Finding himself locked up in the back of his own mind was not a great way to spend Halloween. Especially since Xander couldn't believe it was happening to him again! He might not remember the other timeline consciously, but thanks to his psychic ability he knew he'd been transformed or possessed or something that night in the other timeline. And who else but Ethan Rayne would be responsible for this crap storm? 'Just wait until I get my hands on him, especially if one of the girls is hurt!' Xander snarled in his thoughts.

"Him who?' A voice asked. 'And what girls?'

'Ethan Rayne, he pulls stunts like this to honor the gods of chaos. And the girls would be Cordelia, my girlfriend and Faith, my best friend. And I swear if either one of them gets hurt, I'll kill Ethan Rayne!'

'That's a lot of hostility, man.' The voice observed. 'But I guess it explains why I'm not I'm my own body. Or the house I just broke into.'

'King of Thieves strikes again. How much do you give to the poor, Autolycus?'

'You know who I am?'

'How's it feel being the possessor verses being the possessed? Last time I was possessed by a hyena, I killed and ate a lion and had sex with my best friend. This time you're possessing me. Xena possessed you once. Is having a girl share headspace with you as weird or weirder then having an animal share headspace with you? Inquiring minds want to know.' Xander said grumpily.

'How do you know -?'

'I'm psychic.' Xander figured telling Autolycus he was a fictional character made real might not go over very well. And it wasn't like he was lying, just not telling everything.

'Both are weird. Having Xena kiss Gabrielle using my lips was weird too. You have no idea how many fantasies that fueled.'

'I'm a teenage boy, of course I do. I guarantee I had those same fantasies. But I'm supposed to be staying calm and in control and thinking those thoughts isn't helping. But it did take my mind off killing Ethan Rayne, so thank you, I guess.'

'If you're going to kill him, please don't do it while I'm in your body, it'll violate my code. It'll be your hand and you'd be the one doing it, but we'd both have to live with it.'

'I'd like to promise, but see, if the girls are hurt or worse, dead, I can't guarantee I won't find a way. I've got Magic in me, which means you need to be careful too, because while we're both in my body, either of us could set it off. And currently, you appear to be in control of my body.'

'I'll be careful, Magic's something I prefer not to mess with. Stuff like this happens when you do. And I don't want to kill. Anything else I should be concerned with?'

'Those tiny monsters running around are actually kids, the Magic's done something to them. If we work together, we can get them to safety. Than we find my friends and we fix this mess.'

'How exactly are we going to work together?'

'I'm hoping those kids still have something human in their body structures. You catch them and wrap your arm around their necks and carefully squeeze. There's two blood vessels in the neck that run blood to the brain. Temporarily stopping that flow knocks someone out without killing them, if you do it right.'

'Like the Pinch, that thing Xena does.'

'Xena's method can kill, but if a neck compress isn't done right, it can kill too. But the other way would be to hit them on the head. We have no more clue how thick their skulls are than we do if they have arteries in their necks right now. You seem to be controlling my body, they seemed to have transformed. That's a big difference.'

'Yeah, since my reflection shows a face I don't recognize and we're talking to each other and those kids actually look like monsters and definitely seem to be acting like monsters, I'd have to agree. Tell you what, let's start with a shot to the chin, that can put down a person too. If that doesn't work, then we try another method. Once we figure out a safe way to knock them out, I can break into one of these houses and we can stash the kids in there. Hopefully before they wake up and attack each other again. Are the monsters the only ones we need to worry about? All these kids are wearing strange clothes. Why?'

'It's Halloween, which is a holiday. You either dress as something scary or someone heroic, mostly.'

Silence. 'I do my best not to be scary, but where do you get heroic?'

'You're a good guy, Autolycus. Life has handed you some shit deals, what happened to your parents and your brother, for instance. But you've never let it break you and you've lived up to your code, even when the temptation to kill was overwhelmingly strong. I want to be a good guy, too.'

'Oh. Okay, I guess. I've never thought of myself as a role model type. That's Herc's gig.'

'And yet you keep almost nothing that you steal, just enough to live on and give the rest to people who need it. Anonymously, I might add. Besides I'm the King of the Nerds, Geeks and Cretins. I keep bullies from bothering them. Self proclaimed too. Life's handed me some shit too. But it's also given me great friends and people I choose to call family. Same with you. My girlfriend said dressing as you fit me. She's right.'

Autolycus swallowed a lump in his throat and coughed to clear it. 'Nice of you say and think that. Let's get these kids to safety and find your friends and family. I need to get back to my own.'