The docks of Gullwing were busy, as always. Tiny fishing boats skimmed in and out along the sandy beaches; larger vessels stood berthed in the docks proper, goods pouring in or out. None of that was call for attention, and yet the townspeople stood staring. The longest pier held a ship of metal with no visible sails, and far out in the bay there could be seen a thing of domes and towers, like a city come swimming out of the Wyld. The metal ship swarmed with Dragonblooded of all aspects, and whispers were rising that the Realm had fallen and been replaced. Yet beastmen also thronged the deck, working at strange tasks and even venturing sometimes into the town, where merchants served sharkmen and octopus-women fearfully and prayed for their departure.

The Feathered One was to arrive in town today to meet with these incomprehensible strangers. If they were indeed Dynasts, at least they were unlikely to make impossible demands. If they were something new...well, the people would cross that strait when they came to it.

Conch-trumpets sounded, and the bustle quieted. A wooden vessel nearly as large as the metal one surged into view around the great knee of the island, festooned with brilliant feathered banners that stretched between its masts, fluttering between the sails. Rowers deployed oars from the sides and took over as the sails were furled, guiding the ruler's ship into port beside the strangers' vessel.

No sooner had the great ship berthed than an entourage of priestesses and warriors emerged from belowdecks, surrounding the Feathered One himself, his cloak spread in majesty and billowing in the wind. The priestesses disembarked first, of course. They were under the volcano gods' protection, but there was no point antagonizing the storm mothers.

The Feathered One had only just reached the pier when a great bronze door slid open on the metal ship, and from it emerged shining figures whose splendor made his look feeble. First among them came a slender young woman with a silver ring on her brow. Silver tattoos curled gleaming down her pale pink cheeks. The circlet she wore was little more than a shimmering band around her forehead to hold her hair back, but her clothing made up for it in finery, a billowing silk blouse in blue just translucent enough that more tattoos shone through it and pants loose enough to be mistaken for a skirt at first glance. On her chest rested a spiral silver amulet with a gemstone set in the middle.

At her side stood a young black-haired man, just as pale, in golden armor fashioned on the scales of a snake. A bright disc yellow as the sun glowed on his own forehead. His voice boomed out suddenly, echoing over the bay. "I am Admiral Alexander Harris of Luthe, known to some as the Dread Pirate Roberts, escorting the Queen of Luthe, Winifred Burkle! We have come to call upon Wavecrest for aid against the forces of Skullstone and the Silver Prince! In exchange we offer you our blessing of knowledge and power. We are prepared to open negotiations with the Feathered One at a location of his choosing."

Beyond those two stood more Anathema at least as strange. Behind the Queen stood a young woman in an elaborately floral dress and hair that flowed freely down below her knees; she held the hand of an aged figure swathed in green and black silks that hid her withered form. The Anathema were said to age slowly if at all; was the hidden figure some secret master from the Age of Nightmares? Beside the ancient one stood a golden woman who bore a curious resemblance to the girl in the flowers, but who bore a gemstone on her forehead, and then a slender woman in tight black with red trim and sash, whose skin and hair were white like seafoam. And still more-a pale blue woman with crystals for hair; a young man clad in furs.

By the Dragons! So many Anathema at once might overwhelm a whole legion, with ill luck and their great power. The Feathered One's cape swirled as he stepped forward. Perhaps he saw the inevitable coming; he strode up to the Anathema and bowed. Together with the demons, he vanished into the ship.

A wail of horror rose up from the town as everyone who could see what had happened cried out in despair. Perhaps the gods might still save him. Perhaps.

Chapter 62-Childlike Empress

Faith flung up her dagger, and the bullet ricocheted off it like Wonder Woman's bracelets.

This couldn't be Sunnydale. It couldn't. It made no sense. Even if she'd gone the wrong way-whatever that meant in the Wyld-Buffy wouldn't use a gun except maybe if a slay depended on it. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm SubMachine Gun," the spitting image of Buffy replied. "And you're sure as hell not Erectile Dysfunction."

Faith's jaw dropped and she nearly missed deflecting the next shot. What kind of names were those?Erectile Dysfunction? She spun around and gave the fake Buffy a Solar-powered horse kick in the face.

She came back around to find Buff-SubMachine Gunflat on her back. "You're not her and this isn't Sunnydale."

"We're in the Middlemarches," Charity said. "It's progress."

"This the Thought of Ea Gso?" Faith shrugged dismissively. "Not a very deep thinker."

"Can't be," Hope demurred. "The stories say she's shaped now. Besides, we'd feel her attention. Maybe this belongs to her, though."

