Crossover, kind of, with: Star Wars, the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, and My Chemical Romance. All 14 chapters are complete except for a final go-through.

Characters: Tara, Dana, Buffybot, Andrew, Xander; appearances by Giles, Willow and Kennedy, and some surprises. Also an original watcher who is absolutely not, in any way, the author, and three original slayers who have absolutely no connection to anyone I know. Honest. Would I lie?

Thanks so much to Ainon for her typically great betaing skills!

All characters who belong to Joss and co, belong to Joss and co.

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Chapter Twelve:

(In Which the Enemy is Revealed.)

A Whole New Ball Game

The lights of Wrigley Field suddenly flared to life, making an already guilty-feeling Xander even more jumpy. From where he stood near the home dugout, he peered around, looking for the robot who had both forced her way into the structure and apparently found the main power switches. If there were alarms, she'd disabled them; he didn't want to think of why they hadn't encountered any security guards.

Xander didn't see her; but as the floodlights began to brighten, he did make out dozens of forms at the edges of the field, holding weapons and waiting in total silence.

Xander swallowed hard.

Standing on the pitcher's mound, Dana held her battle ax at ready, and did a slow spin to identify her enemy. Finally she glanced back at Xander, giving him a leering grin.

"Batter up."

-#-

A light flashed in Richard's eyes, and when he could see again he found himself standing at the edge of a baseball field. His heart thumped hard as he looked around, trying to identify friend and foe. Arrayed in a line beside him were Tara, Suzy, Teagan, Kara, Andrew, Dorothy, Padme, and James Raleigh, along with the members of My Chemical Romance.

Dana stood before them on the pitcher's mound, looking ready for a fight.

"Boy, am I glad to, yada yada yada." Xander moved down the line of newcomers, lugging two heavy canvas bags that he opened to reveal various killing devices. "Take a weapon, any weapon. I knew there must be a reason why she wanted me to bring so many in."

Richard chose a broadsword; anything involving an arrow or bolt was hopeless for him. "I take it we're in trouble."

"It's the bottom of the ninth and the outfield is loaded." Xander gestured with his ax toward the far end of the field, where a line of -- something -- was headed their way.

At one side stalked a dozen or so short, round, completely gray creatures, covered with gray armor and wielding metal pikes. At the other flank, a similar number of vampires, already in game face, were advancing with hungry look. In the middle, a group of soldiers clad head to tow in white armor carried what appeared to be laser rifles.

They moved slowly, apparently confident they faced no challenge. Dana, paying the enemy no more mind than she would a gentle breeze, turned her back on them and approached the new arrivals. "Chaos worshippers suck."

"Where's Bottie?" Xander demanded. "We're way outnumbered here. Is that Queen Amidala and Dorothy Gale? Why is she blonde?"

"Magic dye," Dorothy cheerfully retorted. Much to Richard's surprise, she had picked a short Roman style sword from the bag.

"You have to run." Richard turned to look for exits as he spoke. "If they get that belt from you they plan to use their own first wish to make all the slayers disappear."

"But as long as I keep swinging this they can't touch me without hurting me, can they?"

"Good point."

This was it, Richard thought. He was going into battle with his daughter. The last time he'd fought was a year ago, on a bluff overlooking Lake Superior, when a demon brought dead slayers back to life to do battle against the live ones. Good thing he'd been practicing since then.

"Padme," Andrew called, "Use the lightsaber."

She already had it in her hand, her touch uncertain. "But I don't have the Force."

"You don't need to, it'll slice through anything. As long as you're not up against a Jedi or a Sith Lord, all you have to do is cut up their weapons."

At that moment a long, ominous hiss, familiar to almost everyone from movies and pop culture, filled the stadium.

"Do you already know," Xander said, his voice trembling, "What you said wrong?"

Three beings stalked across the field from different angles, coming together where Dana had stood moments before. One looked just like the rest of the Nomes, except for a battered gray crown on his head. The second was a tall, lean vampire, his face pale and handsome, whose black and red cape billowed behind him. The third was a black clad Sith Lord instantly identifiable by anyone who'd lived on the earth in the late Twentieth Century.

With a hiss, Darth Vader's lightsaber ignited. "If this is the best this puny planet can summon to defend it, the battle will be hardly worth fighting."

"Indeed," the Nome King said, with a cheerful grin. "We should thank Mr. Rayne for giving us this opportunity."

"Rayne?" Xander threw up his hands. "Ethan Rayne?"

"Hello, Mr. Harris!" someone called in a clipped British accent, and they looked up to see a slim middle aged man in the stands behind first base, sitting there with a cup of beer and a box of popcorn.

"Ethan, you worm! You planned this?"

"One doesn't plan chaos, Mr. Harris. One simply unleashes it and lets it flow. Just doing my job."

Richard was taking in the entire field, trying to find an advantage for them. They were outnumbered by maybe three to one, and the Buffybot was nowhere in sight. "Gerard! Can you fight?"

Gerard, who was awkwardly holding a sword, shook his head. "We're a band. And I don't mean Band of Brothers."

Great. Dorothy held her sword with some degree of familiarity and had the advantage of being invulnerable, at least for now. Otherwise, their biggest advantage was four slayers -- Padme wouldn't last long against a real Sith Lord, Xander had depth perception problems, and as a fighter Tara was an order of magnitude worse than Richard, which was going some. Andrew ... tried. About James Raleigh, he knew nothing.

They badly needed Giles, Willow, and the other slayers -- but Richard had a feeling that by the time Willow did a locator spell this would be all over.

"Well?" Dana said, staring at Richard.

"What are you looking at me for?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're the key, dummy."

"What do you want me to do, pick out places for us to fall so the memorial has proper feng shui?"

With a sigh, she turned away and moved to stand directly in front of him.

"Take them," Vader ordered, and the three groups of minions started forward.

Turning, Gerard addressed his band members. "Okay, we've got to fight. Give it your all, for Teagan!"

"For Teagan!" the others responded, much to the slayer's embarrassment.

Mikey Way marched forward, waving a sword in wide circles and giving what was probably meant to be a rebel yell. "Let's see how you like this black parade!"

Bringing his weapon to bear, one of the stormtroopers squeezed off a round. A bolt of light hit the bass player in the chest and blasted him backward. He hit the ground unmoving.

"Oh my God!" Teagan screamed. "They killed Mikey!"