he would go one better and create a costume in its entirety. He suddenly seemed more energized as he picked up one thing after the next. A set of sunglasses and a plastic katana joined the bayonet, followed by a set of contacts to change the color of the irises to gold and make the pupil look like slits. A long white wig, he estimated the hair would reach a few inches past the small of his back. A set of fake fingernails, shaped like tiny spades, that would make it look like small claws growing out of his fingernails. A set of 'werewolf' fangs, with a special glue to fix them to his teeth. A large, black, widebrimmed hat, slightly dusty as it had fallen behind a cabinet. A few small rubber ninja stars. Add that to things he could get elsewhere. He nodded at Ethan and left, not noticing the way the man's eyes suddenly obtained a feverishly excited gleam.

A quick stop at a dingy little shop picked up the last few items he needed. Actually, he was well known in this shop... sometimes staked vampires would leave stuff behind after they were dusted. Sometimes it was really good stuff. So sometimes he would come back to the site of the staking to pick the stuff up before any of the other vamps in the area started poking their noses out of whatever holes they'd darted into when the Slayer had come by. This particular little shop was run by a man who seldom asked questions of or about the people who sold things to him... or the people he sold them to. Xander knew for a fact that he'd sold the same set of fingerless gloves to him at least six times, taken from six seperate vampires. Within a few minutes of hushed conversation with the shopkeep he had acquired a coat, dropping down to his midcalf, a set of boots with about a dozen more buckles than necessary, and the fingerless gloves.

Half an hour later, he was admiring the impressive figure he cut in the mirror. If he worked out a little bit more, and was carrying real weapons rather than the toy variety, he might be almost intimidating enough to scare the local nightlife. The only drawback was that most of the local nightlife was too stupid to be intimidated, and most of the rest was too smart and/or powerful to be. He shrugged and left, imagination still whirring in the backgroung, fleshing out the character he had created, even though it would likely only die down once the Halloween candy hype had ended.

xxx

Xander's eyes widened as Buffy stepped down her stairs, dressed as an elegant noblewoman. Logically, he knew that it was an attempt to impress the deadboy, but that didn't stop him staring, or his tongue from drying out.

"W-wow. Duchess Buffy. I'm impressed... and feel a sudden disdain and disgust for all things spandex."

Buffy grinned at his impromptu funny.

"Oh, and if you think this is nice, take a look at... Casper."

"That's... a mighty fine Boo you got there Wills."

Under the white makeup and sheets she grinned.

xxx

Some time later, Ethan began to scream as the spell he was casting suddenly turned violent, ripping far more power out of him than he had been prepared to feed into it. Even as he voiced his agony, a part of him wondered what had gone wrong with the spell. Backlash such as this would only be expected if someone had been turned into something significantly more powerful than he'd expected, but he had stocked his wares carefully. Scary yes, powerful no. The most his spell had been meant for was a bit of chaos and mischief... something had gone terribly wrong.

As he spasmed on the floor, barely alive, and began crawling for the cupboards where he kept restorative potions in stock for just such accidents as this, his mind shot to his last customer. At the time, he'd only been thinking of the fact that he'd spilled some of his spell components on the bins, making them somewhat more potent, but if the boy had happened to be a much more imaginative sort than he'd pegged him as, he could have a problem. The spell he had used had originally been designed permament, the head of a cult would give his followers special outfits, chant the spell, and bam. Instant fanatic zealots for his cause. He had tampered heavily with the spell, the most important change being its lifespan... but that was tied in heavily with the costume itself.

For all the other people who'd bought a costume, they were something generic. A vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a ghost. They didn't think too heavily about their costume beyond that, and so the magic had little grip on them. It would shift them to their costume, one weak little monster among many, then turn them back once the spell ended. The slight bit of extra power behind the accessories doused in spell components would make the spell slightly stronger, but only to the point where one or two physical attributes or personality quirks from the chosen costume would be left behind when the spell ended. Janus only knew what had been going on in the boy's head as he crafted his costume... though whatever he had become, it was immensely powerful.

