To Boldly Go Where No One Thing has Gone Before
(Last Time . . . )
With a sigh, and sagging her shoulders in defeat, Joyce answered, "I dressed up as Samantha's mother from the old TV show Bewitched. I dressed as Endora." As she said this, she made a rather dramatic wave of her hands, and instantly, just like that, she was suddenly dressed much differently. Her hair, which was much redder than it normally was, like henna had been added to it, 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, she seemed to have gone to town with her mascara, the dark lines around the woman's eyes giving her an almost evil-look.
Buffy stood there, stiff as a board for several long seconds, and then, with no other warning, her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted.
"Yeah," Cordy grunted self-depreciatingly, "We were a bunch of stuck-up snot-nosed snobs, weren't we?"
Unexpectedly, she received several agreeing sounds from all of them, except Harmony, who growled out a warning, silencing the others.
"Shut up!" she shouted at Cordelia, "And defend yourself, if you can!"
The next thing she knew, she had a screaming Harmony racing at her, sword upraised in a killing blow.
(And now Continued . . . )
Willow awoke from her light sleep, wide-awake in the face of what her dreams had just shown her. She'd gone straight to bed after Buffy had dropped her off, and she'd been seeing vision of each of her friends in trouble, of varying degrees, from the moment her head had touched the pillow. First, Buffy, finding out that her mom had been just as changed, if not more, as the rest of them had, and on top of it Mrs. Summers now knew Buffy was the Slayer. That was not good.
Then there had been Xander, and she /knew/ that hadn't been a dream. It would be just like him to do something like that. Go figure how "Iceman" can be so hotheaded.
But the last one was the one that worried her the most. Cordelia, dreading and reliving the worst of the past two weeks, and suddenly confronted with armed and enhanced versions of her "friends", the Cordettes they'd been nicknamed. And at the head, Harmony, clouded with the rage, hate, and blinded need for vengeance of Callisto, attacking the Rogue mutant even at this very moment.
Willow didn't think, she just reacted. She'd only ever tried her telekinesis on something she could see, and affecting something such a large distance away was more like psychokinesis, technically speaking, but at the same time she felt that she /could/ do it. A hidden instinct, possibly even the leftover trace of Jean Grey, but Willow, sitting alone in her bed, with no technological or otherwise enhancements, reached out with her mind . . . and acted.
Chase Mansion
Harmony was screaming with rage even as she rushed the invincible mutant, sword raised for a killing stroke. Cordelia, startled, just took a step back and raised her arms, not daring or thinking to do more to defend herself at the moment. When all of a sudden, Harmony stopped, though obviously against her will as her enraged screaming told the surrounding girls.
At first they thought she'd somehow hurt herself and couldn't move her body because of it. The true answer came moments later when Harmony was surrounded by an ethereal hot pink glow. Surprised and more than a little impressed, Cordelia could only whisper in shock, "Willow."
"Rosenberg did this!" Brittany exclaimed in awe.
"And she kept saying she wasn't good at her powers," Cordy added to the exclamation with her own awe.
/'Let me put it like this Cordy,'/ Willow's voice suddenly sounded in all of their heads, cutting Harmony's screams short/'Jean Grey, even without the Phoenix, was pretty damn powerful. I just don't have the Phoenix anymore. And I'm going to pass out the moment I let Harmony go, so if you don't mind, could you come pick me up on your way to school? I don't want to be late.'/
"Uh, yeah, sure," Cordy, a little overwhelmed at this casual display of power, agreed.
/'Oh good. Thanks. Now. As for you Harmony, stop letting the inner-Callisto do all your thinking. She's clouded your mind, even I can see that and I'm the weakest telepath in Sunnydale I guarantee you. Now, as for the rest of you . . . Since you seem to agree that you don't have to be snobby bitches anymore, how about you join the rest of us in the Library in the morning. There's a great deal to discuss, and given that me, Buffy, and Xander will each back Cordy no matter what, I think this little demonstration provides you with the conclusion to your little 'battle of leadership' idea. Any questions?'/
The Cordettes all looked at each other, communicating silently in body language before all nodding, Erin speaking up for all of them, "No questions. We'll agree to meet tomorrow morning in the Library. And no more attacks on Cordelia. By any of us. But we aren't X-men and we don't take orders from . . ." Erin stopped herself, glancing at the still frozen Harmony, "We aren't your lackies and we won't take orders from anyone. If Cordy, or even you Rosenberg, can convince us that it's in our best interests to join up with you . . ." another glance " . . . X-men, then we'll renegotiate. Until then . . ."
