Wish Me A Wishverse
Dawn held Spike firmly down on the floor. Straddling his chest, the leather-clad brunette gripped his wrists with one deceptively strong hand, while retrieving the stake she'd dropped on the ground, holding it above Spike's ribcage...business end down.
"Didn't think I'd find you, did you?"
"Didn't think you were in much of a condition to be finding anyone, luv. Back when I last saw you, your sister was dead and you were completely bleedin' nuts."
"-And that was an amateur mistake, wasn't it?" Even after the hardships of the last few years, Dawn still had that same girlish squeak to her voice...even if that girlishness was mingled with rightly deserved arrogance, hatred, and determination to get the job done.
"Tell me, luv..." He stared straight up at her. "What's it with you vampire hunting types always wearing so much leather? Must be bloody uncomfortable." She rolled her eyes.
"So much for famous last words..." And with that, she brought the stake down, feeling it crunch through Spike's ribcage and into his heart. Dawn's knees hit the floor as the vampire dissolved from under her.
THREE DAYS PRIOR
"Oh my god," Anya gushed. "Spike hates Xander! Maybe I could get him to wish...damnit, if only he were a woman." She hesitated, tapping her chin. "Got it! If I can somehow get someone to wish that Spike were a woman, then I could go to him...well, he'd be a her by then...then I could go to her-"
"Anyanka." Halfrek sighed, exasperated. "There's an easier way. Now, I know you have this whole female-power, take-back-the-night thing, and I think that's cute. But I've been telling you for decades...men need a little vengeance now and then too."
"Oh." Anya looked across the room at Spike.
"Maybe this is a good chance to try it out..."
"So then, this girl says: 'real for you,'"
"Right," Anya rolled her eyes. "But getting back to Xander,"
"Xander. Let's not waste any more breath on that wanker."
"But he made a fool of me," She pouted indignantly. "And nobody seems to care enough to do anything!"
"I care. What he done to you? I've never stooped that low. And I'm an 'evil soulless thing.' According to some people." He muttered bitterly.
"But why shouldn't he pay? Don't you wish he had to pay in some horrible way?"
"Absolutely," Spike concurred. "Take him on myself, if it wasn't for my little handicap."
"Right. So, hypothetically, what do you wish you could do to him?" Anya almost pleaded, desperately trying to extract a wish from the vampire.
"Do you wanna know what I wish?"
"You've no idea," She leaned forward, grinning stupidly.
"I wish I'd horribly tortured Xander. And not just in the normal, friendly way...I'd have used all the classics..."
"Wish gra-"
"And not just Xander, I'd have done in that bloody witch, too, and that poncy bleedin' librarian. Then I'd have turned the Slayer, and the two of us would have gone off to start a new life together somewhere. And I also wish that Angel couldn't ever find any of that nancy boy hair-gel he likes so much; not for the rest of his naturally long life. That's what I wish." Anya hesitated. She didn't really have anything against anyone but Xander. And the more she thought about it, the more she knew that, in time, she'd come to terms with it. In fact, there was a lingering doubt in the back of her mind as to whether she had even been ready for marriage. But the thing about living for as long as she had done, was that you came to realise that the best idea was to stick to what you were good at as much of the time as possible. And Anyanka was good at vengeance. In fact, she was the best. So she shrugged.
"Wish granted, I guess."
Xander hit the ground running. He was good at that. Over the last few years, he'd picked up a lot of handy tricks. His martial arts style was a mixture of jujitsu and taiquondo. He could fall over 12 stories and land in a fighting crouch. He could jump over a car, providing it was travelling at least 30 miles per hour. He could grab a crossbow bolt out of the air. He could also drain a body of blood in about 15 seconds, and he was capable of twisting a mans head so hard, it flew off his shoulders like a frisby.
"Oh Grandma..." He stopped dead, growling menacingly as he turned to face his pursuer. "What big teeth you have..." He grinned, vamping out, his golden eyes flecked with red. Dawn stepped out into the light. She was dressed to kill. Literally. In skin-tight leather pants and a leather chain top covering a black sports bra, Dawn had a few stakes in small holsters around her belt, and a crossbow on her back, secured by a tight strap that trailed down between her firm, well developed breasts.
"All the better to eat you with..." He stepped forward, closing in on the girl.
