Training, (Or, New and Interesting ways to make MORE Garbage)
Out of the sudden darkness, a deep reverberating howl echoed through the night. Before anybody could ask what the sound was, a putrid green giant slime ball, literally a giant ball of green slime, suddenly appeared, and stumbled in the group's direction, it's single visible eye staring right at them. A gurgling roar emerged from it's pitch black gaping maw it probably called a mouth, making its entrance complete.
"Alright big green and slimy!" the Slayer taunted as she ran full tilt for the ghastly demonic creation, her eyes flashing with crimson energy, "Smile for the camera!"
"No! Buffy! WAIT!" Willow shouted.
With a flash of red light, a full-powered optic blast was released upon the creature . . .
. . . and tore right through it, splattering the green slime all over the street.
Buffy blinked in surprise, clearly not having expected the confrontation to end so quickly, or even the way that it did. Especially not with what happened next.
"Geez Louise lady! What are you trying to do? Kill me!" a young voice suddenly cried out from the middle of the largest pile of remaining slime.
As the group watched, a small figure crawled itself out of the muck, the slime dripping off of the young boy like it was green jell-o or something.
"I . . . but . . . what the . . . who . . . how . . . huh!" Buffy stuttered before finally turning towards Willow, whom she realized belatedly tried to stop her attack.
"I'll explain," the redhead answered the confused blonde's look. She walked forward until she could help the boy, who really was a boy, at most no more than twelve or thirteen years old, to step completely out of the slime and gathered everyone else around them.
"This is Kevin Ozbourne. This is his neighborhood. And no, he's not a demon or a vampire. He also dressed up as a certain superhero for Halloween," Willow explained.
"Yeah, and hey, how did you know that!" the boy screamed.
"Telepath," Willow answered with a smile, pointing at her head.
"You've got powers too?" he sounded excited now.
The others' eyes all bugged out in outright shock as Buffy voiced the statement they were all thinking. "We've got powers /TOO!" Addressing it as a question to Willow.
"Yeah," Kevin answered instead, "I dressed up as Prime for Halloween and ever since I can actually turn into Prime, just like that kid in the comics!"
Buffy rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to scream. "Again with the comics," she raged instead, "I don't suppose somebody wants to tell me what, or who . . . or /what/ "Prime" is, do they?"
"Prime is a superhero, from Malibu Comics instead of Marvel Comics," Xander logically replied. "Big, really big, strong, huge muscles, and he can fly. Catch is, he's really a thirteen year old boy who got experimented on when he was a baby and now the kid can . . . turn . . . into . . . Prime . . . whenever he gets . . . angry . . ."
Xander's eyes were getting wider and wider as he continued, staring openly at Kevin Ozbourne.
Kevin just shrugged up at the older teenagers and adults. "Like I said, just since Halloween. And . . . hey! Did you guys get your powers from Halloween too? You think that . . ."
"Now's really not the time to be conjecturing on anything at the moment," Giles interrupted. "Kevin, I suggest you go home this instant. Despite your . . . newfound abilities, there are things out here in Sunnydale at night that even true superheroes would fear."
"Hey! C'mon . . ." Kevin protested.
"He's right Kevin," Willow interrupted, staring directly into the boy's eyes, and incidentally, his mind as well. "You should go inside. It's getting late and you need to finish your homework before it's bedtime."
"I should go inside," Kevin repeated, glassy-eyed, "Need to finish . . . homework . . ."
He shook his head and blurted out, "But maybe this could be important, and if you've guys got superpowers too, I can help and we can form our own super team like the Ultra Force! C'mon, please!"
"Kid," Xander stepped forward, "Kevin, right? Remember, how, when Prime first joined the Ultra Force, and Hardcase was the only one who knew Prime's secret identity? How Prime kept making mistakes and causing just as much harm as good?"
"Yeah, but . . ."
"And Hardcase said it was because Kevin, being only a child, was too inexperienced and thought like a child even when he was Prime. And so Kevin had to mature in order to make Prime mature and . . ."
"Do as Hardcase told him to do," Kevin finished with a sigh.
"We'll talk more later. In the morning maybe. I promise," Xander told him.
