Chaotic Circumstances

by Joshua The Evil Guy

The gang dressed up as various Xmen, and Ethans was the only shop in town to boot so EVERYBODY changed. Buffy went as Cyclops, Willow as Jean Grey i.e. Phoenix, Xander went as Iceman, and Cordelia went as Rogue. Just another Halloween Remake.

8. Beginning of Beginning of the Beginning

The Beginning of the Beginning of the Beginning

The Library

Not even an eye blink after they'd disappeared from the lot where they'd all just fought a very hard and difficult battle, the gathered children and adults who'd been changed by their costumes appeared in the Sunnydale High Library, literally popping in out of thin air. Those that were unconscious appeared on raised platforms, such as the table or the counter, and in the instance of Buffy Summers, the couch in Giles' office.

Joyce Summers herself, who'd provided the means of transport for everyone, thankfully appeared in front of a chair, which she almost immediately fell into once everyone had reappeared, from appearances incredibly exhausted. "Hells Bells, that was a bit harder than
I thought it would be," she muttered to herself.

"Joyce, are you all right?" Giles asked.

"I'm fine Rupert, just . . . a bit tired. And hungry!" the witch exclaimed.

"Oh dear," Giles said under his breath, while he went over to Rachel and Ax. After whispering quietly to both of them, they nodded and quickly left the room.

"Hey, uh . . . I think this girl's really hurt bad!" Prime shouted over the noise of everyone settling into the Library.

"Yeah, well she deserved it," Cordy snapped.

The girl in question was Harmony, lying on the back of the long-table and thankfully unconscious, mostly cause of how annoying she was, but also because she'd be in incredible amounts of pain if she were awake. For starters, her ribs, left arm, and right shin were all broken, and the rest of her was starting to turn into one giant bruise, both her eyes swelling shut and her lip fat and bleeding. There was also evidence that her nose might have been broken.

"Geez Cordy," Erin exclaimed after looking the blonde over, "Went a little overkill maybe?"

"Not intentionally!" the High School debutant defended herself. "And besides, not all of it was my fault. She kept trying to hit and kick me, and believe it or not, she actually broke her own arm and leg. I just defended myself. And . . . OK, maybe I did hit her a little hard in the face and the chest, but I swear I only ever hit her four times total. And then I did kind of toss her down, but it wasn't even ten feet! Besides, she deserved it. She said I looked fake," as the white-striped brunette said this she hefted her boobs together.

"Uh huh," Prime drooled.

"Whoa Momma!" Marco's eyes bulged out.

Jake just coughed and turned his head away from the Rogue mutant, while every other red-blooded male in the room, that was not English, just stared with a vacant not-too-bright look in their eyes.

"AHEM!" Amy's not-too-subtle cough actually echoed in the room as she elbowed her "boyfriend" but it was enough to bring everyone else out of their stares.

"Never mind that. It was a battle situation, and like Cordelia said, she was defending herself," Jake explained, taking charge once more. Some might have found it odd that one of the youngest in the room was actually giving orders and acting like the one-in-charge, but after the experience that everyone had just had and how the former Star Fleet Captain had naturally taken responsibility, no one doubted, nor questioned Jake's right to be the boss anymore.

"Cassie, see what you can do in the meantime for her," he ordered, before turning to Mark and his friends, "Mark, since she's your sister, I trust that you'll want to go with her to the hospital?" The young man nodded his agreement, his girlfriend right by his side.

"That's fine. You two," he spoke to Mark's friends that had dressed as the Blues Brothers, "do you think you can . . . procure a car and drive it /safely/ to the hospital?"

At first they grinned excitedly at him, until they looked at each other, nodded, put their sunglasses back on, and almost magically their expressions became expressionless and they nodded in unison at Jake before leaving in almost uniform precision.

"That's creepy," the youth admitted.

"And I've had to put up with it for two weeks running now," Mark confessed.

At that moment, Rachel and Ax returned, bringing with them a small mountain of junk food and ready-made food stolen from the cafeteria.

"Guys, what . . ." Jake started to ask, but stopped when they plopped the mountain of food in front of Joyce.

"Mr. Giles told us to get this for you Mrs. Summers," Ax politely informed everyone.

"Yeah, said something about magic taking up a lot of energy and you needed to keep up your strength," Rachel added.

"Oh, well, thank you . . ." Joyce started to say, until her stomach growled loudly and she stared hungrily at the food before her. "But I couldn't . . . possibly . . . Well, maybe just one or two," then she started to tear into the food, tearing wrappers and stuffing her face as quickly as she possibly could. It wasn't until more than half the pile was gone that she finally slowed down.

"Oh my, I never realized," the witch remarked with clear surprise as she continued to snack. "Guess I'll have to work on my diet a little bit."

Just then, Willow stepped out of Giles' office, Joyce having had her appear right next to Buffy in front of the couch. "Oh, Willow," Joyce was the first to notice the redhead, "How's Buffy doing?"

"Just fine," she answered, "and . . . awake," she stepped to the side revealing the mutant Slayer standing there without any additional support. In fact she seemed to be supporting Willow a bit as they made their way around the counter.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Buffy said to quiet the sudden explosion of concerned questions. "Feeling a little drained, but otherwise perfectly normal. Well . . . normal for me anyway. What happened? Where's the Gamesmaster?"

"Oh, I teleported him into the cage over there dear," Joyce pointed at the book/weapons cage at the far end of the Library.

"Marco assures me that the psionic-suppressor is working just fine. He won't be able to control us when he wakes up," Jake informed her.

Buffy nodded, "That's good, but what /happened? Last thing I clearly remember is him threatening Willow. After that all I really remember is seeing red. Both figuratively and literally."

"Well that's not surprising Buff," Xander spoke up, "since you kind of went medieval on his mutant butt and nearly blasted him into the next century."

"Yeah, uh, that's another thing, I don't remember Cyclops being able to shoot an optic beam that big or that powerful, no matter how much he might have tried," Tobias spoke up.

"Don't look at me, I've just been trying to keep control and not blast everything in sight," Buffy raised her hands in innocent protest.

"I think it might have something to do with Buffy's status as the Slayer," Willow told everyone, taking a seat next to Joyce. "The whole reason Cyclops needed to wear ruby-quartz lenses in the first place was because of an accident he'd had when he was a kid that caused minor brain damage. The Slayer can heal almost any type of damage to itself, including brain damage, according to Giles. Not to mention that particular injury was never present in Buffy to begin with, so where Cyclops doesn't have control over his optic blasts, Buffy obviously does. Maybe that control changes just how powerful the optic blasts can become, especially since Buffy can, theoretically, build-up the energy and then release it in a more powerful form."

"You've been thinking about this for a while, huh?" the blonde questioned her friend.

Willow just shrugged and flushed with embarrassment.

At that moment a loud honking could be heard from just outside the Library, thankfully the /outside/ outside of the Library. Mark got up announcing, "Ride's here! Uh . . . do we have a stretcher?"

"Oh, Harmony, right," Willow started. "I got it. Lead the way Mark."

Shrugging, Mark picked his way to the stacks at the back of the Library and began to make his way to the outside door, Willow following behind with the broken Harmony held aloft with her telekinesis.

"By the way," she said as she deposited Harmony safely into the back seat of the sports car the boys had 'procured', "be sure to tell the Hospital that it was 'gang members on PCP' if they ask what happened. And Mark? We still don't trust you, but if you want to be a part of this, covering for us would be a good start."

The half-vampire stared soberly at the mutant telepath for several long seconds before finally just silently nodding his head and then getting in the car, before the boys tore off for Sunnydale General, tires squealing.

"So you think we'll have problems with them?" Buffy asked Willow once the telepath rejoined them.

Too tired to realize Buffy seemed to know exactly what she'd been thinking, the redhead simply answered, "Probably. But I hope not. He seems like he genuinely wants to join in, but . . ."

"Join in what?"

Everyone turned to face Pete, seemingly confused by his question.

"I thought the whole point of the meeting today was to /talk/ about what had happened and maybe some options on what we should or could do about it. I wasn't aware there was anything to join," he explained his reaction.

"Before GM over there showed up, that's exactly what would have happened," Buffy answered, "then Jon-geon Master made his whole prophecy shit and we kind of all had to fight for our lives, and as Hellmouthy as it is, we actually made a damn good team out there. Not to mention, Gamesmaster kind of showed us that there's a threat out there, a threat from all the other people that were changed, and unless we make sure that they understand what's happened, and make sure that they don't try to take over the world or something worse things are going to go from bad to downright apocalyptic. And I'm getting some extremely major deja vu over this," she muttered holding her head as though it were hurting.

"What prophecy?" Prime asked.

"I'm not going to bother trying to remember exactly what he said, but the gist was 'one for all, all for one', and something about changing the world. I don't know, call him up and ask him. He's been leaving riddles like that ever since he became the Dungeon Master."

