SquidgeWorld Archive

Prolog

"Giles?" Willow called, the locks of her red hair bouncing as she helped Angel down the stairs. "Uh, Vanessa? Could you come have a look at this?"

Xander looked up at them from the recliner in the Rosenberg living room. "Hey, Will. What's up?"

"Have you seen Giles or..." Willow broke off as Giles ghosted into the room. "Oh. Hi, Giles. Uh, this might be a little difficult to convince you of, especially since you can't verify it by touch the way I did..."

"What's going on?" Vanessa Bateman said as she came towards them from the dining room.

"I, uh, well, Angel, that is, I think..." Willow stammered.

"Willow said she thought I was pregnant," Angel supplied, suppressing a breathy chuckle. "Is that even remotely possible?"

"I wouldn't think..." Giles began, but Vanessa interrupted him.

"Just maybe," the witch said. Angel, Giles, and Xander looked up at her in surprise. "Oh, not that it wouldn't be completely without precedent, but from what I hear, you've been exposed to some *extremely* powerful magic recently, Angel." Vanessa' voice assumed a lecturing tone. "When that kind of enchantment enters the mix, it has a tendency to make the impossible possible. Also, you were in Hell for several months, and Hell is widely said to be where all one's worst nightmares begin. The thought of suffering through childhood is one of the worst nightmares for any male, wouldn't you say?" The look on the faces of Angel, Xander and Giles was answer enough.

Just then the front door opened. "Make way, coming through!" Hank Summers called out. As the rest of them turned to watch with dismay, Hank rushed into the room, carrying an insentient girl in his arms.

"Buffy!" Xander called out as he saw her face, the beautiful eyes closed. "Ohmigod! Is she okay?"

"We don't *know* that yet, genius," Darrell Flatt shot snidely at Xander as followed Hank through the room. The young warlock was carrying Cordelia, who was unconscious like Buffy. The girls were quickly laid down on the couch and recliner.

"What happened?" Vanessa said, inspecting Cordelia's unconscious form. "The final defense?"

"The final defense," Darrell said, nodding. "The Slayer got caught in the backwash. There were some *very* interesting energy effects, but I couldn't tell for the life of me what was happening."

"Okay," Vanessa said, nodding. "We need to figure that out, and for that, we need blood tests run. First order of business is to check the state of the imbued powers - that'll take a psi-potential blot, a power utilization smear, and a matrix test. On both of them - the powers might have transferred from Cordelia to Buffy. After that, well, just about every other test we can think of - the kind of side effects the final defense can generate are just about limitless. Giles, do you have any laboratory facilities set up?" She blushed faintly. "No, I guess you wouldn't..."

"Mister Tojo put his workshop equipment in the basement of the Chase house," Willow supplied helpfully.

"Good enough. Let's go."

Quickly people started to bustle out of the Rosenberg living room, either carrying unconscious teenagers, discussing arcane magical blood tests, or just hovering worriedly. In a matter of seconds, only one person was left.

"Hello?" Angel muttered disgustedly to himself. "Pregnant vampire here - how does everybody forget about that?" After a few seconds, he tromped unsteadily out the door, chasing slowly after the ragged procession.

* * * *

Across town, Kaliya was once more gazing into her magic mirror, looking at the hubbub the collapse of the Slayer and that other girl had caused. Smiling, she gazed over to the far end of her room. There were now five large receptacles there, vaguely coffin-shaped.

Kaliya stood up, still carrying the mirror in her hand, and walked over to inspect the receptacles. Each one held a humanoid figure, only trifles now smaller than life-sized. Their faces and features held the stigmata of vampirism, and more than that, the likeness of particular vampires. They were breathing now, and the tone of their skin was beginning to approach the vampiric normal. Kaliya ran her hand gingerly over the shoulder of one, the first one she had begun. Darla, long the favored one of he who called himself only "The Master."

Kaliya turned to the mirror and watched as the confused throng made its way into the Chase mansion. "Soon," she muttered, to herself and to the unhearing forms about her.

Act One

Giles knocked quietly on Kaliya's door, but the door swung smoothly open under even his light touch. His face fell as he saw Kaliya standing by the wooden boxes, gazing into the magic mirror. "That infernal device again?" he said out loud. "Why do you *continue* to toy with it, instead of getting your rest and building your strength back up?"

Kaliya looked up at him and smiled faintly. "My incurable weakness for strategizing, I suppose." She laughed quietly, long since having learned not to take Giles' nagging too seriously. Not that Giles didn't mean what he said, but he wouldn't dream on acting on a word of it, so Kaliya could laugh off anything that she didn't like. "I am addicted to timely news about the movements of my enemy - I cannot go an hour without it." She laughed again. "Which reminds me; I cannot seem to recall that invocation you taught me to receive sound with an image from the mirror." She handed the mirror over to him.

