DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy are the creation and property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, and so forth. All things non-Buffy are the creation and property of many other individuals and corporate entities. This particular story is the creation of Robert A. Black (that's me). Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think of my work. Good or bad, I'd like to hear it. TIME CONTEXT: This story takes place between the Buffy episodes, "Nightmares" and "Invisible Girl." Confused? Refer to the Readers' Guide at the end of the chapter for hints and explanations.

Willow was late.

Any ordinary teenager stuck waiting for his best friend might be annoyed, or might simply go on and have a good time on his own. But Xander Harris knew what being late could mean when you lived on the Hellmouth, and when your friend lived on the Hellmouth, and when you knew that your friend knew that both of you lived on the Hellmouth. And so while Xander was a bit annoyed, and did think about going on and having a good time on his own, he couldn't help wondering and worrying about what might be holding Willow up.

From where Xander waited outside the Bronze, things certainly seemed normal. The usual crowd of Sunnydale youth was inside, enjoying the evening. There didn't appear to be any undead beasts roaming near the building. Maybe there was no reason to worry, Xander thought. Willow was probably wrapped up in a long on-line conversation, or waiting for Buffy to finish whatever Giles was making her do.

Xander's ruminations were suddenly interrupted by sounds of a scuffle. Someone, or something, was involved in a fight behind the club.

Any ordinary teenager who heard a fight break out near him would probably try not to get involved, especially when that teenager knew, as Xander knew, what sort of unearthly beings you could be fighting when you lived on the Hellmouth. But Xander was a friend of Sunnydale's best defender against whatever the Hellmouth had to throw at them. At the very least, it was his job to find out what was going on so that he could summon help if it was needed.

Xander crept around the corner of the building, careful to avoid being seen. Sure enough, two figures were involved in a fierce struggle. Xander drew closer, trying to see if he recognized either one. Much to his surprise, he did. One of the figures was Angel, a supposedly "good" vampire who had helped Buffy in the past - and, much to Xander's dismay, was also the object of Buffy's affection.

Angel's face showed its full vampirish nature. The battle must be a fierce one, Xander thought as he drew still closer. Even more amazing was the fact that Angel appeared to be losing. Xander couldn't help wondering who - or what - was capable of beating someone like him. The streetlights were few and far apart, making it difficult for Xander to see Angel's opponent.

Finally, the unknown figure stepped out of the shadows. He wasn't a large man, and he wore strange loose-fitting clothes, almost like robes. The figure's head was strangest of all. The man, if he was a man, was completely bald, and his ears where shrunken and shoved down low on the sides of his head, apparently so they wouldn't be covered by a bizarre bone-like shell that covered the back of his head and crested in a series of points at the top.

Xander gasped, unable to contain his surprise at the sight of Angel's adversary. The vampire heard him and turned away from the fight, just for a moment. It was all his attacker needed. With incredible speed, the strange figure dealt Angel a series of blows that knocked the vampire to the ground for good.

Realizing that it was no longer a good time to stick around, Xander turned and tried to return to the front of the Bronze. He only made it a few steps when he found himself pinned to the wall of the building. Another man had appeared from nowhere, catching him off guard.

"Going somewhere, are we?" said the man. He spoke with a British accent, and in the dim light he at least appeared to be human. As Xander's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see that the man had long black hair and a full beard. His clothes were similar in style to the ones the bone-headed man wore, but they were charcoal colored. The man wore an odd-shaped pin on his chest.

"Me?" Xander gasped. "I wasn't really going anywhere. Just inside the club, here. Nothing to worry about. I'm just an average, everyday teenager, looking to have some fun."

"You're not one of them, are you?" said the man, indicating Angel's unconscious form.

"Them? No, of course not. Just look at his face. No resemblance here."

The bone-headed man joined them. "The others have gone for now, Marcus," he said. "But I can't help thinking they may return."

"Others?" Xander asked, despite himself. "There are more vampires out tonight?"

"Vampires? What do you know about vampires?" demanded Marcus, pressing Xander against the wall even harder.

"Look, I could tell you a lot more if you put me down," Xander said in a strangled voice.

