Mist's Jumps part 31

The demon bunny girl said, “We have one last door prize to give out before we raffle some more souls.” She gestured at Willow, “May I present Willow Danielle Rosenberg, Goddess of her own personal world.”

If Willow had been paying attention to the demon crowd she would have noticed that none of them looked happy about not getting a whole world to control. However, she was way too busy staring at the demon girl in disbelief to notice such minor details as a bit of discontent from the peanut gallery. That certainly explained why Mist had been smirking when she’d asked him what she won. It took her a few moments before she managed to squeak out, “Goddess?”

“It’s a Wheel of Time world. Feel free to name it whatever you want.” The demon girl smiled as she walked over and handed Willow a six inch diameter crystal globe that showed a world in amazing detail complete with weather patterns. “The world is yours. Do what you want with it. If you want to bring back the dead there, you can, with a couple of exceptions. If you want to give your people some special powers you can, immorality? No sweat… while they’re there at least. You’re the boss.”

Illyria scowled at Willow as she realized that the witch got the better prize by far.

“How?” Willow was so going to glare at Mist for not warning her about the whole goddess bit.

“One of the demon overlords had a nephew, well his wife had a nephew that liked exploring other worlds. The guy was a bit of a risk taker. Anyways, he got himself dead when followers of the dark god of the world he was on destroyed it. Nasty business that. Normally this particular demon overlord wouldn’t have cared but he wanted a good showing for the lotto and his wife was bitching so he steps in, steals a bunch of trinkets and souls then goes back ten years in time and kills the dark god which splits the world off from the main timeline and allows him to send a version of his wife‘s nephew back home. Which is when things get messy in that the opposing side steps in and says that the world is now a neutral world on account of there being no true demons there. I think they were planning on sneaking some people in there but he pointed out that technically there was a demon on the world and as long as he stayed there he owned the place by right of combat.”

Xander muttered, “Demonic lawyers.”

The demon bunny girl shrugged. “Yes, well he doesn’t want to stay there forever because he’s got an empire to run. He would have just brought a demon in but the celestials wouldn’t have gone for it. Normally he would have just let the world go as one world more or less isn’t a big deal but the celestials made it a point of pride. Which brings us back to the raffle, the only way the overlord wins is if he unloads the place to a non demonic overlord.”

Willow glanced over at Mist then back at the demon bunny girl. “Okay… so what do I do?”

“You do what you want with it. There are still some forces of the old god there, until they’re destroyed you won’t have complete control over the world but you have enough that the celestials can’t claim the world which is enough to make the boss man happy.”

Leah asked curiously, “How many forces are we talking about?”

“Nothing you can’t handle with a couple of armies.” She smirked at Leah.

“Right, I’ll believe it when I see it,” Leah muttered.

Xander was just hoping they could find and contain Egwene’s Dark Goddess before it became a huge problem and that Faith’s dark goddess wasn’t wrecking things. “Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take all that long to sort things out.”

Willow walked back and sat down next to Dawn as the demon bunny girl started raffling off more souls.

0o0o0

Faith screamed as the window she was standing in front of exploded and she was tossed across the room like a rag doll by a blast of dark energy that hurt like she’d stuck her hand in boiling water.

As rather ugly tall woman with fangs, twisted hands and demonic wings shouted, “They turned me into a woman! I’m going to kill you, painfully and slowly!”

Faith activated her mana shield as she twisted to look at the rather ugly and mutated figure standing in the new ‘entrance’ to the ruined restaurant. It wasn’t until she noticed the woman’s hooves that she put the pieces together. “Kakistos.”

“So you knew!” ‘She’ tossed another blast of unholy fire at Faith.

Faith blurred out of the way only for the blast to twist and hit her dispelling her mana shield and ravaging her arm as she wasn’t fast enough to completely get out of the way. “Wyatt! Help!”

“No one is going to save you.” Kakistos laughed as ‘she’ tossed another blast of unholy fire at Faith. 

Faith kicked a table into the path of the fire then lashed out with lightning which washed over Kakistos without doing any damage. “Shit.”

