Not Very Nice People - Chapter 6/11: In Another Land free porn video

NOT VERY NICE PEOPLE by Crazy Baron Chapter 6: In Another Land Synopsis: A certain welcoming small town on the sunny West Coast is under (yet another) threat that most of its inhabitants are blissfully unaware of. Lesser evil lurks in the shadows, seeking to bring about a greater one. Can it be stopped in time? ***** I was still seeing the road and the dashboard of my car as an afterimage against a new backdrop of a dark sky and a suburban street with many glowing and shimmering lights as I began to comprehend that another reality change had taken place. The sensation of movement ended just as abruptly, and I shifted from sitting in a car seat to standing up on the pavement. This was too much for my nervous system to bear, and I began to lose my balance, but a conveniently close lamppost saved me. I grabbed a frantic hold of it to stop myself from falling over. My heart raced in my chest as I steadied myself and took a few deep breaths before I dared to let go of the makeshift support. Without it I would assuredly have been lying face down on the ground, possibly hurt. It was plain to see and feel that things were wrong with me. The weight of the long hair on my scalp and the mounds of flesh on my chest, as well as the smoothness of my skin underneath my clothes and the hollowness in my crotch required no interpretation; neither did the feminine voice that had instinctively cried out the vulgar words "Oh fuck!" as I had embraced the street lamp. The unfathomable, apparently almost omnipotent force that had made me into its toy had once more implanted my consciousness in the body of Cindy Caldwell. The instantaneous change in my state of motion, which breezily mocked Sir Isaac Newton and his revered laws, had naturally been the main reason for my balance problems, but it was not the only one. I was now wearing high heels on my feet; pink ones with ankle straps, to wit. Otherwise, my outfit seemed to consist of pale blue coat to keep the cold away, a pink summer dress with spaghetti straps under the coat and alarmingly little of anything under the dress. I had a small black purse hanging off my shoulder and a silver cross necklace on my neck. I could also feel a layer of cosmetics on my face. Cindy had dressed to impress and, for some abstruse reason, gone all out to emulate Buffy Summers in the process. Since I had already experienced a number of these bewildering jumps into other worlds or timelines, I could--usually, although certainly not always- -maintain a modicum of composure and try to assess the new situation logically instead of going into a blind panic straight away when a jump occurred. This time, however, staying calm took all my willpower. I was in no immediate physical danger or in the middle of some activity that could have led to serious problems, but my surroundings gave me cause for grave concern. The air was warm, much warmer than it could ever be in mid-November Greensville, and the locale I had been taken to looked like a fair-sized town. The street was long and straight, with a mixture of family homes and a few larger buildings lining it, and off in the distance I could hear the sounds of moderate traffic. A chilling thought occurred to me as an answer to the question of where I was, and simultaneously I also hit upon a way of easily verifying it. I only needed to look into my purse. With shaking hands, I lifted the strap off my shoulder and opened the little bag. The very first item that caught my eyes was a piece of wooden pole with a sharpened end, a couple of inches in diameter and about twelve inches long. That removed all doubt--and all hope. "Please, no," I breathed quietly. "For heaven's sake, not again!" I looked around helplessly, wishing someone would come to my aid and tell me what to do to get safely back to where I belonged. Standing in the middle of a sidewalk in a small Californian town, transformed into a young woman and holding a wooden stake in my hand, I was scared to death, irrespective of the fact that I was supposed to be the champion of Good in this make believe universe. To make matters worse, I didn't know where exactly I was or where I was going. Try as I might to access my (hitherto unwanted) memories from my previous visit to this world, nothing useful came to my mind. I could have been anywhere in Sunnydale, or even in a completely different town. I was about equally hesitant to stay put or move out, and it was only after a good couple of minutes that I began to walk slowly down the street in the direction I had been facing when I had been transported here. I reasoned that it was probably better to keep going than to stand in one spot, just waiting to be attacked by a natural or a supernatural stalker. Getting more disoriented was not much of a worry, seeing as I was lost anyway. It wasn't as though walking forward made me feel all that much better. My sharp vision detected moving shapes in the shadows behind the picket fences of the family homes, in the alleyways and up in the trees, and my hearing alerted me to faint sounds carrying from all around me, from the roar of the engine of a distant speeding car to the soft thud of a door closing. As my scared brain collected these stimuli and mixed them with a hefty dose of imagination, the entire environment underwent a transformation into a hellish battlefield with lurking deadly threats which I would have little chance to avoid, far less defeat. The term "urban jungle" had hardly ever had such a personal and tangible meaning for me before this. Despite all that, nothing of note actually happened for quite some time. A few cars passed me by, as well as a middle-aged man walking a golden retriever, but there were no overt indications of trouble or anything out of the ordinary. The street met another one at an intersection, and I turned left, opting not to venture outside the well-lit and densely populated parts of the town. The opposite direction would have led me across railroad tracks into what appeared to be an industrial area of some kind, and in front of me there was a cemetery, one of many in this town. I made sure to read the street signs whenever I saw one, but they offered me little assistance. As no vampire had yet jumped out of the bushes to attack me and the initial jolt of finding myself in a parallel reality was also slowly wearing off, the skeptical scientist in me, almost battered to death by what I had gone through, tried to reassert himself. Sunnydale and the whole Buffyverse with its human and demon denizens existed only on TV, and while I had once thought I was living there, that could only have been a product of my disturbed psyche. Therefore I could not be there now. Granted, I was in Buffy's body and clothes, or in a body like hers, carrying a stake in my purse, but there might be a more sensible explanation for that. Maybe I had ended up in a past that was the future of my life in Greensville, and I was attending a Halloween party dressed as Buffy. The local climate was definitely more hospitable than that of Greensville, so perhaps this town really was somewhere down south, giving support to the illusion that I had crossed over to Sunnydale, California. The hypothesis was admittedly extremely unlikely, but it was