Giles sighed. "Very well," the Watcher-Vampire muttered under his breath before beginning the spell.

* * * *

"Okay," Willow told Xander. "Here's what we know so far. Neither of them have the witchly power matrix - that's what gave Cordelia her powers. It doesn't exist anymore."

"So all her powers went down the drain when Cordelia's magic intercepted the power spike?" Xander said.

"No, we don't think so. It, well, uh... okay, I need to give you a little background here."

"Shoot, Will."

"Everyone is born with a certain amount of internal energy - call it talent, call it drive, call it aura. The amount people get varies widely - roughly according to the bell curve."

"Bell curve?"

Willow shook her head. "Never mind - it varies from person to person. Experts in magic and the paranormal believe that application of this power accounts for a lot of what they study; they sometimes refer to it as 'psychic potential.'" Xander nodded. "But a lot of people use it for completely ordinary everyday stuff, learning a profession, or memorizing sports facts for that matter."

"Okay."

"Vanessa and her friends said that they noticed a good amount of psychic potential in Cordelia, a potential that she had never done anything with. They used a spell to focus it, to bind it tightly within her into a kind of magic spring, so that that energy could be used for magic easily and powerfully."

"Okay, with you so far."

"If that spring had just been taken out of her, as it were surgically, it would have left her with hardly any psychic potential. But the high potential that Vanessa first noticed is just as high now."

"So..." Xander thought for a second. "The spring has gotten unsprung, leaving her with her whatshmee potential just lying all over, like before."

"That's what we thought, at first. But the third test was for psychic utilization." She showed him a couple of blots on paper that made no sense to him. "Cordelia is down from the high utilization level she was at while she had the witchly powers, yes, but not nearly as far down as she used to be. And Buffy, who has a fairly high psychic level, and who Giles says normally shows a moderately high utilization because of her Slayerness, is now WAY down there..."

"And what the Limbo does that mean?" Buffy asked her.

"Well, we don't really know... Buffy? You're awake?"

"Well, what do *you* think, Einstein?" Buffy snapped. Willow got up to take a look at Cordelia. Xander just smiled at Buffy, glad that she was awake, that those lovely eyes of hers were open, but she scowled back at him. Hurt, Xander let his attention wander over to what he could hear of Angel's examination.

"Well, I'd have to say that I'm tending to agree with Miss Rosenberg. As far as I can tell, Angel, you're pregnant!"

"Pregnant!!" Buffy and Cordelia, (who was just coming round,) exploded at the same instant. "What, uh, huh, whose is it?" Buffy babbled out, then gave a slightly silly grin at how odd she sounded.

"Well, that would be extremely hard to tell at this point. I'd estimate, that if any mother... father, sire... whatever," Vanessa shook her head, "is involved at all, you're the number one candidate Buffy."

"Me!!"

"You were the one who touched Angel across the Hellmouth gateway - who initiated the great magic with him. And you went through the motions of 'making a baby' with Angel in the not too dim-and-distant past. Given, that was too many months ago, but it's not entirely unheard of for this kind of magic to bring the consequences of past events forward in time."

"What about Drusilla?" Buffy gazed fiercely at Angel. "You, I mean, Angelus slept with Drusilla, didn't you? He?"

Angel blushed. "Yes, I seem to recall them having fun that way a time or two. But Drusilla isn't anywhere near here this time. You are."

"Hello?" Xander called out. "I mean, is no-one actually getting that this is *impossible*? One, Angel's a vampire, and vampires don't have babies. Two, he's a guy, pretty much," he shot a slightly ambivalent glare in Angel's direction, "and guys do not have the equipment for this. Three, he hasn't even had sex in a period that fits without someone having to bring up time travel! Am I the only person who sees how ridiculous this is?"

"No, of course not Xander," Giles told him off. "But we are attempting to *understand* this particular ridiculous thing, instead of hoping that calling it impossible will make it go away. Granted, it would take some truly remarkable circumstances to justify this theory, but I think that Angel's life has been more than remarkable enough this past year."

"Uh, just asking out of a morbid sense of curiosity," Oz piped up from a corner, "but what about the 'mechanics' objection? I mean, if he's gonna have a baby, that is," he paused significantly, "how's it gonna work?"

