Interesting Times

Interesting Times

by JohnTFS

Chapter Two


"Excuse me." said Buffy "I am so not into this conversation. Somebody give me the TV-guide version."

The older girl sighed and began to speak. "A corrupt corporation called Pentex wishes to establish a stable gateway into the Umbra, the astral plane. Should they success, they'll be able to summon monstrous horrors from the edges of reality."

Buffy looked puzzled "And this has what to do with me?"

Andru spoke at this point "Well, since they're establishing a foothold in your reality, I'd say it's got a lot to do with you."

Buffy's mouth dropped open. "What do you mean, my reality? What are you people on drugs?" As she spoke she readied herself to spring. She'd take out the vamp first, then chain mail chick and get some answers from the geek.

"Oh Jesus, we don't have time for this shit!" This came from the vamp. The vampire girl strode to the window and yanked back the curtains. "Come here. Look out the window. Pick your jaw up off the floor. Then we'll talk, okay?"

Warily Buffy stood and walked to the window, body tensed for an ambush. She looked outside. At first she saw nothing strange. Then she noticed that the stars seemed a lot brighter somehow. And there was something blue just out the corner of her eye.

Melissa spoke again. "Yo, 'Dru, turn this sucker to the right, 'kay." They saw the blue thing come into focus. Growing to fill the window was a large planet. Earth as seen from orbit.

"Ohmygod!" Buffy gulped in shock.

"Don't feel too bad!" consoled Melissa, "It freaked the shit outta me when I saw it, too. Oh, yeah. That's our Earth, by the way. Yours is a couple dimensions that away." she said hooking her thumb to the right.

"Mel." said Andru "You're seriously not helping this situation."

The older girl, Rebecca spoke again. "What Melissa says is true. Our valiant companion, Scratches-at-Fleas, rescued you from a losing battle with the dark forces stalking your world. He used his ability to travel the Umbra to bring you here that you would be healed."

Melissa nodded. "So don't pull that crap about not knowing the supernatural score. Flea bag there told us how you wasted one young vamp and were seriously staying level with an elder." Buffy grimaced slightly then asked "Scratches?" At this point the strange dog she'd fed her fries to padded over to her and looked at her with more than animal intelligence.

"Don't tell me. Let me guess. Werewolf, right?" As she spoke the dog began to shift, first growing into a huge primitive likeness of itself, then into a giant wolf man creature, then shrinking again and growing more and more human. Finally, where once stood a dog there was a rough looking, hairy teenager. Oddly enough, as the final stages of transformation completed, an overcoat had seemed to spring from his flesh.

The young man looked at her with penetrating brown eyes. "Actually," he said, in a voice that seemed unused to speech, "We call ourselves the Garou."

Several worlds away, the Pentex construction site began climbing toward wakefulness. Currently, its power was just a thickness in the air, but it was slowly growing in might and menace. Just behind that thickness, many, many awful things waited, but not for very much longer.

"Garou?" said Buffy. "That's just a fancy name for werewolf."

"No more than "human" is a fancy name for human," replied Scratches. He spoke slowly, pronouncing each word with exacting care, like a student driver in a driver's education except the speech was his vehicle.

"Okay, I guess so," Buffy said. Despite her acquaintance with Oz, Willow's werewolf boyfriend, it still took Buffy a bit to get used to the idea of talking with someone she'd started to think of as Rin-Tin-Tin.

"I thank you for your offer of food, earlier." Scratches said. "The 'fries'", he paused at the unfamiliar word, "were most tasty."

"Um, you're welcome," Buffy said uncertainly. Her only previous experience with a werewolf had been Oz, and that was nothing like this.

"Look, can we get back to the damn point?" said Melissa, tapping one tiny foot impatiently. "She's up. She knows the whole 'creatures of the night' bullshit and she's probably not going to attack for at least a couple more minutes. Let's get back to the other stuff. What the hell are we gonna do about Pentex?"

Rebecca started to speak when a loud beep emanated from outside the room. "E-mail." said Andru and wheeled outside.

"Hold it, short stuff," said Buffy, relishing the feeling of being able to call somebody else that hated moniker. At 5'3" most people she met were taller than she was. She continued speaking while Melissa ground her teeth and glared daggers at her. "Before you go back to your show, or whatever, I want a script. Where am I? Who are you people and what do you want with me?"

Melissa sneered. "That's need to know and you don't--"

Rebecca answered. "Yes, she does, Mel. You and Scratches check the transport tubes and prep them. We'll need them shortly."

Melissa left grumbling and Scratches, now returned to canine form, followed.

"First things first." said Buffy. "She a vampire. What's the deal?"