Marcus considered the idea, then relented and relaxed his grip. "All right," he said, "you can start by telling us where we are. Then you can move on to the vampires."

"I'm easy," said Xander. "Where you are is Sunnydale, California."

"Sunnydale, California, as in planet Earth?" Marcus asked.

Xander started to make a witty remark, then caught himself when he remembered how hard the wall of the building was. "Um, yeah," was all he said. He figured it was safest.

"It can't be!" Marcus exclaimed. "We were dozens of light years away when..."

"...when we encountered the unknown hyperspace phenomenon," the bone-headed man interjected. "I suggest that we simply accept what this young man has told us, for the moment. Sometimes the universe does not yield explanations very readily."

"All right," said Marcus. "On to the vampires, then."

"What do you want me to say? They're vampires. This town's a real magnet for them. If they're out tonight, I've got to tell some people about it. I guess you could say I'm in kind of a vampire watchdog group." A thought struck him. "Hey, you know something - if you're confused about how you got here, I know a guy who might be able to help you out."

Marcus looked at Xander suspiciously, but the bone-headed man seemed interested in the offer. "That would be most generous," he said.

Another thought crossed Xander's mind. "Um, before I take you to my friends," he said " - well, don't take this the wrong way, but would you mind telling me who you people are?" Looking at the bone-headed man, he added, "Or what you are?"

"My name is Marcus Cole," said Marcus, "and my friend here is named Lennier. He's a Minbari."

"A Minbari," Xander repeated. "Okay, that explains a lot." He hoped Giles would be able to offer a bit more of an explanation. Maybe these Minbaris were a kind of horned sprite from ancient lore or something.

"There's one more in our group," said Marcus. "He ran off when that vampire attacked us."

"Yeah, about that vampire," said Xander. "He doesn't normally attack people. My guess is he thought he was protecting us from you."

"That doesn't sound like particularly vampirish behavior," said Marcus.

"Well, I don't really trust him much myself, but I've got a friend who really likes him a lot. You didn't do any permanent damage in that fight, did you?"

"He will recover," said Lennier. "Eventually."

Xander was relieved, despite himself. "Okay," he said, "then let's find your friend and get going. What does he look like?"

Even as he spoke, a new figure stepped out of the darkness. Xander did a double-take at the sight of the newcomer. He had a face like a werewolf, with hairy hands and a hunchback. His clothes looked like they were made from animal pelts.

"Much apologizings," said the newcomer. "Zathras not used to attacks from strange fanged creatures. Zathras trained for fixing things, not for fighting things. Makes for very limited career opportunities, but Zathras has come to like it."

Xander forced his jaw to stop dropping and to start working again. "This... would be your friend?" he asked.

"Zathras very pleased to be meeting you," said Zathras.

"Yeah," said Xander. "Okay, fine. Xander, uh, is me. Very pleased to be meeting you, too."

"Well, then," said Marcus, "now that we've got that taken care of, shall we go?"

"Right this way," said Xander. He led them back to the front of the building and off toward the Sunnydale High library. As they went along, he couldn't help thinking there was no way Buffy would believe what was happening.

***

Buffy looked around the library and thought that when Xander finally caught up to them, there was no way he would believe what was happening.

She and Ace sat around in the library, both feeling bored and left out as Giles discussed what was happening with their many guests. Worse yet, Ace seemed to be going out of her way to annoy Buffy with outrageous stories about her various adventures.

"The Professor and I fought some vampires once, back during World War Two," Ace was saying. "Nasty blue things that came up out of the water. They came out during the day, too. And there was this baby there that I really liked, until I found out she was my Mum."

Mercifully, the library doors opened and Willow returned, bringing Leela with her. Willow had dressed the savage in a Sunnydale High sweat suit. Leela seemed a little uncomfortable, but relatively pleased with her new garb.

"Look, Doctor," she said as the Fourth Doctor walked over to her. "Willow has made me a member of her tribe. Before we leave, I must make a sacrifice to their totem god."

"Totem god?" asked the Fourth Doctor, somewhat amused.

"The great horned swine beast," Leela told him. "There are pictures of it on all the walls."

