A short time later, the man, who was a carbon copy of Xander Harris was sitting in an observation room by himself, with a sweet smile on his face. From beyond the faux mirror, the General, Rupert Giles, Xander Harris and the major from Team 14 watched as a sergeant interrogated the man.
"He looks exactly like Xander here," General Hennessey said. "Is this one of those magic things?"
"Quite possibly," Giles replied. "There are many types of demon and supernatural creature that can mimic human form. The German doppelganger comes to mind immediately. They have the ability to completely copy an individual. I would recommend a blood test to determine if he is human or not."
"Do it," the general said to a subordinate who ran to get the proper supplies. He turned to the sergeant who was just coming in from the interrogation. "What does it look like?"
"From what I can tell, he's like a pacifist version of Xander here," the sergeant replied. Xander pointed to him self in a who-me? kind of way. "He claims to be on a goodwill mission to the prisoners to make sure they were well treated."
"So that's why his canoe was filled with bags of freshly dug wild plants," the major commented. "We don't even know if all of them are edible, but he seemed to think so."
"If he's right, it could solve some of our food problems," commented Giles.
"I want to know why he impersonated me of all people," Xander said.
"That is puzzling," admitted Giles with a slight smirk.
"Why don't we let him stew in there for a while," the General said simply. "We should all get something to eat while we wait for the blood test to come back."
"Sir, there's an urgent call for Mr. Giles," an aid said running up to them. Hennessey nodded to Giles.
"You can take it in my office," Hennessey said, leading the way. Giles picked up the phone, on the other end was a very frantic Willow.
"Willow, you need to slow down, I cannot understand," Giles said. He listened for a long time. "Willow-Willow! You need to make Buffy to wait for me…Yes, I am on my way back from the base. I will be there as soon as I can." He looked up to the general as he set the phone back on the receiver. "I'm sorry, I have to head back to the Initiative."
"What happened?"
"One of the ambassadors was attacked and evidence points towards Drizzt," Giles said, rubbing his temples. "With what we have seen here, I doubt it is actually him, but something impersonating him. I will be back momentarily."
"If you need help, just give me a call," Hennessey said simply.
"I certainly hope it does not come to that," Giles said honestly.
The Initiative offices were a blaze of action when the head Watcher finally arrived at the underground lair. Not only was the ambassadorial mansion hit hard, but so were three demon lairs and two of the seven Brachen families in the town. All were declared non-hostile. Gathering Riley Finn and his team along with the Scooby Gang he started going over the facts.
"So what has happened so far?" Giles asked. Forest started writing a timeline of the events of the day.
"First I think is my meeting with Buffy," Willow said. "Not this Buffy, the other one."
"About what time was that?" Forest asked before jotting it down on the whiteboard.
"9:30 about. I was running a text over to the campus from the Magic Box," Willow said.
"Next we have the attack against ambassador Kellindil," Riley put in. "11:25 or there abouts."
"Not necessarily," Graham commented. "The lair attacks could have taken place between them. They're almost a straight line if you match them up."
"That is assuming there is only one. Put the lair attacks with a question mark," Giles said.
"Then the Pegasus attack in the residence," Xander said. "We know that was after because the Agent O'Neill arrived as part of the security detail."
"The question is how someone managed to move from the Mansion to the airfield and back so fast," Graham said. All three Scoobies glanced at him and said one word.
"Magic."
"I agree, and after that there is the attack on Drizzt," Riley said.
"Yeah, because I didn't attack him," Buffy said. "I was here."
"But that's assuming you are who you say you are," Forest said with a grin. Buffy shot him a flat look. "Where is Drizzt anyways?"
"He is getting washed up again and dressed," Giles said. "And then finally we have Copy Xander headed for the prison island; which would place them at about the same time period. In that respect we can assume that there is more than one doppelganger."
"If there's more than one, wouldn't it be possible for each one to be a different one," suggested Buffy. They were interrupted by an aid passing Giles a note.
"The blood test confirms that the copy Xander is human and has the same bloodtype as our Xander," Giles said, glancing at the note.
