And taking names!
Xander blinked and looked around. He was still wearing his costume, but he wasn't on the streets of Sunnydale escorting trick or treaters, he was sitting on a bed in someone else's room looking at…Big Daddy and Hit Girl. "Time out for a second, I think someone flipped two pages at once."
Big Daddy paused and took another look at Kick-Ass, whose entire demeanor had changed from his body language to his accent.
"I-I-what's going on?" Hit Girl asked nervously, her body language and tone so alien to Mindy Macready that Big Daddy actually shrank away from her in shock.
"Dawnie?" Xander asked, seeing the girl behind the body.
"Xander?" she replied happily.
"It's me, he assured her, and was hit a split second later by a short purple missile that was desperately in need of some assurance.
"What. Is. Going. On?" Big Daddy demanded slowly, confused and trying to cover his own worry about his daughter's strange behavior.
Xander rubbed Dawn's back. "Just your average hijinks from Sunnydale. We dressed as Kick-Ass and Hit Girl for Halloween and somehow boom, here we are."
"How would someone know to dress as my… Hit Girl?" Damon asked, not sure what to believe, halfway hoping his daughter was just pulling a prank, but unable to see any way the two could have gotten together without his knowledge to plan this.
"There was a movie and a comic book series based on Dave and Mindy," Xander explained. "You died and they continue on to take down D'Amico. There are some differences in the plot line between the movie and comic, but in both you get killed because D'Amico's son pretends to be a hero. His father sets him up as one by letting him turn in a couple of smaller operations as Red Mist. So make sure Dave knows about Red Mist and you can turn the trap around."
"You're serious," Damon said slowly, absently sitting on Dave's desk.
"How did this happen?" Dawn demanded.
Xander shrugged. "No idea, but I trust our friends to fix things, it just might take a couple of hours."
So we just wait?" Dawn asked.
"Wait and hope they return our bodies in good condition," Xander replied.
"Do things like this happen often?" Damon asked, the sheer impossibility of the situation getting to him.
"Switching bodies, yes. Switching realities? No," Xander said. "Halloween was supposed to be a quiet night too, all the demons stay in."
"You'd think it would be the opposite," Damon said.
"The demons feel it's too commercial," Xander explained. "Most feed off of fear as much as flesh and blood, and on Halloween people expect to see demons and feel scared so it sours the flavor for them. At least that's my guess."
Damon just shook his head. He really wished he could just brush this off as a prank, but he instinctively knew the two people on Dave's bed were strangers. "So… hours?"
"Halloween ends when the sun rises," Xander replied. "I'm guessing the spell will break then regardless."
"What do we do till then?" Dawn asked, making no move from Xander's arms.
"I see a deck of cards," Xander suggested, spotting a deck on Dave's desk.
Several Hours Later…
Big Daddy could tell the exact second they changed back, for one thing Mindy tackled him in a hug, which was a bit of a clue.
"You're alive," Dave said in shock.
"Last time I checked," Damon said, trying to comfort his daughter who was crying tears of joy.
"This has been one strange night," Dave said before getting up and checking his computer.
"What are you doing," Damon asked.
Dave didn't look up as he opened a word document and started typing. "I am getting some memories out before I forget. I mean for one thing I have to kill Chris D'Amico and I'd hate to forget that."
"But he hasn't killed me," Damon pointed out amused.
"He shot my partner several times in the chest," Dave said looking at Damon with eyes that seemed to glow with a feral hunger.
"Partner?" Damon asked, wondering if the kid was gay, he did sort of give off a 'one of the girls' vibe.
"Me," Mindy said wiping tears from her eyes. "Thankfully Kevlar did its thing, but it still hurt like a bitch."
"Partner?" Damon asked carefully as Dave went back to typing.
"Did you really think Hit Girl would just go away once D'Amico was dead?" Dave asked. "Chris is still around and even if he wasn't there are other crooks to deal with."
"The mission was D'Amico and his gang," Damon said, shocked that he hadn't thought of what Mindy would do once they'd won.
"The mission was to be heroes," Mindy said. "D'Amico was just one criminal among many."
"The cops are hampered by the very laws they protect," Dave said. "They know who the bad guys are, but can't legally do anything about them. Not with any degree of permanence anyway. That's where we come in."
"Rapists, muggers and murderers," Mindy listed off. "They're our bread and butter."
"I see," Damon said slowly. "And Marcus allows this?" He was guessing Marcus was her guardian as he had signed the papers just in case something happened to him.
"As long as I maintain my grades in school and take the appropriate precautions," Mindy said cheerfully.
"Never give an order you know won't be obeyed," Dave said, quoting a bit of military lore.
"I love my life," Mindy said with a bright smile. "I attend school during the day and patrol at night. People look up to me and criminals run from me."
"Except we're back in time, so that all hasn't happened yet," Dave pointed out.
"So I still got my dad and you aren't bumping uglies with Katie," Hitgirl said. "Both good things, cause that bitch is crazy and getting clingy."
Dave chuckled. "She still thinks of me as her gay best friend at this point, and… you may be right."
I always am," Hitgirl said with a smirk.
"Yeah, yeah," Dave said rolling his eyes. "Well, I suggest we rape D'Amico's business and get him stirred up, then this weekend we come in through the ground floor while Big Daddy uses the jetpack and takes out the head."
"Scorched earth?" she asked.
"No survivors," he agreed. "This time I'll slit Chris' throat so we don't have to see him again."
"Now if only you knew the winning lottery numbers," she said with a laugh.
Dave just grinned.
Typing by: The Last Primarch!