"That's the Sunnydale Razorback," Willow explained. "I tried telling her that they're, uh, very rare."

"Oh, I'm sure they are," said the Fourth Doctor.

Willow spied Buffy and went to join her. "So, did we miss anything?" she asked.

"Just a lot of dull conversation," Buffy replied. "I don't know if we're any closer to finding out what's going on."

"I guess these things take a while sometimes. You can't just expect an answer to drop out of the sky."

At that moment, there was a strange rushing sound, and an unearthly wind swept through the library. Buffy and Willow looked up in amazement. A bizarre disk of light formed in mid-air, and inside it, there appeared to be a tunnel of bright, multicolored lights. As the entire gathering turned to watch, a portly man appeared in the center of the tunnel. He flew out of the disk, as if the tunnel was ejecting him with tremendous force, and landed squarely on top of the holographic Doctor and Doctor Bashir. The disk closed behind him, and the noise and wind disappeared as suddenly as they arrived.

"This is not my night," muttered Bashir as he lifted the newcomer off of him.

"Terribly sorry about that, my good man," said the new arrival. He was as large as he had looked coming through the disk, with a beard and dark hair that was balding on top but long in the back. Like many of the other visitors, he spoke with a British accent. If Giles was lonely for his homeland, Buffy thought, he wouldn't be any more when this was over.

"Are you all right?" Kes asked the newcomer.

"Nothing to worry about," the man assured her. "Just one of the occupational hazards associated with Sliding."

"Sliding?" said the Seventh Doctor. "Is that what you call traveling through the space-time vortex?"

"It's not exactly a space-time vortex," said the man, somewhat surprised to meet a person who would recognize such a thing. "It's a manifestation of the Einstein-Rosen-Podowski Bridge. I'm Professor Maximilian Arturo. I've been working on ways to travel..."

"...between parallel worlds," the Fourth Doctor finished for him. "I crossed the ERP Bridge once, by accident. Are you saying you can control which world you travel to?"

Arturo shifted anxiously. "Not exactly," he said. "There's a student of mine who knows more about this than I do. I've been trying to find him for months now, but as you know, the cosmos is very large."

"Well, just wait a little while," said Garak. "I'm sure he'll end up in this library with the rest of us."

"In the meantime," said the Fourth Doctor, "why don't you tell us more about this traveling you do. It may help shed some light on our problem."

Arturo began to tell his story, but just then the library doors opened once again. Buffy looked and saw Xander hurry in. Three more strange visitors followed him.

"Buffy, you're not going to believe...," Xander began, but he stopped short when he saw the crowd gathered in the library.

"Xander!" cried Willow, hurrying over to him. "What's going on? Who are these... people?"

"Well, I was going to tell you something weird was happening in town," said Xander, "but it looks like you already know."

"We thought it was just happening here at school," said Buffy. "Are you saying there are strangers showing up all over town?"

"I don't know about the rest of town," said Xander, "but there's definitely something going on at the Bronze. These guys say they've seen vampires around, too."

"Oh, great!" cried Buffy. "As if we didn't have enough problems already."

"What's all this about vampires?" asked Ace, joining the group. "I thought you said they hadn't been around lately."

"They haven't," said Buffy. "Just our luck they'd make a comeback tonight."

"Well, let's go sort them out, then," Ace said enthusiastically.

"Whoa, hold on," Buffy objected. "Dealing with vampires is my job. I've got enough to worry about when Willow and Xander are involved. I don't need to keep track of an entire army."

"Your tribe has given us its hospitality," said Leela. "As long as we're here, it is our duty to help defeat your enemies."

"Besides," added Ace, "we've got to do something while this lot figures out what's going on."

Buffy looked to her friends, then back to the visitors. It was obvious that she wasn't going to win this battle. "All right," she said with a sigh, "but as long as we're all going, let's make sure we take plenty of backup. Ask around and see who else wants to tag along."

One thing was certain, Buffy thought as the others split up. This was one time the vampires weren't going to know what hit them. For better or worse, tonight's encounter would be one that everyone would remember for a long time. Everyone who survived, that is.

End of Chapter 3

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