This…was not at all what he'd been expecting.
If Lord Fear, the Bringer of Doom (formerly Morris Tradford of Bangor, Maine) had ever given any thought lately to the afterlife, it'd usually come with a vague notion that once he'd magically conquered the world, enslaved humanity, and gotten Betsy Millburne, the girl in his college civics class with the biggest rack ever to finally let him cop a feel, things would otherwise work themselves out just fine in his case.
After all, finding that really old book in the downtown antiques shop which he could barely read but promised him ultimate wizarding power right on the very first page surely meant somewhere later on in that tattered volume he'd learn how to become immortal for time without end. So, that'd take care of it.
Because, if not, in between all the goldfish sacrifices and plundering the forbidden secrets of the cosmos, Morris— Lord Fear!
Geez, if he couldn't remember it, how's anybody gonna take him seriously?
Okay, then. Lord Fear could not possibly fail! He laughed at the very idea of him dying and winding up chin-deep in the netherworld's most fiery lake of lava for eternity as punishment for his sins!
Except…Lord Fear blew it, anyway. Getting killed by some really hot woman stranger, the only thing nice about your head being chopped off in the middle of the demon-summoning ceremony he'd been conducting at exactly midnight in his parent's basement was the last thing Lord Fear saw just before the end.
That is, the fantastic cleavage of the lady in the leather jacket and waaaay low-cut t-shirt who'd then swung her honkin' huge sword hard right at his neck.
And now, he was standing in front of some large building with an arched, two-story main entrance clutching in one hand his orientation brochure…for which Lord Fear had no idea whatsoever how he'd come to acquire this.
Looking around, Lord Fear saw nobody else in sight. Peering down with growing confusion at the brochure, this young man saw on this folded sheet of paper a simple floor plan sketch along with the printed words for one room inside the building: REPORT HERE.
Having no other reasonable option, Lord Fear cautiously entered the building from the walkway where he'd been standing. A sudden sense of inner dread washed over him at seeing a line of vertical lockers set against both walls of the wide corridor.
That brought back seriously bad memories of being stuffed into one of these during his whole frosh year by the jocks until they found another victim who hadn't undergone a growth spurt.
It was at this point that Lord Fear began to understand exactly the type of building he was now occupying. The faint but ever-present familiar smell from only a couple years ago helped too, consisting of floor cleaning wax, hormone-drenched young bodies, and the indescribable odor of today's boiled mystery meat drifting from beyond the swinging double doors at the end of the corridor.
Despite himself, Lord Fear's traitorous feet kept on propelling their owner towards there. He pushed open the right-hand door and walked into a completely ordinary high school cafeteria.
Actually, it was the place which deserved to be described as 'ordinary'. Its inhabitants were anything but.
Lord Fear stopped short in shock at seeing an assortment of monsters with deformed faces, fangs, and scales seated uncomfortably upon their cheap plastic seats, the kind which rendered anyone's – or anything's – butt totally numb after only five minutes in these. From where they'd been unenthusiastically poking at their food on the plates laid out on the round white tables, this crowd of horrors looked up with casual interest at Lord Fear.
"Ah, our newest guest!" beamed one of the few human-appearing persons there, arising from his chair at the cafeteria's far wall where he could keep an eye on everyone.
Striding forward with his hand out in hospitality, the man at least a generation older and maybe more than Lord Fear had a very pleased smile on his bland face.
A bewildered Lord Fear then underwent a cheery handshake from that guy along with an upbeat declaration by him, "Welcome, young man! I'm sure you'll fit in here just fine once you've become accustomed to everybody's minor quirks. Now, my name is Richard Wilkins. Who might you be?"
"Mo—" began Thomas and Karen Tradford's only child, before abruptly announcing instead in a tone a bit louder than he'd intended, "LORD FEAR!"
There was a brief silence in the cafeteria before the entire fiendish crowd sniggered in unison at hearing this.
Feeling totally humiliated just like back in Chamberlain High when he'd had a whole milk carton poured on his head by that bastard Sam Haverman, Lord Fear's embarrassment was alleviated by Mr. Wilkins reprovingly waggling an index finger at the guffawing audience.
"Now, now, behave, all of you! I think Lord Fear's choice of how to title himself shows a quite respectable level of ambition that's so rare these days."
Suddenly feeling a little better, Lord Fear next heard from that friendly old guy, "Well, which of those New Council rapscallions were the cause of you unexpectedly joining our merry band?"
"What?" gaped Lord Fear at Mr. Wilkins who himself appeared a bit taken-aback. In a rather puzzled voice, this man tried again.
"Would it have been Miss Summers? Or Mr. Harris, perhaps? Since you've arrived in one piece, I doubt it was Miss Rosenberg—"
Shaking his head, Lord Fear told Mr. Wilkins, "Never heard of any of them. Come to think of it, she didn't exactly introduce herself then, either."
He grew somewhat indignant at this point, announcing to them all listening, "What's her problem, anyway? All I was doing was one dinky spell, and poof, the next minute, that bitch punched through our cellar door and landed in our basement! Next, it's like something out of the Highlander series, her cutting off my head with a real sword!"
Pausing in his grousing, Lord Fear still had to lustfully admit, "Damn, but she was one fine fox! That great ass in those black leather pants…oh, yeah! Almost got to see her tits, too, bouncing all over the place in her t-shirt—"
He'd never been all that sensitive to a room's mood, but even Lord Fear could sense the sudden Arctic chill descending throughout.
Strangely enough, it came right from where Mr. Wilkins was now beadily eyeing him. This very uncomfortable impression wasn't helped at all by the older man's abrupt smile at Lord Fear.
It had to be a smile, right? Teeth weren't that pointy, right?
Mr. Wilkins then said meditatively, "Ah, our dear, sweet Faithie. Still such a little firecracker, isn't she?"
With that delivered, the former Mayor of Sunnydale next ominously took out a little notebook from his suit pocket and leafed through this.
Without looking up at an abruptly-sweating Lord Fear, he mentioned while reading whatever was in the notebook, "Exactly what spell were you about to cast, by the by?"
Opening by themselves, a pair of dry lips had Lord Fear huskily answer, "Uh…something about a combined lion/gorilla animal that I was gonna send to eat all the people at the homeless encampment down by the river."
Flipping over a notebook sheet, Mr. Wilkins nodded at what he found there. This century-old sorcerer absently pointed with a free finger towards one of the cafeteria tables where another guy the same age as Lord Fear was watching with hidden glee.
"You'll need to work out the exact schedule with Mr. Wells, but I'll pencil you in for now for Wednesday afternoons. Shall we say…three p.m.?"
Lord Fear just stared in honest bewilderment at Mr. Wilkins and then around in matching bafflement at the whole room with its content of horrific creatures and evil humans.
"Schedule? Schedule for what?"
"Why, the punishment schedule, of course!" declared Wilkins, closing the notebook with a distinct crack! noise.
He jovially regarded Lord Fear, who obviously had no idea what was going on. Ah, well, times like these made even an eternity in Hell with all the other Hellmouth villains and those other pesky New Council adversaries worthwhile, Wilkins supposed.
Placing a kindly hand onto Lord Fear's shoulder in spite of that younger man's cringe, Richard Wilkins told him, "Congratulations, son. For the rest of this dimension's existence, you'll be murdered weekly by your spell. In between that, I'll change into an Olvikan demon and devour you whole. Plus, Adam will shoot you, Ms. Post will electrocute us, and we'll see the latest tricks the Master or Kakistos get up to every night. Now, why don't you find a free place at someone's table and get to know your new best friends over lunch?"