Sunnydale High School Quad, Sunnydale, November 22nd 1997
Harmony Kendall was not having a good day.
It was late afternoon now, and earlier today she'd heard that the dweeb, Xander Harris, had taken her best friend Cordelia Chase to the hospital last night. And sure, great that the dork had actually proven useful for once, but – Cordelia had been hanging out a lot at the library lately, with Harris and his loser friends. Especially that *freak*, Buffy Summers!
Harmony scowled to herself. { My best friend has been infected with loser-dom. My ex-boyfriend broke up with me, just because I wouldn't put out for him. What an asshole! Urgh. Well, he was no great loss, I guess, but...it's just been one thing after another lately! Like, I can't believe Buffy led Cordelia astray like that! Now that I think about it… } "I wish Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale!" she yelled out, once she was sure there was no one around to hear her rant.
A vengeance demon named Anyanka appeared. Her vein-y, demonic face was twisted into a scowl. "You're lucky I'm behind in my monthly quota, little girl! Plus there's the fact that Anyanka has never failed D'Hoffryn before, and never will, so... okay. Wish granted," Anya spat at her, before Harmony could say a word.
There was a brief flash of white light, and suddenly, pretty much everything that had been - was no longer.
Sunnydale High School Quad, Alternate Universe Sunnydale, November 22nd 1997
Harmony blinked. She was no longer at Sunnydale High, but a much darker version of the school. Or so it appeared to her eyes, anyway. The main building of the school was run down and falling apart, whereas a moment before – it had been just fine...
"What the hell was that?!" Harmony demanded, sure that she'd been seeing things just now with regards to that vein-y faced *thing* that had appeared out of nowhere. She looks around, but saw no one at all. The school looked completely abandoned, with rubbish-strewn grounds and its dead trees and broken benches. Even the grass nearby looked dead, lifeless.
Stunned, Harmony went inside the school building, wondering what the heck had happened. But there was no one there – not even Principal Snyder! The blonde Cordette lost all track of time looking for someone to explain what had happened, and by the time she came out of the building, sunset had arrived. { Why is it night all of a sudden? }
The next moment, Harmony heard voices behind her.
"Look what we have here, boys, fresh blood!" A... *thing* with yellow eyes and a bumpy forehead and dressed as a leather-clad biker said to its friends, who were all dressed the same way.
"Back off, you, you freaks!" Harmony warned them, trying to be brave. Acting instinctively, she took some pepper spray from her bag and sprayed the three gang members in the eyes, before making a run for it!
They ran after her, of course, cursing and shouting. But then, she ran straight into the weirdo squad! Piling out of a zebra-striped van, the... hunters fired wooden arrows at the pseudo-bikers. And weird as all get out, but all of the bad guys exploded into dust!
{ This cannot be happening, } Harmony thought firmly to herself. { It's got to be a nightmare! } She pinched herself, but that didn't help. Then she noticed one of the weirdos was Oz!
{ Of all the people to save me from the monsters, it had to be him, } Harmony sighed to herself. Oz had been cool before he'd started dating that *nerd*, Rosenberg! "What's going on, Oz? Who were those guys? And what happened to the school?" She gestured behind her.
"Harmony, I swear, it's a miracle you're still alive," Oz (the real one, not an Oz-bot) shook his head at her. "Get inside the van, I'll take you home -"
"Hey, stop treating me like an idiot! Just because I'm not the smartest girl in school like Rosenberg, or the most popular one like Cordelia -" Harmony started to yell.
"Willow Rosenberg? And Cordelia Chase?" Oz interrupted, his eyes narrowing.
"Yeah, like, your girlfriend? And my best friend?" Harmony said sarcastically. "I mean it, Oz, what's going on? Has the entire world suddenly gone crazy?"
Oz simply grabbed her and bundled her into the van, before it roared off and away from Sunnydale High. The driver headed for the apartment of Rupert Giles, as Oz started questioning Harmony; and in between his questions, the blonde started to get an idea of what had happened since Buffy never came to Sunnydale.
Not that Harmony believed any of it, of course...
Meanwhile, at the Bronze, Angel was brought before the Master by the undead versions of Xander and Willow, along with two other minion vampires. "The traitor as requested, boss!" Vamp Xander announced, as he shoved Angel to the ground at his sire's feet.
