Well, that was something of an interesting end to a vampire, and it led us into three weeks of research on the physical aspects of vampirism had led the group to no great solution as to why Spike had turned into a recent corpse rather than dust. We captured a few stupid minions and dressed them up, and tested out our theories, but we arrived back at my surmise that Spike had somehow gone as himself, and thus had become the human he was before, seemed the only logical possibility. And as the spell ended, the possession by the soul had ended. We speculated on what might happen if Angel dressed as his human self, but without knowing the particulars of the curse, it might be too risky. I remember smiling with a sigh to Buffy's annoyance when I commented that I realized it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing to just end Angel, but as I'd seen different aspects of the vampire, Angel wouldn't be removed unless he lost the soul or proved as evil as other vampires. Ooh, Willow and Buffy glares. I'm almost immune, but somehow Dawnie can still manage for her expressions to work. So I stopped too-overtly mocking the slayer's choice in evening company.
Dawn, Doyle and Xander had watched a number of movies, mainly classics of the last couple decades, and Dawn had discovered China Beach and ER marathons that had driven the men elsewhere. Doyle had caught the costume bug, but couldn't decide on any ground-breaking characters, but a few of the war movies and old television had inspired a couple of memorable moments even if only the three of them might be the only ones to appreciate the experience…
Stringfellow Hawke, Caitlin O'Shannessy and Dominic Santini stealing a Black Hawk from the nearby base and after rescuing a pair of eloping kids in Barstow from vampires, they flew around the Sunnydale area as themselves shooting up Willy's, Spike's warehouse and a few other nests before ditching the thing and hiding out for the rest of the Reset with Doyle's quality liquor and Dawn glaring at the two singing heavy metal ballads badly for hours before the Reset mercifully ended…and the next Reset also proved to be a 'keeper' when the two men folk couldn't quite coordinate their actions so…
…Nurse Colleen McMurphy treated the minor abrasions suffered by the crazy girl who thought she was a noblewoman. The China Beach nurse still didn't really accept the explanation given by the minimally dressed redheaded teenager, but couldn't help but comment to her current companion Benjamin Willard.
"I still don't understand what's going on here, Ben, but the calendars and everything else seem too much to be some kind of a test." They were about to continue when they heard a far off series of explosions and over the next couple of minutes the group quietly hunkered down in the house. A man dressed in dark clothing came in from the rear of the house.
"Oh, good! You guys are alright," Angel addressed them, "It's total chaos out there." Buffy, Dawn and Doyle look at him without any recognition.
"Who are you?" all three of them ask as Willow enters the room. They hear the screech of car tires, and some commotion from out in the street.
"Okay, Willow, wanna fill me in?" Angel replies, edging toward the front window.
"They seemed to have turned into their costumes," Willow sighs, "What's going on outside?" They hear a helicopter flying close overhead and a woman screaming outside. Opening the door, Angel and Willow see Cordelia being attacked by a furry dog thing as Spike and eight minions in two cars are getting out to watch the attack. Suddenly, a speaker from the helicopter opens up.
"Willard! This is Bill Kilgore. I want my FC&!Ng surfboard back now!"
Spike and the minions, and even the attacking dog-thing seemed stunned into inaction by the incongruity of the entire situation of a chopper starting to land but ignoring them over a minor matter. Captain Willard reached for a hand radio and attempted a contact.
"Colonel, my apologies, but the men in leather are…NVA agents on heroin… attacking that girl with a dog," Willard/Doyle indicated, "If you could send them away, you can have it gladly." Before the young officer had even finished, the helicopter had landed, and a dark figure had moved to the side door of the old copter and opened fire into the Desoto and those closest by it. The car exploded with most of the vampires, tracers creating a surreal effect as the neighbor's two trees exploded into and began to burn as Spike and the others unsuccessfully attempted to flee. The dog, however, had whined and raced away from the girl, Colleen racing forward to treat any wounds.
A young man in a crisp uniform of a LT. Colonel marched confidently forward, cigar in hand, sunglasses of all things on and a smile on his face as he reached the crowd.
"I love the smell of vampire dust in the evening, it smells like…victory, 'course napalm is always good when another VC base has been taken over by the bloodsuckers," the man commented with a serene smile, "Now where's my surfboard, Ben? I flew over some nice beach on my way over and if you don't give it back you'll be tiger-bait."
