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Willow and Alyson were confusing the hell out of two of the vamps, using Willow's bottle of holy water as bait. They were making progress, as was David with another one. Angel was fast defeating yet a fifth, managing even with the fearful Juliet cowering behind him. The Slayer easily took care of a sixth and tossed her last stakes to Willow and David, hoping that the actor knew how to use them. While the others struggled with their foes, Buffy whirled around to see the seventh and last vampire hoist the unconscious body of James Marsters over his head.
"NO!" she cried, making a lunge for them. But as the ground opened up and the vampire fell through the earth with his catch, Buffy thanked God that she hadn't gone down with them, to who-knows-where. It would likely be a battle to get him back, though. Something told Buffy that the actor was more than just meat.
Snapping back to attention, she pulled a vampire off Aly and got hold of Willow's stake, dispatching it. By this time, everyone was free.
And another shadow came up behind the group, just as Juliet mused aloud, "I should call my dad. Just to check on him."
With a typical grunt and a war-like shriek, Buffy rushed past David and tackled the intruder. "STAKE!" she screeched. No more bloodsuckers were breaking up *this* party; they were having a hard enough time with each other. Thanks to Angel, she was set up with wood in a matter of seconds. As Buffy plunged the weapon towards the heart of the thirty-something, clean-cut man she'd subdued, she remembered seeing something less fearful and more ... excited.
Of course, there was more than enough time for Alyson to yell, "Wait, Buffy!" and throw hersefl between the point of Buffy's stake and the stranger. "Don't!"
Buffy fell backwards onto the ground, Willow running to help her up. Alyson, in turn, assisted the strange man, and he darted his eyes from person to person, looking very much like a deer caught in headlights, before he even found room to speak.
"WOW." He went over to Angel and looked him up and down, sizing up every inch of the vampire. Angel hissed and got very on edge, but it was Juliet who gave away the identity of the newcomer.
"Isn't this just the weirdest thing you've ever seen, Joss?" asked the slight girl, pulling her hair back. "Your creations come to life."
"This is amazing." He walked back to Buffy and Willow now, exultant. "I mean, this is just *wild*! I cannot believe it."
"None of us can," Alyson said, dusting herself off with a wrinkle of her nose. "They're real, Joss. And we don't know what's happened. But whatever it is, it's very weird, very dangerous, and very show-like."
"But you could get it back to normal," David added. "Right?"
"Oh, I don't know," the man answered, staring Willow in the face like a show horse. "This may be too cool to change." He grinned sheepishly.
"Excuse me." Buffy tapped the man on the shoulder, one hand on her hip. "I really don't know who you are or what you want from us, but I'm pretty clear that you know why my friends and I are here. So, I'd love the story of how you came to be so interested in us." She raised an eyebrow in accent, totally serious.
"You are so great," he replied. "May I?" Without waiting for a response, he slipped off Buffy's Slayer bag, taking out everything inside it. Her lipstick, her stakes, her jeweled knife, everything. It was almost perverted, and Buffy drew the line at him inspecting her cross necklace.
"Oh, right," he said, noticing her recoil. "I'm Joss Whedon. I created you." He chuckled softly at Buffy's incredulous look. "You may not believe me, but years ago, I dreamed you up. Later on, I made up all your friends and your world. These people -" he gestured to the actors - "play the incarnations of you I created, but I'm sure they already explained that. I don't doubt that you're real, but in the world you're in now ... you're not." Joss stared at Buffy, but she was blank. "That help?"
"Um, yeah." Buffy scratched her head. "So can you help us?"
"Can I? I'd love to." Joss pointed across the green. "Everyone. My trailer. We'll work this out yet."
"I'm beginning to get really worried," Xander said. He tapped his foot. "We already went to the Bronze and to all their houses. What are we supposed to do now?"
"My guess," Tony replied, "is that it's impossible to communicate with the other world. So all we *can* do is sit and wait, pretty much."
"But what's that gonna solve?" Charisma asked. "We'll just be sitting around, hoping they defeat the *real* vampires?"
"Well, they do have Buffy," Cordelia commented, casting a bitter eye at Sarah. "We got the original. A little rough around the edges."
"Now, we don't know that for sure," Giles corrected dutifully. "Buffy could perhaps be dead, or be cancelled out by the crossing of dimensional parallels, or stuck in between two universes in a malfunction."
"Oh, that makes me feel BETTER!" Xander snapped. "Buffy could be dead! Oh, great!"
"If you think about it," Nick said, half to himself, "Buffy can never really die. Not even when the physical Buffy is dead, becuase we're a pretty hot prospect for syndication."
Everyone sat in silence for a moment. Then Sarah stood up, suddenly and noisily. "Nick, you're right!"
"Oh, I'm glad you agree," he replied. "I think we could get a quarter-mill per ep from the Sci-Fi Channel, easy."
"No, NO!" She jumped up and down perkily. "Let us not forget that the Buffy people aren't real to US." Giles and Tony seemed bored, but the others nodded quickly. "Oh, come on guys. Didn't you see 'Back to the Future'? If any harm comes to the real actors, the fictional characters aren't even really dead. There's only one person who can definitively kill anyone in Buffy's world."
"Joss!" Tony finished, jumping up as well, sending his chair clattering to the floor.
"Who's that?" whispered Xander.
"Whoever *he* is, *she's* WAY smarter than the real Buffy," Cordelia answered.
"Joss can get us out of this!" Nick added happily.
"Yes, but can he get you out of THIS?" asked Spike, leading a gang of vamps
through the library doors. "I don't think so."