The Reset occurred, and I was back to being showered and ready for another round. I still wasn't happy, but the rogue smuggler's life of Han Solo held a distraction with great appeal. Other worlds, other experiences, and memories admittedly both good and bad from which I was starting to gain perspective. Sometimes I seemed to pick up some of the personality traits where they overlapped with mine. I wasn't always the happiest Xander, but I was me. I needed to experience more, but for now make sure that each person I chose to 'become' could be considered similar enough or connected to who I am at the end of the previous loop. And once I could put aside my extreme discomfort regarding Giles, I'd try getting out of 'here.'
A smuggler of skill, daring and a teacher limited my choices, but with a comic and science fiction sponge of a mind like I had, my next choice set into motion a far longer and interesting journey than I'd planned. After half an hour of driving around thinking, I pulled up to Ethan's again and headed in.
Xander headed back into school, his costume putting him in a better mood, and he admitted to himself, the skin-tight bodysuit under the long desert cloak did draw the interested attention of the female population in a favorable manner.
"Harris, what are you," Larry snickered, "Some kinda leather pervert?" Xander walked by and smiled.
"A guy dressed like a pirate is looking at another guy's ass, Larry?" Xander replied loudly, "I think you're the one with sex issues."
Larry lunged at the dark teen, and found himself grabbed by the wrist, kneed in the groin, and as he opened his eyes with his back on the floor, found a sword at his throat.
"Don't ever touch me, boy, understand?" Xander quietly and coldly asked, getting a terrified nod form the bully, "And stay away from my girls." Xander walked off and down the hall to where Snyder, Willow and Buffy stared at him in stunned amazement at the speed and controlled violence of their goofball friend. Snyder raised an index finger and was about to tear into Alexander Harris when the bow half-raised his sword in Snyder's direction, giving him the same look he'd given Larry.
"Keep your football players on a leash, and stop singling us out," Xander ordered the suddenly-intimidated school official, "Now, where's the group of kids I'll be escorting?" Snyder simply pointed. As Xander left the trio, he smirked at Willow, "And go I forth as a wild ass into the wilderness..."
Xander's pre-knowledge of the best houses once again led to full bags and a return to school before the spell kicked in, but this time around, Willow and Buffy, concerned over their friend's behavior, guided their respective groups behind his. As the kids removed their masks and waited for the parents to arrive, Xander removed Willow's ghost costume and commented after wolf-whistling at her.
"Wills, you're my best friend, but right now if we were strangers I'd be thinking you, me, champagne and a weekend at the Sheraton," Xander said glibly. Buffy choked on a gasp while a wide-eyed blushing Willow was unable to decide whether she was upset or thrilled at this very un-Xander-like comment coming from her long-time crush.
"Who do you think you are talking to Willow like that?" Buffy finally asked as Xander looked at the clock and felt the magic creep upon them.
"Gurney Halleck, of course," Xander replied with a self-deprecating tone, "Smuggler and troubadour, Lover and Gladiator."
The young woman standing before him reminded him of the some of the impoverished gentrywomen he'd seen desperate to hold onto pre-Harkonnen status on several worlds his Duke, Kwisatz Haderach and Regent-Emperor Paul-Muad-Dib had sent him to reclaim for civilization. The Harkonnen dogs had stripped and enslaved a half-dozen worlds in the last three years without anyone outside the Guild noticing, but with the Fremen establishing Paul's control of The Million Worlds, the conclusions were always foregone. How he'd gotten to this odd place with the disarray that seemed only now to be starting was his current priority.
"Xander?!" a red-headed teenager dressed in the attire of a Caladan tour guide addressed him, "What's happening?!"
"I don't know, young miss," Gurney responded, "But this gentrywoman here is wearing thin on my nerves with her panicky screaming and fluttering about." Lady Buffy was dodging children and parents escaping from apparent mini-demons, and now trying to hide behind Willow and himself.
"Young woman!" Gurney addressed the largely-gowned girl, "Cease and desist right now!" She quieted in fear, frozen to the spot. She pointed at his face, causing him to gesture at Willow, "This young guide will show us to a place of reasonable safety, after which I'll see to this chaos here." He turned to Willow, and placed Buffy's left elbow into her right hand, then drew his weapon and a sword.
"No!" Willow called out, "I think that something has caused the children and others to become transformed into their costumes, these are kids, Xander!" Gurney holstered his sidearm, but kept the sword at the ready.
"What kind of title is 'Xander'?" Gurney asked, "I've not heard it on any of the other planets I've visited." Willow looked at him confused for a moment, noticing his blue-tinged eyes, sighed, then decided to just go with it whatever was happening.
"'Xander' means protector," she said remembering the meaning of Alexander's name. She gestured at Sunnydale High, "And Mr. Giles the Librarian at the school might be able to determine what's going on, here, especially with you being in Xander's body and the...warrior Buffy being so whiny now."
The trio headed into the Library building, Gurney using his lasgun to blast open the door of the structure before he'd have to listen much longer to the gentrywoman.