"You'd think if he knew we were going to be attacked after school he would have warned us, 'You're going to be attacked after school!' Instead of leaving us with a clue that we needed teamwork to win." Xander ranted.

"The riddle wasn't about the attack, or a way to win it," Jake told everyone from where he sat, drawing everyone's attention.

"What do you mean, Mr. Berenson?" Giles questioned.

"The riddle was about what happens next, what's happening now," he answered, just as cryptic as Jonathan's riddle.

At everyone's confused looks, he continued, "The riddle went something like this; a 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. It's actually more a warning than any sort of prophecy, but when you think about it can be both. The warning is that if we all go on our own, as individuals, we're pretty much going to get trampled, tossed into the wind basically, without any back-up and more or less at the mercy of people that have lost themselves like Gamesmaster here did."

"The thing about the reeds is probably the point we're at now, a group that can support each other and won't break for anything. It means we won't be taken advantage of, and if that was it, then that'd be OK I think. But then there's the 'changing the world' part that Buffy figured out."

"He wants us to unite everybody in town that was changed by Halloween, put us all together in one big group or organization or whatever and become a Justice League of the world or something," Buffy explained what she'd already figured out.

"Sounds . . . neat," Sydney, now just Sydney with Iczel standing beside her, said.

"Sounds like manipulation," Pete growled.

"Which is why I'm going to kick his butt the next time he pops up," Buffy told him.

"But still . . ." Willow interrupted. "Still, it's an incredibly tempting idea. Basically we'd be recreating the X-Men Buffy . . . we wouldn't be alone . . ."

"WE'RE /NOT/ THE X-MEN!" the Slayer screamed.

Everyone flinched a little at her exclamation, some actually shrinking away when they saw that her eyes were glowing red. Breathing deeply, the blonde calmed herself down, the glow fading from her eyes before continuing.

"I have a hard enough time dealing with the fact that I'm going to be killed before I'm 21 Wills, I don't have the time, the patience, or the /strength/ to deal with everybody else's problems in this town too. We're /NOT/ the X-Men. The X-Men only had to deal with terrorists, political pressure, and the occasional alien invasion. /I/ have to deal with demons, vampires, and the world ending on a weekly, if not daily basis! Oh yeah, and I'm going to die too! Probably before I even graduate High School! And to top it all off, it's bad enough that you, Xander, and Cordelia have gotten this involved in the nightmare that is my life, but you want me to drag every other kid in Sunnydale into it too?"

"According to you," Rachel interrupted the Slayer's rant, "whether you were the Slayer and whether you knew these kids or not, they'd still be involved in all this simply for living in this town. Same goes for all of us. News flash, the universe doesn't revolve around you and your problems."

Jake held up his hand, stopping his cousin from continuing. "Buffy, please, calm down," he asked. Then he stood and went to stand next to her, "And here's another news flash, because of you, and what you do, everyone in this town, child and adult/can/ have a normal and long life, because of you. You were a hero long before any of this happened to the rest of us. You saved people's lives and from what I've seen, gotten very little thanks for it. In fact, you've had more and more taken away from you because of it. I think it's time that changed."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, tears starting to fall from her eyes.

"I think we should do it. Create a . . . a League, that guarantees the safety of everyone on the Hellmouth, and maybe eventually across the entire world. But for now let's keep our goals small. Maybe we can start by making sure that Buffy doesn't die before her time. I'm not saying that we all start fighting demons and vampires," he quickly added when he saw her about to make a protest, "but you need a better support system than a single man and three other teenagers. Hell, not even an elite Star Fleet strike force has so little to go with! What I'm suggesting is the simple things. Medical treatment, better intelligence, more resources, besides just whatever weapons you have on hand, and as we just demonstrated against Gamesmaster and those demons, a few of us have the skills and power that we could actually help you in the actual fighting of demons and vampires. You know I'm right."

"But . . ." she started to protest.

"What about the rest of us, don't we get a say in this?" Pete exclaimed.

"Of course. Nobody's going to be forced. I only speak for myself and my team," he looked over said team who all nodded with serious looks on their faces. "You all can decide for yourselves whether or not you want to join in too. In fact I think I'd sooner encourage you to think long and hard about this and probably say no than yes. This is a big decision, and this isn't without risks."

"But fewer risks than if we all went out on our own," Fred Smith spoke up. Jake merely nodded in return.

"Think about it," Jake finally put it to everyone, Buffy included. "We've got the weekend ahead of us, and we all need to get some rest after today. Oh, and guys," he said to the X-Slayerettes, "you'll have your Danger Room. Since the caverns below the lot have been . . . emptied, I don't think it'll be a problem."

The commander then lead the way out of the library, his team following dutifully behind him, Marco making sure to leave the psionic suppressor behind and fully operational.

"What are we going to do about him?" Tim Smith, Fred's older brother asked, gesturing to the caged Gamesmaster.

"I'm truly uncertain," Giles answered. "We can't turn him over to the police, he'd have them under his control the moment he woke up. Unfortunately, as we explained earlier about the Forces of Chaos, there's no way to permanently disable his abilities. I suppose we could try to talk to him, but . . . for the moment I suppose he's not doing any harm if he spends the night in the cage."

"We don't even know his real name," Jenny commented.

"Scary thought," Xander commented. "There are probably a lot more people just like him out there somewhere. They're going to need our help, because as ironic as it is, we're the ones that understand what's happened to them the best."

"Jake's right, we all need some rest. Let's . . . just go home. Giles . . . ?" Buffy asked.

"I'll spend the night here tonight. There's some additional research I'd like to do any way, so I'll be sure to keep an eye on him," the Watcher promised.

That decided, everyone quickly departed and began making their way home, Buffy having to carry her mother to the car since the witch was still too weak to teleport, and the others being escorted by the still responsible older teenagers.

/Harris Residence/

/After Sunset/

"Mom, Dad! I'm home," Xander called as he walked in the front door, for several moments forgetting that this was the home of Tony and Mary Harris.

"Oh we're in here Alexander!" he heard his mother call out from the "family room" which was mostly used as a place to hold a table and extra chairs right next to the kitchen. In any other home that table would be the place where family meals were had, where the parents and child, or children sat around enjoying the time together and talking about their days and maybe even plans for the future. "Come here for a minute, would you? We'd like to talk with you about something."

Having planned on just going straight up to his room and either practicing more with his powers or just going straight to bed, it'd been a long day, he debated for several moments on whether or not to just ignore the drunken duo, but finally figured it wasn't worth the hassle, better to just get it over with as soon and as quickly as possible.

Whatever Xander Harris expected upon entering the 'family room', it certainly wasn't what he found there.

"Mom, for the hundredth and ninth time, I like to be . . . called . . . Xander . . . ?" he trailed off when he entered the room, which was vastly different than the last time he'd seen it.

The first thing he noticed, out of everything, was that his mother and father, Mary and Tony Harris, unofficially the "Town Drunks" with only competition from the homeless down by the docks, which Xander now knew were actually a bunch of non-violent demons, were standing in the middle of a mess of papers, boxes, papers, books, and more papers, with all appearances of being entirely sober. A fact that was supported by the significant lack of the smell of beer in the room. Stunned, to say the least, Xander focused on some of the books around the room, and was even more surprised to find that a large majority of them were Law books and medical journals. Certainly not the type of thing one would expect to ever find in the Harris household.

"Sorry," Mary apologized with a slight blush. "I keep forgetting. How is Willow by the way? I've noticed she's finally grown out of those horrible nerdy dresses Sheila bought for her. She's certainly turned into a fine young woman."

If Xander didn't know any better, he'd swear that his mother was trying to hook him up with Willow, not that the prospect wasn't unattractive especially after all the changes they'd both gone through . . . but it was just too fucking weird to see his/his/ mother acting like a typical busybody mom like Mrs. Summers was.

Suddenly, a disturbing thought crossed his mind, prompted initially by his Iceman-side, but realized that it could just as easily be demon-related the rest of him figured.

Backing up with a look of intense mistrust on his face, he raised his hands, ready to blast both of them with Freeze Balls at a moments notice if it became necessary, but not yet triggering his powers, he shouted out, "All right, who are you and what have you done with my parents!"

"Alexander, don't talk to your mother like that!" Tony yelled, but not like he normally yelled. For starters, there was no slurring of the words, and secondly the anger was pure and reactionary, not irrational with drunken rage.

"Enough! Just . . . enough!" Xander screamed, now bordering on panic. "I don't know who . . . or /what/ you two are, but you are /NOT/ my parents! Now WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY!" As he screamed he unconsciously triggered his powers, the ice-armor forming as the ice-blue energy passed over him.

Mary and Tony Harris, scared more of their son's mysterious transformation than they were of his accusation, jumped back but kept from screaming in panic. Things had changed for them in the past two weeks, and the fact that their son, who'd been pretty absent himself during that time, hadn't noticed those changes in them wasn't too surprising. On the other hand, Mary and Tony hadn't been quite as blind in observing similar changes in Xander, especially since his room tended to be half covered in ice whenever he left it.

