Back to the Light
Authors introduction:-
I've been away for a while.
There's a few reasons for this; moving house, family issues, a job that takes up all of my free time and most importantly my laptop died. Losing all my notes, references and almost all my data. Whit what time I have free I'm trying to recover some of that but I just don't have the resources I need right now.
For a while now I've been writing on my phone while commuting twenty minutes back and forth from work. At lest trying to. I can't really post on here from a phone, I've figured out how, it's just a massive inconvenience when I don't have the time to dedicate.
But I have pulled this together and this is a story I'm quite proud of for a change!
With some luck, and more time in the future I might be able to get my old notes back and restart some of my older stories. Until then here you go!
Disclaimer
I own none of the characters used here. They are owned by… honestly given the corporate mess we're in today I can't be sure. Some combination of Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the BBC.
Chapter One
Giles looked up at the ringing of the bell over the shop door. "Buffy!" He was surprised and checked his watch. "It's early, even for you."
She shrugged back, "Changed up patrol. Fang-faces got used to the old one. What you doing here so early?"
"Stock take." He admitted. "Between everything I don't have much free time so I wanted to get it out of the way early this month."
"Anya here?"
Giles took off his glasses "No, thankfully. It appears that my formerly demonic very much current sales assistant is not an early morning person. Xander, however has offered to assist in her stead."
"Xander's here?" She asked
"Sure am." The young man came out the door to the back. "Just checking the weapons."
"Morning Xander. Giles you know what this is?" She pulled a small box out of her jacket with a frown. "Found it this morning. Weirdest thing, it was like I knew it was there before I saw it."
That raised the hairs on the back of Giles's neck. "Magic?"
She gave it to Xander. "You'd know better than me. Don't think so though."
"Is there anything inside?" Xander turned it over in his hands.
Buffy shrugged. "Hey I just find things, or hit 'em. Sometimes both. Giles gets the fun job of finding out stuff."
Giles began to clean his glasses. "How poetic. Xander, please put it down."
"It's not like I could break…" He began before there was an ominous click sound.
The room froze for a moment before Xander carefully put the box on the counter and backed away, slowly.
The box already looked different somehow.
"What you do?" Buffy asked sounding suspicious.
"I think I opened it, at least partially." Xander winced. "Anyone else getting Hellraiser vibes here?"
"Regretfully." Giles agreed, desperately trying to remember anything he had read that might be useful, should there be something demonic trapped inside there trying to get out.
"Hellraiser?" Buffy asked, looking confused.
"It's a film." Xander said surprised. "You never seen it?"
"Xander, my life is all about people raising hell, why would I want to watch a movie about that?" She turned to Giles. "Hang on, how do you know about it?"
"It's also a book. Sometimes authors will use real research by accident, I have to keep up to date." He explained quickly. "I suggest we all back away and one of us calls Willow. Fortunately we should have the ingredients needed for a binding spell. Should this box contain cenobites, demons, or other various nasties."
"Good idea." Buffy agreed, but as soon as she moved again the box reacted. Giles happened to be looking at it and he saw clearly the top half swivel as if part of a Rubik's cube. Revealing a circular pattern on the face. A pattern that, now complete, somehow began to spin counter to itself.
For all the world it looked like a safe dial unlocking from the inside. When it finished the small cube rattled on the countertop. Out of nowhere a sudden gust of wind picked up. Not enough move anything, but alarming. Especially as all the doors were shut
"No." An unfamiliar voice hissed in an English accent. "Not here, not now!" Giles looked for someone else in the room, but it was just the three of them.
The rattling box leapt from the counter and hovered for a moment before flying off. Xander had to duck as it came straight at him. Giles watched in alarm as it seemed to grow as it flew. From something that would fit on your hand to the size of a person's head.
"Get down!" He shouted. The wind grew, as did the box. Changing and shifting until it crashed in the far corner of the shop. It was now taller than a person and looked completely different. It was a dark grey block with a vertical silver stripe up the middle. The symbols and patterns that had been there were gone, but it was undoubtedly the same box. Only completely changed.
"Buffy, where exactly did you find that?" Giles said between clenched teeth.
"Near the old High School." She said in a quiet voice.
He nodded, the Hellmouth. That made this about as bad as it possibly could be. "Xander."
"G-Man?"
"Weapons." He said shortly. A few moments later the carpenter returned with two swords and a battle axe.