"How come it looks like Sunnydale? Did I do that?"

Charity scowled. "If you had done it consciously you'd know, and you can't have done it unconsciously here. I'm not sure what's going on."

"We have to be in a freehold," Hope insisted. "We came through the breakthrough."

"Yes," Charity agreed. "But where is the freehold and why does it look like a city in another world?"

"Pssh. Call this a city? You forget Boston already?" Faith knelt down. "SubMachine Gun's waking up. Hey, you! NRA Buffy! Get on your feet!"

SMG groaned in protest as Faith hauled her to her feet. "Anyone get the number of that truck?"

"All that hit you was my rear hooves," Faith said bluntly. God that was surreal! "And only cuz you were shooting at me. Where the hell are we?"

"Sunnydale," SMG insisted. "Where else would I be?"

"Well," Faith began, "if you were Buffy, you'd be in Creation, either in Luthe, which is some kinda city-ship, or in Gem. Where she's a freaking queen or something." It didn't make sense being jealous. Buffy probably hated it-the responsibility part anyway-and Faith didn't have any right or business ruling anything, no matter how Exalted did things in Creation. She was a criminal. Besides, she'd fuck it up.

"But I'm not Buffy. I'm SubMachine Gun." The simulacrum of Buffy rolled her eyes at Faith.

"She's a raksha," Charity said. "And...I think she's the general here. If we knew where anything was-"

"What do we need to know?" Faith asked.

"Any of the freehold's key locations," Hope explained. "Every freehold has an arcane redoubt. Most also have one or more other places: a glory, a stronghold, a throne room, a fountainhead, and a beacon. They each have certain-"

Bolts of lightning sizzled down from a sky suddenly full of thunderheads. SMG winked at Faith. "Looks like Alternate History's found you. Better run."

The Feathered One knew better than to stare. It was true that Wavecrest lacked the magics and tools of the Realm...or of these people, whoever they were...but it was unseemly to come across as some backwards yokel. It didn't help. Luthe was a city of spires and domes that shone like blue glass in the burning light of the sun. Dragon-Blooded and beastmen thronged its corridors, though not without harsh or cool glances at one another. He couldn't avoid staring.

"You are Tya?" he asked Queen Winifred, who only looked startled. He indicated her tattoos. The Denzik city-ship didn't seem to attract storm mothers, but it might be mystically-protected in another way-or it might just be a matter of size.

"I'm a Lunar. The tattoos are magic." She grinned broadly at him with her pretty, open smile. She had a friendly, guileless face, but the Feathered One knew better than to trust that in an Anathema. "I thought maybe you weren't going to talk any more till we got to the negotiating table."

"I merely thought it best to consider my words," he explained. "The tales say that the Anathema can carry away a mind with a smile and a sentence."

"I maybe could," the Queen said as she led him into a wide open space surrounded by crystal spires. "But I wouldn't." There amidst them was a table laden with food, and a young woman with close-cropped hair wearing tight black leather pants and a black leather jacket. She too turned to smile broadly at him, though the effect was marred slightly by the fried shrimp she was eating by the handful and the thick chain that ran from pierced nose to pierced ear.

Wait. Her face was the face of the Anathema in the flower dress. She had remained in that through the boat ride. Perhaps she could have changed so quickly, but to have shorn her hair and pierced her face with such speed? She raised a hand and waved at him shyly. "Hi. I'm Tara. Just experimenting a bit."

"He doesn't know you, silly," the Anathema queen snickered. "I'm not sure this look is you. You can't look ugly but it's kinda jarring."

"I was afraid of that," Tara said with a nod. "Shrimp is delicious, though!"

"You have no trouble with storm mothers?" the Feathered One queried Winifred.

"The first couple of tries did nothing," Tara interrupted. "So they sent in a group and we beat their wrinkly butts down. They haven't been very bothery since then."

The Feathered One tried not to reveal his shock as the Queen added, "We don't have to worry about storm mothers. Or volcanoes. Or food or much of anything. We could help you with that if it's a problem."

"With what exactly?" the Feathered One asked warily.

"Anything," the Queen replied.

Admiral Alexander strolled in, casual and yet instantly the focus of all eyes. "Sorry," he said. "Someone wanted to meet you."

Another woman-a spirit of some sort?-accreted from the air. She was tall and slender and had light brown hair and a petulant mouth; she was wearing absurdly skimpy armor of shiny metal that seemed designed for showing off her body rather than protection. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, if appearances were not deceiving him.