"Alex . . . Xander," Tony started and then corrected himself, "we just wanted to talk, that's all . . ."

"WHERE ARE MY PARENTS!" the mutant screamed again, this time a Freeze Ball actually forming in one of his hands.

Suddenly Mary realized something and spoke quickly, "Have you spoken with Joyce lately Xander? Mrs. Summers to you perhaps? We all went to the same Halloween party at City Hall."

"What?" Xander faltered as those facts ran through his mind. No longer concentrating on his anger and suspicion, the manifestations of his powers disappeared, reverting him back to his blue-eyed normal self.

"It's complicated, I know, but . . . obviously you've been through some of your own changes during these past two weeks since Halloween. Well . . . your father and I have been going through some of our own," Xander's mother continued.

"I joined Alcoholics Anonymous," his father added, holding up a bracelet on his wrist. "I've also started volunteering at the local hospital."

"And I just passed the California Bar on Monday," his mother finished.

"What?" Xander repeated, starting to feel a little lightheaded all of a sudden.

"Maybe I should just go ahead and tell you . . ." Mary hesitated, "Your father dressed as an Army Medic, and I dressed as a Lawyer. The invitations for the party went out to all the parents of Sunnydale, but your father and I couldn't afford costumes, and Tony's boss at the company wouldn't let us just show up as hobos or in some home-made costumes, so we went to this cheap costume shop in town . . ."

"Ethan's?" Xander supplied, closing his eyes with growing dread.

His parents nodded in unison, his mother continuing, "Your father got a Red-Cross patch and put it with the old fatigues we had in the garage. I found an old briefcase and some fake spectacles in the Bargain bin and I put on my dress-suit and pulled out my old diploma and shoved it into the case and dressed myself up."

"Wait a sec . . . you were . . . /are/ a lawyer?" Xander felt the rug of his reality being pulled out from under him.

"I went to and graduated Law school, if that's what you're asking," his mother answered, "I just never actually did anything with it, because . . . well, I just didn't. But I'm changing that now. As I said, I passed the California bar and I plan on . . ."

"So you're now a lawyer and Dad's a . . . a . . . a what? A medic?" Xander interrupted.

"Well, that's why I'm volunteering at the hospital," his father answered, "I never actually went to Medical School, but I can always help out and I've been assured that there's a nursing position opened, but I'm not quitting my job with the company, just taking on some additional responsibilities."

"You've never exactly been a responsible person before Dad," Xander snarkily remarked.

"I know that son, but I'm changing that, one step at a time," Tony promised.

"Anything else I need to know about?" he exclaimed suddenly.

Mary and Tony exchanged a look before nodding to one another and Mary answered, "Well, nothing too outrageous, but, um, it turns out that I have a bit more money saved up than we'd thought of at first, and, well we're going to be moving honey, as soon as we can sell the house. That's what we wanted to talk to you about mostly, because we actually have quite a few options of where else to live in Sunnydale and we wanted your opinion."

Carefully, moving slowly to keep Xander from becoming angry or nervous again, she handed him a catalog of houses. The houses were all upscale mansion-types, right in the neighborhood of Cordelia Chase and a few of the other Cordettes. One of them would put him right next-door to Cordy actually.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he looked through the catalog, he saw his father nudge his mother and give her a meaningful look. This made him even more nervous and brought back the lightheaded-ness but he kept his peace for the moment.

"Xander," Mary spoke tentatively, "There's . . . one more thing.

Taking a deep breath, he merely turned his attention towards them, not trusting his voice for the moment. Finally, his father blurted out, "How would you feel about becoming a big brother?" a huge smile across both his parents' faces.

/'Now I know how Buffy felt,'/ he idly thought to himself, disconnected from himself and observing his own reaction. To his parents point of view, Xander stood there staring for half a minute before his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.

"Well," Tony said after a minute of silence, "He took that better than I thought he would."

Mary glared at her husband and slapped him across the back of the skull.

"OW!"

/Same Time/

/Willow's House/

Willow was meditating, something she needed to do on a regular basis, and normally something she enjoyed doing, exercising her powers, but after today she was so dead-tired that the necessity of it made the task seem arduous and frustrating. Nevertheless, she was still there, sitting on her bed, eyes closed, and mind focused inward.

The transition to the Astral Plane was easier now. So much more so than when she'd first tried to do it on her own. The very first time she'd ever gone there, it'd been entirely impossible for her, Jean was the one that had pulled her along to the Astral Plane.

Yet despite having Jean's own memories and experiences, Willow Rosenberg was /not/ Jean Grey.

As difficult as it still was though, Willow still appreciated what being able to travel to the Astral Plane meant in the first place. One could do almost anything from there, from discover the hidden secrets of the world and even the universe, to manipulate events and people in the real world. It could be intense, frightening, and dangerous, but at the same time it could be literally Heaven, ecstasy, and amazingly exciting.

But what Willow could do and what she needed to do on the Astral Plane were vaguely different from each other. What she needed to do was to strengthen her body's physical regeneration rate so she'd be fresher sooner, but she also needed to rebuild her mental reserves and defenses. Not exactly easy under normal circumstances, but Willow was still dealing with the mental damage and lack of mental energy from the battle with Psi-Lord and Gamesmaster earlier that day.

For Willow, the Astral Plane took the form of floating cotton-candy pink clouds in a hot pink sky, with Willow being able to fly between, walk and sit on the clouds. The moment she appeared though, her exhaustion was evidenced by the sudden dimming of 'light' in the sky and a majority of the clouds shrinking almost to nothing. Not to be dissuaded by this, Jean's experience whispering in her ear what the representation meant, Willow sat down on one of the clouds and closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts, her astral form matching the position of her physical form.

"Hey Will, watchya doin' ?" a familiar voice spoke from right beside her.

The normally hyperactive jittery redhead was so focused that she didn't even open her eyes, instead answering in a quiet voice, "I'm focusing my thoughts on rejuvenating my body's reserves. Unfortunately, it's taking all my energy to do so, so I won't be able to work on my mental defenses until after I'm rested."

"Won't that leave you vulnerable?"

"Gamesmaster is under lock and key and we aren't aware of any other hostile psychics in Sunnydale," she quietly answered, still focused on her task.

"Not what I asked," the person beside her was annoyed now, she could feel it just as well as she could detect it in their voice.

"It can't be helped. I barely have enough energy as it is to rejuvenate my body."

"What if you used some of my energy?" the voice hesitated.

That seemed to draw Willow out of her trance as her eyes blinked open and she turned to look beside her, and would have jumped clear across infinite space if she wasn't so exhausted. "B-b-Buffy! What are you doing here/How/ are you here!"

The blonde just shrugged in reply and answered, "Beats the heck outta me. One moment mom's sending me to bed early with a tummy full of warm milk and cookies, the next I'm asleep and then I'm here. Where, or what is /here/ by the way? It's very . . . pink . . ."

"It's the Astral Plane, I don't understand, how can you be here, and you're seeing it the same way that I do? The means that I brought you here somehow, but why would I do that and I didn't do that because I don't have the energy left over to do that and I just don't understand this!" Willow babbled, very confused.

"Astral Plane, huh?" Buffy stuck with what she could understand out of the babble.

"Yeah it's . . ." Willow started to explain but Buffy held up her hand.

"I know. Jean took Cyclops here enough times and I think both our heads start to hurt whenever it comes up in discussion. I know Cyclops' did whenever the Professor, Jean and the others went on and on about it. What I want to know is if you can take some of my own energy while we're here and whether or not it'll help?"

Willow could only stare, not understanding this sudden turn in events. She could sense, even here and after most of her energies were focused on her body's status, that this really and truly was the mind of her friend Buffy Summers. Not somebody wearing a 'Buffy' mask, or the Astral Plane equivalent, and not some figment of her overworked imagination either, but the /real/ Buffy. Her mind cast about for answers to her questions but with so many distractions in front of her at once there didn't seem to be any answers.

Seeing that her friend was pretty much incoherent at the moment, Buffy sighed and reached around to grab the telepath by the shoulders, and was more than a little surprised when a reddish-pink aura covered the both of them, strongest at where they were touching, and the Slayer felt a light draining sensation, but nothing to be worried about. She was supposed to be sleeping anyway, and she felt she had too much energy built up to get a good nights sleep. Especially since her Slayer-nature would probably force her to get up at midnight to go on patrol anyway, and she really didn't feel like doing that, so if sharing her energy with Willow would give her a few more hours sleep, she certainly wouldn't complain about it.

If Willow was shocked at Buffy's presence on the Astral Plane, she was downright blown away by what her friend was doing now! Transferring energy between people was difficult enough she knew from Jean's memories, between two psychics on the Astral Plane it was damn near impossible! Well . . . not impossible, but a great deal more difficult. And to see Buffy doing it so easily, almost by instinct alone . . .