Needless to say, after blowing up Ethan's by air assault, I was able to tell them that my map and note to Kilgore had already led to Willy's and Drusilla's and a few other nests being zapped already. Getting good at the only needing to hide out for less than a day, we ditched the craft in the Pacific and kept a low profile. And Dawn and Doyle had to keep pointing at something and saying, 'Hey Xan, does this smell like victory?' at the beach with the gang the next day while surfing took place and answers were gone over, made it almost perfect. I think that while I might have dark moments, the fact that I have two other people to share the experience with has kept me sane enough. Even if they both have become way geekier about Stargate, Highlander and even Star Wars than I had been before the looping.
"So what do you have against the action hero costumes, Doyle?" Xander asked his newest friend, "I'd think the extra skills and such'd be great."
"Hey, Brachen, remember?" Doyle responded, "I don't really have a problem with the whole thumpin' the bad guys, but that's the human side of me. I'd rather be the support guy that guards the rear while others risk losing their parts."
"What parts are those Doyle," Dawn asked cheekily.
"Any, Dawn," the half-human emphasized, "Any, and that's why I'm dressed as the brains this time around, to know what help your costumed time-share partners might require."
The three approached the school, their attire not raising any eyebrows except that they might be said to not be in costume.
"Harris!" the troll of trolls yelled, "Why aren't you in costume!" Doyle interrupted immediately.
"I'm 'is Uncle Alan, and he's dressed as a police detective, and I'm here to keep him out of trouble," Doyle remarked, getting closer, stage-whispering, "That Summers girl he's hanging around strikes me as no-good if'n you know what I mean, and I don't want Alex to get talked into any 'tricks' tonight."
"Just keep him away from Summers and he'll probably avoid expulsion," the little monster told him, then gestured at a group of kids, "Here they are Harris, stay out of trouble."
Splitting into two smaller groups hitting the best places, the three Resetters returned with their group much earlier than the other groups though well-burdened with candy. Dawn, Doyle and Xander, having left a letter with Giles to open in forty minutes, drove out of town up into the foothills and away from people.
"So, you think this'll work for me, Xan," Dawn asked, "There haven't been any girl ones in the show."
"Dawnie, there's only one in the show," Xander replied, "So what's to say others couldn't exist. Besides, Ethan's jinxing with the costumes should be enough. Besides, what could go wrong?"
"Did you have to say that?" Dawn replied.
"We're not at the Hell Mouth, Dawn," Xander rebutted.
"You're tempting the nearby Hell Mouth, Xander," she continued.
"I'm not tempting the Hell Mouth," he exhaled. Dawn looked at Doyle, who like her was moving away from Xander, pretending not to know him.
"Xander," Doyle responded, at last, as the magic reached them, "Quit taunting the Hell Mouth."
Jim and Blair had gone at it again, this time about that idiot Freeman. A road-rager as the just-finished case. 'He stalked me over a traffic incident, what a nut.' Jim looked around as Blair was going on about something, his voice changing in mid-sentence as Jim's senses went on overload. He turned to see a young brunette girl looking at him in the same way, as his mind flashed into sensory overload. Like one of his 'Sentinel dreams' he suddenly found himself in the mindscape, charging her in jaguar form as he did the same. He felt their bodies collide, jaguar visuals but human touch, wrestling and pushing away like cubs playing…or something more. Jim picked himself up from the ground, in dream only, losing real-world contact of his back on the ground as he and the other jaguar transformed into their real forms in the dreamscape. They were joined by two others. The four of them stood for a moment, the older former Special Forces veteran now Police Detective Jim Ellison, a stunning blonde woman clearly a sentinel but of questionable background but strong drives, a young brunette woman who radiated green light and a well-muscled young man who radiated a different animal feeling and matched Jim's own stance.
"Who are all of you?" Jim asked the others, "And why are you two kids here?"
"I'm Xander Harris and this is Dawn Summers, whose physical bodies you two are possessing due to chaos forces," the young man indicated, "And the two of you are…Sentinels. We are accessing your abilities in hopes they will come out in us as well, to fight things that hunt humans in the night."
"What gave you the right?" the detective continued as the blonde woman slowly tracked inward on the girl, "Why couldn't you ask?"
"We're not from the same world as you, and we expected to be possessed for a while and then wake up with a result," Xander explained, "In our world, there really are vampires, demons and magic as well as apple pie and gun control nuts." Xander looked at the blonde, leapt in front of Dawn, and addressed them while staring at the woman ready to attack, "Just give it a twenty or thirty minutes and it'll be over. Get out of the dream and talk to each other. Maybe you two can meet up after returning to your own lives."
A minute later, Jim Ellison and Alex Barnes woke up next to each other in the bodies of the two dream companions. They found an older dark-haired man looking at them from nearby. Jim hazarded a guess from the academic dishevelment of the clothing.