/'Until then, all of you get some sleep, just like we'll be doing,'/ Willow interrupted before turning her attention fully towards Harmony. /'As for you . . .'/ Suddenly the possessed blonde found herself flying through the air . . . towards Cordelia's pool/'Cool off!'/
The splash was high and loud, and all of the Cordettes, even Cordelia, all laughed easily as Harmony swam to the side.
"RRAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!" she screamed as she got out. "Do you have /ANY/ idea what water does to black leather!" She shot one last scathing look in Cordelia's direction, and then growled as she stalked off into the night, hopefully to her home and bed.
"Well, night," Cordy said to her remaining friends.
They all smiled gently back at her and waved as they each turned and left, saying their own goodbyes. Once they were gone, and Cordy was safely inside her own home, she whispered to herself and in her mind, "Thanks Willow."
She smiled brighter when she heard a faint/'No prob Cordy. That's what friends do.'/
Sunnydale High Library
The Next Morning
Willow was walking along, alone, towards the Library, her books held in front of her and her backpack slung over her right shoulder. For some reason however, this tended to draw in quite a bit of attention from a percentage of the student body in the hall with her. Well, the male percentage at any rate.
She smiled shyly at one boy and then had to stifle her giggles when he walked straight into an open locker and nearly knocked himself out. She probably should have chosen better in her outfit, she mused to herself, but she couldn't help but enjoy the very attention that she'd feared for so many years. She hid another smile as she once again appreciated the fact that dressing up as Jean Grey and being turned into her by a chaos spell was the best thing that had ever happened to her. While Xander had been saying the same thing for himself, she'd been a bit more discreet, and tried to follow Buffy's example of turning the whole situation into another problem of living on the Hellmouth and something to worry and work over.
Secretly though . . . she was ecstatic over the whole thing.
Of course Jean's superior fashion sense and life-long experiences at being the popular 'cool' girl certainly didn't hurt when it came to getting ready for school.
Today, beyond a light application of feature enhancing make-up, Willow wore a red tank top and jeans that she bought the other day with Cordelia. Although the tank top had thin half-inch straps and was cut off less than an inch from the bottom of her bust with a plunging neckline that showed off said bust and was tight enough that it conformed to her breasts and curves that she might as well have been wearing a bikini top.
The jeans weren't actually "jeans" either. Hip-hugger, a size too-small, four inches below the navel /tight/ jeans might be a better label. And while the redhead was still "breaking them in", she got an even bigger thrill at how they made her butt and legs look. She was also trying out her new heeled boots, only a couple inches there, to further enhance her walk and the arch of her legs. All in all, if anyone actually recognized the redhead as Willow Rosenberg they would probably . . .
Willow turned around and looked as more than half of the males in the hall were picking themselves up off the floor or rubbing banged body parts after running into multiple and various objects. She smiled shyly again and this time didn't bother restraining the giggle. A giggle that became a full laugh as she turned back around, the sounds of banging and cries of pain echoing after her.
They would probably do exactly what they were doing.
Willow, without actually intending to, entered the Library with a flair, both doors swinging wide with her entrance, drawing the attention of everyone inside. Which, much to Willow's embarrassment, was considerably more people than usual.
Besides the Cordettes, minus Harmony, that Kevin kid from the other night, and the rest of the gang with Giles and Miss Calendar, Willow counted no less than at least a dozen extra people. Stunned shock overcoming her initial embarrassment, Willow just stared and blinked for a while at the surprisingly filled room, until a sound warned that another person was coming through the swing doors of the Library right behind her.
Moving out of the way and turning quickly, Willow identified it as the boy that had dressed up as a vampire for Halloween. She couldn't recall his name immediately, and it was rude and against her ethics to go 'snooping' for it in the minds of himself or the others. He only glanced at her as he passed and without even pausing went to take a seat around the Library like most of the other people had done. Willow went back to her stunned staring.
Thankfully, Buffy, Xander and Cordelia came to her rescue, walking up to her so they could confer privately, or as privately as possible given the crowded condition of the Library.
"What . . . what . . . what is this? What's going on?" Willow whined the moment her friends were around her and blocking her from seeing everybody else.
"Remember that we promised Kevin to talk to him today?" Xander reminded her.