"This is Dawn Summers, my latest consort," the admiral said. "She's a raksha, so don't be fooled. She's a few thousand years old."

The Feathered One jumped. "A raksha?" The old tales spoke of Anathema taking demons and gods as consorts...but raksha? If there were tales about that he hadn't heard them. "Isn't she dangerous?"

"Lots of things are dangerous," the admiral said. "You're the ruler of a nation; I'd say you're pretty dangerous yourself. Dawn's a friend."

The Feathered One nodded. What else was there to do? "If you truly wish to help us, Hamoji has become restless of late. Our sacrifices are not satisfactory to him and the jails are almost empty."

"Hamoji's the volcano, right?" The Queen wanted to know.

"He is, yes."

"Tara, why don't you go meet with him? See what it is he actually wants. Don't forget that if he actually attacks you your powers won't stop it." Tara's eyes went wide, but she smiled anyway. Maybe she was foolish enough to actually want to speak to the volcano deity.

She was welcome to him.

"This Alternate History must be the freehold's master!" Hope shouted in Faith's ear. Faith was carrying her sisters at a dead gallop, but the bolts of lightning pursued her wherever she went. "She can see us no matter where we go!"

"Then we leave!" Faith yelled back. That was easier said than done, though. This Sunnydale wasn't laid out like the real one; in fact, Faith was starting to think the buildings changed places as she ran past them. As if that wasn't bad enough, demons were coming out of the houses and storefronts.

"I think there's only two exits," Charity hollered. "And I don't think going back is a good idea! Why are they attacking us?"

"They seem to be focused on me," Faith suggested. "Maybe we should split up and you guys can look."

"We've never been here," Charity reminded her. "Can you think of anywhere there'd be a fire kept burning?"

"A fire?" Faith glanced around. "Not here. Unless it was somebody's fireplace, and nobody does that here." She paused. What were fires good for? Heat. Not in So Cal. But... "The lights never go off in the Bronze."

"Worth a try," Hope said. "They're not very imaginative. They're still using the lightning thing."

"Not very imaginative?" Willow faded into being in front of them from thin air. "I thought you all knew me better. Especially you, Faith. But what do I expect? You don't know anything. You're just this cleavagy slutbomb walking around going, 'Oooh, check me out-'"

"I'm what?" Faith felt a shivery feeling run down her spine and came within a hair of punching the fake Willow in the face. Only, in a place like this maybe that'd be playing her game. "Listen up, Red, you can play repressed all you like, but I know 'em when I see 'em. Or when I hear 'em babble on about gettin' spanked. What else is it you like? I bet there's more. Go on, tell me."

Sure enough, "Willow" blinked and stammered out, "Well there was this one t-time at band camp-"

"Ha!" Faith seized her by the wrists. "We'll have time for you to tell me all about it." At which point not-Willow promptly vanished from her grip. "The hell!" Angry demons surged toward them.

"That was okay," Charity said. "But you can do better. You keep trying to talk people into doing stuff. Just comment and imagine, like she did."

"Like she what?" Faith had to lash out, kicking demons in the head, which wasn't exactly easy with two people on her back.

"She tried to make you a...'cleavagy slutbomb'," Hope explained. "You resisted her, which is really good against the master of the freehold, but then you are a Solar."

"She could do that?" Some kind of spider demon pounced on Faith, forcing her to be silent while she struggled for a proper grip.

"I could do that," Charity explained tiredly. "You could do that. Don't make them do; just make them be."

Faith slammed the spider into a brick building. "Got it. Hey! I think I know where the exit is. We need to get inside the high school!"

"A school is the exit?" Hope frowned doubtfully.

"Inside the school," Faith repeated. "We gotta reach the hellmouth."

"What are they plotting?" Mnemon Dithrem growled under his breath. "Why would he agree to meet with these Anathema unless he means to betray the Realm?"

"That's a good question, satrap," V'neef Tetra said noncommittally. "But no one even knew there were Anathema in the city until he made landfall here. They saw only Dragon-Blooded." For an Immaculate monk, she was annoyingly peaceful and tolerant of heretics. "No doubt he went with them out of fear. If they enthrall him, I can break him away once he returns."

"A more pressing question," Captain Buruku said, "is what's to be done with the beastmen." Of course the god-blood would overlook Anathema! "No doubt they come from deeper in the Wyld. The people all know they pose a threat; you can see it in their eyes."

"The beastmen are dangerous," Tetra admitted, "but they have broken no laws. If they do, we can easily send them back into the Wyld-and up Hamoji's slopes."

