Xander was mighty glad that a hangover didn't follow him through the Reset. Drinking and fighting with bounty hunters wasn't exactly going to become his new favorite form of entertainment, but at least he and Dawnie managed to get a lot of information in the process. Unfortunately, even with the expanded knowledge of the border-legal establishments and possible contacts, they'd not directly increased their knowledge o Sunnydale's underworld leader.
'I guess it's time for that demon bar that's next on the list.'
After a meaningless Reset in which He and Dawn had processed their new information and driven by some of the places, he shook his head as she'd discovered a karaoke bar that also had a house band in Santa Barbara and made him go as Jim Morrison to her Grace Slick. The place had had a ton of baby boomers in it, and since there was a bar named and themed 'Mannequins' across the street that had many look-alikes, no one had tried to persuade them they weren't who they said they were.
After getting permission from Joyce, they'd made Giles and Jenny accompany them, and left a note with uncovered Willow Devereux to go destroy the statue. It had taken only around a half-hour for her to achieve the goal, but it was enough for the breaking of the chaos spell afflicting the town.
Joyce had decided to sneak in and watch her daughter's 'performance' instead of heading into Los Angeles, running a Santa Barbara delivery a couple days early just and taking the opportunity to meet with a major client. She sat down and watched 'Grace' and 'Jim' perform their last pieces, then watched as Dawn backed up Xander as he briefly shook himself and went into a Hendrix rift, then he her as she got them to play a recent "Jewel' piece. They smiled and after having been encouraged to stay on stage for forty minutes straight as the boomers kept throwing out tunes to be played. After five minutes of explaining how they'd been able to lay and dance together for a couple of months now, a waitress brought over a tray of appetizers and a pitcher of soda.
"Hi, again, everybody," the waitress greeted them anew, "The couple on table five over there are celebrating a thirtieth wedding anniversary and are hoping you'll be able to sing a couple of slow tunes for 'em." Xander looked at the rest of his table, Dawn pushing toward the stool. Getting up, Xander rolled his eyes, then made his way up to general applause as the audience saw the young musical mimic enter the spotlight. He gave the next few songs to the band, who nodded at the classics.
"Okay, we have a thirtieth wedding anniversary to celebrate," he intoned in a passable enough Elvis voice, "And we'll throw in a little Sinatra later.
Playing acoustic guitar, 'The King' played Love Me Tender, Fools Rush In, and a few more before throwing out in Sinatra style a few Italian love songs whose tunes if not lyrics were known. After another twenty minutes he called it a night and headed back for a pleasant evening out with the Sunnydalers.
The next day was back to business, but Dawn had wanted to throw in a a couple more costumes, and after a short Internet search to check it out, Xander gave it the okay, but only for fifteen minutes. After that, he'd left a letter in Giles' possession to have him be at a certain address to destroy a statue of Janus. He'd understand when he encountered the proprietor. They'd managed to bribe Jenny Calendar into going with them on their road trip, and
They'd parked along a curb and in following the directions had come to a vacant lot. Xander took the envelope with the directions on it and read them again, when Dawn with a flash of green disappeared and a moment later reappeared to grab his hand. Pulled inside, his first impression made Dawn laugh since it proved that a little of the 'inner geek' remained.
"Where's Han and Chewie?" he muttered as he saw the various demons not fighting or eating each other or the few humans in the place. 'It's still early, though,' he thought as they sat down at a table and waited for someone to take a drink order.
"Hey kiddies, kinda young and human to be hangin out in a gin joint like mine aren't you?" a frighteningly friendly green disco-favoring demon said to them in greeting.
"We'd like two cokes with a hint of vanilla so it smells like a weak mixed drink, whatever Jenny wants and the rundown on how this works," Xander replied, gesturing to the stage, "We're from Sunnydale." Jenny asked for something with an umbrella, the green guy flashed a few hand signals at the bartender and sat down.
"Oh my, the Hell Mouth, I'm Lorne by the way," he introduced, "And it's a matter of you sing, and I read your some of your destiny from your aura."
"Hmmm, that'd be handy for us," Xander sighed, looking over to Dawn, who shrugged, "I guess I'll go first, before it all starts again…"
"What did he mean by that?" Lorne asked as the young man headed up to the stage and made a selection.
"We have a chaos spell following us, maybe we're out of range," Dawn exhaled, "It changes us into whatever we're costumed as, until someone ends the spell. We're hoping you're legit, give us some clues." He could read the concern and psychic fatigue from her.
"Sure thing, sugar plum," he assured her as the music began, "but who are you dressed as?" Dawn could feel the magic actually approaching, however faintly, as Xander's selection began to play and Dawn moved to join him.
"This time, I'm Karla DeVito, and Xander's Marvin Aday."
Two hours later, which was about an hour and twenty minutes after the spell was over, the demon audience finally let Meat Loaf and his tour partner off the stage. The first few songs involved getting the crowd of two dozen normally unimpressed and impassive first-ins riled up by dancing on the chairs and tables and the bar itself, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Bat Out of Hell, Bat Two and other songs energizing the entire group, the two young people charging the room with sexual energy, then hammering away with loud hard singing. Spell dropping, the duo switched to Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and then back to a few more loud energy-driving tunes they knew in common. Jenny Calendar just sat back aghast and amazed as Lorne just sat on overload, drinking sea breezes and enjoying the best show ever in his establishment even if the reading was off the scale.
"Well, that was the most amazing thing to come through my doors, kids," the green demon sighed as he greeted them, "The fact is I think you'll need to come back after your 'loop' is over…I just can't see beyond it, sorry to say, but…" he says, looking toward Jenny, at the next table, "You need to keep the Slayer and the Soulboy from playing patty cakes or he goes all grrr and a whole lot of people will die, including your gypsy friend here."
"So, let me get this straight," Xander sighed, "If Angel and Buffy 'do the deed' then Angel becomes Angelus and a lot of people including Jenny will die."
"That's right, that's the path everyone else seems to be on, but whatever your loop is doing will either destroy the universe or allow you to write your own destinies yourselves. So do us all a favor and figure it out."
"How much do we owe you?" Dawn asked as they got up.
"Nothin' hon, just come back when the looping is over and do it again, okay?"
"Deal."