Jessica sighed as she talked to the short warrior. "Ms. Summers, Buffy… I am sorry, but we must insist. At least here, in this place: No slaying."

The girl bristled in her new armor, the Essence Diamond equipment having shifted into some alien version of kevlar and tactical gear. "They are VAMPS!"

She nodded. "Yes."

The Slayer drew her sword and pointed it off into the distance. "They are DRINKING PEOPLE!"

Yep. "Only consensually."

The teenager faltered, mid-rant. "Wait, what?"

Jessica pulled up a VERY saucy advertisement flier on the magical screen. "Down here in the Underpark, we don't kink shame… And some people are REALLY into Twilight and Dracula and all that."

The girl blushed at the… Imagery. "But… But!"

She shrugged. "Like everywhere else in Doe Park, Hostility is banned… So, at least down there in the 'Vampiric Embrace Lounge' club, none of the customers OR the Bills and Billettes have lethal intentions."

More data was pulled up. "Just in case, we have magical contracts set up. No one can get drained entirely, there are safety words… Same set up as with the other sexual groups, honestly."

Buffy flexed her armored hand. "So what, I just… I just LET them drink people!? That is SO not cool!"

Jessica hummed. "If they attempt anything outside of Doe Park, feel free to 'stake them' as you so eagerly mentioned earlier… But you've fought in this town for a while now, yes?"

She blinked. "Uh… Yeah?"

Jessica nodded. "And after emptying out graveyards full of vampires on a daily basis for all this time, has the number of targets significantly decreased?"

She slumped. "I… I'm trying…"

Oops. "I'm not implying you are doing ANYTHING wrong, Buffy. From what my brother researched, you have actively saved HUNDREDS of people and prevented local and global disasters Many times!"

More videos were pulled up. "However, we might have a longer term solution here that you should really consider… A 'Fight smarter, not harder' kind of thing."

And the Slayer blinked at the video feed from the private branch of Doe's Dough bakery, serving baskets of red pulsing cookies to a happily chewing crowd of Bills and Billettes. "What the…"

Jessica tapped the magical display. "Our cookies are EXACTLY what the consumer desires… In this case, Blood Essence mixed with untainted Soul Fragments. One cookie from our bakery is nearly as satisfying as the finest mortal partially devoured while still fresh… According to our clientele, at least."

More and more video feeds came up, showing Bills and Billettes wandering around the Underpark, undisguised and without concern as some continued to chew on little bags of cookies. "Each and every one that comes down here is one more you don't have to worry about. One less fight, one less ambush, one less danger when you are tired and working a late shift on your rounds… And if any of them can't control their nature and come up to cause trouble?"

Another video came up, showing a laughing group of people with fangs slowly tearing one of their own apart. "Well, they don't want to risk losing access to our bakery, so… They sort of self regulate."

Buffy watched the underground 'Vamp Fight Club' in awe… And in shock as she saw a number of more normal people and demons and stuff in the audience, eating snacks as the screaming creature was torn to shreds in the ring. "What the hell!?"

Jessica hummed. "Yeah, it gets messy when local 'vamp justice' matches are held… Most of the time they just have oiled up wrestling matches and stuff. I know a lot of the security staff tend to go down there for fun on their off hours."

And now the girl was FULLY distracted, as a new video showed oiled up supermodels wrestling in the same arena that had formerly hosted a death match. "HEY! You can't… Wow she's flexible."

Mmm, very much so. "That's 'Mother of Kindness', the nicest angelic golem you'll ever meet but a MONSTER in the ring."

Buffy watched, barely attentive, as the angelic metal woman dominated the other oil covered woman. "Uh huh."

Yeah, she could sympathize. "I'm still not sure if her perfect winning streak is due to skills or more caused by her opponents partially giving up so they can be 'stepped on' or 'subdued', but either way they all have fun and people love betting on the matches…"

Buffy watched an amazing grapple, which managed to grab... "Uh huh."

The older woman and younger slayer watched as the match got progressively more… Intense… But all good things come to an end eventually. "Crud, I've got an alert from my brother and have to take care of this…" Shouldn't take long, but apparently attempting to wrangle this mess was a full time job.

Buffy's eyes widened when the 'victorious' angel did a VERY interesting victory pose! "Uh huh."

…She'd probably be fine. "Alright, I'll be off then. And remember: No slaying while in the Park, alright?"

The girl didn't even blink. "Uh huh."

