Drama Queens, Drow, and other headaches!

The other is a dark haired young noble woman dressed very much like Buffy had been dressed as seconds ago!

And moments later, Rei, a young man dressed in somewhat archaic clothing, and the rest of her band come storming around the corner and stops dead in their tracks, processing what they see before them as both prone figures groan softly and slowly push themselves off the ground.

A ghostly young teenage woman is babbling questions towards the annoyed pair of winged sisters as they stand guard over the prone women. One “Buffy Summers” by appearance and the “Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia” by appearance if the one known as Rei Takahashi didn’t miss her guess.

“What happened?!” the archaically dressed teenage boy asked, pointing at the two women at Reika’s and Lilith’s feet.

Setsuna

“I’ll get to that here in a moment, Xander!” Lilith says sharply, looking a bit annoyed at today’s turn of events. “But since things mostly happened the way we knew was going to happen, pardon us if our friend here....”

That “friend” she is mentioning would be me, if you haven’t already guessed. We’d all been pretty sure beforehand that the magical powers I had would be the only sure “cure” for the costume possessed victims of Ethan Rayne, ONCE the curse activated and took hold. . . .

I had vetoed rather loudly any plans about nulling out the cursed clothing before they‘d activated. Even I, back in that earlier incarnation as Sailor Pluto with all those thousands of years of experience, could not know exactly how my “Sailor Moon“ cleansing magic would react to a Chaos Curse unsprunge.

. . .

Yes, yes! I know that you ask just why it would be easier to remove a unactivated curse and be done with it than wait and undo it after it had gone active? Because after activating I can see more easily see (magically) what I am dealing with and fight it. The other way I’d be going blind at it, and Gods only know what damage I might do with my magic!

Might even kill the poor costume wearer!

Frankly, it would have been so much better if we could have either: a) gotten everyone to NOT wear the costumes in the first place and avoid this headache, b) gone straight to Ethan’s shop and “taken care” of Ethan Rayne directly.

Well, first we couldn’t go all over town to give out warnings against wearing Ethan’s costumes! Would draw too much attention to ourselves too soon from the corrupt Sunnydale officials. That and we’d look like complete loons or scare too many people to be worth the effort. Would work against us. Wouldn’t work, period. Most likely.

Nod and accept that. Rei had gone with a “gut feeling” about it and that.

. . .

She’d told me about what some of the sadder things had happened with her group in earlier Quest when she’d ignored her feelings. Like that time when she’d let somebody name the “G-man” (from “Half-life”, not Rupert Giles) insult and berate an esteemed Dr. Morbius (of the “Forbidden Planet“ fame). It had been done (getting the doctor angered and flustered) in an attempt to prevent the ID monster from paying a visit (re: 72773). Rei’s guts had told her that heckling Morbius had been a bad idea. Anyone who’d seen the movie could tell you that heckling Morbius too much was a bad idea. The G-man had been the “resident expert” on the technology that Morbius had tied his mind into accidently there and had said otherwise.

Rei’d listened to the G-man instead of her gut and not only had that ID monster come out . . .Dr. Morbius never spoke with Rei and her sisters afterwards, so insulted he’d been.

The winged sisters had tried to mend fences but it had been too late..

Ah, but now older and wiser? Rei listens to her instincts. Her heart. And thus is thus. Might still be wrong but at least . . .she’d feel better about it.

As for taking Rayne out of the equation? Well, there had been a LOT of odd incidents of police cars hanging around the neighborhood. Same cars who’d we’d seen trying to tail MY group from time to time, like they’d noticed us and were wary.

Call us paranoid but . . .we’d seen and heard in the TV shows that Sunnydale had been built as it had been build and where it had been built for reasons. BAD ones. All the dark and nasty things done here. All the demons and vampire who’d flocked here had been part of a scheme by the Mayor (spoiler alert) to gain demon hood and vast powers.

The events of tonight? Ethan’s foolishness? Why, signs point to the powers that be in this town wanting it to happen and would GO and stop US from preventing the Chaos mage from his fun. That or made our Quest (fixing the mess I’d made of things, insane or not) all the harder! If not impossible.

So, this instead. Cleanup detail. There was enough chaos going about all over town right now to not draw attention to us NOW. Can hear it in the distance, you know. This is what we’d been doing before getting back with Reika and Lilith.

We’d managed to convince (through no small effort) to get Xander Harris to get RID of his costume (and dawn the outfit we’d provided in it’s place after he’d been chased out of his changing place by one of the chaos transformed kids). We’d managed to stun every last chaos victim into slumber land with our phasors (or whatnot).

Wish we’d gotten enough time to track down Willow Rosenberg before her costume had turned her into a ghost, but such as life. She’d been something of a . . .lower priority. She’d been changed in body, but not in mind. She was still Willow, you see.

. . .

Though why did she dress like that way, that costume she wore underneath the ghost costume? It is almost as daring as the “sexy woman” costume we’d seen in the TV show. The one that she’d been too embarrassed in the end to go out to be seen as, but . . .

Nevermind, we’ll cross that bridge here in a moment.

I had cast my magics and the costume victims a few blocks away been cured. Also knocked out for the next day or so, alas.

Oh, and that’s another problem here. The victims of the chaos cursed costumes can be cured by my magic, but they’d be Down for the rest of the night!!

And I believe that has something to do with why there are TWO women at Lilith’s and Reika’s feet, somehow.

A bit later...

Lilith

I find it a bit difficult to not groan at the latest development.

Yes, Setsuana had been able to cleanse the chaos magic victims.

Yes, we’d managed (after KNOCKING down a few doors and fixing them later) to find people who’d take in the unconscious children until they recovered. Xander Harris had been VERY helpful in pointing out those good souled people in this cesspool of a town.

