|
|
"Are you okay?" Angel ran to help her up, but she rose on her own, brushing feverishly and looking very miffed.
"It seems to me," explained Aly, quickly feeling for and receiving a pulse from James, "that you guys are, well, how to put this ..."
"Very good recreations of the real thing," David finished, unable to take his eyes off Angel as he sought to revive Juliet. She woke up with a start, apparently forgetting that she had ever been out.
"Willow! Willow!" The girl was obviously delirious, but Sunnydale's hacker princess chose this opportunity to put in her opinion before there was any more scuffling. "Now, it's pretty weird," she said calmly, "but I refuse to discount anything that's merely weird. Since I've been a Slayerette and all, I mean." She looked to Buffy for support and got an uneasy nod. "It looks like half of us are from Sunnydale, that's for sure. And the other half of us are dead ringers for the people of Sunnydale. Does anyone want to explain slowly what it is they do?"
"We're actors," David replied quickly. "We work on a TV show called 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. It's about, um, I guess it's about Buffy."
"We all play people you know," Aly added. "I'm Willow --"
"Duh," whispered Buffy, but she was nudged by Angel, who was rapt at attention.
"I'm Angel." David gestured at Juliet. "She plays Drusilla, and poor James is Spike."
"He's only unconscious," Aly said by way of reply. "Something, er, *Drusilla* knocked him out pretty good. My advice would be to get back to the --"
She was cut off by the growls and snarls of a circle of vampires. They had formed a ring around the stretch of park the players occupied during their discussions, and were closing in fast. "These guys I do NOT like," Aly finished, hurrying behind David. "Definite fear."
"Then we'll just have to take 'em out." Buffy smiled wickedly. She was still holding the stake. "Come on, Angel, Willow. They may be classically trained or whatever, but we're *the genuine article*." Instantly assuming his game face, Angel let out a convincing howl. "And we're good at what we do."
"What do you want?" Sarah tried to hold down her lunch as she bravely stared into the eyes of the vampire.
"Oh, just to have a spot of fun," Spike joked. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his leather duster and hopped around mirthfully. "And it worked!" He turned to her, evil flashing in his eyes. "See, me and Dru figured the best way to get ..."
To Sarah's horror, he trailed off and sank to the ground, twitching and smoking from his clothing, shifting back to his human visage as his body jerked back and forth and foam trickled from his mouth. She wasted no time in running, as fast as she could, out of the cemetery. It was Sunnydale, all right, only so real that she had no idea where to go.
[Think, Sarah, think.] She paused outside of the west gates, checking nervously behind her to see if he was in pursuit. Sarah happened to see a School Zone sign a block or so away.
[There!] She rushed towards the sign, all the while looking over her shoulder. Sure enough, it marked the entrance of Sunnydale High. [I should have known it would be so close to the cemetery. Where the hell's the library?] Sarah took a right through the tree-covered campus and soon came upon a familiar set of double doors. As boisterously as she could, she ran through them. [This had better be it.]
"Help me!" she screamed. "He's right there, right behind me, he's gotta be!"
"Buffy!" Xander ran over to her, arms outstretched. "What happened?"
"Oh, man, this is too weird," she replied, backing out of the boy's grasp and towards the exit. [But my other option is Spike. Looks like I'm staying in Wackoville.]
"Wait." Tony ran up the steps and took her hand, gazing placidly into her eyes. "Now listen to me. Is this Buffy Summers, or Sarah Michelle Gellar?"
"Tony, it's me!" Sarah cried, squeezing his hand. "What's gotten into you? What's the deal with Nick, and James?"
"This is fascinating," mused Giles, coming up to Sarah and adjusting his glasses. This must be the girl who plays Buffy."
[I already pinched myself. He's for real.] "Oh, and you must be Rupert Giles. Sarah Michelle Gellar, pleased to meet you." The actress extended her hand in a mocking gesture, then pulled it away. "I don't *think* so."
"You know," Giles told Tony, "she really does do Buffy very well." He could only chuckle.
"Hey, I won an Emmy, mister!"
"Really," Cordelia interrupted, "I hate to break this up. No, actually, I don't care. But we've gotta figure out what's going on here, before I go nuts from this twin dogging me all the time."
"I just wanted to validate my characterization!" Charisma pressed.
"I'll give you something to validate ..."
"Hold it!" Nick stepped in the middle of the group. "We won't get anywhere by bickering. Sarah, what happened to you?"
"Nick!" She hugged him briefly, then cleared her head. "I was walking out of my trailer, right after this, well, something I can best describe as a VAMPIRE attacked me, when I saw Juliet with the very same fictional bloodsucker problem as I was having before. She was this close to getting drained like a Coke bottle when I got in with the guy, and asked her for a stake. Loudly. So she ran away, and the guy jumped me. Then ..." She drifted off. [They're gonna think I'm nuts. Keeping in mind that half of them are already nuts themselves ...]
"Yeah?" Xander asked.
"And I fell. It was the oddest thing, like the ground opening up, and then total blackness. I woke up on the ground and James was there. Only he wasn't James, he was Spike. I was so sure he was gonna - he was gonna - Then he started to have some sort of seizure, or something, so I took off before he could find me. And I came here."
"That's it." Giles snapped his fingers. "Spike may have figured out how to transfer some kind of energy or power from the actor who plays him in this alternate world into himself, to gain an upper hand."
"Hey, what're you callin' an alternate world?" Sarah was starting to get defensive.
"It's very easy to explain, Sarah," Tony answered. "I agree with, uh, Mr. Giles. My feeling is that we should check on every, uh, character to see if they're still present. If you, Nick, Charisma, and I made it her, it's altogether likely that Drusilla and Spike may have figured out a way to switch people around from Buffy's world. And do awful, bad things."
"Poignantly put," Nick said. "I'm with Tony. We should see who's here and who's not, then plan our next course of action."
"Then let's go already!" Cordelia grabbed her car keys. "I'll drive."
Charisma could have sworn she heard a familiar theme song as the group took off. Xander came up behind her and Sarah as they made their way out.
"This may be a personal question, but would either of you girls happen to be,
er, attached?"