Part One

by Bradygirl

“You know, we could do this the easy way--” informed Buffy Summers.
“Stake. Heart. Dust. Or...”

Before she could finish her monologue, the immortal vampire morphed into
a hellion and snapped her head back with a punch to the face. She really
hated when they did that. Her eyes drew together in anger.

“That really wasn’t a nice thing to do. Now apologize. Say you’re
sorry.” She loved taking all her aggression out on the inhuman. She’d
actually gotten very good at it.

Then a stray thought came into her head. This vamp was down right
unpleasant to look at. So were most vampires, but this one was unusually
ugly. Why couldn’t vampires be pretty? she wondered. Buffy shrugged at
the thought. Maybe because demons weren’t meant to appeal to the mortal realm.

Hey, she was beginning to sound like Giles. “That’s it! I’m spending way
too much of my time in the library.” She wasn’t really speaking to
anyone. It just felt right to say it out loud. As she took in her
environment, she found that she was surrounded by stacks of books. “I
have got to get a life. I even fight in the library.”

Another vampire appeared beside the first.

“Are we having a party, and you didn’t invite me? I’m crushed.” They
both attacked at once but soon the second vamp split off from the first.

Willow was trying to appear inconspicuous as she darted behind the card
catalog, but she knew it was no use to hide from these creatures. She
watched Buffy and the vampire as they circled each other like
competitors in a boxing ring, except this fight was to the death not to
see who would go down first.

While she was distracted watching Buffy work, another vampire jumped
atop the card catalog she was crouching behind. She screamed Buffy’s
name but her friend was otherwise engaged.

From the second floor stacks, Xander appeared above Willow holding a bag of Oreo cookies. He had come in the back entrance not knowing his
friends were in the middle of a battle to the death.

“Hey,” he yelled from above the vampire. “Wanna cookie?” The vampire
snarled and went back to Willow. “They’re really good. You sure? You
can have the rest. Am I a good guy or what?”

“Xander! Stop talking to him and DO SOMETHING!” Willow was trapped with no where to go.

He threw a few of the cookies at the demon. They just bounced off his
chest and fell to the floor. The vampire crushed one under his boot.
Without a second thought, Xander dropped the rest of the cookies down
on him, grabbed the largest book he could find, an unabridged
dictionary, and threw it down on the monster.

“Run Willow!”

Buffy performed an elaborate cartwheel, grabbed two sharply pointed
stakes on her way down and threw them once she was on her feet again.
The first hit it’s mark and the vamp dissolved into floating fragments.
The second’s aim wasn’t as true and the wooden implement clattered on
the floor next to the card catalog.

Xander jumped from the second story stacks to atop the card catalog with the second vampire. He was ducking punch after punch thanking his lucky stars that he wasn’t the chosen one and didn’t have to do this night
after night. He could see that Willow hadn’t run far and now had the
stake in her hand.

“Throw it already,” he said harshly, ducking again. “I’ll give you a
cookie.. when I get a new bag.”

“Don’t worry Xander. I’ve got it,” said Buffy’s confident voice from
across the room. She ran up the stairs and catapulted herself landing on
them both. While the vampire was scrambling to get up slipping on cookie
crumbs, Willow threw Buffy the stake. The vamp was dust three seconds
later.

Particles of the vampire were all over Xander who had been on the bottom
of the pile when the demon exploded with a poof. He shook the remains
from his jacket.

“Remind me *never* to be near a vampire when you do that again,” he
complained. “Ugh! Vampire cooties! I think I need a shower.”

“Oh, you’ll live. At least he didn’t bite you,” said Buffy straightening
her shirt.

“Yeah, Xander. That could have been *very bad*,” added Willow.

“You’re right. Becoming a blood sucking demon isn’t high on my priority
list.”

“You have a priority list?” asked Willow.

“Hey, I brought the cookies didn’t I? The cookies made the vampire slip
which saved the day. I’m so proud of myself.”

“Um. Xander. Buffy saved the day and you’re life.”

“Yeah, that too. But the cookies were instrumental. You couldn’t have
done it without the cookies.”