“I’m going to kill you, rape you and eat you.” Kakistos shouted as ‘she’ advanced toward Faith.

Faith orbed up to the little slice of heaven or tried only to find herself painfully bounced back to Earth as Kakistos gestured. She lurched out of the way of his next attack by opening a doorway near Buffy and rolling through it. She screamed as a blast of black flames hit her in the legs and caused serious burns despite her durability. She twisted to the side and lurched out of the way of the next blast into some weights.

Buffy swung her scythe as the demon stepped through the doorway and buried it in the demon’s shoulder. “Tag.”

Kakistos backhanded Buffy then blinked as his fist was stopped by a yellow forcefield an inch from her face.

“My turn.” Buffy smirked as she slammed the dark goddess in the face with a large yellow construct fist from her ring. She conjured a layered shield as the demon went through two walls and a support column. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Faith winced as she reached into her inventory and pulled out an elixir. She drank the elixir then smiled as all of her wounds healed instantly. She flipped back to her feet. “That shit fucking hurts.”

Buffy lost her smirk as the dark goddess blurred and hit her like a freight train which shattered her shield and tossed her off her feet thanks to the shock. “Shit.”

Faith pulled her heavily upgraded shotgun out of her inventory and shot the demon with demon slaying rounds. She was rather unhappy when they didn’t even manage to harm the demon goddess. “Fuck!”

“I am immortal! I am a god-” whatever else Kakistos was going to say was cut off as a ball of energy blasted the dark goddess off her feet and tossed her into the wall.

Giles stepped through the portal. “I’d like to test that theory.”

Buffy stared in shock at the strange twelve year old Giles that was almost glowing with magic. “What the hell?”

Giles raised his hand then make a come get some gesture toward the goddess. “Bring it.”

Faith stared as the dark goddess charged Giles in a blur then lurched to a stop with a blade through ‘her’ chest as Wyatt appeared out of thin air in front of Giles looking for all the world like a knight out of legend.

Wyatt pulled Excalibur out of the shocked dark goddess’ chest then swung it up and around then hacked off her head before ‘she’ could blink. “You called, I came.”

Giles sighed in relief as Kakistos’ body turned to ash. He stopped pulling magic from the strange mana battery the young man had handed him. “Let’s not do that again.”

Buffy stared at Giles. “What the hell? Where did you get magic?”

“I was minding my own business then a blue skinned girl showed up and asked if I wanted to help run a library and help you out, I agreed, next thing I know, I’m a child again with extra memories heading toward the restaurant to eat lunch with Faith. I was almost there when the demon attacked. I was going to toss a spell at the demon with my rather limited amount of magic to distract the demon when a young man appeared in a mess of sparkles.” Giles gestured toward Wyatt.

Wyatt grinned at Buffy. “At which point I tossed Giles a mana battery and told him my plan.”

Buffy glared at Wyatt’s sword. “I still think it’s cheating that you have Excalibur but I think we can let it slide this time.”

Giles turned to look at Wyatt’s sword in shock. “That’s Excalibur?”

Faith gestured and closed the doorway. “Yeah, Giles meet, Wyatt Halliwell, Twice Blessed Child and wielder of Excalibur.”

Wyatt pulled a cloth out of his inventory. “It comes in handy now and then.” He wiped his sword down then stuck it back in his inventory. 

Buffy turned back to look at Giles. “Blue lady? Does that mean you know who Mist is?”

“Xander’s brother?” Giles asked hesitantly as he wasn’t sure Xander had a brother, he hadn’t in the second timeline he could remember.

“More or less. Let’s get something to eat and I’ll explain.”

Wyatt focused on the damage to the walls and used projection to repair the damage.

Giles twitched slightly as the fragments of wall floated off the ground then reassembled themselves as Andrew charged into the room holding a letter opener of all things. “How much magic do you have?”

“A lot,” Wyatt admitted.

Faith glanced at Andrew as she said, “Don’t worry, we’ll explain everything.”

“Does that include a way to deal with Whistler?” Giles asked hopefully.

“I should be more than able to kill Whistler and his demonic friends.”

“They’re rather dangerous.”