"I know naught of the Kindred, the vampires, of your world," said Rebecca in a kind, though somewhat superior voice. "But in this one they are varied. Vampires are dead humans, somehow animated into life. They have a terrible thirst for the blood of mammals, including living humans. Beyond that, they are as varied in their capacity for good and evil as any other human. Melissa is sarcastic, pessimistic and cynical. She is also a good and loyal friend who has proven herself time and again in many desperate circumstances. Then and now, I trust her with my life."

"Well, where I come from, vampires are evil. Period. Except for Angel." Buffy's eyes misted at saying that but quickly hardened again. "But that was because of some gypsy spell and now he's gone and he's not coming back."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. When love is involved," Rebecca held up a hand to still Buffy's protests, "the impossible becomes quite possible. But we were speaking of other things. You would need to speak to Andru about this place, but as I understand it, it is a defunct outpost of the Technocracy, a group a wizards who utilize their magic through technology. This satellite is connected to the Umbra via a portal that Scratches created. Within the Umbra is another portal that connects to Earth. In this place myself and Andru can utilize our respective supernatural powers without fear of interference from the disbelief of normal humanity."

"Supernatural powers?" asked Buffy, a little skeptically.

Rebecca smiled and waved her hand at Buffy's ripped and bloodstained attire. Instantly the cloth began to mend itself and the blood vanished from it. Buffy, looked down at herself. "You guys must save a fortune on dry-cleaning!"

"One cuts costs where one can," said Rebecca airily. "To continue. Andru is a mage of the Virtual Adept tradition. Using his programs and equipment and computers he can replace reality with "Virtual Reality" which then becomes real. He calls it "debugging the universe." I call it arrogance, but I do admit that he can do wonders, particularly if he has time to prepare in advance."

"I should introduce him to Willow. Of course the rest of us would need an English to Computerese dictionary just to follow along." said Buffy. "Fine, what about you?"

"I am Sidhe," said Rebecca.

"She who?" asked Buffy.

"Not she." said Rebecca. "Sidhe." As she spoke the last word she changed. It was not so much a transformation as the removal of a mask. Rebecca was tall, with flame colored hair that reached to her waist and violet eyes that pierced Buffy's soul. Her armor gleamed and seemed to transform the florescent light into sunshine. Her beauty stabbed Buffy in the heart and it actively hurt to look upon Rebecca. She was perfection made real.

_______


"How come you never bring back anything good, huh?" Melissa asked Scratches.

The dog-like wolf just let a tongue loll from his mouth, obviously laughing at her.

"It's not funny, you know," said Melissa. "If Devereax or one of the others finds out about this, we're screwed big time,"

"I think that it will not matter all that much," said Scratches, back in human form and now gazing at the transport tubes.

The tubes themselves looked unimpressive just scratched Plexiglas that Scratches had found in a landfill. Even in such humble things, there was still power to be tapped, so Scratches coaxed the power out and called a spirit to drink of it. Now the tubes conveyed the group down and back from where they needed to go. However, they needed to be examined ever so often, if for no other reason than to reassure their spirit occupant that he was still valued.

"So, are we gonna get zapped into a floor?" Melissa asked.

"I think not," said Scratches. "Of course, spirits are always unpredictable, particularly when their competence is questioned…"

"Oh, great…"

_______

Try though she might, Buffy couldn't tear her gaze from the vision that Rebecca had become. It was beyond sexual, the feelings she felt. It was pure beauty and dreamlike perfection and it held her motionless. And then it ended.

"Wha- Wha- What was that?!" Buffy managed to gasp.

Rebecca, tall, pretty, human Rebecca smiled at her. "That was my true form. My form as one of the Sidhe." The armor clad woman sighed. "You do not understand."

"You got that right. I've seen vampires and werewolves and mummies and I've never seen anything that was that..." words failed the Slayer.

"It has been said the beauty of the Sidhe is indescribable. Apparently it is so." Buffy glared at her. "Peace." said Rebecca. "I will explain."

Long ago, she said. There was magic and creatures of magic, such as dragons and unicorns dwelt freely among human. Among the magical beings was the Tuatha de Danan, the Fae. They would alternately aid or torment the humans each fae according to his nature, Seelie or Unseelie. This was not quite the same as good and evil, closer to law and chaos, but it fit well enough.

In any case, about 500 years ago or so things began to change. The humans no longer believed in magic and the magic began to leave. Those creatures of magic that could flee did so. The rest hid themselves in impenetrable pockets of magic, adapted to the human world, or died in the banal winter of human disbelief.