"So are we talking a mirror-mirror kind of scenario?" Xander suggested.
"Mirror-Mirror? I am afraid I don't understand," Giles said.
"He's talking about an episode of Star Trek where the crew gets sent to another reality where there are evil versions of themselves," Graham said. When the other team members look at him askance, he shrugs defensively. "What? I used to watch it with my Dad."
"Yeah, the old Elemental Plane of Goatees," Xander said with a smirk. "Evil versions of every one of us."
"Actually, your doppelganger seems much more polite than you normally are," Giles said ribbing the younger man. Glancing up, he noticed a familiar dark elf striding towards them. "Oh, Drizzt, thank you for joining us."
"A pleasure," Drizzt said, using translation magic. Quick as a cat, he pulled a hand crossbow up and shot the watcher in the chest. The crossbow magically reloaded, allowing the dark elf to get off three more shots, hitting each of the Initiative agents in the neck or chest. With a dark grin, he vanished from sight. The four men struck with the staggered to their feet and slumped to the ground unconscious.
"Get a medic team in here now!"
A few agents ran into the conference room, helping the Scoobies lift up the wounded and poisoned men onto the table. As soon as the agents were done, more quarrels flew through the air, each one piercing the skin. A moment all those were unconscious as well. Buffy charged out the doorway, hoping to catch the assailant off guard. All she grasped was air and even her slayer enhanced senses were picking up nothing over the sounds and smells of furious agents.
Far above them, using his natural power of levitation, Drizzt grinned. "Idiot humans. They never look up."
Tara Maclay had been waiting for almost her entire lunch break for her friends to show up. So far, neither Willow nor Buffy had stood her up on their lunch break. She was still a very nervous person. Countless thoughts of self doubt ran through her head as she sat waiting for her friends to show up. She knew, logically, something must have happened, but emotionally it was a blow. They should have at least done something to mention they wouldn't be there. In the midst of this self doubt, the young witch never realized she was being watched until the very last moment.
"I knew I could do it," Tara looked up at the sound of Willow's voice. What she saw was not the Willow she knew. Instead of the cute, babbling redhead, a dark, twisted mockery hovered above the table. Hair and eyes stained black with nasty veins all over her skin. She, the thing that wore Willow's form, radiated power that made Tara feel sick to her stomach. "I found you again, Tara. Now, you'll never leave me."
"N-no! W-where is Willow? Or B-Buffy?" she could barely stutter out the words as she backed away. The other patrons started running away in panic. "Wh-what are you?"
"I'm Willow," the creature said in a tone that sounded like it should be obvious. "She said I would never find you again. She was wrong. She never understood what you meant to me. She never could. She never understood what she meant to me, either."
"I-I don't un-underst-stand," Tara said, backing against a wall. She started edging her way along the edge, hoping to get away, but the Willow look alike simply floated closer. It seemed to take no effort, but the taint, the evil seemed to radiate off of her in waves. "Wh-why me? N-no, stay a-away!"
"Nothing could ever keep us apart, never again," the creature with Willow's face said with a dark smile. With a sudden swoop, it was in arms reach of Tara, who franticly cast a spell of protection. There was a pressure and the spell failed under the magical pressure of Willow's presence. "I'll make you mine again. Nothing could get between us now."
"I d-don't know what you are," Tara said, summoning up every ounce of backbone she possessed, "but you aren't Willow."
"Oh, I am Willow," the creature replied with a smile that seemed half mad and half caring. She caressed Tara's face with the touch of a lover, but like everything about her-it, the touch was wrong. The impersonator's aura felt slick with an oily taint. "I just have a little extra. I'm willing to go as far as I can to achieve my goals. It took me a long time, but I realized the ends always justify the means. I just have to make you understand that this time. No one will take you from me now. We'll be together forever."
Knocking the hands away, Tara turned and ran. She didn't care where she went, she just had to get away. Running into a store, she grabbed the phone from behind the counter and called the number Buffy had given her for emergencies.
"Watcher's Council, what is the nature of your emergency?"
"I'm b-being chased by a-"
A burst of arcane power melted the phone in her hands.