Buffy took one sword, he took the other, leaving Xander with the axe.
The box just sat there, as if waiting for them to make the first move.
"You read the book, what happens now?" Buffy asked.
"Either a guy with pins in his head turns up to offer you everything you want or hooks fly out of the walls and rip us apart." Xander supplied.
"I am so glad we don't watch the same movies." With that Buffy took a step forward, holding the sword in front of her.
Nothing happened.
After a few heartbeats she took another tentative step forward. Still nothing.
She was almost touching it now and it did nothing. "Guys we really need to call Willow. This thing is humming." Buffy called over her shoulder.
Giles followed closely, Xander raised his axe and the silver panel on the now man-sized box slid forward, it was a door.
While Giles and Xander jumped back Buffy looked inside. "Oh wow, you need to see this." She told them and then stepped inside.
"I thought calling Will was a good idea, for the record." Xander sighed and went in after her.
"So did I." Giles shook his head and also went inside.
Inside of the box was impossible. A large, white walled, room. Easily twice the size of his shop floor. Huge decorative columns that looked like they were randomised surrounded a central alter.
Looking upward Giles got a sense of vertigo. It went on for what had to be forever. The columns stretched out into infinity, never seeming to converge. If they did it was so far in the sky he couldn't imagine.
Feeling dizzy he reached out and steadied himself against one of the columns. It was humming. Pulling back Giles looked for the others. Xander was off to one side while Buffy stood in front of the alter like centre.
"This place is weird Giles." Xander whispered. "Weirder than even we're used to!"
"Agreed, I feel like I've just stepped into Narnia."
"What?" Xander asked, not getting the reference.
"Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. CS Lewis." Buffy said, still standing like a statue. "You're not the only one that reads Giles."
"You've read Narnia?" Giles asked, genuinely surprised.
"An old friend suggested it. He thought it was funny." Buffy said in a distant voice. It sounded clipped, her Californian accent fading "This is wrong. It shouldn't be here."
Giles got Xander's attention. She was right, something was terribly wrong. "Buffy?"
She turned to look at him, a frown sliding from her face to an expression he'd never seen before. "Oh no." She said, only it wasn't Buffy's voice. It was that same English accent he'd heard back in the shop. Upper crust, highly educated.
With a sudden burst of motion Buffy moved to the alter. As she touched the smooth surface strange controls appeared that Giles couldn't begin to understand.
What he did understand was that this wasn't his Slayer anymore. Someone, or more likely something, was controlling her. Possessing her. "Xander, go for the legs!" He shouted. If Xander could help him pick her up… if whatever it was didn't realise just how strong Buffy was… they might have a chance to get her out and away.
Fortunately Xander had seen what Giles had and followed instructions for once. As the Boy tacked her Giles made a dash for her arms. Locking her in a half Nelson hold he pulled her away. "No! Stop! You don't understand!"
Xander was up and bravely got her by the ankles. Half wrestling, half dragging, the pair of them hauled Buffy out of the box and back into the magic shop.
"You have too…" she began before sighing. "This is insufferable!" The thing in control of Buffy protested, its accent exasperated.
"Buffy, hold on!" He ordered. "We've got you. Fight this."
"I am!" They struggled. "You're the one stopping me!" With a surge of strength she was able to throw Xander free and get her legs under her.
Knowing better than to try and out wrestle a Slayer now that they had a grounding Giles let go and backed off. Putting himself between whatever was in control of Buffy and the box.
The possessed girl swayed on her feet. "Giles? What are you doing?" She asked her accent hovered between American and British.
"Buffy is that you?"
"Of course it's me." She said sharply, Sounding like a disapproving school head. "Now get out, get out of…" she froze "Oh!" Staggering back a step Buffy half collapsed against the counter. An unearthly golden glow crept up her neck.
Giles couldn't be sure it wasn't a trick.
Buffy groaned again. This time the glow covered her face completely. It even seemed to be falling from her, like some sort of dust. "We don't have a lot of time. If we waste much more of it arguing I might not be able to fix this!" She warned.
"You know what's happening."
"I can feel it." She admitted. "Something has gone very wrong. My DNA is being rewritten Giles." Buffy held up a hand, it shone with the same strange gold energy. Coiling and weaving around her fingers. "Cell by cell, by cell. I can taste it Giles. A hundred thousand tiny razor blades, like countless blenders zipping down protein chains."