“She couldn’t have done *what* without the cookies?” asked Giles walking
in from the hallway. He observed the disarray of the library and sighed.
“Let me guess....”

“Vampires.” stated Buffy. “I was just doing what you said. You said,
‘Buffy, wait here.’ So I waited. They found me first. It wasn’t my
fault.”

“I know.” Giles raked a hand through his hair. “I’m afraid I have more
bad news. Your work for tonight isn’t over.”

“Do I need to fire up the computer?” Willow asked with glee.

“No, Spike and Dru have created a portal.” Giles laid down the book in
his hand and opened it to the precise spot he wanted to read. “It’s more
like a rip in reality. I don’t know exactly where they’ve gone but you
have to bring them back. There is no telling what harm those two could
do without the slayer to protect the innocent.”

“ROAD TRIP!” Xander grabbed his backpack and gathered up a few uncrushed
cookies. “I’m ready.”

“Yeah, me too. I want to see what a rip in reality looks like.”

“You’re not going to make me go alone, are you?” Buffy batted her
‘don’t-make-me-go alone-I’m-only-sixteen’ eyelashes.

“No, of course not, I ... well, since I’m the watcher I thought it only
appropriate that I go.”

Before the disagreement was settled, the doors of the library were blown
off their hinges. Angel sauntered in, in his hand was a glowing green
orb.

“I’ll tell you what... You’re all going.” Angel rubbed the glowing
sphere. The room was immediately consumed with an emerald radiance for
ten seconds. When the next second ticked by, the room was empty. The
group had disappeared.

Part 2

An emerald glow penetrated every inch of the landscape above some
nameless city they couldn't identify. Giles knew they had passed through
the portal, but no one could really see where they were headed. They
just knew they were falling toward a blip on a live map that flew at
them at a break-neck speed.

The group landed in awkward positions on a grassy area near an enclosure
of buildings. Buffy was the first to regain consciousness. She brushed a
colorful leaf from her face and gazed at the sky. It wasn't exactly
blue, but it wasn't other worldly either. That was a relief, but to her
dismay darkness came swiftly as twilight descended on the city. Buffy
knew that twilight meant vampires.

"Oh, my backside," moaned Buffy as her pain became apparent.

Xander got up from behind Buffy and couldn't help but look at her
assets. "And may I say, what a nice backside it is." He couldn't wipe
the smile that spread across his face.

"Xander!" the girls yelled in sync.

"Hey, I'm just stating a fact. So sue me!" He threw his hands up in the
air in frustration.

"Giles, aren't there easier ways to pass through rips in reality?" Buffy
really wasn't looking forward to the trip home if she had to fall that
far again. It must have been over fifty feet. Who could fall fifty feet
and live?

"From what I've researched, yes. Angel must have wanted us to suffer."
Giles groaned as he rose to his feet. "I don't think my back will ever
be the same."

"Thanks for sharing, watch-meister." Xander patted Giles on the back and
he flinched a little. Suddenly, Xander realized something. The chorus of
voices yelling at him wasn't limited to only Buffy and Willow. He could
have sworn he'd heard Cordelia's voice, but that was impossible.
Cordelia wasn't there when Angel zapped them to this place.

The sound of twigs snapping made him turn on his heel. Cordelia was
about ten feet from the rest of the group lying in a hay bale. Leaves
and hay stuck this way and that out of her wet hair and clothing. She
was a shambled mess.

"You have some nerve Xander Harris!" she lamented brushing the dirt from
her knees. "Looking at other girl's behi...well... looking at OTHER
GIRLS, PERIOD!

"My Cordelia, you have never looked worse. Mighty unbecoming. And may I ask-- pray tell, why is your hair wet? Did you hit a rain cloud on the
way down?"

"You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, dork breath!"

"Are you going to tell us? Or are you going to keep us in suspense?"
asked Xander nicely.

"What?" Cordelia really had no idea what the lame brain was talking
about. Maybe he just liked to hear himself speak. She knew so many
people who were self involved like that.

"Your hair?"

"Oh, that. I was at the salon getting my nails and hair done."