"Don't bite off more than you can chew, Xand'..." Dawn murmured, her whole body tense and ready for what was about to come.
"Don't need to chew, luscious," He grinned. "I'm on a liquid diet. I don't usually go for the 'skank-goth' look, but in your case, I might just make an exception." They stood there in silence, mere feet from one another in the cold, dark alley. They were sizing each other up. Dawn was looking at the monster who'd infested the body of her old friend. She knew that. She also knew that, on a philosophical level, the concept of "self" was a very debateable one, and as much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't totally convinced there wasn't enough of Xander in the vampire standing before her for him to qualify as him. This was the hardest part of doing what she did. The knowledge that there was honestly no black and white. Just all the varied shades of grey. So the main reason to kill him had suddenly become that skank comment. But hey, she was cool with that.
Xander was looking at a girl he'd always known. Now, his mind unclouded by conscience...he saw her for what he'd been forcing himself not to see her as in the period up to his transformation. He wanted to devour her. In every possible sense of the word.
"Can we hurry this up? things to see, people to do..."
"Read my mind." Dawn pulled the crossbow off her back and fired it in one quick manoeuvre. Xander dodged the crossbow bolt easily.
"Come on, Dawnie. I know you wouldn't have come here if that was all you were packing. After all. Wouldn't wanna disappoint big sis..." Xander glanced up, and Dawn followed his gaze. Way off in the distance above them, there were a couple of figures crouched on the rooves of nearby buildings. Even as vampires, the Scooby gang still operated as a pack.
"Why'd she send you up against me first? Cannon fodder?" His grin faded a little.
"Interesting choice of words, Dawnie. We'll see what you've got to say when I make you eat them along with your teeth." He made his first move, throwing a powerful punch, which dawn dodged, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back, ramming him against the wall of the alley. Xander groaned, but threw back his head, hitting hers and making her reel. He managed to get away from her, kicking her in the chest, then kneeing her in the face as she fell to her knees. Her body went flying backward, and she ended up sprawled across the cement. "How'd you like that? Huh? How the fuck did you like that, you fucking bitch!" Xander screamed.
"Back," Dawn murmured. Xander was blown back across the alley, slamming against the wall and sliding down to the ground. In a split second, Dawn was on him with a stake in he hand. Xander grabbed her wrist reflexively, viciously snapping it.
"Fuck!" Screeched Dawn. The ground started to shake...rippling around them. The brick and cement of the buildings and pavement began to crack...long spidery veins running all over them. "Bastard," She ground out. Throwing her back, Xander scrambled to his feet on the shaky ground, and began to run. Dawn stopped him with a gesture, a thick sewerage pipe arching out from under the ground with terrifying speed, and clocking Xander squarely between the shoulders like a baseball bat hitting it's ball, sending him sprawling across the ground.
"Help!" Xander cried out, trying futilely to get to his feet on the ground that was shaking as though there was a major earthquake occurring. The quake was spreading, as Dawn began to levitate, surrounded by a haze of crackling red and blue energy.
"Hey there, cutie..." Dawn spun around.
"Willow..."
"Think you can take me?"
"Know it..." She growled. Dawn curled up into a foetal position in the air...Willow frowned...confused...she could feel the energy flowing through the air and towards Dawn. Dawn was drawing the magic to her. It was like matter to a neutron star. The hazy glow surrounding Dawn began to pulse in and out...
"What the fu-" Dawn spread her limbs out, the energy releasing in a massively powerful blast. Willow was incinerated within seconds. But the blast spread further. Buildings weren't toppled; they were vaporized. For a hundred metres in any direction, there was nothing but blackness. But Dawn knew Buffy had survived. Buffy always survived. Xander too. She hoped that this time, he wasn't under any kind of delusion that he wasn't being factored in. He had never been a zeppo to her. But for now...
"Whenever you're ready, Buffy!" Dawn cried out, her voice echoing throughout the otherwise silent night air.
"No, Angel," Doyle insisted, exasperated. "This girl is nuts. We're talking...unstable. She's psychopathic, for god's sake. This isn't the little girl you're thinking you know. And you are. I can tell from that look on your face."
"How?" Cordelia sneered. "He only has one facial expression. It just looks slightly different from different angles."
"Hmm." Wesley hmm'ed. "I'm inclined to agree, actually. He always turns slightly to the left when brooding, and he looks far more heroic in a half-light with his face tilted upwards."