Giles watched in horror as she suddenly gasped for breath and stood up sharply. "Woah. Two hearts? Cool. Less cool is that I should only have one!"
"Two…?" Xander blinked in shock, Giles felt much the same.
Buffy made a lunge for the Box, but fell. "Please, I can't stop this here! Please, help me."
Giles still doubted it was the right move, but it was obvious whatever was happening wasn't stopping. "Giles?" Xander asked.
He nodded. "Help me get her back inside."
Together the three of them stumbled back inside the strange room and the centre console.
"You know what you're doing, right?" Xander asked.
Buffy nodded choppily, "It's kinda like swimming. You learn to do it as a little kid, forget and remember when you're thrown in the sea."
"Just don't drown."
"So not the problem." She told them pulling herself across the panels. "Broken. Fused. Junk." Buffy hissed as she struggled. "Nothing's working right."
With every word she was moving more and more stiffly. "What can we do?"
"Neither of you happen to feel like you know what's happening? Or understand basic maintenance of a Time Space capsule?" They didn't. "Typical."
"Wait, you do?"
"It's… oh," Buffy staggered again. "It's coming to me." She paused and blinked. "Of course, the arch! I just need to re-route some basic power, rig a conduit between the reserve banks then reverse the polarity to inverse the circuit and I'll be able to undo the genetic reversion."
She stopped and looked down again. "No. No, no, no, no!"
"Buffy?" Xander asked at the growing look of horror on her face. From deep below them came a shuddering, like an earthquake, but not. Off in the distance a bell began to ring out.
"There's not enough time! There's too much damage. That's why the capsule was in siege mode! Awakening sped up the damage. Emergency protocols, that's what kicked the psychic circuit on in the first place." She looked at the two men. "You don't see it, do you? Never mind, it's already too late." With that she ducked under the altar.
"What's too late?" Giles asked
"Hush, busy."
The shuddering began again, the hum of the box was getting louder, but stuttering. As if stretching and struggling. "Buffy?"
"Busy!" She stood up again, moving a lot faster than before. Suddenly her hands were all over the controls. "Have to bypass. If I reconfigure the architecture, sacrifice about eighty percent of the internal dimensions, I can stabilise the Eye. At least until I can get down there and do a proper job of it. It'll be a long while before she can fly again, but at least we won't detonate."
"Detonate?"
She looked up between her fringe, that had fallen over her face like a mask. "The Eye, collided with something. Probably the hellmouth. It destabilised the containment. If I don't stop it? Devastation." At their combined lack of understanding she rolled her eyes. "Whoosh, plink, kaboom. That simple enough?"
"Kaboom. How big a kaboom?" Xander asked
"So nice of you to join the conversation. If we're lucky, three quarters of the solar system. Not so lucky? Think total event collapse." The lights seemed to flicker as the very walls rumbled. "Every star in the vicinity of the Milky Way goes nova. I love fireworks as much as the next girl, but that might be a little much."
The rumblings continued and Giles could have sworn the roof was going to collapse. Buffy however wasn't moving anymore instead she stood by a leaver that Giles would have sworn wasn't there before. "Should you do something?"
"Any fool can flick a switch, but like comedy, drama and most things in life it all comes down to…"
Buffy paused for a moment as the impossible room rumbled around them.
"Timing." She said finally as she pulled the lever, and the alter exploded in a cloud of smoke.
For a heartbeat Giles thought that was it and he was dead. But after a moment he realised just how that sounded. The shuddering had stopped instantly and the lighting became a far softer cream glow.
"We good?" Xander asked.
Buffy shrugged back "I'd say yes." She cracked her neck and began patting herself down. "All things considered, could be worse. A bit short, but I'm used to that. Although, yes that has to go." She walked away, touching the side of her neck.
"So are you now ready to undo whatever it was that changed you?" Giles asked.
"Hum? Oh no, it's done." She said absentmindedly, experimenting with pulling some almost comical facial expressions. "That train has left the station and you can't stop something when it's finished."
She looked around, appearing to think about it for a moment. "It was either this, or let the explosion happen. Only enough time to fix one and I'm not that put out that this is the out come. As for you two, out! Out out!" Buffy, or whatever she had become, waved them out. Like a schoolteacher shooing children from a classroom. With a final "out." they tumbled out the door and it closed behind them.
