"Dove, I think she is inviting us onto the horseless wagons," Fret said. His head was wrapped in bandages and he had been forced to lay down. The little dwarf was a little annoyed with the strange healers. "Perhaps they can give us an explanation of the explosion we witnessed. Or of their strange magics. There must be some sage who knows the common tongue."

"Yes, perhaps we should," suggested Kellindil, his shooting arm now fixed into a sling. "Though they seem strange, they have offered only that brute McGristle any harm and I am not arguing with that. Also, they seem to have already taken the Drow."

"We should at least investigate his intentions, Lady Falconhand," Gabriel said as he put his armor back on.

"Very well, we will go with them," Dove said. "We also need to know what these people are doing in the Silver Marches. My sister will not be pleased to find another unaligned power in the North."

"Her look reminds me some of those who come from the East. Beyond the Wastes and on to Kara-Tur," mused Fret, stroking his beard as he looked at Dr. Chung. "And the girl could have come from the Uthgardt barbarian tribes, she does seem to have their rage but not their black hair. Perhaps one of the Icewind Dale tribes."

"No, her mannerisms are quite wrong," Gabriel said flatly. "And they have a wariness of strangers and magics quite beyond anything I've seen elsewhere. An Uthgardt wouldn't be living with these people, she would have been killing them."

"I agree with Gabriel, she is a stranger to these lands, and not just to us," Dove stated simply, as she readjusted her leather armor to account for her wounds. "And she is some kind of Champion to have killed a giant with rope alone. We would have heard legends of her if she lived locally. Her strength is greater than that of ten men."

"Ma'am? We're trying to get close to the redhead, but the dog's not letting us close," Forest said. "It's a nasty piece of work. We didn't thing we should get bit."

"Good thinking," Dr. Chung said with a nod. Turning back to the truck she called out to one of the other doctors. "We have a tranque gun in that thing?" The military doctor nodded and tossed her the pistol. With an expert shot, she shot the dog in the neck. It whipped its head around and whimpered before falling over in a heap. Tossing the tranque gun back, she nodded to the dog. "Shouldn't be any problem now. Bring the dog too, but keep it sedated and quarantined."

"Ma'am? We've found 43 cavemen still alive, a number of which are in serious condition," this was Riley Finn, the team leader. "We have them field treated and loaded as you commanded."

"Good work Agent Finn," it paid to be polite, even if they were military.

"There's another problem," the blond kid pointed to the female giant. "She's still alive and she's got kids on her back in a sling. Ankles are cut, but she won't let anyone near her."

"Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone else die," Dr. Chung said with a grim look. "tranque her with everything we've got and load her on the flatbed. Don't hurt the babies."

"Professor Walsh will want to look at them too," Finn said, he grinned at Chung's questioning look. "She's been doing a lot of demon physiology work for the past year. This will be a different case."

Dr. Amelia Chung sighed deeply. The last thing she wanted was to save a life only to doom the creature to a life as a lab rat. Using tarps and cables, they bound the wounds on the Giant's legs. It would take a team of surgeons hours to mend the tendons and flesh. Physical Therapy could take years to allow the giant woman to walk again without a severe limp. When the giant was finally unconscious, they wrapped her up and pulled her, using tarps to lessen the friction on the ground and to limit further injury. She was loaded onto the flatbed and carefully strapped in so she would not fall off or injure herself if she awoke early.

"I don't know where we are going to put her," Dr. Chung said with a grimace.

"There is a mostly empty aircraft hanger at the airport," suggested Agent Finn with a shrug.

"As good a place as any. I wish it could be sterilized, but it's the best we can do at the moment," she paused a moment and sighed. "Call it in and have them clear the remainder out."

It was going to be a long night.

Drizzt rode along with Team 3 on the way to Sunnydale. This was something he had never heard tales of from Menzoberranzan. Sticks that could kill by pointing, wagons with nothing pulling them. The powers of the surface world were far too many to describe.

They had been traveling for some time when Drizzt caught his first glance at the City of Sunnydale. The gorge was filled with a mass of stone with several layers of brightly striped rock that shown brilliantly in the early morning sun. almost to the top of the wall of stone, round holes were burrowed deep inside. Suddenly with a rumble, water burst forth from the holes. He watched, amazed at the sight. To his surprise, it became more spectacular as every so often a dark shape would fly out and burst into flames even when soaked in water. It must have been a celebration of some kind for the return of their troops.