Faith shivered slightly as she thought about her dark goddess, she knew it could have been a lot worse, would have been a lot worse if Wyatt and Giles hadn’t shown up. “Ignoring the Dark Goddess that just tried to kill me and was curiously immune to my magic, so am I.”

“Dark Goddess?” Giles reached up and rubbed his nose. “This is going to be a long explanation, isn’t it?”

Buffy winced slightly as she thought about some of the idiotic choices her alternate had made over the years. “Most likely, yeah.”

0o0o0

Willow send Mist a mental message, ‘Why didn’t you tell me my world came with a massive upgrade?’

‘Because I didn’t want you to panic and the look on your face was priceless?’ Mist replied mentally as he absently watched Spike and Illyia fleece the poor demons.

‘You’re in so much trouble Mister.’

Mist smirked slightly. ‘You still love me.’

Willow huffed. ‘That’s not the point and you know it.’

‘Yeah, I know. The truth is we sort of needed you to look surprised when you won, it would have looked really bad if you hadn’t been surprised to win an entire world and a divine package. We have a year before we can jump but a lot can happen in a year, we might be extremely powerful magic users but we can’t be everywhere. We’re already on the razor’s edge with the dark gods and sore losers after us, we don’t need to attract more attention.’

‘I guess you have a point,” Willow admitted as she half listened to Dawn explain some things to Violet about the world she’d won and how they were welcome to immigrate.

Mist glanced over at the rather quiet talisman maker with the staff who had traded Nynaeve’s soul for a place in the world. ‘The demons are already glaring at us because we’ve been cleaning house with the raffle, just imagine how bad it’s going to be when we win a bunch of grand prizes. Even without the flaws, we’d probably have some issues with the demons that didn’t win.” He could sense the anger coming off the demons that Illyria and Spike were beating at poker. Without actually reaching out with telepathy he couldn’t get their motives but it wasn’t hard to guess with the rage he could feel coming from most of them.

‘Really?’

‘They’re demons, I wouldn’t put it past them.’ Mist was looking forward to grabbing his prizes then heading back to his world to recruit the remains of the Two Rivers before the dark goddess or the army of shadowspawn they’d heard about killed everyone he ‘remembered’ growing up with.

0o0o0

Cordelia Chase almost would have suspected D'Hoffryn of screwing with her as she suddenly woke up and realized that she had more memories than she’d had before she bought Anya for a shiny nickel except the fact that he’d just taken a step back and his eyes had gone wide. “Mr. D.”

D’Hoffryn looked warily at Cordelia then at Anya. “Take her and leave.”

“I trust there won’t be any unfortunate misunderstandings?” Cordelia asked calmly but with a hint of menace.

“Of course not, her soul isn’t of any more value to me,” he replied as calmly as he could considering the higher power had just went from not a threat to dear fucking gods what the hell is she in the blink of an eye.

Anya pouted but knew better than to say anything to piss off her old boss though she wasn’t sure why he was acting strange.

“Excellent, we’ll be going now.” Cordelia turned and opened a doorway in thin air to a different hell dimension. “You first Anya.”

Anya huffed then walked through.

Tara waited until Cordelia gestured for her to go through then followed Anya.

Cordelia walked through the doorway then let it close behind her as she looked at the creepy looking forest clearing they found themselves in. She looked at the soul chained to the nasty looking tree in the middle of the clearing. “Wesley.” She gestured and unlocked his chains.

Wesley staggered forward. “Cordelia?”

“We came to rescue you.”

Anya grumbled. “I’m not sure why we need to save him.”

Tara said, “Because he doesn’t deserve to be in hell.”

Wesley said, “If you’re not a demon in disguise, we should leave before the wild animals show up to rip me apart.”

Anya gulped nervously. “Wild animals?”

“Someone’s idea of a joke, stags, wolves and monstrous rams.”

Cordelia gestured and opened a door to the world where Mist grew up in this jump. “Let’s go, stay close or you’ll fade away.”

Wesley shivered as he considered where he’d end up if that happened, he wasn’t sure if ending up back in hell would be better than having his soul destroyed but probably. “Where are we going?”