"The male body has some cavities large enough to hold a small fetus," Vanessa remarked. "It isn't equipped to feed it, but under these circumstances that hardly seems necessary. The child would be at least half vampire, and would probably be sustained by Limbo in the same way that Angel is. When the time comes, the baby will presumably make its way out any way it can. Angel's vampire endurance should enable him to survive the torn flesh, but still," she turned a pathos-filled smile on him, "it will be excruciating."

"Well," Buffy interjected, "if we're quite done with that for now, how about figuring out what happened to the two of us over here?"

"Oh, of course," Vanessa said. "How do you feel Buffy?"

"Like I've been hit by a truck." Buffy pondered a moment. "I wasn't actually hit by a truck, was I?"

Vanessa smiled. "No. But that final defense certainly took something out of you, and we're gonna have to find out exactly what. Cordelia, how about you?"

"Me?" Cordelia's eyes closed reflectively for a moment. She looked so beautiful, Xander noticed suddenly. Why was he noticing that? Buffy was the girl he was with, the one who had risked everything to be with him. "I feel strong," Cordelia declared, opening her eyes.

"Oh no," Xander said, deja vu hitting him.

"What is it Xander?" Buffy asked

"Willow," Xander said, not yet daring to tell Buffy about his suspicion, "there's a blood test for Slayerness, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Willow answered him, nodding.

"Test them both. I've got a very ugly feeling..."

Willow produced the testing paraphernalia, already guessing what Xander was hinting at, and quickly performed the test on Buffy and Cordelia without putting them to sleep first. "Buffy, you're... testing as a normal. As in a non-Slayer. Cordelia... you've got a really weird pinky-bluey thing here. It's not the traditional white, it's not the blue thing that Buffy was getting ever since she was killed by the Master..."

"But it's not normal," Buffy finished in a toneless voice. "Which means that she's the Slayer now."

* * * *

"Strange tidings, Giles," Kaliya muttered. "The slayer's powers displaced onto the foolish one, the vampire man said to be bearing a child."

"Should we make our move now, my lady?" Giles said. "While Buffy is weak?"

"No," Kaliya answered him, shaking her head. "My reinforcements are not yet ready, and Summers will be defended by the false Slayer, and the rest of her allies. In any event, I still do not care to destroy Summers while she is helpless. I will give them time to reverse the exchange, so that I can destroy Buffy at the height of her strength, of course!"

Behind the door of Kaliya's room, which was still slightly ajar, Michelle slowly crept away. Once she was out of earshot, she whispered to herself. "Fou! Madame, she is touched not only in the body, but in the head, eh! Destroy Summers at the height of her strength? She could not destroy a badger in its nest. Well, I for one will not stand by and let this opportunity go to waste!" She strode rapidly down the corridor.

Act Two

Michelle looked carefully down the corridor as she came up to the door. This closet had once held only cleaning supplies, before Kaliya had renovated the hideout from an old photocopying businessplace. Now...

Michelle withdrew a small steel spring pick from inside her blouse and applied it to the lock on the doorknob. As she opened it, she heard a footstep from outside the corner. She had only a few seconds before someone caught her in the Mistress' armory.

But this could be her only chance. Quickly Michelle scanned the shelves, Quickly she scooped up a single gold and jade earring, a small (perhaps eight centimeters in diameter,) featureless sphere, seemingly made of frosted glass perhaps half a centimeter thick, and two tiny faceted red stones. She silently swung the door closed and headed off, noticing as Hsartac came into the corridor, too late to see anything incriminating. She had secreted the smaller items, and the lock pick, back into her outfit, already, and held the frosted ball in her hands so that its nature was not clear.

So far, so good. Next stop was the common room, where 'the troops,' being all of their party but the few favored vamps, and Mister Ethan Rayne, (who had gotten a private room from all his despicable whining about his phobia of sleeping near bloodsuckers,) would be. Michelle nerved herself - getting this mission going without formal authorization would be a test of her manipulative mettle, but she thought her acting skills would be up to the task. She looked over the barracks with the icy stare that Madame used to use, and grinned inside as everyone jumped to attention, even the Tarakans. The Tarakans... hmm...

"Attention, s'il vous plait! Madame m'a dit! We return to the streets tonight. Rancid, Gennor, Larry, Ganges." The two Ganges brothers looked up at her questioningly, and Michelle waved inclusively. "Both of you. The rest of you, keep guard and wait for Monsieur Giles to come with further instructions. D'accord?" She waited for a second, trying not to let her nervousness show. If anyone thought to check these 'orders' Michelle would be in immediate trouble. But, as she had suspected, her war party assembled for the mission without any balk-talk. "Allons-y," she said as the passed through the security door to the darkened street and the door closed ringingly behind them.