so comforting that I wanted to accept it wholesale and without question. I had walked for some half an hour when I arrived at the local bus station. Even though it was brightly lit and had a handful of people standing outside on one of the platforms, I sensed danger here and decided, following my strategy of caution, to head back towards the town center. So I took a right turn, marched on for a few hundred yards and then found myself passing through a series of old commercial blocks with dark alleyways, precisely the kind of neighborhood I wanted to avoid. A moment later I heard two voices talking somewhere off to my right. I stopped immediately, leaned against the wall of a brick building and waited to see what would happen, nearly holding my breath to be as quiet as I possibly could. Peering into an alley, I could see two men in their twenties, one white, one black, engaged in conversation with another man. Both were in casual street clothes, and they seemed well-built and fairly handsome. Compared to the first two, the third man was an outlandish sight: he was smartly dressed in a tailor-made suit with jacket and pants, which would have given off a very elegant and tasteful impression, had it not been for the fact that the suit was a nauseating tone of light green instead of black, gray or any other more conventional color. He was wearing a large fedora hat that matched the suit, and he also had shiny shoes on his feet and a walking stick in his hand. His back was towards me, and so I could not see his face. "Maybe we didn't make ourselves clear," the black guy said in a distinctly menacing tone. "We're perfectly willing to do business with you or anyone else, but that's going to cost you. Nobody gets to order us around." "Yeah," the other young man accompanied his friend. "We're not a damn charity, and we're sure as hell not going to run errands for a random weirdo who just drops by." "I understand," the man in green responded. He had a soft baritone voice and he spoke in a lively but polite and friendly manner. "Anyhow, I'm sure you want to be on the winning side, and that's right here. You'll like working for me and my associate; I can guarantee that." "You've said that already," the white man said, "and we're still not convinced. You have to do better, buddy." "What more would you like me to offer you? A good job that pays well is not something you should reject out of hand. You'll get it as soon as things have been taken care of, but I need your help to do that." The black man laughed. "We're not into office jobs and salaries and all that shit, dude. It's beneath us." "Then what would you be into?" the green fellow asked nonchalantly, plainly unaware of the danger. "Try mayhem," the white man said, and his facial features morphed into a grotesquely distorted version of themselves, with a thick ridge running across his brow, his eyes glowing yellow and two huge canine teeth protruding from his mouth. The black man underwent a similar transformation and then, before I could even contemplate stepping in to help the man in the green suit, they both let out a growl and lunged at their hapless victim. The dapperling swung his stick. In less than one second his would-be assailants were immobilized with frozen looks of rage on their faces, only to collapse and disappear in puffs of fine dust that signaled the end of two vampires and also of my theory that I was not in the Buffyverse after all. Totally unfazed, the man wiped some dirt off his shoulder, let out an airy "Hmm, too bad," and walked off in the direction he had been facing during the abortive discussion with the two vampires, still denying me a good look at his face. My initial reaction was tremendous relief. The man had saved himself in a remarkable fashion, and there had been no gruesome murder of an innocent human being right in front of my eyes. In no time, however, the ghastliness of my situation began to sink in. This really was Sunnydale, I really was Buffy Summers and I had just witnessed a garishly dressed mysterious man slay two vampires without breaking a sweat. As soon as the man rounded a corner and vanished into the night, I decided to follow his example and put some distance between myself and this location. Wasting no time, I doubled back to the bus station and the junction near the cemetery, thankfully without being challenged by monsters of any kind. Although the heels were anything but ideal for long walks and they restricted my stride to short, dainty steps, my feet were surprisingly well adapted to them and didn't ache much, at least not yet. It likely had to do with the body I inhabited; it did possess various superpowers, so there was nothing too far-fetched in the assumption that one of them was the ability to go on a twenty-klick march in ridiculously impractical footwear. This observation played a major part in fostering the bold idea that formed in my mind as I approached the intersection. It was clear to me that Buffy had not been patrolling first and foremost when I had been made to take her place, as her outfit was chosen for partying much rather than combat. That, in turn, could only mean she had planned to visit the Bronze with her friends tonight. I might get some answers if I went there, I surmised. I had a faint recollection that the club was located not far from the railroad tracks and the docks, so I would probably get there by continuing forward over the railroad crossing. Turning right at this point, in contrast, would have brought me back to the spot from where I had started. The other side of the tracks lay mostly in an uninviting darkness, with the streetlights only barely dispelling it here and there, but I had no choice, other than to go home--wherever that was--or continue on. So I headed for the industrial area. "Curiosity killed the gender dysphoric," I said to myself as I crossed the tracks and passed by the inactive crossing signals. As it turned out, the Bronze was not especially difficult to find. A large group of young adults, very likely high school seniors or college freshmen, was headed in the same general direction as I was, and they made plenty of noise as they went. One of the men was quite drunk already, merrily yelling and laughing all the way to the destination. I followed them and soon wound up at the entrance of the club, located in what seemed like a repurposed industrial building. A team of bouncers sorted the gang of partygoers into a reasonably organized queue, and after a short negotiation they let everyone in, including the drunkard. The burly, bald man who seemed to be in charge of the other two security personnel smiled at me as he opened the door for me. The admission was free tonight, but as I stood in line, I checked my purse and discovered that there fortunately was some cash in it. In all honesty, I was not expecting to have a good time here. I had never been much of a nightclub patron to begin with. Most clubs I had been to were usually full of unbearably loud, tasteless music and equally unbearable drunken people. The only real motive for me to go to one would have been to find a potential girlfriend, but I had long since given up hope of that happening at a nightclub. Simply making oneself heard over the noise was often hard enough, to say nothing of a proper