"Yeah, but he was looking upwards and to the right. That's what he does when he thinks he's right."
"Hey! I do not only have the one facial expression."
"It's kind of like that demon we read about that only has one parent. Because it's transsexual and does all the reproductive stuff itself. Angel has one multifunctional facial expression!" Angel glared at Cordelia. "What? I didn't mean it in a bad way..."
"Guys! This is a little more important. Dawn has the potential to go all Willow on us, and acting all Xander about it is probably just gonna get us Wesley'd."
"Pardon?"
"Beaten down before the actual fight starts," Cordelia clarified.
"I heartily object to that!"
"Oh you would." Cordelia said.
"Guys!" Angel yelled, silencing the potential argument. He looked around dramatically, subconsciously making sure his face was positioned for maximum impact (a little left of center and tilted downwards). "I know you're all stressed. I am too. Believe me. I've been looking for my hair gel all day, and it's getting a bit traumatic. But the thing is, we're going to get through this. Like we always do."
"And how do you propose we go about that?" Wesley questioned dryly.
"Anyone want to know what I think?" Doyle put in, frustrated and annoyed.
"If I wanted a worthless, illogical opinion, I'd talk to Cordelia," Wesley snapped.
"WHAT???"
"Well this is going nowhere fast..."Angel muttered, turning his head to capture its best "frustrated annoyance" look as his co-workers began to attack each other.
The world was inevitably fractured. Dawn could feel it. Over the last few years, since Spike had triggered the series of events that tore her life apart, Dawn had become fractured too. In her heart, Dawn knew that this was not how things were meant to be. It wasn't so much a blatant understanding, but more of a subtle, nagging voice in her ear, constantly whispering to her. Telling her what had been. What should be. What, for some reason, had failed to come to pass.
But Dawn had a philosophy. That philosophy was that whatever came to pass was meant to come to pass, and must be abided by. She was alive for a reason. So was Faith, and so was Giles. They'd been spared. Not by chance...but not by direct design, either. They'd been spared, because the forces of good and evil had to be balanced. No one but her seemed to realise that no matter how high the odds were stacked against them, the odds were still even. Because good and evil were supposed to be deadlocked. One would never triumph over the other. That was just the way it worked. That was why she hadn't had a chance to kill Spike or Xander yet. That was why she'd been able to kill Willow, and why Buffy wouldn't face her. Dawn was a tragic hero. She existed to up the body count, make the blood flow, and fight the good fight. But she knew it was a suicide mission. No amount of comfort from Giles...no amount of reassurance and out-of-character tenderness from Faith was going to change that. She was going to kill Xander. She was going to kill Spike. She knew that much. She was a central player in this abomination of a reality. But she would die. She knew that. The only question was...how?
"Don't bullshit me," Buffy growled, her face a mask of pain and fury. "This wouldn't be the first time you've done something like-"
"I didn't say it wasn't possible..." Lindsey smirked...smarmy and soft spoken as always. "I said it was a path we wouldn't explore. The senior partners-"
"Fuck the senior partners," Buffy grabbed Lindsey and threw him up against the wall so hard, the plaster dented behind his body.
"I don't know if that's physically possible," Lindsey mused, falling to his knees then pulling himself up to stand before Buffy without the slightest trace of fear in his eyes. Why should he be scared? He didn't fear pain. The only thing he really feared was death and the judgement that came with it. Luckily, his deal with the devil had a clause which specified post mortem benefits. Before you could say "ill conceived plot device", Lindsey would be back in his office, smoking a Cuban and worrying about the ethical connotations of working for greater daemons.
"Maybe I'm not making myself clear..." Buffy snarled, stepping forward towards Lindsey.
"Maybe I'm not making myself clear. The senior partners have decided that no, we will not resurrect the witch. I don't know why, and I honestly don't give a flying fuck. As an employee of Wolfram and Hart, I stand by the senior partners and their policies."
"I don't..." She paused, looking confused and irritated.
"Buffy. You need the firm more than the firm needs you. Because of this, you play by our rules. Or...we might just stop protecting you from your kid sister."
"Like I need protection..." Buffy growled.