"Sorry about the door, Scholar Giles," Gurney unsympathetically offered, "But there are things amiss outside that according to the young guide," he gestured at Willow, "need determination of cause so it can be resolved." Gurney then proceeded to close the doors and move the heavy table to bar entry by others. Willow explained things to Giles, as Lady Elizabeth wandered around and looked intimidated by the sheer number of volumes.
"And so, it looks like Buffy and Xander have become their costumes, too," she ended her tale. Sighing, she sat down and to pass the time seemed to look appreciatively at Xander in his tight stilsuit and jubba cloak. Giles paused to consider everything, replaying her words in his mind. He watched the professional soldier that wore Xander's body examining the weapons cage, the defensibility of the Library and his own body.
"S-So, erm, Mr. Halleck," Giles addressed Xander, "I'm wondering if you've swapped bodies, or if you are in possession of it and Xander is still in there with you somehow?" Gurney Halleck looked disturbed at this prospect, but a look into Willow's compact mirror left very little doubt, and the lack of scars on these young, different hands lent further credence to the tale.
"Let me try and contact this Xander of yours," Gurney suggested, sitting on the table and concentrating, meditating, visualizing a Xander inside of himself. 'Xander! Are you in here, lad?' Gurney thought, "Xander!' After a minute or so of trying, finally he got a response.
'Who's calling me?' Xander responded, sounding as though he were coming out of a deep sleep, 'And what do you want?'
"This may be hard to believe, lad, but I'm apparently possessing your body,' Gurney mused at the very teenaged response of an eye roll, even if mental, reminding him of Paul in his playful moments on Caladan.
'It's happened before,' Xander replied, 'Is there anything I can do for you...Gurney Halleck?'
'You know who I am?!' Gurney asked in surprise, 'How?' Xander apologized, but explained the whole chaos-hellmouth thing as he knew it, and that he'd hoped Gurney could keep his loved ones safe and perhaps allow Xander himself time to get over his mental fatigue and anger by learning the methods Gurney used to not simply suicide attack the nearest Harkonnen and be done with life. Gurney and Xander interacted and shared information, Gurney effectively giving up himself but Xander gaining that which is Gurney Halleck in return. The Harkonnen Gladiator would leave a new student on this Earth to face undead opponents equally loathsome. They agreed that Xander would observe, but Gurney would keep control of the body until he left.
"The boy's doing fine," Gurney revealed, "And it is possession, but until this is resolved I will retain control while Xander observes and advises now that he's awake." The others, in slightly different positions, looked at him and nodded. "He also asked me to remind Willow that they all got their costumes from Ethan Rayne's costume shop."
"Damn that Ethan!" Giles swore, "It figures a stunt like this would be his handiwork. I-I must get to this shop and stop him before too many others are killed or hurt." They started to get up, Giles waving Willow to stay with Buffy. "Please stay here where it's safe, I'll take Mr. Halleck with me."
On the way, Xander and Gurney discussed strategies and venues of study. Xander had read all of the Dune series books and gave his opinion on the God-Emperor fish-guy scenario, that if it had to happen then Paul should remain to stabilize his children and keep his eyesight, that Alia needed to be better-guided and perhaps a good young man found for her so that she'd be less likely to travel her grandfather's path. In turn, Gurney made no bones about telling Xander to work on his personal combat skills and physique, and to carry himself as the young lord he reminded Gurney so much of.
'Listen, lad,' Gurney instructed the boy, 'As you become more powerful and skilled, use it for the good of those you can guide and help in turn. I think you need to concentrate on body skills, even if you can't do much in this situation. When you feel ready for something else, move slowly from one form to another to keep your balance, your self. You must remain internally balanced or your enemies can hurt and destroy you. When you're ready, be the best you that you can be and get yourself out of here. I also expect you to forgive Mr. Giles indiscretions he's clearly regretted and making amends for.'
They walked into the costume shop, Gurney walking into the back and rendering the chaos mage unconscious by slamming his lasgun stock into Ethan's forehead.
"Mr. Giles, it was informative," the Atreides Armsman said, nodding in salute, "And Alexander has exchanged information with me. I'm expecting him to pull himself up and do his best, as I must in my own world. Good-bye." And repeating that with a mental smile to Xander, he lasgunned the statue into dust and tiny shards.
"A-are you okay, Xander?" Giles asked with concern, the youth looking a little tired as he headed for the cash box, "Perhaps we should head back and see to the safety of the girls." They left quietly, Xander pondering the life of Gurney Halleck and the lessons pointed out he should learn from it.
"An unforeseen event is warping the connections between realities and dimensions near the Hellmouth, Brother," the female Oracle. "What, I cannot see."
"What?!" the Male Oracle exclaimed, actually emoting, "Who can be sent? Who is expendable?"
"None are easily expendable, and it is causality within causality," she responded. "This seems to be the product of Chaos. It must be resolved from within. I sense the Other Side is becoming aware, as are many who are sensitive to such things."
"And if they intervene, so must we..."
"...But any who are sent in, will be trapped and cannot be contacted..."
"...Until the matter is resolved...We should send..."
"...Those foreseen to make appearances at the Mouth of Hell..."
"Hmm," Dawn said, looking around the party, "I was somehow sure Mr. Jensen wasn't going to make it tonight and there he is."