"We promised to talk to him /soon, not first thing in the morning!" Willow hissed, cognizant that things weren't as private as they normally enjoyed in the Library.
"Yeah, well, he seemed to think otherwise, and he knew a bunch of other kids in the elementary school that still had a few of their own powers and such, and he invited them along," Xander pointed over his shoulders at the tightly-knit group around Kevin.
"And then there's my Mom," Buffy interjected, "And Cordy tells us that you know the reason why the Cordettes are here. As for Amy and . . . Scott Hope was it?" she asked Xander, who nodded, "As for those two, Xander ran into them last night on his way home and they agreed to talk as well, and after Kevin and friends showed up, we called in Amy and Scott, who brought in a couple other people. Including the guy that came in right behind you."
"This is insane," Willow muttered, rubbing her temples lightly.
"Tell me about it," Cordelia muttered. "And I'm still dealing with knowing the intimate details and sordid past of my maid's life, especially since I'm resorting to 'old' clothes to keep up with my new . . . outfit crisis."
"You mean clothes that you spent a fortune on and then only ever wore once?" Buffy deadpanned.
"Yeah!" Cordy replied, making it sound like the greatest tragedy since the Vietnam War.
"Focus here people!" Willow snapped. "What the hell are they all doing here anyway? What are they expecting from us? What are we supposed to do?"
Each of the other X-Slayerettes, as Xander had dubbed them, just shrugged, apparently having expected Willow to have all the answers. The telepath sighed and rubbed her temples again. Wasn't Cyclops supposed to be team leader? And wasn't Buffy the one that made all the decisions for them anyway?
"Don't look at me!" the mutant Slayer suddenly snapped. "I know as much about this comic book and TV stuff as Giles does and I know as much about the magic and shit that went down as you guys do!"
"She's got a point," Cordy agreed.
"Thank you."
"She's a blonde, we can't expect her to be of much help unless we need something beat up," the white-striped brunette continued. Buffy glared at the mutant Rogue, silently grinding her teeth, her eyes beginning to spark crimson under her red sunglasses.
"Insults aside Wills," Xander picked up, "You're pretty much the only one of us that can relate to everybody here and knows enough about the entire situation to be the spokesperson. Believe me, I tried earlier, and I got threats and warnings from everybody, and a few in various alien languages, to shut up. So it's either you, or Giles, and given that option . . ." he left the statement hanging.
"And at the very least everybody deserves an explanation for what's happened to them, and with most, their memories of that night aren't going to be enough, cause I doubt that we were the only ones with selective amnesia about the whole thing," Buffy added. "And we are the only ones that know for sure what happened that night."
Willow scrunched her face up in thought, then finally sighed with frustration. "Fine. I'll do it. Just don't expect much. I don't even know what the hell I'm going to say to them all."
Decision made, the X-Slayerettes backed up and turned as one to face the crowd of Halloween-altered people. Just as Willow was about to open her mouth however, the Library doors swung open one last time and another couple stumbled in.
"Hi," the male, a tall dark haired youth, greeted. On his arm was a cute blonde girl, only a few inches shorter than him and dressed in an oddly colorful costume. The boy himself was dressed rather plainly, and . . . oddly all in beige and white.
"Is this the meeting about Halloween?" he asked.
"Strangely enough, yeah, it is," Xander replied with a flat tone, then asked accusing, "And you are?"
"Oh, my name is Pete and this is my girlfriend Debbie. Hey Scott," he waved over at the boy standing beside Amy Madison.
"And you're here because . . ." Buffy asked.
"Oh right, Scott mentioned that," Pete stuttered, then he looked at his girlfriend, Debbie, who nodded back at him and patted his arm comfortingly before stepping back. "Now . . . uh, give me a minute here, this might take a bit."
That said, Pete closed his eyes and clenched his fists at his side and began to breathe heavier. Everybody else exchanged looks, not sure what was going on, but thankfully, they had their answer shortly.
Pete's eyes snapped open as an almost animalistic growl began to come from him. What was wrong with this was that his irises were glowing a neon green, and all his veins and arteries began to pop out and even as everyone watched the lanky teenage boy began to grow, as in get bigger right before their eyes. The moment it got to this stage however, Debbie stepped forward and put her hand back on Pete's arm and her other hand on his forehead.
"There, there, it's OK now, it's OK," she began to whisper to him. And strangely enough this immediately served to calm the boy down and just as quickly reversed the transformation.