"You do and you know it. She's the key. She is a vessel created to store a transdimensional entity. That's the part you know. Here's the part you don't. Her newfound power is not simple magick. Her power is rooted in physics, for lack of a better word. The entity she contains is one that literally has the power to alter the structure of entire dimensions. By tapping into this power, she is manipulating reality. She isn't throwing a few magickal curveballs your way, she is literally tearing apart the timespace continuum. Our mages are doing our best to restrict her powers, and so far, we've been able to restrict her quite effectively. If you walk away from the firms umbrella of protection, then we will withdraw our mages, and your sister will literally be able to destroy this entire dimension."
"I'm evil. Why would that be a bad thing?"
"Because you don't want to die."
"Death doesn't frighten me."
"That's because you go to hell when you die. Vampire...in hell...not that bad a deal, to be realistic about it. It's like going home for you guys. But see, that's the issue here. I'm not talking about simple magick. She isn't going to destroy the world. She's going to incinerate the dimension, and everything within it. That includes this dimensions parallel dimensions. Heaven. Hell. Quor-Toth. That...disturbing dimension where everyone likes jazz and there's a complete lack of any sort of shrimp..."
"No shrimp?" Buffy mused.
"Yeah. Pretty random. But my point is, it'll all be gone. And you will dissipate into oblivion. Have a good, hard think about that, and I'm sure you'll realise that Wolfram and Hart are a worthwhile institution to put your trust behind." Buffy shrugged.
"Good thing about being a vampire...your friend dies and it's not so much pain you feel. Just anger." She took another step towards him. "You always had a thing for vampires, didn't you Linz?" He nodded slowly. Buffy vamped out, smiling wickedly. Slowly, Lindsey started to smile.
Dawn was getting stronger by the day. It was a dubious blessing, because she knew that she was caught up in a critical mass situation. As soon as she hit that critical mass, something monumental would happen. And it would be the end of her.
She watched Xander, Lindsey and Buffy from around the corner, as they fed on a young girl. Probably fourteen or so. Dawn did nothing. For one thing, she couldn't take them. For another...she didn't care. The night before, when Willow had died, Dawn had probably killed several thousand people in the cataclysmic energy storm she'd unleashed. So the plight of one slutty young thing who'd left with some tall dark and sleazy's for a quickie in the alleyway wasn't exactly tugging at the heart strings the way it used to. Lindsey was drinking deeply from her neck, whilst Xander stood behind Lindsey and held his head down. Buffy was looking on lustfully.
Blood, death, sex and pain. They were all intertwined, for vampires. Dawn would never forget the time she first realised that in full. It had been when Willow and Xander had turned Oz, just over a year ago. Xander and Oz...Willow and Xander...Oz and Willow...for hours and hours...drinking from one another...fucking one another...for hours and hours, until the sun finally came up and they went their separate ways. Dawn had tracked down Oz and set him on fire while he slept. That was the first time she'd killed a scooby. She felt bad for killing him. She felt worse for letting him be turned in the first place. The worst feeling came from that telltale blush, and the warmness that had spread over her body as she'd watched three of her old friends feeding off of each other in an orgy of lust and blood, that told her she wasn't above it. The feeling she got when she lay in bed in the dark and thought back over it. The feeling she got when she remembered thinking about it while Faith touched her. She knew it was wrong. She knew it was sick, and it was everything that she was fighting against. But Dawn wasn't so naïve anymore that she let shades of grey scare her.
So when she watched Xanders hand stray down to Lindsey's crotch, she wasn't shocked. When she watched Buffy slowly, seductively, undo her blouse, she wasn't appalled. When she watched Lindsey drain the last drops of blood from the girls body, letting it slump to the ground as Xander continued to rub Lindsey through the well cut pants of the pinstripe business suit, slowly pulling down the fly...Dawn was far from disturbed. Dawn even let her hand drift slowly down towards her own center...warm and wet under her tight leather pants. She watched Xander taking Lindsey's hardness in hand...stroking it back and forth in his hand as Lindsey braced himself against the wall with both arms, panting furiously in arousal...she watched Lindsey place a shaky hand under Buffy's skirt...grinding his palm over her panty-clad nether-regions as Xander continued his ministrations, kissing Lindsey's neck and letting his teeth break the skin...penetrating the other vampire...Dawn groaned silently, her breath catching in her throat as she pushed a little harder against her own crotch through her jeans.
