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.

Buffy watched with alarm as Tasha Yar walked in. Bashir and Garak walked up beside Harry and Kes, watching as the woman approached.

"How can she be here?" wondered Wade. "If Commander Riker saw this woman die, how can she be alive here?"

"If we're all being pulled out of different places and times," said Harry, "then she could have come from an earlier time than the Commander."

"That's one explanation," said Buffy. "There's another one, but you won't like it."

"Commander, I would have remembered dying," said Tasha as she reached Riker. "Before I got here, I was in my quarters on the Enterprise, getting ready for some battle drills. It's the same with the other people I met. None of them can remember how they got here."

"Other people?" asked Riker.

As if on cue, more new arrivals walked into the Bronze. A bearded black man wearing a black trench coat looked around the room with a severe expression on his face, then retreated into the shadows, not wanting to be seen. As he did, two other men - one clean-cut, the other scraggly and unkempt - walked past him.

The unkempt man seemed more disoriented than the others. Wade went to his side. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I... I think so," said the unkempt man. "My... my name is Max Fenig. Have I been abducted by aliens again?"

Wade looked to Buffy for help, but Buffy could only shrug. "We'll, uh, we'll have to get back to you on that one," Wade told him.

The last man among the newcomers was dressed in orange robes and had a large earring dangling from his right ear. His nose had a set of accordion-like ridges, as if he had fallen once and smashed it against a sidewalk.

"Vedek Bareil," said Bashir, looking at the man. "This is remarkable. I saw him die."

The commotion of the new arrivals brought Ace, Xander and Kimberly over to join the group.

"Hey, nice overalls," Kimberly told Kes.

"What's going on, Buff?" asked Xander. "Who are all these new guys?"

"I don't know yet," said Buffy, "but I'm getting a bad feeling about them."

Bashir was about to go greet Bareil, but Buffy stopped him and pulled him aside for a moment. "You're sure you saw this guy die?" she asked.

"Positive," said Bashir. "You wouldn't believe what I went through trying to save him."

"All right," said Buffy, "tell me something about him. What's with his nose?"

"He's a Bajoran," Bashir replied. "All Bajoran noses are like that."

"But apart from the nose, he's pretty much like a human?"

Bashir shrugged. "More or less. There are some internal differences, of course, but Bajorans have the same basic structure. Why all this sudden interest in alien biology?"

"I'll tell you later," said Buffy. "Maybe we can have a good laugh about it - I hope."

Buffy left Bashir behind and walked up to Bareil herself. "Are you all right?" she asked. All the while, she was silently wishing the presence of so many non-humans hadn't interfered with her instincts.

"The Prophets appear to have guided me to someplace I didn't expect," said Bareil. "Fortunately, I trust them enough to do whatever they expect of me."

He looked up, prepared to give Buffy the reassuring gaze of a man of faith, but his expression suddenly changed as their eyes met.

With that one look, he knew.

With that one look, Buffy knew as well. And she knew that he knew.

The rest happened faster than anyone else in the Bronze could follow. Buffy snapped a stake from its hiding place in her sleeve. It slid into her hand just as Bareil turned to run.

Before Bareil could take a step, Buffy rammed the stake into his chest. Her aim was off, a little low and to the right. For a moment, Buffy thought she had missed. Then Bareil crumbled into dust. She had found his alien heart completely by instinct. Giles would be proud.

Suddenly, Buffy noticed that the entire room had grown quiet. She looked up and found everyone staring at her and the pile of dust on the floor. No one looked happy.

"Oh, boy," said Xander. "This can't be good."

***

Without a doubt, thought Scully, this was one of Mulder's worst ideas.

She wasn't thinking of the idea to come to Sunnydale in the first place, although that still threatened to top the list. She was thinking of Mulder's idea to talk to the dark-haired teenage girl who was now consuming their evening with her vapid gossip about everyday life in the town. Scully hadn't even liked listening to this kind of chatter when she was a teenager herself.

For his part, Mulder was doing his best to be patient. "I don't doubt how much trouble you had facing stage fright at the school talent show, Miss Chase," he was saying, "but perhaps we could move on to some of the show's more unusual aspects."