Truly this must be one of the great wonders of the surface world.

Marl was a vampire, but as vampires go he was pretty good at taking care of himself. He had been turned back in the 30s in San Fran after a union strike went nasty. A few years later he heard about the hunting ground known as Sunnydale and set off. The rumors were true, Sunnydale was a great place for a meal. Anything you wanted: Italian, Chinese, or Mexican cuisine, anything; you just had to wandering around to find what you were looking for. But it had gotten harder after the Slayer moved in. But Marl was pretty smart. He soon realized that if you didn't turn anybody, spend time in graveyards or around the Bronze, it was easy to stay out of the way. The slayer rarely went into the sewers because the numbers were against her and there was no place to escape to. She'd learned her lesson after the first week. He cleaned up after himself by feeding the bodies to a family demons he knew and they tipped him off to any Slayer activity up above. Soon the docks were his hunting ground. It was funny how the slayer never showed up there.

But he hadn't been up in a couple of days, not since he heard Angelus was causing some real trouble. Taking a job as a Big Bad's flunky was like wearing a red shirt in Star Trek: liable to get you killed.

Unfortunately, he also had not gotten the message of the spatial transposition of the town of Sunnydale. He had pondered about the lower water levels in the sewers, but it hadn't worried him. But later on, he started to hear rumbling to what used to be the north. Unbeknownst to him, this rumble was caused by the water backing up in the various plugs that had been built by the various denizens of the sewer city. These plugs came in many shapes and forms from sacrificial shrines to sleeping areas to speakeasies where a few vamps could share a bit of O negative. If these plugs had not been there, the water would have simply risen slowly. With the plugs installed, the pressure of the water was simply increasing until the point when the plugs burst, flushing the blockage down the sewer. Unfortunately for Marl, he weighed much less than any blockage and was swept away, bouncing off walls until he was finally flushed out into the bright midmorning light. Marl, like so many of the other vampires that lived in the sewers, burst into flames that lasted until the body had fallen deep into the gorge. The other demons were not as spectacular, but the various species made the resulting river run many different colors, but still stained with blood.

Hours after the medical trucks had returned, the surgeons were still working. Most were not used to working such long hours and were complaining like a group of teenaged prima donnas. Dr. Chung was about ready to choke the lot of them, but she knew she needed the doctors. She had coordinated efforts with the other hospital, Sunnydale General Hospital and they had taken most of the cavemen. Several anthropologists had arrived with experience in Australopithecus bone structure to help out. Australopithecine was bound to be different from human anatomy, it was just a matter of how different.

She was more interested in the strangers and the giant woman. The strangers had been very upset when they realized the cavemen were being treated as well. Sometime when everyone understood each other, she would have to explain the reason behind the Hippocratic oath; people always seemed to misunderstand it. Hell, she had been arrested for helping the "enemy" three times when working with the NGOs, but it didn't stop her.

"These people are crazy," Gabriel said, speaking the words the rest of the party had thought but never voiced aloud. "They're treating the orcs that just attacked them!"

"Perhaps it is there way of atoning for killing so many," Suggested Fret. He was being cared for by one of the stranger's apprentice healers. Their healing rituals were strange. They had already had him stay flat on his back while they moved him through a tube, had him stand in front of a strange machine while wearing a very heavy apron and had even taken his clothes! The dwarven sage had protested, but Dove had convinced him to let them do what they had too. She did, however, make sure nothing of theirs went missing. "They certainly have plenty of strange rituals. All those rituals only to wrap my head back up with bandages and stab me in the arm with this water bag." He motioned to the IV stand next to him, pumping an anticoagulant into his veins to prevent a blood clot from the head wound.

"They are strange," agreed Kellindil. "They have such advanced magic, but do not know the common trade tongue? No city walls, no swordsmen to guard the town. It is bewildering to me."

"I do not believe it is magic," said Dove. And she should know. As one of the Seven Sisters, she was among the greatest spell-casters in Faerun, even if she was not as adept as her sisters. "These objects have no magical auras, and they have cast no spells. They treat with bandages that which a cleric should just wave away. If I didn't know better I would have guessed them to be Gondsmen. And this city was not here when I last passed through these mountains. I shall have to speak with my sisters."