Buffy looked up. Their eyes locked. In a second, Dawn was gone. Buffy smirked. Xander squeezed. Lindsey groaned.
Faith spun Dawn around as she entered the apartment.
"What's up, kiddo? Look like you've seen a ghost."
"No. Lots of dead people though. Buffy and Xander turned that lawyer from Wolfram and Hart. They killed a girl in the alley."
"It'll be the last one." Faith promised. Dawn chuckled.
"I used to think you knew everything. I used to think you were so fucking badass. Where's that girl? The one who rescued me from Sunnydale? The one who took on the entire vampire scooby gang at once, all on her lonesome...all for me?"
"I'm here, Dawnie."
"No you aren't. Buffy died, so you went and became her. Look at yourself," Dawn snorted. "The Faith I knew is dead." Dawn stormed off towards her room. In a second, Faith had her pinned up against the wall.
"Far from, kid. I just...thought this was what you wanted."
"I..."Dawn paused. "This has been going on for months. You try and tell me everything's gonna be ok, but it's not. I know that and I've made peace with it. Why can't you?" Faith rolled her eyes, pushing Dawn back against the wall. Hard.
"Listen. I'm meant to protect you."
"I can protect myself," Dawn insisted.
"Ok. You're a super-being. I get it."
"I destroyed a large suburb last night, and I wasn't even tired. I think this goes a little beyond your experience." Faith smirked. "What?"
"I was just thinking. Brat's all woman sized..." Faith licked her lips, looking Dawn up and down. Dawn's knees almost buckled, and she felt that familiar flush coming over her. "Got a bit wound up tonight did you?"
"Just about ready to...pop..." Dawn groaned as Faith began to kiss her neck. Dawn tried to push Faith back towards the couch. Faith grabbed Dawn and slammed her back against the wall so hard that the entire room shook.
"Oww," Dawn murmured.
"You can take it..."
"I can take whatever you want me to take..." Faith grinned.
"That a fact?"
"More like a bet..." The two girls exchanged a heated look, and Faith began to slowly slide down Dawn's body.
Xander and Lindsey were like a well-oiled machine. They hunted silently and with perfect synchronisation. Where Willow and Xander had been so successful because of their differences, Xanders knew partner complemented him perfectly, and their similarities made them unbelievably deadly. Buffy's gang was getting more powerful. And that wasn't going to stop until someone stopped Buffy. Easier said than done, however. The power of a slayer combined with the power of a vampire, combined with the determination of histories most successful slayer since the very first one, and the complete lack of conscience that made her utterly incorruptible; utterly pure in her aims, came together to make Buffy herself nigh on invincible. As often happened, however, the wildcard in the struggle between good and evil was an individual powerless save for information. Rupert Giles stood in the doorway of Ethan Raines apartment. Ethan Raines lay a few feet in front of him, nursing a painful but fairly unremarkable head wound, caused by a pair of brass knuckles strapped to the former librarians fist.
"What is it?"
"It's a doorway, Ripper. You step forward and through it, and you are magically in a brand new room." Ethan quipped.
"It's a good thing you're a coward, Ethan. It'll make it a lot easier to brutally torture you for information." Ethan paled.
"What do you actually want to know, Ripper?"
"The head witch of that coven we used to compete with in college told me that there had been a disruption in the fabric of time and space which has allowed Buffy to become a vampire. It isn't technically possible for a slayer to become a vampire. This is magickal on an epic level. The makeup of the entire dimension has been disrupted. By, apparently, the forces of chaos."
"That kind of anarchy is...very interesting, but well out of my league." Giles took a step forward. "And I see that you already know that, don't you Ripper?"
"You specialise in parlour tricks, Ethan. I know that. I also know that you can tell me what's happening here. You can find out what force caused this disturbance. You know more about the chaos forces than any...other easily manipulated coward I know of."
"How flattering."
"What was it?"
"A vengeance demon." Lilah muttered. "Anyanka, I believe. And I'm positive it was Spike who made the wish because there's no one else to gain as much from this as he would have."
"Only it blew up in his face." Buffy smirked. Xander shrugged.
"I could have called it. Just because we're vampires doesn't mean we're gonna like him any more than we did."
"Spike'll have Anyanka's talisman, then..." Lindsey murmured. "So we need to protect Spike." Buffy rolled her eyes.