It was like watching Moses part the Red Sea!

Almost before she could blink, Willow felt her physical reserves refresh themselves and even adjust so that she would have more endurance when she woke up, and they continued to deepen the more that Buffy shared with her. And it was startling, to say the least as Willow realized that the amount of energy Buffy was sharing with her was less than a percent of the Slayer's total reserves, and here it was allowing Willow to not only complete everything she'd set out to do and more, but even refill her energy reserves some!

"Wow!" Willow whispered in pure awe after only a few seconds of Buffy taking her by the shoulders, all the time it took for her to finish working with her body.

"Better?" Buffy asked, still hanging on to her friend.

"Better? Shit Buffy, I feel like I can do absolutely everything now!" the normally shy redhead cursed at the scope of what Buffy sharing less than a percent of her energy could mean.

"Let's see about those mental defenses now," Willow grinned and together the two young woman took off from the cloud they'd been on, the pink sky now bright around the, the clouds all full and puffy looking.

Buffy switched around, her hands still on Willow's shoulders, to the telepath's back watching with curiosity and interest as she went to work rebuilding and building new and more powerful mental defenses around her mind, using a combination of the Slayer's energy and the ambient forces of the Astral Plane.

It was fascinating to watch, as Willow manipulated unseen and visible energies alike to create a veritable fortress and a collection of armor and weapons, all based around what Willow herself knew, so the fortress was more like a computer firewall, made of real fire, the armor was more like what you'd see in cartoons or in TV shows, more for show that true protection, and the weapons were what Buffy and Willow knew best, stakes, swords, axes and crossbows. At first it was all just images, pictures Willow had drawn in the pink air, and then she did something that made it all too real, something Buffy could reach out and touch. And then with a wave of hand and barely a moment of concentration, she did something else to the arsenal of mental defenses and Buffy instinctively knew that her friend had connected them to her mind and body, able to trigger any of these formidable defenses with a thought.

"So far I've been working with only the most basic defenses and mental attacks," Willow explained to her as she worked. "A sphere or bowl to block random thoughts from everyone, an image of a wall or building blocks to stop mental invasions or attacks, and pure emotion-based thoughts as weapons. These are much more effective, because they're more complex and I can make them unique to me, instead of just copying Jean and the Phoenix."

"Cool. Any chance you'll let me borrow those psychic stakes for patrol some time?" Buffy joked.

Willow smiled, "Doesn't work like that, but if ever we're involved in a psychic battle, you'll be the first one to try them out, promise."

"So, you done?" Buffy asked after a few more moments.

"Yeah. Thanks Buffy," she smiled at the blonde.

"Not a problem," the Slayer replied back, removing her hands from the telepath's shoulders, stopping the reddish-pink glow that had surrounded them. The moment she did, both young ladies felt a wave of exhaustion pummel them, but not enough to worry them. It had been a long day after all.

"Wow, that took a lot out of me," Willow floated down to a cloud, Buffy right beside her.

"Well, since before you were saying you couldn't do it at all, I'd say there's nothing wrong with that. Now that that's done though, how about we try and figure out what the heck is going on here?" Buffy suggested.

"Any ideas?" Willow turned it right around.

"Well, you said you didn't intentionally bring me here . . . any chance you could have done it subconsciously?"

"Because I needed energy and you were willing to share it?"

Buffy nodded.

"It could be part of it, but that doesn't explain how you actually got here. No matter how much I might have wanted or needed it, it would take more energy than I have even now to pull a non-psychic into the Astral Plane like this. I don't suppose there's something you've neglected to tell me, huh?"

Buffy flushed bright red and avoided Willow's gaze for several seconds, finally looking at her and giving a heavy sigh. "For a couple of days now . . . I've been hearing your thoughts. Not anyone else's Willow, just yours. At first it kinda freaked me out, and I would have told you about it sooner, but then the thing with my Mom and all the trouble today and . . ."

Willow was stunned, and it showed. "I just meant if you had some kind of psychic Slayer power . . ." she whimpered. The implications alone of what Buffy was saying were mind-boggling.

"Sorry," the Slayer shrugged with a sheepish grin. "You OK?"

"Just me?"

Buffy nodded, "Just you. And it's not something I can even control, it just . . . happens. I get like insight into what's going on in your head, or I can hear something you're thinking about me, but I know it's not you communicating telepathically with me. At first it was weird, but now I've kind of gotten used to it. It feels . . . nice really."

"Really?" Willow chirped, curious but strangely glad that Buffy thought being connected to her mind was a nice thing.

"Yeah," she agreed, then suddenly asked, "Hey, has it happened to you? I mean, I know your the big bad telepath and everything, but did you ever like suddenly know what I was thinking or hear my thoughts when you weren't wanting to hear my thoughts? Does that make sense?"

Willow flushed bright red and dropped her head, avoiding Buffy's gaze for several long seconds before tentatively answering, still not looking, "Uh . . . yeah, I think I . . . know what you mean. But that still doesn't . . ." She stopped.

Concerned Buffy 'floated' around to get a look at her friend's face and saw a stunned look staring back at her. "Will?" she asked, hoping to get a positive response from her friend.

"Oh. My. God."

Buffy blinked in surprise. The sheer amount of stunned disbelief and shock in Willow's voice and expression was enough to start to worry her. Especially when Willow finally looked back up at her, and she could /feel/ what it was she was feeling. Outright amazement and a little disbelief.

"B-Buffy . . ." the redhead stuttered. Trying again, she said, "Buffy. I know you were never much of an X-Men fan, but you know the basics, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Human evolution, X-gene and all that. What's your point?"

"No, not that! Stuff about the story. Jean and Scott Summers were married, several times, to start with. And then there was the whole Dark Phoenix saga . . ."

"Don't remind me of that, please. I don't want the memory flashes thanks. So yeah, I did know Scott and Jean were married, but again, what's your point?"

"After so many years . . . they discovered, or rather it was revealed by the comics, that because of their relationship, Jean and Scott had a psychic rapport. And it wasn't just something on Jean's end either, Scott, as far as his wife was concerned, was just as psychic and telepathic as she was. For Jean it wasn't just any psychic connection either, but something so much more powerful, more intense, more . . . intimate . . . than any other psychic bond she ever formed with anyone. I think . . . I think . . ."

"You think that, for whatever reason, you and I now have the same, or a similar, what'd you call it? Psychic rapport, that Scott and Jean had?" Buffy finished for Willow.

Not trusting her voice, Willow just nodded her head, her face and expression full of empathy, but at the same time a certain amount of trepidation.

Buffy let out a big sigh, "Oh boy."

/2345 Seaside Lane/

/Smith Household/

Timothy Smith helped his younger brother Fredrick Smith in the house. The superhero Prime had just given them a flying escort home, despite the fact that both Smith brothers could have flown on their own, both were exhausted from what they'd been through, and Prime, who was really Kevin Ozborne, who happened to be a classmate of Tim's, said that it was the least he could do to give the boys a comfortable effort-free ride home, especially after he was one of the ones giving the boys their bruises.

Most of the damage however, was to their pride and their minds. Of course in Fred's case that was a bit more serious than for anyone else. And for Tim, what little damage he'd sustained, mostly bruises and a single cut from flying debris after Buffy's Final Attack, was already healing at an enhanced rate. For a human that is. For a Kree, it was actually a bit slower than it should have been.

Before the boys could make it safely up to their room however, a cold almost sterile voice called out to them as they were on the stairs.

"And what, pray tell, have you boys been up to today? Perhaps training a little hard? Hm?"

Fred winced and Tim grimaced as they turned to see a man standing at the end of the hall. He was dressed in a tailored black suit with white shirt and black tie. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses, despite it being so close to night and being indoors, and they could see a wire ear piece in his left ear. He was white, slightly balding with dark brown hair, and his face was a study in being as emotionless as possible at all times.

A ring tone echoed in the silence of the hall, and a look of annoyance crossed the otherwise cold face of the man in the suit. "Don't move," he coldly ordered the boys while pulling out a cell phone and bringing it up to his right ear. "Agent Smith," he answered the call.

The annoyance disappeared in a flash and a feral, almost insane grin crossed his face, "Mr. Anderson. Well, as much as I would love to come and kill you at the moment, I do have some . . ." he spared a glance at the boys, causing them to shiver slightly, "more important matters to take care of at the moment."

He listened for a bit more and grimaced, "Yes, the boys just got home and yes, I'm not stupid Kakar . . . I'm not stupid Tom, yes I felt it too and . . . Well it was kind of hard to miss. Don't worry, the Mayor's already covering it up, and for once I'm not going to bother questioning the slimy little bastard about it. We'll talk later Tom, I've got to take care of the boys now. See you tomorrow then." He hung up with a sigh and looked back at the boys.