“A friend’s house.” Cordelia replied as she walked through the portal to the slightly overgrown front yard of Mist’s house in the world his jump identity was from.

Anya hurried through the portal then looked at the stone manor house. “It looks old fashioned.”

Tara followed Weasley through the door. “I thought the idea was to catch a portal with one of Anya’s friends.”

Cordelia let the door close. “That was the idea but plans change...” she trailed off as Mist, Abby and Selena appeared out of thin air with a demonic looking girl and a tall busty redhead in almost see through clothes that she didn’t recognize. “Mist?”

Mist glanced at Cordelia then back at the demon girl as he said, “Thank you for the lift.”

“You’re welcome,” the demon girl smirked then vanished.

Mist turned to look at Cordelia and the spirits as he gestured toward the stone manor house. “Welcome to my house, such as it is.”

Wesley asked, “Who is that?”

Cordelia smirked. “A friend of mine from another world.”

Vivian smiled as she glanced between Tara and Cordelia. “They’re cute can we keep them?”

Mist turned to look at the busty attractive teenage girl that he’d won, while she wasn’t the most gorgeous girl he’d ever seen, she was up there with her long legs and blood red hair. The fact that her translucent red silk skirt and shirt showed off her curves and long legs rather nicely didn’t hurt. He glanced down at her rather sensible boots then up to the dog collar she was wearing then back to her belt where her a’dam was hanging unused. “I’m fairly sure her girlfriend would object.”

Tara gulped, “Ah?”

“The more the merrier?” Vivian asked hopefully.

Cordelia rolled her eyes.

Mist reached up and patted the new girl on her head. “We have other things to worry about right now.” He turned to look at Cordelia. “You’re early, what happened?”

Cordelia sighed. “I ‘woke up’ while talking to D'Hoffryn which meant we didn’t need to track down Anya’s friend. I don’t suppose you have any tricks up your sleeve for sticking souls in bodies or than my new ritual?”

“Nothing I’d trust without testing. Willow should be able to help as soon as she finishes meeting her two little helpers and Nynaeve.” Mist reached out with his magic and teleported the group to the far side of the valley as he felt a sense of dread and danger. He spun and looked at the large pit of hellfire where they’d been standing then over at the laughing eight foot tall winged demon that was hovering over the manor. He reached into his pocket and pushed the button on his time stop watch then scowled as the only ‘people’ that froze in the valley were Wesley, Tara, Anya and the new girl. He gestured and sent several ultima spells at the demon. 

Cordelia tossed up a shield over her group as the black and blue energy from the ultima spells cleared and revealed that the attack hadn’t even destroyed the demon’s loincloth. “This is going to suck.”

Mist pulled his sword out of his inventory, pushed mana into his muscles and blurred toward the demon at several times the speed of sound. He was rather annoyed when the demon brought his blade up and blocked every shot, every swing and every jab with a skill and speed that were unnatural even for most demons.

The demon shouted, “You rigged the raffle! I’m going to kill you and take your world.” as he reached out with his magic and broke Mist’s time stop effect.

Mist scowled as he missed a block as Anya shrieked something and the demon’s sword cut through his mana shield, armor and durability like they weren’t even there. Thankfully it was only a glancing blow and his regeneration was quickly repairing the damage but it still hurt more than it should. “I didn’t cheat.” He shouted as he conjured a handful of flash powder then tossed it at the demon’s eyes as the demon pointed toward Wesley and the girls. He reached out with projection and lit the powder on fire as he conjured two avatars. 

The demon screamed in annoyance, “Gah!”

He opened a door into space behind the demon as both of his avatars blurred toward the demon. One of his avatars managed to grab the demon’s wrist in exchange for taking a gut shot then ‘slammed’ the demon’s arm into the portal severing it at the elbow and sending the sword and arm flying as the second avatar managed to shoulder check the demon through the doorway into space which also severed its wings on the edge of the door.

Mist quickly dropped the injured avatar before it died then closed the door. He turned and dispelled the pit of hellfire before the fire could spread.

Mist’s avatar traded spells with the demon for a couple of seconds then opened a doorway to the heart of the sun right behind the demon. He had a second to appreciate pulling one over on the demon before he was obliterated thanks to the demon’s death curse.