* * * *

"Okay," Oz muttered. "I guess this time it's *my* turn to raise the 'this is impossible' flag. I mean - can you just switch Slayers like that?"

"As we've seen, Oz," Vanessa replied without missing a beat, "just about anything is possible, here in Limbo." Vanessa was starting to seem more Watcher-like than the official Watchers, today, Xander realized. Perhaps because all of this was so far beyond normal Watcher domain that even Giles and Willow seemed as clueless as he, Xander, was normally. Vanessa, on the other hand, seemed to be willing to make guesses at what was going on, and was taking *everything* in stride, so everyone else was just letting her run with it. "The legacy of the Slayer is said, in the ancient texts, to be an immortal spirit that moves from host to host, providing one girl at a time with the strength, the courage, and the prowess to stand against the vampires and the forces of darkness. If that's true, the Slayer spirit could have been accidentally transpossessed from Buffy to Cordelia while the final defense was defusing Cordelia's power matrix. Probably something else, some aspect of character or spirit, would have been transferred back from Cordelia to Buffy."

"I think it was her sour disposition," Willow muttered under her breath. Giles turned and glared at his assistant, but Xander thought that Willow might be right - Buffy had been nasty and bad-tempered ever since she woke up, while Cordelia...

"Something's outside!" Cordelia called out. She got up and ran towards the front hall, the others following. Xander realized that he could hear something too, a kind of hissing. "Oh, no!"

A pack of strange-looking large black dogs were cavorting on and around the front porch, hissing and breathing strange-looking dark fog on things. Whatever the black mist touched, seemed to sag a little, as if it was slowly melting.

"Hellhounds!" Willow muttered.

"We've got to get rid of them," Cordelia said. "Look, they're trying to work through the door." Indeed, the metal frame of the outside door was starting to show the wear of the hound's acidic breath. Once they had gotten through that, the inner wood door would probably follow more quickly. "My parents just got that door put in this summer."

"There's no need for the rest of you to risk yourselves," Giles said. "We ghosts can lead them away without danger."

"I don't think so, Mister Giles," Vanessa said. "Hellhounds can tell ghosts from the living, and they aren't as stupid as they look. They wouldn't take the bait."

"Then we do this the hard way," Cordelia said. "I'll teach those mutts a lesson they won't soon forget."

Everyone turned to stare at Cordelia. "What?" she said. "The Slayer beats up the monsters. I'm the Slayer now - you said so yourself. And now I understand what I have to do."

Giles and Willow shared a look. "But you're not the *real* Slayer, Cordelia," Willow argued desperately. "We don't know if you'll have the strength to do... what the Slayerness is pushing you to do. We don't even know..."

"Then come with, if you're so worried," Cordelia snapped. "But don't try to stop me from going out there." She held up her hand, waving a mace in it, (where had she gotten that from?) and headed for the flight of stairs.

* * * *

"Hi-ya!" Cordelia screamed as she dropped the four meters from the roof of her porch to the decaying garden earth. A hellhound was within a few feet of her, but she swung the mace around to hit it in the snout, and the beast flew back a little ways with the recoil.

Xander looked gingerly down off the edge of the roof. With a gallant wave, he deferred to Willow. "Ladies first."

Willow gulped, looked over the edge herself, and tried to poke her head around to see if there were any good handholds to lower down on. "Thanks a bunch," she muttered sourly.

"Oh, please," Darrell Flatt muttered from behind them. "What a couple of geeks," he muttered in a stage whisper that both the others could easily hear. "Come with me." He stepped between them, extending one hand each to Xander and Willow.

"Uh, okay," Willow said, straightening up and putting her hand in his. Xander took hold of the warlock's other hand, and they both stepped forward when he did - right over the edge of the roof! Xander yelped in pure horror before realizing that they were only falling a few feet a second. In a few moments they landed on the walkway, none the worse.

"Warlock showoff," Xander muttered to Willow. But then the hellhounds were leaping towards them, and there was no time for more sniping.

It looked like everything would go smoothly, for the first minute or so. But Cordelia paused, shaking, in the middle of backing her third hound into a corner. The beast seized its opportunity and lunged at her, Its claws tore holes into Cordelia's blouse and ripped out the bottom of her skirt as its weight sent Cordy crashing to the ground. The damnable beast oriented its head to point its mouth at Cordelia's head.

"No!!" Xander cried horrified. Desperately, he tossed his cudgel at the hound's head. Luckily, he hit it, and the hellish animal staggered in place. Then, in another second, Cordelia had thrown it off of her. She climbed back up to her feet, her blouse in tatters, showing a good deal of her full white bra and shapely back. Xander was electrified by the sight.