Grumbling under his breath, Dithrem rose to pace around the hut that passed for a satrap's palace here. "To honor this god with their heathen rites?"

Tetra had the nerve to raise an eyebrow at that. "As Chosen of the Dragons, is it not my right to treat with the gods? Let the mortals see me solve their problems where their efforts have failed. We can set calendar dates and proper rites once we have their allegiance."

Buruku laughed. "A surprisingly practical attitude, Immaculate. You may have a point."

"Hamoji is your father!" Dithrem growled. "Of course you favor him!"

"My father has many children," the commodore said coolly. "He bears me no special love, nor I him. I merely seek the end of wildfires and lava flowing into the fields and forests."

Dithrem opened his mouth before realizing he couldn't recall the objection he'd been going to make. "Sometimes one has to put aside absolute principle," Tetra said, "and try to build slowly toward the right."

Burku nodded in agreement. "My father means well, at least when he's in a good mood. But sometimes I wonder if the Immaculate faith wouldn't be effective in leashing his temper on the bad days. If we could threaten to withhold worship when he's wrathful, instead of appeasing him and encouraging future rages..."

Dithrem began, "That is not how the Immaculate faith works-" only to discover he'd forgotten the rest of his explanation. His eyes narrowed at Buruku. "I can't recall what I was going to say," he muttered. "It's been like that a great deal for the last two days."

"Of course it has," V'neef Tetra said calmly. "I'm secretly an unknown type of Anathema stealing your thoughts before you can speak them."

Dithrem looked at Buruku. Buruku looked at Dithrem. The pair of them burst into laughter together. "It's the stress," Dithrem said. "It's making me paranoid. My apologies, Immaculate."

"Just call me Tetra," she said, smiling.

"Is this what a school looks like?" Hope drooped in her seat, and Charity, bruised and bleeding, had to hold her up. The demons never let up for long.

"Nope," Faith grumbled. "This is the 'Magic Box'. Not sure what it's got to do with us or anything."

"A store that sells magic?" Hope perked up enough to rush inside.

"Catch her," Charity said weakly, and stumbled toward the door.

Faith sighed and slammed the door open. "This isn't where-"

"Hiya! You must be this Faith person I keep hearing about. Welcome to my store! I'm Entertaining Comics and I'll be happy to hide you three as long as you give me money!" EC pulled Hope into an office chair. "Are you really a Solar? Because I have to admit I was a demon once and-"

Faith tilted her head at the imitation Anya. She didn't know the woman that well, but this seemed over the top. "And now you're a cleavagy slutbomb, I know." She had to try it out. Just once.

EC paused and glanced down at herself. "Everyone says that but really I just know what I want: money and orgasms. And I don't see why that's such a problem when there's so little time to get either, you know?"

Charity frowned at Hope; Hope shrugged back. Both of them shrugged in turn at Faith. They didn't know Anya either. It must not be-

EC's blouse was coming unbuttoned. One by one the buttons popped open, working down from her neck and exposing the upper curves of her breasts. Faith grinned appreciatively. "Score!"

"Oh come on! I'm having a wardrobe malfunction. This absolutely does not mean you've managed to change me from what I-"

Faith overrode her. "Screw ya for safe passage to the exit."

"You're on."

"Willow?" Fred put her head into Willow's room to see her with her head face-down on the book she'd been reading. "Willow, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Willow rasped. "It's...I'd have to explain it to you for you to understand. And that...I'm only just starting to understand it myself." She lifted her head and turned to face Fred.

"Willow," Fred insisted. "You know me. Shoot."

"I was trying to understand how inheritance effects Exaltation. The Dragon-Blooded pass theirs on from parent to child, but it seems to dilute instead of spread if they have kids with regular folks. And the rest of us can have 'Half-Caste' kids but they never inherit our full powers. It doesn't sound like proper genetics to me." Willow watched her expectantly.

"Naw. That's just not right."

"So I looked it up, and lo and behold, the First-Agers knew it. I just didn't understand what they were saying before." Willow pointed a withered claw at a line of text. "They started wondering if maybe Exaltations weren't unitary but were maybe some kind of cellular automata that propagated in our organelles. Only they couldn't get far studying that because the Exaltations still weren't made of matter or energy or maybe even information."

"But that way they could subdivide a little," Fred said, tapping her fingers on the desk. She needed a marker or five. "Enough to let the children have some power, but less. But they couldn't actually reproduce to make a whole new Exaltation? But why is that a head to desk thing?"

"If the Exaltations are made of subcellular quasi-living organelles?" Willow waited for her to respond, but Fred wasn't seeing it. "Midi-chlorians, Fred. The Exaltations are made of midi-chlorians."