"After the explosion, I would be surprised if your older sister was not on her way already," Kellindil said with a sly grin. He spoke of Alustriel, the leader of Silverymoon.

"I do not doubt that at all, friend."

The explosion created by the arrival of Sunnydale was not unnoticed in the lands beyond. Not far as the crow flies, the Silver Marches to the west were ablaze with theories of the mysterious explosion that had rocked the land. The shock wave had shattered every piece of glass and crystal in Sundabar and knocked down everything that weighed less than a full grown man. The sound was deafening even as far as Silverymoon and had raised a few important heads. Alustriel was disturbed, especially because she could sense no magic behind the sound. The source was a mystery and in a land threatened by King Obould Many-Arrows to the north and the Nether Mountains to the east and west, Silverymoon could not risk ignoring the disturbance.

She assembled a team of the best of the best and set out to discover the disturbance. She quickly realized the sound moved faster than she could fly or a horse could run. As they went east, the stories of the event took place earlier and earlier. Divining the logic of the problem, the disturbance originated near the eastern Nether Mountains. Several powerful orc tribes lived in this area and fiends were not uncommon in the southlands of Turnstone Pass. If the orcs had this kind of power it could mean their one eyed god was walking the land. If it was the Fiends, it could only mean the failure of the wards on Ascalhorn. In either case, Mystra would want to know.

Eyes from the east also focused on the disturbance. Several Zhent caravans had been lost and the keepers wanted their money. Leaders were quick to blame the explosion. But the closest danger was the attention of the orc warlord Graul.

Graul was not a major power in the region, but his orcs were feared by many. They had been his orcs that attacked Team 3, but not under his orders. They had been raiding farmsteads when two hundred orcs had just up and left. He had been forced to retreat when the expected forces had not arrived. When the survivors had filtered back, 27 out of 200, Graul became quite angry. He was not the smartest orc, nor even close, but he was one of the strongest. His rage was legendary and it rose at the news. Furious, he ordered the preparations to attack the humans with the boomsticks. Like I said, Graul was not know for his intellect.

"I don't understand it Giles," Buffy was pacing in front of her watcher with her hands up in the air. "I was just so angry. I acted. I never needed to think, I just kept going. It was like Buffy went for a nap, but the Slayer took control. But it wasn't natural, I've never been that strong. I killed a giant with a metal rope! Something is seriously wrong! I shouldn't be able to do that!"

His Slayer was clearly upset and he knew her better than think her description was an exaggeration. Something was wrong. Though it was true the longest lived slayers would become significantly more powerful as time went on, it was never this quickly. "I do not know what to say without research. Off the top of my head I cannot recall this ever happening before."

"It could be some sort of reaction with the place here," suggested Willow, now feeling much better. She turned to Giles. "I mean, Acathla didn't work before, so we don't know if it's happened, do we?" Giles shook his head.

"I'm afraid that without the resources of the Council we are on our own," Giles said as he readjusted his glasses. "It is disturbing. I'm going to have to ask you to keep your temper under control unless you are fighting demons or vampires. Other than that, what does the outside look like?"

"It's beautiful. It looks like pictures of the Rockies," She said with an amazed voice. "Dr. Chung made me sit down on the way back while she pulled the arrows out. I saw the most amazing thing. On the east side, well, it used to be the south, the east side the water finally went out like Jonathan said it would. But all those Vamps and demons that live in the sewers got washed out. It was like fireworks in the daytime. All those vamps burning up in the sunlight."

"I'm sure it was a pleasant sight," Giles said with an amused look. He was going to say more when Xander came into the hospital room.

"Okay, they were out of doughnuts, so I brought muffins," Xander proclaimed as he reached inside the paper bag. "Lemon poppy seed for Willow; blueberry for Buffy; raspberry pecan for Giles; and carrot for me."

"Carrot? Xander you don't seem like the type of person to eat carrot muffins," Giles said skeptically.

"I just like them, okay?" tossing the bag into a corner with the rest of their stuff, he threw himself into a chair. "So meetings all day. It feels like school without the homework."

"I fear the homework will soon start piling up," Giles said with a groan. "A bureaucracy will never escape paperwork. In fact I sometimes believe it exists to create paperwork."

"Oh crap!"

"What's up Buffster?"