"Very good, Xander." The Master then grinned evilly at Angel. "Well, Angelus. I hope you've enjoyed my hospitality so far?"
"Room service leaves something to be desired," Angel gasped out, the bruises and burn marks courtesy of Vamp Willow clearly visible on his chest.
"Come, come, you've coped with worse! Now, I'm only going to give you one chance to join me, Angelus, to swear allegiance to me and me alone. So, what's it going to be?" the Mater demanded.
Angel laughed in a broken and twisted way. "You're going to kill me whatever I say, *Grandpa*. So I may as well get my fun where I can find it, and say I'll never join the likes of you."
"Very well, then, take him away. But don't kill him yet," the Master said with a wave of his hand, a slight smirk visible on his demonic face. Immediately, two minions grabbed Angel by the arms and took him down to the basement holding cells.
The vampire named Luke walked up to the Master and bowed. "Master, what about the Slayer? She might still come to Sunnydale, as was foretold by the prophecy in the Pergamum Codex."
"Hmmm…yes. Send Spike and Drusilla to deal with her." The Master chuckled wickedly. "Willow, Xander, you have my leave to have some more fun with your 'toy'. But as I said, don't kill Angelus yet." He smiled ferally. "Or I'll have you both kissing daylight in his place."
"As you wish, Master," Vamp Willow replied. Both she and Vamp Xander bowed, before taking their leave.
A quick phone call to the other side of the country had both Spike and Dru travel by car to Cleveland to hunt down Buffy Summers. Their orders were to kill her before she ever came to Sunnydale – if they could. Personally, the Master suspected the two upstarts would fail, as the prophecy foretold that he himself would kill the Chosen One – but he'd been around long enough to know that prophecies didn't tell you everything...
A few moments later, the vampire hunters, Oz and Harmony entered the Watcher's apartment. Looking up over the top of a book, Cordelia was glad to see Harmony safe and well. "Harmony, you're alright!" She quickly rushed over and hugged her friend tightly.
"Why shouldn't I be, Cordelia?" Harmony had a puzzled look on her face, as the brunette let go and stepped back. "I mean, Oz was asking me all these questions after he and his friends saved me from those...gang members, or whoever they were, but... I don't get it, what's going on?"
Giles looked up from his work. "You probably don't want to know, Miss Kendall." Oz's friends excused themselves, saying they needed to go home to their families, but the werewolf chose to stay behind. Giles then looked over at Oz and said, "Why did you bring the girl here, instead of taking her home?"
"That's a long story, but apparently, she made a wish and changed the world," Oz shrugged.
"What?" both Giles and Cordelia said at the same time.
Mr. Giles! What's going on here?" Harmony demanded, starting to get frightened all over again and appealing to the adult authority figure.
Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses, before giving her the standard 'this world is older than you know' speech – and then adding a few extra bits of information. Namely –
"The Slayer?" Giles exclaimed, his eyes going wide. He listened as Oz talked, and then turned his attention back to Harmony. "You mean – Miss Summers *was* here, but then you wished she'd never come to town, a-and – history was altered, as it were, to accommodate your wish?"
"That's crazy!" Harmony exclaimed vehemently. "You know what, I don't believe any of this! Vampires, wishes, I mean – are you people even listening to yourselves? Do you have any idea how nuts you sound? This has *got* to be nothing but a nightmare!"
"Harmony. Shut up and listen, *very* carefully," Cordelia semi-growled at her. "This is *not* a nightmare. It's real, comprendez? So you are going to tell us everything that's happened to you, understand? Now, did you wish that this Buffy girl never came to Sunnydale, or not?"
"Yeah, okay, fine, so I did. But you can't blame me for that – I mean, you've been hanging around her and her tweako friends lately! Especially that dweeb, Xander -"
"Xander Harris?" Cordelia interrupted, a look of fear appearing on her face.
"Is there any other Xander we know? Anyway, there I was minding my own business, when this ugly-looking woman appears. Oh, I think she said her name was Anyanka…" Harmony started to say.