"Was that what I think it just was?" Buffy whispered to Willow.
"Yeah, so lets not make that kid mad, huh?" the redhead nervously replied.
"Did that guy just almost Hulk out, as in literally?" one of the newcomers whispered.
"Oh yeah, definitely!"
"Shit! And I thought /we/ had problems!"
"Alright, alright, get over there," Buffy quickly waved the two new additions over, then turned back to Willow with an expectant look.
The telepath sighed, then organized her thoughts as much as she could.
Before she said anything though, she . . . felt something. It was almost like a soft, fluttery silk veil passing over her. Only the difference was that it was more likely passing over her mind, as well as the minds of her friends! Without hesitation, she brought the full force of her psychic shields to bear, and felt the 'veil' be repulsed, although not violently enough to cause a reaction in whoever was trying to probe her and her friends, she could feel the 'direction' that it had retreated to. Willow squinted her eyes in suspicion at the young black girl standing with Kevin's group, but let the incident go without comment or question. She couldn't even be 100 sure that what she had just felt was a telepathic probe.
"OK, uh, OK everybody. I think, since it is a school day and everything, I think we should start off with telling everybody our names and what we dressed as on Halloween a couple weeks ago. Then we'll go to classes and meet back here or, or somewhere . . . after school. We'll start. My name is Willow Rosenberg and I dressed as Jean Grey, aka the Phoenix of the X-men."
"My name is Xander Harris, I dressed as Iceman," Xander embellished a little.
"I'm Buffy Summers. I dressed up, as part of a dare, as Scott Summers, aka Cyclops of the X-men."
"I'm Cordelia Chase, as most of you know, or should at any rate. I dressed up as Rogue, also from the X-men, and it was the only outfit left in my size for any of you losers that might have questions about that!"
"OK, now how about you two, since you came in last, continue us along," Willow spoke up after no one said anything for quite a bit.
"Uh, well, as I said earlier, My name is Pete. Pete Krenzler, and I uh, I dressed as the Hulk for Halloween. My girlfriend Debbie . . ."
"I dressed as a shapeshifter. From a book that I'd read once. I don't remember the title. Might've had something to do with elves or something," she interrupted Pete. "And my name is Deborah Clemons Mansy."
Pete looked at his girlfriend with an expression akin to shock, but he quickly masked it and just nodded along with his girlfriend.
"Oooooookay," Xander drawled. "Next!"
"Well, I'll go," Kevin stepped forward after a couple moments tense silence. "I met these guys," he indicated the X-Slayerettes, "last night, but my name is Kevin Ozborne, and I dressed up as Prime, from the Ultra Force comics. And now I can turn into Prime whenever I want to. Well . . . for the most part. I can only stay as Prime for about 12 hours and then its another 6 before I can even try to change back again. I'm still trying to figure it out."
"Guys," he gestured to the group that had come in with him. One of them a few inches taller than Kevin, and with wavy brown hair and brown eyes, nodded and stiffly stepped forward.
"My name is Jake Berenson," he introduced. "This is my cousin Rachel Berenson," he gestured to an even taller and model-perfect beautiful natural blonde girl with blue eyes. Her clothing also seemed to match perfectly and if it weren't for the fact that she was a couple years shy of the older teenagers, you'd believe she was going to be stiff competition for Cordelia.
"The others are Tobias Fangor, Cassie Applegate, Marco Richards, and Maximilian Esquire Churchill. We call him Ax."
Everybody lingered on Ax for several long moments, and not just because he was a six foot block of muscle, or his name. He also had blue skin and a couple of antennae coming out of the top of his head. A head that was covered with pure white scruffy looking hair.
"He didn't always look like that," Cassie explained.
"We, but especially Tobias and Ax," Jake continued, "would be considered Trekkies. We each came up with a role of a Star Fleet Officer, and then bought the costumes and costume communicators at the only costume shop in town. A place known as Ethan's. When Halloween started, we became the characters we had created for ourselves; a fully trained, and veteran team of Star Fleet Officers."
"Jake is our Commanding Officer," Rachel spoke up, "holding the rank of Captain . . . uh, according to the roles we came up with, he'd been on the command track since he was 13 years old . . . which Jake happens to be now actually."
"There's more," Tobias intervened.
"A lot more," Ax put in, his voice surprisingly normal for a human, given his intimidating and alien appearance.