Mist screamed in pain as he dropped a couple of feet before he recovered enough to halt his fall.

Cordelia stared warily at the blood leaking out of Mist’s eyes as he flew back over to the group. “Are you going to live?”

Mist reached out with his power and closed the doorway in space then reached into his inventory and pulled out an elixir and drank it. He sighed in relief as the pain vanished and his wounds healed. “That sucked.”

Tara asked as Mist floated back to the ground near them. “What happened?”

“My avatar caught a death curse and I caught the backlash,” Mist admitted reluctantly as he glanced between Wesley and Anya.

Wesley stared at Mist. “What type of spell was that?”

“No fucking idea, it shouldn’t have been able to kill my avatar,” Mist grumbled. He was hoping the demon didn’t have a way to come back from the dead but he wouldn’t put it past Genie to pick a demon with a couple of extra lives to push over the edge just to make sure he had a challenge.

Cordelia frowned. “You have that look on your face.”

Mist scowled as he thought about the annoying demon. “I just realized there are plenty of ways to come back from the dead, he might not be as dead as I’d like.”

“I can’t sense him anymore so let’s hope he’s actually gone.”

Wesley glanced at Cordelia. “Where did you meet him?”

“In another life.” Cordelia replied as she dropped her shield then tried to relax and not worry how close to death they’d come without scaring everyone more than they already were.

Vivian smiled at Cordelia. “So now that we’re not going to die, do you want to fuck like bunny rabbits?”

Anya stared at Vivian in horror. “And people say I have no tact, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“She’s cute and I want to fuck her, what’s it to you?” Vivian asked absently as she glanced between Tara and Cordelia.

Cordelia opened her mouth to tell Anya to drop it when a tall young man dressed like a medieval noble appeared out of thin air. “What the hell?”

The man stood up straight as he looked the party over. “Excellent, my aunt said that you’ll be my honor guard for the next year, we should head up to the Blight to kill the lake monster or maybe a worm in the mountains.”

Selena muttered, “Great.”

Mist plastered a smile on his face as he looked at the floppish and rather human looking demon with his upgrade ability and found that he wasn’t nearly as durable as he’d like. While he doubted any of the normal monsters would be able to kill him, the Forsaken wouldn’t have all that much trouble casually killing him if it came down to it. “Right, the demon lady mentioned you’d be joining us at some point.”

“Exactly, so where are we going?” he glanced at Vivian and Abby. “And do I have time to fuck the help first?”

Mist twitched slightly at the idea of the arrogant piece of shit coming anywhere near the girls.

Vivian frowned slightly. “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

Abby scowled at the demon. “Not my type either and I’m taken.”

“Blah, everyone likes demons once we start with the fucking,” he replied smuggly.

Cordelia had to resist the urge to glare at the demon as she asked, “Do you have a name?”

“It’s incomprehensible by humans, just call me Ralph.”

“Sure, no problem,” Mist replied as he opened a portal to his warehouse. 

“I’ll catch up, I want to check something.” Selena started walking toward where she’d seen the other demon’s sword fly. She wanted to see what she could learn from the enchantments on it as it had managed to cut through Mist’s shields and durability.

“Sure.” Mist glanced back at the demon. “Let’s get you into the mana infusion device so that you can start blowing up armies.” He turned and walked into his warehouse and headed for his stasis pod as the rest of the group followed him.

Ralph laughed as he followed Mist. “You’re an excellent servant.”

Any shred of lingering guilt Mist might have been feeling about his plan to stuff the demon in a pod vanished as he heard the demon’s mocking tone, sure it was faint but it was there. “I aim to please.” He stopped at the stasis pod then opened it. “This is a mana infusion device, jump in, spend an hour soaking up a massive amount of mana then you’ll be able to casually destroy mountains.” He was just glad that Cordelia was standing behind the demon because she had a smirk on her face that might have given the game away.

“Cool, let’s do this.”

Even with his various perks to get people to do stupid shit he was still surprised when the demon climbed into the machine of his own accord. He shut the lid then reached out and pushed the button that froze the demon in stasis. “Fucking idiot.”