Cordelia got back to work, and the tide continued to turn against the Hellhounds. Michelle crept into sight, watching the melee from behind a neighbor's hedge, but no-one paid even the slightest attention to her area. Least of all Xander, who was at this point just watching as Cordy and the others wrapped things up, preoccupied by the thoughts running through his head.

There was no question about it - he was *madly* attracted to Cordelia right now. But why? He hadn't felt anything much for Cordelia since his secret romance with Buffy had started. Was his interest in Buffy fading now that it was no longer a 'forbidden fling,' and his eye wandering all over any attractive girl once again?

Or, dare he even think it, was it possible that his interest was less in Buffy, and more in 'the Slayer'? He had quite liked Kendra when he first met her, and Xander didn't normally go close enough to the 'scary spice' type to touch one with a ten-foot pole...

At that point, Cordelia smacked her mace into the head of another hound, who had apparently had quite enough and dispersed into foul mist. Cordy looked around for a new opponent, but found nothing.

"There was one that run away about a minute ago, but I don't think it's worth tracking it down," Willow offered.

"Cool enough," Cordy said, grinning. She turned to Xander and smiled at him. "Coming?"

Act Three

Michelle carefully put on the jade earring she had gotten from Madame's armory. It was odd, she thought to herself - she hadn't worn earrings in about fifty years... since shortly after she was changed, but the piercings were still there. It was something about being a vampire, she surmised. Michelle then focused her attention on the Chase house, and soon she could hear the conversations from inside it. That was the magic value of this jewel - she used to call it the 'hear ring' back when she had first learned English.

"...I'm feeling quite tired and worn out, to tell the truth."

"Perhaps you should go back to your room, in the other house. Willow?"

"Yeah, sure... I'll make sure he gets there safely."

Perfect! Michelle quickly dashed back to where the others were waiting. She handed one of the tiny garnets to Rancid. "When this flashes, I need your help - yours and Gennors. Get into the house any way you can and fight the Slayer's allies." She turned to the Ganges brothers and Larry. "When they go in, you stay out and guard the porch. Let no-one in or out except for us." All nodded at her. Michelle couldn't quite hide her smile - taking command was fun!

She crept back towards the house, digging the glass sphere and her trusty bloodstake from her weapons bag, which she dropped on the other side of the Chase driveway. The iron 'bloodstake' went up her sleeve, while she held the sphere in her hands as she waited...

In only a few moments, the door opened, and Angel and the Rosenberg girl came out. Michelle focused intently on Rosenberg, and the glass sphere shattered silently in her hands. Exactly as it was supposed to.

Now she was ready, except that the timing was wrong. No-one would be expecting Rosenberg to be back this quickly. Michelle forced herself to wait a few minutes before coming up to the porch. Confidently, again not daring to show her nervousness, she rang at the doorbell.

Harris opened the door. "Oh, hi Will. Why didn't you just come in?"

Oh. "Uh, I didn't remember to take the key with me."

"It was unlocked."

Michelle smiled meekly, imitating a mannerism she had noticed of Rosenberg, trying to hide the fact that she still couldn't pass the threshold.

"Well, come in already, huh?"

Now Michelle grinned more widely as she stepped into the house.

* * * *

"Hey, thanks. I can take it from here," Angel said as they walked into the front hall of the Rosenberg house.

"Uh, I don't think so," Willow said, suppressing a naughty smile. "I promised to see you safely back into your room, and nothing else will do."

Angel smiled uncertainly back at her. "You know that they need your help with Cordelia and Buffy."

"That can wait..."

"I'm not so sure. There's something unnatural about that. The Slayer spirit needs to get transpossessed back into Buffy, and soon. Before something disastrous happens."

"Maybe," Willow allowed. "But right now I'm helping you, mister." She gestured him towards the stairs. "Come on."

They made their way back up the stairs. "So, it does seem that you *are* pregnant. Have you thought about what you're gonna do about it?"

Angel smirked. "You mean, have the baby or get an abortion? Raise the child myself or put it up for adoption?" He chuckled in disbelief.

Willow tittered too. "Well, uh, yeah... more the first question."

"I don't know. This is too weird a situation for any answers. I mean, I don't think we know enough about this situation to know if it would be *possible* to abort this baby, never mind whether it's the right thing to do. At least getting knocked up can't ruin my life." Angel waved his eyebrows to indicate he was joking.

"Well, here we are."

"Thank you, Willow," Angel said. Willow opened her mouth to make a reply, but Angel cut her off. "Not just for the walk home. For caring. For making all of this a little easier."