"Blair, that you?" he asked as he got to his feet and offered a hand to the female sentinel. She took it with a suspicious look.
"Yeah, man, it's me, are we having some kinda trip or what? This is weird! I'm in some other guy's body, and so are you apparently, and 'wow' huh?"
"Yeah, wow," Jim begrudged, "The kid's me and…"
"Alex Barnes…" the woman offered.
"…are in now, say this will be over soon enough and maybe we should just figure things out and get together afterward."
"I don't know if that's such a good idea," the woman interjected, "I do not know either of you, and…" pointing at Jim, "I don't know if I want to kill you or something else."
"I know what you mean, but if you're ever up in the Pacific Northwest, a short visit to exchange notes on this whole sentinel thing wouldn't hurt, and Blair's the brainy guy studying it for quite a while now."
She nodded and they verbally exchanged basic information as Blair poured coffee from a thermos. They talked about concentration, opening up to the inputs, closing it out and other stuff as Blair took notes. Almost an hour had passed when the magic stopped and the screaming began from two teens now finding themselves overwhelmed by everything.
Two weeks of desperate Resets later, the two teens had managed to learn enough to shut out the extra input with Doyle's help using his Blair memories to keep them from hospitalization and isolation. The trick had been to separate them enough to not overwhelm each other. Then, working with one, and then the other, Doyle drew on all of his limited experiences and the Blair stuff to 'train' his two friends in controlling their abilities, and they'd even tried two or three rather silly costume choices but that had granted them only limited and temporary relief like going from a Metallica concert in front of the speaker to the easy listening music of Metallica eight rows further back.
Xander had dressed as Batman, Blue Beetle and Daredevil, but the last in particular just added an entire new sensory front instead of temporarily relieving one. Dawnie as the original Black Canary, Bat-Girl and Felicia the Black Cat hadn't been much better. And then they'd sent him out as Nightwing, Green Arrow and Seymour Birkoff from La Femme Nikita. Nothing but trouble, as a bunch of she-demons had chased him for three hours because they thought Nightwing had nice legs, and that Birkoff character's life…no whiskey was hell indeed.
Six weeks since the night in the woods found Doyle and Xander shouting "Jaffa Kree" and other nonsense as they smacked each other around with fake swords during Dawn watching a Stargate episode with Hathor in it.
"So, Dawnie," Xander asked, "What do you want to go as next? We're thinking samurai…"
"Maybe I'll go as a goddess…" Dawn considered, "Might be different." She went back to her show.
Elsewhere and Elsewhen…
"Hey Jim, you're acting kind of funny," Blair suggested, "Is that woman walking over here someone you know?" Jim smiled as he began moving quickly toward the woman entering the squad room.
"You could say that…" the detective replied, then embraced the blonde beauty in a passionate kiss that lasted minutes as fellow police staff smiled and simply walked around the pair, Simon on the phone looking big-eyed as he dealt with whoever was on the line. Breaking the kiss, Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring, darkened silver with a black jaguar pattern with two green jade eyes, "Blair, this is the woman I've been dreaming with and about since the you know, a month ago, Alex Barnes…meet Blair Sandburg…Blair meet in person Alex…" he placed the ring on her finger at her nod, "my fiancé." Blair grinned ear to ear as a nearby Simon dropped the phone and fainted. The Curse of the Ellison Dating had been broken.
Elsewhere and Elsewhen…
"Hello, Frank," the devil-dressed man greeted the black-clad man with a skull on his chest.
"What do you want, Red?"
"Do you remember a Xander Harris?" Daredevil asked, dodging a possible reaction, "Because I do…" Frank Castle turned immediately, a touch of sock on his face for a brief moment.
"What do you know?"
"Same as you, but since it happened to me second, I know a bit about you…"
"And…"
"Try not to kill them Frank, and where I can I'll stay out of the way. Also, I have a friend, Matt Murdock, who wants to provide legal help should you ever be caught."
"Why?"
"He was a victim, and now helps other victims…like us, but he does it within the system. If it comes down to it, you can trust him." Daredevil handed Frank a business card, "And you can usually get messages to me through him."
"Why would I do that?"
"If it takes place in Hell's Kitchen, and you need help for…good things…like rescues instead of killings, I might back you up."
"I'll think about it," he replied begrudgingly, "Thanks."
"For what?"
"Not giving me a webslinger lecture."
"Not all of us can be shadows, Punisher, and the press's idiotic negative obsession with someone that is regarded highly by the citizens keeps a lot of attention from what we unfortunately need to get done."
"Hmm…"