"Rachel is . . . er, was my Second in Command, with the Rank of Lieutenant Commander. She also happens to be a Security and Weapons expert, with a temper to make a raging Klingon back down and whimper in fear," Jake laughed.
"Shut up!" Rachel snapped, fighting back her own laughter. "I was never that bad!"
"Uh, yeah Rachel, you were," Marco quickly agreed with a sly smirk on his face.
No longer laughing, Jake gestured at Tobias, "Everyone else had the rank of Lieutenant, but Tobias was the best damn pilot I'd . . . well, he was one of the best pilots in Star Fleet, and that was with anything, from shuttle to Star ship to Runabout to alien craft, he could fly it. And not only that, he was Chief of Operations 8 of his 10 years in Star Fleet and could practically build a star ship from scratch."
"But that's getting ahead of things," Tobias quietly interrupted. "My character was also half-Vulcan," he told everyone, then brushed back his messy blond hair to reveal slightly pointy ears. "And now so am I. Same thing happened with Ax. His character was an Andorian."
"Ax was our resident Engineer, and computer expert," Jake continued the introductions. "We talked him out of making himself better than Geordi La Forge and Data, but between him and Tobias, they could come pretty close."
"Next is Cassie, team Medic and while not quite a /Chief/ Medical Officer, certainly knew her way around a Sickbay. Her character also happened to be a Full blooded Betazoid," Jake stopped talking after that.
Xander and Willow both jumped in surprise at the information, among a few others around the room. "So it /was/ you," Willow blurted, pointing at Cassie.
Cassie blinked, surprised herself, before nodding. "You have . . . very powerful shields," she complimented the redhead telepath. "And I truly wasn't trying to pry. I was only hoping to get a minor empathic glance off of you and your friends, to see if you were trying to hold anything back."
"She asked my permission before even trying anything like that," Jake stepped forward, "So if you have a problem with it, blame me! I'll take responsibility . . ."
"Nobody is blaming anyone over anything right now!" Buffy shouted, stepping into the middle and holding her hands up to keep anyone from leaving or trying anything.
She turned to Willow and asked, "Did she do any harm?"
Willow shook her head no, "It was an extremely light probe, and like she said, probably more empathic than anything else. But I reacted in time so she didn't violate anyone's/anyone's/ privacy," she said this to the rest of the room, including a few that apparently had a few secrets of their own they wanted to keep.
"Jake, I believe you have one more person in your group to introduce," Buffy offered.
Jake nodded back and jerked his thumb at the last, Hispanic boy. "This is my best friend since kindergarten, Marco Richards. His character was probably the most outrageous out of all of ours. Computer Science expert, majoring in Positronic, Nanotech, Bio-Mechanical, and Quantum Physical Technologies, as well as a fully trained Agent for Section 31, not to mention a rank and commission within Star Fleet Intelligence."
"Don't forget my three wives waiting for me back on Rysa," Marco added with his own lopsided grin.
Xander immediately liked the boy, sensing a kindred spirit. Willow nervously glanced between the two, indeed sensing very similar personalities between the new boy and her longest time bestest friend. In fact, a little /too/ similar.
"So you guys keep hinting that there's something bad about this, and aside from Ax here, and maybe Cassie and Tobias now having telepathy and slightly different human biologies," Buffy spoke, "I'm not seeing a terrible side to this. Besides, and I know she can do this because she showed me that she could, Willow can just make everybody see the 'old' Ax in place of this one. It might take a while to get everybody in town . . ."
"No, that's not it, and in fact we've kind of already devised a way of . . . hiding Ax," Jake explained. "The . . . problem is . . ."
He took a deep breath and then turned to exchange looks with each of his friends, even Kevin. Then he took another breath and nodded, they all nodded back.
"The problem is that the way it happened, we didn't get replaced by our characters. One second we were in our Halloween costumes, the next we were 400 years in the future, or on an alien planet. We were still 'us' but to us it was like we'd been transported to the Star Trek universe. For some it only took a week, others almost an entire year, but eventually we all kind of . . . accepted what had happened to us and went on with out lives. And we did. We lived out our characters' lives."
"Then," Marco picked up the story, "next thing we know, almost thirty years later, batta bing batta boom, we meet each other again, get together for a mission, go into the Holodeck to train, next thing we know, we're back where we started, only to the new us's, aka our characters, we've somehow stepped into a malfunctioning holodeck that's set for our old home town 400 years in the past. When it's over, the only thing that's changed . . ."