conversation, and I avoided the dancefloor like the plague unless I was drunk out of my mind myself. Then, of course, there was the little side issue that this particular club was in Sunnydale, of all places, and that I was out and about in a body that was not my own. The joint was nowhere near full. Most people were sitting or standing at the tables with their drinks, while the floor had no activity to speak of. The stage was empty as well, aside from the instruments and amplifiers of a guitar band that would presumably perform later that night. A rock song I couldn't identify was playing on the sound system, but the volume setting was thankfully on a fairly conservative level. I navigated to the bar and ordered a Coke with ice, so as not to take any unnecessary risks involving alcohol, and retreated towards the steps to the balcony with the cup in hand, all the while scanning the environment for anything interesting. It was then that I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Willow was sitting alone at one of the tables, with a drink in front of her. For a second I debated with myself whether I should join her company, but suddenly she turned her head and saw me, smiling and waving her hand at me. My dilemma was thus solved, so I walked up to her and sat down on a free stool opposite to her. "Hi, Buffy," she greeted. "I was wondering what was keeping you. Did anything... undead-related happen on the way here?" "Not really," I lied with a smile. "Things seemed pretty quiet." "Okay," she said. "That's always good to know." My brain had been saving energy and working under the tacit assumption that if and when I met Willow here, she would be a dead ringer for Jake's female form, but that was not the whole truth. Her hair was a little longer than Jake's, and that detail alone might have enabled a dedicated Buffy fan to estimate when this adventure was happening in the timeline of the show. I, however, was nowhere near knowledgeable enough, and my fragmented and muddled recollections of the period I had seemingly spent here were as useless as ever. Willow's outfit could have offered more clues to a keen observer. She wore a pink sweater with black sleeves and silver embroidery on the front, along with a pink skirt and black leggings, and a pair of sneakers on her feet. In all, her clothes were considerably more practical than mine, even if they didn't quite grab men's attention as effectively. "What?" Willow asked. "What do you mean, what?" I returned the question. "You were looking at me kinda intently just now, and I-I thought you were going to say something. Is it the clothes? It's the clothes; it's got to be the clothes." I was at a loss. "What about your clothes?" "They're way too nerdy and, um, bookish for going out to see a badass rock band. I should've put the other skirt on. I knew it. Sheesh!" "What's up with all this self-consciousness, Willow? You look just fine to me." "I do?" "Absolutely! I have no idea where you got the impression that your clothes are nerdy." "It's just that you were giving me this funny once-over kind of thing, a- and I thought you disapproved of my style." "That's nonsense. Like I already said, you look fine." "Oh, okay. I thought there was something wrong with me." "No, nothing at all." "I think we both deserve a carefree and reckless night off, like regular young people," she said. The smile returned to her face. "You know, like staying out past your curfew, hanging out with your friends, not doing your homework for Monday until Saturday morning--not that I didn't already do mine, and tutor Percy on the side, but still. Party on. Whee!" "Tutor who?" "Percy West, the point guard and the general leading light of the Razorbacks. He's been doing much better at history since we started these study sessions of ours, but now he's on the verge of flunking math. I hate to say this and go all negative on people, but the guy is hopeless. If you give him a quadratic equation, just a good old, basic, no-frills, one- glance-and-it's-done second order polynomial equation, he can't solve it." "As in a second order differential? I don't think not mastering those makes anyone flat out hopeless in math. I mean, sure, if it's not a linear---" "No; I'm talking about simple polynomials." She gave me a curious look. "Where did you get that idea, Buffy? The differentials and stuff? You never really seemed like a math person to me, and---" "Sorry," I cut her off, silently cursing my own absentmindedness. "I guess I wasn't paying attention for a while there. Occupied with... uh, matters related to slaying and... things." "Oz should be here any minute now," Willow remarked cheerily, changing the subject. "The Three Eyed Rats are playing tonight, and he really wants to see them. He thinks they're going to make it big on the indie scene." "They certainly have a cool name going for them," I remarked and waited to see if the redhead had picked up on the mild sarcasm in my words. "What's their musical genre?" "I'm not too sure. Oz said, and I part quote, part paraphrase here, that their current stuff is kind of a combination of melodic punk and self-aware but not-really-cynical post-grunge with some modern bluegrass influence in the lyrics. Right, so, that's the gist of what he told me." "In other words," I commented, "a bunch of pretentious wannabes who stare at their shoes and specialize in feeling sorry for themselves." "I'm no expert at this stuff," Willow admitted, going on to add slightly defensively, "but Oz likes them, and that's good enough for me. I won't hurt me to check them out, even if they suck." "Of course not." "Ooh! That reminds me. Did you hear about the Dingoes? It seems they finally got their lucky break." "How so?" "It's totally unofficial at the moment, but this big record company--and I mean big, as in huge--down in L.A. may be signing them up. They called Devon early this week about the demo tape the guys mailed to them and they are sending someone to see the band play live and, like, clinch the deal. Isn't that great?" "Yeah, it does sound interesting. Good for them." "I'm psyched! To think that they---" Willow never completed her sentence. One moment she was excitedly telling me the good news about her boyfriend's band, and the next she was all quiet, staring at me with her eyes wide. It was almost as if she had been hit by a physical blow, and for an anxious second I looked around to see if there were any indications that someone in the room had actually done something to hurt or at least to scare her. "Willow?" I asked in a concerned tone. "Is everything alright?" "I... W-what's going on?" she stuttered so quietly that I had trouble hearing her over the music and the other patrons talking and laughing. "Where... Where am I?" Her eyes were glancing helplessly in every direction; they spoke volumes of her acute confusion and disorientation. "You're at the Bronze," I said, growing increasingly worried. "Do you feel sick? Would you like me to walk you home?" I could not help but offer her my assistance, even though I was only a little less confused myself and had no clue where she lived. "No," she said. "I-it's not... I can... I have to go. Bye!" With that, she sprung to her feet, abandoning a half-finished drink on the table, and hurried for the door. I stood up as well, although