"It's not nice to run away, Tara. We are destined to be together," with the tenderness of a lover, the dark creature that impersonated Willow caressed the sides of Tara's face, abruptly pressing against the blonde girl's temples. Tara felt the power run through the hands, but was powerless to stop the flow of invasive pressure.
"No, we aren't," Tara said with finality. The power broke past the young witch's mental defenses and entered her mind. With a stark abruptness that neither expected nor was prepared for, the divider between minds was breached and their two minds were one. In the dark Willow's mind Tara saw her own death, Willow's decent into darkness and felt all the emotion of an ancient being lost.
"You think you know, what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun."
The Dark Willow's eyes unexpectedly opened with a jolt of fear.
"No! It can't be! You-HER! Why is it HER?" the creature said before breaking the connection. Tara saw pure murderous rage in the face of the being across from her. The dark version of Willow stepped back and the air seemed to shiver around her like heat waves off hot tar. Tara could feel the being gathering power and releasing it in one massive burst as she was propelled skyward.
"Stay away from her!" Tara turned to see Buffy, worn and nearly beaten, facing off that wore her friend's face, armed only with a broadsword.
"Buffy, Buffy, Buffy…This is a tired game," dark Willow said with maddened grin. "You never had the power to stop me in the past. What makes you think this time will be any different?"
"Well, since I never fought something wearing my friend's face before," Buffy said, tumbling backwards into a jump that let her perch on a windowsill.
"Awe, not even poor Angel?" the Willow look alike taunted as she recharged herself with a blast of power.
"What angel? Why do you keep talking about angels?" the Slayer leapt up off the sill and struck hard in the side of the dark spellcaster. The sword bounced off like she was wearing armor.
"Why your vampire lover, poor Angelus," the sorceress said with a dark grin. "Well, the first vampire you screwed. Spike came later."
"I'd never love a demon," snarled Buffy, obviously loosing her self control in the presence of Willow. She made another charge, but this time was caught in a web of dark Willow's power. Lifted up, the Slayer struggled, but was fast in the grip of Willow's arcane power.
"Idiots," Dark Willow snarled. She waved her hand, sending the captured Slayer flying over Sunnydale. Tara was sure she heard bones crack as Buffy vanished from sight. Dark Willow turned back to the blond witch and shot her one last pained look. Power swirled around her and an instant later she was gone. Tara simply stared until the last traces of arcane power vanished from the air before her.
Tara ran to another phone and called the emergency number.
"I'm bloody starving, don't you people have any blood around here, a sacrificial lamb or something," Spike kept rubbing his stomach. Drusilla was fascinated by the temple and kept pronouncing things and was getting a little too touchy feely with the priest. It was frankly creeping him out. The last time she'd been like this was back when she'd last seen "grandmummy" Darla. The implications were not exactly something he was looking forward to. The git and the wolf were getting along famously. It seemed like he was the lone man out. Again. At least the Slayer wasn't here to bollix up the plans again.
They had been sitting in the central temple for several hours with the same priest looking over them. No other people had entered or left during their visit. They talked on various subjects and histories, but the woman made it clear that she held the upper hand.
"We are not in the business of feeding vampires although I believe we can find something appropriate," the priest said with some amusement.
"Knowing you, it's probably a Molotov cocktail," Spike grumbled. At her confused look he started to explain. "It's a bottle an' cocktail, but with a rag for a stopper and petrol instead of a nip. Light 'er up an it makes for a great night on the town."
"Interesting," the priest said. "You people are full of interesting tidbits. Are all people from Sunnydale as amusing?"
"No, They're Big Bads. They're different," Oz said as if it explained everything.
"Odd," the woman said. She didn't seem to mind Drusilla caressing her face like the vampire used to treat her doll.
"Silvery moon beams and slippery moon beans," the vampire seer said, wrapping her arms around the priest. The three men were a little confused by the complete lack of fear the woman emanated. "Woof! Meow! Heheheh!"
"Aren't you worried about a vampire being that close to your neck?" Angel asked a bit hesitantly.