Fred groaned out loud and banged her head down on the desk. "George Lucas, I'm gonna kill you."

Willow caught her by the shoulders. "Hey. At least it's progress. We've got a theory, it's just not one we like."

It was progress. Fred gave Willow a hug, then kissed her withered lips. They felt like paper over leather. "You'll figure out how to do it," she said encouragingly.

"I've only ever disguised myself as myself," Willow sighed. "Which is sorta what I really want to do, but if it happens by biting how do I bite myself?"

"I don't know," Fred sighed. "At least you've been able to look like an old woman instead of an unwrapped mummy lately. That's progress too. C'mon. Let's go see how the Architect is doing, and then it's time for me to tattoo Tara. You'll like watching that." She gave the witch a wink and pulled her to her feet.

"Two Taras," Willow lamented, "and I'm stuck like this."

Fred led her out the door and they took an elevator down to the labs near the engine rooms. It was a long ride, and Fred held her close the whole way down despite the strange feeling of her skin. If only there were some way to change her Exaltation back; Lytek had confirmed that the Abyssals had once been Solars, if Salina's memories weren't enough. Probably that would fix her body too; Solars were supposed to be the image of perfection, right?

TARA wasn't staring into any of the instruments. She wasn't meditating or reading. She was sitting calmly in a chair holding the gemstone Fred and Tara had retrieved. The moment she saw them, she stood, beaming. "I knew you'd be down soon, and I was afraid if I went to tell you I'd go racing through the halls shouting and alert everyone."

"What's with the racing-around euphoria?" Willow asked, beating Fred to it.

"It's an egg," TARA said, "and one day it'll hatch into what I'm looking for on Earth. I can use the embryonic version to track it."

""An egg of what?" Fred asked hastily before Willow could beat her to it.

"It's a Primordial behemoth," TARA explained. "It's...Autochthon's baby."

"I can't believe you stopped for sex in the middle of a battle," Charity griped.

Faith smirked at her. "Life's a battle, sis. When else you gonna get some? Besides, now we have help."

Entertaining Comics emerged from the bathroom. "Okay, all clean. How're we gonna play this?"

"I figured out a direction we can go that nobody much will follow us," Faith said. "Up."

"And that'll take us to the hellmouth?" Hope said doubtfully.

"We come back down straight on top of the school," Faith explained.

"Should work," EC said, "as long as SubMachine Gun doesn't rearrange the freehold."

"She's right," Hope said. "But Faith, you said this town is pretty solidly based on Sunnydale? Odds are she won't think to rearrange up and down after this long."

"On my back!" Hope and Charity mounted up. "You too, Miss Money!"

"You're awfully strong even for being part horse," EC said quietly.

"I'm more than just a centaur," Faith said. "I'm the Herald, the Slayer who isn't. I'm a Solar. Now hold on tight." And she took off in a burst of speed, spinning about to smash through the roof with her hooves. Hope and EC shrieked; Charity just sighed.

Faith streaked upward like a bolt of lightning. Maybe her flight ceiling was more of a suggestion here, because she looked down to see Sunnydale receding into the void below her. Or maybe it was momentum; no time to waste getting back down in that case. She turned just as a startled Alternate History manifested next to her and plunged toward the school.

"I was going to say something to her," EC complained. "Now we have to get past NonBinary."

"Who's NonBinary?" Faith grumbled. These names had to mean something, but she was getting nothing from them.

"NonBinary's the pride of the freehold," EC said, leaving Faith no more enlightened than before, "just like I'm the keeper and Alternate History's the master." Charity and Hope nodded. It must mean something to them.

Faith was about to ask when her dive toward the school suddenly accelerated and she crashed through the roof.

Stephen prowled the hallways of a city that thronged with people and knew himself alone. He was not from here, nor was he from Earth. He had been born into a reality that made most hell dimensions look like paradise. This...utopia of a city was so alien it might as well be wilderness.

He had to kill the monster that was his father. Killing his blond get would be a bonus. How to go about that in a city that would treat their deaths as murder was a problem to be solved, nothing more. The absence of a body would help. What to do afterwards until he could return to Earth was another problem, though he was seriously considering whether he should destroy the half-animal abominations as well. Certainly it'd be a way to use up time.

The next hallway was crowded, so he slipped into a maintenance hatch and went around. There was no way he could become lost. Here they called him a Lunar, but he had heard whispers that that was just another sort of demon, an "Anathema". If he had a way to purify himself-

He rounded a corner and found himself face to face with a girl in pigtails and an indecently short and tight shirt and shorts. She was one of the other "Lunars", the new one. Tara Maclay.

