A/N: Here it is, the long awaited - not really - update for my most popular fic. I had to force this chapter out so I'm not sure of it's value, but I want to stay as close to the dates in my LiveJournal as possible, early when I can. The link can be found in my profile. Thanks for everyone who shows an interest in my work. It's honestly for you that I try to stay on schedule.
Disclaimer: I have a really chronic head cold right now. My sinus is so blocked I can't taste my own phlegm, of which there is much. Any suckiness of this chapter is due to that. It's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Last time, on Crushed: We had a very naughty moment when Buffy woke up, when we all found out that she and Spike had made the Beast of Two Backs, while in bodies of the opposite gender, no less. ...Yay? Then we magically blurred two weeks, I'm all dizzy now. Next! Ethan Rayne, the perpetrator of the heinous body switching magic spell, was beaten into submission. Yay violence! Poor Ethan! Finally, the Trio, consisting of the three arch-nemeses of the Slayer, was formed. "We're like, evil supervillians. Mwahahahaha."

The calm before the storm? Not really that calm

Buffy opened her eyes slowly, getting used to the stale light in the room, and ran her small - small! - hands down her body. Curves, curious mix of soft flesh and hard muscle, fitting her regular clothes. She was back in her body. Which was a relief. It's not like she wanted the other body. Oh sure, it had required less maintenance, but less shopping. Any vestiges of longing for the simpler, masculine body vanished with that particular revelation.

The Slayer looked over to where her friends had been waiting for the spell to be reversed and took a quick inventory. One carpenter, male. One ex-demon, female. One bratty sister, female. One witchy best friend, female. One lover of witchy best friend, female. One accidental time traveller, male. One peroxide blond vampire, male, and leaving despite the fact it's nine o'clock in the morning.

Shrugging off any concern for the annoying 'creature of the night', -because there wasn't any, not really- she tottered over to her friends, assuring herself they were okay. They were all fine and they all seemed pleased and relieved to be back in their bodies, except for William, who had an odd expression on his face.

"Does anybody else feel as thought their skin is a size too small?" William asked suddenly, looking vaguely disappointed when everyone else answered in the negative. "Ah. My shirt is probably just a size too small." The Englishman half shrugged one shoulder, and his face assumed an apologetic expression.

"Well, this body is more conducive to getting money." Anya declared happily, and after a short pause added, "And orgasms." Everyone in the group threw her a slightly horrified look, and then Dawn spoke up.

"I win. It took less than two minutes but more than one." she said with a grin, as everyone groaned and Anya looked around confused. "Pay up, everyone" the teen added, holding out her hand, watching with glee as everyone in the room forked out the money.

"There was an opportunity to make money off of me?" Anya asked incredulously. Xander looked the most guilty, but they all look contrite.

"Ahn-" Xander tried to placate his fiancé.

"And I missed out on it?"

"Is Dawn home?" Janice asked Joyce with a pleasant smile. Joyce smiled warmly at the girl, her daughter's best friend, before stepping out of the doorway and turning to get Dawn. Janice followed her into the house, shutting the door behind her, and Joyce relaxed slightly. You didn't spend five years in Sunnydale with the Vampire Slayer for a daughter without learning how to be social without risking breaching vampire etiquette.

"Have a seat, dear. I'll go get her" Joyce said as she walked up the steps. Rolling her eyes at the punk music drifting from Dawn's room, she had spent a little too much time with Spike in the last two weeks, Joyce opened the door a crack. "Janice is here to see you, sweetheart."

The door swung open completely and Dawn stood there for a moment, an anticipatory expression making the savage light in her eyes seem a little scary. She tore off down the hall and thundered down the stairs while Joyce followed at a more sedate pace, heading into the kitchen to make some hot chocolates.

"Hi, Janice!" Dawn's voice, far too bright to be genuine, drifted through the otherwise empty house. Joyce shook her head softly, abandoning the cocoa. When Dawn was in this kind of mood...

Dawn looked at her 'best friend', the effort being used to keep the faux pleasant expression on her face completely worth it for the look that would be on the skanky ho-bag's face when she finally let loose.

"Hey, Dawn. How was your trip?" Janice asked casually, completely at ease with what she had tried to do. The thought made Dawn's blood boil, and all of a sudden the thought of taking Spike up on his offer was much, much more tempting.

"Oh, it was fine. I hear you met Dan." Dawn stated in an open tone, so sickeningly sweet that the words cloyed in her mouth. The other girl was still oblivious.

"Yeah, he seemed nice enough."

"Nice enough for you to try and sleep with him!" Dawn said as she finally snapped, eyes blazing, pushed beyond her mere mortal restraint. She watched the other girl with grudging respect. The amount of shock and surprise on her face was perfect, and if Dawn didn't have personal, way personal evidence she would have believed her 'friend'.

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Janice asked, the quaver in her voice flawless. God, Dawn hated the bitch! She managed to almost convince Dawn, who knew, knew that she'd done it.

"You tried to have sex with m- my cousin!" Dawn nearly yelled, her voice shrill with panic and rage. She'd nearly said something completely embarrassing.

