Summary: Giles gets a clue at the start, and trains Xander and Willow somewhat.
Crossover: At the moment, none.
Disclaimer: I own naught but debt.
Feedback: Why not?
Pre-fic Comments:
Okay, a bit more of my plot stuff. As in a few bytes worth. See if you can spot it.
I know, canon used some American chocolate bar. I'm expanding your horizons. Name the manufacturers, win a reply.
* * *
Cordelia ran screaming down the corridors, Chess Club members in hot pursuit.
"Nooooooooo!," the Queen of Sunnydale High screamed. "I'm not even on the chess team!"
Xander paused to watch in stunned amazement.
"You promised!," Billy Reed yelled at her. "We've got your signature on an application form!"
There was no way Xander was gonna forget this. If the Apocalypse rolled into town that hour, he'd be teasing Cordelia throughout the afterlife about her stint in the Chess Club.
"You don't understand!," the socialite screamed, on the brink of a mindless panic attack. "I don't wanna go!"
"Man," Xander said. "Now /that/ was a Kodak, if not a Handycam moment."
He paused. "Except you can't frame and mount video tapes on the wall."
Continuing on his way, he stopped dead at the next set of firestop doors. The hall beyond the doors had been vandalized, and black swastikas adorned the walls. The remaining fluorescent light flickered over the glass shards of it's deceased companions and the only remaining goodness in the corridor.
A Cadbury Crunchy bar. Wonderful hokey pokey smothered in sweet, sugary, chocolatey goodness.
The Xanman wasted no time in rescueing the unfortunate survivor from the wreckage of the battlefield, opening it and testing it to make sure that it was still okay. He took a few more bites, to make sure the rest of the bar was alright as well. No sense in leaving defective confectionary around to disappoint people.
"This is my lucky day!"
He kept moving, picking up chocolate bars as he went. Perhaps the G-man had been wrong, and it wasn't /all/ nightmares?
Plastic sheeting fell from the ceiling of the corridor like flypaper as he walked further along the dimly lit hall. He saw something /special/ lying on the floor. Putting down the armload of chocolate bars he had found on the way, he picked it up and had a look.
"A Scrumdidillyumptious Bar! These are the best! I haven't had one of these since..."
The penny dropped. He /knew/ what had happened on his sixth birthday. He still woke up sweating heavily at times, remembering it.
The G-man had been right. This was a nightmare. A brightly painted clown cut through the plastic sheeting, sharp knife in hand.
Xander was well capable of defending himself from anything short of a strong demon these days, but fear wasn't reasonable. He ran.
* * *
A couple doors down the corridor, Xander found Willow. Strangely, she had a few tomatoes staining her clothes.
"Did you find Buffy?," Xander asked.
"I had to sing!," Willow gasped. "Very bad to sing!"
"Willow, c'mon," Xander cajoled. "Let's find the others."
"What happened to you?"
"Remember my sixth birthday party?," Xander asked.
Willow laughed, recalling it. "Oh yeah! When the clown chased you, and you had to..."
She trailed off as the penny dropped and she realised what Xander's nightmare probably was. "Oh."
The clown slashed through a sheet of plastic, grinning insanely. The two teenagers turned around to find Giles standing behind them. The Watcher looked at Xander with disappointment. He'd been training the boy and he couldn't stand up to clowns?!
"Oh, yeah," Xander said. He felt really stupid -- he could have beaten that clown two years ago, let alone today!
He decked it with one smooth uppercut, a reddish orange tinge tainting the air around his fist. As the figure hit the floor, he absently took the knife from it.
"No sign of Buffy?," Giles asked, relieved to see that Xander had faced his fear. He didn't notice that the discolouration on the clown's jaw was as much burn mark as bruise.
"I feel good!," Xander proclaimed. "I feel liberated!"
"You seem to be the only one," the Watcher said dryly as Xander picked up the pile of chocolate bars he'd found. "Things are getting worse. In a few hours reality will fold completely into the realm of nightmares."
"Well, what do we do?," Willow asked, Research Gal.
"The only thing I can think of is to wake Billy," Giles said. He couldn't read his books to find out any more; the only other solution he could think of was to kill the little boy, which was unacceptable.
"Uh, what about Buffy?," Xander asked.
"Who knows where she might have gone?," Giles asked.
Willow conveniently spotted a graveyard over the road. "Excuse me, when did they put a cemetary across the street?"
"And when did they make it night over there?," Xander continued. Something was very screwy about that graveyard.
The trio walked into the graveyard.
"Whose nightmare is this?," Xander asked.
Giles noticed a marker, and crouched by it to get a better view. On it was the inscription 'Buffy Summers 1981 - 1997'.
"It's mine."
The two teenagers moved over to the British man.
"I've failed...," Giles said, "in my duty to protect you. I should have been more c-cautious. Trained you better. But you were so gifted, and the evil was so great. I'm sorry..."
As the three regarded the grave, Giles laid a hand on the soil. As the man began to get up, a hand broke through the surface to grab his hand.
Xander couldn't help but be reminded of all the bad zombie movies he'd seen. Willow screamed.
Giles teared his arm free as Buffy dug herself out of the grave, brushing the dust off her clothes. The distinctive facial ridges of a vampire marred her face.
"Buffy?," Giles asked weakly.
"I thought I was dead!," the blonde protested.
"Buffy, your face!," Willow gasped.
The girl touched her face, feeling the ugly new additions. She moaned lowly, before covering her face with her hands.
"Buffy...," Xander trailed off, stepping towards the teenager.
"Don't look at me!," she protested.
"You never told me you dreamt of becoming a vampire," Giles said blankly.
"This isn't a dream!," Buffy said firmly, with an undertone of panic.
"No," Giles agreed. "No, it's not. But there's a chance we can make it go away. This all comes from Billy. Now, if we can wake him up, I believe that the nightmares will stop and reality will shift back into place, but we must do it now! I need you to hold together long enough to help us. Can you do that?"
Buffy nodded at the thought of reversing her new condition. "Yeah, I think I can."
"Thank you," Giles said, relieved that his speech had worked. He was trying not to think of what a Slayer's strength would be when augmented by vampirism.
"Well, we better hurry," the Slayer said, "because I'm getting hungry."
"That is... a joke, right?," Xander asked. He'd already had to stake one vampiric ex-friend. He didn't want to have to stake another.
"Are you sure that everything will go back once he's awake?," Willow asked Giles.
"Oh, uh, positive," Giles said with much more assurance than he felt.
"Well, how do we wake Billy up?," Willow asked. "What if we can't?"
"Willow, do shut up."
Xander held up his cargo of chocolate bars. "Plan B, we entice him back with this."
* * *
Post-fic Comments:
Okay, so I didn't put as much violence in as I'd hoped.