Over at the Master's lair, Vamp Xander and Vamp Willow were torturing the hell out of Angel. Angel was chained to a torture table as the two soulless creatures laughed at his pain. Vamp Xander poured some holy water onto the captive's naked chest, as Angel's skin burned and bubbled.
"Aw, puppy. We mostly tie traitors like you to a pole. So when the sun rises, you burn *slowly*," Vamp Willow grinned evilly at Angel. "It's too bad the Master wants to keep you around, we can't play *properly*..."
Vamp Willow wrapped her arms around her undead boyfriend. Throughout his torture, Angel never once screamed out in pain; which made her want to break him all the more...
Back at the Watcher's apartment, Giles finally managed to get the full story out of Harmony, hearing all about the world she'd come from. He gaped in astonishment at some parts of it, as did Oz and Cordelia, but eventually came to his senses and started looking up stuff in his books.
"So what's the plan? We undo this Wish thing Harmony did?" Oz demanded, shooting the blonde an unfriendly look.
"Uh, that – that is an option, I-I suppose. But summoning a demon – especially one of D'Hoffryn's lot, I've heard of him – well, I-I'd rather we keep that as a plan of last resort," Giles shook his head. "Not only could we all get killed, history might be changed again; only this time, into something even *worse* than our current situation."
"So what do we do?" Cordelia wanted to know, looking at Harmony uncertainly.
"I'm going to look up a ritual to return Miss Kendall back to her world." He then went to his bookshelf and found something on Eyrishon, the Endless One. "The ritual will take a few days to get ready," Giles told Harmony. "But as soon as I get all the components, we can – hopefully – send you home."
"Oh. Well, good! But what am I supposed to do in the meantime, Mr. Giles?" she asked him.
"I don't know. Help us survive, I suppose. So don't go out alone at night. But be careful during the day as well; there are demons wandering around, they show up and attack from time to time," Giles warned her.
"So I'm confined to the barracks from now on? Great!" Harmony sighed theatrically.
Cordelia couldn't blame her. Then she thought to herself, { Hang on, if *this* Harmony goes through some mystical portal or whatever, what's that mean for *my* Harmony? }
"I'll try to contact Miss Summers via her Watcher and ask her to come here, help us out," Giles went over to his phone and tries to reach Buffy or her people.
"What's wrong?" Harmony asked, seeing Cordelia's face.
"I just figured it out. My Harmony is gone, you've taken her place," Cordy replied miserably. "And once you've gone home, she'll cease to exist here, right?"
"Um, I don't know. So, so is it true that, uh, both Xander and Willow are vampires here?" the blonde asked Cordy nervously, wanting to change the subject.
"Yes it's true, Harm," Cordelia sighed heavily. "And just so you know, I've had nightmares about them killing me – or even worse, turning me into one of *them*."
"Um...why? I mean -"
"Because as a vampire, Willow doesn't like competition – and as a vampire, Xander still wants the same thing he did as a human," Cordy explained, with a look of anger and fear on her face.
Harmony's eyes almost bulged out of her head. "Are you saying that you and the doofus actually-?"
"Yes. Until he ended up one of the monsters, anyway."
City limits, Alternate Universe Cleveland, November 23rd 1997
That night, Dru and Spike arrived in Cleveland in their car. They got out of the parked car and began their hunt for Buffy.
A few hours later Buffy was fighting Ethan Rayne, a former friend of Rupert Giles. Oddly enough, in this dimension, he'd become a demon – due to a chaos spell gone wrong, which in turn was thanks to Buffy and the local agents sent by the Watchers' Council.
She'd been tracking down the demon version of Ethan, who had been stealing souls from people in order to summon a hellgod, and she'd finally found him in a cemetery – at last!
"Slayer, I will bury you here," Demon Ethan chuckled.
Buffy rolled her eyes and said, "I hear that a lot, Ethan."
The demon grinned at her. "With the souls I've collected, once I put the souls in the dead that are buried here? I will be able to summon a living god!" He laughed in darkish glee.
She saw a glowing jewel that was burned right into the palm of Demon Ethan's hand. { So that's how he's taking souls, huh? With that jewel thing. } She fired off a wooden bolt from her crossbow. The crossbolt was so quick it hit the glowing jewel, shattering into pieces. The souls were thus set free to move on to their final destination.