Xander watched Cordy take a deep breath and then waited for the selfish
little witch to get her let-me-tell-you-what-happened-to-ME party
started.

"Phillip, you know Phillip, my hairdresser? Well, he wasn't there.
That's just my luck, isn't it? So I had to settle for this frumpy old
woman named Doris. I thought, God, what a horrid name. Couldn't her
parents have picked something better? Sheesh. Anyway, she was going to
cut my hair. Then I looked at her split ends and about died. Why was I
letting her work on my hair when she looked like that? She had split
ends from hell."

"Cut to the chase Cordelia. We don't have all day," muttered Buffy.

"LIKE I was saying before I was so *rudely* interrupted," Cordelia made
sure to put emphasis on rudely. "I was getting my hair washed... Did
you know there is still conditioner in here?" she said as she pulled at
her black locks. "It better be the leave in kind."

They had all gathered in a group around Cordelia once they realized she
had been transported along with the rest of them.

"Oh, my God!" cried Cordelia once she spied her reflection in the store
window. "Why didn't you tell me I looked like this." She left them all
and tromped into a place named Ballistixs. She poked her head out the
door for a fraction of a second. "You don't happen to have a hair dryer,
do you?"

"No, sorry, not on me," mocked Xander.

"Does that girl think of anyone besides herself?" asked Buffy.

"Well... once. I think. But she didn't do it consciously. I think it was
an accident," added Willow.

"Now to the issue at hand," Giles took control since he was the only
adult. Not to mention the fact that he was the watcher. "It appears
Angel has vanished."

"That's a *good* thing, right?" Xander and Angel had never gotten along
too well, even when he was a decent vampire. Now that he was soul-less,
Xander hated him even more.

"No, Xander. It's not a good thing," said Giles as he cleaned his
glasses. "We have to bring the vampires back to our own reality before
they hurt anyone else in this place." The watcher motioned to the
buildings around them. They were in the middle of some Halloween-ish
display in the center of the enclosure.

"Giles, it's called a mall. We have them back in our world too. You
know, you *shop* there." Buffy couldn't resist the temptation to taunt
her watcher. A slayer had so little fun these days. "You should try it
sometime."

Giles glared at Buffy, but she only smiled. He hated when she didn't
take his assignments seriously. Today there were more lives at stake
than her own.

"Does anyone have a clue where we are?" asked Xander.

"Oh, I do, I know," chimed in Willow raising her hand. She slowly
brought it down self consciously. "We're in Salem."

"How did you deduce that Sherlock?" said Xander in a snide tone.

"It says right there on the wall, Salem Place. If this is Salem Place,
then it's only logical to assume that this is Salem. Right? Or not
right?" Willow's voice started out confident but the statement ended in
a timid question.

"Nice work, Willow," complimented Giles. "At least we know where we are.
That's a start."

A few minutes later Cordelia came out of Ballistixs wearing an entirely
new outfit complete with new shoes and matching purse. Her hair was
shining and appearance, flawless.

"Well, don't you look nice. Doesn't feel good to get dressed up once in
a while?" mocked Xander to Cordelia.

"The shoes weren't exactly what I was looking for, but I guess they'll
have to do," she said turning her foot this way and then that examining
the loafer .

"Cordelia, how did you pay for that," asked Giles.

Out of her small purse she pulled a credit card. "I never leave home
without it."

"Well, that is promising. Very promising indeed. At least we know we're
still in our own reality where we can use our own money." Giles took a
deep breath and continued. "Now, let's find the vampires and get back to
Sunnydale."

"Yeah, team!" yelled Xander.

"Giles, once we find Spike, Drucilla and Angel.... how do we get back
home?" Buffy knew that the slaying was the easy part. The hard part
would be finding the way home... if there was one.

"Click your heels together three times and say..." Xander did his best
impression of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. "There's no place like
home. There's no place like home."

Willow cast Xander a troubled expression. This was no time for fun and
games. This was real life. Real life where real people could die. Real
people like them.