"I totally forgot Snyder expelled me! Mom is absolutely gonna freak," Buffy bemoaned.

"Buffy, I am sure that when all this is sorted out, you will be reinstated," Giles said before taking a big bite of the muffin.

"I don't believe muffins were on your lists of allowable foods," the four turned to see a rather angry Dr. Amelia Chung standing in the door way. She turned her gaze on Buffy, who was sitting on the back of a chair with her feet in the seat. "And I don't recall allowing you to get out of bed either."

"Ids oaky, Em almob hed," Buffy explained through a mouthful of muffin.

"What?" Buffy swallowed.

"It's okay, I'm almost healed," she replied before stuffing herself once more.

"You couldn't possibly be healed," Chung said exasperated and confused. To explain, Buffy reached over her shoulder and ripped off the bandage to her arrow wounds. Buffy turned her back to the bewildered doctor and showed that the wounds had almost closed. The countless lesser wounds that should have left scars were gone with no blemishes. Her bruises had vanished as well, even the nasty black streak on her jaw. "This is impossible!"

"Nonsense, Dr. Chung. Buffy is the Slayer, an accelerated rate of healing is to be expected, even if this is a rather energized version," Giles said, quickly eating his muffin before it was confiscated.

"Yeah, I'd have been sore for a couple of weeks if this had happened back on earth," Buffy said with a sort of nonchalance. In fact all the Scooby Gang was perfectly at ease with the fact that their town had been transported to another world. Buffy had simply accepted that she might never see her father again, so it was good they had parted on good terms. "It's not the worst I've had."

"Yeah, being dead is probably as bad as it gets," Xander said with a smirk.

"And hey, if I can get past that, I can do any thing," Buffy said with a matching smirk. "I die, you bring me back, simple as pie."

"You died?"

"Only for a few minutes. This Big Bad Vamp called the Master drained me and then Drowned me in a pool," Buffy said between bites. "Xander here saved me with good old CPR."

"It seems so strange with everything that has happened, you four are perfectly fine," Amelia felt like ripping out her own hair in frustration. "Why aren't you like everyone else?"

"I think it's because so much bad stuff happens all the time that we are just kind of used to apocalypse, and woogyness," Willow said, now finished with her muffin. "I mean after you learn your online boyfriend is a demon robot, you kinda learn to accept just about anything at face value and deal quickly."

Chung mouthed the words "demon robot boyfriend" and decided it was time to get back to business. "Actually, I wanted to tell you that you three are certified as out patients as of today. Willow and Buffy need to have a parent sign for your release. Buffy, your mother is already down stairs."

"Oh, cuz that's kinda a problem," Willow said with a worried look. "see, my parents are at this psychologist convention in Seattle, so I'm pretty much an orphan now. They're meeting up with two brothers they knew from college."

"You're not alone. We've all lost someone back home," Chung said with a sigh, thinking of her parents in San Francisco.

"Unfortunately, my drunken parents are right at home, so I think I might just wander back before I'm missed. They like me to open the vodka bottles for them," Xander joked, but there was a tinge of sad truth and pain to his voice. "You three get better!"

Xander got up and left after sharing hugs with Buffy and Willow and a grasp of manly perseverance with Giles (it was really a hug as well, but you would not get either to admit the fact.) Outside was much as Dead-boy had suggested. While there wasn't looting or actually riots, there were confused people wandering around trying to figure out what was going on. When the flatbed had driven through town with a wounded giant on the back, people screamed, ran, and finally had to accept that Sunnydale wasn't in Kansas anymore (which of course it never was, but you get the picture). In a town of around 38,500 it wasn't huge by any terms from earth, but Xander had watched a lot of fantasy and science-fiction. Judging by most of those stories, 1000 people was a big town. 38,500 was a metropolis. Vaguely, he wondered what people were talking about back on earth, had Sunnydale even made the news? Or were there other problems that would cover up the disappearance of an entire town and a good part of the surrounding area? Xander hoped their friendly neighborhood hellmouth was getting some attention at least back home.

Buffy and company is owned by Joss W. and Mutant Enemy.
The Forgotten Realms and such are created and owned by Ed Greenwood and Wizards of the Coast and the various authors of the fiction.
Ranma 1/2 is owned by Rumiko Takahashi.

Thanks go to Janessa Ravenwood for editing this massive literary beast.