Cassie finished for him, "Is that we remember that we really were born in this time and this town, instead of 400 years in the future. To us, it's like we went to the future, lived out our entire lives, and then came back to the past as kids."
"Whoa," Xander muttered after a heavy silence.
"Dear God," Giles muttered, strenuously rubbing his glasses.
"So, what do you want to do now?" Buffy asked, concerned.
Jake shrugged. "Obviously, what we're thinking of as 'the future' has no way of really happening. It's fiction. But nevertheless, we remember it, so we're not going to do something like introduce advanced technology just to get rich quick or anything like that."
"Speak for yourself," Marco boasted, "I plan on buying my own island full of nothing but gorgeous naked super models!"
Rachel, Cassie, and Amy (being the only other nearest female) slapped the Hispanic boy across the back of his head. After all three had had their shot, Willow, a spark of neon pink energy highlighting the action, telekinetically added her own punishment. After it was over Marco whimpered, "Ow," before starting to tenderly rub his bruised cranium.
Jake glared at his friend, but was unsympathetic as he ordered, "We're /not/ introducing future technology. We may not be Star Fleet officers anymore, but we're still going to follow the Prime Directive to the letter."
The X-Slayerettes and Giles all winced at that statement, but it was Buffy who replied to it.
"You may want to change your minds after this meeting. In fact you guys might very well be a godsend for us," she said. "But in the meantime uh, how about you guys go next. /We/ know who you are, but the kids might not." She indicated the Cordettes.
"Well, first thing," Cindy stepped forward as spokesperson, "how many of you kids are familiar with anime?"
Kevin and the other 'kids' gave her an incredulous look, while Scott Hope spoke up, saying what was on everyone's minds, "Yeah, as a matter of fact, most everyone here /is/ familiar with anime. And the series /Noir/, which you and Aura seemed to have dressed as for Halloween. We're just all kind of shocked that /you all/ know about anime!"
Cindy glared at the boy for a moment and then finally shrugged. "Actually, we didn't know /what/ we were dressing as. Hell, we only went with Cordy so we wouldn't have clashing costumes, and our reasons for picking was the same as hers. The costumes looked good on us. We've done some research since then though."
"Anyway," Brittany said, "our real names, just in case you didn't know, are Brittany Murphy, I dressed as Nemesis from the WildC.A.T.s comics," pointing at herself, "Cindy Carlyle, dressed as Mireille," the blond half of Noir, "Aura Kuriko, went as Kirika" the Asian chick, "Charlotte Webb, found a Silver Sable costume," the now silver-maned DD-cup, "and Erin Richards, went as the Black Widow from Marvel Comics," bright red hair and D-cup on petite body. "None of us are as rich as the Chase's, but we were still the snobby kids growing up."
"And you're not now?" vampire-boy snapped.
"How do you think we'd react to having war veterans, assassins, and 2000 year old empath renegade Codas put directly in our brains?" Brittany snapped right back.
"Yeah, by the way, who are you?" Buffy challenged the boy.
"Name's Mark Kendall," he said with a slow grin, taking off his sunglasses with finesse.
"Kendall?" Cordelia, the Cordettes, and Willow all repeated.
"That's right," he said with a "toothy" grin, "I'm Harmony Kendall's baby brother."
"You're a vampire," Buffy snarled, tearing off her own sunglasses.
"Half, actually," Mark corrected, "Still got my soul and all that jazz. So that means you can't do anything!" He laughed out loud. Which was cut short when Buffy's eyes began to spark with crimson energy.
"Always wondered if anything /other/ than a wooden stake through the chest would kill a vampire," she threatened.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Mark backed up, no longer even trying to pretend to be the 'cool vampire guy' anymore. "I didn't mean it like that, really!"
"I wish everyone would just sit down and talk about this stuff the right way!" Scott shouted over everyone else.
Before anyone could say or do anything else, Amy's arms crossed before her like she couldn't even control them, and then she blinked with a heavy nod of her head. The next thing anyone knew, they were all/all/ sitting at the Library table, which was no longer the Library table but rather some kind of Round Table straight from a King Arthur play.
"Not exactly what I had in mind Amy," Scott belatedly replied.
"Sorry, it's kind of automatic," she answered with a shrug.
"Now, shall we try again?" Scott stood up to address the whole table, which amazingly enough still fit comfortably inside the Library. He received several grumbling replies, but he'd made his point.
