If I had acheived the commercial coup of the century and suddenly acquired the rights to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, wouldn't my picture be on the front of TIME? It's not is it? No, then Josh and ME still hold tham in their iron grip.
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The next few minutes were filled with amazement, challenges and accusations and not a little bogglement. Let’s pass over them as they would be as confusing for me to write as for you to read.
Let’s start again as the two groups faced each other across the library. The body of the Master still hung impaled above where the Hellmouth had opened but at this moment only the older Buffy was paying it any attention: contemplating it with a rueful expression on her face. Everybody else was yelling their heads off, gesticulating and arguing until the only rational mind in the place called for order.
“Shut….Shut… WILL YOU GUYS JUST SHUT UP!!! I mean sheesh!”
“Cordy!”
”No! Hush! I will have QUIET!!!” The two groups glared at her rather than each other as she paced the no-man’s land between them. “Now, I want someone to explain to me what is going on and why I am not at the Bronze having a good time and relaxing after all the danger and the fighting and why the weirdest night of my freakin’ life has just gone off even further into THE TWILIGHT ZONE! Explanation? Somebody?”
“It’s Buffy’s fault!” The Xander with an eyepatch was quite clear about this.
”Is not!”
”Not you! Not young Buffy who clearly belongs here-and-now. Our Buffy over there who should of known better than to use the W-word!”
”You’re never going to let me forget it, are you Xand?”
“Not in the extremely unlikely event of both of us living to be a hundred!”
”’W-word?”
”W-I-S-H, Cordy. She actually said ‘I W-I-S-H’ when she should have known…”
“Why is it dangerous to say….”
”Hush! Not a word from your lovely, young and kissable lips…”
“Hey don’t get personal, one-eyed lumberjacks are not my type!”
The older Xander grinned smugly at that and looked over at his younger self, perched on the steps up into the racks and looking on with puzzlement.
“Yeah. Okay, just keep in mind that using the W-word is dangerous, especially when preceded by the word ‘I’. Especially around the Hellmouth. There are things that like to grant W-I-S-H-E-S…”
Cordy perked up. ”Really? Because, you know I’ve always wanted…”
”Things like vengeance demons. Trust me. You wouldn’t like getting your heart’s desire from a vengeance demon.”
”Giles? Is he scamming me?”
”No… There are such creatures…. But I don’t believe…. Look, you say that you are us. From six years into the future.”
”Yeah. Just about that.”
”And because Buffy carelessly expressed a wish to speak to her younger self, warn her about what was to come…”
”Which we don’t dare do, of course.” That was the older Giles and most of the people in the room turned to him in shock.
”What!”
”We’re here! We might as well….”
”No! We do not DARE!”
“Tell ‘em, G-Man!” That was the younger Xander who was watching now with a huge grin on his face. “What? Isn’t it obvious? Does nobody but me ever watch STAR TREK? Paradoxes, right?”
The younger Willow, sitting beside him, nodded. ”That’s what he’s thinking, sure. Change things enough and they wipe out their own pasts…”
”Actually, that’s not gonna to happen.”
Everybody in the room turned towards the stacks where the voice came from. A white (well, whitish, more a mucky off yellow) handkerchief was being waved from behind a bookcase.
“Uhhh, truce? Parley? Can I come out without risking my life? ‘Cause I’ve got information here that you people are gonna to need and I don’t wanna risk being remade into someone’s headgear if I come out…”
”Who are you? Come out where I can see you!”
”Look English before I expose myself I want your promise that…. Ahhh!”
The shriek came because the elder Buffy had left inspecting the Master’s bones as soon as she heard the newcomer’s voice and snuck round to behind the hidden figure. She stepped out into plain sight again, holding by the scruff of his neck a small man who seemed to believe that the height of fashion had been reached by pimps and other underground figures in the late 1970s, probably somewhere in Florida.
“Whistler!” The Slayer snarled the word and the guy cringed away from her.
”Whistler?” That was Angel.
“Who’s Whistler?”
”He is! He’s a low-life, scum sucking….”
”Representative of the Powers, Slayer! Remember that! I represent the Powers!”
”Who have to be out of their tiny, exalted, semi-omnipotent minds to use someone like you! He’s what they call a Balance Demon. He recruited Angel in New York to come to Sunnydale and help me out. And last time we met I promised him that the next time he annoyed me…”
”Please! I’m very attached to my rib-cage!”