"Who said that?!" Janice asked, her incredulous outrage absolutely perfect for the wrongly accused. No wonder this girl got away with whatever she was planning at any given time.

"I- he did!"

"Then he's lying." There were tears in the liar's eyes now. "I wouldn't do that to you, Dawn!" Dawn's eyes narrowed sharply.

"Get the hell out of my house"

William sat at the table in the Magic Box, across from Willow and Tara. He had spent the afternoon with them, as well as Anya and Xander, trying to forget or ignore the strange tightness he had been feeling since being changed back. It had gotten progressively worse until about an hour ago, when it had mostly abated except for a slight tingling.

He remembered with a smile seeing Anya and Xander make poor excuses before running off to be together. He still blushed slightly at the memory. Not even two weeks of prolonged Anya exposure and training in being a woman could completely eradicate the twenty five years of traditional British training before that.

Still, it had helped him become a little less clueless about the people in his life. He had spent the past two hours watching Willow and Tara, keeping an eye out for any sign that they wanted some time alone, but they had been simply holding hands and levitating books and pencils, giggling every now and again.

"It's such a relief to be able to do spells even this simple without having things blow up and change colour randomly" Willow stated in a satisfied tone after a particularly spectacular display involving two pencils and a strange glowing rock. At William's puzzled, questioning glance, the pair just blushed.

"Long story" Tara said softly, looking everywhere but at Willow or William. William just nodded, accepting that certain experiences during those weeks were a very private matter. William joined the witches in the diversion search.

"Is there a telly here?" William asked after the silence and awkwardness got to be a bit much for him. The two Wicca looked at each other blankly for a minute.

"I don't think so. Anya doesn't watch TV and I'm not even sure if Giles still owns one." Willow explained.

"Oh, Rupert has a telly. We watch Passions on it every now and again, when our schedules match." Completely oblivious to the giggles of the girls, William rose. "I think there was one in his office here, a small one."

As he crossed the shop to the small, closet-like office he gasped as the tingling intensified sharply, turning from being brushed with pine needles to be jabbed with burning cold shards of steel. The feeling faded almost as quickly as it came, so he brushed it off and continued to the office.

He had made it to within three feet before the painful, burning, freezing sensation hit him again. He collapsed to the ground, his skin feeling like it was imploding. He let out a sharp gasping sigh before passing out, bright light enveloping him again.

His last sight was Willow and Tara looking at him in horror.

Spike kicked the door to Willy's open and glared around at the startled patrons, his rain slicked curls damp against his forehead. He had a few debts to settle. Spying the demon he was after, Spike pulled the small battle axe out from under his duster and strode to the Huvarki demon.

"You an' your mates think that it's okay to put one over on a lady, do you?" he asked stiffly, eyes blazing. Spike waited for recognition to appear in the creatures oily, pig-like eyes. He was disappointed. With a frustrated growl, Spike swung, watching as the axe left a silver arc in the air before it collided with the main section of the head, spraying yellow ichor on the wall.

There was a moment of hushed murmuring before another demon, one Spike didn't recognise, took offence to the seemingly unprovoked attack. Of course, Spike wasn't going to explain to a large number of the more socialite demons in Sunnydale that he had been the girl slighted. Besides, it was always more fun to go on a violent killing spree than explain himself.

A swift backhand with the axe took the outstretched tentacle of the unnamed demon, blood spurting violently from the single tentacle being severed, the sweaty, scabbed skin of the demon quivering in pain. The squishy demon in front of him stood there for a moment, shaking promisingly, before collapsing suddenly. Spike dropped the little axe in disgust. Demons these days had no standards.

There was a subtle shift in the mood of the room when Spike dropped the axe. Spike had first created a reputation for violence by torturing victims with railroad spikes, then he got a rep for killing Slayers. The chip happened, and he earned a third rep; killing demons. He was more infamous than the Slayer, because at least she was supposed to do it. And he'd been gone for two whole weeks, and now here he was, dropping his weapon after a short fight with two weak demons. There were a lot of Sunnydale's residents who carried a grudge against the blond vampire.

It was a fledgling vampire that reached him first. It exploded into a thick cloud of dust as the larger battle axe appeared from the depths of Spike's duster. Using the momentum of his last swing, and not willing to give up on a brawl this promising, Spike followed through and clove a muscular, horned demon in two.

All hell broke loose. With various roars, screams and one or two squeaks that the vampire was unable to explain, every single patron in the Alibi Room burst into violent action at once. Spike danced amongst the savage flailing, a dark coated dervish of death, cutting limbs, drawing blood, wreaking havoc mindlessly; no thoughts except the thrill of the fight.

The vampire laughed aloud with glee as he cut a swathe to the door, and he was just about to go back into what had turned into a general brawl when a small fist gripped his collar and dragged him out of the absolutely trashed bar and into the rain. A sharp tug of superhuman strength and Spike found himself looking at an incredibly brassed off Slayer.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed at him, her green eyes full of rage. Spike stiffened under the stare.