"OK," Kevin looked dejected, but nodded and began to walk toward what was apparently his house. Suddenly he turned back, "Hey, which superheroes did you guys dress up as for Halloween?"
Xander smirked as he partially formed his hand into solid ice. "We're the X-men," he answered with relish. The girls, Miss Calendar, and Giles all rolled their eyes in contempt. Ever since he'd become Iceman, Xander had been non-stop about how the Slayerettes had 'evolved' into the "X-men". Usually with much more emphasis and excitement displayed.
Kevin, however, was suitably impressed. "Wow. We'll talk more, right? Tomorrow?"
Xander returned his hand back to normal and nodded. "We'll talk more. Can't promise tomorrow, we're still kids ourselves and have school like you do."
"So you're at the High School?" the boy that could become Prime asked.
They all nodded in answer to this, and blushed a little when Kevin gave each of them a look of pure awe and said, "Cool." Then he rushed inside, only the huge pile of green goop as evidence he'd been there at all.
After a few moments, the group began their walk back to the High School, and it was several more minutes before Buffy finally pointed out, "OK, is it just me or is anybody else totally freaking out over what just happened there?"
"What, that you almost killed an innocent little boy?" Cordelia viciously remarked.
Buffy glared at her, but Cordelia just gave a superior smirk right back. Buffy glowered, but then paused when she saw Cordelia's expression suddenly shift from snobbish superiority to guilt, confusion, and then finally the same neutral face she'd been wearing for most of the day. The Slayer squeezed her face in confusion. Something was going on with the white-striped brunette.
"I think she means more the fact that we weren't the only ones changed, permanently, by Halloween," Xander retorted to Cordelia, ignorant of the conflicting expressions on her face.
"Whatever," came the indifferent reply.
Now Buffy was certain something was wrong with the powerhouse cheerleader. She /never/ gave up this easily on a fight with Xander. Xander, too, seemed to realize this and glanced back in concern over the young woman.
"Yes, well, I have the feeling the consequences of that night will indeed be far-reaching and more potent than any of us realize," Giles said. "I've double-checked, from the evidence we gathered at the costume shop, of what exactly it was that Ethan's spell did."
"So that's what you were doing last night? I thought you and Miss Calendar were just making out again?" Buffy "innocently" asked.
"Uh, er, yes," Giles blushed, grabbing his glasses and furiously cleaning them for several moments. "As I was saying, I believe that Ethan's spell, which should have just been a simple prank, an offering if you will, to the Gods of Chaos, was something much more complicated. Instead of asking a mere deity to change the costumes, which truly would have made it a temporary, yet very chaotic prank. Ethan's spell instead drew upon the very /force/ of Chaos itself. Something . . . a great deal more powerful than any of the deities in any form of witchcraft or sorcery I know."
"So . . . bad?" Buffy asked, not fully grasping the concepts her Watcher was speaking of, though in the back of her mind, she felt something that /did/ understand both exactly what the Watcher was saying as well as the implications of it.
"What Chaos changes, stays changed. Not even if Chaos wanted to with all of it's powers reverse a single change it made, it couldn't. And as such, nothing else can even begin to reverse any such change. The forces of Balance certainly couldn't do it. They'd work to make the universe around the change adapt to it, instead of reverse or even risk enhancing the change. It's all, rather abstract really."
"So . . . bad?"
Giles let out a huff of annoyance, but refrained from speaking any further.
"So what you're saying is that everybody that bought a costume from Ethan's, and changed on Halloween . . . either kept a single trait or just plain became the person they dressed as for real. Permanently?" Xander asked, displaying a remarkable grasp of what the Watcher had said.
Surprised, Giles just nodded, "Indeed. Very impressive Xander."
"Well . . ." the teen just shrugged and blushed.
"Too bad Partytown went out of business. A lot less people might have changed," Willow spoke in the silence.
"Any people dressed as demons we should be worried about?" Buffy cut right to the heart of the matter.