. . .

No, that last part isn’t fair for the towns folks. They were just ordinary citizens trying to cope with an extraordinary situation . . .and under some kind of magical compulsion to IGNORE the horror about them. Glad we found those who’d help us and that’s that, anyway.

Wonder just how they’ll all rationalize this away tomorrow, what happened tonight with US.

HEY! We even managed to explain our basic Quest and intentions to close the Hellmouth. Why it was a good idea to NOT let the Hellmouth continue as it was.

Buffy summed it up rather well. She (alone of all the other Scoobies around here) actually remembered dieing. Things that she’d learned that the others had forgotten due the reshuffle back to Halloween. She was vouching for us about it being a good idea about closing the Hellmouth. How bad it was to have it continue to be open.

She actually . . .remembers seeing Setsune’s actions (mad though they were) from on High, in Heavan. Watched her.

Us Champions! Back at the Moon Kingdom. Moya. Everything

And she vouched for me and my sister’s intentions. Vouched for how keeping the Hellmouth as it was was a “non-mixy” thing with our continued survival.

All of THAT before we somehow crossed paths with a screaming Cordelia, being chased by that football player, Larry, who’d been dressed as a werewolf. Yeah, nice that we’d gotten THAT mess out of our way and our credentials set before THAT drama queen made the scene.

Oh, that was just SOOO too bad that she got caught in the crossfire with our phasors when we’d stunned poor ol’ wolfman Lar there.

Don’t miss that snaky mouthed princess prescense at all. Glad we found a church to stuff her off, safe and sound after putting Larry out somewhere else (chained up safe and sound but out of our hair).

Sigh, we’ve got a lot of things to do tonight....and the other Scoobies, after the pause in business with Larry and the Queen of Sunnydale High?

The shouted questions at what Buffy had revealed. That one could have caused enough headaches, but . . .

Here, let’s back up a bit and tell of the first headache we got. It was that we had to have another “high maintenance” lady to cause us grief. The first headache we were suffering from started with her Highness, the Lady of Buffdom, whining and complaining about finding herself consorting with us low lifes...and looking like some kind of street whore.

Just WHY did this highborn 18th century #$%#% have to get stuck in Buffy’s body and Buffy in the highborn #$%#$ body here?! Why did this Chaos magic inflict this on us?

. . .

We’d hoped to have avoid meeting this air headed b*tch’s attitude when we had tried to magically remove Buffy Summer cursed costume back there. That and avoid all the needless headaches she’d cause, endangering herself and Buffy running around scared and all that.

Her ladyship’s panicking had nearly gotten her killed in the TV show before Ethan’s spell work got destroyed and sent her BACK to whatever place she’d been sucked away from.

Buffy had so VERY turned the tables on Spike when she’d come back and . . .

. . .

Sigh, it shows that I’m a very BIG Buffy fan. Have been ever since I got introduced to the show by Betty and Ragan.

I’m just not a big fan of Lady Buffdom here. . . And not much of one of Willow Rossenberg, really.

Hadn’t been one ever since I saw her bring Buffy back from the dead without at least first thinking about the possibility that Buffy could have been in a better place. In Heaven, maybe? And maybe not automatically assuming that she was in some kind of Hell dimension, burning for her sins? I mean HONESTLY, what did she do to earn that kind of afterlife? Didn’t all the monsters she’d killed and all the lives she’d save doing the Slayer thing count for something?

Nope! Never entered Willow’s head... And that kind of struck a soar note with me at least since it was a bit too close to home with my old life. What with me having (back when I was Rei Ayanami) been brought back to life against my will by a guy named Gendo Akari. Remember that? It was . . .in the anime, you know.

Hm, anyway. So when she started groaning as we approached where her corporal body lay and I thought nothing OF it (and neither did any of my other sisters). But when we saw a familiar white sheet with “Boo!” written on it being dragged by a stray dog? That and the worried noises that her fellow Scoobies were making?

“Oh not this now!” I hear Rei muttering, reading a spell to drive off the monster that was forming in our midst.

I turn and my stomach turns soar at what I see.

Willow has a far off, pained look in her eyes as she’s groaning there. Still see through, but things are . . .changing. Her red hair? Well, it’s growing longer and wilder looking as we speak and. . .fading into a white coloration. Bone white, but not from old age! She’s shrinking to something a little less than five foot nothing. Her eyes are shifting from their normal HUMAN coloration to . . .red. Her figure? Well, while nothing to sneeze at now it’s getting even more shapely and slim. Elfin in shape and contour. Definitely got the ears, pricking.

The ghostly eight headed snake whip (signature priestly weapon of the clergy of Lolth, the evil AD&D goddess of the Dark Elves) is writhing in her grasp.

Before, this had been just human Willow wearing a costume over herself to hide a more revealing costume.

WHY didn’t anyone tell us that that skimpy outfit she wore as a ghost had been from Ethan’s as well?! It’s curse only held at bay by that ghost costume that mutt just ran off with, d*mint!!

“Bwahahahah,” the ghostly Drow priestess that’s taken Willow’s place laughs, raising it menacingly to no doubt inflict it upon us. Only to scream as several spells from several spell casters about drive her off! Away from us and out of range of her deadly attacks, let me add!

Heh, this isn’t a Dungeons and Dragons setting and I bet you that she hadn’t thought that any non-clerics could turn Undead, eh?

“What in the Hell are you doing?!” Xander screams, pointing in the direction that Willow the drow ran off towards. “T- that’s Willow you did that to there!!”

1. Sigh, one has to remember that Xander (while not the brightest or the strongest Scooby out there) was fiercely loyal to his friends. Willow had been one of his best friends since childhood...

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