Wesley asked, “What does it do?”

Mist grinned at Wesley. “It should keep him frozen for the rest of the year. I agreed to keep him safe for a year, not put up with his crap.”

“You’re not planning on doing that to me are you?” Vivian asked with a touch of concern.

“Of course not, you’re cute and friendly…” Mist trailed off as Vivian hugged him. 

“Thank you Boss!”

Abby snickered. 

Mist reached around and patted Vivian on the back then sighed as Vivian moved his hand to her behind. Normally he wouldn’t object to having his hand on a cute girl’s behind but he’d rather not make Tara uncomfortable or get sidetracked right then. “If I ‘remember’ the local history correctly, the Queen of Andor has called up her people to fight against armies of shadowspawn heading toward her country, we’re going to have to even the odds or start relocating people to a nicer world.” He patted her on the behind then untangled himself from his new prize/assistant.

“Does this mean you’re not going to abandon the world to the dark goddess that’s going to be showing up here?” Cordelia asked warily.

Wesley asked, “Dark goddess?”

“I have a hell goddess after me,” Mist admitted. 

“Like Glory?” Tara asked warily.

“Something like that only they don’t need a key, they just want to kill me. I’m going to need someone what can use doormaker for a couple of things without the exit location being random though.”

“Key? How do you know about that?”

“Long story, that I’ll happily explain later when we have more time.”

“Your portals are random?” Wesley asked in concern.

Mist sighed. “The exit point has a nasty tendency to go to weird places if I’m not familiar with the destination.”

Cordelia asked, “Do you need me to stick around and help or can I get the girls sorted?”

Wesley coughed indignantly.

Anya smirked at Wesley. 

Mist smiled slightly at Wesley. “Nah, get them sorted, I was planning on calling Sin for help with the Forsaken.”

Cordelia said, “Don’t get yourself killed.”

“I’ll try not to,” Mist agreed.

Pandora spoke up as she walked over with Sin and Phoenix, “He better not.“

Tara turned to look where the voice was coming from and stopped as she saw three drop dead gorgeous young women walking toward the group. “F-friends?”

“They’re hot, can they walk me or fuck me?” Vivian asked hopefully as she let go of Mist.

Pandora raised her eyebrows. “Interesting friends Dad.”

“I try,” Mist replied with amusement. He sent Pandora a mental message, ‘Yeah, she’s the crazy prize.’

Wesley glanced between Mist and Pandora as he asked, “How old are you?”

“Older than you, younger than Spike or Angel.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down all that much.”

Mist shrugged. “I started jumping worlds in my thirties, I’ve been doing it awhile and my age resets each jump. I also tend to pick up a collection of my alternate’s life in each world which means that it’s hard to say how many years I can remember.” He wasn’t going to bring up his skinwalker power or the information that gave him. Thankfully that was packaged up with his power which meant he never confused other people’s memories for his own. 

Selena glanced at the ghosts as she walked in. “Any reason we’re not just casting revive?”

Mist rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Because that makes it rather problematic to talk them into using Cordelia’s ritual of rebirth and I was sort of hoping I could talk Tara into being Dawn’s sister.”

“Oops, sorry,” Selena admitted slightly sheepishly.

Anya demanded, “What about me?”

Mist decided that he’d rather deal with a human Anya rather than one with Illyria or Cordelia’s powers or at least part of them. “On second thought, revive.” He gestured and cast revive on Anya.

Anya blinked as a popup appeared asking if she wanted to come back to life. “I have a popup asking if I want to come back to life.”

“It’s a quirk of the spell, if you want to come back without being stuck as a child, just hit yes.”

Anya reached out and pushed the ‘Accept’ button then squealed in delight as she realized she wasn’t a ghost anymore. “I’m back!”

“Why do you want Tara to use the ritual?” Wesley asked warily.

Mist glanced at Tara then looked back at Wesley. “It would give her more durability and a decent family plus we sort of need to get Fred’s soul out of Illyria.”

“Her soul was destroyed.”

Phoenix rolled his eyes. “Do you realize how hard actually destroying a hero’s soul is?”