Willow immediately shook her head. "No. I've been working on my scanning abilities, not to mention I've been paying attention to the news and papers. I also managed to procure the list of all of Ethan's customers. All the kids that bought devil costumes or demon masks from him, rather surprisingly, decided to dress as something else entirely on the actual Halloween night. However there was this one guy that dressed up as a vampire, but I've seen him around school and he's been in the sunlight and everything."
"Well that's at least one less worry," Buffy gave a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, like Miss Superpowers actually cares about our worries," Cordelia suddenly snapped.
They stopped and turned to look at her, but before anyone could say anything, she turned around and snapped out again, "Like I actually care about your worries! I'm going home! You guys have the whole X-meeting or whatever the hell you freaks call yourselves now, and leave me alone!"
Xander reached out but she stepped out of his reach, screaming, "Don't touch me! I'm going home!" And with that she took off into the night sky, quickly disappearing in the darkness.
"What was that about?" the blue-eyed brunette asked.
"Nothing. We should all go home. We've had an eventful day. We can talk things out in the morning, when we're all fresh," Willow suggested.
Buffy's eyes flew and locked onto the redhead. Again, there was that sense of /knowing/ something that she had no way or right of knowing. Willow was lying. Or more rather, she was hiding something. And she wanted to tell it to Buffy, but not the others.
Thinking fast, she quickly made a decision and added to the redhead's suggestion, "Yeah. Look, don't worry, I can patrol by myself tonight, and I'll promise to restrict myself to Slayer powers only. Why don't I escort you guys home, and then I'll . . ."
"Nah, no need to worry about me Buff," Xander interrupted. "I've got a decent enough handle on my powers that I can get home without a Slayer-escort . . . not that the sentiment isn't much appreciated," he added with a lecherous grin, to which she responded with a faux-scowl and a few playful punches.
"But really, I'll be OK," he said.
"Miss Calendar's apartment isn't far from here, and she's promised to drive me home when I need to," Giles included.
Not the brightest bulb of the bunch she knew, Buffy was neither blind nor stupid, and she absolutely knew she didn't want to go anywhere near trying to imagine what would /really/ be going on in Miss Calendar's apartment that evening. Choosing the wisest course of action, to not say anything at all, she just turned towards Willow with a questioning look on her face.
"Sure. It'll give us time for girl-talk, not to mention I'll be properly supervised if I need to practice my telekinetic powers," the telepath replied.
"Well, OK then. Shall we go?" Buffy started to walk them off towards Willow's house while the others immediately turned to go in their needed directions.
"Great," Willow chirped and they began walking along.
Fifteen minutes later, Buffy was reasonably sure they were alone, so she finally asked her burning question.
"What's wrong with Cordelia? And I know you know, so don't bother trying to say nothing is wrong. She was acting way too . . . un-Cordy-like for Cordelia. So spill!" the blonde challenged.
"Un-Cordy-like?" Willow repeated with a giggle.
"Fine, you want me to say it? She wasn't as much of a bitch. She was much less bitchy than her normal self. Happy now? Now talk!" Buffy growled, entirely serious.
Willow took a deep breath and sighed. They walked on for a few moments more before the telepath finally answered Buffy's question. "Cordelia has voices in her mind."
"Yeah, so? We all do since Halloween," Buffy was wondering what this had to do with Cordy being so demure.
Willow shook her head. "No, that's not what I mean. She has Rogue, yes, but Rogue too had voices in her mind. The voices of the people she absorbed powers or energy from. Thankfully Cordy doesn't have all the minds of everyone Rogue ever absorbed with her power, but she /does/ have Rogue's power, which means . . ."
"She's hearing the voices . . . the minds of people that she's touched with her mutant power?" Buffy conjectured, surprised as the thought just came to her.
"Yep," the mutant telepath chirped.
"Well, OK, that can be bad I'm sure, not to mention its adequate reason for her to not be as bitchy, but how many people could she have touched or used her power on?" the mutant Slayer wanted to know.
Willow glanced at Buffy with a raised eyebrow, making the mutant Slayer think it was a bigger number than she had first thought of.