Taking off his sunglasses and taking the ear piece out of his ear he approached the youths and knelt so he was more or less at their height instead of towering over them. Finally he said, a look of parental concern marring the up-till-then cold expression, "Care to tell me what happened today?"

"Would you believe that an omnipath tricked us, used mind control on us and made us fight to the death against a bunch of other super powered teenagers, who then defeated all of us before knocking out the guy controlling us and bringing us home?" Tim asked.

Agent Grant Smith blinked, staring at his two children for a few seconds before a look of extreme annoyance covered his face. "A bunch of /teenagers/ defeated you, MY CHILDREN in combat!" he raged.

"That's a yes by the way," Fred whispered to his brother.

"Did you catch the part where we were being manipulated through mind control?" Tim asked.

"And I thought one of you could resist such basic attempts at manipulation," Grant Smith asked with a tone of accusation.

Fred shrugged, answering, "He tricked me. Believe me, it won't happen again Dad."

"It had better not!" the man exclaimed.

After a few more moments, he calmed down and asked, "I don't suppose either of you know who was responsible for the 10-mile stretch of torn up landscape just outside of town, do you?"

"One of the teenagers we were fighting. She did that to stop the Gamesmaster, the guy controlling us," Tim quickly answered.

"A teenage girl!" Smith exclaimed, clearly surprised.

"She wasn't the only one there that could do some amazing things either Dad," Fred added. "There was another psychic there, maybe a few more, and she was almost as powerful as me, but way more skilled."

Grant Smith sat there for a few more minutes, absorbing what his sons had told him before apparently coming to a decision. "Come on," he finally said, a fatherly grin on his face as he got to his feet, "lets see about getting you boys fixed up, then we'll have some ice cream."

The boys shouted with glee and immediately led the way to the kitchen. "YAAAYYYY!"

Smiling, Grant Smith, Special Investigative Agent for the CIA, followed his boys into the kitchen, loosening his tie as he went, grateful once more for the gift that were his children. He paused as he passed the picture on the nightstand just outside the kitchen. He smiled once more, though there was a sad undertone to it this time. Touching his finger to his lips, he touched the lips of the woman in the photo, silently promising for the thousandth time to always watch over his children, protect them and raise them right.

Of course he'd had quite a few revelations recently on the 'right' way to raise and protect them since Halloween. Especially after what had happened to him directly, though the changes in the boys were further reasons to no longer coddle them all the time.

As they handed out the ice cream, the small family joked and played with each other, enjoying the simple things as much as they could. Just as they were finishing up however, a knock came from the back door. The boys both groaned when they saw that same insane grin cross their father's face at the sound of the knock. Even without the extra-sense powers they'd received from their Halloween costumes, both boys knew that only one person ever knocked on the back door.

Grant let the guest in and greeted the man with a simple, "Tom," and then stepping to the side, not actually inviting him in but allowing him entrance if he wanted it. Before Halloween Grant Smith had done the same thing, but by some unknown instinct. Since Halloween however, he knew better.

The man was just as tall as Grant, but with pale skin and a gaunt look that made it seem as though he spent a great deal of time indoors. He was dressed in a ratty sweat shirt and torn black pants. He had short-cropped black hair and dark eyes, made more so by the bags under his eyes, adding to the image that he spent a lot of time out of sunlight and in far more artificial lighting. Although if you looked close enough, you could clearly see that beneath the humble and gothic exterior, he had powerful and strong muscles and walked and moved with a grace and balance that belied strong martial arts training. There was also something he was hiding but at first glance no one could tell what it might be.

"Smith," the man returned the greeting, stepping inside without any trouble. "Hey boys!" he greeted the boys warmly.

"Hey Tom," Tim replied.

"Hi Mr. Anderson," Fred said between bites of ice cream.

"I thought our conversation was finished Tom," Grant said as he closed the back door and went back to start the dishes.

"Her name is Buffy Summers by the way," was the first thing Thomas Anderson said after being admitted to the home.

Grant froze and turned back to look at his next-door neighbor. "What?"

"The girl that dug the new trench, that rescued the boys this afternoon from the omnipath, and just happens to also be on the Mayor's Most Watched list. With her closest relations and friendships just below her by the way. I did some checking after we hung up, and my hearing's actually pretty good, and the walls are paper thing around this place."

Grumbling, Grant sighed and shook his head as he sat down at the kitchen table. "Summers," he repeated.

"Joyce Summers' daughter," Tom confirmed for his neighbor.

"The lady at the antiques store?" Tim asked. Tom only nodded to the question.

"Damn," Grant cursed, realizing what this meant. "Was there anybody in town not affected?" It was a rhetorical question and they all knew it.

"How did you come across this information anyway?" Smith demanded. "And I don't mean what happened to the boys. How did you find out who it was that did that? No information has been released to the press. In fact everyone except the Mayor's office is trying to ignore what happened today as much as possible."

"I have my sources," Tom replied. "I am after all the owner and CEO of one of the premier Computer Software companies in the country."

"Meaning you hacked her computer," he grimaced.

"I hacked a lot of computers," the computer wizard freely admitted, "Including several Satellite Imaging systems. Unfortunately I don't quite have an explanation for /how/ she did what she did."

"She dressed as Cyclops for Halloween," Fred told them. "It was an optic blast, not a ki blast."

The two adult men stared at the child for several long moments before Tom turned to Grant and said, "It's kind of weird having a psychic for a kid, huh?"

"I just tend to not think about things I'd rather they not know until they're old enough," the father admitted.

"What's sex?" Fred immediately asked.

Tim immediately slapped his hand over his brother's mouth and almost dragged him through the air, literally, shouting over his shoulder, "We're going to go do our homework now! Good night Dad! Night Mr. Anderson!"

Grant chuckled at the boys antics but when he turned back to his neighbor his face immediately fell into what was considered his 'business face', the cold, emotionless expression. "You know Kakarrot, normally I'd kill you for trying to corrupt my offspring, but given the circumstances, and both of our positions at the moment, I'm willing to let you slid for the moment."

"Geez Louise Grant," Tom sat down across from the CIA Agent, "It was one night, and if you're going to call me anything other than my name, could you at least call me Goku? You don't see me going around calling you Vegeta all the time, do you?"

"Sorry," Smith apologized without a hint of remorse, "it's a habit."

"It's a bad habit. Besides, we're /not/ Goku and Vegeta. For one thing, I'm not a brainless oaf that cares only about fighting," Tom argued.

"No, you're a super genius computer wizard that cares only about fighting," Smith snarkily retorted.

"And you're not a cold merciless alien prince convinced of your own superiority and cares about nothing but killing anyone stronger than you," Tom continued as though Smith hadn't spoken at all.

"No, I'm a cold merciless secret agent convinced of my own superiority and cares about nothing but killing anyone and anything that threatens my family," he gave a sharks toothy grin.

They were quiet for a few minutes and Tom lost his poker face and said quietly, "We're lucky we didn't destroy the whole town."

"We're lucky we didn't blow up the whole planet," Smith immediately turned it around.

Both of the Super Saiyan warriors remained in quiet contemplation for the rest of the evening.

/Foster Home/

/Stein Residence/

Robert Clarkson landed softly in the small back yard, the still transformed Captain Marvel right beside him. Cordelia Chase had escorted them most of the way, but both boys had insisted on getting home on their own, not that this was their home. In truth, they didn't actually have a home, but this is where they slept between school hours.

All three had flown here from the High School, Cordy staying aloft until she'd seen both of them land safely and then waited further as Captain Marvel shouted out, "SHAZAM!" and reverted to William Clarkson, Robert's identical twin brother. Nobody called him Billy, or Will, or Willy or Bill. He insisted on being called William, as Robert insisted on being called Robert.

Waving overhead as Cordy flew off into the distance, the boys walked in the back door of the home of Sunnydale Police Detective David Stein, and stopped just inside. A mountain of dark green muscle was standing there waiting, looking at them with a face that seemed to be constantly angry. If they didn't know better, they'd swear that Pete had somehow beat them home and 'Hulked out', but the Hulk didn't have a fin on the top of his head instead of hair, and Pete didn't own, nor wore a genuine Police uniform, which this creature was, although it was stretched tight across its massive chest and inhumanly broad shoulders.

Even if they weren't constantly reading all kinds of comics, the boys would recognize the Savage Dragon. But this wasn't the Savage Dragon from the comics, nor the cartoon show.

"Where the hell have you two been!" the Dragon yelled.

"Where does it look like?" Robert retorted, knowing what the both of them looked like.

"You've been fighting," he stated, no longer asking, he crossed his huge arms in a gesture of annoyance and let out a low sigh. "Boys, I thought we talked about fighting . . . /especially/ since Halloween . . ."

"It wasn't our fault!" William protested.

"That's not the point!" he shouted again.