"What have you done, Slayer?!" Demon Ethan's right hand glowed then exploded; sending flesh, bone and blood everywhere. He yelled in pain, "You'll die for this!" He ran at her, but she got out of the way – smirking, as she fired another crossbolt into the demon's back.
Demon Ethan stopped in mid-charge, turning his head to the Slayer. He wasn't too happy with being injured by the Chosen One, not to mention the loss of his hand. "I may have lost this round, Slayer, but I'll be back!" He was just about to cast an teleportation spell, but -
"No you won't, Ethan!" Buffy told him, as she threw a dagger; which hit his neck. The chaos mage fell to the ground, choking and bleeding out. The demon that used to Ethan Rayne then died.
"Buffy, finally, I found you!" a Council agent exclaimed, showing up behind her.
She turned to face the Watcher. "Hey, Jack. What brings you here?"
"Ah, just checking – making sure no new vampires rise, and all that. Oh, and you got a call from the West Coast, Buffy. It's Rupert Giles. Sounds like Sunnydale really needs your help."
Buffy sighed. { Good thing I don't attend high school anymore, if I'm heading back there. } "Fine, I'll go. But I'll need backup." She wasn't really looking forward to going to the other Hellmouth in order to slay vampires there. California still held too many bad memories for her. Including the undead bitch that used to her mother, before she'd been slain.
Backup? Yes, we can arrange that, I suppose." Jack had more to tell her and said, "I've gotten reports of two vampires who have just come to Cleveland. They're called Spike and Drusilla, former members of the Whirlwind. They work for the Master, Heinrich Nest." He handed her files on the vampires. "The odds are they're after you, so, err…"
"Tell everybody to watch their backs with these two vamps. And Jack, don't get turned. I *will* stake you myself, if you do." Buffy smiled at him.
"Oh, err, thank you for that, I guess." The Watcher and Buffy then left the cemetery, going their separate ways.
Elsewhere Spike and Dru were walking down an alleyway, when they found some homeless people to feed on. "Well. Guess this will have to do for now, luv..." Spike shrugged. He didn't really enjoy drinking blood from a homeless person, the drugs and low-quality alcohol and disease just *ruined* the taste.
Drusilla sighed and then vamped out, digging her fangs into the neck of one of flesh bags. Spike also vamped out and did the same. They fed, before they ran into the Council agents while leaving the alleyway.
"Freeze, blood suckers!" said one of the hit team, raising a cross and stake.
"More humans to feed on, Spike!" Dru giggled evilly. Her game face reappeared, and so the Council people fired their guns. The bullets were made from melted sliver crosses; recently, someone in R&D here in America had decided to try them out instead of the normal ammunition, which did nothing but briefly hurt the undead.
The bullets hit Dru in the chest. The bullets instantly started to hurt her. "Oooh, Spike, it burns – IT BURNS!" she screamed in pain.
"God damn it!" Spike grabbed Dru in his arms and took off at inhuman speed.
"Shit, they got away!" one of the Council agents exclaimed.
"Don't worry about it. They'll have a hard time digging out those bullets from her chest," said the head of the Council hit team. "The Slayer will finish them off. We've got some werewolves to find before we join her." The agents went back to their cars and then headed off towards the local werewolf den; their next order of business was to send a message that it was a *bad* idea to ally yourself with the monsters, lycanthrope or not.
Later that night, Spike had removed the blessed bullets from Dru's chest. He was wearing gloves to be on the safe side, and Dru was laying on a broken down bed that was falling apart. He gave her some blood bags to help her heal faster. "Don't move, luv; just drink up," he told her gently.
{ I'll make them effin' white hats pay for this! } He kissed her forehead lovingly. There were other vampires present in this building, it was a vampire nest; but that didn't concern Spike.
What *should* have concerned him was that Buffy had found them here in this no-longer-unknown hideout. The Slayer, and the Council agents with her burst in, slaying the undead without mercy. Spike heard gunshots, and death screams from both humans and vampires.
The vamps didn't take all this lying down, of course; they attacked their enemies, bleeding them dry where they could. But numbers and weapons were against them tonight; the vampires were hurt *badly* by the blessed bullets, the heat incapacitating them – which allowed the Council hit team and Buffy to stake or decapitate them relatively easily.