"You don't think it's unusual for me to have stage fright?" exclaimed Cordelia Chase. "I'm the center of Sunnydale's universe of popularity. I should be used to having lots of people watching me. It's not like I'm some shy loser, like... like Willow Rosenberg." Her eyes lit up. "Now there's someone you should talk to if you want to know about weirdness."

Mulder jotted the name down on his notepad. "Willow Rosenberg?" he repeated. "I'm not familiar with that name."

"No surprise there," said Cordelia. "She's like, color me self-effacing. But trust me, if something weird's going on in town, she'll be there. Her and her friend Buffy."

"Buffy?" repeated Mulder. "Where would I find them?"

"If they're not at home, then they're probably at the Bronze. They think that by hanging out at the cool spot in town, they can make people think they're cool, too. Like this one time, Buffy went there with Owen, and it was such a pathetic display..."

Scully had finally reached her limit. "I'm sure it's a fascinating story, Miss Chase," she said, "but we really need to continue our investigation. Could you tell us how to find 'the Bronze'?"

"All right," said Cordelia, looking disappointed. "It's only about four blocks down the road, in the bad part of town."

Mulder thanked the girl, and the two FBI Agents set out for the club. "You mean you didn't want to hear about Buffy and Owen at the Bronze?" Mulder asked Scully.

"I'm still coping with the fact that we're looking for someone named Buffy," Scully replied. "Buffy and Willow. I should have known when you said we were going to Southern California."

"And you thought this was a wasted trip," said Mulder. "Come on, Scully. The Bronze awaits."

***

The gathering at the Bronze remained surprisingly still. Buffy wasn't sure how many of them understood what had just happened - and how many of them understood it too well.

She looked around the room anxiously. None of the people who volunteered so eagerly to fight vampires had expected the creatures to show up with familiar faces. If a vampire could look like someone Bashir knew, other vampires could look like anybody. Buffy knew the shock of seeing an old friend appear in demonic form. She didn't need an entire room full of people going through that all at once. And yet that could be exactly what was about to happen.

Buffy suddenly realized that everyone in the room was waiting for her to say or do something. She decided that it was not the time to hide the facts. "The vampires are here," she said. "They may look and act like people you know, but they're not."

"Then how can we tell who they are?" asked Marcus.

"You can't," Buffy replied, "but I can." She was bluffing, at least partially. As Giles often pointed out, her ability to recognize vampires wasn't always accurate. The presence of so many aliens only made things worse. Still, the vampires didn't need to know facts like those. Looking pointedly at Tasha Yar, Buffy added, "Although if there's someone around that you know is dead, I'd be real careful around them."

Riker took the hint and backed away from Tasha slightly.

"Commander, what are you doing?" Tasha asked. "You can't take this girl seriously."

"I don't know what's going on," said Riker. "I don't know how I got here, I don't know why that Vedek just turned into a pile of dust, and I don't know how you're alive when I know you're dead. Let's just say I'm going to play it safe until I find out a few more things."

"A wise decision, Commander," said a new voice.

Everyone in the room whirled around to see two new visitors enter the Bronze. One was a woman with the same reptilian features as Garak. Behind her was one of the ugliest brutes Buffy had ever seen, a large man who looked like an ogre that had gone Rastafarian. If this was his ordinary face, she hated to think what he might look like as a vampire.

"Seska!" cried Harry when he saw the female Cardassian. Looking at her companion, he added, "I see you've still got Maje Culluh with you, too."

"And let me guess," said Buffy. "These guys are both dead, right?"

"We were," said Seska. "But we're much better now, thanks to the Master. He offered us the chance to live forever, and all we had to do was kill you."

"It seemed like an obvious choice," added Maje Culluh. "Especially since some of you were the ones who killed us in the first place."

Ace pushed through the crowd, her cricket bat at the ready. "You don't scare me," she said. "You may be an ugly lot, but there are only two of you."

Seska smiled. "The Master wouldn't send us to do something and not give us enough help to do it. That's why he gave us some friends."

***

Willow stood with Joe, Quinn, Rembrandt and Maggie near the Bronze's stage at the back of the room. She couldn't make out everything that was happening, but what she saw didn't look good.

Buffy had already slain one vampire and was now facing off against a pair of monsters. There might be other vampires around, but no one was sure.