"Just shut up Stein!" Robert screamed at the Police Detective. "Just shut up all right!" And with that he ran out of the room at full 'Superman' speed, a small tornado tearing up the kitchen where they'd been standing in his wake.

The Dragon, that had once upon a time been Detective Stein, just stared at where Robert had been a moment before, a look of outright surprise and shock breaking through the angry expression. "William . . . I . . ." he tried to apologize.

"It's OK," the young orphan waved off the apology, starting to pick up the papers and other debris that had fallen in the wake of his brother's departure. "It's a lot more complicated, and well . . . Robert didn't come out on top, if you know what I mean. He can still hear us y'know."

"I've begun to realize that," Stein admitted as he knelt down to help William with cleaning up the place. "If . . . you want, you can tell me what happened. I . . . promise to try and not judge."

"It was just a fight, no big deal," William avoided the subject. Once the room was more or less cleaned, he left, following his brother, Stein watching as he walked away, wondering how he'd landed himself in this mess.

It wasn't even two months ago, in the middle of August that Stein had found himself in the unique position of discovering a couple of runaways hiding in the back of his car. Honestly he hadn't even noticed them at first, driving all over Sunnydale before he finally discovered the two filthy twins that had hunkered down in the back seat of his car. Immediately he'd turned right around, after making a phone call and pulled the boys into the station as he tried to talk to them and figure out what he was supposed to do now.

Unfortunately, the foster-care system in Sunnydale was even more under-funded than the police were, which meant that they weren't taking bribes because nobody was offering them. Stein had sat with the boys for a couple of hours, trying to get them to talk to him, first offering them food, comfort, a strong authority figure, everything you're 'supposed' to do when dealing with children. Finally he'd lost his patience and just stared at the boys for the last hour, trying to figure them out without words.

The clothes were ragged, dirty, and what hadn't been washed off had turned their skin an ugly brown, and their black hair was a rats nest of tangles and knots. And the one that he now knew was Robert had a black eye.

"So, you like to fight?" he finally asked, apparently startling the boys after his long silence.

They'd stared at him like he was some kind of criminal, or rather they stared at him the same way he stared at criminals, whereas before they hadn't even once looked at him, even as he dragged them into the station.

"I like to fight too. Take boxing down at the Y, little karate and self-defense thrown in too. Thing is I make sure I fight the right people. Criminals, punks, gangs, shit like that," he'd continued talking. "I don't fight more than I can handle, and if I ever do find myself out numbered or outclassed, I always make sure I have some back-up nearby. So I'm not fighting alone. I also make it a point to /not/ fight the wrong people. Does that make me a coward? I don't think so. I think it makes me smart. Cause then I'm not getting hurt when I don't have too and I'm not making enemies left and right when what I really need are friends. So tell me kids, are you smart fighters . . . or do you just like making enemies?"

They'd just stared at him, and he could tell they still weren't going to talk to him, so he'd just left. So imagine his surprise when, once the weekend was over, he got called back into the station and a Social Worker was there ordering him to take the boys for temporary foster care. Of course he'd tried to fight it. He was a dedicated bachelor, and he most certainly wasn't ready to be a father, of any kind. His hands were tied when everyone right up to the Mayor ignored him and told him to just take care of the boys and shut up about it.

It took him a week of digging before he found out that they had asked for him by name when the Social Worker asked what they wanted to do. Before that moment he'd done nothing but gripe and complain to everyone around him and did as absolutely little as possible for the boys as he could. He bought them clothes, he bought enough food for the three of them, and he dropped them off and picked them up at school every day. For the first week not a single word was spoken that wasn't absolutely necessary, (like "Pass the food" or "Outta the way"), in Stein's house. After that moment, everything changed.

Stein wasn't angry anymore, at first he was kinda curious but he never asked the boys why him, so he just started gently. First by no longer blaming the boys for the god-awful circumstances they were in, and that made a difference enough as Stein noticed they stopped treating him like the enemy.

The first words the boys spoke to him, which wasn't until early September, were "Our parents are dead," and then they told him the story of how their parents had been killed. By vampires.

Before September, he'd been like everyone else in Sunnydale, purposely ignoring anything and everything weird that happened around them, and always being inside well before sundown and never questioning why. At first, after hearing their story, Stein tried to keep up the facade, tried to ignore what the boys were telling him, tried to convince himself that they were "confused" or making it all up like kids do. But he'd seen that look in their eyes as they told their story.

You can't fake that look.

After that, while they certainly weren't a /family, they became a great deal more . . . fond of each other. Stein almost believed they became friends. Imagine, him, the longest on-record Homicide Detective in Sunnydale, CA/friends/ with a couple of bratty 10-year-old twins.

Yeah . . . imagine that.

During his recollections, Stein had grabbed a case of beer and gone to his living room, sitting in his chair and chugging down bottle after bottle. He was through half the case before he even began to feel the buzz.

Looking down at his green skin, he scowled and tore open the rest of the case, popping another with ease. As much as having trouble between him and the boys was a reason to drink, he had another that was even more of a reason.

There'd been four major costume-needing events going on in Sunnydale on Halloween. The first and most obvious being taking the children of Sunnydale Trick-or-Treating, which the troll Snyder had then "volunteered" his High School student for escort-duty. The second was a Parents/Adults Costume Party at City Hall. More than half the adult population in Sunnydale had shown up there, the parents of the Sunnydale children, both child and teen among the guest list.

The other two were a bit more 'Invite-only' and not many knew about it. For starters, there was to be a Teens-Only costume party at the club called the /Bronze/ about an hour after the Trick-or-Treating was done. According to Stein's information, that party never actually happened, but there were still a lot of costumed people at the /Bronze/ before, during, and after the . . . excitement of Halloween Costume Chaos. That's what the press was calling it anyway.

The last was a little-known Special Invite-only party that wasn't really a party as it was a meeting. More or less it was the 'human' underworld, meeting in the basement of the Police Station, the costumes meant as a cover of a 'Police Costume Party', but that had turned to shit after everyone at the meeting turned /into/ their costume.

And all of it/ALL/ of them, everyone in Sunnydale, everyone that went to /any/ of the four events at all, had gone to one place, the only place really, in town that had costumes to sell. /Ethan's/.

Stein didn't know what happened, but he knew the smarmy English son-of-a-bitch that had sold him the stupid "Savage Dragon" costume, something he'd actually bought for the boys, seeing how they loved comic books, was to blame for what he'd become. A monster. And worse of all, a monster that was a cop with a conscience.

There weren't going to be anymore 'underworld' meetings. Ever again.

He'd almost lost his job, and not because of what the Dragon had done at that meeting, but because he now was the Dragon. He was still Stein, but his body wasn't his anymore and he'd finally come to grips that he'd never be "normal" ever again when Robert and William had finally revealed to him that they'd been changed too.

He'd almost quit, but the boys had pulled him out of that, and when it came down to it, he'd fought to keep his job. He wasn't the lead Homicide Detective anymore, but he'd been kept on, mostly because he wasn't the only one that had been changed into something . . . more, or different. And the Chief, who hadn't exactly been untouched himself, wasn't about to get rid of more than half his force just cause a couple of them, Stein included, didn't look human anymore.

Unfortunately, or maybe not, for Stein, the Dragon was damn near invulnerable and stronger than all-get-out. The good thing was that he had control of the strength, and didn't destroy absolutely everything he touched. The bad thing was that it was an absolute bitch to get drunk when your body adapted faster than you could drink it down.

With barely even a buzz, hell not even a buzz, Stein cleaned up his mess of beer bottles and went to get his specially tailored jacket, only one that could fit him anymore, planning on going out to get something a bit stronger. Given that he could leap entire football fields with a thought, and his plan to get passed-out drunk, Stein didn't bother driving. The store was just around the corner from his house anyway.

With a sigh, he shouted up to the boys, "I'm going out for a bit. Don't invite anybody in and . . . well, you know . . ." he trailed off and slammed the door behind him.

/Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic/

"OK, Fearless Leader, where the hell do you go off making a decision like that!" Marco screamed the moment the door to the mostly empty warehouse was closed.

"Which?" Jake honestly asked, "Promising our resources to help those kids, or agreeing to join an organization of superhumans?"

"BOTH! Neither! Either! I don't know! But I'm not their slave just because I happen to be the most brilliant mind on this planet, and probably quite a few others of any consequence."

"You're not the only one that knows how to configure a holo-matrix, moron," Rachel snapped back.

"But I am the only one that knows how to reverse engineer an anti-matter reactor enough to build one with /extremely limited/ 20th Century technology!" the Hispanic boy countered.

"But you're not capable of doing that," Jake pointed out. "First of all because of the lack of dilithium, second because it would take you upwards of a few years to gather and then even begin to utilize all the materials required to do it, and lastly because you'd get bored and move on to another project before you'd complete it."

"Is this 'pick-on-Marco-day'? Did I miss it on the calendar or something?"