"Hey," she said. "I'll m-move, sorry. I was just k-kinda exploring. You're Stephen. I heard you were Angel's son."

"And Darla's," he admitted, hanging his head. There was no reason to be ashamed about it in front of this Anathema. At least it bothered him. She seemed to have embraced it. "No, I don't know how that's possible, and yes, I'm at least half demon." It was a wonder he wasn't all demon, but evidently God had chosen to give him a bare chance at salvation.

"Are you sure?" Tara asked. "My father told me I was part demon, but it was all a lie."

Stephen gave her a sad smile. "Pretty sure." Maybe her father was a liar...or maybe he was just a prophet. She couldn't have been born Anathema, if the scraps he'd heard were true. "For one thing, I can turn into them. I know more demon shapes than anything else. Can you do that?"

"Not yet," Tara said, "b-but I heard that it's just an advanced technique. I...m-might learn it one day but I'm not sure I want to."

Stephen arranged himself to look out a vent at the crowds. "It doesn't matter," he said after a moment. "We're Anathema, after all. Humans don't have powers like this."

"Most humans," Tara said, shaking her head. "But we do. I'm not...Who raised you? Not Angel. Surely not Darla."

"A good man. Daniel Holtz. He's my real father." Shark-human hybrids. What foul power could have produced those besides Satan? "Father told me that if I used my powers carefully, and only to fight evil, God might forgive me for having them."

"Mine told me if I was lucky enough to die a natural death before I changed I might not be d-damned," Tara said, "but suicide would send me to hell even faster. I never changed, though, and my friends proved I wasn't demony at all."

Stephen did his best not to scoff at that. "People aren't supposed to have powers like ours."

"You know, the B-bible says Jesus appeared to his disciples in another form," Tara said uncertainly. "He healed people. He walked on water. The Pharisees said he was possessed. I'm not Christian, n-not any more, but verses like that helped me run away, because even if M-mom was wrong, so was Dad."

"Jesus never did the kind of things we can do." Obviously this girl was here to tempt him. She was human-looking and very pretty, and her arguments were only subtly wrong. Well, there was a way to turn her off him and prove her wrong at the same time. "My father beat me for nearly half an hour after I did this for the first time. It was ungodly."

Tara jumped backwards as he changed. She put the side of her finger in her mouth before realizing what she was doing, then pulled it away. "M-my father m-might have approved if I'd...I'm n-not sure. Are you...is that comfortable for you? Anja and Kolohi said it usually is for Lunars b-but not always."

Her father might have approved? What? "I've never been like this more than a few minutes. It's not a problem as far as I can tell." She seemed much moreinterested now than when he'd been a boy, which made no sense to him. Her. This sort of thing made pronouns awkward. Well, if Tara was going to pay this sort of attention now- Stephen changed back.

"You d-didn't have to do that," she said. "I m-mean, unless you wanted to. You make a very p-pretty girl."

Well, at least he'd gotten the Anathema flustered. "Er...thanks. I guess. You're pretty too."

"I doubt I'd make a good-looking boy," Tara said, her confidence slowly returning. "Though I've been considering trying it out. Just to...see."

What did you say to that anyway?

The halls were filled with students rushing to their next classes. "You're going today be late!" shouted a boy who looked like Warren but definitely wasn't, because he tossed her a backpack.

Faith looked around frantically, but the bell rang and the halls cleared at once. She'd never been to high school. Even before she officially became a dropout she'd missed about ninety percent of the time and slept in class the rest of it.

Someone behind her cleared his throat. "I should think you belong in chemistry class, Miss Lehane."

"Giles!" It wasn't him, of course. "Rupe, you know I don't do the school thing. I'd never pass chemistry."

Not-Giles sighed deeply and removed his glasses. "Indeed not, not with as little effort as you seem to be putting into things. There's been talk of putting you in remedial courses, but in all honesty I believe it may be too late for that. You should have been placed in special education to begin with."

"Giles, you know I don't need the short bus, I just-I'm not the sharpest tack in the...I'm not that dumb, G." Her head was filling with fog again, not quite as bad as when she'd been turning into a horse but pretty much the same.

"Could've fooled me," Xander said. Of course he wasn't Xander because...why wasn't Xander Xander? "I'm surprised she made it this far."

"I ain't-you can't-I'm not dumb," Faith said, face hot with anger and embarrassment.

"Then why can you not dress yourself like any other student?" Giles asked.