"Why don't we split up into teams," Willow suggested. "Giles and I will
go this way. Xander and Cordelia will go that way...."

"Hey, why do I get stuck with the ice princess? Can't I go with Buffy?"
complained Xander.

"...and Buffy will go this way. We'll all meet back here in an hour.
How's that sound?"

"Fine with me," said Buffy. "In an hour then."

The three groups split off in different directions. Buffy didn't mind
being alone. She slayed alone all the time. But this was a new and
unfamiliar territory. She had a wiggy feeling about it already.
Everything about this place was wiggy. No one was walking around. Where
was everyone? Before she knew it she was down on the waterfront.

"Hey, where did this pier come from?" she said to to no one. The pier
had practically materialized in front of her. One minute she was in the
mall and now she was on the waterfront. This was very weird.

"Oh, this is definitely wiggin' me out."

To her right was a small establishment called Brady's Pub. Maybe someone
in there knew something. As she approached a blond man appeared at the
door as if by magic.

"Woah, where did he come from? This is definitely not reality. People
and places just don't appear and disappear like this," whispered Buffy
to herself.

The blond man was about to enter the pub when a man ambushed him. It
wasn't a man. That was a vampire. She'd recognize his ugly demon-like
face anywhere. Buffy flew into action, literally. She performed a flying
kick into the vampire's back, but he still held onto the blond man who
seemed utterly shocked by the vampire's appearance.

"What do you want?" he asked the vampire. "Here, take my wallet."

"Buddy, I don't want your wallet. I want your blood." The vampire
started to descend to the man's throat revealing his sharp razor-like
teeth.

"Let him go," spit out Buffy through clinched teeth. She hated seeing
the innocent tormented by vampires. It really ticked her off.

"Get out of here," the man yelled. "I think he's gonna kill me."

"Not if I have anything to say about it, he won't."

Buffy slammed her fist into a picket fence.Where it came from she didn't
know, and at the moment, she didn't care either. The white wooden slats
became very useful stakes. Probably not sharp enough, but they'd do in a
pinch, and this was a pinch. She ran at them both, and bounded through
the air piercing the vampire through the back. The stake stabbed him
through the soft flesh of his back. The momentum of her falling forward
pushed the wooden instrument straight into his heart. The vampire
dissolved in a cloud of smoke.

Buffy forward momentum hadn't stopped after killing the vamp. She ended
up tackling the man and they both landed in a heap on the ground. He on
his back and she on top of him. Finally she got a good look at his face.

I know him, she said to herself. She stared at him with a sense of
wonderment. "I know you. You're Mike, right?"

"Have we met?" grunted Mike. Buffy got off him and he stood again. "I'm
sure I would have remembered such a beautiful girl."

"Ah, what a sweet thing to say. No wonder all the girls are crazy about
you. No, we've never met." She searched her brain for a reasonable
answer. "Someone... someone... pointed you out to me once." Whew! Well, at least she wasn't lying. It was sort of true.

"And you remembered me? I'm flattered," said Mike as he brushed the dust
off his jacket. "Are you new to Salem?"

"Yeah, really new. I just... dropped in."

Mike put his hand on the side of Buffy's face, and she thought she'd
faint. She'd always heard that teenagers had raging hormones. Well, hers
were raging right now.

"That's quite a nasty cut you have there. Why don't you come over to the
hospital with me and I'll patch that right up."

"Sure," she said dreamily. "Anything you say. Are we going to University
Hospital?"

"That's right. I'm Chief of Staff there now."

"I know," she said without thinking.

"Can I ask you something?"

Buffy nodded.

"What happened to that guy?"

"He ran off," she improvised.

"I thought maybe he did. But for a minute, it looked like he dissolved
into dust."

Buffy laughed. "That's ridiculous. Your eyes must have been playing
tricks on you."

***

Carrie Reed stood a few feet away from Mike watching him and the cute
blond girl talking. What was he doing with her, she wondered. Carrie
hadn't been able to get Mike off her mind for weeks. Or had it been
years? Why had it taken her so long to realize her feelings for him.
Sometimes she felt so clueless. Like someone who knew it all was holding
something back from her.