"She cannot harm me," the woman said, petting the mad vampire lightly on the head. "And she knows this."
"'You can't harm me, I'm invincible,'" Spike scoffed. "Like I haven't heard that before."
"Then how about this one: 'there is more on heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy,'" the priest said with a grin.
"Oh, bloody great, the bint's quoting Shakespeare at us now," the vampire said, his inner poet cringing.
"So, Shakespeare?" Oz said, munching on an apple he found. "Or English?"
Buffy instinctively dodged out of the way from another quarrel from the hand crossbow. Judging the angle, she glanced up, only to see the dark elf in question perched in the rafters, cackling like a hyena. Spinning around, she caught the next quarrel before it could hit Xander. Willow cast a spell over them that made the bolts veer away.
"Very good," the not Drizzt said with a grin. "It has been a very long time since I've had this much fun. Why not even-well I'm not supposed to talk about fallen Houses, but let's just say that certain very important families in Menzoberranzan that are no longer with us were not nearly as interesting as your little city. It's almost as if I actually have a challenge. Not really, mind you, but its fun pretending."
"What have you done with the real Drizzt?" demanded Buffy through squinted eyes. Her hand was reaching behind her back to her ever present stake. The Drizzt copy rolled his eyes dramatically.
"So much opportunity, and that's the line you come up with? A sorry, sorry cliché," he said sadly. "I am the real Drizzt. The first and foremost Weapon Master of House Do'Urden, second House of Menzoberranzan, a mage and swordsman of no small repute, with kills to numerous to mention and many too high profile to brag about."
Buffy just looks at Willow and Xander sharing the same confused look. Buffy looks up at the elf claiming to be Drizzt. "The Drizzt we know isn't a mage and isn't House Do'Urden like the 20th or something?"
"Yeah, it had a high number, what do they mean anyway?" Xander asked, genuinely asking. It had the other affect they all hoped for, it got the copy Drizzt angry. With a roar of rage, the fighter/thief/mage hurled a beam of fire at the trio. Willow cast a counter spell, but knew she was going to be far too late. Just as they dove behind a wall for cover, a dark form leapt in the path of the fire. The ray impacted on his skin and dissipated.
Drizzt stood stoically against the magical onslaught, his natural magical resistance ignoring the attacks. "You'll have to do better than that," Drizzt commented to his counterpart in the tongue of the Drow.
"Drizzt, as happy as I am to see you, striking a dramatic pose in boxers doesn't quite cut it," Xander said from the shadows. "You're also unarmed."
"Yeah, He hit me with the poison before I could get completely dressed. At least I managed to keep those he poisoned from being incinerated," Drizzt said through gritted teeth. "I'll take care of him. You guys need to go stop the fake Buffy."
"Oh yeah, but what about the others here?" Buffy pointed to sleeping agents.
"They'll wake up in a couple of hours," Drizzt said, keeping his eyes on the evil version of himself. "And shut the lights off when you go."
"Won't you be blind?" Willow looked concerned.
"No, I won't." Drizzt kept staring down his counterpart, neither one making a move before the other. It was a match of wills. One Drizzt against the other. "Go!"
The Scooby Gang pulled as many as they could into the conference room before heading out the back exit and shutting off the lights. Finally. The instant the lights went out, Drizzt moved, not letting his opponent have the advantage of infravision. Carefully, he dove and spun, picking up a blaster that lay abandoned when the previous owner was shot by the poisoned quarrel.
"You of all people should know this only makes it easier for me to see you," the other Drow argued, having vanished from his perch on the rafters. The very nature of the room made it difficult for him to identify the location of his doppelganger. "You're unarmed even if you do find me. What are you going to do? Taunt me to death?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Drizzt called out, ensuring that the echoes would disguise his location just as well as it did the other one. He could see the marks of warmth in his vision, where the infra red spectrum pulled just a little further than normal vision, allowing him to see the ambient heat of people and objects. Living beings always showed up brightest under infravision with recently touched objects coming in second unless there was a greater heat source like a fire. A fire always ruined infravision, not because of the light, although many who had infravision were sensitive to bright lights, but because of the heat masking anything beyond it.