"Because-Look at me, Giles! Don't you see what's diff-diff-not the same about me?" She was losing some really easy words now. How was she supposed to stop them if she couldn't rem-rem-think how?

"Ash! NonBinary! Stop it!" EC snapped. "Don't you know she's the Herald? She can get us out of here."

"Out?" Giles-Ash said, expression changing all at once. The fog vanished like...fog. "Why didn't you say so?"

"She's the first one I had a chance to tell!" Faith growled. "I only got through to her cause I managed to beat her to the punch! And I don't like being made even dumber than I already am, Ash!"

"Take her downstairs," Ash said to NonBinary. "Show her the Seal."

"You got it," the Xander-copy agreed. "C'mon, ED. Seal of Danzalthar down here in the basement."

"And I am not Erectile Dysfunction, whoever she is!" She followed, though. She had to get out of this madhouse before even the raksha locked her up without a key.

"You definitely are not," EC agreed. "Not that I know firsthand cause that'd be weird. Though totally possible if someone made the right wishes."

Faith held her tongue, half expecting the Seal of Danzalthar to bark at her and balance a ball on its nose. It was a proper pentagram, though. She got in close and examined it.

"When the Thought of Ea Gso bleeds, it opens," NonBinary explained. "But except for one time when a dragon got through, it only ever seems to lead to a dark, confined wet smooshy space. No one wants to push their luck."

The star abruptly began to fold in on itself. "There it goes," Hope said. "Herald, you gonna investigate?"

"Not really sure I like the idea of poking anything in there," Faith said as she peered into the darkness. "But if Ea Gso's Thought is out there I wanna give it a piece of my mind. Anyway I gotta get out of the Wyld before something goes bad wrong."

"Come back for us," Charity said firmly as Faith leaned down and stuck her head through.

"Of course," Faith agreed without a second thought. "We're sis-"

The space beyond the portal clamped onto her face and began to drag her inside.

"Leviathan likes what you've done," Xander said, stretching out in the bed like a cat, arms above his head. Dawn considered pinning them there. No, another time. "He still doesn't like you. He thinks you're doing it to get favors from me, or so you can take it back later and make me fail."

"He can't imagine that I just like you and think you deserve it," Dawn finished. She arched her back, showing off her breasts. Xander was a Solar, a Zenith, and he deserved all the majesty he could get.

"You're a raksha," Xander said, reaching up to fondle her. "You don't really like anyone. Obviously."

Dawn's stomach suddenly twinged and gurgled. "Ow. Crampies. Why doesn't being imaginary come with no periods?"

"Because you imagine them?" Xander suggested, unfazed. He reached for the box of Luthe-style tampons, which except for the wrappers looked perfectly ordinary, biology being biology.

Or maybe it wasn't. Dawn's belly bulged outwards suddenly as if she'd stuffed herself full of food. "Hey, what-?" A second surge rippled through her, this time accompanied by a powerful cramping pain. "Okay...even by our standards this is weird."

"Raksha standards or Scoobie standards?" Xander wanted to know. "Cause I wasn't sure we had any." He had his briefs on and was yanking on pants, though, so he was taking it seriously.

"Either one!" Dawn grunted as a third wave of growth and another huge cramp hit her. She looked now as if she'd swallowed a cantelope.

"Towers of Azure," Xander said, "medical emergency in Admiral Alexander's quarters."

"No anomalies detected in your health," the AI said quizzically. "Warning, Amyana: there is a raksha in your quarters."

"I know that," Xander growled as Dawn's belly stretched further. "She's the medical emergency!"

"Raksha, by definition, cannot have a medical emergency," Towers said, raising its voice over Dawn's moans of pain. "Their biology is wholly imaginary and subject to their will."

With a cry of rage, Dawn grabbed the clock from the nightstand and flung it at the speaker, though her throw was ruined as her belly grew even larger. She looked full-term now, but the growth showed no signs of abating. "I am not in control of this, you stupid computer!"

"Prior experience suggests that the raksha is lying, Admiral." The growing weight and clenching pain in her belly made it impossible for Dawn to rise from the bed, or she would have ripped the speaker from the wall.

"I'll go get help," Xander began, but Dawn seized him by the arm.

"Leave me like this and I swear I'll rip your balls off!" She dragged him back onto the bed. "I know you didn't do it," she said a little more calmly. "I wouldn't be bleeding if you had, right?"

"Bleeding?" Xander asked stupidly as another surge pinned her down. "Wait. Could you have a portal in there?"