Willow blushed and giggled. "Uh, you're welcome."

* * * *

"Michelle!" Giles bellowed. "Where has that dratted girl got to now?" he whispered to himself. Not knowing where else to look, he strode off towards the common room.

"Has anyone here seen Michelle?" he asked the room in general.

Several vamps looked at him in utter confusion. "She, um, she has led a party outside," a vamp told him soberly. "They left an hour ago."

"What? Who with?"

"Rancid, Gennor, the Ganges, and one of the newly changed. Larry?"

"On whose authority?"

"Kaliya's, she said."

Giles scowled at him. "And *no-one* thought to verify that? Our lady ordered no such action. I have been with her all day." The face of the other vampire, (Giles couldn't for the undeath of him remember this particular henchvamp's name,) fell.

"The Slayer," Giles muttered to himself. "You, come with me. The rest of you, tighten security, and someone let Kaliya know what has happened, and that we go to fetch Michelle back before she commits treachery by making the kill that is reserved for her liege lady." He pointed at one of the newly changed, who gulped and got up to deliver the message.

* * * *

"Ah, good to see you, Willow," The Giles-ghost said as Michelle came into the living room. "You were telling me earlier today, about an entry in the Gavinec Codex relating to catalyzed transpossession." He gestured to a heavy book on the coffee table. "Oz was able to find Akira Tojo's copy in his room. Would you be able to find that reference for us?"

Michelle froze inside. So soon, she was being asked for the impossible. Well, there was nothing at all for it but to make the attempt and manufacture some excuse. Still, she felt as if her cover was melting away already.

"I'm not quite sure where it was," she muttered in her best attempt at California American English, as she sat down on the couch and hauled the huge volume onto her lap. "And it's a very big book."

"Come on, Will, you've got like the photographic memory," a young man reassured her. Rosenberg's boyfriend, the one referred to only as 'Oz.' Photographic memory. Oh, great.

Michelle continued to flip through the book, pretending to try to find her place. "Where's Buffy?" she asked conversationally.

"Lying down in the first-floor bedroom," Xander said, tilting his head towards the rear of the house. "The transpossession thing seems to have really taken a lot out of her."

"I'm sure," Michelle agreed. It would take more out of her yet, she vowed...

* * * *

"What happened to you out there?" Darrell asked Cordelia, as he and some of the other witches tried other strange magical tests to try and figure out how Cordy had gotten the Slayer spirit and how to return it.

"Uh, what do you mean?" Cordelia asked back, smiling just a little at the cute warlock.

"When you seemed to lose your bearings there for a few seconds. That hellhound nearly had you."

"Until Xander," Cordelia agreed. "I'm not sure - it's like the strength just left me for a second."

"I'm not surprised," Vanessa cut in. "You've got the Slayer powers, for now at least, Cordelia, but you're not to the manner born, so to speak. You're not meant to be a Slayer, and your body can't take it. I'd say that paroxysms like that one are going to get more numerous with time, and worse the more you use the Slayer strength. Until we can get a reverse transpossession organized, that is."

Suddenly, they could hear raised voices downstairs. "What's going on now?" Vanessa wondered out loud.

* * * *

"Hi guys," Buffy Summers said as she walked listlessly into the living room.

"Hi, honey," Xander said, jumping up to greet her. "How are you feeling?"

"Still... weak." The Slayer (or ex-Slayer?) maneuvered her dispirited way to a comfortable chair and flopped down into it. "How're things going with the transpossession?"

"Not good," Michelle volunteered. "I can't seem to remember where that passage was, Giles."

"It's okay, Willow," Giles assured her. "I think we may be able to effect a counterspell without..."

Giles kept talking, but Michelle's attention was elsewhere. The hear-ring, (she wondered idly if the others saw Willow wearing it or not,) was picking up something new - footsteps climbing up the porch stairs. More than likely, that was the real Willow Rosenberg returning.

Michelle put the book aside quickly, stood up, reached into the small pocket in her short skirt, squeezing the tiny garnet quickly with her thumb and index finger. Then she quickly crossed over to where Summers was sitting, bringing the bloodstake out of her sleeve as she reached her.

Tired as she was, Summers wasn't taken off guard. She snapped to attention and kicked out with her right foot, aiming for Michelle's leg.

The blow connected, as Michelle couldn't help but laugh at how little force it had. If the mighty Slayer of Sunnydale had been reduced to *that*, Michelle's mission would be even easier than she had thought.

