The wave of Chaos magic burst forth from the Halloween costume shop, sweeping through downtown Sunnydale first and changing several unlucky people there which had the misfortune to previously buy their holiday outfits from a very creepy Englishman. The spell continued its journey, to then pass through the suburbs of the small California city where it inflicted itself upon many more of its intended targets, including a number of children being escorted by one Xander Harris.
As these youngsters either became the characters to match their costumes or ran screaming in terror away from the newly-created monsters, their former guardian had his own problems. Xander had promptly crumbled to the sidewalk, ignored by all those in the vicinity fleeing those new fiends pursuing them, as the body and features of that young man began to change. A teenager's form now lengthened and broadened into that of a fully-grown adult, and Xander's face altered into an entirely different sly and shifty countenance that was very familiar to viewers of Fox Television.
However, while the Chaos magic was modifying Xander into Mayor Quimby, the spell discovered something else that had been imbued with Ethan Rayne's identifying enchantments laid upon the attire and other objects in his shop that would mark these as worn by those to have their personalities and bodies modified into their costumes' characters. The British mage had designated the sash Xander had brought from him, not caring further who or what that lad would be changed into on Halloween night. Unfortunately, Ethan had cast the identifier spell on all of what Xander had on him at that exact moment, including a dog-eared business card in that young man's wallet, signed by a certain politician.
If a spell could be thought to have an actual mind of its own, at that point the Chaos magic would have just shrugged, and then it carried out its ordered task of changing the bearer of the identifier spell, instantly transferring an individual from wherever they were and whatever they were doing in their original body, into a completely new body that had formerly contained a quite different person. The Chaos magic could do this across entire dimensions; getting hold of someone a few blocks away was not going to be any great problem.
In his office at City Hall, Richard Wilkins III was just starting to look up from his desk, only now reacting to the fact that someone had just set off the equivalent of a magical nuclear weapon in his city, when the Chaos magic came calling. During all the years he'd been ruling Sunnydale, Wilkins had discreetly set up the most powerful wards possible around his workplace, powered by the life-force of thousands of human sacrifices, each and every one of them the salt of the earth, and in all that time, his protections had been more than adequate to defend him from any other mage's attacks.
The Chaos magic went through every single ward like a twenty-ton wrecking ball through a spider's cobweb, causing Wilkins to instantly disappear from his office, with the pencil the mayor had been holding in one hand dropping with a faint clatter onto that politician's desk.
In the meantime, Hyena had instantaneously gone from a deep sleep into full alertness, urged by hair-trigger predator reflexes that had brought the animal spirit from lying down in her den to standing stiff-legged, eyes blazing yellow/green, and jaws gaping to show every sharp incisor ready to rend and tear during anything that might happen next. Though, Hyena didn't quite expect what in fact did take place.
Above Hyena, not just the roof of the den and the rest of the entire African savannah she'd constructed, but also the mental cage created months ago by Xander to imprison her, winked totally out of existence, leaving behind a bare landscape of the mind that contained only herself, up to the point when some other person now abruptly materialized into this setting. If Ethan Rayne had somehow managed to learn about this, that mage would have started laughing uproariously at how his spell of disorder had just arbitrarily placed someone in their new home right at the exact location which a teenager had absently called 'the place for the dangerous stuff.'
Hyena didn't care; every fiber of her being instead shrieked: INTRUDER! INTRUDER! An interloper was in her territory! In a soundless rush, the animal spirit dashed forward in her frenzied charge, too enraged to make the slightest sound as her maniac gaze held steady upon the exposed back of that monkey standing there, ignorant of the doom about to descend upon it.
Richard Wilkins III looked around in disbelief. Somehow, he'd been transported into someone's mind. How? Why? Was this some kind of attack? At that last thought, Wilkins stiffened in anger, and he lifted his hands, with mystical lightning beginning to crackle along the palms of his hands, ready to be used at once against anybody who'd done this. His immediate willingness to resort to violence was the only thing that saved him then and there, as his quick response also brought him the slightest flicker of motion from the corner of the mayor's eye.
Wilkins' bodily flinch that desperately turned into a hasty spin on his feet saved him from being entirely hamstrung, as Hyena's vicious snap of her jaws as she rushed past the man only ripped away a good chunk of Wilkins' left calf instead of taking off his whole leg. As he screamed in agony, the mayor still managed to take aim at what had attacked him and which was now twisting around in another rush, firing from both hands lightning bolts that smashed into that insane animal.
Hyena was bowled off her feet, rolling over several times along the ground, as she howled in her own searing pain. Still, once she came to a stop, the animal spirit staggered upright, despite being terribly wounded, including most of the right side of her body burned down to the bone and her right front leg completely blown off. It didn't matter; she was going to kill that monkey and feast upon his entrails, so Hyena charged again in an immense leap using all the force of her hind legs, sailing through the air right at her foe.
Once he'd fired his magical bolts, Wilkins had dropped to his knees and clutched with both hands his mangled left calf, hurriedly muttering healing spells while he frantically gathered up his Hellmouth-taken powers for a quick exit. Anywhere would do, away from this place and that damned dog or whatever it was! Again, a flicker of motion caught the mayor's eye, and he looked up in utter horror at what was coming right at him. Wilkins barely had enough time to bring his hands back around in front of him, lifting these up and firing another brace of lightning bolts that slammed into his opponent in mid-air.
Unfortunately, Wilkins had been both a fraction too slow and too low, hitting Hyena in her lower chest instead of right in the face, so that animal spirit was still alive and moving when she collided full into Wilkins' own chest, knocking that man over flat on his back and having Hyena land directly onto his torso. She instantly took full advantage of this, as her muzzle gaped open and then snapped shut on Wilkins' left forearm, as jaw muscles that could crush rhinoceros bones effortlessly severed the man's limb.
An ear-splitting shriek of anguish came from the mayor, as the animal that had just bitten off his arm now let go of the pieces, to begin wriggling and clawing its way up his body, as that thing's mouth opened wide, drooling blood and saliva, it's yellow/green eyes brightly glowing as it stared at the ultimate prize, his throat. Barely able to move from his injuries, a despairing Wilkins did the only thing he could think of. If he couldn't survive this, at least he'd damn well kill the animal that killed him. Pulling up every remaining bit of his magical powers, a ball of blazing blue-white energy formed in his right palm, and as Wilkins felt the scorching breath of his foe on his face, he looked right into the snarling features of the animal lunging at his gullet.
Screaming his own rage at dying such a stupid death after all he'd done in his long life, at the moment he felt teeth rip into him, Richard Wilkins III lifted his right hand and then he slapped his right palm against the skull of the beast that had just torn out his throat, grimly detonating his ultimate annihilation spell.
In the mental landscape of a teenager, all of the described activities above had taken place in less than a second, and in the real world of the Halloween night in a small California city, a man's body lying on the sidewalk abruptly convulsed once, violently enough to risk tearing muscles and breaking bones, until this person dressed in a blue suit then fell limply back onto the ground, and now breathing shallowly and with his eyes closed, the slack features of Richard Wilkins III showed themselves to be unseeingly gazing upwards into the darkness, as Chaos reigned in Sunnydale.