"Guys," Cassie quietly silenced the room, and not through psychic manipulations either.

"Jake did the right thing, and I'm going to support him as much as possible," the black girl said point blank, she then turned around to start her chores.

The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic was an abandoned warehouse just outside the residential zone that Cassie's parents had bought when she was still a little girl. Her father was a practicing physician at the local hospital whereas her mother was Sunnydale's only veterinarian. The clinic was more Cassie's mother's, but both Cassie and her father usually found themselves coming out here to take care of the Clinic's patients. Because the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic's patients were injured wild animals that either Cassie's family, or other people brought to heal and then were released as soon as they were able to without immediately dying.

Cassie's chores, when there wasn't a critical patient, were usually just change the water and food, clean the cages, or whatever the animals were held in, and tidy up. Other than that, and the off chance that her mother or father had some free time, the Clinic was empty save for the animals, which were actually pretty few today. Which gave the Star Fleet kids all the privacy they desired.

Recently however, they'd also started using it as their personal base of operations, with Marco, Ax and Tobias using the left over junk and a closed off section of the warehouse to hold their tinkerings and attempts at recreating Star Fleet technology with the limited 20th Century tech they had available. Ax's holo-disguise and a few other trinkets, including a couple Universal Translator Communicators, had seen their birth.

"I don't think any of us," Rachel gave a death-glare at Marco, "are arguing that it wasn't the right thing or anything like that. It's just . . . maybe we had other plans, than joining in with these . . . teenagers."

"Hate to break it to you Rachel," Tobias interrupted, "but we're all about to /be/ teenagers all over again."

"Speaking of which . . ." Marco left the statement hanging, giving a meaningful glare in Tobias' direction.

"I don't enter Pong Far for another 17 months Marco," the half-Vulcan griped.

"But do you know what you're gonna do when the shakes start coming on?" the genius pressed. Rachel'd had enough though and slammed the boy's head with a fist.

"He'll do what he does every time Marco, not that it's any of your business!" the blonde shouted in his face.

"Aren't you a little young for that?" Marco replied with a sick grin.

"Y'know buddy," Jake interrupted Rachel's attack, standing over his friend, "you're right, and you musta missed it, cause guess what? It is 'Pick-on-Marco-day'," he then grabbed the boy by the collar and easily lifted him up to eye-level. "You just crossed a line. /Don't/ do it again. Do you understand me?"

The humor left Marco's face in an instant and he nodded silently to his commander, "Yes sir," he quietly seriously.

"Been working out Captain?" Ax asked once everyone was back to their respective corners.

"A little bit," Jake answered stoically. "And since we're on the subject, does anyone else have any complaints about my decision to help these children?"

"Only one," Tobias spoke after a full two minutes of heavy silence, "Your calling them children. Yes, we've all experience full lifetimes, and yeah, from our point of view, each of us are in our mid to late forties, if not fifties. 150's for Ax and me," he added. "But. They /aren't/ children. In fact from their point of view, we're the children."

"Believe me Tobias, I'm keeping that well in mind," Jake assured him.

"You've got a plan," Rachel observed. It wasn't a question.

"I've got a theory and a hope," he corrected.

"Meaning he's working on a /detailed/ plan," Marco added.

"Mom's coming," Cassie suddenly warned.

Unfortunately, Marco had gutted Ax's holo-costume when he was making the psionic suppressor, and while Marco and Tobias were publicly known as being Jake's closest friends, Cassie's mother wasn't particularly fond of them. Especially not Marco. So Ax, Tobias and Marco immediately broke into a mad-dash scramble for the closed off section of the warehouse. Thankfully, they made it just as the front door was opening and Cassie's mother, Katherine Applegate stepped inside.

"Hey guys," Mrs. Applegate greeted her daughter's friends upon entering. "Cassie, did you . . . ?"

"Yes," the young woman answered shortly still sweeping up some hay that had spilled out of one of the lofts. Her mother opened her mouth to asked another question, but before she could even utter a syllable, Cassie answered, "Yes. Yes. No. Not yet. Dad's doing it right now, and yes. Rachel's going to help me on a Social Studies project and Jake and I were going to go to the Bronze after we'd finished up."

Mrs. Applegate stared, stunned, but finally just closed her mouth, nodded her head, and went to check on the animals. Fifteen minutes later, she left, apparently satisfied.

"Isn't it kinda . . . dangerous to do that so openly?" Jake asked. "I mean, don't your parents wonder about how their daughter is suddenly psychic?"

"You must not have been paying attention before Jake," Rachel laughed out loud. "Cassie's always done that with her parents. Nothing psychic about it, she just knows them so well that she can predict almost everything they're going to do or say to her."

If Jake didn't know any better, and if Cassie's skin wasn't so dark, he'd swear the girl was blushing. He decided to let the matter drop for the moment and turned attentions back to the more important matters at hand.

"How long until we can get the phasers back up and running?" he asked Rachel as the three of them went to join the others in the closed-off section.

"I still need to get ahold of those focusing lenses, and of course getting some new casings together, but with access to the junk yard none of that should be a problem," she answered. "I can probably have the initial prototype up and firing by Monday at the latest. Once we've worked out all the bugs, I can have one for each of us, with rejuvenating fusion power packs by the end of next week if everything goes OK."

"Same with the dermal regenerator and emergency fluid and tissue pump. On the latter, all I need are the DNA samples and basic computer core. Marco has Ax working on the smaller units and he's promised at least two fully functional units by the end of the week," Cassie reported.

"Actually, I've just completed the first one here," Ax, now in his holo-disguise and looking like his once human geeky self, reported holding up a small metal cube, no bigger, in fact smaller than a lump of sugar.

"And I need that for the upgraded Tricorder," Tobias argued.

"It's a basic computer model," the disguised Andorian argued back, "Little better, perhaps a bit faster than a 'fully state-of-the-art consumer market computer'. Marco's working on the standard models."

"No, Marco's working on the Main Computer again," Tobias gestured to behind him where Marco was hunched over a crowded and very messy work bench.

"I'll work on the standards," Jake stopped the argument. "Ax, given what we've discovered today, medical takes priority for the moment. Cassie gets this one, Tobias gets the very next one you complete."

"Aye Captain."

"Don't call me Captain, I'm not a Star Fleet Captain, Star Fleet doesn't even exist!" Jake ordered. To which Ax immediately replied with a serious, "Aye Captain."

Rolling his eyes, Jake sighed and went over to another crowded bench and began working on creating a standard computer module. Standard for the late 24th Century that is.

From the very moment that the crew, codenamed "Sigma Squad" by Star Fleet Intelligence, had found themselves in 20th Century Earth, Sunnydale, CA, they'd been doing everything they could to build "survival gear". Thankfully, their communicators, tricorders, phasers, Cassie's Med-kit, and Marco's Toy Box (as he called it), had remained fully functional and "changed" after the spell had worn off allowing them at least some materials to work with instead of going from scratch with whatever a bunch of teenagers could scrap together from 20th Century technology.

Unfortunately, every one of their devices, save the communicators and tricorders, were the standard Star Fleet gear. Meaning they ran on batteries and very shortly after Halloween was over, despite the best attempts at preserving them, ran out of power. Tricorders were actually designed to be adaptable to multiple types of power sources, as they tended to be invaluable in the field and were thus able to be recharged just by routing the power supply to an electrical source. And the communicators were run off of biologics, body heat and nerve conduction and the like. The problem, and the reason for upgrading the communicators and tricorders, was that both required transponders from more powerful computers, so they were forced to turn them into portable super-computers whereas before they'd been the equivalent of Pocket PCs.

Of course the equal advantage and disadvantage of having a team full of geniuses, one of which was a super genius that could rival the android Data in terms of intelligence, was that just upgrading their 'survival gear' soon wasn't enough. Jake might have been joking when he'd told everyone at the meeting that between the six of them they could build their own starship, but he really wasn't. He'd just wanted them all to think he was joking.

Because that's exactly what they were doing. Or trying to do anyway.

But again, it went back to not having enough of the proper resources. Six teenagers, no matter how rich, smart, or downright crafty they were, in the 20th Century had absolutely no way of getting enough raw materials to even /begin/ building a shuttle craft, let alone a Galaxy-class starship. That didn't stop them from trying however.

So while the Star Fleet kids might have been a godsend to the X-Slayerettes and the others because of their technology and knowledge, it turns out that everyone else was exactly what the crew that once was Sigma Squad were looking for.

Suddenly Marco broke the intense atmosphere of concentration with an announcement, "OK, everybody come and check this out!"

Curious, as Marco rarely sounded in this good of a mood after a long day, they all drifted over to find him sitting before the modified laptop, which was the current incarnation of their "Main Computer". The fact that it currently had more power and memory space than the most advanced Super computer in use of the day made it acceptable, but compared to a 24th Century Main Computer it was still pitifully slow.