Act Four

Giles, Xander, and Oz all dived at the same time towards the 'Willow' who had just attacked Buffy. Giles got there first, but passed insubstantially through her, of course. Oz grabed for the arm carrying the metal stake, but 'Willow' was already leaning into him, and with a casual effort threw him off. Oz stumbled into the coffee table and fell crashingly over it.

Xander tried to approach the intruder more carefully, but he was already moving with too much momentum to stop quickly. 'Willow' stepped back and extended a shapely leg forward to trip him, but Xander managed to step around it.

"Hey, what's..." Willow strode in from the front door, and froze in shock as she caught sight of her double. "Eeek!"

Xander charged towards the fake Willow again, putting his right hand solidly on her right shoulder and pushing firmly back, trying to push her into the coffee table, as she had done to Oz. As Xander touched and looked at her, the disguise faded away and he saw Michelle as she was. The vampire girl seemed to bend backwards under Xander's push for a few seconds, but then she moved her feet back, braced herself against Xander's effort, and let her right arm fly towards Xander's throat, her sharp fingernails leading. Xander dodged back, remembering how Kendra had been killed in one strike that same way.

Suddenly a clatter of sounds indicated more participants in the struggle. Xander looked over towards the front hall, and saw the two demons he remembered from the Autumnal Equinox, engaging Willow, Cordelia, and the witches in combat.

Meanwhile, something moved from the corner of his eye towards Xander. It was Michelle, holding the iron stake in a attack posture. Xander couldn't think of any other defense, and he froze in horror as the Slayer-Vamp bore down on him. But Michelle turned aside and spun away from him at the last moment. Buffy let go of her hold on Michelle's sleeve, smiled, and let fly with a roundhouse punch, all of her weight behind it, that almost staggered the vampire girl.

Gennor flew a beam of heat from his focus gem towards Cordelia, but she ducked under it, and someone's coat went up in enthusiastic flames. Cordelia shot out a kick at Gennor's power gem, and gaped in surprise as Gennor's body winked out of existence for a second.

Meanwhile, Rancid was charging Cordy. One of the younger witches, a pretty tawny-haired girl, tossed the flaming jacket to Cordelia, in such a way that she could catch it by a safe portion.

"Huh?" But Rancid was almost upon her, and suddenly Cordy understood - she threw the flaming jacket firmly over his head.

Gennor was taking aim again. Vanessa pointed at him and muttered a word, and his body winked out of existence again. The gem dropped to the floor, and Cordelia dashed over and stepped firmly on it. There was a soft 'crack,' and Gennor did not reappear.

Cordelia turned back to Rancid, but Darrell was ahead of her. He pointed at the demon and called out a short phrase of gibberish. Rancid's body burst into enthusiastic flames, slowly shrivelling away.

"Do not move!" Michelle called out. Xander turned towards her, realizing that he had gotten distracted by Cordelia's fight. Michelle was behind Buffy's back, holding Buffy's right arm up behind her in an armlock and pointing something, probably the iron stake, poised behind Buffy's heart. Xander realized with a sinking feeling that it was the exact same hostage position that Buffy had put Michelle into, when she had first braved Kaliya's hideout to determine Rupert Giles' fate.

"One wrong move and she gets it! You understand?"

Xander backed away, giving Michelle space, but also very definitely blocking off any possible path from Michelle to the living room windows. Willow caught the hint, and edged through the living room to cut off the dining room as a possible retreat.

"Don't do anything stupid, Michelle," Xander said, trying to be soothing. "Put the stake down, and you can just walk away. I promise you that, do you understand?" Xander wondered how many of the others could see through Michelle's 'Willow disguise' by this point, but he couldn't worry about that right now. "You want to get out of here alive, don't you? We're not trying to back you into a corner, but your goose is cooked if you do anything to Buffy; you've gotta realize that."

Michelle moved herself and Buffy towards the front hall. "Move aside," she ordered roughly.

"No," Cordelia said quietly. Willow gasped.

"Move aside, or she dies right now!" Michelle called out, fury coming into her voice.

"No!" Cordelia said, more confidently now. "You get out of this house alive with Buffy, and she's as good as dead. You know that, we know that. Let her go, and we'll be glad to let you pass. Kill her now, and you're sealing your own fate. I'm willing to bet that you're not that stupid."

"I am that *loyal*, oh daughter of serpents," Michelle spat. "It matters not what happens to me. Only that Summers dies."

"Really?" Buffy herself gasped. "Then why haven't you done the deed already?"

"I am obliged," Michelle responded, twisting into the armlock so that Buffy groaned in pain, "to try to survive this matter as well as succeeding in it."

