The three girls waited until after Xander Harris and his friends left the costume shop before heading in. The owner had yet to lock the door and sighed heavily as they entered. Kendra wore a cloak borrowed from Tara to hide her stakes as she walked over to the costume weapons, many of which were quite real, as Faith and Tara walked directly up to Ethan.
Yes, can I help you?" Ethan asked, "I was preparing to close."
"Yeah, my friend and I were wondering about how to get in on the whole costume transformation thing," Faith responded, "And how exactly does that work?" The chaos mage stared at her, showing some slight surprise at the directness of the revelation as well as interest rather than the expected condemnation.
"I take it you're not associated with the local do-gooders?" Ethan asked with a smarmy smile.
"Nah, we're our own group for right now," Faith continued, hopping up to sit on a table, "Tara's the magic girl and I'm just the one who looks for trouble."
"And your friend handling weapons like an expert," Ethan smirked.
"She's the one who gets us out of trouble we get into," Faith smirked back.
"Hmm, well I suppose it won't hurt," Ethan responded, "But basically whatever costume that was at least twenty percent of it purchased here, or an item into which I put a little more effort, and they become the costume."
"H-how do you ener-gize it to last all night," Tara asked, curious, "Y-you'd be completely drained."
"Divine magic my dear, and no I won't tell you which fuel my spell," Ethan responded pointedly, "So I'm still able to view my handiwork on a series of scrying panels that activate at the time of the spell. Anything here is half off as you'll be able to choose what you'd like to be."
"I-is it possession, and can you communicate with your possessor?" Tara asked. Ethan appreciated the technical question.
"I don't really know, but some people that are a close fit to the persona might retain memories and such, at least for a while," Ethan conceded, "But I don't really know. I'm more a watch it happen then scrutinize later sort, really."
"Hmm, nah, think we'll pass on the costumes," Faith said, "But when's it all get started and is there a really good place to view it all in person. We've sat on a roof or two."
"Not really, but if you get terribly bored, and bring lots of snacks and drinks, swing by sometime. Oh, and I do insist that you not tell anyone at least until it's all underway."
"Cool, come on girls," Faith said, and the three girls left the building.
"Th-that went well," Tara said, "Do you think i-it was the truth?"
"Yeah, strange, but yeah," Faith answered, Kendra nodding with her analysis, "If he's what he appears, he's in it to stir up trouble while watching others do it to themselves."
Wh-what should we do?" Tara asked as they got into their car, "Now that he's told us what we thought."
"Don't know really," Faith answered then deferred to the other girl, "What do you think Tara?"
"N-No, I-I think we could try to stop the spell after he starts it," she replied, "b-but he'd probably expect us this time."
"Den what should we do? Should we just go to a different corner each night and watch what happens?" the Slayer asked, "Because dat iz de only ting I can come up wit."
"Th-that might be a good idea," Tara nodded, "That way we know h-how much of this is really him, and h-how much is o-opportunity by the real monsters."
"Go Ken!" Faith exclaimed in support, "Sounds like a plan to me, but maybe we should find some stuff we can use to keep the bad guys away, huh?"
Marcus swung around as he recovered from the vertigo, only to find himself on a street, on a planet, with a general breakdown in order. The few accents he immediately discerned to be North American English, and he lashed out staff high and heel to kneecap low against his vicious, yellow-eyed, attacker. Luckily the bloke didn't seem to expect a double strike, and writhed on the ground clutching his destroyed leg joint. Marcus swung hard and managed to render the being unconscious.
'Must have somehow mistaken me for one of Mr. Garibaldi's associates,' he mentally quipped as he responded to a woman's scream for help. A few short moments later he arrived to find three young Earth Force personnel fight off and further deter attack on a woman dressed in Enlightenment or perhaps Centauri colonial gentry attire.
"Hallo, Earth Force," Marcus greeted them with a mixture of amusement and respect, "Good work against those, why were they attacking you?" He ignored the four weapons turned on him. The redhead spoke first.
"Identify yourself," she ordered bluntly.
"I'm Marcus Cole, lately of Babylon 5," he answered.
"No you're not, try again," the woman asserted, "He's ten years older than you, and even more annoying." Marcus looked hurt at this statement.
"I'll have you know that I am Marcus Cole," he reasserted, "And who would the three of you be?" The man in his twenties inserted himself into the escalating situation.
"I'm Dr. Franklin, this is Commander Ivanova, and this is Commander Takashima," the man said with all of the good doctor's intonations and mannerisms, "In spite of different current appearances." Marcus considered this, then in D'Lenn's language repeated a statement he'd made to Susan not too long ago. She smiled and nodded.
"Okay, it's him," Susan smiled as Takashima shot another would-be attacker with little effort or expression, "We should probably take the crazy lady and find shelter somewhere. Preferably a public structure as we're most likely to find information as to location and situation. Marcus, you're in black, please scout ahead for us and we'll follow."
The three girls relocated to another street, closer to the school, making notes on the map regarding numbers of transformed kids, types and other information. Almost two hours had already gone by, and the number of vampires and others remained constant until about then, when they suddenly noticed groups of the undead seeming to drive into town and look befuddled, maybe a few dozen. Kendra, with Tara providing magical actual-fire support, managed to lash out effectively before the vampires could exit their cars, Tara's fireballs in crowded vehicles almost always finishing them all off, but Kendra leaping onto the few escapees successfully.
"F-Faith? How's the driving?" Tara asked the girl learning how to maneuver a vehicle, "Y-you getting it okay?"
"Wicked cool, Tare," Faith responded, finally getting to learn to drive a car, and maneuvering it so the other two could attack the bad guys, "That's what? Six cars? Twenty-two vamps?"
"Twenty-five, Faith," Kendra chimed in, "De must be attracted to de Hell Mouth more dan usual because of de spell. What iz two hours away?"
"LA," Tara nodded, "It would take around that long and i-it's a big city…"
"So maybe we be a-wanting to end dis spell after no more than an hour?" Kendra suggested, "so dat we don't end up wit too many of dem on de last loop." The three girls nodded as they continued their circuit, Faith angling closer to the highway and bus station to keep the number of effective attacks going strong.
"Well, growing up with the Portugese and the Irish and some others back in Boston," Faith began with that 'I'm-about-to tell-you-a-tale look,' "I guess I feel we gotta help keep out these 'foreign' vampires or they'll take away all our local vampire jobs. That darn NAFTA." Tara groaned with a smile at Faith's immigration references and Kendra sharpened Mr. Pointy some more, unable to Slay the attempt at humor.
"Well, this could be worse," Marcus remarked as they fought off a group of about twenty vampires as they entered the business district, "It could have been tax collectors or worse, Vorlons trying to give us street directions." The group snickered or moaned at the sadly-truthful nature of their 'allies.'
Another hour and fourteen vampires later found the girl group putting up in front of the costume chop. Tara was tired and the number of near-misses and such was wearing their small group down. After discussing a plan of entry, they were about to get out of the car when the three Watcher Brits walked by and entered the store. A handful of minutes later, two small demons became two distraught children again. The three young women were out of the car in an instant, asking the kids if they were okay, where they lived and if they knew their phone numbers to call their parents. Tara pulled out her cell phone from her purse, called the parents, and received permission to take them back to the High School, where they were waiting. Ushering the calmer children into the crammed car, Faith drove away before the English left the building.