On the enhanced screen, (it seemed Marco had been making further upgrades to it) they saw a sketch diagram of an impressive looking complex. And that was with just the outlines of it, with the potential for so much more.

"OK, I give up, what is it?" Rachel demanded after a full minute.

"Our new base," Marco proudly announced, crossing his arms in a self-satisfied manner.

"The abandoned lot?" Jake's curiosity was piqued now, looking with renewed vigor at the diagram. His eyebrows went up in appreciation.

Tobias gave the typical Vulcan one-eyebrow arch, but remained silent.

"FOUR reactors!" Ax exclaimed after looking more closely at the plans.

"Think we'll need more?" Marco remarked.

"We're going to need a lot of help to even get started on this," Rachel observed.

Jake and Marco's grins were identical as they said together, "We have it."

/Anime Club house/

/Home of Dexter Lee/

Dexter Lee, since Halloween, expert Go player and master strategist, opened the door and allowed in his girlfriend and the other two members of Sunnydale's Anime Club into his home. Lindsey Cook, Sandra Thompson, and Lance Wolfe all entered single-file, tense looks on their face. Without any preamble, Dexter closed the door and lead the way to the TV room and turned on the news, the LA news as the Sunnydale news wasn't showing what they were interested in. Namely, the mysterious new canyon that had appeared just outside of Sunnydale that afternoon.

Dexter muted it as the reporter started to spout some cover-up involving a gas explosion and looked intently at all of his friends.

Finally he spoke, "I think it's safe to say that KOS-MOS' Hilbert Effect affected more people than just us."

"Y'think?" Lance sarcastically remarked.

"Snyder's one thing," Sandra considered, "but this is something entirely different. I thought only KOS-MOS had that kind of power anyway," she looked over to Lindsey.

The blonde shook her head, denying involvement, "I didn't do that. Besides, my parameters are limited until Shion releases battle protocols." The blue-eyed teen shook her head, frowning at the slip into 'android-mode' as Lance called it. "Sorry, I meant I can't use my, or rather KOS-MOS' weapons until Dexter tells me to. Turning into KOS-MOS is one thing, and using her speed and strength, but the weapons are entirely different."

"And don't forget, Grunide could do something like that," Dexter pointed at the TV screen, "easily. And yeah, Grunide's dead. But there were plenty of other people that night with similar power or abilities. Those two warriors we saw fighting in the sky? And who knows what else was out that night."

"OK, so other people are still connected to their costumes," Lance shrugged and crossed his arms, "So what? What's that got to do with us?"

"We've been real lucky so far," Dexter said, "Nobody's found out about what we can do, and we haven't come across anyone that displayed still having powers or abilities left over from a costume on Halloween. But luck only goes so far. Eventually /somebody/ is going to find us and we need to decide soon what to do about it."

"What do you mean Dex?" Sandra asked.

"I've run the odds," he admitted to them, turning the TV off and sitting down in his chair, "most likely to happen when we come across somebody else with costume powers or whatever left over from Halloween, we fight and people get hurt. I'm working with anime-basis by the way, DBZ, Guyver, Evangelion, Gundam. Even in the latter, there's a chance that they may know how to /build/ a real life Gundam or Mobile Suit of some kind."

"We could also team up with some other people, build up our fighting force so we're so strong than nobody's going to /want/ to fight us. Strength in numbers and that kind of thing," he continued. "But whatever we do, we need to decide on it soon and together."

"You saying we should add membership to the Anime club?" Lance asked, amused.

Dexter opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a blinding flash of light that filled the room. When the light had cleared Lindsey, now with blue glowing hair and flashing red eyes stood in front of Dexter, her arms held up protectively in front of him. Lance and Sandra likewise had flanked Dexter, swords drawn before the light had fully faded.

However, any attack that they'd been expecting never came and the few moments it took for the non-android-cyborgs of them to adjust their vision back to normal was all that was needed to identify that the flash of light had just been the arrival of a unique individual. He was a little less than five feet tall, short black hair and pasty pale skin. Although the patches of white along his temples made him look older and wiser than his actual age, which appeared to be around 17 or so. He was dressed normal, for an introverted geeky teenager that is, but he also had a sparkle in his eye that spoke of wisdom beyond human understanding.

"Greetings," was the first words out of his mouth, he smiled broadly at them and gave a funny little bow. "I'm glad to see all of you are well."

"Who the fuck are you?" Lance point-blank asked, stepping forward threateningly with his sword.

"Oh yeah, forgot you guys didn't see me the last time you saw me," the boy blushed. "Here, this might help," he then waved his hand over his face, golden sparkles trailing behind and instantly his face transformed to one slightly more familiar to the Anime Club.

"You're the Dungeon Master!" Dexter exclaimed as the boy reverted to his original appearance. "Or rather, you're the one that dressed as him for Halloween."

"Correct," he nodded, "but my real name is Jonathan, Jonathan Levinson. And as with you and everyone else in Sunnydale that wore a costume on that night, I retain the powers and abilities of my costume. Which means I kind of have all of Dungeon Master's powers . . . and I know a lot of stuff. Destiny-type stuff."

"Destiny does not exist, it is a human expression of belief in directive and purpose for ones life," Lindsey monotoned, her red eyes flashing with mistrust.

"You'd be surprised," was all Jonathan replied with to that.

"But what I actually meant was that, unknown to most, one of Dungeon Master's powers was the power of premonition. That kinda makes me psychic and I can see all the possibilities of a person's or people's actions and how they affect the world. For the Dungeon Master, that was seeing the fate of his own world and how it connected with others. For me . . ." he trailed off, a haunted look in his eyes.

"Let's just say some of the scenarios I've seen aren't pretty. But there are still some good ones. Still hope. There's even a possibility of an absolute paradise." Jonathan stopped and gestured to a chair and asked, "May I sit down?"

One by one the others turned to look at Dexter. This was, after all, his house. Hesitantly, he nodded and went back to his own seat. The still-blue-haired Lindsey staying by his side, but Lance and Sandra went back to their own seats as well.

Jonathan nodded his thanks and took the seat. "I've been trying to get everything straight in my head, and I've . . . I've tried to, well/guide/ events along to the better options for future events. The events of this afternoon were only the beginning."

"You're responsible for that canyon?" Dexter demanded.

Jonathan shrugged, showing a confidence the geek had never had before, "In a way. I was not the one that did it, but I did manipulate events and the people that were directly responsible for it. Although not in the way you're probably thinking. I gave a clue to the ones that needed the warning and were suitably prepared because of it. I had nothing to do with what they were defending themselves against."

"What's that got to do with us?" Lance demanded.

"Lance," Dexter chastised the basketball player.

"It's OK, you do have a right to know why I've come to you. I need your help. And given how your . . . personalities are those that have a particular distaste to being manipulated, I decided to properly introduce myself and explain to you my reasons and then ask for your help in the task that is required of you."

"Required of us?" Sandra repeated, suspicious.

"I don't get the whole picture, but I get enough of it to know what leads to what and what the end pictures look like," Jonathan tried to explain. "I know that there's something about to happen that you have to play a part in. What that part is and exactly what it is, I can't say. Free will plays a lot more into shaping the future than most realize, but I can tell you this much, the consequences of doing nothing or doing the wrong thing are graver and far worse than the worst you can imagine."

"Try us," Lance gave a typical-Kyo-grin.

"The war with the Gnosis, 12th Century Feudal Japan, and fighting killer vampire-like demons that can walk away from being blasted by a tank . . ." Jonathan recited, looking at each in turn, "Yeah, safe to say the consequences are a LOT worse than the worst you can imagine. Trust me in that much at least."

That silenced the club pretty effectively.

Finally, Dexter said, "OK, fine, say we trust you and your . . . visions. What is it that you want us to do? Not that we're going to do it, just so we know," he added when the others glared at him.

"There's a large group of children than need your help and guidance. They were changed as we all were, but in a different form. We became characters of fiction, fantasy, cartoons and the like. They became . . . something else," Jonathan looked significantly more troubled by what he was saying than anything he'd said so far, his eyes glassy as he looked inward.

"On Sunday, go to the park, wait and see. Trust comes hard, but help will come harder than anything. The monsters you see will not be the true demons, and the demons you see are not the true monsters. If you need aid, remember that strength /does/ lie in numbers, and friends."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean!" Lance lost patience.

"Sorry. Sometimes I can't help doing the riddle thing. Unfortunately I really can't tell you more than that. Like I said, free will plays a big part. You don't have to go . . . but I really think you should. You could make the difference, if you're willing to that is. I'll let myself out," Jonathan said once he saw that his welcome had been warn out by now.

"Uh, by the door please," Dexter requested. "I don't think my eyes could take that again."

"Right," Jonathan agreed, "Sorry about that." He then got up, went to the door and left. They could see the blinding flash from under the door that he teleported away the moment the door was shut.

"See what I mean," Dexter remarked to the others.

TBC...