"EINHH!" Buffy brayed, in a passable imitation of a game-show buzzer. "I don't buy that one. You're not the type to give your life for a simple mission."

"It is not a mission," Michelle responded. "I *must* do this, to secure the safety of my mistress. She can not see what must be done, but I can."

"Ah, I see," Buffy gasped. "Trade your own puny little life for that of the Slayer. Like the chess that your mistress plays - trading a rook for a queen is a net benefit."

"Oui."

"But there's one big problem with that plan," Buffy argued. "You see, I'm not the Slayer right now." Michelle nodded. "Of course, you know that already. Did you time this move because of it? Yeah. The old 'kick the Slayer when she's down' line of thinking." Buffy chuckled.

"But it's not the same thing this time. You see, there's a new slayer this time. If I die, Cordelia stays the Slayer. She's not as good as me at my peak strength," Buffy smirked over at Cordy with good-natured superiority, "but she seems to be doing well enough. She took those Tarakans out, and that isn't easy, now is it? If you go through with this, you're giving up your life, to trade Cordelia for me." Cordelia's face fell for a fraction of a second, then reverted to a brave composure.

Buffy took stock. She didn't think Michelle had been looking in the right place to notice Cordelia's moment of panic. That was good, because it certainly seemed as if there was some serious problem with Cordelia and the Slayer-ness. A problem big enough to make this whole line of persuasion a foolish bluff. Well, Buffy could bluff with the best of them. "Doesn't seem like that good of a trade now, does it? Wouldn't you be better off to walk away, and protect Kaliya with your own life on another day?"

Michelle froze, her hand trembling on the stake, besieged by indecision. Buffy racked her brain for some other approach to use on Michelle, but couldn't think of anything. It seemed as if all the others were similary blanked out.

"Excuse me?" a faint voice called out from the porch.

"Giles?" Cordelia said in disbelief. Looking back and forth from ghost-Giles to the porch, she quickly amended "I mean, vamp-Giles... or something..."

"Vamp-Giles?" Vamp-Giles called out. "Good enough, I suppose. Am I right in suspecting that you're in the middle of a difficult situation with Michelle?"

"YES!" everyone within the house but Michelle called out at once.

"May I come in? I have come to ensure that she doesn't make a treacherous mistake?"

"You want to *save* Buffy?" Cordelia asked incredulously. "From her?"

"Yes."

"Come in," Buffy groaned.

Vamp-Giles walked into the front hall. "You know that Kaliya doesn't want it this way, Michelle," he announced confidently. "Put down the stake."

"It's gone too far, Monsieur Giles," Michelle whined back. "Rancid and Gennor are dead, because of this. I have to see it through."

"No!" Giles called out. "You have to follow orders, Michelle. Drop the stake and come with me."

With a small squeak, Michelle dropped the stake and walked out of the room. Buffy walked over to Vamp-Giles. "Thank you."

"I didn't do it for you. I did it for Kaliya. She is the one who will kill you - no-one else."

"Do me a favor," Buffy snapped. "If Kaliya wants a piece of me, she can come and get it any time. But tell her this for me," and Buffy drove a stake into Giles' chest, well off to the side of his heart. "Stop bragging about killing me, until you've done it - and *I* don't have to listen to it anymore!"

* * * *

"I apologize, Madam," Michelle said nervously. "I decieved your servants, and betrayed the trust you placed in me to go against your direct wishes."

"Nonsense, my dear," Kaliya said. "You were doing what you felt you had to do to ensure my safety. You were probably justified, too."

"What?" Michelle and Giles said at the same time.

"I must let go of my arrogant pretenses. Whatever victory we can get against our enemies, we must seize, never mind if it fits my need for prestige. If you could have taken Summers out, you should have."

"And you tell me this now??" Giles exploded.

"But not at the cost of your own life, my dear," Kaliya continued. "I could not have reconciled myself to such a Pyrrhic victory." And she gave Michelle a tender kiss on the cheek.

* * * *

"Okay, we have a transpossession spell organized," Giles announced. "Buffy and Cordelia must form the ends of a transfer chain, four people in all, holding hands over special conductors to enable the transpossesed spirits to return. Do we have any volunteers for the transfer chain?"

"Here!" Willow and Xander called out at once.

"Good enough," Vanessa said. "Willow, you cross hands with Buffy over this," and she put a metal plate into her hand, "and put this in your other hand, which you'll join with Xander when everything is ready. Xander, you take this one and Cordelia."

In about a minute, they were all arranged and ready. Willow, already holding Buffy's hand in her left, joined her right hand to Xander, who was holding hands with Cordelia...