“Ah, I’d wondered but she seemed sure.”

Sin smiled as she noticed Vivian checking her out. ‘This is going to be fun.’

Mist shrugged. “It’s not really something that comes up all that often. Don’t worry it won’t negatively affect Illyria.”

“Good, I’ve grown sort of attached to her,” Weasley admitted.

“Nothing stops us from using the ritual later, we might as well just bring them back to life,” Cordelia pointed out as she cast revive on Wesley then Tara. “There.”

Tara hit accept then smiled down at her hands. “Thank you. Having a decent family sounds nice but I’d rather not be stuck as a ghost while I look the ritual over.”

Wesley pushed the accept button, he didn’t want to chance ending up back in hell or worse because he got too far away from Cordelia. “Now that we’re alive, where does that leave us?”

“You’re welcome to catch a portal home or take a portal over to Willow’s world and figure out what you want to do from there, I’m going hunting for dark magic users,” Mist looked at Sin, Pandora and Phoenix, “and I could use some help.”

“I was planning to see how many I can capture anyways,” Pandora admitted.

Cordelia opened a door to Willow’s world outside the inn in Emond’s Field. “In that case, we’ll check in with Willow and see if we can figure out where Egwene’s dark goddess is.”

Mist said, “That would be helpful, I’m almost as worried about her dark goddess as I am my own considering her strength in the local magic.”

Pandora wasn’t looking forward to fighting anything that could give her father pause but she didn’t really want him having to fight it alone. “Best of luck Cordelia, call if you need help.”

“We will,” Cordelia replied as she walked through the door. “Let’s go.”

“Have fun.” Sin waited until Anya, Wesley and Tara followed Cordelia through and the portal closed then turned to look at Mist. “How are you planning on dealing with the Forsaken?”

Mist smiled briefly. “I’m going to hand out copies of the anti channeling bracelet just to be on the safe side then we’re going to take a portal to the stedding and build a prison.”

“At which point we can just drop them into cages, right?” Pandora asked with amusement.

“That’s the basic idea, yeah. I want to grab the Binder from Fred so we can keep them under control but it’s a good start.”

Sin opened a portal to the nearest ‘abandoned’ steading in the Mountains of Mist. “Sounds like a decent plan, I’m going hunting for shadowspawn to feed my projection.”

Vivian looked at Sin blankly. “Feed your projection?”

“Meet Barney.” Sin smiled as she summoned her thanatos projection.

Vivian jumped behind Mist then peeked around him at the shadowy beast that looked like a twisted dwarf made out of shadows crossed with some wild beast. “What the hell is it?”

“It’s my pet, it gets a little stronger with each monster it kills.” While her projection technically got stronger with each kill, the trollocs were weak enough that the gains would probably be almost nonexistent. On the other hand, the Fades had enough weird abilities that her projection might pick something up if it killed enough of them.

“That sounds useful, you should grab a full set of stealth gear and Jack, his projection might actually benefit from killing trollocs.” Mist used his X-ray vision to look through the various shelves and such between him and the shelf where he kept his anti channeling bracelet then teleported the bracelet to his hand. 

Sin considered the risks and decided that it wasn’t all that much of a risk as long as they stayed out of range while they let their projections run around killing monsters. “Let’s make sure the Forsaken are dealt with first, then we’ll go hunting.”

Mist frowned as he turned and looked through the portal and realized it was in a tree. “Is your portal in a tree?”

Sin sighed. “Apparently, I’m guessing your flaw is influencing things because I’m normally not that bad of a shot.”

“In that case,” he turned to look at Pandora, “do you mind dealing with the Forsaken?”

“Nope, where are you going?”

“I’m going to start working on crafting skill books so we can start working on learning new types of magic.”

Selena spoke up, “In that case, I’m going to work on studying the demon’s blade.”

Abby said, “I’m going to head to Emond’s Field and see how things are on the ground.” 

Phoenix looked at Pandora and Sin. “In that case, let’s get to work.”

0o0o0

Tara walked into the old fashioned inn then stopped in shock as she saw her doppelganger sitting at a table with Willow. “What is going on?”