Buffy made her way to Spike's room, kicking down the broken door. She grinned at him viciously. Both of them faced off in the living room. "Hello, Billy Idol."
"Oi, don't you compare me to him! Bloody thief copycat..."
While Spike was busy with Buffy, Jack came into the room. Seeing his target, he pulled out a stake and then dusted Drusilla, who was too weak to get up and escape. She just screamed out, "Spike!" before exploding into dust.
"Dru!" Enraged into a frenzy, Spike grabbed Buffy by the arm and slammed her to the side of the room. Buffy quickly jumped to her feet and returned the favor, slamming Spike to the wall.
"Gonna kill you DEAD, Slayer!" Spike laughed viciously. But then Spike's eyes turned to the git that had killed his sire. "You're dead too, wanker!" He pushed Buffy away from him, heading straight towards the Watcher.
"Jack, get out of here!" Buffy yelled. But it was too late...
Just as Spike plunged his fist into Jack's face and out of the back of head, the Watcher fired his gun at Spike's face. Hitting his left eye, and destroying it. The mortal then dropped dead as Spike screamed in pain, the blessed silver bullet causing him great agony.
It *should* have been easy for Buffy to stake the soulless vampire at that moment, but somehow, ignoring the pain of Drusilla's death and his lost eye, Spike grabbed the dead Watcher and threw him at Buffy. Caught mid-leap, Buffy hit the floor hard with the dead body on top of her.
Blood was coming out of Spike's eye. "I'll be seeing you again, Slayer. In Sunnydale!" He jumped through the boarded-up window, landing on his feet and escaping into the night…
Kendall family residence, Alternate Universe Sunnydale, November 24th 1997
That morning, Harmony left her home with Cordy and Oz and the other vampire hunters. She'd needed her own things as she'd had nothing but the clothes on her back since showing up in the Wish world, after all. The group headed back towards Giles's apartment with a sigh of relief – so far, no demons had attacked them.
There was no one outside the van, just them. Sunnydale was like a ghost town today. But of course, their luck couldn't hold out forever – and as they all got out of the van, an evil demon showed up!
The demon expelled flaming balls from his mouth. The balls of fire hit Oz's friends, killing them as they burst into flames and were burned alive. Oz threw some holy water at the demon, and luckily it burned his face. The vampire hunters then exploded into ashes...
Amy came out of the apartment and cast a spell at the demon. "Hecate, before thee, let the unclean thing crawl!"
The demon turned into a rat. Harmony was in shock and awe of seeing Amy use magic, and almost missed the rat running away and vanishing into the nearby sewers.
"Oz, you okay?" Cordelia asked in concern, as the werewolf stared at where his friends had been killed just now.
"No. Give me a moment," Oz said mechanically, and no one said a word. Apparently realizing the danger of staying out in the open, Oz then said, "Everyone inside."
Oz, Cordy, Amy and Harmony then walked hurriedly towards the Watcher's apartment. "That was just – I, I had no idea that you're a, a witch, Amy…" Harmony semi-stuttered, still in awe of what she'd just seen. As well as stunned by the horrific murders she'd just witnessed.
"Needed to do something since things *seriously* went downhill, after the vampires and demons took over Sunnydale. Don't like to brag, but I've been busy learning powerful magic," Amy smiled.
Cordy sighed. Oz didn't say anything. They entered the apartment, just as Giles hung up the phone. "I have good news, everyone. Miss Summers is coming to Sunnydale with some err, backup," the Watcher beamed.
"That's great and all, Mr. Giles, but when am I going back home?!" Harmony tried not to whine, but didn't succeed very well.
"Soon, Miss Kendall. I've found some things that will help with the, uh, ritual," Giles told her.
"I'll help you with the ritual, Giles," Amy offered.
Harmony didn't say anything, she was just glad to be going back home soon. This so-called Wish world was proving to be a *major* bummer!
Oz didn't say a word either. The wolf within him was howling for blood, and for the first time, he didn't want to resist transforming into the beast and going out on a killing spree...
Maybe after Harmony was gone, though. The ditz's alien presence was enough to make him focus on the big picture – for now.