"And here I am standing in front of the costume shop again, reeling from a whole bunch of crap in my head," Xander complained, setting down the Captain America shield that had come through with him, "And I don't really know how the night turned out for the Gang there."
He looked himself over, surprised that he'd seemed to regain Tomas Ramirez' full physique plus far better proportioning and toning. 'Am I taller, now?'
"I guess the Cap's given back the hours of exercise I haven't been to able put in, guess I'll have to up it from four to six hours a day, this light grav doesn't give me the extra workout San Martin would."
After stopping down the way and buying two garden snakes that turned out to be pregnant, he walked into the shop and just like the previous time, managed to get Ethan's compliance and interest. After picking up a few extras for Xander the Soldier, mainly parts of strange weaponry, like the spear and a blaster, he'd picked up a generic safari, a few generic sci-fi accessories, and two pairs of fairy wings he placed on the snakes for a moment.
"I understand making your counterpart more interesting, and deadly, but I should tell you those weapon pieces are alleged to have come from a demon or such in South America about ten years ago."
"Nah, it will be fine, maybe combining them will make him better, the guy who beat the demon."
"I'm at a loss as to the other costume…"
"Ah, Alan Dean Foster wrote some books set in the future, a guy name Flinx and his mini-drag have adventures and somehow manage to get through it all."
"Ah, that rings a bell, he wrote those Ice Rigger books also?"
"Same universe and time period."
"So why did you pick up the various potpourri and such?"
"Ah, with the list I'm writing, I'm hoping the pharmaceuticals and seeds stay with me after the spell is over.
"Anything interesting?"
"New types of tea, drugs that cure diseases naturally, that sort of thing?"
"Money in it?"
"Eventually."
"Get a bigger bag, and count me in for a share."
"Hmm, a fifth for Ethan Rayne?"
"But I don't work?"
"Fair enough, just crank up the mojo."
"Um Pip, who's your friend," Philip Lynx asked his Alaspin Mini-Drag companion, and seeing both snakes were happy enough with each other, smiled as he watched the strange events unfold in the streets of this lower tech town, "How about I call you 'Pop' for now?"
The three Humanx Commonwealth inhabitants strolled down the street, the mini-drags rearing up enough to keep the casual troublemakers looking elsewhere.
"I don't know how we got here, but I don't' feel that Dark Something any more," he told his two companions, "Just a smaller something, not at all sentient, all over this town. If this is the Commonwealth, I can't believe the Church would've missed something on their psi scans."
The quiet young man found it somewhat easier to affect emotional redirections in many they came across throughout the evening, and managed to avoid direct trouble until they watched a gang of adult males chasing a pair of teenaged girls and an older male trying to help them.
'I can't feel them,' Flinx thought as he stared at the eight men and six really short animals with them, 'It's like little Dark Somethings, maybe just getting started. Is this place a breeding ground?'
"We need to stop the big ones, guys," he told his friends, emoting as much as possible his neutrality toward the short ones and Danger/Attack at the big ones. The two Alaspinians raced upward and over as both groups passed into the warehouse, Flinx with a blaster right behind them.
He heard screams inside, and he got one direct chest shot into the rear-most thing, which caught it on fire and it burst into dust.
"Okay, not human," he muttered as the drags rushed through the door and more screams began. He pressed through, and got three more shots off at pint-blank range, obliterating what monsters the mini-drags had spat venom upon, the organic super-poison eating way at eyes and in this case causing massive deformation of faces and yellowed pupils before Flinx could end them.
He noticed the man was being weighed down by the little pets of the big things, barely holding his own, but the two girls were being grabbed by three of the big things. The lead of the three turned and leapt to the side as Pip and Pop flew down and both tried to end him. Flinx couldn't get a clear shot because of his flying friends, which allowed the white hair to reach an exit, but he turned and fired twice at very close range at the last two as the magic ebbed.
Angel found himself under a pile of scared children as Cordelia and Buffy dusted themselves off.
Buffy was about to head over to Angel when two flying objects passed over and landed on Xander's shoulders. It was a sight that caught the children's attention as well that of Angel and Queen C.
"Are they magical?" a kid asked.
"No, but they're very special friends of mine," Xander told the kids politely, and they're on the endangered list, so I need you to promise not to tell anybody about them, because bad people might try to hurt them and make belts out of them. Promise?" The kids all nodded, crossed hearts and such. "Okay, I need you to go with Miss Summers and Mr. Angel, they'll take you back, okay?" More nods.
"Um, okay?" Buffy responded, outmaneuvered into not dumping them on Cordelia and Xander, a Xander that seemed huge and manly, "Let's go."