"None of your bloody business, is it? 'This is nothing Spike. We're nothing'" he parroted her earlier words back to her in a sarcastic voice. He must have imagined the flinch, because nothing he ever said like that hurt the Slayer. Not the high and mighty Buffy. Slowly the thrill of the mindless violence drained from the vampire, and all of a sudden he hurt. A lot, and in a lot of places. He sank to the rain soaked ground.

"You're hurt" Buffy's tone was shocked, almost curious. Disbelieving. That was the word. As if she couldn't imagine Spike getting hurt. Bloody hell, he barely could imagine anything hurting more than her rejection of his love and this was nowhere near half as bad. For some reason though, he was having trouble moving just now. He blinked as the Slayer's warm little hands gripped him under his shoulders.

"Piss off, Slayer. I can look after myself" he slurred, blinking rapidly. It shouldn't be that hard to keep his eyes open. The Slayer ignored him, like she always did, and hefted him up onto her shoulder. This gave Spike a view of his body, and he was shocked. Through the sheeting rain he could see his well muscled body covered in welts and scratches, and there was an odd puncture wound in his thigh.

As the Slayer carried him through the street, he had a thought. Vampires don't get hot on their own, especially not in the icy rain pelting down right now. It was then that Spike considered that something might be wrong.

"So, what do we do next?" Jonathon Levinson asked his compatriots of crime. "I mean, we robbed the bank so we've got the funds." Warren Mears, self proclaimed leader of the Trio pointed to the white board.

"We've got to finish the list, Sparky. That's what we wrote it for." The white board listed all their hopes, dreams, ambitions and plans for their rise to crime lords of Sunnydale.

Rob bank
Make freeze ray
Make invisible ray
Make sexbot
Conquer Sunnydale
Get the limited edition Star Wars DVD collection
Shrink ray
Control the weather
Miniaturize Fort Knox
Conjure fake I.D's
The Gorilla Thing
Workable prototype jetpacks

"O- okay, but what do we do next?" Andrew Wells asked.

"I think we should make the sexbot" Warren declared. Andrew stared at him, head tilted. Jonathon asked the important question.

"Who are we going to make it look like?"

"I vote Christina Ricci" Andrew called out loudly, withdrawing slightly when the other two glared at him.

"I'm not making a Christina Ricci-bot" Warren declared decisively.

"Oh, sure. Why are we even here? Just because you're the robot pimp-daddy you get to make all the decisions?" Andrew asked rhetorically.

"Oh, shut up and go train some devil dogs to kill everyone at prom." Warren shot back.

"I was at that prom!" Jonathon declared, distressed. "What was up with that, you big spaz?"

"Okay, how many times are we going to discuss this?" Andrew asked. "That wasn't me, Jerk-athon. That was my lame-o brother Tucker."

"No, seriously?"

"Hello! Screen-wipe, new scene. I had nothing to do with the devil dogs." Andrew paused, his exasperation clear. "I trained flying demon monkeys to attack the school play. School play, dude!" The others giggled.

"Yeah, that was pretty cool."

"Remember how everyone was like, 'Run, Juliet!'?"

The Trio trailed into silence, their memories of past victories switching to memories of present ones as they over looked at the stacks of stolen money.

"Is this the life or what?" Andrew asked in a satisfied tone.

"Mm." Warren agreed softly, not wanting to ruin the mood.

"I mean, here we got all the stuff we ever wanted... and we didn't even have to..."

"Earn it?" Warren asked with a grin.

"Exactamundo." Andrew said with a smug nod.

"It's true, my friends." Jonathon declared. "The way I see it ... life is like an interstellar journey. Some people go into hypersleep and travel at sub-light speeds... ...only to get where they're going after years of struggle, toil and hard, hard work. We, on the other hand ... "

"Blast through the space-time continuum in a wormhole?" Andrew cut in excitedly.

"Gentlemen ... crime is our wormhole." Jonathon's affirmation was met with a smile, before Andrew blinked.

"But ..." he began, "everyone knows... if the width of a wormhole cavity is a whole number of wavelengths, plus a fraction of that wavelength? The coinciding particle activity collapses the infrastructure"

"Dude." Warren cut him off. "Don't be a geek." The Trio contemplated the white board for a minute.

"You know, I'm worried about the Slayer. What if that Mm'Fashnik demon rats us out?" Jonathon asked. Warren raised a single finger, silencing his companions.

"That's perfect. We'll make a Buffybot. The Slayer's hot." The other members of the Trio nodded at this evidence of Warren's sagely wisdom.

"Yeah, she'll be our willing little sex bunny!" Andrew declared, and all three members of the Trio beamed at one another.

A/N: I had to include all that classic Trio dialogue. "School play, dude!". Glorious -insert sinister laughter-. And come on, who out there thought that I would just abandon the Buffybot? She's far too fantastic to just delete. And to be honest, the second half of this chapter was written sans headache, thanks to the power of aspirin. Remember, review, let me know what you think. It keeps me motivated. Check out my LiveJournal, link in my profile, to see scheduled release dates.