"Giles?" It was Anya, Willow and Tara. They were in the Shop. Looking at them, coffees in hand.
Willow blinked as Xander and Giles were half thrown out of the new… Thing off to one side of the shop.
"Willow? Did we actually call her?" Xander asked, looking very confused.
"No, but Buffy said she was patrolling early by so Tara and I thought we'd get some supplies. We met Anya outside the Espresso Pump." Willow said. "Is she inside that?"
"We would have got you something, but they didn't have any tea." Tara said. "What's with the box."
"Stay back, all of you." Giles warned "It's incredibly dangerous and already has had some kind of effect on Buffy. I'm not quite sure what. It might happen to any one of us."
"Oh please." Someone said as they stepped out of the box. It looked like Buffy, but couldn't have been. For one they were at least as tall as Xander and wore pink tweed suit, complete with waistcoat and a flat cap hat she'd tucked her hair under. "It's perfectly safe now I fixed it. Hi guys, what do you think?"
She gave a little spin. "Hardly fashionable I admit, had to let the legs out for it to work, but style has a class of its own. Don't you think Rupert? Yeah, Rupert? No. I'll stick with Giles."
"Buffy?" Gasped Willow.
"It's me, mostly. Well sort of." The taller Buffy shrugged, sounding almost English for some reason. "I'm getting the feeling you don't like it? I'll be right back." With that she went inside.
"Willow, Tara, help me." Giles said urgently. "We need a binding spell. Something to seal the box and keep us safe. We can cure Buffy as soon as we limit the exposure."
The door opened again and this time Buffy was her normal size. Only dressed in what looked like a pretty authentic pirate outfit, complete with eyepatch, hat, braided hair, and a great many belts. "Arr, t'is I! The dread pirate Buffy!" She announced drawing a sharp looking cutlass and shaking it experimentally. "Nah." She seemed to decide something as she vanished back inside.
"How?" Tara began to ask. Only for it open for the third time. Now Buffy wore a long white dress that reminded Willow of the one she had worn facing the Master, only with a slightly different cut. Somehow she'd completely changed outfits, way too fast to be normal.
"I like, but a little too retro don't you think? Yes, no?" She looked down and then at everyone else in the shop. "Nothing?"
"Looks good, but can you run in it?" Anya asked.
Buffy smiled "Good question." She moved her knees. "No, not really. Never know when you might need to run. Good thinking, thanks. Running, very important." And she was gone again.
"Willow." Giles said, getting her attention. "Binding spell."
"Before she comes up with something worse." Xander said.
"Too late." Anya announced
"I was thinking, too much?" Buffy was back in the Shop and wore… something that was indeed too much. She was head to toe in black leather, looking more like someone from The Matrix. What shocked confused Willow was that she'd seen her friend go into the Box, but not come out this time. "It's not easy you know." Buffy pouted. "It's not like I really know who I am anymore." With that she stomped back inside her Box.
"I feel like we're missing a big part of this." Anya said.
"You're not the only one sister." Buffy called out from the Box. Giles was desperately pulling ingredients together as Tara was trying to follow the spell. Willow tore her attention away and read over her lover's shoulder. It looked like a basic binding, the ingredients were needed as a catalyst. A strange mix, but from the oddly worded description it should have been enough.
"Oh guys, that spell thingy you're trying?" Buffy called out again, Willow looked and her best friend had her head poked out of the door with a towel around her hair. "You might want to check the translation again. I'm fairly sure that's a recipe for pheasant stuffing. It's used for symbolic binding in marriage ceremonies." She rolled her eyes and dipped back.
"Urm, I, I think she's right." Tara agreed nervously.
"We need better books." Xander offered.
"Does it say anything about what type of Pheasant?" Anya asked.
"Not now Ahn."
"Damn and blast!" Giles exploded before going to the shelf again "There must be something."
"Here." Buffy offered stepping out from the other side of the shelves with a large spell book in her hands. "No blinding torment, no growing of unsightly extra body parts. A safe little spell that creates a barrier between things and can be whipped up in just a few minutes. Less if the caster has any real experience. The only side effect I can see is a slightly minty smell. You're welcome." She offered the book and looked around. "What?"