"My Library," Giles whimpered.
"Why don't you two go next?" Buffy grated as she put her sunglasses back on.
"Yeah, you dressed up as Major Nelson, right?" Xander asked.
"No," Scott shook his head, "I didn't dress up for Halloween. Snyder didn't get me into the Volunteer program, I didn't get invited to any of the Halloween parties that were going on, and I haven't done the Trick or Treating thing since I was 14. The reason I'm Amy's master is because I found her bottle the next day, and I was the first one to open it."
Everyone startled.
"Amy's /bottle!" half the room shouted.
"Yeah," Amy, who was dressed normally, just all in pink, muttered, hanging her head. "It's actually a very long and complicated story. Well, not really. I bought the 'I Dream of Jeanie' costume. I thought of buying some random bottle, or even using a perfume bottle of my . . . my mother's from home to add it, but I didn't really want to bother. Then, while I'm leading my kids through the downtown shops, I suddenly turn into pink smoke, and like magic, the bottle's just /there/ and I'm getting sucked into it. For the next couple of hours, I'm Jeanie screaming for 'my Master' to come and save me, but all I get is the bottle kicked into an alley somewhere. When the spell ended . . . and I became . . . /me/ again, I was still dressed as Jeanie, and above all else I was still in the bottle. And when I say I was dressed as Jeanie, I don't mean I was wearing the costume. The costume looked, at best, like a cheap imitation of cotton and fake silk. Now I was wearing the real thing."
"It must have been horrible, being trapped in that bottle for . . ." Willow sympathized.
"It was only one night," Scott hastily explained, "I found her the next day and uncorked the bottle and out she popped, just like from the show. Only she was Amy, not Jeanie. Didn't find out until she tried to go home that the rules still applied. She is a real genie, bound to this bottle, and I'm her master, with the same number of wishes that Major Nelson got, which is to say . . ."
"Infinite," Joyce Summers answered. "Amy's abilities are somewhat like what I now have, only I dressed as Endora from the old TV show 'Bewitched'. I'm just grateful that I don't have to deal with that . . . /witch's/ temper and personality anymore. Honey I swear, if I am ever that bad, you have my full permission to blast me into the upper atmosphere."
"Mom!" Buffy whined.
Suddenly the two Summers women realized that everyone else was looking at them. "Did I mention I'm Buffy's mother?" Joyce added as an afterthought.
"So, is that everybody?" Willow tried to take the lead again.
"Uh, just us," a quiet voice spoke. Everyone turned to see the two shortest people in the High School, and next to them something even shorter, which couldn't be properly judged since everyone was sitting down.
"Uh, I'm Jonathan Levinson," the boy spoke.
"And I'm Sydney Pierson," the cute little brunette Freshman girl introduced herself. "And this is my partner, Iczel."
"Hello everyone," the little white robot waved, speaking with a mature version of Sydney's own voice.
"I'm not going to ask," Buffy groaned, hitting her head on the table.
"This is a lot bigger than we first thought," Willow decided, speaking aloud.
"Maybe you . . . X-Slayerettes or whatever you're calling yourselves," Scott Hope spoke up, "Maybe you should start explaining what it is that we're doing here!"
The mutant teens all shared a look of dread, only the adults and the Cordettes, because they'd encountered vampires on Halloween night, and been explained about the supernatural by Cordy, knew what it was about. Everyone else shifted slightly, uncomfortable with the others dread.
Finally, Buffy just blurted it out, "We know what really happened, and why it happened, on Halloween night. An evil . . . well, he called himself a Chaos Mage, but basically an evil man named Ethan Rayne, set up shop, sold us all our costumes, and then cast a magic spell, that turned us all into our costumes. Problem is, or so I've been told, instead of having a Chaos /god/ power the spell, Ethan somehow tapped into the Natural Force of Chaos itself, making things . . . well, permanent."
Jonathan's face was an etch of shock and horror, Joyce's wasn't far from it, while just about everybody else, except Giles and Miss Calendar, (and Iczel) bore looks of extreme confusion.
"What Buffy meant to say," Willow picked it up, "was that instead of getting some entity, a god like from TV shows and cartoons, had powered the spell, things would have been temporary. Maybe a few exceptions here and there, but once the spell, or rather Halloween ended, we would have all gone back to normal, after a really freaky and dangerous night, but normal."