Willow quickly brought out her supplies, a cross and a vial of holy water. She braced herself for whatever might come her way. This was one of those times when things got a bit more exciting than she was comfortable with.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a well-dressed, clean-cut young man heading for the back door of the Bronze. Willow vaguely remembered him coming in, but she didn't know who he was. It seemed strange that he wouldn't be paying attention to the potentially deadly face-off that was happening near the front door.

Slipping away from the others, Willow went to see where the young man was going. She had an awful feeling that she wasn't going to like what she discovered.

***

Buffy watched as five more newcomers entered the Bronze. None of them had their vampire faces on at the moment, but Buffy would recognize their demonic nature from a mile away. Things were going to get ugly very fast.

Marcus stepped forward from his place behind the Bronze's pool table. He was now holding a long metallic tube, about the same size as Gabrielle's quarterstaff, but more deadly looking. Buffy didn't know where it had come from.

"Mister Morden," Marcus said to a dark-haired man who had the most sinister smile plastered on his face. "Given all we've seen tonight, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find you here. I take it being dead hasn't changed you much?"

"Apart from having a new set of... associates... I suppose it hasn't," Morden replied.

The next three vampires all wore matching outfits - black pants and boots with red velour shirts. The shirts all bore an insignia that looked similar to the pins Riker and Harry were wearing.

"Wow, a matched set," said Buffy. "Were they having a sale at the dead body store?"

"Those are Starfleet security officers," said Harry.

"Yes," said Seska. "We were lucky enough to find a ship that specialized in dead security officers. Allow me to introduce Ensigns Kaplan, Hendorff and Marple."

The last of the vampires came into view, and Ace's reaction was instantaneous. The young man looked perfectly ordinary to Buffy, but Ace was on the verge of flying into a fury at the sight of him.

"And look who else they brought with them," said Ace. "Mike Smith. You've got a lot of nerve showing up here, even if you are dead."

***

Willow heard the Bronze's back door open. She looked just in time to see the clean cut man letting three other men into the building. There was no longer any question whose side the clean cut man was on. The new arrivals already had their vampire faces on.

Willow turned and ran. The others met her as she returned to the stage, then reacted as the three vampires arrived.

Maggie was staring wild-eyed at the leader of the trio. She spoke his name as if she was swearing. "Rickman. I guess we don't have to worry about finding you after all."

"You're not surprised to see me, then?" said Rickman.

"Should we be?" asked Rembrandt.

"I would think so," said Rickman. "You see, I'm dead. You people killed me, in fact. The only reason I'm here now is because the Master brought me back. He introduced me to power beyond my wildest dreams. And believe me, taking blood from a human is much easier than taking brain fluid."

Indicating his two companions, who were dressed identically to three of the vampires at the front door, Rickman added, "And if the job wasn't easy enough for me alone, I happen to have the ample help of Ensigns Rizzo and Harper. So you see, this should all be over rather quickly."

"All this is impossible," Maggie insisted. "How can we have killed you? We haven't been able to catch up with you for weeks."

"Ah, that's where things get interesting," said Rickman. "I've obviously been pulled back in time to a point before my demise. Which leads me to wonder - if I kill you now, will you still be able to kill me then? Or by killing you, will I trap myself in a temporal paradox?" He smiled at them, showing his elongated vampire teeth. "Let's find out, shall we?"

***

"Hello, Ace," said Mike Smith. The Master told me you'd be here."

Buffy turned to find Ace struggling to contain herself. "Who is this guy?" she asked the girl.

"You don't want to know," Ace answered through gritted teeth. "The scumbag sold us out once before, to these creatures who hate the entire universe. I thought I liked him, and he almost got us all killed. Figures he'd be part of this crowd now."

"At least this time I don't have to pretend about which sides the two of us are on," said Mike.

With that, his face changed into its full vampire appearance. Ace screamed an angry war cry and rushed at him with the cricket bat.

Buffy suddenly heard more shouts coming from the opposite side of the building. She turned and saw Maggie attacking another vampire that had apparently sneaked in through the back door.

All around the Bronze, the vampires changed into their full demonic forms - not that it made much difference in some cases. Humans, aliens and vampires launched themselves at each other in a sudden whirlwind of conflict. The battle was on.

End of Chapter 5

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