"A world of no, Linz. We kill Spike and protect the talisman. What does it look like?"
"Necklace." Lilah informed her. Buffy looked pensive.
"Would it go well with this dress?"
Dawn, Faith and Giles stood on one side of the street. On the other side, stood Lindsey, Buffy and Xander.
"Sorry we're late," Buffy apologized. "I was a bit tense, so I had Lindsey and Xander slip into somewhere a little uncomfortable..." Xander snickered as Dawn turned bright red. "What's wrong, Dawnie? You feeling a little left out?"
"Come on, kiddo, give us a kiss," Xander added.
"If anyone's getting a kiss," Angel said dramatically, jumping down from a nearby building and landing near Dawn's group. "It's gonna be me." Angel positioned his face for maximum impact again.
"You...want a kiss from Xander?" Buffy asked.
"No! I was just...I dunno, like a pun?"
"Slayerbot puns better than that." Xander smirked. They all looked at him questioningly.
"Who's slayerbot?" Dawn asked after a pause. Xander looked confused.
"I dunno, actually. I was just saying that like...if there was a robot who looked and acted like Buffy but had programmed responses which weren't up to par, it's punning mightn't be as good as Buffy's. Angel's an idiot. That's all I was trying to say. Jeez."
"Well...a-agreed then." Giles stuttered, looking mightily confused.
"Hey! I'm having a bad night. I haven't been able to find my hair gel in days." Angel positioned his face to look broody and upset, taking advantage of the pale yellow glow of the streetlights.
"We still haven't cleared up who Angel's looking for a kiss from," Faith looked confused too.
"No one! It's just...if you want better puns, write me something better to cleverly quip in reply to."
"Write?"
"Give. I said give." Dawn rolled her eyes. "Can we please just get to this? I have a date with destiny in like...half an hour?" Faith charged Buffy, Dawn charged Xander, and Angel attacked Lindsey. Giles stood back and looked somewhat helpful, polishing his glasses and whatnot, and occasionally whipping around a crossbow and pretending like it had some practical use at night in a melee situation.
Angel was the first to be dusted; Lindsey proving extremely valuable in a combat situation. Unfortunately, not as valuable as Dawn, who staked Xander and then Lindsey in rapid succession. Buffy viciously snapped Faiths neck, leaving only Dawn, Buffy and Giles. Buffy charged Dawn, but Dawn blew her back against the wall with all the strength she could muster so quickly. Buffy smacked into the brick and kept going...punching a hole in it and flying out the other side of the building. As much as Dawn and Giles would have loved to stay and play, Dawn had other ideas. Most of them involving eviscerating a bleach blond vampire, currently sporting some uncharacteristically effeminate jewellery that didn't belong to him.
Dawn held Spike firmly down on the floor. Straddling his chest, the leather-clad brunette gripped his wrists with one deceptively strong hand, while retrieving the stake she'd dropped on the ground, holding it above Spike's ribcage...business end down.
"Didn't think I'd find you, did you?"
"Didn't think you were in much of a condition to be finding anyone, luv. Back when I last saw you, your sister was dead and you were completely bleedin' nuts."
"-And that was an amateur mistake, wasn't it? Underestimating me?" Even after the hardships of the last few years, Dawn still had that same girlish squeak to her voice...even if that girlishness was mingled with rightly deserved arrogance, hatred, and determination to get the job done.
"Tell me, luv..." He stared straight up at her. "What's it with you vampire hunting types always wearing so much leather? Must be bloody uncomfortable." She rolled her eyes.
"So much for famous last words..." And with that, she brought the stake down, feeling it crunch through Spike's ribcage and into his heart. Dawn's knees hit the floor as the vampire dissolved from under her. She grabbed the jewel that had been hanging from around Spike's neck, looking deeply into it. The swirling green hue of the central jewel transfixed her stare...pulling her into a hypnotic trance.
Which was a critical mistake, because Buffy unceremoniously snapped her neck from behind, grabbing the jewel and taking a look herself.
"Good thing I got to this before she managed to restore whatever weird...possibly shrimpless dimension this used to be." She frowned irritably. "Damn...I was hoping it'd be pretty. Oh well. May as well just smash this stupid thing and make sure there's no chance anyone's ever gonna get their grubby little reality altering mits on it ever again..."