Okay, that wasn't a stupid question, just a terrifying one. "Well, if I do it's going to rip me open," Dawn groaned. Her belly quivered and squeezed, now a mound bigger than a beach ball. Comparisons failed her.

As if her complaint had been a prophecy, the next surge of growth was accompanied by a stretching pain lower down. Dawn screamed and clutched at her stomach. "Damn it, Xander, do something!"

"I will," Xander said patiently, "as soon as you let go of my arm."

Something blocked from Dawn's view shoved her legs apart as it began to force its way out of her. Her hips popped, and popped again; she thought they might be dislocating. She released her deathgrip on Xander. "Get Buffy and see if she can help!"

Whatever the thing was that was coming out of her, she was still growing. It must still be coming through the portal inside her. The next push gave her some relief from the stretching, but it felt temporary. There was a lot more still in there.

Another contraction shuddered its way through her, and Dawn felt her hips physically pushed apart. She should have been literally torn in two by this already, whatever it was. If that had been a head coming out first, this must be shoulders. If she was giving birth to an adult, she was going to wring their neck. Followed by Xander's on general principle, even if it wasn't strictly his fault.

"What in the fucking hell?" said a voice from between her legs. "Just when I think the Wyld can't get any weirder-"

"Faith?" If that was really Faith, she was wrong only on one point. "You're, uh, not in the Wyld. At least, not any longer. Second, in case you couldn't tell, it's me, Dawn. Third...how the heck did you end up in-owwww!"

"Got lost coming to find Buffy for help. The rest you don't wanna know." Wrench. "Yes! Got my arms!"

Dawn felt Faith begin flailing around. "What do I not wanna know?"

"How much more of me is in there. Something tried to eat me an' I got turned into a centaur."

That was very definitely not something she wanted to know. "Into what? Faith, I'm not infinitely stretchy."

Faith managed to push her face into view, up and to the left. She was wearing some sort of golden headband that covered her eye. "Are you sure? Because I think we're already out of the possible zone here."

"Jesus Christ!" Dawn's view of Faith was blocked as she swelled even larger. Her pelvis had to have come entirely apart. A second pair of shoulders-for lack of a better word-was forcing its way out of her, and this part of the body was bigger around than Dawn normally was herself. The contraction ended before the legs were entirely free. "Faith, I swear if I live through this, you are so going to pay. I'm never going to feel anything in my girl parts again, am I?" And at that moment, with Faith hanging out of her, trying to help by pulling herself further out...Xander walked back in. With Shadow.

"Damn. What the hell is that? It can't really be Faith." Shadow stood there staring in the doorway. "Do you need me to shove it back in?"

"No!" Dawn shrieked. "Get her out of me! I don't care if she's come to kill us all, pull her out and kill her later!"

To her credit, Shadow didn't argue. She and Xander each took one of Faith's arms, Dawn grabbed hold of the bed, and they all pulled while Dawn pushed. "I can so be Faith," Faith growled. "I came to ask for help. Didn't think I'd arrive like this."

Faith's forelegs popped free at last, and Dawn felt her insides begin to settle back together. "It's definitely not how I'd want to travel," Dawn said.

Faith began trying to use her forelegs to help crawl forward and out. The deck seemed too slick for her hooves, but little by little her barrel chest, her belly, and finally her rump with its jet-black tail squeezed free. Dawn watched with horrified fascination as her body started shrinking back down. Faith's hind legs slid out, and she struggled to her feet while Dawn lay back, exhausted, on the bed.

"I would say that was impossible," Xander said, "but lately I've had to redefine the word."

"What the hell are you?" Faith asked Dawn. "What is she?"

"If you've been in the Wyld," Dawn said, "you've met raksha." She held up one hand. "I'm one too."

Faith brushed her fingers through her wet hair. "Shit. Well, don't try to turn me into anything, and we're cool."

"Wouldn't think of it," Dawn said thoughtfully.

Faith gave a little start. "You're the Thought of Ea Gso? B's little sister? Does she know?"

Dawn glanced at Shadow, then back at Faith. "Yuh-huh. It's kind of a sore point. The Thought of Ea Gso? That's a mouthful. Sounds almost familiar, though. I remember lots more than I used to."

Faith's stomach gurgled loudly, and she pressed her hands to it and made a pained face. "Can we discuss it over dinner? And breakfast and lunch?"

Shadow and Xander looked at each other. "We'll break out the all-you-can-eat buffet," Xander said.

Shadow gave that a wry grin. "Otherwise known as a standard meal for the Exalted," she said.

Faith's stomach rumbled louder, this time where she couldn't reach. "You're on."