”Talk! If you know what’s going on, spill it before I decide that your insides would look better outside!”
”Right! Explain! That’s what I’m here to do. Ahh. Right. Look, Slayer, uh Slayers that is and you English and the Witch and everybody else who was there at the closing of the Hellmouth on behalf of the Powers that Be…
(Cordy leaned over to Willow and said: “The Powers That Be What?” Willow shrugged.)
“… I’m here to say: Well Done. And also Attaboy! You sealed the Sunnydale Hellmouth forever and defeated the First Evil in a way that it’s not been defeated for millennia and pretty much lived up to everything that They hoped you’d do and more!”
Buffy grinned insincerely. ”That’s nice! We got a Well Done! We got a pat on the back from our Cosmic Overlords! Perhaps we’ll even get a raise in our non-existent salaries and the key to the executive washroom!”
”Well actually, Slayer, they decided that you especially deserved something a bit more substantial than that…. ‘Cause, you know, you were the one who came up with the idea of activating all them Potentials… And that’s going to make a real difference in the future and confidentially-like none of the Big Cheeses even saw that one coming…”
”Get on with it!”
“And so they decided to give you… A Wish.”
The room went silent for a moment and then the elder Buffy exploded.
“The Powers gave me a Wish. And they didn’t TELL me about it!”
“Well, actually see… I was given the detail to come and clue you in and I never thought that you’d actually say….”
”What kept you?”
”I uhh… Well, I may have stopped off at the bar for a couple of quick ones with the boys… All us Balance Demons was real impressed… Ugggh GURRRK!”
”Rib cage- Hat! Spine- Back-scratcher! Skull- Coffee cup!”
”B… ” Faith was the only one who dared approach the infuriated Slayer. “I know it would do you a lot of good right now to remake him into clothing and utensils but I think he’s got info we could use and he’s turning kinda purple so if you could just let your righteous wrath be turned aside a touch I think…. Okay, that’s good….”
Buffy went over to the weapons cage and got out a large mace. She stalked over to the Master’s bones and began pounding them into dust.
Meanwhile Faith helped Whistler to a chair.
“Okay, annoying little guy. I think you’d best finish the briefing before B finishes with the violence therapy. Spill.”
”Right. Thanks. So anyways, this is the Wish they’ve given her. And on account it wouldn’t be any sort of a reward if youse didn’t dare actually warn any of the folks here about what’s coming you can. Cause you see this ain’t your past.”
”It ain’t… I mean it isn’t?”
”Nah, English. Do you remember coming across a visitation from your future selves? Of course you don’t. You coming back here has started a new time line, totally separate from your own history which is perfectly safe from anything you do here. Tell them anything you want. They could sure use a few clues. You got till morning and then I’ll be back to take you.. heh… to take you Back to the Future! You got just one night to pass on all you’ve learned and… well, allow these good folks to cheat a little. Or a lot! I’ll just be on my…. Ahhh! Not the ears! Not the ears!”
Buffy had dropped the mace and stalked over to where Whistler was about to take his leave and grabbed him by both auricular appendages and twisted hard. They stretched as if they were silly putty and he howled in pain.
“Listen you little jerk! I am an upset Slayer!”
”Got that! I can see that! Please owwww…..”
”Go back to the Powers and tell them exactly how you screwed up. Tell them, Buffy thinks she deserves another Wish! Only with warning this time! Capish?”
”Yeah, yeah, got that. You know they’re just going to talk about budget cuts and pressure for economy from Higher Up….”
”I do not care if they have to take the cost of an extra Wish out of your salary until the end of time. Get it fixed!”
She gave his ears an extra hard twist and then let go. He dropped to the ground and then clapped his hat on his head and vanished, his ears still dangling onto his shoulders.
Buffy-the-Elder shook herself and turned to see everybody in the room staring at her. She took a deep breath and fixed a determined smile on her face. “Right! Let’s get on with it! I got my… my W-I-S-H and I’m not going to have it wasted. You guys, you new time line guys, you’d best find yourselves something to take notes with. And my guys, you’d best get your thinking caps on, ‘cause we’ve got just one night to give them as much info as we can. Somebody get coffee going and somebody call out for pizza. It’s going to be a long night.”
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