I was already too late, as she disappeared behind a group of people hanging around the pool table before I could follow her. The crowd soon thinned somewhat as the newly arrived clubbers spread out to the bar, the tables and the balcony, but by that time Willow was nowhere to be seen. It might have been both considerate and prudent to go after her regardless, if just to ensure she would get home safely, but I still hesitated and ended up remaining at the table. Although there was a whole slew of possible explanations for her befuddlement--and the vast majority of them sinister, given that we were in close proximity to the Hellmouth--one idea stuck out immediately. If I had been able to watch myself arrive here over an hour earlier, my distress and stupefaction would probably have looked precisely like hers. Had I witnessed another person's mind being transplanted into Willow's body? I had no opportunity to develop the thought further. A tall man dressed in dark clothing was quietly making his way towards me, and I had been so preoccupied that I didn't pay much attention to him until he was only a few steps away. I raised my eyes from the drink and saw Angel standing right next to me. "Buffy," he said with an understated smile. I was no less shocked than Willow had been half a minute ago, albeit for different reasons. The vampire man, Buffy's love interest, was looking at me intently and expecting me to say something. Perhaps he had come to talk with me about some recent incident involving the forces of evil, or our relationship; maybe he had planned to spend a romantic evening with me. In any case, I would be in big trouble. "Ah, hi," I blurted out awkwardly after a pause. "What, um, brings you here?" "Not the quality of the entertainment, to be honest," he commented. "You said you would be taking the night mostly off, and I assumed I'd find you here." "Uh, yeah," I commented and flashed him a stupid, nervous smile. "Gotta unwind sometimes. All work and no play, you know how it goes." "I do. I didn't mean to interrupt anything, though, so if you have..." "On a second thought," I said quickly, "I don't really feel all that good. Maybe I'll head back home instead." "Why? What is it, Buffy?" "Oh, probably nothing. Maybe the bug is acting up again." "The bug?" "Yeah... dysentery. Excuse me." He retained his composure and somber expression although he must have been taken aback by my offbeat behavior. I took advantage of his bemusement to slip past him and headed for the door only marginally more slowly than Willow, weaving between people. After I got clear of the crowd, I glanced over my shoulder to see if he was following me. For better or worse, he wasn't, and so I went out, with the chief bouncer wishing me a good night. I had seen enough of Sunnydale for one day and wanted nothing more than a bed to sleep in, preferably undisturbed. With any luck, there was one waiting for me in the Summers residence at 1630 Revello Drive, but now I was faced with the problem of finding that address. A little later, I crossed the railroad tracks again and promptly came back to the junction opposite the cemetery. I went on to retrace my steps to the point where I had apparently materialized in this world and then stopped to think. Buffy knew the layout of the town well and would have taken the shortest route from her home to the Bronze, so the former had to be in the direction she had been coming from when I had become her. On the other hand, this reasoning only held true if she hadn't taken a detour to, say, investigate possible vampire activity and if she was coming from her home and not from some other place. I had no way of knowing any of that for certain. Tiredness was setting in, and sleeping on the sidewalk was absolutely out of the question. I had to take my chances, so I decided to stick to my original plan and continued forward. The houses and the crossing streets were all starting to look identical to me, and it was by sheer luck that I finally found what I was searching for a while later. Plodding along another smaller street, I saw a white-painted family home surrounded by a lush garden behind the palm trees that stood between the pavement and the front yard. The numbers on the porch column matched, as did the overall appearance of the house. A lone light was on in a downstairs window. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, started walking towards the front door--and then stopped in my tracks. I felt a strong aversion to going there. That was Buffy's home, not mine; her family lived there, not mine. I had no right to intrude and pose as her. Yet the house seemed incredibly cozy and inviting, a sanctuary in the middle of a war zone. There I would find not only shelter but also love and nurture. I would be cared for by the people who lived in that house. It was almost as if someone invisible had whispered these words into my ear and then pushed me forward with a good deal of force. As a result, my resistance caved in and I went straight to the door without a second thought, letting myself in. As I stepped across the threshold, the first thing registered by my senses was the warmth inside the house, followed by a peculiar scent that, according to my perception, combined the fragrance of various potted flowers and the smell coming off a wooden floor when it is freshly washed. Both gave me a strong feeling of being at home, and they easily drowned the ineffective protests of my rational side. I was in a hallway or a foyer, with a flight of stairs in front of me. Closing the door behind me, I took the coat off and also rid myself of the heels, so as to give my feet some much needed rest and to bring in as little dirt and grime from the street as possible. The interior struck me as very clean and tidy, a real feminine nest with no men to bring about a relaxed, merry disorder of things. "Hi, honey," a woman's voice said. Joyce Summers, clad in a flowing white nightgown, entered the foyer from the room on the right with a white mug in her hand. "You're back a little earlier than usual. How was your night?" "Nothing to write home about," I responded without really thinking, exactly as I would have if this conversation had taken place in Greensville between my real mother and myself. "I saw Willow at the Bronze, but she left pretty soon and the band didn't impress me as Grammy material either." "Oh. How about your other friends?" An intuition warned me against mentioning the Angel encounter to her, so I simply said, "We were expecting Oz to come, but he didn't show." "Was there anything in the way of paranormal things?" "All quiet on the Hellmouth front. Mr. Pointy got a night off, and I did too. Can't say I feel like complaining, though." "Me neither," Joyce commented with a relieved smile. "Even though I know you can handle it, I have to confess I'm still a bit uneasy deep down whenever you go out after dark." "Is that why you're still up, Mom?" "I suppose that may be part of the reason. I couldn't sleep so I made myself some tea to pass the time. Fortunately our little one doesn't have that problem." "Is she...?" "In bed, sleeping like a log. There are times when I wish I was a teenager again. Nobody I know had issues with insomnia back in middle school." "I think I'll turn in myself," I commented