Joe's Note: This story plays off a theme that I more fully explore with Willow in Red, White, and Blue, but basically… I've always been of the belief that the spell would work on perception of identity. Buffy perceived herself to be a medieval lady, so she became a medieval lady. Willow perceived herself to be herself in a ghost costume, so she became an incorporeal version of herself. Xander… as far as we're aware, he didn't use a real soldier's dog tags or anything when he dressed up. He was just himself as a soldier. So why did he turn into anyone other than a soldier version of himself? I didn't have much room to play with the concept given that this is Willow's story, but I had a little fun with it as you'll see.
Dedications & Thanks: To Howard, Nicholas, Alonsis2, Cyle, Marika, Tibor, Adrien, Arkantos59, bloodylord, Charles, Crygon20, DireSquirrel, Edward, enygma, Fablesrogue, George, Gerald, Glenn, Joseph, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Koby, MJ, Morgan, mpotato, PbookR, Roofcrawler, Wil, William, Ziryo, Beeknees, Darrell, David, erlking, Haematite, HaunzGruber, TheTenthAncestor, UncreativeName01, Zordmon, Abby, Lookshy, Roman, Warren, and Wesley for sponsoring me on P-treon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

Willow stumbled as something unseen swept over her from behind like a tidal wave. All of a sudden, she felt… different. Off. It wasn't something she could put her finger on, but she instinctively knew that something had changed about her. Something was different. Wrong.

And then, out of the blue, there were voices in her head. Her eyes got wider and wider as a cacophony of noise bombarded her mind. Oh no. No no no. This couldn't be happening. They were just characters in a TV show. She couldn't be hearing them in her head.

'What's going on? Where are we? And where's Ryotaro? Speak, girl!'

Momotaros? It had to be, as impossible as it was. His voice was just like on the television show and he seemed just as brash and impatient as his fictional self was.

'Relax, sempai. While not often in life, sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side. This might not be a bad thing.'

The master manipulator was there too. Willow made a mental note to keep herself far away from Buffy, Cordelia, and pretty much all of the other girls from school until she could figure out what was going on or until she was sure Urataros couldn't actually take over her form and cause trouble.

'Speak for yourself, Turtle Boy. I liked Ryotaro! I liked my grass!'

And they were just as obnoxiously as opposed as they appeared to be on the show. Great. That was just great. Not only did she suddenly have fictional voices in her head, but they were voices who were going to argue constantly.

'Awwww. I'll never become the conductor of the train of time now! And where's onee-chan?'

…why her? She had the psychotic and childish one in her head too? The others, she could deal with. But Ryutaros? A super-powerful child with the power to hypnotize people and a tendency to act out could only lead to badness. An epic level of badness.

'Silence! We have a duty to protect our host, and right now she is our host.'

And what multiple-personality moment would be complete without Kintaros? At least he was noble and somewhat sensible… and would sleep a lot, which meant one less voice in her mind half the time.

'Says who, Bear Boy? You?' There was a moment of silence and then a soft snore. 'Urgh! Bastard!'

Before Willow even had time to properly wrap her head around the fact that she had somehow turned into her costume, she found herself dealing with a far bigger problem. Namely, that all around her, a healthy number of trick or treaters - but by no means everybody - were starting to act oddly. A pirate that looked a lot like Larry let out a deep laugh as he chased a giggling girl in a pirate wench costume down the street. Then a rather familiar snap-hiss cut through the night and Willow whirled around to find Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker dueling on someone's lawn with real working lightsabers that lit up the night with red and blue glows. All around her, as far as she could see, something was turning the people into their costumes.

A growl behind her made Willow jump and then stumble backwards. What had been a group of nice kids in scary costumes was now a clump of snarling, evil-looking demons and vampires. Why did Sunnydale's children have to have such an obsession with the demonic? She'd been wigged out enough by their costumes but this… this just made it worse.

Well, if everyone was turning into their costume… and she could hear some very familiar Imagin bickering inside her head… then maybe, just maybe her toy belt was as real as Darth Vader's currently ignited lightsaber. 'Momotaros!'

'You know who I am?' Momotaros sounded a bit confused, then she felt a not-hers sense of… satisfaction? 'I knew it! You're behind this! You somehow managed to steal us from Ryotaro! Send us back, now!'

Willow sighed and kept backpedaling from the little monsters stalking towards her. 'Listen, I don't have time to explain this to you guys. Yes, I know who you are. No, I didn't have anything to do with this. But I really, really need help your help right now. And you like to fight. You can fight all these demons, but there are kids underneath. It has to do with how you ended up in my body. So you can only fight them if you don't kill them.'

There was a moment of silence in her head and then a loud bark of laughter. 'She's actually encouraging me to fight random people? Hmm. Ryotaro always lets Hana yell at me for that. I like this girl. I'm in!'

Reaching into her pocket, Willow pulled out the Rider Pass and took a deep breath. Either this was going to work and her problems were solved - or rather, her immediate problem would be solved - or she was going to look like an idiot for a few seconds and then get pounced on by a bunch of preteen not-really-demons. Holding the pass in her right hand, Willow reached down with her left to push one of the four buttons on her belt. There was a slight musical tone and the circle in the center of the belt lit up red. "Sword Form."

So far so good. But as she'd tested several times before heading out for the night, the belt had electronic sounds and lights. So that didn't really mean anything, come to think of it. Willow closed her eyes and then brought her right arm down, swiping the black Rider Pass across in front of her belt. "Henshin!"