Drizzt was back in his element. For ten years he wandered the Underdark as the Hunter, a feral aspect of his being. Hunting by infravision or other senses, he was the scourge of his enemies in such an environment. And Drizzt suspected his counterpart had not had the same experience. Drizzt was unarmed, unaided and unarmored, and he had the lives of over twenty Initiative agents in his hands. This was not going to be easy.
The rest of the Scooby Gang had managed to escape undetected from the Initiative base. Along the way they had dragged as many of the unconscious soldiers into hidden spaces to keep them from being in the firefight. They were still not sure of where the copy-Drizzt came from or how he got into the base, but the first order of business was to find all their doubles. Giles' doppelganger was by far the easiest.
In fact, all they had to do was walk out the front door of the Initiative's faux Frat exterior to find a confused elf wandering around with Giles' face. He was clearly not violent, but the others around him seemed to avoid him like the plague.
"Excuse me, but do you-" the person simply walked away as if they had never even seen him. The elven Giles turned to another worker and started asking a similar question and got a similar result.
"Dear Lord, they don't even pay any attention to him," the real Rupert Giles said with a huff. Glancing at his younger friends he grinned slightly. "Rather not unlike real life."
"We need to get your double and get out of here," Buffy said, taking charge. "We need to get weapons so we can get the other me. Other me, that sounds so weird."
"Agreed. Perhaps we should-," Giles said, cutting himself off as he glanced at a flying woman. As the woman flew closer he was startled to recognize Willow with black hair and eyes. "Willow, I do believe that we have found your double."
"Whoa, I look…creepy," the real Willow said with a bit of amazement at the powerful creature that wore her face.
"She can fly? That's cheating!" Buffy exclaimed indignantly, standing with her hands on her hips.
"It's the new look: flying while veiny," Xander said with a grin. "All the cool kids are doing it."
"Yes, and I am sure she is doing it just to spite you," Giles said. "Come along, we should find all our doubles soon. I shall radio a team to seek out Buffy's."
"You are really getting into this whole master spy thing," Xander commented. "Last year it was all 'I am your Watcher' and now it's 'I shall radio a team.' I half expect Q to show up and hand out gadgets to us all. Should we start calling you G?"
"Seeing as we have no quartermaster and are already short on supplies anyway, I highly doubt there will be gadgets in our near future," Giles said dryly. At the blank look he explained. "Q is short for quartermaster."
"Ah," the other three said in unison as they approached the distraught elf. Buffy walked up and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Oh, good, yes. Buffy, I was looking all over for you," the copy Giles said, absently scratching one of his pointed elven ears. "This strange town is very confusing. Wait, when did you become human?"
"Since always, and this isn't a strange town, it's Sunnydale," Buffy explained exasperatedly. She turned back towards her watcher. "Elf you is kinda cute."
"Oh, good god," the real Giles said and then glanced at Willow who was quietly nodding in agreement. "Yes, well. Perhaps you could explain what happened here?"
"Oh, dear lord, you look like me, but human," the other Giles exclaimed.
"That would be because I am human," the real Giles explained.
"I can only conclude that I was pulled through a portal of some kind," the elven Giles said glancing around. "This is certainly not my Sunnydale."
"Wait, so there's some kind of funky reality thing where we're all elves?" Xander asked.
"Well, not you, Xander, in my reality you are just a human," the elven Giles said. "But my Sunnydale is on the ocean, not here and the buildings are rather different than yours."
"Ours used to be on the ocean, but then we got sent to another world," Willow said innocently. "Now we're in the mountains."
"And you all seem so calm," the new Giles said, giving his glasses a good rub down. "So what now?"
"I want you to stay with some of our soldiers for your protection," Giles said. "Xander will take you to the base. Xander, try and talk with your alter ego and see if he has a similar story. Buffy and Willow, go see out your counterparts, but do not engage them, just help us track them down."
"What about you?" Buffy asked giving him a sly look. "Trying to get out of work?"
"Of course not Buffy," both Giles said flatly. They continued in unison. "I shall consult my books."