Cordelia gestured toward the empty table near Willow and the other Tara. “You might as well take a seat so we can explain.”

The Tara sitting next to Willow smiled at her alternate. “Hi.”

Anya glared at Xander who was sitting at the table with a pair of twins that she’d never seen before. “What is going on?”

Xander winced slightly as he turned to look at his alternate’s ex-girlfriend. He wasn’t sure what his alternate saw in the ex-demon considering she was more than a little neurotic but he remembered loving her or at least he remembered thinking he’d loved her. “We’re eating dinner, you’re welcome to join us.”

Illyria tilted her head slightly as she looked at Wesley. “It is good that you got over being dead, you can help crush a dark god’s forces with us.”

“I’m glad that I’m not dead anymore,” Wesley agreed as he walked over so he wasn’t shouting across the inn. ‘Dark god?”

Spike snorted as he looked at Wesley. “That’s one way to look at it, how did you manage that trick?”

Anya frowned slightly as she studied the twins on either side of Xander. ‘Great, he moved on while I was in hell. Still, maybe he knows what the hell is going on.’ She walked over and took a seat across from her ex and his girlfriends.

Cordelia glanced around the mostly empty inn then looked back at Spike. “I brought them back to life.”

He glanced over at Willow. “Are we sure that’s actually Cordelia?”

Willow orbed over to Tara and pulled her into a hug. “I’m reasonably sure.”

The Tara sitting at the table smiled at her alternate and Willow. ‘At least things are never boring.’

“Reasonably sure?” Spike asked with a raised eyebrow.

Phoebe said, “We picked up a girl that looked just like Cordelia in our travels, so there is always a chance that it’s Kyra.”

Anya glanced between the girl on either side of Xander. “Who are you?”

Circe said, “I’m Phoebe but you can call me Circe.”

Phoebe grinned at Anya. “I’m Phoebe but you can call me Phoebe.”

Anya frowned. “Your parents named both of you Phoebe?”

“Yes,” Circe and Phoebe replied at the same time with amusement. 

Xander said, “They’re from alternate timelines.”

“Ah, so you’re not fucking a set of hot twins?” Anya asked bluntly.

Xander rubbed his face with his hand. “No, Anya, I’m not.”

“Just alternates,” Phoebe pointed out with amusement. 

“Do you have any hobbies other than gleefully cursing men?” Circe asked with a touch of amusement as she remembered the version of Anya from Mist’s DVD collection.

Wesley said, “I have a feeling I’m missing something.”

Tara smiled at Wesley from her seat at the table. “Take a seat, it’s a long story and I’d rather not spread it around.” She glanced toward the kitchen. “It’s a bit much to take in all at once.”

Wesley looked over at where a messy haired young man was seated with two extremely attractive young women. “What about the rest of the people?”

Hermione spoke up, “We already know some of it, we met at the raffle.”

“Raffle?”

Willow smiled as she picked Tara up can carried her back over to their table. “Yeah, turns out you can win some really interesting things at demonic raffles.”

Wesley winced. “I think I need a drink.”

Harry gestured and conjured a bottle of whiskey for Wesley and several shot glasses. “Have fun.”

Wesley poured himself a glass then sat down across from the other Tara. “What’s your story?”

“I’m from an alternate world.”

Tara glanced between Willow and her alternate. “So you and Willow?”

Tara smiled at her alternate. “Don’t worry, I’ll share.”

Anya stared at the other Tara. “Seriously?”

Tara lowered her voice so it didn’t carry to the kitchen as she didn’t want the nice woman that ran the kitchen to freak out. “Most of our group have multiple people they like having sex with.”

Spike asked, “Since when? Wait, most?”

Xander whispered, “If you discount Sin and you should, Leo and Piper are about the only people in the clan that don’t have sex with other people.”

“Sin? Clan?” Wesley asked wearily as he tried and failed to put the pieces together.

Hermione stood up and walked over. “We should probably start from the beginning.”

“That would be nice,” Violet complained as she walked over with her girlfriend.

Harry had a feeling the next couple of hours were going to be interesting and a bit nerve wracking.