She ducked back into the shadows as the two of them walked down the
street and faded into the fog wafting off the pier. From behind her a
hand came out from the darkness and closed over her mouth.

"Hello, luv," cooed Spike. "Has Buffy stolen your boyfriend? Well, he is
your boyfriend, isn't he? Even if you won't acknowledge it or accept it.
I know all about you Carrie Brady Reed. I wonder what your husband would say if he knew that his Carrie-warrie was lusting after her best friend. I have an idea. Why don't we find out." Spike drug Carrie into the
shadows and they both disappeared into the night.

Part 3

"Willow," said Giles in a somewhat hushed tone. "Have you noticed anything peculiar about our surroundings?"

"Peculiar?" she repeated. "It all looks very... umm... mall-like to me." Willow nervously glanced around Salem Place. "Well, sort of mall-like. Like a mall, but without all the people." She tugged the trendy hat down closer round her ears.

"Precisely!" exclaimed Giles.

He could tell from the look on her face that she had drawn the same conclusion as he. If this were a mall where people converged... where were all the people?

Then they both heard a familiar voice. It was Drucilla.

"Hello love," she taunted to a tall man in front of her. "Do you want to join me?" Her seductive tones froze him in place.
Giles and Willow hid behind a large planter near the theater. Drucilla hadn't seen them yet, they hoped. While out of sight they formulated a plan and gathered together all the weapons in their rather small arsenal which consisted of two stakes, a cross and a half vial of holy water.

"Not exactly an artillery but it will have to do. If I only had my cross bow," Giles whispered.

"Oh, if we only had Buffy," Willow whined. "Sorry Giles, nothing against you or anything, but Buffy is better at this vampire slaying than you."

"Yes, you're right. If only Buffy..." his words were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Buffy herself.

"What about me?" she said sticking her head between them. They both jumped. Looking down on Giles and Willow, she was all smiles. "And why are we crouching behind this plant? It's not like you're actually hiding."

Willow pointed toward the center of the mall. "Buffy, it's Drucilla."

"Who's that woman with Austin?" Mike commented at the same time.

"Buffy," asked Giles. "Who's your guest?"

"This is Mike Horton," she said and smiled up at him with a dreamy expression on her face. "He took me to the hospital to get fixed up and now he's walking me home."

Willow pulled Buffy aside.

"Home? Buffy, we don't have a home here."

"I know. I just wanted him to walk with me." Buffy smiled back at Mike.

"But Buffy, what about Angel?"

"What about him? He's a vampire. I'm sixteen. He'll have to deal." She walked back toward Mike. "Mike this is Willow."

"Willow? That's an interesting name," he said.

"Mike. What a -- a-- common name," Willow grumbled under her breath.

Buffy elbowed her in the ribs.

"Hey, that hurt."

"Look, your friend... Drucilla, did you say? She has another friend with her now. And there's Carrie with him. Your friends must be friends with my friends."

Giles cast Mike a strangely troubled expression.

"Um. Mike. They are no friends of ours. They're very.." Giles tried to think of the appropriate term. "Bad people." He fixed his glasses into a more appropriate position. Giles was not too impressed by this man's intellectual ability. "Buffy, where did you say you met Mike again?"

"Over by the Brady Pub," she said slowly. "He was being attacked by this..." Buffy looked up at Mike then back to Giles and Willow. "...Very scary guy. If you know what I mean."

"Yes, I think I can fathom to guess." Giles said.

Buffy sprung to action. "Those are no friends of ours."

Willow threw her a skake and Giles grabbed his cross-bow from Xander.

"Hey, wait," cried Xander. "What am I suppose to protect myself with?" Xander yelled at Willow, Giles and Buffy but all three ignored them. He looked at Mike. "Mike, my friend. I don't really think you want to be here right now. We can..." Xander gave him his best macho look. "... take care of ourselves.

A vampire growled and Xander jumped. "Just get out of here. It's not going to be pretty."

"But Carrie and Austin are in trouble. I have to help them." Mike ran after Buffy and into the fray.

To be continued......