After all the absurdities what she was wearing now was fairly normal. Sensible boots with loose tan slacks, a shirt tucked in at the waist with a pair of braces. A scuffed brown leather jacket finished it off. The odd thing was what looked like a gunslingers belt hung low on her hip and strapped to her right leg. Only instead of a gun there was a collection of tools with their handles poking out.
The other strange thing was that she was wearing glasses. Buffy almost never wore glasses, but these looked comfortable on her. The only other time she had was when infiltrating the Initiative, and she'd been surprisingly quick to find that pair back then. Willow had certain suspicions at the time.
"That works."
"Thanks Anya. It's a bit stiff I think, but I'll wear it in." Buffy grinned
Willow wasn't sure if Anya was just babbling, or if she was really trying to distract whatever was pretending to be Buffy. Either way she moved to Giles's side. The spell was an invocation, it would take a bit and would be draining without ingredients, but they could do it. If Anya kept her busy long enough.
"Wh…who are you?" Tara stammered and the Not-Buffy spun.
"Oh Tara, honey, don't! Don't do that." The Not-Buffy warned
"What." Giles asked suddenly alert as Tara fell in a dead faint.
Willow rushed to her, "What did you do!?" She demanded.
"Nothing, she's good. She's fine" Not-Buffy backed up. "I didn't do anything. Tara just tried to peak behind the curtain. Human brains can't take it all in at once. She's fine, she'll be good."
"A human brain?"
"Yes, let's face it. Humans are pretty much primates with egos. I mean, you still think digital watches are a good idea. I don't know what I am now, but if old me could think and see what I do now, oh no! Old me would be right there beside her."
Willow looked down at Tara. She was pale, and her eyes were closed. "Tara! Are you alright? Can you hear me?"
"If you'll let me." Not-Buffy stepped forward.
"If you've hurt her…" Willow warned.
They shook their head slightly. "Just let me help." Willow watched sceptically as they took a breath and touched Tara's forehead. "All just a dream." Not-Buffy whispered before stepping back.
Tara's eyes fluttered open. "What happened?" She asked, confused.
It took a lot of Giles fussing, and Willow's concern, but after a few minutes they were sure Tara was good and, more importantly, herself.
"What do you remember?" Giles asked, still taking her pulse.
Tara frowned. "I re… remembered when Faith and Buffy swapped bodies. H… how I could see it. I wanted to try again. What I saw, it… It didn't make sense."
"Some sort of overlap?"
Tara shook her head and glanced at the Not-Buffy, who was poking at one of the jars and frowning. "It was Buffy, it is Buffy, but it's like… I don't know. Her aura is like someone took a hammer to stained glass in a whirlpool. All spinning chaos and soundless noise, but when I looked closer it wasn't. It wasn't random at all. I don't know if that makes any sense.
"I saw more, I know I did, but it's fading. Like… like…"
"A bad dream." Willow finished, thinking of what the Not-Buffy had said.
"I saw, I think I saw too much and then I woke up on the floor."
Giles was polishing his glasses. "I think it is time for answers." With that he walked over to a battle axe propped against the table. "And you are going to give them."
"I am?" Not-Buffy said, not turning around. "That's nice."
"Who are you?" He demanded.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "B-uff-y. Three syllables. Two if you're in a rush."
"Try again."
"It's me Giles. Just not the me you knew."
Willow stood up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
She sighed. "I wish I knew! I'm just as lost as you all. In the last hour I've found a Box, it got big. We went inside, the whole thing was a mess and the psychic circuits were locked open. They triggered this transformation. Since then my brain has been re-wired, I've grown an extra heart as well as a few other new internal organs that I don't want to think about. I've fixed at least some of the problems with my Box. Saved most of the Universe. Read spells in Sumerian, Cuneiform, and one in proto-Bantu that I'm fairly sure was miss-translated from a much older language. None of which I was any good at reading before, so that's freaky in its own way. The most difficult of all I had to choose a new outfit!"
Willow didn't waste any time. Grabbing the book left on the table she quickly cast the binding spell that had been found, conjuring a shimmering wall around Not-Buffy. Holding her in place with mystical energy and, as said, a slight hint of mint in the air.
Not-Buffy gave Willow a long suffering look. "Giles, you want to explain or should I."
"Willow, if Buffy, or whatever she claims to have become, found that spell she could have easily also read the counter incantation."
"Will, the only reason I gave you that book was so you would stop looking." She looked at Willow and the witch felt like she was put under a microscope.