and suppressed a yawn. "It's been a long day." "Alright. I'll finish this and then try to get some sleep, again. Good night, Buffy." "Good night, Mom." I went upstairs to my room, changed into pajamas and put the dress on its hanger in the closet. My usual bedtime routine followed, with makeup removal, washing my face and brushing my teeth and grooming my hair in the bathroom. As soon as all this was properly taken care of, I finally climbed into my bed, enjoying the softness of the pillow and the mattress, and curled up in a comfortable position on my side under the blanket. It was only when I closed my eyes that the realization hit me: I had slipped in character and assumed Buffy's role with no conscious effort whatsoever. I had not even noticed I had done that. I acted as if I had lived here for years and had conversed with Joyce as though she were my mother. My own identity was at a serious risk of being eroded and eventually replaced, a process that had begun during my previous stay here and was now starting all over again. It was the cause of endless angst and fear for me and would surely have prevented me from getting any rest under more normal conditions, but my body dealt with this problem better than I could ever have done consciously. It simply shut down the worrisome thought processes, and I fell gently asleep in a reality which was alien to me. ***** Waking up was decidedly less pleasant. When my mind began to return to the present from the blissful depths of a dreamless, reinvigorating sleep, I was given two successive shocks. The first and lesser one was the recognition that I was once more trapped in the Buffy body; I knew that well before I opened my eyes, and I let out in inward groan at the disappointment. The second shock was much worse. When I did pry my eyes open, I saw that I was in a strange large bed and in a strange room. All the remnants of sleep left my brain in a flash, and confusion and panic started to set in, until I remembered the events of the previous night. I suppressed the urge to scream in frustration and terror and instead just slammed my head against the pillow. The life of the Chosen One awaited me, and I would have to relearn how to survive here. I could not even guess at how long I would have to walk in Buffy's shoes this time, but I fervently hoped my stay wouldn't stretch out to months or include fighting a major evil being. Bracing myself, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to start the day. Again, I washed up, brushed my teeth and my hair, added a little deodorant and then returned to the room to pick out something to wear. Buffy's closet was markedly better stocked than mine, but I had to force myself to overcome my reluctance to touch her belongings. Luckily, I came across what I considered a perfect choice for a casual outfit almost straight away: a light gray, long-sleeved, open-neck sweater and white pants, nicely complemented by a pair of white sneakers. It seemed comfy and not excessively feminine. I slipped out of the pajamas and put on clean underwear, a set of white bra and panties and a light top, and then dressed in the sweater, the pants and the sneakers. Another trip to the bathroom was required so I could put on a light makeup (just a bit of eye shadow and mascara, together with lip gloss) and a touch of fragrance, but finally I was outwardly presentable. The sensation of the cosmetics on my face and especially the smell of the perfume served to underscore the point that I was borrowing another person's life, and again I had to expend conscious effort on suppressing the guilt and general discomfort I felt because of that. The other two Summers women were having breakfast at the kitchen table. Joyce had a cup of coffee and some toast on her plate, while Dawn was eating corn flakes out of a bowl. The scene reminded me of my actual mother and sister and my real home back in Greensville, and for a moment or two I felt almost physical pain because of the thought that I might be forever separated from them and the rest of my family. On the other hand, it was touching to see Dawn as a girl of about 13, as opposed to the slightly more mature version of her that Scott had been made into. There was a sweet, fresh innocence about her that was already tempered with a promise of adulthood in the older Dawn. The latter was halfway between a child and a woman, but this one was still a child through and through. "Buffy," Joyce asked me, "is something wrong?" "No, nothing at all," I said, snapping out of my daze. I had stood at the kitchen door unmoving for several seconds, staring at the others. "I was... just lost in my thoughts." "I was wondering if you were lost, period," Dawn shot at me and chuckled. She had no idea how close to the truth she was. A bowl and a spoon were waiting for me on the counter, along with a box of cereal, so I poured a portion for myself and then got a carton of milk from the fridge, adding some on top of the flakes. I hadn't been in the habit of eating this kind of breakfast for years and would have normally enjoyed something along the lines of what Joyce was having a great deal more, but asking for toast and bacon now would have seemed entirely out of place, even to me. "So, like I was saying, Janelle is having the sleepover tonight at nine," Dawn said. "She has this huge TV in her room, and a bookshelf full of movies." "Will her parents be at home?" Joyce inquired. "Yeah, but they are like super cool with her having friends over. Can I go?" "Is that going to be one of those co-ed sleepovers? I've heard people are having things like that nowadays." "You mean if there will be boys there? Of course not! It's just girls." "As long as there's supervision, I suppose it's okay, but I definitely want you back here by dinnertime tomorrow." "Thanks, Mom!" Dawn gushed happily. "We'll be watching Titanic, by the way. Janelle got the movie for her birthday, and I'm really excited to see it. Everybody's saying it's fantastic, like one of the best films ever made." "I have a spoiler for you," I interjected with a grin. "The ship sinks." "Mom!" the girl cried out in protest. "Oh, I meant to tell you right away," Joyce said to me. "Mr. Giles called just now. He'd like you to visit him as soon as you can, Buffy." "Did he say what it was?" "No, but I think it's probably something important. He sounded downright anxious to see you; anxious for Mr. Giles, at least." "Did he use the expression 'rather urgent' or something of that sort?" "You know, as a matter of fact I think he did." "That sounds serious. I'd better hurry up. Would you like me to say hi to him for you?" Joyce cast her eyes down for a split second and drew her lips into a smile that seemed almost bashful to me. "Sure, why not," she said. "You do that, honey." I finished my cereal, quickly freshened up a little and then said my goodbyes to Joyce and Dawn, wishing them a nice day. Although the world outside was now completely different from what it was at night, with plenty of bright sunshine and very warm weather, I was well aware that this town was a hotspot of demonic activity and that I had to stay on my toes. I would have welcomed the chance to spend an untroubled and relaxed day at home, irrespective of the issue of constantly having to pretend I was someone