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"Seriously, you have yet to tell me how the hell you got into my living room, uh ..." The teen sized up her double's blue jersey sheath and silver cardigan. "Whoever you are. But at the very least, you seem to have inherited my good taste."
I *am* your good taste! Charisma wanted to scream. But the door was too quickly opened.
"Xander!" Now Charisma was interested. She followed Cordelia into the house, oohing and aahing to herself. She wasn't sure how, why, and who, but whatever it was, this wasn't the set. It couldn't be anything but real.
"You have your -" Xander saw the tall brunette beauty staying behind his arch-nemesis. She was GORGEOUS! "I'm guessing that's her."
"Uh, yeah. Or something." Cordelia grabbed the actress by the hand and brought her in front of Xander. "This is Xander. Xander, meet Charisma. I used to think that was a quality leaders had or something, but apparently it's a name. She says she plays ME on TV." She gave a little eye-roll. "Sure she does. So, what have you got to show? I rushed over here, you know."
As if on cue, a man came into Xander's foyer. "This," the Slayerette announced, "Is my 'actor', or so he says. His name is Nick, and he really believes that he plays Xander on a television program called ... what was it?"
"'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'." Nick smiled.
"Weird, huh?" Xander's voice had lost much of its sardonic twinge and was starting to sound a lot like his twin's. Cordelia was about to make a comment on that when she saw Charisma rush headlong into Nick's arms. They hugged for a moment, then broke apart.
He's pretty cute, Cordelia said to herself. There are some definite differences from Geek-Boy over there. She was left wondering just what kind of a thing her double had going with Xander's double when the boy himself spoke up.
"The last time I saw Willow and Buffy was an hour and a half go, way before Nick claims to have been dropped out of the sky into my kitchen. So I think we had better find them."
Cordelia thought for a moment. He actually had a good idea for once. She had been trying really hard to stay away from Xander, not to mention the demonic evil bit, ever since their ... episode ... in Buffy's basement during Career Week. That had been almost a month ago, however, and she was ready to admit that life without the demonic evil bit had been pretty damn boring. And maybe she could get to know Nick a little better. "Fine. We'll go in my car. It's a given that they're hanging out at the library. Lives of the party that they are."
"Well, let's go then." Xander grabbed his house keys. The two actors were too astonished to say anything as they all climbed into the red Beemer.
"It even has QUEEN C plates," Nick whispered to Charisma as they squished themselves into the back seat. Surprisingly, she found a smile.
"Nick, I don't think we're in L.A. anymore."
"Does this mean someone slipped PCP into the clam chowder last night?" he asked. "Because I don't *feel* high."
Giles paused. He seemed smart enough to comprehend what he was about to hear.
"Have you ever heard of the alternate universe theory?" the Watcher asked.
"I think I've read about it a bit somewhere," Tony Head replied, "but mostly in cheesy science fiction. Why?"
"Well, it just so happens," Giles proceeded, shuffling the printouts he's just obtained from the Techno-Pagans' WebNet, "that in this world, it holds true. There are thousands of alternate aspects to whatever dimension you or I call home. And I've just encountered a pretty good opportunity for any vampire or various villain to manipulate these properties any way he wants to."
Tony took the stack of papers thrust into his grasp, and began to read. It only took a couple of pages before he realized what he was reading. "This is a spell!"
"Not a true spell, really," Giles said, nonetheless pleased with his visitor's mental acuity. "More of an incantation. But the Techno-Pagans have apparently deemed it safe enough, 'cool' enough, to put on their World Web site."
"World *Wide* Web," Tony corrected. "Hmmm. Thinking that anyone they wanted could visit their favorite worlds? How idiotic!" He blinked a few times, to make sure the entire scene did not disappear.
"So we should have plenty of thrill-seekers," Giles continued, "trying their hand at Miss Marple or P.G. Wodehouse, just for fun and excitement!"
"Or any other place," chuckled Tony, amused at the reality of Giles' fantasy. "Including Sunnydale."
"Exactly!" Giles pounded the table in elation. "But such is not the case here."
The men thought in silence for a second, Giles successfully ignoring the physical similarities between him and his strange guest and Tony taking in every nook and cranny of the library, wide-eyed.
"It seems to me," murmured the librarian, leaving the table and opting to pace the room nervously, "that someone has either chosen to wreak random havoc by shuffling the 'actors' from the, uh, world where our lives are fictional with the real people. Or ..."
"Or," Tony finished, suddenly sounding very Giles-like, "figured out some way to gain from bumping people off in a game of fictional versus real."
The two men, hit with the gravity of the situation, exchanged tense looks. The surreal quality of his predicament was beginning to become too much for Tony when the doors to the library burst open. Before either Watcher had a chance to react, they both could nly stand slack-jawed at the sight of their new arrivals.
Two girls, each looking like mirror-image Cordelias, entered first, striding in step.
"Something is very wrong," Cordelia began.
"Beyond-belief wrong," Charisma added. Behind them, throwing up their hands in Xander-like fashion, were two more look-alikes.
"We have GOT to get out of this!"