"I love you Willow, you're my best friend, but sometimes I think I should worry for you. You're powerful, but magic isn't all about power. I don't know much, but it appears to me to be more about control than direct power. You have far too much of one and not enough of the other."
As she spoke Not-Buffy's English accent became stronger. With the glasses and her tone Willow had the uncomfortable feeling she was back in school. "Developing control means developing patience. You're a clever girl, you should know this, but you're too eager to run before you can walk. I don't want you to get hurt."
Willow set her shoulders. "That's okay, because I know Buffy would never say those things."
They shook their stolen head slowly. "Never say, but I thought it."
Xander hefted another pile of books into the training room. There, out of earshot of Whatever Buffy had become Giles, Tara and Willow were hard at work.
From what he could tell they had a lot of exorcism spells, but no idea which one would work. Xander, however, had other things on his mind. "Giles." He said quickly pointing to one side.
The Englishman frowned but followed him. "I'm worried." Xander admitted in a whisper.
"About what, exactly? There's quite a lot going on."
"The whatever's happened to Buffy. What if she's right, about Willow. It's Willow, but…"
"Power corrupts and she's been demonstrating a tremendous amount of power recently." Giles nodded. "I have warned her, as has Tara I expect. Her oversight with the spell is understandable, but I would have hoped she waited for me to give the word."
"And the whatever probably only said those things to mess with us. Still…"
"The dangerous have a way of weaponising the truth to their own ends. If nothing else whatever currently Buffy is they are dangerous." Giles explained. "One problem at a time. I need you to go back in there and try and narrow things down. Start with cataloguing her abilities. They did give us some information, but I suspect there could be more."
Xander nodded and went back to the shop. There Anya was counting money while Buffy, or whatever was doing a very bad job of pretending it was Buffy, was sat on the table and had looped string around her fingers and was busy weaving it around some more. Creating a pattern that was hard to understand.
"Cat's cradle." She said moving her fingers around so the crossing threads began overlapping more and more.
"Huh?"
"Cat's cradle. That's what it's called." With a flick of her wrists the spiders web pulled tight and somehow all the treads knotted into a cartoon picture of a cat. "See?"
"That's pretty good."
They shrugged. "Is what it is."
She pulled it off her fingers and stuffed the thread in a coat pocket. "Xander, what do I have to do to convince you I'm me?"
"Well the accent for one." Anya said from the counter.
"Y'all want me to talk like this?" The whatever said in a fairly convincing Texas accent before switching back to the almost British one. "So I've expanded my vocabulary. What's wrong with wanting to pronounce my R's?"
Xander struggled for an answer that wasn't insulting.
"Alright." She sighed. "If you insist. There, better?" For the first time since going into the Box she sounded normal, but it didn't help. Xander could tell she was forcing it.
"The glasses. Buffy doesn't wear glasses." Anya suggested.
"So speak differently and don't wear glasses and I'm Buffy to you again?"
"Are we really giving you hints on how to trick us into thinking you are Buffy again?" Xander asked, not sure what was happening.
"No, of course not." The odd accent came back. "I'm trying to get you to see these things aren't important. I'm still me. Think Buffy two point oh. Well three point oh, if you count the Slayer thing. People change. It's nothing new. I've just done it faster than most."
"Changed, changed to what?"
The whatever jumped off the table. "Now we're talking! Right I have no idea. Not human, obviously. My casual dismissal of ape brains tells me that. I'm… more? No. Not 'More' but that's the word. I'm not better. Not more important."
"Demon" Anya offered.
This earned a look that should have split wood. "No, please. Demon? They are less… that's the word! Complex! Demons are hungry, they're driven by one thing. All they can think about is that one thing. Vengeance, power, desire, anger. They are dominated by it. That's all they are and can ever be." The Whatever was almost pacing in the spell that trapped them. "Humans are more complicated. They understand the different factors. Oh you need, you must have, but you can juggle several needs at once."
"And you're more." Xander said, throwing the word back at her.
"I guess. It's like trying to describe the smell of blue as a colour, or how sound tastes. That's why Tara fainted. It doesn't fit in your world."
Xander made a mental note to report this to Giles. "Because of the Box?"
Buffy's head tilted. "Kinda. It does feel like my head is bigger on the inside too."
"Wh… what?" Anya stammered.