"Instead, we all remember everything that our costumes did and were, and in some cases, physical transformations occurred," Jake pointed out.
"Sort of," Buffy interrupted, "A few of us don't remember everything that happened that night, some kind of amnesia thing."
"More like attempts at suppressing the memories, especially for those that might have undergone physiological changes as well as mental," Cassie hypothesized.
Willow nodded, but pressed on, "There are . . . a lot of things out there that no one knows about. 'No one' being the bulk of society, even governments. Magic, demons, vampires, werewolves, and gods being only a fraction of it. There are also the Forces of Nature, to use the generic term. These Forces aren't what the media and so forth would have you believe."
"Different aspects of an ecosystem?" Ax offered.
Willow, quite solemnly, shook her head no.
"When we talk about a Force, capital F, we mean something that not only helped create and sustains the universe itself, but something that existed even /before/ the universe did. Chaos is one of those Forces. And Ethan, unknowingly or not, tapped into the Force of Chaos to power his spell. And these are the consequences. What could have been just a mild prank has changed all our lives, forever."
A heavy silence followed, but the curiosity could not be denied.
"OK, so why go into all of that? There's nothing we can do about it now, is there?" Pete asked. "Why tell us all of this if all you told us is what we already know? We're freaks!"
"I was a freak before all of this, doesn't change the facts," Buffy snapped back, forgetting for a moment she was speaking to the Incredible Hulk. "We're not done yet."
"Sunnydale is not a normal town," Xander interrupted. "How many schools across America have an Obituary page in their school newspaper for crying out loud?"
"Giles, I believe this is your part," Buffy looked to her Watcher.
Nodding his head, Giles got to his feet and began to walk around the round table. "This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their... their Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for, for man. All that remains of the old ones are vestiges, certain magics, certain creatures, and vampires."
"So vampires are demons?" Mark asked.
"The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul. He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding... killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to return," Giles answered.
"This town, this area was once known to the Spanish as /Boca del Inferno, loosely translated, the Mouth of Hell. Glibly referred to of late as simply the Hellmouth. Digging a bit into the history of this place, you'll find a, a steady stream of fairly odd occurrences. Mostly in unexplained deaths I'm afraid. Suffice to say, the Hellmouth is a mystical convergence, where not only vampires and all sorts of demons congregate, but other entities of both mystical and magical forces convene, sometimes without meaning to. I'm afraid that Halloween, and the consequences of what happened to all of you, and many others throughout the town, are just a few victims in the long, long history of the Hellmouth."
"I don't believe you," Debbie stated with finality.
"The center point of the Hellmouth just happens to be approximately one mile directly beneath your feet, and as its name refers, the Hellmouth, on top of being a mystical convergence, is also a portal that leads straight to a dimension filled with demons and is so inhospitable that it is oft confused with, or perhaps inspired the belief in, Hell itself," Giles countered without so much as missing a beat. "Therefore, in order to prove what I am saying is false, you are more than welcome to go straight down and find out for yourself."
"Did Giles just tell her to go to Hell?" Xander whispered to Buffy.
"Sounds like it," Buffy whispered back. "I'm not sure I want to know exactly what Miss Calendar has been doing to him or not, but it's certainly brought out Giles' dark side."
Debbie, flushed, did not respond, instead, shifting in her seat slightly and remaining silent.
"Uh, any other questions?" Willow asked in the suddenly tense atmosphere.
"I think we should all meet again, and remember what has been discussed here," Jonathan answered for her. "Perhaps things are not as bad as they first seem. I mean, if what Mr. Giles is saying is true, then we may have a chance at protecting our world as the very heroes we were for a single night. Or, we can just try to live our lives as normally as possible, and be miserable because of a single action that made us all very special."
He stood up, and suddenly everyone noticed that the sides of Jonathan's black hair were stark white. "I leave you with this; a single blade of grass is trampled and torn, a thistle of reeds can bend but never be broken, and a field of wheat can spread and feed the whole world." Then he disappeared in a flash of brilliant white light.
After a moment of silence, Buffy asked, "How many have seen the Dungeon Master there do his little spiel and only show up when you finally get to the answer to his riddle?"
Everyone except Giles, Jenny, Mark Kendall, and Debbie all raised their hands in agreement.
"Well, he did help us, I mean the X-men, figure out how to end the spell," Willow pointed out.
"Don't remind me," Buffy grunted. But it was too late.
TBC...