else. I noticed a fairly tall, dark-haired young man approaching the house from the street just as I had closed the front door behind me. Xander Harris, with his old skateboard in his hand, brightened up the instant he saw me. "Morning, Buffy," he hailed me as he got closer. "Was just going to drop by and say hello." "Good morning," I replied. "Yeah, I know you're going to ask," he went on in a suddenly self-conscious manner, turning the board in his hand. "I thought I'd go to the park to hang out with Oz and maybe, well, see if I can still pull off a few moves with this worn old thing. I haven't done that in a while. And yeah, the kids there are probably going to laugh at me as usual, but anyway, who cares?" "There's nothing wrong with having some exercise and fresh air," I pointed out in an effort to make him feel better about himself. "My parents were going to throw the board away because they thought I was no longer using it, and right then I realized how much I've been neglecting the wholesome and fascinatingly challenging hobby of skateboarding lately. Some things you don't really miss until they're gone, or until somebody says they'll throw your kid stuff into garbage and you get told you should grow up at long last, and whatnot." "I never was a skater myself, but I've heard that tune and variations thereof every now and then." "Where're you off to, Buff?" he asked. "Just getting some fresh air too, or is there something that involves serious business on the cards? As in making the world a better place, one vamp and demon at a time?" "I'll have to go with the latter option," I said. "Giles called, and I'm going over to see him. I understood it was something pretty high-priority." "Oh, good! We're basically headed the same way, then. I'll walk with you." This was a fortuitous coincidence, as I no longer remembered where Giles lived and had carelessly left the house without finding out beforehand. I had nothing against Xander's company, especially since I recalled with a fair amount of certainty that we both were currently involved with other people and so romantic overtures on his part were unlikely. He chatted in an easygoing manner during our stroll, mostly about things that had to do with school and his classmates. I gathered that there had been a recent minor run-in with some of the jocks on the basketball team and a "funny but kinda awkward" incident with someone called Larry Blaisdell. He both kept me entertained and took care of the main responsibility of carrying on the conversation, whereas my contribution was limited to a few comments, a couple of laughs and lots of short, approving interjections. I considered this another blessing as I was very much in the dark as to Buffy's social and academic life and its latest twists in particular. "It's starting to seem as if the Oz Man is really destined for greater things," Xander observed. "Did you hear?" "The record company deal?" I asked back. "Willow told me about it last night at the Bronze." "Yeah. Isn't that cool? Ten years from now, we can look back and say, 'You know, we went to school with that guy!' He'll be like the sun that shares some of its light with the miscellaneous stuff in orbit." Since I was not intimately familiar with Xander, it was not straightforward for me to discern whether he was being mostly serious, mostly sarcastic or something in between with this quip. "You're waxing lyrical," I said to him, unable to think of anything more clever and to the point at such short notice. "Well, that's the way it is, I guess," he remarked and shrugged. "Not everybody can be the shining star in the center." "About that. Do you know where Oz was last night? He didn't show up at the club, as far as I'm aware, even though he and Willow were supposed to meet there." "I was informed by a reliable source that a talent scout from the record label came to town yesterday and met with Oz and Devon." "Devon?" "Devon MacLeish, the frontman, Mr. Lead Singer; you know the guy. The boys were so pumped up they celebrated a little on their own, and when Oz got to the Bronze, fashionably late, Willow wasn't around anymore." "Who told you this?" "Oz. I called him just an hour ago. And there's more." "More? As in trouble?" "Yeah, sorta, even though probably not in the things-that-go-bump-in-the- night kind of way. The scout is a woman, and a knockout to boot, an ex- model or something. The boys may have fallen for her." "What makes you think so?" "As I was talking to him, there was this ring to Oz's voice, you know, like when he almost has an expression on his face. It's the equivalent of you or me jumping up and down and screaming out loud for joy. Gave away everything on the spot." "Poor Willow!" I said. "She's so in love with him." "I could see how that might make life complicated again for all of us," Xander affirmed. "And then there's the way she's been acting lately. She's- --" "Wait, what?" I interrupted him. "Who's been acting how?" "Willow. She... Oh, I don't know. She seems to space out, forget where she is and what she's doing and then return to normal a little later, as if nothing happened. You've seen that, haven't you?" "I think I have." "It's probably nothing serious, but it's starting to freak me out. Maybe the pressures are getting to her, what with the graduation and the Big Evil Showdown and all the other things coming up. I'm not really one to moralize here, and I'm sure you would agree, but the last thing we need is Oz cheating on her with some record company maneater, no matter how unlikely that is." "You're right. I agree with you, on all counts." Less than one minute later, I was reminded how casually Sunnydale could mix the commonplace with the weird and the harmless with the lethally dangerous. To my astonishment, I saw the man in the green suit come walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the street. He appeared carefree, playfully swinging his walking stick and shifting it from one hand to the other. Even though his fedora partially shaded his face, I could now see that he was in his late 20s or early 30s, with pleasant if somewhat unremarkable features. He had a round nose and full cheeks, a small chin and thin lips, and light green or bluish eyes. His complexion was very fair, bordering on pale. "Well, well, well," Xander commented on the sight. "Not that it's my place to criticize, but someone around here could use a couple of fashion tips." "Not so loud," I hissed. "Keep it down until he's out of earshot." "Why? I wasn't---" "Just do it." Xander obliged, and the strange man passed us by without incident. He actually seemed to be immersed in a happy daze and enjoying the sunshine, paying no mind to us or his surroundings in general. He even whistled a tune as he went. "So," Xander began again after a minute or so, "what was that all about? Is the circus in town?" "I don't know," I said, "but there might be some sort of entertainment in store for us alright. I saw him slay two vamps with that stick last night, and effortlessly at that." "A fighting type? Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I am." "Yes, and who knows what else he is. He could be nothing but an offbeat guy with a deplorable lack of style and a knack for hand-to-hand combat, but considering the chances of a person like that being here by accident, that's not a safe assumption." "Kind of like Mr. Trick without a fashion sense," Xander mused, "or Willy Wonka without the chocolate." "An intriguing comparison," I remarked. "What I'm saying is they were both weirdoes dressed in suits that give any sane person the creeps. I bet good old Willy used to grind a kid or two into pulp off the page, you know, just for the heck of it. He always struck me as the type who would totally do that. Oh, and speaking of wacky exaggerated characters, there's Veronica Lodge." I followed his gaze and saw a red convertible parked at the curb near an antique shop some distance ahead. Cordelia Chase was in the process of getting out of the car. Her outfit--a red top, a black short skirt, a red, light button-down blouse and high heels, rounded out by a small black handbag--indicated that she was not planning on just a casual stroll outside. It didn't take her long to notice us, and as soon as she did, a small frown developed on her face. Nevertheless, she waited for us to approach, instead of simply walking away. "Cordy," Xander called out to her with plainly faked nonchalance that failed to cover up the pronounced tension between the two. "Out for some shopping to find meaning in life?" "Xander!" she replied with even more plainly faked friendliness. "Nice set of wheels you've got there, your finances considered. Is that your primary mode of transportation now?" "Just so you know," he shot back, "I've got a car that's in perfect working condition. The board is for having fun." "You call falling around and making a total clown out of yourself fun?" "Yes, as a matter of fact I do. But then, I guess it's beyond your comprehension that someone can actually enjoy themselves without squandering tons of their parents' money." "I---" Cordelia began her counterattack but fell silent abruptly. Dumbstruck, she stared at us blankly with her mouth slightly ajar. This turn of events took everyone by surprise. Xander and I waited for a few moments, but since Cordelia showed no signs of snapping out of her daze, we resumed our walk, leaving her standing next to her car. "Ha!" Xander exclaimed triumphantly. "She sure got hers this time. And I didn't even have to use my A-game comeback! I can save it for a better occasion." After a short pause, he added quietly, "Oh man, I miss her so much." This little episode had instantly reminded me of Willow at the club the night before, so much so that I felt a tiny shudder. Considering both my observations and Xander's, there was a chance that the soul or consciousness inside her body was Jake White's, and I wondered if Charlie had been made to take Cordelia's place. However, there was no easy way for me to find out if this was indeed the case, and the answer would have been of little use at the moment; still, I had better reckon with the possibility. My actions in this universe might well have direct consequences on the lives of my friends. Xander and I parted ways near Giles' apartment. He went on towards the park while I walked up the brick steps leading to the main door. In my eyes, the property was surprisingly lavish for someone living (ostensibly) on a school librarian's salary: the building itself, embodying an architectural style which hinted at Art Deco, was quite large and had a spacious courtyard with a built-in bond. After checking that the name tag on the wall next to the door actually read "R. Giles", to make sure I had come to the right place, I knocked and waited. The door opened almost at once. Rupert Giles, dressed comparatively leisurely but neatly in a grayish-brown shirt and straight trousers, as he was off work, had a relieved expression on his face, but the deep greases on his forehead and the bags underneath his eyes betrayed the fact that he had recently spent several sleepless nights. "Ah, Buffy," he said. "Do come in. How are you?" "Not too bad, considering the circumstances," I replied and stepped inside. "Mom sends her greetings." "That's, um, very nice of her." "So, what's up?" "I'm afraid things could be better," he replied. "Have a seat. Would you like some refreshments? Tea?" "No thanks, I'm good." The door led to the living room of the apartment, a relatively large space that looked smaller than it actually was, thanks to the several bookcases, chairs, other furniture and decorative artifacts that populated it. I sat down on the sofa while Giles went over to his desk but didn't take a seat himself. Despite his overall composed and proper manner, he gave off a slight air of nervousness as he fussed with some papers and a massive old book that littered the small desk, which already held his old phone and a lamp. "I take it we have a problem," I remarked after he had done nothing to open the conversation for some time. "One could say that," he confirmed and put the papers down. He walked around the sofa and sat in the armchair opposite to me so we could talk comfortably. "It's about the Angronok talisman. Evidently someone has dug it up." I felt a chill upon hearing the name of the hellgod once again, and now it was Giles who was perfectly concentrated and expecting a comment while I tried to hide my unease. Furthermore, I had merely a faint recollection that the talisman had been found and then buried outside the town to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, but very little else of that adventure remained in my memory. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that's a bad thing," I said. "That sounds like you may have spent rather too much time in the company of Wesley and Yours Truly," he chuckled. "The English understatement has rubbed off on you, Buffy." "Well, I'm struggling through my formative years here." "As of this moment, we don't know who might be seeking the talisman. It's a very obscure item, in fact, and most of the literature that I'm aware of doesn't even mention it. The two compendia that do quite clearly indicate that the demon cult dedicated to Angronok worship considered it a secret which was to be kept from the uninitiated at any cost. For the most part, they appear to have succeeded." "So, you don't think...?" "The Mayor? I suppose that might be a possibility, even though I can't see how this would fit his designs. Unless the Ascension involves calling on Angronok's powers, the talisman would be an unwelcome distraction to him, more than anything else." "How about those cult demons? Could they still be around?" "Very unlikely. None survived of the group that came here six months ago, and they were by all accounts the last active remnant of the cult. If a common vampire or, say, a reasonably civilized Parasite demon were to find the talisman, they would consider it a trinket possibly worth some money or food but little else, provided they could recognize it in the first place. The knowledge about how to harness its powers is even more obscure than knowledge about the talisman itself." "What are those powers, exactly?" I inquired. "You said something about a portal when we last talked about it, but that's pretty much all I can remember off the bat." "Again, we don't know every detail, but the talisman, or amulet as it is also referred to in the books, is supposed to contain a large amount of Angronok's own power from the time before he was banished to a parallel