He clamped his teeth on the cork in the small bottles mouth, jerking it out swiftly and slugging back the entire disgusting concoction in one go before reaching for a second bottle, and then a third. He would have to be careful about performing magic for the next few weeks, as taking this much of the potion at once could have disastrous effects on anything he tried to attempt, not to mention what a second backlash could do to him. As the third bottle hit the floor, Ethan very seriously considered grabbing his emergency travel pack and getting the hell out of town. Right now, chaotic uprising and all. Trying to convince Giles to let the Ripper back out was one thing, and only dangerous. Taking the risk that whatever that kid had become put the pieces together and came to hunt him down was quite another, and probably completely suicidal. He groaned as he began feebly attempting to reach vertical stature.

Of course, his plans hinged on being able to move fast enough to grab his things and get to a car before someone tracked him down... and if it was only Giles, he'd count himself fortunate.

xxx

With an eerily fluid, catlike grace, Experiment number 117-8034-90215-A, codename 'Amalgam' rose to its feet and glanced with the slightest amount of curiosity at its surroundings. With cool logic, it tacked down the list of possible things to account for its sudden appearance in this area. A training scenario for a game to amuse its creators? Negative. Scanning indicated that no mission parameters had been downloaded into its neural centers, and the miniature possible-hostiles seemed disinclined to attack... yet.

A see through image of a young woman in revealing garb, possibly a hologram, drifted over its way.

"Xander! Xander... everyones become their halloween costumes... everyones... Oh my god, Buffy! We have to find her, she'll be helpless!"

Amalgam processed the information and came to a conclusion. It was a game then. No real mission parameters, save those set by this hologram. Amalgam was roleplaying as someone named 'Xander', in the midst of a town gone mad as some unidentified force turned innocent trick or treaters into their costumes, with all the bloodthirsty insticts added.

Major objective, locate and protect one 'Buffy', with further orders to come from the hologram. Minor objective, use of only nonlethal force against hostiles. Limiters set at 0.2 of full power. Regeneration levels locked at 5. Weapons limited to fists. Demonic abilities fully sealed. Vampiric abilities fully sealed. Celestial abilities fully sealed. Magical abilities fully sealed. Trans-phasic abilities fully sealed. Psychic abilities fully sealed. Shapeshifting abilities fully sealed. Alchemic sciences limited to minor transmutations. Battle styles limited to Tendo Musabetsu Kakutou Ryu, minor Saotome Musabetsu Kakutou Ryu. Advanced forms sealed. Intermediate forms sealed. Classification level limited to Advanced Beginner. All other martial arts forms sealed. Begin game.

In less than a second, it had created and accepted its own mission parameters in the absence of one of its creators to craft them for it. It nodded and followed the hologram as it began to drift swiftly away.

In her panic and concern for Buffy's welfare, Willow didn't stop to wonder why Xander was acting slightly odd.

xxx

A.N.

It's been a while since I uploaded anything, but I do have an excuse for any loyal followers. Wow... that sounded a lot less arrogant in my head. Recently, I got a hold of a copy of Oblivion. The game is awesome. How awesome? Lets put it like this... did you know that if you play a game for anywhere above 24 hours in a row, the disc can overheat and fry completely and you'll have to replace it if you want to play any more? Neither did I. That's how awesome the game is, and I'm only up to level ten.

Anyway, I recently read a glut of Halloween-fic crossovers and had to write my own. Originally, I had Xander dress as either Anderson or Alucard of the Hellsing manga, but then I had a way more awesome idea. Amalgam is my creation, and just what it sounds like, an amalgam of lots of different anime and manga characters, mixed together and grown in a lab by the mysterious 'creators', a species of scientists with dimension-crossing capabilities. Quick backstory that will probably not be mentioned in the actual story if I continue it for very long, the creators created Amalgam as a science experiment, and the best it's ever treated by them is as an amusing pet. The 'games' are held for the amusement of these creators, and are held in either virtual reality simulators or alternate dimensions. Think of them like the video games that normal people play when they're bored, except the main character has a mind of its own and, outside the occasional mission objective set by the creators, can basically do whatever it pleases. That doesn't mean that Amalgam is always cast as the 'good' guy. Sometimes the mission objectives and parameters would be very unheroish... he would be playing Sephiroth rather than Cloud, so to speak. The creators taught it to deal with that by forcefully severing its emotions and morals and messing heavily with its head, beginning with Amalgam referring to itself as a genderless 'it', despite technically being male... most of the time... and honestly preferring to think of itself as an object, or sentient being, rather than a person.

Also, keep an eye out for experiment 117-8034-90215-B, who was not offered this... dubious aid. Ever so slight descent into madness. I still have to fully flesh the characters out, but they should be impressive.