"It wasn't until two days after Halloween that Cordy finally started wearing elbow-length gloves and pants and on some days full sleeve shirts. The reason, she told me earlier today, was because almost her entire wardrobe was revealing, short, or barely there, and she didn't want to get rid of a lot of it just because she couldn't come into skin contact with anyone. She thought she could keep people from touching her on her bare skin just by herself. After two days, she learned her lesson," Willow explained.
"Other than her parents, most of the staff working at her house, she also put into 12-hour comas all of the Cordettes, including Harmony, her boyfriend-of-the-moment, and 19 of her father's business partners. That was just day one. Day two, she did it all again and found out that all of the Cordettes have powers of their own. That's the real reason we went shopping this morning," she continued, "Cordelia needed my help. The voices had started to fade, but they never left and she wants them gone. Or at least pushed far enough back they don't bother her consciously. I did what I could, being limited in experience, save for what I can get from Jean's memories, but its a step-by-step process. I doubt even the real Jean Grey could help Cordy at the moment. Only person that could definitely make a difference would be the Professor."
"And we're sure nobody dressed as him, not even some kind of alternate or young or parallel universe version of him?" Buffy whined.
"If somebody did dress as a telepath more powerful than me, they're masking their presence from me, and I'd be unable to even begin tracking them down," Willow answered.
Buffy sighed and rubbed her forehead, where she felt the beginnings of a powerful headache. "And I thought the memory flashes were bad," she complained. "Do what you can for her. I'm gonna patrol, see if I can't work out some of this stress."
"You should stop by your house before you do, your Mom might get worried," Willow told her as the redhead climbed the steps to her porch to her home. Buffy blinked in surprise. She hadn't even noticed them getting to Willow's house yet.
"Uh, yeah, I will. Don't worry Wills, I can take care of myself. Slayer after all," Buffy grinned.
Willow grinned back, and then it happened.
/She's so much like Scott it's almost scary sometimes. I think I'm falling in love here./ Buffy heard quite clearly in Willow's voice in her mind. And she was certain it was in her mind because her ears hadn't 'heard' anything and her eyes were telling her Willow clearly had not spoken.
"Well, good night," Willow turned around and then went inside, leaving Buffy to stare in mounting confusion at the closed door.
"What the heck is going on?" the blonde mutant Slayer asked herself before slowly turning around and walking home.
"I'm not telepathic," she said to herself, walking along. /And I sure as the Hellmouth is in Sunnydale not in the habit of listening to my friends private thoughts. So what is happening to me that gives me unrestricted access to the inner workings of my best friend's mind?/
She continued to mull the problem over and over in her mind on the way to her own home, trying to figure out if what she knew was actually happening, or if it wasn't some unforeseen side effect of having Scott Summers in her mind and his powers to boot.
Finally, just as she was approaching her own front porch, she decided to give up on analyzing for tonight and just focus on patrol and killing some demon and undead ass. At least that was her plan right up to the moment that she actually opened her front door.
"Buffy Anne Summers," her mother, Joyce Summers, called with an imperious tone the moment she stepped through the front door. By the tone alone, Buffy knew she was either in trouble or very soon was going to be.
Wincing as she shut the door, she turned to face her mother in the living room. She blinked in surprise to see her mother standing there, fists on hips, hair done up in curls that made her look more like she was wearing a crown, and wearing a beautiful green silk dress, which actually looked more like a set of robes than just any ordinary dress. What was more, her mother seemed to have gone to town with her mascara, the dark lines around the woman's eyes giving her an almost evil-look.
"Uh . . . yeah Mom?" the younger Summers finally replied.
"We need to talk," the elder Summers said back, and then pointed to the couch.
Frowning, as this was not the usual way conversations where she got into trouble started, she did as bid and looked up at her mother. Wait . . . had she added henna to her hair? It looked more . . . reddish than it's normal dirty-blonde.
"First things first. I know you are the Slayer, and honestly, I don't care about that. I'm more concerned with the fact that you've chosen to try and keep it a secret from me, as well as something that happened on Halloween, which I /know/ something happened, because it happened to me, and I am sure happened to you too," Joyce Summers said, effectively shattering Buffy Summers' entire world.
"Huh . . . uh . . . wha . . ." was all the mutant Slayer could say.
TBC . . .