dimension. When the conditions are right for him to return, the demon cult will perform a ritual with the amulet and use it to open a gateway between dimensions. If this is successful, it should allow Angronok and a great many other ancient evil beings to come to Earth, and they will probably be able to travel freely to almost any other dimension as well. The result would be not just the destruction of our world but an irreparable change in the balance between good and evil across the entire Universe. It would be a catastrophe of untold proportions, an apocalypse to end all apocalypses, to coin a phrase." Giles had an uncanny ability to relate utterly alarming facts and warn of the impending doom of mankind in a voice and manner that simultaneously pointed out the gravity of the situation and also reassured me that the disaster would be averted in the end. My perception might have had more to do with the tendency of the show's story lines to have at least comparatively happy endings than any actual innate quality of his demeanor, but his mere words were in any case yet again increasing my confidence. "Out of curiosity," I spoke up, "can the amulet do anything else?" "I should think releasing Angronok is bad enough for all intents and purposes," Giles remarked wryly. "It's not that I don't agree with you," I hurried to explain, "but I was just wondering if there are less dangerous ways to use it, things a small- time bad guy could be interested in and capable of doing." "If there are," he said, "they're not recorded. I imagine a person extremely skilled in magic could, in theory, be able to open a portal so that it only connects two or three adjacent dimensions and Angronok and the other Old Ones remain safely confined. Still, I see no particularly good reason why anyone would want to do that." I sat in silence, trying to assimilate the information and fit it into my world view. Far away in another reality, a mentally disabled young man by the name of Daniel Mancini had told me that his fantasy world featured a being also called Angronok, who was also "in prison" and who was going to get out with his friends' help. Was there an important clue here, the common denominator that might lead me to the bottom of my own mystery and its solution, or was either Angronok or Dan Mancini simply another bit of meaningless noise in the chaos inside my brain? As much as I wanted to put this very question to Giles, I knew full well I could not do that. He wouldn't have been able to answer it because Michael Caldwell and his memories were not part of this world. They didn't exist for Giles and were not his concern. However, there was a minor point I could bring up with him--and perhaps needed to. "In other news," I said, "there's a fresh face in town. My guess is that he has nothing to do with our big problems, but he seems to be a potential source of problems anyway." "Oh?" Giles reacted, raising his eyebrows. True to his thoughtful and conscientious nature, he gave me his full attention right away. "A man dressed in a puke-green suit and fedora. He carries around a walking stick and is pretty handy with it when it comes to keeping the fanged segment of the population at bay. I saw him talk to two vamps yesterday near the bus station, and when the negotiations fell through and the vamps turned on him, he dusted them both with ease." "That is interesting," Giles said and adjusted his glasses. "Did you hear what they talked about?" "I only caught the tail end of the conversation, but I got the impression he was trying to recruit the vampires to work for him." "Work? In what capacity?" "I didn't get that part, but the vamps certainly thought it was below them and they scoffed at it. He mentioned a salary in money. It was almost as if the man wanted to hire them to sit in an office and shuffle papers and computer files around." "I'd certainly not consider vampires of any description the ideal candidates for secretarial jobs," Giles remarked. "And then the man slew them. Is that what happened?" "Yes, and he acted like it was nothing. He didn't seem scared or surprised in the slightest when they attacked him. By the way, I saw him again today in broad daylight, as a matter of fact, just as I was walking here with Xander." "Did you talk to him?" "No. He seemed to be minding his own business and walked past without turning his head. I suppose that proves he's not a vampire himself." "What does he look like?" "I don't know what's underneath the suit, and I'm not sure I want to, but his face seems all human. It's a little pudgy but fairly nice for a man of about, oh, thirty. If I hadn't witnessed his slayage performance last night and if he dressed half way normally, he wouldn't stand out to me in any respect." "Curious, I give you that," Giles admitted and furrowed his brow. "Of course, we know looks can and quite often do deceive, so we should perhaps not assume he is entirely human, but even that doesn't necessarily mean he's on the side of evil. I'll see if I can get more information about him from the usual suspects. Until and unless he does something more decisive, I think we should limit ourselves to observing." "Another day in the life," I said with a subdued, joyless laughter. "I'd appreciate it if someone could, for once, tell me why the Universe is so out of whack as it is. What have we done to deserve this?" My words had a deeper meaning and referred to more than the strange man and vampires, indeed more than Angronok and the talisman. Although Giles could not possibly read my thoughts, the basic underlying idea nevertheless got through to him, in a way. He took his glasses off, leaned forward and rubbed his eyes as if fighting fatigue. "You know, Buffy, I have at times suspected that this whole world, this whole universe, is nothing but a fatuous thought experiment dreamed up by some frustrated, pitiful, overweight little man, well versed in Nietzsche and Sartre but utterly ignorant of real life, sitting at his typewriter in a run-down flat and pouring out his pain and anger at the society at large onto a script that we are forced to act out. We are not even told that ultimately none of it makes sense or matters, except to him. It would be a brilliant instance of cosmic irony if we were at the mercy of some useless dogsbody who doesn't care what he vomits on paper." He let out a light sigh while spending a second or two to collect his thoughts. Then, rubbing his eyes again and putting his glasses back on, he returned to being the professional and almost always perfectly calm Watcher. "Buffy, will you be patrolling tonight?" "I think I will," I responded with a sinking feeling in my chest. It was certainly not something I was looking forward to, but under the circumstances saying no to Giles would have been dereliction of my duty as the Slayer. I could not let him down. "Very good. We probably have no immediate cause for special concern, but I'd like you to be as observant as you possibly can and make note of anything out of the ordinary. I'll be going through the books again tonight, so don't hesitate to call or visit me at any time if you believe the situation warrants it." "Okay. And if I do drop by, you have the milk and cookies waiting for me?" "Absolutely," he said and gave me a warm smile. (To be continued...)