Corporal Alexander Harris shook his head, trying to clear the vague fuzziness in his mind. Corporal? Since when was he a corporal? For that matter, since when did he use his full name? He hadn't even been Alex since back in second grade, much less Alexander...

Looking around, Xander tried to figure out what was going on while fighting off what felt like a monster hangover. He hadn't felt that bad since the guys at Fort Bragg had taken him out drinking to celebrate his promotion to Private First Class. Wait, whoa. Drinking? Army promotions? Something was very muchly wrong here.

Evidently, he wasn't the only one who was having problems. His vision finally cleared and the pounding in his head settled down to manageable levels, allowing Xander to take in his surroundings. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were dueling on someone's lawn, something that looked suspiciously like an angel flew overhead in pursuit of some sort of winged demon, and Willow was currently backing away from a small army of demons.

That was bad.

Xander hefted his formerly plastic gun, amazed both at the cool metal in his hands and the fact that he had no problem with the weight. Aiming it seemed like second nature too. Lining up a shot, he prepared to open fire when a familiar word caught his attention. "Henshin?"

A burst of red light erupted from Willow's belt and Xander winced and used his hand to shield his vision. There was a loud rushing noise, like a passing train, and then silence fell again for a moment. Then, he heard a voice he recognized but wished he didn't. "Ore… sanjo!"

Willow had transformed into Den-O's Sword Form: a black PVC undersuit that made it way too evident that his bestest bud was a growing girl, along with silver and red armor over it. He couldn't tell if everything was somewhat streamlined to accentuate Willow's feminine form or if it was just smaller, but either way it was recognizable enough to him. And it meant that somehow Willow's prop belt had become real, and she had somehow been possessed by a real Momotaros. And no good could come from any sort of possession. The year since Buffy's arrival had taught him that much.

And if Willow could turn into her costume… did that mean the demons were really people in costumes? Probably the kids they were supposed to be watching? While Xander wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier, he didn't need to be to figure out that might be a possibility. Willow was transforming. He could remember how to field strip a whole bunch of guns, and more military regulations than he could shake a stick at. Was it really that far out there to think that these 'demons' might be in the same situation as Willow and he?

As he internally debated who he had to save, Willow from the demons or the demons from Momotaros, the decision was taken from him. "Listen, I don't do warning shots." As Xander inched towards Willow to either help or restrain her, her possessed form was busy pulling the four pieces of the DenGasher from her belt. There was a popping noise as she fitted the components together in a particular order. With the fourth piece in place, a red blade slid out to produce Sword Form's signature weapon. "From start to end, it's completely a climax!"

"Wait, Willow, Momotaros, Willotaros, no!" Xander rushed towards Willow and tried to grab her arm as she brought the sword back. "I think they're just kids!"

Growling, Willow lunged forward and swung her sword. Instead of cleaving through flesh like Xander had feared, it just raised lines of sparks and drove each child-demon back. "I know, you jerk! Willow already told me." Xander jerked back at the familiar and very masculine voice of Momotaros emerging from what was quite obviously Willow's body. "Now shut up and let me have fun."

Xander threw himself backwards as the red blade of Den-O's sword came perilously close to his chest, deciding to stand back and watch. No, he was… guarding Willow's six. Yeah. That sounded a lot better. Besides, the way Momo-in-Willow was hacking away at the demons, it would be really easy for someone to sneak up on her. Him. Them. Whatever.

He was rightfully worried, Xander discovered. As Willow tore through the child-sized demons, a hulking full-sized monster was lumbering up the street towards them. Hopefully, it was a real demon and not a football player with an interesting taste in costumes. Otherwise, Xander was going to feel really bad about what he was about to do.

Bringing his gun up, Xander took a deep breath and let it out before squeezing the trigger. The MP5 roared in his hands and three rounds tore through the head of the demon. It let out a sick gurgle before slumping forward onto the ground, its glowing blue lifeblood flowing out to puddle on the pavement.

The gunfire attracted even more attention, Xander found out when a roar echoed down the street and an identical-looking demon began lumbering towards him. Jesus assfucking Moses, that was one ugly bastard. He didn't even think before bringing the gun up and firing off another burst, peppering the demon with bullets. Given that he was firing the submachine gun with deadly accuracy when he had never touched a gun before… oh yes, something was most definitely wrong with him. Felt good, though. He idly wondered where his cigarettes were.

Before he knew it, Momotaros had driven off the miniature demons. While Xander's quarries bled out on the street, the Imagin possessing Willow let out a disgruntled huff before unclasping the belt around her waist. There was another flash of light and then the Willow he knew was standing there in front of him. "Xander?"

Xander nodded and gestured to her belt, then beyond her at the still-visible fleeing 'demons'. "Did you just..?"

Looking around nervously, Willow nodded. "Uh, yeah. Well, kinda." Then her eyes landed on the nearest of the two demons before sliding back up to Xander's gun. "Did you just..?"

"Pretty much." Yep, he'd found out that his 'toy' gun was a real MP5 and taken two demons down with the precision of a hardened soldier. And she'd just transformed into a fictional character, complete with the personality shift that came with being possessed by the demon that granted said character their powers. Why couldn't anything be normal in their life?

"This is wiggy."

"Oh yeah."

"Hey wait a minute. Where's Buffy?"

"…oh no."