"Bigger on the inside." The thing in Buffy's body explained. "The capsule, its external appearance is less than its internal dimensions."
Anya, however, had almost frozen. "Xander?" She asked
He knew his girlfriend, she was frightened, terrified even. Last time she'd sounded like this was when the old Mayor was about to ascend and become a demon. "Yes?"
"Is, is that box bigger on the inside?" He nodded but that only seemed to frighten her more.
"Xander, I need to talk to Giles. Right now!" Anya offered her most insincere smile to Buffy as she edged around to his side. "You'll excuse me, we'll be right back!"
Before he could say anything she had his wrist in a death grip and pulled him towards the back room. "Giles! Giles stop! Whatever you're doing you have to stop." She half shouted at the former librarian.
"Anya, what is it."
"What you're thinking of doing. Stop, stop it right now!"
"Ahn, what's wrong?" Xander asked. She was terrified.
"Just stop, please!"
After a moment the three other people in the room closed the books they were reading.
"You, you were inside. The box, the one that changed Buffy. Is it really bigger?"
Giles looked at Xander. "Yes, yes it is."
"Oh okay. Xander and I will be leaving now."
"Ahn, wait. Hold on, what's got you so spooked?"
She looked at them as if they were the ones that had suddenly gone crazy. "You don't know?" She asked, confused. "It's something every demon, every monster knows. One day, one terrible day, a stranger will come. A stranger with a box that's bigger on the inside. When they do run, but if they came for you don't bother."
"What are you saying?"
"What I'm saying is that Buffy is the Oncoming Storm!" She said urgently. Xander looked to Giles, to see if he had any idea what she was talking about.
He was just as lost.
"Oh, by the old gods! Seriously?!" Anya said, stunned. "The Oncoming Storm? The imp of the Pandorica? The Lonely God? The Last Tree of the Final Forest?"
"Never heard of them."
"They're all the same person!" She almost shouted. "Every story of a lone wizard appearing and smiting down the Demon Lord, they're all the same person. That's what they say!"
"Anya, that doesn't make any sense." Willow said looking confused.
"I'm telling you! Look, you guys know the First, right? The First Evil that begat all that came after?"
Giles looked grim. "Yes, we know it." He said darkly. Xander wasn't sure if he had, or it was something he missed.
"Right, well the story goes it had a body once. It was at war, countless thousands died over its war against the light. The lone, wandering God came and declared the war to be over. They plunged their hands into the endless sands of the dead and pulled out the bones of two champions. One blackened by unholy fire the other bleached by the sun. He carved those bones into chess pieces, cut a board into very Earth and challenged the First to a game."
"You can't be serious."
"It's the truth!" Anya insisted. "A chess game. The match was so intense that the First's body began to fail. It turned all its power to the game, but could not defeat this lone being. Until, eventually, it collapsed, its body crumbled and will shattered. The stranger then trapped what was left. They ordered both great armies to disperse, saying that the First may escape one day and that they will be there that day!"
"And you're saying Buffy is possessed by this stranger?"
"Maybe, possibly, I don't know. All I do know is the old saying; Demons run when a good man goes to war. This ex-demon is going to run before the war starts."
"That must have been some game of chess." Buffy's half English voice came from off to one side.
Xander spun. Everyone spun. Buffy was sat on the bench off to one side, playing with string again.
"How did you…?"
"I told you. I found the spell, I knew how to break it."
"But weren't you just…"
"In there?" She pointed behind Xander and shrugged. "Got bored. You can only read the labels and re-alphabetise the books so many times."
"But how did you get in here?" Willow demanded. "You couldn't have got past all of us."
She gave them a small smile. "I've been thinking. Whatever happened to me, and I'm still not sure what that was, has only happened to me so far. I think it's gone wrong."
"How do you mean?" Giles asked
"It feels like it's it's gone wrong." She admitted. "I know stuff, stuff I can't know, but if this is some kind of possession it's missing a lot. Like memories. Personality. I'm not entirely myself. My old self, but I'm not them either. It's missing. No, more than that. It's gone, it's not here. It has to be somewhere else."
"You want these memories? You need them To complete your change?"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "No moron. I want to find them so we can get some answers. Between my new brains, your research Giles and Willow I'm thinking we find these memories and find a way to access them. Then whatever it is can answer a lot of questions."
End Chapter One