Those of the fae who adapted to humanity were called "Changelings" after the reported practice of exchange a child of the fae for a child of the humans. On the outside, among human the changeling were human. Inside, in special places of magic called freeholds, their true fae souls emerged and claimed their true shapes.

The changelings spent and spend much of their time fostering dreams and creativity among the humans, gently encouraging them in hopes that one day, the magic will return.

"So when the magic comes back, then everything becomes okay, right?" asked Buffy, a little skeptically.

"I dunno about that, the hopes're that maybe us homosaps won't be so uncool then." said Andru as he wheeled into Melissa's room. He looked at Rebecca. "Bossdude's on the horn for ya, 'Bec." he said, hooking a thumb behind him. "Most cheesed out."

Rebecca sighed in irritation. "All right. Stay here and keep our guest company, Andru."

"Cool!" he said.

"Try not to be too annoying." said Rebecca then she deftly plucked a pair of sunglasses from off his head.

"Hey! Those are..." he started.

"And I doubt you'll need your X-ray goggles while here." she interrupted and then strode away.

"Oops, fergot 'bout those." he said, blushing slightly.

"Uh-huh" said Buffy, folding her arms over her chest looking at him pointedly. Then, noting his chastened expression and wanting as much info as possible, she decided to let him off the hook and said, "So you're a wizard or something, right?"

"Yeah, sorta." he said, as he pulled an extremely advanced looking laptop up and started typing.

"So do you like type 'abracadabra' or something and pull a rabbit out of your screen or what? And what was that stuff about magic coming back and debugging the universe?" asked Buffy in a challenging tone of voice.

"Gimme a 3.5in disk." he said, "You've got one in your back pocket."

"No, I..." she began reaching back to prove him wrong. She touched something plastic and pulled it out, a 3.5in disk. "This wasn't there before."

"Maybe you had it with you and just forgot. I never touched you, the others can vouch for that," he said, the beginning of a smile creasing his face.

"Then how did you know I had one?" she asked, suspicion coloring her voice.

"Coincidence, just lucky I guess." She glared at him. "Okay, it was magic," he admitted with a smile.

"Magic?"

"Sure. I did an X-ray scan," at her expression he said, "you can do cool stuff with contact lenses and tomorrow's tech. Then I fed your clothing parameters into here," he said, patting his laptop. "Then I just pixeled in a 3.5in disk in your back pocket and rescanned. Oops, turns out you had a disk there all along. Don't look so pissed. I'm not a total slime. I set the scan to stop at secondary clothing. Nice undies, by-the-way," he finished in a surfer dude smug tone of voice.

Buffy ground her teeth, but she wasn't going to smack a disabled guy and they both knew it. He passed a hand in front of his eyes and flicked it away, tossing the contacts away. "They dissolve and are disposable, I got plenty more. Okay, you want the real deal on magic, huh?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Buffy just nodded.

"Cool, here goes."

Believe it not, some asshole Hermes guy put it really well. He said, "The universe is a woman, and must be wooed and won, rather than forced." That's the deal behind a lot of magic, just figuring out ways it could have happened naturally, sort of letting the universe cover her ass, so to speak. Like with the disk. I mean; it's possible that you could have already had it on you. That's coincidental magic.

There's also vulgar magic. That's when you toss fireballs and teleport and do other stuff that there's no way in Hell people are gonna believe is cool with reality. That's forcing the universe to do stuff she doesn't want to do and generally she'll give you a smack for it. And if you screw up, either in coincidental or vulgar or especially in vulgar when there're folks who don't believe in magic, then she'll slap the shit out of you.

That's called Paradox. Generally, it'll slap you according to your 'crime' against the universe. A guy who goofs up a fireball might suffer "Spontaneous Human Combustion"

"Or, a guy who tried cure his sister, who got paralyzed by some rich drunk driving asshole, might ended up with his spine snapped and magic not able to fix it," he concluded.

"I'm sorry," said Buffy, wincing in sympathy at his admission.

"Why? You didn't run her over with your BMW, that puss wad did," said the young mage in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "And you didn't screw up the repair program, I did."

"What happened to the drunk?" asked Buffy, expecting the answer.

"Oh, they let him off. 'She ran in the street, nothing I could do, I'll go to AA, yadda, yadda, yadda.' Went out and bought himself a new Beemer." Andru's smile became distant and cold. "Yeah, one of those new computer assisted kinds. Damn shame. The system screwed up somehow and he drove off a cliff. It was six months to the day that he hit my sister. Talk about coincidence, huh. Oh, well. Accidents happen."

Buffy swallowed at that. Then Rebecca's voice came from speakers. "Everyone report forward, I have news and it's not good."

Chapter 3

Chapter 1