Good enough. Let's go see what issue has John all worked up about then! "[[Home]], could I have a shortcut to my brother's workspace please?"

~~~Pocket System~~~

John didn't look over when his sister arrived, pulling up video feeds. "Thanks for coming, sis."

She chuckled as she pulled up a seat at the table. "Anytime, brat. What's up?"

The screens floated about, sorting themselves. "Our [[Home]] is adjusting itself. On a massive scale."

That caught her FULL attention. "What do you mean?"

He pointed at the far left group. "At first, it was basic stuff… Not the obvious, like pulling needed materials from my Pocket or getting stuff crafted when locals ran out of supplies, but stuff like this: An extra chair when a room is full, a spare bathroom when someone really needed to go."

Another group was gathered, displaying video clips. "THEN it got more pronounced… As areas became more and more overcrowded, they would automatically adjust in size. Then additional hallways and doorways 'just happened' to be nearby for lost people, or friends would suddenly bump into each other when they tried to reconnect with their groups…"

Now John showed the final batch. "Most recently? Entire spaces have been 'discovered'. Ones that I didn't build, ones that we never planned. Additional clubs, or vending machines, or housing or… There's an actual NEIGHBORHOOD growing over in Relaxing Retreat. The online billing system we set up for the Park already has it listed, prices were quoted, and people are renting them now… We have homes in our [[Home]] now."

His sister stared at the mass of video in shock. "Holy shit, our house is turning into Hogwarts."

John blinked. "What? Oh, hang on… Ah. Haven't read that one yet… And there are different versions of the story in several of the worlds we passed through… Hmm. I'll read them later."

Anyway, back on topic. "This is less 'magical castle' and more 'raw Magic shoved into an area already primed by exposure to the Hellmouth' situation. Sure, Doe Park is cleansing all the taint and stuff out but… Well, the materials are already primed and ready to be altered by external forces."

The new and real-time-adjusted map came up. "As a side effect to all that… Our Park is expanding. Both down and horizontally, our territory is growing larger as more and more people begin to consider it a safe place… Or in many cases, a [[Home.]]"

Jessica cursed. "A loop, a Belief loop… As our [[Home]] gains new family members, it becomes more perfect and a stronger temptation for others LOOKING for a [[Home]] as well…"

John hummed as he altered the data a bit to show off some details. "It won't fully take over the town for a few hundred years or so at this rate, but it WILL keep expanding over time. Thankfully, since we digitized a bunch of stuff and set up those central websites so local services can more easily operate here, the [[Home]] is half connected to the outside world as well."

His sister read the documents quickly. "John, is our house buying properties and filling out paperwork to expand our park automatically?"

John shook his head. "Nope! It is more basic than that… As our [[Home]] grows, of COURSE we would still own it… So unfocused Belief just shifts reality a bit to make that fact be fundamentally true."

Another image captured yesterday showed up. "See? Before, we owned these properties, but as of today…"

The much longer list.

John shrugged at her expression. "Everyone here Believes it belongs to us, the mayor's office already 'approved' our ownership, the locals and outsiders reinforce that subconscious Belief…"

Jessica was obviously clever enough to see where this was going. "...So because everyone believes all this is 'fine' and 'legal' and 'above board' and all that, it retroactively or PROACTIVELY becomes so."

He hummed. "Yeah, this world is surprisingly malleable. If enough people claim something and believe it on a deep and persistent level, 'facts' and 'logic' just apologizes for intruding and sidles out of the way."

Jessica looked at the organically growing 'park' that they had infected this town with. "This might be bad."

Nope. "Apparently this sort of thing has happened before. That's why I called you down here, to fill this out since you are my legal guardian."

His sister blinked and accepted the document. "Form 48. .c: Approval/Notification of a self constructing exponential facility within the boundaries of Form 33. .b…"

Yeah, not exactly easy to read. "Basically, when setting up or detecting a case like this you just have to report it to the local leadership depending on how you classify the domains affected… In this case, we need to submit one to the mayor's office, another off to the Vatican, and the last to the local underground organized criminal ring."

Which was apparently a knitting circle of grandparents, go figure.

His sister just groaned and slumped onto the table. "This world is crazy, bro. Next one we go to, let's just… Have a vacation, yeah? Nothing useful, only help those we stumble into, just… Keep it simple."

…That DID sound awfully nice. "Might have to make a slight detour to ensure Grace and Temptation have stabilized alternate forms that can handle worlds with little or no Magic, Belief, or Conceptual power to keep them animated… But yeah. Sounds like a plan!"

She rolled her head to the side and gave him a look and a smirk. "So the girls will be coming along?"

As if he could say no to Grace that easily. "Yeah." Oh, best mention that. "Some version of our [[Home]] too, I think she's integrated into my System on a very deep level now. To the point where I don't have to set up a customized mailbox to stay in contact with this place when we move on."

Like, no one could go into his [[Home]] here and visit other worlds through other [[Homes]] or anything, not yet, but apparently the fundamental Concept of [[Home]] for the Does had been claimed and fully established by this point.

Even if his sister returned to the MiB Realm and STAYED there, [[Home]] would somehow stay with her AND with John, since to both of them… Well, [[Home]] is where family lived.

His sister considered that. "Does that make our [[Home]] your Pocket Pal then? Or do the two golems fill that niche?"

Huh? "No, of course not!" He pulled out Mr. Pointy the Second! "See? The people I showed around gave me THIS guy! Apparently, he's the distant relative to a famous vampire killing stake, 'Mister Pointy: The Patriarch!' But uh… She said Mr. Pointy the Second was basically almost as good since she was still attached to the patriarch and uh…"

Anyway, not the point! "So now I've got Spike the Pinecone, Poppy the (very flat) Balloon, Party the (squished into a ball) Apartment, Debby the (NOT ancient) Debris ore, AND Mr. Pointy the Second…"

Huh. "That's three guys versus the girls Party and Debby now, the balance is broken…"

His sister was giving him a look.

What? "Grace and Temptation don't count! I mean, yeah, they can be stored in my Pocket and I am friends with them, but unlike my Pocket Pals they don't want to be inanimate playthings eager to bend to the whims of… Oh. Well, I mean, GRACE doesn't want to be my… Like, not ALL the time… I'm pretty sure Temptation was just joking around… Although Grace did seem far too interested…"

Damn it, his face was red as a stop light. "You know what, I'm not going to talk about this anymore."

Stupid puberty! And thank you VERY much Temptation for THAT conversation that was now stuck in his hormone drenched brain! GAH!